Food, sleep & action

Write ! Right?

2009-01-10T02:09:00.000-08:00

There are around 70-80 posts that I have written so far. It has been almost an year since I have written anything in this blog. Ever since I have been in Mumbai, I have been randomly giving vent to my thoughts on the Mumbai blog. The vela that I was today, I started going through all the comments in my previous posts. There must have been hardly 10-15 of them. ( thanks to those who did comment). I really felt good going through all of them. I was like wondering why I stopped writing. There was a random mail in my inbox that reminded me of my blog. Thanks to the person who bothered to mail me. I don't even whether the mail was for me or someone else since I was born in November and this person wishes me now. Anyway the bottom line is I want to write. Do anything in life but write. Come what may but write. And I think that's right. Right ???

A universal Donor :)

2008-02-08T18:55:00.000-08:00

Right now, I am wearing a red and white shirt. Well, nothing too romantic about it, but then this is a shirt which I bought during the 'Friends to support' run. 'Friends to support' is a social group that helps the society by providing information about blood donors and organizing blood donation camps.

Coming back to my shirt, the message on it reads ' I am proud donor' which is ironical because of the fact that I being a diabetic, can never donate blood to anyone :(. But I still think that I am a proud donor. And what makes me think so? Well, listen to me now. I happen to fall in love ( that's what I think it is ) every other day and end up giving so much that makes me feel that I am the universal donor. Just as Aarya points out, I guess I have so much love embedded in me that a single gal would never to able to take it all. And hence I need to spread the love around to all the gals around me :)

So in order to sync the message with my 'Dil se' and 'Dil de' thoughts I turned the friends2support logo upside down and tweaked the turned version a little bit. And lo! you can see my heart there, right on my shirt proclaiming that it is the proud donor. The logo on Kumar's shirt ( to the right) is the original one. Cool!!! Isn't it? :)

Sarkozy kaun hain?

2008-02-02T21:54:00.000-08:00

I was just glancing through the newspapers and come across this name 'Sarkozy'.
The news read 'Sarkozy weds Carla Burni'.

'Sarkozy? 'Hmm... heard the name earlier, must be some Hollywood actor' I thought. Nevertheless I started reading the article and realized that Sarkozy err 'Nicolas Sarkozy' to be precise is the French President. 'Oh.. French presidents are quite young' I said to myself but to my suprise I found that the French President was 53. Hmm.. more suprises were on the way as I realized that the bride was around 40 years old and is a singer and a former model. And what next? Both of them have been married and divorced. I couldn't help wondering what hell would break loose if an Indian President did this. First of all, all the news channels and newspapers would have a month long story with the 'Breaking News'/ 'Flash News' thing appearing on every other channel on the TV. Hehe.. guess I am imagining too many things, that are too improbable.

My reaction to things like these makes me feel that I am 'A frog in the well'.( The 'well' being Hyderabad in my case). France of course is far away but I was taken aback by things that happened in the not too distant Pune. Last week, when I was there for the SIMC thing, I was offered a fag by two gals. That was 'Awwwww' for me . I refused and promptly got the 'He is a decent guy' comment for it. I knew about these things but then I lacked the first hand experience and hence the mild shock. We sat in a resturant to have lunch and start talking about the 'booz' habits.

1st gal- So, what do you drink?
Me( not too comfortable) - Well, I don't quite enjoy driking. I don't like beer
2nd gal - Oh.. we hate beer too. But what do you drink?
Me- I just drink some Jimlet, the gin with some lime.
2nd gal- Yeh to baccha hain yaar.We are way ahead of him. We drink Vodka and stuff

After I came back to Hyderabad, I narrated this incident to my fairer-sex colleagues and they haven't stopped laughing since then. Huh! Grow up Kiddo. :) Will you?

Uncle!

2007-12-06T06:15:00.000-08:00

I went to Care Banjara Hospital yesterday to submit some of my reports and met a doctor whom I hadn't met for the almost 1 year. Here is how the conversation went

Doctor: Hello
Me: Hello Sir
Doctor: Kya bhai! French beard. You have put on weight. No walking. No Diet-control.
Dad nahi hain....! Total change!
Me: (pissed off at the weight comment) Arey weight kuch hain.. I appear hefty just because of this jerkin!
Doctor: Acha.. par yeh to baahar nikal raha hain . ( he said that patting my tummy)

Huh! Not again! This is happening a bit too frequently now. It reminds me of the hair dye ad where a guy hears the word "Uncle" echoeing his ears. Just a couple of days ago, I happened to pose for my style photos in a marriage. I put one of the photos as my profile-pic in Orkut, ultra-pleased with it. ( Glam-boy dikh raha Main.. was my feeling). As expected there were a couple of scraps about the changed pic in orkut.

Hello, Abu Salem!
Hi...yeah Uncle photo kya hain! Since when did you start wearing those glasses?

I was shocked when I read those. I immediately changed the pic. Alas! I, in my best pic now look like an uncle. Uncle ! Uncle ! Uncle! The words still echo in my ears. Reflecting further on these lines, I now understand why Mom n Dad ask me if they should start searching for my better-half every other day. I do look to be in need of one. The french-beard is my only armour. It makes my chubby cheeks less obvious. Rishi Kapoor, the bollywood actor started sporting a French beard after he was 40. And I just turned 26.( By mistake, I happened to typed it as 46 a moment ago :( ). I believe that people put on French-beard when their face has nothing else to offer . There are some who put it on just to sport a "new" look. The later was my reason earlier but now the former seems to be a more appropriate reason.

Realization Aftermath: Abu Salem seems much better! He seems to occupy lesser space and didn't have the puffy face :(

Jog! Run! Yoga! Gym! What next? Ask me this question at 7:00 am in the morning and my answer would be "Arey, i'll get going from tomorrow!!"and Tomorrow has never happened till now :)

Abu Salem pic - Courtesy - www.tribuneindia.com/.../spectrum/main1.htm

Bday eve Blues !

2007-11-28T09:26:00.000-08:00

Pepe Jeans, Spykar and Brand factory. I spent a good 2 hours roaming around all these places. Par saaala Ek shirt nahi mila ! I just wanted a 'simple sa' collared short T-shirt for my birthday. But I couldn't find any to my liking. Of course I wanted to buy a trouser as well. But I had made up my mind that I would buy one only I found a good shirt and that never happened. Me wearing formals made things worse. For once, I agree with Kiran who hates freaking around on Wednesdays in those Tie-Full sleeves - leather shoes formal wear. Well, today I happened to wear a checks shirt , which when not tucked into my trousers is too big for for me.

Start-Flashback! Aah.. it all started around 15 years ago when Dad realizing that I was a Complan boy growing fast and rapid bought a T-shirt of a bigger size than mine. I looked good in it ( parents always think so and i didn't know that then ) and it lasted long. I was never comfortable wearing anything tight because that would not sync with my flexible body which at any given point of time was either in a bowling or a batting pose. Thus started the "Thoda bada size lele" funda. When I was in high school, wearing Dad's shirts for me was a cool option. It continued even while I was in college. Hmm.. in fact it never mattered in college although the short-shirt fashion had just begun. Then came the job. I now had my own money and shopping with friends was more than a one-off event. The usual comment from my friends as well as the salesman would be "Wait!! Isn't that too big for you?". A few shoppings later my heart started feeling the same and thus started the "Wear what seems to fits you " revolution. The word "seems " assumes significance because some of the shirts don't quite fit you, but you go ahead with them for that is the latest fashion. Just a few days, I found a shirt in my cup-board that I used to wear during my final year and I was like "God! It's sooooo big. How did I ever wear it?" ( And that was supposedly one of favorite party wears !). End-Flashback!

Since I have been working only for the last 3 years, I have quite a few extra large shirts and most of them happen to be formals. Today happened to be one such formal day. With the formal shirt on, none of the trousers looked good! The moment I wore the jeans my the loose shirt would divert my attention. And when I did finally remove the shirt, my paunch would grab my attention. Huh! So I needed a good shirt for the trouser to look good but that never happened.
Frustrated,I started home. On my way back, I came across a Kwality ice cream hawker. "Yummy! I need some ice cream", I thought and stopped. I wanted to have Chocobar but as luck would have it, that was missing. The hawker urged me to take a "Choco-feast" but I refused since I wanted to have something less sugary." Hmm.. Ok... Give me a Mango bar"I said . He had it and it was Rs 15 but neither of us had the change. I searched all my pockets and found Rs 4. I wanted a rupee more and continued searching, hoping that I would find one. Finally seeing disappointment written all over my face, the hawker let me have the Mango bar for Rs 14.

I came home and opened orkut. And this is what I saw:

Today's fortune: Your luck has been completely changed today

"Oh...how true", I thought shaking my head in disbelief!

Citrix Matrix!

2007-10-31T04:09:00.000-07:00

Hmmm.... most of the systems in my office have been subjected to this "Operation Citrix" which means that one would work on the Citrix server rather than on the system. And I believe there were security reasons because of which this change has been enforced. Anyway what does "Citrix" mean??? To me it seems to be exact opposite of Matrix! The matrix screensaver or wallpaper usually gives a cool look to the screen.It makes the system ambience more interesting and more appealing. Citrix server just does the reverse. It has been about 30 minutes since it has been installed on my system and I feel so archaic about the whole thing. My outlook looks so pale, like a malaria patient. My windows messenger seems to play hide and seek with me with the irritating RETRY message appearing time and again. Almost all the icons seem to have the deceased look. I realized this just as I did an ALT+TAB. The dull appearance of these icons reminds me of the fact this is office and that I am supposed to work. Huh!!! This is just not on. That's what I feel. But the truth is this is not all. My Computer now just has the basic windows installed on it. To open any kind of word or excel document, i need to connect to the server. The worst thing perhaps is there is no such thing known as a "desktop". One needs to connect the server and then go to the documents and settings folder and then save a file that would have otherwise been saved on the desktop. Finding the desktop folder is surely going to be a "treasure hunt" at least for the next few days. Although I haven't yet experienced it, I have heard that the contact list and the favourites list need to be updated each time the system is restarted. ( Another Fifty first dates effect ? Oh..no!!!). Each time I click an application there, I get a series of messages as if I am travelling to another era in a Time machine. And at the end of all those messages I discover that all that I have done is open a word doc. ( ah.. it's not the Time Machine that has taken off ). Office (Not the microsoft one but the place I work) has only become more boring and cliched.

PS: To get a bit of feel, I have been typing this thing on a notepad which opens on Default windows.. Ah..the native touch!without the wretched server :)

And it's Amenisia now !

2007-10-23T07:36:00.000-07:00

Well... I am certainly getting a bit too cliched. Time and again, I don't have anything to write about apart from my computer. That's very surprising considering the kind of techno-callous person that I am. Techo-callous!! I mean I am a kind of person who would not get too excited by a new technology entering the market. Forget the market, I wouldn't even bother if someone in my family was using it. Worse, I still don't know how much memory my Motorazer, that I have been using for since the 2 years provides me. ( And yeah I have the usual sheepish grin on my face.)

Continuing the story of my comp, I bought a new key board and made sure that everything was working fine. The USB is still not ok but at least the mouse seems to working fine. ( Fine.. Did I say? The mouse is not its usual ambidextrous self. It doesn't right click now :)). The Tata Indicom guy took ages ( more than 15 days) to sync his server and my comp. "The last 5 days have been cool. Everything seems to be fine" I told myself yesterday. Touch-wood! I perhaps forgot to utter that word and found my comp behaving indifferently again today.

My comp seems to be suffering from some kind of memory loss or anterograde amenisia just like Drew Barrymore in Fifty first dates. One fine morning when I started my comp, I found that my darling Genelia was missing on my desktop and instead there was the windows default wallpaper. Since then, everytime I log on to the system the a fresh desktop ( the one with the sky n grass) appears as if I have installed windows for the first time. Anything that I save on the desktop is not saved. I try to open the Mozilla browser and each time I re-start it prompts me to transfer the history from Internet Explorer. Memory Loss? Huh! "Seems to be some kind of a virus" exclaimed Kiran and I lost no time in updating the Anti-Virus and scanning my computer. ( Rahul wanted me to do this looong back!!!) . Everything seems to be fine now but I definitely don't think this is THE END. What makes me think so? Well, some of the infected files that I had deleted were system files and I am afraid my system will soon discover that and go kaput again.

Crazy Huva re!!!

2007-10-03T07:02:00.000-07:00

Naaah..No girlie effect! The reason for me getting crazy is not a girl. It's the computer. ( Reminds me of the old silly one where a girl starts talking about her crush saying that he is so fast , so sweet, so talkative etc etc and then say "Oh.. I was talking about my computer" with an irritatingly cliched smile). Well, coming back to my computer , I spent a couple of days trying to get it fixed. I even took it to Rahul's place and my good old friend almost did it. Everything seemed to work fine. But as soon as I came home, the keyboard went kaput. I thought I would buy a new one as soon as I got up this morning, but that didn't happen. I hope my computer gets all set in a couple of days.

There were other things happening in India that would drive a Cricket fan like me crazy. Yeah, I am talking about the Indian's team's performance in the second one day against Australia. After reaching the zenith in the 20-20 World Cup, a slump was expected . The only question was how deep the fall would be and the team pummelled as deep as it could . Yuvraj and Uthappa played as if they were still playing 20-20. Sachin hasn't played any 20-20 but the shot that he played makes one wonder if he was watching too much 20-20 on TV . The bowling also left much to be desired especially that of our spinners. Surprisingly ( rather I guess we are used to it now), the Aussie spinners including part-timer Micheal Clarke did a far better job.

Tst Tst...

2007-09-30T07:42:00.000-07:00

Self-pity is certainly not a great thing. But at the moment I really can't help that. My computer is all messed up and me possessing a degree of a Computer science engineer doesn't help. I can't really do much about it. I think I tried my best but nothing worked. Initially, windows refused to open up. When it finally did, the key-board wouldn't. I have been pestering my friends on the phone and as luck would have it that doesn't seem to help. Nor does the fact that they are very busy at the moment.

God, I am an internet addict. I confess. I need to check my gmail for any orkut messages once in a couple of hours. I need to keep checking cricinfo for the latest on cricket. Oh.. yeah and I need to do the Yahoo chat as well. On rare occasions like this, when I am all pumped up, I also need to blog. My computer not working makes me real restless.

Banjara Hills is real sick. Neither me nor my parents have come to terms living in this posh locality.( so called). My parents crib because they don't find vegetables and other daily commodities being sold on the roads. I mean for each and everything you need to go a Reliance Fresh or a City Center and that is something middle-class junta like us are not comfortable with.Not being able to find a single find junk-food tapri point (I really miss those mirchi/aaloo bajjis ) is a real stomach-break for a foodie like me. I don't feel like visiting McDonalds for a burger every time I am in a junkie mood. I was fine with all these things but I was really fed up when I couldn't find a single Internet cafe around. There is this Reliance thing around but you need a membership to use the net there. Huh!!! I looked around for a net center all along Road no-1 but in vain. Right now,I am at this place called "Lakdi ka pool" blogging my way to glory. Phew! What a relief!

And all fell down!

2007-09-09T11:52:00.001-07:00

This has not been the best of times for Hyderabad. After the twin blasts in the city on August 25th, the Punjagutta Flyover has collapsed today killing at least 15 people and injuring several others. I called some of my friends and sighed relief when I found none of them were near the flyover at that time. I feel sorry for the innocent victims who were near the flyover. I wonder how feeble the construction was! How could the fly-over collapse because of the rain? Aren't these basic things taken care of, when a masive fly-over at one of the busiest commercial centres in the city is being constructed. Luckily it was a weekend. There would have been greater damage inflicted if it was a week day.

The below picture was taken when the construction of the flyover had just started. I thought that I would share this picture with my friends once the flyover was ready , proclaiming myself to be the first guy who set foot on the Punjagutta flyover. Sadly, I was not only the first but also the last.

