Closing the year on a good note!

2008 - A year full of promises, surprises and changes for me. needless to say some of the unfortunate moments as well.
This post will be about a personality who has made a huge difference to me and my life.

She was born in a small town.
She was the eldest in the family.
She grew up in a royal environment.
She studied well;
She became a role model for all the other kids who grew up in the family.
She made friends who went on to become friends with the entire family.
She was pious; She obeyed her parents.
She taught me what is prayers.
She was cheerful.
She was beautiful. She is Aishwarya but not Rai.
She was logical.
She was disciplined.
She was calm.
She was the first to goto college from her home.
She kept in touch with all the childhood friends. She valued each of them.
She worked as a teacher.
She became poor someday.
She had a very rich aunt.
She got married. (or her Aunt got her married)
She became rich again.
She adored her husband.
She lost her father.
She became a mother of 2 kids.
She loves everybody like her own.
Later...
Her aunt became poor.
But she is rich.
She is high on status now.
She is being abused for that by her aunt.
She still trusts on God.
She still loves all of us.
She still is calm.

She is my Sister. Saying 'She is my cousin sister' does not take me any far from her.

This post is very important to me as she is one of the most inspiring person in my life.
She means a lot to me.
Touch wood, we are the closest of sisters now and her kids love me and I love them like mine.
She is sweet.
May God give her all that she needs in life.
May this new year bring all the wonders to her life.

Extending my hearty wishes to all of you for a very very happy new year!
Godspeed to you Good people!

Take care.

A disgusting bid.....

its been a sort of emptiness within me.. for the past 2 days. 2008 was a great time spent in a much greater way. a lot of remarkable things amidst the other hard path that i took through. pretty more friends made along the way. some very new ppl, some of them who were known before as just hi-bye friends were added to 'good' friends category.

sometimes mind thinks why things move so fast. this fast moving life, is it really required.. so many rattling thoughts. why things start so fast and end within no time. are all those that i do over the millions of seconds make sense? at least to something or somebody somewhere in this huge world. sometimes i think if I'm over doing things, other times i doubt if I'm doing anything at all. at times I'm so stingy at making a single phone call while that evening i go out and spend on something thats so materialistic.

why not life is full of only good things, fun times and happiness, why would the sad part emerge in, why do i get so depressed at nothing, why do i not hesitate indulging in fights, why do i pretend being cool when I'm really not. why do i object showing love in front of others, why should i get the hell out of what I'm working on, why should i even care at making my deliverables, damn it, so prefect.. they all gonna bring in what!? money or only they make me a prefect human or what i am. Am i not good as just me. why do i have to do a hell lotta thing to prove what I'm capable of. or they are just gonna make up for those times when i had hurt people.. life is meaningful only after all that!? heavy or light, why should such feelings ramble over the good night's sleep. its a lot of craziness.

i have to read the words 'live life' to realize that i'm living something called life and i have to live it, across the mountains and valleys that i cross to work everyday. the mind is silent and wants to not think of anything, but shallow breaths queue up and tells me that 'you are uncomfortable listening to few things'. it is when i get to embrace the feeling of loneliness. why should i feel lonely even after being in the bird's nest like a place. its disgusting to know that i 'have to' live life so far off from my loved ones. why do i not simply live life at the place i like, with the people who make a difference to me and stop running around aiming at achieveing something, running all around towards nothingness. i have to damn it hope that tomorrow will be more colorful, tomorrow will carry something which i really would want to take it up and not couple up those disgusting things which i ever was scared of. its shameful to even say that i am SCARED of thinking if i would have a way ahead. a standard that i have to maintain for myself. a dignified standard!

it just goes on.. on and on.

sometimes its better to spit out those bitter herbs rather than clubbing it inside, cogitating, because of the medicinal effect that it has which would be helpful at later point of time. i do not want it.

Barbeque Nation - Awesome!!

One of the wonderful restaurants I've ever been to!
What on earth they don't have! I really wonder.. Right from the ambiance to food, service.. 'Awesome' will be way too less a description for this place.
You are a non vegetarian lover.. then this is the place to be!!

There have 3 outlets in Bangalore Kormangla, JP Nagar and Domlur. I got to venture @ the Domlur outlet as I heard this is the bestest of all. We got to occupy a table at the rooftop and with Bangalore weather rocking in this season, an absolute treat to ur eyes and ur taste buds..
They had both sofas and chairs for seating and as always, my choice was sofa! The arrangement was pretty spacious leading to a nice ambiance. Being a Sunday lunch, the crowd was perfect, not in excess neither less was it.

Coming to the food, it was a buffet lunch and they had lovely barbeque's starters made right on the table. The helpers come and neatly arrange the oven for you. They leave the masalas and oil (some 4 different types -mustard, soya bean blah-blah) on the table and you can add them to the taste you want it to be. Then they start leaving the items one after the other. It hardly any veggie food, but a whole different amazing varieties of non veg.. I'm restricted to consume non veg and so could just take a look at it.

the bowls placed on either side had the chutneys and the oil varieties.

What I could observe is that the food is already cooked in the kitchen and the whole process of leaving it in the oven etc just goes to the entertainment part, meaning it just gives a different feel and probably u can keep your food hot for however long u want them to be. Apart from the tandoori stuff, they had something made out of baby corn and fried fruits which had apple, papaya, pineapple and grapes. a lot of fried stuff in vegetarian, i simply loved them.
The starters part is the best in fact, its unlimited and they keep serving until u go ahead put the flag down indicating that they can stop serving starters. I was literally done here itself as we continued with just starters itself for more than an hour.

