Whispering Wind

G - R -A -T-I -T -U -D -E

2011-07-18T03:40:00.001+05:30

"The secret to happiness is reflection and gratitude..."

When I had started off on a journey two years ago, I was excited, full of enthusiasm, full of life. A whole new world awaited me when I left my country for the first time. It was a whole new challenge, the time had come to take control of my own life... to become what I had always sought to be... and to break free and feel the pleasures in this world...

But not soon enough, life got back at me. I got sucked into the 'system' - the very 'system' that I was trying to break free from. Yes, I had achieved most of the short term goals I had set for myself, but there was (and still there is) something missing. Patience is one thing that I had always lacked in my life, but I am amazed at how patient I have been in the past few years. But with a lot of patience comes frustration, and frustration eventually leads to sadness. It is very easy for a person to give up, be disheartened and eventually compromise in life when things are not going the way they want them to. I want to avoid this... and I stumbled upon a site which I think would eventually help me with it.

365grateful began as a personal quest, but soon it has thousands of followers. Here is a video for what 365 grateful is all about:

365grateful.com from hailey bartholomew on Vimeo.

It is very easy to complain every time about whats wrong in your life. But why can't we take a moment and look at all the good things in our life? Even small things - Like having a healthy life, getting access to good education, food, having wonderful parents, etc. Thousands of people in this world do not have the little things that we generally take it for granted. My friend had been telling me about this for a long time. Finally, I think she was able to crack open my head and put those thoughts in my brain. And I am realizing that things could be much worse, and seeing things that I am really grateful for.

I really do want to do the 365 grateful project. Its not very difficult, you have to think about one thing that you are grateful for everyday for one year, and maybe write it down in a journal, make a blog, write it on post its, make a scrap-book, take pictures, etc. I haven't thought of my project yet. I was thinking of starting the project on my birthday, but I still haven't started it. Maybe, its time to stop procrastinating and start doing it.

Please visit the website: http://www.365grateful.com/

2010-10-01T01:52:00.000+05:30

Another one bites the dust !!

Life and its funny ways...

2010-09-23T10:09:00.002+05:30

One moment, it tickles you... makes you laugh your heart out...

And the very next moment, it kicks you so hard in between your legs... and you suffer from so much pain that you forget that you were laughing a few moments ago...

Life is funny... Life is cruel...

....

2010-07-02T09:28:00.001+05:30

Whatever you do in life will be insignificant, but it's very important that you do it 'cause nobody else will. Like when someone comes into your life and half of you says: "You're nowhere near ready". And the other half says: "Make her yours forever"....

...

2010-06-22T10:27:00.001+05:30

The question is... How much am I willing to give ?

Only time will tell...

Just a thought...

2009-11-02T07:03:00.003+05:30

It all started with the Oscar award winning movie "The slumdog millionaire"....
Mr. Benjamin Franklin was noticed (maybe) for the first time around the world as he was the face on a $100 bill...

and then for me, the Gandhis were replaced by the American presidents in my wallet...

A thought just crossed my mind... what if there was a proposal to have the faces of past Indian Prime ministers on the rupee notes? There would had been another riot on the scale of 1992 for sure, if not more...

Our very own Mr. M.K. Gandhi would have been found on Re. 1 note (as George Washington is found on a $1 bill)... and then the other Gandhis (Mrs. I Gandhi and Mr R Gandhi) would have taken over the Rs. 100 and Rs. 500 notes... BJP/RSS would have stormed the assembly and rioted on the streets of the Indian cities... Congress would have come into negotiations (under the table kinds) and would have agreed to have Mr. Vajpayee be the face on the Rs. 500 note...

Mr. Nehru will get Rs.100, Mr. R Gandhi will get Rs.50, and then Mrs Gandhi would get a promotion to Rs. 1000 (the new note)... Notes of new denominations would be printed out to accomodate the other past PMs...

Ironically, our very own beloved Mahatma Gandhi (on the Re 1 note) will get phased out, along with his principles...

Damn!! The amount of free time that I have :P

Just another weekend...

2009-11-02T06:22:00.003+05:30

Wow!! It seems like it has been ages since I have blogged...

A lot has changed in the past few months since I have come to U S of A... everything is big in Texas, as they say... and so here I am dreaming big !!

I started last evening itself, and suddenly was bitten by the camera fever... since 7.30 pm, I was busy ogling at the black beauties on the internet... they had the most confusing of all the names, like D90, D40, 450D, 500D, Rebel XTi, and all... the most awesome camera search I had ever done...

mmm.. I just can't wait to lay my hands on them... I have really fallen in love after a loooooong long time :)

I wanted to cook chicken and I started googling for "Chicken Masala", but then I stumbled across a certain Chicken Marsala... seemed delicious and pretty easy to make too...

So a few dollars of shopping with Sid and we were ready on sunday morning cooking, in what turned out to be, the most delicious dish we had cooked since we had come to USA... mmmmm... the most juiciest of chicken breasts in marsala-mushroom sauce along with sausages in barbeque sauce... what was missing was a few cans of beer and pasta... but there is always the next time...

And here the weekend came and went away... and we have an exam coming up in a couple of days... just paid a little "hello" to my page as I had nothing else to do anyways ;)

ciao!!

A second chance...

2009-06-07T23:46:00.002+05:30

I wanted to express a plethora of emotions over the past couple of months... But I just could'nt...

It had been a long past couple of years or so... The long years in which I really found myself, or at least thats what I think... As what my friend said, it was the rebuilding phase of my life... to try and get my life back from the shambles of failed relationship and a career that had promised so much and had doomed... I had let myself down, and I have no one else but myself to blame for it...

But I moved on, or at least I have made genuine attempts to move on and I am happy I am fairly successful in it... The quarter life crisis, as they say, is not so easy to get over... The moment you begin to question your own ability, the alarm bells should start ringing... But now that phase I feel is behind me... my life is all sorted out... I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, as they say it...

But...

The one hurdle remains...

It all comes down to what I converse in those few seconds with the person from across the glass screen... all these months of hardship, patience and frustration and moments of hopelessness and depression that I have faced for that elusive second chance to redeem my life have come down to a few seconds...

I have full faith in Him... everybody deserves a second chance in life... and I know I will get mine... I have to...

Failure is not an option...

Drooling over Kolhapuri Mutton...

2009-04-14T13:09:00.004+05:30

Its been months since I am drooling over Kolhapuri Mutton and pandhra rassa (white curry).
I remember the first and the only time I had tasted the pandhra rassa was when I was at Kharghar, working at ACTREC. The dabba-waali maushi was supposed to go back to her native place, and before she left, she made some super spicy Kolhapuri mutton sukka and pandhra rassa... That was more than a year ago, and ever since I have been searching each and every maharashtrian restaurants I visit for this pandhra rassa...
Finally, I had made up my mind to go to Kolhapur itself and stay there for a few days and have this rassa day in and out... But decided to search a bit on the internet before leaving...
So an intensive search over the internet and I finally found the recipe i was looking for...
So the next Sunday I am home, I am definitely going to try and cook this delicacy and satiate my taste buds that are lusting for some Kolhapuri mutton... yummmmmmmm !!! :D

(The above photograph is taken from the link below)

Here are the links:

http://khaugiri.blogspot.com/2009/03/tambda-rassa-red-mutton-curry.html

http://khaugiri.blogspot.com/2009/03/pandhra-rassa-white-mutton-curry.html

Actually, this entire blog is full of delicious Maharashtrian recipes, some sort of a boon for beginners like me... Thank you buddy for your wonderful blogs...

The disappearance of a friend..

2009-04-13T12:08:00.003+05:30

It was 9 am... I am out of my bed; another lazy Sunday lay ahead of me...
I made myself some tea, and I stood at the window... the April morning Sun shone straight on my face, the rays finding their way through the dense foliage in front of me... I was lucky today that I felt the morning rays, as the trees that have grown taller than my building usually end up cutting off the Sun...

Oh.. and then comes my feathered buddy... he hops from one branch to another, as he cannot fly, and lands on my window sill... I can't tell how glad I am to see him everyday... but this time, I am really missing someone a lot... someone whom I eagerly await, through the whole of monsoon and the Winter seasons... Come March and he used to arrive, with a shrill call... and me as a child used to jump out of bed and run towards the window and try and search for him... to catch just one elusive glimpse of him...

He had never failed in showing up through all these years.. I tried hard, and over the years I managed to learn his language, not literally, but phonetically... And I loved to play with him, tease him, frustrate him with my replies... till he was fed up and he conveyed the same to me with the tone that I could never match... But this time its different... Like a fool, I let out a call out of my window... or when I am walking on the street... people look at me in amusement, sometimes they think its his call... But I think I have mad him angry... sometimes I go too far ahead in teasing someone, but I swear I will stop it, if only you show up this one last time before I fly away across the oceans...
And I hope you will miss me then, this human letting out the cuckoo call....

O blithe newcomer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice:
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?

While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear;
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off and near.

Though babbling only to the vale
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery;

The same whom in my schoolboy days
I listened to; that Cry
Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still longed for, never seen!

And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.

O blessed birth! the earth we pace
Again appears to be
An unsubstantial, fairy place,
That is fit home for Thee!

-- William Wordsworth

The Skeleton Woman

2009-04-11T17:26:00.003+05:30

"If I could start my life again, I would begin by changing my profession. I would rather live on a full stomach and an empty mind. Perhaps as a fisherman...."

This was the tag line of the new play that hit the theatres a few weeks back. I am a great fan of Anuraag Kashyap, and that he had produced this play, I thought I should give it a try. And of course, it had his girl friend Kalki (The "Chanda" from Dev-D) acting in it...

Being light on my pocket (Rs. 80/-), I was happy to go for this show without keeping any expectation... The story is an adaptation of an Inuit folktale of the fishermen from the north, and tells about a fisherman turned writer, who is trapped in his own imaginary world and his marriage crumbling all around him.

The play begins, with the writer sitting in a boat which consists of a wooden frame, lost in his own imaginary world, and jolted back to reality by his wife, who is tidying up the place after they have just shifted into the new apartment. Right from the beginning, the rift between the wife and the husband is quite evident, as she is really frustrated with him cause he is unable to complete a single story while she has to work and manage the house by her own...
Later she tries to become a part of his imaginary world.... the fishing trips....the talking goose who gets flushed down the toilet, swims all alone on the sea, and gets trapped in a dark cave in the night.... the paper swans... the beautiful sunset from the boat and the birds flying against the setting sun, who then suddenly turn into flying piranhas and attacking the duo... the shark who swims upto them and grabs her feet...and then the skeletal hand of a woman he found on the sea.... one hilarious scene after another and I am surely having a great time...

She tries to get him back to reality, wants him to complete his novel and tries to make their marriage work... In the end, there is a real twist in the tale which lets you leave the theatre with many questions in your head, questions for which each one of us may have a different answer based on our own interpretation of his imaginations...

Kalki Koechlin has written the play along with her co-actor Prashant Prakash, for which they have won the Metroplus playwright award 2009. Kalki surely has a better presence on stage rather than the big screen, which was quite evident in the way she has acted effortlessly.... and the emotional transitions that she has shown from being lost in his imaginary world, to being an exhasperated wife in the real world were really wonderful... The on stage chemistry between the two is too good and makes you feel that the acting was simply spontaneous...

I got to see Anuraag Kashyap at the theatre... too bad I didnt get a chance to get his autograph :(
But this is a play you should definitely not miss out if you are a theatre fan.

Performances and Playwright: Kalki Koechlin, Prashant Prakash
Director: Nayantara Kotian
Producer: Anuraag Kashyap

The Perfect Daal recipe...

2009-04-07T18:47:00.004+05:30

Its been ages since I have written anything, and now after all this time, I thought about writing on something that is currently going on in my life -- Cooking lessons!! :D

It was way back during the monsoon of 2006 that she had cooked the daal for me... and that was the most amazing daal I had ever had... even better than Bhagat-Tarachand... and now I have mastered the art of cooking that perfect daal recipe after a zillion unsuccessful attempts..
I am just sharing it with you all...

Dal (Serves 6)

Ingredients:

Moong dal: 2 katoris

Ghee

Tomatoes: 2-3

Green chillies

Red chillies (optional)

Garlic: 4-5 cloves

Coriander: handful

Spices: Red chilly powder, turmeric, heeng, jeera, dhaniya powder (optional) [use a small plastic spoon to measure out the spices and salt]

Salt and sugar

Lemon: ½

Procedure:

1. Cook the dal in a cooker (take as much water as amount of dal, add extra water at bottom of cooker). When cooked, mash it up with a ladle.

2. Chop finely: tomatoes, green chillies and coriander. Leave separate from each other.

3. Lightly mash the garlic until it splits.

4. Keep all ingredients ready beside you to put in dal, because if things burn, it tastes awful.

5. Heat a kadhai or aluminium vessel (not steel). When all moisture has evaporated, put in 2 large spoons of ghee (add more or less according to preference; more the ghee, tastier the dal). Things will need to be added as soon as it heats up, and very quickly, so be careful things don’t burn.

6. When ghee is hot, sprinkle a pinch of heeng. If it splutters, ghee is hot enough; if not, wait till it splutters. Then add a pinch of jeera, chopped chillies, and garlic. Stand back, chilly seeds are dangerous in hot ghee; then add jeera and dhaniya powders (opt), half a spoon of turmeric, and 1 spoon of red chilly powder. Stir and quickly add chopped tomatoes and half the chopped coriander. Stir for a few seconds.

7. Add the mashed up dal to this mixture. By now, it should be reddish brown or brownish red. Hold the vessel with a sanshi (pakkad, whatever) and stir everything together. Add water until desired consistency.

8. Now add salt as per preference; usually 2 small spoons should be enough. Add 2 pinches of sugar and stir in.

9. When the dal begins to boil, squeeze in the lemon [take care to avoid seeds falling in] and add the remaining coriander. Serve hot.

For the tadka (optional):

In a ladle, heat 2 spoons of ghee. Add a pinch of jeera, red chillies, and very little red chilly powder. Quickly pour over the hot dal and serve.

The Dream Job...

2008-12-20T13:35:00.003+05:30

After skipping from one job to another, and after fretting over months about what I like to do... Suddenly while watching a TV show, I wondered... why not???

Highway On My Plate... an amazing show on NDTV Goodtimes...

The two hosts, Rocky and Mayur... travel the nook and corner of India... every show.. a new town, new people, new experiences.. and yeah... more and more new varieties of food... and CHEAP FOOD!!

I like travel.. and I love food...I love experimenting with new types of cuisines...
I can eat anywhere, anytime, anyhow....
and what would be more amazing than getting paid for traveling and eating??!! ;)

You can find some more info about the hosts at this website:
http://goodtimes.ndtv.com/lifestyle/GoodTimesAnchorPopUp.aspx?ShowID=7

I hope some NDTV person goes through my blog and consider me as a potential host, if either Rocky or Mayur decide to move on...

(bu SH)OE Attack

2008-12-19T18:48:00.003+05:30

One of the most hilarious thing happened earlier this week, when the outgoing president of the mighty United States of America, George Bush was attacked by an Iraqi journalist at a press conference in Baghdad...
This was his last visit to Iraq...

"This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog," he shouted.

One of the shoes narrowly missed the president's head and slammed into the wall behind him.
Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, tried to block the second with his arm.
Apparently, throwing shoes at somebody is considered as the supreme insult in the Middle East.

After watching the news, I was laughing my heart out..
I remembered a similar incident when I was a school kid in 6th standard. That year, my sister was in 10th, in the same school. On 26th January, which was our Annual day, after the function was over, the chief guest had just finished giving a speech. He said something that was not taken well by the students. I don't quite remember what it was, but mostly he had given the news that there was going to be no holiday on 27th January (27th was given a Holiday as everyone used to attend school for the function on 26th..).
And suddenly it happened... Out of the blues, one chappal came flying from the crowd...
Our chief guest, just like our beloved Bush, had tremendous reflexes.. He ducked and the misile missed him... but it found a different target... our Maths teacher, Mr. Bunder Laj (Name changed to protect his identity :D), smack on his cheeks...

And what happened the next was even hilarious..
The Principal canceled the class picnic of the 10th grade, as it was one of them who had hurled the missile.. Instead, the picnic was held in the school itself, the girls all sat and cooked in our hall, and then everyone cleaned the entire school, swept and mopped the floors of each and every classroom...

I still enjoy teasing my sister with the same... :D

Anyways, coming back to The Bush incident..
A couple of days back I read in the Mumbai mirror that a man in Florida was charged under a new law for throwing a hamburger at her girlfriend, and was sent to prison for one month... It was the first case of the new "Food Attack" Law been enacted..
I guess the first law Mr. Obama might see through is the "Shoe Attack" law... :D

But whatever happens, happens for the good..
Finally Mr. Bush found the "Weapons of Mass Destruction" that he had been searching for !! ;)

Time to go..

2008-12-19T18:23:00.002+05:30

The hair on my head have grown... it looks like a mushroom on my head...

Haven't shaved for 2 weeks... another couple of weeks and I will be a mulla-look-alike ...

I havent taken a bath since 2 days... Since my mom is not at home, there is no one to force me to take a bath... I hate taking a bath... maybe I was a cat in my past life...

And yeah, my body is stinking... badly... so no one dare come near me...

The Neanderthal in me has awoken... he does that all the time...
Its like my body is asking for some *primitive* pleasure, and no, its not sex !! ;)

Its time for me to back my sack soon... The winter trekking season for me has jut begun !!

Indian "Gandhigiri"...

2008-12-11T00:08:00.003+05:30

India's response to terrorism has been a showcase of "Gandhigiri" in the truest sense...

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.... said the Great Mahatma...

In the recent Munnabhai movie, Sanjay dutt was taught - If someone slaps you, offer your other cheek...

Thats exactly what India's government is doing.. If they bomb our one city, we sit quit and offer them another..

But that is just the case of External affairs..

Our Internal affairs is a typical case of "Telgigiri"....

Pakistan - Really a victim of terrorism??

2008-12-10T23:57:00.002+05:30

Pakistan President Mr. Asif Ali Zardari, after the terror attacks defended Pakistan's postion and stated that "Pakistan is itself a victim of terrorism", and that they were committed to fight against it...

I am still wondering...

Is Pakistan really a *Victim* ??

I think Pakistan can be said to be a comprehensive institute for the terrorists... they first learn the THEORY part in Muzzafarabad (Even a waif on the streets of any Indian city know where the terrorist camps are...), and areas of POK...

Then they undergo practical training in those camps...

Then they practice the *Art* that they have learnt, on the Pakistani people... (Its something like those clinical trials conducted for effectiveness before a drug is launched)

And finally, these terrorists perform what they have learnt in where else, but India ...

If Ambanis would had been owning Taj...

2008-12-08T22:04:00.002+05:30

Mr. Tata showed his kindness and compassion towards his fellow citizens by announcing financial help to not only those who had been affected by the attack on Taj, but also to the others affected by the CST, Oberoi, Nariman house, Colaba, Metro, Mazgaon and Vile Parle attacks...

Picture this... If a certain Mr. Ambani would had been owning Taj, what would have happened??

A widow staying in Colaba who had lost her husband in the Taj receives a courier.
It is an outstanding bill for a couple of drinks he had ordered with his business colleague on the night of 26th November 2008 at the Taj....
It also says, "We are sorry for the loss of your husband, hence we are waving off the VAT"...

P.S. Its just a joke, and a thought that came to my mind... to be taken lightly ;)

A Smiley in the sky :)

2008-12-08T21:35:00.002+05:30

I exited the Malad station that evening, frowning... cursing the overweight Gujju ladies blocking my way...
It was a long and tiring day, full of frustration... Had to run in the college from one department to another, to get my paper work done, and in the end it was a complete waste of time and energy, and as Municipal offices work, I had been called again the next day...

All I could think of is hot mom-made ginger tea that would revitalize my senses... Damn these women... Wish I could just shove them off my path and move ahead!!

And out of the corner of my eye, I glanced at the sky... The sun was setting in the distant horizon... beautiful shades of orange intermingled with the pretty azure sky.. And something just caught my eye... There was a typical formation of the celestial bodies up in the sky... The Venus shone brightly, as it always does at dusk... but there was another bright star besides it, and coupled with the crescent moon over the 2 stars, it formed a perfect frowning sad smiley [:(] turned upside down... Duh!! The Gods are teasing me... I blurted and moved on... Oh God!! These ladies... *Shove* followed by *Curses in Gujju language*.... Blahhhh !!!

There is really some magic in mom-made ginger tea... and coupled with TLC (Tender Loving Care), it was the perfect therapy for a certain sulking Mr. Parag Mahale... all freshened up, I decided to go to my fav space, the terrace... N had sms ed me about a peculiar pattern of the stars and moon.. and I thought, yeah I had seen the frowning face already...

And there it was... right in front of my eye, the perfect Celestial Smiley... :)
I stared at it, Smiling.. It felt like I was smiling with God... Good ol' Lord.. some tricks he plays with us Humans eh??

I ran back home, to get my tripod and cam... and captured a series of pictures...
Meanwhile, I got an sms from K asking me to take the pics of the same... and I had already taken 20 shots by then..

