Bruised history

It is mind boggling that the mind actually remembers the dates, incidents and people which it should forget, and on the other hand it forgets the ones to be remembered.

That accident had shaken me up because it was my first one on a busy road, and since then somehow the month of December has been prone to give a lot of unpleasant surprises. Today morning when I was leaving for office and took my bike out of the parking slot the mind warned me that it is Dec 15th. I smiled brushing off the thought and told my mind to shut up. The first turn after getting out of the building, a school rickshaw coming from the opposite direction swerved wildly, and I avoided it in time. Within a minute on the next turn 2 guys came out suddenly (from a building gate), and to avoid hitting them I slowed down and hit the brakes. Wham! After taking two tumbles I was lying on my bike with both hands caught under it. Nursing the few bruises I have got I have been sitting today at home. The pain in the palm not-withstanding it feels a good break solely due to the reason that it has been a hectic phase at the workplace and found time to listen to some good old songs*. How I wish to be more active on the blog and even with stuff to write here, time is always finding a way to elude me. Anyway, you guys please drive safely and stay fit.

*Still humming to yeh shaam mastani and phir wohi raat hai.

P.S.: When I say 'you guys', to whom am I referring to? There are hardly a few who are still active (reading and/or writing). So many blogger friends have disappeared from the scene. I hope that the active ones do not stop writing.

Face value

I have this peculiar habit of scanning faces, the pretty and the not-so pretty ones too, in public places. Not only looking at the faces, but as to what they are doing, and thinking on what they might be thinking. I assume everyone does that, but instead of generalizing I will say that it is my habit. So at the lunch table in the cafeteria one day when the discussions veered off to how incompetent the project manager is I preferred to look past the table occupants and spotted a face amongst others. I knew I had seen him before somewhere and that too before joining this company, but I was not able to register where. I do boast that I have a good memory of recollecting faces and at the same time I regret that my memory of remembering names is very weak. So I wondered that if I smile at the familiar face either he would recognize me with my name and I would be fumbling remembering his name (which happens most of the times) or I would smile and he would be like why is this guy smiling at me when I don’t know him (which also happens many times). So I did not smile or wave at him, but still was thinking where I had seen that guy. Then while leaving the cafeteria we were about to cross each other and I saw that he was looking at me with a similar where-have-I-seen you look. I smiled weakly and he said, “Sharma?” The face-recollecter narcissist in me poked fun at me again that the guy standing in front not only recognized my face but was also remembering my name. After some small talk we left for our offices. He also was not able to remember where we had met, but later it struck me (by the way he addressed my surname) that we were in the same tuition class 11 years back. Had it been only his voice or full name instead of his face, I don’t think I would have recognized him.

This power of (or dependency on) the face came out strongly in the project I completed recently. We had about 200 team members working from different locations and different companies, over different time zones. Out of these 200 around I had met only 8-10 people who were from the floor opposite to mine. While talking to the remaining ones during the conference calls I used to imagine their faces. I used to associate known faces to these unknown people based on their voices, names, locations and my imagination over the last 10 months. The problem was when the known people used to meet me and I started calling them by the names of the unknown faces since I had mapped their faces to the names I was talking to the entire day. Last week my onshore counterpart sent a few photographs of a party the team there had attended. On the call I asked him where he was standing in the photograph; the picture I had in my head was completely the opposite of him. Now when I talk to him after that day I am not able to co-relate the real face with that voice as I am used to the mental image I had created over these many months. Among the blogger friends I have so far imagined I had told Sayesha that before visiting her travel blog where she had posted her photograph I always thought her to be like the actress Sandhya Mridul. I have still not heard Sayesha’s voice so associating her with the actress is a different story altogether, but even today the first image that comes to my mind when I read her blog is of the actress and then her real face.

