These long commutes make commuting people bored. To beat boredom, people keep themselves engaged in several activities like listening to music, reading books, sleeping, thinking and also some stupid things like observing bus in which they are sitting, seats & its nuts and bolts, scribblings written on back of seats..etc.

Many do one more activity.. observing other commuters; watching them when they board or alight. Several people call it with several names.. starring, ogling, watching, observing.. etc. Whatever you call it, it is one of the most common things people do during commute. I also used to do that.

Watching / observing people, as I call it, helps you to identify a pattern in them. It helps you to identify people’s likes, preferences, style statement,  dressing sense, habits and even their relationship status. Yes.. even relationship status can be identified. It is very easy to identify whether a person is single or committed or married or has bf in bus or at some other place over the phone. Guesses might go wrong but most of times it would be accurate prediction if you have acquired the skill of observation.

There was this girl who used to commute from my area to office in the same bus at same timings.

She never used to talk to anyone either with fellow bus-mates or over the phone. She was not hot or sexy. She was an average good looking girl. She was just another commuter in the bus. Yet I used to observe her a lot.

I prefer a two seater window seat of last but one row. Her preference was also a two seater window seat but of mid row. I never felt of sitting next to her or talk to her. I had always chosen last but one row in spite of several opportunities when a seat next to her was not taken.

Eventually I had to come to US for an onsite opportunity. A year stay away from homeland had totally removed her out of my mind.

Last month when I had gone to India, bus journey to office again reminded me of this girl. But I could not find her in bus during my whole stay of  month. Some of obvious thoughts that came across.. she must have gone to onsite or married and moved to some other area or city. But that was not the case.

The day before my departure to US, I saw her. I was in bus. She was in opposite bus stop standing waiting for some other bus. She was wearing a different company ID tag. She had quit the company.

This post is dedicated to her.. who I never knew.. who was a stranger yet so familiar.. to an infoscion .. now an ex-infoscion

Change is inevitable… change creates space for improvisation.  Here are few changes that happened in my life in 2009

• Came to US in June on a client assignment. This onsite thingy is a win-win-win model. Employer, employee and client.. everyone wins here. Green Grass Fence formula applies here too. You have to come here to realize what it is.
• Visited New york,  Niagara, Thousand Islands and St. Louis as a part of US Travel. Blogposts on them yet to come.
• Bought Sager Laptop, Cannon Digital Rebel XSi, Sansa Clip+ and N900. Blogposts on each of these yet to come.
• Learned life skills after staying alone for 6 months in a flat.
• Experienced American Culture & Lifestyle. I can write as many blog as I want on this topic. This would be the greatest takeaway for me from US.
• Developed photography as hobby.  I have started photoblog too.
• Experienced snowfall and severe cold weather. Minus 20 deg C was the lowest that I ever experienced here in US.
• Tried foods of various cuisines.
• Missed family, friends, blore and Infy. Made new friends.
• Improved a lot as a person. Less selfish, more expressive, better PR, better communication and better skills.

I wish you all a very happy new year. Welcome 2010

It saddens Norwegians that America still honors the Italian Columbus, who arrived late in the New World and by accident, who wasn’t even interested in New Worlds but only in spices. Out on a spin in search of curry powder and hot peppers- a man on a voyage to the grocery- he stumbled onto the land of heroic Vikings and proceeded to get the credit for it. And then to name it ‘America’ after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian who never saw the New World but only sat in Italy and drew incredibly inaccurate maps of it. By rights, it should be called Erica, after Eric the Red, who did the work five hundred years earlier. The United States of Erica, Erica the Beautiful, The Erican League.

Long long ago.. in the land  of twitterville, some bunch of guys were discussing on how a person changes his turkut/ tacetook profile location when he moves to another country and puts something on how he misses India and and and how he uploads new place pics.

Most of them being sarcastic.. I would say, in a southpark isshtyle, screw you guys !!!

The man, a social rascal, finds it very tough to leave everything that he has been with for past 20 years and stay away in a good land’s devils country.

How shall I tell how much I miss infybus, 1.5 hours commute, blore traffic, listening to music through headphones, a lovely nap and mostly importantly thinking of everything in every possible minute.

Here, commute ends before it begins. I will be in office in about ten minutes time.

Lazily lazy as I am, I never had prepared a cup of tea let alone cooking. I used to ask my mom even for a glass of water while lazing infront of tv or internet. Now I maintain whole flat here including cleaning of utensils, cooking, bringing vegetables for food, groceries, cleaning the house and hell lot  of such daily routine things. Well cooking is no big deal.. but cleaning all utensils that were used for cooking.. it is pain. I never cared about my things while I was in India. Here, everyday before I leave to outside, I have to make sure that all windows & doors are locked.. all gas points are off.. all lights are off.. AC is off.. all water points are off.. fridge door is closed.. there is  nothing cooking in microwave/oven.. and finally I will also have to make sure that main door is properly locked by pushing it twice just to make sure that it is locked..huh

Once  I come back from office, there is no one  to talk at home.. no family.. no friends.. there will be only two things to talk to.. the wall and myself.

Individualism is so high here.. that people either stay alone or stay with dog. They either stay in home or stay in car. For people like us who used to with spending time in groups.. it will be quite difficult.

You will either find cheese or pork in most of dishes you order. So here you will find mainly two types of people.. one who is very fat ( so fatty that he/she may explode anytime ) and other who is fit/slim ( fit because that person maintained it ).

