Careless Whispers

The Adle Quest

2007-08-14T12:39:00.000+05:30

Unlike most of my previous posts this one does not speak about me for a change. The protagonist in question here is none other than our very own Mr. Deepak Bharti (better known as DB or mika), fellow intern and mischief maker at Barclays Capital.

This was our last weekend in London, and having had enough of Lewisham the suburb we lived in, we decided to spend this weekend in style. We crashed at Ganesh and Hil’s place in Bakers Street (ya the same which was made famous by one of the most revered fictional character ever – Sherlock Homes). After the Sheesha experience (Iranina restaurant with specialty in flavoured hukkas) and a long unwarranted walk (it’s a long story in itself) me and Ganesh ended up in a Casino. This was a 1st for me but believe me you, Ganesh is a pro, while I watched and learned, Ganesh ended up making some 60 pounds in the few hours he played poker.

Now Ganesh has this excellent philosophy that money won in a casino needs to be spent in style, and not kept for profit purposes. I, DB and Ganesh had an excellent idea how we wanted to spend this money, while the committed guys from the group backed out (read Hil and Baveja) the three of us decided at least one trip to a strip club was definitely on the cards. With a sponsor we had nothing to worry and the predicament that we were not going to spend money for such a cause was solved as there could hardly be a better use for money won in a Casino :)

The Venus – that was the place. We had seen the ad on the paper and after making sure that the place was not just a sham, there was no looking back. The tube took 9 minutes to Farringdon and "the place" was quite close from the station. The bouncers on the gate had biceps the size of my thighs or maybe thicker, a glance at each other and we all understood that none of us should even try to play the wise guy. We were escorted in, there where chicks all around… will not get into details but it was gr8 (BTW there were no lap dances there only table dance – no touching strictly), and there she was one look at her and DB fell in love, there she was Adle, dancing gracefully with an innocent sparkle in her eye and a Colgate smile on her face. When the dance ended DB was in a world of his own, the other performers came and went but DB had his eyes fixed on this beauty who was sitting all alone at a corner in the hall.

Dreamy eyed almost in trance and with infinite enthu boosting from me and Ganesh, DB finally decided he wud talk to her and that he did… even earned a personal performance. For the entire evening and most of the next day DB was lost in a different world. Adle never left his mind not until Monday morning when we were back to office… DB was is love and at times the way he speaks about her I’m sure he still is.

The most eventful B'day ever

2007-03-10T21:05:00.000+05:30

The most eventful B'day ever

Not many people get to celebrate their b'days in a manner that I get to do, not that I throw a huge party its just that 31st December happens to be a day when the whole world is partying and celebrating and this year was no different and the best part was I got to celebrate it with so many people it was real fun. If u've talked to me lately few of the things I would be continuously blabbering about are, this assignment, that report, some quiz, some other exam, life has become very predictable at IIM B and you can rest assured that more often than not I'll be busy in one of these if not more, however our exams ended on the 30th, knowing better than to escape the "bday bumps" I had planned to stay behind for the midnight bash, so after a pseude dinner and a couple of beer bottles down in an uptown Italian restaurant ( Little Italy - Indiranagar and I aint ever going back there, never ever, not that it pinched my wallet too hard, and believe me you, it didn’t spare me much on that count, but the freaky place was a vegetarian!!!, now there is a limit to what a man can stand... I'm sure all non-vegetarians would unite with me to say a vegetarian meal while eating out is a waste of time and money)... back to the story ...after a pseude dinner and a couple of beer bottles down in an uptown Italian restaurant, we raced back to be in time for the dreaded "hooshing". I was there on time but the best thing was more than half the batch had already left for home and after the token hooshing we had the most civilized of the b'day celebrations ever at IIM B. I actually got to cut the cake and people actually had pieces of cake to eat and when we were thru we left the cut pieces on the mess table, people must've surely thought it was a joke.

I had an early morning flight and had to leave at around 4 in the morning and so I decided against taking a nap (getting up would've been very difficult with 3 days of exam sleep still pending + a couple of beers in my belly). After an uneventful journey (except that it was my 1st time ever in a flight) we reached Calcutta and a few phone calls (and a little more) and a couple of hours later I was sitting in the same restaurant where some of us had given our placement treat at the end of that memorable 1 day cal tour for all the winigies. Jha was there with me, Suvro joined in a little later (later I came to know another bastard wingie Uddu was in town but had not bothered to inform us) and as far as motu is concerned not even the guys who live in cal know about his whereabouts, and the bugger is so dormant over the group that his absence was almost taken for granted. Anyways here I was celebrating my b'day with few of my best frnds and of course I don’t remember how much we gulped down this time but it was soon time for my train and off I was to catch the train. Jha was there to see me off and maybe it was the amount of alcohol , or maybe jha has that magic, but it did feel a little like the time all the wingies were seeing off every other guy one by one, its been almost 2 years, with some I've met once, with some maybe twice, with Dhingra of course a lot because of our common connection with Mumbai, but now that’s lost too, and with most I haven’t met at all and I don’t even know when all the wingies will set foot together...

Back to celebration mode there is more to come, Mom Dad and Cacha had come over to pick me up and there was a party of a different kind lined up a family party for a change, some of my (infinite number of) cousins (and their kids) had come over from US some other had come over to meet them in all it was a large gathering with 3 generations (1 both above and below me) coming together. I did cut the cake again, we played lots of party games which both the kids and the oldies enjoyed and for the middle generation it was great to be involved in all those moments like when a nephew or a niece or an uncle or aunt enacted / cracked the dumb-charade clue. Winning is fun but as they say its more about participating than winning, specially when it comes to such occasions.

As the countdown to New Year ended we celebrate with firecrackers and hugs and smiles. Finally my B'day ended, so did an eventful year and a New Year set in with new promises, new boundaries to be challenged, new horizons to be explored...

However there is just this little that I still have to add to that particular journey, we started early and reached Ranchi by brunch time, with no one else at home dadi was at bua's place. We were meeting for the 1st time after dada's death and even though they hardly came across in each others way but they were the only two people around the house all the time and decades of getting used to each other for better or for worse, it was a big loss for her too (this dadi is widow of my dada's elder brother and has been living with us almost since she was married, my dada had drawn his last breath in October last year... the previous blog...) and I think one of the 1st words from her were "babua, dada ke pujo ke samay na aa sakla" (son, you couldn’t even come for the last rites of grandpa...). Anyways I wont get into the emotional angle here, the last post was supposed to do that, this one was meant to be different. Bua is a grandma now too and it was the 1st time I saw Mannu bhaiya's daughter, she's such a sweetheart made absolutely no fuss in making friends with another "Chachu". 4 generations were there together laughing and smiling and as I took the wheels and we said bye to bua, there was just one more thing on my mind, next stop "home sweet home"

Dada, this one is for you

2006-12-15T04:04:00.000+05:30

The earliest memories that I have of my childhood features my grandpa very prominently. He used to walk me down to my nursery school, every now and then I would play a prank and come with an excuse for not going to school, the most common one being good old stomach ache, every time he use to fall for that and bring me back home and then tell mom “isko pait main dard hai, kaisse school bhej deti ho aise halat main” mom of course knew what that stomach ache was all about, but after the lecture session I would get the whole day off. But there were some –ve’s of going with him to school, the iron man he was he could walk miles without a sweat and expected poor me to do so as well. He would tell me stories of how when he was a kid, he used to walk to a different village to go to school, it’s a marvel how he maintained the same strength and endurance almost throughout his life, except for the last few months, when he was way into the 9^th decade of his life.

We learnt a lot from him, his dynamic life had started as a child in a small little known village in north Bihar and then transitioned to a bread winner for his family in Ranchi, to a well to do businessman, to being cheated away from all that, to the proud father of 3 well settled daughters, and two sons one an engineer and the other one of the most famous doctors of Ranchi. He had seen it all, done it all.

He gave a lot to me, my childhood would not have been same had it not been for him, as a child I would go massage his legs and he used to give me toffee’s chocolates and also money at times. I used to feel so rich with all those rupees I used to keep safely in the locker of our (my and bhaiya’s) almirah, bhaiya would borrow leisurely from that treasure and often it gave us an excuse to get into another scuffle. Thinking about all those moments and many more memories from which dada is an inseparable part its hard not to be nostalgic.

When I was back in Ranchi for a few days after L&T and before IIM B, we met for the last time. Everything was normal when I reached Ranchi, we met we talked, he told me about the time work had taken him to Mumbai way back in 1940, he told me about the things he did, the places he visited, he remembered things like it was just the other day. Of course conversations with him was incomplete without he reciting a few of his new compositions (he used to write poems), but that was probably the last normal day of his life, he lost control while walking and fell down, he was bed ridden since then. His memory also weakened and his condition kept worsening over the months before finally he succumbed to his old age on 14^th Oct 2006. I was coordinating one of the events of VISTA’06 when dad called to inform me, even though I knew all about his condition I was stunned. All the flights were full, I could not go home, that was one day when I felt totally lost, what’s the worth of all this if I can not even be with my family in such hour of need. I spent hours that night in the OAT, lying down gazing at the stars, my mind totally blank. The next few days were very tough, with summers round the corner, forms to be filled, resumes to be submitted, quizzes coming up…, mom, dad, bhaiya, everyone told me to stay back and I couldn’t even be there for his last rites.

Despite his shortcomings he was a hell of a person and will always remain a great influence on the lives he has touched, mine and everyone else’s who were around him. Anyways all that is past now, he is gone but his memories will never fade away, I’ll always love and respect him for the man he was. He had extracted the most out of life and now that the time has come, may he rest in peace.

Gutando’s didi’s shaadi

2006-09-11T18:53:00.000+05:30

Only one year working and I’ve developed such a taste for comfort that after n number of ordinary bus journey to Patna, I decided that I couldn’t settle for less than an A/C bus this time. Should’ve been wary of the Bihar Tourism bus though, the dripping water from the f***ing A/C vents made me wiser for the return journey.
I reached Nand Lal Chapra at 4 30 in the morning and as advised by Guta Singh I got down in the secluded part of the highway, in retrospect, would’ve been much wiser if I had gone to the town instead. Ne ways after repeatedly calling Guta for what seemed like an hour he finally woke up and then after waiting for wat again seemed like an hour he finally came down to receive the V.I.P guest. Back in Guta’s home I realized he is a true reflection of his family, everyone was so warm and loving. Uncle was obviously very busy and I did not get to interact much with him, but bhaiya, didi and aunty were all very caring and lively ppl.
Back to the story as soon as I reached his place Guta Singh declared I was going to be didi’s chauffer (driver snds too lowly) for the day, that did not happen entirely, but yes I did end up driving for most part of the day. Jha had made himself useful and reached home but sri sri Buddha ji maharaj wanted a chauffer to come up and pick him up, and that moment onwards I drove and drove and drove…
The other highlights of the day,
Sharing a sutta with Jha after ages,
The spell bound, childlike attention of Buddha while I was narrating my Mumbai escapades
Meeting the “Tez tarra, tez dhaar” another product of Guta’s ‘social’ Singh’s friend factory – Jyoti
The timely and opportune jokes of Shankhu
The leg pulling of Ravish
And obviously the marriage itself.
Guta Singh being the brides brother was obviously burdened with more important things in life and while he was ably supported by Jyoti, for the rest of us, apart from the rare SOS calls it was fun all the way.
BTW the jodi made a very nice couple, the groom looked almost as smart as didi looked beautiful.

Apart from the fact that i almost missed my bus back to Ranchi (courtesy Guta Singhs scooter breaking down mid way to the bus stand), those two days were full of fun and masti, almost like college re-visited

The journey continues

2006-09-06T16:07:00.000+05:30

The chicks are fine, but u need more than that to make a journey interesting, this one is tourney out to be a pretty boring one. Every now and then I get out of the coach, sit on the gate for a little while, catch a breeze of fresh air and capture the sceneries around in my cell, but after a while when I come inside, its again the same dreary atmosphere. I tried to strike a conversation with a few arnd me but nothing lasted more than 5 mins. Not very optimistic about abt things changing much, but one thing for sure from this low things can only improve (as they did later when I got into a chat with another uncle, Kgp alumnus, who was traveling with his family that also included a hot daughter)
The main problem with striking a conversation with when one starts a conversation with someone is that it inevitably comes to what are u doing, what have u done sort of questions and then in becomes hard to keep words like IIT and IIM out of the conversation. If its left to that its fine but invariably the other person either totally embarrasses u buy showering praises, or else starts trying to prove he/she is better off. Get a life dude, I’m not interested and I did not even want to bring up the subject, all my enthu then vanishes.
BTW u must’ve surely heard 99% of the grls in the world are beautiful the rest 1% are in my college. A similar analogy can be drawn in my compartment, but since I believe all the grls in this world are beautiful, there is a slight change in the wordings – Almost all the grls in this compartment are gorgeous, the not so beautiful one has a seat just beside me :(
The babe I had talked about in the “uncle ji” post has other babes frnds, who have come calling on to her. So I’ll put my pen down now and concentrate more on the “scenic beauty”
After thought – out of the 5 grls that I’m seeing right now, its hard to determine which one is the best. (puppy note I guess the mini Bombay thing is true after all)

Uncle Ji

2006-09-02T00:42:00.001+05:30

Continuing with the posts I had written in the train, here is Part two of that journey...

