PeAcE WiTh GuNs

Blasphemous Theories

2010-10-12T19:02:00.000+01:00

Introducing my new blog

http://blasphemoustheories.blogspot.com/

Times change

2010-09-12T20:16:00.004+01:00

People take lives and life takes people away. They find something worthwhile, they walk away. We wait.

Super Movie Quotes - Updated

2010-02-04T09:20:00.000Z

Click Me

http://peacewithguns.blogspot.com/2007/09/super-movie-quotes.html

Intelligence and the IIT syndrome

2010-01-08T07:00:00.004Z

When will people in India stop the nonsensical IIT worship? My *** is a IITian. Big DEAL! So what? For the intellectually challenged nincompoops, I have a message - academic success is not the only criterion for judging a person's intelligence. Going to a prestigious academic institution means nothing more than the fact that one is good at academics, which admittedly is a very good thing but it does not automatically imply anything more.

One of the most intelligent people we have seen for nigh on 20 years is Sachin Tendulkar. He couldn't even pass his 10th standard (or is it that he never cared to? Good of him either way). Was Albert Einstein more intelligent than David Beckham? Some might say Beckham is merely more skilled but then wasn't Einstein too merely 'skilled' at Science? You need intelligence to have skill and my theory is that all persons in this world possess similar level of intelligence - some use that in sport, some in academics, some in art and some just never recognise it.

Debate!

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

Good guys

2010-01-04T18:16:00.000Z

finish last...

Back to the grind

2009-11-16T07:53:00.002Z

I'm back in Pune. I arrived on the 27th October and went straight back to work the next day. I've finally got a good group of people to hang out with and have been going out and doing things again. It feels good. If only some opportunities to play sport came up...

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

U.K. for three weeks!

2009-09-29T07:39:00.001+01:00

I'm on vacation in the UK for three weeks in October. If you're in the U.K., let me know. It'd be nice to catch up for a chat. You could also join me hiking around the Peak District, Lake District or other such areas.

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

Calvin and lower expectations

2009-09-05T10:27:00.003+01:00

Quote

2009-08-18T10:34:00.000+01:00

If you like living on the edge, make sure it isn't the edge of the toilet seat.

-Me

Walking On The Moon - R.I.P. Michael Jackson

2009-06-26T06:26:00.005+01:00

To borrow the title of a song from my OTHER favourite music, The Police, this title seems so apt for the man whose most famous trademark was called the 'Moonwalk'. R.I.P., Michael, the memories of your music through my adolescence shall ever remain embedded in my memory.

_________________

I heard about Michael Jackson on the radio on my drive to office this morning and I thought they were pulling some kind of a joke because they didn't seem TOO concerned about it. Its SO unfortunate though. He has always been one of my favourite artists. If you read his story and you read about the struggles he went through to be what he wanted to be, its more inspiring than almost anyone else. Nearly ALL of my first few years of listening to English songs basically meant listening to Michael Jackson.

_________________

How I wish, I was there...

_________________

I still can't believe this news... it almost seems like a personal loss...he represented our era... the modern music after the shining 70s. Nobody between or after has ever had that kind of charisma. :( His biggest hit, Thriller was released in 1983 which is the year when I was born. His music seems like a part of me, really. Now he's gone and I missed the chance to see him perform live. May his soul rest in peace. I think he was the greatest ever and now both of my most favourite singers are dead... Freddy Mercury and Michael Jackson. Its left to Sting to carry on the light.

Michael Jackson, take a bow. You've entertained the world and far beyond.

_________________

-PeAcE
--To
---ThE
----MoOnWaLkEr

Eight Hour Day

2009-05-01T10:49:00.004+01:00

People all around the world stood up and fought for this over 150 years ago. Today, we have a holiday commemorating that day but the demands of that day are still not met. They stood up 150 years ago, maybe now its time for US to pick up the gauntlet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_hour_day

This is probably just what the software industry needs right now.

Rajasthan ahoy!

2009-04-03T17:08:00.002+01:00

6th Apr
Mumbai to JODHPUR departure: 13:30
7th Apr
Reach JODHPUR: 6:30am, Visit Mehrangarh fort. Overnight train to JAISALMER.
8th Apr
Reach JAISALMER 5:00am, Camel Safari overnight.
9th Apr
JAISALMER Red Fort
10th Apr
JAISALMER sightseeing/wedding etc. Overnight bus to AJMER departure 21:00 (12h)
11th Apr
Reach AJMER 9:00 am. Taxi/Bus to PUSHKAR. Stay in Pushkar
12th Apr
PUSHKAR to JAIPUR via AJMER 7:00am, arrival 10am => 56km to Abhaneri CHAND BAORI stepwell, back to Jaipur.
13th Apr
JAIPUR forts/palaces. Departure 20:40 to Mumbai

Opinion

2009-03-11T05:40:00.001Z

"Have an opinion about everything and the intelligence to know when to voice it."
-Me.

National Shame vs. National 'Who-the-hell-cares' in Mangalore

2009-01-28T07:19:00.008Z

The newspapers, websites and channels are full of the nauseating news - 'Women in pub attacked' and there are women's rights groups up to their now-familiar act of protest marches and such. When I saw a clipping on the news channel, I noticed that the hooligans broke into the pub and severely beat up a few men before pushing and slapping a couple of women around. Quite notably, there is nothing in the news about the poor boys who suffered. This seems like a major national issue 'only' because women were slapped around. Indeed, it is an unforgivably shameful thing to do but could we please have some neutrality in the reporting? Slapping the boys is as much a crime as is slapping the girls. Could we please hear more about the entire story and not just the five second clips showing a man pushing a girl?

Oh and these women's rights groups need to take a break. Who the hell funds them anyway? Grow up and protest against the wrongdoing which in this case, has happened against members of both genders. If your agenda is to garner publicity by standing up for the women and degrading all men in general, I have two words for you. I'm sure you don't need me to spell them out, do you? I believe gender equality is a basic right for every human being but in all ways. This kind of nonsensical "Women-are-holy, men-are-filth" mentality needs to be shot down and replaced with simple practical thought which judges things reasonably.

There can be no justification against such acts of invading the right to freedom of any person. We are a sovereign nation and everyone has a right to do things according to their own understanding as long as they are not breaking any laws.

On the same lines though, possessing and using drugs is illegal in India. Hang on a second, let me put that in capitals - ILLEGAL. Oh and for all the "dumber-than-a-lamppost" men and women out there, ILLEGAL is NOT cool. This trend of doing drugs and late night drag races, speeding on the highways with fancy cars etc. just has to stop. Its time the youngsters acted more responsibly and found more productive ways of utilising their energy. It would be nice to see some young Indian faces in voluteer activities in India. I met many people in the UK who have spent time doing volunteer activity like building schools or permanent housing for flood affected in India but sadly, no one I know in India has done anything of that sort. I feel ashamed to admit that I haven't done much myself and therefore would not claim to hold the moral high ground here but I am committed that I will do something. Where, what, when... these questions just seem to jump back and bite everytime I see another kid begging on the street.

We've had college students on the third floor of our building having a birthday party and dancing and playing loud music upto 1:30 in the night and when people protested, they got abusive and got into a fight. A number of police complaints later, they moved out and are now probably terrorising another peace-loving building society somewhere. For the record, these folks threw garbage out of the balcony, spat gutkha on the building walls, parked their vehicles haphazardly and generally misbehaving with everyone. If the youth is going to abuse their freedom of expression to cause nuisance, maybe there is some need for censorship of this freedom. Take the alcohol ban after midnight for example - it was probably caused by a minority of people who drink and then spill out into the streets causing nuisance. As always, the general rule-following population suffers only because of the abuse of a few who break rules.

Feminists reading this blog and planning to spew venom on me for being reasonable and supporting equal rights for men, please take your placard somewhere else. If you are short of ideas on where you could put them, let me know; I can offer suggestions.

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

Nepal Photos

2009-01-10T15:27:00.003Z

Nepal

Count = 15

2009-01-06T05:08:00.002Z

(With a bit of cheating, of course).
Pictures from the top of the world, Nepal, coming up soon.
Oh, and Happy New Year.

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

Nepal for Christmas/New Year

2008-12-18T16:20:00.000Z

Anyone?

Mumbai: Repost

2008-12-01T05:22:00.001Z

http://peacewithguns.blogspot.com/2006/08/obscenity.html

Italy Travelogue (Part 4) - Firenze colloqui a me

2008-11-07T12:07:00.006Z

I woke up in the morning and bade goodbye to the American couple. Then I had a coffee at the campsite restaurant and a quick shower. I then decided to walk it to the city centre unlike the earlier day when I took the bus. I got a route map from the kind lady at the reception and went on my way. I took a couple of shots at the Pizzale Michelangelo before proceeding down the winding road that led downwards.

The walk to the city centre from Pizzale Michelangelo has been carefully laid out. There are interesting things like a small tower, a fountain, a viaduct etc. on the way. It is also amazing to see the changing views of the beautiful city centre of Florence on the way. I took the road that led along the river and came to the famous bridge named Ponte Vecchio. The Ponte Vecchio has a great past and has been around for centuries. The uniqueness of this bridge is that it is lined on both sides with shops. Outside the shops, we find a number of people selling little things on the street. It is a most enchanting atmosphere reminiscent of the bazars of many countries in Asia. After a pitstop to shoot a few photographs of the river Arno lined with houses on both sides, I proceeded to what is the main city centre in Florence.

The most endearing thing I found about Florence was its streets. The city centre is made of little streets hardly a few feet wide in some places and they often lead into humongous buildings like churches or palaces or museums. One such sight was the Palazzo Vecchio. I was walking along a narrow street when I saw a little alley leading into an open square. Since there were many restaurants there, my hunger suddenly seemed to knock on my head and remind me that I hadn't had much to eat all morning.

The Palazzo Vecchio is a beautiful palace outside which is a large square lined with many restaurants. Most of these restaurants have outdoor seating and the setup is quite enticing. I ordered a pizza which turned out to contain fish. The fact that it is probably the saltiest tasting fish in the world didn't quite help matters. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchovy I didn't mind the pizza though - in fact, I quite liked it. I am not very particular about food anyway, I can eat and appreciate any kind of food unless it has meat or the taste/smell/look of milk. There are a few exceptions of course, as there always are.

My aim for the day was to visit the Duomo and see one of the most famous attractions in Florence - the dome constructed by Brunelleschi. I found my way to the Duomo and was lucky enough to manage to get in amongst the crowd. It has been maintained very well and though the area directly under the dome was cordoned off, it was quite easy to see the paintings made on the inner wall of the dome. Read all about the dome and why it is special -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Cathedral#Dome.

After that, I started doing what would be the best thing I did in Florence - just roam around the city. I went to a little market which looked like the various 'fashion-streets' we see in cities in India and managed to find exactly what I was looking for - a t-shirt with a print of the Vitruvian Man drawn by Leonardo da Vinci. I haggled for the price and I managed to buy it for Six Euros against an initial quote of Eight. Yay!

I then walked to one of the largest squares in Florence - Piazza della Repubblica. I found a nice cafe with outdoor seating and ordered a coffee. While going through their menu, I read their history. I was at 'Gilli', the oldest café in Florence. Gilli is renowned for is confections and has been around since 1733. YES! To those who think they've read it wrong, let me put it in words - year Seventeen Thirty Three. http://www.gilli.it/

The coffe was brilliant and I couldnt help but shoot a few pictures of the coffee and the square. The service was brilliant and I like the custom where you are served a little biscuit or a couple of them - 'biscotti', with your tea or coffee. I really do not know how much time I spent there but I loved the feeling. I was sitting down in peace, alone, looking at the activity around the square. It almost felt like 'home'. I hardly felt like a tourist.

By the time I could eject myself from the chair, it was turning dark. I started my walk back through the market and came across that Sisley store again. I decided that I should buy that jacket. So I went in and spoke to the same salesgirl that I had spoken to the day before. Since the issue of the jacket being slightly long still existed, I asked her to show me a couple of others. I finally settled on a brown casual two-button jacket. It has that distressed look and when I showed it to my dad recently, he couldn't believe I paid around £130 for it. I was satisfied with my purchase though. I bought a couple of other things and was quite impressed at the cuts and the attention to detail that all the clothes exhibited. I thanked the salesgirl for the help because she helped me a lot with the selection. I spent more than an hour trying to select the jacket. She didn't speak much English so she did try really hard to understand what I wanted. Another example of Italian hospitality, I suppose.

With the day almost over, I walked to the bus station and took the bus back to my campsite.

I saw that I had a new tent-mate. It was a young guy from Belgium. He was in Italy to study Italian and he was going to staying with an Italian family in an exchange programme. He told me that he took the bus from Belgium to Italy which took 20-24 hours. He said he and his girlfriend were a part of an environment consciousness group in their university and they always tried to reduce their carbon footprints on their journeys. The bus, he said, was also a lot cheaper than the flights. I am sure its quite an effort to travel like that. The worst conditions I've travelled in were when I took a train from Pune to Goa and had to get by in the general compartment. It was so packed that people were sleeping on the floor in the ailes, between seats, near the doors and even in the toilet! I was stuck sharing a three person seat with seven other people. To top up the experience, my return journey to Pune a week later was in the exact same condition.

Thus ended another day in Florence - perhaps the best ever of all my days on holiday. There was no rain today but my last night inside that tent brought me a sleep of peace and satisfaction.

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

Watch The Police live in concert : 'CHECK'

2008-06-18T16:54:00.003+01:00

The Police Concert
17th June 2008, Manchester Evening News Arena, Manchester

More photos: Click here

Photos From Italy

2008-04-30T12:45:00.003+01:00

Italy

I would've liked to keep the parts of the travelogue together but I'm taking too much time to write them. I have to interrupt the travelogue and publish the photographs. The travelogue continues after this. I would love to hear your opinions/critique on the photos.

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

Italy Travelogue (Part 2)

2008-04-24T13:25:00.012+01:00

That night I was interrupted mid sleep by someone opening the door. Turned out it was someone moving into the dorm - a lady from South Africa whose flight was severely delayed and she couldn't get any connecting buses/trains to reach the hostel. Anyway, after a brief hello, I went back to my dozing off.

21st March (Florence):

I got up early in the morning, showered, packed and checked out of the hostel. I then walked down to the Termini station to catch a train to Florence.

There are a number of different train services for travelling between cities in Italy. The regional trains are the slowest but the cheapest. They stop at most of the stations en route. The Eurostar trains are the most expensive but are fast and point-to-point. The Eurostar trains from Rome leave every half an hour for Venice and stop at Florence en route. The journey from Rome to Florence takes roughly an hour and a half and costs around €36. The Santa Maria Novella train station is the main train station in Florence. The journey further to Venice from Florence takes another two and a half hours and costs around €40. The direct ticket from Rome to Venice is therefore around four hours but the direct ticket costs around €55. You can book tickets in advance or find more information on the TrenItalia website here.

I reached Florence on a cloudy, dark and gloomy looking afternoon. After experiencing the weather's mood-swings in Rome, I was hoping to see sunshine later nonetheless. I had booked into a camp-site on the outskirts of Florence. Turned out it was an absolutely brilliant place with amazing views of the entire city of Florence. I was at a place called Piazzale Michelangeo (Link). The camp-site was a collection of people with their personal caravans or mobile homes and a large set of shared tents. Each tent had three beds. The challenging part was that these tents had neither electricity nor heating. A little battery powered light was handed out to me when I checked in. This sounded like fun!

I reached my tent and saw that my tent-mates were an American couple. The girl's ankle was badly sprained. She'd fallen while dancing in a club the previous evening. "It was pathetic - it was full of 19 year old American girls. Made me feel like my prom night." to quote the guy. I helped him get his companion into a cab and they went to a hospital. I had a leisurely lunch and went to the statue of David, an imitation of Michelangelo's most famous sculpture.

The square takes its name from the great bronze group that Giuseppe Poggi, the Italian architect placed in its centre, a real "pastiche" of the work of Michelangelo, composed of copies of his David (now in the Academy Museum) and the four allegorical figures Pope Clement VII commissioned him to carry out for the Medici tombs in the New Sacristy in San Lorenzo (these were for the tombs of Lorenzo Duke of Urbino and Giuliano Duke of Nemours).

I took a bus to the city centre which was about half an hour away on the bus.

Bus tickets in Florence cost €1.20 valid for a single trip or €4.00 for four trips and the tickets like Rome, can be found at tabacchi or at ticket counters on the bus station. The camp-site reception also sells these tickets.

