Taste of Sikhism - A visit to the Gurudwara

On an invite from a colleague who was sponsoring the food at the Langar (Canteen/Kitchen) for that week, a few of my other colleagues and me visited the Gurudwara at the Palatine on Friday (Apr. 27-2012).

After covering our heads, we went into the Langar hall and there were some snacks being served. After having them, we went into the Gurudwara. Be it a temple, church, gurudwara or any other religious place, the pleasantness and the ambiance from the positive vibes floating around is the same.

The Gurudwara was a huge hall with a wooden dome in the center supported by four pillars. Within the dome rests the 'Guru Granth Sahib' which the Sikhs worship. Guru Granth Sahib is the religious book of the Sikhs. It was interesting to learn that the Sikhs actually worship this book which holds the preachings of therir Gurus,

We went into the Gurudwara during the Kirtan time and the guru and another guy were on harmonium and tabla. After every verse, they started explaining few things around it Punjabi. I was unable to get everything but was able to understand few words and connect the dots. The Kirtan lasted for close to 30 minutes and everyone was served halwa as prasad. Then the Guru Granth Sahib was folded in different layers of cloth and was taken around the hall. Everyone bowed to it while it was taken for rounds.

After the Kirtan, all of us headed towards the Langar where we all sat in rows and dinner was served. Its been quite a while since I had food in this fashion. It was similar to the way food would be served in certain house-warming (Gruha Pravesh) parties or during the Sri Rama Navami Festival in my colony in India.

The dinner included quite a few varieties - Roti, Pongal, Aloo-Capsicum curry, Dal, curd rice, and Achar. After having a sumptuous dinner we thanked the host and headed for our homes.

Adios Austin (April 17th, 2011)

It was Friday, the April 15th, I was treated by friends at Trudy's. I planned to start from Austin on the following day but coerced myself to stay in Austin on Saturday to complete our short film. However, it turned out to be a disaster.

I got up at 3AM on Sunday. I know, pretty early for a Sunday but I have a job at hand. Got ready by 4 AM and took off to Chicago. My car was filled with so much stuff that I could barely view the rear. Feeling sorry for the state of my car and the long journey ahead, I recited Mrityunjay mantra for 108 times while driving.

I then put in the Ramayanam Pravachanam by Chaganti Koteswara Rao into my music player and started listening to it. Don't mistake me to be an oldie, I'm just inquisitive to learn things and if possible implement. Also, it is better to follow a story to be awake rather than swaying to melodies while driving for so long.

The last memory of Austin was the rising sun at 6 AM along the Texan meadows. It was the most beautiful sunrise I could remember. I went crazy at its sight and stopped my car on the middle of the road to take a picture with my new iPhone which I gifted myself for successful in making a career change which I always dreamt for. Since, I haven't explored all the features of the phone yet and did not have enough to time to assemble my SLR on the middle of the road, I could not make complete justice to the picture but honestly the view was a feast to anyone's eyes.

I drove till Rolla, Missouri by 6PM with just a couple of fuel breaks and while sipping Gatorade. I thought of having a heavy Indian lunch but when I called up my friends who were grad students at Rolla for suggestions on a good Indian restaurant, they mentioned that Rolla doesen't have any. I was shocked considering the number and the plight of the Indian students at the University. I went into Starbucks and ate some junk food and bought some fruits for the night in the store beside. Then started hunting for a cheap but decently reviewed motel. I pinned on one and finally went to bed by about 10 PM after chatting with my mom and reporting my well-being.

I then started by 6 AM on Monday and reached Chicago by mid-day, again skipping lunch. I love sipping the Vanilla Mc Shake while on long drives and considering its calorie count, I don't feel lunch necessary :).

After reaching the suburbs of Chicago, I stopped again by another Starbucks and started browsing on my housing alternatives which I researched from Austin. Thanks to their free internet incentive, I would never have stepped into any Starbucks store if not for the incentive as I don't consume coffee.

After checking a couple of options, I visited downtown and after unloading my luggage at Avi's place. I parked my car on the road based on my friend's suggestion and here comes the twist. Next morning, my first day in Chicago, I was welcomed by the city by towing away my car. I had to pay $180 and the cost for the cab to get there to free my car.

Most people who know me would know that I would be distraught after getting my car towed away. But, thanks to my new found skill I was practicing, I was rather happy to pay the fee. Don't judge me by thinking something is wrong with me. The skill is to practice "Stitha Pragnyatha" - The art of being unperturbed by emotions be it happiness or sadness.

Thus, I bid adieu to my home after home (Austin) after staying there for close to four years of my life. More importantly, its the quality of the four years and the unforgettable things that I have learnt here that matter rather than the quantity.