There are people around me talking about engineering; talking about Chemical engineering, there is one particular uncle ji, a Mr. Know it all (maybe he is), who is constantly advising a babe kinda creature as to what engg is all about, what the job scenario is and similar stuff. Most (I’ll give him credit, not all) of it is fart, but I remember how I felt as a fresher out of school to such advice.
Their seat is in the next lot of 8, a lil far off, had it not been for the chick, I wouldn’t have even cared what’s going on there but now I think it’s my moral responsibility to undo at least part of the damage that has been done. I’ll do it tomorrow, there is still one and a half day to go before I’m finally Bangalored.
BTW uncle ji is also very vociferous about women’s rights and their empowerment, in the little while I’ve eavesdropped there have been references from Rani Lakshmi bai to Kiran Bedi to Kalpana chawla, to name a few.
Another hero is now into frame, he’s in to advertising, after listening to a bit on what is branding and advertising all about, uncle ji has again decided to take the centre stage. Like all passionate Indians his line of thoughts is heavily influenced by cricked and movies. Being an oldie, Amitabh B is the obvious choice, a local flavour is added by the invent of Dhoni in the discussion, and being a loyal local, Tata is obviously not very far from his thoughts.
I give in, the randomness of his thoughts, his imaginative prowess and astounding creativity is too difficult to capture on a piece of paper. I’ll stop trying that, but one thing for sure, the journey is not going to be boring ;)

Last bit of masti in Mumbai

2006-08-21T03:25:00.000+05:30

0345 hrs, 21st August 2006
This is 1st of the 5 posts that I had written down while traveling to Bangalore, with the intent that I’d post them as soon as I reach Bangalore, well that did not happen but almost 2 months since then I finally got the time and the enthu to start blogging again…
This is sort of flashback in flashback…

I've decided that the best possible way to spend this train journey is by doing something I really enjoy a lot but haven’t done for quite some time
So ready or not here comes the next complicated/rubbish/... installment of my blog

So much has happened since I last wrote that it really astonishes me to think, how fast life moves ahead. the last few days in Mumbai is a blur, there were so many things I had planned to do before bidding adieu but I ended up chucking out most of them, the good thing is I managed at least some of them. The most memorable would be watching X men 3. had bunked school to watch movies, have lost count how many times I did not go to college coz I was watching a movie, and now finally I got the opportunity to bunk office to watch a movie. I did not have much to do in the last 3-4 days (being the usual efficient me ;), I had finished my targets much before time and was coming to office only because my release orders were not yet processed), having decided that before I leave Mumbai I must watch X-men 3, I managed to convince my friend and colleague Mr. Aaloak (strange way to spell his name, but he thinks it takes care that no one mispronounces it, poor fellow hasn’t met many of the species called hardcore bongs :D). Left office at 1115 for Huma Adlabs noon show, 8 people in total watched the show; fortunately the show was not cancelled. There was another 1st on that day, 1st time in BEST air-conditioned bus - conclusion a very nice experience and an intelligent mode of transportation but discovered too late.
After clicking a few snaps of L&T from outside, we finally made an entry back in the office not long after making us visible for a while we again ventured out; after all how long can one survive without lunch ;)

Life moves on

2006-06-02T12:17:00.000+05:30

Well tomorrow is my last day in L&T and day after tomorrow is my last day in Mumbai, I worked/lived here for almost a year now (13th June 2k5 to 3rd june 2k6). This was my fourth Mumbai trip and by far the longest.1 year in the most happening city in the country and unlike last time I fell in love with the city.

There are thousands of problems here, but still the couple of unique things that this city offers, makes it adorable. For a nocturnal guy like me there is no place like this city that never sleeps. I’ve spent whole nites roaming around here and there, I’ve taken BEST buses at 1 o clock in the nite and I’ve traveled in the last local train at 2 o clock in night and 1st local at 4 30 in the morning, have taken autos in the in between time no matter wat it shows on the clock you'll never be alone on the road.

I’ve seen bunch of grls wandering about at 2 am in bandstand, I’ve seen grls travelling alone equally late and there hardly is any safety issue ever.

The bustling Marine drive, the couple infested Bandstand and Reclamation, the skyscrapers at Nariman point, the posh Hiranandani/Lokhandwala, the riches of Colaba/Mlabar hills which inspires one to dream… not to mention the pubs and the discs, the hot chicks at those places. These are just a few things that make Mumbai an experience, worth living again and again.

Bye bye Bombay will miss you

My Pune trip

2006-05-30T13:25:00.000+05:30

Continuing wid my recently developed habit of clicking everywhere and anywhere, Ladies and gentleman, presenting my Pune trip (15th may to 17th may). This will be followed by one more photo blog (if I can find my bluetooth dongle) Mumabi darshan III, which will be the last installment of this experience called Mumbai

Expressway just before entering a tunnel

Toll naka on mumbai side
naka = place (point)
Check point = check naka; toll palza = toll naka and so on and so forth

Another view of the expressway, who says work doesn’t happen in India?

Another tunnel, two this time side by side, one in each direction. Where there is a will there is an (express) way

Mumbai-Pune highway from over bridge at Chandani Chowk

Pune city from Chandani Chowk (its on a hill therefore the view)

Snigdh – school frnd

In front of library – baratiya vidya peeth, with jigyasu school frnd

A typical Pune grl, on a hot sunny day. Full terrorist getup

I forgot the name of this eatery and no its not Villa Eden.

Mumbai Darshan II

2006-05-26T14:26:00.000+05:30

After the slums, presenting the city of dreams. The commercial capital of India, the heart of hindi cinema (bollywood), the place of riches, the place of party, the place of page 3 -
"yeh hai bombay, yeh hai bombay, yeh hai bombay meri jaan"

Uptown mumbai/south mumbai or in local lingo townside – the marine drive and churchgate area

Skyscrapers from local train (near mahalakshmi)

Sunset from Marine Drive, sun going down behind the skyscrapes of Malabar Hills.

The Air India building (intelligence report says its one of the prime targets of terrorist attack in mumbai).

Colaba view from nariman point 1

Colaba view from nariman point 2

The queens necklace, marine drive

Nariman point zero meter

St Xaviers college clock tower, across Oval Maidan

Churchgate station

Churchgate station one of the entry points

Mumbai Darshan I

2006-05-23T12:05:00.000+05:30

These last few days I have decided to explore as much of Mumbai as possible, keeping that in mind I decided to walk one day from office to a frnds place, clicking photos wherever I found anything typical of Mumbai. Finally I decided on slums and half constructed roads and bridges which now days seem to symbolize Mumbai more than any other thing.

Construction site: muddy water logged in, make shift swimming pool for the slum children

Slum Tabela

Half constructed bridge, will ease traffic when (???) completed

Same bridge from the other side

Wide road constructed (between the two roads where the traffic is moving), entry still not done

Huge water/sewage pipes running through slums

Another half constructed road-widening project

After completion of this this flyover , ppl will save atleast 4-5 kms or 15-30 mins, the entire structure is ready, entry and exit yet not done

Same flyover near SEEPZ

Pre constructed concrete slabs, ready to be put to use (god only knows wen…)

More slums

Regretting - MUTP or us?

I moved your cheese

2006-05-06T11:11:00.000+05:30

Had started writing this blog on the 2nd of Dec (I’m no super human who remembers things such as this for so long, but a quick check with the document properties is nough for dat info), then I got busy and forgot abt it completely.
I know I wont be completing the post now, so widout making any changes i'll post it in as it is format...
------------------------------------------------------------

Well I just complete this book and even for a non ardent reader like me the book is a must read, it claims to be a self help book for those who don’t want to budge even an inch. As you would have got by the introduction that the book is more of a satirical retort to all those self help book which some of us must’ve gone thru,
The closest relation I can think of rgt now is
Horror movies: Scary movie (any of 1,2,3) = Self help books: I moved your cheese
But its more than that, u got to read it to get a feel, specially for guys the chapter on " finding your mate" is invaluable
Here are some of the best from the book
"Remember change is inevitable, but unless u manage it well, it will make the coin section of your wallet stretch and will cause and unsightly bulge in your trouser"

My Cousins Misadventure

2006-04-26T17:23:00.000+05:30

Friday nite is usually a partyish nite for me. After a long day I was returning home, stuck in traffic for over an hour waiting for the ordeal to end, wen my cousin called me up. Away from the influence of all the "gr8" cousins I had arnd me when I was growing up, he is more of a seedha saadha guy, whose 1st sip of beer was courtesy me just last yr. (1st yr. engg is quite early by normal standards, notice the stress on the word "normal") but then who doesn’t want to let loose once in a while.

Before I start on a diff track completely let me come back to the call, he and his frnd wanted to get drunk to a totally out stage. I normally would not encourage such behaviour but I thought I would be leaving Mumbai in a few days and after that he might never get an opportunity like this. So after a little dillydally I cancelled my movie plans (thank god for that – heard "Pyaare Mohan" is pathetic) and asked him to come over at my place. He brought over his guitar (he’s real gud at it, trying to form some band as well) and his frnd and then we went to get the stuff. I asked them wat they wanted my cousin had never drunk anything hard before so he had no opinion the other guy had drunk rum once or twice and wanted to try that again. I couldn’t let my cousin’s 1st xp being that of rum, so I bought a "kamba" of vodka and some sprite (definitely more palatable, and less of odour compared to rum) and with a few Haldiram packets we were ready.

He fixed his guitar (electric so lots of paentra) and then after a few songs they were ready for the 1st peg. It went down slowly, they started loosing control over theri bodies, though the mind still was in control. Some more guitar (he was really enjoying playing it drunk) and then the next peg and then the next... (since I had office next day and wanted some sleep so I was putting a lil more than usual in each peg so we could get over it quickly and being determined to prove that it was really not affecting them, they insisted on adding even more). Lil by lil their mind too got "liberated" and the usual stupid stupid things started happening, calling up ppl, acting weird, talking gibberish. He almost lost his touch wid the guitar too, and then with lil vodka still to go, the puking sessions started.

1st my cousin filled the basin with all that he had had in the last two days, followed by "abhi to chadhi hi nahi, aur le kar aana hoga" frnd of his, who seemed to have developed a liking to puke outside the basin. God only knows why, but the upper half of his body seemed to be making a wave before, during and after he actually puked, the momentum made sure that at least some, if not most of his inner most fillings spread all arnd. Along with the fillings the feelings also started coming out, but thanx to kgp I’m well trained to handle such situations appropriately. I put them on bed and kept a bucket nearby and asked them to use it if required, my cousin did dat once in the nite but "abhi to chadhi hi nahi, aur le kar aana hoga" frnd of his decided against moving his ass, after all wat was the floor for???

The stench in the apartment was almost intolerable in the morning, so before venturing out for a long day in office, I had to get at least some of it cleared, which I did (or else the "kaam wali bai" might have refused to step in) the apartment was now almost livable, I left them sleeping and ran to catch the office bus, it amazes me how I managed to catch it (practice makes perfect i guess, have got into this habbit of being Just in Time). By the time I came back, they had conveniently left not bothering to clean up obviously and y wud they? "Main hoon na", also the bai had been very content with cleaning only the floor, the bathroom was still in the same messy condition in which I had left in the morning and my evening or whatever was left of it (I had returned at arnd 8 from the office :( ) was spent doing the cleanup job.

As I pen down the happenings of that day I realise it was not at all a misadventure for him, all he did was have fun, while I took all the pain and the "jale par namak" kind of situation was that not only did I pay for it (from hard earned money – it’s a v difficult job to do time pass so regularly in office ;) ), I also had to clear the shit that came out of it :( (well almost literally, except that it came out from a different hole)

BTW this is his version of the story

From heart attack!!! To BLIK

2006-04-15T13:45:00.000+05:30

Things couldn’t have started worse on the 12th of April, the fateful day when the IIMs were supposed to take out the results. I was watching a movie with probably one of the best frnds that I have, wen the phone rang to inform me that C results are out, I could hear the elated voice of Rajesh in the background and others congratulating him for making it through. My pulse rate suddenly picked up and I went to check my results to a frnds place. I put the number I checked the status it read SORRY. I called back and asked my flat mate to confirm my registration number (as if I would’ve forgotten it), same number, checked again, same result SORRY.

This was a heartbreak coz I had more or less made up my mind that if I get through Cal, I’ll be joining that wont even think abt anything else. Besides other strong and compelling motivations, Suvro is already there, Jha has made it this time and there are thousands of others from KGP there. I was very down that nite, I hardly slept. (there was so much in my mind that nite, I cant even try to rite it down here)

I woke up at 4 to check it the other results are out, but they weren’t, so I went to sleep quite dejected. Next morning was no better, besides being rejected by cal, there were other troublesome thoughts too running in my mind. Finally I reached office and then checked for Bangalore, when the screen flashed SORRY I felt totally dejected, a gud for nothing crap. I had thought it would be B/C for me but both had slipped from my grasp. My flat mate was consoling me suggesting a possible 2nd list may include my name. But I gave up all my hopes when I checked Lukhnow and got a GPL from there too.

I started planning what better I had to do the next year, how much more masti I’ll do, and this time I would fill up lot many more forms (PGDCM for sure) I’ll shift to some better place in Mumbai, look for an alternate job, try to specialise more into what I intend to do and stuff like that. I even talked to Guta and the possibilities of what all we could do in Mumbai together next year. Then the phone rang. Many batch mates from kgp and anyone, who has come across him, would remember ARKSS. I talked to him in the depressed state of mind that I was then, he asked me y I was sounding so low, I told him, having got a GPL from all that I had checked, what else was expected. Then he told me but I’ve made it to B, I checked again, again it said sorry, he checked again, again it said congratulations, I decided to call B and check the result. They said u have gone through and put down the phone. Now wat is gone through, this does not clearly say that I got it, in the confused state of mind that I was nothing made sense, I gave others my details and asked to check, they confirmed the news, I called back again to IIM B he again said gone through, I was more or less convinced by now that I had actually made it. I called up home no one was there, then I gave the news to my bro and dad on his cell, bhaiya called them up again and they told him yes I was in the prime list and have to take admission by 8th may. I was so relieved.

Now with a calm mind I checked L again, instead of the dd/mm/yy format I had typed my dob in dd/mm/yyyy format, when I switched to the actual format I got another congrats, by the evening K had also come out with the result and I got a call from there too. Indore came out on the next day, I checked the results just for academic interest and got a sorry, but I did not feel sorry this time. Finally when I checked my mails yesterday I got a call from Indore too, thou the site still reads sorry.

Eventually I got a call from 4/5 that I had been shortlisted for. Except for probably what I wanted most, I still hope that there might be a fuck-up some where just like the confusion in others, but I don’t think that is going to happen with C.

