Jihad

Ali bin Abu-Talib, the first Imam of Islam said this about Jihad:

"Jihad is divided into four branches: to persuade people to be obedient to Allah; to prohibit them from sin and vice; to struggle (in the cause of Allah) sincerely and firmly on all occasions and to detest the vicious. Whoever persuades people to obey the orders of Allah provides strength to the believers; whoever dissuades them from vices and sins humiliates the unbelievers; whoever struggles on all occasions discharges all his obligations and whoever detests the vicious only for the sake of Allah, then Allah will take revenge on his enemies and will be pleased with Him on the Day of Judgement!"


I will wear Denims for my day of judgement. What will you wear?

OLPC

"One laptop per child"

If you have not heard of this already, you do now! A brain child of Nicholas Negroponte, the program plans to donate a laptop to every child who needs it. Some versions of these laptops have in-built hand-driven mechanical generators of electricity!! These low-cost laptops have amazing design features which can create envy in any product designer. They are network enabled and an entire village can be potentially made digitally alive through sponsored satellite-driven infrastructure.

There are pros and cons and there are social challenges in the process. But, the fact is that all kids have the propensity to imagine the impossible. Every kid has fearless dreams and ambitions. Giving them a laptop may be the smallest help you can offer to help them be where they belong!




http://laptopfoundation.org/

Dark Matter

Stretching across 270 million light years. Three times larger than any other know structure and 3000 times larger than our galaxy. Just filaments and sheets.

Dark matter. Invisible. The only way you can detect the presence is to check if anything in the vicinity is affected. How i wish i was there instead of here. May be i am really there and not here.

Amidst the mildly squeaky noise of the little birds, the first ray of sunlight from the window pierced my eyelids and forced me to stop the line of thought.

Should i be glad it is sunshine and not the dark matter i live with?

Or may be it's just the window i should close.

Path

Blind Orion Searching for the Rising Sun. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.


The real question is: Does creativity help you to withdraw from the world or re-enter it?

Analyst Life Crisis

1. Is the intellectual slavery worth it?
2. Does my social life exist?
3. Where’s the remote?
4. Would I be happier doing “what I love”?
5. What do I love?
6. Analysts are the only people who can one day become rich Partners
7. Do I need to upgrade my socks?
8. Things are probably far worse back in India
9. What I do is exciting
10. Life without clean roads … life on Mumbai public transportation … shudder
11. Will a 250K$* MBA be of any use?
12. If I make less money I might deflate


* Estimate includes pay loss


Five years down the line, I want to re-visit this list. Am sure the list will not be any shorter but i hope it stays as interesting.

Is Borat stupid or wise?

"There is my neighbor Nusultan Tuliakbay, he's pain in my *******. I get a window from a glass, he must get a window from a glass. I get a step, he must get a step. I get a clock radio...he cannot afford. Great success!"


I think wise.

:)

Looking Good

It is often said that wars happen because of clash of cultures. Because people don't know the folks across oceans or land masses. Men fight to eliminate other men, ignorant of the fact that they both need each other. Women fight too, but they don't often take part in the wars as much as they cause them.

If you look at it closely (but not close enough), men wage wars all the time. Any economic function we are part of requires us to out-beat and often kill opponents in a surreal way. If your company's value proposition is to be the market leader in some vague paradigm, it essentially means that the company wants to make several smaller companies go bankrupt. It is as much a war as anything else. So, why is a big fuss made out of the so called wars? May be because of the graphics involved. You know, red and other colors. Not to mention the sound. I would love to see a silent war before I die. I just can't bear to imagine the noise that is associated with a typical war. It's high time technologists focus on building weapons which don't make any sound and kill the victim before he knows he got hit. Mankind certainly deserves a nobler death than getting shattered by mortar shells.

Strangest part of the wars often is that nobody knows who the real enemy is. It is often a country or a militant group which is an enemy but nobody really knows what they are fighting against. For a recent example, Americans thought they were fighting Iraq. Well, Iraq still exists and people often get confused why does it still exist if everybody agrees that the war was won. The real problem was that Saddam Hussain got killed by the time most people realized there was a war. Talking about Iraq war, a recently published book called "Curveball" argues that it was a taxi driver of Iraq living in Germany who caused all the mess. It is a pretty interesting tale but as useless as most other interesting tales. Things which are useful are often not interesting. Do you remember the "boring" spectacled girl from kindergarten who always gave you her notes when you needed to "use" them?

So, why do men wage wars? Historically, they did so for wealth, wine and women. Alexandar waged several wars and so did Ghazni. They did so because they knew of nothing else to do. They wanted glory and power. Did they get what they needed at the end? Yes, but the only catch was that their needs changed. It took Uncle Bob around 2000 years to figure out the cleanest way to attain glory and power. He chose to call it Capitalism while he was picking his nose in a bathtub.

What's all this got to do with looking good? War is not a topic which fits under a title like "looking good". Yeah, but only if wars could have looked good, I wouldn't be such a worried man. Blood hurts. And so do all the other things you don't want but happen to you.

Zero

Indians are driven by numbers. Life has never been the same for us ever since Aryabhatta invented the zero. Not less than 3-4 lakhs of math and engineering graduates are churned out of colleges whenever someone sneezes in palem. It is just but a small proof of the structure of an average Indian brain which has more mathematics in it than neurons. Ever heard of the story of the grand father of a friend who never went to school but could multiply two 4 digit numbers before the calculator does it? Well, it could very well be the gift of your own grand father!


So, what does this innate love for numbers really mean? It is statistically proven somewhere in madagaskar that people who are really good at math are not really good at sex. Ah, it may just be a forceful agenda of the west. (You know, "They" always want to bully "Us") It's no real secret that an average american has lesser abilities with numbers than Andrew. By the way, Andrew is the name of the monkey of my Norwegian friend. No, Andrew is not the pet. It is the petter, if thats even a word! Well, who really cares what statistical research really proves? They even proved that cigarette is harmful. Come on, are you kidding? There are lies, more lies and then there are statistics.


Actually, there is a bigger point i need to make. It is not about zero but it is definitely about India. It is about our statistics in the game we all love. Cricket in India is bigger than football in UK or basketball in US. It is the sport which makes a 80 year old jump out of his deathbed. So, what do statistics say?

Country Win % in Test Matches Till Date
Australia 46.6%
England 34.7%
SouthAfrica 33.6%
WIndies 32.3%
Pakistan 30.7%

Source: Cricinfo


Well, India is not in top five. Even Srilanka is ahead of us. Only Newzealand, Bangaldesh and Zimbambwe are behind us.

Yes, Love is Blind!

Breeze

He dreams. Walks long into the night. Wind blowing at 45 degrees to his face. He sees smoke erupt from behind the trees. He choses to walk away. Light scares him. Darkness is his abode. Silence breaks into two. One part leaves his shadow empty.

