The Year that was…

The Haps and Mishaps, most of these are around places I have visited.
Travel seems to have been the motif for 2006

- The Golden Sand and the Setting Sun on the world’s best beach (according to me at least) Tiracol Beach, Northern most tip of Goa.

- White Water Rafting and Mountain Biking in Dandeli. Awesome.

- On the Road to the gold fields; Getting to know that I would be losing someone. With no big bang, with no fireworks, it was all over.

- Helen and Matt's Indian wedding celebrations :)

- Mom and Dad’s 25^th wedding anniversary celebrations in Bombay with the entire gang.

- Lying on the grass in Edinburgh after an entire day of cycling, and watching Vat mimic kittens, remains etched in my mind for GOD knows what reason.

- Getting “married”, eating cotton candy at 3 am in the middle of nowhere, all in Pondicherry.

- Going crazy over scrabble with Krymson and Pappu

- B11, 13^th floor, Purple Haze, Zero G, JAP, Tavern and LIT’s

Mysteries

There are so many of the world’s mysteries that I ponder upon, like

- Why is it that Sanjay Dutt gets all the media attention and pages of print in the papers, whereas a gun battle in Kashmir gets a 4 line mention and is quickly forgotten?

- Whats the deal with all the kids falling into open narrow wells?

- Why do people find it weird when I tell them I plan to spend the New year’s eve at home with my parents?

- Why does Anil Kumble of all the people have to field at ‘point’ ?

Photu of the Week

Well now the plumbers know where to head to get lucky :P
Though I wonder why such niche marketing, why only plumbers?? siiiigh one may never know

That time of the year…

Yeah the Pirelli’s, the King Fisher’s etc are all here with their calendars, so am I!!

The Calendar has been designed, gone into ‘production’ and being a collector’s item: P, very few copies are available; I have a list of people (read lucky people) who are going to get it this time round :D

Movies !

The Party
Peter Sellers plays Hrundi Bakshi, an Indian who is mistakenly invited to a Hollywood party and manages to wreck havoc albeit innocently. Brilliant situational comedy, in true Peter Sellers style.
It seems a perfect set up for India bashing, but Bakshi turns out to be the only normal guy in the movie, yes there are a few stereotypes but then an enjoyable movie that even a fanatic patriot like me enjoyed.

A Scanner Darkly
A very dark movie, using Rotoscoping (animating over actual actors) the movie provides a doped effect. Very different and very nice, though I would not call it wholesome entertainment. Stay away if you want to watch a fun movie. This one is dark throughout. Lovely.

Mystic River
A star studded cast and a nice movie, I personally found Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar baby pathetic, But Sean Penn and Tim Robbins in one movie, very nice. A lil Depressing though.

Memento
AWESOME, more than anything else the structural complexity of the movie is brilliant, I wont say a word about it, just that it’s a must watch (thanks for putting this one in my must watch list Amu)

The Cheap detective
A spoof of Bogart movies especially the Maltese falcon, nice and funny.

Pulp Fiction
Quentin Tarantino. The only bad thing bout this one was John Travolta, he is so freakin irritating!!

Photu of the Week

We found this one real real funny last night. lol.
notice the "dog" ?
maybe the greeks picturised Kerberos (Cerberus) more like this.

Hooters!!

I looked out of the kitchen window on Friday, and lo behold there sat my favorite bird around 10 feet away. An Owl !!

I looked out of the bedroom window on Saturday and there it was again, just 4-5 feet away. Looking like it was at peace with itself after a night long hunting session. It sat there oblivious to the bunch of admiring onlookers (that included Mom, Dad and I).

The crows came cawing with all their might; it obliged them with a casual glance, not moving once.

A couple of squirrels came, feinting as if they were going to attack it, it sat there immovable, as if saying “I do not attend every argument I am invited to”.

The most amazing thing about this owl was that it showed absolutely no sign of fear.

I tried singing to it (Yes I did, I sing to anyone who is willing to listen), talking to it, even tried to mimic birds and rodents (or so I would like to believe), and all it did was lazily opened its eyes, gave me a look that made me feel like an idiot and went right back to sleep.

Basically this owl looked like it had figured out the meaning of life.

