Wats in a title?!

Attitude Vs Perception!

2010-11-23T09:38:00.000-08:00

Of late I have been hearing that I complain a lot. Well, I am neither Mrs.Perfect nor Aparichithuralu (Courtesy: Movie by name Aparichithudu). I know that I cannot go and improve the whole world and change it to be a sweet world to one and all. I always liked this one statement that my Intermediate physics sir had written in my autograph book - 'If you don't believe the life you live in, you should live the life you believe in'. Yes, it sounds so simple and nice. But not very easy to put into practice. In my opinion, things that went well are good. But you should think about the things that dint go well and start thinking about the ways and means to improve that unless you are doubtful about your confidence levels. You are right! The people who analyze such things are called 'critics'.

Each thing has a way in which it has to be handled. For instance, if you have to bring an awareness among the people around you, there is a way you motivate them by letting them know the demerits of what the current system is and telling them how things could have been made better. But, if you have to give a feedback about somebody's performance, you first tell them what they have done good and slowly let them know how they can make it better. If you notice me in one such conversations and mistake me to be complaining all the while, I would say that it is not my attitude problem, but rather your perception problem!

The inconvenient truth..

2010-11-12T22:17:00.000-08:00

I remember very vividly.. each and every conversation I had with various people on this very interesting topic.. 'Girls do change after marriage'. I was always against this statement all this while.. mind you, i said I 'was' against it..! I don't know if I have to call it over confidence.. But I would like to refer to it as self confidence.. I always thought and still think that I can manage things quite well. Managing time for me has never been an issue so far.

Leaving all that I managed at college aside, during my tenure at Bangalore, extremely ambitious soul that I am, I had all the time to finish my work with complete commitment towards it and at the same time, I had heaps of time for my friends - friends for life, hobbies - Yes, I used to attend drawing classes after work, yoga - Again a big yes, I used to get up at 5AM in the winter season to go to yoga class before work. I had all the patience and energy to participate in GCC(Global Corporate Challenge - u may refer to http://www.gettheworldmoving.com/ for more details on this), wherein I used to walk atleast 10,000 steps a day.

The other day I had a chat with a good old friend of mine, who has always been a strong supporter of the interesting topic that I mentioned in the beginning of this blog. We had endless discussions on this topic and we never happened to even tilt towards the conclusion ever.. All he said was - 'Wait.. U will pass through that phase.. We can talk then'. Today when I gave myself enough time to leap back and look at the past few months, they just went by before even I realize that they passed by. Yes, time flew so fast.. So fast that I missed to wish a lot of my friends on their birthdays, a few of them on their anniversaries, another few of them on the occasions and festivals.. Why?? I have a list of e-mails to which I wanted to reply in detail..,but it never happened. Why?? I have quite a lot of people whom I always think about and want to ping by and check howz life rolling with them.. But that dint happen either.. Why??

There is only one answer to all the "Why??'s" and that is - 'I really dont know!'...This is why I call it the 'inconvenient truth', 'coz I still find it hard to accept that 'girls do change after marriage'! I dunno how much does it apply to a guy though!

APSRTC.in!!

2010-10-14T01:36:00.000-07:00

There were days when I had to take my time out to hunt a nearby APSRTC counter to get a ticket booked. The guy out there at the counter always seems to be a resentful employee., showing cold shoulders to the customers most of the times, with his all time favorite answer being 'not available'. Amidst the tough competition of various private carriers offering very good customer service with their very good online reservation facilities, APSRTC finally came up with a website.

It did not take a long time after the initiative has been launched for the people to realize that nothing has changed at all! Now, the all time favorite response of the website is 'Server is busy. Please try after sometime...sorry for the inconvenience ( code: MxUXCD ).' To hell with his sorry.. Damn!I need service, not sorry!!

This is really very irritating, especially when you are in a hurry to check some information. For those of you wondering if I am being very impatient, let me explain myself. I gave the website a complete one year(Yes, that's correct. One complete year..) and still..today when I tried(Not once or twice, sixteen times over a span of 1 hour) to logon to the website, I get this ****ing response and I am really mad at them.

No wonder, our RTC is always running under loss. As a customer, what do u wish to choose? Ofcouse, a very good customer service. Its high time they re-look into their functioning and get some motivation from irctc.in(though it gives a server busy at times, we know its genuine..) or their competitors and be its own savior, lest no one can save it!!

Kittys they r named!!

2010-09-29T04:11:00.000-07:00

This is my first blog, after my status changed from being 'single' to 'mingled' :D Yes, there is a huge gap between my last blog and this one.. Amidst so many changes, it happens u see :) I have to say that I tried to open this very dear page of mine to put it my running thoughts umpteen number of times. Well, needless to say I wasn't successful in that. However, I am back now... Lets see how I go about this time..

One of the major happening things that I see here in Vijayawada is 'kitty'. From an old man to a kid, everyone is part of one or the other kitty. Aww.. there are heaps of them! I never heard about them either in Hyderabad or in Bangalore. Not sure if its because, I dont have any of my friends or acquaintances who were part of them, or because they never existed in those places. Whatever it might be, these kittys here are categorical, i.e, Family kittys, gents only kittys and ladies only kittys. The get-togethers are normally held on sundays.

I happened to attend a family kitty called 'Walkers kitty' which was held in Haailand, on the Vijayawada-Guntur highway. My MIL, FIL, Vijay and myself went to the venue. Haailand is a water world, with a few games to play around, junk to eat over, shopping place to get looted with unreasonable prices and heaps of trees-all made of plastic for the people to suffocate and sweat all through. Four of us had a look around the place and reached the conference room, which thankfully was centralized AC, where the kitty will shortly commence.

The huge hall was divided into two sets. One set was for the women to sit and another set was for men. Oh yes, I went to a so called family kitty where the family was separated into men and women!! The kitty was very very disorganized. There were games being conducted for the people and no one seemed to pay any attention to the mike. Tell u what? It was worse than a very boring annual meeting addressed by some big shot. I am not sure if a kitty is just supposed to be very informal.. or very chaotic. To sum it up, the first kitty I attended here was a disaster as far as I am concerned and I dint like it at all...

Tirupati trip, yet again

2010-07-16T12:42:00.000-07:00

This is the third time I walked up the hill from Tirupati to Tirumala. This trip however secured a very special place for itself in the list of my memories. We covered it in the shortest time of 4.5 hours. Surprisingly it seemed less tiring comparatively. Not sure whether the reason is due to the fact that I am pretty much acquainted with the hill or the vibrant energy of complacency in walking hand in hand with my life partner did the magic.

Being considerate to all the walking pilgrims, they gave a direct darshan ticket, which promises a 'very quick' darshan. Hold on to your curiosity till I tell u what this quick practically means. Tirumala, such a sacred place it is. I don't know if the way people and the crowd are being managed is the best that could be done, considering the huge numbers of pilgrims who visit the temple every day or if there are better ways of managing. There were two queues there at the vaikuntam entrance - one for the sheeghra (Rs.300/-) and one for the pilgrims who walked up the hill. Both the queues were not moving by the time we reached there. The in-charge, when asked about the timings when the queues will be released said that the former will be opened at 9PM whereas the later would be opened at 8PM and will take very less time for the darshan and will be quick and direct. Thanks to him, the rest of our relatives deferred the darshan to the following day. Vijay and I joined the direct darshan line at 8PM since both of us had the quick darshan tickets.

The sheeghra darshan queue was opened at 8:15PM and the other line where both of us queued up was released only at 8:45PM. Not sure if this was a sudden change or the in-charge who gave us the information misguided us either deliberately or unknowingly. No announcements what so ever happen there. The people are always left behind with various question marks on their faces, and the rumors spreading like a grape-yard. I don't know if the management really wants it this way or would it cost too much to set up the infrastructure for an announcement system that it is not affordable.

