Making food isnt tough....Making palatable, good food is. After 3 days of cooking, my respect for mom has increased multifold.

The beginner's bane in cooking is this white powdery thing ... Initially I was quite deceived all its simple friendly outward appearance. But after a couple of "unsavoury" culinary experiences, I have started treating this vital cooking ingredient with quite some respect.

SALT.

Simple Appearance, Lotsa Trouble.

Not an elegant acronym. Pretty crude actually. I know. But conveys the message.

My first cooking adventure was excellent. I had no salt problems whatsoever. Thats not a big deal. Considering the fact that the item under preparation was an extremely complicated Bread and Butter Sandwich. Now, dont underestimate the complexity of a sandwich. I realised it the hard way. Its not funny to have to consume a couple of wheat bread sandwiches that have been burnt to the point of their turning pitch black. And unfortunately, they were the last bits of bread our usually understocked kitchen.

The other cooking experience I had was a bit more dramatic. Now the item in this case was infinitely more complex. It was a Mexican Tortilla. Despite the fancy name, its actually just a Readymade Roti equivalent. Well, the preparation itself is not complex. All I have to do is put the Tortilla on the pan and wait for a couple of minutes.

But the complexity came from unexpected quarters. The laws of linearity and proportionality dont seem to hold in this infinitely skewed world of cooking. In the rather simple world of engineering, where I hail from, and in the even simpler world of CAT exams, if one tortilla takes 3 minutes, then three tortillas should take 9 minutes. Not an unfair assumption, is it? But, well, as it had to turn out, I had yet another lesson to be learnt in the school of hard knocks.

After leaving 3 tortillas in the oven, I went for a 5-minute casual walk. Actually six minutes. Came back to find the fire alarm blaring away. The entire two bedroom flat was flooded in a rather thick cloud of dark smoke. Fortunately the fire alarms here are meant to alert only the residents, and not the entire street. Else, I cant imagine the consequences. And the more interesting part of the episode was the state of the tortillas, or rather what once used to be tortillas.

Mom..all praises to you. First thing after coming to India, come home to eat some food. So much for my cooking experiences. Its lab closing time. That implies that I have to abruptly end my rather interesting(!!!) narration. Good night. Have fun.

As I entered the room today, after a long hard day of work... Gandhi gave me a rather smug look. There was this content look in his face that you normally see in a python after it has just swallowed a full grown lamb. Not that Gandhi is a python, nor that I have seen a python after it has had a full thaali, its just one of these things you see.... He seemed rather happy about something.

I kind of guessed what had happened. Today is a significant day in our US existence. Gandhi had been excited about this day even when we were in India. Today we moved one step closer towards living the ideal US life. Today, we moved one step above the normal pathetic desi existence in this land of opportunities.

Today, we purchased a TV. There's a tremendous logic behind our purchase. An argument so overpowering yet so deceptively simple. Our purchase of the TV was driven with a noble intent in mind. The logic is as follows: Why do people come on an exchange program? Yes, why at all should we come on exchange, spending all that precious money? The idea is cultural exposure. We come to the US so as to get exposed to the US culture.

This is were our genius steps in. Now, how do you get cultural exposure? By talking, interacting and "networking" with the Americans here. But that is such a tired and long drawn out process. So, we put in our collective intellect, and came up with a rather brilliant solution. We decided to have a "home delivery" of the American Culture. Yup. Via the idiot box. The best way to get exposed to culture is to watch American Television. A painless solution to a very pertinent issue.

Now, some of you non-believers may ask, if watching TV is the solution, then why cant you do it in India? Well, our reasoning is.. When you watch American serials at your home in India, and step out of your homes, you can no longer connect what happened on TV to the reality outside. But if an Indian watches TV in the US, and steps out to find that all the guys in his environment are indeed like what he has been seeing all day in TV, there's an instant "Eureka".

We call this the "Reinforcement Model of Compact Knowledge Delivery". We are currently doing statistical tests on two different sample sets of people to find the effect of the two different methodologies of cultural exposure. The first sample of Desis are trying the time-tested floppy model of direct interaction, whereas the more radical and bold of our tribe, including me and Gandhi, are trying the Television route to cultural exposure. Early results indicate that on a Cultural Exposure of 1 to 100, the latter sample seems to outperform the traditional school of thought by margins as high as 45%.

And oh yeah. There is one other reason for our buying the TV. It was on a distress sale, and came with a remote, for a total of 20$. Yeah, u heard it right, 20$. Now, some of you may argue that this may have been our primary reason for the purchase. But, I assure you, it isnt. The only prime reason for the TV purchase was to validate the "Reinforcement Model of Compact Knowledge Delivery".

Thats all for now... Adios Amigo.

The typical Desi students' life in the US is rather stereotypical.

