I experienced the Aero India 2005 show yesterday. That was the first ever time that I saw an air show, live. It was mind-boggling, given that I am fascinated by speed.

The viewing area had a fleet of aircraft parked, separated from the crowd by just about 30 feet. That's how close we were allowed. The USAF had brought in two f-15s and a couple of transporters. There was a german transport, the LCA, the MIG-21, the MIG-29, the Sukhoi and the Intermediate Jet Trainer (IJT). Also on display were a few light aircrafts and microlites.

The LCA (light combat aircraft) is a laudable achievement for India. The LCA drew a lot of cheer from the crowd, when it thundered past us performing some cool maneuvers. The Saarang copters in their dainty colours were a treat to watch. As a friend said, they looked like guppie fish. :) Many other copters displayed their capabilities - the Chetak, etc. Another feather in India's cap - the IJT. It is a trainer aircraft that HAL developed on its own. Well, a better value for money than the Hawk from UK.

Later, the MIG-29 shot past doing some 900kmph. Amazing! The host announced the MIG's slow speed run at 240kmph. Slow? 240 kmph? Earth shattering pull. The MIG performed some really awesome loops and other cool stuff. The thing I liked most was to see the MIG rush away in a straight line leaving its exhaust note trailing behind.

Out of the blue came the Jaguar flew by, again at awe-inspiring speeds. The Jaguar did not perform any radical moves. It was just a display of speed. Not a wonder because AFAIK, the jaguar is a fighter-bomber and wouldn't need too much agility. Agility is only for air superiority aircraft like the MIGs and the Sukhoi. That brings us to the Sukhoi or the Su-20 MKI, with its thrust vectoring system. The thrust vectoring system from what I know, makes use of a movable exhaust to help the aircraft move sideways as well.

The Sukhoi took off in style and even while it was gaining height, one could see the exhaust move as if it were some flexible tube (it is not a flexi tube in case you are wondering). Neither the MIG nor the Jaguar could beat the noise made by the Sukhoi. It could blast out your ear drums. The thrust vector means that the Sukhoi has some marvellous tricks up its sleeve. Imagine an aircraft speeding in a straight line and suddenly it shifts left almost at right angles and starts to move in a parallel line. That's the kind of move we are talking about. The Sukhoi did a slow speed run of 180kmph. It looked almost as if it had stalled the engine or something. Wonderful aircraft! Undoubtedly the best of the lot.

The best display was yet to come. The Suryakiran aerobatics team. With multi coloured smoke trails and some very cool and precise formation flying. It was shocking to see how much precision the stunts required. One wrong move by one pilot and that's it. They performed some high speed head on runs - whatever they are called. It was cool.

After watching all these wonderful birds, the exhibition itself was not so thrilling. Except for the other birds ;-)... The exhibition was too technical for me to even begin to comprehend. But we got to oggle at some models - model aircrafts, that is.

It was the 1st of July, 2002. No, I think I should rewind back a day. 30 June, 2002. That is the day I landed in Bangalore to take up my job with Oracle. I had met and knew 4 other people who would join with me. Murali, Karthik (Skely), Durga (DD) and Sangeetha. As it turned out, we were a total of 19 people that would spend, together, the next few months in training. We were to stay in a hotel for a while. Hotel Harsha Park Inn. That sunday I met a few of the others in the hotel - Guneet, Karthikeyan (Chells), Rajiv and others.

Finally, the day dawned. We were all packed into taxis and shipped to Oracle. We hadn't been to Oracle yet and all of us were pretty excited to see the building. Skely got to his antics the moment we landed there. He almost crashed through the glass walls at the entrance.

That day sitting in a conference room, we began to form the bonds. We were a mix of people, from different places, different colleges, different views. One thing was common though, we were just out of college and this was our first job. And we were very excited about getting into Oracle. We took the first step into the true adult world together. Like soldiers in a fancy parade.

Let me take some space to describe the people.

Anu - the patriot, very passionate about Sachin and Abdul Kalam.
Anuj - the chubby guy, who went from fair to pink to red when we ribbed him.
DD - the sweet talker, who would later talk people into finishing the extra food.
Debarun - the mimic and a movie fanatic. Dada, we call him, in Bengali style.
Guneet - the people guy, who made friends with almost everyone around.
Karthik (Skely) - the funny guy. always ends up doing things wrong.
Karthikeyan (Chells) - the gamer, without 'Th' in his vocabulary.
Manish - the guy who got most linked to our female-tutors, by us.
Murali - the all-round helpful guy.
Prakash(CP) - the techie and the brainee. Unix fan.
Prashanth - the guy who used his fifth drink and sixth sense to get to seventh heaven.
Preethi - the no-nonsense girl with a smile.
Rajiv - the intellectual and the speaker.
Rupsa - a close second to swati in terms of childishness. chocolate fanatic.
Sangeetha - the silent one and eats the least. She still is the same.
Santhosh - the thinker. Thinks too much and mostly philosophically.
Swati - the kid in the group. Also an eater, "petu".
Vijay - the handsome dude with a winning smile. that's what most girls thought of him anyway.
As for me, I learnt that I had come across as 'frightening'. I haven't figured that out yet. :-)

We spent three months together in training rooms. Most of us, anyway. It was like being back in college. Classes, naps during classes, a hundred coffee breaks (that's exaggerated, ofcourse). Lunch would see almost all of us crowded around the same table. We would sit around, talk, laugh and have fun during our lunch breaks. I guess everyone in Oracle must have noticed this bunch of "kids".