Isn't temple supposed to be unbiased and impartial and treat all the people - the rich and the poor, the educated and the illiterates, the class and the mass in the same way? If an VIP is visiting the temple, he or she is doing it for his or her own interest. Hence, this is considered as his personal work. How ethical is it for him to stop the entire crowd (atleast a few thousands) for almost half an hour for his own personal interest of visiting the God at peace all alone?? Atleast, if there is a set time which says, from so and so time to so and so time(could span for half an hour to one hour) all the lines will be held, if there is a VIP visiting the temple then, which is announced and documented and known to the public that is understandable. But, its truely irksome if the whole line has to just wait at which ever time whoever comes with a VIP tag.

Amidst all this, there was a group of around 10 people who spoke in a native accent of Kannada, who came with the sole aim of pushing the people ahead of them forward and drive a few kids to cry out of suffocation and disturb the peace of the entire line. I tried out my Kannada skills to tell them not to rush and that they wont gain anything more than10 minutes by thrashing all the people around. Instead, they can cooperate and all of us can have a peaceful time. All my efforts proved futile. Not sure if my Kannada was that bad or their determination was that strong. Thanks to the management for making only 10 percent of the fans hanging there functional. Not sure if the rest of them are really non functional due to some issue or were not switched on with any definite intention. Vijay tried to tell a few guys out there to turn the fans on at the very least and that will be a big favor to all of us. They listened to him patiently and left on their way with zero action towards the petition. The only thing that I don't like about Tirumala temple is the fact that there is absolutely NO transparency what so ever. Is there any one at all who can question the management and the way things are being handled? If yes, are they really doing it? or should we wake them up and remind them of their duty?

We somehow managed through and got across being pushed from all the sides. There are a few people from TTD staff standing right in front of the Lord, who are trained for dragging people and throwing them aside without even bothering whether they have fallen down and broken any of their parts or have balanced and intact. If the crowd is peaceful, they cannot digest that fact. They have to create a havoc by taking charge of pushing people aside and creating a chaotic atmosphere., without which their day becomes incomplete. By God's grace, we had a decently good darshan at about 11:55PM. Well, that was a quick darshan with great regards and concerns to the pilgrims who walked up the hill for all of you who dint know what a quick darshan meant(4 complete hours).

Its really high time some one took the initiative of waking up all the people who have the authority of questioning things and thus helping a great deal with a few small amendments which can mean a lot to the people.

Almost died!

2010-06-05T04:09:00.000-07:00

Have u ever had this experience of very narrowly escaping death??? I had it on 4th June 2010 with the grace of the captain in Singapore airlines from Singapore to Bangalore. It was a huge aircraft with lots of people in it. The takeoff at Singapore was pretty smooth. I was enjoying the ride while watching their latest collection of movies - Karthik calling Karthik and Alice in the wonderland., till the captain announced that we would be landing in the next 20 mins and asked the cabin crew to prepare for the landing, which included snatching away all our headphones.

While the total attention was on the flight and its landing, there was a free fall of the flight for a few seconds(I guess a few seconds.. dont even remember how long it was for). The people in the flight started shouting in their native languages. I heard someone shouting in telugu - 'Ayyo.. Padipothundhi flight. awww... ', which means 'Oops.. the flight lost it balance and is falling down.. awww...'. Then the balance was maintained and before even people could come out of the shock, there was another free fall within a few secconds.. This time, I also shouted. My heart was almost in my hand. I dont even know what was the pulse rate. It was beating very rapidly. I just dint know what to do? I am going to die miserably with a free fall from atleast a thousand metres. How do I react? I was looking for someone from the cabin crew. None of them were around. Was wondering if I should pull out my life jacket from under the seat and jump out of the emergency door. My mind was blank. All I could utter was - 'Om Namo Narayanaya'. The flight had so many people - it had kids, young people like me and old people. If I got so scared, I dont have to tell you about the rest of the categories.

With all this havoc, the pilot continued the flight without even bothering to announce whether we will all land in single pieces on this mother Earth, still in a position to breathe its air... or if we are in danger. He dint give a damn about all the chaos and fear of the crowd. If you are flying 5 mins behind the schedule, that makes an announcement. If you are taking off 2 mins late due to a lot of aircrafts waiting for take off before you, that becomes another announcement. If there is turbulence in the atm, there will be yet another disturbance when you are watching a movie due to their announcement. When such things which really wont make a difference or which wont mean much are being announced, its really strange that people are left to die with fear and no one made a mention of such a situation.. If this is the case with Singapore airlines, dont even ask me about the rest of the airlines.

Now, I still dont know whether he was practising for some aircraft games on the sky with all of us in it, or whether it was really unavoidable and he had to take a free fall twice due to whatever conditions. The landing was too bad. It was so rash. But we were all glad that we had indeed landed with all parts intact. With the increasing number of planes and the airlines, is the quality proportionately decreasing? With the flight accidents and misfortunes going up rapidly, are enough measures being taken to prevent them or are the lessons just limited as grass for the media to feed on and people to talk about for a few days???

Red bus: Epitome of pathetic customer service!

2010-06-02T05:37:00.000-07:00

With deep regrets I write this blog today.. for the simple fact that Red bus was a start up by BITSians. As a BITSian, its quite natural to be a bit partial to your own college.. I had a very bad customer service from them, this not being the first one, but the one that made me reach the yield point/breaking point. Below is the mail that I had sent to their customer service.. I honestly dont know if this means anything to them.. or if they even care about this. But, I want it give it my best shot to let them know that they were bad and they do need improvement. If they already knew it and decided not to bother about it, well, God save them.. because they will be left with no more customers on one fine day. Its high time they realize the fact - ' If you dont take care of the customers, someone else will'

To whoever it may concern,

I know that red bus has been started by BITSians. As a BITSian, I expect atleast some standards to be maintained. The customer service is worst than poor.

I last called the redbus in Bangalore to get 3 tickets booked(1 for forward journey and 2 for return). Inspite of repeatedly confirming the return date, I received a message on my mobile mentioning the confirmation of the ticket for a wrong date. I had to call back again and wait endlessly for someone to answer my call for something which is the fault of the red bus service person, who ever booked the ticket. Its a shear time waste to me. Instead of going into the website of the private bus company, say kesinesi directly and booking the ticket, the only reason why I go through red bus is to save some time in entering all the details over their website. However, my purpose is not solved and my time was even wasted.

After booking the ticket, I told very specifically that I need the ticket delived on the same day, because I was flying to Indonesia the next day, which is a sunday and is holiday for red bus. I had booked my tickets on a saturday morning and given a whole lead time of 1 day. I dint get the tickets delivered. I was promised that the soft copy of the tickets will be delivered after the hard copy is handed over. I organized one of my friends to pay the money and collect the tickets. I dint receive any soft copy of the tickets. My friend again called up and requested them to send across my tickets to my email ID. They still dint! I dont understand what kind of a customer service this is? If you cannot deliver, please admit in advance so that I will look for alternatives.

I really don’t know if this email means anything to you guys.. But I just want to let u know that u lost your good will… Definitely, I will never book with red bus again after all this inconvenience caused not only to me, but my friend at India who has been following up for me and wasting his time. I will communicate this experience with all my friends in the corporate world and make sure that they dont face similar experience by choosing red bus.. and waste their valuable time..

one more..

2010-05-31T07:44:00.000-07:00

I dont know when it actually happened
Still wondering, not able to comprehend
Not everything can really be reasoned

with all my fears lessened
the heart feels more lightened
and the life seems more brightened

With the days now flattened
the feelings of bliss in me burgeoned
with a spark that sharply glistened

With my heart more widened
I welcome this change fecund
and have a new life Summoned

Just an attempt..

2010-05-30T08:51:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you dont know why
The only limit is the sky
For the wings of love to fly!

The rivers might dry,
but the spirits always high..
The best way you try,
to avoid every sigh!!