A trip to Niagara Falls (July 2011)

On Friday, July 1st 2011, I rented a car from enterprise and was lucky to get a new sedan with just about 100 miles on the odometer. I picked up MJ and Tanu and then we hit the long weekend traffic and reached Neha's place. We picked Avi and Neha at her place and then started for a memorable and my probably first exclusive road trip to Niagara.

The GPS was fed and we were on our way. I was driving and MJ was my navigator. We started up with a fun game in which one player thinks of a famous personality and the remaining can ask upto ten questions to identify the personality and the answers from the player could be nothing other than a 'Yes' or a 'No'. I thought of Tantia Tope (freedom fighter from the first war of independence) and was caught by the 6th round. I cannot recollect what Avi thought of but he did win as we could not crack it.

Meanwhile, while we were engrossed in the excitement and the game, we missed an exit and did not bother much as the GPS re-directed its path. But sooner than later we found that we were going to Niagara via Canada and thus had to change course which added an hour more to our destination.

We stopped by a junk food store for a quick dinner by 11:30 PM. The funny part is that I ended up eating salad at a junk restaurant which seemed like the only option for a veggie. MJ took over the wheel and Tanu being her navigator drove till the wee hours of morning. We saw signs of a 'Mustang' driver initially but was smooth enough later for me to have a quick 30 min nap. By early morning, Avi took over and I navigated him and we reached Niagara by close to 7 AM. We were able to see the rising mist on our way.

After driving for the whole night, it was time for us to freshen up. We had a quick and a quite good Indian breakfast at an Indian restaurant which was actually a small truck. We then went to the visitor's center got our tickets and then decided that we would visit "Maid of the Mist" and "Cave of the Winds" before retiring to our hotel.

I took some pictures with my SLR before the Niagara falls and then headed towards the "Maid of the Mist" . I did not dare to open my SLR before it but caught a snap and a video from my iPhone. I haven't seen anything more beautiful, anything so gigantic and roaring with ferocity but yet pleasant.

We were all excited to witness this marvelous wonder of the nature. After taking some more photographs we then went ahead to the 'Cave of the Winds'. Here, we went to the top most location and stood directly under the falls and were completely drenched. The hot summer dried us in no time and we took the bus to visit all the remaining views of the falls.

We were all tired with the lack of food and sleep. So, we decided to have lunch at one of the Punjabi restaurant. We had a sumptuous lunch and everyone was so sleepy now that no one volunteered to drive to the hotel. Seeing the state of my friends, I decided to drive but I was equally tired after just sleeping for about thirty minutes last night. Neha was navigating me and as assumed everyone was fast asleep within a couple of minutes. Neha, being my navigator held her sleep for sometime but not for long. Here comes the scary part, soon my eyes were closing so much that I could concentrate on only one thing i.e., the car in front of me. I was sure I would not crash into it but was no way keeping the eyes on the route to take. I missed a few exits and turns but thanks to my driving skills, I brought everyone safely to the hotel.

Avi, MJ and I shared a room while Tanu and Neha were in the adjacent room. We took a quick shower hit the bed so hard that we didn't know the world until the alarm rang at 6PM. We decided to take an other look at 'The Niagara' in the lights and as it was not very exciting we left the place for some fireworks organized by the Casino. We parked our car in a ground and I set up my tripod and my SLR camera waiting for the fireworks to begin.

We then had our dinner and then left for the Casino. This was the first time, I entered a Casino. Though, I did not like the ambience of the place surrounded with the smoke from cigars and alcohol, it was a good experience to see Neha play. Ofcourse, I was a mere spectator, partly because I was from old school of thought who thinks not to invest money in gambling and partly because I'm miser enough to give away my money to someone (Odds are always in favor of Casino).

 We retired to our beds by about 3 AM and finally had a good sleep till 9 in the morning. Then we started to think of our plans for Sunday. After a quick research on the web, I found that the famous Pittsburgh Venkatachalam temple is not very far. After searching on the map, we found it was on our way back to Chicago with a very slight deviation. Everyone nodded with the plan, so we decided that we would have a quick breakfast in some Subway and then have our lunch at the temple canteen and the famous Udipi restaurant near the temple. We also decided on meeting a mutual friend of ours, Prasad alias Rapdas in Columbus and then thought of having our dinner at 'The Dosa Place' in Columbus, Ohio. Rapdas was soon leaving US to pursue his Phd at the 'London Business School'. He was my senior at my grad school and we shared good compatibility during his six month stay in Austin.

We went to the Pittsburgh temple and after offering our prayers, we had a good lunch at the temple canteen. We were too full to go eat at Udipi and so we just had some Mango Lassi, Coffee there and then started for Columbus at 6 PM. Since, it was already late on our schedule, it was late for 'The Dosa Place'. We reached Columbus by 9:30 PM and stopped by Rapdas' place. He then took us to a Mexican place for dinner. I struggled to finish my dinner as my stomach was already full to start with. We then bid adieu to him and started back on our road trip to Chicago and were all back to our mundane responsibilities preparing for the weekday next. However, the wonderful memory in our minds will never be erased.....

