as life passes by...

Unedited

2011-12-20T03:41:00.000-08:00

I just spent 3 hours writing all this up. 2.5 hours of those trying to get consistent font size in the blogspot editor. Unedited my ass!

***

I hate all those dental product advertisements. You know how they always show all that bacteria inside your mouth, I think it’s disgusting - it just makes me want to throw up. Except that it makes the mental picture of my own mouth even more disgusting which makes me want to throw up even more. Vicious cycle...

***

I was carrying my laptop in my hands and the mouse fell on the floor. So I asked a colleague – “Can you hand me my mouse?” ...and that just came out all wrong

***

A friend once complimented me on my email signature. He said "It's cool".
My email signature: "Sent from my Blackberry Wireless Handheld!"
I have decided we have been friends long enough.

***

Despite being a woman myself, it’s amazing how much I still need to learn about my fellow sisters. Like I recently learnt there is nearly no correct way of using “even” while referring to a woman. In any form. Ever. Period.

***

I recently visited a long lost friend. I was waiting outside her door when I heard her cat from inside. I was looking for the cat as I entered when she apologised, "I'm sorry I kept you waiting, the baby just wouldn't stop crying, I bet you could hear her from outside"...I told her I could. And that her baby was cute.

***

One co-worker once thought out loud: “I actually like not having a lot to do at work, and just having an easy day”. I told him he must be an exception. Because all of us just love working our butts off.

***

If you are confirming your attendance at a dinner at someone’s house, make sure you send the email to the right person. Or you’ll open a can of worms you never thought existed.True story.

***

I have recently received many marriage invites. Marriage. Not wedding. Marriage. And people often insist I stay present the whole time. I don't know how to tell them.

***

Another long lost friend (yes it’s lost & found day in High School Friends’ Universe) recently got back in touch. After a long update on her life, she said, “I can’t believe you are still single, but I am sure you have guys wrapped around you all the time”. I told her there are loads. Tom Cruise is one of them.

***

I just had my half yearly performance review. We just love sending each other off on holidays.

***

You know the difference between reality and perception? Like when women make a pout and think they look like Angelina Jolie, while in reality they look like they kissed a bee hive? I am a woman and I think this post is hilarious.

2011-06-25T07:42:00.000-07:00

packing up your house is weird, even if you are only moving two blocks away. just the entire exercise of going over all your stuff, finding things you had forgotten you possessed, old memories you thought no longer mattered - it all comes rushing back like it happened yesterday. and it doesn't really matter if those are big life changing memories or just small simple stuff - like that awesome dress you bought at that sale - it was such a steal!! Having to throw it away kills you -- so what if you never wear it and you have way too much stuff anyway. its not the dress that matters, its the memory.

moving houses is like giving up all the memories of all the years spent there and just moving on. its almost never easy.

customer care the octopus (part 2)

2011-06-04T10:24:00.000-07:00

......(continued from customer care the octopus )

The Winner:::: Singtel:
[This octopus is the uncontested winner at having a poor...nay...no head-arm coordination - so much so that it almost definitely deserved an entire piece dedicated to it.

December: Buy a new BB. All excited go jumping along to the nearest Singtel dealer, show him the BB and get a new connection.
Dealer: "It'll get connected in 3 days"
"OK, but it does work with BB right?"
Dealer: "Ofcourse"

2 days later, call customer care in over excitement
After 10 min on IVR
"Ma'm we told you the connection takes 3 days to get activated. Please wait for 3 days before confirming" [Ok fine...huh!!]

5 days later
After 10 min on IVR
"I am sorry mam but your connection is not updated in our system yet. Please wait until Tuesday" [pffffff.....]

Tuesday
After 10 min on IVR
"I am sorry mam but your connection is not updated in our system yet."
"Huh? I have had this number for 10 days now. You said it'll get activated in 3 days! What's going on"
"I am not sure Ma'm. Let me find out and call you back"
[ Its ok, relax! wait for her to call back, she will sort it out]
Wait till evening, call back
After 10 min on IVR and 10 min of explaining the background to some one else
"..so you see, xxx had told me she will call me in an hour with an answer. Its been 5 hours and I still haven't heard back."
"Ok, ma'm let me arrange for a callback"
[But that's what she did in the morning!sigh...]

20 minutes later
"Hi Ma'm this is xxx calling from Singtel. We have activated your line. You just need to restart your phone and your connection will work"

3 days, 20 restarts and another IVR routine later
"Ma'm have you tried restarting your phone? Your connection is active"
"Yes, I did tha..." [CLICK]

Needless to say by now I was furious, so I called them again - this time to scream!

After an extremely frustrating dialogue and many "call transfers to supervisors" later, ..
"Ma'm the plan you have bought is incorrect. It doesn't work for blackberry"
"I am sorry what???????"
"Ma'm the plan...."
"Ya I heard you the first time - I didn't buy this plan, your dealer sold it to me! And I checked with him! he said it WILL work with a BB!!!!"

People were turning to look at me. So I decided to calm down.
"Okay, can you change it to a plan that does work with BB?"
"Yes Ma'm, i can put you on blahhhhhh... it will cost you twice.."
"I don't want that, disconnect this number"
"Sorry mam your connection is under a 1 month contract, I can't disconnect"
"But the connection doesnt work!!!"

Another transfer to supervisor, going by the number of transfer, I should have been talking to the CEO by now!!
"Your team is telling me they can put me on plan blahhhhhh at twice the cost"
"Sorry mam, but plan blahhhhh wouldn't work for your BB for reason blahhhhh"
"What???!!!!! Your team just told me it will..what kind of....pfff...okay fine...so there's no way I can buy a BB plan from you, so disconnect this number - I dont want this"
"Sorry mam but your connection is under a 1 month contract...."

[so you see dear customer....our dealer was a thug who sold you the wrong plan, our team is made up of complete idiots and our policies were designed by kindergartner who we paid peanuts and i don't care if you die of frustration, you chose us and now you must live with your choices....]

......

Finally 1 month later my number got disconnected

15 days later I got a bill. Registration fee + 1 month charges + 2 month charges in advance = S$150 ????!!!!

A similar battle to the above ensued over the completely ridiculous bill, only this time with the billing department. Finally they conceded that I should not be expected to pay anything to them.

And so they went overboard in their realisation. The next bill I received was a S$ -150 !! Yes..acc to them they owed me S$150! :D My happiness didn't last though, the next day I was the one receiving the call!! :P

Latest status - 5 months after I bought a connection that never worked , 4 months after it got disconnected ----

I have a bill that says "Amount due S$150 " ?????????????

And a cheque from Singtel "refunding" my S$150 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

customer care the octopus

2011-05-07T00:10:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while life gives us a jolt just to show us how much we take for granted every single day. A few months ago, my life suddenly turned into a never ending live example of Murphy's law. My 3 month old laptop crashed, my brand new blackberry didn't work, my bank account got frozen for no apparent reason, I almost lost the roof over my head, my home internet stopped working for no reason (yes i had paid the bills!) , my home electricity account got disabled (yes I paid the bills for that too!!) .....nothing seemed to be going right.

And when prayers didn't seem to work, I did the only other thing imaginable;

I called up the customer care for each service.

Now Customer Care is a funny animal. Everytime I think of it, the picture of an octopus pops into my head. A big head called the Global HQ with arms spreading all over the world, encircling our dear planet from one end to another. You can imagine if you only had 1 head to manage arms that spread across the earth, it would get a little difficult to give the correct directions wouldn't it? Now imagine the customer care of every company as a separate octopus and you have a complex web of octopus heads and arms all entangled with each other, all of them trying to ...yes... answer your call.

Regardless of the hair splitting frustration I went through at the time, just as with everything else in life, hindsight is your best stand up comic. So here are the top 3 customer care experiences I had... in increasing order of frustration..err..I mean hilarity

#3 Call SBI Customer Care Singapore::

IVR : "If you know the extension of the person you wish to talk to then please dial the extension else press 9 for operator"
press 9
IVR : "If you know the extension of the person you wish to talk to then please dial the extension else press 9 for operator"
[HUH?? I Just Did That] Press 9
IVR: "Thank you for calling us. Have a nice day"
[CLICK]

Sorry what???? I tried this 3 times, and then gave up and sacrificed my precious Saturday afternoon sleep to drag myself halfway through Singapore to get what I needed to get done.

#2 Call Starhub Customer Care Singapore::

"Hi, our internet connection has stopped working. It was working fine till yesterday evening, can you please tell us what could be wrong?"
"Sure Ma'm, can I have your customer number?"
"Umm.. sorry I don't have that at hand, I can give you the name of the account holder, can you search by that?"
"No Ma'm I need your customer number"
"I will have to find a bill for that, can't you find out through the name or my house address? Surely the address will be unique wouldn't it?"
"No Ma'm I need your customer number"
"Okay fine, let me find a bill, please stay on the line"
5 minutes later..
"I have the bill in my hand. But it doesn't have anything like a customer number. It has an account number, will that work?"
"No Ma'm I need your customer number"
[Is that an automated response??]
"But the account number should also be unique shouldn't it?"
"No Ma'm I need your customer number"
[WTF!!]
"Look I am telling you I can give you my address, account number, last bill date, a/c holders' name...but there is nothing like a customer number here..."
"No Ma'm I need your customer number. Without that I can't help you"
[ARRRGGGHHH!!!]
I hung up, unplugged all wires and reset the internet connection a few times. Eventually it picked itself up again.

Next month, I received a bill that read as follows:

"Dear Customer, please note that your current account number will be referred to as your customer number from now onwards."

.......

I am thinking of sending that bill to their customer care center, just FYI.

#1 Call Dell Singapore::

Navigate through a labryinth of pages to find the correct toll-free number, a number that worked on weekends - because obviously I needed my laptop fixed urgently

24X7 toll-free no.1 : "Our working hours are Monday - Friday 9 AM to 5 PM. Please call again later"

24X7 toll-free no.2 : "This number is not toll-free and will be charged usual ISD rates. If you wish to disconnect, please hang up now"
[I did not hang up....]
[They did!]

Try again: "This number is not toll-free and will be charged usual ISD rates. If you wish to disconnect, please hang up now"
[I did not hang up....]
[They did!]

24X7 toll-free no.3 : "Hi, May I help you"
"Yes, I bought a laptop 3 months ago and last night I was checking my email when it suddenly crashed. And it isn't booting up now. The service tag no is xxxxx . Its under a 1 year warranty"
"Please hold on ma'm" ...

[2 minutes later]
"Ma'm where did you buy this laptop"
"Singapore"
"Ma'm you've reached the call center in the United States. Let me give you a number for Singapore"

[What?! I have been paying call charges for ISD ... but this call didn't say it was not toll free!!]

"Yes please, give me the number"
"xxxxxxxx"

New toll-free number: "Our working hours are Monday - Friday 9 AM to 5 PM. Please call again later"
......

A few more calls later I finally managed to find a shop that gave me the right number to call. A couple of months and many more phone calls and emails later, some one finally came and changed by hard disk. so much for my "urgency"! Of course since then I received their emails asking me to fill customer surveys, feedbacks and buy more stuff from them - everyDAY!! - until I did fill out a survey. The emails stopped coming, I think they read the survey! ;)

The winner of all the octopuses is an entirely separate story altogether ... coming up in "customer care the octopus - part 2"

2010-12-05T07:46:00.000-08:00

And thus spoke the heart...

Is it pure evil
Or is it simply being a devil

Trying to ruin my peace,
Giving me sleepless nights
Over what really is nothing.

Or is it simply confused,
No longer able to think straight.

Or is it, as some say it is,
In need of a good getaway...

And yet how do i getaway, and where to,
When there really is no escape

For it all is indeed, in the mind...

Questions that never stop coming
Questions that have no answer after all;

Questions that plague me
At the slightest provocation….

How do I know what my duty really is
And how do I know when it calls

How do I make the choices
I am not wise enough to make...

And is there really a choice
If this is right, and that is easy
But the right bears only pain
And the easy isn’t easy at all…

And what really is right anyway
If no matter how I choose,
Some one seems wronged always...

Why must this always be a zero sum game
Is this how you meant it to be?

Do your karma and leave the rest to me, You say

But then what is my karma,
For even if I choose not to choose
It is a still a choice made

The consequences of which I cannot predict
and yet must bear with nothing but doubt

Of what would it have been like, had I chosen differently…

A devil that riles me up
At the slightest provocation

Only to wear me down
Into defeated numbness again…

…The mind is restless, Krishna.

Of feet, shoes and medals

2010-12-05T06:08:00.000-08:00

It was very early on in my life that i figured running was not my thing. I just couldn't do it, it was just too much effort. and so I retreated back to the audience and from there very quickly to the stage; compering was my thing. I loved doing it, and it was no effort at all. I must have been pretty good at it too says the track record, but that really is besides the point.

The point is I never ran. I never could. It was many years later, when I stumbled upon the reason. I have a flat foot. Completely flat. Not sure why it never prevented me from breaking a leg, umm metaphorically, on the dance floor, but it sure as hell was why I could never run. But then by the time I made this discovery I had graduated into the advanced stages of couch potato syndrome and couldn't care less.

Then came the typically romanticized ridiculous working hours of the Indian IT industry and any hope of me ever getting any physical activity other than walking between the fridge and my desk was lost forever. But I never got fat so there was hardly a reason convincing enough to make me walk, literally, the extra mile.

More craziness followed with MBA. No sleep, and endless internet.

And then something changed. I ran. And it felt like it had never felt before. Thanks to the one who introduced me to the possibility of customized shoes, the blessed soul whom I have now conveniently forgotten, I ran in my new shoes, custom made for my one flat-one normal feet. That was a year ago.

Today, 5 Dec 2010, at least a 100 hours of running time, many early mornings, many evening-dinner sacrifices and many sprained muscles later, I finally hit a milestone in my life I had almost given up on....

I got myself a medal for a sports-activity.

It was a hell lot of effort, I could have easily spent those hours surfing the net and walking in between to eat junk from the fridge, I probably would have had more fun going out with friends all those evenings, but running the last 500 m to the finish line after an exhausting 21.05 KM in scorching sun...it made all of that effort and all those sacrifices worth it.

No.23: Get a Medal for a sports activity: DONE :)

The art and science of Writing

2010-10-16T09:58:00.000-07:00

I write only as a hobby. I have never taken any formal training in it and don't pretend to be any expert authority when it comes to writing skills. But after years of writing, even if only as an intermittent hobby, I had a slightly higher opinion of my work until recently; when I did some research on the subject and was quite appalled to find the number of mistakes in my own write-ups.

Well, life's all about continuous learning, so here are some key findings based on my research. Most of these things seem common sense and yet, as I realised, are very easy to forget while writing. I hope the tips below help you. Feel free to add or correct; since this research is by no means all-encompassing.

Good Writing
The underlying purpose of any piece of writing is to get a point across. Good writing does so without putting the readers to sleep.

Good writing is often confused with correct writing: correct grammar, spelling and punctuation. Infact,at the heart of good writing lie ideas that are interesting and relevant; and the journey of writing a good article begins with identifying those ideas. So before picking up the metaphorical pen, ask yourself: What do I want to write about (i.e. what is my idea)? Why do I want to write about it – am I stating facts, providing analysis or trying to spark a debate?

Answering the above two questions often helps answer the third and perhaps most important one: who am I writing for? It is this last question that primarily dictates the writing style. An effective article is always personal and relevant to the target reader(s).

Following are a few points that came up repeatedly during my research on the subject. Keeping them in mind while writing will go a long way in producing an impactful write-up.

Good writing has a clearly defined purpose. It makes a clear point and then supports it with specific information.
The information is logically connected and flows coherently.
The choice of words and voice (formal vs. casual) is customised to the target reader.
The sentences are concise and precise. They say exactly what they mean and nothing else.
For fact-based articles, move from the general to the specifics fairly quickly and reference the sources.
For opinion based articles, pre-empt objections by building your case with supporting theories and facts.
Correct grammar, punctuation and spelling are an absolute must irrespective of how formal or casual the article is.
Writing takes time. Good writing takes even more time.
Good writing also needs thorough research, even if its just a blog post. Most successful novelists spend years researching for their next piece of fiction.
Finally, as my Professor used to say often, keep it short! If it isn’t directly relevant to the core idea, it doesn’t belong in the article.

Tips for Formal Writing

Avoid jargon – especially in executive summaries and smaller write ups
Proper formatting prevents jarring effect in the reading experience, and conveys professionalism to a great extent. Therefore,
- Use consistent fonts, justified text, page numbers and margins etc.
- Use headings, sub-headings and bullet points to give it a better structure
- Use charts for trends and visual-aid diagrams for complex concepts
- Use standard templates and company logos where applicable

Writing an Executive Summary

Create a summary for any report exceeding four pages. Write the summary after you write the main report, and keep it up to 1/10 the length of the main report.
Organize the main points in the summary in the same order they appear in the main report
Write simple sentences. Add supporting explanations and technical jargon only when necessary
Get the summary reviewed by a non-technical person, see if they understand it and find it interesting

Editing
For any write-up, editing is the most important part.

Revise the write-up at least twice. The first draft is always a work in progress.
Take a break between two revisions. The length of the break should be enough to take your mind completely off the article.
Print it and proof read it. Mistakes often glare back at you from paper
Have someone else read it out loud. Many mistakes are picked up only when they just don’t sound right.

Resources
Below are some resources I found during my research. They provide examples, important tips and common mistakes made in written English. I hope you find them useful, please feel free to add to the list.

Grammar tips and common errors

Writing a business case

Writing an executive summary

On a closing note, writing is a combination of art and science that rarely comes naturally to anyone and no one ever reaches perfection. But like most other skills, it can be acquired and improved through continuous practice. So keep writing!

2010-08-30T03:34:00.000-07:00

I won the ovarian lottery. I was born with no physical handicaps to a family of loving parents a little less than 30 years ago... and while I can picture my friends shaking their heads furiously at this, I dont have any mental illnesses either; well not by identifiable diagnosis i.e. ;)

I grew up in the capital city, the political hotbed and the centre of development , of the largest democracy in the world; in an age that saw unprecendented economic growth of the country and a burgeoning middle class: the target customer for some of the world's biggest companies.

My parents doted on me, and made every attempt to fulfil every whim and fantasy I had as a child. They put up with my childhood tantrums, teenage rebellion and even the detached ambition and extra demands I imposed them in the recent years. With every decade of my life, they just rose higher in their role as parents and put me before themselves.

Yes, I won the ovarian lottery. My past life karma must have been pretty good!

And chances are, so did you. Sitting in front of your laptop, reading blogs in your leisure time in a comfortable room with worries ranging from next pay raise to next girlfriend..chances are your story is pretty similar to mine.

And yet, as you & I sip our $3.50 Latte scanning the internet for our next purchase.... millions of children are starving in other parts of the world; their mothers forced into prostitution just to put half a meal in front of them once a day. Children for whom that $3.5 probably means 4 days worth of food. Children for whom knowing the alphabet is a luxury reserved for the rich.

They are children who didn't win this lottery. Children who are loved just as much by their parents as you & I are; but whose parents can barely give them anything else beyond that love. Children who grow up living with the harsh reality that love doesnt buy food. And that this world has no heart or place for the poor. Children who grow up either bitter or resigned to their fate, if they grow up at all, i.e.

And why just starving children, the world today is rife with problems, each bigger than the first, each more insurmountable. Corruption, terrorism, climate change, ethnic violence...in no particular order, each one of these problems makes this world worse with each passing day.

And for mere mortals like you & I, who are not the Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela or Mother Teresa of this century,...who like their money, conveniences and comforts of life too much to give them all up...the question really is, "Can we make a difference? Can 1 person who is neither a Saint nor a Charistmatic Leader, make a difference?

I don't know. But I think we can try. And I think we should. doesnt matter what is our personal motivation...whether its getting tax benefits in this life or good karma in the next...if it makes some one's life a little better, a little easier..if it can make some one's future a little brighter..then its worth the attempt.

And after years of contemplating, and waiting for the right time to come, the right amount of disposable income to reach my bank account, the right cause to fall in my lap, the right NGO to come begging for donation on my door, the right catastrophe to strike the world..I decided to stop looking for excuses and put my inaction aside.

Mom taught me.."Smiles are free so give them away"
I have finally decided to start giving them, 1 day, 1 small deed at a time.

Because not all of us can become saints and change the world. But may be we can become good human beings. Or at least we can try.

And I think we should.

Ed. note: The start of my journey is thanks to WorldVision India, and their Sponsor-a-child program that has over 25000 sponsors for the India program itself, a highly credible global organisation with an immense reputation worldwide; and a hugely successful program globally. At 600 INR ($35) a month, you can literally change some one's life. For more details, visit: http://www.worldvision.in/ (India site) , http://www.worldvision.org/ (Global website)

silence...

2010-07-11T20:41:00.000-07:00

agony

2010-06-13T20:41:00.000-07:00

getting back to my lost hobby of scribbling... :)

as today ends...

2010-05-30T19:30:00.000-07:00

I love this time of the day. When the evening is just beginning to set in, bringing cool respite from the afternoon heat; the sun slowly gives up its harsh, piercing existence to adopt a softer soothing feel. Lights gradually start twinkling in the distance preceding the stars by a few hours. And the sky turns various hues of red: each a poet's inspiration, an artist's challenge & a lover's desire....eventually fading into soft blues and finally the impenetrable black of the night.

I love watching the birds flying back to their abode after a day's hard work; its comforting somehow to see silhouettes against the backdrop of the fading sun...

Its time for the tired daily wage laborer to collect his wages and head home. He isn't sure if he will find work tomorrow. His life is not going to get easier, his future is practically non existent. He passes by the world of oppulence in which he has no share; for which he doesn't exist. But he isn't thinking about all that right now. He will place his faith in God and pray that he finds work tomorrow as he sets out of his shack in the morning. For now, he is just looking forward to his hard earned meal of the day and a night of sound, honest sleep.

It time for the working mother to take the train back home. She has a few more hours of hard work, there's dinner to be cooked, laundry to be done, groceries to be bought on the way, no one will offer any help or support, as she marches on from one expectation to be fulfilled after another. No her day is not over yet...but she isn't thinking of any of that now. She is just looking forward to seeing her children again.

I have always been fond of this particular time of the day.

When I was a student, often I used to study during the afternoon after school/college. But I could hardly ever concentrate. For I was always waiting eagerly for my mother to come home. It didn't matter that I was all grown up and she wasn't going to bring me something. It didn't matter if I was too grown up and wouldn't be going out to play once she got home. It didn't even matter if we had nothing to talk about and if I was going to continue doing what I was doing before she came; nothing mattered. She was going to be home soon and that always made me happy.

Try as I may I can't understand if it was her reassuring smile or the cup of "chai" we would have as went over each other's day, but second to the head massage sessions, this was my favorite time with her. And while the head massage sessions are till date mostly about catching up on family gossip, the daily evening tea sessions were more about discussions, and counselling. When my sister was grown up enough the chai sessions became a 3 member company, and just by virtue of her nature, much more filled with jokes & laughter....the seriousness of those sessions decreased significantly, the significance only increased.

Sometimes, after our tea session, I used to take my still unfinished cup and sit on the terrace and watch kids play in the park outside. Scrambling to finish their last game before night fell and their mothers called them back home.

It was my time to think about things beyond the next problem to deal with. Dreams. Ambitions. Idealogies. Philoshopy. Assimilate the 'just over' discussions with mom. Think about Life. And its endless mysteries...Sometimes I just stared into oblivion and let time slip by.

Nothing much has changed there, when ever I am home, its still the same routine. When I am not, its this I miss the most. This that cannot be replaced.

Yes, I love this time of the day. Because it inspires me as a poet, challenges me as an artist and fills the hopeful romantic in me with new dreams& desires. Because it reminds me of my blessings in life and how kind & forgiving life has been to me;. Because it reminds me of the most important and one of the strongest, smartest, most selfless and best human beings I have known till date...and how lucky I am that she is my mother. Because it reminds me of all the love & laughter I have in my life thanks to family & friends.

But mostly because it reminds me that there is joy in life; and hope; and dreams...and they don't lie beyond the day to day rut of it...you don't have to go anywhere to find them. They are right here. The smile of your child, the comfort of your mother, the food on the table, the love of your loved ones....And as the struggles of 1 day end, its time to unwind, relax & enjoy them...and let the heart be filled with new hope, new excitement, new eagerness for the next day.

For what could prepare you better for tomorrow, than today.

Traditions

2010-05-28T06:59:00.000-07:00

Traditions. They are a funny thing. And a very controversial topic, I understand. Traditions are like non veg food. People who don’t eat it call it a violation of life, people who do...just call it the food chain. Having been on both sides of the table, I see the validity of both points. In places which are too cold or too dry to even grow grass, how can you possibly survive without eating meat. And in places which have a rich harvest of grains, fruits & vegetables, why would you eat meat??!!