Cast(e)away

How good is good enough I ask myself. Seriously I am tired of this ‘good boy’ image now… yeah I can see you raising your eyebrows… but I have this invisible crown on my head which reads Family Idol. You may not notice the crown… I already said it is invisible… but you may notice the efforts put in to carry it properly all the time. Like King Henry IV said Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. I don’t want my cousins to look up to me as a great person whom they want to ape. I don’t like telling my cousin to attend his college regularly because I never did but still everyone in the family tells him to attend the college like good old Sudeep bhaiya did. I don’t want my cousin brother at home to like my clothes and ask me which coloured tee or shirt he should buy ‘coz my clothes are selected by my friends so I don’t have a good taste. I also don’t like anyone wearing my clothes. Anyways ranting here won’t help the case but I want to do something bad, real bad. At least then everyone will not expect only good stuff from my side and paint their own faces white in horror saying OMG! IS that you Sudeep? We never expected this from you. I see myself doing something of this sort in the next few months and might be this will lead me to being an outcast in the family or maybe the whole society as someone warned me. But heck I am going to do it and have fun. I don’t care if I have a few major dents on my goody-goody image. I suddenly remembered how Spiderman changed his red attire into a black one in the third part of the movie… ha ha. Seems the music list in the media player also knows what is going on in my mind. The song playing is
Seene mein jalan aankhon mein toofan sa kyu hai
Is shahar mein har shaks pareshan sa kyu hai

Seems everyone out there has a crown eh?

Finally I went to see a doc today for my sore throat ‘coz it had got worse over the past 2 days. Keeping mum was the only option to avoid the coughing. Took the medicine in the morning and it worked coz I am back to speaking in spurts. Want to thank Ekta for her post, though I read it a few days late. Also to Sakshi for her Durex condom testers' post ‘coz we guys had a good laugh here. Now that blogspot is blocked seems I will be putting in comments for other posts here itself. Hmm… on that thought I will take your leave. Have a good weekend… err or maybe bad weekend :D. I will be back to tell you about the bad part success or failure and maybe the encounter with a seems-to-be-a-pimp and foreigners on a recent trip to Mumbai.

ScaryHairy encounter on a date!

10-01-2008 and 16-01-2008

I think these are two dates (dates as in calendar dates) which I won’t forget for quite a long, long time. In fact if I say my whole life, it won’t be an exaggeration. Hmm… yeah I won’t forget them till the last moment. Some days you just want to hold on to the hands of the clock and not let them tick along and might be try dragging them back so that the day doesn’t turn into night and then night into dawn. Let me give it a try. Damn it! I broke my wrist-watch and it is digital. Ok sad attempts at humour aside, I am going through a B-phase right now… Sean’s famous B-phase. I sincerely hope that he doesn’t come around and comment on this part but for others B is for bald. Yes Sean, let’s say it as bald ;-). Sean had shaved off his head completely and I am thinking of doing the same in spite of the fact that if I wait for a few days… ok few months it will automatically be a barren land :D. This thought did not come into my mind due to the exam results, which have started pouring in but by seeing a colleague. This guy just passed from here when I was typing the initial lines. He has this weird curly hair (of course curly hair on his head, you and your dirty mind :D) and the first thing I want to do, if permitted, is to take a razor and shave off that Medusa-kind look he carries. Some girls here have nicknamed him ‘Wazz the program?’ from the Lays wafers advertisement. I really dislike curly hair esp. on cute looking girls; I mean natural curls at the end of locks looks good but totally frizzy hair like the actress Kangana Ranaut is a total turn-off for me. Rohit and I were leaving the XAT exam test centre last Sunday and spotted a girl coming out of the St. Xaviers Church (quite an X-factor coincidence) and she had this all curly hair and for the first time in my life I was like ‘Wow!! Her curly hair is so amazing’. We guys were so besotted by her beauty that we hardly took off our eyes away from her while discussing the essay topic “Consequences of Gender Imbalance – Third World War”. Talking about turn-offs, wet hair sure turns me on :). It is not those Bollywood rain-dance-wet-bodies scenes I am pointing to, but only wet hair. Hmm now girls know what they should try next time :p. By the way, did you know that Medusa was a beautiful nymph before she was turned into a snaky-haired monster? Now I wonder how beautiful she must have looked with long flowing wet hair.