He is wide awake. Walks down the street in the snow. Wind chill blowing straight into his face. He hears shouts from inside a house. He choses to walk away. Noise scares him. Good mood is his abode. All of a sudden, he slips and the ipod breaks into two. One part leaves the other empty.

4 AM

A duck is staring at the sky
It wants a last cup of coffee
Or a golden key to unlock the air
It wants to listen
See what is missing and put it back there!

May be it's not the key and the coffee,
All it really needs is
a

hello!

Kabul Express

A movie released in 2006 based on an Indian journalist duo's adventure in Afghanistan. A very tightly knit screenplay which leaves no room for the audience to catch a breath. The actor who played the Pakistani army officer turned taliban terrorist is the best part of the movie. Having said that, it is impossible to imagine the movie without the silly humor of Arshad Warsi. A strongly recommended watch for people who want do a quick 101 course on the reality of life of Afghans.

My favorite dialogue of the movie:

Pakistani/Talib Terrorist: "Hum to kabse keh rahe hain, Madhuri Dixit do aur Kashmir Lo"
Indian Journalist: (breaks into laughter) .."arey woh toh shaadi karke america chali gayi"
Pakistani/Talib: "hmm...yahi hota hai....humara jo bhi acha hota hai woh ghoom fir ke wahin chala jata hai"

Truth and Silence

Aldous Huxley said this in 1959...

"And it seems to me perfectly in the cards that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing … a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods."


Heard of the Outsourcing? Yeah, Aldous also said this about opinion-building...

"Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects... totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations."


Strange how human thoughts at certain part of space and time can very well be iconic reflections on some state of affairs they were never part of!

Wish

Wish you a wonderful new year.
Hope you achieve all your goals. If not, there is always next year! :)

For all the creative professionals trying to have a credible year, i wish you have an incredible year!!

Step

At this moment,

Huge traffic across the high bridge ceases to move
Dark clouds stand still over water
A lazy old man sits on a cot in the middle of his vast paddy field
Waitresses in Mexico are busy taking orders
A businessman is waiting to meet his investor at Starbucks
Men are looking for their love in barbershops
Women are searching for theirs in grocery stores
A man in Iraq fires a bullet against a wall
A young lady in Havana is blogging about why Cuba is not all about its Cigar
A cricket team is fast asleep dreaming about victory tomorrow

I am busy enjoying this moment.

Benazir

Bhutto.




A few things are inexplicable. My seemingly high affection for bhutto has no real basis. I don't belong to Pakistan. I have no direct or indirect connection in any way. The attachment is probably because whenever i think of her, i remember her otherwise very powerful dad being hanged to death in public. It always remained a puzzle to me as to how can a powerful prime minister of a country be dealt with such cruelty in public? What kind of barbaric society did he belong to?

Benazir has been publicly warned since many months about possible attacks. Almost everybody who followed Pakistan knew that she was walking through a very risky path. Then, why wasn't anything done to protect her? Isn't it obvious then that the powers are on the side of the assassinators?

I always have been an admirer of people of Pakistan. Against the popular opinion, i actually like the spirit of their cricket team. But, somehow, some irreparable damage has been done now. For once, i lost hope. It might probably be the first of such an instance in my life.

Kewl

What is the difference between a good friend and a best friend?

If you went to prison, a good friend will try his best to get you out.
A best friend will bring you hot samosas, looks at you in the prison and say, "this is fuckin awsome man"!

Pain and Pleasure

What is the most painful thing that can exist?

It is the exhaustive pangs you feel when those you trust don't trust you enough!


What is the most pleasurable thing that can exist?

It is when a strange kid on the street smiles at you whole-heartedly!

This is what i call a good email signature

Good one, Ankit Sharma!

"Ur absence shud b long enough, so dat Sumbody misses U....But it shudn't b so long,
dat Sumebody learns 2 live widout U!

The human heart feels things the eyes cannot see; and knows what the mind cannot
understand....

Always hav a smile on ur face not only coz life is full of reasons to smile but also
coz ur smile itself is a reason for many others to smile.

Keep smiling....! "

Ideas worth spreading

www.ted.com

A wonderful collection of lectures on various interesting themes. A good way to kill time if you have the luxury of it. It probably might be a better way to spend your time than doing whatever you are doing.

Happy Holidays!

Grassroots

Suddenly I open up,
Everything settles down,
This blade of grass I call myself
Roots in the sounds
Honking geese, silence
Ticking clock
Incense smoke
Fading light
Wonderfully full.

I am a blade of grass,
Rooted here tonight
Grounded in these moments
Of wild bird flight.
It's here I claim my origin
And like a blade of grass
I bend and twist and live and die
In all that rushes past
Snow, ice, driving rain
Sun, stars
Pleasure, pain
Darkness, light
And on it goes with all of life.


- Hetty Baiz

Office Office

My job has the following si(g)ns:

Golf practice on the office carpet
Gamble with colleagues
Drink beer with the boss in the conference room
Have push up competitions

Tell me if there can b a better office to go to.

Pink Floyd

There is music and then there is music. The English band definitely has something as basic as numbers to algebra. Philosophy oozes out of every lyric of their songs. The sonic experimentation creates a silkened fabric for the listener to float on.

Big respects.

Kids waitin 4 Santa

Pizzahut on the moon

And a Buddhist temple in down town NY. They both have more similarities than differences. Starving for customers is what they know best.

I did my part. I bought 200$ worth of books on Buddhism. It probably meant a month of revenues for the old lady who runs the shop. Amen!

Bitter Truth

A conversation on a local train in Boston between an Indian and an European -

(The average Indian guy somehow always manages to mention the name of the school he went to)

I: So, i went to this school called IIM-A in india
E: Oh yeah, what for?
I: It is the top MBA institute of India, it is far difficult to get into than harvard or wharton!!
E: Wow, you must be smart!! What does this school have that the top US schools don't?
I: Oh, the admission rate is so much lesser. Wharton admits a lot higher ratio of applicants.
E: So,(ahem), that's your only claim to fame?

I: (Starts thinking)

The discussion soon fizzles away to a less important topic.


(This is one the things i do during my lone travels on the local train here! Try to pretend to read a book with earphones on. But, i always manage to listen to others conversations. Sick, isn't it?)

Grey Shadows

Nine years - One hundred and twelve books

Thousands of hours of toil
Swallowed by the ocean

Winters, summers and then it rains -
All that is clear is the subtle shift

Two broken glasses, twenty five half written poems,
Five lost ones and an empty dairy
A silent guitar

Less than three hundred and twenty dreams
six were not about you

Pictures - a lot of them
No real color. Few are black and white.
Some are faintly grey

I have a letter to post
The post box is invisible

December

The dreaded December is here and with it brought an awful lot of wind chill. The weather is so cold that sometimes it even freezes the thoughts. It also is a source of relief. The only solution to the cold inside is the cold outside.

Co-workers, Orkut and Facebook!

Did you ever feel ridiculous to let your boss or a colleague browse through your friend lists and messages? Well, you have company in Cory Doctorow.

