Trapped In a Walnut ;-) :-)

Memories of a lifetime

2011-12-06T18:29:00.000-08:00

A thousand words said,
And a thousand unsaid
A million thoughts go unread
Only a few memories stay embed

The sands of time that never cease to trickle
Layering up a mind ever so fickle
Standing out moments priced well beyond a nickle
Reminiscences that tend to render the heart a tickle

A memory that speaks a thousand words
Yet some pass by absolutely unheard

And there are some that are meant to be stirred

Try as you can, they are not meant to be reword.

Who knows???

2011-11-11T15:00:00.000-08:00

Off late been listening to a few kannada songs. One particular song that really got my attention was this song called yavanig gothu ( literal translation - Who knows? ). I was blown away by the lyrics of song. I mean Mr. Yograj Bhat has shown such brilliance in coming up with this song, it just left me flabbergasted. Here is how the song goes.

Naane jeeniyassa Hrudaya Siriselathidababa ( Am I a genius or a heart, some reference to Siri and baba. ) { I am pretty bad at this :P }
Abcd Na aalu geddena ( am I a ABCD..or a potato ) { how could he give a link from an American Born Confused Desi to a potato?? }
Gode Hallina..yavanig gothu? ( Wall sticking lizard....who knows? ) { Really of all the animals in the world you choose to make a reference to a lizard!!!..Guess the lizard family owes you one for bringing them into the lime light }
Yenu maadodhu Onti hoovondhu ( What to do lonely flower one )
Roadali Sikthu Roadalli sikthu ( found on the road, found on the road )
Yenu Helodhu intha time alli ( what to tell in such time )
Yavanig gothu yavanig gothu ( who knows who knows ) { probably the only 4 sane lines of the song i think }
Yedhe Emba khali Dabbakke ondhu ( heart like empty box one )
Sanna Kallu biddangayitu ( small stone hitting the afore-mentioned box )
Dabba yaathakke sound maadodhu ( why box makes sound? ) { really???..self sustaining sound producing boxes in a song....what metaphor I must say }
Yaavanig gothu yaavanig gothu ( who knows who knows )

Ivalu sigthala kai kodathala ( will i get her, will she give hand )
yaavanig gothu yaavanig gothu ( who knows who knows )

Adhu yaavdho onti hakki saddanna ( some lonely bird's sound )
Keluttha malakondidde madhyana ( was listening to and sleeping in the afternoon )
Kaal kg preethigondhu padyana ( for 250 grams love one poem ) { damn love has a measuring unit now }
baredhittu keredhukonde gaddana ( wrote it and scratched my beard ) { what a herculean effort i say...i wonder what the other sane poets/lyricists do after writing...doubt they go around scratching beards and other inappropriate/appropriate places }

Kaalidhasa kavya nammappanna kelri ( ask my dad about Kalidasa's poetry ) { poor guy man..i dont think any dad would want to listen to anymore poetry after listening to this }
Khali haalegintha olle kavya ilri ( no poetry is better than an empty paper ) { really profound!! }

Hrudhayadha Mele High Heeldu Haaki ( on top of my heart wearing high heels )
Raja Kumari Ninthangaithu ( felt like a princess is standing ) { what else would you want your heart to bear?? )
Intha Time Alli Haadu Bekiththa ( At this time was there a need for a song ) { Pretty sure not with such lyrics!!! }
Yaavanig Gothu Yaavanig Gothu ( who knows who knows )

Devadasanu Yenne Bittidhna ( Did devadas leave alcohol? ) { why does everyone bring that poor chap into everything }
Yaavanig Gothu Yaavanig Gothu ( who knows who knows )

Kanasalli Yaako Yaavdhu Saalalla ( nothing is enough even in dreams )
Modaana Mudhu Maadokaagalla ( you cannot love a cloud ) { Demented!!! what were you even thinking when you wrote this line!!!}
Chittege Chaddi Haakokaglilla ( You cannot make a butterfly wear shorts ) { This is the icing of the entire song...even the best Lepidopterists would not have ever ever thought about doing that. What a ground breaking research this could turn out to be!!! }
Nimge Gothalva Nanu Muththala ( You only know that I am a fool ) { Going by the lyrics of the song I dont think this was a necessary conclusion to be added. Would have been pretty obvious I guess }
Maththe Maththe Banthu Yedheyallondhu Lahari ( Repeatedly came from heart one wave ) { how can one wave come out repeatedly...From where to where the lyrics of this song goes!!! }
Thumba Olle Kannada Maathaadi Bitte Kanri ( Spoken off very good Kannada ) { Yeah right!!!}
Moogu Bottaagi Huttidhre Nanu ( If i had been born as a nose ring )
Ivala Moothile Irabahudhithu ( Would have stayed on her face ) { No comments!!! }

Nanna Aasegu Meaning Irabahudha ( Can there be a meaning to my desires? ){ what more would he want...such deep profound lyrics in a song...why would you go searching for a meaning }
Yaavanig Gothu Yaavanig Gothu ( who knows who knows )
Mundhe Yelladhru Thindi Sigabahudha ( In future will there be food?? ) { I think this was the line the hit the nail on the head }
Yaavanig Gothu Yaavanig Gothu ( who knows who knows )

Cannot say this is an amazing composition lyrically, but the music makes the song look good. And the worst part is I somehow like this song quite a bit. So why did I take the trouble of writing this?........Yavanig gothu????

Nobody's Fool

2011-10-24T23:43:00.000-07:00

Take a step behind
Away from all the grind
Resign from doing the inclined
See that you are but, blind
Understand that you are nobody's fool

You feel what you have to feel
Why care, if to some it does not appeal
Life in itself is a big ordeal
Greet it with a zeal of steel
Because you ought to know that you are nobody's fool

Muted Thoughts

2011-10-09T00:38:00.000-07:00

One of those days

When there is enough to be said

But the voice seems to be dead

On this course we all tread

Pondering where it might have lead

Its not that I do not have anything to say

Its just that at times I have nothing to say

The words seem to join the fray

As every thought looks to out weigh

Running every emotion astray.

Its not that I have no thoughts to share

Its just that I do not want any to spare

A matter of time they all swear

I manage just a feeble glare

Waiting for that forgotten flair

There is something about you

2011-09-08T00:16:00.000-07:00

I gaze into the open sky
with a blank stare in my eye
Wishfully thinking time would redo
Because there is something about you

Just like the waves ebb and rise
I see flashes of the past arise
Remembering the time which I could renew
Because there is something about you

Torn between the past and new
sometimes I can't help but to feel blue
These emotions from inside just happen to spew
Because there is something about you

You were the one who would see through
In between my hues that you would hew
I just can't stop thinking about you
Because there definitely is something about you

A Warm Afternoon

2011-06-12T18:20:00.000-07:00

Blinded by the light I sit on the porch

Whilst the soft notes of the melody keeps playing

The slight rustle in the leaves keeps me thinking

Will there be an end to this waiting?

The uncomfortable warmth of the noon

Sears the skin like a harpoon

I long to see the sun go down

and to erase the mindless frown

As, the time goes by so slowly

I reflect upon life ever so humbly

I wait for the night to come by,

accompanied by the cool breeze

wafting along like the music with ease

and keeping the mind at peace.

Illusion

2011-01-24T18:58:00.000-08:00

A night, where the moon shines so bright

when all seems so unbleached and right

Darkness covers the sky in a satin weave

an illusion meant only to deceive

Waiting for that shimmering light

which fortifies to render respite

It is but a matter of time

when things return to the dust and grime

And it begins all over again

a recurrence, to comprehend is truly inane.

Adrenaline Rush of a lifetime

2010-12-27T19:15:00.000-08:00

This had been one of the longest wait for me. It was last year that my room-mate came back home and described the sky dive that he had done. That fueled my desire to take the leap from 13000 feet above the air. Of-course that was with the help of an instructor, but still I was waiting to feel the free fall. It was a pretty long wait at the academy where the tandem jump takes place. The wait was adorned with the usual pre-jump banter among the five of us who had gone for the jump. Finally the respective instructors came to the preparation area and finally we were ready to head for the sky.
The flight up was more frightening as compared to the thought of plunging into the open sky 13000 feet above the ground. It was this rickety old plane which was held together by tapes with all kinds of wires hanging out from the ceiling. Certainly not a very comforting sight while going up for a sky dive. Nevertheless after an eternity of loud brain damaging engine noise, I was pretty sure that we had reached the desired altitude. That was when my instructor pointed out that we had reached 7000 feet which was just half the way up.
Finally the long awaited moment had arrived. At 13000 feet above the ground the door was opened and the jumpers were going overboard one after the other. The first thing that I can remember when the door was opened, was a jumper being thrown out by two instructors. It was a pretty nasty sight when you see a guy being thrown off ( literally ). Well after this point everything that happened was like a blur. I had no idea when it was my turn to jump, ( obviously with the instructor attached to my back ). The last thing that I remember before jumping was the instructor firing away instructions into my ear. I am pretty sure they were pretty simple to follow as I had no idea what I was doing once we jumped off.
The jump by itself was the ultimate zenith of adrenaline pumping in me. It was almost a whole minute of free fall. For a minute I really felt that I could fly. As they say all good things come to an end, the free fall was over as soon as it had started. The instructor pulled the parachute and we glided down to solid ground ( though landing on my rear end was not that cool ). The instructor was actually telling that we would do a standing skate landing, which did sound pretty amazing. But it was not the case to be. I really wish that the fall would have lasted for a bit more longer. I am hoping that the next jump would be from 16000 feet.

P.S- Had this post as a draft for a really really long time. Just managed to stitch some words together to get this post published.

Mindlessnes

2010-10-01T16:23:00.000-07:00

Is it not a mystery
the working of a curious mind
which never ceases to wander
Is it not a wonder
how the mind thinks yonder
Trust it to make time squander

The mind alone knows
what goes on within itself
Gives you happiness in abundance
but clings on to the sorrows as well

Makes you dream with open eyes
sometimes which none can surmise
Takes you on a high so high
makes you feel like you can fly

Even as you blink
and even as I ink
it never ceases to think.

Useless Observations

2010-06-25T15:29:00.000-07:00

P.S ( Pre-script ) - Might start of to be a little high funda kind of a post, but ends up as a silly rambling from my end. So this is a fore-warning to not waste time by reading this.

As I kept staring at this editor for what seemed like an eternity, there was not a single substantial topic in mind which I could pen down. Recollecting my past few weeks I realized that I have had a few topics to write here and there but none were good enough to actually write something about. In the end this was pretty much what I could come up with to publish / post.

I am sure there are many people who have wondered about their appearance to the outside world. There is a certain effect or an aura that reflects from every individual that we come across in life. These are some of the very insignificant details that most of us fail to notice. Be it the extremely hearty and cheerful attitude a receptionist having to go through the same routine day after day or be it the grumpy reflections of the overworking software engineer whose never-ending lines of codes end up rare and 'unknown' errors that nobody can debug.

Let me not be too high funda with this and digress from the main reason why I started with this post. I do not know how much of this holds good, but the main intention of writing this post was to put forth my observation. There are a few things really buzzing around in my head like a disoriented bee trying to find its way out of a closed box. One of the things thats in my head is that does it really matter how people around you feel or think? As in should you give a crap as to what effect your actions have on the others? Or is it just that only the sensitive people seem to catch on to this crazy thing, while others do not give a rat's ass.

I just seem to wonder how some times the silliest of matters seems to tick you off. I have started noticing that people eat with their mouths open or make some sort of noise while chewing on their food. It is said that its quite in-appropriate to chew with one's mouth open or to talk with food in mouth. But is it really wise spread and followed by all? Generally I would not give this too much of a thought, but suddenly I started wondering if I do the same thing and the others think in the same direction.

Everyone is not perfect, I know all that 'blah blah blah' kind of statements that people come up with when such things are pointed out. But talking with food in mouth, drinking with a slurping sound and chewing with mouth open counts as being an etiquette fail. These things sound funny and can be passed of as stupidity till a certain age. But beyond that it just sounds plain disgusting. The worst part is that its stupid to even point such things out. I wonder if I put forth such an image to the outside world. Well I may have my own shortcomings which I have not realized it just yet. But I do hope that at some point of time I reach a position where I can actually manage to say 'It is quite difficult to improve upon Perfection' ( stolen dialog from Dil Chahta Hai movie ) , and actually mean it.

Note: This was just an observation on what might be a silly thing, which lead to writing a silly post on a silly issue.

Let M-e-go

2010-06-01T00:27:00.000-07:00

It is said that the portion of the psyche or the portion of the self that refers to itself or in simple words refers to 'I' is called as the ego. It was by chance that I got to read about ego, a word which is thrown around here and there in recent times describing certain behaviors which cannot be rationalized. To put it in plain layman terms Ego could be defined as 'who you think you are'. Makes a lot of sense if one takes out time just to analyse and reflect upon the past events occurred in which he/she was involved.
There was one particular mail which was forwarded by a very good friend of mine. The mail had a small but simple story which goes on something like this:
A group of 4-5 women were sitting in a restaurant and chit-chatting when all of a sudden a flying roach sits on one of the lady's hand. On seeing the roach the lady immediately freaked out and started to yell and jumped out of her skin bringing down the roof. The roach then went on to jump to the nearby lady who was just glad and willing to continue on the drama started by her friend. The nearby waiter who went to the rescue somehow got entangled and the roach finally jumped on him. The waiter remained unperturbed. Watched the movements of the roach for a few moments and calmly picked it up and threw it out.

The histrionic behavior of the ladies was elicited by the roach?
But then why was the waiter so unperturbed and calm. It was the same roach that jumped on him that jumped on the ladies as well. It was merely the inability of the ladies to react to such a situation that resulted in such a comical event. One should realize that most of the problems arises because of their inability to react to the situation.The stark realization of the fact that it is the individual's inability to react to any particular situation is what is more disturbing and hurtful than the situation itself. This is where the ego comes in. Rationalizing a situation and responding to it will always be the best course of action. The waiter in this case responded where as the ladies reacted. Reactions are instinctive where as response is always intellectual.
The brief pause in thinking and responding to a situation more often than not leads to the elimination of ego. I may be sounding a little too philosophical or spiritual but more one lets go of the ego or more one lets go of 'I' the more peaceful the individual is from within.
Bottom line of the story though - An intelligent person responds where as fools react.

P.S- No pun intended towards any of the characters described above. The article is actually written by a certain Deepak Shinde. I have just posted pretty much the same thing here. Though have managed to link it to ego.

Off Late

2010-04-02T00:28:00.000-07:00

It was one of those days that took me a little down memory lane. From the time I landed in US, I ended up having three bank accounts. Not that I had so much money that I could fill up those accounts, but because of different situations I had three accounts to my name. One of the reasons was solely to acquire the free i-pod that they were giving away. I accept it, the 'desi buddhi' in me will never die. Finally today I decided upon closing the two unused accounts for good. Standing there in front of the teller, the stark realization hit me that it has been almost two years since I had landed here. It was quite a strangely nostalgic feeling that I was going through standing there in the bank. Time really flies, I must admit.

