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Anecdotes of Friendship

2011-08-16T01:06:00.000-07:00

A really long time back, i woke up one day trying to recollect how i met my best friend in college.It made me smile remembering that very day, very moment and soon i realized i had a photographic memory. I started thinking about all the other close friends that i had made over the years and each one of my first day's with them had a beautiful story associated with it. Since then i really wanted to pen down my memories of them and now i am finally here doing it...:) I am glad i met them, i am glad that they would definetly be glad reading this when i send it across to them.

I never believed in the term '3 am friends' which i read about in lifestyle magazines( which practically i would call 'gossip' magazines :) ), but you know what - i ve started to believe in it. I have a bunch of really good friends who i can turn to at any time of the hour and they would be there for me, and same with me. I would be there for them. There are a couple who have helped me during my really trying and testing times, with whom my friendship went through a sour phase and got back, and with whom the bond just got stronger as the years rolled by.They are all people who i ve know for easily more than 6 years now, each of them not necessarily knowing one another.

Going just by the psychological taxonomy of relationships, everyone has a pyramid of important people in their lives.The zenith of this pyramid is occupied by your immediate family with whom you have years of emotional bondage, and the next in the hierarchy would have all the other relationships-friends,relatives etc.That day i realized the occupants of my friendship pyramid and i was surprised that they all just came into my life without any invitations (;)) and have stuck on with me. I always think of myself as a very difficult person to deal with, but when i realized the number of good friends that occupied this pyramid of mine, i felt at ease :). To keep some mystery around the identities of who is who, i d like my friends to identify themselves from these anecdotes :). Not in any particular order so please don't assume your spots on the hierarchy ;)

Hug Machine :)
Lemme call this friend the hug machine :) why? very simple coz she showed me the power of a hug while we were in college. I was never the hugging kinds, but she had a recipe to overcome issues - a simple HUG :) I dont think i ve ever mentioned this to her, but i think she know s it herself.
She joined our class after trying her luck in Commerce and then finally decided that Science was what she could deal with in her life ;) Somehow the charisma of hers is this confusion that always surrounds her life :) Confusion is sort of synonymous to her. :)

I remember the day when we were having ice creams at Ice Thunder near college, and this really self proclaimed Mr.Cool comes upto us and asks 'Can you ladies tell us what are the happening place in Bangalore?'. So my hug machine gives him one nice stare from head to toe and just utters these lines ' For people like you, they made the Directory, go check it up' .His face turns pale, and I as usual burst out laughing straight on his face :)Too bad Just Dial was not even born then ;)
Co incidentally, we both ended up studying in the same colleges pursuing different degrees, but somehow we still managed to survive our friendship. My hug machine is one tough nut, i wish i could borrow even half the emotional strength that she has dealing with soo many things in her life all through out. God knows how many litres of ice cream and coffee we ve consumed in our friendship but every memory of mine with her has always been either in an ice cream parlor or a coffee joint or at each others homes where we used to catch up with each other, and pour our hearts out :) .And yes our many many trips to Vidyarthi Bhavan- we d never get bored of this one for sure :)We ve both matured a lot over the years and can very proudly say that she s my very good friend. She s been with me whenever i needed an ear to lighten my heart out of worries and i ve always been there.
My biggest problem with her is that she never keeps her promises :) She works on timeline worst than IST(Indian Stretchable Time) but i think she does it to console herself and keep herself occupied.Which i am ok with....
Bottom line- i love you dear and be the same strong person that you ve always been for me.

Smartie :)
This was the name i christened for her which sums her up totally.She s(was ;)) intelligent, padaaku, everyone's role model and a very grounded person.She was the one who bore all the torture of surviving engineering with a mad person called Shravani, and you know what she did real good at it. I can proudly say that i could survive the tough times at college only because i had Smartie with me then and vice-versa. She was my best friend in college and she still manages to be that even now. We ve gone through soo much together in college-spoke about soo many things-studies, boy talk , shallow girls, responsibilities, job...you name it. Just realised how over the years our topics of conversations have just moved on from kind to kind. In college it was all about which subjects to chose, who was a dependable person in class, then it went on to relationships (she was going through soo much then), went on to how to prepare for job interviews, to what next after work, and now on a more mature front responsibilities and complex relationships. We ve given each other soo much mental time that i am even surprised i ve spoken soo much to any one in my life...She s been there through my tough times, holding my hand and lending her ear when i needed it.Supports me on things which are good and always has a mind of her own to make her own judgments to tell me when i am wrong and when i am right. I just love her for that.Going through all that i have right now, she s been one of the people whose helped me understand that i am not wrong on some things that have happened.(i know she knows what i am talking about). She s the one whose seen and heard me cry, seen me helpless and lost. She s seen soo many facets of my personality that i feel she knows me well. She helped me pull myself from the bad spot i was and helped me along with a lot of other people to get back to who i was...the real me :) Thanks a lot Smartie...
Being the silly girl that i was in college, i ve troubled and pulled Smarties leg soo much that if friendships had divorce she would have applied for one with me :) There are soo many incidents that i wanna share about her. She still doesn remember how we met the first time. It was the 2nd sem lab externals (some programming lab crap), and she was waiting outside the lab for people to come in (back then she was clubbed with comp sci guys) and she sees me and comes up to me and introduces herself...hi i am ,....i was meant to be with u guys in info sci....ill be joining you all next sem....:)
So she joins us next sem and as written in her fate she got stuck with me after this hilarious incident....
So this guy from XXXX college sends me a mail asking me about Mountaineering club of which i was actively part of. Surprisingly he voluntarily gives out personal information like -' I have my girlfriend in Info Science who told me about it...she s your classmate'...This gets my evil mind thinking :).....who could be this girl?? I used my analytical skills into picture and list out all girls who can and can not fall into the category of being taken....Somehow Smartie was a border line case and the only possibility of this guy's girlfriend, coz
a) she was a mystery girl who was'n with us the whole of last year
b) there was not much i knew about her to understand her personal life yet
c) she was soo pavum girl next door kinds that if this assumption of mine is wrong, i would be digging my own grave with a new girl in class....Weighed all my options and then thought...what the hell lets just let the bomb go :) I went up to her next day, sat next to her in class and passed a note which very vaguely had something like this in it "I think i know something about you but i am not sure if its correct or not"...she s like confused on this and asks me what it is...i pulled her aside coz by that time i had already attracted a lot of attention from other people( read DP :p)...and i confusingly told this-" i dont know but i think you have a guy and i think he from XXXX college"....her face was something to remember at that point...she was red ...with anger (courtesy her guy) and embarrassed (courtesy me)....she was ready to chop him off that evening on letting out this bit of personal detail to me who he doesn even know...and very embarrassed she admitted that its her....i felt a sense of cheap pride which i just cant explain here....i felt like Sherlock Holmes solving the greatest mystery on earth....:) I just laughed my heart out at that time.
If it was anyone other then Smartie then that person would have vowed not to talk to me ever in their life again...but thats what Smartie is all about...one gem of a person, patient, appreciative, full of fun...we had our friendship go through some turbulence at the end of college but somehow we got back.I think she s the only person i have been successfully able to forgive and forget... something i ve learnt from her...I love you dear :)

When i think back at it, just realized God has his own scheme of things where accidental meeting turns into a long bond of meaningful friendships.God has it all planned in his diary he has for everyone of us called our 'fate' and how he intertwines it with each other.

Dirty Dancing

2010-05-10T08:34:00.000-07:00

Every now and then we have these few classics you really want to watch but never really get the opportunity to. I ve always heard of Dirty Dancing , being the lover of dance that i am i really wanted to get my hands on this movie an watch it... And watch i did today...and must say i thoroughly loved it.....

Loved it for the obvious reasons - 'Dance'..any movie that can depict dance in the purest and subtle way is surely to win my heart and this movie did too. Keeping the fact that i am dance fanatic aside... i think this is a great movie to watch... has really great music that keeps ringing in your head all throughout the movie, very crisp plot depicting 2 contrasting worlds of the protagonists... and really good character sketches of the leads and the people in the movie..all tied up to a very simple , believable romantic storyline.

