iCusp

Deja Vu

2010-06-17T23:01:00.000+05:30

I have to get this out of my head.
From a long time . I don't know when I have developed a habit of starting a video replay( in my mind) of the sequences that happened in my life. They generally tend to on a range of subjects:
One of the joke you cracked.You know the kind which you think are really brilliant but no one else seems to concur .
Or
Memories of the night outs you had with your friends where you laughed so hard that you had tears in your eyes.

But recently I seem to be having a different kind of video replay the one which make you cringe and shout "WTF ?" out loud.
And these replays seem to be happening at weird places. Like when you are sitting in a wedding looking at what the bride and groom are doing on the stage. And suddenly you have a video replay and you go WTF ?
And then you feel the stares of people around you , of the 80 kg aunty who is trying to shield her little kid from seeing you while giving you a stare. Or the uncle who gives u a ye-aaj-kal-ke-laude stare! Or on a traffic signal when you have another embarrassing video flash and you go WTF ? and the girl sitting a little to close to her boyfriend on the next bike gives u a look more wooden than Kangana Ranaut.
I don't know if this happens to everyone but I am going to try to find out such incidences by searching some blogs.
In the mean time here is a WTF incident which happened to me during my college days:

So I was late to a lecture and I came running into the department block and ran towards the stairs to get into the class on the second floor , as I reached the end of the pathway and turned right to climb up the stairs , I saw on of the girls from another section , since she was blocked by the wall I couldn't see her earlier and was a bit startled to see someone in my path, I lost my footing on the first step and started to fall, and I was heading straight toward the oncoming girl as if I would give her a hug.. I lost footing again and fell a bit more .. now I was in a position to knock her in her mid riff like a rugby tackle.. then i slipped again and was now aimed at hitting her knees . Finally I did manage to get my balance by taking the support of the stairs and when I stopped I was a few centimeters from touching my head on her feet as one does in a mandir. Then there was a moment of silence when I couldnt think of what to say .. The people around were trying to comprehend what had happened and the girl was scared as hell. It was one of the most embarrassing silences which when ever it comes before my mind I go WTF.
Its amazing how toung tied you feel at that moment , I just hope I could have said something to the girl , I hope I could have said those 3 words to her the ever so powerfull words "Jai Mata di"

- Tsamina mina e e Tsamina mina eee ee Tsamina mina Waka Waka . This time for Africa.

In which I realize

2010-05-04T22:33:00.001+05:30

Yes I have realized, I am not 22 anymore.
They say the biggest discoveries happen by smallest observations.
You know how Isaac Newton discovered gravity when a apple fell on his head.
I discovered that I wasn't 22 when how do I put it.. Lets say it wasnt just an apple which fell on my head. There might have been a papaya and watermelon as well. So here's my 2 cents on the matter :

So the other day I talked to a college friend of mine who also happened to be placed along with me in the same company. Lets call her momma. It was her birthday and she was surprised to receive a call from me. We discussed the good old days . The training which was 4 years back. The incidents of college 6 years back. I remembered that I had been calling her after a gap of 2 years.And in the 2 years momma wasn't just momma any more I also had a papa too . And while I talked in the background I thought of how much time had passed by ( 2,4 6 years ) I mean a frigging batch of Engineers had entered college and got out and then it strikes in a Edison moment and instead of the bulb u see "! 22"

When you are 22 , nothing seems to affect you. You can gulp down unbelievable amount of food in the college canteen and still have the stomach to go home and have a full meal. Not any more.( This was the most devastating of them all. Age is coming between me and my love for food :( )

While surfing the net you end up on a younger cousin/ juniors profile on the social networking site and the profile pic has a actor / actress photograph on it. The album is full of attitude showing wallpapers and any scrap from them ends with 'z' . Howz you ? Iznt if cool !!. And you think how the kids are becoming weird these days
You start developing one of the following quirks ( peculiar habits).

The pillow needs to be the right one else you cant get sleep.
The bed needs to be clean. I mean what happened to the days when you crashed on the bed with shoes on and books a spread all over ?
You get edgy when someone moves stuff in your room.
Where ever you go and what ever you do , you like to end up at your house at the end of the day .. no sleep overs.