Well as I said time flies, I really dint have to be down the nostalgia lane for a long time. Reality hit me right on my face as I realized that I had a meeting with my professor. I was a little worried, because I had not gotten around to finishing up the work that he had assigned to me and on top of that I had gone ahead and told him that I was going on a road trip and will not be working for an entire week. That reminds me, Spring break I had gone for a road trip to California with a bunch of my friends. It really was one of the best drives of my life. Imagine winding roads and hillocks on your left and the Pacific Ocean to your right. It was a sight to behold.

I had been to a live concert the other night. Megadeth concert was something which I had never expected that I would be going to. It was a quite an enjoyable concert. Ok to be frank it was a really really good show. I could see the band about 30 or 40 feet in front of me, and the atmosphere was well like a thrash metal concert should have been with a lot of head banging, pushing (read as shoving/throwing) and loud ( read as ear splitting ) music. The highlight of the show for me was when I caught a Dave Mustaine ( lead guitarist/vocalist ) pick that he threw out to the audience ( crowd to be more precise ).

I keep reminding myself that I will come up with a post that has a significantly less number of 'I's in them. But off late this blog has turned into more of an autobiography/day to day diary (accounted every 3 months) kind of thing. Definitely do have a few ideas in mind but just not finding the spark or the enthusiasm to dish it out in words. Will do it someday............

Of Cliff dwellings and Canyons

2010-01-05T12:00:00.000-08:00

Finally I get down to penning some thoughts about a road trip. This would probably be my 5th or 6th attempt. The previous few attempts having been discarded because of lack of interest and a sudden drying up of my vocabulary. Nevertheless, as they say its better late then never.

After a whole lot of speculation of "will we's" and "wont we's", we finally headed out for a 2 day trip. First stop was Montezuma Castle. I really dont know whats so castle like in this monument. Honestly it was no bigger than our apartment. Right that was a little too much of an exaggeration I know, but still....

It was a wonder to see a building built right up there on the walls of a cliff, though. The only accessible point of entry to this monument is a ladder which could be pulled up to cut off the entry. Well that was when people used to access the monument. There is restriction on the entry currently because of the extensive damage caused to the ruins. I wish we were allowed to go inside and see though. It was not all that bad but then one of my friends aptly termed the place to be 'bakwaas'.

Next stop was the Montezuma Well. Honestly it wasnt all that a wonder. The people around the monuments described the history and the importance of the place as though there was nothing in this world to beat the beauty and the significance of the place. That was when I realized how rich India is and how sometimes we neglect the importance of the profound heritage that we have. The incredible thing about the well was that there was a constant supply of water, and no-one supposedly knows how deep the water went. Some of the flora around the well was creepy and in a way strangely attractive. Though some part of the well looked nothing more than a ditch to me. Speaking of which my friend had a gala time trying to click an incredible number of pictures of what looked like sewage water ( No offense buddy, but had to take that out somewhere ).

Moving on we, went to Walnut Canyon where we trekked a small little trail and saw quite a few cave dwellings which were in ruins. They were small enough for a dwarf ( probably 4 ft )to fit in. It was actually amazing to see such crude and old developments of such habitats which had neat demarcations of a storage room and a living room. The trek was really good, and the company made it even more better. There were crazy pictures taken at probably every step of the trek, from crazy angles with people doing all kinds of crazy actions.

Finally we ended up in Grand Canyon which looked very different from the last time when I had seen it. It was speckled with snow all over and looked really good. The view from the rim is really grand. Again after another session of a thousand clicks and a session of free, unwanted skating ( because of the slippery iced ground ) we headed back to the motel.

The final day was real good fun. We went skiing!!!!!!

All of us who tried our hands at skiing fell at least a thousand times. Well some of us even managed to fall like a million times. Bottom line is that skiing is not as easy as it looks. But if you manage to get through the initial learning stages it is insanely good. At the end of the day all of us remember 'GO GO GO' and 'Wedge Wedge Wedge'!!!!!!!

Happenings Lately

2009-12-28T07:21:00.000-08:00

Noticed how my blog posts have diminished lately?

I know nothing new to that. But this time the cause for being so inattentive towards my blog is not because of laziness. It has more to do with 2/7ths of my wishlist coming true. I was feeling a little too happy with the way things have gone this semester, so I decided to give myself a PS3. It has been merely a week since the arrival of the beautiful gaming console. It has become such a big addiction now. Days and nights seem to be just amalgamate into this blur where I find myself glued to the television with the controller in hand, smashing these millions of weird looking demons. Gives me a strange kind of high. So much so, that I have almost stopped playing counter strike now, and I have practically neglected my laptop.

Funny how time seems to just race past you when you are doing something that you like. The semester is over and the holidays have started. I am back at doing what many of us like to do. I now laze around the entire day spending time extravagantly as though I have inherited millions of units of it. As stated above the days and nights just merge into this weird blur. Half the time is gone with the playstation. The remaining half goes in sleeping. I am trying quite hard to rid myself of this habit of sleeping at 4 in the morning and waking up at 2 in the afternoon. It so happened that I managed to sleep the entire day once. I ended up asking my roomie where the day had gone off to?

That felt really weird. One entire day gone within the blink of an eye. Anyways, somewhere in this extremely busy schedule of mine I do manage to work. I get paid for doing some work that my professor asks me to. So fortunately the holidays is not jam packed with the brutal killing of time. I manage to do something constructive after all.

The new year is fast approaching and a whole pack of my friends have headed back home. I know the feeling is just insanely incredible to be back home for the vacations. I sometimes wish I could have headed back home. Well, as the saying goes everything has a price tagged to it. For my wishlist to come true I had to work which continues through the winter break so no complaints. Coming back to the new year, I still do not know what I would be doing. There are plans of heading off on a road trip, or just cool our heels sitting at home. It is always last minute.

I have to mention this here. I attended 'Service' in a Church where our American Family go, for Christmas. It was a rather new experience. The way of praying here is so completely different from how we do it. The family is so sweet that they had us over for dinner. Well they eat at 5 in the evening and call that dinner. After the dinner they took us to their church and finally we went back to their house to finish of the day with some amazing deserts. It was really cool and sweet of them to involve us in their celebrations and rituals. They even ended up giving us presents. They day had a real crazy ending. Me and my friends ended up playing monopoly the entire night. Weird sort of a way to celebrate Christmas.

Well that is what is happening lately. I hope I manage to come up with more posts in the near future, something more meaningful rather than mindless ramblings and day to day stuff. Adios till then.

My Current Wishlist!!!!

2009-12-07T16:05:00.000-08:00

One of my very close friend recently purchased a Sony PS3 and I was really blown away by it. I just did a little digging recently and came up with a few games that I would definitely want to get my hands on. So my wishlist for the time being is:

I need to get a PS3 first ;-)
A proper video output device to go with the PS3 :-D
Prototype
God of War
Uncharted 2
COD MW 2 and
Assassins Creed 2

I want, I want, I want, I want and I want!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Milestone

2009-12-02T11:12:00.000-08:00

Finally its the 50th post for my blog. Pondering about what I have written for the 49 posts preceding this one I kept thinking that to mark this grand post I should probably come up with something really really special. Something on the lines of a poem. But then I guess it was a little too much to ask for from my grey cells. Hence sticking to the usual posting of some random nonsense and bullshit.

Life in itself has come so far. I cannot believe that I have spent a staggering 8738 days so far. Sounds a little insignificant, but it is invariably a large number. Out of which I am sure I would have spent half the time in sleep. So effectively my time on this planet would be 4369 days, of which I do not recollect about lets say 2369 days ( for easier rounding off ). So that leaves me with roughly 2000 days. I digress as I always do. Thats not the basic point that I am trying to make.

Sometimes there are moments in life which just hits you in your face which makes you realize that time has really passed. It makes you feel so old, as though you have experienced so much of life. On the other hand some situations make you feel so nascent, stupid and so inexperienced. The journey so far has been a roller coaster ride. Looking back I can say that I have met a lot of people, made new friends, pissed off many ( bound to happen ) etc etc. I just wanted to take time off and say thank you to all those wonderful people in my life who have made a big difference ( even the small one ), and also say that I am sorry for whatever I did which might have caused pain ( it was never intentional, it never is..thats what they all say!!! ).

Its time I put an end to this deluded rambling for what was supposed to be a very impressive 50th post in my blog. Nevertheless I did take some gyaan out off this laborious endeavor. Never stop writing in between a post. Useless gyaan I know, but I lost flow half way through the post when I stopped for no apparently good reason.

P.S-The writings have taken a literal roll down the hill. I hope that I can come up with some good posts from now on!!

The Master of The Game

2009-11-14T12:38:00.000-08:00

The title for this post sounds very small and insignificant compared to the greatness of the batting Legend. After that brilliant century at Hyderabad which almost took India to a victory people have been showering praises on Sachin. Everywhere you see there is talks about Sachin. Its not just the brilliance of the Little Master but it is the way he has projected himself and stamped his class all over cricket. It is The Experience, I quote " It is impossible to outgrow Indian Sports most celebrated Boy Wonder ".

Writing about a person who is considered as almost the game itself is never easy. It is a mutual feeling shared by millions of others who sense the same kind of hope and anticipation every time Sachin takes guard at the batting crease. It has been mentioned that the entire nation comes to a standstill when he is out there at the center batting, and demolishing the best of the opposition. I am quite certain that there will not be a single cricket enthusiast in this planet who will not have 'Googled' Sachin Tendulkar. Mentioning this after having spent literally hours searching for the Man, The Machine and The Legend. The names and the accolades showered upon will never come to an end.

I took a long time publishing this post, thinking and assuming that I can make it better and different from the rest of the writings about the greatest batsman the game has ever seen. But alas I sadly realized that the words that I come up with will always fall short of the achievements and the greatness of the legend called Sachin Tendulkar. To wrap it all up this article by Rajdeep Sardesai sums up the extraordinary talent that India has ever produced in the field of cricket.

Insanely Useless Facts #3

2009-11-04T17:22:00.000-08:00

It has been ages again since I posted, so here I go with another post about insanely useless facts. By the way a big congratulations to the page for attracting '100' hits ( eventually ) after I placed a neat little tracker on the page. Without further ado I bring to you more useless but interesting facts.

The Chinese are credited with the invention of the first toothbrushes. Initially the bristles were made up of Hog ( pig ) bristles but were eventually replaced by nylon. Sales would have definitely taken a huge blow if it were continued with the current H1N1 scare floating around.
A 'face-off' in hockey was originally called as 'puck-off'. I am pretty sure that commentators would have made genuine mistakes replacing 'p' with 'f'. I am sure I would have. ;-)
A 'jiffy' as we all say and take an eternity for daily chores and work, is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
A 100 pound ( ~45 kg ) person on Earth would weigh 38 pounds ( ~17 kg ) on Mars.
A blue whale's aorta ( the main blood vessel ) is large enough for a human to crawl through. Thats really really big.
A company in Taiwan makes dinnerware out of wheat, so you can eat your plate. I wish we get that here. Would save us a lot of trouble in washing utensils everyday!!!!
A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours.
Austria was the first ever country to use post-cards.
Bats always turn left while exiting from a cave.
Last but not the least for this particular post, Baskin Robins once made ketchup ice-creams. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!

So far......

2009-10-16T11:20:00.000-07:00

Here is where I again come out of the self imposed hiatus and solemnly pledge that I will continue to blog more often than not. I expect that I will be posting many more such topics which starts of quite similar to this one.

Its that period of the semester where I get really busy. Busy in watching all sorts of unwanted series, busy in sleeping, busy in somehow managing to kill time. Well thats how a Masters degree is supposed to be I believe. Whats the fun in completing a Masters while not having fun and killing time unnecessarily. Pretty sure many will beg to differ. Right now I am feeling quite happy. Was woken up today by a call from a very good friend/senior/sister of mine who had cleared her comprehensive exam. The relief ( from having finally completed Masters ) was very prominent in her voice, which made me realize how very close I am in finishing my degree. Another 6-7 more months and I'll be done. Finally the end of the so clearly 'Rosy' picture portrayed, of a MS degree will begin.

On the flip side of all this, there is a very frustratingly funny and irritating incident that happened a couple of days back. It was my cooking turn, which I am pretty sure that most of us dread 95% of the time. Cooking as such may not be that bad, but the cleaning that follows after the cooking is a real pain in all the wrong places possible. Well, as I always do, I digress. Getting back to the incident, I had prepared this wonderful (hypothetical cause none of us got to taste it) rasam ( something similar to a stew ) using Lima beans I guess. Not too sure as to what the beans was though. So taking all the efforts I had brewed this particular stew. Just as I was about to finish I saw a freaking roach taking a happy and pleasurable swim in it. That just ensured that all my enthusiasm (which is usually quite low while cooking) or whatever little was left of it, went crashing down. Nevertheless I managed to somehow brew another pot of stew, this time totally different from the previous one. All this happened within a space of minutes. And Lo Behold!!!! There is another freakingly disgusting roach taking a swim in this stew also. Unfortunately there was nothing that night to go with the rice that was cooked. There was absolutely no way that I could cook another side dish, that same night.

As frustrating and irritating it was at that point of time, me and my roomies did manage to see the funny side of it later on. One of the plausible explanation given by one of them was that, probably the 2 roaches were a couple grieving the loss of their kid. Could be possible as the amount of roaches that we kill per day is quite staggering. It might be that the couple wanted to dive into the stew together spoiling one dish. But then realized that spoiling two would be better than one, hence the consequence.

I know sounds quite dumb when I actually put it into words, but the whole incident was really funny. As stupid as the incident and as a result this post might seem, it sure got to my nerves and finally became a thing worth laughing at.

Insanely Useless facts #2

2009-09-21T00:32:00.000-07:00

Alright here is the sequel to the earlier post, and this time I have managed to collect quite a few of them. So here goes some useless stuff!!!!!!!!!

'Insomnia Cafe' does that name ring a bell?? Naah I bet none of us would remember a thing like that. But believe it or not that was one alternate title that was considered for the hit television series 'Friends'!!!!
It takes about 50 hours for a snake to digest one frog. That is a shade more than two full days. Would solve quite a lot of problems had we taken so long to digest our food!!!!!!
The United States of America shreds about 7000 tons of used currency every year. That is a lot of money!!!!
The bite of a leech is painless due to its own anesthetic. It will gorge itself up to five times its body weight and then just fall off its victim. Believe it or not the medical uses of leeches dates back as far as 2500 years. Their saliva contains a property that acts as an anticoagulant for human blood. Very caring I must say. Bite --> Apply anesthetic --> medicate --> fall off. Cheap treatment!!!!!!
It is quite well known that female mosquitoes are the ones that draw blood and spread disease. In case you have something against them do not bother cursing them. It seems they are deaf!!
Even if the stomach, the spleen, 80 percent of the intestines, one kidney, one lung, and virtually every organ from the pelvic and groin area are removed, the human body can still survive. And even if 80 percent of your liver were removed, the remaining part would continue to function. Within a few months, the liver would have reconstituted itself to its original size.
Finally the most useless of all facts for this post-- The wiring in my brains are fried. Any electricians out there?????

