d_grailed

Moving!

2008-04-23T12:31:00.002+05:30

I am moving lock, stock and barrel to

Wannabesuperwoman

Why?

Changing the url wont change the content. But its an easier to remember moniker.
Wordpress offers many more facilities than Blogger. But a couple of drawbacks also exist. If I find it too uncomfortable, I will move right back.

So hope you come to my new home in the virtual world with the same regularity you do here.
Please update your blogrolls/bloglinks if you are among the rarity who have linked me.

See you there!

Kareena Kapoorism

2008-04-19T02:02:00.003+05:30

Kareena Kapoorism is when someone goes from size 100 to 0 and treble their oomph factor. Reverse-Kareena Kapoorism is well, the reverse of it.

yeh mera dil (Don 2007) is one my favorites because every time Kareena moves and her arms just jiggle and wiggle, I feel good about that tyre slumped over the waistband. I mean check out those forearms!!

New man, new body but one fan less. Her cheeks have sunk in and she has my pre-pubescent weight and body. Wait a sec, I was "healthier" than her even then!

Why do I blog and other existantial queries

2008-04-16T15:29:00.004+05:30

People often ask me why do you blog and often what/who is dgrail?
When I started this blog, I was well...bored and just wanted to know what this blogging thingy was all about. I was/still am reading a ton of blogs on almost daily basis and hence wanted to kind of know where I stood. A good blog with sparkling wit can really make your day. Truly user generated content is mind boggling-either superlative or just bad writing.
I began by sharing my life,sometimes writing about my experiances, sometimes about movies seen, books read or simply time-pass tests taken.Begining in 2005, Dgrailed recorded most of my student life with its ups and downs.
Why D_grail?
It was 2am at night I created this blog, immediately after finishing Dan Brown's best seller-Da Vinci Code. That kinda explains it right?
Over the time Dgrailed for me became symbolic of my "derailed" kinda twisty turning life with its oops moments and its aaawwwww moments.
With this blog I fulfil my desire to write and more importantly to be read.No shame in admitting that. The comments counter would often encourage and discourage.
Although I began anonymously soon enough I was using gebuine names and places.

But now I think its time to move on. For the first time in 3 years I am thinking of closing down Dgrailed. I cant stop blogging so am thinking of a couple of options.
Please let me know your opinions or thoughts. As comments and not on gtalk :)

1. Shut down Dgrailed and get lost in the virtual world.
2. Start another blog and link it here.
3. Start another anonymous blog with no links to this.
4. Continue Dgrailed side by side the new blog.
5. Use Dgrailed for certain type of posts and the other blog for humor.
6. Whatever, dude!

I have registered another domain. Lets see how things work out...

Edited add: Most people asked for a "solid" reason for thinking of this step. The biggest one is most of my readers are people I know (thanks to beating of the drum by self) which limits what I would wish to write. After reading something like Sunny Days I felt that I have things I need to write about which may not go along with my common perception.

Also I begin my job soon and part of me worries someone I work with, report to reads as I crib about work or write about how homesick or love lorn I feel or well just how often the foot is inside the mouth. of course I can totally sanitise my blog. But then it would no longer be the personal space I want it to be.

The truth about women, food and weight gain

2008-04-11T09:54:00.001+05:30

Two minutes on the lips, forever on the hips.

Sigh!

Now really...

2008-04-04T16:02:00.000+05:30

Which Friends Character Are You?

More on Friends. Created by BuddyTV

2008-04-03T16:32:00.002+05:30

From India Uncut

Hearing the case of a missing 13-year-old girl, a senior judge on the Bench [of the Delhi High Court] was “shocked” on hearing the girl’s name—“Nirasha” (disappointment). The judge went on to express his reservations about her parents’ choice and was keen to know the reason behind it. As expected, the lawyer for the parents had an answer ready: “My Lord, she was their fifth daughter.”

The state of affairs, no wonder. And according to TOI, thanks to Asians, US has got a skewed sex ratio. Although I doubt if the minority can seriously tilt their balance yet, food for thought.

iJoke

2008-04-02T11:32:00.000+05:30

The pervasiveness of iPod in popular culture.
Overheard in office.

SK: How much time does it take you to reach office?
VS: 2 songs.

30 things that you could do without knowing

2008-04-01T14:35:00.004+05:30

Prologue

AMJ: u have been tagged....

please do it...waise bhi veli baithi rehti hai...

and please search for accha silla diya tune mere pyaar ka....

MEe: kyun

kyun

what will i get in return?
AMJ: because me loves it...u will get some ravi kissen songs..

As a sharp observer of human nature you would have observed by now:
1. My reasoning, logical intellect (kyun?kyun? What is reason for this tag. But in keeping with the Indian education system AMJ ignored it thus crushing my scientific inquiring spirit)
2. Greed. (Thats straightforward)
3. Every man(woman in this case) has a price. Mine is Ravi Kissen songs it seems.

So here are the facts about me you were dying to know.

1. LAST MOVIE YOU SAW IN A THEATER:
Day before yesterday. Oscar nominated "There will be blood". I am kind of Farah Khan school of movies. I blew kisses at Saif while watching Race(ya, thats fodder for another post). So serious quality cinema is potentially fatal. There was no blood but a lot of sleep.

2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING?
"Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte. Love it.

3. FAVORITE BOARD GAME?
Can I substitute cell game?Its called City Bloxx on Nokia 5310. Its the most brain dead game ever invented. Requires 0 intellect and hence you can catch me playing it almost all the time.

4. FAVORITE MAGAZINE?
Business Week. (rolling on floor laughing)
No its Filmfare. I swear.

5. FAVORITE SMELLS?
1. First rain
2. Food
3. Clean clothes
4. New books

6. FAVORITE SOUNDS?
Loud hindi music.

7. WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD?
Not having the time of my life. Every minute.

8. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE?
"yaar abhi to soyi thi..."

9. FAVORITE FAST FOOD PLACE?
none

10. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME?
Dhruv and Natasha. Both will have an extra h.

11. FINISH THIS STATEMENT. "IF I HAD A LOT OF MONEY I'D...?
1. Liposuction.
2. Travel through Europe.
3. Buy my own amusement park.

12. DO YOU DRIVE FAST?
I dont drive at all.

13. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?
Sometimes. Its generally stuffed with pizza, dal Makhani and beer. (wink wink)

14. STORMS-COOL OR SCARY?
Electricity, loud sounds. you are Goth or what?Scary.

15. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?
It was a jeep with a driver. After too much keying it rammed into a wall, and never moved again. It was also subjected to fierce pounding by the 7 year old fist of my erstwhile neighbour. The sorrow was rectified by buying me a Barbie.

16. FAVORITE DRINK?
Water

17. FINISH THIS STATEMENT, "IF I HAD THE TIME I WOULD
Gym or learn to dance.

18. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS ON BROCCOLI?
The what?

19. IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY COLOR, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR CHOICE?
Hair today gone tomorrow! "If" then probably red, okay am not that adventurous -burgandy

20. NAME ALL THE DIFFERENT CITIES/TOWNS YOU HAVE LIVED IN.
Kannur, Delhi, Cochin, Mumbai, Bangalore

21. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Cricket. But no longer.

22. ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU.
A spark who can light up a room.

23. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED?
A black hole. What goes in never comes out. Except me.

24. WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE BORN AS YOURSELF AGAIN?
Yes provided I looked like Jolie, and had Tata as my surname. No really-me would be just fine.

25. MORNING PERSON, OR NIGHT OWL?
Both. I sleep in the afternoons.

26. OVER EASY, OR SUNNY SIDE UP?
Neither. Most of the times.

27. FAVORITE PLACE TO RELAX?
In front of the TV, provided the remote is with me.

28. FAVORITE PIE?
None.

29. FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR?
Cookies and Cream from Baskin Robbins.

30. OF ALL THE PEOPLE YOU TAGGED THIS TO, WHO'S MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND FIRST?
The one with the biggest writers block.

Am not gonna force anyone but everyone who reads this gets to do this. (boohaha)

Observation 4. Lazy to even type names and provide hyperlinks.

I am the one and you are...

2008-03-28T12:58:00.002+05:30

What Character From The Matrix Are You?

You are Neo, the chosen one, the slayer of agents everywhere. A former nerd, you have evolved into quite a stubborn hero.Although Trinity is not that hot, at least you're one of the few that can get some in the real world. You can stop bullets and you're immmortal; so what the hell are you going to do in Matrix: Reloaded?!"Yeah. Wow, that sounds like a really good deal. But I think I got a better one. How about I give you the finger... and you give me my phone call."
Take this quiz!

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Romance ka barood and action ka dhamaka

2008-03-28T10:02:00.004+05:30

Deep had this Sonu Nigam collection in College, this undoubtedly was the song of the collection.
You need to hear to believe it. I searched Youtube and found the one and only, hearthrob of young India the dashing Kishan Kumar stars in it! Enjoi!

Ishq mein hum tumhe kya bataye Kis kadar chot khaye hue hain
Ishq mein hum tumhe kya bataye Kis kadar chot khaye hue hain
Maut ne humko maara hain aur hum Zindagi ke sataye hue hain
Maut ne humko maara hain aur hum Zindagi ke sataye hue hain
Ishq mein hum tumhe kya bataye

Ae lahet apni mitti se keh de
Daag lagne na paaye kafan ko
Ae lahet apni mitti se keh de Daag lagne na paaye kafan ko
Aaj hi humne ho aaj hi humne Aaj hi humne badle hain kapde
Aaj hi hum nahaye hue hain
Aaj hi humne badle hain kapde Aaj hi hum nahaye hue hain
Ishq mein hum tumhe kya bataye

Surkh aankhon mein laga hain Rukh pe gaaza sajaye hue hain
Surkh aankhon mein laga hain Rukh pe gaaza sajaye hue hain
Aaise aaye hain ho aaise aaye hain
Aaise aaye hain mayat pe meri Jaise shaadi mein aaye hue hain
Aaise aaye hain mayat pe meri Jaise shaadi mein aaye hue hain
Ishq mein hum tumhe kya bataye

Dushmano ki shikayat hamesha Doston se gila kya karenge
Dushmano ki shikayat hamesha Doston se gila kya karenge
Kat chuke jin ha kat chuke jin Kat chuke jin darakhto ke patte
Phir kaha unke saaye hue hain
Kat chuke jin darakhto ke patte Phir kaha unke saaye hue hain
Ishq mein hum tumhe kya bataye Kis kadar chot khaye hue hain
Maut ne humko maara hain aur hum Zindagi ke sataye hue hain
Ishq mein hum tumhe kya bataye

Masterpiece.

A play and ice-gola

2008-03-18T00:56:00.012+05:30

Went to see a play at Prithvi this Sunday. It was the first professional play I have seen (discounting all the school musicals). Had gone and seen a German musical at NCPA. Prithvi has a more cosy setting, the stage at arm's length almost. The seating capacity also differs widely.

What I saw was:
ANSH
DETECTIVE MAURYA (Hindi)
Detective Maurya Investigates Crime of the Materialistic world.
One night A Farmer Commits suicide in the Front of him and he is forced to investigate his own life and surrounding
Writer & Director : Makrand Deshpande

Detailed review here. I cried though.

Went to Juhu beach before and after the play because I just had to have Milkmaid Ice-gola. Mango flavor tastes the best. Only the golawallah knows why the butterscotch flavor was fluorescent blue in colour.

Juhu beach is like a small mela. There was the cushion slide thingy which I wanted to ride but the only people who were seen clambering up had an average age of 6. Sob.

The light really brought out the multiple colours of the different syrups. Yum.

Sleepless in Sea...Whitefield..

2008-03-13T16:02:00.004+05:30

When i was a kid (haha gotcha!am still one) our school used to organise these annual school picnics on November 14. It was nothing spectacular or spellbinding. Usually it was to Buddha Garden, Lodhi Gardens or Children's Park. Once I think we went to the zoo. And railway museum.

So anyways, I was majorly excited to be part of these trips. scintillating social life that I had then (and now, sob sob) these were the only times I could go out. We would all be bundled into school buses after thorough counting by class teachers. Between friends we would decide what all to bring to eat. I always got to bring south Indian food (surprise) and Uncle Chips or Pepsi. On reaching the destination everyone would run for spreading their sheets/paper under a tree. If you happen to be unlucky enough to arrive on one of the last buses you would be stuck bearing the noon sun burning down your face. Soon enough the "stories" would start. Someone standing on some Lodhi relatives tomb went missing. Someone saw a skeletal hand creep out. Someone heard a warning. Someone saw a ghost. I was never this someone, I was invariably the one bearing the brunt of the Sun and in the process on my way to acquire a Nigerian passport. As we grew older "bhoot" stories were replaced by you know what she saw that couple doing behind the bush. These stories did run the possibility of being true. Anyways that's fodder for another post.

What was remarkable for me was I would be so excited at the prospect of a picnic I would find it difficult to sleep the night before the D-Day. Now I am the person who would sleep 8 hours before an exam even if half of the portion hadnt seen daylight. I was one of the two people who kept snoring while the remaining hostel ran helter-shelter screaming at the top of their voice when a burgler had burst in. So for me to loose sleep is like BIG. Yes I was that excited at the prospect of rolling in the grass in mid afternoon.

The last time I was so excited was my last trip to Mumbai. I must have thrown in a couple of clothes. Forgot my toothbrush and paste. If possible ran to the airport ( was forced to take a rick). Allowed the rickwallah to fleece me. Was the first through security checkin and on board. It was one of those Boeings where you can watch TV. But my eyes were stuck out permanently. when the pilot announced descent, my nose was stuck on the window plane. As the city came into view, little blobs of light, growing till we were above small diamonds carelessly thrown across a velvety cloth, small streams of gold where the NH ran, I almost felt satiated. When we touched down, the familiarity of Chatrapati Shivaji, the trolleys which you can push down to make them move faster(not seen that any where else, all other trolleys are a fight), to the autos which run by meter, SEEPZ to the front of our insti, most of all my room. The smell of familiarity, my system gathering dust ( switching it on, my old playlist intact), my bathroom (and mine alone, not be shared with people with impolite bathroom manners) and warm water. heaven. Sigh.

Unlike most people I know I have really taken to Mumbai, and find Bangalore well boring.
The prospect of another week in Mumbai has sent me into sleepless tangle again. How , how will I ever adjust to Bangalore? What do people here do on weekends apart from descending at Forum in hordes?

Rated PG

2008-03-12T15:49:00.002+05:30

2 posts in a day. Now you know how hard I work. But this was like really important. In case you are reading this make sure you are under parental supervision. Yes get your mommy. Now.

This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words:

bomb (3x)
sexy (1x)

Now really. I thought of displaying this on the sidebar as a permanent kind of thing. Then resisted.
1. It may attract wrong kind of traffic. Though on most days I welcome any Ip address than my own.
2. My two most regular readers may hike their expectations. ( No, no i know you are not that type of men, err..i mean women)

There was another one of this widget thing which told me how much my blog was worth. No we are not talking about that.

Yeah stop searching for the post with "sexy" in it, and dutifully comment here (high dominatrix voice, oh God, I think they have already moved me to R)

since am planning to make this blog more personal

2008-03-12T11:31:00.004+05:30

here's some gyaan I found recently.
The banyan is our national tree. Wow.

I have finished reading Loving and Longing in Bombay by Vikram Chandra, and now am dying for weekend to come so that I can go till CrossWords and but "Red earth and pouring rain". After coming here I have spent a fortune on books, and have read more books and blogs than in last 3-4 years. However future purchases are heavily dependent on my stipend clocking in by weekend.
In a fit of misplaced independence I had assured my parents I can take care of myself from now on. So it was with casual nonchalance that I had slipped in my demand for more parental generosity this weekend. So I can buy more books. How I choose my books is a totally ingenious methodology.

Me: why are we going to Crosswords. You said you would find me a street hawker. You lied!
F ( a friend on whose knowledge of Bangalore I was dependent) : ya, this is like cheap books only..
Me: liar!
F: Oh comon! these books smell nice...
Me: You dont buy books to smell them.
(inside Crosswords)
Me(5 books balanced precariously): Stop me, I am going to buy all these. I dont have money.
F: Pick all you want and then we will sort it out.
Me(hands over the 5 and picks another 5): yeah am done I think. Stop me.
We sit on a couch. Judgment time arrives. We turn every book over for the price tag.
Me: My god this is for 395. Its like 40 pages I think.
F: Yup. so it goes into the not buying pile.
Me(sad): Has to. Hey look at this its for 400 and they are selling it at 250. And its thick too. (smiles triumphantly)
F: I have read it. Its not great. that's why its for 250.
Me(ignoring, and voice level rising with excitement): And this one also is for 200. And its so thick, it will last a week. You keep the James Fry and Rushdie back. I will take this thick books which are cheap also.
(Man sitting nearby looks in disbelief.)
F: I don't know you!

Also have discovered a whole lot of mommy bloggers. Will Blogroll them soon. You can catch up with Adi's slaves and Peanut here. And this totally brought out all my maternal instincts. But there is still time for that. But cho chweet.

So till next. :)

Random ramblings on a random day

2008-03-06T15:32:00.003+05:30

I am working finally. Most of the time it consists of minimising windows and trying to look as if am about to up Einstein’s theory of relativity. You see offices have this habit of giving you net access with only your official email working. They believe essential for existence sites like Orkut, Blogspot, Gtalk and SantaBanta.com takes away from employee productivity. Yeah it does cut down the number of coffee intakes to around 4 a day.

Btw, when I had begun my MBA and many of my classmates had started working one of them pinged me to tell me that his office vending machine had 4 types of coffees. I was as interested in that information as I am in dating Bobby Darling yet in the same absurd way it clung in my mind. The vending machine here has 3 varieties of coffee and 2 types of tea. Damn.

Apart from that since this is the IT capital of India, I was expecting a very engineering type of crowd. But you have to be here to believe it. Every morning as I stand among a crowd of IT engineers to catch the bus. All dressed almost identically. The access cards around their necks proclaiming the usual suspects “Tata Consultancy Services
“, “Life rocks @ iFlex”(yeah right), SAP. The bus I generally take are the Volvo. Apart from charging a bomb they also help me have my nostalgic Mumbai local @ Dadar moments. Touching, literally.

The bus remains the only plausible means of transport. Yes autos abound in the city but to get into one has following complications.

the driver finds the distance optimum. Too near-no maam, too far-no maam.
the meter is running but the 3-digit fare charged from you has no relation to the double digit flashing there.
the driver believes all IT junta are earning a bomb and hence the holes burnt into the pocket are inconsequential.

My office is very nice and pretty. My cubicle 5 steps away from coffee machine and a small food court downstairs for meals. The combination of this has lead to exponential gain apart from the usual quarter life spread in key areas of the human physique. A recent study has said as people become more content they have a tendency to put on weight. Bless the researchers. Bad HUL. Bad parents. Bad friends. Bad bf. All your fault.

My social life here is rocking. Another peculiarity of this city is it has more gults than kannadigas or so I feel. This conclusion was drawn based on the number of Andhra messes and PGs around. My roommate is one too. We talk in English about the weather, curse the owner for general lack of convenience and sleep at 9. One way to look at it would be the glowing skin I would be sporting soon owing to daily beauty sleep.