The heroine Frances as the poster perfect 'good girl' whose grown up in the sophisticated world, wants to study economics and eventually would get married to a Harvard grad like her father.A girl who does n want to disappoint her father and yet cant help fall in love Johnny.She's depicted as this perfect girl to take home to, who is selfless and nothing but perfect...One of the best non-dance moments of the movie for me was when she has the emotional outburst with her dad when she confesses she s spent the night with Johnny..The scene is really well shot and acted brilliantly by Jennifer Grey as the vulnerable Frances..

And then we have Johnny as the rustic, smooth dancer who grew up in poverty and makes his ends meet with his job as a dancer. Patrick Swayze is truly amazing in his performance in this movie as the guy who gets 'used' by rich cougars who dance with him or learn dance from him. I ve never seen a male character being depicted on a delicate emotional front as Johnny is done in this movie..and he s truly fantastic in the movie and really eye candy... All thumbs up for Patrick who is brilliant in his dance moves and portrays his nice-boy character effortlessly...

I believe that men who look good and men who can dance are 2 different species all together and when those 2 worlds really meet ..one really has to appreciate it :D

Another thing great about the movie is the music, great to hear such classic symphonies used soo brilliantly in this movie, I would have heard the song "Time of my Life" zillion times before, but never saw the movie for which it was made...and trust me when you see Johnny dance with Frances for this song in the last scene you really want to get into the frame of the movie with your partner and dance your heart out for that song :)

Brilliance :)

This is one of my recos for a lazy weekend afternoon for all dance and music fanatics to just curl up in their couches with some popcorn and have a lovely movie watching experience..This movie falls in the same movie watching experience as Pretty Woman or Ghost .

Great that i watched this movie when i was having dry runs at classics :)

Not so sure i would feel the same for the sequel Dirty Dancing -Havana Nights though.

Life unplugged....... :D

2010-05-10T07:49:00.001-07:00

The past few weeks of my life have been anything but 'crazy'.Trust me when i say CRAZY!!!!! people talk about doing crazy things.....i had things happening at a crazy (unfortunate) levels to me... I was soo thoroughly angered by the extent of misfortune i had faced but now when i think back at it .. all i do is laugh it off and say 'Shit happens :)'... Well my story can definitely be used as a screenplay for some nice masala flick... depicting irony and surreality at one shot :)

How would you feel if you had a chance to a moment of glory which gets wiped off your feet by a friend of yours who was n even supposed to be there at the 'moment of glory'...... well for starters thats my story :) and yes i was at the receiving end or rather the losing end here..I would have never believed in similes like 'Theres many a slip between the cup and the lip' but now when i ve had it happening to me at such a detailed level i thoroughly believe in it....

So my radical story goes like this.... I had gotten shortlisted as one of the finalists to a competition , the winner of which would get a all expensive paid trip for 2 to London and also to attend one of the best Rock concerts that happen in the year called the Ambassadors of Rock .The finals of this was to happen at Hard Rock Cafe. I happened to take a couple of my friends along to have a nice time while wishing the lucky one would be me...Here's where the turn of events get truly bizarre....

Amongst the 10 finalists shortlisted, only 8 turn up(including me)..so the contest organizers pep up the tempo by choosing 'wild card' entries from the crowd.Amongst the 2 fools who got selected one was the friend i took along.So the final 10 were split into 2 groups to compete for selecting the 2 winners, who would at last compete with each other in the second round. So the intial rounds were done amongst the 10 of us and as you guys would have already guessed...amongst the 2 final finalists..one was me and the other was the friend of mine i took along.

Round 2:

The stage was all set....we were the cynosure of everyones eyes...This moment was truly bizarre for me....the fact that i get to the last round and that too compete with a friend i drove to the venue was too crazy to happen at one shot...The crowd was losing it....everybody was breathing London all around...i could literally sense everybody's eyes on us....wishing it were them on the stage and not the 2 of us....Now i d take time to explain exactly what the contest i lost out to was... The stage had 5 electric guitars and just 1 amp...each one of us had to pick a guitar each....by the random draw of numbers, one of the chords of the guitar gets plugged to the amp..and whose ever guitar strums would be the winner... In true movie style this finale was meant to be nail biting. Chord 1 goes in...none of our guitars strum...chord 2 goes in...NO....Chord 3...NO LUCK...any probability genius would definitely guess that the next one would surely be the one which would make either one of us the winner....and in goes the Chord 4 and 'whaammmm' strums my friend's guitar...... The crowd goes frenzy...my friend loses his head - he was n even supposed to be there...he was there because of me........and he WON...yes he WON.

And i was left there in shock and disbelief that something like this has even happened to me.....i really could n curse myself harder than i did that night..The worst was losing to a friend who got there because of me ... i mean it would n have hurt soo much if i had lost to some stranger trust me....I was so close and yet so far....truly lady luck was not on my side and i (as usual) ended up being the lady luck to my friend...

It took me nearly a day to zap back to reality from the loss....But the events of that night were truly unbelievable...everyone who heard of this episode of my life just could n stop laughing at my loss and now even i do laugh at how bizarre things got to me that evening... I was really not that sore about losing a trip to London coz i know someday i will definitely travel there(and i can very much afford a trip to London on my own terms :) )...but what was the reason of the soreness was something deeper than that can be expressed..It was about losing something that you were so close to...and losing to somebody who didn even know about the existence of something like this. Sore about the fact that why someone i knew had to go steal my thunder....how i wish it would have been me winning it...how i wish i could rewind back to the ill fated Thursday evening and wish i could have picked another guitar...or wished i did something different than what i did that evening to change the course of events to my favor in the grand finale :)

Well that's life i guess....it takes you a whole 359 degrees and gets you back to ground zero :).... i know luck didn favor me that night but ....its no big deal....its just a contest... the take away i got from that night was much more than i could even believe ...I never really believed in luck...never really believed in bizzare things happening to me....never really believed that something soo radical could ever happen to me....and there it was all happening to ME.. :)

The turn of events that night made me realize the value of the friendships i shared....i had this friend of mine who was torn apart trying to compose himself on whether he should be happy that our friend won or whether comfort me over the misfortune i had over the night....We had a really great time that evening...at the end of it all three of us had a tight group hug and were filled with disbelief.... My friend who won could n stop apologizing to me..i was sore for myself.... but ya what the hell..he won finally ....and i had a great memorable evening...

Its times like these that made me realize that this is what life is all about and that i was living mine right here :)...and we need to understand to enjoy every bit of it as it comes...as you really don't know what life holds for you in the next few moments...one sec you could have everything that you ever wanted and the other might just lose everything else....i am glad i had that bizarre evening with one of the 2 closest friends in my life at the moment...really don't know what holds in the future for the three of us...we will all drift apart in the sands of time...move away to different cities ..different places in our lives but i am glad i got to experience something with these 2 fools :)

And what followed this event was paparazzi which i wish not to talk about here :)

Bottom Line: I love my life and this will be story to tell my kids who would n believe it :)

Turning seven :)

2010-01-04T08:23:00.000-08:00

It was Tina's 7th birthday and she was all excited about meeting her favorite 'Nanni' for her birthday.It had been a good 1 year since Nanni visited her at Bangalore, so Tina was all excited when her parents decided that for a change they would be visiting Nanni for Tina's birthday.Even if it meant that this year there would be no 'surprise' birthday parties, no meeting Riya(her best-est-est friend) and celebrating with her barbies and doll house gang, Tina was all up for this change as she wanted to prove to her parents that she is a 'big' girl now.

Tina loved her Nanni very much.Nanni brought into her life a sense of reality in fantasy for her.Since she is a part of a thoroughly nuclear family, going back home to her Nanni after school was something Tina used to look forward to.Tina loved Nanni's home made food, she loved the lime pickle and avakkai's Nanni used to make for her while she was around.Nanni used to treat her like a princess - it just had to be a kind request from her and Nanni would make sure her wish was fulfilled. Since she was the princess while Nanni was around, Tina would order a bed time story every night by Nanni, which was duly fulfilled to her. Nanni was an ultimate story teller - she used to wind fantastic stories for her princess which always used to keep her mesmerised as to how many stories Nanni actually knew.After one point of time Tina just stopped counting as she did'nt know to count after 80 :) .Tina was a girl with an excellent photographic memory and vivid imagination, all this thanks to her Nanni for being able to sow into her mind, stories of nature, love, war, goodness , truth and other topics which needed imagination of the listener as important as the creativity of the story teller.

