CAMERA ...finally!

Finally ..I have my camera ! Bought it in somewhat of a hurry, not hurry exactly, but this time I didn't take too much time to do the necessary research ( one of the pros of working in a software development company, unlimited internet access, be it in terms of checking out different manufacturers and specifications or seeking my 'geeky' and 'gadget crazy' friends' opinion :P)

It was only day before yesterday that I came across this Sony model, which rests happily at the bottom of my cupboard right now. Another day was spent in comparing Kodak, Nikon, Canon and Olympus equivalents and the evening, in reading some n number of reviews of the performance of the camera, written by different users all over the world. Information made space for itself somewhere in my already crowded little brain. About half a dozen calls made to the dealers in Bangalore and I was all set to shell out a considerable chunk of my painfully accumulated savings for this desperately required new toy!

Guess I was the first person in the shop today and by the time the deal was closed I was pretty happy with the biggest purchase I have made all by myself (Dad had gone with me when we bought the comp) , till date. Will post the first batch of snaps once the Bats are charged and I have learn the troubleshooting manual by heart :D.

Holiday (Optional)

Its fun coming to office on a holiday! Every thing is different; 'relaxed' as a friend of mine would want to put it. To start with, the parking lot, with only half a dozen bikes and as many cars would be empty enough to play short pitch cricket!
The office would be really empty and its a wierd feeling to sit in my little corner when I know there are only 5 people instead of the regular 25 on a normal day, sitting there. The cafe would be less crowded and so will the be the TT room.... That reminds me, someone encouraged me to play as much TT as possible today as I wouldn't have to fight for the bat, nice. Lunch would be pretty frustrating though.

I am obsessed with Don McLean's 'American Pie' right now..its one master piece of a song.

To sir, with Love

It was ten minutes past seven in the morning when my phone rang. As usual I was in a deep ,all encompassing slumber when I picked it up. Its common knowledge that only my mom can take the liberty to call me up this early in the morning, but I was REALLY surprised to hear a long forgotten voice on the other side... It was Prodipta Hore, my maths and computer science teacher in class ten!!! Talk about long lost friends, and long lost teachers! And the memories came rushing back, all the tamtrums we threw in class, the tuition class where we tried to make life difficult for him in every possible way, his dissapointment at my screwing up computer science....
It takes so little time to get back in touch and he actually found out my phone number and gave me a call! Thats touching. And all this after 'zero' contact for six long years. The last time I met him was in August , 2000.
But we'll definitely meet sometime in the next week and the past life will be resurrected and we'll laugh at our younger selves and reflect on the future.

If your are destined to meet someone, somewhere in some way, it will definitely happen, but till it happens, keep the faith.

Drifter...

I am NOT influenced by "Being Cyrus". But its a nice movie, none the less.

Worth watching, if nothing else, for Dimple Kapadia's 'old age babe' portrayal of an aspiring woman being stuck with a wasted, day dreamer of a husband. Boman Irani as the hot headed, chick brained parsee banker and Naseeruddin Shah in all his dreamy mastery in the enacting the aforsaid "wasted, day dreamer". Saif, as usual, is in brilliant form, I hope his 'Italian' luck doesn't abandon him too fast though. Its a brilliant movie, no huge messages, no great mushy love talk... no moral in the end. Looks like Govinda style entertainment (read: 4 songs, 5 dance sequences, 114 Jharkhand accented dialogues , 3 car chases and an odd fight sequence) is truely over !

Otherwise the weekend was a celebration of "solitude"! Long, lonely bus rides through Bangalore. Somehow, I have come to like these long winding bus rides on the 201. Sitting alone in some corner in Crosswords and reading the free flowing narrative about Swaminathan and friends (hope that book is still on the rack when I go there next). Spending "quality time" with myself on the terrace trying to find a star in the night sky, waiting for my eyelids to start drooping, the last walk down the narrow staircase and the final act of barbarian self defence by swating a dozen mosquitoes before I am tired enough to drop off.

Google Rocks ( Thanks for the Idea, Ojas :P)

Self Explanatory :P

Short Cuts...

There are none!
If you want to find one, start building it right away.
If you want a morsel of food, run and get it, don't wait for some s#$ o$ a B#@$%h to get it for you. If you are expecting some favour from someone, stop expecting. Everything has a price attached to it...and if you are expecting a little bit of sympathy from the world for what your state is right now, just go screw yourself.
When it becomes difficult to grab a Table tennis bat without being uncivilized or stubborn or outright kiddish, that is exactly what the world looks like.
Every person we come across is a loser in his or her own way, its just how well we hide him within us and put up a facade, and right now, it seems, none of us are bothered with the hiding part. Since no one is bothered about what is right and what isn't, why care?
Reminds me of a caption on Steve austin's T shirt, "Don't expect mercy @ 3:16" ....
Just replace mercy with maturity and we have our whole new world!! Ha Ha! I am so excited...