It had chosen its position well, nicely camouflaged from other birds of prey such as kites and eagles.

At first it just looked like a cuddly little soft toy, however a closer glance at its fearsome claws and you knew this was a bird of prey and a successful one at that.

As far as I am concerned this is the most super cool of all birds, in every sense.

Movies over the week

Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels – This movie has loads and loads of style. The only other movie with more style that comes to mind is “The good, The bad and The ugly”.

The soundtrack is a killer. No wonder this one is such a cult classic !! wonderful watch

“I am 18 with a bullet; got my finger on the trigger I am goin to pull it…”

For a few dollars more -

Clint Eastwood and one of the most popular of movie music themes makes for a very nice western indeed :)

American Psycho 2 –

Why do I do this to myself, I am no fan of Marquis de Sade, I do not enjoy inflicting pain upon myself, unless you do, do not watch this one.

Shwaas – Nice Marathi movie, about a kid who is going to lose his eyesight and his grandpa who wants to show him the world around before the kid can stop seeing it.

Talking about regional movies and theatre

I remember being totally awed by the play ‘Jaanta Raja’(About Shivaji) in Bombay, where there were live horses and elephants used on a massive stage. So Marathi art forms still seem to have a chance.

Kannada Movies unfortunately have sunk to an all time low, gone are the days of beautiful cinema like “Beladingala Baaley” (moonlight maiden) one of my all time fav movies.

Today the underlying theme seems to be the underworld (or so I hear because, I do not remember when I last saw a Kannada movie)

Apoorv’s Angels?

My angel gave me peanuts (with a note sayin “that is what u deserve” lol) and a T-shirt that proclaims “I am crazy about Balls!!”

Siiiigh no looking a gift horse in the mouth

I gave my devil

A box of shoe polish

A bat and a ball (the plastic one, I got it for 15 rupees)

A biscuit packet

A Puzzle, on solving which the devil would get the next gift namely – A frog

And just to be nice….a Beautiful Kurta :D there I am done with my good deed for the week :))

eh... what?

There is not much to write about, recently a friend was asking me if my life has become all normal and I have not many surprises in store.

Well then I vehemently disagreed, right now life sure does look like heading towards normalcy (a very rare occurrence)

Nevertheless, I do have an Indoor cricket tournament to play (held in a meeting room at office!!)

I have signed up for a prank, it’s more of ‘helping a friend out’ than a dare. (The Prank may have 2 results. Either the victim falls in love with India or The victim would not be visitin India again anytime soon)

My Secret Angel is so secretive that I have not received any gift yet (hey u reading this angel??)

I am thinking of a whacky gift to give my devil, I am thinking a cauliflower would do nicely for starters.

My Muse (if I had one in the first place) seems to have left me, and I am down to writing gibberish.

Reading…

Terry Pratchett – the Truth.

Back to DiscWorld, after a long time… Last time around I had read all the novels, terry has come back with like a dozen more maybe. So I need to Catch up!
Ummm by page 52 I realized why this one did not feel as good as the rest, there are no ‘notes’, damn I miss em’ :(
However Terry’s inimitable style remains.

Dorothy Sayers-The Nine Tailors

This is church bell ringing jargon, death is announced by ringing in the ‘Nine Tailors. Lord Peter Wimsey is there but the book in not gripping enough for my tastes

Movies Over the week

Team America – World Police: Absolutely brilliant!!, relative to the movies I have been watching recently, this seems to be a master piece.
While watching it I was constantly reminded of South Park and only later realized that its directed by Trey Parker. A must watch!

L.A. Confidential : A fresh breath of air. A great watch. Period.

I love Huckabees – I hated it. One weird movie. Pathetic

Revolver – I was expecting Jason Statham style action (a la transporter) ummm another weird movie

American Psycho – Christian Bale, movie lives up to the name, another weird one… that’s a hatrick!

Match-up

Yeah I am a crazy, but its fun, so here are a few match ups.

James Bond v/s Jason Bourne

- Bourne, The guy uses a magazine as a weapon, does not need the gadgets. More street smart.

Sherlock Holmes v/s Hercule Poirot

- Holmes. Simply superior intellect.

