Random Ramblings !

Ah, winter

2011-11-25T12:52:00.004+05:30

It hardly matters here in Bangalore whether its summer , or autumn or spring or winter , for I always keep shivering in the full speed fan ka hawa, feel like cuddling under the blanket and delaying the morning bath everyday and the geyser is a perennial necessity . Okay , no rainy season matters.
In childhood , winter used to be the time when you have more energy to work as defined by my mother, the time when circus parties started settling in Park Circus maidan , the time for a short holiday , Santa Claus and fruit cake and a all lit up Park Street visit .
My last winter in Chennai was even less wintery . While temperatures kept dipping in the North , South continued to stay aloof with its No winter status ! It reached its height with people putting up statuses on FB like “I mourn the loss of a season in my life “. ! Nevertheless, I had one of the best Christmas visiting Santhome Basillica near Marina Beach , buying all the Santa caps from a streetside girl, stopping at Adyar Bakery to have our share of mandatory Christmas cake .
The point is seasons change in the rest of the earth and you don’t get in winter what you get in summer. And the foremost among them is mango. The Mango milk shake in the Seasonal section of the menu in the juice counter of office cafeteria has been replaced by orange juice and its nowhere close to its predecessor 
I cant explain how good the mango milkshake used to be , its like ekbar peeyoge toh peete hi reh jaoge ..
There was never a day in the summer which went by without me queuing for the mango milkshake and cherishing it as a part of breakfast , maybe at afternoon or just like that .
So no matter how much my teammate from Nagpur tries to attract me to oranges with santra burfi, santra son papdi , santra jamun and what not , mango rules.

Out of Nowhere

2011-11-18T18:45:00.000+05:30

The Bangalore metro Reach One has finally been inaugurated and after thinking that the visitor-kind of crowd will be much less after one month of its launch, we decided to pay a visit to the M.GRoad station after catching the afternoon show of Rockstar at Rex .
I watched a Hindi film after a long time in Bangalore, last one being Dhobi Ghat.
Metro was crowded as usual , most people boarding it just to get the feel of it.
The journey reminded me of the local trains in Chennai where you get amazing views in the route from Velacherry to Chepauk Stadium.
The tokens reminded me of the Delhi metro and I searched my mobile to get the snap I had taken in Delhi metro 3 years ago.
The trains look like the new Mumbai locals – silver with a pink lining.
The excitement in young and old reminded me of my first metro ride in Kolkata during Durgapujo many autumns ago.

Talking about other modes of transport, I found the autowallahs of Hyderabad pretty friendly with share auto prices as low as 5 rupees for a fairly large distance. That’s something unimaginable in Bangalore. And the Hyderabad tour was awesome as well. Right from all the historical landmarks , to pearls , to Karachi Bakery and Paradise biriyani, we had it all.

There have been times when you have wanted to do things but haven’t found the partner. Like Rachel wanted to go to an Italian restaurant on a Sunday night and none of her friends agreed. So what do you do? Cancel your plan? Not really. Just go out on your own for once, and there wont be diappointments. Like Rachel did when she went out to have dinner all alone even though everybody else ridiculed. When I had wished the desire to goto the Bangalore Ganesh Festival , everybody yawned. So I caught the bus , had great Karnataka food and enjoyed live performance of Usha Uthhup and Shan n Kareena 

Okay this post is going nowhere, just that I’m pretty bored in office on a Friday evening 

Har ek friend zaroori hota hai !

2011-09-14T23:04:00.005+05:30

There's this supersmart guy on my Facebook page who has opinions on every single thing on this earth and hence he puts up a status update-Har ek friend ekdam zaroori nehi hota hai.
And he says I quote- I never interact with someone with the idea that somewhere down the line, I'm going to need him/her. During the Prince Williams shaadi phase - this guy said Omg I'm so tired of this marriage thing on news channels , I'd rather prefer a documentary on wildlife. There are documentaries running 24x7...who stopped you from watching :X

Coming back,
here's a list of my zaroori friends and their zaroorats :P

The anytime buddies-You need some friends whom you can call up anytime, whom you can call to share things that just happened in your life, whom to call to tell what shoes you bought yesterday , whom you call to tell how the Chinese at Zytoon tastes so good,to talk about the guy who just sat beside you at office bus, to talk about roommate sagas , or simply bitch about anything.To quote Amrita "Luv u all " :P

The night-walk buddy- Ahh those were the early days in Bangalore, when Srimoyee would sms me post 10pm, asking "Walk e jabi??Come near Liberty ". At a time when traffic has vanished , shops have closed and even street dogs stared at awe, we would keep walking through gullys and nukkads with the gentle breeze as company having a KFC Soft Twirl in hand discovering eateries and institutes, admiring beautiful houses in Koramangala and smiling at Bengali nameplates. Srimoyeeeeee, I miss those days, rather nights so much :(

The outing buddy- Be it 15 hours journey to Mumbai or 9 hours to Ooty or 6 hrs to Tirupati, ever since we came to Bangalore and thus left without a big group we used to have back in Chennai, Kaberi and me have been each other's travel partner. Ya, we survived the 30hr train journey back home too.

The chaddi-buddies- Dola and Jhoomi are like the sisters I never had and ever longed. We grew up in the same place with adjacent houses and we are so chaddi buddies that in most occassions we dont even remember each other's good names. They are among the few friends I can call anytime who would answer back with receptive voice on the other end and bombard you with news and gossips about the neighbourhood.

The study buddies-Thank you Sudeshna for Organic Chemistry, Amrita for Control system, Parnisha for Process control, Srimoyee for the DSP matrix, and Amrita again on whether Data Structure matrix is better than the book :)

The Tution buddy- Me and Arpita have never been to the same school but we always had a tution class in common right from Science tution in 10th , Chemistry tution in 12th to CAT classes.And post classes we would walk back home having icecream and phuchka, discovering new shortcuts each day :)

The Rules-n -refulations buddy- Whenever I want to know hw much is my speed post going to cost , or what is the smartest way to book a Tatkal ticket or whether sick leaves need to be availed by August only, all I have to do is to turn to Ratna and she has all the answers!

The work buddies- You all are really not work buddies, but training day buddies. I didnt really make any good friend post training days.So Neha, Arpita , Noor- we needed you to make Siebel days as energetic as you are, all the Sakthi girls hostel girls for making the Durgapujo, new year , christmas and every birthday memorable for life , and all you four girls in Bangalore for making life easier for each one of us.

Finally, They-make-you-feel-important buddies- Pallavi , Abhay(who dies to see his name in everybody's blogs !) Priyanka, Payal , Ria....chalo thank you for saying nice and sometimes embarrasing things about me!!

Hola !

2011-08-06T09:30:00.005+05:30

Learning a language opens up a whole new world in front of you-a whole new culture- a whole new way of life.
I had started learning Spanish way back in July 2010 right after college got over. I was actually googling for Free online French course when I came across this BBC Languages site. They had an audio course for French while there was a tempting course for Spanish. It was an BAFTA Award winning short film divided in chapterwise model which taught you the basics of Spanish while engaging you in a thriller based in Madrid.
And thus started my trst with Spanish where I would get up early in the morning to avail free download till 8am, download 1 episode each day, pause and repause the episode to get the heck of it!
That was for one month-then in August I went to Chennai-and after 3 months when I went back home, I couldn't even find the notebook where I had jotted down things while watching the course video :(
The tryst with Spanish restarted when I came to Bangalore office and the project client was a Spanish-Latin American Telecom major.
The entire application is in Spanish which blows our nuts off at times when Google translate too comes up entirely out of context suggestions.
The most rewarding experience of being in this project has been the Spanish classes every morning- which turns out to be the best hour of our poffice time.
Our teacher is also a very passionate linguistic who knows Spanish , Portuguese, Dutch , French :)
From then , we have started exchanging pleasantries among us in Spanish, wishing Happy birthday too in Spanish.
The teacher guy tells us how passionate he is about language that even after a Masters in Mathematics , he pursued several language courses just for the love of it .
He admits that the present job of teaching and translation of documents is pretty boring and is his means of funding his travel n expenses if he gets a prestigious scholarship offered by the Spanish embassy.
In the one hour session we not only conjugate hablo-hablar-hablais-hablan but also share stories of Latin America, how you cannot stop Spanish people from taking the siesta, where are the best places to learn salsa in Bangalore, how good the Tapas es are in the El Tablao rest in Koramangala and what our Spanish counterpart Alberto meant to say when he said Oooorgent!

Ting ting

2011-06-05T23:30:00.003+05:30

Getting up at 6.
Waiting for the the bathroom to be vacated by the roommate.
Catching the office shuttle at 7:20.
Reaching office with sleepy eyes.
Getting the posterior glued to the chair.
Checking mails and mails reminding about deadlines.
Opening the application and doing the same work.Day after day.
Hurriedly have lunch at the cafetaria.
Get the "Stay back" mail from the supervisor.
Return at 12 o' clock.
Watch an episode of HIMYM on the laptop.
Come Friday and keep fingers crossed about weekend office.
Have coffee at French Loaf and dinner at KFC if a weekend is gifted.
Count number of days left for October to come.

This life ain't any good . :(

From C to B

2011-03-25T11:24:00.001+05:30

Its been around 90 days only including 2 trips to Chennai and I get the feeling that I have never lived in a city without the sea. Bangalore has been about battling loneliness in and out. From the initial days of wandering about the cafeteria in the busy hours of lunch with the food plate in hand trying hard to find a single empty table, to coming back to the pg admist strangers.
It seems like ages since I hummed the tune of a song aloud in the room, listened to songs full volume or watched ghost movies holding somebody tightly.
Here there’s nobody to mock my addiction to Tamil songs, laugh at my silly ways of combing hair , and tell nice nice things about me.
Unlike Chennai hostel, I keep my bed clean , lest my roomies ridicule me, sleep in perfect postures, never bang the door and talk softly on the phone !
The roomies grow stranger day by day and instead of having some hot and happening life , I shed tears over incidents with grumpy coworkers and ruthless roommates !

Now that K, P , N and S are there, things don’t seem as bad it was.
I don’t understand what this hullabaloo is about Bangalore nightlife. Most pubs have to close by 11 whereas back in Kolkata, you can party till early morning. Not that it affects me anyhow , coz me and S have redefined nightlife and to the utter dismay of friends , family , street dogs , pg owner , shopkeepers, lechers – we go for night walks. Yeah, walks that typically start past 9:45 and end somewhere around 11. Each day , rather night , we have discovered new lanes and bylanes, eateries , clubs, institutes , pan shops and icecream parlours!

Weather has its own mood swings during the day, though at night it lives up to its declared standard. One thing I am loving about Bangalore are the roadside trees. Though S is tired of me telling her this, I’m simply in love the way they have grown . Then there is Lalbagh gardens. Brigade Road is kinda okay too. Just that its overflows at time with pseudo coolness. And I love the Chinese at Beijing at Garuda mall. I love the Big 10 buses. I love the Bengali restaurants at Koramangala 6th Block. I love the windy breeze at night.

10 silly reasons for me to stay in love with Chennai

2010-12-15T22:08:00.005+05:30

1) Sea...rather The Sea.

2)Flyovers - The cris-cross Guindy flyover is something one will remember for a long time after seeing it while in flight. Love the Tambaram flyover too.

3)Tamil movie songs- Yuvan shankar raja and his music...simply awesome !!

4)The office location- in the lap of the hill and near the zoo.

5)Buses- The entire bus system seems to be very organised, something very, very different from Kolkata.

6)The entire saga of animated conversations.

7)The train route from Thiruvanmiyur to Chennai Fort.

8)The fact that movie ticket prices doesnot swing up and down on any given day.

9)Well...The Sea...again.

10)The quest for good food...and the joy of getting Annapurna at Egmore, Mainland China at Nungambakkam and the phuchkawallah at Besant Nagar Beach.

Chennai chronicles

2010-08-24T15:36:00.007+05:30

Its almost nearing a month ever since I opened that joining email, cried , packed my bags, waved back at my father and bro before the final boarding call, held my mother's hand, boarded the plane and landed in Chennai.

The plane braved bad weather, crossed the sea beautifully, and made a smooth landing. No, not actually.

Since then , we have been calling everybody Anna and Amma, bearing earsplitting grunts from bus conductors, missing busstops,enjoying rasam and pongal for breakfast , sitting on Besant Nagar beach n Saturdays , tapping foot to Tamil music in volvo buses, and escaping to Skwalk Ampa mall in between training breaks.

Traffic options are disgusting at times and Metro is frantically missed at times. More on nasty autowallahs, demonic bus conductors and fat TT later.

Disclaimer: The below post is a mail forward from a friend from another company. Some are funny, some I dont agree even as an outsider!

Comments from a software professional “banglorean”

Hi friends,

This is a live update from chennai.

Language – Tamil, tamil and tamil. Even if they know hindi, they dont speak up.

People – We never heard anyone laughing here (I wonder if they ever laugh or shout). So conservative, that noone talks even in the bus.

Food – Idly, sambhar, rice, dosa, vada, pongal. We have to cook our food ourselves (unbelievable naa).

Weather – summer from october to feb and rest of the year it’s deadly summer.

Lesiure – TV, dormitery, dirty sea beaches on weekends.

Rent – 6.5 K / 1 BHK. Advance – 6 months

Aata – Rs. 26 /kg

Apple – Rs 100 /kg

Orange – Rs. 10/piece

Banana – Rs 3 /piece

Mausmi Juice -Rs 22 /glass

Jeans Dryclean – Rs.40

Phulka – Rs. 8 (idly also Rs.8)

Interesting facts and incidents :

1. Here you cannot buy a needle after 6 PM (strange).

2. We asked an auto driver, “hindi aati hai”?. He replied in hindi “Hindi nahi aati”.
3. The most common suffix here is ‘a’, e.g. straight – straighta
2 cup tea – 2 cupa tea

4. Even dogs eat curd rice.

5. In north, names are like Gori Shankar, gauri prasad etc. Here the names are like Kaliraj, kalicharan etc.

6. When there is a ‘t’ in any name, they add ‘h’ to it. jayant – jayanth ; bharat – bharath

7. Here is a culture of adding mystical alphabets after ones’s name, like Mahesh R, Sandeep T etc.

8. Cable connection is of no use here as only tamil channels are broadcasted on cable TV, if anyone wanna watch hindi channels then you need to buy a set up box (Rs.4000).

9. Cognizant navallur office is actually not in chennai, it comes under a district called Chengalpet which is 51 kms from main city.

10. Once we saw a girl in the food court, she was looking and acting like a north indian. My friend became exited and planned to talk to her, but just then we noticed her breakfast and then “dil ke armaan aansuon mein behaye”, she was having pongal. (disguise!!)

11.How dare anyone come to chennai : Cognizant Chennai MCity comes under SEZ(special economic zone), swap and transfers from here are not possible.

12. No life after 9 PM.

13. No need to worry for Tsunami, because noone will be left to cry on your grave.

Bye Bye (waiting for banglore, pune, hyderabad update)

Life is not about cursing your posting location but it is about how soon you leave the company.

Projekto

2010-05-24T20:20:00.001+05:30

You don't always have a Ranchod das to bail you out with your final year project when semesters knock at the door, HOD's deadlines drive you mad and sassy group members keep throwing tantrums.

Thats precisely was lesson number one of 3 idiots. To avoid things from getting suicidal, make your start prudently.
The project saga formally started at the beginning of 7th semester with the notice board asking you to form groups and submitting the names to the Departmental coordinator.Yours truly is truly spoilt for choices between two groups, each containing a madly in love couple. Now ,since I'm allergic to prawn, PDA and mush, it was quite obvious choose the group with long standing couple applying the radioactivity principle.

Now, when I say you need to make a prudent start, I refer to the choice of project. This stage is quite vulnerable because you either keep dreaming of seeing your name in the newspaper for executing an awesome project or a big F in your gradecard.
So, after a few brainstorming sessions with the project mentor, rejecting a dozen idea, the group settled for an apparently doable idea.
And thus begins the real ordeal.

From a dozen metro rides to Chandnichowk to buy components to persuading group members to come and work. From getting nightmares to having dreams of the project working full fledgedly.From making sorry faces to shopkeepers to give bills of items we never bought to assuring the mentor that we are gonna finish in time.From living in fear that the circuit will not work once the power supply is given to jumping in ecstacy once it has worked. From giving gaalis to group members to shaking hands with them the next day.From roaming around lanes and bylanes of Chandni in search of a single chip to discovering a Coffee house with awesome waiter and amazing cold coffee.

And then there were these to deal with in moments of distress :P

The project was finally done- complete and working :) The project report was hopefully the best in the department , thanks to the Cornell Univ portal :)
And we were a happy group , sans the gaalis and bitching.

