Aravind B H

The early morning winter temperature in San Diego was 43 Fahrenheit (6 degree Celsius). Anybody sane would snuggle up under two comforters in their warm bedroom with the heater on. I woke up at 4.40 am to fulfill the ritual - checkout the Black Friday sale of 2010! The day after Thanksgiving day is called Black Friday - I do not know why. On this day, a substantial subset of US human population, needless to say, their pets too, harry stores who throw open their doors as early as 4 am. While the stores give away many products at great prices, the ambiance outside is cold and dark; reminded me that thorns always accompanied roses!! And I speak of San Diego while I shudder thinking of Minneapolis. Shivering, even after wearing 4 layers of clothes, I headed towards BestBuy. I faced an iffy situation upon reaching there - will I find a parking spot?! That parking lot which would regularly accommodate all customers in the front yard, today, had grown into the backyar...

How many times can a single paragraph be vehemently repeated? I repeated my introduction via mail and phone about 30 times a day for about 4 months! The compelling reason behind this onerous act – I wanted to find a job in USA staying in Bangalore. When we decided to move to USA, I banished all my reservations and reached out to people, almost all I knew, to help me find a job in their offices in USA. A few friends advised that it will be easier if I am local during the search. All of them duly submitted my resume to their companies. Since the earlier booming economy had busted, things progressed very slowly. I stayed up late in the night to talk to recruiters to make up for the time difference between Bangalore and USA. This was a sleepy yet curious experience. While everyone was sleeping and dreaming of green meadows and pristine waterfalls, I was interviewing with imaginary faces staring in to my laptop. Many recruiters could not believe that I was staying up so late to talk to th...

Trekking and digital photography has plagued youngsters; anybody and everybody talk about the focal length of the lenses, SLR cameras, Canon vs. Nikon, lighting, manual focus, woodland shoes, hiking gear, weather proof tents, cutting knives, careers in wildlife photography, tiger conservation etc. One Mecca they all visit – the Western Ghats. The Western Ghats are thick rain forests in South India sprawling about 1600km in length and 100 km wide with a majority of the forest, about 60%, in Karnataka. These pristine and soggy forests have been infested by trekkers, photographers and nature enthusiasts from across the world, for its splendid sceneries and over whelming range of flora and fauna. Gung ho about trekking, my friends and I, budding software engineers, decided to trek!! The baton of organizing the trek was entrusted upon Sheetan and KP (a.k.a Prashant ) – the senior trekkers. Sheetan consulted YMCA, discussed with KP and both of them came up with the idea to t...

JP shouted "nanage aa moole beku" (English translation - I want that corner) and Chandan religiously challenged JP's vehement request. I am referring to one coveted corner on the compound wall of my home. The compound wall was about 4 feet high, something very comfortable for JP. Well the height was the least of concerns of the remaining of us, Rammi (Ramesh), KP (Prashant), Susu (Sushrutha), Chandan and Aravind. What was happening during the evening? What were we doing on the compound wall? Who are all these people? Why that corner? Seems eerie??? Too many questions unanswered, read on…. It was the glorious years between 1997 - 2001 when we were all pursuing Bachelor of Engineering!!! You should imagine youthful, immature and vibrant youngsters sporting the universally accepted dress code, T-shirt and a dirty jeans pant, unshaven cheeks and long hair, hanging around in the portico of our home. There was a matured English scholar, KP; an excellent classi...

The chit-chat went on for a long time between my wife, cousins and yours truly me. We had fun sitting in the portico and talking about relocating to the USA, living expenses, cars, travel, food, married life, courting days etc. Wait a minute, did I say, “courting days”? Yes, one of my cousins, Arun, was getting married to Sumana, and that too within a week!!! To commemorate the American Diaspora meeting the Indian variants, we took a photo – which now competes with its ancestor, captured circa 1992. Each person in the new photo competes with their own self, about two decades ago, but with wrinkled cheeks, matured looks and whiter hair! A keen observer would definitely miss one family member forever… The wedding took place in Nanded, Maharashtra, India, and we flew there. Nanded is about 800 odd kilometers from Bangalore and does not have a direct flight. The original plan was to fly to Hyderabad and then board a luxury bus to Nanded, an eight hour drive. This was an ordeal ...

I was 30 when I realized that my birth certificate did not have my name on it!!! What a realization and that too at what age!!?? Thinking “Better late than never”, I contacted my friend who is a lawyer to start the process. I followed the form filling ritual diligently several times. In India filling up forms can be quite challenging, considering the forms made by 4th-degree recycled paper! If I may exaggerate only a bit, ink might blot even when you are using a ballpoint, forget the ink pen or for that matter, throw that form on the ground, and it will convert effortlessly into manure within a matter of days! There is a customary statement in all such forms – “The applicant should be present while submitting the form”. My friend told me to come over to the office of the Registrar of Births and Deaths, Bangalore at 1630hrs one day. I went there and saw a painful sight – there are people everywhere, all sorts of people from all walks of life, rich, poor, very poor, very very poor, y...