CRAZY DEN

fraaandship!

2012-01-29T11:15:00.000-08:00

So here I am, on yet another Sunday that seems to come andgo like the trucks on the national highway in India. They just ride along and peoplealong the highway hardly even notice them. Sundays are something like that too, hardlynoticed nowadays.And as my good friend Nisha rightly predicted, I end upgetting up early morning and thinking what to do. I finally end up with a novelin the loo to help me pass time. Oh before you go all “eeeewww!!”, don’t thinkI don’t I know you’ve done that too. After all, having a long relaxing loo-tripis indeed a luxury for all working people. ‘Sheesh!’ you say? Well, I say “justwait till you start working pal…and then you’ll know what I am talkingabout!!”.

Another weekend, another AMC12 trip, another movie. Watched‘The Grey’ yesterday. Liam Neeson packs in a power-packed performance asalways. Intense movie but I would’ve wanted a better ending than the currentone. The movie still manages to hold your attention till the last moment and which is precisely why theending could’ve been better. Ok..soenough movie talk for this blog. I am sorry, it’s just that I’ve been watchingso many new movies (one every weekend…compared to the 3 movies I watched inRolla during my entire three-semester stay there! ) that I justhad to share something about at least one of them.

I wanted to write a deeply-thought out blog this time but Iguess I won’t be doing that. Don’t have the patience for that today. Maybe nexttime. So I’ll be pretty much just ranting about foolish, and small things thatI’ve come across in the recent past. Kindly adjust. I would, at this point warnyou that this particular blog is just going to waste your time..but then, whichprevious blog of mine hasn’t?! hehehehehe. *No I won’t use LOL for that, I amagainst using LOL. I prefer the much more realistic laughter*

kind of sums it up :)

The other day I was having a conversation with my bestfriend Mr.Lee (his real name is something else but I like calling him Mr.Lee onmy blogs…and in case you are wondering, No, he’s not a chinki. He’s as Indianas you can ever get). So, it was our typical conversation with us tripping overeach other at every available chance, taking dirty jabs at each other over andover again, to the point that neither of us have any more derogatory things tosay for each other.

That’s when I realized that the foundation of our friendshipwas on these very highly idiotic conversations. These very brainless andinsult-filled conversations that we shared is what makes us best friends. Ireally can’t have such conversations with any other human in the world, chieflybecause I cannot insult people like the way I can with mr.Lee.

Friendship isn’t created. It justhappens. A chance encounter with a fellow newbie in class can turn into one ofthe strongest and humbling relations you can have with another human. For me, friendship is aboutbitching about my best friend to my best friend and then the next instanttalking about how cool the latest movie was. It’s about being as spontaneous asthat damn chicken that suddenly becomes possessed and tries to cross a road when you are driving down at top speed.

This one’s to all those people whoknow that no matter what they do, they’ll always have one person in the worldwho will take their side – their best friend!

Peace!

I Baked a Christmas

2011-12-25T16:57:00.000-08:00

The Christmas tree at Harshita's place that I helped decorate

So, it’s Christmas and a non-white one at that. I will have to grudgingly agree that a white-Christmaswould have been a welcome change from the cold-lazy-days that I have becomeaccustomed to off late making me fall in love …with my bed.

Most of my peeps are outof town on vacation. While most of them are in some aunt or uncle’s place inNewYork, Philadelphia , others have gone back to India for thewinters. Those lucky buggers! So that leaves me alone in this town with hardlya soul to talk to. I won’t lie, It can get really lonely out here sometimes. SoI have been trying to chalk up plans for Christmas day and trying to findsomething to do that really makes me feel …well..’Christmasy’. After a lot ofpondering , and struggling with my head to keep myself away from facebook.com(for the half an hour that it took me to home-in on what to do on Christmas), Ifinally decided that I’d bake.

Oh yeah, you heardme..bake! I started baking last week and had already dished out some pies,oatmeal cookies (by Ritesh, my roommate) and the highlight of my baking-spree,the Banana-almond cupcakes and the banana-almond bread (my sister’s recipe). Sothis time, I decided that I’d bake simple white cup-cakes (you know,the ones available in every bakery in India, those light brown ones).

So I got up todaymorning, fresh after a long nine hour sleep (winters can do that to you allright!!), had some cereal for breakfast and set about arranging myingredients in an orderly manner. I happen to be one of those people who likehaving their ingredients ready and in separate bowls (like them cookery-shows).I started around 1pm and after a few hits and misses, I was finally done withthree batches of white-cup-cakes by 4pm. The first batch turned outimpressively well but the latter batches were stubborn and did not follow onthe same lines, unfortunately. (Bake tip: when using Baking ‘soda’ in yourrecipe, bake the ingredients immediately. Leaving the batter after mixingallows the acid to start fermenting or something and the cake can go the ‘what-the-hell-happened-there’lyway).

My main intention aroundbaking three batches of cup-cakes was to give the cup-cakes to my good friendswho are still here in town. I did just that and dutifully wished each one ofthem ‘Merry Christmas’ when handing the cup-cakes. They were reallythankful and that alone made my day and the 4 hours I spent in the kitchen, allworth the effort.

While making theawesomely-awesome cup-cakes (what?! I love boasting about those cup-cakes ok?),I realized that I really enjoyed cooking / baking so much. Yes,cooking needs effort and time, and in most of the tasty-dishes, somepainstaking preparation time too. But it’s one of those few things wherehard-work can really visibly pay off and you can have a good time at the end ofit, digging into that tasty dish you just whipped up.

lookin good fellas.. :)

Baking, now sits nearthe top of ‘my favorite things to do’, right up there with reading a good book,having an intense and thought provoking conversation with a good friend, and ofcourse- sleeping. I don’t claim to be the best baker in town, oreven the best in my friends-circle, but I sure can dish up a decent cup-cake. Here, check out thephotos of the cup-cakes that I made today..

Merry Christmaseveryone! J

Facebook'ing Tips

2011-11-15T20:25:00.001-08:00

I doubt if there is any college student out there today who hasn’t heard of facebook. Almost everyone who has heard of it are also probably using this super-popular social networking website and helping Mr.Zuckerberg laugh his way to the billion dollar bank accounts.

I'll admit...I spend a lot of time on facebook. Being so far away from home, I rely on this website to keep in touch with a lot of my friends from back home.
However, I do keep bumpig into some really lame and annoying 'occurances' on facebook. I am pretty sure you too must have often come across some really really dumb instances on facebook. Things that people do and put up that's just a smelly load of bullcrap and makes you want to roll up your eyes and say 'Weirdo!!' . So today, I’ll be offering some tips to those few who actually read my articles every week, about how not to become a douchebag on facebook.
Note: I am not claiming to being a pro at facebook’ing and neither am I claiming that I am completely, utterly and compulsorily correct.

So here is the 'gyaan' (Oh and it FREE by the way... :

1. You update your facebook status message. I’m fine with that, completely fine. But you cannot and must not ever ‘like’ your own status message after updating it. The same applies to updating your relationship status or adding a photo and then liking it yourself first. Dude, that is just pure dumb. It only shows how obsessed you are with you own sad darn life.

2. This one’s related to relationship status as well. Please do not be so desperate for attention

and ‘facebook alerts’ (the tiny red comic bubble with that magic number in white inside it signifying

that there is, after all, someone who actually ‘cares’ about you and what you do) so as to update your relationship status to ‘engaged’ or ‘in a relationship’ and then changing it back to ‘it’s complicated’ .

Personally, there’s no such thing as it's complicated in relationships. You are either ‘in’ or ‘out’, so man up and face the truth, buddy.

3. Never put up a status message that reads BRB . No one really cares man? There is probably no one in this universe who cares if you have gone for a washroom-break for a minute. You are not going to be missed. So please, BRB is a strict no-no as a status message.

4. Adding a profile picture that shows you clicking a picture of yourself in a mirror, with you staring at the cellphone screen in your hand is lame. Come on man, you have more than a hundred friends and that not one of them had five seconds to spare to click a decent picture of you? Really?

5. Keeping a continuous tab on the newly added ‘tickr’ sidebar and then claiming to have caught your friend ‘like’ing and then remove like (unlike) your status message (Yes, people actually do that) is not the right thing to do. Stalker!!

6. Becoming the first person to like the ‘new picture added’ by that hot girl in your class will definitely not put you on the speedboat to her heart my friend.

7. Do not ever leave a message that says "hey..have u chkd out dis hot chick xyz on ma friend list yet? " on your friend’s public wall. First of all, those braindead english spellings there, do NOT show that you are 'cool and hip and one of those sms people' . Next, the profiles are ‘public’ if you remember, so you typing all that horseshit on your friend's wall is visible to everyone on your friend's list man. If you however, DO intend to so that, then I have just one word for you - 'ShowOff!!'

8. Spamming your own photo with lots of comments on some silly issue that is not even slightly related to what is in the photo, in order to get into our walls in the ‘top new stories’ is not a good idea, please. If you have something to talk about, do it on your wall or as a private message conversation. We really do not care what your cat had for lunch written beneath a picture of you in the Bahamas with holding a pina-colada. That is the definition of ‘they don’t go together’.

So, all you facebooking folks out there, Pray keep these tips in mind to avoid being viewed as an obnoxious individual with an obesessive compulsive disorder to put up the most unwanted status messages on facebook earning the ‘facebook douchebag of the year’.

special thanks to my 'brethar' Murali Gumpeny for proofreading this blog for me.. cheers bro!
peace..
;-)

Barber bhaiiya...

2011-08-03T11:08:00.000-07:00

I've always been fond of short hair on my head. But like most other Indian youngsters who have been through college, I've had my share of 'trying-to-grow-long hair' days and attempts of masquerading the hair so that I looked less like Abdul Kalam and more like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible 2.

The last time I had tried growing my hair long, a fellow and one of my prettiest classmate had commented rather rudely that I needed a haircut and that I looked like one of those villian's sidekicks from south-Indian movies. That was that, I never attempted to grow my hair long again (at least not intentionally).

I have been kinda infamous amongst my family (immediate family and the extended one too.....far far extended) for visiting a saloon or 'Barber shop' as it's more commonly known in middle-class India- to get a haircut at least twice a month...that's once every fortnight. Of course, I would confidently defend myself by saying that I had a thick mane of hair and that my hair grew faster than other mortals (I still think it's true btw). My mom and siblings made it a point to humiliate my publicly by saying that I didn't even look like I had had a haircut (this was right after I got home from a saloon...freshly trimmed hair et al. ) thus hereby questioning my decision to get a haircut and 'waste' Rs.20 (Rs.10 before soft and proud hair started sprouting above my upper lip).

