Couldn't have been creepier than this

"Hey Sreedhar, what's up man?" asked me my racquetball mate on last Monday. My reply was "not much man". "So how was your weekend" was the next question. Even though I wanted to give some elaborate answer, I ended up giving casual reply "it's ok". While playing my match I thought to myself "wow, actually, I went to see a movie at the weekend". I started smiling thinking what his expression would be in case I told him where I saw the movie. I know you must be thinking that I must have seen this movie in some great theater or on some cool HDTV. Nope, your guess is quite wrong.

Give a second guess. Believe me, there is no way that you are going to guess it right. The answer is cemetery. Yep you read that right. It sounds creepy, right? Yep first time when my friend told me about it, I felt same way. Even though it sounded crazy I was very excited to go there after seeing how excited my friend was talking about it.

In fact, first time when I went there I was very surprised by seeing the number of people came to watch the movie. I guess the number was some where around 2000. Ok, let me get back to what I wanted to say before I veer off. The name of cemetery is Hollywood Forever Cemetery. According to my friend, this cemetery is for Hollywood personalities like actors, technicians, etc. It is weird to say something like this but after entering this cemetery I told my self that it was once classy cemetery. I guess it has that special Hollywood look.

Anyway, the screening takes place on the back wall of one medium height building. Oho, I'm sorry I forgot to say where this cemetery is. Of course, it is retarded of me to say it now after writing the name of the cemetery. I'm sure you know that Hollywood is in Los Angeles. Even though LA has nice weather through out the year unlike east coast, it gets cold to some times very cold during nights. Which means they screen the movies only during the summers. During my first time weather was extremely good. I had an amazing experience of watching the classic "Singin' in the rain". If you haven't seen this movie before, then I say you do a favor for yourself by getting this DVD tonight. Believe me you would love it.

It is amazing to see everyone enjoying themselves sitting there on the lawn. Everyone is in their own world clapping and whistling at every great scene. The best part is you could bring food and drinks along with some blankets and small chairs. It's like a picnic party. In simple words it was awesome.

First time when I was there it brought my childhood memories back. As I'm from a small village in India, now and then people used to play the movies on big screen in an open area. It was almost 25 years back. I think my fascination for movies started then in those tents. Screening used to take place on a white cloth.

For the second time, last week I went to this cemetery along with Kishan to watch a horror sci-fi movie "The Thing" starring Kurt Russel. It was second screening for this season and it was cold out there. In fact, it was damn cold. Even though I expected the movie to be typical horror movie, it was better than that as it was sci-fi too.

After this movie, I decided to come well prepared next time when we go there. Next time I'll go with some food and drinks, blankets and pillows. Would be nice to have our Indian items like bajji, etc :).

After watching the movie, I took some photos with Kishan's past life girlfriend's skeleton head. Funny thing is they came out very creepy. Kishan loves her so much he ended up making her bald by playing with her hair too much. You can see that it has only very few hairs left on her bald head. I'm adding those pics here. Let me know what you think of them.

Anyway, I hope we go there well prepared next time. The one thing I want to do there some time in the future is doing weed. I've always wanted to do it just to feel the so called high. One day I guess :)

Ok time to take leave. Tonight it's going to be my last day at YMCA. I want to get out of there on high note by playing the racquetball well. One last dig at my friend. Want to make him run like mad dog all over the court :)

Oho by the way I forgot to add this. I'm sure you agree with me that watching movie in a cemetery among those buried dead people is definitely creepy.

 Before and after the movie. I guess the last photo was very fitting end to my experience at that night. I think she was so angry with me that she just blasted my head off into vapors...

Pics: Courtesy of Kishan.

cheers
Sreedhar.

Friendships over the years ...

This is my second post in this month. First time when I started this blog, almost two years back, I wanted to write at least once every week. Never happened though. After long time and for the first time I'm writing second time with in two weeks gap. The reason for this is boredom caused by sitting at home all the day.

Just today I noticed that one of my best friends wrote a comment on my two previous blogs. For long time I wanted to write something about my friends. For some reason I always hesitated to do that. I guess there is no need to look for reasons.

I've always believed that I've a pleasant disposition to make friends with anyone easily. At the same time I've always been hesitant to move from a stage of knowing one some one to a stage of being best friends with the same person. I'm sure everyone has the some sort of theory like this. For me, all my life the only thing that made me feel uncomfortable with anyone was some one's financial status, not in a negative way though. I mean if some one was filthy rich or even richer, then I definitely hesitated to talk to them or felt very uncomfortable being around them. It doesn't mean that I hate rich people. I think it has to do more with my inferiority complexion. In my family it self, unfortunately, we were not treated that well because of our financial situation for longest time. All that changed when I did well in school over the years. Lot of reasons made me stay away from rich people thinking that either they would be arrogant or I wouldn't be knowing the right customs to be friends with them. It is very normal for lot of people who come from middle class background, that too if they are from village it's even worse. In the end what I'm trying to say it it all depends up on upbringing and lot more factors like where you come from.

Anyway, going back to what I wanted to say, in my life until now I can confidently say that I made some very good friends. Until 5th grade I was never in the same school for more than one year. Because of this I never made any close friends. After 5th grade I went to a boarding school and it became home for the next 5 years. In all those five years I was there in that school away from my family for 9 months in every year. It might sound simple for you unless you were in that situation when were kid. I still remember lot of my friends were very scared to be away from their families. First time when parents came to school to leave them there, most of the students were crying like anything. I was ok though. When you stay at some place for 5 continuous years, that too at very young age, you definitely tend to make very good friends with some kids. Yes, I had made an excellent friendship with a guy name E.Kiran. He is a very close friend. He was there for me when ever I needed him. I always consider him as my family member. In fact his family always treated me like their another son. I've had some wonderful moments with him to cherish for ever. Once I came out of that school, I lost contact with most of the students. We both went to different engineering colleges. Still we never lost touch with each other. It's just amazing how the bonding happens with different people in our lives. He is the one friend with whom I can share anything and everything. Sounds simple. Right? Believe me, even though you are very good friends with some one, it doesn't mean that you can talk everything with him. It depends on lot of things.