Tina had never been to Banwasi , her ancestral village. In fact Tina was a total city girl.Never been out to her village, always travelled in cars etc etc. The train journey to her village was something very exciting for little Tina.She kept peeping out of her window whenever the train halted at a station asking her daddy inquisitively 'Daddy are we there yet? Is Nanni going to come see us at the platform?...How much longer daddy?'. Her list of questions never seemed to end.
Finally Banwasi arrived.Tina, mommy and daddy got a chauffeur driven car to pick them up from the station while her Nanni was waiting eagerly to meet her princess at their house.The car led Tina into Banwasi through narrow un-tarred roads, roads which no one knew when had a pot hole or when a ditch.The driver artistically led them through the roads of her village- the roads were filled with rich greenery of paddy fields all around them.Far away were enormous hills which Tina thought one could never reach.She had never witnessed such rich blend of strong colors around her, she was just jubilant and that could be seen by the intensity of attention she was paying to her natural surroundings.It was such a beautiful ride that she almost felt like she was being ridden into her kingdom in her own palanquin.

After a nice 20 minute ride into the fields containing paddy, coconut trees and other crops that Tina couldn't yet recognize, they finally reached their 'Nanni's' house :). Nanni was standing there waiting for her Tina in her crisp cotton Saree, hair tied into a nice cute grayish-white bun.Tina got out of her car and went running to give her Nanni her beariest-bear hug.After being ushered into her house, Tina couldn't stop to think how big and airy her 'Nanni's' house was. Tina pleaded her Nanni to take her around the house and wanted Nanni to make-pretend to be her guide in her newly formed kingdom.Nanni as usual obliged :).

Nanni held little Tina's tender hands and showed her around.The tour was to begin from the entrance and end at the terrace."Let the show begin" said Tina. The house had a huge lawn outside with a variety of plants which decorated the entrance of their house.As she stepped her foot inside the house she saw a quadrangle bigger than her apartment's lift lobby which ran all throughout the house.In the center of the quadrangle was a huge empty courtyard where Nanni had her sacred 'Tulsi' to whom she prayed every morning without fail.On the periphery of the quadrangle was the kitchen, a couple of rooms, and the other boring parts of the house.Each room had huge ceilings which Tina had never seen anywhere before.The walls of the house were filled with artistic paintings that Nanni had made when she was a little girl maybe even when she was as little as Tina herself. Nanni showed her each and every painting that was hung in the house and told her everything about each one of them.

There was one painting amongst them that Tina couldn't stop staring at. It was a beautiful array of colors that mesmerized her.The symmetry of shapes, the inter wining of patterns, the exquisite color pallet in the painting kept Tina asking for more.Nanni knew Tina liked the painting a lot and on purpose didn't describe much about it to her.Nanni knew Tina would get attracted to this one particular painting and hence had her birthday gift related to this painting.Tina kept begging Nanni to tell her what the painting really, actually (with 'God promise' made) meant, but Nanni kept playing around her excitement and asked Tina to wait till tomorrow(her birthday) to get answers to her questions. Tina was soo lost in the painting and attracted to it that she spent the whole evening trying to figure out what it is exactly?Is it a design? Is it a flower? Is it the rainbow turned into a circle? She kept looking at that particular painting and swinging back and forth in her wooden swing in the quadrangle.She was soo full of questions that it was fun to see her derive her own logic out of simple little things around her. Her parents played along with Nanni and kept her questions unanswered till tomorrow.

Tina spent the rest of the day tagging along with Nanni, helping her around the house, learning her everyday move and enjoying every bit of her holiday time with dear Nanni.But there was still this question running in her mind as to what the painting really was :). That night Tina slept with her Nanni in her room.For the first time Tina didn't ask Nanni for a bed time story, instead played floor chess with her till she dozed away in Nanni's lap.

"Happy Birthday to you...Happy Birthday to you...Happy birthday dear Tina...Happy birthday to you". These were the words little Tina woke up to the next day :) These words were like music to her ears and she woke up rubbing her eyes and giving her best smile possible :) . Nanni took her in her lap and placed in her hand a long rectangular package wrapped in colorful sand paper. Tina was soo excited to get a gift from Nanni the first thing in the morning, and the smile on her face just got plastered for a little longer than she thought. She carefully unwrapped her precious gift. It was a long rectangular piece of hard cardboard which had a mirror on either ends and looked like it was filled with something, when she shook the gift she could listen to nice melodious clicks.She was very excited and asked Nanni what it really was. Nanni told her that it was a Kaleidoscope. "Ka-lie-do....Ka-lie-do-sco-ppe" she finally got to spell her gift in her still slumbered voice. Tina wasn't sure how to use her new found toy, it didn't have a button to press, didn't have a key to start with, it was just a long rectangular box like thing which if was a little bigger could have passed off as her pencil box. Nanni got Tina to use her gift, she trained her hands to place her gift in such a way that one of the mirrors was placed in front of her eyes.Tina was made to close the other eye and look into the mirror with the other one. Tina just couldn't believe what she saw in front of her eyes.It was exactly a pattern like the painting she was pleading her Nanni to explain her to. The symmetry, the pattern, the colors and the different designs the gift made with her turning it in different directions brought her soo much joy that no other barbie she played with ever got her.She turned her "Ka-lie-do-sco-ppe" round and round till she found newer patterns in front of her eyes.Patterns she had never seen, never made and never imagined. The little clicks inside her gift brought to life colorful forms that made Tina's heart jump with joy. It didn't take Tina long to figure out that the elusive painting was all about such patterns that Nanni had seen when she must have got her hands on her own Kaleidoscope. Tina hugged her Nanni tightly and thanked her very very much for such a beautiful gift.

Tina knew that none of her friends had ever seen something like this ever in their little life and Tina was the first girl in her class to have something soo special for a birthday gift.What made it even more special for her was that Nanni had made the Kaleidoscope all by herself for her Tina.She used her old colorful bangles which she no longer used to make the inner 'clicks' of her Kaleidoscope. She spent the whole day proudly walking around her quadrangle playing with her beautiful Kaleidoscope all through her new Kingdom.

Thank you sooooooooooooooooooooooo much Nanni. I love you a lot :)

Spiralling confusion

2009-12-29T08:18:00.000-08:00

I just realized that we are all at stage in our lives where the only thing that comes out clear is 'Confusion'.I am victim of this syndrome too and hence write this bit which is more or less a piece of my mind i guess.Be warned you may not like to admit it ...but all of us go through this arbit 'confused' period in our lives at one point or the other, just that i seem to have realized it strongly now :)
My confusion is not a materialistic one which deals with things like - what should i wear/ or what should i be carrying with me ... My confusion is more to do with.. 'What am i really doing with my life ?????'... Am i in the right spot? Am i making the right decisions? Am i doing something which i like or am i doing things just because there's nothing more/less left to do? Why is it that its confusion that lurks at every nook and corner? Sometime back i met an acquaintance of mine from work, and we happened to travel back home together that night. It was such a strange realization i had that day. Every time i would meet her i would see her fuming over her state of affairs and i would be the one giving her an assuring reply to every frustrated sentence of hers.But this time it was like a complete role reversal.I was her and she was me. I had a really bad day at work, the past few weeks of my life were literally spirally down on me, and i must say it was the first time i had soo many open ended questions that i wanted answers to. Our conversation that day went on and on for a really long time and it stuck me soo strongly that day that i was basically 'confused' with my life :) The whole episode led to us discussing on something called 'Quarter Life Crisis' (i know i sound soo old while i say it....but its true..we r all around 24 something that makes the Quarter and well the Crisis is the confused state of affairs of ours :) ) . Just thought id share this article and see people go 'Sigghhh!!!! that's my life' :)

It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like.You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.
You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you don't recognize is that they are realizing that too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.
You look at your job... and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you.
Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't. One minute, you are insecure and then the next, secure.
You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.
You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you.. Or you lie in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better. Or maybe you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you're doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person. You want to settle down for good because now all of a sudden that becomes top priority. Getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic.You begin to think a companion for life is better than a hundred in the sack and for once you would not mind standing tall for that special someone which otherwise you had never thought of until now.You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself... and while winning the race would b e great, right now you'd just like to be a contender!
What you may not realize is that every one reading this relates to it.We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out.
We call it the "Quarter-life Crisis"

