Pensieve

Vivid

2011-12-28T11:58:00.000+05:30

He's walking towards the pantry on the floor below, the usual hasi mazaak happening, and it's quite a cheerful day today, everybody laughing around, being loud...and now he's carrying Sowmya and scaring her saying "I'm gonna drop you now!" ('why the hell am I carrying HER?!') and that's when somebody shouts out from ahead of me, "She's BACK!!"

He looks up, turns around and sees her there. He thinks this is a dream. He can't believe it. He wonders why she's wearing that kind of make up. He wants to believe it. He can't. He checks out her weird sunglasses, resting on top of her head. He tries to say something, but mumbles.

He eventually puts Sowmya down (gently) and says "You're back!!" and gives her a hug ('why the hell is she so disinterested and aloof?') and then she smiles, not uncharacteristically, and says "I'm back" in a rather disinterested and aloof manner...

And then...

They're both walking together, him imploring her to tell her what the hell happened, where the hell Rama is, and what she was doing there!! ('how the hell did I get to Dispensary street?!') She proceeds to tell him some vague story about how one of Rama's projects required him to be all alone, keep his wife out of his life, and when it came down to choosing between work and wife, he chose to ignore the latter, and how that was the nail in the coffin..He's unable to hide his joy at seeing her, but does offer the customary laments and apologizes for the way things turn out...And he tries to test his luck, and calls for a celebratory lunch, to mark her return! And that's where he rubbed fate the wrong way, for she makes up some reason, some commitment and leaves him hanging :)

Not very later...

He must not be there, must not be seen, she tells him...begs him to leave NOW, quickly, get out of sight...('wasn't it like 2 seconds ago that she left my side, and now she's already with Rama in the car?!')..."I must run", he thinks and is running ('great! just what I needed to complete this macabre scene...Rain!') down the road ('Sheshadripuram?!') and he catches a glimpse, miraculously, of Vishnu's photo on a phone which says "Incoming call Vishnu".

He's wondering how that got there. He's wondering whose phone is that. He thinks he should pick it up off the dirty, leaf strewn, muddy street and answer it. He's wondering why he isn't doing that. He's also thinking how the hell did he spot it??

And now he's running for he has to avoid them, as she asked him to ('why??') Soaked. To the feet. Camouflage and well done!

And now he's running for he's late for a meeting at the office! ('at 8 pm??') His right calf refuses to move, every step feels like he's sinking deeper in the mire...The pain is unbearable, the helplessness agonizing!

An old man, who's also running, gets hit by a car.

Torture

2011-11-03T12:44:00.000+05:30

Maine tumse kuch nahin maanga
Maine tumse kuch nahin maanga

Aaj dedo, Aaj dedo...
Sau baras se jage in nainon ko
Neend ka.. vardaan dedo, dedo

Maine tumse kuch nahin maanga

Gherti khushbuyen, Phir wohi aahate
Barhan chaunkna, Phir wahi karvate
Wohi baahon ke gheron me bandhna
Wohi nazron ke saaye me tapna

Kab talak dor.. kheenchigi mujh ko
Kab talak dor.. kheenchigi mujh ko
Chod do mera abhimaan dedo, dedo (Probably the best line of the song...)

Maine tumse kuch nahin maanga

- Indu Jain

From the movie Katha, sung by the great Kishore Kumar and Music by Raj Kamal

Hold on to reth

2011-10-31T22:51:00.000+05:30

Reth is a good word. Means sand, of course.

That's what life is, I feel, sometimes. Hopping from one sand dune to another, sitting down, admiring it, playing with it and then trying to hold on to it. Of course, slips right through your hands. And you try harder.

Memories and experiences in your life can be similar. And since you don't have any control at all over that mass of a few kgs, the more you want to hold onto a memory, the worse u retain it. If only you could specify a caching algorithm.

The ability to revisit your own memories would have to be one of the most awesome advances in science. And I'm not talking about going to a peaceful place and tickling your genitals and finding that inner tranquil spot so that the mind is pure and clear and reminiscing n all that. I'm talking about a full on matinee show, popcorn et al. You're there, but you aren't. You're experiencing all the emotions, except (aha!) they're new to you! Kinda like in a Pensieve actually, beaut concept that. The clincher of course being complete erasure of all the "data" pertaining to your previous experience of this experience, so that you can re"live" it.

Example you say? I'd wanna relive, not frequently, but definitely TRULY relive (for the first time, every time) the recently concluded blissphemy known as Rock in India. Metallica finally got here. Old. Lazy. Slightly out of tune, on very rare occasions. But you know the deal with incredibly talented musicians, they can't get rid of it even if they want to :) So, they came with all their announcements of safety (Delhi fiasco?!) and incredibly mellow approach (no swearing on stage:| ), but all of that was totally eclipsed by the truly awesome music they'd created, a few decades ago. They wanna play still, they love the music they made, it makes them tick, makes them feel alive. You'd have seen it otherwise. And I think maybe, maybe they loved us too, the "feedback" we gave on their internal monitors...

;)

exactly one day after the concert, and I need facebook to remind me the setlist:

Creeping Death, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Fuel, Ride the Lightning, Fade to Black, Cyanide, The Memory Remains, Welcome Home (Sanitarium), Sad But True, All Nightmare Long, One, Master of Puppets, Blackened, Nothing Else Matters, Enter Sandman, Am I Evil?, Battery and Seek & Destroy

And some day I'd definitely like to be back at Palace grounds, with the same bunch of ppl, the same mood, the same maahaul, and relive it. Scream at the top of my lungs. Think about how I felt when I first listend to this song 15 years ago, how my meagre brain had interpreted it in awe and really, just simply enjoyed the curious combination of audio signals, combining to produce vivid sensations.

Yet I can't.

Jim Croce went into mushyness with this song, but he had the general idea nailed down:

If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I'd like to do
Is to save every day
Till Eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

Well, I'll just have to make the most of what's left alva? Quite a lot will be different this time when you're gone..Because of what you've done, or haven't..And I fear what will happen after.

Guilt

2011-10-16T23:00:00.002+05:30

Such a personal thing. It is amazing how incredibly personal that thing is. You can talk about it, reason with other ppl, get others' sympathy. But eventually it is your own courtroom that has to acquit you. Judge and jury and defense too.

And what about the outside world? Are they ready to see and understand your guilt? Or lack of it? Cos guilt can sometimes also be the result of very specific/personal moral standards/rules. And how do you show that to somebody, or make them see that? Heck, you have trouble getting through a simple feeling sometimes :)

Bottom line : You have to be ok with yourself in the end kano. Everything else is fixeable. Or doesn't matter.

Emutions

2011-08-30T22:35:00.003+05:30

"I feel so ostrichized today" thought Remu, to himself. A fine Tuesday morning, no reason to be feeling low today! He'd woken up early, flapped his wings about and had a bright energetic start to the day. Yet while his mater found him grains to swallow, he couldn't help feel the blues. And the pinks. Yoicks!

And then there's the usual drill. Off to the mill. Every morning, same run of the mill thing to be done. Remu had to run to the mill every morning, where he worked.

The run wasn't a short one. Neither was the mill too far away. Just enough time for random, not-so-plebeian thoughts to occupy his poor "lil" mind. Today's main topic of discussion (with the other eminences inside his brain) was that of identity. Who am I, Where do I belong, How should I be...U know, that sorta thing? The usual things to be thought of during a mundane activity, where some out-of-body experience seems to be guiding u, making travel involuntary almost. But on a day when the blue pinks (or the pinky blues or the bluesy pinks) were afflicting him, the traffic on his brain's channel would take a rather sinister twist!

There're the cool Penguins at work, he thought. Some even eat on their own! While it wasn't a big deal for Remu, while he HAD eaten on his own earlier, there was some allure and charm in them. The thoughts, the actions, the choices...While it was clear he was not a penguin (really? :) ) it was also confusingly annoyingly "clear" that he could mingle and maybe masquerade as one!

Then there were the badass Kiwis. Bloody shit, flight went right to their heads. Always showing off with something or the other, Bah!! But it was undeniable that they were flashy! No interactions with them when they were flying, no sir no; just watch the proceedings in silence and absorb it all...At the same time, when they did land to rest their lofty wings, up close, they weren't a pretty sight...the interiors were ugly, ugly sometimes, but mostly fake! Didn't match up, add up with all the jazz and the panache on the outside...

And finally, the brothers in ankles...His own childhood cronies...Time spent proportional with comfort level, this is where he felt he most belonged. He knew how they thought, they knew how he fought and this was the definition and standard of fun in his life..Alas, change is ever constant but. Some emus had gotten into flying and jumping recently! It's not like he hadn't seen this coming, but handling change and thinking about the change are just two different things.

Any change for that matter. In fact he'd started thinking recently, why should offsprings of Emus be an Emu? Or rather, can't the emu mature into an Ostrich (Gawd!) like the Ugly duckling story?

"Hmmm interesting point, said voice no.1 inside his head, but I had the floor if I'm not mistaken? Is this Zero Hour or what huh???"

All birds considered, he still didn't know what he was upto and where he was heading. In fact what the hell is this Life all about? And that's a topic for when I'm getting back home maybe, said Remu, as he ran into the mill, absent-minded, straight into the huge pile of flour.

FLOPPPHHFFHHFFH!!!

Change

2011-07-04T00:26:00.003+05:30

"Eshtappa? (How much?)"

"73 aitu saar (It's 73 bucks u oaf)"

.....

"Saar, Change illa saar! (Don't think this needs a translation)"

Bingo!

You've hit the nail on the head, Oh unknown, nameless, faceless, changeless, fictitious hawker!

People all around me and me, are looking for change. A break from the usual, the monotony, the "same old".

Right from what they wear, to what they eat, to what route they take to work, all the way to an "exciting, adventurous weekend getaway!", we're all ardent seekers of the dynamic.

Deep deep down, is it an attempt to make our present routine slightly more desirable? Cos humans are also supposed to be creatures of habit...Those habits, which make so many things second nature to us...When we seek change, are we just really only trying to make whatever we have currently, look 'good' to us again? Cos a momentary change ( a break from work, a new programming language u learnt, a weekend getaway) are exactly what they are : momentary..And lemme stop u right there if u think I'm saying that all changes need to be earth shattering and life altering...I'm probably maybe trying to find a middle ground there ;) something not ephemeral, something more long lasting...I'm trying to question the purpose of this change too...

And then there's also the concept of the comfort zone..if it is really so comfortable, would u still want that change? So that you can miss how comfortable it was, and come back and feel more comforted? And then get bored by that comfort and wish to shake things up a bit? And welcome to the vicious circle.

Surprisingly, I won't veer into the topic of how ppl deal with change that they don't want/seek. Maybe some other night.

No, I'm NOT listening to 'We Never Change' by Coldplay now :)

LAD

2011-05-08T12:10:00.002+05:30

The title of this post is inspired by my good friend Kris' latest post, JAD. When I read it, I had no clue why he'd named that post that way. I still don't. Anyways, this post isn't about that.

Yesterday, just for kicks, I took my Android powered phone, made it a portable wi fi hotspot, connected to the wireless network using my iOS powered iPod and browsed randomly. It was quite fast! Phone was less than 3 feet away from iPod.

I must get out more and meet people.

A simple ad-hoc day

2011-04-04T12:14:00.003+05:30

Garage Sale, New Onion Masala Dosa @ Madras Cafe, Shortbread + Vanilla Latte @ Peet's, Sunset @ Half Moon Bay, Massive Pizza and Pizzookie @ BJ's = Awesome evening courtesy Phani!

Put this on fb too...But this is more persistent and Pensieve worth so updating it here as well...In a random foreign city, ppl who don't know you really well are there to care for you and make sure you're not alone. That's a very important and key feeling they show. They are there for other Indians and wanna help them out etc...My first time in the US, in Santa Clara...Phani offers to drive me around and show me a good time...And an ad-hoc plan, which was first based on hiking, then turns into a beautiful sunset trip to Half Moon Bay! YP being around didn't hurt either :)

Just brilliant.

Seeing the feeling of community here makes me think about how we Indians, in India, take relationships for granted...A refreshing renewal of faith in camaraderie and bonhomie :)

E-nunciate

2011-02-25T22:17:00.002+05:30

When you enunciate, you spit! - Gary Oldman

The reason I've a hyphen in the blog title, is today I wanna talk about virtual speech. In doing so, I'll include all kinds of communication, that you have when the other person ain't in front of you, ain't reading your face. I'll keep it textual, so that's sms, email, IM, facebook, blah bleeh

Hell, this blog counts too I guess! ;)

The main thing I wanna say here is, be really really careful as to what you say. An old friend of mine had once said to me, there's a lot of room for misunderstanding and ambiguity in the forms of communication outlined above, when I asked why I hardly heard from her.

And that point has retrieved itself out of the pensieve and hit me somehow, more effectively, in the recent past. Too many unpleasant and surprising and glaring incidents have left me reformed, a transient change at the least. When you're communicating "in absentia", the more the better...no wait, while that's true most of the time, I can refine and re-define that to 'the clearer the better'. The hardest part is to take yourself out of context and convey the info as you'd like it to be heard, but that's rather difficult.

To be aware that the other person is not inside your head is probably the best you can do :)

Test

2011-01-02T23:38:00.003+05:30

So here's a new thing in the "new year"

I have decided to terrorize my gine chune blog readers with audio as well! (Evil loffter.)

Whenever I have a whim/fancy I shall find a karaoke and record my voice (sometimes not even that ah?) and upload it somewhere and link it on my blog. How much more self absorbed can I get? Hahahahaaahaha

And y'all, of course, will've to listen to it. Cos there's an embedded player n all. And its blue. And you just have to. (More evil loffter, which is losing its charm now and starting to sound like santa's laugh).

Starting with, Jeevan se bhari by Kishore Kumar from the movie Safar.

Brickbats in the comments, after you've woken up.

People

2010-11-23T22:52:00.003+05:30

People leave indelible marks on me.

With a propensity to focus and eagerly store (and randomly recall) some uniquely (unique to me) weird/insignificant/trivial fact wrt to some person, my brain outdoes itself frequently.

Cos when the people leave (go far away from me/stop interacting with me) they leave their marks behind. On my brain. And the recall is the worst part.

So vivid is the returned mpeg/jpeg from my brain about some incident/remark/mannerism of the absent person, that I'm left reminiscing and am in a reverie for a while, sometimes longing to meet them again.

But the ppl, they go. Should I be content with their memories? At the end of the day, are we all inherently rather alone, inside our minds?

Vacuum

2010-11-03T17:27:00.000+05:30

Have you ever been so devoid of emotion, that probably the only thing you could sense in yourself, if you strained yourself, was this surprise about the fact that you were feeling so empty at that moment of time?

And ppl were walking about, around you, like you weren't there..

And at a socially agreed upon, conventionally happy event/gathering

Whats happening to me.....

Amedikallu trek - 30th Oct

2010-10-31T19:43:00.002+05:30

Amedikallu.

Hmmm. Ok lets go..

Ame = Turtle

dikkel = Tulu word, which means stove.

Went there with BMC, alias Bangalore Mountaineering Club. Alias I don't give a fuck about what your experience is gonna be like, but I'll be cool about how much I know about this and other peaks, and will also bond with ppl who think like me.

Its gonna be easier to list the things that went wrong on this debut trek with this rather apathetic organization, so here goes:

1. The 'bus' arrived almost an hour late.

2. The quotes are needed cos, as my partner in innocence Naren said, we aren't 5th standard kids any more. The bus seemed rather ordinary, with stingy seating space and nails poking outta places where they really shouldn't be poking outta.

3. There were 23 of us altogether. Not at all a good number for this kind of a peak.

4. Due to late departure, more stops and not so great roads, we reached coupla hours later than what we should've, almost all of us sleep deprived due to the absurdly chosen vehicle. Oh, except for the guide that is. He came in a Qualis, with 4 other chosen ones.

