It is written...

30th March 2009, Michigan, USA

For those of you who have seen Slumdog Millionaire, you would kind of get the drift of this post by the title, those of you who haven't, I will let you watch the movie :-)

So, I have been going over some of the recent incidents in my life with my close friends and for some reason these discussions always lead up to a point where someone says Oh it was all for the good... or It probably wasn't meant to be... or It was not in any one's control... And then they will go on explaining how they know of certain events in the past that could only be explained by a concept called destiny.

I for one never believed in it. I think it's a side effect of being an engineer or having a scientific mind... I think of anything in terms of logic, rationale and a proof. Now I have conducted hundreds of experiments inside the laboratory to prove or disprove different hypotheses but what's unique about the theory of destiny is that you can't conduct an experiment to verify or reject it. If we want to put it in scientific terms, the hypotheses would say, "Any event that occurs in your life, would have occurred irrespective of any one's actions leading up to that event" e.g. if I am destined to get late for office tomorrow, it wouldn't matter whether I sleep in time tonight, sleep late or don't sleep at all, I would get late regardless. Now if I wanted to verify it then I can try and stay up all night and go to office in time tomorrow to disprove the destiny theory but the catch lies in the fact that no one tells the hypotheses before hand... it's always a hindsight and hindsight we all know is 20/20. If I stay up all night and go to the office in time, proponents of destiny would say, well I was destined to be on time then! For me to able to conduct an experiment to prove or disprove the theory, one of two things have to happen. I either need to be told what's destined BEFORE it happens or I need the capability to go back in time after the event happens to change my actions leading up to the event to see if the outcome differs. Let's consider these one by one.

The first condition - knowing what's destined beforehand. I don't know if this can be done or not. There are a lot of people in this world who make a living out of telling others their fortune. I wonder if such a person can tell anyone how much money he is going to make by telling fortunes on any given day before the day starts... Now, we all know that these people are sometimes right and most often either wrong or vaguely correct (when they say something like next year is going to be a very crucial year for you...). So, if these people are proven wrong on an occasion does that mean there is no destiny... not really... all we can say from this experiment is that particular person didn't make an accurate prediction... The event that he predicted may not have occurred either because he didn't know what he was talking about, or because of the fact that the knowledge of the future event led someone to change his actions to avoid it from happening or that the outcome was never meant to be fixed... and no one could have predicted it. And proponents of destiny will always tell you that it was the first reason... that you didn't talk to the right guy... what happened was indeed your destiny but the fortune teller wasn't good enough to tell... So, that's a deadlock.

The second condition - going back in time. Now, we have all seen Back To The Future, read about H G Wells Time Machine, fascinated by Arnold's journey back in time to save his folks in Terminator 2 and some of us have contemplated the possibility of time travel made possible by the existence of a unified field theory... but till someone gets a Grand Super Duper Noble Prize by making it possible I find it easier to stick to the theory of general relativity and say that nothing can travel faster than light and hence you can't go back in time.

So, now that both the possibilities are ruled out how do I conclude either way? There are two major kinds of explanations in science... hypotheses and law (there is a 3rd kind called theory as well but it's not going to make a difference to this discussion so let's chuck it). Let me explain the difference. Hypotheses is an educated guess based on general observation. It offers you a rational explanation of an event based upon an observation. It can't be proven but can be disproved, So once a hypotheses gains some acceptance by repeated observations, although it was never proven to be correct , it stands true until proven wrong. Most hypotheses however can be supported or refuted by experimentation or repeated observation.

A Law on the other hand explains events without telling you why it occurs. These are fairly simple, true, universal and absolute. There is no proof for a law and is taken at face value because it has always explained some events e.g. the law of gravitation... Newton never had to prove it, no one can... as long as it explains the apple falling towards the earth's surface, people will be happy to accept it.

Since we have already seen that destiny can't be proven or refuted, it's not a hypotheses. Do we want to call it a law? I think this is where the divide occurs... there are some of us like me who wouldn't even put destiny and law together in one room and others who can't imagine the two being separate entities. And once you say it's a law, you no longer require a proof. You make your observation and destiny will always explain that observation (remember by definition, whatever you observe is destiny!!) so for those people it's no less than Newton's Law of Gravitation... and non believers like me trying to find an answer to this question... we are sort of in the same situation as King Vikramaditya was when he had to fetch Betaal from the tree... we are trying to answer a question... if we know the answer Betaal flies back to the tree... the only way we can fetch him is to not know...