The funny thing is that I have almost never been satisfied with a haircut that I had get. There have hardly been four or five occasions where I remember getting that perfect haircut ....the one that I had envisioned. Our desi-barbers seem to have a mind of their own when cutting our hair and not to mention the scissor in his had has a mind of its own. No matter how many times and in how ever many languages you tell them how you need the hair to look after he's done cutting it, he would nod vigorously and set about cutting the hair just the way HE liked and not how you'd have liked, all the while listening intently to the discussion on the radio about how houseflies can be tamed or whatever. And you end up looking like you’re taming a porcupine on your head or sometimes are left squinting at your reflection to see if there’s actually hair up there or is it a layer of charcoal dust the the ‘naai’ peppered when you weren’t looking. The barber though with so much pride in his eyes that you begin to doubt if the government has awarded him the Padma Bhushan or something. The sad thing about haircuts is once it’s messed up, you’re as screwed as that harry potter guy minus his wand in front of Voldermort. There's no going back-- only wait for the jeers you'd get from your friends at school the next day, from family members who think you are ridiculously wasting 80% of their income on haircuts, and from your neighborhood stray cum pet dog who would growl at you as you walk past it on your way back from the saloon showing its distaste of your new haircut. You suddenly go from being ‘that crazy fellow from the last bench’ to ‘that guy with the funniest haircut…haa haa haa’…..God I so used to hate it when that happened.

Now, after having moved to USA, I found to my utter disbelief, like most other Indians there, that each haircut costs more than 20 times than what I paid for in India (after we convert the USD to INR). Wow! I will have to get used to haircuts only once every few months. It's going to be more difficult than getting over drugs at a rehab center, but I think I will live through it. God will give me the strength to live through this... sniff. I am almost used to it now btw.

Reality-bites ..

2011-07-18T10:59:00.000-07:00

As soon as the clock strikes 8pm, most of the TV channels in India switch from their pallu-clad-saas-bahu-serials to the 'reality shows' every day.

They've had reality shows for singing and dancing since quite some time now (I do consider TVS sa-re-ga-ma on Zee tv a reality show hmpf! ) but channels and their overpaid-overintelligent-overcreative staff off late have started rolling out a buffet (quite literally) of reality shows ranging from talent shows (anyone can do anything....Am actually planning to go and show my talent of counting from 1-20 in one single breath!! ) , cooking, dare-devil stunts on bikes and helicopters,stand-up- comedy and even marriage.

So the general public in apna-Bharat-mahaan now churns out 'reality-show-stars' faster than that mouse in your attic churns out tiny hairless 'mouselings'. People can dance their way to semi-stardom, cook their way into your friendly-neighborhood-dhaba, marry their way into some bizarre household that has the mother-in-law decked in more make-up than Simi Garewal or even jump into a pitiful of shit as a daredevil stunt and find themselves starring in Slumdog millionaire part 2.

The other thing I find quite disturbing about these shows are their judges or a.k.a- guru, master, dancemaster, chef-master, chaddi-master, fartmeister etc. etc. They seem to be graduates of Subhash Ghai's Whispering willows or whatever acting school and have hence mastered the art of giving out appalled expressions performance after performance (I bet they can give apni Amisha Patel a good run for her money on a one on one keep-repeating-the-same-expression-over-n-over-again-contest). These judges can give out a barrage of the same feedback in so many different ways that it would put Shakespere and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to shame. The pure dumbness of their comments just for the sake of increasing TRP', which includes having a verbal-tussle or two with the fellow judge every now and then, can be edited and telecasted separately as 'Indian Judgment show' that I am sure will attain even greater TRP ratings than the WWE (formerly known to all Indian kids as WWF) itself. Wonder how the judge of the 'Comedy Circus' - Archana Puran Singh keeps laughing over and over again at some of the world's saddest jokes. Me thinks, she secretly inhales laughing gas every now and then when the camera isn't focusing on her wide jaw.

With that being said and done...I urge the TV channels to show some more sensible programs that involve more than just people cooking tuar-dal, singing 'munni badnaam hui' without even the decency of showing the video when the participant is singing this song, or jumping into a bed of scorpions and later sobbing about how one of the scorpions almost ate her up, and the judges gawking with the most artificial acting in the universe.

Gotta go now....going to watch 'megastructures' on Discovery channel (Now THAT is a show!)

peace!

COMICS-NOSTALGIA

2011-06-23T11:33:00.000-07:00

My grandma has been wanting to throw away some stuff from the store-room in order to accommodate the ever-swelling 'junk' that each household magically keeps producing at a steady and unstoppable pace. I was given the duty to clear away some old boxes that apparently contained things from my childhood.
Upon opening one of the boxes, I found a bundle of comic magazines. Comics are how I had been introduced to the world of 'Reading' and I have always been fond of them.
I very fondly remember the times when I used to devour these comics at a rate faster than than I used to gulp down food.

FLASHBACK: imagine the following in a crackling black and white movie frame:
I am all set to journey to my grandparent's place in Bhopal, from Coimbatore (a 20 hour journey). My excitement of visiting my beloved grandparents is peaks with the fact that I will get to read comics on the train. Now, in 'those' days, I was allowed to afford the luxury of a comic if and only if we were travelling by train (my parents later confessed that the comics kept me from jumping out of the train at every station that the train stopped).
So there I was, entering the railway station...one hand being held firmly in the confident but relaxed grip of my dad and the other swaying happily by my side like a dog's wagging tail. I knew the exact location of the book-store in the railway station and prided myself at being able to get to it even blindfolded. I knew that the train would arrive only half an hour after we had stepped into the station (which I thought the train did on purpose by the way). So I started looking in the direction of the book-stand. My dad sensing my desperation to hold a comic in my hands, smiled down at me and took me straight to the book-stall.
I happily bought myself a Tinkle 'digest' and two Chacha Chowdhary comics.
Ah! I was feeling like a king now, clinging on to the comics like they were worth more than my life. The rest of the journey I do not remember too well....it's all hazy with me buried into the comics and noticing almost nothing else.

OK...Now you can come back to the present day...full-color picture in HD ...

Chacha Chowdhary and Tinkle. :) who doesn't remember them? They've been one of the most important memories of every child who grew up in the 90's. Quite honestly, these comics were some of my most treasured posessions till a very long time. They were almost like my best friends. The Chacha Chowdhary comic's trademark one liners 'A volcano erupts in Jupiter when Sabu gets angry', or 'Chacha Chowdhary's brain works faster than a computer' were their unique-selling-points. Every child loved these characters and even sometimes wished to be as intelligent as the Chacha himself. Then there was Tinkle with its 'Tantri the Mantri' with his ever-failing plots to assassinate or get rid of his king (which rhymes really well btw) and 'Suppandi' the simple village-lad with his never-ending goof-ups. The jokes at that age seemed so funny but now seem to be pretty lame and I chuckle to myself thinking 'how did I find these jokes even funny?' Then there were numerous other comics from the 'Diamond comics' (which were quite a rage in the 90's) stable like Billoo, Captain Vyom, Chotu Lambu which were also quite popular.

Anyway, the fact remains that these comics definitively occupy a vast part of my childhood memories and I will always be fond of comics no matter how old I grow. Only now, the comics have shifted to the more radical and 'cooler' super-hero genre. :D Everytime I see a Chacha Chowdhary comic or a Tinkle Digest somewhere, It unknowingly triggers a wave of nostalgia as I find myself back on a railway station as a 11 year old waiting for my dad to buy me my 'treasures'
:)

Wedding planners..

2011-06-19T21:41:00.000-07:00

So, my sister’s wedding was successful and went smoothly without any major glitches or hiccups. I must say, all the forewarnings by my brothers (those with prior experience of helping with their sister’s marriage) did live up to their hype as my sister’s wedding kept me super-hyper-ultra-busy the last three weeks.

Taking care of the transport logistics alone cost me most of my time as I had to deal with the six hired vehicles and two of our own (totaling upto nine vehicles).

Here are some of the tips and things that a guy who has the responsibility of his sister’s wedding should know or be aware of….also some point from the following are my own observations and realizations from the entire event.

The e-invitation that I personally designed and created for my sister's wedding===========>>

1- Learn MS Excel and become proficient in its use including the keyboard shortcuts. It makes life a lot easier when you will be needed to keep tab on a ton of things during the marriage.

2- If you are a US returned brother/son—then you are expected to magically appear upto three* tones fairer than even your rich-A/C-house-dwelling-uncle and his family.

*conditions apply

3- Always keep a notepad handy with you along with a pen who will most likely become your best friend in the weeks leading upto the wedding.

4- Be prepared to become the bargaining leader of your family (getting trained under the current-bargain-champion-naani would be a good idea to get started).

5- you can kiss all the lip-smacking hot food being served on the marriage day goodbye as you will become one of the last persons at the wedding to eat that day after having taken care of all the proceedings.

6- Maintaining a good relationship with the drivers of the vehicles, the security guard, the pan-wala, the banquet manager at the hotel where the wedding is going to be and the caterer will really help smoothen things out (thank you Abhishek Chowdhary for that valuable tip)

7- Never walk beside a stranger on the road who has either a cough problem or a tobacco-chewing habit.

8- You will appear in only 2% of the photos clicked on the night of the wedding.

9- Get ready to be absent from Facebook and twitter for at least a week (yeah...it's tough...but you gotta do what you gotta do :-)
10- Have a backup pair of footwear hidden in a back-pack and keep them close to you...you never know when your current footwear might become a victim of 'mistaken identity' or when they might become the 'object of desire' for your friendly neighborhood stray dog.

Well, I guess that’s all about it …I did have a good time working exceptionally hard to make the wedding a grand success….and nothing pleases you more when at the end of it all- your efforts are heartfully appreciated.

