"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!