In the same school, I made another good friend named U.Praveen. It's crazy to think that I had big fight with this guy when I was in 8th grade. After that we didn't talk to each other for almost a year. I know it sounds ridiculous. But it always happens with kids at that age. May be puberty has to do with that, I mean with hot temper. I'll write about that incident in my next blog. Once we started talking to each other, I always felt like he was an amazing guy to be with. Like I wrote above, I was very shy and had an inferiority complex when it came to certain simple yet complex things in life. He was always there with me in encouraging to do things. When ever I had doubts and pushed my self back, he was there to pull me forward. In one simple line, he always had very positive effect on me in every way. He always made me feel confident and proud of my self. The other best thing I liked in him is he never felt threatened or peer pressure by being next to me. In stead, he was always proud to say good things about me, which is a rare quality I guess. What do you say? I'm very happy that I'm still very close to both of these guys even after 20 years since I met them for first time.

Just like you imagined, the next step in making strong and everlasting friendships happened in my engineering years. Students come to engineering at an age of around 18 years. I think this is very important age in every way whether it comes to having a blast in a life or making a life for one self or to go completely astray. I personally feel at this age it takes long time to make good friends, but once you make it lasts for ever. Same thing happened in my life too. I met some of the best guys here. Just like it happened in my life before engineering, I had to stay in hostel in my engineering life too. In a way it was wonderful as it helped me in meeting my current best friends.

If I'm frank to my self and my friends, when I first time entered my allotted room in the hostel, I was skeptical about my roommates. I mean to be specific I thought of them to be not my type. That was the first time I met people from different parts of my state with different slangs. In that room I met one of my close and best friends. For long time, for some reason, we were never close. I guess it was like that until the end of the first year. I'm not sure though. Looking back it feels like I've always known him being close to me. I don't remember the exact reasons though. I think I was too much into cricket to not to recognize people around me. Because of strange reasons, at one point, I even thought my roommates were rude. I'm sure there were reasons for that. May be one of them being me going to the room in the middle of the nights spoiling everyone's sleep or talking too much. May be my roommates thought I was annoying type. I don't know what it is, but now I feel strange to look back and think that I wasn't that close to him. Oho, by the way his name is Kranthi Kumar. I think it happened in certain period where we got a chance to talk about lot of things.

By the time I realized I was very close to Kranthi. Most of the time I used to walk to our most loved place "KPHB Colony". In a way I just can't express everything about him. I can say that he is very genuine in every way, very calm, very matured and has this pleasant and peaceful demeanor. Some times we feel either intimidated or irritated to be around some people. Right? It might be wrong to think like this even before we get to know about some one. I agree. But if you meet him, you immediately feel that he is the nicest guy. In simple words, if I have to I put it this way. He is the soft spoken and nice guy with sympathetic heart for everyone. I guess he can never do bad to not only people but also to any life on this earth. Surprisingly, even his habits are also like make you feel he is a soft hearted guy. I'm very lucky to have a friend like him. I'm hundred percent sure I'll be in touch with him until I die.

The next best friend I made in my engineering time is Kishan. The moment I wrote his name, smile came on to my face. Hey, don't think that he is a funny guy. What I'm trying to say by writing like this is he is a very nice guy just like Kranthi with great wits. I'm not sure when I felt he was a good friend. At least with Kranthi I remember some thing, but not with Kishan. By the time I finished my engineering I definitely knew him very well, if not I was best friend of him. If I remember right, I always thought, in fact Kranthi too, Kishan and his friends were all the way in different league. Even though Kishan and his friends are from middle class families, it's just that for what ever reasons Kranthi and I felt that we couldn't connect to them in certain things. No matter what it was, at one point of time we used to spend lots of time together in the hostel, be it in going to colony or preparing for exams. The other thing that brought us close was that we were all in the mechanical major.

After engineering, we all had to go in different ways in search of good life. Don't know whether it is true though. I guess just like anyone else we also went for what everyone goes for. As simple as that. I went to Sweden for my masters, Kishan came to US and Kranthi stayed back in India. Over the next few years the only contact we had was either through emails or phones. All these years friendship with Kishan grew stronger and stronger. The best part with Kishan was he always respected my views and listened to what I felt. More over he was there for me in every possible way. After coming to US, financially, God only knows how many times, he helped me like anything. In one word he is always there for me. The best part with Kishan is he doesn't try to be preacher. In a way I feel Kranthi, Kishan and I have the same kind of mentality in most of the things. What ever it is, if we get together, we could definitely talk for hours with out feeling that the other person is dominating or trying to put his thoughts on each other. In a way I feel all of us know our boundaries and intelligent enough to understand each other's limitations and feelings.

There have been few more friends whom I consider very good friends (Ramesh, Vijay, Anil, Dadi, Vijay Bhaskar and many more). Now I feel I can never make these kind of friends again in my life. Once we get into married life, I think it is impossible to make any close friends. In simple words if your wife becomes more than your best friends, then you are lucky. Otherwise consider spending time on watching lots of TV.

Anyway, I just felt like writing something about my friends. What ever I wrote here was not coherent at all. I guess it doesn't matter. Even though I wanted put my random thoughts and feelings into an ordered manner, it was just too much going on in my mind to put it that way.

It's been long time since I met Kranthi, Kiran and Praveen. I'm kind of lucky to live close to Kishan here in LA. I meet him very often. I don't know how it would have been if he were not here. I'm eagerly waiting to meet Kranthi, Kiran and Praveen in the future. Hopefully it should come soon. It would be really great to meet Kranthi along with Kishan. Same is the case with Kiran and Praveen. In putting American words I just want to spend some quality time with all my friends. I'm sure there is hell lot of things to catch on. Let's see how these things will roll. Only time will tell!

cheers
Sreedhar.

For now, confusion prevails over aspirations ...