Peace always..

flight home: PART 2

2011-05-29T02:15:00.000-07:00

So, after much hassle and headaches, I managed to board my flight to Visakhapatnam (after having missed it the previous day). Like I said in the part1 of this blog, that I was one of the last persons to board the aircraft.
I had to sit right at the front of the plane, the very first seat, staring at the wall with a strange drawing of a puma with two tails (which apparently was the cabin interior manufacturing company’s logo). I was pretty comfy on my seat and was enjoying the final phase of my journey back home. The captain (an American in an Air India flight… the irony.) announced in his usual authoritative yet friendly manner, that we would be landing in about 15minutes. I looked out of the window in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the always-beautiful vizag coast line. Unfortunately, all I could see were thick dense clouds. In face I could not even see the wings of the flight, so dense were the clouds. Usually, this would trigger a panic attack thinking whether the flight will be able to land or not. But since the captain had already announced that the flight will be landing shortly, I sat reassured and home-sweet-home isn’t too far now.
A few seconds later, the flight started experiencing quite a lot of turbulence. It almost felt as if we were riding a bullock-cart on one of our good ol’ muddy-kachcha roads in India. Now, those who have traveled frequently by air know that turbulences are common in airplanes and they die out pretty soon, often within seconds. My co-passenger (sitting beside me) though was surely not a frequent flier as was evident with the look of terror on his face and suffocatingly-tight grip on the arm-rest that had turned his knuckles white. He was ready to pray one last time and even gave me one of those ‘now-would-be-a-good-time-for-you-to-pray-too’ look.
About a minute filled with turbulence and tightly gripped arm-rests plus and my neighbor’s terror-filled expressions --the radio crackled to life and the captain announced with some slight jitter in his voice, “Ladies and gentlemen, due to the unexpectedly rough weather over vizag airport, we will not be able to land there today and we are now enroute to Chennai, where we shall decide the next course of action”. That’s it, I almost felt God smiling up at me and ticking away a point on his list of ‘Smaran’s patience test’. My smile faded away at the bat of an eyelid to match the weather outside (read: dark and gloomy). Agony and anger filled up inside me as other passengers too started their trend of long exhales, shrugs and sighs.
The flight landed 45 minutes later at the Chennai airport. We all waited patiently inside the plane as we were not allowed to disembark and walk into the airport. Although some passengers (including me) did get out in the pretext of feeling ‘suffocated’ inside …I even took a small stroll around our rather small aircraft which ended with the chief-cabin-crew lady glaring at me with her huge bindi on her forehead that made her look like a Hindu-demon-Goddess. The pilot and the passengers were hoping that the storm in Vizag would die down and we would be on our way back without further delay. Sadly, this did not happen. The weather over Vizag airport was only getting worse. We eventually were allowed to switch our cell-phone back on. This was when the plane erupted in a cacophony of calls, with each passenger calling up their near and dear ones to inform them about the situation. I could distinctly figure out the same sentence (plane could not land in vizag…we are in Chennai now) being repeated in 5 different languages. It was actually pretty cool :)
About an hour and another round of refreshments later, we were finally told that we would be accommodated in a hotel (courtesy Air India) in Chennai and that we would be flown out to Vizag on the same flight the next day.
We were taken into the Chennai air terminal and were asked to collect our bags from the claiming area. Another shock/ patience-test waited for me here as I discovered to my mounting sadness, that my main bag (check-in) had not traveled in the flight as it should have. At this point, my patience level had overshot the boiling point. I was at peace with myself…..basically because there was absolutely NOTHING I could do about it. After having lodged an official complaint for missing baggage, I was whisked away to a ‘three star’ hotel which from the outside looked like my school. It was painted in a weird bright yellow, that is pretty reminiscent in the buildings of Chennai. All meals, I was told were courtesy of Air India. This, my friends was the best piece of news I had received in the past three days. I immediately and shamelessly gave a big grin to the front desk guy as soon as he said the food was free. Hehe.
The rooms, thankfully were really nice and had all the basic amenities including those tiny complimentary shampoo bottles that I so love to use. I have this habit of using the shampoo and based on the smell, I would guess from which shampoo bottle was this so called ‘sample’ taken.
Over the next 19 hours, I did not venture out into the city of Chennai (which I would have loved to), I slept and got over my jet lag, gleefully devoured the paid-for-mutton-biryani and chicken chettinad (reminding me of my roommate Vivekananda Reddy’s own recipe) for lunch and dinner and almost finished my novel that I had started reading in Frankfurt Airport.
My co-passengers, who I kept bumping into in the resturaunt, looked somehow thrilled at the fact that they were in a new town and did not have to pay a penny for it. And none of them, had ventured out of the hotel. Ha!
We finally were taken to the airport the next day at around 8am in an old, rickety mini-bus that was noisier than the airplane’s turbines itself.
I finally made it to my destination around noon, minus my main baggage, and almost leapt into mom’s arms with such force that she almost tumbled over.
And so, I came to the end of a missed-flight, Delhi’s-cheap-hotel-staying, turbulence-experiencing, free-food-gorging, noisy-airconditionless-bus-riding journey that led me to my home two whole days behind schedule.
It was an experience of a lifetime and I will pray that none of my friends ever run into such a situation.

Special thanks to:
The New Delhi Air India staff for their utter chaotic handling of their passengers.
The new Terminal 3 at New Delhi airport for their malfunctioning screens
The AirIndia staff (NewDelhi again) Mr.Harpal who made sure I got a ride to the nearest hotel for a ridiculously high taxi tariff.
My NewDelhi-Vizag flight captain, for having ‘tried my best’ to land at Visakhapatnam
And the ever-efficient and alert AirIndia Baggage staff for failing to load all but my suitcase into the flight.

Scores:
God’s patience-testing game: 0
Smaran : 1

HA!

Flight-home : PART 1

2011-05-22T17:53:00.000-07:00

Yeah…so I finally reached Home sweetest home (read: Visakhapatnam, India)on 21st May, a whole two days AFTER I was supposed to reach- after a taxing and arduous journey that tested my patience to the highest possible limit.
The adventures began after I landed in New Delhi’s newly built Terminal 3 which is being touted as one of the best airport terminals in the world. Well, I for one would like to beg to differ. The terminal apart from being all swanky and shiny, has it’s own set of design flaws. For one, if you need to get from the International terminal on the first floor to the domestic flights terminal on the second floor, then you have no other option but to cram yourself into a small elevator along with other i-want-to-go-first passengers. The lift itself is tiny and can hardly fit three passengers and two luggage carts. Apart from the Bonsai design, it also happens to travel at a speed that would make a desert-road-crossing-armadillo glow with pride at his own speed.
Then after the passengers finally make it to the domestic flight terminal, the boarding of the flights span three floors. My flight being on the ground-minus-one floor for which I had to travel almost a mile and take four escalators to get to. With all the twists and the turns of the path, I was almost at one point- led to believe that I was entering the ‘Chakravyuh’ out of which there was no way out.
An error on the terminals countless Television sets (that display the flight’s status), resulted in me missing my connecting flight to my home. Imagine my shock when I was told the next Air India flight was only the next day (24 hours later). So I had to make my own arrangements for lodging in a city where I hardly knew a soul (no…AirIndia did NOT freakin put me in a hotel on their account). The hotel search itself was filled with sweat, lots of shoulder-shoving, lot of tanning and a whole herd of Delhi’s famous expletives.
Spending a night in a so called ‘guest-house’ I again set out to the airport the next day at 3:30am. I had to go through a lot of tussling and arguing to ascertain my eligibility of being given a free seat on that day’s flight. The authorities (let me take a pause here and unabashedly tell you that The Air India staff at Delhi’s Terminal 3 are undoubtedly one of the worst managed and co-coordinating staffs I have seen) finally gave me a seat and said that I won’t be required to re-check in my luggage (I had checked it in for the previous day’s flight…the one I missed) and that It will be automatically loaded since I am boarding the flight.
I was one of the last people to be handed the ticket and I imagine I broke Usain Bolt’s world 100metere records about thrice on my way to make it to the flight. The plane took off after about half-an-hour’s delay and I was finally on my way to my final destination. I was excited to be visiting my family after almost a year and was smiling widely for a very long time until my co-passenger started giving me the stares thinking I was some maniac who was going to do something bad and was being happy about it.
Little did I know that I had more adventures in store and that my journey was not going to end in such a smooth fashion….
I think I’ve slightly overshot the word-limit on this blog, beyond which people tend to either start dozing off or leave the blog page to rather see what Rakhi Sawant is doing these days. So I will continue this blog in another part…that will be coming out very soon…(not that anyone in this world cares at all…. Hehe).
Until then..
Peace!

My Weather Woes

2011-04-25T20:20:00.000-07:00

I gazed out at the sky one afternoon to see Mr.Sun shining away to glory. It was mid-April and I thought to myself “well,it looks pretty sunny so there’s no need to wear the extra hoodie”, and I stroll out happily humming a tune of a song by Westlife.
I rushed back inside fifteen minutes later having frozen my hands off my body and shivering intensely. The temperature outside was freezing even with the sun shining brightly.
That was just one of my encounters with the weird temperature phenomenon that residents of Rolla keep experiencing from time to time.
There have been so many instances, when the weather has been hot enough for me to have to switch on the air-conditioner in the afternoon. But the same evening, the mercury decides to plummet like a stone and we end up turning our heaters on. Allright, so I am new to this place and even to this country. I had researched enough about the weather in Rolla, but frankly- nothing had prepared me for days when the temperatures fluctuated like a sine wave.
I mean, wasn’t summer supposed to have arrived by now and started frying car-roofs and our heads? I even went and bought myself a nice pair of flip-flops (a branded one) one the second day of April but I have had almost no chance to put-them to use so far. I might as well sell them off on e-bay and hopefully make some profit (with some clever marketing techniques).
It sometimes even feels as if God has handed over the weather-department to an imbecile who loves fiddling with the Rolla-weather-knob. And I bet he has that evil smile on his face every time a Rolla resident scurries into his house to pick up a hoodie or an umbrella.
And now we’re experiencing torrential rain? In the last week of April? Wow! The only guys who benefit from this kind of weather fluctuations are the weather-guys who have more work and thus earn more during this period. Is it all because of the so-called ‘Global Warming’ that the world is talking about and having expensive conferences on tropical islands but actually end up doing nothing about it? Maybe.
Possible side effects of this kind of weather include: loud cursing while looking at the sky, have a permanent scorn on your face, venturing out wearing a hoodie with an umbrella dangling from the your shirt, not being able to decide what kind of footwear to buy/wear and possible near-hypothermia amongst others.

End-sem-terror!

2011-04-17T19:30:00.000-07:00

Well, another lengthy snowy spring semester is almost nearing completion at Missouri S&T, as we see the trees sprouting new leaves and the grass growing greener by the day. The spring is bringing with it the bright and beautiful tulips, the sweet smell of warm grass and of course- A MYRIAD OF ASSIGNMENTS AND TESTS.

Oh yeah! The ‘torturous test and assignment filled period’ is rearing its ugly head at us again with its deep-crimson eyes and a devilish smile. It’s that time of the semester again when the professors are relentless in doling out assignment after assignment and when they don’t even care if we have an exam that very same day.

Just as I begin to appreciate the warm climate and the sparkling Schuman lake view outside my window, the darkness of the tests and the projects clouds over my head and throws my mood back into that deep dark pit of ‘academic terror’.

Students now begin to realize that they aren’t anymore in a position to ignore the assignments until a few hours before the submission deadline because we have far too many assignments to be completed.

