Chronicles of Florida (part 2)

Miami
Miami didn’t really live up to expectations – it was like any other big city. We spent the day at the beach, and the evening was mostly pub hopping. Nothing great – it was like the downtown of any other city. I chanced upon this Latin girl in one of the pubs. Venezuelan by birth, her family had moved to Miami when she was 8. Funny part was that everything she said, she would repeat in gestures… something like the ‘badheeron ke liye samachaar’ (news for the deaf) we have in DD. Went to sleep in the car at around 4.

Drive to KeyWest
Woke up at around 8 – and started the drive to KeyWest. This drive clearly stands out as the best piece of the tour. KeyWest is the southern most tip of the United States. It is the last of a series of small islands. There is a highway connecting all these islands to mainland Florida, over the Atlantic. That’s the point – you don’t cite limitations for not being able to do things… limitations can be overcome – through innovation!! Another example: University of Texas is a 40 acre campus. That’s all of the space they could manage in downtown Austin. But that doesn’t stop it from educating more students than any other place in this country (over 50k students) – and it has an infra to support that. To give you an idea, it is 25 times smaller than IITK, and educates 10 times as many students!

KeyWest
KeyWest is like Goa. A very small town, but with a character of its own. There is something in the air there that makes you feel good. We took a cruise on a glassbottom boat to the coral reef, which is a further 10 miles into the Atlantic. That was educational. The cruise guide gave so much gyaan on everything from KeyWest to corals. It was fascinating to see a shallow region 8-miles into the ocean. On the return sail to land, we saw the sunset – the sun sinking into the ocean is quite a sight!

There were a lot of live shows going on at the dockyard. Particularly interesting was the stand-up comedian/magician. I made the mistake of clicking a photograph of his… the eyes and the smile in the picture below say it all!!


Drive Back
We started the drive back to Orlando at half past ten on Sunday night. Both of us were very sleepy – and Bau had to get to office at 9 the next day. So we drove (well, Bau drove). And when we could no longer control the sleep, we would pull over (‘gaadi kheechna’, as we would call it) and do the ‘power nap’. We did the 460 mile drive with just two such power naps of 30-minutes each (ok the second one lasted for almost an hour). By the time we reached Orlando, it was close to 6… needless to say we simply crashed.

Universal Studios and Skydiving
Woke up at around 11. Dressed quickly, returned the rental car… and Bau dropped me at Universal Studios – the theme park. By the time I got my tickets, it was almost 2. That place is huge… there is no way one can cover it all in a week – leave alone the few hours I had. There are two sections of the park – Studios and Island of Adventure. Studio is more see and observe… Island of adventure is more experience based, rides etc. In order to make the most of it, I was on the phone with Bau… asking him what shows to see and which rides to do. I loved the ‘Shrek’ 4-D movie experience, and the ‘Hulk’ ride. And yes, I participated in the elimination round of ‘Fear Factor’. Needless to say, I was eliminated!!

Evening, we managed a quick dinner and went to this place for skydiving. It was artificial skydiving. You jump into a tunnel where they blow air at 120mph, and you get suspended in air. This is when I learnt: it is not easy to maneuver yourself when you are free falling!! But it was good fun – another experience!! By the time we were back home… it was almost midnight, and we slept.

Miami..


Sunset off KeyWest

Random Thoughts

For the first time since I landed in the US, I felt the chill – in more than more sense of the word. It is very cold here these days.

Ravi and I were driving around Austin – he was showing me places that he had stayed in while he was here. Suddenly a thought struck me – what is the fundamental difference between India and the US that US is considered a first world country, and India still a developing country. Why don’t we have the infrastructure as the US? Why are there more innovations here than in India (infact the rest of the world put together)?

Some of the common reasons given are:

1. ‘US is a young country… it had the benefit of starting on a clean slate’.
So is India? We gained independence only about 60 years back. Why couldn’t we move along as the US did some 100 years back? There are reasons like population, mindset, political will etc. etc. My question is a more fundamental one. There are humans here, and humans there. Why the disparity? It is not that some other specie lives here… it is all humans… and no animal has ever built a city! What distinguishes humans from animals is intelligence. What was it about the humans in this geography that they could make such a planned country – and make life such comfortable for everyone? No one will ever buy the argument that humans on this geography are more intelligent that the ones there – for that matter that humans here are superior to the ones there in any respect.

