Sania Mirza

This post is not about how much I love her (game) and blah blah... Also not about the interest and intrigue surrounding the 18-year-old Indian in locker rooms, media centres and viewing galleries around the world. (Oh how can I forget) Nor about how HOT she looks...

I saw her interview with some News Channel, after she won her first round (US Open) against the American Mashova Washington.

I somehow got this feeling to relate her to the Maestro Sachin Tendulkar some 12-13 years back (when he too, was a teenager). And wondered how different she is (in her attitude) as compared to the (then teen) Master.

Not that I do not like the way Sachin handles the media nor am I in a position to question Tendulkar's very down to earth Media friendly attitude. But I simply loved Sania's (coming on to the face) attitude with the media personnel. I felt it made the person taking the interview a little vulnerable. She made a very good balance of being polite, up front and most importantly made sense of whatever she talked about.

I am simply amazed to see how the circumstances can make one so mature at that age. (Well Sania can always stop me here and say that all this maturity comes at a cost of losing her boisterous and whoopee teen years. blah blah...)

A little off the track but I might want to relate this attitude to India's global brand strengthening and booming economy in one of my future posts.....:) Of course not taking anything away from our new champ.

Pre Tournament (US Open 2005) Interview

To Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova
Press: What do you think of Sania's Game
Kuznetsova: "What has this got to do with the US Open?"

ME: She kicked your "US Open champ ASS", earlier in the year at Dubai. REMEMBER!!!!

YO babe!! We are all behind ya... go grab it...!!!

PS: Mature in attitude but lacking some in the game when our babe lost the 3rd game in the final set after being 2-0 up. Went for 3 mighty (ambitious) strokes (may be as she had broken the opponent's serve) quite silly but very much like me ... ;)

Do you like Apples?

Will crosses the street and approaches the plate glass window and stands across from Clark, separated only by the glass. HePOUNDS THE GLASS to get Clark's attention.

WILL (cont'd): Hey!
Clark turns toward Will.
WILL (cont'd): DO YOU LIKE APPLES?
Clark doesn't get it.

WILL (cont'd): DO YOU LIKE APPLES?!
CLARK: Yeah?
Will SLAMS SKYLAR'S PHONE NUMBER against the glass.

WILL: WELL I GOT HER NUMBER! HOW DO YA LIKE THEM APPLES?!!
Will's boys erupt into laughter. Angle on Clark, deflated.

Ok, the above is the extract from the script of the movie "Good Will Hunting". People who have seen this movie can relate to it. The above act takes place when Matt Damon (Will), embarrasses Clark (Mr. Harvard) and gets Minni Driver's (Skylar's) number.

The first time I saw this movie, was in my College hostel room, on my comp. As soon as this act got over, I (hesitated) but asked ma friend to take it back as I could not get the joke. To my surprise no one in the room could get it, and all willingly accepted to go back and watch the whole thing again.

There is always this feeling and a childish thrill to watch something the second time (especially a humourous act) when you know that you hadn't got the joke in the first place, not to mention the confidence to nail it the second time you see it and go... "ahhhhh ... that's what I thought"..

But horrors of horrors... I was stunned not to completely get it even when I saw it the second time. Did not have the balls to declare it in the room, that something was wrong with my sense of humour. But to my relief, one of my friends got up, paused the damn thing... and asked openly to all, to explain him the joke. For a moment, all of us looked at each other (still no one ready to accept that they hadn't got it) and tried to explain it to the (humble) friend of mine of what it could mean. This was easy, as one could make out the context of the whole act.

But then till yesterday, I was never confident of discussing this joke in a social gathering, with the fear of being the only one who hadn't got it. It turns out that there is whole god damn thread/conversation on the net, which discusses this joke and the possible meaning of it. Felt good to know that I am not the only person who was not aware of this American slang possibly used in the early 90s.

Well, Parin (one of the victims in the room) came up with the exact (if not exact) meaning (of THEM APPLES), and quite honestly told me that some American chick had informed him of it. And as I had mentioned it before, the moment one explains you a joke (which apparently sucks out the humour from it) there is this feeling inside and you always go ... "ahhh... i thought so..". Well, that's what happened with me :-).

WILL: WELL I GOT HER NUMBER! HOW DO YA LIKE THEM APPLES?!!
or
WILL: WELL I GOT HER NUMBER! SCREW YOU / HOWZ THAT !!

