LemonSquash

IDeas that bother

2009-11-15T03:42:00.001-08:00

Idea did change my life

Nowadays I am not that prompt to see an SMS

I mean I don’t lookup the inbox everytime the mobile beeps the SMS tone

I know that more than half the time it is a Idea promotional message

I missed one of the important ones my brother, not bothering to look up the sms, as soon as it came since I had given up the hope of getting a normal sms anymore

Idea did change my life

Anyways, found some thing online

In order to stop IDEA promotional SMS/Calls, you need to register for 'DO NOT DISTURB', i.e. DND
Send a SMS ' START DND' to 1909 and get rid of prmotional calls/SMSs forever ...

or Google 'how to register for 'Do not Disturb'

May be this will help some one out there

Badvertisement

2009-11-15T03:37:00.001-08:00

people run out of money, or paint , and there goes a good advertisement.

I recently saw a good one behind an auto, this was about Tata Yellow pages, it had a melting ice cream below which it had the caption “Act quickly”

that is the kind of advertisement, one can associate to immediately. Everyone has had a melting ice cream more than once and knows the importance of eating it quickly.

I liked it personally,

I hate the recent fairness cream ads, there is something that you cannot change, I know of a friend who bought the Garnier fairness cream only because the fairness meter or a strip with 14 shades of skin tones was printed. One was supposed to measure how the cream works by comparing before and after fairness meter reports.

Well, that is something that teaches me something about the human psyche, my friend who is a very fair girl judging by Indian skin tone standards, she is upset that she is not 1 on that meter, and is at 2, I don’t know how she came to that conclusion after all. I believe that had this been given to a person who is dark and goes below that 14 th marker, I mean that he is not even the lowest point that meter, he would not be worried to make it one shade lighter, He would be more practical, he would have either taken it as it should be, he would have rather given up the tension altogether,

Anyways, one funny thing I saw in the morning, was, one Auto driver who had run out of paint or ideas, had written it right across his autos back “

Raju Gandhi International Airport “

He fucking, messed up the name of a ex PM , who had died for the nation. Well it seems people don’t take that shit seriously at all. It is ok, as long as some one figures out that there is only one Internation Airport in Hdyerabad and it is Rajiv Gandhi IA. So any one reading it would figure it out, we really have no opportunity to put up a Raju Gandhi airport soon, because for that the Gandhi family would have to make a new baby and name it Raju , ( pyar se of course )

And then make him famous, or for quicker turnaround time, make him the PM asap. I believe that may be a distant possibility and by that time, autos will be altogether banned in this nation.

Still, this is much better than what I had seen months back in some town in Bihar , a wine shop which proclaimed more than happily “ Child Bear”

All I could figure out was, it means chilled beer, and as long it serves it chilled, no one would bother them about the bear .

Somewhere in Hdyerabad, I think opposite to the Madisson hotel in Begumpet, there is a wall that says “Do not pass”

and then goes blank, I was afraid, what does the poster guy mean, was he out of paint, wall, or what he had to go to answer natures call and never got his act together to come back and finish his masterpiece,

Actually the irony is that the wall is close to a school, some corporate offices. Well, what the author meant was “ Do not pass urine here “, the urine her goes in the second line, which had been washed away for reason.

Near the HAL airport ( old airport ) in Bangalore, there is a fruit juice center, that has a menu that goes “ Pome granite juice “

Actually better than “Promo grenade juice “ in the Adyar Ananda Bhavan in Bangalore.

Minx shake ( milk shake ) , Benana juice, crap apple shake “

I believe I have seen many such signs and symbols all around the country , a local Dan Brown . But I did not keep a reference note anywhere , which I should have kept. That way I would not have missed any of these masterpieces.

One of the posters outside Reliance World ( Mayfair ) says, that “your vehicles here will have to parked at owners risk”

ya, yaa, my bike is a stolen one but I was prudent enough to makes its owner sign a contract before I stole it , that if ever I will park this bike I will do it, with his responsibility and more so when I am doing it outside Mayfair.

And I forgot to write about Hyderabad winter

2009-11-15T03:19:00.001-08:00

Today at 6PM I will showing a business plan to a friends Japanese language class mate. That will take about 2 hours,.

After which I go to Ajays, place to cook some food. I realized that no matter what I do , my onions always go half waste, the amount of rice I choose always, is wrong,

Only if I have another person to share the food, that does it perfectly fine. Ajay is a good cook, a bachelor in the mid thirties, some how, inarguably is a good cook. I am can bet on it.

My driving classes are done. we only need to finish the reverse gear classes which I will do by the end of the month , the weekend of 29 th November. Since on the 5 th I have the driving test. I need to pass it, for if I have to buy the car by mid January ,for which I am saving everything that I have.

May be I will break the SBI NAV , whatever I get but still I need the car. A Hyundai i10

Research starts now , am talking with a large number of people about it. Actually, most of my cousin brothers are advising about buying a new car , but I am not willing to shell out more than 3 lakhs now on buying a car. Since I am not in the mood for luxury but it is now a necessity I should get the closest possible deal and buy that car

Anyways,

Hyderabad now, especially these months, one cannot be anywhere else in the planet but in Hdyerabad, there is a chill in the air , especially post the 9 pm mark. Trafiic has already spoiled the environment , and somehow it is not as cold as it used to be, but that makes it a very comfortable winter.