And that’s my point exactly when it comes to tradition. Its all about context. Traditions, rituals, rules they are all made to give structure & system to a society. To prevent chaos & anarchy. So caste system was started to divide work load amongst different sections of the society. Even the Bhagvad Gita says it pretty clearly, that its purely work based. Not by birth, but occupation. But look at India today. Caste system is still so ingrained in the very DNA of the entire country that its tough breaking away from it even for the educated, so called “modern” people who don’t even believe in this system themselves; or at least claim so.

The politicians keep the system alive because it gives them votes. Upper classes keep it alive because it gives them, in their eyes, societal respect. Lower classes keep it alive because it gives them reservations. So in theory, everyone should be happy with it, isn’t it. Yet no one really is. Everyone complains about it. Because they are not happy with the privileges, societal or governmental, that the “other” side gets.

And to be honest that’s just a case in point. Any tradition, most traditions in fact, are designed to suit a certain time, a certain need of the society at that time. Once that need passes, they should be allowed to change. But more often than not, people just get too tied to their traditions to see that. They become too ensconced in their comfort zone to want to change. Thats the only life they know and they are afraid to step out. Fear of the unknown. And may be sometimes thats fine. After all they do say the known devil is better than the unknown one. But sometimes the unknown is not a devil and you would not know that until you stepped out & tried.

But such times and such traditions just yield 2 types of people.

Rebels who usually then end up going to the other extreme just to have their way to make a point; or just get fed up and leave to a place where they are not needed to conform.

Or ; People who are perhaps neither foolish nor courageous enough to be rebels; and hence find a way to compromise. Sometimes their dreams are formed from the early days of childhood by their parents to shape within the strict confines of their “social traditions” and sometimes , even if they dare to dream, they give them up at some point. To be frank I think it’s less cruel if they just don’t dare. Because otherwise they live forever with a wistful glance back at lost dreams. And while some find a way to be content. Others just become frustrated, spiteful and hostile towards anyone who has "more" than they do, more freedom, wealth or even..contentment.

But the worst part still is, that strangely enough, these same people, who lost their own dreams at the hands of outdated traditions, a lot of times, hold back the dreams of the next generation. In the name of tradition.

Rendezvous with the dragon princess

2010-05-23T07:35:00.000-07:00

I first heard about Tioman a few months ago from my room mate who had gone there for a short vacation. A dragon shaped island in Malaysia on the shores of the South China Sea covered with lush, impenetrable jungles, smooth straight cliffs and giant granite boulders: it sounded nice, fun, and not more than a weekend trip. So when I got this email about a university organised weekend trip to Tioman at very affordable prices, I signed up for it immediately!

We left around 9 am Friday morning by bus and reached a checkpoint called Mersing around early afternoon. After leaving Singapore, the bus ride is completely along the hills, up & down, round & round! It was fun for me, and I was pleasantly surprised that no one got motion sickness. :P That was my first introduction to Malaysia. Mersing was our lunch spot with tons of completely new looking sea food. Vegetarians behold! There’s nothing for you except fried rice. Without eggs if you are lucky! :)

From there on it was a 2 hr ferry ride that started 1 hour late. That’s another thing you have to account for in your trip, constant delays. A great ferry ride later, where I slept, hogged on chips and made new friends, we reached our destination, Tioman Island. The first sight was breathtaking.

I instantly saw cameras in all directions as people started clicking pictures. The water on the beach was so clear, that we could see the rocks at the bottom. I had only seen that with fresh water rivers very high up in the mountains close to their starting points. It was UN-Believable!

We checked into a nice, quiet resort. Quick showers and off to a lip smacking barbeque dinner; erm for the non- vegetarians i.e. The vegatarians had veg fried rice with ketchup. And I kicked myself for having turned into one so recently, wishing I had waited until after this trip!! Arrgghhh!!!

Since it was too late to do anything that night, I had a nice quiet stroll on the beach, clicked pictures, spent time talking to the local guitarist running the 1 shack pub on the beach. His knowledge of English was very limited, he had barely heard of India but he was unbelievably good with Indian names. The only person from this part of the world who got my name correctly the first time!!! :D

The beach was small, tidy and pleasant. A group of tourists had lit a campfire. About 5-6 small fishermen motor boats anchored on the shore. A few wooden benches randomly strewn about to relax. It even had a swing, the old fashioned hanging from a tree branch style. I had the best time sitting on it, it was like 20 years ago, in my house..when my dad had put a swing for me & my sister in the house [ which broke when we both tried to sit on it together! :P ]

Almost reluctantly I went to bed.

The next morning started early, with a nice "coffee & toast" breakfast and a short walk to the “rockfall”. Errmmm.... not much a fall really, just water flowing through a few rocks; but the walk was nice. Dense jungle, early morning birds chirping, the sound of a local villager gathering wood for domestic use I guess. And the sound of water in the background. Persistent. My personal favourite anywhere anytime. The only dampener was a big bag of plastic full of beer cans etc. left along the path, by a careless irresponsible bunch of tourists I suppose. People who really don’t deserve to be allowed in such places!

Next was a longer trek along the jungle with a few newly-made-friends. Steep rocks, slippery mud, its amazing how quickly the prospect of falling to your death builds camaraderie amongst perfect strangers!! ;) The trek ended on the other side of the hill, on an isolate small beach. It was beautiful. The kind that begs the question “if you were marooned on an island....” yes i thought about the answer and no i wont say it! :P

A nice peaceful lunch where the lady kindly made a customised “mee goreng” for me, though she didn’t shy away from expressing her pity & sorrow that I wouldn’t get to taste her delicious squid, and refused to take away egg from the dish as she admonished me “You need tasty food!” . Reminded me of my mother, and prompted me to make that very expensive international call to her! :P

The next activity was snorkelling. The idea of seeing underwater life is just fascinating. And the good thing about snorkelling is you don’t even know how to swim! Which i don’t . Well I do, a little bit. Thankfully it was n’t that sunny, so I didn’t change skin colors to the point where I might run the risk of my parents failing to recognise me! :P Unfortunately, the corels weren’t as rich as the ones I had seen in Krabi; not sure if too much tourism is to be blamed here too!

And then I realised I had drifted too far off and couldn’t swim back because of the tide and because my life jacket was stuck and my mask got damaged. For a second I thought that was it. and waited for my life to flash before my eyes...when a fellow traveller "appeared"to my rescue & took me back safely to the boat. Thank God for the emergency blow whistle attached to my jacket and thank God for that saviour , my God sent angel who saved my life and then vanished into the sea of life jackets & masks....hidden behind his mask forever, like Zorro, robinhood, and spiderman, a face I would never know but would owe all my life to!! :P

That incident would forever be known as the day my life saving gear tried to kill me!! Lesson learnt, don’t get philosophical when in the middle of the ocean! :P

We reached back to the resort by around 6:30 pm, exhausted after a long day of exploring! :) A long hot shower and off I was again to explore the local market street.

Everything is just one street, along the beach. The resort, the markets, the beach itself. It all 1 straight line. A few shops with touristy purchases; a couple of sea view cafe / restaurants, that street even has its own spa. And sure it’s a rip off..but after a hard day’s work, its heaven to pamper those sore muscles with a good massage! A good dinner, where my order of fried mix vegetables came back as boiled vegetables with shredded chicken & egg; followed by another stroll on the beach under a superbly star lit night. A couple of hours sitting chatting with my new-made-friends, which by now had transformed itself into a pretty cool gang of friends and another reluctant but exhausted night of sleep.

The next morning was our final day on this picturesque island, I couldn’t believe it was over already! Not before the hearty breakfast though!! Some quick shopping and we were on our way back. Exhaustion finally kicked in and I slept back on most of my way. We got delayed a lot by rains & traffic, had a nice evening tea & snack at a hypermarket in Johor Bahru, and finally reached home at around 7:30 PM SGT.

I was exhausted, but smiling. It was totally worth it.

Obituary

2010-04-14T03:17:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I lost a very dear friend of mine. He & I had known each other for over 4 years . For the past 4 years, he had been my constant companion. No matter where I was, or what I did, he always stayed by my side. No matter how busy or idle, happy or sad, pleased or frustrated I was, he was always there; comforting, reassuring & supportive.

For 4 years, we spent endless hours with each other, day and night. His presence never let me feel lonely. He silently stayed by side through all good times and bad and patiently bore with all my mood swings. One time I remember I spilled an entire bowl of hot cereal & milk on him. It was a mistake but it must have hurt like hell. And yet, he didn't say a word. I wondered what had I ever done to deserve such loyalty; and thanked my stars for getting it nevertheless.

But for the past few months, he hadn't been keeping too well. He was always running a high temperature and was always very low on energy. It was as if he needed to be on a glucose drip constantly to do even the basic activities of his existence. All his test reports were absolutely normal; and no one could figure out what was wrong with him. Though on the surface he managed to look well, I could see he was dying inside. Slowly but surely. He still insisted on being with me constantly and somehow I didn't fight him back. May be I should have.

And then, yesterday afternoon while I was work, he just suddenly left me. Just like that. Without a notice. Without giving me a chance to say goodbye. Me & my colleagues tried our best to revive him, but to no avail. I rushed him to a specialist, but it was too late. He was declared DOA.

I brought him back home with me. Protecting his non responsive body from the rain while I myself got drenched. It had been a 4 year long relationship, and I wasn't ready to let go. Not just yet.

And so there I was.

Sitting in my room, feeling completely alone for the first time in over 4 years. Helpless. Isolated. Disconnected from the world. I sat there for the rest of the evening staring into his face. Expecting him to blink his eyes any minute. My mind was completely blank. I couldn't think at all.

After a few hours of complete silence, holding the still perfectly functioning mouse & power cord in my hands, I said good bye to my dear old friend.

My HP Compaq nx6325.

2010-02-10T11:00:00.000-08:00

I remember the first time I left for Singapore. I am not the crying sort, and I wasn't particularly sad either. But as the plane took off, for the first time perhaps I felt a pang of pain. I was leaving my home, my country, my family n friends for God knows how long. I had no idea when I would return or what my life in Singapore would be like.

Come december 08, and I was already on my back home, in the very first vacations. 20 fabulous days @ home flew away; and it was time to come back to studies. Only this time, I didn't feel strange. I was leaving one known country for another. Sure my family wouldn't be there but at least I had friends I was looking forward to meeting. Singapore felt equally home.

Things have taken a strange turn since then. So strange, that its almost funny. Now, when I am India, the life in Singapore: the friends, outings, the safety, the cleanliness, school, classes, everything seems like a fantasy,

and when I am in Singapore, its the other way round.

For some reason, nothing feels real. Nothing at all. And its probably not even for the country I am not in. Perhaps its also for the country I am in. At any point in time, it seems that I can almost detach myself from the world around me.....and almost see it passing by.

Talk about having an out-of-body experience! .. seems like I am constantly in one!!

And after a very long time perhaps, I am short of the right words to express this state of my mind....

...I think I need to belong.

Santro & I

2010-02-07T19:29:00.000-08:00

I drive an Alto. And for all reasons, obvious & implied, I love my car. Its my first car, I had bought it on my own and recently paid off its loan. Its safe, convenient & dependable. And because its a Maruti, there is never any trouble finding service for it.

So why is this post called what its called? Well, Santro & I go way back. Longer than I first recalled when I thought about writing this post. About 10 years ago, when my father was planning to buy our first family car, I remember I begged & pleaded with him to buy a Santro. My knowledge of cars was strictly limited to their looks at the time. And I loved the way it looked.

But the fuel efficiency, sturdiness, and reliability of the Tatas prevailed over this unknown foreign brand "Hyundai".. and we got a rather ugly looking Indica instead. Well in all fairness, it has been a reliable car that has served us very well for almost 10 years now. But still, there was something about Santro that Indica didn't quite have. It couldn't zip zap zoom...

A good few years later, more constraints led to my buying an Alto. A car I fell in love with after buying it. Nevertheless my elusive affair with the Santro remained. My best friend owned a Santro. And since he was the one who taught me how to drive, I learned my driving mostly on a Santro. I loved the small driving conveniences it offered. The only thing he refused to teach me was to zip zap zoom...

Life went on... I was driven to my surprise birthday party in a Santro; was driven around the streets of Meerut trying to find the venue of a friend's wedding in a Santro, lost our way & took 100s of U-turns on the way to another party again in a Santro..the list goes on...

My driving skills improved overtime, and as I graduated from one level of driving to the next, I kept sighing wistfully at the Santros zip-zap-zooming past me on the roads. By now, confident of my driving skills, another friend also often let me drive his Santro, and I loved every bit of it. Its pickup, quick steering response, high ground clearance...yes it didn't make me feel as safe & grounded for some reason, as my Alto did... but as long as I got to drive it, I was willing to live with my fears :)

And then things started changing...I started getting annoyed at people with drivers rage..rash drivers who would overtake from the wrong side, who were nearly always speeding,

"Bloody idiots!!" I would mutter, and keep driving.

Until I started noticing something very strange...nearly all of those rash car drivers, were driving a Santro.

And yes, they were "zip zap zooming..."

Till date, the maximum no. of rash car drivers I have come across on Delhi streets are Santro drivers. And though that doesn't do anything to take away my fascination for that car, I guess it does say something about how easily people find ways to misuse power of any kind; in this case, Santro's quick steering response :P

Everything said n done, I still think Santro is an absolute pleasure to drive car,; my friends still drive it and my brother just bought his second Santro with my full support (err..I mean almost full after all my desperate attempts to get him to upgrade failed miserably)

Sure, Santro has its drawbacks, apparently its light weight body makes it unsteady at high speeds: well up until 120 Km/hr its fine and I dont know how much higher it can go anyhow..and how often you would need to / be able to go higher than that anyways!

& though I still haven't seen a color that perfectly compliments its design..all the colors it comes in are either too bland & boring; or just don't go with its design; I would still buy it any day over the other cars in its segment

Till date I have been driven around in a Santro far more than all other car journeys combined; given that almost everyone around me seems to belong to the Santro fanatic community; [ I would start a Santro community on Facebook if there weren't so many inane ones already!] except may be my own driving around in my alto;

And every journey with Santro is a memorable pleasure; and that is of course owing more to the people I am with; but at least a third of the best moments, including some of the very best, I have had in the past 5 years or so have happened inside a Santro..."Santro & I resonate at a certain level" a psychic might say ;) :P

So thats the unfinished story of Santro & I...the first car I loved in my waking conscience; the car that gave me my first driving lessons; the car that has given me unforgettable memories of wonderful time spent with friends & family....the car that I have never owned.

a vanilla 27

2010-02-06T23:09:00.000-08:00

I recently turned 27. Now, 27 is a rather uneventful, dry age to turn.

It doesn't have the excitement of turning into a teenager @13, doesn't makes your heart flutter with the hope of first love @ 16, you wont be suddenly legally entitled to drink the way you became at 12:01 am, @ 21 , no quarter life crisis of 25...doesn't even mark your transition from one landmark decade of 20s or 30s to the next....27 doesn't do anything. It doesn't give any specific reason to rejoice, or to be anymore miserable at getting old, than any other non-landmark birthday.

Its plain and simple, a vanilla 27, somewhere in between.

Nor was the celebration a historic event in my life. I spent a nice & quiet birthday with a few friends I met in between driving ( :O ) , and a nice dinner with few family members & cousins;

Like I said, it was a pretty uneventful affair, for a pretty uneventful age

So why have I picked this to be the year of announcing my age to the world, when I prudently didn't for all those other more happening transitions ??

The fact that I never in my dreams ever imagined turning 27 [ I For some reason I always imagined my life only until 25!] and its making me feel old beyond imagination..might have something to do with it...I think I am still in denial, that 27 years have actually passed by!!!

But I think its more due to this lazy sunday afternoon. It reminds of my school summer vacations, when all of us cousins would go to stay at our nani' house.

My nani used to have a big old fashioned bunglow in Delhi; just 2 big rooms, 1 huge kitchen, 1 big balcony and a garden outside the house. In one big room without a cooler, sometime with power cuts too, with only handheld fans to keep the flies n mosquitoes away we would all sleep next to each other on mattresses on the floor. Talking softly n giggling so those asleep would not wake up; Many names of our younger cousins were debated upon n decided amongst us in those subdued conversations; and much to the consternation of those younger ones, those names have stuck :)

I have a distinct memory of watching the sunlight flood through the iron mesh of the wooden frame door; the dust particles dancing in that light, splitting it into multiple rays..I used to wonder if they did it deliberately, and if they were trying to create a rainbow

I remember hanging by the huge main entrance gates, which was just the right height for us to grab its rails and swing; sometimes 3 of us on each gate as we waited for our moms n aunts to come from work to see us; running and clinging to pretty much anyone who came; the ensuing tantrums all of us threw at their attempts of taking us back home; and the victory smiles after our moms gave way to 1 more day of holidays;

I remember plucking ripe cotton & tomatoes from the garden with my nani, & climbing on the guava n mango trees; I remember the aam ka achaar she used to give us with food; and sometimes when there wasn't enough sabzi to go around; how she would make all of us laugh about it, and then cut whatever veg was available, add salt and give it as a special course of meal

I even remember the silly pranks I played as a child, and I never forget the "friendly" punch my cousin gave me on my frontal teeth because I told her that they were hurting too much.. [well of course they broke and left me with the permanently impaired dental state I have now]...a perfect example of how too much love n protection can be bad for health ;) :P

There are a lot of such memories that flood back on afternoons such as these as I stare out of my top floor sea-facing bedroom with a perfect view and I can't help reflect.

Simple. Idyllic joys of childhood.

Its been exactly 14 years since I spent my last summer in that house. 14 years ago that house was sold off. I remember the last time we had all gone to take a look at the house.....almost all of us were crying, trying not to let anyone else see. An imposing & rather hideous structure has replaced that house now. The house where my mom, all of her siblings, and all of their children grew up. I still picture it vividly and sometimes even have dreams of playing around in it.

Life has come a very very long way since then. multiple jobs, a handful of degrees, living in different countries, 100s of people have come n gone, a few great ones have stuck around...and though I can never recreate magic of the times gone by; life isn't bad at all. We cousins still stay connected thanks to the new age of telecom & internet; and we still love meeting each other whenever possible. All our hearts still lie with our nani; whenever we can, we go & visit her in her now much smaller house; that brims with the same amount of endless love & happiness.

so yes, at 27, as I graduate from B school, knowing that life will probably change dramatically once more, I get ready to shift gears once more..waiting for the next round of this roller coaster to begin.

And as I hope that I will continue to learn, grow & improve as a person; continue to strive to add value to people's lives around me; and that I will succeed in giving more meaning to my life & be blessed with the fortune of living out my dreams; I will save these lazy afternoons to reflect.

These lazy sunday afternoons that remind me of the magical times gone by.

just a promise...

2010-01-07T06:54:00.000-08:00

i am an optimist. most of the times.

mostly i am the person who loves children,
flowers, birds & butterflies
the person who sees the beauty
in the smile of a first time parent
or the happiness of a student getting a good grade
the person who loves watching rain falling on the glass screen..

mostly, i am the person who loves to talk to her mom
every night about small things
& catch up on family gossip
over a session of head massage
the person who loves to tease her kid sister
laughing & fighting over silly stuff

mostly, i am a simple person.
who prefers to trust people
& trust their commitment, dedication, sincerity
you may call me too trusting, too naive,
& i think you are right
but i prefer to keep it that way,
it makes life easier.

yet, the more i see of this world,
the harder it becomes to remain simple.
because the more i see of the world,
the less i like it.
& the more disdainful i become.

everyone caught up in petty matters of ego,
ego that is in desperate need for attention,
immersed in conceit & greed,
lacking dedication n commitment,
ego that resorts to lies to preserve itself,

everyone engulfed in their own petty matters
of their own insignificance existence

don't get me wrong, i am not holier-than-thou.
i have my faults, more than i care to count.
& yes i do know some phenomenal people
& am blessed with precious gems as friends
my life is full of people who love me,
and full of opportunities & possibilities

yet, the more I see of the world,
the more I realise I don't fit in
& the more i see that i don't fit in,
the lesser i even want to.

& i wonder at times,
if the world will succeed in transforming me
into one of its own, filled with conceit & deceit
& ensure that I fit in & that I succeed

or will it succeed in turning me away
away from itself and all its promises
as a defeated mortal, resigned to my fate
with lost dreams of a lost future

or will I keep fighting this battle,
this battle to preserve me as me,
to find a converging point of give and take
of trust and mistrust, of love and hate

this battle to find a converging point
between my definition of success
& that of the world's

this battle with this world
this battle with me.

can i win this battle
or am i just a promise,
waiting to be broken.

2010-01-02T20:04:00.000-08:00

Its official. There is something decisively wrong with me. Why on earth would I not like the movies the whole world can't seem to stop raving about?? Last time I checked, I used to be a movie buff averaging 2 movies in the theater a week. But then..that was a long time ago, a time when I was earning, and movies were a great mix of unwinding & catching up with friends...Movies weren't really about movies.... but then as I said..that was a long time ago :)

Coming back to recent times, here are a few of the heavily over rated (in my opinion) movies that I have seen in the past few weeks

Paa

Seasoned stars, brilliant performances. and definitely a fresh break from the different flavors of love stories we have been fed to death! But the other day I got this email that said that Amitabh's make up used to take 8 hours to put & take off everyday. and that he was given special dentures so that the lisp that he talks with is natural. Great work! The indian movie industry is definitely growing up. But then, with such brilliant make up that you can't recognise the actor, or his voice...you can't make out his facial expressions, or voice modulation...his emotions are depicted more by the camera movements than by themselves, ... it just makes me wonder if this role couldn't have been done by some one else just as well. the industry is definitely not short of great budding stars these days, and given that Progeria patients usually have small & frail bodies, a 6 ft tall relatively healthy actor...naah!!

And why Paa exactly? I mean this could easily have been titled Maa as well...in fact given that the movie had more of mother-son relationship, than father-son; and the "Paa" doesn't come into the picture as "Paa" until the last scene, ..Maa would have probably made more sense. Or may be "Auro" , given that the movie is about the character more than anything else. Or given that the movie is about progeria, around progeria, and 50% of the budget seems to have gone in putting that make up to simulate progeria...perhaps progeria would have been the best ;)

Makes the whole Amitabh-Abhishek "father-son-son-father" tag line just a publicity gimmick to draw the crowds..ya ya you have to do that coz movies have to make money but I don't know..just one of those movies where I failed to see why people are going nuts about it...perhaps the Indian audience have such low expectations of Indian movies, that it will them even longer than the industry itself to mature into serious movie goers!

Avatar

James Cameron's masterpiece. 10 years in the making. An epic story! deserved to be seen in 3D.
Really???!! I mean seriously..seriously?! 10 years?!!! Doing what??!! the movie definitely had no story, no novelty, no originality of any sort. It is the East India company stealing from, destroying and colonizing the Red Indian villages... in the year 2154, on another planet where natural skin color is blue.

So the blue color takes care of racism I guess. And if definitely makes the cliched face and skin make up look more fancy. Honestly guys..really..look at the facial features, the makeup, the attire, the ornaments, the rituals, even the language of the so called Pandora Na'vis ...am I the only one who has seen too many old English movies about the Red Indians? Or seen Discovery's discoveries on the Mayan civilization?

Watching it was like, okay so they themselves got fed up of the theme of one American saving the Earth, so one American is now saving another planet. or may be it is the American who got tired of trying to save the Earth, decided to try his luck at another planet for a change ;)

okay, yeah the special effects were great, all those plants n trees with enhanced colors that reminded of the flourescent accessories that people wear to discotheques..and the trees that seemed to crawl all the way to your brain and suck them out to transfer to another body...all of that was great, even if a little creepy.

And why on earth..sorry, on Pandora, can human beings advance enough to live on another planet, set up huge research labs, even clone Na'vis & mine their rich reserves, but their aircraft radar technologies haven't moved in practically 300 years and still can't function in high EM activity zones?!

But still, 10 years???? If only a certain Mr. Cameron had paid 10% of what he must have paid to his special effects team, to his writers as well... they would have at least come up with a more original name for the planet.. rather than calling it "Pandora" !!

But of course, leaving all your thinking faculties aside, special effects were great, and my male friends did find the Na'vi tribal princess, a.k.a Zoe Saldana "too hot"! Although I would still say Transformers (part I) had better special effects, and Harry Potter has more creativity than Avatar, still in 10 years, at least something turned out right! ;)

Inglourious Basterds

Loved the performances! Honestly...the best acting I have seen in a really long time. Truly stellar...definitely Oscar deserving!!! I can't say this enough. A little too gory for my taste, but thats okay. People have a high apetite for this kind of stuff. And until the very end, I was feeling truly impressed. Until the end i.e. Until I saw Hitler and the rest of the Top SS brass gathered inside one movie theatre, and burnt down by burning a bunch of nitrate films. What an end to WW II. Simple, quick & efficient...why didn't anyone think of this at the time...Duh!!!!

sigh...what a waste!! Even if you must make a movie on WW II, which is as over used (understatement) as the first-love-lasts-forever theme in Hindi movies... and even if you must make a completely fictitious movie on such a monumental historic war, with no historical base whatsoever.... must you give it such a completely ridiculous end??!!!! the end..killed the movie..totally!!!!