To kill time I have seen 3 movies (haan haan hall pe…laptop nahi hain mere paas) in 2 weeks and have read 2 books and will start on number 3 soon. I will not review the movies because many of my class mates are already doing that. Still typo-diarrhoea results in:

Jodha Akbar- my choice to watch it. My desire to run out of the hall by interval. You could cat nap get up and the story wouldn’t have moved an inch. Only saviour the beautiful jewellery.

Mithya- 5 people in the hall. Expected a Ranvir-Vinay riot. Saw a very complex convoluted story. Maybe I should grow up and will appreciate it more.

Vantage point- the director got 1 set done and shot an entire movie. However it would keep you interested despite indestructible Dennis Quad.( spoiler- he survives a bomb blast, shooting, car crash and still walks upright, bad guys die the moment their vehicle overturns. Incredible.)

Kiterunner by Khaled Hosseini- I loved the book. After the day of staring at 15” computer screen, I would return home and be lost in Afghanistan of the seventies. Brilliant.

Alchemy of desire by Tarun Tejpal- Mr.Tehelka’s debut book begins with "Love is not the greatest glue between two people. Sex is." You think wow, Indian writer what guts. Then it kind of gets boring. The musk and the growth. You want to skip all that and read the story. Oops there isn’t one.

Yeah, the post is a little bit arbit. But hey the blog is personal again. ( Play on popular computer ad, dumbo)

Btw, haven’t visited the vending machine for past 2 hours. I think its missing me.

Chaow..(isn’t is it what Anushka says on MTV ?)

Is beauty the beast?

2008-01-25T16:06:00.000+05:30

I was watching Ally McBeal today. Neurotic, confused, apparently successful yet steeped in self doubt. Mirror anyone.

After you have appreciated my clever play with words in the title of the post we shall move forward.In today's episode Ally fights for a lady whose dismissed from her anchoring job because she is too old to attract the attention of a TV surfing generation. In between we are shown Ally's own fears of old age and the first wrinkle.

Beauty is skin deep. At least that's what we learn in good all girls catholic school. And then we go to college and meet..ahem..the guys.

Throughout my school girl idealism I never thought you should judge a book by its cover and yet over the years I have found how luck, opportunities favor the better looking. It was hard to accept the concept and yet shamefacedly I have to admit I have only succumbed and suscribed to it.

In our country where being fair is lovely(and now handsome as well), do we really judge people by the looks. And we are not even talking about the dating game .I know of instances where prettier people have easier time in interviews. Yes we have all tried to present ourselves as well groomed presentable best when facing a panel, yet if you have two candidates who are on par on every other scale would you choose the one that would enhance the aesthetics of your office more?

If I were to be interviewed with a bunch of PYT for a post, would I be scared? When someone walks out of an interview room and says lady HR instead of male HR does my heart go a tad disappointed?

Most of my friends would fall in the category of above average looking, have I subconciously made those choices? But isnt it true that after a point you stop looking at the people close to you. You stop noticing how good or not good they look?

I would like to believe my bf loves for my charming personality, dashing sense of humor, my glib talking (oh God, I should stop warna all that fan mail, who will handle?) but on the occassions when I do change from my mansize-fits all tee and comfort fit jeans and wriggle into suffocate-to-death tee and lycra jeans and dab on some eyeliner and gloss, why are the compliments and chivalory more free flowing. Why? On days he gets out the hair gel, goes overdrive with the cologne and comes looking all dapper, my heart swells with the "effort" he taken. Does it mean I judge him by the way he presents himself to me and not by the virtues I liked in the first place.

Its scary to admit, I would stop at a channel because they are because John Abraham would be hawking a new product over a detailed an analysis of the subprime crisis. Carla Bruni interests me only because she looks the way she does.Thats the reason Camilla Parker Bowles can never get the attention of Diana Spencer.

They say some studies have found that babies are also attracted to prettier peole and the instincts behind all this is the fact that better looks means better genes. Not sp skin deep, but ribonucleaic acid deep?

The purpose of this post: Do you judge?

Trigger: Dad's looking for suitable groom with heart of gold, I said I wont mind "looks like Arjun Rampal, body like Abraham and talks like SRK"

Verdict: Am searching in the wrong species.

Till next. From seedy cyber cafe in Delhi.

PS: New season of B-School rankings and placement reports are out. Advice to newbies of MBAgiri- take it with a pinch of salt. Packages like beauty is skin deep.

Its hard to say good bye!

2008-01-13T17:58:00.000+05:30

It begins when you hear your maami ki chachi ki beti ki best freind ki bua got into IIM-A and is now earning close to a crore a month in plum investment banking job in New York. So when you are done getting into the herd pick up bus of TCS/Infy/Wipro and are studying at any engineering college worth its Computer Science division you quickly enroll your self at the nearest CAT preparatory course. It will have a fancy name, mine was CATapult. You wont study till a month a before CAT. Then you would suddenly wake up to rank 1246847865 in one of the mock CATS, dust the covers of the preparatory material and start to ghot. You will dig up old contacts who are in IIMs or other self respecting 100 % placement on day 0 institute , join pagalguy/mbaforum and start filling endless forms. The D-Day will arrive, you would either score 99.99 with 99 in all sections, go to IIM A/B/C and live happily ever after or write a book of how it wasn't happily ever after and become rich either ways.
But then that isn't my story and this is my blog. So I scored 98.67 with a suicidal 86 in one of the sections. No IIM thought i deserved to be in it. Not even the new ones in MP and Kerala.
But 3 me-too's did. And I got into 2 of them. One of them a private college with great brand value, another a government college whose name I heard for the first time when I filled the form. Its website had this really oil&mining PSU type of feel and it was number three on my list.

I ended up joining the PSU type college. It was called NITIE. Most of my friends went "huh? what? where? you left MDI??? ohhk..doctor?"
A year and half ago I landed in Mumbai, and reached NITIE using two metaphors "L&T ke paas " or "IIT ke paas". We had been promised single occupancy but were soon saddled with a roomate each. Mine was this thin, short girl who had one travel bag. One. I could have whooped with joy. The cupboards were mine. (Later she would reveal she had 3 more coming to NITIE soon)

I had these visions of sleepless nights working through the midnight oil. Of grand strategy classes. I also had a desktop. One of the 5 people in my batch to have it.

3 weeks into the course, we were given access to ipmessenger, dbabble and DC++. Sleepless nights took on a different connotation all together. Certain gentlemen shared upto 1 Tb (yes 1 Tb) of material on DC++ with certain "only for boys" sections too. Of course my curiosity never got the better of me. Just like other girls.

Summer Placements came. After a fantastic GD-PI conversion ratio of 3/15 I landed into the GE Corp, GE Money to be more precise. I also wrote my first module exams after studying for 2 weeks. I had never felt so unprepared or unconfident before nay paper in my life. A year later I would realise that was the maximum I would study in any module. Last module I studied for 2 hours.

Summers meant running after 186 from NITIE gate, running towards the ladies compartment of Churchgate slow and dealing with telecallers all day. Sales wasn't tough I learnt. But you need patience. It was grassroot. There was no AC office, to sip coffee, and design on excel.

I came back to Prerana. Can you feel so much passion for something not living? Can the desire to make an event successful consume 10 individuals, each more than the other. Can you sleep at 4-5 am and be up at 8 next day with the same vigor. Day after day. In NITIE I was part of that madness. A madness called PMG. Once a PMG member always a PMG member! Yes, I was told this in the committee interview. I understand now. Yes I do.

Coming at a time of great personal turmoil, placements the million dollar sign dream with which we all enter a MBA institute were here.Package. Profile. Brand.
CV designing was a new time consuming art form. Attending a corporate lecture became one to one corporate interaction with CEO of leading investment bank for many. To remain on the right side of ethics while making your CV irresistible to the 5 minute glance of the HR was a tight rope.

There are people who say at NITIE you will have to compromise. You will have to take what you get. I have one word to tell them-"B$#@s!" If you have the patience, if you have the dare, if you wont compromise. You will get what you want. be it Sales and marketing in every leading FMCG (Leading hair oil FMCG HR please note:people do come to NITIE for S&M, most of FMCGs bigger than you do hire them from here.) , finance, there were fancy profiles like derivative structuring to which I could only say wow, since I couldn't make head or tail of what it entailed or the traditional strong points-SCM/IT.
After intense disappointments of initial 2 days. I did manage to get placed.
Standard Chartered gave me consumer banking. Johnson & Johnson gave me MD Sales and marketing. But there was one brand which simply put the competition out of the picture. It offered me an amazing flexibility, a handsome package, and a renowned management trainee program.
When deciding on whether to join MDI or NITIE I had asked one question to alumni at both places. "Does HLL come to campus?"

Yes am going to HLL now HUL. The BLT program promises a world of adventure for my wandering spirit.

One and half years into NITIE. I can say Thank you. For the best two years of my life. For friends and more than friends. For the lessons in the class room and outside.

PGDIM. 96 steps. TOPA. Freshers. Denovo. PMG. Ataria. Nescafe. PPO road. Poptates. HN. 303. PGP-5. Mess 3&4. Vodka with sprite. Prerana. 123. 321. PMG wing. GE Money. Charlie's Angels. DC++. Dbab. Ip. Huma Adlabs. Nirmal Lifestyle. 186. 25. Masala maggi. Acad section. Audi. Ethics. PPO. HUL.

I dont know if my maami ki chachi ki beti ki best freind ki bua felt what i feel today. Thank you NITIE.
Goodbye. Godbless.

In love with Maximum City

2008-01-13T17:26:00.000+05:30

There is a myth. Mumba Devi, the goddess of Mumbai can showr you with wealth and makes you spend that fortune within the city itself. That is why the wealth of Mumbai can never leave its shore.

A year and half ago i came to Mumbai, a city that had intrigued and fascinated me. I came, I saw and I fell in love. The detractors will say JWMarriot...but in all this time I have been here, in all the late nights, early mornings, odd hours that I have been, for all the girl trips, all the public transport I have used at all hours of the day and nigh, I have felt safe. These two years have been the most fun-filled in my entire lifetime. Expensive, yes..Awesome..YES. This is a city for everyone. You come in and you can get lost or stand out. The city gives you the freedom to do both.

It has been city number 3 on my Indian sojourn. I have seen the middle class grow and exert its strength. As India moves towards fulfilling its destiny, I feel am at the right place and at the right time.

Maximum City. I will be back soon.

Om Shanti Om: And why you should see it!

2007-11-17T19:07:00.000+05:30

Om Shanti Om, SRK and Farah Khan's magnum opus, which saw marketing gimmicks unprecedented in movie history has generated mixed reviews. A true Bollywood lover that I am I lapped up the entire show off from the guest stars, the SFX, the rebirth et all. Fellow OSO fan club member, Piyush has agreed for a guest post...so here we go...

There are movies that make absolute sense and then there are those that dont make any sense. Well, this one is neither. A different approach to seeing this movie will definitely get you
to appreciate it. And why not. I myself have mostly been a very selective, "sensible movie" watcher, easily downplaying the clutter of hindi films that are churned out every Friday.

But to think of it, we are so damn used to measuring, analysing & judging everything around us that we deny those poor filmmakers all the freedom that they so rightly deserve. People, Actions, Situations and everything else you can think of is subject to our ever-analysing minds. You probably have been going to the movies either based on those sidey reviews, or some friends whom you cant deny, or many just to enjoy the crowd at the so many mushrooming chic
multiplexes. For once, maybe its time to discount everything around you that tells you what to and go out and explore it yourself. And dont forget to book two tickets: one to seat your brains (yeah, you heard me right, get them off now!) and the other to slide your *ss into (make yourself at home!).

Sample these:
"SRK astonished at DP, DP waves and walks, DP dress tassle entangled, DP realises and sorts, SRK cant still believe, DP walks and looks back, SRK feels the aah!!"There is a beautiful background score while this is on. The score and these feelingsreturn with new look DP (aka Sandy) meets new look SRK (aka Om Kapoor). And thats where an immediate connection is created!

"Or consider the super duper celebrity packed "Deewangi" number, where each actor performs
his/her dance step and entices the audience to again connect that to some earlier movie song.
The satisfaction you get from sucessfully tracing that is probably what the director was aiming for. Its a simple but innovative way of keeping the audience in the wonder-think-find-enjoy loop."

The magic of OSO, more than anything else, is in those small things these guys have tinkered with. Things that probably appear miniscule against the huge canvas. But things that actually build up stuff and literally drive the movie. Sometimes explicitly, sometimes subconsciously. And all that coupled with good music (they ve covered every genre under the sun), some super art direction (with nicely done sets and novel lighting effects) and comedy that appears cheap upfront (but you laugh all your way back home) is sure to make it a true entertainer.

Unless ofcourse you still cant stop asking the Hows and the Whys. Hello! We arent at a quizzing
contest, are we? Puhleez! No questions, No answers! Just sit back & enjoy!

Post dedicated to DK - for giving a dolt like me all this free webspace - costs a lot these days you know!!
# SRK = Shahrukh, DP = Deepika

Yup. its a post!

2007-11-15T12:56:00.000+05:30

My cell phone jinx continues and my year old Sony Ericsson began having display problems. By problems I mean there was no display. For close to a month the phone worked on high end voice recognition software ( my ears) in the absence of not knowing who was calling..

..gela gela dil gela gela..(yes that was my ring tone-not out of choice believe me)

me (is it the man of my dreams or ICICI credit card wala...the two are not overlapping categories): hey bhagwan pata nahi kaun hai..

..flips it open...

me(deep, sexy voice): hello

guy-i-dont-know: abbe sun woh jo kal bola tha tune kar diya?

me(back to shrill, screechy self , recognizing it to be Mr.X, who did not belong to either of the afore mentioned categories but happened to be a fellow fest cordinator) : haan yaar kar diya hain and I passed it to Mr.R yaar..usse pooch lena ...chal laters..

guy-i-have-recognized: achcha thikh hain..aur tujhe jo woh doc chahye tha woh mere room pe padha hai le jaana ..bye..

Happily I skip over to X's room where he is busy pulling his hair(literally) over the latest demand by the music band we have called.

me: oye , woh doc dikha

X: kaunsa?

me: abhi jo bola tha

X: kaunsa?

me: yaar tu bhi na...

..gela gela dil gela....
..flip open...

me : hello

guy-i-thought-was-X: yaar R ke paas nahi hai..tu kya bol rahi thi?

me(this is not X, X is in front of me, Oh God...I have no clue who you are and what you want): tujhe write up chahye tha na..

guy-i-thought-was-X(exasperated ): yaar mujhe woh numbers chahye the...

me( small war dance...oh i know..this is Mr.M who had asked for this yesterday..): arre M, woh shaam tak de dungi..mujhe laga you wanted the write up...

guy-who-is actually-M: why would I need that, D tu bhi na...

Slowly people learnt to identify themselves when I picked up, and my guesses also improved.
But there were people who still SMSed and expected replies.
Soon the inbox was full and the warning beeps were a headache.

How I called up jury members, fellow participants, friends, family without the display can make a small ha-ha-look-i-fell-on-my-head book by itself, but that's for some other day.

Like Hindi movies of 70's picture abhi baaki hai, because this Diwali a harassed Dad was forced to buy Nokia 5310 .

Well its only super sleek, plays awesome music, 2 megapixel camera, 4GB RAM..vagera vagera..
And yes my family is going to starve for the next 1 year paying off the loan taken at 18% to pay off the Nokia dealer..

PS: Placement fever has gripped the campus
My computer is back to doing what it does best-not work
I promise to be more regular in my trash talk here once it works again

2007-10-23T16:13:00.000+05:30

Take a bow, the night is over
This masquerade is getting older
Lights are low, the curtains down
There's no one here
There's no one here, there's no one in the crowd
Say your lines but do you feel them
Do you mean what you say when there's no one around
Watching you, watching me, one lonely star
One lonely star you don't know who you are

I've always been in love with you
I guess you've always known it's true
You took my love for granted, why oh why
The show is over, say good-bye

Say good-bye, say good-bye

Make them laugh, it comes so easy
When you get to the part
Where you're breaking my heart
Hide behind your smile, all the world loves a clown
Just make 'em smile the whole world loves a clown
Wish you well, I cannot stay
You deserve an award for the role that you played
No more masquerade, you're one lonely star
One lonely star and you don't know who you are

All the world is a stage
And everyone has their part
But how was I to know which way the story'd go
How was I to know you'd break
You'd break my heart

I've always been in love with you
Guess you've always known
You took my love for granted, why oh why
The show is over, say good-bye

Say good-bye , say good-bye
Say good-bye

-Madonna, Take a bow

PS: neck deep in work, sincere apologies. You can visit me here till 4th November

Kompyuter: vardaan ya abhishaap

2007-09-19T17:48:00.000+05:30

Not to worry dearies dgrail is back. Now I can pretend that the back breaking b-school curriculam is sucking all my time but anyone whose ever been inside a b-school will vouch it’s the late night movies, back to back episodes of Heroes, eating out, bakar and ip wars that result in sleepless nights. A vocabulary consisting of words like variability, deliverables, systematic integration, competitive landscape etc can take care of the rest. 3months and am going to be out of this blessed place and this luxurious life ( I pay 18k per year for one room with attached bath in Mumbai, beat that!!)

After 2.5 years of non complaining hard work of storing 15GB songs, 0 academic material and constant winamp abuse, my computer sighed and shut itself up some time last month. On its last days the desktop had lost all the beauty of its youth when it had played host to abs revealing pictures of Brad Pitt replaced by Lord Ganesha during placement and exam seasons. It was now filled with pdfs and word docs and random wmv files. Searching something out was like treasure hunt and virtual memory low a constant flashing sign.

It seemed my life had stopped with the computer. No ipmessenger (it’s a LAN messenger), no movies, no gmail, no gtalk and shock and shudder no orkut! I was completely cut off from the only personality I have (the virtual one, duh!)

Anyways I opened the CPU box on my own (applause) for the first time in my life. Those who have been following my career graph closely should now raise an eyebrow and question the credentials of where I did my computer engineering from. I took out the RAM, pulled at the various wiring and tried other technical jugaads of the same caliber. Some other hard core techies suggested I use the tried and tested way and pound the box. I did that too but the LED didn’t glow again.

Finally I had to do it. I called in the experts. Its an amzing feeling nincompoopetancy (ha ha, dictionary main dhunde to jaane) to see a person who probably did a week long hardware training accurately identify a problem and answer the questions posed by graduate of engineering in computer science. Yes education kills your grey cells.

A week later my comp was back, its original Intel motherboard replaced by Max Intel and my pocket much-much lighter. How it was prevented from getting any lighter and why I can never call that computer guy again is another delightful episode which will make your day. Some other day though.

So there my PC was, brand new and I quickly installed the necessities like gtalk and winamp. After hours of tinkering it had updated versions of every software on earth complete with MSOffice 2007 pirated edition. (sidenote: its pretty cool vis vis 2003. MBA s will appreciate smart art and the like)

And then to finally protect it from LAN viruses on prowl I installed McAfee.

Not many of you would know the joy of formatting your computer within a week of formatting it once. Not many of would also know the joy of installing an old version of Windows and then spending hours searching for Windows service packs. Not many of would be watching songs where your audio runs ahead of the video making the actresses lip syncing skills look horrible. And not many would be typing word docs which ripple across the screen retracing their outlines. But one lucky as hell person knows how all these joys feel. If you still didn’t get it you are adding to my joy.