It's been a while since I wrote on this blog. Since my last blog, even though lot of things happened in my life, it feels like nothing is happening and it's moving at a snails pace. I guess the reason is simple, I don't have job.

For most of the people, life is composed of simple things like going to school for almost 15 to 20 years and then finding a good job, then getting married and have children and then facing mid-life crisis, etc. For me first part continued more than 20 years, unfortunately. I'm not sure whether it was unfortunate though. May be it was fortunate too if I start looking at it from different angle. Anyway, going back to the job issue, I haven't completed my degree yet and still I got out of university in search of job. It's been almost a year since I came to Los Angeles in search of job and nothing happened. In a way it makes you dull and it's hard to come out of this shell. Some times I feel everything gets dragged like anything. Then I tell my self this is part of life just to feel better. Sucks, right? I know it does.

With my friend Kishan's help, last October I attended a supercomputing conference in Portland, OR in search of job and hoping that meeting people would help me out in this regard. In a way I did meet lot of people in this area. Some one from a university promised me that he would help me out. In fact he kept his promise and sent me an email with job postings in his university. Since these jobs are in the university it's taking long time. Now I'm patiently waiting on this opportunity. In a way it's good for me too since it's going to take at least another two months for me to get my employment authorization.

Overall this is the reason I don't know what to do right now. Everyday I go to mail box with lots of hope :). Sounds funny. Right? I go to mail box hoping that I'd have some good news. Most of the time it'd be empty. Even though I get disappointed for a while, I feel great again with in no time. The reason is there is always tomorrow.

Finally, I took a great decision not to play the league this summer. I still remember that when I was in 12th grade, I used to watch a movie pretty much everyday. I lived in hostels right from my childhood. Until 10th grade always there were teachers supervising us in the hostels. It was kind of jail even though it helped me a lot in every way. Freedom wise I always wanted to get out of that school. Right after 10th grade I got that opportunity to get out. I went to the next big city to my village and joined a college for my higher studies. Since I was living on my own and had no supervision, I went wild in every way I guess. I used to go to movies pretty much everyday. You might feel I'm crazy if I told you this. I used to watch same movies repeatedly for weeks before I thought it was time for some other movie. I was always fascinated with movies. More over this freedom issue was there. Overall everything made me go crazy in a way.

Still I did very well in the school. Being a school hater, most of the time I was absent in the school. Good thing for me was even though I hated school, I always loved to know things from books which made me study all my courses. More over it did good to my knowledge since studying on one's own helps immensely well. More over I always had this competitiveness. I always think of my self as exceptional when it comes to anything and everything. It might sound I'm boasting or overconfident. Definitely not. I just don't give up on anything until I get it and this kind of attitude helped me like anything in my life until now. It's the same attitude when it comes to doing well in the school by getting good grades. Some times I feel as long as I have knowledge in it it's fine.

So all the time I ended up studying on my own and I used to study just before exams all the night. I used to do night outs and go to the exam with out breakfast and no sleep at all. If you eat before going to exam, that's it you are done. I mean you'd feel damn sleepy and you can't do well in the exam for sure. It was my theory and it worked for me all the time. Even though it worked for exams, it didn't work that well when it came to engineering entrance. I never cared about it when I took it first time while I was in college. As usual, I didn't get that good grade since I was busy all the time in playing cricket. Even though I knew I'd get bad rank I got very disappointed when I saw my rank. I immediately promised my self not to play cricket and watch movies until I finish my next engineering entrance. In fact I kept my promise to my self in not watching movies. I feel proud of my self when ever it comes to my mind that I didn't watch movies for whole one year considering my love for movies. But I failed miserably in keeping my other promise which hurt my goal really bad. I couldn't stop playing cricket and in fact I started playing more and more. In the end I didn't get exceptional rank but just good rank.

Then I joined engineering college and in those four years time I understood one thing for sure. Even though I always knew that getting good rank is not an indication of how good and talented you are, some where it made me feel different. But during those four years of engineering, I understood for sure some of the students who got exceptionally good ranks are not that great. In fact most of them are just bookish. In a way it has to do with our educational system.

I still remember some of my friends thought I was not that good compared to them until something proved to them opposite. At the end I got very good respect from everyone, even the ones who always thought they were too good for everyone. The funny thing is these students always had a way to look down on other students in something. I guess they never were exposed to out side world. Or may be too spoilt.

Anyway, going back to what I wanted to say, I'm hoping my decision to not to play cricket would bring some luck :) this time too. I know it's kind of stupidity to believe in something like this. It's just a belief even though I know for sure that only working hard would bring us luck and there by results.

By the way, I wanted to write something else too. Lot of guys who thought they were too good for everyone ended up doing those same jobs everyone does. I don't know whether they feel it now. May be not. Everyone has to feel special with themselves. That's the nature of life I guess. But if everyone is true to themselves, most of use are same when it comes to these things. Very few people make them special in other's eyes too by choosing to do something special in their lives.

What makes those very few people special. If I'm not wrong, the guts to do something different from most of us do. For example everyone of us wants to go for jobs and there by having security in leading life. But very few people deviate from it and take risk in doing something else. I mean in achieving some thing great. It doesn't have to be like getting known through out world. It's just enough if you are known for your talent at least in your community. How many of us chase our dreams of becoming something we have always wanted to be. Very few I guess. Right? The reason is fear in our minds. We fear to take risks.

Most of us have dreams. But before we try it out, we starting thing what would happen if it failed. The funny thing is you'd know the result only when you try. Still no one tries out of fear. It's just we want to go in very ordinary and safe route that has been already followed my millions of people.

This is where I guess mid-life crisis comes into picture. Since by that time we know that we can't realize our goal of becoming someone in life, life becomes boring and frustrating. During this time only people start doing so called bad or weird things in life.

My friend and I talk about it very often and we want to do something. I'm still not sure how we are going to do it. I don't know about Kishan. He has his own dreams. When it comes to me, I feel I'm a very confused guy right now. Some where I feel I'll do something for sure out of frustration, definitely good though. If I look back in my life until now, I have always got what I wanted. I have enough guts to follow my dreams and if needed I can go to any extent.