Hyderabad . winter starts

2009-11-15T03:13:00.001-08:00

it is mid November

It is sprinting right in front of me.

I always knew that time and tide waits for none, but tide at least you can predict, time, the predictability that after a period of time you will be able to guess what time is it , is now beyond human control

I specifically remember a childhood game,

we were class 1 or class 2. We invented a large number of games, without any prior experience,

just intuition. Spending time in the bus, like jumble words, with no absolute hint at all, and pen and paper,

Someone would just say ailartsua and you have to find out , what is the original word

For a class 1 or class 2 student I am amazed at how good we were. We did math puzzles , square roots, etc.

Some of the games were in the school ground , and specifically out doors, you start from two corners of the ground and walk back ( facing the other way ).

The aim was to meet at the center, the best pair was the winner. Anyways, those were just small games. We had some games, like run the stop watch and stop it exactly at 1:00.

that was like within 30 minutes one would have played across the group of 6 people,. ( 6 x 5 ) only 5 times. I used to win it most of the time. We also played this game of counting number of seconds without seeing a real watch, you had to say how many seconds had passed or you had to say that it was one minute up.

That was a real time counter game and some of us were real good at it. Also , we played about judging the correct time of the day ,

I was good at it

Well, now in 2009. I have lost it, I am insane. Today I woke up at 5 in the morning, as a part of my lifestyle change project ( I talk in numbers baby , I work for an American MNC ) . I went with my brother to the airport. I cam back around 9 and napped for a while as I was feeling that the sleep was not complete . Unbelievably, I woke up in 2 hours, but by the time I left bed after spending some pensive time in a Sunday morning bed, I saw the clock move to 2:35

I decided to get lunch. Thought about magi noodles, There was none at home. Went to buy one, now that I have finished, it, it is already 4:42

Where on earth can I explain the last 2 hours. Was I abducted or my time was abducted ….

Early Morning 14 November 2009

2009-11-13T17:28:00.001-08:00

Today is what they called chilrens day , today morning, it would have been different had I been in school

but no I am not,

I am way past that, but, I made atleast a lifestyle change today.

I woke up at 6 in the morning and have been doing something or the other till then

yesterday evening the guys in office planned for a volley ball match. I realized that with the space bar gone in my laptop

I am not going to do much with this laptop today , without getting irritated .

So I am starting for the volleyball match now.

Will come back, take my bike to a service center , headlights gone, mileage, boy,

My brother comes back at 11 am,

and then I will have some idea where I will spend the rest of the day .

Will upload pics for the day today in the evening.

Spate of affairs

2009-11-13T03:19:00.000-08:00

Recently one of my replies in rediffmail

Spate of affairs

The net and media currently dominates a mans way of thinking. recently I got an opportunity to meet some people in a train journey those who have some how been non initiated with the net and television too. They belonged to a senior group of devotees in some religious group. all educated, strong intellectuals ( at least acc. to me )
I found their opinions completely non biased and without doubt one of the best assessment of the country as we know it.

We in India consider the rediffmail statistics as a good benchmark, the world leaders invite India in almost all the meeting, we have billionaires in the top lists.
But there is a one inherent problem, and that is common mans perception. Why does the common man still feel that it is difficult to buy houses in India, start a business in India, none of the jobs makes your life secure. and even if it does, it is in the dynamic private industries, where nothing is static. In the public services where the salaries have seen changes, the rates of potatoes and rice have seen double changes.

We no longer worship the merit. In the 1960s when Jawaharlal Nehru , was running the machinery in terms of new deals, and was going to become a part of the new world order the rise of the east. ( does it a ring a bell ) . there were newer opportunities since all the government offices were new and jobs were offered. An entire generation of Indians started thinking that changes are right around the corner. Those men are now 60 plus

those men have come and gone, they thought that things will change ( something that all of us find genetic ) Rceently one of my cousins went to visit Europe for a business visit. When he came back , he gave me the following explanation for the rise of the west. He feels , that the weather, the pollution free environment, the hassle free life, makes a man not bother about smallest of the details, but think big, the mind opens, up. Mind you,it was 3000 years or more , back . When westerners...

Re: Spate of affairs
by rahiakil on Nov 13, 2009 04:41 PM
those men have come and gone, they thought that things will change ( something that all of us find genetic )

Rceently one of my cousins went to visit Europe for a business visit. When he came back , he gave me the following explanation for the rise of the west. He feels , that the weather, the pollution free environment, the hassle free life, makes a man not bother about smallest of the details, but think big, the mind opens, up.

Mind you,it was 3000 years or more , back . When westerners came to India and saw, favorable climate, water of the ganges could heal diseases, the change of weathers very necessary of the bodies complete growth, natural monsoon systems and a vast area of land with minimal population.

Moral lessons of respecting ones old, caring for the others, hospitality , joint families, were all encouraged and followed religiously. Given all these, one always thought of this nation highly. But things have changed. Mind you , we are in the same bubble as our older geneartions. we still benchmark the west as a better standard of living and strive towards it. some of us, try to find fault in the west system of personal life , but I am sure, no one challenges their development in the material world.
Obviously, all cannot be blamed to the politcians, they are just we normal people in near future.

