Closing the year on an Amazing note!

Last year I made it a point that every new year ahead, just before the dawn of it, I would write about a person who had made the heaviest positive impact in my life so far! Result of it last year I wrote bout my sister, and this year, all this while I was actually thinking of whom should I be writing about! The answer drops down to this amazing guy who knocked my door 4 years back and equipped me with 40 years of experience! the time thats so short, yet so great!

He was this small cute guy, at the 1st shot nobody thinks he is so capable. But there is loads of incredible stuff hiding within this 5.8' long human body!
His birth was ordinary!
His brought up was much more normal!
He did not see much of trouble in his brought up! Yet he knows the best of lessons in life!
He never ran short of money in life! Yet he knows the worth of every single penny that's spent!

For me, I learn whats perseverance in life from him! This guy has got loads of patience towards the hardest of things! except me! :P
Right from the year long preparation for your IIT and 4 years of slogging for an IIM seat, you made it! Atleast I do not know someone personally who had this so much of courage to go behind something this stubborn!

There had been so many instances where you proved how strong you needed me! I know there would be 100 people in the world to love me! But the only guy who had the burning desire to give me a life.. and a future! Something which a normal guy in your situation doesn't care to do! I would be grateful to you for that all life! There is loads to learn from you, my sweetheart!

Its easy to learn things in life when you are exposed to worst of situations. Its easy to follow a certain things after you have really been through it! But what actually means is when you have NOT been through the toughest of times, yet you know how to handle the worst of things! - There, you are an iconic example that I see!

Hope this year brings loads and loads of happiness and colors into your life! And wish I would be one of the sources amongst a thousand that brings peace and joy to You in this wonderful year!

To the readers: Wish you feel the same amount of joy as what I do at this moment! Wish you get to meet a person who is as great, understanding and lovable as what God has blessed me with! Wish you get to go through the same magic in love as I do everyday! Have a safe, happy and prosperous new year ahead!
Godspeed to you good people!

been quite a while

occupied with so many things. now and then I kept peeping into the blog page and every time I do 'something' in life other than work say, I think that I must write down about that. but time just flies away and nothing goes the way I want it to! well at least with the blog!! the more I want to be a good blogger, the more I realize I'm bad at it for some reason! ;)
wanted to write about 2 states. like every other blogger who turns into a tweeter, I have been one too off late and that 140 character update about your day-to-day happenings gives, though not greatly, a lil bit of satisfaction that keeps me going! so coming back to 2 states, a lot of them had read, enjoyed and commented. everything about the book is awesome. having base in one of those 2 states thats portrayed in the book, I could thoroughly enjoy it over and over again. that was yet another hell of a thing for readers from CB!
been to places in hyd plus weekend trips to Madras and Bangalore. How-much-ever you do, whatever you do, you cant get enough of those places. Apart from all this, had some great night outs, dinners, movies etc within the city. Learnt some lessons for life. Been feeling blessed to get a good set of friends here, each one is THE one. Its so amazing how the wavelength match happens only with a very rare set of people and even more amazing is that when you are in a group, how it goes along well within all of them - getting a bunch of people and even better, getting along with the whole bunch, man life is worth nothing else. A set of friends, a dinner out, a small car, a continuous chat, a lil bit of daaru, a lot of laughter, a sense of life - Wonderful! Life is good.
I read here and there people live with loneliness and they feel great about it. they can live with only nature and the world in itself and they say rest of it all is materialistic. How weird! whats with life when you don't fall in love with somebody. when you don't get into fights over nothing [Like what Ne-yo says;)], when you get out of the web that you got caught into and fly through the deep blue sky. forget yourself, feel enthusiastic, break free, have fun, enjoy the way you want to! the thing called 'life' has got lots to do.
On the other hand, we tend to get confused between things. I wonder if there can be somebody who is really living life the way it takes you over, and not make a big deal out of anything. do what you feel like and move on, is there someone like that who is not bothering to repent a wee bit about any of the actions/reactions!? And probably is that where a person is defined good/bad. I have always wanted to read the BhagavatGita, but I could not really do it religiously. All I understand is its really mean to break someone's trust. But time takes you nowhere.
New year following, there is gonna be a good break. I have no plans in hand yet. A little worried about it. Let's see how that's gonna go.
All is that for now.
Hope for you to see a better moment every second that you live. Godspeed.

Mad

Mmmm Shez starin at me, I'm sittin wonderin what shez thinkin...
Nobodyz talkin cuz talkin juz turns into screamin :(
And now it's I'm yellin' over her.. she yellin' over me!
All that that means is neither of us is listening :O
And what's even worse.. that we don't even remember why we are fightin! :(

So both of us are mad for nothin, fightin for nothin, cryin for nothin...
But we won't let it go for nothin, no not for nothin, this should be nothin!!
To a love like what we got -o- baby,
I know sometimes it gonna rain.. :)
But baby, can we make up now cuz I can't sleep through the pain!! :|

Girl, I don't wanna go to bed.. mad at you!
And I don't want you to go to bed... mad at me!
No, I don't wanna go to bed.. mad at you!
And I don't want you to go to bed, mad at me!! :|

And it gets me upset girl when you're constantly accusin!
Askin questions like you already know..
We're fighting this war, baby when both of us are losing! :(
This ain't the way that love is supposed to go............!!!!!!!!

What happened to workin it out???
We've fall into this place where you ain't backin' down and I ain't backin' down..
So what the hell do we do now?
It's all for nothin, fightin for nothin, cryin for nothin... :((

But we won't let it go for nothin, no not for nothin, this should be nothin!!
To a love like what we got -o- baby,
I know sometimes it gonna rain.. :)
But baby, can we make up now cuz I can't sleep through the pain!! :| (Girl, I don't wanna...)

Oh baby this love ain't gonna be perfect!!
And just how good it's gonna be....
We can fuss and we can fight, long as everythingz all right.. between us...
Before we go to sleep .....
baby, we're gonna be happy!!!!! :) :)

... baby I know sometimes it gonna rain.. :)
But baby, can we make up now cuz I can't sleep through the pain!! :| (Girl, I don't wanna...)