I walked to the tourist information centre to see what I can find. I decided to walk to the the Accademia Gallery i.e. Galleria dell'Accademia (Link) which houses the world famous marble statue of David by Michelangelo (Link). It was raining quite badly by then and I thought I wasted an entire day in Florence. I decided to walk on in the rain anyway. The flimsy €3.00 umbrella that I'd bought on the walking tour of Vatican city seemed like every penny (or rather, cent...since we're talking Euros here) well spent. I reached the place only to find a humongous queue wrapping across three buildings. Ouch!

Determined not to let a day go waste, I got stuck into the back of the queue. I got speaking to a nice married couple. The husband was British and the wife was Spanish. They had married and were settled in Spain. Their little daughter was most amazing. She was eight years old and spoke the most amazing clear language I've ever heard a kid that age speak. Most of all, it wasn't gibberish and she sounded at least 15. The man told me that the little girl could also speak Spanish just as fluently. He was a big fan of India and spoke at length of his amazement with India and Indian food. He'd even taught his wife to make a number of curries though she admitted she couldn't make them as well as he does. The little girl then spotted a few girls, about 18 scribbling on the walls, writing their names. Graffiti is a major problem in Italy. A lot of the places are full of graffiti although people were sensible enough to make sure none was on the major monuments like the Colosseum or the Trevi Fountain etc. So the little girl actually went up to these girls and told them that scribbling on the walls was a wrong thing to do. It was hilarious to see a tiny eight year old scolding these older girls. We all had a good laugh. They were all from Chile and were scribbling their names on the wall.

I got some tips on Spanish cuisine from the lady while waiting in queue. After about an hour, I managed to get into the gallery with about two hours to spare before it closed. The most prized possession in this gallery is of course, Michelangeo's David and it is elaborately presented in a large hallway for itself. The statue itself is large and every bit of detail from the hair to the eyeballs to the veins on David's arms are carved in such detail that it is nearly impossible to believe that it is the work of a human hand. The rest of the gallery is full of other masterpieces but the David is surely something special.

I walked out of the gallery while it was still raining badly and walked around the city centre. The shops and the energy on the streets reminded me of a crowded evening on Laxmi Road in Pune. I walked into a Sisley store and felt like buying off half the shop. The suits in Italy really as good as their reputation. Brilliantly cut and most often a very good mix of classic and contemporary. I liked a three button jacket immensely but it was probably an inch too long. I asked if they could alter it for me but it would take them 3-4 days so I didn't buy it. I walked back to the bus stop near the Santa Maria Novella train station and took a bus back to my camp-site.

Back at the tent, the American couple were still gone. They returned late in the night. The girl had snapped her bone quite badly and needed to go back to USA and undergo surgery for it. They had spent the entire day shuttling from one hospital to a second one and were quite disappointed to have to cut their trip short. Unfortunate but unavoidable.

The night was chillier than I expected it to be. No wait... it was actually AWFULLY chillier than I had expected it to be. The rain only made things worse and half the night I could hear the rain slapping against the sheet of the tent. Now that I look back retrospectively, it was actually a good experience. I've never slept in a tent before so this was new and there was something special about hearing the rain almost sing you to sleep.

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

Italy Travelogue (Part 1)

2008-03-27T11:34:00.015Z

I'm back from my trip to Italy and I've been telling everyone that "How is Italy?" is the wrong question to ask. The question should rather be "How good is Italy?". The answer - unbelievably good!

I haven't written a travelogue for quite some time now and have been making up for that with photo travelogues. I've resolved to write one now for Italy though. I am going to write it in the form of an itinerary interspersed with details about travel, accommodation, attractions, costs etc. I will try to insert the local Italian names for places and things in Italics.

The Italian names for the Rome, Florence and Venice are Roma, Firenze and Venezia respectively. Please note that the bookings that I made from the UK are in £ (Pounds Sterling) whereas the amounts that I paid in Italy are in € (Euros).

19th March (Rome):

I took an early morning 06:00 flight from Leeds Bradford Airport to Rome with a connection in Amsterdam. I arrived in Rome at around 13:30. Italy is on Central European Time (CET) which is GMT + 1.00.

The Rome Fiumicino Aiport (Airport Code: FCO, Distance from city centre: 26 KM/ 16 miles) is used by most major airlines and is the most easily accessible. There is another airport in Rome called the Rome Ciampino Airport which is generally used by the smaller or budget airlines. There is a direct train called the Leonardo Da Vinci Express every half an hour from the Rome Fiumicino airport to the main railway station in the city centre known as the Rome Termini Railway Station (Stazione Termini). It costs €11 one way and takes about half an hour. The process to get to the city centre from the Ciampino airport is only slightly more complicated.

The second flight was slightly late so I reached my hotel around 14:00 local time. I had booked an airport pick-up service which dropped me off at my hostel in the city centre for £12. I barely missed a walking tour that started from my hotel so I thought I lost an entire day. I got a map and decided to wing it to the Colosseum (Colosseo) anyway. Surprisingly, the metro only took about five minutes to get to the Colosseum and so I managed to be in time to get in and spend a good two hours inside. Its remarkable how well a large structure like the Colosseum has managed to stand the ravages of time and natural erosion for almost 2000 years. If you didn't know how old it really was and were asked to take a guess, I am sure you would not be able to guess anywhere close to its actual age. It is magnificent.

You can get a bus or a metro to the Colosseum. There is a metro stop of the same name right outside the Colosseum. The tickets cost 1€ for 75 minutes and can be used for unlimited travel on buses or a single metro trip within the 75 minutes. Tickets (biglietto or biglietti plural) are available at all train stations, metro stops or at most tobacco shops (tabacchi). All train and bus tickets must be validated at validating machines before commencement of the journey. Validating machines for train tickets are available at the start of each platform, for metros before entering the metro platforms and inside the buses near the entrance. A ticket office or ticket window for any kind of tickets (bus, train, museums etc.) in Italy is called a Biglietteria. You can read more about tickets at this link.

On my way back, I stopped at a nice restaurant to have the original Italian Margherita pizza. It is the traditional pizza which has a thin crust with and tomato and mozzarella cheese toppings. Everything else is just a polluted form of the original "pizza". I must say it was the best Margherita pizza I've ever had. There is somehow that thing about food tasting the best in its original place. The only logical explanation I can find is that probably the small, seemingly inconspicuous ingredients are actually very different in different parts of the world. You may have the same chef making pizza with the same mozzarella cheese and tomatoes in India or the UK but maybe the taste of tomatoes is slightly different depending on where they are grown or when they are plucked etc.

I came back to my hostel around 18:00. I had booked a bed in a 4-bed en-suite dormitory but I was the only one in that dorm so I had it all to myself. It was good for me so I could throw my towel around! Unfortunately I did get quite bored in the evening so I went to the bar in the hostel to see if I could somehow amuse myself. I studied my map for a while, watched nonsense on TV and finished a drink while I was there. There was supposed to be a "pub-crawl" at 20:00 which I was wondering whether I should go on. The pub crawl basically meant a night tour of a few good pubs in the city with one hour of drink-as-much-as-you-can in one of the pubs. I don't drink so I would obviously be bugged while others got drunk but the prospect of a tour of the night-life did sound exciting. I decided to take a nap and then go on the tour. I slept at 19:00 and could only get up at 8:00 next morning. Whoops! That was a long nap...

20th March (Rome, Vatican City):

I looked up a three to four hour long walking tour of the Vatican City organised by the hostel and booked on to it. The tour guide was an American from Iowa who had decided to settle in Rome and make a living as a tour guide. Almost everyone except me in the group was American. I must admit I didn't quite get the American humour (or humor, as the Americans spell it) every time but it was a fun tour nonetheless.

The Vatican City is an independent country and the smallest in the world. It is a short bus or metro ride from the city centre of Rome or a pleasant long walk through the city.

We saw the Sistine Chapel (Capella Sistina) which has the famous roof painted by Michelangelo Buonarroti (yes, he has a last name). The famous painting of "God Creates Adam" is a part of this large roof painting. It is actually awe-inspiring and the brilliant three-dimensional effect created by Michelangelo on the curved roof is proof of his genius. Oh, just in case you didn't know - Michelangelo wasn't even a painter - he was a sculptor!

We also went to the St. Peter's Basilica which is one of the holiest places in the world for Catholic Christians. Most Papal ceremonies and addresses from the pope happen at this basilica.

I came back from the tour and had a late lunch with two guys I met on the tour - John, an American and Leah, a Canadian. They were both travelling alone like me but had been in Rome for about two weeks already. We had a debate about whether a penny is an official synonym for a cent or just a slang. Leah and I said that the penny is an official name for a hundredth of a Pound Sterling whereas the one cent coin in America is popularly and unofficially known as a penny. John disagreed. He announced "Guys, I'm American. I know my currency" and I told Leah that he had a point. We both pretended to agree.

I had something called Gnocci Al Pomodoro. Cookery fans can find the recipe for Gnocci Al Pomodoro right here.

Another nap and another miss for the pub-crawl! I decided to go on a walkabout anyway. I roamed around alone for about an hour on the empty streets around the city centre and realised that all those who told me that Rome is full of thieves and muggers had probably run into a bad area and some worse luck.

Off to Florence on the 21st...

Italy

2008-03-08T21:41:00.003Z

All right.
I've booked my tickets for Easter.
:)

Travelling alone.
:(

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

Cutting Chai

2008-02-15T12:48:00.002Z

England in the words of Rabindranath Tagore

2008-02-14T14:07:00.003Z

One thing struck me when living in this family—that human nature is everywhere the same. We are fond of saying, and I also believed, that the devotion of an Indian wife to her husband is something unique, and not to be found in Europe. But I at least was unable to discern any difference between Mrs. Scott and an ideal Indian wife. She was entirely wrapped up in her husband. With their modest means there was no fussing about of too many servants, and Mrs. Scott attended to every detail of her husband's wants herself. Before he came back home from his work of an evening, she would arrange his arm-chair and woollen slippers before the fire with her own hands. She would never allow herself to forget for a moment the things he liked, or the behaviour which pleased him. She would go over the house every morning,166 with their only maid, from attic to kitchen, and the brass rods on the stairs and the door knobs and fittings would be scrubbed and polished till they shone again. Over and above this domestic routine there were the many calls of social duty. After getting through all her daily duties she would join with zest in our evening readings and music, for it is not the least of the duties of a good housewife to make real the gaiety of the leisure hour.
Some evenings I would join the girls in a table-turning seance. We would place our fingers on a small tea table and it would go capering about the room. It got to be so that whatever we touched began to quake and quiver. Mrs. Scott did not quite like all this. She would sometimes gravely shake her head and say she had her doubts about its being right. She bore it bravely, however, not liking to put a damper on our youthful spirits. But one day when we put our hands on Dr. Scott's chimneypot to make it turn, that was too much for her. She rushed up in a great state of mind and forbade us to touch it. She could not bear the idea of Satan having anything to do, even for a moment, with her husband's head-gear.
In all her actions her reverence for her husband was the one thing that stood out. The memory of her sweet self-abnegation makes it clear to me that the ultimate perfection of all womanly love is to167 be found in reverence; that where no extraneous cause has hampered its true development woman's love naturally grows into worship. Where the appointments of luxury are in profusion, and frivolity tarnishes both day and night, this love is degraded, and woman's nature finds not the joy of its perfection.
I spent some months here. Then it was time for my brother to return home, and my father wrote to me to accompany him. I was delighted at the prospect. The light of my country, the sky of my country, had been silently calling me. When I said good bye Mrs. Scott took me by the hand and wept. "Why did you come to us," she said, "if you must go so soon?" That household no longer exists in London. Some of the members of the Doctor's family have departed to the other world, others are scattered in places unknown to me. But it will always live in my memory.
One winter's day, as I was passing through a street in Tunbridge Wells, I saw a man standing on the road side. His bare toes were showing through his gaping boots, his breast was partly uncovered. He said nothing to me, perhaps because begging was forbidden, but he looked up at my face just for a moment. The coin I gave him was perhaps more valuable than he expected, for, after I had gone on a bit, he came after me and168 said: "Sir, you have given me a gold piece by mistake," with which he offered to return it to me. I might not have particularly remembered this, but for a similar thing which happened on another occasion. When I first reached the Torquay railway station a porter took my luggage to the cab outside. After searching my purse for small change in vain, I gave him half-a-crown as the cab started. After a while he came running after us, shouting to the cabman to stop. I thought to myself that finding me to be such an innocent he had hit upon some excuse for demanding more. As the cab stopped he said: "You must have mistaken a half-crown piece for a penny, Sir!"
I cannot say that I have never been cheated while in England, but not in any way which it would be fair to hold in remembrance. What grew chiefly upon me, rather, was the conviction that only those who are trustworthy know how to trust. I was an unknown foreigner, and could have easily evaded payment with impunity, yet no London shopkeeper ever mistrusted me.

Read the entire bit at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22217/22217-h/22217-h.htm#England

Karwar in the words of Rabindranath Tagore

2008-02-14T12:16:00.030Z

Excerpt from "My Reminiscences" by Rabindranath Tagore

(36) Karwar
Our Sudder Street party next transferred itself to Karwar on the West Sea coast. Karwar is the headquarters of the Kanara district in the Southern portion of the Bombay Presidency. It is the tract of the Malaya Hills of Sanskrit literature where grow the cardamum creeper and the Sandal Tree. My second brother was then Judge there.

The little harbour, ringed round with hills, is so secluded that it has nothing of the aspect of a port about it. Its crescent shaped beach throws out its arms to the shoreless open sea like the very image of an eager striving to embrace the infinite. The edge of the broad sandy beach is fringed with a forest of casuarinas, broken at one end by the Kalanadi river which here flows into the sea after passing through a gorge flanked by rows of hills on either side.

I remember how one moonlit evening we went up this river in a little boat. We stopped at one236 of Shivaji's old hill forts, and stepping ashore found our way into the clean-swept little yard of a peasant's home. We sat on a spot where the moonbeams fell glancing off the top of the outer enclosure, and there dined off the eatables we had brought with us. On our way back we let the boat glide down the river. The night brooded over the motionless hills and forests, and on the silent flowing stream of this little Kalanadi, throwing over all its moonlight spell. It took us a good long time to reach the mouth of the river, so, instead of returning by sea, we got off the boat there and walked back home over the sands of the beach. It was then far into the night, the sea was without a ripple, even the ever-troubled murmur of the casuarinas was at rest. The shadow of the fringe of trees along the vast expanse of sand hung motionless along its border, and the ring of blue-grey hills around the horizon slept calmly beneath the sky.

Karwar Beach

Through the deep silence of this illimitable whiteness we few human creatures walked along with our shadows, without a word. When we reached home my sleep had lost itself in something still deeper. The poem which I then wrote is inextricably mingled with that night on the distant seashore. I do not know how it will appeal to the reader apart from the memories with which237 it is entwined. This doubt led to its being left out of Mohita Babu's edition of my works. I trust that a place given to it among my reminiscences may not be deemed unfitting.

Let me sink down, losing myself in the depths of midnight.
Let the Earth leave her hold of me, let her free me from her obstacle of dust.
Keep your watch from afar, O stars, drunk though you be with moonlight,
And let the horizon hold its wings still around me.
Let there be no song, no word, no sound, no touch; nor sleep, nor awakening,—
But only the moonlight like a swoon of ecstasy over the sky and my being.
The world seems to me like a ship with its countless pilgrims,
Vanishing in the far-away blue of the sky,
Its sailors' song becoming fainter and fainter in the air,
While I sink in the bosom of the endless night, fading away from myself, dwindling into a point.

It is necessary to remark here that merely because something has been written when feelings are brimming over, it is not therefore necessarily good. Such is rather a time when the utterance is thick with emotion. Just as it does not do to have the writer entirely removed from the feeling to which he is giving expression, so also it238 does not conduce to the truest poetry to have him too close to it. Memory is the brush which can best lay on the true poetic colour. Nearness has too much of the compelling about it and the imagination is not sufficiently free unless it can get away from its influence. Not only in poetry, but in all art, the mind of the artist must attain a certain degree of aloofness—the creator within man must be allowed the sole control. If the subject matter gets the better of the creation, the result is a mere replica of the event, not a reflection of it through the Artist's mind.