The smallest of the ply
gives boundless joy
When done for thy!

Jakarta

2010-05-27T06:20:00.000-07:00

Very reluctantly I packed my bag to the last destination of the project, Indonesia! I heard volumes about the place, none of which motivated me towards the advent of the journey. If you have to do, you have to! This was one such trip, where I marched ahead because I had to. Having noted a couple of Indian eat outs, I decided not to roam around the place much. I reached the airport at 11:30AM. After getting the visa on arrival, I was wondering where the baggage chain is.. without realizing that I need to go through the immigration. The line for the immigration seemed endless. No wonder it took 2 hrs to finish the process and come out of the airport.

After a tough competition between the two parties, with my heavy eyes waiting to catch some sleep at one end and heaps of work at office not willing to let me rest at the other end, needless to say that the former lost the battle and I was at work by 3:00PM. But the war continued in the office and finally at 7:30PM it reached the yield point when the hunger in my stomach also aided my sleepy eyes. I walked across the street to a restaurant called "Ganesha", which is around 10 minutes walk from my office. Contrary to Singapore and Taiwan, this place is devoid of zebra crossing. I had to run past the junction to reach the other end safely. At the other end, there was a typical "awara" looking guy sitting on his bike and calling me towards him. I ignored him and reached the restaurant. I ordered a veg biryani and got it packed and set on my way back to the hotel so that I can relish my dinner taking my own sweet time.

At every 20 foot distance, there are a group of guys sitting on the bikes or standing next to them and trying to call me - 'hello miss!'. I ignored them all and walked as fast as I could to my hotel. It was a very different experience to have on the first day of your stay at any country. With all that I heard about this place, this wierd encounter made me dislike this place further. Had my veg biryani with various thoughts running in my head. I went to bed pretty early, giving the credit of the hard earned battle to my eyes.

Just like the popular news channels selling and reselling the same news again and again early in the morning till the viewers have it all in their heads word by word, I shared my experience with a few of my colleagues at office. One of them enlightened me - "Did u know something? Bikes are a mode of transportation here, just like the auto rickshaws in India. Those guys would have called you thinking you to be a prospective passenger to them - 90% probability. However, please dont go alone on the streets late in the night". Late in the night??? and 7:30 PM!! I was dumbstruck!

Hope!

2010-05-20T06:59:00.000-07:00

After losing all the hopes on going Back to India anytime before 4th June, I just gave it a try and requested to go to India over this weekend. To my surprise, the stake holders confirmed that I am not required at Indonesia before monday(24/05/2010). I really was on cloud 9. I informed all the people that I knew that I am coming over to India over the weekend. My excitement knew no bounds yesterday with the thought that I will be travelling home(Hyd) instead of Bangalore. I am really not exaggerating when i say that I almost started to fly in the air with the excitement. You wont believe me if I tell you that I had spent two whole hours in packing the suitcase 'back home'!Dint realize it myself!

Knowing the fact that it is a very short trip of 2 days, I started calculating the number of hours that I would be home and the various activities that I need to do - discuss about MY engagement arrangements, finish the left over shopping, catch up with a few people, the list goes on. I estimated time for each of these and was wondering if I would be left with any 'free' time as such! well, while I am still on the major planning spree, the travel desk at my company gave me a flabbergasting news! - "The tickets.... are not yet confirmed! Its on waiting list.. It wont be possible to get them confirmed! We will try our best." Try your best??!!? But I am psychologically prepared! It would have been a different case if I weren't informed yesterday that I could go to India. After enrooting the hopes in me, its tough to accept the change..

I truely want to go back..I always believed in - 'If you really want something, the whole universe conspires for you to achieve it'. I should be in the flight by this time tomorrow if things go as per my expectations. I am still sitting here and blogging holding bundles of uncertainity behind. I am filled with endless hope though the boat is drifting towards hopeless end. And tell u what? As I just finished the sentence before this, the pop up on the task bar indicated the arrival of a new mail in my inbox. Guess who it is from? Its from the travel desk...As I opened the mail, I was probably more curious than u are while reading this.. whether it will be a confirmation mail saying that the tickets are not obtained? or will it be the reality to my hope? And.. Yes!! my ticket is confirmed to Bangalore, though not Hyderabad. I will be travelling on a different airlines, with a delay of 3 hours to expected time! :) :) :)

Missing her a lot!

2010-05-18T07:05:00.000-07:00

It has exactly been three weeks since I departed from her, though it feels like three months! Not a single day went by without having her in my thoughts. Nothing in this world can divert my attention from her..Never realized when it actually happened.. Only after parting from her did I comprehend that she means a lot to me! Having spent over 24 years in her esteemed presence, I really am feeling the emptyness she left behind, with her absence around me. I cant tell u how much I am longing to go back and see her. I know this parting is just momentary. I will surely go back to her very soon. Still, I cant help missing her, from the bottom of my heart. I think about her when I walk across the street to the bus stop nearby, when I had to remain contended with the stuff that i eat for my lunch, on my way back from office, while wandering around the malls, over my telephonic conversations back home, while going to bed... pretty much every moment I am away from her! I love her, I love my India!

Sravani Kanamarlapudi and me!

2010-05-09T10:14:00.000-07:00

For quite a few years, whenever I open a google page and type my own name, 'Sravani Kanamarlapudi' and search for the results, along with the various pages related to me, I also noticed another page which doesn't belong to me. Sravani Kanamarlapudi from IITR. What a coincidence! A few years back, I got a friend request from a guy from IITR. Having seen a few mutual friends, I thought I knew him and was not able to place him. Apparently, he sent the friend request mistaking me to his friend at IITR. Today, I went to "little India" to meet him and got introduced to the person in that page which does not belong to me on the goolge search of my name, Sravani Kanamarlapudi. The coincident lines almsot turned into concurrent lines at a point as we spoke. She is also brought up at Hyd.

The curiosity in the six eyes staring at us was flashing bright. Her native is in Prakasam dist too. And more so, it is also a small village close to a town called Ongole. Oh common, dont tell me she will end up to be a distant relative of mine and I have not known her for all these years!! The three folks who were with us couldn't take the suspence any longer, they are all set to hear the names of the villages. And.. to break the climax, they are not the same :) But, its quite close. It felt really nice to meet someone with the same first and last names as that of mine, who was born and brought up at the same place as I was, whose native is in the same district and close to the same town, similar to mine, who did her under graduation at a reputed place just like I did, whose profile I have been seeing all through ever since I started exploring the internet..Though it was a very short meet, its a very exciting and memorable one!

Carrot juice: Disaster

2010-05-08T08:36:00.000-07:00

Happy after having a delicious North Indian thali at a food court near my office in Singapore, I wanted to complete the lunch with a juice. At the juice stall, the peeled carrots were red and looked really yummmmmy. So, without any second thoughts, chose a carrot juice. Neither did I explicitly specify to add sugar in it, nor did she take the initiative to do so, having known the fact that the carrots were not sweet enough. After a sip, I realized that it would be great if it had a spoon of sugar in it. I looked around the counter to locate some sugar. Right next to her was a bottle of white crystals of the same size as that of the cystral sugar in India. The bottle had a huge circular opening(about 1 cm in diameter) at the top to take the white crystals out of it as against to the small opening on a bottle of salt. After stuffing in a pinch of it into my glass, I just helped myself to taste a few crystals only to realize that I saved a big disaster! It was indeed SALT!!! I have seen crystal salt, which is close to about half a centimeter in length. I had never(never before today) seen the so called crystal salt that looks just similar to sugar(in size), in a bottle with a huge opening in an outrageously deceptive way. Irritated with their wierd salt, I was happy that I saved my carrot juice and myself from that illusionary material. Amidst all this, Naveen with an intention of helping me came running to hold the disposable glass of juice from my hand and tested the strength of his hand against that of the plastic glass and finally ended up successfully splashing it everywhere including my cute top, thus making the disaster inevitable!

booze is the culprit!

