From Cloud Nine

          Bharath gave me two options to choose from as my 25th birthday gift and I chose SKYDIVING! We finally did it today as we didn't get the reservation sooner. And I had to, had to compose this post today itself. I have to mention that I was really very scared and excited at the same time from the moment I chose it. We had booked our slot a month ago. 'Skydiving' by itself says everything and so I didn't want to Google it and get more scared or negative about it so I left everything to my imagination. Not that I had never seen videos or head about other's experiences, but I didn't want to acknowledge to the fact that I chose to jump from a plane soon after entering the 'second quarter' of my lifetime.

          It was 9 in the morning. We were all set to leave and turned the GPS on. It showed that we had an hour and 20 minutes’ drive before we reach the diving point. We saw "The plane" in the sky as we reached and my heart did not stop pounding from that very moment.

          It was time to sign our waiver forms. We had a training session which repeated the fact that there is a fair chance that the dive can turn into a disastrous death and they are not responsible for anything. This part was scarier than the actual skydiving experience. Also the trainer said they have people who have done 9000 to 12000 dives working in there. This gave me some relief although it din't help much to get me out of the nervousness. We had to wait for a while before they announced our names. We entered the diving area through a door that said "No entry without signing waiver forms"! I saw people diligently examining and folding something. I din't pay much attention to what it was then. After the dive I saw that they were folding the parachutes and pushing into the bag for the rounds to come.

          We chose tandem skydiving and it was time to meet our tandem instructor(TI). He helped me wear all the necessary harness. I inquired him about the approximate time it takes to reach the ground. He casually told that it takes about 7 minutes. At this time my heart had broken the cage of my ribs, came close to the skin and was all set to pop out. I got inside the flight and waited for the others to enter. From the time I got my harness, Bharath and I were completed separated, and were with our own TIs. Now the flight took off.

          Our flight could hold about 20 people and had one pilot. When we were waiting for our turn I noticed that it takes off with its door open. Also the pilot landed the flight on the lawn and not runway! By seeing that I thought it is better to dive than to land like that! I am kidding. I had made up my mind to dive AT ANY COST.

          Let us get back now. As the flight gained the elevation I clenched the handle next to me harder. My TI showed me the position that I was supposed to maintain at the time of the jump. I immediately made it clear to him that there is a very good chance of me forgetting it! My harness was too tight. but I didn't complain as I had other things to worry about. For example, what if my parachute doesn't deploy? I sat silently as he hooked me to his harness. I had crossed the level of nervousness and had reached black state of mind. I realized it was about time when my TI began to check my harness and wore his helmet. I asked him about our altitude to which he replied "about 14,000 feet" looking at a gadget mounted on his wrist like a wrist watch.

          It was time and I saw few people diving off the plane as if they were jumping off a stool. At this point I made my TI explain the position I had to maintain again. I reached the tip of the flight and held the bar that was right above me. My TI pulled my hand …wait for it… and jumped. I seriously have no words to explain the feeling. As Bharath instructed me a million times, I remembered to keep my eyes open. I had read that a free falling body doesn't experience any force acting on it. The presence of gravitational force is not felt since the body doesn't  exert any counter force . I wondered how that would be. Even though I was falling it felt as if I were stationary and that only the air around is moving past me. At that altitude I couldn't even feel the relative motion with respect ground which tricked me into thinking that I was still.

          I did a couple of somersaults until my TI deployed a small umbrella attached to the parachute after which the fall was steady. During the free fall, I forgot everything. The adrenaline rush made me forget everything including Bharath. I didn't care if my parachute opens or not. I literally had nothing in my mind. I was too amazed at the view to think about anything. I couldn't hear anything other than the gush of the wind. It is rightly coined 'free fall' and there is nothing but earth's gravitation. I felt a sudden jerk as my parachute deployed. It was as if someone pulled me with all the force. I have to quote my actual word, "oh my god, it was a-ma-zing". And I never meant these words as much before. We were above the clouds when we jumped.

          I totally enjoyed the ride down. I saw Chicago skyline, Lake Michigan, Milwaukee bridge, fields, vehicles, highway etc. I looked for Bharath's parachute which I couldn't find and I decided to concentrate on the view. Vehicles on highway looked like colony of ants marching one behind the other on interstate 94, which was a perfect line. Greenery felt like the earth was covered with flawless silk carpets. The ride down got even better when my instructor turned the parachute. I moved like a wave. It was truly a thrilling moment and I couldn't resist telling him that it was birthday gift. I truly felt like a bird, especially with every turn we took. And you cannot believe how smooth the landing was. Also we landed before our flight.

