Cidade de Deus

• A small town near Rio de Janeiro
• Grass and Cocaine
• Drug Lords of a different kind
• Gangs with guns and kids not more than 15 years shooting each other
• Many very impactful stories together...

That's Cidade du Deus or City of God for you!

If you have not seen it, find it and watch it!!! you will not regret spending the time!

I will not spend any lines talking about good the movie was and how I did not move for 130 minutes from in front of the Television.. if you want to know more, google it or read about it on IMDB!

Harry Potter and no Half-blood Prince!

I don't know about the book, and I would let someone who has read it comment on that front, but I was very disappointed with the latest movie!

Its a teenage love story which has "some" magic as well! that's it! I doubt if the thickest of all Harry Potter books has such a weak story.... Please please please someone tell me that the book is way better than this movie!

I am not really saying that I did not like it... I did... Hermione is beautiful, and Harry looks smart(er) feels a bit smart(er) too; the teenage love story was sweet! but c'mon I want to see some magic... not what I saw!

It was a 10 minute story ok 20 min tops, that was showen in 2.5 hours! Half blood prince? really!

now I want to read the book!

I have recently started liking the Irish and the British accent a lot., call it "being in America effect".. That was another reason why I liked watching this movie...

Do in Rome as Romans do!

You know you are turning amreekan if

1. You have a coffee cup or its holder in your car, in your bag, on your desk, in your kitchen, on your dining table, on your "Coffee" table, next to your wash basin and in your hand

2. If you reach office early, let's say before 8 or at times 7:30 am and also leave early

3. If you, when it gets hot, walk around with your t-shirt on your shoulders instead of wearing it

4. If you feel that a horn is an unnecessary part of an automobile

5. If you wear a t-shirt (polo style) with trousers and a formal leather belt and formal shoes

Or if you wear a tshirt(polo style) with short(formal looking) with a formal leather belt and sports or casual shoes

6. You wonder how people live in these countries every single time someone talks to you about India or China or Sri Lanka. And would have a never ending list of things which are not good about India and a longer never ending list of how everything can be resolved

7. If you do not associate Asia with India and visa versa! Asians are Chinese! Indians are Pakistani! and Pakistani are Indian! Bangadeshi and Sri Lankans ! well, Indians again!

8. If you fail to understand why the traffic moves at an average of 50 kmph in countries like India

9. If your footpaths are now called CURBS, if your washbasin taps are now called FAUCETS, if the policemen are now called cops! oh no! not cops, but KHAAPS (read it like PAAP in Hindi), if your taxis are now called CABS

10. If a burger or a sandwich can be treated as lunch

11. If you look for a fat free sign on almost everything that you buy from the grocery store. And one thing that you will always find in your fridge is "I can't believe its not butter".

12. If your kitchen does not have a door

13. If you have a panic attack if you cannot find a tissue roll in your bathroom even though there is a perfectly nice and shining mug kept there

14. The only way to take a bath that you know is a shower. You don't know what to do with a bucket and a mug

15. If you don't know that touching elder's feet is a way of expressing respect like nothing else

16. If you don't stare at cleavages and legs in aww

17. If you don't look around before a lip kiss and after

18. If you start living in today, and not the past and not the future

19. If your requests for credit cards are getting rejected because of a bad credit history

20. If you are ok with paying for incoming phone calls and text messages

21. If you have a pair of running shoes, a pair of walking shoes, a pair of hiking shoes, a pair of office shoes, a pair of casual shoes along some specific running shorts, swimming shorts, walking shorts, casual shorts, short shorts, long shorts and so on...

22. If you have a mp3 player "with" an arm band

23. If you like to eat a cheese burger with diet coke

24. AND, if you stop missing a Chai ki Dukaan at the road side on the highways, or shall we call them Freeways!

What is the relevance of the picture? nothing! I just happen to like the color in there!

East Coast Tour - Day 1

I had an amazing musical, festive weekend with a second dose of Transformers 2. Needless to say, I have a few pictures from the weekend but I need to post about the East Coast tour as well... So here we go... there was not much happening wrt to writing so this is going to be post with photographs and some relevant text around those... Enjoy !

I was initially thinking of driving to Niagara and back, but a friend at work recommended a tour that he knew was decent... I checked out the site, discussed with mom dad, took a few days off, got the flight tickets, booked the 3 days tour and was all set! The last thing I booked was the hotel, because I was in double minds about staying close to the airport and saving time in traveling to the pick up point, or staying a bit away from the hotel and saving some money! Chose the latter, and it turned out to be a nice idea as our flight out of Milwaukee was more than a few hours late and that meant that would get just about 4 hours to sleep before we were to leave for the 3 day tour.

Gotobus is a travel firm owned and managed by the Chinese and operates with some local travel shops attaching their buses with the central operator. Our pickup point was in Flushing, a small china town in NY suburb. From there a shuttle bus took us to China Town, Manhattan from where we were to board our tour bus.