2010-05-08T05:35:00.000-07:00

Initially I used to keep the people who booze at a distance. I somehow hated that habit for a couple of reasons. One of them being the fact that I dont like anything that makes a person a way too addicted to it(There are a few exceptions to it though ;)). Second, people take it as an excuse to do all kinds of insane things under the cover of booze. They always have an excuse to say, 'I was not in my senses yesterday. Sorry about my behaviour.' How stupid!!?

Oflate I changed my opinion as I realized that not all people who booze are bad. Neither there is any truth in my generalization that ALL people get out of their senses after boozing nor is there 100% surity that ALL who drink are actually addicted to it. May be some of them are. oh, they really are.. But, not all of them! Having said that, I must also say that it is still valid to say that the actual character of a person can be judged or seen after he is drunk. Well, I still HATE that habit from the core, as I always did. But, I dont hate all of them who booze!

Singapore Flier

2010-05-02T06:31:00.000-07:00

Its a lazy sunday afternoon when a couple of thoughts rang the bell to drive away my lazyness. The 1st time I stepped into Singapore, the taxi driver showed me a giant wheel kinda structure and told me that its called Singapore flier and you should not leave this place without experiencing it. "This is called Singapore flier? It looks like a bigger version of the giant wheel at the Indian exhibitions! wats a big deal in it?" This was my reaction on day 1.

Today I went out to City hall nearby, to meet my friend's friend(Swapnil) and his wife(Neha). I found out the directions to the city hall from the concierge at the hotel. Set out for the meet. I got down from the bus at some place which i thought was the destination. Yes, it was the destination. I walked across to the MRT where i saw them. Though i had not met them before, it felt really good to meet them at this new place. After talking for a while, we went around the mall for shopping. I dint find anything worth buying. So, i just got a pair of earrings as a token of the place.

We walked onto the road. Swapnil left both of us to spend the rest of the evening and went to attend a meeting at office. Neha was very friendly and bubbly girl..(Can you believe this? I claim to be very bubbly and I am praising some else?!). We could see Singapore flier from the place we were standing. At once, i recollected what my taxi driver said. Neha also said that she had not been to the place and asked if we can go along? We both picked up a map from the nearest customer service stall, kept asking people around and managed to reach the place. Like a typical airport, they scan your baggage, check the barcode of your ticket, and finally let u into one of the capsules of the giant wheel. It was indeed huge.. So huge that each capsule could accommodate more than 15 people without the slightest discomfort. Luckyly, our capusle had only 8 of us.

We went crazy once we reached the top most point. The wheel rotates very slowly. It takes 30 mins to complete one rotation. It gives the view of the entire Singapore. Singapore is not that big ;). Also, it gives a bit of insight into Indonesia. It was a very good sight. Especially we went in at around 6:50, which was a very perfect timing. If there was a running commentry indicating the places around and explaining a bit about each, it would have amplified the experience as such.

The bus stops here in Singapore are very friendly. They have the various destinations in an index format in an alphabetical order. Against each place, there are bus numbers of all the buses which arrive at that station and go towards your destination written. On the other side of the board at the bus stop, you have the route map for each bus number. The frequency of the buses is also remarkably good. I am not exaggerating when I tell the fact that I had not waited for more than 5 minutes at any bus stop for the last 5 days that I am here. I am truely impressed!!

Thanks to Swapnil and Neha for changing my lazy sunday to fun filled memorable evening!! Thanks to dada for facilitating our meet..

Cruise @ Singapore

2010-05-01T08:47:00.000-07:00

Well prepared to rock at Singapore, i made a big checklist with all the things that i want to do.. and places I want to visit. One of those was to go on a ferry. Yesterday, we had mid project celebrations on a cruise which was exclusively for us(ANZ). It was quite a good timing. The cruise started at 7PM, just after the sun set. As the darkness amplified with time, the beauty of Singapore and the fun of the cruise journey also augmented. Though I dint get the pleasure of sitting at the edge of the cruise with the water splashing across my legs at regular intervals, it gave me immense pleasure to be sandwiched between the pleasant blue sky and the deep blue water.

Before the cruise started, i had a hundred questions running in my little head.. Aren't we starting at a wrong time? Isn't the water current high at this time? How do we ensure that the people are spread across the cruise and not concentrated at only one side of it eventually leading the boat to topple down? How deep is this water? The water indeed looked wild before starting. I dont know where all these questions were side lined once we were on our way. I was too busy enjoying every minute of the beautiful ride. All of us screamed in unison when we were half way through, at the beautiful site of fireworks on a distant island..

With the cold breeze blowing across, the pleasing sound of water as we progress along, glittering lights here and there from the other boats around, the clowdy sky with twinkling stars, the naughty full moon intermittently hiding behind the clouds, soothing music being played.. what else do u need?? It was a place just too perfect... How I wish I had my special someone with me in such a romantic evening to just make it a complete one!

Haunted?

2010-05-01T07:31:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Vijay for sending me across an article on the internet, which says that the hotel i was staying at in Taipei is haunted. The story says that as it was built on some cremation ground, the hotel is haunted. Though i was scared for a few minutes, i realized that its all a psychological feeling. The first day i stepped into the hotel(when i dint know the story behind the ghots dwelling in that place), I heard a few sounds outside. I rushed to the see through glass and realized that the acoustics of the building were indeed pathetic. If any living creature walks across the corridor, you can hear the foot steps inside your room. It can be understood if a guy next door is opening the door and you can hear a vibration in your door. But, its surprising to see that if a guy opposite door opens/closes his door, you can feel the jerk in your door. Now, if a person enters the hotel with all the historic knowledge on the place, he surely will attribute all the above to ghosts and will not dare to investigate, or even try to see the truth behind it.

After a few days, my friend Mr.Felix Suresh Chelladurai gives me his version of the story supporting the ghosts in the hotel. His narration skills probably were enough convincing that it kept me worried for the next two days. The moment i enter the hotel room, i used to play 'vishnusahasranamam' from my mobile and feel that it clears off the ghosts in the room. I happened to stay on the 13th floor. 13 as a number is not considered sacred. There is another story which says that the ghosts cannot climb beyond the 11th floor. Sometimes, fear is the worst feeling than anything else in this world. It kills the person every minute! It conquers the person to the extent that they even fail to think normally and come out of it. After giving myself sometime, I could answer back every story that Felix had told me with a proper justification. I managed to come out of the fear and enjoyed my stay!

Expedition!

2010-05-01T05:39:00.000-07:00

It was a foggy night when Naveen, Anand, PC and I left office at Taiwan. PC decided to remain contended with the drinks. The rest of us went into a vast food court in the next building to have our dinner. Without a second thought, we moved into "Indian food palace", where the guy showed us his watch and said, its 10 mins past the closing time. We looked around the food court only to realize the fact that everyone has closed down. Do you know what time it was then? 9:10PM!!! Yes, Taiwan closes down by 9PM, except the night markets! We have already had an awful experience at the night market one day. With a hope to find a few good souvenirs or some petty stuff that would help us reminisce Taiwan, we walked into a night market on a rainy day. We probably chose the wrong night market. It was filled with food stalls, which were all competing in emanating the aroma of the local food. The fragrance reminded us of some sewage in India!

Tired and hungry, we started looking around with a wild hope to find any open food palace. After walking over kilometer and a half, we found a pizza hut which was open. We rushed in, placed our order and sat there, calculating the length of each minute. We finally got our order in about 40 minutes. We gulped the pizzas and walked back to the hotel.