(37) Nature's Revenge

Here in Karwar I wrote the Prakritir Pratishodha, Nature's Revenge, a dramatic poem. The hero was a Sanyasi (hermit) who had been striving to gain a victory over Nature by cutting away the bonds of all desires and affections and thus to arrive at a true and profound knowledge of self. A little girl, however, brought him back from his communion with the infinite to the world and into the bondage of human affection. On so coming back the Sanyasi realised that the great is to be found in the small, the infinite within the bounds of form, and the eternal freedom of239 the soul in love. It is only in the light of love that all limits are merged in the limitless.

The sea beach of Karwar is certainly a fit place in which to realise that the beauty of Nature is not a mirage of the imagination, but reflects the joy of the Infinite and thus draws us to lose ourselves in it. Where the universe is expressing itself in the magic of its laws it may not be strange if we miss its infinitude; but where the heart gets into immediate touch with immensity in the beauty of the meanest of things, is any room left for argument?

Nature took the Sanyasi to the presence of the Infinite, enthroned on the finite, by the pathway of the heart. In the Nature's Revenge there were shown on the one side the wayfarers and the villagers, content with their home-made triviality and unconscious of anything beyond; and on the other the Sanyasi busy casting away his all, and himself, into the self-evolved infinite of his imagination. When love bridged the gulf between the two, and the hermit and the householder met, the seeming triviality of the finite and the seeming emptiness of the infinite alike disappeared.

This was to put in a slightly different form the story of my own experience, of the entrancing ray of light which found its way into the depths of the cave into which I had retired away from240 all touch with the outer world, and made me more fully one with Nature again. This Nature's Revenge may be looked upon as an introduction to the whole of my future literary work; or, rather this has been the subject on which all my writings have dwelt—the joy of attaining the Infinite within the finite.

On our way back from Karwar I wrote some songs for the Nature's Revenge on board ship. The first one filled me with a great gladness as I sang, and wrote it sitting on the deck:

Mother, leave your darling boy to us,
And let us take him to the field where we graze our cattle.
The sun has risen, the buds have opened, the cowherd boys are going to the pasture; and they would not have the sunlight, the flowers, and their play in the grazing grounds empty. They want their Shyam (Krishna) to be with them there, in the midst of all these. They want to see the Infinite in all its carefully adorned loveliness;241 they have turned out so early because they want to join in its gladsome play, in the midst of these woods and fields and hills and dales—not to admire from a distance, nor in the majesty of power. Their equipment is of the slightest. A simple yellow garment and a garland of wild-flowers are all the ornaments they require. For where joy reigns on every side, to hunt for it arduously, or amidst pomp and circumstances, is to lose it.

Shortly after my return from Karwar, I was married. I was then 22 years of age.

Find this text at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22217/22217-h/22217-h.htm

Sports Update

2008-02-05T11:17:00.000Z

I'm feeling a lot better than I did a few months ago. I am finally doing what I've always done - play sports. The other good news is that I've finally reduced my TV watching time from 10 minutes a day to 10 minutes a week.

I play football twice a week - on Tuesdays with local fellows and on Sundays with desi fellows. I play badminton on Saturdays and table tennis on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Sometimes, like this Sunday, I play football, badminton and table tennis all in the same day. I am dead tired by the end of it but I LOVE that feeling. It keeps the dreadful feeling away - the feeling that I am growing older, getting middle aged and slipping into the mainstream.

Last summer I played cricket and tennis too. Hopefully I shall do so again this summer. I had only played tennis once in my life before last summer and it wasn't a memorable experience then! Last summer, my neighbour proposed we go play tennis and when I said I didn't know anything about it, he said he didn't either. So off we went to the store to buy tennis racquets and tennis balls and then directly to the tennis court. Our other two neighbours joined in and we looked like a set of comedians at the autumn of their careers. It got better by the end of summer though I can only hit about half of my shots where I actually intend to hit them.

In cricket, I realised that playing with pads on is an entirely different game altogether. I looked worse than a number eleven batsman and it would take some getting used to. I also realised that it is easier to bowl with a leather ball though it is difficult to bowl fast. In the three balls that I bowled with my fast bowling run-up, none landed where they should. Again - need more practice. Unfortunately nobody knows I am a very good close-in fielder with good reflexes and speed so every match I played, I was fielding on the boundaries. This was, I assume due to my first throw from the boundary in a match with these guys. I cleared the pitch by a mile and gave away overthrows! Unfortunately they realised I have the strongest arm in the side and should hence be a good boundary fielder. !"£$£%$

In football which is what I probably love the most, I am surprised at how badly I am playing. I can't seem to do anything right. I am assuming I still don't have the pulse of the other players. It was a lot different with my mates in Pune. We knew each other since primary school and so we could almost connect telepathically on a football field. I could pass without needing to look around and I would invariably find my team-mates and vice versa. Well I guess football is a game of mental bonding which is why we see so many teams' fortunes hinge on two or three key players. Even all-star teams like Real Madrid find it difficult to be invincible inspite of possessing players of perhaps the best quality available.

My badminton and table-tennis are nothing to write home about although I enjoy one thing which I have achieved through practice.I can play table tennis with either (or both) hand(s). Cool eh? Oh well, it WOULD be cool if I could play really well with even one but hey, what the heck... atleast I have something different.

With this, folks, I finish this long and probably boring sports update. It feels nice to write again. Oh, and I start taking guitar lessons this Wednesday. I've been stuck at the same level for the last five years.

-PeAcE

--WiTh

---GuNs

Photos From Europe

2008-01-14T14:41:00.000Z

Europe

The Best Of The Best

2008-01-03T16:39:00.000Z

World Press Photo Contest Archives

Mahabaleshwar

2007-11-20T18:19:00.000Z

Mahabaleshwar

Stolen...

2007-10-30T13:51:00.000Z

from my head - just my thoughts:
http://sayesha.blogspot.com/2007/10/slipping-partners.html

Where are the kids?

2007-10-26T14:26:00.000+01:00

I was walking down the road that leads to my old school the other day. It was good to be back. It had been many years since I last walked that road. The same old potholes, the same quaint stone houses lining both sides, the sun burning down mercilessly on your scalp. Some things just don’t change, do they.

As I passed the ground near the school, I saw an unfamiliar shade of green. Now I am a fond admirer of green locales and though this was a heartening sight, it brought along a disturbing thought. Besides this one, the two other grounds next to it were green too. They were not only green but had two-foot high grass and weeds growing on them.

It led me to the question - where are the kids?

I remember the times of being in school and the few years soon after. The grounds were always barren. This bore no testimony to the fertility of the soil but to the enthusiasm, if I may call it that, of the kids back then. Back then! That really is a surprising phrase to use for a time only five years in the past.

I remember an entire generation of us - used to watching one cartoon in an entire week. Even the advent of Cartoon Network and its successive popularity could not change those habits to an enormous extent. There were always more kids playing cricket on those grounds. Fights broke out to decide which team gets to play on the coveted concrete pitch. While you were fielding, you wouldn’t be too surprised if you got smacked in the back of the head by a ball belted by a batsman from another team playing on a different pitch on the same ground.

Some morons played football. In our later years, we joined the morons’ club with our home ground changing to an enormous ground a few blocks away. Through the years we watched the dwindling population on the ground that we played football on. It was good in a way because we always had more space to play and it was bad because there was no one to throw the ball back to us if it ran out of play.

A new generation has risen in the past five years. A generation that is so dogged by competitive education in India that parents feel the need to pack off their kids to multiple tuition classes, vacation classes, test series and a gamut of other exercises meant purely to breed, succeed and succumb to the genre of competitive education in India.

As we see less kids playing on outdoors, we see less kids going on to chose professions other than engineering and medicine - provided that they have a choice.

Physical fitness is a thing of the past, you ought to have flashy gym memberships to be fit now. The number of kids needing glasses before they finish school is growing. Junk food, crash diets, anorexia, obesity, diet coke - most wouldn’t have heard of these words in the early and mid nineties. It is disheartening to see bright young kids who have never held a cricket bat in their hands and have not knows the feeling of playing cricket in the noon with your merry band of sidekicks with "the sun burning down mercilessly on your scalp". The experience of playing football in the rain with an inch thick layer of mud stuck to your feet, chasing kites across the lanes, running through weeds, fishing in a desolate well by an abandoned farmhouse, climbing fences to retrieve a cricket ball, climbing trees and getting chased for it.

The grass grows greener and taller, the sale of video game consoles sky-rockets, advertising now holds an impenetrable grip on the young mind and television is the erstwhile subdued monster that has gained widespread control.

-PeAcE

--WiTh

---GuNs

Canon EOS 400D + 18-55mm lens + 90-300mm lens

2007-10-21T17:23:00.000+01:00

A casual stroll into the local Curry's store gone wrong!

(Photograph taken with my trusty old Panasonic Lumix FZ20)

Thich Quang Duc - The monk who burnt himself

2007-10-16T17:03:00.000+01:00

http://www.geocities.com/tcartz/sacrifice.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Quang_Duc

"I was to see that sight again, but once was enough. Flames were coming from a human being; his body was slowly withering and shrivelling up, his head blackening and charring. In the air was the smell of burning human flesh; human beings burn surprisingly quickly. Behind me I could hear the sobbing of the Vietnamese who were now gathering. I was too shocked to cry, too confused to take notes or ask questions, too bewildered to even think.... As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him."

-David Halberstam (A New York Times reporter who witnessed the incident)

Introducing...

2007-10-05T15:45:00.000+01:00

Prafulla Mathur.

My good friend, guitar guru, immensely talented singer, Math lover, former chick magnet and a fellow patient of the software engineering syndrome. If he keeps up his work-loving ways, we shall soon be introducing him to the world of Bajrang FC but for now, let me introduce him to my friends in the blog space - you.

He blogs here.

-PeAcE

--WiTh

---GuNs

I Have A Ticket To The Police - Do You, Punk?

2007-09-17T01:03:00.000+01:00

One Spare Ticket - Raise Your Hands

Super Movie Quotes

2007-09-14T14:26:00.003+01:00

"I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk? "

-Harry Callahan
(Clint Eastwood in "Dirty Harry")
__________

"Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life . . . But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who need reasons when you've got heroin?"

-Renton
(Ewan McGregor in "Trainspotting")
__________

"It's SHITE being Scottish! We're the lowest of the low, the scum of the fucking earth, the most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some people hate the English, I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. We can't even find a decent culture to be colonized by. We are ruled by effete arseholes. It's a shite state of affairs to be in, Tommy! And all the fresh air in the world won't make any fucking difference!"

-Renton
(Ewan McGregor in "Trainspotting")
__________

"No thank you. I'll proceed directly to the intravenous injection of hard drugs please."

-Renton
(Ewan McGregor in "Trainspotting")
__________

"Well, you never know...you just never know. You just go along figuring some things don't change ever, like being able to drive on a public highway without someone trying to murder you. And then one stupid thing happens. Twenty, twenty-five minutes out of your whole life, and all the ropes that kept you hanging in there get cut loose, and it's like, there you are, right back in the jungle again. All right boy, it was a nightmare, but it's over now. [pauses] It's all over."

- David Mann
(Dennnis Weaver in "Duel", the first feature length movie directed by Steven Spielberg)
__________

"How much can you possibly know about yourself if you've never been in a fight?"

- Tyler Durden
(Brad Pitt in "Fight Club")
__________

"Man, I see in Fight Club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see it squandered. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."

- Tyler Durden
(Brad Pitt in "Fight Club")
__________

"If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all who claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think everything you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told you should want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned ....... Tyler." - taken from split second 'pop-up' warning, that appears at the beginning of fight club DVD movie."

- Pre Movie Warning, "Fight Club"
__________

Eddie: Where the hell are we gonna hide?
Bacon: Don't complicate things, just hide!

- Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels
__________

[to a chicken] "If you work for a living, why do you kill yourself working?"

- Tuco
(Eli Wallach in "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly")
__________

"Every gun makes its own tune."

- Blondie
(Clint Eastwood in "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly")
__________

"A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti."

- Dr. Hannibal Lecter
(Anthony Hopkins in "The Slience Of The Lambs")
__________

"Im having an old friend for dinner."

- Dr. Hannibal Lecter
(Anthony Hopkins in "The Slience Of The Lambs")
__________

"Who am I kiddin'? I ain't even in the guy's league...It don't matter, 'cause I was nobody before...I was nobody. That don't matter either, ya know...It really don't matter if I lose this fight. It really don't matter if this guy opens my head, either. 'Cause all I wanna do is go the distance. Nobody's ever gone the distance with Creed. And if I can go that distance, ya see, and that bell rings, ya know, and I'm still standin', I'm gonna know for the first time in my life, ya see, that I weren't just another bum from the neighborhood."

- Rocky
(Sylvester Stallone in "Rocky")
__________

"My ol' man, he was never too smart. He says to me, 'You weren't born with much of a brain, ya know, so uh, ya better start using your body, right?' So I become a fighter. Ya know what I mean."

- Rocky
(Sylvester Stallone in "Rocky")
__________

"Stay in school and use your brain. Be a doctor, be a lawyer, carry a leather briefcase. Forget about sports as a profession. Sports make ya grunt and smell. See, be a thinker, not a stinker."

- Apollo Creed
(Carl Weathers in "Rocky")
__________

Apollo: Ain't gonna be no rematch.
Rocky: Don't want one.

- Rocky
(Sylvester Stallone in "Rocky")
__________

This isn't a tale of heroic feats. It's about two lives running parallel for a while, with common aspirations and similar dreams.

- Ernesto Guevara de la Serna
(The Motorcycle Diaries)
__________

"Hello. My name's Forrest. Forrest Gump."

- Forrest Gump
(Tom Hanks in "Forrest Gump")
__________

"You ain't from this planet are you, Vincent? Who is gonna mug two black fellas, holding pistols, sat in a car that is worth less than your shirt?"

-Sol
("Snatch")

__________

Donnie: Why do you wear that stupid bunny suit?
Frank: Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?

- ("Donnie Darko")
__________

Kaveri Amma: America kaisa hai?
Mohan Bhargav: Wahaan saari sukh-suvidhaaen hain.

- ("Swades")
__________

John Connor: No, no, no, no. You gotta listen to the way people talk. You don't say "affirmative," or some shit like that. You say "no problemo." And if someone comes on to you with an attitude you say "eat me." And if you want to shine them on it's "hasta la vista, baby."
The Terminator: Hasta la vista, baby.
John Connor: Yeah but later, dickwad. And if someone gets upset you say, "chill out"! Or you can do combinations.
The Terminator: Chill out, dickwad.
John Connor: See, you're getting it!
The Terminator: No problemo.

- ("Terminator 2 - Judgement Day)
__________

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

Scarborough Photos

2007-09-06T20:09:00.000+01:00

Scarborough

Have You Been To Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. - Simon and Garfunkel in "Scarborough Fair"

The Dreadful 8s Tag That's Going Around

2007-08-26T11:16:00.000+01:00

Amy has tagged me with the dreadful 8s tag that's going around. Since I have not been very regular with my posts recently, I suppose should do this tag. I need to write 8 weird facts about myself. Here goes...

I was a psycho reader in school. I remember being the only guy who ate his lunch standing in the line for getting a library book issued. I also ran back home to change and ran out again to play "lawn cricket". I would start reading as soon as I came back and only let go once I finish.
I am sometimes surprised and probably unduly mad at people who are too tired to do multiple things in one day. I have played badminton, table tennis, cricket and football all in the same day. I've stood in long lines and I've ran after and travelled in crowded buses for a thoroughly energy sapping one hour and then had a quick cup of tea and gone out to play football. I have travelled from Mumbai to Pune reaching home at 1:00 am and have then woken up at 5:00 to go trekking.
I hate sitting at home. If I do not have anything to go out for, I would still go out for a random walk around. I've gone gone out for walks even on each eve of my post-graduation examinations. My friends thought I was plain bonkers to do that. One feller bet me I wouldn't dare to go out on one day because the exam that day finished at 6:00 in the evening and the next exam was at 9:00 in the morning. More importantly, they were the toughest of all exams in our four semesters. I of course, won the bet.
I have many interests like playing the guitar, photography, music, reading etc. and I can play four sports. Sadly, I am not very good at any of these interests and I can only play the four sports well enough to not make a fool of myself. This is mostly because I have not been dedicated enough to any of them. The freaky fact is that I can play also all the sports that I do with my left hand though not as well as I do with the right (except of course, football which you play with your....err.. foot). I have played and beat two rank new comers at table tennis playing with two paddles in two hands! I am not averse to bragging on this.
My hair is very very difficult to manage so I've given up trying to manage it and I've been trying all new things since the past few years. I will never colour or skunkify them because I am not really a flashy person but I've tried many conservative styles. Yesterday I got a short crew cut and I almost look like a skinhead. Next in line - authentic skinhead.
I am mad about my country and mad with my countrymen. I want to do big things for my country and I hate a lot of people who are trying their best to do the opposite. I feel like slapping every guy back in India who I see throwing rubbish on the street or out of a train/car/bus window. I also hate Indians who come to other countries and help the locals justify their stereotypes of Indians - dirty, cheap, uneducated, ill-mannered, non-social, geeky people with zero sense of humour.
I have passed most of my exams studying last minute mostly only for a few hours. I am ashamed of it. I have never had the capability to concentrate on my studies for more than two or three hours at a stretch. The maximum I've ever studied is probably six hours in a day.
I think commitments should hold higher priority than most other things. If I commit to someone that I will be somewhere or will do something, I will often go out of my way to honour that commitment even if something goes wrong. Naturally hence I am wary of people who do not live up to their commitments.

