About

I  immigrated to the US in 1983 from India.  I feel that I have been here long enough to not be  called FOB (Fresh-off-the-Boat) by my kids. But I guess they seem to have some other standards which involve pronouncing words like “vote” ,”video”, and “vending” properly – which I guess I will never achieve (because of my 21 years in India) – so I am going to pass myself as that Indian with an “exotic” accent!!

My interests :

writing – Just realized that most of my work so far has been nostalgia-centric. I enjoy this genre and feel it’s a never-ending well that I can  draw from. As a matter of fact, this right here is fresh nostalgia for 10 years down the road!! (-:

golf – I am terrible at it and it’s a damn frustrating game, but I still love it (“painful pleasure”). One of these days I will actually take lessons  so that I won’t embarrass myself too much on the golf course.  As long as there are golf courses around here (with low standards) that would allow me to play – I will play and enjoy golf!!

tv –  I love “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart , “Colbert Nation” with Stephen Colbert and “Real Time with Bill Maher”.  These shows are brilliant and they probably have the best writers in the business.   On The Daily Show – my favorites are John Oliver and Aasif Mandvi along with some vintage Colbert doing the  “This Week in God” segment.

music –  I am a huge fan of Shakti (John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain, Vinayakram, L. Shankar) as well as their later avatar – “Remember Shakti” (John McLaughlin, Zakir Hussain, Selva Ganesh, Mandolin Sreenivas, Shankar Mahadevan). Thoroughly enjoyed the two live concerts that I attended of this fusion group. I enjoy Hindustani and Carnatic classical instrumental music.

youtube –  YouTube has an unbelievable amount of entertainment (as well as knowledge database)  from which you can draw your specific narrow niche!! In my case  – these areas happen to be – Street foods from various parts of the world, Indian classical music, debates about religion & belief, Indian classical music played by non-Indians (e.g. Ukrainians doing wonderful Bharatanatyam, a French lady performing amazingly  in a Carnatic music concert, a Chinese lady teaching Bharatanatyam in China, a Korean lady playing tabla etc. )