Interesting Read!

Amongst the few things that I have come in terms with abt my workplace is the blast mails sent with the subject "Interesting Read!" And amongst them the most verbal ones become the ones relating to finance. Every month an interesting contribution to these mails is because of Dr. Marc Faber. The following is his latest..

"The federal government is sending each of us a $600 rebate. If we spend that money at Wal-mart, the money goes to China. If we spend it on gasoline it goes to the Arabs. If we buy a computer it will go to India. If we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. If we purchase a good car it will go to Germany. If we purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan and none of it will help the American economy. The only way to keep that money here at home is to spend it on prostitutes and beer, since these are the only products still produced in US. I've been doing my part."

The Long and Short of Mumbai…

After the 7/11 blasts, the whole of Mumbai next day had queued up in front of hospitals for donating blood and extending any help that was needed. It is safe to assume that the countrymen of my beloved India had joined in the prayers and all the so called “…isms” for then became the secondary issues.

It was one thing to read and listen about them two years back, enjoying my vacations at home. There was this other thing when I thought that I will be working in Mumbai, amidst all the floods and blasts, not stopping like the rest of people. And then there is this third thing, Reality which struck me fair and square. Now that my ‘dream’ of working in the best and most expensive premier business area is my present, the other things came in handy for I am in Mumbai. The first thing anybody, who can easily afford food and clothing, will look for is shelter. Real estate in Mumbai is making its marks on papers and financial minds worldwide, but at a personal level looking for a house can be messy, enough for non-procurement even after a search for 2 months. Water inadequacy is an issue in Mumbai because of less rain, but monsoons carry the capacity of flooding the low line areas always. I happened to get a house but of course in one such area. If not before, you enhance your knowledge when you have to walk in filthy water upto the knees. So I got to know that many areas weren’t that flood prone. It is houses, turning to buildings turning to towers; roads turning to high-traffic zones, bridges n flyovers on them that have led to all the flooding. There is no way water can go/seep/dry, all drainages bound to be blocked…Population {that is not Mumbai problem, that is the problem of India}.

I really have liked traveling in locals. With a first class pass in hand, and empty trains it all seems fine. Plus you met variety of ppl doing different things and running for 5 days in the week, just like you. Well one more thing is that locals are fast n safe! Illustrating another incident that I faced recently was when I was strangled on a big station abt which I knew real less. I was just in time for the last train with ladies compartments and I missed it because I got down to the wrong platform. It was a day when heavy rainfall was expected and bomb scare was the talk of the city. People rushed home early n at 11:30 pm, Mumbai Central was clear of humans. I gave panic calls here and there, and I knew I was wrong to come down to a platform at this time. I had completely forgotten about the bombs. When the train finally came and finally moved again with me in it, I felt myself pounding with fear. And this was a first! A first where I actually feared things that were kept around. Getting home safe and sound was the only thing on my mind. At moments like those and thereafter you always feel that why are/were you getting scared, you will/would have reach home fine anyways. The night gone by, I was very much in the local the next morning. With similar thoughts but lot less intensified.

Murphy’s Law: plain simple words said by a man on the failure of an experiment. I am using them to explain my day-to-day experiences.

Home is where the heart is. Fortunately for me this is working out now. I have always had a thing for this city, called Bombay. I love it here. And I happen to know plenty who are absolutely crazy about it. We have all preferred to call it Bombay always though paperwork today knows it popularly as Mumbai. And at times like I explained in the Long paras above, its Mumbai for all of us.
In Short: “Yeh hai Mumbai meri jaan…”

Surroundings: less crowded office arena
Sound: Keyboards'

