The Land of the Brave

finally

2009-07-13T23:23:00.004+05:30

i think I am going to start writing all over again.. its been long since i did active blogging..and now since I have started reading all over again, thoughts seem to be flowing..though not in a 'line'...
migrating to wordpress.. for anyone who remotely comes across this site, I will now be blogging on wordpress...ciao!

A Conglomeration of Trends...an INNOVATION

2009-06-27T19:46:00.007+05:30

Innovation seems to be on the tip of the tongue for every organisation during the time of recession. What is innovation? Is it something magical that turns around the fortune of an organisation?
Is Facebook or any social website an innovation? Or is iPhone an innovation? or is the creation of an organisation like Innocentive an innovation by Eli Lilly??

Innovation is simply put "the successful exploitation of new ideas" - while the focus should be on 'new ideas', it is truly classified as an innovation only on 'succesful exploitation'. A good example is the MP3 player. They were long in demand and in use before the iPod was released into the market. But it was Steve Jobs who actually 'successfully exploited' this idea and made APPLE what it is today. A similar such innovative idea is the creation of a new social website - SKIPSO.

What is Skipso? And if it is just another social website, then what exactly is innovative about it? The innovation in this is the idea itself. 3 latest trends - Web 2.0, Open Innovation, Green Technology - all wrapped together into a single package and available to the world to exploit, to use and hopefully enable making this world a better place!

Skipso is an online platform and business to business marketplace entirely focused on sustainable innovation. Whereas most of the social websites concentrate on Generation X and Generation Y as its core, this one is for BabyBoomers, Gen X and Gen Y alike. It is a mix of the young and the old - anybody who is aware of the latest trends and would like to get involved can get involved. It is a platform on the internet for like-minded individuals to interact and share proposals and fundings for new ideas in green technology.

It is meant for Entrepreneurs, Investors, Policy makers, Researchers and Professionals who have anything to do with Green technology. It has features like Community, MarketPlace, Funding, Challenge and the box-standard "my Skipso".

The community feature is for sharing knowledge, the latest happenings and a forum for discussion. The marketplace is where, if you own a company involved in the green revolution or looking for jobs in the sustainability sector, then suitable advertisements can be placed or read. Funding is the one-stop shop for all the budding entrepreneurs where grants are made available for projects that seem do-able or a forum where discussions can start for unleashing the next biggest innovation in Green technology. A simple comment like the one by Dr Madhav Mehra, President, World Council for Corporate Governance that "future of humanity lies in solar harvesting. Imagine this: One per cent of sunlight received by the earth can meet the humanity’s demand for power for another 20 years." could lead to a chain of discussions resulting in a small research project being kicked off with an interested investor sponsoring the project and whole lot of fruitful discussions on an open platform. After Facebook, this could be the next biggest thing in technology or social media.If used appropriately, this internet platform could be the base for all future Green'ness of UK.

And now the obvious question - how Knowledge Capital could potentially benefit from this? Knowledge Capital - an organisation that is promoting innovation and social media as a form of open innovation. This is an opportunity for M:KC to provide its clients a medium for the "Manchester is my Planet" project and further set an example to the various client companies of how a partnership could be established between 2 organisations to promote innovation and growth. This could be a medium for the clients of Knowledge Capital to interact with like-minded individuals and derive several benefits including ideas and potential funds for new innovative projects. Together with Skipso, M:KC could potentially disrupt the market - creating unlimited demand and making the city of Manchester the hub of green technology innovation, not just in UK but Europe and potentially the entire World!!

Life going on...but where is the world going to?

2008-07-22T21:09:00.004+05:30

Its been ages - nearly a year since i last wrote... therez been lots of downs and few ups.. life has taken an unexpected turn.
Things aren't the same anymore. What used to bright sunny mornings are now cloudy darkness everywhere. The world seems to be full of sorrows and worries. The killings and natural disasters increasing every day. No-one seems to be at peace. There are cries of despair and distraught everywhere I turn. Faces that used to smile always are now down-trodden. Ppl are just looking on at each other for help but unable to help the other - how can one sinking boat help another one sinking! Medical inventions and discoveries are increasing the lifespan of human beings on one side, but the statistics suggest that death rates are higher than ever before - the only reason being vengence, treachery, greed, hatred and last but not the least - suicides!!! Inspite of all these advancements in medicine and technology the death rate (as of 2007) stays at 8.37 deaths/ 1000 population! And one would normally expect the developing countries to have a higher death rate compared to those well established developed countries..But surprise surprise deaths in the so called "3rd world countries" like India and China are much lesser than those in the "developed countries" like the US and UK. So where is the gap?
If suicide rates are just scanned and compared, it is quite evident that irrespective of the country, the percentage of males suiciding is always much higher than females and females are supposed to be faint-hearted i.e. men are strong-hearted?? These statistics throws that theory into the garbage can. In my opinion if men are much more strong-hearted, then the suicide rates of men should be lower compared to women. The stats stand (per 1000 population) - figures from WHO:
Men Women
US (1999) 17.8 4.1
UK (1999) 11.8 3.3
India (1998) 12.2 9.1
China (1999) 16.7 9.8
Russia (2000) 70.6 11.9
Germany (1999) 20.2 7.3
Iran (1991) 0.3 0.1
Kuwait(2000) 1.6 1.6

Suicide is claimed to be the eighth-leading cause of death overall in the U.S. and the third-leading cause of death for young people between the ages of 15 and 24 years. According to WHO statistics, one person commits suicide every 40 seconds. Suicide rates all over the world have increased by 5- 62% in the last two decades. More people willing to take life - their own and others, televisions, radios, newspapers filled with horrifying stories of deceit and murders.. dont know where the world is heading to.. amidst all this, dont know where I am heading to - the world was a much better place, lively and fun-filled 20 years back..wish i had remained a child always!!!!!!!

Getting settled....

2007-08-31T23:06:00.000+05:30

Life is slowly turning out to be a routine. Past 1 week was pretty decent. First few days was roaming around the Business School - meeting new ppl and utilising the free internet:) Then tookt the trip to London to pick up mine & Anila's luggage. It was fun - a pretty sight - me and 6 pieces of luggage (3 bags + 3 cartons). Dont ask how I lugged it all the way to Manchester. All i can say is that I was relieved once i got everything into the room and took a deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep breath.
Anyway in London, the first day was at home (fitzroy court). Day 2 was spend going to Kuttan's sister's place in Kenton and picking up the luggage from there and getting it to Croydon. Unfortunately couldnt spend much time there coz of many reasons. After getting back, in the evening had a night out with few of my ex-clients and now friends. Walking around Covent garden, we ventured into a pub which looked pretty decent and then suddenly realise it is a "Gay bar" - you dont generally see guys kissing lip to lip in pubs here;)!! Anyway collected our belongings and scampered to the next nearest decent pub and this time I made sure I saw atleast one female (for not so obvious reasons) before I ventured into it.
Anyway that was fun. Day 3 was mainly spent trying to get a refund of my ticket sorted out with Infosys and meeting a few of infy colleagues. Evening was a night out with clients + infy junta. We had dinner at a sushi bar and i hogged out nearly 20 plates of sushi - it was buffet and 20 was the limit!! Since then, I haven't had one morsel to eat..cant eat..too full. I might puke now if i go anywhere near food.
Anyway now back in Manchester.
In the sports side, India as always screwing up things for itself in Cricket. You think they are going to have a cake-walk win and the nincompoops go and gift the victory to the opponents. Each time the captain declares that we will win the next time and we have learnt from our mistakes but the "next time" never seems to be anywhere near!!! High time the BCCI or whoever is responsible, start plucking out the weeds and let the good ones mature and grow!! We are in desparate need of a bowler. Ppl said we needed allrounders. But I personally believe we need more of a genuine bowler rather than an all rounder. Our biggest incapability in the recent matches has been bowling out the opposition. God alone knows when these guys will realise and do something about it.
In football, ManU is havin a terrible time. Worst start in my memory. Rooney yet again away for nearly half of the season courtesy his fractured ankle. Ronaldo getting a red-card in game 2. Ole gunnar retiring due to his leg problems. And the defence sucking big time!!!! Before last weeks' victory they were second last in the table. And with a single victory, they have creeped up to number 10. Hope the tide turns and we see more of victories for ManU. Chelsea seems to be grinding victories just like how they did last season. Every match taken on a 1-on-1 basis. Anyway wishin ManU the best. Hail ManU!!

On your marks, Get Set........................

2007-08-24T12:35:00.000+05:30

The fun times are over..the relaxation is complete..the race is about to begin!!
My long awaited break - after quitting Infy and before joining MBS - is getting over today. Tonight I fly out to Manchester embarking on a absolutely unaware/unknown platform.
The past 2 months have been pretty hectic. After I got back from Bangalore, time in kerala just flew away. Everyday there was something or the other to do. 2 major event took place during this time - my cousin Asha's engagement/wedding and Anila's grandmom's demise. Due to the latter, my in-laws had also come over to kerala. Amidst all this, my sis was enrolled into P.C. Thomas vacation gulf classes in Trichur. So my time in kerala was spent between travelling from mavelikara to chengannur to trivandrum to Trichur. The good thing with so much of journey was that I started driving on a more regular basis in kerala and i can confidently say that i am expert enough to drive in kerala now though there may be huge lorries and reckless state transport buses coming from the opposite direction!
Anyway we - me & Anila - boarded Gulf Air to come to Kuwait on 19th August morning. After reaching kuwait, it was bliss. No tensions, no power cuts, no disturbances, no sweating and 24 x7 internet access and unlimited supply of delicious yummy food - courtesy mum-in-law!!
Tomo early morning 3:45 is my flight to Dubai and from there connecting flight at 7:55 to Manchester. FOr the first one week, i have arranged for temporary accomodation in Hulme Hall, near the university. Anyway hope all goes well. Keeping fingers crossed. New place, new life style..student yet cant be irresponsible;)lol
Anyway will give further updates later!!
Cheers

Countdown...

2007-06-29T14:32:00.000+05:30

The last lines I am writing from Infy office:)
All the clearance process is over - the only thing remaining is deletion of my mail id and network access and that is due to happen in another hour or so!
4 long years and now no more Infy..no more Hosur road - no more sweating out in the heat cursing the 1000's of cars, no more walking at express speed from London Bridge station to Monument, no more coffee breaks, lunch breaks - all has come to a grinding halt. The Machine has stopped!!
Emotions are mixed -
happy? - YES,
sad? - a bit maybe
Apprehensive? - about the future, YES
miss Infy? - Dont think so
miss the friends/banter? - YES

Signing off for the moment...may get very less chance to blog in the next couple of months but will do when time permits.
Adios!!!!!!

Last week @ Keonics Elec. City, Bangalore!

2007-06-27T11:00:00.001+05:30

Things are slowly coming to a grinding halt. The train is reaching its destination finally - chugging away the last hundred metres in absolute slow motion. Every moment, every dialogue, every scene is crystal clear. I can see the platform at the far end - feels like the horizon is in grasp finally!!
Another 2 days in Infy and I am no longer employee number 21269! Deleted from records completely or maybe archived!? All the networking, friends, coffee day coffee's, evening chaats/chats , lunch @ Golconda/Kamat - all going to be a distant memory soon! Not that I regret the step I am taking but i am surely getting out of comfort zone now. 4 years - absolutely no worry of money, could spend whatever i wanted without being questioned. Now its slowly back to student days - every penny counted. Coffees and soups are going to be once again 1/2 (dont think this will be the case in Manchester but sure was in Trichy - "Anna, oru one by two podungae";))
I had my exit interview yesterday and surprisingly there were no arguments coz whatever I said the HR agreed and said they are working upon it:D Whoever invented "present continous tense" surely had HR junta in mind - coz they are always "X"ing something or the other and it never reaches the "X"ed state! Anyway all the best to whatever they are doING and hope it gets doED soon!
Leave alone work - the past one week has been pretty smooth. Took a day off on Monday to complete a bit more shopping. Yesterday went for the movie "Sivaji - The Boss". The movie concept was good and the comedy was good but probably the comedy didnt suit
"Thalaivar" - but he made up for that in the second half with his typical "Baasha" role :D. BUt the movie was tooo much of a drag in terms of length of the movie! We(Me & Kicha)went for the 21:45 show and got out of show at 01:20!
In world of football - Henry finally made his impending move to Barca:)))

The new number 14. This was to happen last year but the defeat by Barca in the finals of the Champions league'06 propelled him to continue a unfruitful season with the Gunners! But finally he has joined the Catalans!! What a line-up - Eto and Henry attacking in the front and Messi/ Ronaldinhio feeding in from either flanks. The mid-field have a line-up of Deco, Xavi and Iniesta....
If they click together as a team - Barca is going to be a formidable attacking force. Dont think Henry will find it too difficult to integrate into the team given that Barca play a "Total Football" and one-touch football quite similar to the Gunners. The coach may have problems in trying to integrate the team. One potential issue could be both Henry and Ronaldinhio preference to play from the left flank and into the centre. Hope this doesn't become an issue similar to the much talked about English midfield issue!
Wishing Henry all the best in Barca! Hope they win the La Liga tis time without any trouble - given that my fave. in RM have left - Carlos & Beckham!
Go Catalans:)

il(l)literate!

2007-06-20T12:01:00.000+05:30

"Please Do not dump garbage here - Bangalore Mahanagar Palike" -> And the same was inscribed in Hindi and also presumably the same in Kannada! Saw this on the one of the walls on my way home.
Now either the statistics are wrong (claims Bengaluru to have the second-highest literacy rate among the metropolitan cities in the nation) or the citizens of this city have absolute disregard for instructions!
Right in front of the the inscriptions on the wall was a HUGE pile of dump and garbage. And right there when I was pondering about this, I saw couple of really respectable ppl (atleast their dressing sense led me to believe their respectability) comes with few garbage bags and dumps on top of this pile. And next to this huge dump are very posh-styled residential buildings!! It would be least bit surprising if the residents of this residence were the main reason for this filth.
Whats with the common sense of these ppl? Dont they realise they are staying in dirt and they are going to affect their own health by all this? Hygiene ??- whats that? The very word seems to have disappeared from everyone's dictionary.. Its not only these, even the highly educated and sophisticated software engineers lack the etiquettes. How many of us have resisted a pee at the roadside/ a shady corner due to hygiene/environmental reasons? We'd rather have our "release" rather than hold back and think about the environment.
Is this indifference only to our country? How is that when on foreign soil, each one of us Indians transform into a perfect gentleman - where does the extra endurance, patience, politeness, tolerance etc. come from? A simple example is if we walk into someone absent-mindedly in some foreign country, we are courteous enough to apologise and carry on. But in India, you walk into someone - you first check your pockets to see if your pocket was picked. Once you are assured of that, a 95% chance is there of abusing the other person publicly and slinging abuses at each other till each is out of earshot of the other! Why the difference? Do we consider each other (read as Indians) as inferiors and hence this attitude?
What use was it for the British to leave the country and let us rule ourselves? Has our country really developed post-Bristish rule? Or are we still stuck in 1947!
If people can't read, understand and follow a simple rule, how is this economy going to get out of the clutches of "developing" and become a "developed"!God's own country can be saved only by GOD himself now!
ps. for all my atheists friends - this country of ours can be saved only by each one of your efforts (no help from GOD from you!)
As A.P.J. said -
"It's time to wait and see.
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the shadow"

Meanwhile read a related article about the Perennial Problems in Vishakapatnam (Vizag) - once known for its UNspoilt beaches.

वीकएंड कैच-उप

2007-06-18T10:14:00.000+05:30

A hectic weekend has come to an end!
It started off with a ride to Zak's home in E-city. The dude's got a classy 3 BHK on a real bargain rate. While we waited for him to transform himself into his classy self, we (myself & Kicha) played Postal2 - just like how the movie trailer suggests - its disgusting, retarded & shocking - to say the least! Keep away if you are the "Love your neighbour/enemies as yourself" types - this one is not certainly for you!!
Anyway once that was done, I took both of them for a guided tour of the Infy campus. It was tiring but fun. Showed them the gym and the food courts and various shaped buildings of Infy infrastructure & recreational facilities.

Heritage Building

Pyramids - Media center

Recreation - Swimming pool

We also managed to play Basketball and Volleyball for half an hour. Once that was done, we proceeded to Marathahalli to Brand factory for my shopping. We spent nearly 2 hours there looking through the various brands and doing our shopping. At the end of it, we had nearly spent 5K - but every penny worth the value:) When we were nearly done, Ashwin (Raks bro-in-law)called and we met up with him. Following that, it was a very good time spent listening to "soft" music and eating, drinking & making merry;)By the time we were done, it was nearly 22:30 and we went all the way to BTM to munch on the ever delicious "Paratha rolls" - Double Egg Chicken for me;) For those of you who have been in bangalore and not tasted this one, you are missing something - this is a small dhaba in BTM 2nd stage just before the new flyover. Its awesome and pretty reasonable as well (and you get both veg and non-veg:)). Post dinner we went back home and had a good sound sleep tired from the hectic outing of one day!
Sunday - church, had to get my luggage sorted out, met Asha and Sheba (cousins recovering from a bout of flu) and met Satishchachan (dad's cousin). Had a good time and then in the evening had dinner with Kicha at Casapicola. Got back home and watched "Baba Kalyani" (Mohanlal flick) and slept off eventually!!
Well that was my weekend!
On the Sporting side - Beckham made a perfect bow-out of the la-liga with the Spanish title in his kitty! What a comeback after capello sidelined him calling him a second-rate hollywood actor - It has been an amazing turn around by Becks and what better way to exit than win the league title after a wait of 4 years!!!!!

In motorsports - the Brit is taking the world by a storm. Near perfect driving by the kid. Alonso seems to be loosing the plot and his mind! Let's see what he comes up with next after his tirade last time that the British team is favouring the Briton!!!lol. Anyway the constructors seem to be more or less wrapped up by the Mclaren's unless the Ferrari's come up with something really superlative and Kimi/Massa start winning races (1-2 finish) regularly!! 7 races and therez already a 35-point gap between them! Season may turn out to be much more exciting than the last one. Hoping that Ferrari makes a turn-around just like last year where they very nearly pulled it off in the second-half of the season, only to be edged out courtesy one man - Mr. Alonso!!!

Bye-bye Infy - Hello Manchester!!

2007-06-15T08:03:00.000+05:30

Just winding up my last few days with Infosys. It has been quite an eventful 4 years.Joined on 9th June 2003 in a batch of 140 freshers in Bangalore for training. The 3 months of training was the first time in a long time (read as 4 years) that I actually took the pains to study seriously!! From the jovial, fun-loving, noisy back-bencher in college, I had changed to become a studious, serious second/third bencher. What had come over me? Why the sudden change?
It was nothing but the psyched feeling in me that I am no good at programming. In college, I had barely managed to pass my "C" programming exam - thanks largely to few of my friends who taught me few fundas and ofcourse God's grace. Post that, there was never any programming in my curriculum and I never bothered putting in efforts. I was sure of getting into a core communications technical job and determined not to sit for software engineering. But call it fate - I ended up being picked up by Infosys and the brand name kinda pulled me to it and that was it. I knew for a fact that if I remained the way I was in college, there was a possibility of me being chucked out! I decided to play the slog overs in a smart way and lo!!I had become a first-class geek. Add to that the fact that we were getting trained in COBOL/CICS gave me the undue advantage of starting fresh with all the other programming wiz's!!!
From there my stay at Infy was pretty good..Fortunately for me, there was very little coding that I had to do in my period here. Following my first project, I went to UK for production support. After that I was into the client testing team followed by the role of an Onsite co-ordinator. Next up was the technical lead role which I played out to perfection at Bangalore and then again back to UK as Onsite co-ordinator. My main activities till date @ Infy comprised of: understanding functionality, managing people - colleagues & clients, resolving functionality issues, solution designing and discussions - Therez been no (rather very less) developer coding phase in my period here and I thank God for taking me through 4 years in absolute success.
During this period I also got promoted from a software engineer to a Programmer Analyst. This didnt change any of my responsibilities much - I had mostly performed the role of an analyst rather than a developer.
Also this period saw my promotion from a bachelor to a husband - In contrast to the previous promotion, this however did change a lot of my responsibilities. I became the matured, family guy (no cross-checking allowed with wifey;))!
All said and done, my stint with Infy is coming near an end. Another 14 days and I am done. Its back to student life at Manchester Business School for an MBA, beginning in Sept.I got my student visa stamped for 2 years, blocked my tickets and now looking forward to the break before the gruelling starts!

Privileged to be a ST!!?

2007-06-11T09:46:00.001+05:30

There was a time when there were fights to remove "Untouchables".
Gandhi fought for them - to treat them as equals, Lincoln fought for the "blacks", William Wilberforce fought to abolish "slave trade" etc. Now after so many years - all the happenings in India especially is making me think whether I would have been better off being born as an Scheduled Caste/ Tribe!!
Come to think of it - there were recently riots in Rajasthan because the Gujjar community wanted to classified as Scheduled tribes rather than as "other backward castes(OBCs)!! And why this sudden urge - coz of the reservation issue thats become very prominent in India these days. Everywhere you go, you are now penalised for being a normal person rather than a ST/SC!! In the olden days, villagers migrated to the city to raise their status in the society and to earn money. But these days - everyone still wants money but also , at the same time, wants to be classified as one of the many scheduled tribes. When the govt. of India still holds on to such traditional systems, how can we blame the ppl for not thinking otherwise! To get an admission in a good university in India there are basically 2 criterias now - either you are rank 1 or you belong to one of the many ST/SCs. Where is this world going to? We are in the age talking about nuclear technology, microchips etc. but the thinking of the common man is still traditional and backward. Coming to think of it - how many of these ppl are actually backward - not many. Many of the so called "tribal" people are actually financially very well off compared to your average middle class-citizen. But then our system is so damn porous that such things are just ignored. All that is valid at the end of the day, is whether you have some certificate which classes you as a backward - and voila!! - all the good things in India come to you!!
This country will not progress unless such things are completely abolished. Gandhi fought for the untouchables and I think someone (a new father of the nation) should now actually fight against them - to rid them of all the privileges that they get
courtesy the "tag" they carry along.
I am frusturated already with this system and I have not even been on the receiving end yet:(!!

My Solid P(a)unch!!

2007-05-24T12:45:00.000+05:30

Not a very attractive thing - but then everyday i look into the mirror and first thing I notice is the ever so evident bulge (stop getting wild ideas - you perverts!:)) - I am talking of ....... my Paunch!! No matter what I do, how much of running, sit-ups, crunches I do - this just seems to haunt my otherwise good looking physique;)
I remember the time when I was a perfectly shaped (assumption: round/ sphere is a perfect shape) weighing nearly 85 kgs in my 8th std. One can well imagine my fitness during those days. I was the chubby dude of my class rolling all over the place when I claimed to be "walking". During sports day (pre-high school), the only race i consistently managed to win was the "Banana eating race" - for those of you who dont know this one,it is quite simple. The physical education sir blows the whistle, you peel the banana off, eat the whole banana, open your mouth to the sir and show you have eaten it completely (and not still chewing) and then you run the 100 meters to the finish line. And for 3 years (4th, 5th and 6th std) in a row I managed to win gold in this particular race (see the Nadal link;)). Then some wise guy decided to scrap this race and that was the end of my winning a medal/certificate for sports - atleast temporarily!
And thereafter, i continued on my mission of reaching 3 figures before I turned 15 years. But then like a silent robber came the attack. There was no forewarning, no hint. Just like every other year, I visited my home town - Mavelikara during the summer vacation in Doha. I had a marriage to attend - one of my cousins getting married. And another of my cousins came for the wedding with none other than.....CHICKEN POX!!!!!A week from then, it had penetrated through the layers of protection I had over me - all that layers of fat I had pain stakingly accumulated over the past years proved of no use! I had it and a pretty severe attack. From 85Kgs, courtesy the pox, I reduced to about 60 kgs - a pretty decent weight for someone who was 14 years old;) - Hallelujiah!!I had become normal:) From then on I was just like any other normal kid and not abnormally huge. I started playing football more frequently. My history in sports was re-written. I started winning some medal or the other during the school sports day though there were no eating competitions anymore - went to the extent of representing my school for high-jump and relay. And came out quite successful to say the least without blowing my horns too much.
Anyway having said all these - one thing that has remained with me is my paunch - even chicken pox could not get rid of that one:( and 1 year of gym could still not get rid of that one. I still continue to dream of that day when I can show off a six-pack or a 4-pack but that always seems to be in the horizon. Everytime I feel that I am near it, within grasps of it, I see it going farther away!!!I dread the day when I may end up looking like many of the elders in the family - pot-bellied and sporting a proud thick moustache!!(typical malayalee):P
Anyway, all things said, after so many years of struggle and fighting, I am finally getting used to the sight of it..slowly coming to terms with the fact that "it" is there to remain - a sign of prosperity, a sign of good health, an asset passed down from generations

End of a season

2007-05-22T12:35:00.000+05:30

Atlast the football season has come to an end - well almost. There is the Champions league finals scheduled for the day after but apart for that everything is kind of wrapped up in England!
The EPL this season, was one of the best fought titles. ManU kicked it off from day 1 and Chelsea were in hot pursuit. Relentless in nature Chelsea never ever gave up till the death fighting out despite injuries, taunting the refs, claiming rules were different for different teams blah..blah... There never was a weekend when I could enjoy the game - if ManU lost one of the games, I would literally pray for Chelsea to loose and if ManU won, I would still pray for Chelsea to loose;)
At the end of the day, I think both the teams have taken EPL to whole new level. Teams 3 & 4 (read as the Mighty Reds n Gunners) are still to catch up on these 2. To be absolutely fair, I think ManU lacks the fighting spirit which has been quite evident in Chelsea. If ManU were to develop the never-say-die attitude seen in Chelsea and Liverpool too, then there would be no stopping them. ManU and Arsenal love to play free flowing football - where they attack and keep attacking until they score. But if there comes an opponent who put 11 men behind the ball, then both these teams find it difficult to get a break through. However Chelsea and Liverpool are quite different. They sit back with a dogged determination, hoping to have that one little chance. And give them that single shot on goal ….. they score. Chelsea nearly had 15- 20 games (I think) this season where they won 1-0 and that too by scoring in the injury time of the second half - no simple feat, if you think about it.
Anyway at the end of the day ManU were crowned League Champions and Chelsea won the Domestic Double - Carling cup & FA Cup. I am hoping for a repeat of 2005 for the CL finals. It would be fantastic to see Stevie lifting the cup again - Go Reds!!!!!