The world never ceases to wonder me!!!

2009-09-17T00:44:00.000-07:00

This has been a pretty dry season for Bollywood. Apart from Kaminey not many movies have made their mark at the box office so naturally there has been a dearth in the number of hindi movies that I have been watching. That did not stop me from watching a really lame and bull crap of a movie titled 'Jai Veeru - Friends Forever' or what ever the lame ass tagline was. This movie is about 2 friends and blah blah blah....oh let me cut the crap and come straight to the point.

There is this particular scene where in one of the guys aims a gun at the other. There is a freak accident and he fires at the other guy. The events that followed were not at all expected. The other hero gets shot in the forehead. I would say on the very top of the forehead. Who in their right state of mind would dream of a hero being shot in the forehead just about 50 minutes into the movie and that too in Bollywood. What followed though was totally expected. This guy makes a miraculous recovery and in within 6 months time resumes duty as a police officer. Yippiee go Bollywood!!! Go Hero!!!!! Who the hell gives a damn about science and modern day technology and facts?????

This actually prompted me to dig into such things and I came up with the fact that 92% of the bullet injuries to the head leads to mortality. This guy was really really lucky to be in the 8% basket. Fine its a movie and people get to use their luck and imagination as they want. No more comments about it. But the most unusual and startling thing that I discovered was that a woman in America somewhere in Mississippi I believe survived a head shot from a .38 caliber handgun. For those of you who do not know what that means its the gun which is very similar to the ones used in our Bollywood movies, especially the ones with the 6 cylindrical slots. Ok now you got the picture!!!!!

An assistant professor of Surgery after examing her stated that there is a space in the brain it seems through which a missile could pass without causing any damage!!!!!!! So that means the 8 out of every hundred person could survive a headshot. But then again the possibility is very less it seems for the missile to pass through that space. Aaaahhh the wonders of nature or should I say the miracles of doctors nowadays.

Well I forgot to mention the funny part of this story. Firstly the woman actually got shot and then made tea for herself and even offered the police officers who came to her place. And the best part is that this lady is American and residing in US and this information was pulled out from a UK newspaper. Its a crazy world out there I tell you!!!! As proof you can go ahead and check out this link for the real story.

P.S--> I had to come back and add this. It was truly one of the most lamest movies I have ever seen. Its a good thing though, that I paid for it with a few hours of my sleep and nothing else, which I am sure a few people are gonna disagree to. And NO it definitely not remotely close to Jai and Veeru from Sholay. Just the names of a few evergreen characters is not enough to attract crowds to the theaters I guess!!!

Insanely Useless facts #1

2009-09-10T02:37:00.000-07:00

Yes yes yes I am planning to make this into a series. Will not bother with the sources, but will keep this coming as and when I can. And for people who know about these facts please "go take a hike" ( thats exactly how my sister would word it !!!! )

Mr P.J.Tierney, father of the modern diner, died of indigestion in 1917. Believe it or not he died after eating in a diner. Thats what I would call a killer idea. Poor guy though!!!
A ball of glass will bounce higher than a ball of rubber. A ball of solid steel will bounce higher than one made entirely of glass. Now who in their right state of mind would go hunting for a glass and a solid steel ball to test that out???
Candlepin bowling uses 10 small pins and 3 balls and is played primarily in the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island. The ball is 5 inches in diameter, made out of rubber and has no holes in them. Anybody up for a game?? , then meet me in Connecticut or Rhode Island in 3 years time!!!!
Till date man has invented and classified about 50 million chemical compounds and elements. Talk about over working!!!!
And last but not the very least, a bad breath is likely to induce a bat to bite someone. Yes thats right a giant mammoth bat will bite if you do not brush your teeth. This could be a much better plot for a toothpaste add though compared to the ones that come up now!!!!

Thats if for this time folks!!!!!!!!

With or Without you

2009-09-05T10:38:00.000-07:00

The silence grows day by day

As life is thrown in a disarray

I still continue to wait...

With or without you

The deeds of past is catching on

Some coming undone from aeons

Life is still crawling on

With or without you

Fighting the storm raging by

Unable to say the last goodbye

Time still stops by

With or without you

Sleight of hand, the twist of fate

On a bed of nails she is made to wait

And the wait goes on

With or without you

Hands are tied and bodies bruised

Reasons are low to be enthused

Still you give yourself away

With or without you

Nothing to win

Nothing left to lose

And you give yourself away

With or without you

I cant live

With or without you!!!!!

Inspired by "With or Without you" by U2

"I put int a few lines from the song without any

changes as they were just too beautiful to edit"

A Marvellous Disney World

2009-09-04T17:27:00.000-07:00

Comics has always been a part of everybody's lives. Be it the silly antics of Mickey Mouse and Donald Ducks or the really funny fights of Tom and Jerry. There would have been atleast 8 out of 10 people who would have heard about the likes of Spiderman, Superman etc etc. I have been no different. I have been reading comics right from the time I could probably read I guess. Starting from the Amar Chitra Kathas and graduating to the Marvel and DC world. I would even spend hours watching cartoons of the likes of Scrooge McDuck and Talespin.

For those who have no clue about the desi versions of comics, there are dozens of them ranging from Chacha Chowdhary ( The guy whose brain works faster than a computer ) and many more super hero comics. To be more precise there are comics in India under the title Raj comics that present the super heroes of India. Nagaraj ( similar to spiderman, but as the name goes he has everything to do with snakes rather than spiders ), Super commando Dhruv ( the Indian comic book version of James Bond, with the high flying gadgetry ), Doga ( I really do not think that there is an eq uivalent in the western world to him...he is more like the Dog guy who is all chummy with all kinds of dogs..sounds weird but so is the series ), Parmanu ( very much the same as Captain Atom from DC comics ) are some of the Indian heroes to name a few. Comics in India took a real big leap when the series Pavitr Prabhakar was launched by Gotham Entertainment in collaboration with Marvel. It was the Indian version of Peter Parker aka Spiderman. There were many parallels in the comic book series right from the names to the powers of the the hero. The effort to make him look typically desi made the publishers dress him up in a dhoti as well, which came out pretty well. Sadly there were not many issues printed and as far as I have known the project has been shelved ( I could be wrong here).

Wondering why I am talking so much about comics??

Thats because of the hype generated by Disney having taken over Marvel Entertainment Inc. for a cool 4 billion dollars. The flip side of it would be to see heroes like the Hulk, Spiderman, Ironman, Fantastic Four etc with characters like, Tarzan, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Aladdin etc, under the same banner. I am guessing that Marvel entertainment would be a separate division under the Disney banner. Other wise it would be really lame to see mashups like Iron Duck, Spider Mouse or the Fantastic Four comprising of Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Minnie. Does sound very lame when you actually come to think of it.

On an ending note, I would particularly like to mention about The 99. Published and distributed by Tashkeel comics which is of Kuwaiti origins, from 2006. The entire series is based on the 99 different names of Allah. Who ever said that comics was child's play. Neither creating them is easy nor keeping track of them is easy. Going now to read the first version of The 99.

P.S- I have not mentioned a word about the DC universe which holds characters like Superman, Batman and the Justice League. I would rather not start about my favourite characters else the post will become never ending. Hats off to people like Stan Lee ( Spiderman, Hulk, etc ) Bob Kane ( Batman ) Jerry Seigel and Joe Shuster ( Superman ) for having created such comic book legends.

I guess this much of comic gyaan should do for the time being!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happennings Lately

2009-08-31T22:47:00.001-07:00

Lately i get a million ideas to write about, but then they all fizz out similar to the soda cans. Nevertheless I would just like to post about some stuff thats been going on lately.

->Classes have started and they are well as classes are supposed to be. Little on the boring side and a little on the interesting side. I know I am a little diplomatic.
->We had pest control done yesterday. And I am still suffering from the aftermath of it. My room is in a mess and I have got loads of cleaning to do.
->On the plus side we cleaned up the kitchen yesterday itself. Well half the kitchen. The other half is still lying on the counters and on the floors.
->The real sad part of the affair was during the cleaning process I managed to spill a lot of rice on the floor. And there was no way it could have been utilised, atleast not for edible purposes. I know very clumsy of me. Not that apologising now would get back the rice, but I apologize to the millions of people who do not have a morsel to eat, and here I am carelessly spilling it down.
->A couple of days back we played cricket. It was a practice session conducted by our captain. The session was good but the after-session was bad. I got dehydrated and puked and slept the entire day. Something which I am not too proud of, but still a lesson learnt.
->I resumed playing raqcuetball yesterday. I thought I had lost touch and presumed that I would suck at the game after not having played for about 3 months. But thanks to my friend with whom I managed to play I realized I played pretty well ( I am just kidding here, thinking that my friend will come and read this ;-)
->The saddest part is that I am still hunting for an on-campus job. Sometimes it just gets to me. Not able to figure out if its just my luck or if I really do not have the necessary skills. Well time will tell. As of now I keep hunting.

I really do not know what to title this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-08-26T23:03:00.000-07:00

The gyrating sound of the hand towel being pulled out of its container, the familiar odour of cooked meat hanging in the air, the sights of sparkling clean floors and the constant drone of announcements cutting through the air. All very familiar indications of stepping back into the U.S. After quite a dull and boring two flights ( from Bangalore to London and London to Chicago ) these were the welcome signs that I received. Sitting at the terminal sipping a really chilled Sprite and gulping down a barrel of finger chips (pretty soon I might give up on these!!!!-----Alright who am I kidding) I wait for my final stretch of flight before I land in Phoenix.

The flight from Bangalore to London was not too eventful. Well there was this particular guy sitting right next to me who was quite curious about H1N1 virus. Funny how nobody seems to be discussing anything much these days apart from the swine flu. "A few hundreds catch the swine flu and everyone is hankering for a mask, but nobody still bothers about wearing a condom when there are millions contracting AIDS". An aptly put line doing the rounds on sms and emails these days. So this particluar guy was bugging the cabin crew guy as to why they are not wearing masks blah blah blah. Ok I have to admit that the guy was a little freaked out because of my sneezing the entire time I was awake. This was because of the really cold full blast air conditioning that was on inside the craft. First look at him and I thought ok decent guy, but then usually such impressions last only till the person in consideration opens their mouth. That was not the first time I felt such a thing. Moving on, the second leg of the journey from London to Chicago was very very uneventful. Apart from the fact that I got a seat next to a pretty hot Romanian chic. Otherwise my running nose ensured that my head was tilted towards the window all the time I was awake, which was only during the times when food was served.

I never realised that there would be a strange sense of happiness on returning back from India. I would say a stupid sense of excitement and thrill crept up when I switched on my phone and saw the AT&T carrier. But all said and done there is still no place like home and it really is a difficult task to leave behind family and all the loved ones. The feeling really grows large during the long walk from the customs till the point of take off.

No One Knows

2009-08-22T10:02:00.000-07:00

Behind closed doors
Is where it all happens.
Beneath the labyrinth of contours,
Lies resting behind the curtains.
No one knows what it is like.

A thousand words spoken inside
In moments that happen to flash by.
What all should one confide
Thus the thoughts naturally die.
No one knows what it is like.

The core of the soul sees it right,
Its sister on the other hand denies.
Wish everything was pure and white,
Will the blues ebb away as time flies.
No one knows what it is like.

"No one knows what it is like"!
Is what everyone thinks alike.
There is a burden that all carry,
Which some are unable to bury.
Still no one knows what it is like!!

Life is a Train

2009-08-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

This is another topic that has been probably over used by many bloggers around the globe. I want to post my version of it though. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been in quite the philosophical realm lately. Many would have compared their lives to a train making its journey from one point through to another destination. Metaphorically speaking life itself is a journey starting from the time we are born till we peacefully (for the fortunate ones) move on to whatever lies beyond. Every person or rather every passenger who boards this metaphoric train leaves behind some known or unknown impression in ones life(very much similar to the very artistic creations left behind on the restroom door by all the M.F.Hussains of our country who love to portray explicitly worded and picturised acts which are much better restricted within the four walls of the room). These impressions(very much unlike the ones described above) that are left behind by passengers in our lives (metaphorically transfigured to a train) have an impact on us either consciously or sub-consciously.

I remember reading somewhere that every experience in life has a lesson behind it waiting to be grasped. Quite similar to the stations that the train encounters while it meanders through to its final destination. What I really wanted to say after making you read so much of nonsense is simple. There are people whom we meet in life, who are forgotten the minute they are out of sight. Then there are people in our lives who make an impression but eventually just get off at their respective destination. But eventually there are those people who come along with you almost till the end of the journey. I just wanted to thank all those wonderful passengers who have boarded my metaphoric train and made my life as it has been. And for all those of you who have travelled without tickets please do not let me catch you. I charge quite a hefty sum as a fine.

Recently I managed to read a book by Kushwant Singh titled, "The Men and Women in my Life". Have a really big urge to come up with something very very similar to that. I just hope that in case it does happen, I do not turn it into a yellow pages listing!!!!

Chinese Philosophy

2009-08-07T12:23:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: Very philosophical (At least in my comprehension) and full of crap. Navigate to another page right away if not in the mood for some ramblings.

Its been quite a while since I read a book, let alone a really good book. Its also very rare that reading a book makes the cogs in my brain move so much.
I have been reading "The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari" by Robin Sharma and have been quite impressed with his writings. Many may beg to differ here but there is something in that book that really gives some food for thought. I usually never pick up a book which is non fictious as in one which is not a run of the mill story about some famous, rich guy or this really svelte babe or about a murder etc etc. This one book was quite an exception though.

Somewhere down the line the book mentions about an ancient Chinese philosophy of human's life being reflected in three mirrors. It may not be the exact statement from the book but the gist was pretty much the same. The first one reflects the image of how one sees himself or herself. The second one reflects the image of the person as seen by others. Finally the third mirror reflects the truth. The philosophy may seem quite silly when you think about it. In reality it does hold a very deep meaning. I am pretty certain that the three images would be quite different from each other for most people, except for those highly gifted people who in fact have the same reflection in all the three mirrors. It is actually quite amazing when you think of it. Everybody has a certain image of their own in their own mind.
Nobody would feel that they are less in any way compared to others. The second image is what the others see in a person. This image is merely a part of the image represented in the first mirror. The second image is not projected by the person round the clock. It only appears when people are around him. The bridge between these two images is what actually defines the person which is represented by the third mirror. The actual person's image which is the third one is what defines the truth. This is the bridge that most of us fail to comprehend. The Chinese sure know what they talk about when they make such philosophies. Its actually quite a simple way of describing a person's true characteristics. Now who defines the characteristics is the main question. The person himself or the people around him?

