On a Whale Trial

After the last weekend at the apple orchard, this week Ramesh & I decided to go for one of the whale watch tours. Mostly because one of the close relatives of Ramesh has suggested it to him. Anyway rather than doing our assignments[:(], we preferred the option. Friday, being the only common day on which Ramesh & I don't have classes, we thought we book the tickets on that day and also we could avoid the week end rush. But a full boat(more or less) caught me by surprise. And the reason was pretty simple - the trip is pretty awesome.

After spending some few minutes in the New England Aquarium(not worth a visit), we took our seats in Voyager III, the cruise boat that was taking us to the sea. Thanks for the helpful tip in the website that recommended us to bring a winterwear, I brought my jacket for the tour. It turned out to be a wise decision against my view that i am carrying an extra weight in this hot day. It became pretty cold, once we moved to the interiors of the ocean. After a hour travel, we had our first whale sighting. It was really a delight to see them at close quarters - especially the humpback whales diving, open feeding, tail splashing, ... right next to your boat. Surelly a Photographer's delight! After a few minutes, i lost count of number of whale sightings.

The boaf staff after spending a few minutes watching a few random whales, decided to take the matters in their own hand and started following a Whale pair. Oh! The next few minutes were great watching the whales without any fear for the foreign activity, coming up close to our boat. Was able to take a nice video of one such sighting of a whale that came so close to our boat.

In whole, it was pretty awesome and enjoyable trip to see such huge animals so near to you.. that too in their wild.

P.S: After the whale watching, my research(!) in wikipedia revealed it is a one billion dollar industry!!! Hmmm!!!

Apple Picking!?@#

Yeah! I would have been surprised too if somebody has said that i would go for apple picking(it should be called apple plucking.. at least according to my dictionary..)trip to an orchard. A New England tradition I was not even aware of, until my church friends invited me. Why lose out a chance to see the countryside when you have an opportunity???.. So my apple picking trail started, after the early morning church service, amidst the beautiful orchard. Different Varieties of apple are grown in different parts of the orchard and we are allowed to fill up a bag(bought at a price before starting the trail) with apples - that you choose and pluck from the trees. The main fun is choosing the best(Largest & red) apples that your eyes lay on. These apples are generally found only on the top of the trees. So it was fun climbing up and down.. of different trees and plucking up apples. Got reminded of my young days, when i used to climb the grand old guava tree in the home. After getting tired on eating apples, we made our way back, carrying a whole bunch of apples. On the whole, it was a fun weekend, away from Boston.

P.S: Hmmm... Slowly I am becoming a Bostonian... :)

Yoga and Christianity: Are they compatible

When NDTV news reported about "Two Church halls in U.K. banning Yoga", it might have been a shock for a few Indians. But for the Indian Christian community, it is something that has been under discussion for quite some time. (Though the Indian Catholic Church immediately expressed its displeasure of the decision of 2 church halls).

Both the proponents and opponents of Yoga in Christian community have their own reasons to believe in their stand. While the proponents talk about the multiple benefits of Yoga - e.g. one of my devout christian friends and the college chess captain explains how the breathing exercises of Yoga has helped him in Chess games by increasing his concentration. The opponents talk about the mutually exclusive view points of Yoga and Christianity about God, Man, Man's fundamental problem and its solution. Read for yourself why Yoga and Christianity are incompatible @ "Probe.org - Yoga and Christianity: Are they compatible".

But my first dash with Yoga was enough to take my own stand of keeping myself away from Yoga, in spite of its multiple benefits. "Surya namaskar", the first exercise that was taught to me, made me feel uncomfortable, just by its name. (Remember, it is a blasphemous thing for both Christians and Muslims to worship anything/anyone other than God). And i feel more uncomfortable at places where Yoga is made compulsory.

P.S: Major reason for writing this post is not to explore the compatibility of Yoga with Christianity, but just to remind that there may be a few among us who don't carry the same high opinion about Yoga as a lot of other Indians do.

My First Post from US Soil

It has been a week since I first set foot in this 'land of opportunities'. Bored with the 'busy' terms in IIM Indore, thought that studying in another college would provide you ample time to chill out. But the way the classes are progressing, I don't think I would get that much needed time to chill out. :(

But otherwise, it has been a great experience. Similar to 'priceless' ad campaigns of MasterCard, going through a lot of priceless moments that i would carry in my life.

• Living in your own apartment - $1300/month but learning cooking under Ramesh and then cooking on your own - Priceless
• Studying in a US B-School damn costly
• But studying in a class in which the fairer sex are in the majority - Priceless
• But studying in a class with people from different nations - Priceless
• But chatting with Pakistani[conversation was mostly in Hindi.. :(] - Priceless
• But window shopping the enormous number of well chosen books in Harvard Co-op Book Store - Priceless
• But reading "Oh! Jerusalem", the book i have been searching for 3 years, that too for free - Priceless

Expecting to get a lot more "Priceless" moments in this short stay in Boston, U.S.A

New Term in a New Place

Next 3 and 1/2 months in Boston, USA... Going there as a part of International Student Exchange Programme to one of the 'Chota' colleges in Boston... Would have loved to post a long 'globe' post about how busy the last term was in IIM Indore and my travel to Boston... But got no time for that.. So Bye! and Future blogging from USA.