It's hard to imagine next five years of life. I still imagine my self doing something better than what I consider ordinary. Right now my mind is filled with lot of ideas. But the problem is nothing is clear and like I said before I'm very confused about everything. Good thing is even though nothing is going well or nothing great happened for long time, I still feel great in every way and I think this mind set would be good enough to take risks to realize goals, even though nothing is clear right now.

Anyway, for now it feels better to put these confused mindset here. Let's see how things are going to be by the next time I write.

cheers
Sreedhar.

Childhood - School means hell

When I was in my teens I always wondered how my life would turn in the later stages of my life and how many friends I would make, etc. Looking back at all these years, in fact I made few good friends and just like I thought life was a mix of ups and downs. For long time I had this desire to put it here in my own words to express what I've been feeling for quite a while. Most of the times when I talk to one of good friends, I always tell him that engineering days were the best part of my life. So, I'm going to write down about all the characters, including me, here.

Where did you spend most of your childhood? What kind of question is that? Yeah. Everyone spends their childhood days with their parents. Right? This guy didn't. He spent his childhood with lot of kids of his age. People always told him they thought that he would never leave his mother even to go to school. Even his mother thought that he would have tough time leaving her. In fact, when she tried to send him to school, he resisted so hard she decided not to send him until he was six years old. Not sure how it happened, but some how just like any other kid he had to go to school.

His house was little bit away from the village. Living next to rice mill was not a pleasant thing. But this kid never noticed it. For him the entire world was that rice mill. What else? There were two families living there. Both families owned the rice mill. Since one is not allowed to build rice mills close to villages, they had to live away from the village.

The house was built in late 1970's. It had two big rooms. First one was used as a place to sleep and keep clothes, etc. The second room was called God room. No one knows why God wanted one big room. Kid never understood the concept of giving that entire place to God since he always thought single person wouldn't need that big room. He never knew that it would puzzle him very much in the later stages of his life. He didn't know that it would take long time to understand the concept of God.
This house had veranda in front of these two rooms. The top of the house was covered with special thin bricks. The top of the veranda was covered with long wrinkly plates. The open place in front of the house was filled with blue stones which looked like big blue slates.

Finally, when he turned 7, he had to go to school along with his cousins. This kid never liked the idea of spending most of the day in the shabby school. He had to walk almost a mile to go to school. He always enjoyed looking at the small brook going through the village, when ever he walked to school. Sometimes, he even stood next to the brook to see the swirling flow of water. He was always amazed at the way this brook gets filled in no time during the rainy season. When ever his elders asked him not to look at the brook, he couldn't understand the logic behind it. The reason they gave never satisfied this kid. They told him that it would make him unconscious if he looked at it for long time. He proved it to himself that it was wrong as nothing happened to him after staring at the water for long time. In fact, he always thought that it was the beautiful thing to look at. It was full of water. It seemed aggressive trying to reach it'd final destiny. This small brook made him interested in knowing more about the oceans, when ever teachers talked about them. He was always curious to know how big they could be.

The other interesting thing he noticed while going to school was bus-stand. It was next to bridge on the brook. People always sit on the bridge and talk to each other. Most of the village people were farmers. Early in the morning, all these farmers or other people who want to go to towns go to this bus-stand and wait for the buses. In a way it was a nice place to go through. Being a kid, it always interested him to look at all those pepperments and some other eatables in those small shops. The most interesting thing at that point of time was an ice. When ever he had some money like 10 paise, he went for this ice, which is nothing but just plain ice put on some small stick. It was a favorite for kids. He was no different. Then the special thing to buy when he had 25 paise was milk ice. The name it self suggest what it was.

The other parts of the bus-stand were occupied by cool-drink shops, hotels, hair-saloon shops, etc. It had 3 main small time hotels. All these hotels served breakfast, lunch and dinner. The main business for these hotels was breakfast items. Being the center of many villages around it, it always had tonnes of people early in the mornings. People always wanted to go to the next town Atmakur, 15km away from it, as early in the morning as possible so that they could come back early in the evening after finishing their work. This town is the only place which had big hospitals, cinema theaters and other important stores for farmers. This kid was always excited to hear something about this small town.

The three hotels were run by three Muslim families. Most of the other shops also belonged Muslims. This kid always thought that the only thing Muslims could do was having small shops like the ones in the bus-stand. He was interested in only two stores. Being a kid from the family owing rice mill, every one in the bus-stand knew him. He always felt shy to go through the bus-stand for unknown reason. It was funny to see the owners of the hotels competing to get the people into hotels. Eventually, he understood that owners of those hotels hated each other.

Finally, after walking past the bus-stand, this kid had to walk for another five to ten minutes before he reached the school. He always liked the place where the school was built. It was surrounded by lot of trees. This school has lot of open space to play the games. It even had some place with full of sand. This school had one big room and the roof was covered with concrete which always looked like it was going to fall down any minute. This school was for 1st-5th grade students. 1st and 2nd grade students sit out side in the veranda and other grade students sit inside. It had two teachers. Head master used to take classes for higher grades. The other teacher used to attend lower grades.

This kid always waited for the evenings so that he could go back home. The other best part of the day for him was interval breaks. It used to be for 15 minutes. In those 15 minutes, all the kids used to run to the play ground and some of them used to go to trees next to the brook. One of those trees had very small sized fruits which kids called red-ink fruits. The reason they called them with that name is that these fruits made the mouths of kids very red after chewing them. Kids always loved the idea of chewing them and fight like actors in the movies and fall down to the ground with mouth bleeding.

After learning how to write and read in Telugu, the school was no more fun for this kid. He always thought that he could all that they teach in the school on his own. In fact, he never paid attention to those teachers. But one thing that made this kid extremely curious was reading all those books. Once he knew how to read them, he finished all those books with in no time and then the school was boring. But the best part that comes with knowing how to read was news papers. Waiting for the news paper to come was the most painful and at the same time most sweetest thing he could feel. At a age where he could understand the small things happening in the world, the news paper was the best thing that could happen to him.