Solitude

Sitting in the corner of a comfortable office floor, with a computer connected to the internet and window right beside me to allow all my "staring into space" activity and ill advised thoughtfulness at times, I enjoy my solitude. I wouldn't call it loneliness, but a solitude which is comfortable and unnerving at the same times.
Come to think of it, there is no one (other than myself) in the world who actually knows what I want, what makes me happy, what are my insecurities or fears and hence I am less vulnerable, but I am lonely too. As much as I savour my solitude, I wouldn't mind letting some people enter my life and understand me, give me some company, help me know myself better. But some deep seated fear of being hurt again by allowing people to come really close, of becoming utterly predictable kills the urge and sends me back to enjoying the solitude of a quiet anonymous life.
People will say I am contradicting myself again, but I guess we can live sanely only if we are well aquainted with both the sides of the coin.
Listen to this song sometime...

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone
I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

I'm walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the border line
Of the edge and where I walk alone

Read between the lines
What's fucked up and everything's alright
Check my vital signs
To know I'm still alive and I walk alone

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone...

Long live the Queen

It just got over! The third test.... And the first thing that came to my mind the moment the cricinfo site refreshed itself for the last time was , "Great!!! Long live the Queen!"
I couldn't stop myself saying that. Come on guys, we spend five days sitting in office, refreshing Cricinfo everytime we get a chance, and what does our most "formidable batting line up in the world" give us...
A huge huge defeat. The wall broke when it was required the most, little master suddenly cropped a bad shoulder from somewhere, Dhoni's Dhamaka Fizzled out. Sehwag : 15 balls to adjust and one more to start walking back!!!
I love cricket!! Someone please tell me the Hockey schedule..at least those guys lose convincingly, they don't take you to the peaks of hope before giving you a soft push into ravines!

Seriously, I AM HURT ...once again LONG LIVE THE QUEEN

Half way through...

Officially, this day signifies the half way mark of my stay in Bangalore. We are supposed to present our Mid semester seminars and reports regarding the amount of work we have done over here till date, today.
Only I know how much work I have done here till this day and I am sure if the hours I spent debugging lines of obscure code were included in the evaluation scheme as productive hours, I would have probably shown almost twice the productive I can account for at the present time with the present scheme :P
However, one thing is pretty heartening, student life is coming to a close, at least for the time being ... another couple of months and I'll be a graduate. True, people say its best to be a student, but at times it does get to a person's nerves!

Another week...

The difference between one week or the next one or the previous one seems to diminish with every passing week. The routine is so pathetic and uninteresting that I wonder at times if it really matters at all.
The same things keep repeating themselves again and again. Sometimes, people change their routine by choice and sometimes, by chance. In my case neither happens! There was a time when i thought getting into a routine was so nice... one doesn't have to look for something to do every different day. But now, the comfort has become too disturbing, predictability sucks!

Holi!

This was the first time Holi, the festival of colours, went by and the only colour I came really close to were the purple and yellow stains on the road I stepped on while walking to office today. The whole of yesterday was spent sitting in the office and doing some changes in an User Interface so that whoever my user is enjoys using my code!!
But I did have my share of the colourful business, I coloured all my buttons green, yellow, red and purple just for the fun of it :P
This was by far the quietest holi in my life, the only other times I haven't been involved in the colour fest ( which got translated into mud, eggs and tomato fest in hostel) were the first two years of my life when I was too young to understand what it meant.
I missed it all so much; jumping on people with the most wierd colours in the world, getting thrown into a mud pit and spending hours in front of the wash basins with lemons and other colour removing agents....
Have to get back to the code and make sure everything looks nice and curt again.

Gone are the day....not yet!

Yeah!!
Those days of watching movies on a computer screen with college cronies are not gone yet!
We met up yesterday after travelling in a bus, on foot and about eight kilometers in an Autorickshaw to reach Bangalore central where Suz, Bhargav and Sikandar were already waiting for us. Just like the old times, we started pulling each others' legs, trying to decide who should bear the expenses of the food we were about to devour. Just like old times, we ended up paying for each of our shares :P
Then, instead of coming back and sleeping off in our own rooms we decided to stay over with Sikandar in his HUGE room at the NAL guest house...after stopping for Ice Cream at Corner House we entered the NAL campus and as usual we were in a for a movie show on his comp. I have been in the Elisha Cuthbert Fan Club for quite some time now and now, after seeing 'Girl next door', I know why the size of the community just keeps on increasing !!!
After the movies, everyone's love life was disected for some time till we decided to sleep off...

