Everything....

The Awesumm wala trip's travelogue Day 5!!

2011-03-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

Day 5!! I know this is coming very delayed…so might miss a point or two. Don’t think you would complain. Being a travel day, with people dozing off and sun beating down, there aren’t any pics either to write home about.

So day 4 ended with Neelu crying like a 4 yr old “Mela acha waala chhabun kahan gaya?” (or something like that), disturbed sleep for many, chest congestions for Santosh and me.

So Day 5 began with…yeah again heaps and pile of idli, dosas and poori bhaji, for which Santosh, Anish, Body and I couldn’t be part of this time. Santosh and I went to see a hospital. Actually a single room (maybe 15’X15’) divided into 4 by partitions. After 45 minutes of wait, we realized doctor isn’t coming to clinic now and the doctor present, an obstetrician, wouldn’t have been able to help much.

We got Aneesh for company and marched towards the Mahavir Jain bhojnalaya from Day 4. By 12 we had to leave the cottage and munnar. Deepika utilized the rest of morning in catching some sleep, which Daisy and Neelu, by the music produced by their respiratory tracks, denied her in night.

The next destination was Kodaikanal and by some heroic search by Blackberry boys, we had found ourselves a place to stay in KK. In couple of jeeps, we started. The jeeps would take away only to a destination from where we could get a bus.

The destination, the name of which I have forgotten by now, had a very good biryani place. And people hogged upon delicious biryani, with Divya complaining about non-availability of Nimbooz. With stomachs full, nobody was in the mood of topsy-turvy ride of the bus, equivalent to erstwhile blulines of Delhi. So we hired a couple of Sumos, and reached KK by late eve.

Again a day had been lost in travelling and that had been point of contention when Neha and Chiru got involved in minor altercation, which I being most responsible of all, sorted out peacefully (by telling both of them to shut up). I have seen it before. Large group, long trip, tired legs and minds do create some disturbances. Nothing to blame people about. And by same standard the trip was “extremely peaceful” :)

I, Santosh, Neha, Deepika and Daisy decided to stay back at the hotel, while people went for dinner. Dinner wasn’t playing on our (santy's and mine) mind when we understood we had to walk uphill 1 km, on way back. L But the guys didn’t let us starve and we relished upon chicken fried rice and chilly chicken brought by them. In the meantime India somehow managed to win against Netherlands in a group match.

There was a hurry to sleep in rooms not occupied by either of snorers, the group that was now joined by Anish and Body as well.

Although I slept early owing to bad cold, but people did have fun in late night’s poker session, the details of which can be sought by the participants. The cold has been a nemesis. It has taken away from me, much more than the CFO position that day. I announced Neelu as my successor, for good or bad it remained to be seen…
End of day 5....

The Awesumm wala trip's travelogue Day 4!!

2011-03-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

I was definitely amongst the stupid ones to not see in advance how cold munnar could have got. Early morning wind were the chilliest I had experienced in a long time (I did give delhi winters a miss because of our IIMK academic schedule).

The cottage caretaker came to take order for the breakfast and I asked him to bring 5 of each of the items he named. Of course there was a rush for bathroom as hot water wouldn’t have continued for eternity. And considering we had been travelling entire day before nobody except Neelu could have thought about skipping the bath.

We literally pounced upon the food when it arrived. Everybody was so hungry that we had to repeat the order. Neha, meanwhile got angry as people didn’t leave anything for Daisy (and Devakee) as they were busy under shower when food supplies came. Second food suppiles came and got finished in no time. Morning coffees and teas never felt so good against the chilly wind blows of Munnar. I had 3 cups of coffee, a personal record.

We had called for two commander jeeps to take us around in town. After having loads of jokes cracked on Daisy and Neelu over their snores, we made a move to explore the hill station. There are three directions roads take us to in Munnar. We could at most cover two directions in one day.

The first destination was some screwed up flower garden. Why I said it was screwed up, was the fact that they wanted us to shell 20-30 Rs (plus 50 for each camera that we take inside), to see a place with randomly grown plants, some of which had few colored something at their branch ends. We stopped there to provide for holistic satisfaction of shutterbugs accompanying us. Of course they were seeing the first of million tea gardens that we saw on our trip.

The next 3-15 (I can’t remember the number) destination were named as “'X' Point”, with X standing for words like Photo, shoot, 'Y' View (with Y standing for words like valley, moutain etc), chunnu, munnu, tilli, villi etc. ‘Pleasantly surprised’ was my reaction when people unanimously decided to skip all of those. With that pace we could have made the record of going in all three directions in a single day.
The next point we stopped for was some Elephant ride place. Chiru’s troubles got a positive reinforcement by seeing elephants shitting all over the place. We could see the unrest clearly on his face (Santosh claimed he saw unrest over his lower tummy too).

Next we made way for the damn oops Dam.

Everybody tried their “Shooting Balloon” skills. Three people actually managed to hit the balloons they were aiming for. Divya looked very funny with her shooting stance, barrel over her shoulders.

There was another smaller Dam, where few of us chose to enjoy a pony ride. Others including me, found a dhaba serving delicious vegetable maggi, omlette and another dish (which I can’t recall now). Divya had been crying to go to this place, where adventure sports were being held. So we had to make an early move from the place. We stopped at another view point with Santosh daring to taste chocolate tea from a stall named after Anish.

We faced our first dissentment as Neha, Daisy, Chiru, Deepika and Devakee found the adventure sports idea too risky. And santosh rejected the idea to split. And Body, Divya and I wanted to go for the adventure rides. (The reason that they were for free was another incentive). Finally we split up and group of 6 left for the adventure sports, but it was joy to find out later rest 6 turned up to. After 2 hours (most of it involved in waiting for our turn), we made our move back to the cottage. We stopped at a place called Mahavir Jain bhojnalaya for dinner, where food was of decent quality. Santosh disagreed (dying to dig his teeth into something meaty)

At night it was heavily debated, in a light tone of course, what to do with the snoring people. I had troubled cough sequence everytime a joke was cracked, which in all probability ended with Neelu maiking an entry in his diary!! :P

We somehow managed to sleep. By this time snorers campaign had claimed two more victims in form of Body and Anish. The four distinct yet rhythemic sounds, with their unique composition could have put even Yanni to shame. Deepika couldn’t appreciate an orchestra of such great quality and finally surrendered by moving into common room, finding respite on a chair.

to be continued.....

The Awesumm wala trip's travelogue Day 3!!

2011-03-15T01:51:00.000-07:00

THIS IS THE SHORTER ONE, AS WE WERE TRAVELLING AND SLEEPING MOST OF THE TIME! :) NO PICS EITHER! TOO TIRED TO CLICK ANY! :(

Day 2 had been very good. The problem with Day 3 was that we would have spent almost whole day travelling. Anu had to leave for Trivendrum airport which reduced the travellers’ number to 10. The next destination was Munnar, a not so commercialised hill station famous for Tea Gardens. The trouble was our train would have taken us to Angamali, from where we would have found some way to go to Munnar.

Now, all the high maintenance people had been converted to low maintenance. So we boarded a bus from Angamali to “something something”. Now “something something” was a crowded urban area. We waited at the bus station for a bus for munnar. People had early morning idli vada as breakfast in the train, so they found a bakery cum juice shop to their respite.

After a wait of about 40 minutes, bus did arrive. We managed to find 10 seats and quickly went into sleep mode. Chiru and Aneesh had few troubles because of bus travel but we had to wait till next 12 hours before we got our first casualty to “loose motions”

Deepika and Shaily had reached Munnar in advance and booked a good cottage for us. During the last hour of travel, most of us realised it was cold out there and very few had actually got garments for the purpose. Thanks to Anu I had a jacket that was able to cover my arms till my elbows and my waist 3 inches above my belt buckle. But beggars couldn’t have been chosers.

In this part of our travel, Neha and I invented a game of conversating only in questions. (Credits shared with Luniya). Neelu and Divya joined and then I wasn’t proud of being a co-inventor of the game. We had dinner in supposedly the best non-veg restaurant. They didn’t serve boneless chicken. So I was disappointed as were my fellow meaty-mates.

Cottage was great and we felt like one big family in that bedroom with 5 beds. Adjoining were 3 bathrooms, which did have geysers but hot water was avaiable only in wee hours (7-9 am). Few of us took baths with that freezing water.

The following day wasn’t going to be good for Santosh and me. But before that the night wasn’t going to be great for few more, as were going to discover the power of “The snore”. And Daisy wasn’t alone this time. When I and Body made way to our beds, we couldn’t stop laughing (for me read coughing as well), when every moment was coupled with snoring music composed by Daisy and Neelu. We somehow got to sleep. Day 4 was bekoning us.

The Awesumm wala trip's travelogue Day 2!!

2011-03-14T10:53:00.000-07:00

While sleeping late on Day 1, we knew we had an early start next day. Santosh Hegde, seemingly most responsible on the location and the occasion, ensured that everybody got ready well before the ususal “just in time”. The three chettas from the day earlier were bang on time with their off white ambassadors. After a 30 minute ride and semi-altercation over the enhanced desired price by them, we reached Trivendrum station.

The first thing we discussed was about the extravagent nature of our meals. Everybody agreed with the cause and we made a great beginning by having brunch at “sasta and tikau” Indian coffee House. The bill was INR 600ish. I felt a great respite as FO (the C had been dropped by then or it wasn’t…damn as if it made any difference)

We got sleeper unreserved tickets, which ensured better rest for our asses, all for Rs 60 a piece. A lot of people had been woken up untimely. So, 20 minutes into the ride and they were almost snoring on whichever empty births they could find. Few of us, i.e. Neelu, Aneesh, Daisy and I played cards.

Can’t remember the exact time but it wasn’t long before we reached Kanyakumari. With eco-mode still playing on minds, we took affordable yet decent accomodation, adjacent to the railway station. The sample room shown to Aneesh and Body, found their acceptance. Only later did they found that sample was immediately booked by some fellow and Aneesh couldn’t do ‘it’ in Indian styled loo. So we had to upgrade one of the rooms to have Aneesh’s butts pleased (and even mine after the ‘magic’ time)

Without wasting any time, we set off for Vivekananda Rock memorial. The ferry ride was memorable to say at least with wild waves and dirty life-jackets. We warmed up our eyes by ‘checking out’ some salwar-kurti clad firangans and then compared them to girls accompanied by us- no chunni, no pallu, and no ghoonghat. :P

We were among the last to get off the little island, not because any of us had a great interest and passion about the historical significance of the memorial, but because we had 11 crackpots, all looking for getting the next 200 of their facebook profile pics. We found childlike pleasure in spotting crabs, wishing for a fish to be able to return back into the sea after been lashed onto one of the steps and seeing ephermal rainbows resulting from the misty air created when waves lashed onto the memorial walls.

The windy surroundings were romantic for “few” and introspective for others. I could easily see people lost in thoughts. Somehow sea, horizon, sky etc. makes people think long term, I guess.

Anyways, we were hungry after returning back from the memorial. ICH food had long been converted into joules and calories and was more than spent in posing for photographs. But we wanted to see the meeting point of three waters. While others took a pass a bit earlier, I , neelu and Divya went till the southernmost point of Indian mainland (at least we believed it to be) and enjoyed waves crashing against us from the three directions. Aaakchhoooo…there I got my first sneeze of the trip. We caught up with others at some idli-dosa place and gobbled up whatever someone suggested and we ordered.

People then left to do their respective shopping and retiring for the day, while we three reached back at the small beach to enjoy “Mirchi ke pakode”. We prayed at the Tsunami memorial and spent couple of hours having nice long chat around life and philosophy. :)

We reached hotel, and watched some WC match, while people enjoyed the noble liquid. The eco mode had been a great success, and we wanted to have Chinese food as a celebration. We found a place, whose owner asked us to not pay the bill, if we didn’t like their food. Food was good amidst some great Murder film tracks (only hindi music available there).

We made our way back to hotel amidst, few dogs calling each other names. A few ladies got worried for Aneesh, lagging behind while talking to his sweetheart over the phone. Everybody managed to return unscathed. While most people retired shortly after, Body, Aneesh, Neelu and I played 29 for couple of hours. Daisy provided background score with his Snores.

And, then “Magic Nite” bagan. We showed card tricks one by one. Finally we decided to record the combination of them all. Body was the magician and I had to play the innocent audience who had been summoned to take part. Had a hearty laughing time and before we could realise, santosh came to wake us up. Day 3 had begun.

The Awesumm wala trip's travelogue Day 1!!

2011-03-14T02:47:00.000-07:00

We deboarded the train at Trivendrum, 3 taxis took us to a seemingly economic accomodation (later we found, we were paying much more than what it was worth for). Anyways, the sun was out and we couldn’t wait much to take a plunge into the sea. We made our way to the nearest beach (except Divya, whose stomach gave her troubles yet again). The beach was totally sunsaan, with small dead fishes spread all over, dogs and crows feasting upon them. And the waves were wild; the ground seemed to have a steep slope into the sea.

We decided to make a move to a little more inhabited beach. Moving south we found one within 400 mtrs. All of us threw ourselves into the waves, with daisy and me getting bruises. Of course Daisy had someone to take his care :P
At lunch we crashed in a place called “The lobster Pot”, an expensive place where we got 4Kish bill without even appetisering our not so little stomachs. CFO went cashless for the first time.

It was decided that we would move to the Lighthouse after bathing with fresh water at our residing place (I would rather not call it a hotel). Girls understandably took time to dress up. Combined with that, a false assurance of Lighthouse entry till 7pm, made us reach late. All we could manage was few pics besides the tower.

For a early dinner we found a first floor restaurant, with a nube as its waiter, who was as unsure of the menu and the dishes as manmohan singh, when he was made Prime Minister of India. High on trip enthusiasm, we ordered in excess of 5600 and “toing”, one day into the trip and we were (each) already 1.5K down, with more expensive destinations still to come.

Then people (read girls along with poor boys who were their friends) dispersed into nearby shops to shop. While 4 of us Me, Neelu, Aneesh and Body, doing some eye-warming exercise. Then the waiter from the restaurant came to thank us, seeking our next visit. We told him about our plans to go to Kanyakumari, for which he suggested some place belonging to one of his friends. The follow up discussion turned into light-humored way of making us realise how people were not so fit in our group and we couldn’t resist gigging, though later felt bad for it and apologised to concerened people.

Autowallahs literally looted us by asking for 125 bucks for less than 2 Kms distance. One even coated 400, upon which I angrily replied “why not show a knife and then loot me?” (the incident later on gave birth to the dual-theories propounded by Neelu.

Engalnd was playing Ireland and when we retuned to our lodge, all tired and down, found Ireland has successfully chased a 300 plus target. Daisy went to sleep early. Then others followed. Not very late into the night Chiru and I heard Divya’s scream. We thought matter to be serious and tried to follow the voice, only to find Divi, along with Body, Neelu and Anish were chillaxing over the terrace.

Chiru said he is going to retire while I made my way up, explaining them the scenario I thought woken me up from half slumber state. They joked about me and chiru sneaking out for privacy. Within few minutes I came to know about what was the discussion all about. Triggering from auto incident, Neelu was saying it was “human behavior” to get the maximum out of the situation and 125 was our “individual threshold”. So the overpricing was justified.

After over 2 hours of pointless blabber (which included few ghost stories, scheduled to make a comeback in Ooty later in the trip), we went to sleep. The same cab drivers who dropped us at the lodge had agreed to take us back to Trivendrum station next morning. The Day 1 had ended.

To be continued……

The Awesumm wala trip's travelogue Day 0!!

2011-03-14T00:03:00.000-07:00

What does MBA (oops Post Graduate Diploma in Management) teaches you? We employed all of that while setting off on our (11 later 10 later 12 amazing people) great South India trip.

Doing things “just in time”, in accordance of principle of “time value of money” (spending extravagantly early in the trip, to realize self on Eco mode 2 days into the excursion”, “money value of time” (i.e deferring time expenditure on an activity), “last mover’s advantage” (cuz anyways the ones to get ready have to wait for the ones who dress up last, not always girls, in this case), “Dual leadership” (cuz everybody needs someone, sometime to blame for something at someplace etc. (a phrase meant to show people/readers to believe you know more than you actually do)

And how could we miss our own contribution to the world of philosophical Jargonology and redefined principles like ABC theory, threshold principal, peer/beer pressure and Human behavior, which in totality can explain any damn event under the sky. More on that, later. Copyrights owned by PartyPPlz.

It all started when we (the PartyPplz, the only college gang with a “Z” in their name) that almost everybody other than them was partying on and off the Kampus. The problem with a big group is that nobody (including me) wants to take initiative upon executing a plan.

Under such trying circumstances, couple of creatures from Venus, took the matter in their hands, roughly outlining the plan for a 10 day excursion of South India. With just two days in beginning planned for (courtesy Indian Railways and their online reservation system), the trip ended up being more random than even what it promised initially.

So, on Mar 1st 2011, 11 people were scheduled to leave Calicut aka Kozhikode for the “Once in lifetime adventure” (damn!! I should have undersold it). 1 hour before the train departure, Neelaksh comes to my room, asking for Iron for he was left with nothing in civilized wearing condition for the trip. Add to that couple of undergarments, which were still wet owing to all year long humid weather of Kerala.
Anyways, we did manage to start “Just in time”, with Neelu even pleading to stop at a juice hawker en-route to station. Everyone was brutal enough to negate the possibility. We arrived at station 15 minutes in advance, with Neelu cursing us for not stopping for his much desired Juice bar.

5 minutes into the events, we found ourselves searching for Neelu’s suitcase (which now had all the clothes that could fit him after a year of swelling up). I went back to the place where we unloaded all the luggage from the cab and upon not-finding the missing suitcase, asked a Police personnel, if he had spotted any unclaimed luggage. Lucky for Neelu (his only clothes that could fit) and for us (as it threatened our entire trip, at the very beginning), we found it in his possession.

Train was already on the platform. And I was made the (C)FO, handling all the common expenses. It was five minutes to the departure when I was told by Anuradha that dominos guy was on his way to deliver pizzas. Shocked initially, I found myself waiting at the station gate looking for dominos guy and train at the same time, cuz as priorities both (cheese burst pizza and boarding the train) felt equally important. With 2 minutes to go for the departure, a call from our bogie pleasantly surprised me when told that Dominos guy had delivered the pizzas in our coach. Dominos Rocks!!

Later, to my disappointment I found that the pizzas were non-cheese burst. It was just 2 hours into the trip and a lot had happened for me to write about. After few couple more people were either dozing off or busy in small talks in small groups. I was simultaneously told that “Plan mein thoda change hone ka”. We were disembarking the train at Kovlam, giving Kanyakumari a miss by a day.

To be continued…….

A "hitting" mail from yesteryears!!!

2011-01-04T03:48:00.000-08:00

Subject: Privet,yia sou,bonjour, hejsa, 你好- HI
To: :):):)

Hi There,

Firstly, apologies for using your official ID. Your confusing smile says- I won't be reported to "Ethics Hotline". Thanks :)

But, I guess giving you a ring on mobile or straightaway coming to your desk and calling HELLOs would have become more awkward for you than what this is.

Before moving ahead with further read, just make sure you are not in between any urgent piece of work. Take your time and come back catching up with this, once you are sure I am not occupying you at the cost of some work. :)

Secondly this is not a date mail. :) It really doesn't make a difference to me whether you are already engaged (you would be, i guess) or not.

So let me share this account of mine before anything else:

I joined sometime in Sep-07. We used to sit at the place adjacent to breakaway area in C6.

So as I moved a BPO environment, I was expecting to see a lot of beautiful (read Hot) females. I was disappointed a bit. And then I asked my collegues- "So who's the top rated of them all?" and all three pointed towards a y-bay in my front with CAM saying board hanging above. And I see a tall fair lady deeply engrossed in her work. [oops she's so focussed...kahin mujhe ghoorte dekh liya, toe I mite get reported to Ethics Hotline :(]

I couldn't go near at that time. Because boss called us -"Guys Teleconf here ...now". After the conf, our conversation pursued. One said -"Mann, one day when I become a great Director, I will declare my love for her in a press Interview" We all laughed!!!! (The guy is an assistant director now for Mahesh Bhatt and he hasn't forgotten his pledge)

Other said -"She scores 8.85/10 and hence is the best" Another said - "She seems the only beauty with brains we have here"

None of the three is in the organisation now and I am the fourth one, scheduled to leave soon to IIM Kozhikode (you know that, I guess). All three said- "Usko bata ke jana, how much she was admired by us. Usko fark nahin padta ...still"

Sometimes in life, one stumbles upon some people who can't stop oozing a good amount curiosity about themselves. I found you one of them. A person, I should at least once chat with, know a bit, discuss interests and other trivia, which would let me know you.

So here am I, in my full sense of insanity typing this out and sending to your's official ID, which you may see tomorrow in your mailbox. I sincerely hope you don't share this with any of your bouncer friends :) (if you have any)

All this time you might be wondering: why a mail. Why not come over to your desk and chat a bit over there or at Barista (terrace).

Reasons:

I hate coming and passing by your bay for two/three special persons who have been making sure that not a single stone is left unturned for making our lives tougher here. Be it the Cell-phone issue, front door access. They simply ire me up with their every single word/activity related to our team"

Moreover I don't exactly wish to know just the "official" side of yours. :) I believe delhi/NCR has some good places to unwind.