Y for Learn

With a lot of to dos’ and a lot to do, Life comes with a warning “Learning involved!”
Enthusiasm per se is your yearn to learn. I realized this when after 5 years of being in a pool of opportunities and rejecting them continuously, I finally jumped into the Pool. Float at my back, a very old swimming costume and a borrowed cap, I was all set to just keep my face above water. Baby pool was small and boring, but I was still scared to go in 15 feet. Looking at 45 year old ladies jump into the pool like that though was a good enough reason to walk down the staircase if not dive in.
Well here again, first few days were fun but my god! I learnt leg movement and then hand movement and then breathing and then breathing with hand movements. To top it all, all this has to be done together. At all my learning experiences, when I have a difficult time I always tend to go back, 20 years back as of now. There was a time when I could’nt walk, talk, understand things, read, write and I have done it all and done it all pretty fine.And thanks to all my doings, today I was in IIT swimming pool trying to learn one thing I did perfectly above ground and had never to learn before,,breathing!! {For those who care to read this and know abt swimming, breathing is the most difficult part of it all…}
I become my own inspiration then, and I become extremely proactive for the cause then. Thanks to me, I eventually learnt swimming and within the number of days I had I learnt more than just free style.

Like many other times, this was a time well spent. And ya one of the to-do done dona done!!
Life keeps moving and the thing sometimes that keep you going is that there is so much to do and so much to learn . Am into another pool of opportunities now, a pool where you can apparently earn a lot and learn a lot. This time its finance and I just hope to like it a lot and learn it better.

Surroundings: Office

To me!

Nothing said and done!!! Calls for a post...

I have never been anybody to celebrate but I have loved the wishes! and after the technology advanced, calls on phones and call waiting and smses meanwhile and everything at 12 in the night. An hour of so much in store and you can talk to everyone and people will call you twice or thrice if needed, sing 'birthday song' and tell you all the things you love to hear and make it all worth for long. You are busy with all the people you like....love and care about! Mostly a no pretense situation :)

I had one such hour last night...and it does get lovely by the day..
Whoever said "Growing up is fun..!!" had loads of friends and loads of birthdays..

An year of 'even'ing out just to be the odd one again...

So Long!!
Happy 22nd Birthday :)

Its a First!! :)

Qualified by my parents as the "punctual" girl, am late on my very first night! Late to sleep before the very first day!

So wishing myself all the very best for this very first, hopefully exciting...pardon me; exciting and new world..

askaprhr mailing...
:)

Mood: Excited (of course)
Music: Enigma

More on “!?”

More sure than unsure

More surprising than inquisitive

More alive than dead

More intriguing than a question

More known than unknown

More arguable than mysterious

More of this than that

More of ‘!’ than ‘?’

Thought abt it during the blues of day before the last!

Friendship

"A friend may well be reckoned a masterpiece of nature"

Alan(smiling): You constantly surprise me!
Denny: Keep the love fresh...lets go fishing
Alan: Lets go fishing..

Here's to Denny and Alan!

Music: In my Life (Beatles)

'Euro'lgic

Sometimes in the college life, within all the Zsa Zsas’ and no Zsu…there is nothing like a free lunch, you know someone calling and saying “Did you have your lunch?” and quick as it should comes “No!” and you might readily agree for a lunch date! Now very honestly I may be contradicting my post of yesterday. But I have more in mind than just that…

Free lunch is great, but a free lunch on a free eurotrip is grand. What makes it grander then is that you are a student and you are called, am sorry..invited for an internship in any university per se, and you are there all by yourself. I would recommend to everyone who studies in a prestigious institute like IITs’ to try your level best to go out. One of my friends had talked me into it actually when I was so tired of applying to universities outside and not getting replies..”It can be one story of your life which you can tell to your grandchildren and they will enjoy! And you will be proud about yourself then” I definitely made me laugh then and it definitely makes me smile now!

I had my internship in Sweden at the end of my third year. I was excited and scared then. At first the feeling never sunk in that am leaving my country but when the plane took off, I became real. I remember being at the Frankfurt airport all by myself, trapping all I could in my camera, waiting to board another flight. I also remember the dizziness..it was my longest flight…8 hrs!! I was in the land of whites. Oh that reminds me, it was my first trip abroad. And it was just the first in “it was a first!” category.