All I am hinting is though we consider ourselves the next most happening country , we forget, that the world , the earth is running out of resources.....

One funny thread in Rediffmail

2009-11-12T05:07:00.000-08:00

WHERE IS AMERICA ?
by Bhola Kumar on Nov 07, 2009 03:15 PM | Hide replies

HAHAAAA HAHAHAA HAHA and where are so called advanced countries like Canada, UK, France, Japan, Singapore.

seems India is number one in the world now in everything and west is the third - fourth world hahaa

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Re: WHERE IS AMERICA ?
by Pradeep Tondwalkar on Nov 07, 2009 04:12 PM
Its seems you are from Bihar or UP , U do not know the topic and keep comenting.

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Re: Re: WHERE IS AMERICA ?
by vivek on Nov 07, 2009 04:45 PM
HE IS FROM THE FAMILY OF BHOLNATH JAFRANI

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Re: WHERE IS AMERICA ?
by SEKKU SEKKU on Nov 07, 2009 03:25 PM
Its clear you dont seem to understand what is being talked about here. Its money flowing from the advanced countries to India by Indians who have migrated abroad. US, UK and other countries dont top this list because they dont go abroad to earn money and remit it back to their homes.

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Re: WHERE IS AMERICA ?
by Nitesh Oswal on Nov 07, 2009 03:21 PM
might u had put the concept of \"Remittances\" then uttering Hahahha...

It\'s the transfer of money to the country from it\'s non residents settled outside (obviously in developed countries)

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Re: WHERE IS AMERICA ?
by jolly on Nov 07, 2009 03:25 PM
we need more idiots like bhola kumar... who just clicks the next button on and on.. without having no clue what it is about.. country which has maximum remittances or loose motion.. makes no difference to him cuz he cant read!!!
this article specifically says that it is about money flowing from developed countries to developing countries.. considering that india and china have the most non-residents and then followed by mexico.. this was bound to happen.. very few canadians or british or french or japanese or singaporeans (quoting from his list) actually migrate.. they do.. but very few!!

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Re: WHERE IS AMERICA ?
by surya das on Nov 07, 2009 03:26 PM
Dear Bhola, u are really bhola. What do u mean by remittance? People who are working out side of their country sending money to their home to support their family, relatives, and other related purposes. Do u think US, England, Germany, Japan, France, South Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, HK, Aus, Canada and many developed economy are working in other countries and sending their money? So, that is the main reason why these names are not here. Actually we are working for them with a low labour cost but due to weak currency value of INR when we convert to Rupee, it turns out to be huge amount, and more over, we Indian are working all over the world and sending money to India. Hope, this cralifies you.

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Re: Re: WHERE IS AMERICA ?
by vivek on Nov 08, 2009 02:44 PM
PAPPU CAN DANCE

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Re: Re: WHERE IS AMERICA ?
by srikanta sahu on Nov 07, 2009 04:30 PM
this is not about weak INR but about getting lots of foreign currencies.offcourse which in this article mentioned in USD.

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Re: Re: Re: WHERE IS AMERICA ?
by surya das on Nov 07, 2009 07:28 PM
If this not weak INR then wht is that? 1 year before it was 1 USD = INR 39, now it is trading at INR 47.50. Nearly 21% weaker against USD, do u know what is the 21% difference in currency trading? It is not weak against USD, but also EURO, AUD, SGD, YEN every major currencies. Not like in 1972 when, 1 USD = INR 17, And, the big difference is all major currencies are getting stronger against USD, that gives India have an edge cause people are sending money using various currencies, which have bigger value against USD.

12 th November

2009-11-12T03:44:00.001-08:00

Spent half the morning reading about some bogus rediffmail article about CK Prahlad

asking for India to make 500 more cities, To build more planned cities and not slums ( concrete slums ) all over again.

The comments in Rediff go on to show the amount of frustration the common public has, there are many censored comments

the moderators are not spared either.One can find some very funny conversations too, from NRI vs frustrated Indian employees,

from private vs public sector workers

from IIT ians vs non IITians

From MBA holders vs normal managers

retired public servants vs current day stressed out workaholics,

you can find threads for South Indians vs North Indians

Biharis vs the rest of the universe

everything,

communists vs capitalists

I don’t have a clippings of many of them, but one Hindu article I really think one should read,

http://www.hinduonnet.com/2004/07/11/stories/2004071100201400.htm

Everyday thousands of rural families migrate to the cities in search of better standards of living and what are causes behind them

written by a

Retired IAS officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre

A man of the yesteryears, who has seen it all, the formative years of the Indian economy and India as we know today

Random

2009-11-10T01:56:00.001-08:00

I was watching, some old movie yesterday,and was surfing through,when I stopped at a very familiar picture,

A Punjabi driver, a chasing situation etc, etc,

If that is the truth, we have Punjabi drivers all around the world,Ban had once commented, that why not have some in the F1 circuit too,

the biggest connection was that F1 Driver Schumachers, fitness expert was one Punjabi, the Mallyas are south Indian and they don’t drive

those cars in the circuits,

Ban always, brings out those points, that one will miss out, normally,

Anyways, Ban has finally, come up with some good ideas, he was asking his brother to start selling LCD monitors ( dumb computer monitors ) with External TV tuner

cards that come for about 1 K , so all you need to sell a 22 inch LCD tv is a 9 K lcd monitor (May be Acer will sell you one for even less ) And pull in one more k for the tv tuner

card. There you go , you can sell a lcd TV in itself for half the price, install it and make your own business,

Who stopped you from assembling it. Anyways, his latest one being pushing me for the IAS. After months of thinking, I think it is a point in my life, when I still have the next three years, till I turn 30.