"Night"-mares

the list of those that I have gone through over the past 6 months on Rd No-1 Banjara hills ;) ya.. 90% of the time I have spent in this city is in and around this place.
I have been literally waiting to post about these, been crazily busy with so-called work but!

.. so .. It was a jam packed weekend, spent completely at office. Sunday 9.00PM, I could no more stay up with it at this desolated office. Mind thwarted to touch that no-mouth-watering dinner back home, though was hungry like a mad dog that starved for years! filled the tummy with something, (I do not want to say crap) for that moment meanwhile roomies planned on their cooking hunt. We decided to go for a round of Cream-stone icecream, i beat nothing can get better than those! By the time we, 3 of us, left home it was almost 10-10.15PM and me suffering from shoulder pain decided not to ride with 2 people behind (that we tried before and came out with flying colors) ;)
Some unbreakable hopes, we had, that chances of finding a rick at that time of the night is as high as a herbivore eating meat, cant get any more weird huh.. both with the hopes and the analogy!? :P
Anyway, hit the main road was waiting for a rick near the signal, almost 10 minutes passed by and to freeze our blood, a car at whatever maximum speed that you can imagine racing in a zig-zag manner towards us, with a bunch of crazy drunken maniacs inside. 3 of us stood still having the final thoughts, it came close and zoomed away, we were saved!
And within no time, came by a lady in an Indigo with another lady accompanying her, asked if we need a drop, 3 of us were totally distracted of the incident that just happened and without an iota of hesitation, we got into her car.
as soon as we got it she said, 'do not take drops like this at this time of the night, its ok with me, but its not all that safe, just a word of caution'. that was enough to confuse us if we should trust her or not.
And then she said, meet this so n so, she is from Somalia. the next shock for us. we got scared the hell out! 3 of us were sitting together luckily at the back and we held each other firmly listening to that.
She could intelligibly read our faces through the mirror and said do not get scared, there is no problem. And added that she had to deliver an icecream tub to someone on the way, so she had to take a different route. she got into a road that diverged from the main road which was completely residential, all dark and no signs of humans out on the streets.
We were almost pissing on our pants, dreaded, eyes protruding out. Suddenly some God thing hit my mind that I have to do something about the situation, so I picked up my phone (loads of thanks to this saviour) called up nobody and was talking, explaining the whole situtaion and pretended as if there are people waiting for us at the parlour and they are not far away.
She was speeding highly and there came a sudden pause at a corner of a street. We thought that was the last moments of our lives. I was meanwhile thinking if we should just jump out of the car and start running like what happens in some women oriented stunt movies.
She paused for less than a minute and took a u-turn and stopped outside a booth bungalow kinda house and said she got to get off the car to drop the stuff in that house. We said nothing, she got out and came back, started off, I again started my random calls but this time no faking, called a friend of mine who lives in the city and confused her to the most possible extent, but she could get the hint quite a bit. I said that I would call her back before hanging up.
This lady, not sure why, drove back and joined the main road and we gave a sigh of relief, not huge though! She was trying to make a conversation on the way. But we were $hit scared and completely frozen that none of us were operating on a normal mode.
We, however managed to ask her where does she live and when she said Road no 3 which is completely on a different direction from rd no 1, we asked her if she had come all the way to just drop us and added she couldn't have taken so much trouble for this and that we would have managed somehow. She said just because we were girls, she thought its unsafe to be waiting at this time of the night, not realizing that we have already realized how unsafer it was to accept her offer to drop us.
We finally reached cream stone, and in no time after we got out of the car, she just zoomed past that we couldn't notice her car number, we were even unsure of the color and model of the car. She probably did not want any of our imaginary friends who were supposedly waiting for us at the parlor to notice her!
I called up my friend and explained her of the confusing call which I gave her a while ago.
And then.. we started discussing and tried to connect the dots to realize how risky it was to get into such things and be in such a situation, hogging our favorite icecreams, that's worth of the whole risk that was taken! :P
Assumptions/blunders made:
1. We took the drop because she was a lady, and after the car that passed us leaving us alive just by a matter of luck, we definitely thought it was unsafe to be waiting on the road anymore. Indian mentality, that thinks women are less dangerous.
2. General matter of fact is that nobody (should I say no girl) would bother to drive an extra mile just to give a drop for some unknown tom, dick and harry on the road.
3. And because Cream-stone is just at the end of the same road as we were waiting at, we thought she must be driving somewhere ahead, that she must be going via this place only!
4. We failed to ask her to stop the car as soon as she said she had to take a different route, because if shez gonna say that its ok and rubs it off, we cannot go on arguing with her. It might either heat up the argument and she could get furious the same moment or its like we are giving her more time to think of what could she really do with us.
Only good thing that we could do to help the situation was the random phone calls that I made, pretending of informing people about what was happening. Probably made her think that there are people around for us to take care if something goes wrong. My friends went on praising me for this :D
End of it, I don't say I was 100% sure that she tried to play a trick with us. But... there certainly seemed to be a wary of negative intention with the whole act of her. Particularly when she zoomed past as soon as we got off the car, there was a pinch of frustration that was seen on her face, might partly be because of the way we were acting or it really is that she couldn't see any profit for driving down that extra mile!
And now, to show that we genuinely realized what was with the escapade, we did not take a drop. Also we were ready to pay the auto-wallah 1.5 by meter instantly, forget the fact it was 11.45PM then! ;)

This was my 3rd adventure and the 1st was something similar, around the same time of the night, at the same place, I was actually riding back home after office on a weekday and someone started following, which I noticed through the rear view mirror, only after half a km after he actually started off. I saw that fellow with a bike, standing there at that signal and just a stranger on the road. But luckily my flat was very close by and I reached soon after I saw him behind. Worst thing was I stopped outside to open the latched gate to get in and bloody bugger, he stopped too, but thankfully at a distance and cried 'baibyy'! I gave a stare and just entered ignoring that a**e!