Inspector Morse v/s Lord Peter Wimsey

- ummm Inspector Morse. He solves the times crossword in minutes, a guy who can do that must surely win

Snoopy v/s Snowy

- Snowy, has been everywhere…but then Snoopy is the world war ace and a legal eagle beagle. Close

Wile E Coyote v/s Tom

- Coyote, c’mon he deserves a break.

Terry Pratchett v/s Douglas Adams

- Douglas who?? Terry obviously, for his consistently good writing.

Sandman (gaiman) v/s DEATH (pratchett)

- One can Scythe you out the other can Psyche you out, but I back Death….funnier of the two :)

Bangalore v/s Bombay

- Blore for its weather and Bombay for its infrastructure.

Retrospect

Past week felt long, I spent couple of days being anti-social, grumpy and wearing a “Do not come near me” look. Just feels good to let some steam off.

Some good things –

- My next project deals with music and another personal fav, it’s so confidential that if I tell you anymore I may have to kill you.

- Talking to a colleague I realized the client pays us insane amounts of money on an hourly basis (wow makes one feel extremely imp :P ).

- The T-shirts I helped design are here and they look gooooood :), I feel proud.

- We are back to playing cricket in office, its rejuvenating!

- I still find happiness in everything I do, see and feel.

The bad things

- ummmm never are any bad things :D all is for the good !

Movies over the weekend

Casino Royale – I was not in the least impressed, whats the point of making a bond movie that does not stick to bond stereotypes? Who want to see Bond get mushy over some chick? Not me.

To be fair Craig makes a very realistic looking secret agent but he is just not cut out to be Bond, there is no charisma, no charm. The Bond girls are boring. The movie is slow paced (I blame the book). The opening chase sequence is the best part of the movie.

Licence to Kill – Watched this without expecting too much, but ended up enjoying it. It’s a nice movie. Timothy Dalton makes a decent enough Bond. I never liked Sean Connery as Bond (I know the whole world thinks he makes the best Bond), I still would rate Pierce Brosnan as a better Bond.

Batman Begins – No matter how many times I watch this, I love it. Superman returns was like a cheap B-grade movie compared to the sheer brilliance of Batman Begins.
“You are not the Devil, you are just practice…”

Fast Times at Ridgemont High – A very Archie type crowd in a 1980’s movie about a group of teenagers. Decent watch. We get to see a very young Sean Penn play a doped, good for nothing but funny guy :)

Geometric Patterns…

I see a pattern, thrice have I been accused of being one of the vertices of a triangle, More recently by immature retards, who I do not give a damn about and about a year ago, by a person, I had great respect for and considered an equal, However one who did not have the spine to accuse me directly, but would go “I trust you dude, she is the one who is putting this kind of stuff in my head”.

Yeah right! Good try dude.

Triangles bore me. Please rest assured, if I were even remotely interested, There would be no triangle involved, you would not be a vertex, and only a straight line would exist on which you would not be a point. (And you know I am right, you insecure idiots).

MUZIK

MUSICOVERY, a new favourite radio. Not in Pandora league when it comes to functionality and simple elegance, but with super cool fluid design (flash, not Java script) and some great variety of music played by Genre/Mood. Got to it from FINK

I am playing…

User’s Atmosphere – Watership Song

Buddha Bar – Sitar Ritual

Red Sparrow – Les Arbres

Dr Rubberfunk – take these drums

Gorillaz – last living souls (I love this band more for the animation)

The Cranberries – Stars

Tarana – Vande Mataram

Allah tero naam, Ishwar tero naam…

I cannot stand…

Raja Hindustani – aaye ho meri zindagi mein tum bahar banke… this song has been on my lips for a month now :(

It seems to have invaded my sub-conscious, there have been times when I have found myself singing it without realizing it :(

To add to my misery just before we got started on the trek, the hotel radio had this song, siiiiiiiigh its haunting me !

I am singing…

Jaane Jaan - I like the intensity this song generates, I think we sing this well, but my partner in rhyme does not seem to enjoy singing this as much.