Well, Ban is great, and let his expectations from me come true

India go for the last match

2009-11-10T01:50:00.000-08:00

To start with,

I am getting no time at all

Right after coming back to Hyderabad, there was a flurry of things pending in my plate. I tried my best to keep my mind away from some solitude here, may be I require it after all.

I stayed in my house, locked it like a secure container, to house my feelings for two whole days, lived like Howard Hughes in The Aviator or should I say in his real life. The genius inside him had an excessive obsession for cleanliness, hygiene, he could not bear anything out of the normal.

I was but stung by a mood quite opposite to that,

first and foremost, after a gap of three months when you enter a room like mine in the ground floor of a building, without a regular cleaner, all you get is a bachelors den that even the strongest of them would think at least thrice before stepping in.

I was sitting inside, thinking about the due course of the next few weeks to come. I am not sure, what makes a man motivated for larger goals, even after giving his 100% the returns don’t come. Still, unfazed by the uncertainty of the coming times, I slept , I slept throughout the weekend,

The only problem in between was, that my sister called me up to see the scores on the 6^th match morning.

Well, that was a sight, that reminds of the misery and pain of those school days, we loved cricket, I was born in the year 1983, the year india won the world cup, and may be, it will remain empty handed, thoughout, one man army, one match wonders, one series in decades,

fancying a win in the foreign grounds, I remembered the good old school days, taking a leave ,, skipping school, not even to meet my sweet heart of yesteryears, we were more often than not, pushed in a misery, pushed into that gory hole of hopeless ness,

but we survived, and again in the next match , we came back to life, we started with the same enthusiasm.

Gradually, amongst my friends, I saw that the cricket pitch had settled down, many of my friends were taken to watching F1, NBA, or something else,

they were merely getting an a inherent aversion , that grew over a period of time , slowly subsiding the fever , and later on it became second skin to not watch any of Indias matches

and even if possible, only the last 5 overs of Indias batting, Slowly came the IPL and now I don’t have any regional,zonal or country level patriotism left in me. All I know is that there is s good cricket with some evening popcorn.Just enjoy it,

May be that explains why I returned back to cricket or returned back to watching some of it. But then till March 2009, India was running at a success rate past 70 % in the One dayers, a fact that was shown to me, and I quickly regained some enthusiasm, watched some of the matches, till things started getting back to the 90s again.

There is a dialogue in the movie Swadesh, that liked very much, it goes something like this “Don’t show us dreams Babuji, this was not meant for us”

All I am pointing here is not hopelessness coming out of inherent weakness, but there lies some other signs that one has to catch, during the world cup this time India, lost the first match , but had a more than fair chance of winning the next two to make it to the semis, but there was a wash out in the match against the Aussies, and then there was a almost match winner from Pakistan that Aussies won,

India could have come back , and that did not work out.

Well, this time, I am not unhappy with the team, I think we batted well ,sometimes fielded well too, and bowling was not like the 90s when Venkatesh Prasad ( who still asks Ishant to slow down,gaping hole in his mouth , should shut down , as a measure of national security , you will know what I am talking about if you follow the newspapers, )

we were doing pretty much fine in the series. IN the 5 th match,though we lost it, none of the batsman , till the last one, did not give up, all of them had a partnership starting, all of them put up a fight,

All I am hinting, is in your own grounds, especially Indians are tigers, and we were like tigers, but coming close to s victory , coming close to it, we somehow lost it, that is just the summary of the whole thing,

we as a nation, are always there, we have the best, we have the best talent, we have the best weather, so much fertile land, and human fertility, boy there is a census that more than proves . All I can say is, that, somewhere is there a genuine, factor, that keeps up behind, is there some thing that was not made to be so ,

I have no complains against the team, may be Tendulkar should step down, may be, Sehwag should be given an incentive for staying back, may be Ishant should be isolated from Venkatesh Prasad. but with these weaknesses, too, we are a good team, and 4-2 is not a number that I will gulp down.

All I can say is, that, if it were not meant for you, it will simply not happen, you may push a mountains, squeeze water out of its rocks, drown in a bottle full of water, but if a simple thing like a wrong Umpires decision is supposed to be against, you simply cannot reverse it, You cannot change the course of time, you cannot change the luck with which you were born.

May be some call it destiny , but I think we need to put it in more words, we need to see beyond, hope, beyond, something will happen.

Most of my friends, think, see, we have so many geniouses, we have so many good Indian Students, Arrey change in India is right around the corners, I seriously doubt it, the forefathers thought for entire generations and they are now dead, taking with them hopes of good times, they just came hopeless, died hopeless.

Start of November

2009-11-03T22:38:00.000-08:00

There was a chill in the air, somewhere around Oct 20, now it is Nov 4, and it is time for me to leave Kolkata and go.