Eventually, when ever he found some novels or some books, he got into them so much that he couldn't notice what was going around him. Soon, he was known as the bright kid to everyone. First time this kid understood that he would be treated well among the other kids as long as he did well in the school.

to be continued ...

Change of feelings

I came to Los Angeles in the first week of this month in search of better future. May be not. Let me put it this way. When I was in Burlington, I felt that nothing was happening in my life. So, I wanted to change it and hence moved to LA. Like I wrote in my last blog, it's like being thrown into hell. At least, for a while this was my impression. Now, this feeling is slowly wearing off. First week, I spent all my time looking for a place and buying some stuff needed to live here some what ok life if not comfortably.

When I was in Burlington, most of the time I was stuck to my computer and it was like I was addicted to internet. Or you could say that internet was the only friend I had. Then, finally after moving to LA I couldn't put my hands on the key board for a quite a while. I definitely loved it. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is I, finally, felt like I was doing some other things apart from spending all my time on computer.

Ok. Now, I'm coming to main point of today's blog. After first week of my stay in LA, I went for three different hikes in the last 2 weeks. I didn't finish the first one. I mean we had problems in finding the right trail. Some how, almost it took 2 hours to find the trail and by that time it was almost evening. Still, we decided to go for it. Finally, some where after walking for 2 hours we felt like we lost the trail and so decided to come back. Best part of this hiking was the feeling I had through out the hike. It was completely outside the city into the valley of trees and streams. Most of the hike was covered by shade and so it was not that difficult. I could say that it was moderate. There were lots of mosquitoes and gnats, etc through out the hike. Then, we understood we had to get some mosquito repellent. Anyway, we walked back with out finishing it. Best part of the hike was it was only two of us doing it. Since it was week day there were no people at all. Sometimes you feel like escaping from everyone in this world. I am sure you know what I'm talking about it. Some times you feel very frustrated and you don't feel peaceful at all in your mind. You feel like running away from everything. At that point, best thing to do is doing something which doesn't require any brains. I guess in my opinion hiking is the best solution.

For long time, I had this feeling that these western people hike since they don't know how it feels like living in small places filled with natural beauty. I mean, for example in India I was born in a small village and it was amazing place in it's own way. We were four kids walking everywhere around that village into the forest. I even remember climbing trees and jumping from tree to tree as part of the games. We used to go into forests and look for some small fruits called regu pallu. I don't know the name of these fruits in English, but I can say one thing for sure that they are not here in this part of the world. I can say that it was pretty much hiking into woods with out knowing that it was. I mean I didn't know damn anything like hiking until I came to USA. What I'm trying to say is here in this western world even if you live in small place it just looks like modernized place. It is like you have these modern stores and all other crazy modern life things you see these days. Where as in India, once you go away from cities you don't see anything like this anymore and it just feels like you are walking into some other world. I guess this is the reason here people love to hike as it makes them feel like they are away from all the confusion and stress the one has to face in day to day life.

I guess I'm no different. I know it's funny for me to say that I'm stressed out even though I'm not working. That is totally another story. If I start writing about that, I don't think I could finish this blog today. After the first hike, I felt some what peaceful and happy. Then last week I went to a hike with my engineering friends and loved it. We hiked to Mount Zion and it was pretty steep at some places. After that hike I felt like I was in ok shape to do difficult hikes. Even though we wanted to start the hike early in the morning, we ended up starting sometime around 11 in the morning. Which means we walked all the way in the scorching heat. Still, it was damn good. The only sore point was we didn't have food with us and my friend Kishan was pretty much hungry after a while and had to continue all the evening with out food. I guess it taught us a good lesson. I thought we were very well prepared for the hike. We had lot of water with us. We even bought mosquitoes repellent this time and it was definitely helpful.

I always thought that hiking means just walking some where into the woods. But believe me there is more to it. It teaches you survival techniques if you are stuck some where in the forest just by yourself. Or for that matter you just understand how important it is to have water with you all the time. In our daily life we take lot of things for granted and we don't appreciate lot of things. For example, coming from a small farmer family I know the value of water. Most of the times we don't care about small things in our daily life. Because we know that we could pretty much get anything if we have some cards in our pockets. For example, you are very thirsty and you go to some store and drink some soda or you even buy water and you just swipe your cards. That's it and it's taken care of. Right? Ok now let's imagine that you are some where stuck outside the city where there is no store close by. You might be having cards worth of thousands of dollars, but still you wouldn't be able to quench your thirst. Which means you wouldn't have to worry about it if you had carried some water with you. Right? Most of the times most of the people don't do that. Reason is simple. We always think that we are invincible and nothing happens to us. May be that's true. But this is life. Which means it has to happen at some point in your life. I never carried water with me any time in my life. More over I used to think that I was good at doing things which most of the people find it difficult to do. It is just a false pride thing. If I'm truthful to my self, I'm no different to anyone which means I can also get into some situations where I'll have to face severe consequences if I'm not prepared.

Anyway, when my friend talked to me about the importance of water in the hikes , I was like it should be ok and it's not that important. But on my friend's insistence, I put lot of water bottles. Of course, I did that reluctantly. My feeling was that why should we carry that much weight. Then, after the hike I understood how important it was and I definitely appreciated the good advice. More over, having a weight on your back gives you stability on the steep hikes. I am not sure whether this is right theory, but I felt this way. More over, hiking with some weight on your back improves your strength and endurance. Now, I want to do some hikes with some camping gear on my back which would at least weight 10 pounds. My plan for the next hike is to carry at least 10 kgs on my back, I mean in my back pack. This way I'll be well prepared for my future tough hikes like Mount Whitney, etc. Oho, by the way I forgot to tell you one thing here. Mount Whitney is the highest peak in the North America and I want to do this hike some time in the near future. Some one told me that it's one of the most difficult hikes and most of the people have respiratory problems at high altitude. I even heard that people should carry some medicine for this problems. Best part about this Mount Whitney is its altitude. It is almost 15,000 ft. I'm very excited about it and I want to do it for sure. My plan is to do it in two days. I read some where that it takes minimum of 15 hours hike to reach the peak. So, I'm planning to do it over two days. After first day hike, I'm planning to camp some where in the middle of the hike on the mountain. I guess it would be cool to do that it would remain as one of the best memories for sure. I always loved to push my self and I always get pleasure when I push my limits. Some times not only strength and endurance come out of pain and suffering but also fun.