Onam ashamsakal

2007-08-30T12:24:00.000+05:30

Today:
After not be able to go to my uncle’s home this Onam, I had resigned to having the delicacies at mess today. But then daane daane pe likha hota hain khane wale ka naam. One of my fellow mallu classmates invited all the mallus for a traditional Onam sadya. The thought of it was enough to send me into frenzy but with great self control I managed a lady like behavior.
Since two out of the three readers of this blog will not be familiar with the reason-de-entre behind onam a small flashback to long, long ago…

Long, long ago:
Mahabali, was the grandson of Prahlad, the son of Hiranya Kashyapu who was slayed by Vishnu in his Narasimha Avatar. Mahabali's rule was considered as the golden era of Kerala.
The gods were very annoyed as Bali became the ruler of all the three worlds having defeated the Devas. The gods approached Vishnu and asked for his help to dethrone Mahabali.Mahabali who was performing the sacrificial rite of Viswajith on the banks of Narmada River, declared that he would give anything that anyone sought from him during this Yagna. Vishnu, incarnated in the form of Vamana, a dwarf to defeat the Daityas.
Mahabali went forth to receive the Brahmin boy with all traditional honours and gave him an eminent seat befitting the status of a holy person. Bali with the usual courtesy given to the people who come to ask for help told him Master! It is my good fortune that you have chosen to honour me with your presence. Whatever you desire, I am here ready to fulfill the same. Vamana smiled and said: "You need not give me anything great. It is enough if you give me that extend of land covered by three footsteps of mine".
On hearing him, Bali's preceptor, Shukracharya a Daitya priest, who has vision of the future told Bali that the one, who had come to take alms from Bali was not an ordinary Brahmin but Lord Narayana Himself who had assumed this form. He advised Bali not to promise the lad anything. But Bali was a king who would never go back on his word. He told his Guru that he would never break his promise as it was a sin. Shukracharya insisted that he should not fulfil the demand of Vamana as he had come to deprive Bali of all his possessions.
Bali, however, was determined to honour the word given to Vamana, begged pardon of his Guru for disregarding his advice.
Saying so, he asked Vamana to measure the three feet of land as desired by him. All attempts of Shukracharya to dissuade Bali from offering the land desired by Vamana proved futile. Bali considered everyone who came to him as god himself and never refused anyone anything that they have asked.
Vamana grew in size until he towered above the heavens. With one foot, he measured all of the earth. With the other, he claimed all of the heaven. There was still one foot of territory that Bali owed him. Bali asked to place the final step on his head as the third step of land which Lord Vamana had asked for as alms. Vamana placed the third step on the head of Bali and suppressed him to Patala, the underworld. For the devotion of this Daitya Mahabali, Lord Vishnu (Vamana) granted him rule over Patala. Vamana aka Vishnu granted Bali the boon that he would hold the position of Indra for one Manvantara , thus fulfilling his devotee's desire ( the office of Indra being a rotating position , changing every Manvantara ) .
As a last wish Mahabali was granted the permission to visit his subjects once a year. Thus, Keralites celebrate Onam festival to commemorate the memory of a Great King Mahabali who would keep his promise.

Why the difficulty to contain excitement?
That would be because I get to eat this. Slurp…(wiping the drool..).this is what is contained in a traditional onam sadya.

Parippu : A thick lentil dish eaten with rice, Papadum and ghee.
Sambar : A thick gravy made of lentils, tamarind, coconut, vegetables like drumsticks, tomato, etc., and flavored with asafoetida.
Rasam : A watery dish made of tamarind, tomatoes, and spices like black pepper, asafoetida, coriander, chili pepper, etc. It is very spicy in taste and aids in digestion.
Aviyal : Thick mixture of all vegetables, yogurt, and coconut. It is seasoned with coconut oil and curry leaves. This dish is usually made of leftover vegetables.
Kaalan : Made of yogurt, coconut, and any one vegetable like "nendran" plantain or a tuber-like yam. It is very thick and more sour than avial.
Olan : A preparation of pumpkin, coconut milk, and ginger seasoned with coconut oil.
Koottukari : One or two vegetables like banana and coconut with a hot and sweet taste.
Kichadi : Made of yogurt and cucumber in raw or cooked form.
Injipuli : Curry made of ginger, tamarind, green chilies, and jaggery.
Thoran : A sauteed dish of vegetables like peas, green beans, raw jackfruit, carrots, or cabbage with grated coconut.
Pickles (Achar) : Spicy pickled vegetables like mango, lemon, lime, etc.
Pradhaman : a sweet dish in the form of a thick liquid. It is made with white sugar or jaggery to which milk or coconut milk is added.

Today:
Day proceeds just fine. No embarrassments. No oops! I did it again moments. Time to leave. My friends’s dad says thanks us for the visit. And dgrail who has not opened my mouth the entire time gets excited and says nammalkalle thanks parazhande instead of nammal elle thanks parazhande. (translation you should thank us instead of we should thank you.)

Kuch bhi nahi likh sakti....

2007-08-12T21:23:00.000+05:30

This post is for all those who asked where d_grail had disappeared, if I have stopped writing or if my sense of humor has died. I have a block. Not a Lego block but a bloggers block.(pathetic attempt at humor, I know, I know) A classmate told me he was confused over 3 topics which to blog upon. Dil pe saanp rapatna took a whole new meaning.

Anyways since kuch bhi likh de yaar is the common refrain and to prevent the demise of this blog I have smartly (as always, applause) come with a review.

After ages (almost 2 months) and without a hutch offer I went to see a movie. Chak de India.Now I have seen quite a bit of “different” movies lately, but it has been some time when I have enjoyed a movie from beginning to end, laughing, applauding the characters.

There was no Amitabh Bachchan’s baritone, John “Abs”raham looks, no running around trees…to top it all it was a SRK movie, whose affiliation with Chopra khandaan has resulted in sappy outcomes at the best.

Loosely based on Mir Negi’s life, this would be SRK’s second best performance till date after Swades ka Mohan Bhargava, only because he slips into playing SRK in acouple of scenes. The girls are simply awesome. Whether is the hot headed sardarni, the jatni, the jharkhandis or the babe from Chandigarh. They slip into characters and make you want to root for their rag tag team. Go watch it and make it a hit.

I have always dealt with SRK movies with caution. DDLJ came when I was 12, it catered to all my school girl fantasies and I loved SRK. But then KKHH, K3G, KANK happened. Like their names, the movies were long winded, uninspiring, boringly sappy and mega hits. I soon crawled into the club “I avoid SRK movies esp if they have Yash associated with it”. Yes I belong to the club which pretends to have classy taste in cinema, dutifully watching the likes of Aapka Suroor for making fun purpose only. Yet few actors have taken the kind of risks with roles as SRK has or with the confidence SRK has. Whether it be at the beginning of his career or now. He is the only actor to steal Big B’s thunder, and that requires some taking. And to this day remains perhaps the only actor to switch from television success to movie stardom. No rumors of romps with heroines have touched him. If anything his claim of being the best has generated a storm. In a nation which doesn’t encourage either individualism or self esteem that was cardinal sin. And yet the man is Bollywood’s last superstar. I didn’t believe till I experienced the pin drop silence during the “sattar minute” speech.

There is moment in the movie where the girls attend a dinner in tri-coloured saris. As the hall erupted in applause, came the Australian babes in evening wear. I waited for even louder cheer, whistling or raunchy comments. It was a very vocal crowd I was watching with. None came. Today morning I was reading TOI which had an article about the CK-wearing, pasta-eating generation losing its Indianess. And yet I believe my generation is more Indian than any before it. We are the same stereotyped and fixed people our fathers were. The only difference, today we have choices they did not. I can only imagine with horror what it must have been to do your education aspiring for a sarkari job at the best. I can only imagine the long paperwork, the queues, the limits. I have the whole world waiting to embrace me. A sea of opportunities await me. I can test, I can experiment and I can choose. I am comfortable in a pair of trousers but I will not throw out my mothers sarees when I get them. No generation before me has been shaped by global event like I have been. So how can they judge? How can they compare? My generation has given a growth of 7-8%, it has the ability to challenge China, its moving ahead without the baggage of the past. All I can do is offer my condolences to the writers at part of being generation which was stifled and could not discover its potential.

Claiming to be the best is no longer a sin but a necessity.

2007-08-12T21:15:00.000+05:30

You were my sun, you were my earth
but you didn't know all the ways I loved you, no
So you took a chance, made other plans
But I betcha you didn't think that they would come crashing down, no

-Justin Timberlake, Cry me a river

no white flag

2007-07-18T02:07:00.000+05:30

And when we meet
As I'm sure we will
All that was then
Will be there still
I'll let it pass
And hold my tongue
And you will think
That I've moved on

Well I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door

-Dido, White Flag, Life for rent

Cry me a river

2007-06-29T17:25:00.000+05:30

I was watching Metro yesterday. No not the train but the movie. All our jodis have happy endings (literally for Nafisa-Dharmendra) except Shilpa-Shiney(ya that’s the spoiler,evil grin).

After everything that passes between the two, Shilpa goes back to her husband. And in between cursing Kaykay ‘s character(who is your normal male chauvinist pig) I said why? Why did she go back?

Why isn’t it easy to walk away from a relationship that’s abusive? And by abusive I do not mean physically abusive but emotionally or mentally abusive also.

Why do wives never make police complaints against husbands who treat beating them a sport? Because she is financially dependent on him? Because of children?

And yet I know a girl who was as independent, feministic and as its-my-life as they come. Her boyfriend in a fit of range punched her left eye. Here was this girl who was NOT married, did NOT have children, was financially independent and was no shrinking violet. He landed her in hospital. And what did she do? She went right back to him.

Physical violence leaves scars. Emotional violence is a league further. It chips away at you, your confidence, and your life one day at a time. Till you feel you aren’t good enough. And this guy before you, quietly mocking you is the best you will ever have. That he has done you a favor by being in your life. So you stick, clutch to what has brought more harm than happiness. Its better to take that punch in the face. At least it has better potential of self healing.

Is it possible to be addicted to someone? They say

baar baar duharaoge to pad jaati hai aadat
fir chahe ho khuda ya ho muhabbat

I know another girl who was what can be politely called a bombshell. And she was also intelligent. And she had a boyfriend who was cheating on her and made sure she cried every alternate day. She never left him.

I know of people who keep forgiving and forgetting.

What is that keeps these relationships which do not have the majburi of a child or money going?

Fear? Of never finding someone else? The hope that things will change? Because after sometime the guy says sorry?

They say you compromise in a relationship. But how much do you compromise? When do you know its not about you or your happiness but just a obsessive attempt to salvage the relation?

How much do you bend without breaking your back?

Can a sorry or show of repentance make up for physical hurt? Or for the permanent complex hurting words give?

The stupidest mistake in life is thinking the one who hurt you the most, won't hurt you again.

Please do not make that mistake again. You have the strength. Move on. Love is unconditional, relationships are not.

PS: I was getting fat at home over the past month hence lack of posts and to those who hate when I become serious on my blog, I promise something lighter next time.

2007-05-27T01:19:00.000+05:30

I have drawn regret from the truth of a thousand lies

-Linkin Park, Minutes to midnight

A mini guest post....

2007-05-26T14:57:00.000+05:30

This is a guest post from MT aka mentor,friend,cartoonist. I was asked to make an add on blog. But then blog is not a credit card!

This is excellent! I finally get to blog, without actually having to go through the trouble to create a gmail account...that's why I love Dhivya - she makes pivot tables and neat graphs, enthusiastically work thirteen hours to sell sbi cards, sweetly listen to my gyan and nonsense, and she's even loyally standing next to me while I blog to help me with spelling (despite the fact that you I ignored her recommendation that I should write in Word first to avert spelling mistakes!)

However, a I just realised, blogging requires one of the following:
(a) Quiet space without people telling you that you don't deserve your salarly just because they saw you bolgging for two seconds
(b) Something interesting to say.

At this point of time, I have neither... so much for my debut. Farewell, then, oh adoring audiance..I hand the mike back to Dhivya!

Love,
Nitya

:)

2007-05-24T21:51:00.000+05:30

The world didn’t stop turning. There were no Chinese drums. No war dances. He just came behind me and said Dhivya. I looked up and I knew. I was waiting for this day for weeks now. But perhaps part of me has waited for years. It had seemed just around the corner last January, yet fate had other plans in store for me. For a split second I thought about what would have happened had I not decided to make the choice I did. Would I have been married and with family? Or would I have been partying every night? But today it was worth the wait. Because no words can describe the happiness I felt. I could have snatched it from his hand. My first cheque. My first mehnat ki kamai.

Ab maan ki aankh ka operation, munni ki shaadi and papa ki dawai. ….naaah, shopping!!

Life in a metro

2007-05-23T11:33:00.000+05:30

7.00 am (alarm) Snooze dabao..snooze dabao…
(In half consciousness presses cancel instead)

7.30 am Yaar, 5 min hue nahi? (Checks alarm)

7.31 am (Eyes popping out one feet from face) oh !@#$%^& !

7.45 am (abolutions later, takes out iron and opens cupboard and dives into the mess)

7.50 am (retrieves shirt successfully, checks time) oh !@#$%^&*

7.55 am (runs towards mess)

7.56 am “bhaiyya kuch khane ko do”
“ maam 5 min ruko”
“nahin hai 5 min”
“bread hai, chalega?”
“ haan haan de do”

7.59 am (cutting the figure of dignified feminine beauty with mouth full of bread and jam and gulping down tea, classmate saunters in)
“office?”
“ nah Ms World pageant”
(classmate looks at food all over chin and on shirt)” ohk all the best!”

8.03 am (running towards bus stop, 186 passes when at gate) “oh !@#$%^&”

8.04 am at bus stop

8.10 am at bus stop

8.15 am at bus stop

8.20 am at bus stop

8.25 am next bus.(hops in)

8.30 am sweaty aunty sits down next to D_grail, rubs sweaty arms on D_grail’s arms, cringe… cringe…

8.40 am (aunty starts of in marathi) “ nako dako blah blah andheri?”
“ marathi nahi malum”
(least interested in that information)” kuthe blah blah blah”
“pata nahi”

8.50 am staring at co passenger’s hair

8.55 am staring at co passenger’s hair

9.00 am staring at co passenger’s hair

9.05 am (Andheri station) ( dangerous action sequence..bullet time…D_grail surrounded by honking buses and angry autos, but smoothly jumps out of all danger. Mass of humanity runs out at her from station. D_grail takes out her weapon, her elbows and clobbers her way in)

9.10 am in 9 dabbo wali slow local to churchgate

9.15 am in 9 dabbo wali slow local to churchgate

9.20 am in 9 dabbo wali slow local to churchgate

9.25 am in 9 dabbo wali slow local to churchgate

9.30 am (dadar/elphinstine road) (shove push elbow way out of local, further shove push elbow way to office)

9.38 am (office) Telecaller “ maam crib crib crib”
Doc boy manager "maam crib crib crib”
Verifier “maam crib crib crib”
Data entry operator “ maam crib crib crib”

10.38 am Telecaller “ maam crib crib crib
Doc boy manager "maam crib crib crib”
Verifier “maam crib crib crib”
Data entry operator “ maam crib crib crib”

11.38 am Telecaller “ maam crib crib crib
Doc boy manager "maam crib crib crib”
Verifier “maam crib crib crib”
Data entry operator “ maam crib crib crib”

12.38 pm Telecaller “ maam crib crib crib
Doc boy manager "maam crib crib crib”
Verifier “maam crib crib crib”
Data entry operator “ maam crib crib crib”

1.00 pm (mentor, friend, cartoonist) “lunch?”

1.10 pm (shady eating joint)”kya khana hai?”
“kuch bhi order kar de”

1.15 pm waiting for lunch

1.20 pm waiting for lunch

1.25 pm waiting for lunch

1.30 pm waiting for lunch

1.35 pm waiting for lunch

1.40 pm eating tasteless preparation

1.45 pm eating tasteless preparation

1.50 pm “bill please”

1.52 pm (looking at bill) “what the #$%^&^, this is expensive!”

2.00 pm (office) Telecaller “ maam crib crib crib”
Doc boy manager "maam crib crib crib”
Verifier “maam crib crib crib”
Data entry operator “ maam crib crib crib”

3.00 pm Telecaller “ maam crib crib crib"
Doc boy manager "maam crib crib crib”
Verifier “maam crib crib crib”
Data entry operator “ maam crib crib crib”

4.00 pm Telecaller “ maam crib crib crib"
Doc boy manager "maam crib crib crib”
Verifier “maam crib crib crib”
Data entry operator “ maam crib crib crib”

5.00 pm Telecaller “ maam crib crib crib"
Doc boy manager "maam crib crib crib”
Verifier “maam crib crib crib”
Data entry operator “ maam crib crib crib”

6.00 pm Telecaller “ maam crib crib crib"
Doc boy manager "maam crib crib crib”
Verifier “maam crib crib crib”
Data entry operator “ maam crib crib crib”

7.00 pm “yaar jaldi karo”

8.00 pm “yaar aur kitna bacha hai”

8.30 pm (dadar/ elphinstine station) (shove push elbow way into local)

8.31 pm “yeh Andheri slow hai ya Borivili?”
“Borivili”
“ oh !@#$%^&”

8.41 pm in 9 dabbo wali slow local to borivili

8.51 pm in 9 dabbo wali slow local to borivili

9.01 pm (Andheri) (shove push elbow way out of local)

9.05 pm (pushing, shoving, elbowing at station)

9.08 pm out of station sees a queue of people at bus stop, stands at the end

9.15 pm at bus stop

9.20 pm at bus stop

9.25 pm at bus stop

9.30 pm “what the !@#$%^” (walks towards auto and gets in. auto starts. Glances out. 186 rolls into bus stop) “what the !@#$%^&*”

9.40 pm in auto and traffic

9.45 pm in auto and traffic

9.50 pm in auto and traffic

9.55 pm in auto and traffic

10.00 pm in auto and traffic

10.05 pm in auto and traffic

10.10 pm NITIE

10.12 pm room

10.15 pm(calls guide) “ I did blah blah blah today”
“ theekh hai…continue tomorrow also”

10.20 pm (dinner)

11.00 pm (bath)

11.30 pm (listens to loud tacky songs and checks mail…okay okay gtalks and orkuts)

12.05 am (eyelids start drooping)

12.10 am (falls onto keyboard asleep)

12.12 am (shifts to bed, throws whatever on bed to floor, and climbs in)

12.13 am (snoring)

Life nahi hai laddoo

2007-04-29T12:19:00.000+05:30

After innumerable requests (total=3) I decided to post something. I could no longer stand the naarebaazi, jathebaazi and the hunger strikes, no actually I saw the date on the last post and decided its time to prevent the 3 people to stop checking as well.

Well what has made the one of the most vela person on earth almost abandon her virtual personality.

Summers. This is what 2 months of interning in a company is called in MBA land. Genius did I hear you say about the person thinking up that name? We have winters as well.

At the starting of the week
At summit talks you'll hear them speak
It's only Monday
Negotiations breaking down
See those leaders start to frown
It's sword and gun day

So after 23 years, 3 months 21 days of muft ki roti todna I officially entered a work place.
For those who aren’t obsessed and don’t follow my life meticulously am a sales intern at GE money. No Chinese drums, war dance greeted me on day 1. The guard stopped me and said “sar is busy”. Finally sar aka my guide appeared. After initial niceties he told me about my project and asked me to familiarize with the telecalling process.