Aaj Kal tere mere pyar ke charche – We both love singing this :D

Hichi Chaal turu turu – A very peppy marathi song :D

Aaye ho meri zindagi mein – Damn, how long how long will I sing this song? toooo long toooo long :(

MOVEES

Equilibrium – Christian Batman Bale, good action flick with a some super cool action sequences that introduce us to a fighting technique called ‘Gun Kata’ / ‘Gun Fu’. Superb.

Bourne Identity – Fast Paced and brilliant, true to Robert Ludlum’s style of writing. Matt Damon does a great job and Franka Potente gets to run again 

Bourne Supremacy – Picks up from the previous and keeps going. Excellent. Cannot wait for Bourne Ultimatum.

Ask the Dust – Salma Hayek does not look 40! She is as gorgeous as ever and Colin Farrel does a decent job in this long movie with a thin plot. Brilliant cinematography

Malena – Well I watched it in Italian, who bothers abput understanding the language, when one can watch Monica Belluci :P
It’s a nice movie but what I do not understand is why Monica Belluci is such a popular actor, she cannot act to save her life! Monica seems to be nothing else than a hot bod.

Trek on tracks

The trek was all it promised to be, absolutely brilliant. We took the Rajahamsa from Bangalore to Donigal (a small village 9 kms away from sakleshpur) on the Bangalore- Mangalore highway.
Reaching Donigal while it was dark (4am) we decided to figure out to evenly distribute the baggage. By 4:30 am we were off on the 5 km walk over the highway, that would take us to the starting point of the trek, Donigal railway station





Now the entire trek is of 2 days, that would take us from Donigal to Kukke Subhramanya. Total distance 57 kms. However first we had to get to a station called Yedikumeri (around 18 kms away) and then make further plans.

So off we went, initially feeling very uncomfortable as we were not used to walking on the concrete sleepers of the railway track. But as the bridges and the tunnels began the trek became interesting. We decided to take it slowly and enjoy the scenery. We did encounter a couple of trains but we got sufficient warning to get out of their way :D










The thrill was in crossing long bridges, where we had only the unevenly placed sleepers to walk on and a drop of about 180 metres to worry about.



The longest tunnel we encountered was over half a kilometer (543 metres long to be precise).

At one point we crossed a very high bridge built over a fast flowing river. Just after crossing the bridge we decided to get down to the river, though there was no apparent way through the dense foliage. 5 of us cut through the thorny plants and made our way down to an old unused bridge, and from there we decide to get into the water, and this proved to be the best part of the trek, lying down in the soothing cool fast flowing water.
It was obvious that these were waters untouched by humans for quite a long time, that added to the excitement.



We finally reached Yedikumeri station at 5:30 pm after a 17.2 km long trek.
We camped the night at the station and next day at 5am we managed to hitch a ride in an engine !  to Kukke (a 30 kilometre journey), thanks to a very friendly motorman :))




Riding in the engine over some of the most beautiful valleys and Shola forests was absolutely exhilarating







We got a bus back to Bangalore from Kukke, to end a perfect trek. The gang was made up of wonderfully crazy people, the place was beautiful, the plan was to be agile and everything fell into place like a dream.

As I re-read this post I realize that I have not been able to describe the trek as well as I would have wanted to, but then one had to be on the trek to get the essence of it, and reading it just wont do.

It is sad that the trains will start in a few weeks putting a stop to any further treks here. However I am glad that I managed to experience this unique trek :)

Photu of the Week

This is one of my favourites :D :D

Check-list

- Tent

- Sleeping bag

- Rucksack

- Knife

- LED torch light

- MTR food packs

- Machar ka Boss, Odomos

- Salt, Dettol, Lighter

- First aid kit

Off I go :D

The Club

We have decided to start a club, the MAMOOAMH club.

Also called the ‘Make A Mountain, Out Of A Mole Hill’ club, Now this club is necessitated because of so many MAMOOAMH events that we see around us.

Too many stupid discussions and message threads that have no value other than providing a forum to some people who like to hear themselves speak.

