RainDrops

The Gift of St. Valentine

2012-02-09T22:57:00.002+05:30

“Edi Farzaane... Farzu...”, Veetile akathathe muriyil ninnu gyan avale vilichu.

“Dha varunnu... Entha pattiye? Enthina ingane kidanu kaarunne? Joli edukyyaanum samathikkila alle. Manushyanu nooru kootam joli kidakumbola...“

“Ediye, Swathi kku samayam vannu. Manu achan aakaan pokukaya...”

"Haaainnn!!! Atheyo. Avarude kalyanam kazhingitu ippo 2 maasam alle aayulu?”

“Hmmm... Ethayalum nanaayi. Avar engilum oru kunji kaalu kaanate. Nammal ivide ethra kollam kondu kaathu irikkunu. Orennam undaaytho, athum...”

Farzaanayude mukham valaandaayi. Kunju undakathathu ippo nammude kuttama? Oru kunji kaalu kaanaan agrahikaangitaano? Ellam rabinte oro vikrithilal...

Aval ente aduthu vannu irrunu. Ente mukathu randu kayyum vechu kondu parangu, “Athinu ikka enthina vishamikunathu. Ellam daivam nalathinu vendi alle chaiyunathu ennu ikka thanne alle parayunne. Ithum nalathinu thanne aayirikum. Kootukarante vetil kunji kaalukal odi nadakaan pokunathu orkaan thanne enthu chell alle?”

"Shariyalle ikka parangathu…", Aval orthu. Veetil ninnu oru anya jaathi kaarante kude irangi thirichappole uppayudeyum ummayudeyum shaapam ettu vaangiyathaanaval… Kettu prayaam aayi nilkunna chechiye mari kadannanu thaan Nikaah kazhichekkunathu. Aa graamam muzhuvan thante kudumbathe parihasichathaanu. Chechi oru maru naadan malayaliyum aayi Nikaah kazhichu poyappolum nammale vilikaan aarum muthirnilla. Register vivaham kazhingittu randera kollam thikayunnu, ennitum veetinu yaathoru othu theerpinte lakshanavum illa… Ithellam orthu Avalude kannukalil ninnu vellam oornirangi… Athinte kude aanu ippo ingannathe oru avasthayum… Oru pravyshyam santhosangal veendu kittum ennu theercha aayapolaanu avasaana nimishangalil allah ellam thirichu medichathu… Mis-carriageinte vedana ippolum avalude udalil thangi nilkunnu…

“Ikka vishamikaathirikku… Ellam Shariyaakum”. Aval oru lakshayavum illathe avane samaadhanipichu…

Maasangal kurre kadanu poyi… Oru Hospitalinte roomil vechaanu avar aa santhosa vaartha pinneyum kelkunathu. Avar ithreyum naalu kelkaan kothicha aa vaakukal. Farzaana garbini aanu. Santhosam kondu avalku enthu parayanam ennu ariyilla… Avalude kavilile nuna kuzhikal onum kudi prathyakshmaayi kaanunu…

Uppayayem Ummayeyum kazhinga thavana vilichathaanu. Pakshe avar vanilla. Enthaayalum ee pravyshyam kudi vilikuka thanne… Albutham, ithreyum naalu avar manasill vechu kondu nadana paka ellam theernirikunu. Avar mole kaanan veetilotu varunathre…

Ente veetikarku oru ethirpum illayirunu, athu kondu avar eppolum thane kude undaayirunu. Athu kondu Uppayum ummayum adhyamaayitu veetil vanappol thane avarum undaayirunu… Adhyam randu sanghavum enthu parayanam ennu ariyaathe pakachu irrikumbol Farzana thante witumm aayi “Ivide entha Art padathinte shooting nadakunno…Gyan vicharichathu oru Shaji Kailas padathinte location aakumenna”…

Illaya mole kandapollekum ummaku chirikano karayano ennu ariyaathe, odi poyi ketti pidichathu kandu nilkaan thanne enthu aashwaasam…

Maasangal pinneyum kurre kadanu poyi… Farzana yude ella karyathinum randu veetile amma maarum eppolum kude undaayirunu… Enniku pinne enthu venam? Aashwaasam thanne…

Anganne aa divasam vannu ethi. Athum oru nalla divasam thanne… Feb the 14th. Lokamembaadum premikuna aalukalude divasam aanalo innu. Kunjine purathedukaan complications undd, Caesarian vendi varumennu doctor parangathu kettu hridyam onnu pidangu. Pakshe nammal enthinu pedikanam? Daivamm ille kude. Avale oru nokku kaanan kothichu, doctorinte anuvaadathodu kudi gyan avale poyi kandu. Avalude mukathu aa mangatha punjiriyum aa nuna kuzhiyum kaanaan enthu chell. Oru bouquetyum Greeting cardumm avalude thala keezhe vechittu gyan purathirangi.

Samayam kurre kadanu poyathu aringilla. Oru kunjinte karachil kelkunathu polle…Manassinu thaalam kudi kudi varunathu pole… Operation theater innu oru mukham moodi nurse vannu perru vilichu. Gyan odi avarude arukil ethi. Avar enne akathu vilichu, oru penn kunjaanenu parangu. Manasinte thaalam onnum kudi koodi… Akathu chennapol ellavarum ammayaudeum kunjinteyum munnil nilkunnu. Kunju karachil nirthi ellavareyum thurichu nokkunu. Gyan ente jevvane ente kayyil eduthu. Aa kunju mukathu atha avalude ammaye pole or nuna kuzhi…Athe punjiri. Kunjinte aparathu kidakuna avale appolaanu gyan shradichathu. Gyan avale Perru vilichu. Heart beat nokkuna yanthrathinte shabdam allathe engum oru nishabadada pole. Gyan pinneyum avalude kayyil pidichu vilichu. Veendum aa nishabdada maathram. Oru kayy ente tholil vannu amarnu. Thiringu nokkiyapol Farzanaye checkup chaiythiruna Doctor… Elavarudeyum mukathu bayangara gauravam. Gyan Farzaanaye veendum vilichu. Tholile kayy onnum kudi amarnu…

“I am sorry! She is no more”. Doctor parangathu kettitu enniku thala chutunathu pole thoni… Kayyil irrikuna kunjinte nerrku ente kannukal poyi. Gyan avalude mukham aa kunjinte mukathu kandu. Ente Farzaanayude mukham!!! Enniku Valentine’s day sammanam thannechu poyi aval !!!

NB: This post is written in a Language called Manglish [Malayalam in English transliteration]

Adios 2011!!!

2012-01-13T23:36:00.000+05:30

Bygone Year 2011!!! One whole year in this lovely place called Kerala, “God’s own Country” {Called partially because the prices of commodities and stuff makes you think of God and partially because of the snake men (and women) you find everywhere on the roads, especially after 5 PM , when the strength of the almighty blisses through them!}. Since I had not been in touch with my blog for long , have a lots to say about the past happenings around me: Foremost, finally, I got a wifey (and a dear one in that ;-)), completed 1 full years and some more in Trinfy (Trivandrum Infosys is called Trinfy), got the project I was working abandoned (Not my contribution in whole though!), met with two accidents just for fun (More on this later), changed my sleeping routine from 8 hours to 12 hours a day, visible pot belly appearing now-and-then (It’s a mystery on where it goes off sometimes ;-) ) so on and so forth…

So, anyways, how was the year 2011 for you guys?

2011, was an year of Trending. No no, I don’t mean the Fashioniesta trends or the Manish Malhotra trends. What I meant is that past year we saw some truly magnificent work of Media, blown out of proportions.

Take for instance, the Flash Mobs. Seriously speaking, I din’ t have any heck of an idea what the Flash Mob business is. I thought it was a mob, well, err, “flashing” on some common wall for their enjoyment. How primitive was my thought! And then it dawn to me that it was some surprisingly organized group of people trained to make the others who were present in the malls, stores, public places to “flash”. So wherever you go, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkatta, Bangalore or Pune, you were in the railway station or in a AC vented mall, and suddenly from nowhere, a music starts and a girl or a boy starts dancing. By the time you were wondering what the heck was happening, few others follow suite!!! Some others again join the caravan, and people who were looking their own business watches all the monkey business going around… It started from Amchi Mumbai, then how could Capital Delhi leave behind? Although an attempt was busted by the famed (or de-famed?) Delhi Police on one attempt of flashing at New Delhi Railway Station, who stops in just there? Bangalore and all other Metros followed suite. And heck it was followed on in the Software companies too… Infosys, for instance, had it at all the DCs (Delivery Centers), although it looked more or less like an organized dance show than the original “flash” mobbing. So, what’s the point? Can someone please elaborate? If I need to show my dancing skills, I could have shown it to some audience who are really interested to see it…Not in a way where you stagger the whole progression of someone’s life for apparently no reasons.

Another trend floating around was of India’s Second Freedom Struggle. “India’s Second Freedom struggle”? Are you serious? You are in your 20s, and all you heard and know is India is corrupt and so is the whole clan of politicians and Bureaucrats. Probably, you have never been to any Government offices, but you might have heard from others how it all goes into a loop if you don’t pay them for their Chai-Paani. Your motto of a Free India struggle you think is what you see in ‘Rang de Basanti’. You stay away from all the Political debates since you consider every other politicians crooked. You are inclined towards the political unrest in the Egypt and wished that a “Tahrir-Square” propaganda should be replicated here in India and all the current politicians must be ousted. So when a messiah called for a so called ‘The second freedom struggle’, you put on your T-shirt with the messiah slogan, put in your Gandhi cap, paint your face with the Indian tri-color, put up groups in Facebook and “hang-out” with your friends in some Maidan or Common grounds.

So, again, what’s the point? If you think that Freedom struggle is all about shouting slogans, having a one-day fast (Minnal mudakku, as is the word called in Malayalam… Probably all Keralites know what it is), singing patriotic song and rock concerts in front of a large crowd with some Bollywood actor, then my dear friend (in Navjot Siddu’s accent) you are the most un-intelligible creature in this world of degenerating decencies (Now I know where to use this phrase in a proper sentence!). Further on a serious note, please refresh your history classes and you’ll see what the struggle for freedom is. It’s the lives of the freedom fighters pulled apart, their lives ending up in solitary confinement, without food, water or hygiene for days and years; the brunt of the torture both physically and mentally. Probably seeing it on ‘Rang de Basanti’ would itself had boiled down your blood and probably you would had thought of hitting the Englishman, but it was not as simple as you might have imagined.

I know, some of you might argue with me till dawn to dusk about it, but this is the reality and probably you would understand it soon. Good luck!!!

Now another Media glare blown out of proportion. What was sung as a Chennai tapori song (remember Kya kare kya na kare [Rangeela]) became a rage throughout India, and heck, within few days all through the world! Everyone who remotely is a bathroom singer came out with their own versions of the same song, with the lyrics pulled over from here and there… Yes; Ladies and Gentlemen, I am talking about the (in)famous “Kolaveri di” song. You can see every probable versions of the song everywhere in YouTube or in your mail forwards: the original one, the IT guys version (god!!!), Sonu Nigam’s kids version (What? C’mon he is just a kid, he can’t even speak properly), the R&B version (The Desi firangs take on Kolaveri, uhhh!!!), the female Kolaveri (A chammak challo’s version), then there’s lots of regional versions (Malayalam, Hindi, Bhojpuri, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati…. !!!). So, which one is your take? Or you had already your own version of it? “Why this Kolaveri di?”

Then there is this La-Tomatina hullabullu all over… Some spoilt brats, sons of rich fathers, go out for a world tour, with their dads cash hung over their belly to “discover themselves” (They were actually lost in here, so they went to these super exotic places to discover themselves). And in perfect tandem to this event is the human tomato Katrina Kaif jumping over and throwing up Tomatoes to others. What else the real cash morons wanted? They follow suite, influenced by this and throwing tomatoes over each other and jumping all over it. So, I have cash, I throw it or crush it, what’s your problem, ehh?

Looking forward to see more of these trend setters in 2012, so that I can write a full page “review” here in my blog...

My wifey pestered me to show the draft version of this writing, before publishing. So stopping it here. Here it goes for the review…

Copyright Right and Left

2011-07-09T09:56:00.000+05:30

Nice to see that my blog's content has been doing some rounds in Corporate EMail Forwards... :-) The most famous being Yellow Kurta and I never take a risk.

Hopefully people who copies the content from here can give me a small credit in their mails; the content is anyways copyrighted under Creative Commons License.

Thanks to a special friend who forwarded and pointed me out the mails...

Istanbul Diary

2011-06-21T00:56:00.000+05:30

For the past one month, I am in Istanbul; the cultural capital of Europe. Nice weather, nice people and nice places to visit. Don't expect anything for shopping though - except Turkish delights and Evil Eyes. And don't expect people to understand whatever you ‘blabber’ (Yes, that's the word which comes in your mind when you talk to those guys!)

One of my colleague had a severe lower back pain, on a Saturday morning. We were working, and I thought of going to the office in a relaxed mood by 10 AM. I was about to step down to my Taxi, when the phone bell rang... 'Hello Vipin, this is X; Hey I need your help. Can you please take Mr. Y to the hospital. He has severe back pain and I think he needs some medical help". I went up to this guy's room and he really was writhing with pain... So I tucked in some money (Fortunately or unfortunately, since I had converted the Traveler's cheque to Turkish Lira for some shopping on Sunday) and went with Mr. Y on the same Taxi in which I was supposed to go to Office.

We reached the Hospital in about 20 minutes. We first had gone to the Urology specialist, since this guy told that he had some problems with Kidney stones. There was no doctors around...This guy had apparently came already to this hospital before and he had the doc's number with him. He dialed the doc and I talked with him. And then the hay-wiring started... It was so difficult to tell the doc that this guy had met him before and he had come for a re-visit now...Why? Because no one, I mean NO ONE in the whole hospital knows English!!! They all speak in Turkish! Finally over the phone, I told him this, word by word: "Doctor, he (his name) meet you on 15th. Back problem. You remember?". He answered "Tamam!" (for OK!). I continued: "He have pain at the back now again!"...well that was plain English, so of course he didn't understood. I rephrased my words: "Back Problem. Pain". This three words did the trick. He understood (Thank God!) and instructed me to give the phone to the attender there (by saying Attender and some Turkish words). Attender after talking for sometime with the doctor told us: "Take Açil". Now what the heck is 'Açil' (pronounced Achil)? We thought for some time and then our gaze fixed on a board there... Which read "Açil (Emergency)". So he was telling us to go to Emergency Dept. Ok.. That much understood. He bought a wheel chair and Mr. Y sat down and together we had gone to Emergency. After some trial and error guesses, we came to know that he was being taken for a CT Scan.

Meanwhile, the attender got hold of a lady, who knows a little bit of English. Well, that "little bit" was a very Heavy relief for us, or for me to say; since I was doing all the talking with those guys.

While I am writing this, I remembered something... Before this 'English speaking' lady came, we came to the Emergency, and a Nurse there told: "He problem with ummm..."; she might had asked her colleague nurse what is the name of the organ, and the other nurse without thinking a thing uttered "Heart!"... I thought "What the...". I asked her did they meant "Kidney", and then they suddenly said, "Yes Yes... He problem in Kidney. Doctor come in bes dakika" [Doctor come in a car? No no... it's something else... Doctor will come in some time... Yes, that seems plausible... I felt like I need the Google translator very badly... Later came to know that 'bes dakika' means 5 minutes, pronounced as Besh dakika. huh!!!]

After the CT Scan, they gave him some medication via a drip. Later when the report for the CT Scan came, it was finalized that Y had stones in his Kidney...But of smaller radius which could get dissolved by themselves after taking some medications. So he was relieved after hearing this and was sleeping under the influence of sedatives given to him via the drip...

The hospital was very neat and clean, compared to the cleanliness of some of the best Indian Hospitals. And there ends the good things. Finally the time came to settle the bills for all the above adventures...After all, adventures are not free, right? They gave a bill of 2500 Turkish Liras (That is 2500 *30, a whopping 75000 INR. Gulp!!!). Mr. Y already had 1300 and I had my 1200 exact amount which I had kept for shopping....It was gone!!! [I have some traveler's cheque left with me, but that also is of no use...The Bank have holidays on Saturday and Sunday!] And I can't shop now, even if Mr Y gives me back the money...Sigh!!! Because the next Saturday, I will be coming back to India; and no time to go in between office hours...

What I didn’t understand in the whole affair is that our company had sent us Onsite on a place where the Insurance they provided didn’t work. Forget that, the doctor didn’t even heard of this Company [Tata AIG Insurance, if you are wondering which Insurance company is that!] We had to pay this from our pocket! I advised the guy to pack his bag and leave for India the next flight. People like his Manager and TLs are so 'Professional' that no one even bothered to call him to the hotel and ask him how he was feeling... Do the work you are assigned to and go home! That's the relation they had between the Managers and the employee...I called his Team Lead (Mr. X, I had talked to earlier) to update the condition of this guy from the Hospital Emergency booth, and he replied: "OK Vipin, thanks for the update! Can you call me back in say 20 minutes? I am bit held up here". Who the hell want to update you... I didn't called after that, of course!!!

Mr. Y will have a tough time for sure, since he have to sit in the flight to reach India for more than 8 hours, have to undergo every tests again (WHY? Because all the damn reports are in Turkish!) and go all the round robin schedule again in an India Hospital.

And for me. well, seems like Dubai Duty free is the only choice left now...Sigh!