The main course had good varieties, but nothing was special as such, just the names were different and the food was the usual taste. they had an egg salad with boiled eggs soaked in some mild sauce and tomatoes (cut in big pieces), a different dish which I never came across, that was the highlight amongst all. Macaroni, pastas and the rest were as usual, the breads with paneer curry, fried rice, briyanis etc.

This was followed by desserts. 1st and foremost thing about this part is the arrangement, that itself brought a lot of temptations. There were decent number of varieties. rasmalai, a custard, ice creams with different sauces- chocolate, pista and mango. they made a wonderful combination.

I'm not sure how clear is the pic below. its anyways here for you!

I must mention about the customer care. we had ordered for a drink separately and I went for something called 'chocolate monk'. i was almost about to finish the drink and I could find a piece of plastic, its not even of the size of a pepper, but still I just called the guy there and showed it to him, note: it was not a complaint raised. But still he went ahead and changed the drink for me immediately. Ultimate service right!? And this is what I would call Value for the money!!

My 1st drink:

The replacement:

Awesome right!!?

And that's the end of the story.

The cost part was pretty ok, it was 500 bucks per buffet. I have paid 300+ in some of the average restaurants so many times. And considering the replacement drink factor, I was ready to pay even an extra 100 bucks :D And people said if we would have gone for La'Carte its not easy getting out without a min cheq of 1000 bucks.

Overall rating from my end- :) :) :)

A lil extra:

Awareness/Value-add/Just another business motto!?

Yesterday.. being a Sunday, we got to venture in front of the idiot box sometime.
Amidst the interesting programmes were the annoying ads! and that's where I got to watch this disgusting one.

the one for co*do*. a lady comes in n she, by her looks, is like the biggest B! people would do anything and everything for money n India would be the No1 country in such a list. she goes around preaching that co*do* is not a bad word, the mind that thinks irrelevant things when it comes across this word is perverted. Wat a crazy logic! anybody in the world who comes across this particular word (is, was) will think of the direct implication which could be nothing but s**!

Particularly in a country like ours, I do not understand the need of it, when I have got to study about this in my IXth class science studies, XI th class Biology and when the boys entering the so called 'teens' start talking about the C word, F word, A word etc right from their say VIIIth class. Such things when not realized by the current generation via all these forms, they think this will be an effective way to spread the core idea.. In such a form, is it really adding value!?

Okay, u tend to say that 'we want people to understand that it is not a bad thing to know'. Exactly! I go with you. But it puts me into disgust when I sit in the big hall with so many people around, in my living room with my family and suddenly such a thing of 'no bad' is being so explicitly declared that its not a bad thing at all. There were several ways of spreading this awareness in the past. I could find 'we 2-ours 2' posters in every street of my town @ my 15. Are they not decent words!? Did it not bring in change!?
For instance- I was a 1984 born. My parents (not a doc, not an engr) had this basic thing in those years itself and we are just 2 at my home. I can count the number of my batch mates who were more than 2 and it definitely is way too less, probably in 2 digits. I would even say, the servant maid at my home who had 5+ children, 2 of them were daughters and they were married sometime during the end of last century AND they stopped with 2 kids. I seriously think the current generation, to which I belong, is way too ahead of things. A lot is planned and is being properly executed.

You preach it to spread logic of safer se*!? Bull $hit! I even know a batch mate of mine who conceived just in a period of 3 months time after her wedding. She is an Engineering grad. and the reason she gave was that it was accidental. Do you think she did not know what is CO*DO*!?

So let's stop getting such things so public, and only this is when I start analyzing what's really bad about it, rather than just taking what is being directly conveyed! Let this 'awareness spreading logic' stay as decent as it ever was!
Bottom line: I condemn this whole CO*DO* ad logic being relayed particularly in TV channels!

Kare... Really!?

this is about my recent experience with some of the salons in the city, n they belong to CavinKare groups.

a Sunday noon n with 'v' visiting me over the week coming, i thought it was high time i got to do something about my messy hair.

Green Trends, the Unisex Spa & Salon, the CavinKare group companies, just half a km away from home, thought it may be a right place to try it out. i had visited them before several times for relatively smaller services n was satisfied with this lady who used to attend me. though i knew that they cost double for just a simple threading compared to the normal salons, i felt its ok. cuz i found the place to be pretty spacious. cleanliness is ok, i wouldn't say it is great, they don't keep mopping the floor or whatever, particularly the manicure/pedicure room inside - no comments about it.

being a Sunday noon, the salon hardly had customers. the moment i entered and asked them for a straightening, there were a bunch of gals around me, recommending me to go for rebonding.

