Manipal Alumni Meet and AKKA World Kannada Conference

For the last 2 days, Anand & I have been making our way to Rosemont (about 20 miles north-west of downtown Chicago) to attend the Manipal alumni meet and the 5th AKKA World Kannada Conference.

The Manipal alumni meet was planned such that it coincided (in both time and place) with the AKKA convention. The meet was held in a conference room in the Doubletree Hotel. Anand and I were not only the youngest people in the entire room, but also the only MITians there. All the others were Doctors who had studied in KMC years before! We met the current CEO of the Manipal Foundation, Mr Bala Warrier and his brother Dr. Raj Warrier, the current Vice Chancellor of Manipal University. Both the Warrier brothers were friendly down-to-earth people with whom you could carry on a conversation on varied topics.
After the meet was over, Anand & I stayed around to help them collect their stuff and drop off in Mr. Bala's room. In return, he gave us guest passes for the AKKA convention, that would've otherwise cost us a cool $225!!

Thanks to the passes, we went back the next day (i.e. today morning) to attend the convention itself. There were some stalls put up by various organisations of Karnataka, along with some cultural programmes. Since we were not really interested in the whole thing, we just had lunch and left in some time.

<- Entrance of the AKKA convention

Anand & I at the lunch table ->

Tomorrow is a holiday (1st Sep being Labor day in the US). But I'm going to be busier than I am on a workday, since I have to go around shopping for stuff to take back when I return next weekend!!

A Great Woman; A Great Life!!

This post is dedicated to my Great-Grandmother who passed away yesterday at 8.30 pm Indian Standard Time, at a ripe old age of close to a 100 years. Her death didn't come as a shock, since she had been bed-ridden for the past few months, and everyone knew that the end was near. She was a highly respected and deeply loved lady who was known to everyone in the family simply as 'Amma'.
She had married my Great-grandfather (who was a Customs and Excise inspector with the then British Government) at an early age, and together they had 9 children.

She was my first teacher ever, and always had a proverb ready for any situation. For the last 25 years, I could brag that I still had my Great-grandmother around, but sadly I can't do that anymore.

She was the glue that held our entire big family together with everyone coming home to Mangalore at least once in a while to meet her and seek her blessings. How attached we all stay together in the years to come is something only time will tell...

May her soul rest in peace.

In the US again

So many times it has happened that I was doing something wonderful, something I would want to read about in the future and remember, and so I would tell myself that I would make a blog entry about it. But every time I either forget to write it, or am just plain lazy :(
I've given up now, and resigned myself to accept that this blog is always going to be on and off.

Here I am sitting in front of my laptop at close to midnight in a small village in the north west suburbs of the beautiful city of Chicago in the US of A trying in vain to remember all that has happened in the past few months and trying to cram all that information into a single blog entry. But the sheer magnitude of that task has already begun to demotivate me, so I'm going to cut the long story short.

One fine morning my manager comes up to me and asks me to start packing my bags because I'm to fly off to the other side of the planet asap. But my visa had expired so I had to start the long and boring process of getting a new visa. The visa interview in Chennai proved to be a welcome mini vacation thanks to some good planning and some great company. We could manage to sneak in a small trip to Pondicherry (now Puducherry). But we sure would've enjoyed the trip much more had the weather not been so unforgiving on the sweat pores.
Once I had the visa it was just a matter of time before I was on my way to the US. Many things about my workplace may be bad, but long distance transit is definitely not one of them. After all who would complain if he were treated like a King on Lufthansa business class and United Airlines first class!

<- Frankfurt Airport

East coast of Lake Michigan ->

It didn't take long for me to get over the jet lag and settle down to work here. This time I'm alone on an assignment here, so it can get boring sometimes. But I've been trying to keep myself busy with some trips over the weekends.

I had been to Oshkosh, Wisconsin a little ago to meet Liz (through couchsurfing). It was a fun trip with some violin play, some sun tan, some river walking and a lot of cultural exchange.

<- With Liz at her apartment


Last weekend I drove to Canton, Michigan to meet Kiran uncle and family. Saw my youngest cousin (as of today) Neel for the first time.

<- With the Canton cousins!

Almost in Canada ->

Later Kiran uncle took me to downtown Detroit where we tried our luck at some of the slot machines in Greektown Casino. Also went to the Ren Cen and walked a bit along the Detroit Riverfront (with Canada on the other side). Had some amazing home food prepared by Swati aunty (she also froze a lot of it so I took take it back with me!!).
The drive back from Canton was a really long one because I went down south to Ohio, drove along one of Ohio's scenic byways, entered Indiana from the west and then traveled north-west towards Chicago.

<- The Man and The Moron (at Fort Recovery, OH)

St. Augustine Church, Minster, OH ->

Stopped for a break at the Indiana welcome center just before entering Illinois, where I found an unclaimed red suitcase. This prompted me to make my first ever 9-1-1 call. A cop showed up soon enough after which I was back on the road. Reached home after midnight after a 9 hour drive!
Drove 833 miles this weekend :)