Back :)

2007-08-12T11:58:00.000-07:00

Huh.. Huh .. Huh!! I find time at last. For a change life has been more of action( however insignificant it might be) and less of food and sleep in the last 1 month. The company party was fun. It was exciting planning out all the details, marketing the entire stuff and finally executing it as well as we would have liked to . Think of it.. and I still feel the buzz and the excitement. After a looong looong time, an event gave me the high that I really needed. More importantly it was a hit and not just hype. Kido khush huva :)

Tres bien! Very good.. So I have managed learn some French in the last 1 month thanks to my French Madame. ( whether I clear the exam or not is a different matter altogether). I would have quit the course mid way had it not been for the girl with those beautiful eyes. Thanks a ton to Aishwarya. ( her nick name)

The trip to Pegasus was hectic but I enjoyed every moment of it to the hilt . Now that almost all the parties, outings have come to an end life threatens to get boring and dull from tomorrow. I have enough work to do in the next 3 months but will that inspire me? I hope it does :)

Ragging Mana hain!

2007-07-17T22:09:00.000-07:00

I happened to switch on the TV just in time to watch The Ragging debate on CNN-IBN yesterday. The news is that ragging is now considered a criminal offence and any junior who is not happy with his seniors can lodge a complaint against them. So the situation has now taken a complete 180 degree turn with the juniors doing the masti and the seniors walking around the campus keeping a safe distance from the juniors.

Rings & Hallucinations. It's flashback time now. Yours truly was in the first year of college. I remember it all. It was my first Sunday in college and I was having a very "healthy interaction" with my seniors. I wanted to make an impression ( what a wrong choice) and started asking the names of the seniors around me. I found quite a few seniors staring at me. Just then a senior whom I knew since school days walked in and I lost no time in greeting him "Hi Shankar, How are ya!!!". Awwwh... I didn't know that the as per college rules ( senior rules) a junior should address a senior only as "Sir" or "Madam" and not by their name. The seniors found a bakra in me. And the quizzing errr I mean healthy interaction went on till 12:45 in the night. As I was about to leave, one senior told me his room no and asked me to wake him up by 6:00 am. Huh! I thought. I went to my room and lied down on the bed. But I couldn't just sleep. till about 4:00 am. The alarm rang at 5:45 am and woke me up. I went to my senior's room ans woke him up. He didn't wake up instead he asked me leave. I came back to my room but couldn't sleep again. That day was just the beginning. In the next few days, we marched round the campus, measured distances using a 1 rupee coin, counted the number of steps at every place steppable place ( I mean a place with steps), gave impromptu dance/singing performances and what not. We also did a Fashion show, draped in bedsheets ( a saree replacement) posing like the sexy babes on FTV. And at the end of the event there was a Miss Boys hostel as well :) . All this lasted till the Freshers party where we had a DJ ( my first and the best) which lasted till early hours of the next day morning.

Although I do remember instances where I really got fed up, I thought the overall experience of ragging was fun. It made us know our seniors and more importantly helped us shed our inhibitions. Most of us there were shy, introverts ( who had cleared a tough entrance exam and hence had the "studious" image hanging around) who preferred staying in their own rooms. We could no longer do that once a senior had asked us to shake a leg or strain our vocal chords.

What's happening right now in the universities of Delhi seems to be the exact opposite. Of course one can always say that "Ragging should not be taken to an extreme. It should be within limits". But guess we can only imagine or else at best blog about such things. Once the freedom is provided, there seems to be an equal chance of it being taken to the other undesired extrme . It is unfortunate that ragging has now become a criminal offence. Ragging mana hain aur students ko yeh maan na hain!

Huh! I can only hum the Pink Floyd anthem " We don't need no education ..!" shaking my head in disbelief.

A peek into the future

2007-07-16T05:58:00.000-07:00

Another day, yet another party (khana, gaana aur peena). Proabably I have been partying too much of late. Hmm.. I need to think about the future as well. Yeah .. future reminds me of the fortune-teller we had met after the party at this place called "Celebrations". There were 5 of us and each one of us took turns and had the forturne teller to predict our future. 3 went before me and for each of them the guy had predicted something very good.

Booh..Hoo Hoo!!!! Alas the fortune teller seemed have something for everyone else except me. The parrot picked up the probably the weirdest of the fortune cards available. It had the picture of a butcher slaughtering a goat. According to the fortune-teller that meant that I would pay the price for other's mistakes. He warned me to be stay away from those seemingly harmless but possibly harmful folks. Huh.. I thought. In Hyderabadi lingo it meant "Bakra nahi ban ne ka !".

The optimist in me told me that there was something better coming up. But the fortune teller predicted just the opposite. He told me that I was going through a bad patch which would go on till 2009. He suggested that I should perform a ritual for the Shani God to avoid the same. " Awwww...forget the Shani!!!Say something good, You dud! " I said to myself. He proceeded to say some very generic stuff that I was very independent ( oh.. really ...from when did this start??) and that Sher ka bacha Sher hain. ( of course it can't be a Billi .. but what the heck did he mean??? Didn't get the drift? Huh! ). "What about his marriage? When will he get married rather will he get married at all" asked one of my very inquistitive friends. "I cannot really predict about marriages" the fortune-teller replied playing it safe.

"Ha ha ha !!! Bacha you will need to wait till 2009 for your girl!" I could hear the laughs and the voices echoing in my ears.

Future Funda: I need to stay away from parrots and people carrying parrots in that weird cage.

Present Funda: I really don't believe in fortune-tellers? Do I?

Bindaas! :)

International Webloggers Day

2007-06-14T10:35:00.000-07:00

Thousands of happenings! Hundreds of thoughts! But my blog count is in tens, as low as an Anemic's blood count. I want to write today but lack the thought. What's special anyway? Well, today happens to be "International Webloggers Day". A big thanks to my RJ friend for the info.

Given the lack of thought, here are some random happenings in my life. ( local, national and international)

Hyderabad weather continues to sizzle for the third day in succession.
I have done an interview (some kind of.. ) at last- with an IIM B chap. ( To be released soon :) )
India is still presidentless and coachless.
Rajani's Sivaji to hit the screens tomorrow.
Girls in my project are working late hours unlike boys. ( Do the Big guys know this?)
Roger Federder still hasn't gone French.
Ironically today also happens to be the "World Blood Donation Day".
Mom's Alu fry is the best curry in the world.
I have been trying to write something in this post and I have flunked miserably !!!

Thought of the day :"No food that is tasty is healthy for me, no food that is healthy for me can ever be tasty.

Work?

2007-06-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

I am currently not enagaging myself in any of work that pleases my heart under the excuse of getting some "clarity" in my life. The kind of thing you normally get to hear in Art movies "Discovering your inner-self" or more popularly "Apni Aatma ki kojh". ( augh..did I get the gender right?). I have been blessed with all the free time in the world as I am undertaking this excercise. Now I fear if work( this is not the "work" that pleases the heart but "work" that scars the brain) will suddenly strike me exactly at the time I get the gyan and decide to act. Hmmm... I am pretty scared! The signs aren't too good with me being shifted to a new project this week.- A new project where people work and need to work. ( and yeah the work of the second kind-- brain wala).

Next Bakra Kaun?

2007-06-12T04:20:00.000-07:00

The whole nation now is eagerly waiting for these couple of posts to be filled. Pretty big posts these! "The President of India" & "The Coach of the Indian Cricket Team". The argument for the post of the President is simple. Most of the junta of the country seem to be in favour of a non-political person to taking up the post. In fact, a huge majority wants APJ Kalam to continue. The political parties have different ideas. Pranob Mukherjee till yesterday & Shivraj Patil today and of course there is Bhairon Singh Shekhwat.

And what who is going to be the next coach? Ford has left the entire nation stumped by turning down the offer. " Makes sense, boy. Indian coach's job is a high-pressure job. The guy has made a wise decision", my Dad said. Yeah.. I do agree with him. This is why I feel that the it's a "Bakra" kind of job. The coach is held responsible for things that are beyond his control. It doesn't matter how good the coach is if the players are not responsible enough. The BCCI seems to have made a mess of the entire issue. I would think twice before telling the world that I landed with a new job. ( no.. I havent). The BCCI babus seem to have taken it for granted that Ford would be quit his current job and come to India. He didn't and now BCCI has been made to look so foolish. "The Hunt begins again" announced the BCCI officials. But aren't we tired of it? Huh! And the News channels I guess would have flashed the name "Ford" a zillion times in the last 2 days with different messages. "Ford not for Sale" . "Ford snubs BCCI"! "Mein Coach nahi banna chata hoon" etc etc. I somehow found the headlines in the regional newspapers very funny compared to the English ones. I somehow feel that the Queen's language can never get as informal as the some of the reigional ones.

The President! The Coach! and now The Boss! Tamil Superstar Rajnikanth's "Sivaji- The Boss" is all set to hit the screens in 3 days and media is going ga-ga about it considering that fact it is the costliest movie ( 80 crore) ever made. The fans in Chennai seem to alle excited to watch their Star on the big screen. I wish I was in Chennai on June 15th just to see how crazy the fans can get. Work, health and my "Kabhi haan-Kabhi naa" mood have made it impossible :(

Food, sleep & action

2007-05-31T00:16:00.000-07:00

Life is usually a lull. I only think and dream of doing various things. I seldom achieve them. I am usually in a state of Nirvana where there is no activity in my life, except the sleep and food ( thanks to my Mom and the fact that I stay at home). Suddenly, I plan to do something. I expect that I will fully involve myself in the task planned. But I usually don't. The actual act ends up being a mere shade of what was expected to be done. So you see... Food, Sleep & action. The above graph explains it better. I felt that this title was much more meaningful and suggestive of what I am than the earlier one-- "Lemme get going". "Lemme get going", is my usual quip when my friends and colleagues urge me not be lazy and to do something objective. But "Food, Sleep & action" is what my life is all about.

Feel it? Huh!

2007-05-30T19:40:00.000-07:00

It was Hike time in the office yesterday. After a mail came at around 5:30 pm yesterday, each of the employee's emotion was a reflection of that mail and the increment offered. There was one of my friends who was extremely disppointed thinking that she shouldn't be staying in the company any longer. "The hike is an insult to my capabilities", she sulked. There was one girl who had tears in her eyes as she spoke " We work day and night here and this is all we get ". One more voice in that direction and she would surely break. There was a girl who seemed to be happy for she had got the hike long due. Her next task was to ask each colleague present there his/her hike. A question that fetched mixed responses. There was this girl who had got the perfect hike. But she wasn't happy. She never wanted the responsibility. She just wants the minimum responsibility that she is adept at handling with someone monitoring her work and taking the full responsibility. She was least bothered about the hike and was more concerned about the review comments that she had received from her supervisor. There was one guy who left the office before the mail arrived. " What the heck mate! I knew about the increment when I got the promotion. But the current work doesn't really inspire me!!" he replied when I called him later in the evening.

All of them seemed to evince some kind of emotion. But I couldn't feel anything. Neither joy neither pain. Neither exaltation nor displeasure. Weird! I thought. We, humans always seem to crib. Everyone seemed to find some reason to crib while I having found nothing was searching for a reason to find out why I wasn't feeling anything. Silly! Isnt't it?

The Static and The fleeting

2007-05-29T11:25:00.000-07:00

Ha ha Hasini! I finally managed to watch the telugu movie "Dhee" today. I wanted to watch this movie since a long time, ever since I saw the pics of the lead lady "Genelia" on one of the idle filmy sites. I have gazed at her photos a hazaar times since then. How couldn't I when she was on every wall of my life- in my room, on my computer and on my cell-phone. And then she would appear on the TV screeen every now and then. I couldn't just wait to watch her on the 70mm screen. So when one of friends called me at 5:45 pm asking me if i could join him for a 6 pm show, life seemed to ooze of out the dead Mainframe screen. 2 mins later - Log off, Shut down. 4 mins later- I started my bike.15 minutes later , I was at the theatre and in front of me on the big screen stood the beauty.

Two and half hours later, I wasn't exactly mesmerized. Naah... the quality of the film had nothing to do with it neither was the fact my dream girl lacked the brains and fell for that dumbo hero. I remembered that I had seen her films earlier. But it wasn't then that my Dil went mmmmmm... it was only when I saw the pics. After some amount of R & D ( office mein zyada kaam kar ne ka effect) , I have come to the conclusion that Genelia is a static beauty. Hee hee.. Let me explain. These static beauties are very photogenic and make maximum impact in the pictures and when one keeps on gazing at them in a single pose. Although they are beautiful and look cute even otherwise, they wouldn't quite make the same impact when set in motion. ( yeah, I studied some Physics at the +2 stage). So a fan like me would end up wondering why the female who looked like an angel on his wallpaper, teasing and mesmerizing him appeared just like another heroine in the movie. Well, remember the "Static beauty theory".

The exact opposite of this is Piper Perabo, the girl who plays "Violet Sanford" in the hollywood movie "Coyote Ugly". I happened to catch the movie around 2 weeks back on Star movies and when I stopped swapping the channels once I saw Piper Perabo on screen. She seemed to have the perfect smile, the most natural smile that I had ever seen. Post-movie, I found some images of Piper Perabo on the net ( I didnt even know the name till then), and much to my disapppointment the spark was missing in her pics. The reason was simple. Any picture in the world would be able to capture only a particular instant of that lovely smile while the smile would continue for the next few seconds. And one can appreciate that only if one sees the complete smile from the moment when her lips start widening to the moment she flashes her teeth. The effect is not about a single moment. It lasts a few seconds and hence no photo can capture that. A fleeting beauty you see :)

Special thanks to:

Google Picassa for the collage
Genelia pics: www.idlebrain.com, www.raagalahari.com
Piper Perabo: http://www.wallpaperbase.com

Hee hee

2007-05-03T23:38:00.000-07:00

I was just cribbing yesterday about how bad life was for me without a cell phone and net. I saw the newspaper today and realized the entire generation feels the same. I couldn't agree more with the survey in Economic times . As for the timing, it was telepathy at its best.

Damn time

2007-05-03T05:11:00.000-07:00

Naa...you heard it right. I was not meant to be "down-time". There are certain phases in life when everything goes against you no matter how hard you try. I went through one such phase a couple of weeks before I finally got a job. Now after 3 years the time seems to have come again. The "damn time"!!!

My net connection has gone kaput for the past 20 days thanks to the network-card which refuses to work. I bought a new one yesterday but that didn't help. Now the LAN icon has disappeared from the control panel altogether. My phone-battery went dead ( well.. quite apparently) last week. I bought a new one but after 2 hours it refused to work. I took it back to the dealer only to hear the "Goods once sold will not be taken back " funda from him. Nope I wasn't willing to buy his argument. Thanks to one of my friends aiding me in the verbal Dhoom-Dhaam I managed to get back the Rs 750. Irritated and frustrated ( err.. both mean the same .. right? ) I gave my phone to my Dad who promised me that he would get it right that very day. He did it and how easily? He just switched it on and started charging it and lo... it started working!!! "You lack the patience, my boy", dad said for the "Hazaar" th time in my life. My reaction was a helpless shrug indicating that there was nothing that I didnt try to make it work. Lesson learnt: My mobile can get as moody as I can get.

Not having the net and phone was like being deprived of food and shelter. Thankfully I had my clothes on. Touch Wood! Perhaps I didn't bother to say that and the next day I lost my valet when I went to a night show. It was weird for I realized that I lost it within 3-4 minutes. I had opened it to pay the money for the cool drinks and I guess it feel down when I removed the note. It struck me just a couple of minutes later but guess some lucky ass had already picked it up. Gone with my valet were my debit card, driving license and some cash( a good 500-600 :( ). My immediate concern was to get the card blocked. I finally did it yesterday afternoon and thankfully there were no transactions . ( Oh.. I am still worried. Let me call the customer care and check once again!!!). What about my driving license? I am not too sure if I have a xerox copy of that. Boooh....hoooo!!! If by any chance you happen to be reading this post and you happen the guy who found my purse, please return it to me. ( well... I am an optimist of the nth degree ). I promise to let you have the cash. I just want my card and driving license back.