Song of the Saint

2011-05-25T22:24:00.000+05:30

“Did you hear that voice?”, Anjana asked him.

“What voice?”, he asked, paying more attention to the direction in which she was directing to.

“That soft raga, flowing out of somewhere…As if, as if It is coming just to tell me something...the way the sound flew from… As if its saying to go and meet the originator of the sound…” She replied with a soft exultation on her voice.

“You have gone crazy!”, he pulled out of the room in anger and shut the door close.

She was still listening to the voice, flowing through the window, reaching her ears. And she almost stood there for about half an hour…

The place, is where she was brought up; where she had ended up all his childhood and his teenage dreams. Place where she had confronted her first love. The place where she played Sitolia (Seven stones) with her childhood friends; The place around the pond where she and her friends used to sit for hours on end chatting and gossiping about the latest TV serials happened to see the night before. She still remembered clearly how she and her friends used to pluck the tender lotuses from the pond, going knee deep inside it. The Song of the old saint flowed out of the old banyan tree in the evenings, when Ma used to lit the Vilakku (lamp) near the Thulasi Thara (Sacred platform where you put in a Basil plant in an Indian house). She loved the song so much that she used to hear it with her eyes closed, enchanted with the old voice…The Evenings were happening when all the people, young or old, gather around the Banyan tree, and discuss about their daily chores and affairs... She still remember how she used to run around the banyan tree and her father told her to be careful about the roots of the tree coming out of the land...The banyan tree acknowledged the children playing and the jovial time people had by shooking the leaves of its trunk with the passing breeze...

Time had flew past all these. She is a married woman now, put up far far away from this magical world of hers. She got a chance to visit this part of her world by means of one of his Maternal uncle. The uncle wished to die in the very home where he also had been brought up. So everyone from her family went to the place to say a final good bye to the old man. Rajesh was at first hesitant of the idea, but her vigor for going kept on increasing and finally he bent to her wish.

The difference now is there is no pond at the place it used to be. There are no lotuses to be plucked now! The Old Saint had passed away long back. People seems to be quite busy with their own affairs and no gatherings happens at the parking area of the banyan tree...The Banyan tree is sighting all these with its own eyes and felt very old, crumbling up on his feet...

The old man died in his sleep after the relatives waited ‘eagerly’ for 2 days. They sighed a relief, and slowly began to depart from the place, which they describe is out of fashion from the city they came from. But Anjana… She was still not ready to leave her abode from that place…Rajesh insisted her to go with him to her home at the city, but something is stopping her to go…The old nostalgic moments she share with the place…The burden of all the memoirs she have with the place loomed large in that small room.

With a heavy heart and the fond memoirs left behind that place, she stepped up on Rajesh's Car... To the big jungle of mankind called as a city, to get lost in it somewhere, burying all her memoirs deeply somewhere...To cherish sometimes in the future again of the beauty of the cold wind gushing to her face, to the place where the song of the Old Saint could be heard again...

Eternity

2011-05-01T11:20:00.000+05:30

"You see the aunt there, she is my second maasi (Mom's Sister). She has a kid, now in 8th grade." She told pointing to a woman in the group of people standing.

"Wow! she looks too young da.". He replied, looking at her Aunt.

"Yeah, she is just 32. She married at the age of 23".

"Well, 23 is not a bad age for marriage, no?" He said with a twinkle in his eyes. "You are also 23 now gorgeous".

"Ha ha...Yeah! Well, can we get married...say Now?"

"Yeah, why not...So we shall go to the church first, since you are a Christian...It doesn't matter much, but still the lady beau is preferred first...right?"

"Hmmm...Chalo then, we will go to the church first".

And together they went to the church near by, hand in hand.

"I want to see you in the white bridal dress... Please... you will look gorgeous in this"

"Hmm... let me see...Ok wait here, I will wear this and come"

And there she comes, after a few minutes, with the white bridal dress. His heart beat drummed louder and faster on the first sight of her. She looked gorgeous as usual; in fact more gorgeous than before. The hair and face nap on her looked as if a leaf is covering the just blossomed flower in the lot from sun. Her hair curls in front danced in rhythm as she puts each step forward towards him. He couldn't took off his eyes from her even for a second.

"So how am I", she asked him in his naughtiest of her ascent.

"Oh god, I am awestruck!", he replied.

She giggled and shy away in his shoulder.

"Shall we proceed? I don't want to loose any more minutes here..."

And together they walked to the hearth near the Church. An old bishop, with his checkered coat was standing there smiling.

"Son and daughter of God! You have come here for the auspicious bondage and I shall bring you both together. So X, son of S and L and Y, daughter of P and T, do you accept this bondage of life between the two?"

They together replied, "Yes father! We do!!!"

"And so in the name of god, I proclaim Mr X and Ms Y as husband and wife! Mr X you may now kiss the bride".

"Isn't this a little filmy?" He murmured in her ears.

"Shut up and kiss" she replied back...

They lip locked each other, and they got absolved in each other for they themselves don't know how long. Both looked happy and hope the love between them remains so forever...

They walked down the Church path lane amidst the whole crowd, who were admiring the beauty and charisma of the newly weds. They came to the same place where they were standing before. Tear drops were rolling as pearls from her eyes.

"Now that we are married, why are you crying?" He asked.

"I am not crying...that's every girls custom to do so after the ceremony"

"Oh is it so? " And they both laughed at each other.

"Well now it's over from my part. I want to marry in Hindu rituals too...I will wear a Kanchivaram Embroidered Saari , and you should put up with a Sherwani!" She chirped with excitement again.

"OK, we shall meet at the temple there", pointing to a small temple just opposite to the Church building, " in 15 minutes" ?

"Not 15 minutes...It's hard to wear a Saari for me." you wait for me in the temple.

"OK..."

They again departed way to dress...This time the groom dressed himself in a fabulous Sherwani. And he looked Charming and handsome as usual. The color of the Sherwani matched his skin tone and he looked the perfect groom for whomever he was going to tie the knot.

He waited at the temple for more than 30 minutes. And there she comes again, with the Kanchivaram Silk striking bright on her, the Garlands on her hair and the pieces of jewelery shining on every part of her.

The Agni-kund (Sacred Fire-place for Hindu rituals) was waiting for them . He was already sitting at the place of the groom, and the bride came after him, took a bow and with folding hands, sat at the bride's place. Shehnai began to ring in their ears. After some chants of the shlokas and mantras, the Hindu priest told the groom to tie the holy knot on the brides' neck. The Shehnai and the Nadaswarams pace grew faster and louder . The priest told them to do the pradikshanas (going round) of the Agni-kund, with the bride's hand in the groom's. They did the pradikshanas 7 times and sat at the same place where they were sitting. The people gathered around was again praising the beauty and charisma of the newly weds.

The Hindu priest chanted some Shlokas and told the newly weds to take the blessings of their parents. The newly weds looked around but couldn't see their parents in the crowd standing there or sitting.

They stood up in the Kalyana Mandapam, and slowly walked towards the church gate...While walking towards the church they saw some people shouting and crying. On watching closely, they saw their own relatives crying and beating their chest...They saw their mothers lying down on the floor, unconscious. Their fathers crying bitterly...They walked slowly towards them, with a horrific terror growing in their hearts. On reaching the place, they saw two people lying on two separate stretchers and covered with white bed linens. A gush of wind passed through the place, and the faces of the dead people was revealed by the wind...

The terror passed through the newly weds heart like lightening bolts. They are seeing themselves lying without life on the wheel stretcher of the Hospital. Still smiling in their deep sleep, never to wake up again. They hoped they could console the relatives crying on their life less bodies, they hoped they could tell their relatives that they were still alive, but they felt as if something was pulling them away from speaking to them.

She wept louder and asked him, "Are we dead?" He looked at her without an answer to her query.

God Smiled

2011-03-15T00:10:00.001+05:30

I am inspired by the Dell Support guys...My Dell Inspiron Mini had broke some days before and it was not booting up. While booting, it stops with continuous beeps. I logged a support case with Dell, and since it is under warranty, all the proceeding of the support went well...They replaced the Keyboard of the Mini, and it's working fine now and this blog is written with the same keyboard tucked in today into my Mini Netbook...

Usually I go to office with my room mate, but sometimes, like mostly on Monday mornings or on days when my roomy goes out of town, I will go by the public transport in Trivandrum. So during one of this travel, I was standing in the bus stand of the IT Hub in Trivandrum, when an harsh voice from behind came into my ears, "Saare valathum tharane...randu divasam aayi enthengilum kazhichittu"... I turned around, and saw a woman, probably in her late 30s, with an unusually malnutritioned kid in her hips. I could count the number of bones protruding out of the kids face and neck. His mother (I presume) is also in the same condition...She has clothes just to cover her essentials. The kid was crying in his full throttle, and the woman touched my shirt sleeve and asked to give her something for food...I was enraged, how dare she touched me!!! That unhygenic creep from drain... I looked at her in disgust and moved aside as if I had not seen her and was looking at my own business...

She went to other people standing there at the bus stop...Some people did the same which I had done; and some blown harsh words to her to repel her away from them. Seemed like it was a bad day for her and no one from the crowd had given her a single penny that time. She quietly had gone to the back of the Bus Stop, where there was a dirty cloth lying with a small bundle of things aside. The child by now was furious and nothing seemed to be consoling him. She tried thrusting the motherly 'baby feed' into his mouth, but where do a nomad gets water in the mirage of the desert? I watched the lady's face carefully...Her eyes has suddenly changed from piteousness to sorrowfulness. Tiny drops of tear starts coming from her eyes, rolling down her blackened eyes and dirty cheeks. She tried consoling the child by thrusting a bottle with water , I suppose, to the child's mouth. The child, for some time suddenly stopped crying and the woman's face seemed clearer than before now.

But as soon as the child knew that he had been cheated, he started again. The lady tried her luck again, and placing the crying child on the dirty cloth, went again to beg to the people standing at the Bus stop. And as it seemed that it was not her day, she didn't got any thing from anyone. She came back again to her child, tried consoling it, and now her sorrowness was more bitter than before...

Had it not that my Bus came, I would have never done what I had done. I pulled out some money from my secret pocket (didn't see how much), and quickly gave it to the lady and darted towards the bus. I got a seat on the same side where the lady is, and I could see a calm face looking towards me with a smile...

In the evening, I had gone to the local temple. I looked at the idol of the god sitting at the Sanctorum, while the priest of the temple was offering the rituals...And I could see the same smile on his face, which I had seen on the lady beggar's face in the morning...Literally!!! God smiled at me...

City of Istanbul

2011-03-06T23:29:00.000+05:30

Writing after so long...Need to follow up on this writing every week. Time is a constraint for me now, but you have to snatch the time from time dude!!!

Something special happening with me? Yeah, been to Istanbul (Turkey) for a month... The place is awesome, but all the awesomeness went in vain due to the burden of work. Out of the 4 weeks I was there, I was able to roam around the Old city of Istanbul only once. But anyways, as is always the case, every bad experience follows up with a good one, and I too have the same experience. Got many new friends from the other parts of the Country (Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai and Chandigarh!!!) Hopefully we will meet up some times while in India... :-)

Istanbul is called the Cultural Capital of Europe, and truly so...One thing which amused me there is the Bosphorus bridge, which cuts through the center of the City. One half of the city is in Asia and the other half is in Europe. Before reaching the city, I thought that it would be like all the other Islamic countries of the Middle East...But I was proved totally wrong! They have more of an European Culture than the Islamic one... So every where you go, you could see women smoking and taking sips from a Vodka cocktail, public display of affection, much like in any of the European countries. People there are friendly, opposite to the popular beliefs; And it seemed like we Indians (Industanis' as we are called there. Pakistanis are called Pakis) are famous there because of Sharukh khan and Aishwarya Rai... :-) Wherever you go, in any of the local vendors or the Super markets, we are recognised with the Bollywood symbols...

And it seems odd now to me to travel through KSRTC buses to office, since all the 30 days I was there, I would be traveling in Local Taxis from Office to Hotel and vice versa. It became a general routine for me, and it looks to odd to me ow when I am travelling through KSRTC buses to office... :-)

And in the first time in my life, have seen snow falling. it looked and feel awesome when snow flakes fall into your hair and body. Have taken pictures in the snow, which you can view if you are a friend of mine ion facebook.

While returning, there was a 20 hours stoppage for me at the Dubai Airport...And i am more than happy for that. Had met my sister, who is settled there now and did some shopping from the Dubai mall...Electronic Items are, as the popular belief goes, really cheap there (Example: 3 TB WD external HDD costs around 300 DHS, that is 3600 Indian Rupees. Amazing!!!) and I should plan for a visit to Dubai again soon!!! :-)

Okies...that's a small update on happening things at my side for the past one month. Will update the entries soon with new Items.... ;-) Chao and see you all later.

Am I in Love?

2010-12-27T22:48:00.002+05:30

Kadhale thedi poga mudiyathu...Athu nelaikkathu...Athuva nadakkanum...Nammale pottu thaakkanum...Thala keela pottu thirupanum...Epavume kuuda irukanum... Athan true love...Athu enaku nadanthathu.. Ennai adichathu antha kadhal...

Yes, I am in Love!!! Again...

I am so Lucky...

2010-12-27T22:23:00.000+05:30

Yipeeee... I have won 84 'Lahks' from India Government for me to use it judiciously and to employ others. "The Ministry of work" has also approved it...

NB: Before reaching to any conclusion, please read the header of the mail in red from GMail.

Conversation...

2010-06-21T23:57:00.003+05:30

Guy: Hello...Good Morning.

Girl: Very GM

Guy: How are you doing today?

Girl: I am fine. What about you?

Guy: Me fine too...Thanks.

Guy: So started your work?

Girl (after a pause): Yeah...Have lots of work assigned to me. Have to complete it today. You don't have any work it seems.

Guy: I do have lots of work too, but I chat in between...Multitasking you know.

Girl: Ohooo... :-)

Guy: By the way, where are you working?

Girl: I work in PQRS India. I think I had told you this before.

Guy: ha ha ha

Girl: What? Why laughing?

Guy: You haven't told this before. I laughed becoz I am also in the same company as you are.

Girl: :-)

Guy: So which Facility are you in?

Girl: The Whitefield one.

Guy: Really? Which Tower?

Girl: Tower A

Guy: he he...Which Floor?

Girl: 7th Floor...

Guy: (Now in amazement and thrilled): Which Bay?

Girl: Bay-3

Guy: Heck...You sit on the same bay where I am sitting. (Looking around...) Where are you?

Girl: Turn around...

Guy turns around...

(A broad grin on the girl's face, and a confused smile on the guy's face)

Conversation ends here...And the Guy moves on... :-)

The girl had already been moved! :-)

The Stolen and the Gotten Ordeal

2010-06-14T23:46:00.002+05:30

So guys, how are you all doing? Hope everyone is good and in their pink of their health… :-)

I hadn't updated my blog for nearly 7 months...Wow! Now that's a lot of time. It's not because I didn't have the creative juices flowing, but because so many things happened in my life in those 7 months, that I couldn't make out the difference between being busy or being free... :-)

Let me start (or rather restart) the blog with a Bangalore experience...I lost my reindeer of the snow!!! I lost my Raavan's Pushpaka Vimana!!! Some Mareech had stolen it...Ok Ok, I wanted to say that some one had stolen my bike from my residence. The instant question you might have is didn't I locked it? Of course, I had locked it! But the crooks are lot more sophisticated these days, you know? The place where I usually parked my bike is closed from one end, and the other end is a small passage from where a small bike can narrowly pass through. Still the felons had taken it from there...

I woke up in the morning, got ready for office, came down from my room....Only to see that something is missing from the place...With the keys of the bike in my hand, I thought of what is amiss from the usual place? Then I realized that my bike is not there where I usually used to park it...I stood there for some seconds, thought of the day before if I had really came in bike from office and then realized that I did came from office with my bike. After gaining the senses, with the Helmet on my head, I had gone to the landlord to check if he had seen the bike parked there...He told that he hadn't observed it there (Well, what else did I was expecting he should answer?) He told me to go to the Mico layout Police station and lodge a complaint. I phoned my room mate (Yes! Another one had come..His story later!) and one of my close friend , of course for advises...These advises come in handy, Isn't?

Well, the next part of the story began at the Police station...Oh Life! You had shown me the path to a police station also now. I had been never to a Police station before, excpet once, that too from the outside of the Police station premises when my bike got towed away from a No-Parking zone. So I entered the station and there I found the SHO, Mr BG sitting in a chair, chewing a red-betel leaf...I told him that some one had stolen my bike from my residence...He looked at me, as if I had disturbed him from some deep meditation and asked where my residence is. I told it in the 16th Main... (What else should I say?) He asked me irritated, (read it in Kannada style!) "Which placeu, Which locationu, which house numberu, which crossu?" I told him the address, and he pulled out a White sheet from a pile of papers and asked, gesturing to the white sheet "You write From addressu, To addressu, Subjectu stolen my biku, your compalintu with the gaadi registration numberu, and your contact numberu here..and give it to me...". I wrote the complaint as he saidu (I mean said), and he told to come in the evening to collect the FIR copy of the complaint.