2nd one was the mistake on my part, I was driving down from the wrong side of the road even after seeing the cops standing there arguing with someone. I was clever enough to think that they wouldn't notice me :P but he started running towards me as soon as he saw me coming, I took a U-turn and sped away, he was almost there catching me. Escapeeeee :P

Alright. do not scream at me now. I have realized how risky being there! But at some point of time, somehow mind doesn't really fail to take risk!

Celebrity

few days back this post here caught me thinking into it, somehow.

Now after this I go back and check the theoretical meaning of Celebrity and it says "Famous person". I, in turn get more curious, go back and look for the theoretical meaning of famous and that directly says first-rate or excellent. Anything that's excellent is viewed as a benchmark, so why not with humans. When a person is so well known to the world, we get curious about them, we look for news about them, read about them and try to look up for good things from what they do. Its not now, yesterday or day before that we are into this logic. It just goes with the time starting right after this word was invented.

Taking a simple example, every kid in each family picks up something from parents/relatives. So looking upto someone as a matter of inspiration is something genetic. Now, not everything that a person expects can be imbibed from within the family and that's where the outside world enters one's life. After all, Popularity is a matter of how many people know a person and how much they talk about him/her! Its a very human tendency to observe and follow what a famous personality does. And thereby the word role model!

Agreed imitation is a one whole big thing to be ignored. Being oneself is important. And for the wise that makes what is called life - Be oneself and try to pick up the good things as you move on with time and life. So celebrities are probably one of the sources from where things "could be" picked up.

Yes. there should be a line drawn to everything and so is to this too.. That is why, I mentioned 'wise' here. And the point "we look for news about them" - note, not gossips! Because, wise men might criticize, but they do not intend to pick a fight with you. Its just about the freedom of speech. Anyone can talk out or comment what he/she feels.. If a celebrity is gonna take it too personal, then there is an little extra mile that needs to be travelled beyond this pessimistic line for you to get optimistic and define things to yourself. But it, end of the day, is upto you, if being a celebrity you want to care about that or not!

Going an extra line about it, being in limelight also means being open to the world, open to the fact that a lot of people can know/see/talk about you. there definitely is a better word to describe this whole fact than saying 'Public Property'. Think that the person who commented so probably did not have a good English :P

Above all, nobody can stop you from being your'self' and so you still can live life in your own terms. Spread your wings and fly more heights! Have fun :)

Democracy!

The death of YSR did not give me any little peace, I just though wish he got some.
A complete weird (should I say incapable?) management that I work for, that could not predict things in advance, after we entered office on Thursday, the 3rd of Sep '09 calls for an urgent meeting something like what happens in the parliament and says, people who think its "unsafe" to stay at office, please feel free to leave. You may probably work from home! Note the word probably here. And in no-time shoots out an email, following the death of the honorable Chief Minister we are declaring it as a holiday today.
Everybody is happy, most of them decide to leave office. I clearly see no point. Given that it was Ganesh Visarjan on the same day and the CM missing story since the previous morning, how could the management that runs business since years with the so called eminent people in the world be so inefficient that they had to wait for the death news to utter this 'P' word (I mean the 'probably' point above)! So much of inconvenience people would have been saved from! And around the time when no one even cares to check their mails, there was yet another mail saying that continuing whatsoever blah-blah, we have holiday tomorrow, Friday, the 4th of September and we would be working compensatory on some Saturday for this. And if this going to be the Saturday of the long weekend, for which I have my tickets already booked, then I do not bother if they are called the highly disordered people.

Now this instance early in the morning was a lot more to trigger my anger sense and then adds to it the house arrest ceremony that went on for 2 full days. Yeah Agreed! someone who is holding a high position, supposed to be ruling the state, all due respect given for him, his done's and not-done's to the country. May God bless him to rest in peace!
but whats with this whole drama of shops/offices/name-it its all closed, is this the way of mourning for someone!? Is this the way we must show our gratitude/respect for the lost soul!? Or doing all this would bring back the dead, alive!? I fail to understand what the heck is wrong with this whole system. Is it just that people all panic for no reason? is it that we are giving away our routines as a condolence for the dead? Or simply the educated whole lot is scared of the behavior that the illiterate yet called the workers/fans/enthusiasts of the party/YSR? Is it simply that the common people find no other reason to just take a day or two off and sit at home!?
After all this I must vote, I say its democracy and the whole bunch of useless vocabulary to define this single word and I have no damn freedom, being forced to not even get out of the house and do what I may wish to!
What do I have man, to do with his funeral. After all a person like me, who do not even belong to this state, Is it that I have sinned so much living in this city just for the past insane 4 months that I have to go through it. My grandfather passed away just the day before and I was all here, continuing my routines except for the few hours after I got the news, working for this clueless organization and thereby the nation, paying this huge bunch of my salary in the name of taxes for the wellness of this whole country. What irks me is that I do not connect to this guy even an ounce, whats the need that I have to spare my day and night and yet called as a citizen of this most non-progressive country!? So far, in my career, I have seen close to 10 fatal deaths and the company asks to observe silence, if not anything, for a minute or two and we close it there! So he is the CM and why the country had to go on a 2 day long mourning!
Long live the opportunists that my money passes through, before it reaches the Government, and the Government that fails to take care of a simple bit of this and even cares to educate such a crowd, if it really exists, that the so-called public is afraid of at circumstances like these, the sense of humanity or awareness or anything else that is required to handle things like these. Or change, may be a single man who usually is behind all this inducing violence and stuff!

The other annoying part was the weekends coupled up, I call up every damn travels to find out if they would operate buses out of the city, and I right royally hear, we are 'mourning' tonight. Now I ask you, did you sit at home all night and kept mourning for the departed soul!
This still extends and reaches the TV channels. Curse those who have got satellite connections, sit at home and happily watch TV, a minimum time pass. The cable TV operators also do nothing other than what is called 'mourning'! But spare the news channels, Way to go! So this plainly means I watch TV and its only his LIVE relay of cremation and other related things and then they call it 'mourning' for 2 days! B-U-L-L $-*-*-*!
The death of 140+ people, another great news for the media to make all the hue and cry and the hype that they support all this madness! Yet another money making stunt for them!