So if you are not offended (should you be?) just let me know if you wish (or even don't un-wish, i.e have no fuss with) meet up for a "breakfast/brunch/lunch/coffee/snacks/early dinner", at any place any time in/around delhi, do let me know. :)
If you don't, It won't bitter pill to swallow, still. :(

In case of the latter, I wish you all what you desire from life. May the best of your past be the worst of your future.

In case otherwise. I still have got 2-3 weeks time. (I wish I am not sounding like SRK of Kal Ho Na Ho.....my fav song)

Cheers

(P.S I know neither of Russian,Greek, French, Danish or Mandarin! Subject line credits to Wikipedia!!! )

Please reply and type "UNSUBSCRIBE" if you don't want to receive mails or any form of interaction from the sender of this email. :-(

7 First Dates : Part 5: The call center girl

2010-12-14T22:58:00.000-08:00

It took some time for Kangna to get normal with Aman all over again, not because she was too mad with him over what he had said over coffee, but that she herself had some issues to sort out. Of course Aman was thinking otherwise. And so went all over to make her his happiest ever friend. So after a week of the "Third first date", they got together for a movie at PVR.

"You know what, I think I need to finish through last four now", Aman said while catching a popcorn by his mouth.

"You lost the bet, buddy. It was 7 days. So could you remind me again, what payoffs we bet for", Kagna said while sipping from the Regular Pepsi cup.

"Lost?? Excuse me! You got mad at me for no reason. So last week should count as a halt"

"You are a very bad loser! Okay go on! Take your time. Finish the bet. Seems that one slap wasn't enough for you"

"That was an anomaly. I am sure I would cruise through it. So who was next on the list? Some call center girl?"

"It was credit card caller, as far as I recall. But have your fun anyways. I am fine with the call center girl"

_____________________________________________________________________________

"Good Morning! Thank you for calling Airtel. This is Manisha. How may I help you?"

"Hi, this is Aman and my number is 9873961643. I forwarded a request of getting GPRS activated on my account"

"Thank you for the confirmation of your name and number. Sir, may I please put your call on hold while I check the information regarding your query?"

"Sure"

After 1 minute

"Sir, our records say that your GPRS is activated from our end"

"But, this is rubbish. I can't access my GPRS."

"Sir, have you checked with the phone settings?"

"Yes! all is fine with that. I needed GPRS access urgently. India is playing South Africa today. I needed to know the score. And if I can't get the basic services, what's the point in sticking to Airtel?"

"Sir I understand your frustration. But I am helpless in this regard."

"No! It’s me who is helpless. I need to know the score. where can I access that from? Would you tell me? Exactly! You should tell me. I am holding the line. Let me know the live score."

"But, how can I sir?"

"espnstar.com. Check latest scores"

"I am extremely sorry sir", she was her apologetic best, "but we don't have internet access here"

"I don't care anything about that. It's Airtel's responsibility to let me know the score"

She was almost breaking down, "Sir, I will have a break in 30 minutes from now. I will call my home and then give you a call back about the score"

"Are you kidding? In thirty minutes the tables would be turned. I shouldn't have taken Airtel's connection in the first place. Let me talk to your supervisor."

"Sir! I am extremely sorry. Wait. I will try to sneak out for a bathroom break and then would call my home to get you the latest scores. Please bear with us for that duration"

"Manisha! No need for this. This is Nitin calling from Radio City and you are our "Popat of the day"!

"Whaaaaat?? Oh my god!"

"Congrats! And apologies for pissing you off. You must be feeling like killing me", he chuckled.

"Nitin! I was so frustrated. But this is awesome. By the way can I know who set me up?"

"No one Manisha! We called the customer care. And we found you!"

"Of course!! By the way! my real name is Manvi. And very innovative way of making Popat out of me!"

"You are welcome!"

"And when can I listen to this broadcast?"

"9pm on Thursday. Can you give us your contact number?"

"Ummm. ok 9873569145"

"It was nice speaking with you Manisha...oops.. Manvi. Can just say for us once- City bajao?

"City Bajaao", and she started giggling

_________________________________________________________________________________

"Wow that was impressive", Kangna told Aman after he came back after dating Manvi.

"That's me", he pulled up his right collar twice.

"Ha Ha Ha! Very funny! So who's up next?"

"Oh! I found that tissue paper. Let's look", he pulled out something resembling a tissue paper and had some symbols scribbled on it.

"That's almost ruined"

"No i can make some sense out of this. It says Air hostess, a friend's ex girlfriend and a friend's something. Can’t see what this something is? Okies let the last one be just a friend"

"I am fine with it. As I know you are getting nowhere near of getting an Air hostess"

"Well lady! Prepared to be awed again by the charismatic...."

"Babaji keep you gyan to yourself..."

To be continued......

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 6...coming soon!!

When Nolan got inspired from Disney!

2010-12-03T19:27:00.000-08:00

About a week ago, when I was busy trying to secure the passing marks in one of my end term exams, someone on IP pinged everybody a link about a disney comic. You can go through it here.

Uncle scrooge's dream starts with something that really happened years ago. Then arrive Beagle boys (dream intruders, just like Cobb). One of them explains to other how they got that machine in his hands which would enable them to intrude into Scrooge's dream. They succeed in doing that and make a number of attempts to steal the vault number combination to steal all of Scrooge's money. Donald, uncle Scrooge's nephew along with Gyro, the trio of kids however have different plans.

The comic-book is strikingly similar to Nolan's Inception for obvious reasons. The concept of dream intrusion, totem and limbo have been discussed in the 26 page comic-book.

Apart from these, the comic-book also attempts at explaining two more interesting concepts:

1) Dream Boundaries: It states if an intruder hits the dream boundary (limited by dreamer's range and conceptualization), he is thrown out of the dream and wakes up in real life.

2) Inability to Lie in dreams upon being asked a question: When somebody asks you a question in your dream, you are bound to think about the real answer. But, as dream is nothing but your thoughts brought to picture and sound, if you think about the real answer to the question, it will be spoken in form of words in your dream. Thus intruder can get the desired information by just asking the dreamer about it.

A lot of articles/bloggers have been talking about the "coincidence" since August'2010. There hasn't been any official comment from Nolan or his representatives till now.

Nevertheless Inception is a great movie and beautifully directed. But, the knowledge about the similarities did make me take a tiny bit of appreciation off from Nolan. May be the idea got incepted in his mind courtesy the comic-book and he never knew it.

The Prologue

2010-09-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

It was still 3 hours to go before the next flight from Delhi would arrive. And another before flights from Mumbai and Hyderabad could have arrived.
Adhyan (Adi) was still shivering with thoughts of meeting Abhinav (Abby), 3 years after they last met. He had to face him alone for at least an hour before Pragya (PT), Vishesh (chiggy) and Simi would arrive. Last time their meet ended with Abby slapping Adi, hard on his face, for what he termed as “Backstabbing”. He could have done further serious damage to Adi’s face, if others along with Anu wouldn’t have stopped him. After who hopes their Goa trip should end at that note.

Last visual memory that Adi had about Abby went like:

“You bastard! Son of a bitch, I was crazy that I believed you to be my best friend. Let me go Chiggy, I will smash his head”, screamed Abhi.

“Abby! Please stop.”, Vishesh was utilising his 6 ft 2 in well built frame to reign in Abby’s advances towrads Adi, who didn’t move an eyelash. It was too late to be in any hangover mode. Yet, by the look on his face it looked very apparent that he was clueless about what happened the night earlier.

Anu was in one corner of the room sobbing heplessly, with PT and Simi still undecided whether to stand beside her or not.

The clock wasn’t simply moving. He didn’t know whether it was good or bad. He didn’t want to face him early yet he couldn’t bear the agony of streched anticipation about their first meet in three years.

“A café Latte please”, he signalled to the guy in red cap behind the CCD counter. It was his third latte in last 30 minutes. Memory lanes opened up once again:

“Sucker! Why did you arrive 2 days late into the hostel? Did you have this misconception, that you won’t be ragged”, a medium built boy thundered.

“Sorry sir”, a slightly overweight boy said aongside his roommate, as he was surrounded by 3 continuosly abusing bullies.

Before it could go bad and one of them ended up crying for the fear, the “bullies” revealed themselves, “Welcome dude! We are not seniors, man. Just thought about having a light moment”

They all burst in laughter. The slightly overweight guy joined them too, though still in contained manner.

“This is Prakhar, he is Rajeev and I am Abhishek. We are your neighbors. Flat 20G”, said the medium built boy.

“Hehe! Nice to meet you all. I am Adhyan”, he shook hands with the other two before Abhinav almost hugged him and said “Man! You are still freaked out. Chill”

“Not for long though. We have a dictum sent by seniors to get assembled in the hostel grounds at 11”

One more hour to kill and then they woud have shaked hands again, at least, was what Adi was thinking.

a PEEP into the LEEway enjoyed by LIVEs of farmers!

2010-08-29T20:07:00.000-07:00

I waited very long to watch this movie. The reason: They didn't screen it in Kozhikode and I didn't want to watch the pirated edition available on DC++.

Also I wanted to watch it with my parents. And I can say with confidence, people like me would have enjoyed it the more than others who are nothing but concrete born and brought up gas-mongers. For simple reason that I have been into villages long enough to identify and comprehend what's going on where (despite it not being in the focus of the frame)

Ooops! I am talking about Peepli Live! Aamir no doubt is a brilliant businessman and that is reflected in the way the film was promoted, or the way the cast/crew was selected. I reckon film might not have been that successful, if Aamir hadn't been associated with the film, not because of any fallacies within the film, but for the fact, films need to be marketed well in addition of being well made.

And a well made film it is. One of my professors said "You know if a film is a good one, if it drains (and not tortures) you emotionally (in sad or happy way)". Even with an issue as serious as Farmers' suicide (which can be dismissed by urban youth and middle-aged alike as HEY! NOT MY PROBLEM), writer-director Anusha Rizvi manages to touch chords with the audiences, not because of any sympathy but by the simple and true way of story telling. Another satire on Media and Politics (earlier failed attempts like Phir bhi dil hai Hindustani and Rann) but yet most of the puns are very fresh.

Dialogues are amazingly impactful. I was into the splits, when one of the leading journalist says "Aap dekh sakte hain ki Nathha ki maa ne hamein ye (V ka) ishara kiya. Iske do matlab ho sakte hain. Ya toe ye hamse beedi maang rahin hain, ya aman aur shanti ki appeal kar rahi hain". In another scene a reporter is examining Nattha's droppings to get cues about his mental state (before a declared future suicide)

Most importantly none of the characters enters into any "speech" mode to enlighted us about their plight and stay very natural. Raghuvir yadav (the only known face), owing to his rural background gels very well in the frames. Another enjoyable stuff is altercation of Saas-Bahu. Anusha has been careful enough no to used any abuses for the Saas by the Bahu (despite former laddering the latter with a pile of strong ones).

I could very easily identify with the way men sat around in circles and sang "Sakhi sayyan toe khoob hai kamaat re..Mehngaayi daayan khaaye jaat re". The indifference over the death of a family member in anticipation of compensation package is also beautifully shot. There is a very small reference of corporal punishment the two central characters received in their early days. My grand-parents had some similar stories to tell.

The rare troughs (not pitfalls) are the puns on politicians, which are stale as ever. We have seen them all, courtesy zillion movies being made upon the subject in last two decades. Rizvi knows her movie's strength and has focused on them ably.

There is no suspense element in the film and I don't think Rizvi even wanted any. The climax (preceding the end and the message that millions of farmers have either committed suicide or shifted professions in last decade and a half), is beautifully shot. It's not a happy ending because it doesn't happen that way in real life.

A worth watch in every sense. I would even recommend second viewing, to appreciate the art direction, setting and sub-plots.

Rating: ****

(PS: Thanks cheater chinu :) for spotting the error in the name. Corrected! )

7 First Dates : Part 4: The college goer

2010-07-21T02:25:00.000-07:00

Aman somehow knew this (THE THIRD FIRST DATE) was going to be tough. It was hard to find a college student in a bar alone. And visiting college to do so wasn't feasible.

It struck him. It was just two weeks ago that he happened to meet someone accidently in Delhi Metro (Ek chhoti si X story). Why can't that happen again to him, although this time it would be planned from his side? "Yes Terrific. Thanks...whatever your name was (Akshita, he couldn't recall it at that time)

But plans are never supposed to be executed as they are planned for. At least not in Aman's case. Travel from Noida to CP had been too plain. He was wondering where did all college goers happen to vanish.

Before returning he decided to sip a cup of coffee at CCD, Rajeev Chowk Metro station.

"Aman! Is that you", an unfamiliar voice called for him from back.

"Aakash! Where have you been these entire years buddy?"

Aman and Aakash were bench buddies from school days at DPS Noida. After 15 minutes of catching up they began the conversation which could be of some use to Aman.

"So where are you headed?” asked Aman.

"Ummm! I can tell you I guess. I have enrolled in Salsa classes at Radisson Noida"

Had he had that sip of coffee he was about to, he could have easily sprayed it all over the coffee shop.

"What???", Aman said tried hard to stop his giggle.

"Yeah! I know what you are giggling about. But this place is awesome. Of the 40 people in batch only 12 are guys and girls range from early teens to tweens"

"You mean to say, there are college girls too?"

"Of course! Most colleges are on one-month holidays for now. But why are you so particular about college girls. Aren't you too old to romance one?"

"Leave that part", he winked "Let's make a move. I am registering for these classes too. What is the name of the Instructor and his troupe?"

"Ballrumours by Aamir Ahmed"

As they registered a beautiful (read Super Hot) girl crossed them and reached for the reception.

"Dude, thanks for bringing me here", Aman whispered in Aakash's ears.

"Anytime...Anytime. Waise I don't think she is a college student"

"No worries. Still a good bet to hit upon"

And then against their expectations she turned to them.

"So you are the new admits?". Before they could say anything she continued "Hi! I am Neel, your co-instructor for these sessions. Let's make a mast move. Aamir wouldn't like us to be late"

A silent sound of splashing glasses could be heard by both of them. Anyways they followed her and were not at all disappointed, when they reached for the ball room.

"People, these are new admits. Let's help them catch-up with what we did last time"

Couple of dozens of sexy smiles on sexy faces on sexy bodies turned towards them.

Following couple of hours were filled with "uh...1...2...3.........5...6....7" of the steps. But by the end of it Aman managed to get contact numbers of five girls, three of whom were in Graduation College.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Knaaiceee, so three 'college girl' dates in two days. Impressive. But it would still meet only one of the check points in the bet list", Kangna said.

"You are mean. I thought you would at least count it as two", Aman exclaimed

"So who's next?"

"I don't know. Maybe credit card caller. And going by the television these days, they might be a good opportunity to get laid", he winked.

"Eeeewwwwwwwwwwww", she moved away from the coffee table.

"Oye! Listen! I was kidding"

"You are one serious wala MCP. All you guys think about is ..."

"Arre! Just a joke. On the other account why are you using ...?", he followed her

Their voices faded to the waiter who collected the bill amount and his tip.

Part 1

Part 3

Part 5: Coming soon!!

7 First Dates : Part 3: The co-intern

2010-06-17T14:19:00.000-07:00

"Hmmm that went good", Kangna was smiling wide "And I hope it made you learn that Guys are dogs especially in High school and early college years"

"Oh! Please nothing like it. Just that I feel I played it cool and managed myself a date", Aman said steaming over his aviator sunglasses.

"Ha..Ha...Ha... Very funny. Only one 7th of your challenge is over and that was the easiest on the list"

"It wasn't. I made it easy"

"Okay so how about I making the next item choice on the list"

"Ahan! Go on. Time to prove myself I guess"

"Hmmm...college goer"

"Ummm I need some time to strategize about it. Can you give next best?"

"Somebody was very confident about his potential. Haha. Okies then give a shot for your co-intern. You have any?"

"Umm there is one I particularly like: Bhavya Saran from FMS"

"Okay then. All the best! :)"

*********************************************************************************

"Hey! Nice surprise to see you here", Bhavya exclaimed as she saw Aman in corporate office.

"Ya! I had some additional work in Gurgaon. So, I thought about dropping in for a visit. So how's internship going on?"

"Okayish",she replied and turned her head back to the computer screen.

"Hey are you willing to go downstairs to "BurrrGrrr" for a bite?"

"Thanks, but I have got loads of work. Give me 15 minutes and then probably we could go", she said without turning her head this time

Interns didn't get internet connections for their laptops, so they had to come to "Trainees' Room" to access internet and mails. Though they complained a lot about it, Aman was thankful that it saved him the embarrassment of asking Bhavya out with other people eavesdropping.

"Nice template", he tried to break the awkward silence.

"Hmmmm"

"A PPT Trivia: It was 3M who invented the over head projectors, which served as presentation devices before Microsoft came with MS-Office"

"Who cares?"

He heard a glass crash within him, an indication that it was better to wait for next 10 minutes.

"Hmm! I am done", taking a look at her watch "But I don't think we have enough time; So why don't we have a conversation here?"

Aman's phone rang. He telepathically said "Excuse me, just a friend", by tilting his head to a side and lifting his shoulders while pressing his lips.

She conveyed a "Go on" by a smile and moving her hand to make a gentle slice of air in front of her.

"I will come in the evening bro and then move back probably tomorrow morning......Haan I will drop a visit to the kids...Bbye"

"Kids?!", she exclaimed.

"Arre, these are some underprivileged children, my friends...", he could see she was getting interested "...Annnnnnd I teach and look after"

"Wow, that's impressive Mr. Sharma. You're a nice guy"

Now what was that supposed to mean, his head rung. Was it an apt time to ask her out and if yes then how?

"Hmm I never want to brag about it, but I like spending my Saturday mornings with these kids, teaching them alphabets, numbers etc. I have been doing that throughout the internship period. They miss me till I see them after a week's gap. I kind of miss them too"

"Hey that's super nice. Would you take me along with you tomorrow morning? I wish to see how much those cuties miss you after you meet them after whole one week"

Now according to old panchtantra stories, there are some people who invite the bull to hit them. The reason for the self called trouble was apparent. Aman hadn't visited those kids ever in his life. His friend was flying to Mumbai in the night and had requested him to drop off some stuff to the kid's school on his way back to home.

There were some talks about how she just got involved in social service group in her college and was happy that she had something in common with Aman to talk with. Aman on other hand could hardly disagree.

"Hey, you wish to catch a movie tonight?", she asked

Now he had no ideas that his fake-association with some poor kids would actually result in Bhavya asking him out for a movie.

"Sure! Why not?", he was lovin' it but with an extra stress line over his forehead which had scribbled "Morning After?????" all around in the air space surrounding them.

Everything was running great, till he had to get off his seat to get some popcorns and Pepsi for Bhavya. Though he didn't like popcorns but he liked Bhavya who liked popcorns that liked a Pepsi to be gulped with.

He had left his phone on his seat and it had to buzz that very moment, "One message received from Kangna" and it flashed a beautiful face.

Now despite trying hard not to throw a peek at the message, the curly haired girl's pic had done the trick and Bhavya picked up the cell to read the message.

"Hey how's your date number 2 gng along? ;) Though I am a bit pissed off that you used poor kids and lies as a pretext for it. x-( Koi na. Have fun. So 2 off the list. Wich one's next.. 'The college goer?' :P"

Aman came along happily with popcorns in his right hand and a jumbo Pepsi with two straws on his left. He was thinking he could get lucky tonight.

********************************************************************************

"Koi na! On the positive side, you learned an important lesson"

"What? That even girls can punch me in eyes making them go blue...Aaaahh...Easy", he groaned as Kangna was applying hot water soaked kerchief over his left eye socket.

"No! The lesson that you shouldn't lie to get a date"

"In my defense, she interpreted it herself and she was too sexy"

"Hmm so should we count it as 2nd one or not? This looks like a failure to me."

"Shut up! I got myself beaten by a girl and you are disqualifying my attempt. And it would have been perfectly fine if you could have restrained yourself from texting me in that specific time window of 5 minutes", he thundered.

"Ohkay! I give it to you, in return of all the fun we are having right now. OOh look at the poor baby. Somebody spanked you sweetie??", she pulled his cheeks

The phone rang. Kangna picked it up. Then turned back to Aman and asked "Hey had you ordered four dozens each of notebooks, pencil, chocolates and water bottle? Some guy wants all that to be delivered here."

"Oh! Yes..call him in. They wanted a landline number. So I gave them yours"

"Oh nice! you really gonna meet the kids?"

"Ummm... Yes but I NEVER WANNA BRAG ABOUT IT" and he winked.

"Oooohh you are a sweetie pie."

"Eeeeeh...Please stop pulling my cheeks" he said as they sat for the dinner.

to be continued......

Part 1

Part 2

Part 4

7 First Dates : Part 2 : The school friend

2010-06-13T02:39:00.000-07:00

Search words: DPS Noida, batch 2000

He tried to look up on facebook for communities where he could get old school friends in touch from.

"Hmmm the list is long. Lemme check these", he said to himself

But he forgot that all of these would be 27 just like him.

