(Con)fusion at Crossword!!!

A rather long post so if u don’t have time you can go to the last paragraph directly..

I had ample free time in the afternoon on one day last week and the computers on which net is accessible were busy as usual so a friend and myself decided to check out the Crossword store which is at a walking distance from the office. I had already made up my mind to buy one of the Calvin & Hobbes books and the friend also had 1-2 books in his mind. It was the first time I had gone to this Crossword branch so was quite unaware where the sections were located at this place. So ENQUIRY COUNTER 1 was the place the man at the cash counter pointed me to ask my doubts. There a gal (lets say gal no.1) was sitting tapping at the keyboard on her desk. I asked her where I would find a C&H book.

Gal No. 1: You want the whole collection or a single book?
Me: Single (I knew the whole collection costs somewhere around 7000 bucks)
Gal No. 1: Go to the Humour section located there (pointing)
Me: Thanks! The section for Shantaram?

Gal No. 1: In the Best Sellers’ section over here (pointing)

Thanking her I went off to the humour section and browsed through 3 C&H books. Finally settled for one of them and then checked out Shantaram (it is too fat). The guy whom I had come along with, A, had already taken Robin Sharma’s new arrival and was pacing here and there looking for me. I waved to him and called him over and told him that I wanted to buy Shantaram too but maybe next time or from the roadside vendor, so I was finished and we might move back to office. He said that we have to spend at least 30 more minutes there coz if we go in early then his lead would allot him extra work. Thinking how to spend time there, I remembered that the Crossword branch near my house only had plastic wrapped copies of Laetitia Casta’s book and this being a bigger branch might have one unwrapped copy. So back to the Enquiry Counter 1; another girl this time (gal no. 2); I go on:

Me: Err.. I don’t know the name of the book but it is on Laetitia Casta. Can you find it for me?
Gal no. 2: What did you say it is on?
Me: It is on Laetitia Casta.. supermodel Laetitia Casta. It probably contains her photographs and the size of the book is around this much (showing her by hands)
Gal no. 2: What is the author’s name?
Me: I am not aware of it.
Gal no. 2: So how will I find it?
Me: Well you could enter the name in that comp and probably it will give some result.
Gal No. 1 arrives there with half sandwich in hand n the other in her mouth
Gal No. 2: He is searching for some book on casting..
Me: No no.. not casting; Laetitia Casta.
Gal No. 1 nods and I am happy that she knows what I am looking for. She starts typing in the name.
Me: The spelling is wrong. It is l-a-e-t-i-t-i-a.

Gal No. 1: (munching) l-a-t-e or l-a-t-i?

Now generally if someone is munching n speaking I would tell him/her to first swallow that thing but I controlled myself and repeated the spelling slowly. The search threw up a book in the Fashion section so I followed Gal No. 2 who took me and A there. A was visibly bored by that search and was continuously asking me what I was searching for. I was explaining him who Laetitia was and how amazing she looks.

Gal No. 2: You speak marathi well.
Me: Yeah.
Gal No. 2: You don’t look like you can speak marathi.
Me: Err.. *thinking whether I have to say thanks or what*
A: Can you please leave his marathi skills and improve your skills in finding a book?
Me: *LOL* (I just couldn’t control my laughter)

Gal No. 2: *glaring at both of us*

She somehow fished out the book and gave it to us. To our luck it was an unwrapped copy so we pulled two dice shaped stools and drooled over the gorgeous photos.
A: Why don’t you buy this one instead of that cartoon thing you have taken?
Me: Look at the price of that book. It would be a delight if someone gifted me that on birthday
A: *looking at the price* Ohh.. that is expensive. Yeah someone should gift it to me too.
Me: Hey see there *pointing high up the rack* .. Pirelli photoshoot book? Wow! I wasn’t aware that they had a book besides the famous calendars.
A: What is that?
Me: Just take that book out. I used to watch the shoot on FTV.
A kept carefully the Laetitia book aside reached up there and we started seeing the pics of the models. We didn’t notice that 2 aunties had come in that section and as I saw up one of them was glaring at us seeing the assets of the models jumping out of the book.
Me: Chee chee! What type of dirty books you read A! *got up and went towards the payment counter*

A: *confused and trying to hide the book*

Now this thing didn’t end here but I got a cashier in front of me who had joined the earlier day and was not used to the software they had for billing. But since this post is becoming too long so won’t trouble you more with the conversation that went on there. That guy was literally on verge of tears and continuously said sorry for keeping me waiting. I thought in my mind ‘It is ok dude! I am working on a software for past 1 year and still find new things ‘bout it everyday. You just joined in yesterday’. Of course didn’t tell that to him.. aakhir mein Nana Patekar jaise sochna padta hain “Image Image!” By the way, I am still unaware of the Laetitia book name and author and some models definitely look better in clothes than naked (from Pirelli).

