Saturday, November 8, 2008

Obama, Change, and Raj

Obama built his campaign around what I call the "Change" rhetoric. I've mentioned this because I read an interesting counter-arguments to this in one of my pro-republican colleague's office and it's worth a mention in my blog. It goes like this:


"I'll keep my freedom, my guns, and my money, and you can have all THE CHANGE ---- Vote for McCain/Palin "


Now Obama has won, and McCain, Palin & Co. has gone into hibernation. So, why am I mentioning it now? To be honest, I wanted to write something but was out of ideas (as usual) as to what should be the opening lines of my new post. This, at least, has given me some sort of a start, no matter how good or bad it might be.


Talking of change reminds of the change my life has gone through in the past few weeks. For a guy who can sleep 24x7 if given an opportunity, getting up at 5:30 everyday, working 12-13 hours a day with no weekends off is quite a change. Even though I get a weekly off on Fridays and I make full use of it by remaining inactive the whole day, I am not satisfied. There was a time when I used to get a 2-day or a 3-day weekend and I used to nap, munch, nap again, and then cherish the nap-munch cycle on Mondays while awaiting the next weekend to go back to my favourite routine. But with the current schedule and my apparent, never-ending want of sleep, normal Earth-Fridays seem to have turned into Venus-Fridays . And then working on weekends afterwards is not what I had asked for when I relocated to US. But there is a positive side to it, which is the hands-on experience that I've gained. Let's leave it at that as I am in no mood to discuss the technical stuff I've learnt.


Two more weeks and my work schedule will be back to normal. There are a lot of pending items on my to-do list, which I hope will take priority over the nap-munch cycle when those eagerly awaited long weekends are back. Despite this hectic schedule and the fact that I haven't able to follow cricket matches live, life here in US has gone pretty well till now. I am fairly content with the highlights posted on the net. My regular cricket discussions with Akshay have kept my enthusiasm alive. With so much of cricket going on these days, there is always something to discuss. But it's not the only thing we discuss. In the past few months we have had some really long abuse-a-politician discussions over the weekends, which have been really constructive. Besides being an effective way to exchange ideas and views, these discussions are great stress busters. Just imagine the morale boost and the confidence one gets by cursing and denigrating someone like a Raj Thackrey without the fear of being attacked by some MNS supporter in Louisiana. Some people might find it a waste of time but it's better to waste time like this rather than "utilize" the time in propagating a North Indian-Marathi divide or a Hindu-Christian divide.

Well, it's time to go back home so I must stop writing now . I'll be back soon.

PS: I think an arbitrary title like Obama, Change, and Raj befits the random thoughts I have penned down in this article.