Final Status
B – Through
C – GPL
L – Through
I – Through
K – Through

Excuses

2006-03-31T09:44:00.000+05:30

things are getting too personal to write on the blog. whenever i start writting i think of the possible audience and then i decide, not to write abt stuff.
Disclaimer : "Since I'm a lil drunk tonite i dont know wat i'm writing and thus am pardoned for wat is going to follow"

Let me analyse today why i'm single (excuses excuses excuses!!!!)
1. I'm too gud a person ;-), too courteous i guess to make the move soon enough, maybe grls get tired of waiting for me to make a move and then suddenly the phone stops ringing in the nites, smses stop coming and you imagine just like u have so many things already going arnd in ur mind, the grl too has some stuff going arnd and wants time off, and suddenly when u meet her or talk to her, you realise that the "some stuff" is some other stuff altogether.
2. once bitten twice shy i make my move too quickly, and the grls thinks i'm a flirt. arre i know i'm a flirt, so wat i still have a heart (and a heart of gold at that ;)). but how to make 'em understand (i hope someone takes the hint :P)
3. i think too much, i fear too much, wat if the person is not right. one of the most eligible (single) bachelors of the world cannot just go arnd with just any grl (to allay any doubts that u may have, let me clarify the eligible bachelor in discussion here, is none other than urs truly :D). she has to measure upto him and so despite being the prince charming that he is, his highness is still single cause hes so bloody choosy :(.

now that i've started refering to me in the 3rd person it feels very gud cause u can really give ur ego a big boost by using all the adjectives in the world and still not sound too proud, so in this post henceforth i will refer to me in the 3rd person.

4. his highness is too much of a man to own up being vulnerable. love is for the weak. only they need emotional support, he does not know wat emotions are. he believes too staunchly in the funda mr amir khan gave in the movie ISHQ -> "ladkiyon aur local train ke peeche kabhi nahi bhagna chahiye, ek gayi to dusri aayegi". aashole pehle ek aayegi aur phir woh jayegi tab to dusri aayegi, train ka track hi nahi to local kahan se chalegi.
5. being from an IIT has its own peril, grls are so prejudiced, he is a nerd, he is a geek, he doesnt know how to have fun, excuse me miss give him a chance atleat, not all IITians are desperate bunch of loosers that you think them to be.
6. he claims to be single and happy, he has plenty of imp things to do in life and he has plenty of frnds (including grls) with who he can chill out and have fun. then why would he want to ruin this perfect life? (what all bullshit excuses can one come with).

There is so much more that i can think of, but i will spare him the embarrasment and end now. so if ppl dont take the hints now, finally the much reliable papa mummy is there in his life as they were in plenty of others life, they will at some point of time start looking (after due permission and his acceptance of defeat in being able to look for someone for himself). so his highness neednt worry, coz there is light, at the end of the tunnel

Bloody Tagged again!!!

2006-03-27T12:27:00.000+05:30

Triple tagged (I know something of this sort is used in the WWF type of matches where 3 mean, scheming, unscrupulous… guys come together against a lone soldier). Those three mean, scheming, unscrupulous… ppl are
Uddu
Dadi
Guta
The lone brave soldier is ofcourse me

This post was written on Friday the 24th but couldn’t post it then, doing it now instead…
Today I’m in mood of no work atall, would’ve hardly done an hour of productive work. Sometimes I think LnT suits me, I PRETEND TO WORK and they PRETEND TO PAY :-D.
Coming back to the tag, here is how to go about it

The rules of the game
1. The tagged victim has to come up with 8 different points of their perfect lover
2. You have to mention the sex of the target.
3. Tag 8 victims to join this game and leave a comment on their comments saying they've been tagged.
4. If tagged the 2nd time, there's no need to post again.

Well this is sort of a repetition, of the seven sevens of life, except there the question was something like 7 things u look for in ur partner. Well in Indian context there might not be a whole lot of difference between "partner and a lover" but since I’m loving in Mumbai for almost a year now, and if my dehati friend from kgp who hails from the "bukha nanga" state of Orissa can differentiate between the two, I guess I have no options but to be more "hep" than him ;-).

What I’m writing is strictly should not be confused for what I want in a partner, and since I’m single and available I neednt be politically correct about it. So unlike *uddu, who might fear chhaavis danda, I can go ahead with my interpretation of the tag
My Ideal lover
1. Hot
2. Sensuous
3. No strings attached
4. No questions asked, no expectations
5. A phone call away
6. Should drink and smoke
7. Rich, wid a nice house widout any watchdogs, and a nice fluffy king sized bed, not a miser
8. Adventurous.
That wraps up my expectation list. Bus itna sa khwab hai :-)

But since everyone has been writing about the 8 traits of their partners, I think stopping at qualities of a lover would not be totally appropriate. So heregoes…

1. Warm and Caring -> Wat I would love most is me lying in her lap while she lovingly fiddles with my hair, or whatever u call those appendages that come out of the top of my head
2. Confident -> Its important for me that whoever she is she must be confident. About what she is doing, when facing the world, of the choices that she has made. though I’ll always try to be there to support her, but she should not be dependant on me or anyone else
3. Smartness is very important -> She should not be a bimbo, each and every sentence I say should not require a 10-line explanation.
4. Shouldn’t hesitate in giving me a little space once in a while -> Some times I may need a little time off, everyone does, but not everyone understands this.
5. She should have a disarming smile -> One of the more important ones. The power to take away all ur anger, frustration, all ur days exhaustion with one flash of a smile and a loving greeting.
6. She should be madly, truly and deeply in love with me
7. She should have the right mix of tradition and modern outlook
8. 7 points in favour of inner beauty, and the last one for exterior beauty -> I am not a greek god and I don’t expect a goddess for me, but neither am I a saint who would say this is immmaterial. The better the babe the better it is for me ;-)

Next time whoever starts with such tags please ensure there is more space, abhi to bahut kuch reh gaya :(

Now for the important thing, the tag list, I think most of the ppl I know in the blog world have already been taged. I still managed to find 8 people somehow, the list is as follows (Remember u can have ur own more sane interpretation of lover)
Iyer
Mirage
Milo
Shradha
Sarang
Monk
Roy
Vamsi

I just now saw that chhaavi had also tagged me on the same so its probably a quadruple tagged situation

Over heard…

2006-03-24T14:01:00.000+05:30

Yesterday while going to my friends place, (NIFT wala, w.r.t previous post) I was listening to radio. This grl Maya was the RJ, I was listening to her for the 1st time, but I really liked her style of introducing the songs. Instead of the normal inro’s she was narrating a story, She was already half way thru when I tuned into the station, but still I really felt touched by her narration.

The basic story line is the same, but since I remember only some points from her story I’ve probably woven a different story all together…

Aksar jab main sadak par ja rahi hoti hun to lagta hai ki peeche se koi pukar raha hai. Main mud kar dekhti hun par peeche koi bhi nahi. Awazeein phir gunjti hai, main phir ghumti hun lakin phir bhi koi nahi. Hothon par ek dabi se muskan ubhar aati hai, aur main ghar ki yaad main kho si jaati hun, peeche se ma ki aawaz aati hai, "Maya, bahut dair ho gayi, chalo ab ghar ke andar aa jao", ya bhaiya chillata hai "Maya chal andar,". Bhopal main bitaye woh bachpan ke din, aankhon ke saamne aa jaate hain. Woh ghar ke samne chota sa park, jismain bachon ke khelne ki aawazeen abhi kano main gunj rahi hai. Office se lautte Papa ke scoter ki aawaz, jisse main dur se hi pehchan leti thi, aur daud kar andar unse milne aati thi aur haath badha kar bolti thi, "Papa meri toffee". Aur phir wapis park main apne doston ke saath, sabke samne, dikhate hue who toffee main khati thi. Yehi sochte hue main apne society main ghusi, bache samne khel rahe hain, aur phir se ek awaz aati hai, par iss baar who mere khayalon main nahi, koi phir se kissi ko pukar raha hai, "Neha, bahut dair ho gayi, chalo ab ghar ke andar aa jao" aur main apne khayalon se wapis aa jaati hun, jaisse kissi ne jhakjor sa diya ho. Aankhon se aasu chalak padte hain, aakhir yahan kaun hai mera? Kisse mere ghar jaldi aane ka intezar hai? Main to ek musafir hun, haan ek musafir…

And then the song begins…
yahan kaun hai tera,
musafir…, jayega kahan…

That's me lately

2006-03-24T10:38:00.000+05:30

Long time no c, well technically I had put a couple of posts on the blog but none of them were original creations, n now that I’m through wid my GD-PI’s there is no more "bahana" So here goes…
BTW if any one of u is interested to know how my GD-PI’s went, then they were all "thik-hi-tha" category, which has been my std reply to similar questions w.r.t all the exams that I remember having given (except the ones in which I knew I was royally F**ked). Wasn’t screwed up too much in any one, and neither were they perfect, I always seemed to have a better answer once I was out of the room. So keeping my fingers crossed for the moment and hoping for the best. One gud thing that is going in my favour is that my flat seems to be lucky, two of my friends got thru in job interviews after having stayed over at my flats the previous night or maybe two nights prior to their interviews.
I haven’t decided wat I want to write there are so many things that are going around in my mind that its hard to pick and choose, getting into the details of "working hard and partying harder" may be a drag so I will avoid that, but yes life has been very generous to me in these last few days. The best thing (besides not being asked any fultu acad questions in the intv) has been rediscovering some old school friends. I wonder at times why I never met them earlier, I knew they were here, they knew I was here, we had called up a couple of times but still required for another friend from Pune to come to Mumbai for all of us to meet. Since then life has been a lot more fun. I still have fun with the geeky, nerdy (not my words but I guess everyone thinks that way) IITians, but one guys into editing/direction and stuff the another NIFTian, their friends, specially their grl frnds (more importantly frnds who are grls), frnds of their grl friends… definitely have helped add more spice in my life.
Hopefully this will be my last two-three months in Mumbai, at least for some time to come, all this while my life had been screwed up coz of test’s practices and stuff, but in this coming time I intend to change all that. There is nothing more to worry about, no big responsibilities burdening my shoulders, I’m sure I’m going to make, this time, count.
P.S. there has been lots of news lately, for instance I went to a disc for the 1st time in my life and if u r thinking I shelled out hard cash for it then think again, couple entry for pass holders was free ;-), lots of nite outs doing masti and other stuff …

From Chukku Kaapi to Cappuccino

2006-03-21T14:21:00.001+05:30

Twice now in a row that I’m putting some one else’s post on my blog, but havent been writing much lately, not that I’m pressed for time, infact the entire opposite of it, no time from time pass is the main culprit. But once I’m thru wid the interviews and the guilt feeling of not having studied at all in the day would surely go, and I would be happy to write abt some major changes that have happened in my life recently…
Till then njoy this awesome piece, some of it is in tamil, it is a very long piece but i'm sure u cant help but njoy it…
Dunno the author of this piece, got it as a fwd...

This blog was written because I was left with no work to do after coming back from Café Coffee day today. I always feel that blogs are written by people who have nothing else to do, but write blogs. And blogs are written for people who have nothing else to do, but read blogs. So if you have nothing else to do, continue reading.
Café Coffee Days in my life!!! I can't believe it. Six, seven years back I would never have imagined that such a day would occur in my life. Café Coffee day is supposed to be a place where high class people who didn't know how to spend the money they had, go. But now I am there... I have changed a lot since my school days.
As I said in my previous post, I never talked in English till the end of my 12th standard. May be in my primary school we talked in English a little bit... (Since girls were there in my primary school we used to talk in English... Mostly it was the "You go girl." "Miss this boy no... he is stealing my pencil miss" and "Miss this boy is pinching me miss" type of pathetic English.). Till I went to college, I never read an English newspaper. I never knew who Sidney Sheldon was. I never saw English movies. "Star movies" was considered adult material at home. I never talked to a girl. I don't feel that I missed anything...But still because I didn't have such experiences, I had to adjust a lot when I traveled beyond Cornigela, my place.
Born in Cornigela, an ordinary conservative town, even Chennai took a lot of time for me to adjust. My home town was too cool. You could watch movies for 15 Rs. in an AC theatre. You get the best food at lowest prices. You can drink water wherever you want and it doesn't affect you. Girls never wear T-shirts or Jeans. You can see girls in half-sarees. And there were a lot more things that were cool to me...My first costly experience as far as I can remember was my first Pizza.
In my 12th standard holidays I had my first Pizza. We, a group of 5 friends went to a bakery. It was around 7 p.m at night. We ordered our first Pizza (only one because it costed so much - 20Rs!!!). As the Pizza arrived one of the guys started using his hand to take out a piece. "Ley" ....The others shouted... "asingam pannatheylae. Fork kudupaanga"... We got 5 forks for eating one Pizza. Everybody tried taking out a piece with the fork. Nobody was successful. Stupid forks... As we were trying different methods, two girls came in, and took the table adjacent to ours. They seemed to be from the so called high class families in Cornigela. They ordered a Pizza. We were still trying to eat ours. Their Pizza arrived in their table. Unable to find a solution, we looked at them for one. One of the girls took out a piece with her hand and started eating it. Damn stupids we were!!! But what do we do now?? We can't go back to the hand-intake method... We are brave!!! Luckily for us the power went off... Forks were put down and everybody started picking a piece with the hand. Our sole aim- finish it off before power comes back!!! Unlucky for us, power came back immediately... We had a piece each in our hands... The girls started laughing... People around us realizing what had happened too joined them...We promised we would never eat Pizzas again. But we all did.
The first change in lifestyle for me occurred in Chennai. Chennai was completely different. Watching a movie for Rs.40 was a one time life experience for most people in my village. I had to adapt to such things since I had to be a part of the group. Otherwise you feel let out. My habits started changing. For example, you look into the glass before drinking water to check whether it is clean. I went to my first Coffee Pub in Chennai. I remember saying some time back "Loosu paya thaan Coffee publa poi mukkaa manineram wait panni oru black coffeeya 50 Ruba kaasu kuduthu kudippaan" - I did it...
If Chennai was difficult for me, how easy would be an MBA school? I was dumbstruck with the culture... The Hi's and the fundoo English speaking guys were all a great change, though I had expected it. There is a sense of hollowness when you say a Hi to somebody here. In Cornigela a smile was enough to say what you feel. There is real sense of belonging in a smile. I miss it - a smile without a Hi.
Here is an example to show how my family mindset is different from the mindset here. At the end of the first term when I went home, I showed quite a few photographs to my parents. In one photograph there was a guy who had his arms around a girl's shoulder. My mother asked me whether they were in love. I said "No". But even today she doesn't believe me. She still feels that they are in love!!! If only she comes here(...
The mind works mechanically here - after you crack a joke you do what they call high fives!!! When you meet a person you ask something like "What's up buddy?"- Only God knows how you are supposed to answer for such a question!!! You say "Excuse me" after a sneeze - What big mistake have you made to say that?? When you are ready to sacrifice ethics for grades and see even your closest friend as a competitor in group discussions, how much difference will that Excuse me make? Pretty difficult to adjust!!!
Even Café Coffee Days and costly dinners sometimes hurt. Daily my father takes a bus to reach home from his office because taking an auto would cost him Rs.30. He walks a kilometer daily from the bus stop to my house. When I think of that and the fact that I am spending Rs.50 for a Chocolate Fantasy, I feel uneasy. Definitely it is not a matter of money. The fact is that I somewhere in my heart feel that this is not really who I am...The fact that I have changed a lot hurts... I want to be the same myself, but I am unable to do so.
Started listing down a few things that have changed in my life. The left column is a list of things that were part of my life before I entered college. And the right are those that I came to know/were a part of my after I entered college.