All the above events have been interspersed with minor irritating events like me pushing Dad's Activa up the hill for 1 km after the engine refused to start. I seem to be hit pretty hard on the ideological front as well. I have been reading "Atlas Shrugged" for the past few days and I have come to the conclusion that I am neither a Hank-Rearden nor a James Taggart? Worse still I am neither a Devdas nor a Romeo. Gals no longer bring the same amount of excitement nor do they cause any pain as was the case not too long ago. My job doesnt excite me neither does it cause the threshold amount of frustration. Argh.. Huh.. Hmmm... there is nothing much to do I guess. I am just waiting for the fairy to come along!

Aur Shaadi Kar Liya!

2007-03-29T10:59:00.000-07:00

And what else? Aur Shaadi Kar liya!

Marriage is something that you do in two situations, one when life seems to be perfect in every other way and the other when nothing else in the world seems to be working for you.

The above statement holds true only for folks who are not in "love" with someone. When you love someone, the odds are marriage ( or for that matter "anything else" ) can happen anytime despite all the kinds of odds it is stacked against it.

Hmmm.. why am I saying all these now? Well, one after another the bachelors group among my friends is getting diminished and so every now and then I keep getting the question " Tera number kab hain? ". Me ?? And marriage?? I don't know how to manage myself. I cannot imagine me managing anyone else. I tried explaining the same to Dad. He wasn't totally convinced but yeah I was successful in putting off his immediate plans. Amen! Let us live in peace.

Bob Woolmer Dies

2007-03-18T12:06:00.000-07:00

Bob Woolmer, the Pakistan has died at the University Hospital in Jamaica. He was found unconscious in his hotel room hours after the defeat against Ireland.

Like any other cricket fan in the world, I am shell-shocked after hearing this news. The circumstances of his death aren't exactly known at this stage. The news guys on the TV are already dicussing the impact that his high pressure job might have had on his health. Well, coaching any sub-continent team especially Pakistan and India is a very tough job and at the moment with India on the brink of elimination, I can't help saying " Ab tera kya Hoga, Chappel??".

Shockers!

2007-03-17T21:48:00.000-07:00

Awe- Ah! It has happened! The Indian fan's dreaded nightmare has come true. Bangladesh has defeated India and now India needs to win both the remaining matches ( convincingly) to make it to the Super-8 stage. The Group-B pool was called the "Group of Death" after all.

On the field, Bangladesh could do no wrong. They fielded like tigers and their bowlers stuck to wicket to wicket line. What baffles me is that the experienced Indian batting line-up did nothing to upset their rhythm. They didn't rotate the strike as much as they shoud have given the fact that Bangladesh set pretty defensive fields after the Power-plays.

When they batted, the Bagladeshi youngsters came to the fore. India faced a unrelatively unknown bunch of rookies who handled their bowling with aplomb. As it alway happens in situations like this, I was left wondering if it was the same pitch that the Indians batted on when 17-year old Tamim Iqbal was batting. Finally it was a very well deserved win for the Bangladeshis.

If there is any other team that has greater "baffling" capability than the Indians , it has got to be Pakistan. They managed to lose to an even less fancied opponent Ireland. It was fatal since Pakistan had to win the match to stay in the World Cup. Ireland was clearly a team to watch out for since they had the mighty South-Africans on the mat ( in the warm-ups ) and then tied the match against Zimababwe. Well, they were clearly the hungrier side of the two and deserved to win. Pakistan was lazy and paid the price.

I guess the whole of Dhaka didn't sleep last night. From celebrations that I caught on TV, I guess the whole nation in a state of frenzy. And why not? It's the time to party and rock.

And now what about the Great Indian Cricket fan? Most of them are irritated, disgusted and disappointed. Some die-hard optimists like me will be hoping that India will still pull it off ( not just the next match but the World Cup :) ). For the moment, let's live in that hope.

Thought of the Day: . Cricket is not just a game. Cricket is a religion. Cricket is a passion. Cricket is an obsession. Cricket is a way of life!!! Huh .. Forget all this now! Cricket is just time-pass, baaki sab Bakwas.

Huh!

2007-03-17T10:36:00.000-07:00

"Huh! It is unforunate that they still count us as Minnows. We have beaten top teams like Australia and India in the past but still ..." Thus spake the Bangladeshi coach Dav Whatmore. Half way through the match with India bundled out for a paltry 191, Whatmore would surely be grinning.

Huh! Some Record Trivia now. I guess this was the first time ever that I celebrated for almost each and every Indian boundary along with the jumping Tiger on the Sony Max channel. ( The boundaries were so few and rare. )

Huh! India guess now have one more neighbour to envy when it comes to fast bowling resources. Mashrafe Mortaza consistently bowled over 140kmph in today's match vs Indiaa and India still doesn't have one ripper in its ranks.

Huh! This one is an ode to the Die-hard Indian fan. India has been bundled out for 191 but most of the specatators interviewed on TV still seem to believe that India will pull it off. ( even I am going to watch the first 15 overs for that matter :) )

Huh! Experience seems to count to zilch on some occasions. It's just the Josh factor on a particular day that does the trick sometimes. The Bangladesh team which doesn't have the combined experience of the Saurav-Sachin duo has the Indian team on a mat today. Latest News: Tanim Iqbal. 17 year old rookie has hit a hurricane 50 which consisted of a few disdainful hits off Zaheer and Munaf.

Tail-peice Huh! Till today, I was belwildered everytime I watched "The Blue Billion Pepsi ad" where some road side ruffians grab a Pepsi bottle from the India cricket team and then mock at them. A big crowd joins the act. Quite dumb! I thought since for the Indian fans, the cricketers are Gods. Watching the ad during the India-Bangladesh match, I came to the conclusion that the crowd playing fool with Indian cricketers was from Bangladesh! Huh!

Unconditional love?

2007-03-15T10:44:00.000-07:00

Love, the most confusing and only abstract 4-letter word is getting on my nerves again. Sometimes, I wonder if Love can ever be unconditional? A mother loves her child because it is her child. A son does so much for his parents because they are his parents and they would have sacrificed a lot for him. So far so good. A wife loves her husband because he is her man and takes care of her. What about her poor boy friend ? What about his unconditional love for her ? The boy feels foolish now. The boy has only himself to blame because he had loved a girl who was never going to be his. Perhaps a boy should first enquire whether the girl would marry him and then fall in love with her. Huh... what crap!!! . Considering all this, the arranged marriage funda where the boy and girl decide to fall in love after getting married ( huh.. is there any option left?) doesn't seem a bad idea. Is there option left? Well, the bottle in his hand seems to be the answer for now. Gulp!

New!!!

2007-03-12T10:53:00.000-07:00

It's very natural that one looks for something new, something fresh, something with that bit of energy once in a while. I am no different and was looking at other templates in blogspot. The color Black rocks any day! But I would get too passionate about the color and worry less about the content. Black , I am afraid will always make me feel good about my writings irrespective of what I write. So perhaps it would be limit the color Black to my T-shirts. ( although Mom gets crazy about it).

I like the current template, the creamish green-blue thing. But then I need to find a new one to keep myself going. The Whitish-Maroon one? That actually seems to be good option. White comes like a whiff of fresh air. The only problem with this one being that I have already used it for some of my "Melbourne Posts".

There is one greenish template which is full of life. Hmmm.. but may be it would just suit a wild life photographer more :). I find the baby-pink template a bit too effeminte. I guess it should be used only when I am in the complete romantic/glossy mood which I guess will be very rare. Tic-tac blue and tic-tac green are a bit too dull for my liking.

Huh! Hmmm.. Arghh.. After a lot of this and that I finally seem to like the White-Maroon one. Will I get going with that soon given that there seems to be fair amount of josh. Well, let's see but I usually don't bet on myself.

Titanic & Teen Mar!

2007-03-03T03:54:00.000-08:00

It was about 5'0 clock in the evening and I was in the borest of the bore moods. Half-asleep, dodgy, restless, irritated. I happened to see this attachment from one of my friends which read "Fw: Titanic" . I opened it to find the mp3 version of the itle song of Titanic. Hmmmm.. "Not bad!' I thought and decided to play the evergreen romantic. I was in for a suprise as I heard the rustic Teen Mar beat along with the Titanic song. Cool idea! I was amused, entertained and more importantly got back some Josh :) Teen Mar rocks any day!

Grrrrr ... Grow up Kiddo!

2007-01-19T19:48:00.000-08:00

Huh !!! The Blush. Will I ever grow up? Will I ever stop getting passionate and emotional about the fairer sex?

Time : 6:00 am
What I was supposed to do : Sleep like a log on my cozy bed
What I did: Got up suddenly and was searching if someone was online
Mom's expression: Ah.. My kid ... He has got up so early .. He is becoming responsible. Work in the office.. work at home. Ah .. my kid!!
After 5 mins : The heart is quite disturbed that "she" is not online. A message is passed to the brain to shut down the comp and give some respite to the weary eyes. The body pulls the rug and goes back to sleep.
Mom's expression now : Oh.. he has slept again. Wonder why he got up at all?

I am not too concerned about what Mom thinks but I am about how passionate I get about some silly girl . ( This concern is very relevant because I silly girl doesnt have any idea about this nor is she passionate about me) . I usually have a sound sleep and it requires someone to put quite a bit of effort to wake me up. But the moment I get this thought of meeting this gal, the heart seems to take over. It makes sure that the brain is activated and wakes up in time. Wish I could do this before the bloody Computer Networks exam in the 7th sem. It wouldn't have flunked and would have freaked out in the 8th sem without repeating the course.

Others guys seem to have matured quite a bit after college. They are either steady with someone or are busy with their work. I still seem to be the same confused soul . Flash back ... My thoughts when I was in the 3rd year ( Titled "In Love with love")

It was my first day of my long summer vacation. I was just out of school. I saw this girl moving into our opposite house and in a la "dil to pagal hai" style I was mesmerized as the lines "Somewhere, someone is made for you" came to my mind.It was love at first sight.(or second I don't exactly remember). I found that she was younger than me and so to befriend I used my "senior" tag. I started helpimg her academically and in whatever other way I could. Her interests started becoming my priorities and her birthday became the most auspicious day for my resolutions.This continued for one year. However she was as hard as kitply and did'nt respond.

I was now in my second year. I started to like a girl in our college who was of the traditional bholi type girl. (So what happened to the first???) After some time I felt that this girl was made for me. (First girl overwritten). Even the girl started liking me. But once after entrance exams were over we got ranks wide enough to separate us.(yeh u guessed it !!!she got a huge rank.Don't forget I am in a premier Engineering college ). As days passed by I got the feeling that this girl did'nt deserve me.

In the engineering college it started again!!! What?? what else?? The same "Somewhere someone..." feeling. This time around it was a case of "I came here ,I saw her and she conquered me". It was'nt love at first sight this time though.It was only after many sights at many sites (places) that I felt the need to sight (look for) her. ( I was more experienced ) But then life is not a bed of roses. This girl was like diamond not only in apperance but also at heart(hardness). She completely ignored me. Unlike what most of you would expect I did'nt turn Devadas with a bottle in hand. Rather I turned Kalidas with a pen in hand and began to write whenever I felt sad and depressed. Although I should confess that as a incurable Romantic and eternal lover I always keep waiting for a dramatic turn or an unexpected twist.

Now don't dare to say that you have heard this somewhere before. Believe me ,it is not a plagiarised version of "mera naam joker". It is my own story,(I mean life).These girls taught me quite a few things . (I learnt many the hard way). The first time around I realised that it is mistake to expect too much out of anyone how much ever you might love them. The next experience taught me that hasty decisions only make you regret later. The last girl(will she be the final one????) brought out the writer in me and made me tougher in life. The greatest and perhaps the most important thing that all these girls made me realise is that I was "In love with love".(and not with any of them). Any listeners???

Listeners!!! Forget it . I don't even listen to myself. If I were to re-write this again now , it wouldn't change much except that the number of girls would be 8 or 10 instead of 3 . ( And each one of them would teach me some lesson but the final lesson remains the same. (In all of these cases it would be pretty one-sided with me playing the "one".) But I don't learn I just write). "It takes much more sense to be passionate about an "idea" or a "thought" rather than a person". This I believe is conventional wisdom. For me the idea still seems that of the "silly gal". Grrrr ...Grow up Kiddo for this idea will never change your life.

After-thought: The Bollywood remake syndrome seems to have effected me too. I never imagined that I would use something that I wrote 5 years ago.

The Brain & The Strain

2006-12-30T11:25:00.000-08:00

Work!! work! work!! The last 4-5 months of my life has been only work. I don't quite manage to understand it always and that makes things even worse. I am not a techie and I am not passionate about the stuff that I work on, yet the sheer magnitude of work has meant that my poor tiny brain had no option but to store it in the limited memory available . Memory?? I wonder how much it would be? I guess it would be limited to some KB. My inbox size has however exceeded it's limit thanks to the n number of mails and the freebie documents that come along. The first thing that I need to do in the New year to delete all the unnecessary mails ( I usually don't do this on a regular basis) and free my inbox.

Going back to my poor tiny brain, its capacity and its likes and dislikes. ( For a moment, let me treat brain, mind, heart, soul and conscience as one and the same :) ). I believe the mind usually takes in stuff that it likes and leaves the rest. Given a choice, it won't like to take in anything that doesn't appeal to it. But sometimes in cases like mine, the brain has little choice. After working for all the Open hours ( eyes open ) in front of the computer with those Mainframe jobs and abends, it tends to carry with them even when in its asleep. Well, this is what happened to me in the last few days ( what actually happened and what I understood seemed to be quite different)

What Mom said : Hey , get up, you have been asleep for more than 10 hours now

What I heard it as : Hey, get up the batch has started more than 10 hours ago and is stuck with a job abend, you need to resolve it ASAP.

What Dad said: Get up now, you have been sleeping like a log .

What I replied : What's your problem mate? All the 3 output files are coming out fine as per the expected results. I have already sent out the abend log ( I was thinking that it was a damn testing team guy complaining about the results, My poor Dad is no tester and hence couldn't make head and tail of it )

Satya was my room mate in Melbourne. This is what had happened when he tried to wake me up. He had reached the office that day and was calling me on my hotel room number

What Satya said: Hi Good morning .. have you woken up? When will you be coming to office? Your PM is waiting in the office for you.

What I replied: ( I saw the time and it was 9:30 am. I was working on some damn Mainframe screen the last night). Hi Satya.. Good morning. Can you do me a favor please ? Please check if everything is fine with the "9:30 screen" ( The brain seemed to pick up the things that it saw last "The time 9:30" and the "screen" and made a combo out of it). At the other end, Satya was non-plussed. My PM let me sleep for another 3-4 hours when he heard of the "9:30 screen".

In one such instance when my Mom woke me up for the problem in the batch ( the 10 hour thing ) , I got up and immediately switched my computer on. I was trying to figure out what was going wrong. The only other thing that was active in the Brain's memory was the India-South Africa match. The brain ordered the fingers to do an F6 and open the cricinfo page. The match hadn't started for the day yet. For a good 5 minutes , I was trying to figure out how a cricket match is run by a Mainframe batch and if there was something that I could do to kick off the match. What could be the Mainframe job to get the Cricket match going ? How does it normally happen in a Live Production scenario? My mind was jammed with all such thoughts. It was only after the "Colgate Gel" effect in my mouth that I realized that I was going nuts. Ah ...My Poor tiny brain... you seem to more confused than I am!

The "5 Things" Thing

2006-12-26T09:32:00.000-08:00

And so I was back to office today. Back to the good old office at Hyderabad. There wasn't any life at the office, with most of them on leave. The ones who came were sleeping with their eyes open, staring at the computer. I made sure I left the office by 5:30 pm and more importantly made sure I had Pani-puri and chat with Ana. Pani-puri rocks! Nothing in Melbourne came any where near that!