In the evening the same day, I went to the Police station again to collect the FIR report. One cop accompanied me to home (rather I accompanied him on his bike...It's nice to have a ride as a pillion on a cop's bike... :-)) to see the "Spot of Incidence". He asked for some "chai-paani" (understood?) for this, which I had to give and later I got my FIR copy. I submitted all the documents to my Insurance agent, along with the RC book and original keys...Let's see what happens to this. I have to go again to Police station for the No-trace report of the vehicle, within 90 days of the FIR complaint, only after which the Insurance company will disburse the Insured amount.

While all this is happening, I tried moving out of my the-then current company (Hewlett Packard). I got in Infy Mysore, which I later asked the HR to change the location to Trivandrum. I was all set to go to Trivandrum (I had a send-off party too from some of the HP colleagues), when I finally got an offer from Accenture (Yes! again). I decide to join back Accenture and it's been around 2 weeks now since I have joined. Except a few lazy beings, or people who are already in some onsite positions, all other guys from my previous project and Greenfield training had left Accenture. But for me, the good thing is I gotta see so many "Tarunimanikal" at Accenture ;-) It's a real green pasture for eyes...:-)

Its been very hard to get into Accenture because of their sloppy HR processes (The story behind this later!). But I am the one lucky guy who got the offer from them after a long struggle. I think the other guys still didn't got any call from them, even after 3 months of their selection process. The HR guys made a mistake of keeping me waiting for long (saying I am a rehire!)...Thanks to the Vice President, HR who intervened and made the process faster for me. I don't know what have happened to the other poor guys who got selected after a whole Saturday's ordeal of selection processes three months' back...

Well, these are not the only things happened during the 7 months. Will update the blog of what's happened, is happening and will be happening with me on the coming days.... Chao for now! Feeling sleepy...

I am back...

2010-05-05T22:25:00.000+05:30

Huhhh....I am back guys. With lots of new News happening around me. Sorry for the 6 months of sudden disappearance in Exile. Keep tuned into the site for updates shortly...

I see some faces lightning up. Thank you guys. Keep it lightened... :-)

Sunitha Krishnan - The Crusader

2009-12-16T13:43:00.004+05:30

Sunitha Krishnan has dedicated her life to rescuing women and children from sex slavery. She co-founded an NGO called 'Prajwala' based at Hyderabad, AP (India), which helps in the rehabilitation of those broken souls. She leads India’s battle against sexual slavery by uniting government, corporations and NGOs to end human trafficking.

In the courageous talk shown above (Courtesy Ted Talks) , she tells three powerful stories, as well as her own, and calls for a more humane approach to helping these young victims rebuild their lives.

She had nearly damaged one of her ear's hearing some years back, fighting with some goons! Salute to this woman for all her works!!!

Anuraaga Vilochananaayi...

2009-12-14T22:36:00.003+05:30

A Nice song from the Malayalam movie Neelathaamara, released recently...

Sweet song, isn't? :-) And guys, you know who has sung this one? Yep Shreya Ghoshal and V. Sreekumar....Shreya, u rock! Not a word seems like it's sung by a non-mallu...Kudos to you.

I never take a risk...

2009-11-27T18:28:00.001+05:30

I never take risk while drinking…

When I come home from office in the evening, wife is cooking,

I can hear the noise of utensils in the kitchen,

I stealthily enter the house,

Take out the bottle from the bar,

Guru Nanak is looking at me from the photo frame,

But still no one is aware of it,

Because I never take a risk...

I take out the glass from the rack above the old sink,

Quickly enjoy one peg,

Wash the glass and again keep it on the rack,

Of course I also keep the bottle inside my cupboard,

Guru Nanak is giving a smile,

I peep into the kitchen,

Wife is cutting potatoes,

No one is aware of what I did,

Because I never take a risk...

I ask: Any news on Iyer's daughter's marriage,

She says: Nope, she doesn't seem to be that lucky. Still they are looking out for her,

I again come out; there is a small noise of the black cupboard,

But I don't make any sound while taking out the bottle,

I take out the glass from the old rack above sink,

Quickly enjoy one peg,

Wash the bottle and keep it in the sink,

Also keep the Black Glass in the cupboard,

But still no one is aware of what I did,

Because I never take a risk...

I say: But still I think Iyer's daughter's age is not that much,

She says: What are you saying? She is 28 yrs old... like an aged horse,

I say: (I forgot her age is 28) Oh Oh...

I again take out potatoes from my black cupboard,

But the cupboard's place has automatically changed,

I take out the bottle from the rack and quickly enjoy one peg in the sink,

Guru Nanak laughs loudly,

I keep the rack in the potatoes & wash Guru Nanak's photo & keep it in the black cupboard,

Wife is keeping the sink on the stove,

But still no one is aware of what I did,

Because I never take a risk...

I say: (getting angry) you call Mr. Iyer a horse? If you say that again, I will cut your tongue...!

She says: Don't just blabber something, go out and sit quietly...

I take out the bottle from the potatoes,

Go in the black cupboard and enjoy a peg,

Wash the sink and keep it over the rack,

Wife is giving a smile,

Guru Nanak is still cooking,

But still no one is aware of what I did,

Because I never take a risk...

I say: (laughing) So Iyer is marrying a horse!!

She says: Hey go and sprinkle some water on your face...

I again go to the kitchen, and quietly sit on the rack,

Stove is also on the rack,

There is a small noise of bottles from the room outside,

I peep and see that wife is enjoying a peg in the sink,

But none of the horses are aware of what I did,

Because Guru Nanak never takes a risk,

Iyer is still cooking,

And I am looking at my wife from the photo and laughing,

Because I never take a risk...

जीने की आस (ജീവിക്കാന്‍ ഒരു പ്രേരണ)

2009-11-21T02:58:00.007+05:30

हर एक पल जैसे सदियों सी गुजरती हुई,

तुझमे मिली हुई, मुझे मेरे जैसा बनाती हुई ...
तेरे साथ बिताए लम्हों की याद
हज़ारों दर्द एक साथ उमद्द्थी हुई ...
विश्वास की तुम मुझे कई ज्यादा चाहती हो,
जितना की में तुम्हे चाहता हूँ ...
विश्वास की किसी भी पल तुम मेरे पास लौट के आओगी
बस अब यही जीने की आस रह गई है....

In Malayalam, it translates to...

ഓരോ നിമിഷവും യുഗങ്ങളായി തള്ളി നിക്കുന്ന
നിന്നില്‍ അലിഞ്ഞു ചേര്‍ന്ന, എന്നെ ഞ്യാന്‍ ആകിയ
നിന്‍റെ ഓര്‍മ്മകള്‍ ഒരു ആയിരം വിങ്ങലായി വരുംഭോഴും
ഞ്യാന്‍ നിന്നെ സ്നേഹികുനതിനെ കാല്‍ ഏറെ
നീ എന്നെ സ്നേഹിക്കുന്നു എന്ന വിശ്വാസം
ഏത് നിമിഷവും എന്‍റെ അടുത്ത് എത്തുമെന്ന വിശ്വാസം
എന്നെ ജീവിക്കാന്‍ പ്രേരിപിക്കുന്നു ...

What's your Raashee?

2009-11-18T11:53:00.005+05:30

Splendid song from "What's Your Raashee". Harman and demi-goddess Priyanka as the Cancerian Girl...

Although the movie was a super-duper flop in the box office, I liked some of the characters played by PC. This Cancerian girl (Hansa) on which the above song is based on, the college going Geminian (Kaajal) and the Virgo Girl (Pooja, the Doc) were my favorites...

So, which one is your Raashee? :-)

Sujatha's Thaaratu..

2009-11-04T14:44:00.005+05:30

Sujatha sings all the "thaaraatu" songs from her heart, and it shows...Be it "Engane Gyan Urankendu"[Deshadanam] or "Chembakapoo"[November Rain], I just love all her thaaratu songs (and of course other songs too!)

And here is one of my favorite malayalam song from recent releases [Kaana Kanmani]:

The Haka...

2009-10-31T11:23:00.006+05:30

Haka is the traditional dance form of the Maori of New Zealand. It is a posture dance performed by a group with vigorous movements and stamping of the feet with rhythmically shouted accompaniment.

The All black Rugby team of New Zealand is famous for performing the Haka before the opponent team. See the video above. It really looks like a 'war-dance' against the opponents...This type of Haka is known as 'Kamate' Haka, and the verbal shout go like this:

Ringa pakia! (Slap the hands against the thighs!)

Uma tiraha! (Puff out the chest!)

Turi whatia! (Bend the knees!)

Hope whai ake! (Let the hip follow!)

Waewae takahia kia kino! (Stamp the feet as hard as you can!)

Ka mate, ka mate ('I die, I die,)

Ka ora' Ka ora' ('I live, 'I live,)

Ka mate, ka mate ('I die, 'I die)

Ka ora Ka ora" ('I live, 'I live,)

Tēnei te tangata pūhuruhuru (This is the hairy man)

Nāna i tiki mai whakawhiti te rā (Who caused the sun to shine again for me)

Upane... Upane (Up the ladder, Up the ladder)

Upane Kaupane" (Up to the top)

Whiti te rā,! (The sun shines!)

Hī! (Rise!)

Here is a variation of the 'Kamate' Haka...This one is called the 'Cut-throat' Haka, called because of the gesture they do at the end of it...

Imagine the Kiwi players doing it before their cricket match... :-)

October 2009 Roundup...

2009-10-30T16:30:00.003+05:30

Uhhh...Writing after many days...Went to kerala, for, well....so many things. It's our new home's House warming and by God's grace, my sister also got engaged and both of these important event happened on the same day, one after the other. It was like the House warming ceremony was from 8:30 AM to 9:30 AM and the Engagement ceremony (Ring exchange) was from 9:30 to 10:30 AM. Both of these events happened at the new house, and we arranged a common lunch for the guests for the events... Got lots of gifts (mostly crockeries!) for the House warming; it took me more than 1 hour to unpack all the things... ;-)

Here is a photograph of the Sanctum room of the house before the ceremony. It's now full with lots of photos, and hanging lamps which is not shown here...

And here is my cousin brother's creativity ....He named the title of the photograph "Aadu thoma" (All mallus invariably knows who this is right? ;-) ) He made me stand like that wearing a Lungi....ughhhh....By the way, my right foot was on top of a basket ball, which he cleverly didn't captured... :-)

October 2009 was a happening month to be remembered in my whole life. Some one had said it right: "Jobs, Marriage and Home: You can't predict when it comes your way! And when it comes you never expected it to come!". My parents came from Jaipur to Kerala for the House warming ceremony and to "fix-up" a girl for me...They didn't have any slightest idea that my sister is going to be engaged so quickly instead... :-) My bro-in-law is working as an Engineer in a Telecom company in Dubai, and he went to Dubai after the engagement. The marriage will be fixed some time in June/July.

And, by the way, I am still free... ;-)

PT on You...

2009-10-06T21:59:00.006+05:30

An humiliated PT Usha broke down after she was not given proper accommodation at the National Athletics Meet in Bhopal.

Wow! Now this is a News. We are talking about a yesteryear International level Athlete, now a coach for other female athletes. A multiple gold medalist in Asian Games and a "nearly" bronze medalist in Olympics. Really pity to see that one who has put her heart and soul into a sport where recognition arrives very rare is meted out with such a situation.

If this is the attitude towards a person like Usha (Remember she was named sportsperson of the century by the Indian Olympic Association! Phew!!!), one can imagine the plight of other players. No wonder why Michael Fennell, the president of the Commonwealth Games Federation is sceptical about India's capability to held big sport events which is scheduled to be held next year. And with the recent number of accidents (Walls crumbling down, cranes crashing) in the Capital, it seems that the guy is good to be more skeptic.

What would have happened if this were a Cricket player? Why in India, there is only two sports: Cricket and Non-Cricket? No one cares about the people who made India proud in the second Non-Cricket area - Remember Milkha Singh? Remember P K Bannerjee? Forget all these, remember Sunil Chetri? And if I ask a group of people, if they know Manoj Prabhakar, majority of them shall know who he is. Right?

If this is how we are going to treat our own sports persons who are not into cricket, forget medals, even participation at international level will be a distant dream. Its better if we improve our basic sports infrastructure (other than Cricket) first before we hold the Common Wealth Games next year.

INDIA SHINING !!!

Pullikuyile...

2009-09-27T02:23:00.005+05:30

A sensuous song by Sujatha from a Malayalam movie... Her voice mingles with the background so callously...Even after 6 years, since I heard this for the first time, it still seems new and fresh. I just love this one...

Jai Mata di...

2009-09-27T00:42:00.002+05:30

Jai Mata di...
9 days for the goddess....

Yeh Saazish hai Boondon ki...

2009-09-26T04:31:00.006+05:30

Dedicated to the rains in Bangalore; and to the "subject" in these lines... ;-)
Lines from the movie Fanaa [2006, Hindi] ...
..........................................................................................................

Yeh Saazish Hai Boondo Ki, Koi Khwahish Hai Chup Chup Si
Dekho Na...

Hawa Kuch Hole Hole, Zubaan Se Kya Kuch Bole
Kyun Doori Hai Ab Darmiyaan
Dekho Na...

Phir Na Hawaayein Hongi Itni Besharam
Phir Na Dag Mag Dag Mag Honge Yeh Kadam
Saawan Yeh Seeda Nahin Koofiya Bada
Kuch To Baraste Hue Keh Raha
Samjo Na...

Hawa Kuch Hole Hole, Zubaan Se Kya Kuch Bole
Kyun Doori Hai Ab Darmiya
Dekho Na...

Jugnu Jaisi Chaahat Dekho Jale Mujhe
Meethi Si Mushkil Hai Koi Kya Karen
Hoton Ki Arzi Aisi Tukhrao Na
Saanson Ki Marzi Ko Jutlao Na
Chulo Na...

Hawa Kuch Hole Hole, Zubaan Se Kya Kuch Bole
Na Doori Hai Ab Darmiya
Dekho Na...

Radiators and Drains

2009-09-22T23:42:00.000+05:30

How true is this fact - There are two types of people: Radiators and Drains. I remember reading it somewhere and experiencing it now and then...

Radiators are people who fill you up with Energy...You feel happy when you are with them, you feel happy when you see them. You feel good talking to them. They leave you feeling good about yourself and whenever you try thinking about them, you look forward like meeting them next. They are fun to be with, full of life and always positive. Ofcourse they need not be your close friends. Like an example, In my work place, there used to sit a lady some 2/3 cubicles away. She always started her telephonic conversations regarding her work to, I suppose, her superior, in an easy tone, always giggling in between and loud. Whenever I heard that voice, I felt a new energy has been supplemented in me. I have never seen or met this lady, but still her voice made me feel good. She had, I think, moved on to a new cubicle and I still miss her morning conversations.

As another example, is a senior colleague of mine, who joins us in every Morning Coffee/Tea time and Lunch. Whenever we (me and my another colleague) finish interacting with him, we feel happy, positive and recharged. And whenever he is absent, we feel like some void has been with us...

Drains are people who let you feel down. They may not say or do any thing unpleasent but interacting with them makes you totally drained out of your energy. Drains may have spoken to you very politely and pleasently, but after interacting with them, you feel like your enthusiasm dipping and you are utterly dissatisfied. Drains are not necessarrily people you hate. They may be your relative, your friends or someone who leaves you feeling inadequate in a way that can't be explained. Drains may be helping you, with out knowing or realizing that it is more of harming you than helping.

So what do you think you were for your relatives, friends or colleagues today?

Handling the Mundd (Dhoti)

2009-09-19T18:52:00.005+05:30

God! Seems like I will have a tough time handling the dhoti ("Mundd" as it is called in Malayalam) in the coming times ahead... :-P

Everything is fine until the knot of the Mundd loosens up... :-D I still remember, once when I was in Kerala and went to buy something, and the damned shirt didn't had pockets. The Mundd will have a little loose space at its end where usually people keep stuffs like money. So I did the same thing, and on reaching the store, I did an MJ finding it tough to find the money where I had placed it...Damn it! I opened it completely and there comes the currency notes, down my legs.... :-P Needless to say, the shopkeeper was hysteric with laughter...

Uhhhh, how do people manage it while walking, sitting and sleeping?

Icecream @ Midnight

2009-09-19T04:14:00.007+05:30

A good scene from the Telugu movie Bommarillu. A scene in which the protagonist wanted to have Ice cream in the dead of the night...Notice how she offers a lift to Siddu (Siddharth) back home at the end... :-)

Fraud Interview Mail

2009-09-14T14:08:00.004+05:30

Good Interview call...Anyone going? ;-)

Good English, Good Professionalism (Company will arrange all facilities only for female candidate)... :-D

====================================================================

Subject : Your Resume has been selected.

from: HRD Direct Recruitment hide details Apr 22 (13 hours ago)

to:

date Apr 22, 2009 10:02 PM

subject Your Resume has been selected.

mailed-by gmail.com

Dear Applicant,

Ref: “Intel Group” Direct Recruitments offer.

It is our good pleasure to inform you that your Resume has been selected for our new plant. The Company selected 48 candidates list for IT, Administration and Production Departments, as well as Company offered you to join as an Executive/Manager post in respective department. You are selected according to your resume in which Project you have worked on according to that you have been selected in Company. The Company is dealing in Electronics manufacturing business in India The Company is recruiting the candidates for new plants in Delhi, Bangalore and Pune.

Your interview will held at Company Corporate office on – 28th April 2009 at 11.30 in PUNA .