For me all that matters then was the cost. A simple straightening costs around 3k plus tax (for medium hair), 2.5k plus tax (for short hair) and rebonding was like 3.5 + tax for short and 4.5+ tax for medium.

there was a female who does the receptionist + service work there and she went on stressing me to go for rebonding and that would give me less post process maintenance efforts. i did not really want to spend so much over it. and after a few mins of calls, discussions with friends etc i decided to go for straightening.

moreover, the length of my hair then was just an inch or 2 down the shoulders and they strictly told that they would consider it as medium length. half minded the service person started with the work, the first wash n now again she told me to go for rebonding. i asked her then that case consider it as short, i ll go for it and not medium.
having a razor cut already my hair was dense only on the top layer. she said she will trim it a bit and so they would consider it as short. i agreed n my so-called medium length became short with just less than half an inch of trimming.

the receptionist was not 'for' this infact and the attender spoke to the person on phone who is like the supervisor there i guess. I thought of the phone conversation what it must have been like and I'm sure this is the word of the attender "Rebonding short is still a profit for us compared to Straightening medium, almost around 500 bucks". the receptionist still kept cribbing over that lady for nodding to this whole deal of small-medium thingie and that's a different story.

after that she went on n the whole process took a whopping 6+ hrs to get over. but after all that, at the end i was happy with the way they've done it. its almost 2+ months now and still the texture is maintained. with straightening i don't think it lasts this long. the main difference that they say between straightening and rebonding is that the latter is a 5 step process with 2 extra creams being used. they use something called 'finisher' at the end which settles down all the minutest hairs that usually pop up and make it look ugly, particularly during travel or even after a small drive for that matter.

the best part was they said they will give a hair spa free after the first wash. and ya.. the first wash comes for free as well. whatever smallest amount of math brain that I have started calculating then, that a hair spa would cost anywhere around 750-1000. so if I'm paying 4K, it works out to almost around 3+ with the complimentary. but only after I went for the first wash I realized what they meant by hair spa. this lady first washed my hair applied a conditioner and washed it. then she brought a potful of cream and she applied that, left it for 20 mins and that's it the spa is over. how bloody cheating!! Did I ever ask for it!? so this is the effect.

this is one part of the story.

next comes limelite. I've seen an outlet in Jaynagar 5th block. but never felt like trying it out. it looked more like an art gallery rather than a salon for me. i must say Green Trends that case is better by looks, they have the decent posters, banners or whatsoever, which make us realize 'ok this is a salon which I can enter with some good feel and come out without it being spoilt'. when I got my rebonding done, i was meanwhile enquiring about Limelite cuz its again a CavinKare Group of companies. the guy there told me that its an executive parlour, when I asked the difference he told me 'the rebonding that costs 4K here would cost 8K there'.. darn.. what a lovely explanation that a supposedly Marketing person could utter!!

another thing is that, the newly arrived Barclay-Times credit card came along with 5k gift vouchers which could be used at different outlets most of which were carrying off of different %. one of them were limelite. i had a 250 bucks limelite voucher, now that i can work out something with that, I decided to venture there over a weekend.

went for a bleach which cost a damn 325 bucks.

the point is, i was told that its an executive parlor but i literally had to search for executives there, not in numbers but by carriage. the hair cuts all happen in the ground floor and they have every variety of human kind dumped in like what we see in internet cafes, there is not even a screen placed between two couches. thankfully i was put in a room, where the inside furnishing was decent, completely made of wood. the flooring, the walls, the cot and dark brown varnish on them was an added beauty. the attender was not at all friendly! again language problem. i just left it to her, let her do whatever experiments she wanted to do from her childhood. outcome was not all that effective. but i was happy she did not spoil my face at the least.

things that dug my heel:

1. suggest me what is good and what is not, you may tell me the benefits of going for a particular service probably twice and that is also for you to have the satisfaction that you have done your job. this is the true meaning of "stakeholder's delight" that you talk about in my pov.

2. why do you have to go on telling me to go for the one which I have decided once that I'm not gonna go for it. the problem comes when this particular thing which you suggest is of higher cost! I only tend to think that you are simply greedy and making business out of me. ok.. That too is not a problem with me unless until you make such strong statements on consumer benefits.

3. needless to say the cheating part. spoiling the brand name. I agreed for something and if you are not happy with it, just tell me it doesnt work this way. what non sense! you tell me something and not do it. better they take care of the people whom they post at such important positions! otherwise you stand too good a chance to get your brand name spoilt overnight!!

4. the beauticians there are not that great! somewhere close to the mark, but not there absolutely. i have seen a couple of people who runs their own and do a fairly good job. 1st and foremost thing: they don't speak English. and even if they speak its pathetic! the lady who attends me can talk tamil, so i'm saved.

CavinKare.. they do so much of branding, have the highest ever pricelist, talk so much about quality and quantity, but things just stop with words is what I could observe.
they don't get quality people to work for them, the plain reason I could imagine is the pay that they should offer to hire people of such grades. stingy guys!Both Green trends and Limelite need to improve a lot infrastructure wise. cleanliness is ok compared to the other local/non-branded ones, but its in no way upto the mark.
price, as one of the points above suggest, just 1:2 ratio, but this 1 here indicates somewhere close to 10.

And if we have to pick the better one out of the two, I would say its Green Trends and not Limelite definitely.

hang-over!