The only problem I am facing in the B-phase is open discussion or not even discussion but free flow of my own thoughts. Sean could post it easily and asked for suggestions and opinions probably because he uses a pseudonym. Blogging with a real name is sometimes a huge problem. Every line in the post is broken into pieces and read between lines and then the worst part is the barrage of questions. Day before yesterday one of my colleagues walked up to me and said “I heard you wrote a nice article on Taare Zameen Par on your blog.” I replied “Review, yes but nice I am not sure. But how do you know that I blog and who told you about my blog?” It is a bit intimidating when you don’t want people to know a few things but still want to post about it. Though it always amazes me that I don’t have qualms on sharing this with the people I have never met… the virtual friends. Might be coz I can choose to ignore when they play the curious cat which sadly the people in real life don’t seem to gauge when to stay away and what not to ask. Well as someone quoted 'One has to pay a huge price for being a celebrity'. Ha ha… I am next to Narcissus, ain’t I? :-)

Last month, one evening I was sitting with a friend on a bench near a college and we had such a great conversation as if we were best friends knowing each other for many years. Just a couple of hours of the talk with him and we both confessed that it felt great to vent out all the thoughts and seeking an opinion of someone and plain discussion on things which mattered and hardly mattered to us. Though I think it was the environment that made it better… I can’t remember the last time I had idly sat on a star-lit night not thinking about client interactions and work deadlines. For a change we both talked on say 50 topics and didn’t touch the work aspect. He later laughed and commented, “You digress a lot. Look what we had started talking on and where we are ending this conversation with.” I don’t know why people keep saying that to me often. Take this post for example… I started it with 2 dates and I am ending it with them :D. Happy weekend folks!

10th Jan 08 and 16th Jan 08!

She & Me – Part II

Let me tell you one characteristic of this ‘Me’ character. He has what he likes to call ‘photographic memory disease’ and can remember 8 out of 10 randomly already seen faces but sometimes will fail to recollect names of people he works with everyday. In his defense he says he is so fascinated with names that it is difficult to remember them. Well I never denied that ‘Me’ was a hell boring character! ‘Me’ has had many instances where he has remembered faces of people and smiled but the people couldn’t recollect his face (or at least pretended not to :D) and many many instances where the people recognized him but he couldn’t recollect their names even though their faces seemed similar. So he had decided not to smile first and wait for people to smile at him (note that is smile not laugh :D) and not to ask anyone ‘Hey were you in such-n-such college/school’ or ‘I think I have seen you before’ for the fear of being labeled as an opening line for the opposite sex. But one evening he accidentally broke the rule..


A few days back ‘Me’ entered the class which was almost packed with a few seats at the back and a few in the first row vacant. Being a back-bencher all his life he didn’t even think of sitting right under the teacher’s nose and settled down in a chair in the last but one row. Glancing through the corner of his eyes he spotted 2 girls on his right giggling over some conversation and one girl on the left chair reading some book. He hoped he was in the right class because none of the faces seemed from his batch (2-3 batches were clubbed for revision). After a few minutes:
Girl on left (She): *says something*
Me: Err.. Sorry?
She: Are you a student?
Me: *thinks that her face is similar* Well in this class yes but otherwise I am working since last 2 years.
She: Ok! It is good to see some professional because my batch had all students and they..
Me: *interrupts* Hey you were sitting in the first row in the Test Room 14 during the test on last Sunday, right?
She: *smiles uneasily*
Me: *Damn!! Looks around to find Sayesha’s rolled-up hypothetical newspaper to whack his own head*
She: Yes..
Me: I .. err.. I just recollected seeing your face. *shit*
-silence-
Me: *another person who thinks I am a stalker.. Welcome to the club*
She: Where do you work?
Me: *relieved that she is talking again* X company
She: Software?
Me: Well kind of.. what about you?
She: blah blah..


Fortunately for ‘Me’ the conversation for the next 20 odd minutes was not odd. She turned out to be a consultant in stocks and shares and luckily ‘Me’ was a bit aware of current stock market trends so the discussion was interesting. She even suggested some names of companies that ‘Me’ should get shares of for long term investment. And as Yashita wrote that it is a ‘liberating experience’ to talk to people from a different profession ‘Me’ was also happy that ‘She’ didn’t ask which platform or which domain do you work on coz ‘Me’ is fed up of software engineers asking the same thing and probably the only thing. Frankly speaking ‘Me’ neither works on any domain nor begs on any platform.. old boring joke yeah! Many a times I remember people from blogs while coming across something related to their old posts and mail them that ‘Hey look what I found or I thought of you that time when I saw/did something-something’. And after hitting the send button I always wonder that whether the person will think I am stalking them or trying to get too close to their private lives in real. Even in this post I made reference of old posts of two blogger friends.. but they have already labelled me a stalker lol.. kidding. So if I remind you something next time then please remind me to say ‘Welcome to the club’ to you :)

As random as it can get..

