Much Ado About Everything

The blogger's block...

2010-03-08T20:12:00.000+05:30

What does it take to write a blog post ?
Internet connection and two hands to type.... and Ahem brain directing those hands, isn't it?
The last part is still not working and not able to dish out a post even after thinking hazaar times to write something. Probably I have nothing much say anymore or I have found other ways to went out my frustration ;-).
Yeah there is the husband to take all the crap coming from me and not even blink... which makes me bug him even more. Little brain you see.. it goes blank when it has to think about topics to write here. Gone are those days, when I used think of a whole blog post during my rides to-and-fro office, what a creative time that was!!! But these Pune roads won't let me think of anything else than curses. These bikers are worst in the world.
Talking of Pune, the is city still far from being being my home. I live and enjoy here alright... but I am still an outsider. Can't think of a single Puneri person I have befriended with or typical places I have frequented to. Still part of the band wagon flocking to fancy restaurants on weekends and minding only a small friends' circle. No I don't shop at Lakshmi Road/Tulashi Baug, hardly been to Camp/MG Road, don't eat at Vaishali/Rupali not even Janasewa and don't know where Parvati is... so not Punekar, isn't it?
I have been living next to FC for almost two years and never been to world famous "tekadi". Don't ask me for directions on Pune roads... though I can still tell you about Bangalore city bus routes :-).
And so my life goes on. The office-work and home-work have been keeping me busy... Let's see when I get some interesting topic to talk about .... :-)

Jai Ho...

2009-06-02T16:39:00.005+05:30

"I thought you only enjoy rock concerts and not the Bollywood ones"
"That's right"
"Then how come you are going for Rehman concert"
"Isn't he our own rock star"
Yes I think so... you can't put A.R.Rehman in the same category with likes of Anu Malick and Udit Narayan. He is class apart! And how on earth I can resist the opportunity to listen to the maestro live in concert ... Despite the hubby's protests against standing for hours together in cramped crowd with feeble possibility of getting a good look at the man, the wify made him attend the concert. I was sure Rehman would make him forget all the agony and oh boy ... ARR did that in most spectacular way !

As expected, there was huge young crowd and all Pune roads seemed like flowing towards the Balewadi stadium. But there were aunties and oldies too and even families attending with 2 year olds. Hats off to Pune's music lovers... they attend Sawai Gandharv and Rehman with equal enthusiasm !

Given our great time management, we reached the place dot on concert time. I had slightest hopes of catching any good view of the stage given my previous concert experiences (and my not so good height). So first thing we did was to find a good position in front of one of the screens and settled down on the ground. What I didn't expect was that I would be able to enjoy almost whole show sitting right there. People were more interested in sitting comfortably and watching the screen than jumping up and down to catch a view of the stage. I guess it only happens in Pune !

I really didn't have any choices for songs to be played given vast number of songs of him that I adore. He started with "Jage hai der tak" followed by a Tamil song. I thought ab toh gaya... people will boo him for playing Tamil song. They just waited patiently for next one to come. The patience was paid off very well when he started "Jiya se jiya". That song has enchanting beats which make it more enjoyable live.

There was Hariharan singing "Roja janeman", Rashid Ali singing "Kabhi kabhi aditi", Sadhana Sargam singing "Chupake Se"... all the Delhi6 songs were sung and so were "Kaise muze tum mil gayee" and "Maiyya Maiyya". No singers were introduced apart from Raja Hassan whose name flashed across the backstage. I really wish he doesn't sing again after the way he almost killed "Masakkali". Sivamani made a brief appearance. We were hoping to get a small solo peace from him but in vain. There were some dancers and light show but who had time to pay attention to them, while dancing to those songs and cheering our hearts out.

The man himself performed "Dil se", "Rehana Tu" and "Maula mere maula". What I loved most was that the man did less talking and played more music save a futile attempt to "interview" people from audience.

Turn offs of the show, RJ's who were anchoring as if they were on air...( RJ Shrikant you suck big time) and the winglis speech by Karad. Yes we saw Lata Mangeshkar and also one lady snoozing in the front row.

My verdict ... awesome show!!! Still have hangover of it. Afterall You don't get to listen Rehaman playing piano live with Hariharan singing "Tu hi re", Roop Kumar Rathod singing "Roshan Sama" "Bhini Bhini" (just awesome!) everyday...

ARR you ROCK !!!

His friends...

2009-03-05T14:08:00.006+05:30

Whenever any of my close friends decided to get married, there was a part of me which used hate that idea. Marriage would mean sharing the friend with his better half which most of the time means not having the friend at all or getting a new package deal of sorts. However good the spouses were/are, I would feel the distance, being intruded by someone. I never liked them knowing our secretes or gossips.
However selfish it may sound... I admit that I did feel like this most of the times.

Now that I am married, mostly hang out with my husband's friends... given lack of my "own" friend circle and the fact that they are really interesting people to hang out with.
... I wonder at times, do they feel the same way .... :-)

Marriage : random thoughts

2009-02-06T17:10:00.001+05:30

It was Sunday afternoon. After shopping in the scorching sun for hours together in the busiest and most crowded markets in the city me and sis sat down for a quick grab. This was just another road side joint where you need to grab plates and chairs by yourself. A family followed us in. The tired wife was taking all the pains to feed the family while the husband sat lazily bearing 'I am the king look'.
If you are expecting I will start blasting the so-called male domination in the society and lecture on plight of women, you might just be wrong. I mean I would be writing all that if it were few months ago. Perspectives change after marriage, you see! And as the the hubby says, 'we should think about a situation from various dimensions'.
If you consider this particular situation, it is possible that the wife herself had offered to do the work the husband is really tired or the wife is too dominating to let anyone handle any work or the husband is too dominating to do any work by himself etc etc... Lets just talk about what I thought I saw and what I felt about it.

First thought that came to my mind was what would I be thinking if I were in the wife's shoes. From the way she was carrying out things I felt she might not have realized that there something not right about the whole situation as she thinks it is her 'duty'. That's what her mother (the whole society) has taught her right from her birth. "A woman should always take a second place in her life be it as a mother, sister or a wife. That's the society tradition."

I guess I wouldn't have felt so. I hate such imposed traditions which have no logical inference in today's modern world. People (men, society whomsoever you may want to address) have moulded the (so called) traditions as per their convenience and comfort.

Though I claim to be 'open mined person' now, as a child I didn't even know what my mom's likes and dislikes were. She never imposed them on us and we seldom tried to understand what she really wanted. Even she might not have thought about it herself. It was so natural to her to cook our favourite dishes, shop for us, get our homework done... zillions of things... And we never realized till we grew up that it was not right.

It all comes back to me now when I am trying adjust myself in the new family. A newly married girl is expected to leave her past behind and start new life from scratch and adopt to new rules from the day one. How is that possible? Here it is not the question of having a good or bad family ethics. Its just different...!!!

Have you attended any soft skill training on behavioural patterns? The science says, it is basic human nature to react to any change with a shock or denial. A girl like me who is used to finding her way in most of things, finds it difficult to adjust to suddenly being dictated to do things, observed and judged about every thing she does. Coming from a family where you are pampered and given highest priority, it's hurting to realize that you will be the last person to be considered after marriage... you no longer are part of the family you love and adore so much.

There are times when life feels totally frustrating and beyond logical thinking and then there are times when I feel totally blessed.
As I adjust with the changes and learn my way to enjoy them, I wonder at times what does marriage actually means to me... ?

2008-11-28T15:06:00.001+05:30

Whole day I am surfing the web nervously, from one news site to another. Reading minute by minute account of the situation, looking for signs of relief. Somebody report that it's all over. Somebody please report that it was just a bad dream. I have spent sleepless night and breathless days. Not been able to work properly. It's sad very very sad.

Do I have someone there ?
Yes. The whole city !

Somehow the news of rescues and bravery of armed forces don't console me. Why do the have be used at first places? I don't like the phrase "Spirit of Mumbai". The city has no option but to run, it has no saviour. The city has been raped again and again for wrong issues be it jihad or marathi manus or lack of political will of the so-called leaders. It is the price the city is paying for being the most vibrant, accepting city in the world, for providing economical lifeline to a county of billion people.

I am ashamed that I cannot do anything about it but blog.
I cry for you Mumbai, my beloved city...

How's Life ?

2008-10-14T14:34:00.003+05:30

"Knock Knock"
"Who's there?"
"An Idea"
"What's it about"
"Blog topic"
"Great! Lets discuss that later. I am busy"

That's how the conversation goes in my mind every other day. The "sometime later" never seem to come. As usual I have a loong list of reasons to defend that. You will say great person never gives reasons ... ahh let's leave that for great ones wonly!
Now you will ask me where I was hiding for almost a year... A YEAR !!! yes A year. It just feels like yesterday when I wrote my last blog post. A year that has flown past turning my life upside down. For starters I have found the man I want to spend my life with. The way we met and decide to get married and even got married ... Still feels like a dream. Ahem ... It's no mushy love story! A practical decision of two mature grown ups which has turned into the most beautiful one for them

"In this world of uncertainty and confusion
We two have found each other... different yet alike
We have grown grown together in Love and Understanding"

(Quote from the wedding invite)

Believe me... soulmates do exist! All you need is patience and keeping your eyes wide open to find them. (Ohh... Am I sounding mushy here ?)

Things have changed so fast which left me with no time and less (interesting) topics to blog about (remember many of posts were about marriage and things related to the process ;-) ). All the time was spent in talking, chatting and talking even more with the hubby, shopping (spending a fortune over it), getting educated about the "shadi-shuda life's Do's and Dont's" etc etc. I have discovered whole lot of patience in myself for listening to useless advises, shopping for unwanted things, doing pooja's you don't understand, meeting relatives I never heard of and so on. Most important discovery is that marriages are not that bad after all and I can also play a good wife/bahu :-).

I know even after all this description you will have the obvious question, "So hows married life?". This is just advanced one in the "How's life?" series of dumb questions.
"Married life is great!" that's the expected answer for the question you may ask. I guess that's the most dumb answer to most dumb question. How can one expect a girl (correction... a woman) to judge her so called "married life" in just about 3 months?
Anyway I have so many things to talk about, that have changed due to this "married life"... I am living in a new house , with new family (!), in a new city (sigh!), have new job and the 'new's list is never ending. Sometimes my own impression in the mirror feels different.

Am I cribbing about it? Again that's the basic trend in our society married person be it man or woman always like to crib about how life has changed after marriage. I would say life does change whether to feel good or bad about it is all up to you (philosophy haan!). Why should I complain about the married life if the husband makes me a cup of tea after a long tiring day or the m-i-l cooks nice meal for me :-)...

Back !!!

2008-10-01T18:28:00.001+05:30

Finally I am here... Now this is supposedly the most wanted-to-be-at types of place. Confused? Let me explain (Is anyone reminded of Dushyant from Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai?)
The place has meaning as you take it. I am back to blogging - as many of my regular readers (don't laugh.. if you are reading this you are one of them ;-)). I am in Pune - as my family wanted me to be. I am outta my boring work and into a startup - as I alwaaaaaays wanted and lo behold ... I am married !!!

There has been a loong list of To-Dos pending for me. Let me see how many of them I can mark off
Wrtie a blog - Done
Leave the ol' boring job- Done
Shift to Pune - Done
Get a job with a startup - Done
Get married - Done dana done ! ;-)

Once upon a time …

2007-11-21T19:03:00.000+05:30

Once upon a time this blog used be active… there used to be at least one post a week. It used to change color every now and then just like its blogger it liked to show off. Change and activity were the buzz words. Some people used to drop by and actually read it. It was all happy to get that attention. Those were the glory days and all of a sudden it became silent one day. For no apparent reason, it stopped update….

*Krrrrrrrr kch*

Stop Stop Stop

Before someone starts writing obituary for my blog, I am back. At least to show that this blog is not totally abandoned (*applause applause*)! Sigh, it feels like eternity since I have blogged. Every time I comeback after a break I promise myself that I won’t let it happen again and as obvious next break just gets longer. As usual there is office work to blame. But I am really amazed where the time is going. I mean I am not working 24x7. These days I am trying more and more to make life organized and regularized. I get up at midnight i.e. 6:30 am, reach office at dawn i.e. 8:30am and I come back from office by afternoon 6pm, I hardly stay back late, I don’t work on weekends (Errrr… except few recent weekends). Still I don’t find time to blog. Forget blogging, I don’t even find time to do usual stuff on weekends. I don’t feel like I have taken a good rest for a while. Some thing or other comes up and time is just flies away. I don’t know when was the last time when I slept till late morning on weekends or just lazed around whole day.

Being bored seems to be constant state and work is the main reason (as usual !). I donno when was the last time when I got up in the morning really looking forward to go to work. Someone once told me that the day you feel like not going to work you should recognize it as a signal to change the work place. I am not in favor of jumping work places frequently like the current trend is. The people I work with are really good but then that’s not the only thing you see sometimes it gets really frustrating that I feel like leaving everything and running away.

Well, it is not as frustrating as watching the political drama in Karnataka or even worse the over-hyped-so-called-classic movie ‘Saawariya’. I want to lock both HD Deve Gowda and Sanjaya Leela Bhansali in a room and let them torture each other. Spare us from those stupid dramas people! One runs government in sleep and other makes movies in sleep. I mean, what is happening to political will power of this state? Don’t they understand they are making fun of themselves and the whole country? I think Bangalore politics is watched more closely in the western world than even Delhi politics. And these people behave worse even than vamps of those saans-bahu soaps!

Only phrase that can describe ‘Saawariya’ is ‘barbad movie’ !

It’s time to go. See you soon!

रुकावट के लिये खेद है !

2007-10-04T13:39:00.000+05:30

I know I know I know ... its been really really long since I have written anything and none of you really missed me. Only 25% percent of my readers ( that is one out of four ) enquired about my absence :-(.

For a change, I was all worked up for last month or so ! So much of work that I even didn't get time to check my favorite blogs forget other activities. I even worked on weekends... How bad is that!

Koi baat nahi .... Now I am back to the blog-world. Yayyy!!!

Keep watching this place for interesting post (might be boring for you but who cares... we will keep on writing anyways !!! :-D)

PS: Did you see my nu blog-pet 'Chiu'? She is chhoo cute, isn't she ?

साठ साल के बुढे या साठ साल के जवान !

2007-08-15T08:56:00.000+05:30

My country turns 60 today… or I should say the new age country turns 60. For country that has thousands of years of rich past, this is mere another chapter history. What makes this day special is that it represents our struggle for freedom, struggle to get our birth right. It is something that makes us make our head held high with pride.

I will not preach too much like I have already done here. There are so many blog posts, news paper articles, talk shows talking about what we did right and what we did wrong. To my surprise Google and even Orkut are celebrating Indian Independence day!

I celebrate by putting up flag in at my work place and on my blog too !

I am proud to be part this country. This subhashitam reflects my exact feelings… when Ram rejects the offer to be king of Lanka after defeating Ravan. He says

अपी स्वर्णमयी लन्का न मे लक्शमण रोचते ।
जननी जन्मभुमीश्च स्वर्गादपी गरीयसी ॥

“Laxaman, thought Lanka is made up of gold. I don’t like it. Motherland is greater than heaven for me”

Why wouldn’t I drive to work?

2007-08-12T22:42:00.000+05:30

The office is shifted and I am traveling to office by bus again. I have to rush for but by 7:40am and back home by 6:30pm. The office is not that far and I could have easily taken my Dio Baby. (I had decided to name my vehicle something when I was planning to get it. I got vehicle number containing ‘EW’ so I started calling it ‘EW Baby’. Shirsha thinks the vehicle name resembles Sunny Deol so calls it ‘Sunny Deol Bike’! ) It is really hectic to get up that early in the morning after you have got used to waking up by 8:30-9am. I can still go back to my previous routine if I want to but I have lot of reasons for that.

First is that I am getting organized again. I have my cloths ironed and kept aside, veggies cut on previous night. And I get ready in the morning within 40 mins! It’s a welcome change to my otherwise lazy life you see. Some people say it is like going back to school but I say its discipline!

I am also one of those extra environment conscious people. I am one of those who would walk short distances and take BMTC bus instead of auto and preach others to do the same. Sometimes I feel guilty of buying vehicle and adding to the pollution. One of the reasons for me not buying car is that it drinks way too much petrol than a bike. Now that I already have company bus running why should I add more? The bus is enough to do that, isn’t it ?

I also hate to drive on Bangalore roads. It’s more of crawling than driving. My bike being little taller for my height it is nightmare for me. By the time I reach the destination I am so frustrated that there is no energy left to work. I never used to drive on weekends. Now I can save my driving time and energy to do stuff like reading, completing my unfinished sleep, or just watching the traffic. This one of the things I missed most while driving. I have knack for reading every poster and name plate that is displayed on the road. (That is why I know so many roads/areas in Bangalore). There were many times when I was distracted in reading the hoardings that I almost hit a vehicle or side walk. I should wait for real accident, you see!

Also I have reason to get out of office early.

Nu week Nu place

2007-08-08T11:18:00.000+05:30

The much awaited office move is finally done and here I am blogging from my personal cubical ! This is my fourth work location in the city for same company! (And seventh if you consider overseas locations :-) ). I started with the north-west part of the city then shifted to the southern most part, then to the city centre. Now this campus is in the eastern part. I can claim that I have worked in most part of the city.

I love working in big campus so my first and previous work places were definitely not my favorite. They were in the city centre and very much accessible, alright. But it was like cramping up in small boxes. There were not enough windows and not enough natural light. The roof was so low that I will suffocate there. We had very nice cafeteria location in city office but I could never sit there because it was always noisy with roaring traffic below. Other sad part was that we had to share the building with two other companies and using elevators was big time pain in neck. There was not enough parking space, traffic was pathetic. I would have to wait for three signals just to cover 500 meters distance in front of my office. Sometimes I would feel like leaving my bike on the road and rush for the meeting. In all I had too many complains for the workplace. Though, there were some positive points also. Like I could escape office anytime I wanted. The shopping hotspots were pretty nearby. I have lost (that is spent) lot of money because of that :D.

With all these complains when it was announced that we will be moving to our own campus I was all excited. (Well I am always charged up for new things, you see!) They announced that we will be getting our own work place, good cafeteria, lawns, transport and the place is very near to my house. I was the only one in my team to be eager to shift. I have been making plans about how would I decorate my place and how will I manage my day and all.

So how do I find nu place? The cubicles are nice but the walls are to short, I can see across the floor. It gets difficult to hide from some unwanted people :-(. Half height of the outer walls has glass panels. We get nice view of green lawns and road without being bothered by the noises. And guess what, my cubical is next to one of such walls so I am more than happy. We have a huuuge terrace only on my floor. From one side we can see the top of KR Puram bridge and other side we can see planes flying past. It's the best place to have morning/evening tea, with breeze cool and fresh!
I like the cafeteria most. It's open from one side overlooking the lawns and has fountains on both sides. Fountain side is my favorite place to have lunch. We take a long stroll after lunch in the lawn. The place promises all the facilities like Coffee Day n FoodWorld outlet, Gym, Tennis and Basket Ball courts, Game room etc etc. Bottom line is, the place is designed with greater details and I like it a lot. You should also consider the fact that I have worked in a campus that is ranked amongst 10 best in India (that is true... Our Electronic City campus is ranked amongst one of the best campuses around!). So there will be obvious expectations.

There are somethings which still need to improved but I am optimistic that it will just get better with time. One of the reasons that makes me optimistic is, the way this shift was handled. It was very very systematic and everything started working fine the minute we were in office. We don't claim to be one of world's best companies to work for for no reason :-).

Other nu thing is I am back to my "run to catch bus in morning" schedule. I have to rush out of home by 7:40am. But good part is I am back to home by 6pm! Talk of advantages of having office close to office :-)!

PS: I had started writing this on Monday and could finish only today. The time restriction affects extra-curricular activities in office you see :-(

Edited later: Can't resist to post this awesome picture of the fountains

Happy Friendship Day !!!

2007-08-04T22:19:00.000+05:30

So Its the Friendship Day... one of those hooplas created by greeting card companies. But I say what is the harm in celebrating friendships which mean a lot to you.

So here is wishing all my friends a very very Happy Friendship Day!

May you be blessed with most amazing friendships .... always !