It was the usual topic with Ana. The "objectvity" one. I went blah blah again saying that one should always do what one loved the most. I believe that every human is gifted with at least one natural talent. For each one us, there exists a "work" that one would love to do. For Sachin Tendulkar it was Cricket and he realized that when he was a kid. For many mortals like me, this "passion" might not be quite obvious. Most of us don't even make an effort to find out what that "passion/talent" is. It would be just within you, it's only that you haven't made any effort to listen to that voice. "Apne Dil ki Suno"... Oh... I do sound like a Naseeruddin Shah in an art movie.. Don't I?

I came across this "5 things that you don't know about me" theme in a couple of blogs. I couldn't quite get the funda of beig tagged and the online theme but I do feel this would be a cool topic to get back from my long haitus. So here goes my list.

1.) Confused :

I am confused about girls, love and marriage. I have a blush on every other girl that I come across. I have had 8 serious blushes in my life...Huh..apart from these there are girls who glitter, tickle my heart and disappear before I verify the source of the funny tickle. Ah.. well.. if the word "Blush **" has confused you that let me tell you that I have coined this word and it has been generated has a result of all the confusion that I have had about the 3 things mentioned earlier.

** A Blush is the equivalent of Sigmund Freud's Crush. The Blush phenomenon is all set to rock the world somewhere between 2010 and 2015.

2.) Love afternnon naps:

I can stay late in the night upto 3:00-4:00 am without any kind of discomfort. However it require someone/something special to deny me the 2-3 of heavenly Sunday afternoon nap after a heavy meal at home.

3.) Hate curd rice

I find that most of my crushes( read blushes) love curd rice. I love all of them but I hate curd rice. I love pickles ( Avvakai). I gobbled around 3 bottles of that during my 6-week stay in Melbourne.

4.) I write more than I read:

Yes, I think I have really got to improve my reading habits. I don't even regularly read a newspaper. However I can't hold on to my felings for long and scribbling on a notepad/blog-site about my feelings gets me going.

5.) The dimple factor:

I am one of the biggest fans of Preity Zinta on earth . I can never really get tired of going ga-ga about her cute dimples. The dimple factor also helps me clear some of confusion that I mentioned in point one.

And I thougt I should make one honest confession apart from these 5 things. Hmmmm.. it is a bit embarassing for me .. but I guess it's ok since it is supposed to be a confesssion. I don't know how to tie a tie-knot. My Dad has been doing it for me all through the last 2.5 years. :)

YYYYYYYYawn! I am back

2006-06-17T12:36:00.000-07:00

Aha.. so I am back to work after nearly more than 1 month. So what was it that stopped me all the while? Hmmm.. for some reason I lacked the JET factor ( Josh, Energy and time). By the way for me,Josh is different from energy although they are related. Josh is the raw enthusiasm. The drive for you to get things going. Josh is somethig related to the mind( or rather the heart for I doubt the existence of the former in my case). Energy in my terms (at least here) is how fit one is physically to take up a task. After working in the office till 9 in the night, I might not be in a position to blog after coming home although I have the Josh. Energy is thus related to the body. Sometimes like today I might be at home lazying on my bed all day long but might simply lack the will ( or the Josh) to blog. So if JET strikes at 1:00 in the night, I break the Yyyyyyawn and get going. ( I am the semi-nocturnal kind anyway)

Apart from these, I guess I suffer from some kind of "Plan to fail" syndrome i.e. If I plan excessisively for some task, I get too worried and end up not doing the task at all. May be blogging for a few days (with Google Ad sense) was perceived to be one such kind of an activity by my sub-consicious. If I start worrying too much about the task to be done in the night( dont let your imaginations run wild now..:)) , I end up hitting the sack immediately after dinner. For the time being, I am out of this syndrome. But in the longterm, I got to figure out some kind of action to beat this . Lots of things to do in this short span called life and I can't let these happen to me.

What will happen if my bike's rear tyre goes off as I am driving along the IMAX road? Thoughts like this have been striking me ever since my rear tyre was repaired by a kiddo mechanic near the office. This guy was so short and puny that he would not equal the bike size even when multiplied by 4.( Boy's size *4) . But he managed the repair task with aplomb. However everytime there is an odd noise on the rear side(or on the road) I start thinking about the rear tyre coming off. The first thing I need to do tomorrow morning is to get my bike diagnosed for any kind of ills in the garage. Aah.. the deadline... Naah.. let me not worry about it too much. (huh.. the "plan to fail syndrome").

One of my friends suggested that one way to break the "Plan to fail" syndrom would be to address the tasks as if they would be done by some other person( "Third person" was what he meant). Something like "Kido will do this n Kido will do that" instead of "I will do this n I will do that. Seems like plain nonsense to me, But anyway let me give it a try for my friend.

So Kidoredo plans to do the following things in the next few days

The Hyderbad traffic blog
The Reservations blog
A weekly round-up column kind of blog

Let me see if I errr Kidoredo lives up to the expectations.

There is this thought that has been on my mind ever since the 7-up ad on Mallika Sherawat came. Mallika asks my brother Fidodedo to make her sexy and curvy and he turns her into a 7-up bottle. So what does Kidoredo do? Kido buys the 7-up bottle and turns it back to Mallika! :) ( wish I had the power)

That 1 hour without lights (3)

2006-05-04T21:15:00.000-07:00

Dear God,

Hello! Good morning ( Do you follow IST by the way? ). As ever I write this because I have something really bothering me. I guess all the humans do the same. Any way I thought I should express my thoughts to you, instead of cribbing about it.
A couple of days ago, I told you about the pleasure being in the dark without the lights at 7:00 pm in the evening. It was really kind of you to get the electricity off in the night at 11:30 pm. I really enjoyed the cool breeze and the swaying of trees.

I guess you had told the electricity guy about my request. I have a hunch that you had left the choice of "timing" of the power cut to his discretion. So on the first day he decided to oblige at 11:30 pm. Thanks to the cool atmosphere, it turned to be a very plesant experience for me. Yesterday he decided to act at 3:00 am in the night. I got up at that hour and for a moment I felt I was on the moon because there seemed to no such thing like 'oxygen' around. All the trees and plants around me were so static that it seemed as if I was gazing at some kind of wallpaper. With everything so static it was as if I was sitting on a attic devoid of any air . You know that I am a nocturnal guy and sleep late in the night. Yesterday the late happened even later and I slept at 2:00 am only to be awaken an hour later. I have recently started this activity of going to the gym in the morning and because of the untimely power cut I could not make it to the gym today. The electricity guy however seems to be very particular regarding the duration of the power cut and it was only after one hour it started fanning again. So effectively it was only after 4:00 am that I could sleep again.( only to disturbed by the alarm at 5:30 am).

Please instruct the electricity guy not to act according to his whims and fancies. Let the power cut be before 11:00 pm everyday. This is my earnest request. If you could add a bit of breeze to my life, then nothing like it. This is my third post on this topic and I am no Ekta Kapoor to do a mega serial kind of thing. Hopefully this is the last in this series of posts.

Looking back I also feel that the name "That 1 hour without lights" has a romantic element in it. A female and the darkness have never struck me at the same time ( It is usually a case of the female leaving me alone to languish in the dark). I will be the happiest if you could let that happen to me ( and a bit of cool breeze too.). Guess I am getting too greedy now. So adios for now.

Your wishful devotee,
Kidoredo

That 1 hour without lights (2)

2006-05-03T22:30:00.000-07:00

Oh.. wow!!! Someone has taken my request in my previous post a tad too seriously. Guess God listened to my request and informed someone in the Electricity board about it and Voila the electricity had gone kaput for an hour yesterday. The only problem was that it happened at 11:30 pm in the mid night instead of 7:00 pm. Now 11:30 pm is no time to get social ( well.. at least for the time being and at least in my apartments it doesn't happen :) ). The elecricity usually goes off when there is the slightest hint of rain. Yesterday it was not even that. It was just that the air was blowing at a slightly higher velocity than it usually does.

Once the lights were gone, I had no option but to sleep. My eyes were in no mood to close since they already had a heavy dose of siesta in the afternoon. Outside the cool breeze had now turned into some kind of a rougue wind( there was an element of dust associated with the wind.. and hence the term rougue wind). I pulled my chair out in the balcony and sat with my legs on the parapet wall. The Homo sapien world outside my balcony seemed to be fast asleep. There was no one to be seen on the terraces of the neighbouring buildings. The only noise that could now be heard was the swoosh made by the trees and rustling of the leaves. The coconut tree facing me was swaying with all its hands spread out in the air. From that distance it appeared like a monstrous star fish seen in the English movies. The other trees seemed only too happy to shed their inertia and stretch themselves. It seemed that all the plants and trees were waiting for soemthing like this.

There wasn't too much of a rougish element associated with the wind as I had expected. Replacing my chair with the bed seemed to be the perfect idea. I pulled the bed to the balcony and adjusted the bedsheet. Sleeping in the open ( although this was very partial)was a good feeling. Just as I was about to doze off, the lights came back. Fifteen minutes later I was back sitting in front of the computer doing the mail check and all other mundane things. There wasn't a hint of darkness left for me to experience any kind of hidden joy.

That 1 hour without lights

2006-05-03T08:38:00.000-07:00

The heat is well and truly on in Hyderabad. Travelling more than 20 kms from my home to the office drains me of all the energy these days. Phew!!! And this is just the beginning of the day. Perhaps I should start an hour earlier than I usually do. That would also help me escape the rude sunlight which glares right into my eyes and wakes me up these days. Winter is such a pleasure.. but may be you got to experience the Summer to admire the winter.

There was no electricity in my house for more than 3 hours in the afternoon. It reminded of the days ten years ago when there used to regular power cuts on a daily basis. Doing anything in the summer afternoon with the fan switched off is such a pain. There also used to be that 1 hour power cut in the evening from 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Without light and fan is perhaps worse thn being without just the fan, but I really used to enjoy the evening power cut. A power cut at that time meant that I could keep my books away from me for a good 1 hour. ( remember annual exams usually happen at this time .. so that meant more and more books). This one hour was a break not just for me but also for my dad, aunt, uncle and cousins. That was the time for all of us to chat freely on the terrace or in the verrandah without bothering about any kind of work or studies. Listening to or narrating some kind of horror stories sitting in one dark corner of the terrace was something I really enjoyed. If all of us were in a real "josh" kind of mood, then we even used to play "Anthakshari". It was such a fun. The "end bell" at 8:00 pm would come in the form a loud yell from the children of the opposite house. I guess I used to unknowly wait for the clock to strike 7:00 pm every evening. The power cut thus brought out the social life that wouldn't usually exist on days with the fans and the tubelights on.

Later I passed out of school and entered the most crucial phase ( I really "hate" that phrase) of my life. My babu ( read dad) bought an emergency lamp to provide me the light but I guess it only darkened my life. After a few years, the power cuts stopped thanks this time to another babu...Chandrababu. Thus the Babus knocked the night darkness ( opposite of day light) out of my life. These days the electricity goes off just for 5-10 mins perhaps to harm my UPSless computer. On some days we do have the 2-3 power cuts in the afternoons which drives me crazy. But what about the 1 hour night life without the lights...I want it back. Any listeners??

8 reasons why I want to study further

2006-04-25T19:12:00.000-07:00

Study again!!! Yeah.. I had this feeling for almost 2 years now. It has been almost 2 years since I graduated and ever since I always dreamt to doing an MBA ( or any relevant course) and studying further. Well, it hasn't happened till now. But I believe it will happen sometime. When I say I want to study further, I am talking about doing a full fledged residential 2 year programme. Residential because hostel life is fun. I want to experience the hostel life again for 2 more years. Hmmm.. may be staying in a separate room and studying is fine but it's not quite fun. Let me list out all the reasons why I want to be out in school again( or rather be in a hostel again). There are of obvious things like better salary, the Post-graduate tag etc etc which will come along. But then I am not going to go too much into them. After all there are so many other things. So here goes the list ( the first 7 in no particular order but the last reason is the last one )

1.) Loooooooooooooooong hair!!!

I failed to understand the importance of uninhibited hair growth during my graduation days. After that job happened and the bike came bringing the helmet along with it and my hair has suffered quite a lot. Looong hair.. Spiky hair...curly hair.. everything has flopped thanks to the helmet. I guess the it's only the Onida boy kind of style that goes well with the helmet.Two years without any kind of a load on my head is going to be a bliss.

2.) Bachelor Forever!!!!

" He is done with his studies and has been working for almost the last 2 years.He is well-settled. I think we should get him married" .

I wonder how each and every aunt in a marriage or a function thinks the same about me. Oh.. can't they leave me alone??. I dread the word "settled" ( which usually translates to he is next bakra... get him!!!(married)). Induction works in this case and soon parents start thinking the same. I believe two years away from home studying in some school will restore my "Bacha image". After all I am a Kiddo...( Oh... he is still studying .. will be the commom phrase then).

3.) Gully cricket!

Boy ...I really miss it! Nothing beats the fun of playing with the tennis ball in confined spaces with fielders breathing down your neck. I remember those days in college when we used to play with the Bret lee kind of passion and Shoaib Akhtar kind of aggression. And we never complained of excessive cricket and burn out either :). My job now leaves me with no chance of playing gully cricket( I am not the one who would play corporate tournaments). The best we can do in office is to dole out the cricketing fundas ( and cribs lamenting defeats)while catching the score live on the net. I want to extend my cricketing career by another 2 years.

4.) Movies on the LAN!

One of the things that I regret not doing during my engineering days is that I did not watch any good movies (especially the good English ones) on the LAN at all. Somehow the activty of watching movies on my computer never appealed to me. It does seem a good idea now and all I need an opportunity ( read Hostel with LAN) to do it.

5.)Home away from home!

There is so much of freedom associated with hostel life. You can sleep any time and wake up any time( of course the classes and attendance will be a factor). Sleeping at home after 9:00 am in the morning seems to be some kind of a crime for a my parents. My hostel record for getting up in the morning was 12:30 pm when I had to get up for lunch ( Of course there were cases of 5 pm and 6 pm also.. but in those cases I wouldn't have slept the previous night). I want freedom... freedom to sleep.. Azaadi neend ki.

6.) Night life!

Staying awake late in the mid night in front of my computer is now all the night life that I have. Even this invites the wrath ( not exactly that.. something less serious) of my parents. The hostel is a different place. There is that buzz during the nights when the entire hostel seems to busy playing games, chatting ( not the online one), watching movies etc etc. I will never forget the day and night gully cricket matches that we used play starting from mid night and going on and on till breakfast next morning.

7.) Campus walks:

I don't dare to go out on the roads after dinner at home,courtesy the noise and air pollution. Going for a long walk in the moon light on roads with trees on either side is a lovely feeling . There would be no air or noise pollution. It would only be cool breeze and the hustle of the leaves. At the moment, I am not rich enough to own a castle ( with lots of trees and gardens for me to roam around ) nor do I intend to build one in the near future. What I can do is study for 2 years in a good institute which would provide this kind of an ambience.

8.) And finally the course

I have listed 7 reasons till now for studying again in my life. But to fulfill all these wishes, I have no option but to do the "course" or the "programme" for which I have enrolled myself. I hope I will learn something from the course( just the "course" not the curiculum) at the end of programme.

P.S: If by any chance, you happen to be a professor or dean of any reputed institute in India or abroad and you believe that your insitute caters to my list of wishes (hmmmm.. there can't be a more honest SOP than this, isn't it?? ), please feel free to leave a comment :). I might apply to your institute or may be join your place. Get Lucky.. Huh!

Not quite News

2006-04-17T22:58:00.000-07:00

There is so much happening these days ( or may be something or the other has always happened..isn't it???) But not everything that happens on the earth qualifies to be News. I wonder if there is enough news to cater to the 24*7 News channels. Having news updates every now and then with the headlines being scrolled is great, but the problem arises when there is no "news" around.( May be the term "news" is a very relative term).

A pity that in cases like that the News channels can't do what I did in the previous post . Imagine the line "Our channel is intentionally going blank at the moment since there is currently no news " flashing on your TV screen. Not the best thing to happen for the channel perhaps.