Meanwhile all the blame game, fights etc. have come to an end with the end of the season. Now comes the time where the club owners (billionaires) are given maximum importance during the course of a season - the amount of money they make available for transfers. Just hope this time around Hargreaves comes over to ManU. He would provide the perfect defensive cover for the frequent lapses of Heinze and ocassional lapses by Ferdinand. My only worry is if Carrick would end up being a wasted resource similar to Shaun Wright Phillips in Chelsea.
The other option is for Fergie to use Scholesy as an utility resource - similar to his use of Solksjaer this season and play both Carrick and Hargreaves in Central mid-field. I doubt if Fergie will keep Scholes out for this season - he is one of the gems as is Giggs. And to find their replacements is quite a herculean task. Anyway all this assumptions provided Hargreaves joins ManU. Don’t think Bayern will pull a fast one nor do I think Chelsea will be able to lure away Hargreaves (fingers crossed)!! This season will see the maximum utilisation of the (in)famous "Chelsea bench strength" with their star performers being pulled away for the African Nations Cup - Drogba, Essien, Mikel. A good buy by the Chelsea has been Sidwell from Reading - a very good mid-field player.
Just noticed that amidst all this football gibberish, I have not mentioned anything about Arsenal!! Honestly, I think it is a team in the making similar to the "Fergies Fledglings" of 94-95!
Anyway being a hardcore ManU fan, I hope the Gunners don’t flourish much!!

Ps. Given that I will be just few miles away from the Theatre of Dreams, hoping to get hold of some tickets next season;)!!

Back after a looooooooooonnnng time....

2007-05-22T12:13:00.000+05:30

Its been nearly a year since I last blogged anything. But that doesn't necessarily mean I have been sitting devoid of any thoughts/ ponderings! Life had been quite busy/ hectic over the last 1 year. I came over to London on 1st of April, settled down, then had to get my wife here, her job hunt, settling down in London, my app'ngs to Uni's for my MBA etc etc. I have been on my toes and finally I am at peace now - needless to say this is the calm before the storm.
For those who have lost touch with me..i have got into Manchester Business school - some tell me, i am going to learn the complete meaning of the word "tough", "hectic" etc. Meanwhile Anila also has got into Leeds Business school - an hour away (by train) from where I am. Not bad for a start - time will tell how our lives are going to twist and turn courtesy all these! - Hoping for the best.

I have already put in my papers and June 29th is going to be my last day in Infy after 4 years and 20 days (to be precise). Returning to Bangalore on 3rd June and not really looking forward to it this time. Most of my close gang is abroad/outside blore - Vithal is in the US, Kay is in S'pore, Kolli and Ashwin in Phillipines, Assok in Mauritius, Bitla in the US, Sid in Mumbai, Kuts in Kerala, Raj in US - anyway will have to try and meet up with the Kandu magas when in blore!

Will be posting regularly henceforth - atleast i hope to!!

What if....

2006-06-30T19:16:00.000+05:30

Sven quit this morning???? An interesting question. Read on - pretty decent analysis, i would say..
Cheers!

A few good...links:D

2006-06-29T16:20:00.000+05:30

1. Penalty shoots - reminded me of Baba's kick in first year inter-section finals - after a big tussle, finally Baba won it for section E thru the classic kick of placing his penalty shot high to the corner!!!hmmm - those were the days. Wonder if it was a freak shot (i am sure Baba will kill me for this comment) or if it was actually planned - whatever it was a fantastic shot!! - wish i had my digi cam then -could have taken a snap of the shot!!

2. Bend it like Beckham - My favourite shot for set-pieces and which i pretty well do - though with my left-foot:)- the surprise factor for many!

3. Strike force - Rooney or Ronaldo?:)

4. Over-ambitious ? - Try this then:)

World Cup Mania

2006-06-29T14:34:00.000+05:30

Its been a while since i last posted anything here but have been too caught up with work and then ofcourse - World cup. The last 19 days were too filled with watching so many games of football. I am sure i have never watched so much football as much as i have in the past 19 days or so!!
After a long time - the heavy-weights of football -(read as Brazil, Germany, Italy, Argentina, England and France) - have made it into the last eight together!! This is quite unlike the scene in the previous world cup in Japan/ S.Korea!! These 6 together with Portugal and Ukraine make up the bandwagon!! Clearly Ukraine are the flag bearers of the underdogs at this point of time. It remains to be seen if they can follow in the foot-steps of S.korea (in last world cup) and make it the last 4.
So far - the 3 teams that captured my attention with creative, attractive football were:
1>Argentina
2>Germany
3>Spain

Esp Argentina has been awe-inspiring. Their range of passes is amazing - its a treat to the eyes to watch them play. To sample what I am blabbering, check this out, especially the second goal where Esteban Cambiasso rounded off a flowing 24-pass move, finishing from 12 yards - which many rate as the one of the best, if not THE BEST, goals ever scored in the history of the world-cup.
With a bench squad consisting of Messi, Tevez, Aimer and their likes, this is one team that could go a long way...
Germany - Out of their 4 games so far, i saw them play against Sweden only. Missed the other 3 courtesy my work timings:( But that one game was enough to raise my confidence in them. What a whopping of the swedes. I would not have been surprised if the germans didnt score more. Klose and Podolski (surprisingly both Polish originally) kep the swedes busy through out hardly giving them any kinda chance to counter-attack!!
Its a pity that 2 of the best teams (so far) have to meet each other in the quarters itself and even more disappointing is the fact that they playing at 1600 GMT- I would be at work:( Will have to try rushing back home to watch atleast the second half. Personally I would want the Argentines to win. Have been an anti-german since the 1990 finals between W.Germany n Argentina where again i was supporting the Argentines courtesy one man - Diego Armando Maradona;).
Hoping this time the results are reversed.
Its a pity that Spain have yet again lived up to their reputation of NOT delivering on the big stage. This time they seriously looked like going a long way but then amazingly they were thrown out of the race by a team of veterans - read as Zidane, Viera, Makelele - I am sure this was the biggest upset of the tournament. A lacklustre , just managed to qualify for round of 16 France defeating the amazing fantastic free flow game of Spain. What a pity. Seeing the form that the Spanish were playing, i was even forced to believe (to an extent)the Nostradmus prediction would actually correspond to football - it went something like this "At the end of the 6th month of the 6th year, The King of Spain and his men will cross the battle fields of Central Europe and win the Holy Grail" - the interpretation was "In the beginning of month of July of year 2006, the Spanish Coach and his team will go to Germany and win the World cup" - What blasphemy!!! Holy grail = World Cup? Someone should have send the forward to Dan Brown - and i am sure he would have build up another great(??:P) story surrounding the Holy grail and how actually it is the world cup which the teams are fighting for every 4 years and how the number 4 has a link some kind of feminism and how the actual Jules Rimet Trophy was stolen once and for all in 1983 by the Knights etc..etc.. lol - (I should probably give him the idea):P
And now comes my favourite team - England. Somehow every one seem to detest the England team!! I would attribute that to probably the English Media which hails the team as winners & heroes well before the world cup and derides every other team/ coach as losers. No wonder the world unity in the hatred-for-England team. Brazil have been playing unattractive football but none complaints. In fact the match against Ghana, i felt Ghana played fantastic football but ultimately they lost -Thanks to the clinical finishes by Ronaldo, Adriano & Ze Roberto!! How come the England team are always blamed of under performing. Scolari plays 5 different formations in the same game in the last world cup and everyone praises him for changing the team play as per the situation (playing according to situation) - whereas Sven changes his game plan from 4-4-2 to 4-5-1 over one game and the pundits are slamming him left and right for experimentation during the world cup - how hypocritical!! Agreed Lennon is much better than Beckham in terms of dribbling and speed and piercing through the defence and the youngster might prove vital to the team, provided he is given more time on the pitch rather than just couple of minutes or 5 minutes of game every match. If you watched the England v/s Ecuador game - the coach and his staff were all set to bring out lennon n crouch instead of Becks (who has suffering from dehydration and was plying on par) and Rooney (i think) around the 59th minute and then Beckham delivers -THE free-kick just before he was being taken off and voila - its the beckham of the past -a wonderful curled in kick - fantabulous goal.
Tell me which coach would have removed the goal scorer, the moment he is scored the goal?? I dont think even the most-daring of coaches would have tried esp when the player in question was someone of the status of Beckham . I surely do hope that this time around - Eriksson gets on top of Scolari for a change. Eagerly waiting for the matches to kick start tomo.............

Camping trip - Saturday

2006-05-30T20:59:00.000+05:30

A cold and rainy saturday morning. More than half of the ppl i knew, irrespective of the time zone differences, were fast asleep snuggled up happily under their blankets. At that very moment around 4:45 am on saturday, 8 of us - Myself, Jayesh, Rupesh, Nikhil, Sweta, Sandeep, Vidushi, Kanchan - were getting ready for our CAMPING TRIP. It was the much-awaited bank holiday weekend and we were off camping n trekking (atleast i thought so)...around 5:30 am , one gang (the latter 4) started off from Canary wharf to Edgware road while the other gang (the former 4) started off from Croydon to the very same edgware road to meet up and then proceed towards the fisher ground camping site in Eskdale in Lake District. This was not my first time to this place but then I was all excited about the trip and have been planning for the same for the past 2 weeks (atleast) just coz of the "camp" factor involved!!:)
Well getting back to the trip - we started off at 5:30 from croydon...and after an hour we were still just about 5 - 10 miles away from Croydon, going around in circles - not knowing the way around to reach edgware road. Mind you, we were loaded with print outs of the route, Road atlas, UK road maps and what not. We apparently needed to take a left turn into Parry street from South Lambeth road but then we just kept going up and down the latter not able to find where in the world parry street had disappeared. Either some nitwit had plucked off the board or we were too dumb to notice. I strongly go for the former and still believe the same. After almost an hour , Sandy got frusturated of eating and drinking and waiting for us at edgware road - that he , using his GPS (sweet lady as he calls), came to pick us / lead us out of this goddamn road!! and Guess what - the roads were so confusing that sweet lady got confused as well - lol and sandy too circled a few times before finally finding us and voila..we were off to the motorway M1 following the ford focus in our ford fiesta at around 7 am finally!!!! For us Rups was driving and the other one was driven by Sandy!! The first part of the journey was pretty uneventful ( i was asleep in the back seat) and so were all others including Rups for few seconds!! Lady luck was there with us through out;):)) and then we took our first "welcome break" at one of the services center. Little did i know that the "welcome break" was going to be too often for this trip;):))) All of us unloaded ourselves off the excess water/ coffee/ juice we had drunk and then quickly followed that by sharing/ having a coffee each. We then continued on our way and entered into M6. After a while, Rupesh being tired, I took over the wheels of the fiesta and vrooommmmm......i was Michael schumacher or alonso or whoever...changing tracks from the right extreme to the middle lane...over taking cars..touching the maximum of 120 mph at times :D:) The soul aim of our car was to keep the "Focus" in focus since that had the all important GPS and we (read as the fiesta guys) didnt trust our direction sense much - lol!! The guys in my car were asleep for sometime, chitchatted and generally having fun - the biggest fun being overtaking the focus and then trying to slow down to let the focus overtake us (courtesy the directional problems).
Around 3:00 pm...we finally reached the camping site - all were in a upbeat mood..we drive into the site and the owners come upto us saying "Sorry gentlemen, we are full - there is no space" - ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, what the $%^* did they mean they were full!! we drove the last 350 miles or so not to hear this crap!! The sight of our faces was indeed a sight to be seen!! It was blank/ expressionless!!!!! we had joked about this happening but it never crossed our mind that this could actually happen. We told the lady we had come alllllllll the way from london and that we possible couldnt go back now:(. Then the man of the place came over and said, he will check the camp for a place for us to pitch the tent. We - me, nikhil, jayesh and sandy - went along with him and finally found a place. Ok, now the funda at that place was that each tent would have a campfire to themselves and they didnt have 4 campfires for us..so they asked us to manage with 1 and if thats ok we could (We had 4 tents - 2/tent) - we were kind enough to take up the offer:P;) and once again the (32*8 - not that i counted but just an estimate) teeth were gleaming on everyone's face!!
Now came event 2 - pitching the tent and to add to our existing plight, it was raining hard! None of us had camped ever before except for me (that too long back in school) and we didnt know how to pitch our tent up!! The girls - all enthu- took out first tent and started putting them together (supposedly). The smarter ones (Me and sandy;)) just walked up to few goray's and asked them for help. They obliged - yippeeeee!! We, the smart ones, got our first (and last) lesson in setting up the tent..Anyway by then the hardworkers - read as everyone else except me and sandy- had set up their tent too (full credit to them:P)..Thus going ahead, we set up all the 4 tents around our one campfire place!! Then came the next obvious question - lets eattttttttttttt!!! We went to nearby boot inn for our lunner and now here they tell us they serve dinner only from 6pm and lunch is served only till 3:30 pm!! and we were there at 5 pm!! We took off from there and went to a nearby department store and got our stock of crisps (chips in US/ elsewhere), bread, jam, cheese (for next breakfast - who told u we dont think ahead:P:))) and got back to the inn at exactly 5:59 pm and just placed the order:) All of us had our stomach/ hearts fill!! Enjoying every morsel/ grain and then with an even wider grin went to the camping site back.
Next we started on setting up the fire - Sweta got the logs and kindle for £3.5 and Vidu was the fire-manager - to set up the fire. While the girls were busy with that - Nikhil took care of the seating arrangement while me was handing a bottle of Smirnoff, sprite, packets of crisps, plastic glasses, napkins and playing cards to the remaining - sahi mahol ban gaya tha!! While everyone sipped on their drinks, we played bluff/ 420.....and ppl who played the most honest game actually ended up winning - just cementing the fact - "Truth always triumphs" - by the time it was 10:30 that the game got over..we retired to our respective tents - and into our sleeping bags (again a first time experience for all except me)!!! I had to actually plug my ears coz of the giggles by the girls in the next tent (swe/ kanchan) - they just refused to stop..!!!!all were lying in their own sleeping bags and talking out to each other thru the tents!! and soon we (rather some) were deep in sleep snoring away to glory - the last sound i heard is the rain hitting against the cloth of the tent...plop..plop.....plop....

Here we go around the London Heathrow

2006-04-03T14:52:00.000+05:30

Back in london!! Christ sake, i thought it would be setting of spring but it is still so damn cold over here!!Rather, its just normal cold but u get the chill, when the wind blows:)
Anyway on Sunday morning boarded the flight at 6 am...it took off actually 15 min prior to scheduled time. I had to just get into the flight to fall asleep!! The only 2 times i woke up was for breakfast - scrambled eggs, sausage and bread and lunch - rice, chkn curry, dal and chapatthi!!:D The remaining part of the flight, i just slept through watching "England's road to Germany 2006" on my personal tv in the flight. Well we reached London at the scheduled time itself - 12:30 pm. Or rather should i say, we reached OVER London at the scheduled time. Apparently there was no landing space in Heathrow airport and hence we continued going around in circles. It was interesting to see the flight map. First we made a small circle, then a bigger one, then another bigger one, then we went straight past the London (2 dots signifying capital) and then did a 180 degree turn and went right past london again!! The way we were making circles, i was almost sure that we would create the diagram of the solar system on the flight map with the london depicted as "Sun".
Anyway after continuing this for about 1 hour or so, we finally landed. Hurrah!!!- that was the good news -as told by the captain of the flight. Then he conveyed the bad news - we found landing space folks but we are 3rd in queue for obtaining a gate to disembark. Thus the wait continued in the flight now for another half an hour. Finally...FINALLY, we got out of the plane near about 2pm.phhheeewww.......
Immigration unusally went absolutely fine=> without them frisking me (i generally get frisked/ searched thoroughly since i resemble a terrorist - not my fault again;))
and then had to get a medical check-up. Proceeded to the Medical room in the airport and they took an x-ray of my chest and said i was healthy..yooohooo!! Finally got out, picked up my luggage - guess it already made 4 - 5 rounds by the time i got out after the health check up. They were the only 2 bags on the conveyor belt.
Took a cab to croydon and i reach Fitzroy Court where i am supposed to stay. I ring flat number 49 for someone to buzz me through the secured main entrance and i realise they are all outside and none at home. Luckily there was a payphone nearby, called them up and again luckily they were just 5 min away from home. And finally i got into my home for the next 2 months!!!
Hopefully and i seriously hope that things are less eventful than what it was on the day i arrived:)

Barcodes

2006-03-31T13:15:00.000+05:30

Ever wondered what the black and white lines are behind every other stuff u buy from the supermarket??
well check this out. Gives you all you ever wanted to know about the stuff.
In addition, it also gives your barcode number. Time is not far when each one of us would have a barcode:)) You would just have to go through a scanning machine in any shop you enter and if its clothes - all your size n specifications get displayed to the salesperson and if its a restaurant, prob. all ur health problems and dietary regulations would be displayed:)) Interesting, aint it:)????

Gunners shoot and The Magician flops!!

2006-03-29T15:39:00.000+05:30

Last night, i stayed up till 2:30 watching the Champions League.
Both the matches started off at the same time and i was in a dilemma which one to watch - Barca v/s Benfica
- Arsenal v/s Juventus

For the first 5 min, i just kept flipping between channel 27 (Star Sports) and 52 (ESPN). Just 5 min and the decision was as simple as it could be...i watched the former with glimpses of the second match in between!!!
The first match was a treat to watch esp since one of my fav. players - Ronaldinho -the magician. The way this dude has control over the ball, i dont think anyone else would have. Amazing reflexes, amazing tackles and fantastic passes!!! it was a treat to watch this dude play and combine this with the classic play of Deco accompanies by Eto and Larssen...i still wonder why Barca didnt score!!!!! They hit the bar like uncountable number of times - they hit the target so many times but nothing converted!! The commentators were very right in saying that Barca is playing like a millionaire with lots n lots of money (shots on the goals in this case) to throw around. I hope they dont regret the wasted chances in the next leg in barcelona!! This is one team outside the EPL that i really admire. Irrespective of whether they score or not, they play entertaining football. What a team!!
Full credit to Moretto though. This guy came up with some amazing saves and fantastic reflexes!!!
The second match - as expected - was pretty dull. Guess Juventus was trying to play too defensive!!Juventus just had 1 shot on the arsenal goal while arsenal had around 8 of which 2 were converted into goals!!
As always the clinical finisher Henry was in his top form and even Fabregas coming up pretty well off late!! In fact Arsenal as a team is coming together pretty good now. Have to wait and see how they fare in the next season of EPL!!!
Cant wait for 2006-07 season to start - Chelsea domination slowly seem to be dwindling while the old race horses - ManU, Liverpool and Arsenal -seem to be finding their lost form back!!
And more importantly just counting days for June 9th!!!

Time to revise the oath, Doc?????

2006-03-07T16:05:00.000+05:30

Have been reading quite a lot of articles on Euthanasia/mercy killing these days. There is a faction of ppl who argue that it is interfering in God's plans by killing those ppl and this is equivalent to murder committed by any third rate criminal. Is it so??
Lets take the case of Joel (fictional character) - he is suffering from a disease which has no cure. It is the kind of disease leading to slow and eventual degradation of the entire body putting him through hell lot of pain & suffering. Every day he is alive is a equivalent to putting him on a pyre and burning him. The doctors have given him a maximum of a year to live - a year of pain, suffering, boils, swellings, rashes and all possible ailments one's mind can think of. In his little left sanity, he requests the doctor to finish his story - khallas!!! Now, should the doctor take pity on him and kill him freeing his soul of the endless pain or should he continue looking after him, treating him and giving "un-needed" hopes to his parents/relatives etc???
Countries like Netherlands, belgium and Switzerland have come to terms with this physician-assisted killing but are they too pro-modern?? Clamouring for the "right to die" the pro-euthanasia group strongly believe that every person has the right to die in dignity rather than suffer through it!!!Doctors in UK who are anti-euthanasia have voiced slogans like "Care, Not Killing" showing that they still attach themselvs strongly to the oath they take when embarking into this profession - that they would aid in the healing n cure of the sick - and NOT encourage their KILLING.
I personally believe euthanasia should not be encouraged!! On one hand, you consider capital punishment unacceptable, suicide unacceptable - then why should you accept mercy killing? All the pro-euthanasia group may say that by letting the diseased live, we are making them go through unwanted suffering. Well, empathy/ sympathy for the ones in pain is human, but intentional killing to alleviate the anguish is like, i think, burning down a house coz of mosquito trouble!!!!
This is the age when medical science is progressing by leaps & bounds every day. They are near to finding out cures for cancer/ AIDs etc(not sure if it is already been discovered). In such a progressive world, if the doctor tells you that you have a year to live - for all you know the very disease which has no cure today, might end up having something few months down the lane and you could actually live to see your generations down the ladder!!!!
Why take your life, when there may be light at the end of the tunnel?
Why force the doctors to change their oath?;)

I started off this write, thinking i would support euthanasia but on second thoughts, naaa!! Live and live as long as you can. Savour every moment of life. There would be troughs but then every trough should be followed by a crest!!!!!

Attitude v/s Aptitude

2006-03-01T16:20:00.000+05:30

A major source of stress in your life is the “fear of rejection” or fear of criticism. This fear of rejection manifests itself in an over-concern for the approval or disapproval of your boss or other people. The fear of rejection is often learned in early childhood as the result of a parent giving the child what psychologists call “conditional love.”

Rise Above The Need For Approval
Many parents made the mistake of giving love and approval to their children only when their children did something that they wanted them to do. A child who has grown up with this kind of conditional love tends to seek for unconditional approval from others all his or her life. When the child becomes an adult, this need for approval from the parent is transferred to the workplace and onto the boss. The adult employee can then become preoccupied with the opinion of the boss. This preoccupation can lead to an obsession to perform to some undetermined high standard.

Avoid Type A Behavior
Drs. Rosenman and Friedman, two San Francisco heart specialists, have defined this obsession for performance as “Type A behavior.” Experts have concluded that approximately 60% of men and as many as 30% of women are people with Type A behavior.

Don't Burn Yourself Out
This Type A behavior can vary from mild forms to extreme cases. People who are what they call “true Type A's” usually put so much pressure on themselves to perform in order to please their bosses that they burn themselves out. They often die of heart attacks before the age of 55. This Type A behavior, triggered by conditional love in childhood, is a very serious stress-related phenomenon in the American workplace.

Work Arounds
Here are two things you can do immediately to deal with the fear of rejection, criticism and disapproval.

First, realize and accept that the opinions of others are not important enough for you to feel stressed, unhappy or over concerned about them. Even if they dislike you entirely, it has nothing to do with your own personal worth and value as a person.

Second, refuse to be over concerned about what you think people are thinking about you. The fact is that most people are not thinking about you at all. Relax and get on with your life.

Get yourself involved in something apart from just work, work n more work!!

(ps. this was something i got from Brian Tracy)

D-day - gone and another day Dawns!!

2006-03-01T14:18:00.000+05:30

The long wait is finally over and I didnt make it through ISB. Feb 28th was a looong wait for everyone in India - there was ofcourse the Budget 2006 be presented by hon. finance minister Chidambaram but then for few 2000 others, it was the day when the results of the Round 2 of ISB were to be announced!!And surprise, they had already sent the admmit mails on previous day. This i came to know when i checked the isb-pgp yahoo group mails, where ppl where throwing arnd "Congrats" and "i am thru" mails..
Anyway then started the wait for the "waitlisted" mail which was due to be sent on 28th. And lo - that day too bygone with not even a single mail!! So there goes ISB into the horizon, once again (i was a re-applicant from last yr). Just heard today that Anuj got a "waitlisted" mail. Hope n pray the best for that dude.
Well this was not to be just another D-day, there was more to come. I got into office and came to know that they were sending promotion mails (job band change) to everyone who were eligible for the same. Surprise again..this was my day - I didnt get one, though guys who joined after me and along with me got their promotion letters, i was doomed to remain a software engineer for another six months:P Well as far as my understanding goes, getting this promotion now or in december, does not matter much coz monetarily both the promotion groups (now n decembers) get salary promotion (personal Band change) only next April!!:)))So that was the only relief i had for the day.
Now the only reason for the above, i could figure out in my little left sanity was that i had NOT passed a certification exam in finance/stocks (NCFM)sometime last october!! Why had i not passed when so many others had? coz i had lots n lots n lots of responsibilities, work which i could not ignore - lame excuse i guess. The end result of being sincere to work, i did not clear certification and hence maybe denied the promotion:P I even checked with my manager and she said she was surprised that i didnt get one and "promised" me that she would check as to why i was denied!!
Well the icing on the cake was when late in the evening, i get a call from some recruitment agency and the dude asks me where i work and in what field - i told him Infy- Mainframes. He asks me "mallu" whether i was willing to jump to IBM? i asked him my scope/ salary..and guess what he says ?? His response verbatim- "I suggest you stay in Infy. Its far better company - paywise/ opportunity wise comapred to IBM". There goes my inclination to jump from Infy!!:)
The world is not a fair place to live in , i guess. But then thats what every other dick (Tom, dick n harry - too long to type) says when things go against his favour!!!
Another day is here - nothing eventful, rather uneventful has happened till now. Oh no!! hold on - how can my streak of "good luck" not continue. My senior manager calls me and says there is an immediate onsite opportunity and that he needed me to go, esp since i had not got thru ISB now (i had delayed my onsite chances courtesy waiting for the result). I nodded yes to him and got back to my seat and then it struck me - any guesses??? My UK work-permit visa expired YESTERDAY!!!! I hate 28th February, 2006!! Well looking forward to many more "brighter" happenings for the day!!
Currently I am having a Mocachillo(a special mixture of iced espresso with chocolate and ice cream and whipped cream), sitting back n reviewing a code written by a fresher in my project. Who knows tomo , he may be my boss:P Anything is possible in the IT industry!!
Ciao!

No more free mails??????

2006-03-01T13:50:00.000+05:30

Today almost evry Tom, Dick and harry uses emails/ web for all his/ her activities - be it keeping mai, chatting, news - its difficult to think what is not available on the www world now..anything you name and there would be some site or the other that would have it!!
Well i guess the internet has made all of us so dependent on it that the business minded dudes are slowly making a move to start charging the users for every service that they use. Yeah!! you heard me right - guys have started thinking about charging. soon the day will come when you will be charged for emails, for chatting for so many hours - and the initiators in this thinking process is currently none other than dudes from Microsoft. These guys never get fed up with every pence they earn that they want to create more n more wealth!!
Well I hope they go down to the deepest hell , if ever they actually start charging the consumers for the services that they provide!!The biggest question in this context would be are the consumers so dependent on the internet that they would go to any extent - read as paying 60 pounds a year (approx 4500 INR) - to get these services?? I read somewhere that even yahoo/ aol are also planning on the same!! They intend to charge extra for services like identifying a mail as junk and filtering it to your junk box or otherwise to your inbox.
Would you actually pay for services like the above? I'd rather go to my junk mail, and move necessary mails to my inbox rather than pay 4500 bucks a year just to avoid this. But then u never know - its the human mind which is much more varied and diverse than anything else i ever know!!! If they get atleast 50% of the junta to pay up for the services, i am sure they would succeed.
Anyway lets see where this leads to!! I wonder, how come there aren't any forwards which say " forward this to 10 ppl to prevent microsoft from charging the customers for its services":P lmao!!!

To smoke or not to smoke!!