On Sunday I got to attend a kathak-salsa fusion concert and it was superb. I had seen kathak before live but had seen salsa only on screen and it was even better when they had the dancers of both the types perform together. The classical side of music had tabla, flute and a sitar while the western music was with guitar, drums and synthesizer. The flutist and the drummer were awesome. If my friend is reading this then it was really nice attending the program and yes I was not bored at all since you feared that. If my friend is not reading this even then it was nice lest anyone would point that out.

The pics blog has finally been updated with pics from the trip and a few earlier ones. I don’t understand why blogger should have word verification for writing posts. Also does anyone know how to connect Hello software and beta blogger? I am not able to use Hello for beta blogger. Happy Navratri to all and may Goddess Durga bless us all. Have a good time playing dandiya.

Return of the Dragon

How does it feel when one is enjoying getting drenched in a waterfall and all the cameras are kept back in the rooms coz of heavy rains (so sorry that the pics of the nice time are not clicked) and then how does one feel when all cams are pointing towards him coz he has been asked to do a stupid thing (ofcourse wont be showing those pics)? Have been in both positions in this trip still i can say that we had a nice time. Not very nice like the last one coz had many dropouts at the last moment for various reasons but still the strength was 29. We started off on Friday night with the bus coming late as usual and then after a couple of delays from our side under the pretext of clicking pics we finally started off towards Amboli. The next morning .. mmmm.. lets say dawn coz the sun was yet to peep above the horizon we stopped somewhere in the middle of the road. The silence of the nature was a bit frightening after the pandemonium in the bus for almost the entire night. After a long time I saw the sun rising and real cool breeze blowing gently in the face. Somewhere far off it might have rained coz the breeze was carrying a faint smell of moist soil. After a photo session there of our dishevelled hair we moved ahead and reached the hotel. After choosing rooms n groups to stay with, everybody freshened up and it was decided to go to the nearest waterfalls after having breakfast. The nearest one was just 3 kms away so we decided to walk instead of taking the bus so that the driver will also catch sleep after driving the whole night. It was bright and sunny outside so we all hit the road talking and playing forgetting that at a diversion we need to ask for directions. So after going on for about 2-3 kms it dawned upon us that we were walking in the wrong direction and as if to add to that the heavens opened and down came the rain. So after hurrying to the hotels the cameras and wallets were tucked away and we all now completely wet n shivering headed to the right direction. The waterfall was awesome and i also accidentally banged my head against a rock. After a tiring walk back (it was ghat section) we merrily had lunch and later some dozed off while some of us indulged in a game of cards. Late in the evening, the campfire organising group tried very hard to light up the fire from the woods which were by now wet and the rains had stopped for a while but it was all misty and it was very hard to see even a few yards ahead. So after a few unsuccessful attempts the flames leaped into the air and some of our wicked minds started spinning tales of ghosts. 2 girls started reciting hanuman chalisa.. lollzz. The rains came to their rescue so all moved into one of the rooms but the stories didnt stop and people who were laughing before had a horrible time going back to their rooms and sleeping.. he he. I was very sleepy and went to sleep otherwise i had some nice plans to take the ghost stories further into real life. Anyways, next time..

On Sunday morning, we had planned to go to the Radhanagari forest but due the heavy rains the sanctuary was closed. So we went to fort Panhala and another waterfall (it was not allowed to enter in it) instead and later finished it off with the Mahalakshmi temple at Kolhapur in the night. At 12:30 in the night we were at the milestone which read Pune 77 kms. We were not aware that the Katraj ghat was closed coz a tanker had got stuck in the tunnel and we were caught in a line of stranded vehicles on either side of the tunnel. At around 4:30 the bus was slowly trudging towards a milestone which read Pune 70 kms. The traffic was diverted and then we reached the office at 10 in the morning from where all went back to their homes to meet again in few hours for work and enjoying the pics n videos. There are 842 pics and around 500 Mb videos. Don’t worry wont be uploading all those but will surely upload a few by the next weekend. Meanwhile here is one of the pics..

I have switched to beta blogger. If you are still on the old blogger and want to migrate, it is easy.. just sign into blogger and under your edit profile section in dashboard there is a link which takes to Learn More about Beta Blogger. You just need a gmail account, so go ahead and switch to it coz I have heard that beta blogger users can’t comment on old blogs. Sorry for the late update, no replies to the comments on earlier posts n less visits on your blogs.. will be back in action soon. Have a gr8 time all of you..

Desktop Goddess # 2

Mere khayalon ki malika

mere khayalon ki malika

chaaron taraf teri chaiyyan re

thamble aake baiyyan

Aayi phulon ke ras mein nahake

layi bheenisi khushboo churake

teri aankhon mein hain halka sa nasha

tera roop meri nazaron mein basaa

I love Aishwarya Rai's mesmerising eyes. It is a fact that when she appealed to the people to register for donating their eyes after death the number of donors increased multi-fold. Anyone has seen the trailor of Dhoom 2? Saw it last week n Ash sizzles in it.