I am not very sad about it, but somewhere I know that I will be missing these days,

with more time to spend on the roads and waste energy , I will seldom have time to finish my office work, with more time

to have to search for food, for other things, I will really be wasting a lot of time in the traffic, fixing the bike, to pay the bills,

to wait and watch at traffic signals,

all these problems were not there and I was complacent that it will go on like this from here in Kolkat.

In any case, tomorrow morning , early around 6 am I leave. I will try to be back in March/April time frame. Will be here for just a plain

visit,

if the management changes, I will try to come even more often, it all depends…

As of now, I am keeping this blog post as a diary , remembering the phrase, “life is not a bed of roses”

A Sunday in November

2009-11-01T05:54:00.001-08:00

the very first Sunday in November,

Started with Lord of the Rings, the return of the King, and then Rogue Assasin, and the Resident Evil,

It was a long day, between naps, small workouts, and watching television,

I cannot imagine, that I could have been in a train today , but the tickets did not get confirmed and it stayed in waiting list when the chart was prepared , late yesterday night.

Today when I was trying to book the ticket, there were 3 –tier AC tickets available for the Falaknuma on the 3^rd, but the problem were, first the laptop got shut down due to battery , then there was a network issue, and finally the card was not accepted,

I seldom make mistakes while using the card online, after three attempts, when you know that there are obstacles and things are not happening, you should back off, take a cool nap, and try later,

and that is exactly what I will do , I am going to book the train for Wednesday morning, trying the tatkal tomorrow, early morning.

Right now I am still a bit groggy, whether it is due to lack of sleep or due to an overdose of it, is beyond my perception

After many nights

2009-10-30T12:54:00.000-07:00

today is one of those nights, when I sitting without much work, have pushed away , dodged some, and dribble through most of the work,

Finished something early in the day , Took a bus ride to Ruby Hospital, Came to Gariahat, Tried some by lanes of Ekdalia, Someone told, me that take the left from the Sarkar house,

Why is it called the Sarkar house, well, PC Sarkar ,the famous magician, stays there,

A beloved mayajaal presenter of all times.

Merlin award winner ,for a number of times, known dear to many kings and heads of states, the house stands almost,entowering that alley,

I forgot to make a note of it,

well, from Gariahat, I always thought that Gol Park was far off, today I took a walk, and soon, saw, Bawarchim Banccharam, out there, and I realized that they always close by and I was the one confused about it,

There is some thing called the Das Cabin , right next to the Gariahat more, I was expecting, some thing like the Purbani of the 80s, my mother always shopped in Gariahat and took us for a plate of Afghani out there,

Sicne this is the penultimate day in Kolkata today, I wanted to feel the city, and here is something new that I can write about, this Das corner, I sat there for some time, asked for tea. I waited for some one who comes here regularly to come and order, Slowly, one guy entered rushing, he order for three moghlais, and went away, just the kind of guy I was expecting , these are the people who come here regularly and know what to order,

I partook a part of the moghlai and realized how come in this age of modernization, a structure like Das Cabin ( like the Dutta Cabin outside Howrah station ) does not get run down by a Mainland China,

here for 20 Rs you still get bliss,

Out there in Hyderabad and Bangalore, the cities are just starting to sprawl, people don’t have a choice, they charge you 50 % more on everything, thus if you can stay in Kolkata for 30K a month, make that 45 K straight off, plus your rent, that you pay extra

Well, there were n number of buses and autos, all shouting, 8b 8b,

I found one 1 A, a bus direct from the garage, going to the shed, was plying without passengers, Asked whether it will go to Jadavpur. It was a dark one, and they did not want passengers, as it might be a problem with the route buses, thus without fare and without stops, and with free seats everywhere, I came all the way till 8B,

The famed college gates, through which , hundreds of silicon valley stars, management gurus, have walked , and even the shark that bites, me almost every day , once studied,

Once more, almost like a nostalgic memory of the last 20 years, of my life, time and again, these gates, remind, of the Chemical Engineer seat that I left in Jadavpur.

Whatever happens, happens for the best , is my policy, may be this distance from the institution is something that keeps me attracted to it,

Kolkata, is a city of joy, immense excitement, people here are different, have the creativity to make life look like something with purpose, the intellect to feel more at home , and understanding the city , is a task impossible for me, more so in a bunch of words, and that too from my vocabulary is wrong endeavor .

Well, day after tomorrow, I have the train to Hyderabad, the tatkal three tier AC, only way to get a ticket, in todays, world, in a country with population that shows every where,

amount of three tier ac compartments per train is a fallacy,

Truth is we don’t have a AC seat when we want it, and even money cannot buy it, for flights, money can buy you something, but with trains and people like us, it is an affair, that simply does not work out

Oct 30 2009

2009-10-30T02:39:00.001-07:00

Last three hours, inhuman tiring conditions, unwelcome surroundings, and shark infested mails

there were mobile calls, mails, and smss, all threatening, menancingly close to metaphor the looming danger of a hanging sword,

supported by a flimsy thread

that’s office life,

A good friend of mine is now new to office, today is the casuals day for her, I hope, things will be good to her, and not as tiring, painstakingly difficult as mine

Still, these are the days I want to spend learning,.