It was difficult times for Mumbai, India and the world... terror stricken city was in shock and despair.. While Hindi news channels were calling this to be a "Shani ka prakop" (The Wrath of Saturn) and were calling out priests to pacify the enraged planet, seems like Venus, Jupiter and the Moon had some other plans... they brought a smile back to the faces of the lowly Human species... God surely is crazy !! :)

Its not just about lemon and water...

2008-10-13T18:44:00.002+05:30

I wonder who had discovered... or rather made this drink for the first time...
Nimbu Paani... better known to the westerners as the Lemonade.. I feel its the perfect drink.. Nothing can better a glass full of cold lemonade.. No other drink, not even plain water can be that refreshing on a hot sunny day...

My fascination for lemonade started in childhood primary school days... At those times, the famous brand "Rasna" was in vogue... easy to prepare, all u needed to do was to prepare the concentration once, and then just add cold water and voila !!

Once in 2nd or 3rd grade, I happened to taste a glass of Nimbu Paani my Mom had made for herself... and then I made my mom prepare 3 more glasses of Nimbu paani for me, cause I had never had such a wonderful drink ever in my life... No Rasna flavour was as good as this one for sure..

Then One day I realized that this drink is more than just adding Lemon, water, sugar and salt... Just like any other delicacy, it needs to be prepared with care... each and every ingredient should be in the right concentration... I tried many places near my school, near my society, on the railway station, at my place... from my mom, my sister, my aaji... even at my friends' place... But I never found the right taste I was looking for... No doubt it tasted wonderful and refreshing, but I never had that satisfaction... Until one day, my experiments with the ingredients worked out perfectly :)

One summer vacation in school was spend in such experiments... my afternoons were spent in the kitchen... I used to sit on the chair with the entire kitchen spread all around me, which used to drive my Mom insane... I used to tell her I am working on some top secret experiment... she started believing I am like one of those mad scientists, who were trying to found the secret formula for everlasting youth... Alas, she Didnt know how much more important for me was to find out the perfect recipe for the Nimbu Paani...

And one such morning, I was finally successful... I wasn't in a bath tub or else I would have really ran out of it, completely nude... but would had been shouting "Aai aikla ka"... instead of "Eureka"... My mom tasted it.. she said... "Kharach changla banavla aahe re...", which I later came to know that she said it just for the sake of saying it... but she didnt realize what effect those words had on me... I bought about ten lemons from the roadside baniya, and made up almost 2 litres of the "Perfect" Nimbu Paani, and called up all my friends from the building to have a drink... (That was my very first "Drinks" party with my friends, back in 3rd grade :D)
I used to drink Nimbu Paani like anything, day in and day out... and i never used to drink it from the glass... rather I used to slowly take in small sips with a teaspoon like a baby who is getting spoon fed... I just loved to savour the taste of each and every drop of that refreshing drink... The Nimbu Paani drinking session actually used to last for almost half an hour, watching FunTime - Giant Robot and He Man on Doordarshan :)

Gone are the good old days... But Nimbu Paani still remains the best drink for me... All it requires is the perfect concentration of Cold water, the perfect amount of lemon juice, Sugar and salt, and a little bit of Jaljeera.. and yes plenty of love filled in it by the one who is making it... and voila !! The recipe for Perfect Nimbu Paani is ready :)

The Mumbai Local

2008-08-22T12:21:00.002+05:30

The Mumbai local train... the lifeline of this metropolitan city...
It has been 2 yrs since it was attacked by a bunch of terrorists, and I still remember, I myself along with many other Mumbaikars had traveled through the local train the very next day to show my solidarity, and my love, the bond that I felt with the local train...
Come what may, the trains were there, in every aspect of my life... those late night movie shows at the Regal... that overnight trek... that first proposal and the blooming romance... those exam times and the last minute slogging... those million naps after a tiring day at the hospital.... Its just like a part of my family...

She's like the secret lover... the feelings are mutual, but the words are hard to express...

The other day I read these lines written by a woman commuter about the ladies special she used to travel in daily...

5:46 Andheri Local
==============

In the Women's compartment
of a Bombay local
We seek
No personal epiphanies.

Like metal licked by relentless acetylene
We are welded -
Dreams, disasters
germs, destinies
Flesh and Organza
Odours and Ovaries
A thousand limbed
Million tongued, multi spoused
Kali on wheels.

When I descend
I could choose
To dice carrots
or a lover

I postpone the latter.

-- Anonymous

100 m in 5 secs??? Dream on...

2008-08-22T11:52:00.003+05:30

Like a bolt of lightening, Usain Bolt ran his way into the record books with a double World record breaking 100 and 200 meters win at Beijing... I saw the 100 m sprint, and such was the dominance of the sprinter, that he was celebrating even before he crossed the finish line, and still managed to break the WR and his competitors comprehensively... He is the first person after Carl Lewis did a 100-200 m double way back in 1984...

A 9.69 second run... wow that sounds pretty impressive. I saw an article in TOI the other day, "100 m in 5 secs? - Not impossible", it said... well I think otherwise... yeah many people hold me as being a pessimist... but let me put some facts first...

From the past records that I have gone through, Donald Lippincott held the WR in 1912, and he clocked 10.60 seconds...
It has been almost a century... 96 years to be precise, and the timing for the 100 m sprint has not even been reduced by 1 second!!! Now thats interesting...
Well, we all know about the Theory of evolution... Humna beings are really quick to adapt themselves to the surroundings... but this adaptation has led to us being a slave of machines off late... Technology is being used more and more often to make life as easier as possible for us...
I simply believe that our evolution has stopped and its the evolution of the machines, that has begun... Even for a simple walk for a couple of blocks, the western countries have come up with a machine... Now theres no walking to the grocer and actually buying stuff, it all can be done sitting on a couch at home through internet...

Its not surprising then that the 100 m timing hasnt been reduced even by a single second.. The results that are showing up are due to extensive training (and performance enhancing drugs taken by some) undertaken by the athletes and nothing else... Without evolution, the 5 second barrier seems like a distant impossible dream... Maybe a nuclear war or global warming may change everything...

Spain at it again...

2008-08-12T22:45:00.003+05:30

The following picture appeared as an advertisement for a courier company, which is an official sponsor for the Spanish Olympic Basketball team, in the Spanish sports daily Marca...

The entire Basketball team is seen to part the skins around their eyes, making a Split-eyed gesture, which is so insensitive for the Olympic games... Some people may even considered this as a racist remark. Two snaps had appeared, one each of the Women's and Men's Basketball teams occupying one page each of the daily.

This snap had appeared on the eve of their match against none other than China. This ad further rubbed wound in their salts as Spain beat China 85-75 in a come from behind victory that went to the extra time.

Spain had earlier been involved in similar other controversies, in which Thierry Henry was greeted with Monkey chants in a friendly match at Madrid. Lewis Hamilton was also recently been targeted with racist remarks during the testing at Barcelona.

Its not that I am supportive of China in this cause, considering the human rights violation in Tibet which they were responsible for. But still, since people consider this as Spain's golden year in which they won the Euro, the French and Wimbledon grand slams, The Tour de France, and now the olympic gold in cycling, they should had been more sensitive and tolerant regarding this.

The Guardian reports : "No one involved in the advert appears to have considered it inappropriate nor contemplated the manner in which it could be interpreted in China and elsewhere. No offence was intended by the advert, but whether the Chinese see it that way is a different matter"

Its high time the sportmen and women respect the Olympic tradition and stay away from such controversies.

Fear?? Or Anxiety??

2008-08-12T13:31:00.003+05:30

I had taken this snap during the South Indian festival "Velu Murugan". This festival is characterized by devotees, who had asked "Mannat", pierce their bodies 108 times with hooks.

I look at this picture of a young boy, who was one of the devotees... and time and again, I keep on wondering, whether it is fear showing on his face, which he is trying to hide, or is it plain anxiety.... or is he just flowing with the mood of other people who were kind of acting hyper as if they were "possessed" by the diety ?!

(You can view the entire album at : http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=39680&l=46f23&id=670750758)

...

2008-08-12T13:18:00.002+05:30

These are testing times for me and my friend N... Together we have been through a lot in the past couple of years... We have seen each other through heart breaks, family problems and now facing career issues and a severe identity crisis !! But this too shall pass...

We have done so many crzy things together during the past 1 year or so...
Including the 70 km walk for 21 hours from Vile Parle to Titwala... and the gruelling Cycling expedition from Mumbai to Lonavala without much of a training... There were many times in our trips when we had almost given up, just to push each other just a little more, against all physical boundaries that we had known till now, to achieve our goals in the end...
Looking back now at these trips, we sometimes wonder, "Did we really do it?????".... or "How the heck were we able to do it???? "

Well... I believe, 10-15 yrs down the line when we meet again, we will look back at these testing times that we slogged out together and say... "We did it... Didn't we??"

Love u my buddy... Just hang on ....

Kya aapko K.I.L.B. hai ???

2008-08-08T15:01:00.003+05:30

Nowadays, a new ad is making the buzz....

Irfan Khan dressed as a doctor,helps an elderly person who is stumbling, to his chair in his clinic..

"K.I.L.B. chhune se nahi failta... maine chhuya, faila kya?? " he asks the viewers...

At the first sight, it comes down as just another AIDS awareness campaign, like the famous "Balbir pasha" ad that was aired a few years ago... (My friends and I had turned it into B-pasha... or Bipasha... :D )

But I think it is more than that...
Irfan Khan, currently a brand ambassador for the Vodafone, I think is advertising here for the Iphone to be launched on the Vodafone and Airtel networks later this month...

But I really love this funda of advertising...

We had been seeing ads like Digen Verma's frooti ad, "where's the pulp" ad, etc...
Initially, a curiosity is been generated in the market, and later the brand is launched...
Surely, a buzz is going on about what is "K.I.L.B." ??!!

The first ones to ask me were of course, aji and aai....
They thought it was some sort of a disease or something, like AIDS, especially since he is dressed in an apron and OT gowns...
I know my medical knowlege is quite rusty, and i had not licked each and every page of Harrison... But K.I.L.B. ??? I had not even accidently heard this term in my medical school or the hospital... So I knew, this was meant to make a big ch***ya of all the people... LOL...

Here are the ads if You havent seen them...

Hmmm...
I think what K.I.L.B. stands for is... "Keemti Iphone Leneka Bukhaar"
and with Vodafone coming out with special offers for the same :D

well, thats what I think, What is your take??

P.S. Just got to know what KILB stands for... ;)

The Lucky Bamboo..

2008-08-07T14:09:00.004+05:30

It will soon be one year since I have a Chinese bamboo plant at my home. My sister had sent me a 3- stalked chinese bamboo plant last year on Raksha Bandhan... It was a small sampling, and now is almost a foot high...

Chinese bamboo plants have a role to play in the Eastern practice of "Feng Shui".. or the bringing of natural elements of water, fire, earth, wood and metal into balance within the environment... Chinese bamboo (or Lucky Bamboo) is believed to be an ideal example of the thriving wood and water element, with the addition of a red ribbon tied around its stalks, is believed to represent "Fire", or the postive flow of energy or "Chi" in the room...
The number of stalks also has some meaning,
3 stalks - Happiness
5 stalks - Wealth
6 stalks - Health

4 stalks are avoided cause the word "four" in Chinese sounds too similar to the chinese word for "Death" !! :O

I have a 3-stalked plant... and lately I had been observing that its leaves are turning yellow, one by one as each day passes by...
This plant was supposed to bring "Happiness" in my house... and now it was dying...
err.... any sane person can interpret what that meant in Feng shui... :(
It had been a long time since my family had experienced Happy times together.. and this thing totally started depressing me further....

My aji is an expert in plants... she had a big garden in our old house at shivaji park... and also at goregaon... she had told me to plant the sappling in soil instead of marbles... also to keep it in sunlight...
well, that was the most stupidest thing I did... that is keeping the plant in sunlight...

Later, I searched the internet and found out that the chinses bamboo is an indoor plant and it needs plenty of indirect sunlight, and that it dies in direct sunlight... damn !!

Here are some of the things you can do to take care of your Lucky Bambo....

Typically, they are grown in a few inches of clear water, perhaps supported by small pebbles, stones, or marbles. It is important that the water be kept clean and fresh and not allowed to stagnate.

The Choline/Flurides in tap water is harmful to the plant. Allow the tap water to stand in an open container for 24 hours, allowing the chlorine and flouride to dissipate, before using it with your plants. Or you can use filtered or distilled water.

The plant needs plenty of Indirect sunlight. Keep it away from direct sunlight.They will perform well under artificial lighting. Too much direct sun can cause burning of the leaves. Too little light will lead to weak growth, stretching and poor coloration. Normal household temperatures are ideal.

Hmm... I followed the instructions for a few days... and I saw that new shoots are coming out...
That surely did bring back a smile on my face.. :)
So you know guys, this Feng shui thing really works... Go get your Chinese bamboo plant :D

P.S. The Chinese Bamboo is not a Bamboo at all ;) It belongs to the Dracaena family (Dracaena sanderiana)

Hypocrites!!

2008-08-07T12:55:00.000+05:30

I was watching Man vs. Wild last night on Discovery. On the show, Mr.Bear Grylls was showing how to survive in the no man's land of patagonia in the andes... He had just caught a bunny and then he showed how to remove his skin and remove the organs and roast the dead animal....

As Grylls started skinning and dissecting the animal, Mom and grandmom started making weird constipated faces.

"How gross... how can You even watch such stuff... ewwwww"... blah blah....

"when ur relishing on the meat on sundays, U never think that the animal you have eaten has been slaughtered alive and skinned in the same way, dont you...??", I shot back...

My folks back home are big hypocrites... especially my grandmom...
She expresses love for all the animals in the world... she has rescued many of them, feeds them refularly etc etc... She cant watch other animals like deers etc being hunted on discovery channel, but she relishes on goat meat... she says she doesnt like chicken and craves for goat meat, which is thankfully not cooked at our place anymore cause of dad's high cholesterol problem....

Once I had consumed Beef during my internship (though it was accidental, i liked it and I had it again later...) and I came home and declared I had cow meat today....
And then came the accusations of being "Dharma Bhrastha" and all that...
I have also had Pork (and its the best form of meat I have eaten)... and consumed s few live insects on a trek...

All I want to say is that either you eat all forms of meat, or simply become vegetarian... Or at least dont behave like many hypocrite hindus who allow eating goat, chicken and fish meat, but not beef... God never says that U can eat a goat but U cannot eat a cow (for hindus) or pigs (for muslims)...

I also dont understand the celebration of "Gataari" the day before the onset of the Hindu month of Shravan, in which many Hindu people refrain from eating non-veg... So on Gataari, they have the license to eat as many animals as u want and get drunk to the point of crashing down into a road-side gutter (Thats where the term gataari arises from)... I mean, what crap...
Thank God we dont follow shravan... but monday being a Shravani somwar, I was forbidden from eating eggs in the morning... and the next day, we had cooked prawns curry at home !!!

Arrrrrrrrrrgh !! These customs I'll always fail to understand... :-|

Abortion aborted... the debate begins !!

2008-08-07T12:51:00.000+05:30

Recently, a sensitive case had come up for hearing in the Mumbai High court. A middle aged woman, who was in her 26th week of gestation, had moved the high court for Termination of the pregnancy, as the foetus was detected to have a complete congenital heart block along with complete transposition of great arteries. She had moved the court, as legally, Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) can be carried out only upto 20 weeks of gestation….

Now lets look at the salient features of this act… (MTP act, 1971)

MTP can be carried out when
• The continuation of pregnancy would involve serious risk of life or grave injury to the physical and mental health of the pregnant woman.
• There is a substantial risk of the child being born with serious physical and mental abnormalities so as to be handicapped in life.
• When the pregnancy is caused by rape, both in cases of major and minor girl and in mentally imbalanced women.
• Pregnancy caused as a result of failure of a contraceptive.

When termination has to be done upto 12 weeks, one qualified medical practitioner can do it, whereas if it is between 12-20 weeks, opinion of 2 practitioners is required

For the entire act, you can refer to : http://mohfw.nic.in/MTP%20Act%201971.htm

Fair enough… here the main concern was that there was a substantial risk of the child being born with serious physical and mental abnormalities so as to be handicapped in life… and so the judgment basically depended on the JJ Hospital committee’s report. And here, the government employees did a major goof up of typing “… there is a very LEAST chance of….” Instead of the earlier report which said “… there is a very FAIR chance of….”

That one word just turned up the case upside down…. And the court turned down the appeal stating that there was nothing to suggest that it was an extraordinary case that they would be allowed to go against the law for just this time…

Personally, I feel this is an extremely sensitive issue, just like euthanasia, which is deemed illegal in India. What has got this issue into the limelight is that the couple approached the high court, as I believe, hundreds of such and similar other cases are tackled illegally all over the nation. The mother could have paid up the doc below the table and had got it aborted and no one would have got a hint of it, unless of course if the mother had developed any complications during the process, which is the main reason why the doctors would had been shying away from it…

A complete congenital heart block is a serious disorder. As everyone must have read in the newspapers, it MAY require a pacemaker insertion immediately after birth… Even if the prognosis is good, usually they may require it after about 7-9 years of age. Transposition of great arteries is a condition in which there is shunting of blood, in which impure deoxygenated blood gets circulated in the body, as the aorta here arises from the right ventricle instead of the left. This may get nullified by a ventricular septal defect, but still, such defect requires surgery, and they do cause a lot of financial strain. The life of the child before and after the surgery is also not too good. A simply crying spell can be the cause of their death. The child also has to live a compromised life later on…
Still, I cannot comment on how GRAVE the physical deformity would had been…
Some NGOs came forward and asked the couple to give the child to them so that they would take care of the child, but is this done??
Would the parental instincts let them simply give away the baby to an NGO cause he suffers from a cardiac deformity?
Aborting a fetus [note: I am calling it a Fetus and not a baby or a child] when detected is what I feel, is the best way to go. The MTP act was made in 1971, when facilities like amniocentesis, chorion villi sampling etc where very rudimentary. A lot has changed in these 37 years in the medical arena, and detection and management techniques of such cases have also improved manifold.

But also, the drawback of this case was that, if the woman had been allowed to undergo abortion, it would have opened a whole new pandora’s box….
More and more women would had come forward citing similar reasons for abortion after the 20th week…
Human rights activists are also up in arms against it, as they say that the unborn child also has the equal right to live… but, when asked to the child who suffers from such a severe disorder, I strongly feel that the child would had preferred to not have born in the first place…

This case has everything – medical, legal, social, ethical, emotional issues bound into one… I feel that the limit of 20 weeks should be increased to 24 weeks as the mother also has the right to decide if she wants to keep that child. This provision should clearly provide and specify which cases are included in the 20-24 week period that can be allowed to be aborted, as for every law there are people who misuse them.
Right now, the woman has got no option but to carry on with her pregnancy as it has already crossed 26th week , and by the time a supreme court appeal comes to hearing, she would have already delivered!! I pray that the child is not treated like an unwanted child like the mother, as that would be a serious injustice to the child.

All in all, it’s a LOSE-LOSE situation for the child, whether born, or unborn… His/Her fate now lies in the hands of medical professionals and her parents….

.....

2008-08-04T22:49:00.003+05:30

Oooooo... this space seems familiar...

*Brushes away the cobwebs*

As i enter this space again, I face a mirror and I see myself staring back... Poor guy.. what has happened of u huh???
Yes.. That person seems familiar... but changed a lot...
Why were u away ??? He asks me... I have no answer.... cuz I was plain bored, I think....

Boredom... He is my best friend nowadays... I get bored doing anything... I was even bored to eat one day that I fasted for the first time in my life... and then I suffered the most severe of heart burns that I had ever experienced... Oh yes.. now im even bored of getting the heart burns.... Im bored of even taking a bath the day I am supposed to go out...

hmmm... boredom... Let me see why I am so fucking bored...

I have quit my job... I have no career... I couldnt get through to any program abroad this year, so will be applying again for next year...
Im also applying for a new job now... New job just so that I shouldnt get a gap in my CV... doesnt matter if u like doing the shitty work or not... I mean, people spend their entire lifetime doing jobs they dont like, I just want to do it for 1 year... ONE YEAR :O that seems pretty long... but what the heck, If Im paid 20K +, Im even ready to clean toilets for that...

So basically Im doing nothing sitting at home... Oh yes... Im doing a wonderful job of irritating my parents by sitting at home... also Im adjusting my biological clock to US standard time, by sleeping at 3 AM and getting up at 11 AM...
Also I have started reading a LOT !!! Ive read a lot of books, biographies, adventure stories, etc...
And I watch movies.. I have a huge collection... everything from french, italian, russian and bosnian movies... subtitles of course...
and yes oh yes.. Im a super net addict... I cant stay without my internet for a single day, except when im out for a trek of course!! Dunno what I do on the net, nothing constructive, just going through the recent research articles, playing scrabble, chatting a bit, and arguing in formula1 forums .... now i am bored of that too...