2. ‘We have a long history, and have been carrying a lot of legacy… which makes it difficult to implement anything’.
The example that comes to my mind is Greece – it is just as old (ok, somewhere close). And from what I gathered about Greece from the airport, and looking down from the airplane… it is no less than any developed country.

3. ‘We have so many people…’
I don’t buy the argument about the large population. More humans = more intelligence = more innovation = much more developed country. I strongly believe that a random sample of humans at any particular geography is representative of the intelligence of the species… infact, it should be a representative sample of average level of all skills. Environment determines the dominance of one attribute over the other… but really, most of the difference between the US and India is stuff that humans have created. Nature is just the same.

Even as we realize it now, that we need the basic infrastructure (soft and hard), what prevents us from going and getting it done? It may be said that we don’t have that kind of land to build as huge roads… but then that is a constraint that we need to work under… and innovate around it.

These thoughts beat me… I fail to understand.

What really bothers me is that at this point in time in life, I am exactly like India was in 1947 – at a decision node. Life is like a binary tree. At every point in time we are at a decision node. The decision that we take here will determine where we end up.

I don’t want to be looking back at my life some 50 years down the line and start asking… where did I go wrong? The silver lining is that every moment in life can be made a decision node. Waiting for a decision node to happen doesn’t take us anywhere…we are leaving too much to chance!!

Chronicles of Florida (part 1)

The Bauzee, the spring break party and the drive to Miami

Arriving at Orlando
I landed in Orlando at around 11 on Friday morning. Orlando is different from all other places that I have seen in the US - there are so many water bodies across the city, and all around it, that give the place a blue and green landscape.

Bau was there to pick me. Bauzee, as we all fondly called him, was with me at IIT. Incidentally we never met after IIT – a good 4 years… but nothing seemed to have changed. I was waiting at the departure area, while Bau was trying to locate me in the arrival area. And all the time I was wondering why people seem to be only leaving Orlando… and for some reason, no one has come to receive anyone (and was beginning to feel special for a while)… till I realized that it was just me!!

We went to a nice Thai restaurant for lunch, whereafter, Bau dropped me home, and went off to office. He had asked me to download directions for some must-see places around Miami and Keywest… all I could manage was falling asleep.

Friday Night at Daytona
Evening we drove off to Daytona, which is around 60 miles from Orlando. The streets there were packed… end-to-end… roads with cars, and sidewalks with people – spring breakers, to be precise. Finding a parking space was a pain – and we were plain lucky to find a public parking space within 30 odd minutes.

Now I had heard so much about ‘Spring Breaks’ in the US that I really wanted to know what the halla was all about. I think it turned out to be far more than what I had imagined. It was wild, to say the least and I would never use the word ‘wild’ for anything that I have seen or done in my life, and I don’t think the term ‘wild’ should be used for anything anywhere in India (atleast of what I have seen). Full of college crowd, the place went nasty as we progressed into the night. And then there was this concept of beads… For some reason, the party lasted only till 2.

Anyways, we walked along the beach for another hour or so… and reached home around 4, and by the time we slept it was almost 5 – we had plans to start the drive to Miami no later than 7 in the morning, to ensure we make it there well before noon.

Drive to Miami
Woke up at around 8:30… by the time we were ready with the packing etc… it was almost 10. Then we took off. There is something special about driving in the US. The smooth roads help you enjoy the ride through the green and blue picturesque countryside. You don’t feel any roughness even on hitting 100 mph. Ohhh yes… we had bought a police gun detector from Walmart the evening before. It is supposed to detect the presence of traffic cops… so that you can slow down, and avoid getting speeding tickets – which is an unnecessary expense of $130-$200 (depending on how much you exceed the speed limit by - the speed limit being nice ly and clearly specified for every part of the highway). The idea was to return the detector to Walmart after the trip… :-p

We covered the 300 miles to Miami in about 5 hours.