I had my first cruise trip, first subway ride, first ride in a 40-seater jet, first ride in a 400-seater plane, first time when I saw the sunrising before 3 am and setting at 11 pm, a not so royal trip to a grand casino. food..Indian restaurants which were maintained by bangladesis, three different types of flora change in a month and a half, veg food which includes sea-food…on the other hand sometimes doesn’t include milk products as well. Currency….I can never forget the initial days when I always converted the price of everything in rupees, the obvious parameter for me to judge the expenses. Luncheon with a lot of intellectual souls was another thing I completely relished then, I was too uninformed to understand many research talks then…or it sometimes is that you think you are still young for all this so not knowing and not understanding comes in handy.

I don’t think I had the very usual trip like all the other students…I dint go to paris, rome, Venice…I kept all that in store for some other special trip! I did attend a conference in Lyon instead…I went to see the best cities of Sweden, not so popular take for a trip in Europe…and I loved it.

When me and my friend cooked by ourselves, I had to capture an image of it....Well however sad it looks It was a first and my friend was more responsible in spoiling it than me :)

Definitely the thought of food being my responsibility scares me still..

I did make a lot of friends, had a lot of adventures and it all seems shadowed now...

Sweet Memories :)

mood: Nostalgic

Now will soon be then…

Look, See, watch ahead of time
Make a preposterous attempt to turn pages back

It all green now, available and hearty
Switching between red and orange is in store

Laugh out loud, cry while you can
Your demeanour may be on watch soon

Write long mails and longer answers
You might be answering calls all the way

Don yourself as you like
Don’t wait for the dress code to be announced

Work in the shabby, cut, torn, jeans now
Formal attire will be necessary

Nestle yourself
Emplacement will have its own time

Learn before you are called experienced
And so, don’t think before you talk now

Don’t impede now
Future has saved the obstacles for you

Quaint is what you call life now
Stranger things can happen before and after noon

Enjoy now, so that you can talk about this
Keep the belabour late in the agenda

Drink to the past, Merry for the future!!

Mood: Thinking Music: RHCP

No Free Lunches

College life is one place where we all apparently learn time management. It goes like this, you have lot of work and you know about it, you know there is a deadline but then there is still time so you have movies to watch, places to go, the usual cac-sessions to catch up on and many many more things. Eventually the deadline is soon enough and all this is has to be put aside just to let you switch back soon. In those long workdays, you sleep very less, sleep at odd times watch ample number of 20 min series, eat your meals pretty quick, skip meals are the common to-dos and of course keep thinking about finishing the task in hand so that you can go to some place nice with some people nice. Since you really cant work all dressed up so you pick your shabby set of clothes and sometimes cant wait to have enough time for a long shower and then change to something dressy enough.

Well its comprehensible enough now that am having a deadline for THE final thesis, the second last of the last academic thing@IITB, my last submission, my final nightouts for ‘earning’ my degree fair and square. So anyway, caught up in one such afternoon where I slept at 10 a.m. after a heavy breaker to get up at 12 noon to work with my full potential…of course couldn’t! Slept till it was after lunch time and had a thought (I have sleep thoughts which make me get up sometimes or I remember them later) “It is Sunday! And it is the last Sunday when my mess would serve the usual chole, poori gulabjamun lunch…popularly known as the “Sunday Lunch” to all of us..would be served !” This was the thought that did wake me up and I went straight to the mess, had two very dry and oily pooris with chola and the gulabjamun and even though I wasn’t hungry, it was an easy and tasty intake!

It was very strange. Mess food is hardly a delight after eating 5 years continuously in that…even though we are paying for it…we always considered it free lunches that we can always miss to eat out, eat some grub or skip it altogether for it not being good! And here I was running to the mess for the same lunch I have had soo many times over that I should be bored. I remember once being very hungry after a long long sleep and eating 9 pooris on the Sunday. I have actually started liking certain things served in meals in the mess…of course I had got this sense early enough that I cant like food in a mess meant for all every single time, but appreciation has not been my virtue for the mess bit of my hostel.

