Dilemma

Mr. Anderson: How do I make a choice?

Oracle: You didn’t come here to make a choice. You have already made it. You are here to try to understand why you made it.

WordWeb says dilemma is:
State of uncertainty or perplexity especially as requiring a choice between equally unfavourable options.
I would say 2 unfavourable options. But I want a word for state of uncertainty which requires a choice between two equally favourable options?

Mr. Anderson had concluded Choice! The problem is choice.

FINAL(ly)

This is what everyone in India was waiting to see.. the World Cup in our hands. Kudos to both the teams for a thrilling final. The shortest version of cricket has been conquered by beating Pakistan by just 5 runs. Now the Indian team faces their next test on the homegrounds with the Aussies visiting for the 50-over version. Woohoo!!! :-)

Slam, bam, bang!!

Sweet? Salty? Na re na na.. 50-50

This simple ad jingle of this Britannia biscuit is still one of my favourites and the biscuit as well. But nowadays the talk of the town.. err.. world is 20-20. If you are not into cricket let me tell you that this is not a brand of biscuit but the new version of limited bowling overs (20 overs each side) in cricket and the world cup is currently underway in South Africa. After the major Indian debacle in the 50 over world cup contest I had lost interest in watching cricket but this version of game has sort of rekindled the love. 20-20 is definitely an attempt to make cricket endearing to those sect of people who think it takes a long time to finish one match. Football, rugby, hockey etc take hardly a few hours while the 50 over matches take up the whole day and let’s not talk of test matches which go on over 5 days and that too mostly end in a tie. 20-20 match takes only 3 hours to get done with. I remember a conversation with my college friend Rohan, who is a die-hard football fan. During one practical class he was going ga-ga over the previous night’s match and I retorted that the score line was 0-0 so what was so interesting about the match. He said that the attack and defense that both teams put forth was worth watching. Now I am of the opinion that a game should be entertaining because I would love to play football no matter if it ends in a 0-0 result but if I am watching it then I should be entertained in form of goals. In cricket I don’t care if a batsman defends a ball well or the bowler swings the ball to perfection coz what I want to see is wickets, sixes, boundaries.. so match highlights is the best option. But 20-20 is the thing which provides all this stuff I want and I have started loving it.

Yesterday one cricket legend wrote in his column that 20-20 is detrimental to the game of cricket as it is a batsman’s game and fielders are mere spectators looking at the ball sailing over the stadium. I agree but might be this form is in a nascent stage, so a few modifications to it might improve it and it will be more acceptable and lovable format in cricket. India-Pakistan match never fails to arouse excitement and the one last week also lived up to its expectations. Had it been a 50 over match it would have ended in a nail-biting tie but the new bowl-out rule turned the same nail-biting finish into a finger-biting one (if I may use the word). Who had thought that castling over the stumps without a batsman in front of them can turn out so difficult that Pakistan couldn’t manage even a single hit? Many a times matches being played on a neutral venue can tend to become boring due to lack of spectators of the host nation but in 20-20 crowds are thronging to watch the blitzkrieg launched by batsmen and also the DJ and the dancing troupe have a lot of activity to keep the crowd on their toes. Cricket purists say that the dancers should not be brought in this so-called gentleman’s game (sledging is part of being a gentleman :D). I have started agreeing with them coz they are deceiving us. Last week the dancers were wearing Jiah-styled (of Nishabd fame) teeny-weeny shorts and suddenly this week they switched to ankle length commando pants. WTH! Lol.. my cousin bro during a match said that the dancers were dancing on a platform by Reliance (a highly reputed Indian company) and I was busy looking at the blondes shaking their booty (literally). Who had the time to look at Reliance label? Entertainment is the word. That is why I love watching women’s tennis as well even though many say it is slow and boring. Where would you get to see good tennis with such beautiful faces? How can it be boring.. Maria was resplendent in her red hot dress last month. May I request Star Cricket to stop Hindi commentators from boring the TV spectators to death and cutting down the commercials between the overs? Anyways, I leave you with a video of Yuvraj Singh hitting six sixes in a single over in yesterday’s encounter with England.

Have a good day all of you.. ohh that is also one of my favourite biscuits :D

Big Brother!

Can someone please pass a few racial comments against me so that I can win 1,00,000 pounds (only prize money mentioned) like Shilpa Shetty? No wait.. what use is hearing comments here if I don’t get to live in with Danielle Lloyd. So I will wait for the official Big Brother invite.. until then I will be a brother at home.