Finally I tried my hand at something philosophical. Real inspiration kinds the book has been to me for the time being. Its said that the brain processes about 60,000 thoughts in a day. That is about 2500 thoughts every hour. A real fast mean projector our brain is portrayed out to be. I am for the time being stuck in the philosophical realm, waiting for my brain to flash by
to a different realm. Till then bear with my all my philosophical bull shit.

Men In White

2009-07-26T04:08:00.000-07:00

The men in white are some of the most feared and some of the most dreaded members of the elite band. These people are feared largely by the group of people who own and ride a two wheeler. I am talking about none other than the traffic police department. Its not that every two wheeler owner drive in fear of being caught by these people. But there are quite a few who keep a look out for these men in white prowling on the roads. Once caught they ensure that you cough up some amount of fine. So it is quite necessary to carry all the documents pertaining to one's vehicle.

I am actually narrating a short incident that happened the other day. This is why I had to give such a big build up and a preamble. I was returning with my friend after watching a movie. I got caught by two policemen standing quite well camoflouged at the corner of the narrow alley. I like most of the bikers was not carrying any documents other than my driving license. Naturally I had to come up with a performance good enough to convince him that I have all my documents safely stashed some where and was out in a hurry, hence not carrying them on me. After about fifteen minutes
of convincing him that I do have them and that I would be ready to come and show it to them wherever they would ask me to come, did they finally let me go. It was infact my friend who suggested that they give me a show cause notice ( I swear I had never heard of that notice before ). I believe its a notice which they give and ask them to show their documents at a later time. I do not know how it worked, but the bluff somehow got through to the guy and he finally allowed me to leave without causing any damage on my wallet.

Continuing on the same topic I remember my friend telling about a friend of his or of some acquaintence of his who had a really hilarious encounter with the cops. It seems he was on his way some place on his bike obviously when he was stopped by one of scores of cops camping on unknown corners of the street. Strangely these cops have a habit of slowing the bikers down asking them to come to the side of the road and then they switch off their engines and take away the keys from the ignition. After successfully doing so they just happily walk away from the vehicle leaving the rider stranded there, not knowing the cause of him being stopped.
This mind you is very irritating, and such actions are restricted to a handful of policemen. It is all the more frustrating if the biker has all the documents and has been on the greener side of the law. So coming back to the incident that I was talking about. The policeman happened to have taken his key and walked away from the vehicle. Now I do not know whether the guy was so fortunate or was he just way too clever ( it could well be that this incident is a figment of somebody's conked up imagination nevertheless it is quite funny ). Apparently this guy had a spare key with him at that very
moment and he happily drove his way out of the clutches of the cops. It sure would have been a funny incident to watch.

The Makeover

2009-07-21T18:03:00.000-07:00

A new look and feel for my blog. This does look much better than the previous one. I have to agree that the previous look and feel had a mundane and a rather dull look to it. There is nothing special about the blog now, but somehow I get the feeling that this looks a lot more cooler. There seems to be an added zing to it. Or it could well be the figment of my imagination. After all it has been quite sometime I last posted or even had a look at a blog.

I have managed to find time to change the blog address. So apologies to all those people who had added my blog to their blog roll. I doubt that the link will prevail. So if they do get a "blog not found" error message then please overlook it. I did change the name from a stupid, over the top address of "quest4thezenith" to a simple "karthikjanardhanan". I wonder what 'quest' I was thinking about and which 'zenith' I was going to scale. Well I finally did manage to change the address. Makes a lot more sense now, even though the postings do not make much sense. Aah it does feel nice to dish out some sensible nonsense after a long long time. Hoping to blog more often!!!!

The Surrender

2009-04-11T19:55:00.000-07:00

The crunching of the leaves, filled the night around

Footsteps followed the tranquilized breeze downtown

The mind in an absolute state of confound

Hoping the serene surround would clear the rebound.

The scent of the fresh soil lingered in the air

The rain drops descended the heaven's stair

It was a moment meant for all to share

But the place was engulfing him in despair.

As the lightning streaked across the sky

He let out a feeble and beaten sigh

The solitary abandonment he wanted to deny

But the beauty of nature seemed to make him defy.

The rippling of the water captured his mind

Fascinated was he to see the land and water entwined

As he made his way across the bridge, to nature resigned

His melancholy now seemed to have pined.

10 things that I have been doing lately!!!

2009-02-10T16:11:00.000-08:00

10) I clean up a lot lately. Never before have I wanted things to be neat and clean.

09) I think a lot about the future. ( ok to put this more explicitly--> i day dream a lot )

08) I have been visiting my blog more regulary ( at least 2 a week during a certain class hour such as this one )

07) Playing table tennis. Though not on a regular basis but yeah the magic of ping pong is back.

06) Playing leather ball cricket very poorly. Not that I used to play like a pro before, but off late been playing really bad.

05) I play FIFA 2009, Need For Speed Underground and Counter Strike. Games that my previous system would never have supported.

04) How can I not mention the fact that I cook these days. ( How I cook? That I am afraid somebody else has to vouch for. People never believe me when I talk about my culinary capabilities )

03) I study more than I have ever studied in my life. ( OMG!!!!!! you must be kidding me if u believed this. )

02) There are a lot many other things that I do but would rather not mention them here.

01) Last but definitely not the least I sleep a lot. ( zzzzzzZZZZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ).

Whats in a name ???

2009-02-05T17:53:00.001-08:00

Going by the title one could say that what is this guy writing about a used and abused topic. As a matter of fact it has been gleefully ripped and torn apart by many people. Well what the heck let me also join the long list of those people.

I bet this is one situation that many of us find ourselves in, atleast a minimum of ten times as far as their memory lets them rewind. ( Do not go by the statistics that I use, they are never verified ). So the other day I ran into this guy. Lets call the guy "this guy". This is how our conversation went on :-

This guy : "Hey how is it going ? "

Me : "Going good man. How about you?" [ Hhmmnn who the hell is this guy ? ]

This guy : "Good dude. How are the courses this sem? "

Me : "So far so good man. How are yours ? " [ What the hell man where have I seen this guy before? ]

This guy : " The course work is good, not too much of a load so far. "

Me : "Yeah the sem has just started, so its kinda easy as of now." [ Oh man I have absolutely no idea who this guy is ]

This guy : " Yeah i know, its going to get worse gradually "

Me :" Yep" [ His face does look familiar though. What the hell he is in the same university so obviously he will look familiar ]

ME :" Ok I got to go now, will catch you some other time. [ Crap I still do not know his name ]

This guy :"Yeah sure, good luck"

ME :" Thanks same to you" [ Great I keep having this conversation all the time ]

That conversation might be related to quite a few people around this world. As the saying goes, "Whats in a name?". Or is that my saying? Whatever!!!!

I am pretty sure I will be in such situations many more times in the coming future. God help me and the people like me!!!!!!!!!!

The Return and The Re-return

2009-01-22T21:43:00.000-08:00

Its been a while since I even visited my blog. Almost 3 months I guess. I believe the title is aptly given. Finally I come up with a title other than "random", "very very random", "Utter-nonsense" and all the other weird names that I have come up with till date, which barely has any connection with whatever is beneath it.

Barely 4 or 5 months into Masters life and I got the chance to return back to Home Sweet Home. Not many people get such a sweet opportunity to go back home immediately after the first semester. I did though and all thanks to my father. Phew!!! what a relief it was to be back home atleast for a few weeks. None of my friends expected me to come back and every body was in for a surprise or more appropriately a shock. I bet some of them might have wondered that I had given up on Masters and returned back home. Ok that is a little too much to think.

Anyways that was the return. I had never felt so much better to be back home and to see my family. I wanted time to stop still, but as it happens time flies fast. This is in accordance with the theory of relativity as described by some great person which is anologous to Einstien's. ( P.S- I assume you do know this theory ). The time to come back to Tempe arrived faster than I could have imagined.

The re-return was not too bad actually. Well apart from the fact that I would miss my near and dear ones the journey back to the university was not bad at all. I was scheduled to arrive at Phoenix from Denver. The baggage carts at the airport in Denver was as horrible and bad as one could imagine it to be. The cart kept turning right for who knows what god forsaken reason. It was as if the cart was rigged to turn right even though I was pushing it to go straight. Before that I want to mention something really funny. I was checked at the airport for bringing in cummin seeds ( jeera ). The funny part was only one packet was checked. The remaining packets went un-noticed. Strange reasoning i felt. Ok here comes the funnier part. I was supposed to come to Phoenix by US airways. Because of the dumb trolley that I was pushing I checked into the first counter that I could lay my eyes upon. But then when I enquired about the boarding pass I was told that I had checked into the United Airways counter. I was assured that I would get my luggage in Phoenix. What I assumed was that they would route the luggage to my aircraft as it was tagged all the way from Bangalore. I waited for about 20 minutes at Phoenix airport only to realise that my luggage was not on that flight. Finally after enquiry I was told that my luggage was in another terminal and had come by another aircraft. The tension surrounding me and my luggage which housed a variety of food and snacks. As they say all is well that ends well.

P.S- I guess my standards in blogging has gone plummeting down just like Satyam's market value. Need to improve and need to continue blogging as much as possible.

I take back what I said!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-11-09T14:23:00.000-08:00

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Did I say that I do not like my computer?
I must have been possessed. I probably was in a drunken stupor to have made such a statement.
Well you must have guessed it correct. Things are normal now and I do take back my statement. I very much love my computer. It is my best companion. How I wish there were some artificial intelligence built into this machine. Well, I do want it all dont I ??

It is probably a human psychology. I got the spelling correct I presume.
When things go bad there is no remedy to come out of the dismal feeling unless there is something of the opposite polarity that could negate the bad effect. In other words there is nothing like a good news to cheer you up and boost your morale to god knows what limits. Just a few days back I was in this horrible state of not wanting to do anything and feeling totally screwed up. There were a ton of assignments due and project deadlines were fast approaching.
Things have changed now. Assignments are overdue, and project deadlines are almost banging on the door.
But amongst all this there is this fresh change that has come in like a real life saver.
I got through into the main campus for the next semester. From now on I will not be attending the Polytechnic campus for a degree. Its no longer a Masters degree in Computing Studies, but now it is going to be a Master's degree in Computer Science itself. Now that really does clear off a major chunk of the bad feeling. So as they say things are not as bad as they seem to be. After a span of bad days comes the good days. After every thing bad comes something good. It is a cycle.
Phew!!!!!!!
Look who is talking philosophy now.
Naah thats not my area of interest anyways. My area of expertise is to write crap just like I have been doing all along.

Gggggrrrrrrr

2008-11-05T00:47:00.001-08:00

At the moment all I have to say is that I hate computers
Just for the basic reason that there is too much of complications involved as compared to the ease of work and life. Well anyways. This is my shortest post ever. May as well play frisbee with my laptop now!!!!!
Hhhhhmmmmmnnnnn, will keep that thought in mind.

Very Very Very Very Random

2008-10-10T00:44:00.001-07:00

Its almost a month since I posted anything, and finally here is something. As suggested by the title, this is totally random. I could as well say that this is just for the sake of writing.

First of all, a few days back I met a friend's friend. After the introduction the first thing that the guy said to me was that he read my blog. To be frank it was like a bolt in the blue for me. Then reality dawned on me that people do read this. So first of all a very big "WELCOME" to all those visiting. Secondly a big "THANK YOU" for taking the time out to read this, which obviously will be of no use to you. Thirdly a small request, in case you are visiting, please leave a comment. Any kind of comment will suffice.

University life is so much different and so much more fun as compared to back home. For one nobody in the right state of mind in India will venture out at 12 in the night to the library like me. It is an altogether different story that I am blogging instead of burying my nose in some voluminous book with a specs clinging on to the end of my nose for dear life. Anyways as one of my Prof says "I digress". So here I am not at home in the middle of the night trying to study.

Cricket is a crazy game back home. As correctly quoted " Cricket is a game played by 11 fools and followed by a 11,000 other fools". How much ever the truth this particular quote carries the game is still ingrained in our blood. The best part of life here at ASU is that I have been playing more cricket than I played back at home. Playing cricket in the birth-place of baseball gives you a strange sense of satisfaction, especially when the natives question about the game and its rules. So here I am playing cricket half way across the world that too under lights at 11 in the night. That, I would definitely call it an interesting improvement coming here.

A very interesting and encouraging trend or rather program I would say is the International friend program. This is a program where international students sign up and are assigned foster families based on their likes and interests. I had been to a family's place through this program for dinner one evening. Their hospitality is to die for. The guy actually came all the way to our apartment to pick us up and promptly dropped us off after dinner and a light conversation. There is seriously a huge difference between the way they speak at home compared to the way our families speak back in India. Here is a small example :-

Mr M :- "Honey, where is the photographs that we took when we went for the hike ? "
Mrs M :-" Oh yeeaah!! They are right over there on the book shelf."
Mr M :-" Oh noo. Its not over there I just looked for it. You must have moved them some place"
Mrs M :-"Are you sure? I kept it there the last time I looked at them".
Mr M :-"Yeah I just looked for it and it is not there."
Mrs M :-"Hhhmmnnn oh okay gimme a minute I will take a look, it is probably there in the other shelf inside the room."
Mr M :-"Oh okaay!! I will go get it then, no problem."
Mrs M :-"Okaaay!!"

Eight lines of conversation. Keep in mind that these people speak very very slowly and they talk in a sing-song voice almost dragging and elongating each word. So all in all I would say that the above conversation would last probably for 6-7 minutes.

Here is a typical translation of the conversation back in India.

Mr : "ley aa tripige hogiddu photos yelle? " [ Hey where are the photos of the trip ? ]
Mrs ( in an irritated tone ): "nanige yenri gottu neeve ittiddu, neeve huddukoli" [ How am I supposed to know, you have only kept it, you only search for it. ]
Mr ( in an even more irritated tone ) : " ee maneli yenu timeige correct aagi sigalla " [ you dont find anything on time in this house ]

Three lines of conversation, keeping in mind that they speak fast and the appropriate time of the conversation would be 6-7 seconds.

It is not a very exact translation, as the situation varies from house to house and from person to person. I would say that 50% of the conversation would probably end here and there is a high probability that this conversation could lead to a nasty fight over some trivial matter which would have no connection to the first question.

Off course there is also a high probability that the conversation might take place in exactly opposite sense without any hint of irritation and full of sugary tones. As I said differs from family to family.

