Autobiography of an Indian Software Techie and Spiritual Aspirant – Part 1: New Sections, Updates & Suggestions and Errata

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Last updated on 14th June 2020
Last minor update on 29th Aiug. 2022

This page has new sections, updates & suggestions and errata for the book: Autobiography of an Indian Software Techie and Spiritual Aspirant – Part 1, 1st edition, revision 2. The ebook free download and printed copy links for the book are given here: https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/p/autobiography-of-indian-software-techie.html.

I plan to include the corrections and updates (and consider all the suggestions for inclusion) if and when I update the book to 2nd edition.

My USA Stints

My first USA trip was in or around March 1987. I was sent to Wang Labs., Lowell, Massachusetts for an assignment where I did Quality Assurance for Wang VS OS. This was for around 7 months, if I recall correctly .

I got exposed to decent Western living in this USA trip (and a later one also to Wang Labs., Lowell). We were provided accommodation and car by Wang Labs. I was put up in Royal Crest, Nashua, (site loads slowly) https://www.royalcrestnashua.com/ , along with a colleague. It was a spacious flat in a good condominium, with each of us having a largish bedroom. This was a significant improvement on the two connected studio flats which three of us shared in my earlier Brussels, Belgium assignment (to Wang ITRC).

And two or sometimes three of us were allotted one rented car, with the rented car being quite recent models. In Brussels, during my part of the assignment, we were not given a car. After I returned to Datamatics, Bombay, I believe my other colleagues who stayed on further, managed to get a better deal where they could get a rented car.

So this USA assignment was the first time, I had access to a car! I had managed to do bare minimum learning of car driving and got an Indian and international driving license while in Bombay, prior to coming to USA. There were many Datamatics staff on assignment to Wang Labs., Lowell, with significant number of persons being put up in Royal Crest condominium, Nashua. The guys who were already there and knew driving in USA, taught newbies like me, driving unofficially. Once a newbie had some level of driving skill, he was asked to drive to work and back with an experienced-guy-teacher sitting next to him, and helping him. BTW there were some ladies too amongst us Datamatics staff there but I don't know how the ladies handled this car driving part. I am indebted to some of these persons who took the time and had the patience to teach me car driving. Note that I did not even know how to ride a bicycle (and still don't know it). So my driving road sense was close to zero when these guys taught me driving in USA.

I had one or two close shaves while I was in this learning to drive in USA phase but eventually I became, I think, a decent car driver in USA. Note that we used to typically get automatic gear cars and so I was comfy only with these cars. Later in Europe, while on a short assignment in Netherlands, I struggled to drive manual gear cars, especially when starting a car on an upward incline (a traffic stop near our place of residence was on an incline).

But with automatic gear cars, I become really comfy in USA driving environment. I really enjoyed driving there. We also would get to change our cars quite a few times, and so I got exposed to driving recent models of Japanese companies like Toyota and Honda as well as US companies like Chervolet.

The highway roads were so good and even the smaller roads were good. The smaller roads would sometimes be having a lot of turns and would be in a picturesque setting, as against the highways which would be rather straight with gentle turns. I enjoyed driving on these smaller roads.

On some holidays, I would go out for a long drive on my own, into picturesque country side, when my flat-mate and car-mate would have other work to do at home. Even today I recall those drives like from Nashua, NH to Vermont state over country roads going through lot of leafy tree areas (should I say woods? I am not sure).

Royal Crest gave me a taste of good middle class life in USA. This is what I could easily achieve if I chose to settle down in USA, and could even have a house of my own if things worked out well (as against a flat in a nice condominium). Shopping malls were nearby and as we had cars, it was very comfortable to shop, load the goods we bought into the car (dickie), drive to our flat, and lug the shopping bags over a short area from car park to flat. This was in quite some contrast to longish walks I and my colleagues had to do during our Brussels assignment, from shop to our flat as we did not have a car.

I had zero idea of what goes under the hood of a car, and had no idea about how to even change a tire! We could manage even without this knowledge as we would rely on the car rental agency to help us out of any such issues we had. The lady at the car agency would sometimes get cross at us but she would not leave us in the lurch.

Contents of my comment on my blog post: A Debate on Warranty for Software, https://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-debate-on-warranty-for-software.html :

I felt it appropriate to share a personal experience regarding possibly poor car tyre quality. Please feel free to skip it if you are not interested. I was driving a Japanese model car, IFIRC, in the late 80's on a highway in New Hampshire/Massachusetts, USA, commuting from residence in Nashua, NH to business/work at Wang Labs., Lowell, MA, at quite some speed, when one of its tyres gave way. I lost control of the car - it moved from the fast to the slow lane and then the breakdown lane. It was all set to hit a railing beyond the breakdown lane at still significant speed, when I tried the brakes. That resulted, fortunately, in the car turning back from breakdown lane to slow lane then fast lane, other (breakdown) lane, and then gently down the median valley. The car then turned upside down in the median valley but at gentle speed and came to a halt. Miraculously neither I nor two other passengers in the car including one in the rear seat who did not have a seatbelt on, had any grievous physical injuries. We were also very lucky that the rush hour traffic immediately behind our car had noticed the problem and stopped their cars and the traffic behind them on all lanes.