A trip to CA... (Jul 4th, 2010)

Again trying to dig into a few old and sweet memories before letting them escape. So, jotting down in April 2012.

This is by far the most enjoyable trip. After learning my lessons from the 'Trip to Orlando', I understood that more than the place, the people make the trip memorable and have decided to choose my travelers carefully.

This time I was invited by one of my very few best friends. Praveen to visit CA since it was about 2 years since we last met.

To give you a brief intro about Praveen, he was my school mate where I knew him as an acquaintance and was one among many friends. But, our friendship grew as we lived in the same neighborhood and both of us joined CBIT in different departments. He slowly became my friend, philosopher and guide. Soon, we spent almost all our free times together, traveled together to college (almost 4 hrs a day), prepared for competitive exams CAT, GRE, TOEFL together, used to play cricket and soccer in the corridors, ping-pong on dining tables, infact we played chess together and defeated the computer for the first time, which built so much confidence in me that I ended up playing for the college team in a few months. I knew him inside out and so did he.

Now, getting an invite from him to visit CA was irresistible and I knew that we belong to the same psychological frequencies and so would not face any issues I faced in my last trip to Orlando. I happily accepted the trip to CA.

Luckily, for the first time, my flight was on time and I reached Los Angeles. Praveen along with three of his friends drove all the way from Tempe, AZ to Los Angeles and picked me up from the airport. We all then drove to Six Flags Magic Mountain Park. Bought our tickets using some student discounts and employee discounts and then the adventure begins......Rides and Roller Coasters all along....

We covered all the MAX thrill rides which meant the scariest ones. However, the most precarious one was Goliath. It takes us about 300 feet high and drops us a speed of 85 mph into a tunnel 120 ft below ground level. Its ferocity multiplies as the harness is only at the abdomen and not for the torso.

After finishing the day with rides, the special attraction of the Magic Mountain awaited us, 'X2'. We had to stand in the queue for almost 2 hours but the anxiousness coupled with few kissing couples and other mundane surroundings passed the time. Its strange that South Indians have to make an analogy with Tirumala whenever a queue of such magnitude is visible :)

The ride lived up to its expectations which states, "State-of-the-art visual, audio, and sensory effects move X from the 4th dimension to the 5th as it transforms into X2!".


We drove to Long Beach after the adventurous day. Closing the eyes in the car meant sitting back on a roller coaster again. We had a quick dinner and stopped at Long Beach. My junior from CBIT provided us accommodation and we troubled them late in the night as it was close to midnight by the time we reached their place. We slept over and then started for the new day of adventure.

We started for the Malibu temple located in the Santa Monica mountains. The temple was beautiful and the scenery was mind blowing.

We then visited the Santa Monica Beach and drove all the way to San Diego and retired for the day.

The new day started with Sea World and all that I missed in Orlando's Sea World was covered here. The  Killer Whale Shamu as always stole the show and the act by Dolphins was no less.

After Sea world, we decided to have more fun as there was some time left for sunset. So, we decided to try out jet-skiing and here starts the adventure.

I and Praveen rented out a jet-ski and started out in the middle of the Pacific ocean. There were lot of weeds in the ocean and we were told that we might need to get into the water and remove the weed from under the ski if it gets in. Praveen started riding it and I was with him in the pillion seat. After few minutes, the weed got in and I was too scared to get into the water with my bare minimum swimming skills. With no choice left, Praveen himself got into the water and removed the weeds and got back. After a few minutes, he was riding close to 40 mph and sitting back with the waves of the Pacific ocean, I had no choice but to hold him. Suddenly, his hands slipped from the handle and both of us flew into the ocean with me having no idea about what was happening. Before, I could sense anything I was atleast 2 meters under water and for a split second was wondering if I would float and live or drown and die. The life vest was good enough to help me float and I swam to the jet ski and got onto it. I did not get a hang of the jet ski as I was going in circles and creating a whirlpool around us (However, I mastered it back in Austin and now ride at speeds no less than the max. possible speed a jet ski can withstand - 55 to 60 mph).

After the adventurous day, the next day was meant for Universal Studios. We reached early and visited most of the rides before the crowd started building up. The main attractions were the hollywood sets and an act made by TV actors (snaps below). The act looked so realistic and with no 2nd takes. It was a fitting finale.

I bid my adios to the beautiful city and my friends and left for the mundane week ahead.

The best part of the trip was that we were five people and still punctual enough to leave the hotel rooms between 6 to 8 AM. This was by far the best vacation I had ever spent.

A memorial day trip to Orlando (2010)

Yes, I visited Orlando in 2010 but jotting it down in April of 2012. A test to my memory but better do it now before it vanishes completely into thin air...

