anxiety

Just a few days away is my CDS exam i.e on the 17th. And I am pretty anxious about it. Have studied quite a bit and for a pretty good time. But still exams will be exams and I cannot escape the uneasiness and the uncertainity of it all. Me hoping for the best. :-)

nostalgia...

मला पुन्हा एकदा तरी शाळेत जायचय.
धावत जाऊन माझ्या रोजच्या बाकावर बसायचय
रोज सकाळी खड्या आवाजात राष्ट्रगीत म्हाणायचाय
नव्या वहिचा वास घेत पहिल्या पानावर
छान अक्षरात आपल नाव लिहायचाय
मला पुन्हा एकदा तरी शाळेत जायचय.

कितीहि जड असुदे... जबाबदारीच्या ओझ्यापेक्षा
दप्तराच ओझ पाठिवर वागवायचय,
कितीहि उकडत असू दे.. वातानुकूलित ऒफ़िसपेक्षा
पन्खे नसलेल्य वर्गात खिड्क्या उघडून बसायचय,
कितीहि तुटका असु दे.. ऒफ़िसमधल्या एकट्या खुर्चिपेक्षा दोघान्च्या बाकावर ३ मित्रान्नी बसायचय,
"बालपण देगा देवा" या तुकारामान्च्या अभन्गाचा अर्थ
आता थोडा कळायला लागलाय,
तो बरोबर आहे ना.. हे विचारयला...
मला पुन्हा एकदा तरी शाळेत जायचय


A very beautiful poem in Marathi fowarded by a friend. No idea who is the writer though. It indeed gushed all the loving school memories back.

infatuation is what they call it.....

You see this image above, right? Isn't she awesomely beautiful? I have been infatuated by this female for some time now. For the uninformed, she is Smita Patil-a yesteryear Hindi cinema actress famous for her work in parallel art stream. Now, I really have no idea what is the reason behind this sudden liking for her. Neither I have watched any of her films offlate nor there has been any news remotely relating to her thats fallen on my ears. I have no clue et al !!??!! But somehow I just can't get over her.

I want to collect and watch all her films. Now thats tough I guess. Need money. No job. What a life?!? hahaha.

omkara rocks!

Saw the movie last weekend, and I think every frame of this movie was worth the money. Thanks to the immensely talented Vishal Bhardwaj that we get to watch here an adaptation of one of the great plays by some famous English bard(what's in a name I ask? ;)) . So if you are a Hindi movie-goer and appreciate good cinema(which ofcourse doesn't include the chopra-johar clan of movies), go and watch it. It is brilliant.

"bewakoof aur chutiye mein dhaage bhar ka farak hota hain. agar tum ye movie nahi dekhte ho toh fir tum bewakoof aur chutiya, dono kehalaoge.hahahahaha"

Update: There is an excellant review of the movie here by some Bharadwaj Ranjan. I wish someday my writing turns out as lucid and as able in keping-attention as the review written by this guy. Hats Off Mr. Ranjan. Another review here by Falstaff pointing out the negatives as he sees them(I do not completely disagree with Falstaff) .

of indian tv media..

If one has been regularly keeping a watch on the Indian television media scene, then one might as well agree with what BBC journalist Paul Danahar has to say here(source:prathamesh). The excerpt below sums up the whole idea about the state of media in India as of today.

The former Home Minister Indrajit Gupta was one day doggedly pursued by a young journalist on his way out of parliament.he finally agreed to stop for the news crew, he was asked the probing question. "Sir, would you please say something". The second question was "and Sir, who are you?"

Personally, I think NDTV is by far the best English news channel reporting in India. CNN-IBN is good in parts(I nomally do not miss Devil's Advocate). TIMES-NOW(with its sloppy programming) and Headlines-Today(with its sloppy anchors) suck big-time. Needless to say that the Hindi media is a complete no-no. I am afraid that with time and intense competition the scenario is going to worsen and all we will be subjected to see and know is "Why Udit Narayan has two wives and whom he prefers to sleep with?". How I wish there was a BBC India.

Also if one wants to know what goes on behind the screens, this blog might just reveal it all.

shinema!!

Saw this movie almost two weeks ago. IMHO nothing great about it. Though it is/was being touted as a "different" movie from the Madhur Bhandarkar film making stable, it failed to satisfy my expectations. The best and the worst part of the movie is the sleaze. The best part is that it is there and the worst is that it is not much. ;-) In a nutshell it is a "Page 3" in formal attire. About acting, Rajat Kapoor was quite good but Bipasha lacked the firepower that her character required. I think Sushmita Sen would have been fitting there. Kay Kay's talent has been wasted yet again.

Saw the "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest". GREAT would be an uderstatement. Now some people might argue that the first one was better, then let me tell them that I havnt seen it. The story, visually arresting cinematography, special effects and acting of Jonny Depp are the mind-blowing aspects of the film. Some of my friends did not like the abrupt ending of the movie but I really did not care much about it. They also say it isn't as funny as the first one. Anyways, I enjoyed for about more than 2 hours(yes, the movie is long) and hence its was all worth the money spent.




One of the most awaited Bollywood films of the year is "Omkara" and looking at the trailers the expectations have soared pretty high. I hope it does well.

on the mat and fucked

I just saw it all. Before the imaginations run wild let me clear the air. I am talking about having watched the royal fuck of the foreign minister of Pakistan, Mr Khurshid Kasuri, by the master interviewer Karan Thapar on Devil's Advocate(cnn ibn). LOL. I could not believe that Pakistan had such a foreign minister who could not even answer diplomatically, leave alone being correct and factual. All he could manage was to evade answering the questions posed to him very lousily and blabber rubbish. It must be so embarrasing for the pakistanis to see their foreign minister being stripped naked by the media of a rival country. I will not write much about it because one had to see it to belive me. Evenif you havn't seen it, you can read it here. Though I doubt if reading would be as much fun.