2010-03-13T16:58:00.002+05:30

Rs 500 for registration
Rs 25 for bank's handling charges
Rs 2 for the envelope
Rs 5 for Fevicol gumstick
Rs 8 for the rickshaw to cybercafe
Rs 15 for online registration and printout + hassles about id proof + frequent computer shutdown
Rs 5 for rickshaw to Post office
Rs 5 for stamp
Rs 5/6 for calling up people to verify things
Rs 2 for the photocopies of the registration form and pay-in slip

Rs 5 for the ice cream after finally dropping the letter in the Letter box and praying that it reaches atleast.

Oh, I did return home, so Rs 5 for the auto fare.

All these for?
18 general seats - 50, 000 applicants. Priceless.

..

Love is transient

2010-02-13T19:28:00.001+05:30

When I fell in love with Farmville, like a true mad lover, forgot everything else in the world. Mother’s yellings, soaring broadband bills, brother’s threats, father’s frowns- nothing seemed to matter to me. I merrily sowed, harvested, milked, collected, bought and sold my farmland stuffs, dreamt fields full of daffodils and tulips and read and re-read whatever came out in newspapers about it. Zynga looked like the greatest happiness giver of modern times. But lo! There came the holy semester and our meeting became less frequent. And like most long distance relationship , things did not work out smoothly. Now, to the people still reading, take a tissue paper and pretend to be strong. Yes, the worst happened . We broke up. I did not even open the three score gifts lying below the Christmas tree. The fields are dry, the trees are full, the houses empty. To my bovine , equine, elephantine fellows- I miss you. Cows were never so sweet, pigs were never so cute, elephants were never so adorable, never so close. Dear Farmville, you did this to me.

Jumping from virtual to real world, here’s the story of my short stint with digestive biscuits. Not chocolate or sundae or say palak paneer.
It was the International trade fair where I aimlessly wandered into the Bangladesh pavilion and bought a packet of biscuits. Little did I know, that simple buy would usher in much happiness for one month in my life. The biscuits were digestive biscuits with a layer of chocolate on one side. God! It tasted awesome. Had it not been the last day of the fair, I would have surely gone back to fetch a dozen packets more. Foreign stuff gone, it was time to go desi. There is n’t any brand whose digestive biscuit I haven’t tasted. Breakfast to evening tea, it was D. B all the way. At the end of the month , I got bored and now I almost can’t stand the mention of it.

Btw, roses at the flower shops, red and white balloons at the Archies, and Vodafone messages tell me that Valentine’s day is round the corner. Don’t frown, how else will I know? So , here’s wishing everyone a happy Sunday.

Year end post

2009-12-25T11:44:00.003+05:30

As the year wraps up, my blog post counts stands at a dismal .75 post/ month . 09 for me has not been as good as it has been to Mamata Banerjee or Ranbir Kapoor. From an almost lousy Pujo to lousy Christmas. Most of my friends who graduated have moved out of the city in the 2nd half of 09, and each day there were new photo albums or status updates of newfound life to look forward to.

Now, one of the happy things to have happened to mankind in 09 is Farmville. Cows moo, daffodils sway, horses dance, elephants jump, potato pos up. Though I have almost got bored of it, nonetheless I can hardly deny the initial excitement of ploughing , sowing , harvesting and brushing !

Some scary things are up on television right now like Raaz pichle janam ka but more scarier is the forthcoming swayamvar of Rahul Mahajan.
Some trends which I could understand after watching a few episode in bits and parts is :
• Your gender remains the same as that of your last birth
• You remain a human
• Shekhar Suman was from Scotland and Monica Bedi from Portugal.

Its winter, and only when its winter, I suddenly feel this very urge to get up at 5 and go for morning walks. And since there is National handball championship going on at a stadium near home, there are ample hot guys roaming around in the vicinity. Btw , how exactly is a handball game played?

Pujo

2009-09-30T18:25:00.003+05:30

Mirror , mirror on the wall; who's the sweetest of them all?

The resounding beats of Dhak

In his ads, Dhoni was as omnipresent as Durga!

Escapade from sudden rain !

Of independence and stories..

2009-08-16T11:42:00.000+05:30

The part of Calcutta where we used to live earlier, is predominantly inhabited by people who during the independence were known as refugees. People who left their homes in erstwhile East Bengal , now Bangladesh. People for whom the mirth of independence was marred by the agony of partition.

Our family was one such. My grandma used to recount , how she, as a young lady along with my grandfather , had left behind her land of birth and set for an unfamiliar city with a lot of fear, pain , hope and anticipation. Initially they had taken shelter in a building at Park Street, which today stands tall a premier hotel.

Slowly , by laws of adaptation, their uprooted life began to find grip in the new soil. Land was bought , house was built. Moving out there, my grandma realized she was far better off than her neighbours. The neighbours were seven members , only five came to the city. The parents were witness to their daughter and son in law’s death. On the common note of anguish , they started to bond soon. So if Ilish was cooked for lunch at one home, the whole neighbourhood got a taste of it. They were complimentary to each other’s ordeal.

Along with stories of tuntuni, Ramayan, Mahabharat, alibaba, sindbad, tales of Dhaka and Borishal used to occupy the central place of my imagination. Maybe more than that. The places seemed like magical. The stories of unbound lands, ponds, playgrounds, Durga Pujo in courtyard, school journey admidst fields- perfect recipe to see a 7 year old’s eyes gleam.
“You know I got a double promotion in school”. I used to laugh.
During lunch, in the bed, I heard stories of a land I have never seen and formed images myself.
“ You know, there was this turbulent period of the late 70s , when curfew was imposed. Your Uncle’s marriage was a low key affair. People were not allowed to have illumination lest planes surveying understands that there is a city.”

Its tales like these, that my grandma used to tell me almost everyday, more so on the 15th of August...

L. A. K.

2009-07-29T21:46:00.007+05:30

I'm kind of having this syndrome, to coin a fancy name, it would be ,'going to a plex and watching a movie' block. Its basically the fear of going to the plex, wasting some 200 hundred bucks , straining eyes for 3 hours and coming out unsatisfied!
Now it has been literally ages since the last time I went out and watched a movie, and the trailers of Love Aaj Kal looked kinda nice, hence I chose to say yes and head for a morning show. And it has been ages since I last updated my bloggie, so that was another reason , to say.
Anyway jumping inside the theatre, things started moving very fast-leching, poking, kiss, and finally a cool breakup. And then you have Rishi Uncle talking about love in his zamaana, and things start getting desi, with Calcutta and Delhi being the cities in question instead of London. Here our Rishi uncle is struck by the thunderbolt when he sees Harleen Kaur ( the character which provided good laugh and reminded people of pre-Alam Ara days)for the first time. Soon after, he stands under a tree and swears that “is janam mein aur har janam mein.... watever.Transport plays an important role as both the heroes keep shuttling between cities to meet their love. And finally our modern day heroine gets married to Rahul Khanna but if you have watched Ekta Kapoor serials, you know that everything can be alright even after that.And thats what exactly happens.Hero number one comes down to Calcutta to take away our dear Harleen and Hero number two comes down to Delhi to get his girl. And happy ending.
The problem with this film is rarely does one feel any excitement as to what will happen next.
Music is kind of dud. Nowhere close to JWM. Maybe Pritam's keyboard's ctrl+c button wasn't working while he was surfing through various sites. Chor Bazaari makes a nice watch though.

Now there are obviously some sweet moments in the film. Like, like , ...like when Veer and Harleen meet outside her Calcutta residence ,she brings along with her his favourite black tea and he has brought along with him sweets from the same shop where she used to go to shop. And a few others :)

p.s: Sorry for this extremely badly written review , but since today is 31st July, I wanted to post something :(

What do you do when you have sms aplenty

2009-07-06T10:15:00.003+05:30

Earlier my mom used to get shocks at the very mention of offers like 500 sms for 51. These days I resort to smaller numbers like 110 for 11 , and spare her from further jolts.

1)Faltoo Forwards. Forward pathetic jokes, utterly boring friendship/love statements and even promo messages from your service providers.And if you are one of those souls who is a fan of sending those 32 hearts to 10 people to get the person of your life in 1 hour, free sms schemes may be the right thing for you.

2)Use messages as twitter,tell friends 'what are you doing right now?' Be prepared for the gali-ful replies after some time too.

3)Be a good kid to your parents. Inform them of your every move, like having ice cream now, coming back after an hour, classes over etc!

4)Take another mobile, send an sms to it,start a stop watch, and measure the sms transmission time.Repeat it for accuracy. Its around 7 seconds.

5)Send missed sms on the line of missed calls, when you have no balance to call somebody.

6)Be a well mannered person, Wish people good morning/good night just like that!

7)Act as news feed.Inform people about important happenings, about tv shows.

So these more or less , will suffice a jobless person to exhaust his/her free sms scheme.

9 years from now...

2009-06-21T13:55:00.007+05:30

I could be...

1. someone dejected with the ways of life, but happy taking her dog out for a walk,watering plants, talking to birds and playing the guitar.

2. someone running an ice cream parlour at one busy corner of the city.

3. someone still plagued with dandruff and hairloss troubles and using facewash 9 times a day.

4. someone happily settled , playing with kid and husband , shouting at maids while hurrying off to office.

5. someone who has finally managed to graduate from microwave to gas cooking.

6. someone happily single, ruling workplace in the day and parties at night.

7. someone who does/doesnt get excited about train journeys or about checking co passengers' list.

8. someone who is plain happy.

9. Or someone else.

Sigh!
Btw, Happy Father's Day.

Bad posts need no title

2009-06-19T16:22:00.005+05:30

During the semestertime, several blog post ideas used to swim in the upper lobe of my brain,but as the semesters have ended,it seems that someone has hit me with the Ghajini rod and hence I've forgotten everything and can't even write a single post.

With the blog ideas, have also vanished my post exam resolutions of getting up for morning walk at 5 am and rejoining swimming classes. But my father being out of town and my maids being on leave, my mom has made sure that at least I get to see the Sun at 6 and make my way to the market.The vegetable market being a place where I have several embarrassing moments to recount,I am not particularly happy to make my visit there , a daily affair.[ Okay, I've embarrasing moments at every public place , be it banks, post officetelephone office :( ]

Cutting vegetables is also an art where you make sure you save your nimble fingers and yet not turn your product into a geometry lover's delight.

To draw a conclusion, if its Wednesday , then I spend most part of the day with vegetables. Big Bazaar has some amazing marketing strategies.Months back , they had this offer for people who shopped for more than 999 and having fulfilled that criteria , we were bestowed with an offer which said 'you get a year long supply of aloo and pyaz' .So the rule is that every Wednesday , you need to shop for 99 or more and you get to carry a kilo of aloo and pyaz each , back home.Now it so happened that my mom suddenly remembered about this offer and since she thinks me to be a jobless fellow, sent me off to BB.Little did I know that standing in the cash counter would turn out to be one of the longest queues of my life and that an entire civilization would turn up to get aloo and pyaz!

Tough Maggi still doesnt have competition in its proximity, Idli can come close if you have an idli mix and microwave handy.All one needs to do is stir the mix with curd , wait for a few minutes and then put the mixture in the idli container and you have it ready in a couple of minutes. This is again a realisation during semestertime.

P.S: This is a very stupid post.Was just too desperate to write anything:(

2009-05-30T17:59:00.005+05:30

Since in this semestertime, all I'm doing is contemplating about blog posts, hitting the new post button, writing a line and saving as draft,and fearing that people will forget my blog, I hereby ask you not to forget my blog, and that I'll blog sometime soon.

Voted!

2009-05-13T15:04:00.007+05:30

So after endless traffic jams , road blockades , processions and other various means of disruption of public life , here came the elections in the city. The last couple of days have been quite peaceful.The campaigns had ended and the heat waves made way to the much needed rains.
The one very question which I've been asking people in any conversation in the past week is that, "vote dichhis toh?"
So here's one such silly conversation with a neighbourhood friend on ym:
me:Bol, you've got your card na?
friend: yes! And I'm voting!I'm really excited!
m: yeah, same here, heh!
f: Hey so, dont you think we should plan our V day attire?
m: mane??
f: See, as it is we dont know many people out here and I think V day is going to be like Ashtami morning , the only time I get to see all the guys in our block.
m: God!

I did not have much hassles in getting the voter's id card.My mom had to stand in a long queue though , but just once.And it was completely error free.Unlike people's whose father's name has been written as husband's.Or age has been doubled.
Talking about constituency awareness, I knew about 5 contenders,and about the rest you have to go and find out!

There is this sheer joy in exercising your right for the first time. And excuses such as 'I dont have faith in the system','I dont have interest in politics', 'Its too hot', 'Its raining' blah blah...do sound boring !!

:(

2009-05-08T22:18:00.001+05:30

I lost yet another umbrella today :( :( :(

2009-05-02T21:31:00.004+05:30

The News: "Cat 2009 goes online.The test will be conducted in a window
of about ten days sometime at the end of the calendar year."

Reaction of a classmate: "Window of about 10 days? So that means it will be like the board exams? Like we go and give the quant section one day, then we have a study leave for 1 or 2 days and then go for the english section...like that?"

Other people trying hard to control their emotions: "No, window of 10 days means you go and get the paper from a test centre on day 1, solve it at your convenience, and submit it on the 10th day".

With subheadings

2009-04-17T21:42:00.001+05:30

Its mid April, and all I've been thinking is coming up with a sensible post . Nah :(

Teasing the teaser
It was some months back.Some Saturday afternoon.I had got up in the bus from my stop and got a window seat. A couple of stops later, a man got up , and sat beside me.A few minutes later he started behaving as if I'm his newly wed wife, putting his hands around the seat and odd stuffs suchlike.So. I turned towards him and asked him to behave properly.He called back his hands and tried to sit properly, though he kept pushing inside.I was on the verge of praying to God that this chap gets down somewhere near, when he called the conductor and got a ticket for Park Street. Gosh!
Now I thought that I was wasting the window seat by thinking about this idiot and started looking outside.Now again this man started pushing and trying to put his hand around.That was too much , I thought.Even the most wild billi of mine listens to me, but this man was worse. I just turned towards him, and said, "Why can't you just behave properly??" I don't remember whether there was something exceptional in my tone. The man said, "S-sor-ry" and promptly ran out of the bus. The place was some 8 km away from Park Street!

In the family
At times I wonder why both of my parents are engineers?
I tell you why.
On a recent trip to a seaside holiday, in the train. Conversations.
Me and my brother , as usual and as expected, talking crap.
-"Hey see those lotus leaves in the pond".
-"Hey remember how we used to count cows on our way to Jamshedpur?"
-"Not me idiot, you and Mithudidi used to."
-"What are those scarecrows made up of?"

Now my Mom gets excited seeing something.
-"What are those? Beside the scare crows?How come the utility poles are so wide apart? Doesn't that violate the norms?"
Now my father steps in.
-"Thats a three-phase leakage transformer, right? Its okay, you can't expect better mounting, at least in villages."
-"Last dat I was checking the 98B clause of the Electricity Act,it does mention the implementation of APDRP. blah blah.
And this the general scenario everywhere, in the dining table, in the car :(

Beginner's guide to Bargaining
3 simple steps: (from a Mtv program)
1> Shock shock shock---> Whatever price you are told at the beginning, just convey to the man , that you are simply shocked by the high price.
2>Know your maths---> You need to be really quick.
3>Half is full---> Remember this thumb rule. Even if you can't gauge the exact price of the product , just bring it down to half an your job is quite done.

No Eureka
Most of the cities have banned people from sitting beside the autowallah in an autoride. I don't mean to sound like robbing a privilege though.Now suppose you are sitting either on the right or left of the autowallah and the auto takes a winding turn.Are you going to fall towards the autowallah or will have a possibility of falling outside.
On this futile note I end this post :(

Tech @ heart

2009-03-31T17:12:00.003+05:30

Alert: The following stuff was written for a technical love letter writing contest , some days back. After reading this, if you feel like puking, throwing rotten eggs or feel its gross, I won't object.

To the Faraday of my heart,

I still remember the day I met you while surfing from one college ground to the other, and realised that you are the site I was googling for. My life was just a mere uncompiled program without you,but after I met you, the p-n junction of our hearts broke down and recombination led to the formation of a bond as strong as the Nitrogen molecule.

Since then, I'm like this happy electron, making revolutions around you, the central tendency of my heart being always towards you,every bit of my mind responding only to the signals from your function generator. Integration and differentiation of my crystallized feelings for you have been polarized to the direction of your heart and believe me, they don't have any finite limits. Whenever your image is formed in the yellow spot of my optical system, the periphery of my oblate spheroid heart experiences a unilateral force which provides the necessary support for the projectile motion of my feelings towards you with constant accelaration.