So basically, Im an overeducated, unemployed, good-for-nothing son for my parents...
I sleep in my sleeping bag nowadays instead of my bed... so that when my parents have enough of me and they throw me out of the house, at least I would had been accustomed to sleeping in my sleeping bag....
I have started putting on weight... and I am still trying to figure out which course of study should I pursue further...
There is course A, B and C... I considered a course D for a while too but rejected it...
Course A is a backup for course B, incase I dont get it... but its A (and not B) cause Now I feel that I should do A and not B cause ill get bored by doing B in the future... Confused?? Well, welcome to my world of confusion superimposed by boredom !!
And of course, there is course C.. haha.. how can I forget that... I have started preparing for C... I havent heard of anyone from my backgroud doing C.. so I would be one of the very handful like me, If I get through for C.... but Mera naseeb hi G***u hai to main bhi kya karu yaar !!!

So what was i doing the couple of months gone by???????
Simple... Trekking, trekking, trekking.... and yes... some more trekking....
coupled with cycling and photography, though the cycling has taken a bit of a backseat now due to rains...
4 treks on 4weekends in June, taking my total tally to 94 treks... and have targetted 100 by the end of this season...
The 100th trek I want to be a solo trek... and the most difficult trek of my trekking history... Like, one slip and I die... Oooooooooooooo... that thought itself sends a chill down my spine...
Cant wait for number 99 to get over.... Zankhan would had been so proud of me... hehehe...
And I am traveling a lot with my friends too... I was never so closed to my friends that I am now... Suddenly I have realized I have so many of them... Wow...
Life should had been better.. But alas its far far away from being better... but I know, my day of reckoning will arrive sooner than later...

"To Love", or "To be in Love" ??!!

2008-05-18T17:00:00.003+05:30

I was reading the book “Shantaram” a few days ago….

Didier and Lin were sitting in Café Leopold...

Didier : So do you Love her??

Lin: No

Didier : Are you in Love with her??

Lin : Yes

It was well past midnight… I wanted to finish up that chapter and hit the bed…

But this conversation caught me eyes… I kept the book aside, lit up a Malboro and sat on the window sill, trying to fathom what those words meant…

What did he mean by those words?? At the first glance, they appeared the same to me… but the contradictory answers given by Lin made me ponder…

The stick was half gone… the ashes were falling on the sill, seeped in the moon light, like the flakes of snow… flashbacks had been quite distressing… they had played havoc in my life… and I needed the answers… answers to why did it happen the way it happened… and I was to find those long awaited answers by a fictional book written by an outlaw from an island thousands of miles away…

“I love you”… and “I’m in love”… those words now meant worlds apart to me…

When we say, “I love you”… it shows that your desire to love someone is backed up with the conscious willingness of your heart, Its something like an “Active phenomenon”…You are in control of this emotion called “Love”…. That you still have the power to say "I don’t love you"… That your love for someone is something YOU have chosen and have full control over it (i.e. the choice)…

But when we are “In love” with someone… it is an entirely different scenario…

It means, we are possessed by love… you cannot call your shots… you have no control whatsoever on the emotion of “Love”, however you may try… You have NO CHOICE BUT TO LOVE… The tentacles of Love have engulfed you , not letting you get away, however hard and desperate you maybe…

Being “In Love” is painful… and it hurts the most when it is one-sided…

I had never loved; rather I was in love… I wish I never was… I wish I never would in the future… I would rather not throw myself at the mercy of a stupid human emotion… I love myself way to much now, to hurt myself any longer…

The room is now filled with smoke… I grope in the dark to find my bed… the darkness from my mind is now shed though, at least a bit….

The Perfect Man

2007-12-22T14:17:00.000+05:30

The perfect man is gentle
Never cruel or mean
He has a beautiful smile
And keeps his face so clean.

The perfect man likes children
And will raise them by your side.
He will be a good father
As well as a good husband to his bride

The perfect man loves cooking
Cleaning and vacuuming too.
He'll do anything in his power
To show his love to you.

The perfect man is sweet,
Writing poetry from your name.
He's a best friend to your mother
And kisses away your pain.

He has never made you cry
Or hurt you in any way.
Oh, "to hell with this stupid poem,"
"Cause the perfect man is gay!"

:) :) :)

Sunday Morning Blues

2007-12-19T16:12:00.000+05:30

Parag... get up... paani chala jaaega !!

Drat!! Can't even get a nice peaceful nap on a Sunday morning... Mom has to wake me up at 9 am (:O) to send me inside the bathroom... paani chala jaaega?? Damn it !!

That is the one place that I dread a lot... well, not like I am a hydrophobic or anything.. that I would develop a dreadful spasm as I pour water over my sleepy phenotypic self... nor am I averse to keeping myself clean, or a claustrophobic who is fearful of small enclosed spaces.... just that I am pure lazy, on a Sunday morning to enter that 10 x 10 feet enclosure...

The BMC officials should be screwed up royally... Cause they get only Sunday mornings to start their water shortage spree...

As I brush my teeth wearily, I try to open my swollen sleepless eyes cause of last night's Primera Liga matches... Mom has already thrown a fit and has lost it completely... its 9.30 am and I'm still brushing...

24 years old and still behaving like a kid... she tells me... what will you do once you start a family of your own? Your wife would swear on you, and also me for bringing up such a useless chap... Arre mom!! When I get married, there would be two of us lazing around... and then yeah.. we would definitely take a bath... together... hehehe... I smirked thinking about such a Sunday morning... wow... Then I would love to take a bath the whole day long :)

Enough of brushing you good for nothing fellow!! You are brushing your teeth, not scrubbing a basin... get hold of your towel and in the bathroom you go RIGHT NOW!!

Sigh!! Guess the time's up... A man's gotta do what he's gotta do !! Finally, my feet step inside the bathroom (helped by my mom's shove from behind)... Wish I had a Jacuzzi or a plain bath tub in which I could laze around a bit more... just a bit more...

One day, When I would be a great scientist.. I would invent a capsule... You just need to swallow it.. and Bingo!! The effect would be as good as you've taken a bath... all the dead cells of your skin would just shed off, you would be more freshened and alert and even kill all the bacteria and make you smell good...

Speaking about being a scientist, I suddenly thought about the episode in which Dexter (The child prodigy who owns a huge secret lab-- a cartoon of course!) who faced a similar problem like me, laminates himself so that he wouldn't have to take a bath or wash his hands often...

Great minds think alike, don't they?? ;)

The Mistake

2007-12-18T11:45:00.000+05:30

Ravi had been through a really tough period in his life... A week that he would just like to forget... He had broken up with his girl friend of 10 years... he was thrown out of his job for lack of a good performance.... He had decided he had enough of this bullshit, and wanted to start over afresh... and hence he shifted to his friend's unoccupied apartment in Versova, Mumbai... anyways, he was bugged of the old 9 to 5 job in an insurance firm... Writing, was all that interested him the most... 3 years... himself... 3 yrs to write a novel and make it big, he thought, as the Taxi pulled up to the 15 storied building...

He had just taken all the luggage and had entered the lift... the doors were going to shut just when he heard a woman calling out for the lift... as the doors open, Ravi was taken aback by what he saw in front of him... a sultry 20s something girl... twinkling eyes.. long flowing hair... with a smile one would die for... she entered the lift and saw that the number 15 button was already pressed...

"Are u shifting to the vacant flat on the 15th floor?", she asked Ravi...
"Yep... just shifted last night.. had to get a couple of suitcases though..."
"wow.. thats wonderful... even i stay on the same floor... there are only 2 flats per floor.. that makes us next door neighbours!!"

Ravi smiled... He couldn't believe his luck... Only a girl can make the hurt given by another girl go away... he thought... "Yes.. thats wonderful..."

"Im Rhea..."
"Im Ravi"
"Ok... will see you later..."

Ding dong...

Ravi opened the door... there she was... with the same twinkling eyes, her hair blown by the breeze across her face... her smile... her skin... aahhh...

"Hello", she said... "Just got u a mug of coffee... thought your kitchen wouldn't be setup as yet.."
"Oh that was really thoughtful of you... Thanx a million... I owe u one..."
"That you do.. but please return the mug.." she smiled and walked away... Ravi couldn't take her eyes off her posterior... and her smoothed skinned legs...

As the days went by, Ravi and Rhea became close friends... Rhea said she had come from Mussourie to make it big in the film industry but now worked at the call centre by the night... she was quite impressed by Ravi's ambitions and his liking of the authors... They shared the same taste in Music, and Books.. and would chat for hours on end over mugs of Coffee....

One fine evening, Rhea and Ravi were standing at his balcony, enjoying the cool sea breeze...
Ravi really liked Rhea... he was totally possessed by her beauty... the smell of her hair and her skin used to drive him crazy... he craved for the feel of her luscious lips.. he wanted to hold her very close... far too close...

"GET AWAY FROM ME RAVI......." Rhea screamed...
Ravi jolted back to reality... He was holding Rhea by her waist and had tried to kiss her...

"LEAVE ME ALONE... LET ME GO YOU JERK !!!"

"Im sorry Rhea... it.... it just happened... I had no intentions of....."

"I know your intentions very well you arsehole... lemme go... You have disappointed me Ravi... I dont wanna ever speak to you again..."

And she barged out and slammed the door behind her...

Ravi was distraught.. He didn't know what to do... He had really liked Rhea.. not just lustfully, but also emotionally... but his lustful feelings for her had just ruined everything they had in between them...

For the next couple of weeks, Ravi tried to meet Rhea.. but she avoided him completely... Ravi felt dejected... his close friends didn't know what was wrong with him.. He stopped talking to people... and he couldn't get over this tremendous guilt feelings he had developed within himself.. he wanted to apologize to Rhea, but he didn't know how... His life was totally screwed up...

His friends thought he hadn't been over his break-up yet... To cheer him up, they decided to go out partying on Saturday night to the local pub... They boozed heavily... one shots after another... Ravi was drinking away his sorrows and he really felt better... he wanted more.. and more... and so he went... The pub shut at 1 am... and they all went to the nearby dance bar...

Young girls shaking their booties and their busts amidst a pouring rain of currency notes and the booze and the dope made a deadly combination... Ravi had never been on such a high before... Till he saw her... the same eyes... long flowing hair.. the same smile... the same woman he had lusted and loved a couple of weeks ago... for whom he was drinking himself sober again... There she was.. dressed in a red colored churidar, being the centre of all attention.. the queen amongst all the dancers... being showered with scores of 500 Rs bills... and pulled and groped by the customers at will...

Their eyes caught each other... a sense of despair went through Rhea's mind... a dejected look came on her face momentarily... but she suppressed her feelings, and went on with her "Job"...
Ravi's mind blew up!! He felt betrayed... She's a fucking call girl after all... he thought... a bar girl.. dunno how many people had she slept with... The Bitch... she refused me... and I had truly developed so many feelings for her.... and i had made my life so miserable after all that happened...

Ravi was out of his mind.. he wanted to go home as soon as possible... his eyes were blood shot red... he glared at Rhea one final time before he, still being high on alcohol, trudged away... helped by his friends...

It was 4 am when Rhea came to her flat... there he was, sitting on the floor at the door of his flat with a glass of Whiskey in his hands... he wanted answers... and he wanted them now...

Ravi got up to his feet... he accosted Rhea.. Rhea tried to push him away... but he instead shoved Rhea into her flat...

"Ravi... please let me explain... "

"Explain what.. you bitch... how dare u refuse me... and u sleep with all those people ... You slut... Now I'll show you where u belong..."

"Ravi.. wait... ur not in your senses right now.. we'll talk in the morning over this... plz stop....."

Ravi slapped her and shoved her onto the sofa... he pressed his hand over her mouth and ripped apart her clothes... Rhea tried to scream... scream as loud as she could, but Ravi was on a high... he was possessed... he felt betrayed... the bitch is a call girl and she deserved to be raped tonight....

Ravi had forced himself upon her.. and Rhea had finally given away after much struggle.. it was all over after half an hr...

Rhea lay on the sofa the entire night... Ravi felt satisfied.. his ego was satisfied.. he felt at peace... he slept peacefully that night...

Ravi didn't meet Rhea after that... The very next morning, she had already gone... Ravi's life was going to change forever after that...

That night Rhea wanted to tell something... something that would have saved Ravi... Rhea had AIDS... Thats the reason why she hadn't slept with Ravi... she also had the same feelings for Ravi... Rhea died a couple of years after that incident... Ravi had been detected as HIV positive and had entered the fulminant stage of AIDS... he lay on a hospital bed, looking out at the sky... wondering ... What if....

Well guys.. this was one of the stories from the Movie "Dus Kahaniyan"... just was an exercise for me, to try and put a movie into words... hope I did decent enough ;)
Would definitely be trying to write down a short story soon...

Instructions at an ATM

2007-12-16T02:32:00.000+05:30

Just came across this hilarious article while surfing... Thought I should share it with you all... :D

Instructions at an ATM for guys and for girls

Instructions for the guys:

1. Pull up to ATM
2. Insert Card
3. Enter PIN
4. Take cash, card and receipt
5. Drive away

Instructions for the Gals:

1. Pull up to ATM
2. Back up and pull forward to get closer
3. Shut off engine
4. Put keys in purse
5. Get out of car because you're too far from machine
6. Hunt for card in purse
7. Insert card
8. Hunt in purse for grocery receipt with PIN written on it
9. Enter PIN
10. Study instructions
11. Hit "CANCEL"
12. Re-enter correct PIN
13. Check balance
14. Look for envelope
15. Look in purse for pen
16. Make out deposit slip
17. Endorse checks
18. Make deposit
19. Study instructions
20. Make cash withdrawal
21. Get in car
22. Check makeup
23. Look for keys
24. Start car
25. Check makeup
26. Start pulling away
27. Stop
28. Back up to machine
29. Get out of car
30. Take card and receipt
31. Get back in car
32. Put card in wallet
33. Put receipt in checkbook
34. Enter deposits and withdrawals in checkbook
35. Clear area in purse for wallet and checkbook
36. Check makeup
37. Put car in reverse
38. Put car in drive
39. Drive away from machine
40. Drive 3 miles
41. Release parking brake

Batti Bandh !!

2007-12-15T23:57:00.000+05:30

It was 15th December... the "Batti Bandh" day... Mumbai was supposed to blacken out for 1 hour from 7.30 in the evening, to save power consumption, to spread awareness against the Global Warming...

It was 7.30 pm, and I promptly lit up the candles for mom... switched off the lights and electrical appliances (except the refrigerator) and went out for a stroll...

The school kids from my building were looking dejected.. They had come in the morning to request us to switch off the lights during that one hour... It seemed that their pleas had fallen on deaf ears..

I walked upto them and asked them whats the matter...

"Bhaiyya, we had requested everyone, but nobody seemed to be interested... they all say that if noone is switching off, why should we... what difference am I gonna make alone.... now what should we do??"

I was with another friend of mine.. my school mate... we decided, it was time for us to take some action, at least for the sake of the efforts the school kids had taken...

We took some sheets of paper, and started visiting everyone's homes... asking them to write down the reasons and sign, stating why aren't they shutting down for an hour... each flat we used a single piece of paper... We were not surprised to see the same reason from all the 15 flats...

"Why should we switch off if everybody else is keeping it on?"

Now came the second part... we again went door-to-door... showing them all the papers from the 15 flats and asked them to comply... the kids were quite enthusiastic in this matter...

Embarrassed, people did finally switch off their appliances... and we had "Batti Bandh" in 10 out of the 15 flats in our building... (The other 5 slammed their doors on our faces!! We thought of cutting down the mains to their flats, but since this was a voluntary effort, we didn't...)
Then, we took a box of candles, and lit them in the entire corridor and the staircase upto the fourth floor and switched off the lights for the same... The kids suggested that one of them should stay at every floor, just in case some elderly person needs help in getting up and down the stairs...

In the end, the program at out place was a success!! And I was pretty satisfied, that in some way, I too was able to contribute towards it...

But I was quite disappointed at the callous and ignorant attitude shown by the Mumbaikars... From our terrace, I could see no change from what I see every evening, and that none of them had taken any efforts towards this awareness campaign... Global Warming, they say, won't be affecting them in any way... They don't realize that it would be their future generations that would be at an enormous loss if we at this moment, don't take any action...

I sincerely laud the efforts taken by the youth of Mumbai in trying to make this campaign a success... I think that even at least 1 hour load shedding in all areas in Mumbai would contribute a great deal towards power saving...

Not again...

2007-12-15T18:05:00.000+05:30

Was surfing through the channels when i came across the movie Andaaz Apna Apna being played on a movie channel... and guess what, exactly at the same scene from which I have seen the movie a million times to say the least... the song "Dil karta hai tere paas aau..." was playing, and then later, Raveena hits Aamir on the head which apparently leads to his memory loss...
I don't understand why it has always happened to me, that I have seen the movie from exactly the same scene onwards, each and every time.... It seems like I'll have to buy the VCD/DVD of ythe movie to watch the initial half...

The Closure

2007-12-15T15:41:00.000+05:30

It had been one year since our relationship had ended... A relationship which had no name... but still it was the most precious thing... it had left me scarred.. depressed.. dejected... the past one year i had spent with a hollow feeling... a vacuum that existed within me... The things that I once enjoyed were no longer that enjoyable.. and the things that i loathed, I'd embraced them...

There were some unanswered questions.. I won't harass her again, I'd promised... It was a word to be kept until the end.. How can anyone so special can be estranged in a couple of months... How can someone be so hostile after such affection...

One strange night, I got all my answers.. answers that weren't satisfactory... but I didn't mind... I had learnt to forgive and to forget... my restless feelings got assuaged... we shared a few happy moments... moments from the past... about our future... It was a night I wished would never end... We both had been hurt with whatever had happened... things that were beyond our control... things that happened so fast, that before we had realized what had happened, it had broken many a dreams...

But as she rightly said...

"Do you know how crystals are formed?? The whole process takes thousands of years. All the impurities slowly come to the surface, and then get washed away, melt away or chipped away... and all that is left behind is a lovely core of crystal... Thats how memories can be... if the good outweighs the bad..."

I know I have lost someone really special... the one you hope to find throughout your lifetime ... I may not find someone like her again... The crystal of her memories are all that I have with me...
I have no regrets whatsoever... No grudges anymore...

Its easy to let go of someone if you get a proper closure... part in a happy note... no hard feelings, only good wishes of things ahead... I thank her a million for this conversation... this closure, which I was longing for the past one year... I feel whole again... now there are no tears, only smiles... of the past memories and things ahead... You have breathed a new life in me again, just like you had did when we met for the first time.. and now again when we part ways...

Been Rocked like a Hurricane!!

2007-12-15T11:58:00.000+05:30

I was going through the newspaper in the evening when my Cell phone buzzed....

"Are You going for the Scorpions concert?" That was AM's SMS.

Wtf?? I thought they were playing in Shillong...

"Na... they are playing tomorrow at the MMRDA... didnt u know that?"

A frantic search thru the net, and I got the details... The Scorpions are really playing in Mumbai... Brilliant! Sadly, the tickets were out of stock at the CCD outlets, and hence i had to count on them being available at the venue, which they thankfully were...

It was a sad thing to notice that there were more volunteers than fans who have come to see the concert.. where as the Shakira and Beyonce (bull crap!!!) concerts go packed !! Wth, why am I complaining? No need to stand in a queue... :)

I was joined by Sumeet, and we got inside by 6.30 pm. It was a sorry sight... hardly any crowd in the front section (Rs.1500/-), and people were sitting and lying around lazily... A rock concert venue eh?! We had a quick bite and guzzled down some fluids as I replenished my vitals for the concert... It began at around 7, with the local band Bombay Boys playing a few acoustic numbers... and then the long frustrating wait when we were bombarded with Mind- fucking senseless Hero honda and Radio Mirchi ads!! The crappy hosting by the Channel V VJs just made the matters worse, and chants of "START THE FUCKING SHOW" started to pick up some momentum... The organizers were shrewd enough to start the music and began airing a few Scorpions and other rock numbers which assuaged the restless crowd...

And behold !! at the strike of 8, Klaus, Matthias, Rudolf, Pawel and James barged in with their "Weapons of Mass Destruction" (Read: Guitars) and started strumming with screams, whistles and chants trying to match the 50,000+ watts of pure electrical acoustics... and when Klaus went "Salaam Mumbai" the crowd went berserk....

Initially, they played a few of their songs from their new album, Humanity...

Then Klaus went... "All this time, we just tuning out vocals... Now its ur turn".... and then came the "Holiday"... My system lost it.. I got goose bumps like I have never had, not even when I had my first kiss... And as we all chanted "Let me take you far away...", my senses were already gone far far away...

And then came "Send Me an Angel" and "Always somewhere"... And my vocal cords started working overtime, reaching the amplitude and frequency so high, that Sumeet suffered from a temporary hearing loss!! Then Klaus started throwing autographed drum sticks into the crowd, sadly, none of them came our way... biased as he was, he threw them to the 2 extreme ends, while we were there bang in front in the centre...

In went the acoustic guitars and out again came the WMDs... what followed was an intense Hardcore metal/rock which the Scorpions are famous for... and all the head banging that follwed was interrupted by Some mind blowing strumming on the bass by Pawel !! He was ammmmmmazing to say the least... and to make the things exciting, he got the crowd involved too... And then came the jamming session between Matthias and Rudolf...