I am soon going to enter the working class, where my meals will be my responsibility. Of course I will have my own kitchen, no time boundations, no fixed menu and may be ‘no cribbing necessary’!! After the last usual Alu paratha dinner...am wondering

Will it be like the Free Lunches?!

Mood: Interesting
Music: feet-tapping

The 'V' word

It is absolutely astounding how certain alphabets (F,V) used by themselves ring a bell, but that’s certainly not what am writing about today. I have story about a V I want to put across.

Have you heard about Viruses? Of course you have! Have you had to face one? Of course you had to! Have you been teased for long by one? Mostly of course you have been! Have you been able to get rid of them? Many times yes and Many times no with a whole new installation process mostly lining up in between your busy dates with you PC…and the sore bugging procedure!! And ya, their weird names: Trojan Horse, Mytob32 to mention a few!

Well I don’t nurture my PC enough, nor do I take a lot of care of it! I don’t keep firewalls, some special antivirus and a lot more PnCs of these or more. I keep one antivirus, the popular one and that’s pretty much about the care I think I take of my very Personal Computer. And hence I and viruses have a mutual understanding of meeting up once atleast each sem. If they don’t come by themselves, I am supposed to open something wrong, download something wrong ;) or get them here somehow! And have to go through the installation wizard !

This time around I have a virus which I guess was created by the antivirus itself somehow. Trust my word, I dint download anything, dint use an erroneous pen drive, dint open some arbit link..Nothing! But I love this one and have decided to pamper it. If anything, it has made my comp faster than anything…I don’t have task manager anymore {apparently its deleted) and if all the processes get stuck I should take a walk in the corridor and tada! the job is done by itself. I dont have paint and Windows media Player…who needs them anyway. Paint is for kids and we have better media players than the one named so. If situation gets worse, restart the computer and trust me the reboot speed is like the speed of light. In seconds am back to the normal opening soo many processes at one time. I have no idea of the name of this one, and you know what I don’t want to. I don’t want to hear any dodgy things about it from people.

I will christen it myself, something good sometime later!

Mood: Bored

Simply Fantasizing!

To make a movie, you need something good, something bad and something ugly. I can hardly recall none made out of all good. Let’s keep the conversation based movies aside, they have a different genre. Most that impress us have a “pursuit of happyness” so to say within them. We need to see the conditions that are worthwhile to be daunted for. Rise, success, strength and more keywords like this keeps the show going on. It is welcomed if it is ahead of ordinary.

It aint a bad thing to celebrate a simple life. But fantasy has its own fascination. Fantasy movies can be considered the epitome of the celluloid world. A world recreated from within our surroundings as we know them. A simple lad simply unaware like us is chosen to complete a task. An old man with immense knowledge to tell us whats going on. An inexplicable force, which has brought all the “good” people together. Men at eighties look like in their late twenties. Weapons can create mystical forces of nature. The wars depicting canny reckless bravery. You want all this together, you have to look for a fantasy world. A ghastly power ended some billions of years ago is being reincarnated and you have to save the world as we know it. There are some dark secrets hidden and with each passing moment they give an adrenaline rush to get the whole untwined. And to top it all, you have everything named and named well different. The names mean something big, trees can walk and many many extraordinary things. Its imagination, innovation, it’s a great world of fantasy. Though its only a sham world, they are beautifully picturised and directed and hence popular.

In the words of Samwise the brave:
“Its like in the great stories. The ones that really mattered, full of darkness and danger they were and sometimes, you dint want to know the end…because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was…when so much bad had happened. But in the end its only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come and when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you…that meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why! Folks uin those stories have lots of chances of turning back but they dint. They kept going…because they were holding on to something”

Probably if we are a part of it, we will understand and know…that there is some good in this world worth fighting for!

Lets keep fantasizing till then…

Goodfellas: Wise guys!