A great evening spent with the people who know me the best! what a way to get over all the bitterness from the last couple of days.

Back to being Rude...

I have this reputation of being rude and brash to everyone I come across. I call it, "cold reasoning mixed with an occasional bout of madness". But then people always love to believe their own version of the story.
I just ended up alienating three friends of mine, yesterday. Two of them, over a telephone conversation and one through an email. And then I felt horrible for some time. Surfed the net like mad and read a few short stories from a free ebook I found, called Dubliners (James Joyce). One of the stories (counterparts to be specific) was there in our English Literature course for ISC.
But I am fine now, if people don't understand me, its okay if they can't put up with me. Too egoistic I think, but at the end of the day, its always better to lose an aquaintance if there is no chance ever of getting a friend.

A normal Weekend

A normal weekend.
Late night lachcha ( BITSian slang, for 'Laughing and chatting') on Friday, late morning on Satruday. Evening spent with friends and night playing cards and talking about various subjects starting with cricket and ending at careers and dating! Sunday was a bit different in the sense that I finally broke my vow of not watching any movie at PVR.
Saw CRASH, I had never seen an oscar winning movie in a theatre before and the initial assumption that the movie was going to be extremely involved in its content and treatment of the subject it adressed was almost proved right, but for the entry of the foul mouthed American Blacks and Whites together.
What followed was a emotional roller coaster about how every white man is not prejudiced against the blacks and why it's so difficult for a black man to see a white as just another human being and still be accepted into his home, by his own mother, leave alone his community. The other ethnic groups either present in the movie or mentioned in there definitely give it a much larger appeal than just the 'coloured' concept. Its one movie you should watch if you believe in emotions and coincidences and the fact that life must go on. A really nice movie, its worth all of those one hundred and fifty bucks I spent and if you know me for my stinginess, this is a clear sign that you should see the movie.
An autorickshaw ride from forum, the wonderful cricket match between South Africa and Australia, a late dinner, few goodnights on SMS and falling into a deep sleep waiting to wake up for another of those weeks which seem to be similiar to the extent of being carbon copies of the previous one.

Ganguly

I was one of the rare bengalis who thought including Sourav in the Indian team touring England in July '96 WAS a religious selection. However, the man changed everything about Indian cricket along with everything I thought about him... Its been a long time since I wanted to write something about the whole BCCI , Greg Chappell and Sourav Issue, but after reading this, I found it mirrored my views perfectly.

Return to routine

After breakfast it was time to start on the long journey home. We started off at 11:30 in the morning, but even that wasn't all that uneventful. Umesh, the driver, had hurriedly closed the door of our van with the keys still left on the dashboard, inside. The door got locked and we were to travel by a vehicle which had its keys locked inside it !
The rubber lining of the front window was removed and the window was lower to gain access to the keys. We were moving fine till we got caught by Tamilnadu police just minutes away from the Karnataka border and our van owner had apparently not paid taxes for some time. A little 'reasoning ' got us through. After that it was another quite and wonderful journey while we crossed into karnataka and went on our way to Balmuri falls. We stopped for lunch at Kamat's , this time the fare was 'North Karnataka thali , everything except the chapati's made from maize flour and the buttermilk was alien to me, but it tasted great.
Balmuri falls was somewhat of a disappointment though, due to the scarcity of tourist spots around Mysore, the place had become highly crowded and as a consequence, extremely filthy. There were people bathing all around, kids playing in the water, the scene looked really fit to depict on of those famed Dhobi Ghats, but for a dhobi!
After Balmuri we decided to just head home. Dusk fell and after another stop for juice at the same place where we had had breakfast the previous day, we entered Bangalore. By the time we reached home, every joint was aching. A hot bath and some painkillers put me off to deepest sleep of my life.
And while I was thinking all about the last weekend, its friday already :P

Rest of the snaps

Safari n Cricket

More snaps

The next morning started with Srinivas's cell phone alarm ringing after every five minutes. He had put an alarm for 4:30 and kept pressing the 'snooze' relegiously every time the alarm rang, we were only remotely awake when Jayram knocked at our door at 5 and asked if we were ready, I was quick to reply, "almost" with three guys in the room still fast asleep!
We boarded our Jeeps at half past five and thundered off into the forest while it was still pretty dark. I was so sleepy that I hardly had any interest in finding out what animals we might sight, but then I wasn't deprived of much, all we saw were a number of deers, a peacock and a couple of stags (on our way back). However, the high point of the safari was when one of the tyres of our Jeep got punctured in the middle of the jungle... With the sun just rising and the first rays hitting the mountain tops, it was a really beautiful journey down the deserted forest track, with a herd of deers crossing the road every now and then. We stopped on a bridge for a proper group snap this time, for once, all twelve of us were in the snap.