Yesterday was Raksha Bandhan (thanks to wiki I don’t have to explain).. some of you might be surprised that this festive occasion was in last month, but for some reasons not known to me our community celebrates it yesterday on Rishi Panchami (no wiki entry on this). Like all the years down the lane I would have sent money orders to cousin sisters but this year we have my uncle’s daughter at our place for her studies so the ‘holy-thread tying ceremony’ (phew!) was to take place in real. I got a shock of my life when mom said that I had to bring a gift and just giving money won’t do. I remembered Aditi & Pooja’s brother (from their rakhi posts) complaining why the sisters don’t have to gift the brothers. I wasn’t expecting a gift here but dreaded the thought of getting a gift simply coz I suck big time in choosing a gift. That too for a girl!! I was trying to remember last time when I had picked up a gift for a girl.. it was when I was around 9 yrs old. Mom had bought something and I had ‘picked it up’ from home to gift it.. yeah that’s how close I am with girls on this planet lol. These are the times when you really wish for a girl friend to drop by from the sky and help you get out of this situation. But smart that I am I didn’t look skywards and decided to take sis out and let her choose what she wants. But smarter than me my mom is who said that it should be a surprise. WTH! I love surprises.. but in pranks, not for gifts. I mean just imagine the look of the person who gets a horrible surprise gift and ditto for the person who gives it. So frantically I messaged a few girls I consider myself close to, to suggest me what to get for her. They all messaged back that it was a difficult question and they were the wrong people to ask about gifts. Great!

I attended my Sunday afternoon classes and hoped that somehow everyone at home would conveniently forget about the festival. Coming out of the class I saw that I already had 2 missed calls from home. Mom asked me what I had decided to get and I said I had appointed a 5 member committee to mull over the topic and they will get back in a few days. But mom was not in a mood to laugh at my sick jokes and gave me an address of a store of her friend (mom of a student of my mom) who could help me select something. Mom was so precise in giving the address that I couldn’t even whine that I might not find the clothes store. Off I went to the store..

Just at the entrance of the store I forgot the name of the lady and fearing that mom would come out the mobile and smack me down I didn’t call up home and went inside. Luckily I remembered the student’s name and asked the cashier about his mom.. his in the sense the student’s and not the cashier’s. The lady was on a holiday. It seemed that the entire female species was up in arms against me yesterday. Still I went to see if I could get something and a sales-boy asked me what I wanted.
Me: I am looking for a short kurta for a girl
SB: *starts piling up tops of myriad colours*
Me: *dude this has so many colours.. doesn’t help to be colour blind*

I kept staring at the kurtas laid down on the table for 2 minutes hoping that one of those would spring to life and hug me crying out ‘Take me home, Take me home’. Sadly that didn’t happen and suddenly I noticed that the size was too big for my sis so I asked the boy for medium size. I saw a pink one and told him to pack it. 5 mins and I was done! I felt elated and as a buffer gift I also picked up a box of assorted chocolates. Sis was delighted to see the kurta coz pink is her fav colour she said. I didn’t lose the opportunity to say that I knew it was her fav colour so had spent time searching for it.. didn’t I mention I am smart :D. We guys (2 cousin brothers were also present) devoured more than half of the chocolates ;-). All in all I heaved a sigh of relief. Bugged all those girls I had asked earlier that I had shopped for a wonderful gift in flat 5-7 minutes *drumroll* and then slept peacefully.

Lessons learnt yesterday:
1. Surprise gifts can bring a smile on the receiver’s face unlike pranks

2. Don’t waste time in choosing clothes and instead simply pick up 2 boxes of chocolates as gift when you know that you be eating more than half of them MUAHAHAHA :D

Maktub!

Links galore in this post..

Just 2 posts below I had written how Sanjay Dutt has been sent behind bars and Salman Khan is still free. Now, the former has got bail and the latter has been sent behind bars. But it won’t be surprising that by the time I publish this post the latter one would also be on bail.

