Mac under the Mango tree

 My dear social friends, brothers and sisters ...  Vanakkam, Namaste.  This blog is about a festival called "PONGAL"..... Pongal is one of the biggest and most important festivals in South India, Tamilnadu. It is a day of Farmer, thanking both Farmer and SUN GOD.      Here is my poem in mother-tongue: கதிரவனின் மகிழ்ச்சி, உழவனின் மகிழ்ச்சி, உழவனின் மகிழ்ச்சி, உலகின் மகிழ்ச்சி... பொங்கல் பொங்கட்டும், மகிழ்ச்சி பொங்கட்டும், வாழ்க்கை கரும்பாய் இனிக்கட்டும் , வாழ்க்கை இரும்பாய் இருக்கட்டும்.... இனிய பொங்கல் நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள் ... இனிய உழவர் தின நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள்.... நன்றியுடன்... பிரபாகர் பால்சாமி     Here is the translated version:

My dear social friends, brothers and sisters ...  Vanakkam, Namaste.  This blog is about my experience at the recent reunion that we had.... Special thanks to my friends! Tesla and all devices without recharge, or with no charge - it is called as ??. Recharge is important for human too :) Group of folks having titles varying from architects, strategists, delivery heads, C and mid-level executives, consultants etc, working for various Fortune-500 companies, having a habit of meeting every year. For what purpose? It was neither about strategy and market position nor about investment and financials.   Then, why do they meet? I decided to take few days off amidst my busy schedule and decided to join those folks this year, not to find out why, what etc… Just to hang around with those folks, as they are all my engineering batch mates...   This time, my friends organized get-together in Florida. They meet every year in USA, but for me this is the first time. I am going to meet many of my ba

 My dear social friends, brothers and sisters ...  Vanakkam, Namaste.  This blog is about my experience at "the city never sleeps" ....   This was my 2 nd short trip to Albany and NYC (New York City) in an official visit. Last time I was accompanied by few of my colleagues. But this time I am all alone, very confident and clear on my expectations.:).  Thanks to my colleagues, who helped in the first visit. I was at Albany, the capital city of NY State. This city is beautiful, lots of architectural buildings, very natural, clean and quiet.  After my scheduled meetings, I was supposed to go to NYC.  We had two options: 1. Flight from Albany to NYC. 2. Train journey from Albany to NYC.  I chose the 2nd option, since we followed the same during my first visit. It was a comfortable, a very scenic track, and we could work a lot during this time. :)     I came to know that, the trains from Albany to NYC got cancelled after I reached Albany, and I got only one day to choose. I decid

 My dear social friends, brothers and sisters ...  Vanakkam, Namaste. This is a different blog....  Just sharing my thoughts...   On-boarded for a long trip, and the take-off was getting delayed. I settled down, ready to take a nap, hence I was not in a situation to know, what’s going on there, but crew members were busy… After few minutes, flight took off and reached the required altitude for the long flying hours. After the required nap, I was fresh enough to catch up on all pending office work and completed the required stuff. Hmm….. What to do next?.. As a customer service professional, I watch out every customer service interactions, experience customer service wherever and whenever possible. I noticed a uniqueness within the cabin and with the crew members… What was that?... I noticed the way they served, patience on serving, behaviors on interactions, and

My dear social friends, brothers and sisters ...  Vanakkam, Namaste. I trust everyone is doing well.. In India, we were at peak summer... Temperature was increasing day by day.. Everyone started talking about climate change these days... Good to see the awareness. :) But - what did we see in reality? We were seeing terrific number of advertisements and offers for AC, Fridge and Air Coolers.  We were seeing huge number of advertisements for Ice creams and dairy products We were seeing huge discounts for loans (consumer electronics), micro-finance etc. Yes, these are repeating year over year...   Everyone is reporting growth on top of these, which is forcing the industry and everyone's pay check. But, did that beat summer?. Did that decrease temperature? Did that help global warming? If not, what are are doing differently? 1. Why not plant some trees during summer ? This is the toughest one, and maintaining/protecting trees are not easy at all during summer. This is for next gener

My dear social friends, brothers and sisters ...  Vanakkam, Namaste. I trust everyone is doing well..  Life in USA is getting busier and busier, which is good. Recently I had an opportunity to visit Australia. This was my first visit to Australia. In this blog, I am going to share my experience as a fist time visitor to this country.     First of all – It is really one of the biggest countries in terms of land. It is definitely bigger than India (double size... :) Would you believe ??) ….   India is: 3.2 million sq.km and Australia is: 7.7 million sq.km .     Australia has three time zones: Western Australia, Central and Eastern Australia. India has only one time zone.    I landed in Western side of Australia, which is Perth. An amazing city, quiet city and well planned one.   I remembered the famous cricket ground “Perth”, though I could not get time to visit that. It is called “city of lights”, because it was one of the first cities in the world to be illuminated by electric l

My dear social friends, brothers and sisters ...  Vanakkam, Namaste. I trust everyone is doing well.. In this blog, I will share about my life time experience from cockpit. :)   As I said in my previous blog, I have relocated to USA for a specific period of  time.   I do always have high respect for my colleagues. One of my colleagues, Brandon Johnson, is a pilot and he owns private jet. Whenever we talk about other things during lunch or dinner, he used to mention about his flying experiences, like, I always talk about my farming passion and what is happening within my farm, what i am doing etc. Of course, passion connects people!... Once I asked him: Would you take me to the sky for an hour+ in your own private jet as co-pilot?.  He immediately said, yes, which I did not expect. Hence, I decided to take this opportunity whenever I visit Montana / Bozeman  next time. In my last visit to Bozeman, I asked him the same. He said yes again. :) ... Hence the journey started... It was quic