Now if u have one or 2 of the quirks fine! but u feel all of them describe you then dude your kidds are going to say " Bapu Sathiaya gaya" when you grow old.

Finally the most important of all you will know you are not 26 any more when every other person you come in contact with ... no wait every person you come in contact with say "When are u getting married ? " in the first 3 sentences they say to u .

You are standing with your family in a party ..
Your door ke mausaji shows up ..
Mausaji ( to dad) : kam kaisa chal raha ?
Dad : acha chal raha hai.
Mausaji ( to little sis) : Kaisi hai beta .. ache se padhai karo ..
Mausaji ( turning to me ) : ( As i am about to say something ) Aur shadi kab kar raha ..
Me : ( here-we-go-again expression ) : Abhi time hai !
Mausaji : Ab kuch time nahi hai . Phat se kar le.
Me : Pluck out a bunch of hairs from my head in frustration.

Wait for the best one, one day I am talking to a relative on the phone

Relative : Whts up ?
Me : Nothing much.Though I think i have have broken the nail on the thumb of my left foot .
Relative : Oh no no no that cant happen. You have to get it fixed quickly ..
Me : It will grow back whats the hurry ?
Relative : No no , you dont know how bad it will look when they wash your feet at your wedding ceremony.

Holy mother of god Please stop!

Size zero

2009-12-20T19:19:00.000+05:30

Long hiatus!

So today I finally found something, which I could blog about.

And ironically its cricket. Ever since the dreaded conversation which happened to me in 10+2 about which I have blogged here.

Cricket took a back seat and I proceed on the path of being an engineer and a software developer which I am currently.

Although in the back seat, cricket always has been lurking in the background like a Linux cron job occupying memory but never quite visible.

Cricket has also been the reason of some of some transitory good memory I have from the past.

I say transitory here cos I don’t remember much of my past. I mean I know some of my friends who can tell you the percentages they scored in their junior school or even the names of friends which that had for a year in class 3.

I can tell you nothing like that. I have a very fragmented memory. It’s mostly in flashes.

I remember an incident which happened in my 10th Holidays it was I think. I had enrolled to play Cricket in a cricket camp and I remember stopping a drive while fielding on mid off. I remember this specific incident because I used my nose to stop the ball instead of the usual apparatus required for this kind of experiment your hands.

Here is the deal.

The batsmen played a what cricketers call "Kadak" drive (No big deal considering that the coach was lollypop feeding him over pitched ball) yours truly was placed at Mid off and bent down on one leg to field the ball thts how we were told to field, the idea being if the ball misses the hand you have a "second line of defense" i.e. your body. In my case the ball hit a stone which was in front of me and directly jumped in what I would later learn was a projectile path towards my nose.

Result? That was the only occasion when I could see the edges of my nose with my own eyes and without a mirror. And yes off course a permanently shifted nose bone.

I don’t remember anything much apart from that in that period of life. Apart from a 25 which I scored in one of the matches. And yes off course the small cup I won for the best young player of the tournament. I think I still have that cup.

The next memory I have takes us 4 years ahead in second year of college.

It’s a tennis ball tournament and I managed to hit some lusty blows for my side while the whole class was watching. Another interesting conversation happened there.

After we won the match a girl from my class comes to me and congratulates me... lets call her coffee byte

Coffee byte: Congrats you played really well.

Me: Thanks.

Coffee byte: I haven’t seen you much in the class which junior college are you from.

Me: The same college you are from.

Coffee byte: which section in junior college?

Me: same as yours.

Coffee byte: Really I don’t remember seeing you there what practical batch were u in the class?

Me: Same as yours.

Conclusion: I had Mr. India power in my junior college years. Oh how I wish I still had those powers today! Really useful in hiding from project managers.

Ne way "Coffee byte" later came to notice me in classes and yes the name is cos she always wanted to eat "coffee byte"

The other memories in this time include hitting a straight six to the fast bowler in the leather ball tournament. In fact I remember each and every second of that particular shot as you would see it from a slow motion camera. As if it just happened yesterday.

Which bring us to the current reason of writing? I played a leather ball cricket match after a long time. Yes I dropped, let me rephrase it I couldn’t even touch the ball in case of two catches which if I had exactly stayed in the position I was fielding would have fallen in the side pocket of my track pants. Yes I was taken for 2 sixes by the same batsmen whom I dropped. Big deal every player did that. So do your math yes we must have dropped 22 catches and taken an awful lot of runs.