Two bedroom apartments.
Three other desi roomies.
Lots of Lays and other snacks.
Even greater loads of Coke and variants.
Omelettes and other egg-variants to sustain life.
Garam masala and allied masalas from home.
Weekly trips to Wal-Mart.
Friday eat-outs at the nearest pizza place.
Slog the week in the lab.
Slog the weekend too in the lab.
Correct papers for Prof in the free time.
Keep dreaming of all the firang babes.
A 50$ cycle to move about the campus.
Cook daily. However unplatable be it.
Plan the annual trip to Las Vegas with other old college friends.
Crib about high cost of living in the US.
Search for an internship.
Search for a full time job.
Fight for getting TA/RA.
Crack exams. Indians invariably crack exams.

So damn boring. Thankfully, being an exchange student, my life is a shade better. Afterall, its just for four months. So no TA/RA, job or allied pressures. But life does get boring sometimes. Especially after the whirlwind of IIM-B.

Surprisingly, after my first week in the US, the only thing I missed about India was the music. Not listening to country Tam songs was a major problem. Soon managed to find a pair of ear phones. And a decent website. http://www.musicindiaonline.com. Now atleast I have my daily dose of Tam Music.

I kind of think Denmark was a much better place for the tourist. It was atleast easier to move about in Europe. Not having an automobile in the US is like not having one of your limbs. Especially, when you cant even rent cars. Thats "the" worst part. The other worst part being that I cant drive anyway.

I have been kind of keeping myself busy. Doing a few papers, essays, cases and stuff. General timepass.

My trip to the US by itself was pretty eventless. I flew by Thai Air from Bangalore via Bangkok and Osaka to Los Angeles. So I spent some four-five hours in the Bangkok Airport.

A decent place, the Bangkok Airport. It is extremely huge when compared to the tiny, poor, little Mumbai and Delhi Airports. And much better maintained. The Airport is a huge mall in itself. My friend Anuj "Gandhi" Gupta bought a DigiCam there. Seemed a fair deal to me. 6000 Bahts for an Olympus digicam. Not a bad deal at all. Later I spent about an hour in the Osaka Airport. A much more modest airport in comparison. So, technically, I have been to Japan. As in, I have actually stepped on Japanese Soil... Oops! Japanese Marble floors..to be precise.

Started out by 10:30 PM from Bangalore on the 7th, and reached by 10:30 AM on the 8th. Kind of fast, aint it? But, well considering the fact that I was travelling against the timeline, I kind of gained a day. So the flight was effectively longer than that. Much longer.

Thai Air is good. As good as Lufthansa or SAS. And much cheaper. And they give me a day of free stay in Thailand on my return journey. That makes it a rather attractive deal. The food was palatable. And they made sure they complied to my special request of a Hindu meal. Everytime. And the air-hostesses were good too(but for their rather incomprehensible accent). Especially in comparison to the matrons of Lufthansa and Air India.

The Los Angeles landing and airport clearance were deceptively simple. Hardly took us fifteen minutes to clear the customs. Dunno why we were warned about 5 hour delays in customs. Stayed in LA for a day. We were living in the University of South California Campus that day. Pretty decent place.

Went to the LA downtown that nite. Later we dicovered that wasnt a very wise decision. Downtown LA is scary in the night. So damn isolated. Rushed back instantaneously. Went to a couple of other places later on. Like the Science Center, the Afro-American Museum..etc etc.

Key lesson from Los Angeles: Never ever take a taxi in the US. Not even a shuutle. Not if you value your money even a sngle teeny weeny bit. All those unfair, unreasonable taxi-auto trips in India seem benign in comparison.

Flew to Houston that night. Reached the Houston Airport at around 2 AM in the night..Spent the night in the airport. And half of the next day. It so happens that my unversity is a bit far from Houston. About an hour and a half. So we had to wait for the shuttle service for almost 11 hours.. And u can take my word, 12 hours in the airport isnt fun. Far from it.

And atlast reached College Station. A tiny town of Texas. A University Town. Home to TAMU, which some people say is the largest universiy campus in the US. But more of it later...For now, its time to go to bed.


Bye...good nite...

Once upon a time, so long ago that I no longer remember how long ago, there used to be times when I could find time to blog frequently... But alas, those were the golden days... These are dark times that I live in...And Im busy :-((

Well, to be precise, it has been about 5 weeks since I wore my writing hat and actually blogged. And it has been kind of a vacation from blogging ever since. And a lot has happened in the meanwhile. To say the least these five long weeks have been eventful, for lack of a better word.

Five projects, four exams, and lots of submissions, it has been one hell of a ride. And all for a noble cause. Finishing my MBA. Yup, in the informal sense of the words, my MBA is over. Well, atleast the race for grades in IIM-B is over. The last two term grades are not counted for placements, so the general trend is to take life easy after the first four terms.

And well, apart from that? Im no longer in India. There has been a temporary shift in base to the USA. Im currently doing my exchange program at Texas. The USA is ok...but I guess I will start writing about my US experiences at a later point of time.

For now, Im still recovering from my four terms at IIM-B......