Great weekend

WOW!  What a weekend I’ve had. Haloween party on Friday and the trip to the Six Flags amusement park on Saturday. I had been looking forward to this trip since quite some time and had put a lot of hopes on it to have fun….and BOY! It did not disappoint!

oh..the giant spider clinging to
 the roller coaster ride
was due to the haloween theme
that week

Oh! And before I begin, let me tell all those jealous friends of mine (so jealous of my hair that they actually conspired against me and started demotivating my ‘I-will-let-my-hair-grow-this-time’ mission and finally led to it’s premature death. I GOT a haircut this weekend…..you can notice it in the snaps I will be putting up in this blog.

Will go and now and tell you about what all I did in the trip to SixFlags. We left at around 10:00am from our college (it was one of the student body sponsored e event), and reached our destination about 1.5 hours later.

We clicked this pic right at the entrance. Even from the parking lot, we could see and already predict that we were going to have a good time here….judging by the size of the roller coaster rides visible. There was not one, but 4-5 different kinds of roller-coaster rides here. And I was determined to ride each and every one of them.

I will now go on to mention some of the rides that were really great and are worth talking about in here.

The first ride was the good ol’ Ferris wheel (giant wheel). This one was the dullest ride in the park. It was slow and we were made to sit inside a cage kind of a thing ‘for our safety’. Even the Indian giant wheels are more exciting. The wheel turned at such a slow pace that at one point of time, all of us wondered if it was even moving.  But the good thing about this ride was that, from the top-most point- we got a good picture of all the rides that we would eventually be trying out. We counted the number of roller-coasters at 5 and decided that we should ride at least 4.

One of the biggest roller-coaster rides (lasting upto 2 minutes of topsy-turvy and stomach-content-churning twists) was next on the list....it was aptly named 'The '. We had to wait for quite some time in a looong line to get into the RC(roller coaster), but the wait was worth it in the end. Man!! The drops that the RC took after reaching the top of the curve, was just exhilarating.

Next was the ‘Dragon’s wings’ ride. And this one was truly the highlight of my day at the park. What happens in this ride was that, the person(s) would be strapped to a long wire, just a wire. The wire would then be pulled back to the extreme end (as in a pendulum) and let go!! The first swing , was the BEST! It was like, you are free falling in the air and there’s nothing to catch you at the bottom. Of course, because you are attached to a wire, you basically make pendulum type swinging movements. Trust me when I say this, the first ‘oscillation’ really made my heart stop for a few seconds. I was riding that with two other friends of mine. I was shouting curses (at the awesomeness of it all) all the way, till it stopped about 2 minutes later. Was a really awesome ride.

Superman .

From there, we went on to the SuperMan tower ride. This had a tall  tower (about 1.6miles into the sky) with seats attached to it.  We would be taken to the top slowly, and then just drop. Almost like a free fall. Although, the drop lasted only about 2 seconds, it was enough to give you the thrills that the name intended ...Super! The drop took such less time, that by the time a person's expression started showing on his face- he was already at the bottom. It was quite funny to watch the expressions of many people, whose expressions started just as they reached the bottom. The expressions  ranged from shocking  to smiles, and from  'oh-my-gaaaawd' and  'too overwhelmed to express' . Lolz.

There was a ride called mr.Freeze, another RC where the RC would, at one point- go vertically up- stop for a split second and then fall back at full speed in the reverse direction. UNNNNNfortunately, I missed that one, which some say was one of the best rides in the park. :-/

the REAL Superman!

I also tried my hand at some games where you have the chance of winning small prizes like teddy bears and capes. And yeah...i did win some stuff. At one contest, I won an awesome super-man cape and at another place ,where I had to hit and break a plate with a ball...standing at a distance-- I won a green-frog teddy. Lolz. It is kinda too green for my taste, but I took it anyway, as the other alternative I had was a pig-teddy..which I didn't like too much. Am including the pictures of my awesome cape which will soon adorn the wall in my room giving it a sense of awesomeness. :D  Another friend of mine who also played the game in which I won the cape, won a wonder-woman cape.

The rest of the day I spent in roaming around and checking a few more similar contests without any luck. In the end, I had an ice-cream (though I don’t remember the name of the shop). What makes this ‘i-had-an-icecream’ worth mentioning is that this was the first ice-cream I had after landing in the USA. The flavor was cookie-dough and true to it’s name, the taste was exactly like sweet dough with chunks of cookies in it.

We finally reached Rolla back at around 8:30pm and I realized that I was starting to get a head-ache, which I think was due to the excessive fun I had. :D

say NO to dowry!