Yesterday, I did my third hike in the Griffith park which is located next to my home. I walked for 3 and half hours and I enjoyed it like anything. I went with some meetup.com in LA and it was definitely memorable. We started this hike in the evening at 5:50 and came back home at 9:30. Best part was the hike was very steep at some places. For the first 15 minutes I felt the difficulty. After that, for some reason my legs were really light. I didn't face any problems at all through out the hike. I was happily climbing and walking. No panting at all. It was just awesome. More over since it was evening there was cool breeze through out the hike. I guess it made us feel awesome. There were almost 50 people around us. I met some German guy who was interested in going to some events with us in the future. It is always a good feeling to meet new people and talk to them. I guess hiking is the best option to do it. Finally, we came down the hill at 9 pm to the parking lot and every one left in their cars. We didn't like the idea of going to the park in the car since it was close to our home. So we had to walk back home in the darkness. For a while we had problems in finding the directions and right path to head back home. Finally, when we found the path, it was pitch dark. So we used our head lamp. It was very cool to use that lamp. I wrapped it around my head and I was like wow it feels like I'm doing some adventurous thing. Before we started this hike I thought to my self that where and when would it be useful. I got the answer with in hours. It was definitely very useful to have that head lamp. Next time if I'm going to night hikes or moon light hikes, I'll definitely take some more batteries too. Who knows if we are lost some where on the top of the mountain, we might drain our batteries of the head lamp and then what? Other cool thing I found in these hiking tours is variety of bags available for hiking. There are camping bags which are huge and can accommodate lot of things and mountain bags which are good for putting mountaineering stuff and camel back pack which has some pouch inside to store water. The advantage of this camel back pack is that you can suck water through a pipe coming out of the back pack. The pipe would be some where close to your mouth. Which means you don't have to unpack the bag each and every time you are thirsty. By the way, all this explains why it's called camel back pack. Right? It's just like camel which preserves water in the top shelf of stomach when ever it drinks water. Then it slowly used that water in the long journey's in deserts. This way you could never fall back in the group. I saw some more cool stuff to carry water with us like some waist thing which has some holder place to hold the water bottles.

Now, I want to do this same hike with my friend Kihan in the near future. I know that he likes to do things like this and I'm sure he would love it. More over the best part of doing it with him is that we get to speak in Telugu and we can speak so many things since I feel we are like like-minded people.

For my future hikes, I want to buy some nice camping back pack. Right now I'm not in a position to afford this type of expenditure. We already have camping gear with us. The other thing I want to spend money on is hiking navigator. The other day I went to best buy store and did some window shopping. There I checked out these hiking navigators. They are just awesome things to have with us in the hikes. They even have some watches which would not only tell us the latitude and longitude of our position but also calculate the distance we have traveled. Cool. Right? One last and most important thing I want to spend money on is good compass.

After all this, now I'm damn interested in finding how things work. For example I started reading how one can find latitude and longitude of our position and how one can make his own compass, etc. Or for that matter how we can find the directions if we are lost some where in the woods. It's just really cool. We can find directions looking at stars and looking at sun position in the day and our own shadows. It is just amazing. Best part is it's all knowledge. I don't know whether we can ever use all of it in our life. But it's not about that I guess. It is all about how happy we feel the minute we understand how to do it. Who knows one day we might face certain situations where we'll have to use all this knowledge. I'm sure then we would be very happy and glad that we spent some time in acquiring this knowledge.

What ever it is, I'm feeling quite happy because of these hikes. I want to do it more. In the first week I felt like I was thrown into hell. This feeling is slowly wearing off as I'm trying to do some stuff here. Not just stuff, but cool stuff. Even though it is just busy life here in the city, we get to do more things if we are willing to do. It is just about our attitude in the end that matters. I am glad that my attitude is moving in the right direction.

Ok, I guess as usual I wrote a lot and now I'm feeling damn hungry. Go to go. I'm hoping to write soon. It makes me feel great when ever I write something. It is like sharing something to my self. I guess not only that. Living here in the city, it's just difficult to find people to share things with. So by doing this I'm getting relieved of my burden on my mind. Ok Sreedhar, chalo it's time for lunch.

After long time

Today I am writing again after long time. When first time I started this blog I was severely depressed. I guess I could never get out of it until now. What ever it was I was feeling much better for a while until recently. Now it feels like I am back to pavilion again. But the only relief is this time I am not feeling like crying. More over I am very determined that I could come out of it.

Lately and finally something happened in my life which makes me feel very depressed and frustrated. At the same time it makes me feel relieved too. I think it is very strange for me to feel like this. I was stuck with some solution less problem. In my life it there is something which I hate most with my self, that is nothing but dilemma. So finally because of some ones actions there is no more dilemma for me. Honestly speaking I am not even sure whether I like what happened. What ever it is I am ready to go with it and move on. I came to this point after suffering mental torture for long time. I think I don't have any more strength to bear the mental pain.

Ok. I know that you are getting seriously frustrated not knowing what I am talking about. I don't want to reveal. I am sure you can understand. Anyway one thing I am trying to do a lot to escape from this depression is watching movies. You know what. I do this night times like a ghost. I pretty much live in my office. I sleep in my chair. It's definitely very painful. But some where it gives me mental peace.