Going on a weekend outing to Amboli hill station. Will be starting off tomorrow night n back on Monday morn. So happy weekend in advance to all of you. Keep smiling :)

Sex, Lies and Videotapes!

The title is not misleading. :P

I was catching up with a school friend on msn over the weekend, after meeting him on orkut after school, and then the movie whose name is mentioned in the title brought back memories. It was way back in 8th grade when the internet had not spread its wings (or fangs) over us and we were totally unaware of the other meaning of the word web** other than the one the spider spins with its saliva. Frankly speaking the first time I was introduced to net was at a friend’s place much later where he had showed the whole group comparison between Pamela’s n Cindy’s bootlicious bodies. After that, had followed frantic calls to people who knew how to clear history of web pages visited.. lol. So before that the only sources of entertainment were cable television and a bunch of books some guys religiously got into school every month. The cablewallah used to show nice stuff late nights but that time we hadn’t subscribed to the cable so like many guys from my class I was left at the mercy of the guys with the books. One of them was the guy mentioned in the opening line. This dude A had a very nice dad (still might be having) and we all used to envy him that time. Now, where on earth you will find a dad who gives monthly pocket-money exclusively for buying porn books? I guess nowhere and naturally we had developed a sense of deep respect for his dad.. he he. So the books would get into the class and the big geography books were undressed from their covers and the cover page models would get draped into them for circulating in the class. During one such session we coincidentally had the geography lecture on and the teacher Mrs. K asked one guy to read a certain paragraph from the text book and till now you must have figured out that he had the other book in the covers and was stumped what to do. It was a hilarious scene but he somehow managed to get the original geography book from the nearby benches. But I still clearly remember the teacher’s face writ with surprise and the guy’s huh-what-happened look when she asked him why he had to exchange the books just to read out a paragraph. So coming back to the guy A; once he had mentioned in class that there was a movie Sex, Lies and Videotape on some channel. So the next day we were quite eager to hear his review of how the movie was and more for the hot scenes but as usual the censors had cut the hot scenes and the foul language was beeped out. A few years back again this movie was aired and this time we had cable but I don’t remember why I didn’t see it. Might be coz I already knew that it was going to be edited before screening.

The censorship is still in but I feel it has grown to a large extent than before. Late night stuff is definitely for adult viewing but the government agencies don’t think that the audience is mature enough to view it. Leave apart the things related to sex, one cannot celebrate Valentines Day fearing the moral police brigade to come and beat him/her. Pubs and discotheques can’t remain open till wee hours’ coz we don’t want any ‘western’ influence on our good culture. My company has now kept 2 separate computers for surfing the internet. Imagine an IT company where 100 people want to check mails or surf but have access to only 2 computers for that. I don’t know whether to frown or laugh at it. Today afternoon I wrote on my whiteboard ‘Restrictions and Attrition go hand-in-hand’. I really have no idea if this will be read by the management but now this is a form of protest thanks to ‘gandhigiri’.. ha ha.

** I really feel happy when I see kids as young as in 1st grade learning and knowing computers. We had been introduced to computers in say 5th or 6th grade and we used to play Packman and Dave on the school computers and used to learn DOS in curriculum. When I was active in a social group for teaching kids a few years back, we had to go to their houses to meet their parents so as to confirm that their school studies were not affected due to our extra-curricular activities. I was literally stumped when a kid aged around 7-8 years hurled some technical jargon at me and told how he was learning to build his own website. But then I feel somewhat uneasy with the access these little children have to sites after getting messages on hi5 or orkut saying that I liked your profile and when their profile is seen it reads age 14-15 and status is committed. I don’t know whether I am still being orthodox in some ways but I feel sad for the parents of a gal aged in her very early teens whose scrapbook is filled with messages such as “Hey sexy gal! Can we go on a date tomorrow?” I just click the ‘back’ button on the browser and say to myself “Which age you are in? Grow up! This is what you have to accept with the developments in technology”. Really I have to grow up or else have to accept that the scene in the lower cartoon is or can be a real thing.

Tryst with the Mahatma on Teachers’ Day!

