Diwali Celebration!

Happy Diwali ....!
'MaujMasti' had celebrated Diwali - the festival of light, joy, prosperity, good-luck & of course wealth :) We had a potluck with variety of culinary skills ... from pani-puri , pakoda .. to paneer- tikka , gulabjamun ... Being the host , Niharika & I took the opportunity to decorate our home and tried to celebrate diwali as close as we do back in India. It was a great get-together with lots of fun, food & blessings!

back to business .. busyness...!

Back to India has always been great feeling for me. And this time it was coming for 'good'  , so with totally different mindset, an end (atleast a long break) to 3+ yrs stint. 

Back in India , it was nice break of 3 weeks at home( thanks to relatively relaxed X'mas in terms of project work. ) And now , back to business ... catching up with a new team at offshore , KTs , followups , transitions , clearing backlog .. back to busyness. Fortunately , I got a place in guesthouse inside Infy campus which would ease out lot of B'lore traffic trouble. Food-courts are serving varied type of snacks,meals. However , I am missing self-prepared food , as it used to have different taste every time, unlike same standard taste always ;) Weather is pleasant , waiting for some opportunity to roam around .. somewhere other than big malls ;)

Let me see what 2009 has in store for me.

Pikes Peak memories...

Couple of weeks back , We , group of 4 had visited Denver , Colorado. Mesmerizing Rocky mountain landscapes , invigorating trails along falls ,lakes , mysterious garden of gods , breathtaking Royal gorge bridge - highest suspension bridge in the world and the one of the most visited mountain in the world....Pikes Peak , the truly marvelous nature creation. We took a cog train to reach at summit (14K+ feet high ), whimsical climate did its magic again , snowfall started suddenly and we were on and above clouds.
2 weeks later , we had a meeting @ Pikes Peak .. yep , name of one of the conference room in office. Being new born baby in the group of other conf rooms, only few people have noticed it in the office. There was some noise coming from top of that . Reason : some air conditioning maintenance. We couldn't continue with meeting and left it. I didn't know that was my last visit to 'Pikes Peak'.
August 12th - 10 PM , I was in call with offshore at home and suddenly started receiving iChat pings from buddies regarding some helicopter hovering over Valley Green Dr. And news broke - fire in VG6... smoke was reaching till our apartment. I stepped out and saw big water hose was laid on the road and few cops cars with flashing light. After few moments, it was confirmed through online news that fire was in West side - 2nd floor of bldg.
In the aftermath of incident , west side has been completely cordoned off and residents are moved to other bldgs now - RC9,Vallaco. Fire was on a moderate scale , but smoke and water caused huge damage to property. With estimated loss of $2M , complete renovation would take 3 months. Thankfully , most of computers , personal belongings are working fine and salvageable. Rumors in the air like - R&D bldg on fire , it will impact new product launch . Few funny remarks - Xtreme heat resulted from Macbook battery caused the fire , testing of new iPhone app - iLighter was in progress :)

Hope to see Pikes Peak back in new style.

Sarkar se SarkarRaj tak...

Is it something about review of SarkarRaj ? or comparison between 1 & 2 ?? nahhh!

Sarkar was the 1st movie I watched in US, what is so special?

I landed at SFO - 7th Aug @ 1:30 PM , reached Cupertino 2:30 PM, went to Saravanna Bhavan @ 3 PM , then to Naz8 - fremont @ 6 PM ... yes same evening!  Everywhere desis n desis. mini India outside India!!  I realized the very 1st day that how interesting life would be.. and today SarkarRaj - 12 AM show at Naz8 again. hhmm , the movie was above average , I liked the end specially. 

It's been close to 3 yrs here, same apt - 414 , same project , same manager :) ... same sumit ?? nope ! Awaited weekends , changing roomies, new recipe experiments at home , India trips , accidents , new faces in life ... everyone and everything have had some purpose and helping me to realize who am I , what I desire!! 

10K reasons to smile !!!

" sumit , lets run last km more and finish with grace ... " - I was keeping my enthu by telling these few words to myself.  Yes !! I finished my 1st marathon 10K race in 74 min ( organized by ASHA foundation ) and of course it brought a lot of confidence in me. I was practicing in gym for 5-6Km daily , but never ran for  10K at a stretch, so was bit worried at first . However , nice weather , prefect trail along the Shoreline lake , never-ending energy of runners , few breaks for water helped me to accomplish this. Sundaresh ( my roomie) too finished 10K race and  Manju , Sidd did quick 5k with super speed. Check out few snaps in gallery, official results , video. 

My next target would be more 10K races and if possible half-marathon. Way to go , Sumit !

Radha kaise na jale ...

I just came across this pic on TOI site related to presidential elections in US.
God Krishna is shown as inspiring Obama ( Krishna is also supposedly dark in color as per mythology) and his love - Radha is an experienced Hillary here. Like Krishna-Radha's love , Obama-Hillary fight has also become popular and eagerly watched by everyone now. Whatever is the outcome , it will be remembered for long time.
Coming to the title of my blog - Radha kaise na jale? ( then why don't Radha feel jealous? ) this is a famous song of Oscar nominated bollywood film - Lagaan. Radha feels jealous about Krishna's talking-roaming with other girls , Hillary also has similar feeling about Obama's running success in campaign.!

Welcome 2008!

Finally I took out some time to blog after more than 2 months , busy or lazy ?
This new yr celebration was in Vegas ! After 3-4 days of Xmas support , it was indeed a wonderful break to end 2007 and start 08 , isn't it? This was my 2nd trip to Vegas ( 1st was in Thanksgiving'05 ) and of course agenda was quite different this time.
A bit of Gambling ( Roulette mostly ) , mesmerizing Zumanity show , the new yr bash @ Stratosphere pool side , adventurous fremont street experience (entered new yr spl. event without pass ), monorail-Buses trips on the strip , my favorite Bellagio fountains and many more...
Let snaps speak more than words , enjoy!!