Taking a break

I haven’t written anything lately. 2 posts which I had started last month never got finished because of a big lazy bum. BTW that’s me. And then I lost the patience to finish them.

This Friday I am going home, after a long period of 7 months. A whole week full of Masti, Mazaa, Khana (No Peena) and future planning awaits me. Hopefully by end of next week I shall have some news from my side for my friends. Or may be, as the trend has been with me lately, nothing will work out and I shall have to continue this miserable piece of shit (BTW itna bura bhi nahin hai :)) , which people call LIFE.

Weise jo bhi ho, Life goes on. Friends are there and my family too. Loneliness will never bother me anymore (Because of the 26 years of experience I have with me). Now that I remember that I am 26, I must tell all that I am actually 25 and will turn 26 next Sunday (17th August). Since I will not have any access to net till then, may be this will be my last post in my silver jubilee year.

I am taking a pen and a pad with me on my journey back home. Will try to write something juicy, useful or may be just interesting during my leisure time. If I become successful in doing that, then of course my blog will have some new posts.

CYA ‘World’ till then.

Nice young Love story

Imran - ‘Ek baar fir se Bolo’.

Paresh - ‘Kya Bola?’

Imran - ‘Maine kaha Ek baar fir se bolo yeh baat’.

Till this part of the movie ‘Jaane Tu…’, Imran khan had come across as the guy next door. The same guy, who had played Aamir’s childhood role in Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikander. The cute little disappointed face with a single cup in his hand (while his father Kulbhusan showers all his love on his elder son, Mamik, who had won loads of trophies) suggested this child definitely has some future. In the first half of the movie, he portrays the ole of a very humble & normal guy, who is scared of confrontations & uses some smart excuses to avoid them. Little does he know that he is the Ranjhor ka Rathor, a synonym of bravery and strength? But one insult inflicted on his mother by a police inspector, changes the color of his eyes. You can actually see the transformation of his face from being cute to angry, much like the way with Aamir. If one looks closely, he will find some similarity between Imran and Aamir too, I think it’s because Imran has modeled himself after Aamir. Well if you really want to follow somebody, Aamir is definitely not a bad choice and Imran should be congratulated for doing it successfully.

Coming to Genelia, well, she is a natural and that’s her strong point. She never seems to overdo it. During the ‘Kabhi kabhi Aditi’ song, she looks genuinely sad and still gives a feeling of how comic the situation is. I can imagine how a Kareena in that situation would have ruined the whole scene and that is where the genuineness of Genelia wins her some well earned praise.

There are several other characters in the movie, who are so close to reality, which makes the narration believable (though some scenes are just clichéd filmy, like the airport scene). There are innumerable phattus and gujratis around us, that they seem part of our lives. I loved the scene where phattu kisses his girlfriend with such a loser’s line. Prateek babbar has done a tremendous job as Genelia’s brother. Even though he is a star son, he doesn’t quite have the looks for a hero. He might just be the next parallel cinema sensation. At least this much can be expected of Smita Patil’s son. Paresh rawal in a non comic role after so many days was refreshing too. Khan bros had interesting characters and I guess overacted a bit.

The best part was the conversation between Ratna pathak and Naseeruddin. Just fabulous comic scenes and the dance from Naseer in the end had me in splits.

Overall I think it’s a young generation light hearted movie and should be treated that. Terming it as a cult or path breaking movie as DDLJ or Dil Chahta hai would be highly unfair.

My Rating – 3.25/5 (.25 cut due to some clichéd scenes)

Nice Change

Last week I shifted to the Bangalore campus of my company(supposedly short term). I had kind of got bored with the pink walls of my Hyderabad office. There is a limit to which you can like pink. Pink on a girl looks very sexy. On a wall, it’s a disaster. And let me tell you, it was not only the wall. Pink was everywhere, on the partitions, on the carpet, on pillars, just everywhere. Here it’s blue, much to my liking.

This Bangalore campus is huge. It is the biggest in India. There are more than 40 buildings inside this campus, plus a nice hotel. I will be staying here for the next 3 months at the least and will have ample opportunity to explore this campus. The first thing that hits you in this campus is its greenery and weird buildings. Don’t know what fascination has this company with weird building structure. Let me give you some example. There is a 5 storied building which looks like a front loading washing machine. Just at the middle of the structure they have a huge round glass piece on both front and back side of the building. It really looks like a front loading washing machine and even people call it that.