So off I went thinking how I would “understand” the process sipping coffee in an air conditioned room. An auto+train+bus ride later I was handed over a telephone, a list of names and asked to make 25 applications by Saturday. And there was no AC.

You remember the last time you politely asked a telecaller to #$%^ off and leave you in peace or do you remember the time you timepassed by asking about all the features of the product over and over again and then in the end with sadistic pleasure replied oh-but-am-not-interested. Well I was that telecaller.

Now what a internship teaches you is life skills not job skills. For example what I learnt in week 1 wasn’t the fancy models I made on excel but

Never board Borivili slow/fast at peak hours. You will never manage to get off at Andheri. If you try really hard you may be forced to leave your left hand and your purse behind.
Real life bull whip effect: you leave 5 minutes late from your room. You miss your regular bus. Next one comes after 15 minutes. The queue at station increases by 10 times. You end up boarding the train after the train after your regular train. You end up 45 minutes late.
There is a concept of shared taxis to get around Nariman Point.
Maker chambers which house Reliance are spread over 5 mammoth buildings and don’t let anyone fool you that Raheja chambers are right behind that. You gotta walk around it, no jumping fences.

You could be sitting taking lunch
The news will hit you like a punch
It's only Tuesday

Week 2 I moved onto managerial work. Yes sipping coffee in AC rooms.
I am doing it with a management trainee from XLRI.

MT: do a VLookup.
At that time we were waiting for a printout.
D_grail: ya, I don’t see any printout. I think the printer’s not working.
MT : I ll check that out. You do the VLookup.
D_grail: But I just looked.
MT : VLookup on Excel.
D_grail: of course.

Bring me the drillers, excavators to help earth swallow me up!

MT: make a pivot table.
D_grail: sure (grinning)

(MT leaves. D_grail ashen. Presses F1 maniacally.)

Guide and D_grail sitting together.
Guide: so how do find working for GE?
D_grail: good.
Guide : how do you find sales?
D_grail:good.
Guide: blah blah blah?
D_grail:good.
Guide: blah blah?
D_grail:good.
Guide: what do you want in life?
D_grail:(silence accentuated by stupid grin fixated on face)

You never thought we'd go to war
After all the things we saw
It's April Fools' day

Week 3. implementation. Phase 1.
D_grail storms into new office.
D_grail(thinking): move over. Am gonna make this system optimize. Am goona do in a week what your incompetence would let you do in all these months.
D_grail(saying): Can I use that computer? I need net access. Also please unlock it.

You hear a whistling overhead
Are you alive or are you dead?
It's only Thursday
You feel a shaking on the ground
A billion candles burn around
Is it your birthday?

Week 4 commences from tomorrow. Truth be told I enjoy what I m doing even though I leave for office at 7.30 and come back at 9.30. I don’t sit around sipping coffee in an Ac room looking at excel. I go to the craziest of locations and I know the entire Mumbai local layout by heart now. Sales as I have been repeatedly told these past 3 weeks and I have found true with each passing day isn’t about sweet talking your way, about Porter’s five forces, about Kotler and waterfall models. Its plain common sense and managing people. Your people are your only assets. If they perform your numbers look good. They fib, they fake, and they take it easy your numbers take it easy too.

Next week I work alone for a couple of days. F1 key is gonna have a busy time.

The race

2007-04-29T11:03:00.000+05:30

Aakhir zindagi ki daud main bhaag ke jaana kahan hai..

Agar yahin jeena hai to marna kya hai?

After 10 months in the city these 3 weeks have shown me the real Mumbai. It’s a mad world where people just hurry by furiously. When you walk toward a station a sea of people would be coming at you. Their expressions passive. Their eyes seeing some space far beyond you. You are invisible. Over the weeks I have found my pace increasing to that manic level, to catch the next train, the next bus. Because if I wait I ll miss that bus and I will have to wait. Wait. Am too busy to wait in this endless race.

As I leave home for the day at 7.30 am. I travel for an hour and half. Often by all 3 means available to me. Auto. Train. Bus. On the same day. I reach my destination where I plonk myself before a computer. The phone an extension of my ears.
I eat greasy hotel food and pay in 3 digits for it everyday.
I leave work at 8pm. Do the train+bus routine again.

People shove and push you in the hurry. But am learning. Yesterday I shoved an old man walking ahead of me. He was slowing me down. I would have missed my bus. Immediately as I pushed ahead of him our eyes met and a pang of guilt surged through. But there was no time for guilt. I had to hurry.

I reach home at 9.30. home. My empty room in a comparatively empty hostel . I mix myself a Tang and check my mail. Dad calls me prompt on time. But am too tired to reply to his queries of how my day went. He wants to know how his only offspring is coping with work. But I get irritated. It was ok I snap. Am tired I say before I hang up.

I drag myself to the mess. Where I don’t feel or pay attention to what I eat. I listen to some music and fall asleep. The next day breaks too soon.

6 days. Week after week.

People who said life’s about the journey and not the destination can take a hike. Time to smell the flowers. I only smell the sweat of my co passengers.
I love my work. I get up without any alarm. I think about what I will do the next day.
I do not realize the existence of Sundays.

Yet as I sit in the window seat and see the buildings fly past, I wonder if my life is too?

har module main wahi haal

2007-03-29T02:46:00.000+05:30

sigh!

2007-03-23T02:10:00.000+05:30

I hate you...and then I love you...it's like I want to throw you off a cliff....then rush to the bottom to catch you

when killer battles compete with killer abs

2007-03-20T03:33:00.001+05:30

I am writing a review after some time..infact to put it more accurately am writing after some time. Movies are of two types-cerebral ones which make you think and wonder and spectacles which have exaggerated emotions and are full Dolby sound Eastman color. The former has the same effect whether seen on 80mm or 15 inch computer screen. But the latter..well those are the movies. There is a third category which you watch if you want to kill time, enjoy the AC in the hall, hang out etc. That category is also called Karan Johar-Aditya Chopra school of film-making.

Anyway coming to the movie in question I first saw a trailer some time in January and have been hooked since. So when it released on Friday it was impatience to see it that stopped the miser in me from availing Hutch Tuesdays ek pe ek free. And we wanted it to be a spectacle. We wanted IMAX dome. Except dome was playing HappyFeet. (Yeah huh moment). So we jus settled for normal adlabs-the-seat-don’t-move-back experience. This after 1 hour of bus ride and neon lights flashing taxi ride. Also there are actually people who greet each other with “whoa wassup dooood”. The guy behind me did, but then he had an accent and a gal in pink top with 100% sexy written on it. Please am not bitching just that in my blue oversized t-shirt it was country-meets-NYC feeling.

Now back to the movie. If you are a CGI fan, action movie buff, violence craving pervert, a girl or a gay you are absolutely gonna love this one. You have so many special effects your eyes will pop out. The director has even placed the blood drops to precision its claimed. Action is aplenty with enough bullet time sequences to make anyone happy. Heads roll, limbs fall, spears go through bodies and the sand turns bronze. Yeah an I don’t think I have seen so many 6 pack abs ever.

Spartan King Leonidas and 300 Spartans fight to the last man against Persian King Xerxes and his army of more than one million soldiers. The sacrifice of the Spartans inspires all of Greece to unite against the Persian invaders. In Sparta, Queen Gorgo attempts to rally support for her husband. The story is framed by a voice-over narrative by the Spartan soldier Dilios .

The soundtrack is as the doods put it awesome. And each frame is filled with CGI beauty. Its almost overawing in its cinematography that you actually go wow although Gerard Butler is mouthing tonight we dine in hell or Lena Headey tells the Persian envoy that only Spartan women produce real men.

Some criticism has been leveled at the movie for its supposedly inane portrait of the Persians and it is banned in Arab countries. It would have been banned anyways with a R rating. Moreover it’s the Spartans story so they as well be the heroes. So what if Xerxes is reduced to modeling the latest jewellery by Allukas.

Over and all it lived upto its expectations. Do not watch a pirated edition on your comp. it will kill the movie. You may as well watch Mithunda ‘s latest. It’s a paisa vasool even at IMAX.

And yes if you are in Mumbai avoid a restaurant called Great Punjab. If you are option less avoid the butter chicken there. It’s a totally north Indian themed place. People are even trained to check you out when you enter.

my visual DNA

2007-03-15T01:22:00.000+05:30

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Where are we heading for Mr. Navigator?

2007-02-28T19:25:00.000+05:30

So no one told you life was gonna be this way

Right now am clutching my right ankle and shots of pain are streaming up my knee.

Flashback

Couple of hours ago. Placement brochure profile shoot. Nice clothes( not the omnipresent ICICI Lombard/Prerana/Confluence t-shirts which apart from being free are 2 sizes too big.). Preening. Supermodel confidence. Slanted steps. Uncomfortable heels. Attempt at being cool. Audience of around 30. Ankle twists. Flying. Landing. Damage control- impossible.

People may have moved on but I on the other hand can’t move at all.

Ha-ha-i-fell-down post ends here. Welcome to cribberia. If your problems arent enough for you or if your the sadist types who goes-dekh dekh uska bhi kat raha hai then please proceed, otherwise..top right, red cross, click.

Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O.A.

To be embarrassed about my marks was a new and strange feeling. Now it feels at home.

Being broke was accepted as part of lifestyle in engineering. Hand to mouth existence took on a whole new meaning. One weekend out in Mumbai and it takes the phrase to the next level. Dad now if only like all good mallus you had gone to gelf. You could have had millions of riyadh and another family stashed away by now.

Long distance relationships. Its difficult conversation when two people talk at the same time. Its tougher when the conversation is on the phone. Virtual hugs are as snuggly and cuddly as the steel toaster.

It's like you're always stuck in second gear

Yes sometimes I feel retarded. The rise of the share market and release of a new IPO doesn’t send my blood rushing. The dollars saved by improving operation efficiency of a plant at Timbuktu doesn’t send my adrenaline pumping. Am I normal?

You're still in bed at ten and work began at eight

And yeah no one put a proxy for you.

Your mama warned you there'd be days like these
But she didn't tell you when the world has brought you down to your knees
When it hasn't been your day, your week, your month, or even your year

Although engineering taught me that usually you would have only your pillow and winamp to share your misery an MBA teaches you how hopelessness feels. How to walk through life with a stupid smile on your face when all you feel is confusion at where you are going. To fake a confidence you don’t feel. To let your tongue cover for your brain.

A year ago it seemed life couldn’t have blessed me more. Today I doubt the choices I made. From idealist supreme to total moral corruption, I traveled the distance in 4 years but today am in a limbo. Faith has stopped answering my questions. An arrow without purpose I know can only cause collateral damage.How long can you walk direction less? How long can you work on something that barely holds your interest?Who should you trust and why? Should you compromise on your beliefs? Should you say yes to temptation? Should you take a chance heavily loaded against you?

Does everyone go through these? Does everyone feel these things?
Is it possible to go from ecstatic euphoria to depths of despair?

Misery is bearable. Emptiness of soul is not.

PS: even Blogger has put an end to my resistance to Blogger Beta by simply refusing me to sign in till I move. Sigh!

2007-02-14T13:19:00.000+05:30

happy valentines day!

I love this song because it reminds me of my one of my school time crushes. You know where you keep looking furtively and try to find a seat next to that person…The bullet-time sequence where the girl passes the boy and the apples (strategic? Why not oranges?) fall..such a moment came to pass with yours truly. Mr. centre-of-universe was standing with a bunch of friends, noticing which I strutted my best imitation of a cat walk. However a Naomi Campbell happened and at that apples falling moment my heel twisted. Now there was this instant reaction to recover and pretend nothing happened. But my heel stuck at that twisted angle and got caught. Finally I had to sit and open my sandal with my well…hands. Not really an ending the videos suggest. The disgrace..well I rather not talk about it. Obviously since Din wich teri yaad satave, the boy couldn’t live with this yaad, not to mention the cracklng laughter that erupted from his buddies soon after. And mainu raatanu neend na aayi imagining the embarrassment. That was the end to that.

2007-02-03T09:51:00.000+05:30

I am tired, beloved,
of chafing my heart against
the want of you;
of squeezing it into little inkdrops,
And posting it.

~Amy Lowell, "The Letter"

2007-01-30T15:26:00.000+05:30

Do you have an MBA?

yeah, i am an MBA in the making

2007-01-30T15:16:00.001+05:30

I know I have not made any real posts for sometime. I also know there have been no complaints about it and no naarebaazi, jatha nikaalna asking about my health and whereabouts. All three of my readers have happily surfed themselves away from d_grailed. But seriously I have nothing to write and no inspiration either. The likes of Shakespeare would call it a writer’s block, other serious bloggers may call it good riddance, I call it I-will-do-this-tomorrow. I wanted to write a spell binding entry-hilarious enough to bring tears into your eyes or sentimental enough to bring tears into your eyes (see how smartly I avoided tears of frustration).

You know I can say I have been super busy, MBA and all that. But that is partly true. I have been busy thinking up statements like:

It's our responsibility to quickly leverage other's mission-critical sources so that we may endeavor to synergistically disseminate competitive technology to set us apart from the competition.

It’s this kind of tough work of sentence making with words I don’t comprehend that will one day help me earn my millions. This is what they call value addition. People around me are value adding like no tomorrow, solving case after case, going for certification after certification. (Oh yeah the grapes are sour, what else!) I am trying but really I do not think any HR is going to glance beyond that 6 point GPA.

Also my new resolution was to be healthy. Now the half egg biryani served its pupose in Cochin. I weighed like a pre-pubescent schoolgirl and for the first time in my life I jumped around in low-rise jeans. Then I came to NITIE. And after four years of Ethopia I saw food. People complain about the mess food but believe me after 4 years of skull-cracking idlis I was ready for anything. There are 3 types of people in the world

cribbers ( Oh my gawd, I cant eat that)
whatever( theekh hai…khana hi to hai)
black holes ( potential to consume cribbers and whatvers)

I belong to category 3. So gloriously I feasted till my zipper sighed and gave away one afternoon. I peeked into the mirror. It seemed ok( my reflection that is). Ok my cheeks had puffed up a little. That was the chocolate last night. I rambled to the cupboard and took out trousers pair no 2. It never reached the waist. A small alarm bell went off some where. But the third pair groaned and buttoned itself so off I went. Ek aur gulab jamun please.

This new year I was faced with the following options

Go around looking like I tried wearing my 6 year old niece’s t-shirt
Massive wardrobe switch to salwar kameezes, with their it-can-stretch-as-you-get-fatter naadas.
Diet control.
Exercise.

I saw myself no less than the blonde bombshell from “flab to fab in 7 days”.

1 Day later : 1 round of jogging .Huff-puff. Ok 1 round is enough, am just building my stamina.
1 Week later: 1 round of jogging. Huff-puff. Ok 1 round is enough, am just building my stamina.
1 month later: 1 round of jogging. Huff-puff. Ok 1 round is enough, am just building my stamina.

Those salwars have started looking pretty good.

So basically that’s more or less what I have to say. Am totally out of ideas. Shilpa Shetty’s tears, or SEZ fears, nothing inspires me. I almost wish some one tags me.

So till I write next.

PS: 1. for all Mani Ratnam disclaimers it seems Guru’s script was available here. Never the less Chota AB scowled to my hearts content.

2. I had registered for Mumbai Marathon and my application was rejected due to the overwhelming response. Thank God. 7 kms? Are you kidding?

maska maar ke!

2007-01-22T16:35:00.000+05:30

Amul ads have always been a personal favorite. They are clever but not smart alecky, funny and not slapsticky, don't have the omnipresent Big B/ Chota B, Shahrukh or Sachin endorse it yet has a host of celebrities featuring in it. The star of the show has always been the lil girl and the butter. I remember the billboard near Thevara, Cochin which features Amul ads. New ads would come every Sunday and would be utterly butterly delicious. So when a classmate shared this on IP, I had to share it with you.

Akshardham, Delhi

2007-01-08T18:03:00.000+05:30

On her 23rd birthday, my bachpan ka dost Vibhuti packed us all in her car and took us to Akshardham. We were supposed to drop our greetings to the good Lord above and then what else party. Palak and I actually skipped our breakfast to fully enjoy our lunch. We entered the temple at 1 pm..we came out at 5.30! Obviously me and Palak were rather disturbed while shooting our arrow prayers by certain rumblings in the tummy region.
So on a day you are particularly feeling pious, this is the place to go. Architecture is spellbinding and they have 3 bhavans( Sahajanand Pradarshan,Nilkanth Kalyan Yatra, Sanskruti Vihar) to visit which will take 2.45 hours according to the ticket, and in reality much more. The rush is seen to be believed. They also do not allow cameras, cellphones or handbags even. Here are some pics I found on the net.

there are 181 cow faces each representing a name of Vishnu

For more check what Wiki says here.

bas ek pal aur

2006-12-16T01:25:00.000+05:30

Bas ek pal mein

Tu ek baar jo pyaar se mujhsko chuley tho har zakhm bhar jayegaa,

Zara iltizaa suun ke dewaane dilki mujhe aapne dilse lagaa...

Tere pyaar mein aise jiyain hum,

Jala hain yeh dil....yeh ankhen hue Nam

Bas Ek Pal…

Hamare khayalo mein khwabon mein yaadon mein baaton mein rehte ho tum,

Badaake mein yeh haath chuna jo chahun to pal bar mein hote ho Gum.

Tere pyaar mein aise jiyain hum,

Jala hain yeh dil....yeh ankhen hue nam

Bas ek pal mein..

Sunaah hain mohabbath ki takdeer mein, likhein hain andherein ghanee,

tabi aaj shayad sitare sabi zara saahi roshan hue...

Mere haath ki in lakeeron mein likhe abhi aur kithne sitam,

Khafaa ho gayein hain kushi waqt sey ho rahein hain meherbaan gham,

Tere pyaar mein aise jiyain hum,

Jala hain yeh dil....yeh ankhen hue Nam

Bas Ek Pal.......

The movie was slow. But the concept has remained with me. A moment of madness which changes the lives of those involved not to mention the ripple effect it creates. The director could have made the most haunting movie of them all but some how loses out.
Can one meeting be enough to sustain a man through all that Nikhil Kapoor(Suri) goes through, ending up as a stalker almost. Too many loose endings, but the music is absolutely fanatastic. Tere bin evokes a strange melancholy and now am fixated on the title song. My Real player is crying out in protest on playing this playlist of one for past 72 hours.

I have my mod end exams from Monday. After the last minute jugaads last module, I had sworn on my remaining hair that next module would see a new me, organised, non-procastinating, up-to-date with the days work. Obviously kutte ki poonch kabhi seedhi nai hoti. Even at this last minute my complacency is seen to be believed. Day before I sat and saw Jaaneman( gaaawd!), Final Destination3(better than FD-2 ..but seriously the writers actually get paid to think of the most macabre, blood spouting, crushing, horrific death an individual can have...but then they seem amaetuerish in front of the people who write scripts for the SAW series...no other movie can get your dinner out faster..) and then Bas ek pal while my classmates were doing their best to push up the GPA and inch closer to the dream job. Even now solutions are being multi-ed for Monday's paper am busy blogging..

Tomorrow I ll ask God to bail me out one last time and tear my thinning hair once again...I have also developed new found respect for five point someone. The time I spent typing this meant I probably just lost P&G and HLL.

I couldn't take my eyes off him...

