Hello ! Long time no see .? :)

“Hello!! Ghar main koi hain? Itna sanata kyu hain bhai? Saala ek Murruku bas ek murruku aadmi ko blogger bana deta hain”.
It’s ok if you did not understand a word of what I just wrote. Ignore it. I was just saying that it takes one “Murruku”; just one freaking murruku to bring one back to his blog. Who invented this concentric circled, brittle like glass kind of, South Indian snack? Must be some kind of an over enthusiastic, geometry freak from South India.

A lot of water has flown under the bridge since my last post 1.5 yrs back(Uee ma kitna time ho gaya re last post ko!!). I hoped and desired that some of you would have quit following this blog but nahi!!!! Some dear (read hindi word “Dheet”) people keep dawdling to this space and enquire about the coming of a brand new post. Well, so, here it is another new post dedicated especially to the people who genuinely enquired me about this old, cobweb prone blog of mine (ok now, I am serious ... no joking ... I love you guys!!)

For some reason, I had started to wonder if I outgrew my own blog, suddenly none of the thoughts in my previous posts appealed to me and everything seemed immature but then I realized, I have just stopped being happy and lost the fuel to drive this blog. And you know what, no matter what happens; one should never stop doing the things he enjoys though they might not be of one’s first priority. Lesson learnt – “Get back to the things you like doing and find time for them, include them in your busy schedule to keep yourself alive”

Work at office took its toll on me and I ended giving up on a few things that I love dedicating time towards. So, back to the reason that dragged me here; ever felt the noise that a “Murruku” creates in your head when you bite into it? Your whole head is filled with the biting and chewing noise of your teeth grinding into one such murrukku. Over a period of chewing, there arises divinity in this commotion, suddenly you can’t hear a thing of the outside world and your mind reaches a trance like state. If you are having trouble picturing it then perhaps you can imagine your last orgasm; yea, similar state of mind I am talking about here ( you did not expect that, did you ..? LOL) With all the noise in your head and your taste buds busy, you lose control of your thoughts, a zillion pictures flash across your mind and then arrive the epiphanies. Mine was just communicated with a series of logical questions. In an echoing tone, my conscience spoke to me
“Whose cup of tea is “maturity” (mature-tea … PJ!!)?" And I told myself- “Chal chad yaar! The concept of maturity is elusive, there is no such thing. People commit mistakes day in and day out. If the number of mistakes committed by a human being by just not acting his/ her age was a parameter to measure maturity; I guess none of us would clear the bar. We are all prone to commit mistakes that absolutely do not suit our age or experience and there is always someone else who pays for it. That’s how you learn and that’s how the term "learning curve" was invented. Get back to your blog and type what occurs to you first, be it immature. Be it the thoughts of a 10 yr old. No one else around you is mature!” So, now you know from where I get my inspiration : P... It took one murruku to get me back to my blog.

 So, I am back in the ring to take another swing and I haven’t changed one bit and though I, now, have my coffee at Starbucks; I still stuff my pockets with namkeen before I leave home. Ek dam desi mentality!! mera bas chale toh har Starbucks ke side pe ek halwai ki dukaan kholu. Kachori, aloo ki subzi aur Starbucks ki capuchinno. Mast rahe ga na?

Oh yes, all the STARBUCKS talk because Infy made another mistake in the recent times (apart from the VISA issues and dwindling growth) they sent me to United States of America to evangelize Indian toilets and preach against the use of tissue papers. Boing!! Since then I haven’t let them down I don’t miss a chance to talk about Indianism at work and tissue paper ka toh namo-nishaan nahin mere bathroom main. :P For the people with humor quotient of Manmohan Sing- I said, I am in US working for a software company.

Nothing has changed in my life apart from my location, I still feel lost career wise and in life generally. And, I am starting to wonder if life will always be so unsettled. I have changed so many houses in past one year that now I don’t even bother to unpack my stuff when I shift to a new place. “Making new friends” was pleasurable thing that I once mentioned on a slam book in school but now, I think that once you cross a certain age, making intimate friends just doesn’t happen easily. You always have a problem or two and just can’t overlook the shortcomings of a friend. Ego plays an important role too. And if it is going to be this way I guess, finding rhythm in this commotion, just like the murruku-eating experience is the key to a peaceful, serene life. I have not yet reached the trance like state, I am yet to start enjoying it but I know, I have taken the first step in finding it.

Ah! Crap again. You can ignore all the profound stuff, I am constantly evolving and all this will sound immature in six month’s time. No wonder the blog has been named “Things that are under the sun” and as Freddie Mercury would say “... And nothing really matters” nothing really matters in the end.

On the play list - Bohemian Rhapsody

There 's something strange in the neighbourhood.......

And I thought; the only thing that could scare me was Genelia’s superficial acting skills but I guess there are few other things that scare me on thunderous, stormy nights. For one, I think my house is bombarded with a lot of spirits; especially from the times I have started to live alone. Perhaps, earlier as well the spirits lurked somewhere outside my house but were too afraid to enter a house which was always under the influence of GE’s tiger printed, polka dotted underwears and not to forget GA’s dead-rat-smelling socks and NGs morning-farts. These things can break any jinx or shoo away any spirit in the proximity of 50kms of my house.

Anyways, now, its like, a spirit hides in every object placed in my house like the one in the tap! It just doesn’t quit hissing. I know it might be an air lock but it’s always like this; even when its throwing water, it is hissing. The bathroom door seems like it has a life of its own. No matter how many times I lock it, it swings open and then makes scary, creaking sounds night long. Stubborn spirits!

There are like as many doors and windows as Ali-baba’s 40 thieves, in my house. Every night I have to go on an expedition shutting them and checking them. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with sweat dripping down my face, fearing if I had forgotten to lock the door that leads to the terrace or to another sound of a banging window.

And only if these moments were not enough to make one pee in his bed, something very weird and very paranormal happens occasionally. Unlock the front door, go outside, look around, take-in a whiff of fresh air, look at your neighbor’s daughter, come inside, shut the door, switch on the lights, turn around reach for the TV remote and door bell rings. You venture out, look around, you find no one. You take a look again at your neighbor’s daughter, bang the door and try the lights again the door bell fails to ring. It happens only at the times when you are least expecting it, the phenomena happens. I sometimes imagine what if the bell had to ring in the middle of the night and no one was found outside. Scary na? ***Ghost Laughs***

Sometimes, what happens in the middle of the night is that even without a power cut the fan in my room halts on its own and starts-up again after sometime. There is no one to reach the switch and put it off for me and I have no idea how it goes off on its own. The weird part is, it gets switched on without assistance. It happens all night long; while I sleep peacefully listening to the various sounds emerging from the outdoors; like the sound of the numerous lizards or the sounds on the multiple terraces that I have a view of from my bedroom window or the weird noises that come from the hall down below while I keep wondering and expecting; when a dark figure in a black cloak would climb up the staircase to my bedroom and stand at its entrance, sometime in the middle of the night. 
Sends chill down your spine? I made that one up :P

Anywyas, how are you people doing nowadays? Long time no see! A big “hi” to people living or dead. Now!! That would be an appropriate way of salutation, won’t it?

To all the dead people and Genelia the comments section is not for you and in no way reading this space stands as an invite for you to haunt my house. Now run along, Go away!!

On the I pod- Ghostbusters

Who moved my cheese . !!

The point is that searching for a room mate is as herculean a task as searching for a soul mate. In both cases, you fear being caught up with the wrong one. Before you go ahead and commit (note the word that I use here) a room to him, you’ve got to make sure of his habits, whether he is a non-vegetarian, whether he smokes, is he a fun person to stay with or of the intense, ranting types like the one who appears in F.R.I.E.N.D.S. as the first room mate of Chandler. You get what I mean. It’s not like you would put up the add on the Infy bulletin board one morning and posts will flood your inbox with prospective female, super models, 5ft.10 inches, curvaceous body and having a sexy stride kind of profiles with photos attached for you to choose from. Although I wish the situation was so. Unfortunately, it’s not gonna happen for another 50 years in India and be prepared for a few hairy, unclean, unattractive and ranting men. Did I just say unattractive, whoosh!! Now erase that off your memory. I dint mean it... :)

This blog had seen a lot since it was first started in the month of May 2006.A lot has been written here about my friends and roomies and I guess it would see no more about them. A few have moved out in search of greener pastures and a few in search of better halves. And I am now left wondering what it would be like to be the CEO of a halwai shop. Well, it has been my dream since the early days in Infy; not to own the halwai shop but yea to head a company. And since everybody has moved on, I am now finding means to fulfill this dream of mine. McKenzie nahi mila to kya hua. “Ram halwai” bi chalega. And the urge to get out of Infy has become stronger than ever.

So, SH fulfilled 2 dreams of his in the last few days- buying a four wheeler and driving it to his own marriage.

ASH wanted a change as well from watching TV, eating noodles and drinking soda; so he too decided to indulge in a few real pleasures of life; he decided to tie the knot. You might hear or spot a tiny Amrita Rao fart but hearing ASH flirting with a woman on phone for hours together is a rare phenomena. The guy who was a lambretta scooter till a few days back has just got transformed into a pulsar 220 and comes along the tag the “fastest Indian”. What I am saying is, he went 0-100 in 5 seconds leaving us all behind, defying all the dating laws to find someone who thinks he is her better half :p . On more serious thoughts. I wish best of luck to him and a happy married life in future, note; he is still in the Ladka-ladki-ko-jaane-le phase and would be married in a few weeks time.