Finished my 10 day leave and am back to office. Given the rate of attrition everyone is eyeing me suspiciously and most have already decided that I am about to resign like all others are doing. Anyone, who smiles at the HR person, is under intense scrutiny nowadays and people even go to the extent of deciding the relieving date even when the person has not resigned. Some people said that I was not accessible during my leave and complained that I neither checked mails nor answered calls. In my defense I would say that I was studying and the mobile is for the convenience of the owner and not the caller. I did start with the studies (in case Dalicia is wondering he he) and I am hoping to give at least one if not a few hours daily towards some serious preparation or else I will be stuck in a job either in this company or some other and I am seriously bored of ‘working’ (read professional) life now.

We had our school’s class reunion on last Saturday. Most of my classmates are out of Pune so the strength of the meet was just around 15 out of 60 odd students. But it was good catching up with them and reviving some long forgotten school memories as I was meeting some of them after 6-7 years. It was also quite a revelation on how the girls now pass comments, the same which we did during the school days, about other girls but that time they had vehemently denied accepting those. I won’t go into a confession mode but felt happy that those observations of guys still hold true he he. One of the girls remarked during a conversation “I never knew Punjabis can speak Marathi so fluently.” I retorted “Thanks! I am learning” and the people who know me well laughed so loudly that the girl was a bit embarrassed and in turn me too for saying that. Later I clarified that I am not a Punjabi and neither learning Marathi.

While helping Sayesha to find a friend in Singapore (one of my colleagues shifted there after her marriage so was introducing them) I observed that I also need to find people here. I remember I had written similar thing about 2 years back when I had finished college and my college friends were leaving for destinations abroad or for jobs outside the city. But then I came across some wonderful people in company and now when they are leaving I find myself back to ground zero. Out of all these company guys Gaurav & Mahesh would be my favourite people coz we three have spent the maximum time together.. maybe in sleepovers at somebody’s house, in the gym watching babes instead of working out or at the fresh ice-cream parlour sipping CAD-M. Gaurav has already left the organization and Mahesh is leaving Pune in mid-August so might be we would be having our last night-out together tonight.

I wonder how many of you could mug up or very coolly remember Newton’s laws in school or college. I couldn’t; but had the new Apache bike advertisement aired in those days I certainly would have remembered them. I found the ad uploaded on youtube here... have a look even if you don’t know Newton’s laws or are not fond of bikes.

Whts ur pretext?

Last month Miss Universe 2007 took place and you might be aware already that Miss Japan was the winner. When I saw the news that she won the title the first thought in my mind was not that why didn’t Miss India win but I remembered that 2 years back Sean (AnonymousBlogger) had come to my blog for the first time and read the Miss Universe 2005 post which Miss Canada had won. Then I made my grey cells work and I remembered how each one in the blogger list on the right side-pane had met me in the blog-world.. be it me going to their blog or them coming here. Also I could remember almost all posts and comments so far. Frankly I thought and still think this is quite weird but yeah I do remember most of the stuff exchanged here. Now call this weird or not but some people land up on this blog in a weirder way.. I am not talking about you all who read my blog but who don’t read but come here searching for something else.

Reading Sitemeter is absolute entertainment as what people search for. As I had previously put down some searches, here are some popular and weird ones as why the counter on the right keeps on ticking.

Most of the non-readers come here coz they are searching for the sexual err.. social networking site ‘my space’. Now it is quite clear that they stumble upon here since the blog’s name is ‘It’s my space’. But the searches are not for just Myspace but people search for ‘How to tilt your profile in my space’, ‘Pics for my space’, ‘How to make the font bold in my space’, ‘The lady in my space’ etc. I was quite confused earlier as to what is my space until I opened an account on that site just to check what the hell was there in that which kept attracting people. Just for the record I only have 2 known online friends there (both bloggers, Squishy and Veggie) and I really don’t know from where the other requests keep pouring in and spam my inbox. I would recommend orkut if you are interested in networking and Myspace if you are interested in getting spammed by bots.