2006-02-21T13:55:00.000+05:30

Was reading the article on "smoking being banned in Indian movies" and another one "Smoking banned in England"!! Is the world getting to be a better/ healthier place to live in? Or are democratic rights of the citizens being questioned;)?? Well there aint any democratic right that says "You may smoke" but then i guess this can be included in indvidual liberty or maybe even in freedom of expression..
What is the govt trying to do by forcing the NON-SMOKING law on to the people? It first started off with NO SMOKING law in the train, then it was restriction of sale of tobacco within a 100 metre radius of the school, university etc and now no smoking in movies!! Come off it please...Does the smoking by hero or villain actually inspire the aam junta to smoke?? Maybe if they had introduced this law way back when the movie industry was coming up in India, the law would have been practical but now i guess its a trifle bit too late!! (personal opinion). I was laughing my ass off the other day reading about Amitabh being sued for smoking in a movie....i guess they expected him to chew a pan or probably a bubble gum (incidentally both these are known to cause mouth cancers too)!!! If the leaders who introduced these laws were actually serious about the same, then i guess they should have gone about banning smoking altogether or they should ban companies/ retailers from producing/ selling cigarettes..how do you expect to curb/ reduce the hazards of smoking, if the source itself is still kicking on without any issues.
On one hand, the govt. comes out with such laws as stated above and on the other hand, they are planning to mince money out of the Tobacco industry. One of the critical issues being discussed in The Budget 2006 is the introduction of VAT on cigarettes..this very clearly shows that our govt. is not very pro-antismoking but things like banning of smoking in movies etc. are just publicity stunts (not sure if stunts is the right word here).
Lets take the second govt in question - the English..Now these guys have banned smoking in all public places which includes - bars n pubs too!! I mean a mug of beer in one hand n NO fag in the other?? Its unimaginable..i cant even think of a pub where there is not a single trace of smoke..this may hit the pub sales soon in the UK. The whole point of drinking in a pub is the ambience and what , to a certain extent, adds to that ambience is the smoke (guess all the hard core non-smnoker will strangle me:)). Personally i'd rather drink at home now where i have the liberty to smoke my heart out rather my lungs out rather than in a pub where i would have to just drink n sit around!! At this rate, I wouldnt be surprised if soon they ban drinking alcohol in the pubs or bars!!! or even resort to something like the below -

more of these available on www.quitsmoking.com

The normal human tendency is that of OPPOSITION!! If someone asks me NOT to do something, then the tendency or inclination to do that is very HIGH!!I am sure all, if not most of them would agree to this. A classic example is how the indian govt. banned the advertising of alcohol in the media and what happened? All those alcohol/ beer companies (Kingfisher, Mcdowell etc.) came out with bottled mineral water with the same brand name and started advertising supposedly for the "mineral water".
One of the ads/billboards for Mcdowell displayed a guy in business suit smiling with his index finger raised and the script read "One on the rocks, pls" and beneath in small lettering was written "packaged mineral water" - Now u make whatever sense n meaning that the above ad depicted!!!!!

Coming back to democracy ,is this what the people wanted when they elected their respective representatives to the legislatures or where ever? I dont believe so...
What we need now probably is a participatory democracy - a democracy where every citizen takes part in the decision making of the government and it is not left in the hands of the 'so-called' representativies of the junta..but how practical this would be taking into account the population of our country..hmmm - No idea!!

trivia: there are only 4 products which does not have VAT on them currently - sugar, textiles, cigarettes and petroleum.

and yeah just for information - I DONT SMOKE:)

Seniors, we have become/ Freshie 2001!!

2006-02-20T10:30:00.000+05:30

Second yr came and we had first glimpses of OUR prey;) The innocent lambs ( we were too when we joined, rather even now we ARE) moving arnd with their parents, the corner of their eyes trying to capture a glimpse of the seniors - not knowing what these loving seniors are holding in store for them!!
Ragging was bad for our juniors - i have to accept. They saw stars everyday/ night!! I could safely say that i am glad that i was not my senior! (did i make sense??) anyway the period of ragging went by fast...(i am sure the jus' would disagree with me on this point)!!!
The ragging had almost come to an end except for the "chosen few" who due to their over smartness or dumbness ended up getting thulped by the seniors even during the fag-end of the rag period...the lucky few included Boris for his stupidity, Chandra/ Tinku/ Sreeni for their over smartness??;)...n whtever...The NRI freshie had got over and the very next day was the our Mallu freshie for our beloved juniors..
the tough part was getting the Nri - mallu juniors to come for the freshy..what with them havin boozed their guts out the day before for the NRI freshie, most of them were not in their senses when mallu freshie had to begin and after numerous calls by the seniors to the first yr hostel all of them turned up for the freshie...one person though who was completely bonkered out was Sundeep...he had had a bit too much the day before and he could hardly stand on his 2 feet...he was even reluctant to come for the freshie..but somehow the Nri-mallu's of our batch..convinced him n pulled him for the freshie....
then there was the arrangement of freshie...we had got the Royal Southern hotel for conducting the freshie..esp since we had given them a double deal...NRI freshie n Mallu freshie on consecutive days and courtesy us..they got a lot of business for that yr for almost all the freshies..!!!it was something we had discovered - good hotel, cheap rates and suddenly everyone wanted a piece of the pie.......
the hall booked for the freshie was a medium sized hall (they called it the banquet hall) with food catering to both the veg n non-veg buds....along with the hall came the Music system and the mike...the system was pretty decent..good enough to play some songs and for juniors to put on music and present the first yr event..whatever they had to do...there was a small stage/ podium...that was carpetted in red...a chair was kept in the centre..where each junior went up..and gave his/ her intro...and where they were bombarded with questions abt their baap/ their maa and so many other questions which would make them sweat...and at the same time would please the sadistic minds of their over powering seniors...this was also the chance for each senior to tease another of his batchmate/ his senior by asking tricky complicated questions to the juniors abt their college heriditary...!!!all those seniors/ batchmates who were despised...were made fun of courtesy thru the juniors at this juncture...!!
another memorable thing was the invitation card that we had published and sent out for all the seniors inviting them for the freshie...the FUMS were infuriated with this action of ours..they created petty scenes like, one of them dint get the invitation card and it meant they were not invited for the freshie...after a lot of coaxin many of them,...all of them finally agreed to come for the freshy...(it was obvious they would come ..but then they wanted to make us beg them n this was their way of making the whole freshy very formal - as they termed it - by giving out invitation cards)
the whole work of organising the freshy was divided up into tasks amongst us second yrs...some were given the work of getting the girls to the hotel...some were in charge of transportation - to n fro..others to check if things were in order in the hotel before the function started off...and one was given the duty of getting the then final yrs to the hotel...I was the chosen one for supposedly having the knack of talking soft n cooling them off..(this was told to me, i think..so that I would not refuse the OFFER)..anyway I acceded..
on the chosen day all had got set going ...I went to the final yr hostel - to get those seniors..and boy was not I scared..what with all these towering characters boozed n their anger regarding invites still not calmed down...I got together everyone in the van designated for them (as per their request...they wanted a separate van altogether for 13 of them to reach the hotel)...and when i was abt to enter...couple of them pushed me out..telling the van was exclusive for them...and not for any freaking junior..be it the organiser or whoever...smart me -instructed the van driver then to take the van to royal southern n decided to come by TNSTC to the hotel..but few of the other seniors (sidi, sujith etc..) got me back into the van despite what few others said...the journey started off...i was a sitting duck in the last seat..just trying to hide myself n prayin that this trip to the hotel ended soon...while the final yrs were hurling abuses at me n my batchmates for not providing them A/C coach../ video coach and what not :-P...in between one of the seniors...(Jiby)..came behind..and started narrating story of how he n his batch mate slapped each other during one of their ragging sessions or so...and to illustrate this..out of the blue..THUD...the whole van that was buzzing with noise n abuses...became silent...there was just the humming of the engine that could be distinctly heard...the pain of the whack could be felt by my innocent soft cheeks only later on...I was shocked - for having got the slap, for not knowing the reason why I got slapped and for the humiliation of being prob the only 2nd yr to have got slapped by the FUMS.....however thanks to that...all the abuses being hurled were stopped...suddenly everyone came back to the senses except the one who had delivered the slap...all were calmin me down..(they probably thoguht I would get angry or upset or whateever) and now the abuses were on to that senior...prob he dint realise the strength of the blow he had just metted out...anyhow..later on he came n apologised and the remaining part of that long journey was spent in silence...
anyway the remaining part of the freshie was pretty uneventful..the regular happenings and nothing in particular...!!!

Freedom is my birth right!!!

2006-02-20T10:24:00.000+05:30

The NRI freshers party had got over. The only memorable incident that happened for that freshy was the Ramayanam2K, a lot of comedy. We had Pradeep Muralidharan playing the Ravan with Gangster's paradise song running in the background. Anila was Sita and then the characteristic "Ada poya" by her which was picked up from the "shakalaka baby" song. I remember myself and kartik sitting at the last bench and immitating her and irritating her all thru the practice sessions for the freshy... (later i came to know that she was real angry with me for that and was irritated to the core;-)). We did the "suno to diwana dil" dance and the girls, i guess, had done a dance for "rang de"...anyway that was over and all were enjoying their new found freedom, when we as mallus had ragging ongoing even now..The mallu freshers party was the following week. And i dont think in the 4 years of college life, we NRI mallus have ever looked forward for anything more eagerly than for this particular day when we would be freed from the bonds of slavery...no more slaps...!!
it was the most painful week of the lot. ur remaining NRI counterparts were partying..going places...having fun..goign to the gate for dinner...and we were content seeing the snaps of their outings with the girls and listening to the fun times they had outside while we were undergoing another week of brutality by our very dear seniors...!!hmmm....
anyway finally the day came . We got our freshie. I was happy beyond words...and i guess the feelings were the same amongst all of us...esp after the formation of IBMk and restart of ragging and all the crap that followed..this was a welcome shower of monsoons for us...!!During the freshy there was a proper mimicking by Kuttan of the seniors including Johnny n Vinod and it was mimicked so perfectly that all were rolling on the ground..!!All fresh memories and then we did perform the "Suno tho diwana dil" partly and performed some rubbish on the stage when we were supposed to do a proper drama or dance or something...anyway then we heard a lot of advices from the seniors ..abt the mallu unity and their freshers party stories...!!one memorable day..!!!
and this was the very day when i made my entrance into the world traversed by almost all my seniors!! I tried my first voluntary gulp that day- no tensions...no mind blocks( for the NRI freshie as well, I had gulped but then i was more worried about the mallu ragging that was scheduled for me the next day more than enjoyin the freshers party)..
it was bliss....i remember one of my seniors Subhash Narayan(mallu prod) challenged me and Addy to a competition. He thought he would get a easy victory over us. We too thought the same. But for the heck of competing we competed. We had the first swig - bottoms up - on the rocks and Subhash was aghast and he too without loosing a moment had his first glass...we were al pumped up now...!!It was the moment when we had to show that we were not the "pavam pavam" types which we had portrayed ourselves to be...!!We ahd another 2 swigs and Subhash followed suit...and then we slowed down on advice from final years...esp since it was the first time for myself and addy..so we had the 4th and 5th drink slow n steeady...and sudenly we saw someone was shouting and moving arnd completely drunk. Turned arnd to see that it was none other than our dear Subhash.
He was Blown...myself, prem, dwipin carried him to someone's room, i guess it was prem's room and left him there to sleep..and we carried on..
Later on heard that never before had Subhash drank so much in his life..and we had coaxed him into it..courtesy the challenge. Anyway after that the real fun began...All the guys were pretty high up and the singing session began with parady's and vallips and first years (us) abusing all our seniors to the core for what all they had done to us...!!
The night however belonged to Addy. He was drunk and all that vaashi n hatred that had built inside him against the seniors came out and he caught the seniors one by one..starting from final yrs Ashif and ending with Vinod (2nd yr) in Diamond hostel.\He ragged each one of them...with his tongue so much that all seniors were completely flabbergast. They dint have a word to say...the best was Addy's ragging of Vinod - a common irritating guy for all the first years then. Vinod had retired early from the freshers party since he was a teetotaller and he had obviously got bored...But that was not an issue for our dude Addy...he went to his rooom..pulled off the characteristic towel which was wrapped arnd Vinod's eyes when he slept...pulled him out of his bed and abused him beyond anything...so much so that finally Vinod got irritated and me and Yeda (anand P) had to pull him out and make addy sleep somewhere else..!!
Then me and Yeda continued talking about our past, got a pep talk from him about the various departments etc..etc..!!It was the same night when Ghattis (maharashtrians) had had also their freshy and we joined Chatlawar (a 2- time year back, then studying in second yr - and a pretty good footballer though hot headed). We asked him for water and he gave us a bottle...which was just on the rocks Vodka..and both me and yeda gulped it down and realised what we had drunk was vodka and not water...!!anyway...then myself, yeda and chaat sat and talked abt football for sometime..then we went to one of the dhabas outside and had some sweets...early in the morning by arnd 4:00 am and then got back. By this time 3 of us were properly high and we decided to play football to practice for the inter-year finals due to be played that evening between 1st yrs v/s 2sn yrs...kicked arnd the ball till abt 9:00 am...and then we went to mess and had breakfast and went back to the hostel and slept off...!!
i got up at 4:30 pm only just in time for the match which was to begin at 5:00 pm...went to the field..paddded up ...and match started.but there was no sign of Yeda or Chaat...2 main players for the 2nd yrs then..!!anyhow...we had a thumpin win of 3-0 - if my memory is right. and we were doing the victory dancing and shouting happily..when chaat and yeda came in...all droopy..they obviously had had too much to drink and their head was spinning even now...pity them and saw the look of hatred for them in the remaining 2yrs eyes..!!I was glad that i had got up in time for the match..>!!
and that day it dawned upon me..that I have a great capacity..!!I am a tank..!!The news spread fast to all seniors..the rest of the second semester was spent accompanying every other senior...giving company to many...roaming arnd with the seniors..seeing places...and enjoying every moment.!!Second semester - i hardly saw the classrooms...!!
After the eventful nights of comradeship...i would get baclk to hostel by 7:00 am...have breakfast and sleep till evening...and the cycle continued...!!!This was jut the beginning of the TANK...and more was yet to come....

Suno to Diwana Dil

2006-02-20T10:18:00.000+05:30

Well for those of you, who could not make sense of the title, it is nothing but a song by Kamal Khan (the one who sang "oh oh jaane janna" - salman khan dance number) to which we danced.
Now the we comprised of Vineesh, Akhilesh, Kartik, Adarsh, Vithal, Ashwin, Pranay. I am not very sure how exactly we had started the whole process...but it was Akki's brainwave, if my memory is right...!!!
This was almost to the end of ragging when our seniors said that we would have to perform something for the fresher's party..some dance or skit or something of the sorts...and we were unsure of what to do exactly..!!!and then akki came up with this idea of dancing!!!
now before i get into how we started off and how we prepared ourselves and got guys to dance...let me tell u something...all those guys who danced for this..were novices?? no not even that...they (including me) never ever thought in their entire life till then that one day they would be dancing on stage and that too for a fast number..nothing folk or slow!!!
anywy it was intially for the freshers party and so the above said guys were all forced to dance along with me n akki..the entire choreography was directed by both of us only..!!!Basically we tried to recollect all those dance steps we had seen over the ages in the movies and on stage in school and tried redoing that!!
First myself and akki used to try the step and we would perfect it....and once we had perfected it..we would teach the rest of the guys and make them practice over n over again...until they were comfortable doing the step and even in their sleep, if asked, they would be knowin the sequence of steps..!!!we started with one step at a time and after perfecting each step , the song was played and we danced in one shot till the point where we had perfected..!!
I dont know if dance pundits (the girls - remya, shivani, anila etc) would call our dancing as dance but atleast we were giving it a shot and that is what mattered..!!we were, frankly speaking, doing more of aerobics than dance over there...!!!Lots of steps where we jumped, did splits (almost), made few formations...(picked up from watching numeroius dances over 18 yrs of life) etc etc..!!we initially had started off practice in A-22. We used to move the beds to the sides and create space and dance...and slowly coz of the music (whch was vey upbeat) we attracted a small crowd from the neighbouring rooms and iut became a everyday routine for 7 of us to dance and practice for our fresher's party while the crowd just looked on...!!
anyway we had reached only half way thru the song when one of the guys, Shantanu Das, asked us to perform for the first year Rotract function. He was a member of the Rotract Club of RECT and they were conducting a function for the first years and this guy wanted us to dance for the same..!!initially we were very reluctant...as none of us have danced before and we were not sure if we could pull it off together..and moreover our Ragging schedules might clash and we would not be able to make it after all..!!so kept declining but he never gave up and kept pestering!! the 7 of us sat and thought abt it.and decided to give it a shot..!!we told him that it might be the case that one of us might not turn up for the dance due to some ragging calls by senior and if the dance went bad...never to point the fingers at us..!!after all this was said and dance..the practice sessions became even more vigorous...coz the Rotract function was just a week away and we still had another stanza to put the dance steps for and then practice from beginning to end for a few days..!!we shifted our dance room from A-22 to the bathroom verandha...where there was just sufficient space for the 7 of us to dance together..!!!
the main problem we were facing was that in between one of us without fail ended up forgetting the steps...and thus it would look bad on stage..slowly our confidence level was going down but then we held together. In between Adarsh even gave up sayin, it was beyond his capacity..but somehow convinced him and all others and gave them the incentive that this might be the chance to break the ice with the girl folks.
Which guy would not like to be famous and attract girls?? in my opinion None..!!and that indeed was the driving force...it worked like a charm!!myself and akki used to dance less for practice sessions and conc more on coordination and perfecting everybody...!!!
we jst did 2 -3 rounds wherein all of us danced together!!!
anyway the finaly D-day arrived..!!!We wore our cargoes and tight t-shirts, and shoes for the first time..(remember it was ragging time and we were not allowed all this little happiness' of life) and to avoid being called for raggin at the same time...what we did is..we invited all our second year seniors (both mallu n NRI's) for the program and it helped to some extent that few of the NRI n Mallu seniors(3rd yrs n Final yrs) were members of the Rotract club and they warned us not to skip the dance and go for ragging..else we would be done for..!!that was the last straw!!there was nothing that could stop us from dancing now...and after days of practice and perfecting the steps...finally the D-day had arrived...!!morning we bunked couple of classes to practice on what was going to be our final stage for the evening!!We were committing mistakes now...getting tensed..our first dance performance and thoughts of getting battered by tomatoes and rotten eggs did pass thru our minds!!!
anyway like they say in mallu "randum kalpichu njangal irangi" meaning leaving our faith in the ONE above we got onto the stage when we were beckoned upon by Das!!and the music started and we started dancing full fledged...emotions on our face..atleast we thought so...and in between mine n akki's eyes were darting behind to check if all was in sync!!and amazingly everythin seemed fine..!!we were dancing our hearts out and when one of the steps came where in myself and akki bent backwards...did a step and then fell to the ground and jumped back up...the crowd was on its feet...everyone were shouting, dancing clapping...in APPRECIATION and finally the song came to an end...we bowed and we had a really loud ,strong and all superlatives possible round of applause...!!that was one of the best moments in my life...!!!
This had put us the NRI's of 1999 batch in the lime light...everyone knew us..and the following days we spent baskin in glory and then for the freshers party (every state) the first years (our batch mates) came to us..to learn the steps and all of them performed the same for their freshie and it became so famous that we were ordered by our seniors(mallu) not to p[erformthat dance for the freshie...!!every tom, dick and harry were performin that for the freshies now and we had established our stand as NRI's...the STUDs..and later on known as the DUDES in final yr...!!!
And this incident was just the beginning of my talent in dancing...;-)

Formation of the IBM;)

2006-02-20T10:17:00.000+05:30

Well one would be wondering where IBM came from in my first year of college days..!!well this is not the S/W company that all of you know..but this is Ist Boycotted Mallus, Kerala. This was formed as a result of merciless ragging by our mallu seniors on the guys who had come thru the Kerala quota and later on the NRI mallus also joined the group. An account of the events leading to the formation of this group is.. given below. Since I myself did not have a first hand experience here, i had asked Kuttan (sankar) to write this chapter for me. And i have added on in the end describing what was happening simultaneously at the NRI mallu front.
KutTy's account starts here:
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read vin's blog abt his 1st day of ragging n' wuz reminded of my time. well.. there were innumberable incidents, n' i rem. all of 'em vividly, but the one that stands out the most is the session by the FUMS. before i go into it, there are a few basic things abt RECT that readers shud be aware of.. tho' those very readers are all RECTians themselves n' need no explanation. anyway, here goes:
one's family is constituted of by people who occupied his/her seat in subsequent n' previous years. we have baap [known as 'technical father' in REC bhopal, as my friend sunil told me later], dada n' pardada. slapping is the way ragging happens at RECT, of course accompanied by other things that appear as humorous to seniors. at least to mallus, they don't do indecent things. kandus have to do grosser things like **** on a pole at a junction. UPs probly strip their juniors to satisfy their innermost desires. odiyas only slap, but they do enuf to compensate for all other forms of ragging.. an average odiya score is around the figure of 300. score is the no. of slaps you received n' is a figure that lives in ur brain as long as ur degree does on ur CV ;)
one day i'm reclinin in ravi's room.. when sandeep n' darsan walk in at noon.. sandeep has red marks on his cheeks- darsan is unscathed. i ask 'em what happened n' they say they'd been to the bank, where they met 'basheer'. he'd taken sandeep to a toilet near the bank [which i never knew existed!] n' banged him a few times n' sent him off with darsan to get me. well.. shiver me timbers! i didn't have a choice but to obey the wishes from above n' accompany darsan outside. we were picked up by deepu [yeah dwipin, that bastard who's made it to my list of top ten best friends] n' a guy who introduced himself as manu narayan. but i knew from my sis [who incidentally, had graduated from RECT a year earlier] that this 'manu' wuz 1 yr her junior. i guessed it wuz karthik, my dada. well they took us to BHEL [a nearby township], where we took on the role of pack-asses to carry their laundry; another common phenomenon during ragging. they treated us well for pack-asses tho', feeding us supper at abt 7 at 'bhuvaneshwar', an open-air eat-out at BHEL. we returned to college later.. n' continued beyond agate [that safe haven- the 1st yr hostel] to the dark n' dreary regions of the senior hostels.. we passed diamond on the way, the 2nd yr hostel that hid untold pain n' suffering. we'd never been there as our 2nd yrs found it fit to take us to BHEL for their exclusive pleasure in our ragging experience.
soon lapis loomed into sight.. n' we crossed it n' exited via the rear gate as we were sapphire-bound - when suddenly, into the night, erupted the wild yell of 'POOOYEEE!!!'. all four of us glanced up n' to see a row of dark faces at the top floor beckoning wildly.. and we knew that moment that we were done for. prayers flew up to the heavens from darsan's n' my throat like disturbed pigeons fluttering from a treetop.. but we cudn't evade the prospect of havin to climb up those stairs which got over all too fast for our liking.. as we walked down the corridor towards the wing-end.. wild screams n' laughter greeted us.. i don't exactly rem. what transpired afterward except that a pugilist complete with red gloves appeared from nowhere n' dealt out a series of swift punches to the region of darsan's tummy. he then turned onto me to playfully dab my nose. it wuz getting quite dark, when the play wuz abruptly cut short by someone pushing us unceremoniously into a room.
they closed the door n' asked us to latch it from inside. the door had a barred window which could be swung open. they asked us to switch the lights off n' await our destiny while they went out for dinner. the last person to leave changed his mind n' came back, to inquire of me.. 'kutty, ninakku ente adi kondattundo da?"(kutty, have you got slaps from me ?). i squinted out into the night n' realised that it wuz none other than the famed 'basheer'.. well, i replied truthfully in the negative, wishing i wuz fortunate to have done otherwise. basheer's slap wuz a legend which i was about to witness firsthand... 'engottu vaada'(come here), i heard n' complied. he slid his right hand thru the bars n' dealt me... ONE SWIFT BLOW. the force of the slap flung me backward, n' i landed on the bed at the other end of the small single room. basheer left, darsan switched off the light n' bolted the window n' came n' lay down beside me. i wuz still shocked with that slap. we consoled each other..
the wait that ensued wuz among the most fearsome periods of darsan's n' my lives.. we waited for what seemed to be just minutes, but really wuz closer to an hour, before the knocking on the door began. 'THORAKKADA'(Open the door) they yelled, as we fumbled with the latch n' finally threw it open. they burst into the room one by one.. n' arranged themselves around us.. basheer pushed me to the ground n' somebody took the sole comfort that wuz darsan, away from me.. outside the room. then began the legendary session of ragging which wuz to be related again n' again to an awestruck audience.. no less than twenty exclusively-basheer stunners landed on my poor cheeks.. soon the slaps stopped hurting n' all i felt wuz the dull pain in my head n' the jerks which came as each new blow wuz dealt. at the end of it, both sides of my face were bleeding. the surprise on their faces was evident but they grinned outwardly n' brought basheer a small vial of dettol.. he applied it on my cheeks n' they smarted like mad. i hid all emotion n' after ten mins of respite, he resumed to relentlessly take my score ahead another twenty n' then ceased..
darsan wuz brought into the room n' taking my sorry state into cognizance, he saddened.. they sat him down next n' mr. basheer meted out twenty of 'em unabated.. after which they released us. we went back to agate the next day n' our friends paled at the sight of us.. that day, we decided to boycott further ragging n' under the able n' hidden-for-long leadership of giridhar, forged IBMK.. Ist Boycotted Mallus, Kerala..
The next few months saw us released from the torture of ragging.. we enjoyed while the others suffered. a coupla seniors called us for a peaceful meeting, where we refused to return.. another meeting with the final years occurred where we stubbornly held onto our resolve.. but the walls fell apart one day, when i wuz home for the weekend n' darsan, jithu n' sandeep relented to attend non-physical ragging, the biggest mistake. giri, anil n' sumesh held back, n' escaped from physical fitness sessions consisting of push ups, etc.. which gave in to slaps again.. i had to give in too.. n' had a lone session with basheer where i confirmed that his slaps had lost the splendor of lore.. probly after peer-counsel. it all ended well.. with us getting our freshie- the only drawback being that giri, anil n' sumesh missed it.
basheer.. wuz an alias.. his real name being premlal p. k.. yeah, the same guy who accompanies dwipin on my list of top ten best friends ever.. surprising, isn't it? ;)
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Well this is what exactly happened on the mallu front...well till then..rather till before the formation of IBM, the NRI mallus had a choice of going for mallu ragging...!!As in only if they wanted to be close to their mallu seniors and wanted to attend the mallu freshie they had to atten!! but with the mallu first years all boycotting the ragging completely, the seniors were all frust. This was considered to be a humilation for any seniors to not have their juniors come for ragging and that too the main reason being excessive ragging!! So then what else..but rope in the NRI mallus and after a long tug of war we finally acceded to attend mallu ragging...!!!We were promised by the mallu third yrs and final yrs that we would not be ripped apart like how our mallu quota counterparts had faced (pun intended here:-))But intially we were not convinced coz during the begining of ragging, Ashwin had his ears slammed out by none other than Johnnie George in the train compartment's toilet. The slaps intended for face ended up on Ashwin's ears due to lack of space and this had become a major issue which is why we were given a choice to go for mallu ragging by our seniors....however this sudden twist of fate forced us to go for mallu ragging..to save the pride of the mallu seniors..!!so we became the bakraas and every day we had some ragging session euther by the NRI's or by the Mallus' and if we skipped one to attend the other...the next day all hell was loose!! Many of the guys even thought of runnin away from college due the excessive amount of slaps we were facing every other day...!!The mallu seniors used to rag us severely for the formation of IBM and for those guys not comin for ragging..!!The situation was getting pathetic.
We as NRI's at times slowly develpoed an aversion too for the mallus since it was their boycott due to which we were suffering...anyway this went on for the first semester and second semester on one fine day when i was returnin from kerala...lo!!behold...all the NRI/mallu final yrs were on the train and i had a small session of ragging there.!!Thats when i met the likes of Sajan Abraham, Sonu Sam varghese, Chandy, Pavil Jose (my par-dada) - these were the terror final yrs and i got ragged by them in the train on my return journey. One humorous incident that had happened, i shall narrate now..!!!

well in one of the previous raggin sessions one of my batchmates(mallu - dont remember who exactly) was ragged by Johnnie george!! Johnnie asked him the ? "which state do i belong to?" when the junior answered him "Kerala" , he got whacked beyond belief coz the expected answer was "Solid state" (with reference to chemistry "states"). And telling each other's ragging experiences was a commoner in first yr hostel and this was there in my mind when Sajan asked me to guess his state. Prompt came the asnwer "SOLID"!! The expressions on all these final years face i remember to this date. If i had had a camera then and had the balls..i would have taken a snap of al lthose 4 wonder strucken face as if they were struck by lightning !!! They didnt get the flow of what i was saying..and suddenly it dawned on them what i was referring to and they thought i was trying to get cheeky with them...!!sheesh poor me:-(;-)) and the rest what happened to me...its better untold...i am leaving it to your imagination!!!!
After reachin trichy i was asked to come for raggin that evenin by these seniors for my cheekiness..and i meekly agreed (as if i had a choice)...and along with me came sankar and sandeep...their first return session after boycotting!!man..the whole day..atleast half of the day..i saw them gettin physical fitness ragging...everythin except slaps...pushups...and what not...!!!This was done to so much extent that finally both these guys agreed to getting slapped than going thru this painful physical torture..!!and voila..i could just hear then what was happenin...just could not keep my eyes open seeing them get thulped...!!Sandeep almost as on the verge of tears !!!and then it was done..they were back and in for the ragging...!!and then they were left free..!!
Suddenly the seniors realise that i was just a spectator for the whole session today and their poor minds thought that i was feeling bad for being ignored and they called me...and i had a lone ragging session courtesy all of them just conc on me while kuts n sandy watched on..!!perfect reversal of roles...!!!anyway the dreaded day came to an end...!! We were then taken to Celestine Michael's room (Ghatti Mallu) where half of the guys were drunk and remaning were doped...!!and there me,kuts and sandy were forced to drink liquor for the first time - RUM to be precise..!!3 of us didnt feel anything...we resisted intially but then the seniors forced us to...Asif being the one who forced it down my throat...!!!This was just the beginning of the drinking days for all of us..!!hmmmm....and with this day over..it also meant another thing...as of now atleast the NRI's were also automatically included in the mallu ragging (NRI mallus) and henceforth one commmon freshie for mallus and NRI mallus and no distinction between the two!!!
the only good part of the whole thing for me personally was that it just brought me closer to all the mallus - kuts, sandy, Darsan, Anil, Jithu and to some extent to giri, sumesh and anil!!