As for SH, I just hope RS, his fiancee finds soon that he snores louder than a garbage truck, a lot of sleepless nights for her. And for SH the honey moon has just begun. Hope, you at least now stop watching re-runs of JWM. It was a stupid movie anyways with no logic nor a strong script with a valid reason for the story.

Talking of JWM, you know they say that the best way to forget an old crush of yours is to have a person to replace her/him. Shahid couldn’t ask for more when he found Kareena, I don’t know why did he even take so long to accept the babe in Kareena. It was nothing but 6 songs, 3 hour long sadness for Shahid and Kareena’s exaggerated way of proving herself. The directors always try to balance the hero-villain strengths and weakness. If the hero has killer looks, the villain has a sexy assistant by his side. If the hero is strong, the villain has a thousand goons to protect him. You get what I am saying? But here in JWM, the other guy Ashuthosh never had Shahid’s killer looks nor was blessed with an army. Hell, he wasn’t even financially strong like Shahid. What did Imtiaz Ali expect from the character of Kareena to quit an industrialist and marry a mediocre? The answer is clear, grab the industrialist’s son and kiss him in front of mediocre. Rude na …? Bad girl Kareena: P

Anyways, back to the main topic. I had the best of my friends as my roomies and I am sure, looking back now; I would say that this time of our lives, our first job, first few years after college and the initial taste of corporate life sure would go down making the memories nostalgic. At some point or other we have all been at the same turn in life; be it job transition, hikes, mid 20’s crisis or just plain work life attitude. It’s at this point, 3 plus years later that we would take different turns in life; different paths and I guess we have realized and learnt this in our own way. Hope we appreciate this time spent in shaping our lives and it’s for this reason I am sure we would also always say in touch.
Ueee ma .. ! I never knew I could be so profound. Don’t sweat this stuff if it does not make sense to you because those who have felt it; it would sure make lot of sense to them…

on that note:- I sign off !! I do not know if I have enough fuel to keep this blog active but I just hope that I return soon with different, small joys of life.

DJ night stories..

“Where’s the party tonight” shouted an excited SH as he descended down from his bedroom, all dressed up with multiple coatings of coconut oil, talcum powder, fairness creams and of course his set–wet very, very sexy deo. And in the continuation he squeaked “On the dance floor” and skipped the last 2 steps to throw his back pack on the table, on a Friday morning. His excitement is justified. He becomes all this excited every Friday morning in expectance of a DJ night in Infy, in the evenings. And if everyone from our room confirms their presence this “lakshmi” of our house lights an agarbtahi, breaks a coconut and wakes up everyone in the morning in his uncanny excitement.

Take 1: Now this man of small frame has a very noticeable yet infamous dancing history. Year 1996, I guess (SH can you confirm?), class 8, at a tender age of 13, SH had the audience roaring to his dance steps, innovation in choreography took a new meaning in the dance books and SH was the pioneer. Such is the feat of the man who jogs more than a mile every DJ night (I hear the boing sound!! LOL). I mean he tries something of the sort of a moon walk but then to one dancing close by it appears like a jog on the treadmill. It’s his trademark step. The last time we had an excited SH dancing and singing along with the remix of Kajra re, me and NG had to take a step out and burst out laughing. SH had one hand on his ear and the other in the mid-air and went two steps close to a girl from BPO; with closed eyes he was imagining himself as Tansen singing a Bollywood number luckily he didn’t get slapped by the girl whom he offended. And the legend still dances unperturbed

Take 2: Flash back: GE, this fellow is known for his dynamic entries during DJ nights. Year 2006, our first job and our first DJ night in Infy. Me and NG managed to overcome our incapability and were swaying to the tunes of a slow number in a corner. GE jumped out of nowhere and did this dance of which we dint understand a thing. He went into a frenzied mode of fits, shaking every limb of his body, he was out of control and the dance didn’t match the pace of the slow number even remotely. The world came to a standstill, people on the dance floor froze not in amazement but in disturbance of GE’s insanity, the DJ went dead, the music stopped; suddenly we were the attention of the world and there was silence, NG stopped dancing but GE went on like a machine, with his head down, eyes closed, teeth chattering, body shivering, shoulder banging inwards, neck rotating 360deg dance. The atrocious act of insanity came to a sudden stop only when GE no longer felt the phone in his pocket, he had lost it. The scratch sound came back, the DJ was alive, the disc started spinning, GE came to a stand-still this time and men and women started to dance again after prolonged stares. And we spent the rest of the night hunting for GE’s phone on the dance floor while he sat depressively calling up his mummy during his night shift.

Take 3: Zoom cameras!! Action! (In a tone reserved only for announcing movies on HBO)-The Man, the body, the color of the t-shirt and those unmatched dance moves on the dance floor, we welcome GA from pol-lachi. For all those junior dancers out there, you need to practice what GA does to become dancers of his caliber. Now let me just give a quick tuition through this blog. Step one: Project your left hand out. Step 2: Give a slight jerk to your projected hand and your chest. Step 3 and 4. Repeat the same on right side. At times to add sway and grace to your moves shake your legs as well. And to be noticeable please do dress up accordingly on DJ nights. A red t-shirt with a misdesigned Swiss flag on it will catch the attention of every girl who would have had GK as a subject in her school and knows exactly how a Swiss flag looks like. If not then she would get blinded by the red color and those killer shades.

Take 4: NG, this chap has extra-ordinary moves in his ammunition. Keep swaying at a gentle pace irrespective of the pace of the music, now put this swaying moves in a iterative loop and run it infinitely with circular referencing and pointers that point to the same move. You need to have great concentration to do this unstoppably for 3 hours. And at times when bored of running the same loop, stretch your neck to look at the waxed legs and arms of a being close by. Oh yes, please do remember to grin uncontrollably while you do the so called dance.

Take 5: Now what do I say about myself, I am the best these guys have, I am too modest to let any of the adulation climb up my head. The last time I danced there were 6 casualties around me, one wounded and 5 others seriously injured had to be rushed to the hospital. Such killer dance steps, but I never knew admiration could wound people. Guess being a fan too is not easy, hats off to all those wounded supporters who support me still.

ME is yet to loose his virginity on the dance floor although we have seen a small preview of him during one of our alcohol (read tea) parties, let me warn you, he has some juicy dance chops to flaunt with, that even include a strip-tease. I wonder how the Infy public will react to it if it was ever performed live. ASH has to learn to stop blocking the speakers every DJ night besides learning a few steps and playing in the hay. So... you go practice your animal moves while I just refine my moves to the song “Where’s the party tonight, on the dace floor”...

PS: Click on the link to watch the funniest dance video..

Pehchaan Kaun ??

I know, 25% of you would have been happier than usual during my long stint of absence, in the past 2 months, another 25% of you would have been jumping around with joy as though you scored a 100 percentile in CAT and yea the rest 49.9999% must have been celebrating thinking Mohit bhagwaan ko pyaara ho gaya. Saala, at last gayab toh hua, and would have spent thousands buying those cheap WWE postcards, mailing the news of my demise to you your worst enemies. Well to all I would say that it is too early to celebrate because I am back.I am in the ring to take another swing, this time rising like a phoenix from the graveyard on which your house stands today (seriously!! didn't you know your house stood on a graveyard?? Go dig it up to find carcasses). To a few misguided souls i.e. the remaining 0.1111% who read this nonsense and left a few comments here last time, I love you people. Please read this post of mine completely. :)

So, where was I so long, for so many days-missing! Well, they say when you are too confused in life you got to spend some time on your own to recuperate. Therefore that was all that I was doing all these days.

And I have been hanging around wearing shades all the time, inspired by this Telugu dude whom I met in the Andhra mess, very close to my house and as I had a small chat with this soon to be Telugu soap actor whose table manners incidentally had to be worse than mine, we made a mess on the table with the aloo curry and poories on a lazy Sunday morning and I found a reason or two for wearing sun glasses/shades or whatever you call them every time, all the time.


According to this actor 1) Wearing shades increases your marginal utility (economics class ki tuition shyaam ko 4 se 5 tak ) as a person and gives you the much required boost because you never know when you might get spotted by a Telugu director for an audition 2) It kind of darkens your view in a closed room like Andhra mess and kinda blinds you from a clean view of the kitchen here. Well, I always wondered why there was a dirty curtain hanging between the dining hall and the kitchen here, one peep inside through the tiny hole in the curtain is enough to make you feel you are pregnant and in the 5 month of pregnancy, puking stuff out 3)All popular Telugu actors constantly wear them all through-out the day be it Chiranjeevi, Venkatesh or Junior NTR. So, now I have made it a point to sleep with my shades on; you may never know, tomorrow you might spot me on E-tv and might also exclaim "Hai hai ni marjawa sweet lassi pi kar, ni ye kitna sona munda hain (Punjabi translation of what Telugu girls might exclaim) and I do not miss wearing them especially when I go to Andhra mess.


By the way from the time the owner of this mess has seen me having conversations with this soon to be Telugu actor,I have been getting complementary gifts in the form of extra poories for breakfast. I seriously do not know why this particular actor eats in this cheap place but it’s true that he enacts plays, serials etc the servers serve him with utter diligence and also wait patiently for tips. He has a Tata safari to his name and of course wears fast tracks goggles all the time.