3 idiots

Honestly, I have less disappointment with this one. May be because I hadn't even expected as much. I am not a big fan of Chetan Bhagat's work, which I think is the bollywood masala movie contemporary on Indian English literature..Indian English work i.e. for you can hardly call it literature. But still, nice, fun, easy to see, good timepass.

Amir Khan however, exceptional though as ever, I think is getting a bit too old to be playing a17 year old. About time he realised that. I don't know why in Indian movies the so-called stars live is such gross self denial of their age.

And delivering a baby with a vacuum cleaner...inspiring an engineering application as the writers / directors may have thought it to be... it made the entire movie fall back into the most ridiculous, melodramatic and nonsensical hindi movie scenes league!

And why is there such dearth of good writers in the Indian film industry, that they have to reuse jokes from email chains and mentos ads to make people laugh..is beyond me. Didn't the writer strike end like a million years ago??!! Feels like the Indian film industry takes the "reuse-recycle" idealogy, noble as it is, too seriously.. and implements this idealogy in ALL of it in its scripts, stories, music, and star casts.

To me personally, the "engineering" college set up in Ladakh in the end [ minus the 400 patents in 10 years for 1 scientist..yeah right! ] ... was the only display of genuine novelty; and an impressive one at that, ...at least I haven't found the original source of that scene yet ;) :P

Disappointed, disillusioned and seriously doubting my own capabilities of appreciation, I finally tried my hand at "Alwin & the Chipmunks II " . A movie that openly declared its ridiculousness. And voila! I actually enjoyed it! I had liked the first movie much better, but at least I didn't feel cheated. At least it didn't claim to be any more sensible (or senseless) than it really is.

Another 2 movies that I have liked in more recent times, Morning Raga & Schindler's list. Old movies, but I saw them recently. And Capitalism too [ except for the extremely biased view]

Next Stop: Sherlock Holmes..I still haven't given up all hope on me! I will try to leave my thinking faculties back at home though! :P

Else I will become an example of " Those who can't act, criticize" critics. :P

But to be fair, its great to see people trying to new things, especially in the Indian film industry breaking away from the endless love stories. And all of these movies are a great watch, at least once.... :)

2010-01-01T04:39:00.000-08:00

But jokes apart, even as an onlooker, I have never ever understood the madness behind this whole wedding ceremony. Its like the moment 2 people decide to get married [rather usually their parents decide], 50 others...at least...get an electric shock. they are woken up from their sudden zombie state of minds... Suddenly a 1000 different task lists are made and tasks for the next 3 months are divided meticulously amongst different people...the joys of having huge families planning your wedding...

It takes endless phonecalls to sort out the color of the bride's mother's sister's saree for the function 2 days before the wedding, dont get me started on the bride's outfit..i wonder if Jennifer Anniston ever paid that much attention to her costumes! and 1 phonecall from the pundit saying the muhurat will have to be delayed by 5 minutes brings the whole world crashing down!sigh...

What's amazing is that this timeframe of 3 months doesnt make that much of a difference, I have seen weddings of similar scale being arranged in a month's time and yes, having a year to plan doesnt help either, it just adds more tasks to the list ??!!

And the meticulous planning and task allocation...it would put any corporate to shame if only it weren't for coversations such as...

"Oye the tent guy hasn't called"

"O nahi ji I had asked Mamaji to call him"

"O mamaji has gone to the caterer. He asked me to ask you"

"But I'm taking didiji to the Parlour to get ready"
" Your didiji can go to the parlour herself. You call the tent-waalah"

..well you get the idea..

And then, there are the expenses. Parents save up all their lives to marry their children off. Specially daughters, but thats more thanks to the incorrigible dowry tradition in this country. [ It may be illegal for you to see on TV, its as real as the sun! It just takes different shapes, sometimes its a car, fridge, LCD TV, sometimes its gold, soemtimes its cash, usually its all these ]

If only I could get a penny for every time I have heard statements like,

.." They too spent 3 lacs just on the tent in their son's wedding reception"

"Aur Sharmaji gave his daughter a Corolla in her wedding"..

"and Khanna Sa'ab, spent 10 lacs over and above the wedding function"

!!!!!!!

Only 3 out of 10 of these people can actually afford to spend this kind of money on one function. The rest take all kinds loans at exorbitant interest rates, just to keep up to the "status" !! I have known people spending anywhere between 15-18 Lacs INR on just the wedding function. Even those who have never earned this much even in 2-3 years!! It is the ultimate "Keeping up with the Jones's" cartoon in the world! Not only are these weddings senselessly exorbitant effectively leaving the parents & some close relatives of the bride almost bankrupt

It is just such a big event, at times I feel its bigger for parents than the bride n groom!;they are a platform for everyone to show off all their riches, owned or borrowed; they are also a platform for you to prove your mettle of remembering names of, patiently smiling of the 500 people you have never seen in your entire life and will never see again.

No wonder so many people spend their lives in unhappy, beyond-repair marriages rather than getting divorced! Fancy throwing away a marriage that follows from that kind of a wedding.

Maybe , as people have been telling me since I was 12, once I am getting married myself...I will get it. I doubt....

2009-12-19T20:05:00.000-08:00

I remember this from the engagement ceremony of one of my friends. now anyone familiar with the north indian hindu wedding system must know what havoc and chaos this 1event must have unleashed over the entire family.

For the less enlightened...the madness begins much before the actual event. The news itself sends tremors across the neighborhood and the family clan that would put an earthquake measuring 5.1 on Richter scale to shame. Suddenly you start meeting/ talking to "relatives" you never knew existed. Worse? the first question they ask you is your name...not your to-be-spouse's, your own! Well you see they only know you as so-and-so's son / daughter. Your and his salary is of the utmost importance and a bigger public figure than your local celebrity. Over the next few months everything from your future savings, to which school should you send your kids to etc etc etc are analysed by the entire clan in detail. 15 minutes into the news and you already wonder if getting your parents to agree to the match (in case of love marriages) or going through endless "bio-datas" and meeting endless potential matches was after all, the easy part. Another 5 minutes and you are sure nothing except eloping would have been better!!

Exasperating as it is, and a blatant reflection of complete lack of privacy as well...to just an onlooker, it can be amusing to the point of being hilarious... here's an example

Setting: Engagement function

Venue: The Bride's house

Hosts: The bride-to-be, her parents, her 2 sisters, their husbands, and 3 children, 2 cousins, 2 aunts with their husbands...minimum 20 people in all. And mind you this is not a "function".

Scene: 5:30, everyone waiting anxiously for the guests to arrive...
Expected time of arrival: 6:00 PM

[and of course the entire conversation is a translation.. from hindi to english]

typical players in each setting
the inevitable just returned NRI who hates everything about India
the classic grandma, and her unfailing wisdom
the giggly younger sisters
the bride who is feeling f***** up with all the artificial make up and cursing her in-laws already
the tons of relatives, each willing to pitch in with their ideas for the couple's future
the poor anxious mother of the bride who hasn't had time to eat all day
the father who can't stop roaming outside the house thanks to his palpitations and ..well acidity :P

5:30

"I need some tea, i have a splitting headache"

"Wait for sometime, they will arrive in half an hour, we can all have tea together,"
"Yeah...uncleji meanwhile divert your attention you know..see my new DSLR..i got this st. from NY you see...fabulous uncleji I tell you..in India, this will cost at least twice, and then you don't even know if its the real thing you know.."
" arey Sonia ke daddy,you have the boy's ring with you right?"
"achcha waise where does the boy work? what must be his salary?"

6:15

"I think they are going to be late"

"Well yes did you really expect them to be on time? "
"ladke waale hain bhyee"
"you know auntyji this is what i hate about India..complete lack of punctuality..this would never happen anywhere abroad"

"haan, ji our Sonia also earns enoguh. I think together they will be able to buy at least a 2BHK in Faridabad at least, property is cheaper there, and within 5 years it will become like Dwarka...very expensive, I have a property dealer in mind, I will tell apni Simi,"

6:30
"May be they are lost"
"arey suno..just call them and see where they have reached"
[following a scramble takes place in which 5 phones come out in 5 seconds from 5 different directions, while the original addressee who was happily trying out the food in the kitchen comes out with a ]

"huh?????"
"arey..rehne do ji aap...jijaji you pls call and see where they are"

[ a pin drop silence, and a 2 min phone call ]

"i just did..they are somewhere here...they said they will reach in 10 min"
"arey sunoji...you come inside, roaming on the street will not help"
"Oh ji nahi ji, I am just taking a stroll, ate too much at lunch na so a little bit of acidity you see"

"haanji haanji bilkul, will be good if they buy a house before having kids you see, they are both young, they can wait 2-3 years for kids ji...settle down first, kya jaldi hai bachchon ki"

6:45
"hai-re, my headache will kill me"
"kya bade papa..[giggle giggle]....here the suspense is killing us, we haven't even seen our to-be jijaji yet...you are worried about your headache"
"oye hoye!! is this the way to talk to your elders? go make 1 cup tea"
"God knows where they are..."
"ladke waale hain bhyeee"

"waise Faridabad also had very good schools coming up you see. DPS also planning to open a branch there you see"

7:00
"didi why havent they come yet...hope nothing is wrong"
"arey nahi simi, dont worry i am sure they just started late only'
"ladke waale hain bhyee"
[muttering] "what the f*** is wrong with ashmit!!
[aloud] Let me give him a call"
"no no you leave it..are you mad!! you are the bride-to-be...what will the ladke-waale think?"
"but mamiji.."
"sonia!! no, you will not call them..."
[muttering again]"pfffff...F****"
[giggle giggle..] " see didi is getting so impatient to see jiju"
[at which the bride gives them a look...sigh...if only looks could kill]

7:15
the much awaited door bell finalyl rings
and everyone comes to order,
all aunties fix their sarees, all uncles get up simultaneously to greet the "ladke waale"
our dearly beloved NRI fixes his hair and gets his new "DSLR" ready
the 2 uncles finalising the next 10 years of the couple's lives get ready to bestow their unbeatable intelligence on the bridegroom
and of course, the inevitable ... giggle giggle giggle..

"madamji cablewaalaa" ,
"ye maraa cablewaalaa, what do you want at this time?"
"this month's bill madam"

[ this is the point, where an innocent onlooker like me has to rush outside and break in to splits laughing, but i dont need to...even in this anxiety, the Indian family has the good sense to laugh....dispelling some of the tension in the air ]

everyone except our annoyed bride, i.e. who is gettin more n more impatient. vowing to "teach" her groom a lesson the minute they get married!

7:30
"Mumma...can I please take off this one necklace, its killing me. And I can barely hold this saree, i am sure it weighs more than I do"
"Bete Sonia, why r u troubling your mother further. just wear it beta, it will be over soon"
[helpless n exasperated], " i'll kill ashmit"
"na beta dont talk like that, this is marriage it happens"
"ladke waale hain bhyee"

and so the drama continues, until the boy arrives with his family; only 3 hours late. the food has gone cold. there is of course no time for tea anymore. the bride's make up is all caky by now and the sisters' giggles have become subdued. but what to do...

"ladke waale hain bhyee" ;)

Capitalism: Through Michael Moore's lens

2009-12-19T01:58:00.000-08:00

I have never seen any of the other MM movies, though i wonder why now. A friend introduced me to him a few yrs ago through his own blog. and i remember reading up about him back then, and resolving to see some of his movies. and then forgot :P

its a very biased movie, which says capitalism has done absolutely no good to this world whatsoever. agreed that in a movie one needs to exaggerate to get his point across, but a documentary i would suppose would need to b more factual and balanced than opinionated, and that too to this extent.

it is undeniable that the world is in this rut today thanks to pure unadulterated greed; and yet greed is not an outcome of capitalism; its the other way round. if it wasn't so, socialism would not have failed the way it did almost everywhere in the world. good or bad the fact remains that capitalism is the only system that has continued to work, the others, socialism, monarchy, communism have failed miserably.

in fact, a closer look at the movie itself carefully, the reason capitalism has become what is has today, it because it has started mimicking the monarchy / aristocracy system.

having said this, some of the facts shown in the movie were shocking, to say the least. especially the official memo leaked out by an employee said such things, that i was revolted by the idea of ever joining a bank. the details and facts overall were pretty rattling, even to the dedicated finance people who i watched it with, who themselves wondered if they wanted to join banks ever [ of course their confusion lasted only 5 min] but the truth remains, that this entire industry has become too infested with greed to be curable. It needs to be replaced completely,. with what i don't know

the big constant question on my mind is will we as a generation be ever able to avoid falling prey to this corporate greed after entering this world and doing all sorts of unethical things that we now so blatantly accuse others of having done.

keeping in mind the simple perspective, that this "organisational decay" starts with an increasing sense of entitlement by employees towards company's profits / earnings/ resources; the most basic examples of which are:

1. using personal internet in office hours because we think we spend so much time in office its okay to check personal emails or do some personal work;

2. bumping up our CVs with things we haven't actually done

3. Using office expense reimbursements for claiming personal bills

4. bankers justifying first class travel because "they work so hard"

and so on.

my idea is not to become too idealistic to be practical but keeping these patterns in mind...and knowing that this sense of entitlement grows with age, time and designation; i don't know if we will or even if we can, somehow, strike a balance; and escape going downhill completely.

Here's more about the movie though: http://www.capitalismalovestory.com/

I become a transparent eyeball

2009-11-19T04:42:00.000-08:00

while i still struggle to find time to write the 100s of things running in my head, in the midst of maddening chaos around me i am glad i stumbled upon this, wondered why i hadn't found this before, was i meant to find this now....days in my life when i am stretched beyond what i ever thought was possible... i wud never know..but what i do know is that for an immediate moment, reading this did give me a break from the madness, it did give me a feeling of perfect bliss. a moment of exhilaration.

I Become a Transparent Eyeball
from “Nature”
By Ralph Waldo Emerson
Collected Essays, Penguin USA, New York NY, 1982

Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky,
without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune,
I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration.
I am glad to the brink of fear.
In the woods, too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough,
and at what period soever1 of life is always a child.
In the woods is perpetual youth.
Within these plantations of God, a decorum2 and sanctity reign,
a perennial festival is dressed,
and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years.
In the wood, we return to reason and faith.
There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, -
no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes), which nature cannot repair.
Standing on the bare ground,-
my head bathed by the blithe3 air and uplifted into infinite space,-
all mean egotism vanishes.
I become a transparent eyeball;
I am nothing;
I see all;
the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me;
I am part or parcel of God.
The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental:
to be brothers, to be acquaintances, master or servant,
is then a trifle and a disturbance.
I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty.
In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate4 than in streets or villages.
In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon,
man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.

Glossary:
1 – soever: whatsoever
2 – decorum: dignity
3 – blithe: a happy, light-hearted feeling
4 – connate: congenial; agreeing in nature

2009-09-25T08:45:00.000-07:00

for people who know me,...will see why i put it up here...
for those who don't, its because I couldn't agree more :)

> Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland,
> Ohio "To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught
> me. It is the most-requested column I've ever written." My odometer rolled
> over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:
>
> 1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
>
> 2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.
>
> 3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
>
> 4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and
> parents will. Stay in touch.
>
> 5. Pay off your credit cards every month.
>
> 6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.
>
> 7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.
>
> 8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it..
>
> 9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.
>
> 10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.
>
> 11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.
>
> 12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.
>
> 13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their
> journey is all about.
>
> 14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.
>
> 15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God
> never blinks.
>
> 16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.
>
> 17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
>
> 18. Whatever doesn't kill you, really does make you stronger.
>
> 19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one
> is up to you and no one else.
>
> 20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no
> for an answer.
>
> 21. Burn the candles,.
> Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.
>
> 22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.
>
> 23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.
>
> 24. The most important organ is the brain.
>
> 25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.
>
> 26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years,
> will this matter?
>
> 27. Always choose life.
>
> 28. Forgive everyone, everything.
>
> 29. What other people think of you is none of your business.
>
> 30. Time heals almost everything. Give time, time.
>
> 31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
>
> 32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
>
> 33. Believe in miracles.
>
> 34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you
> did or didn't do.
>
> 35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.
>
> 36. Growing old beats the alternative - dying young.
>
> 37. Your children get only one childhood.
>
> 38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.
>
> 39..Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere
> 40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's,
> we'd grab ours back.
>
> 41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
>
> 42. The best is yet to come. – (Always! ;-))
>
> 43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
>
> 44. Yield.
>
> 45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift."

2009-09-20T10:54:00.001-07:00

I opened my eyes groggily, my head felt weird. it hurt but more than that, it felt twice its size. For some reason, I could see less from one eye. it took me a few seconds to realise that my eye was swollen. and so was that side of my forehead too. i would hear my parents murmuring, my father furious as always, my mother trying to calm him down..and failing, as always. i was on my bed and just decided not to try to speak at the moment. a few minutes of silent listening reminded me of the afternoon. i had been playing basket ball, in school, i was about to take a shot, when i felt my legs getting entangled into another pair...almost instantly i felt my head hit the hard cement, a loud thud and the world had gone black.

now I could hear my father furious and yelling in the other room. "I told you to stop her madness. Look where its gotten her, its her Xth boards...and there she is..."
I was feeling sick again, my head dizzy, I wanted to throw up.
"she'll be lucky if she hasn't lost her eye...what if her face is damaged in some way, look at her head...what are we going to do if there's brain damage, its all your indulgence"
I tried to call out to my dad and ask him to stop yelling, I was fine, I could see , hear and remember correctly, there was nothing wrong with me...
"She must never play again! ask her to focus on her studies, its her Xth boards. thats it!"
and the world went black again....

Flash forward 11 years.

sunday morning...NUS MBA last semester badminton tournament. I woke up cursing myself, dragging myself out of the bed..already on way to being at least a half hour late. Why did I ever register...and ruin my sunday morning precious sleep! I haven't so much as picked up a racquet since that day, let alone play!!!

As I showered, I remembered that fateful afternoon more than a decade ago, when my mother had softly told me, after I finally regained consciousness that I had taken a direct hit on my head, my eye was safe luckily but there was some clotting in my brain that would take some time to dissolve. till then i was forbidden to do anything, except lying down, for long hours. any long term implications would come to be known only with time but i might not be able to work long hours on a computer or make a career in flying. "okay we'll see that with time", i told myself.

and yes, I was forbidden to play.
"what! thats insane..i want to talk to the doctor ..this is ridiculous mom i am fine"
"yes, i know..the doctor is not forbidding you...in theory, you are never to play again...your XIIth results are very important for your career"...as my mother smiled softly and ever so slightly winked at me ;) I smiled and fell back to sleep.,.....I loved the way she always found a mid way to keeping peace in the family. I wouldn't have made it to the school team anyway....

Well of course all that had turned out to be much ado about nothing, I did make a career in computers, and I have travelled by air enough to know that, that at least would not have been the reason why I couldn't have become a pilot! ;) The only reason I hadn't played was because I had promised my mother I wont, and then just lost all interest over the years. and the only living memory of that fall is a faint mark on my forehead, which is visible only if i frown and some one is playing very close attention :P

As I stepped on the badminton field, and swung my arm, it felt more lifeless than it ever had. I couldn't help remembering the days I used to spend hours playing tennis. My tennis racquets were at least twice as heavy as this one. I lost my first match abysmally. A part of me just wanted to go back home. "You haven't stepped on to a field in11 years...stop wasting your time and just go and sleep!"

But then I picked up the racquet, and started playing what I used to love playing as a child...gully badminton. a few matches later..I was back to having fun. Yes I lost my second match too. But less abysmally. and had more fun while doing so.

on my way back, as AA and I tried to find our way back to our house...errm yes I had managed to get us lost again,...I smiled. I had forgotten how much fun sports really are.....even if you lose abysmally....coz you eventually start losing less abysmally ;)

2009-09-09T11:50:00.000-07:00

पलकें बंद न करना
थमा हुआ समुन्दर चालक जाएगा
टूटे ख्वाबों के टुकड़े
सीने में चुभने दो
अगर वो भी गिर गए
तो फिर अपना कहने को क्या रह जाएगा...

2009-08-29T11:50:00.000-07:00

one of my all time favorites

And I dont want the world to see me
cause I dont think that theyd
Understand
When everythings made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am...

(Click here for the Song)

(Read here for the lyrics)

Blessed

2009-08-11T03:11:00.000-07:00

blessed are those
who have found their calling
for they know what they live for
they may be wrong,
but that matters not
for when the time is right
the truth shall behold
but until then,
their ignorance is bliss

and blessed are those
too ignorant to care
too caught up
in the process of survival
bound in their 3m peripheries
going through the rites of worldly existence
in time death shall take over
but until then,
their ignorance is bliss

blessed are those
who see that all is perception
and blessed are those
who define everything as reality

blessed are those
for whom everything matters
and blessed are those
for whom nothing does

blessed are those
unaware of the other side
and blessed are those
who have chosen to choose one
in time all shall diffuse
dissolve into the one and all
into the complete nothingness
into the ephemeral yet eternal
but until then,
their ignorance is bliss

what do i do from here
where do i go
what is it that i am to be
uprooted & deserted
am i too ignorant
or too aware of it all

for to me,
nothing seems to matter
yet everything does
nothing is too big
nor is too small
nothing too great
nor too petty
nothing possesses me
still everything does
forever torn into
perception & reality
the soul floating
above the body
a separate entity
of its own accord

perennially aware of both sides
unable to favor one over another
forever powerless to choose
am i the most blessed of all
or the most condemned.

2009-07-09T11:13:00.000-07:00

A Seriously Wow answer!!! The most amusing and creative thing I have read in quite a while...this person surely has potential as the next comic script writer in Hollywood!!

The following is supposedly an actual question given on a University of Washington mid-term chemistry exam. The answer by one student to the bonus question was so “profound” that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Click here for the complete article

2009-06-08T07:58:00.000-07:00

a couple of days ago my sister did something really nice for me. she stayed up late, gave up her ridiculous television serials that she is mad about, and mom's head massage [ and giving up that for the 2 of us is a big thing!] and well in a nutshell, she really went out of her way to make me feel better. and the first thing i said to her were the things she got wrong. it took me almost a half hr to realise that i never thanked her.

its funny how easily and naturally we take the people who love us the most, our family, completely for granted. i mean here i am back home, supposedly to help out around the house, and its her helping me and taking such good care of me. and she is the younger one. and it wasnt the first time, ive been living away from home for many years, and she always does this wenever im back. and maybe it was because i was sick but i kept thinking of how as kids we used to fight over evthg and every fight ended with mom intervening. I kept wondering where and when did my kid sister grow up to b so responsible and caring and grown up..did I miss all that while I was away....

and hence consumed with guilt... I blurted out "Thanks!!"

to which she yelled, " What??!!!"

"I said, thanks!"

"What are you an idiot! What the hell is wrong with you..i had fallen asleep, you scared me you idiot"

"Hey talk properly i am your big sister"

"Oh shut up! No one even believes you are elder" she is right..no one does...she is 2 inches taller

"You know thats not a good thing..it just means u look OLDDDD"

"Shutup!! MOMMMMMMM"

...... :) oh well somethings dont change..and thank God for that!!

2009-05-27T08:34:00.000-07:00

Life is an endless wait. Or perhaps that’s how we live it. We wait to grow up n start earning. We wait to find the perfect job. Then we wait for that someone special. We wait for love to happen. Once it does we can hardly wait to get married. We wait to buy the perfect house. Then we wait to have children. And then we start waiting for them to grow up. When they do, they leave; and then we wait for them to come back and visit us. And then we start waiting to die and get it over with. In all this waiting, we forget to live. We wait for life to happen, forgetting that it is happening already.

Never give up on your dreams, however big or small. They separate living from survival

Dreams evolve as priorities change. Let them.

Don’t hurt anyone intentionally unless it is to prevent more pain.

If things are bad, find the silver lining; that'll make it easier to bear the pain.

If it didn’t work out, fret, grieve, learn and then move on.

Spread happiness. It’s a perfect boomerang.

People forget what you did; they remember how you made them feel.

Good deeds & kind words come back faster than you think. So do lies and deceit.

As a soul you have the potential to learn, grow and rise higher.

As a mortal, do the best you can to spread happiness, love n kindness.

Live your life to the fullest, you don’t know if you’ll get a second chance.

Laugh. Dance. Sing. Read. Write. Cry. Medidate. Pray.

Have faith. In God, science, yourself, destiny, anything. It helps.