All this is not new for us for that matter! I have been in Bangalore during Rajkumar's death and I completely remember how the whole city went deserted again the long weekend glory! Given that both of these occurred naturally, where are we heading. We would never change! The Change, we need! Get me a US visa, let me fly and get out of all this madness once for all. I just hope situations are better there at stances like these! I have nothing more to lend for this country. Enough is enough!

After all this, adding to my annoyance, the 93110 score in the cube crash, just 60 more points to go and I was all crashed up! What a way to celebrate my weekend! :D

Jai-Hind!

one of the

best time pass for me these days is playing games on FB. thanks to FB n Mindjolt! plus Dee, its like i try so hard to beat him in this game called cube crash n bugger, in no time he kicks my a$$ back! so it starts all over again! but believe me its a lot of fun and the best part is you require no brain usage!!! ;) in fact lately i had deactivated my FB a/c and a friend told me its good to play games, after my recent Idr visit and seeing 'V' stuck wit 'bouncing balls', i was so tempted to play it, that it went on to become our family game, hihih that's how Y n D tease us! ;) so i re-activated my account and now its just going great!! in someway or the other my family is connected to 'mind' since beginning is all that I can think of! :D
leaving Mindjolt, orkut and the list of othe blogs, off late its the galatta.com that got added to my bookmarks. seeing pictures is another thing that I can do for hours and hours and never fall tired of! like this, there was yet another good news for the foodie in me from galatta, Actor cum Director Suresh Menon has started this new restaurant called Crimson Chakra in our very own Singara Chennai (Adyar). Hope Adyar crowd got a good option leaving the 24x7 jam packed Sangeetha! Though as an actor I have never liked him much, he seems to be one of those wise men with varied interests. A lot am I looking forward to visit this place!

Getting back to life in this new city, Day before there was this good news that 'S' is gonna be traveling soon, something to celebrate about :) and I had some particular gift in my mind that I thought I must find. one of the team mates had suggested that there is this nearby gift store where you can find a variety of good things etc. So went hunting for it to this place only to find they have all this stuff exported from somewhere like china or something, typically those stuff that you find in the local exhibition, just stacked up neatly in glass cases and just because its on Banjara hills, the prices are hiked up twice/thrice, probably they charge us for the rent that they pay and not for the actual worth of the things.
I must not miss out writing this, its long pending in fact. There was this icecream parlor, Ice & Jelly in the Jubilee hills area. the 1st time we visited this place, i just fell in love with it, not just because the place was quite too awesome but the owner too :D this young man, i dont know with what mission had got into this business, seems like he has everything on his own, the place, funds, the choice of icecreams and not to forget looks :D but to my shock my 2nd time visit was his day of wedlock, the misfortune in me was too happy to know this! Damn :P anyway, thats one beautiful house not on the crowded road to hitech city, but just a little down the lane. its an icecream parlor, so i really have nothing more to write about. I do not want to put up the pics here. all that I can say is they have set up the parlor on the clean grass lawns and you must visit to find out what it is! I'm sure you would feel like visiting over again n again! my 2 cents: the quantity is pretty less (and mosquitoes are too high) for the price charged, as I know this guy is not in a need to pay any rent as he owns that house as well, so I'm not sure why he charges so much! weird point eh! ggrrhhhh :P

List of places to visit for now, provided I have the company and time (not mine)
1. Yellow chilli on rd no 12.
2. there is this coffee shop which I saw near the Banjara-Jubilee junction, seemed quite interesting from far. let me see.
3. if possible, a shot on the midnight biryani at Ohri's, though my system is not supporting the 3/4 legged stuff anymore is a totally different issue!! ;)

Over the years... a few

Changes that I happened to see in myself. Good or Bad .. I'm not sure. but just thought penning them down would make quite an interesting (at least for me) read! ;)
so here.. the mutation process that I underwent, say before and after teens, rather some of those that I remember..

i was so restraint opening up in the public. say stage fear or whatsoever. its like i go up on the stage, for some competition and i remember the whole world went dark and blurred
- i grew up to be totally opposite. I opened up so much. there is no fear in me anymore!

i used to get so irritated with those school teachers of mine who were biased towards particular students
- with time I started taking it light. it just adds up to my tensions and nothing else.

competition was such a hard thing for me. like every other parents, my parents wanted me to top the class since KG (except for a fewer times, I could satisfy them all through) and the day when the progress report shows non-1st rank was the most cruel day that I can ever go through in life. its like there was a girl who used to fight for 1st rank when in my 3rd class and literally I prayed for her to move out of the school then. Luckily her dad got transferred and she moved out :D later someone else took her place was a mystery! I was seeing every problem as a hurdle
- i realized life cant be interesting without this rat race that each one needs to go through! I could see the problems as the stepping stones!

I used to hate Mathematics. Hate to the extent that beginning of the academic year my tuition teacher used to ask me to bring my cousin's old books, cuz he was just one year elder to me, and that particular year I would be reading the same books as he did in his previous year. cousin's dad owned a sewing thread manufacturing unit which required a lot of paper, so I used to generously lend off his Maths book alone to them so that I can get rid of it once for all. But it never worked as I planned was a completely different story to write down!
- Some tsunami hit me in my sleep some day I guess, that I woke up to find Mathematics was my favorite subject and somewhere I was deeply connected to Einstein was how my college mates used to tease me.To add some more, when in college class rep used to call us once the semester results are out to sort out the toppers list.. and it was like default Rosh and myself used to join rest of the junta for that process. We start with instrumentation, electronic devices, electricals, machines .. blah blah and when the subject hits control systems (for those who dont have a hint bout the control systems paper, its heart flesh and blood is Mathematics), Rosh used to blindly shout my name out. For good, my controls score has never gone below 90s. Proud moments! :)

I was too serious a person who wanted to do every bit of the inhale/exhale process thinking only of life's principles, ethics, morals, values.. close to a saint's life.
- I got to know easier goes the mind, better for the heart. the deeper the curve, happier the life!