After reading this article i felt soo relieved. Not that it gave me any answers or anything , but just the assurance that i am not the only person who is going through this paranoia :) And as usual when i like something which hits me really strong, i share it with everyone who can appreciate the worth of the thought. And when i shared it with some of my friends, i realized all of them felt the same as i did, just that the extent of realization varied from one person to the other. The talk with that acquaintance and the article she shared with me, made me realize that all of us are stuck at the exact same phase in life, its up to us to make decisions to bring out clarity in our lives. What we choose to do from the point of realization of this confusion to the point of clarity is up to us. Well i think i ve made up my mind on the point of clarity i need to achieve, it all depends on whether i successfully get there or not :) Now i am actually loving the confusion i am in, cause i know that someday(hopefully :) ) i will be out of it ..but till then the paranoia looms i guess :)
Well i guess this is what life is all about, and all of us are living it right here :)

Adieu to the king

2009-06-26T10:02:00.000-07:00

There are days which start off with such a big bang that you are left in a state of disbeliefe for a really long time.Today was one of such days for me. I was at my gym this morning and i couldn help notice that they were playing all of MJs hits back to back.Refreshing as it was with comparision to the boring collection they usually play, what i realised next was not even close to refreshing. My TV screen was blaring with FLASH NEWS in red, saying 'Micheal Jackson dead'.
When i read that i really thought it was some practical joke someone was playing...How could MJ possibly die??? He had a series of concerts lined up in London come July and there was soo much happening around his soo called 'comeback tour' that i really was in a state of denial.

I didn really understand why i was soo bumped down by hearing this news or seeing it in front of me.Whenever MJs name scrolled on the screen i would remember the time when i was a little kid.The times when i used to listen to MJ croon from the cassettes my brother recorded of his when he came down from his hostel during his vacation. It reminded me of the times when i was the kid who secretly watched MTV hoping to see some MJ videos and practice his dance moves.His moonwalk, his amazing high pitch voice, the bizzare 'aaooow' all of those came running back to my head.I realised that it wasn the present 'me' who was mourning, but it was that part of me which was that little kid who grew up listening to MJ s music, watching his videos,secretly trying his dance moves.I just realised i was 'that kid'. I just realised i went back to that part of my childhood which i hadn thought of in a really long time.

The King of Pop as he was popularly called, and i think he truly deserves it.I mean he brought to the entertainment industry across the globe what possible no individual could ever bring.He propelled the sensational 'break dance' to this world in his music videos and performances.He must have influenced thousands(or probably many many more in count) of young people to get into dancing, influencing his dance in their everyday life, inspiring people to choreography.His contribution to just inspiring young people around to get into music and dance is way above than something that can get measured.His high pitch voice, the mix of different styles of music in his songs brought the freshness and attraction that people craved for.And even till this day am sure if anyone of us hears his 'Thriller' you would want to just get up and dance.He has some excellent scores which will forever remain classics in my(our) minds.
He may not have been the best of the person he was in his personal life, but what he gave to his audience and fans was truly extraordinary. He is a legend and will be remembered for many many years from now.
I really wished i could see him perform live in India before i could die, but..... this was the closest i could get to this legend.

He is one of those whom you could love, you could hate but you couldn just ignore.To pick one of my favourites would definetly be hard.Though i liked his older songs when he looked 'himself'...'Beat It','Thriller' and the rest...But 'Thriller' was this one video which spooked me up when i first saw it, but as i watched it again and again i fell in love with it.Another one to mention here would be 'Heal the world', that song had the healing touch with his soothing,balanced voice which actually makes the listener want to believe that he can make his world a better place to live in.

I d like to end this post with one of his songs.

" Do You Remember The Time
When We Fell In Love
Do You Remember The Time
When We First Met
Do You Remember The Time
When We Fell In Love
Do You Remember The Time"

We will always remember you.You will be missed
R.I.P

Its not about the bike- Lance Armstrong

2009-05-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

Taking a complete 360 degree turn from my last read is the first of the autobiographies of Lance Armstrong. It is the first autobiography that i have successfully been able to finish reading and it deserves credit for it :)

Its a very soulful description of how Lance Armstrong goes in and out of his battle with testicular cancer.Being a victim of something as deadly as cancer is harsh enough for a normal person, but the whole journey of this through the eyes of an international athlete for whom his/her body has to be perfect composure is even more painful.

It starts of with one of the very striking elements of the book.Lance's relationship with his mother.He shares a very kind and a highly understanding relationship with his single and struggling mother.The series of descriptions that Lance provides on his mother gives you an insight of where the root of Lance's strength comes from- his Mother. It talks about his journey from being a local hero to breaking international borders and venturing into the tougher cycling worlds of Europe and fighting through the vicious grips of cancer.

Its a great book to understand what passion is all about.

He talks purely about his passion and describes the art of being a cyclist in a very retrospectal way.Honestly i must admit that i am no sports fan and the only thing i knew about Lance Armstrong was that he was a 'stud' when it came to Tour de France...but what it takes to be there and win it...came to my understanding after reading the book.I thoroughly respect him for being the professional that he is and he truly deserves every victory that has come by his way professionally.The way he talks about his practice sessions..his struggle through the total understanding of the competitive world around him is quite an int resting read.He doesn care to hide the fact that he was/is an arrogant person but i think that's what made him what he is now.

The other aspect of the book is his fight through Cancer and how he is determined to fight it out because he wants to 'ride' again.The book is very well compartmentalised to describe the various stages of cancer he goes through and in each chapter he describes each element earnestly.He has one chapter on chemo...one on survivorship...all are worth reading through Lance's eyes.After surviving testicular cancer he goes on to be a father.This is such an important thing for him especially since he doesn have a strong fatherly figure himself and he badly wants to complete the void by being one for his own kid.

After reading the book the only complaint i have is the title of the book...I think 'Its not about the Bike' is a little hypocritical if i must say....i think the whole book was about the bike and about whether or not he would be able to ride it again.Lance always says in his book that amongst the 2 most important things (fighting cancer v/s being able to ride again) he would have chosen to fight cancer but honestly i think both of them were kind of symbiotic for him....he fought cancer as he was determined to ride a bike...and he wanted to get back to riding as he was determined to fight cancer off..

Another observation i would like to make after reading this book is that Lance is extremely lucky as an individual to have had the people he had around him.Be it his mother, his closest friends, his team mates, his manager Bill, his then wife Kik.I mean he wouldn have had even half as strength as he had without such a rock solid support system around him.

The book is also quite an eye opener on human nature...it gives us such a beautiful insight on how it its to be a struggling single mother who successfully provides all the necessities to his son, its about how it is to be a victim and survivor of cancer, its about how receptive people are to the world of cancer, how it is to be a supportive friend and guide (his manager Bill) to an athlete who just comes out of cancer desperate to meet his financial crisis and get back to riding in note-worthy competitions again when the cycling world has lost hopes on what Lance is all about, its about being a totally patient and thoroughly understanding wife who supports the athlete to do whatever it takes to get his dream back-even if it means leading a spineless nomadic life...

Its a book describing how hard it is to be Lance Armstrong -the cyclist, Lance Armstrong -the cancer victim(i hate to use the term cancer patient) and the Lance Armstrong-determined to punch the face of people who called his career an end after cancer.I think whats most commendable of his insights is that the book never begs for the reader's pity...Its just talking about Lance without giving you a chance to opine...as a reader you just want to know what happens next in Lance's life (and i think its a great factor in making this autobiography such a hit).Another element which makes this a good read is that you never feel very pained reading this as an autobiography...Its very realistic description of what Lance goes through and in all the cases it doesn hide the basic arrogant nature of Lance as a professional and also as an individual.

As always i have my favourites from the book.

There are 2 things i totally loved which Lance writes-

1) He says that people talk about living life like there is no tomorrow when you know your fighting a lethal disease.But he totally rubbishes this theory as something which is made for narrow minded people.He gives a very int resting description of how selfish life would be if you were to live each day as though its your last day.

2)One of the last few lines in his book totally appealed to me- He says that 'I did not beat cancer, the medicines did..the chemo did..the efforts of his doctors did...I just survived the cancer'..it takes a lot to think this way and pen it down too..

It a book on survivorship,on will power, on being hopeful that every dark cloud does have a silver lining after all.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid - so juvenile...so fiction :)

2009-05-12T09:42:00.000-07:00

These past few weeks have been glorious as a reader for me...Everything i laid my eyes on turned out to be gold and such joyous reads that am happy that my strike rate with reading has gotten back to being usual...the best part about being a reader is that you get to audience such wide range of ideas and mindsets which i can very definitely say cannot be explored in any other form of media.