5. We get there to find out that for all 24 of us, there's just one cottage. And since we were already late, all of us didn't have the time or luxury OR the bathrooms to take a bath and truly freshen up. A quick release of excretory matter accumulated overnight from the uncomfortable journey and subsequent intake to fill the gastric void. We were off!

6. 10 am is a bad time to start a trek guys...trust me. The Sun eats and drinks you, inside out.

7. Please pick what kind of bag you're taking on a trek. And if you don't intend to eat most of it, please don't take 4 packs of biscuits, 6 nutri bars and assorted chocolates. Cos most of them will get attacked by ants when you'll be sl....wait wait...suspense please, till point 49.

6a. Please also do some reeeesearch about the peak u intend to trek. If it has rained in the past coupla days in that region, don't be absolutely and fundamentally stupid to take the raincoat to the place, but leave it behind in the home stay for the trek, just cos the localites said 'ah no rain no rain'.

8. Try not to carry too many electric gadgets on a trek. Most of them have no use, they slow u down and oh, when u're stuck in the forest getting whipped, owned and severely lashed by Torrential, angry Western Ghats rain for 35 non-fucking stop minutes, u have a chance of ending up with hydrated gadgets, which, while are cool, are eventually of no use.

P.S.A (*) : The point 6a where I mentioned some non-sense about rain coats wouldn't have done you much good if you had spent some quality time with me between 3.40 pm and 4.15 pm amidst the forest near Shishila on Oct 30th, 2010. Basically, nowhere to hide. Thank you.

9. Some extreme piece of serendipity when Naren and I both decided (although he claimed later, in front of the other trekkers, that I held him back) to not complete the entire trek and stopped at around 75% of the trek. We just couldn't go forward. Which also meant we finished the descent earlier than the others, before sunset. Which also meant we got sole access to the 2 bathrooms available. It is not our fault that there was no power at the home stay and the generator kept failing.

10. It is also not our fault that we weren't told to carry our own tents and sleeping bags from the bus, which was parked 2 kms from the homestay. Understanding fellow trekkers lent us a hand and a sleeping bag, and we were able to place ourselves in a not so straight line, in the cramped space available. Last count : 2 nights without good sleep.

A last honorary mention belongs to Leeches. Supposed to be therapeutic, they're any trekkers worst nightmare. In a wet area, no matter how non-chalant u are, that feeling of something creeping up ur sock is, not a very assuring one. And our trek was no exception. We happily offered ourselves and they, literally, hooked themselves onto us and sucked. We were like a nice drink. Like milkshakes. In fact, we became Leechy milkshakes for them.

P.S.A : Public Service Announcement

Ever felt like...

2010-10-27T00:08:00.002+05:30

Not going to sleep at all, cos the current drowsy/sleepy/intoxicated/high, yet low state that u're in currently is so mesmerizingly comfortable that u just don't wanna go to bed at all?

Not going to sleep at all, cos u are so terribly depressed by what u will wake up to, that u wish that this night, this current miserable state of urs, this state which involves a backlog of one entire tiresome, laborous existence amounting to a day, which started with u waking up to something so terribly depressing that u wished that u couldn't go to sleep at all cos........

Can't write more cos I've gotta hit the sack now. Gotta rise early tomorrow.

Sigh.

Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah starts playing...

You

2010-10-04T22:28:00.002+05:30

You

are in my head

well fed (smirk)

All those thoughts, all those things

suppressed, unsaid.

You

You're there so often

An association with so many things in my life.

Popping up like a corn in the oven, the ACT II type

Haunting, indelible, etched

Like the grip of a python

Slow, torturous, comforting

Without the sweet "release"* of death

You come to me and turn the screws

Screw me over and over.

At an arm's length without doing anything.

And then suffocatingly close.

Feeling "kicked" again, I groin in agony.

And there you are again, drawing the ropes in...

And then, the realization

liberating. rendered helpless...

Is it you or is it me?

Are you real?!?

Took the hard route instead of kickin you out - check

Persevered when I COULD've given up - check

You are an image, an illusion, a projection on water.

All my doing, my thoughts, my mind and matter.

ME.

*Spot the irony contest.

Sigh

2010-09-18T22:59:00.002+05:30

I feel like a teenager again...

Back to school

2010-08-21T23:02:00.003+05:30

Swami Vivekananda School. Girinagar.

Thats where you'd have found me today, at around 10 am, not as nervous as I'd thought I'd be. I was in the company of friends and didn't have any major responsibilities for the day, so I went in with a clear and curious mind. One of the first things to greet me gave me the slightest of tingles, where kids sat in neat rows and columns, wearing a pleasing and sharp white dress. Memories of how the white dress used to be such a problem for me, it being the mandatory uniform twice in a week for us n all, came rushing back as I'd usually get some stain or the other on it. The kids, however, were doing some drills under the steady gaze of the PE instructor and the steady rhythm of the drum! Oh how I longed to be in the school band for the Independence and Republic day parades, and especially to be the drummer! The bugle and the flute were way too weak and inconsequential for me, as the drum dictated the march past of the chosen ones!

Back to the little darlings. We were a bit early for class, so we stood outside the entrance and my other two friends, who'd already been teaching there for a while, stepped out of the view of the kids cos apparently they start calling out with 'Sir! Good Morning Sir' and 'Hello madam' and stuff :)

And of course get lambasted by the PE dude...the terrifying PE dude; with probably a cane or a wooden 'scale', not hesitant to use it if needed, and rather callous with it; demanding and more or less getting the attention and respect of all students...Heh!

And then I accompanied Naren, as I was just to sit and observe him 'teach' today, up a flight of stairs when it happened; a totally random kid, making his way to class, said to me 'Good Morning Sir'. And since I'd recently started picturing myself as a teacher down the line and had also started thinkin about it a bit, this really struck a chord somehow. Good Morning Sir. The boy wasn't essentially showing ME respect. He hadn't seen me ever, hadn't known me. Yet he'd made me part of the fraternity somehow...Well!

And then, class was in session! In a few minutes it was obvious to me that Naren was in a beautiful place with these kids, where there is respect as well as playfulness. The kids knew their limits but could push Naren just a bit. And Naren allowed himself to be pushed, but not too far. With no set curriculum to be taught to these kids, who're so brimming with energy and self-confidence, the theme of the class was more free-form infotainment than structured knowledge imparting. And nothing like dividing the class into two sides and having a competition between them to get the juices flowing!

Mind you, when I say self-confidence, there's none of the arrogance/egoistic behavior that I so repeatedly see in ppl nowadays. It is a happy, pure and fearless method of confidence where innocence rules more than anything else! Even in kids, I see nowadays, that at a very early age the innocence factor, which is so so key and so needs to be present, is missing due to a large number of factors. But not the case here. All their emotions were pure and honest : Complete and utmost exhilaration at somebody in the team cracking the answer; Absolute despair at the opposition doing the same! No hidden intent, no malice : just get what you feel, out there and move on to enjoying the next moment. It was like drinking out of a chalice....I felt and experienced life today :)

I'm going back there next week. I may not feel the same high that I felt today. But I'm sure there'll be a different set of emotions there, as I enter "my class" for the first time............

hw nt 2 tlk 2 me

2010-07-09T14:56:00.001+05:30

GovardhanSalmani: hi

6:24 PM me: hey

6:26 PM GovardhanSalmani: h r u????

me: m fyne

6:27 PM GovardhanSalmani: w r u???

me: sn mcrosstms

GovardhanSalmani: k

me: u

6:29 PM GovardhanSalmani: in khsdrp

me: wt s it?

GovardhanSalmani: in health dept

6:30 PM me: k

6:31 PM GovardhanSalmani: in sn microsystms as wt u r working

6:32 PM me: sftwr engr

GovardhanSalmani: k

6:34 PM wt u r cell no

dude

me: 9986004287

GovardhanSalmani: 9844741551 is mine

me: k

6:35 PM GovardhanSalmani: r u free can i call u

6:36 PM me: m @ wrk

s it urgnt?

GovardhanSalmani: not so

me: k

6:37 PM cn u cl me ltr thn?

GovardhanSalmani: k

Let's Talk (or shall we?)

2010-06-26T20:22:00.003+05:30

Whats the use of saying something about an issue, which is just an argument in the air? About an issue which is not, in any way directly related to your life, or won't impact you in any way? Nor the people around you, who you're talking to...

What are you getting out of it? An ego boost, that you have an opinion about something? A kick that you feel you are right about something, and wanna prove it? A parade of the "interesting" way in which u think? Making A stand about something u are passionate about? If so, to what end?

Cos lets consider the negative side effects of indulging in such a conversation : it can turn into an argument...and in an argument, with ppl who u usually care about, things get bad (or worse? :)

And the next thing u know, sometimes, very few times, u've stopped listening...A point, a counter, a denial, another counter...And at the end, there's no outcome and there's this tension in the air, cos there's usually no resolution, neither side willing to give ground away...

I'm guilty of indulging in such wasted conversations, which serve no other purpose apart from vulgarly displaying the egotist in me, who I don't like to let out much...In the recent past. And it bothers me later, once I'm done with the conversation. Wasted energy, bad impressions.

Then again, u say something, the other side agrees and all's fine sometimes :)

STOP.

Gotten

2010-06-14T22:25:00.002+05:30

Heard an interesting usage of this word in a song the other day :

"You just get me like I've never been gotten before"

In an age where absurd lyrics are the norm, and attention to grammar is even less, here's somebody who wants to be all proper and stuff. Nice song, nice lyrics! Thank you :)

This post is not about that song. This is about those times when the usual music that I listen to starts hitting particular spots in my brain, and things go a bit out of control...Response times in the brain are totally whacked out, closed doors are being scratched at and if I deprive my brain of music and thoughts, a super Creative surround sound speaker set is conjured outta nowhere and a set of songs are played in utmost clarity and volume, until I actually put on 'em headphones and listen to it actually....

I dont know I can't describe it...Atleast better than what I did above...And it takes some restraint to avoid doing something stupid (like blogging some crazy stuff)

So nice to see your face again
Tell me how long has it been
Since you've been here

You look so different than before
You're still the person I adore
Frozen with fear
All out of love but I take it from the past
All out of words cause I'm sure it'll never last

test mail

2010-06-04T23:31:00.001+05:30

test blog
whats the content?
whats the subject?
whats life?!

To kill or not to kill

2010-05-05T22:15:00.002+05:30

Ajmal Kasav

Or is the bastard's name Kasab?

Yeah I'm angry...Cos :

1. Human rights activists are talking about the "morality" of taking his life.
2. Even if he's sentenced to death, he may not be killed soon. And I'm ok about "soon" being ~1 year or so. Our great Afzal Guru still sits in prison because our Hon. President of India hasn't had the time, in the past 5 years, to deny him his clemency plea. It hasn't been looked at. No time. And here, I paraphrase our Hon. Home Minister, when he was asked as to why Afzal Guru, who was sentenced to die on 20th October 2006, still gets to breathe air.
3. Even if Kasab gets sentenced to death, one other reason why he might continue to live is because of lack of hangmen...Apparently it is a complicated procedure, one of taking a human's life in a way which is free of torture, pain and barbarism.

What are the arguments for the death penalty? And more specifically, for Kasab? After a certain point, I think they cease to be separate arguments. I'm no legal dude, so most of what I write here is what I've heard on tv. Anyways, here they are :

1. The crimes he's committed satisfies the clause of Indian law which talks about death penalty to be awarded only in the rarest of rare cases.
2. Keeping somebody like Kasab alive provides more room for a hostage negotiation manoeuvre like Kandahar
3. He's always a security risk in many senses, and will drain state resources to protect him/keep him from escaping/causing more damage.

and most importantly,

4. The blood boils at the thought of the retaliation to such a heinous crime being just rigorous life imprisonment. The punishment is just not enough, even for a "brainwashed, misled 20 year old", who chose to hold an AK 47 in his hand instead of a book and chose to kill so many innocent people against their volition.

The arguments against the death penalty? Sounds weaker than the arguments for them, listed above:

1. The death penalty is immoral. We don't have the right to take another's life like that blah blah bull fucking shit. So the asshole Kasab does eh?
2. (Ah I knew u'd say that) The government should be calm and not be vengeful, and hence shouldn't act like Kasab did, aka taking human's lives.

I have just one line for all you absolute idiots who believe in this : "They drew first blood, not us".

3. There is room for reform, even for the most cruel of terrorists like Kasab. Poor Kasab, born in dereliction, deprived of education and culture and basic amenities, handed a gun at an early age, brain washed. He couldn't help much of who he was forced to become.

Awwwwwww.

Hey hey hey...new offer! Make ur life miserable, and then kill some people and get a new life free!

This world's tough comrade...Fate plays an important role even in the life of a non-terrorist, civilized person anyways...Every person has the right to make a conscious choice, especially after you become an adult. You reap who you shoot.

Personally, I think (Ye hai India meri jaan...Opinions a-plenty!) he should be killed by slowly cutting his balls off. Slice by slice. Since that requires some nasty perversion which would probably destabilize India's pristine brilliant image, I'll settle for the polished "hanging till death" (apparently they even use butter on the rope around the neck, so that there's no pain in the few seconds between pulling the lever and the sweet release...)

What do you think?

If

2010-04-27T13:50:00.000+05:30

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

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

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

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

—Rudyard Kipling

Swummering

2010-04-10T20:42:00.002+05:30

Swummering (n.) : Going to a public swimming pool in summer on a weekend.

I've come up with this word to explain the blunder I committed this Saturday morning.

You see, basically, I'm not a very nostalgic person, especially wrt childhood memories and stuff I'd done as a kid etc. But as an exception to that, one of the strongest and most awesome memories I have of my school days is that of going to the swimming pool with my bro and/or my cousin. I learnt the trade in the Saraswathipuram Swimming pool in Mysore, and my cousin and bro were as clinical and technical as possible in imparting me the knowledge of how to survive in water.

After that, most of my summer mornings were spent in either the Jaynagar swimming pool or the Basvangudi one. It used to be an event preceded by meticulous planning. How much money is needed for entry into the pool, bus charge to and fro, what clothes to be taken, what time should we get there to avoid the humongous queue that'd form outta nowhere!

Forward some 10 odd years, and on Friday evening I get the sudden whim to go back to the pool where I'd spent many enjoyable mornings, playing games like who-stays-under-the-longest, find-the-stone-on-the-pool-floor etc Had no clue/expectation of what lay in store for me :)

Woke up at 6.30, got ready (wear swimming trunks and wear just a shorts and t shirt, so that strippin off time is minimal at the pool...Wasn kidding about the planning part) Found a pretty long queue, and as I was entering saw a rather freshly painted sign on the wall which said 'Only 200 people allowed in a batch' with 200 in bold letters. In the next hour, I'd remember this declaration and wonder about its verity....

Went to the counter, where the dude in front of me said to the cashier maga 'one full, erd half'. One mental chuckle later it was my turn. I asked the cahsier maga for a locker and one ticket. You see, I'd planned it in such a way that, post swimming, I'd also take home some breakfast for everybody from this pristine and archaic restaurant in Basvangudi. So I'd gotten my wallet along, credit cards, DL, cash and the works. So I was made aware of the changing times rudely when cashier maga sharply reprimanded me by telling me to stop speaking gibberish and plainly tell him how many tickets I needed. I politely relaid my query for some security for my belongings. cashier maga didn't seem to be having the best of mornings. He gave me a look which translated to @@$#%@#%@# and said 'locker illa'. I got in with close to 2k cash on me.

As I rushed in to the pool alongwith my otherbrothers, I seriously began doubting if the pool was big enough. You see, the pool isn't evenly used up by the people entering in a batch. In most cases, ppl coming to a public pool can be categorized into:

1. Kids who are chronic divers. They get semi naked, dive into the pool, get back out, dive into the pool, get.....
2. Kids who are learning, with their parents. You'll see the dad holding the kid afloat and asking kid to flap his legs in the water, and the kid crying out.
3. Other kids who know how to swim but are confined to the 3 to 4 foot range. This is the most populated area of the pool. Btw, there's a sign on the wall which says 'shallow end. No diving'...This sign is probably the most hydrated (and violated) in the whole pool..........
4. Serious swimmers...They know breaststroke, backstroke,avoid-other-dudes-in-the-mess stroke. Yevrything i say!
5. Me.