Quoting a slashdot article...

"Cory Doctorow writes about the downside of social networking on the Information Week site, with a focus on Facebook. While he starts with some minor but insightful quibbles, he quickly moves to a critique of the core of social networking: 'Imagine how creepy it would be to wander into a co-worker's cubicle and discover the wall covered with tiny photos of everyone in the office, ranked by 'friend' and 'foe,' with the top eight friends elevated to a small shrine decorated with Post-It roses and hearts.' Do you really want to add your boss and coworkers to your friends list? (And more to the point, do you really have a choice?)"

The article can be found at
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/29/1745240

Noise

The cost of being sensitive to percepts is the uncanny amount of noise the mind and heart has to bear. It often pushes the soul to the point where everything seems to question the very premise of humanity.

On such occasions, i tend to write. (That is for you who quite often ask me to stop write and start life)

Yellow

Look at the stars,
Look how they shine for you,
And everything you do,
Yeah, they were all yellow.
I came along,
I wrote a song for you,
And all the things you do,
And it was called yellow.
So then I took my turn,
Oh what a thing to have done,
And it was all yellow.
Your skin
Oh yeah, your skin and bones,
Turn into something beautiful,
You know, you know I love you so,
You know I love you so.
I swam across,
I jumped across for you,
Oh what a thing to do.
Cos you were all yellow,
I drew a line,
I drew a line for you,
Oh what a thing to do,
And it was all yellow.
Your skin,
Oh yeah your skin and bones,
Turn into something beautiful,
And you know for you,
Id bleed myself dry for you,
Id bleed myself dry.
Its true, look how they shine for you,
Look how they shine for you,
Look how they shine for,
Look how they shine for you,
Look how they shine for you,
Look how they shine.
Look at the stars,
Look how they shine for you,
And all the things that you do.

-
Lyrics of the song 'yellow' by Coldplay

Choice

There are only three types of men -
Men who die screaming
Men who die in silence
Men who die with a smile on their face

It is not about the death, it is perhaps always about the life.

Doors and Windows

Instant messenger has brought with it such a vast abundance of public affection. I often get mesmerized at the fact that i have so many friends who love me enough to say hi at the most odd times. May be real world distance doesn't really matter anymore. Or, does it?

Thinking of instant messengers, i had this weird but powerful wish. It was so profound that i had tears in my eyes when i spent too much of time thinking about it!

Imagine a scenario where people from all time eras could talk to each other. What a gigantic thought it is to imagine talking to a dude from yester years called Arjun. He would go, "oh! btw, i killed all my cousins last weekend at a family event". My reply would at best be, "ah! come on man. that's not how u hunt!"

A saturday afternoon chat window would say, "hi der". No, it won't be my friend after his latest breakup. It will be a guy called Ram. A noble soul of his time and a rock star. He would go, "I miss my babe man. She is off in lanka somewhere. You know what? (sends the shy icon) I hired monkeys to search for her!". I would say, "Ohh! dat's so cool!! you should buy a sea-cruiser? They are selling it off 4 cheap man. It's da thanksgiving holiday sale! And you should be careful bro. Jayasurya still bats for lanka!"

Off would I go with Ram to fetch his hot babe. Won't i make far better company than the boring lakshman prasad yadav and vibhushan Singh Gaikwad? God, they surely can play golf! Did i say the scenario has only virtual time travel and not the real one? Ahh, forget it. There are no rules today. Why, you ask? Well, i forgot to swipe on my way into the office and there is now no way to know who broke the coffee machine. That's why. Now, stop asking questions, will ya?

I do need talk to a particular man though. I have a very important question for him. I will be a sad man on my deathbed if i don't get to know the answer. The question is this, "You are a rotten potato" and the man is not inzamamul haq. It's Cartman, off the southpark fame.


So, the moral of the story is this, 'Never read a blog with 'Windows' in the title'

(claps at the back and tears)

I, Me and Myself!

Not really. No.

What are you waiting for?
I said NO.

talaash

Maine dil se kaha, dhoond laana khushi
Nasamajh laya gum, to yeh gum hi sahi

Bechaara kahan jaanta hai
Khalish hai yeh kya khala hai
Shehar bhar ki khushi se
Yeh dard mera bhala hai
Jashna yeh raaz na aaye
Mazaa toh bas gam main aaya hai

Maine dil se kaha, dhoond laana khushi
Nasamajh laya gum, to yeh gum hi sahi

Kabhi hai ishq ka ujaala
Kabhi hai maut ka andhera
Bataao kaun bhes hoga
Main jogi banu ya lutera
Kayi chehre hai is dil ke
Najaane kaunsa mera

Maine dil se kaha dhoond laana khushi
Nasamajh laya gum, to yeh gum hi sahi

Hazaaron aaise phaasle the
Jo Tai karne chale the
raahe magar chal padi thi
Aur peeche hum rah gaye the
kadam Do chaar chal paaye
Kiye phere tere mann ke

Maine dil se kaha, dhoond laana khushi
Nasamajh laya gum, to yeh gum hi sahi

Maine dil se kaha, dhoond laana khushi
Nasamajh laya gum, to yeh gum hi sahi

- Lyrics from a hindi song of the movie 'rog'

World ain't not funny

If ever you get to a point where you begin to think there is not enough humor around and people have become such idiotic dumb nuts - think again!

Dan Lyons, is a forbes editor who writes a blog posing as a fake steve jobs. He does a fine job at it. He even predicted some of steve's product announcements and was ranked on a recent list of "The 50 who matter now".
(Read http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/)

Apparently, he is not a great fan of MBA which makes him my friend. This is what he says of it, "Good god, man. Could there be anything less creative, less imaginative, less valuable than going to business school? Is there any surer way to become an absolute conformist....than to spend two years being coddled and pampered and fed worthless pablum by failed businesspeople"

Well, it did bring out some funny and creative reactions from some poor students of a random business school!

Torn Shoes

Far ahead in Iran
The kid loses the shoes of his sister
Little hands can't buy a big pair
So, ran the tiny legs

Not all races need to be won
For some, third place is the only victory

Smile on the face of a little sister -
is the only glory that exists

Far ahead it might be
It's the closest i have ever been
Put the hearts of all men together
A kid's heart still wins

Of all the art that exists
Majid Majidi has the only truth

all i have is a few arbitrary lines
and a heart full of gratitude

if not for words
where is the reprieve?

Forgetful

I have always been forgetful by nature. I forget to remember the names of so many important people that i cannot recollect how many of them did i really forget. Anyway, i realized today morning while i slipped on the stairs that i do not think in my mother tongue anymore. A little litmus test to understand what language does a man think in is this: Throw him off-balance without his notice, the sudden squeal that comes out is the exact sound of the language he belongs to. Well, my sound was this: "geesh!!"
Of all the things i could have said - i said "geesh". I do not even know if it is a word. Probably, am not thinking in a language anymore. Or more realistically, i do not think anymore! After the powerful early morning occurrence, i decided to think in my natural language - telugu, the whole day. It was a tough exercise, believe me. The couple of client calls definitely didn't help the matter. I was trying to think in telugu - translate it to hindi (which became my second tongue after the long years in bombay)and then articulate it in english. It was a journey on the razor edge and i was playing by the ear. Well, it wasn't a pleasant experience and i cursed myself later for having actually done that. However, it revealed to me that am still capable of thinking in all my basic languages. And am glad at the thought.