What I wish to transmit through this letter is that, if we finally manage to establish a link in the remote future, will you be able to provide me the necessary standard library functions to lead a syntax error free life? I just pray to God that you have the lattice energy to break the electrostatic hate-bond between you and my father and finally agree him to our electrifying union. I have this full faith in you , that you have not given the password to anybody else, other than me, to log in to your heart.

Since we know our life is like the Wills ad (made for each other), all we can wait for , is a peaceful equilibrium as propounded by loveguru Le Chatelier, when finally the distance between us will be a straight line, giving way to perfect mutual inductance following laws of electromagnetic induction.

Yours Curie.

25 silly points

2009-03-09T13:36:00.000+05:30

Tagged by Amrita.

Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you.

1. I absolutely hate lipstick,especially when people wear the shiniest and most shocking colours. Now, this is not the best way to start a post.

2. To balance that, I love kajal and kohl.Though I find both the same, only that one costs double the other.But no liner, shadow, shade and whatever else exists.

3.As children, me and my brother's one of the many questions to our parents used to be query about their respective ages and salaries.

4.I can play the harmonium an a little bit of guitar.And I can whistle.

5.Bhuchi was the name of my first personal cat.I have saved many a kitten and pups in distress.

6.I didn't hate History in school and I'm pretty good at mythology and I used to love the Engg Drawing classes in first year.
.

7.Like some people are obsessed with their snaps, I sing , record , re record songs and listen to them.

8. I love doing household chores like keeping things dust free, washing my own clothes, arranging books.

9.My neighbours are pretty lively. On my right lives a family which has 6 dogs of different breeds and on the left are a family with two kids whose screams and fights make me nostalgic !

10.I have an inclination for subtitle while watching a movie. Even if its a English, Bengali or Hindi movie , with a subtitle, I will invariably look down to read them.

11.The only monetary earnings in my life are 1000 bucks from a FM contest,400 at a one act play competition and 100 each from a few group singing competitions.

12. I'm not a religious person , but I do pray and thank God at times.

13.I hate most reptiles.Lizards, snakes.I have watched very few horror movies, that too mostly with a group of people , where most of the time I kept scratching my eyes.I kind of get paranoid when the train crosses a river over a bridge.

14."There are very few men who haven't lost an umbrella in their lifetime" I'm not one of those, I've lost , umm, 4 umbrellas till date.

15.On the cullinary front, I make excellent chilly/yoghurt chicken and awful cake.Yes, my mom has banned me from making any further experiments with cakes.Not my fault though, got hold of a bad recipe on the net.

16.Every night, yes every damn night , I either have nightmares or some weird dreams. Last night was about Obama playing Holi in our lane.

17.I almost have never watched the first part of a movie which has sequels. Like Dhoom, POC, Spiderman. I finally managed to watch Princess Diaries on Sunday, after having watched Royal Engagement,say, 20 times.

18.I get maniac about wastage of food and water.

19.I love writing with chalks and pencils. I've never been able to write well with the Parker pens and Cello Gripper or even the 3 rupees pens suit me the best.

20.I love walking. Be it casual morning or evening walks, or walking to a place, under sun or in the rain, I don't complain.

21.I find it easier to do certain things for others, than for myself. For example, bargaining.

22.I'm quite sick of going out with girls whose committed halves keep calling every 5 minutes , instructing them how to cross the road, what to eat and what not to, where to go , where not to. I'd rather go around with single girls, bitch about people and laugh at PDAs.

23.Nobody likes their name to be misspelt or misprnounced, and I'm no exception.

24.I have lot of characters in my mind. And I look at things at a very unitary method kind of way. I can't possibly explain the points.

25Noddy was the first book I took from the junior school library.Little Women was the second one. I have pretty good memory when it comes to remembering petty stuffs.

I would like to tag ad libber, What's in a name, Preeti and Amrita~ams.

2009-02-21T22:23:00.004+05:30

In an age, where one speaks one language with his boss, talks with his fiance in another, and his parents in yet another language, how much relevance does 21st February hold? How much significance does the fight of those hallowed martyrs of Bangladesh several decades back, who laid down their lives for the sake of their love for their mother tongue, still count? 21 st February is widely celebrated all across the globe as the International Mother language day, since UNESCO's declaration in late 50's.
Being a Bengali, it gives me an immense sense of pride that lives were laid down for the cause of my mother tongue. But 21st February is not only about the Bengali language. Its stands for the victory of every language, be it Hindi, be it Gujarati, be it Tamil or be it Tulu. Its about tolerance. A friend of my had once expressed her view that she used to think that mother tongue is the language of the land where a person is born. Thats one interesting perspective, though. So after living in a place for , say, 3 decades , if one says that I still don't know the native language, there's no act of smartness in it.So. if one says , to live in a place , you need to learn the language of that place, one can not be completely ignored. Learning the language of a place you are staying in gives you better understanding of its culture, of its essence and a sense of security.
Barring a chunk , most, dream in their mother tongue and resort to peace of mind in it.
Some years back,I had watched this Bengali movie , which few of my generation has watched. There a character , seeing that the protagonist was speaking only in perfect Bengali, asks him, 'You don't like to speak in English, right?'The protagonist's reply comes as "Actually , since I know both the languages perfectly, I don't feel the urge to mix them up and converse". That essentially justifies the cause of khichdi language that we at times resort to.And since the main aim of a language is communication, getting the message across is what matters. But when a mother says to her son, "Beta bottle ta pick it up kore okhane put it down kore dao", ("Beta,woh bottle wahan se pick it up karke wahan pe put it down kardo" , you wonder , whether its too much?

Matrimonials and V day

2009-02-12T18:48:00.001+05:30

My Dida thinks that my cousin who is 27,has reached her marriageable age, and since she has not managed to find a groom for herself, its the elders who should take up this mammoth task . So every Sunday she makes it a point to go through the matrimonial columns in a vernacular newspaper , scan them and put a tick mark beside the ones which can be considered.So it was this Sunday,while I visited my maternal grandparents house, that I picked up the matrimonial supplement and started reading some of the ads:

# Alliance invited for Bengali girl,26+;mother senior college lecturer,father senior bank officer,brother settled in USA,cousin working in mnc. Mob:--, box no--- .
Now, we all know that its about loving your family, but where is the minimum information about the girl in question?

# Match for B.sc(h) girl, 23, Ghosh,5'4 , complexion dusky( like Bipasha),parents self employed,own house.Contact ---.
Dusky like Bipasha? What next? Husky like Rani?

# Match for businessman, 45(looks like 30), divorcee(with no fault of his own),passed 10.Bride should be extremely beautiful and educated.
!!!

So, I had enough of my entertainment and put aside the newspaper.
On other news , porshu is Valentines day. I was planning to get hold of somebody and venture into some parks , malls and places suchlike, but have this damn gd sessions in college. The blog was there on V day last year, but it didn't have any reader. But this year it has at least a few! So my dear readers , I love you all , Happy Valentines day .

Cullinary conquests

2009-01-14T19:15:00.000+05:30

Being literally tired of my grand ma's repeated approbation of my cousins' cooking skills and how that corroborated the fact that they have grown up to fine ladies, my mom's repeated dismays at why I'm not eager to learn making tea, I decided to enter the kitchen in creative mode.
So, here's the first chocolate cake I made in the microwave oven.

The chilly chicken was made from Macadamia's food blog.

This was a simple aloo-onion stuff.

Now, the following are geometry lover's delight,the final product taking various shapes.Don't ask me what they were, I want to forget their taste as fast as possible.

And some random escapades:
Thank you A and R for bearing with my coaxings of visiting Prinsep Ghat.

This is how the city looks from the 13th floor.

Tag time again

2009-01-07T19:36:00.000+05:30

This one is from Mads. Thank you :)

1. What does your user name mean?
Vanilla sky? I think I was watching the Tom cruise movie of the same name , some days before I created this blog. Liked the name, so kept it.

2. Elaborate on your user photo.
A girl dancing , I think. Was given by a friend.

3. How many comments do you have?
On what?

4. What's your current relationship status?
Current? always single.

5. What exactly are you wearing right now?
White pant, black tee.

6. What is your current problem?
The link of the modem going on and off.

7. What do you love the most?
Roaming aimlessly, travelling, singing, books, blah blah.

8. What makes you most happy?
Walks. Good food. Music. Friends. Family.

9. Are you musically inclined?
Yes, yes.

10. What would you do if you woke up one morning and found out you were on cocaine?
First brush my teeth ....then will think about it .

11. If you could go back in time and change something, what would it be?
Let me think....

12. If you MUST be an animal for ONE day, what would you be?
One animal only? Pigs, donkeys, squirrel, zebra ..whom will I disappoint?

13. Ever had a near-death experience?
Yes. In dreams. Every night I almost die.

14. Name an obvious quality you have.
Modesty :P

15. What's the name of the song that's stuck in your head right now?
The trailer of Delhi-6.

16. Are you happy today?
Yes. No particular reason though.

17. Who will cut and paste this first?
I think everybody has done this by now.

18. Name someone with the same birthday as you
Let me google.Ok, Greek philosopher Plato .(427 BCE; d. 347 BCE).

19. Do you have a secret crush on someone?
Umm..maybe !

20. Do you have a garbage disposal in your kitchen sink?
Below the sink, I think.

21. Have you ever been in a fight?
Recently, no. But had those fights in school bus lines, in class.

22. Have you ever sung in front of a large audience?
Yes, many times.At times, forgot lyrics, then audience started prompting. Too embarrassing. Chorus performances are safer.

23. What's the first thing you notice about the OPPOSITE sex?
Height, shoes, hair.

24. What's your biggest mistake?
With each passing day, it gets bigger and better :(

25. Say something totally random about you.
Being confused all the time.

26. Has anyone ever said you looked like a celebrity?
Mayawati is a celebrity. Maduri Dixit is a celebrity. And about the answer, No.

27. Are you comfortable with your height?
Yes. Though would n't mind being an inch taller.

28. What is the most romantic thing someone has ever done for you?
*sniff*

29. What are your favourite smells?
My shampoo, vanilla essence, my bed, petrol, paint.

30. What's something that really annoys you?
People spitting, littering.

31. What's something you really like?
Roaming, travelling, singing.

32. Do you give random hugs and kisses?
Well...random hugs to mom.

33. What's the latest you have ever stayed up?
20 hrs maybe.

34. Have you ever been rushed to the emergency room?
No , no.

By the way, this bloggie has completed a year today. I know I write shamelessly bad, but thank you all for dropping in here.

Reviewing

2008-12-31T18:00:00.000+05:30

As the sun sets on the western horizon of 2008, and a new day of 2009 beckons , as memories fade away and come back in a harmonic motion, time calls for a farewell post.
No obviously I'm not going to talk about Chidambaram, Bush and Harman Baweja. There are qualified people to tell you about them.

January was the month when this blog thing happened to me. For the past couple of years all I knew was blog comes from weblog. Then unfortunately came across some blogs which was reluctant to talk about anything other than PM's actions and Cm's inactions. So while I was ready to shed the wish of having a blog, there popped up certain blogs which had the 'why so serious?' message on them.And thank God for that.

I have realised that I am at my best behaviour with my parents during exams. Thats the time when I don't have the leisure to fight over whats in breakfast or lunch, why does the paneer curry taste like horlicks, and why does she have to give away all my coloured chalks to the maid's son.

Something needs to be done with these so-concerned mobile service providers.Vodafone has this message on the backside of its recharge card which says Register your number at xxxx.com to get rid of telemarketers. But what about the nuisance they themselves create? Its quite a confident shaker when run around your room trying to find your phone or jostle to open your bag in crowded bus only to find that the caller asking to set Himesh Reshammiya's croonings as your caller tunes.

Kyunki .. has ended and and with it has ended people's favourite game of guessing Ba's age. Big Boss was about watching people holidaying after being released from jail and now we have Big Brother too.My cable wala released back zee cafe and studio after hijacking them for over 6 months.

To my bro: Though we have scratched and kicked each other lesser this year, it does not give you the liberty to torture me with your guitar practice and exhausting our download limit with your games and other similar useless stuff.

Rediff predicts that the tech industry will the fastest one to recover from recession.

Harman and Emraan will be back with their new movies, Rakhi Sawant and Chunky Pandey will continue to be judges, Mtv will continue to be crappier, the likes of Mayawati and mulayam will continue to rule , Ram gopal verma must be thinking about his next venture.
So, as you can foresee, there are enough things to be afraid of the coming year.
The Loksabha elections are coming . And if I don't manage to lose my voter's Id card, and if my booth is not rigged, I might be debuting as a voter!

To anyone who's wasting time reading this, have a happy and prosperous year new year !

winter post

2008-12-26T14:34:00.005+05:30

Enough of my croonings about no-net show. I'm kind of assured that whatever education I have received till date has not gone waste, completely.
So, in between cursing my service provider and tossing coin to decide whether to go to a cyber cafe or not, I decided to check whether the connections in modem were fine or not. Obviously the connections were fine. I'm not that dumb that it will strike after 3 damn weeks. But what went wrong was the copper oxides deposits which were blocking the contact between the phone line and the modem port. A few rubbings with a brush , insertion of the wire and there glows the link in the modem !

Inbox full of 'How will be 2009 for you? Dial 12345 @ Rs 9/min to know' messages tells you that new year is round the corner. New year means getting a year older, one more semester less for college to end.
While flipping through the pages of a magazine , I came across this astrology section , which says 'Know what 2009 has in store for you'. Its no wonder that in times of recession temples are doing better business than before. So here's what is in store for me:

1)Get married this year because your spouse will bring you loads of good luck and happiness-
Anyone , with similar predictions?

2)Students will have a bad time as they might have to discontinue their studies-
I mean why? I do pay my college fees, don't see chances of expulsion, will not be entering Miss India contest or Roadies or Indian Idol.
Ah well, if I may comply with the first option , get married in a family which doesn't allow girls to study after marriage like in those daily soaps, then its quite possible. Duh, I should stop uttering crap.

3)Your friends of foreign origin will do you good in times of need-
I do have friends in foreign lands but of Indian origin. So extending the definition of foreign origin , should I expect the likes of ET or Jadoo to help me out?
2009 seems to an exciting year !

2008-12-19T18:06:00.002+05:30

Currently, sitting in this very small cubicle,surrounded by people who remind you of green goblins, I feel like cursing a lot of things in this world.
BSNL, my maid, this cyber cafe, the chair here, the keyboard which has lost its sensing power and hence misses out every alternate word, the internet service provider here (whatever it is).
Its been 5 minutes since I last hit the 'Post a comment' button in some blog.
Cyber cafes should stick a notice outside to let people know what exactly they want as identity proof , to save people from embarrassment.
Some say any id card would do, some want ration card, some ask for voter id card.
Then they scan your id card. Make you fill up a form ....ohh a long one. Anyway, I'm too tired after these form fill up and argument sessions. And yes, this cyber cafe doesn't allow you to log in to social networking sites.
God, please ask Bsnl to mend my net.

2008-12-13T15:34:00.003+05:30

This is a very boring execution of the tag :(

Hometown: Calcutta.
Hair Colour: Black.
Shoe Size: Varies. I mean, from shop to shop.
Righty or Lefty: Righty
Sex: Female

Siblings: younger brother.

Hair colour: Black.

Height: 5'6", I think.

Have you ever:

Given anyone a bath? Ahh yes, I once thought I'll make my cats as smart as their western counterparts by cleaning them and tying laces around her neck..( you know, those stories where people buy and sell kittens from stores )But my catty didn't quite like the idea.

Smoked?No

Bungee-jumped? No.

Made yourself throw up? No.

Gone skinny dipping? No.

Eaten a hot dog? Yes.

Put your tongue on a frozen pole? No.

Loved someone so much it made you cry? Yes.

Broken a bone? No. But I really fancy that I'll break my left hand someday, and people will write get well soon on the pluster.

Played truth-or-dare? Yes

Been in a police car? Not yet.

Been on a plane? Yes.

Been in a sauna? No.

Been in a hot tub? No.

Gone swimming in the ocean? No. ( Now , this reminds me of the scene from the film Kidnap , where Imran Khan takes the girl for a guided bath in the ocean).

Fallen asleep in school?umm...no I think.

Ran away? Yes.

Broken someone's heart? No I think.

Cried when someone died? Yes.

Cried in school? Yes.

Fallen off your chair? Yes, yes. Off chair, off stairs.

Sat by the phone all night waiting for someone to call? No.