The coffee sales go up as students load themselves up with caffeine, in their quest to stay up through the night. Sometimes, I feel there’s a new Newton’s law in town, that says “the toughness (read: degree of solvability) of each assignments is directly proportional to the duration of the semester completed so far.”

The pressure is building up and each student is dead worried about his grades now. He or she will be thinking about various strategies to better their grades

This is the time when those super-studious individuals who score straight A’s and still say “But I didn’t study at all for that test ..I don’t know how I got so many bad marks” can be yelled back at with guiltless hatred and can be passed the ‘rude finger’ gestures.

I myself am tied down with three assignment submissions on a single day followed by an exam two days later. I thought about writing on a more entertaining topic this week…but my mind is so ‘academicated’ right now that I wasn’t able to write about anything else.

I fail to understand this merciless semester-ending treatment wherein we are all put in ‘pressure pot’ situations and the stress-levels rocket up to the skies.

Do feel free to contact me if you have any bright ideas on ‘how to raise a dead grade’ or any such related material. Your ideas will always be welcome. NOTE: Lame remedies like ‘work hard and you’ll get there’ or ‘don’t worry about the grades…they’re useless’ will not be appreciated, and might earn the ire of the writer of this article.

So, if you happen to bump into an unshaven guy scurrying around campus into the library or the nuclear engineering building, just ignore him and tell yourself that it’s just another guy who has been engulfed in the flames of the end-sem-stress .

Wish I could wish you luck for your exams/tests/assignments/presentations/projects/other ugly terms, but I myself need all the luck I can garner and yes, I am selfish bastar

The Chronicles of the Indian Railways

2011-04-06T22:44:00.000-07:00

Episode 1: My APPY story

So, we all know about how convenient the Indian Railways network is when it comes to visiting our ‘but-I’ve –never-met-them-before’ relatives in Cochin, or the great-grand-father in Bhopal. The Indian trains are a vehicle for all occasions, all age-groups, and all seasons. It does not discriminate based on caste, creed, sex , the density of your facial hair or how hard you can sneeze in public.
Having grown up in India and having changed over nine educational institutions due to our constant shifting all over the country, because of my Dad’s transferable job- I’ve had more than my share of adventures with the Indian railways.
I started traveling alone for the first time (on a regular basis) when I was in my college. I had shifted to another city and was living in a hostel. So, come holidays, I’d gleefully pack up my ‘stuff’ in a bag or two and head home to eat my mom’s hand-made parathas and ‘gaajar ka halwa’.
So, there was this one time when I was heading home for my winter vacations, when all the guys in the hostel had unanimously decided to turn into bears and go into hibernation. The Guys really started competing fiercely in the ‘who-can-sleep-longer’ competition which became a rage during the winters.
This incident revolves around the soda called ‘Appy-fizz’. I don’t know how many of you have heard about the drink ‘Appy’ (Apple juice) but I think it was quite popular. Well, it sure was popular with my taste buds since I used to gulp down at least one pack a day (one pack a day is high considering the fact I was in hostel and the finances were required to be managed very sharply…sharply enough to make any gujju proud). So, about a month before my journey date, this new version of ‘Appy’ called ‘Appy fizz’ had come out that just mixed the appy drink with soda and came out with a bubbling-fizzy version of Appy. Needless to say, I fell in love with it. Since, it was priced more than twice the normal appy drink since it came in a bigger bottle, I used to have it rarely. The train journeys home were always a chance for me to spend lavishly since I knew my ‘funds’ would get refilled as soon as I got home. 
So I happily bought the bottle of that golden fizzy drink right before boarding the train. As always, with me and with most other guys in the country, I checked who my co-passengers were and to my utter disappointment (as usual), I found that I was literally surrounded by aunties. In fact, I was the only other guy in the bunch of eight seats in mys section of the coach. Oh! The other male was a eight month old baby happily gargling away his own spit on his mother’s lap.
So as with all Indian Aunties, these aunties, although seemingly from different regions of India , started yapping away in full glory with an enthusiasm that would have put a pair of 13 year old girls to shame.
At that time I belonged to the under-privileged population of the society that did NOT own an i-pod which served as their best friends in the aforementioned situations. So I sat there looking at the passing farmlands out of the ‘window seat’. I suddenly felt thirsty and twist-opened my bottle of Appy Fizz to have a sip or two. As I did so, one of the aunty’s eyes fell on the bottle. Her momentary glance, quickly returned in under three seconds and turned into a full-fledged glare.
The conversation that followed between me and the glaring-aunty will be written in direct speech in the lines below to maximize their impact :

Aunty: “Beta, what is that you are drinking”…. She said this in a tone that clearly had hints of annoyance.
Me: It’s a new drink aunty. It’s called Appy Fizz.
Aunty: But it looks like whisky no?!
Me: No aunty, It’s just apple juice with soda in it.
Aunty: (clearly not convinced) It surely looks like whisky to me, give me and I will taste it and tell you.
Me: (appalled at aunty’s suspicion) But Aunty, it’s a cold-drink soda. It’s available in most shops around the country.
Aunty: Then let me taste it no?! You won’t have any praablem if I had a sip of it no?!
Me: Ok. Here you go. (And I handed over the drink to the lady).
Aunty : (first sniffs it and puts up distorted looking expression …then she very reluctantly takes a sip …a sip that wouldn’t even be enough for a sparrow to get a taste of that liquid in his tastebuds) AAK!! This IS BEEEEER! ….ayyyyayyooo….
The glaring-Aunty then managed to 'rainbow' (yeah I used it as a verb) her expressions that ranged from shock, to appalled to sheer surprise.

Now, I don’t know how she knew what beer tasted like, or how she quickly converted her precious accusation of my drink being ‘brandy’ to calling it ‘beeeeeeer’…but I surely was confused and did give her my best stare.
At the aunty’s shriek, all the other aunties raised their eyebrows so high that for a moment I thought they heard my glaring-aunty say that I was Rakhi Sawant.
I had had enough nonsense for the night, so I dutifully took my bottle back from her and tried explaining for the next 20 minutes that my drink contained absolutely no alcohol or beeeeer in it. I showed her the ingredients list, showed her the green dot in the square that indicated that the consumable product was vegetarian and many other things.
Glaring-Aunty finally got over her shock and let me stay in my berth and did not make me leave. She however did threaten me by saying “I shall tell yaar parents when they come at station”.
I couldn’t believe what had happened in the past half hour and I couldn’t stop laughing about it later. I did manage to consume my ‘beeeeer’ when the lights turned out and disposed off the bottle as soon as the last drop was in my mouth.
So guys n gals, next time you board the good ol’ Indian Railways for a trip home, make sure you buy ‘safe’ products that have ‘anti-aunty-glaring’ ingredients in it….otherwise you might end up in a soup like your truly. :)

Peace out!

Facebook'ed

2011-01-31T00:02:00.000-08:00

How many of you get up in the morning and the first thing you do is check your Facebook account? How many of you check your Facebook accounts at least 10 times a day? I can go on with these kind of questions but I’d be just beating around the bush. Truth be told, I too am a huge fan of the popular social-networking website ‘The Facebook’ and am quite addicted to it. In fact, I might answer all the above questions In the affirmative too. So if you think I am going to go on and trash about Facebook saying how it is slowly becoming a part of us more than television or how it is almost as addictive as drugs, then don’t worry because I am NOT.
I have done quite some reading about the birth of this website and its evolution into one of the most visited websites on the planet today and I cannot help but be in awe. I mean, look at the facts here people: A 19 year old ‘computer geek’ launches a small website out of his Harvard dorm in 2004 and within 6 years, the website sits at the top of the ‘social networking’ bunch of websites, enjoys the loyalty of 57 million (and growing at the rate of 250,000 new members each day) users from across the globe, is worth $82.29 billion as of today and is one of the biggest internet companies in the world. Those numbers are really hard to ignore and one can’t help but gawk at them, like I do.
The popularity of the website has been rising and does not see any signs of slowing down. As if this was not enough- the movie ‘The Social Network’ which was based on the story of birth of Facebook went on to become one of the favorites of the critics and also earned a total of eight Oscar nominations. The movie that shows the founder of Facebook – Mark Zuckerberg in grey shades though out the movie, engulfed in lawsuits almost as soon as Facebook is launched and as a crude and unsocializing person, has even become one of the frontrunners for this year’s Oscars. The movie, even though about computer programming and coding doesn’t really have an awkward moment filled with techie-gobbledygook. It is fast and ruthless and has some great performances by the lead actors which only compliments the movie’s credibility.
The success of the movie, which hardly showed anything good about Mark Zuckerberg didn’t even manage to put a dent into the company’s image and Facebook continues to encompass the internet and its population. On the contrary, people like my parents who were unaware what Facebook and the whole ‘social-networking’ ruckus was about now know about it. And like them, more people who earlier didn’t know about Facebook now do know about it, ultimately ending up at the website’s gates to become a member and start their ‘socializing’.
Adding another feather to the cap, and again boosting Facebook’s image, was Mark Zuckerberg being named the ‘Person of the Year’ by TIME magazine or the year 2010. He beat out competition from the likes of Hamid Karzai- the President of Afghanistan and Julian Assanage- the controversial founder of the international whistle blowing Wikileaks organization.
Zuckerberg has been described as a torchbearer for a whole generation and I cannot disagree with that. He has managed to connect a twelfth of the world’s population though his single website, and has more or less, changed the way people interact and relate with each other today. We had heard of couch potatoes, bookworms, video-game addicts and soon might have to come up with a new term for people addicted to facebook. Maybe ‘facebookED’ might be a good term to describe that. Not giving a Facebook account today is scorned upon by teenagers and can lead you to being ‘unfriend’ed from society itself. Words like ‘Poke’, ‘Tag’ and ‘Unfriend’ have shot to fame because of this social-networking behemoth. Facebook has provided a new method of socializing and it’s all on the internet. The person doesn’t even need to get up from his laptop, doesn’t need to shake hands (can instead just ‘poke’) and doesn’t even need to be in the same room as the person he’s meeting with -to be able to socialize.
It took me a couple of hours to finish writing this article, which included researching all the facts and figures related to Facebook. And am eager to see if there has been any activity on my Facebook page or whether anyone has ‘liked’ my latest profile picture. So with that, I am sub-consciously directing your attention to your own Facebook pages. Go get ‘Facebook’ed!!

2011....resoluuuuuuutions!!

2011-01-03T20:21:00.000-08:00

FIRST of all....to all those whom I have not wished already-- HAPPY NEW YEAR!! :)

now....
well...
Another year has come and gone....
I wanted to blog about how the year was and all that but that will be a looooong blog and having been on vacation since two weeks now has resulted in me becoming amazingly and 'involuntarily' lazy.

