Of fat aunties and hungry children...

"I've had enough!! Me going and scolding that aunty", cooed my sister with nostrils flaring up n looking visibly angry. Next thing i see she does goes over to yalk to the aunty and then is picking up stuff from the floor.

So, incase u guys are wondering weather this post is like one of those movies where the cool stuff happens in the beginning n rest of the movie is spent retracing how it reached that point. Well, the answer is yes, it is one of those posts.

Flashback:-

So my sis n i are travelling comfortably on the metro when in walks an aunty with a small kid (abt 1 or 2 yrs old) with her. Delhi Metro is awesome...it's clean n pretty comfortable and although it stops almost every 2 kms...still it's a nice ride. It is the kind of public transport system this city was crying out for.

Now one thing i have noticed travelling on the Metro is how Indian middle aged women are badly outta shape. I mean no disrespect or discounting the fact that indians have a tendency to put on weight but it's like they are being subjected to gravitational fields in 10 different directions n the poor'ol bodies can't quite decide where to go. So one after the other aunties with bloated bodies walk in. So if ur comfortably sitting in a seat the ladies stand near u giving sinister looks or at times even ask you to 'thoda shift ho jao. Unfortunately, that 'thoda' is not quite a little bit n by the time they have wedged themselves between the coupla poor souls sitting on that seat the souls are clinging on by the tip of their finger nails with more than half the ass mid-air!!

Point is that the ladies (n Marvin, i may add) should gear up and get in shape to avoid inconvenience to themselves n other people. Also, this tendency in India of people piling next to each other in public transport/queues inspite of there being some space avilable. It violates personal space and is frankly disgusting.

Anyways, so the aunty n the kid have settled down n the woman thinks it's time to give the baby something to eat. She decides to feed him Kurkure of all things in this world. Now that's straight from the bestselling "The Good Guide For Parents". First of all she tears the packet open n throws some part of the cover down on the floor. My sister, who till now has been in semi-commatose mode n ignoring my presence all together suddenly wakes up nand has that
troubled expression on her face. Now, if she does have a mind there was definatley something on it!! The kid, surprisingly does not apreciate the Kurkure treat he is having n seems thirsty and half of the stuff is falling down anyways. Just then a man walks past and unintentionally steps on a poor kukura smashing it and further dirting the floor. So the sibling rises and goes onto have chat with the aunty.

Well, she didn't quite scold her...but asked her not to feed the baby and spread crap around n then proceeded to pick up the cover. It just amazes me how ppl here have a tendency...almost habitually complusive to spread crap around. And these are perfeclty well to do educated people. The hypocricy of it all is that the same junta will keep their own homes really clean n be proud of it!! It just gets to me the high ground we Indians take at times - we so civilised n our rivers are so pure and blah blah....but we don't think twice about throwing away crap all over our filthy cities n towns. Agreed we don't see too many trash cans around the place or the sanitation department is not the best in Delhi but that makes us even more responsible in keeping our city clean.

I myself don't walk up ppl spreading garbage around n tell them off....but if we don't spread it ourselves this place won't be half the garbage dump it currently is.

Worldspace - The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Got my own Worldspace, thanks to people @ Siemens (who were way too contended by the stuff that plays on Delhi FM Channels)

Spent an hour, fixing the thing.
It needs to be oriented towards the SE directions. And sadly I can't see the Singapore from my balcony. So now there's a big 6 feet pole hanging horizontally from my window with the worldspace antenna on one end ;-)

The Good Part –

• Dedicated channels for Classic Rock, Alternate, Jazz, Country, Chart toppers, Classical etc. etc. (Punjabi, Bengali, Art of Living Channels also included)
• No ads, No chattering RJs, Superb Sound Quality

The Bad Part –

• No Intelligent Display (The songs will play on-and-on and you won’t be able to get any details about the songs)
• Still haven’t heard all the CDs, Cassettes, downloads that I have, talk about listening to new stuff.
• Could have been great if they had a portable receiver which you can carry anywhere like your iPod. But since it’s a satellite radio service, wanting something like this is near impossible.

The Ugly Part –

• The radio set provided by Worldspace (BPL Diva) *ucks (as pointed out by zz9 – thou shall not suck). It can only store 10 channels. No speakers. Bad Display.
• Wiring cumbersome (Imagine a wire coming from the window to your table, in case the table is diagonally opposite to the window)

In all, a good buy if you love MUSIC*. But in case you prefer Himesh Reshamiya and their ilk’s, stick to your daily dose of Red FM, Radio Mirchi and Radiocities of the world.

* Music can have different meaning for different people.

Damn You Bertie!
For putting this chatterbox of a blog in withdrawal mode with your recent retire-me-I'm-done posts
The posts have dried up worse than Delhi's taps ( cudnt find a better/worse comparison :( )
As have the comments...
To me it seems this blog is ready for cabinet...er...member reshuffle mode v1.0. It has reached a certain maturity level of idiocy...and can be expanded with a reasonable risk to accomodate new wierdos.
So try finding people around you with the zest for pouring out their unwanted-in-the-outer-world-thoughts...and resusciating this dying blog.

To blog or not to blog !!

Mostly Harmless is a rather interesting lil spec in blogosphere. Being one of the founding members makes me happy about it. That said my lack of contributions or should i say offerings at the temple of 'Random Whacky Chat', lately is not gud at all. But hey!! that's me. I rarely finish anything i start. I usually begin with great gusto only for enthu to peter out. I mean even preparing for CAT or the GD/PI, i eased up towards the end. So even if i am going to a decent institute i know that i definately didn't put in the sufficient amount of hardwork needed to crack the big ones (A,B or C).

So, Marvin n i decide one day to start a blog (sometime in early December). Those who knopw us wouldn't have been even a teeny-weeny bit surprised that the blog n it's feel was inspired loosely by D.Adams n PG Wodehouse. Ahem...well actually we stole the name of their book n characters. Like i mentioned earlier it was started out to be this wacky place where we could air n share any of our stupid, silly n non-sensical thoughts. Yeh there are plenty of them in our heads. Then ofcourse, the loony group was increased by including other nutty pals. Infact now one of the things i do everyday in the morning is to visit Mostly Harmless. Inspite of the rate of new posts being as fast as a lazy n sleepy tortoise, it's become a sorta habit. N boy has this place evolved....it's seen gud times, spats, patch ups, theories, primers to theories, poems, serious discussions and the works. What such a place needed was a collection of crazy'ol nicombpoops.

As the following Murphy's law indicates:
"The chance of the bread falling with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the cost of the carpet."

TaDa....so you have :-

- Blah : straight talkin dude. Never shy to call a real fart a fart....he brings some sembelance of order to the crazy randomness over here. Infact he along with ZZ9 are the lungs of this blog, however polluted and full of holy smoke those lungs are.

- ZZ9 : writes insightful & funny enteries and also the one with the biggest female fan following. Definately the most regular...thank heavens i sent him an invite. His posts gen bring a smile to my face weather its coz he messed it up big time with a super-dupah, ultra rich chic or imagining him wearing a turban on top of that silly grin he wears all the while.

- Madmita : ah....well moody, wonderfully weird n at times awesome writer with a penchant for inflicting temporary disorientation to readers n fellow bloggers. As if what was being said on this blog wasn't crappy enough and covered the entire space dimension of this universe, she brings in a time variable. Posts with a mind of their own....they are there one day...only to decide ah well...we're bored with these geysers n then disappear.

- Marvin : me pal is just too busy to write. Knowing Marvin, the workaholic that he is its not surprising. He's like the non-preforming assets (haha MBA jargon already) a company holds. Soo c'mon u disgusting piece of crap...move those fat lazy fingers and type away. Btw, Delhi ka trip bana yaar !!

So this is the story of this blog, where ppl share joys, sad thoughts, fustrations, general observations, social commentary n stuff....only its all mostly harmless.

High vs. Higher

Those who were high -


And those who were not -


Moral of the Story -

Dope not only makes you high, but also saner

Yo baby Yo baby Yo baby Yo!

Statutory warning: this post is a follow-up on the last post by Blatherer...if u just hated it ur in for some more...But before I begin...whats's with the rest of you? I knw ur life ain't s hep as mine/blathy's, but no post in >20 days is way too much.