Can there be a better way celebrating Teachers’ Day ** than wishing one’s fav teachers n then watching the movie Lage Raho Munnabhai? I would say this is perfect, just perfect. The part two of the movie Munnabhai MBBS is great.. no it is awesome! Let me first of all make it clear tht m not a fan of Mahatma Gandhi coz I haven’t read anything ‘bout him other than the few chapters of 3-4 pages we have in our history books. The movie simply conveys his preachings in such a manner tht u rarely can disagree with the characters n the director. The Father of the Nation has been reduced to either a statue around which politics is played by vandalizing it or a portrait hung in a frame in the govt offices under which corruption blossoms n comes to full bloom. The younger generation knows him as a face on the currency note n a figure lifting salt to break the shackles of English rule in colonial India. The movie without being preachy n without the ‘do-this-do-that’ dialogues cleanly conveys how we have lost the path which was shown to us by Gandhiji. I don’t remember watching a movie which has this perfect blend of reality n humour. The roles have been perfectly essayed by each n everybody. The soft-hearted don Munnabhai n his best man Circuit make sure u keep rolling with laughter. Vidya Balan looks nice as usual n does well as usual too but I hate her radio jockey character’s ‘Gooood Moooorning Mumbai’ drawl which sounds very shrill to wake up frm deep slumber. Dilip Prabhavalkar is gud playing Mahatma Gandhi while Boman Irani does his small part ok. Apart frm a few scenes which I felt went over the board the whole movie is awesome.. music is also gud. Is it an irony tht the audience is almost emotionless when the Mahatma says tht his statue is being vandalized everywhere but later u can see everyone choked with emotions n fingers reaching slowly to the eyes when the lead characters say sorry to each other? Or is it ok with the kind of world we are living in?

It is just impossible to meet all teachers who have taught till date on a single day to thank them but it is more impossible just to remember all the teachers who have taught. I just remember a handful coz they have been my fav teachers. So thnx to my parents, N.M.Kulkarni, Manjiri Shrikhande, K.M.Gokhale, Mrs. Jugade, Sanjeevani Bokil, Prof. Khake, Late B.G.Kulkarni, Anjali Patil n Girish Modak. Also, thnx to all of u out there (bloggers n non-bloggers) who have contributed in my learning at some or the other turn of my life. As a saint had said “Guru is a guru no matter what his/her age is”.

As we now remember our teachers n thank them for nurturing us how can we overlook the Ujjain incident in which students killed a professor by beating him black n blue. Wht a sorry state of education is this in which students are responsible for their own professor’s death for petty reasons such a college election.. n yes we will be happy to blame all this on the politics entering the education field but it is indeed a sad day for all of us to see a professor die at the hands of goons who run the college under the shadows of politicians. On the other hand we also have a student admitted in a critical state for being ragged by a senior under the garb of introduction. We surely need an idol for today n watching the movie surely makes me think tht Mahatma shld have been there today. Or would he have died a thousand deaths seeing wht the country is into now?

** Teachers’ day or Teacher’s Day?? Again the same question I had asked on Mother’s day .. but now I have decided tht since teachers are many, for me it will be Teachers’ Day while for mom it will be Mother’s Day. Have a gr8 weekend!

Desktop Goddess # 1

I've even seen miracles

I've felt the pain disappear

But still haven't seen anything

That amazes me quite like you do

You bring me up when I'm feeling down

you touch me deep you touch me right

You do the things I've never done

You make me wicked you make me wild

'Cause baby, you're my number one

One of my most fav pic of my most fav model Laetitia Casta.

Everything I do, I do it for you!

As I was typing this post I got one of the hilarious messages on one of my communities on orkut. It was an invitation for gals of tht community to oppose eve-teasing (now I support tht) but the message mentioned tht for this all gals shld start adam-teasing .. lollzz… now I find tht funny. I have not been a ‘privileged’ male member to undergo tht kind of teasing but imagine a guy complaining to his frnds tht he got adam-teased by a gal on way to office. The gal might have whistled at him n said in a sweet voice “Kya be chikne!! Movie ko aata ke mere saath? Chal naa..” .. lollzz.. tht would be a sight. Out of curiousity, as to who must have joined such a grp, I clicked on the link n whoa! 2000+ members were already members of tht community. Be careful guys.. :P


Okk.. now coming back to the post. Some pics for my blogger frnds.. they are related to their recent posts or their lives as far as I know them so others might not get wht the pic is for. But don’t feel sad.. as u all know blogger doesn’t allow posting many pics together so there will be sequels for this n ur name will surely figure in one of them at least.


First pic -has- to C&H .. n couldn’t find a better pic to suit u Navdeep .. MUAHAHAHA. Actually I had one pic of Eiffel Tower for u.. but as it is u gonna see it there live so be happy with this u KID!! :P

Parag u can try this trick in the very hot Tucson .. though I wonder how much u will get to rest now tht u got a new job along with the studies. :))

Ishita, Kalpz n Aditi had demanded the pic of the idol at my home. :)) It is actually a throne/seat n not a temple as I had thought of before assembling it. I don’t like decoration part n the colourful pins have been added by mom.

Vaibhav, saying ‘MTV rocks’ is more than enough I guess ;))

Yashita, we will take this Pluto along with us on our trip coz might be we need someone who can tackle aliens living on planet Pluto ;))