Now the as with all clubs, there are rules…

1. Any ‘discussions’ held should deviate from the topic as much as possible and should make as little sense as possible and should not be brought to a logical end.
2. The aforementioned topic should be of least significance to any character/ person either fictional or real.
3. The message thread (if any) will not, so to speak be a thread it will be more a bunch of threads that have no origin and no potential destination.
4. Usage of words/phrases such as ‘Absolutely’, ‘Definitely’, ‘Most Certainly’, ‘I would beg to differ’, ‘I think that is an interesting idea, but…” etc is most certainly encouraged
5. Usage of technical/Management jargon (existing/just invented) such as ‘Cognitive Dissonance’, ‘Test Harness’, ‘Helixity’ is a must.
6. If you are someone who enjoys speaking in abbreviations, most welcome.
7. All the better if you enjoy making long discourses in languages that none of the involved parties understand (I had such a discussion on the chat recently, it works like a dream).

Symptoms of the above are relatively less in India , however strains of the above exist, and there have been many meetings/message threads elsewhere, where I have felt like saying ‘Why are we discussing such a trivial issue?”.

Until recently I thought something was wrong with me, but recently have met like minded people who feel the same. Hence the club, maybe it will help us get into the ‘flog a dead horse until its soul dies’ mode.

Piano Man

He says

son can you play me a memory

I am not sure how it goes

But its sad and its sweet

And I knew it complete

When I wore a younger man’s clothes

Sing us a song you are the piano man

Sing us a song tonight

Well we are all in the mood for a melody

And you got us feeling alright

- Billy Joel

Weekends...

Aha, what are Saturdays meant for if not lethargy, eh?

Back in school, I would love nothing more than to be cooped up in a room and read on a weekend. I hated any form of socializing.
Years of reading made me realize that an addiction to anything (even reading) is bad.

Weekends through 11^th and 12th were spent playing cricket.

Most of my Degree weekends went into either practice or cricket.

The concept of weekends was forgotten during MBA.

Presently my Saturday consists of Cricket or football in the morning, catch a movie on TV (any movie, today I watched “Ice princess” a chick flick :-| ).
Afternoons spent hunting for books or dvds. Mebbe a date or two in the evening :) and up reading or listening to music till very very late.

Sundays are ofcourse meant for the inner circle.
However I need to learn that Long Island Ice Tea's, Daiquiris and Margaritas may make a great companion on sunday evening, but makes a bad one for monday mornings :(

P.S: Sunday evenings the beautifully lit Vidhan Soudha looks wonderful from '13th Floor'

Listening to…

DeVotchka – Queen of the surface streets

Uthe sab ke Kadam – Baaton Baaton mein
(this is a great duet song, we are practicing it, also practicing “Jaaneman Jaaneman” :) )

Purple Raiders – Mrs Robinson (I prefer the Simon and Garfunkel one)

Don Mclean – Its just the sun.

Moxy Fruvous – King of Spain

300

Frank Miller ! 300 is a lesson in history. Brilliant….One of the best graphic novels I have read in recent times.

300 tells the story of the Battle of Thermopylae in frank miller style. A must read!

“The Persian arrows are so great that they will fill the sky and block out the sun”

“- Good, we shall get to fight in the shade!!”

A Classic :)

Looking Forward

Recently had been to Dharmasthal, to a Shiva temple.

Dharmasthal is an 8 hour drive from Bangalore on the Mangalore highway. The road condition on the ghat section was such that I can safely say that it was the worst ghat road I have ever seen .

However the scenery along Western ghats is breathtaking. Parallel to the Ghat road runs a river and also a railway track that is being converted to meter broad gauge.

This track provides a great opportunity for trekking.

In December the trains will start thus closing the trek route. So this may be the last few days that the trek is open. Hence a trek has been planned and am looking forward to this one.

The trek is along the track, and better known as a Tracking expedition, I am looking forward to this trek especially because

• A goods train comes along once a day and if at this point one is stuck on a bridge, then the only way to get out in one piece is either to jump into the river or run back along the bridge. What could be more exciting ?
• There are quicksand traps along the trek and this provides a whole new meaning to the word adventure
• Snakes, Bats and Leeches make it all the more fun.

I have encountered Leeches at Coorg, I think leeches have some of the coolest mechanism when it comes to sucking blood (they actually inject a chemical that has anesthetic qualities, hence one does realize there is a leech until it bloats).