So, I'll just go ahead and write down my list of resolutions for the year 2011....
I'm not one of those pessimistic persons who say- 'another year....whats going to be different?! ...years come and they go...!". NO!!..I am an optimistic guy and will say "One more year....full of twists and turns, surprises and shocks, adventures and incidents....hope the goods things far outnumber the bad ones!".

So here are my resolutions:

1- Get fitter! (specifically-- improve my ever-falling stamina ..)
2- Gain at least 1.5 kgs of muscle before my sister's wedding and my trip to India. (gain muscle and not FAT...they're two different things....but my mom and most others hopelessly use them interchangably...)
3- Initiate Parkour 3.0 ....get better, better and better at Parkour. Possibly shoot my first PK video in US.
4- Go Skydiving!!! yeeeeeeeeeeeeeah!!
5- Like most other students in the world--- " do well in studies." (I know that most of you must be rolling your eyes up at this one...lol)
6- Get a Tattoo.
6- most important::::: LOVE the people I love today EVEN MORE!
blah
blah

20-adopt a mosquito...

lol....
just kidding!

that's all I guess...

lemme know which ones you think are possible...give the numbers. :)

Peace!!

Great weekend

2010-10-31T21:58:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-10-22T19:40:00.000-07:00

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.

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.

MISS YOU...

2010-07-10T00:08:00.000-07:00

I am back in Vizag. Said my goodbyes to Hyderabad the day before yesterday, having completed most of the formalities there (including meeting up a horde of relatives and spending good amount of time with my friends).

I only have two weeks left before I fly away to the US of A for my Masters. Will be gone for two years.

I had some work at a bank today. Now this bank, lies almost on the sea-front of Vizag. I was there early and since Indian banks DO NOT open up before time even if you put a gun to the manager’s head- I ended up with some spare time. I decided to take a stroll on the beach road. As I was walking, I noticed a number of tall buildings on the sea-front. There were trees blocking my view of the sea.....and I reeeealy wanted to view the sea. It had been a long time since I had visited the sea and said my helloz to the crashing waves.

I came up with a plan to have my wish granted. I decided to go onto the roof of one of these 5 storied-buildings and catch the majestic sea-view from up there. I zeroed in on one apartment complex...chiefly because after walking past the building thrice, I was pretty sure that the watchman could not see me since he was in his small dwelling behind the flight of stairs. I casually strolled into the apartment complex and walked towards the stairs. I started climbing. Almost none of the flats had any nameplates on. I desperately wanted a name plate so that if the apartment watchman caught me on my way down and started asking me who is it that I was here to meet—then I’d simply tell the name of the flat-owner and the flat number. Finally after climbing 6 flight of stairs, I reached the fourth floor where I saw a nameplate of a doctor. “Lucky me!” , I thought, I’d simply say to the curious watchman- that Dr.X (let’s just call him that) was my doctor and I had come to see him regarding a treatment he had told me about. I quickly memorized the flat number and proceeded on towards the rooftop. Huffing and puffing, I finally reached the roof and opened the door (which was luckily open) which led on to the terrace.

The sight was as beautiful as I had expected. The blue sea was right in front of me staring at me with all its watery might. There were several ships dotting the horizon as usual, along with some small fishing boats here and there. The wind was pretty strong at this height. I found a comfortable set of stairs for me to sit on and just stared into the blueness of the sea.

As I sat there in the light of the setting golden sun, enjoying the lovely sea-breeze brushing my face and staring at the beauty of the ocean- I started thinking about the people and things I’d miss when leave this place for a good two years.

The list of things and people I’ll miss just kept growing and growing. I would miss Hyderabad- it’s fast (but not super-fast) lifestyle, I’ll miss it’s huge and glitzy shopping malls into which I'd regularly stroll into to help me pass time, I’ll miss the new house into which me and Goli had moved into only a month ago (will miss it’s red wall), I’ll miss my Dell friends who also became my closest buddies in Hyderabad- Lambu (Ayesha) and Karthik (will miss having coffee with them on breaks that almost always extended the set time-limit, I’ll miss my roomie and my bro Goli who tolerated me for a good eight months (his weird moods and his stories about office and how they were sucking his brains out), I’ll DEFINITELY miss from Hyderabad- my closest friend Vio- with whom I spent most of my last few days in Hyderabad having coffee at CCD or Gloria Jean’s coffee and talking so much that I now wonder if there’s actually anything left that she doesn’t know about me.Will miss my pals Sid(me verbally abusing him when he doesn't answer my calls or mails...but this will continue even after me leaving India- lolz) and Murali(his stone-faced reactions to everything I say or do..), Rev(M!!).Sid, Rev and NOS already stay away from me, ie- they don't stay in Hyderabad....I missed all these guys when I was in Hyd itself....so going away to US would only add to the 'weight of missing them' even more.

I slowly realized that there were a lot many things about India that I will definitely miss, but that’s life I guess. I truly believe that one should keep moving on in life and not spend his entire life in one place. As a proof of ‘I practise what I preach’- I FYI have changed 10 (schools and universities put together) alma-maters since my childhood and this (MS in USA) was going to append itself to this long list. Life is all about adapting to changes taking place around you---changes that take place with every breath that comes out of your lungs. You can’t just sit and brood over all the things that you will be missing- instead we should cherish all the beautiful moments we had with those people and in those places that made it worth missing them.

Kudos to all my friends who made my stay in Hyderabad a blast ....LOVE YOU ALL.....

:O)

Peace...

it's 45 degrees

2010-05-13T05:36:00.000-07:00

I somehow can't imagine Mr.Sun as the cool-goggle-sporting dude that the pic below shows....

The summer sun is really showing all of us ‘whos the boss’. The mercury has been rising in the city since the past couple of days . Monday’s newspaper said that the temperature had touched a high of 44 degrees, which was the highest since 1999. I thought to myself “wow….now how THAT is high!...i bet it can’t get any hottttttter than this”

But the Sun had some surprises in store for me. It made the mercury rise a little higher to touch 45 degrees yesterday man!! It must’ve said to itself “there you go Sonny boy…don’t bet on things that you have no control over”…and must’ve gone ahead and given the kind of evil witch-like laughter that I so like to give (when I have done something evil).. “MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!”.

45 degrees !!! wow! That certainly is high. But this time I am not going to go ahead and say that it won’t and can’t get any hotter than that…..it MAY GET EVEN HOTTER….

There you go Mr.Sun, I haven’t challenged you or anything so please do not take it personally and show some mercy on us mortals.

The funny thing is that I need to walk to my office-cab’s pick-up point around 1.5 kilometers away everyday right in the noon, ie.2:00. It usually takes me 25 mins to cover the distance at my own pace , with my earphones snuggled in my ears with some good music for company. I seriously do not feel the heat of 44.5 degrees burning down on me. I mean, Cmon, I have lived in places like Visakhapatnam, which should be declared as the ‘Humid-capital’ of the world, and in Bhubaneshwar, where the day temperatures recorded were often some of the highest in India. So talk about adaptability….My skin seems to have adapted itself to the intense summer’s sun-heat.

But hey Mr.Sun, that dosen’t mean you take it as a challenge to show that even I can feel your heat. I DO feel burning sensation on my skin whenever I walk beneath your heat…

THIS is the real image that comes to my mind when someone mentions 'Summer sun' now...

peace always..

My budday weekend!

2010-05-05T10:01:00.000-07:00

It was one of my life’s best weekends…..I had been at home this weekend celebrating my birthday with my entire family (the joint or extended family included).

I had planned this weekend almost a month in advance. Had applied for leaves from work which my kind manager was gracious enough to grant me. Thanks Usha for that… :-)

The original plan had been that my twin sis, Shruti would start from Pune on the 28th, pass through Hyderabad on the 29th which I would board, and travel with Shru to surprise our grandma and our lil sis. However, due to non-confirmation of Shru’s ticket, we rescheduled and re-planned the journey and had shru come to hyd by bus, stay half a day and then me and sis would board the Godavari Express to vizag. Sounds good right? ….WRONG! the main glitch in the problem was that, this plan would mean that me and sis, would have to spend the mid-night of our birthday (you know, the 12 o’ clock midnight celebration) in the ‘train’. Unfortunately, we had no other choice, but to agree to this plan and went ahead with it. Now, I didn’t want to spend the eve of my birth’day’ sleeping in the side upper birth of a train. So I got two ‘German Black Forest pastries’ packed from the nearby Café Coffee Day and boarded the train.

Come 11:55pm, Shru and I had to request our co-passengers to allow us to keep the lights switched on for 5 more mins, The watch finally showed 12 and we both quickly took out our pastry’s from the upper berth, only to find that the pastry’s hadn’t withstood the hyderabad’s scorching heat and had melted and taken an unidentifiable shape. Plus, one of the once-called-pastry had decided to have some fun while in its fluidy state and had leaked out into the polythene bag and had caused a mess.

But, I wasn’t going to allow the melted pastries dampen my spirits. We dutifully opened the lids of the containers , dug our spoons into the semi-solid pastries and fed each other a spoonful and wished happy b’day. It was not much, but having my Twin sister with me on my B’day was beautiful in itself.

The next one hour was spent on taking calls from near and dear, and I am telling you, the number of calls Shru took was more than double the number of calls I took, thus proving that she had mooore friends than me… …but hey…I am happy with the number of friends I have :-D

Anywayz, come 7:00AM and we finally reached Vizag, Dad had come to pick us up at the station. I could clearly see how happy he was to see the two of us after a long time. His smile really stretched from one ear to another.
:-D
We reached home and shilpa got a pretty good surprise on seeing me there too. I don’t know if she was acting , and that the apparent ‘secret’ was already known to her, but if she WAS acting, she was good. She went something like this—“aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah….eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh….bhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaai…..tu aaaaaaaaaaaa gayaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa….hehehehehehehehehehehe…..!!” …the first two-three shrieks made me believe that she was practicing her hindi alphabets, but then the third part of the shriek made me realize that she was expressing her shock and happiness at me being there.

After the exchange of tight hugs with mommy and naani, we settled to have a nice, yummy, lip-smacking, tummy-filling, ungli-chaating, home-cooked lunch consisting of ‘gongura’-chicken….which I was having after a really long.

The afternoon was spent catching up with family members and then the turn of our b’day shopping….

My parents had already decided what to buy shru. They turned to me, and I gleefully and shamelessly asked for the Ray-Ban Aviator goggs that now I possess and that now are on the top of my most-valuable items.( I had been secretly dreaming and fantasizing of owning a pair of Aviators since a looong time).