What followed was easily the best performance of the night... the solo on the drums by James... as he ripped apart his tee, stood up and played on the drums with his feet, guzzled down cans of beer and sprayed it in the air like the Triple-H and the crowd went mad with he hit the strings of the electric guitar with his drums sticks....

Then they played the "Humanity" number from their recent album... and after a quick farewell, disappeared backstage...

The crowd went restless... it was 9.30 pm and they still haven't played their famous numbers...
It was a gimmick, I thought... chants of "We want more" grew... and yo!! Out they came...

"We are a thousand miles away from home... and Still Loving you Mumbai......."

Fucking brilliant Music followed... my insanity levels reached their peaks...

Still Loving you... and then came their anthem "Wind of Change" which they sang with the crowd.... And this time, they started throwing their picks and some more drum sticks... they came at the centre stage together for the final farewell... we weren't satisfied... we wanted more.. and so we screamed our lungs out...

"You want more?? Ok... more you'll get..."

And then came "When the Smoke is Going Down"...

"And before we leave... we wanna make sure, we really did Rock you like a Hurricane..."

Whoppie... there came the one ppl were waiting for...
"Here I am... rock u like a hurricaaaaaaaaaaneeeeeeeeee...."

And then they went... And there I was.. totally famished... exhausted.. run out of air...
Parched throat... sore vocal cords... jammed stapes... and stiff paraspinal cervical muscles !!

Sumeet and me stopped at the Thai restaurant at lokhandwalla and ate hot and delicious Red chicken curry and rice in the cold December night, still not over with the euphoria of the concert...

It was easily the best concert that I had attended so far.. even better than the Bryan Adams, the Aerosmith, and the Pink Floyd one!!

Was a bit disappointed that they didn't play "No one like you"and "You and I" ... but over all.. it was Full Paisa wasool !!

Still Loving you scorpions... cuz u rocked me like a Hurricane !! :D

Long Time No See!!!

2007-12-06T16:19:00.000+05:30

Well, I guess that's what my blog page must be telling me as i sign into it after a hiatus of.... err... 3 months or so?? Well, just that I had been too lazy enough to blog down each and every bit of a million things that have been happening in my life since then...

lets see...

Made the major career move... joined in actrec as a research fellow... shifted to Kharghar temporarily...
bought a new cam.. a panasonic fz8... great cam.. havent tried it much though!!
Fell ill a couple of times... and it was bad...
started living a loner's life... started missing home made food... not for long though! ;)
Took the fag... as Gum ka saathi Rum, Akelepan ka saathi Dum !! Not an addict though :P
Really missed watching the movies... suffered from major withdrawal symptoms of not being able to watch movies for 30 Rs at Movietime (10 am shows!!) -- Read: An acute and insatiable desire to have popcorn and thumbs up at 11 am !! :O
Took to guitaring... just a few lessons and I was on top of the world!!
Took to jogging... I dont believe I actually used to jog approx 5kms everyday... not since the past 2 weeks that I have been home...
Used my brains... lol... Research really needs it you see!! Had to perform a major sweeping operation inside the skull... loads of corners still need to be cleaned up.. :)
Stopped trekking!!! :( :( Not for long though... have found many new pals at ACTREC having similar interests... Dec treks are on.. still, after 8 consecutive sunday outings in June-July-Aug has really given me the blues...
Applications!! Oh.. that should had been the first thing on the list... mera future ispe depend karta hai yaar!! since the past 2 weeks im running around the doors of various departmental offices of my college for LORs, Transcripts, attestations etc... Just been to Nashik yesterday and back for the attestation stuff... Thanx to the typical GSite trait of procrastinating till the very end... Finally its gonna get over (Fingers crossed) by this coming Monday...
Realized that all the Government/BMC officials are real jackasses and whores!! Even though You are swearing on their mothers in ur brains, you are licking their arses and calling a chapraasi "Sir" !!! :O
But that has its own benefit u see... yesterday calling the security official "SIR" at the MUHS gate got me a free ride of about 40 kms in an AC Scorpio from the university till Nashik station... and saved me precious time and hundreds of bucks!! As my friend Nishant says, You are not going to see his face ever in ur life, and if your work is getting done, whats the harm?? Get rid of your fucking ego!!

I have taken to watching plays... dunno why.. but just... they are more appealing to me that crappy movies screened in the theatres...
Been addicted to Facebook and ... Scrabble!! I remember the first time I'd beaten dearest Amrita (a pro) at a game , sitting in that Java Grind cafe, that led to events that really turned my life over the past year or so...
Havent spent so much time with my friends ever in the past 6-7 years that I have done in the past 3 months... Swajit, Amit, Rahul and others from the broken down "Falcons" have been amazing friends and company... I'm actually enjoying being single now... Thanx Swajit for all the fag-outs and the crappy movies for which u have been with me...

Being single... hmmm... I have been without a date for 7 freaking months!!!!! :O
Last date sometime in April... well just that I cant find the right girl... or the right girl doesnt find me good enough ! ;) Well, I guess Im just waiting for a person like me... but I think Swajit is right in saying that I should take my chances and date the wrong person!! I mean, not from the wrong sex...

Yippee!! Im off cricket (one day) for good!! Not cuz of T20 (That is a piece of shit... cant even call it cricket... its a joke)... cuz of my kharghar place that doesnt have tv... :D
Sadly and unfortunately, for the same reason Im missing out on Football and Champions league action !! :(

I have started cooking... and getting up early... trying to adapt myself to the new lifestyle that awaits me next year!! (Fingers crossed again)

I have shed a few kilos... again thanx to Kharghar :) Its good to feel fit again...

Wow!! I have suddenly realized that as I am typing this blog, it has been exactly one year since I had broken up!! Yes... the blues still strike me!!... *sob sob*... ok... washed away!! :D

A Coffee to savour...

2007-08-25T11:07:00.000+05:30

A group of well established and successful professionals once got together to visit their old college lecturer. Catching up on all the old times, about the college life and the good old days, the conversation soon turned into complaints about the various stresses at work and in life....

Smiling, the lecturer went into the kitchen to get his guests a cup of coffee... and he returns with a large pot of hot coffee, and an assortment of cups- Porcelain,plastic, glass... some plain looking... some exquisite and expensive... He asked them to help themselves to a cup of coffee...

When everybody had a cup of coffee in their hands, the lecturer said -

If you notice, all the nice looking and expensive cups have been taken, leaving behind the cheap and the plain ones on the table..While it's only normal to want the best for yourselves, thats also the source of all ur problems and stresses... What all of you really wanted was coffee, and not the cup, but you consciously chose the better cockery, and even now you are eyeing each other's cups.

Now, If life is coffee, then jobs, money, your status in the society etc are the cups. They are just the tools to hold and contain your life, not the life itself... Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the main content inside the cup..

Happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather recognizing and appreciating the things that we do really have...

So dont let the cups drive you or distract you, Just concentrate on the warmth and the flavour of the coffee within...

Drink up your coffee and enjoy!! CHEERS!!! :)

Btw, "Mujhe coffee peena bahut pasand hai!!" ;)

Ad Mad

2007-08-25T00:17:00.000+05:30

Off late many of my friends had been asking me, why i have stopped blogging...

Well the answer is plain and simple... Just cuz im damn lazy to put all my thoughts on the blogsite... I would rather blurt it out in my mind... swear a bit at all the shitty things happening around me.. and just move on with my life...

But today... something reeeeeeeeaaaaally really compelled me to log into my blogger account and start typing... and i must thank Shiney Ahuja for this...
Confused??? Yeah.. even i was... cuz he has acted out in the most pathetic, sick and nonsensical ad i have seen in the recent times... The first time i saw it, i was damn confused.. but the second time, when i really concentrated (though i didnt had to), I felt like really pulling the hair out... Not mine, but Shiney Ahuja's!! The sucker... read on...

The ad starts with some builder mafia trying to confiscate a couple of beach-side shacks and restaurants.. the goons are throwing away all the furniture, and the owner of the restaurant, a sexy lass... looks around in desperation!!
With a bollywood ishtyle, our hero Shiney makes a dramatic entry...

"Ye zameen in logon ki hai..." he tells the builder.. as the damsel in distress looks on helplessly....

"Koi boundary line hai kya??" the builder asks...

"Boundary line dekhni hai??...." and then Shiney turns around and starts whistling...

and lo behold... out from a distance in the sea, there is a shark fin which approaches in the direction of the hero...
and then the most sickening and stupidest thing happens...
The shark fin leaves the sea, cuts open the earth and the sand , and forms a boundary line around the beach shack...

"Ye dekho boundary line"... Ahuja says and walks away with the shark fin following him...

confused???
hahahahaaa....

the ad was...

Shark tooth cassettes and Cds... lead the way!!! :O

Well i was really disappointed with Shiney... he had a really good choice of movies to act in like Hazaaron Khwaishein Aise.. Gangster.. Metro etc... I guess he shud stick to movies... ;)

Well.. But all is not lost in the ad world as some brilliant and catchy ads keep coming around, Like the Hutch "Thoda aur" series...
But theres one ad which i really liked... it went something like this...

A phone rings in a house and an old Parsi lady answers the call...
A man speaks on the other end..

"Hello, Rita?"

"Yes...."

"Aye Rita... aati kya... 9-12 show hai multiplex mein... ekdum raap-chik dhamaal karenge hum...."

The old lady hangs up... "Pata nahi kitne saal chalega ye sab....." and she walks away...

The man in the public urinal zips up, keeps the cell phone in his pocket, and walks away...

On the wall in front of the urinal is written in bold ink...
"For fun and free sex, call Rita 4131165" !!!

Stic markers... chale saalon-saal !!!

Chuck De....

2007-08-17T09:22:00.000+05:30

Chak de... Ho chak de India... Chak de.. Ho chak de India....

The songs blaring all over the place.. On each and every radio station i tune into... (Thank God.. a relief from the usual Himesh stuff!!) and on every music channel on the idiot box...

SRK... the Bollywood icon, with a gang of 16 girls.. rocking the Astro-turf with... (ahem) Hockey sticks!!
This is supposed to be a boost to the game of hockey in India... a country in which we Eat cricket, drink cricket, Breathe cricket... and also we Shit, pee, burp and Fart cricket... and Stink of cricket...
Hockey is our national game... err... was is supposed to be "was our national game"?? well who the fuck cares?? Its cricket that we live for...

Dhyaanchand who??? I know even the size of Sachin Tendulkars Underwear... thts the response u'll get from the teens of today...

Cometh the World cup disaster... the public once again goes beserk.. Fuck cricket and the cricketers!! We need to improve other sports.. hockey, tennis, etc etc... we need to bring those sports back to their helm...
And then this Movie...

SRK says... This is a movie about a Muslim guy, coaching an Indian team, of 16 girls.. in a game of hockey...
Has all the bollywood masala right??

I saw the making a couple of days ago.. It was nice to see all the girls putting in all the hard work... from learning hockey skills from none other than Mr. Dhanraj Pillay... to slogging it out in the acting schools..
Mr.Dhanraj Pillay said... u can call me anytime of the day or night , and i'd surely come to help those girls...
That was the same Dhanraj whom the World had seen on national TV channels, with teary eyes, saying that he has made a mistake by playing hockey, in a country where noone cares for any other sport , except... well... cricket!!

Maybe the times are changing.. i thought... This movie will surely, make at least "SOME" impact on the minds of the concerned people... and give a boost to the game of Hockey, in general...
Special free screenings were held for women's hockey teams...
SRK personally had flown over to London for the World premier... (and he was seen at the Oval during a test match!!)

I went for the movie with loads of expectations... i'm not a fan of SRK, but the movie was pretty good...
One scene in which theres a brawl between the girls and a group of men in Mcdonalds... a guy tries to sneak up behind a girl and tries to hit her with a cricket bat, when SRK stops him and says...
" Mard ho to saamne se waar karo... Humaari hockey mein Chhakke nahi hote...."
and the entire theatre goes up in an applause and laughter...

wow...
I reached home.. and was pretty satisfied... I could see an inkling of hope for the Indian Hockey... maybe they'll get good sponsors and good astro-turfs for training...
I switched on the tv.. ESPN channel...

Chak de.. Ho chak de.. India..... chak de.. ho chak de India....
SRK : Be there to support ur team for the 20-20 cricket World cup in South Africa!!

(P.s.... We still eat, drink, breathe.. and shit,pee,fart cricket!!)
Chuck De India!!

Back again..

2007-06-28T20:21:00.000+05:30

I'm writing this blog after a long hiatus.. All these days, I was quite busy.. busy pondering over the decisions I've made.. and about their repercussions..
The monsoon has set in.. The world around me has sprung back to life..
As i sit near the balcony and relish my mug of hot coffee.. I watch the world change around me..
The rain drops play an amazing orchestra on the trees and the metal roof above my balcony through the night..
The Gulmohars are slowly vanishing.. and lush green colours have replaced their fiery red colours..
Theres a surge of urgency amongst the bird kingdom.. Crows are frantically trying to build their homes.. just so that they can start their new life amidst the stormy atmosphere.. what a time to bring out a small new innocent life into this world.. and who knows whether it will live to see the winter..
A huge downpour.. and they try to shelter themselves anywhere they can.. amongst the branches n the foliage of trees.. or on the windows..
The vacations have long gone.. school kids in colorful raincoats, umbrellas and gum boots make their way gleefully to school and back... splashing the rain waters on each other..

There is a tree below my balcony.. Its a Chickoo tree.. This summer, the tree was entering our balcony and so my mom had the top chopped off..
Now when i look at the tree.. 8 new shoots have sprung up around the chopped off end.. Raring to shoot skywards.. like they always had been.. fresh new leaves have already started to grow..

I see a group of kids playing in the rain water below.. theres a steady flow of stream running down the slope... The kids are trying to obstruct the flow.. they try everything.. first they stand with their feet together.. then they try to build a dam-like thing with stones.. whatever they try, the stream always by-passes the obstruction by flowing around it..

Nature is beautiful.. Just by sitting at my balcony for half n hour.. Ive learned such an important lesson in life..

Video clips from my last trek with Zankhan -- Naneghat-Jeevdhan (18-19-20 May 04)

2007-06-13T17:47:00.000+05:30

The 18-19 May 2004 trek to Naneghat-Jeevdhan was my last trek with my buddy, Zankhan.. I came across this vcd after months of shuffling and turning my entire home upside down, and managed to upload a few clips on youtube to share it with u all..

Zankhan, you may not be here with us, but we'll always miss my friend! The "Falcons'" wings have been clipped off forever...

1] Introduction - The morning after the climb

2] Watch Myself and Zankhan make our favourite JUNGLEE SANDWICH :)

3] The first view of Jeevdhan from the top of Naneghat

4] Climbing the final portion of the Jeevdhan Rock patch

5] Watch Zankhan guide me thru the rock patch

6] This is how we filter the water on our treks!! :)

7] Daktar babu...performing a minor surgery on his injured foot!!

8] The end of our journey

These Feet are meant for walking

2007-06-10T17:54:00.000+05:30

One fine sunny day, myself and my friend were walking the streets of Bandra..

"You know, you should never make a lady walk... but u always make me walk, that too in this scorching sun... at least we shud ve ricked it up.."

"Rick? cmon.. its just a 15 min walk to the theatre... and whats wrong in walking?"

"Why dont you get a bike?? In that way, we can save so much money on travelling..."

"Well thats exactly what we are doing, saving money and saving fuel by walking... "

Yesterday, like every other day, my mom asks me...

"Take a rick to the station.. its too hot outside.."

"Why?? Have my legs been amputed?? Cant i walk??"

I dont understand.. People have become so dependant on their vehicles that they barely walk anywhere... Especially the guys of the younger generation... Driving a bike is considered to be cool ... and even use their bikes for even going to the nearby store...

Whats wrong in walking?? Ive walked places... Ive walked innumerable times down the 14 km walk to Kanheri... and not to miss out the 70 km 21 hr walk to Titwala, in scorching heat!!

Theres a particular purpose for each and every part of our body.. We ve been provided with eyes for seeing, fingers for holding, teeth for chewing.. and huh.. legs for walking...
As more and more humans grow dependant on their cars and bikes, a new species of humans will evolve..
Around the turn of the twenty-third century, I can see legless humans being born...

By then, of course, there will be flying wheel chairs....

Sasura sab confoosion hai re...

2007-06-09T20:50:00.000+05:30

I was returning home by bus in the evening.. the Bus was stuck in traffic on the Andheri fly-over, besides the railway station, when 2 young bhaiyyas came and sat behind me..

"Idhar dekho..." said one, pointing to the station visible outside the window...

"Oo rightwa jo hai, ooka 'Easht' bolat hai... aur oo leftwa jo hai, ooka 'wesht'..."

"Par Gulbajiya mein to leftwa pe Easht bolat hai...."

"Abbe ee bambai hai bambai... Bho****ke, agar tujhe bambai ka eashtwa aur weshtwa naahi maalum, to tohar kuch naahi hone waala..."

"Haa.. ee baat to theek hai..."

The lights are green, and the bus starts again with a rumbling sound that sets up a series of borborygmi in my tummy... God im hungry...

"Par Misraji..." the other guy goes again...

"... agar hum oo taraf se dekhe.. to leftwa easht ban jaawat hai aur rightwa wesht..."

"Ee baat sasura humaar khopaddiya mein kaahe naahi ghusi??? sasura sab confoosion hai bhai..."

Haa ji... sasura hamaar khopaddiya bhi tohaar logic sunke ghumwat hui gawa... saala sab confoosion hai...

But it Rained...

2007-06-07T11:11:00.000+05:30

I was sitting near my balcony, relishing a mug of hot coffee and the rains, when out of the blues, i remembered this song... "But it Rained" By India's best rock Band Parikrama...

Well this song has nothing to do with the rains as such.. Its their number 1 single, released in 1996..
The main theme of the song is about the kidnappings that were going around in the Kashmir valley in the mid nineties.. hundreds of people had simply disappeared, and even after years, their families , keeping hope against hopes.. that someday, their loved ones just might come back home...

A very catchy song and good lyrics.. watch it and hear it...

But it Rained - Parikrama

Wrapped in a polythene tucked away safe in my mind
A little goodbye maybe or just a passing smile

The birds fly away to the southern sky searching a home
A bunch of paper flowers or a little boy left all alone
Can somebody hear me I'm screaming from so far away
Morning who will calm you now, the evening is eclipsed again

Well does life get any better
More yesterday than today
How I thought the sun would shine tomorrow
But it rained . . .

They justified the cause for which Daddy might give up his life
It's been so long, so long a time, still I miss Daddy at night
The ache is long gone but the never keeps staring along
The waters in the seas are high
and all the sand castles have drowned

Well does life get any better
More yesterday than today
How I thought the sun would shine tomorrow
But it rained . . .

" ... Meanwhile, relatives of the four kidnapped tourists are back in the country to make yet another appeal. It has been a year now since the abduction, and the last seven months have seen little but a stony silence.”

"Amid reports of illness, injury and threats of death, was the uncertainty of not knowing what to believe ... she did not even get to say goodbye" said the wife of one of the hostages. More appeals have been made some even by other militant organisations, but the message is ..."

This is an excerpt from a magazine report published more than 5 years ago. It hit us in the face then, it still tingles in the spine each time. We wrote this song then, in an effort to feel the uncertainty, the futility, ourselves. To share the yet shimmering hope of those who are left waiting for a loved one. At times forever. It's worse still, not having even said a goodbye, or caught the last eye. As funerals are. Ceremonial farewells, perhaps?

Five long years, not a word, nor a trace. Some of them have still not given up, as we read in the papers recently. They wait, even today ... we can hear the strain ...

- Parikrama

Inequality in Equality

2007-06-06T23:15:00.000+05:30

This year, the French Open for the first time is giving away equal amount of prize money for Women's and Men's Events...
Well, the thought is good.. Equality of sexes and all..
But just give it a thought... Is it really worth it??
I'm not trying to be a sexist and a Male chauvinist here.. But Ive several reasons for the same..

First of all.. Men's event can be won if a player wins 3 sets.. so the minimum no. of sets played is 3 , which many a times goes to even 4 or 5...
A Women's event on the other hand goes for a max of 3 sets... duh!!

Furthermore, the intensity that is seen in a men's event is rarely seen in a women's match... all we can hear is Grunts from the marias and the williams... but no power in their shots... and their tennis is a complete bore to watch..

All that attracts a Women's events is short skirts and style icons with bouncing balls!!! While, true tennis is seen been played in the Men's event.. amazing rallies and zealous fightbacks..

I know , the entire feminine species will run for my throat on these comments.. but facts are facts right??!!

Choices...

2007-06-04T10:28:00.000+05:30

Choices... a very essence of being a human is the ability to make a choice in life...
Unfortunately, I havent been such a good choice maker... in fact.. i hate making a choice..
Sometimes, i wish God had just thrusted stuff over me.. I wud have taken it with a big heart.. But why do we have to make choices in life..

Sometimes, i feel that maybe.. its just this typical geminine trait in me.. and sometimes i think im still not mature enough to make a choice.. anyways, making a choice has always been tough for me right from the beginning..