Following that, I used to think a lot, a real lot. Every thing that I do, I wanted to see a meaning, I carve out the right/wrong, good/bad, rational/irrational part of them
- I've become more of 'do what the heart says and do not think too much'! Live life king size! Bindaaazzzzz

I did not hesitate to go myself to someone when I knew that I can get done what I want
- I've stopped asking for help. 95% of the time.

I had the minimal patience to sort out any problem, I used to pray like crazy to get over the problems that I used to face, I get tensed so easily and even tougher was not showing it out.
- Now I can wait to resolve a problem at its own pace and can just think of anything that's bothering to be 'soooo what' ;) and can keep it out of my routines at least for that time-being!

'Making friends' was a thing that I could never imagine of! Not sure if I thought I did not need anybody
- It took no time for me to realize what an(y) individual would mean in one's life at any given point of time.

To start with, I was so much 'for' the male community (given that there is no boy baby at home), so much as in its like I would fall in love with every other boy I used to meet as a kid ;)
- Some day I realized it doesn't work this way anymore [;)] and wanted(ly) started going against them.
- But the process did not end completely there, I have got more logical that I grew up finding a perfect life partner :D

I was God-fearing. ya.. sometimes even superstitiously.
- I definitely am not superstitious now, happy that I could wash it out of my life completely. On the other hand, I don't know if I have lost the fear or I've got logical or analytical or rational. Don't want to think too much over it!

So far.. so good!

After all this, How can I not get the 'B' word.. Here it goes.. ... But....
'The One' thing that I cannot change in myself is the ghosts that I know of since childhood. You can't find me sleeping in my bedroom alone a single night (get it right) :P I have tried and experienced the scariest nights!

Shades of a faded rainbow!

This is one of those things that I wanted to store it in a place where I can hit back every now and then and feel the same good way as I did the first time I saw it! Like how you feel happy whenever you remember the colors of a rainbow that just peeped out and vanished away..

Its nothing but a one liner from this uyir thozhan Neo. He kavidhaihal ((poetic) quotes) are some of those things that I feel like just reading over and over again! Brilliant boy! :)

So the occasion was, Neo's bro was blessed with a baby girl recently. And on a celebrating note, he had taken sweets to office (we were ex-colleagues fyi). As usual there was an update in my inbox of the daily happenings and that day about the sweets!
I replied back, 'mummy.. wherez my share of sweetsss!!??'
Know what the reply was!!? Read on..

"
Oru sweet stall sweet kekirathey. Aacharyakuri :D
"

Pardon me non tamilians, that literally translates to:
"A sweet stall is asking for sweet. Exclamatory mark :D"

Don't ask me if this is a compliment for myself or Neo.. I do not want to know ;) Probably its a praise, that's so flattery and that is why I wanna put it up here, if you think.. I say Mebbe! :D

P.S: I'm not sure how good it sounds in english. the feel in tamil is definitely different! Its Ossummmm :)

paradox/kismet/serendipity ??

just check if you are able to correlate this post with the title line ;)

you get out of the house,
you are in a clothing on which you look if not sexy, at least not bad :p
you think meeting someone even by chance might screw up your entire evening
you land in the most crowded hangout..
you skip the lift and start climbing the stairs
now..
you see the person whom you thought is the screw-er :p
you realize you met that too just right on the face!
you know not react
you move no muscle for a second
you jiggle out acting as if nothing happened absolutely
and then..
you start praying this news shouldn't spread over
you have the weird(est) night with that instance flashing back at the back of your head!
you try to get back to routines..
.. ...
you then get to know now that became the 'talk of the whatever'!
after all that...
you feel like banging your head on the 20'' monitor right in front of you!

So with all this.. what should I call the whole thing!!? Paradox!? Fate!!?? Or Serendipity!!!???
I know not what!
But.. definitely something that would mess your peace for quite a while!

OsmanSagar..

This one was a long (if you call 2.5 weeks is long) pending post and it was my first worth-a-mention weekend at Hyd.
So enough of cribbing/repenting/crying/cursing.. Now I've started looking at the positive side of life (read Hyd) yet again! :)

And there.. we went on finding some of the places in Hyd which would definitely make a worthwhile weekend. One of them is this lake called Osman Sagar, looks like the place is known around as Gandipet.

'S', 'U' and me started around 4-4.30 in the evening on 2 bikes from Banjara hills. I must say it was a great ride.. around 30 km from here. We stopped over for a cup of chai on the way for 5 mins and continued. We crossed this place called Mehdipatnam and continued on the road that goes towards Golconda, after which God knows the route, I completely lost track. 'S' was clever enough to remember the long forgotten route and after all that we landed there happily.
Getting inside the water was strictly prohibited, there were threats of crocodile and some such things. No no.. we did not see any. The place would be a good time pass if you have some interest on photography. There was a good garden, and not to forget, its also a dam, though my dumb brains took a long time to realize that ;)
So if you are with friends, its like a must visit on a Sunday evening, to just chit-chat, spend some good time. And if you love driving, you will definitely enjoy it.

Let the pics do the talking.


P.S: The good ones are S's IP and the bad ones mine :D

NewYork!

My twitter status would have given some insight about how I found it watching the movie!
So.. if you are one of the kind like me who got appealed by the trailers and were waiting for the movie to hit the screens, I really pity you, cuz that's what I did to myself too! :P
Yes.. for me it definitely was a non-entertainer except for those clips that run around the NYSU campus and these people's friendship. Probably friendship and fun are like two things that fascinate me no-matter-what, not just me perhaps everybody and that could be one reason why I could park my a$$ for 3 hrs out there in the Banjara hills Cinemax.

So.. coming to the storyline, most of you who were waiting for it, just like how we did would have read enough amount of reviews in the web and the manual reviews as well from people around.
Let me still give my 2 cents over it.