There... I've finished the dreadful 8s tag that's going around. I now have to tag 8 unsuspecting fellers.

I choose:

1) Sam : My friend whom I'd like to introduce to all you others.

2) Balaji : Lets see you writing about yourself now boy!

This damn tag is so popular that everybody I know has already done it. Let me find people who have not...

3) Chitra : Yup, you are one.

4) Shark : You are number two.

5) Shradz : It's a long time since you posted so you better get back into the groove.

6) The Jedi : It's been a while since you wrote anything at all. Stop ranting for a while and do this.

7) Akhil : To give you a break from reviewing!

8) Reaper : It would be really interesting to get a peek into YOUR personality.

I request all of the above to kindly complete the tag failing which, Amy will be crowned the queen of the universe and though that isn't essentially a bad thing, maybe you all would like to apply for that post yourself after changing the title to suit gender of course.

-PeAcE

--WiTh

---GuNs

All flash and no class

2007-08-07T23:06:00.000+01:00

Make Johnny a dumb-ass

Niagara Falls All Over Again

2007-07-25T11:56:00.000+01:00

I finished reading "Niagara Falls All Over Again" last night. I looked up at the watch after I finished and it was 3:00 a.m.

Its a good book.

In fact, its a great book - "Niagara Falls All Over Again" by Elizabeth McCracken.

I picked it up second hand, almost obviously. This time though, it wasn't from a literary romantic's hideout - a second hand book store. It was from a literary romantic's paradise - the council library.

They have a seasonal sale of books where they give away books for dirt cheap prices. Books which haven't been in circulation, books which have been neglected by readers. I got this one for 50 pence. I couldn't dare to pick up the next book in the box. Sacrilege! "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens.

I picked it up because the back cover had an interesting summary. Two comics: one fat, one thin. It opened with a line from the last Laurel & Hardy movie: "Haven't I always taken care of you? You're the first one I think of.".

This wasn't about Laurel and Hardy though. It was about a Rocky Carter and a Mose Sharp. An exciting tale of everyday life of two comics. No, not about two comics - about a team of comics. That is what the book is all about - the team.

The book takes you on a journey of two struggling comedians who dream of making it big in Vaudeville but end up taking over Hollywood. They lead very very different lives but the Carter & Sharp team is always the same. The team never ages, it never changes. Many other characters weave in and out of the story but Carter & Sharp are a team. They are a team long after they split up, they are a team long after they are bitter with each other and they are a team long after they have stopped talking for decades.

Rocky is hyperactive. He wants to do that one more movie, one more TV show, one more radio show. Rocky cannot just sit down and die. He begs for that just one more time - the one last time. "We will get back to it all" he seems to say. He pleads - like I've pleaded. One more movie, a few more minutes of conversation, one more trip together... just one more football game.

"Guys, we are all leaving for different places. We might never meet again for many years after this day. Heck, we might never play football together again. Lets do this one last time.".

I came home that night with my shoes unsoiled and my calves devoid of that sweet pain I so loved.

I thought teams, friends and partners last forever.

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

Invitation

2007-07-20T14:22:00.000+01:00

I desperately want to go to Italy on a holiday.
The last holiday I went on was in March 2006.
I want to go there for not less than one week.
I am tired of asking people to accompany me.

So this is an open invitation to all my readers.
Join me for this trip.

I will NOT sponsor anything except the humour.
I am willing to go to any other place in Europe if you do not like Italy.

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

Metallica

2007-07-15T23:18:00.000+01:00

Bombay

2007-06-12T22:20:00.000+01:00

I hate Bombay.

I hate Bombay because they call it the city that never sleeps. I always get a feeling it is the city that never stops struggling. Much like the beings of flesh and blood that inhabit it, it never stops struggling... merely to stay alive.

I hate Bombay because it reflects the disparity between the filthy rich and the filthy poor like probably no other city in the world can. Bombay is the city of dreams - LOST dreams, I say. Millions have come to Bombay to realize their dream and they havent given up. They still dream - sleeping on the streets.

I hate Bombay because it is the city that crushes human respect, it is the city that will never be mine, a city I will never adjust to, a city that my father struggled to get his first job in, a city that was always close to where I lived but invariably distant from where my mind lived.

I have been to Bombay dozens of times. I've hated it each time I have been there. I lived there for a few months. I discovered Marine Drive... all over again.

Its beautiful.

I am sitting here in my room with nothing to do and feeling like a real loser and somewhere I came across the word Marine Drive and it threw me back to the one or two times that I have walked along it with my friends. Believe me, its magic.

Suddenly I feel if I could walk along the Queen's Necklace every evening with my merry bunch of friends or alone listening to FREE BIRD, if I could buy my parents the most expensive house along that street, if I could sit down on the concrete separating the sea from the human ocean talking with someone I love - life wouldn't be so bad. Bombay wouldn't be so bad.

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

UK Travelogue

2007-05-20T00:58:00.000+01:00

Hey folks !

I know its been long since my last post and I have generally been tardy in posting in the past few months. I havent had internet and then I finally got internet for a few days and then I moved houses so had to wait to get the internet again. Anyhow, not much was happening for me to write posts about so I refrained.

There is definitely something happening now and so I want to write a bit of post about it. That "something" is travelling. I have been travelling a lot around the UK recently. Starting with the long weekend on 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th April, I have been continuously out of Leeds on each weekend except one.

It does feel great to be back in action and to be back on the move. Its also been assisted by having a whole bunch of friends who've been enthusiastic enough to join us in our journeys from different parts of the UK. Lets admit, the UK isnt large enough for distances to be much of a problem really. Its generally been a lot of fun and even though its a lot of travelling, I never feel exausted or drained out. A little tired, yes but the next morning, I am up and about and more energetic than ever. Oh and I am a (yet another) year older now !

Heres a brief of my journeys:

April 6,7,8,9 - Wales and Peak District

April 14, 15 - Scotland

April 21, 22 - Peak District

April 28, 29 -
*Bumming around at home*

May 5, 6, 7 - Lake District

May 12, 13 - London

May 19 - Manchester

May 26, 27, 28 - Isle Of Man (Planning in progress)

Where have YOU all been travelling? Tell me where you've been and send me a link to your travel albums.

All the photos that you see here (and more) can be found on my album here

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

Gyaan

2007-04-03T23:39:00.000+01:00

[Friend]: aur kya karta hai weekends pe?
[Me]: next weekend...WALES
[Friend]: museum hai na waha
[Me]: laat daalu kya tereko
[Me]: "Prince Of Wales museum" bol raha hai?
[Friend]: yes
[Me]: its in Mumbai you klutz
[Friend]: :))
[Me]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chhatrapati_Shivaji_Maharaj_Museum
[Me]: tu doob mar saale !
[Me]: doobte doobte gaana bhi gaana.
[Me]: "dooba dooba rehta hoon"
[Friend]: abhi tu jaana

Photography

2007-03-21T17:26:00.000Z

Blog

All photos...GONE. Zoto.com cheats its users

2007-03-15T11:45:00.000Z

The photo-sharing site www.zoto.com CHEATED most of its free users by deciding to suddenly go paid and removing all free accounts altogether. Free users either upgrade to paid or get lost. A move which cost email-service provider netaddress.com (USA.NET) dearly a few years ago.

They claim they gave everyone an advance notice (a month prior to this) and as a consolation, they allow the users to download all their photos in a convenient zip file. They justify this as a business strategy necessary to stay alive in the market.

Thanks for the lip-service guys but what about this? All the photos on my blog need to be uploaded to another photo-sharing site and I need to update all the links in each post of mine.

I don't think its fair. I wrote them an email saying so. They never replied. Typical of people who do not have good enough answers to a question.

Please bear with me while I upload all photos to some other site. Meanwhile if you are a new visitor and you need photos from a particular post, drop a line in the comments section and I shall mail them to you. I tried a fleeting look at Flikr and Picasa but none seem to offer linking as easy as Zoto did.

Any suggestions, folks?

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

Issue Please !

2007-02-28T13:51:00.000Z

"Issue please"
"Issue please"

I hear this man every morning when I walk to office. I hear him again every evening going back home. He's there rain, shine or snow. He wears a bright orange vest that reads "The Big Issue" and at the back, it reads "Working - Not Begging". I see four or five of them across the city centre. Their faces are familiar now.

I came to the UK four months ago. Now, as an educated human being, I know enough economics to realize that povery is prevalent in every part of the world. I've seen enough poverty back home in India to last me a lifetime but this is something new and inadvertently surprising.

Founded by John Bird, and Gordon Roddick in September 1991, The Big Issue is a newspaper in the UK. The Big Issue was set up as a business to give homeless people the chance to make an income. It campaigns on behalf of the homeless people. It allows homeless people to voice their views and opinions.
To become a vendor you must be homeless or vulnerably housed. However The Big Issue recognise that for many people, being housed is only the first stage in getting off the streets. Therefore if a vendor needs to continue selling the The Big Issue, they may allow them to.
The magazine is produced by The Big Issue Co. Ltd. and is funded by paid for advertising and through sales of the paper to vendors. Financially, The Big Issue is a not-for-profit organization. It is also one of the foremost social businesses in the UK.The Big Issue Foundation is the registered charity arm of the organisation. It aims to underpin the company's work in providing a legitimate alternative to begging by tackling the underlying causes of individual homelessness.

-Wikipedia

The poor in the UK get benefits from the council. No one dies hungry on the streets like they do in India. The council provides temporary housing to the homeless. The luxuries of being poor in a developed country.

I think that maybe it would be just as humiliating for these people to be poor as it is for the poor in India. Maybe even more because they do not have huge colonies where there are millions of others like themselves. Maybe they feel like jockeys in a basketball team.

I came here thinking the developed countries have solved all their problems. Guess I was wrong...

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

My Two Phones

2007-02-01T16:16:00.000Z

Aaah, more and more material comfort !!
Sony-Ericsson W950i and Motorola C115

Everyone around me buys Nokia - I buy one motorola and three Sony-Ericssons (one for me, one for my dad and another for my friend. I only paid for MINE though).

Everyone around me buys Hero Honda - I buy a Bajaj Wind

Everyone around me buys Lee Cooper - I buy Bata

Everyone around me buys Sony Cybershot/Canon Powershot - I buy Panasonic Lumix

Everyone around me arrives at their first interview riding their bikes - I ride my dad's bicycle

Everyone around me wears patterned ties on solid shirts - I wear solids on patterned shirts

Am I a nonconformist or just a plain misfit?

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

Who reads my blog from here?

2007-01-11T10:58:00.000Z

Welcome 2 -007

2007-01-02T11:27:00.000Z

31st Dec 2003 - Fireworks at Juhu beach, Mumbai
31st Dec 2004 - Fireworks at Baga beach, Goa
31st Dec 2005 - Fireworks at Baga beach, Goa
31st Dec 2006 - Fireworks at London Eye, London

Happy new year folks !

Check out some photos from the New Year celebrations at the London Eye. They all look quite similar and shaky but bear with me, those photos were all I could manage in the dark and the pushy/shovy crowd.

Click here for the photos.

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

What Is Life?

2006-12-11T17:04:00.000Z

Life? Yes, I know him. He’s the best friend I’ve had. I know him since I was born and I pretty well know that he’ll stay beside me till the very end.

When we were young, happiness had no need to be sought. Mother and father took care of everything for me. Life was always good. We had a lot of fun together and we shared many adventures. I loved Life and Life loved me. Thou art my brother, I look out for thee.

I grew older and I went to school. Life changed after that. We met an enemy. We met the one everyone knows as ‘competition’. I made many other friends in school. Some have lasted me till now. For the first time in my existence, Life went through highs and lows. Now that I think of it, the high came more often than the low. Life and I always managed to stay a step ahead of our sworn foe

Life and I grew into our teens and we faced new challenges. My friend Life, he was never his jolly self again. I mean I did see him laughing and having fun many times then but I never felt that he was totally satisfied. There always were so many things I wanted to do and so many characters I wanted to be. Some of these dreams were fulfilled and some were ground to dust by the way Life behaved. Competition never scared me though he always threw a spanner in my works. I overlooked him, mostly, at times – to my own disadvantage. Me – competition never scared nor I - about competition ever cared.

Life still loved me but there were times when we both hated each other. Those were the lowest points of Life. Add to that being an adult and not havin’ a wife.

Whatever adventures I’ve been through, I knew Life, my best friend would always accompany me on them. Whatever successes I had, even if the rest of the world turned its head to me, I knew Life, my best friend would always be there to cheer for me. Whatever failures I’ve had, Life has been there to give me courage to stand up and face new challenges. He’s been with me in all my travels inside buses, trains, peaceful boats and treks over the mountain ranges.

Whenever I’ve slept with a bad day behind me, two things gave me courage – the fact that the next day would be there soon and that Life, my friend would be there standing by my side, ready to take on anything that comes in our way. Take that fear away from me and into your sway.

Through joy, sadness, excitement, reluctance, pain, elation, success, defeat, night and day, I know I must…

Until death do us part, my friend – in you, I trust.

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

Shorter Days Of Loneliness

2006-11-14T11:21:00.000Z

Leeds profile:
Sunset : 4:30
Shops close : 5:00
Office closes : 5:30

What this means is that I cant go out and roam around the place. I dont know anyone here and the one or two people I DO know are always busy with other things. People at work are older and there's no one my age in my team. So what it means is that - I dont have any company. Couple this with no email access in office and no internet at home and what we have is what the title of this post says - shorter days of loneliness.

I am expecting all this to be over when I move into a new home. I am currently living in the guest house provided by the company. This house-hunting is another pain in the you-know-what thing to go through out here.

Till then, all you guys keep commenting and keeping me company. Thank the dear God that I can access blogs in office.

Check out some pics from the street next to my guesthouse and a park (Roundhay Park) that I went to on Saturday morning. Click here.

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNS

Flying Onward

2006-11-03T19:06:00.000Z

Flying to UK on Sunday, the 5th November 2006. Its a one year assignment.
Bye, India. Make a note..."I'll be back".

Lost in my dreams I go

Listless in the universe

A speck of light calls out to me

I'm your star remember?

A flick of my hand - I stutter

'ts what you used to be

-PeAcE

--WiTh

---GuNs

Photos from Baroda

2006-10-18T16:38:00.000+01:00

Went to Baroda over the weekend. Check out some photos.

Click Here

Slog it out

2006-10-04T06:35:00.000+01:00

This is an article that I wrote for my office magazine. Its meant to be preachy so read it only if you want to. Its preachy because I hate this typical attitude that we software engineers (and also other professionals) develop when we start working. This article is like a kick in the butt for such people.

________________________________________________________________

“People are crazy and times are strange, I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range”. Bob Dylan’s words ring out loud when we see the life of an IT professional these days. Working 8 hours a day, 8 stretching to 12 sometimes – we all have lost out on the experience that was the original meaning of the phrase “slog it out”.

Slogging originally meant hitting something hard. The term might have been most popularly used in cricket where slogging was trying to hit the ball as hard as possible, sometimes without caring to follow proper technique. Generalizing the term, “slogging it out“ meant a hard day in the outfield playing some sport in our youth - maybe a round of cricket, football, a lap around the ground, a swimming session in the hot sun. Maybe a tough round of bench presses at the gym.

These days though, slogging has acquired an entirely new, if not an antonymic form – sitting at the desk, working!