Early morning experience on the otherwise very busy streets was interesting... It was like a city trying to wake up... about half an hour on that road was good enough to see how the number of people and speed of movement changes...

Does not look like NY does it? :) This is in front of LL Travels. The travel firm which manages most of these east coast tours starting 2 days to 7 days!

I really liked the yellow phones... Against the morning light and otherwise a few dull colors they were really visible and looked attractive...

Some street pictures from where we were waiting for our bus.

Mr. King (that's how he liked to be called) was our tour guide for the day, and You was our driver... No not you as in you! its you as in Mr. You. A very difficult English accent to start with, which later turned into a funny one :D as I got familiar with it. We started our tour with a 5 point rule for the tour

1. No using of the bathroom in the bus (I wonder why did they have one in it anyway, if the clear instructions were not to use it)
2. Don't be late at any visiting place, as the bus is not going to wait for anyone who is late
3. Keep Mr. King's phone number handy so that in case you are lost, you call him and he finds you.
4. Keep the bus clean
5. Absolutely no open drinks in the bus, not even coffee in lid cups! Strange rule though! It was told that this irritates Mr. You !


Our first stop was the Liberty Bell memorial in Philadelphia. For someone really interested in history of the cracked bell and its relevance to America, there is much available on Google, so let me stay from the details here. This is where I first felt like a tourist :) in a controlled group lead by a tour guide with a red umbrella! Was not sure at all if this is the kind of traveling that I like, but I was sure that this was probably the best way to get a taste of America and be at places, which I would not visit otherwise... so here is how the enjoying part of this trip started!

Mom dad in front of the Independence Hall and at places around the same grounds!

An interesting no parking signage!

Milwaukee has most of its traffic lights on poles and these lights on wires always catch my attention!

We were to cover about 12 visitor locations (phew) in the second half of the day and most of them in Washington DC. Mr. King gave clear instructions on what all we were going to cover and the time we were to spend at all of them. The interesting part being that we were going to see all the monuments which were at the back of American Bills.. right from the $1 bill to a $100 bill! Pretty interesting eh!

The first stop was the National Air and Space Museum! We got just about 30 minutes at the place which needs atleast 1 day to absorb! We did enjoy those quick 30 minutes though, quickly walking around two floors of the huge huge huge museum and then rushing back to the bus!

This is the place where Sam meets one of the decepticons!

Our next stop, not too far away, was the Capitol Building. Ideally you should be doing a guided tour of the capitol and know a lot more than you can do from a distance. We did get some photo opportunities to tick mark against another place we saw! Stayed there for another 30 odd minutes and moved towards the National Museum of Natural History.

This was another amazing collection of artifacts! One place where you should spend atleast 2 days!

These are jaws of a white shark! Real ! yes !

From this museum, we moved towards some official buildings and saw the National Treasury and the White House from a distance before we moved to the Jefferson Memorial build to honor the third president of America, Thomas Jefferson.

From the Jefferson Memorial, we drove to Korean War Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial. We were too tired now, and decided not to walk around but rest for a bit.... so pictures of any of the three I mentioned above...

Next was a dinner stop and then we moved for a 2 hour night tour. It was getting very tiring now, and thankfully the sights made for most of it. The first stop, Washington Memorial, was worth sitting around for a while. The breeze was nice and the weather comforting... we just sat around the place for a while before we drove to the World War II memorial.

The Washington Memorial...

World War II memorial...

Our last stop for the day before we moved to Holiday Inn, was the Roosevelt Memorial. It was a very very tiring day and none of us could wait more to reach the hotel and crash. Which we did!

Mr. King had a typical line he used to say everytime we boarded the bus, worth mentioning here :) He used to say "welcome be back to the bus!" and for a photo opportunity he would say "chak chak chak chak" and for a nice place or expression his standard dialogue was " OOOO la la"! fun guy !

All in all a very happening day... Managed to see a lot of places, though did not really experience any of them the way we wanted! DC is a place where one needs to spend at least 4 days if not less to see everything to some extent!

The next day was easy... We were to go to Hershey's Chocolate Factory and Corning Glass Museum! Will write about that day later!

The drive that drives me sane !

It was a simple plan... lets leave when we can after we get up when we can and get ready in whatever time it takes... so we wake up at 9ish, get ready in 4 hours :D (there was a lot of catching up to do) and finally managed to leave around 1... the beauty of the entire plan being that we knew it was a day dedicated to driving and food and conversations and we did not really have a place to reach ! truly a journey being more important than the destination...

Atlanta airport on the evening I reached

the GPS has been giving me some trouble lately (I guess needs and update or something) though it brought us back home alright after the movies on Friday... It decided not to work for the first half hour or so, and then was kind enough to give us directions to the mountains just right!