But the colored page of the news is not that, it’s the 24 I scored off 14 balls 2 boundaries and a 6.

And the six ladies and gentleman were hit to a fast bowler over mid off getting down on one knee.

Now that I shall remember for a life time.

Now if you think that final statement was like the promos of movie Kurban which promised hott and steamy scene with bare back Kareena and ended up having none at all. What can I do? Isn’t your expectation to have a hott show from someone who is size 0 an oxymoron?

A gust of Wind!

2009-08-07T23:24:00.005+05:30

So yesterday I was up earlier than usual, so decided to take a stroll outside and go to the barbers shop for a hair cut. It was a beautiful day yesterday with a strong cold breeze blowing and the city still walking up to the morning.

I just love this kind of weather. There are always gusts of cold breeze which refreshes you completely. These winds have a peculiar calming effect on me, the sound that the leaves make when the wind passes through them has a settling effect , one can feel the same settling effect in the sound of falling water. Yes I am a complete nature man.

So as I stand in the balcony outside the barber shop and feel this lovely morning , a chain of thoughts is triggered in my mind and I see a sitcom style flashback of my life right in front of me. From the many thoughts that came to my mind at that time. I want to write about one thought in particular , the way I have changed as a person and the contributions of my surroundings to this change. When we talk of change it can loosely be classified in 2 ways for me . One is the change in the personality , this change includes the things which are immediately visible like change in dressing sense , communication style etc But I wish to write about the other change , one which is more subtle the change in my thought process because this is the chage which is at the base of all the other visible changes . I want to take a cross section of my life and think over how the layer of each year and each experience has changed me. I want to stay away from trying to categorize this change as good or bad . I just wish to write about it . And thats what I will do in the next few posts. I have selfish reasons for writings about this change, and listing these change is an apt pretext for what is to follow later

For a long time now my life has been driven by the ticking of clocks. The 9.30 tick of the clock before which I have to reach office. The tick of clock on the 31st of the month and subsequent deposits in my salary account. The ticking of project deadline clocks. These ticks tend to overwhelm you and wash away any other thought process from your mind. I guess its time to take off the battery from these clocks for a while.

Its about time I take what we refer to in Software industry as " 30,000 feet view" or my favourite " View of the elephant from the outside".

There is a stage in every persons life where the youthful person inside him , the one who came out of college , and wanted to conquer the world is starting to run out of Adrenalin. This is the time either you need to take a decision or life takes a decision for you. A decision which will usually define at least the next 5 to 8 years of your life. I wish to take that decision myself instead of letting life take it for me.
I already feel light having written all the things above , I wish to lighten my load a bit more , the lesser the load the faster you move.

I guess this provides enough pretext for what is to come and I hope I can write with the same sincerity as I have done in this post.

~ And Nothing else matters!

Of Life and Sports.

2009-07-29T21:56:00.006+05:30

So I have become much of a sports buff these days watching each and every type of sport the idiot box has to offer. May it be F1 , Tennis , Badminton , Football ,Moto GP,Tour de France . I even watched Something Lu beat something Le in a Ping Pong match. It is not a deliberate attempt from my end but Cricket seems to have slipped from my Radar these days and am loosing interest in watching that sport.
Watched a valiant effort from Andy Roddick at the Wimbledon in a marathon 5 setter , seriously man my heart goes out for him. That day I really wanted him to win. Then again on another day I was supporting Lance Armstrong the come back man at the Tour de France.
Believe me Tour De France is one of the most Amazing sport I have ever seen. In fact it takes you a lot of time to actually believe that it is a sport.

For starters it is a race based on podium position for individual cyclist , so as such the glory goes to the individual. but still they compete as a team.
Cycle race has a concept of Domestique's , there are the cyclist who have no job apart from acting as a shield to the wind for the rider in the team whom they think has a chance of winning the Tour , and burning themselves out so this lone rider can conserve his energy and win. I mean thats one heck of a commitment to give considering that at the end of 23 days the winner is separated only by a few minutes from the others .
Then there are lead out men , men who will lead there rider within 300 meter's of the finishing line and then let him go ahead and win the race. Again one heck of a commitment to let go in the last 300 mts considering some stages are as long as 300 km.