title makes you get high.. is it!? :p thats how it should be!!
this is just gonna be the continuation of the prev post, the 3, 4 and 5th day @ planet I.
after getting the overdose of the tech stuff, i was already at this 'oh!-is-it-not-enough!?' state.. so the 3rd day had to be different, otherwise they gonna make no difference. now to add up to the gang 3 of k's friends arrived. this day had the Ashwa finals + a lil bit of 'ghoom'ing the city etc etc.. did quite a hefty shopping, a pair of Puma shoes (swept off v's pocket :D), some more at our favourite Globus outlet + the one n only McD :) 'Y' joined in the middle. Rushed back to the campus wanting not to miss the Ashwa finals. It was a time worth spending there. Then came the 'werz the paaaudyy tonyt!!'. I was almost dozing off, back at room after Ashwa, but somebody woke me up and pulled me on to the dance floor.
Omg!! Wat an environment! Nobody was 'self' there. The beer guzzling competition was an add-on to the already prevailing heat. 5 great girls against 5 dumber guys!! how could u ever be ready to compete against girls mann.. huh! n the gals lost just in a matter of seconds! i wonder.. 'dare' n 'guts' for such things, is it meant only for Frenchies!? to save the 'maanam' there was a punju gal in the gang.. n they rocked!!!! it was so much fun and lotsa giggles around.
So many of em enjoyed the F-Ks. V n D dint give up too after which 'v' got some Kick-a$$ shots from me. thats a different story. (for now i'm leaving it; but u knw me, someday day u gonna mess up wit me and thats when u'll c the real impact of it, bugger.. just take care haan! :p) but i must admit, if somebody has missed it tat day, then u ll never knw wat 'haute' means!!
the hips n hops went on till 5 in the morning!! that was the night!!! whatever i missed over the 4 years of my dumb college life.. made up for all that. it was a sooper night!
i was up by 10 again.
n the prev day purchased 'bloody' puma shoes had manufacturing defects!! i decided this is the last time I'm going for this brand in life! .. so had to run to the city again today to exchange it.. not to miss the McD burger ;) they are just so great yaar, c'mon..
lunch was at a rest called 'celebrations'! i never expected the pizzas and garlic breads to be tasting this so great in a place outside 'Pizza hut'! no doubts, they had them greatly made ever! hope one of these stupus from this IIM gets into their marketing division, i'm sure they have a great future for their quality.
then this day had the silkroute band coming in and a few minutes of ramp up show from BIG fm. the gal who had done the anchoring was a food to those bunch of geeky eyes out there :) 'D' went n participated in some of the word game which they were doing and won it! Cool fella!
by then the roaming quota for my tiny foot was already exceeded, it was badly wanting to take some rest. went to the room after which 'y' called for dinner. it was a lovely time, those 2 hrs, dinner and post-dinner. when in the mess, another prof made an entry and took everybody's attention. boy, this man was again in his 40s and the enthu he could show, ultimate!! i got a lovely chance to pull v's leg n along joined 'y' n 'd'. but then it was not a tat-so-happy-time wen i went to bed tat night cuz i had to leave the next day :(
by this time i have a bunch of friends. who knows no difference, all the fun, care n affection!
its been a great time with all of them! i sure miss them all.. the next morning i may not be meeting everybody, they wud be rushing for classes. the flight take another damn 3 hrs to put me back on my crazy land + no 'v'. crap! it feels sick somehow!
but then most of them made sometime to say a 'bye' before they left. these 5 days in my life was upside down. it wont make up if i say i never experienced such a life. a great break i could get before my new job.
the next morning went a lot drowsy. k + 3 of his friends were the company, obviously, the 4 hindi-walas, wat can i expect. time anyway flew. v bunked last class and dropped me @ the airport. then the same kingfisher, the same window seat, the same boring time n finally the same old land, but i can never get bored of it! the damn volvo took 2+ hrs from airport to put me @ home. i curse that person who decided to have the Airport so far off from the city. such a dumber!!
anyways.. its over! pude pude..
P.S: the 'pude pude' meaning is left only for those who were @IRIS. hahah.. another new term in our vocab.

the fest!

I'm here @IIM-I.. for this fest IRIS '08

the whole trip was a lot of fun and enjoyment.
few of em would be worth mentioning..

1. met Anil Kumble in d onward flight from b'lore to Indore on Thursday! boy believe me, this guy seemed to be one of those coolest chapos on earth. wat an attitude! whoa!! Der was a stop over at Nagpur and he got down there. ppl say, he must be visiting Dravid. anyways it felt a bit drifted up inside :)

2. campus is not like the A/B campuses. pretty far off from the city.. crossing all the villages, plains n fields it took around 25 minute to be inside the campus by car. the typical north Indian villages which i haven't greatly observed during my Calcutta trip (Oh sorry, its Kolkata.. somehow i don't like to get adapted to these kinda new names, Chennai-Mumbai-Kolkata .. n d most horrible Bengalooru!!! :x) seemed to be a treat for the eyes.

3. Thursday noon-eve wasn't much.. meeting friends, walking through the campus. i must admit the campus has some great buildings which exemplifies the real IIM feel.. hihglight the dinner with his 'gang' here, at 'Mashaal', they said that its one of 'the' restaurants here. but only after i landed there i could weigh the real standard.. prolly of the entire city's :p yep .. n d dinner went with the usual questions. 'tell us something about 'v'', 'where do u see urself (both of u tog) 5 years down the line' and such typical MBA Qs :D n then came this b$ Q: 'how can u ever go for tis.. tis.. after al tis face'. n tis smart 'D' came wit an spontaneous reply 'cuz of course, she dint meet me before him' vevev.. when i told em, 'mann.. its such a tough q to take' 'v' came back with an immediate damn 'was it so tuf' :p.. but then, to talk it over. particularly people who are of pretty higher standards is kind of tough and being the typical Southie we are not really used to such things, at least tats not my cup of tea.

