Federer finds his Holy grail

Here we are at the end of the French Open 2009. Probably it was not an exciting grandslam for Rafa fans but something that will go down the history. I haven not watched a single match after Rafa was thrown out by Soderling in the 4th round.But the only thing that I was curious about was whether or not Federer will make most of the moment as Rafa is no longer around, and he did. With this win Federer completed a career grandslam. Bravo!! (Wikipedia: If a player wins all four at some point in his or her career, even if not consecutively, it is called a Career Grand Slam). The only five others who made it to their Career Grand Slams are  Roy Emerson, Rod Laver, Don Budge, Fred Perry and Andre Agassi. The very famous few who never made it on Rolland Garros, and thus never completed their Career Grandslams,  include Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker and Pete Sampras. Now you can probably tell what this win means to Federer.

Source: WSJ

Federer played 10 times on Rolland Garros , was  a finalist 3 times before and had lost to Rafa in 2006, 07 and 08.  Federer holds a record of 7 wins and 13 losses against Rafa.  It would have been quite a match if Federer had got to play Rafa in the final of the French and won it. But anyways I am glad that Federer did put together a match worthy for the Champion to secure the most awaited feather in his cap.

So what’s next for Federer..Tennis Hall of Fame?

Sita Sings the Blues

Sita Sings the Blues is an animated movie based on the Ramayana, created by Nina Paley. I was totally excited when I read about the movie.  I was expecting an animated version of Ramayana to be an amibitious Walt Disney project.  I was glad that somebody that somebody made it happen before Walt Disney. But the movies was not quite what I thought. Probably I should have known that from the title of the movie, Sita Sings the Blues.  It was really an attempt by Nina Paley to superimpose her real life incidents on to Valmiki’s Ramayana.  The movie, for the most part, narrates the story from Sita’s point of view. In the movie you will Sita singing jazz songs (originally sung by Annette Hanshaw) and I just loved it.

Sita Sings the Blues

The plot of the movie is very creative and I am totally impressed by the way the story connects Nina’s life to Ramayana.  The context of most of Annette Hanshaw’s songs really goes hand in hand with the situation in the movie.  I am not really sure what Nina Paley’s background is, but Sita Sings the Blues is quite an ingenious effort by her.   But I do have some criticism for the movie. First of all, I am not really sure who are the intended audience for the movie. I think Nina wants to emphasize a point in the movie. The movie shouts out loud that what ever happend to Sita was not fair, or in otherwords what ever Ram did to Sita was unfair. I really do not want to go in the discussion of what’s right or wrong. But the movie totally sounds like it was made for the western audience. If that is what Nina wanted I am sure she did a good job at that. But if it was also expected to suit the Indian audience, the movie is a bit too offensive for them.  There is a valid point in the movie and I guess the right people to address it to are the Indian audience, because we are the one who need to give it a thought.

But the movie on the whole is quite entertaining. What makes it evenmore attractive to many is that the movie is available for free under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License. You can download and distribute the movie free of charge. Nina Paley says,” From the shared culture it came, and back into the shared culture it goes.” Bravo!!!

Link to Download or watch (on Youtube): http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/watch.html

Sita Sings the Blues movie Home: http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/

The California Experience

Last night I came back from a four day trip to San Francisco. I was there visiting a friend. It was a perfect California Summer and SFO turns out to be quite a wonderful destination. You can not miss visiting the Golden gate, Fisherman’s wharf, Union Square, and China town while you are in SFO. But that is not all, if you care to look beyond the SFO city limit, there is much more that California offers. You will find beaches, mountains, and forests in just a stones throw away from SFO. Here are some places that I have been to and are worth considering.

Muir Woods National Monument is just about 10 miles away from the Golden Gate Bridge. Muir Woods is the home of the Sequoia (Redwoods) trees. These trees can grow as high as 300ft. They can survive thunder storms, forests fires and thus live for thousands of years.  Muir Woods is also one of the nation’s First Amendment areas.

If you go further on Highway 1, you will be driving on a wonderful ocean line road to Stinson beach. They have plenty of spots for pit stops on the high way for you to capture the splendid beaches in your cameras. It is really worth a stop. The Stinson beach is amazing stop for beach lovers. But this is where the beaches start. If you are ready to drive further for a bit more privacy, you should head towards Point Reyes.

Stinson Beach as seen from Highway 1

Point Reyes national Seashore is located about 50 Miles from SFO on Highway1/ SF Drake Blvd. The drive from Olema on Sir Francis Drake Blvd offers a spectacular view of the ocean. There are no gas stations on your way so make sure you have enough gas and food/water. It is simply a country drive with farms leading down the hill into the ocean. SF Drake Blvd ends at the Point Reyes light house. From there it is just ocean and ocean in any direction you see. The sandy beaches extend for miles or as far as your eyes can see. You should probably visit the light house at sunset. It is a once in a life time experience.  Be sure have some ear muffs handy and dress warm if would really like to enjoy the view for while.