Times have changed surely, but is there a need for a drastic change in our definitions this way? We see reports everywhere of people having heart attacks at ages that were considered immune from such maladies. People leading unhealthy lifestyles are a common story now. Every evening, we go home tired. Are we manual labourers? No. Then why are we tired? Mental stress they say. Maybe. Why do we feel out of breath within minutes when we take that run down the beach on our annual vacation to the sea? Much as we hate to admit it, we are unfit. Even those who think they can do a 10-mile jog every morning, think in relative terms to a few years ago before we started working.

If we go back in time and look at our mindset, we notice that one thing missing now - the enthusiasm for sport. Five years ago (or maybe ten) it wouldn’t be tiring to slog it out playing cricket in the blazing sun for 4 hours. Now when we have inter-IT cricket matches half the team never turns up for the second match because they deem it too draining. It was draining back then too. Even if you’ve managed to keep up your health, the difference is probably just the motivation.

It is common knowledge that sport helps people concentrate better. It helps your reflexes. It improves your blood circulation. It strengthens your muscles. In short, it improves your physical and mental health. I’ve myself never felt more relaxed and more enthusiastic than after a draining game of football. There have been times when I’ve come back with aching knees, ankles, calves, tarsals and a back that was killing me and still felt at a mental peak. Times when a session at the gym at 6:00 a.m. has helped me concentrate better at work 9:30 onwards were proof of that argument.

The question that pops up in mind is “How do I manage to be actively involved in any sport with the schedule that I have?” The answers aren’t easy. The very first thing you will need to ask yourself is how much you value your health. The answer to that should provide you with enough motivation to at least get started. Enroll for badminton in the evenings. Badminton courts are often open till late nights. I have a lot of friends who go out to play badminton after dinner at 9:30. The age old court near my home is full of people pushing 50 competing at a very high level of expertise at these hours too. It’s just about making a firm decision.

Once you get started, often you lose the motivation and drop off after a few weeks when the enthusiasm dies down. I’ve found that the best motivator in such circumstances is a great training partner. In fact, if you have a dedicated bunch of friends that pushes you to come to the playing arena every day, rain, wind or storm, you know you will be leading an active life. As a part of the group, you will play your own role of pushing someone else when that person is lacking motivation. It sure beats watching T.V. at home and making sure your thumb gets more exercise than the rest of your body!! Sorry guys, but having a thumb that’s build like Shchwarzenegger’s doesn’t quite qualify as a hot bod for the ladies.
Next time your HR announces a sporting event, make sure you are the first to make a dash for it.

So friends, slog it out…the right way.

-PeAcE

--WiTh

---GuNs

My New Watch

2006-08-31T07:16:00.000+01:00

Got my first real 3-hand
Bought it at the Titan shop
Wore it till the leather strap
Tore 'way in t' thousand four !!

Well, time I bought a new watch.

As the corny piece above says, I bought (got) my first real Titan watch when I passed 10th. My father warned me that I needed to get more than 80% under any circumstances. I got precisely one mark more than 80% !! To my surprise, one fine day, dad said "Lets go to the Titan Showroom and I'll buy you a watch". Gleefully I looked through the entire store until I found a perfectly simple watch with a black dial and a gold finish with a black leather strap. That was 1998. From that day till I finished my MCS in 2005 (yeah, not 2004 as the poem says...that was just for the rhyme [:-P]), it was an able companion on everyday journies to college, treks & outings. It never faltered. I only changed the battery once in those 8 years or so. It got wet in the rain, dropped off the table, banged around in crowded buses but not a scratch on it. The combination was such that it looked good on formals as well as casuals.

One fine day, sitting in a chai-shop near our college, I was discussing buying a new watch with a friend. I told him I've had this one for too long and maybe its time I changed to a new one. When I walked to my bike an hour later, I suddenly realized that the watch was gone from my wrist. It couldn't have fallen off, it had a leather strap, well fastened and a new one which couln't have broken. I searched the place for more than an hour but I didn't find it.

I guess its in the hands of someone who would have appreciated its loyal service more than I did. Good luck wherever you are, my watch.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bought my new watch last Sunday from Shoppers Stop. Wasnt actually going to buy one but was just goofing around the watch counter and I really liked this one. Check out some pics :

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's an essay by the great Mark Twain on his watch.

My Watch - An Instructive Little Tale (Written in 1870)
(Alternative link to the essay)

-PeAcE
--WiTh
----GuNs

Obscenity

2006-08-13T06:02:00.000+01:00

One month after the naked dance of death in Mumbai. Still, NOTHING...just as I predicted in my previous post. NOTHING.

I've rarely used an obscenity in my real life and never - most certainly, never on my blog but I want to use one NOW.

F*** you Manmohan Singh. Yes, REALLY.

Coward with a yellow streak.
A puppet of that Italian freak.
Our PM just got
Sold to a Sheikh.

The Eternal Cycle

2006-08-07T19:14:00.001+01:00

"The day follows the night in an eternal cycle"
Said to me my mind one night
Persevering, not relenting
Here I am
A clear mind, the day is bright

The first line was on my blog sidebar for some time now. I made this little 5-liner out of it in a few minutes when the office mag editor asked me to send in a quote for Friendship Day. I had the line "said to me a friend one night" instead of the "said to me my mind one night". Now that I reminisce, none of my friends really did make that quote. Its just my own original creation. But yes...sometimes a few friends have been there to tell me something similar to that line. There have been moments when I've been lonely and they've been far more than I would have liked. But I guess, this is to those few friends who've stuck by me, though temporarily, in times of need. The whole para goes into my sidebar now.

[Tag] - My Complete Profile

2006-07-24T13:40:00.000+01:00

>> 1.What is your Full Name? T.G. One (The Great One)

>> 2.Are you American or English? Indian but English, by the way I spell.

>> 3.What are you listening to right now? Nothing, but I'd sure like to listen to her voice.

>> 4.What are the last 2 digits of your phone number? Numbers.

>> 5.What was the last thing you ate? Don't remember. Been so long since I ate(This economic depression sux).

>> 6.If you were a crayon what colour would you be? Black

>> 7. How is the weather right now? Hot, sultry& smelly...I don't use DEO !

>> 8. Last person you talked to on the phone? My phone's down ever since I got broadband }:->]

>> 9. First thing you notice about the opposite sex? Huh...what...where ?

>> 10. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Obviously, else 90% of forwards go right to my trash folder.

>> 11. How are you today? Still Single.

>> 12. Favourite Drink? Homemade THICK 'n SLURPY mango juice.

>> 13. Favorite Alcoholic drink? Ethanol ain't interesting...My policy, "Drinking is for donkeys".

>> 14. Favorite Sport? Cricket, Football, Badminton, Table Tennis

>> 15. Hair Colour? Black

>> 16. Eye Colour? Brown (Or probably dark brown, How would I know? No ones looked into them and told me....)

>> 17. Do you wear contacts? Nope, they are too messy.

>> 18. Siblings? Yup, younger sister...OWW ! There she is....

>> 20. Favourite Food? Rice and some hot spicy dal.

>> 21. Last Movie you Watched? Superman 1, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest

>> 22. Favourite Day of the Year? Diwali.

>> 23. Are you too shy to ask someone one? Used to be. BTW, ask WHAT?

>> 24. Summer or winter? Winter is cool.

>> 25. Hugs or Kisses? Sorry, no experience.

>> 26. Chocolate or Vanilla? Mix 'em up.

>> 27. Who is most likely to respond? To WHAT? (God, whats with these incomplete questions?)

>> 28. Who is least likely to respond? Not me, thats for sure !

>> 30. What books are you reading? Just finished "Invisible Man" by H.G. Wells. Reading after a long time !

>> 31. What's on your mouse pad? Lots of dust, some dal..tomato sauce...and I donno what's this other stuff.

>> 32. Favourite Board Game? Chess, though its ages since I played.

>> 33. Favourite Smell? The earth in the first rain, Petrol (Dyu know its addictive if you feel like smelling petrol all the time)

>> 34. Can you touch your nose with your tongue? What is this...a circus recruitment form?

>> 35. Favourite Flower? Not much knowledge about flowers. But roses look nice and the Jasmine is the only flower I can smell.

>> 36. What's the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning? Huh, whats the time?

>> 37. What`s the time? Don't worry, I am not late for anything......Wait a sec...on second thoughts !!

>> 38. Nickname? [Snip]

>> 39. Ever been so drunk you blacked? Blacked (almost) only once in my life. When they took out seemingly gallons of blood for some damn medical checkup at office. If I remember, later I was drunk on some fluid drink they gave me.

>> 40. Been in a car accident? Yeah, broke half a nail. The car was bent up front though.

>> 41. Been hurt emotionally? What emotion? I am a robot.

>> 42. Kept a secret from everyone? I have a truckload of secrets. None mine.

>> 43. Wanted to hook up with a friend? I ain't gay, man !

>> 44. Cried during a Movie? No

>> 45. Had a crush on a teacher? No...can't say the other way round though.

>> 46. Ever thought an animated character was hot? The mermaid from disney. Also, Nancy's aunt in that comic strip.

>> 47. Had New Kids on The Block Tape? "New Kids on the..." what?? Sorry, can't read Spanish...or is it French?

>> 48. Been on stage? Few times, not for acting though.

>> 49. Fave movie? Anand, Mera Nam Joker, Hera Pheri, A Patch of blue, Big, Castaway, Forrest Gump, Silence of the Lambs, Rocky 1 to 4

>> 50. Fave Subject? English, the only subject I topped all the time.

>> 51. Fav person to talk to online? Would say [Snip].

>> 52. Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend? Old story, no...

>> 53. Like anyone? Old story, yes.

>> 54. Who have u known the longest of your friends? Myself

>> 55. Who's the shyest? Myself alongwith a few other Bajrang Dal members (not the political party...this is our own group of losers who are still single).

>> 56. Who's the weirdest? This is easy, myself !

>> 57. Who do you go to for advice? Don't wanna get repititive, but myself. If you say suggestions, then there are other people too.

>> 58. Who do you cry with? Forgotten how to cry. I try to find solutions instead.

>> 59. Worst Feeling? Exams !

>> 60. Favourite Word? ..... (Count the dots)

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

P.S. : The favourite word is not a three or a four letter word. Its not a swear word and its NOTHING explicit. No...can't say the other way round though.

TAGGED VICTIMS : Shradha, Amy, Garima, Karan, Suyog, Nirwa, Khushi, Kavita, The Jedi

NOTE TO VICTIMS : Kindly try to make the tag as humorous as possible. Please do not answer in lame jokes like I did !!

Unbreakable or Insensitive?

2006-07-12T06:44:00.000+01:00

Lets take a look at the US. Al-Qaeeda claimed the biggest attack in the world on 9/11/01. But has anyone ever thought why, not even a single American has been killed in another attack in the USA in the last 5 years ?? Its because of the attitude, the stance.

Here, the PM condemns the blast and everything is rosy again. Soon, rosy turns into bloody red and the cycle continues.

What I dont understand is why people don't protest. Why do people go to work now? I think all the working class except the doctors and other essential service should sop functioning. Turn Mumbai off for a week. With the financial capital off, the repercussions will be huge and only then, the government will know the seriousness of the problem and actually do something about it. Why dont people say "I am not going to work until you find the killers" instead of saying "I dont care how many of my brothers you kill, I WILL GO TO WORK. I am insensitive to the killings". Thats what the government wants. A lot of rope to try and manouver out of the situation with the minimum possible work and responsibility. I think its high time the working middle class stood up and SAID something.

People stay home when political parties declare "bandhs" for their own selfish interests. Maybe my attitude is incorrect but to me, it seems as if in the attempt to keep the spirit of Mumbai alive, they (the people) are allowing the government to slip away with making a committee and sitting on it for years without doing anything.

Disappointed !

Hoping for
-PeAcE
--WiTh (or without)
---GuNs

3 years...of life !

2006-07-06T05:58:00.000+01:00

6/7/3
I slept that night with a face in my eyes...Finally ! A face that I saw in my mind and then laughed at myself for being naive. I thought it would pass but it hasn't and its 6/7/6 today.

For 3 years have passed since that day and I still stand on the same crossroad. A lot of water has passed under the bridge, as they say in the classical language. In this context, I'd rather say a lot of thought has passed through my poor naive mind. I keep thinking and I keep forgetting. Life gets busy and I don't have as much time for myself now. With friends going away, I know someday I will need a companion and I wont have anyone.

On 6/7/3, I thought I finally had some aim in my aimless existence - a beautiful aim. Its still there and its still just an aim, nothing more. There I days I look into the blank space in front of me and feel like a loser. I gave it a shot. I messed it up. In fact, no. I didn't even do enough to mess it up. It was never my fault. I never had experience. Maybe I had wrong attitude - maybe I have wrong attitude.

No communication, no serendipity, no nothing. Someday that aim will just waft away and I won't do nothing. I was clear. I never wanted to cause any trouble...for anyone. But the question is - Could I cause any trouble? I am too nice and sensible for that. Maybe TOO sensible.

But I made her laugh that day !

I hear.....I think, I agree

2006-07-04T18:17:00.000+01:00

Ghar Baar Nahin
Sansar Nahin
Mujhse Kisi Ko Pyaar Nahin
Us Paar Kisise Milne Ka Iqraar Nahin
Mujhse Kisi Ko Pyaar Nahin
Sunsaan Nagar Anjaan Dagar Ka Pyara Hoon
Awaara Hoon...

Abaad Nahin Barbaad Sahi
Gata Hoon Khushi Ke Geet Magar
Zakhmon Se Bhara Seena Hai Mera
Hansti Hai Magar Yeh Mast Nazar
Duniya....Duniya Maein Tere Teer Ka
Ya Taqdeer Ka Maara Hoon
Awaara Hoon...

-Mukesh "Awaara Hoon" from Awaara
_________________________________

Anhoni Path Mein Kaante Lakh Bichaaye
Honi To Phir Bhi Bichhda Yaar Milaye
Yeh Birha, Yeh Doori
Do Pal Ki Majboori
Phir Koi Dilwala Kahe Ko Ghabraye
Taram Pam...
Dhara Jo Behti Hai Milke Rehti Hai
Behti Dhara Ban Ja
Phir Duniya Se Bol
Ek Din Bik Jaayega Maati Ke Mol
Jag Mein Reh Jaayege
Pyaare Tere Bol

-Mukesh "Ek Din Bik Jaayega Maati Ke Mol" from Dharam Karam
_________________________________

Second Hand Books

2006-06-19T09:05:00.000+01:00

A weird coincidence this. I read the invisible man (finished yesterday) and wrote a post on it immediately. A comment on that made me mention second hand books. Now I realize how much of a nostalgia it is to be reading a second hand book. I am currently reading "The Plymouth Adventure" by Ernest Gebler. That book was published in 1950 and the copy that I have in my hands was printed in 1952. 54 years hence, the book is still safe and in readable condition.

I remember my earliest days of reading novels in school library. All the Enid Blytons and the Hardy boys. I read so many books that I still hold the all time record for most books read in school and its been 8 years since I left school. Reading used to be a passion so intense that I'd come home, throw my bags and go into the bedroom and read. I read while eating, while watching TV and I made it a point to finish the book that very day. We got 2 books every week from the school library. I read more books by going to the library everyday in the Diwali vacations and being the most obedient guy in the library, the librarian gave me the books that were off the muster too. Those were the days.

So, I was mentioning second hand books. While in school, I also read a abridged versions of some popular classics and then I borrowed other classics from a friend once in a while and read those. My friend told me that his brother bought these books second hand from some place in Pune city and I've scourged all over the lanes in the city to find dedicated second hand book shops but I havent been able to locate anything particularly similar to that description. So, I've been to every raddiwala in my area, to every old looking book-shop in Appa Balwant Cowk (ABC, as its popularly called) and roadside scrap vendors looking for second hand novels. I've succeeded in getting some great books for as low as Rs.10 or 20 and there was a time long ago when I befriended a raddiwala and had got a few books for Rs. 3 or 4. Sadly, those days dont exist anymore and I cant find any novels with raddiwaalas these days and all the second hand book shops in Pune charge as much as a new pirated copy.

Well, this post was meant to be short, just a copy paste of some info I found interesting about the subject but well...its something close to my heart and so I ramble on.

Here is the info:
I came across an article in the Indian Express today about a little town called Hay-On-Wye in UK, close to London. Here is the description on a site:

Hay-on-Wye, located by the River Wye in stunning countryside on the English / Welsh border, is the world centre of the second-hand book, rare book, antiquarian book and out of print book trade with some 4 million plus books in 39 specialist bookshops. Hay is also the home of the world famous Hay Literary Festival, held annually in May and June, attended by such literary giants as Norman Mailer, Edna O'Brian, Tom Wolfe, Patricia Cornwell, Bill Bryson, Lady Antonia Fraser and many, many others. During these two weeks everyone seems to be a writer, critic, book dealer, or book fan.