Don’t bottle up pain and anger. They will rot inside.

Release them. Run. Walk. Work-out. Swim. Hold some one you love and cry.

Love. Don’t be afraid of losing; it will teach you much more if you lose.

Make mistakes. That’s the only way you’ll ever learn.

Grab each moment and make the most of it. Don’t die before you actually die. And don’t succumb to death till you have lived. On your deathbed, if you can look back and say you tried your best; and smile, it would have been worth it.

Live life. It’s worth the effort.

2009-05-27T08:30:00.000-07:00

i used to think that there is some thing is seriously wrong with me. remember my post, its ironical on my funny typing mistakes ??? well thats a problem that never resolved itself, so although i enjoy a respectable typing speed and accuracy, there are some mistakes i am stuck with. for instance, i have never, i mean never, gotten the word, "mistakes" right the first time [including this attempt] ...its always "mistkaes" the first time i type it. same for "htink" or "syas". However, a few days ago, I came across some typing mistakes that make me almost proud of myself :D

-> skin testing tools ......"sin" testing tools

Wow! That would make God's job easier!Imagine this..after a lifetime of good deeds, you also need to clear a written entrance to get through the Gates of Heaven ;)

-> artificial liver growth......artificial "lover" growth

Aha! Now here's a sure-shot seller. I wonder if there's a team of scientists somewhere trying this one out.

-> art of living...art of "loving"..

And I see traces of a certain Mr. Hashmi here.

...apparently there is a study that says that at the age of 25 human libido is at its peak. May be my source just turned 25! :P Well, I don't know about that, but these mistakes sure present some interesting R&D options for future science ;)

befuddled

2009-05-15T04:04:00.000-07:00

So here's what baffles me,

why would you name a bus service BIAS

(that's Bangalore International Airport Service, FYI) ..but honestly, couldn't they have fudged the abbreviation a little so that it is a little less ridiculous?!

Oh and btw, you need to pay a Rs 260/- "airport" tax, just as a passenger taking a domestic flight from the Bangalore International Airport. not to mention they dont have a domestic airport, so its not as if you have a choice. ofcourse except if you could take an international flight with a domestic stopover instead ;)

(damn why didn't I think of this before paying the tax..grrr my dad's right, I am just not a good baniya!! )

and why does every mumbaikar, atleast all those i know, call their BST buses BEST ???

I mean I am all for patriotism, but honestly my friends, much as I admire your mumbai love,and much as I love mumbai myself, those buses are rickety at best!

how can some one name their book "How to cook everything" without having the recipes for caterpillar manchurian, baby soup, cow nerves, frog toe nails,...and well grown up human beings too. why not, Everything comes under everything! and but for the last, I know for a fact that all the others are actual dishes.. and well may be except baby soup too :P

you know the hazard of knowing both your parents, and their extended families????

you never get a surprise letter or phone call announcing you the heiress of a fortune, and you never, NEVER get to be the Princess of anywhere...no matter how many diaries you write and how many times your dad may call you that!

yaya i just got off the movie, it hurts evtime I see some one being left a will by a hitherto unknown relative or inheriting an entire country...I am never going to get that! ..sigh...so much for close knit extended Indian families...pffff

but you know whats the most baffling of all??

a full grown 85 Kg woman jumping off her seat and climb the desk and start screaming because she saw a tiny little rat scuttering somewhere...try keeping a straight face when she does that. Not easy my friend, not easy.

Its so imcomprehensible its hilarious. I laughed so hard my sides hurt, not to mention the poor rat's plight who got so scared I am wondering if it got a heart attack out of sudden shock. I am not fond of rats or mice or any of their kin, but seriously?!!

Ofcourse I am still in hiding to escape the screaming woman's wrath...as they say.."hell hath no fury like a woman laughed at" ...

;)

My Nani..

2009-04-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

The creases on the forehead

show the wisdom of experience

the ones below the eyes,

the unshed tears of pain.

She gets up with effort

clutching to a stick

walks stooped , in obvious pain

an endless battle with life

has taken its toll

and yet there she is,

tired in body, vibrant in spirit still.

Happy to see me standing at the door

Her wrinkled face breaks into a toothless smile

Her once youthful beauty

transformed into timeless grace

With gnarled hands, she blesses my head

Her weak fingers run through my hair

Her touch effuses love

I am at home, at last.

Over tea which she insists on making

and brings filled with pride of love

She tells me stories, stories I've heard

Over & over since I was 5,

How she climbed the tree to steal achaar from her mom's kitchen

and how she jumped in Ganga for a swim with her friends

how she caught butterflies in the gardens

and How she met my Nanu...

he's been gone 30 years,

her eyes still brim with love at his mention

We are all grown up now,

busy with our own lives,

caught up in the rat race,

as she sits alone in the house

that always resounded with our laughter

She smiles as I get up to leave,

I turn back to look at her,

standing at the door with her walking stick

in obvious pain, but smiling

waving me luck and love

her eyes thanking me for coming,

asking silently when will I return

and have chai with her,

that she will insist on making

and bring filled with pride of love.

And I wonder...why can't I

Why have I chosen a rat race

over the people who matter the most

Silently quelling all these questions,

I, a mere mortal, move on.

for one of the most phonemenal women I have ever come across...a woman whose faith, hope, optimism towards life and belief in the general goodness of people, a lifetime of struggle and pain have failed to destroy....My Nani. A woman of true substance in every sense of the word

Innovation & Creativity

2009-03-21T00:12:00.000-07:00

got this mail a few days ago. This just goes on to show that you are never too small a business to provide excellent customer service and differentiate yourself. and that innovation and creativity knows no bounds

first aid box on the left and a newspaper box on right (which had all hindi-english-marathi-gujrati and economic times)

a tv on the top with cable (colors channel) and below tat is the tissue box. on the left is the mandir types and dont miss the "Only gandhigiri" written there , below that is the calender and a notepad and pen along with a blue fan (which is blowing towards the customer who sits)

25% discount for handicap!! who on this earth can expect something like this from an autowallah!!

I am sure instead of rigging the meters and cheating customers , if all auto-wallahs in India started giving these additional services, people would be openly willing to pay a little extra! and you could technically take this approach on a macro level as well and who knows this world might become a better place!

Jab I Missed!!

2009-02-23T09:05:00.000-08:00

Shameless, shameless take off from Jab We Met! but you will soon know why I learn the art of getting inspired from a certain Mr. Malik ;)

So I have a friend whose cutest little girl was turning 1 and of course we all were going to celebrate this occasion. So after a few hours of the best of time which always leaves you wondering why you don't it more often, we dragged ourselves out of his home and headed back. the only problem, we weren't really sure where exactly we were. taking advice from another friend, who has since then gone in hiding , told us "Just take a cab, its not that far off, u'll reach in 15 minutes"

so we took a cab, and this is where the fun began. and for those who don't know, Cabs in Singapore, specially at night , end up costing a fortune. which of course, students like me have no traces of :P

11:30 PM
My friend: We need to go A(his place) and then to B (my place)
CabD: A half-singapore la, B full singapore
both of us: speechless!!
my friend: do you know what time the last MRT reaches X (the nearest MRT)
I : let me call and find out
***----****
11:35 PM
I: 11:45 PM
My friend: please drive fast
CabD: No, no! no more fast la, speed limit ollreadyy
I: (muttering) Oh crap!! I wish this was Delhi!
My friend: Please please, we need to the get the MRT

***____***

11:44 PM
we both jumped out of the cab before it even stopped and ran. Before descending the stairs of course, we saw on the board "Last train to B - Leaving"
I: Dammit!!!

and so we ran back and fortunately got the same taxi.

My friend: Next station please. fast!!

By now I was no longer looking at the watch. the taxi stopped and we ran, across the street in Singapore, where Jaywalking can cost you $500. But of course we weren't thinking. the bulletin board read " Last train to B : Just arrived"

We ran down the stairs, pulling our cards out, punching them at the entry stiles [ it was the fastest I have ever been able to fish out my card from my bag, and never while running ] and we ran up the escalator and on to the platform

and the train left. inches away from us.

"Arghh" , I remember pulling my hair and throwing my hands in my face. After 2 minutes of silent condolence, we had a light bulb moment. The bus!!

The buses run for atleast 40 minutes later than the trains. With renewed energy, we ran out, cursing the lost $1 uncesserily at the stile, and reached the street, a major traffic light. Only, we had absolutely no idea which direction we were supposed to go in, where the nearest bus stop was, which bus we were supposed to take and what time would the last bus leave. and of course none of us had any helpline numbers either.

So we picked one direction randomly and started running. We hit a bus stop and saw it wasn't the one we needed. So off to another direction, and after 3 failed attempts, at 12:15 am , we finally found the bus we were looking for. We just had to cross the street, and take the bus. Err..last bus at 12:20 am!

So we decided to run again, only the traffic didn't let us. cursing the damn traffic, by the time we finally crossed the street, of course the last bus had come at the stop. So we ran again, only, we missed the bus!

Hopeless, we just crossed the street again, bought a can of coke each from the nearest 7-11 and flopped on the sidewalk. Deciding to make the most of it of course, then we got up and with our coke we walked the streets for a while playing antakshari, extending the time with friends, which always makes us wonder why we don't meet up more often and then finally took a cab home.

Of course the whole fiesta ended up costing us much more than even the "full singapore" woudl have and hence i am still looking for the friend who had said "its just 15 minutes"!! :)

2009-01-26T11:42:00.001-08:00

i remember receiving my first letter from my then best friend. i must have been about 10, . we went to the same school and saw each other every day. and we obviously lived a walking distance away. but i still talked her into writing letters. having no phones and no medium to communicate, especially during holidays, made my task easier. so during the summer vacations, when she was visiting her grandparents in 'then' Madras, I wrote to her. the first letter of my life. i don't remember the contents but i am fairly certain there was nothing in it that was any different from our everyday chatter, the usual everyday chatter of any two 10 year old "best" friends. yet, writing a letter to her had its own exotic charm. an elated sense of privacy. it was like the first step to freedom, the first step to growing up. and though i don't remember the contents of her reply either, i still remember waiting anxiously every day for her reply; and feeling like on top of the world when i had finally received it.

for years after that we used to send cards on birthdays and other occasions to various friends and cousins...saving for months before a festival from school pocket money, going to the shop and spending hours picking out the right cards, wishing they weren't so expensive...there was such a sense of accomplishment after every festival, i still remember the happy feeling that lingered for weeks after that. with time that tradition too faded away

as the years passed the need to express freedom through letters disappeared. i got my own phone, email id, it was so much easier to just call, so much faster to email. it was excitement and convenience. but every once in a while, while cleaning the closet i would come across these old cards; they now looked silly and childish and yet so simple n happy. they always made me smile. and happy, wistfully happy.

it was almost 11 years after i wrote my first letter ever, when i finally ran into a person who was equally mad and who thought that in this age and time of instant communication, writing letters was still the best form of long distance communication. and after 11 years, once again i made a trip to the post office, bought a few inland envelopes and wrote my first letter. and i realized what i had been missing all these years in phone and email.

holding a pen over a blank piece of paper waiting to pour down thoughts and emotions, waiting for days to receive the reply, opening the mailbox to find envelope with a hand written address on it amidst all printed bills, a piece of paper with someone's handwritten emotions on it, irrespective of the contents...letters are a ritual..an elongated process that requires time, effort and patience and in return gives a feeling of belonging

a letter may not be unique in its sense of privacy..but it is, in its sense of intimacy.

its like running into an old friend by accident after years, having no idea that person would be there despite having him on ur facebook, orkut, linkedin , e-mail contact list and phonebook....

Swollen Stitched Shut

2008-12-23T13:22:00.000-08:00

i had some issues..well i have loads actually, but right now i am speaking specifically about some dental issues. i was diagnosed, a few months ago, with having way too much wisdom. for the benefit of those who missed that incredibly important happening in the world history, here's the link of that woeful discovery. with time and against well wishers' advice i reconciled myself to getting cut n stitched up, and give up half of my hard earned, hard acquired wisdom. so a few days ago, with all my courage and my little remaining bank balance, i marched into the dentist's office and declared i was ready to be slaughtered...err have my teeth taken out.

"lie down, close you eyes and relax....tell me if it hurts"...sighh..and how i had waited to hear these words all my life. right now the only picture that came to my mind was the printed text of Ogden Nash's dentist poem, "this is going to hurt just a little bit".....

"ouch! it hurt a lot already!" ...

have u ever had local anaesthesia shots? they're like tiny little pricks, only they are much sharper. and many of them. after 2-3 shots, my dentist made his move and i felt a long thick rock hard instrument sliding in...it was a steel dentist surgical instrument to extract teeth, what did you think you rotten mind!!

"e ill -ut" I babbled
"What ?? "
"it still hurts" I said, as he removed that steel holder. it looked like a screw driver and that did nothing to assuage my terror.

i was given 2 more anaesthesia shots, stronger this time, i felt a numbness engulfing my face. the dentist resumed. well to be honest it still hurt. the damn anaesthesia was still not working. at least not fully. i have always known myself to be perceptive, but there are healthy limits to everything you know!

anyways, i really wanted it to get over with as quickly as possible and so taking inspiration from an elder brother who had once narrated a story about getting a war wound stitched up without anaesthesia, i just closed my eyes and decided to let the surgery proceed.

i could hear the dentist making small talk to his team, " shouldn't he be focusing on me right now...and he isn't even asking for forceps like they always do on TV".. concerned i opened my eyes and I saw two i gloved hands, holding a screwdriver and knife kind of thing, covered in blood. my blood.

now i consider myself reasonably brave, but at that sight movie scenes of cold blodded murders flashed through my not-under-aneasthesia head and i shut my eyes again. as tight as i could. and tried promised God to never ask for anything ever again, as long as I came out of this alive and with enough blood in my body to not need a transfusion that could give me aids...i knew i was over reacting. and i told myself so. and tried to calm down.

i was doing a decent job, till i heard a sound. the sound of a drill. and it came nearer. i could picture the tree cutting drill swaying close to my lips, the dentist looking at some way of shoving it in and cutting my teeth off. i couldn't bring myself to open my eyes, lest the drill cut off my lashes.....i dont remember being this scared in a really long time. nor do i remember praying this hard.

and then wen i cudn't resist nemore i opened my eyes, and saw a pen sized thing making that sound. phew!! but you would think they can attach a mute button to such a tiny thing wouldnt you?! and just as this was over i started feeling the thread actually going in and out where i was being stitched up. the good news: i knew it was almost over. the bad: i could feel every single millimeter of it. urrghh. for once i wished that damn anae had worked.

on second thoughts though..now i know wat a cloth must feel like being stitched up. another feather to my perceptiveness cap. not sure what to do with this though..apologize to my skirt next time i sow a fallen hem???

as i was leaving i happened to look into the mirror. still shaken with the drills n trying to shrug off the feeling of the stitches, i remmeber messaging my friends that i could play a 2 faced ravan without make up. yes my face was that swollen up.

well its been a couple of days, my lopsided face is almost back to normal, i can talk again and had my first proper meal in 3 days. laughing would still take some more healing but i have developed a new found respect n understanding of Ogden Nash...and his poem "this is going to hurt just a little bit"...

oh and in case u r wondering, the title is just keeping in line with the earlier post on the subject, the tooth tragedy , and in line with marketing's obsession with same letter abbreviations... the 3 S's ;)

2008-12-23T12:13:00.000-08:00

"When some one asks 'how are you?' dont start off with your life's problems. it s a conversation starter and people are not really bothered about your problems"... said something i once read on how to be popular or something to that effect. Well yes, a stranger or a casual acquaintance starts a conversation, we all put up a happy face and make small talk. whether its your neighbor's divorce or the global financial crisis..its all just about making conversation. most of the times at least. and this does make most of us, good conversationalists. help us develop good people skills.

and then we try to improve those skills. so we smile harder. and make more small talk about more important issues. and then, somewhere along the line we get into the habit. of smiling. and making small talk.

if something bothers us, retreat into a corner, take a few deep breaths, men smoke, women dab-on more make up [ and smoke ] and smile. we go out and act according to our habits. we smile.

"its not apt to discuss my family problems at work" , "she will just judge me if i tell her this", "its none of his business..he doesnt really care", "she wont understand..she'll just over react n get hurt".."i cant tell this to anyone" and many more such sentences run through our heads and we train ourselves to hide our tears, our pain, our problems and keep moving on with life. with a brave face and a sparkling, charming smile. good people skills. and thats how the world sees us. happy, successful, rising, intelligent young executives or models or name who you will.

soon, our colleagues, friends and family start falling into the same set. outside the circle of our feelings. and we start getting lonelier and lonelier. avoiding calling our friends when we're upset, a contrast from the school days wen we wud run to them at every possible occassion...an even bigger contrast from wen running to mom for crying made everything all right. in this exponential growth curve, we stop giving ourselves time to deal with our emotions. and the worst affected of these, is pain. we just refuse to deal with it. its just a waste of time when there's so much to be done.

why is it easier to blog our innermost thoughts on the net than sharing our problems with our closest friends. are we scared of being judged? perhaps. scared of losing / hurting our friends? possibly. why has anonymity become more comforting than the arms of a loved one?

most of all i think its our obsession with meeting everyone's expectations. everyone wants us to be happy, expects us to be happy, and we oblige. its just so much easier than breaking everyone's perceptions and asking them, as well as ourselves, to face reality. the moment something happens everyone asks u to look at the bright side and move on. why can't we just stop for sometime and grieve. because its easier to pretend that pain doesn't exist.

a drag is easier than having to deal with tears. and pain. besides, it helps you network doesnt it?! helps you climb the next rung. and as we busy ourselves climbing the ladder, something inside us keeps worsening. bottled up pain that never got the treatment it needed. a good heart's crying. a night getting sloshed up with friends. a grieving period. the running to mom/dad to cry in her/his arms. the feeling "safe". protected. loved.

and then, one day some one famous and successful kills themselves. we read the morning paper and wonder why.."she had evthg going for her....wonder what could have been so terribly wrong"...and with that one statement we get back to running for our lives. we don't stop for a moment and listen to that voice in our heads that tells us "stay. dont move. you are hurt too. give me some time and I will make it allright". we are too worried we might miss the next opportunity to climb the ladder.

the ladder to loneliness and false perceptions. perceptions of ever cheerful successful smiling faces. perceptions of happiness. the ladder to emptiness.

2008-12-23T11:31:00.000-08:00

they say that the first impressions last forever. nowhere it holds true-er for me, personally, than, when it comes to music. I am generally a music lover, not really a fanatic, with no hard bound limits n preferences. this makes me open to experimenting with different kinds of music, and in that i think i have been blessed with friends who have varied interests in music, and manage to get me started from the very best of songs. i remember my introduction to english music was, very characteristically of average middle class homes those times, Mtv, and backstreet boys. but the first song i ever really loved, after a giggly doe-eyed "britney" phase ofcourse, was Breaking my heart again - MLTR. then came Lets make a night to remember- Bryan adams, and though i loved " have you ever really loved a woman" for obviously feminist reasons [ men who claim not to understand women--listen to that song..] , the former still reigned in preference.

the first rock song i ever heard, of any kind, was Time machine, courtesy ankit. one of my best friends, now for many years. in a phase when i was sick of love songs..no i wasn't recently heart broken, i was beginnin to realise wat an over rated emotion love is and was just fed up of lovey dovey songs.. or as ankit put it, i was turning into a hard core "you MCP" feminist. i remember those days when he would force me to sit next to him and listen to weird rock, just bcoz he was too bored to be sitting and working alone till late night. i remember the first song that really "got to me" [in ankit's words] was "the man who sold the world". well some good came out of those days..i found what an excellent stress buster rock can be, especially punk rock. ofcourse my supply was limited to the songs on his machine only, but i soon had them on mine and they started acting as my anger management when i was too stressed out and wanted to scream [errm..yes that did happen at work, even at home, at times...]

and then came songs from parag and chander, ranging from Daimen Rice to Immaculate dream & as deserts miss the rain. even saawariya and avdhoot gupte. soulful to haunting to peppy, and yes lovey dovey too, [ thankfully by now i over that phase, though i still think love is an extremely over rated emotion but that another story ].

the latest addition to my list of successful experiments... white rabbit - grace slick. psychedellic rock. again, an excellent start from abhishek, a friend from so long that I've lost count. of the number of years....from the puppy love of the archies, abba and the corrs [all of which i still love btw ] to jefferson airplane and RATM, things that "gets to me" , my collection is as varied as the interests of my friends. and am I thankful for that!! soon, hopefully, i'll have a song for every mood of mine [ many more of those are still waiting for the right music to hit them ;) ] and ofcourse the endless hindi music of every age and time and genre from the ancient navratan to the latest fashion, the punjabi bhangra to the sufi music...[credit for most of which goes to my kid sister], its all there. and dont forget a bit of jagjit singh here n there as well [thats thanks to my ex colleagues at my last company ] oh and how can i forget all the devotional music " to help me stay calm under pressure" courtesy my mother [somehow they always know, whether you tell them anything or not..they have these sensors..they just know.]

why did i write this up and decide to announce my playlist to the whole world on a spur of the moment, when writing, even for fun, is something i tend to take somewhat seriously, surely not to flaunt my music collection its zilch compared to each of my friends', individually! .....not too sure, must be the white rabbit doing its work!! and perhaps my latest discovery that sadly enough my writing capacity ha gone way down vis-a-vis my typing stamina and the thought of writing my diary tires my hand out.

but i guess mostly just to thank my friends for being there [not that any of them would ever read this if i held a gun to their heads..i am enough to handle even without having to go through this additional pain! ] . but just to thank them for bearing with me through all my numerous moods n temperaments, and assuaging me with the right kind of music when they can't do it alone :)

thanks guys...at the risk of sounding "filmy" ..."wen u smile for me the world seems all right" ... :)

here's my latest addiction... white rabbit

purpose of life

2008-12-08T10:48:00.000-08:00

there r 3 kinds of ppl that i've come across so far.

those who ask "why am i here", go through various stages of confusion and eventually realize at the end of it that there is no answer to this question. so next they ask themselves "ok then what is it that i would prefer as the purpose to be? what is it that i think will give meaning to my life and help me feel that i didn't waste this life when i die" and choose the path they want to follow.

those who ask "why am i here" , eventually realise that there is no answer and decide to let go of the matter.

and then there are those to whom the question never occurs.

from whatever little i have read, there are 2 generic theories that i know of so far. One says u r borne with a pre destined purpose n ur experiences in life all go towards preparing u for ur final calling in this life, which is again preparation for ur soul to move to the next plane for ur next life, and ultimately to nirvana.

the other says the future is cause n effect. we define our own purpose, we shape our lives. and its our subconscious learnings that do so.

these 2 theories converge somewhat wen both say its upto each individual soul how much a she wants to experience and explore. They equate subconscious with soul and say that its far more powerful. They also agree that while all human beings are equal in their true potential, they only differ in the realization of that potential. And that most people get caught in daily illusions of life n lose sight of the bigger picture.

i personally dont have strong opinions on re incarnation. and with destiny and our control, I stand somewhere in between. i feel there r always 3 elements in the circle of life... circumstances [Destiny / previous actions ] -> actions-> results [circumstances for next action ]

out of these, only actions are in our hands. and since we don't remember any other life, past or future, we only know what we are and what things r in this one life.

I also believe that everything happens for a reason whether u call it God, destiny, or something else. And if we look carefully almost certainly we will find that reason most of the times. At least in the hindsight. Every person we cm across, has a role to play, a purpose to serve in our lives.

so everything has a reason. & every person has a purpose to serve in our lives. then how can we be born without a reason or purpose. we're not. we have a purpose. each one of us. i also feel that because we never know the big picture, we never know why we re here we end up misinterpreting God's intentions.

so there is an answer to "why we're here" ... just that we wont know until the answer chooses to reveal itself. even if it means something as seemingly normal as sacrificing our careers to raise our children who will become bigger than we are, someday.

and that's what most people do. consciously or not, they decide upon their purpose of life, like raising children or keeping their parents happy and stay with it. and that's fine too. if they have any other purpose than that they get called to it wen the time comes.

so whether we are born with a pre-destined purpose which calls us someday, or we shape it through our actions everyday...that doesn't matter. what matters is whether when the time comes can we rise to the occasion and answer the call of duty. and that till then, we live each moment to the fullest. making the difference we want to make..doing things that make us happy and don't harm others, ... so that if we were to die the next instant, we wouldn't regret having wasted the moment just gone.

26/11 - Fight on Mumbai!!

2008-11-27T06:37:00.000-08:00

picture courtesy: santabanta.com

A tribute to all those who have been victimized by one of the most senseless acts of planned cold blooded and ruthless terrorism in history. A tribute to the brave policemen who laid their lives in the line of duty. A salute to the ongoing battle that is currently raging in the city, to Mumbai..and to Mumbaikars.. the city that never sleeps. The spirit that never dies.