          I have to say it was the best experience of my life and I feel that nothing can beat that. Everyone SHOULD try this and I assure that you won't regret. Please don’t thinking that I am very daring because it is not at all true. I just have a thing for adventures. Once I jumped off the plane I didn't have time to be scared since I was too busy seeing and absorbing the view. This was the perfect gift for my birthday and I couldn’t have asked anything better. It has been 9 hours since I completed my dive but I am still floating and my ears are still ringing! I am too excited to sleep tonight. As always, I have attached our pictures. 

Bharath's jump

My jump

Just like a bird

I did smile for the picture

Parachute Deployment

Bharath's landing

Feeling like a bird

Me in 'landing position'

Pros and Cons

          After finishing 3 grueling semesters of my masters, I have got a chance to work in United States. I successfully finishes 3 weeks. I am doing everything I love and loving everything I am doing. Basically life is great and I am doing pretty well too. But I will finish my masters in 6 months and I will officially enter the "officials" club and retire from "students" club and I most definitely want to be done and dusted with studies.  

          Unlike the changes from high school to college there are tons, very different and drastic changes from student to work life. In school and college, the only senior member in your class will be your professor. But at work, initially you will feel that only you are the one with least knowledge of anything and everything. But then eventually the feeling vanishes as you get more acquainted with work. Also this transition gets a tiny bit more difficult if you don't have any person to match your wavelength with. For example if you are the only girl in your team. I mentioned 'tiny bit more difficult' because I have an excellent team with me who really made me feel at home. 

Since I am still in the transition from the student life to corporate life, I thought I will tabulate them and here is my table: 

Student life	Corporate life
Day begins when you wake up	You have to wake up when the day begins
Learn new stuff	Learn new stuff and work on it
Saving is crucial	You can worry a little less about that
You can entertain yourself by browsing Internet when you are bored of studies	You cannot entertain yourself at all
You can bunk classes	Should I still say what happens here?
You can get over your hardest subject in 15 weeks	Every project, easy or difficult, lasts till you solve it
You struggle to make time to watch your favorite TV show	TV show? You won't even have time to look at TV during the week
Want break from studies? Have dinner or take a nap	Dinner and nap are not what you do in your break
You don't have to worry about what you wear to school	Your morning starts with, "don't I have decent work clothes?"
You can watch a movie any day of the week	You keep it for the weekend because you want to get your 8-hours sleep everyday
There is lunch cool about saying "you are at school'	You can say "I was in a meeting" or "we are going out for a team lunch" etc.

          You may feel that I have lot of cons on the right side and jump to the conclusion that your student life was the best. But trust me, you pay cheque makes it all worth. We all come to a stage where we have to accept responsibilities and execute them, we all grow old. You can’t stop that but you can always celebrate what you have and work on becoming what you want to.

Please let me know what you feel is the best and worst part of student and corporate lives and I will make sure to add them in my table. 

Cooking Spree

I knew that developing new tastes is a part of growing up, but I had never thought that I would develop a fetish for cooking. As importance as it is to have a very reliable recipe to become a good cook is to have a good connoisseur and interminable support. I always had it from my parents, my brother and now from my husband. My parents encouraged me to try whatever I wanted to cook. Of course my brother was always the one who tried and in fact finished everything I cooked regardless of how it tasted. But the real story began when I got my own kitchen and a marvelous pantry, which is after my marriage.

I am neither a foodie nor do I have sweet tooth. But when I crave for something, then I will do anything I can to have it. Since I live in United States and in a place where there are no Indian restaurants, I have to cook whenever I feel like eating. Do I feel like having golgappa ? The sooner I start cooking, sooner I can eat. This is something that motivated me to start learning how to cook. Initially I used to call my mom and ask for recipes. Once I thought I could manage the everyday cooking I wanted to try deserts and slightly uncommon recipes. Bharath has been my constant support and in fact he is the one to suggest the menu and recipes. We are an effective team, not only in cooking but everything.

After one and a half year of this routine, cooking has become my stress buster. Without talking much about my "how I learnt to cook" story,  I want to dedicate this post only to the dishes I made in my kitchen. As we all know "A picture is worth a thousand words", I have pictures for you all.