Then there is another building which is in the shape of a lotus. And it is a food court. Now food courts are supposed to be big, so that they can accommodate maximum people. But this one, due to its unique structure, hardly accommodates 50% of the maximum capacity that it should. Clients are sure going to be impressed with such building structure, but employees' convenience, huh…well who cares for employees these days. One more building is completely made of glass in a pyramid structure. Few poor guys sitting inside that building have to face the sun ray coming through the glass whole day. That’s why most of them look darker than they really are (I am not one of them. I guess I am just slightly dark by birth).

The thing I liked most about this place is the gym. I am a person who never goes to the gym regularly. I can motivate myself to go the gym for consecutive 5 days, max. After that I have to pull myself towards it and that is difficult. But if you have a gym which runs from 5 PM in the evening to 8 Am in the morning, one need not bother actually. I can go after office hours, after dinner or in the morning. Now who would not like so much flexibility in life? Plus these are really hi-tech gyms (even the star hotels don’t have such gyms), which is an added advantage.

Another facility, because of which I am impressed with this campus, is its food. 6 food courts with 12 vendors, each serving different kind of food. Just awesome. Plus most of them are open through out the night (add two 24 hour CCDs too). Today I found out that I can have Chinese, Italian or Mexican food anytime I want, even at 3 AM. And the taste is not bad at all. Though I will have to control myself, otherwise the whole point of going to the gym goes down the drain. Well, let’s see how that goes.

There are several more small observations I have made about this campus. Shall pen them down, when I have enough.

PS1 – Next one about a normal guy’s life.
PS2 – Sunday Football and spiritual session at Jijaji’s place (aka P ka S)

Change Point

I have not been writing anything since a month. A lot has been going on professional and personal front. But next week onwards the scene will change for better, i hope.

The IT capital of the world will be my home for the next 3 months (at least). Hope to catch up with long time friends, family and also find time to write many more interesting posts.

Lets hope for a better future.

SLAP

Time 3 PM, Room No 113, South Hostel, UCE Burla, 5th Jan 2001

‘What do you say? Let’s go, man. I am pissed of with this Maths paper. Who was the idiot who set it? Hardly 50% of the question was from the syllabus. I know I am going to fail.’ said AB in his irritated voice.

‘No yaar. No one is going to fail. They will surely give some grace marks for the questions out of our syllabus. Anyways we have the Electrical Engineering basic exam (EEBE) in 3 days. I haven’t touched the books. Need to study man.’ said D.

‘See, don’t worry about EEBE. We shall start tomorrow morning first thing. 2 days will be enough and who knows, there could be 100% question out of syllabus this time’. AB said like a true engineer.

D moved his head down and thought. ‘Hmmmmm’

‘Abe what are you thinking man? Let’s go. Just imagine, we shall watch a Shah Rukh movie in the theater after 6 months. And that too a Yash Chopra movie. It will refresh our mind. SD and AM will join too. Chal’

D had to agree. He was also disappointed with the paper and was frustrated. These were days before he touched cigarette and liquor. So movies and music was the only way he could divert his mind. Plus a Shahrukh movie can never be avoided.

Time 4 PM, South Hostel front, 5th Jan 2001

‘Do we have to wear these formal full shirts, pants and shoes to a movie? I am just a tie away from attending an interview.’ said D.

‘See, it’s either this or no movie. Anyways it has been 6 months since we have been forced to wear this by our seniors, anytime we go out of hostel. Last week I was out of toilet soap and had to wear all these formal stuff without washing my hand and go out of the hostel to get it. So why are you complaining now?’ was AB’s reply.

‘Man, you shouldn’t have said that. Now don’t dare to seat near me during the journey or the movie’. SD said.

‘Ok stop this and let’s go. Why isn’t the bus coming? I am bored.’ said AM.

‘Asshole. We haven’t even started and you are bored. Itni jaldi bore hoga to shaadi ke baad kya karega’. Came the reply and all of them started laughing.

Time 5:30 PM, Ashoka Talkies, 5th Jan 2001

‘Ok. Tickets are booked. Lets get in. I have heard there is a very nice song at the beginning’. Said D. As usual he was the most knowledgeable among the group, when it was about movies.

‘What the hell yaar. This place smells of pan (Indian mouth freshener). People in India will never learn etiquettes. Mark my word, this country is going down.’ SD was in his India bashing mood again.