Austin Music Awards at SXSW

Today I went over to the Austin Music Awards at SXSW. I was the guest of two award winners –Eric Johnson and this woman. This woman won an award for designing some cover of a music album… and Eric Johnson… well I learnt today that he is one of those hot-shots in music. My lack of music knowledge din’t help. I mean, almost everyone around knew him, and he got a huge cheer when he came on stage – and here I was… guy trying to introduce me to some people – and people strangely wondering what I was doing there. He won a couple of awards… he has won so many of them that he din’t really care – to the extent that he dint know what he was getting the awards for!! Check out www.ericjohnson.com. How I got to know them? Well... that’s a long story – in summary, the joys of traveling! He is scheduled to play with Joe Satriani this month. Folks are touring the world in the next two months or so.

Anyways, I entered the award winner’s section – got a batch and moved to the common area so I could see the performances etc. Loved the music. One of the bands that played was made up of really old people… they played some of the music that sounded familiar… think I’ve heard Bappi Lahiri or Anu Malik versions of them. Also, this band played the ‘Tequila’… the twist song. Loved it.

Now I know why Austin is known for its music. The Austin Music Hall (that’s where the function was) was packed – and they all seemed to love their music. Some interesting awards were – ‘none of the above’ category – guys who were good but dint really win anything; youth group – a bunch of teenagers who had their music album… I mean there were zillions of awards. One of the guys made an acceptance speech to the effect that he was one of those street side guys hanging out with a guitar, until he was picked by the group. Yep – walk along the downtown area, and there are so many people working on the strings. Yes, Austin is the town of live music.

Btw: SXSW is South-by-South West – Austin’s music and movie festival.

Skydiving

I jumped off a plane today.
The nervous energy was laid well to sleep last week… literally.

I was to jump in the second shift. The plane was a single-seater. Yep – there was only one seat in the plane – the pilot's. Everyone else sat on the floor. Four people could just about manage to cramp into the small space behind the pilots seat. This plane would take off, drop a set of people, come back and the process would continue throughout the day.

In my flight, there were four other people. The guy who was going to tandem jump with me, the cameraman (yep, I opted for the video… that is another story), who would shoot me falling, a Mexican guy who was going to jump off on his own, and of course the pilot.

The flight to 10000 ft was pretty much a first of its kind for me– I mean how many times does one sit on a plane in which if a guy feels hot, simply asks the pilot to open the window… and the pilot obliges. The plane was all shaky… seemed like some passenger train in rural India. I noticed that, of the five in the plane, I was the only one without a parachute. Yep – even the pilot had a chute – gives you an idea on how much they trusted their vehicle. And then all sorts of thoughts began to cross my mind – what if this tandem guy didn’t get the harnesses properly – the one that attaches the two of us - so that I can piggyback on his chute. I mean, I had sort of picked a minor argument with them last week when they refused to return my money (for bad weather) – and the lady I had picked up the argument with was the one who actually got me all strapped up – and I had not seen her strapping anyone else… mebbe she just wanted to make sure… how low could people actually stoop for settling equations… clearly, life is worth far more than $250 – for once, I din’t know what to regret more – picking up the argument or deciding to come back and jump for the sake of $250.

Finally, the door of the plane opened (as if the window wasn’t huge enough for us to leap out). The Mexican guy took a step and leaped out in a flash. I slided towards the door to lean out of the plane - both feet hanging. At this point, the video guy said something, which obviously I dint hear. Before I could realize, I was off the plane. The next 60 seconds or thereabout, are beyond words. My mind wasn't working. I could see the video guy – I waved to him – we kind of shook hands in mid-air… and continued falling… and then the parachute opened around the time I realized I was free-falling. (The scare wasnt really there, coz I could hardly see anything specific on the ground.) Spent another 5-6 minutes in the air floating. I asked the tandem guy to do some tricks… and he obliged. That was fun.

Unfortunately, the video that I had paid for failed at the time it was supposed to shoot me in mid-air. I got a refund… and whatever of the video that was captured (it has the moment when I jump off the plane… for free… I don’t think I can complain!!).