P.S: Karan Thapar Rocks!!!

should india go the israel way?

Poignant images of the city of Beirut:courtesy TIME magazine

I have been receiving email forwards from friends which have been criticizing India's so-called coward policy against terrorism while comparing it against that of Israel's. I cannot blame them for being incorrect, for when the anger of the recent Bombay blasts was fresh in my mind, I too thought that India is being a soft state and why not do an Israel in PoK atleast.

But now , after being more "informed", I think that it would be a folly to compare the situation in the Middle East with the one here. The comparision ends with the fact that both Israel and India are being terrorised and goes no further. The skirmish there, which might as well turn into a war, is like a David v/s Goliath fight where Israel is too mighty for the Hezbollah. And thats not the case here. Here we are talking about two nuclear nations and the repercussions of such a war here would be more grievous and long-lasting. This ofcourse doesn't mean that I wish to undermine the after-effects of current crisis in middle-east on the civilians there. Looking at the above pictures I certainly can't. There are many things we can emulate from Israel like building efficient intelligence organizations ala MOSAD, but certainly not the foohardy of going to war. War cannot be the solution. It is the last resort when the security and sovereignity of the country is threatened, like it was at the time of the Kargil intrusion.

The more the bombs affect the innocent civilians the more terrorists are born among them.
Have Wars ever brought peace in the history of mankind? NO.

is this a weblog or a journal or both?

I am not sure of the answer. May be till date it was more of a journal than a weblog and now I intend to make it the other way round. The explanation given here is pretty much exhaustive and can help anyone categorize any blog as weblog or a journal, only if the content is not very heterogenous.

Anyways, this is just a 7 month old blog and yet to find its true calling, yet to evolve I must say. It is like the rivelet that has just sprung up from the rocks and doesnt know if it going to join another river or be a river in itself , end up in the arabian sea or the bay of bengal. Let it take its own course I say.

a stroll through the "maximum city"

It was not the usual lazy Saturday morning and quite rightly so. The previous night Pankaj had mentioned about his impending visit to the British Council Library and the shutterbug in me had jumped at the thought of visiting the beautiful South Bombay and making extensive use of my Nikon S3.

10:30 was the timing decided and I was as usual late, although by a few minutes only. We were lucky enough to get hold of the 10:45 fast from Thane and luckier to grab the fourth seat( only those who travel in the second class understand its importance). We reached our destination withing an hour. The strong Bombay police presence on the CST station was tangible but I wondered where did they all come from? May be they have reduced the security of some petty politician who might as well turn out to be the next target.I digress.

We reached the BCL within few minutes of touching base at CST. BCL seemed very cool to me, not for the obvious AC but for the plethora of books at its disposal. Pakya got hold of three books, one a p.g.wodehouse, another a thriller Bunker 13(which now happens to be with me) by some investigavtive journalist and the third one was a book on 'Computer Hacking'. After finishing the proceedings at the library we decided to just roam around to make use of my camera and here are those pictures.

Well there is nothing more to be written about this stroll as the pictures speak for themselves.

bhurji?

I have decided to change the name of my blog. Why? Umm..let me analyze.

The name of the blog wasn't representing the blog per se. It instead defined me as a person..a lazzybum. Hence decided to change it in such a way that it represents the content on my blog rather than me as an indivisual.
Now why the name "bhurji"? and exactly what is a "bhurji" by the way? For the uninformed a "bhurji" is a term used to describe a dry-ish masala dish which is just a mixture of stuff in small pieces - e.g. pieces of paneer,scrambled egg,tomato,onion, potato etc. As the content of the bhurji is left to the creative freedom of the chef or the cook, there is nothing unique about its taste or the texture except that it has to be spicy. A very popular variety is the egg-bhurji which also happens to be my favourite.
So what has this food item got to do with this blog? Well, a concoction that a "bhurji" is, whose contents are as varied as they could get, my blog intends to be the same. It already is but still things tend to revolve around me too much. I do not want to write about stuff that is just related to me but expand my ramblings to "anything and everything".

Lets see how tasty this "bhurji" turns out to be.

my thoughts about the football world cup

Now that the real life one month long drama has ended, I thought I might just as well sum up my impressions of the same.

To start with, I must say that I am not a football expert, neither an avid football watcher nor a hardcore enthusiast. Even after watching the tournament all month long, I cannot claim to be any one of those. My previous experiences with the game, be it watching or playing, could be best described as 'occasional'. I had intermitently watched the 98 and 02 editions of the Cup and never had any inclination to keep myself abreast of club football. I am not sure what made me take keen interest this time around, but possible reasons could be the lack of good cricketing action and the urge to remain informed about the most talked about sport in the world.

I would probably rant about two observations. Observations on the field and off the field.

Quality?
Having said about my limited knowledge of the game, I can still say that the quality of football at this world cup has been far from desirable. When we talk about football, we talk about goals and about how flamboyant and free flowing was that striker. But instead of the Ronaldos, people talked about the Zidanes, the Cannavaros and the Buffons, and all that the top goal scorer of the tournament, Klose, could manage is a meagre tally of five goals, the lowest since 1962(source:FIFA 2006 site). All that mattered was how good a midfield or how strong a defence a team had. There was hardly any good show of footballing skills beyond the half line.All this is fine, but to keep a viewer like me interested there have to be goals and goals that are breathtaking to say the least. I longed to see the Latin American artistry and arrogance.
Nevertheless, it did keep me glued to the TV set, most of the time beyond midnight, and the only reason I can attribute for that is the unpredictability of it all. Who had predicted that the Italians would take home the final honours? I bet no one, not even the Italians.In my opinion, Italy wasn't the best team consistently. Every team had its moments and the one which kept its nerves surged ahead(how we all saw zidane lose his cool during the final).