Of course, I was given a dressing down by the passengers of the car, and since then I don't have the same level of confidence that I had earlier about cars.

Now I feel maybe I had a defective tyre on the car. The car was from a rental agency. They gave me/us another car and that was it. As I was young then and a foreigner to the USA I did not press anybody to know the proper cause of that incident but just thanked my stars that I and others had come out unscathed from the incident/accident. I mentioned this experience to convey how the value of engineering quality, tyre engineering in this case, was brought home to me personally in a way that I will not forget for the rest of my life. And in this context, the "fit for its intended use" phrase/clause conveys the engineering quality aspect so well. Perhaps the tyre was not "fit for its intended use". But the cause could have been something else too. I feel I did not drive recklessly and so was not at fault but then that is just my opinion.

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An extract (slightly edited) from my blog post: Defensive driving in Puttaparthi and elsewhere, https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2014/09/defensive-driving-in-puttaparthi-and.html :

BTW I used to drive cars during my US stints in the 80s and early 90s (and a little bit in Europe too). I have done fair bit of speeding on highways, some of which I regret today as I drove beyond the highway speed limits (like so many others). By the Grace of God I did not have any accidents in which people got hurt. [But I did experience a car tyre burst at high speed leading to the car eventually overturning at slow speed but which did not hurt anybody seriously. ...]. Later I grew wiser about driving and tried to adopt a defensive driving, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_driving, approach. If you have not heard of defensive driving you may want to have a look here: (16th Mar. 2022: broken link) http://www.nsc.org/safety_road/DefensiveDriving/Pages/defensive_driving.aspx  (does not have free course material, as far as I know, but you get an idea of what defensive driving is). Here is another link with some tips on defensive driving, http://www.wikihow.com/Drive-Defensively. Towards the bottom of the page, it has a youtube video link, Driving Lessons: Defensive Driving Tips | Volkswagen Australia, (16th Mar. 2022: broken link) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brIkouqOp6I , 8 min. 37 secs, published March 2012, which is certainly worth viewing if you have not had exposure to defensive driving/proper technique of driving.

--- end extract from my blog post ---

Given below are extracts (slightly edited) from my blog post: My Wang VS computers software development work including over 30 months of assignments at Wang US & Europe centres in 1980s, https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2021/03/my-wang-vs-computers-software.html, March 2021

First I think I need to explain my interest in John Chambers' association with Wang Laboratories, Lowell, Massachusetts, USA, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Laboratories.

It comes from how critical Wang Labs and its Wang VS computers were to the building block years of my software development career. After dropping out of my M.Sc. (Physics), I joined Datamatics Limited in SEEPZ, Bombay (Mumbai), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datamatics, as a trainee programmer in March 1984. I, and others in my batch, were taught COBOL programming and other stuff like System Analysis for 4 months or so. The practical work of the COBOL programming part was on a Wang minicomputer! That was my first exposure to a computer!

Datamatics had a strong tie-up with Wang Labs. for both onsite work as well as offshore work. I went for a 12 to 15 month stint (don't recall period clearly) to Wang International Telecom Research Centre (Wang ITRC) in Belgium in 1985-86. Later from 1987 to 1989-90, I went to Wang Labs. HQ at Lowell, MA, USA for two stints: one for 7 months and one for around a year. I also handled one offshore Wang Labs. project in Datamatics office in SEEPZ, Bombay. Most of my work in the first 6 years of my software development career, from 1984 to 1990, when I was with Datamatics, was on Wang minicomputers (Wang VS line) or other Wang computers. I have had to study various Wang manuals from Computer Languages related (COBOL, 'C', PL/1, Assembly etc.), Operating System Services, to networking products specifications and design (e.g. Wang VS Videotex and Wang Banyan VINES porting) to Wang OS testing procedures.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Laboratories#The_Wang_VS_computer_line, "The first Wang VS computer was introduced in 1977, about the same time as Digital Equipment Corporation's VAX, and continues to be in use 39 years later. Its instruction set was compatible with the IBM 360 series, but it did not run any IBM 360 system software. The VS operating system and all system software were built from the ground up to support interactive users as well as batch operations. The VS was aimed directly at the business data processing market in general, and IBM in particular. While many programming languages were available, the VS was typically programmed in COBOL. Other languages supported in the VS integrated development environment included Assembler, COBOL 74, COBOL 85, BASIC, Ada, RPG II, C, PL/I, FORTRAN, Glossary, MABASIC, SPEED II and Procedure (a scripting language). Pascal was also supported for I/O co-processor development. The Wang PACE (Professional Application Creation Environment) 4GL and database was used from the mid-1980s onward by customers and third party developers to build complex applications sometimes involving many thousands of screens, hundreds of distinct application modules, and serving many hundreds of users. Substantial vertical applications were developed for the Wang VS by third party software houses throughout the 1980s in COBOL, PACE, BASIC, PL/I and RPG II. The Wang OFFICE family of applications and Wang WP were both popular applications on the VS. Word Processing ran on the VS through services that emulated the OIS environment and downloaded the WP software as "microcode" (in Wang terminology) to VS workstations."

