Home in March

I haven’t stepped inside an airport so far in March. My wife had to travel the first week, I was booked in jury duty the second week, and stayed in town, this third week, for my younger son’s birthday. As a result, I am all caught up – mail (no need to open any envelopes on planes), taxes (completely organized, mostly ready to go), music digitization (another 10GB went on my iPod), catch-up on recent movies (recommend Valkyrie, Dostana, Slumdog), kids schools, sports and life in general. We spent the weekend hosting some out of town relatives, I took this photograph of the Golden Gate Bridge on a clear blue Saturday afternoon in March from the Marin headlands.

Holi in Hillsborough !

We celebrated Holi in Hillsborough for the first time this year. This author enjoyed the sanctity of the living room look-see on an otherwise cold morning while local friends of Indian origin enjoyed (and shivered) in the festivities. The kids though, mostly, had a good time, and independent of whether they got into it or not, certainly got a feel for it, which in the end was the best part of it.

Home from above

Here is a view of our town from an airplane above.  Starting from the top you can see the Pacific Ocean, Half Moon Bay, the Coastal Ranges of San Andreas, the Crystal Springs Reservoir, the freeway from San Francisco to San Jose and then of course our town.  I took this from an A340-600 on an early approach into SFO last month.

Music in the Air

Heres my nephew and niece trying to wake me up with some morning music in Gurgaon last year - This is me, originally by Demi Lovato.  I happen to think these two will shake up the music world in due course.

In the meantime, at a dinner event this week at a close friends’, I heard a few recent Hindi songs I hadn’t heard before. Is this Love by Kunal Ganjawala, and Maula Maula by Roop Kumar Rathod. These songs along with earlier recent hearings of Woh Chali by Bombay Vikings and Allah Ke Bande by Kailesh Kher all evoke a richness and depth that I hadn’t, till now, experienced with Hindi, mostly Bollywood music. I think this genre is expanding in very creative and energetic ways at a pace I haven’t seen ever before, and one that probably stands out from others. Good for its fans - and I count myself in now as since then my iPod file size has increased significantly (Sufi Music, Recent Bollywood Hits, India-Pop).

US Passports in Singapore

Had a pretty messy travel experience in Singapore last weekend. Apparently they are pretty strict about US passports needing to have at least six months of validity remaining from the date you plan to exit the country. This wasn’t the case with mine (and this hadnt been an issue in recent trips in Europe and wont be, coming up in India), and caused me unnecessary grief. In the end though, everything worked out. Note to self, need to go visit the State Department. This photograph is of one of the thousands of orchids in full bloom at Changi.