The first of such glorious reads of mine was this outrageously funny animated journal of an insensitive and highly annoying kid called 'Greg' which is very aptly titled 'The Diary of a Wimpy Kid'. When i heard the name i thought that its probably one of those 'comic kiddish attempts' but when i took my first look at the cover of the book i knew its gonna be one hell of a laugh riot...and true to my pre-conceived notion it didn disappoint me one bit....or rather it made putting down the book such a daunting task that i can very proudly say i got 'hooked' on to it..

When you google the book down you would see that it falls into a very funny category called 'juvenile fiction' and trust me it very strictly adheres to it. Very fiction and strictly 'Juvenile'.Its a simple journal entry of a self-centered kid called Greg and his everyday portrayal of events as he sees them happen around.He is queer kid who for his age is highly selfish and far far away from being any kind of role model to any kid reading such a book, but the satire and timing in the emotion of this silly kid makes this book such an amazing read that you would like to over-look all his defaced behaviours.He is one of those kids who cares very little for the outcomes of his actions/thoughts and cares lesser for the world around him...all he really cares is about 'HIM'. He is one of those who doesnt care much about emotions that run out of actions.

The whole book is a thoroughly light read...you ca just finish it off in one go..and let me warn you...you will not put it down once you start reading it.I dont want to give out spoilers here but i just cant stop raving about the life Greg lives.There are some magically funny incidents of how hard it is to 'grow up' when you are just a kid :) Here its about how Greg goes through middle school with its share of challenges...to be cool,to be popular,to be noticeable..He has a side kick for a friend called 'Rowley' who is quite a normal kid but Greg doesn actually deserve anybody better for a friend.He doesn really care much for Rowley as long as he is occupied being around him...be it the Halloween party or the time when he doesn stand up for "Rowley's" mistaken identity which costs him his friendship with Rowley...There are some incidents which are a laugh riot like the comic strip competition where he and Rowley start of initially together but Greg is soo engrossed in his 'I am the coolest person and my idea's are the best' arrogance that he gives up on his idea -'Zoo wee mama' , which eventually becomes an instant hit in the school magazine...But my favourite journal entry is the one in which Greg secretly wishes for a Barbie dream house and he gets a Barbie doll from his equally queer uncle which gets his parents get into a nervous wreck....:)

Whats the single most commendable element of such a book is that it describes everyday affairs of a kid in such a humorous way with such brilliant illustrations that it leaves you wishing you had read it while you were growing up like Greg.There are some books which if you read while you are a kid instills the love for reading and am sure if i were a kid and read this i would have also felt the urge to continue reading from books.I distinctly remember my first concrete book that got me into the habit of reading...It was called 'The Kid who ran for the President' and after i completed the book i realised what a joy it is to just simply read. :)

So kudos to the author Jeff Kenney (who has been nominated as one of the 100 most influential people by TIME magazine) to be able to put together the juvenile thoughts in such a highly respectable cartoon format...Am just waiting when i can laymy hands on the next 3 books :)

The curious case of Benjamin Button

2009-02-28T09:33:00.000-08:00

Its been a real long time since i ve watched an intresting Biogrophical english movie....:)

So after a really long hiatus from good english movie watching..here comes the saviour 'The Curious case of Benjamin Button'....It was an amazing movie...judging by the fact that i was silent most of the times while watching it at the cinemas :)...concentrating on every frame of the movie...The true winner of the movie is definetly the curiosity element if the story.Its a story about this child born in an unsual circumstance-he s born old and grows younger.After every scene there is this curiosity woven on how would Benjamin look or what would Benjamin do next? Its just amazing how cinema and art can define and redefine creative and artistic boundaries and pull out a story which is soo definetly improbable yet soo well weaved and blended.Brilliant make up and some extraordinary performances define the 13 Oscar nominations worthiness of this movie.Some really soulful moments on how to look at life .I think one amazing dialogue of the movie that really hit me hard was "You have to lose people in your life to realise how much you love them"- ....or that beatiful scene where Benjamin takes his dad to the pier to show him the horizon and helps him "let go" of his guilt...These are the moments that define the sheer brilliance of this movie.Its not about any particular character that blends this movie soo well its more about the plot and the after thought you get while seeing the movie.

Imagine putting yourself in the shoes of Benjamin Button and living life in the reverse..growing young by the day..turning the clock backwards.Its such a scary thing!!!!!Growing young!!!!...imagine growing younger without fighting with your siblings for candies..but instead....worrying about arthiritis....!!!!!yikes...its just too weird...

But this movie deserves to be respected for its creativity and thought put into the script , and its potrayal of life and death in such a brilliant and meaningful way.It gives you soo much food for thought over how one makes the journey and how one meets his destination.

Courage v/s Motherhood...this is what Surrogacy is all about

2009-01-04T06:08:00.000-08:00

I was just reading an article on surrogacy in Sunday Times today which made me think.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Surrogacy_stays_within_the_great_Indian_family/rssarticleshow/3932684.cms

Motherhood is such an important phase of a woman's life.Every woman dreams of this miracle to happen to her at some point in her life.The gift of life being passed on is something inexplainable.The patience to go through pain and joy for a good 9 months is something soo hard to think of .
And then for women who are in-conceivable it must be a real hell to imagine that they cannot enjoy the gift every woman has in her. The pain to realise that you cannot have a biological child by yourself. Am sure its soo much of a void for such a woman, emotionally and psychologically hard for her to accept that she is incapable of having a biological child of her own.And then in the times of such desperation to have surrogacy into consideration is such a brave act.As far as i am aware, Surrogacy could mean sharing your womb , giving birth to a child whom you are going to relinquish to a childless couple.And i also know that there are different types of surrogacy.Where the biological mother becomes a surrogate to relinquish her child to someone else or could be a woman who gives birth to a child using IVF (conceiving through the eggs/sperms of donors). This practice has been quite controversial around the world and there are no clear legal rules applying around surrogacy, but i am not intending to go there.

The article that i read today made me realise that it takes a lot of courage for both the childless couple and the surrogate to get into this partnership(sorry for the use of such a word). For the couple its more of an acceptance issue-that the child was not biologically theirs...their genetic lineage going haphazard and the issues related to identity of the child.It takes a lot of courage to look beyond this road-block for a couple and accept their child with all their love.Its truly respectable to break the social norms related to a child's biological identity and fingerprint and open doors to a wider perspective.And for the surrogate mother to go through the ritual of motherhood, shower all the care and kindness over a child she wont be able to call her own, is again courage defined at a different level.Yet again the reasons for entering surrogacy could be anything from helping a family member to monetary reasons.But whatever they may be , it takes a lot of will power and determination to give away a child you nurtured for soo long.To fight this conflict needs a lot of emotional and physical strength.

Whether people around the world or rather the section which we term 'society' accepts surrogacy, attempts to make it legitimate or not, i really salute the 2 parties who go forward into this act.Especially the surrogate mother who breaks the barriers surrounding her to bring joy and hope into the barren life of a childless couple.Ultimately it all boils down to will power and sheer courage to get into surrogacy.

Personally i don't think i will have the courage to go through a surrogate to bring up a child of mine(if it might be a case for me) but definitely appreciate couples who choose this.

'Not-Comfortably' Numb

2008-11-29T09:15:00.000-08:00

All of us come face to face with different emotions...Some easy to handle some really hard to describe..I am writing about one such emotion i am going through right now which is so strong that it hasn't left me from the past couple of days...And that is the feeling of being 'numb'... Feeling a sense of hollowness and numbness after following all that s happening in our nation,our city, our Mumbai.

I have never been to Mumbai before...never really had the chance to travel...but honestly i have never felt closer to Mumbai than now. After seeing what literally is 'War in Mumbai', following it for 4 days in and out...i feel like i am in Mumbai though am far far far away from it. I ve never followed an act of terrorism soo closely like how i have done in the past 4 days.My God 4 days is such a long time...4 days of gun-fire...4 days of innocent killings...4 days of bloodshed...4 days of anxiety(for the loved ones)...4 days of ghastly activity...charring lives...monuments....and most importantly memories...
I have always read about terrorism...heard about it on television...watched it being faked on movies in terms of entertainment...but never really watched it closely to feel the pain that goes through it....