There are times when I dwell, whether going to school back will help, may be as a vacation, actually, everything will look like a vacation past this. Will sail through

Anyways, school will not be an good option , bcoz you will learning and you will have to pay up for it, that too to the ailing American, where the Statue of Liberty is having a cough,

cold and minor flu,

I am sure it is high time to stop studying and learning as much as possible in the real world, still as time flies, I am not able to concentrate on the present,

Quick quote of the day

2009-10-29T05:35:00.000-07:00

some of the tag line in gtalk, and other places like orkut are worth capturing back

“One cannot expect rewards and recognition even though he deserves it, that is life”

Another fellow friend of my mine had put in his ideal match “ A nymphomaniac”

Ban jeeooh

2009-10-29T04:35:00.000-07:00

Today is a day which I can happily commemorate to Ban,

He has got hold of some channel or some internet site, where he can watch Indian news channels,

He knows about the shit that goes inside, and the mega , truck load of crap that comes out,

he understands, what is the purpose of news, but he cannot find any in the news that comes,

Funny, he recalls , the passengers of the abducted Rajdhani express, where stranded for 5 hours and the journalists in Delhi station, stranded them for hours,

people even say , that prasaashan is not taking jimmebaari , but, naxals did, well, same goes for the abducted policeman, Atindranath Dutta, he was taken for ransom

for 48 hours, with good food, and no harassment, but CBI seems to have butchered him with questions later J

Still, the funny thing that comes with this , “Breaking news” , everything is breaking everything else,

I remember , having read it somewhere that, NASA was so running out of good results, that the public money expenditure getting involved in the NASA is now questioned by many average American, Ban tells me , that , they will put it up in the news, even as much as a scientist out there farts from gas.

Rocket science at basics, though

Anyways, Ban plans to start his own venture, a news channel , a magazine at least, where reporters will start with “ There were too many reporters in the crowd and I could not manage to get one question directly to the CM, all I overheard was this and that”

His team will be qualified but honest and his channel will repeatedly say “Sorry we don’t have footage, sorry to show to stolen images, our reporters are not out there, but we are not trying push more public there, either, so please, lets stay here and show you the best of what the other news channels are producing “

Ban goes on

2009-10-29T02:49:00.000-07:00

today morning, I saw a ping from Ban

obvisouly in Korea, they wake up before us, but somehow Ban keeps me company till late in the night,

he was watching the match till late into their dinner and then slept for some hours and then pinged me

He was talking about his office and colleagues, out there,

Some one from Britain, over enthusiastic about proper usage of English, reprimanded him in terms no more soothing than

what our school sisters, did. He does not like the use of basically,

and most Indians will start all their convs, with

“Basically, the jist ( summary ) of the matter ….

“ Basically, my car was not starting

“Basically, you can look into the problem this way…

it seems, this guys, one Mr , Leopold, or something like that, was horrified, when some one took his hint, and started using

Fundamentally …

Fundamentally, my car was stuck …

Now that became, pretty common around the office and there was one fine morning when one of the senior guys , started using it

in even shorter form, “ funtally “

that’s when the lid blew off, and there were certain changes made to the system

It seems, Ban took my usage of “thingy” so dear, that now he forgets to use the word thing , even in his status

So his status message usually reads

“I worked on the AMD thingy ….”

Ban again

2009-10-28T12:34:00.001-07:00

Ban started a typical Ban conv again

I was chatting with him a few minutes ago,

Gtalk allows you go invisible, well Ban put his status as invisible,and then he was asking me , that all of a sudden all his friends were pinging him

when he was invisible,

well the geniouses are crazy people, and all creative, intellectual, talented people know that.

Ban is neither of the above, Being from the Chatto, Bhatto, Mukho clan ( as I have already told you ) , he is fairly simple,

knid at heart, but talks a lot, another sign of a good man. But the problem is stay with him while he is chatting sometimes takes

patience,and any tough wife will fail to teach him anything, that is my expectation and prediction

Ban, read about the current political fiasco of Bengal,the Gorkhaland thingy is not yet over, Roshan Giri and Bimal Gurung are gathering forces out there, while, the south of Bengal is courting hardships, beyond control, there is absolutely no trace of democratic rule in the so called Jangal Mahal,

Here , Ban, finds so many realities, that had he been in the country, would have raised his voice against, I don’t know why the hell he is stuck in Korea, and that too

in some border lying area near to their unfriendly North Korea.

Ban, read about the story of Atindranath Dutta, and was laughing, when an OC of a Thana , can be asking for more security, there is absolute no law and order

there is no jurisdiction, no execution and god forbid, but I doubt that the constitution is a word that is unheard of there,

Crucial victory for India

2009-10-28T12:08:00.001-07:00

Another match ,

some where round the corner, you will find some one ecstatic,

no fireworks.