So I go to office and watch movies. I already told you that. Recently one of my friends told me about this movie site www.telugusilverscreen.com and then I started watching all the movies on that site. I have already seen most of those movies. Because of this depression, I guess, sometimes I don't feel like doing anything else. More over here it is freaking cold to go anywhere outside. You know what the temperature is outside right now? -30 degree Celsius. So I go to one cafeteria McLure at UVM and get my food for the rest of the night and go back to office. Then if I have mood I work. Otherwise I start watching some Telugu movie. Some of them are very good movies. I already saw most of them when I was in India. So in a way I know that they are good movies. Sometimes you don't get all the good movies. I mean once you finish all the movies you end up with movies you have never seen before. I am sure you might have heard something bad about those movies like ok or average or bad or disaster. Still I decided to watch all these movies. The outcome of this decision was I saw some terrible movies.

Just yesterday I watched a Telugu movie titled Pelli Kaanuka which means Marriage gift. It was a kind of remake of a hit Hindi movie. I don't remember the name of the movie though. It was Machima Choudary's first movie. Anyway the point is this movie is the best example how some one can screw up a good movie. That too big time. You know some times you would be watching a movie and feels angry. I was so mad watching this movie I started cursing like anything. But again it felt very good. The reason was I spoke all those bad words in Telugu. By now you might have understood how desperate I am to speak in Telugu. Here at this university you don't find that many Telugu people. More over we don't see other Indians for long times. Because it is very cold outside, it is kind of hard to see people. Anyway going back to movie, I was very frustrated the way director handled the movie. More over this guy tries to show American culture in a very bad way. Everyone has their own culture and just because it differs from our culture it is not a bad culture. I guess people realize this face only when they come here.

Even though the movie was bad, I feel very relaxed after watching them. Because your mind would be thinking of something else at least for a while. I personally feel anyone doing something for long time should have a knack of doing that work good. I mean the director of this movie always gives statements like I made this many movie. But who cares. Most of the time this guy makes worst movies. I just don't understand how some one can make a disaster after making that many movies. How come some one can't foresee what would be the outcome. I mean after making that many movies.

Anyway I am talking nonsense here. Otherwise why would I talk about some crap like this. Like I told you my mind is totally screwed up right now. At least one good thing I see with my self is I don't feel angry anymore. For a while I was filled with hate and angry and sadness. But now the list has come down to just sadness. In a way I am very happy about that.

I feel like typing more and more. Why? Because something is bothering me. But I don't know how to come out of it. So finally after watching some bad movies, I have decided to go back to my old habit. I think I don't have any more patience to watch bad movies. From now onwards I need to spend at least half an hour to write something. It really doesn't matter what I write. As long as I write something and if I feel little bit relieved after I write something, then the purpose is served.

So welcome back Sreedhar. Great thing is there are millions of people just like you in this world. Everyone has problems. My problem might be nothing when compared to some other people. So be strong and try to finish your degree here. Then at least you will have some other problems like how to survive here, or getting job here. All those problems will occupy your mind and eventually you will be out of pain and depression. Otherwise how could anyone live all his life? I don't think that works.

For now the best thing is you have your own Fortran code to work on. You know that it is a challenge to understand all that code. Right? So bring it on. You will be fine Sreedhar. Tell yourself no one can hurt you. Tell yourself you will be fine. Tell yourself it is all going to be alright.

cheers,
Sreedhar.

Just don't follow others - have some reasoning

I always wanted to write something like this. It is very interesting topic. Read it and I am sure you will come to the same opinion like me. Anyway I am going to say something about common mans life (like you and me). If we look at people in this world, most of them lead similar life style. I mean most of them do the same things in their lives like others. I mention some examples in the next paragraphs.

When we are born, we are told by our parents to go to school. So we start doing first thing in our life just like all others. At least I can understand this concept. I mean we really don't know what to do or we may not have enough wisdom to take decision at that small age. So our parents send us to school. But funny thing is you know why they send you school. Simple they see others doing the same thing. I mean they want you to have good life. Again this good life means just leading some life like some employer. For our parents good life is nothing but the life of some one who has good job. Thats it. So they think that if you have good education you will also have good life like that employer. In India most of the people send their children to school with this intention. No one sends school to gain knowledge and wisdom to face the realities of life one has to face in his future. I don't think people would think about all these things before sending their children to school. Again don't misunderstand my opinion here. I am not blaming anyone. I am just pointing at our mentality of following others. This way I feel nothing happens. Everyone becomes follower but not leaders. But again you can point out one simple thing here. If everyone becomes leader who is follower then? You are right? This is just concept. Even if you don't try to follow, there is no guarantee that you will become a leader. But definitely you will become a success story.

All our life we do the schooling thinking that one day we will get some good jobs. Challenge me if I am wrong. I don't think so. How many of us think differently? Especially Indians don't think differently. We just follow others. We just do things what we are told to. It makes me really crazy. It doesn't mean that I tried to do something different. But definitely I have been thinking about it a lot and trying to change my self not to follow others. I will definitely try my best not to follow. Forgive if it hurts you, but I say that we are all like sheep.

After school all of us think that we should get jobs. Then we name it settling in life. Funny. Who said it is settling in life only if we get jobs. Thats the mind set of ordinary Indian student. Once we get some job, we are really satisfied with that and don't try to do something. I am sure everyone wants to do something great in their minds. But everyone is scared to take risk. Everyone thinks like what happens if something goes wrong. Again it is really funny and crazy to think like that because of one simple reason. We all think like that before we even try those things. That means we don't give a shot at anything. We are just scared to deviated from the generality set by other people, who are also followers again. I guess only few people try this and become greats. For example actors, sports persons, etc, are all leaders in their own profession. They all tried something different from normal people and achieved something in their lives. They created something for themselves for others to talk about it. That is the life.

What we do is we just live our life following others all our lives. Thats it one day before our death lying on the death bead with tears in our eyes and holding all our sons and daughters and their kids and relatives, we think that 'yes I had some life, good way to die'. Sounds like cinema. Right? Believe me that's what most of the people want to do. But somewhere in our mind it comes back. It says that what life I had. You start thinking that did I do what ever I wanted to do in my life. You know the answer. Answer is most of the times no. But ask Sachin Tendulkar. He just studied 10th class. He didn't do any software job. But at the end he is leader. Sadly truth is we are followers. We don't try to achieve our goals giving some stupid reasons. We are scared of outcome even before we try it. Sad life. Right?