People at Taiwan are really very hospitable. But, it would have been a good place to hang around, if only they all knew english! It takes energy equivalent to a meal, to explain the people what you want for your meal! I expect Taiwan to be good at Chinese food.. Fried rice is a common dish at any chinese place. Alas, that was just my assumption! or a common misconception.. It took us about 10 minutes to explain a lady at a stall in a food court that we were asking her for egg fried rice. We had to show her the photo of an egg, rice and enact the frying act before her to make her understand what we were looking for. That was not all.. May be we weren' t really good at mime or acting.. There was a girl around who knew english. She did the honours of translating. We were really glad to see that she made it exactly how we wanted!

It was an experience in itself, to hunt for what we want. We have to hunt and explore for it because what they have is something that we surely wont like to have, especially for a vegetarian. Once we figure it out, we used to spend the rest of the time trying to explain the customizations to the cook and wait with the fingers crossed till we see the outcome.!

Taiwan

2010-04-29T09:52:00.000-07:00

Yes, i happened to travel out of India for the first time ever! It was a 4 day trip to start with. Singapore airlines, my 1st international flight. For the kind of rigorous planning that I normally do even for the smallest of the things, I should ideally have planned very well for this most awaited onsite. However, I was in a different world.. Absolutely no planning, what so ever! It dint even strike my head that i need to google for a few Indian restaurants atleast.. May be the fact that its just a matter of 4 days made me relluctant. Apparently, I dint find a single Indian there other than my manager. I had no one to even bother about my where abouts. To my great luck, to get a SIM card in Taiwan, they not only require your passport, but also your PAN card!(An Indian PAN card!!!!, which i conveniently left back in India). Strange and bitter experience it was to be at a land far far away from my people, without any means of communication with them either!

When i landed in India after the 4 day stay at Taiwan, I felt so relieved. I dont want to sound dramatic, but the truth is that i was longing to take a look at the cooked rice!! I dint even get to see rice for 4 long days! Well, having got such a great experience, i was all set for my next trip to Taiwan again, for 10 days! There were heaps of Indians this time, who came in for the project from Bangalore office, just like me. They all reached well before me, found out the places to hang around, eat, walk along, shop.. etc. All i had to do was just join them :D It was great fun! What was the difference between the last trip and this one? Its still the same place, the same hotel, the same office, the same work!! But, this time I had friends to go around with, to share the feelings across, to talk out to.. and ofcourse, i had a mobile and a Taiwan SIM Card this time :)

A break @ Mangalore!!

2010-01-08T11:56:00.000-08:00

In the tough schedule where i am hardly finding time to cook leisurely and eat, I decided to take a break..! I decided, "Come what may, I am going to Mangalore for 3 days", Quickly, i had set things in place to ensure no significant damange @ office during my trip. I also made sure to stuff my bag with loads of things that there was no place for the office laptop..

Planning is very important for any activity. But, not all things happen as planned. We should also learn how to mitigate the deviations in planning. Out of the 7 tickets booked, 3 people backed out one after the other for reasons which i still feel could have been handled without skipping the trip too.. But anyways, they chose to evade the mitigation plan altogether. But i was so particular that we should not dampen our spirits looking at such drop outs. And yes, admist all the uncertainty, four of us finally set off to Mangalore on a thursday night..(If you really want something, the whole universe conspires for you to achieve it!!)

That was my first journey in a sleeper bus. I was so excited about the journey and it was indeed a great experience. The moment i stepped out of the bus in Mangalore, I cross checked the bus to read the name plate - "Bangalore-Mangalore". I wondered if i were in Ooty.. The place is so green.. the climate so pleasant..and the timing so apt!! I definitely did not go there to note the statistics, but i couldn't help noticing the fact that every house had a well and a coconut tree as mandates..

We had gone to Kuki and Dharmasthala. I had seen the biggest ever line of my lifetime there at Dharmasthala. We went half mad looking at such a long line.. We thought we will atleast figure out where the line ends.. and by the time we figured it out, we realized that we were just 10 steps away from "gomateswar"!! We went there took a few pics and started back on our return journey..

I must say that the best thing about Mangalore is the sight of the beach!! Apparently, the clouds have disappointed all of us from watching a beautiful sunset. But, the pleasure that i got that evening in sitting on a small stone at the beach with waves of water at regular intervals touching my feet in itself is something that i cannot put in words.

Maggy had taken us through Mangalore at a glimpse in this car, trying to cover as many places as possible in the available short time..The moment, we went to his house, we were all busy in showcasing our photography abilities..It was very well maintained, i must say! No wonder, it won the best small garden award for 3 consecutive years in Mangalore.

All the three days that i spent there, i did not think about anything else.. no office... no work.. it was a great break.. just like all the good things come to an end, the time flew so fast that i was back in Bangalore again!! Thanks Sush for the wonderful hosting!! Hemanth, KP and Rajesh, am sure u are already repenting for not making it to such a great trip... Better luck next time..

A day out in the farm!!

2009-12-06T03:31:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, i had a very good experience.. an experience filled with joy, pleasure and happiness...After a long hectic week, all i was longing for is a weekend... a weekend where i can take a break.. and sleep..But contrary to that, i got an opportunity to visit a village.. I was delighted to see the innocent people, pollution free blue sky, wide species of birds, the greenary.. and various small streams of water flowing here and there..!! what else do I need on that weekend to take a break from the mundane routine?

I had seen the cocoon culturing division..while i was still trying to recollect the school days where my science teacher taught about sericulture, fresh coconuts were given to us..I took the coconut and was waiting.. Sandip did not take a moment to think once he got his coconut.. he was so excited and tried to gulp it all directly into his mouth and eventually fed his shirt with good amount of coconut water! Kumar almost followed Sandy.. i was still holding the coconut in my hand while the others were ready for the second one.. i was waiting for a straw :P At once i realized where i was.. i was in a farm.. under a coconut tree and was expecting a straw.. For the first time ever, i tried lifting up the huge coconut and managed to drink it with almost negligible fuss and without making a fool out of myself :D

Kumar, Sandy and I shared the farm into sections and started harvesting the raagi.. Kumar underestimated our capacity and just got one gunny bag where we were dumping the raagi extract from the field. In the scorching sun we were on our task for the time time ever.. trying to learn from our own mistakes and sharing the best practices across..Sandip was emphasizing on the requirement of peer review.. While we were too engrossed with our task, we had two ox's not so tightly tied staring at us. Unsure of when they will break the rope apart and test the strength of their horns, we collectively managed to harvest one third of the 1.6 acre farm in a couple of hours time. I had taken a couple of snaps with the collected raagi like a proud farmer.. To dampen all my pride, Kumar told me the fact that after processing the extract into raagi, it will hardly make 1KG or 2!! Hard to accept, but he is infact right. A farmer works so hard all through the season fighting hard with the rain Gods.. at the mercy of nature.. and might sometimes end up not even being self-sufficient with his hard earned harvest..

After one round around the place.. with Kumar guiding us on the various varieties of birds (of which i honestly dont remember a single name while i compose this blog)...we were all set to drive back home at around 3:30.. But Govindanna's(a farmer around) wife insisted that we should have lunch there. Their lunch was so simple.. Rice(with almost no polish), butter milk and lemon pickle.. They were all eating it sooo happily.. All it takes to be happy is just the attitude towards life..We had lunch and came back homes.. But the day left me with loads of thoughts.. thoughts that are still running in my head..

Cricket match!!!!

2009-11-18T09:24:00.000-08:00

After a very long time, i got this wonderful opportunity of posing on a cricket pitch!! There was a cricket match organized in our office by our team over the last saturday.. The rules of the game include the involvement of two women players in each team with the opening bats women being them for the 1st two overs.. where we had under arm bouling :D (btw.. i was a pseudo member of the organizing committee :) ) Ofcourse, needless to say that the highly enthued Sravani is in demand!! lol! I gave my consent to one of the teams out of four. The selection was kinda tough.. but i had to oblige after the captain promised me a treat!