Try this google search : here
Excellent article on second hand books with some really nice hideouts to get those in verious cities like Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Gurgaon etc. I am sure you will be VERY interested in this article. Its also really well written : here
Another great article, this time in The Deccan Herald : here
Article in the Hindu about sourcing of second books in India : here
A list of second hand booksellers in the UK: here
Book sellers in the town of Hay-on-wye : here
A really good search engine on the official Hay-on-wye website. They've got a HUGE database which you can conveniently search : here
Our very own Indian site for second hand books : here
Another very good Indian site : here

Finishing with a poem by John Arlott that I found on one of these articles :

A Second-hand Bookshop
The sunlight filters through the panes
Of book-shop windows, pockmarked grey
By years of grimy city rains,
And falls in mild, dust-laden ray
Across the stock, in shelf and stack,
Of this old bookshop-man who brought,
To a shabby shop in a cul-de-sac,
Three hundred years of print and thought.
Like a cloak hangs the bookshop smell,
Soothing, unique and reminding:
The book-collector knows its spell,
Subtle hints of books and binding
In the fine, black bookshop dust
Paper, printer's-ink and leather,
Binder's-glue and paper-rust
And time, all mixed together.
`Blake's Poems, Sir-ah, yes, I know,
Bohn did it in the old black binding,
In '83.' Then shuffles slow
To scan his shelves, intent on finding
This book of songs he has not heard,
With that deaf searcher's hopeful frown
Who knows the nightingale a bird
With Feathers grey and reddish-brown.

-PeAcE

--WiTh

---GuNS

The Invisible Man

2006-06-18T10:30:00.000+01:00

I've picked up this book to rekindle the fire of reading. I read this book a long time ago when I was in school and its one of the major reasons for my (seemingly weird) choice of novels.

H.G. Wells wrote this novel way back in 1897 and so its about 110 years since this masterpiece came out. Wells was the first popular writer to write in the genere of science fiction. He wrote War Of The Worlds, The Time Machine, The Island Of Dr. Moreau among others. Invisible man is something that I like the most for the awesome way in which the concept of invisibility is tackled. There is such a pragmatic approach to the book and the concept that you wonder how those things were never considered in films like The Hollow Man, Gayab etc.

A naked man roaming the streets is bound to get chilly. The dust on his feet will show up and so will any rain/snow falling on his body. What happens to the food that he eats, the blood that he spills? All these questions remain unanswered in those movies but you will be surprised when you read the book.

A true classic and I am now hunting for DVDs of the film Invisible Man (starrring Claude Rain, released 1933). Apparently, there were other films released as sequels like The Invisible Man Returns and The Revenge Of The Invisible Man but there was only one book ever, the original. Oh, btw theres another novel by the same name by Ralph Ellison. That is about a black man's struggles in a white country and it isnt anything sci-fi.

Check out some pics/wallpapers :

Murphy's Law Examples

2006-05-26T11:20:00.000+01:00

"Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool"

- Silvermoon's law

Now, we go on to the really nice examples. Mind you, all these are plagiarized DIRECTLY from here

A slice of buttered bread, when dropped, will always land butter-side down.
When you need an item that is in a heap, it will always be the one at the bottom.
Buses take ages to arrive, but when they do they always arrive in sets of three (in Britain "you wait ages for a bus, then two come along at once!"). There actually is a logical explanation for this: the first bus is slowed down because of the time needed to let passengers get on and off. The subsequent busses are (typically) not allowed to pass the first bus, so you tend to end up with a full bus followed by a line of empty ones.
The day you forget your umbrella, it pours with rain.
When graphing, the graph paper is always one square too small for the perfect scale.
When caught in a traffic jam, the lane that you are in will always be the slowest to move. (This joke was played out in the opening sequence of the film Office Space, where one of the main characters changed lanes multiple times, all in vain as the traffic around him moved - to really drive home the concept, an elderly man with a walker was shown dramatically outpacing our protagonist.)
Nothing is as easy as it looks.
Everything takes longer than you think. Or, everything takes twice as long as it should; excepting that which appears easy, taking three times as long.
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time.
If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
If something simply cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way, unprepared for, will promptly develop.
Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
Every solution breeds new problems.
All small objects of value will disappear when set down.
Magellan's Allegory: If you stop and ask someone for directions, and they tell you "You can't miss it"... then be assured that you will.
If you make it idiot-proof, someone will make a better idiot.
When you put your pants on without looking — they will always be on backwards.
A series of events will go wrong in the most negative sequence.
Airline Travel Variation: The time you have to catch a flight is inversely proportional to the distance to the gate.
50/50/90-If there is a 50/50 chance to get it right, there is a 90% chance that you will get it wrong.
The day you forget to bring your calculator to Math or Science class, there will be a quiz or test that requires one.
A train/bus/plane will be late, unless you are late and need the delay to make it on board.

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

Ajax To Ajax, Dust To Dust

2006-05-22T16:20:00.000+01:00

"enn doelpunt van een andrer planeet"

(It's a goal from another planet)

Louis Van Gaal, former Ajax coach,

describing one of Bergkamp's lobs.

It'll feel bad to see Dennis Bergkamp play his final match.

Cant believe Arsenal dont start with him these days.

I bet hes still better than tons of strikers everywhere.

Bergkamp, you rule !!

He started his career with Ajax (December 14, 1986) and he will finish it against Ajax (July 22, 2006).

We will always remember you !! I hope I get to see the last match of the great man !!

-PeAcE

--WiTh

---GuNs

8403

2006-05-18T13:33:00.000+01:00

Thats how old I am - in days.
Here is what I meant to type in under the post named 23 but after receiving so many nice comments on that post, I stopped myself from spoiling the mood and typing this into that post. So, I'll put it up as a new post altogether.

Its actually a mail I sent out to a friend. I did post an email earlier as well. That was written to that friend too. Anyhow, read on !!

Hey [snip]

Thanks a ton for the wishes. Thanks for staying up late and calling me at midnight. No one's ever done that before. Sorry I slept early and couldnt answer your call. Surprisingly though, my friend from Chandigarh did exactly the same and in the morning, I read 2 similar SMSs that said something like "Your phone is useless coz you never answer it". LOL, one was yours and the other was hers.

You are right. It was a good year, an eventful year. I did a lot of things which were new. I did a lot of things which were pleasant. But somehow, every birthday, I cant seem to help myself from feeling down The main reason is my thought process suddenly points out and says I am a year older, a year more of being a nobody. I don’t like being a nobody, I don’t want to live my life being a nobody. I wanted to establish myself in SOME field before I was out of my teens but it was like getting rudely shaken out of a dream.

Another thing that bugs me all the time is this inherent feeling of being single. Not so much as not having a girlfriend but more like ….being "lonesome" would be a better way to put it. I want to have friends whom I can call up every day. Friends whom I can meet up every evening and have fun. Why cant I have someone who always has the time when I do? Why don't I have friends who call me up everyday and ask how was my day. I want to go out in the evening and play something. Maybe not football. Maybe cricket in the lawn, like we used to play at Sam's place when we were in school. Maybe kabaddi, maybe pakda-pakdi, maybe eye-spy…maybe just a walk down the old road, down to the skating rink. Anything !! I just hate being a working professional who has no time after coming back from office.

People say growing older is growing wiser. I don’t want to grow wiser. The more you know, the more you have to worry about. I want to be as naïve as I was when I was younger. I don’t want to live a stressful life. If its too much I am asking for, why can't I have friends whom I can share my stress with. Talk about it, crib about it, laugh about it and let it go.

I'm 23 today and I cant help it. I’ll live my life as I have been living. With cheer and a optimistic approach. I will go see more places, meet new people. I wont stop trying to get back with old friends and I wont back off from challenges. But all the while, I will be waiting for that special day when I am face to face with my dreams…face to face with an opportunity.

Thanks for being my friend.
[snip] !!

P.S. : I know its stupid but I was about to write a b'day post on my blog and I just realize your mail made me pour out all that I had in mind. Would you mind if I post this mail? I will of course, remove your name from it.

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

23

2006-05-16T20:01:00.000+01:00

Just wanted to type in something on my birthday. Its 12:30 now and seems I've missed the chance [:-(]. WIll put up some actual text in a day or two.

TTT (Trek To Triund)

2006-05-07T19:10:00.000+01:00

My second post on trekking !!

I did mention about my North India trip in a previous post but I am writing this one to describe what was probably the most exciting part of my trip - a trek up the Himalayas.

Triund is a 4-5 hour trek up from the Bhagshunath temple near McLeodgunj. McLeodgunj itself is 12 KM from Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh. We were staying at Dharamsala and just out of curiosity, I asked the Hotel Manager if thre was any place close to Dharamsala where we could trek. He mentioned Triund and he said that we were lucky because normally, that place is covered with snow even in April and only because of weird weather conditions (which are seen all over the world this year) the snow wasnt there. So he said that we could trek, though we needed to get back before dark. Theres a threat of snow leopards and the Himalayan bears as it gets dark. Brrrrrrrrrrr

Started out early in the morning, had decided to get up at 5:00 and leave. Told the cook to prepare breakfast by 5:00. Poor guy woke up at God-knows-what time and had the breakfast ready. We all got up at 7:30 and were down by 8:30. I apologized to the cook for freaking him up and he said "Kya karen, saab, apni toh naukri hain naa". Awesome guy, he made everything we asked for, even if it wasnt on the menu....and he made it well !!

So we started out, my friend, I and another fellow we had met on the bus to Dharamsala. Turned out that this guy was a IIT-C graduate and he hadnt done any trekking in his life. He tapped out in the first 30 minutes or so of the trek. That after many agonizingly painful stops every 10 metres of climbing. Poor guy, he just needed some practice, thats all. And climbing a steep mountain where the base itself is 7500 M a.s.l. isnt exactly a walk in the park. He went back to the hotel and we continued.

Here is a photo from the place where he turned back

On our way, we met 4 guys from Delhi. Obviously, freak ruffians, they joined us in our mission upwards.

We met a lot of foreigners on the way and surprisingly, there were very few Indians making that trek. I guess most of the Indian public had come to Dharamsala for a 'relazing' vacation. The fact that we met a German couple in their fifties makes me wonder whether that is the reason why they are such a prosperous country...they have more energy, or maybe just more enthusiasm. Well, it was tiring....maybe just as or a little more tiring that my last trek to 'Harishchandragad' in the Sahyadris. The view on this trek was AMAZING. We could see the snow clad peaks right in front of us most of the time.

We saw snow on the way. Though there wasnt really a lot of snow on the trek route, there were patches of snow lying around like this one:

We also crossed a chai-shop which is a shack built by this guy right into the mountain halfway to the top.
As this stone here claims, its been here since 1984.

We reached the top (Campsite Triund)at 2:30 in the noon and if we had to get back before dark, we had to start back within an hour. Met a bunch of other trekkers. Had a chat with a pair of guys, one fro England, the other from USA. They both agreed about the weird weather around the world and especially in England where they were having a really bad time this year. Got some snacks at a shack right up there at the top and started onwards to our return.
View at the top.

Unfortunately, the twist in the tale comes here. Only 2 of us had the energy to do a descent non-stop. I was one of the two, but mostly because of my recent practice of trekking. The other guy was very well built and obviously a roughneck. The rest were too tired to make a hurried chase. The problem wasnt bad until we realized that it gets dark quicker in the mountains. If that wasn't bad enough, it started RAINING.

Crudd, what could be worse, we were having freakin' HAILSTONES. Being the fatalist that I tend to be, I told these other 4 guys to buck up otherwise the ground would get wet and since it was mostly stones, slippery. At these heights, in this terrain, I said....slippery stones could be ...FATAL.

Oh, and as the cruel day would have it, we lost our way. Now, we were tired, it was raining, my friend could barely walk, we had lost the way, we seemed to have dead ends on all sides of where we stopped and whats more...I had a 26,000 bucks worth camera in my bag !!

Terrifying as it was, we saw this shepherd lady and we asked her to help. She showed us a way and we went on that route for barely a few metres and hit a dead end again. We had obviously strayed onto a different route altogether. She then showed us the way a few more times and we somehow managed to reach the village. Would you believe the coincidence (!!), the rain stopped as soon as we entered the village. It didnt rain for the rest of the entire week that we were there. In fact, we never saw rain in Himachal Pradesh throughout that week. WEIRD, eh?

After coming back to the hotel, our companion was already in bed, worried why we were late. Surprisingly, he TOO had lost the way and the same shepherd lady had showed him the way too. Of course, he was so terrified (and alone) that he actually paid her 50 bucks to show him the way to the village.

Had a hot water shower, got into bed at 8:30, skipped dinner and slept like a log. That must be the longest I've slept in my life.

Aaaahhhh... I read so many other blogs and read about people enjoying boozing, smoking, hanging around with their other halves etc. I wonder if they are living a more exciting life than I am. Well, for the time being, I am doing what I can to make my life more interesting. If I didnt do this, I would be the most boring guy in the world...to myself !!

-PeAcE

--WiTh

---GuNs

Two Pieces Of Advice

2006-04-28T09:12:00.000+01:00

[ IF ] - Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

[ Hamlet ] - Shakespeare

Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar:
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are most select and generous, chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all- to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell. My blessing season this in thee!

Latest News

2006-04-25T10:06:00.000+01:00

A mail I wrote to a friend today:

I am still not sure what I write in it, so I will just tell you what I am doing these days.

Am going to office, reading comics, browsing sites, uploading my photos, checking emails etc. and playing TT. In between that, I also do a little bit of documentation work that has been assigned to me. Generally its getting boring here because the new office is much bigger and its mostly empty. The good
thing is that I no longer sit next to my ML and that guy is not my ML any more. with the new version coming in, my ML is a different person and she sits opposite to me and so she cant see what I am doing.[:-D]

If I take my checklist and mark it for the last week since I am home, I am sure I will get mostly 0 hits. Maybe I will get one hit per day for 'spend time with family' entry. Thats not a good thing. Good thing is that we played football this weekend. YAY !! After ages, literally. Hope we do it again next week. That reminds me, I gotta bug the HR about the office football team again.

The frustration of being in a job just grows and grows. But I must admit, taking that long break REALLY did help me. I still dont like it here but atleast I am not as freaked out as I was before the vacation. I still feel uneasy about the fact that I want to do something else (I dont exactly know what) but I cant do it as long as I am working here.

Also, the thought of being single crops up once in a while and bugs me. I generally dont think about that person too much these days but theres no way I can stop thinking about that person as my best (and only) bet. Maybe thats a faulty outlook but I am willing to carry it until I find something more interesting or until it starts interfering with my day-to-day life and my thinking. 3 years !! I dont think theres anyone who could stand an acid-test like that. I always knew I was a patient guy but I always thought that I'd forget all about it in a year or so. But its 3 years now and we;ve only spoken 8 or 10 times in all that period. As Kenny Rogers sang, "but, I still hold on".

Other than that, my travel lust is on a grow. I realize its such a high to travel new places, meet new people and see things which are totally alien to your knowledge. I realize there's beauty everywhere and so is malice. The more you travel, the wiser you are. I think people learn a lot more from the world itself than they do from books and studies.