Archana.. Pennsylvania
Ayesha... Engaged
Divya.... In relationship
Ekta ... is Married to...
Hrishita ... commented on her album "Honeymoon"
Isha added pictures in the album "My lovely kids"
.......................
.......................

A heavy lot went away from consideration just like that.

Then he pondered upon the name "Soumya". He clicked her profile. She was working in Noida, no relationship status and no pictures meant she was alone. He hesitated for some time as he knew the girl had a crush on him in class XI.

11 years ago

"Hey Aman, could you please help me with the organic chemistry nomenclature during the PT period break", a girl with sheepish smile and 5 ft height tapped on his back while asking the question.

"Ummm....sure" a couple of lusty eyes were set on her without she even noticing.

"So for hydrocarbons, basically we need to observe the number of carbon atoms and types of bonds between them. Hydrogens may not need to bother", he started.

He could see she was hardly noticing what was in the book, rather just looking at his eyes and moving lips. He knew nobody was in the vicinity.

"So the bonds between two carbon atoms" he slipped his hands onto hers "can be of three types" he came close to her. She could hardly resist. "Single" he planted a kiss on her lips, "Double", and she kissed this time and said "or..."

"or...triple" and before they knew they were making out.

For a couple of days he avoided her. Next day she met him and asked "Why are you ignoring me? I thought you liked me."

"Well it was an accident" and he moved away. They never spoke again.

****************************************************************************

In summer of 2010, two friends had a bet about whether one could date seven girls, attributes specified by the other.

He couldn't think much before the cursor moved to the link "Add as Friend" and his middle finger's tip which was still a bit Numb, tapped on the touch pad of his Vaio.

And now he was wondering if she would accept the request or not? What would be her reaction? Was she going to bad-mouth him? and a zillion other phrasable non-phrasable questions.

But everything was put to rest, when before even he could see a confirmation mail in his gmail, she pinged him via facebook chat "Hey! wassup? Whr had u bin dese dez?"

After few contrived portions of usual "What about your job", "parents", "blah blah", he popped in "Let's catch up tomorrow evening, if that's fine with you"

She took a pause and then said "Okay"

They met next evening at Geoffrey's. He was still uneasy about talking normally with her. She could see that and helped him "Hey, are you still thinking about Organic Chemistry?" and winked.

All he could manage was a smile.

"Arre it was a long time ago and we were kids. It's fine. It indeed was an accident"

"You are saying that sarcastically?"

"No yaar! Both you and I have moved on miles after that and now all I can do when I watch at past is to laugh about it."

He was a bit comforted now. He made a gesture to the waiter and wine was served shortly. She pressed her lips and raised her brows signifying "I am impressed" and then they laughed after the glasses clinked.

They had loads of catch up and tales to be told. When he dropped her at her place, he said "Hey sorry from the past of me to the past of yours. I know you are cool with it but maybe the past of yours wasn't."

"You have surely come of age" and gave him a peck on cheek and "This has been simple yet one of the most beautiful dates I have had in a very long time"

"Thanks Soumya! It was a wonderful time spent with you."

"And thanks for the nomenclature class. I am a Bio-pharmacist now."

Smiles were exchanged one more time before he drove away. She waved at him.

To be continued....

Part 1

Part 3

7 First Dates : Part 1

2010-06-07T08:58:00.000-07:00

It'd been just a week since Aman met Akshita (he couldn't recall her name at that time) for barely 11 minutes (conversation time) in that metro ride from Dwarka to Botanical Garden. She was great, he thought but it was too vague for being crazy for a girl one'd met barely for barely few minutes and had almost zero probability unless intervened by "hand of god"

"Interesting account", Kangna said and smiled and continued "It could make a good pretext for a story"

"Hahaha", Aman spoke his laugh "By the way I though you agreed to be my wing woman"

"Yeah! Sure I am. There is this friend of mine from......."

Kangna and Aman had been great friends since their respective break-offs about a year ago.

"Oi, better stop going for flings now and go for the serious thing", she advised.

"Why?"

"Because at 27, you are too old for this. It's the age people start thinking of settling in", she professed.

"What logic is that? I still feel too young for that"

"Haven't you been tired of meeting new people and those meetings not resulting hardly in anything concrete?"

"Absolutely not"

"Oh! Is that the case? Somebody seems up for a dare."

"Sure! The dare sounds fun. I can date 7 different girls in as many days"

Kangna started scribbling something on a tissue. Aman started to look for beauties around. There was one brown haired girl in denim shorts and long legs. And then his eyes moved to a short skirt girl with a spiked haired weirdo.

"Would to stop staring those girls like that?", she said without lifting her eyes and still scribbling.

"Wow she is definitely a nine pointer and ...", he was interrupted.

"Read this. You have got to date 7 girls in 15 days time and they should be"

"What?” he started reading...

1. A credit card caller
2. An air-hostess
3. A co-intern at the firm you are doing internship from
4. A college goer
5. An old school mate
6. A friend's friend
7. A friend's ex-girlfriend

"So, what do you say? You already look so pale to me. I can increase the days limit if you wish, teddy boy", Kangna smirked.

"No way!” he rose up and said "Challenge accepted", as he looked like staring at the horizon

"Stop being a Barney and sit down. If you lose, you would stop fooling around and look for someone you can settle with."

"And if I win you continue to be my wing woman and get me a prey every week. Hahahaha..", he laughed demoniacally.

"Shut the fuck up! I won’t introduce you a single girl more if you don't start respecting girls", she thundered

"Oi..Sorry. I was just kidding", he said sheepishly.

"Hmmm... so tell me who of these would you try the first?” Kangna asked after calming down.

"I guess the school friend one"

"All the best"

Part 2

Rajneeti: Mahabharat, Sarkar and Irresponsible sex leading to pregnancies!!

2010-06-06T03:19:00.000-07:00

I saw the much hyped movie today. To summarize it in few words it was an engaging well-scripted movie that rarely has a dull moment.

The movie started strongly with Naseeruddin Shah, playing a left comrade, delivers small but strong speech in an Election rally. I wish I could have seen more of him. But thanks to first instance of irresponsible sex, he mingled with his most obedient companion, the daughter of then chief minister. The girl considered him to be his God but ended up being pregnant with his son, Ajay Devgan (who is raised by a Dalit family)

Just like Kunti gave birth to Karn after being involved with Sun God, she is forced to abandon her child and goes on to marry another powerful politician Chandramohan, giving birth to two handsome hunks Arjun Rampal and Ranbir Kapoor (Pandavas)

Chandramohan's elder brother is reduced to helpless state by a paralysis attack (Dhritrashtra was rendered useless because of being blind). His son, Manoj Vajpayee in simile with Duryodhan, asserts his right over the party president's chair but the it goes to his uncle. In exact similar situation as Duryodhan and Karn, he embraces Ajay, from Dalit family into the party.

Nana patekar who starts as playing Bhishm pitamaah in begining trying to strike harmony with the two parties slowly shifts his role towards being Krishna; Ranbir becomes Arjuna seeking revenge for his Father's and other dear ones' murder (Abhimanyu in Mahabharat's context)

A literary PHd from US of A, he miraculously plays the politics, often portraying his grey side but is successful in leading their family out of the crisis. In other words he manages an "Abhishek Bacchan" from Sarkar fame.

Second series of irresponsible sex for election ticket lands Rampal in judicial trouble.

Just when Ranbir is deep in the mud muddle, his visiting girlfriend from US of A gets pregnant and he vows return back to Uncle Sam.

If that was not enough, Katrina gets an unplanned pregnancy from her husband too.

The Devgan and his mother shot just avoids from being too reminiscent of Kunti-Karn's "You are the eldest. You will get the throne" scene. So does Nana-Ranbir scene portrayal from Geeta.

Amidst all this is a well scripted, amazingly directed flick that could prevent people from going out and ordering popcorn and pepsi in between.

Prakash Jha has utilized Nana in his calmest ever avatar, which is at the opposite end of what we saw of him in Krantiveer.

Ranbir is the next big thing in bollywood. He continues to please people by is ever evolving character portrayals.

Katrina is good but is there just to give the promos a look alike Sonia Gandhi (the attire she takes on only for about last 15 minutes of the movie)

Ajay Devgan comes out good but is a bit over shadowed by others.

Manoj Vajpayee is impressive as ever. He totally gets in the skin of character portrayed by him.

Arjun Rampal's learning curve has been really sharp post Om-Shanti-Om.

The movie is predictable but that doesn't hinder its likability in any manner. Thankfully we are saved from unnecessary song and dance sequences, which could have hampered the swift flow of the film.

A definite worth watch more so because of lame releases in past couple of months. Script writers are back. The movie reiterates the importance of story rather than simply "Shoshebaazi"

Rating : ****

A day without my middle finger!

2010-05-29T02:33:00.000-07:00

When my day started I had absolutely no idea about how differently I was going to spend it. (In short it was like any other day)

So it all happened when I went to shop for groceries at Big Bazaar. (Yeah! there are some side effects of living at home). When I checked out, I thought why bother to take the trolley along with me. I had two heavy poly bags (10Kgs each). I was doing fine when I passed by the Mc Donald's. I was tempted to take a Mc Veggie, which I thought, I can gobble up on my way to parking.

I got through the wrong exit, which was far from parking. With Mc Veggie in my left hand and 20 Kgs in my right hand, somehow all the weight pressed onto my middle finger of right hand.

When I reached my car, i discovered I had lost complete sensation in my middle finger. Damn what would I do without my middle finger. Gradually I realized I was missing my dear middle finger in almost every work.

1. While driving, I could no longer control steering with the right hand's middle finger as I usually did.

2. I couldn't hold spoon properly while having lunch. Had to use my left hand instead.

3. While typing this post, I took one and half times more time than usual as all typing from my right hand had to be done with index finger.

4. I couldn't scroll through my phone's touch screen. when I tried it felt like using a stylus.
.
.
.
.
.
99. My laptop's touch-pad felt so different when I couldn't use my regular finger on it. Poor pad! :(

and finally.....

100. I couldn't flick on my neighbor's kid forehead in the lift. (I felt completely helpless)

Today I realized importance of middle finger in a person'r life. There is a lot to it apart just a tool to express anger, distress, moral victory and zillion other emotions.

Indian Mythology vs Troy!

2010-05-21T10:31:00.000-07:00

The thought came to my mind about 3 years ago when I watched Troy, a beautifully shot and directed movie starring Brad Pitt, Eric Bana and Orlando Bloom.

I couldn't help noticing some striking similarities between Troy and the Indian Mythology.

It starts with Trojan Prince Paris taking with him Helen, Menelaus's wife. The spartan king vows to take revenge by destroying the Trojan Empire. The incident is similar to kidnapping of Sita by Ravana and attack on Lanka by Rama.

The location of Trojan Island, surrounded by sea is similar to the land of Lanka.

Achilles, the great spartan warrior was believed to have been dipped in waters of immortality by his mother. She held her son with his ankle in her hand. And later on Achilles died when an arrow hit him in the vulnerable spot. Striking similarity lies between Achilles and Krishna, who was also killed (mistakingly by a hunter) in similar manner.

Some voices were raised to let Helen return to Sparta for the fear of impending doom. But it becomes the matter of pride and honor to the Trojan King, a behavior shown by Ravana, even when all of his warriors were being killed one by one.

Greek mythology suggests that Helen had been taken by Mt. Olympus away from the mortal world. Sita on the other hand was encapsulated by Prithvi.

The opponents of the theory would disagree by saying they differ on lot of accounts. But all I am trying to suggest here that there are certain similarities and with concept of Aryans coming from norther part of the globe, both the epics might have been inspired by same incident and may have changed their forms, locations and antics over the years according to the culture they were fed with.

While in the process of composing this post I googled a few things about Greek Mythology and I am loving this whole new world of spartan myths. :)

Flirting ke side effects!- Part 2: The Beginning

2010-05-12T07:46:00.000-07:00

"To start with you should start flirting with your good friend's girl friend, whom you are acquainted with", Neelz (Neelaksh) said. "They seem to make not a big fuss about it. And they enjoy the attention ;-)
Second you can target a good female friend who is married, again a safe territory. While there are boundaries here but I am sure you wouldn't reach those.” the expert advised.

"And third priority come friends who are seeing other guys. At fourth level is option of flirting with single friends of yours. And my friend the territory which shouldn't be explored is the friend of yours, who recently broke up.", Neelz said as he concluded his statement.

"Wow that was enlightening. Thanks", Uday said as he hung up. "What the crap. As if there was something new to it. I will manage on my own. I have had colorful past.” he smirked as he thought.

He checked his online friend list on gtalk. Soumya was online.

"Hey! aaabbbbbbbbbddddddddaaaaabbbbbbbbdddddaaabbbbbddddd", he pinged her.

After 10 seconds the reply came. "Yeah it’s been really long 'time' and we finally 'c' each other now :D"

"Hmmm! I am telling you must have been very smart to decipher that. I tried that on a dozen of my friends. None of them could understand. You are one intelligent lass"

"LOLz! Stop flattering! So how come you ping suddenly? You are in Australia na?"

"Hmm! Aise hi, thought about catching up with old sweethearts ;)"

"Hehe! Me? Your sweetheart? Nice joke"

"Arre it's true. It just happened that Anjali proposed me when I was just about starting to think about you!"

"Ahaan! Liar. Are you trying to flirt? Am no more single you see :P"

"Damn! I should be given another chance. It's not fair :'("
------------------------------------------------------------------
He Gmail read

....Chat with Swati Sharma (546 lines)
....Chat with Arundhati Dua (466 lines)
....Chat with Divya Taneja (587 lines)

"I saw a flower and I thought it was the most beautiful thing I ever saw until I gazed at the FB pic of yours ;)"

"Very Funny! Plagiarism! Joey Season 1 episode 18", Sanskriti replied

"Ooops! Hey he didn't say the FB part you see. I am original"

"No! -200 for copy paste"

"Noooo :( Accha... If I supposed to travel with you in Tube (or Delhi Metro is it), I would intentionally chose to let go off the support pillar, so that every time the train stops or starts, I may have an excuse to hold you from your waist to pretend you saved me from falling"

"Wow! that's a new one! ummmmm +10"

"What!! That was great and I need to make 20 such just to recover what I lost due to Joey! :( "

"Hehe don't be sad!"

"No I am. In fact a bit angry. I am coming over to Delhi for couple of months at least. I was planning that probably we could meet up. But I think things aren't meant this way"

"Wow! you are coming over... Okay sorry! Will you meet up now?"

"Hmmm Don't know. I can't say for sure but I would think about it :-|"

"Awww so cute! :-* A flying kiss!"

"Huh! Whatever :")"

"Hehe! You have a blush for that!! :)"

Nikita pinged by the time "Hi Sugar! ;)"

"Chalo Babes you sleep! I have got some work to do. Take care. Miss me ;)"

"Yeah! Sure bbye"

---------------------------------------------------

"Hey Niki babes! Every time I move my cursor to the Gtalk friend list over to your name, you ping me first! This is not done"

" :) "

"Accha I am coming over to Delhi for a couple of months."

"Cool! That is great"

"Just that! I thought you would like to ask me out! ;)"

"I think you should have asked that to me. "

"Oh! Don't give me that Sh** that only guys should ask out..blaah blaah"

":P
But have you done anything special for me to do so?"

"Hmmm How about sneaking in, when your husband is out for a couple of days?"

"Ewwww! You cheapster! :P"

---------------------------------------------------------------------

A month later

Indira Gandhi International Airport

"Hey Neelz! Nice to see you man!"

"Yeah! You look great buddy! Didn't you bring some Aussie lass with you", Neelz said winking.

"Naah! I should have mentioned Neelz is here. Damn!"

"Hehe koi na! Remember for next time. Anyways now you are here we can Tango! ;)"

"Yeah! Hey check out that cute chick at '1 'o clock'!", he said without pointing.

"Yeah you bastard! She's your sister-in-law. Respect her"

And they had a small laugh about it.

Flirting ke side effects!- Part 1: The Setup

2010-05-10T02:53:00.000-07:00

Uday was leading a successful life as a Consultant at one of top notch Business Analytics firms in Gurgaon. He had a beautiful relationship going on until he decided to move to Sydney for a better opportunity. The new job paid him handsomely. But he didn't realize what it was taking away from him.

A couple of months into new job and he could see his relationship of four years falling apart. This was his longest relationship since he started dating in Senior secondary. None of them lasted more than an year. The distance was doing them apart.

He tried the best to revive it, but wasn't really ready to make any sacrifice to restore it. Of course at this age, mind speaks much over the heart. He thought the break up won't affect him to much extent. And he wasn't unreasonable in that expectation considering the history of over half a dozen affairs that he had in past. But the contingency that he was going to miss was "Four long years".

He initially fail to notice the initial inroads of heart spasms into the left side of the chest, dismissing it as some Gastrogenic ailment. But doctor said he was healthy as a horse. All he would like to do was to get drunk every other day in some country bar. Gradually he began to relate the change in him with the ripple of the broken relationship. He decided to make amends.

"Hi, Uday here, I'm Sonam's friend"
"Hi I am Meghna, Sonam's sister. Actually she is busy in the Mehndi before the ring ceremony. I would convey your wishes anyways."
After a pause he said "Thank You" and hung up.

He always thought he could make up for lost time. But here he knew he was too late. A suggestion of picking some random girl up from a bar to get over it was given by Peter, his colleague. But he detested the idea.

He called up his best friend back home in India, Neelaksh. Neelaksh was the one person he always looked upon when he needed advice and vice versa. He explained the scenario to him and asked him a way to get over Sonam.

"Buddy! Flirting to the extent you can is the only solution. Get into your orkut and facebook accounts, Ruffle up all the contacts you have. Gather the potential targets singles or otherwise. And get started. And beware of doing flirting too much just with a single girl, else you will spell your doom"

Now that was something he hadn't done in past four years. Though he thought he was good on that earlier.

The flirting cure was about to begin!

Flirting ke side effects!- A prologue!

2010-05-07T23:46:00.000-07:00

When almighty (for atheist people, chemical reactions!) created the two characters called man and woman, she (A 'he' can't be so creative) must have realized what excellent job it was.

The two characters are miles apart in thinking, decision making process, planning and execution. Yet some funny hormones (chemistry people' delight second time in this prose) attract them to each other (though sometimes among themselves)

Women (a tricky word), become more complex to understand as the chronological watch progresses. When they are girls of sub-10, they want ice creams, Barbies and gossip, when they are 15 they are into chocolates and gossip, at 20 stuff toys, cards, new Boyfriend and gossip, at 25 steady job with steady boyfriend along with gossip and at 30 ways to have peace with Mother-in-law and Gossip. (I am still on learning curve to understand women past 30, a topic way too complex at this time)

So basically their needs change drastically over the course of time. (As a learned man, you need to avoid the gossip part if you want peace in your life)

Another way to see things: Lollypop (damn you wretched mind, it’s a baby girl) - Ice-creams - Chocolates - BF's lips - Pizza - Lose fat pills
(I carefully chose to avoid second kind of pills)

For guys: Sub-10: Sports and Video games, 15: Sports and Video Games, 20: Sports (The 'ball' from "running behind the ball" and "hitting a ball" may sometimes change to 'girls') and VIDEO games (video type changes a bit!), 25: Sports and Video games (unchanged from previous), 30+: Sports (small change might be catching flying saucers instead of balls to avoid being hit by them. The previous years practice comes handy) and Video games (regular as well as the evolved one, when wife has a series of repeated headaches at night and he has a DVD player with wireless headphones)

Summarizing, reaching consistency and conciliation with time.

Although this has nothing much to do directly with the story that follows, this might set an interesting pretext. :)

"Living in" thy dream B-school!

2010-05-02T02:58:00.000-07:00

An year ago, I came across this articles about how prevalent is live-in relationships in premier B-schools of India. The article talked about high occurrence rates especially in IIMs. Wow! I had one more reason to give my best shot in the final selection procedure for the B-schools I got call from.

Now for those who are oblivious to the fact that most B-schools don't have a separate girls' hostel building. Even if they have, there is no restriction about guys entering in there. Now 90% of IIM Students comprise of Engineers, who have never seen the 'greenery' of DU, the 'spice' of Wilsons, Mithibais etc, this does sound an exciting proposition.

Of course girls reading this may disregard this by calling it their desperateness but spare a thought about this extremely 'Unrare' species called 'ENGINEER'

In the class of 60, there are 6-9 girls in a typical Engg college. Now you can imagine what intra-gender competition guys face. And there living style: A beard that can accommodate a couple of cuckoos, a pair of jeans that hasn't been washed for a month or so, a wallet that is empty after the 10th of the month. These rarely make them attractive preposition to get a date from outside their colleges. Moreover the girls' hostel entry is barred after 8:30; Guys can't enter into their hostel premises.

Now would you blame if the poor guy's eyes sparkle after seeing a report about living-in in one of their dream B-School (Engg graduate anyways don't have any other dream other than this).

But there are clauses that people miss most of the time. As the proportion of Engg is as high as 90% in B-Schools, the fairer sex proportion is also almost the same. Although the farfetched light in the tunnel is, that contrary to engineering colleges, the girls are bit more attractive and that is primarily because the chunk of Non-Engineering graduates are girls.