Okay there are so many things more that I would like to tell, but as of now I am blank. Will come up with more as soon as I find time, { which is actually just a plain old excuse, as usual } .

Grumblings and Ramblings

2008-09-11T16:51:00.000-07:00

Often I allow my mind to wander

Into the realms of engineering which lies yonder

Cursing myself for the time which I did squander

Repenting for having treated my courses like a philander.

Sitting in the hall I begin to go adrift

Causing my engineering academia to rift

Now I wish I had been a bit more time thrift

Having realised that my standards badly need an uplift.

I did expect a rude awakening

But its never easy to accept ones short-coming

Its high time I put an end to my rambling

Its going to be an arduous battle before Homecoming.

Utter Non-sense

2008-09-02T20:18:00.000-07:00

Basically this post has no title. Just a random headed post which might probably contain a wee bit of cribbing. So that could serve as a statutory warning, and this is your cue to bail out of this blog.

Cribbing in the sense, life is not all that bad here. But there are certain things that do not go as you expect it to. Well for instance there is this new season starting of the series Prison Break. I being in US have not yet seen it but my friends back in India must have already seen it. Reason downloading is a crime here. I have heard from people that some guys ended up paying a fine of roughly 20k dollars for downloading stuff. So there is this strange fear as to what I can download and what I cannot. Ironically the internet speed is way too fast. Come on people I have a 15mbps connection at home and I am not able to download anything.
Okay i agree that is not too big a reason to crib about. But sometimes being so far away from home does get to you. No home food, no pampering from parents and relatives, no friends. Okay that does not seem as it looks like. { LOL!! funny usage of the words there }.
Anyways talking about friends, people are way too cool here. For example my roomies are wonderful guys. I seriously could not have asked for more better people as room-mates. Though one of them is always on the phone [ hehehe no offence mate i.e in case you read it ]. Both of them are pretty good cooks. Actually one of them cooks quite well. Imagine its almost been two weeks since I landed here and I have cooked only about 3 or 4 times at the max. Where do you get such people for room-mates? [ lucky me :-D ]

The other guy is also way too cool. [ noticed the usage of the words way too cool??...That tells you just how cool these guys are :-D ]. To be frank initially I thought that how am I going to stay under one roof with two people who have a work experience of 5 years among themselves. But from the day I landed in Phoenix, these guys have never made me feel that they are seniors and I am a junior. Believe it or not I fool around and pull their legs as if we were from the same batch.

Sometime back while doing my bachelors I realized the importance of building up contacts. Once you are out of your home town and living in a totally new place all together, the contacts come automatically. That is provided if you go around talking to people. Fortunately I do have a big mouth and have spoken to quite a lot of people around here. It is all together a different story that I find it difficult to remember half their names. My room-mate has a friend here who has finished his graduation and is currently working. We hang out quite often. So basically everybody is friendly. Even my senior about whom I mentioned in my previous post. Her room-mates are also very friendly. Some what like angels. [ hehehe sounds quite funny when somebody reads it, but thats the way it is :-D ].

Alright guess there is not too much of cribbing going on in this post to be frank. There are a few things that really does get on my nerves at times. For example there is this guy in two of my classes. Decent looking chap I would say. That comment lasts only till his mouth is shut. The moment he opens his mouth to talk to the professors or any other american I get irritated. Come on man!!!!!! Why the fake accent? These people do understand the normal accent that we speak. I am pretty sure they must think that why is the guy putting on such a fake accent. Well I could so totally be wrong about this, but its my blog so its my feelings and thoughts. US is a free country with total freedom of speech anyways. :-D

The gowri-ganesha habba ( festival ) is quite a big one back home. Yeah we all missed it. But can you beat the advancement in technology?...Me and my room-mate saw the ganesh puja going on at his place through the web-cam. It was pretty weird to see a live puje on the the cam, but it was worth it. We even bowed and payed homage to the idol through the screen. LOL!!!! [ some things are really worth mentioning ;-) ] Thanks to Nik we did not miss the entire ganesh puja. I did find a little funny even though it was a super experience watching it through the web-cam.

Ok more about my life in the states sometime later. Right now I got to go and get my assignment done. Bye for now!!!!

America America

2008-08-31T03:28:00.000-07:00

Finally I have landed in the place that people prefer to call as the land of dreams and land of hope. Makes me remember how people throng the city of Mumbai in search for a job or with hopes of becoming an actor. Funny how the analogy works. Makes me think that even I come under almost the same category. Except that I have no Hollywood dreams. Life in Arizona especially at Tempe is not all that bad I must say. Living in an apartment that is situated in the heart of the major Indian community does not make you feel so out of place. So basically you do not require too much time to get acclimatized to the surroundings. The first thing that I did learn after coming to Tempe is that Arizona is HOT. Lets just say that it is a direct reference to the weather and to the incredibly amazing population of the opposite gender species a.k.a Chicks. Well that is the first couple of things a normal guy would notice upon landing here. Life here is not all that bad at all. Once the initial hiccups are overcome I could say that it is a pretty smooth sailing routine. Sometimes it might just become routine and mechanical. But the degree that comes after 2 years is worth its weight in gold. Here are some of the interesting observations that I have made during my brief tenure so far.

* Pedestrians are GOD. Literally speaking they are gods, and get the first preference on road. But on the flip side they are not invincible. Get it right? You still have to look both ways to cross the roads.
* Every third person on the road greets you with a “Howdy”. It does not matter whether you know the person or not, you just say “howdy” and carry on with your work. ( I do not think that it is a greeting which says that you are openly accepted. Maybe it is just a courteous greeting. You never know maybe I am mistaken. ) There are always exceptions to everything. In fact some of them are genuinely nice people. [Honest observation and not being diplomatic. ]
* Every other guy has a very helping nature. You get all the facilities to make sure that you are not lost. As in you get maps and all. But if u are portraying an image with even the slightest bit of confusion or “ I am lost” look then trust me you will find atleast two people willing to help you out without you asking for their help.
* Most of the Americans love to talk. I have atleast spoken to more than half a dozen strangers in a span of 3 or 4 days. Spoken means having a literal conversation.
* Most of the people here have a dream of visiting India. That was really nice to hear. And guess what most of them have heard about cricket. Though half of them do not know how to play.
* Believe it or not, I play cricket nowadays. With a small guy who hails from Bangladesh, is not a fan of Tendulkar and loves Australia. I do not have a choice, since not many guys around here play cricket. A couple of Americans have tried their hand at the game and trust me they are yet to differentiate between cricket and baseball. They do try to learn the game though and thats an encouraging sign.
* The internet speed is faster than the damn auto-rickshwas back home. Beat this. In India BSNL offers 2 Mbps speeds for a net connection and we say wow thats pretty fast. Believe it or not at this very moment I am using a net connection that is offering speed 7.5 times that BSNL offers. Online streaming was never so fast. I watch movies online rather than downloading them ( which is a crime here by the way....crap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! )
* The punctuality of the people here is amazing. People will keep up their time no matter what.
* Some of the kids think that we are here to kill them. Have heard kids screaming not to kill them. Sounds funny when you experience it.

Well there are so many more things that I would like to tell but at the moment mind has gone blank. I guess its time to hit the sack. Its almost 2.45 in the night here. I guess its back to square one for me. The late nights never die do they??

The Sky High View II

2008-08-22T19:21:00.000-07:00

Ever wondered how big the word huge is? Its just about four letter big. The word huge is actually an insult to the Heathrow International airport. We landed in the 5th terminal which was roughly 3 times bigger than BIAL. And there is 4 more terminals, no wonder the place is one of the busiest airports of the world. Since I was tagging along with my senior, I had absolutely no tension. I was blindly following her and doing whatever she asked me to do. It really is a major advantage if u fly with somebody who has already gone through the rigmarole of changing flights and entering into the State. It gices you time to soak in the atmosphere and the structural splendour of the airports. At this time somewhere in the corner of my heart I hoped that my own country will come up to such classy standards one day. We disembarked the fliht and I faithfully followed Sowmya ( my senior ) just like a sheep following the sheperd. Or rather in this case "Mary being followed by her lamb". Please note I purposefully left out the word little as, describing me as little would be an insult to the word. We had roughly 3 hours to catch the next flight. I naturally gaped at the wonderful exhibits at the duty free shops. My jaw dropped onto the fround when i saw the Ferrari and the Audi on display. Since we did have time to kill we waited on level one of the terminal. Even though British Airways had taken extreme care in filling my tummy I had the cravings for some home made stuff. The chapatis that mum had packed finally made its way into my tummy on international soil.

The checking in process did not look like the monstrous process that people make it out to be. It was a fairly simple and smooth process. Maybe it felt smooth to me because of the calming presence of Sowmya. The flight to Phoenix from London was a 10 hour ordeal. Finally I managed to get some sleep and the flight journey was over before I realised it.

Landing at the Sky Harbour International aiport signalled the start of a new beginnning. There was again no problem with the customs. Sowmya did have a minor problem with the customs. It was just a matter of time before we stepped out of the airport, to be welcomed by the rains.

The Sky High View I

2008-08-22T18:53:00.000-07:00

This post has been long over due. I would as usual escape by blaming laziness to be the cause for it all. Plus the fact that there was no net at my disposal. So here is my so called experience which I managed to key in to my trusted cell phone sitting way up above at an altitutde of 30k plus feet.

Emotions never goes down so well with guys. I guess it is an un-written law of nature that checks the deep emotions in guys. Or was it just a conscious effort from my side to keep a check on mine. I really am not sure what the reason was but during the course of my last day in India ( atleast for the time being ) there was not much shedding of tears. I will admit though that there was the expected few drops of waterfall, but it was broken down into several stages. The moistening of the eyes and the sudden outbursts on a couple of occasions. Finally it was time to say goodbye. I somehow did manage to keep a chec on my emotions while I was engulfed into the BIAL terminal. It was a strange kind of sensation when I boarded the jumbo jet outbound for London. The excitement, the tension and the unfathomable emotions from the previous days morning finally got to me and lo behold I was fast asleep even before we left terra firma.

It is said that before we die then our entire life seems to flash past across our eyes. Well thats certainly one thing that nobody would claim to have experienced. When I did wake up ( which was just about an hour later ) I seemed to have a very similar feeling. As we climbed to dizzying heights I was leaving behind one phase of my life and entering a new phase. This was the time when my mind was in rewind mode. But as during the screening of the movies on tv ( when a very interesting situation is interrupted by an irritating commercial ) I was interrupted with food and beverages from the flight attendants. Being in the middle seat I was sitting sandwiched between an elderly lady and a guy sitting on the aisle seat who refused to shift. So basically even though I was travelling with my senior I was pretty much travelling alone at the moment. Talking about senior, I must say that I was extremely lucky to have gotten myself tickets on the same plane as her. She had a strange kind of calming effect on me. Just her mere presence was enough to assure me that things would be a cake walk and nothing would go wrong. Well almost a cake walk!

The flight would have been really eventless had it not been for yet another VTU victim sitting next to me. He did manage to spill orange juice all over me during the flight and i do not know how her managed to do it though. The balding attendent had quite a laugh when i kept asking for tissues to clean up. I know anybody who looks at a guy with orange juice dripping from his pants might laugh his heart out, but please give me a break man. It was not my fault in the first place that I had the stupid juice all over my seat and plates.

British Airways does have a decent in flight entertainment system. Its a different story that I had seen most of the movies that they had provided. I still did manage to watch a dumb comedy starring Arshad Warsi and Suniel Shetty. The elderly lady sitting next to me was pretty sweet. She even told me that orange juice will not leave behind a tell tale stain as I had washed it immediately. So basically my flight till London was characterized by conversations with this sweet lady and the poor VTU victim who had a strange habit of providing facts of the day everytime he seemed to remember one.

Once you are on board for a really long international flight you just seem to have loads of time to yourself. The same goes gor me as well. I had time to reflect upon the previous days events. I realised how little time I had spent with my parents on the day of my departure. In fact I was not able to spend quality time with anybody to be frank. I did not know what is there in each of the bag that I was carrying. The entire packing was done by my mum. I was pretty much spoon fed that day. Mum and dad doing the packing and some of my friends also pitching in with what they could. Amidst all these thoughts I guess I did manage to catch a few more minutes of sleep.

On our way to London we flew over Afghanistan. Despite the terror label that it has, it did have a good landscape. Or maybe everything looks small and pretty from an altitude of 35,ooo feet. I did have a strange kind of happiness when we passed over the Caspian sea. After marking the water body a hundred times on the maps I was really happy to see it from atleast this high. The descent to Heathrow International airport was really a sight to behold. London is really beautiful from the heavens. With the Thames cutting its way across the city and the ocean surrounding the entire landmass. The formation of clouds all along was simply one of the most picturesque sight that one can get to see. I also managed to get a glimpse of Arsenal's home pitch ( well thats what the walking talking wikipedia sitting next to me told me. I am not much of a football follower anyways ). Anyways whichever the stadium was, it was truly amazing. Words are not enough to describe the beauty of the sight. Finally the long journey was over when the plane taxied into terminal 5 of the Heathrow airport.

The first Official International Post

2008-08-19T17:22:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe this post is originating all the way from America.
Its almost a week since I set foot on this soil and I still have not found time to put up a post on my blog. I actually want to share my experience from the time I boarded the flight all the way back in Bangalore till I got down in Pheonix. Its not that I do not have access to net, its just that I am pretty much lazy to type out the stuff that I have in my cell, all over again. So another few more days and I guess that will be up on the blog. Lets make this International post short and very sweet. So until next time, keep waiting for the next post from half way across the globe.

P.S- Will be getting a net connection very very soon.

In the Nick of Time

2008-08-10T06:19:00.001-07:00

This post has been a long overdue. So as per the basic laws of nature, the interest to write about it and I am sure to read about it ( i.e. if somebody does really read about it ;-) has gone plummeting down. Keeping the laws of nature in mind I will curtail this to as short a post as possible. This is basically how things went just in the nick of time for me before the visa interview.
My interview was scheduled on thursday morning at around 9.

Monday- 11.30 a.m
The fact dawns upon me that a PDC ( provisional degree certificate ) will be quite essential for my visa interview. It usually takes about 2 weeks for the PDC to arrive by post, but if collected personally from the university office in Belgaum it takes about a day. I book tickets (to and fro) to go to Belgaum.
Monday- 12.00 p.m
I remember that my cousin leaves for Norway in about 8 hours.
I rush to say goodbye.
Monday- 4.00 p.m
I decide to go to the university meet happening at Barista. ( thank god i did otherwise would have still been hunting for room-mates :-D )
Monday- 6.45 p.m
I leave the meet in a hurry as my bus for Belgaum leaves in an hours time.
Monday- 8.00 p.m
I manage to board the bus to Belgaum.