‘Haan haan. Ab bas kar. Let me watch Aishwarya and Shah Rukh making love. I mean romancing.’ said AB.

‘Oye. Don’t say anything bad about Aishwarya. I will kill you. She is your Bhabhi.’. D, the Ash lover said.

‘Yeah. Salman Khan is my brother.’ AB was not someone to back down.

‘Stop this crap. Let’s watch the movie.’

Time 8:30 PM, Ashoka Talkies, 5th Jan 2001

The song ‘Pairon mein Bandhan hai’ is being played on the screen.

‘Abe how long is this movie? It has been 3 hours and still no sign of a climax.’ AB was getting irritated. But in the same breath, he added ‘Abe Shah Rukh. Why are you singing alone, when all these Bachchas are dating their girlfriends? Catch hold of some girl and Puppy Le Le.’ As they say, engineering students will never change.

‘Shhhhh. Do you know we have 17 seniors occupying the whole row behind us?’ said AM.

‘WHAT? How do you know?’ SD was scared.

‘Why are you shivering? Even if there are seniors there, how does that affect us? For them, we are local people only. They don’t know us personally’. AB said with an air of confidence.

‘Ok. Keep quiet and lets get out of here, as soon as the movie ends’.

Time 9:30 PM, Sambalpur Bus stand, 5th Jan 2001

‘Movie was good. Dinner was perfect. Dekhna, next exam will go fine’. AB after a heavy meal generally talks nice things.

‘Damn.’

‘What?’

‘The same seniors are in this bus. What will we do?’

‘Look boys. Its 9:30 already and it is the last bus. We have to board this bus or we shall have to stay here all night.’ D said.

‘Let’s sit in the front. They have occupied all the back seats. They might recognize us from our dress. So let’s sit as far from them as possible.’ AB’s strategy had some sense.

All 4 of them went to the front. But there were just 3 seats available. The conductor signaled SD to move to the back. There was 1 seat empty and it was between 2 seniors.

From where D was seating, the seniors looked like the monsters from hell. He was praying to God that the monsters would let them go home (hostel) in safe & sound condition today. He had heard many stories of how seniors used to beat up juniors, when they were found alone. Just a month back, B had returned to the hostel from an evening walk with reddened face. All he could say afterwards was that he had been slapped 42 times. Here there were 17 versus just 4. His fear was not unfounded.

Time 10:30 PM, Power Channel Road, Burla, 5th Jan 2001

‘Let’s get down’. SD came and said.

‘Are you crazy? The hostel is still 2 KMs away. Who would walk that long?’ AB as usual.

‘I am not suggesting. I am informing. The seniors know who we are. They told me to inform you to get down from the bus here’. SD was sweating.

‘How did they know? And why should we get down? What do they want to do?’ too many questions were popping in their mind.

‘They recognized me from the Electrical Engineering Seminar and due to my dress. Probably more due to my dress. I had to tell them the truth’. SD was on the verge of crying.

‘Ok. Let’s get down. We can’t avoid this.’

All got down from the bus.

On one side of the road were the huge landscapes of MCL with big buildings. On the other side, the huge power channel coming from Hirakud Dam was flowing. The reflection of Moon on the water, the slow sound of flowing water and the cool shade of the trees on the bank of the river made the place quite romantic.

But romance was the last thing that was on D’s mind. The monsters in the moon light looked scarier.

Senior1/Monster1(S1) said ‘where are you looking at?’ looking at D. ‘Look Down. At the 3rd button of your shirt. If I catch you looking up again, will not spare you’.

S2 caught hold of AB’s collar & asked ‘Where are you coming back from?’

‘From the movie’

‘Didn’t you have an exam today? What were you doing at the cinema?’

‘We went after our exam. The paper was bizarre. So just wanted to divert our mind’

SLAP.

That one sound was the last thing D wanted to hear at that moment. It meant that the monsters were in the mood. D could not look up, but could feel AB’s pain.

SLAP. Another one on AB from S1.

S1 said ‘So does this divert your mind?’

D could not hold himself back. ‘But we were only watching movies.’

SLAP. Another one on D this time. ‘Did I ask you? Do I need a reason to beat you up? I can be beat you anytime I want? Bada aya movie dekhne wala.’