Indian Women and Football
We have all heard stories and jokes about how women hate sports, particularly when their husbabnds/boyfriends tend to neglect them as the result of some "happening" sporting action going on somewhere in the world. I pretty much had the same impression until recently when the conversations with my fellow female friends started with the 'F' word i.e 'Football'. As they began discussing the tackling skills of the Italians and the dribbling skills on the Brazilians at length, I wondered if I had something to contribute to the discussions. Astonished by their knowledge and interest, and ashamed by mine, I thought it was high time I start watching the game seriously. :D. Women did watch football but I always thought it was just an eye-candy for them than anything else. Never knew that they actually had good enough knowledge about the game. Now I know how to strike of conversations with females, an activity which is as tough for me as is using the cricket bat for Ashish Nehra.

To conclude, I must say it was a good worldcup, less of brilliance and full of shockvalue. The final was an icing on the cake, a cake which wasn't as sweet as expected.

kahn they do it??

Just saw a humdinger, the quater-finals of the FIFA World Cup 2006, where the Germans were playing against the Argentinians, and I must say that it turned out almost as I had expected it to.Though a disappointment for me as my Cup favourites Argentina lost the game, it was a treat to watch, as is any game that goes down to the wire.

Watching the Germans kick in one penalty after another with so much precision and authority, I have developed an opinion and it is that this German team definitely has the character to hold their nerve in a cracker. I could easily see it in their eyes, the killer instinct, the strong desire to win for their country. Naturally after this strong win, the Germans must be oozing with confidence and have emerged as the strongest contenders for the Cup.

But the questions remains. Kahn they do it??

awe-inspiring

Picture Courtesy:This blog
Some images are inspiring but a very few are Awe-Inspiring as this one.I wish to be among them one day.

football fever

FIFA 2006 has kicked off and the football fever is running high everywhere.It is so infectious that it has affected me, a die-hard cricket buff, who rarely watches football.

I just saw the Sweden v/s Trinidad&Tobago match and was quite surprised by the result. Sweden,one the biggies of the football world, was competing against T&T, the one who have the distinction of qualifying last for this world cup finals. With stars like Larsson and Freddie Ljungberg, the Swedes were expected to make mincemeat of the Caribbeans. Also T&T had to play their reserve goalkeeper and was reduced to 10 men at the start of the second half. What do you expect in this scenario? A Sweden win, right?
But No !! The minnows had their own plans. With their grit and determination, coupled with a tinge of overconfident play from their opponents, they successfully gained a point. The 0-0 scoreline must have kicked of celebrations in the island country with calypso music in the background and heavy introspection in the Sweden camp. I wonder how many such unexpected results are in store ahead ..??

Next up, just a few minutes away from now, is another mismatch from the Group of Death, that is Argentina vs Ivory Coast. Ivory Coast have qualified for the first time ever in the history of the Cup finals, but with star stricker Drogba they cannot be underestimated. We just know what happened a few minutes ago, don't we ? Nevertheless, I am supporting the Africans for the match because somehow I enjoy supporting the underdogs.


Update: Sadly, that was the only point T&T gained in this world cup and were the only team to do so without winning a single match.

a new word added to the dictionary.

Fanaa(noun,adjective)
1:Nonsense.
2:Subject matter, behavior, or content that is foolish or absurd.
3:Matter of little or no importance,usefulness or entertainment.
Examples of various usages of the word in our daily life.
1:Please do not talk fanaa. OK?
2:Arjun Singh made a fanaa analysis of the reservation issue.


P.S:If someone is thinking what this crap is all about then for them let me elaborate. Fanaa is the recently released Bollywood movie, which I happened to watch yesterday when I was suffering from a mental disorder of sorts. My mental state got worse at the end of the experience and might take time to heal. The only good part of the experience was the Kabul Express trailor that they showed during the interval. Kabul Express seems promising. To cure myself of the disorder I need to watch some good old movie, Hollywood or Bollywood. Fanaa is highly unrecommended.

it drizzled.....and then it rained.

Yes, It did and I can already sense and enjoy the freshness in the environ.

When it started drizzling, I was mid-way on my way back from work, sitting pretty listless, as my bus edged past bulky trucks and speedy cars, pushing its way hard through the, previously rough and dusty and now wet, Ghodbunder road. As soon as I opened the window, the wind pushed some drops in along with the aroma of the wet mud which is so peculiar to the first rains. I could see some lightning, surprisingly it didn't make much noise or may be the bus made too much. The Southwesterlies had stamped their arrival in Mumbai.
The idea of getting drenched in the first rain of the season excited me. Little did I care for my leather shoes or anything else. It was still raining as the bus screeched to a halt at my stop. I usually take the autorickshaw from the bus-stop to my home but had other thoughts today and hence walked along ignoring the usual hint from few hopeful rickshawwallas willing to drive me there. As I treaded on the wet and slippery tar road, carefully evading the puddles and the occasional mud splash due to a careless speedy vehicle, my already wet shoes took my attention. I decided against ruining them further and sensibly enough hinted to the passing rikcshaw. I reached home.

As I write this post, I see it has stopped drizzling and started raining and may be it will continue the same the whole night. I pray it rains well for the next few months and keeps Mumbai cool and wet minus the heavy outbursts of the last year.Amen.

!! No more heat waves !! No more dusty roads !! and No more sweaty shirts ! Yoohoooo!
Life just cannot get better.

in retro

It indeed has been a very long time since I blogged the last.
A few things have happened since then.