Fast forward to tuesday, i.e after the mental trauma of having to agonizingly wait in the university head-quarters, as described previously.
Tuesday- 8.45 p.m
I board the bus back to Bangalore.
Wednesay- 8.30 a.m
I reach home, thankfully in one piece after having to painfully sleep in a berth 2/3rds my height. ( I am hoping that the automobile industry will come up with transports customized for people of my height!!!!!)
Wednesday- 10.00 a.m
I prepare all the documents required for my visa interview.
Wednesday- 10.30 a.m
I realize that one of the print-outs of the visa form is not back to back, but done on different sheets.
Wednesday- 11.00 a.m
Finally I manage to reach back home with the proper print-outs after having stumbled across 4 internet cafes without power.
Wednesday- 12.15 p.m
My friend made me realize that I do not have the proper photograph required for the visa form. ( I know which dumb-ass idiot will not remember to get a photograph when it has been clearly specified on the form!!!)
Wednesday- 12.30 p.m
I get my mug-shot done with my ears being prominently visible ( obviously without the name-plates ;-). This was possible only after I literally begged the guy to give me the snaps in 45 minutes time.
Wednesday- 12.45 p.m
I realize that I have forgotten to inform my dad about an important financial document required for the visa interview. ( pretty obvious I did get yelled at for this :-D )
Wednesday- 1.15 p.m
I go back to the studio and collect my mug-shots. ( thankfully they were ready by then )
Wednesday- 2.15 p.m
I sit inside the train along with my mum and wait for it to depart.
Wednesday- 2.20 p.m
My dad's colleague comes to the station to provide that financial document that I had forgotten.
Wednesday- 2.30 p.m
Train departs for Chennai. ( Phew!!!!!! )
Ok wait there is just one more thing to add to this last minute tension episodes.
Thursday- 8.45 a.m
I realize that I have not pasted or stuck my mug-shot to the visa form and the interview starts in half an hours time.
Thursday- 9.00 a.m
I stick the damn photo to the form and finally enter the consulate building.

After gong through so much of tension and last minute rushes, the visa interview lasted for about 10 seconds. The guy hardly posed any questions to me and he did not even bother to check my financial documents. ( not that I am complaining :-D )

P.S- I know I said that I will make this as short as possible, but i just dont seem to stop once I start ;-)

Just My Luck!!!

2008-07-29T03:19:00.000-07:00

Pre Script: The reflections of a depressed mind.

He gazed far across the distant land

As far back as the sky joined hands

His eyes scoured the outstretched sight

Desiring the fulfillment of his fantasy flight.

The affair could well have been clandestine

Had their love sustained the test of time

As much as they loved the other with all their heart

Reality was bent on tearing them apart.

His feelings for her was as deep as the sea

He always wondered why the others failed to see

She had feelings of a similar kind

But success was not the first thing on her mind.

His family approved of their match

But as always somewhere there had to be a catch

Her family had absolutely no clue

She always wondered "wont it be a bolt in the blue?"

They had to defy all the laws of nature

If they wanted to see a combined future

Even though time was not on their side

When the secret was out, they managed to cling to each others hide.

Post Script: He is the fat guy in the pic and she is the thinner one towards the right of the pic.

One day @ the university head office

2008-07-25T21:43:00.000-07:00

It all began with a phone call. My friend passed on the information that our university registrar will not be available from next week. It was almost time to hit the panic button as my visa interview was just two days away and I had to get hold of my Provisional Degree Certificate. I had a couple of documents left over from my previous visit to the university office on which there were two phone numbers given. I tried calling them up. It was no surprise that it went un-answered. Would have been astounded had they been answered at the first go and would have probably resulted in the paramedics being called to my house on account of my passing out due to the university officials quick time response. Anyways, the more surprising part was that it kept going into the fax dial tone. After about calling 6 different numbers for about 100 times I finally managed to get through to the office which confirmed that my work would be done if I reached Belgaum.

P.S--- Have skipped a lot of details which cannot possibly summarize the agony and irritation of getting through to our University.

Finally I could see the so very famous university building looming up ahead. I could very well categorize the architecture as a marvel. Acres of land purchased by the university and boasting of about 7 fairly large buildings and several bungalows or houses. I was greeted into the university office with a horrible news that left me a bit tensed. Students, had been stranded on the blasted land from as far back as Friday. Most of them had to stay over to ensure that they could collect their PDCs or transcripts by hand. I heard that the management had been hopelessly horrible. In fact I could quite clearly see it so. A room probably big enough to accommodate a Santro or a Swift had been allocated for the collection of applications for the PDCs and transcripts and the Mark Sheets. I did manage to submit my applications for the above mentioned documents and was given with the hope that I would receive them by evening. I managed to make a few friends there and inquired about the previous days blunders. There were about 100 or more students who wanted the documents and 90% of them had to stay back as they were not given the documents on the same day. In fact one of the guys application only had been lost. Imagine his plight had he asked them to post the transcripts and gone back home. Finally after about an hour's worth of shouting and about 30 hours of anxious waiting the guy managed to get hold of his transcripts. Wonders and amusements never cease to happen at VTU. One of the guy happily walked out of the office with his provisional degree certificate showing to everyone that he had been granted a first class degree in the PDC when in reality he had only managed an aggregate of about second class.
I really do not know where the money that the university collects keeps disappearing. They charge quite a hefty sum for the transcripts and the other documents necessary for students keen on pursuing a higher degree. On an average each PDC costs Rs 200, Transcripts cost Rs 250 for the initial and Rs 150 for every subsequent copy, an 8th sem extract ( which is nothing but the xerox of the 8th sem marks sheet with a seal and signature from the registrar) costs Rs 175. This apart probably the cumulative mark sheets costs another Rs 200 or so. Even the charges paid for the revaluation and re-totalling should not be forgotten. Reval costs 600 per subject and the others I have no clue. A challenge reval costs Rs 3000, and just imagine there are roughly 120 colleges withing the university. There is so much of cash in-flow. But the standards and the organization is a total zero. Some of my friends were even stating that these officials should be made to study subjects like Engineering Technology and Management or Operational Research and Management ( I hope I got that right ).
There is actually no point cribbing and complaining about such stuff at the moment. As they say 'Alls well that ends well'. After a long and arduous wait till 5.30 in the evening I finally got the documents, which now leads to " In the Nick of Time!!!!! ".

Random

2008-07-16T10:53:00.001-07:00

It has been quite some time since I posted something.
I can as well say this is just for the sake of posting, not that I really wanted to write or blog or post or whatever.

I can as well start by announcing my entry into the engineering world. Result was announced yesterday. I can say that I am finally a graduate now. I just realized something that, I missed obtaining an overall distinction ( 5-8th sem ) by 96 marks. At first it does seem like a huge margin. Here is some simple math that suggests how narrowly I missed it.

96 marks in 4 semester means that comes up to an average of 24 marks in each sem.
Considering that we had about 8 subjects in each sem it narrows down to 3 marks per subject.

See that does not seem to be a big margin does it??
I guess math does not change the end result now. Anyways the most positive outcome of all this is that I am finally an engineer. People tend to think that an engineering graduate must be so different from the rest of the graduates. As in they must have stuffed themselves with technical stuff and are capable of solving problems related to their fields ( or maybe some weirdos can manage to deal with stuff out of their area of specializations....this is just a possibility!!!!). Seriously i just feel I am just one among the 5 lakh graduates from India freshly out from 4 years of gruelling engineering studies from about 2000 odd colleges.
After 4 long years of cramming in information of roughly 50 subjects I feel I am still the same when I started out 4 years back ( except probably I have put on a little more weight and aged 4 years ). It makes no difference at all.

Moving on, right now I have been staring into this screen for the past 3 or 4 hours listening to the same two songs over and over again. Again it does not make any difference. Does it really matter to anybody if I listen to the same song a hundred times each day? Maan I so wish people would give some kind of royalty for listening to their songs endlessly. Practically would be rich by now.

You do need some kind of motivation to do anything I feel. Alright I created a blog and started putting up post after post in the beginning. Then I lost steam. And now I am back again. Does that make a difference?? Well maybe it does or maybe it does not. Who cares??
Anyways, when I started out with this post all I wanted to do was post a couple of lines, so that I do not completely go out of touch with blogging. But as has always been the case with me, I could not stop myself. First it was sentences that were never ending and now it has graduated( just like me...quite pathetically ) to blog posts.

Day 2 and 3 away from Bangalore( 29th and 30th june )

2008-07-03T08:26:00.000-07:00

The two days were spent in complete laziness.
The most out of the box or un-routinely thing that happened was probably my friend leaving for Benaras and there was a send off for him. All this was happening about 250 km away from where I was in deep sleep dreaming of probably some god forsaken thing which I do not remember. Here are some of the most interesting things that happened before I returned back to Bangalore.

Signing of the Sleepsvilla treaty in bright and colourful ink.
Signing of the Remotesvilla treaty. ( Usurped total control over Mr. Onida, became my pride and my sister's envy literally!!!!!!)
Signed a pact with Mephistopheles to trouble my sister.
And finally helped Asterix and Obelix overcome and thrash the Romans time and again.

Finally its good to be back home.

Day 1 Away from Bangalore( 28th june 2008 --4.30 in the evening )

2008-07-01T05:04:00.000-07:00

Listening to the haunting melodies of a very popular hindi film I reflected upon the previous days experiences. It was one of the rarest occasions when I had to wake up in the wee hours of the morning. I was supposed to catch a train at 6 to my native. This was immediately after a fitting finale to the wonderful time spent together in college as a group. Yeah Yeah I know this post is also heading towards the nostalgic path. Well it is not everyday that you graduate leaving behind a saga of wonderful memories. It was our last dinner together as a group, and the members made sure that it was a night to remember. Everytime we went out I felt that it was the best outing that we have had, but the next one was always a notch above the previous one. The guys were actually sending us off. It sure was a wonderful gesture to bring a cake and a parting gift for those of us who were shifting base away from Bangalore.
Talking about Bangalore, its almost 2 days away from home and I must say that the city has a strange and magnetic charm to it, which makes you want to stay back or you yearn to return as soon as you are out of the city. It had been ages since I had made a train journey. Here I was under-taking one, and greeted by a sign inside the coach that said----"WELCOME TO INDIAN RAILWAYS, 25 GLORIOUS YEARS OF SERVICE". Here is how the events proceeded:-

6.00- Train leaves platform ( above IST standards I must say!!! )
6.15- I buy paper to read the news
6.30- I am welcomed with the sign that reads-----"WELCOME TO INDIAN RAILWAYS, 25 GLORIOUS YEARS OF SERVICE"
7.15- I wake up and finish reading the newspaper
7.26- I am welcomed with the sign that reads-----"WELCOME TO INDIAN RAILWAYS, 25 GLORIOUS YEARS OF SERVICE"
7.30- I have breakfast
7.40- I sleep
8.30- I am welcomed with the sign that reads-----"WELCOME TO INDIAN RAILWAYS, 25 GLORIOUS YEARS OF SERVICE"
8.40- I sleep
9.30- I am about to get off the train to catch another connecting train
9.30.01- I am welcomed with the sign that reads-----"WELCOME TO INDIAN RAILWAYS, 25 GLORIOUS YEARS OF SERVICE"

You can as well see what was the most eventful thing during this journey. Yes thats right. I was welcomed a million times by the stupid LED display inside the coach.
Apart from that there was nothing too exciting to write about. There was the customary greetings to my granny which was followed up by our surprise visit to my aunt's place. Imagine 24 hours without access to my system. This post was actually a hard copy before it appeared here.

Note:- Days without access to system--001

Engineering

2008-06-22T02:50:00.000-07:00

A few analogies that comes to my mind with the word Engineering especially in VTU!!!!

Engineering == Test Match Cricket ( 4 gruelling sessions in both!!!! )
Engineering == One Night Stands ( basically preparations before the exams!!! )
Engineering == Results of One Night Stands ( getting F***ed!!!! )
Engineering == Bowling ( U always end up rattled with the question papers just like the pins )
Engineering == Nuts and Bolts ( U always end up getting screwed end of each semesters!!!! )

Well there are many such analogies that can be drawn for engineering, but still the profession sells like hot cakes. Finally I can say that I am an engineer. Yeah even I am into the most fashionable brand of engineering. This statement is very much subject to the condition that I manage to clear the final paper of my under-graduate life. The last paper that we had to take up was Constitution of India and professional ethics. What profession and what ethics one might ask? But all the same its a compulsory subject that requires a mandatory pass to avail a degree certificate. A very basic question occurred to one of my friends when we were preparing ( that word is just a formality ) for CIPE. When the makers of the constitution themselves have taken 4 long years to prepare one then how do people expect us to study the very same thing in a span of 4 weeks or 4 months. Very interesting thought!!!!!!!

Anyways finally the course is complete and I can say that quite an illustrious journey has finally come to an end. It started way back in 2004 when I chose to join my college. Every face was a new one for me sparing probably one or two at the maximum. I realised that I had made a big mistake of opting a college where none of my friends from PU would join me. The starting was really pathetic. I found myself brooding why did I manage to screw up things. I used to think what went wrong that I found myself landing up, in this college where everybody was an alien. I had a pretty tough time adjusting myself to the new environment. I was no extrovert back then and was pretty much hesitant in approaching people and getting myself acquainted with them. While all this was going on there was this one person who actually understood what I was going through. I guess that it was a similar kind of situation for that person too. All thanks to that person, my first few days or rather my first few weeks passed by without much of grumbling. Thank You buddy, I am sure you will be reading this and smiling to yourself thinking what maha did I do?.....But yes your friendship did mean a lot and helped me out of a pretty tough phase.

Well that was four years ago. Now when I look back, I sometimes wonder how time has flown. I ask myself how did we manage to do so many things within a span of four years. After the initial few road-blocks in the first semester I did manage to find myself some really good friends. From there on it has been a roller coaster ride. Be it the cultural events or the sporting events. Be it the night-outs for exams or be it the night-outs for time pass. Everything that I did within this course of time has become so memorable now. It is all history now, and they do say that history does repeat itself. But will it repeat in such a case?
I would not mind if it did reapeat but it should be sans the exams and the studies. The golden period has finally come to an end. The journey which began without any friends has now come to an end with a plethora of unimaginably wonderful friends. Some say that the journey does not matter but the company with which you accomplish the journey matters. Some say that the journey is what matters the most. I would say that the journey matters the most with the best possible company that you get. The company and the set of friends that I got during these four years was simply wonderful. For me the journey was super and the company was even more better.
Signing off with a big thank you and loads of luck to all my wonderful friends who have made these past four years of my life absolutely memorable.

MOVIES!!!!!!!!!

2008-06-17T06:40:00.000-07:00

"Power cannot be not given."

"Power has to be taken."

That does ring a bell right?