Here goes nothin::

• There were 21 ppl in the trip. 21 distinct minds, plus some ppl whose asses had thier own minds. So we're talking of approx 35 distinct minds here, most ones not so clean.
• Girls gone so high that they can rattle on for 48 hrs, and abuse each other in a language that'll put sailors to shame...is not such a fun idea, not any more.
• When you stand on the edge of a cliff 2 stories high, about to leap down, you can't stop shivering. And it ain't the cold. Still you take the next step. Blame it upon a rush of blood to the head...
  
• When the holes ur meant to "make the shitty deposit" into start to overflow, it's time to leave the camp ASAP.
• When ur high...really high...singing suddenly comes to u so naturally, esp if you sing real bad. And then u keep urging/pushing/abusing the poor guitarist to match upto Hendrix and churn out tunes for you to blare on.
• Punjabi jats are slightly better than east-delhi-businessmen-ki-bigdi-aulad
• When ur in front of 10 camp-tents each lit by its own laltain, the moonlight caressing the entire beach, the bonfire heat warming you up, the river-breeze on ur face, on a picture perfect night, AND ur high...is when you realise wht being high means.
• When a pony-tailed, chinki instructor teaches you the raft-motto (incidentally the title of this post), no matter how exhausted you are after a rapid well-negotiated, you still blare your heart out with rest of the group, much to the delight of other rafters.
  

The last 48hrs have been a heady mix of anger, bliss, frustration, excitement, chaos, exhaustion, spirituality....Now I'm slowly breaking through the daylight...

Holy Smoke

Exactly 48 hours ago I got off the raft.
Paddling continuously for 20KM had taken its toll. I was so hungry that I didn't even bother to look for spoon and started eating off my hand (Soon realized, though, that I was the only person doing so)

Jottings from the trip -

- Was supposed to start at 8:30. Reached meeting place at 8:30. Played games on Rajat's PS, watched some new videos and finally started at 9:30.
- For around 1.5 hours wondered around Noida just to realize that the road we finally reached could have been reached in 15 mins .
- Out of the 21 odd people travelling in the bus, I knew only 6-7. So, was ready to face a lot of weird people.
- The odd shape of the Bus seats won't let me sleep. Took turns to sleep on seat meant for two .
- Were a good 25km away from the final destination when the bus driver announced that he won't move an inch forward.
- After a light breakfast and a small drive to Marine Drive, started off on raft with 11 other guys.
- Rapids have strange nomenclature. Eg. Good Morning, Black Money, Three Blind Mice, Roller Coaster.
- Getting inside the raft on your own (while you are in water) is not only tough but impossible.
- Jumping from a height of 10 meters into the Ganges is scary enough to let fart pass by your's.
- There are people who act stupid when sober and sober when drunk.
- Sadhus actually asked us not to smoke ganja.
- Although there's a big hole at the bottom of a Chillam, the grass won't pass through. It'll remain stuck at the upper half of the chillam
- Nearly killed a guy (who was just relaxing by the river) when a rock (the size of my palm) hit him on his neck. Obviously, thrown by me.
- The guys in the bus maybe thinking that we are big time junkies who can't do without their daily dose.
- In just 60 hours, I left my seat, travelled 250kms away, did white water rafting and all the crazy things mentioned above and am back at my seat :-O

Zzzz...... I'm Sleepy ........

The last few days have been crazy.

Waking up at 6:30, reaching office by 9.
Sitting around, trying to break all the legs of my chair till 9 in the evening and finally home - just to have dinner and a quick nap to repeat the whole process again and again and yet again.

And than I meet old friends asking me questions - So what's up ?
And seriously, I dont know how to answer that question.

Maybe life has become a bit monotonous (No. I haven't reached the mid-age crisis yet)
Work has started sucking a bit.
Want to wrap up things before any one notices it but only if I could !!

Will have to start doing something new.
Maybe, taking up guitaring seriously or even renewed interest in biking.

Hope I never say these words - Life Sucks.

P.S. That's a bloody dipressing bullshit that I just wrote. I'm squinting to read the screen properly. Someone is headbanging in my head. It's taking too long to download these Skinny Alley songs. ZZZzzz..................

Livin it up at the land of Maharajas
As I got up last Saturday, with my head spinning from the headiness of Pink Noise (awesome band, btw), and the beer still gurgling around in my system, I could'nt help but curse myself for agreeing to go to Jaipur for another damned wedding of a kin long forgotten. Dammit, a not-so-wise dude once told me that I go to a lot of weddings. Can't help realise he was actually right.

But the multitude of experiences crammed into 2 days was all that was needed for me to actually end up having a uniquely wonderful time at Jaipur. After all, to me going to the city of Kings, was like a second homecoming itself...
Anyways, as the 2 days were filled with events so entirely distinct, I'm having a hard time trying to build them into a coherent paragraph. So lord praise the man who invented bullets (not real ones, but these stupid things I'm gonna use here)

* Well these are actually not bullets.

* Wore a PAGDI for the first time in my life. It gives the same feeling you may have if you eat too much food, which would then go up ur brain than down your tummy.

* This reminds me, though I very happily took the digital cam, looking to capture some royal beauties in the rustic backdrop of a Jaipuri wedding, I forgot it at the hotel room itself. It was only when a thousand camera flashed were going on in my face that I realised that I could actually join them.

* So no pic of the PAGDI either :(. But did manage to visit some spots the day after and get clicking...



* At the wedding, I had a startling revelation that I actually tend to merge better with the Dadajis & Dadjis rather than folks of my own age. Maybe this reflects on my current state?

* Got drunk and played bluff with my cousins, and ended up employing the same tactic Abhay used the last time I was in Jaipur, to save my pennies. Hope the paper was sterilized.

* In the morning after, I had a breakfast comprising of milk and cereal...what, no... milk a.k.a.rabri and jalebi. And lots and lots and lots of it. Had to loosen my belt by 2 slots afterwards, but what the heck. Royalty doesn't really care about such stuff...

* In the evening, went to Nahargarh fort, the place where the RDB gang supposedly went to chill out after a hard day at DU :((...god these hindi movies can bluff. There was some kinda fest going on there, with some reeeally out-of-this-world characters roaming about...



* On the way back, with the car burning serious rubber at around 120 kmph, the endless trees rushing past my window, I was put in some kind of a trance where the entire 4 hour journey seemed to end in a moment...or span an entire lifetime...

And now, even as the damned admin (wierd thing, these words rhyme so well) at office have decide to even block out blogger, as I fight the ever growing force trying to push me into slumber, I make this resolve to tell that not-so-wise dude to mind his own business, and never pass up the chance of going to another wedding ever again. Hey, you may end up enjoying things other than the endless, free food... 

Rang Barse....

Flashback...March 13th,2006..... its yet another boring Monday evening and I am sitting at my desk thinking how quickly the weekend had whizzed by (it was quite an amazing weekend, more on that in the next post :)). To make matters worse Holi is less than 48 hours away and what I can't get over is the fact that we don't even have a bloody holiday that day!!!! Well anyways, I was able to convince some friends to drop the idea of celebrating holi at dinner time and called them over to my place in the morning to celebrate holi 'Dilli Ishtyle' >:). Well just as I had 'not' expected this Holi turned out to be one of my most enjoyable Holis ever. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll stop here and well...this is what we looked like at the end of it all.......

Haha :)...I was just kidding when I said I would stop there. As I look at my still-partially-pink-around-the-edges nails I can't help but describe the entire sequence of events. So I was woken up at the crack of dawn (read 9am :)) by 5 of my friends happily ringing the doorbell away to glory. And before I could prepare for the war ahead by covering myself with cold cream and oil I was looking like a high quality cross breed of man and monkey with half of my face pink and the other half my own handsome self :). Unfortunately, the half-man-half-ape look didn't last too long because we moved to the terrace where with each passing moment we started looking more and more like our ancestors :).