When I came to IIM-Kozhikode, I believed the place is too unfavorably sex-ratio’ed to prove the point of the article I read. The concept of open hostels and timings was something new and took some time to digest. But course and curriculum ensure that your mind is packed with enough assignments that you have to make special efforts even to think about thinking to develop any romantic notions even in such environment.

But there are some born winners who do live up-to the media reports. :)

In an essence I don't counter their claims. To some extent the media reports are surely exaggerated. Many such 'branded' live-ins as merely platonic and friendly. I know some of people in my batch who leave over their set of toothbrush kit in another room apart from books and notes. But they are really cute. A couple of people in my senior batch looked inseparably good together as 'great friends'. Somewhere down the line people don't tend to exploit the benefits or freedom given to them as much as they planned before. It's same as providing a complete replacement warranty without much ado and yet customers don't purposefully mess with their machines just before the warranty period expires. :)

P.S. The instances may be more in IIM-A because, people don't have anything else to get 'high' on! ;)..... hic!!!

The Chain Mail!

2010-04-29T14:21:00.001-07:00

The watch on the task bar of his vaio showed 2 am. It was Friday night, so there was no pressure of getting up early next morning. Nikhil had been bored of checking and refreshing the Facebook window again and again. Nothing new was throwing up. He thought "Where the hell has been everyone?"
He browsed through his community pages, his favorite being the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. page.

People had been posting dialogs from the sitcom that they found most hilarious. Amongst them there was something he didn't think it belonged there.

"In 1997 a girl named Lauren was walking in a forest and suddenlydisappeared; she hadn't been discovered untill 2000 when a young girlnamed Mary found Lauren's body which had chest markings that said, "Iwasn't pretty enough." Lauren's ghost will appear in your mirror,telling you that you're not pretty enough and"

See more
2 hours ago · Comment · Like · Report

He couldn't resist clicking "See More"

".................................... … More... More... See More... You wanna See More....See More...she will kill you. She'll will repeatedly tell you, "See more,see more, see more.." The same happened to Mary, and she died shortly after. To save yourself, copy and paste this into five other band'scomment boxes. THIS IS TRUE! Since you have started reading this, donot stop. Keep in mind that you need to send this to five other bandsin 143 minutes. This is scary because it actually works.
If you don't believe then R.I.P"

He had seen many such chain mails before. But even he didn't know why did he followed instructions and posted it in the comment boxes of the latest five news feeds. The ones from Rajeev, Divya, Anirban, Atif and Sunidhi.

Rajeev had been watching The Southpark Series in small window when he saw the notification tab go red with "1" over it. He clicked on it. Even though he didn't think it to be more than a piece of shit, even he clicked on "See more" link, before commenting to Nikhil, "Screw you! What the crap?"

Nikhil replied on the gtalk "Dude! I have an intuition that this might go bad. You know the last time...."

Rajeev: Last time and blah! Dude gimme a brk! It was nothing but coincidence.

Nikhil: Coincidences don't end up people losing lives.

Rajeev: Whatever! I hate this kind of crap. Forward it to hoax-slayer instead. Me off now. Bbye

Nikhil: Bbye.
I will still advise you

Rajeev is offline. Messages you send will be delivered when Rajeev comes online.

Epilogue!

2010-04-24T11:33:00.000-07:00

"I want to make a home with you. I want to make babies with you. I want to raise them with you and above all I want to grow old with you. Will you marry me sweets?” said Vivek.

Nidhi was shocked. She didn't see it coming. She knew he loved her but never took it on the face value. At occasions she even thought Vivek wasn't serious. Tears started rolling down her eyes. The sparkle from the diamonds of the ring threw an array of reflection over that already glowing face of hers.

"Of course yes, sugar", she said and hugged him.

"Driver, take a turn for chembur first", Akshita ordered.

She was wondering why she asked driver for that. But maybe it was too difficult to go without saying a goodbye. But how much easier would it be, after meeting him, she didn't have a clue. "Maybe, I will just peek at him from window and then leave", she thought.

The cab stopped before Aman's flat. The front door wasn't closed properly. She saw a guy pouring red wine in glasses and then he moved on to the couch where Pallavi was sitting. They took a sip each and then the glasses went down. Akshita couldn't believe what she saw next. They had begun kissing.

She ran back downstairs. Still trying to recover from the shock, she decided she would call Aman.

"Hello Aman! Where are you?” she said while still fifteen minutes away from the airport

"Akshita, where had you been all this time? I called up your place and found you were leaving the city."

"Aman I need to tell you something really important. Where are you?"

"I am about to reach santacruz. Was coming to meet you."

"Okay! Meet me at domestic departure terminal for Air India"

"Okay"

They met once again. Aman thought she would confess her feelings for him any moment now.

"Pallavi is cheating upon you", she was angry.

"What??"

"I saw her curling up with another guy at your flat.” after a pause "No Reaction! Are you too shocked to react?"

"No sweetie! I think this has been dragged a way too much"

"What? I didn't get that."

I will tell you. Let's sit back for a coffee. Your flight doesn't leave before an hour.

He told her everything. She was in tears all over again. She didn't know how to react at the revelation. He helped her by offering a hug. She felt like it was all in the world she needed.

ALTERNATE ENDING

2013

The bride was making her way through to the aisle along with her mother and friends. Aman's friend was now sporting a joyous smile. Aman too smiled first when his eyes met with Akshita and to the far corner of the venue where an orange sari clad woman was reciprocating. She was none other than Saloni.

On the night of the party at Insomnia

"She has gone for the restroom. This is the time. Lure Prakhar and get him to the closet near the ladies’ restroom. I have already put substance in his drink. He won't remember much of what follows."

"Okay!” said Saloni.

She took him to the closet where he passed out. Making those noises wasn't a tough job for her, with Aman pitching in for the grunts.

Akshita ran out crying all the way to the cab stand outside the hotel.

Part 1

Reality Check!

2010-04-19T14:07:00.000-07:00

Its 2:37 am when I start typing this post. I have had an extremely exhaustive day. Was dropping off every now then while driving each meter of those 76 kms I drove around Delhi. But, I don't feel sleepy abhi. I seriously wonder why.

I have written 11 parts to the story on my blog. I initially wanted it to look real. Then owing to demands of readers, I put some spice in it.

The reality check here says that more often than not (read always):

1) There is no "single" beautiful girl travelling in metro. Either she is accompanied by her boyfriend in physical presence or in form of cell phone.

2) If 1) is false and you do come across such girl, she would never ask you to keep your luggage beneath your seat.

3) It is impossible not to have a facebook profile. If you ask and girl says no, maybe she wants to shake you off.

4) There is never a woman of kind described as "Sexy married and inviting Receptionist"

5) Your friend will not be cool about his girlfriend playing role of yours.

6) Prakhars are too clever too be caught by simple and sweet Akshita (the kind of girls anyways very scarce)

7) Even if they caught Prakhars and broke off with them, they will recover and find their love again before Amans could confess their likings.

8) Amans end up getting arranged married!

The Day After- The one before the last one!! :)

2010-04-17T20:41:00.000-07:00

"I was drunk, honey. I didn't know how that happened. It was an accident", Prakhar tried to defend.

"Don't you dare call me honey again? I introduced you to my office mates yesterday in morning and I catch you hooking up with that b**ch in night. And you call that an accident.” she thundered.

"Baby! Please don't be so mad at me. I am really sorry. I swear I didn't want things to turn this ugly"

"Then what did you have mind when you were busy doing that slut? Of course you might have thought that it won't come out in open. Just go away from my eyesight, else I don't know what........” she broke down with anger.

"Please don't do this to me sweetie. I love you. Please forgive me", he made one final attempt.

"Forgive you? Would you forgive me if I went around sleeping with people, some of which I have barely known for 18 hours? If this is how I see when you were with me, I can't even guess what all you would have been doing in Hyderabad all this time.", she started crying and said again "The trouble is, Prakhar, a trust once lost can't be gained again. It's over. In fact it shouldn't have started in first place.” she ran away crying.

Aman tried calling Akshita for next two days but couldn't reach her.

"Damn! Her cell phone is switched off for last two days.” he said in frustration.

"But this is a good news buddy. She's broken up with that jerk and now you can be what she wants. You just need to portray yourself as a shoulder you can cry upon", Vivek said.

"Shut the f**k up! No more games please. She is completely broken. And I don't care about all that stuff", he shouted and then said calmly after some time "I just need to speak to her"

The phone rang.

"Akshita! Where are you? I had been trying to reach you madly for last two days....But why?....Okay let's meet up first...You need to talk to someone......No, Pallavi wouldn't mind....Hmmm...See you in an hour"

He picked up his Vivek's car keys and rushed out before stopping once and asking Nidhi "When should I tell her that Pallavi is not for real?"

"Not now Ammy! Let her come to terms with this phase first"

The meetings and Akshita's tears continued for a complete week.

"Aman! The one thing I respect most about you is your fidelity with Pallavi. She is definitely extremely lucky to have found you and vice versa. Never ever break her heart. Got it?"

"er..Hmmmm I won't"

"I hate people who cheat or lie, be for whatever reason. I can’t even have a bit of respect for such kind of people"

"Yeah me too.", he was beginning to feel miserable.

They finished with their coffees and rose up to leave.

"Aman, I am so thankful to you that you are with me in this despair of mine, despite the fact you have your own things to care and work upon", she said with gratitude in her eyes and continued "I will always feel grateful for the day we met first, during that short but journey in Delhi Metro", she said and kissed him on the cheeks, "Bye".

"Why is she talking in such tome as if she is not going to see me again", he thought but managed to say "Take care Akki"

"I will", she said and then moved away.

She came back to her apartment and got busy in packing her stuff.

"Nandani, did you put advertisement in newspaper for a roommate?"

"Yes Akki!", she replied and continued after a pause "Akki! Do you really think you need to go. I mean why can't you stay here? You have got good job, friends and a loving roommate", she tried her last bit at emotional blackmail.

"That's sweet of you my roomie, but I have got to sort few things in my life. Moreover I don't want my friends to lose what they can have in midst of their attempts to normalize me. I am hurt, no doubt, but it will get healed with time and I will be back after that.

"By friend do you mean Aman, the same guy, searching about whom on orkut, you got crazy."

"Yeah! He is the one", she said with a smile.

"So, now I know why are you leaving the city? Why don't you tell him that you like him?"

"Shut up! It's not like that."

"It's exactly like that. See I am a relationship counselor. Moreover you don't even need to be a counselor to know what's in your eyes for him. Go on tell him what you feel about him."

Akshita was silent in agreement.

"It's not that simple as it sounds. Maybe I like him because how close he has been to me in last couple of weeks. Maybe it’s just because he has done so much for me in these troubled times. And also he is very much in love with this girl called Pallavi"

"So, that's the only reason Pallavi. What would you have done if Pallavi wasn't there?"

"Look there is no point discussing this as both of us know that she is really there and I can't and I shouldn't do anything that would jeopardize two blossoming lives. End of the arguments."

Nandani was quiet.

Akshita spoke further "My flight is at 10:30. I would leave in about 20 minutes and maybe my cell phone would be switched off. I don't want Aman to know that I am leaving. He may call here. You make some excuse. You promise me on that?"

Nandini nodded unwillingly

Akshita left as scheduled.

"Hi, is that Nandini?"

"Yes"

"Hi, this is Aman, Akshita's friend. She is not picking her cell phone. Do you have any idea about her whereabouts?"

"No, she would return late in night I guess"

Nidhi was inquisitive "What happened? Where is she? Is she gone?"

"Oh yaar! Let me talk please", Aman shrugged her off.

"Is that your girl friend, Pallavi?", Nandini asked.

"err... Look Nandini I don't want you to tell this to Akshita now, but the truth is Pallavi aka Nidhi is my friend's girl friend. I, rather we", he angered on Nidhi "came up with this crappy idea about me having a girlfriend would make Akshita jealous. But all went haywire after the Prakhar episode"

"Damn! She thinks you are in love with Pallavi and her presence around will create turbulence in your life."

"What!!"

"She likes you Aman. And to avoid hampering your love life she is leaving city. She is flying to Delhi by Kingfisher's flight at 10:30", she said hurriedly and then looking at her watch she continued "You have time on your side. Two hours. Rush to the airport at once"

"Damn! Thanks Nandini", and he hung up.

"Tell Vivek I have taken his car", he rushed for the keys.

"He has already taken the car. Was saying something Gibberish when I asked why."

"F**k my life. Okay I am off. Just pray I reach in time", he sprinted.

Somewhere other in Mumbai

"Mohanlalji, Is that ring ready?" he asked

"Yes Sir! see, isn't it beautiful?", the jeweler asked showing the 5 carat diamond ring.

Seeing the sparkle "Yes! Sure it is. Pack it in a beautiful case. I will pay by card."

"By the way sir, you are buying that for someone special, aren’t you?"

"Yes Mohanlalji, it's for the love of my life, Nidhi", Vivek answered "Wish me luck."

"All the best sirji and Congratulations"

Part 12

Part 1

The Double Date!

2010-04-16T19:26:00.000-07:00

"Hello Saloni, this is Aman from Insightrix. Can you get me to Ms. Akshita Grover?. I had her personal number but didn't bring my cell phone to office today."

"Hi Aman! I recognize you. Didn't you ask me out about 3 weeks ago when you had a meeting scheduled with Mr. Sareen. Hehe", she chuckled.

"Yeah! I remember", he continued, "But you had plans with your husband that night", he said with flirtatious sad tone.

"Hmm so Vikram, my husband has gone abroad for his merchant navy assignment. We can catch up sometime this weekend.", she offered.

"Damn! This woman is some stuff.", he thought.

"Okay, just give me your number and I will catch up with you about any weekend plans. For now can you please connect me to Akshita please?"

"Sure! You really seem very much into this Akshita. May I warn you she already has a boyfriend. He came to office along with her in morning"

"Yaya! I know, he is a good friend of mine too."

"Cool! I am connecting you to her.", the line made some beep sounds.

"Akshita speaking"

"Hey Akshita, its Aman. Just called you to let you know Pallavi is in the town for some time."

"That's great! In fact I was talking to Prakhar about going to some discotheque tonight. I can arrange for us in Three Flights up and Insomnia"

"Insomnia sounds great"

"Done! See you at 9. Bbye"

"Bye"

"Akshita! Prakhar! This is Pallavi", he introduced her.

The music was good. They had chats about each other's places and jobs. Pallavi a.k.a Nidhi was dressed a bit hot for the party. Akshita kept checking direction of gaze from Prakhar's eyes, as did few other girls around.

"What would you have for drink, Aman?", Prakhar asked.

"No, I won't drink today." His doctor had advised him to avoid alcohol to prevent damage to his liver

"Why dude?"

"He left drinking last week. He is working for these drug abused children for 4 days now", Nidhi spoke for him as Aman glared her with surprise.

"Oh! Teetotaler and social service, nice move Aman. Yeah I guess last week I called you up in morning and you seemed to have a bad hangover."

As Prakhar and Akshita were discussing some friend they met earlier in afternoon, Nidhi pulled Aman towards her, whispering in his ear, "Dude! Show some chemistry, we look more like cousins now"

"Are you crazy? I feel awkward! I never can generate any feelings for you! I should have asked somebody else"

"As if you had choice", she said into his ears while glazing her fingers over his cheeks just long enough for Akshita to notice"

"Ahem Ahem! Wow you guys are surely heating this up. Finish up with you drinks and let's move to the dance floor", Akshita said.

They danced and gulped their drinks.

"Aman! Nice to see you here. Hi Akshita", said Saloni, who accidently met them on the dance floors. She was a friend of DJ Nakul, who was playing that night

A spate of hi's followed. And they continued dancing.

It was close to 1 am. Everybody except Aman was drunk. Akshita was searching for Aman . She excused herself from Prakhar and Nidhi and went for the restroom. She spent around 15 minutes there. While coming back she heard some noises from a store-room nearby.

As she put her ear to the door, she couldn't stop smiling as they were un-mistakingly love making sounds. The female voice felt familiar. "You sure are in some hurry, sugar", the voice said. That was Saloni; she had listened to her voice more that what she had seen of her.

"Hmmm! So that's where Aman is working out tonight", she thought and felt disgusted about his cheating on Pallavi. Her respect for Aman had risen after seeing him with Pallavi earlier this night where he didn't check out any other women around. "Damn these long distance relationships", she thought and wondered if same could happen to her some day.

"All men are the same", she said to herself and was about to move away before Saloni groaned with pleasure "You are amazing!....Prakhar!!"

Part 11

Part 1

Meeting the other Guy!

2010-04-14T22:27:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks after the coffee at mocha's, she called him:

"Hello..", he answered yawningly. It was Saturday. The night before he had been partying hard with work colleagues. The hangover was bad even at 11:30 next morning.

"Prakhar arrived this morning. Let's catch up this evening. What do you say?", she was as excited as ever.

"Ohhhkay..", he yawned again.

"Cool! Have some lemonade right now though. Why do you guys have to drink in so excess?. Anyways take care. See you in evening. Bbye"

How can the life be more screwed? Expensive party, flat tyre, drunk and drive challan, bad hangover and the icing on the cake:
Meeting the boyfriend of the girl you like.

"Morning buddies", he tried to wave his hand to Nidhi and Vivek and then moved to fridge to check for lemons. Vivek was his flat mate cum business partner. He and Nidhi had been in relationship for nine long years. Yet, it seemed like their love was as fresh as new.

"Morning Ammmy! What happened? Bad hangover? Why do you guys have to drink in so excess?", she fired question shots.

"Not Again! Please", he ignored and then continued "And I am in a bad mood too"

"What happened dude?", asked Vivek.

"Have to go and meet this guy called Prakhar, I told you about"

"Who??"

"Akshita's boyfriend dude!"

"Ohhh! I remember. Hehe that's very cool..Infact brave hearted stuff!", Vivek punned.

"Oye Shut up! Not a time to joke! He must be feeling very bad now", she scolded Vivek and then continued "Do you think you need to go through this? I mean, you can avoid it. Can't you?"

"No yaar! I will manage. She trusts me for a second opinion on him. I have to do it." he made his way to bathroom.

"Awwww! Poor boy, he is sooooo into her. May god help him", Vivek chuckled again as a habit.

"I will slap you if you make fun of him again", she thundered.

"Sorry honey! Out of habit. I love you.". She was indifferent. "I said I looove you. Okay take this cushion and hit me". She did and they ended up having a cushion fight followed by a cuddle and a kiss.

Evening

"Hi! Prakhar"

"Hi! Aman"

"Hi! Akshita. What the F. Why do guys behave so formally in first meet? And just feed them chips and beer they will become talking machines."

They all laughed in agreement.

They discussed about all three of them. Akshita re-told Prakhar about the first meet they had. He tried to manage an uncomfortable artificial smile, as Akshita was detailing him about it. Aman told him about his work.

"Hmmm and tell us more about Pallavi", again she was excited.

"Pallavi?", he was bad with names. He recalled just in time who was Akshita referring to. "Yeah Pallavi of course!". He re-recited the stuff he said earlier.

"Hey last time you said she could be here in some time. Prakhar is here for next two weeks. Ask her to come in this period and maybe all four of us can set out for somewhere close by. What say?", she was getting curious about this Pallavi

"Yeah sounds like a good plan", he said instinctively and then thought over "Where would I bring a Pallavi from, now? Damn!"

"Cool! So that's done. Give me a call when she land up in the city"

They bid goodbyes. And as they left, he watched them go, wrapping arms around each other. Her head rested on his shoulder as they walked. She hit him on his arms a couple of times, while still not letting him go far. They seemed so happy and blissful. He smiled and turned back to make a move towards home.

"He is a right match for her, I have realized", he said while still staring outside the balcony.

"Dude! Are you becoming crazy?", said Vivek munching a handful of wafers.

"I mean, I don't see a point in trying. Maybe it was all destined as this."

"Nope man! Look they way you met not just once but twice, this sound like a plan of destiny, but for you and her", Nidhi said with a sparkle in her eyes.

"Don't go with that buddy! She is a big time fan of Srendipity, the film", Vivek warned and then smiled sheepishly at Nidhi when she glared at him.

"I don't know. I am confused", said Aman in a frustrated tone.

"Give yourself and this possible relationship a chance, buddy", Nidhi continued.

"I don't want to break it up for her"

"I am not asking you for that. I am just saying maybe you never gave her a chance. You said she was pragmatic about this relationship with Prakhar and not that much romantic about it."

"But the way they walked. I could see...", he paused midway.

"I am not saying it would be all farce. But, maybe she just ran out of options when she made that choice, like I did", she made face at Vivek. "Jokes apart, don't let it go that easily"

"Hmmm! She wants to meet Pallavi"

"Oh! That's great for us, we can add some spice of jealousy here", Nidhi smiled wickedly.

"There goes 'My best Friends Wedding' fan", said Vivek while watching Arsenal Vs Liverpool match highlights.

"But, where will I bring this girl from?"

"Umm!! Don't you have any female friends?", looking at his face "Oops! sorry wrong question."

"Why don't you become Pallavi, honey?", Vivek said browsing through channels pausing at FTV and then moving on, realizing Nidhi was alongside.

"That's not a bad idea at all. Wow this sounds fun", she had childlike joy on her face.

"Anything I can do my dear friends", said Vivek still staring at the screen.

