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!

I LOVE TRAINS!

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

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

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

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

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

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!?

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

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...

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...

...........

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

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

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!

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...

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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!!

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)

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!!

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

Found near Gandhi Bazaar
Super cool I thought :D

Dhoom 3

Before you start thinking of a super duper multi star cast of Hrithik, Aishwarya, Bipasha, Kareena, Saif, Abhishek etc etc lemme say that I'm talking about the series of bomb blasts that rocked Bangalore...

As per the email we received at work, there were 6 bombs. All of them "low-grade, made with gelatin sticks". After I got home though, I found out that in total there were 8 of 'em.

This is a first for our mysterious good ol' city of Bangalore...No sooner were the bombs making their cement-n-nuts presence felt, than did the bulging bourgeois of Bangalore react! Telecom networks and their capacities endured load testing and some severe stress testing. Lack of connectivity, Wrong numbers and loooooooooooooads of worried people asking about their loved ones and ensuring their safety! Bangalore really came together in this moment of crisis :)

Different people react differently to this sudden infusion of chaos into their lives...Some people start shaking and resort to their music players on high volume...Some people sing out loud ( :D no not me )...Some people go back home, find nothing to do so go to the beauty parlor (I'll agree with you if you say to me that this sectione of ppl will form a very small sliver of the pie) and some people comment about how telecom companies are making a lot of business because of the event, when you call them to find out if they're ok and stuff!!

A hh em...right

Death

I ran into this song that I'd listened to, when I was much much younger...
Hadn't had the maturity/Urdu knowledge to appreciate (yeah.... appreciate more than understand) this song, then...

How would you react if you were to find out that you're gonna die shortly? And how much would you be tempted by insanity if you were to know that you're gonna die shortly, with an offspring of yours being on its way, death and birth entangled in this sadistic battle of time??

What is amazing about this song is how the value of life is highlighted by death itself; about how optimistic this song is...Truly, you realize the value of something only when you lose it (or are about to lose it).

Somehow felt like singing this song...If you find my version to be torture, you'll find the original version (by the inimitable Kishore Kumar) here and the 'close' button to the top left corner of your screen (gentle reminder).

Here goes :



and the rylics

P.S : This song is not of genre "Bhangra" as might be hysterically mentioned in the lyrics site...

A good day

Is one where :

You get to change a punctured car tyre.

You learn something about your friend.

And when you get one of these :





I got one with just my name on it as a personal copy...But I like this better...All perpetrators of the crime together :)

P.S : Muralidhar Srinivasa Rao is newly weird but good :)

Hue

When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls

And the stars begin to twinkle in the sky—

In the mist of a memory you wander back to me

Breathing my name with a sigh...

The origins of Deep Purple lie in this small poem :)

Drenched in their pain again, becoming who they are....

Stupid slut.

a russia of blood to the head

Q : When do you see fire in a man's eyes?

A : When the man in question has run his socks off for his country and his heart-a-pumpin, makes one last gasp run to keep an appointment with destiny, with a football (and with either spain or italy), to flood millions of hearts with joy AND makes it, with other men around him having given up.

Sorry Oranje, but the kalashnikov has spoken....

Psycho-marital paradoxes

A friend said this to me today :

"huchch bido wargu maduve aagalla... maduve aago wargu huchch bidalla"

(wont get married till insanity prevails...insanity wont go until marriage happens)

Leave it alone

A relationship with zero expectations is like a vase of artificial flowers...The flowers seem nice and look pretty sometimes, but we aaaaaall know they're fuckin dead.


Sometimes to keep it together, you've gotta leave it alone....

- Wasted time by The Eagles

Funny gibberish!

What is Llanfair PG?

Llanfair PG or Llanfairpwll is the short form and commonly used name of a village located on the island of Anglesey in Wales. The long form of the village's name is Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, which is Welsh for ‘St Mary’s church in the hollow of the white hazel near to the rapid whirlpool and the church of St Tysilio of the red cave'. This is the longest officially recognized place name in the United Kingdom and one of the longest worldwide with 58 letters. The long name was given in 1860s to the village to develop it as a commercial and tourist centre. The village was connected with London in 1850 by the railway and this artificially contrived name gave the village's railway station the honour of having the longest name in the UK.

My first guitar concert

So I went to this birthday party of my niece and my cousin sister had asked me to get my guitar n stuff so I took my axe along too...

And the first song I ever performed to a dazed audience, waiting with bated breath for me was

(hey hold that thought magane! Esht sullu heltyo?? The people in the audience were few and far and most of them were engaged in their own conversations, munching on snacks and sipping on beverages...bated breath ante hah!)