I wish I go back to school and be the same guy I was. I know I can't. But I want to do it and live the same life all again.
Leo da Mirci once said, "I love what I do because I do only what I love".
If only following something is as simple as saying something!!!

Desperate IITians

2006-02-22T09:54:00.000+05:30

Picked from orkut
Author : Arunabh Kumar.
Context : Community name: Beware of Desperate IITians, Thread name: Kindly contribute ur valuable theoies..... 11/27/2005 1:25 PM
Hi guys,
I have been with the 'IITian'for almost 10 yrs now. Most of my frnds who I used to hang out with since Std 8 have gone on to become the reason of concern for memebers of this community. I will try my best to answer you with all my experience. And I wud like to do it using the technique that we are allegedly best at.Solving it as a problem.
Problem : Prove that any element X that belongs to a set "IIT" will give the extreme(not max*) value of "function{desp}" when mapped on the values of the factors of 'desp' to that of X.
I will use statistics & number theory theorems to prove this.
Assumptions:1] Most of us belong to middle class
2] Most of prepared for JEE for 2 or more yrs
3] Most of us have been studious boys at some time in past life
4] Comparison is only among college students
5] Most of us are heterosexuals

From simple ‘product of factors theorem’ of Statistical Maths desp{X} = f{A,t,s,r,P,E,D,e} (d = directly proportional, i = inversely proportional)
Where
desp d A= age factor (since it’s a normal distribution with maxima around 26,so maximum, taken from a publication of "The Scientist magazine")
i t = fraction of time spent with females in 1 day ( we will have to integrate this over 4 years because the value of this in 1 day will be an infinitesimal element, which will make the value of ‘desp’reach infinity , t definitely comes to a minimum among all colleges)
i s = Social life quotient (considering the places where IITs are and the kind of background most of us come from(and the proffs), its minimum among all colleges)
i r =Sex ratio (again averaged over all the 7 IITs otherwise it will come negligible and will shoot the desp function to infinity., and surely is minimum among all colleges)
d P= percent of time on issues other than gals (I don’t think I need to tell this one as our rigorous academic n campus life easily makes it maximum among other colleges)
d E= lack of emphasis towards gal in past life(from the above assumptions its pretty obvious that we belong to the crowd which preferred to do other things than increase our network among girls at interschool level as we were busy in tuitions and NTSE , so maximum)
d D= Sexual Desire (since this is maximum among ppl who have not yet experienced it , and from the available data and the problem , its evident that the value corresponding to X is maximum)
d E’ = emotional fulfillment (considering the hostel life, lack of interaction with proffs n family, stress, and boredom with the monotonous life, maximum among all the colleges)
Following a simple theorem in number theory which says that If you have extreme values of all the parameters if a function, then they are bound to give you the extremum values of the function.
So desp = D max * E max * s min* P max *E’ max * r min * Amax * t min
Now considering the reciprocal functions of s min, r min and t min as S max, R max,T max and replacing them in the above function Now, desp = D max*E max*S max*P max*E’ max*R max*A max*T maxNow using the theorem stated above,
We get desp{X} = (DESPE’RAT) max
And hence proved
[P.S. -* There are cases when you will find that you will get minimum value of ‘desp’ when you consider some elements from the set ‘IIT ‘, (so bad that their wives will actually have to go to neighbors)]
Guys,I just had my exams over so I used my 2(cud hav been boring)hours on this and initially even thought of proving it by Fuzzy Logic,but I was apprehensive,If all wud get it. Though I wanted to multiply the final value with a factor of apparent desperation (among girls, cause I have actually seen non IITians do some of the most despo stuff but still not dubbed desperate but instead they are branded as cool bad guys with guts)So the precieved value of desperation is more for an IITian that its actual value. with the coefficient >1
______________________________

An admirable work indeed
though there is one more point of extreme importance that I would like to quantify and add

the P instead of being the percentage of time spend on other activities... could have been the perception that others have of IITians (general ppl think IITians r nerds, geeks, dont wanna have fun, and engg think there is only 1 thing they do- they dope) this being a D factor (directly propotional and on a scale of 1-10 its value is arnd 100) the desp (IITian) increases manyfold...

exp talking guys, I've stopped using the word IITian as long as the word is not forced out of me, even then i stop at kgp/kharagpur and leave it on the intelligence of the other to comprehend wheter i'm from an IIT or an ITI...

Very Inspirational thou… I have decided I’ll come up wid my own desperation theory soon

Taxing experience

2006-02-18T09:46:00.000+05:30

Its all done now… filled the form – C (for the uninitiated this is w.r.t the Income tax), showed all the savings for the year and finally I’ll end up giving a lil bit to the govt. of India for the 1st time (in actual terms coz technically, IT was being deducted from my salary, but that will now be refunded, except corresponding to the amount over the min taxable income that I did not claim to save ) Hope that in three years from now I’ll be a huge tax payer for the govt.

Now three may seem to be a lil odd to you, (it is a odd number is it not? So y wouldn’t it ;-)). Y not 2, y not 1 or 4? 3 years from now à hopefully 2 yrs MBA this yr onwards one yr of income and then finally the tax.

10000 and going strong…

2006-02-10T13:01:00.000+05:30

Now that the BSE is amoungst the select club of indices that have seen beyond the 10000 mark, the question is what next? There is optimism every where ppl have been heard saying next stop 12000, I hope that comes true soon, spclly with the budget promising to be pro-reform the bull run may continue.
I’m no expert in stocks, I havent even invested into the market but its hard not to notice it. There was no better time to be an Indian and to be a Proud Indian, The stock market is just a reflection of those sentiments. The economy is booming India is set to overtake Chinas rate of GDP growth by 2015, double digit growth rates now seem to be a distinct possibility, ppl expect that abt the time 2025 – 2030 India will become the 3rd biggest economy of the world, overtaking Japan and leaving the European giants far behind.
Slowly but surely the tiger is rising, beware dragon ur monopoly will soon be challenged.

ParT tHrEE

2006-01-23T14:17:00.000+05:30

Its been long since I last put anything on board, nowdays its more of working hard and working harder!!!
But a job once taken up has to be finished so here is the 3rd installment of my fun days in mumbai.
Went to mood I on the 1st day itself and then vowed not to go again… managing passes were not a big problems and I used my contacts well. After I reached there I heard Indian Ocean was to perform that day, almost all my enthu drained but I went inside anyway and after the long wait outside finally managed to get in. The OAT here is not very big and was jam packed, I was expecting worse but coz it was not a very long performance (10 o clock deadline to loudspeakers in Mumbai) they played most of their well known songs and it turned out decent. Thou I decided then and there that I was not wasting anymore time on mood-I, spring fest (kgp – cult fest) is definitely a better xp despite of a lil lower budget (even crowd wise). That day ended in the IIT B life line Sujata palace.
31st again was a lil disappointing. Our plan for essel world flopped coz after abt 2 hrs in the line for ferry we were yet not sure if we would get one b4 midnight. We then decided to go to Marine drive to watch the fireworks, but running short on time (if we did not want to celebrate new yr in the train) we stopped at bandra and went to bandstand, so new year was spent in Barista with thousands of other ppl at the rocky beaches of bandstand.
On 1st we had an office party at Hotel Residence, poolside garden. There were games, food, music, dandiya, garbha in short fun, this was one of the better days that I had spent in that period. Dandiya was the best thou, without any know how of anysteps we invented few of our own and kept going.
The best day ofcourse was 7th of january 2006. Our units party in Le’ Royal Meridian. This was a family affair and hence the glitz and glamour of Marriot was missing but just besides our hall the Oman Airways party was also on, and I did get a glance or two of the airhostesses there. The lounge also had its own share of page3 kinda ppl. It was a dinner and cocktail party and I did not let the opportunity go waste. Had a gud outing overall.
Yesterday I also ticked off café’ leopold from my "to do" checklist, its another café in the same mould as café mondegar, similar crowd if not better over there.
There were other opportunities also, lots of movies and malls in the period. The one that strikes out is wedding crashers in Fame Malad (Inorbit mall), and not only because it’s a must watch, too gud movie. I would recommend anyone that, the only thing to remember is not to watch it with parents.
The crowd at all these places seemed to be better than the previous, description would’ve been a lil repetitive, so the omission. I’m falling in love with the city, and hope that this yr will not be my last association with this city.

Working hard... PARTYING HARDER Part-II

2005-12-29T09:58:00.000+05:30

Wednesday obviously comes next in line, and we were all set for "Not Just JAZZ by the Bay" unfortunately one of the guys fell ill and we had to drop the plan, we went to see apaharan instead, it was a mast movie, serious but fun.
Remainder of the week remained surprisingly calm, there was a plan for harry potter and the chamber of secret on Sunday but after going all the way to the multiplex I found that it was housefull, 4 weeks since its release and still running house full? How was I to believe that this is possible, on the same day another party got cancelled, one of my hostel’s senior, was in town and we had decided to have some fun, unfortunately he got busy and so the entire day was screwed up. I almost forgot to add that we had seen neal and nikki on Saturday ( I guess it was not worth remembering any way)
An entire week had gone by without anything much xcept movies and failed plans, I don’t remember correctly if it was Monday or Tuesday that I set out for my next outing. This time the destination was vashi (navi mumbai). It took us almost 2 & a ½ hr to reach there, almost the same time I was required to travel to go to Calcutta from Kgp, or from Ranchi to Jamshedpur, but I guess in bombay this things are not unheard of. Another senior’s treat this time, the place was called Creek (the bar of a certain Hotel Abbot), it was another night of fun.
Thursday we went for bluffmaster, me and my flatmate, we thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and then it was destination pizza hut, Friday after a tr8 at pizza hut in the evening, I had another one at Urvashi ( a nice bar cum restaurant in borivali) I was almost entirely full so could not eat much, but there liquids do not occupy much space and there is always space for some in ur stomach, so I drank instead.
Finally on Saturday (Christmas eve) we managed to get the tickets for harry potter and my long due promise to my cousin was finally fulfilled. Evening was spent in the lanes and bylanes of bandra followed by a lil time in totos, but the best part was yet to come, I stayed over at my frnds place (Company’s accommodation) in bandra, now let me tell u a lil abt this place, in that apartment all the floors had just one flat, 4 bedroom flat, with a hall that was big enough to play football. BTW did I tell that Kareena Kapoor (yeah the film actress), lives in the top floor of the same apartment, we ate and drank in the company of his 2 flatmates, which included one of the most beautiful creature, that I’ve ever seen in flesh and blood.
Sunday (Christmas) both of us went to bandstand (walking distance from his place, many film stars including shahrukh khan live in bandstand), this place is sort of a lovers paradise, u’ll see pairs all around, some of them doing things not worthy of public description. The connoisseur of natural beauty that we are, we had gone there to simply to enjoy the aesthetics of nature, which we ofcourse did, Sunday ended for me with a mast dinner at my bua’s place.

Part 3 amongst others will be abt the experiences of mood-indigo (moodi-i, the IIT bombay fest), the new year bash, the office party on the 1st and our units party on the 7th.

Working hard... PARTYING HARDER - PART 1

2005-12-23T16:12:00.000+05:30

For the last one month or so the amount of work that I’ve been doing would over weigh the cumulative effort of my 5 months before that easily, but 4m wat I’ve learnt in the last few months I’ve stopped complaining.
My biggest blunder in these last few weeks was on the 21st of Nov. 2k5, it wasn’t as if I screwed up with work, but worst than that, I missed an "order wat u want free of cost" invitation to the Hyatt. That was one of two days in the next 20 odd days that I had left office on time, the sudden offer came after office hours on that day, but since then I’ve more than just made up for dat loss.
It started on a mundane Tuesday ( 6th Dec), after slogging it out in the office till 7 30 (usual chutti time is 5 10) I came out and smsed one of my colleague (FOSLA case) abt his beloved standing rgt behind me in the bus queue. Fortunately he was @ Aura in Hiranandani with 2 other guys from my unit, and in a few minutes I was there too. We let the aura surround us completely (with after effects visible the following day as well). With a special Karaoke night dat day it was even more special than the usual two hot Romanian babes sizzling the stage and the extremly good crowd of THE Hiranandani. The best part of the show was the grls singing on our request a couple of hindi songs in their thick accented voice.
After a days rest I was out again on Thursday, this time I was heading towards Colaba, the heart of the city, finally after catching up with the guys who were already waiting for me, we landed up in Café Mondegar, the place was infested with firangis, (the Indians there were even better) we somehow managed to get a small table for 4. It was a day of 1sts for me, 1st time in Café Mondegar, followed by 1st time in Bade miyans (the famous Kebab shop where u’ll may find a person coming out of a limousine and an autoriksha wala both enjoying themselves). This was followed by my 1st evening walk @ the famous marine drive and then the 1st time at the heppest Mochas of them all, the one near Churchgate station.
Again after a days break Saturday saw me in MIG club (near Sachin’s place, where he still plays cricket sometimes, atleast that’s wat I’ve heard). This time the occasion was Pan IIT meet, I was fashionably late and thank god for that, for those who had come on time had to relieve the painful memories of the boring lectures for almost 2 hours. It was a cocktail and dinner party and a total paissa wasool (many times over, for me)
A set pattern was emerging in my life, u must’ve guessed one day off and then Monday I was back to the partying ways, this time thou it was not someplace new, but the tried and trusted (over and over again) totos (ab to wahan ke waiters bhi mujhe pehchanne lage hain). It was the ususal there, gr8 music and gr8 babes.