For tomorrow - i want to think only in symbols.
Godspeed.

JuxTaposition

Empty spaces and hollow forms
Loud noises of high pitches
Sting through the fabric -
and remain

Flow of river across the patches of land
Connects the tomorrow to yesterday

A tall tree bends to give shade
'Somehow', it says,
'nothing connects to today'!

Tip

If you have a free day
Learn to enjoy movies and food alone

A day will come when you will need the art.

Distant

On the surface
Choice exists in the smooth key pad -
and on-demand
it's a world full of free men like you
who live the will

And if you were the surface
you probably laugh all the time
tell me you don't find it funny
all the thought landscape

Stone to stone you move
go round and square; triangles too?
meet Elizabeth and the time machine
Trying to escape

And not.

In the end,
it's only coke-
and some popcorn

If life were an object,
it surely would be a TV remote
Only, you can't switch it back on

Hang on to the red light.

If ever

If ever the song paints
If ever the haze disappears
If ever the prison wall seems too low
If ever the curve straightens
If ever the brick looks a brick
If ever the doors are closed
If ever the mysticism ends
If ever the smile comes back
If ever the guitar gets tuned
If ever..

Then may the light arise!

Magic

Wave after wave
Far from the shore and deep inside
Sounds of balafon -
And some samba

Legs curled up -
Every atom is dancing
There is a twinkle
Lips move apart

Cool breeze
And a sip of hot coffee
Magic!
What else is?

Release

In the midst of woods -
spiral branches and smell of earth
green on the out and brown inside
the colors fade by the minute

Violet oozes out of the stem
Smoothely kissing the wet cheeks
Trembling hands rush to stop
Wind chill is the new lord

Yellow life crawls up the orange oak
Sticks and stings - the wounds remain

Night blanket wraps around the moon
Take my hug and bring me warmth
Heavy sphere, got any ear?

Sometimes, i wakeup on the tenth floor
Strange that the building has only seven in the morning

Emotion needs to learn algebra
Release is but a solution that never exists

In, from out

"Love kicks the ass of space and time!"

- Hafiz, A Persian poet

Steve, Bill and Icecream

If you were born in the 80s like me, you were probably thrown into this world when it was going through a very important series of events. The cold war ended during this period. There was uprise of urban middle-class in the US and Europe. Middle class young adults fresh out of MBA-schools were getting adequately rich to get pretty cars and prettier women. It was a period when movies and music began to get commercialized into the mainstream as we see it today. It was also a time when Microsoft and Apple started doing things which made them so fantastically successful as they are now. I wouldn't mention Infosys here as much of the value creation due to them only began to happen in the 1990s. The point however is that these are really really powerful events if you come to think of it. A lot of things happened so positively well together that it just pushed the eco-system to a higher layer and order of basic elements.

I feel unlucky because of two things. One, i wasn't born in the west, where the action always seems to be more "now" than in the east. Two, read one again. The eco-system is so much more real in the west as compared to the east and it both inspires and scares me. I am inspired because i get hope that if humans can do it at some space and time, humans elsewhere surely have the potential to do it. I am scared because i feel the eco-system is so terribly damaged that it might take a lot of time and space. One reason it is bound to take a a lot of time is that there is a lot and lot of space to cover. What can speed up the process is something only Mustafa Gaus knows. It is very important to find him.

When i was in school, a friend of mine used to tell me repeatedly about this little nugget of wisdom. He told me about this so many times that i now kind of believe in it. I think that is what it takes to convince someone about something. Just persevere and constantly bombard them with your alternative imagery of space-curve. Sooner or later, they will bend in. It is probably always the latter. Well, the nugget of wisdom was this. If you take away the wealth of all the rich people in the world and redistribute it among everybody in the world equally, the wealth will get back to the same or similar set of people very soon. That is just how the whole thing is programmed! You either have it in you or you don't. There are no two ways about it. Well, wisdom or not, it is surely an interesting way to look at things. For me, it always is a favorite thing to ponder about. If you know the essential DNA of what makes people of different walks of life wealthy and those elements which restrict progress, you can become the most powerful consultant, the world has never known. The key word, however, is "If". Nobody seems to know the answer even though people throw this crap around a few common phrases around doing the right thing, making your passion your job, etc. Well, if my passion should be my job, who will pay me for eating ice cream?


It dawned on me today that am close to hit a quarter century of my lifetime on this planet and am supposed to have a perspective of what life form is all about and where is that am supposed to take mine.

I pondered about it a lot and this is what i have concluded-

Eat a lot of ice cream.


The 1980s are also termed as the period of "greed".
I for some reason, think that greed is probably always good. The collective greed of all humans is probably what makes the seemingly complex human and para-human systems tick and move. Amen.

Agony

http://www.rediff.com/money/2007/oct/24india.htm

The latest report by AT Kearney talks about something as trivial as the fact that sky is blue. Yes, 800 million of Indians live on less than two dollars a day. Less than half the people are connected to the power grid. Note more than 5% are connected to the internet and all that jazz.

But, you know what? India still ranks high on happiness surveys. Surely, money or material wealth is not a source of happiness. They discovered and wrote about this in the vedas and upanishads a zillion years ago. We surely know the true path to happiness in the east.

Or, do we?

How about a village with electricity round the clock and clean water to drink?
How about adequate provision of healthcare in every nook n corner?
How about your distant cousin in the village having the chance to go to a good school?

Will that not bring any happiness?

May be we need to re-write our vedas. And give ourselves a little chance.

Cold

Time is staring at the watch
Laughing crazy like never before
Perhaps, never after

Chillness in the veins
Exhaust from the constant rupture
Numb feet and the gibberish
Ah, familiar

How i wish it was a dream.

A bird whispers silence into my mind
Can you a sing a song too? please

Far away in Mexico, the little girl is smiling
Her grandma wants to use the face book

Pumpkin festival

Confession

- Loius Gluck

To say I'm without fear--
it wouldn't be true.
I'm afraid of sickness, humiliation.
Like anyone I have my dreams.
But I've learned to hide them,
to protect myself
from fulfillment: all happiness
attracts the Fates' anger.
They are sisters, savages--
in the end, they have
no emotion but envy.

Impossible is Nothing

Have you ever taken a course in mass transfer? If not, do not read any further!

For if you have gone through the rituals, you are most likely to remember the book by treybal. If you are the unfortunate Phd kind, you probably still sleep over it.

This is not about the book. This isn't even about me. It is about a man and his deepest fears coming true!