White and red sauce pasta with Indian touch

Layered peach jello and cream

 Chocolate cup, cream and banana

 Vanilla pancakes

 Beer chicken

 Avocado and egg toast

 Oreo Truffles

 Bakes eggs in avocado

 Carrot halwa

 Mudde, chicken chops and chicken fry

 Mentya bath

 Golgappas, ready to gulp

 Rava rotti

 My favorite Rasamalai

 Cheese idly

 Kesar, pista kulfi

Seafood platter: Chili shrimp, crab fry and fried salmon

 Nipattu

 Kobri mitayi

Rave unde

Bake fries with garlic and paprika

Please do let me know if you want any recipe. I will give only if you promise to share the pictures of your dish.

Christmas is in town

          Being a part of convent school for 12 years, festival of Christmas has special place in my heart. Like it happens in all the schools, I was taught carols, decorated whole school and hostel with my friends, celebrated with cake and the delicious Christmas treats. Best part of convent schools is getting big, fat Christmas vacation. Also my mom, dad, brother and I followed the ritual of lighting candles in church on Christmas. So I had all the more reasons to celebrate Christmas.

          Having said all this, I want to explain the story behind getting home a Christmas tree. Bharath and I went to Walmart as usual to fetch some chicken for our Saturday special lunch. The 'festival isle', as I have named it, was filled with Christmas decors and I suddenly I wanted to celebrate Christmas. I asked Bharath if we can get a Christmas tree and he immediately replied "we can if you clear the interview and get the Co-op in Kohler Co". Well, you might have guess by now that I managed to get the Co-op and so we got the Christmas tree. It is taller than Bharath as I wished.

          The very same weekend we started assembling the tree and it was about 50 days before Christmas. It was 11pm when we assembled and we decided to decorate it before going to bed. At 11pm, only Walmart was available to fetch everything we wanted. We really had no idea how to decorate the tree. But then Bharath put the hearts we already had on the tree just before we left to Walmart. That's when we decided to stick to red and gold theme, to make a love themed tree. I thought it would be perfect as it is our very first Christmas together and also since it is our first year our beautiful marriage.

          So we got the ornaments, red spherical ones and snowflakes.  In the subsequent days we added a tree topper and gold spherical ornaments. Meanwhile I met one of my good friends Khushboo and she surprised me with her Christmas tree, which had same decorations along with candy cones. So, in order to match our trees completely, I got a couple of candy cones to hang on the tree. I even got pine cones from Khushboo that I hung on the tree. All lighting decoration was done by my amazing husband.

          My final addition the tree, of course till now *winks*, was our favorite Lindt chocolates. And I placed gifts at the bottom of the tree. I am totally happy with the way our tree looks. Our very own tree decorated only by me! It is a great addition to our lives and our living room. I have only one concern now. Which is none other than picking the Lindt from our tree and eating them before Christmas! :P

          I want to thank my husband and Khushboo for helping me set-up the tree. I wanted to share the pictures of our tree, but along with full story.  So here it goes. Have a merry Christmas and great vacation everyone.

Our whole tree

Hearts on the tree place by Bharath. It was on the first day and so you don't see the tree topper.

Our very first ornaments

Red = love

Favorite Chocolate

All ornaments in one frame.

From a different angle

Pine cones gave rustic look.

Gifts

When I drove my car today

          I wanted to learn to drive a car mainly to avoid the crowd in the public transportation of Bangalore. But I loved driving the moment I started my training. I learnt to drive in India during my bachelor's degree. Being a new skill that I had to master to survive on the streets of India, I was as scared as I was enthusiastic. I managed to finish the driving class and earned a license. In India, if you have license it doesn’t necessarily mean you know to drive on the streets and that you can survive the monstrous vehicles driven by the impatient drivers. At the same time it doesn't mean you can't drive if you don’t have license.

          I did mention that I went to driving class. But I only learnt how to balance the steering wheel and that I need to step on the clutch to change the gear. I joined the driving class only because that was the safest and easiest way to get a license amidst all the corruption. I got the actual the driving class from my dad. We practiced a lot together before I gave my test. He taught me that I have to slow down before taking a turn, to slow down at the speed breakers and to pedal the accelerator only after the front wheels cross the bump, to drive on the streets without any room for fear. Basically I learnt to balance the steering wheel; to step on the accelerator, break and the clutch, and to change the gear; especially to do them all simultaneously and in a right way from my dad.

