A stroke of insight.

Today was my first day as a swim instructor at the YMCA.

I loved it.

I had to teach swimming to four adults who were barely managing to stay afloat.

I have always loved teaching, but have never got an opportunity due to my limited knowledge in most fields. But perhaps it was in these deep waters that I finally found ground. 

I think we all are passionate about certain things. And given an opportunity, we’d all love to share our passion with others. And I guess that’s what teaching is all about; sharing your passions. I loved teaching my students today; some of whom were twice my age. But that didn’t really matter. For that one hour, I got a chance to relive my time as a fledging swimmer, making all those mistakes that my students were making today.

I am not sure if I was as good a teacher as my coach who first taught me the joys of the water. But I know that if he is reading this blog, he would have the same words to say to me as back then, “Jump in… It’ll be ok.”

Guess he was right… 

Catfish

I took part in the Catfish swim race. It was a grueling 2.4 mile race in the Stevens Creek Reservoir, a man made lake in Cupertino.  I came third in my age group of 30 to 39. For once it felt good to be old!

One interesting part of this race was the Olympians that showed up! The US Olympic Swim team is practicing at Stanford. And today, being a Sunday was their day off. A couple of them who were taking part in the 10Km race at the Beijing Olympics decided to swim with the rest of us as a “warm-up”. Well, their “warm-up” was definitely enough to let them finish well ahead of the pack!

All in all, a memorable experience. Here’s a link to the results. Here’s a link to the photos that Megha has uploaded on Picassa. See if you can identify the Olympians among them. You can verify your guess my checking them out on TV during the

Beijing coverage. :) 

I (am)sterdam

A few more minutes before my taxi arrives. Trying to squeeze in those few thoughts that compete for their place in my mind that’s already crowded with thoughts on whether I checked under the bed and if I left something in the drawer of the hotel room. I have always wondered the chances of finding something under my hotel bed. I barely use the room. And even if I did, what are the chances that things would get cluttered so much that something would find it’s way down, of all the places, under the bed! In any case, as they say, better safe than sorry. So it’s now become a routine check in my checklist of things to do before I leave for home. Speaking of leaving for home, I’ll miss this place that hosted me for the past 3 days.

Amsterdam. What struck me most about this city is the perfect harmony of the young reckless and carefree youth and the elegant dignified history pregnant with thoughts, paintings, music and tales of the past. While the former glows into its finest as the night progresses, the latter announces its own humble yet conspicuous arrival at the wee hours of the morning. The paved roads, the brick-house sloping roof parish like and at times even medieval architecture, the almost fairy-tale parks where proud birds fight for their space among humans, the ever so common cafes by the canals where old men battle it out over a game of chess incited by thick fumes of hashish… these and so many other small things make Amsterdam a city one can’t help but pause. And wonder, often wistfully, if one will ever be able to retire in a place such as this.

Ah well, the announcement for my fight. Managed to write this post during those many pauses in my transit from the hotel to the airport. Gotta board the plane now. Gotta get back. Hmmm…. you know, as much as any new place we travel to holds us in its grip with beautiful mysteries and wonders, yet, deep in your heart, you know that you really belong somewhere else… some place perhaps very ordinary and insignificant, yet a place whose right on your heart can be reclaimed by no other… a place called home.

Let’s start from the very beginning… a very fine place to start.

I have been thinking of blogging for nearly a year since my last post. And it’s nearly year since then that I am writing a new post. Ah, procrastination, thou are the enemy I will never learn from.

So a lot has happened since I last penned my thoughts. As the triathlon season came to an end, I started working on ideas for starting a company in India. And pretty much the whole of last year seems like one blur, a roulette of desirable and undesirable events. There are several thoughts that come to mind about my experiences with starting and running ApneTeachers, which I would like to pen down, experiences which I could best explain as those many draft versions of a story a struggling author tries to write. Well, that author’s still struggling while at the corner sits that humble waste paper basket, littered with dreams.

I will attempt to write about those past few months over the duration of several blog posts. In the meantime, let’s shift back to the present. I have returned back to the Bay Area. The company that I started, www.apneteachers.com is still functioning, albeit the business model has changed. We outsource our internet based education platform to Schools and Coaching Classes in India. I have resumed my work at Marvell. And currently am writing at 4:40 am from my hotel room in Amsterdam where I’m part of the Marvell team that is participating in a new wireless standard called NGmS. Again, I’ll write more about that technology later.