4. ok.. now the real fest experience:

mann.. i must tell u, this place is al lit up, alive n running only after 10 in the night. the real participation, enthusiasm and to a greater extent partying all sees a mid night oil being burnt heavily on the floors. when they say 'chalo.. lets do tat in the evening'. it simply implies that they would start it at 12AM n that's their evening.

alright.. my day as well started at 12PM just like the other junta here. me n 'Y' went for the guest lecture. some senior manager from JP Morgan was there talking about 'slowdown- opportunity or threat for the Indian IT/ITES industry'. the guy concluded saying, its an opportunity when you look at a long term. still i couldn't gather a great deal of info out of it.

n in the evening, went for an event 'cerebrate marketing' - a case study stuff. man, i felt like kicking tis fella's a$$ out who belonged to tis event's organizing committee, a pgp2 guy, listening to his intro of the chief guest, a marketing manager from Conagra. wat a poor compering skills one can possess. I just remembered a moment after my English recitation in my school competition, a teacher told me 'when u talk.. when u talk, the person who is dozing off should get up.. upright n sit back listening to u; shouldn't take the highly alive guy to a zombie mode'. the intro was as simple as the later part.

n then came the participants- 6 teams of 2 each. the teams had horrible presentation skills. like they had PPTs and i had to really go, search for the points there. many of them have written stories and were just trying to read out what was return, felt a lot lack of preps. and the English.. it sucked except for a gal from IIT-D and another guy from Great Lakes.. there were so many fillers, grammatical errors, so on and so forth. there was team from xl and these guys had done some great great analysis, a row of block/bar/Venn diags, a lot of strategies, so much numbers etc etc but the judge commented that the analysis-problem solving-agenda in isolation is good, but then they are not able to draw a thread through those 3 and get a conclusion for the actual prob stated. btw, one of this team members was an ex-colleague of mine!
i get highly irritated when people don't have even the basic communication skills, this happens a lot at my work too. i mean if u can't even talk it out properly why try all such stuff man, just be at home.. i actually doubt the whole Indian standard itself when it comes to this, i mean commo' man, where are we heading to! lacking even the simplest things, u gonna be a future leader, how many laloos the world would want going forward. it was highly disappointing considering such facts.
the best things in this (class)room were:
1. the seating, split AC
2. the neatly made curtains
3. the digital clock right opposite to the projector wall, so that the profs can know the time while in class.
4. the laptop cases etc..

now something on a good note.
we just came out of this room and took a walk towards the Audi and there was this game going on. Each participant will go on stage and they will be played a video. the guy will have to come up with a title and the idea behind it relating to the video shown. it was simple amazing, spontaneous and creative. i could see a lot of brains except for a real few crap. the prof who gave an ending note was worth a mention. this guy spoke and that's the standard. i could see the amount of experience and knowledge and the reason why are these instis put on the head everywhere still. he mentioned that he is an avid reader of historical stuff and going to such places. man, i could see it in what he spoke. Great!
n then came the CULTicon. this one was one of the most expected events among the auds.. the final round it was and the event is actually, people can show the talents they have and how much could they impress the judges and auds, with humour, of course. there were 4 finalists and each of them had done a good job. A guy from IIM-S took away the trophy and the prize money of 1L. cool bum :)
the part that needs a mention here is the prof who gave the ending note yet again. he seemed to be in his 40 something. and the enthusiasm he showed on the stage. hell. would such things too happen somewhere!? i have never experienced at least. like.. he sings a song from some 1960's and with so much of energy, passion and enthu.. the whole audi follows him, singing like the rhymes being taught.. ppl enjoying their a$$es out. cool show.
meanwhile there was a video competition, wherein ppl got to make videos and submit. 'v's junta with 'k' as dada took up this as 'k' is a man of video making ;) so the video revolves around how a highly frustrated guy taking up things ahead in life. they had a small shot where this guy should be rejected by his gal friend and that's where i went in. it was so much of fun and the video won the prize with 5k cash award :D
after which i was back to the room to hit the bed. cuz it was already past 12. n me and this mid night oil have broke up pretty long time back. 'v' had something going on til 3 in the morning it seems and these guys bounce back on the floor by 8 8.30. something really great. i mean once in a while thats fine. but tis is the routine, then its really not for me!
so.. overall a great experience so far.
I'm signing off with a lot of expectations :)

Diwali / Naraka chaturdhasi

This post is after a recent ( in fact a few mins back) 'big fight' with one of my colleague cum friend. He is a northi and just returned to work after his Diwali vacation. while we were discussing how/why is this festival celebrated, I told the only legend which I knew that 'Krishna killed Narakasura'. Bugger he started laughing on me saying 'how ignorant i can get'.
I was re-assuring several times that this is the actual reason atleast in the South. He was not ready to believe and along joined my manager as well.
He told a story that there is a faith after Ram killed Ravan (which is what is celebrated as Pooja), the day Ram reaches Ayodhy is celebrated as Diwali. That may probably be true which I'm not really sure of.
So now, as always, just did a google search and found this. what i told makes sense n I'm happy :)

Damn it!!

Its been a while since i wrote.
2 reasons:
1. a software Engineer style : Time constraints.
2. Some instict kept telling me that somebody whom I know is keeping a watch over this space. n found it to be true. If u r reading this, Senthil its you! n i dont really know how many more are there like this.

The 2nd reason went more prominent and so I started blogging in a different place. Now that's my world, the world where I do not have people whom I know personally. I want such a life.. to write all that I think. I'm happy!