Prarthana

2007-07-27T09:23:00.000+05:30

The prayer I prayed almost everyday for 10 years of my life. I might forget so many things about school but not the prayer 'Prarthana'. We would sing one Marathi and one Hindi prayer ( the raaga was 'Kaali' I guess). Our music teacher would start the first line and we would follow. It was different experience to sing it, around 8 am in the morning and we would pray the motherland for strenght of our mind. I know many people would just lip sync as they used to consider it stupid to sing that prayer (really!). Funny thing is I used to say wrong words till 5th class I guess. The words are 'labhel devpan tya' and we would say 'labhel dev babantya'; for 'kate kutechi bharale' we would say 'kate kute chibharale' and wonder who was the stupid person who wrote this as it made no sense! It was not until my 5th ot 7th class when they painted this board next to principle's office. This painted by one of our drawing teachers.

Here is loose meaning of the Marathi Prayer

" I bow to the land where I was born. It is my 'Matrubhumi' (motherland)

I bow to the land where I grew up. It is my 'Arybhumi'

I bow to the land for whom I toil

I bow to the land where I will rest in peace

There will be lot of hardships in your way

Don't feel sad if you won't have comforts

Cause only the stone that bears thousands blows attains divinity "

I can still see myself surrounded by girls in while kurta and blue salwar, our queue being towards the far end of the crowd. Ah... school memories always make you nostalgic !

One of those bad days at work...

2007-07-19T16:36:00.000+05:30

It's 11 o'clock in the night. You have had a long day... been working for more that 12 hours on a stupid issue which has no head or tail to analyse. You are tired, sleepy and frustrated.

Finally you decide that its time to call it a day and go home. You send update and about to enter the elevator. You get call from someone sitting merrily at home and he starts shouting at you left and right. It is so loud that your ear hurts. You don't understand what is happening. Thankfully your manager comes to your rescue but still the barking rings in your head....

What do you do?

I take cover of tears. I guess I am not that strong as I think for the professional life, isn't it?

A Thing about Silence

2007-07-01T23:08:00.000+05:30

Do you ever feel like not talking at all? I mean you are sitting with bunch of people, everyone is talking, laughing and you just listen to all the sounds but don’t feel like saying anything. Or you want to get away to a silent place where there is no one but your thoughts to accompany you. I guess everyone feels like that once in a while. I know I do and I feel it all the time. There are many moments when I just want to listen or I want things to happen without saying anything. Like when I get up in the morning and get ready for office, I like to do things in silence. I hate if anyone breaks that early morning serenity. I guess I want to have those silent moments some more before I get out on the noisy roads. Believe me whenever I manage to have such mornings, my day goes absolutely perfect. I cannot bear too much of noise. It’s a wonder that I like rock music!

Its not that I am angry with people around me or with the world… I am just out of words. If I am with someone, I want the silence do the talking. Oh no… it’s not “naino se baate” and that kind of romantic stupidity. Sometimes it really bores me to mention each and everything explicitly in words. There are very few people with whom I can be comfortable in silence too. It is a funny thing actually; you don’t want to say a thing to the other person but you can’t be comfortable with everyone that way.

I guess I am not a person of words at least too much of words wasted in speech. I hate to sit in prolonged meeting discussing same thing again and again. After certain limit my mind switches off and goes off to a place far far away. I know this is not good; its not sign of a good professional, good team player… but that’s the way it is. You cannot make your mind function against its will, can you? I was not like this always. I was born a chatterbox. People from my neighborhood still remember how much I used bore them with my gibberish :-). But gradually it changed. My favorite childhood pastime was to watch kids play on the huge ground in front of my house. I could sit for hours doing that. These days my favorite place is my gallery. I like to watch the planes fly past. That is always my favorite part of the weekend.

Meditation experts suggest that silence purifies your soul. I donno if that applies to me. Most of the times I don’t even remember what I was thinking; thoughts just drift wide directions. Some people think that it is weird to be that way. Some think I am too proud to talk to people. I have tried to break that conception but I just don’t find the words.

Do you think it is really weird to be out of words?

The 'Rocking' place

2007-06-24T17:56:00.000+05:30

“How come you haven’t been to ‘Purple Haze’?!”
“Oh well I never got a company! Besides it’s a pub!!!”
“You can’t call yourself a rock music fan in Bangalore unless you have been there”
“Uh oh”
“Well no worries. As long as I am here I will be the company”
“Oh wow!!!”
“Let’s not delay the first visit then!”
"Yoooooo"

That was the conversation between a friend(actually friend of a friend) and me. It was very nice of him to keep his words and invite me over. We hit the place on a weekday, last Tuesday to be precise. I was expecting no crowd but the place was already full by the time we reached there. It is just like any other pub, dark, small, smoky and loud. I won’t be able to identify single piece of furniture if saw it in broad daylight. What makes it stand apart is the music that they play! They are known to play the best rock/metal in town or that’s what I am told. When I entered the place, quite a few heads turned. Oh no I was not looking stunning or anything. Your truly was wearing a pink chudidar kutra for the visit. I guess they were pretty surprised to see a gawar looking gal banging head to the rock music tunes. If you have ever wondered, ‘Haah who wears desi cloths to such place’, you have the answer now!

Boy-o-boy, what music they play. The music is system is what metal music needs… the music just gets into your head. Best part is, they have huge screens put everywhere and video of every song is played along. They played many of my favorites like Metallica, Linkin Park, Ozzy’s ‘Mama I am coming home’. I can’t comment on food and other things cause all I had was veg Manchurian which was pretty nice. We were very much absorbed in the music to eat anything. There were some ladies showing off their head banging skills little too much… or were they advertising their hair or probably the liquor was taking its toll. I don’t know what it was, but they made a pretty picture to watch whenever I were bored looking at the video screen.

And yes, don’t let you imagination run amok and eye-brows raise with the thought ‘Whaaaat, you went to a pub!!!’ (and start conspiracy like some people already did… :-P). That’s the place for great music. I can’t help but go… you see :-D Awesome place to be!

If you like rock music by any chance, you know where to go in Bangalore! (If you don’t have company, you also know whom to call :-D).

There goes another one ...

2007-06-19T13:20:00.000+05:30

Ahh.. here goes another weekend and I wait for the next one right from Monday with sleepy eyes. It takes really really long time for me to boot up on Mondays. First half is generally wasted in remembering what exactly I did last week. Have you seen the movie 'Fifty First Dates'? My situation is somewhat like the lead character. I need to learn my work with a blank mind every Monday ! I know how hard it is when my manger comes to on Monday morning and asks me something I look at his face with puzzled expressions and most of the times I cannot answer to his questions... the answer is sleeping somewhere in dark long corner in the mind and the processing speed of my mind gets terrible terribly slow. I have these Start-of-the week crisis all the time.

Tell me, do you ever have such start of week crisis in office? I mean do you ever go blank and cannot work at all? Last week, my start week crisis continued till mid-week and when it got unable to bear any more, I ran away from office. And found a perfect place to unwind... the "Crossword". There is no better way to relax one's mind than reading books. They talk to you, they teach you, amuse you, excite you, they cry with you and they sooth you... they are the perfect companions!!! I ended up adding 5 more books to my library, the count now goes to solid 25! I wanted to buy my favorite book 'Love Story' but someone tells me romantic books should be gifted and not bought. As per him, getting a romantic book as gift is always good omen to your relationships. Funny beliefs, isn't it? (But I did gift 'Pride and Prejudice' to a friend :-) )
I was browsing through the Indian author section and one thing that strikes me is there are not many Marathi people writing in English. Its not that there are no good writers back home but it seems most of them prefer to express in Marathi. I wonder what all those NRI babies are doing… And I digress!

I should not forget to describe about my weekend. Did I tell you that it’s beautiful outside? It’s neither too hot nor rainy; it’s cloudy all the day and drizzles once in a while. At nights it’s just amazing to sit in my gallery with a book in hand. I finished ‘A walk to remember’ Friday night, beautiful book in beautiful might :-). Apart from that there was mad shopping spree. I recommend what Shrisha calls as ‘retail therapy’ for all as cure of all gloomy mood types. Walk through the buzzing shopping streets, peep through nicely decorated windows, wonder though rows of racks stacked racks, try on beautiful cloths or just look at the people shopping… little girls looking at stuffed toys with saucer eyes, fat lady drooling on short skirt, wife nagging husband to buy her the new appliance in market… your bad mood will vanish in no time. And if there is little money in pocket, there isn’t greater pleasure than coming home loaded with lots of shopping bags :-D. I bought one of those Abhishek Baccha styln hair-bands... people say it looks cool !!!

There was this friend met after a long time… and it couldn’t have been better :-)

Life gets hectic in office and I already wait for next weekend!!!

PS :- I am on Technorati Profile are you there too ?

Also, Have you checked the new windows version of Apple Safari browser. Its awsome !

...

2007-06-16T15:02:00.000+05:30

I never told him how much I loved him… neither did he. It was not his kind of conversation… to be verbal about his feelings especially something like this. He wouldn’t even say ‘Happy Birthday’ to me. The sparkle in his eyes or that big grin was enough for us to know that he was happy that he was extremely happy :-). I saw it whenever I scored good rank, got a prize, came home from hostel and when I graduated.

He taught me to walk, to read, to love the music... he taught me to fight the odds. I learnt how be independent from him. We would discuss about all the things in world from the school subjects to world politics. Sometimes he would tell stories about how he used walk kilometers for school or how he used watch movie every night in college. Once I needed some help for school project, he poured over all his medical books to get me the most accurate information. He was like that … always got the best for us.

I missed those sparkling eyes when I got my job, my first salary… moments he had so much wanted to witness. I miss my source of inspiration… my tower of strength.

I hate to write this post in past tense. I wish I could make it present.

... I wish I could call up and say ‘Happy Father’s Day’ to him today.

Here comes the rain...

2007-06-06T10:19:00.000+05:30

It's been a while since I have tried to venture into poetry writing (All the great poet souls must be resting in peace :-D).
But the poetry bug has got me again and I wrote these lines

"Here comes rain again falling from the stars
Giving new life to the dead feelings,
It comes to wash away my pains and instill new faith
I have lost a few but this rain will give me a lot
It will nurture the hope and I will live on ... again "

In response to these ones, sent by a friend

" Here comes the rain again falling from the stars
drenched in my pain again becoming who we are
as my memory rests but never forgets what I lost"

He thinks the lines are good hence me showing off here :-)

Three movies, a concert and Rum Ice Roy

2007-06-05T11:55:00.000+05:30

It’s been a long time since I have written a post about ‘how my weekend was?’ There were lame weekends or I was just lazy to write about them (Lazy is synonymous to me!) Weekends come and go away before I recount anyy details about it. This weekend was no different apart from the ‘Aerosmith’ concert that I have written about in previous post. Three rock-concerts old and I couldn’t be happier. DNA people please get ‘U2’ and ‘Linkin Park’ to Bangalore before I get old to jump in the concerts or lose interest in Rock music (who knows!). On the second thought, I wouldn’t mind listening to ‘GnR’, ‘Goo Goo Dolls’, ‘Metallica’ and ‘Bon Jovi’ live :-) (Human mind is greedy you see)

Though the weekend went insignificantly there was happening week for a change! Three movies watched in a week. It’s been a while since I watched movies during weekdays though my office is in the heart of the city and there are at least 3 theatres within 10 mins reach from here. It is always laziness plus too much of work and I can’t sit at a place for such a long time ;-). This week was definite change with three movies being watched.

Shrek 3:- For a change my company did this good deed of giving away free tickets for the movie it has provided technology for. How proud I feel to tell this!! If you are animation fan and you happen to watch Shrek series you will definitely appreciate the animation created by DreamWorks and rendered on servers provided by my dear company. Rendering for animation of this kind requires high end servers and we provide them! Moral of the story is, there was a contest to win free tickets for the movie and a colleague of mine got 4 tickets to the show in PVR cinema Europa screen. Can you beat that? First day show tickets that too in the most hep theatre of Bangalore! How can I miss such a golden chance? The tickets were collected bunking group wide meeting! The story is not that great, they have tried to add too much of senti-aap touch and made Shrek behave more human like. I adored him more in first two parts. But the animation is awesome! The new character Arthur looks damn cute!

Life… in a Metro :- ‘I didn’t like the movie because it is too realistic’ was the first review I got in this movie and it made more that curious to watch it. It was running houseful for a while and finally we managed to get tickets for Wed 10 pm show. Getting ticket episode itself will make topic for another post! The movie is too realistic for sure. It feels like we are peeping into our neighbor’s life and sometimes our own too! The stories of love, betrayal, infidelity run parallel crossing each other every now and then. The movie handles a good topic but does not disturb you or make you think about the degrading morality in our modern lives. In the end, it goes the ‘happily ever after’ way. What disturbed me more was the writer didn’t allow the married women (Shilpa), to follow her heart and go against her cheating husband. Instead she became typical ‘Bhartiya Naari’ who sacrifices her love and self-respect for the sake of family. What nonsense!!! Do watch it for Irrfan Khan. He is not used much but he sure makes his presence felt in the movie.
I was telling my mother about this movie. I said I don’t think you would like to watch this movie; it would shatter the typical Indian mind like it did for my friend. She plainly says, ‘you know what these things have been there in our society since long. Aren’t there stories of infidelity even in our purana’s? It’s just that these days we have advanced media so the things are being discussed openly and women are getting strong to oppose/expose them’. Mom, you surprise me as always!

Cheeni Kum :- I liked this one more from previous two. Nice subject, good direction and cinematography and amazing actors made the movie worth watching. One dialogue that I remember right now is when Amitabh is trying to convince Tabu’s father about their relationship. He says “Why should you have problem when you daughter is not marrying someone younger than her?” It is generally said that women mature before guys do. They should marry guys at least couple of years older than them so they are on same page. We Indians go little overboard in this theory and consider it immoral when a woman marries a man younger than her. I say why we should have problem in that if two people are ready to spend their lives with each other and fine with the age difference. On the other hand, there are lot of girls who search for security, comfort in their husbands just like they received from their fathers. Just as a guy likes to compare his wife with his mother and expect her to cook, care like his mother did what is wrong if a girl searches for her father in terms of maturity and understanding.
What is your take on this?

And I should not forget to mention ‘Rum Ice Roy’, you are right it is name of ice cream which has rum in it and lot of rum for that matter. Sunday night was ‘Corner House’ time after a long time. I thought of trying this one as name sounded interesting and hoping it will have unrecognizable traces of liquor. But my-o-my, it lives up its name, had the rum taste for real (Don’t ask me how I know taste of Rum ;-))

… I am too bored with work today, hence all this blabbering!

Aerosmith rocked Bangalore ...!!!

2007-06-03T11:46:00.000+05:30

After all the confusions and whining… the Aerosmith show has been attended. (For starters, like my dear brother and Apoorv, Aerosmith is the cult rock band and their songs are like anthem for rock fans worldwide). It’s just the next day morning I don’t have hangover of it. I don’t know what it was… the humidity or the stupid crowd or too much of expectation or the band itself.

First it was the friend who was supposed to come with me. He decided to play prank on me and till the last moment kept telling me that he is not going to come. Then we were late for the show. The gates were supposed to open at 5:30 and we reached there by 5. I thought now I won’t even get the glimpse of the stage. But surprisingly there were not many people around. Ooh… has too man bands taken away interest of Bangaloreans or was it the highly priced tickets? I was expecting people crowding the place since morning, after all this is not just another band. They are the ‘Bad boys from Boston’ touted as one of the all time best bands in Rock history. This time the organizers also didn’t seem in the mood of making the show much popular. They had started publicizing for the show just couple of weeks ago. And on the day of event there was much confusion about the exact place of show. You must know that palace ground is a huge huge place. So unless you define exact place to enter, you are bound to get lost in taking rounds of the place and half of the roads are one way. They had not put directions properly so we ended up circling the place in crawling traffic. Thank god we were on bike, I saw many people talking the long walk (almost 2-3kms). Inside there was confusion about which line to stand in for the entry. They had common entrance for both the ticket types. Then there were separate lines for gals in a sideey corner. Even after being so late, we were able to get place pretty much near the stage. Unfortunately there were too many tall guys around me so I couldn’t see much as usual. Rock shows is one of the times when I badly wish that I were taller or least other people were shorted than me. I had to jump and keep searching for the view. My neck still hearts with that pain .
So we were inside by 6 pm. The crowd has just started to build up. We were expecting some band to open and help us kill the time before concert starts. Apart from contestants of some stupid air-guitar contest (one of them won a guitar signed by Aerosmith … luck man!!) and some firangs walking around to check the setting and clicking snaps in various poses, there was no activity on the stage. It was unbelievably hot, and despite all the no-smoking signs there were lot of chimneys around, by 8 pm we were soaking in sweat (how I wished for rain). After a while people started booing and shouting for the show to start… some creative mind started shouting ‘Angrezo Bharat Chhodo!’ After minutes of testing and retesting, they appeared on the stage. The video that preceded their appearance showed their journey through times and finally Indian flag covering the whole screen. There was also a Ganesha Idol sitting next to the drums, Pretty Interesting I say. Steve Tyler was wearing his trademark funky cloths. This time it was a female-ish looking hat, huge butterfly hanging around the neck and too many straps on the microphone. He is too dramatic on stage. They started with ‘Taste Of India’ followed by ‘Love in the Elevator’. They sang ‘Eat the Rich’, ‘Living on the Edge’, ‘Dream On’, ‘Jaded’, ‘Sweet Emotion’, ‘Falling in love is hard on Knees’, ‘What it takes’ among others. Joe Perry sang a number too. He looked cool and according to him the best thing that India has given to the world is ‘Kamasutra’!!! One of the good things was that they had made a ramp, so I got good glimpse of Steve and Joe. Joe is amazing on guitar.

Like me, most of the crowd was hoping to listen ‘Janie’s got a gun’, ‘Angel’ ‘Dude looks like a lady’. We kept shouting hoping they will sing but no success. Two hours of non-stop singing, dancing around stage. For one song Steve was wearing the Karnataka style pagari! Till the end we were hoping they will sing ‘Janie’. But they just vanished backstage. The crowd kept cheering for more and suddenly Steve came on stage ‘I hear someone wanting more songs. How about one more song?’ And he started ‘I don’t want a miss a thing’. That was crowning of the show, I say. We all sang together with the song. It was great show but could have been better.

But what the heck … I listened to Aerosmith live in concert... yayy!!!

Life in a ... Metro

2007-05-30T23:38:00.000+05:30

Watched Life in a .... Metro yesterday, night show after long long time. Its a nice movie. Will write the review aram se. For the time being here is my favorite piece of conversation from the movie

Monty - Irrfan Khan
Shruti - Konkona Sen

Both of them are relaxing by sea shore, after finishing shaadi-shopping for Monty. (These might not be the exact words used by the characters... )

Monty: Chalo meri to shaadi ho jayegi do dino me. Ab tum bhi shaadi kar lo
Shruti: Haa kar lungi lekin meri pasand ka ladka to milna chahiye. Ab tak aisa koi mila nahi jisase mai shaadi karu
Monty: Accha yeh batao tumhe kaisa ladka chahiye
Shruti: You know smart, understanding, caring, loving. Thoda sensitive ho, fun loving ho...
Monty: To tumhe aisa ladka nahi mila nahi aaj tak
Shruti: Nahi yaar. Aise ladake milate nahi aaj kal. Kismae yeh baat acchi to woh kharab hai.
Monty: Pata hai mera ek dost hai usane na 5 saal pahale ek car kharidi hai lekin aaj tak bahar nahi nikali. Waise ki waisi padi hai garage me. Batoao kyu?
Shruti: Ummm... kyunki wo tumhra dost hai. Tumhare jaisa hi pagal hoga
Monty: Are nahi. Pata hai wo kya kahata hai...?? Mai tab tak car nahi chalaunga jab tak shahar ke saare signal green nahi ho jaate
Shruti: Lekin wo jab tak car bahar nahi nikalega use pata kaise chalega ke signal green hai ke nahi
Monty: Wahi to mai tumhe bol raha huu Shruti, take out the car, take your chance !

Interesting no !

Irrfan Khan is amazing. I can watch movie again just for him.

More coming up on my life in this soon-to-be Metro and fear of commitment.

I am back … finally !

2007-05-29T18:40:00.000+05:30

It’s been almost a month that I have written anything. I can give hundreds of reasons for the disappearance. Of course laziness tops the list (I know I know, this will be reason for any of the things that I don’t do or even I do :-D). Then I had my family around for a while. It’s terrible to adjust for few days after they are gone. Mom is not there to bug me in the morning to get up, cook nice food in the evening or there is no sis to fight with. I realized that it’s been almost 3 years that I have stayed under same roof with my sis... talk about pains of staying away from home :-(. I so much miss fighting with her and playing AoM (Age of Mythology for the uninitiated). It was lying around on my lappy for a while but I didn’t touch it until she came. Its fun playing those games with her, fighting for control, planning strategies and calling each other by names in the game. We used to play demos of AoE on home computer for whole days but couldn’t spend that much time here :-(. Every time I switched on lappy to write something, we would end up starting the game and playing it for hours.