"Yes! you be the chauffer! right!", said Nidhi and both of them laughed while Vivek showed some frowning skills.

The plan was on.

Part 10

Part 1

The Lies!

2010-04-12T11:22:00.000-07:00

"Damn, why does it has to happen with me?” he thought. "If this was to happen, why did I meet her in first place? I will stop watching Shahrukh movies straightaway"

"Hey what happened? Lost is some thought?” she asked smilingly.

"Naah, just thinking about couple of meetings tomorrow, crucial ones", he lied.

"So, Aman! Tell me, you must have had many girl friends. Huh?” she probed.

"Yeah kind of! Have had some serious affairs and few casual ones", he lied again. "Cool! So do you have a girl friend now?” her eyes sparkled.

"Yes, she is in Delhi, Pallavi is her name!", again a lie.

"Cool, so how did you guys meet? On Delhi metro? Hehe...I am kidding. You tell me. I am all ears"

"Ummmm... I met her in September last year. I knew her beforehand through a common friend. She had a bad break-off about three months back. And we became good friends. We used to flirt a lot. We became excellent friends. Then when I started dating this another girl, from Pune, she proposed to me. And we kicked off. December 14th was the date. So roughly seven months now". He was applauding himself for coming up with a credible story so quickly and saying it unperturbed. Somehow he didn't want to let her know he had been a loser since ever. "That's it! What about yours?"

"Cool! Mine is rather a simple one. I went to this friend's birthday party at Kasbah Restaurant in GK1 and there I met with Prakhar, who had landed up as an accompany to his friend. We liked each other and started dating. He is working with Google, Hyderabad. That's it"

"So you guys serious for taking this up next level", seeing a inquisitive smile he continued "I mean wedding and all dear", and they both chuckled.

"Ummm he is a very good guy and I am beginning to think in that direction. Moreover I am not among those girls, who keep on waiting for Mr. Right until their dreams are shattered and then they settle for a compromise.", she said very objectively.

"Damn me! All hopes gone.” he thought and then said "Excellent line of thought."

"Hey he's coming over next month. If you are still here, let's all of us meet then and probably I can have a second opinion about him. You seem very experienced in these matters. You will help me, right? she fluttered her eyebrows and the smile got its maximum possible span.

"Yes! Why not", he said and thought "What an irony"

"Hey don't know how but you have become a great friend in just two meets", she exclaimed

"Three"

"Oops! Correct, I forgot to count our first", and she giggled again.

His phone rang. He picked up.

The voice on the other side said, "Vodafone would like to greet its esteemed customer"

"Yes honey! How are you doing?"

"There have been some value added services which can be activated on your number for discounted price."

"Really, how? Cool, I don't want to miss that love. Book that one for me."

"For more information call our customer care service"

"Yes honey! Okay I will call back at night then."

"Thank you for using Vodafone"

"Bbye Sweetie! Take care” and he hung up. They exchanged formal smiles.

"Okay Aman! Thanks for a wonderful time and coffee", will call you sometime.

"Sure", they left the table after paying the bill.

"Bbye, see you later", she said as they shook hands. "Of course, bbye and take care"

They moved in opposite directions.

Part 9

Part 1

The Evening!

2010-04-11T14:45:00.000-07:00

"A black coffee for me and Cappuccino for the lady".

"Sure Sir"

"So, how have you been lately? In fact how come you land up here? I mean, it’s been over a year since that day", he found it hard to control his excitement.

"Hehe! Nothing much, I joined here a week back as a system analyst in Mr. Sareen's team. Before that college's fourth year. What's up with you in last year", she said and giggled.

"Ha-ha! Dual accidents I must say. Well, I completed my MBA. I opted out of placements because wanted to open this consulting firm with my friend and batch-mate and then here I am pitching for clients", after a pause he continued "by bribing them by asking for a cup of coffee with me", and they both had a hearty laugh.

Then there was this abominable lull. Both just searching for second set of ice-breakers. He started again, "I wish I had taken down your orkut id that day. I came home to find that it was almost impossible to find me with the information you had.” Failing to see an expression, he continued "You remember about adding each other on orkut. Don't you?"

"Yeah, I do remember. In fact I searched once but couldn't find you.” she replied

A year ago

"Akshita, this is crazy. We can't divide profiles of over thousand Aman SharmaS amongst to manually check which freaky guy you met on metro.", Indra said.

"Indra, I know but can't help. Please help me sweetie", she pleaded.

"What a jackass he had been? Couldn't he have asked for your phone number?"

"Babes, it would have been too awkward, knowing that we met about 20 minutes ago"

"And isn't this awkward? What the hell?", she roared.

"Look I have checked till 59 pages. Will check till 60. Last page. Okay", she said and clicked next. The phone rang. "Yes mommy", she moved out in balcony as she talked. "Yes Indra is with me. We would reach Lajpat in about two hours"

The screen had just finished loading. The third profile read:

Aman Sharma
Mumbai, Delhi
India
About Me: Enjoying my stint at God's own Kampus

"Ya Mom", she moved closer to the computer. "Okies bbye, I have work to do", she hung up. "That's your 60th page. Go through it and then if you please can we leave?"

"Okay... let me see". *Poof* Power cut. The UPS was of no use. Almost simultaneously there were two voices
"Damn"
"Thank God, now can we leave"
"There you go", she agreed unwillingly. "Maybe we can find someone in IIMK who may be able to help"
"Hey don't be so desperate. If it has to happen maybe you will meet him again someday when you least expect him to", Indra winked
"Oh Please! It's so filmy. Okay let's go", she said as they moved out.

"Sir, Ma'am your coffees!", said the waiter, breaking the third abominable lull of the evening

The phone rang again. She picked up, "Yeah! I will be there by 10. Just out with an old friend. .....hmmm....okay..bbye...love you too. Take care"

He started to ask a question, "So, boyfr..". She replied in between, "No, it was from my PG, my roommate, Nikita", she smiled.

Phew, a close one. He wanted to thump in air once again. But rather resorted to have a calm silent sip of the black coffee.

"My boyfriend lives in Hyderabad, though. His name is Prakhar"

Part 8

Part 1

The Meeting!

2010-04-08T10:51:00.000-07:00

"Hi, I am Aman", he said and suddenly had a change of facial expression.

"errr... Hi.. Akshita", she had her share of changed expression too.

Both had familiarity with other's names and faces but rather were short on confidence account whether to ask it first or not. After all it was just 20-25 minutes trip. What if the other simply didn't have an idea who they were. These were the thoughts that were constraining each other from asking it first, "Are you the same person I met on that Delhi Metro blue line on that day in February last year?"

"Mr. Sareen must have briefed you about the project pitch, I guess", he started.

"Yes, he did. Although could you explain it further?"

"Sure! According to plan...", his eyes slipped to the same strands of hair which covered her ears in the same manner that they did last year... "Oops! I lost the track..I mean..we are scheduled to make a pilot project presentation"

"Yes! he mentioned about it...", she said trying to calm her facial expression.
She continued, "About the chronological planning and .........."

They have been some really tough 15 minutes.

"Alright then, we would reply back about your data request", she offered her hand for shake. "Nice speaking with you, Akshita...ummmmm... okay bye". "Hmm Bye", she replied.

She was sitting on her desk, watching him go towards the exit door, wishing he would turn back and say something. His legs were moving forward but the face was desperate to turn back and mouth to ask "Hey do you remember me?"

He pulled the exit door. He turned back. She had made up her mind. Both said simultaneously, "Do you reckon, we have met earlier?"

A sense of respite was clearly to be seen. Smiles exchanged and they knew they need not answer that question. They came nearer and it was very much like "Kuch Kuch Hota hai" scene where SRK and Kajol met for the first time in 8 years.

The phone rang. "Miss Grover! You have to make for the meeting with JNW associate."

She didn't want to leave. He helped, "Hey you go now! Why not we meet sometime...errr..this evening...at Mocha's"

"Okay", she said smilingly. They left the room together. Although moved in opposite directions.

He came outside the building. He wanted to take off his coat, throw it upwards and shout "Yippee", but instead he shouted, "Taxi".

Destiny it seemed had finally caught with him.

To be continued..... Part 7

Part 1

And things continued!

2010-04-07T08:10:00.000-07:00

June 2011

He had completed his MBA and had joined in an MNC. He had been thankful to them to get him an opportunity to work in Mumbai, the city of dreams.

Just another Monday morning. Rush hour. Mumbai never waits for you. And amidst that some things don't change.

Trringgggg.....tring. "Oh!", he said yawningly and followed by "Holy Crap! Not again"
It would 5th time in fortnight that he was going to be late. He decided to go for the meeting with the client instead. "Taxi", he shouted, still buttoning a couple of shirt buttons.

Screeeeeeechhhh....A cab halted. "Nariman Point, within 30 minutes". He must had been kidding when he said that. He was late for the meeting too. He called up the client's reception, "Hello this is Aman Sharma from *******, I had a meeting scheduled with Mr. Rahul Sareen".
"Wait a minute sir, let me check", said the pleasant sounding voice on the other side. "Sir he has left for another meeting. He waited for you quite a long".

"(Oh Crap) Hey there, I will be really grateful to you if you could arrange my meet with somebody else in his team"

"Sorry Sir, I can't"

"What if we can meet up this friday at Hard Rock Cafe"

"I doubt that sir"

"I mean, just for nice chit-chat"

"I will be going to Goa with my husband, sir"

"Ohh! I am extremely sorry. I didn't mean it..."

"No issues Aman", the voice chuckled, "I will try to arrange your meet with Miss Grover"

"Thanks, ....err...."

"Saloni, and by the way I am free next weekend. Thanks for calling *********"

He couldn't stop smiling on the last line. It wasn't long when his phone rang.

"Aman Sharma here"

"annn... Hi Mr. Sharma I am calling from ******"

"Oh! You must be Miss Grover. Am glad you called"

"Yes! We came to knew you couldn't make for the meeting with Mr. Sareen. So if you can over now, probably we can discuss few things."

"Sure, you will get me there in 5 minutes. Cheers. Bye"

She hung up the line. Alongside the phone receiver was a placard with "Akshita Grover" written over it....

Part 6

Part 1

Ek chhoti si "X" Story!!- Part 4

2010-04-06T10:20:00.000-07:00

[DISCLAIMER: "X" is for relationship that didn't have a name...it’s not adult rated :) ...The term "X" courtesy: Ms. Divya Arya]

After a pause she spoke again “You were looking miserable when you were boarding this train. What happened?” He told her whatever happened. “That was sure one of those off days”, she smiled. Was it anymore, he wondered.

And he also wondered, what it would have been if the events of the day didn't turn up as they did.

2013

Two friends were talking:

"Dude, then what happened?"
"Nothing mann....
We talked a bit here and there. "Next station is Botanical Garden and then she said

"Okies Aman, this is my station it was nice meeting with you"

"Hey, are you on facebook? Maybe we could catch up later. Perhaps would love to know how are the things with you couple of years down the line."

"Sorry but I am not on facebook. I am or orkut though.” she said.

"Okies, what's your user name or id?” I asked

"Actually is a bit complicated... zizunch****"

"Oh! That's really complicated stuff. I would have a tough time remembering it. Lemme write it down somewhere!” I exclaimed

"Hey never mind, give me yours orkut name id"

"Its Aman Sharma. There might be a suffix IIMK. I haven't checked that in ages though"

"Okay I will add you. Bye Aman and have a nice day", she said and moved away. I wished she would stay, but doors closed with a double ping sound."

His friend asked "So, you guys became friends then?"

"Maybe, I had already lost my heart to her. But, I didn't admit that to myself. As I was unsure of my feelings for her, I named them "X", as an unknown mathematical quantity. But all the hopes were shattered when I could access internet only 4 days later to find that my Orkut account had some other name . Even changing it to Aman Sharma IIMK didn't throw my name in search results. And without IIMK, there were more than 1000 of Aman SharmaS. Searching "Me" was impossible on orkut. And I understood I had lost her forever.” he replied

His friend's face expression changed, "Idiot, you should have asked for her phone number"

"Hmmm, what you said is true, but looking back I don't regret. Okay let’s keep this discussion to ourselves and don't share this even with your Namita."

In September of 2013, the guy was getting married and was waiting for his bride to arrive when he shared his Chhoti si "X" story with one of his best friend. The friend was not so happy after listening to the story; rather he was furious over his friend's stupidity. But, he portrayed as usual, "according to scenario joyous face".

Just before the bride would come up to the podium, the guy whispered in his friend's ears, "Oops I forgot to tell. The girl's name was Akshita"

The face changed and glared onto the glowing wallpaper over the entrance which read, "Aman weds Akshita"

May be continued..... :)

Part 5

Part 1

Ek chhoti si "X" Story!!- Part 3

2010-04-02T07:31:00.000-07:00

[DISCLAIMER: "X" is for relationship that didn't have a name...it’s not adult rated :) ...The term "X" courtesy: Ms. Divya Arya]

"The next station is Rajouri Garden" said the automated announcer. The train which started with not more than a dozen in every coach was now more than filled with people taking help of hand supports which ran in a line along the middle of every coach with advertisements on all three sides of the hanging supports, which said something about a confidence to hold onto the hanging support without worrying about smell from one's armpit.

On one fine day of Indian summer, a guy had boarded a flight bound to Delhi from Mumbai to find him in a string of bad lucks: woke up late, paid hefty amount for taxi, lost his wallet. Amidst heavy luggage he was travelling in metro where he found a sweet girl, spectacled, long haired and ears plugged to her music cell phone, sitting in front of him reading a book on Computer Graphics.

She was gently swaying her head with the rhythm of the song being played on one of the 20 FM channels that Delhi had seen mushrooming over past five years. He got busy, or at least pretended to be busy under Business Week issue of that month that was filled with articles confirming the economy was on the pathway of revival.

"Jhandewaalan Station". A swarm of people filled in. Amongst them were a few old ladies. The guy saw the board above his neighbor's seat- "For Elderly and Physically Handicapped". But when he didn't see him move a muscle, he left his seat and invited the oldest of the lot to have the seat. The old lady smiled and blessed him. Another pair of lips smiled, behind the book of Computer Graphics, but they couldn't be noticed by him. The guy stood in between of the coach holding on to one of those hanging support (after making sure the deo on his armpit was still effective).

It wasn't long enough before the seat besides the girl got vacant at "Ramakrishna Ashram Marg..Station". A couple of guys pounced towards the vacant seat like electrons jump towards a positively changed nucleus. "Hey! Sit here!", said the sweet voice to the benevolent seat-sacrificer. The seat contestants had their face turn orange with frustration and disappointment. "Thanks", he said.

"Hi I am Aman", he said "Thanks for the gesture, Miss .."
"Akshita"
"I have heard that for the first time, beautiful name"
"Hehe Thanks. Your gesture towards that elderly lady was nice too"
He smiled. And both got back to their books. "Next station is Rajeev Chowk. Doors will open on the left. Please mind the gap”

It was easy for a third person to realize that if respective test would have been taken about what the he was reading for last 5 minutes, he would have failed miserably.

She closed the book and took out some class notes. "Hey, can I see that book?, he asked.

"Sure"

"I had been through this book".

"Accha, when?"

"About 5 years ago, in my college 2nd year".

"Great, we have this in our 3rd year. I am studying at Amity University"

“Cool”.

“So are you a Software Engineer?”

“No, actually I am pursuing my MBA from IIM Kozhikode, 2nd year would start in June. Before that, I worked for two years after my graduation, though nothing related to engineering”

“Great, IIM! I will be taking CAT this year, but those percentiles in 90s are a distant dream for me”

“Hmmm..So you have MBA aspirations because of a personal choice or just following the herd like me?”

She smiled “Maybe the latter”.

He smiled back “Then maybe you need not do an MBA. I did because I didn’t have any focus of what to ahead”.

“You are in IIM K and I should believe that you were out of focus. Common! Give me a break!”

“Arre, I am not kidding.”

“Yaya”. They both chuckled

After a pause she spoke again “You were looking miserable when you were boarding this train. What happened?” He told her whatever happened. “That was sure one of those off days”, she smiled. Was it anymore, he wondered.

to be continued....... Part 4

Part 1

Ek chhoti si "X" Story!!- Part 2

2010-04-01T04:45:00.000-07:00

[DISCLAIMER: "X" is for relationship that didn't have a name...its not adult rated :) ...The term "X" courtsey: Ms. Divya Arya]

She delved deep in her book. The anxiety on the face could tell that the exams were near. Then her phone rang-"IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY SO I KNOW..." She picked it up-" Haan! Mumma I am on my way back. Will be there in another hour and a half....No, she's not with me....I don't know.......At savita aunty's place......two dozens....hmmmm...okies..bye love ya mumma!"

She again went in her books. The announcement said "Dwarka Station"

Meanwhile he did manage to get a place for two of the bags. The third bag didn't have place to go under the seat. He looked around for space. Then looked at the girl again. He thought of it as a point to start conversation with. He overcame his inhibitions and managed to blurt out-"Exuse Me! Do you mind if I put the suitcase beneath your seat?"

No Response. He was embarrassed. He began cursing himself for being a loser in life. Adding to that this day hadn't been great either, he thought.

Six hours ago: Mumbai

"Damn it!! It's 10 am! I have to catch the flight at 11! I am screwed", he said to himself so aloud that even his neighbors could hear. Lazy as he had been all these years, he didn't care to pack his luggage a night beforehand.

Hurriedly he put all that he could see in vicinity, thinking that he would come back anyways by the end of the month. "Trousers Check...Shirts check...Toothbrush and shaving kit check... Deodorant...Vanity box (yeah guys do have one)...Files..papers check...done". "Click" that was the sound of final buckle of the bag. He rushed outside looking for taxi.

But, strangely there were none. It was a strike. Seemingly a taxi driver was beaten up by few college guys who were then beaten to blood by his friends. He didn't have time to switch on the TV. He was looking around hopelessly when a car with private number stopped in front of him. "Airpot!! 900 Rupees", the person said. He had no choice. He got in. The driver just made in time for the scheduled flight arrival time and said "Have a nice day!". He smirked, collected the change 100 rupees, and rushed towards the entrance with the luggage.

He boarded the plane. The Air India flight was as usual with overgrown air hostesses. He got the worst possible seat, the middle one in the last row, which couldn't bend backwards. The plane took off. He was damn hungry. He heard the serving trolley moving, starting from the front row. When it reached him, he unfurled his mouth, "Non Veg". The fat lady said "Sorry sir, there is no more of non-vegetarian breakfast. take this veg one instead". He said to himself-"Yeah nice day"

The flight landed on time at IndiraGandhi International Airport, New Delhi. But, luggage took some serious time. His phone rang-"Corrs-The joy of life".
"Hello....ya...yes Sameer, I just landed...what...where from..dwarka?...sameer I am already getting late...can you...okay I will do it"

He took a cab to dwarka. Carried out the "instructions" and then when he was thirsty enough, he put his hand in his pocket to take out his wallet. Gone. Another great event in the great day. Thankfully all that was lost was some cash, credit cards and few unnecessary contact cards. He had some change in his shirt pocket left after paying off the driver at mumbai airport. In 100 Rupees all he could do was to catch a metro to Noida. Thankfully the nearest metro station was "a rikshaw" away.

He rushed towards the stairs with his luggage, panting badly because of the bad chest congestion.

"Hey you can keep your bag beneath my seat if you want", the voice came from front, taking off earphones from her ears, which were hidden by beautiful long hair, that reached her abdomen. That was a timely interruption. He smiled and moved the luggage in. She helped by moving her legs to one side.

He said "Thanks". She replied "Welcome! But you don't have to wait for help from others. Feel free to ask favors"
She again plugged the earphones and turned over a new chapter in the book- '3 D Transformation'

To be continued..... Part 3

Part 1

Ek chhoti si "X" Story!!- Part 1

2010-03-31T08:28:00.000-07:00

[DISCLAIMER: "X" is for relationship that didn't have a name...its not adult rated :) ...The term "X" courtsey: Ms. Divya Arya]

He was out of breath. Bad chest congestion was doing him in for last couple of weeks. The 15 Kg suitcase and two carry bags were not helping either. Somehow he managed to climb those zillion stairs reaching to the first level of metro station.

Collecting some breath after getting the token, he rushed for the platform. There was a train stalled already, with doors waiting for 10 seconds to get closed. He was about to enter when he saw the terminal station, it was bound to, wasn't Noida. He was confused wondering whether he had landed on a wrong platform. He asked a middle-aged person sitting comfortably in a seat in front of him-"Uncle would this train go to Noida?". The man showed expression of being clueless.

Before even asking other alongside him, they were already throwing the same expression. He had got it correctly from the person sitting on counter, he remembered- "Go to Platform 2". And here he was on platform 2 but utterly confused. It wasn't like either he was new to delhi or even the metro for that sake. Yet he was undecided what to do standing a feet away from entrance which would close in another 5 seconds from now.

Just when he had made up his mind to board the next train, a soft voice from the left, from the seat he couldn't see echoed- "Hey come in! Board this one! you will have to change at Yamuna Bank". He saw a spectacles clad, glossed lips girl making gesture to him with her left hand. In her right hand was a book that had some mathematical figures and a picture of a Computer.