Anyways, fun as the holi was it lacked the 'dilli' touch. So cleverly making an excuse to get my roommate (the guy in the photo who looks like the victim of an explosion in Tom& Jerry) I went downstairs to pick up those gifts of hens to mankind which we have shunned these days thanks to avian flu....eggs. Well it was here that things took on an interesting turn. Now studies say that different people react differently to eggs. The effect it had on my first victim is worth documenting and should provide valuable insights to pyscho-analysts all over the world. A cracked egg on my friend's head seemed to rouse the sleeping Bruce Lee in her. And before I could help it I got 5-6 taekwondo kicks squarely in my butt. The sequence of events was so shocking to me that I got a bout of apoplexy and ended up like this :).....Well so that was that for Holi. After scrubbing myself for nearly an hour I headed off to office looking well....still pretty pink....but clean. The moment I stepped into the office and opened my laptop I was jumped by one of my team mates who covered my face with purple color.
while(i!=I-lost-count-how-many-times-this-happened)
{
Thinking this to be a one off event I went and washed my face only to be colored back to purple but this time by another colleague;
i++;
}

The rest of the work day was pretty much the usual...had a heavy lunch and slept on my desk :). In the evening all of us were invited over for dinner at my friend's place (lets call her PowerpuffGirl for ease of reference...those reading this post with care would not find it difficult to relate this character to the Bruce Lee descendant mentioned above). Had an awesome home-cooked dinner because another friend's, who happens to be PowerpuffGirl's roommate and a fellow colleague (unfortunately she isn't there in the picture above...I think she took the picture)...well yeah so her mother and sister had come down for Holi. In all it was a very nice Holi. However, fate, as I have said before, was quietly slipping lead into the boxing glove as it prepare to punch poor-ol'-unsuspecting me. It seems that PowerpuffGirl, on account of being a pure vegetarian, had gone into shock after the egg incident and decided to get back at me once again by squashing a tomato on my head. And so feeling like how Adam would've felt had the bible said that the actual sin was not the consumption of the forbidden apple by Eve but simply the fact that Eve whacked Adam with a tomato, I headed back for home thinking that this Holi was quite an 'eggs'perience.

And the story goes on....

Well...march has come and gone. Brought with it some amazing weather. It rained, was windy, sunny, even foggy on couple of mornings. It's only now that proper summer seems to be setting in.

The last time i wrote on Mostly Harmless was on 2and March. Whoa!! lots of stuff happened since then. Infact, it's been a long long week. Worked late almost every day, went out a couple of times with friends (on friday and saturday). Felt happy, sad, bored, interested, fustrated...hell i didn't sleep one night coz i was ill and up shivering n pucking away. All in all an interesting week - had fun and came to know new stuff about myself which helps for more battles ahead.

Some events that happened and i remember (2-25 March) :-

- Played holi with pals after quite a few years
- Got really drunk n wrestled with friends....awesome fun
- I worked :) ya it really did happen
- Attended a gig by one of the best guitarists in India (more on that later)
- Couple of IIM interviews
- It rained cats and dogs in delhi one day and i drove in such rain for the first time with a coupla high (drunk) people as co-passengers!!

The long, dark tea-time of the blogging soul......

Hello there!!! After a long hiatus from the world of blogging, I am back!!! (I know you all have tears of joy in your eyes and are wondering what good deeds you did in your past lives to deserve the honour of my return to the blogging community :), but its ok....as the saying goes 'Life is beautiful' or is it...'Every dog has its day'..ahem :)).

And another feature of 'Marvin, the blogger' v 2.0 is that he's totally new and improved.....pretty much like all new releases...except that after some time 'new and improved' bugs are also discovered in the 'new and improved' releases :)......god this software industry is getting to me!!

So I will start by trying to update you guys on the incidents in my life. So expect a free flow of posts in the near future. For the moment, I will sign off with another wise saying from none other than Bruce Wayne aka Batman.....'I am your worst nightmare....' >:).

bliss

10:50 AM

My entire team decides to ditch me and go on a mass bunk today.

Sitting at my desk, alone in the aisle, I feel disoriented. Just wanna run away from all this myself. As if under some kind of a spell that binds me, pulling me away.

But wait. Not again. Can't waste more time this way. I desparately need something to jerk me out of this feeling.

Ah! A ray of hope. A half-eaten bar of bitter swiss chocolate in my drawer, saved from the client meeting last week for desparate times. Call it manna from heaven if you may.

As I dig my teeth into the heavenly Lindt, put on Time of your life on the headphones, and just sink back into the chair, I am pulled back into my cheery self.

Feels good to realise that Bliss ain't that hard to attain.

Y didn't she just stick a dagger in me

I wish my computer had crashed today. Or been attacked by a virus which would have corrupted that satanic piece of software called yahoo messenger. Or at least god should have prevented me from making the first mistake of logging into it .Because today a seemingly harmless chat almost gave me a heart attack.
7 p.m., and here I am happily chatting to a a good 'ol chap, listening to his take on the contenstants of Miss India this year. Then suddenly, out of the blue, a msg window poops in my face, and there she is. One of my best friends. And more importantly, my high school crush. Damn that wretched soul who gave her my msgr id.
Anyways, I try to put up a bold front, though I'm literally stammering even on the msgr. And then comes the second mistake of the day. In reply to her-so-whats-new-me-nothing yaar, I ask her back the same question. This is the moment when she decides to launch a tirade of accomplishments that make me feel like digging up a hole in the earth and bury my face in it-

She tells me tht after school she got into NID, where luckily her industrial project client in final sem was none other than BMW. So a month later, she's in Germany, where after the project she gets absorbed into BMW itself, simultaneously pursues a 1 year PG degreee in advanced automotive design, then moves to the US, pursues a 1 year degree in Business from harvard, joins Boeing, finds an Indian bloke who also happens to be a high-profile neuro-surgeon.
She goes on to tell me that she just bought a Porsche, she's getting married this summer, and took my address to send an invitation. And no, she does'nt stop at this. She starts photo sharing, and one after another, I'm presented with proofs of her feats.Ohhh, does she look gr8...

And u knw wht, I saved the (almost)last 2 lines frm the chat, which actually form the worst part:

kaustubh_bhatnagar: Hey if u ask so much...I'll tell...actually I had a crush on you.
heena kalra: I knw tht,and u knw, i did too. But i guess it worked out for the best for both of us
kaustubh_bhatnagar: [Remind me to ask the yahoo guys to make a smiley for "Hang Thyself"]

Can't recall much after that cause that's precisely the moment when I blacked out.

Holy Holi !! (And the week before that)

Was asked recently - Why is Holi celebrated?
Must confess, was totally dumb struck.

Apart from remotely remembering someone called Holika getting burnt on this day, I knew nothing about the festival (Also, people getting drunk drinking bhaang and acting stupid)

But the girl, who asked the question, said that there were more than 3 reasons, so googled around and look what i found:

- An agricultural festival celebrating the arrival of spring

- An evil king named Hiranyakashipu wanted to kill his son, Prahlad (a devotee of Vishnu). So he challenged his son to sit on a pyre with his wicked aunt Holika who was believed to be immune to fire. But, as it always turns out to be in Hindu Mythology, the good guy is saved and the evil person dies. Thus we burn the effigy of Holika on a day prior to Holi.

- According to legend, the young Krishna complained to his mother Yashoda about why Radha was so fair and he so dark. Yashoda advised him to apply colour on Radha's face and see how her complexion would change. (And that explains why girls are the target on this day)

- Kama (Cupid) tried to kindle lust on God Shiva, but, instead, was burnt alive when Shiva opened his 3rd eye. Later he forgive Kama for the sake of Kama's wife Rati (passion)

So now that we have the complete reference, let’s talk about what we did.

Bertie called up, asking to come over. play holi ?? (after a gap of 8 years :D)

So I and ZZ9 went to Bertie’s place, where he was ready with eggs in his hands (disgusting!! Especially during these days of BirdFlu)

Similarly Shubh was ready with balloons in his hands, but this time around I was the one with egg in my hands and Shubh’s head as its target.

Rest of the day went ok, with us playing a strange game hitting each other with balloons and Bertie getting assaulted by a kid (the kid was throwing water, color, pesticide etc on Bertie :D)

What did you learn today?
Filling a bucket full of balloons takes an hour but bursting them hardly takes 5 minutes. (Does this signify something ??)

Part 2

The week before

What if you put four guys and a bottle of vodka and gin each – together, at a place where they can’t do much for entertainment?

Chaos!!

So there we were, after having watched Walk the line and our tummy full at Kebab King.

The night started well, with me deciding not to drink anything.

Same old stuff - forming a circle, pouring liquor in steel glasses, drinking, talking in hush tones.

Suddenly, Bertie declared – Let’s play Bhooth – Bhooth (!!). He got his share of kicks for the stupid game.

Shubh then came with the idea of wresting and soon there were people all over each other, kicking each other’s butt. With Bertie excusing himself for puke, every time he was getting beaten.

Everything cooled down after a while (an hour or so with the finishing photo shoot) and people started discussing about girls, life, marriage, work, more girls :D and so on.........ZZZzzzz.......