Quite honestly, it was pretty easy to make this out from the context, but then there is always that itch to know the history behind a humourous phrase or where could one use such a phrase.

*Relief*
PS: One of my fav movies, would post about it sometime. Here is the SCRIPT

Colloquial American IT/Business Jargon

I don't know, how much of these terms are used in India. Some might be used of which I was not aware of, but majorly these could be the part of American colloquial.

Can be helpful if one is working in a global team.

1) "Putting it on the table" - Believe it or not, this phrase has different meanings in the US and the UK. Ok, it could be used in these forms, "Putting the thoughts on the table" or "Table down the thoughts".

What it means in the US: When you say that you are putting "something" on the table (during a meeting), it means that you want that thing to be discussed and would want to have an open discussion before taking a decision or coming to the conclusion.

What it means in the UK: When the same thing is said in Europe or specifically in british terms, it would mean that you have taken a decision and putting it on the table for others to take a look. But it would never allow a further discussion.

Just in case if this term is used by your foreign counterpart, be aware of which part of the world he belongs to, if any doubts then be clear before taking a decision.

2) "Converging to a RatHole" - This generally happens during a session of brain storming. During the discussion there might be a small disagreement on something which might lead the conversation to a totally different trip. After sometime people realize that they deviated from the main topic or "find themselves converging to a rat hote".

As far as usage of it is concerned, it could simply be "lets not get into a rat hole". It would thus mean not to corner oneself.

3) Sleep on - This, I believe should be pretty global and most people must be aware off. But just in case...

It means, to think about (something) overnight before deciding. Thus if not clear about things in general I might say during the meeting that "ill sleep on it and we can put it on the table tomorrow" :-)

4) TBD - To be determined (This acronyms is used quite often)

At the EOD
A: Should we expose this method to the client?
B: Hmmm, not sure we might have to consult C
A: ok, so m putting this under TBD

5) Follow the sun - Oh boy.. should I let this one out ... It's actually a term used in my project but this is something in general and every IT professional (with a entrepreneurish nature) should be aware off :-).

These days after so much of outsourcing to AP (Asia Pacific) region the number of people in the team in our part of the world is increasing rapidly. Thus, it becomes important to work around the clock because of a huge time difference between India and the US. This term basically suggests how to make this time difference the strength instead of a weakness.

Imagine, my boss in India assigns a work to me (assuming m in the US) before leaving for home and finds an email when logs on the next morning with the work done. In between these 12-14 hrs, I might have done the same to my European counterpart and so on and so forth. Thus it is nothing but to follow the sun and delegate work in such a fashion that it gets completed without anyone losing sleep.

It won't be long, before people in a global team start replaceing their 12hr clocks by 24hrs clock in their homes and offices to save time and meet the customer's demand.

Should be appending this list as and when I come across new terminologies.

Michelle Pfeiffer

From where the hell suddenly Michelle popped up? I am kinda watchin a movie of hers as m typing this.

Sheer beauty... I mean check out her upper lip, aint it simply kissable. Wowww...

She has the grace too, and of course I like her as she is a brilliant actress ;-).

PS: Had to google to spell her surname right!

Texan Lingo

Apparently, texan english is a mix of American English (Whatever that is) and the southern accent. But whatever they speak, the accent is slightly different from the normal english in America.

Somethings which, if one say, can tell that either something is wrong with the dude or he has just come from Texas.

Yall - (pronounced as yaul) Its like a short from for "you all" and would probably substitute "you all" or "you guys" when addressing a group. So after going back home, ill be like, "how yall doing!! :)"

Scadadle - Its like, "gotto go" or "ill get going now"... so some Texan would be like "gotto scadadle now" or "lets scadadle from here"

Howdi - Transformation of "How do you do", it might be used as a subject in a mail, or sufixing "do" with it, something like "howdi do"

Disclaimer
These terms could be used in the US in general. But as per my American team mates (one of them is a Texan) these could have originated from Texas.

NEW YORK

The synonym (if any) for this city, would be BUZZ.

Reached at about 2am at Rohit's place. The travel from Austin to Newyork was quite dramatic. May be more for Rohit than me. (Had missed the connecting flight, to see Rohit all worked up when I finally reached NY)

I had just one and a half days to see the city. Felt like a typical tourist after I was asked by a coupla people to take the tour bus if I wanted to cover all the major destinations.