Then there was the Blah blog to write for. Now I have become comfortable writing there and it’s fun to write with so many different people. I met all the fellow Blahgers (that’s what we call ourselves) from Bangalore, this weekend and it was helluva fun. I never thought I will even open my mouth in front of complete strangers and ended up spending almost spending 2 hours of animated conversation. All of us are coming from different cultures and different professions. There were people not only from different part of the country but different parts of the word. Now I think that was something great. Checkout for the snaps and account of the meet here. The meet was held at a place called BrewHaHa. This place is as interesting as its name. It’s a coffee shop place gaming joint. I never got time to check out the games but I am sure gonna make more trips there. Now that my favorite coffee shop ‘Inch’ is closed for a reason unknown :-(.

There are so many things to write about… the monsoon showers Bangalore is blessed with, Mumbai-Pune express highway drive and the vada-paav, Two amazing books that I read ‘Shantaram’ and ‘The Namesake’ and the sweet movie ‘Cheeni Kum’. Read review on Blah here (Yes I wrote it … It is called shameless promotion of your writing :-D). Will return before people start thinking that this blog is shutting down.

Curse my laziness and hectic work schedule if I don’t return soon !!!

PS1 :-> Right now, I am very sad because after getting tickets for the ‘Aerosmith’ show, the friend accompanying me has decided to give more preference to work :-(. Gwwwwad... please send me friends who like Rock music (none of the existing ones like it :-( )and like to attend the live show and will come with me. I don’t want to miss the show !!!

PS2 :-> Now I am gonna be 'Aunty' officially. In next couple of months a tiny member is gonna arrive in my family... Yoooo !!!

One more year goes by …

2007-05-03T15:55:00.001+05:30

Today I turn a year older. I mean now I have become really ‘OLD’. Not just kids but teenagers and even some uncles too call me aunty :-(. So much old that, the hoopla about b’day celebration, cake cutting, gifts, new dresses and all is not exciting me much. That’s the sign of turning old isn’t it? :D. A friend asked me what’s your birthday wish, ‘to act like my age’ was my reply. Really it’s a bigger deal for someone like me. It means no more acting cranky, no more hopping around like a baby, no more ‘anger attacks’, no more kung-fu hassles with sis, no more throwing tantrums during marriage related discussions, no more acting like bad gal with mom, no more mimicking people (I do that a lot), no more late morning snores on weekends, no more acting lazy, lot more concentrating on work and less wondering of mind, lot more acting sober and lot less running away from people, no more excuses of ‘I am still young no!’ blah blah.... Ooooh oooh… that’s lot of changes needed to be done with increasing age, isn’t it? ( On a second thought I feel I should let go of that wish and be as I am :-D, what do ya people say? )

Today was good with roomies keeping the hostel tradition of cutting cake at stroke of midnight and painting my face with choco cream, friends n family calling up to wish me. Having mom and sis around makes this day more special. I remember last year was all whiny about turning old. Probably because I was all alone in the foreign land far far away… only cake I cut was a blue berry muffin (which happens to be my favorite, but come on… muffin for a birthday cake !) And it was my first step to the other (wrong) side of twenties.

In a way, it has been hell of year, bizarre would be a better word or what my mom describes as ‘Gaddhe Panchvishi’ (Literally translated as ‘Donkey age of 25’ loosely meaning ‘When 25 you are/act like a donkey’) :-D. Jokes apart, I think mom is not totally wrong. Life was never more exciting with unexpected things happening all the time that I wouldn’t even dream of doing. Once a self-proclaimed pundit had told me that my life is gonna be a normal, predictable one. If this is the definition of normal life, then I wonder how not-normal life would be !!!

I look forward to this year with lot of hopes and dreams. (I hope I will start being a good gal this year :-D) … !!!

I (will) write here too ...!!!

2007-04-30T13:37:00.000+05:30

Finally I have manged to write and post the blog-post. And that makes one more addition to my 'I write here too' list... Yayy !!!

Check this out

http://blah.burrp.com/

** Show off **

When it rains...

2007-04-20T17:23:00.000+05:30

The air was chilly, water drops were hitting my face real hard. It was pouring cats and dogs. I couldn’t make out was there at arms length. With water all over my specs, the visibility was even lesser (How I wish my specs had wipers!) Everyone was running for shelter, there was huge crowd below the Domlur flyover and slow moving traffic on the road. And there was I, driving slowly and steadily, navigating my way through puddles of water. I must have driven for hardly a kilometer or so. Till the time I reached the place I was totally drenched, water dripping from jeans, shoes. My jacket was helpless in the piercing rain. My hands were totally frozen and I was shivering with cold. Thankfully there was helmet so head was intact. The disadvantage was that I could take much water in my mouth. The rain water tastes soo sweet.

Oh no… I am not describing one of my dreams. It happened… it happened yesterday night when it rained in Bangalore. And it was not just yesterday that it rained. The rain gods have taken pity on us Bangaloreans melting away in the April heat and have been pouring frequently since last week. Yesterday was their strongest performance and first time, I got drenched in rain. There was no emergency as such to go driving in the rain. I just wanted to go. I wish I could spread my arms and run in the rain. At least I got to enjoy the drive :-).

The temperature display near my office reads 25 degrees which is huge relief for us from the 40degrees just a week ago. The air still has intoxicating smell of wet soil, cool breeze greets me every time I open my window. I can sit for hours in my gallery with a cup of coffee watching the planes fly past. Ahh… so beautiful! But the sad part is that I will have to go away from this bliss for a while in the land of frequent power cuts and scorching heat. That is correct, I am going home for a week. Till then all you Bangalore people enjoy the rain and pray that it rains till I come back. And others burning in heat, be jealous at Bangalore people :-D.

Google acts cranky !!!

2007-04-17T17:44:00.000+05:30

Have you ever used Google reader, the new crawler from Google which manages your subscription to blogs and news sites etc? With this you don’t need to remember/bookmark all your favorite blog sites, news sites and check for updates all the time. The dear reader does the job for you. All you need to give all the links you love, to it and sit back and relax. It will frequently check for updates and get them at your page-step. Nice utility I must say, glorified version of RSS reader I believe. Now being the ‘Google worshipper’, it is my first duty to utilize whatever they bring on. I use gmail, even though I know they might be indexing my mails for their commercial purpose. I am frequent to orkut, though it makes my personal life public, I am still sticking to Blogger despite people trying to influnce me a lot about wordpress… and of course the one and only Google search is life line of we softies. There is… No... there was almost a blind trust that whatever it says has to be correct until the reader gave me wrong entries.

This Sunday morning I open my reader page with much enthu to catch updates on all ma favorite blogs. I see whole 6 entries for a blog that I love reading and which hasn’t been updated for a while. I get very happy and read through the entries. The gal was whining about getting old and matrimonial ads and all. Wait a sec… didn’t she just get married couple of months ago. Is she writing about someone else? I recheck again… am I reading other gal’s blog who is at same state. Nope… It’s the first gal who got married. I check the date updated. Its today morning 10am time. There is one Friday the 13th post which makes me believe that these have to be recent posts (Last Friday was Friday the 13th …the evil day; if you didn’t notice :-) ). So I open the blog to see what going wrong and bingo ! Looks like the reader played April fool prank. They threw last year's 6 posts at me!

Beware people, there is a bug in reader… don’t trust it blindly :-D !!! Tomorrow it will give you news from yesteryears and you might not bother to check the actual info. Imagine you reading about blasts in Bombay and frantically calling all you relatives/friends to check on them when nothing has happened. Google can have that kinda influence you see!

Talking of April fool pranks; none can beat Googlies to come up with intelligent ideas. You all must remember the lunar jobs they were offering couple of years ago. This year there was TiSP(BETA)... hilarious concept. The way have explained almost makes you believe that such things can be true. Read more about it here

New Blog !!!

2007-04-11T18:58:00.000+05:30

I have realized that I have been wrting too much about food these days. So I thought why should not I open a new blog and share my love ... like I already I have one for songs.

So here it is... my foodie blog

Hope you will like it :-)

When I go to Pune…

2007-04-08T02:33:00.000+05:30

Yeah I was there again (Don’t ask me the reason why !!!) As I had said earlier Pune is a city which is expected to be loved by all Marathi people and it is assumed by all (including myself) that I will also be settling down there someday or other. The thought of going there scars me for no reason. My cousin claims once you go to Pune you can’t live anywhere. I used to think same for Mumbai. But I managed to survive in Bangalore, in fact I am practically in love with this city. I remember first six months of my stay here when I was frantically searching for opportunities to leave the city but the it hasn’t let me go yet :-). Who knows… I might like Pune, as well! Anyways who has seen the future!!! Let’s talk about things I did in Pune.

I had the whole afternoon to spare and was very very hungry till the time I was free. I asked cousin to take me to a place where I can have good Marathi food. I miss the food many times, you see. It’s not like I don’t like the food I have here but then … home food is after all home food. The taste you grow up will never leave you. Like for me, any dish is made perfectly when it tastes and smells just like mom’s. We went to this place called ‘Café Shreyas’ where they have dining hall. They have Marathi style thali with everything served unlimited.

Now the concept of typical Marathi food is vague. Like the language, Marathi food changes its taste every 10 miles. The western Maharashtrian food is the spiciest of all. Any thing prefixed with ‘Kolhapuri’ is the hottest food around. It is the kind of food that will heat up your ears and get water from your nose (That’s the kinda expression a friend uses; if a food items manages to heat up your senses particularly the ear lobes and make eyes and nose water it is hot; “Yaar yeh to kaan me dhua wala khana hai” she goes) The Kolhapuri mutton/chicken rassa (curry) is world famous in Maharashtra :-D. And Puneri food is the sweetest. They would put sugar in everything, from sabji to samabar. In the part of state where I come from, we like to put lot of garlic and onions in every dish. Ours is the region where sabjis are available only during rainy season, so we have habit of preserving vegetables year round. And the dried vegetables, lentils, different kinds of pickles are regulars in our food. My town being close to Andra and Karnataka border, the food has both the state influences. So the delicacies like ‘Bisi bele bhath’, ‘Puliogare’ were not complete strangers to me. The north Karnataka food is very close to the kinda food we have. In all, I feel specialty of Marathi food is that we preserve original taste of the ingredients and we use very less spices as compared to northie and southie food. I should actually try to put together simple recipes sometime.

What would be my idea of a perfect thali…?? Hmmm… let me think. It can be either Jowar roti (jolda roti as they call it in Karnataka), peanut chutney mixed with curd (aka yogurt), raw onion; that’s the ‘gaon ka treat’ or just aamras (mangoes from our farm are better than those five star alphansos) and roti or poori; or the elaborate festive food. The plate has sixteen vegetables (dry and gravy), at least 5-6 kinds of chutneys, 3-4 kinds of papads, bhajiyas, sweet rice, plain rice, aamti (marathi version of rasam), sambar type dal, plain daal and most important of all... weak point of every Marathi manus, the puran poli with loads of ghee on it. And yes every food item has to be served on defined place in the plate, and in defined order. So first and foremost there has to be a pinch of salt put in the dish. Vegetables are served on the right hand side and chutneys/salads on the left hand side of the dish. Ahhh… you should just see the way it is served, the site itself is fulfilling. Well I can go on and on about it, but lets get back to the description of food I had :-D

There was aloo curry, another curry (I donno name of the sabji in English or Hindi), aamti, daal with tamrind, dry sabji, cucumber raita (koshimbir), 2 types of bhajiyas, papad, masala poories, plain poories, phulkas, dal-rice, star of the plate unlimited dahiwadas aaaaand aamras (yummmm!!!). Wow… we must have hogged like anything. It didn’t digest for whole day. It all culminated with sweeet natural watermelon ice crème. To add to the foodie pleasures, I bought myself pack of bakharwadis and kaju katalis from the Chitale Bandhu. I had to walk back home from the airport to make a little room in my tummy.

I want more journeys like that !!!

Coffee time gyaan

2007-04-01T23:01:00.000+05:30

Its usual coffee time and coffee place (gallery outside ) at office. There is a mango tree and raw mangos hanging all over it.
Guy1(pointing towards it): Hey see those mangoes. They look nice. (To me) You like them?
Me: Oh yeh. I like them a lot. They taste soooo good.
Guy1 (To guy2): I can’t understand how can they eat such things, raw mangos, guavas, tamrinds, chats. (To me) You must like them a lot
Me: Like them? I love all those things. I can’t understand how you don’t like them !!!
Guy 2: Girls always like weird things.
Me: Yeah… I think that’s why they like guys !!!

Weird ... !!!

2007-03-30T18:30:00.000+05:30

Its 2 o’clock and I suddenly remember that I need to catch a train at 3. I need to go somewhere for very urgent work and I cannot miss the train in any case. The train-station is around half an hour drive from my place so I have half an hour more to get ready. Suddenly I realized I haven’t packed my bag yet… I don’t even have a bag with me. I search frantically in the neighborhood for a bag. A friend come to rescue and lends me her bag. I pray mom is not around cause she absolutely hates my last minute running around. She calls it “tahan lagali ki vihir khodane” (Digging well only when I am thirsty). Then I realize my cloths are not washed at all. Mom comes to rescue and puts them in washing machine without saying a bit. My heart beat starts racing and I get hysteric looking for my stuff. Interestingly I still of some more time to go. I start searching for iron (what the hell has happened to me since when have I started caring about all this stuff. I am getting late!!!) Mom gives me the cold look and helps me pack. I am frantically running around and I realize that there is just 10 minutes before the train leaves. I take the first vehicle and rush towards the station. There is huge traffic jam and it feels like ages before I reach the station. I am almost in tears; my heart is racing at Olympic speed. When station is near, I jump out of the vehicle and start running towards the platform. My train has given whistle and started to move. I run for the love of my life, my legs don’t seem like moving at all, my throat is dry. I am panting, sweating and dragging my luggage. The train seems unending and it is still there when I reach the platform. The train looks little weird. It has huge doors like Mumbai locals and berths like sleeper coach. I am about to throw myself inside the train when the doorbell rings and I need to answer it.

You got it right… It was just a dream. I only wish my life was so dramatic :-). This is one of the dreams I get very often, sometimes there is a train to catch, or a bus or a flight or a exam to appear for. And I get it when I am about to do one of these. Today’s occasion was a test at office for which I had reach really really early (8:30am is dawn for me :-) ). I find it weird to get same dream again and again. I think it’s more due to fear of getting late for anything or just my love for dramatic things :-), But my heartbeat is increased considerably whenever I wake up from the dream.

Memories of food

2007-03-29T22:56:00.000+05:30

n;t This post is triggered from Shirsha’s question “do you have memories of taste?” I have the weird memory system. I never know what will be correlated with what. I have vivid memories of smell, like I had posted here. So is true about taste/food. I like to call them memories of a die-hard foodie.

Like with the book I read, autobiography of famous Marathi writer P.K. Atre(fondly known as ‘Acharya Atre’) called “Karheche Pani”, huuuuge book, I remeber taste of ginger. I read that book during summer vacations of 7th or 8th class along with ‘aalepak’. This is an interesting thing made of ginger + honey, to be eaten as mouth freshener. My aunt had got loads of packets for us. And I had them accompanying me all the time while reading the book. Whenever I see that book, the gingery taste lingers on my tongue. Yeah… I like ginger and garlic too, they are regular performers in my food preparations. Do you know that garlic is very good for heart patients (or people having hypertension problems) and they are advised to have it raw? And plain daal with garlic tadka in ghee tastes heaven :-). We are digressing here... no !

Another taste one is the sweet-sour taste of pani-puri (aka gol-gappe, puchka) that we used to feast on during college days. None makes pani-puri like that guy makes, puries stuffed with cooked black chana and filled with cool sweet water plus sour liquid with hint of pudina… yum! The sour taste is overpowering but the sweet would play little games with the tongue. I still remember that taste! I haven’t tasted pani puri like that anywhere else. There were days when we had only pani-puri for dinner. Or hint of dinner and loot of pani puri. Sometimes we would carry them all the way to hostel. Now I must tell you how far this place was from our hostel, it was like going to other town altogether. My college was some 20 + km away from that place. The best way to get there was the college bus which was available only when we were toiling (??) in college. Otherwise we would have to share auto ride and change at least 3 autos (yeah autos used tun like city-buses. ‘We will go only from this point to that… aana hai to aao nahi to jao’) which would cost around 12 to 16 bucks one way. (It was very very big deal for us those days). So we had to spend around 25 to 30 bucks to have pani puri worth 10 max 15 rs. And we had the back-to-hostel-by-7:30 restriction so we were always in short of time. Many times couple of us would go to get pani puris for all of us. Best part used be when we would gulp on the pani after having pani puris. It would burn our throat, bring tears to eyes but we were not the ones to give up. I still can picturize 5 of us huddled in my room, using paper as carpet, the paani-puri stuff spread all over and gulping down puris one after another.

Ahhh… those were the days. Another food thing I remember from college days is the yummiest tandoori-chicken. Yeah yeah yeah… I was non-vegie once upon a time and tadoori chicken was my beloved dish. Studying in a city with abundent Punjabi peoepl, we had access to most amazing Punjabi food. There was a dhaba called A1 tandoor which served best of all tandoors better than any of the 'star'y hotels around. One fine day me and a roomie decided to have chicken and ventured our way to it. With full josh we ordered for full plate of tandoor, chicken 65 and rice. The tandoor was really really huge. We were hell bent on not wasting single piece of it and ended up eating for hours to finish the tandoor. Not to mention we skipped food for next two days. Tandoor smell always reminds me of that session.
There were couple of dhabas behind the Gurudwara which served thick Punjabi parathas. One paratha would be enough for a meal. But the taste I remember more is the chai they served. They would give it in big lassi glasses, made with more milk and boiled a lot. It had the dhaba smelll… I want that chai!

Another weird memory is of the aloo sabji. In Mumbai, we used got dabba(tiffin) in office. Our dabbawala was very fond aloo (like all other mess-walas). He used make boiled potato sabji, the way we make for masla dosa, but with less spices. So it tasted like boiled potatos with salt and oil. Guys called it masala sabji and always used to joke that this guy wants to give us joy of having masala dosa.

Well... I can go on writing forever about these foodie memories. May be some other time :-)

Another good weekend goes by…

2007-03-26T17:57:00.000+05:30

Alas!!! The weekend comes and swooshes away without even letting us sink completely in the pleasures of being away from office and all the work related crap. And you realize importance of weekend even more when you have to drag yourself and your bike, off course for close to 2 km in the noisy, crawling traffic (I was literally walking) and then climb flight of stairs all the way to 4th floor because all lifts decide to take a Monday morning break.

It feels like I am dragging life with the hope of getting good weekends :-D. The perfect weekend should start with perfect Saturday. For me, it’s a day when you finish all your weeks pending quota of sleep. I like to get up at late afternoon, get fresh, eat something and then again doze off. Maximum would be to go out somewhere for dinner. My lazy bone takes over completely this day (I think all my bones are affected by this lazy bone). I don’t even take the effort to cook if there is none at home. Earlier mom used to call me up on Saturday mornings and try to wake me up without any success. Now she has accepted it as one those ‘bad habits’ I have picked up as a result of staying away from home. But this Saturday was not one these perfect Saturdays (for my sleep). I had to get up early in the morning to finish some work by 12. So I was officially up by 8am but allowed myself to steal long naps till 12. Apart from that it was goooood weekend.

There were lots of movies watched. First one to be mentioned is ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ (with a ‘y’ and not ‘i’). This has been on my to-watch list since long, strongly recommended by A. And I must say it was worth it. The only other movie of Will Smith I have seen is ‘Hitch’ where he is good. I have seen ‘MIB’ in bits and pieces and there was a series called ‘Fresh prince of Bell air’ made during start of his career. So basically I didn’t have too many prejudices apart from the fact that this is his Oscar nominated performance. It’s a story of transition of an ordinary guy from declared loser to topper in his class equipped with nothing but believe in himself, hardwork and dedication to his dreams. I love this dialog when he preaches to his son ‘If you have a dream. You got to protect it. Don’t even let anyone tell you that you can’t do this. Not even me’. Will Smith excels in portraying agony of helpless father, smitten by situation still hanging on to his dreams and working his way up. It has touchy father-son angle.