I would like to say sorry to Paulo Coelho and all fans of his book ‘The Alchemist’ for taking the ‘creative liberty’ and turning the wonderful book into a double entendre. Niraj and I were bored one day and while chatting the discussion on the book took an ugly turn (pun unintended) and at the end of the chat session the whole meaning of the book was turned over and we were laughing our assess off. As a penance, I would be picking up Paulo’s few books and read them like a fan of his and maybe his fans will say Paulo, forgive them, for they know not what they did. Sick jokes apart, I had given up reading this book after the third page, the first time I had picked it up but then took it up again after a couple of months. I liked it though the last few pages are quite debatable one coz of personal interpretations. Any suggestions for his books (or any other author for that matter) are most welcome. I have heard about his Eleven Minutes and The Zahir. I got myself Robert Ludlum’s The Bancroft Strategy last week but haven’t been able to get past the cover page. By the way, here is a video on YouTube wishing Paulo on his 60th birthday.

During breaks many of us here play Text-Twister game and I love solving anagrams. Whenever I find time in office I check out word lists and the origins of words and at home too I always have a dictionary within reach. I realized that I know many words but can recollect meanings of very few of them and rarely use them. Anyways that didn’t decrease my word-appetite and a few days back I found this site and I have been hooked to it. Also I found out a very hilarious raunchy tale here on the phrase ‘the whole nine yards’.

I sometimes wonder how will I die.. well could not think on how I was to be born so this is one thing I can think over, right? So if I don’t die a natural death I am quite sure that I will be murdered by people on whom I am belting non-stop sarcastic comments. One message from unexpected quarters last week made me realize this and I died a thousand deaths in just a few days sulking out of it. So now I remind myself that Words and knives can have the same effect; use both of them carefully. By the way I always thought that having a few good friends is better than being a public figure. But people want you to be ever-smiling for them, wishing them good morning daily and chatting with them in their cubicles like best buddies. If you care for them it is not enough.. you have to show it. I am trying to learn this new art and it is difficult even than the Permutations and Combinations chapter in maths which had tossed up my brain for a while. I had a wonderful home-made chocolate cake today so I am happy even after a very hectic working day.

One evening during a discussion on movies I got almost killed by my team-mates just because I hadn’t watched Sholay, Lagaan and Swades (3 blockbuster Bollywood movies). So last week luckily 2 of the movies were shown on TV and now only Swades remains in the list to be watched to save my life. I was searching for 3 of my all time favourite oldie tracks and luckily found them. One of them, Jaaneman Jaaneman from Chhoti si Baat, is playing on the mp3 widget on the right sidebar. You can hear the second one Aawaz di hai from Aitbaar here on eSnips and 3rd one is (hopefully) embedded here below. Thanks to my 2 cousins, who are here nowadays, I have to watch all those stupid singing competitions. I was of the opinion that whoever sings better than me is a good singer (unfortunately that accounts to almost 98% of the population) but I am sure Indian Idol sucks.. big time.. those kids sing songs which doesn’t suit their voice (the guy with French beard sings good though). Instead watch Voice of India on Star coz the contestants are 100 times better than what other channels have on their shows. And what’s wrong with the judges everywhere.. I mean everyone is being Anu Malik on these shows.

Damn.. that video was giving me some wonderful errors in html so here is the link on YouTube :.

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 :)

She & Me - Part I

My current assignment includes making calls to Presidents / Founders / Managers of companies working in CAD/CAM domain in Europe.

On a conference line between ‘Me’ somewhere in Pune (India) and ‘She’ somewhere in Parma (Italy):
Me: Good morning! I am calling from India. Can I speak to Mr. A please?
She: *something in Italian*
Me: *thinks there is disturbance in the line* Good Morning! *looks back to the clock to check whether it is morning or afternoon in Italy*
She: *again in Italian*
Me: *decides to be very simple* English?
She: No English
Me: Anyone English?
She: *something again in Italian for a long time*

Me: *hopes she isn’t swearing at me* Ok! Bye!

On a conference line between ‘Me’ same place in Pune (India) and ‘She’ somewhere in Aviles (Spain):
Me: Good morning! I am calling from India. Can I speak to Mr. B please?
She: Goooood morning! He is on holidays till 15th August.
Me: *wow what a sweet voice* Ok! Can you please take down a message for him?
She: Aahhaaaa.. yes
Me: *smiling* I am calling from X company and blah blah blah. I will call back after 15th.
She: Yes
Me: Bye! Have a nice day ahead!
She: Ooohhh thanks! You too have a nice day *giggles follow*

Me: *drools* Thanks!