I put in my papers @ work a few weeks ago. With no other job in my hand, my alliance with my employers will sieze to exist from July.
If I look back at my decision(I do not enjoy doing this but..), the only reason I find that compelled me to do so was boredom, a sense of dissatisfaction resulting out of uninteresting work. I think I love programming but unfortunately it had become a seasonal affair, pretty much like mangoes in the summer. Most of the time my work involved cleaning someone elses shit(read bugs). I understand that most IT work in India involves maintenance projects and pretty much every IT guy/girl spends his/her time doing what I do. But I realized that this is exactly what I do not want to do all my life.
In short, I was not at all enjoying my work.
As a direct result of which I was not giving my 100% to the job and not giving it enough justice as I used to when I had started out.Things had become so predictable and mundane that going all the way to work seemed as a punishment. A punishment let out by social pressure.A pressure to stick with a secure job. A pressure to earn money.Parental pressure.Peer pressure.

Life is surely going to change after this. I forsee the so-called good times giving way to difficult times.You know it from the reactions from the people around you. The kind of reactions I get back when I happen to tell my quit-story vary from bafflement to empathy. Some say it is a silly decision and some happen to plaud it by terming it as a bold one.I feel it is a mixture of both.Its a silly-bold decision :). Anyways coming back to all seriousness, I know I need to ignore the negative vibes and carry forward the positive ones. I also am completely aware that it is a risky affair to quit without any other job in hand or say when having a future as uncertain as a Bollywood movie but I say what the heck !?! If I am not taking risks or for that matter following my heart @ this age then when??? I am happy I did it and must say that I am one lucky ass as currently I do have the freedom to do my own thing thanks to the fact that I do not have to support my family as such.Touch wood.I know many people who do not love their jobs and want to quit but just cannot with all the attachments.

What next?? This is a big question and answers still evade me.Although currently Army aspirations are running high in me and I have an aim for the next few months i.e to clear the CDS and then the SSB, the future still seems very hazey. As the selection process takes a while to complete, I need to find out what I want to do in the meantime and or rather full time if I do not clear it(unfortunately I just have one chance to get through to Army).Do I want to go back to IT or rather the corporate world? Rationality tells me that I am equipped to do programming and that is what I am best at currently and hence should go back. But somewhere down the line I do not feel like doing so and living the cubicle life all over again.
There are two things I find my interests pinning down to. To work for a startup firm which has an informal work culture and a real zest for cutting edge technology work. A workplace I could feel attached to.Never felt that attachment with TCS. Second thing would be to work as a travel writer or rather just as a traveller. Writing travelogues for magazines coupled with nature photography and the freedom to explore the whole of India would be ultimate fun.I know I am not a great writer or something but I also know that I am not bad one either. Also I have an eye for photography and hence think that something of this sort would give me more satisfaction.
But yes, I would contemplate on all these only if I do not get to the Army.Army is the place I want to be. A mere thought of going for the SSB gives me that adrenalin rush. Man!!!! I just want to be there.
Lets see whats in store ahead.....

Would like to end this post with a very profound quote I recently read.
"A short cut to riches is to subtract from our desires". How true!!

introspection

Does everything I want to do needs to have a REASON?
Isn't "being mere happy" a good REASON to do something?
or
Is it necessary that "being the HAPPIEST" should be the REASON to do that particular thing?
How do I differentiate between "this-is-happy" and "this-is-happiest" ?
I understand that Man has the power to be subjective to be able to differentiate such things, but some "happiest" things then might have just have turned to be "happy" now and viceversa.So how do I come to a conclusion?

How do I accept or absorb when people in my close bracket do not advocate my beliefs? How do I react when they start perceiving me in an incorrect manner?
Should I ignore them or Should I try to reprove and convince them?

These and many more.
Questions.Questions.And more Questions.They keep coming at me perennially, almost everywhere.They dont even leave me when I am in the Loo.

Another question my dear mother recently probed me with.It was part of a conversation which went something like this...
Me:Aai, mi Army chi exam dyaycha vichar karat ahe....(mom,me planning to give an army exam..)
Mother(..with a totally aghast look): Kay??? Kashala??? Armit gelas tar tuzhyashi lagna kon karnar????( what??? why??? who the hell will marry you if you join the Army???? )

One thing is for sure.Even if I happen to find the answers to the numerous questions above, the answer to the last question, asked by my mother, is what I am interested in the most.

enjoiin saturdays!!

Here on Blogger, @ this eventful hour I declare that Saturday is the most lovable day of the week.

I started enjoiin today before the day had actually set in, doesnt mean that I woke up early...just that i slept late..caught up with the idiot box and surfed the web.

Woke up late @ around 10:30 am or so(.. dnt care to remember). Heard the news that Pramod Mahajan has been shot, and the immediate thought that crossed my mind was "oh-he-is-in-the-limelite-now".Never been so cruel and heartless. I regret it and pray that he recovers to normality. Happens,I mumbled and continued with the unpleasant morning chores minus a bath, minus a disoriented search for ironed formal attire.

(offtrack)
Watching my mother and the media go frenzy over the breaking news this morning was quite understandable. That all the channels would go bersek the whole day was anybodys guess. I scowled @ my mother in an attempt to make her understand that its his life and the matter was altogether a personal one, not necessary for public scrutiny. But she is my mother and started jumping channels, completely ingnoring my gyaan.
(/offtrack)

As I browsed through the TOI, particular BT, realisation struck me that I havent yet watched the flick Being Cyrus. Another critically acclaimed movie and I did not want myself to feel the same about it, the way I had, when I had missed out on Hazaron Khwaishein Aisi in the theatres. Didnt care to call anybody, had my lunch and drove myself to the nearest multiplex. To my pleasant surprise the ticket was just 70 bucks(..mind you, i am still in TCS and offsite) . Met an old friend of mine, Subbu. Is currently lazzin around in the city after two gruelling yem-bee-yae years.He was with his friends. Me alone.
Abt the movie..hmm.Brilliant short movie, kept me guessin as it unfolded the story of a weird Parsi Family. All the actors are commendable to say the least.Thats it..no more review from my side..as there are critics paid for the same...please read them.No, wait!!...cant help commenting that Dimple Kapdia was sexxxy as ever.

