Lost

What was the most beautiful thing that you lost ?
Do you still remember it when you are alone ?
Do you want to forget about it for the very thought of separation from it gives you pain .... or do you want to keep it alive in your heart for it was the most beautiful thing that happened to you.

Whats the right way ? To live in joy of a beautiful memory or to die in remorse of it being just a memory and not reality.

The scenes from past keep repeating themselves in my head like restless souls of people killed before their time was due. I sometimes get lost in these memories and an unintentional smile appears on my face, prompting my friends to ask me what its about. I have nothing to say. I have decided to keep its memory alive with me.

"... our scars have the power to remind us that the past was real" -- Dr Hannibal Lecter to Will Graham in The Red Dragon

Trade Secrets

Pearl Market -- I looked on as mother talked to her daughter

Yu Youan

You Youan garden -- one of the few patches of traditional china left in increasingly western Shanghai Metropolis

Pan, Kang Hai Tao and Ravi

Traditional Chinese Meal -- At Team outing -- We had Beijing Duck which unlike Bombay Duck is real duck eaten with sauce and white Chinese bread

The Lab

Fourteen hours out of my twenty four hour day are spent at this place

This is our local narcissist -- more formally called Mohit Thakur -- and passionately called Thakur (especially if you want to smack him)
The guys is now back in India and preparing for another Journey.

Pearl Tower

The majestic Pearl Tower. It not the tallest building in china - Jin Mao and World Financial Center are probably taller - yet its grandeur sets it apart and it easily catches your eye and imagination while other structures just fade away at night. You see its not the height but the attitude that matter

Sandeep and Milkshake

This is Sandeep Bhutani. Loveingly called Bhutani. ( No he's not from Bhutan, and he takes offence if you ask him )
This guy has a passion for new gadgets and Milk products, be it plain milk, milk shake, milk tea, .....

And a new requirement

This is xtf. Lovelingly called Brian.
Brian looks into configuiration and provisioning sub-system of our project. And mind you, he looks quit closely!!
In early days and even now, Brian will pop up with a new requirement ;-) But thats a part of the game, isn't it.

Official Nights

This is what Shanghai looks like from my office window at half past midnight

Ravi and Puneet

These are one hundred percent genuine smiles. These guys didn't have a to pose for the camera, neither did they need to say "cheese". It all came naturally on their face. Ravi is wearing old flextronics products T-Shirt (Name of company has since changed to Aricent). He's a manager now, he can wear anything ;-)

This is when my Right hand told my left hand to keep quit

Boat and the River

A tourist boat cruises ahead on Hongpo river as majestic Pearl Tower presides over the proceedings

Lonely God

This is a small temple of a Hindu Deity ( probably shiva ) outside one of the malls near Pearl Tower. My Chineese friends told me that people in China don't have a religion ( Communist effect ). It was intresting to find a lonely god, prisoner of his own temple, looking at the busy road ahead as life goes on without his intervention.

Shu-Ja-Hue

ShuJaHue -- The biggest electronic market in shanghai. This is the place where I learnt what negotiation is all about ;-)

Date with the Dragon

It has been sometime now...about three months since I arrived here.
And in the past three months its first time I have been able to access my blog and till few weeks back wikipedia was off-limits too. Outside China I hardly believed that China blocks free information channels and now at shanghai I can see it for real. Though I must say that people in china are as free as anyone in the world...after all what freedome are we talking about...if you feel you are free...you are free and in that sense china is as free as any other country.

For past three months The Dragon has been good to me and hope it'll remain so for rest of my stay ( just got my visa extended for next two months )