Point Reyes National Seashore

If you head west from SFO there is a different kind of treat awaiting you. If you really love waterfalls, hiking, rock climbing, or lakes you can not afford to miss the Yosemite National Park. Who does not enjoy the scene of a waterfall, especially if it is 1400ft high? The Yosemite Fall is the seventh highest in the world with a total drop of 2400ft. Yosemite has everything for nature lovers of any age and taste.  There are two ways to get to the park if you are driving from SFO. After you reach Manteca, you can either take hwy 120 directly to the Park or you can drive to Merced and then proceed to the park. The drive through Merced will cost you an extra 45mins or so. But if you do not want to drive on long winding roads like me, sometimes at 20mph, you should probably prefer the route through Merced. That way you also get to drive along the beautiful Merced River which flows through the Yosemite Valley.  Yosemite can host you on a single day trip or a week. But the longer you stay the more is your reward.  The park charges $20 fee per automobile.  After you enter the park you will really see what each of your penny is doing. Yosemite is the most hospitable national park I have ever been to. You have a choice stay of everything from log cabins to high class hotel (look for Wawona lodge). The park restaurant serves you a square meal. You will have access to internet. You can ride the buses that run on green fuel or you can bike around. But Yosemite they make sure that they do not put a toe across the line that nature drew for us. If you still do not trust the commitment of the park toward preserving the nature read this article in New York Times . They are actually planning to tear down a bridge and a reservoir in order to restore the Hetch Hetchy valley.

But here are some things you should not miss while you are at Yosemite. The trail to lower Yosemite falls is a piece of cake for any age group. But if you really want to sweat a bit more, I would recommend the mist trail and trust me on this, you can not thank me enough for the advice after you have reached the top of Vernal falls.  If you love to step a bit higher then go for the half dome and the Glacier point. I had just one day to spend at the park and I got so many things to tell you. If you are planning to go to Yosemite make sure you spend atleast 3 days to feel the real Yosemite experience.

Yosemite National Park

John Muir, the architect of the Yosemite falls, says, “No temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite”. He is absolutely right, you will really experience that the moment you step in Yosemite.

If you want to read further about Yosemite from the man who architected the Yosemite national park, you can download the following eBook.

Yosemite by John Muir (Courtesy: Google)- Free eBook (Copyright Expired, Now in public domain)

Here is the last treat. A short video recorded at Vernal Falls

Earthday

I could not do much for earthday this year. Pity it happened to be  a weekday. But I thought I must get out of the house and spend some time outside.  So grabbed my tennis racket and played tennis for a couple hours.  I just  had a salad bowl for my dinner as an earthday special. I still feel  guilty for not doing anything special today. S0 I found an activity network Earth Day Network and signed up as a volunteer.  I told myself today is just the beginning of another wonderful year ahead. So there is so much I can do. Earthday is designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s environment. So here I am set out to inspire who ever is reading this blog.

I do not really blame you if you do not have passion for our environment. But our world is so beautiful that you do not really have to try very hard to make connection with our environment.  Think about this, would not you like a nice summer day that you can go out spend time without having to worry UV rays. Would not you like an year without hurricanes, unseasonal snow, floods?. If your answers to any of the above question is yes, then you have do have a passion for our environment but you just lost the connection with the world outside. Once you restore that connection, you can, on your own, think of a million ways to lend a help hand to make our world a better place. So I do not want to go on writing about how you can help our planet or should say help ourselves. It is as simple as getting out of the four walls that you live in and spend some time under the sky.

vote for Earth Hour

Vote for Earth Hour

THIS SATURDAY 28 MARCH AT 8.30PM YOU CAN VOTE EARTH BY SWITCHING OFF YOUR LIGHTS FOR ONE HOUR – EARTH HOUR.

Here is the link to sign up for us here in US
http://www.earthhou rus.org/apisignu p/signup. php

Recession and American Lifestyle

Last weekend I was out on a short drive to a near by grocery store. It was a pleasant southern winter day after a weeklong 30s. On my way to the store I drove past two Hummers. It was good to see that the Hummers found their way back on to the roads and I was actually glad that people could take out their Hummers for a drive on a nice day like that without having to worry about gas price, which was pretty reasonable at the moment. I saw another Hummer parked as entered the parking lot of the store. For moment I was like wow, good days are back here, until I saw this tiny little car parked right behind its shadow. I read about those European small cars and saw some pictures online, but this is the first time I ever saw one on the American Roads. For some reason that car did not fit into the picture. Not because it was bigger than what I would expect it to be, but it was rather too small. It was too small for the American road and small does not mean anything in America. America is all about big stuff: big SUVs, big malls and even big Macs. It made me think why would somebody want to break the great old American tradition buying something small like that? I guess I knew the answer. I felt like it got something to do with the gas prices or in a broader sense the economic recession that American and the entire world are passing through. But I bet neither of the owners of that tiny car or the Hummers are among the early victims of recession. But if the economy does not stop going down this spiral, we will probably end up seeing more changes in the American way of living.