A Perfect Weekend...

29th March 2009, Michigan, USA

I had been in US for two weeks and had not ventured out much from my hotel except for going to the office or an occasional dinner. So, when I made an impromptu plan to go to Chicago and Milwaukee on one weekend, I felt pretty good about it. A trip to Chicago served a dual purpose - it was a transit point for Milwaukee which was my final destination, and I had to visit the Dutch embassy to apply for a Schengen visa. I left home pretty early in the morning to catch the train and it was a very cold morning, perhaps the coldest on this trip. I reached the station way before the scheduled departure time of my train and had to wait outside for an hour in the cold for the station to open... yes the station doors were locked!

It was meant to be a 3 hour train journey, taking me to Chicago at 11:15. The Dutch embassy closes at 12:30 and was about a 10 minute drive from the train station so I had thought I will be there in time to apply for the visa. Unfortunately, the train got delayed on its way to Chicago because of construction work... delayed by almost 40 minutes! I reached Chicago at about noon, rushed out of the station, took the first cab I saw and for the first time in life, sat in a cab with a lady driver (big mistake!). I gave her the address of the embassy and just to be extra safe I told her that it is the Netherlands Embassy and I asked her if she knows the place. She looked at me and said, "I know this address but that's not where the embassy is... the embassy is in a different direction" Then she asks me where do you want to go.. I said I have a visa appointment so I need to go to the embassy... and she insisted it's somewhere else... well, I was a bit perplexed but I decided to stick with the address I had and it turned out that the embassy she had in mind was the Indian embassy and she had assumed that being an Indian, that's where I wanted to go!

Anyways, I reach the embassy building at about 12:15, and as I walk into the lobby, I saw that there is a lady with a sign in register at the front desk. I could have ignored her and taken the elevator to my desired floor but for some reason I thought I would sign in (2nd mistake!). I told her that I want to go to the Dutch embassy and she is like oh sorry, you can't... they are closed! I am like what? I regained my senses quickly and told her that I believe it's open till 12:30 and I will like to give it a shot. So, I go the embassy and miraculously the embassy was open during the hours they claimed to be open... if only I was naive enough to believe the lady at the front desk...

It was a short line for the interview, with 4 people ahead of me and turned out that I was the last person for the day. Two guys in front of me were applying for their visa together. One Colombian guy and another Chinese, both students in a US university and were going on a few weeks Eurotrip. Man, were those guys clueless or what... they absolutely had no documentation, hadn't bothered to check the requirements of the visa and didn't have an idea of their itinerary. They were accompanied by a friend who apparently had traveled quite a bit and knew a lot about visa requirements and procedures. It was funny watching those guys being interviewed and this girl whispering answers to them from behind :-) ... the interviewer would ask what is your date of arrival in Netherlands, and the Chinese guy will say 1st of July and the American guy will say 10th of July and the girl will yell (quietly) in the background... guys it's 1st of JUNE!! Then they will change the dates again and after a while something will hit them and the Chinese guy will ask the interviewer with a guilt, "can we change our dates again?"...

The interviewer was being very helpful to them throughout. The guys didn't have their itinerary citing the reason that if the visa got rejected they would lose the booking fee on the ticket. She even told them that you don't have to book a ticket, just plan an itinerary on expedia or orbitz and print it out... just make sure it coincides with your intended dates of travel... The Colombian guy didn't have proof of sufficient funds and he said that the Chinese guy has it and he will cover the whole expense.. and the interviewer is like, "well, you can get your mother's bank statements as a proof of funds, I can't accept your friend's statement unless he is your... you know... he is just a friend... " :-) . The interviewer had to explain them each and everything about the visa process, and she had to ask them to fax her pretty much all the required documents... I must say that she was extremely patient and nice about the whole thing. If it was a US embassy those guys would have been rejected 10 times over in the duration they were at the window. After their interview, the Chinese guy turns to the girl and says... you know... I am thinking... and the girl goes.. "Joe! Please don't think!! just get the hell out of here before they reject you :-)"

So, my turn comes... I tell her that I think I have all the documents in place... and I did. The only problem she pointed out was that I should have applied for the visa in India and I may or may not get approved... but I knew that I will, so I didn't bother much. It was a short interview but by the time the interview got over it was almost 1:15... I never imagined that people work beyond the stipulated hours in any embassy... I must say I was very impressed by the Dutch courtesy.