I had a very close encounter with bats in a cave formation near Bangalore where we had to lie down on our backs and slide down a cave on Bat Guano, with Hands touching the cave ceiling. That cave was a nightmare I will never forget. (I slid down the wrong fork in the cave and got lost, this was in total darkness as torches would disturb the bats, and panicky bats in a claustrophobic cave that’s 3 feet in height is not the best situation to be in).

Though I am quite terrified of caves with tiny crawling spaces. Bats, Leeches and snakes (provided anti-venom is at hand) are fine. It’s the lizards that I fear and until I don’t have to deal with them I am ok.

More on this trek once I am done with it. Hope it materializes….*rubs hands in anticipation*

Comic Crazy

I am on cloud number nine…I got my hands on some of the all time classics

Sandman – Yeah I got the entire sandman series, Neil Gaiman rocks. Death is a beautiful young girl with a perky smile, Dream her elder brother is the super cool dude dressed in black also known as sandman/morpheus etc etc.
Along with Destiny Despair etc they are the seven siblings known as the ‘Endless’. The central character being dream.

Terry Pratchetts death is a cool hooded skeletal figure who speaks in CAPITALS (if discworld were a movie I would cast Johnny depp as Death). Neil Gaimans death is more human but I prefer Terry anyday.

300 – Frank Miller. need I say more ?, from the master who gave us ‘Sin City’ and ‘Ronin’

Watchmen – Alan Moore, I became his fan when I read ‘V For Vendetta’. The movie was pretty decent too, but the graphic novel was just brilliant.

I lost my copy of Batman Year One :( :( Damn my all time fav. I have said it time and again that no character is as powerful as the batman.

If you want any of the above, lemme know.

Watching Birds of the feathered kind

I stay close to Lalbagh Botanical gardens, a sprawling 250 acres of beautiful gardens right in the middle of the city.

I guess this explains the variety of birds that come down to our window sill to feed on the food we keep there.

Crows, Mynahs, Parakeets, Cuckoos…to name a few. (We even get lots of Squirrels, but sparrows seem to have gone extinct in the city)

The crows eat right out of our hands literally (I think crows are really beautiful), The cuckoo an ugly bird with a melodious voice is more shy, So was lucky to shoot one (with a camera of course).

Here are some pictures i clicked right out of the kitchen window...

This is the Male, the Female of the species is speckled grey, does not have the sing song voice of the Male Cuckoo and is camera shy.

Next Change…Bangalore

Aha! And we were wondering when this would happen? From the 1^st of November Bangalore is out and Bengaluru is in…siiiiigghhh Bangalore goes the Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata way.

Mumbai was bad….VT (Victoria Terminus) became CST (Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus) Looks like the same is going to be the case with Bangalore…already there are some "tasteless" (read amusing) sms’s doing the rounds about the fate of localities/roads with names such as 'Cox Town' and 'Dickinson Road' :P

Shiny Black Headgear

Yeah the title is misleading, I agree there are red and blue ones too…but as one looks at the sea of traffic, it is the black ones that you notice.

Wearing a helmet is mandatory = brisk business for the helmet stores…I even noticed a couple of mobile helmet stores in form of autos selling them.

There are brand new, shiny helmets everywhere.

Movies

It's been a long time since I have watched a Johnny Depp movie (I even missed Pirates-2). ”Corpse Bride” has been on my ‘to see’ list for too long. It has 3 major attractions

- Johnny depp - Tim Burton - Animation

Can anyone think of a better combo?

Over the past week watched

“The Grudge” – Decent

“Sentinel” – Presidential security guy, affair, First lady, terrorist, assassination attempt, gunfire, president saved. Use these words, Make a coherent sentence and you have the plot…yaaaaawn.

“Inside Man” – Denzel Washington, movie no good.

“The Interpreter” – With Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman in the cast one expects a magical movie. Good but not great.

“Hard Candy” – Whoa! I wonder why I watched this one. Its about a 14 year old gal who seduces and then castrates a pedophiliac. Yucky.

“Shawshank Redemption” - After the list above I needed a shawshank again…(that sounds bad. hehe)

“Saw II” - Brilliant! I wondered if they could match up to SAW. This movie equals SAW on all accounts. The gruesome, ingenious traps. The terminally ill psychopath Jigsaw is back to what he does best. Kill people while giving them a chance to live.