Click here for live news

death

2008-11-17T08:46:00.001-08:00

death is never a happy subject. atleast for most people. whether its some one you loved, some one you worked with, some one you barely knew or some one you had never even heard of before. death always makes you sad. depressed. of course the pain is proportional to your emotional attachment with the deceased.

the loss of a love one is painful, naturally. you cry at the memories, shared joys and shared tears, the fights you wish hadn't happened, the dreams you two had dreamed together...wen some one you love is gone forever..he leaves an emptiness behind. a pain coming from the pit of the stomach..a void that hurts so much, as if it will never fill. and perhaps it never does. not completely atleast. something inside hurts forever. and its natural. understandable.

but even when we are not really attached to the deceased, not fond of them, relatives we haven't seen in years, never really cared about, never really missed on any occasion in our lives, to the extent that their presence annoyed you, as seldom as it was, only caused irritation and annoyance....why does the loss of such people also make us feel, albeit in a lesser degree, the same sense of loss..the same sense of emptiness within

perhaps its not only the loss of what was but the loss of what could have been.

Gagg-edddd -II ;)

2008-11-11T19:38:00.000-08:00

some of my favorites from one of my fav blog from my definitely fav set of people on Earth :D

producer/director : anekta majboor
female starcast: dilli, mumbai aur saare chhotey shehron ki sunder sunder ladkiyan,
male starcast: spot boys can pool in where required, IF AT ALL
saree source: sabhi ladkiyan apni apni saareiyan apne saath laayengi. nahi toh kkayalalitha ji se borrow karenge
other costumes: koi zaroorat nahi hai
jewellery: tribhovandas bhimji zaveri, PP jewellers, BK jewellers, nakshatra, asmi, ira, geetanjali, tanishq, orra, cygnus, hmpf hmpf... vacancies open for more applicants

.....Read more

Gagg-edddd ;)

2008-11-11T19:36:00.000-08:00

some of my favorites from one of my fav blog from my definitely fav set of people on Earth :D

humsab ko ek dost ki engagement pe jaana tha...

bakra: bas ye batao ki shaam ka kya plan hai.

humsab1: abbe shaam se poochh na humse kyon poochh raha hai!

bakra: vo to theek hai . par ye shaam kaun hai?

humsab1: abbe yeh to tu batayega na :)
tune hi to poochha na ki shaam ka kya plan hai...
tujhe mental periplexy to nahin ho gayi hai :P (umm whatever that is)

bakra: maine to shaam urf sandya ke plan ke baare mein poocha tha.
shaam (vyakti nahi)

humsab1: arre agar shaam sandhya hai, to phir woh vyakti to nahin hi hua na!.....Read More

2008-11-10T09:53:00.000-08:00

for something good that I am trying to do in life..please help me out by taking this short survey

thanks a ton!!!

Hmm..

2008-11-08T11:08:00.001-08:00

What Kind of Drink Are You?
	You are a Pint of Beer. You're happy with who you are. Sure, you may not be the 'sophisticated' and 'refined' type, but at least you're real. You don't let the little things get to you, and you have a good time no matter what life throws at you. Keep it up.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

for a non-drinker.... I wouldn't know would I ;)

Inspiring in the true sense of the word!

2008-11-05T05:06:00.000-08:00

After a long and almost comical campaign, due to the endless media coverage, filled with more turns and twists than Rush Hour movies & Ekta Kapoor's Tv serials, Barrack Obama [ the man with the "funny name" and allegedly not enough experience ] won the elections in a sweepstaking victory to be the first African-American President. His victory speech, which a classmate was kind enough to share, explains why he won!!

His victory is the first step towards re-instating the USA as the land of opportunities, which has, to say the least, since 9/11 become paranoid with its immigration rules & quotas and general perception and treatment of Asians living in the USA. But this victory is just the start. Will he actually be able to deliver on these promises ?? Will he be able to turn this historic win into a historic term, and rejuvenate a tired battered nation, sturggling against the biggest financial crisis in a century?? Will his name go down in history as the first African-American President or "the First and one of the best in history of world and American Politics " ?? Does this speech really come from Obama or is it simply a fabulous creation of his excellent campaign team working behind the scenes?? ... Answers to these questions lie in the future and only future will give those answers.

For now.. this speech is a sure hit! Click here for the video.
[ here the concession speech of John McCain ]

Hope the Raj Thackerays and Mayawatis and Karunanidhis and Mamta Bannerjees (Indian politicians) ever learn something from this!!!!

Full text of President-elect Barack Obama's victory speech

Ndtv.com

Wednesday, November 05, 2008 11:39 AM (Chicago, Illinois)

President-elect Barack Obama's victory speech in Chicago as released by his campaign.

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.

It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.

It's the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.

I just received a very gracious call from Senator McCain. He fought long and hard in this campaign, and he's fought even longer and harder for the country he loves. He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine, and we are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader. I congratulate him and Governor Palin for all they have achieved, and I look forward to working with them to renew this nation's promise in the months ahead.

I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on that train home to Delaware, the Vice President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.

I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last sixteen years, the rock of our family and the love of my life, our nation's next First Lady, Michelle Obama. Sasha and Malia, I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House. And while she's no longer with us, I know my grandmother is watching, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them tonight, and know that my debt to them is beyond measure.

To my campaign manager David Plouffe, my chief strategist David Axelrod, and the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics - you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you've sacrificed to get it done.

But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to - it belongs to you.

I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn't start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington - it began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston.

It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give five dollars and ten dollars and twenty dollars to this cause. It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation's apathy; who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep; from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on the doors of perfect strangers; from the millions of Americans who volunteered, and organized, and proved that more than two centuries later, a government of the people, by the people and for the people has not perished from this Earth. This is your victory.

I know you didn't do this just to win an election and I know you didn't do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime - two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century. Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us. There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after their children fall asleep and wonder how they'll make the mortgage, or pay their doctor's bills, or save enough for college. There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created; new schools to build and threats to meet and alliances to repair.

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America - I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you - we as a people will get there.

There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government can't solve every problem. But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it's been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years - block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.

What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other. Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers - in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people

Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long. Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House - a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, "We are not enemies, but friends...though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection." And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn - I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.

And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world - our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand. To those who would tear this world down - we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security - we support you. And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright - tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.

For that is the true genius of America - that America can change. Our union can be perfected. And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing - Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons - because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America - the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "We Shall Overcome." Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves - if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment. This is our time - to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:

Yes We Can. Thank you, God bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.

Dayasankar in Oktoberfest

2008-10-21T10:34:00.001-07:00

कुछ दुई चार दिन पहले हमरे कॉलेज माँ ओक्टोबर फेस्ट रहा. अब भइया हमका तोः मालूम नाही की ई ओक्तोबेरफेस्ट की बला होअत है l हमरे इय्हान तोह ओक्टूबर का महिना मान दशहरा होअत है तोः हम इन सोचें की कौन जाने ई इन अंग्रेजन का दशहरा हुई l और फिर ई सोच के ई बिदेस मान बैठे हैं तोह नई तरह का दशहरा मना लें, गाँव जाके माई को बताएँगे तोः खुस हो जावेगी, हमने उठाई अपनी पोटली और पहुँच गए ई फिरंग दशहरा मान l उहाँ की देखत हैं, सब लोगन ई बड़े बड़े पकोडे खात रहे l राम जाने पकोडे का चीज का थे, हमका तोः ऐसा लगा की पूरी की पूरी गोभी ही तल दी हो कढाई मां. और सुनो भइया, सब लोगन के हाथ में ये हाथ भर ऊँचे लोटे और उमा काली भांग. अब बिदेस मां का आदमी और का औरत, सब के सब पकोडे खाएं और भंग पियें l पर मजा की बात तोह ई, की सब होस मान. धत ससुरा ! एकदम बेकार भांग और एक तोः ही बेकार पकोडा l हम तोः कहीन, की सारा पैसा ख़राब हुई गवा उनका, जो हमरे किसना की दुकान के छोटा छोटा पकोडा मंगाई होअत, मसाला मार के और नंदू हलवाई से भांग ली होअत तोः एक घूँट में भोले संकर के दरसन हुई जाते साक्षात!!

एक बात और, उन्हां रावन का पुतला तोः रहा नही पर दुई तीन गोरे अंग्रेजी मां कुछ कथा पाठ करे रहीं. और सब लोग अपना ध्यान मगन होकर भजन कीर्तन करे रहीं. अब ऊ की बोले ई ताः हमका समझा नही पर सब प्रभु सरी राम की भक्ति मां ऐसन लीन थे भइया, की सब लोग आँख बंद करेके जहाँ जगह मिले, कोई जमीन पा तोः कोई मेज कुर्सी पा, भाई बेहेन के से प्रेम से मिल के, भग्वान की भक्ति मां लीन रहिन. कसम राम जी की मन खुस होई गवा, बहुत-हेई सुकून मिला मन का ई बिदेस मां

हाँ कुछ लोग रहिन, बेचारे गरीब तन ढकने तक को बस्त्र नाही, पर अब प्रभु के घर त सब एक समान होअत है. अब हम कौन हैं जो छोटा बड़ा मां भेद भाव करीं l हमका जुइ बात भली लगी ओ ई, की ऊ गरीब लोग भी सबके साथ ही बैठे रहे, कोव्नो जाप पात का भेद नही l तोह इतने पावन बाताबरण मां, एक पुन्न्न का काम हम भी कर ही दी ल उन्हां एक बहुत-हेई सुंदर कन्या रहिन, एकदम स्वर्ग लोक की अप्सरा जैसीं, ये बड़े बड़े नयन नक्षा और ये सफ़ेद रंग l एकदम अपनी ऊ दूधउअ गाय है न, गौरी, ऊ के जैसे सफ़ेद l पर बेचारी गरीब घर की, किस्मत की मारी अभागी..ऊ के पास कपड़े नाही..राम राम राम l हम अपनी माई का नाम लेके उका अपना गमछा और अपनी चादर दे आयें l ऊ हमका इतनी बिसमय की नजरों से देखे रही..बेचारी अबला, हम उका कह दिए, रख लो बेहेन, भग्वान के घर से हम तुका ऐसे नही जाने देब l भले घर की कन्या भई, बुरे बखत की मारी, मना करी हमका बहुत बार, पर हम भी सीता मैया का बास्ता देके उका ऊ गमछा और चादर देके ही दम लिए. भैयन, अब ऊ पूजा पाठ मां कहीं रावन का पुतला त जलाबे का नाही, तोह फिर हम थोड़े बहुत भजन सुन के अपनी गाड़ी पकड़ने को बापस चल दिए l जाते जाते ऊ कन्या को देखे, त हमार चादर ओढे जमीन पे बैठी भक्ति में लीन रही l हम भी एक बार और भगवान् राम का नाम लिए और चल दिए उहाँ से, अपनी माई के पास बापस गाँव.

जय सिया राम!

Earthlings

2008-09-23T01:07:00.000-07:00

On a free evening, I decided to do something different and went to watch this real life documentary on Earthlings. I had absolutely no idea what it was about, except what the name suggested. Something related to the environment. And that it had taken 5 years in the making, most of it done with hidden cameras. Why would you need hidden cameras to make a movie on the environment? Maybe it talks about shady government policies or something like that. To be honest I could have done some research, but hell, I just wanted to enjoy a free evening and so I went. I could have never anticipated what I was about to witness for the next 2 hours.

The movie started with how we, all living beings who inhabit the Earth, are all equal. And how one species, the humans, are exploiting all the other species, in the name of food, clothing, entertainment and research. And I understood why the entire movie was shot with hidden cameras and why it took 5 years to make.

Here are some of the things I saw..It is even harder for me to recollect and be descriptive than it was to watch, yet I share these with you, not to spoil your dinner, but to make you aware of what you are being a part of ...what we are being a part of. What is written further is only a part of that movie, only that which I remember. It is easy to stop and not read any further, as it would have been for me to walk out...but I chose not to live in denial and ignorance, and false hope that the animal I am eating, or the fur/leather I am wearing did not cause pain to make. Do you have the courage to face the truth? It is up to you to choose.

Beef: cows are inhumanly stacked on top of one another while transporting from one place, half of them suffocate to death on their way to slaughter houses. Those who survive, go through branding with burning torches and de-horning without anesthetics, the animals left to writhe in pain until the blood spurting out stops on its own. the cows are tied with their feet and dangled upside down and fed into the slaughtering machines.Those machines rotate them, their heads dangling outside, when their throats are slit. The animals, still alive, and writhing in agony, are dragged outside the machines, their guts hanging out, and are then dangled directly with iron hooks stuck into their bodies! Still alive, their blood is collected for various sauces n tonics.

Milk: Milking cows are fed and milked incessantly. With no exercise, they are tied to their stands all day long. While usually a cow loves as long as 20 years, milking cows live for only 4 years, thanks to the endless over exertion. And once they can no longer produce milk, they are tied with their feet and dragged alive to the slaughter houses where they go through the torture aforementioned.

Pork: Amongst all forms of meet, pork has the maximum consumption in the world, followed by beef and poultry. For every hamburger that we eat, here's just a sample of what the pig has to go through....sows are kept constantly pregnant through artificial insemination. Cluttered in thousands under one facility, the only life they know is to eat and give birth. In order to stack more live pigs in one facility, and "better utilize" space & "prevent cannibalism", baby pigs, soon after birth, have their ears chopped and tails cut without anesthetics before or bandages after wards. Just like the cows, the baby pigs are left to shriek, cry and writhe in agonizing pain till the bleeding stops on its own. For the male babies, this isn't the end, they are castrated to "prevent" natural breeding, along with having their tails and ears chopped. All pigs go through branding, either by burning torches or electric casts. The slaughtering of pigs takes many forms..from electrocuting, drowning live pigs into boiling water & throat slitting with blunt knives, to actually thrashing the live animals on the floor and stomping repeatedly on their heads and necks.

Poultry: Facing a similar fate to baby pigs, the chickens are de-beaked soon after their birth with hot cutters. The cutter temperatures and speeds are not always controlled, resulting in severe injuries to the hens.Dangled upside down with hooks, they move on a belt and get their throats slit. As mechanically as it sounds in this line. the hens, which are still alive with their guts hanging out are picked up one by one and dumped into [some sort of] containers where they slowly bleed to death. Stomping on the hens is another "technique".

Fur: wild animals of all kinds are caged into tiny cages, where they, completely unused to being caged and unable to even move more than 1-2 steps, usually go mad. The killing of these animals is usually carried out by the cheapest means, read throat slitting by blunt knives and actually digging hooks into their heads from above. Some of these animals, once their skins have been taken off for fur, are actually fed to the others for food.

Leather: Most of the leather in the world comes from Indian cows. Since cow slaughtering is banned in India, the people in the trade torture them to death. The cows first are horse shoe-d in the crudest, most brutal manner and then forced in and out of trucks without ramps. Most cows end up with broken pelvic bones, ribs, knees and legs because of this. The cows are then dragged, forced to walk, without food and water for days at end, until they collapse and either die or are so close to the brink of death that their slaughtering can be justified. The slaughtering then is equally brutal and ruthless, as the techniques mentioned above.

Seafood: All human waste and sewerage goes into the oceans. The sea life are forced to consume that waste for we humans have polluted their environment. And then we eat that same sea life. Our endless dumping of oil and nuclear waste into the oceans has given rise to many mutants of bacteria and viruses which infect the fishes we eat. Dolphins, a Japanese delicacy, are killed through elaborate plots. Their sonar systems are meddled with by sounding pipes under the water. Once confused they are trapped and dug with long arrows and saws. Since dolphins don't leave injured family members behind, the injured member is used as a bait to lure the entire family, which then meets a similar fate. then these bleeding, writhing dolphins are thrashed on the floor and left to bleed and die. the blood flows unhindered and untreated into the sea and suffocates the natural sea life in the area.

Environment: I used to think that if we raise extra cattle and then kill it, we are not really disturbing the net ecological balance. But extra livestock means extra space, and extra food. The agricultural land goes into raising livestock. the thus reduced land is treated with loads of pesticides and such to increase its productivity. The extra livestock is then fed with further treated high vitamin rich grain to increase their body fat. Grain goes in and waste comes out. all this extra waste is then dumped into the seas, to this day largely untreated, where the natural sea life is forced to consume it.

Us: All the animal only diseases, like the mad cow disease, have been unleashed on humans thanks to all the meat consumption.

By the time the movie was over, most men were looking away and most women were crying. Many were throwing up. I, having forced myself to sit through and watch, rushed out in the fresh air to breathe. And then I realized the fish in our waters, along with millions of other life forms, no longer have this luxury of breathing easily. thanks to the waste we have dumped on them.

Thanks to my parents, I was a vegetarian for most of my life. In the recent years, in the rebellious exploratory moods, had I started venturing otherwise. This movie however, the stark reality of the inhuman brutalities that are conducted on every single animal we eat have made it impossible for me to so much as touch meet again.

Animals can also eat, breathe, love and feel. They have families, societies and clans. Digging with hooks in the heads, slitting throats and leaving to bleed to death, chopping beaks, ears, tails and genitals off without anesthesia, branding with burning torches, live electrocution, beating, stomping....the list is endless

What we are doing every single day to the world around us is far more brutal than what the Nazis did in their concentration camps.But while that ended decades ago, this torture is still far from over. And for those who say this is all food chain... the other animals in the food chain have to kill. We humans, on the other hand, choose to kill. And in the most brutal possible manner!!

[ the movie details can be found here ]

2008-08-21T08:34:00.000-07:00

Talk about culture shock! I had thought I would get it when I first go outside India. May 2007- London. nothing. i loved it there. Singapore. well not really. i mean sure the food sucked initially n i was homesick n lonely but things r getting better with time...n thts not really a culture shock. so what is culture shock? having to walk a lot? naah..thats just laziness-inertia :P having to cook on my own- well im nt doing tht so tht doesnt even count :P really really really short clothes...yeah that could probably have been 1 thing, but I guess its more of wistfulness of not having the kind of figure or confidence to b able to ever carry such clothes; than a shock. plus before hand where i was coming and what to expect.clubbing!! ah yes that could have been the closest, but a) i dont have the money to go clubbing. and b) i never went clubbing even in India, and wen I did it was as much of a culture shock for me there as well. so what is culture shock n why does everyone go on and on about it???? i had no idea...but i was perplexed n this thought struck me every now and then.

One such morning, on my way to college, as I was looking at the perfectly spaced, perfectly shaped, perfectly manicured trees spawned across Singapore, with the polite beep in the bus every time some one wanted to alight and the patient polite queues for buses everywhere.., wondering in a country where everything is so disciplined, that people dont walk bare feet on wet grass, women dont go out without makeup and dont even come back home without makeup that makes them look morning fresh all day through... even trees know exactly what shape n height to stop growing at, would people even know the emotion called shock??? the word itself is too aggressive to fit in the "genteel" ambiance created all around, blanketing any "raw" display of emotion, a question broke my chain of thought...

"hey are you married??"
'What?"i looked at the girl sitting next to me, surprised. "Oh, no no..I just generally...", I smiled back half-apologetically...I had casually put my gold ring in the left-hand ring finger. Hindus don't have a lot of significance to the ring, they have so many other ways to make their women demonstrate their marital status! but for the rest of the world..where a ring is all it takes you from enjoying single-hood to stressing over visiting in-laws,..that one small ring makes the world of a difference. So consciously I put it back on...

but old habits die hard. and my habit of playing with my ring and switching it between fingers was no different. and so over the next few days i was asked this same question many many many times. until it almost started feeling the easiest conversation starter with me. well thanks to the girls who at least talked to a loner like me...at least they tried to make friends with me. but honestly, while i was conscious of the fact that i was talking to ppl (or rather they were talking to me), and it was nice to start making friends in an alien place,..the marriage thing was getting a bit out of hand!!

for it always took the same course...
"Hey are you married?"
"Umm oh no..this was just...i was just playing with my ring.."
"Ohh! (smile) but you must have a boyfriend!"

... wasn't this the exact same conversation I had hoped to flee when I left India??? Oh well..people are the same everywhere just people...

so I sighed and carried on. Reached my class and opened my laptop..my ring still (unconcsiously of course ) on the left hand ring finger...when I heard an excited voice right behind me...even before listening I knew what it was going to be...
"Oooo!! soooooooo cute! is that your baby??"
WHAT??????!!!!!!!!!!!!! wait...thats the wrong question..you're supposed to ask me if I am married...
"What?? which baby??"
And she pointed happily at my laptop
"Ahhhhh....no , its not. its just a wallpaper I got from the net!!" ........

apparently not only married people wear rings, they also put their babies/kids pics as the backgrounds on their laptops...though im not sure if that really counts as a part of culture shock people are pretty crazy about their kids everywhere. thats more of perhaps an age shock. people have started realising what my parents already did, many years ago...I'm old enough to get married and have kids...by the Indian societal standards of course

and talking of culture shock..i have safely put my ring away elsewhere and my laptop wallpaper just has trees n birds.

People

2008-08-17T09:20:00.001-07:00

Its interesting how people fight over differences in color, religion, geographical boundaries and God-knows-what-not. Yet people are just that. People. They're the same across all differences. children of all ages, religions, regions and nationalities are equally dependent on their mothers, though their degrees of confession & expression may differ. Mothers are always willnig to give up their own happiness and comfort for their children; and those who are not are not so because of the color of their skin or teachings of their religion. Grandparents are equally lovable and needed by all children while growing up. And children who miss out on bedtime stories from their parents/grandparents miss out equally on the love that is their due. Priests are always smiling, accepting & forgiving, no matter what religion they preach. And those who are not, exist in all religions. The beautician will always be a smiling good natured chatter box who would have a knack of making other women share their burdens with her and feel better. Though I dont remember ever seeing anyone else ask the beautician if she had any problems. Students invariably sleep in lectures and hate homework, tests and exams no matter what age, stream or university they belong to. finding "true love" is the never ending "Holy Grail" of mankind. And aren't we all equally stressed out by visiting in-laws???

its interesting to see how despite the obvious similarities, people keep focussing on man made differences of religion and geographical boundaries and fighting to control more and more resources. and its even more interesting to see how more and more people happily or blindly play puppets in the hands of such petty greed. its amusing to see that so much of advanced education, technology and globalisation (and name-what-you-will) fails to instill this one basic fact in our hearts and minds. that we're all the same. People. Just that.

Faith

2008-08-17T08:41:00.000-07:00

"What is God?" ... the eternal question, a subject that has been fervently asked, debated & contested since time immemorial. A subject on which countless books & theories exist, each with its own set of followers, from scholars to commoners, scientists to religious fanatics. A subject which has plagued each and every one of us at least once in our lives, for reasons good or bad. A subject that has ironically taken as many lives as the number of ways in which it has preached non violence & universal love.Yet it is surprising how different the definition of each group is from the other, how distinct all the theories are; and how steadfastly each group holds its own theories with completely unbending minds; how it consequently fails to convince any of the other ideology..for everyone is equally rigid & closed to anything that isn't already in line with their own thoughts. So how are these so called scholars really different from religious fundamentalists credited with most of the global terrorism? But that's another question for another day.

Right now, the thought foremost in my mind is , "what is God?". While today isn't the first time this question has risen in my mind, it certainly is the first day I spent meeting people of so many varying, or rather conflicting, beliefs in 1 day. These people are not scholars or fundamentalists. These are just ordinary people like you and me who get up every morning to juggle everyday activities & responsibilities of work, family and friends. Housewives & office goers, students and teachers alike. Each has his own battles to fight, his own pain to bear. And each does this in his own way.

On my way to home, I see some housewives engrossed in prayers in a temple. I wait for them to finish, for I want to be an audience to the talk that I know will follow. Their talk to my science-trained modern ears sounds like a lot of superstition. A lot of nonsensical beliefs. God doesn't demand protocol. Religion does. God doesn't mind how you pray and when you pray, as long as when you pray, you do so whole-heartedly. It doesn't matter what the idols look like, or even if they are there, you can just look at the sky or close your eyes and look inwards and pray. But these are my beliefs. For them, these apparent superstitions are a way of life. A means of strength. Just as the self-belief of one of my friends. He refuses to believe in the existence of God. For if there were a God, so many bad things such as the World Wars would not have happened. For him, we all are responsible for our own actions and their consequences. We make our own destiny and as long as we believe in ourselves, we shall never fail.

These are not different religious ideologies. These are two entirely different trains of thought, two extremes of the spectrum. Most people, including me, lie somewhere in between. We believe in God, pray when we can as we can, ask for strength and move on to fight our battles. believing that God helps those who help themselves.