Then the ultimate thing comes to my mind. You know what that is. Marriage. Most of us get married just because others do the same thing. We do it because our parents did the same thing. Do we know the reason for it? Come on. What a stupid question sreedhar that is? Who cares about the reason? Just get married and have children just like our parents did. Thats it. Then tell your kids to go to school and study well, get good job, get married, then thats like you settled in your life. Wow. Most stupidest thing in the world if think properly about it. I am not trying to judge you if you did the same thing. What I am saying is we all do these things without thinking anything. We all do these things looking at others. Especially looking at our parents and friends. Looking at other people in the society. Don't try to scold me here for saying the truth. If you are happy about it, thats fine. But if you are honest to yourself, I am sure you also wanted to achieve something great which is not like common person does. I always feel like that even though I am also just following others.

Till now I just followed others in my life. But not anymore. I definitely don't want to follow others anymore in my life. I want to do something which gives me happy, even if it doesn't give me money. Sometimes the good thing is if you want to do something different form others, you will end up being famous and money, even if you don't want to have those things. Thats the power of being different and not following others. Again it doesn't mean that you can do bad things not following others as most of the people don't do bad things. It has to be some example to others. What I am saying is you don't want to be there in others. You won't be there in others to look at the example if you try to be different.

Recently when I was talking one of my cousin who was getting married. Funnily he said one work would be finished if he got married. I am not trying to ridicule him here. But it made me feel really surprised. Is marriage some kind of work? Definitely not. Don't get married just because you are single and not able to bear the physical needs. Try to find reasoning which makes you happy, which makes you why you are getting married. Most of the people think that they get used to that person once they are married to each other. That means you just didn't give a thought about anything except your needs and you tried to follow others by marrying someone like others. This way both of them are followers and try to teach the same thing to their kids. Please don't do it. My some other cousin gave another reason. He said his parents responsibility would be over if he got married. What reason is that? So you want to get married just because of that. Come on. Try to find something more than that. Otherwise you will just become puppet in some game called life. Try to become a king, but not pawn or soldier.

Some time back I was talking to one of my childhood friends. We were talking about cars. By the way she has two daughters. I asked her how many cars they have. She said two and I said in future they might need two more for her daughters. Then she said something very common what we all heard in our lives. It seems she told her daughters to study well, get good jobs, then they can buy very good cars just like her and her husband. Immediately I gave her one advice. When they are in a position to afford something why don't they send their kids to some tennis school or something different like other Americans. I told her to show them some tennis matches, then if they like it, they will definitely ask to join them for training even if you don't tell them anything. Thats how it should be.

I know one thing for sure. I still remember one thing happened in my family long time back. One of my cousin aged 7 years started dancing to some song in front of lot of people. Right away my aunt felt embarrassed for that and told him to stop all that. I felt so bad for that and told her that was not the way she should tell her kid. I felt she should have encouraged him. Who knows? One day he can become someone like Michael Jackson or Prabhu Deva. Parents always try to stop their kids doing something different thinking that they would fail or it would embarrass them in front of other people. Thats wrong. Don't try to put your feelings on your kids. I understand that they are your kids. But at the same time you need to understand that they have their own personalities and it all depends on what they teach them when they are kids. If you try to make them calm and obedient, that is good. But not at the cost of their enthusiasm to do different things. Encourage them. They just need encouragement. Even if you can't give him financial support, it really doesn't matter. He will find something on his own with your encouragement. But please don't tell them the same things your parents told you just because of your feeling that you had some great life. Don't put him down whenever he tries to do something great with his life just because it is different from others.

I am not saying all these things wrong. But it might make you happy for a moment. But it doesn't give you ultimate happiness. If you can do something different with your life unlike most of the people in this world, at the end of your life you feel wow I did something in my life and gave an example to others. I am sure you definitely don't want to be part of those others. I definitely don't.

Lot of people say that what else we could do apart from getting married and having children. Most of the people think that everyone should do these two like all others. No. You don't have to if you don't feel it. You don't have to unless there is something that makes you happy. Unless you find some good reasoning. The other thing is lot of people will have kids thinking that their lineage would exist after his death. That is the reason you find for having kids. Bullshit. Most of the men feel proud when their wives give birth to his children. You know why? He thinks that he has proved himself to be a man by making his wife pregnant and giving birth to child. What a selfish reason. Even pigs do that. Every creature on this earth does the same thing. Don't be proud because of wrong reasons. I think you just did your duty and created one more creature on this earth. But you should feel proud when your teachings helped your kid achieve great success in his life. But definitely not for proving your manliness. Some people think that their kids are their blood. Who cares about your blood? Does it really matter if there is no proof to your blood. I guess definitely not. There are so many people living in this world, it really doesn't matter even if you don't have kids and your family name or lineage stops with you. If you think honestly it really doesn't hurt not to have your own kids. It really doesn't hurt not to have kids with your family name. You can always adopt children. I mean there are so many orphans in this world. Think about them. If you can adopt at least two orphans and give them life, then you did something different from others. At the same time make sure that you teach them something special and make them not to follow others.

Anyway I don't mean to say that all those things are wrong. I don't mean to say that you did bad if you did those things I mentioned above. But I don't feel bad to say that you are among the sheep if you don't have enough reasonings for what you are doing right now in your life. Hey don't feel angry and irritated because of this. Do you want to feel better? Then read this. I am also someone among these sheep. But what I am doing is at least thinking about it and trying to change myself. I hope you also do the same thing. I hope you find good reason to do everything and hope you try not to follow others and create something for yourself which can be shown as an example to others. I will try for sure. But again who knows what happens. Whatever happens I guess it really doesn't matter as I can at least feel that I gave a try. That feeling is definitely worth of trying something different.

cheers,
Sreedhar.