A unique American-Indian connection !

"The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of America. The lyrics come from a poem written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key, a then 35-year-old amateur poet who wrote a poem titled "Defence of Fort McHenry" after seeing the bombardment of Fort McHenry at Baltimore, Maryland, by Royal Navy ships in Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812.

So what is the Indian connection ?,you might ask. Hang on.
the fifth & sixth lines of the Anthem reads...

And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

The rockets that Francis Scott saw were the Congreve Rockets , well known to be inspired by Tipu Sultan's rockets which he used against the British. The wikipedia entry says that several specimens of Tipu's rockets were in fact sent to England for study & the design was improved upon. Interesting piece of trivia ..right ?

6 Months in the United States...Part 2

Even before I arrived in the US , I had read about materialism & Individualism being two major traits of the American society. Individualism, Yes. It's one of the core pillars , I believe, on which the American society rests. To put it bluntly, people believe in minding their own business and would appreciate it to a large extent if you too did the same. Privacy laws are pretty stringent in the US and that's just reflective of the Society. Having said that, Americans can be pretty fun loving people to socialise & mingle with; provided you know very well where to draw the lines.

But an interesting observation in such an individualistic society is lack of Corruption. 8 months in this country and I haven't seen any instance of corruption happening anywhere before me publicly. That's something I believe one needs to appreciate Americans for, for they always put the society/community above one's own self interests. To a large extent, American materialism is not blind enough to make money through whatever way possible. Make money; but through legal & ethical means.

'Dignity of labour' is another trait which I liked here. A person is respected immaterial of the work he does. All work is deemed important by the society & moreover anyone doing any Job is proud of the work he does. You can find people saying ' I am a plumber' with the same facial expression with which you see an Indian 25 something saying ' I am a software Engineer' :)

Finally I believe 'respect for merit' is what helped America reach the heights which it has attained today. No one shies away from appreciating you if you do something nice. Everyone values the job you are doing. Building a meritocracy is what most American firms are well known for. This attitude, I believe also delivers effectively in helping build a largely non discriminatory workplace.

Off beat shots from the New York trip.

Fresh from a New York trip that left me both amazed & amused, here are some random shots that I took during the 2 day walkathonin Manhattan. It was America's Independence day on July 4th and I did catch some pics of the firework display over the Hudson river too.

Pic 1 : Thanks to my friend Abhilash who pointed me to this one. It's a windows error on a giant screen on Times square .Just how omnipresent these bugs are :) Forgive me for the pic's clarity,I took this one sitting inside the car.













Pic 2 :Open an eatery which sells Indian & Pakistani food and call it Kashmir !!!














































Pic 3 :Buddha govt in West Bengal thought handrickshaws were inhuman & phased them out. NY still runs it's share of Cycle rickshaws though.

Pic 4 : One thing that most Indian cities lack - The manhole cover. Was pleasantly surprised to see that most of the NY sewerage system manhole covers were made in India though. And it seems the company that makes them is doing a bit of overbranding effort with the 'Made in India' tag.
A little reserach on it on the net led me to this article which was heartening to read.

6 months in the United States ...Part 1

It has actually been around eight months over here but my plain lethargy postponed this post by a good two more months. I have been blogging less over the past couple of months owing to more or less the same reason & a broken computer. Add to it the arrival of summer in US which made me available more to activities outdoor than staying stuck with the laptop.

The first six months have been rather uneventful.I guess I would have been writing the same even if I had stayed here for six full years. You would call life eventful when you get thrown to lots of challenges and surprises everyday. Dont't expect that to happen here.

Life is America is strangely repetitive and it stays so unless one makes a conscious effort to get over it. The Winters towards the northern states can make you feel pathetic with one having to stay indoors for a good part of the day.
I seriously can't imagine how tough life would have been in the absence of room heating during those pre-electricity days in these parts of the world.

Public transportation sucks big time.Take it from me, you can travel hours on the roads here and still not spot a long distance bus. At least in places that are at a distance from those big cities, transportation is almost absent .Now compare that with Kerala where you invariably see the next bus tailing behind your own one on the same route,on any given journey.

And yes, Mortgage crisis + Recession fears + High fuel prices (The common buzzwords over here these days)aren't making life any better.

Don't get me wrong, I am not cribbing about life here or demotivating you if you have your bags packed & are in the process of getting shipped here.People who prefer painting a morbid image of this country can borrow heavily from these factors. Though most of them are indeed true, they don't leave me one bit less amazed/dazzled from the greatness that's called America.

Respect for People :
This is one trait that would help stand this country in a good shape for years & years to come. For all those who say that this country has passed all it's good years, you couldn't be more wrong.Respect for merit & a largely non-hierarchical structure of society would help it tide over any small to medium level crisis. Remember that frequent 'Get your fundamentals right' missive from your Math teacher in school ? I would say any society which knows to respect people has got it's fundamentals right to a very fair degree.

Having come from India where we are strictly reprimanded for talking to strangers, the 'Hi,how are you doing' culture here was a welcome change. The gut instinct with strangers was always to look the other way while in India. I hope people don't start misunderstanding me when I smile at them in elevators when I get back home post this American stint. It's a nice trait to replicate anyways. How true that my mom always tells me that we believe in borrowing only the worst the western culture has to offer. Such good habits never crossed even the Atlantic ocean, leave alone reaching India.

A nice highway system:
Even though I hate the lack of an effective public transportation system, the highway system receives a 9.5/10 from me. The never ending roads seem to be so well planned and laid out that it definitely makes an entry in the 'pluses' list for America.

The 'order' that seems to be everywhere:
I flew almost 2 hours from my place to reach another place called Rochester in another state of this country. Now in India if you do such a thing, it would take you quite a while to get adjusted to the systems & practices there. But with America, you step out of the Airport and you again start feeling at home ( Your American home that is !!! ) . The order and similarity of certain processes & practices amaze me even though most of them were set up in the pre-internet era.