From choosing between comics at the local library... to making a choice between hundreds of cool compass boxes and school bags...
From chosing chocolates... to a good tee ..

from various flavours of ice creams.. to that of fruit juices..

Life as a child was never easy...

And now.. even as i turn 24.. Choices havent left me...

To make things even more worse... Now there are MULTIPLE CHOICES everywhere...

Train, rickshaw or bus??

Boot cut, straight cut or comfort fit??

Cappuccino, espresso or Cafe mocha?? With flavor /without flavor?? with ice cream..without???

Caramel, salted or Plain pop corn???!!

Thanx to multiplexes... Pirates, shrek , metro or chini kum??

Mc veggie.. chicken or maharaja... with cheese /without cheese?? medium/small/large coke?????????????????????????????????????????????

God damn the cafe/mc dee culture!!!
Just put in every f***ing thing uve got , but dont ask me what...

and now... even in acads.. my life is screwed...

Hypoparathyroidism following thyroid surgery commonly occurs within
a) 24 hrs
b) 1-2 days
c) 2-5 days
d) 7-10 days
e) 2-3 weeks

And now...

According to the passage, which of the following are true about quarks...

1. The are elementary building blocks for neutrons
2. They ve no internal structure
3. They r grouped with leptons in a single class of particles

a)1 only
b)2 only
c)1 and 3 only
d)2 and 3 only
e)1, 2 and 3

aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggghhhh!!!

And when all this shit is over...

University of ohio or autin??? baltimore or houston?? Florida or toronto???

MS or Phd??

Whoever said life was easy should go and screw himself!!

The other day, there was a mega block on the western railway and i had 2 options... either catch a bus or the train.. I went to the station to see that the next train was 20 mins late.. and the platform was jam packed at 4 in the afternoon... ominous signs ...
I took the decision.. ill catch the bus.. I went to the highway.. and waited
and waited
and waited
30 mins.. not a single bus towards borivali
I kept hope against hope as the bus towards dahisar went totally packed with passengers..
4.30 and im leaving from here.. i told myself
The clock struck 4.30, and just as i was about to leave.. out of nowhere... this empty bus pulls out of nowhere in front of our stop..
Apparently, they had started a new bus service since the mega block on the railway was on..
I reached home comfortably...

Finally.. I had taken the right decision.. and id decided...
My decisions will be on pure instincts.. and ill stick to them no matter how foolish they may seem to be..
When i had to decide between R and A.. between M and L... i lost everything..
which led to me making a decision of U over I... and i hope ive taken the right one..
Cuz im not thinking over it anymore..
The Decision's been taken.. and this time, its straight from the heart!!

Bad Hair days...

2007-06-01T21:51:00.000+05:30

Hmm.. U must have heard those words from every other girl in town...

Oh God!! Im having a bad hair day... blah blah blah... and they sulk around the whole day..
Nothing what the guy says or does to cheer her up works.. Hair r the most precious things to girls, i must say..
Especially, when the new coiffure goes haywire.. U better be away from her at that moment..

But my blog is not about Girls and about their bad hair days... thts so hackneyed!!

Its about something more interesting.. Its about guys and their bad hair days!!

Yeah... we guys also do have bad hair days.. Its just that women dont seem to notice them, unless they give a medusa-head appearance, cuz they think that guys hair are too short to have bad hair days... or rather, they r too preoccupied with their own hair.. and with the hair-dos of the other so-called hep girls whom they're jealous off!!
They are absolutely wrong!!
In fact, a guys bad hair day gets accentuated cuz of his short hair...

Take my sad case for example..
Every time i get a haircut.. its a disaster in the making.. the kind of weird hair that ive inherited..

"Sir.. kaise cut karu??"... the barber asks... with a comb and a pair of scissors.. snipping away in his fingers.. and he looks at my hair and smirks.. concealing his joy in going for the kill...
But i can guess his diabolical intents... sigh!!!

"arre.. saamne se medium kaatna.. side se aur peeche se chhota karna.. lekin jyaada chhota nahi.. ye side se baal khade nahi rehne chahiye.. aur upar ke baal baraabar se kaatna... schiisel ghissel mumbaazool gunterostekal.........."

snip snip snip... He barely heard what i had to say.. merrily snipping away ... my precious hair fallen all over my sides.. I close my eyes.. I cant see the disaster unfolding in front of me in the mirror...

15 mins.. and its over...

"bas ho gaya sir?? ki aur chhota kaatu??"

I slowly open my eyes... gathering courage, a mm wide each time.. hoping against hope that not this time.....

There u go... just like like how it is every month.. a DISASTER!!

"arre mere bhai.. aur kitna chhota karega?? sir par machine hi ghooma deneka na yaar!!!"

There i was... a "GOLF BALL"... thats what someone once used to call me..
Time to stay indoors for a week till some hair grow back to keep them settled down...

Just another bad hair week rather...

Reborn..

2007-06-01T00:04:00.000+05:30

A year has gone... the darkest year so far in my life.. a year which saw me lose everything... a year in which i was thrown into a dark chasm.. an abyss which seemed endless... I was falling in deep, that is until a hand came down to pick me up... I was skeptical.. skeptical of this unseen hand that had all of a sudden shown itself.. and when even people close to u hurt u, i was incredulous about my ownself...

Hold my hand... and have faith in me... a voice called out to me...

I had no choice.. I d given up on everything, including myself...

Try to drag urself up.. the voice exhorted me..

And thats what i did.. taking his support, i tried to get my life back on track...
I tried hard.. I gathered all my lost emotions and locked them up inside.. like a person once close to me had told me... You have to enclose ur heart within a chamber- a chamber with walls so thick and so strong, that noone else can break them apart.. and noone else can pierce it again.. and thats what i did...

Today, May 31st marks the end of the year ... the dark year has gone by...

Im reborn again.. after 24 yrs..
May 31st marks a new beginning for me.. a new hope that has kindled within a bruised and battered soul..
And that was all that i needed..
a ray of hope in the chasm that i was in.. and i ve seen that
And today, as id begun my march towards that ray of light, with a callous and a stoic soul..
The hand that was held out to me out of nowhere is now pulling me up...
And the lips that had told me to hang on and keep the faith are now smiling..
And as i look up at the heavens tonight... and feel the first rain drops on my face.. i know ive been blessed.. just like the parched up earth has been blessed with a new lease of life..

Different people... Different Thinking...

2007-05-25T23:11:00.000+05:30

Its 7 pm in the evening.. Dad had just come from office... Aai was busy with her evening chores...

zzzooooooop!!! Off went the lights!! Power failure!!!

"Oh God... Now how will i operate the washing machine????", aai said...

"Hey Raam... Now how will i watch Kasam se, Saat pheron mein, Beetiyaan... blah blah blah", Blurted Aji...

"Damn... Now how will i Read the newspaper and Iron my clothes for tomorrow??", This was my Dad...

As for me... I just needed a reason to get away from the house to the terrace for some fresh air ... and some solitude... my Ipod giving me the company...

Mr.Springsteen knows me well..

2007-05-23T20:01:00.000+05:30

Heard this song after a long time, and i was amazed to realize that this is exactly my life that he's singing about...

Kudos Mr.Springteen.. Uve finally given a song that describes my life so well.. here it goes..

Dancing in the Dark

I get up in the evening
and I ain't got nothing to say
I come home in the morning
I go to bed feeling the same way
I ain't nothing but tired
Man I'm just tired and bored with myself
Hey there baby, I could use just a little help

You can't start a fire
You can't start a fire without a spark
This gun's for hire
even if we're just dancing in the dark

Message keeps getting clearer
radio's on and I'm moving 'round the place
I check my look in the mirror
I wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face
Man I ain't getting nowhere
I'm just living in a dump like this
There's something happening somewhere
baby I just know that there is

You can't start a fire
you can't start a fire without a spark
This gun's for hire
even if we're just dancing in the dark

You sit around getting older
there's a joke here somewhere and it's on me
I'll shake this world off my shoulders
come on baby this laugh's on me

Stay on the streets of this town
and they'll be carving you up alright
They say you gotta stay hungry
hey baby I'm just about starving tonight
I'm dying for some action
I'm sick of sitting 'round here
trying to write this book
I need a love reaction
come on now baby gimme just one look

You can't start a fire
sitting 'round crying over a broken heart
This gun's for hire
Even if we're just dancing in the dark
You can't start a fire
worrying about your little world falling apart
This gun's for hire
Even if we're just dancing in the dark

- Bruce Springsteen

Material Boy!!

2007-05-23T18:11:00.000+05:30

Today, i was going through my Orkut profile.. (Have to cuz i know noone else does ;)..
and i came across this column in PERSONAL tab that said ... "5 things i can't live without"..
Hmm.. i wondered.. let me see.. What are those 5 things that "I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT"!!
Are there such "Things" that one cant live without???
I thought and it didnt take me long to enlist those things... 5 is too less a number of things to enlist..
So i thought, Blogger is a good medium to tell u guys what those things are...

Before i tell u what those things are, I would sincerely like to thank my sister ,Priti, for turning me into a "Material Boy".. as she has given me 99% of those paraphernalia...
So here they go...

1] Ipod Mini

Yeah.. Ive this Ipod Mini...
Its an antiquated player now, but when i got it, it was the latest around.. and i still prefer mini to those 60-80Gb video ipods..
Highly compact which fits into my jeans mini pocket.. no-nonsense music player...
True Nano is a similar one.. but I cant handle delicate things like Nano.. so Mini is better suited to my rugged life!!

This is the most important thing in my life.. as music is my life, i cant live without my ipod for sure... While eating, sleeping, travelling, peeing.. i need this baby!!

2] Sony Cybershot DSC P-72

Surprised to see my cam at number 2??? Cant help it... Music comes first for me... :)
Priti gave this to me when she got herself a new digicam.. So i truely began experimenting with my photography in 2005!! And i think ive done a good job..
Now out of production, DSC P-72 was the first 3.2 MP cam to enter the market... 3X optical zoom was unheard of..
I guess its lens has developed some problem now that i dont get good satisfactory pics and thinking of buying a new one.. But this will always be special for me..

3] Sony Playstation 2

Once a guy on the Orkut PS2 community had asked me...
"A doc playing on a PS2????!!!"

hahahahaha...

I would say, "Thats me!!"

And dont they say that doctors who are good at playing video games are better surgeons??!!

Again,Priti had gifted this to me in 2005 on my birthday... This is 3rd cuz its a major stress buster for me..
Whenever i get frustrated, i start plugging in my PS2 and start punching on the keys.. so be it thrashing the Undertaker in Smackdown vs Raw..
Or shooting away the aliens' brains.. Or racing the tracks of Spa and the streets of Monaco as Raikkonen.. Or piercing through the opposition defense and shooting goals as Kaka!!

4] Cyberhome DVD player

This compact DVD player is really a smart electronic item... It plays everything right from DVD-R to DVD-RW and CDs and mp3s etc...

Its so compact and light, that sometimes ive even carried it to my friends place in a plastic bag.. :)

Keeps me entertained .. as im a movie buff.. Ive this huge collection of Hollywood movies that we get on the road for 70 bucks..

And yeah.. also have downloaded quite a few ones since ive got the broadband!

5] Portable DVD player

Yeah ive got a DVD player.. so what???

This is my latest acquisition from Priti..

Have u ever watched ur favourite movie, sitting atop the terrace tank.. lying down below the stars and feeling the cool breeze?? Well ive done it quite a many times..

I also carry it to those roadside dvd sellers to see if the dvds i buy are actually working cuz id been duped quite a many times before.. but not now..

The same player has now been introduced in the Indian market but its shit costly..

6] Victorinox - Camping

This is the most handy thing that i have..
Its at number 6 cuz i havent used it much besides trekking and i havent trekked for looooong!! (3months)
But i guess this is one of my favourites...

This Original Victorinox Camping has a total of 21 essential attachments and uses..

Priti had bought this for me when she had gone to Switzerland for her Honeymoon! :)
And shes such a darling that she even got my name engraved on it!!! :)
And also an original handy pouch to attach it to my belt!!

7] Camelbak - Trailblazer , Trekking backpack

This is my one-day Trekking backpack...
Highly compact.. and with a 2.5 L Hydration system installed..
[Hydration system : a water-pack with a silicon tube with a hydro lock that prevents water leakage.. so that one can drink water on the go]

Though ive got a larger 60 L capacity version on the lines of this backpack made to suit my needs, i havent used it much till date..

8] Meade Binoculars

My birding binocs!!!! :)
For a change, Not Priti, but my Jiju had given this to me..

Excellent quality lens.. and very compact..
I carry it regularly on treks and my Nature walks in National park..

Once while i watching a cuckoo from my balcony with the binocs,
the girl staying in the building in front of me thought i was leeching at her and she came to complain to my parents... ;)
Thankfully they bought my explaination about the birding!!
anyways she wasnt soo pretty that i wud leech on her with
my binocs!!! ;)

9] Dell Inspiron E 1505

My laptop!!
Dad got it last yr from USA...
Voted the best laptop of 2006...
It has a Media centre OS Intel centrino duo processor and 120 GB hard drive with a 17.1" monitor...

My old comp had a 20 Gb hard drive and 128 mb ram and it was a PII!! :D
Now even Ipods come with an 80 gb memory!
For my blogging , orkutting , pic editing, music/movie downloading.. and for a change.. studying!! ;)

10] Sony Sports walkman

This was my main source of music before the Ipod..
Still use it to listen to old casettes and the radio..

It has got a hand strap behind so that we can hold it while jogging..
Id actually started jogging when id got this one to show it off!! :)

And it also has one of my fav colour.. Light orange!! :)

Id got a headphones instead of the earphones shown in the Pic on the right..

11] Head lamp and Nordic walking stick

Trekking material that ive just acquired... Havent used them much Cause ive been on just one trek after i got them...
The head lamp damn good.. keeps ur hands free while u are trekking at nights.. Quite powerful and it also has a distress signal light at the press of a button on the top..

Nordic walking stick was bought by my sister when she had gone on a trek in the swiss alps while on her honeymoon!! {I envy her for that!!}
This is my third leg when i trek.. to carry my load when im down and dusted.. helped a lot to climb a gradient on my last trek to Siddhagad, and i know it will help me in future treks too..
Its a telescopic stick that extends to a height of about 5.5 feet!!
While i was carrying it on the trek, the hand-grip used to jut out of my bag over my head..
A couple of locals also asked me if i was carrying a sword or something like that..
Thankfully the policemen patrolling the railway stations didnt think so!! ;)

12] Vivitar 1200 Tripod

For a change, something which I have bought!! :D

just bought it a month back.. havent used it much.. but am damn eager to use it.. Highly compact and light because of its aluminium body and telescopic lens, i intend to carry it on my night treks to get some good snaps at night..

Phew!!!
Done with the Major things that i cant live without..
Well there are many other things ranging from My rechargeable batteries and battery charger for my cam to my sony discman and cell phones.. But i could definitely do without them..

Thank you Priti.. I pray noone gets a sister like you!! :)

All those stuff were the latest when id got them, now they are antediluvian.. But dont electronics do get old???

Whoever said that materialistic people are not happy in life!!!
hahahahahahaha!!!

Being a "Waiter"

2007-05-20T20:27:00.000+05:30

Sunday evenings are meant to be spent in restaurants hogging on chicken masala and sucking the marrow of mutton legs!! ;)
So this evening, Myself and my pal decided to try something different... Go to a dhaba!!
Dhabas are quite few in Mumbai.. for that Uve to go on the outskirts.. We went to a dhaba at Dahisar, on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway..

It was an open air dhaba... which was overflowing with customers.. truck drivers.. college kids.. high end car owners.. all of them..
The waiter was a young guy.. maybe around about 16-17 yrs old.. And he was the only waiter around.. He moved around swiftly.. from table to table.. He was a master , i thought.. master at what he was doing..
Taking orders..

Aye.. ek chicken masala.. aur do roti

Ek mutton sukha aur 2 butter naan..

Arre ek chicken biryaani laana jyaada.. jyaada teekha nahi banaana ha..

Aree idhar 2 roti dena..

char naan..

ek chaas..

rice...

phew!!! Orders were being bombarded at him.. from left- right and centre.. from top-bottom-from front and behind.. everywhere..
Poor guy , i thought.. i hope he gets my order right..

He came at our table to take our order..

"Chicken Liver masala milega??"

"Milega na saahab.. sab milega... chicken masala.. mutton masala.. chicken liver.. mutton liver.. bheja masala.. chicken kheema.. mutton kheema... bhah blah blah!!"

"arre bas bas.. ek chicken liver masala.. 2 butter naan.. aur tu kya lega?? huh.. ok.. ek mutton masala aur do roti..."

"aur kuch saahab??"

"nahi bas.. ek baat poochni thee... Order baarabar laaega na?? Itni orders mein kuch adla-badli nahi karna.."

"Sawaal hi paida nahi hota saab.."

"Tujhe itni orders yaad kaise rehti hai re??"

He flashes an Orbit white smile..

"5 saal se yehi kar raha hoon saab.. aadat hai..."

and then he rushes to take order at another table...

In abt 15 mins.. our order was on our table.. we gobbled our way to glory!!

But that guy still remained on my mind.. How can he possibly remember all those orders.. its impossible for me to keep that in my mind..
Or can I??
Yes i can...

.....Rewind...... July 2005.... EMS ward , KEM hospital.......

Aye intern.. Seetabai ko Iv line daal..

Intern.. bed1 ka Hb,cbc, Rft, LFT, Ps for malaria bhej de jaldi..

Arre.. trolley patient ko folleys tube, ryles, iv line aur routine collections..

Parag.. Trauma patient ko dus min mein central line jaani chahiye..

Arre Raamji ka HBV,HCV,HepB,HIV bhej de fataafat..

Arre iska ABG kar.. sab patients ke reports trace karke aa...
.
.
.
.
.
I wasnt bad, was I ??? A good "Waiter" In the making???!! ;)

My reminiscences of 1993

2007-05-20T00:51:00.000+05:30

Cut back to the winter of 1992-93...
It was a glorious winter.. i remember.. I was in fifth grade.. I had just started doing well in academics.. and had stood first in term ending exams... The winter of 92 was a time to celebrate... Time to enjoy.. And we had an extended vacation.. a pretty long one too..
I dunno why.. Id heard Dad discussing with mom about some babri masjid being demolished ...
Is it related to Babar dad?? I asked him.. yes.. he said.. and i know he must have felt happy at my innocence at that time.. and happy i was too.. I know Babar very well.. Ive topped in History too!!!!

I remember watching on the tv , thousands of people wearing saffron coloured clothes marching together.. They called themselves "kar sevaks".. they were hindus.. Oh even im a hindu.. But why are they demolishing a mosque?? Maybe its a dilapidated structure anyways.. thats why they are bringing them down so that they can rebuilt it... duh!! i Better watch a football game...

The next few days.. it was all over the newspapers.. mosque demolished.. riots have broken out in all parts of the country.. who cares?? I better go down and take the bat early, or i will get to bat last..
When the riots started in Mumbai.. oops.. Bombay.. My dad used to be at home..
I used to hear from him.. about how hindus were butchering the muslims and vice-versa.. This was all new to me.. at least after the Rajiv Gandhi assasination which occurred a couple of yrs back, just a few days before my birthday..
I was warned by mom not to venture out of the colony gate after 6... 6 pm was the time, when curfew used to begin in our area and the neighbouring squatters colony, which had a muslim population.. Id heard from the bigger guys that they had burned down a hindu a few days ago..
The colony gates used to shut and police vehicles used to patrol the entire area throughout the night..
Well anyways my life was within the protected premises of my society..
It was a fortress.. a fortress of ignorance that id built around myself..
I dont care a damn about Hindus or muslims!! I used to think.. as long as i get to enjoy my vacation-- correction--- an extended vacation, to the fullest!!

The entire day we used to play.. sometimes cricket, sometimes football.. or any other game we wud invent.. totally oblivious to the massacre that raged outside..
We were 10 year old ignorant innocent kids.. We were no Hindu.. or no Muslim..
Our only religion was our childhood.. which demanded us to be ignorant, and we were doing exactly the same thing..
My vacation lasted for about 2 months... 2003 began with the same incidences..
But this was something new.. I read in the newspaper about the entire chawls being burnt to ashes.. innocent kids like me, also shot.. burned and butchered.. i shuddered at the thought of me being in that situation.. come march and the new saga of terror in the face of serial bomb blasts had started.. I read about people's intestines being scattered at the place of the blasts..The bloodshed continued..
But for me, the trauma was momentary.. I used to immerse myself into my ignorance and moved on with life..

1993 was a long year for me..
It was a year when i saw AC Milan lose the european cup (the now champions league) to Olympique de Marseille..
It was a year when Alan Prost had piped Ayrton Senna for the F1 championship..
It was a year when Shawn Michaels had won the WWF world championship..
and it was a yr, when i stood first in the school for the first time..
In 1993, I was a 10 yr old.. Me, and the other 10 year olds of my class were raging their own battles.. A battles within themselves..
A 10 yr old had a lot many better things to do, than to care about the bloodshed..