Saved e-mails? Yes.

Fallen for one of your best friends?No, it didn't seem to be a comfortable idea.

Used someone? No.

Have you had...

Chicken pox? Yes. A decade ago, I think.

A sore throat? Of course.

Stitches? No.

Do you...

Believe in love at first sight? :O

Like picnics? Yes!

Like school? Yes

Would you eat a live hamster for $1,000,000? Naah, they look too cute.

Who was the last person that called you? Vodafone customer care official

Who was the last person you slow-danced with? Did I, actually?

What makes you laugh the most? Lots of people, things.

What makes you smile? Many things.

Who is the last person...

You yelled at?May be my bro.

Who broke your heart? None.

Do you...

Like filling these out? Yes, when I have nothing better to do.

Wear glasses or contacts? Well, none.

Like yourself? I think so.

Get along well with your family? Ahh...yes!

Are you...

Obsessive?No

Compulsive? At times.

Anorexic? No.
Suicidal ? No.

This and that:

Coffee or tea: Any other options?

Phone or in person: Depends on the person.

Are you the oldest, middle, youngest or the only child: I'm the older sibling :(

Indoor or outdoor:Outdoor , please.

Final questions:

What are you listening to right now? My mom's yelling to shut down the computer.

What did you do yesterday? Nothing exciting :(

Where do you want to get married? Anywhere pretty.

I would like to be: Just myself.

Are you a good driver? Does driving in NFS count?

Are you a good singer? YES, yes

What do you dream about? Ahh..bizzare stuffs...so much so that I have got oneirophobia.

Since I've nothing to write

2008-11-14T19:51:00.005+05:30

...I'll talk about the least significant things in these turbulent times.

1) Now if you consider yourself to be a really well informed being, you must be knowing 2 of India's longest running soaps on television viz. Kyunki....and Kahaani..... has finally met with their fate.
Now these 2 serials played a significant roles in my life for some time.
When these actually started, I was in 6th / 7th standard . In (our) those satellite tv less days, I used hear the opening tune of Kahaani ...at 10 p.m, which would signal that yes, your study time is about to terminate and finally at 10:30 the Kyunki.. tune from the neighbour's drawing room would make me and my bro jump to the dining room.

2)Kuch Kuch hota hai has completed a decade of its release.
Now its significant because
i)it gave us an illusion that college life was all about learning Romeo and Juliet and dancing with your principal.
ii)There was this whole lot of craze about Friendship day and friendship bands.
iii)Sony and set max got a movie to air every alternate Sunday. The count must have reached 4561 by now.
iv)That was the only movie in which I found Salman Khan tolerable.
v)All guys with the name Rahul felt as if they are on cloud nine.

3)And I lost my mobile memory card. It had a really short stay with me. After its insertion it was creating whole lot of problems. I extracted it out and on one sleepy night thought it to be piece of paper or whatever , threw it down on the floor maybe and my dear maid sweept it away and dumped it into the waste paper basket. Poor soul, must be having a tough time in some waste renewal plant.

4)My brother had a hall debut today .( means he, went out and watched a movie in the cinema hall for the first time) I had mine at a pretty old age i.e after giving my 12th boards in 'o6. A very strange silly fear used to stop me from going to the theatres and I used to put silly excuses to people who ever coaxed me to watch a movie out with them.

Now, its time to end the post..here's The End

2008-11-02T12:25:00.002+05:30

The other day , I was at some relative's house, where in course of some discussion, lady started talking about ,how a man rang her doorbell and on questioning him , she found out that he was asking for some monetary help for the treatment of his daughter battling with terminal illness.
"I'm smart you know, I didn't get down in the ground floor to find out where he has come from, what did those prescriptions say, you know na, there are so many frauds around these days".
Yes, lady, smart you are.
I wonder how fool the man must have been to think that people living in big houses , with big cars, had a big heart too?
And yes, smart you are.
Did you ever try to put yourself in his shoes to feel the plight of the father of a daughter battling in between life and death?
You did n't have the time to talk to the man , to find out whether he was really speaking the truth or not,whether he too was a victim of the global meltdown, coz you had to miss parts of your favourite tv program .
You would let your son gulp 100 Mc Donald's burger, be obese, and then spend thousands of bucks in gym , but when it came to giving out 50 bucks to someone in pain, you have every possible reason up in your sleeves.

"Do not do to others , what you do not wish them to do to you"-- the world would have been a much better place if people had stuck to this saying by Confuscious.

Morning strolls

2008-10-31T10:02:00.005+05:30

As somebody said, if the world's people are to be divided into 2 classes, one possible pair would be morning person and night owl.
"The morning people feel superior to those who trust the sun to rise on its own,and like to tell them so."
My history of morning walks dates back to my pre teen and early teen days when I used put alarm in the tiny alarm clock , made no fuss about getting up early , and merrily went out for walks with my father , even on chilly winter mornings.
Then alarm clocks replaced mobile phone alarms, morning walks made their way to getting up early and mugging up books or those 5 minutes sleep requests in winter.

So what triggered the second season of my morning walks is
(i) I've been getting bizarre dreams of plane crashing on my roof, anacondas in the nearby pond, lions and tigers roaming in the neighbourhood park and these dreams break exactly around 4:30 am ,thus terminating my sleep.
(ii)my mom's constant hammering on the head with "do some exercise" slogan.
(iii)a love story heard from a friend: "You do jogging really well" -was how the guy first complemented her.
So, I go for morning walks alone, I don't have a doggie in my company.So, obviously all I tend to do is notice people and things around.

People: you have the grandpas talking about freedom struggle, how life without inflation was. You have the ladies , who even in the wee hours, don't forget to discuss the saas-bahu serials , how disobedient their progenies have become and how late they return home.You have the uncles , who have 4km walk daily advice in their prescription charts. Coming down to the younger age bracket, guys and gals are hard to find.All one spot are groups playing cricket in nearby grounds or young lads taking driving lessons in yet-to-be-busy roads.

Nature around is pretty pleasant.Red and yellow flowers dot the trees, bushes.And you get to hear the crow's cry clearly, unburied under the noises of car horns.You have the nascent sun peeping out of the clouds, unperturbed by the presence of the dimmed remnants of last night's moon.Cool breeze, colourful surroundings, interesting people make your walk uncomplaining.

So, no matter how many times I hit the snooze button before getting up, no matter how I complain about having to open all the locks of the house, no matter how often my mom keeps complaining that these walks are not having any effect on my energy level, I've again fallen in love with the walks after years.

On the train

2008-10-25T10:17:00.005+05:30

Preeti's post excited me to write something about the string of train journeys I had to take off late and have been grumbling about them till date.

With very high hopes and faith in the omnipotent God , I brave the unruly mob of people crowded in front of the reservation charts , only to be provided with the fact that people around are m46, f41, m12, m76, f13, watever !
Okay, now lets say the train has started moving, the coolies have said byebye. Here comes the time, when you actually notice the kind of people with whom you are going to spend the next 24 hours of your life.
1. the sleepy kinds-The very first thing they do after boarding the train is to eye the upper berths.Even if they are not allotted the upper berth , they would coax the fellow passengers for an exchange offer and would immediately doze off after getting up.

2.The most noisy group in the train non arguably is the mother-kid combo-This section can be further classified:
i)The mother of an infant- they would run to the loo a billion times, cleaning utensils, washing clothes, to bathe the kid, to wash his face, to brush his teeth , to change his clothes, then would play snakes and ladder and so on!
ii)The mother of kids in the age group of 10-14--"you have an exam na? after the school reopens? wait, let me , take out your books for you to study, i've kept them handy"
"No mommm, please I will look out of the window for now"
"Nooo, you are not a kid anymore, there's nothing to look out of the window, its quite dark"
"yeah, mom, thats what I like, the lights glowing with darkness all around, mom are those will-o-wisp?"
"Shut up, study, here's your book".

3.Then there will be some men who would leave all the places in the train and find the space before the loos the most comfortable. And you would have to say "excuse me" a thousand times to get it registered in them.

4.This kind of people really gets on my nerves-they need to change clothes on the train , that too in full public glare. Men and women, in only a one night journey can't you really sleep in whatever you are?

And from Delhi , we took the Rajdhani. More than anything else its known as the train which serves you food on board.
So, 30 mins into the journey, a kid break the silence "Papa you, told they will serve us chocolates..when?"
I'll hate Rajdhani for serving me apple juice 4 times.

Delhi

2008-10-15T16:27:00.007+05:30

I never knew I would get my my much craved respect for my existence, in land miles away from home.
Once, while getting out of the Rashbehari metro station in Kolkata, a lady had asked me, "Girl, which gate should I take for the way towards Kalighat Temple? "
To which I had replied ,"I don't know, why don't you ask the policeman out there?"
"you don't know? Why ?? Have you not been to that place? you people stay in this city and still don't know??" and blah blah till I escaped from the site of lady yelling and lots of confused onlookers.

But in Delhi things were different. People asked me whether to take blue line or yellow line metro for Chandni Chowk, which way to take for reaching the front gates of Appu Ghar, whether to get down at Mandi house or Brakhamba road for Connaught Place. And a couple of foreigners asked about the Mughal hierarchy while visiting the Humayun's tomb. And thank God, I could answer !

Then there were those security checks . In really long queues
.
My eyes were really moist while going through the Indira Gandhi Memorial museum. Reading her personal notes in difficult times, of what she went through each time while losing elections, while being expelled, about her joy of motherhood, her pains of losing near and dear ones.
At the end of the day, she was a woman afterall.

And then I went to Sarojini to check whether I do possess any bargaining skills or not.

The green and red buses on road were real eyecatchers. The best part was that they have their numbers displayed at the back. If you running after buses , you can be sure about it, in that way.
Here, kids yelled "Ab plane Qutub Minar ke andar ghuss jayegaa"

Pujo post

2008-10-04T16:26:00.003+05:30

It began months ago...

Then she set her journey....

Finally , Durga is in town.....

Kidnap

2008-10-02T14:45:00.004+05:30

Disclaimer: This is no review.I'm incapable of that.

The movie opens with black and white cartoons depicting tortures in juvenile home and while you are making smart guesses that they are our protagonist's rough 'n' tough past, you are shaken awake to to Minisha Lamba's hip hop dance steps which seem like workout sessions . And Bollywood's fascination with the name Sonia continues and thus she sings 'Say S for Sonia'.
Then viewers are introduced to a whole lot of age related confusions...Minisha Lamba is supposedly 17 and the role of her mom is played by Vidya Malvade who till last year was running around with hockey sticks.
So, after a regular tiff off with her mom, the girl goes swimming to an uninhabited beach and our dear hero kidnaps her underwater.
For the next couple of hours, the hero makes the old father run,fly, jump,swim, ride bikes, steal cars, bluff jailers , visit night clubs , make a list of his enemies and so on.
In the meanwhile , the heroine makes it sure that the audience does nt get bored of her same old look and continues to get into one skimpy attire after another.
There also happened to be a few emotional scenes between the parents where the audience dozed off.
The audience again ot up from their slumber when the heroine urges that she needs a bath and thus goes out on a seaside and fountain bath, under the hero's supervision.
The hero claimed he had known all the hacking and cracking tricks he used in course of his action, while in juvenile home.
And this paid off in the end , with him settling for a software job and the girl as jobless as she was in the beginning.

smile :)

2008-09-23T23:35:00.000+05:30

"Whoever says money can't buy happiness , doesn't know where to go shopping"- read the 'about me' section of the Orkut profile of a friend.
The weekend was spent fiddling with the newly bought Sony Ericsson Cybershot. My dad and bro had gone to buy it, so I wasn't exactly aware of the features it was imparted with.
Zoom is an obvious feature and I used it for the first time, to get the snap of my pet crow.

Any doubts , as to how I get to identify my crow among many, should be ummediately scrapped off.

One of the unique feature available is 'Smile detector'(okay, its a year old technology)
This is the first smile it detected.

Since I decided to declare myself jobless on the Sunday afternoon and devote all my time to the newly added member of our family, thus followed some silly observations.
After a few pathetic search results, Google did deliver some read-worthy stuffs.

1)Smiles may involve up to 7 different pairs of facial muscles.
2)Its mainly the Zygomatic Major which plays the major role in one's smile.
3)The main role in a smile detector is played by the dataset. A huge number of smiling images under different conditions such as variable age, outdoor or indoor etc are loaded in the chips. The system just compares and clicks !
4)But the fallacy with this system lies in the fact that it takes white (or yellow) teeth as the only parameter of smile( thats what my practical handlings have revealed) . So no matter whether you smile or show out your teeth in disgust, with your eyebrows up raised , you will have your photo clicked.

cream biscuits

2008-09-18T14:34:00.010+05:30

Remember that Parle orange cream ad ? where a lady waits in a queue , and behind her is another young lady with her kid who has this biscuit packet in his hand. The old lady takes out the biscuits , eats off the cream in between and returns back the cream-less biscuits to the kid, and the kid starts crying !
Many a times, I've told myself , that since you've grown up , you must learn to eat a cream biscuit properly, and not like a two year old, who licks off the cream first and then dips the robbed biscuits into milk.
But, as the say, old habits die hard.

Now , when a public figure , makes some promise, however stupid it may sound, in full media glare , one must take that seriously, else lose some easy route to fortune. So months back, Ram Gopal Verma made a movie Phoonk , on some obscure subject and challenged the masses that whoever could watch it alone in a theatre , would win 5 lakhs for oneself. So while people were busy cracking jokes about the movie, one man in Bangalore booked a whole 247 seater and watched the movie alone and (must have) won 5 lakhs for himself !
Assuming each ticket cost atmost 250 bucks,
and number of seats 247 (given),
the total investment was 247 *250 =61750
and the output was 5,00,000
Therefore, total gain=5,00,000-61,750= 438,250 !

The other day, the back window of a car, before my bus , had these words written :
'Have you been tagged recently?'
Everybody talks in blog lingo, it seems !

One more tag

2008-09-07T12:19:00.009+05:30

This tag is courtsey Amrita

1.What have you realised recently?
that i've many tags pending and they are the only way to keep the blog going

2.Have you given your first kiss away?
yes, to my billi s

3. If you were to be stranded on a deserted island, who are the 11 blog buddies you would take?
I'll go by Rikki Tikki Tavi's moto of "Run out and find out"

4.Where is the place you want to go the most?
English countryside

5.If you have one dream to come true,what would it be?
I once dreamt my maid is cooking some edible finger licking stuff

6.Do you believe in seeing the rainbow after the rain?
whats there in believing? its not "raat ke hi baad hi to savera hota hai" or "good after evil" kind of phenomenon

7.What are you afraid of losing the most now?
on non materialistic front, lots of things

otherwise, everyday i'm afraid of losing impotant papers, my library cards as my maid sweeps away anything that lies on floor without even having the final nod from me

8.If you win $1 million, what would you do?
Puja is coming, so shopping is not a bad option

9.If you met someone that you love, would you confess to him/her?
This sentence is grammatically incorrect

10.List out 3 good points about the person who tagged you?
she tagged me
thus gave an option to update the blog
which made me happy

11.What are the requirements that you wish from your other half?
Wat exactly is the aim of this tag? a guide for the potential boyfriend?

12.What type of people do you hate the most?
umm...people who make me wait n wait

13.What is the one thing you can't live without?
Orkut asks for 5 ...this tag is smarter!

14. If you have faults, would you rather the people around you point out to you or would you rather they keep quiet?
Do as you wish !

15. Amrita's tag shows that this qwestun is missing. What do I do?
Thank God ! 1 question less

16.Are you a shopaholic or not?
not much

17.Find a word to describe the person who tagged you
nice :)

18.If you have a chance, which part of your character you would like to change?
low confidence at times

19.What’s the last shocking thing you've seen or heard?
my billi climbed up the coconut tree to fight with a crow ---believe it or not!

20.Would you rather have love but no money or money but no love?
Yawwn... yay ! the tag is done !

Anybody needs this tag? Take it up .

Tag

2008-09-02T16:41:00.006+05:30

I’ve been deferring this tag for long, which Matangi tagged me ages ago ,having an illusion in my mind that I’m busy , but since I’ve to write something before this blog goes in to Google’s list of unwritten , unread blogs, I hereby thank her for her 2^nd consecutive tag to me !

This tag asks the concerned person to write 6 quirks about herself.

So here it goes :

Whatever exam it is, no matter how easy or tough the paper is, I usually never leave the examination hall before the final bell has rung.

2. I have this habit of feeling bad for anybody and everybody, even if I’m in an equally pitiable condition.

3.Fears: (i) My mobile will be snatched off while on road.

(ii)I’ll fall down while crossing road.