Moral of the story post: I want a hot Spanish secretary with that sexy oomph in her voice.. fine I don’t own a company but still I want one. Applicants can send in a request to me for my mobile number for sending their vocal resume :D

The buck doesn’t stop here..

it dies a silent death at the hands of #%#*@ like Salman Khan

Media circus will soon descend on the city after a long time.. after the Brangelina episode I guess. This time the reason is, perhaps the ‘most famous and most talked’ about accused of the 1993 Bombay blasts case, film star Sanjay Dutt. He has been shifted to a jail here, which is just a few kms from my office, from Mumbai for security reasons. My mom and I were having a debatable discussion whether the punishment meted out to him (6 yrs RI) was correct. Mom was of the opinion that he should have been released on probation for his exemplary behaviour while I said that it was a good judgement which would set a high standard for the judiciary. Here is my take on the whole fracas over his imprisonment..

Rarely do Bollywood stars get punished for their crimes (note that I am not calling all Bollywood stars criminals but you are mature enough to get the hint) and this seems to have made the stars comfortable to go on committing ‘mistakes’ and go unpunished like many politicians & influential people and their kith and kin. Sanjay Dutt has confessed to having friendship with some of the big names of the underworld mafia and possessing gun/s so it would have been very unfair to all those who are convicted and sentenced & especially the victims of the blasts and their families, to let him go scot-free even after the confessions. Regarding the point that the 6 years punishment is huge, yes I agree that it does seem big when you compare it to other movie stars like Salman Khan (running his vehicle over people on road while driving in an inebriated condition and shooting endangered species of black buck) and Fardeen Khan (possessing drugs in person) who were simply let off or the case is still pending? The masses are defending Sanjay Dutt saying he is a messiah of peace and goodwill now after his on-screen character Munnabhai has topped charts and he is spreading Mahatma Gandhi’s message of non-violence across the world with his movies. Excuse me but he was paid for enacting that character and a reel character is different from a real person so one cannot pardon him for his good roles. I believe that it is appropriate that he got sentenced for the crime he committed.. regarding the term of imprisonment I am not a lawyer to know intricacies of how long a convict should serve for the crimes so won’t comment on that.

Today I got my hands on the CAT (the exam which I would be giving for admission to MBA course) form after a frantic run from branch to branch of UTI bank. For the last 3 days not a single employee of the bank (they have the rights to sell the forms) was aware when the new set of forms would be available after the earlier stock got exhausted. Last year the form was available online but this year they don’t even have it online. What a shame that the premier management institutions which are compared with the Stanfords’ and Harvards’ don’t have the basic form online. I had to wait for almost one and half hour in a queue to get the form which I think sucks especially when last time I had filled it online. In the last few days I saw hundreds of students waiting for the forms and no one to give an answer as when they will be available. Who is to be held responsible?

I had a fight with the seniors (management) in the company when they expelled 8 junior people for ‘non-performance’ even after their team leads had rated them well in their performance. The HR person and my project manager said that they couldn’t do anything for them and can’t do anything either coz it is not in their hands to argue with the top rungs of the hierarchy. Then why the hell are you in that position? If you can’t fight for your people then what a wasted life you are living. I had a meeting with the senior project manager where I got a letter of promotion and he asked what suggestions I would like to give. I told him that I am really disappointed with the administration and I won’t be giving any suggestions coz they are never considered and just for formality we are being asked about those. Why I am still in this company.. I have some reasons to stay back but the fiscal year 2007-08 would be my last here is a sure thing. I hate people who can only accept appreciation and not digest criticism and accept blame.

Mr. Truman, sorry but the buck doesn’t stop anywhere.

One night stand

These are the pictures of the flower bramhakamal captured in my gallery. The flower blooms at night and withers away the next morning itself. The flower has a very nice yet strong smell and the blooming season is during the rainy season which is normally June and July here. It is a potted plant and has only leaves which in turn give rise to more leaves from the nodes on the main leaf.

When I searched online for the same I got 2 results. One matched with mine and you can see a beautiful slideshow of the flower from bud to full bloom stage here. The other result was that bramha kamal is found in northern part of India in Himalayas and is purple in colour with greenish-yellow covering. I am not sure whether these are different species of the same flower or different flowers altogether so if anyone has any info on this please clarify. Meanwhile the ‘Flowers of India’ is a nice site to visit for people interested in information on flowers.