As a nation, we have always been interested about the private lives of the celebrities. ( Ask Aamir Khan, he will explain this better). So may be anything and everything about the "celebrity" becomes news. Last week there was "news" about the model's dress accidentally ( or intentionally I really dont know) coming off in a fashion show. There were a lot of ohhhhs and aaaahs going around about it with the MMS and video clips going around in the market. Nothing suprising. But what stumps me is the fact there was an elite panel discussing this event for 30 minutes on a premier channel. One of the panelists kept saying that it was just an accidental slip and hence shouln't be made an issue. Another woman activtist refused to accept it as a trivial accident( Good... let's announce a nation wide 2 minute silence for it!!!). My goodness .... was that anything to be discussed about? Anyway, I was one of the many fools who saw it. May be I am making a bigger fool of myself writing about it and treating it like "News". But then I am just trying to say that what's happening is not quite news

Nothing much to blog about

2006-04-17T22:35:00.000-07:00

The Hero rises from the dust

2006-04-07T12:48:00.000-07:00

Working full time in the nights has it own disadvantages. Yesterday was a day off where I slept for 4-5 hrs in the morning and then had my full quota of night sleep( 8-9 hours). Life in the morning failed to motivate me beyond the mediocre routine of mail check and nature calls and hence I slept again( although there were some tasks to be done, they couldn't really get me going). Sometimes I tell myself that since I got to work the entire night, a nap ( a looong one though) in the morning would do me no harm. Today was one such days and I slept about 3 hours in the morning when I didn't need any. Now at 1:30 am in the mid night, my already puffy face is bloated like a balloon and my eyes remind me every moment that they don't need too much rest at one stretch.

Day before yesterday was different. In fact it was at the other extreme. I came to the office, worked till 2 and then had a couple of hours of sleep at home (traveling 20 odd kms in the hooooot Sun). In the night I was back again for the shift. On days like this , there is a 2-hour period in the midnight ( between 2:00 am to 4:00 am) which gets extremely testing. This is the time when the beauty called Sleep throws all her guiles and tries to seduce me. I usually succumb and give myself the luxury of a half an hour fling with the beauty.( better known as the "nap"). This luxury exists because of the fact there are at least two members doing the work. But this night was different as I was all alone. It was about 2:00 in the night. Mainframes just like my life was dull and slow, and as such my work did not require my constant attention. And she was there again , this time at her seducing best. ( The goddess of sleep is perhaps the only female in our project who works in the night :D). I tried to resist her advances , but then I was too tired and so I put my head on the table and fell for her.( asleep)

A usually subdued and dormant part of my body, the mind was warning me to get up and have a look at the Mainframes screen. What if some job had failed? What if the Mainframes suddenly started sprinting? What if the guy at onsite pinged me? But my eyes were in no mood to listen to all this. I defied them and had a look at the Mainframes screen. Everything was going fine. But I couldn't carry on like this all through the night. I had to get up. My eyes were still battling hard. My right hand slowly moved towards the mouse and I found the mouse-pointer on the screen opening the Music India Online browser. Everything appeared blurred but I could see the image of a guy riding a horse. The mouse pointer moved towards that image and clicked something by its side. And then it started...

ding ding ding ding ding ding ding
ding ding ding ding ding..

My eyes were still closed. However I could feel something, something exciting, something that was telling me to wake up and get going. There was something abuzz in me.

thodisi dhuul meri dharti ki mere watan ki
thodisi Khushbuu baurai se mast pavan ki

My eyes now stopped the struggle against the instructions of the mind. It was as if they told the mind "Yeah... now don't bother us. We will be up and open in a couple of minutes". I wasn't dancing but I could feel the Aamir Khan in me shaking his leg. There was a kind of energizing feeling that was stronger and stronger as the song went on.

thodisi dhondhane waali dhak-dhak dhak-dhak dhak-dhak saansein
..........................................
...........................................

oh mohe rang de basanti basanti rang de basanti
(ding ding ding ding ding ding ding
ding ding ding ding ding)

My eyes were up and in business as usual ( staring at the Mainframe screen). My fingers were relentlessly doing the "ENTER ENTER " job. My feet were also in action, tapping the floor. So what about the Beauty of sleep and her charms ? I don't really know .May be it was her turn to fall asleep :D

I often crib about many aspects of Indian movies. The Protagonist is always portrayed as a Superman who can never loose. The Lead lady doesn't seem to have any work expect colliding with the Hero and ending up in a "dream song". The Police invariably appear before the "THE END" screen. But there is a kind of a energyzing Josh and excitement that only "Indian songs" (and the image of the Hero ) can generate. And for the moment.. I am not complaining.

P.S: If you haven't felt the josh that I am talking about, try reading the blog with the "Rang De Basanti" title song in the background.

Tak tak tak

2006-04-04T19:21:00.000-07:00

Cliched!!! Perhaps that would be an understatement to describe the kind of work that I do in the office. The other day I was doing this task of "batch monitoring", when the guy who cleans the office entered the place. After collecting the trash at various desks in a plastic tray kind of a thing ( don't know what this is called), he went to straight to the dustbin at the corner of the room to empty the trash. There were some dusty paper pieces that wouldn't come off the tray easily so he started tapping on the other side of the tray in order to empty the trash. "Tak tak tak.. Tak tak tak" . That's how it sounded as he tapped the tray. Hmmmmm... Wait a minute. I could hear a similair sound orginating from another source. I realized that even I was generating the "Tak tak tak... tak tak tak" hitting the "Enter" key repeatedly. "Good God... What a royal analogy !!!" I thought. There was not much difference in the kind of work that we were doing. He at least had an objective ,that of emptying the trash. Why was I doing this work? No idea!!! "Tak tak tak... tak tak tak". I started hitting the ENTER key more rigorously.

Long long ago, before I started doing this kind of work, there used to be a time in the academic year when I had to got to the school early in the morning, come back in the afternoon, have a nap for about 1 hour and then start studying for some kind of tests known as "Annual Exams".( I never did the last thing though.. used to play Gully cricket instead). The time of the year was called "Summer" and the schedule that we had was known by the name "Morning schools". I never realized at that time, but now I really feel those days were cool. There used to be this "Beat the Heat" slogan doing the rounds in ESPN and STAR sports which meant that there was plenty of cricket action round the corner. The timing of these cricket matches would invariably clash with the "annual exams"(and India -Pakistan clash before the damned social-studies paper). My parents, uncles and aunts would always grumble everytime me or my cousins swtiched the television on to catch the latest score. Many years have passed since these things happpened. No one grumbles now. I don't swtich on the televison either. I just do an "ALT+TAB" to alter from the mainframes screen to cricinfo.com. I see my Project lead walking towards my seat, I do an "ALT+TAB" again and continue with the "Tak tak tak... tak tak tak".

The art of eating Pani-puris

2006-03-28T20:39:00.000-08:00

Stautory warning: Panipuri consumption does not enhance one's physique nor does it help in increasing one's I.Q. Panipuri consumption is just about having fun eating junk. In better words, Panipuri delaaye sirf mazaa baaki sab bakhwaas.

As a kid, I hated Panipuris ( Gol-gappas or water balls or what ever you call them). The water always seemed murky and the taste just about ok. After having it for the first time, I felt I would do well avoiding it. But being the "chat" lover that I am, it was impossible for me to stay away from this kind of junk food. As the years passed, I explored and now finally I have come to the conclusion that Panipuri eating is a one of the most delightful activities that one can ever engage oneself in. Of course Panipuri consumption is not just about having a Ping pong size Puri with a mix of salty water. On the contrary it is an art. This post goes to all those who still haven't discovered its taste and for those who hesitate before having a gulp of this delicacy.

The place:

First things first. It is important that you choose the right place. As per my experience, the place has to be slightly above the standards of the normal road side chats.Just a bit bigger and cleaner.( I am talking about the standards in Hyderabad. It might be otherwise in Nagpur or Mumbai).There are lot of such stalls coming up in Hyderabad these days. If you are in a fix to decide the place, I suggest you go by the price. A good Panipuri usually costs something like Rs 5 for 8/10 pieces ( or more). Don't opt for places where you get 3 Panipuris for Re.1. They usually don't taste good.

The company:

Hmmm.. I am not going to talk about the kind of company that you need to have while having a Pani-puri instead let me tell you the fact that "Panipuri" should be accompanied by "Onions" ( In fact my first line before I start eating would be "Thoda Pyaaz (onions) dallo Bhayya"). These onions should be sliced into small pieces and should be present even before you gulp the first Pani puri. Munching the onions after each gulp of Pani-puri is real fun.

The Size of the Puri:

The bigger the better. Ideally the Pani-puri size( fully filled with the Pani) should make you open your mouth to the maximum possible extent. Once you have it in your mouth, it should give you the "I have done it" feeling. This happens in the maximum mouth stretch case.

The turn-around time:

Turn-around time, ( not the Opearating Systems one :D ) is the difference in time that an individiual takes between the consumption of two panipuris. Ideally, when you finish one Pani-puri, the next should be ready to land in your mouth. This means that gulp time( time taken to gulp a pani-Puri) should be equal to the turn-around time.

There are many places where about 10 Pani-puris are served on the plate along the Pani( in a cup). This really takes the charm away from the Pani-puri-eating. ( Pani-puris served in plate look good only in pictures like the one above)Trying to stuff the Panipuri ( while you eat them) will increase the turn-around time and as the TAT( turn-around time) increases, the fun is lost. So let the pani-puris be served by a professional. In case the place doesnt serve you that way, look around for other eatables . Home made Pani puris might be good but it takes time to achieve the professional efficiency.

Count per cycle:

The count per cycle is the number of people who are served Panipuri in a sequential order. I have seen places where the count is 6-8 . This again results in a lag of TAT. The ideal count-per cycle is 3-4.(certainly not more than 4 and you also need to ensure that the Pani-puri wallah does it fast). If one is alone, the TAT might be too short and this might result in one concentrating on the pace rather thn relishing the taste which is not desirable. ( Now you need "company" when you eat Panipuri)

The chat temperature:

By chat temperature, I mean the degree of hotness or coldness of the chat or whatever that is stuffed into the Panipuri. If this is hot,( as hot as the other dishes like samosa chat that are on the menu), then nothing to beat that. However a good Pani-puri tastes fine irrespective of the chat temperature. In other words, an optimum temperature is just an add on and not a necessity. Don't let the "hot' factor fool you.( Tasteless things are sometimes made "hot" just to make the "sale" happen.)

The Pani:

The water used in the Puri may be sweet( meetha) or sour(khatta). One needs to ensure that water is meetha or khatta to the right extent. It might not be a great idea of mix both the flavours( it doesn't leave a distinct taste in the mouth). Have just the flavour you prefer and in case you want have both, have 5 Puris of one flavour and then 5 of the other.(Don't alternate).

So then,I guess this is lots of Gyan for folks who are yet to start/or about to start as far as Panipuris are concerned. Members of the farier sex usually love Pani-puris( I mean.. if they are junkies) because it perfectly suits their diet and appetite. The best thing about "Pani-puris" is you can have them anytime ( before/in between/after the main meal). After all it is just about making that small space in your tummy. Happy eating!!! Just make sure you don't do the Don'ts.

The Don'ts:

* Don't eat Panipuri at a place where it is served in a plate.
* Don't exceed the ideal count per cycle.(4)
* Never forget the onions.
* Don't eat Pani-puris when the stall is just about to close shop (the size of the left over Pani-puris is usually small).
* Don't take health and diet freaks along for a Pani-puri snack. (Drink mineral water with them :D)

Of Hari Sadu and the Best Entertainer

2006-03-26T19:21:00.000-08:00

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet." I thought almost all believed this just the way Shakespeare and I did. But I was in for a suprise last week when I saw a parent filing a case against( or may be planning to) against Naukari.com for the Hari Sadu ad. The parent alleged that his child "Hari" was being teased and ridiculed by his school mates who started calling him names like "Hitler" "Idiot" "Arrogant". The parent was upset due to the fact that his child "Hari" was being subjected to a trauma.

I feel the Naukari.com guy did what he was supposed to do when he made the ad. If not "Hari" he had to use some name that was popular enough and could be associated by the viewers. In that case some other child in India had to bear the truama and that parent had to be offended. But does one need to be offended? Of course children do get offended, but in that case wasn't it the duty of the parent to correct them? It is the parent's responsibilty to help a child to overcome things like this. I wonder what would have happened if Verappan's parents named him Hari instead of Verappan.

Meanwhile Indian politics continues to provide wholesome entertainment. Currently it is the office of profit issue rocking the nation's politicians. The BJP made it an issue and pressurized the Government for trying to pass in ordinance and modify the existing law. The moment Sonia Gandhi resgined, the hunter became the hunted. It was now facing BJP's turn to face the music since many of the MPs in the state government had other posts( office of profit). I thought of posting exclusively on the issue but lack of complete knowledge( research required) made me think otherwise. I regret missing Barkha Dutt's "We the People" episode on the "Office of Profit" issue yesterday. The sight of the politicians mudslinging in the midst of audience across the nation really gives me the kick. ( and of course the entertainment!!!). Hail the News channels!!!

Indian cricket meanwhile, I feel has dropped down the entertainment list after India was defeated by a fledgling England side in the Mumbai side. I don't want to take the cliched path of blaming the Indian team but the English team did not deserve to lose the series for the sheer magnitude of their effort and committment. "We don't deserve to lose the series " was what the English captain Andrew Flintoff said after his team suffered a reverse at Mohali. Any team or individual with this kind of self belief doesn't deserve to lose and that's what finally happened.

With the one-dayers coming up, the Indian politicians will need to compete hard against the Indian cricketers for the tag of the "Best entertainer". Let us sit back and enjoy the fun!!!

Unveiling the hero called Kidoredo

2006-03-17T05:25:00.000-08:00

If you are wondering what the name Kidoredo is all about, then you need to read the relevant explanation in one of my earlier posts "Thy name is Kidoredo" . So I guess the differences between Kido and Fido are glarng enough to be spotted with the naked eye. Top things first and you would notice the hair. Thanks to the daily use of my Helmet my hair is not spiky like Fido's but very much bent and dead( Booo...hoooo). The face is chubby and almost a circle. ( Note Fidodido's triangular face)courtesy the genetic factors. The hands are a lot muscular ( euphemism for fatter) than Fido's which is but natural considering Kido's Indian origin and food habits. Kidoredo also has a paunch that could not be illustrated in the above picture. By the way, Kidoredo believes that water is the best thirst quencher and hence doesnt advertise any kind of soft drink. Finally Kido loves his brother Fido and hence carries that image on his shirt.

P.S. All pics used here for purpose of illustration only. Fidodido's image is from the net.

What's in a speling?

2006-03-10T20:28:00.000-08:00

What's in a speling? That which meant spelling when spelt "spelling" would mean the same even when spelt "speling".( Oops....The absence of "l" is more conspicious than I thought it would be). The same image of the great English play writer strikes my mind whether you spell it "Shakesphere" or "Shakespeare". ( That's better now .. the wrong spelling is less consipicious). Anyway my reason for saying this is simple. "Kiddo" has been wrongly spelt as "Kido" in my blog name. Even the redo, seems to convey the meaning of doing something again instead of souding as a proper noun "Redo" (read it as Red followed by o).

I have given this a thought. I was thinking if I should go ahead and change the name to "KiddoReddo". But even the sight of it seems to be too intimidating unlike the more mortal and simpler name "Kidoredo". After the blog-name should convey certain characteristics of it's writer. I usually hate when it people add letters to their names in order to lucky. I believe you make your own luck and not the spelling or the pronunciation of your name. So the name remains Kidoredo( and this post is a justification for the spelling cynics.)

I used the word "Kidobhai" in my last post and I realized that I have stumbled upon an oxymoron. Kido is a "kid" and can never be a mature "bhai" (and thus the oxymoron "Kidobhai).