You will be pleased to know that Company has advise you in the selection panel that your Application can be progress to final stage. You will come to Company corporate office in Delhi. Your offer latter with Air Ticket will be send to you by courier before date of interview. The Company can be offer you as salary with benefits for this post 30, 000/- to 2, 00, 000/- P.M. + (HRA + D.A + Conveyance and other Company benefits. The designation and Job Location will be fix by Company HRD. At time of final process. You have to come with photo-copies of all required documents.

REQUIRED DOCUMENTS BY THE COMPANY HRD.

1) Photo-copies of Qualification Documents.

2) Photo-copies of Experience Certificates (If any)

3) Photo-copies of Address Proof

4) Two Passport Size Photograph

You have to deposit the (Cash) as an initial amount in favor of Company HRD. Department. for Rs. 5, 582/- through any [PNB BANK]ranch from your Home City to Company Senior HRD. Account NO 1709000108038586 - Name of Mr. Rahul Kumar. This is refundable interview security. Your offer latter with Air tickets will be send to your Home Address by courier after receiving the confirmation of interview security deposited in PNB BANK. Company will pay all the expenditure to you at the time of face-to-face meeting with you in Company. The Job profile, salary offer, and date -time of interview will be mention in your offer latter. Your offer latter will dispatch very shortly after receiving your confirmation of cash deposited in PNB BANK. We wish you the best of luck for the subsequent and remaining stage.

The last date of security deposited in bank - 23/4/2009 – Thursday.

You have to give the information after deposited the security money in bank to Company HRD – direct recruitment email ID: - intel.hr@dr.com. Your Latter with supporting documents will be dispatch same time by courier to your postal address after recd. Your security deposited confirmation in bank. The interview process and arrangement expenditure will be pay by Company. Lodging, traveling and local conveyance actual will be paid by Company as per bills. The candidate has to deposit the initial refundable security as mentioned by HRD. If the candidate wants to come with his parents or friends, the Company will arrange all facilities only for female candidate.

Thanks,

Sachin bajaj - (Executive - HRD)

Intel Group India Ltd.

H.O. - 174, Intel House,

G.S. Road – 22, Mountal road,

NEW DELHI – 91

Contact No. – 9258384312

====================================================================

ഒരു ഹോട്ടല്‍ സംഭവം

2009-09-13T17:15:00.001+05:30

കുറെ നാലായി എന്തെങ്ങിലും സംഭവം എഴുതിയിട് അല്ലെ? അപ്പോഴാണ്‌ എന്നികു ഇത് ഓര്മ വന്നത്. നടന്നത് ഏകദേശം മൂനര കൊല്ലം മുമ്പ്‌...Accentureഇല് ജോലി ചൈയ്തോണ്ട് ഇരിക്കുന്ന സമയം. ഒരു ദിവസം അന്ന് ഞങ്ങളുടെ US returned സീനിയര്‍ മാനേജര്‍ എല്ലാ ടീം മേംബെര്മാരെയം വിളിച്ചു, ഒരു പ്ര്യ്ഖ്യപനം നടത്തി..."ഇന്ന് എല്ലാവരും ലഞ്ച് ഹോട്ടല്‍ അശോകയില്‍ വെച്ച് ആക്കട്ടെ..." എല്ലാവരയുടെയും മുഖത്ത് ഒരു പുഞ്ചിരി... ഇന്ന് ആ‍ വൃത്തികെട്ട cafeteriayille ഭക്ഷണം കഴികണ്ടല്ലോ... എല്ലാവരും ഈ വിചാരത്തില്‍ കൃത്യ സമയത്ത് തന്നെ പറഞ്ഞ ഹോട്ടലില്‍ എത്തി ചേര്‍ന്നൂ... ഒരു ആഴ്ച വിശന്നു അലയുന്ന സിംഹങ്ങളെ പോല്ലേ എല്ലാവരും കിട്ടിയ സാധങ്ങള്‍ വെട്ടി വിഴുങ്ങി...എല്ലാം കഴിഞ്പ്പോള്‍ ബില്‍ കൊടുക്കാന്‍ സമയം വരുമല്ലോ... കൂടെ സീനിയര്‍ മാനേജര്‍ ആന്‍ഡ്‌ നമ്മുടെ സ്വന്തം മാനേജര്‍ അല്ലെ ഇരികുന്നത്...അപ്പോള്‍ എന്ത് വറി? അതിന്റെ ഇട്ക്ക് സീനിയര്‍ മാനേജര്‍ മെല്ലെ ഹോട്ടല്‍ മാനേജര്‍ കൌണ്ടര്‍ ഇന്റെ അടുത്ത് പോയി, ക്രെഡിറ്റ്‌ കാര്‍ഡ്‌ കൊടുത്തു swipe ചെയ്യിച്ചു. ഞങ്ങളുടെ മാനേജര്‍ ഇന്റെ മുഖത്തും സന്തോഷം; ബില്‍ പേ ചൈയ്തലൊ .....എല്ലാവരും പോകാന്‍ ഒരുങ്ങി, എന്നിട്ട് ഹോട്ടലിന്റെ വെല്ലിയിലൊട്ട് ഇറങ്ങി...ഏറ്റവും അവസാനം ഞങ്ങളുടെ മാനേജര്‍ഉം. അപ്പോളതാ പുറകീന് ഒരു വിളി, "സര്‍, ബില്‍ പേ ചെയ്യ്തില്ല..ബില്‍ പേ ചെയ്യ്ത്‌ പോകണം പ്ലീസ്...". എല്ലാവരും മുകത്തോട് മുഖം നോക്കി, ഒന്നും മനസിലാകാതെ... മാനേജര്‍ പറഞ്ഞു, ദേ ആ‍ നില്‍കുന്ന ആള് പേ ചൈയ്താലോ (നമ്മുടെ കക്ഷി യെ ചൂണ്ടി കാണിച്ചോണ്ട്!). ഹോട്ടല്‍ മാനേജര്‍ ചിരിച്ചോണ്ട് പറഞ്ഞത് കേട്ട് ഞങ്ങള്‍ ചിരികണോ,കരയന്നോ എന്ന് അറിയാതെ വാ പൊളിച്ചു നിന്ന് പോയി... കക്ഷി അയാളുടെ സണ്ട്വിച്ച് ആന്‍ഡ്‌ ഫ്രൂട്ട് ജ്യൂസ്‌ ഇന്റെ ബില്‍ മാത്രമേ പേ ചൈയ്തുട്ടുല്ലു...പാവം മാനേജര്‍...തന്ന്റെ ക്രെഡിറ്റ്‌ കാര്‍ഡ്‌ swipe ചെയ്യിച്ചു ഹൊടെലിന്നു തടി തപ്പി...

തിരിച്ചു ഓഫീസ്ഇല്ലോട്ടു പോകുന്ന വഴി മാനേജര്‍ സീനിയര്‍ മാനേജര്‍ ഇന്നോട് അടക്കി വെച്ച വിഷമം (ബില്‍ റീ-imbursible അല്ലായിരുന്നു) പറഞ്ഞു... അപ്പോല്ലലെ മക്കളെ സംഭവം അറിയുനേ.... ഈ ഒരു അലവലാതി US കള്‍ച്ചര്‍എ... USല്‍ ഗ്രൂപ്പ്‌ lunchല്‍ പോകുമ്പോള്‍ എല്ലാവരും താന്‍ കഴിച്ച ഭക്ഷണത്തിന്റെ പൈസ തനെതാന്‍ കൊടുകണം...അത് ഒരു ടീം ലഞ്ച് ആയാലും... :-)

സംതൃപ്തി ആയി.. അതില്‍ പിന്നെ എത്ര വിളിച്ചിടും ആരും സീനിയര്‍ മാനേജര്‍ ഇന്റെ കൂടെ ലഞ്ച് ഇന്ന് പൊയിട്ടില...

Kya record hai...

2009-09-13T05:50:00.002+05:30

Indians have the knack to break every records....

So when are we going to break this ? ;-)

I Hate...

2009-09-13T04:57:00.003+05:30

I hate the way you talk to me,

and the way you cut your hair...

I hate the way you drive my car,

I hate it when you stare...

I hate your big dumb combat boots,

and the way you read my mind...

I hate you so much it makes me sick,

it even makes me rhyme...

I hate the way you are always right,

I hate it when you lie...

I hate it when you make me laugh,

even worse when you make me cry...

I hate it when you are not around,

and the fact that you didn't call...

But most of all I hate the way I don't hate you,

not even close, not even a li'l bit, not even at all...

The Toy House...

2009-08-30T11:57:00.007+05:30

A Romantic song from Telugu movie Bommarillu (aka The Toy House). The Song has the voice trademark of Sreenivas ("Jeans") and Gopika Poornima; Has marvelous orchestration, especially the Instrumentation chorus and Flute. Check it out...

And of course Siddu and Hasini (Sidharth and Genelia) rocks !!!

Sweet Smile...

2009-08-26T14:05:00.006+05:30

Nice smile Sweetie Pie....God bless you, whoever you are...

Another Child abuse...

2009-08-23T15:39:00.004+05:30

Another news of Child abuse and monstrosity...This time by a small screen actress to a 10 year old girl child, who had been picked up from her home town (Amravati) in lieu of her studies and keep ins.

I was just shocked to see the child's face and hands...Oh God! How can some one put on things like this? The child had been scalded with hot spoons and both her hands are burnt at several places. Her eyes was red from both sides as if smashed with a fist.

And believe me, this was just one of the cases which surfaced out during recent times. Cases like this are rampant in Urban India, and god knows how many children are under the legs of those monsters.

One of a noted NGO worker from Kerala, during her interview to some media had cited another shocking example. She saw this child at the beaches of Kovalam, some 12 to 13 years old, keeping up the pace with some foreign tourists. She noticed that the boy had developed scars and rashes on his lips and face. Later she managed to meet the parents of the boy, and during their conversations she managed to knew that the boy had been paid handsomely by the tourists to sleep with them, and because of this new found source of income, they continue to send their child everyday to haul the tourists. It was shocking that the boy had been tested HIV+ and the parents of the child was not the least intimidated by this fact. They were in the view that as long as he (the child) lives, he was a good source of Income for them and they would continue to do so.

These are only two of the examples which came into light. God knows how many of the children are being snatched away of their childhood. Pray for those little souls and may god help those who try to bring a cheer to the little one's childhood !!!

She Was...

2009-08-23T14:59:00.002+05:30

She Was...

She was sunshine and moonlight,
The stars in the skies;
The beat of my heart,
The light in my eyes.

The sparkle on snow,
On a cold winter day;
The sweet sound of laughter,
Of children at play.

The whisper of raindrops,
The soft morning dew;
The song of dove,
In a sky kissed by blue.

She was music of angels,
The air filled with song;
The dance in my heart,
The right to all wrong.

She was peace and contentment,
A calm in the storm,
A sweet paraadise,
So safe and so warm.

She was beauty and harmony,
A joy to my soul;
The part that is gone,
Where once I was whole.

She was...

Kaminey...

2009-08-18T02:19:00.003+05:30

Whoa!!! Our Chocolate boy Shahid Kapur have matured....Gotta see Kaminey. Superb performance by him in his double roles. Vishal Bharadwaj had left his directorial mark again in the movie...No imaginations, No abrupt twists in the tale, no fall outs of the story and you will follow through the movie till end... And of course, surprise element in the movie is PC's role as Sweety Bhope...Truly a "hat ke" role for her.

And the joker in the gang...The Film Censor Board of India. This movie had been give a 'A' certificate by the board....ha ha ha, What a Joke!!! Did the Censor board seen "Kambaqt Ishq" ? Compare it with the so called vulgarity and you'll know better. Seems like the idiots of the board had only taken the violence of the film into consideration, which we all know is nothing at all in front of the computer games which kids play these days. Duke Nukem or Quake anyone, ehhh? When do the Censor board matures?

A must watch for all...We need "hat ke" movies like this.

Will you marry me?

2009-08-16T19:52:00.004+05:30

Will You marry me ? God proposing the goddess; AB proposing PC ...

;-)

A Super Hero...

2009-08-16T14:35:00.004+05:30

How do you feel being a super hero? Being a hero you see in the usual Bollywood films ?

Well, I felt all these when this event happened...Only difference is that there's no song sequence, no maar-dhaad, and no love tales after that...So much so that even if the heroine I am mentioning below comes again in front of me, I will not be able to recognize her...So the story went like this...

I was on my way from office, a few days ago, exhausted as I was, since I was out of Gym at 10:30 of the night (I couldn't go at my usual time....Had meetings and stuff) and was rushing to my home through shortcuts at the Maruti Nagar Extensions. I was driving my bike, and suddenly I saw a group of 4 people, amongst them a girl , and as soon as I passed through them the Guys looked at me like dogs disurbed when having their feast...Amongst them I saw a pair of eyes, quite clearly, a pair of terrified eyes, like a mouse which has been cornered by a cat. She is an East Indian (a "chinki" that is). Apparently, those guys were pulling her bag and teasing her (Mind It! She was dressed sensibly. It's a preconceived notion that they invite danger themselves by dressing inevitably). As I whizzed past them, I couldn't divert my mind from those helpless eyes looking at me.

I stopped some distance apart from where they were; One part of my mind was asking to go the way I was going, and not to involve in the mess. This part of the mind was asking why she was not shouting for Help (May be the goons were known to her?). The other part was asking me to turn around and ask the guys what's the problem is....I listened to the second one, took a U-turn with my bike and approached the group there...And it became evident what was happening there...The goons ran out leaving the bag and the girl as soon as I took a U-turn and approached the group. I was about to ask what's the matter with the girl when in a flash, I saw the girl said a "thank you" to me and ran past me to another direction...

So that's it...A small and sweet narration of how I became a super hero for some minutes without any Muscle flexing and Bollywood maar-dhaad... I will not be able to recognize the girl of the night even if she come again in front of me, as they (chinki's) look all the same for me... And about the goons, who cares? It would have been another story if even one of them pulls out a dagger or a country pistol or something of equal degree; but anyways nothing of these sort happened.... And I am writing this blog in pink of my health.

Laughter at it's best...

2009-08-10T00:29:00.006+05:30

Quite a time had passed since the last post..Was out of some Interesting stuff from my mind…

Then suddenly it happened. I know, it’s a comedy played by god on me; I laugh at myself when I think of the events happened to me.

The event goes like this: One of my friend from Accenture introduced me to his colleague; a damn pretty thing (Let’s call her Miss P). One sight, and I knew I am knocked off… So we started chatting, the usual SMSing and stuff….Meanwhile I got to know another girl (Let’s call her Miss Q), again from Accenture, and I started seeing her also simultaneously…So everything was going good, and I am in the verge of selecting one of those pretties', and a damned SMS had done it all… I SMSed both P and Q a general friendship-day message, and Miss P called me back asking, “Why are you sending the same message to my room mate?”. I didn’t understand what she was asking.

She asked again, “Vipin, Why are you sending the same message to my room mate Miss Q?”

Miss Q came in between, snatched the phone from Miss P, and I knew it all… What the **** ??? Both girls were room mates, and I had courted both of them without knowing they are roomies…What a luck I have!!!

I laughed and laughed at myself and my luck. I told this to my friend and he was laughing rolling on the floor. I told it to some of my close relatives, and the same reaction ensued….Now that it has showed up in this blog, the reader can laugh too….

Happy Laughing !!! Relax your facial muscles.

Hamara zamaana hai Yeeeeeahhhhh.....

2009-07-03T23:06:00.007+05:30

Have you ever seen this moped/bike before? Well....It's the Hero Motors "Hero Puch Shakti"... The bike I started my ride with...

Incidentally, I have never seen or seldom seen Hero Puch mopeds running in South Indian roads..I don't know the reason why... In Northern India, it's still being used and people still prefer it with Luna/Scooty and the like...

It was the year 1997, my college days just about to start after my 12th, and I started pestering my father for buying the moped for me...Finally after some days of "Niraahara Satyagraha" and "No-Talk" days with him, I got the brand new Hero-Puch Shakti 3G... What a heck of a mileage had that small piece of engine...It gave around 70 KM per liter of petrol most of the times, so cheap and very economical...

I still remember, when I used to drop my sis in the moped to her school during the chilled Winter mornings of December/January in Jaipur, packed from top to bottom with sweaters, mufflers and heck knows what... We used to touch the silencer of the moped (It would be very hot after the engine worked for some time) to relieve the cold from hands... And the little fights we had, when she calls it a "Luna" instead of "Puch"... :-D (I used to say it's a Puch, very "different" from Luna...)

Remembering all those days just like it happened a day before now...The rides to my college, CIStems and my MCA classes...Pushing it when the petrol ends out of the fuel tank during the end of the week, and when my pocket money finishes up; pestering my mom for extra pocket money (Which usually ended up as a book in my room!!! ;-) Yeah I read books a lot, even at those times...)

Finally it got sold out to some one when I was about to finish up my MCA studies... You know, when you attach yourself to some thing, even if it is a non-living one, the separation would be very painful...I knew it is of no use, once I go out of Jaipur...My father didn't ride it (It never kick started when he wanted it to ride!!!) and my sister didn't liked it...Yet I felt a piercing pain when we were about to sell that... After all it was my first bike I could say was mine...

And remembering all those moments is because of this damn advertisement I had seen accidentally in YouTube just now: --

Yeah, SRK! Looking a Joker, Isn't? So you now know what's the blog title refers to, ehh?

Gangaram's @ Bangalore...