John and Katrina seem to be the most loving couple. And there comes this Neil Mukesh's Omar character. A typical Hindi movie sorts where you cannot just find a 'single' hero-heroine characters, there 'has to' be a 3rd person giving company to one of the genders. No wonder all these northis are so much behind group dates :p
Few things take a strong stand in the mind.. like when these guys talk of what we refer to babes in India -'tota', When Omar meets Kat after years and looks at her kid and says 'oh his eyes resemble Sam' and Kats giving an immediate reply 'Is that so Omarr.. But I'm not married to Sam' that part puts us into a shock for a moment. Omar getting into the beer guzzling thingie ending up running to the loo and John following him only to come out carrying Omar, I was reminded of a lot of those notty things of my friendship over the years :)

They have tried their best to pull the movie towards the theme 'false victims of 9/11' that they have actually wanted to incorporate into, otherwise its all like a series of not-so-relevant bits and pieces of things happening one after the other.
Some of the scenes stay undisturbed in the screen for as long as 4-5 minutes, just to give a highly puking sensation in your abdomen, one example could be, what happens in the detention centre when John sits with that plate of food, 'trying' real hard to cry thereby bringing in sympathy, whereas the audience just start shouting 'ohhh phulleeeezzz enuf of it, next scene plz'!! hard luck dude, we are sorry.. looong way to go for you when it comes to acting!
The sooper cute thing that anyone do not want to miss in the whole movie was the kid character Danielle! The baby just makes us fall in love with him by the time the movie gets over. At least I just went on remembering some of those cuddly dialogues that he utters like 'so.. do you like pastaa' and all that :)
The FBI role done by Irrfan Khan is worth a shot. Some of the truly funny scenes gets you into the laughter mode! Kudos :)

So.. 'S' told me just before going that he got to read the review and it was wayy too below the expectations, still you can enjoy watching John and I would not take my eyes off Kats. The later though is very true and ultimately even I couldn't resist turning my eyes towards Kats, just get it straight guys ;) no pun intended :P :D The 1st time I liked Kats on the screens, dunno why, she reallyz damn.. soo sexxxyyyyyyyy :) ;)

This fella, Roshan, who was one of those false victims and who works with Kats had done quite a good job. It was touching when he goes behind that policeman who bodychecks Kats and kills him and finally kills himself too, so some Indian touch in NY!
The director/producer had saved a lot of money that must have gone to the Music Director, guess there were some 2 songs in the whole movie. But, ya.. One did made us hum the tune after you come out of the hall.

Overall belongs to the below average kind. Just to kill time over a weekend, you may try buying a CD on the roadsides and sit at home watching it with a good gang of friends around, you will have good time passing whacky comments on every scene of the movie ;)

Blessed!

a lazy Sunday afternoon..

a long to-do list...
cold weather...
a cup of coffee..
loved one besides..
some peacocks around..
an unseemly chat..
And... loadsa smiles!

With all this, one would love to stay ignorant of what's happening in the world outside! And that's when you feel Blessed!!!

I am one! :)

I need U!

I was in the bend,

Life was about to end..

There I was dying,

And I saw u coming! :)

U gave me your shoulders,

That .. wiped off my tears..

You love me with all you have!!

For my broken heart, that is the salve..

And then everything is fine,

With all the sun and stars shine!

In all the life’s rhythm..

It’s you I fathom!

Now I need you.. for the rest of my life...

Without you I walk on the sharp edge knife!

My heart bleed,

And Mind agreed…

You are my hopes!

You are my love!!

You are the God-sent!

I need U!

**********************************************************************************************

P.S: I Suddenly felt Life's so beautiful.. that turned me a poet! This is my poetry venture, after long years!

Love Ya! :)

Stay Hungry Stay Foolish - Book review

this has been a long pending one to update.

I read this book around 4-5 months back when I saw it at a friend's place. Having no other thing to kill time, I just thought I would borrow it for a weekend and it might be a good time pass.

So for those who have got no clue about it, its completely about entrepreneurship, written by an IIM-A Alumni, Rashmi Bansal, about 25 IIM-A grads, how they started out on their entrepreneurship ventures and what all it took for them to make it big in their life, who had passed out of IIM-A since 1970s and the list goes on till what you call 'quite' some years back.

Let me point out the good things first.

1. It certainly inspires you, no-matter-what unless you have no bias towards the author. At least I had the after effects of it :D
2. The book would perfectly make a valuable read to those guys who grow with a criss-cross net around them, with all the IIM dreams and of cracking CAT etc etc. You get inspired like crazy and go behind your IIM dreams even more ;)
3. You get a hang of what is entrepreneurship and how it mostly works inIndia. Each of the 25 grads have gone through lots, and ultimate things each one of the problem, very different.
4. You definitely get to learn about all the jargon that co-exist in an IIM grads' life.
5. The price of the book is only INR 125/- Perfectly affordable for a dull weekend.

Cons:

1. Each one of them, I mean the 25 grads say 'money shouldn't be the motto' and ultimately all of them hit the same goal of making money. some way or the other.
2. Too much of IIM stuff hyped up, and for a normal non-IIT-IIM reader, it turns out to be quite irritating after a certain point.
3. Things get too monotonous after about half of the book is done reading, the same "don't expect money, do what you are passionate about, work with a smaller-larger firm for a while, before starting on your own". Common, what was different you trying to convey!? Nothing!?
4. A definite amount of thought should have gone into shortlisting the 25 entrepreneurs who got a place in the book. Well I see some strategy on that here, which I don't understand, rather I don't want to understand ;) Some of the very well known guys from IIM-A are found to be missing, the one that hits my mind right away is Chetan Bhagat, is he not an entrepreneur!?
   
5. Instead some people who are very less known, especially in India, like those guys from Mumbai-the software people, and the San Jose based fashion designer lady, I forgot their names. Does it contribute to the cost-cutting part!? :P
6. And the entrepreneurship cell contacts that are mentioned at the end of the book to get in touch with, for all those who have their entrepreneurial dreams, does not work. I tried them and found absolutely no responses!
7. Rest of the damage is done here

But after all, we should give everything its time and so is to Rashmi! Let her get the hang of writing books and not just journals. Lets wait ;)

My first 3D experience

it was worth a mention weekend for me after landing in hyd.
the very 1st time i've heard of 3D movies was when I was studying 3rd std, my cousins were taken for 'My dear kutti chathan'. They came back and told us they watched a movie with some goggles and all on, and that althrough the movie they could sense things as if they were happening so close, they felt everything so close and all that. Me and my other cousins went on wondering how could that be possible, but failed realizing.
Later in my 7-8th std physics we got to read about the Polaroids and then could crack that which was a rocket science for so long.
Anyways, now I'm out of school 8 long yrs back! And the weekend had a special friend's budday, so something to celebrate upon, you see! :) Anyway finally managed to watch 'Monsters n Aliens' at the Prasadz IMAX 3D hall. Thanks a ton to 'S'.. for making up my weekend!