Anyways a lot of water has flown under the bridge since my last post. I have now moved into a new flat, quite close to old, shaandaar, duplex apartment that I owned with my room mates; in fact I am jus next door to these old room mates of mine. GE is back from his pilgrimage (we do not call it an onsite assignment if it’s shorter than 4 months :)) and the GE law is already in place in our old house. This GE law was first introduced in the yr 2006, according to the GE law anything that stays motionless, stationary or still for more than 15 mins and continues to stay still with no intention of moving has to be loaded with some clothing of GE, GE's shirt, dhoti, lungi, underwear, socks et all. Human beings are no exception to this law and a snoring GA is always the target for ASH’s lungi. Visitors worry visiting our house and this explains one of the reasons why our numerous GFs prefer to meet us in Infosys rather than visiting our rooms. So while I move in with GE and ME in the new room me and ME face the challenge of our lives. We got to control this dude or inculcate the GE law in us.

Its jus three of us sharing a huge, massive, large 2 bedroom flat (in case u dint get the clue, we are all game for a fairer, waxed room mate, yes, especially the one smiling shyly at this line is whole heartedly invited to be our room mate) And there is no more of the morning-domestic-duties phobia hangover. Are you wondering what this morning-domestic-duties phobia is? Well, it’s a special kind of fear that arises out of a few things that happen in the morning rendering you incapable of committing yourself to your morning duties or making you do some water conservation like taking bath with half a bucket of water. These are things like the noisy fan coming to a stand still, and myriad rays of sun piercing our room through the windows making GA to stop his snores midway, ASH's dreams taking a violent turn and NG waking up with an explosion throwing up a few pillows around buried under which he sleeps everyday, Me, banging hard at the bathroom door and a grinning SH sinks even lower in his bath tub. And as the tap starts hissing, clearing its throat of dryness, a violent turn of events just then take place, NG and ASH collide running out of their bedrooms, a bouncy ASH sends NG bouncing back into his room and he himself tumbling down the stair case approaching the bathroom door with a knock so loud that would send an already troubled me into the hai-mujhe-koi-aisne-dekh-na-le-where-is-my-towel mode, fearing the break of the bathroom door, I hnad it over to a glaring ASH. Well, yes the events have been a little exaggerated to the extent of showing a fat Amrita Rao to look like slim Adnan Sami yet this is what an outsider would contemplate if he had heard the fights that take place in our flat on the account of using the bathroom first and these are the things that send me into a phobia, constipating me and allowing me to save precious water.

So while I am now free from all this, I also fear the doomsday when ME would break his consistency of waking up late and in an attempt to show consistency in increasing the number of hours he spends in bathroom would occupy it for eternity. GE and I, as usual have been adjusting dudes, we just blow up the whole bathroom with a few grenades and huge amounts of anger :D. I guess this, like the GE’s law is also a common problem in bachelor rooms all over the world.

We have also got 2 speakers now, thanks to GE on which I play my music on, flaunting around with the collection I have on my I pod. It took 1 whole month of refined, polished rock music to develop the taste buds of GE and ME for pink flyodish kind of music and make their kouthu music tilted ears to listen to the leads of Slash and Joe Perry. Now, ME asks for Bryan Adams and GE asks for Guns and Roses. Keep it up machas, keep improving, pretty soon you would feel curious about the feats achieved by Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton.By the way are you people interested in gazals? I have few, shall i play them ?? :)

So bhai logs thats pretty much that has been happening in my life. I do intend to get in touch with fellow bloggers soon :) Will read all your posts from top to bottom, till then aap IPL dekho aur main dektha hoon FRIENDS STAR WORLD par before anyone else shoots me and snatches the remote from my hand ;)

V-Day Notes- Unlimited Bakwaas!!!

*** Disclaimer 1: Unless you go into the Phoebe (F.R.I.E.N.D.S) mode, the senseless/silly humor kinds, you would find the below post as boring as a mourning ceremony and instead of humming the Tandoori Nights song, you might find yourself singing “Tujhse Naraz Nahi Zindagi”.

*** Disclaimer 2: Kids, if you do not understand a few lines below please use the keywords to search on Answers.com. You get all answers here for all your naïve questions like “From where babies come from?” or “Are people manufactured by God, if yes then what’s his firm name??” The point is I am not sure how safe is the content for a 10 yr old but I am sure there is no 10 yr old who reads my blog nor do I think any kid would keep himself away if I said “Explicit content ahead, if you are not 18 please leave”. Oh God!! Why do I have to rattle so much about simple stuff? Ani, you were the one who asked me to put this disclaimer. Huh!!!

Time: 9.30 pm on 14th Feb 2009
Place: Pranam Sagar( Quite a divine name for a road side hotel, but do not underestimate it, one gets served everything here from Dal Tadka to Malai Kofta and Chineese bhi milta hain)
Background Music: Tandoor Nights, featuring: - Himesh Dashing Reshammiya & Urmila Wrinkled Mantodker. This is necessary to build the necessary mood for the bakwaas ahead.

Before the food is brought to my table by the person about whom a part of this blog is dedicated to, I shall key in a few lines on my mobile.

When I was a kid, I kept myself a thousand miles away from the puzzles and crosswords in newspapers. Scrabble was the most hated game next only to word power and Derek O’Brien’s confident minds. Sudoku was pretty low, say at the 10th spot considering that I understood a little bit of it with my limited intellectual powers. I always thought that whenever our president announced that “Children are the future of our nation” he had meant those words for the kids who woke up in the middle of night shouting Eureka! Solved crosswords in record time and at least built a robot to help their moms with the household chores. For me the TV schedule page remained the most interesting page( Note : we dint have a cable connection until last year and still I knew the history of all the shows from Movers & Shakers to Family Fortunes and the Bold and the Beautiful saga) next only to the sports page and if at all I stumbled across the puzzles and crosswords, I made sure I only colored the sketch at the bottom of the page or solved this one small puzzle that required one to find 6 microscopic differences between 2 pics, one perfect and one imperfect with a few small changes injected into it for you to find.

So I looked at the owner of Pranam Sagar (OPS) personally serving me Dal Tadka and Rotis and looked at Himesh singing Tandoori nights on TV placed close to the ceiling. My observation that lasted a few seconds resulted in me finding 2 similarities (Why did you think I told you the puzzle story before, time pass?? NO. I am good at observing things and finding differences and similarities) between Himesh and OPS. Both wear a cap, dominantly and both sport a thick beard. So I named this hotel as Himesh Reshammiya Sagar.

And talking of Himesh I wonder if he had ever had a valentine on the Valentines’ day. Don’t tell me you are ignorant of this day. I shall react with a scream loud enough to tear your ear drums, with my eyes popping out and my palm covering my mouth in complete shock. OK! Kuch zyada hi overacting ho gayi. Let me increase your love quotient and enlighten your dull sense of romance now.

It’s the day when bachelors like me mourn. The day when a few tons of saliva is exchanged and a few zillion promises are made, colonies of sperms set out on a journey in search of their destination to extreme poles( no I dint intend this pun) and the balance sheet of a few fancy stores around the world show a bizarre turnover. When love is in the air and you automatically start feeling fanatical about things and actually go into believing that the 2 girls in the street who just bumped into each other and a few other men sighing at you from the other side of the road was because of your axe effect; please start concluding that its V-day. Though the signs are make believe and the men sighing from across the road might have found you hot (find someone else I am pure and straight) yet you cannot ignore them (signs). You must either be a Ram Sene activitst or a bachelor like me to ignore these signs and live a normal life on this day. It comes from within the excitement, the feeling of being in love and of course the flirting talent you thought you never had.

By the way Valentines Day is also known for Saint Valentine, I would have totally forgotten this fact if I hadn’t read the newspapers in the morning. Since then I have been asking a lot of people if they are aware of the story behind this chap Valentine and it turns out that most of the guys are unaware of it. I am sure if you had asked GA (the only person who has a GF in my room and should have been celebrating this day) he would relate it to Abhay Deol’s character in Dev-D. Dev-D being the recent most HINDI movie we are planning to trick him to watch this weekend. This fellow knows more Hindi than Condolezza Rice and is capable of interpreting the scenes of the movie in his own way. I have told him that Dev-D revolves around this dude named Valentine who was ditched by innumerable females but he still moved on in his life to set up a marriage counseling shop and that’s why we call him Saint Valentine. I hope to find an inspired GA relaying the story back to his GF in the night and I am sure the story shall be told for the years to come in Infy at least. See that’s how you make and change history. The last time we took GA for a Hindi movie, we figured out that he does reason a lot. He mistook Sohail and Arbaaz Khan to be the villians in Jaane Tu ya Jaane Na as he thought Imraan and Genelia were always in love from the beginning and the movie dint require the hero to box some one in the nose, ride a horse and land up in jail. According to him the storyline was weak and that he movie should have been over with the very first scene. Beat that interpretation!!.


So where were we?? Ah! Yes, Himesh’s GF. Does he have Valentine this year at least? In my social circle that extends to a few villages of India, I have never seen any sher ki gori or gaaon ki choori exclaim breatlessly “Oh, oh ... he’s so cute” or “Hai main mar jawa gudh kha kar, itna sona munda hain Himeshu”... or “he is cho cuteeee, I love his voice and his voice box lodged inside his nose” or “those thick lips are so irresistible(sensual tone)” or a desperate “I love u, I love you, I love * 1000 times”. Never have I never heard this for Himesh. Even this guy, Simbu has female fans but not Himesh.

That point proved. Now if you should allow me I have to spend 2 mins in silence on this day. I do share a similarity with Mr.Valentine, Himesh & OPS. We are all single this day and we sport a beard. The cap of course is missing on me. Halleluiah...!!