God's most unique creation

2006-02-20T10:08:00.000+05:30

hmmm...my fav topic once upon a time...even now...it aint died down or anything..!!bt then unlike before i am more focussed and concetrated on one and only one now:-)
anyway i guess i had told in the earlier chapters too about my craving (or whatever u want to call it..) for BABES in college..!!and my class was out of scope in this matter!!! so i went to fresher hunting grounds in search of my prey. everyday during the breaks and during the lunch hours used to roam around in search for one good lookin face whom i could give my introduction but fat chance.
Then came my angel of hope...my seniors...during one of the ragging sessions they asked me to get the info on all the NRI girls..!!
well well well..what do i say...here was the chance i was waiting for!!!
The first girl to whom i introduced myself was Nazleen Ashraf. A quiet petit girl, thought she was the typical Muslim girl who would rarely talk to any guy!!but during the counelling day she was the first one to make a move and talk to me...!!she was probably the first girl and the only girl ever who talked to me first before even i intiated a talk..(which was the usual case)...whenever i had any problems...i felt low down...depressed...she was the first one to sense it..she was the first one to know followed by Kartik!!! my best friend for a long time to come!!!

Then there was my school mate Vidhya whom i didnt like much at that time since she had broken up with one of my close friends in school. Somehow the feelings were mutual!!

then the Bomb girl abt whom everyone and anyone used to talk - Sreelakshmi Mohandas. she was the hot maal (in RECTIAN terms) whom every other guy was tryin to pattofy!!anyway i just got the intro from her and occasionaly when we used to cross paths used to give a smile...!!!anyway i didnt have much eye on her..somehow i had this attitude in me to ignore those girls who were hyped abt a lot...!had this feeelin that these girls would have an air abt them and i hated such girls..!!anyway i kept this one at a distance from me..other than the ocassional exchange of pleasantries!!!
Then Aruna who was the NRI from USA though she had not seen beyond Coimbatore then. We used to think before meeting her that she would b one hep girl being an NRI fom USA n all that but then she turned out to be one of the most soft spoken girls whom i had ever seen. a proper pavam. She later on towards third year became pretty close to me courtesy Naz who was our common point of contact.And now finally Aruna is leaving for USA in pursue of her higher studies...finally she is NRI from USA after years of teasin by all of us:-)
Hmmm...then there was Roopa Kannan who was again my school mate and first ranker in school, who took away the podium from me in M.E.S. Indian School,Doha . I had thought that my life will be ruined with she being here too competing with me in studies but then fortunately for me..she took Compsci and i was in ECE. and unexpectedly she was just performing as an average student in college..nothing hi-fi..so my mom didnt have any complaints...just told her that even roopa is doin only as good as me..though actually speaking she was doing slightly better than me..but then in college as i soon realised all this didnt matter.!!there were only 3 groups in college..either u were in topper range (9+) or u were in the avg range (6.5 - 8.5) and then the ones below that..!!
and i am happy and proud that i fell in the avg range inspite of all extra curricular activities!!
Then the last(certainly not the least) and the final NRI girl from Kuwait whom i could remember Anila Mary George...hmmmm...what to say...the two things that attracted me to her first sight itself were her long beautiful hair and big lovely eyes..!!the latter was always an attraction for me w.r.t. any girl who had good eyes!!anyway had heard quite abt her from Deepak Mathaikutty who was also from Kuwait and i tried a couple of times to give my intro(though she would say i never bothered;-)) but then somehow..i found that air in her..the superiority in her!!lookin at her i knew she was the not the one with whom i could play the fool...!!so never gave my intro to her..and that superiority in her..i hated it...but in a way i liked it and i wanted her to come and give me her intro than the other way arnd...it was a challenge i had taken!!somehow she seemed to be the quieter kinds...who ha not interacted much with guys at all..or something like she already had a guy and was not interested in anyone else around..!!anyway tried hard to break the ice between us..but nothing happened and she remained the only girl in my first semester to whom i had not given my intro!!!! (hmmmm...little did i know then how fate would take a twist and things end up the way are:-))))) and i also used to think she has major attitude problem...prob one of those rich bratty girls from Kuwait who had lots of cash and didnt know how to spend it types...- the typpe who would prefer an AC room with a car at her disposal rather than walkin few 100 meters to the cafeteria...etc..etc...but trust me..the impression i had about her was bad...and thought this would be one girl i would avoid / tease /irritate a lot (the latter 2 i still do..but the former..no way;-))
that were the NRI girls..!!!
then there was Remya...another hyped girl..!!almost everyone and anyone used to talk abt her and i had never seen her till the first train journey. i guess this was the 2nd week after we had joined college and all the seniors were also there and they were ragging us and i saw this girl, again with real beautiful eyes...Period. and i just considered her as another girl and later on when i came to know that she was Remya...i was really taken back..coz there was nothing so damn amazing or out of the ordinary in her (by looks) for which the guys had to talk a lot abt her...anyway that was that!!She is basically a Iyer (tamilian) but thru mallu quota and brought up in mallu land..!!!Later on this girl came out to be my closes pal in campus...someone next only to Kartik and Naz!!

Next was Amrita Banerjee..a bengal girl of the architecture department...well she was the proper description of feminism..atleats at that point of time..many despised her for her being a bong..but then again my taste was different...she was the first girl whom i had actually taken out on a date ever in my life...the first time i had gone out ALONE with a girl ever. I still remember that day..will describe that in a separate mail..this was just the begining of a long list of dates or one-on-one outings with girls..!!My association with her sparked off in the LEO club that we were in together..our wave lengthsw matched a lot!!:)
and finally there is Upasani Shivani Suresh , my class mate for 3 years...became famous in college after her spectacular show in dance during the first year for the song ~"pyar ki kashthi mein" and that kashthi just kept going with one of my friends Siddharth Menon who was indeed her partner for this dance..!!amazing pair, the first to get engaged in our batch:-)) this girl intially had an arrogant look in her face..atleast i thought so...she too was in LEO but hard nut to crack !!!slowly we got into the same branch and same practical group..and we interacted a lot!!We became quite close in the followin days and even now she is one of the few with whom i am in constant contact..!!Our Festival times together where we coordinated dances, manoranjan etc...good times bad times..will all be writing in later..!!!

So in short, my dear readers..u see..my association with girls was not minimal..i used to be called a big time flirt by many guys...!!dont know if i was actually flirting with all of them..!!if maintaining association with girls by talkin to them and being nice is the definition of flirting...then I accept that i am a flirt!!but else..it was just plain friendship though at times my mind used to slip and thoughts abt marryin one or going steady with one used to crop up..!but then what do u expect of a teenage guy in college..!not to have any crushes???cmmon..be practical!!
anyway these were God's wonderful creation which existed in our college and with whom i maintained pretty close relations...for a long time to come...!!!!!!!

Incidentally - for those of you, who dont know - i got married to the so called "rich kuwait brat" - Anila - my dear wife now:))))

Freinds - VAAKS!!

2006-02-20T10:04:00.000+05:30

Well these are the ppl who became thick pals of mine..some of them stuck..rather most of them stuck but for a few...!!!
Kartik- My best pal...who knows everythin about me..and vice versa...the initial days were just ok with him..but as time went past...we became as thick as thieves...going after the same girls...having the same likes n tastes...and the very attitude coz of which i thought i would hate him..ended up being our common attitude...(i guess i had the same attitude and he would have felt the same first impression about me )He is the only one who has seen me crying , i guess , in my 4 years of college life...!!there was nothing that was kept between us...theremight have been delays in communcation but then ultimately we used to tell each other anything and everything...from parents,girlfriends,relatives,guys,girls etc..etc.....he has hardly done his studies in the gulf. it was all Delhi, Delhi and more Delhi. Basically from alwaye!!

Sankar - Another one close pal that i had made. Many thought he was intolerable / not compatible but amazingly i found nothing wrong with him..just another normal guy but with major LEO attitude bursting within him...ego,vanity etc..etc...u searchin for someone with this...someone who thinks he is the best ...then Sankar..lovingly called Kuts is your man:-)a genius in the field of computers (this is not my view point -everyone else feels the same. for me everyone and anyone is better than me in computers..)

Akhilesh - He came, he conquered, he lost and he went..thats my relation with him...till 2nd year mid...he was my best pal...and kartik was also second to him...infact 3 of us together were the cool dudes...we started this group called VAK (acronymn for vineesh,akki,kartik). we were very close...tellin each other about our past experiences and present experiences and everything until that dreaded day in Second yr when things took a turn and that is a different story altogether which i shall narrate later on...!! there never was a moment (other than when we went for ragging) that we were not together and 3 of us were very naughty too...to put it in juvenile terms..playin pranks with everyone else and makin a fool out of everyone..!!!and this guy was a shahrukh fan!

Adarsh - a typical gulf kid...as in never seen the outside world...hardly knew anything abt anythin in the first year..rather first semester and then the VAK's trained him to know everythin about everything...!!A real gem at heart...with the mickey mouse ears and expression..he had stole a place in my heart permanently..atleast i had thought so then..!!we both used to run away to his uncle's house to escape raggin during weekends in first semester and used to hog out like crazy with his uncle and aunty..!!!amazing guy..a great all time sallu fan...(salman khan)!!

and eventually the 5 of us together came to be known or rather called ourselves as the VAAKS - the first letter of the 5 of us..!!!!
almost everythin and anything we used to be together doing it..atleast in first 2 semesters..!!the rest of the guys and girls (NRI's) only used to call us Quack Quack.but we considered it their jealousy for not being in this group !!!anyway thats us..the VAAKS!!!and unity amongst us was amazing at that point of time..it was a "one for all and all for one" motto which was our driving force!!
our headquarters used to be A-22 (IF MY MEMORY IS RIGHT)..this was Adarsh's room...!!
the other guys who were my friends in first year were Sandeep, Ravi, Darsan, Talwar, Thakur, Pranay, Vithal, Kiran, Anil, Dejice, CG, Baba, Ashwin , Angyan and Das!!
but it was more or less always gthe VAAKS roamed together everywhere and anywhere!!:-)
There were few more to come in second year..Siddharth menon - Siddhu especially who along with me and Kartik called ourselves the "Dil Chahtha Hain"'s and our Pndy trip (simulating the Goan trip). All this later on probably!!:)

Warm welcome by the Seniors!!

2006-02-20T10:01:00.000+05:30

Day 2...i was just back from class and for a change that day |Trichy was not HOT..there was a slight breeze which prompted me to come outside the hostel where there were hazaars of freshers acquainting each other. This guy almost as tall as me..though on the thinner side with specs walks up to me and introduces himself as Ashwin Menon - NRI - basically mallu!!He asked me if iwas an NRI and i said YES!!He said then i will have to go for the ragging today itself and this was a one time thing..!!he told me he was providing me a soft cushion for gettin least possible raggin!!and that if i voluntarily went along for raggin today..i wud get the minimum and i could be a fre bird henceforth!!and if i chose not to go for raggin today..then i would be caught someday or the other by seniors and thulped to a squishy-shquashy white pulp (picked from "the mark of Vishnu";-))..and i decideed..then and there...i am grabbin this opportunity of "Soft cushion" provided to me and finish it off..once and for all....!!
and i was waiting then for some sign from Ashwin to go to the senior hostels. He had asked me to hold on for sometime...!!!
In the meanwhile...this dude comes up to me..!!he had a sort of arrogant look on his face..i mean a guy with attitude!!He was as tall as me..maybe a niche shorter;-)(i hope he doesnt see this) with rectangular specs...hair centre split and slightly curly and build pretty much like mine...!!we shook hands...i told him i am Vineesh, NRI from qatar, basically mallu. And he introduced himself to me..."Hi, I am Kartik Krishnan, NRI from Delhi - the 'i' here being pronounced as in "I" and not as "e" - i too am basically mallu" and i was taken aback for a moment...the accent..the superiority in him..hmmm..i decided then and there that this guy would be someone whom i would not interact much with (how wrong first impressions can be:-)...he turened out to be my best pal till date...anyway all that will come up in the later chapters:-))). Anyway by then Ashwin came back and pointed at this huge figure who was walkin about 100 mteres ahead of me and told me...just follow that guy to the senior hostel.
I was shit scared man..!!This guy walkin in front of me was huge. He was abt 6' tall..double my size...lookin at his forearms i got the creeps in me...imagine gettin thulped by him..!!hmmm..anyway pissin in my pants..i followed him..heads down..not daring to look anywhere else...and justlookin at this huge figure and followin him like a good disciple of his!!anyway suddenly this dude in front of me disappeared and i could see a hoard of seniors, hungry lions, waiting for me in front of 2nd year hostel - DIAMOND.one by one they caught me and asked me who i was...where i was from etc..and when they heard NRI n mallu..al lof them just left me..sort of sympathizin with me...now this frightened me even more..!!it looked as if i belonged to a diffrent class altogether...!!!and this senior guy then came..a proper hairy guy..and he was sweatin profusely and he takes me away...from all these seniors..explainin to me the norms and conditions of ragging etc..etc..!!
I was taken into this room...and there was this guy sleeping there. This senior who had brought me to this room asked me to wake him up...and i tried wakin him up..but no use...i tugged at him and shook him and finally he woke up..!!man this guy had a cold stare in him...i was like..oops..i have woken a sleeping lion from its sleep..!!!he took me to the corner of the room..and started talkin to me...it turned out he was a mallu too and started talkin in mallu..!!
i sort of eased down as soon as he started talkin in mallu...but from the corner of my eyes i suddenly saw the big guy whom i had followed enroute to the senior hostel..was kneelin down and gettin whacked left n right...!!wow...i realised then..the huge guy whom i was scared of was indeed a guy from my batch only..!!hmmm..that was one relief!!
anyway continued talkin to this senior in mallu and i started smiling and laughin too at somethin he said...and he asked me not to smile..but i just could not hold back the smile..till...................................
till...i got SLAP number 1 from him...and voila...the very smile i was finding it hard to stop automatically disappeared from my face..i realised my raggin had begun...This guy who started my raggin was none other than Yeda (Anand P. - ICE mallu - 1 yr senior) who turned out to be one of my closest association amongst seniors!!!and the guy who took me to the room givin me all the fundas was Krur singh aka Anil Kumar Kuruganthi - NRI ece !!!
Then suddnely someone rushes into the rooom...and says Gururaj was in the hostel. This was the first year warden and he kept frequentin the senior hostels to catch someone who was involved in ragging and save the pitiful souls like myself...!!I thought my saviour had come and i would be left back to my hostel..but behold..we were asked to run..thru the back gate of diamond and we entered a bigger hostel with even more seniors awaiting us there!!!
We entered hostel LAPIS - 3rd yr hostel then..and myself and the huge guy were waiting for some 2nd yr seniors to guide us where to go..they were comin to lapis thru some other way..!!And here i had another experience..!!This group of seniors came to me and asked me who i was and to give my intro. I did that and then followin conversation took place:

X : Kaunse branch ka hain?
me: Electronic and communication Engineering

X: Quota?
me: Non-resident Indian

X: kahan se ho?
me: Kerala

X: oh NRI mallu ( and the entire group laughs out loud)
me: (silent and looking down)

X: Baap kaun hain tumhara?
me: Mathew Oommen

X: kaun?
me: Mr. Mathew Oommen , sir (thought they were demanding respect!!!)

X: kaun sa branch?? ( a bit perplexed all of them)
me: Electrical and Electronics Engineering

Y: magar tumne bola tumhara branch ECE hain na??
me: (nod my head in agreement - y shold my dad n me be in the same branch i wondered)

X: kaun se batch ka hain Mathew Oommen
me: 1971 REC-calicut

X: (gives me one tight slap o nmy face) tumhe tumhara REC baap ka naam poocha saale
me:(SHOCK OF HAVIN got a slap and not able to make head or tails of the conversation...i had told them the truth and nothin but the truth)
suddenly out of no where another guy comes up and says that this is my first day of ragging and i didnt know the funda of baap and dada and all that!!and i was spared.
For those who didnt follow y i was slapped..well baap, dada, pardada..are all RECTIAN terms of your immediate senior, 3rd year senior, and final yr senior and these guys are supposed to be your mentors kind..!!!and i a novice in getting ragged had told them details of my DAD (father) who was also a REC product and that had pissed them off and i got slapped!!!
anyway X here was gy called SIKKIM. and Y was Saurabh Ghosh. and the guy who saved me from further thulping from them was my Baap to-be - Rajgopal Bodapati - NRI ECE - basically from Hyd...the most loved senior for all the firts years in the time to come...
amazing guy...!!!
anyway he took me to lapis hostel room - a small one..in which there was hardly space for 2, there were about 15 seniors and myself and the other huge guy - my batchmate!!
and there started our actual ragging...we were hit by seniors left n right...me and the huge guy were made to hit each other...and both of us showed what potential seniors we could be by slappin each other as hard as possible..!!met a lot of seniors that day...to name a few Gotti (Madhav), Vishal (my pardada), tintin , pip (who turned out to be a distant relative of mine),premlal (3rd yr mallu senior - the terror aka BASHEER) and cant remember the rest...!!all of them ragged us proper...made us massage vishal's legs...and dance and jump and sing and what not..!!
another fresh memory was when my batchmate was asked his favourite song and the dude replied "Britney spears - Kiss me baby one more time2 and he was asked to sing that and when he sang "Hit me baby one more time" a round of slaps fell on his face..and i was lke...if ever they ask me any song that i would want to sing..i would make sure tat it had no violence in it...!!
anyway they got fed up ragging us both!!and took us to Juicy which was forbidden area for the first years unless they were accompanied by seniors. the risk of going to juicy those days were that even though u would have finished a raggin session and would be with a senior having something..and this other senior would come n pick u up and rag u for somemore time.>!
neway on the way back to the hostel after havin juice RAJ AND GOTTI gave us fundas in ragging..how to behave..how not to behave...the DO's and DONT's..and left us at our hostel gate!!!
oh!i forgot to introduce my batchmate who accompanied me on my first day of ragging...none other than K.V.S. Vithal..who was to be another one of my closest pals esp in eating n drinking;), in the years to come...!!!
After we got back to hostel...there was a crowd of NRI's who were waiting for us to relate our story of ragging to them...!!and we told them everything..obviosuly puttin it in a light manner..so that none would complain against the seniors...!!!
it was so very funny comin to think of it..!!the very guys who had thulped u..who had crushed your ego.your self esteem..now we were tryin to safe guard them from being caught by faculty when normally it should have been the other way round..!!anyway thats college..and thats ragging i guess..!!!
Lookin back now..the first year was the best year of colege life...though there was a lot of ragging...it was fun..and there were no tensions!!:-)

Day 1 in college - Land of the unknown

2006-02-20T09:58:00.000+05:30

well, i had another blog where i had penned down - the first year of my college. But no point in wasting space/blog in the webworld....i shall put down over here, whatever i had penned there. so here goes...my day 1 in college!!

It was something of a different feeling altogether the day i entered the well known reputed college of R.E.C.-Trichy!!

Didnt know how i was going to survive there. For a person who has spent 18 years of pretty much a posh life in the gulf enjoying the air-conditioned rooms, travel by cars and food in the likes of KFC, HArdees, Pizza huts and Mcdonalds, it was a drastic change to take up...an man didnt i dread the place for the first one week...!!it was hell on earth for me..the heat was unbearable!!frankly it was not much of heat compared to deserts of gulf but then i was missin the A/C's which had shielded me from the heat for 18 years.!!anyway...after settlin down myself in the room Agate - 7...I went to the mess...and man that was the Biggest MESS i had seen!! (for those who didnt get it...the mess - where we eat- was a total mess).Anyway somehow had something and ran out of that place...!!you can imagine the agony of a guy surrounded by strangers in a land which was absolutely new to him..!!
on my way to the room..i met my first senior - Johnnie George..he had the typical - bollywood villian looks with scars on his face...completely bald and a very straight stern face!!he talked a bit rude for sometime and then left me!!and innocent little me (hmmm) thought...i was done with the ragging abt which i had heard lots n lots of horrifyin stories from seniors in school and family..!!was not i glad at that moment that i had got thru the worst phase ( this was to extend upto next one whole year - though then i didnt know that). I just ran to my room and covered myself in blanket and slept scared that if i roamed arnd too much i would face ragggin again..!!didnt even bother to introduce myself to my room mates!!
next day mornin i got up at 5:00 am..nothin unusual then for me..took bath and was ready for my first day of engineering at 7:00 am itself:-)That day i made my firt friend in college...T.Shivashankar - later called by everyone as BABA - This guy was actually innocent, had his father with him for the first couple of days. he was from kanyakumari/nagercoil region !!
then there was another uy by the name Udayakumar in my room. This guy had a slight squeaky voice and his dad stayed with him for one week..!!man!that was the only time i actually ever missed my parents a lot...in my 23 yrs of life so far!!i envied all these guys for their parents being with them!!anyway I used this guys' dad as a guide for me to go to bank and open my account!!!
Let me describe the way to the bank from the first year hostels...!!it was a long stretch of road with almost all the senior hostels fallin in the way...!!there was not a way you could avoid a senior and go to bank and be back.>!!now u understand my plight fornot havin my dad with me.>!:-)) anyway went with Udaya's dad to the bank..opened my account and back with him...!!on the way..there were a humpty number of seniors who cast their evil eyes on this poor lamb me!!me just looked down and continued my walk...never dared to look back at anyone..!!
Class was ok the first day...had this impression that this would be real huge rooms with 100's of students in each class...but all my impressions completely went wrong when i entered the class for the first time - Section B. It was a small room similar to the ones we had in school and we had hardly 60 in a class and all my hopes of a college romance also went down the drain when i saw the girls of my class...not that they were bad lookin but someohow the thought of having BABES in my class whom i would have loved hanging out with...ended right then ...right there!!All this thoughts courtesy the movies "Kuch kuch hotha hain" "pyar mein kabhi kabhi" etc..etc...i had thought i would be sitting on the college balconies, gardens singing "musu musu " and so many other fun songs and romantic songs and all i got was a Green colured steel bench in the class with hardly any greenery (forget the garden) and girls who interested me in the least bit in my class..!! if someone had shown me a cliff or something at that point of time..i would have happily taken a jump then!!Imagine what must have been runnin thru my mind!!!:-)
then came our teachers one by one..and only one who was of some interest was Miss Hilda - our physics teacher..who was a paka thambi in talk but pretty looking..!!and once again my hopes came alive...!!imagine having an afair with a teacher!!amazing at that moment!!:-)) but then interest in her took a steep curve downwards after we heard her talk..!!one of her most quoted dialogues were "You come to the room. We will spend time together"...this was her response when of the guys asked her some complicated doubts..!!She was just intending to ask him to come to the staff room where she would clear her doubts..!!but the perverted minds of the adolescents sittin in the class -...imagination runs wild:-)!!guess she never had even the slightest clue of the inner literal meanin of her statement!!!anyway...that was that..after that..none of us dared to ask her doubts for the fear of gettin a similar statement from her and then being ragged by fellow mates on the same lines;-))))
those were the dayssssss...in short...first day of college - disaster day!!