The movie was awesome.. Great dialogue delivery by each of the characters.. especially the Monsters! I just loved them. Susan, B.O.B, Dr.Cockroach, the Missing link and the Insectosaurus. Their friendship sounded one of a kind. Its not just me like this, I realized, thanks to Susan.

Some parts of the movie that impressed me greatly
1. When Dr.Cockroach experiments on Susan to get her back to her old form, the apparatus bursts, putting us into a lot of laughter. Susan with that sad face says 'its ok Doctor. Please try tomorrow'.. only hoping that things will somehow get back to normal. Awesome!

2. The Gallaxhar's computer is set to destruct, Missing link says "its anyway nice meeting you Mr.Doctor". I have heard of this before in some American based stories, I still was stunned.

3. When the insectosaurus was dying, Missing link says "Do not close those eyes.. Do not.. dare .. close those eyes" n all of them cry for him! How sweet!

4. And Susan after getting to know about Derek's real character comes back weeping. When friends ask "so howz Derek", she says "Derek is a selfish jerk! why should I cry for him, expect anything out of him. It was me who saved California all alone, I'm so powerful. After all.. why. why should a meteor hit me to know what he really is!". I could relate so well to her emotions! The way she was regaining her confidence in no time is ultimate!!

5. When Gallaxhar takes away Susan, these 3 ppl rush to save her and the tricks that they play to cheat the clones in Gall's planet. Kudos. I simply loved their friendship!

And the much notable comedy pieces every now and then.. On the whole, movie was ultimate!

Also, the 3D experience was great! given that I haven't had one such so far.
But... Needless to say, the mall was crap. the toilets were stinking, crowd was wayy tooo local and wotnot! Hardly any couples or educated ppl! And most of the crowd were with their purdahs on, those that haven't seen the washing machines for yrs, n the ppl who haven't seen the bathrooms in yrs with some stinking perfumes on.. n the weather doing its part, the sweating souls.. yack!!!!

Airtel Super Singer 2008 ... and the disappointment!!

So.. the show has finally come to an end after all the hungama.
Me having been shifted to this nothing-for-good land missed out so much on watching the show live. All I could do was following it up on youtube, a bigg thanks to imran53000 for uploading all the videos, you made my day.

RAVI, Mr.Consistent, was the only person, without any doubt had to become the Super Singer.
Some of my friends have that Ravi is also Mr.Attitude etc, you do not wear a smile and always have a "Big deal" attitude and all that. Just a smile would have helped a lot when it came to the votes I felt. Or at least ask the crew to project ur smile more in the shows. That's all it is!
Srini in one of the shows long back had pointed out 'perhaps Ravi would bag the Super singer award one day' . There definitely was no person who can compete Ravi in the whole show, he has the voice, he has the talent, above all he knows Music!! and what not!
This dumb concept of public voting, just for the producers to make money, took it off the line. I'm still not able to believe it.
But man, the world knows when it comes to pure music, YOU are the Super Singer!!

Renu, as Srini always says has an astonishing voice.
And the title winner Ajeesh did a good job towards the end. He wore a smile since start till the end and that's a good thing which did wonders for him. Your music too was definitely soothing to our ears. But then its in no way can be compared with Ravi's. Anyway congrats people.

Its an amazing initiative from Vijay TV introducing all these people to Rahman. But I really hope Srini would introduce Ravi to Rahman personally one more time, and this guy will definitely ROCK ! and the time is not too far.. No Doubt!

Something for Summer

Since the time I happened to visit one of the Squash'd outlets in Chennai, I've been wanting to write a review post.
Now that the sun God is completely into action, thought a post of this sort would help the crowd out there.

Squash'd:
I have read about it quite a long time back and wanted to check it out since then. Till the time I was in Madras, I was only aware of the Gream's road Fruit shop and Squash'd was started out soon after I left Madras.
And my personal thought is that Anu Hasan has been more of a lady of venturous sorts than an actress, considering her hosting in 'Coffee with Anu' and Idhayam Manthra 20-20. She is not a stunning beauty to be an actress, but honestly I have liked watching her in these TV shows several times.
So with all that and more, I was expecting something huge out of this place, as its an independent venture of an ex-Bitsian.
We had been to this outlet at the Mayajaal Food court and ordered for Skinnie Minnie and a Mango drink (the name I had forgotten). The latter turned out to be good, as mangoes by nature have the pulpy texture. But then Skinnie Minnie (a strawberry, sweet lime admixture) did not come out so great. I went on wondering if it was a Smoothie at all. Considering the fact the both the fruits are highly juicy and lacks sweetness, they must have given some consideration at the fact of declaring it as a smoothie in the menu. Along with that considerable amount of whole milk was added which turned out the drink to be extra watery and less tastier.
The prices ranged from 25-85. But correspondingly the less costlier ones are less preferred.
It would be good if they redefine the menu and revise the price list based on the quantity and availability.
I'm still not sure of the ambiance at their stand-alone outlets as I said the one which we visited was just a part of Mayajaal food court but then I must say the yellow and green color are very soothing.
The concept of employing more number of gals from the lower class of society is quite appealing, though we could find both male and female employees working at the counter with only females dealing their hands at the juicer.
I wonder why has she still not laid out an exclusive website considering the home delivery part of their objective.