Like Wang VS computers was the pre-dominant part of my technology platform expertise from 1984 to 1990, I think it was similar for most of my Datamatics, SEEPZ, Bombay colleagues in the 1980s. We at Datamatics were the Indian Wang software experts. There were some Wang hardware experts too but they were few (and that was not my area). Our company, Datamatics, did onsite and offshore Wang projects across the world - not only Wang HQ and offices but also with Wang customers. USA, Europe, Africa, Middle East (Arab countries) - Datamatics sent its Wang software experts everywhere!

Our technology expertise identification was as software experts on Wang VS computers. And that carried weight with Wang VS customers worldwide.

Wang computers along with other big minicomputer companies like Digital Electronics Corp. (DEC) and Data General (DG) got swept away by the PC (Windows/Unix & Intel/AMD) technological change wave. While it may have taken some years to get completely wiped out, I think it was towards the end of the 80s and early 90s that the writing was on the wall that minicomputers era is getting finished. And that impacted many of us at Datamatics who were Wang experts! We had to jump to other technology platforms to stay relevant! I jumped to the Windows and Unix PC platform in 1990 (or maybe a little earlier).

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Laboratories: "Wang Laboratories filed for bankruptcy protection in August 1992."

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minicomputer: "Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) was once the leading minicomputer manufacturer, at one time the second-largest computer company after IBM. But as the minicomputer declined in the face of generic Unix servers and Intel-based PCs, not only DEC, but almost every other minicomputer company including Data General, Prime, Computervision, Honeywell and Wang Laboratories, many based in New England (hence the end of the Massachusetts Miracle), also collapsed or merged."

Pic (compressed) of the original Wang Towers buildings in 2011 at which time it was owned by Cross Point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cross_Point_Towers;_northeast_side;_Lowell,_MA;_2011-09-11.JPG, which has shared it under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. 

This article has a 1992 pic of these towers with the Wang logo on it (before it got sold to other(s)): Pic link: https://video-images.vice.com/_uncategorized/1487693801108-AP_920817011.jpeg and link of article which has the pic: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vvxby3/the-great-failure-of-wang-laboratories-the-david-to-ibms-goliath.

A video of Wang Towers from the outside as well as inside, from a "home movie" reportedly made by a Wang employee in the 1980s: WANG Towers | Lowell, Massachusetts, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjVdMe3QqOY, 2 min. 21 secs. The video also shows office cubicles. I was given one such cubicle during a one year stint there in second half of 1980s. During my other stint at Wang Labs. I did not have a cubicle-office. I worked in the testing lab. (on the ground floor if I recall correctly) and shared a big conference room along with many of my Datamatics colleagues which perhaps could be viewed as our shared office room.

...

I personally have worked for product development companies as a contractor ('body shopped' person) and so had close inside view of product development work. [I don't have any issues with the 'body shopped' phrase even though I know that from a higher level business perspective it is a pejorative word but then I am just a free service social media writer now and don't have to worry about customers having negative views.] I gained immense amount of knowledge and experience about software development in general, including product software development, through these contractor ('body shopped') assignments with Wang Laboratories software development centres/Headquarters in Belgium and in USA. Some of my best recommendation (appreciation) letters are from the Wang Labs. bosses and colleagues I worked with then, as a contractor from Datamatics. Readers may view them here: https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2018/12/documenting-my-part-auto-bio-with-pics_27.html . These contractor-assignment trips to Wang Labs. in Belgium and USA in the second half of 1980s for a total period of over 30 months, when age-wise I was in my twenties, gave me fantastic exposure to life in these materially well developed countries. I had a very good time overall as I was treated very well by the many European and American colleagues I interacted with then, and I was treated decently by most Europeans and Americans I interacted with outside of the workplace. I also had a lot of enjoyable sight-seeing trips, many of which I recall easily even today and are happy recollections 😃. So such contractor ('body shopped') assignments were a great boon to me both from a software developer professional perspective as well as from personal life experience perspective. As I have become a social media writer over the past few years, I have written in support of the values of democracy, freedom of religion (including to not have faith/religion), rule of law, free market, business entrepreneurship, orderly town/city life, civic sense etc. that I was exposed to directly in Western Europe and USA. This exposure was during my life there while on assignment stints, and also later indirectly in various other roles I played based in India, and in my later readings about Europe and USA. In general, I am a supporter of Western Europe and USA due to the many positive experiences, directly & indirectly, I have had of them.

