In search of cerebral vacations

Out of the several things man has been known to continue doing ever since his race inherited earth, is taking vacations. Strange it may be, but the fact is man just cannot be put in a monotonous world for ever. There is a yield point, beyond which our brain and our body stops cooperating, gets on a strike and demands a break. This is when a special impulse travels through the nerve cell and stimulates a reaction from us, which usually is a shoulder shrug or a customary fling of an object as a expression of you being irate. This is when the outside world knows they wont be seeing you for the next few days.

Vacation planning is not easy. In fact, research tells that most of one's vacation is spent in planning one than actually enjoying it. The most common factor that causes this is the very nature of human kind, unique, non decisive and greed. Vacation means to travel with company. If you go alone, it's not just worth spending much just on you. You'd rather be at home and swirl in the endless cycle of YouTube recommendations. If you have company, you are placed in a better situation but that comes with a conditions apply tag. The asterisk reads good luck arriving at a decision. Thanks to varied individual tastes, this task is time consuming and tough. You usually start on the origin of the convincing curve, where you are dominating and you put forth you vacations ideas. The rest of the curve is arguments and the end of the curve is when you decide to let go. You either break down halfway through the curve or you travel till the end of it. Very few have succeeded in getting lucky at the origin.

As herculean a task it may sound, there are tips to get around with it and still make things work in your favor. Enter, "Cerebral Vacations". Remember, the prime reason why you are planning a travel is because your brain gave up and you body had no say in it. So, if you can give a break to your brain cells and give them enough rest, they would stop complaining and you would feel much better too. You can also skip the pains of going through the curve of crappiness. Sounds like an idea? Great! But what exactly do you do to take a cerebral vacation? Pretty simple. There are, according to me, 2 ways to do it. One, Do Nothing. Two, Do something that means nothing to you. The first task can sound weird, but trust me, we are all capable of doing that and without our conscious, we have been already doing them often. Example, stare at your wall for five minutes. Or better, focus completely on your food as you eat it. These acts are highly recommended and have shown promising results. The second task requires resources - Computer and Internet. The net is so full of shit that you can search from UFOs to a ukrainian recipe to the fattest man on earth to viral videos and to the current temperature at the base station in Antarctica.

When all these fail, start blogging or read one.

-Sayee

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Another Diwali wested!

Sulking in my room dimly lit, the only sound I hear around me are from the strokes from my keyboard as I type and some sounds of laughter from outside the quaint pub across the street. Those laughter sounds seem to fade away. So I assume those people moved. All I am left with now is the QWERTY crackers this Diwali.

A little while ago, I spoke to my parents back home where all my relatives have gathered to enjoy the festivities together. This is one of the most beautiful aspects of a festival. In this fast paced world where people are too busy to even enjoy their own lives, its moments such as these that bring people together and rests faith in humanity that knows to share joy, love and happiness. Of the many festivals that we celebrate, Diwali is my favorite as it is much more than just another celebration. It is the excuse for kids to get new clothes. It is yet another day of shopping for the ladies with newer and better arrivals carefully designed to extend their shopping time endlessly. It is the much deserved break for the men from their everyday toil at work. It is the time when the shop owners light up their shops and decorate them to attract shoppers. It is the excitement for the village folks to come to the city and be amazed at its sheer vibrance and to pick their favorite clothes. It is the hope for the several thousand folks who have come to the city to earn their bread and now would like to go home and spend the Diwali with their near and dear ones. While the festival glows in such glory, we should not forget that this is also the time of the year when several innocent and hard working kids in the cracker factories lose their lives in the dark while working to brighten up the lives for others.

Diwali marks the return of Lord Ram victorious after his battle with Ravan in Sri Lanka. This is a two day festival but preparations and the festive mood begin as early as a week before the actual day. The way it works out in our family is we all decide to meet up at either one of our homes and celebrate Diwali together. The ladies get busy with making delicious sweets and snacks. The men get ready to empty their wallets while the kids help them in the same. Me, my brother and my cousins used to get flyers from all firework shops to decide and make a budget on what to buy this Diwali. This is no easy task and trust me, is usually better than most presidential debates or at least the most recent one. The crackers come in hundreds of varieties and colors and sounds. There are the usual set of fire fountains, wheels , bombs and rockets and then there are themed crackers that usually represent movie stars, national icons and sports. We carefully go through the exhaustive list and decide on about three dozen of them that we think would not be too much of spending by dad. We usually come up with an estimate much beyond our dad's and then we finally agree on the average.

There is always this gleam that we used to sport on our faces as we purchased those crackers and brought them home. It was as if we had won a million dollars as promised by that UK bank in my spam email or the apple i-pad that we were supposed to win for being the 1000th visitor to a particular website. Kids often boast of their set of crackers as being the best over their friends'. All of them do. Finally, on the day of Diwali, it would turn out that all of them have almost the same set of crackers. The day of Diwali is marked by several customs and traditions that have been followed and passed on through ages and generations. This includes a special oil bath in hot water mixed with a few drops of the holy Ganga river, a body smear of sheekakai, accept the new dresses from the eldest member of the family after doing namaskarams and then you are all set to get started with your decibel show. I have always stayed in an apartment complex and we always had the curiosity to see who would burst the first set of crackers for the day. I remember getting up as early as 3 am to give some time for the rituals and be the alarm bang for the residents. AFter several hours of bursting crackers and taking pictures, we go back home to have a heavy feast and then conquer the couch to watch the special shows on TV. Sweets and snacks are then exchanged with friends and neighbors. When the sun has seen enough of the city and decides to retire, we go back to our cracker business again. This cycle repeats for the next two days. The remainders of the crackers are saved for a later festival that comes a month from now.