My far off relative, Ajay, had other ideas. He met us at about 11am at The Grand Central (Dadar of NY). He asked us to cover as much as possible on foot, which we did. Saw the China town, City Hall, Statue of Liberty, Ground Zero, Wall Street, Brooklyn Bridge, Empire State Building, Union Square, Times Square, White plains and what not. At the EOD, had walked about 25-30 miles in all.

The last major thing we saw at about 12:30 in the night was The Times Square. That place just absorbed all the pain in my legs and gave me that Red Bull kick which I badly wanted. I don't want to get tempted and mention it all here, I mean that place deserves an exclusive post.

Had hot dogs all day :-).

PS: The pictures were taken by a Canon PowerShot SD200. Caption pic is taken from the 86th floor of The Empire Tower. Not a bad night shot haan!!

The bull was taken at the Wall Street.

Yup, this is the place which is the centre of gravity of Austin(the live music capital), its called The SIXTH Street. If somebody is looking for a music festival, this street on a friday or saturday night is no less.

Gosh!, the number of people hopping bars/clubs is mind blowing. There is music. And not just music but LIVE music all around.

From Hip hop to jazz to rock to heavy metal to piano bars to country to something quite bizzare and "never heard off" is what I have experienced here. Yup there are clubs too, where all the party animals get drunk and then hop to pick up the cats.

Austin, apparently, is the place which is liked by most, especially people living in Big cities like NYC or Chicago. Well, I am just plain lucky to come for work here.

I wonder how these places will make money if they put a "No Stags" board outside their gates. Such a concept is unheard off here. When I told one my American team mates about having a gal along, when visit a good known pub back in India, he laughed and said "hope they dont ask for marriage certificates someday".

I had a Bud Light in each of the 3 places I visited on a single night, and going alone to bars is quite ok here, I mean the whole point is to meet new people.

Met different kinda people and exchanged numbres ;-). One is into production in making documentaries, the other was a whako and asked me to hump bitches (his friends) on the dance floor (don't ask if I went). Then there was this couple and interestingly the gal (Texan) was the one who came down and made a conversation.

Some places I visited: Styx, Pete's Piano Bar, Logan's, Ruta Maya Bar, Treasure Island (Don't go by the name, this is a normal night club), Buffalo Billiards, Pool Club.

A coupla others but can't remember the names.

Group Dinner

We (as in my IBM team at Austin) went out for a group dinner tonight.

"We" consists of - Vasu, Russell, David, Ronald, Xaio(pronounced as Shaio), Kanika, Aloke, Yaju, Manish and Moi.

"Tonight!!"... well it was 6pm here when we set out. I was not comfortable with the concept of dinner, especially when the sun hadn't set. Didn't matter much as I was starved. The sun generally sets at about 8:30 here in Austin during this time of the year.

Ok, coming back at the timing issue, Russell told me that Americans generally have dinner between 6-7pm and 8pm being the latest. Well, no wonder all the good restaurants shut so early. But I guess as long as I am having lunch at 12 noon, 6 or 7 is fine for dinner.

Dinner was great, we went to a place called P.F. Chang's China Bistro

I had extra spicy "Chang's Spicy Chicken". I hate to give stats on food, but here is something interesting about this dish I ordered.

CHANG'S SPICY CHICKEN
Lightly dusted and stir-fried in a sweet Sichuan sauce.

Calories - 990
Protein - 61g
Carbs - 70g
Total Fat - 51g
Saturated Fat - 5g

Ingredients: Marinated chicken, Chang's sauce, white sauce, chili paste, cornstarch, garlic, potato starch, sesame oil, green onions

I have no idea about how much intake should any of the above mentioned be taken. Since when have I started talking about calories? Dino or bobo would definitely take my case on this :-).

The interesting thing which I ate, was the appetizer, CHANG'S CHICKEN IN SOOTHING LETTUCE WRAPS. What I liked was the way it was served, with Lettuce leaves served separately so that we could put the chicken inside that leaf, roll or wrap it around the chicken and eat.

As I was sitting closer to Russell, Dave and Ron, the level of the conversation was just what I was looking for. Talked about traveling, India, Texas, Music, Wines(I will come back to this later), food and family stuff.

Russell (57), is a good man not to mention strikingly intelligent (at that age). It's great how he could relate to a 23 year old and we couldn't stop talking. or was it me up a level ;-)? I ended the dinner with Graham's "Six Grapes" Porto, I can describe it one word, smoooooth.