Another father-son movie, I watched was ‘Finding Nemo’, one of the best animation movies ever made. The father ‘Marlin’ is totally different from Will Smith’s father character ‘Chris’. He is over protective, over cautious towards his son ‘Nemo’. But finally he breaks all the fears to save him. Ahh… these my-dady-strongest type movies appeal me a lot :-). I love the character Dory in ‘Finding Nemo’. This is a must watch movie for all animation lovers. And so is ‘Cars’, another animation movie I watched this weekend. Its my third time and the more I see it the more I love it.

Been to Forum (‘the’ mall of Bangalore) after so many days. Once upon a time it was the place, I was found practically every weekend. Now it has lost its charm with too much of crowd. Nevertheless we had good time hanging around, shopping for cute stuff and watching the crowd.

This was a gooood weekend and Sunday morning encounter with expectedly unexpected (or was it unexpectedly expected) people didn’t hamper the fun a bit!

The main to-buy this weekend was ‘Kandisa’ CD. Indian Ocean is the music of season for me. They make amazing music. Interestingly I had to search 3-4 music shop before I finally got hold of the album. This is one CD worth having in my collection. The song ‘Kandisa’ rocks as always. ‘Ma Rewa’ is equally amazing. Now I am searching for ‘Jhini’. You can see the song video on youtube (Check it out here http://youtube.com/watch?v=NhKYn0dg-K4 ) but not able to get the complete mp3 version. Please pass on the complete song if you have it. I sing along with them whole day today
‘Ma rewa sssssss… tharo paani nirmal khal khal bahata jaye re…’

Why I like Wednesdays …

2007-03-21T17:25:00.001+05:30

Wednesday is my favorite day of the week. Oh… I know that reaction… ‘What? You crazy gal? It’s not a weekend. It’s WEEKDAY… mid week day!!!’ Well that’s me, I like this day :-). Today was good as I got good food, good company and good news.

It was the sports day at office and all my enthu-team was to go to the ground to play. Somehow I didn’t feel like going there. Yeah, I am acting like one of those boring people who like to sit back in cozy place and do the boring work instead of going out and enjoying. You can delete the ‘doing work’ part for me :-). I don’t have any reason for not going apart from I didn’t feel like, however lame it may sound. Moreover its getting soooo horribly hot outside these days, the thought of stepping out during day time is unthinkable. I decided to stay back and may be run away home early considering that none will be in office during afternoon.

I was having chat with S and got myself company for lunch. Midweek-midday lunch with friend, how cool is that!! Basically I wanted to show off my nu-nu hair style (Am I getting to ‘show-off’y about it ??) We had lunch at ‘Mast Kalandar’ on CMH road. This place is couple of kilometers away from my office and interestingly I didn’t feel the sun at all while driving there. Now this restaurant is cool eat out chain mostly serving northie food, total ‘ghar ka khana’ type. The funky orange-green interiors totally live up to their ‘Eat Happy’ punch line. We feasted on gobi and mutter parathas, they too had some funky names which don’t remember at all. It was fun. We should this more often.

Do you know that this food chain is started by some softies*? And it is quite a hit amongst good food-seekers here. Gosh, I too want to start something like this before I burn out in the office AC. Back to office, I was surfing about this chain and came across these two burrp blogs BangaloreBelly and Burrp. Cool blogs. Must-check-out for those who like food and want try out different varieties of food. Also registered myself at Burrp as a reviewer too! Did you know about another techie restaurant called DalFryday in Bangalore. The name sounds pretty cool. I am gonna try it some day. What?? Don’t you know that I big time foodie and my idea of eating out is to try out new one and not to be regular member of same idly/pizza place next door :-D.

Back to office, I got the good news. I am gonna be masi in couple of months.. yay!!! This will be first child in my group...I am sooooo excited!!! Ahh… Wednesdays are always good, isn’t it ? :-)

Softie == Software Engineer and not the ice-cream type.

Lazy me...

2007-03-20T16:05:00.000+05:30

Today I was checking my blog activity statistics and realized that it has gone down this month. Last couple of months I was posting practically everyday and this month all I am able to manage is writing about my weekends. If you know me very well you will say, ‘Oh… this is very typical of you, Ashley!!!’ There are so many things (and people) that fascinate me and I tend to take up that activity with lots of vigor. But also tend to abandon many of them once I lose interest in them (or when people start acting too smart). The graph curve changes its direction exponentially. Though there are lots of other things, I have been doing despite all the problems. Anyways… I won’t make blogging one of the things I give up. Recently, I have been getting quite many complements for my writing and who doesn’t like praise you see :-D. Consider it just as lazy lapse in productivity :-).

These days I am so badly stuck in work that all I can see is blue screen, crash dump, even in dreams. By the time I reach home, my mind is totally exhausted to think of anything. It just goes blank. I don’t even remember what I did last week or even during the weekend. It was the long weekend, and I wanted to celebrate New Year, ‘Gudi Padwa’ in total Marathi style and wanted to invite friends for lunch. But our maid ran away and I ended up making aloo-parathas and Shira (Suji Halwa in Hindi), which was not that bad menu for holiday :-). Apart from that there were lots movies watched. First the epic ‘300’, fundu story and great presentation, then ‘You have got mail’, I can watch this one thousand times and the sweetest movie ‘Sound of Music’. I watched this one for the first time and I loved it. All the praise I have heard about it is just right. Also finished watching FRIENDS season one and half of season two. I am obsessed with the series these days. Hmm… by this time you must have realized that I was glued to my room all three days. Yes, you are right. I didn’t feel like going out and seeing other people. Now you know exactly why I like Garfield so much!!!

But I was not in total seclusion after all... been to my favorite coffee place ‘Inch’ after so many days. I just love the ambience and beverages they serve, Mint and hazelnut flavored hot chocolate being my all time favorite :-). The food is also not bad though they have very less veggie options :-(. But we tried food at a different restaurant called ‘Hot Walk’ (or was it ‘Hot Wok’ ??), a Chinese place near CMH road, Nice cosy place with good food and good ambience.

And how can I forget the most important thing, the makeover that my hair have got. Sunday afternoon, my roomie declared that I must get a haircut. I thought of trying this hep salon a friend had suggested long time ago. We needed to take appointment to get a hair cut there! With the money I paid for my hair-cut, I could have bought myself round trip train tickets to my home. I know Mom is gonna freak out when she sees my shorter hair. But with all the compliments I am getting, I think the money is worth spent.

2007-03-13T16:35:00.001+05:30

I have picked up Shirsha’s blog habit of describing about ‘how my weekend was?’ Here comes description of another one :-).
This weekend was the ‘movie weekend’, I watched close to 5 movies and a music show (yes!!!). I say close to 5 because I left the theatre in between for movie because it was too horrible to watch… Mel Gibson’s movie ‘Apocalypto’. I donno what has made him to make a movie like that; least he should not call it a movie and sell is a documentary on primitive human beings. It was the first movie I started the weekend with and made my cousin to leave the theatre within 40 minutes after they started to dissect human parts one by one (Ewwww!!!). But back home watched better movies. My friend’s husband is a great movie fan and has nice collection of cds/dvds. Oooh… I forgot to mention, I was in Pune this weekend… Yayy!!!
I had some work in the city so had flown in for the weekend and stayed with this friend of mine... a little bit of work to be finished on Friday morning and then lot of fun with friends, cousins and most important with dearest sis. She came down all the way to meet me. There were so many people to meet. Most of our time was spent in going from one place to another. We must have traveled complete length of Pune for more than once. The city is supposed to be a dream place for every Marathi person but somehow I never took much liking for it. The roads are pathetic and so is traffic and pollution. I felt like a total stranger there and missed Bangalore buzz. The friend said I have bad habit of getting attached to things. I guess she is right. I used to feel same when I left Mumbai.
This friend I stayed with, was my roomie in Mumbai and one of those caring roomies I am always blessed with. Those were the days when all I knew was to go to office and come back home and sleep. I couldn’t cook or clean, couldn’t even make a cuppa tea. Those two gals pampered me like a baby. The story of how good (totally burnt) rice I had made for a sick friend is still popular with Mumbai friends group. So when I went to her place this time, I so much wanted to demonstrate my cooking skills. After all the plans, we settled down on making aloo-parathas. They were yummy as usual.

Apart from ‘Apocalypto’, other movies I watched were (in the order of watching) ‘My Super Ex-Girl Friend’ (Funny concept), ‘Hitch’ (Can watch this one again and again), ‘HTPL’ (The kids wanted to watch it once again), ‘Remember the Titans’ (Really good one). And last but not the least was the song extravaganza ‘Ayushyawar Bolu Kahi’ (translated as ‘Lets talk something about life’), as innovative program started by two young musicians Salil Kulkarni and Sandip Khare. The man Sandip Khare is miracle with words. Its been really long since I have listened to such beautiful Marathi poems and songs. I missed attending it when they had come to Bangalore. I can’t help but recite this poem ‘Evdhach Na’.
“Evdhach na… Ekte jagu
Amach hasa, amach rad
Gheun samore ektech baghu

Ratrial kon duparla kon
Janmaala avghya ya purlay kon
Shwaasaala shwaas kshanaala kshanaala kshaan
Diwsaala diwas jodat jagu
Evdhach na…

Anganala kumpan hotach kadhi
Gharala aangan hotach kadhi
Gharaache bhaas, Anagnaache bhaas
Kupanache bhaasach bhogat jagu…
Evdhach na…

Aalaat aalat tar aalaat tumchech paay
Gelaat tar gelat konaala kaay
Swatach paay swatach waat
Swtach sobat houn jagu
Evdhach na…

Maatiche ghar maatiche daar
Maatich ghar maatich daar
Maatichya dehala maatche waar
Maatich khari maatich bari
Maatit maati mislat jagu
Evdhach na… “

I will try to translate it some time… Will have to use my linguistic skills at the best :-).

Happy Women’s Day !!!

2007-03-08T16:46:00.000+05:30

Today’s the woman’s day and there is lot of halla-gulla celebrations going on all around the world, sellers marketing their product, government people making sugar-coated speeches and boys/men whining over ‘why is there only women’s day and why not men’s day?’. Some guy replied, it is men’s day everyday so let women have at least one day of their own!

Haah… that's very true isn’t it? Let me clarify first. I am not the ‘mahila-mukti’ types to start arguing with men and opposing them on each and every issue, I don’t even claim all the women are superior. But I do believe that women should get respect as a human being which is still lacking in most walks of our society and even all over the world. The need to celebrate a special day for them speaks of that isn’t it?
We still have abundant cases of rapes, brutal domestic violence, killing for dowries, eve-teasing, killing of female fetuses and newborns. A lot still has to be done to make the woman to be able to hold her head high and make a place for themselves in the world. Why is that, only girls have restrictions about timing and places to go? And why is a girl being blamed always if anything bad happens to her and not the man who actually does it?
I came across this blog cum project called Blank Noise. Here they encourage women to speak up about the harassments they face every day of life. There are many men who are part of this project and being a great help. Do read the part where women have wished what they would like to do. Most of the women have expressed very simple desires like being able to walk on the street with out any fear or just stand on the pavement without being conscious of thousand stares piercing at them. It might be shocking to read but it is true… very very small things that ‘only’ girls have to care about.
I too have a wish… I want to walk in the rain without caring for how my clothes will look like and without being conscious if any guy is staring at me

Today evening they are arranging a walk in major areas of Bangalore to encourage women to walk on the roads with out any fear and just be themselves. There will be men to show their support too. Be part of it if you can!

Here is wishing all the beautiful girls and women of the world a very Happy Women’s Day! And wishing for a future where we will not be need to celebrate separate women’s day and everyday will be celebration of the women kind… !!!

Amen!!!

Evening to remember....

2007-03-06T02:47:00.000+05:30

They say… everything that starts well should end well…

So was true about my weekend. It started with the most amazing musical performance I have attended yet! If you know me you know that I am the biggest music lover… any kind of music be it rock or classical is good for me. There always song playing my head. Do all people have song of the day… like my today’s song is Numb/Encore- Lynkin Park!
So my roomie wanted to go for this show “Concert for Bangalore” (or something like that)… I agreed because my favorite musician of all times… Ustad Zakir Husain was going to play. All my study hours(though they were not too long :D) in school were spent with his music playing on the background. The man is pure magic on tabla!!! There used to other classical music performances in house too. Dad being big fan of classical music, most of our mornings used to start with Bismilla Khan’s sanai or Ravi Shankar’s sitar. But after leaving home, I was more oriented towards vocals than instrumental music.

So when I decided to go for this concert it was more of, ‘ok I can give her company…’ we managed to drag one more friend along with us (big time rock fan like me). Oh I forgot to mention the other musician, legendary Ustad Amjad Ali khan. Apparently they were playing together after more than a decade in Bangalore.

The evening started late due the traffic jams and all chaos. The ground was more or less full and I was surprised to see young crowd outnumbering uncles and aunties. We were sitting far far away from the stage. Everything there looked like colored dots moving around. Amjad Ali khan started the concert with the note ‘we haven’t even talked about what we will be playing tonight. Everything we play is decided as the mood sets and cannot be repeated again. Call it simplicity, magic or difficulty of our music. This performance is especially for you Bangalore!’ Wow… How amazing is that! And his fingers started moving smoothly on the sarod. The music was so enchanting that I never felt the need to stand up and ‘see’ them perform. It’s the kind of music that touched the heart and enlightens your senses… you can actually ‘feel’ it. There was kinda smile on everyone’s face that tells you are absolutely delighted, through out the performance and the heads were nodding automatically with every twist in the symphony. I have zero understanding of the ragas to tell what all they played. There was some evening ragas, holi raga and prayer to Ganesha. And there was the full moon to witness it all.

I have been to couple of live music performances… mostly rock. They were mind blowing. But the rock music bangs in the head, and this music plays softly with your heart. Ahhh… I am so happy that I was there. I still have that smile on my face. And the thought that I might not be able to attend the ‘Iron Maiden’ conert, hurts less :-).

The weekend ended with laugh riot called ‘Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd’ a.k.a HTPL. I haven’t heard people talking too good things about it but I liked it. It’s a nice concept, could have been better, but still… a good try. There was this scene which I should not miss to mention:

Background: They are the perfect couple. Been together for 16 years and never had a single fight. They have choices, likes dislikes, cloths and even bags too! Too sweet to digest!! One morning the gal discovers that her man has been absconding for hours. She get angry and they have their first fight. After lot of convincing, the guy agrees to tell her the secret. He takes her to a lonely place at wee hours.

Guy: Dekho, abhi job hi kuch tum dekhegi usase darna nahi. Always remember that I love you.
Gal: What are you saying ? You are freaking me out.
Guy: This has to come out one day. Please say that you won’t get angry with me.
Gal: Please tell me what is it? I am freaking.
Gal: Dekho sambhalke.
(He stands up and zooooooom. He is a super hero!)
Gal: Oh I am so happy.
Guy is puzzled. She stands up and zooooooom. She is the super gal too ! Bravo !!!

Gal: Isiliye hum logon me aaj tak zagada nahi hua. Super man aur super women 16 saal me sirf ek baar zagadate hai

Me was ROTFL :-) :-) :-)

In between there was Jalebi and Baigna ka bharta (yummy!), at ‘Chilly Pepper’. Though it has Chinese name, the place serves amazing northie food… truly ‘exceptional food’ as their tag line goes. And the huge soooper scooper at corner house… I just can’t get enough of ice-cream these days :-). Friends and F.R.I.E.N.D.S. were there all along to keep nice company. Though I missed a trekking trip… but will make that soon:-).

I am tagged...

2007-02-26T19:46:00.000+05:30

Shirsha has tagged me! And I am prompt to finish it quickly :-)

Favorite Colors: Sky blue, light yellow sometimes bright colors
Favorite Food: Chats (pani puri), Marathi food. Other than that Italian, Mexican, North Indian… anything veggie, spicy
Favorite Month: No preference. May mebbe… thats the summer holiday time and has my b’day too !!!
Favorite Songs: Mera Kuch Saamaan, Everything I do, When you say nothing at all will do anytime. Other than that choice depends on mood from Jagjeet to Metalica… I am huge music buff
Favorite Movies: Dil Chahata hai, Animation movies and RomComs like When Harry Met Sally, You have got mail, Notting Hill
Favorite Book: In Marathi all PL Deshpande books. ‘Love story’ and ‘The Fountainhead’ in English
Favorite Sport: Kabbadi :D
Favorite Season: Rainy season
Favorite Day Of the week: Wednesday
Favorite Ice Cream Flavor: Most of them (including mint too!!!) and I have started liking chocolate a lot these days
Favorite Time of Day: Dusk

8 CURRENTS:
Current Mood: Its Monday again … *sigh*
Current Taste: Bakhar Wadi that my romie got from Mumabi... yum !
Current Clothes: Pajamas
Current Desktop: Ocean Blue
Current Toe nail Color: Colorless
Current Time: 7.22 PM IST
Current Surroundings: My room
Current Thoughts: zzZZzzzz

6 FIRSTS:
First Best Friend: Don’t remember
First Screen Name: Ashley
First Pet: N/A
First Piercing: Ears
First Album: Don’t remember
First Movie: 'Annadi' thats the first movie I remember watching in theater

6 LASTS:
Last Cigarette: When someone around me smokes :-D
Last Taste: Parathas we gobbled on at 'Boby da Dhaba' in Ulsoor ...
Last Movie Seen: The Angrez… too hilarious
Last Phone Call: To mom
Last Book Read: Shantaram

Have You Ever Broken the Law: Traffic Signals … many times even on phoren grounds
Have You Ever Been Arrested: Not yet
Have You Ever Been on TV: Yeah … when we were watching uncle’s marriage CD
Have You Ever Lied: Yup!
Have You Ever Kissed Someone You Didn't Know: Naah

5 THINGS:
Thing You're Wearing: Pajamas
Thing You've Done Today: Wake up late, dozed in office though meetings, came back early and now waiting for office servers to come up and blogging
Thing You Can Hear Right Now: “Paint my love” MLTR
Thing You Can't Live Without: Do water, air etc count ?
Thing You Do When You're Bored: Read, Listen to music, Watch TV, sleep, go out, bug friends

4 PLACES YOU'VE BEEN TODAY:
Home, Office, Southie eatery near office, bad bad Airport road and MG Road traffic

3 PEOPLE YOU CAN TELL ANYTHING TO:
Mom and couple of friends.

2 CHOICES:
Want to see mom and sis desperately
Never give up on anything in life

1 THING YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE: Travel all over India

And I tag Apoorv :-)

2007-02-18T22:58:00.000+05:30

Love and hate, Illusions and delusions
Understandings and misunderstandings
Likings and disliking, Affair and infatuation
Ups and downs, all have happened

Today I sit back and relax
I am going to clean my closet,
Wipe off all the old things
And make room for new ones
No place for complains and regrets

With the ever changing coordinates
I m searching for the point of reference
Gonna find the solid ground to stand firm

The nomad is going to settle down now
And mama… I will be coming home soon!!!

2007-02-17T01:46:00.000+05:30

“Baaah Baaah Baaah…” someone I used to consider the most sensible person gave (or I should say tried to give) me advice of lifetime. I didn’t know what to say … should I laugh or cry. Words have meaning my dear, and they do hurt other people. I couldn’t help but wonder… Do we really have the right to judge other people? And then try to judge other “other” people based on these other people and the go ahead and give them the free advice? And if we get advice, should we really consider it? If somebody is giving you some advice does it mean that it has to be right? Ok, so you used to consider that person for a long long time, so does that mean the person has to be right this time too. People change and so do their views and our opinions about them!

Someone gave me a beautiful example about change of opinions,
You are madly in love with a guy and you see him raping a girl… will your emotions be same ?

Haaah… Its amazing life… You never know what will happen next :-).

This is to all those people who have faith in life and faith in yourself…

If you have dream, live it
If you have intuition, follow it
Be true to yourself
And everything else will fall in right place!!!

And let there be world peace!!!

Miles to go before I sleep...

2007-02-11T21:41:00.000+05:30

... And I complete century of my blog posts !!!
This a poem a friend had given me to read. I believe it reflects my current mood very nicely and appropriate for the 100th post. I have a long way to go !

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep

Poem lyrics of Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost.