Che!! Tough having a conscience....

Anyways, the first ever solo performance by the maestro was ...... "Happy birthday to you" :)

And then me n my birathar sang "dooba dooba rehta hoon" with jolly me strumming away...Came out ok, but i think the volume on the guitar could've been a taaaaaaaad more :D (che! attention hogging gifted musician!)

A fun day!

In the end, it doesn't even....

All in all it's just another brick in the wall

Road rage

A conscience is like a mirror. Most Auto drivers have neither.

I hate wires

The thinner the worse. They get tangled up in any structure they can latch themselves onto. They crawl into smallest of crevices and get stuck there. They find other wires and get tangled up with them. If u aren't patient with them (as I am not) they can irritate u to a great extent.

wedding truisms

The brother of the groom (whose viewpoint this blog is, so the readers will accept and accommodate the biased post) is one of the most neglected and under-rated of participants in the wedding. If the concept of "roles" (as is prevalent in western weddings) is applied here, I'd rank somewhere, if I may use the simile, between a chai boy and a makeup man. Please note that I'm very particular about the sex here...The sister of the groom or the brother of the bride still have quite significant roles, if I'm not mistaken...

And lets also specify, shall we, that I'm talking about the own brother of the groom(no cousin wousin business here)...While the groom's mother's father's sister's is called on and bestowed with goodies and gifts and are asked to participate in rituals, the brother of the groom is :

* supposed to handle everything (hahahahaaaahahahahha very funny one that one!!)
* required to do the MOST fake talk and smilings and enquirings of the guests at the wedding.
* blamed for having only 2 hands at 12 am, post a non-stop day in the trenches
* asked by two aunts alternatively to have and not have lunch, which prolongs actual lunch time to 3 pm (that was AHWESOME!!)
* (The cake taker) repeatedly reminded of his eligibility, singularity and bachelorhood by the ohmygodsomebodyshootthisperson's remark of "line clear aithu" ("the line is clear for you to get betrothed, my dear child, as your brother has fulfilled his purpose in your life by getting married!!!") BTW, almost everybody who meets brother of groom will say this, as a rule...
* Shucks too bored to think of others...

:)

Catirical Synicism apart, my bro got MARRIED!!! Freakkin! Our family now expands, to become a five member clique!! Mere words shall not reveal my excitement, but I shall try!! Yay :D

Marriagehouse blues

So we're all having dinner at the table, and the decibel level is some 100s of dBs as usual, when my dad says the following :

"Chapra chenagi haakidaare alva?" (He is asking us whether the rectangular shady structure consisting of plaintain sticks, mango leaves and in general green plant stuff, is good or not?)

We all shout out in a cacophony of voices, that it is indeed of admirable splendour (not good to not agree with dad during tense times aye? :D )

My cousin chooses this moment to exclaim that the chapra is "corporate"...And then he made some hand gestures in the air, and some more incoherent words were uttered to substantiate his proclamation! My brother and I looked at each other with a "what!?" in our faces...

Wise saying in kannada :

Mane katti nodu
Maduve maadi nodu

a "note"

Music sometimes gives me a high, which no complex arrangement of ultimate multiple orgasms can probably deliver. (Contrary to what some of my friends allege, i am NOT a woman...Just used the phrase "multiple orgasms" to increase the value of the object under scrutiny).

Sunday gyaan

Here're two snippets in my life that came closest to disturbing the dhool on my mind, on what was a rather lazy sunday.

Oh apart from the first half of the day during which I made shankarpolis!! :D

1. Quotable quotes :

"Everybody wants to share a pani puri kano...that's there...When you go out to eat 6 puris, you'll feel it (the loneliness). Every menu in this world is designed like that; it is for TWO people...if you go there alone, you'll just waste food"

Although to a layman this might sound like ramblings of the nth order, sir I continue to be amazed by the seemingly sublime and lucid droppings of logic that you ejaculate from time to time! I would certainly like to have a look at the wirings inside your brain...

2. Human Resilience

If you're not interested in listening to a story about humans overcoming hurdles and winning in life, read on...Cos I'm not telling one such story, atleast not extolling that aspect of this story...

To get into context, lemme run thru the mundane details quickly.

Son gets job in Hyderabad; Parents go to Hyderabad to help him settle down; On their way back meet with an accident; Mom is hit hard, gets a steel plate in left shoulder; Dad not seriously injured, but gets paralysis after coming back to Bangalore; Just sitting for 20 mins in one place gives excruciating pain to mother;

You're probably going "ah another sad story...I know it must be bad, but I've heard quite a few such stories mate"... As I said, my aim of this discussion is not to point out their misery and get sympathy...