Nothing like I would not be posting here anymore. But no more of free-flowing thoughts.

ok thats 1 part of it.
Next, the recent visits to my native gave me quite a few shocking news.
1. there were around 4-5 good movie halls in my place. but now most of them have been closed down. The power of DVDs!! Everytime I go home, I always wanted to goto the theatre for atleast a single movie, now everybody at home says, u should be jobless going all the way there! n so I have no company to go around!
2. a Marry brown outlet, after B'lore, Coimbatore, Cochin, Chennai, its now in Chidambaram! Wonderful!! I'm so curious to dig more into this n find the source behind this idea.
3. the only thing that stays green still there is that the only road which gets crowded the pre-diwali-evening. Its the same amount of crowd which I saw when I was in 7th std.
4. the inflation effect is seen in quite many places of such a small town as well. I dint expect this.
5. the bomb blast scare has spreaded down all the way there and the 3 entrances of the temple is closed (only great place which stands significant there) -> eventually even on diwali there was no conspicuous crowd in the temple. bad!

Otherwise quite a lot of things happening with me. Lemme think over on what to post n what not :) Belated Diwali Wishes!

the first.. I Love You!

from whatsoever routines that I'm doing, it was a special day.. we had the bestest of fights ever and it lasted for more than 2 days. third day i logged in - gtalk - he popped up.. 'patch up!?' - yup. patched up!!
over the evening somewhere around the time when i usually get back home. this was a call after 2 days from the sweetz. blah-blah-booh talks continued for around 20 mins. then popped in those three words!
mm.. m..mmm... I love you!
I was dumbstruck. Did not know what reactions to give. ended up with this nonsensical monosyllabic word.. hmmm.... (my logical brain inside shoutin - 'stupid.. have u gone mad u don't even know how to react at such moments! after all u r destined to such romantic hits only once in a blue moon n u screw it up with this ever-disgusting zeroical replies.. thooo ...); [a 'shot' pause] with that i continued 'what happened all of a sudden, you tellin what u have never told!' probably this is what he would have expected the last thing from me to be asked. its such a hard question sometimes you know! anyway there was a different nonsensical monosyllabic reply followed my q, 'simply'.
i left it there wanting not to screw it up anymore!
ok bye..
had to splash some water on my face and tweak some part of my chin to get back to normal from the dumbstruck state. i shrugged, it took 2.5 whole years to blurt out these 3 words to me!! Why on earth was it so tough only to you among the whole bunch of all the male sick-twisted-freaks!!! Is this the simple reason I'm stuck to you as if you have emptied bottles n bottles of fevicol and kept me glued to you forever of all the odds!
and then it kept coming back at the back of my head.. i still wondered, after all this IIM guy is really true or just trying to fake to a dumber sitting miles away with his thoughts filled up all over the mind body and soul! (my logical brain jumped in again 'u perverted mind, why on earth only u get such creepy thoughts') ok.. i bounced back to the original non-suspecting me.
though your first proposal was not like what came in this '3 mistakes of my life', while the blue-orangish sky collected all the clouds together and the flames of candles danced to the boyzone music, on her special to-be-adult birthday at the dark rooftop with nobody around, they exchanged the first romantic fronts, yet it meant a lot to me! a slight awe-filled, stunning, holding a marvellous meaning which would stay green forever at the same place, I mean the back of my head.
I do not remember the exact date or time or whatever to see if all the stars are matching to keep us together althrough, which I usually try to do, say when the college crush first spoke to me or when I first received my lucky pen and some such things - I dont know why, or atleast try to set a fake date and time and remember it, like some sort of adding fancy to the events occured when narrated to others. Here I dont. Its just a centimeter away even now for me, I mean if I just scour through the sms list on my phone I can easily figure out, I still don't want to do that. Let it stay as it is, the original natural flavour to the very best thing that can happen to me! I would not disturb it!
i know that he cares the most for me and trust he can be the only one everlasting, yet i fight 'why do u care the least for me'. i know he is going through the same whats goin on wimme, I still cry and fight and do the craziest thing that gets him pissed off so often. he understands that i very much understand his routines, yet cribs on me why am i being like this not even an ounce-of-understanding.
we are going through such things almost everyday over the past 2 months after he left for an IIM MBA! Yes of course I'm proud of it! its not just an MBA. Its an IIM MBA. I feel like telling it over and over again.
but all those fights are just passing clouds. Beyond all this something that keeps us glued, (not the fevicol stuff) that something will carry us a long way, recommending to the Lord God to bring us back together in union for any number births that follow-up. even the 'newbie' that comes once in few months keeps reminding me of giving you the whole lot from within, its so tough to overcome that you know! This bond is made of so such tightly packed molecules that can never be shattered by anything or anybody. It will stay as this forever and ever.
After all that money could do in my life, the amount of trust i had on money-power more than man-power has been broken down. Now all those trust has been transferred on you [hey, not on ur hefty pay checks believe me ;)] just on you, the very unique, the cute cuddly you!
I love you too :)

guyish...