And for the sake of record keeping, ZZ9 puked after drinking too much (Welcome to the puker’s club)

P.S. Checked with Google. There are no ill effects of having Vodka + Rum together.

Wierd Weekend

There happen to be days that go by without you lifting more than a brow to acknowledge their passing. And then there happen to be not.
I don't really know what I was trying to say previously, but I do know that this particualr weekend, still on right now, definitely did'nt fall into the former category.
-Well to begin with, after being home alone for an entire week, it finally dawned on me on Saturday that how much I missed my parents. I swear to god, if i have to spend another week eating out of the fridge ever again, I'm commiting suicide.
-For the first time in my life I ate a breakfast of a bag full of popcorn.
-The evening was slightly better. Watched Crash, probably one of the finest pieces of cinema I've seen in recent past. After a long time a movie made me jump off my seat and say "Oh Shit"...something I last remember having done while watching Fight Club (not that recent piece of crap, the Brad Pitt-Ed Norton classic)
-After the movie, spent several rather uncomfy moments with Blatherer and Rawale, hearing Fauji's coming-out-of-the-closet speech! Seriously, spent 4 yrs in the same class and I had no idea he was gay.
-Forgot to mention, also had to hear about Fauji's endeavours with salsa :-(
(BTW, he told our Marvin was also trying his hand, i mean legs at salsa!? :-(( )
-After that, as Fauji thankfully ditched us much to Rawale's distress(?), the three of us went to my place for a rather uneasy night-out, comprising of watching a slapstick movie and sharing a tiny bag of cheese balls in a manner so gentle and civic, it was hard to believe.
-Another surprise. The next morning (today, that is), Chinki was in a hurry to go and did'nt even ask for breakfast, whereas Rawale on the other hand had to be fed on a feast of 1 bread slice+half a pack of tomato maggi before he finally went home.

So now, as this wierd weekend draws to a close, and as I devour another bag of popcorn, I can't wait to rush to the stn. to get my parents, and normalcy, back into my life. God I can already smell those paranthas...!

Its a bird, its a plane, shit its a football!!!!!

Football...the sport that unites europe is a sport which I should not play. But who cares about what one should not do ;)........yeah man....it was a bad experience...mistake....foolishness :) but I did go to play soccer yesterday morning. Anyways so after a tiring 15 minutes of play I was panting like a dog in the Sahara on an extremely hot day so I decided to become the goalkeeper instead. But fate, silently slipping the lead into the boxing glove as always, chose just my turn as goalkeeper as the opportune moment for there to be a penalty against the team. So here was this big guy from the opposite team all set to kick the ball at me but I maintained a calm facade quietly confident that all I had to do was not move and the ball would pass me by. But alas!! the fellow decided he would might as well utilize the opportunity to break a couple of bones of mine. So suddenly I saw the ball come towards my unsuspecting self like a multi-colored canonball. And so with the speed and agility I often display I tried to move out of the way but was beaten and the ball hit my dear ol' thumb making it turn a dark shade of blue. Hence ended the soccer career of a future football star.

Shut up, a$$#ole !!

- Nearly got my right big toe crushed. Turns out it's not broken...but is swollen and hurting. It was throbbing throughout the day n paining. Got used to it though, i think i'll miss the pain when it goes away.

- Had a conversation about : flowers in spring, birds, getting punched in the stomach, need for constant attention by us from ourselves, name of a beer, songs that stick in ur head throughout the day and about how energetic and lively the bougainvilleas are this time of the year. This was a 10 minute convo!!

- Hurt a friend, by making some stupid remarks....oh i ought to think sometimes before i open my mouth. Totally unintentional though, but we are judged by our words n actions and not intentions. Righty too. Realised it rather late in the day, but i hope i learn from it.

- Btw Marvin also hurt his right thumb. How ?? Well......playing football...huh ?!

One more for the Alumni Meet

Would like to add more to what ZZ9 said (btw what does it mean) -

The Alumni Meet at Moksha (NSIT '06) was more of a home-coming for the people who had just passed out the previous year.

And I dont think that being an year out of your alma mater qualifies you as an alumni. It was more like being back to college after vacations.

There were no nostalgic feelings about the place. It seemed the same as we had left it. The same unfinished Advanced Computer Centre, The same grass growing over the BH3 building (sic!), the same rowdy batchmates of mine :(

And since around 97% of the people meeting were from 2005 batch, you can't even term it as an Alumni Meet. (The rest 2% were not from our college and 1%, who were the actual alumni's were wondering if they were at the right place)

Moksha, eh?
So our enthu juniors decided to hold a special jig for the Alumni at Moksha this time around. Nice idea, I thought, 'cause the alumni network of NSIT sucks bigtime. Also, it would have been cool to be treated with repect at the college, for a change.
But all my dreams of a red-carpet welcome and fancy dinner were shattered at the college. Not only were the juniors quite indifferent in their attitudes, they also showed no hesitation in letting us know of their one and only motive :(. Even the dinner sucked, with people having to scrape food out of the utensils. Hey, maybe it was purposely done to revive the nostalgia of the hostel mess...

But the surprise of the evening was definitely the jam-session. The basketball-court had been efficiently transformed into what resembled an acces-controlled, grooving upmarket disc. The elitist snob of a premier engg institute (that some of us were so proud of) was changed into a bohemian ghetto of smoking, drunk and doped teens/post-teens, grooving to the tunes like B.C. Suttah (seriously!), and even singing along the unparliamentary-lyrics with full zest.
Maybe these ppl took the name of the fest too seriously!

Foot-in-mouth Disease

The recent bird flu scare prompted me to write about this disease I suffer from called the foot-in-mouth disease (please do not confuse it with the Foot 'and' Mouth disease which only affects the bovine segment of the animal kingdom ). I must warn you the disease can be near fatal especially at times when one gets the 'shut-up-dumbass-or-you'll-get-yourself-killed' fits.

I suffered from a really major fit of this sort yesterday. So it was a nice Sunday afternoon and I went to the office to jam for a while (yeah we have a band of some sort in office :)). But this jam session was different. A 6'5'' fellow(who also happens to be my boss) was here from Austin and he has a band of his own in Austin which was recently voted the second best Indie Rock band in Austin. So equipped with an excellent lead guitarist we jammed happily for a while (with little or no contribution from yousr truly since I didn't know the lyrics of any of the songs making it hard for me to do my duties, as the 'lead singer' of the band, to the best of my abilities). It gets a little hot in the storeroom where we play so we took a short breather for a while. We just hooked up a laptop and played some music on it. In a little chatty mood I commented how some bands dont focus on the lead singer. To support my case I gave the example of the song which was playing in the background. At this I got a really dirty look from Jon who went on to tell me that it was a song by his band, the midgetmen, and he had sung the enitre vocals for the song. So as you can imagine I turned a deep red and started stammering about, all tell-tale signs of a foot-in-mouth disease fit :).

So I hope you realize the seriousness of my condition and sympathise with me. In any case, if you're interested in Indie/Alternative/College rock you can give The Midgetmen (www.themidgetmen.com) a shot, its pretty ok.

Tech Musings

Apple has come with an ingenious way to discourage OS pirates.

The warning reads as below -

Your karma check for today:

There once was a user that whined
his existing OS was so blind
he'd do better to pirate
an OS that ran great
but found his hardware declined
Please don't steal Mac OS!
Really, that's way uncool.

Also, now you can insult George Bush through an email, but at a price.
On paying 20$ to www.insultthepresident.com, they'll forward your mail to the president of USA. You'll get an certificate for the insult and they'll also help you write one.

0 = 5

Attended GIR'2006 (Great Indian Rock) yesterday.

The line up was -

- Cassini's Division
- Medusa
- Demonic Ressurection
- Prestorika
- Zero
- Your Code Name is: Milo

I had great expectations from Cassini’s Division. Can say, they were OK, at least concept-wise. Playing a set of all self-composed songs, with strong influences from Alternate Rock and Nu Metal. But what they lacked was talent. The lead guitarist hardly played anything but rhythm, the vocals were cracking up, the drummer was ok. They really need some home work to do.

Next up was Medusa. Used a lot of electronic mixes to create that effect. But again the guitarist sucked and the vocals were not that good either.

Demonic Ressurection came and went doing the regular-

make a puking sound for 1 min -> flush it down -> shout for another 1 min*

No offence to people who like Death Metal, but you guys mistreat Punk in the same fashion :D

*The recipe for creating death metal songs comes to you courtesy – GD

Prestorika was the first band that evening which clicked. But, having won Campus Rock Idol ‘05, they were expected to play the way they did.