People drink more beer/coke than water. A glass full of Coke / water will have half full of ice cubes in it.

Few good things.. you learn to greet a lot ( infact you will start to say hi even to strangers who come across you ), respect people irrespective of their positions, will really know what the work-life balance is.. there is a clear cut solid boundary between work and life.

Few bad things.. “Me first”, “No love.. all sex”, “eat beer.. pee beer” and many such worse things.

People start to work in IT companies after 30 years ( thats the age when they become little serious about  life ). So in a office, you can expect either uncles or aunties. Now need I tell how much I miss Blore DC that too on fridays ?

Traffic Signal is your GOD. Follow it else you are dead. Cars see nothing but signals. People never horn.. rarely honk. They honk when you really piss them off .

It is buddaas and buddiees who enjoy the life to the maximum extent here. They pour all pension money into a luxury car and a very luxurious bike. If you see a BMW bike on the road, I bet rider will be someone’s grandpa with someone’s grandma at the back seat.

The Erican League saga will continue.. America is modern India !!!

PS: Watched love aaj kal.. can be watched once.. deepika looks better.. saif asusual rocks.. This is second hindi movie and four in total in 1.5 months

Well talking about the city where I stay.. it is calm.. infact very very calm.. full of greenery and very well organized. People are seen hardly on roads. In bangalore, if you throw a stone it either hits dog or SE. But here, if you throw a stone, it either hits a car or another car. Public transport is pathetic. Life becomes tough without car. One must have car. Kansas City has spread across two states Missouri and Kansas. There is one state line road that divides these two. I work in Kansas City of Missouri state and I stay in Kansas City of Kansas.

Talking about the cars, one can get to drive the cars that one had never ever imagined of. People drive cars crazily. Traffic rules are always followed. Things cannot go wrong on roads and if they go.. don’t ask.

Everything is organized to the core.

Regarding the work, I am the 1oth infoscion who joined here for the client of size 500. Office environment is very good and office culture is very different from the one that we have in India. Loads of formalities, exchange of greeting s and smiles. Good thing about these people is they treat everyone with the same respect be it a CEO or a housekeeping guy. Everyone does their job and they do it properly. Working hours will be 8 hours usually from 8 to 4 or 9 to 5. People never stay in office after office hours unless required urgently. But one mentionable thing is .. if they work for 8 hours , they do only work and nothing else. Lunch break will be usually of half an hour. Most of times, people have  their lunch at their desk.  Like us, they too wait for Friday to come. There won’t be any important meetings during Fridays. People start leaving office from 3 pm. Everyone will be in weekend mood on Friday.

I am here on long term assignment. Hope, I soon get adjust with this place.

My tea-mies, Prazy and Amar, presented this before I come here ( I am still missing our daily tea sessions  )

I believe that everything happens for a reason and I hope this my new phase of life would make me better than what I am now. Onsite has  definitely a lot to learn from work perspective as well as life perspective.

]]> http://harshah.com/blog/2009/06/22/us-of-the-a/feed/ 5 http://harshah.com/blog/2009/05/31/long-time-no-see-err-no-post/ http://harshah.com/blog/2009/05/31/long-time-no-see-err-no-post/#comments Sat, 30 May 2009 19:37:17 +0000 harsha http://harshahulageri.com/blog/?p=162
Oh.. Grrr… when did I blog last time?

I apologize for such a long non-commercial break.  Where was I? I haven’t been anywhere.. I am here only in Bangalore doing well ( well ? ) .

It was not facing a blogger’s block or writer’s block or whatever.. I have been very busy for last few weeks. Well, you know, I work for a company which is 23 kms away from my home. Can you imagine that I travel 46 kms a day.  It takes 1 hour 15 mins in the morning and 1 hour 45 mins in the evening. That means I spend 3 hours daily in traveling. Thanks to the company, it provides bus facility which makes my commute easy. Otherwise, I can’t even imagine travelling such distance in such traffic in such time in bmtc bus ( well even the bus that I travel daily is also a bmtc bus for that matter but it is on contract.. so that means.. enough seats to sleep or to take rest or to listen to music or to read a book or to the whatever you want to )

You know long time back they have made a rule that every bus ( and obviously all employees who travel in buses ) should enter campus within 9. Thanks to them. Now i have my last bus at 7.30 AM !!! That means.. I have to wake up atleast 1 hour earlier. And the damn bus will be on right time and waits for none ( unlike cabs ). So most of times I endup running from home to bus stop . This is how my morning begins.

Offlate, I have rejoined the GYM ( this time .. the office gym ). Talking of gym, office gym is much much better than the one I used to go earlier nearby by my house.  Gym after office hours means… that much of delay in coming to home.  Being a lazy bum, I have started bunking gym also.. Hey wait.. not every time.. but only few times. Most of times, I bunk because of  office’s hectic schedule. Well that’s ok.. Because of all this, I reach home daily after 9 PM.

I read morning news paper with cup of tea at night.. i mean after i come from office. And after that dinner.. and some spamming on twitter ( well I do this most efficiently during commuting especially while coming back from office ) and some browsing and some chatting and some mailing. By the time, i finish all these, it will be almost 12 AM.  This is how my life is crawling. This is the reason why I am not able to blog.  Infact, I am unable to do anything. I am unable to study. I am unable to watch movies. I am unable to learn anything new. Life is just passing.. just like that. How can I organize myself in more better way? How should I manage time so that i can use that time to learn new things? Help? Pls?

I have a lot to do.. No time.. One life is definitely not enough !!!