Happennings Lately

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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

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

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

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

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

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!!!!