2006-12-03T11:07:00.000+05:30

...to realise
1. the loopholes
2.the farji ending
3. there were other actors who also looked good
4. it was a movie

Hrithik is Hot!!( its all in the H dear, refer to the post below!)

its silent"H"

2006-12-02T00:08:00.000+05:30

What's in a name, the Bard said some centuries ago. Ask Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam or Vangipurappu Venkata Sai Laxman. And tHen tHere are otHers like DHivya Kumar. My parents couldn’t Have come up witH a more generic name witH cHameleon like properties. It’s a name tHat gives little away. THe sex of tHe person, wHere He comes from, notHing. You can venture guesses yes.

Kumar DHivya Mr….I was staring at tHe e-ticket wHile furiously dialing Jet Airways number.
WHen DJ told me about tHe mistake I tHink He expected me to sHriek curse n generally beHave in my normal Hysterical manner but I just nodded and sat down. I didn’t tell Him about tHe letter in my drawer

Dear Mr Kumar
Congratulations! You Have been selected for tHe PGDIM course in NITIE….

HumpH!
WHen my parents named me, tHey tHougHt Divya was an uncommon name. In Nursery I Had 4 otHer Divyas in my class. THat combined witH tHe soutH Indian H factor resulted into it morpHing into DHivya. ScHool was easy. I was called Kumar, everyone including my best friends tHougHt I came from
a)Rai Barreily, UP or
b) BettiaH, BiHar.
Till my mom walked into class, wHite flowers and sandalwood bindi intact. Perceptions cHanged overnigHt. Suddenly everyone realised I did pronounce bHaiyya as baiyya. THis was before ArundHati Roy made mallus exotic and JoHn AbraHam proved not all of tHem are dark, pot bellied and mustacHed. So tHere I was quickly relegated as a Madrasi and all madrasis were from surprise….madras of course.
ScHool life passed juggling between identities of
DHivya Kumar
Divya Kumar
Divya Kumari

College meant returning to my roots. I tHougHt Here in tHe land of anitHas, sunitHas and deeptHis I ll be safe. But Here tHe Kumar meant tHat I came from
a)Rai Barreily, UP or
b) BettiaH, BiHar
till I would open my moutH and string a broken sentence in Malayalam.
“OH wHen did you learn Malayalam? Its so difficult for nortH Indians.” SHopkeeper cHetta will venture patronizingly.
“CHerepattille”(in my cHildHood) I would reply.
So tHere my name would be in between Devender Kumar and Deepak Kumar. Attendance time meant tHe teacHer furiously scanning tHe boys’ row wHile I waved myself silly from tHe corner I usually sat in.

So How did a Malayalee end up witH sucH a name instead of sometHing like S. Parukutty or S.Babymol?
Long long ago my Dad went to fill a form at St.THomas’ Girls ScHool, New DelHi. Dutifully He entered my name as DHivya SuresH Kumar. THe receptionist or wHoever decided tHe SuresH wasn’t really tHat important and dropped it. My dad didn’t cHeck it till mucH later. And Dad being Dad didn’t feel a girl sHould mind sucH a name.

And tHe H? well its tHere to align all tHe planets in my favor and give me super duper success in life. A week ago I sat in an auto witH 2 classmates clutcHing a printout of tHe e-ticket bearing Kumar DHivya MR.
THe fligHt was at 0540 Hrs
0430 auto leaves NITIE campus
0445 tHe left tyre Has a puncture
0500 reacH CHatrapati sHivaji airport, realize fligHt leaves from domestic airport
0505 auto atopped by policeman
0510 autowallaH still negotiating for Hafta
0515 auto rolls into petrol pump
0525 airport
0535 lady at counter looks for Mr DHivya Kumar.

So mucH for planets aligning tHemselves!

All H’s are in caps to make this a record breaking post!

positioning statement

2006-11-18T02:32:00.000+05:30

on local to dadar an ad which caught Saumya and my eye...

Dont suicide (picture of couple hanging by noose)
For dangerous love marriages (couple garlanding each other)
contact Advocate blah blah
Mumbai high court

segment, target, position said Kotler.

mehfuz

2006-11-11T14:56:00.000+05:30

Zindagi hai dhuan to kya
Bujh gayi har subah to kya
Rootha mujhse khuda to kya
Ho gaye hum juda to kya
Faasle they hazaaron darmiyan,
Waqt ke they hazaaron imtehaan
Fir bhi ban ke nishaan,
Tere honthon ke kisi kone mein,
Hansi ke tarah, main mehfuz hoon
Teri aankhon ke chipe dard mein
Aansoo ki tarah, main mehfuz hoon
Bewajah har wajah to kya
Begunahii hai gunaah to kya
Beasar hai dua to kya
Ho gaye hum juda to kya
Raaz gehre hazaron bepanah
Lafz thahare hazaaron bejubaan
Fir bhi ban ke nishaan
Tere honthe ke kisi kone mein
Hansi ki tarah, main mehfuz hoon
Tere gesu ke ude pannon mein
Yaadon ki tarah, main mehfuz hoon
Teri aankhon mein
Mehfuz hoon
Teri yaadon mein
Mehfuz hoon
Teri baaton mein
Mehfuz hoon
Tere baalon mein
Mehfuz hoon
Faasle the hazaron darmiyaan
Waqt ki thi hazaron aandhiyan
Fir bhi ban ke nishaan
Tere honthon ke kisi kone mein
Hansi ke tarah, main mehfuz hoon
Tere kaandhe ke chipe til mein
Vaadon ki tarah, main mehfuz hoon

- Lyrics for "Mehfuz" from "Mehfuz (Euphoria)"

What I consider their best work so far....

inspired solutions

2006-11-07T19:02:00.000+05:30

I wanted to write a funny post, or at least what I think is funny. But today is the morning after. Yesterday Prerana got over. And today there seems to be a sudden void in life. Not that I was exactly atlas like carrying the world on my shoulders types, I was more of the lets-just-outsource this types. Yet since landing in NITIE and being part of the PMG (Prerana Managemnt group, that by the way is the self important name we call ourselves) Prerana was always on mind. It gave me an opportunity to meet a bunch of seniors who were hard working, interesting and fun. I remember my committee interviews. How the 8 of them had sat expressionless while I tried to sell a ball point pen “having jet flow with German technology’. It was hard to imagine they could ever twist their face into a smile. It also brought me in contact with 9 of my batch mates each with a personality so different and strong I wondered how we would ever work as a team. And yet things worked and it was the biggest Prerana NITIE has seen. Which in turn has set the benchmark for the ten of us rather clearly.

I do not want to write we had ten events and fabulous prize money and a fantastic jury and …..coz am doing that anyways, I’ll just write about things that stuck to my mind.

Day 1:

The Mumbai Masterplan presentation Prasit and I made. The song has stuck to my mind and so has one the images. The Indian Express which had sponsored the event had put up giant photographs around the venue. One of them had Gateway of India daylight murder of the Manipuri girl.. The description following it read that no one came forward to help, yet someone had the time to click pictures. Shredding some one of their last bit of dignity. Yes a mindblowing picture. Wonder how someone felt opening their newspaper and seeing that the morning after. I felt to be that helpless friend would have been the nearest to hell one could be. Journalism of courage indeed.

The masterplan contest got over and the winners were from NMIMS. The newspapers rushed to get sound bytes from the IIM-A team. They had finished at the fourth position. Out of four teams.

Srijan marketing case study. I have never seen so much quality at one go.

MahadevBhai performance by Working Title. Honest confession I had thought the idea sucked. I mean after a tiring day why would I want to watch some gandhigiri. It was the first play I have ever watched ( I come from a very culturally, intellectually inclined background. We get The Hindustan Times and occasionally India Today and watch Surya TV regularly.) and I loved it. Could a single artist be so talented to hold on a captivating monologue for 2 hours and then make the audience go back and think about it?

Day 2:

I woke with a bloody red eye which watered continuously. I sat through one tedious presentation after another. The Chief HRD of ONGC subjected to quite some goof ups gave me the only tickle the entire afternoon when commenting on the low salaries prevalent in the public sector commented “if you pay peanuts, monkeys are all you will get”.

The much anticipated yet uncertainty ridden Euphoria show took off in the evening. Thanks to PMG got ring side view. Observations:

Palash Sen is very, very fair.

They did not do a cover of sweet child o mine.

Quote:

“yeh professional colleges main bus males or non males hi kyun hoti hain” Palash Sen after knowing the pathetic ratio here. Boys applaud girls grit their teeth and clap with lesser enthusiasm.

Day 3:

Final day. Heavy duty jury and some goof ups.

A corporate who registered for PBQ giving Devendra and me an earful for keeping them waiting.
also

IIMA guy:register me
Us: it’s a team event
IIMAG: so?
Us: it’s a team of 2
IIMAG: so?
Us: you need to have a partner
IIMAG: why?

Attending a quiz after 4 years and feeling that familiar excitement building up only to go out with a similar sense of disappointment and shame when I got 0/20 right.
A fantastic quiz with excellent teams.

Emotions:
8.30 –quiz..wow..this rocks!!
9.30-wow!
10.30-these guys are good!
11.30-how many rounds more?
12.30- how many rounds more?
1.30-@#$%^&

PMG party
Arya telling me…You dance well for some one who wears specs.
Me thinking…10 points for that observation. Alcohol really blurs vision.

Prerana 2006, the annual management fest of NITIE ends. So does some part of me.

reviews likhna mushkil hi nahin namumkin hai

2006-10-24T22:41:00.000+05:30

The clarifications:
1. I worship Amitabh Bachchan
2. I have seen the original Don( now that I need to clarify the versions) 3 times
3. I think his films CANNOT be remade
4. I think Shahrukh can only overact.
5. Priyanka as Zeenat, yeah right!
Now, keeping in mind the above mentioned points I love Don, the new one. Go watch it!!Total masala, total paisa vasool!
Don na dekhne walon ki sabse badi galti yeh hai ki woh na dekhne wale hai.

bitch

2006-10-21T04:01:00.000+05:30

I hate the world today
You're so good to me
I know but I can't change
tried to tell you but you look at me like maybe I'm an angel
underneath
innocent and sweet
Yesterday I cried
You must have been relieved to see the softer side
I can understand how you'd be so confused
I don't envy you
I'm a little bit of everything
all rolled into one

I'm a bitch, I'm a lover
I'm a child, I'm a mother
I'm a sinner, I'm a saint
I do not feel ashamed
I'm your health, I'm your dream
I'm nothing in between
You know you wouldn't want it any other way

So take me as I am
This may mean you'll have to be a stronger man
Rest assured that when I start to make you nervous
and I'm going to extremes
tomorrow I will change
and today won't mean a thing

Just when you think you've got me figured out
the season's already changing
I think it's cool you do what you do
and don't try to save me

I'm a bitch, I'm a tease
I'm a goddess on my knees
when you hurt, when you suffer
I'm your angel undercover
I've been numbed, I'm revived
can't say I'm not alive
You know I wouldn't want it any other way

-Meredith Brooks

raat ya subeh.....it depends......

2006-10-06T04:43:00.000+05:30

Its 4.35 am. Bryan Adams is asking me to do something amazing. And in an ideal world I would be under my blanket and fast asleep. But then......yeah you got the point that am currently not in one.

Am not a night creature. My brain shuts down at 12 come what may. That has become a problem here in a B-School were life begins at 6. pm that is.

So some random musings that are crossing my mind right now.

I wanna go home. I miss my mom. I miss sleeping next to her. Acually I miss the gossip session we have before I slip to yonderland. 4 years of engineering have never made me feel as cut off from them as these 3 months have. I wonder what they watch on TV these days. What did mum cook on dashmi? I never bothered asking. Has Dad bought the new shirt he had planned aeons ago or is he waiting for me to come back with my "good taste" in clothes?

I wanna be in Hyd with Deep and Manu before Manu leaves for Infy. I want to listen to that humor and leg pulling once again. Brandish my ignorance without shame. Go on an eating binge with Manu and look at all the stuff Deep must have bought with her salary.

I wanna be with TK and tell him I would never change into the monster he thinks I have become.

I wanna know what am doing, where am heading to. Am I finally doing what I want or am I farther than ever from what I want?

I wanna go out and make new friends and remove whatever stops me and makes me withdraw to my shell.

I wanna learn diplomacy and the ability to fake/take interest in other people's affairs as if my life depended on it. I wanna stop not caring, a legacy from CUSAT which refuses to go away.
Where's the people pleaser in me gone? Why have the 4 years made me so indifferent that I no longer care or even pretend to about another person's opinion.

I am scared about what's gonna happen in the mod exams. I am scared what it will do to my CV. I am scared of going through the GD-PI routine again.

I am obsessed with Prerana. I hope it goes well.

I want some chocolate right now. No, but I need to watch my weight or change my wardrobe.

I need to sleep. I have a marketing lecture at 9.
I should delete this entry. Chod, ki farak penda hai?

i wont stop the cheap publicity tactics

2006-09-26T20:30:00.000+05:30

Sorry for the prolonged absence.Your sanity may be missing me.
Went through hell last week when had to give up sleep(*silent tear rolling down cheek) and had to would you believe it-study!
Now i have seen rough days, days when i have needed to stay up till 12. But this was NEW. YOU finish collecting the material hours before the exam and then you skim through it the entire night and then feel so sleepy and disoriented in the exam that even 1+1 looks like a complex calculus based question and you end up writing Porter's five forces in the answer anyway. I know what i wrote wasnt even remotely funny. Happens when you spent your last week trying to balance the ledgers of Mssrs Ravi Kishen & Co and explain their strategies in a monopolistic market using average revenue,marginal revenue,total revenue and superordinate marginal substitutional revenue. (yes i made up the last one).
Slept through the weekend and now am sitting pretty with a temperature, a desktop with no wifi facility->no net, and loads of Prerana work.

Also reading freakonomics and have fallen in love with it.

You may not find me here for a month odd. But just in case you miss me that badly you can find me here.

2006-09-10T13:53:00.000+05:30

ankhon main jo bhar de andhera, tum aisi roshni se bachna

I know what I will do next summers

2006-09-06T17:19:00.000+05:30

takagism

2006-08-26T19:44:00.000+05:30

Got this a couple of days back. It'll obsess you, frustrate you and refuse to get out of your mind.
Do try takagism .

domain knowledge needed in business processes

2006-08-25T19:05:00.000+05:30

They have arrived. All my efforts to prove sixth sense and the power of will have failed. The summers have arrived. So there I was on a lazy Tuesday when as usual I had finished my daily dose of worrying and cribbing about acads, summers, PPOs , specialization and world peace and had immobilized myself into inaction I was told one of the companies I had applied was visiting the campus the very next day. So there I was cut off from the world, business or otherwise, unsure of what I wanted to do stuck with the prospect of competing with 100 odd the next day with no fore warning. That I didn’t have a mini breakdown then and there is one of the mysteries I’ll never unravel but I did run around and harass enough of my seniors.

The shortlist arrived and there it was ‘dicya kamat’ a cryptic reference to yours truly. So I took out my suit, shirt and a pair of shoes which I swear are 3 sizes smaller than my size. (gyaan: impossible to find size 6 shoes for females in Mumbai, and the size 5 are what I think equivalent to size 3). So I waited for my GD sweating at the possibility of being slapped with a WTO-SEZ type topic. Thankfully the HR read out “5 ways to curb terrorism”. I exhaled and started scribbling on my pad. But my joy lasted for exactly a minute. The moment the GD started it was a vegetable/fish/any other commodity market. All I could do was to watch my points being shouted out by other individuals and getting drowned by others in the panel. Finally I managed to shout down a couple of people and get in a word. The GD ended abruptly and I came out rather shaken.

In another mystery I was shortlisted and there I sat in front of the panel. It was a group interview and I was paired with an industrial engineering guy. The interviewees before me assured me it was a cakewalk and that the 3 words I need to use were ‘domain knowledge’ ‘growing pharma sector’ and ‘business process’. So I made a sentence using these three catch words and fired off. The HR nodded and said if I planned to learn all this in 8 weeks. On my nodding he informed me what I would probably learn in that time would be the location of the jugular vein of a rat. By this time I was turning an unhealthy shade of crimson. He proceeded to ask some academic questions on of all subjects, statistics!! By this time I was deep beetroot and wanted desperately to be outside the door. The final nail in coffin when the IE guy drew a graph to explain the confidence interval while I had beaten around the bush with test of hypothesis. So you would be opening your books the day before exams I guess, the HR smiled. My facial muscles had by then paralyzed into an oh-am-I-dumb-or-what expression. We were thanked (for the entertainment I guess) and left.

The final list was out today. No, there were no more miracles. And yes substantial increase in domain knowledge requires ASAP.

Slow dance

2006-08-16T22:12:00.000+05:30

Got this on IP, a rare sensible multicast.
Still remember the first time I read it. No I didn't bawl my lungs out, but was silent for a long time. A reality we don't wanna face that life will pass by while we plan and plot for tomorrow.

This poem was written by a terminally ill young girl in a New York Hospital. It was sent by a medical doctor

SLOW DANCE

Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You better slow down.
don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.
Do you run through each day
On the fly?
When you ask How are you?
Do you hear the reply?
When the day is done
Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?
You'd better slow down
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.
Ever told your child,
We'll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time
To call and say,"Hi"
You'd better slow down.
Don't dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won't last.
When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift....
Thrown away.
Life is not a race.
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over.

teen movies, ek post!

2006-08-16T08:59:00.000+05:30

A movie review to follow. Watched Chronicles of Riddick (henceforth COR) yesterday. Now I lurved Pitch Black(PB). So was expecting a brilliant sequel while common sense dictated otherwise.No sequel has ever lived upto expectations.COR is good if you haven't watched the prequel.COR is a Vin Diesal movie. Riddick is the star and unfortunately is the good boy,unlike the vacillating grey character he was in PB. Also PB wasn't centred on one character, the doomed group of survivors were the centre as well as the night beasties. The power of suggestion which is the most frightening is so effectly used in PB is now replaced by the human looking outlandishly clad Lord Marshal. Not to mention the usual suspects, a scheming woman, a wise old seer, a prophecy, a greedy general. All in all the usual Empire,Foundation type story. But then even Pb didnt have an extraordinary story just some real good direction which COR lacks. Sad...

Doled out 70 odd bucks for auto, 200 bucks for ticket, 45 bucks for this-n-that and watched Kabhie alvida na kehna. Seems KJo has grown up.Can no longer claim he has never been in a relationship. Sometimes a lil too real for comfort and some times stretched to infinity I wish I could strangle SRK's character. Unfortunately have seen so much of 'Dev' in some guys i know that its believeble for such bitterness to exist. Also understand how easily indebtness substitutes for love.But KJo sticks to his definition of dil main ghanti bajne wala pyaar.Sad.......

Family entertainer perhaps no......dunno if KJo can have an image change-over and rise in esteem in my i-luv-different-from-usual-movie eyes. If you can stand SRK being SRK and a lil unexplainable behavior on Rani's part and the Big B in a ridiculous red blazer i suggset you go for it!

PS:Just got this on our insti IP

Schumi and Raikkonen are in a desert.
Evening comes, they set up their tent.
Both go to sleep.
Schumi wakes up in the middle of the night.
Raikkonen isn't in the tent.
He can hear something coming from outside the tent.
Schumi peeps out and sees Raikkonen running around the tent like crazy, a big lion after him...
Schumi: Run faster, he's gonna catch you!