Last year gas prices went up by more than a 100%. Now we all understand how a subtle uneasiness in the Middle East or a hurricane in Atlantic could make the gas prices go through the roof once again. So after all this atleast some Americans will go for smaller, fuel efficient cars. Even if President Obama’s $150billion alternative energy plan succeeds to bring about a change in the technology, the next generation of cars will considerably differ from their ancestors in their size. What else could change? Let’s take housing, the mother of all problems. A “Big” house with 5 bathrooms and 8 bed rooms is a dream of every American. Over the last 50 years an average American house grew 4 folds in footage. I think this recession will put breaks on this growth, as everybody will seriously analyze their available finances vs. the square footage of their dreams.  I read about many families whose lives turned upside down over night due to the impact of the economy. So I guess more individuals will probably work late into their 50s to make sure they saved enough for the rainy day, which brings about the another change in the American lifestyle, early retirement. Another social change that would occur is the racial mix of the nation. America is the “Nation of immigrants”, as JFK called her. But due to the state of economy the number of foreigners seeking to naturalize in United States will go down, as the nation curbs its borders and the land of opportunities runs short of jobs.

On a positive note, the real gift of American lifestyle is optimism and adaptability, as JFK once said “The American, by nature, is optimistic”. Perhaps adopting this new American lifestyle will just be a ‘Big’ piece of cake for the nation as bigger does not always mean the better.

The real slumdog millionaires

My hearty congratulations to Rahman, Resul Pookutty and to the entire crew of slumdog millionaire. I am sure every Indian is proud of the success of the movie at Oscars. So am I, but we all knew what AR Rahman is worth even before he won the Oscars, do not we?. I bet he had won Oscars much before, if we were allowed to compete in the general music and song categories. I would like to thank Danny Boyle on this aspect for lifting Bollywood all the way up to the Kodak theater.  I hop this is just the beginning of the show as the Ambanis and UTV are already reaching out to Hollywood for financing movies with Dreamworks, Sony and Walt Disney (Link) and starting new ventures with famous directors like Spielberg.

But guess who are the real life slumdog millionaires?. Some of the child actors of the movie who won the rare opportunity to walk the Hollywood red carpet and witnessed the Oscars live in LA. They represent the glittering the reality of the movie (Link).

I really appreciated the movie passion that our VIPs displayed as they came out to praise the crew of the movie (Link). But my dear sirs and madams, with all due respect, please pay a little attention to the real life aspect of the movie and do something about those poor kids who have been long awaiting a change in their lives. If you can not spot those deprived children ask any forginer who saw the movie or who visited India. Now the whole world knows about it and I could not find a single Indian who disagress the connection of the movie with the reality. I am not sure what Danny Boyle wanted the world to make out of the movie, but we can not afford to slip it into our movie library without giving it a serious thought.

Slumdog Millionaire

I saw Slumdog Millionairefar before it made it to the golden globes and Oscars. I was excited about it because the plot of the movie is based on India. Vikas Swarup wrote an impressive plot for his novel Q&A which  turned to be Slumdog Millionaire on the silver screen.I do not intend to write another review of the movie, but I would like to share some experiences related to it.  The movie is now famous and my most colleagues at work saw the move and I think there was one question that was haunting them.  Everybody seem to be confused by the portrait of India that Danny Boyle created in the movie. So they asked me is India really like that?. When I had to answer their question, I did not answer it right away but asked them a question back. I was curious to know what comes to their minds when they think about India.  Those who visited India before said huge crowds, spicy food and a few mentioned Taj Mahal. Thanks to Danny Boyle for adding the image of the slums to this list.