This line popped up in my head while going home from office. The handwriting is good and legible so if you can’t read get your eyes checked :p. Btw this doesn’t have any relation with one night stand ;).

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.

Desktop Goddess # 10

You, doing that thing you do

Breakin' my heart into a million pieces

Like you always do

And you, don't mean to be cruel

You never even knew, about the heartache

I've been going through

And I try and try to forget you girl

But it's just so hard to do

Everytime you do that thing you do

And I, know all the games you play

And I'm gonna find a way to let you know that,

You'll be mine someday

'Cause we, could be happy can't you see

If you'd only let me be the one to hold you

And keep you here with me
Cause I try and try to forget you girl

But it's just so hard to do

Everytime you do that thing you do

Finally I got a 10-day leave sanctioned starting from tomorrow. I am not going visiting anywhere but will be at home trying to start studying for the super-fast approaching CAT exam in November. The other students in the class are always ready with answers and know all concepts, so basically the teachers there revise it and don't explain stuff in detail and I stare at the board aimlessly not knowing what's going on. This luckily is restricted to Mathematics class only.. English and Logical Reasoning classes are better. So time to pick up the speed.. at least to put the vehicle in motion if not cruising in full throttle. But I guess I am going to be bored sitting at home for 10 straight days (not literally but still..)

Ashlee Simpson for A/B :). I love this pic and had it on my desktop for so many days that some colleagues call her 'teri takiye-wali ladki' (your pillow-girl).

hey.. 'sup?

A glance at what is out and what is in these days:

Summer season

Rainy season

The rains have just started and though the city (and major portion of the country) got respite from the summer heat, the rains will ensure that the citizens beg for sunlight again.

24-hours power supply & Traffic jams at peak hours

Unexpected and long power cuts & Traffic snarls at any hour of the day

I guess these come along with the rains :(

Serena’s beads/Maria’s long ear-rings

Tatiana’s red knickers

The bright red knickers are the talk of the tennis world. At least I am not complaining :D. I like watching cricket and not playing it, while I love playing tennis and not watching it that much. But some things like this (of course along with some amazing matches) sure have me hooked to TV way past midnight :))

Attrition

Termination

Well attrition is not really out but termination is sure the in thing nowadays. Till date 8 people got sacked at my workplace and it seems more are in line. I am not kidding but I would love to get fired. I want a full year off.. :)

Routine work

New challenges (assignment)

Apart from the routine projects I have been assigned with the marketing team to get new clients for the company. So I am now selling the company.. err though I would love to do that but right now it is just the company services. It is an interesting job to make calls to Europe and I have had a few ‘nice’ experiences in last 3-4 days which I will write later. What I can learn from this cold-calling job is an insight to marketing field and probably I will start loving the phone coz it is difficult for me, who dislikes long phone conversations, to talk continuously on phone and with a rough voice it is also quite difficult to sound polite. I am learning..

Freedom

Restrictions

2 months of living almost alone and dropping off the garbs in the closed confines of house was really nice. [I am not preaching nudism here but a way to beat summer :)] But suddenly the unexpected buzz of activity and the untold yet to-be-followed restrictions has caught me off guard and I am suddenly disenchanted.

Being an actor

Being a farmer

A few things to learn from Big B and Amir Khan is that being a farmer is better than being an actor so that land-grabbing (near Pune city) cases get dropped off automatically.

Old client contact

New client contact

The client contact with whom I was interacting with for the past 2 years in this company, as a resource earlier and then as a lead, has been given a different responsibility in the client company and one of my ex-colleagues is now the new contact person for my team. I share a good relationship with this new guy as well but the earlier person would be a special man for me coz I have been working with him since my first day here and he is a very knowledgeable person who knows how to work as well as party. I will definitely miss him.

Well this can go on and on.. I wonder then when someone asks 'what’s new in life?' why do I just say ‘Nothing new.. the same old routine’ *thinking smiley*

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

Lahanpan de ga deva..

I want to learn again how to enjoy rains and not frown on getting wet thinking of sitting in chilled cubicles.

I want to go on long vacations again.. Summer, Diwali, Christmas whatever might be the reason but regular and long.

I don’t want the stress of reviewing people’s performance and the unnecessary thoughts whether my review will decide their future.

I want to hurt my knees and elbows while playing, get my clothes soiled and I want to see my mom frown looking at me in this condition smiling innocently at the doorstep.