Imagine about your profession being a set of perilous crimes...airport robbing, murdering, gambling..and making money, I repeat making money out of all of it and throw it away faster than you can would and should. For general people, guns are scary. But when you hold them, they are a turn on. When you are bored enough with all this you can switch to something new..D***-Dealing. See its a business and you can always do more of it because you will want to do more of it. You are broke, rob some more You are dangerous and somehow that makes you a respectable person in your community. You can do things none of them can. Your initial perks are you never have to wait for nething, no waiting queues, you get the freshest bread, your driveway is always left empty and those no-ones carry your grocery for you because ,lets face it, you are the esteemed one. Prove yourself and don’t be a rat, everything is a phone call away, Free cars, dozen apartments to hide, Jewelry in paper bags in kitchen, betting 20-30 grand over a weekend and blow it off asap . Since you can rob, I am sorry make any amount of money and since you are handful so you keep everyone…cops lawyers judges paid good. Everything is for the taking.

“We always called each other ‘goodfellas’. Like you say to somebody..You’ll like this guy. He is a good-fella. He’s one of us. You understand? We were goodfellas. Wise guys”

“
‘Police!Freeze! Don’t you move you MotherF*****! I’ll blow your brains out. Shut the car off slowly’

‘For a second I thought I was dead. But when I heard all the noise I knew they were cops. Only cops talk that way. If they’d been wiseguys, I wouldn’t have heard a thing. I would have been dead’
“

“
‘..And now its all over. That’s the hardest part Today everything is different. There is no action. I got to wait around like everyone else, cant even get decent food. I am an average nobody. Got to live the rest of my life like a schnook’
“

As far back as I can remember, I've always wanted to be a gangster." -- Henry Hill, Brooklyn, N.Y. 1955

Worth a watch..GOODFELLAS! film directed by Martin Scorsese, based on the book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pilegg.

Background noise: Goodfellas

Feckless

A busy page flapped
A busy day ahead
Its good sometimes to have no time
Buzzes keep blinking...and you are perilously occupied!

I have a deadline and a task to finish
Been innovative before...
I have to adopt the lockstep patterns again
In the fitful way the jobs are finished
eventually I get adapted to the system!

Engineer am going to be called
but its the tom-toms of Science that are bugging me now
I dont expect you to understand this
Just dont befuddle yourself

Its the story of my life
Just the present actually
The indelible things seem effaced
I am ludicrous sometimes
Plain quaint some other times

I wanted to write so I wrote
Tired enough to think some more
Its abstract, ooh thats what my thoughts are called
Its ME and thats all...

Mood: Arbit

Forever High on Floyd

It would have been wonderful to be of my present age in the 1970s’. With the best bands around and music as we hear them now would have been bands emerging and facing success and popularity. Floyd, gives a song to be heard on all occasions of your life…First you are amazed by the music and then Lyrics when you feel you have rediscovered a song…

I can, and never should dare, put Floyd in words…if you know them you will know why…So for today lets just say

“Happy Mother’s Day”

Mother, do you think they'll drop the bomb?
Mother, do you think they'll like this song?
Mother, do you think they'll try to break my balls?
Mother, should I build the wall?
Mother, should I run for President?
Mother, should I trust the government?
Mother, will they put me in the firing line?
Is it just a waste of time?

Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry
Momma's gonna make all of your nightmares come true
Momma's gonna put all of her fears into you
Momma's gonna keep you right here under her wing
She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing
Momma's will keep Baby cozy and warm
Oooo Babe
Oooo Babe
Ooo Babe, of course Momma's gonna help build the wall

Mother, do you think she's good enough
For me?
Mother, do you think she's dangerous
To me?
Mother will she tear your little boy apart?
Mother, will she break my heart?

Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry
Momma's gonna check out all your girlfriends for you
Momma won't let anyone dirty get through
Momma's gonna wait up until you get in
Momma will always find out where you've been
Momma's gonna keep Baby healthy and clean
Oooo Babe
Oooo Babe
Ooo Babe, you'll always be Baby to me

Mother, did it need to be so high?