The point of this post was to tell folks, but mostly myself, that I’m back. Often the best way to do something is to declare that you are doing it to others. And hope that if nothing else, your ego pulls you by the collar and drags you through the journey that you started. I’m hoping unlike my last blogging attempt, this time round I live up to these words. And I am hoping I can also teach some other folks back home how to start blogging. For unlike life, our thoughts are too valuable to let them wither unwritten….

Welcome back, me!

Fine Dining!

I took Megha to a french dining place called La Papillon in Saratoga on 8th October (yup, that’s right. Mark your calendars!).

Neither of us had been to an exclusive French restaurant before. If there’s one difference in our tastes, it’s the appetite for experimenting new meats! I was very interested to try out the Foi Gras or the Grain Mustard Crusted Rabbit with Golden Chanterelles and Tarragon or perhaps the Noisettes of Red Deer. However Megha hates all that meaty stuff and we decided to stick with fish.

The appetizer was the Ahi Tuna Sashimi with Grated Daikon and Soy Wasabi Sauce which being mostly raw was entrusted all completely to me 

The entres were Slow Roasted Wild King Salmon with Truffled Hearts of Palm “Risotto” and the Herb Crusted Halibut on Saffron Basmati Rice with Dill and Cherry Tomatoes which were very good.

And the desert, the Grand Mariner Souffle was the part I liked the best.

And last but not the least, the wine was also very nice. … And expensive. That’s when we also learnt what “corkage fee” meant.

Overall a good foray into fine french dining. But not a cuisine that either of us would die for. Perhaps Italian, or maybe Middle eastern would be something closer to our tastes outside of Asia.

You know, I wonder if the food we eat reflects the type of people we are. The Italian, Middle Eastern, and other Asian cultures have a flavor of chaos in them. The large crowds in small gatherings, the casual lifestyle… does stand out from a more refined attitude that the French or the English have historically known to have. Ofcourse all this is mainly historical and stereotypical at best. But somewhere down there, in between speaking in whispers with Megha lest the others at the restaurant get bothered, and those silent sips of wine, I realized that everyone eventually likes the food that they grew up on the best. And for me… french wasn’t it!

Hope!

We had been at Ravianna’s (Megha’s cousin) place last night. Three of his contemporaries, Ajit Shelat and Raghunath Iyer from IIT Bombay and Mukund (Emulex CTO) were also there. Ajit and Raghu were the early founding members of Switch-on which they successfully sold to PMC Sierra. They then went on to start the India operations of Nevis Networks and were here on work.

It was interesting meeting them over a glass of single malt. I’m always in awe of entrepreneurs. Contrary to what I used to think, they all come in different flavors. Ajit is a very quiet person. Raghu was very energetic and was passionately showing photographs of birds in his garden in Pune that he had taken. Mukund came across as someone eager to know about everyone and catching up with old friends. And I’ve met enough entrepreneurs to say that each is unique in his or her own way.

And so it was over a glass of single malt that I wondered what was that common characteristic that makes an entrepreneur an entrepreneur. Surely there is something that binds them all. Perhaps its not seen on the outside. But somewhere in the far distance, when one gets to the top of the hill and jumps over to the other side, I have a feeling one will find all these entrepreneurs waiting there with open arms, knowing that you’ve figured it out…

The (Better) Half Iron Man.

The funny thing is, whenever I met anyone after this event and told them I completed a half iron man, their first reaction was, “why???”.

I would’nt blame them. The 1.5Mile swim, 56 miles bike and the 13 miles run definitely took its toll. Was eleventh out of the water after the swim. Lost count of the number of people who overtook me on the bike. But managed to maintain a consistent average pace of 17.5 miles an hour. Now the run was the hardest. I had injured my knee running in the San Francisco half marathon a couple of weeks earlier. Owing to that, I had almost decided to opt out of this one. But I figured I would walk it down in the worst case. And that is pretty much what I did through half of my run. By the time I finished, my left knee was really sore and I could barely sleep that night.

Here’s a link to the final result http://www.capitalroadrace.com/results/07_BK_AGEGROUP.HTM

It reminded me of the line from Grey’s Anatomy where Meredith says something like, “Sometimes I wonder why we keep hitting ourselves on the head with a hammer. And then I realize it’s because when the hammering stops… it feels real good!”. Touche!