Back home now, I am pondering over the possiblity of catching up with some friends later in the evening.Might just make this Saturday more enjoyable than I would have thought of.

So, a lazzzzzy morning, ghar ka khana, a good movie, and some catching up with friends is all that one needs for a Great Saturday.

back from kashmir

M Back!!!!!!!!

Yes, I am back after an amazing, awesome, unbelievable, awe inspiring tour of Kashmir.
Havn't been able to get over the hangover yet and I dont want to get over it ever. Starring @ the pics incessantly instils bouts of nostalgia in me, time and again.Those images of calm and surreal lakes along with strikingly beautiful, pine forested, artistically snowclad Himalayan peaks in the background are permantly etched in my memory.

I want to go back there.I will certainly go back there.

off to kashmir...reporting from delhi

After years of planning,anxiety,aprehension about touring Kashimir:The Paradise on Earth, the day finally arrived when me and and my family finally set off for the experience of a lifetime.

Here I am, blogging from the Delhi Airport,thanks to an MTNL kiosk, to kill some time only because my connecting flight to Srinagar is still 3 hrs away.

Starting off early @ around 5:00 am,we reached Mumbai Airport pretty early, thanks to my overcautious father.Checking in with a TOI in my hand,I walked over towards the gate no. 4 exit.Was quite amazed to notice that the television screen was a CRT in the age of Plasmas and LCDs.This surely left a sour impression on my mind.Long Live AAI and Long Live the India Tourism Industry.
Boarded the huge Airbus A300, an Indian Airlines flight, which to my surprise, and contarary to the previous experience @ the airport, had beautiful hostesses onboard.Seems our PSU airlines have started grasping the tricks of the trade, albeit slowly.Better late than never.
During the flight, I spent my time having breakfast(strictly veg..no idea why??) and later on browsing through the in-house magazine of Alliance Air.The magazine was a good read, primarily for the adventurous expeditions described all throughout.Reading through the mag, I dreamt of backpacking someday without a care in the world.

I need to log off now before my parents come searching for me..:).Will board the Delhi-Srinagar flight in sometime and from there on we and our tour will be in the hands of Kesari tours.

I hope to have an experience that I would cherish for the rest of my life.
Cherio!!

browse control!!!!!!!

Thats what takes up pretty much of my day @ work..:)
Have been web browsin quite a bit of late....the web, the newsblogs and stuff like that.

One such place is Orkut, where in, I regularly stumble across phunny, whacky profiles and testimonials.Talking about testimonials, they can get pretty smutty if one is not very careful with the words used.One such testimonial writtten by a guy(fortunately) for his friend, in trying to praise his cricketing abilities read something like this:".....likes cricket,balls like wasim bhai,karnataka express...".There you go!!.You see,if not careful,testis(pun intended) can go awry..;)

Now that sleaze talk has crept into this post, I cannot help but mention this piece of news I read today.Teachers and the likes of them in Amrika are in a sort of a dilemma.They do not know if they should just tell or show while teaching stuff about sex education?
For me, the process of learning and unlearning started way back when I was, I guess in the 6th class or was it 5th???? Does it matter?? No.But what mattered then was, how quickly I learnt "things" and how good I was @ spreading the (incorrect)gyaan all around me..:D.I would not mind schooling again if they start showing things instead of just telling them.

Talking about sex is one thing and coming to terms with the unexpected aftereffects is another.Methinks it is this that has taken toll of Tom Cruise's brains and made him go totally insane following Scientology.Here is some pure(couldn't find a better adj) crap of a news.Katie Holmes, Tom's girlfriend, is about to give birth and she has been adviced to practice silence during child birth. Along with providing placards that would remind Katie to keep silence ,he is going to provide her with ipod that will play calming tunes all day long.I call this the epitome of religious fundamentalism.:D.Its time Katie gives Tom some mungi treatment(for the uninformed,it is putting red ants on the tip of the erect crotch,a third degree punishment practiced by the Ugandan police) and make him understand what is pain.

But not all women would advocate that,rather they prefer being beaten up,more so the African women, because on an average 40% of them think that "wife beating" is acceptable under different circumstances.Most bizzare of those is when they happen to "burn the food".Read more here.
As for me,I would not mind indulging in the mild form of "wife beating" popularly known as "spanking".Would like to know what Indian women think about this ..;) ;)

Too much of crap for a single post.Ye baat kuch hazam nahi hui.I better stop this before Hugh Hefner comes calling for my vulgar writing skills.:P

i 've some company!!!!

Now I know, why I am still single.
It is not that I am sad or happy @ being one.Just the feeling that one gets when one thinks that, may be the grass is greener on the other side.But I found this piece (@ the bottom) while browsing through OutlookIndia site and its surely left a smug smile on my face.



It is not me but the stats that are responsible for my singleton!!!...:D.
Only time will tell, how long will yours truly belong to the 20(lucky/unlucky) group ?

my engagement with reading

"The art of reading is to skip judiciously"-Unknown

Came across this quote and my mind quickly started relating to it.Of late, I have taken up heavily on reading,be it blogs,books,or the web. Earlier, it was the tube that kept me occupied but now it seems as reading is also getting its due share of my time. I dont know, why I never did this amount of reading during my school and college days? May be because the focus was more on academic pursuits and less on anything else. Another reason could be, none of my close friends was into reading, also never did my folks put me into this habit. But I am still happy that it have finally started reading.It is never too late you know.