I'm the 26 year old guy who frowns at the chronic divers, cos I fear they'll break my back as I set out to attempt to swim across.
I'm the 26 year old who'll want to swim as much as possible but will struggle to swim across the breadth of the pool in a straight line, cos of all the obstacles.
I'm the 26 year old who'll want to indulge himself in a dive but will probably hurt himself cos he doesn't know the right technique and hasn't gone swimmin in a few years :)
I'm the 26 year old who won't go swummering again.

Rescue

2010-04-02T23:14:00.002+05:30

murjhaae gul ke paas, jaise bahaar ki baanhen
mere paas, vaise hi, phaili hain yaar ki baanhen
thaam ke inko phir bhi sambhal na sakun main
dekho ye mere bandhe haath................

Tech Days 2010

2010-03-26T17:39:00.002+05:30

For those of you who don't know what it is : http://developers.sun.com/events/techdays/

Happens every year, pretty much like clockwork, at Hyderabad International Convention Center, Novotel Hotel in Hyderabad. Basically a bunch of ppl all over the world huddling into conference rooms and talking about/demonstrating cool, exciting breathtaking techie shit.

This time around, I was one of the 3-4k ppl sitting in the chair in one of the huge conference rooms, listening in awe to a legend deliver the keynote. Father Gosling, Java ka baap! Spoke mainly about JDK7 and we listened. He told us how he'd written the background for the preso in JavaFx (might've written it when he was sleeping) and we listened. And we gaped.

The rest of the day was awesome! Small booths here n there, demo-ing interesting stuff, talking to people about technology, students mooching off on free stuff like nobody's business, Hotel personsu running around worrying about snacks, water and other F5ments...

Back in the hotel room at the end of the day, get out of the sweaty clothes and get into Parrrrrrrrrrrrty gear! For party is what we did, Sun Bangalore style! Our dearest admin went to the pub/restaurant in Novotel and struck a deal which enabled us to gobble up unlimited starters and unlimited main course and unlimited drinks for just a 1000 bucks per head!

So there we were, 11 of us, huddled into a table for 6! And there they were on the stage, the incredibly, astoundingly and enormously talented Phillipino-Romanian Band!!

1 Kickass Phillipine Guitarist. KICKASS!!!! Can't tell you how much
1 Kickass Phillipine Keyboard dude...Surreptitious impact maker.
1 Romanian Blonde exuberant hair-all-over-face vocalist. With an awesome range!
1 Romanian brunette goddess with a voice and a body that God must've created during one of his super duper happy moods...Couldn't take my eyes AND ears off her...Surreal...

(Resumes writing post after dedicating 5 minutes of thought and worship to her)

1 drummer and 1 bass guitarist who I didn't notice much but mattered a lot to the ensemble!

We were just chatting, loffing ,drinking, eating etc and they were just playing ballads and inconsequential songs.

Then they played 'Seven Bridges Road' by The Eagles.
Then Murali's mind ceased all activity and stood up, transfixed.
Then Murali sang with them. Sang his heart out. And felt glee like never before. One heart full.
(100 bucks says not one of my readers has listened to this song...unless she's still reading my blog................ :) )

I don't remember much else of the night. In watching the match on the huge screen (oh yeah!!), singing along and totally experiencing and living their songs and adoring and worshipping the long haired, brunette goddess, 3 splendid hours of my life passed.

They played Meatloaf and Boyzone and Dire Straits and Eagles and Santana and stole my heart and gained my respect. Check them out if you ever land up at Novotel, 8 pm to 11.30 pm.

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

Fast forward to Bangalore and Murali is Avenging away at a decent pace, laptop on his back. He stops right next to 'The Lalith Ashok' (The venue for Tech Days Plus 2010 in Bangalore) and asks an auto driver where the hotel is. He gets a weird look in response.

He walks in. He looks at the agenda. He doesn't find his talk listed there.
He's silently and calmly flabbergasted.
He goes around and enquires, gets it repaired, is scheduled to hit the stage at 1345 hours.

Sees that his opensolaris laptop isn't working very well with the projector there. Quick switch to windows. Alternate environments needed for demo, all setup in 20 minutes. Stands on the podium and waits for the audience to come back from lunch.
Some of them trickle back in, and sit and stare at him.
He stares at them.
They stare at him.
He finds his hand sweating.
They stare at him.

At 2.10, he starts presenting.
They stare at him.

At 2.35, he's a bit worried cos they're still staring at him.
At 2.40, a soul stirs in the audience. Asks a question. He is overattentive and answers in exuberance.

At 3.15, he's done presenting and answering the rest of the questions. He receives a smattering of applause. A small but good one he thinks.
(He blames the post lunch slot and the decently good food for the lack of enthusiasm)

Job well done...He's no longer a Tech Days virgin! :D

Tell me how...

2010-03-13T18:05:00.001+05:30

On just that one street...

2010-03-03T23:00:00.003+05:30

And its ur face, I've been looking for, on...

Why does the ending enchant me so much?

And while we're engaging in the socratic method, will i find you?

Mementous Koala Bears v9.10

2010-02-25T22:27:00.003+05:30

So that's how you do it!

You should run alsamixer to control volumes.

And then you probably need to run sudo alsa force-reload...that depends on ur config and whether alsa was loaded properly, to start with.

Turns out, they don't interact too well with each other...A lot of the pages I'd looked had asked me to get totally rid of pulse audio, and just single command helped me out : sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio

Pulse Audio's the other. I've, as I said earlier (later?), read thousands of posts on this one and I honestly dunno if this is better or ALSA is.

ALSA seems to be the more popular one...Stands for Advanced Linux Sound Architecture. Just a music enabler for me. Sound Driver. Detects and interacts with sound cards. Blah.

I had read through, literally, tens of pages before getting a hang of what the hell was going on. Before changing the grub menu n gettin the right kernel, I'd had more severe errors, as in my sound card wasn't even getting detected. Now that it was getting detected, i just had to get it activated. Looks like Ubuntu comes with two primary sound systems : ALSA and Pulse Audio. (You're probably getting a hang of it by now)

Turns out I'd the wrong kernel loading all along!!! Some guy on some forum, apart from admitting the fact that he was stupid, showed me the way!

I boot in the first time next morning, and the sound's not working!!!! Bein a musical guy, I JUST CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT MUSIC!! And of course all the videos...What the hell!? Google is ur friend :)

Recently I decided to take the plunge and give Karmic Koala a try (hogli maade bidana anta). It took all of 5 hours and 1.3 GB and me waking up at 3 am in the morning to check whether it had completed (started only at 9 :P ), but it did complete...Just shut the bleddy machine down and slept off....

Hello unsuspecting readers of my blog,
Today you've been sucked into a reverse tech post! Not only are tech, Linuksy things hard to follow as it is, I've made u go through the story all ulta (wide screen and dolby surround :P)
Thank you and have a good day and hope you guys learnt something :D

Now you'll probably try to read bottom up...Leave comments about the loopholes...I will just pick the spinach stuck between my teeth lazily with a fine sharp wooden toothpick and loff at ur indignation!

Growing up

2010-02-22T21:03:00.003+05:30

What does it mean to've 'grown up'? :

To think more from your mind than yielding to your heart
Drawing from experience! Experience implies that whatever's happening to u now has happened before, atleast once, and that atleast is indicative of u having infested earth for a while now. And to draw from experience and learn lessons is definite proof of hippocampal advances.

A HUGE lizard crawling across the wall next to my bed does not help when u are writing a post. It hung on the wall and made several clucking noises. I wondered if it was a mating call.

I just kept staring at it, hoping or wishing (AHA!) that it won't slip and fall onto my bed, making a 'weeee' noise as it fell...

To indulge more in hope, wishful thinking and patience rather than act out of boiling red bledd.

Currently listening to : Let it Be - The Beatles

How the writer never changed...

2010-02-22T18:02:00.002+05:30

Once in a while your blog creeps up on ya and bites ur own mind off... (yes thats right you read that right)

Murali is in cunningham road.
Murali goes to Infinitea.
Murali pauses while standing in front of Infinitea and sees Shezan restaurant and thinks of all the memorably bland Peas Pulaos he'd had there when working for Hewlett Packard Pvt Ltd.
Murali wipes a tiny tear off left cheek.
Murali realizes it was just sweat (Alreddy februari is hot pa April March devre gathi)

Murali walks into Infinitea. The Prodigal Sun (employee) returns, more mature, more serene....
None the wiser though.

He orders English Scones. The dish sounds delightful and rather pretentious no? He orders anyways, having a glorious picture in his mind.

He gets 4 biscuits.
One spoon of jam.
An iota of cream, which looked like some pigeon slurped it in for lunch, let it pass through its body and its excretory system ejected it with a horrendous feeling of shock and dismay.

He stepped out of Infinitea thinking I should record this weird syndrome he has...and he should title the post 'The Cookie Syndrome'. Looks like somebody's already done that for him :

The Cookie Syndrome

I couldnnav put it better myself :)

P.S : 4 years from now, I'll buy some more extremely inane bullshit in a rather overpriced place and write another post and provide a link for this one in that one. This is, of course, we survive 20 12 2012.

Bile

2010-02-10T12:00:00.002+05:30

"...Further we would like to inform you that the form now onwards you bile generated day will be on 25th of every month.

In case you need further assistance, please do call or email us. We'll do our best to help you."

Happy to help,
English_Impaired_Happy_Helper

From Vodafone Customer Care (yeah you guys! you reading this?)...

The rest of the mail, preceding the absurd sentence shown above, was very normal and formal.
Looks like she took a big swig from a jar of bile juice sitting on her desk and assigned my monthly bile cycle!

Aussie heavy metal meets Indian maw

2010-01-30T22:18:00.003+05:30

Well me maw n me were listnin to the raidio thee othr daiy n outta nowhere this sawng jus pops raaight into the local raidio staytion (akashvani apparently!!) :

ACDC Back in Black

Well me mamma listens to the first fuew minits n goes 'hhhhoooooooooaly coww somebaadi's pinchin 'is butt or somethin!!' Was drinkin a glass o' waatr, n thats when I start laughin at that one so 'ard that there'z waatr comin outta my nose?
But she ain't done ya know so then she sayz 'whoa now they must be poarin hot waatr on 'is head now yes they are'

Ya don't believe me click on the link thein!

Ka2

2010-01-22T21:04:00.003+05:30

How pleasant for a truly depressing abysmal day to turn into such a jubilant one!
I feel totally uplifted and truly, selflessly happy...A cathartic excellent feeling!

God bless!

To strive, to seek, to find

2009-12-23T23:09:00.002+05:30

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down,
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
and though We are not now that strength which in old days,
Moved earth and heaven,
that which we are, we are.
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

- Lord Alfred Tennyson

Feel the thud!

2009-12-14T11:45:00.002+05:30

How would you feel, if when you're driving, the whole world around you is running at a volume of 2 or 3 (TV units) and all the honking and blaring and screeching of vehicles is totally suppressed??

Or picture driving through the din and dum dum of Bangalore, with the whole town almost quiet, except music playing on loud speakers THROUGH OUT the city!!!

I'm not suggesting driving under the influence :P

Meet my new Sennheiser earphones!! They're in ear earphones, which means once you poke them in the general direction of your ears, they get down to business making it their comfy cosy home. This pair, though, went a step ahead and really got into me.

Henceforth I decided to call them 'Brainphones' :D

Cos believe-you-me here, these buggers pretty much remove all the other crap outside!!! Apart from me looking in awe at a gesturing, happily chatting mom and gathering no audio input, at first I could feel the thud of my own feet walking! When your ears are really really blocked, I guess every small impact to/on the body is "felt"!

And this isn't no special 'noise cancellation' earphones either...Okay this is enough text for just a pair of earphones I guess. I'll wind up by saying for a music crazy ppls like me, this is a God send! Of course, its much better to let ur ears enjoy some music than some really annoying and loud horns...

P.S : What? Of course I listened to Freebird first!

The TaaLegari Tales - a HowTo

2009-12-11T23:31:00.002+05:30

Nadi Shastra, for the uninitiated. (I think i've used this word before in my blog...uninitiated...huh i'm getting repetitive and predictable...well i don't mind)

These are no taal tales. Believe me, for I'm a survivor! :brave look on face, looking far far away

Step 1 : Don't go to the taalegari place
Step 2 : You should have followed step 1. Sigh. Move on then.
Step 3 : Determine sex of self. If male, press right thumb into inkpad. If female, press left thumb into inkpad. (Dono protocol for "neither/both" so don't label me a "sexist"). Press above selected thumb onto paper of piece.

Step 4 : Come out of the place and wonder if they have affiliations with criminal organs of the society, to which they can feed ur thumb print. Just to be safe, commit to self that u won't commit any crimes in future.

Step 5 : Go back in and ask them when u've to come back. Get a phone number too (useless anyways).

Step 7 : Arrive on time and stare at all those chappals/sandals/shoes outside the main door. (If you DO manage to have ur appointment on time, i will give u 1000 Rs a.)

Step 8 : Your taale gari (palm leaf) has been found! (Unfortunately.) Congratulations!!!! (Really?)

Step 9 : Important step...this is very important.
Do NOT go 3 times at odd times of the day and get upset at him for not scheduling u earlier.
Do NOT pay him any money in advance.

Step 10 : Listen to all the hocus pocus he'll tell you about how life's a bitch and how u have a good probability of having an accident, a bad marriage, tough times ahead, awesome promotions, foreign tours, family issues, good kids etc etc, surprisingly all lined up one after the other!

Summary : Life is just like a long island ice tea. All sortsa shit in it. You don't need no commercialized, tamil guy speaking kannada with a fucked up accent (apparently i've to do some 'booje's to solve all my "dosha"s or problems) to tell you that.

Movie Review : Choti si baat

2009-12-07T22:11:00.002+05:30

Watched this movie again after a long time from the credits to finish. Loved it again :)
Was looking for a bunch of words to describe this cute lil movie, done with such tact and finesse and subtlety. Surprisingly found them on the back page of the CD cover, which we bought for 45 bucks by the way. To think that I sometimes shell out 5 times the price to watch unbearable and sickening crap nowadays gave me a shudder.

But back to more pleasant and happy tunes. Here's what the back of the CD cover read:

Choti si baat is an endearing, lovable comedy about a young man who walks the rocky path of love because his heart is true but timid. Arun (Amol Palekar) falls in love with Prabha (Vidya Sinha) whome he sees everyday on the bus-stop on his way to work. Not having the courage or know how to express his love, all he can do is follow her to her office and her home and pine from a far. Just as he is wondering what to do next, along comes Nagesh (Asrani), Prabha's brash young colleague who seems leagues ahead of Arun in his pursuit of Prabha. A now deseperate Arun seeks the help of Colonel Julius Nagendranath Wilfred Singh (the legendary Ashok Kumar) who tackles the battle of love with the same meticulous planning and ruthless efficiency needed to win a military campaign. He instills in Arun a new self confidence and teaches him the strategies of waging love. Arun returns to Bombay a new man ready to face anything. Another heart winning classic from Basu Chatterji, Choti si baat has never faded in its sweet, funny magic.

Amen. What this paragraph doesn't deliberately capture is how brilliant Amol's performance is, how quippy the script is, how brilliantly yet simply some scenes have been shot. A must watch if you're a fan of those good old hindi movies made with some sense and with something more/different than a spunky heroine, an invincible hero, their romance and a quixotic villain ready to die!

Nice TED talk

2009-12-02T12:07:00.002+05:30

I just love this guy!

Don't you?

2009-11-18T17:05:00.002+05:30

When the truth is found to be lies.
And all the joy, within you, dies.
Don't you want somebody to love?
DOn't you need somebody to love?
Wouldn't you love somebody to love?
You better find somebody to love..