Some trivia:

While I was waiting, I met a guy who was into his fourth jump. He said… ‘Man, this jump will change you life… it is unlike and beyond anything you might have done in your life’ – I think, he was right!

I realized that I have a very difficult name. While waiting for my turn, I made friends with a 4-yr old girl (like I have said before, American kids are cute – they don’t irritate… and are usually on their own). For the want of something better to do, we played a weird form of hide-and-seek. She would tell me that she was going to hide behind ‘that tree’… and asked me to close my eyes… and I open my eyes to find her hiding behind exactly that tree… and as one of Tinaz fwd said, when you play with children, let them win… I would hover around the tree for a couple of minutes and give up on finding her. Anyways, that was not the trivia… Crystal (that was her name) would ask me my name every once in a while… and no matter how hard she tried, she just din’t seem to get it… after calling me weird names (which she believed were variations of what my name was) for some time, she gave up and simply called me sir!!

The Mexican guy on the plane was on his 124th jump. He has been jumping for the last 5 years. He drives down from Mexico – a 9-hour drive, one way – and takes 2 jumps on every visit. So you can do the math to figure out what thrill he must be deriving out of the free fall!!


... like I said... this is how nervous I was


Plane that I jumped off


at the door... ready to jump


In air...

Dinner at Justin's

Justin invited me for dinner at his place yesterday. He is a colleague at work.

I learnt a couple of things yesterday. Americans are a passionate lot, and take good care of whatever they have. Firstly, their house. It was a four-bedroom set, over two floors, with large open space in front, as well as the back. Considering that he passed out of Harvard Business School around the same time I did from ISB, and probably has a much bigger loan than I do, I was surprised that he dared to buy such a house... and a sports car to go with it. But there... that is consumerism.

He lives with his girlfriend, who is a Peruvian - from Lima, and speaks Spanish ( I din't know that they spoke Spanish in Peru!!). Besides being very pretty, she cooked a fine meal - amongst the finest food I have had in the US. The best part was, after the food was ready, she took five minutes to explain what each dish was, how it was cooked, and what makes it special. I think I ate as much as both of them together.

They are planning to get a dog (they already have a cat called Tiger) - and they have all the infra ready. A big cage, different kids of dog straps, comb, food bowls, and God knows what. The interesting bit was the toe nail clipper for dogs :-)). Goes back to the point I made some time back about these guys doing whatever they do, even if it is keeping a pet, with so much passion and science - something to be learnt!!

Ohhh... Justin told me about one section mate of his at Harvard, whose ambition was to become the Prime Minister of India. Once when they were asked to write an essay on work-life balance, he said that he cannot have work-life balance because he needs to take care of an entire nation - which is a 24 hr job. Now, that is what I call thinking BIG!!

Overall good fun - and yes, these guys seemed to have traveled half the world as well!!

First attempt at jumping off a plane

Today was my first attempt at jumping out of a plane. The place was called Lexington, around 55 miles from where I live in Austin.

The drive to Lexington was good. Texas countryside is blank – absolutely blank. No people, no houses, no animals, not even trees. There are just smooth gray roads running through the yellow-green none-so-dense vegetation. I loved the drive.

Once in a while I saw cow farms. The cows here are fat and healthy, and not skinny as in India. The reason is simple; they are bred to be eaten. The amount of food these cows eat can feed a handful of people for their entire lifetime. The economics of cow farming would be interesting to study!!

Got a scare on the way – the first of its kind. There was this intersection that I was supposed to take a left at. I saw the turn a little too late to brake comfortably. Anyways that was not the problem. While taking the turn, I failed to see a car coming from the other direction. I think it was going at almost 80 miles per hour or thereabout. He managed to swerve around my car – just managing to not crash onto me. The gravity of the potential crash hit me when I heard the long screech and the mark the car left on the road while trying to avoid the crash. Life moves on. That car got onto the gas again and sped off. So did I. It lingered on my mind for some time…

I have been in Austin for now almost two weeks. The weather has been bright and sunny with not a trace of cloud in any of these days. And as Murphy would have it, today was a dark cloudy Sunday.