My first real encounter with the after-effects of such gruesome acts was during Sept 11th this year when i was travelling from New York to my New Jersey office..I could see people paying homage to the victims...crying for the loss of their innocent loved ones...saw the angry slogans of organisations against the brutality...the least i could do then was feel sorry and count my blessings that such an act of terror will never happen to us in future...

Well i guess i was wrong then- while i see the gruesome acts on Mumbai...devastating our financial captial...bringing it down to its knees for 4 days...makes me realise that terrorism is indeed a world-wide phenomena...anybody could be a victim of it...even as i write maybe somewhere my fate is being cornered...or maybe not...We ve all played games when we were kids...i wish i can play games with God today...wish for an Aladdin lamp...rub a genie out of it...ask for just '1' wish....to take these 4 days back in history...make it such that these 4 days never happened in our lives...get all the innocent victims back to life...bring our brave martyrs back to life...

It was soo horrifying to watch all that happened these couple of days...to watch people being killed indiscriminately..being a hostage to a carnage they dont deserve to be a part of...losing their valuable lives in a way they dont deserve to...The impact on their kin is soo strong...that i feel soo small in comparison to the people who braved it out of the act..I definetely cant say that i can feel what it would be like going through an event so horrendous...but i can definetely say that i could feel the horror...the pain(of a spectator to this event) and more importantly feel the anger boil through me....the anger on how can one value life so little and create such a massacre...
Day 1(or rather Night 1 , the 26th)- i thought it would just be something like the previous few attacks on the city which will not have a huge impact
Day 2(27 th) I read , i see , i hear the terror unfold...hear about the loss of the 3 high end cops being shot point-blank during the attack...feel horrified at the turn of events..I really wished i could have visited the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai before all this happened...wished i had seen how it is to be in a crowded CST station...wished i had seen what the place Nariman Point is all about..wished this terror would stop

Day 3(28 th) I feel totally numb...unable to concentrate at work...unable to keep my eyes of the browser opened onto the latest news...hoping..praying..wishing the carnage has come to an end...
Day 4(29th)numbness continues but with a sigh that the people responsible to this act have perished and met a similar death like those whom they had victimised.I just wish they got tortured before meeting their death.

I knew i could do very little to what was happening in Mumbai but very strangely following news,reading about the incident by the minute, listening to interviews about hostages who managed to escape free,listening to the brave acts of the employees of the Hotels(Taj and Oberoi) and constantly keeping myself learned about the situation was like my contribution to protest and detest such an act.I wish i could do more...but am glad i could pray with the entire nation and stand united.

The Prestige

2008-05-20T08:04:00.000-07:00

Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts.

The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't.

The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back.

That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige".

There are some movies which you can watch many times and each time you do, you notice something new and appreciate the movie one notch more. Prestige is one of those kinds for me. Each time I see it I realize I missed out on something , and this realization keeps me grounded on to every scene as though I am seeing it for the first time.

The first time I watched it, I was at the edge of my seat trying to follow the superb plot.

The next time I watched it, I knew the plot well but while I was running the plot in my head, I realized how fine and extra ordinary the performances given by each actor were. Like, when you watch closely you realize the difference in acting of the 2 ‘different’ characters portrayed by Christan Bale which is a brilliant feat. But what really tricks the audience into not noticing these finer and significant things in this movie is the magic of the movie itself-its plot. Its got its pledge, turn and prestige in the right places and happening at the right time. Being the complex movie that it is, the execution of the movie is soo good that you don’t feel lost between characters, situations, time and the performances.

Set in the nineteenth century in London when the magicians formed the crux of the entertainment industry. Its about the 2 central characters-

One a maverick(Alfred Borden)- who wants to break free from the traditional reams of the magic world and try tricks which are never tried, one who doesn’t shy away from experimenting on his ideas. The other a quintessential go-getter (Robert Robert) who wants to play dirty after he loses his wife in the middle of a magic act gone horribly wrong due to Alfred.

The entire movie is the never ending war between these 2 characters to prove their vengeance on each other, to prove the better magician in each of them, the self sacrifices each made to get the other down.

My favorite element of the movie apart from the plot itself is the narrative or the screenplay. Most of the movie is shown from Robert Robert ‘s point of view , but its not one sided though. Justice was done to bring out the good and bad shades in each character without being partial to portray it as how Robert see’s it. It’s generally very difficult a task to achieve something like this when the plot moves back and forth between time and between the prejudices of the characters at that particular point in time. You really can’t point your finger and say- yes I think Robert was right or Alfred was right, the director never gives you a chance to empathize with one particular character at any point in time. You know that each can go any lengths to get better than the other-so no one’s right and no ones wrong. So who then is the protagonist of the entire movie-again it falls down to the brilliant plot.

Good dialogues can really change the movie and this one has quite a number of them. Some of them want you to find out the real trick in the movie but you wont be able to figure it out soon, because you are not watching(or rather hearing) closely ;)

A mention must be made on the superb cast of the movie- Christan Bale is one gem of an actor and portrays the character soo earnestly that not once would you doubt the twin element involved in the entire movie ,till the last 5 minutes when the noose is let free .Hugh Jackman is superb in his quest to put Alfred down and take revenge and be proven as the better magician amongst the two. I would probably call this character foolish but without him the movie wouldn be any exciting as it turns out to be.

Enjoying this movie really boils down to this – ‘Are you watching closely?’ :)

what kind of F.R.I.E.N.D am I?

2008-01-13T21:58:00.001-08:00

Which "Friend" Are You?

My Result: Monica

Mon! You're the normal one, honey, in the best way possible. You're caring, you're responsible, you look to the future—what a gem. Wait a second, did you just start editing for grammar mistakes in the middle of reading your own compliments? Ok, so you like things, well, the way you like them. But even when you're smiling through clenched teeth, waiting for everyone else to get with the program, deep down, you're really still smiling. You're just waiting for that impatient moment to pass.

When it comes right down to it, you are thoughtful, meticulous, and good at what you do. As for romance, you can be a little picky and want things to be just-so. We wouldn't expect anything less. And like the original Monica, if you can avoid rushing into things, you'll find the right match and all the happiness your sweet, finicky, heart deserves.

Take this test >

An evening well spent

2007-12-15T21:48:00.000-08:00

Many Saturday evenings come and go,but how well we spend them is all what it takes to make it a beautiful one.I had one such Saturday evening yesterday.After finishing my last lab exam of my engineering career,little less did i want to get back to my books cause that wasn't the agenda of the evening,at least not for a few days now.
There lay an invite to the Annual Day Celebrations of my brothers company at KTPO for the evening at home,and a little birdie told me there was Shaan performing for the event.And that was enough for me to decide that i had to see Shaan live...yeah a live concert after such a long time.I wanted to go and so did I.
The drive to KTPO was a long 26 kms!!! and who knew the world out there would be so different from the quiet suburbs we live in.All along the way we were embraced by the thriving real estate industry.KTPO was a huge place,I think KTPO is the single biggest closed stadium housed in Bangalore.
Well the Celebrations were good,all the preparations taken by the participants to put up their piece of entertainment was worth watching and appreciating,cause it was the employees of the company who graced the entire evening.Reminded me of my School Day celebrations when we would take an entire week off to prepare our piece of dance or skit with such great fervor,that the excitement dies only after the performance is over and appreciated.Anyways the evening was at its best with Mandira Bedi and Roshan Abbas trying their best to MC the event in sync.After the entire grand setup of the evening i kept trying to calculate how big the company is right now considering it was started some 30 odd years back,its shares doing consistently well in the market,the company acquiring such prestigious projects in the country and overseas.I kept wondering how rich the CEO of this company is right now and how he must be to be listed as one of who's who in the richest people in India, to win the Economic Times CEO of the year award.Wishing i could have been directly a part of his lineage,to be able to enjoy in first hand all the grand and warmth and luxury and success of such an amazing entrepreneur.I kept wondering how such a person would be in real life.
When he was called on stage to give away the awards for the evening.I was taken aback.I mean many a times you think of a particular person or situation in your own way and expect it to be the same in reality,but when you actually face the reality you are so stumbled and realize how wrong you were.
I kept thinking ill see the CEO as a man clad in a thick black suit,a tie with a commanding stride after all thats what we believe successful,rich people have in them.But to my surprise onto the stage came this simple attired man,with such a humble walk,like any ordinary individual.And when he spoke he didn't once use the word 'I', he always addressed as a 'WE' and spoke only about his team of Executives and in fact called them onto the stage to give away the awards along with him.This humility which i saw in this man made me think,made me feel small and also realize what great,successful people are made of.If you recollect you realize achievers are those who are humble,be it Kiran Bedi,Ramachandra Guha,Sudha Murthy all of them have it in them and thats what makes them all soo respectable.One lesson learnt i thought
.
Yeah the reason i came for the event finally turned up at 8pm,he was the show-stopper of the evening and one of the very good singers in the Hindi music industry and one of my favorite singers Shaan (Shantanu Mukherjee).Boy-o-Boy did he have a golden voice or what.Singing along,dancing to his tune and listening to him live was such a bliss.