P.S : Non rhetorical question.

I hate 'em!

2009-11-13T16:54:00.002+05:30

Autowallahs!

This post was constructed inside the brain of the author while navigating the once-calm roads of Jaynagar.

I truly hate 'em!

They park in really inconvenient places (like the corner of an intersection)
They turn first and then look! (Gnawing teeth.....)
They go really really slow while having no clue about the fact that they're holding up traffic behind them...
They think that the right of the road/lane is always theirs
They forget that their dear autos have a fat ass and treat it like a moto GP bike!!

Well now, I know that several auto drivers are polite and drive safely and slow, with due consideration to others on the road and traffic rules. Which is why, I am only making a generalization and am not stereotyping them. (the difference being that I make room for exceptions in the former, whereas I don't in the latter).

Based on all this, I coined a new word for all of them today:

"Traffuckers".

Yep thats who "most of them" are....

Get your doseh? today!

2009-11-01T08:48:00.003+05:30

Q : What does one usually get to order in a masochistic restaurant?

A:

Welcome to Adarsha Restaurant on National Highway 7.
Rather painful dosa it was indeed.....

Diwali 2009

2009-10-16T19:47:00.002+05:30

Murali,

In the year 2009 when you were jaded enough not to go gaga over crackers, but were still foolish enough to go ahead and pollute the environment (how's that lung btw?), you went to a Standard store and saw the following. You then wondered why on earth some ppl would wanna name crackers in such a manner. What immediately followed was a innate impulse to record this on the Internet. The "letter to future self" format was a spur of the moment thing.

Anyways, some amusing cracker names:

1. Bofors!
Did not even get what kind of cracker it was...There was a picture of a simple rifle with sparkling colors all over the box and the word 'Bofors'

2. Cherry Garden
A pleasant sunny day...Birds chirping, Butterflies flyin in n out...Your soulmate and you, with a perfectly pure pot of Earl Grey tea and sandwiches sitting in a Cherry Garden and WHAM!!!

3. God's Gift
Certainly...Sound and Noise pollution, other divine presents aside.

4. Jasmine Drops
@$&*%$@*&%$@ ???

Happy Deepavali all.

wet lips of yours

2009-10-14T18:20:00.003+05:30

Did Kunaal Ganjawala feel as disgusted with 'vo vo vo ho!', after finishing the recording of the song, as I am feeling right now after one session of practice?

Fans

2009-10-12T14:37:00.003+05:30

(14:30:11) Name_Withheld_For_Obvious_Reasons: you act like an asshole sometimes... i feel its better to talk to a pot than you

Always feels good to be appreciated.

P.S : In Name_Withheld_For_Obvious_Reasons' defense, I did say something out of context in a rather serious conversation...

Free as a bird

2009-09-30T22:59:00.000+05:30

Free as a bird,
it's the next best thing to be.
Free as a bird.

Home, home and dry,
like a homing bird I'll fly
as a bird on wings.

Whatever happened to
the life that we once knew?
Can we really live without each other?

Where did we lose the touch
that seemed to mean so much?
It always made me feel so...

Free as a bird,
like the next best thing to be.
Free as a bird.

Home, home and dry,
like a homing bird I'll fly
as a bird on wings.

Whatever happened to
the life that we once knew?
Always made me feel so free.

Free as a bird.
It's the next best thing to be.
Free as a bird.
Free as a bird.
Free as a bird.

Goa....again!

2009-09-25T22:41:00.003+05:30

The first time was with Kris, Griz and Ash...it was truly, one of the most memorable trips I've had...The perfect place at the perfect time with the perfect people. Granted we didn't go to Tito's (which I heard was so not worth it...the entry fee, in off season, is apparently 1000 bucks JUST to get in and after u're there, its not all that great...sour grapes maybe but well :D ) or the cruise n to the other dazzlin stuff in North Goa, but we had some super good fun our own style....I can still remember flashes of amazing moments...its like a mental picture...'click'!

This time around though, the setting's different!

* Office colleagues (most of whom I don't know very well, and the others I've only had partial personal interactions for just 10 months)

* Friggin 30 of 'em !!!!

* South Goa!!!

Potential for disasters u think? U haven't heard the best part yet...I was travelling on the train as someone else! Yep that's right...I had to suffer MPD, atleast name-wise to get to paradise...If caught, the fine for impersonating somebody is...well thankfully I still don't know aye?

After travellin for close to 20 hours (one looooooooong train drive and another seemingly long bumpy bloody bad bus drive), we get to Colonel Jose Menino resort, Varca. Place looks like a dump. We look like a dump. Since another colleague n I decided to join the gang later than others, our room...isn't there! In a gang of 30, miscommunication is just way too easy I guess...

15 mins later : The fan's running on full speed...Two males, avg age 25, are lying sprawled on the bed.

No this post is gonna become too long if I do it this way. Change. Okay got it.

When you're in the company of ppl u barely know or "ppl u do the 'raised-hand-smile-nod' thingy with day in and day out but don't expect to spend a vacation with them" , u can do several things. You can struggle hard to blend in, fit in. There, u're competing with ppl who've been together for the past 5-8 years and read each other like an open socket. Or you can be the broody, silent guy who's taking it all in, waiting for an opening.

Both of these approaches become rather taxing when you're up against a set of ppl with a rather quirky sense of humour, with a dollop of sillyness and a generous serving of perversion. For instance, if I'd said, in front of few of the gang "...the broody, silent guy who's taking it all in, waiting for an opening.", several of them would've burst out howling, and while u were wondering whether u'd made the most inane of statements or whether ur pants were down all of a sudden, one of them would say:

"Opening? Wow whose opening are u waiting for? And u're taking it all in? I didn't know u're used to swallowing man!" (For those who didn't get either or both of those puns, leave personal comments please).

You see the point? If you wanna blend in, you've got to stoop to a level which you'd rather not visit. If you wanna be the silent brooding guy, they let you be. Its just that the jokes will wanna make you find a .45 and shoot yourself.

Oh and oh oh...while we're at silly, perverted jokes, here's another one which never got boring, through out the trip:

Stupid silly IQ in negative bitch colleague : Hey I'm feeling sleepy ya!
Smart highly pervert colleague : Wow...who's sleepy?
(Sleepy the elf? "Feeling" sleepy? As in groping? aaaaaaaaaa there u get it...MAN! I had enough of that though!)

The silver lining
--------------------------

As a colleague of mine said, "The problem with South Goa is that there aren't enough good places to eat, but the beaches are gorgeous".

True, true and very true.

As I walked down the road to Varca beach, I realized 'hey! what else is there in Goa maga?'

1. Food (whoa the variety in sea food...)
2. Beaches (different ppl, different attractions ;) )
3. Cheap booze (several ppl might scowl at me for putting this at number 3)
49. Water activities.

The beaches ARE gorgeous...I can still hear the roar, the rustle, the whisper, the sigh....mmmmmmmmmm :)

To summarize:

It takes patience to blend in with a gang of ppl u're trying to blend with :) If running low on patience, you can use the following:

1. A swimming pool (nothing like half naked guys in the water trying to outsmart each other...u just admit they're good, and have a nice time in the water :)
2. Alcohol! Nothing breeds camaraderie better than good high spirits! :D :D Enough on that topic eh? ;)
3. A colleague letting it slip that u manage to sing more decently than others...Somebody who knows how to sing gets respect. Phew that helped!

If you can think of other things to add to that list, yee mayl me...

The End. (Yawn)

P.S : I watched a memorable Manchester Derby in the world's worst cable tv setup ever. Adds to the variety of the trip ashte.

Shaayad...

2009-09-05T19:53:00.002+05:30

Ahed-e-masti hai
log kehte hain

Mai-parasti hain
log kehte hain

(I think the 4 lines together means, the worship of wine aka mai promises enjoyment...Its a complicated and unusual combination of urdu words, not usually found together)

Shaayad ek baar ujad ke naa base
Shaayad ek baar ujad ke naa base
Dil ki basti hain, log kehte hain....

(These lines are the killer ones)

EGO

2009-08-23T23:06:00.002+05:30

Fucking FUCKING fucking fucking fucking ego!!! (I've found that I like that word when I'm angry)

The ugly side of a man/woman's ego rares up and blinds the crap out of the person...When you're trying to make a point and win a war, you've to lose a battle. And if you've had time to prepare for the war, you should see who your opponent he is and when you've to concede. And most of all, you've to FUCKIN Listen! LISTEN to what the other party is saying cos not only may the other party be making valid points but may also be making mistakes, on which you can capitalize by out thinking the opponent and offering the RIGHT point of view, politely (a quality which I'm grossly lacking in this post...I see it yes, thank you)

Back to the ugly side of ego...It is, one of the ugliest and most evil things I have seen on this planet so far...This is primarily because:

1. It successfully renders a person blind to "the big picture/the right thing/the truth" (sometimes "what is the truth/the right thing" is debatable...I concede)
2. Not only the point above, but it also provides the person that is under its control, a passion and a fallacy to continue to remain under its influence and ignore the truth. A strong personal viewpoint transcends true and correct reason. A massacre also occurs in the process.

BAH!

Lonely as you

2009-08-20T17:41:00.003+05:30

"It gets terribly lonely man, don't ask" said Dilip, as he rested non-chalantly on the circular slab of stone jutting out of the ground, the ones you commonly see at the entrances of parks/playgrounds.

"Uh huh?" Karthik nodded solemnly, trying to be mature but unable to hide the inquisitiveness from his eyes. His ears were on full alert, soaking in every word of his illustrious, enigmatic, cool cousin. This was one topic which he'd like some hindsight about!

"Its that phase when you're no longer just a teen, but aren't married yet?" went on Dilip, taking a deep, melancholic puff. "It gets pretty damn lonely man...That craving that you get...Its unbelievably strong...makes you long for somebody...terribly lonely u start feeling"

At this point, Karthik's mind was like K R Market on a day before a festival...swarming with questions...Is he talking about the craving that I think he's talking about?? And why that period, for one to feel terribly lonely anyways? And how terrible can it get after all? You've your friends, your family, your workplace, your relatives, your neighbors etc etc. Won't work keep you busy and occupied most of the time? And...

"Wanna take a drag at this?" was what broke Karthik's reverie at 7.50 pm near the bus stand there. Dilip was offering him the King! Giving him equal status almost! But wait....was he just testing me? Should I say no cos I'm too young? But it'd make me cool if I DID take it...Oh but dad n ma...Oh no...DAMMIT!

"Uh no...I don't smoke any more...it was a long time ago and I didn't like it much so I stopped" said Karthik, to avoid sounding lame...He felt lame after completing the sentence though...

"Oh ok...sure" said Dilip with a smirk as he finished it off, and popped the minty into his mouth, starting to walk back towards home...

Karthik felt annoyed at having been so immature...One bloody puff! You could've walked home with him, with the victorious minty in your mouth matching strides with Dilip, the cool one!

As he rounded the corner, the angel donned a lawyer's robe at the same time and started saying "why's it so cool to smoke anyways? what's the big deal? It hurts anyways...And whats this loneliness that he was talkin about? the craving and the longing? and why...................

SP Road

2009-08-17T22:49:00.006+05:30

So we went to this shop to buy some computer supplies (nothing much...the usual quad core processor, 4 GB of RAM and a Terabyte hard disk) and we were recommended Bangalore Computers by him and that other guy, so we did walk in to the shop after sweating for a while in another bustling shop.

This guy wasn't just a shrewd Marwadi with a keen eye on konning people. He was an outright charmer. And to his eyes fell Griz...err Griz' phone. The E90 has a "figure" of 132 x 57 x 20 and is all of 210 gms. And the Marwadi is caressing it like he would caress...uh anyways, eventually he raises an eye and an eyebrow and asks Griz:
"Chenagidya phoneu?" (We both realize oh he knows Kannada too) followed by "Eshtu idakke?" and then a "Idralli emailu kaLsi togobahuda??" and then a "Nokia henge sir? Chenagide alva?" and of course the cliched "Yenu neevu software a? Software engineer a?" and ends it with a hearty chuckle and a "Yen sir hinge tegondi bittideeri...Fullu laptop e thoghond hangeh aithu bidi"

Being the owner of the shop leaves him with very little, but bossing over his subordinates and making/answering phone calls. But when there's a lull in both, the mind needs to be engaged and he spends time (I quote him) "taking something from the customer, some or the other gyaan"...Well now thats perfectly acceptable, as long as he's not GIVING the gyaan...For instance, when he tried to defend the unavailability of a particular model of DVD Writer by saying that "Nenne republic day sir...all shops close", he got chided rather unabashedly and patriotically by another customer, who with that mistake probably lost all chance at a discount n shit.
Mr Marwadi also, in the heat of passion, took out his Visiting Card and handing it to a customer, said "Nodi sir naaLe bandbidi namm Debit Card mele guarantee haaki barkodteevi , full Government seal ella haaki kodteevi"

Oh we came back and assembled a PC out of all the boxes btw! Here's my mobo connected to the monitor :D

Friends will be friends

2009-08-04T21:59:00.005+05:30

Was reading Readers Digest today, and stumbled across this quote...

Friends are God's way of apologizing to us for our families -- Anonymous

Got me thinking...Dug up a few more...Enjoy!

The only way to have a friend is to be one. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
One who looks for a friend without faults will have none. -- Hasidic Saying
"Friendship is Love without his wings!" -- Lord Byron (1806) (hmmm?!)
"True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it be lost" -- Charles Caleb Colton (1825) (nodding our heads readin this one, are we?? :)
"There can be no Friendship where there is no Freedom." -- William Penn
"An honest answer is the sign of true friendship." -- Proverbs 24:26
"Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen." --Samuel Paterson (I like these comparative quotes! :D )
"I have lost friends, some by death, others through sheer inability to cross the street." -- Virginia Woolf (deep wolf)

Saved the best for the last:

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.-Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) (STUNNING)

One of the surest evidences of friendship that one individual can display to another is telling him gently of a fault. If any other can excel it, it is listening to such a disclosure with gratitude, and amending the error.-- Edward Bulwer-Lytton (And saying "ok fuck off" doesn't count here I guess...)

A man of few words...

2009-07-27T15:20:00.002+05:30

A man of few words is a a man of few words because :

1. He knows too little
2. He knows a lot
3. "Hello? Anybody out there?"

Nothing

2009-07-22T20:34:00.001+05:30

Nothing good, nothing bad, nothing ventured
Nothing gained, nothing still-born or lost,
Nothing further than proof nothing wilder than youth
Nothing older than time, nothing sweeter than wine
Nothing physically, recklessly, hopelessly blind
Nothing I couldn't say
Nothing why 'cos today
(daridra)Nothing rhymed

Hunkal woods

2009-07-14T14:38:00.005+05:30

Hunkal (Hun as in Hunt).

The place is actually in the middle of Thogari Hunkal estate, where coffee is the primary crop.

So one minute Griz, Ktk, Murali (2005 batch), Srini, Naren, VV, Sac (2004 batch) are travelling on a pretty smooth highway (The santro wallas will have their own account of the road i guess...i was "highly" comfortable in a Scorpio...more about this beast more), the next minute the weather has changed and its drizzling, and the next srini is compelling griz to switch on the wiper!

Outta nowhere jumps a board at us asking us to take a left into a rather nasty looking road. A few hundred meters into it, we know we're in a good place. Greenery and close cropped vegetation. Slippery and sloppy mud acting as a path to our destination. Various insects and birds, with humans here n there, collecting coffee seeds, tending to the estate. A marked departure from our routine lives.

This is

where we stayed

Where we ate

Where we sipped several cuppas of scintillating coffee, exemplified by the chilly sexy weather!

where we..err lost our mind a bit cos of all the glee!

where we let ourselves be soaked in the rain and gazed in awe!

Where we got bitten by leeches (in slightly questionable places too!)

Where we scared srini with live leeches :D

Where we fought the onslaught of the wind

Where we danced a bit

Where green is the norm!

We were told we would encounter a snake whose bite causes body parts to rot. Unfortunately, no such sightings/meetings. Hence no picture also.