(iii) I’ll fall off the auto front seat due to some counter-centrifugal force while the auto takes a turn.

4. I have more than 2 dozen pairs of shoes which I seldom wear and lots of ear rings which I have bought as a child collects sea shells on the sea shore and later forgets about them.

5. I have a bathroom of my own in the house and that has made up all my pains of having to share my room with my brother. A private loo gives you more me-space, I tell you.

6. My handwriting is still to reach a stable state and still keeps on changing. Somebody had told me it’s a sign of a creative mind (!!) and I find it hard to write with a pen without the cap stuck at its top.

These are the few which could be written on a public forum, and dear reader, I know these are no quirks y worldly standards, so pick up the pen , and do the tag.

On the tagging part, I tag,

Amrita, ad libber, Raka, Tyro, and anybody who wishes to pick it up.

Bio

2008-08-18T18:40:00.000+05:30

Even after 2 years, the Biology lab keeps haunting me at times.
Initially it did n't seem to be a nightmare, with all those cross sectional views of potatoes and leaves that we had to display in the microscope , but it soon moved into the dangerous territories with the lab assistant piercing our finger tops to get blood( how S cried for the whole day cause we told her mischievously that she shared the same needle as K's), identify the body parts of cockroach, and finally to top it all , the dissection of this chloroformed amphibian ...aargghh !

The first day was filled with shrieks, cries, nausea, repentance and emotions suchlike.
Many plans of becoming doctor died premature death ! An added trouble used to creep in when , this being woke up from its slumber in the middle of the operation!

Congrats

2008-08-11T17:03:00.005+05:30

Who cares if India lost the last test and Sri Lanka won the series by 2-1?

Its somebody else's day and here's congratulations to Abhinav Bindra for winning the first ever gold in an individual event for India

Here's a bit of conversation that was going on in an orkut forum:

X: "Felicitations Abhinav Bindra. I hope we produce many more Bindras "

Y :"Bindras to onek achhey india te...or gota poribar i to bindra...kintu shudhu oi medal peyechhey...
aro onek bhalo shooters toiri hok borong...." (there are so many Bindras in India, his whole family is Bindra !, but its only he who has won the medal, what we need is more competent shooters !)

State Of affairs

2008-08-07T15:25:00.004+05:30

The tea time and the dinner table in my house has become What-are-you-planning-to-do-with-your-life discussion time. Not that I'm an eager participant. Even if the morning discussion time can be avoided by getting up late, the dinner time discussion is inevitable. So, the result is food tastes bad to worse, even your favourite TV program appears irritating, and in the end all you get is a more confused mind. Lucky are those people who know what exactly they want from life.
The trouble has started with the onset of 3rd year. Why have people around become so serious? Even the girls beside me in auto or the guys in front of me in the bus discuss career nowadays. Which coaching institute assures you entry to the top notch institutions , which teachers have left one coaching centre to join another..blah blah blah
Wish I were in 2nd year, even 1st year. Braving ragging is much better than getting confused about one's future.

Troubles are relative. Happiness is relative.
Thus, while I spend my time contemplating about all these nonsense, the other day while listening to the FM, I came across a channel where a guy called up to know how colour therapy can help while he is about to tell his mom about his love life.
The sujjestion was that : use a lot of turqoise
How? How?
Paint the room with the colour turqoise, use turqoise coloured curtains, change the cushion covers of that room to turqoise.
Now, a 20 year old guy, is suddenly going to paint his room, change cushion covers,buy new curtains? That itself is enough for the mom to get irritated and the plan to tell about girlfriend , fail miserably.

Meanwhile the bomb hoax is slightly lesser . The sale of metal detectors, hiring of manpower in security agencies are at a high. They kept themselves busy by checking people with all the weirdest ways possible. Hope this concern does not fade off.

After citing stress as reason to opt out of the ongoing series, Dhoni decided to take care of the nation's fashion , help out girls from eve teasers and encourage participants in reality shows ! Finally his efforts paid off and congratulations for the Khel Ratna award.

Of something

2008-07-24T17:21:00.005+05:30

To my dismay, the bus fare from my stop to the breakstop on way to college is stagnant at 5, inspite of the recent surge in fares.

But the auto fare has increased from 4.5 to 5. And the auto drivers still remember me even after more than 1 month.

Having your fares as 5 bucks is one of the few things that can give a passenger her peace of mind. No moronic conductor clamouring for 50 paisa, no bovine auto driver arguing whether 25 paisa still works or not.

The semester break was mostly spent doing trying-to-be-trendy kind of shopping, running around banks on Mom’s insistence, juggling between mediums of books, net, newspaper and TV, movies, and lots of get-togethers at friend’s place.

My dear friends’ untiring effort to make me watch indecent stuffs remained futile yet again with some divine interventions from the Almighty in the form of ‘disc error’, ‘player not compatible’ etc. What followed was 4 back to back Pie movies, but there also I lived upto my reputation , pretending most of the time of running nose, strong cough and cold and eye irritation and ran away before the 5^th lying about some fictitious birthday party I had to attend.

On the Wednesday morning , just when I was too elated of meeting a friend after 6 months, convincing her to watch Dark Knight over Kismat Konnection and getting tickets for 50, it suddenly might have struck the Fame people that too much happiness is injurious to a young heart and the lady checking my bag suddenly found out a chocolate which even I didn’t know existed, and confiscated it. If that was not enough, a 500ml mineral water bottle cost me 30 bucks. The only solace was that, when the adjacent guys asked for water , we could reply in the affirmative.

Meanwhile my neighbours have acquired yet another puppy. That takes their dog count to 4, all of different breeds. And since I have started believing that I can never possess a dog of my own, and the street pups have betrayed me big time and have shown their liking for the bald uncle over me, I have finally resorted towards my brother, and have started calling him by my dream dog’s name. and it really gives a great sense of accomplishment .

Situation

2008-07-20T12:11:00.004+05:30

Its fun watching news channels nowadays. You don’t know who’s gonna shake hands with whom admist camera flashes.

Wooing one another, “horse trading”, inviting independents to lunch, kids coaxing with Big Daddies over getting cabinets, people hopping from one party to another,special arrangements being made for those holidaying in the jails, opposition leader claiming that he has members from the rival party in his drawing room, Breaking news such as 'Maya casts Mayajaal', a 95 year old man bothered every now and then, new parties being formed, new principles being brought into light…blah blah

During the Karnataka elections , I came across a channel showing the profile of a local politician, where the verdict of the journalist was that the chances of the man winning dicy since he had oscillated between 2 parties so many times, that a poll showed confusion ruled the minds of the voters about which party he is presently enrolled in.

[As a child , once I asked my cousin that who are elected to the Rajya Sabha? His reply was, "Those who fail to get elected by the people , get elected by their own men"]

The news channels are in one of their busiest phase as ever.

So one local channel wanted to be out of the league by calling a physicist( to explain to the general public what exactly the nuclear deal is), an economist( the impact of the deal on economy), analyst and a filmstar ( you know, that X factor is always needed!) . That left a baffled anchor who usually is seen in a tete-a-tete with filmstars about gossips and stories suchlike.

A nationwide poll says 23% of the respondents are for the nuke deal, 13% are against , that leaves aside a huge 64 % possibly in the ‘can’t say’ option. Maybe they did nt know what IAEA stood for. In a country where people identify the president as some film actress of yester year( if [V] IQ is to be trusted i.e) , this nuke deal is really a non issue in commoner's mind.

Now, how exactly does this Confidence vote take place?

The word confidence stands for the vote showing confidence in the ongoing govt or is it that the vote is going to take place in confidence? Silly ques, still , I was wondering.

Do the MPs have to stand up and tell the Speaker about their choice or do they have the usual ballot box thing?

What if someone who promised to vote for one alliance,voted for another?

[to myself : “Shrug off your Roadies hangover”]

so, it’s a matter of couple of days, to know whose efforts paid off and who has the last laugh !

[to myself : Watch the ever- skipped Loksabha channel at the voting hour ]

Lousy again!

2008-07-11T16:12:00.001+05:30

Why do I always have to take it seriously when my friends tell me ‘lets meet at 11 a.m” ?

With lots of internel calculations, keeping aside time for jams, bus being held by police for rash driving and things suchlike, I make it a point to reach the meeting point at 10:55 sharp. Ah…what a punctuality!

And the scenes elsewhere, where the other protagonists of this meet-up are present, is wrapped in laziness.

Some has finally woken up from their long slumber after repeatedly hitting the snooze button, some is still coaxing with their Moms with the breakfast, some are still in dilemma over their outfit of the day and some has finally decided which ear ring goes perfect with that-blue-coloured-top.

And the bad thing about waiting alone, apart from lecherous stares is that, people take it for granted that one is waiting for some boy friend. So, rose sellers, approach one as their prospective customer, only to be disappointed.

Why is it that some people remain sad for not doing the right thing at the right age and some people become happy by doing the not-so-right thing for an age?

When one fine evening you meet a girl , beside whom you used to sit in junior classes, cracked jokes about people, shared food, you obviously feel elated. And just when you start talking about the woes and joys of student life, she sprouts out the good news of her getting married. Yes, you hear in news, you see in movies , but when you know someone with so contrasting priorities in life , it takes a little time to sink in. And you wander , whether the all the beings on the surface of the Earth move with the same speed as it. Obviously not.

Lousy-Lousy

2008-07-06T15:39:00.011+05:30

Since there’s a competition among my cable operator and Sony as to who can air the same film over and over again, I watched Kuch Kuch Hota hai for say 93^rd, K3G for 64^th times. And kept wondering whether this is how , we had imagined our college lives to be , when we watched these movies as school going kids.

A month ago, 2 girls on their way to exam, were talking everything other than the exam some minutes later.
"Have you heard the song Aditi?"
"Yeah, nice na?"
"So are we going to watch the movie?"
"Yes ! Yes! Off course! what yaar! Enough of Race and Dhoom2 ! we're in college and watch something like that "

So there we were , watching the morning show of Jane Tu...Ya Jane na at Fame, South City.

Now, who goes for a morning show at 10 a.m, that too on a Monday morning?

People who are jobless and responsible bachhas of their respective parents, who makes sure that they spend their parent's hard earned money in a sensible way (!).

But this theory did not work as we had a Monday morning Housefull show, with Uncles, Aunties, and even school kids in uniform turning up. Have schools become such boring places that people have to bunk in the wee hours of morning?

Talking of the movie, it made a refreshing watch. Characters looked real college kids and not some 40 something made to wear tight trousers or short skirts.

So what if Nasiruddin shah's act brought memories of Hum Paanch's Priya Tendulkar, what if love and friendship be the 'duniya ki sabse purani kahani', with super cool mom and dads, lively bunch of friends speaking your lingo , sibling love, gripping narration and apt soundtrack, and above all a vibrant lead pair, the film makes it a must watch for the season.

the songs popping up at the right time, binded the storyline aptfully.

And the billi surprise in the song Aditi was really, really sweet :)

[ Kash, somebody sang for me and my billi *sigh*]

FYI , the word Aditi features 15 times in the song.( yeah, i'm jobless, i listened to it 110 times and the thought of counting it cropped up when I was listening to it for the 109th time)

So, enough of film reviewing(!). And since this post has become respectably long, I stop here.

So, for the time being, ciao and Meeow!

2008-06-28T22:08:00.001+05:30

Now the thing is that, I’m utterly disgusted with my helpful/merciful/generous/compassionate/sensitive and what not nature. I can’t refuse a beggar on the road and people warn me that I’m encouraging beggary ,I can’t refuse a salesman who comes to my doorstep , churns out stories of unemployment ,his incomplete education because of lack of money and hence asks me to buy some homemade/small scale industries product. People warn me that he may be a fraud, he may have some more severe intentions.

Then I encounter people who show me prescriptions of their children/spouse suffering from some terminal illness. They ask for money so that they can atleast feel , that they had tried their best to save their loved ones. People tell me that they are fake. They are not genuine. They make up such stories and fool everyone.

And I’m tired. So, am I going to question everybody’s genuineness? What if I was in their position? What if , I was in real trouble and ran from door to door and people would dismiss my plea thinking that I’m making up stories?

Banking Blues

2008-06-24T15:46:00.007+05:30

While my beloved friends are braving the hide and seek of sun and rain to make their way for summer workshops in college, here I’m spending my morning reading blogs started way back in 2002 !

Suddenly, as the clock struck 12 , I vaguely remembered an assurance which I had given to my Mom. My Mom kind of threatened me that if I didn’t get her job done from the bank today, she will be left with no other option but to take leave from office tomorrow to get her job done. And since I didn’t want to lose my freedom of using the TV remote and the phone receiver, on a summer afternoon , that too when your exams are over, I readily agreed.

Since my banking skills are as good as Katrina Kaif’s Hindi, I had reasons to worry and felt as nervous as a goalkeeper before penalty shootout, recollecting previous embarrassing experiences.

And I had a grand entry. Without noticing that the door had PULL, I PUSHed it , a lady got hurt, and serious questions were raised about my literacy level.

The bank was least customer friendly. Every counter read ‘single window counter’ when it should have indicated what job it was actually doing.

I followed a lady with cheque in hand and stood behind her in the queue.And then I noticed , That I was being treated as a non entity. People wanted to go before me citing several odd reasons. Its too hot outside(so? Its AC inside), some said theie amount was lesser than mine (whatever).

Some lazy officers around were dozing off, some giving their opinion from everything under the sun , from oil prices to Ram Gopal Verma...

Finally , when I was about to find some reason to be happy in this territory, thinking that my turn has finally come, a Himesh tune rang in the concerned person’s mobile and merrily left his cabin for some pep talk. Returned 10 minutes later, only to announce in the true spirit of punctuality, that it was Break time .

Okay , finally when my turn came, the lady who was checking the form started frowning. “no please no questions to me “,I said to myself and I started searching my Mom’s number in the mobile.

Finally, without any more hiccups, it was done.

123 tag

2008-06-21T21:39:00.005+05:30

Tag courtesy : Macadamia !

Tag rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge the person who tagged you.

Procedure

I can't help but flout one clause of rule 1, which asks me to open the nearest book. All the books nearest to me are my text books and since I’m done with my exams a few hours ago, I’m not at all going to open them now.

So I venture downstairs to the book shelf and get hold of the nearest book. But alas! This book India 2020 by APJ Abdul Kalam , has some charts on page 123. the next nearest book is Ripley’s believe it or not and again disappointment ! this thin book which is not strong enough to kill a mosquito , does not have page 123. it finishes off in 80 pages.

Okay, no more fumbling. Finally I get hold of a book which does have some text on page 123.

The book is Short Stories collection by Oxford University Press.

The story is One Autumn Night by Maxim Gorky.

“In our present state of culture, hunger of mind is more quickly satisfied than hunger of the body. You wander about the streets, you are surrounded by buildings not bad looking from outside and you may safely say it –not so badly furnished inside, and the sight of them may excite within you stimulating ideas about architecture,hygiene and otherwise and high flying subjects.”

Now the tagging part

Amrita

Matangi

Raka

Manorath

Anybody who wishes to take up this tag

Go and open your books !

2008-06-14T15:35:00.003+05:30

i just can't seem to have enough of rain !

for the past hour, have been googling all sorts of rainy pictures, thus crossing my internet usage limit at the middle of the month :(

and did i forget, i have exams too?

and then i watched Alibaba and 40ty thieves on tv.

darn me :(

Yet another

2008-06-05T13:18:00.004+05:30

The other day there was this kind of sarcastic awards function telecast on the tv, organized by a popular radio station. In one section , there was an award ‘city’s shaan’ .

When it came to Kolkata, the options were

public bus mein chhed –chhad
calendar se bhi zyaada chuttiyan
the autowallahs and their notoriety

well, the award went to ‘public bus mein ched-chaad.

But it should have gone to the second option – “calendar se bhi zyaada chuttiyan”

Because that is the exact situation today. And may be tomorrow too.

The communist party of India called for a 12 hour strike in W.B,Kerala and Tripura, in protest of exorbitant rice in fuel price.

And to add 'fuel' to that , the state opposition party called for another 12 bandh on friday. btw, the question is who called first? and the issue being the same, could nt they settle for the same day?

So what follows the ‘bandh ‘ declaration is – news channels calling up a bunch of politicians and economists, people anxiously shopping household stuffs, cars and taxis lining up in petrol pumps to fuel themselves before prices soar up after midnight and universities across the state postponding their ongoing exams…

The morning started with sound of incessant rain instead of the hustles of plying buses.

It rained and rained , the streets wearing a deserted look, in contrast to the usual noise and commotion and high pollution level.

What better way to celebrate Environment day?

