Witnessing a Live Session at US Capitol (Same day as Indo-US Nuclear Deal was voted in!!)

Suspecting that we won't be living in Washington DC for too long, I, after a years effort woke up in time (read 7am) yesterday to visit the US Capitol from the inside.

It was a good day and the 30 min drive was well worth me waking up in the morning. Anyways, as it turned out, it wasn't absolutely essential for me to have woke up so early since entry passes were available well into the afternoon. We were told that in order to visit the gallery of the house of representatives we would need a letter from our senator or some congressional representative of our area. So that was a kind of a disappointment.

So we collected our 11:45am entry passes at the kiosk and had to spend a good couple of hours until our tour commences. Thats when we identified the US Botanic Garden, which we anyways were intending to visit. It was a well worth experience. One of the best such places I've ever seen. We were fed with fresh Raspberry-Basil & Strawberry-Mint smoothies. Quite healthy and therefore equally difficult for me to complete. To think that they were serving unlimited amount of smoothies to all visitors throughout the day, it is quite an effort.

Anyways, the tour did commence at 11:45 sharp. We were made to walk quite a lot on the periphery of the huge building. The security was good enough - Not as intrusive as at the airports but quite stringent none the same. Right before entering the building, we were handed headphones by our guide and these were wirelessly connected to a collar mic that he sported. Quite neat. And, BTW, all these tours are completely 'phokat'. That is one good thing about Washington DC - Nearly all museums and buildings are well maintained and yet have free entry as well as guided tours.

Remarkably grand and with an old world European architectural feel, the dome from the inside was stunningly magnificent. Our guide was quite knowledgeable and his antics were amusing. We saw the chamber that housed the offices of ex-presidents and how the acoustics of the room were so horrendous. We saw the office of speaker Nancy Pelosi and the chamber of the old supreme court. It was my first ever experience of seeing a court actually bearing some resemblance to the courtrooms that we are so used to seeing in American movies. The courtrooms that I have seen in Bombay (High Court and Sessions Court) have been quite an anti-climax to what I had expected to see (as depicted in umpteen Bollywood movies)

From there we headed to the gallery of the upper house of United States Congress, the Senate. Unfortunately photography wasn't permitted but we did witness the senator from Louisiana Mary Landrieu debating the financial bailout solution being proposed by the White House. It was a bit disheartening to see that only 10-15% of the seats were occupied in the house.

Much to our surprise, we were able to go about within the Capitol building (most of the areas) without anyone kicking us out or asking questions on why we are in the building. And we actually asked a lady from the staff if we can visit the gallery of the House of Representatives (Lower House) and she gave us the passes to enter the gallery of this august house. Of course, it was preceded with one more round of unintrusive security scanning but at least they allowed us to enter the gallery while the house was in session. We saw representatives from NJ, OK and VA heatedly debating on some health care legislation. It was a great experience to catch the house in session in person. The number of representatives actually paying attention to the session was very low. There were numerous side conversations going on - seemed like a general socializing session. Although it was heartening to see that the speaker had good measure and control over the house (unlike India where the hapless speaker can do very little to control the unruly MPs).

What we did miss, and by very little, is the voting that the house of representatives went through over the Indo-US nuclear deal. I think we must have missed it by a couple of hours at the most. I feel proud just to think that I was witnessing the session of the US House of Representatives the day when they voted in favor of the Indo-US nuclear deal. It would have been an icing on the cake had I seen them debate or vote on the matter. One of those things where I cannot say to myself "Better luck next time"!

War of Words

For the last seven years I have been very regularly reading Vir Sanghvi's Counterpoint on HT. I have been a great admirer of his style and the subjects he chooses to write on each Sunday for the readers.

In this age of 24 hour news channels there won't be a single day on prime time television where we don't get to see politicians taking potshots at each other; at times their fights are reminiscent of the fights, we as kids, used to have when debating a controversial run out decision while playing box cricket in our building compound. And the journalists are like those kids who gain sadistic pleasure as the discussion leads to a physical cat fight.

What we also see with great regularity (and which I agree is very annoying as well as amusing) is the way in which all these news channels (more markedly the one's in Hindi) stake claim that a particular piece of news is being bought exclusively to the viewers by their channel (e.g. Aaj Tak - Sabse Tez, Hum apne darshako ko bata de ki Harbhajan Singh ki mataji ki pratikriya sabse pehle apne darshako tak keval Zee News lekar aaya hai). The hilarious news being televised these days on news channels merits an entire post, if not an entire blog in itself.