But there is a reason to all this , the one and only reason , it is the toughest sporting event on earth. The sport is very demanding. Its the true testament to the theory of "Survival of the Fittest" . 350o km , 23 days straight on the road , temperature ranging from 35 degree Celsius to less than 0 degrees. Average speed of 40 km/hr for the entire race with highest speed reaching around 80 km/hr and that too with a tyre which is as slim as a scale. It is a true test and only the fittest can survive. No wonder the cyclist have a camaraderie and often help each other out.
This years tour was another special one. It marked the return of Lance Armstrong the 7 time champion . He returned after 4 years of retirement. His story is one of the most amazing story I have ever seen. Diagnosed of cancer at the age of 25 , he came back from a near death experience. And while most people would have been happy to be alive he came back , and boy it was a comeback winning 7 straight tours on the trot. This year he raced again and at 37 he might have been one of the oldest riders , but he left many of them behind to get third position.
Its a good watch this sport. My recommendation read the books by Lance Armstrong "Its not about bikes" and "Every second counts" they are really worth it.

Things I discovered in 2008

2009-01-01T22:24:00.002+05:30

Things I discovered in the last year!

Internet is the Software engineer’s drug … and I am one of the biggest addicts … if not getting enough of it I show symptoms like Shaking hands … sudden bursts of technical jargon.
Hindsight has the power to make a lot of your decision look fantabulous (and visa versa)
Hollywood has the same talent as Bollywood when it comes to making crap movies.
There is no time as college time and one is ready to give anything to go back in it.
The pressure of getting married is inversely proportional to the distance from home.
That a trek (big 8 day one) a year is must for me to retain my senses.
That people are resistant to change in untrue. At least I am not … how else can u explain the many changes that I have in my mood.
I didn’t want to be a software engineer. ( this one keeps repeating quite consistently in my year end lists..)
That there is nothing more damning than not having work to do… ( I am bloody scared by Bench)
That I drank too much milk in my childhood making my bones heavier and myself fatter … I told u it wasn’t the Samosas/Wada Paos/Pizzas/Bread Pakodas/……..
That the number of movies I have in my hard disk right now is more than what my dad and mom combined have ever seen in there life.
That I can be described as a guy who has Archie like hair! :) :)

Resiliance - Bull shit

2008-11-29T23:45:00.002+05:30

As Shobha De very rightly put it .. Dont utter that word resilient in front of me again !
Yes Mumbai is resilient , Mumbai will come back to its feet , but we are sick of politicians using this excuse to cover up there inefficiencies , time and time again they have failed and now its time they became accountable .. its time we demand more .. its time that we say .. enough is enough ! stop this !

Here are some more incredible things that our politician did today!

Narendra Modi offered a compensation cheque to the wife of Hemant Karkare .. Good for her she refused to take it and tell him that his gestures were not required and not appretiated!
Raj Thakre landed up at Karaker's residence to pay his condolences .. he was told he is not invited !
Mr R R Patil said that "Itne bade sheharo me chote mote hadse hote rehte hai " good on you sir , this was a very small incident wasn't it ... oh yes and his explanation for this ! the terrorist had planned to kill 5k people but could kill only 200 ... Bravo Mr Patil .. u deserver a Nobel price for this!

On the other end of this spectrum were NSG commandos who came out of a 60 hrs combat operation from the Taj and to there credit the humble nature of them they say "It is our job to protect the country " , or should we talk about the general manager of Taj who lost his wife and kids but is still working to make sure all his guests are safe. Or should we talk about the South African personal security guard who were on a holiday in India and were in the restaurant on the roof of the Taj .. who not only secured the roof top restaurant but bought down about 100 people to safety from the fire exit !
These are the real heroes of hour. And no praise is big enough for them , they are the true representation of India!

This is not done

2008-11-28T22:17:00.013+05:30

I feel hopeless today , the same metro cinema in which I have watched many movies with my friends was surrounded by sounds of gun shots , not that we haven't heard gunshot in Metro before , but the only difference this time was that they were real , its as if the reel rolling inside the cinema had come out and now it was actually happening. I felt hopeless when the same CST local station was in the hands of terrorist and they were firing automatic guns at the crowd , It sends a shiver down ones spine when we try to imagine the situation of people jam packed in the trains and bullets being fired on them , its nothing less than another Jaliawala bagh. I feel desperate as to how "The Taj" whose beauty we admired sitting at the gateway of India is flames.