Then the voice spoke again- "Even I have to change metro at YamunaBank". And his legs moved in with the luggage. The door almost closed instantaneously. He saw the complete face. He wanted to say much more but could mutter just "Thanks". She smiled, meaning a "Welcome" and got back to her book. He settled himself in a seat just opposite to her, yet struggling with his luggage.

The train started..the journey was long...more than 30 stations in between...

...to be continued..... Part 2

Ahem ahem!! A recap!

2010-03-29T19:27:00.000-07:00

Continuing from where I left things in last blog "I will be back soon"

Well the time referred to those last few days of every term spent in an IIM. Project submissions 5 in 4 days. And as usual nothing is ready till the last hour preceding the deadline.

But no matter how trivially we treat these project topics, they affect one sub-consciously. I worked upon a project related to Environment and it did make me aware of things I wasn't and ways in which we could make a difference.

Similarly, I enjoyed working upon a business case dealing with problems after acquisitions and mergers.

In order of not getting technically boring, I would rather rather make a shift from this nerdy discussion.

So what was all hep a kicking in past three months.

1) Footvibes
I tried my hand (rather legs) at dancing and guess what the poor fellows have made me the dance club's co-ordinator for next year. :D According to them the club needed passionate people. And I dance decently waise :)

We won 2nd prize (of total 11) in a local inter-college dance competition but lost it out in Backwaters :(

We were absolutely no match for those Engg. guys and gals...but that's not going to deter us from trying :)

A funny pic!! :)

2. RJing
I started Rjing for our 'K'ampus radio: Kdio! Had decent responses! have plans to continue it this year too.

3. Compered the Fashion Show and K-Nite!
The thing happened accidently. Got great reviews. They plan to get me on stage more often and I have extensive plans to ruin things out for them! HAHA

4. Gymming: A lost effort
Started and after a few weeks same old story. These love handles are so attached to me. Don't know what exactly is the case: either they feel they look best with me or I look best with them :P

Yeah yeah managed that all in between of 8 courses , 90% attendance, 5 projects, 24 Quizzes,16 term tests and on-off cold (that justifies the blog title)

Chalo let's see how the stay in Delhi turns out to be!!

Cheers Mates

M coming back!

2010-03-16T21:45:00.000-07:00

Watch out for this space!!

The lost Calculator Story!!

2010-02-08T10:00:00.000-08:00

Hello, I am the infamous IIMK lost calculator. And this is my story.

I am one of the most mailed about stuff on IIMK mail server. A lot of guys have been barred from accessing the campus dc++ servers for sending mails asking about whereabouts of me and my brothers.

I was born in a Casio factory in China. Unaware of where my destiny will take me, I was happy to be alive and kicking in the land of yellow people. I secretly wished that I would land up somewhere like on a cashier’s table at a non-computer savvy casino at Las Vegas, so that I could “peek-a-boo” few strippers or do some cool analytical/financial calculations. But then I saw the wretched carton I was to be put into. It read “XXXXXXXXX, India”

Now I had heard horrifying stories about the calculators who went there and were lost, either in a dark corner in a middle class home or beneath old books in a student’s room. Devoid of any sunlight, they were forced to slow painful death and that too with a long wait. There was a hope that someday somebody would find them. But the hope never saw the dawn.

I reached India, within next 48 hours. And while I couldn’t exactly figure out, where I was headed, I knew it was somewhere further south. I could find out that because as I moved, the rate of speech of people handling my carton increased.
Then on one fine day, the carton was opened. I didn’t expect India to be as cool as it was there. Within two days I found myself to be handed over to my real owner, one who paid 500 bucks for my capabilities. I came to know I was in what they call- “God’s own Kampus”

The same day, I saw some calculators getting a white sticker on their backside mentioning their owner’s name and some number. I guess humans too have batch numbers like us. One of my kind remarked- “Now I would never be lost. Yuppie!”. Suddenly all my fears rolled in front of my LCD panel. I wished hard; please stick one at my arse too. I don’t want to get lost like few of my forefathers. But my owner was perhaps too lazy. He brought me to his room and put me in his bag.

My dream of Las Vegas was never going to be realised now. If at all this moron went there, why would he take me with him. This conclusion wasn’t a very long drawn one. As I went to all the lectures with him, zipped inside the front pouch, the guy never needed my assistance. Either he had some vedic mathematics techniques. Now if he didn’t need me calculate all those IRR, NPV, standard deviations, he must would be way too sharp to use me to calculate how much he earned at that LV casino. (Although now from my experience I can say, probably he conveniently chose to relax or copy from his nerdy neighbour.

The one day, suddenly I was pulled out from the bag and taken to the classroom. I realised it was some Manac quiz. But all the poor guy could do was to insult me by making me do simple additions. Rest of time he spent in asking all around in hushed voice- “4th question ka answer bata bhai”

I was so bored with my master that for the first time in my life I wanted to be lost far away from him. Then one fateful day while the guy was dozing off, I heard sounds of “Do you have a cal C?”. Gradually the voice came nearer and finally came into the room. My owner replied in his sleep- “Bag ke andar hoga bhai..utha le” . He never cared to see who he was giving me to.

My new master was a genius. He made me do all the fancy stuff viz. solve equations, matrix calculations, logarithmic functions and what not. It made my day when this bailee (yeah I went through some Business Lectures too!) of mine forgot who he bailed it from.

I later on found that he had lost his cal c in similar manner and now that he found me and couldn’t recollect who I really belonged to, he made up his mind to own me. Finally I was rechristened by that white sticker and I knew couldn’t be lost again.
I shared joys of my honour and was proud of myself when he got great term grades. I thought now he would always keep with him. Some fellows asked him for a treat. We went to college canteen and I was put on the side edge bar along with a copy. While I stood there enjoying everybody jump over the ordered food, I never imagined a unknowingly push from someone’s elbow would make me fall down from first floor of the canteen.

I was hurt but still in my senses. I waited there for someone to pick me up. But I had landed in a seemingly obstructed space where nobody saw me.

So here I am, writing my story with whatever cell life remaining with me. The sun rays never reach here. I did get wet on many occasions when it rained. I may be old and wrecked but I haven’t given up. The hope survives, the hope of getting a newer better owner, who would keep better care of me. I know she (yeah! I too crave for a female touch and for the matter of fact they care better) is somewhere out there….

Dil goes Hadippa..Hadippa

2009-10-02T01:44:00.000-07:00

Again a delayed review. So sorry about that. But can't help much with me sitting in IIM Kozhikode :(

How do I like pass afternoon on an off day. Yeah you got it right. Watching a feel good non-brain loading bollywood masala film. So I chose to watch DIL BOLE HADIPPA..

Another YashRaj film. So, got to be some inherent YR attributes. Punjab, Farmlands, Western-clothes bashing and some dreams waiting to be realized.

One of my close friends has played national level cricket; therefore concept of woman aspiring to be a great cricketer didn't sound alien to me. :)

The movie starts off on a chirpy note with six sixes in six balls by Veera kaur (Rani), right tey left hand bats(wo)man, who works at a local theater. Rakhi Sawant is here for what she does best. Some hip shaking and non-stop bakwaas, but she is tolerable.

Anurag singh does good job in setting a pretext which is fictional but believable as a plot- Aman cup, a bilateral yearly match played between India and Pakistan (which adheres to the talk of these times by replacing 50-over game with T20)

I personally felt a bit offended by Anurag's potrayal of an Indian Team which is on a losing streak for 8 (going to be 9) defeats in same number of years. Khair koi nahin, after all we have our very own Desi English county player Rohan Singh (Shahid) who gets a call from his Dad, Anupam Kher (organiser of aman cup and owner of Indian team).

We get some resemblances from Hum Tum with stranged relationship between Shahid's parents Kher and Poonam dhillon (who has lost some weight seriously)

Well it isn't much of a surprise when Rani dons a man's getup (understandably becoming a surd, that's the closest when girls can look non-females). The name is Veer Pratap Singh, and it's not just one of the things coming from Veer Zaara, another YR Film.

After that follows the understandable dual role portrayal by Rani in front of Shahid, who Punjabi baap ka Punjaabi Beta, and again understandably can't fall for Steammmiiiinngg Hottttt Sherlyn Chopra, whom I can easily excuse of poor acting.

Rest movie is all about fulfillment of dreams for a father, his son and the aspiring girl.

And I can hardly forget the "switch hands/grip shot" which even Kevin Peterson would be proud of.

The movie is timepass fun but I couldn't help noticing some technical errors, some of them not entirely new. eg.

When Anupam kher shows match clips of previous match to his son, he is actually showing the Movie clip with cameras at positions which are impossible during a cricket match. These errors have been repeatedly spotted in many other films. Ideally the clips should have been different with match camera angles

Similarly, 6 months before 15th August ( 15th Feb) Anupam Kher says to shahid, "I know your county season is off for next 6 months". County cricket in england is played only during summers and is off in winters. Anurag should have taken care

In T-20 match, for first 6 overs, only two players are allowed outside the inner circle. The match here starts with at least 4 players protecting boundaries

In the concluding scene, when Rani's actual identity is revealed (cmon guys, it wasn't a spoiler..was it), between Veer and Veera there was a lot of makeup and kaajal done on Rani's face in just two seconds.

But as I mentioned, you should relax your brains and watch the movies with open hearts, the movie does giggle (or at least brings smile) at few occasions.

For me the movie is worth one time dekko.... I could have given a lower rating some other day. But today it gets....

Rating ***

Hedged!!

2009-09-14T03:33:00.000-07:00

Sometimes life is very UNHAPPENING...I guess that's how i can explain my past few days. With no time to sit and relax and maybe introspect, one is forced to think only about assignments, submissions, deadlines, exams...

At occasions one would hope for some off-loading with time, but things keep piling on.

a couple of days ago i wrote a derivatives certification paper. It had an interesting hedging concept which can be briefly stated as:

When you are feeling bullish about markets, you tend to hold stocks, but to eliminate high loss risks in case your assumptions aren't true, you sell Call options (which predict fall in stock prices). Thus you hedge possible losses in stocks by some profits in Futures.

The hedging concept though does minimizes the risk but it also diminishes returns in case market went bullish.

TOO MUCH OF GYAAN I KNOW.....but following herd mentality that is Engg. degree from good college then MBA from premier institute is just like selling futures/options as mentioned above. Somewhere we know that maybe this is not the thing you would love to do for your whole life, but because of low level of trust in own abilities (prediction of bullish markets), we either sell stocks (leave the quest of our own ambition) or hedge it with selling futures (herd protocol).

On the contrary the people who trust their market prediction abilities (called speculators) buy futures/options to compliment their gains from rise in stock prices.

These people who are high risk takers, chose the path they desire theirs to be and end up either being a high achievers or incur losses which are huge and sometimes may be irreversible.

I just wish at the end (when option/future expires) , i would end up being on positive side......

15 Hours..1 Assignment....Made 180 MANiACs

2009-08-22T08:28:00.000-07:00

His smile always had a knife soaked in honey. He used to say- "Start it as soon as possible..because it isn't something you could finish in a night"

It turned out to be true. On a dreaded day (last Thursday) he chalked on the board:

MANAC ASSIGNMENT
APPENDIX-C
Deadline: Tomorrow 3:30pm

With 7 classes on Thursday, we couldn't do much before 7:30 pm. 3 of the 5 sections had traumatized looks on their faces, when they came for an early dinner. Huddles with same point of discussions were to be seen all around. Somebody mentioned -"Its kind of an assignment we can't even divide amongst ourselves and then copy later".

It seemed like "Dementor attacks". People moved in groups towards library with tensions visible on the face, which tried to disguise the fear that was shivering everybody to their shoes.

Once glued to their seats people did realize it was every guy/girl for himself/herself. From capital investment everybody had to start with, to the loan amounts, payback methods, assets purchase, business type, transactions created by self (total 150 of them), nothing had people on same page.

Starting at 8, it took around 5 hours to create first Ledger, then ledger, trial balance, P&L and Balnce sheet. It was already 3 am. We took a break and went to Night Canteen. After gobbling up some maggi and chips and of course some much needed thass (1.5 hrs), we were back to work. Sleep refused to oblige most of us, thankfully though.

Finished 2nd set of accounts around 11am next day. Burn Out. Even the thought of the 3rd set was instilling vomiting feelings. Almost nobody came for the 1st class. 10-15 people who reported in other classes were all sleeping while Profs came and went. Everybody in the college knew that 180 souls were left to wander in the oceans of MANAC, which turned them (us) into maniacs...........

The ended well with one of the movie screenings by our STI prof Mr. Matthews, the one about whom I plan to type in some keys sometime in next month.

People are still drained out with pale faces. 15 hours definitely take some toll on you...Rehabilitation and Recuperation is still going on. Hope survives!!

Lord, Let the poor organisms rest in peace before the start of another run of the mill, hectic week.

Amen
Pravs

Main PGP Student 13/292.......

2009-08-19T15:16:00.000-07:00

Main PGP Student 13/292, A2 ki middle fourth row se saamne dekhta hun,
Ghadi ke kaanton ke minton ko ghante mein badalte dekhta hun,
Wo kehte hain CP hai bahut important,
Fir kyun mera mann kuchh kehne ko nahin karta hai,
Wo kehte hain "Knowledge is Voluntary",
Fir kyun low attendance ka harjaana koi bharta hai,
Main PGP Student 13/292, A2 ki middle fourth row se saamne dekhta hun

Main PGP Student 13/292, A2 ki middle fourth row se saamne dekhta hun,
Ek frenchie rakhe huye prof ko idhar se udhar uchhalte dekhta hun,
Wo kehte hain "There is no right or wrong solution to a case study",
Fir kyun meri answer sheet mein ek bada laal gola dikhta hai,
Sab kehte hain ki "Wo bada ****** hai",
Fir kyun shakal se bada bhola lagta hai
Main PGP Student 13/292, A2 ki middle fourth row se saamne dekhta hun

Main PGP Student 13/292, A2 ki middle fourth row se saamne dekhta hun,
Ek golu molu bachhe ko demand supply curve banaate dekhta hun,
Wo kehte hain "He is still to get married",
Fir kyun nahin wo Kunnamangalam market ke pizza corner pe date karta hai,
Game theory and Price discrimination mein uljha hua bechara,
Kyun apni jawaani ka check mate karta hai...
Main PGP Student 13/292, A2 ki middle fourth row se saamne dekhta hun

Main PGP Student 13/292, A2 ki middle fourth row se saamne dekhta hun
Ek dadaji ko Raj Kapoor ki oonchi pants and sports shoes pehne dekhta hun,
Wo ek class mein padhaake z-transform, probability and normal distribution,
Kyun 3 class mein median mode padhata hai,
Wo kehte hain "We are running behing schedule"
Fir kyun CAT paper ki negative marking ka concept ek ghante tak sunaata hai,
Main PGP Student 13/292, A2 ki middle fourth row se saamne dekhta hun

Main PGP Student 13/292, A2 ki middle fourth row se saamne dekhta hun,
Apni likhi book ko bechne aaye salesman ko Balance Sheet banaate dekhta hun,
Wo kehte hain "Asset=Liabilities + Owner's Equity always",
Fir kyun har sawaal yahin aake fasta hai,
MBA students ko question paper mein sher aur chimpanzee bataake,
Sath mein +1/-0.5 ki scheme lagaake kyun wo hampe hasta hai,
Main PGP Student 13/292, A2 ki middle fourth row se saamne dekhta hun

Main PGP Student 13/292, A2 ki middle fourth row se saamne dekhta hun,
Ek sookhi maachis ki tilli ko "Silence for 2 minutes" bolte dekhta hun,
Wo kehte hain "This will bring peace to your minds"
Fir kyun har koi 2 minute ki power nap le leta hai,
Wo kehte hain ki wo PGP CHAIR hai,
Fir kyun mujhe woh baans ka MOODA lagta hai,
Main PGP Student 13/292, A2 ki middle fourth row se saamne dekhta hun

Just another wait till dawn......

2009-08-03T13:30:00.000-07:00

2:01 am, 4th Aug

I am always surprised, why I write stuff at such awkward times. But this time I have a brilliant excuse. 4 Presentations down in 4 hrs and 3 more to go. I guess it's enough to claim I am bored. :(

Life@IIMK has been hectic, but could have been managed better if I (we) wouldn't have spent one third of our time worrying about how will we manage all things in limited 24 hours.

Mid-terms just 2 days away, and I am still wondering how to start. People might say that 2 years of work ex behind my back, it will be tough to follow a curriculum again. But in my case the things haven't actually changed from engg college days... :)

It all reminds me of the wonderful 4 years i spent in NSIT. People are very much the same. Circumstances may be a lot more testing. But after a point one tends to get numb owing to the pressure that just refuses to go. That's the best thing an IIM teaches. :)

We had a couple of get aways. It was fun with more than half of our class went for dinner and a stroll alongside the beach. As a safety measure, no guy was left alone for any single minute, owing to Calicut's claim to fame as "Gay capital of India"

Most of the days we sleep around 5:30 am, get up at 9, classes throughout the day till 5, then assignments ensuring that none of your time is wasted till again 5 next morning. If you are wondering how do we manage with just 3 hrs of sleep, just forgot to tell you that one has to learn how to sleep tactically in class without getting caught. :)

Till next dawn....

Ciao
Pravs

Poetry at 4:30 in morning!!!

2009-07-07T15:48:00.000-07:00

pic of the valley from my hostel at IIM K

I was listening to some beautiful poems from my favorite hindi poet Dr Kumar Vishwas

कोइ दीवाना केह्ता है, कोइ पागल समझता है,
मगर धरती कि बैचैनी को बस बादल समझता है,
मैं तुझसे दूर कैसा हू,तु मुझसे दूर कैसी है,
ये तेरा दिल समझता है या मेर दिल समझता है

For complete poem click here (video) or here (lyrics)

I added a couple of paragraphs to it. :) Dedicated to a very dear friend of mine!! :)

जुड़े नाते थे जो सारे, मैं वो सब तोड़ के आया,
हाँ सच है मीठी यादों को मैं फिर भी ओढ़ के आया,
था छोडा उस फसाने को हसीं सा मोड़ एक देकर,
मगर उन भीगी आँखों में मैं खुद को छोड़ के आया!

जो खा ठोकर संभालता हूँ, तो क्यूँ दूं दोष राहों को
किसी के आंसू बह बह के, धोएँगे मेरे घावों को
बताओ कौन फ़रिश्ता है, नज़र आये तो पहचानू ,
कभी पूछूँ पहाडों को, कभी नदियों को, गावों को !

Phoenix Song!

2009-06-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

Its my last day in Delhi (at least for 90% of my time in next two years).

Made some delicious Paneer-Capsicum in afternoon. Watched India lose the all-important T20 match against England. :-(

That's It.....

See evbdy in Mumbai!!!

Murphy's Laws: My buddies!!

2009-06-10T03:43:00.000-07:00

For those who are new to the term click here.

It's been couple of months since I became a staunch believer in the Theory. Although Murphy's blessings have been bestowed upon me that I got out of all the situations, pretty much unscathed. :)

It all when my car was shelved (an overstatement) from side, by a small 10 tonne concrete truck while I was waiting for green signal to give me a way forward.
Refer

Then after couple of days, I get a flat tyre on my way back to home around 11:30 in night. I didn't realize the fact before driving about 200 meters, thinking might be an unknown power that's steering the car towards right. I spent around 20 minutes changing the tyre. My stepny tyre had metal spikes (like you have in your football shoes). Had bad metal cuts on my fingers. There is something about cuts on skin. You realize how bad are they when try to take a pinch of salt from the Jar! :'-O

Then I drove setting the street on fire, literally (sparks coming out of the tyre).
When I reached home I couldn't find my office i-card. It had somehow detached itself from the access cards which completed the set. Then I went back again to office at 12:15 am. Search it all near the dhaba where I changed the tyre, parking space, office work station. To my sorrow I couldn't find it anywhere even after an hour of search operation. With somberness, I reach my home, and I find it there beneath my driving seat. So I wasted some 2 hours for simply nothing.

Not long after I left parking indicator lights in the parking lot only to discover that around 11 in night, the car had lost every bit of charge it possessed. Even after trying push-and-start techniques when the car refused to make any sound, I left it there and got into my friend's car to come back in morning with some mechanic. (I don't have that 24 hr automobile helpline :-( ) It was sheer luck that I spotted a battery mechanic (I wasn't even making an effort to find one) on my way back to home. He Came. He Saw. It Started!!

I haven't been so lucky in traffic scenarios though. Murphy wants to test me tough on that. No matter whatever route I pick up to go to delhi, I find extra-ordinarily jams. The other routes were comparatively a lot better. Maybe my mind follows Mass-Psychology. That calls for a great career in Stocks and Trading. :)

It was monday, when after being stuck in such jam, I drove to the nearest metro station. And carried on Metro there onwards. Went to college. The damn officer couln't find my degree after keeping me waiting for 2 hrs (I went to catch up a nap in between). Then I go to my office for finishing final formalities. And it took like ages. Suddenly I realized it was 9:30 and I had a car parked at a metro station. The friend I was accompanied by. (and also the one who was supposed to drop me to the nearest metro station) had to pick his mum and aunt from a place in gurgaon, he didn't know way to. We roamed to and fro at roads. (There's a sick habit of not telling a "no" when we pop up a question regarding geographical location of a place).