So no matter what we think God is, no matter what religion or ideology we believe in and no matter what rituals we practice, if any, no one knows what God is. No one has ever seen Him and no one knows if God is a paranormal concept or an intuitive instinct within our hearts....but we all need an additional source of strength. A feeling that makes us feel that we are not alone and that some one is watching over. at times to blame for our own mistakes and shortcomings and at others to thank. at times to help compromise with situations and at others to fight. God is just another name for Faith. What you believe in is all that matters. Our beliefs, our faith is what keeps us going. May be that's why people say "Have Faith".

2008-08-15T20:22:00.001-07:00

Happy Independence Day

2008-08-12T17:01:00.001-07:00

Abhinav Bindra clinches India's first ever Gold

Jai Hind!! :)

much as a proud and elated Indian I am at the news, I hope I dont start seeing abhinav bindra in every possible ad on TV selling anything & everything from hair oil to cars. and i hope abhinav bindra doesn't lost his focus and love for the sport amidst all the advertisements & publicity ( & ofcourse quick buck)

and i hope that all the 24*7 news channels in the country dont keep playing 24*7 abhinav bindra's life history & his hair stylist's life history and his tailor...err i mean personal fashion designer's life history...and the life histories of all his teachers, parents, neighbours, dogs, cats....

and i also hope no frustrated attention-seeking person from the interiors of the country sues abhinav bindra for disrespecting the religious sentiments by praying with his shoes on (nevermind God, its the religion that demands protocol!) and that of the nation by wearing the wrong attire..oh no that happens only to women in this country...oh well you get the idea

and at the end of it, i hope Abhinav Bindra doesn't get so sick of this senseless sensationalism and decides not to play for this country again. I hope India doesn't suffer a few idiotic Indians idiocy.

so what do you think..am I being too hopeful ?..i think i am! :)

Consumerism???????

2008-07-21T12:06:00.000-07:00

This is the age of the consumer. Businesses center their sales processes & promotional offers around the needs around the consumers. New innovations happen keeping in mind what the consumer wants. Products are released with a lot of thought put into what the market currently really lacks and the consumer really needs. Right? Wrong!

Nearly a month ago I put in a request to cancel an internet broadband connection I had. I am leaving the country for a few years, and paying the rent unnecessarily for so long just didnt make sense.

So I called the Airtel helpline service to ask the procedure...

Airtel: "How may I help you?"
Me: "I have a broadband connection..I would like to cancel it, can you please tell me the process?"
Airtel:"Ma'm, Why do you want to cancel it?"
Me: (okay...obvious question), "I am going abroad.Could you please tell me the process?"
Airtel:"Can you please tell me where are you going?"
Me:(what??!!) "What does that have anything to do with the cancellation process?Can you just tell me the process?"
Airtel:"Sure Ma'm..."
And he told me. Was a bit annoying, but I left it.

Same day, airtel office
Airtel: "Hi.How may I help you?"
Me: "I have a broadband connection, landline no. ------- ..I would like to cancel it, here are the phone and modem instruments and the application."
Airtel:"Sure Ma'm, Can I ask why do you want to cancel it?"
Me: (well he would need a reason to write on the form), "I am going abroad."
Airtel:"Can you please tell me where are you going?"
Me: (okay may be there's some logic to this) "Does that affect the cancellation process somehow?"
Airtel:"No Ma'm, just asking.."
Me: (he has time for idle chat with 10 people standing on his head?!) "I would appreciate if you could just complete the formalities quickly"
Airtel:"Ma'm your permanent residence is in Delhi, why don't you get it shifted?"
Me: (allright, std. customer retention), "No thanks! I don't want to.I'd just like to cancel this account"
Airtel:"Sure...can you please deposit the outstanding bill?"
Me:"Sure, today is 7th, how much does the bill come to?"
Airtel:"Ma'm you will have to pay till the 10th, since the request will take 3 days to process"
Me: (they will charge me for their processing time?! well whatever...)

So I paid for 3 days extra, completed the formalities and left.
Me: (Whew! that's done!)

few days later

Airtel:"Ma'm you have put in a request to cancel the landline number -------?";
Me: (haven't they cancelled it yet?) "Yes..."
Airtel:"Can you please tell me reason?"
Me: (??????) "Isn't it there on my request form?"
Airtel:"Yes ma'm it says you are going abroad"
Me:"that's correct. why are you asking me again?"
Airtel:"Ma'm can you tell me when you are leaving?";
Me: (What crap!! ) "Why? how is that any of airtel's concern?"
Airtel:"Ma'm no you could continue till the date of your leaving"
Me:"I don't want to.Can you just cancel it immediately? And I don't want any further inquiries from Airtel"
Airtel:"Sure ma'm"

I hung up irritated.

few more days later

Airtel:"Ma'm you have put in a request to cancel the landline number -------?";
Me: (what the f***!!!) "Yes I did. I hope its done!"
Airtel:"Ma'm your form says you are going abroad"
Me:(Oh My God!!) "Yes. So?"
Airtel:"Ma'm can you tell me for how long are you going?"
Me: (these bloddy 7&$&^%$#W) "How on earth does that concern?!!! I am going where, when for how long...how the hell is that any of your or airtel's concern? Are you people planning to sponsor my tickets? my stay? what the hell does any of this have to do with cancelling a net connection????????"
Airtel: "No Ma'm if you are going for 3 months i could put this on hold..."
Me:"No I don't want you to put this on hold! I want you to cancel it! Do you understand??"
Airtel:"Sure ma'm"

Me:(*^%$#@^& better do it this time!!!!!!)

but this wasn't to be!! after a few more days, I got yet another call, this time from the Airtel manager..

Airtel:"Ma'm you have put in a request to cancel the landline number -------?";
Me:" Yes I did!! And this request is NOT open to any discussion or offers from Airtel! I want you to cancel it immediately and I would appreciate if you do not call me again!!!!!"

I could not believe how disgusting this could get. But I thought my retort would have put all tries at rest, until today,

Airtel:"Ma'm you have put in a request to cancel the landline number -------?";
Me: "Oh My God!! I cannot believe you people! I put in that request almost a month ago. I even paid extra for your 3 days of processing! I have responded to atleast 5 different calls till now. For one last time this request is NOT open to any discussion! If I get one more call from Airtel I am going to file a PIL against you people. Do you understand!!! Cancel this connection immediately!!!!!!!"
Airtel:"Sure ma'm"....

The connection isn't cancelled yet. Despite my (this time) shouting and screaming, I am not sure when it will be. I am feeling so annoyed that I feel like surrendering all Airtel numbers!!

Everyone, including me, has been plagued with endless telemearketing calls from banks, insurance agencies, mobile companies, and who not. But I had never felt so disgusted with these aggressive sales and retention strategies than this time.

This is not consumerism..this is not even business.. this is intrusion of privacy and plain & simple harassment!!While the USA, where everyone sues everyone else is one extreme, our country is the other. And its about time we started suing these companies for their lousy business practices and consumer harassing sales & retention strategies.

If I get one more call, I know I am not going to swear in my mind only.... Any consumer lawyers out there??????

Movie making in Bollywood...

2008-07-21T10:50:00.000-07:00

The shortest route to a hit

Copy a hit hollywood flick
Copy a flop hollywood flick
Copy a hit Tamil movie
Dub / Re-make a hit Tamil movie in Hindi
Remake an old hindi movie
Convert a Hindu mythological epic, like the Ramayan ( Do not try you can show maginificent sets, less than 100 people in 1 family living under one roof and unless you are Suraj barjatiya :) )

Shortest route to a flop (must avoid)

Get Ramgopal verma to remake an old hindi movie or make anything other than about the underworld ( or the-other-world for that matter ;) )
Get Suraj barjatiya to make a yet another family drama out of hindu mythology ( or make anything at all really) !
Give Sanjay Leela Bhansali some blue paint!

Want to be original? That'll take a bit more effort, but here are some quick tips

A hero, a heroine, a love line (irrespective of the story or theme), 1 candy love song, 1 item number (lyrics can be replaced with screams of gibberish to the tune of blaring saxophones & drums), 1 sizzler ( Moaning & similar sounds can be used in place of lyrics ) are a must. Rest as follows :-

Creating a Love triangle?

2 friends/siblings agonizing over the same lover. Not one thinks of actually asking the lover. One ends up dying either fighting the other or the common villan
The thought-to-be dead lover/spouse returns hale-n-hearty only to find his partner married to some one else; usually an old friend;do kill the returned character for a convenient, hasslefree, clear end.

Creating a family drama ?

Feuding brothers (and/or their wives) over family property, however big or small, is a never failing classic with the Indian cine goers. However, these are not made anymore. Wonder why...maybe people get too much of the Ambani brothers on the news anyway!
Violence against the daughter-in-law at the hands of dowry hungry in-laws and a liberated hero and/or heroine to fix things. But then, these too are out of fashion these days. Again too much news is killing the movie business

So family dramas are out..even for Suraj Barjatiya

Creating an action flick ?

Ah!! now with Sunny Deol retired and Akshay Khanna, Suniel Shetty & all the bad men Paresh Rawal, Shati Kapoor etc. turned into full time comedians ( with varying levels of success ) .... action flicks are totally out of production, unless you are thinking of Rajnikanth ofcourse, who still can stop a train with one hand and no super powers! :)

Creating a Karan Johar ?

Yes.That's a genre in itself. Take Sharukh Khan, create a story around him, write every scene to personify his presence, cast Amitabh Bachchan and Saif ali khan to look like a complete idiots, make sure their every dialgoue is just an excuse to give Sharukh more camera focus and dialogues. Create larger-than-life sets and/or shoot overseas and call it a small town in India, go to Oxford and turn it into a 24*7 disc.Get Kajol and Rani to give guest appearances. Use the Kuch Kuch Hota Hai soudntrack as the background score. As long as Sharukh Khan is the messiah (however right or wrong he may be) , and he wins in the end, the movie will pick up a number of Filmfare awards. And you can always get free publicity on Koffee with Karan. The story doesn't matter. No story doesn't matter either.

Creating a Farah Khan ?

Similar to Karan Johar, except that instead of Kajol, Rani & Kuch Kuch hota hai soundtrack, you would need at least one flowing 70's dance sequence, complete with the costumes and the "Eastman Color" print. Make sure Sharukh is down on his knees with arms outstretched in at least half the movie, to hide the fact that he is shorter than yet another heroine. Best choreography guaranteed

Creating a cross-over comedy ?

Add Rahul Bose, Ranveer Shauri, (these days) Mallika Sherawat, some old day actors like Sayara (who would invariably be acting better & looking more graceful than the half clad half wit Mallika). Quickly put together a simple, realistic small story, add a lot of double meaning jokes and spice it up with increasingly unrestrained s** scenes. Once you are sure no one can ever watch it with their parents, you are bound to get a hit with the young crowd ;) Centering the story around NRI families and dosing the movie heavily with heavily-accented-english will get huge international returns as well!

Creating a Comedy? this is the easiest

Pick up either one of the above movies, put in one or more of Govinda, Paresh Rawal, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Ritesh Deshmukh, Bipasha basu, Lara Dutta, Katrina Kaif & Rajpal Yadav in any combination with a few others. Randomly jumble the pages of the actual story. Get David Dhawan, Priyadarshan or Boney Kapoor to direct your movie, depending on how much nonsense, confusion or sleaze you want to add in the movie. Use in combination for better results. Replace half the dialogues with sleazy one liners and the other half with meaningless one liners and you are done! :)

Creating a movie for a social cause?

That's just for people who have surplus funds that they offload through flop movies so that they can escape taxes. The Indian audience has a long way to go before it can start appreciating movies with genuine social messages like homosexuality, AIDS, domestic violence, rape,corruption, communalism and gender bias (Yes fellas...we're still stuck with the same social problems even after nearly 60 years of freedom; though I admit homosexuality and AIDS are relatively new )

Creating a genuinely original cross over movie?

Refer to the "Creating a movie for a social cause" section

Creating a nice watchable enjoyable movie with fair amount of risk?

Contact Shaad Ali, Farhan Akhtar, Naagesh Kukunoor and the likes
If you are thinking of Amir Khan, book him in January and book some one else to collect the awards ;) Oh and don't forget to pay for Amir Khan's all new hair style, which will be essential to his character in the movie. Oh I am sorry, did I not say, he has to be the hero!! :)

Not sure what to create ?

Gather as many stories and actors as you can in one place and start shooting. that's it!

Have I missed anything?? Oh yes, the horror / paranormal / supernatural ...

Please contact Ramgopal Verma & Urmila Matondkar for further details. At this, both are "super natural" ;)

Feel free to add to the list if there's any Bollywood original formulae that I have missed ;)

2008-07-21T09:12:00.000-07:00

It is said that the basic thought process of any age in any society is visible in every aspect of it

Let's take a tiny example...

When I first moved to Noida nearly 4 years ago, it had just 1 major shopping mall to boast of. CentreStage Mall, Sector 18.And 1 decent hotel. Radisson. Even if others did exist, they clearly didn't bear an impression in the peoples' minds, for no one even mentioned their names while introducing Noida to a new comer.In the past 4 years, atleast 5 other major shopping malls have sprung up: from the reasonably priced no variety PVR Spice to the mammoth Great India Place (GIP), where 1 could practice for the marathon if he wanted to, while also enjoying at a display of nearly every international brand that has any presence in India.There are atleast 3 more currently under construction, 1 of which is expected to be the largest in Asia, just as the Shipra mall once boasted and these days the GIP boasts to be.
All shopping malls vary in their price ranges, brand presence & obviously size, but bottomline : they are all malls and give the consumers similar closed, air-conditioned hang out options with the food courts and parking lots invariably making the most money; while most of the shops [with the exception of Big Bazaar and the likes] are used merely for window shopping, most of the time by most of the people

However, the number of significant hotels in Noida is still 1. Radisson.

We all know that Gurgaon & Noida have been the hub of all software activity after Bangalore, Pune & Hyderabad. Over the past few years, more and more companies have opened their campuses in Noida, while all kinds of big and small software entrepreneurial firms have sprung up in every nook and cranny of Noida. This is a well-known fact. And equally well known is the fact that a majority of these firms have some level foreign collaboration, be it their clientèle or investors ( or more commonly both ), and hence at least some frequency of foreign delegates as well as employees from other parts of the country and/or world visiting. So where do they stay, in case the dear old Radisson has no availability and if the s/w firm in question is not big enough to afford its own guest houses? Nowhere closer than South Delhi or worse, CP and get harangued in the Delhi traffic commuting daily to & from Noida, causing a lot of easily-avoidable loss of time & money to all parties concerned.

There is a clear demand and no supply. One would think that some one would think of investing in more quality places to stay than yet more food courts & parking lots, which are clearly fast approaching their saturation levels and are anyhow in much more supply than profit-making demand. Even if Noida is being dreamed of as the next global shopping destination, the tourists would need more hotels to stay in right?

I am neither a businesswoman nor a market researcher.... I am a common citizen, with some common sense and curiosity. But I don't understand what seems so evident to me is so obviously missing from the incredibly sharp business minds and incredibly detailed market research & analysis. Or is it just that we Indians, as a people, are so afraid to take risks and innovate that we find endless comfort in following the lead of one successful formula, be it educating our children in computer engineering or medicine followed by MBAs, creating & watching saas-bahu soap operas, repeating the same 5-6 all time hit movie story lines for nearly 60 years or opening shopping malls like growing mushrooms?? So much for the country which introduced zero, the decimal, yoga, neem, satyagrah and even kamasutra to the world!!! From when and how did we turn from a daring fearless creative innovative entrepreneurial people to being so cliched and unoriginal followers? Have we really lost our inherent qualities or are we just too lazy to think, let alone create?

No Parking

2008-07-20T10:37:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, my car got towed away.
Date & Time: Saturday afternoon
Venue: Sarojini Nagar Market
Challan amount: Rs.300/
Break up- Rs. 200/- fine & Rs.100/- Crane charges
Reason: Unauthorised parking
Number of cars parked there: 20 (Yes I counted on my way back)
Number of cars towed: 1. Just 1. Mine

2 days later:
Date & Time: Sunday Evening
Venue: Major Jam next to the Moti Bagh Gurudwara on the Ring Road.
Reason: Endless rows of cars parked right along the main road, causing endless jam and hours of public inconvenience.
I am pretty sure no part of the Ring Road is an authorised parking.
Number of cars parked there: I lost count pretty quickly
Number of cars towed: ZERO ofcourse!

Real reason of my car towing: Common sense tells me, it had very little to do with parking (authorized or not) and even lesser with maintaining law and order. Almost nothing at all to do with public convenience. I think it had everything to do with completing the numbers in the books. My car just happened to be the first one in the row.

When will the authorities wake up to the shambles our everyday law and order system is in? We never tire of boasting of our military prowess. And yet from these every day display of the obvious omnipresent corruption to high profile cases like the Mumbai molestation case, EVERYTHING fails to make even the slightest impact. The maximum result achieved is the suspension of a few officers, just an excuse for shying away from considering the root causes; an extreme shortage of staff, abysmal emoluments, pathetic living conditions and considering these, impossibly high expectations of commitment and performance. I don't blame the officers. They're are getting exploited by the corrupt system, and their patience, endurance and hope, as a community, has disappeared. Hopefully the 6th pay commission would change things for them and consequently for us. Try being honest and commited sitting inside a tin cubicle on the road side without as much a table fan in the sweltering heat of 40 degrees, with only a walkie talkie to keep you company for 8 hours. Much easier said than done. Even easier to blame the police force for it all!

Oh and did I mention, that the place from where my car was towed, had no "No Parking" ir "Unauthorized Parking" signs. NONE!

2008-07-20T07:32:00.000-07:00

I love my machines. from my books to my car, everything I own, I love it & possessively so. Though that does not nearly translate into anything ever being handled with extreme care..or even remote care for that matter. My phone has a broken slider, keys which work of their own accord and a cracked screen. my camera has a lens that gets stuck and needs a rough manual rotation to fix every now and then. my car...oh well I could go on listing the damage but you get the idea..the point is, that all these things still work and work well. So much so, that I almost feel they respond to my needs :) I have countless memories of times when my phone battery was on the verge of going out but it held fort till I made that one last important call which you always need to make just as your phone is dying out. Countless number of heavy rains when I pleaded the almost-broken lever to stay connected the windscreen wipers till I got home only to promptly forget about getting it fixed yet again.Despite this rough handling, my machines still respond to me until one day I went too far.

It all started when I went to meet a very good friend after a very long time. After years of pleading hectic schedule at work, he had finally cornered me for a birthday treat, making it sound like the final call & quite successfully so!We decided to meet up at one of the dozens of Noida malls and had a great time together; once his anger at my ignoring him for so long had subsided i.e. After 2.5 fabulous hours I went smiling away to work, wondering when was the last time I had laughed so much and why I didn't meet my friends more often, promising myself that I would. A usual day at work ensued, and I promptly forgot about everything else; just as usual. The day turned out to be unusually long and hectic and after 16 hours of madness I finally slumped my way back to the parking lot, already half asleep and pressed the lock.Only; nothing happened. Confused I tried again.Nothing.Alarmed and awake as a lark, I called my boss, who was still working.
"You must have left the lights on and the battery must be exhausted"
"But thats not pos...wen did I..how did thi..I didn...Oh My God!!!"
and then the realisation dawned upon me..I had switched on the headlights while parking in the basement of the mall on my way to meet my friend and never switched them off.
"Just tell the guards to push it, it should start", I could dimly hear my boss's advice
I looked around, but as expected, when most needed, guards were nowhere to be seen. Now I may not be a delicate darling, but I am not exactly Laura Croft either! Pushing the car was beyond my strength & endurance.Suddenly without warning my phone died. This had never happened before.There I was in one of the most unsafe cities with the highest crime rates against women, all alone standing outside my car in the wee hours of the morning, with no phone to call for help & the car door wouldn't even open! In the midst of despair, I saw my boss, with a few of my other colleagues coming down to the lot. I have never been more thankful to the ridiculous working hours of my office than I was at the moment.All tired and sleepy, obviously displeased but too polite to complain, they tried to push my car nevertheless.

Some loving & coaxing (for there is no other explanation) had gotten the door to open somehow and I was able to steer it, as they pushed.My car however, had other plans. After nearly 10 mins of repeated efforts and pushing in practically every direction, it just refused to start.

The emergency help line I had been diligently subscribed to was not responding this one time I tried to call them (from one of my colleague's phone of course).It felt like I was being punished for all the mishandling I had given all my things all this time and I tried to talk my way (to the car of course) out of it, but it refused to listen too. Physics had taken over blind emotions, Science had won over the supernatural and I couldn't stop cursing myself.Exhausted, my colleagues gave up. I love my car too much to have agreed to leave it there n go home. But there seemed to be no other solution, & I couldn't possibly ask my colleagues to keep trying without avail.

Just as I as about to give up hope, lock the car (abandonment is more like the feeling I had) and leave, quite literally as a ray of hope a professional cab driver appeared on the scene, alongside the rising sun. He took the batteries of his cab out, plugged them into mine and started charging them. Soon I heard the musical sound of the engine coming back to life....

I was so happy that I forgave all the cab drivers in the world for their reckless driving & thanked all the heavens in that split second. The driver asked me to keep the engine running for at least half an hour and diligently, vowing never to let it happen again, I drove back home, parked the car. Suddenly there was a knock on the window

"Ma'm are you okay?"
I had fallen asleep, foot on the pedal, head on the wheel. I looked at my watch, 35 minutes."Good!", I thought, I quickly thanked the man, stepped out of the car, locked it and went inside.
Dimly in the background I could hear a voice calling behind me....
"Ma'm you have left the headlights on..."

A Type A ??

2008-06-27T16:35:00.000-07:00

You Have A Type A- Personality

You are one of the most balanced people around

Motivated and focused, you are good at getting what you want

You rule at success, but success doesn't rule you.

When it's playtime, you really know how to kick back

Whether it's hanging out with friends or doing something you love!

You live life to the fullest - incorporating the best of both worlds

Do You Have a Type A Personality?

2008-05-09T08:42:00.000-07:00

my various colors

Your Aura is Blue

Spiritual and calm, you tend to live a quiet but enriching life.
You are very giving of yourself. And it's hard for you to let go of relationships.
The purpose of your life: showing love to other people
Famous blues include: Angelina Jolie, the Dali Lama, Oprah
Careers for you to try: Psychic, Peace Corps Volunteer, Counselor

What Color Is Your Aura?

Your Power Color Is Lime Green

At Your Highest:
You are adventurous, witty, and a visionary.
At Your Lowest:
You feel misunderstood, like you don't fit in.
In Love:
You have a tough exterior, but can be very dedicated.
How You're Attractive:
Your self-awareness and confidence lights up a room.
Your Eternal Question:
"What else do I need in my life?"

What's Your Power Color?

Your Heart Is Pink

In relationships, you like to play innocent - even though you aren't.
Each time you fall in love, it's like falling for the first time.
Your flirting style: Coy
Your lucky first date: Picnic in the park
Your dream lover: Is both caring and dominant
What you bring to relationships: Romance

What Color Heart Do You Have?

Your Mind is Blue

Of all the mind types, yours is the most mellow.
You tend to be in a meditative state most of the time. You don't try to think away your troubles.
Your thoughts are realistic, fresh, and honest. You truly see things as how they are.
You tend to spend a lot of time thinking about your friends, your surroundings, and your life.

What Color Is Your Mind?

and i was taught only chameleons had many colors...and come to think of it , white doesn't even appear in the list maybe that why i like it so much, i need more of it ;)

2008-04-29T16:51:00.000-07:00

something i wrote some time ago..in memory of a lost friend...

One morning, I was informed that a close friend, who used to live next door, had passed away suddenly during the night. Over the next few blurry moments, I was told that she had been taken to a hospital for an emergency appendicitis surgery, during which she had succumbed.

At 13, death had seemed nothing more than a far fetched reality, something that would happen after at least another 50 years. This perception now shattered as I sat next to her, watching her inconsolable parents, while I myself was completely devoid of any thought or reaction.

Over the next few weeks, as the loss finally sank in, I found my own perspective towards life changing. I realized how precious a gift life truly is and how sudden death can be. How, without even a moment’s notice, everything and everyone we hold dear can be snatched away, while all we can do is look on helplessly, wishing there was something we could do, knowing that there isn’t. I regretted never having told my friend what she had meant to me until it was too late. I regretted all those fights that now seemed insignificant, and the time we wasted being mad at each other.

I subsequently found myself becoming more emotionally expressive, considerate and kind towards everyone around me. I learned that most things are too insignificant to be angry at and complain about and that we can choose to live each day to its fullest, with hope, faith and love. Some where along the way, I subconsciously resolved to live a life of conscious choices and no regrets.