BTW have you watched Ghajini, I am sure you would have. There is a song in it. “kaise Mujhe Tu Mil Gayi, Aayana Mujko Yakeen” the perfect song that is to be played in the background when guys like me would find a partner in life. :)

Moods: Excited/ Hungry/ Mad/ Irritated/ Sympathetic towards Himesh

Dec musings in Jan... :)

Ok!! I have got just 20 mins before the lunch gets served in the canteen here but this blog has to be typed and it will be, at any cost, remember in one of my posts I said that writing a post is like peeing when you got to do it, u ought to do it !! So here it is:-

The guard outside just gave me an expression of awe that sure matched the magnitude of me receiving a FAST TRACK watch as a Christmas gift. Yes, DIP-TEA gifted me one for Christmas, awesome na?? Someone does think I am worth all the money spent on that watch. It’s hard to believe sometimes the venues that God chooses to make you happy, I least expected it to come from this venue at least considering the alarming frequency with which I annoy her. I feel so grateful to her that I plan to pay all her shopping and beauty parlor bills for the next year or so :) Ahem!! lets just decrease the time period to a financial quarter, you see challenging economic conditions ka zaman hai bhai :) So, this one security guard of Infy thinks I am the most hardworking employee of Infosys and all the excellence, recognition etc awards should be given to me and why if you might like to ask me is because I come to office every weekend that I stay in Bangalore- hai na mast social life meri, little does he know that I spend most of my time writing stupid stuff and reading a few meaning full blogs like this one

I have just retuned from the Laundromat (Ok, Ok, now don’t Google to find a pic of it on net), it’s an electronic Dhobhi Ghat . Yep, something like the dhobi ghat in the backdrop of the Munna Bhai movie!! Yes!! but this one is a little different, we have state of the art, front loading washing machines where Infy employees bring trolleys full of clothes (Indian mentality, saale, sasthe main jo miltha hain uska overuse) every weekend, NG brings a bag, big enough to hold 4 machine guns, 2 rocket launchers, a dozen grenades and few kilos of dry fruits - kya news reader type effect diya dekha!- sit an relax while the machine does all the washing. Some of the machines just talk, you know, yes the sound emitted by some just increases over a period of time, they start shaking in their moulds, vibrating like hell and sound like a generator woken up from sleep and forcefully run; probably their way of complaining about all the dirt on the shirt collars or the chocolate wrappers in pockets. NG always imagines them to have life and says that they might also jump out of their moulds someday and start walking :) hai na weird mera room mate :D . You can sit an read an edition of The Week to impress the girl sitting next to you or jus put your head down and drool in your sleep, no one bothers you here and the employees are very understanding as well, they give you a reassuring smile that says "I believe in freedom as well so go on fold you torn under garment, someone might just spot it *naught grins*”

It does save a lot of time and most significantly frees a bachelor like me from physical bondage. Washing clothes has always been the most rigorous, abhorred, time consuming activity of mine on every weekend, hats off to my mom who washed my clothes for the first 19 years of my life. I was like one of those kids in the surf excel adds whose mother gives you a heart warming, 32 teeth out smile even when her son in all possibilities would have looked like a slum dweller’s child and resembled a snow man( brown in color, Note- the kids are always plump in the adds)with absolutely no sign of panic and anger she picks up a packet of detergent and says to the kid "blue ko blue rakhne ke liye green". The dirt in my clothes used to be somewhat of the same magnitude but then the scene used to be a little different from these adds. Mom used to thunder and sometimes I would roam around naked for the rest of the day as a result of my bandit queen's everlasting anger :) - traumatic childhood I had!!. But on a serious note, my clothes used to drip with sweat literally and the collars, uee maa, and not to forget the filth of things like chocolate wrappers, crayons, blades, wires, bolts and grease; I guess patience is the virtue of a true mother and every mother next only to selflessness and love being the first :). How else do you think I got the cleanest clothes to wear everyday to school and the whitest T-shirts to play every evening that left the others kids exclaiming to me "teri t-shirt meri t-shirt se safad kyu, kyu, kyu(echoes) :) and their moms becoming extremely jealous of the safadhi :D

Now the true calling of nature is being felt in my stomach and I got to find food in the campus. So see ya .. will be back soon .Please please please keep commenting, after the fiasco of DMK distributing rice, TVs and cash for free I guess it would be perfectly legal if I pay some of you to comment here .. U like it?? :) High hopes you have jaa oh jaa paise falthoo nahi hain !!!

Thanks DIP-TEA for the watch

On the Juke box- You’ve got a friend (Mc Fly) - This one s for you DIP-TEA

Iyer Mess, Salem & Ammu Mess- Here We come!!!

I was an obsessive kid, a complete irony in comparison with the character of my parents, the simplest beings on earth. I haven't achieved much, hell I wasn't even close to getting top ranks in my class; at studies I wasn't actually obsessive but when it came to things like cartoons, games, toys, nuts, bolts, tyres, wires and bulbs etc I was insanely attached. I used to fathom that anything that had managed to gain my attention and had made me feel attracted to it belonged to me and I had to own it even though it was impossible to own certain things at times inappropriate. I guess I have not grown up since the time I had to let go off the blue toy jeep, one of my favorite toys that I remember till date. The only difference now is the things that make me feel depressed, joyous, excited, brood or sulk over are different and the only similarity is that these things are still meaningless I am sure to grow over them just like I lost interest in my toys but at this very present moment, I have lost the discerning sense to think and contemplate about these facts. In short, I am depressed and brooding and sulking over things, moments and people whom I can never own or make mine. And each time I undergo this complex mélange of emotions, I ask myself is it possible to change the person you are?? Don't the traces show even later in your life? And is it possible to forget someone completely or erase one from your memory forever?

Ok!! Enough of depressive talk nor for some gilma (I have no idea where I got this word from, I guess GA used it first) talk. My room mates and me are such big eaters that once we had an egg eating competition in the nearby mess (yes the same mess where the cats patrol up and down alongside tables and where asking for a spoon is a serious crime and dealt with severity of that of a POTA act) and the mess owner had to literally plead us to stop our egg eating competition. We had eaten a total of 32 eggs and the hotel was out of clean plates so the last of the eggs were left on our table in the serving plates itself. These messes are perfect epitomes of the ideology "Unity in Diversity", you would find a northie sitting next to a southie, complete strangers and yet the southie would be teaching the northie how to break a piece of chapatti (Indian bread as they call it in continental culinary language, for the socialites who might stumble upon the place) using just 2 fingers of your right hand. I do not know how do they do it but eating with your left hand is another crime that might provoke unpleasant gestures like banging of plates by the servers on your table and another southie becoming doubtful about your origin as an Indian. And mind it, elbows dripping with sambar and making small hand grenades (rice balls) out of the rice served are few other things that one would notice and need to learn at these messes.

So, yes where were we, yea, I was talking about big eaters and after such a heavy meal our expedition takes a different turn. Note this ritual happens every night. SH stops for his hot badam milk at a bakery close by (yep, you got it right the same malu bakery where dogs are mascots welcoming you at the entrance and juices are made in huge quantities).NG, peeps into the refrigerator and points at the cold badam milk can, he is becoming an expert at sign language, this fellow is talented you know, 2.5 yrs in Bangalore and he has managed without knowing any of the 3 main languages spoken here, Tamil, Hindi or Kanada. He points at the tin of cold badam milk and asks the shopwala "fresh hain/irruka". The already confused shopwala replies "Yes its fresh”. Now I don’t understand why people ask this question every time they go to buy some edible stuff. Do they expect the shopwala to say "No, it’s not fresh, come later" or do they want him to accept that the whole tin was packed and distributed in his own back yard beside an open drain. Would any shopkeeper do that? And that too for a tinned can. The shopkeepers in our area can’t even read the expiry date on the cans. So I play safe ask for a Pepsi for me and GA and take it down in one gulp. There is more, we stop at every bakery, departmental store buying something or the other ranging from chikis to toffees (I take the credit for this) and the finally ending the mission with bananas. The amount that we spend on our various edible desires is so much that if ever a calculation was made we would have equaled the amount consumed and spent by any African, hungry nation on food.

Look this blog also works as a complete guide for the people who might shift into this suburban area of Bangalore. So go ahead and polish your vocabulary, might be useful in messes all over south India.

Ask for "Full tea"- most likely the shopkeeper would give you frootie. Did you even know that there was something called the full tea and half tea?? ..

Strepsils- The pharmacist might just naughtily grin at you and secretly slip a pack of condoms into your hands.

Ever heard of half egg puff, full egg puff...

Ok! This thing makes me go into peels of laughter, "Dil-Pasand". Triangular shaped bread stuffed with cherries, jam and some sweet coconut gratings. I guess some excited malu who loved cherries and had a burning desire to be loved by people must have coined this name.

Motta-Veech- this one is tricky it’s a Tamil phrase for a chapatti which has an omelet stuck to one of its sides.

Kalakki- this one is hard to explain, a half cooked omelet and folded to look like small sac like structure. Real tasty stuff.

Half Boiled- not exactly a boiled egg but a bull’s eye is refereed to as half boiled in these messes. It’s universal and not a mistake here.

Barrotta- Nothing close to parathaas but a pan cake made out of something quite different from wheat.

1/2 - Lime juice. One lime juice is poured into 2 glasses, perfect quantity for the couple that believes in more talk and eats less.

Kuska- Briyani flavored rice but no meat pieces. You can call it the poor man's briyani.