The 99th Post

2007-02-11T21:39:00.000+05:30

Its going to be a log weekend (Monday is Bangalore Bandh :-() and I am sitting at home on the Sunday evening. There are lots of thoughts crowding in my head and I am not able to think straight… I had a not so good start of the weekend. I need to write something… it always helps to disintegrate my thoughts. What should I write about? Was talking to my friend about it and she suggested why not write an autobiography… Ahh… now that’s interesting! I asked her, ‘name a single great thing that I have done that will make others read my autobiography’. ‘Why do have to be great to write it and why do you want others to read it? Do you always write for others?’ She asks me. That’s true, I don’t write for others… neither to please anyone nor to hurt anyone, till now I haven’t written anything ‘politically correct’. This blog has always been like reflection of my most dear thoughts which I generally feel very awkward to talk. I have been writing about stuff without caring for who reads it or not … and believe it or not, putting down thoughts on paper (webpage that is :-)) makes a lot of difference to whole thought process… and has helped me to get out of the bad phase of life when I started blogging. And this happens to be my 99th post. Yayy!!!

Let me write about some random thoughts I have been having this weekend. I was thinking what I want to do now. I am neither depressed nor sad… but in a reflecting mood (I guess I do lot of thinking every weekend :D). But for the first time in last eight years I am missing home. I am missing dad. I wish I would get to see him at least once and tell how much I love him. I never said that to him when I had a chance. I want to go back and be a good girl I used to be, responsible and sensible. Yeah… I was like that . These two years in Bangalore have been totally insane for me. I have done the most bizarre things. Interestingly every city/town I have stayed in has brought drastically different changes in me… I will write about them some other time!
Yesterday my roomie got idea of opening a hair salon in front of Barista on MG road looking at the different hair styles of guys there. And I got mehandi (Henna) done on my hand sitting on the footpath :D. I just looove the mehandi smell. We didn’t cook anything again this weekend and gobbled on free food at two friends’ place. I bunked guitar class again… finally my guitar teacher called me up asking whether I want to attend the class or not :-). I plan to practice tomorrow and attend the class next weekend… of course, only if my laziness permits. And tomorrow I need to do some office work which I have been postponing for weeks!
Will write more later !

Konachyahi - 2

2007-02-09T10:27:00.000+05:30

Ahh... I am able to help one person to explore his poetic side!!
Here is the version by my friend Apoorv of the poem I have tried to translate earlier.

Dont let someone reach so close to you.
That you won't be able imagine your life without her .
coz when the hopes shatter ,it takes ages to heal the broken heart.

Dont let someone appear so regularly in your diary
That all the pages would be filled writing about the person.
And one fine day the name would disappear.
Without any trace . leaving a void in the life.

Dont dream of someone to the extent,
that you rely on her support all the time
coz if that support vanishes one fine day ,
you would be handicapped ,left without support.

Dont devote so much time to someone
That every moment of your life remains incomplete without her , that she becomes part of you
And one day you become stranger to yourself.

Don't be attracted towards someone so much
That every moment you would miss her
and forget the world thinking for her

Dont listen so much to someone
That her voice would echo in your ears all the time
And your words would speak her language .

Don't be so close to someone
That you feel her in your heartbeats.
and you would shed tears
With mere thought of separation

Dont be possesive about someone so much
That you stand to lose your own identity
And once you come out of the trance
you will be left with rude shock and the stark reality.

Dont detach yourself from the world for one person.
you might end up being alone except for your shadow .
And you would be talking to yourself in solitude.

Konachyahi ...

2007-02-08T14:57:00.000+05:30

I have been trying to translate some Marathi stuff to English. First attempt was to translate one of my most favorite poems "Kanaa" posted here. It is written in very simple language but I haven't been able to write more than 2 lines :-(. So I have tried to translate another one posted here

Let me know the word corrections and all needed :-)

Someone shouldn't come so close
That we get used to him
When the heart breaks it would hurt you bad

Shouldn’t one appear so regularly in journals
That the pages get heavy
And one day the name disappears
Without any trace

Shouldn't dream of someone so much
That only his hands are used for support
And if the dream is broken
There won't be anything for support

Shouldn't give so much time to someone
That every moment belongs to him
And one day your become stranger to yourself

Shouldn't be attracted to someone so much
That every moment you miss him
And one you forget yourself while waiting

Shouldn't listen to someone so much
That his voice echoes in ears all the time
And your lips speak only his language

Shouldn't be close to someone so much
That it feels with every heartbeat
And tear would break out
With just thought of separation

Shouldn't posses someone so much
That you forget yourself
And he would get you out of that illusion
With a shock

But shouldn't go so far from one
That there will be only your shadow to accompany
And only own words to listen

Customer Service … Now and Then

2007-02-07T11:55:00.000+05:30

Its amazing how the call-centre service is “evolved” over recent times

Earlier the calls used to be like this (when they were new and we were also new to it)

Caller: Hello, Can I take to miss Ashlesha?
Me: Yes. Speaking
Caller: Good afternoon ma’am. This is ABC speaking from XYZ bank. Can get few minutes of your precious time?
Me: Time for?
Caller: I would like to tell you about this very interesting Credit card our company has to offer you since you are working for PQR company. Can I talk to you?
Me: Yeah please go ahead
Caller: Blah blah blah.(10-15 minutes of convincing) So… it is very good offer ma’am. So can I send my customer executive to you today?
Me: Okie.

And we doomed ourselves with lot of credit cards!

Then came next change

Caller: Hello.
Me: Hello ?
Caller: Good evening.. err good morning sir … err ma’am
Me: Good afternoon!
Caller: Err… Good afternoon ma’am. I am calling from XYZ bank
Me: Yes ?
Caller: This is regarding personal loan.
Me: Well I am not interested. Thank you. (I do say that !)
Caller: Ok ma’am. Can I know the reason ma’am? This is very interesting offer.
Me: (meri marzi !!!) I am not interested... isn’t that enough?
Caller: Ok ma’am. Can you give any references?
Me: No
Though sometimes we give number of our colleagues to bug them :D!

Current trend

Caller: Hello. This is ABC calling from XYZ bank. It is regarding personal loan (In a single breath)
Me: Not interested
Caller: ok (Like he/she knew the answer already)

After some time they will play records of this like they used have poll campaign during the days of “India Shining”, when the dear PM would call and talk to you!

2007-02-05T14:19:00.000+05:30

I must post something on Monday :-) !

Some time pass…

- If you are 'Indian Ocean' fan (it’s a music band for those who don't know :-)), you can download their music for free here http://www.indianoceanmusic.com/.
Listen to it … they are amazing!

- New blogger version is totally template unfriendly. I cannot put new template because it cries for some
XML parsing mismatch... though it works fine with the older version. I want my flexibility of changing template back!
Hellooo Googlie ppl are you reading?

- ‘Radio Indigo’ plays some nice music. ‘FM Rainbow’ tries to hog all the FM bandwidth around its area. So whenever I am listening to radio and nearing office I need to listen to mix of English + kannada songs :-(.

- I am getting sore fingers while practicing guitar. I am skipping guitar classes again :-D.

- New IE7 is launched. It looks exactly like FireFox (damn those copiers!!!), works pathetic. It hangs miserably whenever I try to open Google reader. Totally off my list of browsers. Try Opera… its cool.

- Popular rock band ‘Iron maiden’ will be performing live in Bangalore next month (17th March to be precise) !!!

- Bangalore people need no reason to put up riots. Like today there might be trouble due to Cauvery verdict. People … grow up!!! Earning your daily bread-butter is important than anything else.

- I hate filling up timesheets.

- My office network is terribly slow these days :-(

- Mondays are boring and lazy as usual :-

Customer Service :-)

2007-02-02T15:51:00.000+05:30

Yesterday I got this call

Caller: Hello, can I talk to Miss Aaaasheeeleshaa (they do that to my name most of the time L)
Me: Yeah... speaking.
Caller: Hello maam, this is xxxx calling from Airtel. It is regarding the query you had placed with us for broadband connection.
(This was places couple of weeks ago I guess)
Me: Yes ?
Caller: I am sorry to inform you maam that the connection is not available in your area.
Me: Oh but it is already installed at my home.
Caller: (In little shocked voice)Err… what??? (Gathering himself together)When did you get the connection?
Me: I got it last friday.
Caller: Maam, are you sure that is an Airtel connection?
Me: That’s what the installation guy told me. I have the receipt and all too!
Caller: Err… but our records show that the connection is not available in your area.
Me: But I have it !!
Caller: (After a long pause and a bit of thinking) Thank you for choosing Airtel, maam. Sorry for this call and the wrong information.

I didn’t tell him that we had given wrong address :-D !!!

Arranged Marriage - Part 2

2007-01-31T15:43:00.000+05:30

I know I have been talking/whining lots about marriage and related issues. But how can I write about anything else if this is the hottest topic in my life (at least I think so) at this point of time :-)…Just kidding :-). But after all this is (supposed to be) question of my life and I am bound to ponder on it frequently.

One of the freakiest things I found in the process of arranged marriage is “meet the guy”. Oh well let me clarify first, I am not against arranged marriages. I have observed love and arranged marriages very closely and one thing I am pretty sure of… it does not matter how you get together, what matters is how you go forward from there. I am obviously not falling for the arguments from ladies about “See our marriage has also worked noo !!! I saw him only after getting married. What is so much fuss about ‘right’ guy?” Dear lady, you might be right in you context but for not for someone like me. I am the introvert and tight-lipped one. Don’t get surprised…!! I might be blabbering too much on the blog and to few of my closest friends :-). But when it comes to talking to people, all my communication skills seem to evaporate in thin air. It is very rare of me to get along with someone right from the day one. And I have problem with 90% of people in the world :D. My friend circle is limited one… I mean there are lots of acquaintances but friends are few. And I am very fussy about my friendships :-).

Our ‘society’ still does not approve the idea of pre-nuptial meetings etc. They expect a girl to meet guy plus 20 of his relatives and not complain. I am in fact scared by this thought... What if I meet a guy and find him ok and they ask me to marry him the next day (Something like that had happened once :-)). I mean, I cannot just say yes or no in one go!! I am the adjusting, understanding (and oh yes I can cook very well :-))et all but what about the other person.
A friend had suggested me to consider it as a blind date… accha laga to good nahi to chhod do :-). Common you don’t date someone with marriage on mind and I don’t ‘date’ at all for that matter.
Ahh… is there a better solution to all this or I am thinking too much?

2007-01-29T22:18:00.001+05:30

With all the unwanted things happening like me getting the mood swings, Bangalore people fighting for stupidest reasons, Shahrukh hosting KBC and making music-video for that (Ewww), Rakhi Sawant threatening to commit suicide on television or the news of possible single digit hikes (:-((()... a good thing has happened.

First there was a small poster on a sidey lamp-post in my gully. I started jumping with joy with just sight of it. I made a phone call... and it was done within 24 hours (technically it took more time cause I was not at home first time they came)... Yipppie !!! Finally I have the airtel broadband connection installed at home!

Do you remember, a couple of months ago (may be more than that) I was desparately trying to get internet connection from any possible ISP... just to know that no ISPs exist in my area. Well well well... that was wrong... the airtel one is there in the house next to mine from last 2 years. I was giving the wrong address! Do you know that there can exist a Lane and a Layout with same name in different parts of the city? Well... I didn't know that till Friday :-). I always believed that the area I live in is a Lane which is actually a Layout and the Lane exists on the other side of the road where there are no ISPs (haah.. How backward ! :D). Ahh these Bangalore addresses!

Anyways the it is here and it is working and I am blogging from home. Now I can surf as much as I want! I will be spending less time in office and more at home. Yayyy!!!

2007-01-29T11:32:00.000+05:30

I just can’t resist posting this. This is an account of lunch time conversation I had with 3 of my colleagues… 2 guys and a girl.

We were trying out a new caterer in the canteen.
Me: The food is good but not worth 30 rupees… is it?
Guy1: Yeah, I will give more quantity and variety if I start my service.
Me: That’s good idea. From tomorrow, I will get tiffin for you people if you pay me 45 rupees per day
Guy2: 45 rupees!!! That’s too much.
Me: I will get more variety and that will be nice home cooked food served hot and fresh.
Guy2: Hmm… sounds good idea. I will be your first customer.
Guy1: Hey that’s not fair. I started with the idea. I will get better food in 40 rupees.
Me: I will get food everyday :D
Guy1: So will I.
Me: First you should come to office everyday :P.
Guy1: (To Guy2) I will get south Indian food just the way you like it
Me: I will get north Indian and south India food. More choices!!
Guy1: I will get ‘satwik’ food for you
Me: He will buy food from somewhere or make his mother cook and give you. I will be cooking myself.
Guy1: No no no. I will also be cooking myself.
Me: We have never seen you getting tiffin for yourself
Giy1: But now on I will cook.
Guy2: Hey don’t fight. Both of you get samples of the food. I will taste and decide.
Me: Hey you have already got samples from my tiffin-box.
Guy2: Yeah. That’s true. (To Guy1) She is better cook anytime.
Me: (to Guy1) :P
Guy1: What about weekends? I will provide food on weekends also. You can come to my place and have it anytime.
Me: You anyways come to the company club to play on Saturdays. So I will provide lunch as well as breakfast.
(My company’s sports club is near to my house)
Guy2: What about Sundays? I can’t come all the way other end of the city or I will have to shift to that part of the city.
Me: You will anyway have to do shift when our office moves to new location. So that’s another advantage for you. This guy won’t be changing his location.
The girl, who was listening to our conversation all this time, suddenly spoke up.
Girl: (to me and Guy1) I have a better suggestion. Why don’t you two get married? This way the shifting and weekend food problem will be solved.

The only reaction three of us could manage was “Duh?”

(I should mention that she was the only married person among 4 of us)

Tell me people, do they always marry cooks?

Birthday Celebrations

2007-01-24T18:16:00.000+05:30

Today is one of my roomie’s birthday. This will be probably the last birthday she will be celebrating with us. We decided to give her surprise… knocked on her door at midnight. She opened her door to find cake with candles and diyas lighted all around it in front of her door. Ahh… girls love surprises!!!

Birthday celebrations in general have very good memories for me… especially from the hostel days. It was like a tradition in our girls’ hostel to celebrate birthdays at the stroke of midnight… all the girls would gather together, we would cut cake, put cream on b’day girls face, give her bumps and have dance n songs...total halla-gulla. It used be helluva fun. (Yeah, no party would be complete without my performance off course) In fact our first ragging “assignment” was to celebrate one of the girl’s birthday. FE (that’s what they called first year engineering students) hostel was bit away from the senior hostel so we were asked to go on the terrace and shout as loud as we could so that our seniors could listen to it :-). And we actually did that. The principle’s quarter was nearer to our hostel than the senior hostel. He had to send security guard to silence us :-D.

Next year, we shifted to another hostel. There my room was quite near to the warden’s quarters so we were bound to get scolding from him once in a while but we were not the giving-up types. Yeah, he was the kadus types for first couple of months :-(.

There was one time when all of us had returned from vacations and were celebrating 2 of my roommates’ birthdays. The party was at its peak when the warden knocked on my room. He was fuming with anger, as usual gave us lecture on importance of being descent when you are staying in vicinity of your teachers and all.

Then all of a sudden, he asked one of the girls standing next to the door, “You go stand in front of my house and let these girls make noise. Then you will realize how much disturbing it is for us”.
Poor girl was stunned for a moment and next moment we know she was walking out of the room. Warden was not expecting this at all.
He called her back “N, kuthe chalala tumhi?” (Where are you going N).
She answered innocently “Sir, tumhich sangitale na ” (Sir, you only asked to go to your house).
(We still tease N for this incident.)
He didn’t know what to say for a moment. We all were trying hard to suppress our laughter.
He ordered the security guard with him to take away the music system. We burst out in laughter, the moment he left; only the owner of music system was in tears. Thankfully it was returned within few moments and the guard asked us to play it at low volume. Not to mention our party continued again in full swing though the music was playing at low volume :-).

Those were the days … :-)

Of bad mood and bad weekend

2007-01-22T13:33:00.000+05:30

Warning: Following post reflects my crappy mood, might get boring and depressing.

First there was broken finger, and then the ball hit right on the face to leave me with a swollen lip. To add to my woos, they needed only 6 player to play as girls from other team didn’t show up so I was the obvious one staying outside. That makes only 5 hours of sleep for nothing. Yeah… I was on the airport till 1am on Friday night; had gone to receive roomie's uncle and got up at 6am (on Saturday Morning :-(( ). The airport trip was not bad though, it is always fun to watch the “phoren” travelers carrying huuge bags, doing final countdown of things and their parents/relatives/friends wiping eyes (two trips abroad and mom hasn’t shed a single tear for me…!!!) and rubbing their noses against the glass panel to catch final glimpses.(With the new construction done there you can watch your loved ones till they check-in and vanish in the security area). I too waved bye bye to few of them (cute guys, of course :-) ). On Saturday morning, since they didn’t need me on the ground, I decided to head back home and attend my guitar class. That was another disaster… the guitar strings are too stiff for me to be able to hold properly and I keep forgetting their names and position in notations. Back home, got my thumb cut along with potatoes. There was no electricity for the whole weekend.

So by Saturday afternoon I was left with three injuries, one and half day to spare and absolutely nothing to do. As they say “Khaali dimag shaitan ka ghar”… I decided to do some house cleaning and cleaning of my mind…. And then I was hit by this thought…self-realization they say... in couple of months, I will be completing another year of my life and will be entering what is called as late-twenties. And I am still searching for something concrete in life. I am still the moody and confused one. My professional life is disaster and so is personal life in some ways. The much wanted love-life seems distant dream now. The people I call mine are sometimes more distant than strangers and friendships seem to fade faster… Sometimes I just hate to be taken for granted. My knack for running behind wrong things at wrong places and wrong times has paid off everywhere… a friend says I should to be happy because I have at least tried. I don't want these crap thoughts. I need stable mind and stable path in life.

Ahh… Let me get back to work again.

Namma Bengalooru

2007-01-22T13:19:00.000+05:30

Sad sad things happening in Bangalore these days...

There is one Bangalore
Flying higher and higher in technology sky
Beaconing best minds of the world

And there is another one
Still living in rotten bygone age
Fighting for cast, religion and dead movie stars

There is one
Trying hard to become a global city
Boasting to best of the country’s riches

There is one
Still needs clutches of language and reservation to progress
Prides in burning buses and knocking down people

There is one
Looking up, aiming global success

And there is one
Making others look down

Throwball !!!

2007-01-19T20:13:00.001+05:30

Long long time ago when started my professional life somehow I had this idea that I will end being in the boring people. Particularly with the aunty type gals and my days will pass staring at my terminal and nothing else. I never attempted to talk to any girls in my office when I came to Bangalore office. Whoa… I was so wrong :-).
First it was just looking at each other and some smiles passed. Then came the annual day celebrations. Resh had this crazy idea of having it dance and song extravaganza and I was so sure that no girls will participate. We did desk to desk PRgiri and guess what it was huge success. The girls were everywhere, dancing, singing playing. And when we were planning to celebrate the next function, only one “hello gals” mail was sufficient to gather them all!
Now we have a nice “Mahila Mandal” here… all enthu-punters. And yeah, I am the brat of the group :-D. The girls have gathered together again for throwball. This is the first time I have heard of the game and before I could remember I was made part of the group. It’s fun to play the game. Tomorrow we have the final match and only practice we has we one hr today. And I am already acting like a star player … got my finger broken :-(. It hurts real bad :-(((.

Oooh… I guess I m writing too much crap. Going home now.
Wish me luck for the match!!

Its all in the family !!!

2007-01-19T14:36:00.000+05:30

If you are interested in getting management gyaan ... here is a new blog for you

http://rohitsmgmentfundas.blogspot.com/

Thats right, thats my stud bro... star-performer, management guru ... Believe me,he is the Biz Star of India in making :-)

Guess what I am his "Blog-Guru"!!!
(Finally there is something I can preach to him :-D)

Welcome aboard Rohit !!!

** applause **
** applause **

2007-01-18T13:50:00.000+05:30

Some enlightenment on me … :-)

1. Yourself: Very straight-forward, Die-hard dreamer, highly emotional and practical at the same time, sometimes confused, Infused with unlimited energy and always in search of something new… still exploring myself :-)

2. Your boyfriend/spouse: None

3. Your hair: Shoulder length, jet black, soft and most beautiful

4. Your mother: She is more of a friend than mom. I inherit the love for reading and art from her. I can talk to her about anything and everything. Though she gets heart attack with half of the things I say/do but always there to support me through all the stupidity.