Footsie

2006-02-19T21:27:00.000+05:30

ManU lost !!!:( secretly wished they had won against Liverpool. Not exactly able to decide my favourite between these 2 teams. Both have their own style of game but i feel ManU is a better team though off late they aint clicking much!! and to think, one of my least favoured players scored the goal - Peter Crouch...in no way does that dude look like a football player. He seems more like a volleyball player (not even basketball)!!
His only advantage and only good thing - his bledy height which the Liverpool team uses to the full advantage during free kicks/set-pieces!!Coz of this guy ManU is out of the FA cup...The only remaining thing for ManU is the Carling cup final against Wigan next week!!
On the brighter side, liverpool is still performing well following their champions league victory last season!! this is one team to reckon!! On the EPL front, they seem to be doing well but not as well as they perform(ed) in Champions league. In the latter, they are an altogether differen team playing vengence and vigilance!!
Hope atleast ManU secures this one!!Wigan is surely the team of the future. Having come from the First Division into Premiership this season, they have done extremely well so far. If they continue playing the way they are, they surely are going to be one of the top teams in the near future!!
Anyway now the match to be watched is the Chelsea v/s Barca on Wednesday (Feb 22)!! last year the match between these 2 was a spit of fire between Rijkaard and Mourinho with accusations and what not!!! Lets see what this years' match holds!!!!
Just came across this in the UEFA website -
Team of the year:

Coach - Jose Mourinho (Chelsea)

Striker - Samuel Eto (barcelona)
Striker - Andriy Schevchenko (Milan)
Attacking Midfielder - Ronaldinho (Barcelona)

Central Midfielder - Steven Gerrard (Liverpool)
Right Midfielder - Luis Garcia(Liverpool)
Left Midfielder - Pavel Nedved (Juventus)

Central Defender - John Terry (Chelsea)
Central Defender - Carles Puyol (Barcelona)
Left back - Paolo Maldini (Milan)
Right Back - Cafu (Milan)

Goal Keeper - Petr Cech (Chelsea)

Wow!! thats what i call a team but i wonder how they will function as a team - the above actually reminds me of Real-Madrid!! A world class team with top-flight players but not coming out with the right combination as expected (But they manage to stay right behind Barcelona in the Spanish league)!!!
Thats the footsie news/ my thoughts for the time being!
signing off!

WeekEND!

2006-02-19T21:02:00.000+05:30

And there goes another weekend..Saturday morning woke up at 6 to play football. Reached the field to find just 5 of us. We played 2-a-side v/s 3-a-side - burnt a lot n lot of fat:) it was more like a table-tennis score than football at the end of it - score read 19-14!!!lol!!
anyway got back home - had a refreshing bath - made burger for myself and had it along with Tropicana Apple juice! read the papers for a while - especially Mittal v/s Luxembourg v/s Arcelor!! Man - this dude is dead after getting this Company - he just does not seem to be satisfied being the steel tycoon. He wants this too!! is it just a sure shot way of getting his competition out of the way - after all arcelor was the biggest before Mittal took over!!!
anyway back to the topic, reading the newspaper, i dozed off - only to be woken up by the sweet essence of food being cooked in the kitchen!! (drooling) - woke up and had lunch..In the evening just watched some tv, got food ordered from Nandhini palace and hit the sack early!!
Sunday - as usual went to church. This was followed by lunch at Empire - me, Anila and kutz!! Went there to have chicken Shwarma but they were serving that only from the evening. So had kerala parotta with pepper chicken masala and got back home. In between we bought kutz a football boot - Nivia - size 11!!We actually found boot of "Vector" to be better than "Nivia " but they had only one size which was bigger than kutz foot!! so stuck on to Nivia:) Evening we had Kutz, deepu, akutty, tahir and rajiv at home. Tahir was on his way from kolkata to EKM. CHatted with all of thm..had a nice time. They left arnd 9 pm and we(me n anila) had dinner of mushroom curry n bread:)
Well that was quite a quiet weekend!:)

Hola!!!

2006-02-17T18:58:00.000+05:30

Well, i am coming back after a long breeeeeakkkk!! The last I blogged was on 12th November 2004:) From then , till now - life has moved on a lot..rather a LOT.
Just a gist of what happened- I got back from UK in June. It was a happy re-union with all my friends and it felt good to be back in India!!! Well i came back to India for a purpose - i got married in August 2005 to my one n only!!:) Now happily married and settled in Bangalore. Leading life as a family man (as they all say). But then life has not taken a major turn even after marriage - Many said there would be added responsibilities..blah..blah..blah!! But then for me, i was just living with my best friend and thats about it and both of us were immensely happy. It didnt change anything apart from the fact - the rent of the house we are staying had to be divided by 2 now (me and my wife) rather than by 4 - 6:) But then there were too many advantages to get married and being with her coz of which the above said disadvatange became too trifle to be bothered about:)
And wonders of wonders, i am leading a healthy life too now:) Firstly, i started eating food at home rather than the oil immersed, ghee dripping parathas/ sabjis...
Secondly i started going to gym - well this may or may not be attributed to getting married. Well the argument for is that - i started eating a large amount of the HEALTHY food prepared by my beloved and hence started gaining tyres n spare tyres and what not!!!!!! and the argument against is - ::)))))the work load at office reduced majorly and i had to kill time. What better way than spending an hour or so at the gym:)
Thirdly but not the least - I started playing football once again regularly - every day morning from 6:45 a.m. to about 8 a.m. This being more convenient now since i work in UK timings:))) So mornings, i have all the time to myself!!
Well so thats how lifez been treating me or should i say thats the way i have been treating life!
On the MBA front, i took a break last year - dint meet the deadlines and work pressure was to omuch for me to conc on the applications. I have started concentrating on my MBA once again now. The first one was the ISB:) Got shortlisted and had an interview about 3 weeks back. The interview went good but then you never know what is expected of you in such interviews. These are the kind of interviews where you come out feeling on top of the world coz you supposedly performed well, then you chat with ur friend(s) about the iview and suddenly realis - "I could have done better/ I should have answered this in this manner which would have been more impressive" and then you hear experiences of other candidates and lively iviews they had had (thanks to the yahoo groups/ forums:P) and at end of one week, you feel like a total jackass with no hopes of getting through unless the ONE above performed some miracle!! - One of my friends actually told me the same - "tumne apna part kiya - ab har sunday ko church kaao aur bhagwan se bolo admit dene ke liye" (you have done what you can - now go to a church every sunday and ask God to give you an admit)!!
Remaining universities - wel i am stil shortlisting - had attended a session by Tuck school of business and one great learning from there was - there aint much point in sending out applications to 10 - 15 different universities. Rather Shortlist just 4 -5 where you think you have the maximum scope and give in your best in writing the essays to these 5. So i am in Step 1 of the process!!
Well thats it for now...will be more regular now!!:)(hopefully)

Why money is good? - Brian Tracy

2004-11-12T15:08:00.000+05:30

The way you think about money will determine how much of it you accumulate more than any other factor. Your attitude toward money affects your emotions and your motivations.
In psychology, money is what is called a “deficiency need.” This means that it only motivates you when you feel deficient in it, when you don’t feel that you have enough. Above a certain level, when you feel that you have enough, it is no longer a motivator. Put another way, when you have enough money, you don’t think about it very much. But when you have too little, you think about it all the time.The effect money has on your emotional life depends on your attitude toward it. If you feel that you have too little, money can become an obsession for you. It can dominate your thinking, feelings and actions. Arguments over money are a major reason for marital breakdown. Problems with money are the primary reason for business collapse, the ruination of friendships and psychosomatic illnesses of all kinds. Its not uncommon for people to even kill themselves over money problems.
The Reality Principle applies especially to matters of money. This principle states that, “You must deal with life as it is, not as you wish it were, or could be.Most people live in a world of partial self-delusion, or even fantasy, with regard to money. They wish, hope, and pray about their financial futures while at the same time, deep in their hearts, they know their dreams will never materialize.In Lewis Carroll’s book, Alice in Wonderland, one of the characters says quite happily that he is quite capable of believing several impossible things before breakfast each day. In the same way, many people believe quite impossible things about money and then they wonder why they are having so many financial problems.
One of the most common obstacles to achieving financial independence is a deep-seated belief that somehow money is wrong and that people who have a lot of it are inherently evil. This belief is not based on any factual foundation. It goes back to early childhood conditioning when the growing child is often told this because of other people’s desire to rationalize away their own financial failures.
The fact is that money is good. It takes money to buy homes, cars, clothes, toys, food and most of the good things in life. Money has an energy of its own and it is largely attracted to people who treat it well. Money tends to flow toward those people who can use it in the most productive ways to produce valuable goods and services, and who can invest it to create employment and opportunities that benefit others. At the same time, money flows away from those who use it poorly, or who spend it in non-productive ways.
Here are two things you can do immediately to improve your attitude toward money:

First, be perfectly honest to yourself with regard to money and to the amount you want to acquire in life. Pretending that you don’t care about money when you really do will only make you unhappy.

Second, begin today to think about all the wonderful things that you could have in your life if you had more money. Then, begin to think of all the things that you could do to increase the amount you earn and the amount you keep.

Chick - Scene??

2004-10-05T21:00:00.000+05:30

Well...Came to Edinburgh in high hopes of seeing gorgeous looking babes with amazing figures n even better looking legs n what not...was under the impression that all babes (??) here would be in mini / micro-minis and anything shorter than that, if it existed...!!
But what a surprise to see that 90% of the females here wear pants n formal suitings..and the only ones that are commonly seen in such skimpy dresses (in the pubs mainly) are the English-desis (Indian / Pak babes who have been born n brought up here) and most of them would have this air about them that you would not even feel like giving them a second glance...!!And the babes here are all the sweet kinds and so far i have seen - very few with s*xy figures. And this minority group of "babes" can not be approached..not when they have some 6' guarding them, supposedly their boyfriend rather than her body guard...ahhhhh...Dont stand a chance man in this place. Back in college, used to have this feeling that "patafying" a foreigner is child's play...well...it may be easy ..dont know..but then therez always a chance of a broken nose!! And why risk such things when you know you can sit back and enjoy life just by looking at them...sorry..let me rephrase...glancing at them..!!
Here if you stare at a girl..for all you know, the next moment you would be hearing abuses swung at you from all directions..not by anyone else but by the same girl and her friends...damn!!!
I have got fed up of staring at girls (ogling is a better term i guess)...have lost the enthu after leaving college!!I guess i can safely say i have settled down finally..
Maybe all this has to do with maturity or something of the sorts...or maybe its coz when u have had plenty n plenty of a particular dish, you tend to get fed up of it...
I think in my case it is the latter scenario combined a bit with the former one..You cannot deny the fact that all of us are maturing and all the eve-teasing and whatever used to be done in college/ school..would look really uncouth now..!!We have grown old??? Things have started taking a different perspective...As the age factor creeps in, all of us ( i guess..atleast most)stop looking at girls as mere objects of pleasure :P..the female community starts getting more respect from us..
Think of it...How many of us would actually tease / abuse a girl whom we used to abuse/ tease in college? worse comes to worst we would ignore her right??
Shit man! i am stopping this blog right now...
Vithal dude, sorry i diverged from what you asked me;-) The excitement has died down...I aint any more what I was;-)he hee....

a passing thought.........................................

2004-10-05T20:55:00.000+05:30

"Love is an irresistable desire to be desired irresistably"

My Astrological readings

2004-10-04T22:30:00.000+05:30

he he...check the following out. In college, one of those days when i was absolutely jobless, i subscribed to this astrology site of indiatimes - free sampling for 1 week or something of the sorts and i used to get daily mails regarding how my day was supposed to be like ...?????
And once the free time was over, i stopped checking it. Just couple of days back, was cleaning up my inbox and saw the following in the junk mails section. Found it pretty interesting so much so that i almost subscribed to the astrologer..but then decided i would not...was not sure of the authenticity of the same...though many of the things said about me in the following is quite true;-):-)))

************************************************************************************

I have come to realize that you do not use the incredible potential which you have inside of you to the fullest and certain of your considerable capacities are completely unused. This is a real shame as I now know that you are someone very
different and that you have immense qualities ! wh! ich are simply not exploited. Your potential is stifled and has been for quite some time now and I think that this is a real waste. In the rest of this letter I am going to give you a precise
example to show you in which situation you are at the moment.
I fully understand how you feel at this time, I know who you are, what you are feeling and how you are living. As way of proof, here are certain aspects of your personality which you are no doubt already aware of but which I wish to you to demonstrate to you just how well I know you: This is what I can sense about you Vineesh. The first point is that, and this is why it will be difficult to convince you about all of this, you are a person with fresh an innovative ideas and are not willing to settle for what others tell you. You have to see things for yourself and if you d! on! 't like what you see or what you hear you will change it. As a matter of fact recently you have been energized by thoughts of exciting changes but have not acted due to fear. You are terrified of failing and making the wrong choice and I think that this stems from the fact that although you don't always consciously admit this but deep down inside you need the respect and admiration of others. I can even say that without a doubt, Vineesh, you are your own strongest critic. You have a tenancy to be too hard on yourself. Your unique perspective in life has been forged from the school of hard knocks,and you know deep down inside that you are better for having gone through what you have endured. I am getting the distinct sense that you are street smart and you value this ability much more than classroom smarts that others may have. I can see that the experiences you had in life have made you a bit more perspective than most . You are wise beyond your years in many ways. This has ! be! en noticed by your family and friends as those who are closest to you say that you are a very fair person and some seek your counsel because of this. Vineesh it's very clear that you are a person of strong moral character and you are trustworthy to a fault. You have actually been in a situation or two because you were perhaps a bit too trusting. I would like to say that I really appreciate your relationship with other people and I have also noticed that you have a certain paradox within you. I will now give you a couple of examples of this paradox. Vineesh, you are an unusually generous person, with the genuine desire to help others, but you also have a bit selfish side. It's this taking care of yourself that allows you to better take care of others. I can also perceive another paradox Vineesh. You believe that telling a little white lie can sometimes be necessary and you don't always tell the truth, mostly because you don't want to hurt the other person's feelings. but at t! he! same time, you have very strong values and definite sense of right and wrong. In this day of questionable characters, you feel grounded by your strong values. I could speak about you for hours Vineesh but what you must retain from all of this is that you have an enormous amount of latent potential which you sometimes come close to realizing as you are often frustrated with the fact that others don't always recognize this or appreciate what you could offer. I can tell you that there is a very strong aura around you and an energy that is truly powerful. I am sensing vibrations from you much more intense than those I experience with most clients. Your intuition and your power may be one reason why you are drawn to astrology readings and psychic experiences. Finally I would like to conclude with another point. You know what you have inside of you and you have known for some time now that you have been given certain talents.... very special talents unique only to you. and while ! yo! u have known of these abilities , you haven't fully acted on them now, have you ? I hope that these few lines have convinced you Vineesh that I strongly perceive who you are and what you are feeling. You already know most of what I have written about however you may not realize to what extent the potential within you is really powerful and here is an example which could help to illustrate what I am trying to tell you. Imagine a person who has never known any modern technology (for example someone living in the heart of a dense jungle). One day this person is given a radio tuned in to a very precise radio station and he finds it suddenly extraordinary to be able to listen to music through what is essentially a small box. He is told that to listen to this music he need only press the 'on' button without having to do anything else to listen to this music. This person thinks this radio is a wonderful invention and then spends a number of years listening to this radio and to the ! sa! me program as the radio stays on the same station all of the time. And then one day someone else comes along and shows him that there are a multitude of other stations and frequencies to listen to with many other programs that can be as interesting as the first.... You are in the position of this person Vineesh and your potential can be compared to this radio. Your potential is not yet fully exploited and you are not yet aware of certain of your hidden talents. I find myself in the place of the person who's duty is to show you exactly how you can tune in to these new frequencies. This is a metaphorical example but it demonstrates clearly the situation in which you find yourself at this time. Considering the important information which I have discovered about you Vineesh, I know that it is possible to help you through this key moment in your life and I also know that this change can be considered as a rebirth of sorts as you are not really who you thought you were - you are in fact much much more than this and you need to want to make this change happen with all of your heart and soul.
**********************************************************************************

HOWZATT!!!??:-)

If's n But's...continued

2004-10-04T15:45:00.000+05:30

From the responses i got for the last post, all seem to be saying the same thing to me...Dont give out the whole of your heart to one person alone...
A junior of mine (Kicha) commented to me..sayin...Life is like a Stock Market..!!You invest high in just one, the risk of loosing it is extremely high, but then the returns/ gains are also high...So one should believe in diversification and invest in more than one and play the game of life according to ur market value..!!
Amazing right? All of a sudden the "bears n bulls" of stock market started makin sense to me. I guess it is the same, when you try relating things to your life, they start making more of sense.........
Well ...dont know if taking a couple of swigs of beer/ 7. something shots of tequila will help...coz the possiblity of thinking more on the same lines and going deeper into the prob is higher after getting drunk, i guess. After drinking, the whole world shrinks and you feel lots of things running inside your brain..and then a lot of issues which would never have made sense start getting clear in your head..and thus u tend to think more...and come out with more creative n better ideas after getting drunk...and one thing i dont want to think of in such a situation is about LIFE!!No way am i going into a rewind mode and then PLAY everything all over again in my mind...aint crazy..!!so dudes...beer/ tequila aint the solution...
that brings me to ask the question...are all of us happy at any point in our life...why is it that humans (atleast the few i know inclusive of me) are never happy with what they have? When you finish your 12th grade, everyone wants to get into an IIT / REC (NIT) and that is the biggest tension..!!And once you are thru into the reputed institutions...the tensions just increase..one is never at ease..you have the cycle tests (whoever derived this name, should be given an award...the tests just keep cycling n coming back over n over again..you never seem to get rid of it..ever..till u pass out) and then the sem exams..and what not...once into the final yr..everyone wants a job...it does not matter what u did 4 yrs in your college...ultimately you just need a god damn job...and what all lies does one fabricate for the same...!!and there are a few ppl who are trained to teach others to lie/ talk effectively/ look smart n ultimately get thru the iview as well - CIC reps..i was a part of this team as well..(no offence to any CIC rep here..:-))and once you get a job...the World is yours..atleast for the next couple of weeks...
and then you done with college and you step into the corporate world...and shit!! you realise you are in hell!!what seemed so cool n stylish n amazing on the projector screen of your college abt the life in each software campus ..all bollocks..absolute crap..!!the only thing thats true in all these presentations is the infrastructure and nothing else...All dreams of being the one of the cool dudes in your cool company..shattered...your bubble burst, you look ahead...you think of job switches...higher studies..(CAT/ GMAT/ GRE etc), onsite opportunities...and what not...!!Some are successful...while others stay on cribbing every other day about their colleagues, PM's, the company, the corporate system, the project he is involved in and what not!!!!!!!!
Then slowly the marriage comes up...Some are lucky to get the bride of their dreams..while few remaining others just nod to their dad n mom saying "Yes, i agree" over a cup of tea n pastries in their to-be-in-law's house...once this phase is over...then there are tensions of wife / stayin together/ wife working/ children / their future....and what not..!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Few others have the responsiblity of getting their sisters (elder / youger) married off into a good family...and God forbid..anything screws up there...then you are the one to be blamed..after all, didnt you find the groom...weren't you supposed to do the checking on the groom n his family...!?? Is the brother the only one responsible for his sister's marriage...dont the parents/relatives have any responsibility???
When will one have the peace of mind that he is so desparately yearning for? When will he lead life for himself and not for his parents/ siblings / wife / children and whoever else that is there in this list?
When will we - each one of us - ever attain a level of satisfaction...when we can boldly say.."I AM HAPPY...I AM SATISFIED..I NEED NO MORE IN LIFE AND HAPPY WITH WHATEVER I HAVE"..and stick on to this statement for atleast 6 months at a stretch. Myself have made this statement humpty number of times...but then the next moment, prob the next day, i reverse my thoughts and start the crib process.............
I guess...this is a never ending cycle...The grass is greener on the other side ALWAYS...Till the day u die...you will keep seeing greener pastures...and would be wanting to be there than where u are currently...We may not agree when someone says "You are greedy"...but think of it...i feel all of us are...wanting more everyday..!!!!!!!!!!
ps. I need a break...i guess i am thinking too much..!:-)
No offence to anyone in the above article. Just a chain of thoughts:-) Peace!!!!!!!

If's n But's

2004-10-01T18:49:00.000+05:30

Just thinking of life as such now...things always seem to happen out of the blue. One can never predict whats going to happen the next moment..it can be anything varying from slippin on a banana peel n cracking ur bones to being made the prime minister of the biggest/ largest democratic country in the world.
Is there any way of knowing what is going to happen to each one of us in the future...it would be fun to know all such things as to whether u would get admission into an IIM (for all the MBA / CAT aspirants)..whether there is a scope for promotion...(for all who seems to love their jobs)...or as to whether u would be in a totally different field..enjoying your work more than ever before..(for all those never-satisfied-guys like myself??)...
Well there are 2 aspects to this whole ideology of seeing the future...i mean..if i knew that 2 years down the lane, i am in a different company doing a better job / enjoyin my work/ earning more...i would obviously loose my interest in doing my present work...y should u slog ur ass off and do all this when u know tat down the lane u r gonna be in a better position.....right?? the argument seems pretty valid to me.. but then think of it in this way...the future u saw may come true only if you continue to work the way u are working right now..? now this looks more or less like printing on one side of a paper "The statement on the other side is TRUE" and on the other side you print "The statement on the other side is FALSE"...?? cool eh??
I for one firmly believe that my actions of today will speak for me tomorrow...what i do today...will have an impact on my life sometime down the lane...it may not be very evident or explicit but then down the lane, you look back at the string of events leading up to the situation, you will realise that it was coz u said a "yes" at some moment (for eg.) that you are in the postion that you are today...and if you had said a "no" to the same situation, for all you know you might not have been in this situation today - be it good or bad...!!
This infact reinstates the theory ..."you are the decider of your own future..of your own fate".......
Life is full of "ifs" n "buts" (mind u single "t" only;-))...and it is the outcome of this "if" loop which decides the output/ solution...in this case your life...
hmmm...the chain of thoughts have absolutely no connectivity..and i have wandered away from what i started i guess...but then its fun just putting into words watever goes thru ur mind...let the mind do the talking...dont think twice..who knows..the time i am spending putting these thoughts down may in some way affect my future....(crossed-fingers..hoping its for the good)...as i continue on my rambling...i am reminded of an eminent personality's words which said something like - Never love your company so much that you feel upset when you are asked to leave , for the company may not be loving u so much....
lets extrapolate this a bit further ...Should we love one person so much so that his/ her loss can affect us real bad?? Loss can be a physical distance...or the person being dead or anything for that matter...does one person alone deserve all the love that you have in ur heart...Should a husband love his wife so much so that a day without her and he would go insane...n vice versa??? should a kid love his mother so much (rare possibility) or should a mother love her kid so much so that a day without her kid n she feels completely incomplete (hmmm...is that an oxymoron now "completely incomplete"?)
How does one know that the person whom he/she loves loves him/ her back as much...
taking my own case...i would be broken if i came to know that any person whom i respected/ loved a lot does not love/ respect me so much..!!i mean..it may look like i am imposing myself onto others...it aint necessary tat everyone be the same as you are...(if that was the case..then the world would have been such a peaceful place to live in)..but is it expecting too much...am i asking for too much?? I have been broken many a times..(often came as a shock to me) when out of the blue, one fine day..i come to know that the person i love/adore/ admire n what not...does not like me...rather hates me...and whatever he/ she was showing...was all farce............
I have had it plenty n enough...dont want anymore of it... I Have had my share of agonies...and i pray all those ppl who are reading this dont go thru what all i have gone thru in the past and have a pleasant...joyful...love filled life..!!
God bless you all!!

Bad Morning:-((((

2004-09-25T11:13:00.000+05:30

Any guesses where I am right now?? IN OFFICE. My first project (though i had claimed in the last mail all was going fine)..well...i guess it was waiting for me to say it and a small screw up happened which was again not our fault but then to get things back in order, it became the headache of ours. So in the early hours of a beautiful (i hope) Saturday morning, Me and my 3 other colleagues - Srijith, Randeep and Vinay are sitting here and trying to get things back in shape.
Just hope that everything goes fine. Life aint that easy eh? Things never seem to go the way we expect them to. And to think of it, today this issue came up just as we were packing up for the day and going back home...damn...a minute earlier and we would all have been happily tucked away in our sweet bed!!Its 6:45 am in the morning and the issue has not yet been resolved.
God alone knows when we will get back..when we will sleep...when i will get up..and GODAMNITT!! WHEN WILL I PREP FOR GMAT!!!!!!!!!!?????????????/
Sometimes , things just dont go the way we want them to...
All of a sudden, I am feeling fed up of this job...My sould thirsts for something more challenging..somewhere where i can use my speaking skills...talk to ppl..interact with them...organise events..where my brain is worked a bit more...All these makes me seriously want to jump into "Event Management". But then, I dont know where i am headed to right now. One thing for u sure i know, that i aint gonna stick to the software industry for long...This aint my cup of tea..no way!!
Damn!!I am drinking my 7th coffee of the night (or should it be morning) in the past 8 hours. What they say seems to be true tat this stuff is addictive. I mean after my 3rd cup, i could not stay off it...i had to have it and go on sippin it to keep me awake. And 10 min away from this, i start feeling drowsy and i mst have my next cup before i sleep off on my desk.......
ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.........................

Beautiful Mind...........

2004-09-24T18:56:00.000+05:30

The new project is going on full fledged. There is a status update meeting every 2 days with the clients. The last project i did went on successfully (so far) into production environment and today the live data going to be tested. So my first project is a sucess (touch wood).The new one seems to be challenging esp since i am involved in the requiremnt analysis stage.
Never thought that 1 yr into work and i would be doing analysis..and though i have just got into the analysis phase, i am already startin to like development better where your PM / ML (module leader) gives u a KT (Knowledge transfer) and you can just bombard them with questions and keep going back to them for more n more clarifications n doubts. And yeah then there is the development phase which though can get boring is much more challenging than analysis..i guess...;-)In the analysis stage, the only ppl whom u can approach with your doubts are the clients and that , trust me, at times gives u the shivers..the various questions they shoot back at you..and there are moments when u dont know what to answer..for all you know , your colleague working in the same project may have told something quite contradictory to what you are about to say..anyway..Jo Hoga dekha jaayega!!! Hope n pray i dont do any blunders in the analysis stage..coz if i do then this would not be realised till about half way into development and then reverting back from whatever i had commited is going to cost me my job/ my career and prob loss to the company and what not..!!Ok - its not like i am plannin to stick to one company for my entire life span but even then, a sort of commitment to the company u working for right now..after all i am where i am , what i am due to this company as of now..right?:-)
The weekend is here..dont have much plans..my room mates srijith n basu are on-call and in-office respectively. So this weekend i would be spending my time doin my mock tests for GMAT, watchin telly, listening to music and sleepin away to glory.Speaking of Music, been real long since i heard some rock. I believe its the situation, the place where you are, the kind of friends that one has which influences your various tastes in life..be it music, eating habits, the language u use (the slang rather)..when i joined my college 5 years back, i only used to listen to limited Hindi songs, and once in a blue moon English ones (likes of BSB, Bzone etc..) but then once into college, i was introduced into the world of Rock by none other than Naveen Babu Bitla who down the lane turned out to be a very good friend of mine. This guy was probably the only one who heard the likes of Metallice, Iron Maiden etc. in our first yr batch. And i still remember that day when we were havin a party in Adarsh's room. I guess it was his bday (Oct.3)..when this guy walks in . We introduce each other..and then he makes us all listen to the rock that he listens to daily..and lo!!in a span of probably less than 3 months, you had almost an entire batch of students listening to "Nothing else Matters", "enter sandman" etc..etc...It was a revolution..what a shift in the atmosphere of the rooms that we used to hang about. From the normal sallu/ shahrukh numbers that everyone used to listen to, focus shifted to Hard rock and everyone enjoyed it. And since that day, i have atleast in the 4 years of my college listened 95% of the times to only Rock (be it soft or hard)..
And then again, there was a turn of circumstances...and i was in this group in blore where none listened to anything but the songs of "BOYS" (eniku oru girlfriend venamada;-)) and i started listening to that and many more tamil songs..in fact the 3 other guys whom i shared rooms with were also tamilians and i ended up listening (the 3 months of my infy Training) only to Tamil songs of the latest movies....and i used to watch tamil movies on CD / theatre as well...I may look like a guy who can be easily influenced by others / surroundings..hmmm - that may be true but then i would like to look at it as I am an extremely adaptable person who blend in easily with his surroundings and can go to either extremes..WOW!!aint i feeling good about myself.
This actually makes me wonder what would have happened if there were only Self appraisals in the companies.. Man, every tom, dick and harry would have been a Bill Gates in his or her own way. Who would like putting himself / herself down in front of others...oopss..work came in...gotta go...
Have a grt weekend!! Bubye!!