One of the first places i truly felt like going back to. Hopefully I will!

Oh almost forgot...This was a farewell of sorts to one of my friends, a brave guy who's departing to the land Down Under this weekend. Cheerios Sac! Wishing you all the very best and thanking you for being the reason we thought out and made it for this trip!! :)

How (who?) you doin'?!?

2009-07-12T22:43:00.000+05:30

Joey immortalized this.
Apparently sex isn't a big deal anymore!

B(rr)R Hills again

2009-07-01T11:40:00.002+05:30

Bili Giri Rangana betta...

Had a hard time explaining the meaning of this explanation to Ron, an American colleague who accompanied us (me and a few colleagues of mine)...Turned out to be quite a reveler he did, out there in the woods, hanging onto the side of the jeep in the safari with one hand and a trademark, touristy point-n-shoot in the other, unable to get enough of eneething, be it the suddenly surprised herd of deer or the spicy Indian cuisine! Kudos to ur spirit Ron!

Sharath was my ride for the jaunt...During the trip, we happened to encounter a stretch of muddy roads, on which he tried to do this. He's this kind of a silent, non pompous kinda ass who thinks he can do anything and mostly get away with it...Well, he succeeded in drifting twice over the loose gravel and the 3rd or 4th time it got away from him...the dumbstruck passenger remembers just two moments of the near fatal final drift :

1. Thinking 'wow this is NOT the right speed for THIS curve...he's way too high'.
2. Thinking 'Yep we're gonna fall into that ditch there...yes...what shud i do? will the car be on its wheels or ulta? will it be my neck that gets broken or what?'

Eerily, the 2nd one didn't happen and the callous driver lives on to drift his ass again...Don't get me wrong, he's a good driver, who's "insane" about driving and knows and knows all the geeky stuff (specs of cars, watching shows/movies related to racing...the typical 'auto geek')...In fact, I also caught myself wanting in on the fun, exciting world of cars, something that I haven't been really attracted to or gotten "into"...wanting to be like him a bit more...

But after this incident, I'm glad I'm me...Cos if this is what its gonna do to u, then I ATLEAST don't wanna be him...Not saying that the world of cars and automobiles isn't for me, but I don't wanna be him or anything like him anymore...He IS human after all, broke down completely after the near fatal incident, in shock for a while...But still...

The other bad thing about this trip was my stupid infection...woke up with an itchy throat on the morning of our departure, which developed into a cold en route, and caused occasional spells of fever...

INSPITE of this mural the puttar had loads of fun...He was right in the middle of one of Nature's most resplendent exhibitions, and no ailment could keep him from savouring it down to the last dew drop!

B4 I 4get...For those of you who haven't been there, mark ur calendars for next March/April for THAT is peak BR Hills season...Since it is summer time, most animals will come "out" to get their share of water at some well known water sources, which ur safari jeep will jussssssst pass by!

we got there by lunch time, and after that we'd a coupla hours to kill before the jeep ride through the jungle...Spent that time on the hammock and inside the machaan talking to Ron about this n that...the others were spotting monkeys and taking photos etc. Had a nice time in the Machaan, getting to the vantage point some 20ft above the ground itself a challenge, cos a few rungs of the ladder were broken!

The safari was swalpa disappointin I guess, cos a few of the parties who'd been on the ride in the past few days, had spotted leopards and tigers n stuff....and we didn't! Tons of different types of Deer most inquisitive of them being The Barking Deer, (They get their name cos they actually emit a sound which is a mixture of a bray and a bark! This they do, when either they're faced with an adversary or while they're excreting cos they're afraid of the sound of their own excreta!) the Sambhar and the Spotted Deer...A herd of wild gaur (Indian Bison)...and a "cute" lil elephant and a huge mama elephant...The lil one wasn't pleased with our appearance...it kept trying to intimidate us by charging at us and stopping short of our jeep...

Some rare sightings which we ran across was a beautiful Serpent Eagle, a pair of Giant Squirrels (huge!) and a woodpecker which disappeared quickly...But the whole crowd had their eyes and ears wiiiiiide open during the whole time, and this was the highlight I guess...taking in the forest, being in the wild...awesome stuff !

We were supposed to play a game that night, but we ended up spending most of the night on NOT SO hilarious jokes and idle banter in general...coupla photo wizards (including the drifter!) made complicated arrangements to capture the night sky, and in general got busy with their cameras (hi fi lenses, tripods, and DSLRs! oooo mama)

For Ron n I, the night was about the fireflies though...You see, at B R Hills, the lights go off at 10.30 pm, and u are left with a starry starry night and the fireflies...Its only the human dread of the unknown that causes some to switch on their torches now n then, but they can be forgiven...While we were sitting atop the machaan, I'd told Ron how I'd realized the last time I'd been here, that one of the best ways to experience this place was to be a silent absorb/observ er...Jokingly he'd asked me 'So is that ur cue for me to shut up??'...Well, shut up we did for a while, as it hit us in waves: the beautifully lit sky, the crickets and mellifluous insects and birds, the fireflies arranging quite an ensemble!

The next morning, I was in a dilemma whether to attend round two of a jeep safari ride (the hope of catching sight of a leopard!!!) or to explore the jungles on foot...Turns out, the latter wasn't a popular option as I found only one other nature enthusiast awaiting the guide for a trek...Undeterred, we set out on foot, me, Pradeep and Guide...This is something I hadn't done the last time around, and boy am I glad I did it this time! Unless somebody gives it to u in writing that there're gonna be hordes of wild animals parading for u inthe morning, don't miss the morning trek!! We saw leopard paw marks, angry scratches, made only the previous night...We saw atleast 15 different types of birds, the providers of the background score for our 6 km journey...we saw an overturned, dead skeletal remains of a bison's head, which had been devoured by a tiger 3 months ago! The dental and respiratory structure of a bison is vividly imprinted in my mind beleev me!! What was mesmerizing was, I woke up with a rather congested nose and lungs, but the moment i started walking through the jungle all the mists cleared inside a me also! I just love that place!

Nothing much to report on the way back...rather tired because of the adventures and the cold n stuff, I came back home a relieved, yet enormously satiated fella!

Cheers
Cheers
Cheers
2 BR Hills!!!

Halcyon

2009-06-06T00:09:00.003+05:30

Friday had quite a few things in store for me:

1. Mango Fest :
The only rule is : There're no rules!
3-4 varieties of mangoes
Two women cutting them
Several hoggers!

Go eat as much as u can!

And we ate...Boy a colleague of mine cleared the mangoes...twas fun! And sweet! :D

2. Alarms and Excursions by Dramanon

A collection of two little plays. By a bunch of really versatile and talented actors.
To experience good theatre, to soak it all in : the script, the skill, the talent, the ensemble everything...is an amazingly satisfying experience. And boy did Dramanon deliver!
A must watch if u can manage to get urself towards rangashankara

3. Federal victories

To be up against a man stronger and taller than yourself.
To be down 2 sets to 1, thrashed in both.
To be outplayed for most of the game, made to run around, made to submit to a clever combo of power and precision play.

And yet to stand up and win it in a 5 setter.

Yeah, yeah I can hear the anti-feds going "so what? never seen such a 5 setter before?"
Well, I'll say...Nope...Fedex has had very few 5 setters, and very few which he's one, coming back from the dead like that...And every 5 setter is a unique game , with its own marvellous points and participants. :)

And to top it all off, God chooses this very night to produce a stunning stellar display. A picturesque sky, a cool breeze and not too much traffic! What more can a rattled Bangalorean ask for :)

P.S : Well, the fight over the phone was un-necessary I guess...Learn from it Murals, learn...

Taken

2009-05-31T22:30:00.002+05:30

Warning : Spoiler Alert

Stupid, unrealistic action movie.

Why? Stupid girl goes to Paris with her friend, only to get caught in an Albanian prostitution/drug ring. Turns out (lucky lucky her!) that her dad is an ex Government agent (u know these damn american agents...trained to either save or bring down the whole world by themselves).

Dad goes to Paris.
Dad enjoys a street cafe coffee here n there.
Dad kicks butt (Main point of the movie)
Dad saves daddy's lil girl.

But

A few points that grabbed my attention (and vote):

1. Liam Neeson ....57 yr old Liam Neeson...Moves like he's 30. Fights like Bond (better than some Bonds) and acts like a champion (what a mesmerising voice...).
2. Coupla scenes in the beginnin and the end. Both involve Liam. When he finds out his daughter is being kidnapped (she's on the phone, givin him live commentary of the act) and when he finally rescues her at the end. The director gives just a small pause at both moments for u to experience the gravity of the situation. Nice...
3. Maggie Grace, the daughter. Cute.

A splendid action movie, involving all the usual elements. Close combat. Aggressive escape manoeuvres. Some car scenes.

No comparisons here, but it is so easy for a movie like James Bond to make headlines and news and capture attention, but such good, fast action movies kinda go un-noticed. Got a 7.9 out of 10 on IMDB so am pretty pleased though.

Please?

2009-05-23T10:47:00.000+05:30

If I have a son, can I name him Gilchrist??

retreat!

2009-05-22T11:21:00.004+05:30

Karan says Sakleshpur!
Krishna says Lonavla chikki!
Wayanad is the Green Paradise in God's own Country (Kerala)

We could've equally ended up in any of those 3 places...

But thanks to a koLLeeg of mine, Kalpetta in Kerala got the kall! Ashwin as usual did his last minute disappearing trick, so it was upto Kris Griz and the manager (naane...) to rock the party rock the party (damn you madhu!!!)

Twas my dad's car which was chosen to be the divine carrier, "Better Homes" in Kalpetta the eventual destination and the lush green, scenic routes of bandipur forest en route to paradise!

Now this hit me during our stay in Kalpetta, but wonder what the motivation was for naming the place "Better Homes". I mean why not Best! Homes ?? And I realized that we had arrived at a land of humble people with modest ambitions...Not too high their goals, just neat, good ol' customer satisfaction...

OR

Maybe at some time there was a "Good Homes", and these guys thought "Good a?! Yenna dai?!!? #&%$@$%@*&$ Lets make ours BETTER homes!"

I seriously think its the latter, but still....

Day 1 was mostly travelling. Krishna jumping up and down, hoping to catch glimpses of slithering snakes and enormous elephants and terrific tigers. Yup he basically wanted all the dangerous creatures to assemble and do an ensemble! His infectious was enthusiasm, and the utter brilliance of the greenery around us certainly helped us, cos we totally lost track of time! Only when we hit Sulthan Bathery at around 3 pm did we realize that we were well past lunch time...

We had breakfast at Kamat Lokaruchi on Mysore road. Till then was singin, shoutin, talkin anythin! to keep our hungry selves awake and aware.

Note: When Griz is angry at a fellow vehicle driver on the road, or when he is asked to curse, he will pop his head out and shout out "NAMASKARA!?!?!" at the driver. How amicably rude...

4 pm at Kalpetta, and almost the whole day's gone. No sooner did we get into our 1st floor, 1.5 BHK "better" home, than it started raining! And boy did it rain! And it stopped.
And after it stopped kris n I went out for a walk in our chaddis, where we encountered a poisonous frog.

Sorry, wrong photo...Thats what Griz was doing while we strolled. Artwork courtesy me n kris :D
Here's the frog...

Banasura dam the next day wasn't great shakes.

Except for the photos. "Concept" photos were (are, actually) a running theme whenever a bunch of us get together with a camera. Standing and gazing at the camera, or saying hi or smiling...bore agoithu ri! Jana change keltaare :D

So the concept, of concept photos...For instance, Griz' favorite concept photo (u'll find a lot of 'em in his albums) is for the camera to capture our derrieres, while we're walkin away from the camera. Kris had some wacky! ones...Mine are usually context based and rather clever ( smirk)

Then came the highlight of the trip! Soochippara Falls!! Wiki's description of this natural wonder is short and effective:

"Soochipara Falls is a three-tiered waterfall located 20 km from Kalpetta in Wayanad district in Kerala, India. Its height is 200 metres (656 feet).[1]

This falls is around 22 km (14 mi) from Kalpetta. This is one among different other waterfalls present in Wayanad. But Soochipara falls stands apart. A must visit place if you are in Wayanad."

656 feetu.
200 metresu.
Below that naavu!!

There's something totally, unbelievably, titillatingly fantabulous about getting thwacked, slapped and totally abused by 200 metres of unrelenting,unabashed hydraulic force! Not to mention the soothingly chilling temparature of the water...Oh and also the super slippery rocks en route to the base of the waterfall. Yup, thats where we were, kris in his konservative kapde and other two shameless guys in their undies, totally lost in the sound of the water hitting the rocks...hard...really hard! A mind blowing experience!

So we're moving between borders and reach the karnataka border ( i forget the name of the town) and thats where the nightmare starts. A bigggg stretch of crappy roads, followed by a pathway of just stones, with just the jungle on either side of us. An occasional truck/tempo passing us by with a sym(ply)pathetic look on their faces, while we crawled at 10 Kmph in my poor santro for close to 1.5 hrs. This happened smack bang inthe middle of lunch hour and when Griz is hungry, Griz sings! Oh Kris n I were silent (which means mentally cursing our predicament, our luck and the road among other things) but Griz was singin like Johnny Cash ( :D ). Well it kept our spirits up in some way, and the sight of road with tar on it felt like manna from heaven (phrase, courtesy : Ktk).

5 pm found us rattling off items from the menu in the legendary Dasaprakash Hotel in Mysore. After some critical and severe hogging, we were back on the Bang Mys highway, tired but excited and (me) kinda sad that it was gettin over... (watte cliche! anteera?)

The
End.

What you are...

2009-05-08T22:52:00.002+05:30

And when you wanted me I came to you
And when you wanted someone else I withdrew
And when you asked for light, I set myself on fire
If I go far away, you'll find another slave...

Age of In-no-sense

2009-05-08T12:24:00.003+05:30

So Girish has these sudden urges...

Whoa that first sentence didn't come out right at all!

So Girish has sudden surges of interest in waking up early morning and playing/going for a jog or something, and just so that there's a motivational factor, he asked me to come along...

So he arrives a few minutes late (hah! :P ) as usual and we do the needful and exert ourselves in the sun, and are sitting down chatting like tired old men, when the youngudgee comes along...

youngudgee : "Hi do you have a coupla minutes?"

At this point, we've already noticed her moving about with pamphlets in her hand, with a spring in her step, being the usual teenager but with a social cause, talking to people...so we're mildly interested that a prettyish young girl is talking to us...

Us : "Yeah hi...go on" (don't imagine a chorus...the collective output was that..)

youngudgee : "This is about ...blah blah...art of living....blah blah...course...for "kids in the age group of 8-18"

Us : (Looks at each other with suppressed giggles) "So we look like we're between 8 and 18?!?"

youngudgee : (flustered) "Uh...(shit crap!) no.... maybe you can bring your kids or some other small children or kids........."

In a span of 10 seconds, our age meter fizzed between impishly young to responsibly parental...Right at the end I said, "Sure I'll bring my kids along" just as, you know, a joke...the stupid thing i do...

And she giggled and sweetly smiled and said "you don't look like you have kids you know?" and all the cover up for the double faux pas and ran away like a jinke mari na?

But in retrospect, that sentence seems a bit scary....

"I'll bring my kids along"
"I'll bring my kids along" (echo 1)
"I'll bring my kids along" (echo 2)
..........

Do I look like a dumb f**k?

2009-04-29T23:13:00.002+05:30

Advertisements bring out the passionate side in me...

I can broadly classify ads that I see into three categories:

1. Indifferent/bored/would shoot the ad maker just for fun if he/she was in front of me
2. Excited and in awe of concept/production!
3. Seriously cheated/angry

We all know which category we're gunna talk about now...

Case 1: Compla(i)n

A pretty woman with a bunch of other 'moms' flit off to a research institute where a rather disposable (I'd use a shotgun for him...) quack explains the benefits of Complan on the tallness/height of "growing children"...He says that "a kid who drank complan grew taller by 6 cms whereas the kid who didn't grew taller only by 3 cms"

CMS !!!!!