Cannot wait for Saw III to be released in India

While we are at the topic of movies, let me rant…

Daniel Craig?? James Bond?? WTF? Daniel Craig cast as a spineless villan in “Road to Predition” was perfect.
Me thinks Pierce Brosnan = Bond, reminds me to try and see if I can get “Remington Steele” somewhere.

Song in my head...

Am stuck on Silk Route's 'Boondein'. Singing it evoke feelings of pure joy and shape twinges of sadness, A joy that knows no bounds and a sadness whose source I can pinpoint.

Sublime lyrics...

khoyi ho yaadon main

palko main boonde liye

aaiena bani yeah aakhe teri

dheemi se kushboo hai

hawaoon ke jhookon ne

jo chooke tujhe choorai


Sanso ki raho main

kya milsakenge kabhi

dhoonde tujhe nigahein.. meri

sathi the janmo se

rahoo main Kyon kho gaye

manzil hamein bulaane lagi

Photu of the Week

I guess if one does not do any, there is not much scope for answering any ;)

Diwali

Yeah Diwali has come and gone, so has the week long holiday I managed to get.
I stayed home for a change, decided that for once I need to stay in Blore, read, sleep and eat mom made diwali goodies :)

Also decided to get some crackers...loads of crackers, but on my way to buy them I noticed kids right on the main roads running about setting off noisy crackers oblivious to the traffic or the surroundings.
This was such an irritant that we backtracked and decided that this Diwali would just be a festival of lights without any loud annoying sounds.

It was a very peaceful and relaxing Diwali in all.

This one is a dad made 'Akash kandil' (a maharashtrian tradition).


Dad just rocks when it comes to creativity and when it comes to charcoal or pencil scketches dad is GOD as is obvious from this year's Diwali greeting made by dad (thats made using just colour pencils)



and ofcourse mom is not behind with her lamps and rangolis (though i dont have a photo of a rangoli :))

Popular request :P

There have been requests for the posters to be uploaded...here are a couple of samples.
(resizing them has screwed up the fonts and proportions, but there is the general idea.)

Photoshopping away to glory !!

Its been long...too long since I have photoshopped !

Well, ThoughtWorks is off to participate in 'Bangalore It.in' and this means designing posters and stuff to make the kiosk look attractive and where there are posters there is Adobe photoshop :))

Worked the night out to get the posters done...am very happy with the results.

Couple of years ago when in branding class, Harish Bijoor asked me what my 'super brand' was, I proudly showed my Dell Laptop, Today I realise that Adobe is my Super Brand...As far as I am concerned Photoshop is the best software ever made :D

Commute Easy

Vipul has gone and done something really cool... something that Blore as a city needs, a website that encourages car pooling and allows people from different parts of the city to get together and car pool !

Great initiative buddy!

What is Commute Easy?

Commute Easy is a pooling initiative that aims to make daily commute easier by connecting commuters across Bangalore.

Pooling can radically change the chaotic traffic scene in Bangalore.

* Help decongest traffic in Bangalore.
* Lower your own travel costs and stress levels.
* Bring about a reduction in pollution levels.
* Broaden your social network.

Go pool today people :)

More....

To the hills!!

Nandi Hills, a hill station about 70 kms from Bangalore, We decided to go up there on Sunday, the drive was fun and the view from the top was brilliant, however it was too crowded so we hurried back after spending a couple of hours clicking away :)
here are some of the results...

Writing on the Wall

I just remembered what I saw written on the Story wall sometime back...

"Phantom smell freezes tiger blood"

...Old Tiger saying


Lol...I suspect Krishnan was behind it. But not sure.

Book: The Great Gatsby

Decent book. Rather than a story line, this book is like an incident report...the story is made up of a selective series of incidents the narrator is involved in. The book is rather small, It finishes before it can pick up pace...and that is one reason I like this book, the author seems to be working on a 'need to know' principle, we are not given an entire character analysis, we get to know only that facet of the character that is of interest to us, nothing more nothing less
(unlike some other pieces of crap that pass as books, which have highly detailed narratives like describing the rim of the dustbin etc etc one such highly disgusting book is "Franny and Zooey" yuck!)