As the two day festival draws to an end, its time to dive back to the routine everyday life. Relatives bid adieu, shops start to reopen, buses and trains swarm the city as they bring back people from all around the state back to their jobs, kids get sulky about getting back to school and dad gets ready for their usual work. And moms, they are extra special and all they need now is a big thank you from all of us and some much deserved and needed rest for the rest of week. But such wonderful people moms tend to be, you find your lunch packed in your boxes before leaving to school the next morning.

It is Diwali today and I now have to go to bed for I have a project submission later this afternoon and an assignment the next day. Happy Diwali to me!

-Sayee

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Sandy!

That's not my friend who studied college with me. That's the hurricane also dubbed as Frankenstorm by some, that left us east-coasters wind-punched, drenched and hence indoors. Things in Baltimore weren't too bad. The rains and the winds seemed like they wanted to join in on the Halloween spirit and lashed at us bigger than ever. I hear that several areas in Maryland, Virginia, DC and New York have been greatly affected with power outages and floods. I really hope conditions improve quickly, businesses reopen and people get back to their routine stronger.

This is the first major hurricane I have witnessed after coming to the US. We had one sometime last year. But thankfully, it wasn't much drama. Just some items kept near the windows fell and people had to set their hair again. One of the things I saw and really appreciate is the emergency preparedness system here. Things aren't perfect. But, there is so much to learn and incorporate in India. We were quick enough to take the naming trend from here and started giving regional names for our cyclones. Why not put in place better tracking and response systems?

Earlier in the weekend, the path of the cyclone was traced out and all the areas that were likely to be affected were notified and asked to start acting quick. There are emergency preparedness and response teams at every level - Federal, State, City and also institutional. Evacuation routes planned, special emergency helplines created, every person in the city is notified to stock essential supplies, schools and colleges inform every student about the situation and change in schedule of classes and more! Hospitals ensured of power and in the worst case, patient shifts were also planned. The power company reaches out to every customer seeking support and asking to be safe and make sure that all power dependent devices are fully charged as they try their best to provide uninterrupted service. And what's more, they also had real time data with geographical mapping on the individual houses that has suffered power outage and those were changed immediately on being restored.

I cannot help but draw a quick comparison to the system we have back in India. Imagine the number of lives we could save with better tracking and response. Why should a patient who came surviving a critical condition later lose the battle to a power outage? Why should people stand,watch and lament as hundreds of coastal houses get washed away? Why should people be left hungry and starving without essential supplies? It is Halloween and perhaps the right time for these questions to haunt us. Man has been selfish, cruel and ungrateful towards nature. And when she responds, we just can't take it. Let's try our best to get back to good equations with her. Keeping in mind, she's a woman, that task is probably going to take a while. Meanwhile, why not try to be better prepared until the next time she shows her wrath?

Sayee

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Love of seasons

It's Fall in Baltimore. Time for the trees to try their new outfits and look colorful. Fall is my favorite season after the monsoons. Monsoons back in India have a special charm to them.

Ancient paintings, writings and cultural practices such as reverence for rain as God, appear to be like a bread crumb trail to the man-monsoon relationship. As a kid, I lived in Mumbai and I remember the wait for the first shower spell. We used to have a countdown that would appear in our newspapers eagerly waiting for their arrival. People would prepare well in advance for the monsoons. The seasonal hawkers would know that it's perhaps time to replace the artifacts with umbrellas and raincoats. The manufacturing companies would know to make them attractive and appealing to the current trend in the city or have the usual age-wise segments. Pink, Green and Yellow with cartoon characters for the kids, retaining the color but filling them with flowers instead for the ladies and the consistent all black/grey ones for the men. Within this, you would always have people, like me back then, who would want something halfway between kids and men. We don't get that luxury of choice and usually end up using mom/dad's.

The city doesn't come to a standstill when it rains, though the infrastructure might suggest so. People have learnt to live and love the city as it is. The monsoons bring with them a drop in the mercury which gives a huge breather for the people from the scorching summer that just bid adieu. Evening sets in early. I love the hot street snack accompanied with a glass of tea, enjoying the rains and watching how people react differently towards things. You see a mom walking her kid back from school and you notice how she leaps over the puddle of water while her kid jumps right into that. The smoke, the rain, the sound all suddenly seems so picturesque and inviting.

Continuing with the 'people react different towards things at different ages' idea, I want to leap ahead to my college life when I moved to Chennai.I started to avoid the puddles, but now because I drove my scooter. My allegiance to the street snack didn't change, in fact it grew. Used to love riding together with my friends sometimes doing weird things on our way, stopping at every other street to grab a hot spicy bite and then looking for the nearest cool drink shop to douse the tongue-on-fire! We used to tuck our shirts out as stepped out of college and love getting drenched. We were more eager to get home, not to avoid the rains, but to dry, get into the pyjamas, have that sip of tea and enjoy your show on TV. What a life, man! Who doesn't love holidays? we all do. And back in Chennai, the government used to declare state wide holiday for schools and colleges if heavy rains are predicted. It was usually a scrolling marquee on the news channel that had all the cities and towns that declared a holiday. I haven't prayed more than this to have my city in that list!

As I recollect all those wonderful memories, I feel I should go back sometime and re do all of that. It's been a little over a year since I came to the US and I am introduced to a new season, Fall! Had never seen trees getting yellow and red except in Windows wallpapers and Indian movie songs that were shot abroad. And trust me when I say this, the view is absolutely stunning. Which is why, its my second most favorite season. My reaction to fall isn't that different. I love walking over the heap of brightly colored leaves on the pavement, I love sipping tea and I still crave for a hot street snack. It's just the beginning of Fall and I have already fallen for it!! So much so, it has decided to make me give a heartbeat to this blog site. I hope to keep it pumping.

-Sayee

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