Do I look like dumb.... instance no. 1

Case 2: Idea

Sachin sitting on a stool
Sachin holding a placard on his number
Sachin trying to act, going "fhlae bli da gloobin tchich phfhgtth call keejiye"
Sachin trying to sell us a brand AGAIN...and it probably working AGAIN

I got plenty irritated and called the bloody number...Forgot to add the '0' at the head first, so got scolded by sarcastically-fake-lady on the phone.

Second time added the '0'...

"pup"
"pup"
"pup"

Call gets cut...No "Hi!! Sachin is bizee right now adjusting and re-adjusting his cap on the fields of SA for his team, the Mumbai Indians...Please don't leave a msg and go do your job!" offered or anything!

WHAT an Idea Sirjee.....

P.S : For those who think I called the number to actually talk to Sachin aka a boyhood fantasy or something, please come and meet me in person...

Spot the bug! - Corrected

2009-04-25T20:51:00.004+05:30

Oye me hearties!

Your dear friend, who churns out intriguing, comical and just embarrassingly absurd posts has done it again...

Find the bug in the code, written by murali, below...Note that it is a logical bug, and that the code compiles just fine...You can try compiling it once if ya wants...

Oh I've replaced the actual 'get_rtt' function to spare you homo sapiens the gory details...

The 'main' function is used to calculate the Round Trip Time (RTT) for a packet in TCP networks, and see how many times my calculation differs from my previous calculation.

This is all u guys need to know... But thats not the point...the bug is really funny :D

******************************************************************
#include stdio.h
#define alpha 0.15

int main()
{

long i =0,count=0;

double sample, estimate;

long timeout;
estimate = sample = 0.0;

for ( i = 0; i < 1,000,000 ; i++ )
{
sample = get_rtt();

estimate = sample * (alpha) + estimate * (1-alpha);

if ( sample > estimate ) count++;

timeout = 2 * estimate;
}

printf("The number of unnecessary re-transmissions is %d\n", count);
}

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

My Birthday

2009-04-05T19:54:00.007+05:30

This was me, a day before I was gonna turn 25...Things weren't looking too bright, I'm afraid...
I mean, who could see this and say "ah, what brilliance and insight of a 25 yr old now-jawaan...A spectacular artistic rendition of a giraffe, a police car and a flower oh so enchanting! Out of this world!!"

Well, the Sun did rise the next morning and i DID turn 25...Woke up earl early and went straight to play cricket! It has become something of a routine, to play cricket on weekends...Challenged software engineers waking up at that hour on a weekend is an achievement alright!

Came back home exhausted and got ma's blessings n wishes n gifts (dad had already wished me earl early :) Then went to God and said hi hello how you doing ok barla?

Then had a yummmmmmmmmmy meal consisting of:

1. Jamooooooooons :D
2. Bisi bele bath
3. Gasgase payasa (Sesame Kheer...beware of the intoxicating properties of this fella!)

No sooner did i gulp two glasses of item no. 3, than i was fast asleep...Woken up by annoying msgs and calls from Girz! He HAD to pick today to take me and drink a juice?! In that drowsy mood, I leave the house with him...He leaves his helmet and a cover in my room <----- NOTE! We go have a chattings and a juice respectively...Come back home, he asks me to get his stuff...And I enter my room to:

and a bunch of ppl yelling "SURPRRIIIIIIIISE!!!"

You can only guess how it went from there onwards...The candle laying, the cake cutting, the birthday bumps et cetera...Whats under wraps was Girz calling ahead, Ktk buying the cake, Srini getting me a gift (a "Dark Knight" DVD!! Woo I am kicked about it babe!), Naren Sac and Ash showing up right on time to be part of the fun, and all of them refusing to hide with Srini in the bathroom

Its an overwhelming feeling, knowing that the ppl u care about are in that room FOR you, with you, wanting to make you feel happy and enjoy themselves in this company... (I can vividly visualize Girz and Naren scolding me for blabbering and sentimentalling so I'll stop, what? :)

Now to the interesting, thought provoking side of the day...Two of my friends told me that I "have everything" and that there's no such thing that I "need or want", and it was hard to find a gift for me...I found that a rather amusing summary of my 25 year old reign as sole ruler of Muraliland...I mean, I have my "needs" (:D) right? Isn't there really anything "realistic"/"material" that I can be gifted, once a year? (without sounding egoistic)

And I sit now at the end of a rather satisfying day, drawing up the account books, cos no birthday (atleast of mine) goes by without some sort of retrospection...What DO I have?

A loving family
A great house in a fantastic locality
A job with not too many tensions (debatable :D)
A great bunch of friends

I guess the claims made by two of my cronies weren't horribly wrong after all...... :)

Cheers!

Listening to : One Small Love, by Thermal and a Quarter

*****
Update at 10.47 PM
*****

Manchester United just came back from the dead, trailing 1-2 to beat Aston Villa 3-2. The reason my fore finger on the left hand is currently slightly swollen is because the winner was scored late into extra time. And I hit whatever I could find in sight, in pure joy and celebration. If there could be a more stupendous and ecstatic way to end the day, please leave a comment.

P.S : Yes, I take my Football seriously.

Innovative Film City

2009-04-02T12:15:00.005+05:30

Last Saturday Murali and family went to Innovative Film City.
Mastaagittu!

Even after leaving rather late (around 12 when we left), and reaching there by lunch time, we managed to see quite a bit of this partially complete mimic of Hyderabad's pride...Well, atleast its name sounds similar, but Innovative has quite a few unique things to boast...

The entrance and the gothic statues are pretty similar...A show of grandeur, elaborate and large statues and arches. And once we got past that, we realized that Saturday needn't be the best time to visit this place.

School Children!

They were at that right age where they will make noise just about for anything...And this, after knowing that they shouldnt! They're old enough to know that, but since there aren't any parents here, and the teachers have given up, they run riot!

Anyways, first stop was Louis Tussaud's Wax museum! (Isn't it supposed to be Madame?) Some awesome ones, some u'd wanna get away from, and some trivia! Good beginning and move on amigos...

Ripley's Believe it or not museum...The video below is nice! Go on, I'll wait till you're done...And sorry for making you tilt ur neck to the left...it seems my phone's camera has some weird disease (i read on the web that it is called horizontalasis or somethin like that...)

From the world's smallest things (books on rice, faces on mosquitoes etc etc) to ancient killing devices, to illusions like the one above, u've got it all...Definitely for the inquisitive ones, worth taking ur time on this one!

Lunch was not too eventful...Quite a lot of options when it comes to food, especially Non Veg food...

And post lunch was the highlight! Roller Skates!!!!
There's a rink right there and for a 100 bucks, u can skate (fall, in my case) as much as u want!
There's something about moving by means other than walking!

Happy, tired we went back home! And I headed off to St Joseph's College for Commerce, for my guru and idol Bruce Lee Mani's band Thermal and a Quarter were performing there, as part of the "Shut up and Vote!" Tour (yes! they're touring and everything :) )

Was an awesome Saturday all in all...Couldn't have asked for more!

P.S : Of course they rocked!

food from hell

2009-03-26T22:16:00.001+05:30

Chained?

2009-03-15T18:41:00.003+05:30

Are all events in this big, bad world chained, somehow? Indirectly? Remotely?
Or atleast, do some events have the ability to influence others? Like, the choices that you make take not only your life and the events in a day of your life in one, out of two, lanes, BUT it ALSO influences actions/events/happenings that you're very very remotely linked/associated to?

Wait lemme give you an example...

Recently, a friend of mine did something she has not done in her whole late teen/adult life...She asked me whether I'd wanna join her n her friends to watch a movie tonight...Me being a super crazy Manchester United fan turned down her offer, I'm sure much to her surprise and a little bit of chagrin, cos there was a big game on at the same time as the movie...Of course, the times overlapped in just the right way, so that I was very tempted to consider the generous offer and try to watch the movie as well as catch a bit of the match...

Which is what I probably should've done....

Cos as if to taunt me, the Man Utd players turned up for the big occasion with cold feet! One of the world's biggest soccer clubs, who I've watched tear clubs apart week in week out, grind out and sometimes conjure up magical results, collapsed under the sheer pressure of the stage! How they could perform so below their usual high standards is beyond me...

Until I started thinking a bit out of the box...What if, my choice had been different? What if I'd given up the match to watch the movie? What'd have happened then? I know you're shaking ur head with a smirk on ur face, which conveys the expression "oh come ON Murali...even for ur standards, u are stretching it a bit here", but stay with me for a moment....

We've all seen those interesting, intricate setups (notably a long car ad, i forget the manufacturer's name) : a ball falling on a stick, which taps a cardboard piece, which switches on a fan, which blows sand into....... What if the world is one such huuuuuuuuuge, complicated, mess of organized events? What if it is all pre-programmed? What if it isn't? If its not, then who makes the rules? Or are we all wildly spinning out of control, constantly and precisely, just enough to stay alive and stay sane?

Well, after this post no guarantees can be made about the "sane" part for me...

P.S : I'm pretty sure there're are quite a few loopholes in this theory... the "if it is so, then how do you explain...?"s ...You know where to click :)

Time of my life

2009-03-06T16:18:00.004+05:30

Yes I had the time of my life, the last week...

To be more precise, (cos one of my friends smirked at and cajoled the notion of it having been labeled a 'South India Tour'...), I had a time of my life as I sailed thru the towns of Alleppey, Trivandrum, Nagercoil, Kanyakumari, Kovalam and Pondicherry!

The valiant (to MAKE plans, with hectic work schedules and lack of availability of a leave of absence, in this recession ridden time) team :

Narendra Kumaaar
Vinay V
Girish H V
Swami Perumalananda aka Srinivas (internal joke)
Meself!

Rather than make an effort to capture that very organized trip (train and hotel booking done pretty much in all destinations before we left), I'll go for the haphazard approach and try to put down those visions of paradise that I am left with now....

Alleppey

A small town famous for its backwaters, so thats where we went! This was kinda off season, so we were treated like royalty by cash hungry travel agents and massagers alike (Griz n I managed to squeeze in an Ayurvedic massage for ourselves in Alleppey...If you haven't tried it yet, u SHUD! )... While wiki'ing about it, i also read that this places is famous for its boat races, so if u wanna club that too and visit this place, i'd recommend it...it is a nice, small, laidback town with the tourism and fishing industry making the bulk of the revenue (i guess)

Beware! It can get pretty hot in select parts of Kerala...And alleppey is no exception...for the first two days, as we battled to transition from namma chinna dantha bengalooru to the humid n hot keralaesque weather, we realized what we'd signed up for...But all that sweat sure didn't dampen our spirits! (it may've dampened the hotel bed covers...we slept quite a bit on the trip :P )

And oh, the beach holds a special place in all our hearts, especially mine n naren's, cos this is where we literally kicked perumal's ass (birthday bumps!)...26 feetal, lethal and misplaced blows to srini's spine and derriere from our sandy legs! Oh thet was a good eh?! :D

KanyaKumari - The bummer

Everything was going like a hot, humid breeze until we landed at the southern most tip of India...Srini couldn't shake off his "feeling" of him being on the edge of the map, and he had a point....The railway tracks at Kanyakumari lead upto a wooden structure on which is painted 'STOP' !!

This is the famous place where Swami Vivekananda came and meditated, sometime in 1892...
In some sticky weather, we landed here and after finding a hotel room right next to the gorgeous, breathtaking vast expanse of oceans (yes plural!!), we slowly realized that this place was more of a religious place (and a honeymoon spot...boy i don't get tired of THAT phrase!)...On the whole, all of us (except VV) felt that we should split asap, so we ended up going to

Kovalam - South India of Goa

Yay Kovalam! We'd to get take a taxi to get from Kanyakumari to Kovalam, but it was so worth it! Once again the kind taxi driver cum hotel guide led us to a decent bachelor pad, a place where we could stretch out our legs after a day of exhausting fun, where we could dump our luggage and where we could watch tv while finishing bottles and bottles of .... water while playing uno!

We hit the beach the very evening we got there and this turned out to be better than alleppey! For starters, my the dial on my excitement meter rose super cos we played some awesome football in the sand there with an Englishman! There's something about roughing it out in a strange land, in strange sand and an English gaand, cos thats just what he was...The minute he asked us whether we wanted "uh gaime?" (a game), he started showin off his footballin skills...
He also showed himself to be a cheating loser in the middle of the game as he unfairly blocked me off when i was about to score! But the whole thing was soopar fun!!

And we also walked down shady alleys and dark roads to a restaurant called Lonely Planet...Expensive shit, but probably the only Veg restaurant in a place where lobsters, shrimps, crabs and whatnot sea creatures were on display on every seaside restaurant! No wonder its named "lonely planet"....

Pondicherry - The Cool City

You must hand it to this place...Even in the sweltering heat, it still manages to throw vibes of a serene, laidback place...Check into a beach side hotel, wake up late in the morning, hire a bicycle if u want, just roam around the city with no aim and still u'll run into a book store, a fancy coffee place or the din of the market...You'd probably wanna save the market for the evenings, cos u'll find ALL kindsa stuff here! (oh yeah!)...ooh ooh but when u'll go and wet ur feet in the beach then!? And u just can't ignore the Aurobindo ashram and Auroville right?
Shucks! a small town and so much to do...Even though my one day there consisted mainly of the discovery of a divine restaurant and quintals of sleeping, i severely liked the place! Mental note to revisit some day, with an agenda to do nothing again :D

How do I end this one?
By sharing something I learnt on this trip. This will sound a bit cliched or phony, but it pretty much applies to the trip as a whole...Amazing what all a cute, bald lil kid can say

"Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.
That there is no spoon. Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself."

It'd be a worthwhile thought experiment to replace "spoon" by "other's egos" :)

A-musing

2009-02-25T22:33:00.002+05:30

If I were to play the saxophone, would I look saxy?

Chronicling such bad jokes is a healthy way to take a break and should be encouraged.
The deranged mind has spoken!
Bang!

2009-02-19T16:59:00.000+05:30

The answer obviously depends on the number of passengers.

Maiden Heaven

2009-02-17T08:26:00.002+05:30

Somewhere back in time, this happened...

This time around, even with Grini (He's Srini and he likes Green tea...heh!) jumping up and down about the concert, almost everytime we met for 2 months leading upto the concert, the liveliness was not in the heart and the old bean was leading the charge in diminishing the spirit of adventure that beckoned in the form of an enthralling concert.

In bloody short, i wasn in the mood to go.
"I've grown older. "
"I've already been there."
"Its too expensive."
(At this point, way too late I'm afraid, I'd like to introduce Mr. VoiceInsideMyHead...He's been with our production company for a long time now, and is actually an unsung hero. He's been a key contributor (corporate jargon aakthoo at self) in rolling out many brilliant posts, and the material responsible for the laudable literature)

Yennyways....

And then, lo behold a miracle, for one thing led to another, and I got convinced, eh? (Price reduction of ticket from 1600 to 500 certainly helped matters, but wasn't the clincher).

The next scene is that of 4 of us entering the venue with a swagger, at around 5.30 pm, while the gates to heaven had already opened at 12! Our friendly neighborhood pessimist Drini was expecting us to be standing at the exit, craning our necks for one good look. No saaach theeng happnnnd maaan. We were greeted by a more sophisticated layout than last time, what with a romanov stall in the smack bang in the middle of the venue! A huge queue at the Kingfisher stall nearby, and oh I don't need to tell you about the junkies right?

But the rest of the post is gonna be about Maiden (I will refrain from talking much about the shit-eating, pathetic, loser bands who opened for maiden, apart from Parikrama...Their definition of music and melody is what is below hell.)