I remember the chilly mornings , the twilight times and the late evening when I returned from tuitions, long back ,

Agartala, though I will not return back there, in a long time, but those days, of chill in the air, my first love affair,

then going for tuitions, questions of success and failure did not bother me then, since I was doing well in a small town

called Agartala

Simple people still walk those grounds, simplicity everywhere, and I don’t know, it is a feeling reflected else where, but

two days back on my way back from Howrah, I took lift in a friends, taxi, All the way till City Center,

He is from Agartala, he was telling about his friend who has completed his studies somewhere in England and now all the

days and years lost, he does not want to lose any more days outside our favorite town

My father who is starting his business there in Agartala, even now believes that if there is a heaven on earth, it is there

where you have your best memories,

If you are not making better memories else where, atleast , stay close to the porosh pathor,

The Alchemist is a story that by far is the most romantic story I have ever written, romance of life, the nasha,

the addiction , that takes you away from home,

you are seeking that what you have already got, you are seeking what was meant for you

I am reading another story nowadays, in parallel, Namesake , and I now firmly believe that if there is a plan out there,

it is always to take you home

I know of some friends, who have for ever been on the move, they had a shifting job, transfers here and there,

but transfer to where, to places where there were quarters, similar , like minded people, culture was common

same kind of holidays, and vacations,

But now I am tired , when I see this new brew of work and job and culture, it is spoiling all that I have got as heritage

it is something that I cannot live with, for long, Yes these are those back breaking years, these 20 – 30 , so I am giving it knowingly,

but this is not a sustainable model

And I will have to seek a place in society that suits, me , where I have time for a little freedom, a little freedom to express the lot

that is inside me

Today , was an average day, I worked on some good old issues, fixed some bugs , and nothing much to remember by

the back pain is revisiting me, don’t know, what can be done about it!!!

Finally the net works

2009-10-27T12:01:00.001-07:00

I remember a long time back , we used to read these amongst the jokes

“Microsoft works”

I also remember, taking a foto of the Windows hang notification in NewYork Subway, I think it was the one where you change to take the park .

Now finally my net works and I feel ecstatic to start work

the whole day , my body gave up, I did not , I could not and I hoped not , to work

prayers were answered, there was no net, but that means no other activity too, Read some more of Pagla Dashu, Dashrathi from Sukumar Samagra and then went to sleep with the earphone plugged to my ears, so that if there is a official call on the softphone, I can pick it up

I am planning to take a Bluetooth solely to be on the phone anywhere in the house,

Now I will get back to work,

go to sleep my fellow disciplined buddies, for me the night is young, and I am the old man that will ravish it.

Oct 27 2009

2009-10-27T11:41:00.001-07:00

the day is towards the end, I have spent most of it, trying to get some decent speed from the net connection

Tata Photon thingy, was working pretty well for me for the last two months, but this is now a pain that I had to lose a whole working day.

Today it was a dramatic, day, The chief minister of Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, made a verbal gaffe a few days back when he said that the two cops who were abducted by the Maoists about 90 days back, were dead, this was not officially confirmed, Unoffical sources ( which means some agitated media personnel ,who want to be in the good books of the producers) found out that Chhatradhar Mahato had commented from his cell in jail that no they had not been abducted, and that they don’t know what happened to them

In todays west Bengal, where deadbodies show up in ponds, and road side ditches almost every day tracing a dead body is becoming a humongous task, scenes that remind you for some time, that you might be as well in a Taliban infected place

Mamata Bannerjee in an attempt to voice all her protest, found a seat outside Chidu s official mansion in Delhi, with the relatives and wives of the two cops who got abducted . They were taken all the way to Delhi by Partha Chatterjee yesterday. Well, she was voicing her protest against the chief ministers gaffe, that how come he forgets something that leads to two lives in the state, two working personnel of the indina police force, ( she forgets that, in India, we are all dispensable), one goes, there are ten more to swap a place in,

same goes for accidents, daoits, terrorist attacks, and now Maoists,

they don’t care, there are victims lying everywhere, first of all knowingly or unknowingly , we are all victims of the current state of politics, of the current muscle men, win it all mentality, we all are victims, praying to stop ourselves from being bigger victims,

at around 3:19 , live in her conference, she gets the news that somewhere in Banstala a station more from Jhargram for up train, Rajdhani , Delhi – Bhubaneswar, the Maoists, had attacked the Rajdhani , and abducted the driver

CNN IBN got a nice chance to put one more twitter on its red top, “Maoists vs Marxists”, situation gets worsened, some media personnel get some footage from a,b,c,d sources,

there were pics of the driver shot, in his belly, the driver of the jeep carrying more people in,

there were confusing reports as to how the whole thing happened, whether they took over the signals, or there was some barricade, the driver later confirmed that about 400 pro maoist people came down on the tracks, they stopped the train, damaged the front engines and later on , demanded for Chhatradhar Mahato s release,

actually, all they were sending to the center and the thinktanks, was the signal that they are amongst us, and it is not possible to work a solution unless there is a genuine interest shown in the development of the Santal areas,

The PCAP , the committee to fight police atrocities, does not seem to be having enough strength to pull out such a big attack, it now looks like that the fire that has started will take a lot of time

we should not forget, that these people were one of the first freedom fighters, against the Neel kar sahebs, with bows and arrows they had fought the british, so the agitation could be dangerous.

All I know is that I could have en route to Hdyerabad on a train today and had something like this happened to me, I could have used this tata photon conenctino and blogged all that I saw , live from there….

Oct 27 2009 2:07 AM

2009-10-27T01:43:00.001-07:00

Jagadhatri Pujo , 2009

I cannot believe it, that I have a job and I am able to witness, Durga, Lakshmi ,Kali and Jagadhatri Pujo, all in one go

Though, the job at hand is to finish office work, pending and upcoming. I am more relaxed than I should be,

Our very own Adyanath Saha Palli, has a S& IB office, now shining more than ever, celebrating its own Jagadhatri Pujo ,

Although one does not need to go Chandan Nagore nowadays to see it for your own and people are already tired of doing it again and again

some have the patience and the enthusiasm to actually visit the pandals of Chandan Nagar.