Also there are no black and white characters, all characters have shades of grey.

I guess all se7en sins are present in the characters.

A good read!

BIG words!

At times, I love using big words when describing something (even when simple words may suffice).
As a Business Analyst I do a little manual testing of the application, to check whether the functionality adheres to the acceptance criteria I asked for in the first place :)
And when I do find bugs (mostly in nooks and corners), reporting them is a boring task. Thus a little bit of fun while logging the bug description...

An example: "This causes the User Interface to look aesthetically unappealing" :P
" Perform ABC thereby enabling the user to execute XYZ" :P

It gets better (or worse, depending on your point of view)

I am having a blast thinking up biiiiiiiiig words, when the developers see this they will have a thing or two to say before they run for the dictionary.

Buwuhahahaha *my version of an evil laugh*

Another trip...

Well....this time it was Calicut! Nice place, spent most of the time in a beautiful resort, however did manage to hire a ferry to take us from the back waters out into the sea.

Glimpses...
















This brilliant last picture was clicked by KC

Black Adder

Rowan Atkinson gets to his sarcastic best as the 'evil' Black Adder...in my current favorite series.
I have watched 3 seasons and my all time fav is season 2, with Miranda Richardson at her hilarious best playin the Queen of England.

Amazing set pieces and awesome dialogue makes this one of the best series I have watched!

Scrabble Crazy

I have always loved word games, my morning starts with crossword and coffee. The day goes with setting and solving anagrams with friends over sms or sometimes in office with colleagues.

Now its scrabble that makes an entry into my day. A game of Scrabble over lunch and one at 7:30 pm makes the day at office seem complete.
Scrabble on Saturdays in Barista on Brigade road, sipping cold coffee is just icing on the cake :D

GO PLAY!

A ClockWork Orange

This movie is awesome, the music, the direction and the acting make it a cult classic. Just when I was beginning to like Stanley Kubrick's style of direction, I happened to watch Lolita (1962) .....a pathetic overrated movie. Only Peter Sellers worked for me in there, and hence I give Kubrick one more try with 'Dr Strangelove'

Current Mood...

Yeh Mahalo, Yeh Takhto, Yeh Tajo ki duniya
Yeh Insaan ke dushman samajo ki duniya
Yeh daulat ke bhooke riwajo ki duniya
Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaaye toh kya hai....

(I thought of translating this...but I would not do justice to it.)

Dumb Charades :D

Back to College, to conduct/judge the 'Dumb Charades' event.... it was decent. The new auditorium is huuuuuuge (supposedly the biggest in Bangalore), the quality of the teams...umm average I would say, the best team was able to get just 10 words in a minute. I remember us cracking around 34 in a minute at our peak and most of our rival teams acheving similar numbers :)

Overall the intensity that I used to see from all teams back then seems to be mising now :(
( I see similar things happening on the 'mad-ads' scene unfortunately)

But i enjoyed revisiting the same forum where I started miming...it always gives me a nostalgic feeling to go back and Judge an event i used to participate in !

Overall excellent 2 hrs spent.

Quote of shame!

"I think it quite possible that I could have dispersed the crowd without firing but they would have come back again and laughed, and I would have made, what I consider, a fool of myself."

— Dyer's response to the Hunter Commission Enquiry.

After the firing was over, Official sources place the casualties at 379. According to private sources, the number was over 1000, with more than 1200 wounded, and Civil Surgeon Dr Smith indicated that they were over 1800. The figures were never fully ascertained for political reasons.

Movies over the weekend!

Thanks to a friend who lent me a DVD with around 7 classic but depressing movies, I got to watch some really great movies

Leon
A ClockWork Orange
Se7en

Still to go

Reservoir Dogs (can watch it again)
Wild Strawberries
To kill a mocking bird

The Pondicherry Trip

Yes, I had been to Coorg the previous weekend. but when a friend in office suggested we drive down to Pondicherry (300 kilometres away) I could not resist the temptation :)
So off we went the 5 of us ! To Pondi and boy did we have fun.....

Glimpses...





The View from the resort we stayed at :)






Matra Mandir under repairs :(



The Cathedral in Pondicherry...lots of awesome french architecture in there







The East Coast of India.