Raikkonen: Don'tworry, I lead by three laps...

tere bin.........

2006-08-09T00:35:00.000+05:30

tere bin besides you

sanu sohnia my love

koi hor nahio labhna i shan't find another

jo dave who'll give

ruh nu sakun peace to my soul

chukke jo nakhra mera and indulge me

ve main sare ghumm ke vekhia i have gone and seen it all

amrika , roos, malaysia america, russia, malaysiana

kittey vi koi fark si there wasn't any difference

har kise di koi shart si they all had some condition

koi mangda mera si sama some asked for my time

koi hunda surat te fida some were fascinated with my face

koi mangda meri si vafa some demanded my fidelity

na koi mangda merian bala none wanted my demons

tere bin besides you

hor na kise no one else

mangni merian bala wanted my demons

tere bin besides you

hor na kise no one else

karni dhup vich chhan shall shade me in the sun

jiven rukia (the) way you paused

si tun zara slightly

nahion bhulna i shan't forget

main sari umar all my life

jiven akhia si akhan chura you said, looking away

"rovenga sanu yad kar" "you shall weep in my memory"

hasia si main hasa ajeeb i laughed a strange laugh

(par) tu nahi si hasia but you didn't

dil vich tera jo raaz si you had a secret in your heart

mainu tu kyon ni dasia why didn't you tell me

tere bin besides you

sanu eh raz none shall tell this

kise hor nahion dasna secret to me

tere bin besides you

peerh da ilaaj what druid

kis vaid kolon labhna has the cure to my ills

milia si ajj mainu i found today

tera ik patra a note of yours

likhia si jis 'te on which you had scribbled

tun shayr varey shah da a varis shah couplet

park ke si osnu upon reading which

hanjnu ik duliya a teardrop fell

akhan 'ch band si what was locked in the eye

seh raaz ajj khulia was revealed today

ki tere bin that other than you

eh mere hanjnu these tears of mine

kise hor won't be kissed by

nahio chumna none else

ki tere bin that other than you

eh mere hanjhu these tears of mine

mitti vich rulnha will wither in the dust

Rabbi Shergill

Dear Friend

2006-08-06T13:16:00.000+05:30

Do you sometimes feel lonely in a crowd? Where you laugh and joke outwardly and cringe inwardly? Wonder if others can’t see through you? Want to find a rock and crawl under it? Today is friendship day, another blessing of our card culture…and brings to me the same feeling of shame and regret I have always harbored. Of friendships I have blown away, of relationships I didn’t care enough for, of feelings I just let whither away…

I have what people say sailed through life without ever finding a permanent harbor. I make friends and then lose them because of my indifference. I have no defense, no excuses, and no explanation for not returning calls, for not passing a smile or not making an effort. Just that sometimes I could not though I wanted to. It wasn’t a super sized ego because if you were my friend you would know I suffer from the lack of one than plenty, it wasn’t laziness which is a more genuine fault, it’s none of them, though I wish it were.

Just sincere requests don’t ever feel I used you or I didn’t care because you cross my mind more frequently than you can imagine. A song, a fragrance, a catch phrase, a road all brings back memories. My life would be much lesser if it weren’t for each and every person in it. I have looked and learned from you. The laughter of my life came from you. I competed against you and loved you no less. There have been times when I wasn’t there when you needed me, and there were times when you wished I just disappeared. When I didn’t say the right things or said things that caused pain. Moments when I sulked or let my tongue get the better of me. When I have behaved like a stubborn mule and refused to listen to sense or reason.

On this Archies and Hallmark created superficial celebration I just want to say a very genuine sorry for all the pain that I have caused. Am not a drifter or less of a human being, just attribute it to a quirk in nature or a fear of giving too much of myself to anything or anyone. Believe me I try.

Please forgive me.

first month at b-school..duh...

2006-08-01T22:25:00.000+05:30

At first I could not believe it. My blog wasn’t opening. I thought the LAN was troubling again. I restarted my comp, double clicked repeatedly on the ‘my network places’ icon, checked no one was looking and tugged at the LAN cable. Nothing worked. Checked my usual bloglist. Nothing. What did my poor nonsensical blog trying to find a little shelf space in the world of Bansals and Sabnises do? Is tap dancing on a reader’s sanity such a crime? Kaavya lives right then why can’t d_grail??

Anyways, to mouth a cliché- my first month in the b-school

I learnt

1. to make sentences using phrases like ‘strategic vision’ and ‘dynamic equilibrium’

2. to sleep while keeping my posture straight

3. not sleeping for couple of days isn’t fatal, but can bring your inherent dullness and stupidity to other people’s notice

4. it doesn’t make a difference if you attempt a test with or without preparation

5. life is full of PPTs and PPOs( avian excreta on your head by the overactive crows in NITIE)

Now the real stuff. Had mandi this Sunday. In this exercise we guys are supposed to sell these toys made by an NGO-navnirmiti. A detailed repo to bore you in my next post.

Till then check out our fest-Prerana and the online gaming event MastishK.

ummm..err...

2006-07-13T20:04:00.000+05:30

Got caught sleeping in class yesterday...it was embaressing to say the least and that too in the accounts class where everyone was fiercely debating on credit and debit. I dont remember the last engineering class I had listened to...I think it would have been one of VK's. Warna...

This was a Distributed computing class and I was on the second seat as usual...thankfully Pramod sir didnt believe in public humiliation. My eyelids fought gravity today and succeeded till the third hour. And for the first time I actually paid attention in the accounts class. Tomorrow-another day,another fight.

because now i know...

2006-07-13T00:57:00.000+05:30

On the 10th I laughed and got into the ladies compartment of the slow local towards Mulund. I wanted to sit with Tarun in the general compartment but he said it would be impossible to get down so I made a face and got into the ladies. The time was 6.30pm and we were at Churchgate. I passed Matunga station. Just the day before we had hurried back from Malad because the Shiv Sainiks were on a rampage at Dadar and Vikhroli. We passed the closed Inorbit mall and the relatively empty stations. But yesterday at the same time that I sat in a local and almost in the same stations that I had passed a couple of days ago 8 bombs shattered 190 lives. My first reaction, selfish though it was, was to thank God. Thank Him that it happened a day late. It was soon replaced by fear for Tarun’s safety as he had left for SantaCruz that day to catch a flight back home. The phone lines were jammed. As I sat in the common room pretending everything was fine my heart hammered wildly. Part of me was confident he must have left earlier; part of me was pushing away bad thoughts. I kept surfing for some kind of causality list. I spent a majority of my life in Delhi. One of my classmate had a bomb explosion in her family’s hotel in Paharganj and lost her uncle in it. The Diwali Karol-bagh explosion took place so close to my home. And yet nothing has been as personal as this. Because for the first time I felt the fear those families must be feeling. And believe me there is no worse hell, than not to know. My hell ended at around 11pm when Tarun was finally able to get through to me but for many others it had just begun.

I know that Mumbai has not stopped and life continues. Like the parliament attack and last years Delhi attacks this would become a date. Another date for India with terrorism. The last time I wrote about the Delhi blasts a reader had asked me what I had done and whether empty words are all I had to offer. Unfortunately that remains true to this day. Words are all I have, but those words are of concern and prayer. Because now I know.

The suppressed feminine

2006-07-07T19:42:00.000+05:30

No am not talking about THE church suppressing THE feminine. It’s a little more personal. Listing a series of my life s regrets, not all of them unalterable per se but taking into account my hereditary laziness and total lack of will power they may alas turn out to be permanent.

bull in a china shop

That’s my condition in the kitchen. If am not spilling things am burning them. My mother has vowed never to let me enter the kitchen ever despite all the continent shaped and smiley faced chappatis I can cook. Generally my family prefers starvation to mere haath ki bani subzi.

shall we dance

By not giving me the usual bharatnatyam classes my parents put my social life on hold for very long time. All I can do is vigorously shake myself with limbs jutting out at awkward angles till some one takes me down crying epileptic attack. I mean a guy dancing awkwardly brings aawww cho cute but a girl stomping all over the place can be stuck with a retarded tag.

please put your foot in now

That is in my foot in my mouth every time I open the latter. Often damage control results in permanently broken friendships. I also for the love of god cant do the senti stuff. The biggest philosophical outburst attributed to me till date remains jeevan ek bhaag hai. No one seems to understand the depth in those words.

4. the nightingale’s song

I love music, although people may say my kind of music is just a bunch of guys yellling. But my attempts at rabindra sangeet in school used to fetch a C. I had once requested my teacher to give me a C without testing my vocals. She refused and decided not to even use the harmonium and let my taal do the trick.

5. peela dupatta neela suit

If not for Deep and Suni, Govinda may well have been my fashion icon.
I have shamelessly tried to copy them in college and people started treating me as a human again. Alas the damage had been done early on. What will I do now remains a mystery. Don’t be surprised if I follow the same style for the remainder of my life. Also from someone who had to be dragged crying and pleading to shop, I can now shop or rather window shop till the cows come home. (no, the cow wasn’t a pun or a reference to me)

6. ghar ka kaam

I hate it and am as good at it as Tulsi is at cabret. So I just let it pile, dirty clothes, dirty dishes…just generally dirt. Till am left with no option but to either suffocate to death or clean. But the day when you end up washing your entire wardrobe it is THE day, believe me.

A litany of miseries doesn’t do any one any good. So I shall stop now.

Till the next time. Keep your foot in mouth and keep piling!!

first week@NITIE

2006-07-04T21:05:00.002+05:30

A week and some days have passed at NITIE. After giving my intro and the reason for the weird spelling of my name umpteenth times (excluding the first few days where I was absent) I can safely say quite some people know my parents were numerologically inclined.
My biggest regret till now inability to sleep through lectures. My engg classmates will vouch that the sight of me sleeping through class was as routine as the dawn of the next day. I still feel my eyelids go heavy each time a prof walks in but to say the truth am too scared to brazenly drool and sleep. The profs do pull you up which can result in entertainment for others but not so much for yours truly.
Apart from that life here isn’t as dull as engg. There are lot of committees and forums to look forward to. Am very excited about something extra curricular for the first time after school. A couple of committees have left me salivating but you have to clear two rounds of interviews before you get into them and seems everyone has applied to all the committees except gain certain smart people who only applied to what ‘interested’ them. So in face of competition I do not know how bright my rather limited ability to sell myself stands.
Also had a taste of Mumbai locals. Now I had no idea what a fast and slow local meant. Now I do and believe me take the words for their face value. A slow not only has a lot more (and I mean that) stops it is actually slow.
It’s a snail, it’s a tortoise…no it’s a local..
You get the drift.(and yes, I watched Superman Returns with a comic book curl of hair in place. Typical superhero-Hollywood fare. Brandon Routh does look good though, even in red you-know-what)
Other than that since its raining 24x7 have been holed up in campus. NITIE looks more like CUSAT than Mumbai. In fact I speak more mallu here than I ever did there. To really remind yourself that you are in Mumbai you need to get into an auto, shell out 30 bucks and eat mall food from hiranandani. After you are done with expensive bad food rest assured you will feel you are in Mumbai.
I had always though the mumbaiyya accent was exaggerated in the movies, after I realized that there was to be no Raj Malhotra singing and dancing in my life, but yes the hindi here is different from the punju hindi am used to. No yaar tu kar liyo,tu dekh liyo..
Well that’s it for now. Have a committee interview at 2220 and one at 0040 as the list said. I usually am very impressive after my rigor mortis time. Incidentally that’s the name of the committee Impress. It handles the media relations.
Wish me luck!!
PS:heard that in IIMA the freshers were made to do 4 case studies in a day. Now I know the divine reason behind my percentile.

the 'simble' life

2006-06-27T16:27:00.000+05:30

Yes am back with free net. Haven’t written for some time so kind of bursting to put forward personalized nonsense on the net. So lets begin at the beginning or rather end of my engineering life.( this is gonna be e little long so kindly adjust)

So long long ago when yours truly was in engineering college she was one of the last ones in her batch to leave. Cochin didn’t want me to go so even waitlist 2 didn’t clear. The prospect of traveling loaded with bags containing stuff I never used in 4 years and my beloved computer berthless for 52 hours was a little bother so I waited. In between I went to my naad. Now Kannur is a north Malabar picturesque not so little place where if you cant speak or read Malayalam people will silently think you are one of those illiterates who are trying to bring down the state’s sparkling education record. There my parents were amply pitied upon for being stuck with a daughter who actually wants to study more and not settle down with nice mustached boy who works in Dubai. Moreover she actually doesn’t want to join Wipro and stay in Banglur.

From there my parents and I returned to my college where they packed(!!) my comp in nice plastic sheets which said Chakki brand atta and Tiger brand. This information is for all those people who asked me how I lugged my comp safely around.

We reached Delhi where the heat got me and I promptly fainted on the platform. Certain taxi wallahs hounding dad for a sawaari were rather amused at the sight and then promptly doubled their price. Btw,no one handsome hero came and sprinkled water on me,I just had my hysterical mum. At home I found all music channels have signed a contract with Himmesh Reshammya. And since I did not love sayonni that was the end of that.

I had developed a patchy thing on my hands so I went to the doc who told me after scratching arms wildly that I shouldn’t go out in sun and that if I do I should always be armed with an umbrella. So there I was dark and ugly propping up an umbrella to the disbelieving eyes of the model like light fenkti hui dilli ki ladkiyan.

Finally I reached NITIE on the 22nd and submitted my documents and by evening was promptly sick again. As a result I missed out on all the initial bonding and other initial stuff by the seniors. The classes began yesterday and unbelievably I miss my techie subjects. The teachers come promptly on time, put on the mike and ask you the difference between efficiency and effectiveness. I feel my mind going for a toss and realize this just the beginning. Most of my classmates are IIT-NIT guys with work ex and stuff so I go around dragging an inferiority complex slightly bigger than the continent of Eurasia.

Now I could go on and on but I rather leave it for the next post.
Oh and the only place I have seen in Mumbai is my hostel mess so till next!

all their bags are packed,they are ready to leave

2006-05-23T22:06:00.000+05:30

to meet, to love and to depart
that's the story of the human heart

I wish i had another one of those look-I-pushed-the-eraser-up-my-nose type story but I don't have. One of my friends is leaving the day after and the other the day next.My parents have made sure am here to bid adieu to my entire batch by booking me really late tickets and i mean really late. in fact its so late that my PG owner asked if I intended to stay for another year before bursting into laughter at his own wit.
Right now my own wit has taken a beating,little whatever of which existed in the first place.On asking dad what he expected me to do all these days alone he asked me to pack,slowly.I think he meant one dress at a time.And I have like 5 sets of clothes only.So I was actually thankful we had a uniform all this while and you didn't need diffreent clothes everyday plus the added advantage of having a biological weapon ready and functional by day three.And I live with two girls who have a million dresses each and matching accessories..Yes I often feel like gareeb sudama...
Almost finished with State of fear by Michael Crichton. Am a big fan of his for long. State of fear also introdeuces a new and diffferent viewpoint.Something which we take for granted as wrong.Read if you can. Also reread The davinci code for nth time.Waiting for the movie now.Check out this piece below and convince me the person on Jesus' right is not a woman.

I don't believe in holy bloodline and all that but a woman could have been an important disciple right.
Anyways since I have nothing more to entertain you I shall bid adieu. Our attempts to fool the asianet guys have ended in disaster as a result we will be coughing up some serious money tomorrow.Yes the type that leaves holes in pockets and our net connection will also be gone.
So I may not write for sometime and I may be in Bharat ka sabse bada shehar the next time you catch me.So till then keep laughing at yourself...and life will give you more opportunities to do so.

the time ticks way

2006-05-17T22:11:00.000+05:30

Disclaimer: highly self indulgent and sentimental post follows. Read it if you have nothing else to do.

Today my course viva got over. My college and computer centre i-card was taken back and suddenly am no longer a student of this institute. It seems only yesterday that I walked into CS-A and sat with Nimmy and talked to Neha, Ela and Priti who sat before me. Wondered if Bipul shouldn’t have been spelled as Vipul. When Deepti and I walked to the bank together and missed our maths attendance.
I don’t know where the four years have disappeared. Throughout I maintained I couldn’t wait to get out of this claustrophobic narrow minded place. And yet today I feel my heart leaden. Today I remember and think of my first year. When I shifted to SM. Our midnight mad dancing and hopping on the floor. All the people who came and stayed with us for some time and left while the four of us remained put. The yellow curry and chappatis we put up with. The Punjabi and nepali ka khana about which we cribbed till the cows came home.
Uncle and aunty who were showered with pleasantest abuses when they handed us our rent and electricity bill.
My class whom I hated for the stories they made up about me. Now that I know that where am going is no better and that men will be boys always I don’t feel that bad. Maybe it was to prepare me for what would await me all my life.
I remember my first lunch with TKS and the knowledge that people don’t dance and sing in parks when they fall in love. Naahi raaton ki neend ya bhook pyaas udti hai. Appetite for food and sleep remain undiminished.
The exam prep leaves when Deepti and I would suddenly develop obsessive craziness for stupid computer games and then stand on our heads the day before the exam. Manu and her philosophy of life. Sunita’s tape recorder which served loyally till all of us got our PCs and her cassette collection which helped me realize Backstreet Boys weren’t the high point in English music.
Soon I wouldn’t get up to face an overflowing sink, wouldn’t need to abuse the ‘mota nepali’ because he dint give the breakfast, hide from Uncle because I hadn’t paid up the month’s electricity bill, wouldn’t have to get into my grey black uniform ever again and trudge to class and comment on boys who in turn would be commenting on us. Soon no more half biryanis from Nas hotel, no more ‘mere liye bhi lime bolna’.
Rheeja would stop walking into the room calling deef or divyu. The evening ka grand getting out for juice or samosa and budday cakes from Cocoa Tree is over.

Bina tere na ek pal ho
Na bin tere kabhi kal ho
Yeh dil ban jaye pather ka
Na isme koi hulchal ho

Ali khan is crooning into my ears. As the day I had waited for dawns closer I don’t want it to come. This time we would all go and not come back with our bags of mithai and ghar ka kahani.
Hated it while I stayed here and now hating that am leaving it. And yes the heart does exist in the chest cavity because that is where it’s hurting.

am back but not quite..

2006-05-14T09:11:00.000+05:30

Yes my exams are over and instead of dancing on the streets that am done with it all am actually feeling quite like a half eaten foolgobi dumped in the trash.had even written a soul searing, soul searching piece and then lacked the guts to put my feelings out for public consumption so decided to do another see-i-fell-on-my-head-haha type of post.
So the exams came and for the first time in the entire semester I felt the weight of the tomes we are supposed to be thorough with. It was difficut to keep my eyes open and more difficult to keep my brain open to reception to the intracacies of various types of concurrency control methods when all I wanted to do was to fling it all away and dream about John Abraham.
I didnt forego my afternoon naps though.On one occasion i was as usual lying sprawled all over my roomie's bed sleeping in my sweet dignified feminine position of wide gaping mouth,REM and drooling all over my pillow when this smell(for the lack of a better word) wafted through my flaring nostrils. Suddenly my nightmare of drowning in cow shit seemed all too real.Later was told my Pg owner is making a bio gas plant(!!)
So here I am,one of the 70000 engineers who pass out every year,one of the 40000 people who would have been on wipro pay roll to one of the 50000 who dream of owning a stretch limo by 25 by virtue of an mba.
Most people are baffled by my decision to drop MDI. we-are-a-friend-of-a-friend types say its an interesting decision,others just bombard smileys making wierd faces and close friends say it is another proof that i need urgent medical help.I try not to think about it.
My internet network is down again and we are implementing time division multiplexing here so I'll bid adieu with this nonsense.Will make a couple of posts before I leave Cochin..hopefully write something more personal about this home for 4 years...the city has taught me a lot.And then would be silent for some days before i get free net again.
Course viva on wednesday,seems certain guides can be sadistic enough to ask about engineering graphics(shudder)..i guess i ll have to leave another man wondering how i have passed all my semesters and generally about the indian educational system..

action replay!