Fortune Inn hotel was decided as the dinner venue mainly because it had a buffet, and no-one had tried it yet. We wanted to try something new this time. The dinner party was a great success, as almost everyone ended up praising the food. Oh BTW- I paid for the dinner….another thing that I wanted to do since a long time. :-D something for which everyone came and started thanking me like formal guests….i mean cmon guys- we’re familyyy….do we still need THANK YOUs and all???

Shilpa had ordered the cake a day in advance, and it turned out to be one of the most freakin’ delicious cakes I have ever had……FULL MARKS to my kid sis. Luv u !

The next day, I gave a treat to my close buddies, Murali a.k.a Hermit and Aditya a.k.a Shaggy …after some sms-arguments, murali and I finally settled on Subway (our all-time favourite place to eat any day of the year). Surprisingly, all three of us had veg-subs. Although I had planned on having a foot-long- I ended up having a regular 6-inch sub coz’ Shru had prepared Choley at home and I didn’t want to miss that. And it was worth missing on much-anticipated foot-long-sub debut.

We then went out to the newly and under-construction IT park on the hills in the outskirts of Vizag, it was a looonley and well-lit road. Parked the car there and the three of us clicked a few snaps and just hung out there…..it had been a looong time since I had hung out with my close buddies….and It felt so ..wel….cool.

My return was on the night on 2nd May, came by bus, which was very uncomfy as it kept rattling from time to time and the horn (which was a fancy –some song tune one) kept sounding louder inside the bus than outside.

All in all- it was great trip home , and one that was a rare occasion.

Well, I know that this is a looong blog, but I so wanted to write what I did and how I enjoyed on my b’day this year. Seeing all the smiling faces of my family members as me and Shru cut the cake was something I would trade my life anyday to see happen again. Most of you (who am I kidding……the few handful of you who actually read my blog) will have fallen asleep before you read this line….but that’s ok..

I will be posting the pics from the bday weekend soon…and hopefully then, the blog will be a lil’ more interesting read.

Peace out…

:o)

Blood-suckers!!

2010-03-18T17:59:00.000-07:00

It's freakin 6:30AM in the morning, and I am up already....AND blogging! Have barely got 5 hours of sleep last night.

You wanna know the reason/cause of me committing such a sin (getting only5 hours of sleep IS a sin)......it's called MOSQUITOES!!!

Blood-sucking, ravaging, irritating and most definitely thirsty mosquitoes!!

These little damned winged insects come out at night and torment us like no other. Even Himesh Reshammiya' songs are bearable when compared to a night in a house with mosquitoes.

I fail to understand this, and I beg someone to offer me a sensible answer----Why on earth did God create mosquitoes??! I mean, think about it....they don't help the nature in any way, they aren't food to any animal and hence are of zero use in the animal-kingdom food-chain, they don't get rid of garbage or any thing like crows and stray dogs .....they are of absolutely NO use to the planet Earth.

How and why is it that they appear only during the night? I am sorry, but I never remember reading that mosquitoes are nocturnal insects. Maybe the scientists should do some research on that one.

They seem to appear out of thin air at my place. I mean, inspite of all windows and doors being closed, and killing as many as possible with my 'bare hands'- their number only seems to swell. It's almost as if, for each mosquito I kill...3 more are born out of thin air.

At this point, you may wonder why the hell am I not using mosquito repellents like the coil or the All-out etc,...Well my dear friend- FYI- I had a full size mosquito coil (brand JET I think it was) lighted and also switched on the All-out in the middle of the night....but the monsters just didn't seem to get affected.

I have a few theories by now (courtesy of lying awake at 6am in the morning thinking and cursing mosquitoes after having gotten very little sleep) as to why God made these tiny imitators-

1- They are a part of Satan's/Devil/Shaitaan's team. They were given special permission by our beloved Almighty to be placed and roam on Earth and to suck on people's blood - just to remind them how Hell would really be if we weren't good.

2- They were created so that Man could come-up with and learn new slangs/abuses/curses and use them on others too. Like the way I came up with a few new ones just by sitting and staring at the wall early in the morning today. I CANNOT mention those 'gaalis' here because I'd like to keep my blog free of any 'bad language'.

3- They are a spy project by the Russians or some enemy country of ours to test how and when we get irritated, thus gaining knowledge on our pain-bearing capabilities.I bet they will be working on some futuristic weapon with all the data that they recieve and eventually use it as a biological weapon one day.

Wonder why, inspite of all the freakin advancements that science has made, Man hasn't been able to come up with a fool-proof and 100% effective solution to this malice. If I have money some day, I'd initiate a foundation and offer up $1 million to anyone who achieves the aforementioned (just like Richard Branson offers a huuuge amount of money to anyone who can come with a 100% eco-friendly car). Even right now, I am willing to offer 40% (sorry...that's all I can afford to give away....rest goes into rent and bills...)of my next-month's salary to anyone who gives me a foolprooof method to eliminate these pests.

It's 7:00 am now and I've been blogging about mosquitoes since half an hour---How crazy does that sound man?! sheeesh...Gotta get a grip on myself.

I'll sign off now coz' daylight has broken into the skyline and just like vampires, these awful little $#%$^!^ have started disappearing...plus I need to get some sleep if I need to survive the day at work.

Adios and peace out!

.......there's one mosquito resting on my LCD....easy now....easy......SWAP!! HA!!-- deadmeat you are my dear mosqui!!!

peace !

:o/

Thank God it's MARCH!

2010-03-17T03:42:00.000-07:00

The month of March this year is of special significance to me....

Primarily because there are two major sporting events that start around the end of the second week of this month.

First, my all time favourite and the fastest sport on the planet - FORMULA 1's 2010 season kicked off this sunday with the first race being held in Bahrain. It has been a loong winter wait since the end of the last season in November. Usually, this period of NO races is boring and the only thing that keeps fans of F1 alive and breathing are the drivers reshuffling between teams and any major buy-outs or new- drivers. This last no-race period has been pretty exciting beacause of Micheal Schumacher's comeback and many other reasons (that can be found on my other blog )

And also the third season of the Indian Premier League (IPL)kicked off in the second week of March as well. The IPL has been a hit in its previous two versions and I am pretty sure that it'd do well t his season too. There haven't been any major additions to the teams but the Teams avoiding the acquisition of Pakistani players sure kicked up a storm on both sides of the border.

Both these sports promise to give me oppurtunities of excitement, pump my adrenaline to new heights, and provide anxious moments and moments of happiness and sadness (depending on whether the team I support wins or looses ;-) which is precisely why I happen to be such a big sports fan.

However, the catch is that I DO NOT have a television at my palce here. That's a bodyblow to any sports fan and it is to me too. I, however have made some arrangements for myself to keep myself updated on all the sporting action that will be ON. The internet is almost like a saviour to me. Now that the IPL is being broadcast LIVE on youtube, I can catch at least glimpses of the matches (i say 'glimpses' particularly because the youtube broadcast has been anything but good...the picture is hazy and I keep getting 'sorry...techinical error...please try after some time' as frequently as me having hiccups as soon as I have had something spicy). But hey.....something's better than nothing right?! So, I really ain't complaining.

As far as the races of F1 are concerned, ....I have deicided to save up on some 'x' amount of money every month just so that I can go watch the race LIVE in a sports bar in the city. I won't be able to watch every race (there are approximately 2 per month), but will make sure I catch at least one race per month. Sounds good right?! and I am pretty sure I will save that 'x' amount of money coz' everyone knows what a big 'kanjooooz' I am. I may have to sacrifice my weekly subway meals(very very difficult) and 'almost every weekend movie' plan in order to save the money.

I know there are other crazy ('stupid' may sound a better fit) people out there.....who will have done the same things I am doing in order to get something else for them (in my case- watching the races and IPL) and would probably say 'been there - done that' ...

think about the last time you desperately tried to save money to get something you really craved for ....and then probably I will not sound 'crazy' to you...

;0)

peace out!

is back!!

2010-03-16T02:07:00.000-07:00

Well....it's been a reeeeealy long time since I have blogged ....that's inspite of the promise I had made to myself that I’d blog at least once a week.
There have been a lot of updates on my side…
knowing that only a select few mortals read my blogs and risk contracting the 'what-the-hell-is-this-shit' disease...I go on and talk about a few things that have changed since the last time I blogged---

One, I have a job now….even though it’s in the ITES sector, I like it!…coz it’s offered me a wealth of information about computer hardware (As I was recruited to trouble shoot hardware problems of our company’s computers) that I was never aware of.
Two- I am having a good time here in Hyderabad,…because of many reasons:
- I am earning now
- have a bunch of good friends here now
- have moved into a bigger and cleaner place
-IPL and F1 2010 seasons have started
-have put on 2 more kgs and thus crossed the landmark 60kgs barrier (that would come up on another blog exclusively).
-and am in very good physical shape (owing to the fact that I have been gorging on good food and gymming since 2 months now)

that about sums up the updates from my side….

I am hoping that I will get back to my blogging more regularly now and start writing some nonsense (like this one) and keep the flow going….

See you in the next blog.!!

Peace !
:o)

Hyd Parkour JAM video.

2009-12-07T21:11:00.001-08:00

It's finally here...
The video of the Hyd Parkour JAM that took place in Nov this year is out now.
Special thanks to NOS who took great pains and care to make sure the video came out great....and it indeed has come out really well...
here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-bwXOZpoUQ

T-shirt captions

2009-12-07T01:12:00.000-08:00

Here are some T-shirt captions that are funny and amusing :
1- Egoistic bastard
2- Who let you out of prison?
3-I work when you work.
4- My boss is...

peace
:o)
a chicken wing gets hot when you turn it on

Paisa 'Kurbaan'

2009-12-01T06:40:00.000-08:00

MY VIEWS:I watched the much-awaited Karan Johar movie Kurbaan yesterday. I had watched the trailers and was expecting a good flick as it stars a band of well-established actors who have proved their acting prowess in many films. The fact that the movie was directed by a debutant Renil did not bother me much as I knew that movies coming out of the Karan Johar banner were usually neatly made and smartly shot.
I had to stand in line in the morning to get the advance booking done. So there I was, waiting to get inside the theater and hoping that the movie would provide me with a good culmination for the already eventful weekend.
But sadly, I was in for a 2 hour and 45 minutes of sloOOow draggy film that really didn't appeal to me much. I couldn't hear anyone coming out of the movie-theater talking highly about the movie.