I hated it from the bottom of my heart ever since i first met with the book. Whenever i opened the pages, i felt like i was being tied to a tree and punished with a hunter! The piercing pain and the imaginary smell of the silkened flesh still linger fresh in my memory. The psychometric charts looked like the kitchen of the devil who was cooking my misery. The problems about the distillation plants made me feel sad for the african girls who were being sold in the markets of Ethiopia. I felt a strong cord of distinct similarity. When you are forced to do something you dislike so much and there is no way out, what do you do about it?

Well, not much i guess.

Time moved on. Mass transfer became a thing of history and treybal was a happy man ever after. I actually don't remember an instance where i felt anything remotely bad for him. Even when i was going through the pain, i felt sad for the guy who had actually had to write a book about transfer of mass from a phase to an other. He probably doesn't have to worry about hell as he has lived through it!

A typical hindi movie romance starts with a fight between the boy and the girl and ends up with them falling in love. I never believed in it!


Well, most of the time, beliefs shouldn't change! That leaves for some time when they are allowed to change!

I met with the book again on this weekend. I happened to meet a friend doing his Phd at MIT and he was kind enough to let me into the room where he stores this book and treats it with atmost devotion!

I didn't know what to do for a minute. Here i was, face to face with my devil. My deepest fear. My deadliest nemesis. I slowly but surely moved towards it. I took the book in my hand and began to feel it's texture. In a single momentary flash, the entire history dawned itself before my eyes. I started going through the pages. The very psychometric charts from the past began to look like innocent puppies. It doesn't feel anywhere close to a devil's workshop. I went through the pages which discuss distillation plants. I felt something melt inside me. There were tears in my eyes.

The wonder for me is that i couldn't bring myself to hate the thing i thought was my worst enemy. I felt like i was holding a teddy bear in my hands.

I think this is a lesson for every man who is scared of something. anything. The thing that you are scared of is probably not the reason for your misery. The reason lies inside you. And gladly for me, the reason doesn't exist anymore!

Happy Days!

A few things can touch you.
A few other can move you.

Very rarely, few things do happen which can actually make you cry!

Shekhar Kammula, is a director with a magic wand. Happy Days is a must watch if you want to add quality to a few of your hours on the weekend.

It has everything you want from a movie and may be a lot more. The story is very simple yet immensely powerful that you actually stop treating it as just a movie. It is everybody's story. Anybody who went onto study after highschool, will relate to this movie to the highest degree of congruence. A run-of-the mill story but shot with such elegance and freshness which needs to be seen to realize it.

Acting in the movie is such a natural beauty! There are several independent stories each linked to the other and create great screenplay in the process. The new actors (i have never seen them before) did a great job! The background music tracks are very soothing and impressive.

Freshie ragging, Puppy love, Hot english teacher, deep friendships, gang wars, worries about career goals, struggles to decide whether to stay back in india or move to US, growing up from kids to be men and women.

Add to that, there is also a chapter on graduation towards the end of the movie.

The movie definitely leaves you with a heavy heart and tonnes of nostalgia.

Is it just me or this is real?

When the gates open...

Children walk to the school..
From the safety of mom's warmth.

Workers assemble at the factory..
Prayers never said.

Politicians are driven to their chambers..
Files smile at the luck.

Players enter the camp..
Sweat, Thirst and Desire.

Traders place the bets..
A shirt lost and and a feraari won.

Professor knocks it down.
The colour ain't changing. He laughs..

The old man at the sea..
Waits for his freedom.

A girl smiles and blossoms..
First love.


In a patch of land not very far away.................


A man opens fire.
He isn't one of us.



I wake up...
from a nightmare to an other.

Creed, justice and Marijuana!

I just found out that Marijuana is far better for you health-wise than cigarettes. It's a medical fact!

My question is why is marijuana illegal and cigarettes are legal if this is the case?
A probable answer is that the primary motive of the worldwide law and political systems is not public health and well-being. But, i don't want to be cynical today.

The evening is just too pleasant!

Funny things

Dear Silence,

Trust you are doing great.
It was nice meeting you last week. We hardly talked though. Guess all the noise at the restaurant distracted you? I wanted to tell you how much i loved the way you held the flowers. And when you sipped the wine, it felt like you were weaving symphony. Wish i can meet you again soon. I call often but i don't seem to get through?

Love,
Sound

P.S: You will receive this message late as am sound and not as fast as light!

Reply from Silence:

Dear Sound,

I am silent but you are dumb!
How can i ever meet you?


Reply from Sound:

Dear Silence,

There is no physics in dreams. It's all geography.

God of long things!

Faith does strange things to people. You somehow garner the strength to achieve the otherwise arduous and impossibly cruel tasks. Life starts looking like an easy drive on a half-volley.

I was witness to several acts of faith over the last weekend. A trip to tirupati with family helped in a lot of ways!

Tirupati, the abode of lord venkateshwara, is a place full of wonders. The mind-boggling queues do not worry the devotees at all. Infact, they almost enjoy the long wait! The average wait-time for a chance appointment with the lord is approx 4-5 hours!! This is if you belong to the privileged sorts of queues (the ones with reco letters from prominent politicians, etc.). A poor peasant typically waits for 12-18 hours to get a sneak peek at the lord!!!!!

The 'darshan' is a big tragedy. You are already too tired by the time you reach the crux of the temple and are in no mood to pray. Also, you will be pushed off by fat khakhi-walas/poorly clad pujaris in an instant. A nanosec is all you ever get! And, people typically close their eyes in front of the god. That esentially means that not more than a small portion of the devotees actually have a full glimpse of the lord.

The story isn't limited to the main temple where the real slim lord is located. Around the main temple, lots of smaller ones co-exist. Each one has a story. Interesting ones i should say. I often wondered if several of those temples were just plain jokes by the erstwhile feudal lords. The joke would have been a result of a chance conversation between two weekend friends.

Sometime during 14th century, the conversation between a rich merchant and a not-so-popular king on a dull sunday would have been like below:

Merchant A: "Dude, am gettin bored these days! Not enough golf!! Also, my wife is in the states with her relatives!"
King B: "Ahh, sorry to hear that bro! Am bored too. My wife is back again. Let's build a temple for timepass. We will also earn a lot of mudras through ads!!"
Merchant A: "Kewl idea man!!!"


And so were created dozens, hundreds, thousands and lakhs of temples across villages, towns and cities alike. Back then, the population must have been fairly low and the temples were never really crowded. But, the prosperity of last several centuries (read good rains) resulted in a population explosion leading to crores of devotees on streets. They all have a single-point agenda. Stand in a queue and visit a god! We devotees typically keep a score. It's similar to a fico-score. We call it the darshan-score. The one who drank the maximum 'theertham' (holy water distributed at the temple after darshan) and climbed the highest number of steps is the most reliable devotee. And temples usually issue blessings at lower interest rates (like a bank issues cheap credit for ppl with high fico scores) for devotees with high scores!!