2009-06-27T22:55:00.003+05:30

The Gangaram's @ MG Road is the best and one of the oldest book bureau in whole Bangalore I should say...I had been there today, and was quite impressed by the store. There are three floors in all, and all of them contain some thing or the other which you might end up buying for sure.

The first floor contains all the stationary Items and stuff, which you ever need. I have purchased a folder for my certificates for 330 bucks, but mind it the material is worth the money. You would find all assortments of notebooks, books, wrappers, gift items and you name it, it will be there. There is relatively lesser crowd here than other floors.

The Second floor is for Book lovers (non-technical's). And as you might have guessed I have gone berserk over the range of books they have...They have classified the books according to the Publishers and You might get the "gem" you searched for long in those old library style book shelves. Quite Impressed...I shelled out 1200 bucks on this floor. The staff working there were amazing....If you are lost searching a book, and you ask them any book by name or author and they will take you straight to the shelf where it would be. This floor is again not crowded as such (I was there on a Saturday noon) and you would find all hardcore book lovers on this floor...

The third floor is where all the tech references and scholar texts are assembled. Again they contain all the books pertaining to the field of Computers, Law, Management, Engineering, ICSE/Other Boards texts and stuff. This floor is bit crowded and if you are a techie searching for a tech book, you might have to take help of the staff out there. The Books (especially the Computer ones) are a bit dis-organized and you would find a book you want only if you were a regular visitor to Gangaram's. I had hard time searching for a book on Flash ActionScript 3,and ended up asking the staff there who headed me straight to the shelf with the ActionScript books line.

In all, I would give a 5 out of 5 to the store (Landmark @Forum scores a 3 out of 5 in my view), for it's old ambiance atmosphere, it's location at the most happening place in Bangalore and the people working out there...(At first, I thought of the book bureau to be nothing from outside, an old style book shop, an old pull up lift, narrow steps to go up, white boards and decorations with hand written things on it with markers, Orient PSPO fans rotating over your head...:-P; but once you get in, you will know better...And guys, take much money or a credit card with good credit limit...You will end up buying a lot of stuff from there for sure! :-) }

Rainy Days...

2009-05-07T18:27:00.006+05:30

Writing after so long...."Life is a bux of Ammo..." (The famous Duke Nukem phrase!) You never know when the ammo gets exhausted, but you surely would know when it's gonna explode. :-)

Past one month was like a wash out for me...Nothing serious, nothing memorable happened during this month. If you ask me what was special in the past month, I have nothing to talk about...yeah except Work and pain due to the dreaded fissure developed due to the Antibiotics which i have taken for the dental treatment. The fissure appears and it goes and then re-appears and I will be mainly off & on on laxatives. It appears like some one cutting from inside you with a knife, and the pain disappears as soon as you are done... I find warm water bath and the diltigesic cream Diltiazem very relieving. Please consult the doctor before you take over these medicines of your own.

Rainy day has started in Bangalore. I love rain...Each time when I became drenched in the rain water, it feels the "bachpan" has come over me again...I used to cycle to school, and when the rainy season happened during those days, I would make sure I became drenched in that rainy water.... Rain was a great relief after the May-June-July scorched mercury in Jaipur. And usually this time of the year, we (me and my family) would be in Kerala for vacations. And when we return, it would have been all rainy...Schools would have reopened, with new dresses, new books and all things new...

There is a small Indian Mythological story explaining rains if you people knew it....The usual love story; Boy meets Girl and parents don't like the star crossed love affair. The Legend goes like this: Earth was a beautiful maiden , with her blue green Saree; she looked stunning and had a number of admirers. Sky, the son of Sun, was a strong, young and handsome man . They took one look at each other and fell madly in love with each other. But the groom's father, the "Sun", played a villainous role here. He didn't approve of the Romantic couple's intention of Gandharva Vivaha. Sky pleaded to his father but to no avail...At last he relents to his father's demands and goes back to his heavenly abode...BUT, as the case is with all the lovers across the universe, he never forgot his beautiful soul mate and whenever he thought of her, he sheds his tears...of pain....of sorrow. They never got each other and remained single unto this day...And whenever the Sky cries, Earth looks new and fresh, depicting her happiness that Sky still cares for herm still loves her, even though both have grown older....

"Is it true?", "Kya Phenkta hai!", "Who is that dumb girl, who kissed u in 2 hours; and that too, you!", "Why don't you try writing fiction?", "You have wild Imagination!", are some of the remarks I got for my previous post. ;-) People called my mobile to ask or tell the same questions and remarks...Well, I don't want to disclose if that is a true incident or just a fiction...You people decide and do think whatever you seem plausible.... :-)

Well, that's it for today...Still entangled with work, and trying to get out of it......

Blue Jeans and Yellow Kurta (Top)

2009-04-05T23:17:00.006+05:30

This was the year when I had seen the US land, a second time. I came back to Bangalore after a while, went to Jaipur to my parents and came back again to Bangalore. By now, I had a severe urge to go to Kerala, and to see my grand parents and other relatives. So I packed my bag as soon as I got an opportunity to go to Kerala. It had always been an exiting affair for me to go to Kerala (yeah, except only one time at the time of demise of my uncle). There's a train or buses always running to and fro from Kerala to Bangalore; Only during seasonal times (times of festivities like the Onam or X'mas) you won't get any tickets even 2 months before. Anyways, I had the train ticket this time, and I started on a Thursday evening after the office hours.

The roads at the BTM Layout were as usual, full of their crowds; bystanders, vehicles, two-wheelers rattling against each other. I put my backpack on my shoulders, as if a kid is going to a school, and started walking to the BTM Bus station, which is around 1 KM walk from my home. People were busy as usual, drenched in their own affairs; That's the predicament of big cities; No one cares or dare to care about others affairs. This is in stark contrast to the village life in Kerala...People do care; and in some cases do care more than what they are allowed to be cared. Me, as I was brought up a metropolitan way, is still retract-ful about these 'care' by the people there. And I has several occasions when a near minor altercations ensued between me and my grandparents over some of the inside stories, which got spewed out to some of the neighbors in and around our house in Kerala. The contrasts between the metropolitan life and the village life shows up everywhere...For instance, go to a temple in the village. People will look right through you, that you will feel that you are some one just landed from an UFO from Outer space. Some who dares to talk to you will ask your whole family history, what you are up to and your marital status, and about your children. In one occasion, I was with my cousin brother, and one granny, asked me who I was. I told I am so and so, and relative of so and so. Here comes grannies assortment of question...At last she turned to my marital status. As I already have been ripened by her questions, I told her that I am married, and the boy, looking towards my cousin brother, is my son. Well, I could see a dark shadow passing through her face, as soon as I told that I am married :-) My Cousin brother came home happy; he was happy that he got a new father :-)

Anyways, I reached the BTM bus stand, and there were some 4/5 buses going towards Majestic (Bangalore Central Railway station). I thought of going in the Volvo, whose charge is double that of the ordinary one, but which is far more comfortable than the others...The conductor and the Bus drivers are professional looking, clad in their white dresses. The bus started in time and onlooking the people and the objects passing through the window of the bus, I reached the Bus station at Majestic in around 1.5 hours. The Railway station is a 5 minute walk from the Bus Station. I reached the Railway station and the Island Express, was scheduled to come at 9:45 Pm at Platform number 4. Well, I looked at the time on my watch and it was just 7:50 Pm. I walked towards Platform No.4. The platform is a little towrds back of the main platform of the station. I could see only 2 or 3 group of people sitting and waiting for the train, which I could distinguish are mallus. I saw a group of girls sitting in a bunch, and talking non stop about their affairs or god knows what, cackling at regular intervals. Amongst the bunch I saw a cute little face of a girl, looking towards me; and as soon as I fixed my eyes on her she had turned her face to another side...I looked towards the empty platform, thinking of what to do for this gap of 2 hours. I thought of calling my friend in Noida, and pulled out my mobile from the pocket, when suddenly a warm and soft whispering "Hi!" reached my ears!

I turned around and I was dumb stuck. A girl, well as far as I could guess, in her upper 20s, was standing and smiling to me, with her soft silky hands stretched towards me for a shake hand. She wore a blue Jeans, and a yellow shaded Kurta (or top, I don't know what it is called actually!). She was so cute, her face glistening like a dew drop glistening with the rays of the sun. I replied to her stretched hands; All the strings attached to my body began to play out as soon as I touched her hands.

She asked, "How are you?"

I replied, "I am fine...Well, I am not getting you ., Do we know each other?"

She smiled...Her smile, in her heart shaped face with her white teeth and soft cornered jaws made me think of Madhuri Dixit's smile.

She replied, "Well, I don't think we know other. I am also a fellow passenger of Island Express. Felt boring, so thought of talking to you, if you don't mind!".

How could I mind talking to her. She began to introduce herself. She was from a small city of Northern Kerala, had done her graduation in Engineering and was working as a Software Engineer in a company whose name I have never heard before. She joined the company some 1 year back. She was staying with some relatives in Bangalore. And her parents are in their home town, with one younger brother studying in 12th grade. Well, these information was all I could collect from her.

Why is this girl interested in talking with me? There are other people out there in the platform...The group of girls, the mixed group of guys and girls...Why had she came to a lonely me? Is something going on her mind? Befriending and beheading later??? I thought of the Jaipur-Agra or Jaipur-Delhi roadways mishaps...Well if you call it as a mishap...Some guy, or girl, after ascertaining that you are alone in the journey, starts befriending you. They will ask where you belongs to, and then give some fake references of their relatives staying there...You gradually feel interested in the guy or girl, and that's it...They will offer you some biscuits or chocolate or some edible, and you are inclined to take the thing and eat it for sure. The next thing you see, if you are lucky that is, will be the Hospital bed with doctors nurses and probably your relatives (if they have been informed!) and police man around you...And all your valuables, will be with your friend of the roadways bus ready to be used or sold...

I Don't know, she should have read it from my face that I was some what not comfortable of she talking to me. She said with her peculiar smile, "Vipin, I came straight to you because I felt you are also feeling bored. And two bored people can make a good journey!". I just smiled on this remark.

She asked, "Are you married?"

"What do you think?"

She asked again, "Arranged or Love?"

And again with an exultation, "Wait a minute...You are not married I guess".

I replied, "Yes, I am not married."

"Parents looking? "

"Yes!"

I asked, "What about you?"

And then for the first time of our 15 minute conversation I saw a dark cloud passing through her face. She tried to conceal that but I could read her from her face. In a low monotonous voice she said, "Yes and no!".

Puzzled, I asked, "What do you mean by Yes and No!".

She said, "By law we are not married, but by time we are married!".

"So who is the other one in 'we'?"

She smiled again and answered, "His name is A****h. Working in a small Construction company in my home town as a Junior Contractor"

"Well, so when are you getting married? "

And for the second time, I saw a dark cloud passing through her face again. She said, "Don't know. God has some other things decided for us."

I didn't understand the meaning of the last sentence she said. I looked on her face and the once smiling face is now grave with fear and horror. I didn't had the courage to ask any more about it and I quickly diverted the discussion.

"What's your brother doing? "

"He is in 12th Standard. "His exams are just going on."

"And what's he gonna do after his 12th?"

"He is interested in Chartered Accountancy. So I think he may go for that."

"Cool, so playing with number?"

She smiled and said, "Yeah!"

I asked, 'What's your parents"?

"Father was in government service, now retired. Mother is an housewife."

She asked all these questions back to me, but I was cautious not to reveal anything more personal than she should know about.

"You look good in this T-Shirt and Jeans"

I stared her hard. Finally said, "Thank you!".

"My love also likes T-shirt and Jeans; especially blue Jeans"

"Yeah?". She nodded.

I said, "By the way, you also look gorgeous in this dress!"

She smiled and said, "Jaan also says so!"

By this time, I got irritated by her affectionate calling of her love. I looked at my watch and my watch seemed to be stopped...I thought, "What the heck? This watch has never stopped till now and at this need of time, this stupid thing has gone!". I then looked at my mobile and to my astonishment found that the clock of the mobile also stopped working. It was still at the same time when we begin our conversation...Around 7:50 PM.

I asked, "Do you have watch?"

"No"

"OK, let me check the time on the display board."

It was 8:30 PM already. Around 1 more hour to go. I talked with her about her job, and other stuff, which she discussed more cheerfully and with enthusiasm.

The reservation Chart was put on the train by 9:00 Pm.

I said, "Seems like the reservation chart has been put. Let's go to the coaches. What's your coach number? "

"You go ahead Vipin, I will board after some time. There's plenty of time."

"OK, have a nice journey, and very nice talking to you"

Smiling she said, "Yeah, to you too!"

I turned towards my coach number and was about to leave when she grasped my left hand. She looked into my eyes, and in an instant with her eyes closed and moving forward, gave me a peck to my cheek...I was astonished. I looked at her, and she was looking at me with her contagious smile. I looked around, and no one was watching us.

I asked, "What was that?"

"A memorabilia of an unknown friend", she replied

I didn't know what to say or do...I walked slowly towards my coach, looking back frequently to the girl, who gave me an unforgettable memorabilia in just a 2 hour meeting. I boarded the train, found my seat number and sat down there pondering about the happenings of the nearly past 3 hours. There, a girl, whom I don't know anything about, befriending me, giving a kiss while departing even when she was in love with some one else. Utterly in confused state of mind, I sat there on my seat pondering over the whole matter again and again...

The train blew it's final departure whistle and it slowly started crawling in the railway track. There was a plump couple and their 2 kids as my fellow passengers. I looked out of the window, if the train has really started moving. Yeah it has started to crawl in the track. Suddenly the train passed through the girl who was the subject of my pondering some minutes back. I realized, or was it just my imagination, that she was transparent. I can see people moving here and there right through inside her. I closed and opened my eyes fast some two or three times, and yes, it indeed was. She was looking at me, with the same smile I could die for...I ran towards the train's main door, opened it quickly and looking towards her shouted, "What the hell are you doing there? Get in. The train has started!"

She stand there where she was, smiling at me, and now waving her hands towards me. I can clearly see other people walking and running, right on the other side of her body, like I see objects through a transparent plastic sheet.

A fellow passenger asked what was the matter. I asked that the girl standing there was supposed to board this train. He looked through the door, and puzzled looked back to me and asked, "Which girl are you talking about?". I looked out again and point to the girl, "That girl with the blue Jeans and Yellow Kurta (or top)". He looked back again. "Boss, are you drunk? There's no one there with Blue Jeans and Yellow Kurta".

By this time the train left the platform and nothing was then visible thereafter of it. I quietly came back to my seat, now pondering even harder than before of what I just witnessed. Why she didn't boarded the train? Why the other passenger didn't see her? An unknown chill began to settle down on my spine...I tried sleeping, and after counting some 1000 sheep, got asleep. I woke at around 7:00 AM the next day

Everything of the previous night seem'd like a dream to me. I descended down from my Upper birth bed , refreshed myself, had some tea and some edibles. By 12:30 PM I reached my Home town in Kerala.

I got down the train and was passing through the basement lobby of the station, where suddenly I got a glimpse of a poster pasted on the wall. My heart started beating loud on seeing the picture and the content of the poster. The picture was of the same girl I met in the Bangalore Railway station the night before. She died in some mysterious circumstances a week and a half before at Bangalore and some Student Union was suspecting a foul play in the plot. The poster was about carrying on the case to CBI (the premier investigation agency in India) by the student Union.

I don't remember anything afterwards...I don't know how I came to the Autorikshaw stand, how I got in the Auto and how I told the address to my grandparent's home to the driver. When I got my senses back. I was entering the house of my grand parents. They saw me pale and blue and may be they realized some thing is wrong with me...They give me some water and inquired what's wrong with me. I told it's OK, it's just due to the afternoon heats...

I sat down in the sofa, and looked through that day's paper, and suddenly got my eyes to the second horror of my story. There the girl again, but this time with the photograph of a guy in Blue Jeans and T-Shirt. The paper states that both the people were in love, and after knowing the girl had passed away in mysterious circumstances, the boy hanged himself to death in his house...With a Blue Jeans and a Yellow Kurta(Top) tied together to the ceiling fan...

I fainted and the next thing I had seen was my panicky grandparents trying to comfort me in the bed.

My Roomies and me...

2009-03-22T21:08:00.005+05:30

Gotta chance to see The Terrorist [1999] after 10 years of its release. Oh man...How could I miss such a wonderful movie for 10 years? The Direction and Cinematography by Santosh Sivan was awesome...Ayesha Dharkar (of 'Bend it like Beckham' fame) as Malli was superb in her role. Some of the scenes in the movies was just Heart-warming and will remain with you for long, such as the scenes of Malli with her lover, and scenes where she clasps her stomach after knowing that she is pregnant...The story resembles the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi by Tamil militants. Classic movie and a must watch if some one missed this...

So life was moving ahead smoothly, without any turbulence, and suddenly from no where I got a severe constipation which road-blocked my smooth passes ;-) may be because of the chicken I ate during the last 2 weeks...compounded by the hot Bangalore weather. I had problems with constipation before but this time it seems to be severe...I am in a "banana diet" now...Morning, afternoons and evenings are all bananas....Well, let's see what happens...