VAMPIRE!!

2004-09-21T20:54:00.000+05:30

You're a Vampire. Vampires were the creatures of
the night that were believed to live off of
human blood. Count Dracula, being the most
famous vampire, set the stereotype. They had
dark hair and pale skin from being away from
the sunlight. If they actually existed, it's
very possible they had the skin disease that
made you allergic to the sun so whenever the
sunlight would hit it, it would hurt like
crazy. They were usually snobbish and control
freaks and kept werewolves as pets. (If you
cannot see the picture, go to my userpage and
look near the bottom. There should be the
picture and description for all the results)

What Mystical Creature Are You? (Pictures)

Past 1 month

2004-09-15T18:21:00.000+05:30

Been one solid month since i blogged and about 1.5 months since i stopped bloggin on a daily basis..Life has been very very busy for me the past month or so. Was into the implementation / project set up of this particular project in Business Objects, which consumed my time right from 9:00 am in the morning till 7:00 pm atleast and then once that was done, i would too tired to do anything at all for the day. Just wanted to get back home n crash. Just lie on the bed..read something..and happily sleep.
Well the implementation part of the above mentioned project got on to a steady state about last month end and things slowly were getting even paced and voila!!i was put into this new project, where in I have to start from scratch. Right now we (myself and Srijith) are doing the requirement gathering / analysis..and once that is done, will have to propose an ideal tactical solution and then one of us would be goin to blore for the development phase while the other stayed on here or London. This new project is outside the current dept of RBS. We will be working for another department all together and we were to be ideally based in London but then since our previous project (my first one) is going LIVE next weekend, we have been asked to stay on here for Production support and for any subsequent problems that might crop up!!!Right now i am 100% into this new project while Srijith is 50%.
Happenings in life...nothing much other than for the fact that myself and basu shifted into Srijith's house. This is a new house with 2 bedrooms, a kitchen, hall and a bathroom. And we have als got cable TV now..so the time flies after getting back home just switching channels and not really watching anything in particular.
My weight has become steady and not increasing..but then thinking of it..it aint decreasing either....
last weekend, one of my colleagues - Parveen - was leaving to Cardiff for a new assignment. So the Infoscions in Edinburgh had a bachelor's party and boy didnt we enjoy. Atleast i did. Danced a real lot as it is very evident in the snaps. Anyway had a grt time after really long time.
Other than that couple of weeks back (August last weekend), had gone to Isle of skye. About 6 of us in a Merc C class. There were 3 guys - myself, srijith and Basu and 3 girls - Priti, Madhuri and Sapna. We thought the car was big enough to accomodate everyone but then we realised our folly a bit too late. We went yet again to Inverness & Fort Williams(which included the trip to Ben Nevis as well) en'route isle.This was a good trip> Being the second trip to this place, there was nothing new to appreciate but the scenic beauty. The thrill of driving was also not much since the Merc C- class was auto geared. Frankly the legs used to get numb having just one pressed on the accelerator which would get locked as well if u maintained the same speed over a period of time. So imagine driving a car to the highlands with both of ur legs curled up under u and hands on the steering...:-) reminded me of my childhood days when before my dad started the car, i would be kneeling on the driver's seat (to get a view of the front) and just holding the steering n turning it either ways and making the vrrroommmmmmmmm..bbbbbbrrrrrrrr...sounds from my mouth trying to mimick the start of a car and its driving. In this case i didnt have to put even that effort of makin a sound...he he:-)))))))
Hmmm...my scope of giving CAT this year has gone down the drain. I sent in my application but have my doubts if it would have reached before Sept 10th or not. Anyway have got the GMAT Princeton review / Barrons books n CD's. Have started on the prep for GMAT. Will have to book a date in the next 2 months time as well..so that i can apply to the universities here for the course next Fall. Just hope that i get a scholarship for which again i have to prove my credentials. Lot of things to be cleared and applications to be submitted and the first step in this direction is getting a good GMAT n TOEFL score.Thats it for today!!
Hopefully i should start blogging on a daily basis once again. Keeping my fingers crossed for everything:-)
CHeers!

Chicken Soup for the Soul

2004-08-20T16:46:00.000+05:30

The Worm
By Julie Long

I couldn't put the worm on. I prided myself on being a tomboy - I
hated Barbies and baths, and loved climbing trees and playing with Tonka trucks -
but something about sticking a hook through a wiggling worm gave me the heebie-
jeebies. Dad had somehow understood, but how could I tell old Mr. Lyons,
who never had any kids? I almost hadn't gone fishing with him because of it,
but Mom talked me into it. Then, the closer we got to the river, the more it
worried me. It was nice of Mr. Lyons to take me fishing. Since my dad had died the
fall before, it was just my mom and us four girls, and I knew we wouldn't go
fishing or camping or canoeing anymore.
I missed my dad and had taken to hanging around Mr. Lyons's yard as he
worked on building his houseboat. I loved the smell of sawdust and stain -
a scent that was fading from my dad's unused workshop. I think Mr. Lyons
liked my company, too. He'd be hammering a nail or planing wood with his eyes
squinting in concentration until his dog Brownie would announce my arrival with a
bark. When he'd look up and see it was me, he'd set his tools down and scratch his
gray, scruffy chin and say he was glad I came by because he needed a break.Mr.Lyons had finished the houseboat in the spring, and he'd already taken it down to the river.He pulled the truck up next to the houseboat.
"Well, how's she look?"
"Real nice, Mr. Lyons."
"We'll just fish right off the front bow. It's nice and shady there.
The fish'll be keeping cool and waiting for a worm to wiggle on by."

We got the fishing poles out of the bed of the Ford. Mine was just the bamboo pole I had dug out from the camping supplies in the basement. Dad had tried to teach me how to cast his rod and reel but I had tangled the line up something awful. Maybe now that I had turned eleven I'd have better luck. Mr. Lyons reached back in the truck bed for the tackle box, then reached in again and handed me the Styrofoam container of worms. I followed him down the bank and onto the boat, keeping an eye that the lid stayed on. Once on the bow, Mr. Lyons started getting everything set up. Any minute now I'd have to admit to him my aversion to worms. Then he'd probably never ask me to go fishing again. He handed me my pole, then set the container between us and fished out a worm for his pole. Then, just when I was ready to confess, Mr.Lyons confessed to me instead.
"Always hate this part," he mumbled as he held the worm in one hand and his hook in the other. "It's silly, but stickin' the poor little guy with a hook makes me feel, I dunno what you'd call it. . . ."
"Like you have the heebie-jeebies?" I offered hopefully.
"That's it exactly. The heebie-jeebies. You get 'em, too?"
"A little," I admitted, relief washing over me.
"Yeah. I guess sometimes we gotta go through the bad to get to the good. Want me to hook your worm for ya?"
There it was. My way out. All I had to say was "yes" and I'd be off
the hook and my worm would be on. But I felt bad making Mr. Lyons put the worm
on if he hated it as much as me. So I reached into the cool dirt and picked up a
fat worm between my fingers. I tried not to think about how slimy it felt as I
quickly poked the hook through its middle and wiped my hand on my jeans.
I had done it! It definitely gave me the heebie-jeebies, but I had
gotten through it. I looked up at Mr. Lyons. He gave me a wink. I grinned with
pride and tossed my line in the water. The bad part was over.Today, of course, I realize my mom must have shared my problem with Mr.Lyons;

I'm fairly certain he didn't have a case of the heebie-jeebies at all.But I also know that he helped me grasp, on a child's level, the principle of persevering through the bad to get to the good. My mom and sisters and I never did fish together again; the days of camping and canoeing died with my father.But we struggled through the grief and, when we got through the bad, we eventually found other good times to enjoy as a family. And I continued to fish with Mr. Lyons . . . and bait my own hook.

I am Back

2004-08-13T20:37:00.000+05:30

wow....it seems so good to be back n writing some crap or the other here..i was getting tired of writing formal mails, coordinating stuff, attendin audio calls, telecons and what not...Those few moments of spare time i used to feel i was running this company
man...past 10 days, i have been up and on my toes, running around, chasing ppl, getting them to do the work getting the infrastructure in place, checking the connections...yeah yeah..i have been workin more like a guy from the CSG (Computer Support Group) of my college or as my friends nicknamed me here - CCD simliar to CSG:-) at times it was fun...just attending calls, audio conferences and talking to ppl..interacting with them..- which in fact is my hobby...but then at times...used to feel sick doing this work, felt like a coolie;-)
anyway just want to crash for the weekend now..though that aint possible since i am working tomo:-(
chau all you out there!!!

check it out!

2004-08-02T18:59:00.000+05:30

Just read this article on "Give everything YOU CAN to everyone YOU KNOW".

Got link into that site from Ashik.

A very good read. One of the best i have read. Enjoy and understand the philosophy of life:-) and try following it buddies!!

Be positive

2004-08-02T18:31:00.000+05:30

Arthur Ashe, the legendary Wimbledon player was dying of AIDS. From
world over, he received letters from his fans, one of which
conveyed :

"Why does GOD have to select you for such a bad disease"?

To this Arthur Ashe replied:

The world over --
5 crore children start playing tennis,
50 lakh learn to play tennis,
5 lakh learn professional tennis,
50,000 come to the circuit,
5000 reach the grand slam,
50 reach Wimbeldon,
4 to semi final,
2 to the finals,
When I was holding a cup I never asked GOD "Why me?".

And today in pain I should not be asking GOD "Why me?"

Happiness keeps u Sweet,

Trials keep u Strong,

Sorrow keeps u Human ,

Failure Keeps u Humble,

Success keeps u Glowing,

But only God Keeps u Going.

Wow...an amazing read to start the week for all of us who crib to no end about trivial matters of life eh? One needs to have a strong character and mind to be positive always in life. You cant always expect to be on the happy end of life. There are gonna be tribulations and worries everytime, everywhere. Its upto each one of us to decide the way we look at our problem. 2 options is what is presented to us:

1. Fret about it. Think about the situation through out and spoil the rest of your life thinking about it alone

2. JUst think of it as something as trivial as an ant bite and just lead your life the way you want to. Be content and happy that you dont have to face the same problem every other day but only once in a while. Enjoy life.

What would you choose. Given the options, I would definitely prefer choice 2 any day.
anyway its upto you to "take the pill. The choice is yours".

Well had a quite weekend. Was at home itself sleeping half the time, reading novel the other half. On sunday myself, vinay, basu, srijith and sapna went to Princess street for window shopping mainly and i bought a sleeveless t-shirt and one half sleev t-shirt. Both GAP.. they were selling it dirt cheap - £4 only. cool eh...now all you morons out there..dont convert currency and call me rich. GAP t-shirts generally come for £25 - £40...:-)
and guess what...I HAVE STARTED JOGGING yet again. Morning got up at 6:00 am and went for ajog around 6:30..jogged for about 20- 25 min..did some stretches ( I could hear my poor body tearing) and got back home. And for the first time after day 1 in office, i reached the office today morning at arnd 8:35 am..:-))))

Friendship Day

2004-07-30T17:00:00.000+05:30

Friendship day is here and i am thrown back to memories of college where we used to look forward for this day.
We here is "LEO" club of RECT. I was a member of it and God, didnt have a great group of ppl from our year in this club.
The mentionable members of this club were:
Myself (ofcourse),Remya, Shivani, Addy, Ashwin,Amrita, Susan and Thakur(Saurabh Singh currently in IIMB)..yeah thats it..you can call me biased but these were the only people whom i liked in my club...n(now dont count the number of girls in the above list - it just happens like that:-))
And we were the ones who used to organize Friendship Day in college...God and didnt we make huge profits.
Coming to think of it, we did manage to fool almost the entire college (our yr) into buying some thread pieces n a piece of paper for 10 - 20 bucks. And as far as i can remember (leave alone my close friends) none seemed to complain. Thats a commendable achievement in the art of convincing people and not getting any complaints. And we did the same thing for 4 yrs, though each time it were the first yrs who were the bakraas. What better way for a girl to approach a guy ;-)or the vice-versa than giving a friendship band (duh? band??..whatever) and asking like in the movie "Mujse Dosthi karoge".hmmmm...anyway those were the days..and ofcourse we did reap huge profits and we went on seeral trips with the loot:-)
Amazingly we were called the "Blood-sucking" club as well.This was coz our club used to conduct Blood donation camps and ask students to volunteer to give blood. Well this was for a generous cause and ppl found fault with us for the same.
Man!!the world is so damn partial you realise. You do something good for the society, everyone calls you names, abuses you and what not (as in the latter case) but you do somethin crooked, cheat all of them, swindle and whatever evil comes to mind and none even bothers...all are happy...
Makes me wonder at times...if i have to continue being honest and trustworthy, the way i am now;-) or should i becomea swindler, a cheat, a rogue...like all those millions out there who live daily cheating ppl....hmmmm....
signing off for the day with a reply that i got from one of my close friends , Sankar, when i had mailed him a "Happy friendship day"
Now if there is a second person whom i envy in his English, its him. (the first is one of my seniors - Sidin..He plays with words...juggles them around to make you laugh)
Following is the reply i got....(dont mind the praises he has for me in there...hmmm..sounding like a narcist off late)

"thanx for bein such a super friend to me.. in this ocean of a million faces, u are travellin like achilles in the blue mediterranean- in the eternal odyssey without direction that is LIFE... u have perchance come across many inevitable rocks n' boulders.. the sights of some have made u consider even alighting and taking a break..n' rarely, some that u've even decided to visit again... it is good to know that among those chosen few sandy beaches where u have not only broken ur journey but actually holidayed.. one is ME. n i treasure ur entry into my heart, where u will live forever.. :)"

Cool aint it..!!:-)Cheers all you buddies out there...
Happy Friendship day to one and all:-)

Think Before you Leap

2004-07-29T16:00:00.000+05:30

I am just sitting here...just whistling away time..thinking abt my past..abt my future..!!!How it was 10 yrs back..and how it is going to be 10 yrs from now...
I can see a small fly hovering around my nose. I have the mind to SWAT it but then I dont want to be framed as a MURDERER by the FLY community or whatever...
makes me wonder at times what if i was not what i am today...what would i have been..a fly?? Would i like being swatted down by some pesky human who was just not in the right mood and shortened my life by a day or two:-( Restlessnes, Impatience ect..are the very characteristics that describe a human when you come to think of it from an insect's point of view. Hmmm...I suddenly realise I am talking as if i am the director of SPCA.
Just pondering...you never actually lose by loving someone or something.But it is difficult to love a person, especially when you don't know how to express your feelings (How can you express your love for insects;-)?? interesting thought huh>>) Worse still, if you are unsure of the person's feelings, the uncertainty can really tear your heart - Dont think this is actually true in case of insects..but as far as humans are concerned, I can vouch that this is really tearing...that brief period of time when you dont know your possible/ probable better half's feelings for you;-)) and just hoping against hopes that she loves you the same way if not more than what you love her.
Flirting is something i guess every guy loves doing..and I was crowned in college of being an expert in it though i myself was not very sure of the same...anyway will pen down the basic points of this so called flirting..

statutory warning: I am not to be held responsible if any of the following steps fail. These have proven to be good techniques time and again by many.
Here goes:

1. Our actions speak a lot for us. The very act of getting a cup of tea for your colleague when he/ she didnt actually ask for it...is the first way to break into their region. a sign that you are open and ready for the friendship.
2. Never ask too many questions. Asking too many questions in the first couple of meetings could force the other person to roll back into her shell. She will feel as if her privacy is trying to be brooken.
3. In the first few meetings..talk quite a lot about yourself. Never get into details and bore the other person. JUst summarize the various happening of your life and you dont even have to mention about anythin personal even. If nothing intersting there...make up stories or narrate incidents from other ppl's lives ..statin them as your own.
4. Trying making the other person laugh. Make a joke at something dumb you did and laugh at yourself.Bring out the humour sense in you. Girls dig guys with good humour. The moment she laughs with you...trust me brother she is in sync with you. (Make sure that it aint a forced laugh..just for the heck of it)and once this stage is got thru, you can actually call up to meet her, just to spend some time with her and guaranteed she will be looking forward for the same too. In this busy hectic life, which girl would not like to spend some time with a guy who can make her laugh and make her forget all the worries of the world.
5. Once you are in the stage of freely callin her up and meeting her, slowly ask her questions abt her personal life...or anythin about her life...and she will start rolling out her life's movie reel to you..all the ups n downs..what she would not have shred with any other guy but her boyfriend/ husband , she may share it with you as time passes.
6. Never ever break her flow when she is talking abt her life. Learn to be a good listener. And dont break her flow of thoughts with your own dumb ideas n experiences and advices. Just give an ocassional nod supplemented by "hmmm"..."oh oh".."sheesh"..."oh my GOD"..."wow"..as per how the situation demands. Girls love being heard.(atleast most of them do)
7. Dont ever try getting physical with the girl. Wait..hover around and probably she will give in..(this never worked for me..nevertheless i still believe that given enough patience, it will work out)
8. Never give the indication that you are interested in her. Act as a normal friend. And as time goes by slowly praise her, make her feel good, give her flowers...and my Man!! She is yours...forever as a friend with whom you can talk anything n everything.
9. Dont ever brag about this girl and you in public. Dont do stupid things like giving off song dedications in her name for some function. This can really piss off the girl and all your efforts till then would have gone in vain. Rather to make yourself associated with the girl, go to places where there are lots of ppl..let them see n talk about you n her. Let the word spread by itself without any added effort from you:-)

The good part about flirting is never can the girl claim you proposed to her...and you dont have to be fixed with her and at the same time you can mate, i mean meet a lot of girls (which again makes girls fight with each other for you..though you have never evr once committed to anyone of them...)
Note: Jealousy is the one of the weakest point in any girl and you can use this as your STRONGEST weapon in wooing the girls to you. Just have to play it right.
All the best DUDES:-))) (guess i am in for a beating if all the girls whom i made friends with...read this blog;-)- mind you..I hereby declare that I NEVER FLIRTED - I just followed the above 8 steps to Success;-)9th step aint my fav point but then it just used to happen..and hence this name of flirt stuck with me...DAMN!!!)
Will wind off this writing with a touchin story. This has nothing to do with flirting but then has to do with being patient (though in completely different context and not similar to the one stated in point 7 above:-)
This is a true story that happened in the States.
A man came out of his home to admire his new truck. To his puzzlement,his 3-yr-old son was happily hammering dents into the shiny paint. The man ran to his son, knocked him away, and hammered the little boy's hands into a pulp as punishment.When the father calmed down, he rushed his son to the hospital. Although the doctor tried desperately to save the crushed bones, he finally had to amputate the fingers from both the boy's hands. When the boy woke u! p from the surgery & saw his bandaged stubs, he innocently asked," Daddy, I'm sorry about your truck, but when are my fingers going to grow back?" The father went home and committed suicide.!!!

Think about the story the next time u see someone spill milk at a dinner table or hear a baby crying or you think the a girl is not giving you any hints abt her feelings for you. Think first before u lose your patience with someone u love/ like. Trucks can be repaired. Broken bones & hurt feelings often can't and ofcourse A girl once lost...forever lost (very difficult to get her back you see).
Too often we fail to recognize the difference between the person and the performance. People make mistakes. We are allowed to make mistakes. But the actions we take while in a rage will haunt us forever. Pause and ponder. ! Think before you act. Be patient. Understand and love.You Never Lose by Loving.
Adios!!!

10 years Old!!

2004-07-28T18:15:00.000+05:30

This is the last of the testsi will be taking..............TODAY..!!really amuses me how this tests are created to derive this results and no matter what the results are, I always seem to relate to the final outcome and feel it is absolutely right..!!

My inner child is ten years old!

The adult world is pretty irrelevant to me. Whether
I'm off on my bicycle (or pony) exploring, lost
in a good book, or giggling with my best
friend, I live in a world apart, one full of
adventure and wonder and other stuff adults
don't understand.

Lightning!!!!

2004-07-28T18:11:00.000+05:30

Lightning

?? Which Natural Wonder Or Disaster Are You ??
brought to you by Quizilla

Hmmmmm

2004-07-28T18:02:00.000+05:30

I am the Natural Number
e

I go with the flow
_

what number are you?

this quiz by orsa

Prisoner's Dilemma

2004-07-27T20:21:00.000+05:30

Was just reading sidin's blog and while reading the comments, got directed to another blog which had mention of Game theory in it and an associated link called Prisoner's dilemma. It was a really interesting read and if you have an interest in Maths especially, I can guarantee it would amuse you.
The whole theory revolves around the possibility of 2 ppl having to take 1 option out of 2 choices and the final outcome for both the ppl depends on each other's answer. And you would stand to gain maximum if you cheated and the opponent decided to be faithful. Sort of convinces you of the fact that "It pays to cheat, if your partner decides to remain faithful".
Just click on the link and you will get the wind of what i am saying.
And now since you have read this and understood the concept, it would be fun playing the game. I played it twice and I won it both the times. Dont know if that would be the case with everyone. Try out and let me know. After the first game, if you are brilliant enough;-), I guess you could very well anticipate the computer's move - called Serendip here, which again is derived from the word Serendipity meaning chance in one word.
Majaa Maadi!!

Road Trip II - Day 2

2004-07-27T15:28:00.000+05:30

Well day 2 - morning we had got up only by 7:00. Sapna had got up at 5:30 since we had told her we will be starting early. But , I guess little did she know that we were one bunch of lazy gooses. Come to think of it...who in their sane mind would get up early in the morning on a Sunday. (i hope Sapna does not strangle me after reading this;-))
anyway we got ready by arnd 7:45 and by 8:00 we were on our way. From the moment we started from the travel lodge, it was raining heavily and the winds were strong. We thought by the time we reach Blackpool it would be better. But it was not to be. We reached Blackpool in less than an hour. And in a way it turned out to be a big flop going to this place on this day. It was as if everything was jinxed.
It was raining so badly and so cold that the very idea of going to Pleasure Beach was ruled out. We decided to go to the famous Blackpool Tower and go on the "Walk of Faith". This is nothing but at the top of the tower you have an area where the flooring is completely glass. And there is a precaution board saying, that it might break if you walk on it. Standing on this glass, all you can see is the 30 floors below floor. That is creepy and this is in an open area. Now as luck would have it, coz of the rain, they decided to restrict the entry into this. They said the glass was all wet n slippery and it was dangerous to go on "Walk of Faith" under such weather conditions.This dampened our spirits completely. It was not worth giving £12 entry fees and not being able to go to the top of the tower. there was a ball room and circus and so many other entertainment within the tower area but then we were in no mood for that. so ditched that. Now we were stranded in Blackpool with one whole day in hand and nothing to do coz of the weather.
What could be more irritating. We looked across the road and saw the stranded beach which otherwise in this supposed summer was to be filled with birds that were semi-clad or whatever. And instead what was inviting us was a dull stranded beach with not even a real bird in the vicinity. ( Later on i came to know that this area was also famous for its Sandstorm and we were lucky not to have got caught in that). Anyway we just walked around trying to find a shelter from the rain n wind. We saw this huge Casino by the name "The Buccaneer Family Bar". We decided to enter into it promising each other, we would not gamble or do anything of the sorts. Just walk around, see what is happening and once the rains stopped their beat, we would go somewhere. But we didnt know the surprise that was held for us. This was not the Casino which i had expected where big gambles are made. This was a proper fun area with lot of sega games and small gambling for 1 penny, 10 pence, 50 pence etc..so we started playing the games...one of the games was dropping in 10 pence into a slot. And if the coin dropped at the right spot,there was this metal plate which would give ti a slight push which in turn would push the hazaars which were kept at the edge of the collection point. But try as much we could not get the coin to be pushed. So then we quit that game and walked around checking out stuff
Th next game we played was dropping in 50 pence and manouvering a metallic claw to pick up a teddy bear or something of the sorts from a box. By the time we had figured out how to do it efficiently, we had already spend abt £2 pounds on it. Cursing our luck and our day we ambled along and saw the next game - Camel race.
This game had about 15 toy camels lined, reaedy to race. And each person was alloted one camel. He was given 3 balls and he had to roll the ball into holes which was a t a distance and each hole was for a specific distance and depending on the hole in which the ball fell, the camel would move the appropriate distance.
Basu started off on this game. He played 2 rounds and in first round he almost came close to winning it. and ended up being 2nd in the race. Then Srijith played one round and he wa nowhere near winning.Next Srijith n myself played one round (mind you...there were 13 other ppl also playing along with us) and both of us did a poor show. Basu then coaxed me into playing one final round before we left the place. And i agreed. I played smooth and we won. I didnt even realise we had won until the guy came up and asked me which stuffed toy i wanted. I told him to give me "Hobbes" of the Calvin n Hobbes series. Relishing the victory we decided to stick on for some more time in there. Next we thought we would let Sapna play who was so far an enthusiastic supporter only. We came to this game of hitting the dinosaur that popped out with a hammer. She played that game thrice followed by Basu who played it once and in return we got 10 ticket points for which we got a "Skateboard key chain". Happy with our gifts, we got out and decided to munch on something since it was already half past 12. We entered into Mcdonalds. Srijith had some mini chocolate stuff and Sapna had veg. burger. I had a Big Mac Meal while the best of the lot was what Basu had - Big Chicken green ranch salad with dressing. It tasted yummy. Poor basu hardly got anything since the remaining 3 of us plunged into it as well.
After that we walked around Blackpool city center, checking out the place. We went to this "chor bazaar" likes in Blackpool where for a fleeting moment , i felt as if i was back in India. Anyway having roamed arnd plenty, we decided to hit it back and weather was also getting a bit better. Went to the tower once again to see if they had reopened the walk of faith. But all in vain. We got back into the car and drove along back to M6. At junction 44 we took a deviation to go to Coniston waters.
Thats when i took over the driving again. Initially it was a pleasant and smooth ride but as we went further n further into the country side, the roads were getting so narrow and for the first time i thanked Srijith for taking a small car which could fit in these roads more comfortably than any other cars.
We decided to go through Hawkshead hill and this road was a mighty climb- actually reminded me of the roads leading to Ooty. hawkshead Hill is famous especially fro having inspired one of the greats in poetry - William Wordsworth. Anyway we just kept going n going and suddenly came across a steep climb and i was in the 3rd gear (yet again) and i shifted to 2nd..and voila, the car stopped on upward slope. There were cars coming in from behind and Basu waved all of them to carry on past us. The problem was this was an upward slope and a curve. You can imagine my situation as the driver. It was such a fix where i could not even pass on the wheels to Srijith or Basu. If ever we were to get out of there, it had to be courtesy me then. And after so much valiant efforts, finally i managed to get out of that fix. really got workedup at that point. Luckily none Honked at me. that was the only relief i had. We then stopped at coniston waters. Sapna n Basu played in the waters for sometime...while i went on clicking and Srijith taking a break:-)
And after about having spent half an hour there, we continued.At a particular curve, suddenly the road narrowed further and there was another car coming in the opposite direction and i banged the left side of the car onto the rocks on the left side. I thought i had screwed up the car completely.But however , we were in a position not to stop the car anywhere...and so continued driving. Reached this place called Far Sawrey and realised that we were reaching a dead end and we had to take ferry service to get across the lake. Now we were all puzzled. Coz from a distance, it didnt look like there ever existed a ferry service and the very thought of having to drive back all the way we had come was extremely taunting. Anyway we decided to take a chance and carried on forward and after about half an hour or so..saw the ferry service..and thats when i heaved a sigh of relief.Checked the car where i had banged it and saw that it was only a small dent/ scratch and anyway the car had been fully insured while we took it for rent.And so ultimately all was well. Stopped the engine as we were the 22 in the queue and at a time the ferry took only 18 cars max. The other 3 had ice-creams while i had a hamburger. Then i handed over the car to Srijith. The driving thru the country side with so much concentration had taken its toll on me.
Srijith took over. We got into the ferry and got off at the other side..and continued our ride for another 2.5 hours into EDinburgh. Reached Edinburgh by around 10:15 pm in the night. was dead tired by then.
Vinay had cooked dinner for us (me, basu n srijith). We had that . Even Parveen, Srijith's room mate had come back from Punjab that evening. So all of us got together at our place..talked for sometime, had tea and finally around 12:00 midnight, crashed onto the bed after a very eventful weekend.