S2 suggested ‘Let’s split up. Let’s teach these bloody junis a lesson’.

This guy looked like a born leader. The strategy was at once approved and executed. Each of the Junis was distributed among the groups of monsters. Poor D was dreading this. S1, S2 along with another huge lad literally dragged him to one side of the road. After the distribution got completed, each of the groups started walking towards the hostel.

S1 asked to D ‘Keep looking down. If you raise your head by even 1 inch, I will show you my real power. So how did you find the movie?’

D said ‘It was Ok’

SLAP. ‘OK. You know what, Shah rukh is my favourite. How dare you call his film OK? So how was the movie?’

This time the reply from D was almost inaudible. ‘It was a great movie’.

‘What? We can’t hear you.’ said S2 and SLAP.

‘It was a great movie’. It was audible.

SLAP. Again from S2 ‘Great movie? Huh. It was so fucking boring that I want my money back from Chopras. So how was it?’

Silence followed. D knew whatever he might say; he is not going to be spared. They did not want the movie’s review. They just wanted an excuse to beat him. What he could not understand is WHY. What had he done? He didn’t even know them. .

But what he did not realize that Silence is not something these monsters were familiar with. The result was quite expected. Another SLAP.

‘Chup kyun ho gaya? Something in your mouth? Achha tell me, who is your Favorite heroine?’

The reply took some time and even though D was looking downwards, he could see a hand fast moving towards his face.

“Aishwarya’.

The hand which had stopped for a fraction of seconds on hearing his answer continued with its trajectory and the SLAP was completed.

‘I hate her. How dare you take her name in front of me?’

SLAP. SLAP. SLAP…..

This continued for the next 15 minutes. At last they reached the South hostel gate. D had lost count of the number of SLAPs he had received and that too without any reason. His parents had never beaten him and here he was getting beaten by strangers. Tears had started flowing way back and even that did not stop the monsters.

Just ahead of him, he could see AB, SD and AM in similar situation.

When they reached the gate, S1 said ‘Ok now go and let your batch mates know what we can do. Show them your face, they will understand. Go, you Bastard’.

With this, all 17 of them started laughing. D could never forget that laughter for all his life. He had not even seen the faces of the monsters, who had beaten him and his friends. All 4 of them were standing there helpless. At the very last moment D raised his head and glanced towards S1. S1’s face was filled with pride. He was proud of the fact that he is a person, who can beat up people.

At that point of time, D realized one thing ‘How cruel a person can be if given a power to control things and if not provided with a suitable mind to control that power. Power can turn him into a monster. The pride that S1 is feeling is actually so hollow.’ He promised himself that he will never turn into such monsters, when the power is handed over to him. He will be helpful and kind towards his juniors.

He fulfilled what he had promised to himself. He spent the next 3 years in the college as a senior, a senior who loved his juniors, rescued them when they were in danger and tried to guide them towards the right path.

PS – This is a truestory. As you could have guessed, D stands for Dave, i.e. me. :) This was one of the tale from my ragging period in college. People in our college say, if a senior rags you, in later life he becomes a friend. I have never felt that. In the next 2 3 years, I came to know the persons who had beaten us during that night. They even tried to be my friend later. But my heart could never forgive them.

My Longest Moment

I take the baton from P3. Her longest moment has inspired me to write about my own. The term ‘Longest moment’ here means road accidents. I have been riding bicycle since I was 9. I learnt to ride a scooter, when I was 13. When I turned 15, Papa got me a Hero Shakti (3 gear moped). By the time I turned 20, I bought a TVS Victor. So I had been riding 2 wheelers for 14 years, before I started working.

These 14 years on bikes were the most uneventful years for me on road. Never did I face a single accident. I was proud of that fact and considered myself as a very skillful rider. Even I used to ridicule DM, who had faced a major road accident because a dog came in his way. He used to tell me, ‘beta rukja. Har kutte ka din aata hai. Tere kismet mein bhi koi kutta likha hoga’. Little did I know that actually har kutte ka din aata hi hai. I used to drive my bike like John in Dhoom (my friends can testify that). Till 24th April, 2006 this was the norm. On that day I faced my first accident in my village, where I had gone to attend a marriage. It was a freakish accident on a village road, in very bad condition, which I chose to ignore. I still used to think that I am invincible.