P.S - for the uninitiated, FOSLA is Frustrated one sided lovers associtation

Koi lauta de who…

2005-12-02T15:26:00.000+05:30

I had promised mirage ( i dont know if she remembers), I’ll write on a topic similar to one of her posts
Everyone realises this sooner or later and thinks abt it more than once. Childhood is always the most cherished of the entire life cycle. Obviously u don’t realise it then, coz a childs life looks like hell to u. big problems surround u, will chunnu let me play in tomorrows match, will I be able to face munnus bowling? Will I score a couple of goals against pintus team or will chintu get the better of me? Or maybe how to get that 1 rupee that I desperately need for the morrow coz I have to get even with babloo who was flaunting his chaat today while I didn’t get to eat any golgappes
Life was so simple then, u got up in the morning, breakfast was ready, then u rushed to the school where there was less of study and more of fun, no rat race, no politics, no ulterior motives, u could have the worst of fights with someone on a day and be the best of pals wid him the next. Then u come back to home sweet home, have food, watch TV, wait for the evening and then go out to play, come back tired, snacks is always ready, or gets ready while u brag abt ur achievements on the field that day and show off ur bruises (I might look a little obsessed with food, but that’s the one thing u miss most). After sulkily completing ur homework (if its doable) the entire evening was urs. Maybe u got to go out with dad sitting on the bike tank ready to take on the whole world. U felt secured in the arms of ur mom and dad, and knew they were there always to look after you.
Even today wen I see the kids playing cricket near my apartment, the memories of yesteryears flood me in a flash, I ask them if I can bat for a couple of balls, and after those couple of balls are bowled I'm snaped back to reality. Life is no longer simple, U slog it out till late evening in the office, there is pressure to perform at work and elsewhere, the greed of earning more and more, u long to spend some time with ur family, keep ur head in ur moms lap and go to sleep, meet the frnds, and everyone else u loved but had to leave behind. Life is no longer the same, will it ever be?

Ganguly Vs Chapell

2005-11-29T17:09:00.000+05:30

Now for the hot topic, I know I’m treading into dangerous territories but cant help it. I thought that the whole controversy did not concern me and even though I had a soft spot for Ganguly and I wanted him to be given a last chance but as long as India was winning I was happy. So what has changed since then? Well for starters, I’ve started to dislike Chapell. Especially since the finger episode.
To be the coach of Team India (lately instead of the Indian National Team or Simply Indian Team, this suave, commercially more attractive name has been more in use) was never a cakewalk. An outsider can never understand the god like status of our cricketers enjoy, the politics, the emotions… attached with the game in India, so the best thing to do is shut your mouth up. John Wright had lots of issues with the players, but that never came up in the open and yet he was a part of the resurgent Indian team which he helped take to new heights including a World-cup final berth. Chapell should take a feather out of his predecessor’s cap, and things might be better turn out to be even better just like he promises. All his preparations are focussed on the World-cup 2007, and he is being given quite a free hand to run his show. The selectors at least are supporting him fully lets hope he can keep up to all our expectations.
But is that all to his responsibility? Is a coach not accountable to the people? Just because the National has been dropped and the words ‘Indian Team’ rearranged to Team India does not change the fact that he is still coach of the national team, the pride of millions of Indians is attached with each win and the sorrow of millions others with its defeat. But for Bengal, with Ganguly at the helm of affairs for so long and being the most successful one at that, there is personal pride as well. The Eden garden crowd has always been known to be emotionally more attached to the game, be it the World cup 96, Asia cup 1999(I don’t remember the exact year, but I do remember the commotion after Tendulkars runout in that match), 1983 Test against west Indies (where the world cup winning Indian team had collapsed inside of 3 days), they worship there heroes and hate their villains, and a person who they see as the main cause of their hero (who incidentally has scored 3 hundreds in his last 4 1st class matches, and taken wickets too, including a 5 wicket haul) not making it into the team shld have been ready to be greeted the way he was. Not that I’m supporting their behaviour, but my point is that two wrongs never make a right. Being the coach of the team u have to maintain the dignity of the post, the mob/crowd is called so because they have that mentality, but when a public figure makes a remark or does something which is not ethically or morally correct he should be ready to face the brunt and not hide behind an improbable excuse.
In a press conference in Mumbai after the Eden match a laughable excuse was given by the team manager "All the team members and coach Greg Chappell have enormous respect for the Indian fans and I am repeating what I said to the media in Calcutta that there was no such incident or any attempt by the coach." "He had injured his finger while giving fielding practice to the team members and was only attending to it in the team bus."
That is a judgement people who have seen the clip can make on their own — whether an injury to the middle finger is tended by sticking it out of the window of a bus.
My simple point is that, it was not only Chapell who had to face the angered crowd, the players fielding near the boundary were treated with many more niceties, but they did not deem it necessary or correct to react, then by making such a gesture what the hell does this descendant of rouges wants to prove.

TV Star

2005-11-22T10:48:00.000+05:30

Believe it or not I beat most of u to it, I made my debut on a national channel (technically speaking two channels), well I’m not sure if it was telecast or not but I gave the interview alright.
Even thou I had seen the STAR TV crew near the examination center even before the test began but I had to wait till for the afternoon for the fateful moment. Date 20th November, time 1.15 P.M, the moment will not be easily forgotten. Me, Mayank, Anil and Harish were all there but no one else seemed to be interested, but this was my 1st opportunity and I was not letting it go widout a fight. I went near the STAR reporters but seeing the crowd that had already built over there I knew it might be difficult to get a chance to speak out, and even thou there must have been a shot or two of my peeping face (1st appearance) I was determined not to compromise wid only dis.
God did not let me go disappointed dis time, there suddenly out of thin air CNBC crew also came over, and while they were still fixing the camera and stuff I knew dis was my chance, so before others had a chance to think abt it I pounced on the opportunity(2nd appearance).
TV debut question, how was CAT?
Ans (something to the effect of) – Well one of my tutors used to say, a CAT paper widout surprise is the biggest surprise of all, so I wasn’t shocked by the 90 question format. The only real problem was the excessive emphasis on logical reasoning in the DI section, ususally there is at least a 50-50 distribution, but this time there hardly was any question from DI, besides that it was fine.
Now if u ever see a boy(?)… man (whatever) in a blue half shirt, on CNBC TV 18 (the best business news channel of India) giving such critical analysis of the CAT, u can feel proud that u know the genius who spoke such words of wisdom. BTW I have three witnesses and a pic (which is now on display) to certify that "maine jo bhi kaha hai sach kaha hai, aur sach ke siwa kuch nahi kaha"

Mutual Admiration Club

2005-11-12T09:15:00.000+05:30

For those who orkut

Mutual Admiration Club is now open,
happy hours all the time
stag entry allowed
no cover charges/ no entry fee
the more the merier
feel free to pay a visit @-> http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=6430957

if u r wondering wat it is all abt then here is the intro:
Based on Articles 312.2 section (b) of MAC (Mutual Admiration Club) this club is meant for all those people who love to be admired.
Caution: Leg-pulling is allowed under article 312.2 section (c), sub-section fun

Mumbai Calling

2005-11-08T12:10:00.000+05:30

Saturday I had gone to my cousins, later we went for dinner in Copper Chimney, Bandra. After Saturday I've decided two things,
If u have to live in b'bay u need to have ur own mode transportation (am making up my mind on a bike).
U have to live in the city / the suburbs adjacent to the city to enjoy Mumbai, once I get out of the company accommodation, and if I’m still in Mumabi, I’m in the mood of making sure that both are taken care of.
Let me xplain a bit,
Why the City? -> After dining and wining in a hep restaurant, we went to the hepper bandstand (Bandra), where the heppest possible crowd awaited us (some providing an almost unrestricted view of the charms they had to offer). Apparently all their shram haya were on a leave and I was definitely not complaining, I had fun just being there for a couple of hours, njoying the view (sea view strictly). The best part is even at 1 30 in the night u see people around you. Even grls walking down in groups or sometimes alone even that late is not an uncommon site, there is no safety issue at all, no where is India you can get this freedom. Borivali is just like another big town or small cities, U have the pizza huts and the McD's, but the nite life here is not what Mumbai is known for.
Why ur own transportation? -> Well agreed that every place in Mumbai is very well connected by the local trains and the buses and u always have the option of the auto or taxi, but while roaming abt in the lanes of Bandra, I realised that there is so much to explore that if u want to know Mumbai, taking the buses which ply on a fixed route or the auto occasionally is not enough. They are sufficient for you to take you to ur destination, but that does not usually satisfy me. For me its equally important to know every nook and corner of the city I live in, at least all that is possible of it. Cars don’t make sense yet, scooters are a no no, so u come down to owning a bike.
Points taken?

Seven Sevens of life

2005-11-05T09:13:00.000+05:30

Uddu, I hope I got the meaning rgt finally

I. 7 things i want to do before i die
1. have my own firm, not to work under anyone
2. Make a name for my self
3. world tour
4. grl frnd
5. try out all types of adventure sports
6. Social work
7. to show the middle finger to all those who think i might not do all these things

II. 7 things i can do
1. be a diplomat
2. show unlimited patience
3. control my temper
4. type with my eyes closed (this sentece was written that way)
5. try my best (seldom)
6. send countless forwards
7. be very modest when i'm talking abt myself ;-)

III. 7 things i say the most
1-5. since its a public forum i'll not go into the details but just say that the 1st five are all of the type $#%!@# ^$%^%!#
6. chal raha hai kya? ( from kgp days to today. this ones still going strong)
7. frust ho raha hun

IV. 7 things i cant do
1. study for more than an hour
2. plan properly, before i start something / plan and not screw up
3. not miss kgp (spclly my wingies)
4. live w/o internet for long
5. get a grl frnd (category: decent to gud)
6. not feel guilty/bad after i screw up
7. talk much

V. 7 things that attract me to the opposite sex
1. beauty / smartness
2. smile
3. glib
4. creativity
5. enthusiasm
6. frankness
7. sutta in one hand, a glass in the other

VI. 7 Celebrity crush
here i can go on and on and on...
1. Waheeda Rehman
2. Madhubala
3. Katrina Kaif
4. All recent Miss Indias, models, etc... (wont be fair if i name just one, katrina of-course is in a different league)
5. julia roberts
6. drew barrymore
7. alicia silverstone
I wanted to add so much more...

VII. 7 people i want to tag
1. all jinka uddu ne already naam likh rakha hai
2. Monks
3. Shradha
4. Mirage
5. Sarang
6. Luke
7. Kunal

From a loser to... ahem!!!

2005-10-29T10:33:00.000+05:30

Opening Scene:
Class 6th, a day after the 2nd term exam. Maths answer sheets being given back to check the correction and get parents signature. Screwed up majorly. (worst ever, except once in 11th – but ranchi +2 schools, have this perversive attitude of setting the toughest possible papers, and u did very well if u managed to avoid red)
Next:
Hell broke loose @ house. Dad, back from another draining day at office, let me know wat he thought of my effort. Bhaiya was the consoling factor, he told me he’ll teach me & despite his 10th boards (a big big thing for a young student), he took out time for me, gave me tips, helped me with my course. Instilled in me a liking spclly for maths, a subject I liked to hate. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned to him leave alone thank him for being there and pulling me out from the slump. If this day would not have happened in my life, I might not have been where I’m now. Thanx dude, thanx a lot.

3rd Scene:
Maths class (1st class of linear equations), me sitting with my frnds, both chatting and not paying much attention to what was being taught in the class, and I was caught doing so. The teacher humiliated me as much as was possible ethically (? nah), socially (? nah), legally, well that’s the term. She did and said all that a sadist teacher would do, she even (almost) made faces at me while shouting at the top of her voice. After a looong lecture she told me to come on the board and solve the problem that she was doing, now I wouldn’t have normally but her acrimonious talk + her asking me to do it again and again got on to my nerves. Thanks to bhaiya and the inspiration drawn from the previous scene I had already done this chapter, I went to the board finally and solved it. The change of expression on her face and the change in tone of her voice that happened in a nano second, is one of my most satisfying moments till date.
4th scene:
The same teacher in the parents teacher meeting at the end of the final term, showering praises at me while dad was beaming.

I never looked back since then, the past was history and I did not want to repeat it. Thou I never came 1st in class, (u have to start early for that) but I was no longer a looser. In the next exams (class 7th 1st term) I broke into 1st three, and earned a Cadburys Dairy Milk from my cousin sister (I’m getting nostalgic thinking abt the small things in life with which I associated so much pride and pleasure).

That was that this is now I’ve come a long way "certainly not the star eyed teenager, walking into kgp station for the 1st time". I just hope that I can keep my self-motivated for watever I want to do coz since then there has not been much that I’ve really craved for and worked for which I could not get. And this is true for every one if u’ve really set ur heart to it half the battle is won. Reminds me of an sms that was doing rounds "whenever u feel low, depressed or useless ...take hope! Cheer up! Remember that u r the same sperm that once won a battle against a million others!"

Mocking the CAT

2005-10-28T10:42:00.000+05:30

25 days since my last blog, too long a span for someone who had become quite fascinated with the blog world. Hope that the next post wont have to wait for so long, and now back to the topic...

CAT is ready to jump out of the bag yet again, as 20th November (CAT 2005) nears different people have different reactions to it, some think it’s a lost cause, some others are confident of belling it, well this time I’m not absolutely sure which way I’m heading. Last year I had almost placed my self in the former category, but then on the D Day I realised CAT is actually not very difficult to crack. The endless rounds of card games, the lengthy hours spent for Illu, all took their effect, I screwed my strongest section (and it wasn’t even hard). It was tantalisingly close, a classical case of "So near yet so far". Buddha said of my (rather, our) failure, Justice is served, after all u cant crack competitive exams like JEE/CAT without working for it.

This year the scene is no different, I’m trying again to pull off a fast one, adamant to prove Buddha wrong, I’m working hard to crack CAT without working hard. Lets c wat TIME has in store for me.