View Larger Map

This part of the drive was not so hilly, but green... full of it...

We were headed towards the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and drove through 3 states, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee to reach the Clingmans Dome which is the highest peak in the Great Smokies at 6643 ft above sea level. To add an icing on the cake, there is an observatory which is build at the peak to get a 360 degree view from the top... very beautiful view, but makes it very artificial in my opinion.

This was by far one of the greenest drives I have been on... Tall trees both sides of the road all the way, mountains full of greens and shades of it... beautiful!

We took just one pitstop on this 4 hour drive, and I cannot express in words how it felt to drive on the mountains, especially when the roads were wide, and very smooth.

It would be a shame to drive around in the US and not see Harley all around... The owner of this one was kind enough to let me take a picture at the Gas Station...

View Larger Map

This part was all hills and curves...

The drive was especially very rejuvenating after we turned from Cherokee. Its a small town in North Carolina, and can be compared to a Katra before Vaishno Devi or Parmanu before Shimla or Bhowali before Nainital... has a lot of motels, restaurants, gift shops and a small river runs through it, which seemed to be a very popular picnic spot.. there were families enjoying the water, playing around in the stream, tubing, grilling and just being there !!! Nice...

Like I said... Harley and more of it...

Randomly stopped a few miles after Cherokee to enjoy the view... Dense forest, the sound of water flowing, lush green trees, couldn't be more beautiful

The Pontiac GT enjoying her break...

Mamu ki gaadi passing by while I was taking pictures...Mamus get the most powerful cars in the US... India learn !

Like I said before, green and more green... And these leaves would turn into paintings in fall!

A glimpse of where I was driving...

Another hour or so took us to the Clingmans Dome. There is something that happens to me when I drive uphill on curvy roads... I don't really know what, but there is something that happens.. I feel at ease, and am very comfortable... Good for another few months before I have to get out of my base again!

And some more bikes... men and women... on bikes... Jai ho Harley ki... there are more brands, but HD is by far the MOST Popular!

Count the concentric circle and know the age of the tree this block came from.. What is your answer?

Smoky mountains = thick forest all around... What fun it would be to camp and hike around in this area... There are many options and you can spend days walking around the trails in Great Smoky Mountains National Park....

At the top of Clingmans Dome, there is a cement structure which takes you to a high platform so that you can get a 360 degree view from the peak!

This is the eastern side view...Can only imagine how this would look at sunrise...

This is the North View...

And the western view, just on the border of North Caroline and Tennessee...

On our way down we wanted to take this trail, but did not because it looked too deserted and we were afraid that there would be bears waiting for us :P

A picture from behind the glass door of the rest room :)

After a .5 mile hike up to the peak from the parking lot, and back, we were understandably hungry and we had home made Gobhi Aalu, and Shahi Tofu with brown bread for our dinner ! Yumm!

Read more about the Smokies on this board... that half a mile of climb is good enough to remind you of the fact that you have not been working out :P

A few other not so high peaks...

The view from the parking lot after were returned...

We left the dome peak around 1930 hours and this time around the GPS decide to give up on us, the good part, however, was that we remembered the roads we had taken and were ok without driving the entire distance without directions from the GPS and we did! sweet !

Took two breaks, one in Cherokee where we went to a shop to see if there was some memoir that I could carry... I like this name Cherokee, probably because this Jeep brand has been something that I have been admiring for a very long time... I have said this to myself many times in the past, I am going to be in a Cherokee one day... did not realize that it was going to be, Cherokee the town, and not the jeep :)

The man on the left is ready for a small performance near the shop in Cherokee that sells Indian memorabilia... Indian has a different meaning here... not us Indians :) Moccasins if you were wondering are shoes made of leather which were originally worn by hunters. They are super soft and super quiet and helped the hunters walk long distances very quietly...

Our second stop was around 2130 hours, when we were passing through a town and realised that the Independence Day fireworks had started... just parked the car at the curb and enjoyed the fireworks for about 30 minutes before we took the road again... and reached Alpharetta around 2330 hours... 5 hours from Clingmans Dome to Alpharetta with two 30 minute breaks, a distance of about 180 miles, and atleast 60 miles in the hills... Not bad at all... oh, and not getting lost :) The Pontiac GT ran very very well on the entire trip as well, though I felt that the breaking was not as smooth as it should be downhill.

Fireworks in a small town on our way back!!! I can only imagine how the fireworks would have been in large cities around the US if they were so grand in a small town...

Total distance about 360 miles, total trip time about 11 hours, driving time close to about 8 hours, good car, good weather... what a day!

Today is another day and its already about 1030 hours, no plans nothing. And looks like its going to be another journey that matters!