Then I came to Hyderabad. For those who have not seen Hyderabad, I must say that the IT region and Hilly region (Banjara, Jubilee) have great roads. Anybody will fancy driving a bike on these roads. After a single look at the road and the overcrowded public transport system, I decided to buy my own bike. Within 10 days, I bought my bike, a 180 CC Bajaj Avenger. It had a very unique feature, not available in any of my previous bikes. It had a front disk brake and normal rear brake. While the disk brake ensured much better braking, the danger of skidding was always there, because of the mismatch of braking system in both the wheels. This proved to be my doom.

July 29th 2006 was a Saturday. I had some urgent work in the office and hence had to go. It was drizzling slightly in the morning. I vrrroomed my Avenger and started from home. On my way to the office, there comes a part where a huge 12 storied building stands today. During those days, it was getting constructed. So there was a mixture of sand, cement and small chips on the road. The rain had converted that into mud. As per my habit, I was going at some 50 60 KMPH on that rain soaked road. By the time I reached the construction area, I had avoided many path holes & natural mud holes. With each maneuver, my confidence was increasing manifolds. And then the incident happened. 2 black dogs were quarreling over a biscuit under the road side stall. As soon as they saw me, they decided my time has come. They left the biscuit and ran on to the road. I was at 55 KMPH to be precise and by my manual calculation; I think I got around 2.1 seconds to react to this.

And I reacted. My brain asked my leg muscles to press the rear brake pedal, which they did effectively. At the same time, the poor brain (which should not be allowed to do parallel processing again) instructed my right hand to press the front brake and it obeyed too. The combination of mud, front disk brake and rear normal brake was something which the bike was not designed to handle. So obeying its own flow chart, with all the three condition satisfied, it completed the resultant task. i.e. it slipped (taking me along with it). One moment I was driving my Avenger, feeling like GOD. The next moment I was being dragged on the muddy road by a 1 ton bike. The pebbles didn’t like the design of my shirt and pant. So they were torn at several points, by the time the bike came to a halt. While I was being dragged, I noticed that the road divider is just 2 feet away from my head. It was my good fortune that the bike dragged me in a parallel line to the divider, so my head never had the opportunity to touch it. I got scratches all over my body, which eventually took 2 weeks to heal. The biggest problem was the huge scratch on my left palm (which had to remain bandaged for 10 days), because of which I had to use paper after No 2 for several days (not so easy for us, Indians).

Some nice fellas came running to my help and dragged me from under the bike engine, which was still running. I then had to drag the bike to a shelter. When checked the bike, I found that the bike had no severe accident signs, with just a scratch on the leg guard. So it had chosen to save itself and get the driver killed instead. Future Avenger buyers, please think twice before buying one. I can never forget the moment when I was being dragged on the road by the bike, with a concrete divider just 2 feet away from my head, waiting to kill me. Due to severity of damages and mortal danger, this qualifies as my longest moment.

Over to the next person in line.

PS – There was another accident on the same bike, just few months after this accident. This time M sr. was with me. I will share that experience sometime in future.

IPL suru ho raha hai

At 6:30 PM tomorrow (18th April, 2008) we shall see a giant taking birth. A giant which in near future is going to revolutionize the world of cricket. by the time it achieves adulthood, it could well be the emporer of the cricket world. Soon we may see the cricket fans cheering for a city team from India, rather than cheering for the nation. Yes, the giant is named IPL, i.e. Indian Premier League.

IPL is in the same format as the English Premier league, with its share of home and away game. one difference is the knockout games. but that's how cricket is played. Fans will cheer for Mumbai Indians, Deccan Chargers, royal challengers, etc.

I have been a fan of the English Premier League for a decade now. I follow Manchester Unted with the same passion as i show for the Indian cricket team. When Ronaldo or Rooney score a goal, i feel very very happy, just like when Yuvraj scores a six. There are numerous fans like me and it shows that club or city based fan club is quite achievable in India. That is the main source of hope for IPL. As the competition grows and the format matures, the fan base will only increase. May be soon enough we shall see cricketers playing cricket for their city more often than for their country.

Anyways, its a new phenomenon in cricket ( i choose to ignore ICL, which has not met with any success). This will change the way cricket ios played and will bring in a much bigger fan base. With increasing popularity, cricket might soon spread all over the world and be a part of Olympics too. at least then, we can hope to get a gold medal in Olympics. Lets hope for the best.

three cheers for IPL.