But, honestly, the only band for which I went was Zero. And, without any doubt, I can say that Zero did what all the rest put together couldn’t. They started with songs from their new album, trying to popularize the new stuff.

The new songs were not that bad, but how many time has it happened that you are listening a song for the first time and you start singing along. Maybe I’ll sing along the next time (after having listened to the CD 10-12 times)

Then came the old songs – Not my kind of girl, Christmas in July, Lucy (they have changed the name of this song), PSP 12” (still don’t know what the acronym stands for) and an excellent cover of Roxanne and Mr. Taliban (I hope I got the title correctly)

The last were Your Code Name is: Milo. They performed, courtesy The British Council. The sound was not that bad. Kind of stuff I like. But after all that head banging and mosh’ing, I was hardly able to stand on my feet.

So the second day of GIR’06 finished off with a chicken piece in my hands (so much for the Bird Flu scare in India) and one in the hands of Ketan (along with a strange piece of metal inside it).

Some pet peeves though –

- Where the hell are the punk rockers?
- Why is everyone playing Nu Metal / Rap Metal?
- Where the hell are guitarists, with those mind-blowing riffs?
- Why can’t we have a Zero-only concert?
- When will the people in my office start listening to rock?
- Why am I not a part of a band :( ?

While we're still on the topic of Valentine's Day..., I'd definitely like to share a few anecdotes which made my feb 14...well, funny if not romantic.

-In fact it all started on the 13th itself. It so happened that I'd left my dropyourjawsanddrool bike at the service centre, and so as soon as the clocked chimed 5:30, I decided to make a dash for it to pick it up, lest another particle of dust merrily settles on it. But all this enthu on my part was mistaken by most colleagues as an anticipation of the day to come. Some even asked me whether I'd be coming tommorow?! Come on people, it's just another day.

-Scene 2: 14th morning. As I grab anything edible in sight under the guise of breakfast, my mom tells me that at least today I should have dressed formally, and advised me to carry some extra cash in the pocket to save me from an embarassing situation! Seriously, I agree with Bertie, mom is the one female in the world who always believes her son is eye-candy for all the women around...

-Over to the office. The girl who sits next to me chirps that she for once is having a gr8 day. Reason being that she has just been asked on a blind date to the CCD in the office by a guy, or rather an email...

-As soon as I unlock the comp, Outlook shoots a warning in my face saying thst my mailbox is overflowing with crap, in other words forwards. It seems that today, even people I don't recall have taken the initiative to remind me of the blessed day that according to them i should spend alone, reading the crappy mails and cursing them.
And not just the mails. People like my PM (hello? need some distance here....) naively ask me that why I did'nt take a leave today? Yes, I know I wanna puke and maybe my face says it, but this is too insignificant to take a sick leave.

The only consolation is, that the girl next to me, whose day was seeming to get better by the day, turned around and asked me if I had something sharp to hit someone with. On further inquiry, she revealed that the dreamy email-guy in the last of his mails, had complimented her, saying that she looked like.....guess who....Tanushree Datta!! Poor dude, he sure was in for some abuse-hurling and sandal-whipping.
So as the day ended on a funny note, the both of us shared the only mail I liked in the entire day....the one that wished me a Happy Independence Day!

Yap yap yap.....here i go again

Lots of random stuff to babble about. One the main reasons for this entry is so that the previous one ceases to be the first thing one sees on Mostly Harmless....damn digicams. In the old days on being photographed in such positions, i could have destroyed all the copies and given the negative to the friendly resident rat in my room for safekeeping in his hole...but alas the in this day n age of technology i can't possibly know how many copies have been made and now it's on the internet. Potentially billions of people can see it. Thanks to ZZ9 i spilled my morning coffee (yet again) as i settled into me office chair on monday.

Lots of other stuff happening in the last few and infact the coming days. Finally saw RDB on saturday....nice movie....fun, message n all and gud music. After that was treated to a choclate excess in Barista. Also my new harddisk was broken by seesh earlier that day. But had a gud time in all....reached home late and missed my TL's wedding that night. All in a day's work.

Big event happened in the office on last Wednesday....Madmita wore a saree to work....there were interesting reactions from all n sundry to say the least. I was surprised too...by how well she actually carried it off. She totally enjoyed the attention...but it's interesting how many jaws dropped and eyebrows were raised. Last i checked this was India and saree was supposed to be a sorta national dress, for the ladies atleast. I mean people, as i commented to her would have cared less if ladies suddenly showed up in the office wearing bikines....ok i admit that was just wishful thinking. Point is....it created quite a lot of fuss. The day finally ended with a dude demanding a treat coz of the saree....i mean seriously man if ur hungry and want some food just say it. Few females came up to her and congratulated her on starting some kind of mini-revolution and threatened poor n confused males that they have now been inspired and are gonna wear it to work soon.

Moving on....yesterday was ofcourse Valentine's Day. Being a respected member of the society i have at various forums been asked to comment on bday of St Valentine. Frankly, i don't have an opinion coz it doesn't affect me. It means as much to me as rose day or hug day or friend day or or kiss-ur-boss's ass or any other damn day there is. Anyways i decided to have a nice bath, shave n comb my hair that day; wore proper formals (with sports shoes though) to office. As i walked in a collegue asked me "why the formals ??" .....damn it why not? Do i provide some kinda comic relief that bounds me to dress sloppily every single day? Okay i do but can't i take a break? Quite amusing actually, throughout the day people came up to me and asked me "so...what are the plans for today ?" "Well...my plan was to rob the freakin bank tonite and run off but i don't think you are interested in knowing that!!" i reply with a staright face. Then it comes :- the knowing sympathetic nod, the hand on the shoulder and the comforting smile. I reached home, even my mom pestered me about what gifts i got...she thinks i am surrounded by gals. Jeez....thanks mum, for the vote of confidence n for having such a nice opinion about ur sonny boy, but unfortunatley the other females (of this world atleast) don't share it. In case you are wondering.......never met an alien babe so wouldn't really know about what they think, now would i ??

Talking about girls...it's amazing nothing has been posted on this blog on them...totally disproportionate to the time i spend talking/thinking about/with them. I still remember my english teacher in class 11 n 12...she used to also take some value education class. Her gyan was "Never fret too much about any chick...there are plenty of gud fish in the sea". One may wonder what i was doing at a culinary seminar on non-vegetarian food. No, this statement was actually made about girls in a value education class. I just came to know that fishes have a 10 second memory (haven't verified this fact). But this rule is applying on my life a little too literally, i mean perfectly human babes turn virtually into fishes judging by the way they ignore me after the first couple of meetings. Hmm...maybe it's the deo i am using or my personality...definately one of those.

Great win for India on Monday thanks to goldilocks Dhoni n boost kid Sachin. Everybody loves winners....don't they? Busy days ahead, till the end of march....interviews n work that is piling by the day. Going to GIR on saturday....yipee!! Long since i went to a concert.....gonna totally freakout with buddies and possibly to a date on thrusday.....well no it's just gonna be two friends hanging out together.

Hehe...the things that can make you laugh any time you look at them... 

After the thrill has gone


Earlier this year, as always, I was off for my 22KM short (sic) trip to the college. Thrashing my bike as hard as I could. Asking the bike to take me those magical 3 digit figures, as many times as possible during one trip. And I really enjoyed those rides, dreaming of getting myself a big Superbike and going beyond those early numbers in the 100's.

But I never realized this would happen!!

College was over. Started working. Office was mere 2 KM from my house. And the road was nothing to write home about.

The ride was so damn unenjoyable that I even stopped looking at the speedometer. (My guess is that I would be reaching the max of 45 kmph during the round-trip)

Then one day, after 7 months of riding 4 KMs everyday I finally went on a long ride & a road which God could have given me only after I prayed ages in the Himalayas.

So I went off. Cutting through the air. Everything was going so fast, sideways.
Soon I thought I was too fast. Looked at the speedo.

70 kmph !!!

Am I day dreaming ??
70kmph has brought the shit half way through the hole :-O

What the hell has happened to me?
Am I dying?
What happened to my dream of owning a SBK?
Is it time I move to the safe environment of a car?

Answers to all these questions, the next time I go for a long ride.