Another popular search is for the marathi songs or the lyrics of Salil Kulkarni and Sandeep Khare. I have a document of lyrics of the songs of these guys so if anyone coming here for that and reading this you can ask for it. Some people are also coming to listen to ‘Mi baburao boltoy’ song but sorry neither I have the song nor the lyrics. Quite a number of people are searching for the name of the model in ‘Aaja Piya’ remix video. For them, her name is Shyla Lopez and she is sexy ;). Don’t ask if she is related to JLo :D. Apart from searching for C-grade Bollywood movies some people are also coming here to see Rakhi Sawant and Mika Singh kiss.. absolute gross and you won’t find it here people.

Other search topics were:
I just wanna die in your arms
Amboli ghats (pics blog)
Girivan (pics blog)
Hot gals in pune
Tattoo of Carlos Moya
Is kaajal advisable on babies? (now where the hell that came from??)
Ragging pics (pics blog)

Swami Ramdev – sleeping back problems

So what was your pretext of coming here? :D

News past 12:00

Mom has gone out of station for a few days and I have been eating out in the afternoons since then. This time I have a few colleagues with me who hate the mess food so we have been trying all the veggie dishes in the ‘hotel lane’. I call that a hotel lane because there are around 15-20 hotels in a single lane and all are full to the max during lunch hours courtesy the huge number of offices around. Now the gravy used for preparation is not much different but I have so far liked all the dishes, which I generally avoided till now. But I must confess that I really dislike Dal Tadka. Now it is surprising coz I like my dal with that tadka at home but in those hotels I just don’t like to eat that. In the nights I have been trying my hand at a few things and so far only once I forgot to put in salt otherwise the food is.. err let’s say edible! :)

I am a member of a group blog since say 2 months; in case you failed to notice the 3rd blog in my profile coz we generally don’t look at the profile. Now this blog has some rules that a member can’t be inactive for more than 3 weeks (there is a specific topic given for writing over those 3 weeks). After joining I did an intro post and later the 2 topics which came up were not of my taste and neither had I the time to try to write on them. So the lull period lasted for 6 weeks and the latest topic was something on which I wrote today and when I opened my mailbox I saw that the topic had ended yesterday night itself. Now I am sure I will be kicked out from there especially when the new topic is ‘10 things about me’ coz I don’t think I can write 10 things on me. Life is an irony.

While we are talking about irony I remembered that isn’t it an irony that a hair clinic has a male receptionist who is bald. Or is it something that they are trying to make us think that see he didn’t get treatment and landed here, so you better take it? I tried to take a pic of that guy but then feared that he might not like it and can pull off my remaining hair in a fit of rage :P

I got this hilarious pic in a mail. Also I have written on my whiteboard:
We workers’ are like sperms; only one works in a million. Rest assured, I am NOT the one

I think such sarcastic statements make a remarkable impact on the seniors especially when this is appraisal time ;).

Many a times we all have heard from girls that guys can’t read between the lines. I would say guys are better in this and in fact gals don’t get hint.

Since we are on girls, I mean we are on the topic of girls; I would like to point out that the girl sitting on the chair next to me in yesterday’s class was trying to flirt with me. She was really hot and she was continuously bending and touching her hair on my arm and then glancing with a sweet smile. Well I just fidgeted uneasily in the chair just because her boyfriend was in the chair next to her and he was like over 6 feet and around twice my size. He would have easily kicked my ass right there. Moral: I need to do weights seriously rather than just running on the treadmill :D. The English teacher I mentioned earlier looks like Suchi (a fellow blogger). Just for the record I confirmed with Suchi that she is not related to the teacher, so I can now do a separate post on the class without any doubts in my mind.

That’s all for the night boys and gals (SRK-KBC one episode effect) and will catch you later. Now I have to go home and kiss my wife?? WTH! I am glad that show ended well before I start to come home early.

2 wickets down.. World Cup is the aim!

Love (Valentine Day) and cricket fever (World Cup approaching) is in the air these days. A comprehensive win over WI team on home ground, SL team on visit, Sehwag-Chapell fued, return of Ganguly, return of the match-fixing ghosts, Tendulkar finding his form back just before his (probably) last world cup though he got out soon today.. just name it and you have it on and off the field. (Tarun, I am missing reading your match reviews a lot :().