Music: Floyd

See-Saw

Often in interviews one is asked..where do you want to be x years down the line?
I have an answer to this “To be on the other side of the table”. I believe its my delusion about this answer being inappropriate as compared to the traditional ones that I dint say this in my few interviews till now.

But I always have had a thing about being on the other side….sometimes because it will be more fun, sometimes more exciting, sometimes lot more relaxing than where I am. We may call it basic human psychology or at this point of time in my life…I will say this gives me drive enough to work hard and well, well!

And very much on the contrary, I sometimes need to hear bad music to appreciate good ones, see bad plays to relish the better ones and see or hear abt the other colleges to feel lucky to be in the best. May I say sometimes we just might need to be on the other side to realize the flipsyde!

All of us must have been on a see-saw at some point of time in our life. When on it I loved where I was and also wanted to be on the other side . It was fun to give that push from the toes to go up and it was exhilarating to be up and feel light. With its own charm the activity continues in perfect harmony and imbalance, let alone a little belabour here and there!!

I just wonder if all we need to be in harmony is imbalance few things by our own choices?

Mood: Sleepy again :)

Space Time and More...

“The time is gone, the song is over, thought Id something more to say”

Breaking the space time continuum is one of the biggest dreams of scientists and being conducive in the process should be a dream of many others. Going for a trip in space is now being made possible by virgin airlines but traveling in our own world back and forth will enhance the profligacy of travel or may I say time travel. If I travel back, the vestiges today will be realities and if I travel future the dreams will be realities. Funnily enough, I think what I am trying to say is it will be more real to visit the past and future than the present itself J Lets face it and be real anyway…lets just limit ourselves to this present.

Last days of college and you see people leaving and going to new places. I well observed break in the space time continuum…and this can do amazing things to you. Final goodbyes come with a lot of pleasing sorrys and thank yous!! You tend to forget all past grievances and duels, stop being cynical for a brief time which according to you is as good as not moving or moving soo fast that you rather spend it well than think about it. Or you might be subtle enough and display gestures like wishing luck or birthdays to once yours and then somewhere somehow not soo truly yours “friends”

I, on the other hand, am having very unusual last few days…am meeting new people and good ones as a matter of fact…may be I cant use the friends tag with them fondly now but I am of the belief that if I will, atleast I wont have to quote unquote them. For me time is moving really fast and soon I am going to enter a cult where the baffling thought will be the “Time value of Money’. With a deeper understanding of these words I might be able to write something more about it but as of now, the succinct of my near future will be…

"Spaceless Mumbai…No Time in hand…and a lot of pocket-Money"

Mood: Sleepy...i guess!!

Music: Time (floyd)

Be Prepared

Prepare to leave this place
Prepare to start again
Prepare to see a new beginning
Prepare yourself for an end
Prepare to look for a fresh match
But just in case…
Am I prepared for the mismatch?

Prepare to take the memories now
Prepare to make new ones
Prepare to pack the bags
Prepare for the worst and make the best out of it
Prepare to leave the door open forever
But just in case…
Can I close it one more time!

Should I flaunt the fear..
Or should I fawn it?

Prepare to leave the past behind
Or am I just forfeiting it…
Prepare for the legal escapade
Or am I breaking some rules…
Prepare to be curious all over again
Or will I be prying?!

Prepare to finish for THE start
Prepare to lay down my cards in the world…
Prepare to be in delirium
Or is it just an uncontrolled nothing!!

Am I preparing or am I all set?

Mood: that of a loner
Music: chirping of birds

Saaransh

A movie made in 1984 under the banner of Rajshri Productions, Story and Direction..Mahesh Bhatt, Editor..David Dhawan!! A must watch, a classic made when the big names today were trying for mere establishment.