Whatever that means, the fact is that the long queues are constant throughout the day at all kinds and sizes of temples. All that a true devotee has to do is chant "govinda govinda" ! It acts like a crocin pill to the fever caused by all the evils of capitalism, inefficient democracies, inadequate educational institutes, poor form of justice, pathetic infrastructure and gallons of corruption.

God bless.

Itinerary

August 26 9 AM : Arrival in hyderabad
August 31 3 PM: Arrival in Tirupati
September 3 10 AM: Arrival in Delhi
September 3-9: Ladakh
September 10: Arrival in Hyderabad
September 14: Arrival in Mumbai
September 16: Departure to Boston

September 17: Hell breaks loose.

Tryst with destiny

"Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity."

- Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru


Happy independence day!

She lay on the bed...

...wrapped in white, half covered in sheets. Her body was half revealed, and looked like it had been made to be loved by me.

I walked up to her, and turned her around. She looked at me lazily, and I could see myself in her eyes. I had loved her for years now, because everything about her was so unique, precious, and beautiful. She smiled at me, and her milky white skin shone in the morning light. I took her in my arms, caressing her tenderly, and knowing that she was now mine, for now, for ever.

She looked at peace, like the creator had thought out every inch of her design. She welcomed me with open arms, and I lost myself in her warm embrace. I knew I didn't want anything else in the world ever again: no money, no house, no doors, and definitely, no Windows.


My Angel.
My MacBook.


-Anon! :)

Stuff inside a pumpkin and the french revolution

Yes. they are real!
And so is everything else.

Tonight will be my last day at my dearest apartment flat in an innocent corner on the planet, called powai. This small town is special to me for more than a thousand million reasons. I was a toddler when i came here back in 2001. I now am a fully grown adult and many of my impressions and ideas about the universe were given shape here. Thanks to my IIT days, most of them are worth cherishing!

The dearest flatmates, (guys both of them), shashi and the freaking idiot, bapu gave me some wonderful time. It was an honour staying with you guys as i know you both will be amongst the most important people on the planet by the time we reach our 60s.

I will miss the flat, definetly! My bike has been standing in the parking space without a shade for years now! And, god bless, it's still in a working mode! If there is one thing i hate about the whole thing about my flat, it's the landlord. Whenever i see him or hear from him, it dawns upon me that evil is real too and omnipresent. But i still wish that god blesses him with any of his favourite disease.

It's a well know fact that home is where heart is. I testify!

Hack yourself!

You are hacker, ainh? A smart one?

Try these. These are not the traditional computer hacks, dey got more to do with your body!

• Hold your breath longer
• Think while you sleep
• Scratch your leg to make it to the loo!

Read more.....

http://lifehacker.com/software/lifehacker-top-10/top-10-body-hacks-257746.php

you know more?

Scott Adams is not worried about the future!!

Below is an alleged letter from a 10 year old to Scott Adams (of Dilbert's fame) which finally resolved all his worries about future of mankind and the planet!

-----------------------------Start---------------------------------------------------

Dear Mr. Scott Raymond Adams,

I am a 10-year-old boy who is an avid fan of your comic series, Dilbert. I know that it has achieved immense fame by the fact that it is shown in over 1600 newspapers around the world (at least, that was the way it was the last time I checked). I still want to know if the Dogbert's New Ruling Class (DNRC) newsletter is still available for new subscribers. I really wish to subscribe, even though it is only tri- or quad-annually, because it seems like it's better to have a regular update about your works and some random stories about people who send e-mails to you than to have to wait for the next book.

Now that I'm done with a proper introduction, I'll move on to more important matters. I like all of your books, but I'm especially intrigued with your philosophical works, God's Debris and its sequel, The Religion War. I like the way that you can exploit Occam's (I hope I spelled that right) Razor to the extent that it sounds refreshing and new, and yet doesn't seem like you're insane. I know that there's a warning in the introduction/prologue of God's Debris about how the ideas in the book are powerful and are not suitable for people under 14. I think that that is complete mish-mash, because, as you said in Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel, people know what to expect in a book. You (probably) won't get sued or ridiculed because somebody's religious parents found out that their children doubt their beliefs now because of something in a book. Actually, the law protects you from that kind of stuff because of the first amendment, which says that everybody has the right to practice freedom of religion, unless it is designed to hurt others, like a cult. You definitely aren't gathering a cult (are you?) right now, so you're completely free to do whatever you want in a book.

However, and this may sound contradicting to what I said in the last paragraph, the ideas in that book are extremely powerful. I wonder if you could incorporate hypnosis into a book, because it seems like you, a trained hypnotist, did. I was completely and totally transfixed as I read those books. The best part is, your (or rather, the Avatar's) explanation of the universe completely makes sense because we can't judge god! That is the one thing that keeps your idea alive! You simply don't know what god thinks like because he is another being, totally different from human beings.

There is only 1 counter to your idea of the universe, and that is if there is an omnipotent god, he would still need something to create him. In a sense, that other entity is the real god, and the one that we worship is only a subordinate. Then, that entity would need another thing to create it, and so it would span infinitely through lesser and greater. The same thing is true about the shape of the universe. I believe that the universe is finite, because if it was infinite, it would have to travel faster than the speed of light and that would rip a hole in the space-time continuum and so would suck all light outside of the universe at infinite speeds as well, forming a huge counter-vacuum that would make the universe uninhabitable because every shred of matter that formed would be sucked outside the universe through the hole in the space-time continuum and cause the universe to oscillate at, again, infinite speeds between infinity and nothing. I could bore you all day with my talks about the universe and all of that uncertain stuff, and I know that you need the whole day to write back to all to your e-mails and draw your comics.

I am an atheist, but my Grandmother is a Christian and my Grandfather is a Buddhist. That is why I could adapt so easily to the idea that god is really only probability and matter. It makes perfect sense!
I have some last questions for you. I would be extremely pleased if you could answer them for me in the e-mail that you (might!) send back. They are as follows:

• Is it true that you have involuntary muscle spasms in your drawing hand?
• Is it true that you once had speaking problems?
• In Pleasanton, California, is it true that you own a restaurant named Stacey's Café ? If so, please note that I lived there before and so would like directions to the place.
• Do you really believe that affirmations can make you achieve your goals, no matter how impossible they are?

Thank you for your time taken reading this e-mail.

Bobby [name withheld]

P.S. Get Google everything. It's better and more hassle-free. I have the Google Taskbar for my laptop and i can open every single thing that you could imagine from it, including the daily strip for Dilbert.

------------------------------------End------------------------------------------------

ROTFL!!!

Road Trip

Target: Khandala, Lonavla & Pune
Team: Chussi, Parmar, Bagla, Misra and Me!
Day: Sunday

Result: Pune missed!

Pics available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/midnightsaint/

River

Weekend log

(based on true fiction)

Location: Kolad
Time: Timeless
Characters:

Apoorv – The most photographed person of the year!