My roomy was away to his friend's home for two days, so was all alone this weekend. I was remembering all those chaps who were my roomies for this long 4.5 years...When I shifted to this room, the room was already occupied by two people, and I was the third one to come...There were only 2 beds there, and I had to sleep in the floor with my bed spread there...Well, the room was good and you won't still find such a room in the whole BTM area unless you shell out some good money to the landlords. The first guy was from Jaipur (remember, he helped me in getting my first job!), a thin fair guy with the typical Jaipuria ascent (Every sentence from his mouth would have a B****h or a m****h; if you know what I mean!) and a hardcore business man. Later when we got a TV for the room, his favorite channels were CNBC Business and some other Business channels. The good thing was, after seeing all this I got some knowledge about Share trading and stuffs... :-) The other guy was a typical Punjabi, frustrated from top to bottom as he was there for quite some time with out a job. And as lucky I am with god's grace, I got my job in Accenture and he still was without a job. Anyways, after some more days, he got a job in a small firm In MG Road; He quit that company for some reasons, and after few days he also got through in Accenture (after some 5/6 attempts I suppose!;Interestingly I had been called up by this company for an interview before I got the call from Accenture. I don't know, i didn't had the heart to go to the Interview; Thank god, I skipped that...).

The second guy later shifted to another place with his friends, and he at present is in Gurgaon now. Meanwhile, the first guy was with me and he got employed in Honeywell. He was a frequent Job Hopper, and I think to this day he had been into at least 5 companies as far as I know. Oh yeah, this guy was in love with a girl also from Jaipur (she was her class mate). He didn't told me, but I could make it out from their eyes (Well, experience counts you know!) My doubt confirmed when one day I was returning halfway from somewhere, and from the curtain of the room, I see two outlines standing and huddling towards each other, with their lips touching(OK OK...not romanticizing here...I am not Shakespeare...In simple words...they were kissing!) I rung the door bell, and there was a tussle bustle inside, and our hero opened the door, and with an exultation, said "Hi!" to me...as if he was meeting me after so long...I looked at him, and obviously he was nervous...The girl, who usually says at least "Hi Vipin!" to me, didn't said a word, and was sitting on the side of the bed with her heads down... I thought at first, why I had been there as "Kabab mein Haddi", but then it was some matter necessary which I couldn't go without.

This guy after some time also vacated the room and went to Hyderabad for yet another job. And as the latest news, he is in Bangalore, but I haven't met him yet.

Then there was a long gap and I stayed alone in my room for long. There came the third person...A Tamilian and a "just US returned". An over smart guy, working for Infosys. He really thought that he was more smarter than me... ;-) I don't know, it's my face may be on which people go, they think that they are smarter than me...:-) It's a myth dear, it's a myth...Whoever thinks so, had fallen their face down. I am not boasting about my self, but it is the truth...So this guy at first showed some over smartness, and by the time he was vacating the room, he was all normal... :-)

The fourth guy, a paavam (bhola bhaala) Bengali babu... He was studying in IIT Kharagpur and had came down to Bangalore for an Internship in some company. He was quite a nice guy. I still remember, he had given my mobile number to his parents and relatives (as his mobile was in roaming) and every day (even on weekends!) he will get some 2/3 calls daily in the early morning hours...I didn't complained; I know how it feels when you are away and you talk to your parents and relatives...I usually in my half sleep, would give my mobile to him in the morning, and later completely forgetting that I had given the mobile to him, panicked if some one had stolen the mobile from room. :-) After the internship, he vacated the room.

The fifth guy, Mr. Stinker...Oh my God!!! The Killer stinker...After coming from office, when he puts down his socks from his legs, the stink made me feel sick...2 days, I controlled my self. The third day, when he returned to the room, I told him to go out of the room and put down his socks and shoes out of the room...From that day, that guy always comes inside the room without his socks and shoes... ;-) Otherwise, the guy was without any problems. A typical tamilian movie buff...A great Rajini fan...:-)

The sixth guy, a Project Manager from Wipro...A PM from Wipro and staying in a single room??? Yeah, he had just returned from Canada, and wanted to stay for only some 2/3 weeks...But you know, everything Indian runs on IST (Indian Standard Time!). The 2/3 weeks had been stretched to some 8/9 months... He was a nice guy. He was from Andhra; He gave me some good advises on People and Project Management which I can never forget. He also told how he had coped up with the 2000 Dotcom bust (Well, which is helping me now!). He was from a well-to-do family from Andhra, and he was the only person in his family who was working outside his native. Anyways, the stay with him was educational to me...During this time I went to US for the second time, and when I returned to the room, he had already vacated it...The latest update, he is in Canada now with his wife and two kids.

The seventh guy, the first mallu...The worst roomy I was with. He stayed in the room as if some one had put him deliberately to suffer in a jail...He had an attitude, a bad attitude; He never cooperated with me...I kept my calm all the time, and started avoiding him from all my business. If he don't care, why should I ? While vacating the room, this idiot didn't said a word to me, and I kept wondering where did he go for 2 days. At last I went and asked the land lord,and then came to know that the stupid guy had already vacated the room 2 days before. Some 3 days back, I had seen him going somewhere with a girl, I think his elder sister. I didn't mind him at all...Go to Hell...

The eighth and the current one...Again a guy from Vizag, Andhra...A typical Andhra Hero; but a nice guy. This guy is also in love with a girl; the girl's name coincidentally same as the name of Ms. Karishma Kapoor (if you remember who is this from my earlier post!)...So while talking in phone, he stares at me when I say the name of Ms. Karishma. :-) He is helpful; he dropped me to the bus station on my bike, when I was about to leave for my Ammavan's (Uncle's) funeral. And he was very surprised when he had to give some amount as bribe to the RTO (Regional Transport Office) officials, to pay his Road taxes and others for his AP bike...He said he hadn't done such a thing in his whole life... he he he...It's India man, It's India...Nothing works without money here...He don't had a 2 wheeler license even...He made his learning license now, when he had to show it in the RTO Office... :-)

So that's a little story of all the roomies I had been with...Different people, different behaviors...all converged into the same room....

Pain Pain Go Away...

2009-03-12T21:10:00.005+05:30

Pain Pain Go away, come again another day

Little Vipin wants to play.....

:-)

For the past 1 week, my 2nd molar was aching like hell...For the more KISS inclined (Keep it Simple Stupid!), molars are the teeth you chew with, which is into the inner part of your jaw. I went to my regular dental doctor, and he told that the tooth need a "root canal" treatment. He gave me some pain killing tablets which worked fine for 3/4 days, and then again it started. I was at office when the pain broke loose...

A little information for Bangloreans. There's a institute called "Artha Health Options" (Website: http://www.arthaoptions.com) which enrolls people for a one year subscription. The advantages? You'll get a whole lot of medical coupons which you can use to go in for a regular checkup, be it for Dental, ENT, Cardiology etc. (For more features look at: http://www.arthaoptions.com/html/productfeature.html). The coupons are valid for you, your spouse and your children. You don't have to pay each time you consult a doctor for something. Also there are huge discounts for products and total health checkups etc. And all this is for around 2000 bucks !!! You call up these guys 24 hours before, and they will fix an appointment with the Artha Panel doctors of your choice.

My dental doctor comes under the Artha panel of doctors, so I never paid him a single penny in about 4/5 visits which I had made before. When I called for this doctor with the pain, they called me back saying that he had gone for vacations till 19th of this month. After hearing this my pain started bubbling out. I told them to fix an appointment with some one nearby BTM, and they come up with a doctor in Koramangala. OK, relieved that Koramangala came near to my Office, I went to this doctor in the evening.

The main doc (Dr. Prasad R) was not in his clinic; There was a junior doctor and according to Dr Prasad's advise she started my root canal treatment. After giving an anesthetic injection at your inner jaws, they will drill a hole in your effected teeth and fill it up with some medicine to remove the infection. She told me to come back after 3 days to complete the procedure for the treatment.

First day went fine, with the pain killing tablets and all, but then in the second day again all things went loose. My jaws started swelling and irresistible pain started inside my mouth. And so at the second day, I was again in Dr Prasad's clinic with my "Pain"ing teeth. He checked the teeth with X-rays and found that the infection has totally destroyed both the inner roots of my teeth and the only remedy is to extract the tooth. Well...who wants to keep the pain. If extraction is the way, extract it...

Again our Junior doctor came into picture. I started to pray all my gods when I saw her coming with a Screw driver type instrument, a Hammer and a plucker...She gave me 4 shots of anesthetic injections, yet I felt a piercing pain when she was pulling out my teeth with that screw driver and the plucker. hfff.....Well your inner "will" can help you when you are in such a situation. I just thought of all the pain I was having when the tooth was there, and then I felt that after this extraction all things would go right...The pain I am feeling now is just for some minutes and then after that I would be relieved of all these...Just these thoughts made me comfortable and I didn't yelled at the time of extraction of the teeth...

The Doctor advised me not to have spicy and hot food for dinner. And that made my mouth watering...After many months I had a chance to eat my favorite dish (or whatever you want to say it) : Ice-creams... I purchased three 250 ml of Baskin-Robbins ice creams and ate those yummy things then and there....The taste of the ice creams are still in my mouth.... :-)

The Pain has reduced now, the swelling of the jaw is coming down gradually and here I am, with one tooth less in my mouth.

The Fifth Encounter...

2009-03-06T23:10:00.003+05:30

I have told you guys two of the encounters with the love bug. Now just jump on to the fifth and the last one...This happened when I am still in my present company...The company used to have an internal Instant messenger; In search of another colleague, I added Miss E into my friends list accidentally...And we chatted with each other now and then, whenever in office...Got to know her very well during these period...Apparently she was in love with another guy who was also in the same company but in a different location. You see, love is blind and deaf (I told you people this before!); that guy was no where a match for Miss E. I don't know how she even thought of coming near to him...Her parents also opposed the relation, along with her brother...

And the evident happened...That guy married some other girl and she was left alone....

Even after knowing that she was in love with someone already, and even though we have never met each other physically (Yeah have seen pics of each other...through Orkut!), I developed a soft corner for her in my heart... And after knowing that she had been ditched, I didn't knew if I should be happy or sad. I was sad because I knew she would be sad...And in persuasion of this, I asked her a "silly" question, which I think she still carry around in her mind whenever she chats with me (Yeah! she still chats with me, even though she has left the company some time back). I sent her through e-mail a memorabilia which she can never forget about...But I didn't got any reply back for that...And when I asked her for the reason, she told it won't be right if she marries me...I don't know what she meant by the previous statement, may be she thought of me as some spook because of that question which I asked her...Don't know...I know I love her, and if she loves me she will come back to me...

Miss E looks gorgeous with that "nathni" (mukkuthi or nose ring) at her nose...And I lied to her that I never noticed her nose with that nathni...

Oh yeah...Forgot to add. Wedding bells are halted for a while :-) Miss Karishma Kapoor seems to have given the feedback of the interview and she thinks she has longer legs than mine.... ;-)

Wedding Bells Ringing???

2009-03-04T19:15:00.008+05:30

Am I hearing wedding bells ringing?

Yeah, I haven't written about my encounters with the "pennu kaanal chadang" (Ladki Dekhna or Bridal meeting as they are called) yet...So here we go...

The first one was a mallu from Jaipur. Born and Brought up there, doing her MBA (Master's in Business Administration). A typical 'm a l a y a l i' (read it slowly), who can understand Malayalam but can't read or write. { By the way, I know both written and spoken Malayalam well....That's the influence you get from your parents and the occasional "Balarama" reading (Childrens' weekly in Malayalam). I don't know how the influence went for my sister though...She is also a 'm a l a y a l i' (again read it slow), struggling now to read and write it!!! :-) }..

OK about this girl, I talked with her for the first time when I was in US. I remember when we were chatting through GTalk for the first time, the fire alarm in the Cupertino office broke out. People were hurled out of the office. That's the sign dear, that's the sign !!!

Anyways, when I returned from US to Jaipur, I met this girl face to face. She was a small restive girl with a cute face...We were pushed into a room by our parents (Yeah, that's a tradition in India, the potential so called bride and the groom interview themselves for the post of husband and wife. For this, they were hurled by their parents into a room for secrecy!!! :-) ) So the so called meeting went OK, she asking me about the routine things *Where and what did u studied, *What do you like and all that. The girl's mother (Father was no more) seems to be OK with their future son-in-law.

And now, the social glitch...People have a knack to talk about things that you never imagined of. I hate guys spreading rumors, and it came back to me with a vengeance...One of our so called family friend Aunty, talked with the girl's mother it seems and she told the mother that I had been operated upon my "heart" some years ago... When my mother told this story to me, i was laughing like hell...Yeah, I was operated upon, some 15 years ago now, for hernia that I developed by birth, and which is just a minor operation, like removing your appendicitis (And which don't have any relation with the heart!!!). And the girl's mother called us the next day, refusing for the proposal... I didn't have problem losing the girl at all, but I have problems with the rumors...How will you eradicate that? No Idea....You never know people's mind.

The second one was again from Jaipur This girl was doing her Master's in Computer Applications from Jaipur; She was dark complexioned, and it seems that all of the family member in her house were dark, except her mother. She had a cute smile which looked good on her round face with glasses. And then the rumor haunted me here again...According to my mother they also came to know about the rumor spread and the proposal got rejected. Anyways, I was also not much interested in the alliance; It would have been a Black& White family union... :-) (No racialism here please!!!)

The third one was from Kerala...my Kunjamma (Mausi, mom's sister) brought this...The girl was doing her Bachelor's in Nursing...That was a show-stopper there...I don't know, I don't like this profession. People send their children spending huge amount of money to learn Nursing, and in fact their kids are all successful also; but I don't know, I didn't liked this profession from the beginning. The girl too was also not a match for me...She was quite thin and looks like a 12th grader rather than a bachelor's. And she told that she was not interested in leaving the profession and would definitely go for it after marriage. So I decided in the negative. When me and Kunjamma reached there, the house was full of the girl's family members...That was new to me!!! Then got to know that in Kerala, everyone from your distant relatives (the girl's uncle, Aunty, Uncles' relatives, aunt's relatives etc etc) would be present on this "occasion". At first I got a little nervous (Don't laugh!!!Stand in front of 50 people, where 100 eyes look at you!), but then it gets cooled down.. :-) One elderly uncle, may be in his earlier 60s and who was a retired IAF (Indian Air force) personnel chatted with me for long...And all the other 60/70/80/90s were looking at me...I thought that Uncle was girl's father, then later came to know that he wasn't. He was the elder brother of girl's father... ;-)

Anyways I told Kunjamma the reasons for me rejecting her... Yeah, my best friend was scolding me about this rejection. Apparently the girl is from a rich and affluent family, and one of my relative (Actually I don't remember who? May be my grandpa) told that they are capable of presenting me a flat at Bangalore. I told this to my friend, and he advised me not to leave the proposal at any cost... :-) I can live in a 2 BHK home man.... That's the answer I gave when he was scolding me for the rejection. ;-)

Ahhhh, the fourth one....Again from Kerala. Got introduced with this girl via a matrimony site. Her father was (and still is), as common in most houses in Kerala, in some gulf country (Know this fact? On an average 1 person per family in Kerala is in Gulf country). I went to the girl's house with my grand parents and my cousin brother. Well...Heart got a pound when we saw their house. the house was compounded with 3 cars, and some 4/5 bikes. The girl was a Doctor in Dentistry. She herself worn a set of braces, and I jokingly asked her if she had put that herself {OOPS!!! :-)} The girl was OK look wise but it would have been an unbalanced vehicle for me. She looks like too "extra" extrovert which I thought I couldn't handle. My grand mother after coming home told, she at her first sight of the girl, made up her mind that she would be too much for me... :-) Well, I told if they count it like that, it must be perfect..After all experience counts.So we didn't get it going any more and the chapter closed there...

The fifth and the currently running one...It happened only today!!! This proposal is on line for quite some time (actually it got stalled due to my Uncle passing away and for some other reasons). So finally I got a chance to meet this girl. The girl is working in an MNC, and we decided to meet at her office at the Bannerghata Road stretch. Usually it would take at least 25 minutes to go from my office to this building due to heavy traffic at the Bannerghata road, so I started at around 9:20 AM. And heck, there was no traffic jams today and I reached the spot in 10 minutes...9:30AM... Madam was, as is the culture in almost all MNCs, not in and was traveling to office when I called her. I waited at the reception and finally she came at around 10:30 AM...She was a girl you would find in the Corporate world; look wise (doesn't matter in fact!), a morph of Karishma Kapoor (Hope you guys know who she is!!!) ;-) with some pimples on her face here and there...And confident as a girl in IT industry with 4 years of experience have...Well, we chatted there for some time and by 11:15 we departed. The rest depends upon her answer to her parents.

To be or not to be....that's a serious Question!!! (This phrase is from Serious Sam 2...If you are a gaming freak, this phrase is famous there!)

Is the wedding bells ringing???

Me, Friend and Accident...

2009-03-01T23:15:00.003+05:30

Hmmm...writing after quite a few days now....Was totally occupied in home and office work and fatigued at the end of the day;

As expected, Slumdog did a clean sweep....8 out of 10 Oscar Nominations. Great going guys...And at last, India got the pivoted Oscar, not one, not two but four...Rahman, Pookutty and 'Smile Pinki' made us proud....