We managed to reach around 10:10 and had a race against time to catch the "11 ki last metro". We had long toll queues, naraina jam to keep us at 100 miles distance from hopes of making it on time. Somehow my friend got me at the place on time. I boarded the metro and it broke down at ISBT. When it finally got me to my destination (30 minutes late), I got my car back. (Had to pay extra because I had exceeded the time limit by 20 minutes :( ). Murphy caught me once again when I chose a way which seemed a bit easy-going initially. Not later than a km of drive through it, I found dozens Trucks parked on 2 of the 3 lanes available. At 12:30 I entered into the bottleneck and came out starving at 1:30. Went home. Had a maggi and then sank into the bed....

Still Awake at 2:15 am!

2009-05-30T13:21:00.000-07:00

It's 2:15 am and I am awake! Tried catching some sleep earlier specially after a tiring afternoon. Went to Nehru Place to get my Lappy upgraded.

Had raajma chaawal after so long. Mum's been away from me for about 13 days now. Never cooked rice in between. Have plans though, tomorrow :)

What have I been cooking these days? click here

Kinda like weekend cooking. Not on weekdays though. :(

Saw a sweet comedy just now- Four Weddings and a Funeral. Nice movie. Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean) with a good cameo! Had me in splits! :D

It's begun to rain outside. Feeling a slight chill now with vest and bermuda being my summer wardrobe!

I think I'll catch some sleep now. Asta La Vista.

Faking it !

2009-05-26T13:33:00.000-07:00

Scared to see your face in the Mirror
For a fear that it will show the remains
Shattering the aura of lies encompassing
The body of Shallow bones and veins

No sleep before the family
No Drinks before the friends
Lest the lips would move uttering words
Which would bring "the fake" to ends

Saying "Keep Smiling" to everyone
But not to the little corner in your heart
Disguising appearance is one thing
Disguising emotions is an Art

Thou may look strong to you
But the weakness burns inside like acid
Check before the damage gets irreversible
Or else the annihilation is sure Tacit...

Ctrl+z - part2

2009-05-26T13:14:00.000-07:00

I typed in something and then I deleted it....

Untitled.txt

2009-05-23T14:07:00.000-07:00

Now I really don't know what should be the title of this post. Because there is no agenda for this one. Just felt like a Dumbledore who wanted to shed some memoirs into the pensieve. (GOD I ACTUALLY GOOGLED TO FIND THE ORDER OF "i" and "e" IN THE LAST WORD)

Hmmmm so a Saturday, which was spent leisurely till 7:45pm when I left for IIM K Alumni Meet. Was good fun meeting with future classmates, seniors and Alumni. Danced a bit on the floor. Almost went crazy when "In the end-Linkin Park" was played. There are times in life when you wish you shouldn't have watched Television from a couple of feets distance, in childhood. My glasses (-1.75) always create problems when I start to head-bang.

Food and people were good. Seems two years time ahead is going to be a memorable duration. Last two years in college.....

I wish I could have remained more in college. But for that I would need to do a PHD and then apply for lectureship. But I don't exactly fancy that. Because profs aren't even a light year close to be a part of College fun, instead they are a vital ingredient for College Pun!

The names that students rechristen their profs with are as interesting as what FIP did with SRK, Sreesanth, Agarkar and funniest of them all Sanjay Bangar.

Watched American Pie- 6 (Beta House) earlier this week. Nice college ;) Nicer Sports day (they call it Greek Olympiad).

And of course I am delighted that RCB beat CSK to reach the finals. It was a tough decision to forfeit the match viewing for IIM K alumni meet. But I thought, If RCB won I would have been delighted anyways but if it lost, I could have repented my decision of not going to the Alumni meet.

Now as its 3:00 am and I can see this post getting as vague and off-track as a Middle-aged lady on her car after attending "15 din mein driving seekho- classes",
I should pause now. YAAAAAAWWWWWNNNN..... BUT, I WIL BE BACK!!

Bless All

Sanshay...

2009-05-04T21:54:00.000-07:00

Kinchit mann ki duvidha kinchit
Dridhta-abhaav sanshay kar sanchit
Mastishq sanrachna itni jatil hai
Sadharanta se koson vanchit

Vividh vichaaron ka ho sangam
Naag ko odhe khada hai chandan
Kar sakat vikalpon ko vicharsang
Kal ka Aaj kare abhinanadan

Ek raah pakad sanlagn sadeiv
Katihinayi bhi aaye yadeiv
Paras patthar si kathin parisha
Kar utteerna fir karen sameeksha

Antaravlokan

2009-04-28T11:51:00.000-07:00

Jab jeevan ka sanket miley
Pratibimb sahit aakhet miley
Vyarth samay ko kiye bina
Tum swayam ko mitr bana lena

Hai hriday mein uthti hulchul kyun
Basant mein bhi hai marusthal kyun
Hathhon mein liye jal, paudhe ko
Tum seech ke vriksh bana lena

Lakshya ki dhoomil chhavi bane
Kathinayi greeshm ka ravi bane
Le nishtha ka paripeksha faila
Tum dhoop mein chhaya bana lena

Peedit maanav koi yadi rahe
Akshon se neer ki nadee bahe
Prem se bheegi boondon se
Mukh par muskan saja dena.....

My Take on The Real Fake!

2009-04-25T00:40:00.000-07:00

Let the unknown stay covered
Let the words come un-perturbed
For once the curtains will be raised
People would cease to be amazed

You will get the love u want
You may want to reveal but you can't
Keep conjuring the art of brooding pun
For without you IPL would not be much fun....

Hmmm...to start with my car is fine now (Rs 1500 ka chuna :-()

Last few days have been good with a new TP, called IPL-Season 2 and the controversies surrounding it.

I am with RCB (Royal Challengers Bangalore...hic...). Sadly they have lost 3 of their 4 matches. But I don't have to worry more about what to do when I get home.

To add the fun, somewhere from the horizon has risen a "star" who calls himself "Fake IPL Player". The guy is simply awesome. I don't even care about whether his is spilling the "true" beans about KKR or he's double faking it. Its real spicy fun.

The most entertaining part is his Nomenclature for the characters. Vinnie D*l*o (SRK), Appam Ch***Y* (Shreesanth), Kan-Molu (Agarkar), Ganji Hanger (Sanjay bangar, funniest of all). The guy has ordinarily extra-ordinary writing skills. The one which grips the readers. The wit is too sharp to have been created by an ordinary sportsperson (given the general conditions in which our players bred in before coming into the national team).

Moreover what surprises more is that SRK has removed all WI-FI connectivity from his players' rooms. Now that says a bit about authenticity of info being shared. According to me it might be a case of a professional journalist who gets his info from a/few KKR team players/staff.

It won't be long enough before we will stumble upon a book in library, claimed to have been written by him - a collection of his blog material and much more. This reminds me of a nice movie called Hoax.

Why I think the guy is a pro, because, he has taken every bit of care of not mentioning real names/people/places. So even if he is caught, he won't be prosecuted as he can always argue it was a work of fiction.

Not far away are the days when he would get thousands invitations from pretty girls desperate to meet him. But, the irony is that in his anonymity lies his sex appeal :-)

Vinnie will be disturbed Appam would be red
Lordie would be smiling in his kingly shed
Calypso would than gods, that you spared him
People love you for your naughty whim

Bubli hopes that bunty doesn’t' believe
Bunty now will have a doubt what's up his sleeve
Please write something about IPL uncle now
A one-liner or one blog that will make us say WOW

A bad incident calls for a better reaction!

2009-04-15T09:47:00.000-07:00

Sometimes things just happen without giving any scope to react to avoid them.

So, there I was happy around 8 in evening, that after so many days I was about to reach home early. So there I was, with my car stopped at the traffic signal. And a concrete mixer truck comes from my right and swerved left to take the left turn. I couldn't move either forward or backward (vehicles behind) and it grazed past my car's right front part.

So helpless! So frustrated! Felt like blurting out the entire abuse vocab, I possess. But of no use. I reversed a bit back to avoid further damage. The truck found the space it needed and sped away. I crossed the red light, rested my car to the left side of the road. Bumper swinging down, both right indicators gone, metal sheet dented a couple of inches inside, and a whole lot of frustration, anger and somberness.

Everybody plays the role of spectator so often. But when you turn a mere spectator to the things happening to you, it feels bad, very very bad. We start to think futile things. If only I had stayed in office 5 minutes longer, if only I had driven a couple of minutes faster, if only I taken a separate route and all other futile Ifs.

Then I got myself reminded about the 20-80 rule. It says 20% of things happening to us have got our no control on them. 80% others depend on how we react. The principle can be understood by following example (mention in the mail)

You are having breakfast with your family.
Your daughter knocks over a cup of coffee
Onto your business shirt.

You have no control over what has just happened.

What happens next will be determined by how you react.

You curse.

You harshly scold your daughter for knocking the cup over.

She breaks down in tears.

After scolding her, you turn to your wife

and you criticize her for placing the cup

too close to the edge of the table.

A short verbal battle follows.

You storm upstairs and change your shirt.

Back downstairs, you find your daughter has been too busy crying
to finish her breakfast and getting ready to go to school.

She misses the bus.

Your spouse must leave immediately for work.

You rush to the car and drive your daughter to school.

Because you are late, you drive 40 miles per hour in a 30 mph speed limit zone.

After a 15-minute delay and throwing

$60.00 traffic fine away, you arrive at school.

Your daughter runs into the building without saying goodbye.

After arriving at the office 20 minute late,

You realize you forgot your briefcase.

Your day has started terrible. As it continues, it seems to get worse and worse.
You look forward to coming home. When you arrive home, you find a small wedge
in your relationship with your wife and daughter.

Why?

Because of how you reacted in the morning. Why did you have a bad day?

A) Did the coffee cause it?

B) Did your daughter cause it?

C) Did the policeman cause it?

D) Did you cause it?

The answer is “D”

You had no control over what happened with the coffee. How you reacted in those 5 seconds is what caused your bad day.

Here is what could have and should have happened

Coffee splashes over you.

Your daughter is about to cry.

You gently say:

“It’s okay, honey, you just need to be

More careful next time.”

Grabbing a towel you go upstairs and change your shirt.
You grab your briefcase, and you come back down in time to look through

the window and see your child getting on the bus.

She turns and waves. You arrive 5 minutes early a cheerfully greet the staff.

Notice the difference?

So now I am a bit more relaxed than my initial state of mind..... :-)

Begaani Shaadi mein Abdullah Deewana- Part2

2009-04-07T09:28:00.000-07:00

I received some feedbacks about some instances which deserved some mention, but slipped off from my mind.

It was last day of end-semester examination and one of my dear friends, Rahul (Guy with the blushing smile in my blog-header pic, fell ill. I, Panda, and Pandu set off along with him to make sure he reaches Gurgaon safely where his parents were waiting to take him Faridabad, their home.

Uncle said - "So nice of you guys that you came till here to see Rahul off". We all smiled. We knew we came so that we could crash in some wedding parties around.

Anyways, that night was one of the longest times spent to find our target. As from our previous experiences we ignored low key affairs and looked for the "Grand Arrangement".

We were very tired, thinking the bike we borrowed from one of our seniors, Tiwari, had drunk petrol worth of more than our one time lavish meal at Chawla's. Disappointed we were about to return, when we saw firecrackers soaring in the sky about 2 kms ahead. Our eyes lit up. Both Pandu and I vroomed our bikes and reached the venue. Wow "Sabr ka phal meetha hi hota hai", seemed true.

BTW (Bittu tikki Wala) had a dedicated gallery, with about 2 dozens of chat-papdi and other snacks. I was (and am) a teetotaler, but my accomplices had their mouths watering when they saw "Teacher's" on the open-pub's racks. Sadly panda couldn't have much of it, but I guess he gulped one peg. Enough for him. Pandu on the other didn't need to drive. So tried all the brands he could.

Panda then pointed out towards a tuna fish which was getting grilled and said "!@#$$@!$ itti badi macchi....hic...". I and Pandu apprised him about it being called a Tuna.

All three were constantly "tadoing" pretty (read sexy) girls. People started noticing us suspiciously. Pandu was so scared, his all hangover went for a toss. He wanted to return before the feared beating by bride's relatives. But Panda and I were daring enough. We moved about confidently discussing about our respective businesses.

After our stomachs-full and late in night we drove back to hostel. Returned one of the bikes to its owner....Panda said - "MAJAA AA GAYA KHANA KHAKE", the famous dialogue in "Matrubhumi". We IMAOed (laughed hard and continuously) and then went to sleep.

:-)

Begaani Shaadi mein Abdullah Deewana!!

2009-04-06T12:29:00.000-07:00

Hmm...One of my dear friends had published a blog entry about how he felt about being uninvited at some occasions. This reminded me of those uncountable dinners we had at weddings parties in Gurgaon and other nearby farmhouses. Here is the summary of all those wonderful (read delicious) moments:

Hmmm...On April 21, 2004 (Thanks Google) Virender Sehwag wedded Arti Ahlawat (thanks again) along with 41,812 couples (I am a Data Analyst).

So there was I, at the Khoka, relishing my plate of maggi along with senior friends from 3rd and 4th year. Nikhil Sharma, one amongst them, suggested wedding-crashing, when I told him about so many weddings in the city. I was game for it. I put on my only remaining ironed half shirt, borrowed a pair of trousers we set off for our "great wedding search".

We found one. When I got down from bike, he asked me to wait until the Groom's Convoy arrived. That sounded like a plan!

It arrived and we too sneaked in with it. So as course had its way, Bride's relatives thought us to be Groom's relatives and vice versa. We straightaway headed for snacks corner. Then took some soft drinks/shakes and followed it with some main course and dessert.

It seemed that videographer knew more than what we did about ourselves and I am sure we would have shared the screen space 50% of the total video duration.

Sorry Amit bhaiya and Anjali bhabhi. Now you would have figured whose side the two guys with ice-creams filled in mouth, belonged.

When I graduated to 2nd year I was a veteran, and guys wanted me to lead them into wedding-crashing. Our excuse - "Mess food is bad". But more than that reason, I liked the sense of thrill we had all the time when we were bent down on trying everything meant for the bellies within a limited stipulated time.

Once confident we didn’t wait for Baraat to get in. We used to roam in confidently, passing by Bride's father and uncles, mobiles on ears, saying - "Yes mom I have reached. U and Dad in their? Yeah I located you. Coming there"

Once we landed up in a reception party with barely 70 guests. But I in fact, managed to engage into conversation with one of the uncles about how good dance performance was.

Sorry to all those couples for appearing uninvited in their weddings!!

Thank you Pradeep bhaiya, Priyanka bhabhi, Deepa didi, Ashok Jeeju, Aakash Uncle, Sanjeevni Aunty (wedded in their late 30s I guess)

HMMMMM....I WISH WE HAD CLICKED SOME PICS!! :-(

A trip to the countryside!!

2009-04-05T00:20:00.000-07:00

A trip which had an unfortunate beginning (my grandpa expired) turned out to be an enriching experience.

My mum had left early at the onset of hearing the saddening news. Grandpa was ailing for than a year now. So in some corner of one's heart everybody felt contentment as he was relieved of all the pain and agony he suffered.

Dad and I went 4 days after. Located about 30 kms from the Nepal-India (Bihar) border, its one of the places where I feel complete peace of mind.

My mamu, mami and their kids (read Raakshas Sena) joined us on our way to Nanigaon.
I managed to survive them and their zillion questions which seemed straight out of 100 yrs of possible history of "who wants to be a millionaire"

We reached there next morning and I got into the groove the same day. Got my pic clicked doing my own bit for the cause.

It was a 5-Village community dinner (bhoj) next day. Preparation was to be done by everyone in family.

Massive event requires massive arrangements. As this cooked rice storage:

And a few sweets:

And the server: :-)

2 mornings later I went to one of my nanaji's cousins, a maithil sahitya scholar. He told me about the origin, history, development of Mithila culture. I was too impressed by the knowledge he granted me.

Then we left for my Dadigaon (Paternal grandparents' home). On way I saw the changing facets of Bihar. Transport, roads communication everything is developing at a fast pace. Thanks to Nitish Kumar, Bihar is out of Clutches of Lalu for at least 5 years.

Now a very unique pic. Only one of its kind. This is a bridge over Kamla River. Uniqueness lies in the fact that both Road Transport and the Railways use the common bridge. I might be prosecuted for publishing this pic. :-( The bridge is property of Railways and hence is still awaiting its maintenance, courtesy Shri Lalu Yadav.

We visited the old and locally very famous Shiv Mandir, which is still to get its recognition at national level. UGNA MAHADEV (the complete story will be published in some other post)

That marked the end of a very enriching experience. The one I was going to use for my MBA GD/PI Interviews. I converted one ...FMS..(hurray) waiting for 10th April. Wish me luck.

:-(

2009-02-22T12:59:00.001-08:00

Feeling Blue!!!

Who let the Dog out?? Danny ??

2009-01-30T11:12:00.000-08:00

Christopher Nolan must be very proud with how well the "Anachronous" way of story-telling been down with the masses. Filmmakers and viewers are now acknowledging the great art, which can make simple stories look extra-ordinary.

Kudos to Danny for showing the slums as they are. I don't see any great bollywood actor making so much fuss about it without even giving it a peek. That too when the child actor in the film jumps into the shit-hole (literally) to get his autograph (though later sold off by his brother at Rs 3 only).

Chase scene (policemen after the kids playing on airport) has been shot exceptionally well. Both the child actors Ayush Mahesh Khedekar (Jamal) and Azharuddin Ismail (his elder bro Salim) and their adolescent counterparts have made their characters look real.

From slums to the mumbai riots (brief hints) to trap by "Beggars' Mafia" to escape to losing-founding saga to bhai turning hitman everything is shot convincingly as this was going to be the film's backbone as they explain how did the Slumdog know the answers.

Somewhere down the line the characters (the adolescent guys) speaking English couldn't go down as well as those who did in Gandhi. For perhaps if not had been that way film might have ended up with competing in "Best Foreign Film" category.
But as a movie is best owned by its director, so no issues.

Freida Pinto's performance is average. Dev Patel does impress a lot with his journey from chaiwallaah in a call centre, who knows more about the Red Carpet than any other student in the training room to The Millionaire, who ended up annoying Anil Kapoor with his rags to riches story in 1 hr Show rather than latter's struggle (briefly mentioned). The grey shades in the Quiz-Master's role might have driven Shahrukh away from it.

Time for some technical flaws.

The KBC or "Who wants to be a millionaire" is never live, for the fear, that if a person choses phone a friend, encarta/wiki can help him before even the call is made.

How often "The Three Musketeers" taught in a Slum-School?

Policemen grilling Jamal speak in so much an Indian accent english. So how does our Slumdog acquire a foreign accent? Even if our chaiwaalah learned that in the office he served, but how does our heroin who had been at a Mafia's place since years. And we know what accent is borne in there?

How often a person of Lower strata of society when plays reality shows like this, are insulted by the game host?

Amidst all the flaws, the story does strike a chord for the majority of the 120 minutes, losing steam only in final 10 minutes.

The film will inspire a generation of directors and story-writers, seeing kind of media exposure it is getting across the globe.

Go watch slumdog for the Oscar nominations. For some seemingly funny but realistically agonizing slum life. For the great soundtrack courtesy A.R. Rehman.

I genuinely feel It should win an Oscar for India. Feel like "It's Written"

***

A very happy new year!!!!

2009-01-11T12:07:00.000-08:00

A very happy new year to me and all.

A very happy bdday to me (5th Jan)...

Congratualtions (for managing an IIM GD/PI Call) and Best of Luck (for conversion) to me.

Next post will be a Movie Review of Chandni Chowk to China.....

Cheers

Ghajini-A belated review

2008-12-30T10:36:00.000-08:00

The clock just struck 0000. It was a good 2nd last day of 2008. Returned about 15 minutes ago. Was watching "Ghajini" with office friends, courtsey the farewell treat by my (now ex) manager.

I can't resist writing a review. Though it is not to help others decide whether to watch the movie or not.

So is Morugdoss really a grt director? I feel a bit dishonest to admit so. So what exactly has he done to make a movie that rakes 100cr moolah within 5 days?

Sometimes characterisation (which is of course copied to 95% from Memento) overpowers the weak (too predictable) storyline. Ghajini is such case.

Ofcourse those who haven't seen memento may get impressed by a part of storyline, i.e. the characterisation of the protagonist.

Sajay Singhania (Amir), who is a fusion of Anil Ambani (Papa ka sapna har hath mein mobile apna) and Sunil Mittal (Air Voice does resemble AirTel), is a name which every Tom, Dick and Harry knows but hasn't seen his pictures (like Howard Hughes).

The movie has its share of fun moments with puns revolving around his mistaken identity by Kalpana (Asin), who is "Helpin all selflessly" girl. He begins to love her and wants her to love him back, before he should reveal his identity.

Amir's brief face-off with shahrukh's lookalike (the guy from Kya aap Panchvi fail champu hain) is worth some smiles (not for shahrukh though).

She does love him back, to an extent that she sells off her 2nd hand purchased Ambassador for Rs1,35,000 (somebody got cheated), to pay for amir's falsely told ill mother at amir's village.