2006-04-28T23:02:00.000+05:30

The football world cup is drawing closer and I live in mortal fear. I still remember the last one (or was it the one before?) the one France won. My dad would set the alarm for midnight and then refuse to sleep anyway. During the game time he would be oblivious to his surroundings. You would think the fortunes of Argentina (his favorite team) depended on his viewing the entire match without blinking once. I was just happy to see Batistuta run around, blonde hair flying. This time I don’t even know who the good looking..i mean talented players are. I would appreciate Rolando’s natural talents more if he had used one of his sponsorship deals to fix his buck teeth and if Zidane had got hair weaving done…

It’s the same with cricket matches. During the indo-pak series our class attendance hit an all time low. Only 13 people were present. Coincidently all of them were girls.

It’s all hype. Take any channel. The game begins with a weather report, crowd report and analysis of the previous 100 games. Then a couple of commentators would walk to the pitch and vigorously poke different parts of it and produce the verdict-dead, will aid spin (if in India) and bouncy and has juice (!!)( if in Australia). Surprise.
Finally when the match begins we first see the live action, then an instant replay and then slow motion. Then the last two from four different angles.
At the half we have highlights of the first half, followed by interviews of people on how they played in the first half and their strategy in the second half. Finally game over, we have a recap of the game followed by half an hour of score board.

Now contrast this with the times of DD.
Yashpal Sharma “ jin darshako ne tv abhi khola ho…”
Maninder Singh (pitch rising)”…aur yeh gend boundary ki aur bhaagi jaa rahi hai…aur yeh shandaar shot “

But how can Ekta Kapoor retain eye balls in the times of the World Cup. She gets Star to bring on kyunki… half an hour early and shows exciting shots from last weeks show. When action starts, camera will replay in slow motion as tears trickle down Tulsi’s cheek..and have instant replays of all marriages. Then show switches to another camera for another view Tulsi’s kanjeevaram. In the break we can have one of the characters interviewed on their behavior in the first half followed by predictions for the second. At the end of the show we will have a recap consisting of the total number of marriages, divorces, deaths, back-from-the-dead in that particular episode.
That should keep the world cup out of a few household for some time.

PS: Intellectual thieving from At Wit’s End done in this post. Please don’t sue me. I am a big fan and may have internalized quite a chunk of Bombeck’s work

What is in a name?

2006-04-24T23:14:00.000+05:30

Although I agree I exaggerate sometimes (ok, always) to dramatise things and situations, this happened for real...
Today a classmate told me this story. Couple of days in one of the waking interludes he was reading a newspaper and his room-mate was orkutting.Somehow the roomie reached my profile and my scrap book (for people from Jupiter orkut is a kind of networking portal where you meet and can chat with other people including strangers.You leave messages in people's scrapbook)
Suddenly he goes yaar,yeh dhivya bhi gazab ki ladki hai..kya kya likhti hai..his tone implied I had fallen even below the low levels of morality expected from me..
so my classmate jumps up,flings his newspaper aside and comes to have a look at what new kaand I have created..and there it was another testimony to my loose character..I had scrapped a guy asking Are you in nitie?
It would have been probably one of my future classmates who might have sent me a friend request.The roomie had interpreted nitie,the institute name as nighty as in lingerie...and had thought i was asking some guy if he was in nighty!!
(a guy in nighty..interesting possibilities there...pink floral print..no polka dotted...)
So people I know its not as famous as some other b-schools but it is one of the best..I am actually inclined at this point of time to preferring it over MDI,Gurgaon where am waitlisted because of its better placement in the sector of my choice..
so for further info check out life at nitie and b-school rankings
And yes please it aint NIIT either..another friend asked why I was taking computer certification program after B.tech in Comp Science...
I mean I know I have susupect technical knowledge but....

tagged...

2006-04-24T22:49:00.000+05:30

I have been tagged by my prospective senior, Ujwal Kr Vellore to write about what am planning to do before I start dancing on the nerves of people at NITIE. We shall proceed to deal with this in a systematic manner.
1. My immediate concern is to increase my wakeful hours.
2. Depending on the success of point 1 I will proceed to utilize at least half of that time in preparation of my forthcoming exams.
Together this strategy will prevent death due to heart failure on seeing the Security in computing paper on the first day of exams.
I also need to xerox the entire Distributed computing text edition 2, after I had patted my back for my ingenuity and smartness on procuring edition 3 from the library after trampling over two fellow classmates and elbowing two others when one of them noticed a solitary copy left on the library shelf and was stupid enough to whoop in joy. And then I need to study that xerox.
I also need to find material on the net for the marketing module of IOM but am too busy googling for exclusive Brangelina snaps in Namibia right now.
Somehow I know everything will fall into place and I shall again display my talent for creative writing in the exams. I will still manage to fit my entire paper in the main answering sheet itself while people around will go into double digits of extra sheets.
After that I will have my course viva for which I don’t know what exactly the procedure is. I mean I know there would be an external invigilator and couple of internal ones but I don’t know how to go about preparing for it, considering I can’t even recall the subjects’ nah subject names I studied last semester. After that agony ends I will pack my bags and will be ready to go.
I will reach home laden with dozen dust covered bags full of smelly clothes. My mother would kiss me to death with happiness on seeing me. It would vanish when she sees the piles of clothes that need washing. My neighborhood aunty will pop in and remark how Gudiya has become darker, thinner and balder than her last visit. She would advise me to put aloe Vera, egg white, honey, lime, fertilizer on my head and body warna dekho skin kitna kharab ho gaya hai aur baal kitna patla ho gaya hai. My mother would only hear the thinner part and start putting desi ghee in everything I consume. Cant blame her she grew up watching mallu movies having thunder thighed heroines and our concept of beauty differs quite a bit on the ideal weight part.
At home I will prop up my pillows, take the remote in my hand and go into a trance. Within a couple of days I would know that Ekta Kapoor’s protagonists have married again, friends season 8 is being telecast for the 198453th time, instead of desi Rakhi Sawant we now have dyed Czech models gyrating around 45 degrees Himmesh Reshammya. When am hungry I can sit in the same position and yell veshkunu on top of my lungs. It will generate immediate response the first couple of days but as days will wear on it too will get ignored. I will pout and ask dad to buy me tons of lays and ice cream and he will without fail bring in the Lays Spanish tango and Strawberry flavor brick after which I would never request him again. I will again make empty promises to meet all my friends and think up excuses not to go out in the hot sun.
By this time it would be time to pack my bags again and head to a different place. I have heard rumors that we have single occupancy rooms with attached baths there. I am used to sharing my room with 2 other human beings and 30 different species from the kingdom insectia and my bathroom with 13 other human beings and showers under the watchful eyes of couple of lizards. It would be difficult to live alone.

A place for my head

2006-04-23T23:28:00.001+05:30

Why do i often post lyrics of songs on my blog?Because they reflect what I feel at that moment.After I have come to college and especially after getting my own PC,Real Player has become permenant fixture as is lying in physically torturous foetal position with my headphones obliterating the voices around.
Linkin Park who are depressive without being abusive are my favorite and am currently listening to three of their tracks from Meteora in a loop.

I watch how the moon sits in the sky
On a dark night shining with the light from the sun
The sun doesn't give light to the moon
Assuming the moon's going to owe it one
It makes me think of how you act to me
You do favors and then rapidly
You just turn around and start asking me about
Things you want back from me

I have developed a headache due to staring at the 14" monitor since morning.Its Sunday and we have net all day so maximum utilisation of time orkutting and ymsging.Also went through the entire archives section of Abhinav Jain's hilarious blog.

Don't stay
Forget our memories
Forget our possibilities
What you were changing me into
(Just take myself back and...)
Don't stay
Forget our memories
Forget our possibilities
Take all your faithlessness with you
(Just take myself back and...)
Don't stay
I don’t need you anymore, don’t want to be ignored
I don’t need one more day, of you wasting me away
I don’t need you anymore, I don’t want to be ignored
I don’t need one more day, of you wasting me away

I am sick and tired of having nothing to do and reading about people's blood curdling journeys on way to IIMA conversion.I mean ok you are assured of that fancy I-bank job and stretch limo but get a life,so am officially not gonna visit PagalGuy for some time till the grapes stop tasting sour.
I have read Isaac Asimov's Foundation and Empire and its a brand new imagery.Now want to read the entire series.Also saw a promo of Arthur C.Clarke's Rama revealed on the back and am literally spending sleepless nights trying to search for some site which will have it in pdf format for free.Also Erma Bombeck's At wit's end is good for laughs.Will post an 'inspired' blog soon.

I cannot take this anymore
I'm saying everything I've said before
All these words they make no sense I find bliss in ignorance
Less I hear the less you'll say
But you'll find that out anyway
Just like before...
Everything you say to me
Takes me one step closer to the edge
And I'm about to break
I need a little room to breathe
Cause I'm one step closer to the edge
And I'm about to break
I find the answers aren't so clear
Wish I could find a way to disappear
All these thoughts they make no sense
I find bliss in ignorance
Nothing seems to go away
Over and over again

Good night.

i have nothing to post

2006-04-23T00:31:00.000+05:30

My exams-the final engineering ones i hope to write are couple of weeks away, so the days are spent catching up on the sleep that will be lost in the future.10 hours may be called beauty sleep but 16 hours gives puffy eyes and makes your surroundings surreal.
Since am spending more time in the twilight zone than registering the sights and sounds around me I am not getting enough opportunities to display my foot-in-mouth afflictions and give you the reactions I generate.
The mega post I am convinced will never see the light of the day.
Btw,gave a 3 minute impromptu speech on how to prepare for CAT today.I can go on for couple of hours telling people about all the mistakes I made,but am saving that for my best-seller 98 point someone-what not to do in CAT.My publisher says I should change my main characters into BPO staffers with names like Zoom and Pogo so that readers identify with them, I am hell bent on naming them Hi-lilu-Shishindu and Roberto Clemenceau Ekstrakovic.
Since these days I have nothing to do I often look back on my 4 years here.I do not recognise the wide eyed idealist who came here,the wanna-be writer who ended up writing C programs.The girl who was awarded her school's highest honour for kindness,modesty,high moral and social values,strength of character and conviction including sportsman spirit, today just considers these to be flowery adjectives.Am I cynical?No am happier now than I was before because now I believe that nothing matters.Nothing is permanant,least of all human nature.
In my 4 years here I learnt
1.I have an incredible ability to mug up and vomit answers all the time preventing even an iota of technical knowledge to enter my brain
2.When you are happy and funny,the whole world will laugh with you.When you are unhappy you have Media player and a pillow to share it with.
3.You cannot feel another's pain and they can't feel yours either.
4.Bhaijaal and we are just close friends are better than giving the guy justice.
5.Other people know more about your mother's character than you do.They can also transform your as interesting as a caterpillar-crossing-the-road personal life into a potboiler.
6.If you are diligent enough you will learn how to make good Ppts and use MSWord by the end of 4 years of comp science.
7.Your salary is marginally better than a PSU employed chaprasi but you can pride yourself in driving our country's econonic boom by slogging for Xendu Coorp based In USA.
8.Karan Johar has never been in a relationship in his life.
Perhaps I should stop now since the post is becoming as happy as a rainbow in a clear blue sky.
Oh yes in case I forgot to mention earlier am planning to follow the course all self respecting engineers follow
1.MBA after B.Tech
2.MBA after B.Tech and MS
3.MBA after B.tech and serving one year bond
I have gone for option one and will be joining NITIE,Mumbai to complement the technical skills I have garnered in four years with the appropriate business acumen to make a successful career(my answer to the why an mba?)
Also check out the new addition to my blogroll.That's your reward for wading through mine.

(In)action!

2006-04-18T23:29:00.000+05:30

Have not written for some time,the reason being a mix of internals,farewell,project presentation and the inherent laziness I suffer from.Then wanted to write about my engineering days in a fit of nostalgia but the post never seemed to end so you will have to wait for those words of wisdom.Also have been tagged to write about what I plan to do in the coming months before I go for my PG.And had also thought of sharing my gyaan on CAT and how not to get into IIMs.The thought of having to write so much had me immobilised into inaction.

Internals came and went.It truly 'tested' me!!
Farewell threatened to go the class trip way for a long time. But all of us,or rather most of us did end up at the buffet party.

It had our teachers telling us what it felt to teach us, folllowed by a game of truth and dare.After which the boys hit the bar and the girls the food.My plate disappeared when I went to change the music.Countless photos were taken that day.All of mine feature me and my nose which has now developed a distinct personality. Add to that am as photogenic as an orangutan and seem to have either closed my eyes in a buddha like trance in most of them or flared my nostrils in the remaining,the effects are i assure you truly spectacular.For those particularly desirous of seeing what it was all about please hop over to Rohit's flickr acount.

Finally my project demo where Murphy demonstrated himself yet again.I had preponed my demo(!!!) and sat back to enjoy the weekend.Finally on Sunday morning when I tried to run my project I got Error 403..I tinkered,googled,restarted my machine till it became Error 405.Even the brightest and the best in my class and the next threw up their hands.Finally through divine intervention and some manual too revelation dawned that the IIS properties had to be adjusted and the home directory changed.By this time the clock had struck 9 and for me rigor mortis sets in by 12 especially on the day before any exam.The PPT I proceeded to make and my total preparation for the presentation next morning was spellbinding.Monday dawned too quickly and after finally getting my 2 evaluators at the same place and the same time I presented my masterpiece.All was fine till they asked me all this is great but what have you done in this project? I would like to draw the curtains on this matter here.

On a whole my stay in Cochin is coming to a close, and though it has not come a day sooner,I know I will miss this city.If anything this is the city where I actually grew up and felt the fear one does when they discover the kind of person they truly are.But hey all that in the farewell megapost...till then..relax..

Crash course but nevertheless...

2006-04-05T00:23:00.000+05:30

First podium finish of the season for Mclaren..yay!!

American History X

2006-04-02T10:21:00.000+05:30

The title of this movie made me curious enough to watch it.Also been an Edward Norton fan since Primal Fear days so went ahead with it.
The first shock was to see a shaved, muscular Norton because you are used to see him in weak roles. But in this movie the beefed up Norton is a skin head or neo nazi.

The movie is about two things both irrational but dangerous-hate and racism.The movie has come under a lot of criticism for its presentation and is used by white supremist groups as propaganda. The reason maybe because the movie doesnot offer any solutions but shows the problem brutally and honestly.It doesn't end with the black and white guy holding arms walking into sunset but with a new cycle of violence which may drive the enlightened skinhead back to the beginning.

The movie is scary because it shows an intelligent guy falling for what he himself later calls bull****.It shows shows how complete the belief of the followers is in the bull****.It shows that prejudice often passes from those we love and do not wish to find faults with.

Rather than the 'curb' scene where Derek Vinyard splits open a guy's jaw by smashing his face on the pavement,I found disturbing the scenes where the black lady at counter is humiliated,the smug look of accomplishment on Vinyard's face when arrested,the wide eyed incomprehension on his girl friends face to common sense.

To think this movie lost the Oscar to something like Shakespeare in Love is incomprehensible.Perhaps because the movie doesn't give hope in a poetic Hollywood-type ending.Instead the ending is as in your face as the beginning.

Full of graphic violence and ample peppering of cuss-words in every single sentence avoid this movie if you are looking for happy endings and relaxation,otherwise you are recommended to get your DVD today!!

how d_grail became a specky,got lenses made and got a life-I

2006-03-29T23:20:00.000+05:30

Initially when I started blogging I wanted to write..write for myself..without a care if anyone appreciates it or not...Now it seems I have in fact achieved my initial desire and am the only one reading what I write..Time for another class related post to push up the ratings is the need of the hour..and the hate mail can keep the adraline flowing too.

prologue
God took 6 days to create the world and took Sunday off..and somewhere in between all this he created a likeness of himself and gave him vision to appreciate the work that was done all around him.We of course have no proof for all this only circumstantial evidence.

Of course Adam being Adam needed someone to pick up after him and also for general ego boosting purposes and God did get tired of repeating of course i love you so he created Eve to do the job..This was long before the Devil came into picture.Now here is the really doubtful part in the entire story,the Devil got a woman to stand and listen to something that crawls and is slimy without going into a fit and then actually persuaded her to follow it and take its advice and eat something?Now am sure only the serpant could have come in the form of Brad Pitt to have achieved what he did..but we digress...

Of course once both of them had the forbidden fruit God used the intergalactic voice sytem to inform them that they are thrown out of the paradise and Adam my man from now on you need to sweat to eat and watch and appreciate Quentin Tarantino and Eve you will have to marry and stay with Adam and give up Ekta Kapoor 's serials to watch twenty two men chase and kick a ball.And I give you both myopia..

what 4000 can buy

2006-03-27T22:48:00.000+05:30

After deciding to actually think and write my posts from now and not to let an insane keyboard burst test everyone's patience I wanted to refrain from posting till something worthwhile strikes my mind but I thought this TOI report worth a mention.I couldn't find a relevant link so am reproducing parts of the article.

Bride Bazaar
they do not want daughters but they do want wives.Its a supply crunch alright for males in haryana.Not far from the glitzy malls of gurgaon lie the thriving mandis of flesh trade-where the price of a 'bride' is often less than a cow.
861/1000 males:haryanas skewed sex ratio spawns a generation of bachelor boys.The bride price ranges from Rs4000 to Rs30000 determined by factors like age,virginity,skin colour and how many times she has changed hands.
the horror of it is the social sanction the custom is receiving now.For the woman who's been purchased by a man who is either too old,unemployed,disabled or unable to have a male heir,its a struggle to survive n the alien culture.The 'bride' also makes economic sense because she can be resold or shared with unmarried brothers after she's borne male heirs..

On the opposing page was a review of Kavya Vishwanathen's chick-lit book How Opal Mehta got kissed,got wild and got a life (penguin).Vishwanathan got a $500000 advance from little brown for a two book deal...

Vasudev Kutumbkam??

2006-03-27T22:45:00.000+05:30

this too shall come to pass

Shawshank Redemption

2006-03-25T23:52:00.000+05:30

I have never written about a movie before except in passing, although I do have a fascination for darker movies than the mushy/teen movie types. After seeing the title in lots of people's favorite I finally got around to watching it...Only problem was that the version I had was in .avi format and refused to play on Media player/Real/Winamp..Finally somehow got it running on vlc media player,but without any facility to fastforward or reverse..So while watching a scene intently the player would close up and start playing the movie from the beginning..as a result I have watched the first 30 minutes well...10 times..somehow with an uncharacteristic patience I reached till the end and now the movie can feature in my favorite list too..

fear can hold you prisoner,hope can set you free

Story of Andy Dufrense, who convicted wrongly of his wife and her lover's murder is sent to Shawshank Corrective facility to serve 2 life sentences,as told by fellow inmate and friend Ellis Boyd 'Red'. Based on a Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption,the movie is today rated as one of the best of all time and has done all its business through word of the mouth publicity. nominated for 7 oscars including Best Picture it failed to win any because of competition in the form of movies like Forrest gump.