Black Friday - a conversation

2007-05-19T23:53:00.000+05:30

Was watching black friday today on cable tv...
Just want to key down this engrossing dialect between Inspector Maria after he arrests Badshah khan, one of the bomb implanters..

[Reader discretion recommended-- ABUSIVE LANGUAGE!!]

Badshah khan tells Maria about why they had planted those RDX bombs which killed over 200 people in mMumbai..

"Humari Babri masjid itni naazuk nahi hai ki hathodon ki waar se gir jaaye aur hum kuch na kare...
Humare logon ko maara.. humaari aurton ki aabru looti.. chhote chhote bachchon ko goliyan maari..
Humne apni kaum ka badla le liya...
Allah humaare saath hai..."

"Allah is samay humaare saath tha"

"Kya baat karte ho saab... 400 hinduon ko maare hai humne , aur aap kehte hai allah aapke saath hai??"

"Allah humaare saath hai.. aur har ek sachche aadmi ke saath rahega...

Agar allah tumhaare saath hota, to tum woh maruti car waha nahi chhodte,
Agar tumhaare saath hota, to woh do bomb jo nahi fute, woh bhi futte..
agar tumhaare saath hota, to hum 3 mahine mein 200 arrests nahi karte
agar tumhaare saath hota, to humein ek bhi saboot nahi milta
agar tumhaare saath hota, to aaj tum and tumhaare saathi yaha nahi hote...
Allah farak nahi karta... farak to tum karte ho saalon...

allah tumhaare saath nahi tha.. tumhaare saath tha to Tiger memon..
Jisne tumhaare is gusse ka fayda uthaaya..
khud blast ke ek din pehle apne poore parivaar ke saath dubai chala gaya
aur chhod gaya tumhe.. dande khaane...

Usne tum logon ko chutiya banaya..
pata hai kyu?? kyun ki tum chutiye ho..

aur woh har ek hindu chutiya hai jo musalmaanon ko maarta hai
aur dharm ke naam par khoon karne waala har ek aadmi chutiya hai..
Kyunki tum jaise chutiyon ko aur koi kaam dhandha nahi hai...
jo Hum jaise police officers ka binaa soye bhukha rakhte ho.."

sataaakkk... maria slaps badshah who falls down .. and then he walks away...

Rat Tales

2007-05-19T19:18:00.000+05:30

It was mid-June.. The first rains had started long back and Tarapur was already facing the brunt of the monsoon.. a gale at night was a regular feature, and water-logging had started around the PHC as its in a low lying area..

It was one of those days ... when there was load-shedding in the entire tarapur-chinchni area.. So as a rule, i spent my entire day in Boisar..
Sakil had ditched me (again!!) and had gone to mumbai for his guitar lessons.. But id a great time watching bhojpuri film "Kahi koi gavna hamaar" in the local theatre... (Another blog in the making ;)
By 8 pm.. i reached my PHC... struggled thru pitch black darkness and slippery muddy road all the way to my room.. Garfield and family were chatting outside.. and Garfield was having a candle-light booze session with his another garfieldish pal!! [Garfield: the appellation given to the husband of a nurse,who used to work in our PHC...Garfield cuz 16/24 hrs he used to laze around on his Khatiya outside his room.. the other 8 hrs were inside ;) ]
My dabba was already ready at the door step.. The electricity came by around 9 after which i took a hot water bath and had my dinner and prepared to doze off...

Just when i was about to doze off, humming to the U2 numbers blaring thru my cheap 40Rs speakers connected to my Ipod.. My MO , Dr.Vivek Gupta called up to tell me that he ll be coming to the phc for the night shift as it was a pulsepolio going on and he had to report early the next day... Thank God! I wont have to wake up tonight for any emergency case... Time to doze off.....

Dunno when it happened, but i felt a distinct tug at the back of my head..
Go away ditcher.. I mumbled in my sleep.. thinking it was Sakil who had come back in the morning.. The tugging got a bit more stronger..
Shooo.. B******... lemme sleep a******
And then it started hurting a bit..
Who the f*** are u!!!
I then tried to grab what was behind me.. trying to disturb my precious sleep on a windy, rainy night when the wind and the rain were merrily composing an orchestra on the asbestos roof...
It felt soft.. hairy.. small.. a soft toy?? I dont ve a soft toy.. I grabbed it in my hand and flashed my torch on it...

Holy shit!!!

There were 2 small eyes , glaring back at me.. menacingly.. they were horrendous.. they were yucky... and the creature with those eyes even had a tail.. a tail which was vigorously swaying around.. and 2 pairs of small feet.. that were struggling to let go off my dreamy sleepy grip... And those eyes meant business..
Ooops!! The creature proved to strong for me and i lost my grip.. and he fell right on my chest!!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!
Go away u f***ing rat!!!!

I hit him hard with the back of my hand... Thud!! I heard him banging against the wall..
Shit!! Is he dead?? I struggled to reach the switch to the 40 watt bulb in my room.. and turned it on.. and there i saw the devil.. up on the roof..
How did he get there?? so soon??
No buddy! he wasnt the same one... the one i just hit was in another corner.. and he was still glaring.. and now he had a vindictive look in those eyes.. he wanted to get me hard.. and get me back!!
Ok dude.. u win...
I frantically called up Dr.Vivek..

"Hello??"

"hello.. Dr.Vivek??.. Parag here.."

" Ha bol Parag..."

"uh.. i have a small problem out here.. actually.. a big one.. Can i come over to ur room for the night? even Sakil's not here so was kinda feeling lonely.."

"Hey no problem.. come over.. we'll watch the Wimbledon together.."

"Ok thanx. bye"

Wimbledon???! What time is it?? Holy cow... its just 11???!! and i thought it must be hrs past midnight... aaaah thank God.. i have a whole 9 hrs of sleep left in front of me... :)

Then i gathered all my paraphernalia (read: spects, stethoscope,torch,ipod,watch and ha..umbrella).. and i braved the storm and an inverted umbrella to reach his room.. He was waiting outside..

"Hey dude.. what heppened??"

"Nothing re, there was a rat.. sorry.. a couple of rats in my room.. and bloody one of them was nibbling on my hair.. please, will you just check my head??"

I turned around.. and gave a boisterous laugh that id never heard from him for 15 days i was with him...

"Hey.. what happened??.. please tell me whats wrong.."

"Feel ur head.." he said, still laughing..

And i felt it.. everything was ok.. except a patch.. a distinct patch on my head where there were NO HAIR!!

Brilliant!!!!!! The Rat had his say after all..

As we spent the rest of the night watching federer thrash his opponent on the grass court.. I lamented from within my soul about my loss to a hairy, stinky, 4 legged "MONSTER"...

As for me.. i had an amazing sleep.. got up at 9 the next morning when the pulse polio inspectors were inspecting the phc and i was standing in front of them in a baniyan and shorts..Thank God Sakil had made it on time..
The hair grew all right.. the patch was just about 2-3 cm in diameter..

As for my MO Dr.Vivek, whenever he sms es me or scraps me on orkut.. he always mentions that,
"The rats in Tarapur still miss you.."

Yeah... and i miss them too!! :)

Acrophilia??!!!

2007-05-16T00:42:00.000+05:30

acrophobia (n):
Morbid fear of great heights.

Thats what the Oxford says...
Mine is a strange case.. and a very strange one too...

I got to realize it when Id gone for a trek to Harishchandragad.. many years back... with my buddy Nishant..
It was an amazing trek full of adventure (read:Included climbing down the rock face on one shoe each..) But i'll talk about it sometime later..

Nishant's one shoe had given away.. So he wasnt ready to come with me to the famous Konkan-kada, for which Harishchandragad is so famous for.. It was early morning and we had trekked through the night for about 4 1/2 hours to reach the temple on the top.. and i didnt wanted to miss the sunrise in any case whatsoever.. So i ventured out alone for the Kada with a water bottle, a cam and a knife (there are leppards found on Harishchandragad)... Sunrise and sunset should never be missed from the Konkan kada, people say...
I reached there early.. the first few rays of sun were just falling on this massive 1500 feet wall which faces the western coast of maharashtra.. I wanted to get a closure view of the kada.. so i went very close to the edge.. and i saw straight down into the valley, about 2000 feet below...
I lay on my tummy, my chest and head and hands suspended in mid air.. and took amazing snaps of the valley below..
But suddenly it happened..
Suddenly i started getting the strong urge.. to just run and take off.. and jump into the vast abyss... The breeze blowing on my face from below in the valley was too luring... I got scared...
Id never experienced this urge to jump from a heighted place before... Maybe the fact that there was a guy who had jumped from the Kada, supposedly, due to the sheer beauty of the sight of sunset, was on my mind... or maybe not..
I gathered my composure and briskly made my way back to the temple...

But that wasnt the only incident... That was just the beginning..
Each and everytime i trek, suddenly.. and out of the blues.. i get this strong desire.. just to take off and let myself free... Free to float away in the air.. feel like flying away.. Even though i can see the bottom below, I feel its an abyss.. Just like a chasm within me... where i can see no end.. I feel like plunging into the same...

No.. Im not afraid of heights.. I dont have any "MORBID FEARS" abt heights, like the Oxford says.. I get a penchant for getting up there.. and looking below.. and then someone calls me... someone wants to pull me down below.. The feelings strong.. and its amazing....

acrophilia:
Sexual arousal from heights or high altitudes.

I guess its not sexual arousal that i experience.. Like what i often refer to as "Orgasmic pleasures"... its far more spiritual... It doesnt give me any sort of a physical erection.. but it sure does rejuvenates my mind.. and my soul...

So I guess its "OFFICIAL"!!! Im ACROPHILIC!!!

Asinine Verses..

2007-05-15T22:28:00.000+05:30

You may not be knowing, but i have this inane tendency to really screw up good songs...
Here goes the latest...

[Sing to the tune of "Jab Pyaar kiya to darna kya"- Mogul-e-aazam]

Jab paap kiya to papa bane..
Do-do bachchon ke ab baap bane..
paap kiya bina "TOPI" ke re..
Paaap kiyaaaaaaa
Paap kiya par shaadi nahi ki
In bachchon ka ab karna kyaa..

Free... At last !!!

2007-05-10T22:31:00.000+05:30

May 9th 2007... They will remember this date forever... for as long as their lives are remaining after 14 years of ordeal.. 14 yrs of suffering.. 14 yrs of being stamped as the TRAITOR..

23 accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts were finally released formally after their acquittal last year...
Yes.. what happened in 1993 was gruesome.. a crime that warranted death sentences to those found guilty.. The Mumbai police did an amazing job.. handling the investigation.. getting most of those involved arrested (the masterminds were never touched!!).. But have u spared a thought for thos who were not guilty???
Those who were rounded simply because they were known to the accused..
simply cuz they had been to dubai at the same time the conspiracy was hatched...
Or simply because they were belonging to the minority community????

They were thrashed... Stripped in front of their women-folk... made to lie nude on ice bars... nails and hair pulled out... genitals stomped upon.. and their women folk were even molested in front of their own eyes... Just go through BLACK FRIDAY , the book.. and you'll come to know about the atrocities they inflicted..

Agreed, the 23 accused may indeed be still guilty... but what is even 1 person amongst the 23 is innocent... Did he deserve such a treatment??
Think about that one person... he would have been in his early 20s when he was taken away into police custody... 14yrs... Yes.. 14yrs of trials n tribulations..
14 Yrs or being looked upon as a Traitor... a renegade.. a quisling.. a turncoat.. Or simply put, a Desh-drohi!!
Why was he inflicted with such a charge?? Why were the 14 most productive years of his life taken away??
Even he had a family to support.. children and elderly parents to look after.. sisters to get married off.. He wasnt a big-shot politician ... or a Bollywood star!!
He belongs to the minority religion... He's a God fearing person.. Allah is everything to him.. Everyday , every night he used to pray to allah.. pray to be relieved of this misery..
His family was outcasted.. "Traitors.. they all are", they all said..

Homo praesumitur bonus donec probetur malus.. The famous Latin maxim..

It means.. "One is innocent until proven guilty"...
This wasnt the case in the 93 Blasts case.. they were all guilty until proven innocent!!

14 yrs of ordeal is over.. He is free again.. The "Traitor" tag is removed from his forehead forever.. or is it??
He is ecstatic.. but he's impassive.. He cant express his ambivalence.. He has nothing to say..
He is past 40 yrs now.. lost his job, parents have passed away, long awaiting the return of his innocent child,whom they know can never commit such a heinous act... He has to start from scratch again..
He feels like a 10 month old child, trying to stand up on his feet again.. trying to take his first step forward.. He was stuck in the moment for 14 long years.. a life term for a crime he did not commit...
And even after his acquittal, he'll be known as the person accused in the blasts case.. people will still eye him with suspicion.. "Who knows???", they'll say... But he knows.. and He knows..

Undergarments Galore!!!

2007-05-09T15:31:00.000+05:30

Off late, there are plentiful undergarment adds being aired on the countless Cable channels.. There are quite a few interesting ones that i saw on Gemini and Udaya channel of a Superhero fighting of villians and then flashing off his chaddis... but since i couldnt fathom the toungue twisting linguistics.. I d rather tell you guys about a couple of adds on our normal Hindi channels..
To have an equal sexual representation.. theres one for the guys n one for the girls..

On this blog, theres always guys first (also, the girls add is a total sick add!!)So here goes...

Scene 1.. A group of young women are washing clothes at a dhobi ghat .. a couple of them tying their hair.. and an old crooked widow chewing pan.. with the background score going "OING....OING" at regular intervals..
then here enters this sexy, sultry lass... in a sexy purple saree , gracefully walks down the steps leading to the ghat with a bucket full of clothes to wash ... all the other women , esp the elder women give here a menacing, teasing look... Oblivious to their looks.. she reaches the ghat and looks at them.. smirks ..and then suddenly takes her husbands undi from the bucket and flashes it to the horror of other women.. ( Like shes flaunting her new expensive jewellery..hahaha)
And then with a lascivious look, she chews her lips (aaah!!!) and then starts washin her hubbies Undies... first slowly.. and then vigorously.. and then to the amazement of the other women, takes a big "Dhoka" and takes a big swing and bang... on the undies!!! And then she flaunts the undies by flashing them again in front of those women.. and then stretches the undies... (and as she stretches the undies.. the back ground OIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNGGG.. also stretches in the same proportn... :)
And then the catch line...
Amul Macho.. Crafted for Fantasies!!!

Now the ladies turn.. this is the most pathetic, sick add ive seen for a loong long time..
The add starts with Reema Lagoo (the Saas of the famous series "tu tu main main") staring as the woman-know-all.. Lakshmi.. in a studio show, "Lakshmi sab jaanti hai" being aired on tv in front of a live audience...
She starts reading the first "agony" letter..

"Lakshmi ji.. main koi bhi Panty khareedti hoon.. ek hafte mein kharaab ho jaati hai..
Uska elastic jaldi toot jaata hai.. aur fir Panty pehenne ke liye safety -pin (????????!!!) ka istamaal karna padta hai... please madat kijiye..."

And then our Reema Lagoo aka Lakshmi gets livid with rage and blasts out...

"Sabse pehle.. raaste par se panty khareedna band karo... dukaan mein jaao aur seedhe Lux COSY panties maango... Yeh dikhne mein to achchi hai hi.. kaafi tikaao bhi hai.. Aur iska elastic kitna bhi khicho fir bhi kharaab nahi hota...." And just like the previous add.. she stretches the brown panty with her hands for almost a mile..
(I dont understand.. does Reema lagoo keeps an extra pair of panties in her bag?? or did she know that she was going to be asked tht query???)

Finally, i guess i know what to look for when i go shopping for my undies next... Look out for the bloody elastic..

Friends Forever..

2007-05-09T15:12:00.000+05:30

This Psychotic- kiddish poem.. dedicated to all my my pals...

Pick out any song you please
Click.... We are in harmony
Stick with me, and you'll see
What a kick it is to be
My friend- Yeah, we're friends till the end

I'll travel..I'll go here and I'll go there
Tag along, we'll see most of everywhere
Hell!! this will be fun ..i Swear
Everyone will know that you're
My friend- Yeah, we're friends till the end

Sometimes i tend to be a little bore
We'll play a game, but we wont keep a score
Friendship has its own reward
Its fun, just to play the game
You win,I win..its all the same
Who cares who really comes in first??
Our friendship is our biggest Gain

So lets spell it out...
F someone asks of me
R you and me a team
I will say we'll always be friends.. yeah we're friends till the
END..

What "I" want...

2007-05-05T21:58:00.000+05:30

A few days back, I was chatting with my buddy about life, the stars ,and the universe..

Dunno how that topic came up... but it did.. about dreams.. about aims in life..
I began to ponder.. pondered for a few days..
As id seen 5 yrs of dreams crashing down in a moment, i dreaded to dream again.. dreams that wud never come true..
As months passed, now i began to think again.. and now decided..
Im going to live my life.. live my life for MYSELF.. gonna do things that I ALWAYS wanted to do.. i always dreamt off.. and gonna make those dreams come true..

so, however trivial these dreams may look, thts wht they are.. dreams.. and someday im gonna make them come true..

1. Watch the Milan derby at the San siro

2. Watch the Belgian grand prix at Spa

3. Watch the U2 live in concert...

Simple dreams.. all u need is the time, and moolah...
and thats what i wanna do.. earn a lot of moolah... just to spend them on travelling...

I still recollect the quote from the NAMESAKE

Pack a pillow and a blanket.... Go see the world... you'll never regret...

Of "Haapus" mangoes and "Aamras-puris"

2007-05-02T14:16:00.000+05:30

"Aai.. whats for lunch today??"

"Arre, ive made ur fav Aamras... take it from the fridge"...

aaaahh... aamras...
As i opened the fridge, my eyes literally began to glow... the golden coloured aamras truely appeared like molten Gold kept in the vessel..
My taste buds couldnt control their desire.. a stong current went through my mouth... they were telling me.. Parag, what are u waiting for buddy?? Plz feed us with this delicacy.. we've waited too long..
And as i placed the spoon filled with the chilled aamras in my mouth, i started getting goose-bumps... yeah.. waited soo long.. a year...

Mangoes have always been special to me right from my childhood..
Maybe because their season begins when we used to have our school vacations..
Or maybe just because my Bday is in may, that i can relate to it...
I remember the time when i was a school kid.. when i was in primary school..
My aai used to tell me, that mangoes come in May only to celebrate my birthday... and that I'm a prince--a to-be-king, just like mango is the king of the fruits.
My aji still tells me tales, when as a 3 yr old, id nibbled on an entire dozen full of mangoes that she'd bought once, just like a rat nibbles on the food..

Yes,.. Mangoes hold special importance to me.. they bring back those old childhood memories.. those memories which i always cherished..the most happiest times of my life.. the times when i was innocent, carefree and had no obligations or responsibilities..
I was supposed to do only one thing... HAVE FUN!!!

I still remember, during the early nineties when i was in primary.. when mangoes were dirt cheap.. about Rs.75-80/dozen...Aai used to buy entire "petis" of mangoes.. each containing about 4-5dozen..
The entire morning of the summer vacation used to go playin around the neighbourhood.. and then after coming home, helping myself to a huge bowlfull of chilled Aamras with puris, reading Tinkle , Indrajal comics and Famous five books, and watching Funtime, with giant robot, fraggle rock and Heman on DD...
And then there used to be huge fights with my dearest sister, over who gets the larger share of the Aamras!! :D
On my birthday, Aai used to serve me Aamras-puri and batata bhaji in a silver plate and silver Wati,with a silver spoon and glass!!! Boy, i really felt like a King then!!

Relishing on Haapus Mangoes was a totally different experience... I used to make a complete mess of myself.. my face, hands and even my clothes smeared with mango juice that i used to spill all over.. and then get a big bad scolding from Aai..
And then there was "Aam panna"... how can i forget that???
Nothing ever used to freshen me up from a gruelling cricket match under the scorching may sun than aam panna..

We used to fully utilise the thrown away "petis" (a peti is a wooden box filled with mangoes stacked in hay in layers.. now u dont get those, they ve been replaced by cardboard boxes)
We used to make homes for the puppies with the wooden boxes... and they hay was used to make ourselves a nice comfortable seating place for the machans we used to construct... though i used to end up coming home scratching all over my back and u-know-where... ;)

Now, A dozen mangoes are priced at the rate at which we used to get a "peti" during those days.. around 350-400 Rs..
The childhood enthusiasm has been lost forever.. but my taste buds still remember the sweet taste of the mangoes id eaten in my childhood..

India VS Bangladesh -- A Rematch!!!

2007-04-30T22:40:00.000+05:30

I was returning home today in the local train, when i heard him say...

"Today is the India-Bangladesh rematch from the World Cup"...

"What??"

"Yes... India has challenged Bangladesh for a rematch.. they said they can beat Bangladesh, with the same players (though a few more weeks elder), against the same team, and at the same venue..."

I rushed home... cant miss this one ... Wow.. i hope India bt the shit out of Bangladesh.. anyways they were no better than Bermuda, i thought.. just our players having a very bad day....

All set.. tv and all turned on.. i sat on my bean bag and got ready.. this is gonna be fun!!!!