A nite in J W Marriot

2005-10-03T09:55:00.000+05:30

Officially 1st October is my b’day, and boy did I celebrate it in style… My being a 5.5 day/week office, Saturday nite is the only time I can party, and that’s wat we did.
Arnd 10 of us had gone to totos, the garage, its one of the best pubs in mumbai, and for me totos has become almost a regular affair. Just like every other time we did not get place to sit, I had 4 half bottles of beer when we left. Thou we did not go back home but decided to go to J.W. Marriot, the 5 star hotel in Juhu. Going there (to any 5 star for that matter) for the 1st time I did not know where the lobby was (where the others were). We went to the ground floor, while the guys were waiting on the 1st. Some company called Intelnet had thrown a party there and not realising it was a private party we went inside. A DJ was playing, ppl, (including lots of grls in dresses u usually see only on page 3 and movies, and think they cannot be for real) were on the dance floor, with disco lites talking full effect it looked perfect. When the waiters served us, we did not know how to react, so we simply picked up some of the triflings. Later we realised the situation, so without making much fuss, decided to catch up wid the others. After a little while wen others decided they have had enough and started to leave 3 of us (booming wid confidence at the ease of it) decided to gate crash into the party again.
We had lots of fun we got bolder by the minute, came to the dance floor, fooled arnd a bit, asked a couple of grls for a dance, finally got an opportunity with 1 hot chick. After a while I realised that the booze too was on the house, I started wid a beer and moved on to White Rum (bacardi), the last I remember of the day is that I was dancing wid this grl and then every thing is a blur. I came to know that after the 5th peg I remember taking, I gulped down lots more, according to one of the guys "vo (me) sincerely pee raha tha".
If by any chance I would have got the bill, my entire bank balance would have had to go. Fortunately nothing of that sort happened. We reached home by 5 in the morning, I was totally wasted and have no recollection of anything that happened after abt 1 30 – 2, fortunately did not do anything stupid with anyone there. 4 - 5 guys had to finally pull me out of the rickshaw and throw me on my bed, I have twisted my ankle a bit and there is a lil pain around the knee. This is the 1st time it has happened to me that I’ve got so drunk and I’m sure it’s the last, But the day was worth it, a day to remember (whatever lil I can recollect of it).

The theory of relativity:

2005-09-30T18:52:00.000+05:30

Inspired by Chhaavis thoughts and buddhas empty spaces:

"Relativity is an absolute concept" well no bigshot scientist said this, nor did any hifi philosopher, but this is wat I feel. Sounds weird doesn’t it? Grey cells activated? This is not abt science where an "Absolute zero" absolutely exists; Welcome to the real world this is abt life.

Ever wondered how the underprivileged of the society seem to manage a smile more often than the apparently happy well to do people? Take dipu for instance (for those who don’t know dipu, he’s the nephew of Mishraji, Patel Hall cycle shed’s karta dharta.) u’ll always find him happy in his own world, dwelling in the happiness of small things which we think is too insignificant to demand worthy care. While we frown over, complaining abt the inadequacies of our life, his life seems to be complete enough to give him enough reasons to smile. So do we have a right to complain? Maybe NO, maybe yes, after all its all relative.

Let me expalin furter, a few days ago I saw a kid, shabbily dressed, unkept hair, a thick layer of makeup (dirt) all over his body running carefree towards an elder (I think it was his brother) and both gleaming with happiness, I don’t know anything abt them, wat the occasion was or any other apparent reason, but after a bad day in office when I saw them I started wondering if they look so happy, do I have the right to feel miserable? Maybe NO, maybe yes, after all its all relative.

There was an article today in HT, abt a blind cook, we are blessed wen compared to him, we take things for granted, those which others might value more than their life, we tend to ignore think of them as bare essentials. Frnds, family, well paying job, we have all yet we fret. We irk coz we have to work over time, we are troubled coz it takes 1.5 – 2 hrs to reach home, we agonize coz the food was not gud, Wat abt them who want but don’t have jobs? Wat abt them who donot have a home to reach to, wat abt them who cannot have 2 square meals a day? So do I have a right to be piqued? Maybe NO, maybe yes, after all its all relative.

I can think of scores of other issues, hundreds of other comparisons, thousands of other situations, but nothing strikes to me as absolute, light – dark, near – far, hot – cold, emotions, love, beauty, comfort, greed, competition, performance. I recieved a nice fwd a few days ago, "Not Everything that counts is counted and not everything thats counted counts", but alas our world revolves around the counted and therefore we fret, we fume, we are annoyed, antagonized, bitter… is it rightful? Maybe No, maybe yes, after all its all relative.

Hair-splitting

2005-09-23T13:25:00.000+05:30

24 Words start with hair in an oxford pocket dictionary, the single word hair requires so many words to be explained.
Hair n. 1 a any of the fine threadlike strands growing from the skin of mammals, esp. from the human head. b these collectively (has long hair). 2 thing resembling a hair. 3 elongated cell growing from a plant. 4 very small quantity or extent (also attrib.: hair crack). get in a person's hair colloq. annoy a person. keep one's hair on colloq. keep calm; not get angry. let one's hair down colloq. enjoy oneself by abandoning restraint. make one's hair stand on end colloq. horrify one. not turn a hair remain unmoved or unaffected. hairless adj. [Old English]

The objective of this blog is not to "get into your hair", so "keep ur hair on" and "let ur hair down".
Every where u see ppl sport different hairdos, some long some short some curly some straight, beaded or with a pony tail, black or white/gray (but now a days they are available in all imaginable colours, blue, saffron, red, green, of course the favourite blondies…). I have restrained from such adventures my self but I can’t help admire those who do go fwd with it. Recently one of my frnds (Bani, for those who know him) turned blonde, everyone around him was startled by the change, but when u asked him, all he offered was a I don’t care expression and shrugged. Now whether it was a "chutiya kat gaya shrug" or "I don’t care shrug" is open for interpretation but now that he has become a blondie no one can do anything abt it. There was also this mogambo inspired guy that was in the insti, I wonder if he still has that weird style.
Then there were the Jha’s and the Mayank’s who worked very hard for their long flocks but then had to part wid them when they entered the professional world. But the award for the best hairdo would go to Tripathi thou, for almost two years now he has had the guts to wear a style that very few in India keep. Inspired by Gautam Pandey, one of our seniors, who always had that barthez style - I’ve never seen him with any hair at all, (and maybe me as well, I went for that look for a while in my 2nd yr) he keeps his head shaved and thou has removed the french cut (parental pressure before job), he still keeps a goti.
For me short and simple works best, but every now and then I get tempted to do something different. This time I’m allowing them to grow as long as possible, but patience is a virtue I don’t think I’m blessed with, not atleast when it come to this and I’m running out of it. Very soon I’ll be back to the normal short stuff, till then as the saying goes "enjoy while u can".

Movie Masti Magic

2005-09-20T16:45:00.000+05:30

watched a couple of movies this weekend, dont have much time to think and write a new blog but have enough for time pass, so heres a short review for the benefit of those who havent seen them and might have plans for the same

1 friday nite James -> typical hindi movie full of voilence and a hot grl who's more often than not wearing dresses that revealed more than they hid, i can sware they couldnt have been shorter. the trend of cost cutting has not left the movie industry untouched, the producer has done huge cost cutting in the dialogue dept, whenever there was any scope of a proper filmy dialoguedono characters ke voice mute ho jaate the, music tej hojata tha and kewal hoth hilte dikhte the. aur mar/action ka to aisa hai ki sunny deol ko bhi sharam aa jaye ki usne abhi tak itne movie banaye lakin kya hi kiya, apna hero to god hai literally, vishnu ka avtar hi samajh lo. so if ur interested in a modern day masala movie with lots of "sex and voilence" then nothing like it

2. sunday nite Cindrella man -> iske bhi main protagonist ka naam James hai aur yeh bhi fighter hai (james roddicks (shayad) - boxer). the movie is based on a true story set during the great depression in america. rise of the phoneix type story, keeps u glued to ur seats till the end, BTW iss movie ko jahan dekh raha tha (fame, malad i.e inorbit) wahin par suman ranganathan bhi thi, normally to main movie ko chor usse hi dekhta but the movie was so gud that u wont feel like looking idhar udhar. + kal mayank (my ex co trainee in LnT) ke saath last time LnT ke co-employees ki tarah pub jaane ka bhi plan tha but did not regret missing that, pura fultu paissa wasool, atleast at par if not better than million dollar baby, definetly one of the best boxing movies ever made

Moral of the story : if u have to c a movie and have to choose b/w the two then go for the latter

Conspiracy

2005-09-15T11:18:00.000+05:30

Ever felt that the whole world is conspiring against u? Well I get that feeling quite often, mostly its in the BEST buses. The conspiracy begins as the day ends, after a long tiring day u get out of the office to realise that u’ve just missed the office bus and will have to struggle it out on the BEST buses. U resign to the fate and get to the bus stop to find that suddenly all the buses are going in the opposite direction, and even those that are coming are not the ones on your route. U start realising that its that kind of a day, wen come wat may u have to, u will be F***ed.

After waiting for wat seems like ages u see it an overcrowded bus coming ur way, its the bus, the very bus u had been waiting for and u make ur self mentally prepared to somehow get into the overflowing bus. However the bus moves a lil ahead of its usual stop and those at the back suddenly become the ones in front. Not willing to let all those hrs of wait go to waste, u decide to get on the bus even thou more than half of the queue has decided otherwise and somehow u manage to do that, half ur body dangling outside but at least ur on. The bus moves slowly towards home sweet home, and u move slowly inside the bus. Then u look back and see another bus for the same place coming from behind and surprise surprise, this ones got lots of empty space. But u r too bloody packed to get to the exit before the next stop and even if by any chance u do get to the door, the other bus already over took u. Next u reach the highway to find that its jam packed and it might take u hrs to reach home, so u decide u want to take a train, u get down at some stop and decide to take another bus or auto, but as soon as u take the turn u find urself in the same sticky situation, similar traffic, similar jam. U’ve had too much and now there is just one option take the bulls by the horn, u start walking and after ages reach the station. But if u thought the tough part is over, think again. For a new comer getting into or out of the locals during rush hour can be a nightmare, but ur determination finally got u thru. But a conspiracy, if planned perfectly cant let u go so easily, just before ur home station the train stops, without any reason (they say there’s no signal, but u know better), or else y other trains zoomed past u while only that train was stopped?

Finally the ordeal is over, it takes u almost 2 to 2 and a half hrs from office to home, the same 2 hrs would have taken u to Calcutta from Kgp, or to Jamshedpur, or a lil more than that and u’ve reached Ranchi form Jamshedpur.

But slowly u come to terms wid life in Mumbai, u get to know the tricks of the trade, u start to understand how and wen to strategically let a bus go, u understand how to balance ur odds between the relatively less crowded buses and the always full locals. U also realise which local, from which platform u should let go if its more than x minutes delayed (the value of x is determined from x-perience). U know that the conspiracy is not against u but all "freshers". Welcome to Mumbai, but without ragging?? Forget it.

Mera number aayega

2005-09-06T09:54:00.000+05:30

They say change is the only constant. No sir not for me, maybe in most of the cases its true but just read on and then tell me, where is the change???

Scene 1, I was in school, class 7th. As soon as I stopped looking at grls as if they were abhorrent objects of disgust, I fell for one. The grl was very intimidating & I could never muster enough courage to approach her, thou I gave hints, some subtle some obvious but could never confront her. I daresay she smelled something fishy (she being a bong, that’s not a far-fetched guess) but nothing came out of it. A few years on I came to know (from very vishwasniya sutr) that it was not a totally gone case, there could have been some mutual sparks, but she’s too much of a women for me to handle anyway.

Next stop, 2 years down the line. I hardly knew this grl, xcept that she was a very gud frnd, of the grl frnd, of a very gud frnd of mine (it was more complicated than it sounds). What all u can do with a little bit of daring and motivation from those bastards, we call frnds, I gathered courage and with full gusto, approached her, on a chauffeur driven bicycle, ready with a mode of quick escape in case of any tragic eventuality. Fortunately the reply wasn’t an efficient and probably appropriate use of her sandle. I had struck gold this time, but for what? We hardly knew each other b4 this rendezvous, and after exchanging a couple of "love letters" we knew we were heading no where, so very amicably we parted our ways.

"Dil to pagal hai dil deewana hai" next scene 2 years later (even thou there was a minor incident, where I started to feel for a girl, unfortunately (or fortunately?) she had brotherly feelings for me, so that crashed before it could take off). I was in class 11 now, but the lack of opportunity (and courage) forced me to wait for an entire year before I could come up with a masterpiece of a letter. Usse padh kar ladkon tak ka dil phisal gaya, my grl (who were) frnds, all agreed that it was the best, unfortunately my best wasn’t enough. No change in luck yet.

Having watched lots of hindi/english movies and serials, I was very happy to be going to college, all the while thinking "ab to mera bhi number aayega". New people, new places, new frnds and new faces (wow it rhymes) something ought to happen, just a little luck and the stag tag would be out in the bin. In addition to the many new things I pointed earlier there was something else that was entirely new to me. Welcome to kgp, welcome to the land of the infamous non-males (I’m sure kgp grls no longer mind being called this, ab tak to adat ho gayi hogi). Not that there was no representation of the female species at all, but Lt (females) --> 0. Still a fighter has got to fight it out. I had a minor fling with a M Tech student, which I better not talk about, there were also lots of others who I thought were worth attention, but most of them got that attention from someone else before u could even blink your eyes.

Finally the last stop has been Mumbai, the land of opportunities, but how, where, when?? Not a single grl in my office, so chances are that I will have to fight it out real hard, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Out of box thinking is essential I guess, and I have put on my thinking caps. My frnds, very soon u’ll see results, how long can one be with "lots of grl frnds, still single" (can’t help but foster such foolish optimism, or else what’s the fun in life?). Mera number aayega I’m sure mera number aayega, after all change is the only constant, is it not?

Its women again

2005-09-02T10:24:00.000+05:30

Women have always been the most talked abt subject in any mans life. Right from puberty till death do us part (implication is male bonding, alas still no woman in my life L ) discussing females have been and will be the top most priority (thou not publicly acknowledged) of all men.

Remember those days in the school when if u were made to sit beside a grl it was the biggest punishment, and how u later started to think u were such an idiot then? Remember how we used to classify and categorise, the beautiful non-males of our colleges, ranking them was a favourite ragging question? How t shirt with comments reading " 99.9% women are beautiful, the rest are in my college" sold like hot cakes? How we used to come up wid theories every 2nd day on how to go abt a particular "target" and why is it natural to find beautiful grls in a certain location and why grls there are generally beautiful… the topics were endless and so were the discussion. Well life has moved on, frnds have changed but discussions are still the same. Recently a discussion wid one of my colleagues (its amazing to find men from all over the country are the same pigs that we were in our college) enlightened me with a new kind of classification for women.People with such inventive thinking should be rewarded, and their work of art should not go unrecognised and unappreciated. Unfortunately I don’t see that coming for him, so with the little power of expression that I have on the net I would like to make sure that this theory stays alive and does not gets burried under the dunes of time.