The month of Feb ended; the past month was one of the worst month of my life. Anyways, looking forward for good days in these days of Economy slump. :-)

Two of my old pals came to meet me yesterday, and one of them touched up a story which I dug out from my brain disk..So this was some 2.5 years back...My friend (not those of them which I mentioned just now) came one day with a news that we had to go urgently to Mysore...The way he talked was so grave, I thought some one from his relative was in trouble. I took up my travel bag and bike and we straight went to Bangalore Central Railway station. Then he opened his Pandora's Box secret that he was going to see a girl for his marriage!!! I laughed (or rather roared!) in the railway station like mad; I could read in his face, what he was thinking about me at that time.. :-)

Anyways, we reached Mysore...And the girl was waiting for him at the station (So sweet of her!!!) She was (or rather, is still) working in Infosys and was there for a training. We went first to the Infy campus at Mysore; I should say the campus was mind blowing. A vast campus you can't see in entirety even if you walk for 4 days in a row...She took us to the Infy canteen; we had some food and then roamed around the campus. Finally, I detached myself for a while as a "kabab mein haddi" from them. I was seated alone in the park bench of Infy campus, and the watchman there came around 4/5 times to ask, "Sir, are you an Infy Employee? Where is your tag? Where is the Employee who took me in? " Anyways, after 1 hour or so, they both came and I got my breath back...Otherwise I was in the verge to be thrown out of the campus... :-)

The Girl seemed OK to me; she was neither a "pataka" nor a "sweet and simple" girl. We all went together for some shopping; I had purchased one idol of Krishna made in sandal wood...My friend had, if I have not forgotten, purchased some goodies and presented it to the girl itself then and there...Hmmm...how romantic!!!

On the same day, we returned back. We took my bike from the Bangalore Railway station, where we had kept it under token for 1 day. While coming back, I said I didn't want to put up the Helmet (as Helmet was not compulsory at those times!). My friend insisted on me putting it (usually what happens was I drove my bike without an helmet, and my friend as a pillion used to wear that!) OK, I put on the helmet and we had hardly gone 2 KM from the Railway station, while negotiating a curve and a slope, an auto wallah took a sudden turn and we hit the auto from behind. The hit was so enormous that my friend instantly got thrown away, and I hit the tarred road with a point blank face....And there you find the usefulness of Helmet...If I hadn't worn the helmet ,I would have an artificial dentures for sure at this time of writing...Anyways, I stood up in the middle of the road, only to find that I was about to be bang'd by a BMTC bus coming just behind...Luckily that guy slowed down as I think he had seen me pulling up my bike from the road. I sat down at the side pavement and noticed that I was bleeding from my legs (I don't know, whenever I had accidents, I was hurt in places you could never imagine of...This time the bleeding was from the upper part of my toe...God knows how it got in there!!! Either you should have broken your toe or should have twisted it badly,, but none of these happened in my case) Suddenly I heard shouting and abusing, and I realized that my friend was fighting verbally with the Auto wallahs. They were saying to put up money for the damage or they would get us into the police station. One of the "hero" from the Auto wallahs group (yeah, they gathered as if their relative had been hit!) was about to grasp in my friends collar, when I came in between...Some arguments ensued on the damages, and finally I took up my purse, which contained some 100 bucks (that's it!!! you will never find more than 100 bucks in my purse. The rest of them would be in my in-pockets!!! ;-) ) , and my friend's 50 bucks. I gave it to them, saying we were students (that's the only escape words I said there!) and we have only these much money. Don't know, they got believed my "piteous" face and let us go...

So, there ends the adventure....I still have the crack on my Helmet of that accident. After reaching home, our other friends on seeing our condition, asked if we were roughened up by the girl's relatives!!! :-) Not withstanding for any risks, at 11:30 PM of the night, we went to had the injection for tetanus. There again luck ran out as there was only one injection left with them. My friend told me to take the injection as I was bleeding more (He took the injection the next day), and at last we came back home with the day to remember for my life.

Oh yeah, about the girl, and the reason for digging out this from memory...My friend said "No" to the girl for marriage (Don't know why? It's a matter of personal preference you know!). And yesterday one of my other pal came to ask me about the same girl and to accompany him to see that girl.... :-) She is still unmarried !!! This time it seems that she is in Bangalore now...No, Not again !!!

Economy Slump....

2009-02-19T22:20:00.002+05:30

Hurray...There's a 10% salary cut (yeah you read it right!!!) in my MNC company...The economy doesn't seems to be recovering; not the world's but mine :-) Happy that at least they didn't throw us out. The Times of India Ascent supplement yesterday contained only 4 pages, which used to contain at least 24 pages in good times; and those 4 pages were for Mechanical and Civil Engineers plus for Safai karamcharis (Office sweepers). Well well well....No comments!

Today is the Sixteenth ("Pathinaar") of my Uncle (ammavan). May he Rest in Peace!!!

Making of me...

2009-02-17T23:24:00.008+05:30

Writing after quite a few days now...

Did a dual boot configuration on my personal laptop with Vista Home Premium and Linux Mint. This Linux distro rocks. The stability and the assortment of applications included in the distro is simply awesome. The installation is a breeze and anyone who have the basics of disks partitioning will sail through the installation process in seconds. I was a fan of Ubuntu, but now this spin-off of Ubuntu makes me it's fan. The desktop is Gnome by default, and it looks pretty awesome. And the kernel it uses basically supports all the current hardware configs, with the exception of some old Dial-up modems and some proprietary drivers (Like the NVidia graphics drivers). Here is the link to the distro: http://www.linuxmint.com. Hail Linux Mint!!!

Life has always big surprises for you. You never know what's gonna come ahead in your life. I had no idea of Computers till my 3rd year of graduation in Science. And the subjects group which I have opted in the graduation were "awesome" (One of my friend asked if I didn't got any other harder combination!!!). I had Physics, Mathematics and Statistics as the combination. Before joining graduation, I had dropped (or rather it dropped me!) one year for Engineering entrance. I had studied harder to some how get into the IITs or RECs; I got a rank too in the Engineering Entrance in Rajasthan, but when the free seat were alloted, I had been given a seat in REC Silchar (Assam). So the Engineering dream also washed away. After the final year exams of graduation and the results declared, I was the topper in Statistics in the whole University. I got a memento and a certificate, which is still displayed at the front room in my home at Jaipur... :-)

When I was in my third year of Graduation , one day my friend called me to come to an institute (CIStems school of Computing at Jaipur). CIStems was the turning point in my life. I got attached to computers due to this; Basically CIStems was an accredited institute for DOEACC Society's courses. I have first enrolled for the 'O' level examinations, but then I upgraded it to 'A' level. The lecturers there were awesome; and I still remember one Shazia madam who taught us DBMS (Database management Systems) and SAD (Systems Analysis and Design). She and other Lecturers of the institute taught the subjects so well, you can't forget the basics till now. And while doing my 'A' level course from CIStems, I had written entrance examination for MCA. I don't know if CIStems still exists, there have been news that it got shut down. How sad!!!

I still remember during the MCA Entrance Interview, a lady interviewer asked me if I knew about IRC (She was asking this in the then current affairs context; IRC was International Rajasthan Conclave, some cultural program being organized in the state). I answered confidently, yeah IRC is "Internet Related Chat" and it is used for conferencing and group discussions. I still remember the confused face of that interviewer, but one another interviewer sitting there got interested and he asked me some more tech questions. At last the interviewer told me that the lady interviewer was asking about International Rajasthan Conclave and not about the IRC which I talked about. Anyways, the interviewing panel was impressed and I got admission to MCA.

So I got the admission to MCA in year fall 2000 (The famous IT Slump time!!!) and the college allocated to me was Maharishi Aravind Instt. of Science and Management, popularly called MAISM. Initially I used to go to the college regularly, but then I realized that it's a waste of time going there...I am not criticizing the Institute; The institute is one of the best in whole Rajasthan now. But the then lecturers were all either under-knowledged or they don't know how to give a lecture. And after studying from an institute like CIStems, I greatly felt so. So I was scarcely seen in the campus, and my HOD always prowled about me for not coming to the institute. Anyways, I passed out my MCA with "Honors" (someone who gets more than 75% without any back log papers).

Oh yeah, the 6th Semester of MCA, as usual, were for Project Internship. I searched for internships in some companies in Delhi and NCR regions, but didn't got any. Then I got a project for a firm called "Macrosoft inc." head quartered at new jersey and whose branch is at Technopark, Trivandrum. The project was for a charity called "Home Care" (situated at Trivandrum Medical College) which takes care of under privileged Cancer patients in and around Trivandrum region. My mentor for this project was a free-lancer who guided me for the project. I still remember the lodge at Kesavadasapuram, where I stayed for the project completion. Have seen it again recently, when I went to drop my cousin sister to her hostel; When i stayed in the lodge, there was a Nursing school just behind the lodge and every evening my time passed with "bird-watching".... :-) I had seen the animals called "Software Engineers" for the first time at Technopark; and later realized that I also am gonna be one of those animals some day...

And here I am, a Software Engineer writing this blog in the dead of the night.......

In Remembrance of my Ammavan...

2009-02-11T20:25:00.008+05:30

Five dreadful days of my life had passed...

On Thursday, 5th of February, I got a call from my dad that my Uncle (Ammavan; mom's brother) had met with an accident and he was in a serious condition. I called my native instantly and I think I have lost all my control when I heard the news. Ammavan had an accident in Kuwait, and he passed away on the spot. I couldn't believe what I was hearing in my mobile...I sat down helplessly in the office staircase, weeping heart broken...

He was just 43 years old, and is the third in the four children of my grand parents; my mom being the eldest, followed by my first uncle and my Kunjamma (mausi). He have two kids (studying in 7th and 2nd grades!) and his wife had gone just 10 days before to Kuwait from Kerala to meet him. She was there when the accident happened; The accident happened on 4th of Feb, in the evening hours. Just before the accident, she called him and he told that he was very far away from their home, as from their home in Kerala to Guruvayoor temple; and that he would manage to reach home in about 1.5 hours. He never reached home after that...The primary cause for the accident was the sand tornado in which my uncle's car got stuck into. Later the postmortem report showed that he had broken his brain nerves out of scare, which was the primary cause of the death. There's not much injury on other parts of his body except some minor scars on face.

The first person to know about the incident was my grand father. He was in our house construction site when he got a call from someone from Kuwait that ammavan had met with a serious accident. God knows how he drove his 2-wheeler from the site to his home with that news in his head...Meanwhile my Kunjamma also got the news and she also started to the maternal home. At first, everyone was thinking that it was an accident and ammavan had just broken his legs and hands...But soon they came to know the harder part of the news. My Grand mother was not aware of the deadlier news and everyone including my grandfather and Kunjamma told that he is just serious and is in hospital...People in and around the home came to know about the accident and death, and they started flocking around the house. Still no one dared say the bad news to my grand mother.

I had also started from Bangalore to Kerala by bus at about 6:00 PM on 5th Feb. One of my friend arranged tickets for me. I reached home by 10:30 AM next day. By that time my grand mother also came to know about the news. With heavy heart, I entered the home. My Grand father was lying on his bed, and seeing me he embraced me and started crying...My grand mother was inconsolable.Oh God! I don't know how I with stood those scenes.

Meanwhile, Ammayi (uncle's wife) also came from Kuwait. I had gone there with Kunjamma, my cousin sister and one more person. The scenes there were horrific...Ammayi was out of control and totally inconsolable. On seeing us, she totally went berserk...Oh God! remembering that itself is an horror for me...

My first uncle also came the same day. My parents and sister also started from Jaipur to Kerala; my mom was told and she still believed that his brother had just met with an accident and he was in a serious condition in hospital. When they reached home in Kerala and when she was told that he was not anymore, she cried so bitterly that I haven't seen her crying like that before...God! you made me witness all these...

On the 5th day of my Uncle's death, the body arrived from Kuwait (Usually it would take at least 3/4 weeks for the body to arrive from any gulf country! Some of my Uncle's friends were in Indian Embassy, which made the arrival easy). The day was like hell...A horror tale for me which I never want to witness again in my life. And please God! Never allow any one to see a day like that...Me, my cousin brother and my uncle's son had done the last rituals for him. God, give my grand parents and my family the power to heel from this deep scar...

I remember my child hood days with my uncle; days when he came to Jaipur from his Army Camp (He was in Army before going to Kuwait); days when we fought for some petty issues; emails and chats sent complaining I don't call him ... My heart wept when I opened my GMail today and looked at the Chat archives...

You have never gone Hari Ammava....You will remain in our heart for ever.... :'( :'( :'(

Objects of Desire...

2009-02-04T21:15:00.003+05:30

We all desire objects, which our mind see as a thing that we can't live without. I had several such desires...

While in Accenture, I was fed up of the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) buses. It was and still is notorious for pick-pocketing, and almost 90% of my friends who traveled in BMTC buses had suffered been pick-pocketed at least once; especially the Bangalore techies. (Techies come default with a poster on their face: "I am a Techie...", so they are the easier prey for the pickers.) I used to put all my belongings (purse, mobile etc.) on my front pocket with my hands tucked in always in the pocket. So I had never been done with an Empty pocket. There comes the first object of my desire. I have taken my "first" bike this way...

As you people might have guessed from my previous posts, I love Music. I had a mobile with FM Radio in it, but then again radios were full of Ads and unwanted songs. There comes the 2nd object of desire. I had my Apple iPod Shuffle through this. Now I can listen to my favorite songs, whenever and whatever times I wanted.

I went to US twice while I was in my present company. Even though I had my office laptop with me in US, I purchased another "personal" laptop, the stunning HP dv9700t CTO notebook. Although it made a 'big' hole in my pockets, yet I Love the laptop more than me... :-)

Oh yeah, people who might have gone outside India may know, that two personal laptops are not allowed by Customs when you come from any country outside India; otherwise you have to pay the Import fee. If you have an Office lappy and a Personal one, you need to have the Office lappy's undertaking letter from the Employer (that the laptop with Serial no xxxxx is an official one and is used by the employee of XYZ company etc.) When I came from US with the two laptops, I had the letter from my company; but yet the Customs people told me to pay the import fee for that. I told I have the letter from my company and the rule says that you can have one personal and one office lappy with you. They started telling me some bogus rules and all. Finally, irritated I told them to keep the Office lappy with them and started to walk away. They came back to me and handed over the lappy to me, saying you have to declare that you will have 2 laptops before leaving India at the Customs checkpoint (What the heck? I don't know boss, that I am going to purchase a laptop there...What if a person has not anticipated that he is gonna purchase something beforehand?). Well anyways, I got through the Customs clearance with both my laptops... ;-)

The HP Pavilion dv9700t Laptop

Mom and me...

2009-02-02T21:10:00.001+05:30

Ahhhh...Blogging after 3 days. Don't know, didn't had the mood to open up the blog and write on those 3 days.

I am more attached to my mother amongst my parents. After all, it's because of her that you get all your traits from...And it's more so in my case. I have a , you can say, sixth sense in this regard when my mom gotta be in trouble. This sense plays on too early to warn me...The first of this sense happened when I was still studying for MCA, and one morning I jumped out of my bed crying...My mom was doing her daily morning chores. She asked me what happened and I couldn't control my emotions and cried like a child. I saw in my dreams that my mother is lying in a hospital bed, with me by her side, crying and holding her hands.

Exactly, some months after, my mother caught a severe case of Jaundice and the infection from Jaundice caused Hepatitis, and she was admitted to hospital for some days. And I was sitting the same way I saw in my dreams some months before, crying and holding her hands...

And today again a dream came in the morning, but this time my mother was alone; I was not there in the dream...I jumped out of bed, but then I thought how this can happen; my mother is quite OK; I had talked with her yesterday over phone and she seems chirpy as ever...And today I couldn't call her also while I was in Office. In the evening, my dad called me, but I couldn't pick up the phone as I was driving. I reached home and called my dad's mobile; And then what he said made my head revolving like a tailspin....My mom fell in the bathroom unconsciously in the morning hours and her head hit the walls it seems, and she had been admitted to a hospital on 24 hours observation...

I talked with her over the phone and Thank god, she is OK..the reports what doctors did came normal, and probably she would be discharged tomorrow.

No pain No gain...

2009-01-29T21:19:00.007+05:30

They say, No Pain No gain...I slipped my fingers while doing chin pull-ups, and my ring finger got hurt badly. I can't even grab things properly now with my left hand. It happened yesterday but the real pain started today when I began my session this afternoon...Ouch, it still hurts. :-(

I had been in Accenture for nearly 2 years, and had been bitten by the love bug twice in this period :-) . I remember Miss B as a girl, who is gorgeous, composed and one with poetry in her eyes...The first time I saw her, I knew that I had again fell victim to the bug. I couldn't speak to her for about 2/3 weeks since she joined the project, in which I was also a member. I should say, no one in the whole Office building dressed so beautifully as she used to dress herself. She had a cute smile, I still remember, on her face while talking.

Hmmm...finally I got the chance to talk to her. There was a client visit on the Office and there was a grand party organized at Hotel Grand Ashoka. Whole of the project team and the clients were present, and there were dances, partying and all those stuffs. She was looking to take a glass of Orange Juice from the bartender stands, but couldn't as people were all going crazy around dancing and having fun. I went to the bartender stand, took two glasses of juice and went straight to her, offering one of the juice. That striked the Note! I gave her the juice glass, and said "Hi!". She replied back, and then I introduced myself, she introduced herself to me and so on. Finally, we danced together, making the day a memorable day of my life.

Dil ka kya kasoor, it goes off for people you never knew... She was a Christian and her parents won't allow her to marry a boy of another caste (Who the hell had made this Caste System???). I knew this, yet I proposed her to marry me...As expected, she told she would not be able to marry me as she won't go against her parents, and on the same day she told that she would be going to one of the Gulf countries to have her MS and to work from there after resigning from Accenture...Ahhhh....on the last day in the office, we met in the cafeteria, and I gave her a Diary milk chocolate as my last present to her (That stupid Cafeteria waala had only the 15 Rs Diary milk left with him...). She is still in one of the Gulf countries now, and we rarely talk with each other now-a-days.