With almost lyrical quality the movie talks about hope and redemption brought to the inmates in the form of Dufrense. The life behind bars and the inability of one who has spent majority of his life there to be ever rehabilitated.As red says "These prison walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, gets so you depend on them. That's institutionalized. They send you here for life, that's exactly what they take. The part that counts, anyways."

Directed by Frank Darabont and starring Tim Robbins,Morgan Freeman and Gil Bellows(Ally McBeal) don't miss it if you can..

For more er..professional reviews here.

Murphy

2006-03-22T23:47:00.000+05:30

From my latest addiction orkut a community for my beloved Murphy.
For the uninfomed Murphy put into words what all of us have felt at certain points in our lives reproduced below.

Murphy's Original Law
If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it.

Murphy's Law
If anything can go wrong -- it will.

Murphy's First Corollary
Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.

Murphy's Second Corollary
It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious.

Quantized Revision of Murphy's Law
Everything goes wrong all at once.

Murphy's Constant
Matter will be damaged in direct proportion to its value.

The Murphy Philosophy
Smile... tomorrow will be worse.

You can find more about Captain Edward A Murphy after whom the law is named and other trivia here .
You can also find him all around you, especially when you are wishing for some luck. If you haven't seen him yet nature will conspire and you will soon have your relevation soon. May the Murph..force be with you.

googlism

2006-03-14T01:41:00.000+05:30

Inspired by Megha's blog I did some googlism myself and had some hilarious results...although my numerologically altered name turned up a staid Google does not know you enough..the real spelling threw up some interesting views Google had on me...

By the way, Googlism was created as a fun tool to see what Google “thinks” of certain topics and people..so here goes..

divya is an attractive girl and has many admirers
(blush..fluttering of 2m long eyelashes)

divya is a psychopath and she killed radhika
(it was in self defence)

divya is also a board member of shakti
(also many other equally powerful boards)

divya is the murderer also forced to behave in a completely insensible manner
(as i was saying it was in self defence)

divya is healthy
(hey...)

divya is werkelijk onovertroffen wat de anamnese betreft
(yes am all that)

divya is still looking for a way to combine her interests in science
(very true...but with what?)

divya is the practise of solemnly swearing under oath
(my parents really weren't thinking when they named me)

divya is now reaching to global boundaries by exporting its product & software to overseas clients
(i am?)

divya is being touted as the star to watch for
(more batting of eyelashes)

divya is the best
(batting has created a the core of a cyclone)

divya is actually an adopted child
(nahiiiin........)

divya is doing her post
(yes she is)

divya is the youngest member of the thendral team
(pat pat...what's thendral..is it something in the kidney?)

divya is the main connection to the nucleus of the houston scene
(and many other)

divya is still waiting to connect with her family after six days
(22 years is more like it)

divya is mentally retarded
(shush...not so loud..)

divya is unable to take this
(yes, yes i shall stop right now)

2006-03-11T23:09:00.000+05:30

says one character to another in crash you think you know who you are?you have no idea!

Can the new car change Mclaren's fortunes?

2006-03-11T22:53:00.000+05:30

Will Kimi finally do a Mika?check out what Montoya and Raikkonnen have to say about the new car..
Also all the teams and their cars here ..Karthikeyen is a Williams test driver now..Team Jordan is now Midland..

ah well...its a cell...

2006-03-10T23:07:00.000+05:30

On my Trip to Mumbai I was sitting alone in my coupe with a dutch couple on the side berth..After intently staring at my feet for a long time I finally made I eye-contact with the girl..She hopped on to my side clutching a book with bright blue Shiva on cover..our attempt at conversation did not last long as repeating yourself three times does put a hamper on the spontaneous talk..but she did find it unbelievable that anyone would actually sit in a train for 26 hours to go to mumbai.I decided to spare her the heart attck of the joys of travelling sleeper class to Delhi for 52 hours.The guy clutched his lonely planet and continued staring at his cell all through the journey..although even Reliance refused range at Divine Nagar..It was one of those fancy sliding models which when fully opened has all the facilities of a 5-star hotel but is so small that you could drop it in your ear while talking.

Coming to mobile phones my first set was the 3310..When I bought it,it was the latest of nokia's offerings,the wide screen and the friendly keypad..it was the high end...My joy on procuring the latest lasted exactly 24 hours when nokia rolled out its next model..

Still I maintain I took the 3310 around with some pride even if everyone from the autowallahs to half of my friend's circle possessed the same..But soon they moved onto glitzier,snazzier versions which had colour screens and cameras while I still lugged mine around..Soon it got relegated to a deep dark corner (actually the place where the lining of the bag tears) of my bag only to be taken out if the shrill non-polyphonic ringtone shrieked..those where the days when competition was limited to polyphonic ring tones and not a whole song with all SFX and definitely no video playing to indicate an incoming call..Having radio on phone was a big thing and blue tooth was thought to be a rare dental affliction..

Soon my battery began to last from two days to one to half day to one phone call to no call...Soon it got itself permanantly attached to the charger and a socket in the wall making it as mobile as a cupboard.To receive acall and to keep a conversation private involved two options-either to reply to each query including the directions to any place in monosyllables or to go and plug the charger into the socket near the waste and talk without inhibitions while gulping down mouthfuls othe odour of stale and rotting food..often without the charger the conversation would proceed to a ya,hello before the phone would gasp its last breath.The caller would remain a mystery and I would be overcome with a savage desire to break the phone into pieces.But self presevation is something 3310 is excellent in.It has bounced over a fence,fallen down two floors,been water soaked and stubbornly refused to stop working...

My relationship with 3310 came to an abrupt end when we were trying to work things out with the help of a new battery when I switched over to Sehwaag ki maa di choice..2280 has had its days but it really cant compete with phones with mp3,videos,xxx pixel camera,wi fi and hi-fi...i mean the primary purpose of 2280 remains making and receiving a call..
yes it remains hidden in the deep dark recesses of my bag till the shrill version of Mozart 40 makes me flush pink and bring it out...
But hey I can use it for self defence...and washing clothes...and it has antique value...

IIT eh? Redux

2006-03-04T22:46:00.000+05:30

Despite another indefinite strike, threat of our course getting lagged, the VC and registrar asking for police protection this is definitely is cause for cheer.Apna Cusat will be an IIT..I mean people will actually come here after slogging for two years..the highest pay pack will be higher than 2.7 lacs..the students will have a hostel..We may actually have a good band perform here and maybe just maybe a couple of cute guys on campus..but I guess I will be too busy working for a pittance and trying to wriggle my way out of a 2years+training bond somewhere in Indore by the time all this turns into a reality..But hell I no longer will be hard pushed explaining Madras isn't a state covering entire South India and Kochi is in India and yes a state called Kerala( no not Karela)exists to all the people who ask me where I study after triumphant declaration of their alma mater being St.Stepehens/DCE/IIT(goddamn any one of them)/NIT(goddamn any one of them)..

you raise me up

2006-03-04T22:42:00.000+05:30

When I am down and, oh my soul, so weary;
When troubles come and my heart burdened be;
Then, I am still and wait here in the silence,
Until you come and sit awhile with me.
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up... To more than I can be.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up... To more than I can be.

hit rate

2006-03-02T00:05:00.000+05:30

Like any self respecting blogger everytime I log on to the net I quickly open my blog in a window and scroll down furiously to check the site meter count.For a long time of course it remained stubbornly in the double digits.Thats when I decided to take things into my own hand,I quickly deactivated the facility which helps discount the number of times the blog owner views the page or the facility which did not count log ins from the same computer.Stage two involved repeated page views by yours truly.Stage three involved deliberately writing provocative posts instead of the usual garbage parading as humor.All this has today helped me achieve more than 600 hits!(Discounting how many times I personally view it the figure may be still in two digits,those would be viewings done by friends and relatives held at gun point)

Of course i can't hold a candle to the masters of the game who have 5 digit profile views alone.But I am learning...In this process I am trying to find the demographic profile of my readers.Most of them are concentrated around the Western Ghats near Zaina bakers as Clustermap would tell me..Why would these souls trawl through my blog?Using parts of my blog as an example of internet is the idiot or blogging is for social misfits could be one possible reason,another could be large scale betting prevalent in these areas..(tu haar gaya aaj tujhe yeh poora padhna padega...maafi,maafi...zyada shanpatti mat kar varna archives padha doonga...)what could they want from my blog?
Group number two is concentrated around Delhi..they I presume landed here by accident when they googled on 'Daler'.
The third are the solitary viewers from the North of America who hoped to find the location of the grail/second hand copies of the davinci code/divine wisdom/Dan Brown's blog..they of course left the blog as fast as their LAN allowed because my existence proved that Indians could type while riding on elephants .

A long journey awaits me where I would continue to inflict torture on the souls accidently landing on this page in the name of creativity and a mad desire to write ( in a language other than C)..each hit bolsters my misconception that a day will come when I will give Chetan Bhagat a run for his money , win Man-Booker in the process and bring about world peace.I also hope my fake modesty,pretence at being cool and smart alecky will someday finally make Brad Pitt realise his folly in going for Angelina instead of me.

And yes thank you for your patience...

pls mr.justice

2006-02-28T22:37:00.000+05:30

Read this letter to the editor..kind of spoke what I felt...so here it is..

The Jessica Lal case was a total wate of tax payer's money.There should be a provision in the penal code that an accused who can prove he or she has lots of money and political backing should be discharged without any trial.Tha will save a lot of expenditure.

When 'friends' turn hostile what can one say but wish it never happens to you..

Don't be evil

2006-02-22T22:32:00.000+05:30

Has Google capitulated??
Was recently reading the review of a book on the Google story and the author ( God bless my memory can't remember him) had commented Google has reached the stage where it ceases to become people's answer to the behemoths and becomes a coorporation itself.
So has the company which prided itself on being different and whose motto is Don't be evil gone over the other side..sold its soul for the millions of yuans expected to roll in?
Google has agreed to the Chinese Government's demand for a censored search engine for the Chinese market. The great firewall of China would filter out contents related to Taiwan, democracy, Tiananmen Square etc.

Read a great article on the same in Time today.It had Larry Page going all defensive and explaining how Google has only made a choice of the lesser evil. We prefer one fifth of the population to have some kind of access to Google than nothing at all.

Even before google signed the memorandum,Yahoo and Msn had signed similar agreements.msn had shut down many dissenting blogs and Yahoo provide the ip address of a journalist who now faces 10 years of imprisonment.

One thing does go to the credit of Google,it has yet not agreed to Bush administration's demand for customer specific information to which both yahoo and msn have long since agreed to.

Perhaps its time for us to stop imagining Google to be 2 university students Phd project and treat it as the coorporation it has become...and as Time says coorporations are only of one type-the money making type.

web wander

2006-02-20T23:33:00.000+05:30

Since my mind refuses to come up with anything remotely sensible to be put up in the virtual world, I would let you wander through two great blogs.
Recommended Domain Maximus earlier.For those who need further convincing this is the funniest blog ever.Northys kindly excuse and do not rub further salt.Mallus/tambis/gondus this may help.
Indibloggies nominated fantastic A walk in the clouds . I particularly desire to reprint one of her comments and am doing so without her permission.
Q: Your blog is emetogenic. It makes me want to throw up. What should I do?
A: Don’t visit it so often. And if you must, the brown paper bags are near the exit.
Also a scathing review of Rang de Basanti.It was different from the kudos it has managed in all other blogs, so this for people who want the other opinion.
As for me I ll try to be creative,write sensible blog and not waste your time in future( oh well,the last one isn't up to me is it?)

am i snarky??

2006-02-19T20:26:00.000+05:30

You Are a Snarky Blogger!

You've got a razor sharp wit that bloggers are secretly scared of.
And that's why they read your posts as often as they can!

What kind of blogger are you?

By the way,snarky means Adjective - Any language that contains quips or comments containing sarcastic or satirical witticisms intended as blunt irony. Usually delivered in a manner that is somewhat abrupt and out of context and intended to stun and amuse. Origin: Snark="snide remark".

Now would u agree?

kabh bhujegi...

2006-02-19T09:10:00.000+05:30

kiski aarazu hai
kisko dhondhati hai meri nazar
kaisaa ye junoon hai
kaisi bebasi hai shaamo shehar
aye meri zindagi tujhase koi shikaayat nahi
bas itanaa bataa kab bujhegi meri tishnagi
naa koi kami hai naa hai kisise ranjish koi
yu to har khushi hai phir bhi jaane kyun main khush nahi
aye meri zindagi jane kiski talaash mein hain sabhi
bas itanaa bataa kab bujhegi meri tishnagi
yeh meri tishnagi

manzilon ke safar mein khwaahishon ki lehar mein
main bahaa jaa raha hoon ye kahaa jaa rahaa hoon
kiski aarzoo hai
kisako dhondati hai meri najar
kaisaa ye junun hai
kaisi bebasi hai shamo shehar
ye meri jindagi
khudase kyun ro rahi hai bebasi
bas itanaa bataa kab bujhegi meri tishnagi
ye meri zindagi tujhase koi shikaayat nahi
bas itanaa bataa kab bujhegi meri tishnagi
ye meri tishangi

food for thought 2-a few clarifications

2006-02-17T23:04:00.000+05:30

This is in continuation of food for thought.I think I missed out a few clarifications which have now been interpreted wrongly (as usual),so I felt best to be done with them once and for all since I have little or no desire to involve in the mud slinging match that has begun.

1.By reproducing parts of Bhupen's text I do not endorse him or support him in any way.The only reason for my doing so was as stated right in the beginning that the only reason was it provoking me into write mine.My views are clearly expressed in my blog in non italicised writing.

2. I am NOT I repeat, I am NOT the girl quoted in Bhupen's blog.The last time I spoke to him was before my Wipro interview that is more than a year ago.

3.I have not launched any personal attack on anyone.

4.I was willing to go on the trip.

I rest my case.

Strikes own country

2006-02-17T00:27:00.000+05:30

I don't have much to write about these days..Days are spent wishing fervently for classes to get cancelled for any reason whatsoever..usually either SFI or KSU does oblige us by taking up the cuase of voices suppressed by our autocratic Admin block..

Now you have to study in Kerala to really fanthom the concept of strikes.I don't think any other University or for the fact any organisation in any part of the country can you understand the whole concept.I still remember my first strike,it was a few days after my joining the university,when in came marching a group of guys who told us they were going on strike because we(the freshers) were not provided with hostel facility..i whole heartedly agreed with their cause and marched back home. A few days later a fight broke out between two departments in the campus and the sight of frenzied students armed with pipes and rods rushing towards each other has to be seen to be believed..Soon a police squad arrived and me and some classmates walking with me were asked to disappear as fast as our legs could carry if we intended to retain our heads in one piece..all this was too much excitement for my staid,boring upbringing because the closest i had got to pipe fights was Akshay Kumar in one of his Khiladi avataars..I expected this fight to be front page news,unfortunately it wasn't,neither was the indefinite strike that followed.

That was the first of my indefinite strikes..4 years and you soon recognise the pattern.Day 1 would be SFI strike.Day 2 KSU strike.Day 3 would be ABVP provided they have garnered more than ten students in the protest march..
Indefinite strikes have their own pattern.It usually begins with an inter-party scuffle resulting in susupensions.This in turn results in Strikes till the suspension gets revoked.Peace till the cycle repeats again.

Are they effective tools?yes and no.Am still in an overpriced Pg accommodation even though the hostel cause has been up for four years or more..but have to admit things do get heard when classes remain empty for long.

But it isn't the university alone.Conspiring with Murphy Auto, buses and taxis go on strike when
1. you land at Ernakulam junction loaded with a dozen bags
2. all you friends finally agree to see a movie together
3. you need to go to the bank
4. you decide to eat out
In fact my welcome to CUSAT at the time of counselling itself was by the train being stranded at Angmally for umpteen hours blocked by strking railway people.
Perhaps being the most educated state has its drawbacks where people aware of their rights and supported by strong unions don't hesitate cutting a days's work. For a long time this has proved a major hurdle in industries wanting to set up base here.
I am told the situation has improved from being a daily affair to once a month occurence and yet it is so much different from Delhi where a Bharat Bandh was source of much joy for the one day off it brought.

So till i pick up my time table again,look at the block hours and wish with all my heart for SFI to find another cause to fight.

Continuing my endeavor to reward you for wading through my blog with dedication and patience I present Domain Maximus .Enjoy.

harry potter-2

2006-02-09T00:16:00.000+05:30

Since am not coming up with anything original..am just surfing about other people's blog (agreed i have lots of free time on hand)
I had given a link on mostly thoughtless and here is a special for all Harry Potter fans.Don't hate me for it..my sincere apolygies to JkRowling,i am madam your fan forever...But the guy is too good..not one of his post will let you stop laughing..

food for thought

2006-02-06T23:20:00.000+05:30

What brought this on? bhupen's blog did...this is the first time am reading his and generally i do not comment on issues at college( unless it involves a great degree of self mockery) but boy do i no we(dragging my friends along) have issues..

The issue at hand is a failed class trip or rather another failed attempt at class trip.Writes bhupen...
where nobody wants to go with anybody,somebody obviously wants to go with somebody, and everybody is not ready for anybody!!!!!
Unity has been a hallmark of our class since the very first year..Two people who may seem best of friends one day may not speak for the remaining semester.We come from vastly different backgrounds and upbringing and we either accept that and move on or we judge that person based on our moral values.As long as somebody is not getting in your way and not causing you any harm the reason not show the basic curtesy of being an classmate is beyond my limited comprehension..

Further bhupen writes
The thing called character is not reflected by your huge actions which you take consiously.It's those things which you were doing, thinking that "you don't care" which ultimately go down in character books.And those guys, who did all these, might have boosted themselves, or boosted by close friends have gone down in memory of their own classmates as "CHEAP, and LECHERS".When we cannot respect our own classmates ,how on earth can someone dream to go around with them.If you thought you were looking "cool" doing all that, well i am damn sure you have ended up being "fool".

A tragic reflection of my college days is that i will leave this place with just three friends..But perhaps its better to have three friends who will stand by you than those who claim to be friends and yet do nothing when you are being slandered..Once i leave this place and fate brings me face to face with a classmate tomorrow I do not know if i ll acknowledge them or they would acknowledge me..instead of leaving college with a larger network of friends and great memories i would leave this heaving a sigh of relief,thinking the ordeal is finally over,misjudged,misinterpreted and sad..half wondering if i went wrong somewhere...but how is anybody to respond to people who derive joy in the discomfort of people who study with you,whom you have known for a long time now,whose idea of being cool is to pass comments hiding in group of friends and then pretend to be a nice guy when alone or if they want some help...

We have come to point of no return.Nobody can change his/her image from now on.So what is the least which can be expected is a lesson, that what should not be done in future.
That bhupen has got right..just the empty words ki yeh last semester hai will not undo things that have continued for 3 years..What i could hope is both you and i go on to better places from here where we would meet people closer to our way of thinking and that if we dont we would have greater tolerance and would not stereotype somebody because it was easy and the done thing..

And since the 4 of us couldnt live by the rules of morality we were supposed to, damn am happy we lived exactly like we wanted and with whom we wanted..