Just few days back I managed to watch one of the most eagerly awaited movie of the year, Sarkar Raj. This task was accomplished even though a friend of mine helped me or rather should I say guided me in the most enlightening path possible. What an enlightenment that was. The bugger managed to spill the beans on the entire plot of the film. Even before I had entered the theater I knew what was about to happen.

Ok I need my share of revenge so here goes.

Amitabh Bachchan is paired along with his son and his daughter-in-law. (Hey thats not a surprise I know). Anyways so this tall lanky dude winds up getting married to this short skinny babe(which again is no surprise). The dude is running his dad's business. Which is probably taking down the bad guys and blah blah blah(that too was known I guess). Okay so the most important part is that....................Hhhhhmmmmmnnnnnn okay not going to reveal anything here. I have already been promised that I might find myself hanging upside down by the railings of my balcony. Anyways the point is that the movie is overall an amazing watch.

I was just wondering, when RGV factories can churn out such classics like Sarkar, Sarkar Raj and not to mention the cool gangsta flicks like Company and Satya how do they manage to come up with ultra flob bombs like Aag,Gaayab and Naach. Anyways as far as I can see there has been a slight change in the movies that has been hitting the theatres lately. Indian Cinema has changed I guess. From movies like DDLJ and QSQT we have reached to movies like ChakDe and Lagaan. Its no longer a necessity for the protagonists to run around the same old freaking tree in the same old freaking locations performing the same old freaking antics. I guess its no longer necessary for the hero to vanquish the villians and emerge victorious. People are actually ready to see their favourite starts die on screen. Now thats quite a change in the film industries. I can as well say that Indian Cinema has come of age. Well not exactly Indian Cinema but Bollywood sure has changed by leaps and bounds with movies from different genres, from scifi-flicks to super hero dare-devilry.
I could not stop myself from giving these facts, which are the main reason why I had to add the previous statement.

Hero chase villain on horse. Truck comes between hero and villian and is perpendicular to the road. Hero makes horse slide beneath the truck. Horse comes out un-scathed. Chase continues.( What a horse? Self-Healing with amazing sliding techniques. Maybe some of our cricketers can take a leaf out of the horses book and start sliding on the field.)
Hero doused in petrol. Rowdy gang throws some 20 lighted match-sticks at him. He escapes ala Matrix-Neo style. He thrashes bad guys. He throws one lighted stick at them. They all on fire. Logic= During fight he transfers petrol from his clothes to the rowdies clothes. ( Now there is a fatal attraction you dont exactly equate with!!!.)
This is one of the most mind blowing dialogues I have ever come across till date. "When a normal man touches current he gets a shock.....I am Narasimha. If current touches me current gets a shock!!!!!". Woaow!!! now thats what I call as an electrifying. The dude just nods his head after this and the power supply itself goes kaput!!!!!!!
Hero is doctor operating on a patient. Power supply goes. No back-up or ups. No emergency lamp. Patient critical. The dude performs operation under lights generated from other doctors mobiles. ( Hey which hospital is this man?? Mobiles in the operation theatre, no back up, no emergency lights. Wonder how the hospital was running!!!!)
This one is also pretty crazy. The big mustache dude is surrounded by rowdies. One tweak of the left part of his mustache the guys to his left go flying, one tweak of his right part of mustache and the guys on the right go flying. Its best to stop here. Guess the director also had the sense to put a full stop at this point. I was seriously wondering what all the dude was gonna tweak to get rid of his enemies.
This was an opening scene of a movie. The young hero( for the past approx 40 years) kicks the usual thug. The guy flies and hits the transformer thats roughly 10-12 feet high. Now there is a kick boxer for you!!!!!!
Hero being chased by villians( whats new???). Hero jumps into well. Villians throw machete into well. Hero avoids all. Villians now pour petrol into well. But hero very clever. Before petrol reaches him, he sets villian on fire. Logic=Hero takes machetes thrown by villians. Throws back to villians such that it scrapes the walls of the well. Friction causes sparks and sparks ignite petrol and villians are deep fried. Bravo hero what a presence of mind and what mind boggling applications of the laws of physics!!!!!

I am quite sure given a chance anybody will be able to come up with a hundred other instances like this. Maybe thats what they call being creative geniuses. Hats off to those guys for defying every other law of physics and being creative and coming up with ideas and stories completely out of the box. Bow to them all. Including to you for having had the patience to read out this piece of crap about crap movies!!!!

2008-06-08T09:52:00.000-07:00

Its the dreaded time of the year
When people like me have nothing to cheer
The feeling which prevails is that of fear
But I still hold enjoyment dear.

June announces the arrival of exams
Its time to draw all kinds of study plans
Sticking to it though is a major scam
I bang my head to the wall wham bam slam.

This will actually be the final time
And the exam bells will no more chime
Merry-making will once again be the prime
And we can all relax with a glass of sweet lime.

Exams!!!!

2008-06-07T03:17:00.000-07:00

The time keeps ticking
As I continue to keep flipping,
Page after page
Boredom was so prominently
Sketched on every inch of my face.

I was staring right into the text
It was as though they were alive
Mocking and laughing at my despair.

The exams dawn upon fast and near
There still seems to be no kind of fear
Distinction has been an age old dream
Which now looks like a task upstream!!

Brain is fried!!!!!!!

2008-06-06T10:35:00.000-07:00

The codes were extremely simple, but atleast orthogonal. More importantly noise was neglected. Noise would add to the transmitted signal C, the results would not be as even with -6 and +6 but would maybe be close to 0, making it harder to decide if this is still a 0 or 1. Additionally, both spread bits were precisely superimposed and both signals were equally strong when they reach the receiver. Assume that B's strength is five times A's strength. Then, C'=A+5*B=(-1,+1,-1,-1,+1,+1)+(-5,-5,+5,-5,+5,-5)=(-6,-4,+4,-6,+6,-4)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What all one must go through to become an engineer!!!!!!

Rain!!

2008-05-30T21:17:00.000-07:00

I was just going through a few blogs randomly and I found one where the author has very conveniently described a situation of cricket being played in England. He says that rain in England is similar to a tall man who had suddenly decided to stop over England in his world-wide walk and take a piss. Now thats a nice comparison. What do I say for our very own Bangalore?
Is this the public toilet or what??
Every day it rains without fail just like somebody deciding to take a leak over Bangalore as and when he feels like it, upsetting plans of a thousand other people.
What does this rain bring with it?
A complete chaos on the streets. {would have to say an additional of more chaos with the present traffic conditions}. Nowadays it is much faster to reach a destination by walk rather than taking a vehicle. What with the current road conditions I feel its easier to even manouever a boat on the pavement.
Its easy to sit here and crib about the rain but who knows how many daily breads are depending on the rains. I am just happy that with the rains comes in a very temperate climate that our city is so famous for.
The following is just a common scenario when it rains in Bangalore--
Guy in jayanagar 4th block--"AUTO!!!!!!"...( a few hundred autos whizz past him, failing to even acknowledge the existence of a poor soul getting drenched in the rain!!!!)
After about a gruelling 15 mins and lung crushing screaming finally an auto decides to take pity on the guy.
Guy--"saar banshankari bartira??" [ "boss will you come to banashankari??"]
Poor guy just gets a mere negative nod of the head. All his efforts of trying to stop an auto ends with just two or three irritating nods of the head and the vehicle is gone. After all this the guy manages to stop yet another auto.
Guy--"saar banshankari bartira??" [ "boss will you come to banashankari??"]
Auto-"double agatte" [the fare will be double]
Guy--"double aa?? adu sanjay aar ghantega??" [ double and that too in the evening at 6??]
WTF man??? The auto drivers have a field day when it rains. Not that they need any special occasion to make more money. But charging twice the fare just because it rains when all they have to do is sit under the auto's roof and manuever the stupid vehicle right in the middle of the road. Its a pretty known fact that auto drivers have to put in the minimum of efforts when they drive. That is because the others on the road automatically drive more carefully when they are near autos. I guess it would be an insult to call them auto drivers. They are actually the formula one prospects from India. { Watch out Karthikeyan and Karun Chandok...you got some serious competition out here!!!!!}
The other day my friend kept complaining that all his plans are getting screwed because of the rains. From what he said it looked as though the rains have a planned vendetta against him. Any time he decides to go out the rain decides to party and how?? {As a result of such erratic showers Bangloreans are so fortunate to witness instant waterfalls and fountains. Not many cities provide for such wonderful attractions I guess. The man-hole at the end of the road next to my apartment just springs to life when it rains. The drains over-flow and we are so very lucky to see tiny water-falls emerging here and there. }
It is just as though the guy from the world-wide walk above has decided to give my friend here a daily shower with his constant visit to the urinals!!!!!
Was pretty amused with the relationship of his going out and the clouds deciding to open up. So this is just a small dedication to him. "Holy crap!!!!! Its started raining again I got to run!!!!"

BLOGGING!!!!!!!

2008-05-24T23:28:00.000-07:00

"The a**h*le has the audacity to name his pooch after me? Somebody else is taking a dig at what I do in my profession. There is comparison that HE is better than me........."

Its not too difficult to figure out who might be thinking on the above lines. Ever wondered where the roots of blogging come from. What was supposed to be a personal diary has now evolved into what is called as modern day blogging. From personal diaries to online diaries and to the latest fad blogs. Its a mad mad world out there and everybody has the liberty to express what he or she feels like. No wonder nowadays the celebrities' blogs are front page articles in the newspapers. Everybody is a diarist and a blogger. The all important and attention grabbing blogs are from the celebrities from the film industry. They make better reading articles than the usual run around the mill gossip that keeps popping up here and there.

Somebody's blog is the talk of the nation and somebody else's blog slanders a fellow stars name. There has never been a better way to express oneself and seriously there has never been a better source of entertainment than this. Its hilarious to see stars having a go at each other and then apologising for it. Leaves me in splits!!!!
Would love to see more blogs coming up from other prominent people. Something probably on the following lines--

Somebody blogging about how his ideas have revolutionised the Indian Railways or how cows and cattle have a huge influence in his life.( Probably might require a bit of translation but its worth the trouble!!!!!!)
Or maybe somebody venting his anger on his team's dismal performance or how his team being called the misfits in the most eye catching tourney just because they are on the other side of the 30's!!!!!!
Or maybe somebody blogging about why he was not allowed to be with his team or people criticising him for his non-demure attitude in supporting his franchise!!!!
Or maybe somebody blogging about how taking rural trips and mingling with the tribals will help him to garner support for the race to power!!!!!
Or it could be some one's blog who keeps claiming to be acting in his last film but churns out mega hits every year, while romancing ladies 1/3rd his age on the silver screen!!!!
Or it might be even a blog from somebody who keeps denying to team up with his tennis partner because of personal conflicts!!!!!
Or maybe from a politician from the state claiming divine intervention in his political career and requesting votes just because he missed his son's oath taking ceremony the last time!!!!( talk about begging for power...ppl dont just give up when it comes to power and money do they??? )
Or it could be a blog by someone who could reason out his opinion for controlling a waterfall that is not in his state or jurisdiction.
And last but not the least it could be blogs about our very own bolly stars again where they could claim to be just friends and nothing else.

To be frank there will be a hundred other possible blogs that I would love to see. To an extent blogs are quite informative. May not be the typical encyclopedia but certain facts and figures can be extracted from a few. Bottom line--no blog is a waste!!!
Wondering how my blog is not useless??...Well it could be taken as an example for a "bad example"....It sure does qualifies for the slot!!!!!
Till then three cheers for blogs and the raging battle between celebs......Bring it on!!!!!
Note--This is inspired by an article that I read today in the paper by a regular columnist in Times of India!!!!!!

Plummeting face down!!!!!

2008-05-10T03:50:00.000-07:00

Beeeeeeeep!!!!!!!
The sound of the beeper kept ringing at consistent intervals.
There was a school boyish kind of anticipation and excitement in me. I was standing in a queue which was moving quite fast compared to the other queue. Finally I reached the desk and my number was called out. I was made to sign at a particular place and the noted symbol of the indelible ink was smeared on my index finger. At last I had reached the EVM and there again was the echoing of the familiar beep, as I cast my vote. I had finally become a part of the government. The very same government which we blame and point a finger at, if they do not function properly. Whoever said that voting does not make a difference. Every vote counts. I am sure that even one single vote could well be the difference between a bad government and an able government. The experience was new. The feeling of finally having voted was yet to sink in, when there was another beep. This time it was not the EVM but my cell carrying the news which made me plummet from a euphoric feeling of having voted for the first time, into the depths of sadness.

It all started off with a rumour. The rumour was that one of our lecturers from the Maths Dept. had passed away. Her name was Nalini.C. The messages started pouring in and it was finally confirmed that not only our lecturer but also her husband and her daughter had passed away in an unfortunate road accident. She was one of my most favourite staff members in the college. I could very well say that I took an even more keen interest in Maths because of her. The fact that a couple of days back the lecturer who applauded us for our mad-ads show on college day is now no more with us, was hard to digest. Its a very unfortunate thing to happen to anybody. Life is so unfair at times. The car in which they were travelling rolled down the cliff. The thought of the people inside the car sends a chill down my spine. This was a situation where everybody in the car knew their fate and all they could do was wait for the end to come. Life is so very short and unpredictable. You never know what fate has in store for you. This post is entirely dedicated to my Lecturer. I pray to the Almighty that their souls rest in peace.