This was followed by a massive dinner,nope i would rather call it a banquet.Cut straight from some story book,this was a huge room filled with food ranging from Italian,Mexican,Chinese right till our very own South Indian "masala dosa" and yeah the best part was it was all Vegetarian.To my surprise one corner of the banquet hall had heaps of fresh fruits being cut and served individually making you feel like a prince/princess.Now thats what u call 'Employee Satisfaction' i thought.Eating such good food and listening to the melodious voice of Shaan was a very nice way to relax.
Now for the second lesson 'Employee Satisfaction'.Never hesitate to spend on people who mean the most to you is what i realized i learned from the entire evening.
Well i came here expecting nothing,and returned back learning a few things from a great entrepreneur...And yes the long drive back home in the middle of the night in top gear was superb too.... :)

Some of my favourite Quotes

2007-10-06T06:12:00.000-07:00

We come across people with various hobbies.Collecting stamps,collecting coins,collecting sweet wrappers,collecting used match sticks blah blah.One of my hobbies over the past few years has been 'Collecting quotes'.You dont need to be a great thinker or a philosopher or a rocket scientist to make sense,sometimes even what a toddler utters out casually can be really thoughtful.Such are my collection of quotes.Gathered from reading,listening to people around and sometimes even dialogues from my favourite movies and tv shows :).I have a huge collection , which is very dear to me,maybe because of the meaning on reading/hearing them or by the meaning i derived when i read/heard them first..My collection of quotes has been my unknown source of strength for quite sometime now.
Nevertheless I have shortlisted a few very interesting ones.Read along and enjoy.

Every crown is made for a head,but not every head for a crown.

-Unknown
(This is the most inspiring quote i ve ever come across and remains my all time favourite)

Dreams are not what you see in sleep.Dreams are those that do not let you sleep.

-Dr.Abdul Kalaam.

Experience is what you get when you dont get what you want.

-Unknown

Conscience is the best friend you can ever hope to get.

-I really dont know whose original words were these but i vividly remember my English lecturer in Puc say these words,these were the only few words that he had ever uttered which made sense to me.

Everything is funny as long as its happening to someone else.

-Unknown

Its better to deserve an honor and not get it,than to get one and not deserve it.

-Mark Twain
(I ve had first hand experience of this in BMS campus,so i would rate this quote really high.)

You dont drown by falling in water, you drown by staying there.

-Edward Louis Cole

It doesn matter if you are the King or the Pawn,in the end,both come back to the same box after the game. - Unknown

Life is not about the number of breaths you take,its the number of moments that take your breath away.

-Dialogue from the movie 'Hitch'
(Its soo strange how true small little sentences like this can be,i loved this quote,loved the movie, love Will Smith !!!!!!!! :) )

Opinions are like watches,everyones watch shows a different time,but everyone believes that their time is correct.

-Unknown,but am sure a lot of you guys will agree with this one.

Never believe that the lines on your hands lead you to your destiny.because even those without hands have a destiny.

-This was an sms forward which i read.Makes a lot of sense.

Love is not love,which alters when it alteration finds.Or bends with the remover to remove.Love alters not with brief hours and weeks,but bears it out even to the edge of doom.

-Being a huge Shakespeare lover,my collection of quotes would be incomplete without his words.

Sholay-The Best Hindi movie i ve ever seen or rather ever made...

2007-08-11T08:08:00.000-07:00

"यह हाथ नही फासी का फंदा है ,यह हाथ हमका देदे ठाकुर "

Pardon me for my delay in watching a movie as great as "Sholay", when i am 20 something...i really regret watching it soo late...regret enjoying such a masterpiece after being made about 3 decades back...not being able to rejoice a 4 hour long beauty in the cinema halls as a youngster(if i could)...regret whistling for those power -packed dialogues....regret not being able to watch it on the 70 mm screen where it truly deserves to be worshipped..... i have fallen in love with this movie..
I feel too small a mortal to give a review on this movie but i definetly want to bring out all the flavors in this movie which made me soo happy watching this bollywood masterpiece...The two characters i terribly (sorry for my adjectives) enjoyed are Thakur-essayed with great elan by Sanjeev Kumar।Watching this movie made me fall in love with Sanjeev Kumar all over again-i loved him from days i watched his movies like Manchali,Silsila and the others of those times.And the other undoubtedly being Gabbar by Amjad Khan..he was worth a watch in his debute...not once did i feel that this might have been his first movie..his first taste of the silverscreen...his slippery dialogues...his boisterous laugh all fit perfectly in this already perfect movie... Believe me i would have watched a zillion spoofs of nearly every scene in this movie before watching it today...i would have seen soo many rip offs of the particular scenes in this movie but while watching the movie-i felt like i was watching every scene for the first time.. like i was feeling every scene for the first time ,every dialogue,every location,every everything...the first time!!!

There are very few Hindi movies which have a realistic effect all throughout...and this is definetely one of those...

*You want to feel the desperation of Thakur to have Gabbar alive..
*You want to feel the pain of Radha..the pain of loosing your husband and his immediate family soon after ones maritial status coming along..
*You want to feel the anger of Veeru when Jai-his best friend through thick and thin is dead..
*You also want to believe that just 2 people(Jai and Veeru) are enough to fight the army of dacoits around them..
*You also want to believe that yes....Thakur can fight against Gabbar with just his legs and his head alone ;)

Thats not all....generally when ur watching a movie your either sympathetic towards hero and his good men or towards the villan and his bad boys ..but this is one movie you would love both the sides...because both of them are brilliant and effortless in their own way...
The script being strong does justice to every character and every situtation shown..
The music feels appropriate- no unnecesary songs to prolong the movie..and the best part of the music is that there is minimalistic background score-which gives the viewer soo much attention and lets him feel the scene till the very end.And also unlike the movies of those days no sounds of "dishoom dishoom":)....
The setting seems perfect for us to picturise the gang of dacoits exploiting Ramgad.....
The part which i loved the most...the only mode of transport shown all throughout being primarily -horses....It was amazing to see every scene being shot with these 4 legged beauties which gives such a realistic feel to this movie...
And also nothing would make this movie as good as it is without the superb dialogues by Javed Akhtar, one of my favourite dialogue from this movie-
" यह रामगढ के आदमी अपने बेटियों को ,कौन चक्की का अता पीसते है रे !!!!!
" Wow what a dialogue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hats off to Ramesh Sippy and his crew for brewing up such a phenomenal movie....It was soo worth the 4 hours i spent on my comp today ...

Honestly i am very apprehensive of watching Ram Gopal Varmas -Sholay...It couldnt have got better than the original..but this chain of thoughts will be another post :)

Parking Troubles

2007-08-04T19:51:00.000-07:00

Ever felt frustrated because of some unkonwn stranger(s),whose lack of common sense affecting you?Someones lack of discipline annoying you?making your life miserable for a while?????
Well i had such an evening yesterday,a cool Saturday evening to venture out for a long drive and do some amount of shopping left me feel so harrowed for around 35 mins-thanks to no parking space.This place -the soo called most well planed suburb of South Bangalore was stinking with overpopulation of cars.Worst then that was the annoying habit of shoppers to park cars on both sides of a narrow road,when parking is only on one side of the road.The lanes being wide enough to allow just 2 average size cars to move simultaneosly at a time..it was an annoying experience to find a place to park my car..And adding to all this are the One-ways on every other road..!!!!
All this leaves one to park their car about 2 kms from where they need to visit,and the whole purpose of driving a vehicle around is lost...

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

2007-08-01T03:40:00.000-07:00

To keep the reviews going..heres the second one.And this is on the latest arrival on the book stands..Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Am sure this book needs no explicit description,this was one of the most awaited books of 2007. J.K.Rowlings 7th and the final baby in the family of the Harry Potter series.