It was the movie introducing THE actor Anupam Kher (Mr. Pradhan in the movie)…ironically playing the old man in the movie. And the role played by Rohini Hattgandi of a wife, a mother, and that of a hopeful mother…Believing that her son will come back.

The once suicidal husband says to his wife when she wants to end it all..

“It takes guts to Live, not to die….”
“Parvati, the lines on your face symbolize the gist of my life!”

The last scene ends with the couple sitting in the park where Mr. Pradhan had dropped the ashes of their son Ajay and the small stretch of land has plants growing on it or lets say Life…

“You and me die but Life never ends..”

THE END

Memory Lane: Part I

I give this title because I think I will have such experiences of my past revisited many times in my life and I look forward to putting them down here…

I had a jam-packed movie schedule this weekend…old, new, everything! I watched the two new releases…directorial debut for two directors and I fear going inside a theatre to see if a movie is up-to-the-mark. First I don’t know much about direction and acting or so I like to believe, hence being a critique makes no sense and therefore second, I feel there are better things to do…So doing that was in fact kind of my first!

With the mutiplexes coming up every now and then,,here there are everywhere..I have been watching all the “good” movies inside big “Screen” with flexible chairs, expensive snacks in between and sometimes Air conditioning very chilly! I watched “U,Me aur Hum” (the movie so to say was a torture! ) in such a multiplex with the lowest priced tkt@160 and called special…It was third row from bottom!!

And just the very next day I saw ‘Krazzy4’ in a Theatre which has one screen to itself…has no Brand name like adlabs/cinemax/PVR attached but instead has a name “Chandan”….and the maximum Ticket priced@100 Rs. After a long time was I seeing a Hall with my family where there were lots of families coming to sit in the balcony and then college students and others coming to sit in dress circle. Yes, it did have a dress circle, a balcony..not a Box though. (I had started with my movie watching spree in such halls and I had visited lots of them and also there were 5 of them in Ajmer…and I remember being excited to go the ones I had never been to before..It wud be a new place for me.) Few kids were blocking us from either side and they actually did stand up when Shahrukh Khan appeared on the screen singing and dancing at “crazy with a K..K R A Zee Zee Y”. They were twisting, jumping, singing the lines they could actually speak!! And ya do you remember people from dress circle whistling at item numbers...Rakhi Sawant’s item number did get quite a lot them.

The movie was a nice experience because of good actors, the two sectors in the hall where I was part of the higher one (balcony :P) and the unfortunate experience that I had a day before at a multiplex with the Devgans!!

So as for me it used to be a “to-do” or that “it’s a first”…but I have one more thing added to these…. “It was after a lonnggg time!”

Mood: Good :)

Music: Chalte Chalte...yun hi koi mil gaya.. :)

Estd. 2008

In the late 1980s’, during one of my several talks about my native place Ajmer surrounded by the now Aravali hill range; I was told that they used to be huge mountains, huger than the now existing Himalayas. And over billions of years they are what they are now. My immediate and hence not so well turned-out thoughts had me surprised because I believed people live, they die and there is this still picture of natural surroundings that was meant for them all. But thanks to geography!! :)

Over a period of few years, it occurred to me when I was overlooking that same hill range from my terrace the fact that there was a time in past when all someone would have seen from my present location would be just these “huge” hills and would have imagined them to have a striking beyond. And here I am looking at the beyond. My these thoughts were given another steer when I watched “The Man from earth”. A man living for 14000 years with as many names of his own as I might not even have on my list till date, must have met people probably more than the hours I have lived, made families and had to leave them and am so possessive of the one I have, had happy moments which made him sad because he might have to let go the reasons for them. May be he was Jesus himself…A question that arises is will you like yourself to meet Jesus and then look at people praying to Jesus for generations. Will you consider yourself to be blesses or cursed? And since mountains erode, water paves new ways, land depressed itself or rose high in pride…you cannot tell the place of your birth because it might be a nothing then and a hill range today or it may be huge mountains depressing by any passing minute and you have lived millions of them.