hmm.. whatsoever you thought from the title is not correct. you asking me 'how would you know what we thought' anybody who can think as normal as a santa/banta or a tom/dick/harry would think of course that it is going to be about a guy's typical characteristic trait or a thing which would be guys' interest or something of similar sort. that's where I said its wrong.
anyway cutting the crap and coming to the point, today, a fine wintery Tuesday morning, I got into the cab 7.48AM. the usual oldies in my cab were having their own chat and me with my sweet 6500 gifted by my sweet sweetz, playing sweet early morning kinda songs (too much influence of sweet huh!! ya just after his last visit to Chicago. never mind!). the guy next to my bumped into my heavy duty ears. 'u belong to which group' blah-blah.. then the talk continued. he went ahead chatting with all those in all possible directions around. it had hit this talk of traffic/pollution/malls in Bangalore. suddenly from somewhere within the well, a cat peeped up and told, a recent survey had found that the selling rate at the malls are very very poor. (meaning the number of items being sold). that's when i thought, whenever I ventured into this thirvizha kootam (festival crowd) in our malls, the most crowded places would be like these stores which sell guyishh/tom-boyisssshhhhhh stuff, like the jeans, sport shoes, trousers etc etc, say the Nike, Reebok, Levis, Pepe kinda stores and the rest of the girlie places would almost be empty. simple reason is that the varieties for them is very very less, poor souls, one of these probably - a jean, a tee or different names of those in different materials stitched in a different manner.. and they try to dissect the same things into formals, cargoes, casuals, nonsense etc :p
Unlike the girls who have a wider range of clothing, they would always like to venture into places like commercials or the wide variety of boutiques available all over Bangalore and go for the taste which suits them, costwise they are pretty reasonable (note i don't say they are cheap, not all that we find are cheap as you see), reasonable for the work/handwork or the fabric paint made on the cloth, the way they have stitched it etc etc..
so bottom line, its only because of those boyfriends/husbands/dads/uncles and whosoever in the neighbourhood who belong to this male kind with a lil huge pay checks the environment is being spoilt. they all barge into those 3-4 malls available all over the city and get them crowded like anything :p ahem ahem!
at least for my boy, we pay only for the brand, the comfort and last comes the look/color or the sweet as he says :D

Some photography mis (oops) -adventures!!!

I'm just so bored of writing stuff.. So this will be a photo blog overall!
A birthday cake to a Friend who is popularly called 'thundu beedi' :) What a funny title one can carry!!


The Diyas that I got home for last Diwali :)


My first Mehandhi Escapade.. Poor sis, had to be the victim!!


Diwaliiiiiiii :) busvaanam :))


EBONY EFFECTS!! (the next 4)

B'lore MG Road view from Ebony!!

Just another view


What are you lookin at!!?? Now common.. look at the lighting effect :D


Its a lil blurred.. thats ok adjust maadi


Ernakulam Express


Morning Sun at Bengalooru


Chikubuku chikubuku railuuu... kalakudhu paar nama styluu


Cool view, isnt it!!?


Kalyanamam Kalyanam

Honk Honk

I was out with a friend recently, a ride on his pulsar. It got me into this cynical thought of an average drive/ride-r's mentality while on road when caught in a zig zag, cross-wired jam.
The first thing that hits the mind is to Honk.. honk honk as if the other person aage peeche saamne is waiting to barge on him and put a knife on the neck or probably the 3 legged cat/dog at home is dying without milk or there is too much sun on the neatly grown grass lawn outside the apartment and this person will be rushing to save one of those!

If this is one side of the coin, there is the side, that has people who honk for no reason, just on a plain quiet road the way this person honks is way too weird.
Reason being this person is too scared if somebody would fall on his way and that he may land up spending the rest of his life eating only the salt less porridge in vellore jail!

This person has a chart of where how and when to honk which I think should most be following.
How to honk? - a hard, full deep press on the button (a trumpet picture is the indication) on the bike for a continuous 2-4 non stop minutes until the pillion rider's ear drum tears off.
When to honk? - Say you are driving at a time, when only those zombie state creatures wander along the roadside, around 2-3.30 AM of the night-day, a gush of air piercing your ears and no other noise could be heard apart from your vehicle's.. never mind honk!!
Where to honk? - on a clean plain quiet road where you do not find anything of a similar kind to you for about a 30ft neither in the front nor at the back of yourself.. could even consider residential areas of the city.

Now there is another friend who says that in foreign countries honking is considered as too big a thing to do on the road. Think a training or a 20-30 days of drive with the person I mentioned above would improve this guy's trait. Truly speaking, even I have noticed such a stuff while in Soton.

So, What I think is there would be 3 possible reasons that a person end up on this continuous press of his trumpet button
1. Annoyed by the congestion, madly angry on almost everybody around including those who have parked their vehicles on all 8 directions around him in a so called cross wired layout of traffic
2. Too scared of the not-existing-somebody turning up on his way
3. kya bada reasons chahiye yaar.. time pass simply! Bindass :):)

******************************Added Later**********************************
I was so happy to know this. "Mumbai's police marked World Health Day, April 7, as a "No Honking Day."
They were trying to build awareness of the effects of noise pollution in India's financial and entertainment capital, where it sometimes seems as if the city's 1.5 million vehicles are honking their horns at the same time. "

WoW what an after-effect of my post :)

yuMMy!!!

Its time for an yummy post this time from my side. a long promised one in fact..
yeah.. Daily Bread - its all about pastries /ice-creams chocolates and of course the bread varieties here.
the first outlet which i visited was one in JPnagar near Dollars colony, the place was serene, richly interiored and pastry-hued :) and the second one was in Jayanagar, not so great an ambience like the other one, still worth a visit.
Actually the total variety of food has been cut into 2 here.
The daily bread part of it serves mouth-watering yummy pastries, sandwiches, breads and some squash kinda bottle liquids predominantly. And my choice always are the chocolate cakes, the ultimate ones! But we even have this experience - screwing up the order once when we opted for a salad, ended in some highly mintish-chilly dish that was not-so-appealing to our taste while some whites in the next table were enjoying the same food. so be careful while doing your mix and match, that's really important for the taste you expect!
The ice-cream shop is named Deluca's. I believe its the same authority who runs both just with two different names. now they have one in Forum too. There is one in Sigma mall as well, since around 2 years in the corridors, immediately once you enter towards your left.