Cricket again

We reached the resort at eight in the morning and after placing orders breakfast it was time for cricket. As usual, the teams of six went onto the ground as we lost both the matches, again. The four match series ended 0-4 against us, but who cares ? The fun we had was more than winning!
After that it was time for breakfast, which, surprisingly was much decent when compared to the lunch we had the previous afternoon. After breakfast, It was time to pack up and move, just that it was a bit difficult to accept that the trip cannot go on for ever...

Campfire

More snaps

The campfire was something I was really looking forward to, but a light shower at around 8:30 dampened my spirits as well as the wood kept ready to be burnt. Dinner arrived from some restaurant in the little village at nine. Narayan did all the good work of going and getting the stuff. But a little confusion caught all the poor veggies unaware when radhesh discovered morsels of fish in the so called "Pure vegetarian kurma"! However, the other side dish was Sambhar, true to its vegetarian spirits, people did end up enjoying their dinner, not to mention, the delecious porotas (circular south Indian versions of the normal Paratha of the north, but way tastier) were just right after the tiring frisbee game and the rain.

Will it burn ?

I guess that was the question top-most on our minds when we walked to the spot where the fire was supposed to be started. The wood was pretty damp and it took quite some time and a lot of paper to finally get the fire going. After that it was fun!
The beer bottles were opened and so was the little quarter of whiskey. Some really nice conversation, punctuated by repartee as often as possible, followed and its always a fact that in such sitiuations one person has to become a Bakra, either willingly or through sheer coincidence. We did have our man and hence, our fun.
The fire was more of a personal thing to me, since I was the bonfire enthusiast even on campus and sometime before Holi, last March I did end up pursuading people to have a bonfire and sit around it. Memories just keep flowing back....
It was pretty late by the time the Beer got over and another light shower killed off the already dying fire. We returned to our rooms in anitcipation of a very early morning the next day.
On the schedule next, was a forest Safari at 5 in the morning while it was still dark. Body pains were killing me and I was fast asleep under the influence of some heavy painkillers and sedatives, even before my roommates had finished with their first round of Least Count (A card game).

The Best Weekend...

Click here for some more...

The lunch was ok, neither great nor inedible. Besides, the two hours of cricket has multiplied hunger by a some obscene amount and anything that was close to cooked was eaten happily.
After lunch we decided to visit the temple on top of a hillock about half a kilometer away from the place we were put up. It could be seen from the cricket ground. But before that, we decided to relax for sometime while some of the guys went off to the closest village to get some softdrinks and other "light snacks". It took them about an hour and a half to return from their mega shopping expedition while we spent our time lying around here and there. Sajin and Radhesh took advantage of a frail hammock and by the time they had finished with it, I was sure it will give way under the weight of an infant :P

Destination Temple

Everyone except Radhesh went ahead on a short trek to visit the temple mentioned earlier. It was a pretty uneventful trek , except at one place where we had pass through a quite precarious opening in a bush to follow a short cut. Varun dove into the opening scared of a barking dog that was making it way towards us, while poor Sajin was really distressed at the size of the opening. The view from the top of the hill was breathtaking to say the least. We spent about half an hour on top, standing against the steady breeze, posing in as many different ways as possible to make ourselves look like the set of perfect adventurers.
By the time we returned from the trek it was dusk.
Back inside the safe boundaries of the resort we decided to have a game of frisbee played in the rugbee style, the same teams of six pitched against each other trying to score goals by firing th frisbee into the opponents' goal posts. It was too tiring and a bit too agressive for our already dimantled bodies. After a bath and dinner it was time for the most awaited event of the trip: the camp fire.

...tomorrow

The Best Weekend till date.