1. They fly down to their concerts in their own aircraft, cos the lead singer is also a trained and licensed pilot.
2. They're a pretty old band, but have the energy levels of 20 yr olds.
3. They fuckin LOVE bangalore. And vice versa.
4. They have made some of the most amazing and unique songs in Rock History (To lovers of Rock and Guitar riffs alike, I recommend Phantom of the Opera and Wasted Years to prove my point)
5. Although my body continually kept reminding me that I was pushing it a bit, my mind was forced to overpower it by the sheer enthusiasm and energy!! I did feel the aftermath the next day, but it was felt with a feeling of prolonged satisfaction and pride! \m/
6. These guys aren't just a bunch of metalheads with an aim to be "loud" and "popular". Their songs have some hidden significance, some history, some meaning. In short, there's a reason why they're revered by fans and other bands alike, all over the world!

The speakers weren't upto the standards expected. The lead guitars, a dazzling trio!, were continually underplayed or were muffled in comparison to the never-say-die vocals of Bruce. But when we were able to clearly discern the sounds, it was mesmerising! And what made it almost surreal was the ease with which they went about it...Kudos to Adrian, Dave and Janick! You ROCK!

All in all, a memorable experience! My 2nd metal concert...We all came out, our voices sounding like Amitabh Bachchan in Agnipath, but our hearts n minds like those of kids satiated to the max! :)

To Kill a Mocking Bird

2009-02-07T09:39:00.002+05:30

How easy is it to remove a person from one's life?

And how easy is it to be at the receiving end of such a thing inflicted on you by somebody else??

Yes, thats exactly what I wanna ask at this moment...How "easy" is it? As in, do you have any tips and tricks oh marauding reader? Take off that mask and speak from your heart...And also go ahead and assume the importance of the person, with some caution, in one's life...

Mind you, while you're at it, you'll have to deal with stupid, complex emotions like nostalgia, unfairness, a sense of loss etc etc. But somehow, the brain manages to delude itself into forgetting that the reason that u're pruning/being pruned off surpasses all others...its happening cos there's a reason right? And it wouldn't, unless the reason was strong enough...

Even if the reason is an emotional one...(Is 'an emotional reason' an oxymoron?? :chuckle )
Even if you've cared for that person genuinely, honestly...Even if you gave up somethings for that person's sake cos you cared and wished good things to happen for that person...
Even if you convinced yourself to ignore their follies, faults and deceit, cos you cared for your long term friendship more than those one time actions...

Thank you.
I'm much stronger now...

Kumara Parvatha - Beauty beyond belief...

2009-01-27T14:02:00.004+05:30

Moral of the story : If you're an amateur/wannabe trekker and/or haven't been physically active for a month leading upto the trek, you're gonna have a rough time. As yours truly found out...

Yet, this trek was a legendairy experience! In this post, which shall narrate the story of the scaling of the hill named Kumara Parvatha, there is

Comedy!
Drama!
Action!
Perspiration!

aaaaaaaaand...

NUDITY!

Intrigued?! :D Read on...

Friday night we leave Saturday morning get to Kukke Subramanya leave after 2 hours of getting there 8-10 kms of gruelling up hill trekking reach small guest house types called Bhattr mane have lunch then sleep in tents till 4.30 am start again early Sunday morning 5.15 am (sleep, oh sleep, where art thou!?) trek in dark for 3 hours empty stomach then breakfast then trek more reach peak at 10 am become breathless at sight start trek back lunch at bhattr mane at 2 pm and back to kukke at 5.30 pm

Whats the word I'm looking for? Ah..."Nutshell"...Yeah thats what that was...

And believe me, thats how the trip literally breezed through me! Two days full of huffing puffing chatting laughing singing eating eating eating and very little sleeping! On an average, the inclination at which we trekked uphill was around 30-40 degrees. Very few stretches of flat land...

Saturday is when it all started...The bus ride to get to Kukke was really abysmal, mostly because of a rather painful stretch of a semblance of a road...It woke all of us up at around 3 in the morning and didn't allow us to get some well needed rest...Anyways, we started at around 7.30 after some freshening up and started the trek...

Our first objective was to get to a place where we would have lunch (FOOD! more on it later...) and rest for the rest of Saturday.

Name : Bhattara mane.
Approx Distance : 8-10 kms
Terrain : moderate to rough, uphill

And so we trekked...3/4th of it was under the caring enclosure of the forest, and the Sun wasn't at its meanest so for a while it was all hunky dory and 'i'm one with nature' and all that...After a while, your lungs tend to push against your rib cage saying 'uh we're gonna be needing some oxygen here and PRONTO!'...And that's when u start thinking whether u really saw that snake slither into the bushes or not...

And just when you've given up all hope and are waiting for the sweet release, the forest ends and you're out in the open...Dehydrated, De-energized and de-bangalored! And that one bigggg spotlight's one you...And every step carries leads to ten more, and the trail never seems to end...And oh look, the water bottle in ur hand seems almost empty and ppl are giving vague numbers about how much farther away the destination is!

Just before you're throw up ur hands (if u have the willingness to) God says 'oko kok okokok here just around the corner'...And you get to Bhattr mane and throw ur head face hands whatever u can under the cooooooold water coming straight from heaven, through the tap! And then we eat!

Lunch @ Bhattr mane is a simple affair, a mean meal...A round plate, covered with rice so that u can't spot an inch of steel, and some sort of sambhar as a sumptuous topping. After that kinda trek, you'll eat pretty much anything. And there's pickle (Salt and electrolytes for the body according to VaatalMan...More about that later) and buttermilk. Buttermilk again very cooling and soothing and sigh...Vaatal was doing tequila shots of them! :D

Saturday ended with Antakshari and sleeping in tents. I sang my heart out and made the mistake of not wearing socks while sleeping, respectively.

Sunday early morning was uniquely fun! A torch and you and the quest to find some solitude to "download" as VaatalMan calls it, at 4.30 am. Oh and don't forget the bottle of water. After 3 minutes of careful reconnaissance, I mooned the wilderness and finished my duties! At some point, I was scared about the fact that a snake might find my posture a wee bit inviting and "jump" at the prospect! No such tings tankfully!

The early morning chill, a dark night trek's thrill and the stars. A perfect recipe for scintillation...and danger! We scaled in the darkness, slipping here, sliding there on an empty stomach. Harsh conditions indeed, but it has its merits! Remember the stars? Well apparently this place is very famous for shooting stars! I just missed one, in my stupid endeavour to capture the mesmerizing canvas on which God plays with dots. At which point somebody wisely said, "Some scenes are meant only for the human eye"...How true...

"MOoooooooooooooooorning's here! The morning's Here Sunshine is here! "

We missed the sun rise from the peak alright, but the peak did its magic by hiding the Sun from us and revealing it slowly like a rising curtain. As we felt the morning chill disappear slowly, we started to see the splendor around us. Must've been boring for those hills to just lie there day after day, getting hit by the Sun, but it sure did create a breathtaking spectacle. And it was just more inspiring as we scaled higher, to know what we're conquering : A majestic peak, and more so, ourselves....

And then the peak itself! One of the longest walks of my life has been the last few steps to get to the ever enticing flag, mounted to signify the end of your journey. The "mountainous" desire to just sit down RIGHT THERE weighing heavy on my shoulders and ur mind, and the Sun shining brighter than a thousand Suns didn't make it easy. But I did it...And GOD it was awesome!

"Climbing down is easier than climbing up"
"It takes lesser time to climb down than climb up"

Hindsight : Throw all that out of the window for KP folks. Cos its shit steep! And if you're climbing down in broad daylight, you'll be daylight's broad (you'll get done, like a starter in Barbecue nation).

Different people went back home with different aches n sores, and also with the exhilaration of a memorable conquest! Cheers KP!

P.S :

Before I sign off, a few words of praise for my mate in the trip, Vaatalman. (The moniker cos he looks just like Vaatal Nagaraj with his shades and that signature topi of his...Err, not so signature after all! )

He, as much as possible, waited for me to catch up (I had a tough time of it most of the time). Offered me practical advice like :

1. The glucose / electoral will help in preventing u from cramping up.
2. Always breath through the nose, and not through the mouth.

Thanks....

Life

2009-01-19T22:54:00.002+05:30

This is a purely non philosophical post. Please read on if u even have minimalistic scientific inclinations...

"....If u imagine the 4500 million years of Earth's history compressed into a normal day, then life begins very early, at about 4 a.m, with the rise of the first simple, single-celled organisms, but then advances no further for the next sixteen hours (!).

Not until about eight thirty in the evening, with the day about five sixths over, has the Earth anything to show the Universe but a restless skin of microbes. Then finally the first seaplants appear, followed by the first jellyfish, and the enigmatic Ediacaran fauna. At 9.04 pm trilobites swim onto the scene. Just before 10 pm, plants pop onto the scene. Soon after, with less than 2 hours left in the day, the first land creatures arrive.

Thanks to 10 minutes or so of balmy weather, by 10.24 the Earth is covered in great carboniferous forests whose residues give us all the coal, and the first winged insects are evident. Dinosaurs plod onto the scene just before 11 pm. and hold sway for about 3/4th of an hour. At 21 minutes to midnight they vanish and the age of mammals begins.

Humans emerge one minute and seventeen seconds before midnight.

The whole of our recorded history, on this scale would be no more than a few seconds, a single lifetime barely an instant.

Throughout this greatly speeded up day, continents regularly slide and bang into each other at a clip that seems reckless. Mountains rise and melt away, oceans come and go, ice sheets advance and withdraw. And throughout the whole, once about 3 times minute, there is a flash bulb pop of a light marking the incidence of a Mansonized meteor or larger. Its a wonder that anything at all can survive in such a pummeled and unsettled environment. In fact, not many things do for long......"

Bill Bryson, you rock!

I LOVE TRAINS!

2008-12-31T11:36:00.002+05:30

Pal do pal ka, saath hamaara
Pal do pal ke, yaarane.....

Lines from a legen dairy movie called "The Burning Train"...Pretty star studded line up in the movie (Amitabh missing though...hmmm)

Anyways, these two lines were reverberating inside my head as I got off the Kachiguda express...It is rather hard (not impossible) to sit in a train for close to 10 hours and not have adventures...

AARGGH!

was the expression inside my head as I was lugging the nearly 12 Kilo luggage bag towards the train, making mental notes of never travelling with somebody who's completed a week long trip! But I get to the door of our compartment and voila!, there she was...

She was talkin on the phone walkin up and down the small corridor outside the compartment...I forcefully tear myself away from her and start lugging the monstrosity of a bag onto the train...We just arrive at our seats and the train starts moving!

She comes back...And she's in our compartment...AND she's reading a book called 'SHANTARAM'...AND she's all alone and silent and brooding and mysterious...The plot thickens....

Turns out my sis in law knows a few of the ppl riding with us in our compartment, so after a while of chit chat, a gang of 6-7 ppl are playing UNO. Midway, a (desperate?) side of me wakes up and asks her 'u wanna join us?'...She gives a shyish super smile and says "No thanks..." with the eyebrow lowering and what not, to put me in what knots! (Background song : Ye uthe subah chale, ye jhuke shaam dhaleeeee...)

UNO can get boring, u know, and there comes a time when u have to throw up ur hands (after placing the cards down) and say 'Enuf!'...That time is dinner time.

We munch on some home made fuud (I luvya ma!) and wash our hands off it (literally)...But she's just sitting there, without dinner...My sis in law asks her about her dinner, and she says it was supposed to come, but hasn't, and probably won't...And throw in the sympathy angle, on top of all the alluring mystery...

At guntkal (God bless that station!), she gets down to get some dinner...
And I get down to find some courage!...And the privacy which had been eluding me ever since i got on the chuku buku...

A very well utilized 25 minute break, i started the conversation with a lame, albeit effective "you hadn't got anything for dinner??"........

Bottom line : I spoke to a girl I didn't know, rather pretty/cute n all, and almost got her interested in me (She asked me what I do for weekends! Some of u may be going 'aaaah THATs what u r basing her interest in u on?' but don't :-) )...It was sad that I couldn't take it further than that, cos of various reasons...But more importantly, it was one sweet short and interesting moment that happened inside God's blessing to travelling mankind : a train...

Cheerios!

People

2008-12-28T22:45:00.002+05:30

Ever felt like going to a place where there're no people u know?
In fact, ever felt like going somewhere where there're no ppl at all?!

A mountain top, a lonely beach, a forsaken island...

One'd probably wanna come back in like an hour or so...Come back to civilization, surroundings that u're familiar with...Cos most ppl are social animals...Those who say that "they're a rock, they're an island" are bluffing ya...In fact, on the flip side, they're probably the ones who desire company most and are frantically trying to convince themselves of the contrary.

I'm a realist and hence I'll admit that I'll maybe wanna come back in an hour...

But what brings u to that point in the first place maga?

Adu happens when u're sad or angry...And either is a result of things not going the way u wanted them to or ppl not acting the way u wanted them to (I'll refrain from using the cliched 'exp...' word).

When it happens with ppl u've known for a while, when u observe them acting in a seemingly (seems to u atleast :) ) unreasonable manner, its a bit more unsettling than usual...

Ah okay...that makes sense.

All in a day's work

2008-12-22T19:01:00.003+05:30

Got this in an email....These were comments in a bug page, the title of the bug being :

incorrect error messages encountered when running cli command

And here's somebody who wrote a comment in that bug, explaining the whole thing.

"
Here's what the error messages states when trying to execute an command within the
CLI.

irene:> start /XYZ/console
Are you sure you want to start /XYZ/console (y/n)?
Are you really sure you want to start /XYZ/console (y/n)?
Are you not sure you don't want to start /XYZ/console (y/n)?
Starting /XYZ/console may cause liver cancer. Are you still sure (y/n)?
Have you read and agreed to the /XYZ/console terms of use (y/n)?
Do you always lie about having read and agreed to terms of use (y/n)?
Do you lie about everything (y/n)?
Are you sure you want to start /XYZ/console (y/n)?

As you might have inferred, we're just fooling around; this is the appliance,
not the service processor -- you can't get to the service processor console
from here. To get to the service processor (and to the console), you will need
to connect a serial cable or network cable to the correct port on the
appliance, and connect to it via the appropriate means; see appliance
documentation for details.
irene:>
"

hi loser

2008-12-13T22:55:00.003+05:30

Who is he? He's a funny papachi loser, who "fights" in an "ekdum action" environment called TNA wrestling.

Here I am sitting with my laptop on my spinal cord (counter intuitive to the name of the machine? :D ) and the tv's running and there's this ad of TNA which runs as follows :

"Whenever in any village within 100 kms from here, a baby cries, the baby's mother says ' sleep, (this is where my brain gave me a jolt and made me actually "listen" to the ad), sleep my kid otherwise kurt angle will come".

For those who're scratching ur heads and wondering whether ur beloved Murali has actually totally lost it and gone cuckoo, the line above, in Hindi, was uttered famously by the inimitable Late Amjad Khan as Gabbar Singh!!

Gawddddddd!

Gnanada MuttugaLu

2008-12-12T17:58:00.002+05:30

Literally translated, the subject line means 'wisdom's pearls'....

The fans of the English language will take the trouble of the re-ordering it.

Read on....

Sage: heheh

you are funny

me: sometimes ashte

i've lost my touch, i've been told

Sage: by who?

me: mostly orchids...fish also sometimes (orchids and fish refer to two ppl here...name mangling done deliberately :D and badly, i must say )

heenamaanavaagi bytaane (he scolds ekkachikki)

avnantu

Sage: hmmm

eno...

but yenagatte gotta

me: yeah?

Sage: if you spend too much time with a person,

it will be like shutting yourslef in a room with back-to-back episodes of seinfeld for 2 weeks

horage bandaaga, avr joke gaLu, punch line gaLu... ashtella yaake... kaNN miTkso frequency nu guess maaDbahudu (when you come out, their jokes, punch lines... why all that... you can guess the frequency with which they'll blink their eyes too)

What the sage is basically saying is if u spend too much time with another person, u become predictable in their eyes and the charm's kinda lost...Nothing seems unique or new, and it tends to be boring...

Interesting point?