My friend’s face, as she slept peacefully, still bring tears to my eyes as I remember the last words she had written in her dairy,

“…the aim in life is not walk fast but far

2008-04-03T13:31:00.000-07:00

In case you are wondering why I have stuck up a photo of a messy table, take a closer look. Its no less than the ENTIRE range of Oriflame's skin care products, each one of which promises to make your skin younger, fresher and healthier. Go on, take a closer look...yes those are 3 BIG bowls of Potato Chips. Fried, spicy junk food that promises to ruin your skin completely. Why are they served on the same table at the same time?? One of those mysteries of women that no one understands.. including me!!!! :P No wonder my male friends quite blatantly put me in the "who girl??!!!" category and no wonder that I have hardly ever made any female friends...women just hate me. But then its not their fault, what do you expect if they invite me to a make up session, promising to give me a make over that would make jaws drop all around me and all I can do in return is scoff at their carefully dressed table and graciously offered chips!!!! :P

Or if I tell them that quitting chocolates would be more effective than any other dieting if they seriously want to lose weight (believe me women like that are not scarce ) ... i mean how can I possibly ask a woman to quit eating chocolates (:OOOO ) to lose weight! Isn't it bad enough that they starve themselves the entire day had hardly have any strength left to walk or even stand. Its nothing short of blasphemy on my part...their looks tell me , and then go on to add "Easy for you to say!! you're not fat, you don't have to worry about what size to buy!"

Its strange, how-so-ever I try, I fail to make this article humorous. I fail to make fun of the poignancy of the current day situation where more n more women are going crazy trying to fit into smaller n smaller size dresses, spending fortunes over crazy skin, hair and diet treatments..while the simple basic everyday common sense seems to have gone missing!

Men-2

2008-03-27T13:51:00.000-07:00

This has to be the strangest co-incidence.. though they're not really new to me, but i just realised that exactly 2 years ago, I had written my article on Men

Reading it made me realise that though 2 tremendous years have gone by and the world around me has topsy-turvied [ well, I still stay in the same place, work in the same city, have practically the same wardrobe, hangout with the exact same set of friends, but let's not get into the technicalities.. :P ] ....so as I was saying the world around me has changed a lot. And I have too, with it. Obviously, I have grown wiser [ I like to believe that about me and this is my blog. Who asked you??!!] with time [for women never age ;) ] .

So the confusion must have lessened right??? (Sigh....) If anything, it has gotten worse. Earlier it was just about their behavior, which you can learn to ignore or accept (or do both) over time.

But you know what really completely absolutely baffles me1111 [apart from how I managed to break the shift key on my keyboard] ???
How do men always, I mean always manage to say the wrong thing??!!!!
don't believe me?? here are a few snippets I have gathered from my female friends, "in conversations" with their dates, boyfriends, and/or husbands .. ;)

1) After 3-4 dates :
woman: "With you I just don't realise how time flies. I really enjoy talking to you"
man: "good! "
Good??!! remember the how do you do etiquette? couldn't you even manage a measly "same here"??

2) Major problems at the parental front,
woman(poor worried thing): "who knows if we'll be together tomorrow"
man: "Hmmm...."
wow!! for the woman you love , that's reassuring!

3) Ever heard the definition of beauty as being defined as natural?? Well she thought she'd give it a try...
woman: "So?? How do i look??"
man: "You look a little blank without makeup"
blank???!!! I mean seriously, did he just say BLANK!!!!!!!!! how about NATURE-FRESH!!!

4) I don't even want to give the background for this one
man: "wow! you look really slim in that dress!!!"
and I am not going to tell you what the slap on his face sounded like ;)

5) A worried wife over the phone,
woman: "Please take care, I'm really worried about you"
man: "Oh don't!! Its useless, you can't do anything"
Ouch! that gotta hurt! lucky he was on the phone ;)

6) A wife, getting wistful about her courtship days, wondering...
woman: "you must hate me now that i don't dress up anymore"
man: "I never saw the difference"
wrong answer buddy!! ever heard of the word sensitive?? how about polite?? :P

7) another from a hopeless (ahem i mean metaphorically) romantic ...
woman (humming to herself)
man:"were you just singing??"
woman: "no, just humming..i wish i had the voice and skill to sing well..."
man: "you have a feminine voice..thats enough"
well i understand you are trying to be encouraging..but ever heard of constructive criticism?

8) And this dear reader, is the UNCONTESTED WINNER!!!
(don't ask how I got hold of this information...that's a trade secret ;) )
At the dawn of a steamy , passionate night
woman(smiling): "say something..."
a pregnant pause...
man: "I really respect you as an individual"
hehehehehhahahahahahah...rofl rofl rofl....despite all my sympathies for her endless fears and non stop tears, I could just not stop laughing when she told me this! And don't even get me started on what she described afterwards!!!! ;)

Honestly men... its not so hard. Be honest, just read our minds and know when we want you to be honest and when romantic. And remember when we want you to be romantic, we do still want you to be honest, its just the honesty that we want, not the one that you have!! All you have to do is read our minds and say exactly what we want you to say!! and don't forget, it has to be an honest opinion!!

see that's not so hard ;) ...

relationships are all about honesty, if you can fake it, you're in it!!! ;P ;P ;P

All in a Call

2008-02-19T11:44:00.000-08:00

I am a humble IT professional. One of the millions in this country, earning my bread and butter (low-fat mind you!) by making applications that, I doubt hardly anyone uses, I am pretty sure no one needs and I can bet absolutely no one, including me, understands.

But well..you gotta eat!! And as long as some whimsical old man sitting at the other end of the world who thinks he knows what he wants, is willing to pay... whats the harm in shoving down utterly complicated entirely useless applications down the wannabe-Hi-Tech users' throats ;)

and that brings me to the protagonist of this entire drama called, IT service outsourcing...The whimsical old man sitting the other end of the world, who thinks he knows what he wants. For the benefit of the lesser enlightened, this species is called, in our world, The Client.

No, that's not another Jeffrey Archer or Frederick whats-his-name work. The Client is, to say the least, God in our world. We do all we need to, to please him...no..not THAT all!!!! More like managing ensuring the product is in conformance to the ever changing requirements, without losing that sparkling smile. Not that he can see that smile, since most, no , all of the client meetings happen over voice conference calls, but you know what I mean... no noise in the background giving the impression that you are in vacuum, a cheerful active alert voice, even if you just woke upand felt all grumpy..well you get the idea!!

so seeing that my scarce bread and low fat butter would depend upon a perfect call made to God Himself, I would do all in my power to make sure that it went right. Right? Wrong! Me, being the quintessetially lazy bonehead...am bound to differ!!

So on a Friday evening, as I coolly clicked the accept button at a meeting request for Sunday evening, 7:30, (You can't refuse God can you!!) ...I thought , "Oh what the hell!! Its just a half hr call..I'll take it from home. What could possibly go wrong.." and with this, I set an alarm for Sunday evening 7:15, picked up my car keys and headed home for a relatively work free weekend...

Flash forward..Sunday 7:20

7:20 PM
"oh what the hell!! why is this stupid thing (my cell phone alarm) ringing...oh shit!! I have a call in 10 min. I had to prepare the agenda... oh ****(very un-lady-like)!!! ", I jumped out of my bed ( I had been enjoying a heavenly slumber!) and took out my laptop bag, hurriedly switched it on, "oh what! where! wh-oh GOD!!! CRAP!!! I can't believe I left my headphones in the office!! ****(highly un-lady-like)!! Hey! Yo! "(that's how I usually call my sister when I want a quick response),

"WHAT!!!!!" she bellowed back!

7:22 PM
Me: "we had a spare set of headphones didn't we??!! I need it!! I have a call in 8 minutes!!!"
Her: "second drawer study table. Get it yourself!"

It was out of its resting and plugged in before you can say flash! I was all set, (whew!) oh no wait! "wh---now what!!!! why is this net not working?! HEYY!!! "
"WHAT??????"
"The net isn't working"
"Well what am I supposed to do!! give it a minute, not your office leased line high speed connection!!!"
(sigh)...."And for GOD's sakestop tapping your feet and drumming your fingers on the table!! Im trying to study!"

7:25 PM
By now I was furiously battling the net wire and modem..
"Stop! STop! STOP!!! you'll break the bloddy modem!! ...try connecting to the desktop maybe some settings problem with your laptop "
Ah! my sister could be such heaven-sent at times!!

I plugged in the desktop, the headphones and pressed the boot button..

7:28 PM
"3 minutes!! this freaky machine takes 3 mintues to boot!!" I was on the verge of screaming out
"Di!!! its a 8 yr old machine..have mercy on the poor thing for God's sake!"
..."I dont know why she always has to wait till the last minute to get things done"...I ignored her muttering

7:30 PM
finally, the machine started, the net got connected and I was plugged in to the headphones, just in the nick of time

(incoming call)..
"Hello!"
"Hello! Hi Shipra..you there??"
"Hi Yes. I am..Hi"
"Hello! Hi Shipra..you there??"
"HELLO!! HELLLLLO!! yes I am...oh what now!!---"

and my heaven-sent sister walked back in.. "Hey Di!! By the way, did I tell you the mic socket doesn't work in the Desktop"

I looked at her, then at the desktop and then inwardly screamed ...**************************************** (completely unimmaginably un-lady-like ) I then realised I had always underestimated my verbal abusing powers....

7:35 PM
(my cell phone rings, international number)..
"Hello!" , I said, trying to sound as calm and cheerful as I could under the storm
"Hello! Hi Shipra..you there??"
"Hello Yes. Hi ..I am sorry, a bit of a trouble, my mic doesn't seem to be working",
"Oh. Ok, let's just have a quick chat over the phone allright?"
"Sure"...

8:00 PM
the call was going on with no plans of ending in near future...
"Hey Shipra..do you think you want to retry your mic"
(Oh GODD!!!) "Well actually, I did..but..."
"Oh ok"
(blip!) I couldn't believe this!! my sturdy Nokida handset with a talktime of 2 days (my usage) was going low on battery
"blah blah blah..."
Blip! Blip! "pfffffffffffff. now what!!"
"Shipra!! Are you listening???"
"Yes Yes...sorry, I am really sorry, my cell seems to be dying...can I call you back?"
"Oh ok. No, if you don't mind, is there a landline number I can call you on? "
"Ofcourse! Sure! umm its..." ,(how stupid can I be! I hate this cell phone culture!)
"Dad!!", I hissed, "whats our landline number?"
(To client): "Umm, Hi, sorry, its ********"
landline rings...
"Hi!! I am sorry abt this...just seem to be having a...hello?? hello!!"
"HELLO!! SHIPRA I AM SORRY, BUT THERE'S TOO MUCH DI"...(beep beep beep)

8:10 PM
cell phone again...
"Hello"
"Hello! Shipra there was too much disturbance in the line. I could nt hear you. Is there any other number?"
(and for the first time in my life I thanked God that my dad is such a phone freak!)
"ofcourse!!"
"Dad!!", I hissed again, "Whats our other number?" (Man I need to spend more time at home!!)
'Hi , its *******"

8:18 PM

landline 2 rings...
"Hello"
"Hello. Hi, yes this is much better"
....
8:30 PM

"blah blah blah...."
"(OH GoDD!!!!!!!!!) I dont belive this...now my laptop is dying. How can this stupid thing....oh shit! I forgot to charge it last night when I was surfing...pfffffff" "HEY!!!", I let out a stifled scream to my heaven-sent sister, "get my laptop charger!"
Poor girl, she let the opportunity to torment me further pass by and tried to plug my charger in
"ok?"
"blah blah blah..."
"no it isn't charging, try the other socket", ----" nothing!! try the extension" --- the entire electrical machinery in my house seemed to be breaking down suddenly,
"blah blah blah..."
"the sockets are fine..its your laptop charger, its broken!!"
....and with these final words the full intensity of Murphy's law started to sink in...
"Shipra you still there?"
"Yes Yes!! ofc-----"
"Oh Thank God!! I thought I lost you again"...
I tried to laugh.."No no, I am here. Though there do---."
"Oh good, because we really need to finish this today!"
I had spent 1 hour on a call that had been scheduled for half an hr, and still we hadn't covered 1 sheet of the 11 sheet document, I was so close to tears I didn't know what to do except pray.. so pray I did
"blah blah blah...."
promising God I'd never be this careless again...
and suddenly, I heard a magical voice ringing in the background...
"honey, we are getting late for dinner" , that was my client's wife..I had never felt this happy on hearing another woman's voice in my life!

"Shipra..I am sorry, but can we continue tomorrow"
"Ofcourse! no problem!! whatever suits you!"

I f***** up God's own call!! I think I better start looking elsewhere for my noodles..err..I mean ...bread and no-butter-at-all

caricatures...

2008-01-26T21:36:00.000-08:00

simplicity..

2008-01-26T21:33:00.000-08:00

a dream..

2007-11-11T12:01:00.001-08:00

What's your name?
Sunny

How old are you?
(an enquiring glance at his mother, responded to by a giggle)
i don't know...perhaps 9

What have you made?
A house

Whom for?
simmi didi (name changed)...she is ill so I thought I will gift her this house on Diwali
(the mother pitches in) this will bring her good luck and good health.

Did anyone ask you to?
No

From where did you get all this cardboard?
They are making a house next door. A man there gave it to me.

Who gave you all this wrapping paper?
I bought it from my own money.

What do you mean your money?
The money I get every now and then on festivals etc.

How much did you spend?
(proudly) Rs. 40/-

That's a lot of money!
(the smile gets wider) I had collected it since Holi

How long have you been making it?
1 month.

But why did you spend all your money on this?
So that simmi didi gets well soon

Do you really like her that much? Is she nice to you?
She lets me play with her video games and gives me her old books to read.

Do you know how to read?
Yes. I learned my tables, and alphabet in school back at home. I also know counting till 200 and I know how to write my name.

Do you like to read?
Very much

Then why don’t you go to school?
Mother says she has no money and the schools here charge a lot of it.

(Once more the mother speaks, this time she can’t help crying) My son is very bright. We had come to delhi so that he could go to a better school. Now I don’t have money to send him to school , or to go back. I don’t know what to do.

What do you want to do when you grow up?
(still smiling) Earn money and go to school.

When was the last time you or I gave up practically everything we owned and put in so much of sheer effort to do something so selflessly for some one else ? This rat-race…is it really worth it?! Can we not stop armchair politics and actually do our own little bit to make this world a slightly better place? Is it really that impossible a target to achieve?

I couldn’t go on after the last question, and till date I cannot shut my ears to the answer. Can you???

Jab We Met

2007-11-11T06:33:00.000-08:00

2 words. Pretty enjoyable. After a really long time, I saw a hindi romantic comedy I actually liked. The protagonists, Shahid and Kareen, carry off their roles with a natural panache, making you feel that no else could have possibly been a better fit. While Shahid looks custom made for this role of a lost-in-love oh-so-lovable millionaire (though I do feel the essential vulnerable element was somewhat missing from his character), Kareena plays the bubbly, cheerful full-of-life 20-odd chatterbox of a girl with unaffected ease and simplicity. Club it with the only other role where I found her irreplaceable till date, the unforgettable "Poo" of the otherwise tear-jerker epic, Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gum, and you understand why people say she can steal the limelight at any party.

Not to forget of course, that a movie is made by an entire team and a single element cannot be examined in isolation. So, if Jab We met is doing well at the box office, it’s because of its simple plot, sensible execution, identifiable characters and a great script.

And that brings me back to my quest tonight. After a really long time, I saw a hindi romantic comedy I actually liked. The last movie I remember thoroughly enjoying was Bheja Fry (though it fell in a different league of comedies). And before that Pyar Ke Side Effects. All the 3 movies had 3 things in common – identifiable characters, real-life settings and great scripts perfected by their seeming simplicity.

Now, I am not a movie critic or an expert of the field but I am what makes or breaks a movie at the box-office; the general public and a movie lover at that. And yet, in a span of over a year and a half, I have thoroughly enjoyed only 3 light-hearted movies. This, amidst an entire flood of the likes of Dhols, Dhamaals and Golmaals, not to mention the better-forgotten-continued-miserable attempts at comedy by Priyadarshan, whose definition of comedy has somehow come to be pathetically limited to huge star casts and loads of forced confusion desperately trying to make the audience laugh, after perhaps a chance hit with Hera-Pheri.

What is so difficult about making a comedy that is so impossible for our movie-makers to comprehend anyway? And why only movie makers and comedies? Take our TV serials for that matter with their never ending supplies of the tulsis and the parvatis , who give up their careers, their education and their dreams, even their clothing preferences the day they get married, clad themselves in heavy banarasi sarees and 2 inches of makeup 24-hours a day and devote their lives to saving their thankless families from the ever-impending disaster and the continued plots of the even-more-heavily made-up “vamps” . While the “heroine” turns into a 20-odd looking woman playing a 5-times divorced (at least) 52-yr old tycoon grandmother of half-a-dozen adults, in her quest, the “vamp” never tires in the face of defeat and with her slick planning and ruthless execution leaves you thinking that perhaps Osama isn’t such a bad guy after all.

Ok, so, tired of senseless TV and sleazy comedies? Turn to the news. And what do you see, a “breaking news” coverage of which saree Aishwarya is wearing on Karwachauth and how many bangles!!!! Flick to another. “Aishwarya will be celebrating her diwali with hubby Abhi…” . And another. “Aishwarya celebrating her birthday in Agra with …..” WHAT!!! Is there nothing else happening in this world?! Or is our world restricted to Aishwarya’s personal life ??!! And when the media is not drooling over some or the other celebrity, its busy encashing a disaster, asking a poor blast victim lying in the hospital, obviously in pain, “So being a victim..how do you feel…??” ???!!!!!!. Whatever happened to “news” as we knew it!?! The media that provoked an entire nation to fight for freedom. Whatever happened to the Power of the Pen?! What saddens me even more is that such sleazy sub-standard movies, mindless serials and junk news sells. BigTime!

Now I am not a cynic, nor am I one of those people who drool over the USA. I consider myself a sensibly positive and an intensely patriotic individual. And I am saying all this not despite of my patriotism, but because of it. For a country that boasts of soaring GDP, stock markets and intellectual prowess, we can do so much more and so much better than 3 good comedy serials, 2 serious News channels and 3 good romantic comedies in 1.5 years !!

Explanations awaited

2007-10-02T11:10:00.000-07:00

Despite all my senses rebelling hard and strong, screaming of fatigue, I had been forcing myself to concentrate on my screen and at least finish the task at hand. After about a half hour of relentless struggle on both sides, my senses, with my eyes leading their front, won. I shut my laptop and moved out of my room. And suddenly it hit me. The air outside was perfectly still and calm, as if at the advent of a storm. Laced with the fragrance of lilies, almost bitterly mixed with that of wet cement and sand, the night felt like a strange mix of eerie and heavenly. Almost as if drawn against my will, I went to take a walk.

An early October night, the on-spring of the much awaited dussehra-diwali festive season as well as the much anticipated harsh yet-not-to-be-missed winters, I wasn't walking exploring new arenas. Everything looked as it should have. The ubiquitous silence and stillness could be attributed to the reasonable assumption that everyone must have been out, celebrating a stray holiday in the middle of the week, hence explaining the lack of any famous soaps sounding off TV sets, the noise of loud air-coolers, even the regular parking and reversing car alarms. Logically, everything made sense, and there was nothing wayward. And yet the night's touch felt only faintly familiar. The stillness of the night had enveloped the entire neighborhood. It was only 8 PM, and though the markets outside must have been bustling with people, the absence of human life in the area seemed unnatural. Even the stray dogs, which never fail to make their presence felt, seemed too quiet, too meek for comfort. A sudden chill made me shudder. I instinctively pulled my jacket closer and hastened my step back towards home.

Suddenly, at about 50 meters away from my comfort zone, power went out and I was engulfed in complete darkness. “Just a power-cut; no need to over-react!” I convinced myself. Then, I heard footsteps: calm and deliberate walking towards me. I hugged myself and gingerly looked around. A neighbor, walking towards his home, with his dog, looked at me and passed a courteous smile. He seemed unfazed, almost enjoying the dark and still night. Needless to say I was scared, and the fact that he hadn't been anywhere around a few moments ago didn't help. Clutching my racing heart, I smiled back weakly, and walked as fast as I could to my home, sometimes breaking into a sprint.

As soon as I reached home, I stopped dead in the tracks. The front entrance was ajar, the house pitch dark and hauntingly silent. Pushing the main gate further, I treaded silently inside, and went straight up to my room. It was locked. I knew I hadn’t locked it. I fumbled for my set of keys in my jacket, I didn’t have them. More baffled than ever, I went downstairs and tried the door to my LG's room. No one answered. I pushed the door open. The room had a 100% power backup and yet was as dark as outside. Taking a deep breath, I fumbled for the switch, put one foot out and let out a gasp....the deserted room's floor, which had been intact till the afternoon, was missing. The entire room had been dug at least 3 feet.

Praying hard that the digging was due to the ongoing renovation, I was about to turn around and go to my room, when I thought I heard the sound of running water. Maybe someone had left a tap running, and I had missed the sound before. I turned it off. I had walked barely 20 steps away, when I heard the same sound. This time it was a different tap. By now things were getting too much for me and I was nearing complete panic and frenzy at an alarming speed. There was no one around. Something told me the tap wouldn't turn off. With trembling hands, I turned it off. At almost the same instant I heard the sound of water starting from somewhere else. I muffled my scream, dropped the candle and ran upstairs to my room...

But the nightmare wasn't over yet. My room was no longer locked. Not knowing what else to do I threw the door open. This room, just like the rest of the house was completely dark. I flicked the emergency backup lights on. Everything looked as I had left it, thankfully. My rapidly failing rationale and courage weren't equipped to handle any more surprises.

So here I am, sitting on my bed, typing my fears away in the light of the

laptop screen, running on battery power. I am pretty convinced that power will be back soon, and so will the people in my house and that everything has a logical explanation, the locked front door and my room, the absence of people in the entire neighborhood, including my house, as well as the malfunctioning power back up and plumbing. All the movies also show that the paranormal world has a liking for thunder and lighting. And that ghosts don't really show themselves on still clouded early winter nights, but I have locked my room nevertheless. ..…Just in case…

2007-09-29T08:03:00.000-07:00

smiles are free...so give them away ... :) :) :)

2007-09-19T23:17:00.000-07:00

arz kiya hai...
aashiq wohi jo maashooq ke haathon qatl ho jaaye
uski friend ke haathon marne waale ko toh
pati kehte hain ;)

extracted from tpb-arz-kiya-hai

IF-2

2007-09-19T13:50:00.000-07:00

another one of my favorites in the IF series
[IF]

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

If ...the most powerful two letter word

2007-09-19T13:36:00.000-07:00

practice makes a man perfect...women are simply born perfect ;)

nice repartee ;) my work ofcourse :P, though im not sure if it was original , i think not, :P so i guess i cnt really tk the credit or creation, though timing was perfect :)

but jokes apart, do we really seek perfection...we always keep saying oh, this would be so perfect, i wish this could be perfect , but do we really want things to be perfect? are we not always looking for something that has gone wrong somewhere?? i think we do, coz if we were really looking for perfection, then just like happiness, we can attain it as a state of mind, at any moment that is good, you can always, or at least sometimes choose to ignore the missing elements and say "ah! this is perfect" ...then why don't we ...or do we and i have just missed out on the observation part, i dont know about everyone, this isn't something that i have really observed a lot of people on, maybe because i have never, for as long as i can remember, wished or wanted anything to be perfect...i feel that perfection is boring and stagnant, because if you are perfect, you don't have anything else to become. you can't grow any better, so either you die of stagnation or start growing worse..so in that sense, may be perfection is even detrimental, its not a good thing to achieve, its just a very good thing to aspire to become,

perfection is like life, its the journey that matters, the end is already decided.

IF-1

2007-09-19T13:28:00.001-07:00

If you think you are beaten, you are.

If you think you dare not, you don't!

If you like to win, but think you can't,

It's almost a cinch you won't.

you think you'll lose, you're lost;

For out in the world we find
Success begins with a fellow's will;

It's all in the state of mind.

If you think you are outclassed, you are,

You've got to think high to rise,

You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.

Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger and faster man,

But sooner or later the man who wins
Is the man who thinks he can.