2008-05-29T10:54:00.001+05:30

Dear Cheeku ( now , don’t kill me for calling you like this),

Congratulations for your result !! you have made all of us proud and happy !

But don’t forget give my share of treat for doing your workbooks, for sacrificing my sleep because of your late night studies, for keeping all your pens at place before your exams and so on (the list is pretty long you see !)

Am i jealous?Not at all, why should I be? its your success that has brought a smile in the face of my loved ones :)

With each day passing by , I realize that I have so much to learn from you. Its you who strive me to do do better (really ! really !), its from you I need to learn how-to-keep-control-over –the-nerves-before-exams,its from you I need to learn how to be organized about every thing in life(be it those WWE stickers you used to collect or your study table or the way you maintain our book shelves), i need to know the secret of your yummy cullinary conquests in the microwave oven, how you win-every-NFS race, how to do soo nice power point and flash stuffs, and off course, guitar ! (see, the list is long here too! )

But, that does not mean that I am going to stop taking your favourite pen and return it only after i.ve finished the ink,I’ll get hold of the remote when you wish to watch your football matches, I’ll get hold of the morning newspaper first..etc etc ..(long list here too !)

Love you loads boy!

etc

2008-05-21T10:36:00.002+05:30

As the exam dates come nearer , and the mind becomes already wear out by the complexities posed out by half a dozen of papers, thoughts of spending holidays after semester, meeting up with school friends at our usual hunt KFC, buying Chetan Bhagat’s new book,hopping through the Park street with college friends, finishing off ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ and so on , keep flocking to the crevices of the mind….

This IPL did major damage this sem….people getting over enthusiastic at Shahrukh khan’s buying of Kolkata Knight Riders, speculations and excitements,my bro constantly jumping before the television everyday from 8 pm, friends constantly sms ing from Eden Gardens(“we’ve reached stadium”, “so many people”, “I just now saw SRK”, “lights went off”), and logistics being worked out whether Knight Riders will be able to reach the semi finals or not!(“they have to the all the matches from now”, “Delhi has to lose the next with Punjab”, “If they beat Chennai, they’ll equalize them”…blah blah blah)

The ‘Korbo Lorbo Jitbo ‘ morale booster may not have had major effect on the players concerned , but did manage strike the right chord with the commoners

So, taking that spirit forward and rhyming with that, ‘Likhbo(we’ll write), Porbo(we’ll read) Sikhbo (we’ll learn)…can be adopted as the catchline for the ‘Literacy awareness ‘ programme !!

There happened to be a very sweet boy in my Physics tution who did equally sweet errors in Maths. Like, sin 30+sin 60…..his answer would be a very sweet and simple sin(30+60)=sin 90=1

Then sin 60/sin 30= 2 ( the sine things getting cancelled !)

Geography was a subject I least loved in school , especially the physical section of it , which dealt with some weird landforms like inselbergs, sand dunes. Not that I hated or got poor marks in it, but I was not fond of it. Studying the middle east countries provide an advantage as many of the capital country’s name had just an Al before it. eg Al Kuwait.

I’ve been trying to search for a simpler explanation of the topic in my syllabus, but Google is disappointing me pathetically :(

Since , I’m heading no where in this post , I should immediately stop here and take an oath not to visit this place before my dreaded exams end .

10 upon 10 tag

2008-05-15T14:31:00.005+05:30

Matangi tagged me and here I go….

10 things I miss in my life

going by the kind of nostalgic person I am, I do miss many a thing in my life….:(

1.first and foremost, like many other people , I do miss my school life.

2.Dear grannie, I miss you a lot

3.The locality, the house where we used to stay few years back.

4.Singing classes at D’s house

5.Chemistry tution classes……the stupid experiments with potassium permanganate, the gossip, the throwing of chalks,everything out there!

6.Morning walks with C in winter…….girl, why are you so lazy nowadays?

7.The pastry shop at the bus stop…..why did you guys change your trade to mobile shop??

8.1^st year in college…esp graphics classes!

9 .Missing friend P…..she’s not in town.

10.okay…finally…I really miss all those silly games we used to play as a child….in the afternoon …right after coming back from school!

10 things I wish to achieve within a decade

hmm….that means 2018…..

1.Learn a few Indian as well as foreign languages and read all classics

2.Write a poem atleast........i'm terribly bad at this :(

3.Buy a car and learn driving

4.Visit Egypt or China or France and Venice

5.Conquer whatever fears I have viz ghostophobia, heightophobia

6.Learn playing guitar fully.

7.Watch a cricket match at Lord’s and Eden Gardens

8.Be successful in professional life

9.Be more confident and shed all sorts of inhibitions.

10.Watch a few good movies

Anybody who has not done this tag, may pick it up !

Anyone?

2008-05-12T18:36:00.002+05:30

“Did you hear the ice cream vendor too?”

“Yeah, I did”.

“Arre, then go out in the balcony and stop him”.

“Why should I go out everyday?, you go out and stop him today”.

“ohho , he will pass by, if you waste so much time in shouting at me”

“Okay you get me the money fast, I’m stopping him”

“Wait boy, what flavour today? Budget is 10 bucks per head, you know na?”

“I’ll buy whatever I like”

“Shut up, don’t buy that twister, its horrible, and we have already tried that rainbow and vanilla zap, so anything other than these”

“Okay let me go, else the vendor will think we just stopped him for fun”

“Remember the things I told you about flavours, no Twister”

[this important business is a part of me and my bro’s summer afternoons for the past week]

On His Birthday

2008-05-08T12:07:00.003+05:30

"The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day.

I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instrument.

The time has not come true, the words have not been rightly set; only there is the agony of wishing in my heart.

The blossom has not opened; only the wind is sighing by."

The poet who gifted India and Bangladesh their National Anthems,been the first Asian Nobel laureate,rejected his Knighthood in protest against the Jalianwalabagh massacre,gave Gandhiji the title of Mahatma,the educationist and reformer in him who established the Vishwabharati University……….

[This portrait of Rabindranath Tagore,is a fabric work of white on black cloth, done seven summers ago, when I used to spend my lazy Sunday mornings at a neighbourhood art school.]

5 People I HaTe

2008-05-02T14:55:00.013+05:30

This tag is courtesy Macadamia the nut

As the rule goes, one has to pick up 5 creeds of people they hate and why.

So here it goes , the order not holding any significance though

#Empty vessels

As goes the proverb ‘empty vessels make more sound’, so do these clan.

Being ignorant about certain things in life is not objectionable. But what is absolutely not bearable is when you keep on blurting crap about things you are vaguely aware of.

#Hypocrites

They’ll curse you from inside.

But will put up a wide grin on their face on every encounter and act as if you share the closest relation on this earth.

#Fashionably late

Its not any urgency, its not any work, its not any other unavoidable circumstances.

They will make you wait and wait.

Its like that, being late is in their genes, no matter how many times you plead to them to be on time.

They just want to throw some weight and be ‘fashionably late’.

#Eh..its my place !

These are the ‘class’ of people with minimum sense of public hygiene.

They’ll spit on the roads, smoke in public places in proximity to women and children, and presume ‘all the world’s a loo’.

# Don’t mess with me

Arrogance rules here. These creed believes whatever they think is right, and that they can never be wrong.

Never open to any sort of ideas , they look down upon you, if you don't get along with them.

And I also hate people for whom ‘SORRY’ is a too casual word.

So , I finish off with this tag.

Thanks Mac !

Now I tag

Raka

Amrita

Manorath

Matangi

telephone,wedding and ad

2008-04-26T11:05:00.006+05:30

So this weekend I could finally manage to make a long due telephone conversation with a long ago met not-so-long distanced friend of mine.
Actually , I fear calling her.calling her means for the next 1 hour we would be on our glorious glib talk, shutting ourselves from the ongoings of the rest of the world, only stopping when enough heat is generated between the duplex device and our auditory canal .

Calling up her means first of all mourning about our common plight of single hood. Either she’ll stance instances of how every damn dumb girl of her college is committed or I’ll make her even more sad citing stories of how the girls we found so stupid in school were dangling away with their boyfriends. Then we’ll pass some expert advices on on certain very important social issues like relationship of certain filmstars, etc, relive our old crushes and mourn again on the fact that we did nothing wild at all in all our teenage.

Last weekend , I attended a couple of unwanted weddings. No, unwantedly attended a couple of weddings. Usually in such functions, me and my brother make it a point to either stick to our father or fly to some uninhabited corner of the venue to get least noticed. So there I was, this time too , at a nook of a not so huge venue. Suddenly a huge came running towards us, with a wide grin.i wanted to play a ringtone on my cell and pretend a call has come. It was too late.

Lady:so you are Ponu’s daughter?(more grin)
Me:umm…ahhh
Now another lady comes to the picture.
Lady1 to lady 2: “ arre is not she Ponu’s daughter?”
Now, I know, and as many other known relatives say, that I don’t look like either of my parents. So I resemble this Ponu?
To my utter relief , I could see my mother , on the verge of visiting this territory
And I indeed turned out to be Ponu’s daughter. These people , who happen to be my mom’s cousin , calls her by this weird name.

Then they started talking of how I wetted their clothes when one of them took me in their lap and lo ! they started having a fight to ascertain whom I had wetted .
These conversations with unknown relatives are more tyrannical than the ragging sessions in the first year of college, I tell you.

There’s nothing good on the TV except for the new vodafone advertisement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB1UPJ4leqs

I rush down from the terrace, climb up the stairs from ground floor,poke out of the bathroom door to see this ad ,whenever I hear it being played on tv.

and i love its jingle too much:

"Everyday I want to fly stay by my side...
Everyday I want to dream stay by my side...

Every morning I wish I could just play....
Wish the mornings would just stay..."""

By product of a boring lecture

2008-04-22T15:47:00.003+05:30

"My mind is a garden,
My thoughts are the seeds.
My harvest will be
Either flowers or weeds"

Tag

2008-04-19T15:46:00.004+05:30

So here goes my first Tag , after actually being tagged , by Raka.
Otherwise, I have been just stealing 1-2 tags from others and doing them!
sorry for being late
blame it on my keyboard malfunctioning.

1.last movie you saw in a theatre?
Race

2.what book are you reading?
The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh

3.favourite board game?
ludo , scrabble

4.favourite magazine?
Reader's Digest, The week, India Today

5.favourite smell?<
smell of new books, wet earth, paint,varnish

6.favourite sound?
wind chimes, guitar,piano being played

7.worst feeling ever?
being misunderstood, not being able to convey oneself

8.what is the first thing you think when you wake up?
"What time is it?"

9.favourite fast food place?
KFC,Pizza Hut

10.future child's name?
something prouncible easily-thats all i can say now

11.finish this sentence " if i had a lot of money i'd..."
buy loads of clothes & books, buy a house only for pets

12.do you drive fast?
i don't drive; rather i can't drive :-([unless driving in NFS or Midtown Madness counts!]

13.do you sleep with a stuffed animal?
no way!

14.storm cool or scary?
cool! no matter whether i'm outside or inside my home.

15.what was you first car?<
well, the GIJOE car which i snatched from my cousin

16.favourite drink?
mango drinks, sprite etc

17.finish this sentence "if i had the time i would?"
go through the pages of the few books i still have , from my nursery classes to std 5, go through the childhood albums

18.do you eat the stems of broccoli?
no

19.if you could dye you hair,which colour would it be?
i'm not quite enthusiastic about colouring my hair

20.name the different cities /town you have lived in?
calcutta, delhi, durgapur, jamshedpur

21.favourite sports to watch?
cricket, tennis

22.one nice thing about the person who sent you this?
She's a fantastic writer.

23.whats under you bed?
dusty floor--my maid is too lazy to reach out to that

24.would you like to be reborn as yourself?
no ! is nt it better to explore different lives!

25.morning person or night owl?
morning person

26.over easy,or sunny side up?
sunny side up!

27.favourite place to relax?
lying down on my bed,taking a stroll on the terrace

28.favourite pie?
nothing as such

29.favourite ice cream flavour?
strawberry,black currant, chocolate

30.of all the people you have tagged who will respond to this first?
i'll tag only Amrita

of train and transformer

2008-04-15T18:20:00.004+05:30

My father’s office tour took us to a hydel power station at the border of West Bengal and Jharkhand.
This being my first train journey since watching ‘Jab We Met’ , so..you know…expectations and imaginations were really running high !
But unlike the movie, the train was not at all empty, it was full of a shit people. The women were running around wearing a whole lot of jewellery and men in their shorts and vests!
Man! This is only a one night journey and the train compartment is no way your bedroom !so , please..
The train was another crap character, stopping at every damn station…
Ok, finally after a bad night’s sleep admist cacophony contributed by kids yelling, people fighting over their seats, TTs shouting on the top of their voices, we finally reached the station..
So for the past 3 days , I have been

* Watching village girls and women passing by merrily , clad in clothes of brightest possible colours !

*Visiting the hydel power plant. Its Asia’s largest pumping project, done in collaboration with Japan.
Construction wise, it had an upper dam, lower dam and the usual switch gears,lock gates, turbine chamber, control rooms.
This visit made me realize how vast the difference between theoretical knowledge and practical experience is. I did not have the slightest hint how huge a transformer can be and what complexities it can have in its construction, whose circuit diagram we draw at one go of the pen!
The job in the field and control rooms involve a lot of expertise and tension.

*Visited the ‘Charak mela’…this ‘mela’or fair held in the villages of West Bengal for the last 3 days of the Bengali year, is all about fanatics and faith at its extreme.
People walk barefoot on burning coal,jump bare bodied on sharp iron rods, dangle a child with his body pierced brutally, from the top of a huge stick, hurting oneself in the name of god, and to top it all, on the final night they have 300-400 slaughterings.
The traditional ‘Chau nach’ is probably the only creative aspect of the fair.

*Ram navami was also slated then, when the streets came to standstill with people displaying fights with sticks and swords.

*Our driver took us to a place where bangles of hand made from ‘gala’ . it involved lot of persevearance and creativity. From next time, I go shopping , I’ll try not to bargain for handicraft goods. Their prices are justified.

*Walked the village roads in the mornings,chased herds of goats, took snaps with calves, ate at dhabas of truck wallahs in the afternoon , and counted stars in the evening lying on the terrace of our guest house!

Then , again, there was the inevitable train journey.
This time around, the journey was smooth, if I ignore the fact that the train was running only 4 hours late.i thank the sudoku in my mobile for helping me pass my time in the station.

So back to Calcutta. The taxi breezed fast over the Howrah bridge. There’s some thing in it. Whether it’s the architectural marvel, or the fact that it bridges such a wonderful city….but everytime I see the bridge..it does something to me.....

Darling tons

2008-04-06T11:26:00.003+05:30

She left before I could find a suitable name for her. For many days after that I could hear her mother wailing, searching for her new born kitten.
Pomy had given birth to a kitten a few days ago. But life was too short for her. Within a week of her birth, she chose to leave her mother and me behind.
At one point of time , I had 7 seven cats at home, running to and fro to every nook of the house. Their agility spread the vibes in our life too. Now I’m left with only one.
Earlier I used to cry. Cried for the whole day , if any of them left me forever. Now I don’t.
Somewhere down the line, the realization has sunk in to me, the more you love your pets, the less they live with you.And that, pets will always leave before you.

My long standing wish of having a puppy has never been fulfilled. If I had ever asked for a puppy as a birthday gift, my mom would dismiss it, citing excuses of them being working parents and hence nobody will be available to look after it  so I took to the stray pups. I would feed them, pamper them, walk with them in the evenings.
And never do they disappoint you. The Bholu, Tommy, Dodo s have returned more love than I have given to them, being my companion in my everyday walk from home to the bus stop, barking away the trespassers into our garden and sitting in front of our house like a watchman daylong !

I have always been immensely possessive of my pets.
I hate when people stop and wait ,when my cats cross the road.
Its like , “ Arre they are my cats, how can they do any harm to you?” 
I really feel jealous when my cats, after having their lunch at my place, go and lie down on the curnish of my neighbours. “you are having food at my place and relishing somewhere else? Huh “
I hate my street dogs when they run after somebody , who gives them biscuits. “ohh, I give you food na, isn’t that enough?”

Among the other pets I had was fish ! But somehow I failed in that attempt. Though I did n’t have a formal aquarium , I tried to keep the fishes in a bowl after collecting them from a friend’s aquarium. Either the water did not suit them or the food, they did not survive for more than 2 days. After two falied attempts , I did not wish to bother those tiny creatures anymore. Also as people say, goldfish cannot survive without its pair.