I want to go to the terrace and lie down leisurely watching the eagles soar high up in the sky.

I want to sing Happy Birthdayyy.. again and wait for my piece of cake and wafers instead of partying in some new high class restaurant watching friends getting drunk.

I want to go and play rugby again just to bang my head on that adjacent wall to make sure that this time the wall cracks open instead of my head.

I want to go on a trek or go for a jog in the nearby hills rather than sweating it out on a treadmill and elliptical.

I want to go to school again with all my classmates and have a wonderful time again.

I want to go back so that I can have another chance of doing things which I thought I couldn’t do or were not for me.

I want to be a chubby kid for elders to pull my cheeks

Damn.. I really want to be a kid again. How ironic is that when we are kids we want to grow up fast and now we want to go back and be a child. Saint Tukaram (I hope I am correct coz my history is quite weak) aptly had put down Lahanpan de ga deva, mungi sakharecha rava.

Can’t think of a title!

There are some days in one’s life which are highly depressing and one cannot just come out of the sullen mood no matter how hard one tries. I don’t know if this can be generalized, but for me fortunately this is true coz this is restricted to only a few days.. very rare days. A fortnight back saw two very bad days and I wasn’t able to force a smile even after some kind friends were willing to help. But the question for them would have been what and how to help coz I never pour out my heart to anyone when I am not in a good mood and even after getting back to normal myself. I hate this habit of mine but I can’t or rather don’t want to give it away. I not only believe in but practice as well Sayesha’s statement ‘I also have my share of sad days; it is just that I make a big deal of the happier ones’. This applies to my life as well as my blog. So I sat sulking for 2 days and trashed away two posts I had written for the community blog and one for here. Anyways such days are necessary to serve a reminder of much happier days in our lives.

Btw that had me thinking why do I blog? To share my ‘happy days’ with some people I interact only online, those whom I don’t know in real life? To put forth my opinions on topics supposedly important for me? Well I couldn’t reach a conclusive answer and at the same time one of my colleagues mailed me a document. He is a member of a group, which shares an article every day and this was one of them. Here are a few excerpts from the document that why blogging is good for your career (according to them):
Blogging creates a network: A blogger puts himself out in the world as someone who is interesting and engaging - just the type of person everyone wants to meet. Phil van Allen, a faculty member of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena says ''It's the new public relations and it's the new home page. Instead of a static home page, you have your blog. It's a way to let people know what you are thinking about the field that interests you.”
Employers regularly Google prospective employees to learn more about them and blogging gives you a way to control what employers see. ''People who are more visible and have a reputation and stand for something do better than people who are invisible," says Catherine Kaputa, branding consultant and author of ''Blogging for Business Success."

Blogging makes the world a better place.

I don’t know how my blog makes the world a better place but surely it is one of my favourite places I like to visit online and just reading through my own archives is quite a pleasure for me. What a narcissist you might be thinking lol! I also happened to stumble upon this link while surfing – Corporate Blogging

As some of you know I have joined this community blog – Between Us Friends – a place for friends and to make new friends. Well the latter part has been conveyed later to me by Ishita, the blog moderator, during a discussion in which I had quite pissed her off.. he he.. kidding Ishi. Do visit the blog and if you feel interested you have to send a request I assume to the admin for getting on board. I have added an image in my sidebar of the blog pic.. scroll down and have a look. Each fortnight 2 topics are voted by members as topics for the posts. It is quite difficult for me to write on a given topic coz for me blogging is what comes to my mind first and not like kind of essay writing. Though the problem every time is that a nice post strikes my mind on the assigned topic but sadly the date for it is already over.. he he.

Go and see the Goa pics which I have finally uploaded on the pics blog. I will try to scribble a few lines on some of the incidents of the trip in some post.

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.

Desktop Goddess # 9

Dooba dooba rehta hu aankhon mein teri
deewana ban gaya hu main chahat mein teri
ab din gujarte nahi raatein katati nahi
teri tasveer se baatein banti nahi
hoo aaja..

Tum jo mil gaye deeye jal gaye mere khwabon mein
ban jao tum mere humsafar
bewafa sun bewafa.. bewafa na jaa

ho aaja.. na jaa bewafa

‘Petite’ Cameron Diaz especially for Yashita :P.. tht refers to one of Yashita’s posts in case you are wondering why. There is definitely something about Cameron. I love her smile and she is one of the sweetest things around :)

Mind your language!