Snoring habits- Hai tauba .. !!!

Everything has been perfectly normal since my last post. Syl is trying to sharpen her skills in crossing roads without her spectacles and I would say she is doing quite an enviable and independent job :) only that a car zips past her inches away and it misses her eyes :). Syl you need to look across on either sides of the road and not dawdle away in your own thoughts, even better would be wearing spectacles :). Pri is still giving me fashion advice as to what I should be wearing on a wedding. I guess I am in safe hands, finally ; cant trust my room mates who have more killer suggestions of dressing me for a Halloween party rather than a traditional Punjabi wedding. M and me speak a few times a year, once on her b'day and once on my b’day, that practically makes it twice a year and VD is still surprising me with her revealing-myself kind of habit. She landed up from Canada last week and gave me a call on a night when I was so insanely bored that I was on the verge of terming that night as one of my worst, sleepless nights. I had fired messages to every friend of mine, in every part of the world but not to VD and it so happens that she rescued me. There is something about this sweet, late night, how-have-you-been, long-time-no-see, calls; they are bewitching. You don’t feel like hanging up and the moment you do, you are already asleep with a big grin on your face. By the by women are gifted with this uncanny quality of softening you up even when they would have been downright cruel to you and would have given your souvenir to someone else. Yes, VD bewitchingly confesses that she donated my Canadian souvenir to someone. VD, you ain’t getting a hug when u meet me... :-/

So where is the complaining part of the blog? There is suppose to be one isn't it especially with me its hard not to find a part of the post that is tumultuous in its own way. I mean me not cribbing on this blog is as unusual as finding yourself marooned on moon with a hot, bikini model sitting beside you. And the joy to know that no one would be around is somewhat comparable to the relief that I would get after cribbing on this space.

Life, unperturbed save a few nuclear explosions has never been in danger of being extinct completely. It’s been existent for million years now but out of all those stupid inventions that man has made like tissue papers and mosquito nets, I wonder why there has never been an instance when someone would have thought of making some apparatus to help people not to snore in the stillness of the night; some kind of clip that could clip both one's mouth and nose together or some kind of silencer that could be fitted into nose or mouth and directed towards the window for the by products to escape out. Here I am, typing away this post on my mobile while 2 of my room mates A and GA are snoring right beside me. I don't understand the nature of people who need a noisy fan, I am referring to you SH or populous street stacked with traffic emitting deafening horns to induce sleep (I am referring to you DP, I don’t even know if she remembers this one time conversation that she had with me), I need absolute silence when I sleep, no ragging fans or blinding lights, please. I tried to cover GA's face with a bed sheet and placed a pillow on A's face, now they started to emit a bass sound wave together which somehow resonates and could easily be mistaken for a mobile vibrating. I brought back my thoughts to messaging people and I wonder why people especially females never reply to your messages. I am concentrating on these bad messaging habits and I am just left with one thought, if a person does not reply back or smses back I am sure she is not interested in knowing you, isn't it simple. So, with this in mind I have decided not to message such people and message only those who message me regularly or care to reply to my messages.

And so I tried reading and now was left wondering if we are back in the seventies when the inflation remained perpetually high, when countries like India and China considered their population as a massive negative point. I thought cheap labor from India and China solved this problem but I guess I was wrong. A few journals say that these were long impending risks of the fed cuts done in US. Each time there was a Fed cut foreign investors pumped in more money into the growing economies like India, China and Brazil but shouldn't the global slow down neutralize it all. Mr. Bush says that the inflation of food prices is because of food shortage. India's middle class makes up for the whole population of US and the increase in salaries of this middle class would also affect the demand for food and that’s left the prices soaring high. Again these causes are not permanent; most of the countries have their economies liberalized and interests rates aligned to that of US or any other strong economy and therefore its tough to find the causes of these issues unlike the cause of my insomnia for which I have found a cure and that’s reading, I am feeling as sleepy as ever. Reading does make one sleepy and before I crash a big thank you to all of them who commented on my last blog; mistakes do happen, Rajanikanth always looses mind in front of reporters and Harbajan always get involved in controversies for his blunders on the field. I too interchanged a few surnames in my last blog don’t know whom I was thinking about Lara Dutta or Priyanka Chopra. Kya farakh paenda hai, teh dono hi soni punjabhi kudiya hain aur mainu bahut pyaar kar di ya …!! :)

On the I pod: One headlight (The Wallflowers).... next on the juke box- Tere naal nachna :)

Of pot bellies, IT and maa ke ladoos..

Yes, I sympathize with the policemen not because they spend long hours on road regulating traffic but because they have pot bellies! And yes, I do know the state of mind of the women who die for their husbands to lie about their weight each time they glance in the mirror and ask “Aji, main moti toh nahi dik rahi na?” Yes, this is me and ironically I have changed and wouldn’t mind to take a woman of Tuntun’s size for my wife. Er.. OK ! …Thoda zyada hi emotional ho gaya. I owe this change in me to the non-exercising attitude of mine that has resulted in me developing a nasty belly and now I feel like endorsing things like chubby checker and sugar free stuff. :) It’s hard to believe how a person who used to train for 3 hours a day can grow fat but that’s the way it is, IT lifestyle does spoil ones habits.

Not many people read this blog and to the few (the number is 2-3) who by mistake stumble upon this place thinking that there might have been some change in my writing style for a change I would have started injecting sense into this blog, I assure you I am back and with more nonsense. So that practically makes no readers for the second leg of my writings. I wish I had been a woman blogger, would have had a comment even before the thought of posting stuff conceived and materialized into a post. Yes, out of the few woman bloggers that I know each gets a huge chunk of comments on every post of theirs. I ain't raising questions about the content but then I am suspecting that people do not like disorganized thoughts like the ones you find on my blog. No one wants to know the similarities between 2 pastimes like women and cricket that occupy an immature mind of mine nor does any one want to know what happens when your life turns and swirls to make sense. I guess this has been my longest stint away from the blog and I have forgotten about the IPL cheer girls completely. But here I am back and I am not a bit worried of writing about Priyanka Chopra's ,Lara Dutta’s reviving passion in me and petty things that go unnoticed by many or my uncanny habit of cribbing about things that sound utterly useless to the people around me.

So last week my mom called, nothing unusual in a mom calling her only son who stays away from her but the reason she called me was so silly that I am sure she would have put all the project managers in Infosys to shame(considering half of them do silly stuff all through the day).
She said:
Ma: Haan, kya kara raha tha, naashta??
Me: Haanji , bass aapk ko hi phone karne wala tha..
Ma: Tu sochata hi reh karna math (annoyed that I don’t call her)... acha sun tu aa raha hain iss weekend?
Me: Nahii, kyu (wondering if mom would mind that answer and would deduce that I come down to Chennai only when I have work there :))
Ma: Kya museebat hain yar . yeh Nirula wale uncle ne 2 kilo ladoo de diye aab yeh kaun khaye ga . !!
So my mom wants the very presence of mine in Chennai to eat ladoos. Aab ladke ki sithithi (position, for the ones whose Hindi is no better than Katrina Kaif's)... badi romanchak (nothing to do with romance) hain. Dekna yeh hain ki ladka weekned pe Ms Dutta (Priyanka is her first name for the Bollywood illiterates) aur Ms Kaif (Katrina is her first name for the ones uninitiated on the fashion front) ke sath enjoy karega ya Chennai aapni maa ke ladoo ke liye ja ye ga? Jaane ke liye dekhiye dharawaeek (Serial) Maan ka laddo ya maa ka ladoo. :)

I have been so busy in the past few weeks that I would have smiled less than a jovial Manmohan Singh (I swear this one Prime Minister of ours smiles the least). The situation (sithithi for English illiterates) remains grim, I am still getting a lot of work and life is hectic forever but I do read the newspapers sometimes and I do also know that the US elections are over and we still see the Federal bank of US bailing out banks. Here in Infy, things have changed, they have implemented cost cutting to the extent of putting the elevator fan off. And somehow I feel the whole IT world is a big illusion. There are people around me who might be earning more than my dad's gross income; mind you, My dad worked 15* 7 hrs and 365 days a year and the analysts here excel in resizing columns of a spreadsheet and fill stupid trackers for which the get paid anything around 60-70k pm. The weekends are spent lavishly at a certain restaurant that charges bizarre rates for the food ordered but do they mind? NO. I wonder why there is so much inequality in salaries. And if they say that the amount of hard work that you do directly translates to the amount of money you earn then I guess a software professional should be getting peanuts. And if one says that the amount of salary one earns is directly proportional to amount of brains and discerning sense that one puts into his work then again software professionals should be getting peanuts. However though there are a few brilliant people in every project because of whom Infy mints money still these are outnumbered by a huge herd that is still mediocre and does nothing but gets overjoyed at the prospects of a weekend approaching and wishes each weekend in a colorful way. The work that we do here is no rocket science. We monitor, maintain and test systems (IT jargon to make sound everything professional) in almost every project in Infy. In short we nurse a wound and take care of the patient and when he's alright he pays regular visits for medical check up, creating babies, cloning and producing new life is not our work at least for not most of us and we don’t need strength of 100 thousand to do all this. Sadly, I am in the thick of this action.