-PeAcE

--WiTh

---GuNs

Tour Itinerary

2006-04-17T19:28:00.000+01:00

30th March '06 - Thursday
Flight to Delhi

31st March '06 - Friday
Visited Qutub Minar
Travelled by Metro
Train to Pathankot

1st April '06 - Saturday

Bus from Pathankot to Dharamsala
Bus from Dharamsala to Chamunda (Youth Hostel)
Visited Chamunda Devi temple

2nd April '06 - Sunday

Bus from Chamunda to Dharamsala
Bus from Dharamsala to McLeodgunj
Visited Bhagshunath temple
Trek to Triund
Bus to Dharamsala
Bus to Chamunda

3rd April '06 - Monday

Bus to Kangra
Dropped Vijay at Kangra bus stand
Visited Kangra fort
Bus back to Chamunda
Visited Chamunda Devi temple
Attended aarti

4th April '06 - Tuesday

Bus to Kangra
Bus from Kangra to Nurpur
Bus from Nurpur to Dalhousie
Bus to Hotel

5th April '06 - Wednesday

Local sightseeing in Dalhousie
Saatdhara, Subhash-Bhowli, Panjpulla etc.
Evening in the market

6th April '06 - Thursday

Taxi to Chamba
Museum closed
Visited Laxminarayan temple and Chamunda temple
Proceed to Khajjiar

7th April '06 - Friday

Horseride at Khajjiar
Taxi drop to Nurpur
Bus to Pathankot
Bus to Jalandhar (Solo from here on)
Bus to Chandigarh
Rick to NIPER

8th April '06 - Saturday

Visited Kasauli on bike
Caught by traffic cops on the way back (Fine Rs. 300)
Went to ISBT for enquiry on way back to Chandigarh
Dinner at Smokin' Joe's

9th April '06 - Sunday

Visited Rock Garden
Visited Sukhna lake
Shopping at Sector-22
Played TT in the (girls) hostel

10th April '06 - Monday

Rick to ISBT (6:00 a.m.)
Bus to Haridwar
Visited the banks of the Ganges
Atended aarti at the river bank

11th April '06 - Tuesday

Package tour to Dehradun/Mussoorie
Visited Fun Valley, an entertainment park
Visited Mussoorie lake, Kempty falls
Changed plans and stayed back at Mussoorie

12th April '06 - Wednesday

Visited Mall road, Gun Hill
Visited Camel's back point
Got some pics of the hotel

13th April '06 - Thursday

Bus to Dehradun (6:30 a.m.)
Bus to Chandigarh (8:00 a.m.)
Reached Chandigarh at 2:00 and did t.p. till 5:00
Rick to NIPER
Walk around NIPER campus at night

14th April '06 - Friday

T.P. till noon
Rick to Fun Republic
Lunch at McDonalds
Watched "Shaadi Se Pehle"
Dinner at "Sagar Ratna"
Rick to NIPER
Rick back to ISBT
Bus to Delhi (12:30 a.m.)

15th April 06 - Saturday

Rick from ISBT to New Delhi station
Wait from 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
Board train (Jhelum exp., platform no. 8)

16th April '06 - Sunday

Reach Pune at 3:00 p.m.
Bus to home

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

Looking Out

2006-04-17T19:19:00.000+01:00

Trek The Party

2006-03-21T06:15:00.000Z

I've been trekking these days. Last month, I went to Lohegad with a friend and last weekend, to Harishchandragad. I'll be going on a North India trip real soon and am looking forward to doing the "mother of all treks", Gangotri.

The mountains are something I've always wanted to go to. Sadly though, lack of company meant I couldnt do it as often as I wanted. Even then, we've been to forts like Daulatabad (near Aurangabad), Pratapgad, Shivneri, Lohegad, Harishchandragad, Sinhagad. I've also been to awesome places like Matheran, Malshej etc. which are good treks by themselves. Living in Pune is like being in paradise for a trekker. Pune is covered from almost all sides by mountains, most of which form a part of the Sahyadri range. Shivaji built and captured tons of forts in this area and we therefore really lucky to be living in Pune.

How did this bug suddenly bite me? Well, its just that I was talking to a friend in office and he showed me photos of all the treks they've been to. He told me about this book by Harish Kapadia called Trek The Sahyadris

. I just went to Manneys that very evening and bought a copy. Have been reading it since. Then got a friend to go along with me to Lohegad and we planned to go to Rajgad the next weekend but that didnt work out.

So this Thursday, we went to Harishchandragad, which is supposed to be one of the toughest treks in Maharashtra. We made an additional stunt of climbing in the night. LOL, that was idiotic, all right. We lost the way a few times and theres a vertical rock patch you need to walk across on 4 inch thick ledges
and that was REALLY FREAKY.

A tiring weekend this, but maybe this will be the active substitute to my football then. Who knows what the mountains have in store for us. This is what Calvin says:

Explorers are we, intrepid and bold
Out in the wild, amongst wonders untold
Equipped with our wits, a map and a snack
We're searching for fun
And we're on the right track !

-PeAcE

--WiTh

---GuNs

Calvin & Hobbes Quotes Collage

2006-03-07T09:14:00.000Z

Spent the day doing pretty much useless work. Made this collage out of some quotes I found on wiki-quotes. I now have a printout of it on my desk. Do check it out and dont forget to mention how you like it!!

Oh, if anyone knows how I can upload the original MS-WORD file (the pic is a screenshot of the word file), kindly tell me.

Here's more info on Calvin & Hobbes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes

One night at the software firm

2006-02-17T04:45:00.000Z

Err..

Never thought I'd write something like this. I mean, I knew this was inevitable, working late in a software industry but I always believed that I had it in me to be different and break this tradition. I still feel that sincerely but I am somehow scared now.

On Monday the 13th, I came into office after having a real blast over the weekend at my company's annual function. It was awesome and had a lot of fun and got to know a lot of interesting people. But On Monday, I went home as usual on time. As I reach home, suddenly my PL calls up and tell me that there's a lot of work pending and that I should take up responsibility and do it, not run away. He did sound pretty pissed. So I offered to come back to office immediately. He agreed and I went back to office at 8:00. Sat through the night till 1:30 and then I got tired and went to sleep. Next morning, left for home at 8:00 in the morning and came back to office at 11:00. Just 3 hours at home [:.-(]. Again, I worked till 1:00 in the night but this time, I told my PL that I am going home. I went home and on Wednesday, I came at 12:00 in the noon and there was absolutely no work. But in the evening, he told me I cant go home on time because I had to wait till they finished the build or something. So again, I had to wait till 9:00 pm.

I hate the feeling that its inevitable to work late. I feel it cuts out my independence. In all the year or so of experience that I had, I have almost never worked even 15 minutes after office time. I've done so only two or three times and that too because I was waiting for someone. In one case, my PM and in the other case, for the HR.

2 days of this makes me hate my job now. I feel I have been pushed down the very drain that I had been standing on the edge of all this while and not tipping over. I dont want to stay in that drain - I dont want to work late again. I want to be free and only work in office hours and have the rest of the time for me.

God, help me on this one !

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

www.india.gov.in - The National Portal Of India

2006-02-09T06:22:00.000Z

Check out this awesomely designed and very informative site.

http://www.india.gov.in

Here's what it says :

This is the Official Portal of the Indian Government,
designed, developed and hosted by National Informatics Centre (NIC), the premier ICT Organisation of the Government of
India under the aegis of Department of Information Technology , Ministry of Communications & Information
Technology.

The Portal has been developed as a Mission Mode Project under the
National E-Governance Plan of the Government. The objective behind the Portal is
to provide a single window access to the information and services being provided
by the Indian Government for the citizens and other stakeholders. An attempt has
been made through this Portal to provide comprehensive, accurate, reliable and
one stop source of information about India and its various facets. Links at
various places, too, have been provided to other Indian Government
Portals/websites.

The content in this Portal is the result of a collaborative effort of
various Indian Government Ministries and Departments, at the
Central/State/District level. It is our endeavour to continue the enhancement
and enrichment of this Portal in terms of content coverage, design and
technology on a regular basis.
-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

My complete profile

2006-02-05T19:27:00.000Z

>> 1.What is your Full Name: T.G. One (The Great One)

>> 2.Are you American or English?? Indian but English, by the way I spell.

>> 3.What are you listening to right now? Nothing, but I'd sure like to listen to her voice.

>> 4.What are the last 2 digits of your phone number? Numbers.

>> 5.What was the last thing you ate? Don't remember. Been so long since I ate(This economic depression sux).

>> 6.If you were a crayon what colour would you be? Black

>> 7. How is the weather right now? Hot, sultry& smelly...I don't use DEO !

>> 8. Last person you talked to on the phone? My phone's down ever since I got broadband }:->]

>> 9. First thing you notice about the opposite sex? Huh...what...where ?

>> 10. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Obviously, else 90% of forwards go right to my trash folder.

>> 11. How are you today? Still Single.

>> 12. Favourite Drink? Homemade THICK 'n SLURPY mango juice.

>> 13. Favorite Alcoholic drink? Ethanol ain't interesting...My policy, "Drinking is for donkeys".

>> 14. Favorite Sport? Cricket, Football, Badminton, Table Tennis

>> 15. Hair Colour? Black

>> 16. Eye Colour? Black (Or probably dark brown, How would I know? No ones looked into them and told me....)

>> 17. Do you wear contacts? Nope, they are too messy.

>> 18. Siblings? Yup, younger sister...OWW ! There she is....

>> 20. Favourite Food? Rice and some hot spicy dal.

>> 21. Last Movie you Watched? Lucky-No Time For Love, Mumbai Express(Hindi), The Last Ride(English).

>> 22. Favourite Day of the Year? Diwali.

>> 23. Are you too shy to ask someone one? Used to be. BTW, ask WHAT?

>> 24. Summer or winter? Winter is cool.

>> 25. Hugs or Kisses? Sorry, no experience.

>> 26. Chocolate or Vanilla? Mix 'em up.

>> 27. Who is most likely to respond? To WHAT? (God, whats with these incomplete questions?)

>> 28. Who is least likely to respond? Not me, thats for sure !

>> 30. What books are you reading? Just picked up "The Black Arrow" by R.L. Stevenson. Reading after a long time !

>> 31. What's on your mouse pad? Lots of dust, some dal..tomato sauce...and I donno what's this other stuff.

>> 32. Favourite Board Game? Chess, though its ages since I played.

>> 33. Favourite Smell? The earth in the first rain, Petrol (Dyu know its addictive if you feel like smelling petrol all the time)

>> 34. Can you touch your nose with your tongue? What is this...a circus recruitment form?

>> 35. Favourite Flower? Not much knowledge about flowers. But roses look nice and the Jasmine is the only flower I can smell.

>> 36. What's the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning? Huh, whats the time?

>> 37. What`s the time? Don't worry, I am not late for anything......Wait a sec...on second thoughts !!

>> 38. Nickname: [Snip]

>> 39. Ever been so drunk you blacked : Blacked (almost) only once in my life. When they took out seemingly gallons of blood for some damn medical checkup at office. If I remember, later I was drunk on some fluid drink they gave me.

>> 40. Been in a car accident: Yeah, broke half a nail. The car was bent up front though.

>> 41. Been hurt emotionally: What emotion? I am a robot.

>> 42. Kept a secret from everyone: I have a truckload of secrets. None mine.

>> 43. Wanted to hook up with a friend? I ain't gay, man !

>> 44. Cried during a Movie: No

>> 45. Had a crush on a teacher: No...can't say the other way round though.

>> 46. Ever thought an animated character was hot? The mermaid from disney. Also, Nancy's aunt in that comic strip.

>> 47. Had New Kids on The Block Tape?: Sorry, can't read Spanish...or is it French?

>> 48. Been on stage: Few times, not for acting though.

>> 49. Fave movie: Anand, Mera Nam Joker, Hera Pheri, A Patch of blue, Big, Castaway, Forrest Gump, Silence of the Lambs

>> 50. Fave Subject: English, the only subject I topped all the time.

>> 51. Fav person to talk to online: Would say [Snip].

>> 52. Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend: Old story, no...

>> 53. Like anyone? Old story, yes.

>> 54. Who have u known the longest of your friends: Myself

>> 55. Who's the shyest: Myself alongwith a few other Bajrang Dal members (not the political party...this is our own group of losers who are still single).

>> 56. Who's the weirdest: This is easy, myself !

>> 57. Who do you go to for advice: Don't wanna get repititive, but myself. If you say suggestions, then there are other people too.

>> 58. Who do you cry with: Forgotten how to cry. I try to find solutions instead.

>> 59. Worst Feeling: Exams !

>> 60. Favourite Word: ..... (Count the dots)

>> Peace to all !!!

P.S. : The favourite word is not a three or a four letter word. Its not a swear word and its NOTHING explicit.

Chat with a fellow Bajrangi

2006-01-30T18:29:00.000Z

I was talking to a friend on Yahoo the other day and I thought it was an amusing session of chat. I saved it and I think its makes for interesting reading.

For your reference, the "BD" mentioned here is "Bajrang Dal" which LOL, has NOTHING to do with the political party or anything like that. Its just what we call ourselves, a group of young 'Celibatics By Fate', which is incidentally another name that we had thought up for the group. LMAO at anyone whos thinking its actually some real group/party/movement/cult etc. Its just a term we use to sledge each other all the time (on being single)!

You will have an insight into the beautiful language that tapori Hindi is - with a few words of Hyderabadi & Bhojpuri thrown in for added flavour.

Read on :

[FRIEND]: woh mail achha tha

[ME]: kaunsa re[ME]: guys' rule?[ME]: ya wallpapers?

[FRIEND]: haaan
[FRIEND]: wall paper ke liye itna time kahaan se milta hai tereko[FRIEND]: cruise ke photos mile kya?

[ME]: cruise?
[ME]: kaunsa cruise re baba

[FRIEND]: finland gaya tha cruise se

[ME]: kyaa baat kar raha hai
[ME]: kab bataayega
[ME]: jhinge....bhej photu

[FRIEND]: I thought I sent 'em

[ME]: nahi babua

[FRIEND]: id type kar tera

[ME]: [ME]@yahoo.co.in

[FRIEND]: baki public ko bhi bhej

[ME]: hau

[FRIEND]: mila kya?

[ME]: dekh raha hon

[FRIEND]: bol

[ME]: kya kar raha hai online?
[ME]: tujhe wallpapers mile kya?

[FRIEND]: haan
[FRIEND]: itna time kaha se milta hai tereko?
[FRIEND]: chal bye..gotta go

[ME]: bye
[ME]: Do you know who started Bata, when and where? Check it out for some really surprising answers !!
http://www.bata.com/about_us/heritage/bata_heritage.php
Look at their ultimo-cool site & once you look at their reach, their statistics and their history, I'm sure you wont even cast an eye towards all the Lee coopers etc.http://www.bata.com

[FRIEND]: rdb dekha kya?

[ME]: hau

[FRIEND]: kaisa hai?

[ME]: kal baat karte bhidu

[FRIEND]: k

[ME]: :d
[ME]: kya kore?
[ME]: RDB dekhi kya?
[ME]: hum log ne dekhi first day first show
[ME]: inox mein
[ME]: only Rs. 49

[FRIEND]: neeche baithke kya?

[ME]: =))

[FRIEND]: LOL

[ME]: **** ** ****
[ME]: Inox mein gaye they
[ME]: tere jhopadpatti waale ghar ke bagal waale theatre mein nahi
[ME]: wahaan koi uppar neeche waali baat nahi hoti

[FRIEND]: mere ??

[ME]: no concept of balcomny & stands

[FRIEND]: tu bhi udhar hi rehta hai

[ME]: kabhi gaya nahi hai kya multiplex mein?

[FRIEND]: itne saste mein kaise phir?

[ME]: maine tickets ek hafte pehle book kiye

[FRIEND]: aadhi film dekhi kya?
[FRIEND]: LOL

[ME]: sasta isliye kyonki INOX mein morning show discounted hota hai

[FRIEND]: k

[ME]: 10.00 am, 49 rupees[ME]: koi bhi film

[FRIEND]: kaisi hai?

[ME]: JHAKKAS
[ME]: ek number
[ME]: ultimate hai
[ME]: totally radical man
[ME]: formula se totally parey hai

[FRIEND]: good..

[ME]: ekdum young/contemporary
[ME]: bachhe log first half mein jo aish karte hain, woh dekh ke sach mein jalan hoti hai
[ME]: appan ne lukkhe log ne kuch bhi nahi kiya

[FRIEND]: apun bajrangi hai...

[ME]: hau

[FRIEND]: jai BD

[ME]: Jai BD
[ME]: lekin BD mein ho ke bhi bahut mazaa kar sakte they
[ME]: kisime enthu hii nahi hai lekin

[FRIEND]: football khele na..

[ME]: haan
[ME]: hafte mein ek baar

[FRIEND]: aur kya chahiye

[ME]: aadha ghanta
[ME]: kabhi koi match nahi khela

[FRIEND]: chalta hai..

[ME]: koi jaanta tak nahi hum log football khelte hain ya khelte they
[ME]: :))thats the criminal word
[ME]: "chalta hai"

[FRIEND]: LOL

[ME]: naa bhai.....high time we realize
[ME]: "nahi" chalta hai
[ME]: its just one life
[ME]: we cant run through it like its a formality

[FRIEND]: then what is supposed to be done u think?

[ME]: well
[ME]: time we created a few concrete aims
[ME]: and actually strived to get them
[ME]: not academic or monetary aims
[ME]: aims about life
[ME]: BIg aims

[FRIEND]: tell me one of yours

[ME]: not something like
[ME]: getting a distinction in final sem
[ME]: OK, thats a credible aim too

[FRIEND]: ha ha...