I felt happy when the opposition said that this is the time to unite and fight terrorism and stand together for the common Indian I felt proud of the fact that we were together in times of difficulty , and the very next day even when the battle still raged in Mumbai , papers in Delhi carried this add , now I am no one to comment on the morality of such things but how cheap is this ? and how desperate is this ? Have we lost our complete morality ? I am ashamed of the fact that our politics has come down to such dirty levels.
With each tick of the clock there is another gun shot another death all our so called leaders want to do is to visit the spots and make press statements or complain about them not being allowed into the state , 1 lac for the dead and 50 k for the seriously injured , wow Mr chief minister its a good price you are giving for the lives of people , and oh and what about the guy who just lost a leg , he isn't seriously injured , so the leg doesn't have any value is it ? Is that all you could pull up nothing more ? How about an apology that you failed in your duties ? Don't we deserve that ?

Oh and I shouldn't even talk about the great politician from another state , he has offered 1 crore to all the injured , how kind of you sir . And yes he wanted to meet the widow of Hemant Karkare who lost his life in the mission to kill the terrorist. The same Hemant Karkare whose integrity was questioned by you and your party , the same guy whom you accused of leading a politically motivated case in the Malegaon blasts? " Ye kismat bhi na sir ajeeb hoti hai , agar aap ko pata hota ki wo marne wala hai to aap aisa kyo kehte! Bure phas gaye aap"
And if all these guys weren't enough , another one of our gr8 politicians come on National television in the backdrop of gunshots and grenades being thrown at Taj contemplating weather 1st DEC would be a good day to call a bandh to protest this attack. Excuse me , but whom is this bandh for ? Is it to tell the terrorist that we don't appreciate such kind of attacks cos I am not sure if they care ! Or is it your attempt to wake up the government ? oh but sir if the gunshot and the grenades didn't wake them up then how will your bandh awaken them ?
And yes .. I got to ask this .. where is the MNS ? Dont they see that some terrorists have entered Mumbai and are killing there own beloved Marathi manoos ? Ohh they aren't even objecting to the NSG commandos hailing from different parts of India coming to Mumbai! What happened to there charismatic leader who spoke so much that he had to be held behind bars ! not even a single word from him ? . "Aaho saheb kuthe laple ho tumhi ?"

Ridiculous thats all I can say ! Throw these people out of here ! These aren't the representation of India ! They are a pack of jokers ! They are spine less bunch of crooks !
And as I close of this post , after 48 hours of intense battle finally the ordeal is coming to an end. If it wasn't for the brave soldiers like "Hemant Karkare" and the national security guard(NSG) we would have never made it .. Hats of to them!

You Want to Know how I did it Anton , I never saved anything for the Swim back

2008-10-25T02:09:00.005+05:30

So I had a free evening after a long time , with nothing much to do I sat in front of the laptop to see a movie .. The one which I saw today is called "Gattaca".

The movie is based on something called as "Liberal eugenics" which propogates use of science and genetics to create a perfectly born test tube baby who has the best genetic qualities of both his parents. They refer to such a genetically perfect human as "Valid" and other human's who are born by natural birth are called "Invalids".

Its a story of how an "Invalid" whome the world doesnt even give a chance of living life properly fulfils his dream. Its a story of a boy names Vincent who immediately after being born by natural birth is diagonised with severe health problems and it is predicted that he wont live to be more than 30 , a boy with low IQ , low fitness level , myopic eye.

Its a story about a fight between him and his genetically superior brother who is said to be born a winner and who always does much better than Vincent in all activities.

The story revolves around how Vincent goes all out to realise his childhood dream of going into space , he uses fake personality to get into a space research organization called "GATTACA" where he does excedingly well and is given an opportunity to go into space , but as the date of departure arrives , the story startes to get complicated. There is a murder of one of the directors in the organization and in the murder area the detectives find DNA of Vincent , the detective investigation are a threat and are very near to blowing up Vincents cover , but the detectives find out that the murdurer is someone else and Vincent succeds in going to space.