We software professionals have had life easy, very easy I say, including me. All this makes me wonder if this situation will stay forever there are so many things defying our IT industry and that I am pretty sure and pragmatic when I say there is something really wrong with the system. There are onsite returned people who bring back home dollars and love to spend it in posh hotels. I struggled literally to get money from my dad for books, sports and school, college treats but today is a different day and we have treats and parties every fortnight spending insane amounts at these certain westernized joints. You may call it globalization or consumerism but then this shift is one sided yet having a profound effect across various classes of societies resulting in a wider gap between the haves and the have nots. Infy started to cut costs and started giving reasons as budget problems when it was time to hike salaries even as it grew at the rate of 40-50% YoY. There are very less companies in the world today which grow by that proportion. Are the IT companies in India accustomed to such huge profits and don’t want to let go of the profitable growth. Well, no body would like their profits to come down and it would be stupid for IT companies to do this but the system has always been wrong from the beginning. The salaries, the billing, the costs, the expenses et all. It’s a revolutionary situation for the IT companies in India and how well we manage would answer questions about its continuity else like every other boom and bust we shall see another one; a part of which we have already seen, companies reaching their saturation level in terms of resources and now cutting costs by sizing the work force. The concept of ramping up more than required resources for a simple assignment and then billing the client for the same is no longer going to be existent. Infy now talks about liner growth which means less number of people and more productivity.

A few of us should be thankful to the IT boom in India, people like me would have never landed up with jobs holding just a bachelors degree as a fresher and here I am earning 15k pm . However a few of us should also realize that bizarre salaries do not mean mindless spending and with that thought of mine I shall set the argument in me to rest. Good night.

IPL Ka Boom aur Cheer girls bhi saath..

Flash Back.....
Me (A 5 yr old me & excited): Papa papa.. aaj stadium le chalo na ..cricket match dekne .. Dad (drowned in his account books & frowning) least bothered that his son trying to make the most innocent, sympathy gaining, lower lip out face and without lifting up his head would say "hoon ... chalte hain . chalte hain ...” with no intention of budging from his place.
Me: “Papaaaaaaa” (a shout that would rattle the neighbors and make the newly borns soil their undies).. “le chalo na .. !!!!!!!!!!”
Mom (Jhansi ki Rani, used to break in from kitchen with a belan( sword replaced by belan) in hand) : “Le jao na bacho ko .. dekho kitni der se ro raha hain”
Papa (Now irritated by the disturbance papa would say):- "Kya Vandu tum bhi , jaanthi ho kitni bheed ho gi wah ? ..kaha le jao ka inko ( me and my sis) main .. ticket bhi mehenji ho gi .. Mohit, samjha kar beta .. jitna maza TV par milta hain match dekne ka utna kahi nahi milega .. Dono bheth ke dekhe ge acha ..!!!” Me Still not convinced and would cry the whole day until the match would start and it really dawned upon me that there is no possible way of budging my dad to the playground. A ritual that used to break in our house everytime I had some freind of mine making it to the stadium to watch the match leaving an envous me pestering my parents.

We said: "hi, how ya, phone no.. please, Ok TC, ba bye( all in fake US accent)

Present Realization....

Dad was always right. I went to watch the IPL match played between Bangalore RC and Mumbai Indians. Well, both the teams were already out of the tourney and the match was as useless as the presence of Katrina Kaif for the matches of Royal Challengers played or for that reason it was as useless as the presence of cheer girls for cheering. I mean I am sure that the few sixes that Rahul Dravid hit out of desperation had nothing to do with the cheer girls specially imported from some unknown football ground but I am sure they at least raised the morale of young lads like us. I mean they got a better welcome from the stands than our own pop singers or should I say young guys were so crazy about these cheer girls that if there wasn't a fence between the ground and the stands I am sure a lot of us would have been chasing these girls all over the ground. However these girls were a little adulated and were thinking they have a huge fan following in India. I guess some one should tell them that most of us in India haven't seen a girl wearing shorts as short as nothing. :) and the concept of cheer girls never existed along side with bar girls in India. How could you expect an average Indian male not to tear his eye balls, drool and make a sigh when he sees a cheer girl! We have ample number of photos of them .I mean of the people drooling over them from stands. ;) The atmosphere was electrifying and I also came to know what a Mexican wave is. It’s a huge wave of people applauding from one stand and another set of people following the earlier ones from the adjacent stand and it goes on and on. Quite a spectacle in itself. I saw another spectacle of guys half my age using rancid remarks that made even the foreigners to blush and screw up their faces. For some reason I feel that kids have interchanged the meaning of good and bad, dunno what is it like in the other cities of India. The initial excitement subsided soon and the way the RC played dampened my spirit. Truly, not an experience to be remembered forever. By the way the IPL has excited the economic nerves of my brain. Ponder upon this if Anil Ambani can raise 12,000 crores through an IPO in 3 days then why not Chennai Super Kings or Delhi Dare Devils. I mean these are companies in themselves and if they decide to go public then I am sure every cricket lover would love to invest. 10-15 yrs down the line I can imagine my son saying "papa papa aap Mumbai Indian ke share kyu nahi kharidhte.. Abhishek Nayaar form main hain." :) and an another new article would say Sachin steps down from the post of CEO of Tendulkar Group of Hotels, Mumbai. He said that he was growing old and wanted to spend watching the matches at the most acclaimed stadiums of the world. God knows when Dhanraj Pillay and Baichung Bhutia would become industrialist. ;) quite an irony and economic gap.

Ok kids now describe VD in detail!!!

I am one of those who might just open fire in a crowded street, blow the smoke of my gun in style and walk down the street unbothered while the whole world runs for safety. I am one of those who would run a sports car on three, stop with only slamming of brakes, get down to see if the metallic paint has developed a scratch but then when it comes to letting go good friends in my life, I become as mushy and soft as those huge teddy bears lined up on the rack of any Archie’s store. I become as emotional as a newly crowned Miss World when I come to know that a good friend of mine is parting ways with me. Jo bhi ho, the child like feeling is indispensable I feel like throwing my arms and legs up in the air and cry like a kid who has been forced out of the bed just because he hasn't peed before he went to the bed. I feel like the kid whose favorite toy has been snatched just because he has a lot of math homework to complete. I feel like the kid who wants to still cuddle up under the arms of its mother and feel secure as ever. I know I do sound feminish or should I say kiddish but then that’s the way it is. A few losses in life can render you feeling all soft inside like the wet sand which when stepped upon leaves a big foot mark. Now don't you call me a kid because I am a mature adult as I have a demat account of my own. I have invested in the booming Indian Share market and I wear a black tie and leather shoes to work every day.

I guess I have spoken enough about myself now for this friend of mine whose pseudo name I cannot decide upon. I have options 1) Garfield (Courtesy SYL ;)) 2) Matilda 3) VD. I guess the last one seems to the best because it sounds closer to this friend of mine. People say that old friends are always replaced by new ones but I firmly believe that this is so not possible in life. Each friend of mine has been special and unique and they are so not replaceable. I could never replace my dad nor can I replace any friend of mine. I share a special bond with each one of them and especially if a friend of yours has a smile that makes you feel good and happy about things then it’s just worth remembering her.

Now VD turns out to be a female friend of mine whom I have known for more than a year now and it so happens that she has the best smile around. Oh yes she smiles like a cartoon of the first order and would easily land up with a job of bugs bunny on Cartoon network if she had to replace one. Over this one year that I have know her I have developed a very animated bond with her and in lieu of that I guess VD, you an me need to exchange a few love notes as well :P

--First one for the food-I am goanna miss you and your cubicle a lot. My last message to you on your whiteboard still remains there. I am going to miss the muffins that you bought me. I can still smell them (guess I would have been a dog, last birth). I mean the taste still lingers in my mouth and I need more :(

--Whom will I bet with in Fidelity :( BTW don't you owe me a lunch??? :) For loosing the bet. I know you'll snap back saying I promised you a lunch date for which you invited yourself but then do you remember something I am a poor man and you owe me something. Now let me make this as formal and as polite as possible. VD, correct me if I am wrong and spank me if I am lying. Did you give back 350 bucks that you owe me??? ;) buy me a lunch instead :) On second thoughts I guess I can still sponsor that meal for ya because anyway in the end it will be me whom you'll offer to finish it off.

--On whose cubicle wall will I slide my chin and make an entry so stealthy :(. I will miss your bottle and not to forget your phone. You need to give me something of yours before you leave fidelity (how about the phone?? :)) and don't you change the personalized settings that I have done on your phone! It’s for to remind you of me every time and call me at the press of a button. A symbolic way of saying. I am just a call away when you need me provided my number does not change.

--You know how much I love to teach what I know; I guess it’s too late for it. I'll never be able to teach you the strumming patterns for the chords that I learnt :( BTW... Weren’t you going to donate for the "new guitar" fund of mine ;) and yes I still have your plectrum which you gave it to me when I first started learning the guitar :). Tera Ashirwaad mere saath hain VD!

--I'll miss discussing my favourite songs on the radio because there won’t be any one to know them or guess them as you do. Radio city, I’ll never listen to this after you’ve gone and what about those funny, wacky, naughty messages that we used to compose with the song dedications every other night and what about the old hits that I used to dedicate to you every other day when you dressed like some old bollywood character of the 70's and 80's. I know SYL is still there as a scape goat for all these but it’s not the same. :(

-- And you know you promised me an outing in Bangalore too!! Me, you and SYL. And what about the resume format that you promised you'll send and that article that I have cut out for you from the news paper and VD have you heard of the band "Five for fighting". And what about the CD that I promised I'll give and and and and... Oh there are just too many things that I wanted to tell you but now I jus feel like a sad Calvin sitting lonely just because Hobbes hadn't informed him before leaving. I am never goanna send those comic strips to u.:-/

But I guess you just got to get on with your future prospects and show the world the sensible and adorable soul you are. I wish you all the best and pray that you get to meet all those South Indian cute guys that you always wanted to meet. The Rajanaickams (bobby darlings), Palini Swamis and Kandaswamies. :) Since u wanted to marry a south India. :) I wish so many of them that you find it tough to decide upon one of them. BTW do you know I talk Tamil too... ;) I wish that your passions for flying objects comes true and you get to fly to new lands, undiscovered places and the road less traveled. I pray for a lot of adventurous, joyful outings in future for you and hope you u enjoy each one of them.