How GPRS saved the g err day

2008-11-29T16:00:00.003+05:30

So my brother's in town and he's an outright all night party animal, so he, his friend n wife n I are slated to arrive at Swagath Garuda, Jaynagar at 9.40 on a Friday night to watch (hold thy breath) Dostana.....

The prospect of watching a possibly inane movie made by an alleged homosexual guy (not too many doubts now after watchin the movie...theete teerskondbitta baddimaga...) was not too inviting...Matters became worse when we got to the theatre only to find out that our tickets have been given to somebody else...

It having been an eventful day, my bro didn't have the 'booking no.' on self at 9.40 pm. Out whipped my phone was by the me and i logged into gmail...Good ol' gmail application and my slightly sluggish ( :D ) phone took its time, but finally yielded the result! After some 'here sir' and 'sorry for the inconvenience sir' et al, we were sitting down...And boy was the timing right!

Priyanka Chopra's introduction in the movie has not been handled by Karan Johar I think...I can't call it tastefully done, but they focused on all the 'pertinent' aspects of her...The 3 protagonists put on their best american english (yet indelibly desi) accents and waltz through the film in immaculate clothing and posh locations, with emotions and loads of gay innuendos...

The bottom line of the movie. Spoiler coming up. Two men who aren't gay in the first place, but pretend to be a gay couple, eventually END up committing a rather gay act in front of a score of ppl for a girl !!!

The first half of the movie is cleverly humorous, although blatant and in ur face and 'yaaawn' in some of its jokes...The second half merits the choking of the Karan Johar.

The END.
Shalom.

What the!?

2008-11-20T19:28:00.003+05:30

I am walking towards the conference room...

I open the door...

I look at the room...all seats taken...People are already sitting on the floor, relaxed and chatting with each other...A rather mirthy atmosphere also, if i may add.

And then i turn towards the left...And see the huge screen, meant for a projector...And I do a double take...

CricInfo.com

My section level meeting ladies and gents!!!

Endings and Beginnings

2008-11-12T19:44:00.002+05:30

I will need this as a record sometime, so here it is :

I quit HP 3 days ago, after what seemed like a rather long sojourn of 3 yrs, 4 months and 6 days.

The day was the 12th of November. It was an extremely coupla days including and leading upto it, cos I was in denial. I experienced the psychological symptom of denial in its full force during this period.

I didn't, couldn't think of the fact that I would be leaving this company...The company where I didn't work, but played...With colleagues, with 5 of my college friends at different times of my stay...It was a transition every fresher dreams of, straight from the playground called college to another corporate playhouse where u get paid for having fun!

There's a dark side to all this frolic...Sometimes things got too personal, and the pressure drove me close to madness...And I'd be lying if I said that I don't take any of that away from HP; But it'd be harsh to say that I made a jittery start to my career...one weighs such things and one sees that one's 'good thingsu' pan is much much heavier :)

We return to the present, and we're in the last day...A rather dazed Murali is going through the tasks of a typical 'last day'. Several people ask him whether he's feeling ok, alright etc. What they don't realize is the denial is melting into realization and fear and sadness...Realization of what he'd done, Fear of what's ahead and sadness of ...Lets leave that to him shall we?

As I separate myself from him and look at how he's handling all the people coming to his cube to wish him a bright future and telling him in certain tones that he'll do well, i can now clearly see what i felt then...I wasn't talking to them then...A zombie was..."Hi...Yeah I am...Yeah, its today...Ah hah ha...Thanks, thanks a lot!!...Yeah I will, I have ur number/mail id" etc etc

And that evening...it all came tumbling out...It'll suffice to say that the moon was beautiful that evening...Somehow managed to notice it...

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

The contrast of the people, their attitude towards me in their presence today, was huuuuuuuge...

Oh I'm comparing my first day @ Sun, with my last day @ HP btw! Welcome to DivyaShree chambers, a relic in its own right, but with magnificient "corporate" interiors...Pretty receptionists to impatient HR ladies to lazy and careless software engineers...You've got em all sire!

Murali in HP on 10th Nov 2008 : Adored and respected (to a certain level) for his contributions and his personality.

Murali in Sun on 12th Nov 2008 : Uh, which one is he again!?

Those of you going "duh what else didja expect?!" (thats u sheetal) are absolutely right...I'm not contesting the existance of a difference...I'm just drawing ur attention to the magnitude.. :Dumbledorish bow

:D

And oh, Solaris is slow!! The keyboard is ohmygosh weird, and the people are alternatingly aloof and caring! I'll get used to it I guess, like everything else...

Well, getting used to it doesn't mean forgetting you and the past ok na?

A song for every occasion...

2008-11-04T22:04:00.001+05:30

I must be invisible;
No one knows me.
I have crawled down dead-end streets
On my hands and knees.

I was born with a ragin thirst,
A hunger to be free,
But Ive learned through the years.
Dont encourage me.

cause Im a lonely stranger here,
Well beyond my day.
And I dont know whats goin on,
So Ill be on my way.

When I walk, stay behind;
Dont get close to me,
cause its sure to end in tears,
So just let me be.

Some will say that Im no good;
Maybe I agree.
Take a look then walk away.
Thats all right with me.

I'll be on my way....

Did you know...

2008-11-03T15:45:00.002+05:30

...........

Bitchess : You bitch of a sun...
Mr Li : If I'm a bitch, then you're a bitchess...
Bitchess : So that does make me a dog?
Mr Li : No...you're a gay dog...and that's why a bitchess
Bitchess : Ha...that was a brilliant explanation...

:D

Goodbye DC

2008-11-03T11:19:00.002+05:30

David Coulthard is a Formula One racing driver.
Or he used to be...

That's cos he retired at the end of the recently concluded scintillating Brazilian Grand prix. Pretty tall, British and supposed to've raced for top teams in his peak...Now I wasn't too big a fan of his, but got to know a couple of really interesting facts about him!

When once he'd won a race with McLaren, it seems he'd turned out to receive his trophy in a Superman costume!
They were showing bloopers/behind the scenes footage of the preview show for a formula one race (the show's called RaceDay). There's this rather sexy female anchor of the show, who's interviewing DC before his last race. She asks him "So what'll you miss most on the Formula One circuit DC?" And he says, without any emotion on his face, "I'll really miss looking down your nice cleavage during an interview"

Hilllarious!

auto raja

2008-10-26T14:46:00.002+05:30

is the name of a kannada movie, by shankar nag, which sorta immortalized and elevated the status of an auto driver, his hard ships, his big aortic pump (heart) etc etc

In the past week, I've had the fortune of traveling in an auto, with some rather colourful drivers manning the wheel...

1. One guy asked me a "onnendaaf" fare (one and a half for those who haven't cracked it yet). When I protested, he said "en saar neev software novre hing and bittre?" and shaved off 10 bucks on the condition that we'd both (me n the auto driver) smoke a cigarette together!

2. At 10 pm in the night after a rather hilarious play, bro sis in law n I catch an auto. All's fine till we encounter some traffic cops with breath analyzers. At this point somebody (dont remember who) ponders about the mechanics of this exercise of catching alcoholic drivers... And the driver gives us his glimpses of drunk driving episodes that he's seen in his illustrious career!

He tells us about this drunk guy at 11 pm in gandhi bazaar who takes his brand new shiny white tata indica and drives it neither on the left nor the right but straight OVER the median on the road...of course 'under the influence'! ;)

So a few guys on the spot, including our beloved auto driver, rush to the spot to help him...But our elated indica guy is, apparently, talking about "making the car fly" over the median and onto the road...With a smile on his face...

At this point our auto driver in the role of narrator, is excited and leaves no details unmentioned...He goes on to use some expletives with my sis in law right there in the auto! funny :D

The indica was rescued, btw...

(Some) Auto drivers rock!

Jhoom le!

2008-10-19T00:03:00.002+05:30

Jhoom le has bol le pyaari agar hai zindagi
Saans ke bas, ek jhonke ka, safar hai zindagi :)

Hariharan is a funny looking man now.

He has a goatee kinda short beard below his lip, with mane type of hair extending upto the middle of his back, in a weird kinda plait.

All this is true and is to be focused upon until he hath his mouthshut.com

Cos once he opens it, there is nectar...The sweet nectar of ingenious, creative beyond par music!!

I got to his concert early, made friends (conversation) with a police constable who I found out lives close to my house, ate overpriced crappy snacks, walked around looking groups/couples of ppl and wishing how i had some company for 2 hours (thats RIGHT!) and at the end of it he comes and takes away all reason to complain...

Even in his madness, u see melody...His control over music, the accuracy and precision of notes he can produce can be explained, I think, using the following example : Take a grain of rice and divide it into a 100,000 pieces. If you think u can imagine how big each piece can be, then divide it into 10,000,000 pieces. Ah better...Each piece is equivalent to one fine sliver of tonal variations Hariji can distinguish between.

He's just awesome! And I got to see him from some 10 feet away, live, crooning away to glory, "tunn" (the hindi word) in his own ecstatic world!

And I come back home to a smiling mommy waiting for me with food and some kickass football!!
Good night indeed....

I cry, when angels deserve to die...

2008-10-07T19:47:00.003+05:30

It is a sin to be a good samaritan. Atleast, ur rewards aren't what you expect (Was I even expecting something?)

The scene is the square which holds the Coffee day in one corner. You will find a plethora of vehicles, on all the four roads, converging towards the center. And a rather generous display of uncouth, undisciplined driving at that.

So I come to a halt near the center, thinking I should try to help the jam. So I slowly back up one foot in my two wheeler and slightly touch the activa behind me. He says "aye aye aye aye AYE!" at first and before I can understand whats going on and utter an apology, he (with his wife and a small kid) are right next to me asking me to move to the side (I'm pretty much towards the centre of the road). Now I'd have offered some explanation as to why i was exhibiting inertia in a traffic jam, had he not have started uttering extremely vulgar swear words. I, amidst shock and anger, say "I'm not gonna go anywhere...you can go around me". (There was enough room). At this point, time T, he threatens to hit me. At time T+1 another guy props on the other side asking me to move. And as I turn to answer him, the first guy gives me one around the head.

I realize at this point that my temparature has reached the boiling point of blood. But I couldn't hit him. Civility, Nobility, the sight of a female with a kid and I don't know what else constrained me as I trembled against the strongest of impulses to throw a few back (I'm strongly ruing it now). He didn't stop cursing my mother...

So much for my social tendencies. I need some rehab...

On an aside, I observed that most ppl there were angry/impatient. Is there not one minute they can spare to allow another to pass, which COULD resolve the traffic jam? Apparently not. I made a mistake today and learnt it the hard way.

Seene mein jalan, aankhon mein toofan sa kyu hai?
Is sheher mein har shaks pareshaan sa kyu hai?

P.S : Anybody who reads this post and thinks that I'm a sissy or something like that, will be in for a rude shock...

Good morning

2008-10-05T09:15:00.002+05:30

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up thinking it must run faster than the lion or be killed.
Every morning in Africa, a lion awakens knowing it must outrun the slowest gazelle or starve to death.

It doesn't matter if you're a lion or a gazelle.
When the sun comes up, you'd better be running.

when to stop

2008-09-21T22:30:00.004+05:30

When a man lies, he murders that part of his world...

So, don't!!

Realize ur limits. Gratification can be a fickle and dangerous entity.

For sure, a trough is followed by a crest...

Remember the past

2008-09-14T22:27:00.002+05:30

Tears for remembrance, and Tears for joy
Tears for somebody, not this lonely boy...

These are lines from a Maiden cover called 'Remember Tomorrow'; "covered" by the Tallica boys.
If I didn't know better, I'd say this was their own song, their own composition...The way they totally make a song their own when they perform it! Thats what got me hooked onto them in the first place I guess (Nah, it was nothin else matters ;)

But hats off to Maiden to makin such a kickass song! I havent compared tallica's version with the original by Maiden, but sounds like a friggin good one!

There's something to Metallica, that puts you in touch with melancholy like nobody does (Ok u can't count floyd n stuff :P )... And I can't help but think about the past and the present when I listen to lines like the ones above... Where I was and Where I am now...My friends, my relationships...

All I need is just a little patience...

Btw, Death Magnetic is out! I've so far listened to only 1.5 songs, but I'll blindly like it I guess...There's something in their "sound" that I'll never give up on...

Wisdom Tooth

2008-09-07T11:03:00.002+05:30

is a misnomer, as most of you probably know already.

A wisdom tooth is actually the 3rd molar, which starts developing around the age of 17. This doesn't cause issues/problems in everybody. In some people, the jaw is too small to accommodate the 3rd molar (an extra tooth), and hence this molar starts growing in weird ways, causing infection to the neighboring teeth n stuff like that.

The only fleeting association of the poor teeth/tooth with Wisdom is the time at which this molar starts growing, which coincides the time when we "begin to grow up"...

My dentist informed me last night that, thankfully, I won't face too many issues cos of wisdom teeth!

Plus it was also fun at the dentist's last night cos of the strawberry flavoured anaesthetic that he applied on my gums...I was all "pfth sasfht flthtlh" for a while :D

There is no dark side of the moon really; Matter of fact its all dark...

2008-08-31T22:22:00.001+05:30

All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel.
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All you save.
And All that you give
And All that you deal
And All that you buy,
Beg, borrow or steal.
And All you create
And All you destroy
And All that you do
And All that you say.
And All that you eat
And everyone you meet
And All that you slight
And everyone you fight.
And All that is now
And All that is gone
All thats to come

And everything under the sun is in tune
But the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

How to lose your credit card

2008-08-29T22:39:00.002+05:30

Go to a petrol pump
Ask for petrol, like a chump

Get enough filled
Make sure naathins spilled

When it comes to payment, dont think hard
Here's ur friendly neighborhood credit card

Watch out in the bunk for the doped billing chap
For, credit cards he will swap

And he walks towards you, with a guilty look, the gaffer
And hands u the card of mohammed mustafa!

You've now successfully lost something valuable
And somebody'll make sure u pay for it (double meaning :D)

Good night and Shalom!

Gimme Red!!

2008-08-25T19:14:00.003+05:30

He's red, he's smooth and he's finally here!!

Funky mirrors, that delectable cruiser hum, and I can put a key into him, in 4 different places...

I like it all.....

And ooh ooh I forgive them all.... :D (That's just a cool line...Better than the cliched "Feel like God" n all)

2008-08-22T22:29:00.002+05:30

Its a known fact that one sometimes realizes the true value of something, when one is separated from the same thing in question...

I also recently realized how one something's worth can be re-asserted by the distortion of the same thing! See, u take something and mess it up so bad, that when u look at it and think about its former shape, you start realizing more clearly how beautiful it was in the first place...You probably realize it more than u had before it got whacked out of shape...

Example? Sureo

There's a kannada song which goes 'Ravi varmana kunchada kale, bhale, saakaaravu' (The art of the brush of Ravi Varma, wah wah)...As I made my way into the kitchen the other day for Mom's delicious breakfast (TM), I heard a cacophony on the radio; It was a remixed version of the song mentioned above, with the cruellest, most hideous of remix machines conjured up by mankind so far...Absolutely no respect for some aspects of the original, the vocalist lacking all the emotion so precisely and masterfully depicted in the original; it was an absolute disaster...

And people argue about why Kannada films are not supported more in our land...About why Kannada music is not encouraged and allowed to grow...

K J Yesudas once sang :

"Yellellu sangeethave, Yellellu soundaryave
Kelalu kiviyiralu, nodalu kanniralu....
Yellellu sangeethave, Yellellu soundaryave"

(There's music every where, there's beauty everywhere
When there are ears to hear, and eyes to see...
There's music every where, there's beauty everywhere)

Sigh.....

Vande mataram aka Cyclops goes Multicolor!!

2008-08-14T18:52:00.002+05:30

Wishing you all a very Happy Independence Day!

Especially since it brings with it a long weekend...

(Especially na magane? who're u kidding...only cos of it!!)

Terrific or Traffic!?!? :D

2008-07-28T14:36:00.003+05:30

Found near Gandhi Bazaar
Super cool I thought :D