To strive, to seek, to find

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!

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

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

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

I just love this guy!

Don't you?

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!

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!

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

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

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

(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

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!

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...

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

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

"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

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

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...

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

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

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'?!?

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

B(rr)R Hills again

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

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

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?

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

retreat!

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...

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

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?

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

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

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

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

Chained?

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

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

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!

The answer obviously depends on the number of passengers.

Maiden Heaven

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

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...

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

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!