Reel n Real

2006-03-10T05:26:00.000-08:00

Sand!!! That is supposed to be on the beach. What the hell was it doing on the roads of Hyderabad? I am cribbing now because very recently my bike skid on the road courtesy the sand. Nothing serious except for a bruise on the elbow and the knee. But my left shoulder still finds the fall painful. When I told my cousin about this skid incident, she asked me if I was trying to perform any kind of "feats" on my bike like a filmi hero. Feats?? My foot!!! My bike, now automatically starts walking ( slows down like hell) when encountered with anything that remotely resembles sand or gravel on the road. And yeah I would never imitate a filmi hero while driving atleast.

Now then, there are so many things that you find in films ( especially the Bollywood and the regional lot) that are in no way realistic. How I wish college was something like what it was in "Kuch Kuch Hota Hain"? I wish I could do a Munnabhai and do a Journalism course in a good institute. ( It would be Kiddobhai, the journo instead Munnabhai MBBS :D). How I wish I had gals fighting for me just beacause it is me, the Hero. That reminds me of something. This happened just a few days ago when my latest blush( my equivalent of Sigmund Frued's Crush) told me that she is enagaged and will soon get married. This is what I had to say in a La Shahrukh Khan manner

Romeo( me me me):Did you ever love me? Atleast for a day? Atleast for an hour? Atleast for a minute? Atleast for a second? Atleast for a fleeting moment? ( Try to read this in hindi, "Kya tune kabhi mujhse pyar kiya hain, ek din ke liye, ek pal ke liye " and I guess you will have the sense of Dejavu)

Juliet: Yeah, I loved you for a moment, but I thought it was a "passing phase".

And that brought me dowwn crashing to the real world. Haa.haa!!! But then this is life and no cinema. Of course, there is always chance of her going for me just as her fiancee is about to tie the knot.( aaah.. many movies running in front of my eyes). But then it would be my turn to use the "passing phase" phrase. Biddu.. Life mein Aisa each hota hain!!!

Kabhi Kabhi

2006-03-02T12:18:00.000-08:00

There are situations in life where nothing works for you. It is as if the world has conspired to make sure that you are doomed for that moment. I have just faced one such instance where I thought Life was laughing at me. Left with no other option I joined the laughter.

I was responsible for monitoring the batch tonight. For the non-mainframers, a batch is a set of programs( around 1000-1500 in my case) that need to be executed in a sequence. Mainframes has this tendency or more appropriately the capability to make an ass out of you and mock at you. Space problems, CPU allocation and the Mainframe getting slow.. all these are problems that make you pay for no fault of yours. Today has been a eventful day and all the three problems decided to strike me together. First the mainframe was pretty slow. I thought it couldn't get any slower than that. The space-problem is an evergreen problem and today ( err tonight) was no different. The space problem can be tackled by migrating the datasets( read files). The mainframe getting slow will frustrate you to no end but finally you can do the work ( it's only that the pace or rather the lack of it irritates you). The CPU problem is different. There is not much you can do when the CPU is not allocating time for your jobs other than just stare into the screen and expect that the job gets a share of the time soon.

That's what happened to me. I was staring into the screen with 3 jobs running for well over an hour and the CPU% besides them showing 0. Why did this happen to me? What am I doing here in font of this screen? Is this work really worth it? All these thoughts flashed across my mind as the song in the background played( you need songs to work in the the late hours)

"Kabhi, Kabhi .. mera dil mein .. khayal aata hain".
Aaah.. How true I thought..

Suddenly the male voice stopped and the female voice started...

"Kabhi, Kabhi .. mera dil mein .. khayal aata hain".

Bloody hell now I felt as if the 3 jobs on the screen staring into my face and singing the song.. "Kabhi Kabhi..." ( there were no females in the office around :D)

The song continued..

"Ki Jaise tujh ko bulaaya gaya hain mere liye.."

How true I thought. The jobs needed me to run them. They needed me to be there in the late night when no else was there to do the job.

"Tu ab se pehle Sitaaron mein bas rahi thi pehele kabhi..."

I dont know what this exactly meant. But to me it translated to the jobs telling me that I was enjoying office before this without any kind of work pressure leading a life devoid of any hassles.Life seemed to be such a bliss.

"Tujhe Zameen pe bulaaya gaya hain meere liye"

"Now you have been brought crashing down to earth to do this job" the mainframe beings seemed to mock at me.

Hmmmmm... Life has come a full cycle I thought. It's not my boss but a non-living mainframe being that is mocking at me. Huh!! I gave a wry smile with one hand on my head lamenting it's fate and other moving the mouse to play the song again. It happens sometimes.. Kabhi Kabhi!!!

The Wait

2006-03-01T07:04:00.000-08:00

Have you ever waited for someone( need not be your boy or your girl) in a cafe or a restuarant or a Pizza Hut for more than half an hour? Have you ever waited for anyone at any place for that matter idling your precious time ? If you have, I guess you will agree with me that "The Wait" is not a amusing thing. Try to recollect carefully what you did during "the wait" and you might find that you thought crazy and acted crazier.

For all the reasons the person who made you wait could be blamed for ,I don't think even he or she finds it too amusing ( unless of course you have this habit of befriending psychos/sadists). The waitee ( my name for the person who makes one wait) would have been delayed by a genuine reason like office work landing all of sudden or the tyre going flat without any prior notice. The waiter ( yeah you are right the person who waits) turns hyper the moment he/she lands at the place of appointment. This happens even if the waiter had played the waitee just the previous day and was late by a good half an hour . "Oh... this guy has no time sense" would be a common thought after 5 minutes of wait.

Cometh the moment, cometh the mobile. Probably this is one instance where the mobile comes in very handy. "Hello.. Are you coming? I am already here waiting for you" goes the first call. Now the waiter, normally a person of normal eye-sight starts seeing the waitee in almost every person reaching that venue. The common comments being..

Oh.. I thought that was Abhishek( let's give the waitee a name instead of calling him a waitee always).He wore a half-sleeves shirt today.( Now all of the guys in half sleeves cannot be Abhishek. Isn't it???)

Oh.. I thought that was Abhishek's Blue Hero-Honda ( Hero-Honda does sell blue bikes to people other than Abhishek)

All the people except Abhishek seem to be making their way to this place( ???????... This is not your country-side farmhouse but a restaurant in a densely populated area)

Now the waiter runs out of patience.It's almost 15 minutes since "the wait" has started. It's the mobile again.

Waiter: "Hey, are you coming at all?"
Waitee: "I have just started.Actually... I had just started..."
Waiter: "Oh.. make it fast."

The waiting continues for the waiter. The eyes continue to deceive the waiter. Every now and then Abhishek seems to appear only to disappear again. The watch hardly moves it's hands but finds the most minute of its moments being observed by the waiter. The waiter's namesake ... I mean the waiter( in the normal "restuarant" sense) in the restaurant/cafe keeps now starts getting hyper and gets on to the already saturated waiter( in the context of the blog ). It's not even 5 minutes but the waiter now picks up the mobile again and gives a call to the waitee who replies that he is on his way. Someone please tell the waiter that mobile is a device that is used to communicate. It isn't any kind of accelerator and hence any number of calls to the other person will not make him/her come faster than normal. Visualize all this and try to look into the eyes of the waiter and you will find a couple of watches instead of the eyes.

Finally the waitee arrives and waiter is relieved. Just relieved and not pleased. The phrase " Huh.. All because you are late, this happened..". is used not less than 10 times in the next 1 hour. At the end, both are left with the feeling that having this "meeting/dinner" today was not a great idea at all. You see "the wait" is not such a pleasant thing after all.

P.S: This post has been waiting in the draft section for a while now. I have started hating the word "wait" after completing this post. Don't you feel the same???

Kab Tak Pukaroon???

2006-02-27T06:52:00.000-08:00

The hapless victim is there, lying on the roads, naked, exploited by the all those who could (read the wealthy, influential and the powerful). She cries for justice and pleads the judiciary to punish the guilty. Tired of the long wait she seems to ask "Kab Tak Pukaroon???". Does the voice ring in our ear drums? Are we able to feel anything at least? May be slowly we citizens are able to feel the pain, thanks to the huge protest by the the TV channels like NDTV and CNN-IBN. But the question is will the judiciary hear it and more importantly will the "Andha Kaanoon" see the truth and punish the guilty?

No, I am not talking just about the Jessica Lall murder case. I am talking about the "victim" in the Indian society in general. 7 years is a long time. Why does the judiciary take this much of time ? How can one leave a "murderer" scott free on the roads? Isn't the judiciary risking the lives of many others by doing so? By doing that, we are giving a chance for the murderer to to commit more crimes( that's what I believe has happened in the case of Jessica Lall's murder case). Worse still, justice is not guaranteed to the victim at the end of this long ordeal for things like the "witness turning hostile" might always happen. I was moved when I heard what Sabrina Lall, Jessica's sister said in the NDTV programme.This is what she said when Barkha Dutt asked her if she was hopeful of getting the guilty punished.

Yeah, I have a glimmer of hope now. But there is always this fear that we might have to wait for another 7 years only to find the guilty escape without being punished.

That tells the entire story. And mind you her fears are very much realistic given that the Delhi Police are reluctant to carry out an inquiry again.( even after the nation wide protests).

A few days ago many youngsters like me all around the country were excited when a group of IITians established a political party. It is not difficult to see why there was so much of excitement. India needs good politicians and may be to begin with we need good citizens. Citizens who dont shy away from their responsibilities and instead fight for the truth whenever their fellows are metted out injustice. Till then, the "victim" will be there langushing in the dark, letting out that "Kab Tak Pukaroon" cry.

Don't police me !!!

2006-02-22T11:28:00.000-08:00

It's been a while now since I have posted. These days I start writing about something and then after going through it half way, I loose the motivation to finish it, and proceed to click the "Save as Draft" button. Now some of my thoughts are lying around as drafts, waiting to assume a concrete form.( that of a post)

Breakfast before bath or after bath( on hoildays). This is a never ending argument between me and my parents. The idea of "breakfast only after bath" really puts me off. Dad always wants me to take bath early in the morning ( 9:00 am is really early when you get up at 8:30 am.). Sometimes I feel that he is too obsessed with water. I hardly even open my eyes and I get to hear the bathroom call "Hey.. hot water is ready. Go and take bath". Urghhhhhhhhhhh!!!! One can always bath after breakfast. Wiser souls in my hostel often used to preach that a "bath" should not be considered a daily excercise ( like brushing your teeth) irrespective of the avaibility of water. Some enlightened souls even used to tell me that act of bathing (rubbing one's body daily with a soap) daily would make one's body melt like a soap. Some soap for thought this now. However,I don't like to have lunch without taking bath. I don't like to bath early on a holiday only because a "bath" takes away the lazy idyllic delight from a holiday. An early bath robs the "holiday feel" out of it and makes it just like any other day.Hmmmm... I haven't been successful in convincing my parents yet.

Now that was an advice from my parents. If I can get pissed off for that, then what about the advice that any other guy on the road gives me? How do I react if some outsider imposes rules on me? Yeah.. I am talking about "Moral Policing". As long as one doesn't cause any trouble or nuisance to the society, why should one's actions be policed? I fail to understand why people get worked up when an youngster decides to spend an evening with his girl on a day called "Valentine's Day". And it's just not a few people who feel that way. There are quite a few organizations out to uphold India's culture and traditions. The dictionary defines culture as " the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought". Why is it then that the culture which is supposed to be a socially transmitted behaviour pattern forced on the youth? If the organizations are really serious on their intent, I believe they should preach the youth about the culture instead of policing them. After all an idea like the "Valentine's day" is also a socially trasmitted behaviour pattern( although from a different culture).

I sometimes wonder if the "moral police" and the various "Protect Indian Culture" organizations have a serious intent. Their natural reaction seems to be "To protest"- to protest against Valentine's day,to protest against Sania's dress code, to protest against the Danish cartoons. These protests can vary in the intensity and can go on the extent of claiming the lives of innocent people .( now we need to start another "protest" against this). The idea of salwar kameez clad women playing tennis never struck me . Also, I never imagined that the words Cartoon and Violence could ever come together to form the word "Cartoon Violence" . Now all these are possible( and have happened) thanks to these protests.

What does the "aam junta" think of the Moral Police? Do they take them seriously? Recently, on Valentines day some of my collegues in the office played the "Game of Moral Police" where they did'nt allow my friend who was recently engaged to speak to his valentine for the entire day. It was fun. Everytime they stopped him from receiving her call, the disgruntled exprerssion on his face was funny to watch. The excitement with which he called his girl at the end of the day ( when the Game was over) was a real "dekho" ( didn't deserve to be missed). May be an year or two down the lane, we will see kids who don't have girl friends playing this "Game of Moral Police" with the ones who have girl friends. Finally, Moral policing seems to be nothing but a joke. Haa.haa!!!

Who could it be?

2006-02-01T20:42:00.000-08:00

I had just escaped the Red Signal. As my bike made its way through the narrowest of ways between the car and auto-rickshaw, the green signal turned red. But my bike was in no mood to relent and speeded away. Now then on the busy roads of Hyderabad, the traffic doesn't mitigate just because you have passed a traffic signal. Instead you are exposed to the risk of an UMO( Unidentified moving object) hitting you from any corner. Your ears are also exposed to the relentless horns of the corporate cabs whose drivers drive as if on a highway. Not surprisingly, driving is no longer a pleasure.

Amidst all this buzz, I can feel something buzzing in my trouser pocket. It was my cell. Who could it be now ? May be it's "her" ( No matter what.. no matter how many times my ego gets crushed by my "crushes",the romantic in me never ceases to exist. Is it really "her"? Or is it "he"? ( Now then don't misunderstand me.. Of course,I am straight.. "He" stands for my boss who might be pulling his hair because I slipped out of office without informing him.) Or may be it is a regular "When will you reach home??? " call from Dad. All these thoughts flash across my mind in less than a second as I slow down my bike and move towards the footpath in order to lift the call. On my way, I need to overcome the "Will you run me down" looks of the Hyderbadi Nawab ( In Hyderabad the pedestrian on the road does walk like a Nawab ). Fighting all these, I manage to apply the brakes, stop the bike and take off my helmet( bloody hell isn't it a pain). The call is from some "anonymous" number and that only increases the curiosity. I say "hello" and this what is what the person at the other end has to say "This is free call from Airtel....". Huh.!!!!!$#@#$%#!@#&%@!#@!#$@^. Life never ceases to surprise!!!

Random Vs The Objective

2006-01-31T09:31:00.000-08:00

A few days ago, not very long ago I was searching for a "topic" to write about. This search continued for quite a few days. Nothing seemed to be happening in the world around me and I was waiting for the life to inspire me. That didn't happen. It was then that I had decided to get "random".

Getting "random" meant that I had the freedom to talk anything on earth from my bike tyre to the foreign policy of the U.S. I did not have to know about anything in full detail given the fact that I would only touch the issue without dwelling too much on it and end the matter in one or two sentences. I could also immediately shift to some other unconnected issue. Naming the blog was a fight initially but then as I got used to it and in a course of time even the title of the blog turned "random".

Getting "Objective" is the opposite. You need to stick to one single topic and the more you want to write about it, the better you need to know the subject. No issues with the name of the blog since it can every well be the "subject" of discussion itself. The title of this blog "Random Vs The Objective" tells the entire story. Objective is something very concrete, very definite aided by the definite article "The". "Random" doesn't seem to have any purpose and hence is not even accompanied by an indefinite article. :):):)

I have got used to writing random that I find it difficult to write on a particular topic(and stick to it). Flirting with the various happenings in the world around me seems to be an easier option at least for now and hence another random blog.

My thought on this blog: Saaala... I have just about 20 posts and I talk about getting random and objective as if I have 2000 posts and have been writing since ages.

Ha ha... after all it was just a thought that occurred a bit too early.