In 12th grade I used to attend Physics tuition and the professor there used to often say that we don’t speak correct English but speak Hinglish (Hindi + English) or Manglish (Marathi + English). Well, his own language was a bit more Manglish with proper gaavran words interspersed in every sentence so it was quite a bold confession. Or should I say that a few proper English words in the whole Marathi sentence :D. Looking back I can’t remember when I spoke English with anybody in school. Even though I attended an English medium school we hardly interacted in English with the teachers as well. I remembered all this after a series of events which took place over a long period. The first incident was a shop board which dealt in ladies garments. No, I had not gone there to buy anything but it was in the area where we friends had gone to see dahi-handi and the board read ‘Dreamgirl Hole-sale Ladies Shoppe’. Just a single ‘w’ dropped and the hole.. err whole meaning changes ;). Those days I did not have cell with cam so couldn’t capture it. Later when Vaibhav had come over to Pune and we were roaming in the city he spotted one board of a detective/investigation agency. It read ‘XYZ Agency. We invetigate all kinds of criminal offences: Blackmailing, Dowry, Negotiations, Kidnapping, Marriage, Threats, Strike-handling..’. All unmarried people should consider themselves lucky not to be an offender :D

Last week our company group was to go out for dinner but I was not able to join them as I had some work back at home. In the late evening I got a text message from one of the girls in the group ‘Y r u not cumming with us tonite?’ Come on.. I wasn’t aware that it would be an orgy there :P .. kidding. Then there was this colleague with whom I was discussing something on messages and he wanted to tell me ‘Let’s do it’ and instead he messaged ‘Fine! Let’s make out’. Neither did I go for the ‘orgy’ and nor made out with the guy… eewww.. gross!! Some people literally kill the language. I can’t help but remember Amitabh’s dialog from one of his movies “I talk in English, I walk in English because English is a very funny language”. I was searching for the exact words of the phrase A bird in hand is worth two in the bush on wikipedia and accidentally I keyed in incorrect words and reached this link *ahem*. I agree with Amitabh :D. We already have heard/read about incidents involving professors blurting out incorrect sentences. “Ssshh!! The principal has just passed away” when the principal walked by the class is my favourite. I am attending weekend classes for an entrance exam and the lady who conducts the English sessions speaks good English but this Saturday she said “Who didn’t thought of it?” I hate it when people use past-tense with did and especially that coming from her was something I did not expected.. err expect :P. I remembered something else from this mentioning of the class.. maybe in the next post.

Anyways, we all make mistakes and that’s what makes languages funny.. so keep making mistakes :)

Some of you might have already visited this site (visit only if you know Marathi). Meanwhile I spotted this on an auto-rickshaw near our company :D

Desktop Goddess # 8

I love the way you look tonight
with your hair hanging down on your shoulders
n' I love the way you dance your slow sweet tango
the way you wanna do everything but talk
and how you stare at me with those undress me eyes
and your breath on my body makes me warm inside

let's make out-let's do something amazing
let's do something that's all the way
cuz I've never touched somebody like the way I touch your body
now I never wanna let your body go

Last Saturday Ameesh and myself were watching Victoria’s Secret Show.. the full show with all backstage shoots and all.. in the company (a parting gift by a friend who was leaving). We were discussing the models who were sashaying down the ramp and when one supermodel came on the ramp I just couldn’t remember her name. As it is I am bad with names but didn’t think I would forget one of their names :D. Damn i felt bad about it the whole day. Anyways Adriana starting off the show is always great and with her the entire show is fresh in the mind not only the night ;)

Prison Break

Even the thought of going in there gave me jitters. I had been in one before but that was definitely not huge as this one would be. Even before I had stepped in there I started visualizing about it and the people who will be there with me. Last time the sentence was for 3 months but I had managed to break out within the first month. Now don’t ask me whether it was a break or parole but I had managed it and that itself made me happy. But this one.. I could sense there would be no escape from this one. My friend assured me that he would escort me to the door but after that I would be on my own inside there. The feeling itself brought a lump in my throat and I found it difficult to breathe like someone had just took away the oxygen mask from my ailing body lying on a hospital bed. Well the situation would be worse there and there won’t be any doctors in there to save me but people waiting for a prey to pounce on and dig into the body fat. Finally the morning came when I had to walk in there..
Gaurav was already waiting for me in the parking lot and as usual I came late. How could one muster strength to come on time? My eyes were red and it was clear that I had not slept well; probably the less-sleep reason went well and covered the real thing that I was crying the whole night not wanting to wake up just to head to the place which I had avoided for so many years. We walked in and surprisingly there was a girl who greeted us. I was simply taken aback and thought it must be their wicked ploy to keep a smiling face at the front just to conceal the hard life in there.
There she stood in the doorway
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself
This could be Heaven or this could be Hell