...

26th March 2021 update: In one of the assignments to Wang Labs., Lowell, (MA, USA) in second half of 1980s, I was made "Resident Manager" of the 30 to 40 odd Datamatics employees that were working on assignments at Wang Labs. This was additional work on top of the assignment work that I was doing. As "Resident Manager" I had to interact with the key Wang Labs. executive who was the contact point for Datamatics: Mr. Pradeep Barthakur, Vice-President of Wang Labs. (there were many Vice-Presidents in Wang then). I had a few interesting interactions with him then.

Here's an obituary of him in the Lowell Sun dated 7th May 2003:  https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/lowellsun/obituary.aspx?n=pradeep-barthakur&pid=994855 . It refers to him as a local businessman who was a long-time employee at "Lowell's former computer giant, Wang Laboratories" and that he died on 3rd May (2003). He was born in Assam, India in 1940 and moved to USA at the age of 18 for his Mathematics graduate degree at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. It states, "In 1969, Mr. Barthakur began working at Wang and served as its director of quality assurance for 20 years. Prior to his illness, he was president of Datamatics America Inc."

...

Readers may want to see my related posts listed below:

*) Chinese-American computer pioneer An Wang (1920-1990) and Wang Laboratories founded by him: some aspects of their history of interest to me - Part 1,  https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2021/04/chinese-american-computer-pioneer-wang.html , 1st April 2021 (next/previous part link is provided in each post of the series).

*) Some general quotations of An Wang from his book: Lessons: An Autobiography,  https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2021/06/some-general-quotations-of-wang-from.html , 30th June 2021.

--- end extracts from my blog post ---

Given below is an extract from my blog post: Miscellaneous Facebook posts & comments in Dec. 2019, https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2019/12/miscellaneous-facebook-posts-comments.html :

In response to a comment I wrote (slightly edited): Thought you might want to know that I recall quite well a Filipina lady and her American partner (white guy) that I would meet off and on, in the smoking room of Wang Labs. HQ in Lowell, MA, during my stints there in the second half of the 1980s. The husband was a big chap (like the Americans shown in this video) and was into electrical related work there. The Filipina lady was thin but I don't recall her height. I also don't recall what exactly the Filipina lady did work-wise. The American chap was very friendly - I can recall his face quite vividly even now as I write this comment!

I found it very interesting then to know about them being together (married, I guess). At that time, I did not know much of the history of USA's association with Philippines -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Philippines_(1898%E2%80%931946).

BTW Wang Labs. HQ (later sold to Cross Point), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cross_Point_Towers;_northeast_side;_Lowell,_MA;_2011-09-11.JPG, was a big place - three towers of 7 stories if I recall correctly. My work was in a different group to both of them. And there were few smoking rooms, which is how I happened to meet them off and on.

I think I should also mention that its founder was a Chinese-American - An Wang, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Wang (if I recall correctly, from Shanghai originally, with him coming to USA for higher education in mid 1940s and settling down in USA). Wang Labs. had a mix of people even then (second half of 1980s) - European-origin-Americans, African-Americans, Chinese-Americans, Indian-Americans,  and also at least one Filipina-American (mentioned above). It was a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic place, and I have very fond memories of my two stints there for a total of around 19 months in the second half of the 1980s.
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In Brussels, while shopping and visiting restaurants or while just moving around in the city, lack of decent ability to speak and understand French or Flemish, held me back from connecting well to the city and people in general. In Nashua, NH where I was resident, as well as in Wang Labs., Lowell, I could communicate quite well with everybody in English though it took me some time to understand some American English usage. So I could connect quite well with the locals, except that as from Datamatics itself we had perhaps thirty to forty people on assignment to Wang Labs., and so we had our own Datamatics Indian group to spend our free time with, and so I did not make many friends or acquaintances among locals outside of my workplace (dept. in Wang Labs. that I was assigned to). In the workplace, I did make good friends among some of the colleagues I worked with, and with even some persons I met in the "smoking room" for our floor in Wang Labs. Wendell Smith was one person I got quite friendly with, and who invited me and a friend to visit his home, and also accompanied me and a friend on a hiking trip. Bob Verbanas, Bill Reynolds (my immediate boss in one assignment) and Howie Finn (my boss in one assignment) were also very friendly, and I have been able to reconnect with them over the Internet, in the recent past! I tried hard to locate contact info. for Wendell Smith on the Interent but could not find the person who had been so nice to me, during my assignment trip(s) to Wang Labs., Lowell, USA.