There were three matches in total.. Abhik's team Vs Vikranth's team.. It was outrageously hilarious to watch the match with Abhishek and Adam taking up the charge of being the commentators and me trying to interrupt them in between.. with the people who are slightly weak in mathematics doing the manual scoring using the scoring sheets. Somehow, Abhik won the match! The second match was between Shridhar's team(the lucky team for having got me in it!) and Raimon's team. Adam seemed a bit too confident, walking like a lion on the pitch..

Shereen and I practised enough for 1 long hour to thrash the other team down. However, the bouler on the other side, Sushma, seemed to have practised even more ;). 5 balls is all it took for her to throw us out of the ground.. I faced the 1st ball.. while i was still wondering as to where the ball has gone, it is in the keeper's hand! I prepared myself for a shot in the next ball.. Apparently, before i could manage to relax after a big swing of my bat in the attempt of thrashing the ball, the ball comfortably hit the wickets behind me :( and i was thrown out of the ground..

Wondering about what had happened in fractions of seconds, i sat there watching the rest of my team mates hitting boundaries after boundaries.. I was cheering them and wishing for our team to win the match so that I can again get a chance to play.. this time, to really play the game and not just pose on the ground.. Irrespective of Adam's futile attempts, the Indian pitch did not seem to be favourable to him.. the Sachin of our team, Mallik hit him with sixes on alternate balls!! Yes..if you really want something, the whole universe conspires for you to achieve it.. we won the match and secured a place in the finals to compete with Abhik's team. I must say Vikrant did a great job as a commentator for this match and constantly managed to get Adam on his nerves.

After lunch, we had the final match.. We won the toss and chose to bat first. Shereen and I are all set to make a mark this time, unlike the last match. We thought about nothing else.. as the ball arrived, we just bashed it towards any random direction and ran across for the run. I had to dive forward stretching my bat forwards to save my wicket at one point of time..and.. we managed to give a score of 9 to the team at the end of 2 overs.. with both of us not out. We were so proud of our performance. I was so proud of my dive.. my 1st ever dive on a cricket ground. Probably the rest of the people in my team were also so excited with our performance that they apparently forgot to perform to their best :P ;) and we lost the match :D Afterall, it was just a match! But it made our day.. We had so much fun..It was masthi unlimited..

Pollution Vs Diwali

2009-10-17T11:43:00.000-07:00

Yes.. today is Diwali.. Firstly, I wish you all a very happy and safe diwali :) Oflate i have been thinking how powerful nature is! Floods.. droughts.. earth quakes.. what not!! These are the things which no one can do anything about! well.. is it really so? Is it all because of nature that all these things are happening without any involvement of us? I dont really think so.. well, there is a lot of pollution around. There are ten people going from a destination A to a destination B. And, they would want to go on ten different vehicles, all of them polluting the atmosphere in their own fashion.. and i really dunno if any of those ten people trying to pollute the air by ten different means atleast even think of planting some trees to compensate for the loss..well, they wont! why will they? how does it matter to them? they just want comfort..

I have personally seen a lot people in my office calling multiple lifts at the same time, as they cannot afford to wait for 2 mins till the lift called comes. So, they want to call all the available lifts.. which ever comes first, they will take it.. The rest of them just waste the electricity and come in vain.. Not just this, people are so relluctant to shut down the computers while leaving for the day. Especially in the software companies, it is utmost important that one does not waste so much of electricity knowingly.. It takes a lot to produce one unit of electricity.. but who cares? we wont!!

And especially on this day of Diwali, i feel like writing this.. because as i write this blog, i can hear a lot of noises around.. of the crackers and bombs that people have been indescriminately firing since 4 hours giving no break for the air to calm down.. so much of air and noise pollution!! Yes, Diwali is the festival of lights and we should have fun.. but, one should always draw a line.. you can fire a couple of crackers.. just to drive away the flies and insects around.. but you should not just go on and on with it to the extent that a person with sensitive ears goes deaf in that noise! And again, are we doing something to atleast reconcile for the loss being created to the natures balance? Definitely, not!! Then, none of us have any right to blame the Mother nature for getting wild.. we are the culprits for making it lose its balance and roar at us in regular intervals.

The shorter, the sweeter!!

2009-09-06T04:57:00.001-07:00

Of late, i happened to have a chance to glance through a couple of blogs.. I start reading them with great interest to start with, but apparently, when it comes to nearly half way through the journey, i get exhausted.. the interest ceases to exist.. I dunno if the blogger is trying to express so much on something that he/she is just pouring out all of it in one single shot.. or is it that i restrict my blogs to only a couple of paragrahs that i am finding others blogs a bit too lenthy??

As far as i am concerned, the blogs should act like a refreshing tonic to read through and get the views of the other person. I realized that the shorter the blog is, the sweater it is.. unless the author is a too good at writing! Atleast I hate to read long blogs.. If someone has succeeded in making me read a real long blog from top to bottom with the same interest, either the person has really expressed it in a way that is too interesting, or the person has similar thoughts as that of mine.. or the topic in itself has the magnetic effect!! Having said all this, i will stop this blog here [;)]

Change!!

2009-09-06T04:26:00.000-07:00

Change is inevitable.. If things dont change, it gets really boring.. and if they do, it will be challenging.. but if they do too much, it makes life hell! There is a line drawn for anything. For instance, a fish is happy inside the water body. Not that it doesn't have its challenges inside that vast water body. If we get it out of its comfort zone and throw it on the land, you cannot term that as an attempt to make the fish to be more competitive and challenging.. it is beyond argument, a cold blooded attempt of making its life a hell!!

If a drastic change in itself is so dangerous, how pleasant a feeling it is to be amidst people who are not at all cooperative, deriving sadistic pleasure out of watching the fish struggle to reach back to its comfort zone?? The poor fish is happy in the aquarium.. some ppl watch it and enjoy by restricting its space.. narrowing down its zone of comfort.. while some others go to an even more higher level by taking it out of the aquarim and watching it struggle for its life on the land. Is it the mistake of the fish's fate to get into that aquarium in the 1st place?? Even if it is not happy inside and wants to just get away from there, back to its sweet home, does it really have an option??

Well, there cannot really be a solution for everything.. I once thought, if the problem is complicated, there will always be a smart solution for it. Afterall, if a brain can think and propose a problem, it can also think and get a solution for it.. But now, i need to think over it again.. before i confess that what i had thought once upon a time is not completely correct..!!

time..!

2009-08-29T11:29:00.000-07:00

Time.. the most precious thing in this world! It is infact priceless.. Oflate it gives me a feeling that time is just flying by.. I cant believe it is exactly 2 years since i started my professional career. Yes.. August 30th 2007 it was when i stepped into ANZ. It doesn't really feel like it... its hard to think that it was 2 years back that i had a chat with my manager about my short term career goals.. It is only now, as the short-term is almost close to an end that i started realizing the pace at which time runs and drags us along with it..

yes.. it takes a moment for a minute to exhaust.. but, the memories collected are for sure indelible.. As i sit today and think about those pages of my professional diary, i can see the vivid picture of the journey that i went through.. it has tons of cherishable events, gloomy scenarios, strategies, a lot of good friends..

Am i too busy to realize that the time is making me run along with it? or is it really true that the earth started revolving faster of late? ;) Definitely, the latter is not possible.. yes! i am busy.. so busy that i dont even get time to blog.. to read others blogs.. to do complete justice to the various creative ideas in my head.. Thanks to the competitive corporate world.. i wish we soon start living each moment of the life fully, rather than just letting the moments pass by..

media!!

2009-07-13T09:59:00.000-07:00

Media... is definitely the widely used mode to reach public. Especially the news channels are widely being used by today's busy world to keep themselves updated of the latest info. Undoubtedly, they are not just the dump pits of information.. Every bit of info that they provide makes a remarkable impression in many tendure hearts. It indeed has a great role to play in paving the way for a brighter India. If not just used as a commercial mode, it can make wonders.