The girl directed us to a man who was sitting in front of a computer probably reading the list of inmates and their sins for which they were brought in there. He motioned us to sit on a bench.. it was cold but it was better to sit somewhere rather than stand on two legs which were already going weak as the clock ticked by and my heart was beating at a faster rate probably racing with the ticking time; trying to take a leap in the time just in case if I reach the date I was going to be released from here. The man noticed my plight and he didn’t even pretend to hide the smirk on his face. After sitting for about 10 minutes in the same position my restlessness grew but I couldn’t do anything. I had to wait for my turn.. just wait for my turn. The man called us near his table and ordered us to sit on the chairs. Then he threw a pen and a piece of paper towards me and asked me to fill in my details there. It was a tough task even lifting the pen.. even in such a situation the proverb ‘The pen is mightier than the sword’ struck my mind and I felt like smiling but then remembered that smiles were a distant past now. There was a section where I had to fill in the company name and when I wrote it the man muttered under his breath “IT company eh? So you fall under a privileged group here”. Privilege!! What the hell did this word mean here? Does that mean I get to work less than the others or will they strip me naked and make me lie on plank of ice? The thoughts that were racing in my mind were really scary and I was more scared than those thoughts. After filling in the form I was taken to a corner and made to stand on a weighing machine and later my height was noted down. Probably they design a coffin for each and every person in case they don’t make it back to the outside world. They say it is a big bad world out there.. what I was going to witness was going to be far more bad. The smiling girl called me and they clicked a few pictures and pasted it on the form. I was made to position my thumbs on a scanning device and my fingerprints were taken. I was instructed that the first thing every morning every person here has to do is to register his fingerprints so that it ensures the person has not fled the place. The worse thing is when your mind keeps on thinking; I thought if someone had to break out from here he will have to cut off his thumb and give it to someone who will give the impression to the authorities that the person was well inside the premises. Similar to the way we used to mark attendance in college.. proxy rules everywhere! After ranting a few other instructions the girl asked me to follow her and the big door opened and the loud din inside pierced the silence which was ruling in the reception area. Instantaneously my hands went on to clasp my ears and I hurriedly followed the girl. Once inside I was left in a daze as I saw so many people being made to work on different kinds of machines. It reminded me of the light-n-sound show I had seen in Cellular Jail in the Andamans where Veer Savarkar was made to ground a coconut with hands to produce oil. But here there were not only men but women too and I could see that all faces were pale and harassed. Every person was staring at me and I could feel the heat of their eyes on me or was it the feeling of the cold sweat beads which were trickling down my forehead. The smiling girl was talking to a stern faced girl and motioned me to come near. The smiling girl told me that this new girl would tell me what to do next. As if I was in a trance words tumbled out of my mouth “Ok! So she is my jailor..”. Both the girls looked at me with surprise; the smiling girl said “Jailor?? Dude you are in a gym not a jail. She is your trainer not jailor”. Amidst peals of laughter thus started my first day at the new gym.. he he.

Fine, the story is almost fake and the pic is real but not of a prison. The pic was taken at a hotel while returning to Pune from Goa and the slate bears the menu (I edited it a bit.. real pic will be uploaded soon :D). The first thing that struck me after seeing the menu on the slate was to get a pic in this pose. Well there won’t be a time a good guy like me will get to pose like this so.. :P Hopefully there won’t be a time like this because in the recent police raid at a holi party, where drugs were being used in full swing, might be there were really a few innocent guys who were locked up. So work hard, party harder but stay away from drugs and be safe. By the way I really joined a new gym and the trainer is really strict. I can still hear her booming voice from today’s abs’ session ‘1..2.. up.. more’... phew!! I am happy that summer is here coz I am enjoying my favourite fruit.. watermelon.. not mangoes coz I like the aamras more than a plain mango. Might be Ishita will post her summer list :P.