There are three broad categories in which u can classify the female Homo sapiens. Each categories can have several sub categories, depending entirely on the one who is classifying.
1. You don’t like her in 1st sight, but gradually as u see her over and over again u start appreciating her charms, the way she dresses, her beautiful smile…
2. She is out of bound. Too much out of your league. Two sub categories come to mind instantly,
a. she’s a few notches over you class
b. she’s a few notches below you class (difficult but not impossible)
3. Her beauty dazzles you wen u 1st see her, but not for long, as the shine withers down, so does her appeal.

Wat say makes sense doesn’t it? Of course "family (g/f) wale" or extreme romantics may have a difference in opinion (some one some where is made for u) but for me this works just fine

Corigendum

2005-09-01T08:42:00.000+05:30

a couple of corrections for the previous blog
1. all kinds of plastics have been baned this time, so this is more of an extension of the previous ban (the fate of packing material for milk, food etc is not yet clear but as for now they are banned as well)
2. after a preliminary order that the ban be imposed immediately, the govt has now extended the implementation by a month

came across a very nice quote today very relevant to the topic : "plastic don't pollute, people do"

Polythene bags : (Bane)d

2005-08-31T16:02:00.000+05:30

Too much of anything is bad, the same goes true for polythene bags, a boon at their inception they have become one of the biggest pollutants in the world. Recently the BMC (Brihan-Mumbai Muncipal Corporation) banned the use of all polythene bags in Mumbai, in the aftermath of the floods it might seem to be too late and too little, but atleast we have a start. Its not that the civic authorities here and across the country were blind to this big nuisance. But the people always fail them, the same people who were worst affected because of the floods, and the same people who very easily shrugged the entire blame away on the govt. and others responsible, but are we ourselves not the "others responsible"? Let me explain

A little research brought forward the following facts. This is not the 1st time that BMC is enforcing this ban, 5 years ago around the same time of the year after similar flash floods (though a much smaller one) non recyclable polythene bags (thinner than 20 micros) were banned. After massive movement against the polythene bags that imposed heavy fines for defaulters the city experienced a huge dip in consumption of this non-bio degradable menace, but as the authorities relaxed and the ever complaining public got an opportunity, the bags soon found there way back into every nook and corner of the city. Infact I could find no reference to any declaration revoking the ban, so what we have now is the ban being reimposed when its already on (I might be wrong here, but I hope the point is made " without danda, result is anda").

Agreed that it is a little uncomfortable without the bags, but nothing more than that. Its not as if all plastic bags are being banned, only the non-recyclable ones are covered in the ban, also substitutes are available, reusable/ recyclable/ cheap ones. So is this too much to ask for a better tomorrow? Why wait for a ban in your town or city, cant we take this responsibility without it being thrust upon us? I’m not asking for you to give up its use entirely but is it necessary to ask for a polythene bag every time you have to get the smallest of the things? I’m sure the age-old excuse " ek mere use nahi karne se kya hoga" will come up, but it has to begin somewhere, why not with you? Infact I’m sure, if these bags are not used indiscriminately the need for their ban might never come up.

13 itne sahi log

2005-08-29T12:58:00.000+05:30

Continuing with my fascination of kgp and DFE, here is the last addition to a series of entries based in and around the wing situated on the eastern side of the farthest block in the oldest hall in the IIT Community.

The most often quoted statement quoted in our wing was made by a drunk man who wouldn’t have cared to remember it the next day, had we not been there to capture the golden words as they were spoken it would've been lost in oblivion. Strokes of inspiration come at the most unassuming of times, but this time the occasion was as big as the words themselves. Hall day celebration after more than a decade and testified by almost all who were present there as the best that was ever organised, was no mean feat. For us the satisfaction was manifolds coz we were at the core of it, like we had been in everything from the time we had stepped into the hall. All illumination competitions, Live cricket world cup telecast in the Netaji, Puppy’s election and then the subsequent ones, both the hall days, Akhada, all chaoses, all patching up, we never thought abt right or wrong, doing the stupidest to the most awe inspiring things without the blink of an eye, for each other and for the hall.

Now that I’m no longer a part of the hall I often wonder was it all worth it? Even though all looks very nice and glossy from the outside there were moments in my tenure as the president, which I would like to forget. Leadership came naturally to a wing which could boast of 6 hall secys, 1 gymkhana secy, 1 MCM, 3 LCM, 10 inter hall (sports) players, 8 inter hall (soc ‘n’ cult) representatives, 3 inter IIT players who had together put uncountable hours for all big and small hall activities, even before they had started to live together. It was natural for people to have apprehensions about us acting as "studs", the same acts which prompted an applause in our 2nd year were later looked with skepticism. The simplest of things we did, was viewed as a political stunt, the frnds we had, if we stopped by to smile and talk with someone, while we never knew what was going on, grouping against us was almost complete. It came to us as a shock when we realised wat was on.

Fortunately, on our part we had never changed our perspective of the others, not that we liked everyone, but our likes and dislikes were never a secret. It was easy for us to carry everyone with us and finally it was not me alone or DFE alone, but the entire batch that was together in our endeavour which finally led to a truly golden year. G.C, elections, basky court, canteen, stationary shop all became a reality. The journey of the 13 itne sahi/stud/chutiye log was a most memorable one.

Regrets?? Wat regrets???

Love-Hate relationship

2005-08-27T12:53:00.000+05:30

Well the list for both are long, but here wat comes to my mind immediately

10 things I miss about kgp (final year)

Wingies : for all the right and the wrong reasons
Comp : even thou I sit in front of comp for the entire day in the office, but the movies, the serials, the comfort of my bed and games on LAN are all gone
DC++ : of course when u talk abt Comp, u talk abt LAN, and LAN w/o DC++ ??? unimaginable
Coffee shop : After classes or in between them or while they were going on
Bhat : Wing body meetings, yagna sessions, futile discussions while in the emotional state varrying from smiling to very happy. after that u don’t remember anything...
Cheddies @ nite, splly after the bike happened
Harry’s after the long practice sessions
Sleep : whenever, wherever…
Poltu: ah the nites spend in RK, Azad, Lallu, and then ofcourse, VS, the ruthna and manana of SAM, BC Roy, the drilling in Tata sports, basky courts, and ofcourse the sleepless nites in DFE wondering if I would be successful
Bhajans : "bhai bhajan ke saath puja karne mein jo suvidha thi who ab khin aur kahan"

5 things I dont

Some of the most forgetable ppl of my life
The dirty politics that got into hall. (gymkhana mein sab chalta hai, hall mein baat jamti nahi yaar)
The famous non males
Attending classes
Being tagged F***er, by u know who (not sure abt this one)

Diary of a distressed soul

2005-08-24T11:28:00.000+05:30

The last days of Kgp for me were perhaps the most sentimental I had ever been, 1st watching the 3rd years go followed by the 2nd years and then finally the final years one by one as and when their Project eval got over,but the sadest part was when my wingies started to trickle out. We went to see off each and every one. Finally when I was leaving all that was left of DFE was on the station, some of them hurriedly filling the scrap books, some looking blank, some trying to crack jokes and others trying to laugh at them. I had come to Kgp for the 1st time with a drop of tear in my eyes, and i was leaving it for the last time in much the same way.

Just before I left I decided to maintain a diary to record my final few days in Kharagpur, I had decided to explore Kgp and do things I had not done in the last 4 years, and to try to make the most of the last few days in the company of my wingies, I went to the insti gol-c, roof top of the main insti building, Chem top amongst others. One particular dinner was memorable when we had brought food from Punjabi Dhaba, arranged tables and had food like a family on a dinning table.

I found some of those diary entries in a mail I had sent to a frnd though most of it is still safe in my computer in Ranchi

------------------------------------------------------
30th april
this is one of the very few occassions that i have decided to make a diary entry, but then u are not always on a crossroad, on one side is the future waiting for us once we step out the insti for this final time, never to come back again,on the other we have the present and the past associated with this lovely place.

kgp is coming to an end. four years of the life we spent over here is finishing, it all seemed so distant yesterday wen we were partying the whole nite, but today when we woke up to realise that half the hall is already empty. people, we might not c ever again in life, the same ppl we spend so much time with the best 4 years of our lives, are now gone, its hard not to become sentimental.

today after dinner in biloos, we(me with jha and shukla) went to the insti gol
chakkar(the 1st time in 4 yrs, 4 me), as we sat there gazing the stars and the
impressive main building, INDIAN INSTITUE OF TECHNOLOGY written at the top,it was hard not to get a little nostalgic. back in the hostel the inspired discussion with harsh, jha and shukla abt the campus, the insti, the hall, the wonderful frnds we made here, all of which will be over in abt 15 more days made my eyes wet.

i hope tomorrow be more sane, and i can get on with the project work.

1st may
kgp life really sucks in vacations (irrespective of wheter its ur last few days or not), when u come out in the corridor and c all the lights of the block facing u, switched off, all curtains drawn a strange lonliness sets in. and then there is food. mess food here like everyplace else is loathed but then at least u have someplace where u can go and have food without worrying abt paying then and there. in the whole day i had just one meal, that too a dosa and 2 cutlets, and then 1 tinku from cheddis late in nite. money constraint becomes huge specially in a wing like ours where ppl are perineally broke.

coming to the more sentimental part or the real reason y i started writing the memoir, seeing ppl leave is becoming more and more difficult (as if living here wasnt pain enough). now its almost like its only the final years that are still here.

today i started with the proj work, worked a lil slept a lil and so on, but then by early in the morning i could conc a lil and now i hope that the momentum i have gained in the last few hrs can continue from now onwards and the thing gets over soon.
its 7 in the morning as i'm signing off to go to sleep.

2nd may
3 days in a row it has to be a record of sorts. anyway here i am sitting in front of the comp typing todays entry. well the day began for me at arnd 3 45, and then i had to rush to my guide, seeing how peaceful he is i sometimes wonder if there is something else goig on in there, some big plot to get me. anyway my proj is almost done now, 2 days at max, and then its all typing, the panel is also quite peaceful so it should not be v difficult. we have our proj eval on the 12th and have to submit the thesis on the same day, but am aiming to complete it by the 9th no last moment work this time.

no unusual happenings today, no more bye bye's no more farewells. the big news for the day was i heard about vaibhav saxena proposing to pujari, will have to remember and confirm it directly from her.

BTW today(3rd) is tripathis b'day, he brought cake tonite and we finished it up b4 half the wing could gather and in moments all signs of its existence were destroyed, a wing speciality that i'm not going to c any place else. nothing else happened in the day, no proj work atall but now as i'm putting in this entry i'm installing ms office as well, am planing to write some part of the thesis today itself. movies, games, and the familiar guilt feeling of not doing anything in the day, that was the day in short.

maintaining a diary is getting intresting, now that i've started enjoying it i think i'll continue writing in (atleast recent) future.

3rd may
well for the 1st time yesterday i was confident of maintaining my diary regularly and today i almost went to sleep without making an entry. eventhough it was an uneventful day with not much to write abt, but a man has got to do what he has got to do. i woke up relatively early today, b4 1, and then had lunch (after ages i think possibly for the 1st time since last wednesday) the regular at harry's. after food, it was desperate housewives, sleep, the insider, chatting, a lil orkuting, a lil thesis typing and then back to some more comp. life is so simple here, no worries, no thoughts, no responsibilities...

eventhough i tried to do some proj work but unfortunately it has got stuck bcoz of lack of a certain chart which i have to take tomorrow from my guide (thank god i had some excuse today, feels less bad this way).

nothing happened on taklus b'day. i think i hardly saw him, he's one hell of a person, when he gets into his shell then he needs no one, takes heed of no one, just lives his own life, hes made of some other stuff altogether, i dont know good or bad, but different for sure.

tomorrow i also intend to talk to gautam sinha abt the delay in L&T's offer letter, maybe he's got some confirmation of the rumours that our pay may be hiked :D.

signing off till tomorrow.

4th may
Its getting kinda boring, both the life over here and then obviously its description on the diary.on top of that my cards validity got over yesterday so no more phone calls, i think that was the only thing keeping me sane, i'll have to get a refill soon. in the morning i read a mail fwded by nandi that informed that our joining is most probably on the 14th of june in mumbai, so only abt a month to enjoy before the grinding begins.

i also went to JKB today to get the chart and got it too, but did not work on it, tomorrow i've set a target to complete the thing, so that day after tomorrow i can go to JKB with the full project. the typing will take a lil while but then i'll have 1 full week for it so it should not be a big deal.
went to the bank today so the days of counting coins before going out for a meal is over. had proper lunch in sahara today. and then slept a lot, a new series (CSI) has come and with nothing better to do i've started watching it, even though its kinda boring.

did lots of orkutig today, joined communities and did lots of
chutiyapa over there. besides that not much happened in the day.

nothing else that i can think of, i'm getting bored, not feeling sleepy, god knows wats got into me, cant get to sleep before 4 5 in the morning, i think i'll write some one a mail, long one apni frustness nikalne ke liye.

off till tomorrow, hope theres something to cheer about tomorrow, but if i do only proj work then i dont think there's going to be anything interesting, anyway lets leave that for the morrow, no use speculating

Kal Chakra

2005-08-24T10:25:00.000+05:30

Changing form one phase of the life to the other is always a big step. At every such step we take we leave behind people, free ourselves of old ties, meet and make new friends and form new bonds. Both such major steps in my life is linked with Kharagpur, 1st when I came to Kgp and next when I stepped out of it.

After JEE mains I was confident of a decent rank and had set straight my priorities

Get into IIT Powai
Never study again
A grl frnd
Have a blast

Along with the monsoon that year came the JEE results and dampened my spirits, the result that year of entire Ranchi region was unsatisfactory, sure shot candidates had not made it, I had just managed to scrape thru, all my dreams looked shattered when I set foot for Kgp. When I was leaving Ranchi I had a tear in my eye, thou it was because of the realisation, that I was moving out of Ranchi for good, but it could also be because there was not much in Kharagpur that beckoned me, my thoughts were some what on the lines of

Powai- no more
Studies – (the whole point of going to Kgp was getting a Dep C, couldn’t not study at all)
Grl frnd- no Mumbai, no city, no babes, no grl frnds
Have a blast – in Kgp? U must be kidding

But life is not as cruel as it seems, "Bhagwan ke ghar dair hai andhair nahi", one by one things started happening

Studies – I became less serious after the 1st sem, but it was only after the 1st year and a dept change did I give it up completely.
Grl frnd – well could never really manage to get one, but wait till u hear what my frnds have to say for me LOTS OF GRLS FRNDS, still single, so it cant be that bad after all
Blast in Kgp, - why not? Infact I sometimes wonder if I had taken any branch in some other IIT just to get rid of Kgp, could life be better than it was? Whatever anyone might have to say, but I’m sure what Kgp offers to you is completely unique, if u learn to make the most of it, campus life can never be better than what u live in Kgp.
Finally as I took my 2nd major step, I landed in Mumbai, and as fate would have it (my belief in it strengthens the more I think about it) I got a job in Powai itself.

