My brother Kittu

When I was 10 years old, my parents spent a year in the States on work. Our grandparents had come over to Manipal, where we lived, to take care of me and my brother, Krishna (Kittu). Unfortunately, I had a bad fall and broke my back. I was bed-ridden for a couple of months and then had to wear a back brace for half a year. All this time my parents were extremely worried as they were at the opposite end of the world - and this was the world before Skype and Reliance India call.

Attached is an excerpt from a letter which my grandmom (Paati) wrote to my mom on June 3rd 1993. Needless to say, it made them feel a whole lot better to see that I was well taken care of.

"Krishna brought me to tears when he said 'Please don't worry Paati. I will look after anna. I can easily carry both schoolbags.' He is truly a fantastic kid, may God bless him and Karthik. The more I see him the more I admire him. Yesterday, he packed both his schoolbag and his anna's bag. When I told Karthik that he is very lucky to have a caring brother like Krishna, he said 'Yes Paati, Amma says he has the genes of the entire family - big ears like Thatha, wanting to dress well like the two paatis and meticulous like appa and mugs like amma.' To be responsible when he is not even 9 years old. I hope I don't make you cry."

I have never heard of an elder sibling who was taken care of by his younger sibling. I am one lucky guy!!! What more can I say. :)

Glossary
Paati - grandmom
Thatha - granddad
Amma - mom
Appa - dad
Anna - elder brother

How I met my wife :)

The one good thing about stopping blogging is that when you start, you have a lot to blog about. A lot has happened in my life in the last 2 years, but undoubtedly the biggest thing is that I am now engaged to be married to this wonderful woman, Disha. I was one of those people who thought that nothing could top my 4 years of under-graduate college, but I can say with no hesitation that the last 2 years have been the best 2 years of my life - and then some. :)

My first 2 years in the States were highly average - I traveled a lot, made some great friends and met new family, had a ton of fun, but at the same time I ‘liked’ my job and I was as single as a dollar-bill (my little tribute to Douglas Adams :P ). However, not only was I single, but I was well and truly resigned to the fact that things were never going to change – me and a friend, Gautam Tambay, had done this complex analysis which basically proved that it would take on average 17 years for me to find someone that I could marry (Detailed analysis below :P). Needless to say, nothing could have prepared me for how much my life was going to change.

Disha came to America 3 years back. Her first impression of me was that I was a snob. I don’t blame her – first off I am a snob, and to add to that I used to rarely spend time with her, I would run off to a different city every weekend and I played a pivotal role in her having to live without a roommate for 6 months (I teased her roommate about choosing to stay with D over one of his old friends and he gave in to my teasing).

My first impression of Disha was that she cooked AWESOME food. She used to make rajma and call all of us over and for an Indian boy craving home-cooked food, that was a dream come true. I would never refuse an invitation to come over and pig out – while being a snob of course. :)

At some point I can’t quite remember, I realized that here was this pretty, smart, independent, beautiful, nice and cool single Indian girl in my life and I was doing NOTHING about it. Of course, I immediately 'sprung into action' but things weren't that simple.

You see - pretty, single Indian girls in America are VERY rare, especially ones with all the above-mentioned qualities. Hence, Disha had a long list of guys who were trying to win her over. Luckily for me, she saw something in me and as they say, the rest is history.

Our first date was the night when Disha was moving to a new apartment (and I was being the good friend and helping her move) at this cute Italian restaurant called Edo’s Squid. Disha put it best when she said that for the first time, if someone walked by and assumed that the two of us were dating, she would not mind. : )

Soon we were solidly dating, I would make sure we spent our weekends together…. we would take “coffee” breaks at work. But the real kicker was when Disha asked me if I wanted to learn salsa together. Dance, music, romantic drives and coffee were an intoxicating combination and we were soon love-drunk. Salsa was the perfect excuse to spend time together and flirt. Of course, on non-salsa nights, we also had practice as we were preparing for a big performance.

As it turned out, that was just the beginning – romantic dates, weekend trips, Disha’s business trips to Dallas and the long phone conversations, our India vacations and soon we were a couple. Since then, we have come a long way, but I will save that for another day.

Suffice it to say that Karthik Ramkumar has changed - and if you listen to my friends from high school or IIT, the unanimous decision is that I have changed for the better. However, the biggest change is something no one could have ever predicted. For those of you who know me from my IIT days or my Manipal days, I leave you with this note. If someone told you that some day Karthik Ramkumar would speak more Hindi than English, what would you say.

Life is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you are going to get. :)

P.S: Happy birth-week, Disha : )

Detailed analysis as promised
Key assumptions on which analysis was based
i) I want to marry an Indian girl
ii) I had met ~6 Indian girls who passed the basic constraints like age, being single etc. in my first 2 years in the states. Assume that meeting a girl is a Poisson process, this means that I am likely to meet about 3 girls a year as long as I am in the States.
iii) Assume that I am a good match for 1 in 10 girls that I meet. Say that 1 in 10 girls I meet are a good match for me. These are very aggressive assumptions. :P

Conclusion
- I need to meet 100 girls to find someone I can marry. Given 3 girls a year that will take 33 years.
- This means that on average it will take me 16.5 years to find someone
- Oops :)

The birth of Obama-nation

Political views are all about individual perspective and so let me start of by letting you know who Karthik is, politically speaking. To synthesize, I am very left of centre on social issues and slightly left of centre on economic issues. Before you point out that my political leanings are completely incongruent with my day job, which is to work in consumer finance, let me just point it out myself. :)

Since I was always a leftist, I was pre-disposed to be an Obamaphile. However, Obama has inspired me in a way that no human being in my life has inspired me. My expectations of Obama are sky-high and I am cautiously hopeful that he will live up to them.

For me, Obama is many things. He is an underdog of monstrous proportions – an African American who first overcame the Clinton establishment and then did the unthinkable – win the White House. He is a man of vision – who believes in peace, diplomacy, values, equality and is also pragmatic and a uniter. Moreover, his power of oratory and stunning presence make him electric in my eyes. I am convinced that such a man has the potential to be great – not just a great politician but a great man for generations to come. The kind of greatness to put him in the same league as Lincoln, Gandhi and Mandela. I know that he is inexperienced – that his real contributions to the world are scarce. But I forgive him that, because of what he promises…. because of my staunch belief that if you are a visionary, a powerful communicator and a person of principles, you can be the change that you want to see in the world.

So, why am I only cautiously hopeful? Why just the soft endorsement? Well, if I am really honest with myself, I am scared that it is all too good to be true. When I read about Reverend Wright I was disappointed by his lack of judgment. But, if I try hard enough, I can suppress the cynicism by telling myself that that was a younger Obama, and he is no longer the same man.

What is truly the hardest thing for me to stomach though, is something which has been an election non-issue - it is the fact that earlier this year, Obama refused public financing. That when it came down to it – when it came to choosing between political expediency and his principles, he sold out. That he went against everything he stood for. That he went against his word. He became the establishment that he abhorred. That he became one of them.

I tell myself that he was playing a bigger game. That he made a compromise because of what he was committed to. I want him to tell me that as well. And I really, really, really want to believe him.