[ME]: but then....the problem is that
[ME]: we concentrate on that too much
[ME]: give it too high a priority

[FRIEND]: yahaan pass hone ke waande hai

[ME]: tell me one thing
[ME]: none of us have done ANYTHING professionally....neither any sport, nor any hobbies, nor any presentations, nor any international meets

[FRIEND]: hmm

[ME]: nothing[
ME]: who (or what) is responsible?

[FRIEND]: we

[ME]: we are all 22 now

[FRIEND]: the people

[ME]: almost 24
[ME]: 23*

[FRIEND]: yaa..

[ME]: people ae world champions in sport at 16
[ME]: business tycoons at 25
[ME]: even if they lose it all 5 years down the line...atleast they can say they had achieved SOMETHING
[ME]: apna kya hai

[FRIEND]: life is an odessy...

[ME]: idiots hai appan log
[ME]: total idiots

[FRIEND]: not a destination

[ME]: and we are driving through the dark without our headlights on

[FRIEND]: nope...

[ME]: trusting that the wheels will turn automatically and go along the road

[FRIEND]: we r walking in the evening haze

[ME]: what the f**k does that man?
[ME]: mean*

[FRIEND]: ke hamaare paas gadi nahi hai

[ME]: sabke paas aadi hai babuaa
[ME]: kisike paas cycle, toh kisike paas ferrari
[ME]: sab cheezen rakhi thi choice ke liye
[ME]: :))hum log ne cycle uthaayi

[FRIEND]: maza cycle mein bhi hai...

[ME]: because it was easier

[FRIEND]: no....we didn't choose..

[ME]: samjhauta karo aur jeete jao....keede kii zindagi aur kutte kii maut !!

[FRIEND]: aise sochoge toh zindagi ki khushiya kho doge

[ME]: your take on life !
[ME]: to each his own
[ME]: I think its high time, atleast for me
[ME]: to do something worthwile
[ME]: and stop being a sissy and just leading life as it comes
[ME]: without any aims

[FRIEND]: have u decided somethin'?

[ME]: without anything
[ME]: I have decided to plan a few aims in life
[ME]: and go after them sincerely

[FRIEND]: like

[ME]: cant decide/pinpoint/divulge any right now
[ME]: Lets see
[ME]: One thing for sure is...."HAVE MORE FUN"
[ME]: the best way to do it is to stop what we've been doing for so long....waiting for someone else to come along.

[FRIEND]: what kinda fun?

[ME]: go out and enjoy ...go to different places, do different activities without worrying about the company
[ME]: Uptill now, we used to plan things with close friends (our gang) and then when some people opted out, the plans went haywire and everyone had to quit
[ME]: it happened so many times
[ME]: thats a classic case of waiting for someone and when that
[ME]: "someone" does not join in, the plan is cancelled
[ME]: so its like you are leading your life according to the whims and fancies of that variable "someone"

[FRIEND]: ha ha...it's up to you to decide whether to go alone or..
[FRIEND]: take someone with you

[ME]: Chal bhidu....main soney ko jaa raha hoon. Tu wahaan padhai kar, ghoom phir aur majaa kar

[FRIEND]: k
[FRIEND]: bye...

[ME]: I hope you do something with your life too

[FRIEND]: all the best

[ME]: And I hope 15 years down the line
[ME]: we all have atleast SOMETHING to tell our children about
[ME]: some achievement(s)

[FRIEND]: sure...

[ME]: :-hJai BD
[ME]: bye

[FRIEND]: jai bd..
[FRIEND]: bye'

------------------------------------------------
Comments & brickbats welcome !

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

Four-day vacation

2006-01-29T17:53:00.000Z

Four day vacation !!
Where did I go??
Ermm...nowhere really. [:-P]

Ever since I've finished college, the meaning of that word "vacation" has changed so drastically. Now, it just means a multiple-day off from routine. In school, vacation was 2 months, in college, one month. Since I've started working, anything more than 2 days off is a vacation.

26th Jan was a Thursday & a holiday for the republic day. Bunked 27th and then that was followed by the weekend. So, that made the 4-day "vacation" possible.

We went down to watch "Rang De Basanti" in Inox, first day first show. I'd booked the tickets early last week and we were all eagerly looking forward to this movie. --- "I'm a REBEL" --- It didn't bely our expectations and it was everything that I had hoped for. A totally radical movie shot radically & naratted radically. I can write 15 pages reviewing the movie but I'll let go of that chance & just say that I hope atleast this movie inspires some people to do something about the present. People seem to learn all the bad things, bad attitude, bad habbits, bad style etc. from the movies but everyone seems to be shy of following good messages from the movies.

The movie also made me sit up and realize that I've already finished college & 've already passed my teenage 3 years ago. I've done nothing that I would be proud to tell my children. This movie reminded me that I seriously need to start having some real fun before I am too old to do so.

How do I do it? Gimme suggestions !!

Had played football the evening before. 6 people, after a long long time. Too bad we didnt play the rest of the days. We all did come to the ground on 26th but a majority polled that they were too tired to be able to play football. I left the ground disappointed. When I am on the ground, I'm there to play and not to sit & gossip.

27th evening, we went to the city to buy shoes. My friend & I bought a pair of Woodlands each. He got semi formals & I got some weird/ hybrid casual ones. Walked around on MG Road & had ice creams at 10:00 in the night (though it seemed a bit stupid to be doing that on the coldest day in Pune this year at 5.5 dC).

The day of 28th dawned and the 2 guys who'd come to visit home from their jobs in Karnataka had to leave. Spent most of the day at their place enjoying their last day of stay with us. These 2 guys have been our cronies, our henchmen in all the various (yet limited) adventures that we've been through. We always have fun when the whole gang is back together and these 2 form an integral part of that gang. Sadly, even these guys show signs of the "working-guy" syndrome already. As I'd said in my earlier post, lack of enthusiasm is a sure formula for failure & I hope these guys and every one else in my circle get back their enthusiasm somehow.

Today is Sunday, the 29th. Sunday evenings are the most boring with thoughts of the next 5 days of hard labour juggling around in the brain. I guess the only way to get out of this weekend-to-weekend life is by freaking out at the weekends. Maybe watch a movie or go out on a short one or two day trip to someplace. I think by doing that, I'll be having fun on the weekend rather than thinking about what work I'd be doing 2 days later when the next week starts. A relaxed mind & confidence coupled with positive thoughts fuel the drive to success.

Feels good to write again though I desparately need to read more. Its been my biggest hobby and my most relaxing activity since a very long time now. I realize that whenever I read actively, I am in a much better state of mind to do new things and have an open approach towards life.

4 days are over and its back to work tomorrow. Thank God my company's taken care to make sure I have all of what I described above on the next 2 weekends !!

Jai Bajrang Bali !!

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

(Vain) King Of the World - Poem or Rap song ??

2006-01-23T18:35:00.000Z

I’m the king of the world
And that’s what I say
I do what I do
And I have my way

I look up to the sky
And say you’re mine
As the ground seems to me
So asinine

I see no thing that isn’t fine
I hear no voice except of mine
The king will say
What he has to say
And all you bondsmen
Better obey.

So listen to this
If you hear my voice
Your king is here

So…rejoice!!!

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

"Original" list of what I dream to do

2006-01-20T09:22:00.000Z

All right, all right !! I will (grudgingly) admit that the idea of this post is shamelessly lifted from this person's blog. These are some of the secrets I've never told anyone. Heres a list of things I've always dreamt of doing :

1) I still dream of being the best bowler in world cricket (I've bowled an 18 ball over once...i.e. 6 legal balls + 12 wides & no balls in that over)

2) Being the best batsman and

3) The best fielder (I sure am better than the Indian team at the moment)!!

4) I dream of being a footballer who will lead India to a world cup victory.

5) I want to be an airforce pilot (I've got non-nerdy-looking specs, so I am not eligible anymore)

6) I want to be a mountaineer (Thinking of taking a long leave sometime and joining the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute sometime).

7) Going on a cross country cycling trip.

8) Being able to go out and travel every weekend without any worries of health/resources/company.

9) Being so good at photography that all my photos come out as I want them to.

10) Go live a nomad's life for a few days.

11) Pitch a tent and sleep out in the woods.

12) Stand on top of the tallest mountain and scream out "I'm on top of the world".
Then sit down and read a good book for a few hours sitting there.

13) Get a girlfriend and scream out "I'm not a loser".

14) Get a 200% salary raise.

15) Need to work only 3 or 4 hours a day.

16) Play the guitar really really well (well enough to get into a band).

17) Be able to sing.

18) Get rich, earn enough money to buy a palatial house and a pair of cars for my folks and then go live a common life doing nothing but enjoying myself.

19) Roaming the world travelling all the exciting and beautiful places that nature has to offer.

20) Re-live that day, that year, that place (6/7/3).

21) Hang out with friends every evening regardless of what we are doing or how busy we are (or at least find some friends like that).

22) Being able to wear sunglasses in public without feeling awkward.

23) Own a computer that never hangs.

24) Climb a mango tree and steal some unripe mangoes or take my dad's cycle out and be insanely excited about the privilege.

25) Go back to being a teenager and this time, have more fun.

There are many more which I cannot think of now but I might add them into this post later. I dont know how many of these dreams are really achievable but I always look for things to learn from good incidents as well as bad ones. e.g. In the very first point here, I didnt mention that the 18th ball was a perfect yorker which took away the batsman's middle stump. That was a fluke? Well ok...I atleast realized that I had the stamina to bowl three overs at one go and still bowl the 18th ball as fast as the 1st one.

We all have dreams and we all try to make an effort to achieve them. How dedicated is that effort is what decides whether you are a winner or a loser.

"There are two kinds of people in this world - a winner and a dreamer".

Everybody dreams. The difference : The winners are the ones who wake up.

-PeAcE

--WiTh

---GuNs

Football Pneumonia

2006-01-15T18:17:00.000Z

Rahul (Raul)'s comment on my last post reminded me of this issue thats been floating in my mind for a year or more now. Thanks Rahul, for the idea.

I am 22 and I finished my M.Sc. in Computer Science in June 2005 and have been working since then. I'm from Pune, BTW. Work sux and I miss college life and all the freedom. I miss hanging around with friends till late in the night, sitting on the ground after a tiring session of football, coming home with sore toes and dirty clothes.

Me, football freak? Naah, not really. I only started playing and watching football since 2000 when my friend left for another city to do his MBBS. We had played cricket in his lawn every single day since school.

When he went away, I remember for about a week, the three of us who were a part of this lawn cricket team had nothing to do. We came down to the park near his home and sat on the park bench discussing stuff as usual. Somehow we were a little amused & suprised that our sporting life was over...at 17 ? I'd never followed any sport except cricket till then. I did play badminton and table tennis at the court sometimes but nothing that I did every single day of my life. Nothing except lawn cricket (thats a new term !!). I hated football and I never watched any matches neither did I know any of the teams or the players. Euro 2000 was the first football tournament that I watched and Holland turned into my favourite team and Dennis Bergkamp, my favourite player. I later started liking Arsenal when I came to know DB played for them.

One fine day, I met up with an old school friend who used to be in touch all the time but he never played with us. He said they played football in the evenings and asked us to join in. I took this proposal to the 3 member committee in the evening at the park bench and it was passed with a unanimous vote.

We went over in the evening to the huge ground that we have near our place. There we saw three (or maybe four, I dont remember) guys tapping the ball around and we looked at each other and thought simultaneously "looks like this is going to be a lot of fun". Sarcastically, of course. Anyhow, we started the gig that day.

Started out as someone who couldnt even stop a moving football properly but I've graduated to being a decent enough player though my left is still non-existent !! I cover it up with an unconventional approach of using the wrong side of the right-foot to get the ball to go in the other direction. It does look weird but is more often than not, effective.

We played everyday. We went to Goa, took the ball along, tried to play on the beach, the ball got filled with water and we had all the red marks on our legs within a few minutes and we dropped the idea of playing on the beach. New people came in sometimes. Sometimes we played with 6 folks, sometimes with 22. It was always fun. It got into my system. I had a challenging thing to do after a long time in my life. I dont know why but I never concentrated on academics as much as I should have. My only guess is that its for this very reason...challenge. I never thought academics was challenging enough. I always studied for one or two days before the exams and got a first class or a distinction. Football was always challenging. Specially because I started out as one of the worst players in the group. It was a challenge for me to, every minute, try and live upto the best in the vicinity. I loved it ! I've always loved playing underdog. The underdogs always make the most news when they steal the thunder !!

The only thing is that i just cant seem to get it into my system that now all my friends are working and they do not have the time and energy to play football everyday. Somehow, its the only sport I've played since the last 6 years and hence I just cant believe that if I have the energy to play, why cant my friends and that to me, is inexplicable.

It started when a bunch of the guys started working. Then we stopped playing everyday. We only played on weekends. We continued for about a year in that manner. It was disappointing and at times frustrating when we had to call off play because enough people didnt turn up. I hated it when I waited for the whole week for the weekend and then due to some sloppy lazy idiot, we couldnt play. It might seem unreasonable to accept it but the real reason was that these people very often committed that they would be there and then they didnt turn up. When we started out, we often played with only 4 players, two a side...with a very small field marked out. Believe me, that was an amazing exercise and helped me improve a lot because you were invariably in the game 100% of the time. I couldnt understand why the same people had suddenly lost motivation.

The problem worsened when another bunch of guys left for other cities for their jobs. Then it got very irregular. We played once in a while and then for weeks at end, we didnt play. Now, we played last week with 4 people again. This week, no one had the energy to repeat it. This last week was our first play after 7 or 8 months.

Its easy to see that its not just about sport. Its about a challenge. I like challenges. Sport to me, is the amongst the most challenging things in life. Though the stakes may vary, one thing is always at stake and its very important. Your self belief. I cant sit at home and do nothing. It just isnt in my blood. I've said this many times to a few of my friends..."this just isn't my calling".

Football or no football, I will always strive to do things which keepp me moving. I've started working and I'm no more a teenager but somehow, I dont feel old. I dont feel weak, I dont feel ...MIDDLE AGED. For a good while, I had this Bryan Adams poster on my wall that said "18 till I die".

Lack of enthusiasm is a symptom for the dreaded disease called FAILURE.

I pray I have the same energy and the enthusiasm forever !!

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

P.S. : All the supra-corny quotes underlined here are a by-product of my own neural reactor otherwise known as the brain.

First steps

2006-01-11T05:14:00.000Z

I finally got that printout of the "things-to-do" that I had promised to get myself. Its got 15 columns and multiple pages of 31 rows each.

Here's what it looks like (I've just added some dummy entries by editing it in PATINTBRUSH, just so you know how I am writing into it):

So, I use one row for each day and one sheet for each month. I have 10 of the 15 columns filled with what I want to do like "read a book", "practice the guitar", "go for a walk", "play football", "watch a movie" etc.

I will add more entries as I think of them. Currently, I put a tick mark in the current day's row for each of the activity that I've completed in that day.

I started day before yesterday with a measly 3 ticks from the 10 columns. I was slightly better with 4 yesterday. Looking to go upto 8 or 10 each day. I hope to reach that gradually. When I hit 10, I will be very happy.

I also skipped eating at McDonalds yesterday so my give-away account is finally opened. I've put as much money into it as the bill my friends raked up per head.

I have also completed my quota of writing today so I go home and put a tick on the "write something" column for today.

-PeAcE
--WiTh
---GuNs

APJ Abdul Kalam says the same

2006-01-09T18:32:00.000Z

Came across this article today on "Pravasi Bhartiya Divas".
http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/jan/09pbd8.htm

Looks like my president agrees with my views.

He said January 9 marked the return of Mahatma Gandhi from South Africa to India, 91 years ago.

"When Gandhiji returned, he traveled from one colony to another; the sun would never set at that time. Today, the sun can never set on the empire of Indian mind. Some children of mother India are always working wherever the sun is shining on this planet," the President said.

He observed that overseas Indians living in foreign societies would have realized that each of them is a member of the extended human family. "India seeks your knowledge, experience and the art of success you have learnt through your struggle abroad," he added.

The President said overseas Indians had been successful thanks to their foundation in education and the heritage their home country has provided them besides the opportunities that the country has given them.

"Seventy per cent of Indians live in villages. It is important not only for NRIs to repay the debt to their motherland, but also for everyone living here," Kalam said.

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