But as the quote above implies, it is very important to make ones choices with respect to what one would like to read, be it books as a whole or things within a book.

Months ago, I laid my hand on "Ignited Minds" written by our great President.I must say it is a must read for every Indian, young and gunning. It just makes you feel more passionate about being an Indian. All said, I still skipped a chapter of that book which was on Saints and Seers of India.Not sure exactly why I did this, may be my agnostic nature came to the fore.

Likewise, I am less drawn towards books by the likes of Jeffery Archer/Sydney Sheldon.Although I accept my limited ability to comment on them, I perceive them as a factory produce, a novel a month aint for me.:( . But I do not rule out reading fiction completely. I never will. I got an English,August few days back.

I also loathe the self-help/management kinda books. Learning how to live/manage ones life/work through books is an absolute silly proposition(MBAs and the wannabes will kill me). Although I have read a few of these kind, I have been quick to realize that implementing those profound thoughts has never been possible for me. Its better to live the way you are, pretty simple, do things as long you like them else procrastinate until you are in a soup and then come out drinking it.

I prefer reading books that are humourous and light in nature. I loved reading P.G. Wodehouse's first book on the Jeeves series(have to get the next one), Dilbert's Principle by Scott Adams(not complete as of yet), Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams(just started on it..). I just love their metaphors and sarcasms on real life. Basically anything humourous is easily enjoyable.
Same goes with the blogs I read, light and crispy. I find GPS's blog very light as he describes his daily chores in Banglore almost very poetically. Aneekets blog is interesting for its weird weird posts.My daily dose of humour comes from the blogs I have mentioned under the heading 'My Dose of Humour'.

Though I am not very much into reading stuff that dwells into various social,economic,psycological issues(it is tooo heavy for me..:D..i do not think i am among those advanced,exalted species..), TOI,Rediff,blogs by JAM Mag Editorand The Great Bong help me keep abreast of developments/views on these fronts.

All in All, I hope my new found engagement with reading grows stronger,helps me shrug incorrect perceptions and eventually culminates into a long term relationship.Relationship...hmmm ...GOD,when will I have a heterosexual relationship??????????? Damn!!!

nothing serious....just a few garbled thoughts

aye sala..abhi abhi..
hua yakeen..ke aag hai..muzhmein kahin..
hui subah..main jal gaya...
suraj ko mein ..nigal gaya..
roobaroo roshni...roobaroo roshni..heyyyy

It is not always that I get addicted to a song as much as I have been to this one.The last instance when something of this sort happened, was I guess after listening to the song Fanaa from Yuva.But I think this time it seems more stronger.And I am loving it.

Some things have kept me amazed and amused around the last fortnight.

The amazing things....
I am amazed about how some guys have way too much luck with girls.This capricorn,who pretends to work in my office but flirts heavily on orkut is a philanderer defined.Though this chic magnet, as some call him, is a mere grad ,very unassuming and down to earth kinda guy, he has become a serious competition to guys with lot more on their resume than his.He does stuff thats weird.His art of scrapping is down right incomprehensible atleast 95% of the time but still sensible chics happen to respond.If someone happens to visit this guy's scrapbook,50% of the time one would find scraps from chics you would lick my ass for and the rest would be envious scraps from useless guys like me.If you are still guessing who this guy is,it is Arvind Shanbag for u.

The amusing things....
I have always enjoyed my way back from work through the forests of Ghodbunder,not just because I am returning home but more so for the cool breeze that blows during the ride.But recently, things have not been this pleasant,primary reason being the small bus that we have been riding in lately.Two adults just cannot manage to sit comfortably in a single seat.But to overcome this,me and my good friend Arvind have had a few tricks up our sleeves.They are pretty simple.Get first up on to the bus,grab a unsited(ya I am getting pretty liberal with words) seat and sit on the outer edge of the same.The next thing you do is "Act".Act as if you've had a real bad day @ work.Strike up a yesteryear actor Manoj Kumarisque pose,just so that everybody else trying to find a seat will pity and think on these lines "Let me not disturb this guy...he seems pretty worked up today".And the next moment you find the poor fellow cooling his ass somewhere else...:D.All this sounds pretty simple yet amusing,and has been successful almost 9 out of 10 times.

Some thoughts about the change in the name of my blog.
I have always nutured something I call as the "Change Mentality".Was contemplating to change the name of my blog to make it sound more appropriate with my personality.Yes Yes, I do have personality that is very much common.The word "Procrastination" defines my sense of being.I am, for the matter of fact an "incurably" disorganized,distracted,hopeless LAZZY BUM...and thats were the new name comes from. :)

haze seems to clear up.....

Things have started to happen and I just hope they gain some momentum.

Finally dropped a mail to my AM(Account Manager) asking him for a much needed change.This seems as a very trivial step but a bold one for me.I call this bold just because I know I will be facing a barrage of whats and whys and it was important for me to be very clear on what I am actually seeking.Had a generic discussion on the same in a team meeting today... a one-to-one expected within the next few days.Having spoken out my mind,I am still sad about one fact and it is that, there are a few people I know who choose to remain silent sufferers.I hate when they do not speak out and prefer to remain mum.

I have also decided to start full throttle on CDS preparation.Seems to me a very different exam than the ones that I have given in the past.Need to get some books and stuff.Good old geography,history texts seem to beckon me.Although I anticipate an enriched learning experience, transition from learning programming languages to learning the differences between a fold mountain and volcanic mountain aint gonna be easy.Lets see how it goes.......

Finally, I get a feeling that the 'Career Haze', as I might call it, is clearing up slowly.I hope to see a clear picture soon which is as spotless as a summer sky.

thoughts about my next job...