          Driving in United States is a different experience. It requires less effort to set a car in motion but takes a lot of concentration to follow the traffic rules. One has to adhere to the rules always and maintain a designated speed limit. I have also seen the signs for the highest and lowest speed limits on my way to Chicago. In United States, there is huge difference between driving in a town and driving on a highway. The latter is easy since one has to just stay in the same lane and maintain a particular speed. On the other hand, within a town you have to read each and every sign and stick to the rules. The rules on which the traffic system functions is amazing.

          After driving in India, I used to hesitate to step on the accelerator to drive at 70mph. My dad always advised me to drive slowly and carefully. It is all about speed in this foreign land, be it high or low. My husband had a hard time making me familiar to the traffic system. I took my time, but I learnt with the help of my husband. He taught me how to correct the mistakes that can be made and potentially, effective ways to correct them instantaneously. Of course it was in the hard way, but I learnt.

          Today I am writing about this because I could make a firm and correct decision while I was driving home. I was personally happy and super proud of myself. I wanted to tell about that to my dad and husband although it is nothing to them considering their driving skills. I am lucky to have two great men who constantly encourage me to be independent. My dad gave me enough confidence to look out through the side window fearlessly while driving and my husband gave me the skills to avoid any disaster that could happen while I stare out of the window as I drive along the road and along the way of my life. Now I know that I will never miss any beautiful view along my journey because of these two gentlemen. I always get the encouragement that I want to be better than what I was the yesterday. I love my life, especially with these two gentlemen in it. This is just a small of conveying them my gratitude and love.

Rule Book...!!

Rules, as we know are set of pillars virtual pillars that balance everything around us. Whole universe is governed by rules. Everything, from the heliocentric theory to the way we ingest the food is predominated by rules. Be it formulated and compelled to be strictly observed or tacit, we follow rules in everything we do.

Now a small kid knows the adage “rules are meant to be broken” even before he even acquires the intellectual ability to understand the meaning of “RULE”. So I don’t want to repeat it over and over again. It is not the formal rule book that abode in schools, library, holy places or any sort of game I am talking here, which has to strictly observed. By “Rule book” here, I mean the tacit rules that exist between friends, couples, parent and a kid, and between an individual and his acquaintance. The rules we believe we have framed by default and expect others to accord with it. However the amount of expectation may depend on how much we are into that person. But we respect them and never take it for a toss for we care for them.

 Among friends, especially among girls, the clauses in the rule book go as many as stars visible on a new moon night. May be like sharing the news about the apparels, accessories, shoe etc that one buys in her recent shopping; latest crushes; hook-ups; break-ups; wishing on birthday, new years, festivals etc; if not the entire experience, sharing the mere information about the newly visited place and the list goes on and on. Sometimes if anyone of the rule is broken, it might hither the friendship to some other corner, although the consequence might depend on how one sees it and the depth of the friendship. Others might find these really silly, but can they possibly understand what actually is among friends?

  Certain rules among a parent and a child are well defined. This set of rules, when violated, makes us feel guilty like more than anything. Even though we know that, sometimes we tend to surpass them. Can we justify why we do that? Possibly we can and the reason can be silly, impractical or because we feel that is the only way left. Violating may sometimes be justified (be right or wrong), but hiding this act form our close associates is what makes it more severe. We may think that it’s better to keep others incognizant about the situation, but oblivion should never be a way to live.

   Rule book can be the best when we don’t want others to meddle into our lives. It’s all how we look into it. But giving others a chance before we add another clause into the book is worth it, especially we it’s against the ones who mean a lot to us. Sometimes it’s better to let go the rule book when a friend hides something from you, since if he had really felt it that way, he wouldn't have ignored the rule book in the first place. It’s better to stick on to the rule book when it is involved in making people around us happy. Sometimes when stepping out of the rule book is the only way, as we see it, it might be okay to let go. But the way we project our views onto others creates the difference. This applies to every aspect of life.

   We live in a society whose tacit or framed rules exits since ages and the consequences of trying to change or violate them has always cost a lot to for the men who tried (even if they were right, like Nicholas Copernicus). But fighting for what is right is different from arguing we are right. If listening to others can make them happy, it’s worth trying. Because I believe “KEEP OTHERS HAPPY, THAT IS THE WAY TO BE HAPPY”.