The movie is much more than just the fulfillment of a persons dream , it is about the power of will , it shows the struggle between the ones who are gifted and ones who have to struggle to make things work for them. It shows that with determination you can achieve beyond your capabilities , you can stretch yourself to higer levels.
Its funny the movie reminds me of one of the incident during our college days and I got into this paper presentation contest , I and my partner were supposed to give a small presentation on our topic in front of a small audience. I still remeber studiying for the presentation day in and day out. Then when it finally came to the point to deliver I got on the stage and freaked out , I had stage fear , I forgot everything . Every word that I had prepared , in fact the situation got so worse that I couldnt even read from the note which was in my hand , it was as if I had forgotten reading.
Well a month later I made another attempt at public speaking , this time in front of a bigger audience and potentially more embarassment as this event was in my college, that day I did well , in fact I even got complimented. That was 4 years ago , today I stand a changed man , and in fact anyone who meets me today will never be able to tell that I was the same guy who couldnt talk. It wasnt as if after the sucess that day the fear never came back to me , it did everytime I spoke in front of the gathering , everytime I was in the spotlight , I just handle it well now , in fact I got my sweet revenge just a few months ago when I won the best speaker award in a debate competition at our office. Sweet it was !
Before I sign off there is one scene from Gattaca which I liked very much and want to reproduce here. Its about the hero Vincent and his gentically superior brother(Anton) , they always have a competition where they swim in the ocean and the go as far as they can , and the one who quits first looses.
In the movie they always play this game and Anton always wins , but one day Vincent wins the competition and his brother challanges him to prove it again , so in the middle of the night both of them start to swim inside the ocean. Seeing his genetically degenerate brother (whome no one in the world gave a chance) winning Anton asks him :
Anton: "Vincent! How are you doing this, Vincent? How have you done any of this? We have to go back!"
Vincent: "It's too late for that, we're closer to the other side."
Anton: "What other side? Do you want to drown us both‽"
Vincent: "You want to know how I did it? This is how I did it, Anton. I never saved anything for the swim back."
~I dream of fire
Those dreams are tied to a horse that will never tire

Life Switch

2008-07-05T23:54:00.003+05:30

Hmm ..

Just got back after seeing the movie Jaane Tu .. Ya Janne Na the one with Amir Khan's nephew in it. Good comedy which doesnt bore you not even for a single moment.
Now dont get me wrong , I am not going to do a movie review here, rather just felt about writing something about what the movie made me feel. I have a friend who is totally a movie buff and who thinks that movies are real , and sometime I find this friend of mine wants his/her life to be just like a movie.
Sounds like a perfect proposition doesnt it , a guy liking some girl and not knowing it and then after commiting a few mistakes coming back and getting her and then the Happyes Endings .. Or a Hritik Roshan singing "Lakshya to har hall me pana hai" and then finally getting it , But is it as easy as they show it in the movies ?
Most of the times movies have a switch mode of operation .. what I mean by this is sudden realisation of truth , sudden awakening that you see happening in people...
Switch OFF : I dont know what I want to do in my life!
Swith ON : I want to join the army go on top of hill and kill all dushman ke siphai..

Swithc OFF : I dont know who is the girl I love
Swithc ON : XYZ is the love of my life.
And then the hero probably goes to get his girl who is about to leave the country , but he manages to get to her say sorry and make up and blah blah..
Life is not that simple , simply because life doesnt have just the ON/OFF mode , in fact the majority of people who live in between these states dont they.. I can tell you many cases of people wanting something and not getting it , happened to me so many times .. To be fair to the bollywood industry , they do show stories with tragic endings , like Amir Khan and Juhi Chawla ending up dead in "Qayamat se Qayamat tak" , which I must say is another extreme case , in a way its still a happy ending in the sense that atleast they dont have to see the agony of seeing the loved one in someone else's arms.
Normal life is very different from all this. It is not about winning or losing , but its about fighting hard each day to prove yourself.
Ok fine , so you wanted to be a sucessful businessman with lots of money and you also ended up being on but is that the end of the story no its just the start .. each day when that businessman gets into his car to go to office he thinks how am I going to protect my businessness ? how am i going to get better from my competitors ? How do i get new clients ?
Getting a partner who is caring and understanding .. Piece of Cake !
Try keeping the understanding for 20 years ..
Well its still Fair you say .. If you have something then you have to make an effort to protect it .. I mean if you have a sucessful business its your duty and responsibility to protect it.