And I am telling you better keep in touch with me else you’ll miss my good night hugs and the roar of this lion :) (Croak!) – That was to neutralize my egoistic forgetfulness of my own modesty.

Oops I don’t have a photo of yours too :( . That’s perfectly ok I guess I ll upload some comic characters' face with this blog to impersonate you. :D

Juke Box: When I see you smile- by Bad English (This one’s for you VD).

C-A-T CAT ,CAT mane bili, R-A-T RAT, rat mane chuha

After scanning a million scraps of paper in my purse-thrice, my pant pockets-zillion times, secret hiding places at home in Chennai, old newspapers in Bangalore, outlook magazines on my shelf in my room, my underwear, my room mate's underwear, novels, under my mattress, my drag-o-bag and after enquiring a billion people like my mother, my friends girls/guys, it finally dawned upon me that I have lost the third copy of bank pay-in slip that was to be sent with the CAT application and without which I cant become a Manager type ka person. I dint leave a stone unturned my desperation knew no bounds and I even enquired my PM and my landlord if they had taken it out of jealousy but I guess they are innocent and cant be blamed but so is me .I never knew that it was imperative to send the bank challan with the form, first time hai na!! Isliye... No, I am not careless I just kept it to carefully and now I am unable find it. I think that its just destiny which does not want me to do my MBA. Waise Mass Comm. seems like a more viable option now. What say?

However that is over and I have sent my CAT form to the IIM people with an apology letter written in true innocent, school student style. I hope they are merciful people and let me write CAT 2007 else its just a good news for all the CAT aspirants. One extra seat for you people so thank your stars that I ain’t writing CAT and for all those zealous, enthusiastic and boring IIM aspirants pull up your socks and start working hard because there is not much time left now. And before I can end this post I want to thank everybody who stood by me, away from me , jacked me , screwed me, loved me, hated me in my short spanned endeavor of writing CAT 2007

-- Priyanka/Ramprakash- Thank you very much for the books. When the world had turned itself away from me and I was shown a big NO (Eiffel tower size) you people helped me by lending me books and therefore I love you people for that.

-- Elivia- Thanks girl for teaching me how to find a square root by the long division method, too bad that your effort might go in waste if I fail to write CAT but still I love you for that.

-- Bank Manager- I love this man for very politely showing me off to another employee of the bank who in turn made me wait for an hour while he visited rest room for his private chores and phone calls. If all this was fruitful his name would have been added with the others but he requires a special mention when he said he can’t do anything about it.

-- My sister who did not care for me being left uneducated nor does she care about herself that if her brother becomes a manager at least she can show off to her friends.

-- My mother who made a few meaningless visits to the bank in the hot, July sun of Chennai.

-- I thank every body who ever thought I wasn't good at math. To live up to your expectations I have stopped studying but then don't be complacent because I might be back next year provided I am alive and kicking around.


-- My moped which took me places in Chennai when I roamed unknowingly As I had lost a very important piece of paper.

-- My 1108 phone that was used to make a million phone calls to my friends on whom I depended to go the bank in Chennai an enquire which way had to be the best way to murder a careless person like me but I guess they are just too nice to me because they cared more about their GF's and wanted to spend more time with them, sounds strange, is it a duty or what??- Anyways the point is my cries and pleas fell on deaf ears.

-- I have a very sarcastic "I love u " and the let the "devil's wife do u " kind of feeling towards a few people who promised to help me but made me run about for books for months. I am very polished person and would refrain from using any foul language here. :)

-- And in the end thanks for the peace of mind provided by all those inquisitive, brain washing kind of visitors in my life . Who tried their level best to confuse but now the situation is like. Na rahega sanp na bajegi basuri .. !!!

Meri Kahaani mere bag ki zubaani .. !!

What do u do to a person who makes you suffer so much that at times that you feel like running of from him but what if he had bought you with a lot of love and care and to add to that with a lot of money, for his standard and if you were special to him because you were his first purchase in the beautiful city of gardens, Bangalore with his first hard earned salary. You are left with no other option but stop ranting and stick to him. I got to stay beside him as he sleeps lazily on this Sunday morning on a bed so filthy that even a beggar won’t approve off it. With old editions of newspapers strewn all over his bed and he sleeps and he cuddles on top of them and I lay as black as ever in one corner, staring at him, wondering as to when this lazy Kumabakarnan will get up. He never sleeps this way, this long in presence of his mom but now, today he is a bachelor staying away from home in a remote area of Bangalore where there are more dogs than humans and only if these dogs were more mannered, they wouldn’t mate in public under the autumn sun of Bangalore. By the way, have you ever noticed, street dogs give birth to the cutest puppies. However they become insane and cheap when they grow and try to eat little kids.

Oops!!! I forgot to introduce myself. Hello, my name is drag-o-bag, weird name isn't it? But Mohit could not think of anything else. I am a back pack (black in color) and though I have a weird picture on me which does not resemble a dragon(see pic) yet Mohit has named me so. If only I was his Parker pen which he has been using right from the time he became young and handsome, he would have named me better. However for now I am just a mere bag, a back pack that is only used to hold old newspapers and notepads. I hate this habit of Mohit, I mean old newspapers carrying stale news is as useless as posting a CAT application without the third copy of bank pay-in slip (I did this mistake recently and blew my chance of writing CAT). Justine Henin Hardenne, his new obsession still resides in me and so does a mock collage of the financial budget 2007.There have been so many instances where this guy had been scrutinized along with me by the Infosys security guard ridiculed upon for carrying so much garbage but I guess he is just too shameless to take all these embarrassing moments to heart. This fella has a memory of a paralyzed rat and thinks he would remember all those stock rates and the articles that he reads in newspaper. Ask him the difference between a MP and MLA and I bet he wouldn't answer.

I am a sad picture of anguish, pain and sorrow. Yea, you got it right all the words used in the preceding line almost mean the same. The front pocket of mine is not used to hold Parker pens or currency notes. My owner has stuffed my mouth with things that I am sure museum fellas would be interested in. A Sony Ericsson WTA open ticket which dates 9 months back and a rock concert ticket which is even older. As far as I know Mohit, he is not one of those show off kind of fellas but I guess he still keeps these things because he wants to remind himself of the days that he spent in Bangalore. A few newspaper articles that are close to his heart literally flicked from the newspaper kept in the lobby of Infosys in true con artist style. I have seen the horrifying spectacle a number of times now and my heart starts to pound whenever he draws a ball point pen from the front pocket of mine and draws a thick line bordering the article in the newspaper late at night when there is no one left in the lobby except the security guard who himself is busy talking on the phone. He then tears the article along the border and Voila!!! It’s easy as the pen has already made an impression on the border. No wonder he keeps stuffing me with pens of sharpest nibs.

The only thing that I have been proud of holding till date is his rattling radio Which he loves a lot .Apart from this I hold a few ATM slips , bank statements which answers a lot of queries of mine when I was anew and wondering as to why this fella roams alone and not a girl around. I mean I have seen him a lot of times admiring a lot of cute ladies and knowing the fact that he is young and talks decent English that might impress Mayawathi, can do a lot more to his bachelor life than just staying single. He holds a bank balance so enviable of which even his pet dog would feel insecure off.

I have been through rough and tough times, nothing can be as dirty as his sweaty clothes and dirt ridden shoes which he stuffs into me for a certain active, pumped up morning in the gym. I should say that these morning are nightmares to me and I wish all the laziness in this world to creep into him but I guess this is what life is going to be like for me and what is more important is that we both going to stick around each other for long with me perched on his back I am always happy to see the world around instead of sitting in the dreaded Big Bazaar where comes huge crowd every weekend and scrutinize every body part of mine only to leave back in the store. So here I go wishing him luck and a long consortium with me so that I can serve him till the end of my life.

I hope you had the time of your life.

And I would say that I am back, back from the graveyard? No back with another mail. :) This one is going to be published on my blog. When I look back, I mean look back in life I see that I haven't done anything remarkable that might fetch me Nobel Prize, nor have you done anything to fetch you the Nobel prize but still I write this mail as I have completed one year of my new life, A life that I started on 6th of august 2006 which incidentally happened to be my birthday. It was this day that a year back standing like a true visionary with my chin on my palm and leaning over the railing outside room no 204 (first floor) of Bhubaneswar Infosys DC, I looked at my reflection in the swimming pool below and said to my self "Dude, its sad that you are 21 years old and you still don't have a girl friend. It’s sad that you think you are worth a lot more love and care than you actually get in life and that you should switch over and lower your ego a bit and start a new life in Infosys. NRN has a daughter who is just a couple of yrs older to you and if you try your luck you can get married to her".

With dreams in my eyes, I slept all night and then I slept again in the classes only to be woken up by practical classes where I copied the Test cases from the girls and spent more time sleeping again. In the end I jus want to retrospect my life in this one year.