...

USA stints exposed me more fully to MTV and to car radio FM pop songs. I did see MTV in my earlier Brussels stint too but I think I saw more of it in USA. And it was only after my USA stints that I was driving or riding regularly in a car and so exposure to car FM radio pop songs started there.

Given below are extract(s) from my post: Am happy to see that Madonna says Michael Jackson is 'innocent until proven guilty', https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2019/05/am-happy-to-see-that-madonna-says.html , May 2019.

Note that the biggest English music pop-stars of the 80s which were my main young adult days, were Michael Jackson and Madonna.

While today I do not support the message of some of Madonna's songs, I simply cannot deny that watching her 'Material Girl' video on MTV was a very different kind of experience for me, who prior to that was exposed to more of Hindi film video-songs. Now I had heard audio of some English music earlier. But MTV blended audio and video. Madonna song-videos were fast, full of energy and somewhat explicit in romantic stuff. That was really new to me. And so it made quite an impression on me then. So much that when I heard Material Girl song in 2000s, after a break of over a decade when I had switched off that kind of music and videos, I could recall not only most of the words of the song but also the music! I was astonished at how much recall I had of this song! But I think that simply showed how much of an impact/impression the song had made on me when I saw it on MTV in my Europe and USA stints in the second half of the 1980s.

I recently read that Madonna is combating ageism in the music industry. She is 60 now! I repeat I do not endorse some of the messages in Madonna's songs but I admire her energy and can-do spirit. She is one hell of an achiever, I have to say! Madonna on ageism in the music industry: I’m punished for turning 60, https://home.bt.com/news/showbiz-news/madonna-on-ageism-in-the-music-industry-im-punished-for-turning-60-11364359726202, 4th May 2019

I am 56 running 57 now. So Madonna is my contemporary  and elder to me. I say contemporary to indicate that we lived and continue to live in the same times. She is a superstar and I am a nobody  :-) , and very happy to be a nobody :-) . Not only is she a music superstar but is also a single parent raising six children (four of them adopted). [I am single with no kids]. Hats off to her for this awesome combo achievement.

Here's her Material Girl song (official video released in 1984): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p-lDYPR2P8, 4 min. 42 secs.

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Given below are extract(s) from my post: Some late 70s and 80s English Pop Songs that I enjoyed, https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2018/11/some-late-70s-and-80s-english-pop-songs.html , Nov. 2018

Brown Girl In The Ring by Boney M (1978). This song was very popular among Bombay (Mumbai) English Pop Music listeners of the late 70s and early 80s. I have heard the audio so many times then. But I had not seen the video renditions of it. So it was pleasure to see a couple of them now:

a) (broken link) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywA_aZp1Vd8

b) (broken link) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiX2PbrBXCQ

By the rivers of Babylon, Ma Baker, Love for Sale, Daddy Cool are some of the other big hits of Boney M that I had heard many times in those days. But I think the biggest hit in my Bombay circles was Brown Girl In The Ring. The lyrics did not make such sense for us guys but nobody was bothered about that - the music and voice was great. And I think the Brown Girl bit appealed to us brown skin guys :-).

By the rivers of Babylon with lyrics: (broken link) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz6LRBLPKSM

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Whitney Houston's I wanna dance with somebody (1987)

I think I saw this first on MTV while I was in the USA around the time of its release. It was quite a hit then. She was competing with the likes of Madonna and Michael Jackson.

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A big hit of the 80s - Stevie Wonder's I just called to say I love you (1984): (broken link) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiRj5m63oig
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Song with a lovely message from 80s English Pop Music Superstar: Michael Jackson - Man in the mirror (1988) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PivWY9wn5ps

1988 Grammy- same song: (broken link) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbXsW51ptLQ
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English Pop music superstar of the 80s: Madonna - La Isla Bonita (1986) (broken link) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqIIW7nxBgc
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Given below are extract(s) from my post: Some oldie nice English songs I enjoyed in 80s; The songs were mostly released in 60s and 70s, https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2018/11/some-oldie-nice-english-songs-i-enjoyed.html , Nov. 2018

Mrs Robinson by Simon and Garfunkel (1968): (Only audio), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C1BCAgu2I8, around 4 mins.
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Sittin' on the dock of a bay by Otis Redding (1968), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISxskvJ9FwI, around 3 min.
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Joan Baez - The night they drove old dixie down (1971), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKrdbCbAxZ0, 3 min 20 secs.
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Simon & Garfunkel - Homeward Bound (1966): Only audio, (link not available in India) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z9wd9bS1FM, 2 min. 30 secs.
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Beatles - Yellow Submarine (1969): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2uTFF_3MaA, 2 min. 45 secs.
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Pink Floyd - We don't need no education (1979); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T38Y81FBEcQ, 3 min. 26 secs.
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Beatles - Yesterday (1965): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSuVCyT63II, 2 mins.
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Beatles - Let it Be (1970); (broken link) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xDzVZcqtYI, around 4 mins.
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Abba - Money, money, money (1976); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETxmCCsMoD0, 3 mins.