However, and surpringly, we have never quite seen senior journalists confront each other in open and question each other, say the way in which Karan Thapar grills his prey each week on CNN-IBN's Devil's Advocate. That is the reason it shocks me today to read noted political commentator Ramchandra Guha's dissection of Sanghvi's Counterpoint column from the previous week in the same newspaper.

Guha begins his spell of bowling with a well directed boucer -

"Sanghvi’s one-sided approach is (as I shall presently show) at odds with the historical record. But it is also at odds with his own record as a political analyst"

To Guha's credit, the content of the column does make very interesting reading and it provides a different dimension to Rajiv Gandhi's years in office. That being said though, one can't but gets a feeling that the article is being written with a primary motive to take on Sanghvi than to drive home a point on Rajiv Raj. Why else would you find names being taken so openly by such senior journalists?

This does open up a can of worms in my mind. Is the newspaper trying to purposely create a war between two of its own journalists? I don't think this has ever been tried at this level (journalists of very high stature and repute) in India. While it may not augur well for quality journalism, but it may certainly bolster the sales of newspaper (hits on website). It certainly would be mouthwatering to see two such journalists wrestle it out week after week - Very interesting prospect.

And if not, then well, why don't try the approach. It would bring out some very interesting news items which the people may have never ever seen. As it is, our nation seems to love dramas of this kind - Be it the gossip on Bigg Boss or be it The Big Fight on NDTV. We, as a nation, just love the big bang, don't we?

Go Sanghvi Go!! Let the game begin!

California Pizza Kitchen

Visited this place after a gap of over 4 years. Still remains as good as ever.

Had a Pesto Cream Penne (Asked them use Pesto very liberally so that there is a good flavor of Basil and that the Pasta doesn't feel dry) followed by Italian Tomato and Basil Pizza.

Both items were superb. Enough to fill two people just perfectly. Didn't feel like I had over eaten.

Human Mind Album

Beyond doubt our human mind is a huge album of images. Thousands and thousands of them, and all of these keep getting pulled up randomly with auto generated patterns.

For instance, on listening Axl Rose sing "Sweet Child O' Mine", there is an image of me standing in RAIT (my college of engineering in New Bombay) ground floor near the Chemistry Lab. I am not even sure if I have ever stood in that place listening this song. But it has stuck. (Music)

Or on seeing one of those golden orange evenings it quickly transcends me to one such evening in Bombay. I do have a complaint that such evenings are really hard to come by so frequently in any place other than Bombay. (Weather / Nature)

Sometimes we meet or see people who have a strange resemblance (not necessarily in physical appearance, but maybe the style of talking, the content of discussion, mannerisms, etc.) with someone that we know. That occasionally causes us to lose focus on what the person is talking about because the mind just digresses into a different tangent. (Meetings / People)

If I were to go on a drive at the night, one of the images that unfailingly appears in front of me is the drives we used to go on in Cyprus. That internal route from Limassol to Larnaca via Zygi by the sea. One Lane on each side of an undivided road - No streetlights - Mountains to the left and sea on the right - Moon rising from the sea with a tubelight reflection to behold. Beautiful!! Serene!! The picture is perfect in the mind that I literally can feel myself being right there. So every time we go on a drive by night, my wife has to hear go through this vivid description again and again and again. (Activities)

Whats sets it further apart is that the brain can construct images on complete imagination. Images that the eyes has never seen. Images about things that have never been described or may not even exist physically. I bet that every person has an image(s) of a ghost or a monster in their minds. And they also very clearly remember a nightmare that they had seen even if it was many years ago. (Dreams)

Words are powerful. And as usual, as strong a thing as words, cannot be left behind in the image generation model of the brain. Even a slightest utterance of the words "Shiv Sagar" actually brings up the image of a Pav Bhaji in my mind; which is odd since Shiv Sagar, when taken literally would mean the ocean of lord Shiva. (Words)

Try this on yourself. Ask someone to just name a place to you. Your mind will most likely automatically bring up an image of that place immediately in front of you. Example: Colaba brings up Taj Mahal and Gateway of India, New York brings up an image of me taking a boat ride encircling Manhattan, Formula 1 brings an image of Red Ferrari driven by Michael Schumacher and so on. (Places)


Music, Nature, People, Activities, Dreams, Words and Places are a few instruments that aid in retrieving pictures from human brain album.

Fascinating.

I wish to capture such associations (Song-Image, Words-Image, Event-Image and so on) on this platform. Lets see how successful I'd be.

Back

Back after a hiatus of 20 months. Feels great. Will try to be more regular on this space.

 

Several events of great significance (like my marriage) have occurred during this period that I am not going to touch upon. At least not for now.

 

Will (attempt to) make a fresh start.