If i were to describe this book in just one word...it would be very easy ,and i would pick the term 'Disappointing'.Well if you are a hardcore Harry Potter fan,one who is blinded by the deeds of this extra-ordinary boy ,one who just wants to know who dies Harry or Voldermoth ,then am sure you would disagree me,but if you are a prolific reader,who is looking for something beyond the packaging strategy used by J.K.Rowling,then am sure u'll readthis article along.

Now why i call it a disappointment is basically for the fact that it had nothing new in terms of contributing to the story .We all knew from the last book(a painstakingly long one i must admit) that Harry was given a mission by Dumbeldore i.e to kill all the remaining Horcruxes.The story just keeps getting dragged from the page one till where Harry reaches the task and also gets to find out one of the vital Horcruxes being he himself.

Another reason why i use the 'D' word for this book is that,there was just one new concept which was brought in the whole book which the reader was never exposed by Rowling(in her previous books),the whole idea of -'The Deathly Hallows',-The Invisibility Cloak,The Resurrection Stone and The Elder Wand ,the combination of all of which will enable one to overpower death.This was a novel twist (Horcruxes v/s Hallows) brought into this seemingly boring story but i felt that Rowling was confused all throught out whether to add this concept as the vital part of the story or leave it just as a myth.She introduces this in the later half of the book,stirs up some curioisity but the whole thing fades off from the reader because she couldnt maintain whether she wanted to add it to the story or not.

The third and the most vital reason why i call the book a let down,is that she takes a lot of liberty in the concept of magic and tries to overuse it,there were times in the book where i felt that she made the book melodramatic to a very great extent.The whole concept of accepting death by Harry which makes 'He-Who -should-not be -named' turn into a purer, rejuvinated soul-looks like a plot picked up straight from some Bollywood movie.Meeting the dead Dumbeldore in the third world and trying to gain answers to unknown questions were some of the liberties which the author took on the readers magical understanding.

Also what put me into serious thinking over Rowlings creativity were the names of Harrys kids...they are called Albus,James and Lily.Its nice that she wanted to hold a connection between the past and the future but i think it was a little over the roof..to use a more colloquial terms-'Bollywoodish ;)'

I would still stick to the fact that its a nice fictional journey created by Rowling which gripped the reading world all together but she should have made the end as good as the beginning itself.We have all lived the life of Harry while reading the book so its fair enough if we were asking for something better.

The Inscrutable Americans - Anurag Mathur

2007-07-17T23:37:00.000-07:00

Dear Brother

“Anyway, I am learning many important things about Americans. Biggest thing is language. It is earlier making many problematics for me ,because like everyone I am thinking Americans are speaking English, but brother it is not English, it is American. I am facing so many embarassings on this reason
Once sitting with good friends, we are making good times. Saying jokes and laughing but when I am also saying good joke, they are saying “Get out of here”. I am going home and not sleeping that night, I am in so much fury. Now I am finding that it is also joke to say that. They are having many such sayings”

Your Brother,

Gopal

Well that’s Gopal(Guh-pal) for all of you…the protagonist of this book .A lad from a village called Jajau –which he calls the Paris of Madhya Pradesh ,comes to the U.S.A to do a diploma in chemical engineering. His life in India centers around his ancestral hair oil factory, as his father describes it-‘they have more hair oil in their veins than blood’. His English is comical to read at first but you cant take his absurd language after a point in the book. His first brush with America through a billboard having a scantly clad model endorsing a product is funny. And from there starts his journey to explore this new country yet strictly believing in his Motherlands strengths when questioned.

This book describes the image an average Indian holds about America through the character of Gopal. His image of America is through his little known knowledge of Archie n Jughead, Deep Throat and Saturday Night Fever, his craving to meet Brooke Sheilds and plans to lure her by sending a lifelong supply of his Jajau made hair oil leaves the reader laughing but it just stops there. His craving to live like an ordinary American guy with a girl to fulfill his carnal pleasures, his brush with racism there, his encounter with different American men and women grows this character from a young innocent lad into a man. He understands of the racial divide there, where the Blacks accept everyone of the darker color as their ally while whites ignoring other colored people. The fight of the natives for jobs which are being lost to foreigners-makes him realize that maybe its not really the land of opportunities afterall.

If you are looking for some really good literature-this book is a complete no no. I would pass it off as average read maybe something u want to pick up on a random day and finish off in a few hours. Honestly this book doesn’t show the readers anything new, it’s the same plot of Indians going to America to try their ways by bending their own.
Such a plot has been quite common for the past few years. Some things described by the author are good. I characters used especially Gopal and Randy to distinctly show the difference in Indian and American ways was done well. Be it in the broken lingo of Gopal or the carefree, typical Yank ways of Randy, these two characters give some hope to the repetitious plot of the book .The other thing I liked about this book apart form its title is how Gopal symbolizes America with 3 things

*Baskets in front of every American Home
*Vegetarian Cats-or Pussies
*And an old woman who has a weird idea about India.

So let me end this in Anurag Mathur’s style with what Gopal has to do with America

“Seeing the world and things like that, making me broader before settling down to do business”

Shrav says

2007-07-17T23:33:00.000-07:00

In my attempt to keep this blog going,i ve decided to start off this section where i will review the books and movies i have read of latest.So read along

Leaving you breathless?????

2007-06-20T03:30:00.000-07:00

“Life is not the number of breaths we take…
It’s the number of moments that take our breath away…”

Wondering who said this?
Will Smith !!! This was his first few dialogues from the movie Hitch and one of my favourites too. True to these words everyone of us would have had an incident or experience which made us breathless and taught us something new. I am going to share one such experience here.

It was in the summer of 1996 that our family was on an extended holiday to the capital city, Delhi. I was especially very enthusiastic about this particular one bcoz it meant 25 days of fun, frolic ,traveling ,visiting new places and offcourse shopping!!!!!!!!! And a visit to one of those places is something which I’ll remember for a long long time-It was the visit to the Taj Mahal.
It was the usual sultry summer morning of Agra, the temperatures souring high. Our taxi took us till the entrance gate. There I saw vendors selling artifacts of different sizes of the Taj to the colorfully dressed foreigners. Each one of them deciding on which one to buy and which part of their homes it will adorn. We had to walk a good 10 mins on the lawn to reach in close proximity or even get a sneak peak of the Taj.
It was during this walk that I wondered-
“What is so great in this huge white TOMB that makes millions of people from various parts of the world visit it?”
“What is so great in this MONUMENT that makes it different from any other historical monument in India?”
“What is so great in it that it is one of the 7 WONDERS of the world??”

One turn to my right ,I got a glimpse of this beauty and needless to say i got all my answers. All the discomfort with the weather, with the walk on the lawn went away and all that ran in my mind was “THIS IS DEFINETLY WORTH IT”.
I was awestruck by its sheer beauty.
It was something so magnificient, yet so peaceful
Something so serene yet so full of love.
I still remember the walk through the gardens leading to the monument as being one of the most colorful moments I had as a child. There was a buzz of activity by the visitors around. People trying to take a snap of their loved ones with the Taj but none of it could take away the feeling of immense peace one seeks on being there. The first step I laid on this marble beauty gave me this eerie feeling which I will never forget.
As a kid I had read a lot, seen pictures of the Taj, watched it on television but being there in front of it was definitely something else.

Now that was 11years back, whenever I recollect those moments ,I realize what I ve learned from it…
“Expression of a feeling is as important as the feeling itself”
All of us know Shahjahan loved his queen Mumtaz but what made his love soo unique and stand out from the rest?It was the form of expression he used to potray his love.
Now a lot of people would call this materialistic, waste of money, labor and time-but if it was not for all that then we would nt have the Taj Mahal with us right now.
So all I mean to say is that be it any feeling-love, hatred ,joy ,anxiety ,animosity ,pride-we all should learn to express it in our own way and only then can we enjoy the finer moments of our lives

Ahemmm...getting started:)

2007-06-19T21:25:00.000-07:00

Well i always wanted to start my blog but never really made an attempt to start off- since August 2006.But here am i trying to do some good now:)

Am not used to writing stuff and showing it to people around cause all the stuff i write were for myself.But it was the enthusiastic writer in a friend of mine that sparked off the interest to start my blog.So i just need time to get started off in full swing now.