I would dare say that I have never felt so close to any group of peers; neither in school nor in college. We became almost like a family - a big, boisterous, loud, fun family. Everyone of us was away from home, some of us by thousands of kilometers. This group was our family away from home.

Anuj was the first to leave. He got himself transferred to Hyderabad. Swati followed later. She didn't want to go, but that's what she had to do. We had all known each other only for a few months, but the day swati got the news there was a stillness in the group. It was a sad day. It was fate's way of telling us that we cannot be together forever. About a year and a half later, Guneet quit Oracle. Though he is still in Bangalore, we don't get to see much of him. Then Rajiv left to do his MBA at IIM, Ahmedabad. He had been my roomie for close to two years and a great roomie to have. A few months after this, there was a mass exodus to Amdocs, Cyprus. Prof, CP and Santhosh left for Cyprus.

We were then just a handful left - a mere shadow of the original set. But we made the most of everything and continued to be together as often as we could. This past friday, Rupsa gave us her farewell treat. She is going to Calcutta. A sad day it was, yet we laughed and smiled. After all, we didn't know when we would get another chance to laugh together.

I can only hope that all of us manage to continue being in touch through mails or phone calls; no matter where we are. And that, someday we would get a chance to get together again. All of us together, making the loudest possible noise.

Borrowing Rupsa's quote - "To meet and to part is the fate of life; to part and to meet is the hope".

What's with this idol thing anyway? For that matter with any of these talent hunts. During my evening channel surf yesterday, I caught a glimpse of this year's American Idol. I think it was the first episode or something. Now American Idol (or its desi counterpart) is a talent search for a singer. Singer, as in somebody who can sing and sing well at that. Yeah, stage personality counts too and if you can dance then better. But first and foremost, you need to be able to sing.

There were thousands of hopefuls at Washington D.C., where this episode was based. Swarming around and milling around. People of all kinds. When you hear such a huge crowd proclaim in a single, differentiated voice - "I am the next American Idol", you would think that all of these people were singers. They sounded that very confident.

Like every other talent hunt, most of these people had absolutely NIL talent. When I say no talent, I mean people who know only to scream in hoarse voices. There were people who sang like a unruly gang of kids singing rhymes. There were those that seemed to croak. Those that seemed to speak rather than sing. Off keys, helter skelter highs, completely insane howling. These were the talents that most of these *hopefuls* had. Well, there were some good singers, but this competition is for them and they had every right to be there. Not so the others.

I couldn't understand what went through the minds of these people. It was pretty clear that they couldn't sing, yet there they were. Trying to win a competition that searched for pop stars. What were they thinking? It is not like they had ANY talent and fumbled under pressure. They had zilch singing capability. I can only pity the judges that had to listen to thousands of such people "sing". If it were me, I would have run down the street pulling my hair (what little I have of it) apart. It was that bad.

When the judges couldn't help laughing at the charade, these "singers" got mad. They would cry and make a fuss and call the judges names. All this, as if it were injustice to prevent them from showcasing their awful singing to the world. When they were rejected (rightly so), they would get this look of disbelief on their faces. "No, you can't do that. You can't reject me."

What makes these people audition for such shows? Why do people want to make such fools of themselves? Do they really think they have talent? What about their friends? Couldn't the friends and family tell these people that they had horrible voices? Couldn't they be honest and tell them to shut up and get on with their normal lives? Or, in the end, is this just a shot at appearing on world-wide T.V.?

There were some genuine cases of people who could sing but lost their nerves. But most were not.

My sympathies with the judges who had to bear such cruelty. Who had to live with this horror and then were called unspeakable names for keeping the horrors away from us. I don't think Simon is an evil sadist. He does a good job of telling people straight to their faces to go shove it. Keep it up, Simon.

P.S.: I don't dig the concept of such shows. But I think I'll watch American Idol. Just to see how crazy people are.

"Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?" That everybody-knows-it question, asked in many an interview. What does it aim to uncover? This must be a trick question to check whether the person is ambitious enough.

Now, don't think I am going to write about interview skills. No sir, not me! What I am wondering about is this 'ambition' thing? Why is it necessary for somebody to be ambitious? People seem to have this idea that ambitious people are smart and would contribute better. I am very opposed to that idea. When I think about it, I find ambition and greed to be so closely related that they are almost the same thing. Many ambitious people go to great lengths (often on the wrong side) to achieve their ambition, don't they? That makes ambition a bad thing, atleast in my dictionary.

I never seem to understand how ambitions work. I have no inkling of how having an ambition helps. Why should I have plans of what I want to be in 5 years? It does not motivate me in any way. I cannot see myself working harder because I have an ambition to achieve.

I have dreams, dreams that don't have to come true to make me contended. There are things that I would like to happen, but I won't be upset if they didn't happen. I wouldn't strain myself to make them happen. I would probably feel good if they happened. Maybe that is what ambition is, a dream that one chooses to bring to life. Is that so? Does it mean that I have ambitions too? It can't be. "Why?" you ask. That's because everytime I hear people speak of ambition, it is either about money/power/fame or some professional ambition or a mix of all these. I don't have such ambitions (or dreams).

Am I just plain stupid to think I am any different, :-) ?