Abba - Chiquitita (1979), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4QqMKe3rwY, 5 min. 25 secs.

Abba - Fernando (1976), (broken link) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHYn7LHV7fg, 4 mins
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Given below are extract(s) from my post: Two unforgettable songs for me of George Micheal who passed away on Christmas day, yesterday, https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2016/12/two-unforgettable-songs-for-me-of.html , Dec. 2016.


That took me down memory lane. In the second half of the 1980s I spent a lot of time in Europe and the USA where I was flooded with Western pop music both on TV (MTV was around even then) and on car radio. Two songs of George Michael that I enjoyed in those days of my youth were Faith and Careless Whisper.

Looked up those songs on youtube (what a great service youtube renders to people like me; I am very, very grateful to youtube for all the great videos I have seen on it).

Faith - George Michael (audio only), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9iDBkJqxNg, 3 min 11 secs.


This seems to be the USA music video version. Note that the initial part of the video has part of another very controversial song of George Michael that was banned in some places/channels. (Broken link) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu3VTngm1F0, 3 min 42 secs

Here's George Michael performing Faith live many years later (2008), (broken link) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLtz0I_JdiQ, 3 min. 33 secs.

The other George Michael song that was very popular then was Careless Whisper.

George Michael - Careless Whisper (Official Video), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izGwDsrQ1eQ, 5 min 1 secs.

Lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/georgemichael/carelesswhisper.html. Standout lines which I recall so clearly, "I should've known better than to cheat a friend; And waste a chance that I've been given"

George Michael - Careless Whisper (Live at Earl's Court - 2008), (broken link) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYkE3vpWJjY, 5 min 38 secs.

I did not know that George Michael was English and that his father was a Greek Cypriot restaurateur who had moved to London in the 1950s, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Michael. I think that seems to fit in with his music and songs. I mean, George Michael was somewhat different from USA singers but I did not catch that well enough then to wonder if he was English/British.

Ravi: I enjoyed this trip down memory lane. Thanks George Michael for all your wonderful music and songs. Rest In Peace bro.
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I guess I have to share this unfortunate aspect of George Michael's life which I did not know about - his addiction to drugs, George Michael died alone, boyfriend reveals, as he battled a secret heroin addiction, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/26/george-michael-died-alone-boyfriend-reveals-battled-secret-heroin/.

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Given below are extract(s) from my post: Joan Baez - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down song seems to capture USA southern hurt over USA civil war, https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2017/08/joan-baez-night-they-drove-old-dixie.html , Aug. 2017.

As the flurry of posts I put up on the Charlottesville, Virginia, USA tragic rally which was mainly dominated by white supremacists and neo Nazis, came to a close, I was reminded of an attractive but haunting melody song that I used to listen quite often on car FM radio during my stints in New England, USA in the second half of the 1980s, on a Boston "Easy Listening" - hope I got that correctly - FM station. The song was about the USA 1860s civil war from the South perspective. The song also mentions the name of Robert E. Lee, whose statue removal plans in Charlottesville were the ostensible reason for the rally! I have to say that I loved listening to that song though I did not know that much about how deep the wounds were of the USA civil war even in the 1980s then! Note that in my stay in New England, USA I was living in and consulting/working in places which had very few non-whites, and almost no African-Americans.

I think what is clear to me is that even today in 2017, a significant number of white Americans in the Southern part of the USA (that was part of the confederate rebels side under their General, Robert E. Lee, against the north of the USA, in the 1860s civil war) feel that hurt. They are proud of their "Southern" heritage and have great nostalgia about pre-1860 Southern USA. Whether such views are just/appropriate or not in 2017 is another matter. Emotionally, some not-insignificant in number white Americans today are deeply attached to their Southern heritage and are deeply resistant to changes in anything related to what survives of their Southern heritage.

Here are videos of that song:

Seems to be recorded version: Joan Baez - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, (broken link) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_ksYL26lZE, 3 min. 27 secs.

Same song but Joan Baez sings it live, (broken link) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnS9M03F-fA, 3 min. 8 secs.