Pure n Naturals:Several times in my earlier posts I have mentioned about this place. We frequent at the Jayanagar 7th blk outlet once a week minimum. They are an unit of Pazhamudhircholai and a chain of salad and mocktail bar located across bangalore (Kormangla, Vyalikaval, Jayanagar), I heard they have it in Coimbatore too.
The Jayanagar outlet is one of the finest places filled with a good crowd and a quite ambiance, with the walls painted in green carrying a pleasant design. The menu is laid out in a decent manner and the prices are highly reasonable. The menu runs for 5-6 pages with a variety of soups, hot and cold salds, mocktails, fresh juice, milkshakes and icecreams. I have been there with so many of my friends and a lot of them who despise to try green vegetables have started loving it after trying their salads.
Except for only one annoying waiter at this place, rest things all would bag good appreciation. and the worst part is no owner/manager available to complain about such illiterate workers. u can find only employees who though understand other languages insisting us to talk in Kannada. Highly irritating.
And the website part of Squash'd holds good for these guys too!

Got sometime? Try them out.. a good option for this summer, I beat!
Have fun :)

...

couldn't really think of a title. before whenever i used to write a post, i think so hard to get a title.. even a simple mail for that matter. and few years back neo had taught me of this simple yet fascinating idea of using dots.

over the week i had spent quite a lot of time traveling in and around the Singara Chennai. 3 things i could figure out about this horribly hot place:
1. the only place where people ask couples to go spend romantic times in temples
2. lovers hardly find places to go around in the city particularly considering the sun@work part.
3. the places that should be marked as 'okay' types are being hyped like anything! crowd still sleeping!?

here goes some explanation for the 3rd point. not knowing how to kill time we thought of heading to mayajaal on an as usual hot sunny day! that was the first time i watched a movie at mayajaal. thinking of the hype it has and through word of mouth we burnt 240 bucks and picked up ayan tickets, only after entering i realized how heavily people are being cheated out there! the seats are the worst kind i have ever seen in life. PVR cinemas has reduced regional language movie tickets to 120 bucks on weekdays. i couldn't stop wondering on the versus part!
Last time when I visited Satyam I kept cribbing about the seating comparing it with the PVR, but now I say Satyam does a great job there, no doubt!

We ventured at the Inox box office someday, how could a place that has set such high standards in the movie world be modeled in such a stupid manner.. unbelievable! the entry to the movie hall, box office + exit to box office is all through the same lane. On top of that some 3-4 people stand at the same entry point adding to the already existing crowd 'with no uniforms' and keep shouting on people coming. Ridiculous!
city centre definitely requires a huge amount of redesigning. So much of space is wasted, I still doubt if the construction is yet to be completed. V and Y went on applying their IIM concepts at every other thing we encountered in this place.

With all this plus half a week stay at home turned to be a great revitalizer to the slumber mind.

Iniya thamizh puthandu nalvaazhthukkal!

Ayan

Its been quite a while, though I tried penning down some of my random thoughts, thought nothing is worth publishing and so just kept quiet.

Finally the much awaited Surya Starer Ayan had hit the halls and being some of the die-hard Surya fans, we decided to venture at an inox @ Blore.

Hope this post helps some of those guys who haven't watched the movie yet to get an idea before shelling out some bucks from ur pocket!! particularly amidst all this recession hungama!

Hero - an English speaking dude coming out of the airport, turns out to be a local 'galeej' guy - enj oyable intro. Heroine's intro is an usual tamil cinema one, with the hero dashing the half-clothed heroine. Not sure why they had to show glam when there was no need for it at all! Heroine was uppuku-chappani just so like most of the Tamil movie.

Hero wins an applaud in so many scenes like when he says 'namakku epavume 'Jo' dhaanga'. The deductive surya series in the whole film gave a feel of watching some old Vijayakanth style. The 'citi' character that comes as Tamanna's bro in the movie mattered for some good laugh.

For the 1st time I enjoyed a fight sequence in a Tamil movie, special mention goes to that which happens at Africa. They ha ve tried to spread some awareness on whats going on in the poverty proven fatigue country. The scene stands in memory where those kids continue playing football after a shooting spree happens on the road, its like what we read in those fiction novels. well shot. But I'm not sure why the lighting goes dim when they show Africa every time, a lil wierd!

The beginning 40-50 mins rushes like air. And then starts the real patience testing spree.

There were tooooo many characters that just comes and vanishes off in one scene. Here and there, a lot of disgusting things including Tamanna visiting Surya's mom's shop, not-to-forget the cruel murder of citi (Once you go back home, this scene flashes at least every time you go to sleep), hero goes to the pub to just take the photographs of the villain's crew, its so indigestible when we think of the hero just taking the kanaku pillai's daughter's snap and coming back while he sees her being raped by the Villain, in fact this is the place where they should have applied the usual Tamil movie logic but leaving this elsewhere it is all only that.

I'm not sure if this is what is meant as success for a Villain - making people feel irritated.. With the long hair and an ugly face, overaction althrough the movie!

How can the guy at the customs sector can be so dumb!? He takes hero's help and finally end up recruiting him with an Amma sentiment in the last scene, a typical Tamil movie style again.

Surya speaking in 'peter' English to the customs guy and him saying that he knows what he really is, dialogue delivery with the expressions and stuff there was really awesome from both of them!

In the whole of the movie what mattered the most to me were the songs! 'Vizhi moodi Yosithal' asks for couple of once-mores, Karthik where were you all these years man! Improper placement of 'nenje nenje', it comes as a condolence duet for citi! How absurd! The title song was well composed, its worth it considering its release directly at the theatres and not in the audio release. Chinmayee's voice in Aayiye Aayiye was cool as always!

Some additional concentration could have gone into Surya's costumes. He belongs to a decent middle class family, but the green and orange lungi-shirt in Pala pala was completely crap! Some of Tamanna's clothes were really good.

We expected the movie would be utter crap when it came to Sun pictures. The movie title 'Ayan' is nowhere relevant! In spite of all this, it will make good revenues as its an usual commercial one and taking into account the time period its been released. Its a Surya's movie and accepting him in a local get-up after the Vaaranam Aayiram and Kaaka-kaaka was hugely tough.

Overall, a line below than time pass category.

Rating: **