But how far are they presenting the facts and figures? How much of the information that you see is free of exaggeration? Just give them a thread and they will knit a beautiful net out of it.. competing with each other as to whose net is more appealing..In their mad race to become more popular, they are distorting the total communication.. who will take the ownership of the damage that they create with their "commercialized form" of information? When will ppl get to hear the factual info and not the grape wine?? If the sponsorers for the ads cease to do so atleast during the time of the news, will the situation be any better?

Is democracy the right thing all the time???

2009-05-23T03:52:00.000-07:00

We are a group of 11...set up for another trip to some place near bangalore.. we are a group who strongly believes in democracy.. this is what happened..

P1: How many day trip is it? are we ok for a 2/3 day trip?
P2/3: I prefer 1 day.. though i am open to 2/3 day trip too
P3/4/5/6/7/8: I am ok with 2/3 day trip
P9/10: Cannot make it for more than a day
P1: OK then, lets jort down what all we have around bangalore for one day fun..
P2/9: No water places.. water places in summers will really be very sad..
P3: Wonderla!!!!! Its not a natural water place.. there are a lot of rides.. we can have fun..
P10: i dont mind it though.. but do we have any other options?
P1: How about Film city?? It has go carting too.. there is maze.. and i a sure we can have lotsa fun there..
P9: hmm.. does not sound all that bad.. but can we think about Lepakshi?
P3: No......not in this scorching sun
P2: How about Guhantara?
P9: hmm.. i am not for artificial caves and stuff.. but considering that we are all going together, i think we can have fun..
.
.
the conversation goes on..
.
needless to say that we dint come to any conclusion.. definitely, we wont!! afterall, no two individuals think alike..and we are totally 11 brains thinking at the same time.. If a small decison goes into a loop with just 11 people, what will be the situation at a higher level?? How difficult is it to manage a whole lot of people in a "democratic" country like India???

No wonder we have so many people voice out their views against every single decision taken with their own philosophy to be against... its truely understandable... All that is required is a little time.. That acts like a fuel to burn the situation and policy in all possible angles.. Now its time for me to re think, does democracy do good in all respects at all times??? or should there be some exceptions for our own betterment??

Blogging Vs Regular Blogging

2009-04-06T08:24:00.000-07:00

Blogging definitely is not all that difficult.. But blogging regularly is..!! Each time i let my fingers dance on this panel while letting my thoughts flow by, i decide to come back and do that more and more often..But, i hardly end up with a count of one blog a month!

It so happens that i get a huge flood of ideas when i am too busy swimming in an ocean of work trying to figure out for an island..or i get some very important work when i am in the middle of a blog.. and hence end up leaving it as a draft forever!! afterall, its not that easy to continue a left over piece of work for ages.. be it continuing someone else's or ur own work.. it doesn't matter..!!

well... ahh.. here it comes.. i gotta log off now.. but this time, i am not gonna leave this blog unpublished for ages down the line.. and finally discard it!! i will put an end to that trend.. i will publish it as it is..!!!!

Man proposes.. God disposes

2009-03-05T09:36:00.000-08:00

I should have been in Hyderabad as i write this blog if things had happened the way i had planned... It was a very important day in the life of my dear friend Kamy.. and i really really wanted to be present on this most important day in her life, her wedding.. Generally it so happens that whenever i plan to go to Hyderabad, i plan the leave well in advance and somehow manage to goof up with the tickets and the plan gets toppled down due to unavailability of tickets. This time i had booked the tickets well in advance, applied for leave very well in advance.. but alas.. i am here in Bangalore writing this blog..

This is what i call destiny or fate.. Life is not a cake walk.. If everything happens the way you plan, may be life gets boring..may be we will miss this element of subtle battle with it..may be each of us would start feeling that there is nothing that can ever compete with us.. Hence there is always a remarkable difference between what you plan and what actually happens..!!

I fell in a situation where i cannot enfore that my leave should be granted 'coz the project is at a critical stage where i just cannot leave it in the middle or hand it over to someone else. My committment never allows me to do that. But my heart wants to witness the most memorable moment of my dear friend's life. Conflicting interests they are!!!! My best wishes are surely with her..though i am not able to make it to the wedding personally... I wish her a very happy married life..Dedicating this blog to her!! luv u Kamy :)

Whats in a Valentines day?

2009-02-14T10:00:00.000-08:00

well.. today is feb 14th.. so what??? just another day in the calender of 365/366 days!!!

There is Children's day where the kids enjoy because they can go to school in colorful dresses.. and they get chocolates!!! There is Independence day where we all cherish the hard earned freedom and think about all that went through once upon a time for India to be what it is today.. what is it about valentines day and why is it so special?? I am saying this not because i dont have someone to walk hand in hand and celebrate this day.. not because i dont appreciate the bond of love.. but because i never understood this very concept! As far as i am concerned, everyday in this life's dictionary bears a significance.. if that were the case, then it is needless to say that every moment of ur lover's company should give you pleasure.. every thought of having him/her in your thoughts should bring in a pleasant smile on ur face..

True that in some cases people wait for this day to express their love.. but again, it leaves me really surprised as to what the whole logic is.. if you love someone, why dont you just go ahead and tell them?? why do you want to wait for a day which comes only once a year to express it?? Such madness(i really dont know what to call) was largely predominant in my college days where there was a committe who took the great initiative of distributing roses on people's behalf to their beloved ones and thus aid in cropping up their love.. Hey.. dont get me wrong here.. i definitely dont belong to any ram sena or something.. i am just trying to be too practical!!

At the end of the day, we have people asking.. so, how was the day? something special??? huhh... and my answer remains.."It was just another day in the diary of 2009.. just another day in the dictionary of my life"!!

New Year!!!

2009-01-08T08:27:00.000-08:00

The new year has begun.. with the sun rising in the same old direction, setting in the same old direction.. pollution increasing at the same exponential rate with rapidly growing technology.. people setting up new resolution list and wish list for the year ahead..!! Yes the new year comes very promptly every year, with the same spirit!! And we receive it with great enthusiasm and positive spirit.. afterall we need an occasion to celebrate!!!

Missing my mobile!!!

2008-12-06T06:01:00.000-08:00

After 2.5 long years of using my current mobile, i have finally decided to change it, considering the huge demand from the public!! I dint want to make any further delay. I ran into the nearest "mobile store" and got a basic Nokia mobile - 3500 Classic. It all seemed fine for a week until its display was limited to "contact service" at the end of the week and it stopped detecting the sim. Wishing that it were a small damage, i went to the store where i purchased the mobile. They told me that i have to visit the nearest Nokia service center and i obeyed.

Nokia service center at Tippasandra, Bangalore.. is worth making a red mark!! I could hear a lot of people screaming at them for their bad service.. the anguish pain of various victims.. the agony in their voice..

They have taken my mobile for servicing with the complaint..

1) Mobile not switching on
2) Displaying "contact service" on the screen

Two disjoint complaints!!! and i just signed in it when i was told that my complaint has anyways been registered. I was told to come back in 2 days. I left my mobile there because i had no choice. Its a new mobile for which i have not even explored all the options completely and within a week i had to leave it all alone at the service center. After two days, i rang them up and went there when i was told that my mobile servicing has been done.. I was startled when i saw a mobile in their hand with a broken LCD screen..and was told that it is my mobile.. "Itz a hardware damage and wont come under warranty. We can try to do something if you pay for it" this is what i was told. I tried to tell them that i had given them my mobile in full condition and definitely i dont want to pay for their careless and reckless treatment of my mobile.