----August 7-training starts and only that the shock of me getting into Infosys wasn't enough I gave another shock to my trainers by completing the training successfully. I still remember my last test marks, a very beautiful figure of 33/75.

----Made new friends and yes saw new cities. Hyderabad, had a brief affair with this city for just three days and then on September 13th I was transported to Bangalore where my affair with city still continues. I should say that I am doing quite an enviable job by withstanding for a year in this beautiful city.

---- I have eaten everywhere now, places ranging from a dhaba to a bakery where they sell stale toasts of 8 days old that might even give you rabies but I am thankful to God that he has give me "Mike Tyson" type of immune system. I have eaten in a numerous mess around my localities that have "CATS" as their mascot but I still stand tall and strong.

----I have survived the cold breeze of Bangalore and the humidity of Chennai traveling a thousand times from Bangalore to Chennai and back in unreserved compartments, hiding in bathrooms and the noisy Hosur buses, I haven’t left a mode of transport . I’ve had my share of happiness, specially the walk from the bus stand at 2 am in the night every time I landed in Chennai and the midnight tea in Krishanagiri with Suby Kurian and me trying to get a glimpse of the WC matches.

--- Talking of WC.I had followed the whole thing from the newspapers and my rattling radio except for one match which eventually India lost to Sri Lanka.

--- I managed to get back to my blog after a year and got into writing the stuff of my life on my blog because I have no other knowledge to impart to the world.

--- 2 projects half completed and getting a worst tag of being a criminal from the females on my floor is not easy. I have done it and accomplished again & again. Phew!! dunno how many times will I have to prove myself.

--- A CRR2 and a magnificent appraisal with no negatives. Can you beat that? :)

--- Salaam e-isq, Nishabd, Ghost rider were a few movies I saw alone in solitude sitting in the front row of REX cinema hall(now that’s a decent cinema theatre, just that Priyanka Chopra looked like she would jump off the screen and would sit in my lap as I was closest to the screen)."Eeek grouse...!!!! You must be sick to go for a movie alone". I have heard it a number of times and it doesn't bother me much.

---MG road Brigade road.... even the dogs know me there. I have been there so many times.

---Prodigal daughter, Not A Penny More Not A penny less(Priyanka-Thanks for that one), Shall We tell the President, The Pledge, Man Woman And Wife-I have read them all. One book every quarter.

--- Broadcast emails to batch mates and erroneous and fake invitations saying "Sweets at my desk" mail to team mates. From late night, as late as 2 am in the morning sms to a few people to flowery lyrics of “Manic Monday” sent on a Monday. I have done it all this year. Wising good night in Alfred Hitchcock style to playing pranks on the females in my workplace that paid rich dividends in form of chocolates filled with rum and raisins have annoyed a lot of people. I ain’t sorry for anything nor do I think I should be. Do the same thing to me, send me a message at 2 am and If I am flirting around with my insomnia will give you a call :) .Provided there is balance.

---A beautiful Diwali (Thanks to Maithri), to celebrating New Year with Srikanth and Suganth on the hill of "GopalSwamy Beta". A few bitter moments that tore me apart and brought tears to my eyes to a few rolling laughter moments with Ganesh, Suby, Neil, Merin and George in the room which again gave me the same tears, tears of joy. Life has been an assortment of emotions. I have tried to live life X,Y,Z ways but the best way has been the way when you ask nothing from life and when something good happens you say " I deserved it " and when something bad happens u again say " I deserved it " - In short it is to stay same everywhere in every situation and be your self.

I have come to a lot of conclusions in life and the yesterday landed up with the best. Seeing the bigger picture of life and looking back, retracing my steps and I have noticed that the true purpose of life has only been exploring a new emotion on every turn of life that you take. I forget this fact and I start walking the way everyone has done in their lives but this time my resolve is stronger and this is going to keep me self contended. No matter whether the times are tough or easy all that matters in the end is you’ve lived through it, explored that emotion and sand the song “I hope you had the time of your life”.

I smell bad stuff ....

I am a confused individual, my friends already know it and I am not declaring it to the world globally on blogspot.com. I say this not because I was forced by my imaginary GF but then I find myself getting as worried as a man who is soon going to become a father of a beautiful baby. I am worried about things that the others don't care about. Even in the wildest dreams of my fella room mates, I am sure they wont get worried about the things I worry about.I worry about emotions that no longer hold true to this world and yes I should say I am stressed.

The girl in the next flat brings a guy home everyday. The men act more faithful than the pet dog of hers which wags its tail seeing every other stranger. She calls them hot. I don’t understand the meaning of this word “hot”. I mean does the guy has a body temperature of boiling water (have u ever felt his body so close to u??).Its weird,Is the guy "hot" because he has good looks? (then what about the guys who have a golden heart and are sure to keep a woman lot more happier than the "hot men"?) .Is latent heat so important that it twitches the skin between the legs of yours and urges you to make a remark like that (sorry for the insanity injected) but I fail to understand what is "hot". The word cute makes more sense to me. I, being a guy have always found a lot of girls cute with cute features and everything that they do and the way that they do has been cute. My memory seems to be very fine and I am not mistaken when I say that I have never referred to a girl as "hot" in my life. Now, u might criticize me and if you were as manner less as Rakhi Sawant, you would call me a liar. I confess and I solemnly pledge that a numerous times I have been motivated to make the following remark "Sameer Reddy looks hot" but only under my breath, a whisper, so the insanity has always been intact and does not pollute the innocent atmosphere of ours and I mean it but I don’t exclaim it seeing every other girl, I swear. I am motivated by the curvaceous body of Sameera and those well shaped legs of hers. So how does a "hot" guy motivate a girl? I seriously don’t know. I swear that I would never bring Sameera home and would never even try thinking of having a relationship with her because how can you get married to a "hot" girl .And if you get you are getting married to the flesh and not the soul, character or the conscience of the other person. I am worried because guys/girls have made it a fashion and I am worried about bringing up my children in such a wicked world.

I am worried about the IT culture. Here the PMs and every other person is bitten by the globalization bug and wants to see his salary in dollars. These people smoke cigarettes sitting under the sun and there is pride dripping down their foreheads. Foul language is very much a part of their dictionary and they harass females at work. They ogle at them and though married show their desire in public about sleeping with one of their team mates. The quiet girls suffer, cry and get frustrated. Some leave the company and some just take the beating. There are a few who resort to "tit for tat" behavior and they overtake the men with their language. The good men take the beating this time along with the not so good and its a real mess that leaves me worried about my future again. I cannot anymore listen to foul stuff, there is so much of it that it feels like right from the time my mother brought me into this world I have been hearing four letter words. I heard them at school, at play, in college and now in workplace. I cannot see my friends loosing their temperament and doing the same and I loose respect for a lady when I see her getting entangled and involved with the same foul smelling habit.

My cousin sister tells my mother about the slumber party she attended a week back. Now for the ignorant souls, a slumber party is something where you meet up with your friends at a common place in colored pajamas, munch fried stuff and popcorn that leads to obesity, watch a few movies during the night and then land up sleeping on each other. Something for the kids, nothing wrong in it just an extended gesture of "tons of freedom" kind of experience to the kids. The things that startles me is why do so many parents want to imitate the west, I am sure half the people reading the blog of my age wont know what a slumber party is , but still just because one rich misguided kid wanted it and his parents hosted it everybody is running a rat race to show of their status. I am sure status is portrayed by the amount of snack you get for the kids, the type of television or DVD player you can boast of and yes being brand conscious is very important even in the case of pajamas. Arey bhai sonae jaana hain disco party main nahi. Why do we wanna be called "kewl' the western way. Why aren't we proud of ourselves? Why is the level of self esteem and self acceptance so low in Indians? Why do we feel obliged in front of the foreigners? I have noticed a deep amount of inferiority complex in Indians. A slumber party leads to a smooch party, yes u got it, here teen-age kids exchange tons of saliva and occasionally produce sparks by the clashing of teeth of the opposite sex in a dark room. If slumber party is unisex then a smooching party involves both the sexes. And if that wasn't enough there is something called the vampire party/dark night and I need not quote in my flowery language here as to what happens on this night. Mind you it’s not jus one girl and a boy, its many girls and many guys, you have a lot of variety you see and yea it’s all "kewl' as an American would exclaim. I am worried and I am worried to death.

GPRS phones in the hands of 8 yr olds disturbs and so does the phenomena where a girl dumps a guy and vice versa. Spending hundreds on frozen, distasteful and stomach upsetting sandwiches disturbs me and kids playing around with 5 chocolate truffles in their small tummies at cafe coffee day kicks me out of balance. I cannot see a 5 yr old glued to the I-pod or the play station where he/she should be playing with toys, footballs and cricket bats. I get worried thinking about that someday I might have to given in to the pressures of buying these costly toys and end up having a life marred with immoral kids and wife. I am worried and I am worried about whole lot things that I might run short of space and stamina.

I have a sister; I wish and pray for a good life for her. A life filled with innocence. I have a lot of friends both guys and girls I pray for a good life for them. I don’t want any one to suffer cos some one else wants to do cool stuff, I don’t want the young guys and girls to get hurt when they get dumped and used by their bf's and gf's. My surname is Daber and not Gandhi, I have been wrong a lot of times myself but then I am worried and I am worried about myself. What is the end of all this and how is India going to look like in 20 yrs down the line?-I have no answer but then I try my best to be myself and try to be good, doesn't not make difference doesn't it cause everybody thinks they are good. On second thoughts I think I should just lead my life and stop bothering about the others. Now that sounds like a viable option.