The second wicket to go down.. err.. second blogger to meet in person was Vaibhav. I am sure it would be much more interesting to read his post on this but since I have one pic captured so thought of writing in brief (I am wearing clothes). After a quick exchange of mails and cell numbers it was decided to meet up on Saturday when he would be here in Pune from Mumbai. Luckily that day we had our company’s annual day function so we all were working less and a bit relaxed so I knew I could take out a few hours to meet him. When we talked Vaibhav said that he wanted to see the city. I was trying hard to think of places which I could show him around in the city and frankly I could figure out only 2-3 historical places. Then I asked my colleagues and they too came up with the names of those places. It really amuses me how we localites (or at least me) are totally unaware of some places worth a visit but we miss all those in the routine life. The problem facing me was that these places we could figure out are totally uninhabited during the day time except for a few couples looking for a secluded place to make out. Their stares would have made 2 straight guys easily uncomfortable and might have created a wrong impression for some.. he he. But to my utter relief Vaibhav later called up and said that he had been around the city in the morning with his family along with a guide and he wanted to see the city in general; especially the Pune youth hang-out places.

So after meeting (no prizes for guessing that I was late and he had to mssg to remind me :) we decided to grab a bite first at Burger King. On the way we stopped by Osho ashram hoping to catch some phirangi babes in ‘action’ (though my devout Osho follower friend says they don’t have sex there.. wtf??) but very unfortunately all the tickets were sold out for the weekend. Come on, if they don’t do ‘that’ how come all the tickets were sold so quickly? Anyways we left from there highly dejected and Vaibhav also forgot to take the pic of the ’oshonized’ water from the waterfall. Vaibhav, I promise that I will go in there one day and check whether the grapes were really sour or they turn into a sweet wine.. he he. Next stop was BK where we spent quite a time talking. I am really glad that I know someone who left what he was doing to pursue what he liked and is really good at. Of course, Sean and Deepa were the discussion topics too. After a small Pune-darshan of a few city roads (remember it was afternoon so there was nothing much to show :) we stopped at Chitales’ where his parents had come to shop for a few delicacies. Thus ended the few hours meet with Vaibhav. He has already posted some video and you can check out his blog here. I had planned to get a cake for Sean (his b’day was the same day) and post a video but sorry couldn’t do that. Here is one pic I have and this was taken at a bus stop where Vaibhav bought a ticket but didn’t board the bus.. see the bond between 2 bloggers.. lol. Well that is a different story.. but it was a great pleasure meeting and spending some time with him. Hoping that there are more meets and yes I will definitely try to come to Mumbai.

Happy Valentines Day to all of you! Our company had those Little Heart biscuits today in canteen so I took a handful of them and made this on my desk. For the girl of my dreams.. lol.. and she is not any of the desktop goddesses either. Also the song is changed in the marquee on top for her.. maybe one day we will get to do the slow sweet tango :)

Desktop Goddess # 7

Feeling blue
When I'm trying to forget the feeling
That I miss you

Feeling green
When the jealousy swells and it won't
Go away in dreams

Feeling yellow
I'm confused inside a little hazy but mellow
When I feel your eyes on me

Feeling fine, sublime
When that smile of yours
Creeps into my mind

ohhhh.....

Nobody told me it feels so good
Nobody said you'd be so beautiful
Nobody warned me about your smile
You're the light
You're the light
When I close my eyes
I'm colourblind

You make me colourblind

I don’t know how many of you are facing this problem but blogger is giving me some error whenever I am trying to open any blog though I am able to sign me in through the main page. I contacted a few people and some can view blogs and some can view only some blogs. I hope this doesn’t turns out to be a blanket ban like the one a few months ago. It has been a week now since I met Vaibhav and I am hoping that he would have updated his blog on the Pune trip and the meet and also blasted Pune’s traffic scenario :P. If not, Vaibhav please update :D

No need to introduce Penelope Cruz and yes it is true that some faces and smiles make even a colour blind person like me, colour blind. Thanks a ton to Vipul for this song coz I am in love with it.

Celebrating days.. celebrating lives!