---i read in school, guess it kind of holds :)

2007-09-19T04:00:00.000-07:00

ok, so here's a question...what turns you off in someone .... the most common response I have ever heard to this one is "Hypocrites" .... I mean please!! give me a break!! who likes hypocrites? and yet, who isnt one?? tell me one person who doesn't lie, cheat, fake , one person who isn't a hypocrite and i'll tell you of a pig who flies!! havent you ever lied to your parents that u had extra classes and gone out for a movie? didnt you ever smile and swallowed an unedible piece of food some one made, just so you wouldnt hurt their feelings? didnt you ever tell your boss/clients
that you agree, when you couldnt disagree any more? didnt you pretend to be fine and put up a face, when inwards the only that kept you from screaming was the fact that you had company? ...

bottomline...everyone lies. everyone cheats. and yes, not saying anything may prevent you from lying, but that doesn't mean you are not cheating..you still are. coz someday, if the information you withheld is found out, it'll still inflict the similar kind of damage ...so why is it that we have such difficulty accepting it? why is it so hard for us to look deep within ourselves and admit, even to ourselves, our own shortcomings? and why is it that the only outlook with which we ever introspect, is to learn and improve...overcome our shortcomings..why?? why not for once can we accept ourselves the way we are, and feel ok with it?? but then , wouldnt that mean that being a psychopath was ok, that you could scrape the nails off people's bodies after murdering them and feel ok about it...well, i guess its once again about drawing a line, balancing things out, differentiating between right and wrong , good and bad, which are subjective for every person and yet governed by generic rules of the society, so that people may co-exist perhaps even happily..

so while you and your friends n family may accept your urge to get mad and scream at times, dont give your boss the chance to present you with a card to address management lessons ... ;)

2007-09-19T02:37:00.000-07:00

smiles are free...so give them away :)

Generation Gap??!!!

2007-09-02T13:07:00.001-07:00

You Are Totally Like Your Mom

You and your mom are practically clones.
You think alike, and you even seem to read each other's minds.
You're definitely you're mother's child... and that's just fine with you.

Are You Like Your Mom?

God i so love my mother!!!

2007-08-22T12:30:00.000-07:00

heard this one...

har kisi ko muqammal jahan nahi milta
kabhi zameen kabhi aasmaan nahi milta...

well i always used to think that this was incorrect
that since nature balances out evthg,
its not possible for sm1 to get evthg in life so it should actually be like

kisi ko bhi toh muqammal jahan nahi milta

but now i feel that maybe i was wrong. maybe the way nature balances out things is to tk away evthg from sm ppl and give it to others. or mayb its ur own perspective. after all happiness is a choice. just tht for sm ppl, its always a hard choice tht they forcefuly hv to mk. sm ppl find reasons for happiness easily while others hv to go looking desperately and then perhaps settle for simply a faint light at the end of the tunnel.

so may be it is true, ....

har kisi ko muqammal jahan nahi milta
kabhie zameen toh kabhie aasmaan nahi milta

just a thought

2007-08-10T03:12:00.000-07:00

Everyone is looking for validation from the outside world. no matter who you are and what you become, no matter "how much you believe in yourself" , nothing makes you feel as secured and sure about yourself and about what you are doing, as does acceptance from the people around us. And by that I don't mean only friends and family, but people in general...the greater the number of people appreciating us/our deeds, the better we feel about ourselves/what we do. So then I guess believing in yourself holds only till you complete whatever you have at hand, against opposition, with only this one thought that what you are doing is right. But how do you define right.
Princeton defines right as correct: free from error; especially conforming to fact or truth;
Now, if right is only that, which is fact and truth, then why would there be any opposition or the categorical and emphatic need to believe in yourself? Maybe because right is also something beyond truth & fact. Its your own personal belief, and foresight and loads of other things as well. And that is why the definition of right differs for every individual. And also because at times for reasons of their own, people oppose what they know is right.
So you believe in yourself, in what you think is right, and do that. And yet, the main driving force, for most of the people most of the times, is that in the end others would see things their way. and Validate them. In the end, we just need others to agree with us, thats all that matters.

Strange...I think I just went around a roundabout...didn't I?!!!

see...I always

2007-08-09T02:49:00.000-07:00

Your Personality is Very Rare (INTP)

Your personality type is goofy, imaginative, relaxed, and brilliant.

Only about 4% of all people have your personality, including 2% of all women and 6% of all men
You are Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Perceiving.

How Rare Is Your Personality?

told people I am not insane and I don't need to go to an asylum...I am just too rare and most mortals can't understand me :P :P ;) ;)

Its ironical

2007-08-02T03:59:00.000-07:00

,...that everytime I want to tell someone that they make too many typing mistakes, I end up typing,
"you mkae too many tpying mistkaes"

not to mention that I always spell Worng -> as Worng (instead of worng...see what i mean, I cant help it 8-|

first day sightseeing in London-Part2

2007-07-02T02:26:00.000-07:00

(...Continued)

The tower of London

We took a guided 2-hr long tour and then wandered in the castle for another 2 I guess. The guided tour is given by , what are called the beef-eaters, though I don't remember why...not that the guide himself was very clear about this...but in reality, they are the castle's protectors(for the lack of a better adjective), who must have served in the British army for at least 25 years (If I remember correctly) and have (obviously) an impeccable record! So you see, being lead around the castle by men you know are highly accomplished had me completely awed, right from the start. The tour was nice, filled with history and loads of light hearted humor, and covered a brief overview of the castle and its (nearly) 1000 yr old history. Then my friend and I had an ice-cream before starting our own excursion ;P .

We first saw the White Hall Tower (the main palace - and now quite expectedly a museum), which had around 3 floors displaying arms and ammunition from different periods of a 1000 yr old history.

Next came Beauchamp Tower( which mainly served as the prison), and more of a tower actually than the earlier one, it had a marrow staircase leading to the chambers where, at different periods throughout history, people of different stature, class and historical significance, were held as prisoners, most of them before facing a ruthless and a lot of times, unjust, execution. The walls of the chambers were filled with carvings, ranging from mere initials-inscription to elaborate works of art, probably done by people who were held there for much longer than the others. These carvings in this tower, the ammunition in the earlier one, the execution site inside the palace where the queens were executed mostly on charges of infidelity-termed-as-treason against their kings, the mere thought of so many deaths, so much blood-shed for power, left me quite speechless. And though my next destination was to be the bloddy tower, where supposedly 2 young princes were murdered and their skeletons found centuries later buried under the tower's staircase, I decided to take a break from so much death and go instead to the Jewel House.

The Jewel House is the museum displaying all sorts of jewels related to the tower's history. I actually saw a 530-carat heart shaped diamond!!! And I thought I wear diamonds!!! It was so huge that my eyes are still aching :P and the Kohinoor( well a third of it at least). :P H aving taken that relief, I went back to the bloody tower, but sadly it was closed by then. :(

Its strange, the effect such history and war ridden forts always have on me, the sheer magnitude of things and place, the sheer size, the way time seems to float away into centuries...and how I always wish I could see even one of those moments for real...I guess that happens to everyone...

Anyways, I guess I was really pensive and quiet after that as my friend and I walked across the Tower Bridge, so he just cracked a few jokes, took some pictures of me on the bridge with the Thames in the background , then we just walked n walked n walked n walked along a small dockyard on the other side of the bridge, somewhat in circles, ;P looking for a nice coffeehouse . We didn't really like anything, and came to a place where we walked straight down to the river,. just a direct open walkway down to Thames. It was the closest I got to the river, and but for the very slippery stones, cold and violent waters, and my friend's fears that I was still not out of the whole Tower of London experience and might just decide to jump-in :P , I would've gone closer and touched the waters :P

We then walked to Globe Theater, saw more ruins of some palace and a very David-Copperfield style stoned street. It was just a beautiful moment that I cursed my camera for having run out of batteries just then!! Had a nice refueling tea and lots to eat at a nice riverside restaurant inside the theater premises.

Back home, with a phone that had gone completely dead, I dropped off to sleep, dreaming of the next day and a new/working phone :P

dont-ignore

2007-06-20T14:51:00.000-07:00

allright, so I got this fwd. and maybe it was the fact that I had been working for over 16 hours non-stop, that I temporarily lost my senses and actually decided to read through an true-predictions-don't-ignore forwards before deleting it! :P

But I am glad I did, because by the end of reading through the article I was laughing so hard that the only reason I didnt fall off my bed was the laptop sitting on my lap ;) ....in case you are wondering why, here is the mirror image of the message, no technically mirror image, but you 'll see what I mean

AMAZING/EXCELLENT/GREAT kisser : Scorpio, Aries, Aquarius, Leo, Cancer, Tauras

atleast 5/12 people in this world are great kissers. The rest 7/12 need classes...hmm, good business idea for the highly priviledged 5/12th ?? can be started with zero capital investment ... ;)

Their Love is one of a kind. Silly, fun and sweet/Have own unique appeal/Rare to find : Libra, SAgittarius, Gemini, Pisces, leo

so 5/12 of the ppl in this world are rare to find...where are they all hiding?? I wonder if they have together formulated a unique formula for love , so that it remains "one-of-a-kind" ;P

Loves being in long relationships : Scorpio, Aries, Aquarius, Leo, Taurus, Sagittarius, Capricorn

wow ppl!! that more than half the world's population wants to stay committed. Divorce lawyers, get packing !!!

Always get what they want : scorpio, virgo, pisces, capricorn

so if a scorpio-virgo pair wanted different things ...what would they finally settle for?? oh i know!! alimony!!! :D

Not one to mess with. : Leo, Sagittarius, Tauras, Aries, Libra,

I've decided not to mess with anyone...just in case ;P

Not a Fighter, But will Knock your lights out.: aquarius, gemini, cancer,

I am not even sure what that means ???

Amazing in...: aquarius, gemini, sagittarius, libra ... ahem. prudence forbids me to finish or comment ....

The most caring person you will ever meet, funny, intelligent , romantic, irresistible, blah blah blah:

all of them!!!( well give or take a few adjectives) :P

and here's my favorite bit

SAGITTARIUS - Nice to everyone They meet. Their Love is one of a kind. Silly, fun and sweet. Have own unique appeal.Most caring person you will ever meet! Not the kind of person you wanna mess with- you might end up crying.

LIBRA: Nice to everyone they meet. Their Love is one of a kind. Silly, fun and sweet. Have own unique appeal. Most caring person you will ever meet!however not the kind of person you wanna mess with ... u might end up crying...

Ok! So I really wonder how can two people, well 1/6 the population of this world actually, be identical in traits and yet have "own unique appeal" and "love of a kind" .... and if you know one of each, ( and assuming the caring nature percolates to other relationships as well) , then are you allowed to make them compete for being " the most caring", ??!! :P

oh and i almost forgot, all of the above ppl, who were unfortunate enough to not receive this mail at all, or silly enough to not read it or stupid enough to not forward it, are going to have extremely bad luck for the next 2-24 years...so maybe the 3rd world war is inevitable!!!!!!!

The mail doesn't really say anything about inverting it, and blogging it, so I hope I get the benefit of doubt... ;)

On a somewhat more serious note, why would a mail with more-or-less 5 different sentences, 8 different adjectives, ,exactly 5 different numbers for the years of bad luck and no predictions ofcourse, right or wrong, manage to do so many rounds of senseless emails ...have we really ran out of good reading stuff and other means of keeping working blues away that badly??!!

We all agree, that sex sells. and at some point or the other, we all buy it as well, publicly or not (;))!! whether its a legendary book (and rightly so) like the Godfather, or a commerical senseless flick, all rely, and sometimes unfortunately and solely so, on some or the other form to increase the respective viewer/reader ship. And well, it wouldnt sell, if no one bought it, and no one buys things they don't like or don't want, except insurance ofcourse ;) so I guess if ppl do like it, and buy it....then why am I complaining?? maybe, because too much of everything , is an overkill ...

the first day sightseeing in london...

2007-06-20T12:50:00.002-07:00

long awaited (by me only :P) and much delayed (again by me only :P) ...here goes my account of the first day i spent sightseeing in london

a windy, chilly day, it rained for the better part of the day starting early afternoon. my host practically made me wear her sneakers and jacket, and made me change from the summery skirt and strappy sandals before I left in the morning, and God bless her for that!!! I'd've frozen to death on my first day :P

first day on the national rail and tube. first destination : Buckingham palace - change of guards ceremony. train from clapham junction, platform 14 to the victoria station, from there walk to the buckingham palace, as always lost the way in the first attempt and went in the exact opposite direction, amazing how I manage to get lost on a 5 minutes walking distance :P Well I walked back, and met an indian lady,
her daughter and grandson , delightful company :). The place was so heavily crowded that I wondered if it was even worth it, and maybe it was because I was tired of tip toeing, I decided it wasn't after half an hr and so I turned around and took a walk along the st. james park instead. A beautiful park, and the weather actually made the walk more enjoyable. :) I then walked towards traffalgar sq., again in the exact opposite direction, and reached BigBen and the Houses of parliament instead. Took some pictures and walked on to traffalgar sq..

By now I was quite starved, so I bought a sandwich n juice along the way from a tesco metro where all the cashiers were asians?! , and a bangladeshi cashier played a prank on me asking for 13 pounds instead of 3. That was when I realised what it feels like to be tourist, its like you are holding a placard saying "I am a tourist" :P, a

Neways, ate my sandwich at the traffalgar sq. took a few pics and asked sm1 for westminster abbey, and realised it was next to bigben!! :D :D :D . So once more I was stabnding in the exact opposite directiion to where I wanted to go :P

I walked back, adn decided to walk across a bridge instead. In middle of the bridge i asked for directions, and well, was again in the opposite direction, :O

By now I was quite used to being me, so i just kept moving, crossed the bridge, came along the other side on thames, walked past the london eye with the intention of coming on same evening there, took a few pics a lot of ppl were doing these entertainment shows on the street and sm were dressed as statues!! neways, walked back across another bridge reached westminster abbey only to realise that it was time to meet a friend at tower bridge!

so I went back to the westminster station, found and bought "the film" for another friend, entered the platform , this time for the train going in the opposite direction, walked up the station again and went round the other way to the actual platform i wanted, hopped on the tube, had the rest of my sandwich, got off at

tower hill station, walked up the station to tower of london, where I did find my friend sitting there, waiting for me. First day all alone in london, getting the oppsoite direction 4 times since morning and still Only 20 min late :P, I felt really proud of me :P :P

to be continued...

2007-06-10T11:53:00.000-07:00

allright! so I went to london. it was a short, very short 15 day work trip, so didnt get to do a lot, but for 15 days, i think i did pretty ok. thnx to my perfectly delightful hosts, who made sure I had the best time possible :)

But what am I, if I dont get into philospophical moods and dont have a lot to say on almost everything I experience :P And it definitely wouldnt be like me, if I actually did say it all, instead of putting it up on this blog :P so from now on, as and when I get time , I'll keep writing all that I have in my mind ...epsecially w.r.f to this trip.

Ofcourse, I could write a piece like I did on Hyderabad, but it was 3 days, ...and I really dont want to scare everyone off :P and I could give the link to pics on the blog as well, but I have crossed my limit on flickr, and am still trying to figure out different access rights for different pics in the same album in Picasa... well i coudlnt, so i created a new one on picasa, here's the link

so till then, I guess things will have to wait and come in bits and pieces :P

hmm..i like this one ;)

2007-06-06T02:34:00.001-07:00

Your Chances of Being a Multimillionaire: 52%

You have a decent shot at being a multimillionaire. Surprised?
You're confident and a hard worker. Keep it up!

Will You Be a Multimillionaire?

...though I wish it had been slightly higher , like 98% maybe ;P

2007-05-22T06:31:00.000-07:00

just a snippet ....

pacifier: common sense is the most uncommon sense to be found around us
frutrated: and non-sense...the most common .....

curiousity-turned-into-sparkle

2007-05-22T04:48:00.000-07:00

There's always a first time for eveything. and though the first time may not always be perfect,or the most memorable, its still always completely unforgettable.Whether its a small car, which you invariably want to upgrade , or a house that's too small, or too noisy or your stupid first crush on your seventh grade teacher...its special because it was the first. Because it was something new and it gives your eyes that curiousity-turned-into-sparkle of a wonder revealed for the first time, a fresh mystery unravelled. And I believe that life is just one day at a time, and no matter how much we grow up, it is the desire to feel and experience new , hitherto unexplored arenas that keep us looking forward to the next day. If at the end of each day, we have discovered felt or created something new, no matter how tiny, that the feeling of achievement brings a smile so genuine that it doesnt matter if that smile lasted a flip second. That's why children enjoy life more than anyone else, and as we grow older our frustration, stress and dissatisfacion levels increase because we forget to notice the wonders of life around us and get lost in the struggle for survival and race for acquisition....

So what do you do when you see a grown up adult, a teacher and a mentor you hold in high esteem, telling you that he had never seen a hailstorm till a few yearsback, and has never tasted hail till date???? ......you pick up the most perfect piece of hail you can find, wash it it the rain for a few moments and hold it out to him. And as he eats it, you click an everlasting mental picture of that childlike curiousity-turned-into-sparkle in his eyes, of a wonder revealed for the first time, a fresh mystery unravelled....

and create an everlasting memory of the first time you actually taught your mentor something new ;)

I need an a-pin

2007-05-11T03:13:00.000-07:00

I thought infinite loops exist only as bugs in softwares. I sincerely hope I made some very stupid mistake, or else, this morning's incident is bound to have a lasting impact on my notion... ;)

Worried about not being able to check my credit card outstanding statement, I decided to generate an a-pin for my credit card. And so I called up the ICICI helpline...Here's how it went...

me: dial...
them: (its ringing)...please enter your 16-digit credit card number
me: xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx
them: please enter your 4 digit a-pin...
me:?????
them: or to generate a pin online, press 1
me: 1
them: please enter the verification code on the reverse of your card...
me: xxx
them: please wait while we connect to a phone-banking-officer, your wait time is approx 4 minutes
...after 4-5 minutes of listening to the safe banking instructions(which if I had practiced I wouldn't be calling thwem up...and now that I have called them up, its obcviously too late !! )....
them: goodafternoon how may I assist you?
me: I need to get an a-pin generated for my cr. card
them: can I have your cr card no. please?
me: (again??) xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx
them: can I have your Date-of-birth please?
me: dd-mmm-yyyy
them: can I have your Credit Card expiry date for verification purposes?
me: (pfff)...mmm-yyyy
them: thankyou ma'm!! I'll transfer your call to the appropriate menu, you can generate your a-pin directly...
me: (finallly!!!) thnx..
...back to the menu....
them: please enter your 16-digit creadit card no.
me: (iiiiiiiii!!!!) xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx
them: please enter the verification code on the reverse of your card...
me: xxx
them: please enter your 4 digit a-pin...
me: oh-God-is-this happening all over again!??!
them: or to generate a pin online, press 1
me: 1
them: please wait while we connect to a phone-banking-officer, , your wait time is approx 4 minutes..........

If you can figure out where I made that seemingly un-apparent stupidity and chose the wrong option, please let me know, else... I'll call the ICICI helpline again ... :P

u-turns...

2007-05-10T03:59:00.000-07:00

Does life take u-turns?? I don't know, people do say though, that "Time comes a full circle" and "History repeats itself" ... so I guess it must. but lets not get into the rhetoric since I have also read and heard many a times,... it is the journey that matters more.Well nor do I know if it always matters more than the destination, specially when the destination is not death, but a movie show, or a wedding, where getting late may mean missing the actual event :P ....

But then what is a little sacrifice of a movie or a wedding functgion or a dinner party, to a lot of driving, losing the way and getting stuck in traffic... not to mention an occassional crash encounter with another equally lost driver, or a uniformed officer looking to make a quick buck ;) ....and most of all loads of joking, no-bars-laughing and some unfogettable memories and loads of u-turns.....

lost1:

1 car, 5 friends, an expected 2.5 hr drive, a friend's engagement party...
planned arrival time: 9:00 PM
actual leaving time: 10:00 PM
2 hrs down the road...car going at 80 km/hr

frnd1: allright, so now we're about the enter the state, take out the invitation card and tell me the address
frnds2-5: ??????????????????????????????
frnd2: i'd asked u guys to take a print out...u have it right??
frnd3: im the guest, you ppl are suppsed to organise the logistics
frnd1: somebody tell me if we have to take a left or a right from here, its the highway i cant stop
frnd4: take left
frnd5: i think u shud take a right...

20 minutes down the right...

frnd2: we're nowhere ...let me call them up, do u have his parents' no.?
chorus: NO!!
frnd2: fiance's parents?
chrous: NO!!
frnd2: his roommate's
chorus: NO!!
frnd2: ne1's no...???
frnd4: i have my PL's no...do u want it??...
frnd1: lets just take a u turn, and go back and take a left from there...
phone-a-friend: have u reached
frnd2: no, u connected to the net? check ur mails, dig the card out and tell us the address....

another 40 min down the left, armed -with-the-address...

strngr1: sir, go straight and take u -turn at the first cut, go back to flyover and take a left, its a 30min drive (we had taken a u-turn after 20 min)
another 10 min and a u-turn later
frnd4: im feeling sick, can we find a chemist first....
the-chemist: sir ur taking the longer route...take a u-turn, go straight...take a left from the round-about, go straight till the road ends in a T, and take a right, 10 min from there....

final arrival time: 1:30 AM
function status: engagement over, dinner almost over, guests have all left long ago, its just the family, and us!!!
Commments: some of the best times with my friends...

lost2:

4 cars, 12 people, headed for an office dinner party ...
expected arrival time: 9:00 PM
actual leaving time: 9:30 PM

driver1: who knows the way??
driver3: I do....just follow me
driver2: cool...

10 min later, the expressway.....

driver1: hey driver2, look, that car is trying to race me,
driver2: lets roll........
driver4: i'm in

another 8 minutes (or so) and the race which-never-happened later...

driver1: oh shit! where's driver3? we were supposed to follow her...
me: Let me call her up... its busy , and so is driver2...i think they're talking to each other..
driver1: oh there's driver2, ahead of us, lets go...

...10 min later...

driver1: where's driver2 going, right , no left, there's no left here...oh no there is! wait!! now what!?! why has everyone stopped??!!
driver2: (on a call)@driver3, we've taken the left, where are you?? what!oh ...we're one left early
driver1: lets take a u-turn
driver4: lets go back in reverse, it'll be fun...
another one like me: i know the way, this road joins that one, just take a right
driver1: allright...ev1 follow us...

...a right, a left, and the next traffic light....

driver1: we take a right from here right??
another one like me: yes
driver1: oh shit, no we should not have taken this right, this is not the one...let's take a u-turn...

....back at the traffic light...

driver4: now where to?
me: driver2 has reached the meeting point
driver1: i think we should've gone straight, so now we take a right
driver4: okie

...and the next signal,

driver1: there's nothing here, we shud've taken a left, let's take a u-turn...

....back at the same traffic light...

driver1: let's go straight

...straight and the next left turn....

driver1: bingo! there're the other cars.
driver3: plz just follow me now

...2 min & a left turn later...
driver1: oh shit! we're here!! its was this close!!??!!

final arrival time: 10:30 PM
dinner status: lets not even get there....
comments: i never knew I could laugh so much without my friends...

Looking forward to the next series of u-turns....after all life is a u-turn ;)

2007-05-08T04:23:00.000-07:00

I write. Though the infrequency of my posts, and their intimidating length (:P) does indicate that I am not a very reader-friendly writer, but the fact still remains that I write. And the fact that I write must obviously imply that I believe in the power and beauty of words. Right?! Wrong!! I detest using words. I am not a very talkative person, atleast not with most of the people, most of the times. I prefer listening way more to talking. My role in most of the conversation is that of a listener, varying from intent to polite ... depending on the content of the conversation ofcourse ;) somehow listening is just so much better than talking. Though I am sure people around me don't agree with me, they are so fed up of not being able to extract
more than a "hmm" , and that too after much effort :P ....But seriously there's so much you can learn by listening to someone, not just about or from the content, but about the person as well. Their eyes, body-language, nature, specially if its a personal story. And besides, most people are quite comfortable talking about themselves, and quite fond of it rather...that its the easiest way to get into a relaxed, easy conversation.

So you come to know about a person, by listening to them. And you come to know a person by being with them, observing them in their most natural day-to-day activities, interactions with their families, friends, colleagues and strangers. But when do you know you really connect to somebody. At any level, a colleague, a friend , your parent, child, lover, spouse, anyone....when do you really connect with a person?? Have you ever realised that you can stay with someone all your life, talk your heart out to them each passing day, and yet feel that the other person does not understand you?! That some inexplicable day, you feel utterly alone simply coz u have ran out of words??? Its because you never tried the power of silence.

Have you ever that quote, "With your best friends, you can sit silently and walk off feeling you've had the best conversation ever"... its not just a quote. and its not limited to just your best friends. Mom's head massage, a relaxed quiet dinner all by urselves,a movie with your sibling, a drive across a drizzling path with lush greenery on both sides, a coffee with a friend as you both just look out the window, lost in ur own thoughts, holding the phone silently for a few moments followed by a simple goodnight....

The best moments in life, the best memories, more often than not, have nothing to do with words.Silence speaks louder than any number of eloquent speeches, and the people with whom we learn to share our silence are the ones we connect with most strongly and intimately.

The power of silence is far greater than any other mode of communication, words, perhaps topping that list....and yet, if silence speaks, then too much silence kills as well. So I guess its just about striking a balance between the two.

Yet, it remains my favorite mode of communication...though I know people who'd respond to this saying, "Your favorite mode of no-communication-at-all" :P .....