5. Your father: I am daddy’s girl. With him, I could get away with everything I wanted. He was my source of inspiration, pillar of strength… centre of my world, taught me to always believe in my dreams. He is my guiding spirit. I miss him very very very much :-(

6. Your sibling: Only sister. She is my baby. Mom says I prayed hard to get a sister and not a brother. Loveliest sister one could get. We can’t stay without fighting for a single hour :-).

7. Your favorite item: My Lappy

8. Your dream last night: Kidnapping Abhishek Bacchan

9. Your favorite drink: Nimbu Sharbat

10. Your dream car: Open top Ferrari

11. The room you are in: Office

12. Your ex: :-(

13. Your fear: Heartbreak, failures

14. What do you want to be in 10 years?: Rich :-D

15. Who you hung out with last night ?: Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy

16. What you're not?: Artificial, sweet/goody-goody .

17. Muffins: Blueberry and chocolate chip

18. One of your wish list items: iPhone, Beach house, biiig car …too many to mention :-D

19. Time: I always end up wasting it on unnecessary things!!!

20. The last thing you did: Cursed half-dozen people loudly in my mother-tongue on the way to office

21. What are you wearing? Jeans and Tee… All my chappals/sandals are broken… I have left with nothing but sneakers :-(. I need new chappals !!!

22. Your favorite weather: Drizzling rain n cool breeze at dusk and I am sitting in a meadow

23. Your favorite book: The Fountainhead, Love Story

24. The last thing you ate: Roti with honey

25. Your life: Fast flowing, twisting and jumping like a mountain stream

26. Your mood: Happy

27. Your best friend: Lost somewhere :-(

28. What are you thinking about right now?: A trip to Pondicherry.

29. Your car: Happy with my Dio for now :-)

30. What are you doing at the moment?: Pretending to work and dozing in my chair :-D

31. Your summer: By sea shore and not too hot

32. Your relationship status: Single

33. What is on your TV?: F.R.I.E.N.D.S/Travel n living/Music channels

34. What is the weather like?: Warm

35. When is the last time you laughed?: All the time. Smile is the permanent shape of my lips :-)

Complete it yourself, if you want to.

2007-01-17T12:36:00.000+05:30

Disclaimer: Office servers acting bad so I have nothing else to do for the time being and I am bound to write timepass posts :-)

Dug out something from my collection
=====

There is only one life
I want to live till the last moment
Don’t want to waste a single moment

I want climb the mountains
And swim across the seas
Want to read best of the books
And loose myself in the music

I want to spread my wings and fly away
Fly over blue sea and green meadows
I want to put smiles on every face
And get love from every soul

The burden of rules and restrictions
Expectations and Sacrifices
Makes me suffocate
I don’t want be dead before dying

I just want a simple life
Want to live for the love of life
Tell me,
Am I asking too much for a lifetime?

GuruBhai GuruBhai … Ala re ala !!!

2007-01-16T17:04:00.000+05:30

It was after sooooo many days that I got to watch a movie right in the first week of its release. Thanks to my friend working next to the theatre who voluntarily got me tickets and the friend accompanying me actually didn’t chuck the plans (yeah, that was very important :D). And all the effort was worth it.

Abhishek Bacchan has finally arrived. He is awesome, the way he transforms from simple “gaon ka ladka” to the top businessman, his dialogues, confidence in every movement. His character is very well written and so is Aish’s. I liked her performance for a change. Sad news is the reel life couple is going to tie knot in real life too very soon. (How heartbreaking for me… ** sigh **). Madhvan is completely wasted though. They could have used him more… he looks too cute with few kilos lost. There is no doubt that the character Guru is based on Dhirubhai, from the Gujrati background to his paralysis attack… everything is “inspired” from Dhirubhai Ambai’s life :-). Maniratnam has excelled in every department. Rehman’s music is good as usual, particularly the “Jage hai der tak…” number is used beautifully all over as background score. It goes very well with the whole movie theme. I must say our hindi movies are improving at a fast pace. This one is a must watch for all Abhishek and Good movie lovers!

So were the other two movies I watched this weekend… “Pyaar ke side effects” and “Happy feet”. “Pyaar Ke …” is good movie. Though not suitable for every taste, I loved it. Particularly the dialogue “Pyaar kaunsi badi baat hai. Pahale shaadi, honeymoon, ghar, bacche aur baad me pyaar ho hi jaata hai”… Quite relevant to sort of situation I am going through right now :-). “Happy feet” is too good on animation front, the story and all is ok ok. (May be because I was not in a good mood to grasp it properly :-)). Overall good weekend, though my much wanted outing trip didn’t happen :-(. There was free food and good copmany in TGIF :-).

And yeah finally I have started the much awaited Guitar class… yippiee!!!

2007-01-16T13:56:00.000+05:30

On my way to home, I see two kids everyday, a boy and little girl. Probably they are siblings. They sit on the pavement, the boy with his face lowered and girl is sleeping in his lap. Every time I see her, she is either crying and kicking him or sleeping peacefully. The boy never moves a bit. It’s been months I have been seeing them but I haven’t seen his face yet. People walk over them, some keep fruits, biscuits and some utter words of pity under their breath. And there are some, totally unaware of their existence. They return everyday, sit through whole day, like it’s a fixed job for them. I want to take them home. But my friend says they will have parents watching from somewhere and might cause trouble. She has faced something like this earlier. We can’t even take them to a rehab centre.
This is depressing sight … So are the children at traffic signals…some trying to sell ear-buds, laundry bags and some pretending to have some sort for injury or fracture. They are sweet children with bright eyes and innocent smiles… But unlike like any other kids…they have to earn their own food. They in fact seem to enjoy doing what they are doing and always resist any attempts to be taken to rehab centre. Their so-called parents always use them as means of income and would not want them to get any good food/clothing or education. They are denied basic rights of childhood by their own flesh and blood and the whole society.
Being daughter of a gynecologist, I have seen people dying to have children, people having 10 girls just to have a male-child. There are people who would go places just to have a baby, would spend money like water and worship every possible god. And here are people who make babies like mosquitoes and leave them on the mercy of the world.
This disparity is beyond my understanding. I just can’t understand why do people create lives of they don’t want to sustain that life.

2007-01-12T14:27:00.000+05:30

Ahh… it’s always fun to have your office in the heart of the city. You can go partying anytime. And with a office group like mine, it’s more fun :-). Fridays are fundays and these days they are McD days. Today there were bunch of sweet desi-angrez* kids using the whole McD area as their play ground. They were sprawled over the floor like it were a garden and playing with their pokeman goodies and proud moms looking over. And there were two chinki kids watching them with saucer eyes. I almost asked the attendant “Can I take home one of them :-)”. There is no other beautiful sight than watching kids engulfed in play.
The other good news is, they gonna open a multiplex in the Sigma Mall soon (soon == within a week or so). So its gonna be movie time everyday… yippie. We have even chalked out a plan to sell tickets in black ;-).
Any takers there?!!!

Talking of side-businesses, there’s one more brilliant plan in making, dubba-supply company in Bangalore!! We have heard a lot about Mumbai dubbawalhas and their efficient supply chain etc etc. Now no more of it… we will be creating a revolutionary dubba-supply system with saaptware-engineering brain advantage.
I will be in charge of food (hence the best food quality guaranteed :-D) and other two guys will be handling delivery. Our dubbas will have GPS enabled so you will be able to track their delivery status second by second using your cell phones. You will be able to tailor your menu as per your likes; to be chosen from wide range of items. You can chose your menu and place the order online or even can get the list on your cell!
Everything will be served hot and fresh to your plate!!!

So rush your entries today, we believe in quality and not quantity.
Limited spots left!!!

(*desi-angrez = desi kids who use angrezi more than their mothertongue. Something which I really hate to see :-( )

As good as it gets!!!

2007-01-10T13:57:00.000+05:30

They have done it again !!!

The much awaited Apple iPhone is here. -> http://www.apple.com/iphone/

Boy O Boy! The demo is amazing...Just watch it. I was awestruck!
It has the widescreen iPod, just as I imagined (most of the Apple fans for that matter :-) ) it.

It tops my wishlist now!! It will come to Asian markets in 2008 though :-(

2007-01-09T12:07:00.000+05:30

Barking dogs n roaring planes
Crying babies n Bangalore cold
Good dreams and bad dreams
Stupid thoughts and anxiety…
So many reasons
To keep me awake y’day night :-(
Now I am dozing off in my chair
Writing crap code and crap poems
zzzZzzzzzzZZZ

I work only on Fridays!

2007-01-05T12:09:00.000+05:30

Some tp :-)

===========

Monday is the start of week
I need to get out of weekend mood
Need to catch up with emails and orkut
Need to write blogs and read too
Personal communication is important you see!
I can’t find time for office chores

Tuesdays is meeting day
One hour extends to whole day
Mind is too distracted with the stuff
Can’t set the mood to work

Wednesday is mid week
I am already tired of the week
Mind needs some rest
Again more meetings in the evening
Too much of running around to sit at desk

Thursdays are for week planning
Reviews of what not done in the week
Need to write reports and attend trainings

Can’t concentrate on stupid code
No work today as well!

The week swooshes past and Friday comes
Weekend becons!
But wait.. is that a pending work item list !
Too long … I say
Gotta finish or manager will crib

When the world is half asleep in office
And making plans for weekend
You will find me buried deep in the work
I work only on Fridays!

New Year, New Resolutions!

2007-01-03T13:25:00.000+05:30

Its 2007, New Year again… time to make some new resolutions and break few :-). Last year was the first time I made resolutions and guess what… I have followed quite a lot of them. That’s pretty interesting!

Last year has been one of the most happening years for me. It’s been a total roller-coaster ride! To be honest, I started the year with a sad sad note, I was all upset and depressed but … here I am back to my original self. It feels so good to be myself :-).

So here’s review of my year

- I have been doing things I never thought I will be doing.
First one was theatre. My company’s theatre group was planning a play for annual day celebrations of specially-abled children’s school. I got involved with the project just as a volunteer and because I love kids. Things went so that I was involved in every department from coordinating the whole project, to coining the story and writing the script, arranging rehearsals and finally acting in the play! Whoever saw it think it was not a bad performance at all :-).

Second one is getting involved into different volunteering activities. During the theatre project, I met lot of people who have been involved with volunteering activities at small and large scales. It fascinated me and I got involved too. It has turned out to be one of the best things I have been doing so far. With weekly visits to the school to the Chrysallis party, it’s been neat experience. All credit goes to Resh for pursuing me in the first place :-)

Third one is my writing skills. I have managed to be quiet regular at blogging and managed to write poems too!

Then there was trekking. My first trekking trip to “Savandurga” was one of its kind.

And yeah how can I forget the two rock shows I had been to. First came Bryan Adams, my all time favorite and then there was Deep Purple. I always wanted to hear Bryan Adams in live from the day I listened to “Everything I do”. I had missed his previous visits to India. But this time I made sure I was there and that was one rocking show!

- My trip to US of A was rocking as well. My PL there made sure I would get too see as much of the country as I could, Niagara, Boston, New York and the unexpected trip to Minneapolis and off course local places in and around Nashua. In those two months I have tried so many different food varieties; there were pancakes with maple syrup, mexian , thai, ‘American’ Chinese, local ‘New England’ delicacies, mint ice cream, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream… ahhh too many to remember!
- I have two new additions to my gadget list. My long long awaited laptop and two-wheeler.
- I am back to my reading habits. And I have collected lot of books (and read too), most of them being angrezi.
- Now, I am the official event organizer of my group.
- I was careless about my work the most
- Biggest asset has been the friends I have got. With getting involved in lot of activities, I have made lot of new friends in and out of office. A couple of them are really really good ones :-). There was a time I used to be complaining about lack of social life in Bangalore but not anymore!

And what would be resolutions for this year?
- Continue with my volunteering work and be more regulare and more active there
- Be more social and make lot of friends. Be more outgoing.
- Improve my professional communication skills and relations with the office people
- Go for more treks. Explore new places in and around Bangalore.
- Continue with blogging. I want to try my hand writing fictions as well.
- Be serious towards my career. Last couple of years I have been careless a lot lot. I need to shed that laziness and get going again. If possible I want to get involved in some small time open source projects.
- Take more dancing lessons. Last year I have missed dancing so much. I want to continue with my salsa classes again.
- Learn guitar and swimming
- Learn Kannada (at least I should be able to make normal conversations)
- Build my own library. Right now I have good enough collection of books. The more I read the more I realize how many books I have to read (mostly English books). I want to add more to my collection and have my own small library of English as well as Marathi books.
- Watch lot of movies. Now this is something new. I have released that there are so many movies I have missed watching or never cared for (again most of them being angrezi :-)). With my fundu lappy I can do that at home now :-).
- Get my two-wheeler license done. Six months and I still don’t have a permanent license :-D. In fact, for first two months, I was driving without license (Shhh… don’t tell the traffic police)
- Get serious about exercising. I tried to do some aerobics but turned out useless. I used to go for the class once in a fortnight :-D. But I should be more serious now. And guess what, I have started burning calories already. On landing in Bangalore, as protest to autowalla’s, I walked all the way to home from airport. On 1st Jan around 8:30pm, if you happen to see a girl dragging red bag on footpath from airport to wind tunnel road, that was me!
- Be less lazy, less procrastinating and more organized :-).
- Be myself !!!

I just realized its first birthday (since I started posting regularly) of my blog too!
Happy Birthday ‘blog baby’!!!

Of vacation, journeys and (missed) plans

2007-01-02T15:45:00.000+05:30

I am back after long vacations! Today is going be spent savoring on sweets and chocos from all over the world (some people returning from US) :-).

It was hell of vacations, I say. I didn’t want to spend the furlough period (that’s what the vacations are called in my company) at home so the obvious plan was to go to Mumbai. The place I love and miss very much. Since I had very less time (3 and half days to meet 3 uncles and numerous friends and do shopping too!), I had planned the whole trip again and again so that I won’t miss a thing. But as it is rightly said … ‘the more you plan more things are bound to go haywire’. As per original plan I was going to stay for couple of days at home then go to Nani’s place and from there to Mumbai stay there for 4 days and head back to Bangalore.

Plans started missing right from the moment I stepped out to catch a train back home. I was on the road at around 8:20pm to catch a train at 10:20pm. There were hardly any empty autos and available autowallas were true to Bangalore tradition, simply refusing to come to the railway station. I was almost in tears. Finally a friend dropped me to the station, just in time. Worst part was the train started almost 30 mins late :-(.

At home, it was fun fighting with sis, meeting school friends and lots of gyaan from mom. My first greeting at home was “What have to done to your hair!” (my dear mom of course :-) ). We were supposed to leave on Wednesday morning for Nanded, my nani’s (mom’s mom) place and catch train for Mumbai from there. Sis was also planning to leave at the same time. But lazy gal wouldn’t get up in the morning so her departure was delayed and so was ours. My nani is always over-enthu when it comes to treating her grandchildren. She wants to make 100 different dishes at the same time. This time was no different :-). But whatever she makes is too delicious to resist to eat.

Left for Mumbai by train on Thursday evening. When we had reached near Jalna, a fellow commuter informed that there was a train accident near Manmad station and the train might be delayed. We thought this might be some minor station and traffic should be resumed soon. It turned out to be a major one… a carriage train and passenger train brushed each other, fortunately no lived were lost. We were held at Jalna station from 9pm till well after midnight when the finally announced that the train has been cancelled and it would not go any further. Bullshit! What were supposed to do at the midnight! Fortunately there was another train coming from behind which would go till Aurangabad which is an hour’s journey from Jalna. So we decide to take halt at my uncle’s place leaving there. Rang him up at 1am telling we are coming. Once inside other train, the passengers had no idea that their train will go till Aurangabad (that’s like only half way to Mumbai) so they won’t let us even stand in the sleeper coach and the train was moving at snails pace. Mom was already tired by all this hustle. The train finally pulled at A’bad station at 2am and there were not many autowalhas again. Uncle came rubbing his eyes and we were home by 3am. I so much wanted to leave in the morning by bus but uncle wanted me to cancel the Mumbai plan altogether. Finally we convinced him to get tickets for evening bus. The bus was very nice, it had births just like train sleeper coach. What followed next two and half days was hopping from one uncles place to another and snatching few hrs to meet couple of friends (only :-(). If you idea of Mumbai geography, I was hopping from Vashi to Nerul to Dombivali and back which is like making 2-3 (or more) full rounds of Bangalore :-).

This trip gave me few realizations.
First that, with all the running around, I have visited almost 90% of my relatives residing in Maharashtra. The train wreck ensured my visit to A’bad which was not at all planned. I was meeting most of them after a gap of almost two years.

Second one; my relatives plus food makes a lethal combination. All their love is stuffed in food (I had to have lunch thrice a day!). Next time I plan a visit home I will be fasting for at least a week in advance to be able to digest all that food :-).

Third; I am very much ‘Bangalore’d. Here I am big advocate for how good Mumbai is and all. But there I found myself advocating for Bangalore, trying to educate people about Bangalore culture and comparing everything with Bangalore; road conditions, traffic discipline, autowalha’s and people’s attitude in general, the language, lifestyle. I don’t speak ‘Mumbaiya’ language anymore L. It was actually hard to digest for a while that people around me speak a language that I can understand :-) … I felt as if I was in a wonderland!

I MUST not end without saying thanks to two of my sweetest friends. When leaving for home, I was not able to get a single auto. I called up U asking if he could drop me to the station. Poor guy was all hungry, tired from day’s work and had almost reached home. He came right through and drove me to the station on his bike. It was bad bad ride in the heavy traffic and with my heavier luggage :-).
And while coming back to Bangalore, I was planning to meet another friend at the Bombay airport. I had called him there at 5 pm and had flight at 6:20pm. He came all the way from Andheri and I reached the airport at around 5:45pm due to traffic and timing miscalculations giving me just enough time to say “Hi” and “Bbye” in same breath. And he didn’t complain a bit.

Ahh… I want to go back there again!

Going… Going… Gone!

2006-12-22T11:20:00.000+05:30

Yippieee!!!

Today is last working day of the year and payday !!!

I am going home for holidays… long, long holidays! Can’t wait to see mom and sis and Mumbai… yeah I am gonna go to Mumbai !!!

Hmm… this has been amazing year for me, especially the last quarter :-). Tried my hands at things which I never thought I will do like theatre and writing poems, traveled to the US of A, started exploring my passion for social service, made couple of really really good friends :-). Ooh ooh… I have two new additions in my gadget list, a 17” screen, fully loaded lappy and Honda Dio, the ‘EW’ baby.

More ‘review’ of my year will be done sometime later.

I guess the emotional turmoil is almost over and I am ready for new changes and challenges. Bring it on baby!

That was a happening year in true sense!!

Here is wishing you all a very very Happy and Happening New Year!!!

Merry Christmas

2006-12-19T15:37:00.000+05:30

This weekend was full of fun. I did write about the ‘rocking’ part but that’s not the only good time I had. It started with dinner at a friends place on Friday night followed by amazing (raised to the power n and n tends to infinity :-) ) Christmas Party on Saturday morning. Now you will ask, Party in the morning? Yeah it was hell of a party. First ever Christmas party I attended and it will not be the last one for sure :-).

This year round, I have been involved with small time volunteering work here and there but this was different. Imagine having close to 2500 children around you singing, dancing, jumping, clapping (sunshine claps and star claps and rocket claps, have you ever heard of them?)! Just the idea of having so many kids together at one place is scary and how you keep the glued together for continuous four hours? You have to be part of such function to get the answer. There were just kids, their teachers and we volunteers, no ‘dignitaries’, no speeches, praising each other n stuff like that. And there was face-painting, magic show, rock show, dance performances, singing, Santa clause, gifts all exclusively for kids and by kids.

What were we in-charge of? Work! The work ranges from decorating the place, to packing food parcels, painting the kids faces (Christmas trees, Santas, hearts, stars, smileys), dancing on the stage (yeah, one school needed volunteers to dance with the kids. Not to mention I was the first one to go!), taking kids to the loo, clearing the place (we actually swept the whole basketball court!). Some volunteers had started early morning (around 4 am or so) to collect kids from their schools. Everybody was working in such a close coordination; nobody was needed to be given instructions twice. And how many of them I knew to start with? None! Isn’t that the true spirit of working together?

The party was called “Chrysallis 2006” and is organized every year in Bangalore for under-privileged children by organization called Chrysallis. You can join the yahoo group here and orkut community here.

If you love kids, this is the place to be!

Rapture of the Deep

2006-12-18T15:24:00.001+05:30

They came, they rocked and they won hearts!!!