Again India won the toss and elected to bat...
The selectors had much debated whether to change the players.. but it was decided that they'll sport exactly the same team.. so here it goes...

Ganguly and Sehwag walk down the steps of the pavillion at the Port of spain hoping for a change in the history books...
Mortaza, the chap who destroyed India earlier, runs in with the first ball to Ganguly and whack!!!!
4!!!
now thts a fitting reply to the humiliation India had suffered ealier.. a boundary on the first ball!!

The next 5 balls all went to the boundary!!! 24 runs from the first over.. Cant get better than this..

Next over, first ball to Sehwag and he smashes it through the covers for a 4!!!
And the next ball Over long on for a 6!!!
Ammmazing!!

But all good things dont last forever , do they???
Next ball, he tries to smashes it again.. and volia!!! Caught at slips... sounds familiar, doesnt it??

Utthappa walks in, cracks a few boundaries and goes.. and after a short while, so does ganguly!!

Score 44/3 in 4 overs!!!

Tendulkar and Dravid start the recovery... They try to built up a partnership, a very drag of a match ensues... together they put on 65 odd runs in 20 overs before Sachin gets out (bowled again!!!)... and yuvraj walks in and out within a matter of a few minutes..

109/5 in 25 overs!! Still they can make a match of it.. Dravid was still fighting , a dogged 35!!

But then the inevitable happens... The looooooooooooooooong tail of India catches fire and gets charred to ash within a matter of 5 overs and 20 odd runs...

India ... 129 all out in just 30 overs!!!!!

The bangladeshis are jubiliant .... The Indians have buried their heads between their legs...

Can there be another twist in the tale??

Can India pull this off with a spectacular display of swing and spin bowling??

It seemed like when Zaheer gets the first 2 wickets for just 2 on the score... but that was the last and only wickets they'll get...
Aftab Ahmed and S.Nafeez , both strike half centuries and get Bangladesh thru... again...

I was distraught... I couldnt understand.. I mean what happened to Indian batting against Bangladesh??
They had just a few days back made a score of 356/4 against the World champs Australia...

Though the bowling was pathetic, i never expected them to get bundled out for under 150 against Bangladesh???!!!
After all, it was a matter of prestige, a national pride at stake... It was for my satisfaction, that It was just a fluke that bangladesh had earlier beaten India, that Indians werent properly acclimatised to the carribean conditions..

But i guess the writing was on the wall...

Im sorry India... I couldnt help u beat Bangladesh... Even on My PS2 !!!

Dida On Sale???!!

2007-04-28T17:45:00.000+05:30

Yesss!!! U heard it right!!!

The "Most pathetic goalie for a top european side", as id referred to him in my previous blog, was put on sale by just another AC Milan fan like me, who thinks Milan are going downhill thanx to this goalie...

I can't believe this news made it to the front page of the No.1 selling daily in India (so what if it is on the top right hand corner??) ...

Apparently, Dida was put up on sale by this Milan fan On eBay , a couple of days back..
But even on eBay, noone was interested in buying this chap... After only 25 bids, His final value reached, at the time he was taken off the site, was a paltry $96.66 !!!!

Well Dida, Now that u know ur value very well.. why dont u just jerk off????

Here And There

2007-04-28T16:05:00.000+05:30

My first attempt to be Wordsworth... Read On... ;)

I'm always here.
I'm never there.
I'm never, ever anywhere.
Excepting here, 'cause here is where I'm in.
But when I go from here to there,
My here comes with me everywhere,
'Till there is here, and here is where I've been..

Hope u liked it... More to follow... Watch this space "Psychosis"...

World Cup what????

2007-04-27T22:26:00.000+05:30

I was reading the newspapers today... So went to my favourite sports section of the Times Of India.. no .. not cricket.. to catch up on the article regarding chelsea's victory over liverpool in the champions league semi final a night before... Unfortunately, I happened to read the World cup page... and then i came to know...

The World Cup Final is to be played on Saturday!!

Finally, I thought.. Finally the torture of 47 looooong days is coming to an end..

Finally, I'll be able to travel in the local train in peace, not getting to hear Cricket fans blurting out the last nights match stats..

Finally, I'll be spared of all the comments on Mandira Bedi's attire from all my female friends

Finally, Set max wont occupy the numero-uno spot on my remote, and ESPN Star will rightfully take its place back..

Finally, There will be a bit more space in the newspapers for something much more interesting and fun (read:football and F1)

Finally, I'll stop cursing ,cuz everytime i watch those f*** all pepsi adds on tv in which the kids say they'll bring the next wc home, i cant help myself from throwing maledictions..

Finally... oh.. finally... the day has come...

How im thankful to u Oh God.. that youve heard my prayers..

Thank you sooo much for knocking the Indian team out in the first stage itself.. (though i didnt asked u to get them ravaged in the way they did!!).. I was spared of all the cricketers adds being aired day in and day out on the tv..

But still some adds are being aired... Sachin tendulkar saying "Boost is the secret of MY energy"... Poor ppl from the BOOST brand.. their sales are gonna plummet like anything...
Irfan pathan asking a guy at the petrol pump.. "chauka ya chakka??" abbe chakke... pehle ek match to khel.. fir pooch chauka ki chakka... F***ing a**h**e...

And yeah... pepsi gold add.. in which a grp of kids getting their world cup jerseys stitched at a larger sizes , to b delivered 4 yrs later.. saying they'll b bringin home the next WC... I bet those kids wont b able to bring the International "GOTI" world cup.. forget cricket.. a**h***s...

The WC at the beginnin itself seemed doomed.. to be held in W Indies... the entire populatn of an island of which may fit in an eden gardens... there was hardly any full house..
To top it all it was a screwed up format... Super 8????!!! what next?? Getting in teams like sao-tome and principle, ghana, togo to play and start a super 10???!!!

For me, the WC went in this manner... The first match- West indies vs Pakistan.. yeah i actually saw that whole match.. Its the WC yaar!!

Then Bangladesh bt India and Ireland Bt Pakistan...

Arre aaj kiska match hai?? India srilanka?? do or die?? ohh... saw the first innings last 10 n indian 1st 10 overs.. tht was enuf.. India lost.. dead and buried...

Super 8s were.. Aaj kiska match?? Aus-Eng?? Aus-Nz?? theek hai yaar.. score sms kar dena...

Never knew when the semi finals happened as i was busy in much better stuff (Champions league semis).. and just got to know today that tomorrow, its finally getting over...

Australia vs Sri-Lanka..

Saw on the news channels.. they were carrying out public polls (smses costing 6rs each for answering that F*** all question.. like my D*** cares!!!), asking the "EXPERTS" their opinion.. the first expert being SABA KARIM(???!!!) Who the F*** cares man.. show me some NEWS!!!

Btw, the WC has been a real boon to many unemployed guys who cashed in a lot of moolah thru this WC... like Mandira bedi, Charu sharma, John wright... and the various "EXPERTS" on news channels like Saba Karim and Ajay Jadeja..
Arre, if our country is so full of "EXPERTS".. then y r u searching for a foreign coach?? y dont pick up saba karim and make him the coach, as he posseses this expert knowledge!!!

So tomorrow is the final.. Australia wins.. or if theres a Massive Miracle, Sri lanka..

After 6, the roads will be empty...
local trains and buses will be shit crowded at around 4-5 pm.. its a saturday anyways
the roadside stalls selling fm radios and portable speakers will be blasting away their 5 watts of speakers..
The electronic shops will be surrounded by hoards of ppl tryin to catch the match on the millions of tv screens in the shops..

And Me??? I'll be at a nearby Mumbai beach.. which will be obviously sparsely crowded, with my cam, trying to capture the april sunset... a day which i'll remember forever, a day when whatever little passion id for cricket died... RIP!!

Hey, Where are u catching the Champions League finals?????

And By the way, Can anyone tell me, How Important in Cricket..... is Football???!!!

My FIRST Time

2007-04-27T19:12:00.000+05:30

Thud.. thud.. thud..

Damn it.. Its the f***ing roof again, I thought. Why cant the Government get the roofs of all PHCs made of concrete??

Then it came again... Thud .. thud ..thud..thud ..thud...

huhhh?? wht the....

I was jolted back to reality. Where am I?? I wondered for a second, trying to orient myself in time,space.. and person. Oh yes.. Tarapur...

It was June 2005, the month of my Rural posting in internship. Generally , rural posting is considered to be a real pain in the -u-know-where! But ours was different. Myself,Sakil and Raghuvir had opted for Tarapur Peripheral Health centre (PHC). At that time it was considered to be the coolest, the most lenient. The MO was my immediate one yr senior. So he asked us to do minimum possible work. Raghuvir, unfortunately,was later shunted to Chinchni PHC nearby, and the poor guy was having a hard time cuz his MO was a sluggard.. so he had to run both the OPDs and manage emergency cases at nights too.. While we were enjoying our 30 day vacation!
But this one day, Sakil had to go to Mumbai for his guitar lessons and the MO had to go away for some personal work. And Dr.Parag Mahale, was the only available MO at the PHC..

The monsoon had just begin, and since the PHC is near the sea and on open ground, strong gale and heavy rains had become a regularity at nights.. to top it all, there used to be frequent power cuts and load shedding in that area.Interns generally are not provided with a separate room to stay and they r supposed to stay in the PHC.But since the Driver of the phc used to stay nearby, we were given his room.It was bang besides the mortuary and the post-mortem room.But what the heck?? we were not afraid of all this. When the wind used to blow thru the night, the loose asbestos roof of our room used to rattle violently , and so, it was almost impossible to sleep during the rainy nights with power cuts and all...

Thud.. thud..thud.. thud.. thud...

It was a clear peremptory knock on the front door.. It was 2 am.. i struggled to get hold of my torch..

"Kaun???" , I asked sleepily..

"Doctor Saheb.. main Nandu.. patient aaya hai.. emergency hai.. jaldi aaiye.."

"Ha, aata hoon"... Shit man, id hardly slept properly and this patient...

Struggling to put on my clothes, i groped the entire room for my tool (read:stethoscope).. Ha, got it!!

I opened the door and looking at the rain and feeling the wind, i felt like by the time i reach the PHC, i'll be blown away.. I took out the umbrella , but it was no use.. I flipped over in an instance.. I rushed towards the nearest shelter, the post-mortem room..

If u think this story is creepy and has anything to do with the mortuary, read on... :P

Then i ran all the way to the PHC , which was about a 100 metres away...

And what was here... a huge mob had gathered.. there were 5-10 policemen too.. apparently, there was a fight between two neighbours and one of them was hit on the head with a rod..
Oh man!! This had to happen this night only?? An MLC (Medico-Legal Case)!!
There was no electricity in the PHC , and the generator wasnt working too! Brillianto!!!
Ok.. calm down Parag.. this is ur First patient which you've to handle on your own! I told myself..

"Sister, Ek sage wala andar, baaki sab bahar!!!" I ordered on top of my lungs...

"Patient kidhar hai??" The senior inspector and sister accompanied me to the emergency room..

There was blood all over the place.. He was a young guy.. about 25 yrs old..
He was lying in a pool of blood.. and to make things worse, he was getting hysterical looking at all the blood he was losing fast...

"Doctor saheb, main mar jaaonga doctor saheb..."

"Arre kuch nahi hoga!! main aa gaya hoon na.. shant ho ja.. Kidhar kidhar laga hai woh jaldi bataao".. I tried to control the whole situation, tried to appear as calm as possible, though my heart was pounding as fast as the Rajdhani express...( bad simile , i know ;)

"sister, suturing tray.. "

How i wish electricity would come back.. but it didnt.. i'll have to manage this case in a God damn torch light..
I examined him properly.. there was a long gaping wound on his scalp which was bleeding profusely.. Pulse Bp everything was within the normal range.. Thank God.. no internal bleeding!!

"Sir, Suture tray.."

huh?? Ya .. suturing.. Now what?? Ive never ever sutured in my entire life.. Though Ive done episiotomy suturing in my Gynaec posting 3 months back, but my surgery posting was in october.. And i'll have to do this under torch-light... sighhhhhh...

"Sister, Gloves..."

I asked the Sister to hold the torch and the scissors..

Ok.. here go the gloves.. I hope this goes off well..

"Sister, Guaze piece.." ok.. now lets take a look at the wound.. hmm.. about 6-7cms long.. and whts this.. a bleeder.. damn!! (bleeder: An artery which gets severed starts spurting blood)

Ok.. catch the bleeder first and then suture the wound.. Breath Parag .. breeeeeeeeeaaath...

Here it goes.. Local anaesthesia given all around the wound, Taking the catgut i tried to catch hold of the bleeder. drat!! its so small n i can barely see anything.. My spect correction is definitely gonna increase after this..
Finally i caught hold of it and managed to control the bleeder .. now to the main part.. scalp suturing..

"Sister, vicryl..."

Ok.. Parag recollect the basics.. needle perpendicular to the needle holder.. movements supination-pronation... ok.. here it goes..

Moment i touched the skin, the dude started jumpin n shouting... wow!! this is gonna be one hell of a suturing...
Ok.. lemme give some more local first...

"Arre chup baith!!!".. and then ssssatttaaaak.. the inspector had given one tight slap on his face... there was no need of any more local i guess, as he laid there like a cadaver!!

Ok.. where were we.. hmm.. the first ever bite..

I strained my eyes and Tried to pierce his scalp, applying all my force i could muster from my wrist... The scalp is a very "tough" structure to suture.. Suddenly, there was a give away feeling and the needle went thru in a split second... i hope i didnt pierce his skull .. cuz the force was so much that i thought the needle wud come out thru the other side of his brains!! ..
Thankfully it didnt.. and so i reinserted the needle thru the other side.. damn it was tough..
And the knot in place, Yipppeeee!!! My first suture on skin.. that too on my own.. and that too in a torchlight!!!!

Im proud of you Parag.. i told myself.. ok.. now about 10 more to go........

after 15 mins of struggling with the needle holder, the torch light, and an unco-operative patient coming out of the Local , i finallly managed to get the suturing done..

"Sister, Dress him please, ill complete the paper work..." .. felt nice to get Bossy!!! ;)

So i went to get the paper work done, which proved to be much more tedious than the suturing... but i wasnt complaining..
So inspite of 2 pain in abdomen cases, one delivery and 3 other minor cases coming to the PHC by the time i finished the paperwork, which i had to manage them, i was all the time thinking about what i've done today.. My first Suturing!!!

The Silent Friendship

2007-04-26T10:53:00.000+05:30

It was just another gloomy mid-summer afternoon. I was burning away time plugging into my ipod and sipping away Cold coffee, when suddenly i heard a huge commotion of crows below. I looked out of my balcony to see a young baby crow, pink beak and all, who had probably tried to take his first flight, dangling in mid air a few feet above the ground, with kite string entangled in his wing and feet , suspending him from the tree above... As he was struggling to get free, he was getting more and more entangled in the string, and behold!! Two neighbourhood bitches were standing below to have a fresh stock of meat to pounce on...

I struggled to put on my tee and rushed down with a pair of scissors. Kaali (the black one) and sukdi (the emaciated one).. yeah those were the names given to the bitches by my aji (grandmom).. looked at me and started wagging their tails, like im gonna serve them the feast.. Instead, i shoo ed them away and cut the kite string. But as soon as the young crow fell to the ground, He started running away.. and then started the cat and mouse game, but eventually i caught hold of him (its tougher to catch hold of a crow than a chicken!!) and free him of the kite string. I saw that his left wing was injured and so as my aji advised me, i applied some turmeric paste and placed him on a coconut tree branch, just outside my window...As he was injured, he wasnt able to attain a good flight. So I started feeding him everyday. The seed of a new "Friendship" had just been sowed!!

Id named him "Kau",guess it runs in my family genes to give such weird names to animals n birds.. but that was it.. He was Kau for me. As i saw him grow in front of my eyes, just the same way one sees their kids grow, there was some sort of a routine developing. This used to start at exactly 8 in the morning. As i sleep with the window open, Kau used to sit at my window sill every morning and start his alarm clock... Kaav-kaav-kaav... His call wasnt like just another crow.. it was more harsh but somewht subdued.. Also his distinguishing feature was a single white feather on his defective left wing. He wasnt able to fly, my balcony was the highest he used to attain. He had made the coconut tree branch his home, till a few months back when they chopped off the tree, then he shifted base to the nearby mango tree. Whenever it was lunch time, I used to call him out (making the weirdest crow noises that i cud have made), and i guess he used to recognise my "Crow-call" and "limp" away to my window. Afterwards i never used to call him.. whenevr it was noon, he used to sit and call me out.. as if he was telling me.. hey dude , im hungry.. u got something out there??

Later , as i started going regularly to college to study, It was my aji that started feeding kau.. and i guess their bond grew stronger as well. One day i came home early in the afternoon to discover an amazing thing... my aji was taking the siesta on the sofa and kau was standing on the arm rest near her head. And as i entered, he didnt fly away, just kept on staring at me, as if to say, welcome parag.. u came early today??!! And neither did i shoo him off.. rather i switched off the fan and let him sit there for as long as he wish .. and then later he flew away on his own..

Now even this started as a routine. Kau apparently used to come every afternoon in my house and sit on the sofa for a couple of hrs before flyin away. He even stopped "crowing".. as if he knew wht his presence meant to us. He was like a family member to me now.My aji tells me that he is a re-incarnation of my dearest pal Zankhan who had passed away a few months back.. this made me even closer to him.

Come rain, he used to shelter himself at my window, and later used to fly off. Later, he was seen more at my window than on the tree. I started talking to him. I knew he used to understand. I spend hrs talking to him. Whenever its tea/coffee time, i chat with him. Hes like my daily diary.. and the most important thing is he's the only who listens to me patiently.. When i was going through a bad phase in my personal life last yr, he was there for me. When i didnt do well in my exams this yr, he was there for me.. I used to go on talkin n talkin my heart out, and he used to sit at the window.. staring at me.. and then used to lower his head , like to tell me, go on. im listening!

Then one fine day, the ineveitable happened.. No nothin happened to him, but he did shit on my fav chair.. that psyched me out and i shoo ed him away. But i guess he understood his limits and from that day on has never entered my home again. I dont care when my mom calls me tht im crazy that i keep on talking with a crow.. and i dont care my dad shouting at me for ruining the window sill with leftover food which i used to clean up later..

No wonder i trust these "Silent" friends more than ingrate humans.. They listen to me.. and they r always here for me.. First it was my feathery friend "Bini" the pigeon, who unfortunately died in a similar state that i found kau in.. hanged by the kite string.. And now its Kau.. He is nearly 2 yrs old now.. an adult crow.. and growing by age everyday. I know he wont be around for long.. How i wish he had the human's life span...

Nowadays im going thru this bad phase of Insomnia. Thats why i keep my window shut so that kau wont wake me up at 8 like he religiously does for nearly 2 yrs..Last night after the watching chelsea bt liverpool i tried to sleep.. and after tossing and turning for a whole 1 1/2 hrs.. finally at 4 am ,i got up to open the window to let in some fresh air..
"Kaav"... i heard it.. and then i heard it again. There he was sitting on the mango tree besides my balcony, looking at me thru those black button eyes.. as if he knew what im going thru..
And this morning, when i woke up at 10 am, I realised what had happened. Inspite of the window being open, Kau had not come to wake me up.. as if he knew that i slept late.. He understands the stuff which even my mom doesnt..

And as im writing this "Testimonial" for my "silent" friend.. i turn my head to look over my shoulder, and i see him sitting at my window.. looking at his snap as im uploading it..

Nostradamus

2007-04-25T13:57:00.000+05:30

For all those who still haven't read the predictions of Nostradamus, Here is the link.

Nostradamus - Writ...

Hosted by eSnips

Milan let down by DIDA again

2007-04-25T11:51:00.000+05:30

Manchester UTD 3-2 AC Milan

This was the much awaited Champions league semi-final.. the clash of the 2 european giants..

Manchester united who are leading the EPL and who had annihilated Roma in the quarter finals, were up against the resurgent Milan, who had defeated Bayern at their own home... A tough match for both the teams ... but united held the advantage as they were playing at old trafford..

The match didnt begin too well for Milan as once again, the man standing at the goal-line, the brazilian goal-keeper Dida, floundered a simple catch from a corner,which saw the ball rolling into the back of the net..
Now how many times is this goalie gonna let Milan down???

Id never seen such a pathetic goal keeper for a top european side before..

Cut back to the milan-bayern match at San-Siro.. and Dida let in two peach of away goals that nearly nailed milan's progress in the league. As seen in the slow motion, He actually shuts his eyes when the ball is struck at him... as if he's defending himself and not the goal!! The first goal he let in was nonetheless, a disaster, but the second one was the worst of all... letting the ball pass thru his near post when he is standing within a forearm's length from the post!! Now thats sickening...

Though Kaka` s Individual briliance saw Milan pull one back and then take the lead in the first half, the defence again let them down in the second...