I think the real question that they had on the back of their minds is whether India is still a third world country.  Here is the same question posted on Yahoo Answers (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081129213910AAepVDs) and you will see mixed opinions there.  That discussion reminds of a presentation that our team did for one of my MBA classes. There were two team that were assigned a topic on the same lines. One team had all Americans on it and the other had 3 Indians out of total 5 in the group including me. The other team tried to show India as a third world country for lack of infrastructure related to electricity, transportation and unemployment.  We, on the other hand, tried to show India as a developing country and as the IT hub of the world.  We never disagreed to what they said and by the way we were not ready to accept their comments.  It becomes really tough to drop to a conclusion on this topic, especially if you are somebody like me who have seen both sides of the coin. But I must confess that they were right to some extent and so were we. Like I mentioned we were just showing to different sides of the same coin.  But I would still say India is a developing country. The picture of India that I had in my mind from my childhood is entirely different from what it is. So I can say for sure India made a great progress over the years and there is still a long way to go. But are we a third world country?. That goes back to how a third world country is defined. Here is an article on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World) that says India is a third world country.  According to Wikipedia “Third World is a categorical label used to describe states that are considered to be underdeveloped in terms of their economy or level of industrialization, globalization, standard of living, health, education or other criteria for ‘advancements’.” Let us talk about these factors and see where India stands on these factors.

India has been posting a 6%+ growth rate over the past few years. An article by Jagdish Bhagvati says India had made significant industrial development over the past 50 years and liberalization of Indian economy and opening the doors for multinational countries had a direct correlation to an increase in trade, which increased investment, and therefore increased the growth rate. If you read Thomas Friedman’s world is flat, you wont miss the point that India is playing a major role in the globalized world.  India has a literacy rate of 65.38%, which is not too bad.  From my personal experience India had made a significant improvement in terms of health standards over the past 20 years.  So all it boils down to is to define what the other criteria for advancements really is.

I am sure the portrait of India that Danny Boyle presented to the world had annoyed many of us.  But we all know there is some truth in it. So let us not get bothered by what somebody says about India, but take it as a reminder for something that we need to work on and improve ourselves.

Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna

I just came back from a candle light vigil held in the memory of the victims of Mumbai terrorist attacks. I felt the pain in the hearts of those who attended, though there were just a handful. We were all from different corners of the world, but I believe each and everyone of us had suffered for such tragedy to their loved ones. The spawning web of the terrorism does not seem to spare any country in the world. There is uncertainty every where; US, UK, Europe and now the subcontinet of India. We stood in a freezing wind to pay our respects to those victims and I believe everybody had just one thing to assure that we are all toghether in this fight.

We are a country with a billion citizens, how could this happend to us?. When the terrorists opend fire VT station, they did not a give damn to who will take the bullet a hindu, a musilm or a christian. They were shooting at us Indians. They did not even spare guests. There is only one a way anybody can attempt such a thing. Either they were confident of what they were doing or they were crazy. Unfortunately, in this case they happened to be both. They were confident to a level that they can go back where ever after doing a such horrendous act and they were crazy as to offer their lives if they had to.

But one other thing they were confident was the incapability of our civilian protection services and our intelligence. I think it is time for our government to understand that caring for the life of every Indian citizen is it’s responsibility not just for the so called VIPs.

They were mistakenly confident about the spirit of our nation. They probably thought they could recreate the mess similar to post Ayodhya incidents. But we proved them wrong. I really admire the way Mumbaikers and the whole nation responded to the attacks. The protests that are being carried out, the candle vigils held are just a few ways to show the world that we are together in this fight, and to assure those who lost their lives in this battle that we won’t let their scarifies be in vain. All we need at this time is to stand together as a nation. We need to make those rouges aware of that, when we say unity in diversity, it is not just a figure of speech but we mean it from our hearts.

If US can go across the ocean to hunt down the terrorists responsible for WTC attacks, why can not we go across the border if we need to?. I know Gandhiji would be really unhappy with me for saying that, but unfortunately these are not the British that we are fighting this time. These terrorists does not understand the meaning of the word peace. As Ram Prasad Bismill would put it, we will have to fight back.

है लिए हथियार दुश्मन ताक में बैठा उधर, और हम तैयार हैं सीना लिए अपना इधर.
ख़ून से खेलेंगे होली गर वतन मुश्क़िल में है, सरफ़रोशी की तमन्ना अब हमारे दिल में है.

- Excerpt from “Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna” by Bismil Azimabadi

Chandrayaan in Lunar Orbit

Source: ISRO

Chandrayaan was successfully maneuvered in to the lunar orbit around 04:21 EST on November 8th. Chandrayaan was set on a seventeen day journey to the moon on October 22nd. During this period the liquid engine of Chandrayaan was fired five times, to extend its elliptical orbit away from the earth and close to the moon. Chandrayaan entered the lunar transfer trajectory on 4th November.  Chandrayaan is now orbiting around the moon with an eleven hour period of revolution. The elliptical orbit of Chandrayaan passes right over the polar regions of the moon and the space craft can get as close as 504km (roughly 315 miles) to the lunar surface.

This image of the Earth was taken by Chandrayaan, from an elevation of 9,000 km and shows the Northern coast of Australia. On October 29th, ISRO conducted a series of tests to check the health of the camera aboard Chandrayaan.