Star Ananda, Tara News, 24 ghanta,

n number of channels do bring home all the fun .

I am starting work for the day, our colony , or rather this galli is decorated for the past one month, it is already the next nabami , past the Durga Pujo, I have overstayed

by a month and a half . I will be starting home this weekend , going back to Hdyerabad and hopefully next week by this time run short of time to blog,

will be engrossed in work, pressure and life

Chasing a bug

2009-10-26T13:16:00.001-07:00

Chasing a bug, with sleepy eyes

does not figure out, after many tries

Some where in this alley I think a cat is crying,

the watchman whistling, the poor old discarded man dying,

Late in the night, in despair, in front of this latop I stare

in the emptiness , the silence, the end of the Kolkata affair

A limping career , and a upcoming life,

obviously, there will be EMIs, a car, a flat and a wife

Fruitful, may be , my tonights night out,

an every day regulation and nothing to clout

All the work, the buggy eyes,

no matter what I do , how many tries

Oct 26 th 11:30 in the night

2009-10-26T11:12:00.001-07:00

Another day over,

yet another day

today was a tiring one , I was typing here in this desk 24 hours back and I was tired then and the same feeling still persists

Slept all evening today. Actually had to skip work and go to the Howrah today at around 2 in the afternoon

If the train is at 4 pm, we usually leave home at around 1PM and if your luck is good, you will end up in Howrah in 20 minutes, which I was not willing since, I would have to buy the platform tickets twice

and since they have a single line for all local reservations, general tickets and platform, I had to stand in a queue watching Mamata Bannerjees posters all around, till I could reach the window

and as you know , or might have seen or experienced, as soon as you are near a counter and are going to deliver your request across the counter,the phone rings,

today was not an exception, an important call at that,

The coach was S13, which I was sure that will be on that end of the Howrah, where you can start smelling Hind Motors,

but luck was with us and it was right after the two AC coaches

The tickets were booked online and as usual ,since you are blindly booking, you will invariably get a seat near to the bathrooms, and that too the bathrooms in the Indian trains

I remember having taken a bath in one of them when I was young, the trains to north india, were clean ( imagine ) in those days, and today you can only have a stomach churning when you feel like going in one,

But the only good thing is that all people in the first bay (1-8) were through online booking and a decent crowd was in .

After seeing off the train a good distance , we went to the Food Plaza there, we usually sat around the big clock in the old building of Howrah years back , but now adays, this food plaza is a rocking destination for giving meeting points,

we took to anar juices and one of this things from the monginis there call chicken internet.

I usually board a taxi that goes under the bridge, right on the outermost lane outside Howrah, today , we walked all the up to the bridge and took one taxi ,

The strand road still stands out to be a welcome distraction to my thought process, I see a lot of Marwaris, and Biharis, and think about Haldirams, the Mittals, the Birla, all of them started from these roads of Burra Bazar, especially the lota kambal story for the first generation Mittals, the Mittals who got their daughter married in a style that European gentry could sign of as fairy tales,

all started here in these Strand road,

Well, we crossed it, the Ganesh talkies, took the Vivekananda Road, crossed Kankurgachi, cross By pass, made a short cut from Laboni and then enter City Center,

Near to the laketown foot bridge, the salt lake side,a coffee place has opened up,

so you may get to hear some music, an occasional guitar session and at times, some local bands , just practicing out there,

It is a small hangout , with chairs and tables well into the road, but the usual Salt Lake aura stays with you,

I finally came back home, one the way , fetching some boiler eggs,and Anchor classic, my mothers must have thing in the house,

Slept for a while and now back to work, 11:42 in the night, hopefully will be able to pinpoint the bug in the code, soon,

this bug has been pretty annoying and I don’t feel like working on it

Oct 26 morning 2009

2009-10-25T21:44:00.001-07:00

starting work back after a long weekend .

I seems to have started this new work culture around,that is the crux of a normal employees life, but I was not accustomed to it,

weekends , no work, weekdays, fulltu work ,

this was a policy that I did not follow for a long time, but now I think I am consolidating,

The process of becoming a software engineer is a new philosophy all together, we guys work hard, may be as every one says, that is mounting

day by day , and the industry doing bad, I may be up for the bad times, but all I can say is that, since bigger things such as the industry , world economy,

international business, nothing being in my hands,

all I can do is contribute to my own growth, contribute to my own strengths, only by being a normal me,

The odd hours at work and the odd times that I put does do me greater harm in the long run and I run out of steam soon

This philosophy , some get it quite early in life and some late

I can visualize some of my seniors, who still work like a they are worshipping a boxed idol , and some work like without direction, and some are very methodical ,

all of them succeed, since all put their hard work and the industry is churning out , virtual wonders year after year

but essentially we are losing a number of good years in the process,

we all plan to retire by 45, why ? bcoz we know that we will be wasted by the time we hit 60 and it is better to retire by 45 and enjoy the last 15 years of our lives,

I don’t know, whether it applies to all, but most , for I can say , and see that in my close circles,