Amandeep – Arsenal’s no.4

Ankur – smiling Buddha. The smile continues even when he has just lost a cellphone!

Ashwin – the drunkard

Deependra – dancer!

Faraz – The lost brother of Pogu, the deer.

Murtuza – weird

Jimmy – dummy cat

Nagpal – the man who knows everything. But, ofcourse!

Harshvardhan – The foot-bomber

Rebecca – The newsreader

Meenal – Girl with the candy

Sandeep – The kid on the new block!

Shantanu – dumsy boy

Shomik – tiger in the den

Suresh - dreamer

Subrata – the guy who lost everything in the stock market

Prince – the prince

Milind – sensitive girl

Harsh – businezman and a scuba diver from dubai. He has a knee problem.

Dhwani – the princess

Sneha – two tea spoons of sugar

Samir – watchman at a chemical plant who needs to shout just to feel he is alive

Amit – guest appearance

Vinit – guest appearance. Avid reader of books and magazines. Also likes to talk about this habit.

It all started in the beginning!

Around 30 people at my workplace decided to break away from the corporate dirt over the weekend! Well, only about 20 odd people finally made it. Life is tough on rest of them.

Saturday, 21 July, 9 AM, Vikhroli

The official start time! Well, almost everybody was there. Except a few lazy asses like harsh. I had to bribe him just to wake him up and finally reached the start spot at around 11.

We only took a single look at the bus before harsh got a heart attack. I asked the admin desk to book the best possible bus and what I saw in front of me looked like the one used to deport prisoners. Harsh, the billionaire, who never walked barefoot or lived without AC, started crying. He started missing his mom and his favorite bullock cart back at Calcutta.

Saturday, 21 July, 11 AM, Vikhroli

The bus finally started moving. We had all that we needed! A cricket bat, a foot ball, some food, a music deck and lots of enthusiastic young men and women.

Saturday, 21 July, 12 Noon, Vashi

The first stopover. We picked up a few guys and more importantly, some important liquids. The music started getting louder and so was the laughter! The journey had officially begun.

Talking about music, I have a sub-story. The title is “Ashwin- the drunkard”.
Below is the conversation between us a day before.

@ 10 PM

Ashwin: dude, whatsup? I just started drinkin. But wil meet u guys tomorrow morning!

Me: Ok!

@ 12 midnight

Ashwin: dude, am really drunk. There is a lot left! I don’t think I will make it tomorrow morning.

Me: dude, I need you tomorrow morning. Just drink slowly whatever is left. I will wake u up in the morning

Ashwin: Ok!

@ 2 AM

Ashwin: dude, am drunk. In a very bad shape. Am driving to pune with friends

Me: WTF!!! Dude, just go back home.

Ashwin: my friend is crying. I can’t go back. I will start at 4 in the morning and reach u guys.

Me: Ok!

@ 6 AM

Ashwin: dude, my car broke down. Am stuck in lonavla.

Me: Asshole!


Ashwin could never make it and we had to live with whatever music harsh brought along. Imagine listening to “yeh tara who tara” on a hot afternoon in a hotter bus in heavy traffic! We missed ashwin’s ipod very badly.

Saturday, 21 July, 1 PM, Panvel

The traffic got worse. Everybody was sweating pretty badly. Milind started with his theories on how we could have avoided the traffic if we had started early. All I could do was listen and hope!

Traffic soon cleared.
Hope works!!
The bus started moving at its maximum speed which was around 40 kmph. The urban world soon started fading away and rural India started smiling with boundless affection! Freedom. From noise, dirt and mindless motion.

Prince started burning his chimneys. Samir started shouting. Sorry, talking. Shomik was silent except when he had to make some fun of harsh. The group of freshers in the back seats were trying to cool down from their boiling points. Slowly but surely, things were a changing!

Saturday, 21 July, 4 PM, Sai Farm, Kolad

We passed a bird sanctuary at karnal and I felt very bad at not having a chance to get down. We finally reached the resort after an awesome hour of wonderful road trip.

Talking about sai farm, I need to mention a guy called Gaby. He is the farm owner, around 50 years old and a fantastic goan! After I talked to him about lots of things, I realized why people love goa and everything about it. I wonder if there is any better species of people than goans.

Saturday, 21 July, 6 PM, Sai Farm, Kolad

Everybody settled in. It was too late to visit the waterfalls. Guys chose to play cricket instead. It was a lot of fun! Especially the part where people go to fetch the ball for long periods of time.

The light got poorer by the minute and flood lights came out. It started raining.

It was time for football, ofcourse. The real fun didn’t even begun.

People soon got dispersed. Some played cards, some tried hands at darting. Food was being served tirelessly.

Saturday, 21 July, 10 PM, Sai Farm, Kolad

Jimmy drove down with his car along with a fat guy. They call him Ashwin back in the jungle. Imagine a guy, heavily drunk from 2 non-stop days, walking with swagger. He started hurling abuses at everyone and anyone from the moment go. He almost bet Subrata in darting at 10-5 but subbo came back strongly to beat him 20-13!

This small game changed the atmosphere. Laidback audience suddenly got stiff and nobody attempted darting for some time after this hot game!

Sunday, 22 July, 1 AM, Sai Farm, Kolad

Bottles were drawn out. Tables laid out. The resort had an amazing river view gallery which made for a fantastic late night spot. The only problem, if it can be counted, were the small mosquitoes! No, am not talking about nagpals.

Sunday, 22 July, 5 AM, Sai Farm, Kolad

Most of the tired peeps were fast asleep. Me and ashwin decided to discuss stuff about life and beyond. I probably told him a few things which I never even told myself. Pinkfloyd was playing at the back and pretty soon, we stopped talking. Started doing something better, something like sleeping!

Sunday, 22 July, 6 AM

We had to reach the white water river rafting spot at 7, or so we were told! As usual, I got late due to Harsh. The fat ass was complaining all night about lack of AC and fell asleep till very late. We ran a small marathon to reach the bus. Something suddenly hit me. I didn’t know the route to the spot. There was no connectivity and I cudnt call anybody. I asked the driver to keep going until the road splits into two. I was hoping the cell comes alive before that. It almost did. We took a wrong direction and then reverted back to the correct road. It was so much more fun than to have done it the right way!

Sunday, 22 July, 8.30 AM, Kundalika River

We finally start rafting after a series of training instructions. The trainer from north-east had an accent akin to a german. You could hear but you cudn’t understand. Harsh came up with a request for a hindi trainer. There are some moments in life when you feel the deepest of pity for a fellow human being. This was one of those. Now that he didn’t understand any of the instructions, I was sure this was the last time I will suffer him. So, I made my final handshake and took some last snaps.

The instructions looked tricky at the beginning. “Front on right and Back on left” sounded like solving the Schrödinger equation all over again. My team of rafters incuded subbo, prince, milind, ashwin, faraz, muthu and myself, ofcourse! The lead rafters were, ashwin and milind. The key to good rafting is to synchronize and paddle harder in a rapid. A rapid is a sudden flux of water and it will make your raft do strange things. It is a period of uncertainty and you never know how you are going to land back on to the water. It’s also when mishaps can happen, if at all. The key to survival is to paddle faster and harder!