The BAAPs of rock were here and they rocked Bangalore like never before (as least for me :-) )

First time I came to know about the band “Deep Purple” was when Kalpana Chawala died. She was a great fan of their music and had carried their music to the space! Next time was when I copied rock music collection from my colleague’s machine. I loved “Hush” and “My woman from Tokyo”. But to be honest I was never die hard fan like I am of Bryan Adams or even my recent favorite list additions like Dire Straits or Metallica :-). Yeah yeah yeah… I am becoming a metal fan!. So why did I go for the show? To attend a live concert that too a rock concert! How could I lose such an opportunity and it turned out to be the best one. Oh yeah I have been to BA concert earlier but I was too away from the stage and couldn’t see more than a black clad figure jumping on the stage. How I wished I were 10 feet tall!

This time no mistakes made. We were there much before the gate opening time. ( I mean my friend was there at 3 pm to be right at front of the line. Yours truly reached leisurely at 5 :D). We were right in front of the stage, in 2nd or 3rd row (Mind you, that is hardly 10 feet or so away from the stage!). A local band played to start with. They were not bad. The guitarists were good and vocalist was eye-candy ;-). Then there was again break of half hour. I was already tired of standing for 3 hours. Three hours standing among crazy smoking stinking freaks, no place to move and no Deep Purple :-(.

Then they came out of purple haze. What followed was 2 hours of non-stop head banging and foot tapping music. Sigh I have no proper words to describe it. Steve Morse rocks on the guitar. The pieces he played on guitar were tooo mind boggling. So is the lead singer Ian Gillan, perfect entertainer with his ‘air guitar’. No talking, only music and serious music for that matter. If I had not seen in person I would have never believed the kind of music was being played by guys in their 50s. Unstoppable and unbelievable energy! “Smoke on the water” is still banging in my head. The recorded versions sound so lame now! The crowd could not stop screaming in excitement. My throat is still sore and feet hurt like anything. But who is complaining :-).
What a rocking show!! Whaaaaat a rocking show!!!

In the words of the band vocalist Ian Gillan, I would say “What a perfect way to end a rocking year!”

Another one

2006-12-13T16:27:00.000+05:30

Okay... I had promised not to write(post) senti stuff anymore. But with my current messed up mood I cannot possibly write anything else. And now I can't resist to post it here :-)

**********

Some things broken can never be joined back
When the beautiful vase was broken
I used best adhesives to join them
But I couldn't remove the marks
They remind me of the broken pieces
A new paint job wouldn't help even
I cannot buy a new vase
Let's try not to hit the vase again
It still looks beautiful with those marks

Some wounds can never be healed
The scars will always remain.
Let's try not to scratch those wounds
They won't hurt at least

How much to change?

2006-12-12T11:47:00.000+05:30

I have been talking to lot of friends about relationships. Some of them have more that one failed relationships and other ones are happy with the first person they met. I always wonder what makes a person to be or not to be in a relationship. One friend was particularly complaining about, how we get blind and change for the other person or how the other person makes us change and make us do things we don’t generally like to or how we are compelled to behave so that the other person is happy with us.

Well yes, that is very much true. We do change a lot for the sake of other person, willingly or unwillingly. But can we completely blame other person for that? I don’t think so. It is two sided affair, if someone expects us to change, don’t we expect other person to change. Are we kids to let other person take control of our life? And it is not changing completely, can’t view it as adjusting with the person because we absolutely like him/her. Just like the weather change, I like my sleeveless dress but I can’t wear it in the winters. If I want to go out in cold weather I must wear a sweater and I don’t complaint about it because I equally love the cool weather. So it is matter of choice and mending with the situation.

Oh yeah I am not talking about letting go of your identity. I don’t pack up my dress for life. If someone forces you to change, against your will and your sub-conscious tells you it is not right, you MUST stop before going any further in that relationship. And it is not just about a girl-boy relationship. If we look at any relation in general, be it parent-child, siblings or even friends, same rule applies. My mother doesn’t like me wearing western cloths when I go to my native town but she wouldn’t protest if I trim my long hair to shoulder length (which I know she absolutely dislikes). So it is absolutely mutual. I believe being understanding and accepting and not adamant is beauty of any relationship :-). I mean life is never absolutely black and white, isn’t it?

Have you seen “Runaway Bride”? It is the best depiction of what happens when someone tries to change himself/herself change against one’s wish. The bride runs away right away at the altar because she realizes she has been fooling with herself.
Does she find her perfect man? This proposal explains it all …
"I guarantee that we'll have tough times. I guarantee that at some point one or both of us will want to get out of this thing. But I also guarantee that if I don't ask you to be mine, I'll regret it for the rest of my life.
Because I know in my heart -- you're the only one for me"

Samanewali line se!

2006-12-11T18:50:00.000+05:30

Have you ever seen a movie sitting just next to the screen? The actors look like coming on your face and the sound is loud enough to turn you deaf. The front row public is the real “public”, they won’t mind whistling, clapping or even dancing to funky song tunes. And if the movie is packed with cracking dialogues and “dinchak” music then ‘kya kahane’ ! Have you ever watched movie in a village theatre where people are rubbing noses to the screen and ready to jump with every dialogue. They will throw money for the dancing heroine, boo at the villain. Believe me it’s a site worth watching than any other movie. In the town where I grew up, the front row fever is carried till last row. So you will hear whistles for every song/dialogue coming from all over the theatre and yeah, there will be bulbs flashing along the movie screen on hero-heroine’s entry and during song sequences :-).

I have seen quite a few movies sitting in front row. Naah not in my native, I would never dare to go there :-). Fortunately Bengalooru people are too sophisticated in front row as well, they won’t utter a single word of protest even if the cinema screen goes blank for 5 minutes right in the middle of nail biting climax, except for some people like us. I have enjoyed movies like “Bunty aur Bubbly” and “Lage Raho Munnabhai” more due to my company. For B&B, there were only two people making noises in the theatre, one guy whistling to “Kajrare” tunes, other guy clapping and singing loudly. A girl, sitting next to them was hiding her face from stares of whole theatre. The scene was different for “Lage Raho …”, surprisingly the whole theatre was screaming and so was the crazy bunch of 8 sitting right next to the screen. This time the girl wanted to dance but nobody allowed her :-(.

And may be she was expecting same kinda fun when she got tickets in front row for Dhoom-2. But to her bad luck, the movie didn’t provide enough masala for that. Now you won’t expect guys whistling at Hritik Roshan (He is tooooo gooood… *Sigh* I can’t whistle loudly). How much will anyone waste energy on artificial Aish anyways?
Overall it was good movie, worth watching if you promise yourself not to remember laws of physics (especially anything related to gravity) in the theatre :-).

Finally ... !!!

2006-12-11T18:49:00.000+05:30

Finally the wait is over......
I got invitation for blogger beta … yippeeeeeee !!!

This so cooool. Flexibility and super usability, just the google way !

I am loving it !!!

What do you want from work?

2006-12-07T17:13:00.000+05:30

There was supposed to be some skip level meeting for which we were supposed to give feedback for our manager and work condition requirements in general. A teammate was taking responses. There were usual answers like more money, better communication etc and one guy got over enthusiastic he demanded he wants a laptop at home with wireless connection and 17’ TFT monitor in office. Then the serious discussion took different route, one guy wanted work place tree shade in the garden and freedom to use any place as workstation in the office. Other one wanted closed individual cubicle so that no one will be able to disturb him work (or no work :-D). One wanted a bean bag instead of chair. Another wanted a masseur to relax him when he gets tired of working continuously. Another one wanted a personal refrigerator loaded with all kinds of drinks and food. One wanted monthly personal purchasing allowance (his claim was some other company gives it). I wanted a sofa with foot rest, also a bed to steal nap once in a while :-), ability to switch my mind off in boring meetings. And then our imaginations started running really wild. I couldn’t stop giggling.

I think when it comes to demanding facilities we "IT" people have always something or other to demand. Free food, drinks, more money, holidays, onsite trips, team outings and what not and we still are not happy. Just look at people working in other industries. Being daughter of a dedicated private medical practioner I never knew that people can actually take few days off from work. I saw my uncles working with government offices, they would give their life to save a late mark in office and here no one even cares what time I come to office or not. When I tell my uncle that there is no fixed timing for my office he gets astonished, He always says “what kind of office is yours? How do they manage to pay you money with such working style?” I have no answer. It is also not acceptable for him that I refer to my manger by first name and don’t call him “Sir”. For my friend working in Finance sector, Saturday off sounds luxury and for another friend from school it is difficult to accept that I don’t need to write leave letter. Life has changed so much.

Then I wonder, isn’t it stupid of me cribbing about bad work? I guess not, work does matter more than these facilities.

What do you people say?

Weekend trek

2006-12-06T11:56:00.000+05:30

Someone has complained that I am getting too senti with my poems. So I have decided to stop writing (I mean posting :-)), unless I come with a funny poem. Yeah that's what I want to write next time. Mission humorous poem! Also my brother is taking pains to read my poems and I want to save him from that (for the time being :-)).

Here is my account for a weekend trek I had been to. I had started writing it loong time ago but just was lazy to finish it till today :-D. Tell me if you like it.

========

What is your dream place like?

Well... mine would be a place with loots of greenery and fresh air and away from all the hustles of city life. Sounds like heaven naa?? It does to me; and guess what, I had chance to come closer to what I dream of.

Last Friday, my friend asked if I could join him for a biking trip. Biking trip? Now this something I have never done. Given my special affinity with two-wheelers, specially the back seats (I was thrown off bike TWICE!), I am always bit hesitant to be in non-driver's seat. But he promised to be good driver plus early morning trip to fresh nature is irresistible, Isn't it? So the plan was to start at 5 in the morning, drive all the way to the place called "Savandurga", around 60 km away from Bangalore, go around for some time and come back by lunch time. Good plan, I can finish my sleep after coming back :-). I had absolutely no idea about what the place is like.

So like an "acchi bacchi" I got up 4 o'clock, was ready by 5 (This has to be special mention cause only I know how it is painful to get up sooo early on a Saturday morning :D). U picked me up and we were supposed to meet other people joining us whom I didn't know at all. They turned out to be nice people, a couple and two more guys, everyone being enthu and regular trekker/explorer. Most imp thing, no one knew exact route to the place :-). So there was usual ritual of asking auto driver for direction and everybody insisting he knows the better route. It's the best part of traveling on Indian roads; everyone is more than willing to tell you direction and their own free opinion about the road condition and everything else. We being the least literate about road followed our fellow bikers all the way. It was amazing to see the amount traffic on roads at those wee hours, do these people ever sleep? After asking here and there we set out for our (unknown!!) destination.

There was no chance to steal some sleep on bike ride because I had little confidence on my driver's direction sense (cause he thinks even 8 km is tooo away to remember directions :P) and the road was too bad to allow me not noticing the bumps for a while. Also he threatened me that he might fall asleep while driving so I had to be on vigil :-D. But being awake was worth the view around... absolutely breathtaking! There were huge rocks spread on the green background, like brat has spread his pebbles all over in a green garden. Bikes were stopped at a place to take pictures around It was beautiful site and while we were busy admiring the view S exclaimed, "That's the place we have to go!" pointing to a looong standing peak, it was solid rock structure with a cloud ring around its crest like a white crown on its head. And my reaction was "What? Weren't we supposed to just bike around". I was not prepared to actually trek :D.

We reached the mountain base huffing-puffing.. drivers exhausted with driving the bikes with skill of rally-biker, finding patches of road in the pot-holes and poor bikes exhausted of climbing the rough road (?). Apparently this place is an "eco-tourism" spot and there is park at the bottom for weak-hearted people like me and fort + temple at the top for trekkers and devotees. It looked like a steep rising above our head and boy oh boy I was scared to climb that up (seriously). We crossed lot of locals on our way up and climbing up the slope seemed to daily ritual for them :). At the bottom of the mountain there was again confusion on which path to take. A bunch of enthu kids took us to right place. The way up is clearly marked with arrows and we were advised not the leave the path if we wished to come back alive. The way up WAS steep. Since it was solid rock it was difficult to climb up wit shoes on. The best solution was to tie shoes around neck... yeah yeah yeah most of us did that. And no, I didn't, cause I was wearing slip-ons :D.
Me and S almost gave up twice on the way up but the toiling was worth it. It was a beeeeeautiful day with not too bright sun and not too many clouds. It showered in between but that was just for few seconds.

We were around 3000+ feet above the sea level. There was not a considerably big human population in the range of sight, save the small town at hill base. On one side I could see there were solid rock hills with huge rocks place on each other in unbelievable asymmetry. Looked like they could fall any time and crush 10 people at once. Patches of green grass grown everywhere they could find place in between those rocks. On the other side there was huge flat land with lush green fields and a river twisting between them. Since the morning was little bit cloudy, I could see patches of sunlight scattered on the green fields. It was astonishing sight, one circle of the field lightened with sunlight like taking center stage in the clouded area around it, river water adding sparkle to it. The sight took away all the fatigue. I wanted to get drenched on the mountain top... but no luck :-(. Just took a nap the fast blowing wind.

Ahhh... now that's the place I would love to build my home and settle down for life. We were actually discussing the idea of building a direct path from there to our offices, may be another flyover for our dear Bengalooru. How wonderful that would be!!
Go trekking people!

Hold On ...

2006-12-05T17:50:00.000+05:30

I see the pain in your eyes
Want to reach out and hold you
Tell you it is going to be alright
And you got to hold on

Hold on …
‘Cause life is too short
To be wasted on meaningless things
‘Cause there is nothing worth your tears
You are not a coward to runaway
Not to face the realities

Hold on …
‘Cause this is just temporary
Good times are round the corner
Walk few steps with me
And you will be all free

Hold on …
‘Cause I am there with you
‘Cause I will always be there with you
I want your smile, nothing else

Hold on…
I want to tell you
But my words don’t seem reaching you
They are reflecting back to me
Like you have built a wall around you

Give me some signs of recognition
Can’t you see …
I need those signs to hold on too

2006-12-01T18:25:00.000+05:30

Another day another censure
It just doesn’t seem to go away
Like that has become part of your life
You wonder at yourself
How you have got such thick skin
Why doesn’t it matter to you anymore?

The bombshells bursting around you
And it doesn’t make any difference
Its burning, Its hot
What are you doing?
Just crying and complaining

Okay !
So you think you are lost in life
Who cares for that?
They won’t spare the kings
Then who are you to be cared for
Don’t you know you are on your own here?
If you do mistakes you have to pay the price
And yes, don’t shed those crocodile tears

What if you don’t like something
Better change your notions
The world would not run on your interests
It will always run behind what sells
No one has time to pity for the weak
Not even you have.
Then why do you expect it from others
Isn’t it unreasonable
To do nothing but just expect

Blame it on world
Blame on the people
Blame on situation
What remains is the fact
Fact that you are a failure
Unless you try
None cares for the reasons

Don’t you have any dignity?
Why do you have to stand those insults?
Why do you have to care for others,
When it matters the least

And world is changing thing
It doesn’t matter what you did yesterday
Life is right now, right here
You can’t linger on previous memories

Don’t reach at stage
when you have to take efforts to smile
when it hurts to curve your lips

How do you face your day ?

2006-12-01T17:15:00.000+05:30

There are good days, there are bad days
And then there are worst of days
How do you deal with them?
You won’t face good ones with frown
But do you face worst days with smile?
Probably not…

Have you ever wondered?
How much difference it will make
Facing each day with a bright smile
And not whining and crying

In the quest of achieving everything
We forget to enjoy simple pleasures of life
Lose track with ourselves

Nothing lasts forever
Unless you make it last
Good times or bad ones
Will come and go like winds
Only memories will remain
And only you can make the better to last

Embrace the life
With open heart and open arms
So tell me how would you face your day?

Worst of my dreams

2006-11-29T12:18:00.000+05:30

I see a girl
Restless and lost
It shows in her walk
Uneasy and undirected
I see pain her eyes
Cannot concentrate on anything
Seems to have lost the fire …
Something is getting on her nerves

The world is screaming
Her world in coming to an end
She doesn’t seem to care about it
Doesn’t seem to be affected
Like she has turned deaf to her own voice
She has succumbed to her own fears

This is not like her
I remember the times
When she was happiest of all …
With all the energy in the world
And attitude to kill
Why she has reached this stage?
She is trying to search answers
She is paying for her own mistakes

Oh wait
I know that face
I see that everyday … in mirror
Yes that’s me …
I have become worst of my dreams

She has to change
Find her own way
Cause this is just start of the path
She has to go long way
Before it reaches anywhere
She can’t give up so easily
… I won’t give up so easily

Sad Demise

2006-11-24T11:59:00.000+05:30

Today has started with a sad news...
We lost one of our colleagues. He died of heart attack. He was hardly in his mid 20s,soft spoken guy.
This is shocking and alarming for all of us working in IT industry. Do take care of you health and work-life balance. The stress virus is creeping slowly and claiming many lives.

May god bless his soul.

New iPod is coming !

2006-11-23T13:45:00.000+05:30

I have always been fascinated by Apple products.
I was awestruck by the iPod when I first saw it and so by the iMac. Man that is my dream machine :-)
here's sneak peek into their new 6th gen video iPod.
http://www.previewgadgets.com/gadget/ipod_6th_generation_touch_screen

I want it! I want it!! I want it !!!

PS: Any takers for my iPod-mini :D :D ??

2006-11-14T12:43:00.000+05:30

‘You don’t think like us
You don’t care for us
You are not practical
You don’t like us’
I have been blamed all my life

And I listened to them,
Did think they were right
Accepted the ways of world
I tried to be like and be liked by them
Feared to say what “I” wanted
Went against my heart
Didn’t care for my mind protesting

And what do I get ?
More contemptuous glances
Felt like being judged at every stage,
Proved wrong everywhere
Even started hating myself for what I am not
Oh… its so painful
This is not what I wanted to be

Now I have stopped listening
Don’t want to hide my tears behind smile
Can’t live with this frustration
… anymore
I know I am not wrong
I do care for you
But don’t expect me to be like you

And you know what …
Its good be deaf
Doesn’t hurt anymore
Don’t try to change me
We have different ways
Let me be what I am
Let me live …

Quotes

2006-11-13T12:36:00.000+05:30

Ayn Rand is one of my most favorite authors. I worship “The Fountainhead” and now “Atlas Shrugged” added to my list of favorite books. Before reading these books I was advised against reading them because they are meant for “psycho” people. No wonder many of so called book lover friends haven’t even heard of her. And I am glad that I didn’t go by the advise :-). I identify myself very much with her view of world (May be I am also one of those “psyco”s :-) ). I wish to write my views on both the books and so about many other books I love to read (depending on how many laziness permits me to do so :-D).
I just finished first iteration of reading “Atlas Shrugged” (marathon reading I should say :-) ). There is one quote in the book that goes with title of my blog and I can’t resist publishing here

“Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”

And some other quotes from her books

Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man’s values, it has to be earned.
Atlas Shrugged

The worst guilt is to accept an unearned guilt.
Atlas Shrugged

Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.
Atlas Shrugged

Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it.
Atlas Shrugged

Love is our response to our highest values. Love is self-enjoyment. The noblest love is born out of admiration of another’s values.
Atlas Shrugged

To say "I love you" one must first be able to say the "I."
The Fountainhead

Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing buy rational actions.
Atlas Shrugged

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplacable spark. In the hopeless swamps of the not quite, the not yet, and the not at all, do not let the hero in your soul perish and leave only frustration for the life you deserved, but never have been able to reach. The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.
Atlas Shrugged

The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who seek them.
Anthem

Thinking men cannot be ruled.

Most important, theme of “Atlas Shrugged”

I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

And theme of “The Fountainhead”

Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.

Blogging from home

2006-11-12T22:01:00.000+05:30

Yahooooo !!!! After my timeless efforts to get internet connection at home and then to get it working on my laptop... the day is here when I am able to blog from home!!!

I mean its real trouble to get an internet connection in Bangalore ... to many techies I say. I tried hard for 2 months only to know that AirTel does not give connection only on the lane I live in and BSNL has 6 months waiting list... other ISPs don't even exist in this area (and who says I live in prime area of Bangalore). Finally I have decide to share connection with my roomie. But how do I get the cable to my room? Someone suggested me to get a wireless router so I can setup wireless LAN at home. Waah ! what a dream. Naa jaane kaunsi woh manhoos ghadi thi jab maine yeh man liya... I had to wait for a month for the router to arrive and another 2 weeks to get it working. (Well it still is not working... donno whats the problem :-( .... I am gonna kill the guy for giving me that suggestion and making my walllet lloooot emptier). Today, at least I was able to connect my lappy directly to the modem and get it working. So here I am blogging from home and I just realised that I can't surf as efficiently as I do in office ... :D.