I signed at various places on the legal document. And then the wait started. Waiting for the clouds to clear. But they did not. Finally, I decided to go back – and the lady there would not refund the money – giving me a ‘jump-voucher’ that I can use anytime in the next two years. Ways people have of locking customers…

So I did not jump today– and maybe that’s why I am here writing. And I am stuck with a lock-in of over $250 – so I guess I don’t have much of a choice but to jump... some other day... sometime soon!!

Saturday evening

Today was a pleasant evening. I went to an Indian restaurant for lunch – and ate enough for two meals. Evening I went to a Starbucks. Now this is like the Barrista on that road near MG road (damn I cant recall the name – I am really bad at names… and I have had quite a few coffees there). There is this open air sitting area right at the junction of two streets. This one is near the University campus – so there is a lot of activity. Lots of students are sitting around, working on their laptops or making notes, or simply discussing stuff. It felt nice to be in an academic environment – or rather it was good to be surrounded by a bunch of young college students. Kids I may call them – college life was so much more fun.

Anyways, spent close to three hours enjoying the mild breeze, listening to music, observing people, and reading about Socrates and Plato.

Socrates was revered by his ‘pupils’, if I can call them thus, for the modesty of his wisdom. He did not claim to have wisdom, only to seek it lovingly. “One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing”. I remember asking our Philosophy instructor, back at IIT, that if one of the greatest philosophers says he knows nothing, then what do we study in Philosophy?

Tomorrow I am going sky-diving. Yes, I am finally going to take the jump. I don’t think the idea has sunk in me completely – I am going to jump off a frikkin plane!! Sounds scary – I think it will hit me when they open that door of the plane. Now that I begin to write about it, I can feel the chill a little… it does kind of get me nervous. What extent people would go to for a little bit of thrill!!

And just in case the parachute doesn’t open, and we don’t get to speak again, I love you all – those that read this. Those that don’t, I love you as well… :-).

Afternoon Drives

These days the weather in Austin is the best I have seen in this lifetime. It is bright, sunny, slightly breezy, cloudless and neither too hot, nor too cold. The weather coupled with the hilly landscape, lush green trees, smooth, empty roads, and absolutely no pollution (sound or air) whatsoever, makes it a driving experience beyond expression in words.

Last two days I was driving around exploring Austin. Around 3 PM, I would walk out of office, onto my car and drive – with no purpose… none whatsoever – all alone. I felt at peace. I would take whatever turns I felt like. Somehow, my sense of direction seems to be taking care of itself, as I have yet to get lost even once. But getting lost is relative – I drive out to explore – if there is a destination in mind, I can get lost. Going way off from where I want to can be termed as getting lost. But not starting with a destination in mind leaves me with no concept of getting lost. It becomes about exploring.

Driving in the absolutely blank roads around Austin with no particular purpose or destination in mind is a very peaceful experience. I feel relaxed and at ease with myself. It refreshes me like no afternoon nap has ever. I have heard so much about road-trips in the US. It is known to liberate. I get a sense of that. I hope to try a longer road trip sometime.

Evening I sat at the poolside. Met two people. First was a Canadian who had come to Austin on work. He owns an IT training company. The other was an Austin resident who was between shifting homes. She works at University of Texas, coordinating with the innovators, corporates and the Government. What was interesting was that both had traveled quite a bit, but never to India, or Asia for that matter. For them anything beyond Europe was all the same. For them, China was a manufacturing center, and India… a call center.

The Canadian guy knew more about India. He made an interesting point on why the US is what it is. The infrastructure here is not only about roads, airports, dams, electricity, and the basics of life taken care of. It is more than that. It is education. It is a mindset for innovation. There are 300 MM people thinking of how to make life better. California does not have the best minds of the world – it, however, has a culture for innovation, of people changing things. No wonder it has produced some of the biggest technology companies of the world!! This cannot be replicated over night. It takes years to build.

But we all agreed that if there is one place you want to be in the next 10 years, then it is India!!