...as thoughts about quitting my job take centerstage...I began thinking about what the next one should be like even before I have embarked on searching for it...but then thats true me...a definite day dreamer...can't help really.

When Vishal told me last Sunday that his firm is turning casual, I was plesantly surprised.I was happy for him but at the same time envious .I wish I was working there.

I have serious concerns regarding "strict business wear" @ office on weekdays except fridays.Having said that,one should not presume that it is the reason why I would decide to quit if I may.But yes,It is something I abhor to the core.

I often envy people with arty jobs.Firms in the field of advertising,media,entertainment,outdoors have one thing in common and that is people working with them have the liberty of wearing casual wear @ work all the time.I have nothing against business wear but my only question to the organizations like mine who endorse them strictly is, why be so rigid?? The more rules you make ,the more people will try to go around them and then you may find outragious wear on Fridays.So just let employees be the way they want to be.No one wants to see/wear monotonous attire everyday...the same old light blue/white shirt and a black/gray trouser combi.I pity the Infoscions who have to wear a tie on some weekdays.A programmer wearing a tie.Isnt that ridiculous???

Organizations fear that people might come to office wearing torn jeans, obscene/revealing clothes taking the privilege too far and thus do not want to give them even half a chance.But I believe that such policing should be left to the people themselves, who I think are sensible enough to wear appropraite casual wear.I strongly feel that lossening up of dress code rules will be more liberating and satisfying than say a meagre pay hike.

I agree to the argument that some people would make with respect to "impression on the customer".As a no-nonsense organization,people representing it to the customer in casual wear would have adverse effects on the customer relationship.But then does everybody in the office interact with the client in person everyday? Definitely Not.Hence it is pretty okay with me if I have to wear "business attire" for a customer meet but please do not make me wear it every single day..:(. Even though if I sideline the customer for a moment,me as a representative of my firm should definitely be appropriately dressed and well-grommed but who said that one cannot be be the same in casual clothes.

Nonetheless,I feel that things are changing in the right direction when I see my clients from one of the biggest organizations in the US wearing casual during their "official" visits offshore.Customer nowadays is more concerned about the work you do and less about your black Reid & Taylor suit.I hope this rubs on to the senior management/HR of my firm or for that matter any other firm that still fears to shrug of rigid thoughts about dress code.

This is one of the things I would look for in my next job whenever and wherever it is destined to be.Hope I find it soon..:)

main aisa kyon hoon

karna hai kya muzhko ye meine kab hai jana...
lagta hai gaoonga zindagi bhar bas ye gana..
..these 2 lines sum up my thoughts at the moment....

I feel a trifle sad that I do not have the conviction that many people around me seem to enjoy about their careers or say an answer to the question "What do they want to do in their Life?". I am also unhappy about the fact that their ability to be so sure has not been pervasive enough to make me capable of making a decision...sigh...

Spending the first one and a half years after graduation @ TCS has given me a good enough picture of the coporate world and I know for sure that this coporate life is very deceptive.It makes you think thats it is getting you decent money but keeps you unaware of the fact that there is actually something amiss.I rue the fact that I am not enjoying.I just cannot.:(

But then what should I actually do?( I know I ask to many questons to myself) I should probably do something that will "satisfy me"...is it?.. is this a plausible thought?.Hmm...dont know .May be it is.But few people think that trying to gain satisfaction @ job or work in a corporate environment is having too high expectations from it.One of those thinkers is Subroto Bagchi,Mindtree CEO.He must be right I guess.He says that people should look @ jobs as a means to live and not as life itself.Employers cannot satisfy their employees because the employer is more interested in the things that an employee does than in who they are. Now that I am pretty sure that "employee satisfaction" is nothing but a hogwash,I must find my way out of this big bad corporate world.Some wise man has said "If you do not love your job, you do not have the right to do the job".I certainly need some big time change.Change of job???...Change of field???...I am in a unpleasant dilemma and do not see a way out of it...:(

Many different thoughts about my career have pitched in my mind lately. Few days ago I was thinking about a MBA but could not find good enough reasons to go for it other than money and lotsa stress...:)

Another option I was entertaining was about joining the forces.Working with the Army would be a matter a great pride and honour.I do not know whether I have it in me to serve the nation in such a distinctive way but I will never know until I give their exams.I am contemplating to write the CDS.
The list goes on and also has wildlife/travel photography on it.It would be so much fun to work for say a Nat Geo or Discovery.Photography is something I enjoy immensely but a middle class upbringing has taught me to look @ careers of these kind very sceptically.I hope to shed my inhibitions and take up a Photography course. Unless and until I explore it,I will not know whether I am good or bad at it.
Another thought that has come up of late is to work for an NGO.An NGO working in the villages to promote and strengthen the livlihoods of the villagers.I am not sure how did a hedonist like me actually cultivate this thought.I told my folks about this thing building up in my mind and there reaction was as expected, furious.I do not blame them.

There are so many things I want to do but I am not sure which is the one I am destined to.Nonetheless,I find a stark similarity in all the above options I might try to explore and that is they are all outdoor activities.I hope that I attain clarity of thought before I quit something and plunge into something else.I hope.

my first trip to wazapur..

I strongly believe that cinema has the ability to change societies...or for that matter revolutionize human establishments and vice versa.And it is not a belief that I have cultivated of late but dates back to the day I watched the film 'Swades'.It feel it is one of the most thought provoking movies of all time because the day I saw it,I realized that I was unknowingly swaying away from my social responsiblity into the consumerist culture living a self satisfying life.Little did I realize before, that as an Indian I am falling short of being one.