P.S. I am thinking of getting my odo checked :)

Queezy tummies and gud excuses

madMita came up with this lil gem.....it can be used as an perfectly valid excuse to give to ur PM for an unsecheduled holiday or ofcourse a description of one's discomfort !!

"My tummy hurts....It's like thethe vogons are having a tug of war in my stomach using my food pipe as the rope...while the whole universe is watching from the pancreas balcony and Zaphod is surfing on my appendix... you get the picture ??"

The boys are back in town!!



from left:- Cosco (ZZ9), Zal, me (bertie) and Chinks (blatherer)

On sunday met up with pals at Zal's sister's wedding reception. Ain't it a nice feeling when you meet with old chums after a long time ?? Ofcourse couple of them are not quite in the old chums category and try as hard as i may, i keep running into cosco n chinks regularly. Although met Zal after eight months. Discussion generally centred around the usual topics - food, carping abt other frinds/classmates n Zal's abysmally poor grades at IIM Cal. All the sentipaan and memories actually made me think about nearly all my friends since kindergarden. Damn i haven't kept in touch with almost any of them. It's so important to keep gud friends close to you...if not in distance but in spirit atleast. I especially remember my 3 best friends in school...in have almost lost all touch with them gradually. Even just out of college i am not in contact with most of my friends from there too.

I see two reasons for that, firstly i pefer a few but very gud mates and i generally hate phony talking...i mean its ok within your immediate surroundings as frankly one needs to, say with classmates n people in office...making small talk n all but beyond a point i just can't stand it. Second reason is sadder, i am just too freakin lazy!! I mean it's lame but true. Also, I am very much a 'with the flow' kinda guy. I mean years in school were long enough to make friends....went to college met new people made relationships during the course of 4 years. Now have further made very gud new friends at office. So all along i have met new people made new bonds but at same time haven't really bothered to keep the olds ones in place.

These days i need to think about grim and idiotic questions like why MBA ?? Or what i wanna do in the next 5 years ?? One of the things that comes to mind is that i miss college. I mean NSIT, my college was gud with some decent junta......but it wasn't really great. But still i miss is that style of existance - i mean those fests, quizzes, rock shows or the general time-killing sessions. One of the things i loved about my friends, infact generally about my whole class was how we constantly made fun of each other, ourselves and just about the whole college. Nobody was as smart or cool as COE-1. Especially in our group people had nice controlled egos and could totally enjoy a laugh on their expense. Total bindassment i say. Even during the exams it was sorta fun when the enormity n length of the syllabus suddenly dawned on you two days before the exam and then one either ran from piller to post to get hold of any kind of notes or alternatively, accepted the fact tht nothing can be done so have fun for 2 days and then confidently walk into the examination theatre like a dude being fed to really pissed n hungry lions armed with a tiny paper knife. It was fun how after getting burned each time i promised myself at the beginning of the next semester that i would be really regular with my studies only to get a harder kick up my backside the next time.

Damn!! so, i want to get into a B-school just coz i miss college and wanna make new friends ? Well, actually no, but i do want to study more and also meet new people and make new diverse friends. That is one place i think most engineers have a drawback - they hang out with the pretty much same crowd, that is engineers. Even at work most people are similar to an extent....i wanna meet newer and different kinds to birds....creatres with totally different thought processes and get to know them better. But ofcourse, all this while keeping old pals and maintaining or even bettering these time tested relationships. Amen.

Hello.... am I talking to me?

Another serious post. Now don't think that I wrote this on being moved by the sudden surge of senti posts on the blog. (Besides, no offence Bertie, but your "not funny" was actually funnier than the previous ones.) I had this feeling going on in my mind before it all, and I remember telling Bertie about writing this on a call I think was the 5 minute one he mentioned in the last post. Maybe it were the posts, maybe the headiness that is Spring, or maybe it was the strange feeling I've been having after watching Rang de Basanti, but I couldn't help introspect on the person that I am, 7 months of work, 4 yrs of college and 21 yrs of walking this earth, down the line.
A normal today in Life is a hotbed of chaotic activity. Permanent tensions, Strange attractions, Heady emotions. To the world, I may seem to be living a normal life. Maybe better than normal. But is this what I'd asked for? Or is this just a bargain I could manage? I remember, as a kid, life was simple, yet wonderful. It was a world ruled by the God of small things. Small pleasures. A chocolate, or a nice movie is all that would make my day. But now, it is just the opposite. Though pleasures abound if I begin to count, contentment is always just round the corner. The coveted project, the good looking girl in someone else's arms, or the elusive postgraduate seat. The newspaper articles about career stress, and ads about Art of Living courses, suddenly seem so relevant. And it's not just me. My brother's become wierder every passing month since he completed his MBA. So have the friends who made college memorable. The girl sitting next to me at office, is constantly on the lookout for a better job. The guy in the next row, cribbing on not being chosen for the on-site job. Or the girl further down the block, in search of that knight in shining armour, who'll come and swoop her off her feet.
...
Then there is the second question. And blame RDB for this if you find it too cheesy.
Is the way I chose, the right way? Is the position that I am in, the best that I could be in for the society and the country? Or am I blinded to something else.......something so damn obvious yet unfathomable because of the apprehensions that cloud my rationale? Fear that haunts the logical, fear due to perception, uncertainty. Would I be a recognised as a part that made a difference in the SYSTEM on the day of Reckoning? Or would I be writ off as another disappointment? Is there someone out there who can help me sort out his mess that is my mind right now? I just don't know...
I apologise if you found the above post boring. I just had to get it out of me. And though the questions still remain unanswered, I have, as an alternative, decided to do whatever i can, to make them fade away, solved or otherwise. A leisurely walk in the evening to catch up with my folks. Or spending a moment to listen to the morning bird chirping near the window, before starting off the day and becoming a part of the rat race, yet again.

Not Funny!!

The entires (that are and were) on this blog are generally funny or insightful or give some pretty useful gyan (theories and primers)....not that they have to but they are written by funny, intelligent, mature and witty people. So if you by any chance are reading this one thinking it has a clever title and will live up to the expectations of entries on this blog then stop....do not read ahead.

Part - 1 : A good opening

My day started interestingly, got up late with a slight buzz in my head......decided not to comb my hair today...i mean who cares right...i am supercool!! Anyways it took me about 10 mins to get my unkempt look right against the usual 2 i take to comb them. Damn it's real hard to make hair not fall into place when you don't want them to. Suddenly my hair were like disciplined soliders in an army regiment all standing next to each other like comarades. So i rush off without having my breakfast. Half way to my bus stop get this call, "Hey dude!! the bus is atleast 30 mins late...so go back and i'll give you a missed call when it reaches my stop"...."thanks" i reply back.

I reach back home and am just about to eat the first piece of papaya when ring..ring..missed call. This is followed by a msg stating that i better run as the driver's body has been taken over by holy saint Juan Pablo Montoya's spirit and is obviously driving fast. So i run, after a long time too combining the speed of PT Usha n grace of....er Pamela Anderson (in Baywatch). Finally make it safely into the bus...the stupid radio is blaring so i decide to silence it, partially atleast by putting my bag infront of the speaker. Get up, do that n sit down...only the bag hasn't properly wedged in place so just as i am settling into my seat it falls on my head much to the amusement of my co-passenger. "Didn't u know the bag was not in place properly", she chirps helpfully....i only mutter something under my breath like a dragon hissing smoke before unleashing fire. Grovel and grumble...jokingly ofcourse how this is the worst start to the day and how it possibly couldn't get any worse. Actually, this was the most fun part of the day....i mean seriously it was eventfull and there was constant action; no thinking, kind of like a Jackie Chan-Govinda starrer.

Anybody who has persevered to read this far deserves a song :-

aye saala
abhi abhi huaa yaqeen ki aag hai mujh mein kahi
hui subaah main chal gaya
suraj ko main nigal gaya
ruu-ba-ruuuuuuuuu...............

I heard this song abt 15 times today thanks to my teammate who loves RDB!!

Part - 2 : An idle mind is a torture chamber

Reached office, don't have much work....checked mails n stuff.
I must admit i was pissed by the comment on my previous post and it bothered me.....question is why did it bother me ? Tried some regular diversion tactics....small talk with neighbor -"hey nice suit, wanna go to the cafeteria for breakfast ??"....."Sorry dude!! no time".Called up friend #1...chatted for 5 mins...he had some work. Called up friend #2....ring..ring...no freakin reply. Called up friend #3...."Haan bhai!! i am driving right now, will talk later."....oh wait, it's my sister's b'day, called her - "The airtel u r trying to call is unreachable...plz try later". Why did she have to go to Timbaktu to celebrate it.