I still remember Miss B....

Luck & My First Job

2009-01-27T22:20:00.006+05:30

Sometimes every thing seems to work against you...Today my Office laptop crashed (again!!!); I thought of using my personal laptop, then again the home Internet connection went berserk...What the heck...OK, I put aside these things and went for dinner, only to realize that I forgot my Purse and the helmet lock keys in Office. Luckily, the office is nearby, so I went in bike and got my purse and the keys. The security guard at the door inspected me from top to bottom, as if I am going to plant a bomb at 8'O click of night. Anyways, I don't complain because he is doing his duty and for the sake of us people. But sometimes, they become so confident that they allow people even without Office tags and the office vehicle stickers...especially at lunch hours.

Traveling through the Koramangala-Madivala pass is an adventure now...The traffic has been made two-way in that area, and it takes 45 minutes at least for reaching me from office to home, while if I walk from office, it would take only 15 minutes. Anyways, I took my dinner from the restaurant on the way, and came back home to have the dinner peacefully. I cursed all my luck to find that the electricity connection is gone in our area.!!! I thought I am gonna mad like this; I stayed calm (yeah in the dark!), put some water on the face and went upstairs to have a walk. Within 20 minutes the electricity supply came back, I had my dinner and thought of re-installing the laptop, which I succeeded. By then the Internet connection also started working and here I am again writing in the blog.

I came to Bangalore on the end of 2004. I still remember the day when I boarded the Jaipur-Bangalore train. I had just completed my MCA, and after a 3 month search for jobs in Northern India (in the Delhi and NCR regions) I got a call from Macromedia Inc (yeah right, if you oldies remember, Macromedia Flash which is now called Adobe Flash; Macromedia is taken over by Adobe) to attend an interview. The foremost problem while I am coming here is no body knew me; all my college mates were in Delhi and NCR regions. But finally, a guy who is the son of a distant friend of my grandpa (quite small a relation!!!) arranged a temporary accomodation for me. The Macromedia interview was a rip-off; I struggled a lot to stand in front of them, but as a fresher, I was not able to...And sadly, I was out in the 4th round of Interview (There were 5 or probably 6 rounds of Interview and I was the only person who got called for the Interview).

Anyways, whatever bad happens to me, I always realized later that it was for my good. I had given interviews in, I think, some two more companies, one of which is in Cunningham road and the other at ITPL. And then my time came. By this time, I had shifted to my present locality (yeah, i have been at this place now for more than 4 years!!!). You never know, when your time comes....I have gone to Internet cafe and came back hopelessly, seeing no mails from any recruiter. My roomy (who was also from Jaipur) told me that Accenture is having a recruitment drive at St. Joseph's School; at first I was not interested because at those times, such news were greatly fake. Anyways, I thought of going there. Indeed there was recruitment going on, but they have closed the requirements it seemed. They just took my resume and told that they will get back to me. Hmmm....2 weeks passed and there was no news from their side; and suddenly one day I got the call for a prelim test from Accenture (Ah, that was a relief. I prayed to all the gods I knew!!!) And so, I got through the prelim, then there was an HR interview (I don't remember what they asked) and a tech interview (I was quite surprised. The interviewer seemed to be a much experienced person. He asked to tell about me, what course had I done, what had I done in my MCA project) After the tech interview, the interviewer said, "OK Vipin, you are in. I will see you in some time!!!". I came dancing out of Accenture office (yeah the office just to the side of Macromedia, now Adobe at the Bannerghatta road stretch).

But for over 2 weeks, I didn't got my Offer letter. Finally I mailed the HR who has taken my Interview for the recruitment, and in the same evening, I got a call from them asking me to come the next day to collect the offer letter.

I bagged my first job this way!!!

Oh yeah, a little help for someone...There was a guy who was also interviewed in the same slot as me. He also got selected in all the processes but he didn't got the offer letter. While I talked about my offer letter to the HR, I also talked about his profile. They told that they were trying to call him for so long, but the phone number he had given was not working. I called him at his house (I think) and told him to send the HR a mail with his working number. That guy finally got his offer letter, but the joining date was around 4 months later than my joining. Anyways, he joined Accenture and is in US now.

Ahhhh!!! Feeling sleepy now. It's already 11:40 PM.

Masakali Lyrics

2009-01-26T13:01:00.004+05:30

Here is the lyrics for Masakali, sung by Mohit Chauhan:

(Humming Vocals)

Aye masakali masakali, thoda matakali matakali,

Aye masakali masakali, thoda matakali matakali.

Aye masakali masa masakali, thoda matakali matakali,

Masakali masakali, thodamatakali matakali.

Zara pankh jhatak, gayi dhool atak aur lachak machak ke door bhatak.

Ude dagar dagar kasbe khunche nukad basti mein (Yai yai),

Itri se mud, ada se udm karle puri dil ki tamana,

Hawa se jhud, ada se ud, phud phud phud tu hai heera panna re.

Masakali masakali, thoda matakali matakali.

Ghar tera saloni, badal ki colony,

Dikhlade thenga in sabko jo udna na jaane.

Udiyo, na dariyo, kar manmaani manmaani man maani,

Bhadiyo, na mudiyonm kar nadaani.

Udiyo, na dariyo, kar manmaani manmaani man maani,

Bhadiyo, na mudiyonm kar nadaani.

Gataan le, muskaan le, keh sanana nanana nana hawa,

Bas thaanle, tu jaanle, keh sanana nanana nanan hawa.

Aye masakali masakali, thoda matakali matakali,

Aye masakali masa masakali masakali masakali, thoda matak matak matak matak.

(Humming Vocals)

Tujhe kya gum, tera rishta gafan ki baansuri se hain,

Pawan ki guftagu se hain, suraj ki roshni se hain.

Udiyo, na dariyo, kar manmaani manmaani man maani,

Bhadiyo, na mudiyonm kar nadaani.

Udiyo, na dariyo, kar manmaani manmaani man maani,

Bhadiyo, na mudiyonm kar nadaani.

Gataan le, muskaan le, keh sanana nanana nana hawa,

Bas thaanle, tu jaanle, keh sanana nanana nanan hawa.

Masakali masakali, ud matak matak matakali,

Masakali masa masa masakali, matak matak matak matak.

Hahahaha (Laughter)

(Humming Vocals)

For more, visit: http://www.rahmanism.com/2009/01/delhi-6-lyrics-maskali.html.

Are you Superstitious?

2009-01-25T21:23:00.006+05:30

Gotta chance to see "Provoked". It was a long time pending movie which I wished to see. So finally it's done. :-)

Went today to Ayyappan temple at Madivala in the evening.

Are you superstitious? We will say No, then why do we stop for some time when we are going outside for some purpose (say to meet a client!) and some one sneezes!!!

I used to go for long drives on my bike alone, when my friends were busy or I was in a mood for a drive. So once I was on such a mood, and decided to go towards Hosur and towards Salem and that area. I don't know what happened to me, while I was going that way, I suddenly took a turn to some narrow path away from the main NH road...The place seems to be deserted, with no one there. I looked around and there was no one to be seen. I just moved on the bike ahead and suddenly there was a pungent smell of burning flesh floating around in the air. I just looked down and realized that I was footing on a shamshaan (Cemetery). There were bone ashes in and around the ground; was not sure if that was of human or animals. There were no barricades or things like that in the area to stop entering people inside accidentally.

I just took a "O" turn (if you know what I mean) with my bike and came straight out of the place without looking behind. And that ends my long drives in my bike alone.

Later on the same day, in the evening I went to Ayyappan temple at Madivala, and after praying came back, only to find that my Bata company's Sandals were missing from the Shoe stand of the temple...The same sandals, by which I footed on that Cemetery.

First tryst with lovebug

2009-01-24T20:53:00.011+05:30

Another day passing by from my life. Heard all the songs of Delhi-6. As expected, superb music by Rahman. Masakali, "Yeh Delhi hai" and the Aarti "Tumhare bhavan mein" are simply rocking. Requesting you people to buy the Original music CD from stores. Listen to your conscience and support musicians.

Music has a special place in my life...I love percussion. Have you seen Sivamani on stage percussing? He is really amazing. I wish i could some time perform with him... Good music besides soothing my nerves, is the first means through which I would have lost my bachelor ship :-) (Remember, I told I will tell sometimes about this?)

So I was in Class XII (that's 13 years ago!) when the love bug first had bitten me. I still remember, I was in my Biology labs, and there came Miss A. She joined in Class XII from another school in Jaipur. And then the problems happened...I lost sleep, scaringly lost interest in studies for some weeks (I was in XII and public exams were nearby!). I still remember her blue eyes; I still remember how she looks towards me with those eyes....And then on a Physics labs day, I proposed her. I gave her a rose and a diary of love songs. At first she said "NO", but then every girl says so.

But you see love is blind and deaf too, when I was proposing her, some one from my class have seen me giving her rose and the diary. The news spreads in the school like a wild fire amongst students (No one imagined I could propose a girl! Then that's me... I love giving surprises) In another section, this guy, who happens to be my mom's friends' son came to know this. And the news reached my home with all namak-mirch and Masalas (Spices)...

Twist in the tale, apparently, another guy from the same school from where Miss A came, also loved her (WoW! Bollywood movie love triangle...). He also got transferred to my school, in my section. And more dreadfully, he was a BOXER!!! But against the popular beliefs, he was a nice guy... I told him that I love her and would marry her after I get a job after my graduation or whatever (he he he...That takes a lot of courage believe me!!! And especially when the opponent is a boxer). Anyways, after 2/3 days of my proposal, I came home after school and my mom was standing in the door keeping a stare at me..."Rajesh (that's my nick name at home!), I couldn't believe this...What were you going school to? Motteyinnu virinjittila, athinu mumbu pranayikaan nadakunnu !!! Adhyam swandham kaalel nilkaan padikku!!! Poovu kodukaan poyekkunu avann..." (The last sentences are in Malayalam, meaning "You haven't hatched from the egg yet, and still you are loving some one! First stand on your own legs and then do all this. Giving flowers to someone... Disgusting!!!").

Hmmm...so mom gave me all the gyans to keep away from the relation. Well, every mother wants their children to live a good life and when time comes they themselves will tell you that. So, thankfully I listened to her words and tried to forget Miss A. By the time I was struggling to forget Miss A, the pre-board and the Public exams started. I faired ok in the main exams...I scored the highest marks in Physics (!!!) and the lowest marks in Mathematics (that's respectful marks among back-benchers; My teacher was dis-appointed about this for sure). Anyways, I passed out of the school on that year and had never met Miss A after that. God knows how she is and where she is now...

That's my first of the five tryst of itching with the love bug... The other four will tell you guys on some other day...

It's 10:20 PM now, feeling sleepy already...

Friends and Bachelors

2009-01-24T17:41:00.003+05:30

hffff....A really long day, and it still not ended yet. Got up at 8 AM on a Saturday morning, a painful process. Today had to do because have to give my bike for servicing. The Service center is about 2/3 Kms from my home, so had a god exercise for legs. I gave my bike to Nidhi Motors (Hosur Road @ Kopen Agrahara, near Bomanahalli) , from where I had purchased the bike also,; Here is a good example of excellent service in Bangalore. I really am impressed by the guys working there. They will personally call or SMS you for all your vehicle related problems, be it for Insurance renewal, bike take-away after servicing etc. And since it's an Hero Honda authorized Service station, you are sure that they are charging you right. Really impressed...

Bachelor life is becoming an over kill now :-) Felt so because all my friends are now married, busy with their world. I am standing alone where there used to be them also; now staring at their life moving away from me. My best friend drifted to Noida; my heart became heavy when today I was passing through KFC @Forum...The merry time we had together there; "bird-watching"; the Landmark mischiefs.....Missing all that a lot.

Well, I had several opportunities to end my Bachelor life (Will tell how sometimes later), but I think life has something more surprising and pleasant for me. Waiting and watching...

Rahmanism...

2009-01-24T10:39:00.001+05:30

Just stumbled on this: http://www.rahmanism.com/2009/01/slumdog-millionaire-jai-ho-effect-in-us.html. The Jai-ho effect US. :-) The site is pretty cool indeed...All Rahman works are incorporated. Looking ahead for Delhi-6 now.

My First Blog: Raindrop started humming....

2009-01-24T00:22:00.002+05:30

Oh Man, I am not believing myself...I am writing in a blog...he he he...Around 4/5 months ago, I was wondering what's all in the blogs? Why people are making their lives public? hmmm...there's a shift to my seeing in that direction now...yeah I have the habit of writing my diary of my everyday life, and that too in an e-way. So blogging must not be a difficult thing for me at all....If you are searching for an e-dairy, iDailyDiary is a cool thing you must have. Read on with the features it has in its free version and you will love and addict on it for sure...

Hmm friday, the day we pros love Isn't? Weekends are at a 24 hours distance, and we aim to catch this distance too fast. And this weekend it's more so, because it's a LONG weekend mannnnn.....Jan the 26th, Indian republic day; the only day when we remember our National flag and the long parades' in the India Gate (New Delhi). The childhood memoirs never leaves us throughout our lives, I still remember, way back when I was 10/11 year old, the Income Tax Office at Jaipur where my dad used to and is still working, used to organize activities on the Republic day, related to children. There were the Jalebi race (Indian sweet batter), where your hands are tied to your back, you have to run towards the jalebi which is tied to a small thread. You have to eat the jalebi without using your hands, and come running back to the starting point. Whenever I have taken part in the event, I didn't remember coming back to the starting point, but yeah the jalebi would have been finished for sure....

Slumdog Millionaire is everywhere in the air.... Well, people criticizing that the movie is a throw-off of poverty-showing to the west, Isn't a truth that India still contains Dharavi, which is the largest slum in the whole world? Then why there's so much hullabaloo over the movie? If you have seen the movie (well, of course I have!) you WILL notice that the cast and crew of the movie moves along with their lives from rags to riches and are not showing the poverty stricken face of India. And of course there are bollywood love stories in the movie if you are looking for that....the main lead with the lady lead and his brother with money... And yeah, how can I leave the music behind the movie? Rahman has his soul in every piece of music he makes...Have you heard "Tanha tanha (Rangeela)" (I said 'heard', not 'seen') when you are stressed out? The flute soothes your nerves. Do give it a try, and remember just hear the music!

Well, I try deciphering the "Gangsta Blues" from Slumdog and for my horror, couldn't do it till now...Blaaze has rapp'd the song so nicely killing the whole lyrics. I searched the net and find out this:

Am I yeah..am I yo?

Am I great? Am I doh

Am I high? Am I sure?

(I suspect this is my brain cooking up words where only sounds exist)

Etc. (This is beyond me)

Do you hear me? Do you care?

Do you see me? Do you stare?

Gotta find me like the shadow in the dark…..

Don't stare!

Gangsta Blues!

Do you hear me? Do you care?

Do you see me? Do you dare?

Coming for me?/Come and find me? like the shadow in the dark…..

Don't stare!

?????????????????

Hey! Out of line, out of time, out of mind,

Me no care, me no wanna wanna care

Me no dare me no wanna wanna stare

Don't care

Don't stare!

You think you no really care what people say

You say you no really care what people do

You say you no really care what people think

You say you no really care

Another time, Another place, ?????, turn off the bass

Well, the lyrics has been from a fellow blogger (http://inkspillz.blogspot.com) and thanks to him/her for the same (It's unfair to copy the lyrics from someone without her giving credits). At some place the Lyrics are missing because it's just hardcore difficult to find what the words are...

Another song, which hopefully bring India an Oscar is O Saaya...The Lyrics goes here... (leave aside what Rahaman sings in that...)

O...saya

They can't touch me

We break our friends so fast

They can't even touch me

Been that..

Touch me I'll show you

My zig zag quickly

Pick up that pack of my journey

Don't run that start to follow me..

I am in a luck,

Some days they suck

We live by the buck

We get for the family..

One day I wanna be a star

So I get to hang in a bar

I got to Vegas to play off

Just to forget my scar

Ek do teen char panch..

Has made me thrifty

Like a ninja with speed

I am nifty

I hope I live till I am fifty

See my city go a quick to a..

Fingers crossed, and good luck to all fellas out there of the Slumdog team...Danny Boyle, Rahman, Russell Pookutty...

And another tiff with a much hyped restaurant in Bangalore. The Maharaja at Koramangala, hyped to serve good lunch and dishes, didn't came close to a quality food at all... Some of the dishes are quite spicy, and some of them are not spicy at all. The prawn fries as starter, I even didn't knew that I was eating prawn fries; I was thinking it as a aaloo pakoda when someone told that it was prawn fries...Well...Not there anymore. The only thing good there was ice-creams, which any way would be good any where.

Didn't got the chance to go to Gym today. Was heavy from the lunch and I ran out of the protein powder. Had been to More @Forum for inquiring at the pharmacy, and surprisingly it was there. Will purchase it tomorrow. By the way, if any of you guys know how to have the dosage for Creatine monohydrate and Whey protein shakes ( I mean how to take them, before gym or after?) , do let me know here please....

Oh mannnn....it's already 1:20 AM, Saturday. My head gotta revolving like tailspin...time to sleep...