THE PLOT:The story revolves around the Muslim-Hindu couple of Saifeena who decide to settle abroad in New York (strangely, almost all terrorist based movies are based on NY). I won't be letting the cat out of the bag when I say that Saif is our terrorist of the movie. There are others too but Saif wins the 'terrorist of the movie' award comfortably. He, along with his band of Islamist jihadi loyalists hatch a plan to once again execute a horrendous act of 9-11 style plot.
Kareena, meanwhile stumbles upon the body of a Muslim friend (who was her neighbour) while trespassing in their basement. This leads to Kareena (and us)finding out that Saifu baba is also a terrorist and understandably freaks out. In this process she also reveals that she is pregnant and that if she lives, she would not want Saif have anything to do with their baby(again understandable). The movie then progresses (sloooowly) to show us how Kareena gets in touch with an outsider - enter Vivek Oberoi(I'll come to him later in my review) and how he gets involved in this terror plot.
and of course I am not a spoil-sport to tell you who lives and who dies in the end (although it becomes almost predictable in the last half an hour)...and why the name of the movie happens to be 'Kurbaan'.
The movie's slow rate fails to gather too much momentum(it tries its best to raise ur blood-pressure) in the climax scenes.

MUSIC:The music and the background score is pretty decent and apt for a movie with a dark theme. The opening song is the one I liked the best. I counted only three songs in the movie by the way...don't know where the others went.

THE ACTING: The 'surprise performance of the day' award undoubtedly goes to Vivek Oberoi who tries (successfully I think) in this movie to revive his career by playing the role of a modern young Muslim anti-jihad radical. There are other beauties like Dia Mirza and Nauheed Cyrusi who have very brief roles in the movie. Om Puri does well as the 'Bhaijaan' and the mastermind of the terrorist activity in this movie. The film has an interesting scene wherein Vivek argues with Americans in a class (being taken by Saif) about how the americans are worse killers than the Al-Quaida and all by stating interesting facts and leaving you with the thought that 'hey!...he's right you know'.

Overall, I'd say that the movie ain't worth spending 200 bucks for the multiplex show. Go to this movie if you are a Saif or Kareena fan or if you simply have nothing to do on the weekend. I'm not saying that the movie is nonsense or utter rubbish, but its story certainly could've used a small extra-dose of suspense or action.

MY RATING: 2.5 / 5

26-11 anniversary

2009-11-28T02:04:00.000-08:00

India recently observed the First Anniversary of the 26/11 carnage. This day has been unofficially and rightfully marked as the ‘Black day’ in the Indian calendar.

The mayhem unleashed by the foreign terrorists left around 166 people dead and around 244 injured. Many of the dead included children and women. I cannot even begin to fathom the grief that must’ve struck the families of those who lost their lives in this horrific event.

I shall not describe in detail what happened in those three days last year. Most of us know about the events that unfolded, courtesy of the in-depth reports by the media, who were also shot at by the terrorists.

All I want to say is that there have been very less global events that have moved me as much as this one did. The heroics of the NSG commandos like Major Unnikrishnan or Gajendra Singh and other members of the Mumbai police like Hemant Karkare (who was the chief of the Mumbai Anti-terrorist squad), Vijay Salakar and Ashok Kamte, all of who -fearlessly laid down their lives to save others, the hotel staff at The Taj Mahal hotel and the Oberoi towers had their own stories of bravery as they showed why India is considered as one of the top countries when it comes to hospitality, by taking full-responsibility of the guests at their hotels and ensuring their safety even if it meant losing their own lives, all are both moving and courageous at the same time.

There are a number of other people whose brave stories might not have even reached the ears of the public or got the kind of media attention that the others got. I salute each and every one of them.

As people from all walks of life, across the country, united to pay homage to the victims, I too observed a 2 minute silence at my home. As I watched on the television, the various kinds of events being held across the country and when each news-channel had it’s own version of a story of bravery by someone or the other, I just couldn’t help but shed a tear in the memory of those killed. The kind of unity shown in these peaceful candle-light processions which saw individuals from all social-levels of the society ranging from actors, social-activists, industrialists to the common man like IT professionals, waiters of the two hotels involved in the event, wives and children of anyone who directly or indirectly got affected by the 26-11 terrorist strike—is truly a tribute in its own way that shows why India is called a land of harmony where a person from any religion can live peacefully.

Like the millions of people across the country, I too am furious and tempestuous at the people who planned out such an outrageous act of terror and who enjoyed the consternation of the public. But, the sole terrorist caught alive – Kasab continues to live in the jail...still alive and still breathing. I just hope that for once, justice in our country is swift and fair.

May all the souls of those who passed away one year ago on one those three ill-fated days , rest in peace.

PARKOUR JAM @ Hyderabad

2009-11-16T10:06:00.001-08:00

'An AMAZING and Exhilarating experience' is how one would describe the Jam that happened in the city recently.I am talking about 8th November, the day that saw one of the largest Parkour jams in the city of Hyderabad.There were a total of 21 people who turned up for the event. We had traceurs from all corners of the city and also from the other end of the country(NOS turned up for this jam from Mumbai). It was a cloudy and pleasant day - a perfect day for some action.
We had zeroed in on Golconda Fort as our venue. Now this place happens to be one of the archaeological landmarks of Hyderabad. It's a fort that was built in around the 16th century and has lots of well preserved walls, pillars, parapets and basically everything that made it worthy enough to be called a true 'Parkour Heaven'. So that day,from 9:00am until noon, the fort saw a bunch of around one and a half dozen energetic and super-charged guys jumping all over it.We had members of Team Karma in full attendance as well as members of Team Secret Fury, one man from team Nuts(Mumbai), and of course some like Kage,CJ and me were the ones who were there representing themselves and not any particular team. We all assembled at the venue and started our stretching and warm-ups as soon as we entered the premises of the fort.
We started first with a session of warm-ups that didn't last too long as most of the guys were very eager to start Parkour. A few wall-runs, leaps(minus the rolls), cat leaps, 360 cats, crane-jumps and more leaps(with rolls) were what made up our first stop session. Pretty soon, our acts started attracting a good crowd and they just watched in awe as we leapt, rolled and jumped from one spot to another. We continued further into the premises while practising some moves on the way.

Our second major stop was a place where there were huge lawns of soft green grass. The flipping-guys showed us how cool it looked when you flipped here. Many also tried leap and roll on the soft lawns as they leapt one after the other onto two rectangular patches of pretty wet grass (here, we had our first and a little worrisome injury as a traceur slipped on the grass and hit his head on the stone-border. He was dazed for a few minutes but then in the true spirit of PRKR...was back diving and jumping around).
Then it was the turn of the diving kong to challenge us. We found this really tempting place where only the brave tried their luck of getting the diving kong right. Many were initially unsuccessful but then with repeated attempts, most of them made the jump.
Moving on we came across a place where there was a high level wall(around 40 feet) which looked down onto a flat platform (which was the roof of a closed corridor). The guys climbed onto this high wall and made some daring jumps onto the lower level ...the move was spectacular but soon, the security guard started warning us of our safety.The boys however completed the jumps and proceeded over the lower level and finally hit ground level after a few more jumps. It was well choreographed and the moves were caught on tape from several different angles.
We finally ended up at a spot (in the photo) that had these various level pillars/supports (whatever you want to call them). It's a great place for PRKR and what we like to call 'PK heaven' spot. Here was a spot that had obstacles of all shapes, sizes and range. A beginner to a pro could practise out his moves here...and that's exactly what all of us did. We again attracted a fairly large crowd here. People were stopping and looking at us with those 'are these guys monkeys? or what?' look on their faces. And to a traceur, calling him a monkey can be a compliment. We practised for around forty-five minutes here before exhaustion finally caught up with us. Then it was time for the group-photo shoot and we shot some pretty decent photos that covered all the 21 people present at the jam.
It was then that the guys started feeling hungry. The clock had struck 12 and most of us hadn't had our breakfasts before coming here. So we finally wound up what I would like to call - our very-successful Jam session and headed out to grab a bite and head home.
The best thing about the jam was that people from all parts of the city came to know each other. We shared our experiences in PRKR and encouraged others to try out the daring moves. I was eager to meet other traceurs since the day I had stepped into this amazing and adrenaline-pumping world of PARKOUR, but so far had only managed to meet one or two other people who knew about PRKR. But now, post-jam, I had gotten to know so many new faces from my city itself, and it would be a shame not to say that most them are very talented. We practised together like a brotherhood, kept encouraging our fellow traceurs to try out different moves...all in all a big happy charged-up family.
peace!

The Weight !

2009-11-03T17:04:00.000-08:00

Hi, when I had finally blogged here again after a looong gap...I had decided that I would post at least one blog per week (in spite of the fact that hardly anyone reads them...apart from my good friends on whom I more or less forcefully thrust my blog-link. ;o)

So, here I am, sitting on my laptop at 6:40AM (yeah...it's early)...and already late for my weekly blog post.

Today, I'll have to tell you about one problem that has been acting in a very peculiar manner ever since I was a kid. And that's 'My Weight'. Nope- I am not overweight and this isn't me cribbing about how to loose weight but it's exactly the opposite.

This is the story of those underweight people who do all they can to gain some weight but only end up cursing the weighing machine when the needle refuses to budge beyond their current weight. I, unfortunately fall into the category of those underweight people....you know the lanky ones with the bony frames whose shoulder-blades visibly seem to be the only thing holding their bodies and preventing them from falling into a heap of twig-thin bones and skin.

I have been keeping a watch on my weight and surprisingly and rather peculiarly - it seems to be following a certain pattern. In this pattern- my weight increases by a few (visibly negligible) kilos every 3 years or so. Every time in those three years, I climbed onto a weighing-machine - the needle refused to go beyond my previous weight. It was as if- all the weighing machines in the world had conspired against me and had been bribed not to show an increase of my weight.

It all started when I was in the 9th standard.... my weight then was around 53kgs. That's not bad because in that age- most boys tend to be around the same weight-category that I was in. And moreover, people didn't tease or mock me saying I was underweight. Plus I was one of the good athletes of the school (my best friend SiD was even better than me btw...I was the second best)...so almost no-one said anything about my weight.

The problem was that my weight seemed to remain stagnant over the next couple of years. It remained the same until I was reached my 12th standard. And all this while, guys around me were either growing taller or broader. I remained the bunch of bones with the minimal muscles of the class. And then in my 12th standard, one fine day- some distant relative who had come to our place after a very long time commented how I had grown a bit since he had last seen me(and that it turned out was when I was in the 6th standard).....at one point I was angry that he said i had grown only a bit in the last 6 years. But then I realized that the person had actually given me a compliment .....a compliment about my weight......something that occurred more rarely than the Hale-Bopp comet or India winning a cricket world-cup.