It was of pretty unusual kinda history of finding this place for me. a slightly drizzling Saturday evening, weekend mood as an icing on the cake, i was lazing around while 'v' was busy with sis who had been hospitalised then.
the previous day or so, a message from him that there is something which would excite me and its kept as a weekend surprise for me! i was happy and just the glance of the message gave me a trigger and i was keen to know what's such a thing.
so now the surprise has been kicked open, around 6PM v asked me to get ready for reaching out to not too rich a place closeby. we were there within no time, then on I'm a fervent admirer of Daily Bread !! And know what, he got to see this place on his way to the hospital one day then it seems.
A portion of the credit goes to me as well! because it was me who found another branch of it, and this too carries an amazingly unexpected story of landing up. Just another day on a casual ride to the JPnagar outlet, i got to notice this one in Jayanagar to my surprise, near the Oxford book store, opp Barron's Inn. uhuh!!! we were screaming the gush out, totally instigated! We together have several such sweet memories of exploring/spotting variety of places in this city!
And that was his first and foremost finding of such a thing over the 2 evergreen years!! Boy believe me, it will always remain an overwhelming memory to me!!! :) Later he too started becoming an expert in this field! Of course when you are with a great mind, there minimum would be a slight influence of it in you :D

Now i let the pics do the talking for you..



so go, get in, get impressed!! :)

Sale Sale Sale...

So much in the city! End of Season Sale all over...
Globus, Pantaloons, Central..
Our favorite Tommy ..
In Lido, the new mall, now fully constructed - off MG road, Fame, a 4 screen multiplex attached with sofa seating within!! I'm expecting a lot out of it :)
sofas are something so elegant n comfortable that interests me like what an Aishwarya Rai's call sheet would do to Rajnikanth :) At least this one is lil unusual instead of what the usual pvr/inox holds for us..
Everyday I get to cross one of this busiest roads in B'lore city, looking out of the car window just to add to my mournful stint! Now this is what I call paradox!!
Weekends having so much for me n With Feb 14th in pipeline..
I'm missing it all :|

Waiting for the new re-arrival :)

All

One thing I realize quite often these days is that I tend to forget so many things that has happened in the recent past/present, so much that I had to surf back through my previous posts to put my writing hat ON :D Also reading back those posts told me that its been a long time since you've given a juicy post! Hoping to give one this time..
One side of life seems like those nocturnal zombies of I'm Legend which keeps haunting this lonely survivor, Robert Neville, in the streets of NY city. I wish he gets to come across this KR Puram traffic atleast for a week/month in his life, I'm sure he would prefer gettin on with the years long lone research, though the lady in the book stall refuses to tell him a hi even after he cries on losing his 'Sam'. But its highly dumb when it comes to risking their own life for the pets. I'm sure no indian will do that!! On the other hand, there are quite a few things that look as cool as him reciting about two minutes worth of dialogue from Shrek with even the simplest sounds like ahh, uhh... n al that. Yes, I'm so impressed!
Now, those that fall under this 'cool' category are tend to be forgotten so easily i feel. For example, a small lesson learnt from a not-so-prominent incident, though it is of high value and reveals a unique culture, some kinda good proverb or saying from a not-so-popular source, yet so meaningful.. few things even if u forget it doesnt matter, but der r a lots that I've been forgetting, so much.. so soon!! planning to start writing diary as a daily practice. but if something happens like what it comes in the real 'Billa', then things will mess up. will find a better solution soon :)

now am back to square 1, running in the morning to catch the cab, walking cut, skipping start; listening to fm which most of the time roars at a higher intolerable pitch, next time I goto his shop, will ask him if he's related to Rani Mukherjee by any chance, without which there's no chance of it singing so, may be he'll direct me to Philips for that query. work is ok, yet not started so seriously. client has put it on hold, waiting, till then let me blog. Dunno why this waiting and me are glued so well!!!

celebrated our 2nd anniversary (don't ask 'of what') on Jan 15th. I was getting ready big time for yet another D-day! yep! Jan 15th dawned with a big question '2nd anniversary is here, will there be a 3rd?' Still it was a moment of pride for us that we've carried each other so well all along through 365 days = 8760 hrs = 525600 mins = 31536000 seconds, Yes, we lived every moment of it!!, without letting down each other at any cause!, though I was bloating up at certain point making it tough to lift with something like what would resemble a Karan Johar's physique :p, you dint let me down anytime. Good try! The exuberant dinner @ Ebony groomed our day, + is that place is on 13th floor and of course, our presence was an added honors to the place :) the feel is really awesome, sitting atop, physically & mentally, that too with someone who is even more wonderful! No.. we dint make everything :)
took several pics which one by one is getting on into his gtalk display pic ;) will write a review on the place soon with the pics. my hsbc bill 1700 waiting to be paid off :D
As I always say life is so shrunk without *, not much of IIT-IIM stories, no discussions on those public issues/figures that only both of us talk bout on the entire world, NDTV n CNN IBN trying to fill your absence.. life eez tuf n when is soon!? hoping (moi) shall try.. ppl r busy with so many things right from work - onsite blah-blah, don't know if i'm cheating myself. but 1 week time can be of big help when it comes to 1 lifetime! Just noticed your blog is opened to invited readers only!! ATB.
will be off soon...