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In my 3rd USA trip I was based in Goleta near Santa Barbara, California, for, IIRC, around 2 months, in 1990. [Ref: Documenting my part auto bio with pics - the Visa trail as documentation of my foreign trips, https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2018/12/documenting-my-part-auto-bio-with-pics.html , Dec. 2018]

Given below are extracts from my post: My May 2020 FB posts and comments on novel coronavirus 2019 (SARS-CoV-2) / COVID-19, https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2020/05/my-may-2020-fb-posts-and-comments-on.html .
In context of a report that the coronavirus pandemic "has devastated Hertz by grounding business travelers and tourists, making it impossible for the company to continue paying its lenders."

Very sad to see this famous company, which was a top brand during my travelling days in 1980s and early 1990s, go bankrupt! If I recall correctly, an Indian friend and I who were in the USA East Coast in late 1980s, rented a Hertz car for a week we spent sight-seeing in California. We had organized the Hertz car (probably at some Hertz outlet near Boston/New York City, and probably pre-paid), flown to LA from Boston or New York City (I don't recall which city clearly), at which time the car was ready at the airport! We were amazed at such, then in the late 1980s for us Indians, fantastic organization level of Hertz in the USA. And the car served us well in our sight-seeing trips mainly in L.A., San Francisco, some city in Silicon Valley where a friend was based (I think it was San Jose or some other place nearby), and San Diego. We dropped off the car at the airport once our sight-seeing trip was over, and flew back to India either from LA or after first flying to the East Coast (I don't recall that clearly). How convenient and useful the Hertz rented car was for my friend and me to freely and comfortably travel over the parts of California that we wanted to visit!

So I am very sad to see Hertz company in USA, get into bankruptcy! What a terrible economic disaster this COVID-19 pandemic has become!
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P.S. As I think more about it, I am a little confused whether we rented a Hertz car or Avis car. We probably would have rented whatever was cheaper (we were budget tourists :-) ). But Hertz was clearly the big brand then in rented cars.
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Given below are extracts from my post: Didn't know that Boney M's Ma Baker song was (loosely or very loosely) based on real life 1930s USA supposed-outlaw Ma Barker!, https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2019/12/didnt-know-that-boney-ms-ma-baker-song.html , Dec. 2019

"Freeze! I'm Ma Baker, put your hands in the air and give me all your money."

This is how the song starts with these lines being spoken not sung. I have quite good recall of the above lines and the "Ma Ma Ma Ma Ma Baker" lines that are sung in the song. I have heard this song and the initial spoken lines of it, many times in the late 70s and 80s (the song was released in 1977, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_Baker). It was quite popular among English song fans in Bombay then.

Here's the audio of the song with lyrics being shown in the video: Boney M. - Ma Baker Lyric Video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH0ADtWZ59U, 4 min. 7 secs. [The lyrics in the video are inaccurate in a few places. It should be mowed NOT moved and so on. Here's what seems to be an accurate version of the lyrics: https://genius.com/Boney-m-ma-baker-lyrics.]

I think I viewed it as quite a freaky song then. But it did make an impression on me in the period when I first got exposed to it which was either in my late teens or early twenties (late 70s or early 80s). USA has lots of gun violence - that was the message I think I took from this song, even if I did not really know whether this was for real or not. I must add that later, in second half of 1980s and early 1990s, when I stayed and travelled in New England part of USA and also travelled in New York and New Jersey states, for around 19 months in total, and had a short two month stint in Santa Barbara, California, and visits to Los Angeles and San Francisco, I never ever saw any person holding up anybody at gunpoint. The only real guns I would have seen would have been with state troopers and there too, I do not recall seeing any state trooper holding up his/her gun (out of his/her holster). But then these areas are NOT in the Mid-West of USA.

The wiki page for the song states, 'The lyrics by Fred Jay were inspired by the story of legendary 1930s outlaw Ma Barker, although the name was changed into "Ma Baker" because "it sounded better".[1]' [Wiki Ref 1: Baker, Che (17 June 2017). "This Ma Baker has a little bone to pick", http://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/opinion/93727399/this-ma-baker-has-a-little-bone-to-pick. Stuff.co.nz. Retrieved 6 September 2018.]

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Given below are extracts from my post: Guns being glamourized is not good but a restaurant in Colorado, USA seems to do good business with its waitresses openly carrying loaded guns!, https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2018/12/guns-being-glamourized-is-not-good-but.html , Dec. 2018

In my stay in the USA in the 1980s and early 1990s, for around 21 months spread over three separate trips, I have never ever seen a restaurant owner and/or waiters/waitresses open-carrying a gun. But then I was in New England (New Hampshire and Massachusetts) for most of the time, and in California for a couple of months. Note that at least some parts of Colorado were considered to be part of the Wild West of the USA in the past.

I am sure I would have freaked out if I had seen a waiter or a waitress open-carrying a gun and asking me what food & drink I would like to order!