Pet loving was extended among our friends too. A friend of mine arranged a party when her rabbit gave birth ! so did another when the number of fishes in his aquarium had crossed 30 ! there were also competition among some friends as to whose dog can run more fast or whose cat is more fluffy !i had named a cat Duggu to tease a friend of mine who is an ardent fan of Hrithik Roshan.

The void created by their death is something which many can’t cope up with.
A friend of mine stopped going to the terrace for years after the death of her rabbit which had its den at one corner there.After the death of their parrot,our neighbours used to feel sad every night , as the parrot used to chirp out ‘good night’ to them .We stopped going to a friend’s house after their dog died. Somehow , we found it hard to get over the fact that there will be no ‘Liza’ running towards us, wagging her tail, running to and fro in joy of seeing us, picking up the ball we threw towards her….

Did I mention about the broken-legged crow which used to visit me every morning at 8:30 a.m sharp?
The poor bird had broken her legs somehow and maybe was unable to move too much. So I found her every morning, sitting on our window pane. And after a few days , I was also familiar with her typical call and thus used to rush towards the window to give her food.
May be her limbs are fine now, that she does n’t visit me anymore !

trivia !- unlike dogs, cats wag their tails when they are angry.

Pets

2008-04-03T11:15:00.002+05:30

how about adopting a violet monkey?

this stray Puppy surely needs me!

Green Goblin?

A to Z

2008-04-01T00:20:00.001+05:30

Have nothing better to post, hence...

A for Acceptance—accepting failures, accepting truth, accepting people as they are
B for blue , B for books, B for blog, B for Bicycle…
C for Calcutta, C for college…
D for Dilemma
E for Emraan Hashmi and his ever daunting attitude inspite of strings of flops!
F for college Fests
G for the beaches of Goa
H for Humpty Dumpty
I for Inspiration
J for being Jealous
K for Kitkat, K for Keira Knightley in her role in Bend It Like Beckham
L for ‘lalalala’
M for Maggi—only thing which I can claim to cook and can have anytime
N for anything new, smell of new clothes, smell of new books, joy of new clothes
O for opaque
P for Phuchka
Q for Quantum physics
R for Rains and the Romanticism it brings with it, and the Rainbow that follows
S for School –for all the wonderful memories, S for Scrabble, S for Sudoku
T for Trams—the Kolkata exclusive transport, T for Train journeys
U for Umbrella
V for Veronica
W for “Why should boys have all the fun?”—I love this ad and the tagline!
X for Xerox---for making our lives easier !
Y for Yes! The 3 lettered word full of optimism
Z for Zombie

Of Acronyms & Abbreviations

2008-03-22T11:05:00.007+05:30

Its high time I admit my ignorance of most of the short forms doing rounds over internet and mobiles. I can claim to know that i.e is for id est, e.g is for exempli gratia, but only a few days back, I came to know what brb and ttyl stands for and I still not know what does zoth,zomg and few others stand for!!so here’s a recollection of some of the incidents that I had to face, in my effort to decipher these short forms!
Case 1: it was about 2 years back . I , along with 2 other school friends were chatting in the yahoo messenger conference. One of them cracked a joke. I being a rookie in the chat world then, only managed to put up a grin smiley. The other one wrote ‘lol’. “Whats that?”, I wandered. Neways , ignoring the trifle 3 lettered word, I continued chatting. Then the friend again cracked a joke. The other one wrote “lolzzz”, then she again wrote “lolzzzzie”. I began to wander what has happened to her, is she not getting that those were jokes? Or her keyboard or mouse is not working properly?it was only after few days that when I met her and dared to ask her what that lol business was all about, that she took out a piece of paper and explained to me as if she was solving an infinite series—
“listen , lol stands for laugh out loud….ok? and loz is the plural form…ok? See..
lol(1)…lol(2)…lol(3)…lol(4)………………lol(n)==lolz….ok? and lol(n+1)=lozz and so on….ok?
I nodded my head.
Case2: I had changed the profile photo of my orkut profile that day .
A friend of mine scrapped me” nice dp!”
I did n’t get it.
After a few days, another friend scrapped me,” awesome pp”.
“whats that ?”.
that very day, somebody scrapped me and said, “ hey liked your op very much, mind being friends?”
generally, never do I entertain those ‘lets-be-friends -kind -of -messages’ ,but that day, I was so very irritated by continuous bombarding by short forms, that I immediately scrapped him back and said,
“ya, I will be your friend, first tell me what op, pp and dp mean?”.
I did n’t have the slightest inclination to know what the person thought about this , but all I knew was, that I must solve this short form puzzle right then.
“Op stands for orkut picture, dp stands for display photo, and pp stands for profile photo”.
“thank you , and bye”, I said.
Case 3: once when I logged in to orkut, one of my friends scrapped me “sup?”.
I searched the nearest and farthest corners of my mind, but nowhere could I find a word ‘sup’. Since I was not replying(rather was not able to reply),the chap on the other side again scrapped me with the dreadful word in it! After 10 minutes, a scrap came,” are you not online? Neways , I am leaving, see you later”. I heaved a sigh of relief!
Some days later. Orkut login, same friend, same scrap ! “sup?” ohh god, save me!
10 minutes passed. Again same scrap . “sup?”. My ignorance of the word ,was taking its toll. I scrapped him back,”what is sup?”.
“ohh you were stumbling at this word?, it stands for whats up?”, pat came the reply.
“I see”.

Can any law of contraction justify the un necessary tamperings of life as lyfe, time as tyme, my as mah,cool as kewl?
Many think, the words look cute .
I had an equally tough time to get that 10Q stands for thank you and 10x is for thanks !
i mean, thanks and thank you are sensitive forms of courtesy and its kind of insult when you stick to such shortened forms of the words, at least over the internet where your words limits are aplenty, unlike sms.

the aim of language is to communicate.there are many ways to save time, but definitely language is not among them. And using these sms lingo, the task of comprehension does not always become easier, mostly it’s the other way round.
In a word where vowels are removed and the remnants are only 3 from the original 6 lettered word,the brain always has to do some extra work,to figure out what it means, by looking at the words suroounding it, which also may be similarly ambiguous .

Neways,chatting and sms ing being informal places, we can a bit of excuse those who wish to let their hair down.

Happy Holi !

2008-03-21T06:18:00.002+05:30

splash of colours, sweets, friends, fun.....

sprinkling colours at strangers,at the neighbourhood boy/girl with whom you may not have talked for even once.....

unabashed flirting, community harmony........

escaping from being sprinkled with colours.....

aftermath, hour long cleaning of colours.....

holi is about all these and more...

happy holi !

candid confessions

2008-03-14T17:38:00.005+05:30

Dear bro,

I have really lost the count of the ‘scores’ of the names I have given you in all these years , and hence let me just address you as just bro! As a 4 year old, when I came to know from my grandma that I have got a brother, my only concern for the time being was –“then who will wear all my dresses?” do you remember, when you were 3 years old, how I coaxed with you to wear my white fairy gown and and how you demanded 5 milkybars to comply to my request?

Well, life was much sweeter ,years back. Wasn’t it so? Those physical fights, complaining about each other to ma & baba, those accurate bisection of a pastry you used to make by measuring it with a ruler, those home alone evenings, those fights to snatch away tv remote ,those rain drenching together on the terrace,those culinary conquests using microwave oven—I remember it all.

You know, having a younger sibling is like having your childhood and adolescence extended. Have n’t I stayed awake with you while you were spending sleepless nights before your board exams? Have n’t I helped you with all those workbook submissions? Have n’t I brought home even a small 5 star which a friend had given me as her birthday treat? And what about those saviour acts of mine ,those blatant lies,which saved you from ma’s scoldings?

But have n’t there been times, when I was angry of you? Jealous of you?

Sure , there have been.

I hated you when you made scratches on my school copies,thus letting the teacher punish me.i hate you at times, when inspite of you being the defaulter, ma says”he is younger to you, na”. I hate you at times, when I am being compared to you.

But I love you .I love you when you make sure I have all my pens in the right place on the exam day. I love you when you too settle for the butter scotch ice cream, cause I prefer it over your favourite chocolate. I love you when you agree not to tell ma, how long I chatted over the phone.i love you, when you try hard to take coins out of your piggy bank, to buy birthday gifts for me.

Thank you for all the love and care you have shown to me, thank you for all the patience you have showed to search a song I demanded, thank you for making all those powerpoint presentations for me, thank you for rushing down to ground floor to get the newspapers for me,thank you for everything else. And I assure you , there’ll be more to come!

Yours Didi

Happy Women's Day !

2008-03-08T09:55:00.003+05:30

2008-03-05T12:59:00.003+05:30

It’s a lazy wednesday afternoon, nothing interesting on the television, no friends online, no mood to study and hence this post !
Life 10 years ago
School wise , I was in 4th standard. Getting up early, packing bag according to class routine the night before, waiting for the school bus, forgetting to bring the class-work-copy-and-hence-punishment—life was similar to any other kid around!
Class 5 was the year when transition from pencil to pen took place and initially we were allowed only to use ink pens and gel pens, not ball pens. So there followed blots of ink on fingers, sprinkling ink on each other’s shirt, complaints to teacher about that, and writing in the copy 100 times “I will behave properly in class”, getting it signed by parents, and showing to the class teacher!
I used to fight a lot with my brother,with him pulling my hair with all his might and me scratching him with my nails!
School was fun , with studies and lots of interhouse competitions every other day.
I had a huge collection of comics, ranging from tintin, to asterix, to archies and henry, to our desi heroes like chacha choudhary….
My ‘mama bari’was still in jamshed pur, so immediately after exams , it was fun going there and having nice time with my cousins!

Life 5 years ago
Well, it was the 2 board exams that ruled the last 5 years of my life
It was in class 9 that we shifted to a new residence from our joint family home. Things seemed to go haywire as I missed my cousins and neighbourhood friends
It was in class 10, when we stayed back to Calcutta for the first time during Durga pujas, instead of going for a trip. And since then the Pujas have got more exciting over the years, with hanging out with friends , pandal hopping night long!
School life was at its best during classes 11-12. The pressure of board exams could not mar the joys of friendship.
Then followed, college, new friends, new life. It was finaaly in college that I gathered courage to watch a movie in theatre( I had some weird uncanny inhibition of watching films in theatre!)

Life tomorrow
College is from 11 am, so I can sleep more

Five Locations I'd love to run away to
1>rajasthan – its been 9 years I went there and i’m still in love with the forts!
2>dead sea- I really want to remain floated without making any effort
3>Venice- for its water water all around
4>vizag – the city was lovely
5> any place where snowfall occurs

Five Bad Habits I have
1>licking fingers after meal – no matter how tasty the food was and irrespective of the place I am
2>opening the refrigerator every now and then
3>buying things which I know , am not going to use
4>too much cleanliness freak at times
5>absent minded ness

Five Things I'll Never Wear
1> any wear which I feel is indecent
2> too long earrings
3> tattoos
4> high heels
5> anything leather made

Five Biggest Joys at this moment
1>listening to boyzone after ages
2>a friend will come to my place in the evening
3>my maid did not show up today, so my mom has cooked the lunch, and hence the food will not be a disaster
4>i woke up at 6 a.m and studied a lot!
5>the weather is pleasant

Something to achieve by next year
Perfection and dedication

Something that impacted me last year
Watching chak de and tare zameen par in the theatres
Watching chak de was a real experience with dialogues being buried under claps and shouts
There were lots of political turmoils in west Bengal- be it the Tata factory or the Nandigram firings.

What will i miss about 2007
Being in the first year of college

faux passes

2008-02-29T18:29:00.001+05:30

Carefree outings, free of hurries & worries ,in the lap of nature or being lost among the forts & fortresses, spending exclusive time with family—admist all these, there can be disappointments—In the past 19 years of my life, I have travelled to several places-from north to south- from west to east—each trip had its own share of joy and disenchantments!
Here’s some:
1.> so near yet so far---that was the exact situation when we went to agra after a fortnight long trip in Rajasthan. We had set aside only one day for Agra and that was a fateful Monday! (Monday blues following during outings too) To make things clear, Monday is(or was) the day when the Taj mahal is closed for public viewing. Goshh! It was really hard to swallow the fact , that we are in Agra and still will not be able to visit the Taj!! We encounterd a group of foreigners (who told us that it was their 8th consecutive visit to the Taj Mahal, how I envied them!!) .They took a path from the back side of the monument and soon we were on the banks of the Yamuna with the Taj in a transverse way. our only consolation was that particular bank was the place where Aishwarya Rai had danced in the film Jeans !

2> if the ‘visiting-agra-yet-not-being-able-to-visit-taj was not an enough blunder for this trip, here ‘s more…my mom had packed 6 of my new dresses in a bag and I was using it as a pillow . its thickness was enough for it to slip out of the window, and that’s exactly what happened! Its been almost 9 years and I still cannot forget the pain of losing 6 dresses!

3> it was around 6 pm and no sign of buses in the bus stop. After sometime, a policeman came and informed us ,that a riot has occurred on the highway so curfew has been imposed for 48 hours. shit! So our trip to Rameshwaram was not going to happen .how many times have I not fantasized about the ‘vanar senas’ constructing the bridge and how in my silly mind I had imagined that I would be able to see Srilanka from Rameshwaram ! so it was a great disappointment!

4> from 1:30 pm in the afternoon to 6:15 pm in the evening—well, this was the time we were stuck in the queue to visit Tirupati—quite a stress ,considering I was only 10 and my bro 6!
5> it was the majestic Ajanta & Ellora caves and there we made a blunder ! I was too young to understand why photography is prohibited and clicked! The result?? Our whole camera reel was taken away ! which has snaps of other places we visited!
6> back from our trip to goa, we decided to do some sight seeing in Bombay since our train was at 8:15 pm and we had plenty time. But rain god had other plans, it rained rainded, making us stranded in the station for the whole day. To top it, our train was running 8 hours late!

7>the weather gods did not show any mercy either during our 5 day stay in Darjiling. water showed all its forms-- be it as clouds floating by our hotel window, as rain spoiling our sunrise view, or as heavy fog blocking the view of kanchenjungha peak !!

DD & others

2008-02-23T13:49:00.001+05:30

the other day, while browsing through videos in youtube , i chanced upon my one time favourite video title 'school chale hum' which has music by the shankar-ehsaan-loy trio, lyrics by mehboob n sung by kunal ganjawala. it was created during the launch of vajpayee government's launch of 'sarva shiksha aviyan' scheme during the year 2004 and shown on the doordarshan channels many times during the day. and i remember everytime i used to hear the prelude ,i used to jump before tv , irrespective of what i was doing !
And thus started a whole lot of thoughts--what are we doing for the education of the more than 192 million children who do not have the privilege of going to school? n why do we still complain?

The video brought back many memories i had, while growing up, when television meant only doordarshan channels.Its not been a year since we subscribed to cable tv, not because of any thing else,but out of the wonder that when we can't watch these 2 channels,how can we manage a 100 of them!
memories of watching DD dates back to those sundays when the whole family used to be glued to the tv to watch mahabharat,of those monday nights when me n my bro used to finish studies fast to catch alif laila n sindbad, those saturday evenings when my granny also used to join us as sri krishna was dubbed in bengali! shows like 'superhit muqabla' n 'chitrahaar' were my first window to bollywood & the 5:30 pm cartoons on DD metro were the ones for which we waited after coming back from school! How some of my friends used to envy me because i had school holiday on saturday and could watch 'shaktimaan' on saturday mornings !

Now that i have started watching satellite channels, every damn thing here seems to be ghost driven for craving high TRPs-- be it glitzy serials or a sting operation on news channels.Reality shows are bitten by cheap controversy and so are fictional ones dealing with regressive concepts.
Every other day you have an awards function and new year programs are the same old song-n-dance routine!
with more than 10 scores national and local 24 hour cable channels , every idiot, be it your next door neighbour, or the pretty girl in a mall, is up on the idiot box these days!

coversations in a bus

2008-02-23T13:36:00.002+05:30

Except the quoted ones,all were in vernacular viz. Bengali

Scene 1:
Conductor: (flapping through the bunch of ticket as if he was shuffling cards) ticket ticket
Me: (hands him out 10 rupees)
(Now, there is a kind of unwritten rule, that when you hand out notes, without mentioning your destination /fare, it is assumed you mean to pay the minimum fare)
conductor: how much?(poor rookie, I thought)
Me: 5
C: are you sure?
Me: of what?
C: about your fare/destination?
Me: ya off course ! I travel quite frequently on this route( did I seem to be drunk, that I would be confused about my destination?)
C: give me a 5 rupees coin
Me:I don’t have one, I only have 10 rupee notes
C:why do people come to buses without change?( kept on murmuring, before finally handling me my change and ticket!)