So, there I was, on cloud 9 looking at myself in the mirror and smiling away. I took out the old weighing machine in our house, and after a small prayer in front of it- stepped onto it. The needle shot towards 57 and almost gave me a shock(the shock of gaining so much weight would have been too good for me to withstand). ...then the needle fluctuated a bit, danced around 55 and finally settled on 56kgs. That meant I had gained a good 3 kilos in the last three years. An achievement in its own. It was not as if I didn't make any attempts to gain weight. I had two glasses of milk everyday(thanks to my mom who would patiently coax me to have the milk by adding stuff like chocolate syrup or making fruit-shakes or adding vanilla essence....this was because I was never a fan of cow-milk right since my childhood...those adventures will be unveiled in another blog some-day) to instigate bone-growth. Every time I realised my weight hadn't fluctuated even in the smallest possible way-I used to start having more food (over-ate) than my stomach could bare, for months in the hopes of gaining weight and had even started eating more and more fatty stuff like butter and good ol' ghee.

The next time I was this happy was when I was in the final months of my college. We had just 4 more months of college life left and my weight- since the day I had stepped into the college had remained on 56kgs. Since it was college, my parents blamed the constant weight on the hostel food (the hostel food was the first criminal who would be instantly crucified in any case of ill-health or even bad marks). But then, again it had been months since I had last checked my weight. In the first three years, I would shuffle around in my pocket for a 'new' one rupee coin every time I went to the railway-station and then go on checking my weight in at least 3 machines in the hopes that one of them would be faulty and show that my weight had gone beyond 56kgs. But this time was different, I had had the feeling that I had put on some decent amount of weight in the last 4-5 months. And again, after a short prayer to the almighty (whom I only seemed to remember before my exams and before I stepped onto a weighing machine)- I gingerly stepped onto the weighing machine. This weighing machine was the one at the railway station and so it didn't have any needles to watch for, only adding to my anxiety and testing my patience. The machine made a few rattling noises and with a short burp- chucked out the small yellow card that shows the weight on one side. I picked it up and turned it around - and Voila! It showed my weight as 59kgs. I was happy and made a note that it had been more the three years since my last incident of weight gain. Just to make sure that the weighing machine wasn't lying to me or hadn't been tampered with just to make fun of me, I checked my weight on two more machines and they all showed the same.....one of them even showed an additional o.5kgs on the 59kgs. So that was it, had gained 3 whole kilograms. Over the next few weeks, I publicly and unabashedly advertised the fact that I had put on weight to most of my friends and to anyone who cared to listen to a guy who wanted to talk about his weight and who expected a reaction from you.

I sit here today, almost one year later, weighing 59kgs and knowing pretty well that my weight will remain the same until 2011. Let's hope that I break this trend that my body seems to have set ad that I gain weight before 2011. Pray for me!

Peace!

:o)

---THE COOK---

2009-10-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

I have off-late started cooking...not because I wanted to, but because I had no other option mainly because I was now living as a bachelor in one of the fastest growing cities in the country ie.Hyderabad. I moved into this city a little over a month ago and since then have been living in a flat with a very good ad old friend of mine.Since I am not working anywhere as of now (but I intend to as soon as I am done with my coaching), buying food outside everyday makes it a little heavy on the wallet. Initially it's all good but then as we start figuring out how much we are spending on food alone each month- it comes as a small shock...and after a few mathematical calculations (thanks to my engineering background without which I would have required the aid of a calculator ;-) one can easily figure out that cooking our own food is much more economical.So there I was, holding the 'kadhai' in one hand and the lighter in another. I knew the basics of cooking of course...that a chopped vegetable thrown into a mixture of heated oil and some masalas can be cooked into what's called the 'sabzi-fry'.My first attempt to make the ever-favourite ladies-finger fry (bhindi-fry) ended up in a disaster as I ended up adding so much salt to the dish that one small helping of the sabzi that I managed to force down my throat almost made me puke and swore at the various cookery-shows on T.V where the ever-smiling chef always seems to only say 'Namak swaad-anusar' and leaves rookies like me guessing how much that 'swaad-anusar' amount might be. I have since tried several 'veggie fry' dishes and have gradually gotten better and better and even can claim to be an expert in that category now...although only my roomie and I have tasted the food that I cook. Next on my list was the veggies with some gravy. I had absolutely no clue as to what constitutes the gravy. So, I dialled the emergency cook-advice helpline (ie. my mom :-) and she enlightned me on the contents.I am still perfecting my gravies...I'll let you people know when I master that too.Cooking has turned out to be an interesting way to pass my time. And I realize that I kinda enjoy it too. All one needs to cook good food is a little bit of what I like to call the culinary-factor (which almost all mortals possess) and good amounts of patience. Cooking unlike many other tasks takes time and requires patience- the lack of which might only lead-up to a botched dish. So keep rocking and until next time.....
peace out!

Last day in Hostel !

2009-05-08T20:49:00.000-07:00

It's my last night in the hostel. The place where I have spent the past four year of my life...and I won't be wrong if I said that those four years were the ones that helped shape me into a more mature human-being. These will undoubtedly be the most cherished years of my life.

I have been trying to sleep since the past one hour but sleep has been fighting a loosing battle with my memories of the hostel. Now my mind starts thinking of all the wonderful,funny,sad, heart-warming,heart-breaking,long-lasting memories i have had in this hostel. This very room OC-105 and my two wonderful roomies - sujeet and shashank will always remain a topic of discussion in the future whenever the conversation moves to 'our college days'. It's like, I have a zillion memories attached to this place.

I try opening my laptop and browsing some net to pass the time until sleep sets in....but it's of no use. The feeling that I will probably never sleep on this bed- in this room- in this hostel strikes me with a force that saddens me.
I decide it's time I had a final round of the hostel..including the parts I have never been to, in the past years (ie. the other blocks with the guys from branches other than mine). I put on my slippers , slip on a shirt and am on my way for the 'last round'.
I start with the A-block and climb up slowly to the fourth floor of that block. ALL the rooms sport a shining Godrej lock on their doors. The students have long vacated the hostel as their 4-year 'tenure' came to an end about two weeks ago.
The same block where i stand now held the mechanical, electrical and the civil branch guys. Our hostel (like most others across the country) had the reputation of being a 24 hours masti haven. No matter what time of the night or day one chose- he would always hear noises of all kinds - ranging from wierd laughters to loud music from some room or the other. But today it was different- a deadly-silence hung around in the hostel...no noise whatsoever and no one in sight. Honestly, it was a bit scary. We weren't used to this kind of spooky silence in the hostel man.
I started moving towards the B-block on my way to the C-block (where i stayed on the ground floor). The specialiltu of our hostel is that--the construction of the A-block and the C-block are a mirror image of each other.
I finally reached the ground floor of the C-block after descending 4 floors. Reached my room...my roomie- shashank was still fast asleep which is quite unlike him as he's a known nocturnal homo-sapien but he's had a long day owing to the fact that he had to run around for most part of the day for the correction in his passport.
The square space outside my room - where the guys of our block pioneered and created the sport of Floor-cricket and went on to hold tournaments that gave us as much entertainment as much as noise and disturbance now stood lit in the moonlight filled with stillness and silence.

It wasn't as if the complete round of our hostel had satisfied my inner wish of some kind or anything...but then i climbed onto my bed to get some sleep before my last Day at the hostel starts. As i was doing so - i also (and quite naturally) realised that this would be my last sleep in the hostel. Everything i did the next day kept striking me as 'The last time I did it ' in the hostel/college/Bhubaneswar. And I felt 'nostalgia' slowly creeping into bed with me ....

It's been really a great learning experience living in the hostel - KING'S PALACE 2. I got to learn so many things ...made friends irrespective of their geographical origin, learnt to adjust, to share, and most importantly - to love my student life.
I salute the Kings (we- the studtents/residents)of our hostel and hope and wish that eveyrone attains the pinnacle of success in their lives ahead.

PARKOUR !!

2008-01-08T07:46:00.000-08:00

Parkour (sometimes abbreviated to PK) or l'art du déplacement[1] (English: the art of displacement) is an activity with the aim of moving from one point to another as efficiently and quickly as possible, using principally the abilities of the human body.[2][3] It is meant to help one overcome obstacles, which can be anything in the surrounding environment — from branches and rocks to rails and concrete walls — and can be practiced in both rural and urban areas. Parkour practitioners are referred to as traceurs.

Founded by David Belle in France, parkour focuses on practicing efficient movements to develop one's body and mind to be able to overcome obstacles in an emergency. It may also be a form of entertainment or pastime. But many traceurs consider it as a Discipline---an art which involves supreme fitness of the body and the mind. The mind needs to be alert and the body fit in order to practise this discipline.

Parkour is such a wonderfuly beautiful discipline/art/sport/activity (choose watever u want to, i prefer the 'Discipline').
It not only keeps the body and mind super-fit but also helps us see our surroundings (the concrete jungles that we live in) in a different perspective. It is more of a discipline becoz it requires (like i've already said) supreme fitness of the body and only with regular practise can one achieve that.So one needs to be dedicated to his practises. One who just practises a few times a month wenever there is a sudden fire in the stomach to do some parkour is not a true traceur/parkourist.
I hav been practisin parkour since almost one year now.
Wenever i am walking down the road ar anyplace....my constantly keep scanning and finding new spots to practise parkour (not that i try all of them :-) ). I really like doin that.
Fitness nowdays is a major concern for many people around the world...and in India- with the recent 'six-pack abs thing' goin, the fo us on fitness is more than ever.
Well ..according to me...one way to get them is to start practising parkour. A great way to keep ur body fit (read Super-fit).
Wen I practise (i do it mostly wen there arent too many people around) sometimes wen there are people around...the stare at me as if i am a crazy guy or some kinda mutant of a monkey. At first i used to feel shy..but now i wait for that kinda reaction. That's becoz someone calling u a monkey wen u are practising parkour is kind of a compliment.Monkeys were one of the inspirations of David Belle wen he started out Parkouring.

The discipline is fast catching up in India too. Many youngsters are showing intrest thanx to the media who are helping spread Parkour thru advertisements and Documentaries or special coverages.

I was in my hometown of Vizag recently for my winter-vacations.
There i hav an ol' friend who got intrested in parkour some time bak. He has been practising lightly and we decided to meet up and do a session.
We did and What a wonderful fun session it was. We met on the beach road and found a perfect spot to do some vaults (a place with lots of bars). It was fun and exciting. We did some basic vaults and My friend (Murali is his name) did a Hand 360 flip which i havent mastered yet.It was cool.

I encourage all the experienced traceurs/parkourists to organise such sessions wenever possible. It encourages new people to learn frm us and also allows us to learn a few things frm them.

That's all for now. I'll keepin touch,