The USA has an extraordinary and very deep association with guns in the hands of its citizens. Whatever its negatives may be, these gun carrying folks in the USA sure are tough and hardy folks who are in a position to give a good fight to people who try to rob them or do worse things to them. I think that is a reality that one has to accept. An armed citizen who is trained in the use of arms and knows how to use them, cannot be pushed over easily by others.

The big downside perhaps may be the increase in gun violence where the gun is used as an offensive weapon and not in defense, due to the easy availability of guns among the citizens.

BTW I am NOT advocating for gun ownership by citizens in USA or anywhere else. I am just making observations about the reality of gun ownership in the USA. One may or may not like such reality but if one lives in or even visits an open-carry town or state in the USA where significant number of its citizens openly carry guns, one has to deal with that reality.

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Given below are extracts from my post: Just finished reading John Bolton's 'The Room Where It Happened' having lot of interesting info. about major international security matters in 2018 & 2019, https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2021/02/just-finished-reading-john-boltons-room.html , Feb. 2021

My mind goes back to late 1980s when, during one of my software assignment stints in USA, along with colleagues I visited the area outside the White House (and viewed the White House from outside), and also visited Lincoln Memorial (in Washington DC). I was in my mid twenties then.

I find it quite astonishing that slightly over 3 decades later, sitting in a rural town in India, I am writing a public post on a book I read about happenings in the same White House in 2018 & 2019 related to major international security issues!

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=== end section: My USA Stints ==============================


Updates & Suggestions

1. We now have the rough date when the widow and two young sons came to Irinjalakuda temple (early 1800s).

2. Suggestion: Could add pic and info. about ancestor plaque in Irinjalakuda temple.

3. Suggestion: May be appropriate to include bio-data and work-experience in appendix

4. Suggestion: Some pics (including one of mother) can be touched up to remove spots and blemishes.

5. Include mention of doctors who have cared for me over the years and helped me handle the various health issues I had. The suggested paragraphs are as follows:
I take this opportunity to express my loving gratitude to the various doctors that cared for me during the years covered in this part-autobiography. They include my elder sister, Dr. Arvind Bengeri who practiced in Dombivli, Dr. Shashi Nair (Ayurvedic doctor) of King's Circle, Mumbai, Dr. Ponkshe (Ayurvedic doctor) of Dombivli, Dr. A.M. Pimputkar of Dombivli, Dr. Asgaonkar (Dentist) of Dombivli, Dr. Nitin Joshi (Dentist) of Dombivli and Dr. Ashok Bhole (Eye specialist) of Dombivli. Dr. Shashi Nair and Dr. Ponkshe were very patient with my many questions about my poor digestion and how Ayurveda can help to treat it. They graciously explained to me many aspects of Ayurvedic treatment of my poor digestion problem, including how as the seasons change I should make suitable changes to my diet so that I eat those food items that are suitable for that season and so more easy to digest for me. I take this opportunity to express my deep gratitude to them for these explanations they gave me, and the encouragement they gave me to handle my weak digestive system.
I seek forgiveness from the doctors who have cared for me but whose names I have not mentioned here as if I write the names of all of them this will be a very big list. As part of caring for mother, besides my elder sister who was living in Mumbai and always available for consulting on phone, and whenever she visited us or we visited her, three doctors of Dombivli played a vital role during the years I tended to mother. They are Dr. Arvind Bengeri (mentioned earlier), Dr. Anil Dixit (Cardiologist) and Dr. Usha Bansal (M.D.), all from Dombivli. Dr. Usha Bansal was also a family friend as her parents (Shri & Smt. Satyanarayana, if I recall their names correctly) and family, lived in the flat just below our floor in Dadar (Mumbai) Central Railway Officers quarters, and especially Smt. Satyanarayana was very helpful and friendly to my mother, Smt. Lakshme Parvathi, and our family in general, when we were living in Dadar Central Railway Officers quarters.

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Errata

1. Page 6 in ebook (and corresponding page in paperback, I am quite sure) has, "Smt. Lakshme Parvati Suryanaryanan". Suryanaryanan should be Suryanarayanan.

2. Around 1973/74 when father retired in CR, retirement age was 55 (not 58).

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Readers who are interested in autobiographical content of later years which are not covered in Part 1 book, and some other content of the period covered by Part I but which is not mentioned in the book, may want to visit the following 'list of posts' pages:

List of posts of this Spiritual blog with autobiographical content, https://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2016/07/list-of-posts-of-this-blog-with.html , last major update July 2016.

List of posts of this Misc blog with autobiographical content, https://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.com/2016/07/list-of-posts-of-this-misc-blog-with.html , July 2016.

List of posts of this Indian CS & IT Academic Reform Activism blog with autobiographical content,  https://eklavyasai.blogspot.com/2016/07/list-of-posts-of-this-indian-cs-it.html , July 2016.

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