The Empire Strikes Back...

I've heard so much hue and cry all over the USA and Britain about jobs being lost and outsourced to India. Its a reality that I see everyday... GE employs a lot of people from Satyam for their software needs. They also source manufacturing jobs to China and Mexico. In fact the project that I am working for will be manufactured in China.

But recently Ive heard of outsourcing in UK, where banks are sending IT and call center jobs back to India. Well its a little ironic that you are biting back at a dog that once bit you.:-)
But now the truth is the reason why India is poor and hence has workers prepared to work at lower wages is because the British plundered the country during the time of the Empire to earn their riches and caused a slew of problems in India.

But luckily for us they left a legacy of the English language in India. And now outsourcing thrives on the basis of the relative command of the language that Indians have. So the Empire strikes back at the Brits... like it or not there seems to be a law of conservation of money.:-)

Free time...

Have you ever been paid to surf? Well for the past few days I have been. I was shifted from the Refrigeration to the Dishwasher section. Now there are lots of us new co-ops there but due to some software bug we are just sitting idle as there is nothing for us to test. So yesterday I just sat there the whole day surfing... Mind you I am trying to find nice and constructive ways to surf.

Check out this site: Learning Spanish at BBC This friend of mine from Gatech called Ben keeps talking bits in Spanish all the time. So I thought it would be neat to learn some myself. At home you can prolly see me watching a Spanish channel sometimes, just to catch a glimpse of some of the best looking babes there are. Hispanic babes look really good!! So well may be I am thinking a few steps ahead there. ;-)

The other form of entertainment I have developed for myself is going to a bookstore closeby.... its a chain bookstore called Borders and it is a 2 min walk from my house. They have these supremely cozy couches there and the only limit put on the time you can sit there browsing books are the store hours.(They are open until 11 pm btw) So I've been reading a lot of interesting books. One which Niva told me about called "Gun, Germs and Steel". Its an interesting account of why the world today is dominated by Europeans. Among the most fascinating reasons, as a lot of you might know, is that Spanish Conquistadors carried germs from Europe that poor Aztecs and Mayas werent resistant to. It does go into great depth as to why metal and guns developed first in Eurasia, but its best explained by reading the book... so I shall spare my breath here.

Holy Visit to Louisville Temple

It was dassera yesterday (that is a hindu festival for the uninitiated). Hence Nishant and I went to the Hindu Temple of Kentucky. In Madison, we dont have a temple, so this was my first American Indian Temple visit.

Externally the temple really didnt look like a temple. I mean the architecture that you associate with a Hindu temple was missing.. it was just this rectangular box with no personality. But on the inside it was amazing... There were like many individual temples dedicated to many gods and each one was made in the very traditional style with labels on the top for every God...
Now that might seem ridiculous but trust me, I'd never heard of half the Gods I saw there.

But it felt nice to finally visit a temple after so long. The puja was in Hindi, so I did follow it a lil but it made me miss the Marathi puja even more. Whats more I heard a few people talking in Marathi but didnt get talking to them...

The Motor Racing Capital of the World?!

Well guess where I was this Sunday?! At the Indianapolis Motor Speedway... which is also the venue for the Indy 500 and the Brickyard race. But of course those who follow Formula One know which are the best races. I also had my driving debut on the US interstate system the day of the GP. Drove down I-65 N at an avg speed of 70 miles per hour... this of course is peanuts compared to the speeds on the Speedway.

Quite frankly, the speedway seems like a poorer part of Indianapolis. Somehow the area around it isnt the most prosperous Ive seen in the US. Of course at a big event such as this you can expect to see really rich people... there were tonnes of Mercs and BMWs on the way and in fact I parked my humble Corolla right next to a BMW.:-)

Then off I went to the Paddock, which is the grandstand where I was to be seated. The location was just okay... I thought that if I spent double the cheapest tickets, I'd have a good view but it wasnt as great as I would have expected. But one could see the whole straight, the pits, the podium and the press box. So that was quite a lot to see... the only issue was that one saw all this thru a mesh like structure there to protect us from misbehaving cars.... I am glad it was there, but my camera wasnt.

To check my snaps from the USGP... Click here .

The race was really worth it though... I mean Micheal Schumacher started from position 7 to get to position 3 and then again went to position 8 and reached right to the front of the pack. When the race ended he was ahead of second place Kimi Raikonnen by 22 seconds. The cars move at such great speed and make such a deafening noise, one cant possibly get pictures of moving cars or hear others speak while the cars are zooming past you. But thats one sound I am going to relish for the rest of my life.

The crowd was multinational... americans were lacking in nos though. For as far as the eye could see, you could see Italians, South Americans, other Europeans and Indians!! Indians in heavy numbers... this is surprising since there wasnt a single Indian driver or car company taking part in the events... and whats more surprising, I met people from Pune there whom I havent even met in Pune for the last many years.
Anyways thats it from my end on this one!