Scene 2:
(the bus is racing with another bus on the same route, as to who would reach the next stop first. The drivers exchange some abuses)
an old man , who unfortunately has lost one of his legs, gets up in the bus, without much help from anybody.
Two visibly educated and well dressed people are gladly occupying the 2 sets reserved for physically challenged people. They some how could afford to notice the old man.
Occupier1: (to the old man) are you handicapped?
Old man: seems to be.
Occupier 1:should I get up?
OM: (tries hard balancing his clutches and taking out money from his pocket)
Occ 1: should I get up? Or can you manage yourself?
Oman: its ok.
Finally, one of the occupiers get up reluctantly, when already 10 minutes had passed.

Scene 3:
(the conductor again back to scene!)
a pretty girl standing immediately beside the bus door
conductor:: ( making a pat like act on her back) ticket ticket
girl: why are you touching me?
C: mam ticket please
Girl: cant u ask that verbally?C: sorry, ticket
Girl: everybody is up to some trick or the other thse days( hands over a 100 rupee note) from golpark to ‘last stop’
C:from golpark to?
Girl:’ last stop’
C: Golpark to?
Girl: ohh !! I will get down at the place where after which the bus does not go further
C: ohh , take your change mam...

2008-02-16T14:59:00.000+05:30

While the earth continued to rotate from west to east,the USA witnessed another tragic campus carnage, gilchrist scored a century in his last one day match in his hometown, people in Calcutta still continued with their dilemma over having chicken or not….there I was, sitting on the topmost stair of the Open Air Theatre of JU on a chilly winter evening, and humming to the tunes of ‘Chandrabindoo ‘ performing live on the last day of arts faculty fest.

It happened like this that, one of my neighbourhood friends had called me and 3 others to her place to spend the evening together and thus celebrate her belated birthday.
Since her house is at stone’s throw from JU, we decided to peep in the ongoing fest iver there, rather than surfing the idiot box and pnpc-ing.

Mad crowd, circles of cigarette smoke in the air, dudes and dudettes,foot tapping music, rhythmic dances---the atmosphere had everything of an ideal fest.

The guest band thankfully did not take much time to warm up, thus saving the crowd from getting restless, which happens to be a common feature in many college fests.

love is in the air~~~

2008-02-13T22:25:00.000+05:30

today is valentine's eve,& shops, fm stations, card companies,jewellery brands, media, malls n everything else are going ga-ga over it for the past one week or more !no doubt it is touted as one of the biggest marketing gimmicks worldwide !

with the growing popularity of valentine's day among youngsters. business houses are leaving no stone unturned to woo love-birds to make sure that their cash registers keep ringing....!
while heart shaped soft toys and cards continue to be run of the mill type of gifts, business houses are making sure that technology does n't lag too far when it comes to making unique choice of gifts.

ICICI BANK has launched heart shaped gold goins, whose wight is around 5 gm and prices varies around 6000 INR.electronic giants are not too far behind...several laptop and iPOD companies hav come up with a new range of their product in shades of pink and red, colours symbolysing love.several fm stations have tied up either with some malls , or hotels n restaurants,or movie theatres and thus started giving out free passes to couples to spend the d- day with their loved ones.Admist all these fanfare, how can communication, one of the most important aspects in a relationship, stay far behind? Cellular companies are offering a slash in the call rates, thus allowing the couples to talk more, without burning a hole in the pocket!

so what was i doing on the eve of this much-awaited day? one of my friends called me out to go out with her to a nearby archies gallery to select some possible gifts for her soulmate....the shop was an extended gifts counter with items ranging from cards,coffee mugs, show pieces, chocolates to perfumes, pens , softs toys(this is fast becoming popular among kids as well as love-birds..weird though). After more than 30 minutes of surfing through the cards and other gift items my friend , fortunately, could settle for a huge card(size does matter! u know) and not-so-huge key ring , shaded in pink to suit the occassion...
the shop was too crowded , with people making their last minute preparations for impressing their sweethearts.In my otherwise boring visit to the shop, i overheard some planning over the phone, where to meet tomorrow where ther both can "spill their dill"

not finding anything suitable to buy for the time being , i settled for a fevicol gum priced rs 5, and headed back home , relishing a choco-vanilla ice cream!

2008-02-12T18:03:00.000+05:30

ever since i last updated my blog,i have been straining my mind to think about the subject matter of my next post. And since , i could not settle for anything coherent, i just decided to pen down anything that comes to my mind.

The other day, while i was travelling in a bus from by home to gariahat,i got a seat immediately behind the driver. That entailed me two privileges...

1> i got an exclusive side window [if one remembers, the seat planning in a private bus in calcutta, there are only two such seats,parallely , at two ends]

2> the sound box of the fm radio was installed was installed right above my head, thus ensuring fool-proof sound reaching my ears.

after a whole lot of nice, ear -soothing musics and chit-chats Of the RJs during borings jams and tedious journey over potholes and indisciplined roads, finally when i was about to get ready to alight from the bus,

the 93.5 red fm started playing one of my current favourite tracks --the song maa from the film 'taare zameen par'. from the core of my heart , i started praying hard, that the traffic jam may , no , must continue , so that i can listen to the full track, before getting down...! the first stanza ha passed off smoothly, and just when the song was on its melodious high octave, the driver tuned the radio to some defferent frequency , which had a shitty song on air......!

concious, subconcious, or semiconcious---in every possible state of my mind , i felt like hurling mean to meaner abuses at the crappy driver, for commiting such a heinous crime (!) and thus depriving of the opportunity to give some respite to my ears from hustle and bustle of the traffic...!

but , remembering the saying , " to err is human, to forgive is divine", i chose to forgive him reinstating in my mind that " choices do differ"

my bus stop had already arrived, rescuing my mind from further brooding into such trifle grudges !!

bandh

2008-02-06T10:35:00.001+05:30

the weather god did not seem to be very happy in the morning, as the city geared up to celebrate the 1st bandh of the year! with thick fog enveloping the surroundings, the mood was set to spend some more time under the warmth of the quilt( or watever you use)

but as hours past by, sun shone brightly ,state buses n autos started plying at thrice frequency(thus adding to the already noisy life of our house beside the main road),thus sending the message that if you have the will to come out, govt cant show you the way...

this bandh being called by oppositions does not have the option of completely paralysing city life,as most of the transport unions are affiliated to the ruling party of the communists.
but still, people dont want to take a risk..but a lot has improved with the starting of the IT industry in sector 5, calcutta has witnessed a new lease of life in its infamous work culture with the growing IT companies.

If for a minute ,just not think about the plight of those daily wage earners who are robbed of their wages due to the bandh,of those conventions,inaugarations, seminars that were to be held in different parts of the city, of those visits of foreign delegates who had come to survey for investments,of the anxiety n tension of those who have flights and trains to catch.....

then the bandh does come as a welcome--when you have test the next day and you dont know any stuff..when you are not willing to face the monday blues and the bandh comes as an extended weekend, your frend has not invited you to her birthday party and the bandh comes as a curse to her! the wonder of seeing ever busy streets tranformed into no man's land, the stupid joy of playing cricket admist empty streets..

but we cant...and that is why , inspite of supporting the issue of bandh many a times,(ranging from as tragic as the police firing at nandigram and north bengal to issues affecting our daily lives as hike in fuel price ),we cannot fully agree to this form of democratic protest---it harms more than it heals(if at all)....

today

2008-02-05T22:40:00.000+05:30

my day stated with shakira and her hips..ya its the alarm tune that i had set last night.
i had to finish off with the poster presentation which took more than 1 hour ,thus making me rush for the bath in water whose temp was around......?? arre yaar, yeh to kabhi socha hi nehi !

getting bus n auto is so very frustrating in the route from my house to ruby..u'll see buses n autos plying in front of your eyes, you can boast that i have the mighty s9, small yet powerful m2, but getting into them at office hours in the morning is a task hard to accomplish! autos get full from the big bazaar stop, thus i make futile attempts by waving at them, n buses , with their jam packed appearence just glide pass...

ok , finally i have reached my destination anyhow!

there happened to be some faculty meeting , n thus our presentation got postpond..

so we headed for the new addtion to the mall in calcutta...the south city mall
loacted in the almost residential area of anwar shah road and thus making the area clogged during peak hours, south city mall is touted to be asia's largest mall area wise, with 'name-it-and-u-hav-the-brands' kind of experience.
sprung in vast 5 floors, the top floor hosts a large cafetaria. We could not finish with all the outlets as time n tiredness did nt permit!

thus passed another day,specificall february the 5th.......

5 random headlines

2008-01-23T15:17:00.000+05:30

# bird flu menace continues to trouble political & public life in bengal,experts say culling not being done in a proper way

# carla bruni not to accompany french president on his official tour to india

#debate continues over the controversial team selection for tri nation one day series

#sensex crashes about 1500 points down, brokers lose

#gordon brown's visit to india continues, proposes knighthood to sachin tendulkar

#indians win 16 gold medals in archery,mahesh bhupathi n sania mirza reach semi finals of mixed doubles of australian open

p.s this kind of posts happen when you have nothing to write, but you want to write....

this is wat u call a weekend!

2008-01-20T14:39:00.000+05:30

well....this was the weekend i was looking up to for the past one month n now its gone!

friday had in store for me th first ever visit to any 5 star hotel n saturday was the time to reunite with old school frends at school reunion.

it was the wedding of the daughter of my father's colleague that we went to attend at hyatt regency. The family being rajasthani,every ritual followed by them was worth delight for me--be it puja 's place, or the unique way of garland exchange or filmi kind of lengas n pagdis!

On the gastronomic front it also threw more surprises---with menus ranging from pasta counters to mughlai---from chinese to italian--varities of starters n desserts!

me,sudeshna n roshni were supposed to meet at ruby at em bypass at 5:00 p.m.

With IST taking the form of indian stretchable time,we finally managed to see each other at 5:40 p.m. we were among the earliest ones to reach, so roamed around, watched the rehearseals of the fashion show about to be held.Soon people started flowing in with smiling faces, unable to hide the pure joy of reuniting with school friends after years!Band Insomnia , which has majority of his band members from our school, understood the vibes well, n lived up with their music!

Soon people were off to old leg pullings, photosession with each other n everything else they could to relive very moment of long lost school life....it was a joyous reunion , with the old '70 batch enjoying alongwith the recent '07 passout!

the presence of some teachers even brightened up the moment......

With the eventful weekend of mine coming to an end, i hope to carry forward this joy in the week to come....cheers!

Load shedding

2008-01-13T20:47:00.000+05:30

The dark age is back...
with the ever increasing power deficit between supply n demand, the power supply scenario in city has again fallen. though the nasscom-garner ranks west bengal 's power infrastructure as the best in country with a capacity of about 7616 mw,it still has not coped up with the loss it had suffered in the recent years buying mw of energy from states like maharashtra.

Can we have a jump cut to some light discussion on this topic?
Sure , we can....

When did i first learn to prounce load shedding correctly?
thankfully, quite early!
most people prnounces it as lor shedding or load sherring or lor sherring i.e importing an unnecessary r most of the times!

hav nt finished this yet...

p.s: ohh! i could finish this post when light was still there!

day out with college friends :-)

2008-01-10T14:33:00.000+05:30

the program was fixed 12 hrs before outing by 2 phone calls when my whole neighbourhood was emerged in complete darkness(there's no direct link between the planning of a day out & load shedding, i was just getting bored in the darkness & decided to call up amrita n thus the idea cropped up!)
so, me n ratna met up at ruby, took 2 autos (not that we were travelling separately, we had to do break journey) to reach kalighat metro station n subsequently rabindra sadan metro station. With mobile towers working perfectly, we called up amrita from the station itself only to know that instead of reaching exide house, she was busy orkutting! With a few rebukes n shouting over the top of voices, i finally hanged the phone n got out of station n crossed the road.
We didn't had to wait much in front of haldiram's , as amrita arrived soon.....
We took a taxi to park street( ratna kept wowing at the fact that how can tata steel be the tallest building of calcutta, we assured her that it was before, not now)
taxi meter read 13, means 26 rupees. The taxi driver as usual started grudhing about his inadequate 'chuttas' , i cooled hin down with 6 rupees, while he returned 30 bucks to amrita....
with the clock striking 12, we thought of doing a qiuck round to music world before heading for our lunch to kfc
With no plans to buy any cd or dvd, we kept gazing at racks, commenting on films, bands,songs n everything else....
chicken frills......chicken thali....chicken burger.....ya! finally we r at kfc....chicken thali seemed the best option in terms of money n quality..so we opted for it.....n on too much insistence of the serve boy...a pepsi too
then amrita n ratna got down to some really notorious jobs while filling the feed back form...with all crazy inputs ranging from ph number to suggestion to 'how to make kfc better'
n a whole lot of photosession followed....
Oxford bookstore was the place where we headed next
from anita desai to chetan bhagat, deepak chopra to shobhaa de, feng shui to tarot cards----we covered all
we were searching for enid blyton n sweet valley books---later realised that they were available at oxford juniors
how come can it happen that thre girls are on a casual day out and they r not discussing clothes?
so westsie proved to be a suitbale destination for discussing n 'just seeing ' clothes..!
we thought of having coffee at barista upstairs , later discarded the idea after going through the menu n not finding anything nice under 50 bucks
a ' just like that' visit to nik -nish followed
we were again hungry--(hungry kya? -- is this dominno's or pizza hut'd tagline? --i cant remember --anyways) pizza hut was the place where we next headed....the menu card was nt that delightful...tired n sleepy ...we ordered a medium veg pizza
it was more than enough for us....
we walke n walked n reached the metro station..........metro---auto......auto.....auto....back home........

p.s.--- congratulations to myself for the longest post till now!

p.p.s: how can i miss abt mentioning the pastries we had at flurys( our real motive was to find a clean loo) !

am addicted!

2008-01-08T15:26:00.000+05:30

ohh god! its been only 24 hrs since i have created this blog after more than 24 days of deep dilemma whether i should create a blog or not, and i am addicted to it!
yesterday , during the whole of the bus journey from my home to gariahat , i thought n thought about nothing but what to write in the next post of the blog----!
streams of thought created ripples in my mind----i visited my childhood, i recollected some stupid fights i had with my friends, the petty arguments, the never ending quarrels with my brother----everything good n bad!
i could nt sleep---i closed the eyes--but barely could shut my mind off----what should i write next? what will be the title of my next post? how long will it be? ....i thought n thought n thought......
i woke up---again thoughts n thoughts ---no college today---no going to deposit any electricity or telephone bills---no, i did nt have any fight with ma, why am i happy?? ya, i am happy ---yaaa......i created my blog yesterday!!

baba,ma,me & orkut

2008-01-08T14:53:00.000+05:30

Instead of straightaway delving in to the everyday incidents that gave way to this title , lets just to a little bit of permutations n combination to check the compatibility of the subjects mentioned in the title--
baba & ma--my parents n nice couple!
baba & me--i may not be my father's daughter , but we do share a sweet n bitter relationship
ma & me--ya, i am more close to my mother than my father
me & orkut--this is the shortest relationship till now, among the ones mentioned, in terms of time, but nevertheless the fastest growing one, lets not elaborate .....!
but yes! the most incompatible one is when all the 4 entities come together---baba,ma , me & orkut----- its been a long time , almost 2 years since i joined orkut, but not a single day has passed when my father approved or rather passed of f the fact that i am orkutting...[:(]
almost each day , the newspaper comes out with a new story of a girl's profile being impersonated, her obscene pictures being put on the net, her mobile numbers being distributed n my father starts off with his views! yes baba, i do understand your concern, but it would have felt to me a little nicer if u had shown some confidence on my decisions, how much trifle it may be........

starting off-->

2008-01-07T14:44:00.000+05:30

so, with fear & anxiety engrossing my mind, i start off with my blog on the 7th of january , 2008 !! i had this idea of starting my blog long ago, but had the fear whether i would be able to live up to the standard of writings which i have seen in other people's blogs. i visited many blogs to get an idea of what people exactly write in their blogs. the result proved to be quite engaging. some were informative--writing on various topics ranging from hard core politics to deep delving science, some blogs entirely dedicated to a film or a television programme, some blogs for a cause & some entirely serving as a platform for posting day-to-day anecdotes , taking the old version of diary writing one step further!
so, i guess , i qualify for the last option,i.e scribbling down some thoughts over here!
its not that i am a good writer, but still i have always showed enthusiasm about this particular task, be it writing for the school magazines or writing section in newspaper supplement or be it a plain letter to the editor! so with this initiative of creating a blog, i hope i will show some improvement in this field ! so, here's wishing myself all the best!!