I had to catch a train to Milwaukee after that but I still had about 2 hours to the next train and the weather was pretty nice. It was windy and cold but sunny so I decided to walk to the train station and check out the Chicago downtown... I had been there before a couple of times but this part of the downtown was new to me... plus I was walking along the river which I love doing... that's one thing I enjoy about big American cities, almost all of them have a river , harbour or sea... New york, Boston, Chicago, Baltimore, San Francisco... anyways, so I walked along enjoying the weather and taking a few pictures. I felt hungry after a while as I didn't have breakfast so I stopped by a nice cafe, had a grilled sandwich, ate it by the window looking outside... had a coffee to go and started walking again... it probably took me about half an hour or a little more to reach the station but it was a pleasant walk... and on the way I encountered a few familiar sights... I came across the Deloitte office and although I had never been to this office before it still meant something to me as I had sent my application to the Chicago office though I was eventually hired in Washington DC. All this time I was looking for another landmark, i had a vague recollection that it's somewhere in the downtown, didn't know where... and suddenly I found it... right around the corner from Deloitte's building... it was an Au Bon Pain cafe in the lobby of a building... and a few floors above was the office of the company that had made me the first job offer after my graduation... suddenly those days after school flashed in front of my eyes... the job search, interviews, cover letters, phone screens... the interview in Chicago, the coffee I had in Au Bon Pain after the interview while reading "Threads" by Joseph Abboud... and suddenly I felt I missed something... don't know what...

The station was very close by from there... the train was on time and in an hour and half I was in Milwaukee. My friend from Baltimore, Vijay was there to pick me up. I met him after about 4 months and I must say that at the time I left USA to go back to India, if someone had told me that I will get to attend the weddings of 3 of my best friends in US and that I will get to see some of them once every few months, I wouldn't have believed it... at that time it felt like I am leaving most of it behind for good... how shortsighted was I...

Things have changed a lot though... as I said 3 of my best friends including Vijay are now married, so now I get to meet his wife Nandini as well. Last time I visited them she taught me how to make some authentic South Indian food :-) . She wasn't feeling too well this time so I didn't insist on learning something new though just like last time, she did have aloo parathas ready for me! And yes, I was ecstatic to find a tulsi plant in his house... it has been years since I had tea with fresh tulsi leaves... so I made it a point to make tea the next morning with tulsi leaves :-) Most of Friday was spent talking, catching up with the happenings in each others lives... some words of wisdom exchanged, some banter, some leg pulling and some funny stories told and remembered... :-)

Next day was planned to the minute... we got up, I made poha with tulsi tea and then sat in the balcony to soak in some sun (all part of the plan! wasn't like we were wasting time)... then we went out for lunch to meet some friends, i knew only of them, the wife of another very close friend of mine from Baltimore. It was again a nice, sunny day and we were delighted to be outside. The wind made it colder than it was but pleasant nonetheless. We met the other group at the restaurant... it was an Indian buffet... I always thought that I am a perfect customer for these restaurants that run buffet meals... I don't eat meat, hardly eat much in vegetarian food and to their delight don't touch any desserts... Anyways, it didn't take long for everyone to mix up and know each other. After lunch we decided we will go the lake shore and enjoy the sun. We walked along a pier for a while but it was getting increasingly windy as we went deeper into the water so most of us decided were in favor of not going too far. One of us had a cricket bat and a few tennis ball in the car trunk so we brushed up on our cricket skills. It was fun playing after quite some time but the biggest discovery of the day was that Kalpana is a better player than her husband Karthik.