But what really hurts is when you fail , life is very harsh on failures , there are no escapes from failures , you have to live with them as long as you live and ironically it is how you accept and live with failures which decided how sucessful you will be.
There is a mysterious way in which failures keep reminding you of themselves , It may be the friends and relatives who try to sympatise with you or associates who murmur about them near the water coolers or the coffee wending machines , or worst case you have to get up each day and face you failure in the form of lady sleeping besides you whome dont like. It is how we deal with these failures which decides what we will become. Failure is like that monstor who sap's you of your energy , who drains you , who breaks you slowly .. and all you can do is keep fighting .. as hard as you can .. I remeber a story which my trainer told me . It goes like this...
In the deep jungles of Africa , every morning when a deer gets up , it says to itself ..
"Today I am going to run faster than the fastest tiger and make sure I live another day"
and in the same jungle the Tiger gets up and says
"Today I am going to run faster than the fastest dear so that I will not go hungry today"
So my friend every day when we get up we need to tell to ourselves
" Today I am going to run faster towards my goal , so what if I may fall hard , so what if I may fail , tomorrow is another day tomorrow I will try again"

~ I get knocked down , but I get up again ,
You are never gonna keep me Down ,
I get knocked down. - Tub Thumbing

The Unforgiving Himalayas...

2008-06-17T22:03:00.006+05:30

Recently I was on a trek of 10 days in the Himalayas , I went to the height of 13,800 above the sea level. The trek was exciting , thrilling with beautiful views surrounding us all the team. The scenic beauty of himalayas is breathtaking , there were times we were walking above the clouds other times we were walking on the edge of a clif with steep falls on either sides.

The trek also had its share of inconviniences:

first things firsts no bathrooms , so you had do your daily activities under the open blue sky humming the tunes of the famous song "Neele gagan ke tale", it taught me of the importance of those four walls.
The tents were as cramped as Ant nest's with 14 people with there backpacks as well as shoes cramped in the space little larger than a double bed .
The smell of used socks and shoes almost made you vomit and if that wasnt enough they fed us with chola bhatura making the tents one of the biggest reservior of natural gas in India.
Add to this the fact that it usually rained in the evening and the damp ground would make you fell as if you are sleeping on a water bed, and you immediately get reminded of Madhuri Dixit doing a sexy number on a water bed in one of the movies, Only here the Madhuri's were 13 in number and had beards.)
You also had to deal with Harley Davidsons in the tent .. No kidding people snored so loud you felt like you were standing with your ears next to the engine of a Harley.
No baths for 10 days , you had to wash your own plates with chilled snow water, dinner to be eaten at 7 in the evening , the lights in the camp were off by 9 and the day began at 5 in the morning.

Now before you think you are reading some Jerks blog who has nothing to do but crib about small things , let me tell you the good things that happen to you on trek , the things that make the trek worth doing.

Nature brings out the Philosopher in me and I set out on making observations and started to find out the lessons the mountains taught me in there own way.

Mountains teach you importance dicsipline, every day we survive in the mountain is like a military drill from getting up at 5 in the morning to reaching the next camp at 3 in the afternoon , the unique nature of a military drill is that you have to do it come what may, so you walk whether its a clear sky or its raining. Whether you feel well or you dont , the mountain has only one rule accept the pain and move on to avoid inflicting more pain on your self.
Mountains teaches you humility , there is no room for emotion like anger ,frustation etc. You kick the ground in the anger , you will slip in the sticky mud from rains , you curse at the sky in frustation and the next moment it rains even harder , there is simply no respite.
Mountain teaches you importance of small things , if you didnt pack your bag properly the weight of the backpack is not balanced properly , it will feel a few Kg's heavier and you immediately remember the donkey wala story from childhood and you know exactly how the donkey felt when he entered the water with a sack of cotton instead of salt.
Mountains bring your feet back to earth , they tell you that you might be a software engineer earning a high salary , but here you are even as fragile as a frog on a national highway.
But once you conquer this deamon it also gives you the sense of achievement which is unmatched cannot be matched.