This is my first blog after shifting base to the US of America. Been wanting to write since so long. It’s been three months since I came here and even longer since I wrote my last blog. Here’s the explanation for me not being able to blog for so long (which I don’t think anyone even noticed…hehe). Initially, I had a lot of time on my hands (when my classes hadn’t started here yet) but unfortunately, I didn’t have access to any personal computer/laptop to be able to blog. I did have access to the computers in the library (with 10mbps connection….WOW!), but it didn’t have that atmosphere needed to blog you know.

To all those random bloggers out there, you’d know what I am talking about. You can’t just start writing a blog from any computer. It has to be a machine you are comfortable with, an environment you are comfortable with and the right moment….(which didn’t happen in the library, in my case).

And after I finally got my own laptop, the classes started and have been really really hectic ever since. Man! No one ever told me that Masters ki padhai is going to be this hectic.

Anyways, I finally had some time in my hands today, after toiling the last 3 days and not getting too much sleep....courtsey-- a test and a painfully lengthy assignment submission falling on consecutive days . Plus, I found that one of my best friends, Sujeet had recently started blogging all of a sudden. (I’ll take this moment to appreciate sujeet for starting his own blog….way to go bro!! ). Trust me when I say this-- sujeet was one of the last people on this planet who I had expected to write a blog. He just wasn’t that writer type guy. Although, he had composed some really beautiful poems back in college. But, all that ‘not being a writer type’ has changed I guess. So his blogging, motivated me to finally get my lazy part off the bed and type something that comes from the heart.

Wow, look at me, I’ve already written half a page and neither you nor I have any idea what this blog is all about. Lolz. I need you to be a little more patient and I promise you that the ‘real thing’ will start within the next 2 lines.

So, here goes nothing…..well something actually….hehe..

I know for a fact that ALL Indian citizens have heard of the term ‘Dowry’. There’s not a single Indian adult that hasn’t heard of or doesn’t know about this. And if I am not mistaken, (and not meaning to disrespect any particular caste), almost all castes in our country have the tradition of giving and taking dowry. Chances are that even if you haven’t been directly involved in any dowry ‘transaction’, you will have come across it in some form or the other in your life.

I personally, HATE this dowry system from the entirety of my heart. I completely, utterly and wholly abhor it. I wanted to do some research on this topic and know where this system of dowry originated. But, to hell with it…..am just going to go on and insult the dowry system and compare it with all kinds of shitty things in the following few paragraphs. And if you are one of those -who support the dowry system for whatever reasons you feel are valid….may want to stop reading at THIS point.

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Well, if you HAVE decided to go one and read my blog then I guess I should get on with the dowry-system bashing right away.

What I don’t understand is, what is the need to take or ask for dowry. By what right is a family asking for dowry? Isn’t the bride’s family already giving them an invaluable gift in the form of their daughter. They are giving someone, whom they have loved their entire lives and have always wanted to best for- to another family. They are parting ways with a piece of their own flesh and blood. They are giving away a person who, for the rest of her adult life will be under a completely new household…..working and taking care of the husband and his family. Isn’t that MORE than enough??? Apparently NOT for a majority of families in our country. They want MORE. And they want it in the form of money and financial assets, or in some cases even in the form of immovable assets like a house. I mean, what the hell people?!!?? Why would someone want to just give away their hard-earned money….money that they have acquired working hard their entire lives to someone whom they had no previous relationship with prior to wedding of their daughter?! Again, here, I would ask the question….what RIGHT does the bridegroom's family have to ask for someone’s hard-earned money just like that?! If they are so desperate for money--- then I'd say--”GO EARN IT YOURSELF Goddamnit!! And if you can’t then better learn to live with it.”

These dowry seekers should be ashamed of themselves if they expect to live a part of their lives on someone else's money.  And they actually display their shameless guts to the world by bargaining for the dowry amount. Wow! These people should be applauded for their high degree of ignorance and pathetic  plight in asking for money.  Maybe they should be also given an award every year, titled as 'Mr.Pathetic' or 'Mr. i-want-ur daughter-AND-your-money....-because I am greedy'.

Even in today's world, where Indians are creating waves in all fields of technology and science by attaining dizzying heights of success , a world where Indians are respected the world-over for their high academic skills (which means they are very educated),------there STILL are people (and quite a majority) who ask and give dowry.

Shame on them....Shame on the people who ask for dowry and also shame on the people who agree to give dowry.

I've always taken a firm stand against the dowry system....and if you are a responsible and educated youth of India, then you should too.