Pavansut: The Monkey God

We are living in an amazing era where expert knowledge is available to us at our fingertips. In fact, there is sooo much interesting stuff out there that any one with any interest in even the most esoteric of topics can find a podcast or blog devoted to it. Over the last few months, I have been listening to several podcasts that have enriched my life significantly and here are my top three.  I hope you get to listen to some of these and benefit from their wisdom: People I Mostly Admire :  This podcast by Steve Levitt, the co-author of Freakonomics, is absolutely my favorite podcast, and each week I eagerly await the next episode. In this podcast, Steve, who is a behavioral economist, interviews people famous for having achieved some level of excellence in the field of their choice. The goal of the podcast is to expose us to unique and some times controversial ideas to get us thinking. Past guests have included Daniel Kahneman (Thinking Fast & Slow), Rajiv Shah (Who led the mission

Statue in the courtyard of Palace of Counts of Poitou Standing in the line for the Airlink Express bus in West-End of Edinburgh, I was wondering if I had done the right thing. After all, Taxi to the airport would have only cost about 25 pounds. But I wanted to travel like the way Brits do - using public transportation. So here I was, standing in the line for the airport bus, at 6am, hoping that the bus would not be late and I would not be delayed. As it would happen, the bus came on time and 40 minutes later I was dropped off right in from to the checkin area at Edinburgh Airport. Total cost - £5.50! Great to start the day with savings. My plan was to meet Ruben and Rosa somewhere near Bordeaux, and the easiest way for me to get there was to take Ryan Air to a town called Poitiers, and then from there take the train to Saintes (pronounced Sānt). Ruben and Rosa, who were driving in from Valencia, would meet me at Saintes and we would head out from there to the town of Cognac. Landing in

When Sujay invited me to a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland to celebrate a milestone birthday with some friends, I thought it would be a small group of four or five friends who would get together for a weekend of fun and golf. Well, this was hardly a boys weekend out - it was more a destination wedding-like-celebration with (what seemed like) 35-40 close friends of the Kango family invited to spend an highly choreographed weekend in Edinburgh. Hemanshu and I, at Winton Castle with Kalindi and Sujay Kango,  celebrating 30 years of their  engagement In the annals of friendship celebrations, I think this one will go down as one of the big ones. Kalindi and Sujay went extraordinarily out of their way to make this celebration a grand one. For starters, just like a wedding, every thing was choreographed to a T. So much so that for one of the events there was even a dress code announced! Of course, as is my wont, I ignored the itinerary/instructions and realized my faux pas upon landing

This is how my vacation has started. I was enroute to Hamilton station to take a train to Newark International Airport, on my way to Edinburgh, and the phone started to buzz - message from United Airlines - my 11.50 pm flight has been delayed by two hrs!! Some kind of mechanical failure lead the airline to require a change in aircraft. They offered to change my flight but the first flight is literally in 45 mins (which obviously I can't make), and the next flight is tomorrow. So here I am, sitting in a rather empty NJ Transit train still headed to Newark airport, hoping that the delay is indeed only 2 hrs and not longer. The trip to Edinburgh is in the honor of my friend and mentor Sujay turning 60. Like all things he does, he decided to celebrate his 60th birthday in style, in Edinburgh, with a few friends and family. We will of course partake of some delicious scotch, but we'll also get to enjoy a round of golf at St.Andrew's, the birth place of golf (#bucketlist!!) After

In this day and age when life expectancy of a man is around 85 years, death of a person at the age of 54 is undoubtedly a shocking news. Unfortunately this shock came to me early this week when I received a text message stating that my friend Devesh Batra is no more. I don't remember how I first met Devesh, but I remember that when I founded ASAP, NJ (Association of South Asian Professionals) in early 2000s, Devesh and his sister Suchitra, were one of the first to join the organization. Over next weeks and months we became good friends not only because we shared the one thing that was common amongst ASAP member - that we were single and bored - but also because Devesh was a genuinely nice guy who was always there to help people. When ever I had any issue - whether it was a computer networking issue - of which I had many - or issue related to an esoteric topic like immigration, Devesh was a fountain of knowledge, always ready to help. In the early days of ASAP, we had many potlucks

Dec 19, 2022 - Wow, what a historic day! Trump has the unique distinction of being the only US President to be referred by the US Congress for criminal prosecution on four charges including inciting insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the US, and obstructing the Congress in peaceful transfer of power.  It will be interesting to see how the Justice department responds to these referrals.  Trump's response can be predicted, but it will be doubly interesting to see how the Republicans respond. Will they kowtow to the the ex-President who still holds a large chunk of the Republican Party in his thrall, or will they finally act in self interest and wrest control of the Party from the destroyer-in-chief.  2023 promises to be an interesting political season leading into 2024 Presidential elections.