Only if I can improve upon the grl frnd part, everything that I had envisioned then would be fulfilled, but now that all of the above has become true, life has moved on and my priorities have changed. I hope that some time in the near future I would be able to talk of them as I talk abt these now.

Destiny

2005-08-23T09:56:00.000+05:30

what follows is fictitious story, resemblance of characters with anyone dead or alive is purely coincidental.

destiny/fate, do u believe in it? well some times i do sometimes i dont. but recent spate of incidents have firmed my belief in the same.

Recently 2 of my frnds, lets call them Gutado and Dhingrado had come to mumbai. Gutado had come to mumbai coz he was heading for Mangalore, where he wanted to be with his sister for rakhi, why he chose the route to be via mumbai? his brother is here, or maybe because of the recent heartbreaking news(thats a story on its own) he wanted a change and what better place than mumbai to brood over the cruelties of life, while surrounded by gourgeous testosterone stimulants?

This xplains Gutados presence in mumbai, but what abt Dhingrado? he did not have a sister nearby, did he? or was his heart broken recently? definetly a brother in mumbai? No No No, he had come to meet his beloved frnd (me ofcourse, unbelievable? well, no further comments).

Not wasting much more time let me come directly to the point of how and where destiny becomes important.

Gutado is a very social creature, he has frnds all over india, and he doesnt mind roaming around and meeting them. so while his arrival had been via Mumbai his return trip was unplaned to the xtent that he could have been back either via hyd, via mumbai or via pune depending on his selection of the prey (read frnd) he wanted to grace.

Dhingrado is more reserved when it comes to making frnds, but is very faithful to them, willing to be with this one spl frnd of his for the entire trip, which was planed in a working week. (another incongruity, for he never bunks classes). Dhingrado does not like missing classes so he had got his tickets done for saturday so he neednot miss anymore classes.

Where is the bloody destiny?

well here it comes,
On saturday out of the two trains that start at the same time from different stations from Mumbai to his college village, one got cancelled. As fate would have it, it was the train Dhingrado had decided to take for his trip back. I had earlier insisted Dhingrado must have something (to eat) in my house, but we did not get the time, on Sunday thou we (sorry I) had a whole day free but there was not much in the house except for eggs and Maggi, Dhingrado being a vegetarian, i decided to treat him with homemade butter maggi special, so despite his almost missing out from tasting the delicacies i could prepare, destiny made sure he got lucky.

Is this all?, Big deal

My remarks would also have been the same, but theres more to come.Dhingrado could not get a ticket for his village on Sunday, he got it thru an agent for monday, the agent took 200 xtra bucks but did not fulfill his commintment for a reserved birth, and since Dhingrado's W/L status was in the late 100 something he decided he would go back the next day, and this time it was on a confirmed ticket from Pune that he decided to commence his journey on tuesday evening. Gutado meanwhhile out of all places had decided he would go back via Pune, and this happy go lucky guy who is not aversed to bunking classes, out of all possible permutations and combinations had booked a ticket from the same city on the same train, on the same date.

A trip which had begun together is now about to end together, they might even get seats similar to the one in which they had come, Dhingrado for instance has a side upper birth, which was one of the two seats they had the last time, I havent got news from Gutado, but fate willing he might have the second seat exactly same as the other one they had.Now what do u call all this if not destiny?

I love sundays

2005-08-22T11:11:00.000+05:30

I love Sundays, of course as the weekend nears the world takes a sigh of relief TGIF, but alas I don’t have that luxury coz for me Saturday is half day working, so the real weekend fun has to be delayed till Saturday evening. After the (compulsive) weekend blast comes Sunday. An entire day for ur self, to pamper ur self, without any tension of getting up early for work (or maybe not to get up at all). Leisurely go thru the newspaper for hours, reading every bit of (mis)information and all that is not useful, lazing around in the bed for hours together, listening to music (alas the TV and computer are still not here), let ur imagination run wild, think crap, write craper and publish the crapest for others to read. Do absolutely whatever you want, whenever u want to, with absolutely noone bossing around, on one at ur heels all the time, ready to bite ur arse if u falter.
A week without a Saturday woulld do, but without a Sunday its unfathomable

chic click

2005-08-22T10:21:00.000+05:30

Its not only me who has got interested in blogging. (from what I perceive) Till recently the blog world was mapped be a select few, the spread was mostly thru the word of mouth (never underestimate its power as a strong marketing tool). But times are changing with people like me entering the arena the userbase is burgeoning.

Let me come to the point thou, y this blog? (BTW heres an interesting piece of trivia did u know that blogs are acronyms for WEBLOGS)

Well this Sunday HT carried out a full page on blogs/ blogging/ bloggers. What was of special interest thou is that the focal point was mostly Bridget Jones avtars. Apart from being interesting (full of write ups and links with sexual content, which I’ve compiled and put below for every1’s ease) it was also informative, my limited vocab got blessed with a new word, after chic lit, chic flick its not time for chic click. here are links to a few of the bold and beautiful (?) chic clicks and one by a mcp for all to enjoy

http://http://www.stephanieklein.blogs.com/
http://bridalbeer.blogspot.com
http://thecompulsiveconfessor.blogspot.com
http://thatonly.blogspot.com

http://killthewomen.blogspot.com

Disclaimer: The author is in no way responsible for what is written or not written in these blogs, as he had not personally checked them. If u have the time, interest and the patience to go ahead and search the blogs for steamy details its entirely ur prerogative.

woh 7 din

2005-08-18T10:56:00.000+05:30

the blog attempts to capture the plight of a normal mumbaikaar on the 27th of july 2005, the day when hell broke loose, and subsequently:

The story begins on an ordinary working day in Mumbai, Tuesday 26th July 2005, as the turn of events would have it that ordinary day became extra ordinary for most Mumbaikars:
I was busy with some urgent work and had not even gone out for lunch, being inside the office with all the curtains drawn I never knew what was going on outside. The rains had been going on since 12 but the real downpour began after around 1. At 4 PM when I was almost ready with my files, the current went off. I thought it was unusual but nothing more than that, but people had started packing their bags and leaving, I joined the crowd and got a lift from my boss, a Mr. Pawar. It was 3rd time in 3 days as we had been working late since last Saturday, but this time instead of the usual 2 of us we were 7 in the car. I was sitting in the front passenger side of the car, with a guy we had nicknamed Bhim (for obvious reasons). These new luxury cars are very good if u r 4-5, but for every extra person it really becomes uncomfortable. My body parts were twisted, making weird angles and the side of the seat with its hard contours was continuously pushing into my back hurting real badly. I couldn’t even change my position coz when I tried my muscles spasmed and in the middle of the road amidst heavy traffic and torrential rainfall I couldn’t even get out and strech my legs. The 1st route that we took was completely flooded so we took a u-turn, the next route was no better as we got stuck in a bumper to bumper traffic situation. One side of the road was overflowing with water so entire traffic had come on the other side and the congestion had worsened, anyway it didn’t make much of a difference. Coz except some vehicles taking a u-turn backwards there was no traffic from the other side. We saw walls being broken coz of the water flow, a car stuck in some hole submerged 2 3 ft. inside water and a tow truck pulling it out, which finally was managed after an hour of our arrival (and a wild guess that at least 2 3 hrs of actual trials, as the tow truck wouldn’t have been able to reach after that), it was a new Santro, jiski hogi uski to jaan atki hui hogi.

Meanwhile I decided I couldn’t take it any longer and came out of the car, another couple of guys followed and we decided to check out the traffic situation, and if there was any way out. There was hardly any space to even walk on the sides, while the strong water current prevented us from moving on the other side of the road. When we somehow reached the trouble area, the vehicles there looked like a jigsaw puzzle, some of them facing backwards some that had tries to turn their cars but eventually had given up. Just a little ahead we could see the reason for the traffic blockage, the road was sloping downwards and the area ahead was fully submerged in water. We went back with our report and after a little discussion we decided that we would walk back home. Bechare boss ka laptop bhi gaddi mein hi tha, but there was no option really, so he parked the car there itself and we started our march.

As we walked the water level kept on increasing inch by inch from toes to ankle and upto the knee and a little above. At the side of the road it was above waist height, people had tied ropes to the gates of their building while some held on to it near the center of the road. For moving in or out of the building people had to hold on to them, or else they would have been - literally "swept of their feet".

In a little while we reached the western express highway (for those who have any idea of Mumbai, we came out from the Jogeshwari link road, and Borivali meant crossing, Jogeshwari, Goregaon, Malad and Kandivali) from where we had to walk straight northwards at least 10-12 km more to reach Borivali. All the flyovers were jam packed with vehicles unable to get down on the road coz of the water logging. It was already dusk by the time we reached the highway and we kept on walking as it grew more and more dark. It wasn’t as if we were the only ones who were walking, with all motorised transportation coming to a halt, the usual train/bus/taxi/auto… commuters were walking home. Occasionally we could see a few cars on the street submerged more than half and some time almost totally on one side of the road. Next day we came to know that many people had broken the divider with the hands and car tools to cross over to the safer side, a lot of them had been unsuccessful and were either stranded on the other side or had got stuck on the divider itself.

After a few kms the water level receded but the rain gods were showing no mercy, infact at times the rain became so strong that one felt that there were high force hose pipes gushing water at you all the time. The uselessness of umbrellas had been discovered while we had 1st come out of the car so they were just increasing dead weight. Once we crossed Malad and were nearing Kandivali we could see that the traffic was moving a bit, but the couple of buses that crossed us were overflowing with people, the few autos that went by were already overloaded. So we kept walking and walking and walking…

Finally at around 9 45 we reached home, totally drenched. Fortunately after a day of acting funny my mobile was back to normal. Next day morning I called home to tell that there was no need to worry and stuff but I got no response, later on when it was all over the news they kept trying to call but the connectivity for the next couple of days was very poor.

I went back to the office the next day and there was no current still (only our building was suffering as the electric feeder of our building was in the basement), many people had spent the night in the office itself (some other building). But I could not complete the files on that day also, it was later declared a half day but I had already left by 11, got a lift from someone who had chosen that day off to celebrate and was going on a picnic with his family. Once on the highway he stopped his car to give lift to some other people as well, pour souls they had not been able to reach home since last night, and had started walking in the morning from Worli. Next day again there was no current in our building, but my boss had turned up on that day and so he suggested we should take our computers to the other block and we worked the whole day, while everyone else had again gone back by 10 30.

On Sunday it was again the same story flooding in the lower areas, locals cancelled… Monday was declared a half-day again after the news of flood situation worsening in some areas came. Since yesterday everything is back to normal thou we haven’t seen the sun yet but the rains are more normal and distributed.

One week of my life that I’m never going to forget, and as u might have guessed I don’t have much work to do, after that particular piece of work got over I’ve been bored by idleness, so thought why not write this out finally. Long and boring it might seem, but that’s because what we went through "woh 7 din" is meant to be experienced to believe.

Independence Day

2005-08-18T10:14:00.000+05:30

It was 12 30 in the nite, I was waiting for my train, which was running 3 hours late, at Tatanagar junction and suddenly the P.A system burst out with the tunes of "Ae mere wataan ke logon". It took a while to register what was going on, and then I realised amidst the high-speed life that we live in, I had even forgotten it was Independence Day.

Our generation never saw what it was to be under the foreign rule, neither have we felt the immediate after effects of their demise, and our emergence as an independent, sovereign, democratic nation. We take these things for granted. So what does Independence Day mean to us? (Except for a holiday which was even better this year being part of an extended weekend?) I would say a few moments of patriotism, when we see our armed forces showing their might in the parade at red fort (if we are not busy sleeping/ enjoying the holiday), a few articles in the newspaper, a few questionnaires, a couple of news bulletins, that’s it FULL STOP.

Why have we become so selfish, so self-indulgent that after those few moments (if any) our thoughts wander back focused on self centered issues? Why in India we quote Kennedy "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what can you do for your country" only in debates and elocutions, is the onus of making his country great only an American prerogative?

Despite the apathy shown by an average Indian towards government, governance, judiciary, the whole system, despite the shackles of corruption and compulsions, our country is rising and shining and for the first time in the modern era the world is taking notice. I had read this quotation or something similar written on one of my seniors door "What we can achieve is limitless, Sky is just an excuse" so true it is to the present situation, but how? Is it not high time for us to start contributing not only economically, but socially too? At an age of 22 I have a very nice excuse – I still haven’t seen enough of the world, I’m just out of grad school - I may be right, I might be wrong, but one thing I know, I may be short on ideas but not on intent. I’m sure that opportunities will be aplenty, not exclusively for me but for everyone, its entirely upto us what we decide to do with that chance.

As the architect rightly puts in the MATRIX, the choice is yours.

friendship day!!!

2005-08-18T09:59:00.000+05:30

wen i wished some of my frnds in the US happy frndship day, their response was more like - wat? From wat they told, days like frndship day valentines day etc are not celebrated with much enthu over there. but in mumbai i saw ppl celebrating like crazy, msgs written and dozens of frndship bands tied on their hands. u must have heard of ABCDs American born confused desis, well with india shining and all that image is changing, but wat we have in india now looks like IBCV Indian Born Confused Videshis. Back to the core issue wat was this hulla all abt?

wen i was in kgp i had only heard of something like this and when we wished each other it was more of a joke, but here every one was acting crazy abt it. god knows wats the fun, u'll never c a boy wishing another boy happy frndship day. maybe wen it comes to the oppostite sex it probably gives ppl a chance to act more informal than wat they would normally do, cuddling and hugging and stuff, whereas in the US ppl dont need occassions to get comfortable.

as for grls i dont know, they are simpler they act same with both sexes maybe no hidden agenda over there simply more sensitive and caring?
and then there are ppl like me, u dont want to look ignorant so its more like, wen in rome do as the romans do. even if it means to act like a confused indian torn between cultural divide so here goes HAPPY FRNDSHIP DAY ;)