Like I said, Sunday was a lazy day...The first half of the day was spent watching RF struggle against Andy Roddick... Poor Andy was playing to keep RF from winning the match and was not playing to win it.

The view from the flight window... This is Chicago! Did I mention that I upgraded my ticket to a Business Class... enjoyed the seat and the view both...

p.s. this post was written on Sunday, 5th of July.

And one highlight of the trip was this video... I think this is very funny... Have heard it many times now, and I am still laughing about it...

Second to none!

I am now officially in love with Mikaela, specially after she took off her biker clothes (no wait, its not about taking off her clothes) and stood in front of Sam in that white dress with Purple, or mauve (whatever!) flowers in her hands!!!

A girl who can drive a bike, fix a car, have that attitude, and be the "girl" when she needs to be, is THE girl I want !!!

For the people who have not guessed it so far, I saw Transformers II, and I am not sure what to say right now! I am in a state of AWE! For a number of reasons

1. I saw it on IMAX (Even that 60+ feet high screen is smaller for a movie like Transformers)
2. It had Egypt
3. I have always respected the machines that I use, and with movies like Transformers, that respect only increases (Yea, I like to live in a bit of fiction, thought it works for me well! I love my car and she loves me back! I feel it)
4. I saw Bumble bee crying like a baby, and it was a beautifully funny scene
5. and that scene was followed by what made me realize that I am in love Mikaela
6. I felt very very very bad and something inside me felt like sinking when Optimus Prime dies :(
7. I might rate this at my number 1, if I compare the graphics and the action with any other movie that I know ! And the level of detail that is present in it (which one will surely miss on a small screen) is AMAZING... Each and every body part of the Autobots and Decepticons has been so well thought of ! and the transformation of some of the new characters !!! Oh boy !!! Mind fukking blowing !!!


People in the US have to feel very very proud of their army and defense when they see movies like this... no wonder the feeling of being "American" is so strong in most people ! Its shown to them in every possible way, probably that is the reason why most aliens (in movies) decide to attack the only the US and think that if they have taken over the US, the earth is theirs... and the US is able to mobilize its resources so fast that they can manage anything that comes to them! Not really like India, where it takes 17 years, SEVENTEEEEEEEN !!!! years to come up with a bloody report (does that report really matter right now?)

Anyway, back to the movie ! I loved it period. I don't know if I will buy a DVD because its not going to be worth it, watching it on a small screen....

Please do not miss it when you get an opportunity! watch it at the largest screen possible !!!

I also saw Ice Age 3 today... and loved it too!!! it was such a nice feeling to meet the characters again!!! there are new twists and characters in the movie!!! will write about it later, or maybe not. I am still in AWE with Transformers !!! WHAT a movie !!!



And enjoy the source of the title below



and here is what I was talking about about the taking off of the clothes...

p.s. This post was written on Saturday, 4th of July

abba dabba jhabba !!!

I am out of here for a few days !

I might see some mountains (really want to), and some beaches, and enjoy some nightlife in a city downsouth !!!

Will see you guys on the other side of the weekend !!!

Will see you with some new pictures and some new stories to tell !!!


चाय की चुस्कियों के साथ मिलेंगे एक बार फिर !

हम लोग !!!

और हाँ, ये टाइटल वाले शब्द कौनसी पिक्चर के हैं, वो भी ज़रा बताओ!

what a weekend !!!

Lets look at the brighter side...

1. I got a bonus day with Ma Papa
2. The sudden low that I was feeling yesterday was much less today... it was relatively easier seeing them off
3. I know for sure that most things that one asks for, would happen... I wanted to go for a long drive yesterday and it happened...
4. I finished one of the nicer books I know, in about 3 hours... for a 200 page thick book that is not a bad deal at all! (Read the paragraph below.... loved it)


5. I went to a new Indian Restaurant
6. My second opportunity to drive a new Ford Fusion. Don't confuse it with the Ford fusion in India. This one is a 2.5L 16V I4 175BHP engine... driving at speeds over 80mph is such a breeze!



and now time for the not so brighter side...

- The flight mom dad were to board to Delhi was overbooked and they had to stand at the gate for well over 2.5 hours before the staff gave them some vouchers for the night for a stay at the hotel and food. Though things worked out fine at the end, however this was an absolutely ridiculously handled episode.

- I was about to reach home, a distance of 80+ miles from the airport when mom called me and told me what happened, and I took a U turn to reach the airport again... They felt much better after I was there...

- I was stuck in a traffic jam on the freeway for over 90 minutes on my way back home today! uff !!! This long a jam on the freeway in the US, unbelievable... and what is more surprising is that this was because of two cars involved in an accident which was ridiculously irrelevent.


- It's very difficult to stop crying when you are in a empty house, and there is no one to even attempt to make you stop crying. (And no wise comments on this point please... I am feeling much better right now)

- Silence is not going to be easy to manage with for the next few days