Before Amir's return trip from UK, Kalpana gets herself into trouble by pissing off the goon ghajini, resulting in him sending his sidekicks to finish her off. Sanjay reaches in time to see her dying, before being hit by Iron bar on his head, resulting in his anterograde amnesia.

Morugdoss(MD) lifts the term from "Memento" without conceptualising it correctly. The term means, man's memory before the accident is intact but he can't make new memories. MD messes up with Amir's total memory.

Now Amir with help of his tatoos,photographs, (unnecesaary) maps and wallpapers (all lifted from memento) along with some infallible help from Jiah Khan (a medical student) hunts Ghajini down.

The film is a good attempt. But, could have done away with predictabilty and weak storyline which were so unnecessary for audience to connect with Amir's medical condition. The result: audience laughs are loud enough when amir goes haywire hitting goons all around and suddenly loses the plot of the things. The good version should have held the audience in awe and palpating when he is humbly duped by the goon, who is about to attack from back.

A good commercial product for Amir's Fans and everybody. Amir is really good with his anger, action and bod, not to mention. A heart put out act by him deserves him the biggest blockbuster of the year at least.

My only wish; rather han making a Tamil Film remake, they should have made a remake of Memento out and out.

Watch Ghajini and then watch Memento. You will enjoy both.
You will prefer you don't do vice versa.

2.83/5 (Being a perfectionist as Amir)

Cheers
Have a great new year ahead.

Yes Sir No Sir......

2008-12-28T10:42:00.000-08:00

It's happened more than once in recent times. Something seems to me as a great idea first, I even volunteer to carry out a perfect execution. Then suddenly a wave of lathargy comes and takes me away from it. I feel the idea to be hacknayed, uninteresting, not worth my endeavours to put forth for.

I feel the overwhelming guilt at times. The situation becomes gloomy. The time retains the status-quo. And amongst these all I am lying aimlessly looking for an excuse why I shouldn't/couldn't do it.

I keep telling myself, do not promise something on the pretext of beleiving- If I promise, I will do it. The flame kindles with a spark, and extinguishes in absence of the fuel supply. I am looking for that eternal(life-long) fuel supply, that will solve my Energy Crisis!

Hi Again!!

2008-12-27T09:59:00.000-08:00

Its been ages since I wrote my last entry. Its year end so I felt a need to revive a good habit in making. So, why exactly was I writing this blog? The answer is perhaps for "Myself". As like those daily soaps/ movies I can't imagine my voice hitting inside my head. Its always so quiet , in terms of sound. Otherwise its helluva time in and out of my mind.

So what have I got to catchup with myself.

Diwali: Was good. Celebrated at our new home with Mum Dad. Uploaded the pics already in my Orkut Album. Still pasting one here.

Then Mumbai Attacks. Don't want to paste those pictures here. A lot was/is being written/spoken about it all around.

Then we had our company offsite. This time it was even beyond manesar. Never expected it to be a fun like it turned out to be. See I am enjoying it:

Got few late nights following offsite. Some cuz of work, some cuz of Parties/Movies.
Mom got really very pissed off as I arrived quite late on 25th. So I have decided to call off all party invitations for a while and spend some time with family.

Rab ne bana di jodi was an average film. Went to see Ghajini Premier Show. It turned out to be a Preview. Saw High School Musical 3 instead (was recommended by someone). Now there was this girl who had a discount coupon which said 2 tickets free with 4 tickets. She was delighted to know we wanted 4. She was playing cheeky. while explaining the offer to my friend I apprised all of the fact that she has agreed to part with the 2 free tickets with us. The couple had a smile like they were being cheated. How on earth were they expecting that gesture from the "Cunning Me".

I was lauded by my 3 friends for that. It reminded me of Spiderman3 Premier I attended during college days......

My few female friends got married. I haven't heard much from them since then. Which is kind of good, I presume, that is in congruence with them being over occupied with happiness and not with boring people like me.

Many heartful wishes for a wonderful new year! To me! and to You! :)

A moment which I recalled...

2008-10-11T10:59:00.000-07:00

Class 8th(or 9th)

I was sitting on a bench alongside the bench of "my" 3rd Crush of life. To say "my" would be a bit unfair cuz "my" doesn't include "couple of dozen others".

GIRL (along with her Specy fried; I found her cute too.. ;))
Hey Praveen, Have you ever read Blue Magzines.

I: Of course.
(saying, with esteem and thanking god that a couple of months ago a friend of mine told me what blue magzines are, infact he told me he had a magzine called "Playboy" with a topless picture of someone called "Pamela Anderson")

GIRL: How many have you gone through?!
(excitement was growing in her voice..)

I : A dozens, my dear (I never believed though such magzines existed. After all how the hell can anybody strip in front of a camera?)

GIRL : What all things are therein? (She was curiously forcing me into inquisition. Though I Was loving it

I : Oi...its adults' magzine. Lot's of that kind of stuff.

DON'T REMEMBER MUCH AFTER THAT....

A scene after about couple of months of this conversation:

I found a keyring in the feild. I was bioscope-camera-slideshow hybrid. Hoping to see something interesting I slid the roller on.

YUCCCKKK...SHIT...AARGHHHHHH....(I tried to vomit there and then)

After all first unexpected porn exposure can cause that much....

DON'T REMEMBER MUCH AFTER THAT EITHER....

These memories will stay with me for life as also some of these:

1. An LKG Kid who asked Ma'am for her permi ssion to go to toilet. But was denied. And after he did the enevitable. He is taken to his home, though a block across the road, but his pants off!

2. A kid who flunks in his admission test for class 1.

3. A kid who came 2nd in class 1, 1st in class2 and when he came 1st in Class 3, he cried saying to his mom "Mom, sorry i broke the trend, the series 212121212...."

4. A Class 3 kid who is afraid to go to school, because of a Class 4 Bully kisses him on his cheeks at every oppirtunity he has.

5. A Class 5 kid running in school corridore with 5 girls chasing him to pull his cheeks and kiss them. (I feel lke kickin myself now for that.)

6. Few Class 6 Guys laughing and bullying another guy who read from his Doc Father's book how babies are produced.

7. Bio Lecture of Life Processes-2 in Class 7 and revisited in Class 9, though by a female teacher in bromidic tone)

8. A girl who stays back with 11 Class nerd in PT period, to know more about Organic nomenclature, with her legs rubbing against his. And her ***** against his elbows as she leaning over so much on him getting involved in the book. He thought that might have happened due to cramped spaces and continued the lesson.

9. Perfect 4 years of college life, which I wouldn't ever forget. It had drama, suspense, thrill, action, romance, sleaze, friendship, trust, mistrust and of course 8 semesters with 68%!!!

Raping...In the name of God

2008-10-05T10:53:00.000-07:00

It haapened in 1947 (partition), it happened in 1984 (riots following Indira Gandhi's assasination), it happened in 1990 (after bombay blasts), it happened in Gujrat (after Godhra) and it happened again in Orissa (following a VHP leader's assasination).

In world's largest democracy, everytime there are people who would hold ransom, the entire nation, stripping everyone, even of the fundamental rights.

There are some satyromanaic men (mind you many men are satyromaniac) who look for these opportunities to rape women, without being held by law.

Either they are restive or people at concerned positions unwilling to reign them in, I can't comment, precisely.

Recently, I read in a newspaper, An orphanage was ransacked, a few of teenage girls were taken in a room and brutally raped. Later the room was set ablaze by the same incendiaries. They did all that in the belief that the girls were Christians. Later it did turn out they were Hindus.

As a sign of no remorse, these Terrorists (I prefer to call them so, they had done nothing less than those crossing over border, in kashmir) blatantly continue to commit futher atrocities, swaggering around the streets like they have salvaged their religion.

The nation's soul is being pushed into a inquisitorial room, with questions being thrown into left, right and center from every corner of the world.

I feel ashamed that in this land of "Maryaad Purushottam ShriRaam", the women (even in national capital) are nowhere safer than the red-light areas of the West. All they fear, if a riot is waiting round the corner of next street.....

Wanna Puff??

2008-10-02T10:21:00.000-07:00

"Cigarettes and Tobacco products banned from being consumed in public place"

A good but delayed concrete step, accoding to me.

I puffed my first Cig when I was 12, in 7th Standard probably. Smoked one each for three consecutive days. Tried to figure out what respite/enjoyment people get after inhaling in and breathing out a puff of smoke. Failure at that, fortunately enough, resulted to my shunning of the "habit-in-making".

Seven years later, I was holding again the "White-Brown (4:1) Stick" between my Middle and index finger. Its an age when cigarettes may end up being your buddy or better to term as a "nemesis" for the rest of your life.

In winter of 2005, I smoked 13 Marlboro back-to-back, celebrating life with my friends at Goa. Searching for rave parties to groove upon some sexy "Phoren" chicks who would have lost consciousness enough to our liking. But, sadly we couldn't find any. And spent entire nite boozing and puffing.

A very dear friend of mine, who found that I continued to smoke even after returning from GOA, scolded me badly, as his younger brother and sarcastically said "I will finance your Cigarettes for the rest of our college lives".

The "White-Brown Twig" which i threw down from the 3rd floor of our Hostel hasn't come back. Ask me If I am only glad about it.

Well I could have been happier if that friend of mine hadn't ended up being a habitual smoker himself.

May God give all of you the courage and will to shun the Tobacco-Pipe.

A Compromise!

2008-09-30T09:58:00.000-07:00

No matter how liberal, conscientious, conscious and acknowledging we may have become towards the "Right to Equality" in past 61 years, but some orthodoxy simply refuses to go away completely, though it may be under recession.

A friend of mine told me about this friend of his, who will be getting engaged in a couple of weeks time. The girl, who was working in an immensely popular organization at a respectable position has to resign from her job, to relocate and live with her would be husband. Just a compromise, we may say and escape. But there is no escape from the realms of this sphere of truth, that, this is only one of the thousands compromises in waiting in the girl’s future’s kitty.

Compromises start early for a girl child in India. I have seen them all – from the worst to the subdued.

It feels totally outrageous when even the phenomenally educated people in this era put forth demands before the marriage alliances get arranged. Eg. No working bride.

For thousands of years old human beings chronological history, physical strength has been whole and sole reason for discrimination and oppression of the fairer sex. Male sexuality was unquestionable with proofs of polygamy in all major civilizations across the globe. Female sexuality was a question itself.

Cases of burning innocent women on allegations of Witchcraft have been equally prominent in West as well as East. Renaissance changed the ways of life in West. We are still waiting for ours. Aping Burger-Pizza phenomenon is simply not enough.

About Vampires, Rabies and Terrorism

2008-09-20T01:17:00.000-07:00

Rabies, as written is previous post, is most vivid explaination, I found for Vampires.

Upon pressing the Ctrl+Z buuton, a few thousand times, take me years back and I recall seeing a TOI front-page pic, a Rabies Patient in a cell, chained from head to toe, who, doctors said would die in another 3-4 days.

He was shown scratching walls of that barely 8X8 ft room, helplessly. There was no toilet for him. The soiled floor was an apparent indication.

The image stayed with me forever.

I am not going to pen down all symptoms and effects of rabies. Briefly said, a rabies patient loses mental balance partially, always itching to scratch, bite others; Thus the disease spreads.

The only remedy therefore, once a patient gets past the treatable stage, is to put him in a scluded place till he dies and then cremate him immediately. (I don't want to sound callous and sadistic)

Bats, dogs and monkeys apart from man, are known to bear the Rabies virus.

Conclusively the myths revolving around Vampires are nothing else but Rabies cases that went off control.

Terrorism

Similar to Rabies, the affected person (A man fused with all those eternal knowledge about how to kill to attain heaven) , if beyond a treatable stage has no other treatment. Rehablitation won't work because by the time you will rehablitate him, he would already had infected couple others.

Its awesome how these mathematical things called Geometric Progressions work.

Remember that riddle :

a guy offers you 1000000 Rs per day of a 30-day month.
you have to shell out single buck on day 1, 2 on day2, Rs 4 on day 3 ........
Would you accept his offer??

If u did, You stood at a loss of 30-40 Crores at the end of the month.

My cousin, in army told me once, after release of Mohd. Masood Azhar (the man we released during Plan hijack of IC 814), they used to kill any surrendering Terrorists too during a Combat.

Why put them behind bars?; so that they can ransom the country against their release.

I sometimes dichomitized between whether to laugh or get angry, when all those media reports-

"Stoical Mumbai/Delhi back on track after attacks. Refuse to kneel down before Terrorism"

To hell with Stoical....Sirs and Madams, there are too many indifferent people around. They are indiffent as long as they are not the ones who are affected.

People don't even know who they share their apartments with.

MERA BHAARAT MAHAAN....

Vampires and Dracula

2008-09-19T23:51:00.000-07:00

I read about "Vampires" over past few days.

Like all good things they come in "Variety"

From Chinese vampires (with red contact lenses and hair colored green or pink) to Japanese vampires (Foxes) to Greek Vampires (i found them particularly intersting, with bust of a woman and lower of a serpent, reminded me of my Nagraaj Comics days; remember Visarpi :-).....)

Our modern concept of Vampires, theoritacally, is of a neck-biting, blood-sucking character, who can't be killed; Thanks to all those hollywood oldies as well as recent flicks like Blade and Van Helsing.

I can't help myself from quoting the following text which says India has the oldest history of Vampires:

The ancient home of the Gypsies, India has many mythical vampire figures. The Bhuta is the soul of a man who died an untimely death. It wandered around animating dead bodies at night and attacked the living like a ghoul.

The most famous Indian vampire is Kali who had fangs, wore a garland of corpses or skulls and had four arms. Her temples were near the cremation grounds. She and the goddess Durga battled the demon Raktabija who could reproduce himself from each drop of blood spilled. Kali drank all his blood so none was spilled, thereby winning the battle and killing Raktabija.

Don't know what hindu fanatics can do to this naive writer, who thinks of "Kali" as a Vampire

No discussions about Vampires is complete without "Count Dracula" and "Bats"

DRACULA

Dracula, a fictional vampire character, is believed to be iconic among all the vampires. The first description about Dracula in 1879 novel by same name is as follows:

face was a strong - a very strong - aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples, but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.

Bats

There are just three (some may argue for four, specially batman fans) species of Bats around the world. And only one of the feeding upon blood. The drawn analogy was inevitable.

The Truth

The most convincing, credible and cogent explaination is Rabies (to be written about in next post)

God bless all!!!

Elvis has left the Building

2008-09-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

is a phrase that was often used by public address announcers following Elvis Presley concerts to disperse audiences who lingered in hopes of an Elvis encore. - Source-Wikipedia

Its so amazing, how sometimes, simple worlds convey so much!

I was born nearly a decade after Elvis had died and I havent heard any of his songs, but nonethless agree, without a doubt, they would have been nothing less than phenomenal.....

हिन्दी...

2008-09-11T11:37:00.000-07:00

हमारी राष्ट्रभाषा है। परन्तु आज ऐसा समय आ गया है कि कुछ मुट्ठी भर लोगों को किसी व्यक्ति द्बारा हिन्दी बोले जाने पर ठेस पहुचती है। आने वाले समय में हिन्दी कि क्या गति होने वाली है, इसका अनुमान लगाना कठिन नहीं है। मुझे अति कष्ट तब पहुचता है जब हिन्दी चलचित्रों के कलाकार गर्वित होके कहते हैं कि वे हिन्दी के पाठ पढ़ रहे हैं।

कुछ समय पहेले मेरे एक मित्र द्बारा मुझे एक बोध कथा भेजी गई। वही बोध कथा जब मैंने अपने सहभागिओं को वितरित की, तब उनमें से अधिकांश को पढने में अत्यन्त कठिनाई हुई। परन्तु ऐसी स्थिति में कभी किसी को कोई ग्लानी ये पश्चाताप नहीं होता। वे गर्वित अनुभव करते हैं। परन्तु किसी को अंग्रेज़ी ना आना उसके अशिक्षित होने का पर्यायवाची हो जाता है.....यह अत्यन्त दुखदायी है।

चलचित्रों की यदि बात करें.... तो याद करें की पहले नाम हिन्दी, उर्दू एवं अंग्रेज़ी में आते ठे....परन्तु अब द्रोण द्रोणा और राम रामा बन गए हैं।

हिन्दी चलचित्र के सभी पुरस्कार वितरण समारोहों में हिन्दी का शुन्य समान प्रयोग किया जाता है। हमारे अभिनेता जिस भाषा का प्रयोग चलचित्रों में करके प्रचलित होते हैं, उसी का प्रयोग करने में लज्जित होते हैं। यह लज्जा की बात है......

व्यर्थ रहा जीवन में जो भी प्राप्त किया मैंने
ज्ञात को ताज प्राप्त समस्त अज्ञात किया मैंने
स्मृतिया मधुर सभी सालती रही यद्यपि
जीवन समस्त विस्म्रित्यो को प्राप्त किया मैंने
ज्ञान वो जो अज्ञात के ज्ञात होने से हो प्राप्त
कर विचार प्राप्त समस्त अज्ञान किया मैंने
नश्वर संसार की अनश्वर प्रवृति
बिसार आत्मा को आकृति पूजन की जगत रीति
सम्पूर्ण ज्ञात जीवन कर्म का प्राप्त एक-मात्र
अंत अवम आरंभ से हीन अज्ञात मृत्यु !!!

If only life had Ctrl+Z ......

2008-09-08T10:49:00.000-07:00

Life would have been a lot easier.....

No longer tormentising (is it a word!!) decision making phenomena.

No placatory processes for making somebody cross with you.

No fear of your accidental infidelity getting ahead of you to keep punishing you for the rest of your life

No reticence in conversating with your superiors

No mugging up of all that rubbish banal bromidic academic content before your exams. You could always go in the exams and then use that "wonderful combination" on your's life's keyboard, to mug the least that was required

Or on a serious note:

If only you could have informed those who went offices on that fateful morning of September 11, even after missing their morning Buses.
Those poor people of bhuj
Those children who were in the bus that fell in yamuna, on that Friday, the 13th, years ago.

Everyone of us, wishes silently or loudly to have this magistic key combination, in real life.

My thanks and congratulations to Mr. Bill Gates and his Microsoft Inc. (I am sorry Mr. Balmer, Microsoft will always be Mr Gates'.) for coming up with this great idea of rectifying our mistakes.

But Life usually is in a bigger mess than "Deleting few rows of Excel by mistake".

I strongly believe there is a "Ctrl+Z" always around us, limited by need of going back in time. But finding that is no less acheivement.

It may not be as vivacious as a dinasaur to spot, but it is there for sure. "Sorry" is its foster "Granddaughter", which we use in most of the cases to escape some discomforting consequences.

Consider yourself very lucky and thoroughly deserving if you are able to locate it within the "Tome of Life". If you are try to put a bookmark there, as for even years down the line though you dont need it, but when you do, you might not find yourself on the wrong side of the 4th dimension......

If only I was able to locate my "Ctrl+Z"

Perpetual HappYness....

2008-09-05T23:35:00.000-07:00

Is Perpetual Happiness just a theoretical concept, that is impossible to realize?

If it is, Why is it so? Perhaps, it is our mind that tells us after a string of joyous moments, another string of despairs is bound to follow. We start to believe, as gained from our experiences, perpetual happiness can't be acheived.

I happens so often, that we are afraid to have a hearty laugh, fearing we would need to cry our hearts out for one or the other reason. Does happiness proscribes celebration? It doesn't , but there are moments when we feel it does.

I have a friend, who used to remind me everytime, i shared a joke, "Please don't make me laugh so much. I have to bear an equal amount of pain later"

So many of us, have this congenital and inveterate belief that life comprises of equal shares of bundles of joys and sorrows. So according to the theory, if you have 100kg bundle of Joys and Sorrows, kindly preserve your joys for the moments of need, usually in your later life.

So, is it easy to dichotomize things into - joy and sorrow? Probably not!

If a flood victim is given chapati and onion to eat, its a joy for him. But try offering the same to a "born with a silver spoon"!

Referring to a same person, also may confuse us further. We may think an event to be a boon one day and a bane the next day.

Finally it all comes down to relative happiness/sorrow.

So, if the definations of joys/sorrows are relative, isn't it incongruous to believe the equal share of each?

I named this blog Everything because....

2008-09-03T10:51:00.000-07:00

That's what I vie to do things/live lives/experience stuff.....but just like most of you, ( i said, most of you).... I end up doing nothing!!

Doesn't sound strange. Does it?

My comfort zone is very dear to me, probably. I am afraid to walk over traditional courses, people follow. I do get shaken up many times, specially when:

1) Shahrukh Khan pleads to me "Aap mat ho santusht", "Dream Bigger, and when you dream bigger you can be the king of the world"

2) When I see movies, where "Ek aam insaan", makes it big, not always monetarily though. Yes, it does happen all around us in real. We may refuse to turn a blind eye towards it, but, they are everywhere around. Maybe they are clouded by hundreds of failures surrounding each of them. Maybe because most of us aren't willing to leave their comfort zone, because they are as humane as I am.

3) When I actually see people, who actually know what they have to do in life, and actually work towards it. I feel happy when they meet with little successes which they chose to share with me. I despair when, a brave attempt by someone is thwarted by others or destiny.

I have started with this blog, to help myself in knowing, what I want from life and what my life wants from me.