Tick...tock...tick....

Ok 'Zinda', the recent movie has Sanjay Dutt trapped in this cell for 14 odd years. Every few months or years a sinister sounding tune is played and some gas called velium or something is injected into the cell which causes him to faint. Some people come along - clean, shave and give him new clothes. The above description was to compare the closed cell with and idle and calm mind. I mean usually we are doing something which occupies our brain or thinking ahead or back about work, problems or anything.

But my mind ala the cell was completly idle and then the same sinister tune played....here instead of velium, thoughts were injected into my mind only instead of cleansing it, they totally messed it up...so much so that even a MCD garbage dump would seem like El Darado infront of it !!

I fought or tried fighting my thoughts most of the day by trying to bug almost everone in my team, although they seemed to have suddenly found this new zest and aim in life to finish all their work today itself. Then i stopped, stopped wrestling with my mind by actually going for a walk alone outside my building....luckily the weather outside this time of the year in Delhi is quite nice. There was almost a sea breeze blowing outside.

Part 3 : Crappy ending : Food for thought!!

What is our default state of being ?? why is it not happy ? Are we totally dependent on external factors to make us happy - meeting a friend, nice music, a gud choco cake, seeing Yana Gupta dance :) etc...etc ? Do we even have control over what affects us in our state of being ?? Or is it some kind of bubble one is enveloped in when one is really happy....oblivious of the world around us...without cares n worries....only to have it pricked and burst some time. Question is how long can one stay in there ?

One for the road

Nosatagia and Agony Aunties !!

Today was was my first official holiday, i mean my manager had told me on wednesday not to show my face anywhere near office premises today. It wasn't as sinister as it sounds she actually wanted to give me a day off on account of me working my ass off over the past few days.

So i went to sleep yesteday nite with the comforting feeling that i would be able laze around all day and mock my friends who had to work today. But alas!! i was rudely awakened from my beauty sleep at 7 am in the morning by my mother-turned sergant major with just one brief - "Drop your sister to the Metro station !!"......i mean my sister is a nice'ol bird but why do i have to drop her everywhere.....what does this world have against innocent brothers ??

Anyways that done i proceeded to have a rather liesurely bath n breakfast after which i headed towards gud'ol college to collect my certificates and marksheets. Surprise...surprise !! got the certis in just 5 mins and that mean lady in the admin office (one with red hair and long teeth) has suddenly transformed from a student devouring T-Rex into a perfect angel. Made some small talk with her and remembered how she used to cut me down to size.

It also happened to be the first day of INNOVISON - the annual tech fest and all the chaos and madness that acompanies such a historical day was very much there. The emotion was getting to me now n just as i cleared my misty eyes i saw old chum Anish Johnson striding purposefully towards me and gaving me a warm reception. He was a distressed soul n this is where the nostalgia hit hard. He was organising the General Quiz to be held today.....well K n chinks would remember the fun and pressures we had to go through to to put up a top quality quiz show which left the audience dazzaled and begging for more.

Anyway next thing i know i am helping the dude conduct his prelims and around the same time making up some silly rhymey poem involving Kurt Cobain. With Johnny organising the quiz the questions were always gonna be gud and it was in line with the proud quizzing traditions of NSIT although not quite the classics the college had witnessed in the past few years with us (me, K n chinks) incharge. I left with the final advice about not to agree for anything less than a primetime slot in the Audi for the finals later that evening.

Later in the evening i got the chance to play agony aunt to a friend in need of either a helpful conversation or couple of strong drinks to clear the head a little bit. So naturally for the sake of the pal i grabbed the phone and called.....ahem well during the coversation i got a feeling that the conversation wasn't going anywhere and it would have been better to let the balmy soul be alone with the spirit of its choice. But the friend actually called me back to tell me among other things what a pathetic job i had done and had been a disgrace to agony aunts in general.

So as i ready to go sleep its in sound knowledge that one more career option is not for me....sigh....i really thought i could make it big with this one.

When God Closes All Doors, He Gives You a Satellite Radio

I love you too people !!!

Noooo i am not........but then some people insist on calling me that !!

Talk about strategies...

There's this book I've been reading........well, eating, sleeping, dreaming about these days. And though the book is desparately trying to teach me something wierd...er....tea? coffee...? beans?......ah, EJBs. Phew. But interestingly, what hangs on to my poor brain is a unique strategy the book claims to employ to make my brain hang on to what it's trying to say..........


We know what you're thinking
"How can this be a serious programming book?"
"What's with all the graphics?"
"Can I actually learn this way?"
"Do I smell pizza?"

And we know what your brain is thinking
Your brain craves novelty. It's always searching, scanning, waiting for something unusual. It was built this way. And it helps you stay alive.
Today, you're less likely to be a tiger snack. But you brain's still looking out. You just never know.
So what does your brain do with all the routine, ordinary things you encounter? Everything it can to stop them from interfering with the brain's real job-recording things that matter. It does'nt bother saving the boring things; they never make it past the "this is obviously not important" filter.
Now how does your brain know what's important? Suppose you're out for a day hike and a tiger jumps in front of you, what happens inside your head?
Nerons fire. Emotions crack up. Chemicals surge.
And that's how your brain knows...

This must be important! Don't forget it!
But imagine you're at home, or in a library. It's a safe, warm, relatively tiger-free zone. You're studying. Trying to learn some tough technical topics your boss thinks will take a week, ten days at the most.
Just one problem. Your brain's trying to do you a big favour. It's trying to make sure that this obviously non-important content does'nt clutter up scarce resources. Resources that are better spent storing the really big things. Like tigers. Like the danger of fire. Like how you would never again snowboard in shorts.
And there's no simple way to tell your brain, "Hey brain, thank you very much, but no matter how dull this book is, and how little I'm registering on the emotional richter scale right now, I really want you to keep this stuff around...


Well, then the preface goes on to explaining something boring called metacognition (read- the crux of the strategy), and how DO I get my brain to treat an EJB like a hungry tiger. This of course I'm unable to recollect.

An interesting strategy, but as you can see, a total failure in my case!

Sitting, Waiting, Wishing

Just sitting at my seat, still in office, waiting for the damn test case to run, wishing nothing goes wrong.
The whole atmosphere of office changes when everyone's left (well, almost)
Some people are still sitting, creating craters on the cushion beneath them.
All in all, there seem to the following categories of people who stay till wee hours of the day (or night) in the office -

• The guy, who has been given work, much more than he can handle.
• The guy, who is eager to complete the job of 2 days in 1 day. Maybe he wants to impress his boss or maybe is too ambitious (or disillusioned, I may say :))
• The guy, who wasted all day, giving company to everyone going for a smoke, coffee.
• The latecomer. He probably reached office after enjoying a leisurely brunch and deserves to stay late for completing those mandatory 8.25hrs/day.
  

Which category do I fit in?
Don't know. Don't have enough time to think about that.

Damn! the test case failed.

Rockstar?

It all happened last year.

During one of the rounds of Indian Idol (the desi version of American Idol), Farah Khan was so overjoyed by one of the performances that she declared that the poor chap performed like a rockstar & his performance rocked :O

And, damn, how quickly did everyone in India added the term – rockstar into their (so inspired by the in-thing) vocab.

Now every other singer wants to rock, look like a rockstar. And all they dish out is some crappy, mushy number by Sonu Nigam or some shitty Punjabi number.

And look what they have done to Pal by KK. It was such a nice number and the fools turned it into a disco song.

Why the hell can’t we have some good Indi-rockers. And methods to promote them.

Look how Paki artists are doing. Fuzon, String, Jal, Junoon… they all rock. Tight composition, meaningful lyrics, sticking to the basics (and not going too dhin-chak), these guys are damn good.

But, alas, we can’t think something in the similar lines happening here in India.

Just when the golden era of Mithun da’s, Govinda’s & Jeetendra’s songs was over, came the new age of Remix (and I don’t think they deserve any more space in this blog).

P.S. I vow to myself that I won’t write anything about music the next time. Maybe something about the Cake Theory (and how I became a victim of it), Auto Expo’06, the cute girl at office :), or maybe dissing some assO I meet on day to day basis.

HAPPY BUDDAY !!

