Eminem fan club

Guess what? In an interview to the Times of India, Sania Mirza revealed that Eminem happens to be one of her favorite singers!

Guess I have elite company ...

Fighting a reputation - III (was I mistaken?)

I am allowed to make mistakes, right?

Well, there was this other friend of mine who went to the U.S. for vacation. His way of explaining his experiences revealed why my other friend felt the way she did.

This friend, Ankith, told me that people in the U.S. are inherently more friendly (read: social). It isn't uncommon for complete strangers to come up to you and say 'hi' and ask about the weather. In fact, he said that during early days of his visit, he used to be surprised at the way Americans talked to him, it was as if they knew him as a friend.

So, Indians don't behave strangely in the U.S. . It's just that Americans are more social. I remember reading in a business magazine once that with growth in urbanisation, social inhibitions decrease. That is fairly obvious. What my earlier friend probably experienced was just a culture shock.

Fighting a reputation - II

A friend of mine just returned from a holiday in America. It had always been, rather, it IS her dream to land up in America at a point later in her life. Naturally, I was really curious as to what lessons did this small trip give her.

As expected, she enjoyed the trip a lot. In short, it probably was a perfect holiday for her. There was at least one thing that disturbed her though. She happened to notice that Indians (not red ;) living in the US were not quite as receptive to Indians as one would expect. Americans, on the other hand, extended much warmer feelings.

I wasn't really surprised at this though. Post 9-11, many "outsiders" in the U.S. have been eyed with suspicion. America obviously doesn't want a repeat of 9-11, what with their political/military excesses in other parts of the world. And those "outsiders", I guess, have been try as hard, if not harder, trying to "fit in". It's like being a teenager - the more you try to be someone, the more you ignore things that hold you back from being that "someone". We try to be not seen with certain kind of people, and try to hang out with others. And Indians in the U.S. are probably going through something similar.

What further reinforces this point is Pascal's trip abroad. Pascal has been abroad quite a few times, and many of those trips have been while he was in school (pre 9-11). Although he has never been to the US, he tells me that Indians abroad were quite pleasant and friendly. In fact, he had lived with an Indian family in Europe for some time.

California callin', twenty miles to go ...
And I don't, I don't know,
Should I turn around or should I leave you alone ?
I don't, I don't know ...

Fighting a reputation

It's hard to fight your reputation.

It's good to have a reputation of a "good" student, isn't it? I know it has helped me many times. Teachers are usually very helpful to me, my term work marks reflect that too. I am certainly not among the top rankers in our class, in fact, I really lag behind. Thankfully, I am at good terms with my teachers.

But the college sports taught me that this may not always be good. I was never really "into" sports, only this month was I taking cricket seriously (with me having lost around 10 kgs in the last few months, sports suddenly is now pleasure). As I had mentioned in my earlier post, my bowling was pretty okay. I am not really that bad a fielder. And I did belt quite a few good shots with the bat during practice. But no one from the the "team" really took me seriously. There were a couple of selections that I could have debated ... but, well, I chose not to.

I am a programmer. Sports is not my cup of tea.