First, Maldini was taken off at halftime cuz of some ankle injury, and later, Gattuso.. the midfielder..
With the 2 strongholds of the milan defence and mid-field gone, it was just a matter of when and how man-u would strike.. and they did in the 59th min courtesy Rooney and another poor show by the defence..
With Gilardino taken off and replaced by mid-fielder, it was apparent that Milan wud sit back and try to salvage a draw out of this.. 2-2 away, not bad at all... I dont know why Gilardino was even playing in this match.. Just saw him when he gifted away a couple of offsides and won a solitary free-kick outside the box..

But Milan paid the price for defending too deep in their half for too long as utd started to shoot from almost anywhere on the field on the "Lost soul" Dida!! Finally it came down to the first min of injury time when a fast counter by Carrick and Rooney opened up their defence, and Rooney shooting from the right hand corner of the box into the goal at the near-post!!!

Yes.. the near post again.. Dida was sleeping at the far post... and he kept such a huge gap at the near post that as the commentator rightly said, that anyone cud have driven a huge red-coloured double decker bus thru that gap!!! yea.. not the siddhus ambassador but an entire bus!!

I dont understand.. why is Dida in the team...
Milan would rather play with the goal left open without a goalie and do better with an extra defender... Or else Carlo Ancellotti might do a better goal-keeping for Milan than Dida...

And to make things worse, Dida's contract has been extended for another 5 yrs!!!!!!!!!

Drat!! will have to bear that Asshole for another 5 yrs!!

Why wasnt Kalac, the 2nd goalie played?? he had performed much better in the serie A match at the weekend when Dida was sidelined due to an injury... Ancellotti knew how dida has performed in the previous match against Bayern Munich... Doesnt he understand, hes a brazilian national player and Brazil is not known for their Goal-keepers!!!

Why dont Milan buy out a good defence and a new Goalie???

Next week, its advantage Milan for they have scored 2 crucial away goals... and all they need is a 1-0 victory that will send them though to the 3rd champions league finals in 5 years!! And if they do, i'll be the most happiest creature on this planet.. Only Dida stands in their way!!

My combo for the second leg...

-- Play Inzaghi instead of Gilardino
-- Play Nesta and Maldini(if he is fit) for the entire 90 mins
-- Play Kalac instead of Dida

Nice Quote

2007-04-22T22:51:00.000+05:30

Hey guys.. Couldn't help myself from posting this..

I came across this quote in todays Times Of India..

We Meet to create memories,
We part to preserve them.

How true, isn't it??
When i read this quote, I thought about the famous Hindi song from AAP KI KASAM - Zindagi ke safar mein..

A para goes like this..

Phool Khilte hai, Log milte hai
Phool Khilte hai, Log milte hai magar
Patjhad mein jo phool murjha jaate hai
Wo baharon ke aane se khilte nahi
Kuch log ik roz jo bichhad jaate hai
Wo hazaaron ke aane se milte nahi
Umra bhar chahe koi pukaara kare unka naam
Wo phir nahi aate, wo phir nahi aate

This is how i can interpret the song..

Like the flowers that bloom, we meet that special one in our lives who brings in happiness
But like those flowers,which wilt away in the winter,dont bloom at the arrival of spring... Once that special person parts away from our lives, though we may meet a thousand more people, but we never meet the right person we'd met before.. We may cry and call out for that person each and every day of our lifetime, but he never returns...

Pretty profound stuff isnt it?? ;)

Speed Reading

2007-04-22T10:51:00.000+05:30

This may sound as if im doing a bit of "PR giri".. but cant help it.. this concept really appealed to my grey cells and i know they would to yours too..

I had been attending this Clinical Research course in KEM hospital for 2 months. It was the last lecture, and being the optional guest lecture, many had thought of doin something else on a saturday evening.. I thought i was fortunate enough to attend it cuz i got to learn this new concept.

It was taken by some ex KEM pass out, Dr. Hozefa Bhinderwala, who is now a consultant psychiatrist in Prince Aly Khan and Saifee hospitals. Though the normal lecture which he was supposed to take was on communicatio skills, he slowly started digressing from the main topic to his beloved topic of "Speed Reading"!! Now this was something new to all of us.. and what followed for the next one hr was pretty interesting stuff...

I'll try and put together some of the excerpts from the lecture...

What is Speed Reading?? Simple... trying to read fast... with speed..taking less time to read the same topic than some other person reading normally... but mind you.. WITHOUT AFFECTING COMPREHENSION !!

Now thats interesting, cuz anyone can just zip-n-zap thru a page within a matter of a few seconds.. but the fact is .. does he comprehend it?? Heres what he told us..

The human mind is a great entity.. It has the capability to process about 400 words per minute. But we normally just feed them only 200 words per minute.. So what happens is, after the brain is feeded with those 200 words, It is still waiting for the other 200, which never come.. so it utilises itself by wandering away and thinking about other non-specific things.. and thats why we lose concentration... Once we lose our concentration, we dont comprehend the stuff which we'd just read and we go back to the same sentence and start all over again, this time reading more slowly, thinking that we may understand it better.. and hence we start the vicious cycle...

True, we may understand it better if we read it slowly... but why do we have to read the same stuff again and again and lose precious time, when we can speed read it with much better comprehension??

As medicos, we on an average spend 8-10 hrs/day reading new things.. Even non-medicos for that matter.. so that makes it more than 2920 hrs or about 122 days per year just reading!!!!!! that is 1/3rd of a year right??? If only i could have read it faster.. and then save those precious hrs so that i cud ve caught my favourite movie... or maybe saved a couple of days so that i would have gone for a small beach-side weekend vacation!!! Time is really precious!!

Now im not going to tell you about what precisely he told us in that 1 hr lecture.. but i'll just brush through some more interesting stuff...

Suppose You are driving on a road on a bike, wearing a bulky helmet and all... and u are approaching an intersection.. and you see a car approaching from the right.. You dont rotate your head the entire 90 degressto the right to see the car,then stop your bike, let the car pass and then start again, right?? you rely on your temporal field of vision to see the car, and then adjust your speed accordingly to let the car pass by and then pick your speed up again... or rather even increase your speed so that you pass the intersection before the car itself!! ;)

The temporal field of vision is roughly 120 degrees .. 90 degrees with a helmet on.. nasal 30-40, and superior and inferior 60-70 each... Each and every word you read requires just 1-2 degrees or even less ... so if you can trust your 100 degrees.. why dont you trust 2 degrees of your own vision??

Thats because we are trained from our chilhood days that we are supposed to read each and every word before proceeding ahead.. Before you can understand what is written.. But in fact its not so..

Take the example which i'll be giving below...

How will you read the sentence written below???

"Many people have taken this song and really felt like 'awww it's so romantic'"

You will read it as... "Many--pause--people--pause--have--pause-- etc"

That is you take a brief break of a fraction of a second after each and every word before you move onto the next word...

While reading, the human eye does two kinds of movements- Fixation and Sacchadic movement. When You are reading the word, its fixation, while when you jump onto the next word, its a sacchadic movement. The actual reading occurs only during the Fixation phase when the image on the retina sends the signals to the occipital cortex and then to other areas where comprehension occurs. During the sacchadic movement.. its a blank..

So the concept of speed reading revolves around minimising these sacchadic movements or the no. of skipping that we do while reading a particular sentence. Let me show you how...

take the same example as above..

"Many people have taken this song and really felt like 'awww it's so romantic'"

Previously , we had fixed our eyes on each and every individual word and then moved on to the next.. In speed reading, to minimise the skipping we'll concentrate on words like

"People--taken--song--really--awww--romantic"... the crux being relying on your vision.. your 2 degrees of vision that I'd mentioned before..

when you read "people", u'll also read "many" and "have" written besides them.. and so on..
Yeah!! I know it sounds damn simple.. but its really tough to begin with... but its not impossible. You just need to retrain your eyes.. trust what your eye is seeing.. It is capable of doing much more than what it is being used at the moment.

There are numerous articles on the internet regarding Speed-Reading. Just google /wikipedia Speed-Reading and see.. many softwares available too.. This concept has been introduced in India only in recent years. Not many people are aware of this. A few books have also been written. The First illustrated book on speed reading called "SPEED READ" was written by Dr.Hozefa Bhinderwala himself under the Birla publications and was available at the Mazgaon book depot when he took the lecture.

He also conducuts workshops on speed reading on a regular basis.
Last workshop i knew was being held near Nehru science centre, worli. Its a 4 hr workshop with many exercises on how to improve your reading speeds.. Many professionals have been benefitted.. though some have not, but it all depends on how you apply yourself right??

You can contact the following person for the same..

Tasneem : 98204 18407
1speedread@gmail.com

Dr. Hozefa Binderwala : hozefa07@yahoo.com

They charge Rs.800 for UG students and Rs.1500 for professionals..

Interesting concept, isnt it??

Happy Birthday Zankhan!!!

2007-04-22T10:42:00.000+05:30

I came home late at night and was having my dinner when the phone rang...

"Hello..Swajeet bol raha hoon"

"Ha bol Swajeet.. kaise yaad kiya?"

"Kya kar raha hai"

"Kuch nahi yaar.. Abhi just ghar pahuncha hoon.. Man Utd ka match dekhte dekhte khana kha raha tha.."

"Aaaj Zankhan ka birthday tha yaar...."

Yes... 21st April.. It was Zankhan, my dearest pal's birthday...

It had been 6 long years since ive known him.. And we've had some amazing treks together.. many of them just the two of us..
And id never asked him when was his B'day.. neither had he..

We never had to.. there was no need of it.. Each and every trek we went together was a celebration, a celebration of the life God had gifted us, a celebration of a strong bond- a friendship that was growing stronger with each trek we went.. what was the need for celebrating Birthdays?????

Strange that i never knew ur b'day till date though the date when u went away is embedded deep in the abyss of my soul..
My penchants for peregrinations are so insatiable without you.. All the plans and all our dreams that we'd seen few years ago , atop just another mt. fort in the sahyadri, inside just another cave, under the same old twinkling stars chuckling at our insanity from the heavens.. and God was laughing.. laughing cuz he had some other plans for us... Maybe He liked our plans so much that He got interested in doing the same.. and thats why he took U away..

Hey U .... dude..up in the skies...one day when i'll join u two.. i swear to YOU that we'll ve an amazing time..

Till that day.. adieu my friend.. Happy Trekking!!!

My Favourite Quotes from "The Wonder Years"

2007-04-20T15:10:00.000+05:30

“All our young lives we search for someone to love. Someone who makes us complete. We choose partners and change partners. We dance to a song of heartbreak and hope... all the while wondering if somewhere, somehow, there's someone perfect... who might be searching for us.”

“Growing up is never easy. You hold on to things that were. You wonder what's to come. But that night, I think we knew it was time to let go of what had been, and look ahead to what would be. Other days. New days. Days to come. The thing is, we didn't have to hate each other for getting older. We just had to forgive ourselves... for growing up.”

“Once upon a time there was a girl I knew, who lived across the street. Brown hair, brown eyes. When she smiled, I smiled. When she cried, I cried. Every single thing that ever happened to me that mattered, in some way had to do with her. That day Winnie and I promised each other that no matter what, that we'd always be together. It was a promise full of passion and truth and wisdom. It was the kind of promise that can only come from the hearts of the very young.”

“I guess sometimes the ground can shift between your feet. Sometimes your footing slips. You stumble. And sometimes you grab what's close to you and hold on as tight as you can.”

“Over the course of the average lifetime you meet a lot of people. Some of them
stick with you through thick and thin. Some weave their way through your life
and disappear forever. But once in a while someone comes along who earns a permanent place in your heart”

Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you're in diapers, the next day you're gone. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul. I remember a place, a town, a house like a lot of other houses, a yard like a lot of other yards, on a street like a lot of other streets. And the thing is, after all these years, I still look back, with wonder.

Kevin: Margaret, can I ask you a question?
Margaret: Yes, Kegin.
Kevin: Why do you have 3 pigtails?
Margaret: Because you never know when you need an extra rubberband

I'm not sure how I did It, my memories begins with the crack of the bat, and the sight of the ball rising. Maybe that's not exactly what It happens. But that's the way It should have happen, and That's the way I like to remembering. And If dreams and memories sometimes get confused to well... That is It should be, because every kid deserves to be a hero... Every kid already is...

What if.....???

2007-04-20T11:35:00.000+05:30

"TAXI...KEM hospital??"....

"Shit, I guess i'll be late for the morning lecture again..."

It was Akshay.. tall, fair guy in his early 20s.. a to-be-medico...and a brilliant one too! He had been working endless nights working on the ICMR research regarding decrease in morbidity after minimally invasive cardio-vascular-thoracic surgeries.. He wanted to make it big in life.. like all his other batch mates..

"Kitna hua ??... ye lo.."

Its Dr.Nadkarni's lecture.. I guess Im not late..

Akshay struggled the last few steps leading to the lecture theatre and was relieved to find that the professor hadnt arrived yet.
There were not many students for the early 8 am lecture. Akshay was happy to get the first seat. Dr. Nadkarni was his mentor..a brilliant cardio-vascular surgeon..

"One day.. I'll be like him.. maybe even better...." and then the front door opened and the professor entered..

"Todays lecture is pretty intersting.. Surgical techniques it says.. I hope he'll tell something about Robotic surgical techniques! Thats so cool!! Just with a controller like the controller of my PS2 .. i can perform a major surgery..."

Thud!! The front door opens ajar halfway through the lecture...

"Suresh?? aaah.. poor chap.. late as usual... Dr.Nadkarni wont allow him to take a step in the lecture theatre... Dunno whats wrong with him... What the.............................................. "

Akshay collapses on his notebook.. a bullet pierces right through his chest...

Bang bang bang bang bang.... khattaaakhat... bang bang bang bang bang bang...

Theres complete silence... Dr.Nadkarni's Fingers twitch for a while... and then they lay motionless, in a pool of blood on the floor.. just like ten others...

It was just another normal day in the life of eleven normal individuals.. who had their own dreams.. dreams to make it big in life.. And this maniac enters and takes them away in a matter of a few seconds and a couple of cartridges!!

Thats what happened in the recent Virginia shoot-out.. Normal human beings... Having their own dreams... Dreams that were taken away in a whiff! It can happen to you too...

Have you given a thought to it???

"Bheja" Fry???!!

2007-04-20T11:11:00.000+05:30

Id been seeing the adds of this movie for quite a while on Tv channels and the movie seemed quite interesting.. Interesting only for the name and the caste.. Vinay, ranvir, rajat, sarika.. hmmm...

So last friday when the movie released, I was pretty happy to see that Movitime was showin it in the matinee ,Rs.50 show. So it wudnt ve mattered even if it would have turned into a disaster, as most of the movies i see do.. 50 bucks yaar!!! Called up Swajeet and as usual he was late.. 15 min for the show... and then the fun ride began..

Its one of those movies with a shitty-script.. a nonsense story line.. and well guys, thats why everyone should go and watch it!! Its a different movie from the normal mundane Im-trying-to-make-u-laugh sort of "Hilarious" movies... The name BHEJA-FRY is so apt for this movie , as it deals with how a Mr.Bharat Bhushan (a.k.a Vinay Pathak) makes a complete "Dimaag-ka-dahi" of a particular richie-rich Mr.Ranjeet Thadani (a.k.a. Rajat Kapoor).

Mr.Thadani is a music producer who likes to organise these friday night "Talent Hunt" dinners with his friends in which one is supposed to call an upcoming talent to the dinner and then these richies can make a complete fool of the poor talent. He comes across Mr.Bharat bhushan , who does nothing but eat-drink and breath... and so even shit-pee and burp/fart music!!

Ranjeets wife (sarika) detests his ways and hence leaves him.. And then the fun actually begins.. Ranjeet hurts his back and only bharat bhushan is there to help him.. instead of callin a doc he calls up his GF , A nymphomaniac (read:thurkey!!) When his wife comes, thinkin shes his gf sends her back.. and so on ...
To try and get ranjeet out of one problem, our dear mr. bharat bhushan , very innocently , creates another... and b4 tht problem gets solved..another!!

In the end .. a total chaos reigns supreme!!

The entire film revolves around Vinay Pathak and his superb acting of a simpleton and an irritating person.. Vinay has completely seeped into his character's skin and makes you laugh at his character's expense. Everything about him is perfect – his 'champi' looks, his loud attitude, his laughing style and his mannerism. His comic timing is flawless and he is truly an idiot personified!

Even though Ranvir doesnt occupy much of the screen time, He has as always, acted his part of an IT officer ASIF wonderfully!

Milind soman disappoints.. i dunno why is he even in the movie..

over all.. a real good movie to watch.. I was thoroughly enjoyin myself, Jumping in my seats.. though i dont think the couple besides me were ;)

My Visual DNA

2007-04-17T11:49:00.001+05:30

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Why do I trek??

2007-01-28T10:54:00.000+05:30

WHY THE HELL DO I TREK????

Hmm... nice question!! Ive met many people who ask me this same question... friends.. parents.. just abt anybody... why do i trek?

I never thought about it.. rather, never tried to give it a thought! Was happy with what i was doing for the past 7 yrs.. yeah.. 7 long yrs

But now i guess its time to ask myself the same question i havent been able to answer for such a long time. And nowadays i dont like to keep any questions unanswered...

So here i go.. taking a notepad, a pen and to the place where i find some calm n peace, to my building terrace!

Ok.. now lets start it from the beginning..

It was the winter and the yr was 1998-99.. I was in junior college.. a tall lean guy who used to be lost in his own world, like just another teen trying to fight away the teen-temptations after getting the much awaited freedom, abt movies.. discs.. juvenile crushes.. or just pure lukkhagiri!! Amit was my pal in joon coll and he used to constantly mention this "ALIEN" sort of word.. wht did he used to call it??.. aahh... "TREKKING"!! I didnt exactly understand wht he actually meant when he used to say "we r going for a trek to blah blah place for the weekend" as my ideas for trekking were purely restricted to the Himalayan mountaneering n such other stuff which i sporadically used to watch on Natgeo.. But then came the turning point in my life when the junior college teachers' strike took place in that december.

Amit once again asked me out for a trek... I was fed up with him using this unknown term with me so i just wanted dwelve deeper into this "Trek" thing.. so i started bombarding hi with thousands of questions like how? what? when ? who? blah.. blahh...

And so i finally agreed to join him and his other pals for my first trek to a place called "GORAKHGAD".. Gorakh what??? it sounded greek to me in the beginning, but later i was to realise that i was an expert in these greek terms and i was to climb gorakh whtever 4 more times!!!

So off we went that one evening in december.. i clearly remember.. we were 8 of us with 2 more rookies... Myself, Nishant and Satej.. so i wasnt that nervous. Then I met that person who was to change my outlook and my life forever.. no it wasnt any from the female species that i wud fall in love with, but was this talkative, philosophical chap who used to wear a hat and had a few extra pounds here and there.. His name was Zankhan.. Whoa!! first Gorakh whtever and now Zan.. ??? Aliens ve really started invading Earth as this cant even b greek!!

Well guys, i wont describe my entire first trek experience..[it was a night trek] cuz i will take ages to do the same.. and so wud u, reading.. But that one night made me realise that hey.. theres a whole new world out here.. This world gives me the much needed calmness and satisfaction i crave for... and i was to discover much more what trekking had to offer later as yrs passed by..

But there r so many things that i cant just single out any particular reason..

Is it for the pure Love i have for mother nature.. for the forests, the birds, for the gushing streams and rivers and waterfalls..

Or is it for the fluffy clouds in the sky.. and the feeling which u get when u get to touch them and be above them..

Or is it for the innumerable stars that twinkle at night.. and when u lie down in the open above the world looking at them and getting a feeling as if u r floating thru the galaxies.. and counting the shooting stars zipping past by u .. so many of them that u run out of wishes...

Or is it the sheer thrill of achieving ur goal.. that being "On top of the world" feeling which i get on climbing any mt.. though knowing its only 1/10th the size of mt.everest

Or is it for the Deepest desires i have inside of me to fly away like a bird after spreading my wings.. that have no boundaries..

Or is it for the village food that i get to eat.. tht bhakari, onion and dal-rice, poha, pickle... and the oppurtunities to meet my fellow Countrymen who live in the far off villages, and their warmth and simple lifestyles just making me realise the importance of cherishing whtever im enjoying here in my life..

Or is it for the freedom of living like a cave man... sleeping in the grass.. on the muddy road.. in the caves.. in open ground.. just about anywhere.. and to top it all.. answering mother nature's call anywhere, anytime i feel to and not feeling embarrased!! [yeah many ppl do experience this heavenly feeling on the streets of mumbai.. but... i cant do tht in my outer world!]

Or maybe its for the the perennial, clear, cold, mineral water as we call it.. from the tanks cut out in the mountain face by the maratha warriors.. and filling up bottles and getting it back home and irritating my mom cuz of it [yeah.. thts even more fun!! :)]

Or maybe its for the countless photography oppurtunities that i get on any trek!!!

Phew! im out of my breathe.. i can think of many more but i guess these are the main reasons.. or are they??

Years have passed.. my trekking pals have changed.. first Zankahan betrayed me and passed away.. then Puneet went away to Dubai.. now i just wait for anyone and literally anyone who is willing to come with me for a trek..

True, there are trekking groups and communities.. But i dont achieve the whole purpose of trekking with them.. that achieving Solitude!!