LINK OF THE NEWS REPORT:http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JQkcvMjAwOC8wNS8xMCNBcjAwOTA2&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom

Mad-ads-The final performance

2008-04-27T10:28:00.001-07:00

The euphoria still has not set in. The applause and the cheers are still ringing in my ears. It was a fitting and perfect swan song for Simply Adjust Maadi(SAM). I guess none of us could have asked for a better exit from the mad-ads arena. It was simlpy an out of this world experience to have the support of more than five hundred people screaming out and cheering for us. The journey has finally come to an end with this performance and fittingly it has ended with a bang. Call it "co-incidence" or call it "sheer luck" or call it simply "an out-standing performance", we started also with a bang by winning the event in BMSCE and now we are hanging up our boots after winning the 2nd place in PESIT. To be precise we have won where it matters the most and I am sure that the PESIT crowd will definitely remember our performance.
The feeling still has not sunk in that there will not be anymore mad-ads for us. I guess there will be a time when it will actually sink in just like an anchor falling into the depths of the ocean. This is the best mad-ads team that I could have ever been a part of. I am 100% sure that given a choice to join any mad-ads team in Bangalore I will be always a part of this team. This team totally rocks. On a personal note I would like to dedicate this win to all my team mates. Without their contribution this would never have been possible. And obvioulsy I would also like to specially dedicate this win to each and every one of our friends who came all the way to PESIT just to cheer for us. I am pretty sure that without you guys this would not have been the same memorable experience for us as it is right now. Here is a little insight on the members of SAM.
Our team narrator----SriHarsha.H.S
I have not heard many people who can better his stint behind the microphone. The different kinds of sounds and the different styles of mimicry that he manages to do is simply awesome. The main reason why our team has managed to do so well is just because of this guy. I really am a very big fan of his narration. There are a very few people who can match up to his quality.
Our team Betala----Priyank Rao
One look at this fellow and I am pretty sure that you will discard him off as a bed-ridden psycho. But the punch that this guy brings into his acting on stage is amazing. He is too good with his antics on stage and always manages to come up with something really funny. If the audience is laughing its guts out then I can bet on it that 8 out of 10 times it has to be some ad related to Priyank.
Our team Official slogan boy------Arun K.V
Be it brains or be it creativity this guy is a notch above the rest. He sometimes does talk a lot!!!!!
Jokes apart, he does come up with some out of the world slogans for our ads and has a unique and funny way of delivering them on stage. Bow to you buddy!!!!!
Our team babe!!!-------Sanmathi G.B
This guy is simply a born performer. His stage presence is brilliant. His ability to act naturally on stage is an added bonus to our team. Apart from his acting he is the 'Missin' guy of the team. I am sure its easier to get dates for a top notch bollywood actress compared to getting hold of this guy. The most humourous and the most witty person of our team. His on the spot one-liners is often the only stress buster during our tense situations.
Our team unaninous fav-------Chinmay Lokesh
This so very popular guy is probably the one of the best actors of the team. He is not only liked by the audiences but also a favourite among the team. His pjs certainly cannot be forgotten. Most of all his Anniyan act that he sometimes puts up. Bow to you too buddy.
Our team shorty----------Shashank Katte
No one knows when he arrives and when he leaves on the stage. He is the most important guy next to Arun. I guess he can also be called as the official team substitute for slogans. Was not there with us for some of the performances but an integral part of the team. Comes up with some really good ideas once in a while.
Our team dancer------Trilok .K
One of the best dancers that I have seen in our college. The choreographer of most of our acts on stage. His moves on the stage and his keen sense of performance has been an added bonus to our team. Without him some of the ads that we have done would never have achieved the success that it has got till date.
There were a few others with us who were a part of the team but were not so consistent. This post is totally dedicated to the above mentioned guys. I totally am going to miss Simply Adjust Maadi. You guys rock big time and I am at a loss of words to describe how proud I am to be a part of SAM. There is simply no beating you guys when it comes to being together as a mad-ads team.

P.S--Bow to the tremendous crowd support that we got from our college. It certainly was the best crowd that we have performed for till date.
Cheers!!!!!!!

Madads II

2008-04-25T11:04:00.000-07:00

Has anyone ever imagined that acting like mad people on stage infront of a minimum of thousand eyeballs just glaring at you, could ever be praiseworthy or could fetch you awards and cash prizes???

Well thats what Madads is all about. Most people have a misconception that madads literally means to act like crazy,brainless nutters on stage. Thats not what its all about. I for one have been a part of a wonderful team. When I joined BNMIT I had a very faint idea of what madads was all about. I still remember that very fortunate evening when there was a crowd of about nine people sitting in front of our canteen along with our lecturer, who was actually supporting us to form a team for madads. I believe the thought originated when some of the guys had gone to the nature club trip and then we all got together to perform a skit( the skit was pretty lame if u think about it now!!!!!!!!!). That very fortunate day our team was formed. Imagine we started out our career in madads calling ourselves ...............Censored!!!!!!

We were up against the Pacemakers who were the then champions of madads from our college. The show was not exactly a runaway hit but it was also not bad either. We managed a second place in college and that gave us the confidence that we could also make people laugh and perform well on stage. Thats when the journey all began. From that day onwards till the 3rd of May 2008 , Simply Adjust Maadi has had a roller coaster ride from one end of the city to the other end (speaking in literal terms...from MVJCE to DBIT!!!!!). It has been the journey of a team which has seen the ups, downs and also faced the stiffest competition from many good teams in Bangalore. Whether it be the fascinating debut win in UTSAV (BMSCE Fest) or whether it be the final performance in college on May 3rd. I can now say that SAM has seen it all.
There have been quite a few highs of SAM. One of the greatest compliment that we have ever received was when we had been to IIIT-Bangalore this year. We were the winners of the mad-ads event when they had conducted the fest the previous year. One of our friends from IIIT came upto us and actually said that, they had arranged for the judges to judge the event by showing them our previous years performance. That was the biggest compliment that we could have ever received. It gave us a feeling of being the trend-setters of mad-ads in IIIT. Two of our best wins have come in IIIT itself. There can be no comparison to the feeling that we all got when we were praised for our performances. Performing in front of the crowd is an all together a different kind of high.
I do not want to be too boastful or vain about our performances. But we do take pride in what we have done as a team. We not only participated in mad-ads but we also ended up winning in street play. It was a one off thing, but the only place where we took part in street play we bagged a prize. This apart we have managed to conjure 9 different scripts for different performances. Though some of them were a let down, we never lost heart. And also we have managed to come up with more than 30 performances as a mad-ads team. Not being vain here but I can proudly say that we have managed to entertain audiences in most of the places where we performed. Probably the only black mark in our career as SAM would be our performance in PESIT in 2006. Maybe thats why this years victory was so sweet. All in all a fantastic journey has finally come to an end. As a final note from the team's perspective I am sure we are all going to miss some wonderful mad-ads teams like Complete Chaos,No Idea,Team Alone, etc.
I could go on writing about SAM but this itself has become quite a long post. In my previous post I missed out on a couple of members of SAM.

Our team Huchcha----Abhiram P Cuntoor
The tallest member of SAM. More famous as Loosepant Linganatha from the good old concept of skit in second semester. He is one of the most funniest guy you will find on stage. He has this weird sense of comic timing that nobody can deny. You tell him one thing and he will end up doing another, but the bottom line is it pays off. Out of words to describe much about him here. Just see his acting to know what I am talking about.

Our team Zombie----Amith.S.S
Yeah this guy was a part of SAM during its inchoate stages. This is one multifaceted guy who has talent overflowing in almost every field. A musical genius (BNM idol), an amazing tennis, table-tennis, badminton, basketball and cricket player. I always run out of words when it comes to speaking about Amith. This guy is better known as zombie because of his straight face which shows a lack of expressions, but trust me these are the kind of people who can make you laugh the hardest and the loudest.

That brings me to the end of SAM. I was just thinking that this post could well be the final talk about SAM. But something tells me that I will be coming up with more related posts. Till then SIMPLY ADJUST MAADI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Days???

2008-04-19T05:41:00.000-07:00

Finally the semester is coming to an end. The most eagerly awaited day in my engineering life is fast approaching. The most haunting question is about to be answered. The question that I have been pondering over. "When will I complete my engineering and pass out?"

Fast forward 6 semesters and 3 years to the current date. Now I wish college life never ends. As they say these really are the golden days of our lives. At the moment I am at the threshold of completely stepping out of the doors of being an under-graduate. Its that time of the year where in I will be called a graduate( conditions apply!!!!! you never know when VTU is going to give you a heart attack). Just the thought of ending college life and splitting with all the wonderful friends that I have made over these four years makes me feel so dispirited. As my future plans unravel themselves, I have begun to realize that my golden period of college is unfortunately coming to an end. There certainly are going to be some very very good things that I am going to miss about college. For instance

coming late to class everyday and being greeted to the very familiar and bellowing voice of our principal
the usual routine of having no attendance in most of the subjects
the running around for making up the internal marks
the night outs with friends, on the pretext of joint studies( yeah chin n harsh n u 2 arun...really gonna miss all that)
the get-togethers to discuss scripts and ideas but eventually ending up killing time( I am sure my mad-ads team-mates will agree to it)
the inter collegiate fests...also the intra college competitions
I cannot forget the fun we have had sitting and killing time in the hostel( hari,somu,pheku,venky,amit and offcourse our Spartan...dudes i sure m gonna miss the good times!!!!!)
the usual adda in front of the canteen
the idlis,vadas and masala dosas at SLV!!!!!
not to forget the eat outs and hang outs!!!
bunking college and going for movies
playing all sorts of games( m sure zombie and harsha are gonna agree to the innovative and refreshing games that we played in the sports room!!!!!!!!!)

and so on and on and on..............

Actually speaking the list is endless. College life has no substitute. I read a blog of a friend of mine who has just about finished his college. It surely is that time of the year when college will for once be really missed. I guess this is just the first of many such posts that I may end up posting.!!!!!!!

THREE CHEERS TO COLLEGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Spiderman!!!!!!!

2008-04-07T12:28:00.000-07:00

The race was very intense. It was going to be a photo finish. I was sure that these kind of races were very competitive and were held all around the world. The only drawback of such races was that it never received any media coverage. Well how will you expect media coverage for races involving you and the second hand of the clock!!!!!!
This was a daily scenario at my house during my school days. The bell would ring precisely at 11.15 and the gates would be closed at 11.20. The hour hand had passed 11, twelve minutes ago and the second hand was racing towards completing the 13th minute and, I was racing against the second hand. I was trying to put on my shoes and at the same time searching for the house keys. My parents would go off to work by 8.30, and locking up the house and leaving for school was my resposibility. That fortunate day was the begining of the adventure that I am writing about. We stayed in an apartment. There were about 7 buildings with 4 floors each and each of the buildings housed around 50 odd flats. Our flat was on the Ist floor and on that particular day I was running extremely late for school and I had managed to lose the house keys. Was it due to the fact that I was late or was it due to the fact that I was careless. The reason is not known, but that day I ran out of the house and pulled the door behind me without the keys.

The adventure started when I reached back home. Fortunately that day I had left our balcony door open. I made my way around the building and surveyed my chances of climbing my way into the house. Believe it or not there was no shortage of an audience to watch a monkey climb to his house. I took permisison from the ground floor people and started the ascent to my balcony.I made my way up the grills of their balcony and found myself on the perch or slab just below my window. The height of the window was just a little too high for me to climb on to. And to my good luck there was this pipe running exactly in the middle of the perch and the window sledge. I climbed on to the sledge using the pipe as the support and then jumped onto my open balcony. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!!!!!! I can bet that I have left a mark of my achievement by bending a straight passing pipe into a U-tube!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After this feat I was looking forward to doing such antics every now and again. It became a sort of pass-time for me. Actually it even extended to doing crazy stuffs like going from one balcony to the other hanging from the windows and climbing up and down the skylight of the buildings.

Well why am I writing about this at this unearthly hour??[It shows 12.30 but its actually close to 2.30 in the morning]...Today being the begining of the new year (UGADI), the festivities at my house was quite big. Festivals have their own significance in peoples lives. But when it comes to people like me festivals mean sweets, holiday and an appetite that increases exponentially because of the variety of food prepared. Today was no different. I am stuffed till my throat and being a holiday I fell asleep in the morning. So here I am posting this blog without even a hint of sleep in my eyes. I was standing in my balcony sometime back watching the man trying to climb onto the poles tied up as ladders in the opposite building. He was preparing for somebodys marriage tomorrow I guess. So now you know from where the theme of this blog originated. Every event is like a chain in the memory which keeps linking one event to the other. I am signing off here with more on links coming soon. Till then wish everyone of you a very very Happy Ugadi.

An international affair!!!!!!

2008-04-05T23:32:00.000-07:00

The internet connection was slow at this time of the night. I could imagine the thousands of users sharing the same bandwidth along with me. I could imagine the majority of them trying to download movies or songs or other multimedia files. There were probably hundreds of others chatting,or playing online games and so on. All this while my browser was still showing the dreaded and the most irritating status in the internet jargon. It was still showing Loading......

I resolved myself for another few minutes wait. Waiting to see the status change from Loading....I was waiting for the page to reveal its contents. Finally the page loaded and its contents was revelaed. It was similar to the opening of the screen in the theater before a movie starts. I was expecting to see the monotonous status of my application. Expecting that it would say
Decision Awaiting
To the Dept for Review.
I could not believe my eyes at first when I saw that the decision had been made and the decision was an admit. It was like a mirage. I was half expecting it to just vanish. But there it was. Finally after a loooooooong wait I had received an admit into a University. It was time for celebrations.

That is how the picture should be at the moment right??
Well all thanks to the basic fact that we are all humans that am afraid is not the scenario now. I have got an admit true, but being a human I still have the desire to want more. Its natural for human beings or even animals to want more. I want more.Having received an admit for one university now,I want to get hold of another admit to another university. Its pretty obvious that people want the best things in life. I am still hoping for admits from universities that are a few rungs above the university that I have got an admit for. There is a thin line of difference for wanting more for yourself and being greedy. This is a situation of being both. So for the time being the
Wait continues......................

2008-04-03T11:04:00.000-07:00

Its been more than a month. The wait is getting to my mind. Its the dreaded wait and the feeling of walking on the edge of the sword. There comes a time in peoples lives when they feel like doing nothing at all. By nothing I mean literally nothing. Its been more than three months and I am still waiting for the so called ticket for an MS. Yes the all so important admit to any university. Sometimes the wait just gets to me. Especially when I realize that friends of mine have already received an admit. Questions keep popping into my head. I keep wondering whether I will be able to go for a post graduation. There is a certain kind of feeling that makes me feel that I am good enough and capable enough of doing a PG. But again there is this other feeling and also the acceptance of the harsh reality that I may not be so worthy after all. Reason----No admit till date.

Its pretty unbelievable when just a small little piece of paper holds so much of importance in ones life. Its not the end of the world if I do not get an admit. But it will be the same as throwing away all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and starting all over again from the scratch. On the other hand just one A4 sized sheet holds the key to completing the jigsaw puzzle at the moment. It will be like all the pieces falling into their respective places automatically once I receive the admit. I guess hope is the only driving factor at this point of time. I am still hoping for the best. But as for now the wait just continues.....................................................

2008-02-26T06:57:00.000-08:00

At last i have my own blog. Funny it took me this long to create one. Actually i had been wanting to create a blog for myself from quite some time. I guess the right time had to come yesterday. Trust me finding out a suitable name for the blog was really a hectic job. I am pretty sure that I have not racked my brains so much even while writing my exams. Every other name that I want to take has already been taken. Finally I did land up with this.
Like true oscars and filmfare style I would like to thank a couple of people who kinda contributed in creating this blogspot. Hehe that sounds pretty tacky I know. I got to do it though in true filmi shtyle. My mum was always into stuff like this. Writing about things being creative and all that stuff. Being creative part is kinda tough though but writing? Well anybody can write bull-shit right??
Hhmmnn so my mum would be my first inspiration. And to be honest there is a friend of mine who is an avid blogger. I really got the josh from that guy to start all this. By the way his blog is deadlyscavenger.blogspot.com. Thanks buddy. And yeah there has to be a mention of another friend of mine who kept telling me to shorten my sentences. Hehehe ok that actually meant that my sentences keep going on for paras together. I tried my best buddy ,this was all I could manage.