Eons ago on 8th Jan a peculiar round-shaped penguin like creature was first sighted on this planet n since then the day is celebrated as the birthday of my ol’chum Marvin aka Kshitij Sanghi aka K.

So how’s life treating you at 30, you old fossil ??

Well how do I describe this bloke….hmm…..he’s one of those super brainy nerds n thinks he’s all smooth n sophisticated but is actually as simple as a rice pudding. He does from time to time drift into a sweet lil world of his own, can really take a stand against popular opinion n generally be a royal pain in the ass.Yours truly would like to take all the credit for turning K from a social embarrassment to a pretty likable creature.

Dude!! I actually have a birthday wish for you :- may the number of hair on ur egg-shaped head (no, i am not kidding u can actually count the number of hair on this guy’s head) stop growing inversely proportionally to ur age, in simpler terms may you have a full crop again to complete ur smashing looks.

Its common knowledge now that we can’t start, continue or finish sentences to each other without a liberal sprinkling of abuses but still dude…..ur a great friend and an awesome person (hullo!! this is the vodka speaking)

In Floyd’s words:
“How I wish, how I wish you were here…..”

CHAOS THEORY

Ok this is actually not one of my famed theories [ I dunn wanna brag but my Cake Theory pretty much took all the spoils and was featured at # 8,00,00,00,008 in the “amazingly simple (to understand) yet stupefyingly difficult (to apply) n brilliantly original theories for the year 2005” list]

Reading newspapers in this day n age is a damn depressing activity…..but just yesterday I read this article which talked about some happenings from around the world which oddly enough n inexplicably were missed by most of us……now before u go..oh ok yet another list.....do give it a read, some of it is real informative n enlightening stuff. This is a personal pick (with intersperced comments) from the article……

The year got off to a fairly conventional start in January, a toilet paper roll refused by the Beatles was auctioned. Things got a little stranger in Feb, when a German zoo decided to allow same-sex civil unions among penguins after attempts to tempt male German gay penguins by importing luscious Swedish females failed; a German thug got knocked out trying to mug an 88-year-old boxing champion and Tom Jones asked feamle fans to remove price tags before throwing underwear at him.

In April Rajesh from Jharkhand, spent 2 days in a well to persuade his parents to find him a bride (that could have so easily been me). In May, a chicken with four working legs was born in Romania n Gopal Singh, a police constable, was caught picking pockets at an elephant’s rest-house inauguration ceremony in Jaipur.

In June, things got serious. The Queen bought an iPod (so did our very own Blatherer) and Christina Aguilera’s music was used to break down an Al-Queda suspect in Guantanamo Bay. July was the strangest month. An Austrian museum offered free entry to naked people, 200 porn movie viewers in Balasore, Orissa, had to do sit-ups publicly and promise never to see porn again (ahem…..ok). A Russian man impersonating his sister for an examination got expelled because his breasts were too big.

In August, a cow was jailed in Columbia for causing a road accident. In September, Germans invented a thinking beer mat, which calls for a refill when your pint is almost empty (whats the big deal....so do my stomach n liver). And in October two Bengali brothers were fined huge sums by their village council for keeping a pet ghost.

In November, four police cars took over an hour to catch a teen gang on a donkey cart in Greece. A trial in Britain was abandoned because of a smelly juror. And in December, a bank robber in Austria was referred to a different counter, Serbian activists were sued for unrolling a 60-foot condom on a monument to promote safe sex and an escaped prisoner in the US was caught returning to jail with four MacDonald’s burgers.

This is by far not the end the end of the list but here’s hoping that may things around us get even weirder in 2006.

Biggest dolt of em all ???

Suddenly, in virtual space that hugs an insignificantly small blue greenplanet, there seems to be an attempt towards (dis)order. The planet has reportedly noticed a negligbly small shift in the seemingly harmless world of bloging. Instead of the widely accepted one moron per blog, there seems to be a gang of verbal-hooligans out to distroy blog-peace and take down with them all conventional ways of expression…
Mostly Harmless has now become a cause for concern…

This five member cult consists of various living examples of what-one-should-never-be. They obey no rules, spare no one and unleash verbal mayhem fast enough to deteriorate the planet’s supply of creative ideas by the next millionth of a thought…

Even Bertram, the originator of this conspiracy against the conventional thought process, could not have forseen its impact on all thegrey-colored-cells in the human body…

A seemingly innocent attempt to entertain and tickle the funny-boned-reader has turned into an ugly competition between the straight yet undecided breed of modern thinkers…

This internal dispute and struggle for the funniest-entry-award has unleashed the demons inside each cult member. The war is on, on Mostly Harmless, the result being a naïve Blatherer, an amused Marvin, an excited ZZ9, a clueless Bertram and lastly, the most probable winner, a scheming Madmita… All typing away with more smoke coming from their fingers than their cigs…

FRIENDLY DISCLAIMER: This is not my post but one by scheming Mad Madmita......she threatended me at gunpoint to post it for her......so any fustrations, abuse or use of colourful unparliamentary language should be directed at her and not a peace-loving soul like myself

CAT-as(s?)trophe

So the 3 almighty IIMs decided to show me the finger this year round. Big Deal. I'm kinda used to the gesture anyways. But the kind of response it evoked from ahem... my well-wishers was.....surprising, to say the least.

It all begins on a gloomy foggy morning on the 2nd of Jan, when, after almost 3 sleepless, crazy, boozed up nights in a row, I wake up to a strange feeling that this year promises to be as crappy as the previous one. Talk about deja vu. So off i head unclean, unshaven and unwantingly to the office....forcing smiles and "Happy New Year to you too"s.
Anyhow, just as the black coffee was beginning to hit me and bring some senses back to the head, I'm greeted by good 'ol Razdan, not with another "Happy New Year" but the news that the Truth is finally out, er... i.e., the calls have been announced.
Cheerful as he sounds and zombie-like that i am right now, I mistake his enthu for a positive news and congratulate him. Damn, another hit on the head. Should start bringing my helmet in from now on. Only then do I check my own results, and the middle-finger slowly begins to materialise on my monitor.

Call it a hangover, or a "I don't care" attitude for....well Life, the Universe and Everything, I seriously feel no remorse on the news. Suddenly Homer Simpson is my idol. But then as the phone calls/emails begin to pour in, I start to fel the gravity of the situation (and jus so u shud know, gravity is the laaast thing I need more of!)

Some responses from people:
*Oh shit!
*Sorry yaar, shit happens.
*U r a stupid useless creature.
*Don't kill urself, u were at my B'day treat, now I want urs. (I swear this is true)
*More Oh shit!s

Such heart-wrenching thoughts. I suddenly feel an urge to listen to Floyd. Or Eminem, for that matter.
I mean, come on people. I know that my lesser-brained compatriots expect nothing short of perfection from my side, but I'm no god. Not according to most cultures. Besides, not getting some shitty calls from an institute that can turn me into a millionaire before i can imagine, well.....that's not the end of the world. I can still try for Trilogy ;-), or easier still, apply the next time.
So, at the end, I feel that this year may not be that crappy after all. For starters, I learnt the best way to get rid of hangovers. And hey, this wise ass attitude feels really cool too!

Confessions of a sober mind

Yipee!! It’s new year’s day, a NEW YEAR full of hope, excitement, something to look forward to…………zzzzzzzzz……..but wait after 2 days of partying it’s more like full of drowsiness and an irritating buzz in my head. So it’s time for reflections…..which is a bit weird when u think of it coz to go forward we have to actually reflect….anyways I am amazed at the amount of talent god has bestowed on me – NIL. I mean how far can Greek-god good looks, an Einsteinian brain and a kicking sense of humor get me. I can’t:

Sing - even if my freakin life depended on it
Cook
Draw or sketch
Write (stating the obvious here)
Play a musical instrument
I am a lousy dancer
I am blessed with the laziest butt in the whole world

Apart from all this (and a hundred other things) life is bliss. People say one can’t improve perfection so I decided I am gonna prove them wrong n on those lines have come up with a couple of resolutions (not new year ones but plain old simple regular ones).

Firstly get hold of my sweet’ol rotting guitar n learn to play it…..well not just that one but most guitars in general unless ofcourse I don’t get along with one. Then I will probably join some gym or akhara, main intent being to turn my body into some kind of fucking lean mean fighting machine.

For once I am not thinking of the whole world but am going to be a selfish bastard. (contrary to the friendly n nice image I seem to have)

The first thing I did this year – for some insanely absurd reason checked my weight…..it’s 67 kgs.