I am pleased to tell all of you that 21st January marked 2 years of existence of It’s MY Space and I take more pride and satisfaction to thank each one of you who have been here to be a part of my blog and my life in some way or the other. It struck me that it is January end (thanks to the company Annual Day invitation) and then I remembered that I had written something on the 1st year completion. I went back in the archives and I swear I was lmao reading that. The program schedule for the fictitious event holds true for some (or all?) of the ‘performers’ till date. Go and check out the post here and you might even agree with me. These days the blog has turned dormant and I have been posting not too often and rarely reading other blogs.. okk fine not reading at all.. now don’t give me that look! Whatever I have been posting is nothing but a silly update of the week, some weekend outing or a story related to work and company.. but hey that’s what this space is meant for. You never came here looking for posts on sleazy one night stands, political views or philosophical stuff which will do some hridayparivartan.. but don’t be surprised if you find them henceforth.. not the one night stands I mean. But seriously I miss the Bollywood movies bashing posts, I miss my forgettable views on sports.. I am missing me being me on the blog. I don’t know Aditi if this is what is ‘Fate takes you its way’ or I am fighting fate to take my own other way. What I know is that I have to reorganize my life so that I can devote time to things I like even if they have no short-term or long-term benefit.

Today is 26th January and people across the nation are celebrating (??!!) ‘Republic Day’, the day when the Constitution of India was adopted by the nation. As Piyush Roy writes in his column “It’s the time of the year when patriotic film songs blaring from the neighbourhood club or school could be your wake-up call, whether or not you gather for that ritual unfurling of the national flag on the Republic Day morning”. Surely the Constitution doesn’t tell us to wake up early for the flag-hoisting and by no means if someone doesn’t attend it he/she can be labeled unpatriotic but do we really think about the country except on days like these? I woke up today late-afternoon and that too because some asshole who is running for the civic elections came begging for votes at the doorstep. I don’t remember his name and neither his political party but he said ‘Vote for me’; I said ‘Ok’ and shut the door and slept again. But the blaring loudspeakers these candidates are using for canvassing compelled me to wake up. These people are not creative either.. we all have been listening to 'Tai, mai, akka, vichar kara pukka aani maara haatavar/kamllavar/ghadyallavar shikka' since ages. Use something else now.. the broken promises, the canvassing slogans, the speeches all remain same.. only faces change. Okk let’s be optimistic.. the songs which you will hear the whole day have changed. From 'Dedi humein azadi bina khadak bina dhal' Gandhiji has been transformed into 'Bande mein tha dum'. The famous 'Mere desh ki dharti' has been replaced by the foot tapping 'Mohe mohe tu rang de basanti'. So if songs can catch up with the generations surely people running for elections will too and we can expect some better candidates and a better future for the city and then the country as a whole.

Let us try to forget that someone is using Gandhigiri for absolving himself from an arms and ammunition case, let us try to wipe out the memories of the defacing of the statue of the man (why do we need statues??) who was mainly involved in writing the Constitution, which we are celebrating today. Let us try to pretend we are unaware that a film made by an Indian on an Indian subject having Indian actors had to be shot in another country and got nominated for Oscars from Canada just because one segment of the society here felt it was anti-Hindu. Let me try to find ways to make time for activities I like and I need and not work half of the day without anyone appreciating it. So cheers for a revamped** life beginning this moment :)

** I need hot vamps for this, so the interviews begin from Saturday :D For this I have an elite interview panel consisting of myself and blogger Vaibhav who is coming down to Pune. Will keep Sean and Deepa updated on this.. the meet I mean and not the interviews and selection process :P

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 ;))

Tarun Johri in record books!