Yuva calling

2006-01-30T00:29:00.000-08:00

At last, it has happened, and it has happened in a big way. I am talking about "Paritrana", the pet project of some of the IIT alumni. This time the pet project is not a company nor it is an NGO organization but it is a political party. Can you believe it? It is a political party, a political party consisting of 5 IITians. After playing reel heroes in movies like Yuva and Nayak, politicians at last will be real-life heroes.

Optimism? Hype? Expectations? I have already been warned by my friends and colleagues for expecting too much. Politics as many feel is like mud.. You try to play around with it and clean it but finally you end up getting dirty. And there seems to be no way out. The harder you try to clean it , the dirtier you get. Hmmmmm may that's true... but I don't want to think any further. I am happy that someone has thought of starting a political party leaving behind their fat salaries. The "thought" I feel is more important than anything else . Someone has dared to tread in this direction and I hope they change the current perception about politics. The optimist in me tells me that Indian politics is going to change for the better while history reminds me that IITians have usually been among the successful ones in the world.( whatever may be their cause).

Meanwhile, the country's politics continues to be in a mess. Congress is thrown out of power thanks to the former Prime minister's son H.D. Kumaraswamy. The father on his part like a " true politician " ( I hope the definition will change) keeps making contrasting statements. First he says that his son staging a political upheaval is the saddest incident of his life and just as we are about to digest that statement he announces that "his son has saved the government". No wonder then that "Politics" is still a joke. Many congress workers wanted Rahul Gandhi to take some responsible post in the party. Apart from the obvious reasons, I assumed that one of the reasons was the fact that they wanted "Young blood" to take charge. I "ass"umed and hence had to pay- making an ass out of myself. The reshuffling of the Cabinet happened yesterday and there is no sign of anything associated with "youth".

I am sure there are many like me waiting for "political" scenario in India to change. But for the moment let's just wait and sigh oops see.

Random thoughts

2006-01-18T22:51:00.000-08:00

Many of the roads in Hyderabad have a wide look now, especially the one curving road from Madhapur that leads to Jubli Hills (or vice versa). I was often disturbed when I was saw the numbers being marked on the houses which indicated the number of feet that the house needed to be moved in. "Such a beautiful construction... pity that it is going to be distorted" I used to think. I was also pained when many of the huge trees which provided the cool shading had to be cut. But then "All is well that ends well ". It is not too bad after all. That's what I feel now as my bike speeds away enjoying the new found freedom of space.

I am happy that I am not in Delhi. I was shocked when I heard the news that about 80% of Delhi has illegal constructions. If the Municipal corporation of Delhi takes a tough stand then the capital of India would be a city of ruins. But I doubt if that would ever happen. Almost every big shot of Delhi seems to be possess an ICA( my acronym for Illegally Constructed Assets)and the Government authorities in India are usually known to soften their stance in such cases. Whatever be the decison of the authorities, I feel that the destruction has already been done.

The word "destruction" reminds me of the destructor, Virender Sehwag. I can't but go ga ga about the airy off-side cut shot that he hits above the cover and the point region. Ironically that was the shot that brought about his downfall and a smile on the faces of Pakistani bowlers. It was great to see so many batsmen hitting tons, but what about the bowlers? Thanks to the one day game, cricket is alredy a batsman's game. More and more pitches like this will make the "bowler" a extinct species like the dinosaurs of yore. Come 2020, and we will be having 11 batsmen in the team with machines doing the bowling job. India, the technology super-power ( in 2020) will be churning out scientists who in turn will develop the Deep Green ( something like Deep Blue) bowling machines. The MRF Pace foundation would transform itself into the some AI( artificial intelligence) centre where young scientists all over the country would strive to produce Deep Greens with a higher BQ ( bowling quotient).

The leader of the pack will however be the United States with the NRIs there doing the batting and the Indian scientists in Silicon valley developing the Deep Greens to do the bowling job. India, despite being a technological super power and a cricket maniac nation will be a close second. The current non-cricketing nations like Japan, China, Germany will come next thanks to their respective bowling prowess'(read AI prowess). Australia, though technically equipped for playing cricket would'nt play. Instead the entire nation would be busy fighting for justice having filed a case in the International Court of Justice against the ICC for "machinizing the game" and thus negating Australia's strength. Pakistan, which claims to have the one of the best bowling attacks in the world would be forced to reliquish cricket due to lack of AI infrastructure. The Politicians in Pakistan would be in a dilemma unable to decide whether to allocate funds for military or AI infrasturture. All the former cricketers in Pakistan would be launching protests and strikes against the Goverment for not encouraging cricket ( Of course they wouldn't file a case like the Aussies) . The whole country would be in chaos. My dear cricket authorties of Pakistan, do we really need all this? Wake up and prepare a sporting pitch for the next test.

On a search

2006-01-11T04:22:00.000-08:00

Does an editor have something known as a mood? If he does, how does he manage to get it right day in and day out? If he doesn't, how does he write without the "feel of writing"( what I called as a mood)? These are the questions that I ask myself when I don't find anything interesting to write about.

Perhaps it is a situation like this that makes one write/discuss things that don't qualify to be called news. Even the event of a Pakistani ant crossing the Indian border becomes a news. What good is anyone doing to the girl by discussing the news of her being exploited by multiple husbands? Newsfolks( hmmm.. I wonder when I will call myself a newsmaker)sometimes have this tendency of creating a controversy when there was no news in the first place.

I have been on a search for a topic that I could write about. Nothing seems to create in me the urge the write. ( except the "do something" feeling due to which I am going ga ga now). I have been trying to borrow some ideas from the news channels as I usually do. The significance of the Republic day parade, the female foeticide issue, the Raj Singh Dungarpur controversy, the endless Saurav Ganguly debate. I have tried to to put all these into the blog but they don't seem to fit anywhere. ( I am a "Dil-se" writer you see)

I am still searching for one topic and so I continue to chatter. One of the things that I want to do in the immediate future is to review movies ( let me review one first). I often think of an ideal title for my movie review page( even if it is for one review). I have a few in mind like "Real n Ricky" , "Buffmaster" but I am yet to decide on one.

In the past two days, I have understood that even random blah blah is not an easy task. Life.... get up......inspire me!!!

The Helmet

2006-01-09T06:12:00.000-08:00

Helmet!!! What sort of a name is this? I believe it is weird when you consider it's applications. "Helmet" is a device which helps you to prevent fatal accidents. Assuming that many of the homo-sapiens are mean and bad, 'helmet' protects you from meeting "Hell". Now then the name "Helmet" seems to suggest the opposite. This reinforces my belief that English is a funny language. ( I love funny things by the way).

The person who had coined the name "helmet" would have thought of something more than the skull-protecting function of the helmet. In fact if he had thought like I am doing at the moment, the name "helmet" couldn't be more appropriate. Hmmmm... let me tell you, the helmet is a disaster ( a hell with a single 'l' ) as far as my hair is concerned. I somehow did not have the passion for long hair during my college days. The passion struck me after I started using my bike. ( and using my helmet). But then long hair and helmet don't go together. The helmet doesn't let the hair have its say, it doesn't let it sway, it keeps it on a tight leash. As a result of the bloody stress, and the heavy press the hair is forced to bend down. Bend down!!! My foot !!!(should have been My Hair!!!) It is almost as if the backbone of the each of the hair filaments ( couldn't find a better word) is broken and as if the hair is paralyzed for life. What a sad story! I told the same to my hair stylist ( euphemism for the word "barber"). He listened patiently and convinced me that he had an idea which when implemented would ensure that my hair is long as well as stress-free. It was only later that I had realized what he had in mind. He cut the hair short, so short that almost everyone in the office today seemed to find it funny. Grrrrrrrrrrr....Huhhhh... @#^@!^#*@!&#@(# the barber. ( This is how anyone would react when a pretty girl calls you a "Onida boy ( courtesy my round face and of course the #^^#(#*# barber))

Thinking ahead, can't we find something better? Why doesn't anyone think of any innovations? I suggest we make a device which stays 2-inches above the hair while driving and lands on the head only when it comes into contact with some material ( not air ). You know a "sensor" kind of device. This makes me wonder what they would call it? I would call it the "Gelmet" because it gels so well with the hair.

Food for thought

2006-01-05T21:03:00.000-08:00

Good food. One of the necessities in life for me. Although I don't belong to the category of "Live to Eat", I am definitely a connoisseur of good food and a critic of not so good food. What I eat does matter to me. When I land up in a some distant relative's place ( as in.. a brother of the cousin of my aunt's husband's sister's husband ) I tend to get very circumspect about food. "Oh..please God..let the curry taste the same as the one cooked by Mom back home" is usually my first reaction when food is served on my plate. Back home at the dinner table, the situation is different. Eating is more a mechnical process devoid of any thought since I know that I will like the food.

Girls and food. This is an interesting combination. The amount of food consumed by a girl ( of age 13-30) has often left me bewildered.( Let me not generalize say most of the girls most of the times..). One of my friends who was supposed to be "very hungry" gets full after eating a mere two rotis. And it's not just her.. I have seen most of my cousins do this. To put it straight in the Hyderabad lingo , "Ladki Khana aisa kha ti hain jaise uspe "aisaan" kar rahi ho" ( girls eat food as if they are bestowing a great favor on the food particle by consuming it).

Hey .. I am eating you. You know ...such a big favor. Don't you have any courtesy . Why don't you blush like the boy next door!!! This is what a girl seems to say. Watch a girl playing around with two rotis in her plate for hours together and you will more than agree with my thoughts.

Hostel life makes one adapt to the "just about eatable" kind of food. One gets to see different kind of "eaters" in the hostel. Cribs about the quality of food is a daily phenomenon. There a few however who gobble just about any kind of food. While the rest just wait for the meal to get over, the glutton seems to look at the "morsel of food" and say " What the heck will you do? No matter what..no matter how you taste... I will eat you.". Gulp..goes the food down his intestine. Ahem.. spare a " thought for the food".

8:30 am . 1:00 pm. 8:30 pm. What are these? In the same hostel, I came across a few souls who just did not care about the quality of food. The timings mentioned are the times in day a where you will find these souls in the mess.( Unless held up by a critical assignment or project). The quality of food just doesn't seem to make any difference to them. For them "you eat to survive" and " you survive when you eat food irrespective of its taste. They have this "monk" kind of attitude. There was one occasion when the breakfast was horrible and there was a monk sitting next to me.

"How does the food taste?" I asked, expecting him to join me in the crib.
His face did not betray the slightest of emotions.
"It is normal, just like it is everyday. It tastes like food", he replied.
I was stumped!!!

Within the box

2006-01-04T04:41:00.000-08:00

The Man and the machine. What's the difference between the two? The ability to think. The ability to act depending on a particular situation instead of acting in a pre-meditated manner. That's what separates a human from a machine which is always programmed ( Huh... The job effect) to behave in a particular manner. But I wonder if we behave in any way different from a machine. We do the same things day in and day out to such an extent that we have almost mechanized ourselves to act like machines.

Just before coming to the office, I wanted the check the calendar since my relatives were scheduled to arrive next week. I checked the date. But I would not have noticed even if it was a 2055 calendar. My eyes were trained to read the year as 2005 for almost an year. ( The eyes don't even want to realize that it is 2006 and the brain obliges). I got on the bike. My bike was in the garage and I had to use my cousin's bike. It's 2 days since I am doing this yet the brain refuses to forget the gear system of my bike and the my cousin's bike complains making all kinds of odd sounds ( Grrrrr.. Urrr sounds). Is something wrong with me? Why don't I remain consicious? It's snacks time in the evening. I order "chat" and instruct the guy not to add curd ( I suffer from this thing known as curd-o-phobia) . But then he gets mechanical and adds curd to it forgetting my instruction. So we all act the same.

All these things seem to happen more at the sub-conscious level. It takes sometime to get used to new things and new ways. But the brain seems to enjoy doing the routine job even at the conscious level. My physics teacher in Class 12 would definitely agree with me. Despite his best efforts, my friends and I always used to try to solve a problem using the method used for the previous problem. ( however different the new problem might be). Our brains I guess were too lazy to search for a new method and instead settled for the latest one lingering in the brain space. The education system also stresses too much on the aspect of "revision". The focus is on the data ( which is repeated "n" number of times ) instead of the idea which needs to be understood. The examination again repeats the data instead of playing around with it ( keeping idea or 'funda' as it is called intact).

I was complaining about the documentation work that I got yesterday. I learnt working on a new tool today. The first time around I struggled. As I tried working on it again and again, I was more comfortable. It was a pity that the brain seemed to enjoy the repetitive task ( after I had mastered it after trying it out n number of times ) instead of relishing the challenge of learning something new. It was then that my heart intervened and prompted me to write this stuff.

Documentation!!! It's a pain

2006-01-03T03:10:00.000-08:00

"I was born to write not to code". I am clear about that. The terms are also loud and clear. Writing and coding are as different as chalk and cheese. But then there is something known as documentation and believe me it is no joy . I need to rephrase my statement now. " I was born to write but documentation is definitely going to kill me".

People call me a developer. But what I am developing ? If I am developer,is development work so mundane and mediocre? I have added one line of code last week. Two days of this week have gone in writing something known as a Test Plan for that single line of code.( remember I haven't tested anything yet)I have reworked on that description ( or scenario as it goes in the Test plan) all these two days. My first draft bears little resemblance to my final one. When I compare both of them , I wonder what I had in my mind while documenting ( not writing) the first draft. It's a pity that I didn't go through the standards document( oh..no.. the word "document" again!!!) when I embarked on my task. But I doubt if the story could have been any different.

I now understand what a powerful tool my dear companion parenthesis ( ) is. It often comes to my rescue while blogging. ( ) helps me express any kind of subtle feeling or any kind of chatter going offtrack . I tried doing the same while documenting. " Why parenthesis? What's the difference between the condition inside it and the one outside it" came the comment from the reviewer. I never thought of that while blogging. Sorry dear paren ( pet-name for parenthesis), but I had abandon you.

Documentation is definitely a pain. I had to change the "is" to "should" , present tense to future tense, the language to pieces of code and what not. I worked and re-worked on it and finally when everything seemed fine, I realized that the template was not the latest one. Good God!!! When and why did the template change?

When I think about it, I realize that I am not alone. A huge chunk of the IT industry does it day in and day out. One of my friends in the canteen was explaining how his fingers have got used to the CTRL+C, ALT+TAB, CTRL+ V commands .All this in the name of development!!! Hmmmm.. then India is a developing nation full of developers like me.

Just another thought

2005-12-30T05:50:00.000-08:00

"A thought is too precious to remain just a thought".
Thus spake Kidoredo a good fifty years ago.

In the years to come( December 30th 2055 to be precise), that's what people around the world will realize. Jokes apart, I serious feel each one of us should preserve one's thought. Store it, write it, blog it or execute it but don't let it stay a mere thought. A postive thought has the capability to spread energy,happiness and cheer all round. Well, I don't think I will ever get tired of repeating the significance of "thought".

I want to go home early today (I never feel otherwise anytime). But today I want to catch the Sonia Gandhi interview on CNN-IBN channel. Guess there is a Sonia Gandhi interview on NDTV as well. I want to see how different or how similiar these two would be. I saw the ad on both the channels on TV today and felt it couldn't get any bigger. Rajdeep Sardesai on CNN-IBN and Barkha Dutt on NDTV and Sonia Gandhi up against them.

Talking of journalists makes me brood about myself. What am I? I often speak about "thought" but I am no thinker. The term "thinker" is too serious and weighs heavy on me. I am not a journalist for I don't report news. So what's the word for me? Pseudo Journalist? Naah. since I neither lie or nor do I pretend and the pseudo cannot mean anything else but false. I am a journo-journalist( something like f(f(x))) because I often end up discussing how the news was discussed.

The office is empty this being a weekend. This is not just another weekend but the last weekend of the year. I can hear the "Happy New Year" phrase buzzing all around even I as type this sentence. New year reminds me of a "resolution" and voila ... I have yet another line on "thought". "Don't let a thought remain a thought , turn it into a resolution if you can." :):):)

And I am asked to work again...