ps. Check out the snaps.
(forewarning: - Clarity not that good for many of them)

my FAMILY

2004-07-27T15:15:00.000+05:30

Mavelikara (Allepey District)
-----------------------------
Grand Dad - Idiculla Oommen (called Appai by all) - was in Excise (Customs)
Grand Mom - Lily Elizabeth Oommen (lillykutty) - My GOD mother
Eldest son - Joji Oommen in glasgow- scotland - Dr. in British Army - Anaesthist
wife - Ruby Oommen - Dr. Ophthamology
Daughter - Swapna Elizabeth Oommen - Dr. - married to a scot guy Dr.David (orthopaedics). Swapna is expecting this october - 4 yrs elder to us
Son - Sarin George Oommen - major rugby player - finally decided to go in the lines of his family - doing 2nd yr medicine in Dundee now

Second Son - My dad - Mathew Oommen (Shaji) - born on June 5 1951 - Electrical Engineer from REC, Calicut.
wife - Aleyamma Mathew (Usha) - born on Jan 26 1957 - Msc. BEd. in Zoology
Son - Me:-) . currently in scotland...
Daughter - Remya Elizabeth Mathew - 9th std. M.E.S. indian school - qatar - born on 2nd Dec 1989

Third Son - George Oommen (Reji) - Chemistry Teacher - Now teaching in a school in Ernakulam..not sure of the name.
wife - Shanti George - Chemistry Teacher - now teaching in TIME's entrance/ CAT coaching centre in Ernakulam
Daughter 1 - Asha Elizabeth George - doing final year in ECE - Rajagiri college of Engineering, Ernakulam
Daughter 2 - Sheba George - in 12th Std. now - in Ernakulam

Fourth Son - Alex Oommen (Viji) - Maths Teacher - was in Dubai all this while - now migrating to Canada - my God father
wife - Susan Alex - English/Psychology teacher - born n brought up in Chennai
eldest son - Suvin Alex - finsihed 12th and plannin to continue studies in Canada
2nd son - Sajin Alex - in his 10th std. now..

Punnakadu (Kozhencherry)
-----------------

Grand Dad - M.T. Varghese ( kunjai) - worked in police force in Malaysia for many years - thats where my mom was born too- then worked in Insurance company in qatar
Grand Mom - Joyamma Varghese
Eldest Daughter - My mom

Second Daughter - Jolly Ninan (Jollymummy)- in Saudi - house wife - B.Com -she considers me as her son.
Husband - Ninan Mathew ( Babu) - from Kaviyoor, Tiruvalla. - Computer Engineer in Saudi. They reside in Damam

Third Son - Thomas Varghese (Shaji) - in Lonavala, Pune - Mechanical Engineer - Asst. Manager in a Nuts n Bolts company;-) (the coolest uncle of the lots)
Wife - Julie Thomas - Bsc.in Maths - house wife
Eldest son - Deepak Thomas - now in 12th in Don Bosco - the smartest kid in the family so far in terms of GK.
2nd son - Dilip Thomas - now in 9th std in Don Bosco - the second most naughtiest and wildest and loving of the lot

Fourth son - Abraham Varghese (Shibu) - in Kozhencherry - Dentist - MDS.- worked in Saudi for 3 yrs...my playmate when i was the only grandson in the family and very attached to him too.
wife - Elizabeth Abraham (Elsyammai) - from Kurianoor basically - Dentist - BDS...my fav ammai. more of a friend than ammai. very simple and naive. born n brought up in KUWAIT . Her parents were in kuwait for a long time. dad passed away recently.
Eldest Daughhter - Reshma - now in 5th std., i think..the biggest tongue in the house...non-stop talkin till she sleeps...
Second son - Rayan - now in 2nd std. the most naughtiest...and the most loving...my fav.cousin.
Third daughter - Raikah - a sweet little baby, now about 2.5 yrs old.

Thats my family - paternal n maternal:-)pretty BIG i guess:-)

Me, myself n Vineesh

2004-07-26T21:07:00.000+05:30

During this last weekend, when I was staying over at Travel lodge next to M6, there was this electronic thingy which would measure m,y blood pressure, weight and height for £1. And I decided to test my height and weight once n for all. and the results:

Readings:
----------
Weight              : 87.3 Kgs (13st 101lbs)
Height               : 174 cm ( 5'8")
Blood Pressure:
   Maximum Systolic : 121 mm Hg
   Minimum Diastolic :   74 mm Hg
Pulse per minute      :   65

Atmospheric pressure: 768 mm Hg

BMI (Body to Mass Index = Weight/ [Height*Height]) = 28.8

Expected Results:
------------------
Weight : 60.6 kg - 75.4 kg
Blood Pressure:
   Maximum Systolic : 140 mm Hg
   Minimum Diastolic :   90 mm Hg
Pulse per minute      :   72

Inferences:
------------
BMI    => I am Overweight (by an index of 3.9)
Weight => I am Overweight ( by about 11.9 kgs)

Blood Pressure => Low BP? or is it ok (Any doctor or knowledgeable person lemme know)
Pulse / min       => Obviously low. Guess I am way too cool with no worries or tensions in life.

a perfectly plump yo dude!!!;-)

Road Trip II - Day one

2004-07-26T20:20:00.000+05:30

Well we had another one of those road trips this weekend.This time to Lake district and Blackpool.
Had had plans to wake up at 5 on Saturday morning and leave by 6:00 but things got delayed by an hour...and we started from Edinburgh at 7 after having picked up Sapna(colleague of mine)from her home. This time again, it was only 4 of us - Myself, Srijith, Basu and Sapna. Vinay(who was there in our last road trip) could not join us as he was oncall for the weekend. So the poor guy had to stay back in edinburgh all alone. Felt bad for him. but then could not help it.
We started out from Edinburgh. Got into one of the "A" roads (similar to state highways in India). Srijith was driving the car. This time we had a Ford Fiesta - Black colour. Thought we would get a sedan but it was out of stock. anyway the start of a journey is always bright. The first stop we had was in a nearby petrol bunk. We had to fill in diesel. Basu got us all some breakfast from the services shop next to the bunk . Anyway then we continued our journey. We went via the place called Galashiels. There was nothing much to see there and so we continued on our journey and next stop point was Silkirk. We had not actually planned to stop there..but after a while we realised that we were going round n round in Silkirk and could not get out of the place. We were supposed to go to this place called Hawick (pronouced Hoik) and we were following the boards but somewhere some cranky guy had taken off one of the boards and we were going in circles.So finally we stopped the car, asked a couple of guys and they were not able to explain to us the way. Then we (the guys )felt nature's call and amazingly there was a "pay n pee" toilet:-) After relieving ourselves from such mundane tensions;-) We entered a bakery to gran on couple of muffins and the old granny there showed us our way out of Silkirk and into Hawick. We continued on the drive. In the car we were listening to CD's like "Bagpiper yaaron ka yaar", RDX-II, War of the DJ's etc etc..all remix versions of good lovely oldies. We then entered into M6 (England's longest motorway; similar to National highways)

and basu took over the car. His dream/ aim was to touch 100 miles per hour. Basu tried putting itpast 95 initially and the speedometer was not budging and we assumed since the car was small..that was the max speed it would take...ad then suddenly, i saw that we had crossed 100 mph and the happiness on his face was something to be seen. Then he was changing lanes and at the speed he was going we almost went and kissed another cars' butt. and that psyched him out of his wits. And he parked in the next available parking zone and handed over the wheel to me. Continued on the drive via Carlisle and into Penrith (courtesy me).At a particular point instead of driving into Kendal and into Lake district , i had taken a wrong turn and voila we were in the town of Penrith and not knowing where to go. and we were looking arnd and going slowly and i was in 3rd gear that car suddenly jumped n stopped (coz of the low speed obviously). and there were a fleet of cars behind us. The guys behind Honked (that the sybolic way of yellin here else Horns are rarely used in Britain, i guess. Only if you want to yell/abuse someone for wrong driving or delayin unnecessarily, will you honk at them). Anyway then me started the car and drove into a parking lot. I didnt find the drive that very comfortable. Somehow within city limits. just could not enjoy it.Srijith took over then There was nothing much to see or enjoy here other than for the drive part and picturesque beauty around. Once we got past Kendal we entered into Lake District. Our first stop was at RYdal n Grashmere lakes. These lakes are monitored by the Lake District National park authority. We got out from the car and walked a bit into the woods and then climbed a hill to see the view of the whole lake. There were a lot of ppl trekking n biking over there. took a lot of snaps...in between Basu climebed a tree..rather i propelled him onto it and i tried hanging from there and woof...i scratched my stomach in the process and Basu got stuck for some few moments on top. He could not jump down since it was a slope onto which he would have had to jump and there was risk of slippin n getting hurt. Anyway somehow he managed to get down. and we got back into the car and drove along. We reached this place Ambleside. We had planned to climb a hill which is abt 500 mts in vertical height but then we decided against it. since that would have taken abt an hour or 2 and all of us wanted to go on a cruise. So next stop was Ambleside where we paid £15 each to go on the Windermere lake Cruise.
This windermere lake is England's largest fresh water lake. We got on the cruise and the journey was for an hour or so..we went to the upper deck and then came to the front end of the boat. For a moment ,had this mind to stand on the railings (i dont know what the exact term is) and stretchj out my arms (the TITANIC way without my kate winselet) but then there were lot of tourists on board and the captains room was just overlookin to the front end. and i somehow didnt want the whole junta to be laughin at me for this;) anyway the cruise first stopped at this place called Bowness for abt 15 min where few got off and few other got in. Once Bowness was past, we went to the lower deck and it was splendid. This was the bar/ refreshments room of the ship and from the window we could see the water as if we were in water with just th head bobbing out....anyway finally reached Windermere. Here was a large underwatter tunnel aquarium. Went into it...amazing it was. you could see all sorts of fish big n small going all around you and at times felt like just holding them. then there was a asmall pond within the aquarium and there we saw the RAY fish. As in there were lots but there was one which was active and whenever it saw anyone taking a snap...it used to come half out of water and pose itself in front of the camer (it was not actually posing..but then u know how my imagination just goes)...tried getting a snap of its face but then just could not get it to pose long enough;-)
there was a gift shop there from which myself,basu and sapna picked up a few souveniers. Then we waited for the return boat. The return cruise took us to Broughness and from there we ahd to take another cruise back to Ambleside. Once in Ambleside Srijith took over the wheels and drove thru M6 to the travel lodge in Lancaster. The Lodge was too good..We 3 guys were put up in one room and Sapna in another room!! And to top it all there were all possible restaurants like Burger King, Little Chef, Mcdonalds, KFC etc..etc..and boy I had a dinner of XL DOUBLE Whopper meal from Burger King. yuuuuuuuuuummmmmmm........
After din,we all sat and talked till about 11:30 pm on one of the park benches generally talking abt sticking to one company and being loyal to your company FOREVER (sapna's view) while we argued that for our personal growth in career we needed to shift jobs if required and not stick on. anyway the discussions were getting heated up and things slowly started getting personal so then we wound up for the day and hit the sack ..hmmm...thats day 1!!
will be uploading the snaps tonight and you can check it out on Day 2 blog which i will be putting up today sometime later or tomo sometime...till then
Cheers:-)

Thought for today

2004-07-22T13:48:00.000+05:30

Only twice in your life do they pronounce you:

The first is Man and Wife

(Dennis Hopper and his wife Victoria Duffy, April 12,1996)

Second is Dead

Life (Re)Cycle!!

2004-07-21T20:30:00.000+05:30

I am bored with life...there is nothing exciting happening at all.What exactly is the definition of exciting? is it the presence of a really challenging job or is it something like your work environment is located in a jungle and you have to get through all the peril to get to your cubicle??

well frankly speaking i dont mind either of the choices...the second would be physically exciting though..and much more challenging. Imagine riding on crocodiles to get across the river, playing with lion cubs, wrestling with a bear all on your way to work and way back from work and to top it all you would be fit n trim:-) (personally would get of this excess fat)...and if it is the former, then it would wake up my completely dormant brain.
Wish I was a some paper or plastic at times..which could be recycled and start life all over again...atleast the first 21 yrs of my life (till my college ended) can be classified as exciting for sure - what with all the fights, romance (mind you- no running arnd trees like in bollywood), flirting ,how could you say life was dull then...each day presented a new challenge of some kind. The only time it was dull was when exam set in...but then again i found a challenge there...staying up the whole night and cramming and understanding stuff for the first time in a semester for the particular subject...what could be more challenging and in this case it was a fight against time....wonder what i would have been if ever i studied like that the whole semester...class topper...??hmmm..intersting thought..but no regrets so far..absolutely not..!!I am happy the way things went for me in college especially..!and one thing i am really proud of is...that i scraped thru (right word) all the semesters without getting a suplee ever..!!(a pat on my own back for the same;-)) Anyway all thats over...................sheesh...really dont mind going back in time just for enjoying those 4 glorious years specially.............................

This weekend planning to hire car again and go on another road trip to
Lake District
Nothing finalised yet. But planning still going on.......

Fate!!

2004-07-20T19:19:00.000+05:30

Its so funny. The way fate plays it games...sometime real dirty. At times you are so close to achieving a goal that you even have anticipatory celebrations but then "sudden twist of fate" and you are embarassed beyond belief...you are disgraced!!you feel like jumping out of the window not knowing what to do. After all the blood n sweat that was shed to achieve the target, now you lie down there thinking what went wrong. Y could not things just be the way it was and had been going on all this while....there are no answers...none to help you!! In this evil world you are all alone when you take the brunt.
I still remember this vivid incident way back in 1991, somewhere in November. I was in the 6th Std. and it was the Annual Sports Day in my school . Since the day i had seen one of my cousin sisters get the individual championship cup , that had become my dream - To hold that cup some day (to this day i have not been able to achieve that). And in my child mind, as always, i thought then that this was the year i had the biggest chance to become the individual champion. I was all excited and had practiced sprints n jumps for almost a month in Doha Corniche tugging my dad along with me every night to record my timings for the sprint and to measure my jumps.
And boy finally the D-day arrived. Annual sports meet 1991-1992. I was all set. Clad in Yellow shorts and t-shirt i went to school all ready to lift the cup of my dreams.
(I was in the yellow house. The entire school was divided into 4 colours - red, blue, green, yellow). I had reached school pretty early and few of my class mates had also arrived. We decided to practice before the actual events kicked off...and we did small sprints. And i was very elated coz in all these practice sessions i was emerging the winner with the best time and best jumps...my joy knew no bounds...!!I already started dreaming of the final function when i would be handed the cup.
The bell rang for the school assembly and while the students were gathering for the assembly, me and a couple of my friends decided to do one last practice before everythin commenced.
We got ready at the start line and swoosh...we ran and my leg got tangled with another friend of mine "Syed jaffer"..and i fell on the cemented floor..BAM!!my hand was smarting in pain...and my friends came running around to seeif i was ok!!I stood up bravely just shunnin them away sayin nothin could go wrong with me..!!I was not going to loose that cup of mine for anything in this world.
The events started. The first was the 100 meters dash qualifiers, i made it thru till the semifinals. Then was the 200 meters for which i had made it thru till the final. For long jump, though weighing nearly 50 kilos(over weight for a 6std. guy), my efforts did not go in vain. I got a bronze medal for the same.
I knew I was nearing my goal. all i had to get was probably a gold each in 100 mts and 200 mts and probably a silver for the 800 meters which was my last event. Any student was allowed to participate only in 4 individual events of which not more than 3 could belong to a particular category (so i had 3 track and 1 jump event).
My hand was writhing in pain all the while. I kept quiet. I could not make a fuss of the pain and get myself out of the race when i saw my chances of gettin the cup were very bright.
The 800mts was my last event. The finals of the 100 mts and semi n finals of the 200 mts was scheduled for the next day. I realised getting a silver in the 800 would vey well guarantee the cup. The race started. I completed one circle round the track(400 mts) comfortably. i was in the third or forth position and i had plans of accelerating in the last 100 mts or so...and i was nearing the last 100 mts..my hand was beginning to pain real bad...and the heat (somewhere round 30 degrees) was almost getting into me...my vision blurred...but i was not to give up...i needed that cup..i could not give up after comin so far...i kept running...and in the last 50 meters or so...i collapsed on the track...i fainted........................
Afte 5 min, i felt sprinkles of water on my face. Rubbin my eyes, wrist paining real bad, i got up and from the corner of my eyes i saw the medals being given away for the 800 metres and i knew i had lost it...i started crying. my mom( who is the vice-priniciapl of my school) was next to me and thought that i was cryin in pain. and i looked at my left hand and saw that there was a huge swell on my wrist..i was sent to the hospital in the school bus by my mom and by the time i reached hospital , dad had also reached the hospital.
The doctor took an x-ray and checked. I had Goddamned fractured my wrist. It was just a small crack butt due to lack of giving attention at the right time and having lifted weights and did long jump too , the fracture had become worse.
I got my first dose of scolding from the doctor for not coming to the hospital straight away. (who in the world would have thought that such a normal fall would result in a fracture...if i listened to his words...i would have been in hospital everyday every hour of my school life..i guess;-))
And then i got the second dose of scolding from my dad for trying to act smart. He even asked me if i was Carl Lewis or not...

I had no answer.......Maybe not Carl Lewis but then , upto even this day I maintain that I could have been the Individual Champion for the Sub-junior category in 1991 in my school...........and who knows how my fate would have been then.......

Dammit!!

2004-07-20T05:29:00.000+05:30

Its 1 am in the morning and i am still working. Thankfully these guys have given a laptop coz of which i have the luxury of working at home.
Else imagine sitting in the office at such unearthly hours and working your ass out and just today when Kolli had called I was bragging that there was not much work for me to do and i was just whistling away time many a days. Its quite funny the way work proceeds here. At times you are burdened with so much work that you have no time to breathe or think for that matter and at other times you just lie around asking people for work.......and getting bored so much so that you begine to think you are on a paid Holiday here in Edinburgh.....!!
Dammit!!another job failed..........................................

FRIENDS!!

2004-07-19T18:52:00.000+05:30

Found this in Sankar's blog and tried it out.
really time pass stuff and makes sense if you are one of those fans of the FRIENDS series on TV.

I'm Chandler Bing from Friends!

Take the Friends Quiz here.

created by stomps.

Brotherhood

2004-07-19T15:46:00.000+05:30

This past weekend, I had another wonderful experience. I re-lived my childhood once again. At my uncle's place , their very close family friends had come over and these ppl had a kid - Sumi . A 2.5 yr old adorable little baby.
Friday entire evening and Sunday till i left Glasgow, she was with me. a real adorable kid. She had long curly locks reachin upto her waist, big round eyes and her tongue was a mile long...!!the spark struck between us the moment i arrived. she got close to me very fast. Soon we were playing Hide n seek, cats n rats, cooking, takin care of baby, house-house..and all possible games that she was conjuring up in her playful little mind. And i just sync'ed with her and went on. It was an amazing feeling just to see that glimmer in her eyes and the smile and laughter coming from a clean pure heart, just tingles in you and even now i can hear her laughter..so innocent..so full..!! We even played Horse and elephant:-)
At a particular moment i felt really bad that i had not been a good brother to my own sister Remya. She was born in 1989, December 2nd when i was almost 9 yrs old. And for me at that point,it was like my kingdom, where i had been supreme king for 8.5 long years...all of a sudden it was being snatched away by this person who had just come into the world. The intial days were filled with rivalry and hatred esp when the entire attention of every other family member..(who upto this point had none else to pamper but me) was turned to her. I just could not tolerate it. There were moments when i used to lock myself up in the room and cry for being ignored, for being thrown out of the lime-light. This was too much of a change for a 9 yr old boy. However as time went by and she started growing up,i started liking her rather loving her. The elder-brother-should-protect-young-sister feeling creeped into me by then. Moreover ihad also grown up by the time and my thoughts had matured(atleast i thought so). I was into my teenage years when she wanted to play with dolls and all the above mentioned games that i have mentioned. And as a teenager, i admonished such games being played anywhere near me. What would my cool friends think about me if they happen to know i play doll, house, elephant, horsaes etc.. with my little sister. And in no way was i ready to compromise on my prestige, status (typical teenager) in front of my friends.And thus though i loved my sister and adored her more than anything / anyone else in the world, I never showed it out. I jst kept al lthese feelings within me and just saw to it that she was ok always and never had to cry courtesy me.
There are times during my teenage years when i have overheard my sis complaining to mom that "ee achachan'u enne ottum ishtam alla...ente kude onnum kalikilla..baaki elavarudeyum achachan'maaru avarude kude kalikumallo" ("this brother of mine does not like me at all...he doesnt play anything with me...everyone else's brothers' play with them")and these were the times when beads of sweat(out of fear tht she will start hating me) used to form a thin necklace of guilt within me........but ispite of all this i never could manage to go down to her level and play with her...
years passed by..and now at times i feel guilty that me as an elder brother might have deprived my little one from happiness which is really unforgiveable.
Our relation improved specially after i joined college-R.E.C.-Trichy and as the saying goes Distance made the heart grow fonder and things became better and atleast upto my satisfaction level, I was being a better and loving brother...and it has been so till date (touch wood)!!!

Ooo La la.....

2004-07-17T22:51:00.000+05:30

The weekend was good...!!
I went to Glasgow...had a great time ..as in proper relaxation..holiday...whatever you could think of!!
Think about this..a whole 2 -storeyed house to yourself with net connection, cable TV, an excellent collection of DVD's ranging from Monsoon wedding. Sixth sense, Top Gun to Bad Boys-II and even Cold Mountain and a fridge full of food ranging from aunty's specially-made-for-nephew home cooked food to pizzas and cold chicken/ salad creams and all sort of delicacies like cookies n chocolates and what not..!!:-))and to top it all that..call up KFC and ask them to drop in a COMBO meal at your place..!!that was heaven on earth for me..!!
Dont ponder too much what i was doing there alone at my uncle's place..i had told my uncle (Dad's brother) that i would be droppin in at their place for the weekend and they forgot that they had a marriage to attend and end result being me landed there and they had to go for the marriage:-) n my only company for sometime on Saturday was my cousin brother Sarin. He was a proper host and there are a lot of memories that i have shared with him in childhood days...!!in the earlier days when i was small..he used to be real thin and i used to be HUGE..horizontally but then as time went by...he got more and more healthier (muscle building..etc) while i went on being healthier in another way!!:-)
and today this is how he looks

The above snap is shot after the recently held finals of The BT BOWL (Club level Rugby) after his team lost. He is the one in the front row squatting in the extreme left with a blonde streak on his hair..!!(HE looks like me...face atleast):-)
Anyway watching movies was getting boring for me and i decided to read HARRY POTTER for a change. Read from Volume 1 till PRISONER OF AZKABAN. Amazing book. This is one book i think that will enrapture both the children and adults alike. It has a mix of Enid Blyton (wizard land and magic - suiting taste of children), to some extent Agatha christie (the mysteries involved and revelation of Harry's history at odd moments when you least expect it) and John Grisham.And the best part is once u start reading Harry potter, u dont feel like keeping the book down till u have reached the end...i was awake till 2:30 am today morning trying to finish Prisoner of azkaban and never knew when i fell asleep..!!Anyway thats that!!
all in all a very relaxing and fantastic weekend. and I might have gained a couple of kilos too;-)
By the way..today onwards i am going to tell my weight in stones. I weigh nearly 14 stones (14 stones = 90 kilos...so for those intersted you can do the necessary conversion and decide how many stones you weigh;-)))
CHEERS.

Brilliance!!

2004-07-17T22:29:00.000+05:30

An English university creative writing class was asked to write a concise essay containing the following elements:
1) Religion
2) Royalty
3) Sex
4) Mystery

The prizewinner wrote"My God," said the queen, "I'm pregnant. I wonder who did it?"

My Experiments in the Kitchen

2004-07-15T18:09:00.000+05:30

Hmmm.....believe me when i say i never in my dreams thought that I would be cooking at any point of my life. I remember my mom used to keep asking me what if my betrothed was ignorant of cooking and i had a steady response always "I will make sure she knows cooking before i get married to anyone".
But we have all heard the common saying "Necessity is the mother of invention" and miracle of miracles....i was forced into cooking after joining my office Edinburgh. The main reasons being:
1. It is not everyday that you can eat half boiled vegeatbles and half cooked stuff at canteen
2. The amount spend in cafeteria is almost double what it would be if i cooked at home.