Well ... in all, Its been a good weekend. Did nothing ... Spent most of the time talking to my bro. It was nice long chat :-). Dropped movie plans out of sheer laziness :-)(I think I can give galrfield a beating in laziness quotient :D)
...Mmmmm I am loving it !

2006-11-09T11:27:00.000+05:30

Do you think this is crap ?

----------

“Have you ever loved someone?” He asked
Looking straight into my eyes
There was something in his stare I couldn’t face
They seemed looking too much
Digging much deeper inside my soul
I wanted to cry out
Wanted to tell the truth …
Yes I have …
Its you … it has always been you
I have been waiting for you since ages
Ever and forever
You were and … still are the only real thing I ever wanted
He must have sensed my struggle
… but I didn’t say it aloud
Looked away, not letting him read my eyes
Just smiled and said …
“Haaah … me and love ?”
He smiled and went away
How can I tell you…?
With all the chains binding me
All the forces pulling me back
I am just slave …
Slave to world’s wishes and expectations
I have lost myself
I know you wouldn’t like it
Wouldn’t want a girl with no soul
But I am helpless …
I am trying to break out
Trying to reach out
It will take time
Can’t break bonds of ages so easily
So I bid adieu to you my love
I have still have long way to go
And fight my battle all alone
I hope you will understand...
Donno know if you will wait for so long

Happy Diwali !!!

2006-10-17T15:49:00.000+05:30

I have been told that the things-girls-should-not-do manual says that girls are not supposed to be gadget freaks. But I don’t read manuals anyways :D :D. So continuing with my obsession I have new addition in my list … Sony Ericsson w700i cell phone… Yaay!!!! All I can say is … its toooo good with walkman music player with amaaazing sound quality, 2 mega pixel camera(yeah yeah), biiig screen (just as I wanted), expandable memory upto 1GB, sexy interface just the Sony way :-). Its very easy to use and most of cell phone exploration is already done. I miss my nokia phone keys though. I have been told that I am brand savvy and I go for costly brands like Sony phones and Apple iPods. But why care, they are the best anyways :-). I wanted to buy the w810i but the cost was too much, so settled for this one. And I love it. Best thing I liked was … I can set any song as my ring tone !!! So I am searching for a niiiice song and any suggestions are welcome. My last phone had Rang De Basanti tone. But now I want some English tune but most of the songs I like are soft ones and I am not able to decide for faster/rock song.
Isn’t it the best Diwali gift I can give to myself :-)?
And…

Wish you all a very very very Happy Diwali !!!
May this Diwali bring you lot of light to your life !!!

I am off for looong vacation.

2006-10-17T11:55:00.000+05:30

Does it happen to you? You are forced to do something you don’t want to do and you do it for the sake of it and then you screw up badly. And then people start barking at you left and right and you wish you were invisible.

It happens with me many times and happened again today … I just wish I were invisible… *sob*

Bad start of day … reaaaaaaal bad start…. *Sob*

I HATE this IT world.

Arranged Marriage

2006-10-12T17:54:00.000+05:30

X is some lady/man related to me by some relation. Apparently they always seems to be very concerned about me .. or should I say my marriage.

Me : Hey aunty, Good news. I got salary raise.
X : Wow. Very good. How much you will get now?
Me : I will get xxxxx per month now, Isn’t it cool?
X (with sad expression on her face): Errr… that’s good.
Me : Why? What happened? You are not happy?
X : Ohh… no nothing like that. I am happy for u. But just concerned, already we are having hard time finding a guy to match ur current salary and again raise means more problem.
Me : What?? Mine is just normal one. Not even “Good” as per industry standard.
X : I don’t know all that. See all we want for you is to get you a good boy from good family, get married and settle down.
Me : What about my job and all the study I have done?
X : Girl has to always sacrifice ,dear.
Me : So you want me to scarify my career for some junk guy u are searching. You shouldn’t have sent me out at first place then.

… I can bear comments on my short nose, even shorter height, weight, tummy, teeth … everything else but not this, definitely not this. I know what my father had gone through to get me where I am. And I am not gonna leave it for such reasons.

I don’t know what is with all these people my so-called relative and well-wishers. They can’t just think about anything else than my marriage. And they will find the “junk”est guy. These guys and particularly their parents (GP) think that their son has come from some heavenly place. See some examples (they are real incidents)

Case 1:
GP(with loot of pride) : Oh all that is fine. But our son is very brilliant do you think you daughter will be able to match up his intelligence. He has got blah blah blah. (sidey degree from some sidey college)
My Mom: Great!!! My daughter has SSC rank, GATE score and won state level quizzes. I think they will make good pair
GP(scared voice): Errr…
Not to mention they never contacted back.

Case 2:
GP: We are very open minded people. We will give all the freedom to our daughter-in-law.
My Mom: Oh very well. So I think our children should meet once since they are working in same city. If they like each other, we can talk further.
GP: Uh oh… that will happen only after we have finalized the girl. See, We are respected family and our relatives would not appreciate this. We would like to see the girls first here with all the family. (mind you my place is at least 1000 km away from here and it takes at least 5 days and 2000 bucks to and fro journey)

I didn’t go.

Case 3:
GP: Oh your girl has spectacles. I hope she wears contact lenses all the time. Specs don’t look good on saree you see.
(What the hell? You want a new family member or show-piece)

And the list goes on.

Current mood: Reeeeeaaaaaaallly frustrated

2006-10-12T12:02:00.000+05:30

I got fed up with my last template. I thought the orage was too bright and too boring. (Taurus gal always needs a change you see :D)
I have been advised to move to wordpress. It seems they give more flexibility to organize my posts and all. But given my enooooooormous love for goole things I have decided to stick to blogger for a while :-). And the blogger beta seems interesting too !!!
So for the time being I am just happy with new template... yay !!!
I think it looks cooooool :-)

Taurus woman (and girl too :D)

2006-10-10T11:44:00.000+05:30

This what you post when you don't have anything to say but still want to post somehting :-)
Characteristics of a Taurus women ... :D

=====

A slim moderately tall woman. Taurus woman is funny and a jolly person. Square facial bone structure, high cheek bone. Her round big eyes sparkle with wit and curiosity. You will not see many round faces Taurus women, and mainly she will have a strong jaw line. She is a constantly change person. If she up sets, she will not show it and will keep it to herself for a long time, and will remember them so well. If she gets really mad at you, you will suddenly become a totally and completely stranger to her.

She is a patient person, but always needs new excitement. She hates long talk meeting, long and endless conversation. She can be in love with you today, and one day she could act as if she has never loved you before. She has patience with what she wants to do and will never give up until she gets there. She will be very persistent in what she is doing till she has reasons for stopping her project, then she will quit.

Money for Taurus woman is not the most important factor in life. She thinks of money as an instrument for assuring of a good living. She has more satisfaction in achieving her goals more than satisfaction in fine cloths and luxuries. If you like a woman who always thinks of love and romance ,then you are dating the wrong girl. You can not tell her to stay at home, she likes to work and preferred not work at home. She loves animals and likes to surround by animals.

Love is in her head, but Freedom is in her soul. She has her own idea about love and afraid to show her true feeling for fear of rejection. She is not the type to talk about love, but she sure has a strange way to show it. She is not good in showing when she is in love, but if she loves you she will be honest to you than any other women. She will be honest to her love one, but at the same time seems distant. You will have a good relationship with her, if you allow her freedom.

Do not force her to be with you in a poker game which she hates, but let she goes out swinging with her friends if she wants to. She will be different than other girls, and she thinks different is one of her unique quality. She is a public figure but belongs to no one. She will not stay with you, if she thinks you are not sincere. She likes you to have personality, but better not to compete with her. Love her, but not too much for she afraid it will limiting her freedom.

She always stands out of the crowd for something she dares to do. You could see her dress like a poor farmer dinning in the fancy restaurant, or dress like a nun in an a cocktail dress party. If you are a politician who are looking for a wife, she will make a good one because she is cleverly smart and she could get along socially with any type of crowds.

She is not a jealous type because she has to know you thoroughly before accepting you in her life. She has more curiosity in life than wondering if right now you are flirting with someone else. If you keep a distant from her, or go away for a few days, she will miss you more. Even when she is dating you, she also able to fond of someone else, if you do not have something she is looking for. She will never disappoint you or hide behind your back to make you loose face, but she is the type who just going to tell you to your face that " We're better off breaking up". She always remember her first love. Taurus woman holds the best record for divorce for she does not care about how people think of her, but every things should be done for "Happiness".

She has lots of friends and sure of herself, so you will hardly see she delays any of her thoughts before her action. If she think of something, she will go ahead and does it. She has many men wanting her for her constant changes is the challenge. She can be cute and funny, but suddenly cool and tough. She has her own style of dressing up, so you could see her dress like an old mate today, and tomorrow she may dress like she comes from Mars. She will have that interesting hair, dress and a look unique from anyone else.

She likes to learn about your dreams and your thought. She has fun teasing you and making jokes. If she did something wrong, she won't hide it from you, but do not ask when she is not in the mood to talk about it. She hates to owe people money and take promise seriously. If you promise to pay her back, you'd better paid up.

If you want to make it with Taurus woman, then do not be jealous or possessive, do not be narrow minded, do not criticize about nonsense or small and insignificant matters. Try to likes her friends and let she has her privacy, then she can be very sweet to you.

Worth Living

2006-09-28T16:23:00.000+05:30

Another "my own" poem :-)

==========

"You make my life worth living"
That’s what you had said
Holding me in your arms
Our eyes locked together

I had blushed at those words
Treasured them with all my heart
Repeated thousand times to myself
They made my life... Worth living

Now that you are not with me
I wonder, if they were true
If you really meant them
Or it was just me imagining

I wonder if life was really
worth "living" Or worth "leaving"

Coffee sir?

2006-09-21T18:24:00.000+05:30

It was Saturday evening, I was returning from school with three of my friends. We had no special plans for the Saturday night, we decided to have dinner at this coffee shop cum restaurant on 100 ft road. It's a nice cozy place with lot of sofas and bean bag and even swings for sitting. There you can relax, sip cup of coffee and have nice talk with friends without being bothered by other people's high pitch boastings or the when-the-hell-will-you-leave-others-are-waiting look on waiters face (that we generally get in any Bangalore restaurant on Saturday or Sunday evenings). "Coffee, Culture, Cuisine" is their punch line. In short I love the ambiance very much.

As were chatting or should I say gossiping as usual, S suggested why we don't play "truth or dare" for a change. It was instantaneously agreed upon. She found a small pen for rotating. Everybody chose to play safe and chose go for truth. There were usual boring questions like memorable moment, embarrassing moment and first crush stuff. S chose dare. There was a topiwala guy sitting stylishly in bean bag outside. I asked her to go and ask his name ( I thought he might be hunk). She hesitated a bit but went on and asked his name. It was fun watching her go and look of surprise on the guys face. Now everyone was supposed to chose dare. The topiwala being our target. We were sitting exactly diagonally to him. H suggested she will give him a flying kiss. And guess what she actually went till the door blew some kisses in air... in our direction, the guy being behind outside the glass wall :-). (Not to mention the guy turned out to be just another stylo dumbo) The restaurant people were watching us curiously. R's dare was to dance to the tune of music played. She actually stood up in front of us and danced to Michael J's "Dangerous" tunes. We were object of attention around. Now it was my turn. I am asked to act as one of the guys there and wait on one table.
Ummm ... I hesitated a lot. Kya karu, kaise karu... mera change karo naa ... But S was very particular on me doing that. So I marched upto the guy behind counter and asked if I can serve once. He instantaneously agreed and said he will call me. He asked me to collect bill from a couple sitting outside. The guy was surprised to see a gal restaurantl, the restaurent has guys that too wearing black Ts and caps. Me was wearing some colorful top... my heart beat racing unnecessarily. Me acted very decent, standing polietly, supressing laughter. I got the money from him and came in. Guess what, the rest people gave a big round of applause and I was specially asked to come again. It was real freaking fun.

You never know you might find me serving coffee in some Bangalore coffee shop.
Coffee anyone???

Wanted

2006-09-21T15:38:00.000+05:30

Today morning I found a poster stuck in my cubical ...

Wanted written in big letters under my company photo id photocopy
:)))))))))

Another team member added "Reward: 10 cases solved by her"

I am gonna leave it around like that ....

Beware people... I m wanted personality !!!

Requirement Spec - 1

2006-09-07T14:45:00.000+05:30

Like any Indian family having girl of my age, my family is searching for a “suitable” (haaaah!!!) groom for me...ekdam jor shor se(cause I haven’t found anyone of my choice yet). Obviously my opinion is asked (akhir shaadi to meri hi honi hai … :D ). Hmmm... that is pretty important haa. I had written long time back about my dreams for soulmate. But that’s on very emotional terms. So I have decided to be more practical and make list of things about what kinda guy I want (read as ‘I would be able to live with’ :P ).
Well, I will be ok if he smokes, drinks, watches news and sport channel all the time and never lets me watch any movie or soap channel (I don’t watch them very much anyways :)) or even has flirted with 100 girls before meeting me (Yeah... seriously!!!) but there are few things I am very serious about

• I don’t want extravagant wedding. If possible we should have register marriage with family and close friends
• He MUST love his country. I don’t like guys who dream of US of A all the time. I would hate to settle down anywhere else than India
• Should be open to adopt at least one child.
• Should be ok to take a walk and not insist on taking vehicle or auto everywhere. Isn’t it romantic to walk in moonlight !!!
• Should love sea and take me to beach at least once in year. (Also, I would love I settle down in Goa or Konkan. A pond side/riverside house is also OK :D)
• Switch off electric appliances when not required. Leaving fans and tube lights switched on and wandering off the room is serious no no. ( Don’t you know we are suffering from too much shortage of electricity )
• TURN OFF vehicle at signals. (Global warming people !!!)
• My house MUST have huge windows and lots of fresh air and natural light. I don’t like to switch on lights or fans during daytime.
• No wasting food. Must finish whatever is served in the plate
• Help me in the Kitchen.
• Not crib about my love for cloths :D
• Must read books. If he writes and that too poems … wow… I just looove it
• Don’t preach me religion. I will do whatever is required as per family customs but no imposing of beliefs.
• It’s ok if I cry while watching a senti movie or reading book or listening to senti song.
• Rainwalk!!! (even riding bike in rain :))
• Leaving tap water open all the time when you are shaving or brushing, not closing tap properly is serious turn off :)
• Don’t expect me to sit around in house every weekend.
• Must be good listener
• I tend to loose my temper very quickly. But then I calm down faster… All I need is li'le bit of patience (M equally patient :) )
• I do fight and argue a lot … but they should end right there, no hard feelings
• Would love if he can shake a leg with music tunes :)
• Goood sense of humor !!!
• Most important … LOVE me as I am !!! :) :)

Ummm… there might be more things I would like to see here but can’t recall them right now. Will write requirement spec part2 some other time :) :)

****
Came across one interesting quote

A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. Irina Dunn, 1970 *wink wink*

2006-08-25T18:51:00.000+05:30

I donno how they make it
But this is very very true for me :-)
Reeeeaaaaal Ashlesha cocktail for u...

How to make a ashlesha

Ingredients:

1 part anger

3 parts brilliance

3 parts energy

Method:
Add to a cocktail shaker and mix vigorously. Serve with a slice of sadness and a pinch of salt. Yum!

Tears ...

2006-08-25T12:25:00.000+05:30

My first attempt to write a poem
=====

My words always betray me
I never know what to say
and when to say
Never understood rules of this world

Now tears following that trend too
They always roll down
at unwanted places and unwanted occasions
donno why...
I never liked to cry
But it still happens

Sometimes I can't control my emotions
Just can't put up the brave face
I hate to show off emotions
I am possessive about 'em
cause people don't understand what I feel

I don't want to cry
I don't want you to see my tears
I don't want anyone see my tears
They are very precious to me

2006-08-24T10:59:00.000+05:30

So I am thinking about alternate profession...

And as I have mentioned in my previous blog, I am very serious about considering the Hindi serial wala profession. After being forced to watch soaps daily, I have concluded that I too can become a story writer (for Hindi soap ofcourse :D)
So here it is... An attmpt to do it.
Kahani Ek Serial Ki

I wish to wirte a melodramatic, family, business, friendship, love ... etc etc soap drama which will be "different" from all ongoing ones (:D :D :D). I will try to write one episode each post. All you Hindi soap lovers (... and non-lovers too :-) ) are invited to join this attempt. As per the Hindi soap traditon, the story writer can change as many times actor playing the lead role changes. So let your creative juices flow freely and contribute an episode or more... add twists and turns to our serial.

Chalo ek Kahani banaye apani ...

2006-08-03T10:55:00.000+05:30

Life is getting weirder day by day. I am tired of dealing with never ending and unnecessary complications. Sometimes I feel like I am running in a desert trying to touch the horizon. The more I try to get closer the more it runs away. It’s really hot out there. My feet are burning on the red hot sand. There is not a single tree around. Not even oasis mirage to look for.

I want a shadow somewhere to rest for while. I want water for my dry throat.
I want some rest.
I want peace of mind
I just want a simple life !!!

The "nose" factor

2006-07-18T16:29:00.000+05:30

My olfactory system (a.k.a. my nose) is unnecessarily active. My mom says I might have been dog in one of my previous “janams”. I need my food to have good aroma and not just the taste. My memory store is unnecessarily tied up with the olfactory system. There are some scents which remind me of some people.

Like the “Dabur Amala Kesh Tel” reminds me of my ajoba (mom’s father). He was great lover of perfumes. He would try different types of talcum powders and soaps for the sake of their perfumes. But hair oil was always “Dabur Amala”. His rack had lot of amazing stuff which we kids were not allowed to touch at all. I still remember the exact place where he would keep the oil bottle. It was the old glass bottle permanent resident there which would be filled in regularly with new small bottles. Years of spilled oil had peculiar aroma which would fill his whole room. We were occasionally given the duty to apply the oil on his head or his feet. And as reward we would get the small square salt biscuits or sweet supari powder (I donno the angrezi name for that?) or toffees from his cupboard. He used keep the cupboard keys under his pillow. Whenever he would reach the keys we would gather around the cupboard wide eyed in anticipation to get our share of biscuits. The cupboard had peculiar smell of naphthalene balls protecting my grandma’s saris from so many years mixed with different “attar”s (perfume) applied on them.

Sweet mango scent reminds me of my aajji (dad’s mother). We used to have large number of mango trees (at least a dozen of different varieties) in our farm. So the summer vacations were absolutely mango eating seasons. All the mangoes had different ripe time so there would be new mango variety coming home every fortnight. We had one room specially reserved for the mangos called “Ambyachi Kholi”. They would spread layer of dried straws on the floor and then layer of mangos and then another layer of straws on top of it. Every morning aajji would pick out ready to eat mangos in a bucket for us to eat another bucket for making “aamras”. Our days would start with mangoes and end with mangoes. We were allowed only peep inside the room. It had sweet mango scent mixed with the grass smell. I can still vividly remember my aajji sitting in that dark room and picking up sweetest mangoes for us.

The cabbage sabji smell reminds me of my hostel mess. For some reason our mess cook was in love with cabbage. So we were tortured with the sabji in every other meal. It used be only boiled vegetable with bare minimum masalas and a weird smell. It was utterly unbearable for me. We have skipped amny meals due to that sabji. And I still can’t eat cabbage.

… And the smell of detol, lifebuoy soap, hospital, cigarettes … all of them remind me of my dad. My dad was one totally dedicated (freak) doctor. His shirt would smell of hundred different things… lifebuoy soap he would wash hands with every time he examines a patient (hands would include the shirt sleeves too :-) ), detol used in operation theatre (though my mom claims that doctors are the most unhygienic people on earth), some blood spots here and there while delivering a cute baby (should I say babies) … and smoke of cigarettes, he would always find time for in his busy schedule. My sister and I would always tease him for wearing such smelly cloths I absolutely hated the hospital smell for some reason. I would never go inside unless I had some urgent to talk to him.
Now whenever I go to any hospital … all I can think of is seeing dad scolding some for something at the top of his voice, frown on his face for seeing me there (yeah, he seldom liked disturbance in his work), hurrying towards the operation theatre or delivery room, comforting the lady in labor or taking round in the ward and talking to patients like they have decades of friendship …

Hmmm… "smelly" memories isn’t it ? :-) :-) :-)