Months went by and the thought remained just a thought until my good friend Arvind Shanbhag told me about a Maitree initiative that has adopted a small school in a remote village near Panvel in Raigad district of Maharashtra.The initiative is to teach the small kids aged 5 to 11 "Conversational English" on Saturdays through a group of 4-5 volunteers .I thought it was high time that I devote some time of my life to help the cause.

Still I could not make a Saturday to Panvel for the next six months,partly due to me getting busy on Saturdays or me not finding a place in the already occupied troupe and largely but sadly due to my laziness.

But I do not know what kicked me last Monday morning and the first thing I did was to mail the troupe leader that I am in for this Saturdays Panvel trip.I felt a sense of immense satisfaction on my act and that kept me excited for the rest of the week.
Come Saturday and we started early morning at around 7.We were four of us,me,Arvind,Sujai and Anuradha in a Tata Sumo.Arvind's presence was kind of vital as it helped me gel with the others in the group.We reached Wazapur after a hour and half of journey in the scorching sun but it was not at all tiring for me as one would expect.This being my first time,everything was new for me.A loud greeting of "Good Morning Sir" and "Good Morning Madam" by the kids was a pleasant surprise as well as a testimonial to the efforts of Maitree and its volunteers.

There is a syllabus designed for the students and that is what each group of volunteers tries to ahere to.The first on the agenda for this week was creating awareness about a few National Leaders(read Freedom Fighters).But before we could start on that it was important for us to make sure that the kids understood the meaning of the word "independence".I think our effort to make them understand the significance of that word was the highlight of the day.In the process we helped them learn a new word "independence" and also the date 15/08/1947.Few students already new about Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru but the rest did not.Helping them recognize who they are and what did they do for our nation was the task cut out for us.I think we did pretty ok at the end of our effort.I hope these kids remember for the rest of their lives whatever we tried to teach them.Later on in the day,we played the game "Marble and Spoon".Volunteers coming here always try to bring some playfulness in their teaching so that the kids do not get bored and look forward to learn more and more.In this game, a lemon substituted for the marble and thus they learnt a few more words namely 'lemon','yellow' and 'spoon'.The race was won by Mamta, a 4th standard girl.After we were through with the game,the kids marched around the village chanting slogans of "Aple Gav,Swacha Theva".This definitely helped them in understanding the importance of social responsibility early in their life.Proud parents smiling all the way as they watched their kids trotting around the village was a satisfying picture for me.Before we left Wazapur,we had a small chat with the villagers trying to understand their problems in their quest for a decent livlihood.We hoped that we could do much better for them.

Overall it was a truly eriching experience for me as I tried to refect on my past, searching for memoirs if any,where I have felt so good and satisfying about doing something for others.Frankly I did not find any.I hope to continue this endevor in the coming years.

cheerio...

my quest for answers...........

Listening to A.R.Rehman's creations from Rang De Basanti @ the soundless odd hour past midnight is sheer bliss.

I wonder a many times from where does this guy scoop out such amazing compositions? What drives his creative juices to flow oh so effortlessly? Can I be as creative as Rehman?? I certainly need answers to these questions.
First let me try and find out what is creativity? If I go to the dictionary, it tells me that Creativity means "characterized by originality and expressiveness".Now how does one get impelled to be orginal??

If I look @ A.R.Rehmans music all these years,I find a stark similarity among his movies and it is that they were all different.Be it Roja or Bombay or Yuva or the very recent RDB.May be the reason which pushes him to give beautiful music every now and then is "Change". Directors always came to him with fresh ideas that propelled him to create such masterpieces.

So for me to be creative,I need Change.Recently I read the below line in a book by APJ Abdul Kalam.Change leads to a New Thought and a New Thought leads to Innovation. This must be so true.

Now that I found an answer to my question, another one crops up and that is What do you do when the absolute possibility of one getting a "Change" is null? What does one really do?
I think I am in pretty much a similar situation @ work.It is not that I am working @ a call center but the place I work is almost like that if not one. I work on the same old "Change Requests"(IT industry lingo) which are actually not changes.My brain is gathering rust by the day and to make matters worse my ability to change the situation is not that strong as I am just a baby in the industry.So I have to live with it.

Given the situation @ hand,I need to find how am I going to drive "change" in my work that would eventually make me more creative, more efficient, more agile in various demanding situations.Having a fresh mind everyweek even though the work awaiting me is very similar to what I did in the last week seems to me a challenge.

Now after putting so much of thought into this, I have another question.Am I analyzing the situation too much? I recently read somewhere that Analyzing your life makes it more complicated. May be it is true. I should stop thinking too much about the situation I am in and instead hope that things will change for the better for I know that HOPE is the very basis of mans very existence.

Ahh!! I feel so refreshing after writing down these lines.I am going to try making this my habit.Lets see how it goes.

tata

KaNiWrItEtoo????

!!My first tryst with writing about my thoughts!!..Am I happy or what??...

I have the same feeling as everybody else has on this planet writing their first blog...the feeling my father had when he bought his first house(minus the tensions of having to repay the loan).. It just feels good to have your own space on the web....and for free..:)


I am happy that I made a decision to write(taking decisions is not my forte..I am a libran u see)....my primary inspiration being a few blogs that read in the past few weeks.I have ever been inspired enough to write anything just because I knew that I was a bad writer(my high school teacher once said so).But then it was a different reason to write then(score a grade) and now it is different(uncork my mind).I expect my blog to give me the platform to put forth my thoughts,questions,opinions and seek comments,solutions and rectifications from people.But i will make it a point to not try to "advertise" it as many of my acquaintances do.

I think I am quite a confused indivisual at this juncture of my life.I need to find answers to a lot of questions that crop up now and then.Hence I think blogging might help me vent my thoughts and find answers.
See,I already found the answer to my first question.iKaNwRiTeToO tata..