But to pose the following questions :

1. If something like that happened to you, what would you do?
2. What is it in them that makes such people continue living life, sometimes with further renewed vigor and purpose? Is it our enhanced intellectual abilities which gives us higher powers to adapt and persevere? Or is it faith (in oneself?? or God??) that keeps us going?...

A salute to human will power, its manifestations and the enormous amounts in which it is exhibited...

Braintastic!

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/184

Anybody who is interested in the workings of the human brain MUST watch this video. A sublime discourse on the physiology of the brain, coupled with explanations of why we do some of the things we do...

Murali and the deathly hollows

How do you react to somebody's death?

The answer is an easy one (in fact an unnecessary one) if you are very attached to the departed.

But what if you knew them just enough to warrant your presence, but weren't close to the person? You feel nothing "major" inside you, just the atmospheric waves of death hitting you as you move close to the body, do a namaskara to it and the stuff...You can't escape the gloom; long drawn faces, puffy red eyes of those who've cried enough, and those who've either been there for a very long time or those who've just arrived and it has hit them : both of them crying still...

And yet, there you are looking at all these people, probably trying a bit but not "feeling" sad...And you just blend in, atleast giving the deceased some respect in the form of silence...

But with silence arrives contemplation as an unavoidable side kick! You think about the person, his life, his highs and lows, his times with you, his achievements (no matter how hard you try, you HAVE to be the accountant with the balance sheet)...And just when you are entering a state of genuinely missing that person and realising his true value, you overhear people discussing rather mundane, petty issues about who's gained weight, which movie they've watched, how tall somebody has grown to be etc etc

At first I thought it to be disrespectful to be doing such things, being in your own world and not being just to the occasion...But then I realized that maybe that's their defense mechanism kicking in...To postpone the pain...

Well, I still don't know the answer to the question which I started out with...

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it was thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return

Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust

Karwar - A blissful evening

Two guys
A looooong beach...which is also pretty much empty...

A beautiful Sun

And the breeze (Oh the breeze!...)

This is your cue to find something to keep under your head and just lie down at some random point...

And what do you see straight above ur head? The sky so blue and vast that at some point you lose the notion of blue...And just to make yourself aware that all this is real you just decline your head and look farther away, and you see that the blue transitions into a white, and then slowly into a pale orange, growing stronger slowly and then you see the culprit!

A reddish orange blob just sitting there giggling mischievously, for having meddled with God's canvas...But he must laugh while he can because his time's almost up for the day as he descends into nothingness...So you shake your head and get back to the blue you adore so much and there're some more ripples in the pond...Eagles flying, floating actually, in random precision...So vast is the sky that you wonder whether they're actually moving! And then you proceed to play connect the dots with them :D ("Ooh there's a quadrilateral...No its a trapezium now...Ah finally a pentagon" and so on and so forth)

Don't spend too much time if you like that game, cos you're gonna miss the sunset...I don't think you'll find that particular hue anywhere else in nature, which the Sun acquires when he's making his daily curtain call...You just sit there listening to the rhythmic splashing of the waves (whoa they're almost at your feet now!) and feel the cool breeze slap your face playfully and watch in amazement...

All this and somethings slightly more during our jaunt to Gokarwar!! An insight into the trip (notes made on my phone) :

• GO! : 40381
• mane bittidd 5.15 oor bittidd 6.20!
• Billankote li bikki pakki..
• kamat nalli din din 9.30
• check into jewel rock hotel at 12.15
• wake up with difficulty at 8am (woken up by griz phone's 'brrrrrrrr' :grrr) breakfast at 9.15 am departure at 10 go!Karna (sniff we miss you)
• bhyraveshwara@yaaNa! :o
• ideal ice cream 'mangalore's best, asia's best'.. bought one to shut griz up
• griz didn't let muli bathe in a cool stream :( we hence named it 'murali lake'
• Tranquility thy name is devbagh beach..No ppl only eagal..Watched sunset 'completely'..Fulfilled ambition of lying down on beach and gazing at sky :)
• as i very eloquently demonstrated to my one of my highway colleagues a while ago, i hate lorry drivers..
• a marathon 2 hr 50 min drive later two starved and delusional men enter 'hotel amantrana' at 2pm..
• its 5.30 pm and griz beside me is shouting 'bangalore city! Aahahhaha..3 days! Exactly 3 fucking days!!' and he's calm again now, listenin to maiden..I'm just glad to be back home :)
• And at 41700 kms we stop