2005-12-22T22:38:00.000-08:00

And so finally I am allocated to a new project. It is almost 2 months since I have last worked on the dark Mainframes screen. Dec 26th is the date that I am all set to start working again. Sometimes I wonder, if I will ever be able to work again? I have forgot VisionPlus a good two months ago and I haven't coded even an easytrieve since then. Worse may be I never made any attempt to read any document or pdf. Thek hain!!! I will take it as it comes.

I have got used to this schedule. I come to office only after 10:30 am, liesurely check my mails without missing any fowrwards and then proceed to chat with those available online. If there was anything that made me feel, I would give vent to those feelings through a blog. Oh... Life seemed to be a bliss. But from next week, I need to start at an early hour of 8:00 am for I need to ensure that I am in the office before 9:30 am. And instead of those lovely Good morning mails and humorous forwards, there will be that mail from the client or TL asking me to complete a task by afternoon. Think of work and there comes the call. This blog was interrupted by my new TL who called me to inform me about the induction session at 2:30 p.m. Hmmm.. so the honeymoon is almost over. It was cool. It also made me start this activity of blogging.

And what's going on in the world around? If moral policing was something that you could not digest, there's something more to follow. Right on the heels of the the Meerut issue comes the Mumbai's HC directive to cable operators not to show any U/A or A content. Huh!!! Not again. That's what my reaction was when I heard from Barkha Dutt on NDTV that U/A included movies like Bluffmaster, Kingkong and Neal n Nicky. So what are we supposed to watch on television then?? The News? or the Poppeye show? Wish the TV had some kind of the stuff to block the adult content similiar to Nanny thing on the net that is used to block the sites. This High court directive if carried out will ensure that children or rather the teens who are exposed to all kinds of sleazy stuff are kept away from the "adult content".What about me then? Afterall television viewers include adults like me and yeah I am over 18 and why I feel I have been unfairly denied my right to access the adult content ( read "over 18" content). Isn't this unjustified?

Insane and insensitivity

2005-12-21T22:57:00.000-08:00

Jane Austin wrote "Sense and Sensiblity". I believe one need not be a Jane Austin to write "Insane and Insenstivity", given the disgusting incidents happening these days. I am talking about the Merut epidsode where the cops slapped the couples in the parks. The news was in the headlines yesterday evening and there were protests all around the country to suspend the policemen. Rightly so, I thought. I still do not understand how the cops could go on a slapping spree like that. What were the couples doing after all? If they were just spending sometime in the park, what was wrong in that? Is that a crime? Is that the way Police treat the youth? This makes me wonder if we are really living in a civilised world. Luckily, the couple that went missing yesterday have returned home. Thank God!

Later, I came know that this disgusting act also as a name. Operation Majnu!Operation Majnu, codenamed after two star-crossed lovers, Laila and Majnu was meant to be an effort by the Meerut police force to crack-down on the eveteasers. But then the Police ended up punishing even married couples. Even if the police were to punish college going males ( now I feel the term "eve-teasers" is relative. How can one decide on that unless of course the victim complains), was this the way to treat them? That now raises an interesting issue. Should there be moral policing at all ? Are we mature enough to away with any kind of moral policing ? I wish this was a News channel and I was asking this question to the junta. What would the opinion of the majority be in this case?

Of Media, Ads and Aamir Khan

2005-12-09T09:11:00.000-08:00

I started early from office today as I had a headache. On my way home, I saw an ad which read "MoreBile" instead of Mobile. It amused me for a moment because at the first glance, I happened to read to as "More Bill". I could not digest how "More Bill" would make a mobile popular. In the meantime, the traffic signal turned Red. It was only then that the saw the other part of the hoarding which had things like More talktime, More value and so on. So "MoreBile " was supposed to be a Mobile that offers more value. I wonder how many will get it right in the first read.

Later in the day, I was watching the show on NDTV where Aamir Khan happened to be the guest. I don't know why and how, but all through the show, everytime I saw him, I was reminded of all the good things like truth, honesty and discipline. One of the things that he spoke about was about censorship in Indian cinema. He wasn't really happy with the idea of "Banning smoking" in cinema although he agreed that smoking is injurious to health.I personally feel that Cinema should imitate life, the life that is going around in the country. It is not a preaching medium where only the good is to be depicted and the bad denounced. As Aamir pointed out later, "Banning smoking" in the films would perhaps make sense when smoking is banned in the country. But I still fail to understand how a cigarette smoker could be someone else than a smoker. I think we would make a great comprise on the "creative expresion" of cinema if we try to do that. Maybe in the future we would have something known as "Stay healthy cigars" which would give the smoker both the smoking satisfaction and the longevity of life. Huh! Will we ever stop kidding ourselves?

Aamir was speaking of the love and warmth that he and other Indian celebrities get from the Pakistani fans in Pakistan and everywhere else in the world. As a kid and may be for a good part of my college life , I have seen a lot of Pakistan bashing by the Indian media. Anything Pakistani was viewed in the negative sense. The situation has changed for the better in the last two or three years, with many Indian celebrities including cricketers making it a point to highlight the Pakistani hospitality. I believe that the media should be objective and speak about the facts rather than being influnced by things that have happened in the past.

Objectivity. Well, that reminds of the many movies that I have seen in the recent past that seemed to lack an objective. I just need to visit one of the cinema halls this weekend and guess I will be having a whole lot to talk about objectivity or rather the lack of it.

An ode to my bike tyre

2005-12-06T23:08:00.000-08:00

Some things in life do not get the recognition they deserve. If I make a list of the things that I couldn't do without, perhaps the "tyre of my bike" would be right on top( just below the "asshole" :D those of you who have got that eeks expression on your face please remind yourself of the cliched idea of "If the asshole stops working for a week" ). So I thought , it's time to express my feeling to my dear tyre.

Dear Tyre,

How are you? Perhaps I should be asking you this question every single moment you selflessly serve me, every single moment you make your way thrusting yourself against the heartless potholes. Sorry dear. I wonder if I can ever thank you for what you have done for me.

My tryst with you was never planned . It just happened like most of the good relationships of life happen. But ever since you have been with me, you have served me faithfully . Forty odd kms daily and that too on the roads on Hyderabad is no easy task. I had this idea of moving closer to the office for your sake but that would mean that your friends ( dad's bike's tyres) would have to bear the brunt. I am happy that you have taken up the responsibility and have delivered the task. ( Sorry tyre..for the corporate lingo.. but that's how my PM praises me).

I feel sorry for you when you need to make your way through the murky waters and all kinds of bull shit. I can't urge the cattle to keep the roads clean, especially when I have failed in my attempt to convince my fellows of the importance of civic sense. These days I find all kinds of construction raw material scattered on the roads in the name of road widening. How I wish I had some kind of buffer to protect you against the cruel rocks and mindless gravel. I try to find the smoothest option available but then that always carries the risk of your rivals hurting you.

Hyderabad this year has had a torrent of rains. Thankfully for me you have learned to swim and so I had no problem wading through the waters. I hope your makers will provide protective windsheeters/raincoats for your future generations. I also think there should be some kind of deodrants or surrounding-air-freshners so that you don't get stiffled in the dirt.

I request you to bear with all these and keep yourself fit. Don't burst unless you are in a absolutely hopeless situation. If you want to go flat do it when I am near my house so that I can take you to the near by doctor( mechanic) for treatment.Remember that you should never misbehave when someone of the fairer sex is travelling with me. If you do that ,you will end up bursting both yourself and me.

So then ,keep fit and I will take care of you.

Your owner,
The heartless driver

Happy Birthday

2005-12-02T00:58:00.000-08:00

Birthday... I always thought that it should be the best day of the year. The day was supposed to mine. As a kid, I remember I used to take the extra liberty to chat even when the teacher was teaching. I knew that I would be let off, for it was my birthday, my day. As the years passed on, the day "birthday" started becoming even more special to me. Birthdays of all my friends were important for me. I would leave no stone unturned to make the "Birthday friend" happy. My birthday of course would be extra special.

My birthday when I was in class 6 was very special, for I played cricket that day and my side won both the matches played. The fact that I was the captain made me even more happy( now then..I am not a cricketer I am talking about a kids match... 6th class kids... girls included). The one in 10th was the worst for I fought with my dad as he did not help me out for the essay writing contest. I sulked the whole day and wondered if the day could get any worse. The birthdays in 11th and 12th, I feel were no good. I was already into this "blushes"( hmmm.. my word for the word "crush" more on it later) thing and tried to spend time with the so called special person. Thinking back, I feel it was a stupid idea, given the fact the special person never considered me special. Of course, her birthday for a couple of years was every "special" for me. In fact special is not the word. It was a day I waited for the whole year, the day I thought I would change myself and change the world, the day for all resolutions. May be I carry that feeling even now.( a lot tonned down however). I tend to get more consicious about it than my "blush" herself.Blush!!! ( I am talking about my red cheeks now)

Hostel life rocks!!! There is nothing to beat that. Each and Every b'day is fun... especially those 15 mins past 12:00 A.M when everyone around is keen to demonstrate their football skills. Each of those 4 birthdays was special in its own way with the 4th one being the best.

A year later, when I completed 23, I was in the sofware industry. Suprisingly this one was better than any of my previous ones, perhaps even the ones in the hostel. I had so many friends in different groups that the celebrations lasted almost one week. I had everything from my shorts to jerkins being gifted by my friends. It was so good that this year I had decided that it couldn't get any better. Perhaps that was the reason why this one was also fun.

Over the years my friends and colleagues have sung( I doubt if "sung" is the right word) the "Happy Birthday" song for me. I dont remember the last time it was actually sung...as in ..with all the energy and enthusiasm. Perhaps it was way back when I was in the kindergarden. Probably there was energy since we did'nt know the song. Now, it is more like a dull excercise that one needs to undergo before pouncing on the cake. I feel we should be singing or playing some latest filmi hit instead of mechanically going through the "Happy Birthday" song. The cake-cutting is meant to be a happy occasion, a time to be cheerul. Let's not get dull and monotonic. Hmmm..I am neither a poet nor a composer but how about trying to compose a new "Birthday" song full of josh?

The thought and the Blog

2005-11-30T02:26:00.000-08:00

I started writing this with the title as " A thought on "thought" ". After writing for some time I thought this thought was taking me no where. I am still no where and hence the abstract title which comprises of two things viz the thought and the blog.

Thought!!! Hats off to the Almighty for his thought of making the humans think,remember and feel. Hmm.. yeah I am talking about this feeling called "thought".
We all have thoughts and I think they are beautiful. Thoughts, I believe are every precious. We need to treasure them. I always think of this device which would automatically store my thoughts somewhere so that I could always get back and feel good.

But then I need to write (type) and store it in a doc or in this place on the net called the blog. I wish, I was not lazy. I wish I blogged everyday. I wish I blogged whenever I felt great, whenever I had the incredible energy which could efforlessly turn a frown into a smile, whenever I was hurt at the politics that continue to plague Indian cricket, whenever my face turned red(I am talking abt the blush) due to that incredible feeling called love ( well it's called "love" but I am not too sure) . Well, my wish for the "ideal" device seems to be simple when compared to these "ideal" wishes.

Till very recently, I would readily agree with anyone who claimed that thought is just an internal process. But now I feel thoughts are not meant to be internal, they are suppposed to be shared. Thoughts have the ability to generate an incredible amount of energy when shared with others. For me to share a thought, I need to remember it . In order to remember it, I need to store. And to store it , I need to blog. And so.. here I am.

And I bite the dust again!!!

2005-10-16T06:15:00.000-07:00

Huh!!!! Yet another Sunday and it went kaput again. It is hit a all time low now. Little wonder then that I have started feeling if I should be writing CAT at all. As if the poor score is not enough, it has happened after I was at home for one ful week. What's happening? The dicussion forums seem to echo my feelings but then evertone there seems to have fared quite better than me. I dont even feel like revealing my score . Oh.. Life seems to be such a pain! :(:(:(

Just because !

2005-10-07T10:42:00.001-07:00

"You should have done a BA or some Mass communication course. A Btech (and that too in Computer Science and that too at a premier institute) was pehaps not the right thing for you." Huh!!!! I have heard enough of this. Gimme a break , folks. Itz my life and what I do and what I dont is "My wish". That's what I thought today when one of freshers at office turned a preacher.
I wouldn't take it even from my boss. And this guy...? I just threw a smile at him and and then turned back to the screen that demanded my attention. I do know that I am made for something else , something else other than software.Hmm... hey just wait .. no ambivalence here. But then I have the conviction that I will be able to manage any kind of work, especially the kind of work that I get to do in office now. Mind you, it is not just a belief or feeling that I am talking about but a conviction. So I hate it when people consider me a nothing at work and start preaching me and let out the " Why a software engineer??" expression. Just beacause I dole out a couple of shayaris and mails doesnt mean that I am not good at work. Just because I take the intiative for team parties and collection funds doesn't mean I cant work. Just because I roam around with that childish grin doesnt mean that I wont be able to manage my tasks. I have always been sincere with my work. In fact I have been doing my bit quite comfortably in the last couple of months. Agreed!!! I dont have the passion or zeal to go through the acrobats neither do I have the patience to go through the entire program. I sometimes turn a deaf ear to my colleagues discussing work ( which according to them is very interesting). But then at the end of the day I do my work and yeah I am enjoying doing this - Doing just what is required. I am not going to do it forever so why the heck should I force myself to be passionate about it.
I care a damn for those who assume things about me. And at the moment I have better things to do. I wrote for myself expecting that this would give me the much needed drive . 15 mins left in this day and the next 9 days are going to be absolutely crucial for me. Make or break. I need to break now to make it .

"Thy name is Kidoredo"

2005-10-02T05:17:00.000-07:00

Kidoredo!!!Does it sound weird?? No, it shouldn't. In fact there should be some kind of dejavu when one hears the word "Kidoredo" for the first time. Kidoredo draws inspiration from the famous cartoon character "FidoDedo". I dont know what Fidodedo means but Kidoredo has a reason for being named Kidoredo. My friends, who know me well consider me immature. They say that I am a kid, who acts instinctively without any kind of thought process. One of my friends calls me a "kido". I liked it , fell in love with it and hence Kido. Now what about Redo? Before anything else, let me ge the pronunciation of this word spot on. Redo is supposed to be pronounced as "Red" followed by the word "o" and not as one would proounce the word "redo". ( as in doing something again). Redo has something to do with the word "Red". Well, red is not my favourite color neither do I have any kind of hidden violent triats in me. Red happens to be a part of the name Raymod Red. Raymond Red, is supposed to be the mordern day equivalent of Sigmund Freud( my goodness, I am in full flow- Red at his best) . Sigmund Freud explained the "Crush" phenomenon, Raymond Red deals with some kind of a similiar thing known as a "Blush".

A Mid night evolution???

2005-10-01T11:21:00.000-07:00

So it's almost 12:00 am now and I having read the blogs of one of my juniors in college just about 10 mins ago, decide to start my own version. Right now I have this feeling that I have turned the tide. May be I will be writing a lot regularly ( and yeah meaningfully from now on). May be I will know what exactly I am supposed to do in life ( hey ,I always had a fair hint .. but then I am confused). May be this is just the kind of kick-start that I need in life. All signs of a Mid-night evolution.!!!!
There are some things in life like office work which I dont bother too much about because that was something I wasn't too interested about them. But then when I need to goad myself to study for CAT , I sometimes wonder what exactly am I passionate about in life? All this considering the fact that I reckoned myself to be best suited for management.

Writing!!!! I do a lot of it. Hmmm.. quite a lot of it but then it is all in the mind. I am lazy to put it on paper or blog about it. I just wish there was some kind of tool which would put all the words in my mind ( or is it the heart) in the form of blog. Height of laziness this!

Huh!!!! Do I write ? or do I crib? To get started guess I need to crib. But I keep telling myself all along " Dont' be upset that you did'nt do it soo long , be happy that you have started atleast now". So then , I have started.