I haven’t met any guy who lives with gals wearing skimpy clothes but last Saturday had the privilege to meet a fellow blogger, Tarun. He had come down to Pune frm Gujarat to catch up with his classmates. U can read more of his trip n the short meeting in his post n see the pics too on his flickr accnt. This was the first time I met someone in person thro’ blogs n trust me it is a gr8 feeling to see someone in person whom u know online n read ‘bout their life on their blogs. Going by the last post it was a horrible time exchanging our mobile nos coz of the blocked sites. He didn’t know my official id n I wasn’t aware tht he was coming to Pune over the weekend. Luckily on Saturday, one of the proxies worked n I could access gmail where Tarun had left his mobile number n so I could contact him n met up at McD for ‘bout half an hour coz ltrz he had to go out for dinner with frnds n I had to catch up with the football match with my college frnds. Though the meeting was short it was a nice time spent :). So now who is next on the list? :D

This week I was really feeling to leave the house n make a TV selling shop my abode. With so many things to watch at one time, it is impossible to get it all on one screen. Football WC, Wimbledon, Formula 1 n India beating WI in the test match… now why didn’t my dad get me a TV shop instead of making me study n getting into this job :( . Ofcourse if I go n ask him this then definitely my television privileges will be revoked too. So better I rant it off here itself. Btw, my prediction tht France will defeat Italy 2-1 in the finals is almost coming true. Lets see how my fav team plays tonight. Meanwhile last night my mom almost killed me after Germany lost coz she was supporting them just coz she has finished a course in German language a few mths back n I was rooting for Italy.

I too have some questions like Sean (but these r not imaginary like some of his ques). When Mumbai (capital of the state) had already suffered last yr due to the heavy downpour why didn’t the authorities make arrangements this time to drain the water? Don’t they know how jealous we ppl in Pune feel when they get holidays on the pretext of blocked roads? I m kidding but all u ppl living in Mumbai tk care of urself n ur dear ones. Why no spam comment is registered on the blog when I have my gmail id in the mail-comments section n as soon as I put in my office id all sorts of spam start pouring?

P.S.: If anyone knows a guy (other than Hugh Hefner or Vijay Mallya) living with scantily clad females pls let me know. I want some tips frm him :P

1st year Anniversary bash....

21st Jan 2005 - 21st Jan 2006 --- 129 posts (including this)

ONE YEAR!!! Aaaahhhh…. tht is really a long time I have spent here n wasn’t aware tht time flew so fast. Thnx to Neha’s year completion post tht I remembered ‘bout the same for this one.

‘The Sunday Express’ had carried an article ‘bout few bloggers who were helping tsunami victims thro’ their blogs. The next day Suraj told me tht he too had a blog to his name since a few days n it is easy to create one. So I too jumped at this concept, but in a couple of fortnights I was like wht shld I write?? I mean thoughts were there but before this I had never written something.. never used to write in my college notebooks so never thought I could write something online. The first post was like the typical one… I m new here n I m interested in this blogging concept.. blah blah…lol. I still clearly remember when I used to write the so-called posts in the first two months … they were just 3-5 lines .. something happened here n something didn’t happen there stuff. But, blog-hopping gave me an insight to wht ppl write n then started improving myself. I don’t think I write well now but yeah definitely better than wht is there in the February archives.

Like an award winner, I won’t forget to thank ppl who have supported me so far… lollz. So, thnx to all those who come here n leave their comments n to those too who don’t come :p

It gives me immense pleasure to invite u all for the first year anniversary bash (don’t know how much time I will be here but still felt like calling it as first yr bash). The venue n time will be decided ltrz but as of now the programme schedule has been prepared:

Entertainment progs:
‘Bizarre comedy show’ by Zoonie
‘dhinchak item song’ by Divya
‘Poems recital’ by Shyloh
‘Modern-age Strategies of losing ur own car in a car park’ by Ganga n Kavita
‘1000 funny ways to tackle blog-stalking’ by Darci (don’t worry wont give ur new blog link)

Educational progs:
‘Latest techie stuff’ by Parag
‘Cricket: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow n day after tomorrow’ by Ujwal
‘Abstract thinking for insomniacs’ by Ritu
‘Political scenario in India’ by Shantanu
‘100 ways to propose a gal n confuse urself’ by AB (topic can be changed to ‘Flight to Bollywood’)
‘Bravery awards’ for Yashita n her frnd

Food n drinks:
Pizzas n drinks – Managed by Keshi (hope to see some hot aussie gals delivering it ;))
Veggie food – From Deepa’s mom (sorry to assign ur mom .. was gonna tell u but no risk since it is first b’day :p)
Special b’day cake – Elaine

I want all the other elite ppl to join me in the audience rather than everybody going on-stage. Thnx a lot all of u n I sincerely hope tht this association continues n the bonds grow stronger as each moment passes :))