It had come to my realization quite early that the nature has seen many faces, relationships, smiles, laugh, tears, civilizations, development, urbanization and been a good listener to all that lived through them…but the unforeseen idea of a human being existing there through a substantial part of these is now a mystery.

And of course nature happened, then man happened and then happened man-made monuments. Amongst these few survived and many dint. Historic buildings I have never been able to associate with well enough. When I go to a palace or fort I feel a completely different air to them saying old. But with restaurants, universities and brands I have known off having a “Estd. xxxx” or “Since xxxx” attached to them, I have always wondered about their long existence. Best examples to them would be the café’s around in Europe and few in Mumbai: Even better of course is sited by one of my friends..
‘Since 1871, Leopold Café’

There is zeal in me to visit those places and leave my mark there, “I was here!!” I somehow figure that these places are going to exist when I am not going to. Generations will still wonder like me in few of silent moments at that place…hear the laughs still echoing, talks will exist between those walls. A friend of mine made me realize that such a thing gets more prominent in an old book store. Imagine you are in a place where again generations have come and read about all the above mentioned. The place still has the books with the stories about certain old restaurants, people graduated from the universities that have been there since…. And established themselves ever since!

In true senses, I can see time flying away there and that my present is going to be past for me soon enough but history somewhere down the way soon…

Long Live the world…

Just one last thought…Photography has really seen a revolution. Best was when cameras got the option of dates getting printed on the photo... “Taken…20/05/2006” And I cant help but wonder…! :)

Thoughtful…
Since 1986

Music: Tujhse Naaraz nahin Zindagi...

Fist-full of happiness

Last few days @ IIT-B campus! I always thought that with this place I had a relationship that is so private for me even though all others here are happy faces because of their romance here too…I believed I had a relationship and with others, it’s just an affair. Leaving IIT should feel like the end of an era..but all it feels like is a Long distance relationship I will maintain for as long as I can, for as long as I can remember..THIS has been my Life!!

I have lived back in IIT with no people around..no friends..no known faces..no events…no competitions…no mess…only my room and some work. And all those times I always figured out that this place is what I know it to be because of all that. Surprisingly enough today they seem like the add-ons to the dish I have relished for Five complete years and never got bored off.

All the friends and family I made in here are of course..Thanks to IIT. But it took me something: an event, a night, course, class, lab, treat or may be PAF to know them…and may be sometimes know them again. I might have had fights with them many a times and in those sad times I used to walk up and down the main lane. When I had some issues to be talked about, it gave me a pathway going right from my hostel down to the IDC and back again from numerous pathways. When I had to think aloud, there was a lakeside for that too…if I dint go there, my eyes could always…my room gives me a view to it…but for me it was always a still picture ‘cause from here nothing changed…all is green, just the seasons change…It’s a perfect flora to sustain this fauna, US.

With my friends and family…I went out of this place to see ‘other’ places..and many-a-times I could not wait to get back! Once the rickshaw pulled itself in the main gate and wow…I was at home..and then getting down in front of H-10 made me feel relaxed. The campus is huge..well that’s one way but its flanked by two lakes on either side and so wherever I stand, it stands all around me!! It gave me a surround-hug whenerver I needed one and it felt great…

I have a Life to live ahead but it feels like I have lived a lifetime here, and a good one. Though IIT will never be complete without the add-ons…but this will always be the place I want to come again to, the place I cherished..relished…smiled…and ya, Loved!

Lets sing, sing for these years
sing for the laughter, sing for the tear
It may be just for today
Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take it away

Music: Dream on
Mood: nostalgic

I

If we are not playing the centre or front for important things, we start forgetting that life is about us..about what I am!

Get Set Go...

Well...I always figured that the first time I post on my blog..it should be creative writing, all flowery...a good read for people etc!! then finally I realized that I might just as well be lying to myself on my first go, henceforth I present to me , myself...my very first, very fresh and raw post...

We begin lying from next time onwards....