So takin all these factors into consideration, i plunged into the world of cookery. The inspiration to cook, i must admit, came from my flat mate in blore as well as here in edin burgh now - Randeep Basu. He is the main cook. I cut the vegetables and mix the masala in the correct propportion while he starts cooking. And then he leaves it to me while i check the taste and add salt/pepper/whatever available to make it more spicy n hot - this taste in food can be attributed to me being a mallu, i guess and it does help when the other person is a Bong with similar food habits and is a non-veg too:-)))))
We had intially started with veg dishes experimenting various recipes and then one day, a weekend, we decided to try our hand on chicken. It is a point worth mentioning that both of us were new to cooking (atleast i was and i guess so was he) and cutting and cookin chicken was a dream for us.
And we decided to make this dream a reality. And you should have been there to taste it - yummy yum:-). That day we realised that if not for anything atleast for survival sakes we could cook n eat tasty food:-)
Potato (aaloo) has become our staple food coz no matter what dish we prepare, that seems to be the main ingredient - aaloo baingan, aaloo gobi, aaloo dum, aaloo mutter, Gobi dum, rasam, sambar, dal , rice and once even aaloo parathas. Rice, samabar, dal and rasam are generally made by other falt mate here - Vinay V who is a pure vegetarian though after being in our company, he has slowly started eating eggs:-). He makes excellent Sambar/Rasam/Dal, provided he has the mood.:-) But after coming onsite, by far the best sambar has been prepared by Srijith - one of my colleagues and u can call him my ML (module leader) as well.Excellent.
The intial days of cooking were filled with enthu when we used to get up in the morning and cook lunch in all zest n vigor.
But off late the drive has gone. Have to get some new recipes, i guess in order to get the old enthu back again in cooking.
All in all i can say - My lucky wife;-)

"Bend it like Beckham"??

2004-07-15T15:56:00.000+05:30

Well past 2 days hardly got any time to blog. one of those rare occassions when you are actually bogged down by work and dont have time to think..forget blogging..!!:-)
Life has become pretty mundane. Nothing interesting going on. off late due to extreme work pressure even football has come to a standstill - secondary reason being the ball has very less air in it and kicking it now on a windy day...it would bend like how Beckham manages to do it.
Speaking of Beckham, recently watched the movie "Bend it like Beckham" yet again and i wonder if Beckham actually intend to kick the ball so that it curves or does it happen just naturally for him. Intersting question eh?
I remember when i started playing football way back in standard 6, even i used to curve the ball..though unintentional and after getting into college and being selected as Centre back for College football team, my services were always called upon for free kick/ corner, the only main reason being - I could curve the ball in the last moment taking the Opponent goal keeper n players by surprise.
And trust me when i say this (ok, i am demeaning myself now) I never intended to curve the ball. I just used to take a small run up and kick the ball and voila 9/10 times it used to curve. Dont ask me how. it just used to happen and during that 1/10 chances when it didnt curve, i used to look at the spot from where i kicked , frusturation and anger glowing on my face (very similar to Beckham's reaction after his spot kick against Portugal in recently concluded Euro2004 quarters went into infinity).

Probably i can console myself that i have got the inborn talent of curving the ball without having to try hard.
hehe..!!
The only times i felt guilty was when my team mates or juniors used to ask me on how to kick the ball so that it curves...i used to tell them tall tales...askin them to kick the ball with a particular portion of the foot so that it curves and lucky enough for me at times when try tried it..it did curve and my image remained intact:-) (as a good player and as a good coach;-))
Ok guys..i can see all the rage and criticism coming in from all those ppl whom i have "coached" if ever they read my blog. Sorry ppl...:-)))
And my footballing career (whatever little) i owe it to my build..(oh boy! aint i hefty) and the fact that i am a left footer..!!Being left footer had always helped me getting easily into a team and my willingness to play defense. Cmmon who in th world would love to play defense. Everyone wants to score goals.
Well I too had started off playing as a forward in 8th std.But my gauche endings in front of the opponent goal post (at times not even the goal keeper would have been there) forced me to rethink on my playin strategy and arrived at the wise conclusion that i was not made to play forward. I decided to shift myself down and become a midfielder. I was successful when we used to play Inter-class/ Intra murals tournament in school...and seeing my enthusiasm the coach pulled me in as a reserve for the school team. But then the glory days were soon to be lost. In the interschool i had to run so much as a midfielder and with my bulk...within 10 min of play, i was gasping for breath.
There i reworked my strategy to stay in the team.I didnt have much options. I pushed myself to play defence, gracefully giving others the chance to make play and score:-)
And since then thanks to my bulk and the "Bend it like Beckham" abilities, I have stuck on in the team - school n college n even in infy football team. I didnt have to run much and i could use my build to the full use and only ocassionaly using my natural footballing skills!!! Another thing i was famous for was the sudden burst of energy which i displayed on field when i got possession of the ball and would just make a run with it to the opponent goal only to squander away the ball in a completely gawkish manner!!
reading so much i thing anyone could very well guess who my role model is - yeah ROBERTO CARLOS.

- known for being attackin defender and his power filled free kicks.I swear he would die of fits if he knew he is my role model in football followed by chance happening of reading my blog.
God save all those ppl who think i play real good football!!

I want to Break Free..........

2004-07-15T15:29:00.000+05:30

There are certain situations in your life where you just are in a helpless condition. You want to do a lot but yet due to some obstacle...maybe you are far away or you may not be well equipped..whatever maybe the reason, u just cannot bring yourself to do anything. Things come to a stand still. The inner you wants to break free ...just burst out from the existing body and spread out my wings and just enter into another world.Jim Warren, a well known painter used to paint people ripping through the back of the canvas, symbolizing the breaking into another world. Imagine if we could really do that. The world that we paint, if we could rip the canvas and just enter into it and live there till your mind reaches saturation and then crawl back into this ugly world.Things are never the way they seem. When I was in Trichy, Blore used to be heaven for me. Filled with babes n pubs...it was heaven on earth - what else could a mortal ask for. And i was the happiest man on earth when i knew my posting was in this heaven...but then within 2 weeks of being in blore...heaven seemed more like hell!!There was nothing too exciting happening and then me and my room mates used to watch tv and see the life in europe and US and fantasized and wondered the days when we would be there surrounded by babes somewhere abroad..!!and voila..out of the blue..i get a chance to go to scotland...known for its rich brand of malt whisky than anything else.I thanksed GOD for this opportunity and reached here...the first week was full of enthusiasm gettin accutomed to this place...but then the cycle never stops..it continued..and once again the life here has become mundane...nothin exciting..nothing happening..!!The only time i really enjoyed was the road trip we guys had..just wish at times that i had pair of wings...just fly away into the horizon..just keep flying...hills on one side...plains and rivers on the other side...listening to the rustling of leaves...the calm water flowing ocassionally hitting the rocks and overcoming it completely to continue to its journey down to the sea...!!!!amazing right???I feel as if my hands are tied and i am being whipped by someone...i try to yell out but realise my mouth aint opening...my throat is dry...longing for a drop of water to wet it...its been ages since i ate..stomach is growling..my beard stings not having taken a shave for a week ...i smell blood...my own blood...which was beaten outta me...I am suffocating...not able to take a single whole breath...somebody help me...i close my eyes...and pray for an angel to save me from my distress...I open my eyes and i see myself floatin in mid air...i no longer stink...i feel fresh...there are no chains bonded to my legs and arms...i look down..i see my body...its dead.,.i am no more...free from the earthly bondage into which i was born...free from the corruption..free from all that evil....i cannot be harmed anymore by any Goddamned mortal...no one can bind me down anywhere...there are no restrictions...But....................................What happened to all those ppl whom i loved and cherished...they are still there in that mortal world...struggling out to meet and fulfill their own personal demands...and that of others...Can i enjoy my life after life with my near and dear ones struggling...ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.........is there never an end to man's demands...you want something badly...and when you finally get it...you want to go back to your old self and it just keeps repeating over n over n over...But many a times we do not realise that many of our troubles are not really troubles and if we look at it more closely, probably we could have got rid of it and attain complete freedom.Probably we need some third person to point it out to us that we aint bonded as we thought we are. The short story The Man In Chains will give a fair idea of what i am trying to say.
Somebody SAVE ME!!!!!!!!

Euro 2004 team

2004-07-09T19:05:00.000+05:30

Uefa's Euro 2004 All-Star Squad:

Goalkeepers: Petr Cech (Czech Republic), Antonios Nikopolidis (Greece).
Defenders: Sol Campbell, Ashley Cole (both England), Traianos Dellas, Georgios Seitaridis (both Greece), Olof Mellberg (Sweden), Ricardo Carvalho (Portugal), Gianluca Zambrotta (Italy).
Midfielders: Michael Ballack (Germany), Luis Figo, Maniche (both Portugal), Frank Lampard (England), Pavel Nedved (Czech Republic), Theo Zagorakis (Greece), Zinedine Zidane (France).
Forwards: Milan Baros (Czech Republic), Wayne Rooney (England), Angelos Charisteas (Greece), Henrik Larsson (Sweden), Ruud van Nistelrooy (Holland), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Jon Dahl Tomasson (Denmark).

my fav. are in bold;-)

OLYMPIC Flame back to GREE(K)CE!!!

2004-07-09T18:30:00.000+05:30

The Olympic flame headed back to its homeland today after a global relay that included groundbreaking stops in Africa and South America.
An airplane carrying the flame from Cyprus was scheduled to land on the southern island of Crete to begin its final leg around Greece before the August 13 opening ceremony in Athens. A welcoming celebration and concert was planned in the city of Iraklion, one of four sites outside Athens that will host Olympic soccer matches. The flame was lit March 25 in a traditional ceremony at Ancient Olympia, birthplace of the Games. Its international voyage began June 4 in Australia and went on to cover 78,000 kilometres (46,800 miles) through 26 countries. The relay visited Africa and South America for the first time, and provided epic images such as torch bearers on China's Great Wall and around the base of Egypt's Giza Pyramids.
In Greece, about 7,000 runners are scheduled to carry the torch in 29 cities and six major archaeological areas, including the site of the 490 BC Battle of Marathon - which gave the modern race its name - and Vergina, the legendary burial place of Philip II, father of the 3rd century BC emperor - conquerer Alexander the Great.
and wonders of wonder...the Greeks have managed to win the EURO2004 cup too...amazing play of defense..reminded me of Italy in their rock solid days.
Anyway my heartiest congrats to Greeks (I was known as a Greek back in college;-))

DUMB and the DUMBER

2004-07-08T22:13:00.000+05:30

Me: Mirror mirror on the wall!! Who is the Dumbest of them all?????

Mirror: None other than Vineesh.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....I hate myself when i do dumb things...!!dont want to humiliate myself more by describing what i did:-)

need to be more alert n creful down the lane..sheesh..!!!

Death takes its Toll!!:-(

2004-07-08T14:33:00.000+05:30

well today morning came to office and was just reading thru the mails. Got this mail from Remya saying Shiu's dad expired!! Somehow felt a shock on hearing that...just could not accept the fact. It is not like her dad was someone whom i knew personally and was close to ..but since the time my granddad had passed away (August 15,1990), I have taken this unknown fear towards death...not of my own..surprisingly but of fear of loosin ppl whom i am close to...parents, friends, relatives...etc..etc...!!Somehow each time i hear of someone's death..that fear in me just increases by leaps and bounds!!
Shivani is on her way home for her brother's marriage which was scheduled for this weekend, i guess..!!damn...she had told me once...her father's biggest wish was to see her married off!! She must be glad as of now that atleast her engagement was over!!!
Wish i could help her in anyway..but then in such situations...the best thing is to keep silent and just be there for the person!!In such moments..silence conveys a lot!!
atleast i am glad that Sid is there for her ..to be with her..console her...!!! At times fate plays such cruel games and we can do nothing but give in and just watch...!!
Just prayin right now for her mental strength to face it all!!God bless all!!!

Topsy Turvy

2004-07-07T14:21:00.000+05:30

atlast...i am relieved...i am a free man once again!!! wonder what i am talking abt??
well past 2 days i was bogged down by a severe pain in my tummy..!!initially i thought it was somethin that i ate..but then time proved that it was not that and then i realised that the actual pain was happening at either side of my tummy...to pinpoint...somewhere in my kidney regions..!!for few moments..i was perplexed...!!
all the drinking that i had done in college days...were the after effects (abt which many had warned me abt) showing up now?? had my kidneys gone for a sixer?? well my mind was distrubed for lets say 2 hours..
then i thought why worry so much...i turned to the ultimate healer...the one and only!! Prayed to HIM for sometime to relieve me of this pain and hoped it had nothing to do with the kidney! actually was hoping this pain was due to ovre stressin myself on the field while playin football couple of days back..!!anyway prayers in my mind i slept yday!!!and today when i got up i was completely relieved (atleast almost)!!but i am still eating light...what if the pain was actually caused due to the heavy food i have been takin off late...hmmmm....anyway as of now..i am a free bird...free to eat anything and like how Siddhu said...you get a chance to touch century only once in a life time...so go for it..!!hmmm...the only issue here is...i am not very confident on myself to pull back to 70's or 80's after touchin 100!!
anyway i am aint doin anythin deliberately...if it happens...it happens..!I am not goign to force myself to hit a century!!:-))
adios!!

Wonder Boy - Rooney in DEMAND

2004-07-06T16:59:00.000+05:30

Everton have formally offered teenage striker Wayne Rooney a new five-year contract, saying it would be the biggest deal in the club's history.
The offer comes amid increasing speculation over his future at Goodison Park after his displays at Euro 2004.
Manchester United and Chelsea are both said to be ready to tempt the Merseysiders with bids for Rooney. Everton are heavily in debt and could wipe out their financial woes in one hit by selling their prize asset for a fee that would almost certainly exceed Rio Ferdinand's British record £30m move from Leeds to Manchester United.
It has already been stated that the board will only look at bids of around £40m and over.
Chelsea, bankrolled by owner Roman Abramovich, were believed to be the only club capable of mounting a bid to tempt Everton. But Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson is reported to have told his board to make the money available to sign the England striker, whose stock and price rose at Euro 2004.
I am waiting for a word from Rooney as to what his choice is going to be...Everton/ ManU / Chelsea??
Though have been a ManU fan for a long time..i personally would prefer him getting into Chelsea now which is a team in the making. It all depends on how al ltheplayers click together. ManU, once the most feared club, unbeatable ones...have become sort of old and outdated and the only glimmer of hope is Van NIstelrooy in the front. Bringing Rooney into the team would end up making a disaster at front since both Rooney and Nistel Rooy have the same kinda play coz of which they wont be able to compliment each other in the front unlike Owen_rooney partnership....
anyway time wil tell whats gonna happen!!
till then let the papers talk:-)))

Oops!! i DID it again!!

2004-07-05T18:37:00.000+05:30

well well..yday i checked my weight and Holy Christ i weigh a solid 91 kilos...i just cannot imagine that i crossed 90...thought i would be in early 80's but man..!!got to do something drastically before i hit a century..!!i used to say for fun sake that iwill hit a century...!!i can imagine my mom's reaction when (if) she hears my current weight!!!
thats it..today onwards..no more hogging away at every odd time..!!i am going to bring back my weight to late 70's !!ok lets be practical here..will try bringing it to early 80's first and then second phase to late 70's..!!have to start serious workout before i blow out of proportion..!!but the amazing thing is the pants/ shirts/ t-shirts..which i had bought when i was in my late 70's (when i nblore) still fit me perfectly..though a couple of pants have seems to be holding me slightly more tighter than before!!hmmm...i wonder!!!
but i checked it with 2 weighin machines and u cant say both are wrong..!!so its back to dieting for vineesh!!sheesh..i hate dieting..:-(((
the last time i ever touched the late 80's and almost into 90's was when i was in 8th standard..>!!let me see if i can get the old time snaps of mine here..!!not sure but will give it a shot..!!i used to be one fat pig back then!!and in 8th std..i got Chicken pox...and i thank GOD ( i must be the first one) for giving me that and that too a severe case of chicken pox wherein i was admitted i the hospital and i was feeding on rice and curd for 2 whole months..July-august,1995 and from about 89 - 90 kilos i had reduced to about 45 - 50 kilos..and from the fatty i was...i started lookin normal..!!though when i went back to school...my classmates found it diff to recognize me...!!think of it..u go for vacation syin bye to ur friend who is really huge in terms of weight and short in terms of height..(was only abt 4'7" or something then..tiny me..) and after vacation..u see him again..he is thin now..and looks a bit more tall than what he was beforre..!!hmmmm...but now this time i dont think i can wait for a Chicken pox to help me thu my weight problems!!
this time its a lone battle..!! i shall fight it out alone..hopefully..!!!:-(;-)))))

Greece v/s Czech

2004-07-04T21:20:00.000+05:30

Damn the greeks...!!!The czechs deserved to win the match hands down. They lost or squandered (call it what u want) about 16 chances ..absolute brilliant play by the czechs..it was a pity that they lost.!!and the greeks..though their defence has been real strong through out the Eurocup2004...their attackin has been extremely bad. They har;ldy did attack but then botom line comes as to not who plays the exciting game but when the whistle blows who has scored by hook or crook and won the match.
In that way Greece won it fair n square..no partiality. their win can be contributed to Czech's bad luck and Excellent defence of Greeks!!!
Anyway the excitement i had in watching a Czech v/s Holland finals has died down now..and for the finals i will be a hardcore supporter of Portugal. Just hopin that these guys play the way they played the semis and FIGO in the same form..stupendous!!!

goof up

2004-07-02T20:11:00.000+05:30

today i made the first goof up after reachin onsite...i am a part of the testin team of client side now...and as per protocol I am not supposed to tell the happenings of code changes happening and this was not to be told to the test team..but then a certain test case came up which could not be tested now..which if tested, the test would bomb..and so i ended up sayin like a dumb ass that there are changes expected etc..etc..and this was then escalated by the testing team to higher ups sayin that testin could not be done on a dynamic code but only on a static code..!!so i set a small spark which turned out to be a big huge cracker..hmmmm...hope things gets sorted out .
i got a small dose from my PM for not thinking before saying..anyway...time wil tell what is going to happen..this aint much of an issue..but suddenly this has put me on guards and made me more alert!!as i always say..everythin happens for the best...!!
Cheers!!!

day 1 in scot

2004-07-02T15:09:00.000+05:30

Hmmm....life in scotland...interesting topic...for a person who has never been here, the concept would be that of a night life, discos, pubs and what not. but reality is far far away from the thoughts we had conjured up in college about life in US/ europe...US part i aint sure but europe...if u havce a lot of money and lot of free time..yeah al lthose things one dreams about when i nschool and college is posisble...but as they say if u r a white collar job guy...DUDE>..you will spend half your life earning and trying to save and by the time you have earned enough to live a lavish life...you would have grown outta it and would just wanna sit back , a scotch in one hand and a cigar in the other readin a novel baskin in the sun...!!sounds like i am describing a painting...!!anyway not beating arnd the bush a lot...
life here...well i flew from blore to chennai on 18th april...the flight was good BA...though the standards of the airlines has gone down since i last flew in it 10 yrs back!!!anyway reached London..the immigration was a cake walk..very courteous guys unlike the indian customs ppl where i have heard stories of major harassment and extortion by those guys..!!anyway from london i flew to my final destination for the time being and for atleast the next half year of my life..!!!EDINBURGH!!
the city is lovely...beautiful and i found it prety much quiet. picked up a conversation with the cab driver who was droppin me to my residence here!!!He said the city aint very quiet but then it was the week after the easter and all were on holiday and hence the quietness!!!anyway reached home...nice little flat..single bedroom,kitchen,hall...fantastic setting..called up parents n anila confirming my arrival!!!then had some dinner and slept away to glory !!didnt want to get up all moody on first day of work in onsite!!!:-)

Road Trip I - Day Two

2004-06-28T11:00:00.000+05:30

well this was a more interestin day compared to the previous day..!!morning got up at 8:0 0am...had asked for breakfast to be ready by 8:00..and we were late...took a bath and got ready and was at breakfas table by 8:35 am...had breakfast..the old lady who was runnin the place where we stayed..is abt 50+..she was scoldin us for not being there for breakfast on time and all that..!!anyway...talked to her for sometime durin breakfast...had bacon n eggs with grilled tomatoes, cornflakes n coffee..!!

then basu took the wheels..and we started from there arnd 9:15 am...after abt one hour of drive by basu..i took over the wheels..!!continued driving..we were headed to fort williams...!!on the way to the fort...we stopped twice and took few snaps of the surrouding s and of ourselves too....!!then me continued driving..and on the way saw the place where there were cable cars...and we just decided to deviate from our route to fort williams.!!

Halted at this place and got into the cable cars after payin abt 7 pounds per head..!!then we kept goin up n up n up.and we reached a peak where we were let out from the cable car...!!we walked to the top of anther peak and realised we were standin on top of the UK's highest peak...BEN NEVIS...its abt 1343 meters above the sea level..!!took a few snaps from there...!!there was mountain biking too over there..and i was all enthu to go mountain biking...was so damn enthu..but then the other 3 were scared..coz it was a real tough terrain.and they warned us when we went to check it out..that if durin cycling..any accident happened...then they were not responsible and path was also very rough..but i was all enthu even then...u know adventurous sense in me kept pricking!!! But then the officials would not let any person ride the bike alone...there always had to be 2 persons who were going for the ride...and none were ready to give me company..!!so finally...that got dropped..me was a bit disappointed for sometime..but then..me got over it...cool!!all part n parcel of the fun.!!

after that we all had a capuccino each and some cookies..and conitnued on the drive..we passed fort williams..and saw nothin of much interest there..!!! so then continued driving...and saw this place called LOCHABER WATERSPORTS...so really got excited...and went to this area and there was this power boat ride for 12 pounds per person...so just 3 of us got into it..!!srijith didnt join us..since he is hydrophobic..so he stayed there.!!we went on the power boat...on a guided tour...!!

We were told this was the Isle of GLENCOE..!! Now the history of this isles..there were 3 isles..!!the first one was used as a burial ground by the ppl who stayed there long back...!!there was a church on this island and a big cemetry...!!there are no more burials takin place there..except for one graveyard which was reserved long back by an old lady who is still alive and abt 90+ now..!!she is the only one and the last one who will be buried in this island..!!when someone used to die..they used to be brought thru what is called the "Gate of the dead" and buried here...!!!anyway this is the biggest island of the lot..!!then the second island..is called Isle of Reconciliation. In olden days when ever 2 men had fight over anythin..regardin land, women, property etc..etc...they were brought to this island and left without any food or water..so that they compromised soon...:-)) and once this compromise was done..then they were taken to the third island..which was called Isle of Partying..!!here parties were held after the reconciliation between 2 men..!!

anyway after that continued on the ride...and saw a mussel farm and salmon farm...!!! The funda of mussel farm is that lots of big cans of food for this mussels is spread arnd...and left at a depth of 40 - 50 metres where mussel babies are there...this is left like this for 3 years..where the mussels grow and mature...and after that they are caught and sold off!same is the case with salmon..though for salmons the breeding period before sellin off is 1 yr !!!

anyway ....after this...we just rode on...n on...then there was this real cool drive way we went thru..!! Hills on one side and picturesque view on the other side..plains..and valleys and everything...too good..!!i just drove the whole distance...enjoyed the entire drive..every moment..!!then after sometime basu took over the wheels..and continued driving and on our way saw this place called the falls of Leny...!!This was just a waterfall which we saw on the map...and we just went and checked it out!!!nice waterfalls..took few snaps..!!!and then srijith took over the car and drove us all home..!! In total 3 of us together drove about 1000 miles in 2 days:-)))))))))) (1600 kilometres)

this was my weekend....!!!

Road Trip I - Day one

2004-06-27T08:30:00.000+05:30

we had got a ford for the 2 days..!!!anyway at arnd 9:30 am those (3 0f them - vinay, srijith and basu) came...so totally we were 4!! Srijith was he only one who knew the way around..!!he ws drivin intially...we first touched this place called STIRLING...we stopped at a petrol bunk here...coz the shop adacent to bunk was the only one open..bought some biscuits, wafers, chips and diet coke and continued on our journey...!!in between wherever therer were good sights..or good scenery..me n basu forced srijith to stop the car and took snaps..!! then the next stop we had was PERTH..there was nothing much to see over there...we were headed for this place called INVERNESS..which is one of the northern most part of scotland..!!Ness (Nis) is supposed to be someone's name..none knows..whose it is...!!!anyway...at perth..Basu took over the wheels..and he was driving..!!In the car we were listening to music of Kal Ho Na Ho,Kuch Kuch Hotha Hain,Dil se,Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Gam...!!in short shahrukh hits;-)

anyway...then we reached INVERNESS...and booked 2 rooms for ourselves...it is called Bed n Breakfast!! It costs 23 pounds per person per night...for a room including the breakfast..we get for breakfas..orange juice, bacon and eggs, grilled tomato n beans and coffee!!!anyway after that was done...we decided too go see the LOCHNESS lake.."LOCH" means lake and "NESS" as i told before...someones name..!!This lake is famous for the LOCHNESS monster...!!It seems in 6th century St. Columbia reported that he saw a huge monster in this lake...and ever since then or sometime later the KODAK company has declared that anyone who gets a snap of this monster(if ever one existed), he/ she will get 1 million pounds...!!Have taken snaps here too..!!pinne we rode on to this castle called Uqrart castle..It is one of those castles..which was ruined in the battles and only a part of the castle remains now...even now the stone flinger exists..which was the beginning of the canon balls being fired later down the years!!!! Then we continued on our drive to view the "5-sisters" - this is a group of 5 hills...which was named 5 sisters for some reason...the history behind this naming i could not get..!!

then continued on the drive...and went to this place called Isle of Skye..!!didnt go to the island..since that wud take a lot of time..went up to the entry of this island..there is an amazing brige which connects the main land to this island..!!have takn snaps of these...!anyway..athu kazhinju..we decided to come back..and i took the driver role..and was drivin cool...just cruisin with this vehicle.amazin drive..was cruisin at 70 miles/hour and then suddenly realised that this was equal to abt 112 kms/hour!!anyway..the roads are extremely good and it was highway..so cooly put the car on 4th gear and drove on..!!

We reached back INVERNESS by around 5:00 pm and saw on the map...somethin called as BLACK ISLE wild life sanctuary..!!we decided t go there..went there and saw that the admission tickets for viewin this closed at 5:00 pm and we were late..!!initially we were slightly down coz of not being able to view this..but then saw the list of animals/ birds that were there in this wild life..and guess what were these animals.. - Pigs,deer,cow,sheep,lambs,hen,chicken,ducks and few more domestic birds..!we felt it was more of a DOMESTIC WILD LIFE>>.!!anyway then were happy that we didnt waste cash on them.!! then decided to drive back home...i mean.the room we had bookd..!!reached the room..freshnd up..!!!4 of us sat and watched the match between Holland v/s Sweden!!and once that was over..went to sleep!!! well we had got the laptop thinkin that digital camera will run out of space and so wil upload the snaps to laptop and then continue takin more snaps next day as well.!!but guess what happened..!!we took the digital camera...we took the laptop..but the USB required to transfer these snaps..well we forgot..!anyway luckily we had 2 dig cameras..so no problems..!!