After cricket, the girls tried their hand at children's swings and they sucked at it... then they jogged in the sand with leather shoes on... that was hilarious to watch... and from there it went funny to crazy... we played tic tac toe in the sand, then kadakko... for which no one remembered how to draw the boxes, I thought I will call up my cousin in India to get some instructions but it was pretty late so I let it go. Then we played langdi-choo (or langdi taang or whatever you call it)... it's this game where you divide yourself into two teams and one player from a team goes into the other team's court hopping on one leg and has to touch someone and come back to her court... turned out to be a lot of fun... and I rocked, never went out even once! :-) Then people raced, first on two legs and then graduated to a three legged race... reminded me of high school days! We ended our beach session on a high note by playing the super hit game called Ramu! Thanks Paliwal for introducing us to this game more than 3 years ago... and I have never lost in it since then.. with all due modesty, I rock in this game :-) ... all the Gold Spots can vouch for it! (I apologize to those who are missing the context here... may be I will explain the game in a separate post)

The day wasn't over yet... there was a cool retro style cafe near the lake, so we all went there, grabbed a cup and had a nice long conversation. Something weird happened in between... an American guy... kind of in his 30s, tried to make conversation with me and he was so so weird. I couldn't make head or tail of what he said to me, he had a cross hanging from his neck so I thought he is one of those guys who preach about religion and all but none of his talk had a religious bend... he looked at me in a gay way but then he was too shabbily dressed to be one... he high-fived me for no reason whatsoever... anyways... someone in the group suggested we go watch a movie after the coffee but some of us were pretty tired by then so we decided to call it a day. Vijay, Nandini and I headed back home but we managed to stop by a Barnes and Noble and Boston Store to check out some stuff. By the time we reached home, all we wanted to do was eat something, lie down, listen to music, chat and sleep... well, we deserved it!

Sunday was pack up day. We had to leave early for Chicago to meet some friends and visit a temple, so we got ready, made tea to go and headed out for Chicago. I didn't think I had been to that temple before but it looked awfully familiar, may be I had been to another one exactly like it. Met a couple of Nandini's friends there and it turned out that it's a very small world... her friends and I had a lot of common friends from my IIT days... we had delicious South Indian food in the temple and I even packed enough for me to bring home with me (it lasted me almost 3 days!)... Nandini's friends were fortunately headed in the same direction as my apartment so they graciously agreed to offer me a ride.. it was about a 3 hour journey and we made full use of this time cursing the hell out of the AIG guys, and the investment banks and anyone else who we didn't like.

It's almost always a hollow feeling after you come back to an empty home after being with those whom you like but I have done this enough number of times now to take it in my stride. I came home, turned on the TV, checked my email and got on with the real life...

Look for the Base Note

22nd March 2009, Michigan, USA

I was in the Boston Store at Brookfield Mall with a friend, whom I was visiting in Milwaukee, looking for some luggage items. I entered the store and by default had to pass by the perfumes section as those are usually at the entrance of most of these stores for obvious reasons :-). I suddenly recalled that a friend of mine is a big fan of a Gucci perfume so I thought I will check it out for her in case it's available. The store unfortunately didn't have the brand I was looking for but the sales woman showed me the new brand that was in. She mentioned that the one I was asked for has been discontinued.

We came back home but I wasn't fully satisfied with her response, so I went online to Gucci's website to realize that perfume is still available, so I told my friend that the sales woman lied to us about it being discontinued. Then we started talking about how this perfume is different from the ones she showed us. I told him that perfumes are generally composed of three different fragrances called notes which makes up for a harmonious scent. The top note or the head note is the scent you get immediately after you apply the perfume and for the next few minutes to an hour, then it makes way for what is called the middle note or the heart note which is the main body of the perfume that kicks in once the top note starts to fade, this scent can last for many hours. Eventually as the heart note grows lighter, you start to smell the base not of the perfume. The base note is the underlying tone of the perfume and brings depth to a perfume. Over time, the top note and the heart note soften and the base note is the scent left at the end of the day.

Now my friend has been happily married for a little over an year now and we used to have discussion in the past about what he is looking for in a girl, what works for him and what doesn't. Since his marriage the roles have kind of reversed and he has been giving me advice about what should I look for in a girl, what matters and what doesn't etc. So, he was listening to my explanation of perfumes very attentively all this while and after I was done talking, he looks at me and says, "Himanshu, you should look for the base note in a girl!". I didn't ask him for any explanation, the metaphor was obvious. And out of all the discussions we ever had about relationships, this is one I am not going to disagree with even a bit... when it comes to perfumes and girls... look for the base note... when all else fades away that is what matters...