The guide kept on shouting instructions from the back and in the moments of thrill and laughter, they were often missed! It landed us in precarious situations. Ashwin and Milind managed to miss so many of the instructions that after a while, the guide stopped shouting at them!

The hands started tiring. Our team luckily had 7 rafters which meant that only 6 could raft at a time. That gave us room to take some quality rest!

Pretty soon, the rapids fizzled out. The river started looking calmer and smoother. It was time to throw away the paddles and jump into the river. The life jackets meant that anybody could jump. I tried to learn swimming from ashwin but he almost killed me by pushing me down into the water for a very long minute. My desire to learn swimming almost had a death knell. Floating on river water was definitely an awesome experience. It was time for photographs and some quick fun.

We soon reached the shore. We had to lift the raft onto a small hill and walk further upwards to reach our bus. Luck, as it usually happens, turned a blind eye on us! The bus wasn’t there and we soon found out that the driver was sleeping somewhere away unreachable. We fortunately found Amit’s driver nearby, who btw reached the rafting spot separately in his car, early morning on Sunday. According to him, he got very lucky as he got to raft separately with this beautiful bunch of ladies from Gujarat. I hope his wife doesn’t read this post!

We started waiting for the bus. Tired and hungry souls soon started drifting apart. I and Ankur tried walking into a village nearby. We were hoping to get some hot tea and may be a smoke! But, the village ended even before it began. Aman joined us on our way back. While on the way, something hit me. I started wondering about this small kid on the road who had a half smile. I felt a deep pain in my heart when I attempted to imagine how this kid will go about making a life. A few hours later, during the journey back, I realized that perhaps that kid will lead a far peaceful life than mine. I was back to being happy!

The bus soon arrived. We hopped onto it and had a tasty meal on the way back. The legs were tired and so was the mind. Everybody just went back to their rooms and got relaxed.

The river in front of the gallery had a soothing effect! Amit and Vineet joined us after their happy adventure with the band of girls. They soon started drinking some fluids and I chose not to disturb the event.

It was again some time for cricket and food. The hosts, Gaby and his wife, are a wonderful old couple. They were very kind and so thoughtful that i felt a deep connect and was sad when I finally left them.

Sunday, 22 July, 5 PM, Kolad Waterfalls

It was time to leave the resort. The bus was around 2-3 kms away as it couldn’t drive on the very small path to Sai Farm. Gaby carried our luggage and us to the bus. Amit, Vineet and Ashwin left early in the car. Jimmy joined us in his own.

It was time again for some water. This time, the water was vertical. I mean the waterfalls!

They were not huge waterfalls but were big enough to cool your eyes and mind. Shantanu soon found a hidden spot and I joined him to research it further. He taught me a few things about science and award winning photography and I started admiring his presence of mind!

The cameras started rolling and the flashes all around make it look like a movie shoot!

Sunday, 22 July, 7 PM

The light was fading away. It was time to leave Kolad. The bus started its way back and we soon realized the hunger again! Man, we ate so much!!!!

After almost an hour and a half of a small tea& samosa session, we got back onto the ride of maharaja air travel. Rebekah left jimmy’s car and joined us! Some people miss the bumpy ride or jimmy is really an ass.

Sunday, 22 July 11 PM

Bombay arrived. I didn’t know how as I was fast asleep. I could hear people singing and dancing at the back all the way during the journey. But, all I could do was nod in agreement. It was a struggle just to open the eyes!

We reached the very famous and our very own petrol station at gate no.4, godrej. Shomik got down far before this and it sink in to me then that I will miss him and Monday was his last day at office.

People just said bye to each other and started leaving. Memories were heavy and the mood was happy.

Some stories don’t have an ending and I hope to continue this post sometime again in future!

Walk on water

and please don't sleep when you do that!
especially, if you don't know how to swim.
And if you do, make sure it's not a holiday for the rescue team.

enough of instructions.
now, please go jump!

the one who must not be named

lord voldemort is back and so is harry!
Not the dealthy hallows (its scheduled to be released on july 21), this is about the movie, order of the phoenix! the movie does rock and roll and more.

are there any people who don't like harrypotter and the story? well, i do know that the count is greater than zero. and this is for all those who still are not bitten by the bug.

at the end of movie, harry has this to say,
"we do have something that voldemort doesn't. something to fight for!"

For all those who are rock-hearted to not like harry, here is what i have to say, "we atleast have something to wait for!"

It's not about the book

Well, actually, it is.
But it is more about the man who wrote it and also about his bike.

There are two kinds of super humans.
The one kind, the extraordinary, do fantastic deeds.
But, at the bottom of your heart, you get the feeling that you might have done it too given the time and space.
There is the other set of humans usually referred to with words akin to 'genius'.
Lance Armstrong fits into this set.

And, they do write autobiographies to help other mortals realize that greatness can be achieved.
I read the book. 90% of it in the first sitting.

To be Cont....

Board of Secondary education!

Just chill!

PoliTricks

Hey, we gonna get a new president! Wow!! Really?

Indian democracy never really gave any powers to president who is just a brand name for the government rubber stamp. So, what's all this hue and cry about the fresh election?

Some theory states that all the global problems emerge from Italy. I kind of started believing in this. Remember the head butt?

Yeah....see?

Abdul Kalam, the man who uses rockets to travel even to the local bank, is a superhero who deserves an other term. The italians for some reason think its better off to send him back to research, or worse, academia!!

The only impressive fact is that some patil bai will be the first female rubber stamp we ever had! Three Cheers and No Vodka to that.

It's raining!

The rains are back. And so am I!
Those of you who live in a dream called Mumbai, might not prefer the former. I am not sure of the latter.

There is not a real difference to the rains this time. They are as regularly irregular, seriously comic, painfully joyous, a change which is not!

Someone recently commented on my blog that my writings are getting closer by the day! Thanks for pointing that out to me. It's not that i didn't know it was happening. It's just that it felt a lot better when it came from a stranger.

People, i believe write for a myriad of reasons. Some write for themselves. Like Ayn Rand. They don't have a preferred audience. Some write for an audience. Like Salman Rushdie. Craving for attention. I lie somewhere in between. No, not between the authors. But, between the styles.

And, normal people don't write forever. There comes a time when all that you want to say is said. Then comes the golden silence. A pause which speaks more powerfully than the most eloquent speaker. That's when the writer has arrived. Am not even hinting at the prospect that i might have reached there. Well, i haven't even begun.

I do want to write. Each additional moment am spending on this planet convinces me that writing is all that is there to living. Attaining nirvana is not for me. All i want to do is to communicate. Talk, speak, write and listen. That's all i want to do. Get a life, did i hear?

:)

Well, am at the least, trying!