Click here for some more snaps

The trip I was talking about in the previous posts happened and it was the best thing that has happened to me since I came to Bangalore. We ( twelve people) went to Masinagudi, a little hamlet somewhere in the forests on the border of Tamilnadu and Karnataka.
Now, the trip was too good for me to finish writing all about it at one go, also I want to go into some of the smaller details without which the whole trip would not have been as enjoyable as it was, so I guess I will be writing about the trip throughout this whole week.

The Onward Journey

We started off at 6:15 from the office. The weather was really nice, it had rained the previous night and it was overcast in the morning with a light breeze blowing. All of us assembled at the office on time and were on our way by half past six. Nothing happened on the way, except being stopped by a traffic police who, contrary to all accepted conventions, didn't ask for a bribe citing some obsure reason and actually let the vehicle move ahead.
We stopped at Kamat's for a breakfast comprising Dosa and Kesari Bath (a sweet dish I have had only in Karnataka although it claims to belong to deccan cuisine). The people who decided to have Idly were in for a 'cylindrical' surprise! The shape of Kamats' Idlies were cylindrical, carefully rolled in a banana leaf, instead of usual 3 inch flying saucer shaped ones.
After that it was a non-stop journey till Bandipur where we were told that we could go on a safari only at three and trekking was also not allowed. We decided to move ahead into Tamilnadu and get to Masinagudi, passing through Muddumalai Wildlife sancuary on the way, unfortunately the only animals we saw on the way were monkeys and deers.
We reached Masinagudi at around midday and checked into our rooms, booked in advance. The beauty of the place is not something I can write and explain, fortunately we could take some snaps and I have uploaded them have a look!

Cricket: The first round

The first thing we did over there was ... play cricket! Teams of six pitched against each other with the previous exposure to practical cricket (the analysis and commenting that we do while waching matches can be safely passed into the domain of theoritical excellence) being holding a bat at least six months back either on campus or on another office trip (for the regular employees) . We tried to look and play really well...but thats not what happened to us. However after the most tiring two hours of most of our lives we went in for lunch.

And I have to get down to some work right now, therefore, lunch and everything after that can wait for tomorrow

Silent Night?

I was sitting outside my room, chatting with a friend pretty late last night.
I couldn't help noticing the variety of sounds that are created and heard even more clearly in the relative silence of the night. The street dogs barking away to glory, involved in one of their customary late-night brawls. The creaking shutters of the workshop right beside our house.
The workshop seems to have developed its own habit of adding a number of decibels to the existing noise levels, whether its the constant hammering and welding throughout the day or the wierd,eerie creaking of its half closed shutters at night. There was the occasional heavy rumbling of a truck as it thundered along Bannerghatta Road, generously blowing its horns. Now this is another unexplained behaviour, where's the pointing blowing your horns so loud when your vehicle is probably the only one on the road?
It was kinda windy too, the sound of the coconut leaves brushing against each other in the no-so-gentle breeze complemented the creaking of the workshop to give the beautiful haunted house effect. And I kept sitting there for quite sometime, just soaking in the sounds disturbing the otherwise silent, idle night, allowing the breeze to hit my face, in some invisible attempt to exact an utterly humiliating revenge for some unknown offence against someone, someday.
It was two thirty by the time the dogs decided to give up their fight and settle down in their stipulated corners, the trucks became less frequent, the breeze died down. I sat there staring at the red sky. I walked back into my room only at three after a silent goodnight to the creaking shutter. The night was sane, sober and subdued again, just the creaking persisted.

To Suzie and Guppu...

This is one of those obscure posts that are a little too involved in the jargon used and the people and feelings referred to, but I just can't help writing what I am writing right now.
They showed F.R.I.E.N.D.S 10-17 on star world yesterday and I was sitting in front of the TV trying to remember the last time I saw that Episode. Usually I don't like the psenti sessions they put on friends, but this one sure was different. The scene in which all six of them leaves their keys on the kitchen cabinet is too difficult to ignore.
It was the summer of 2004, a day before our Ap-T compre when Gupta suddenly gave a loud call from his den, 126,Vyas, "Guys, 1017 download complete" and we decided to see it right then. That day when we sat and watched the hour long episode, I had no clue that one day I will be sitting in a PG in Bangalore and watching the same thing without Sujan and Gupta there to throw in a psenti or a sarcastic comment ( in that order) every now and then.
It was horrible, but also in a way there is something that binds me to two of the best chaps I lived with during those wierd and wonderful college days.
Thanks for everything Guppu and Suz, everything, right from the "u are the fucker" fights in Ram in the first year to the psenti sessions and brown tape signing enthu on our last evening together on campus...miss you guys.
However F.R.I.E.N.D.S will always be there, eh?