~The pain passes away , but the pleassure of creating a beauty remains ~ a very famous painter who suffered from severe artheritis when asked why does he paint when he has such unbearable pain.

Title:Like many other things cant decide on one!

2008-04-19T00:04:00.010+05:30

Its 12 in the night (12:06) to be exact , and i feel like writing something.
There is something going on in my head which is making me very uncomfortable.Today the entire day in the office I had no work so I was preparing for one of the Microsoft exams that I am planning to give.When I came back it was the inaugral day of IPL so I spent the evening watching the Kolkata Knight Riders beat the hell out of Royal Challengers Bangalore. It was a great match and when I saw the hitting that McCullum was doing I immediately felt the need to have the bat in my hand and go onto the field , its not new happens many time to me,whenever I see a exciting match or a great performance I want to be out there on the field in the thick of the action. Hit it baby! a spanking cover drive a six over long off, get the adrenaline pumping.
Any chance of me being a cricketer were lost the day my dad had this out-of-the-Soap-serial conversation with my cricket coach when I was in 11th grade just about 17.

Dad: ( Very concerned about how I will manage my 12th tuitions and cricket coaching together) Iska kya chance hai cricketer banne ka ?
Coach: Acha khelta hai .. par abhi kafi seekhna baki hai ..
Dad : Iska kuch future ban sakta hai cricket me ? abhi iski barwi ki exam aani wali hai ise padhai par bhi dhyan dena hai!
Coach: Agar sal bhar practice ki subah sham 3-3 ghante to shayad under 19 khel le..
Dad: Phir padhai ka kya ?
Coach: Wo to use adjust karni padhengi .. nahi to nahi ho payenga .. waise hi ye thoda late hai .. mere pas to bacche 10 sal se aathe hai tab under 19 me jagah milti hai unhe .. ye late aaya hai ..
(I guess if this was one of the K serials the camera would have focussed on my , my dads and the coach'es face 3 time each with the dhaaaaa! dhaaaaa! dhaaaaa! music in the background and the coach giving a wicked smile.)

So here I am a software engineer working in a software firm building software for its sophisticated clients , now you don't have to be a rocket scientist to know what the result was of that discussion. So as I sit on the bed watching Shahrukh Khan with his six packs dancing in the aisles and doing a jig every time the camera is on him, I feel uneasy in the stomach ,and then the thought creeps up in my mind , what am I doing here sitting like a fat ass with six folds instead of six packs on my stomach eating karachi biscuit and watching the kiwi keeper hit balls in all corners of the ground , is all of this wrong ? what have I done with my life ? am I responsible for what has happened ? should I have been more proactive in giving direction to my life ?
To all these question I got only one answer ..
"Life is like a sinusoidal wave my friends, sometimes you are in the trough's and you feel sad and depressed but be rest assured that every trough is followed by a crest "
So here is to the wait for the Crest to arrive!
Chao!
~Destruction leads to a very rough road but it also breeds creation : RHCP (Californication)

NumeroUno

2008-04-15T13:45:00.000+05:30

Here are collection of some of the articles blogs/links which are interesting read.

http://mydayzwithmyself.blogspot.com/
This is a blog from Abhi a IIM guy working in ITC if i am not wrong.This guy finds humor in day to day life and will make you laugh.
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2006/04/07/bath
This blog post uses a really funny way to describe a mundane daily task of a mother.

http://justenoughlight.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/the-difference-between-science-god/
Go though this.Its an interesting read For those who believe in god and those who don’t.One of the most interesting debates I have heard about the battle of science and GOD

http://roso.epfl.ch/dm/murphy.html
This is the link for the always applicable Murphy's Laws For those who are not aware of Murphy's law , these are the set of laws which says "If anything can go wrong, it will" this was one of the first laws the ways this law was born in mentioned here http://www.edwards.af.mil/history/docs_html/tidbits/murphy's_law.html subsequently many more corollaries have come in some are my favourites are:
"The severity of the Itch is inversely proportional to the reach"
"The chances of a presentation demo not working is directly proportional to the number of people watching"
Will keep writing about varied things as I continue.
Adios for now.