After struggling through my Masters and not having stepped out of Texas, I was eager to visit some darn place and was just waiting for an invitation from someone to tag along. During these moments, Sharath, my friend from CBIT, asked me to join him for a trip to Orlando during the memorial day weekend. I was excited but all the excitement was shortlived looking at the ticket fares. It was just two days before memorial day and the price of the air fare was more than half the fare to India. It took him some convincing from my friend and finally I chose happiness over $$$.

The plan was laid out and the places to visit were discussed. I must say, Sharath did a good job digging out  craigslist to find entry tickets to theme parks for half the price and with zero risk as we had the option of paying the vendor after the entry into the themepark.

Now its time to go!!! Yay!!! But......

Nothing unusual, god always tests my patience, the flight was delayed by close to five hours which means one day out of the 2.5 days trip is already lost :-(

Accepting the fate, I took the flight and reached at about 6:30 PM in Orlando. Sharath along with his room mate drove from Jacksonville in Florida. They picked me up at Orlando and we all drove to the Sea World. The first place, they took me was to a roller coaster known as "Manta". If you speak Telugu then you know what it means :D. The closest I've been to a roller coaster till date was the 'Merry Columbus' ship in India. It sways up and down along its center to emulate riding on huge waves. Anyway, back to 'Manta', this one is in a completely different league. It overturns the chairs into a 90 degree angle such that your face faces the floor and then rides along the loopy, curvy and topsy-turvy path. After successfully finishing the ride, we moved along to a Shamu show. The killer whale is a show stealer. Calling it a day, we moved to a restaurant and had a sumptuous meal and there is the first surprise in store for me.

As I haven't traveled much, its imperative that I am a bad planner. I just learnt that we did not have a place to stay. So, after some inquiries in the restaurant, we were given an address which supposedly would be our place to stay. However, the GPS asks us to take an exit left of the freeway where there isn't one and we tried and tried to fish the address resulting in going through the same path for six times before giving up and then moved to a different place and parked our car and started doing Market Research at 1 AM in the night to find the cheapest and decent place which can accommodate three of us.
We found one and our hero Sharath started driving on the left side of a road with a huge median. Luckily, since it was mid-night we escaped unscathed. He just drove into the nearest driveway when I mentioned it to him coolly that he was driving on the left side of the road.

We slept, got up a little late and then had to go to Walmart and buy few things and then had a quick breakfast. It was already 12 noon and my impatience was rising by the minute as the money paid at the theme park was not being optimized/utilized to the maximum. It started raining and we also realized that we did not have print outs of the entry tickets but have them in the email. After trying and trying, and the nearest fedex being few miles away, we decided to try it with the barcode numbers.

We parked our car and went in with the barcode numbers and they were accepted. Finally, it was 2PM by the time we entered the "Island of Adeventure", a theme park of universal. It was a day of exotic rides. We pretty much tried every single scary ride after buying the gold pass we could skip most of the lines. After having fun, we returned to our parking space thinking about the plans for the night. We then realized the 2nd surprise in store for us.

We forgot the place where we parked our car in the confusion and anxiousness of working the tickets with barcode numbers instead of the print outs. After trying to fish around for more than 30 minutes, we asked a parking attendant and he was kind enough to help us by asking the time when we entered the park and then directing us to the lot where we have parked the car.

We then watched a movie and returned to our base after another sumptuous dinner. Now at about 11 PM, Sharath wanted to go to a Beach which is about 80 miles away from Orlando. His room-mate nicely scrapped the idea and returned to bed. However, the typical me who wants to extract the maximum out of anything nodded but then was skeptical looking at the secondary plans he had. However, looking at his reaction, I agreed and after driving for about 40 miles, we realized it would be stupid to try this out and our plans next day would be ruined on executing this impromptu. Hence, we decided to turn back.

As usual, we woke up late and Sharath always makes sure he would be last to wake up such that he can get the maximum amount of sleep. I knew him from the college days, he was my roomie during our North India tour.

It was about 12:30 PM by the time we entered 'EPCOT', a theme park in Disney. I was really furious by this time as I have a flight to catch at 4:30 PM and the entry ticket is close to $100, which means I just had close to three hours. This invigorated a petty argument between me and Sharath and it was kind of him to ask me what he needs to do now even amidst the argument. Not knowing what to ask, I asked him to reduce the time on photography and try to cover the utmost possible. He agreed and we tried out our best to cover the majority of the theme park but definitely not the entire park.

He then dropped me at the airport and I flew back to Austin with some good memories and an unforgivable argument being the scar of the tour.

The lesson learnt is that we were people of two different attitudes, one carefree and the other always  looking for 'bang for the buck'. It takes just a moment of uncontrollable emotion to scar a beautiful and memorable trip.