I told them how sure i was that neither my mobile had fallen down nor did i mishandle it at any point of time during itz stint of 6 days with me. I explained them that they have to trust their customers. The reply i got was, 'u shud also trust us'. How can people be so confident after doing a mistake. Mistakes are man made. Everyone is bound to make them. But i hate the fact that people are not brave enough to accept them, take it in a positive way and learn from them. I was completely disturbed by the whole conversation and told them that i am no more interested to carry on the conversation further with them and asked them to call the manager who was supposed to be in charge of that so called service center. He is at the head office(atleast that is what i was told). i was not prepared to leave the place without getting justice. I managed to get the mobile number of the manager and reported the whole incident to him.

He asked me to leave my mobile there and said that he would close the issue within 2 days. i wish he really meant it when he said that! Alas.. how i wish things could have been that easier.. These people are so hostile that whenever i call them up and ask the status, they say- 'its done.. please come and collect it today". And when i go there with a lot of hope, they make me wait for about an hour and finally say that its not done!! I dont know if this is some cheap trick which they play to make sure that there are always atleast some people in their center.

After repeated tireless attempts, finally they informed me that after fixing up the new LCD also, the initial problem for which i had actually given my mobile for, is not rectified. They had no expertise to solve it and hence they would request for the replacement.. how long would it take???? i was told that it would take not more than 12 working days!! my new mobile was with me for only 6 days.. and it was with them in the service center for a week and then travelled all the way to the head office on a one time basis... it wont come back to me.. itz replacement would come back.. should i be happy that i am gonna get a new mobile???? how old was my mobile???

I can now understand all the agony of other customers. I really cannot believe that a Nokia mobile.. which is supposed to be highly resistant to any amount of rough handling and is supposed to be very durable had behaved so cranky. And it is infact hard to believe that the defected piece, even if somehow manufactured, passed through the quality test sample!!! This has become a point of discussion in my team.. where people are very curious to know how i have dealt with the whole situation and how i end up facing all such peculiar pieces. Finally after numerous calls, i got back my replaced mobile after 40 loooong days.. The panel seemed very very old and worn out.. i asked them if it was a new mobile.. he said yes.. i asked him to replace that old panel with that of mine.. he said that it would take 6 working days for the replacement.. i had that statement of his written at the back of his visiting card with his signature at the bottom.. let me see to which extent he will keep up his word..

i came home and realized that the camera is not working.. it is not detecting my memory card.. what a pathetic service..!! i called up the manager and he said that i need to submit my mobile again over there and get a new job sheet assigned! now.. needless to say that i HATE Nokia!!

Picnic

2008-09-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

The very thought of this takes me back to the good old school days where we wait for an year to get that one day 'picnic'. Yes, we have all decided...to be kids again for a day...to forget all the tensions and fears and spend a day filled with fun... to collect loads of memories to cherish throughout..

Off we start at 9:30AM in three bikes and an auto on an otherwise lazy sunday morning to Lal bagh. Apparently we ended up realizing that lal bagh has just 4 entrances and we have successfully managed to cover each of it not sparing atleast one gate. Hemanth, Mr.Confusion has accompanied Sush at the back of her bike with a huge L board on it. Sush was very much pleased by his amazing direction sense of which we shall discuss later.

Each of us having entered the park through various gates in different groups finally managed to assemble at a place called "glass house". A lil plant watching, fish washing and bird watching ;) , we dispered in various directions through which we entered with the understanding that we would all be meeting at the west gate. Sandip, Sandip's uncle, Dibu and I have reached the gate only to realize that there were no signs of the remaining people around. It only alarmed one of our minds that Mr. Confusion was leading the remaining group. No wonder they were lost..!!

We moved onto Kamat to have a sumptuous lunch. A flash news about the riots kept our go karting at a stake. Did I mention that Mr. Confusion is also THE GYAN GURU(GG), who is one of his kind? While we were all discussing the pros and cons, GG and sush marched towards the policeman whom they spotted on the road to get the latest gossip on the safety of the road we are gonna take. Who can predict that??!

Finally, we have decided not to backout. Hurray..!! we were all set to go on a long ride to go Karting. Wait.. did i just say long ride?? hmm.. i also need to say that the ride seemed even longer with Mr.Confusion taking on the driving seat of the bike. Poor Krishna.. he definitely had a tough time in marking the route map for our chap. I cannot put in words the infinite amount of fun we had in trying to trace out the missing bike at every point of our journey. Even after spotting out the lost bike driven by the GG, it wasn't an easy job trying to convince him to turn clockwise by 45 degrees and spot us there. 45 degrees clockwise for us would be 135 degrees anti clockwise for him..!!!

Tracing and retracing the path, we finally reached the venue. I dint know that go karting was so much fun. Equally memorable was the journey back home. Meetu, half asleep in the beginning cursing Dibu at every possible chance, Krishna's kid running around spreading her cute smiles around, Harshada as silent as ever :P , Rammi, the mommy's pet and the terror for Sush updating all the happenings as quick as a live telecast to her mom, Sandip and Dibu vigilent throughout never missing a single oppurtunity to crack their PJ's, MR.Confusion trying his level best to spread his talent across and ofcourse the bubbly and charming ME around.. all in all, it was an awesome day.

My dude.. where are u?

2008-07-25T04:06:00.001-07:00

I am on a blogging spree today... but this time rather than crapping something, i would like to say something about the "dude" i am looking for..! Yes.. just like most of the people, i do have some criteria set in my mind as to how my guy should be...

I have had a couple of opinions from my friends that i am trying to be really very choosy wrt to my guy. I dont really agree with them.. the truth is that i am just trying to be selective about my better half. Cummon.. afterall u should atleast be selective when it comes to choosing your potential life partner.

1st of all, he should be good looking. I am not saying that he should be very handsome and stuff like that..ofcourse i wouldn't mind if he is ;). Well, jokes apart, i just want him to be smart. He should be taller than me(its dead common sense right?). BTW did i tell you that he shouldn't ever smoke? (even passive smoking irritates me to the maximum.. so, i definitely mind my darling holding a cigar in his hand). I don't say i am hiiiighly traditional and bla bla.. But i do give a loot of importance to culture and values. Having said this, it is needless to say that i don't want my guy to take hot drinks either.

I somehow have a turn on to guys with high IQ. I admire intelligence. I would love to have a guy with a brain of a genius...mind u.. certainly not to the level that makes me tiny before it ;) juz kidding.. :P Communication is another thing i look for. That being the channel though which we can open up, i would prefer him to be very good at it. Most importantly, i want him to be independent.. i.e, i wouldn't like him to expect something from my parents or his parents. Any relationship stands on the pillars of love, trust, care and understanding mentality. These are all implicit.

hmm.. mood swings... i do have them. But i hate to show it on others, who are not responsible for it. I dont mind sharing them.. but definitely i hate to be a victim of it. It is always good to have some1 of the same wavelength.. in aspects such as enthu level and stuff. Especially for some1 like me, who always is found charming and bubbling in high enthu level, trying to keep myself busy always.. with various activities involving fun and joy.

so.. i will end it here :P before you think i am too greedy or choosy or whatever :D, while i am just truly honest. :)

Desperation in Tashan

2008-07-25T02:42:00.000-07:00

Two of my friends were very particular in watching a movie.. They were so desperate to watch the movie that they set out to watch the same from the house. why i am calling that desperate is because of the fact that inspite of not booking the tickets in advance, they set out at 3:30PM from the house, hoping to reach some theater and get into the hall for 4:00PM show, amidst the highly volatile bangalore traffic, by means of public transport.

One of my friends has checked the news paper in that utmost excitement and hurry for the theaters playing the show at 4, without realizing that parallax error cropped into the scenario. She realized this only after going all the way to the wrong theater, which is at 4:15PM. They ran to the next nearest theater to check their luck. But Alas, they are destined to have an adventurous evening. They ran to the counter and ask for two tickets for Om Shanti Om. The guy knocks the glass barricade before him and says "i am a legend". Startled by his answer(It was the 1st week of the release of the movie "i am a legend". Poor kids.. they are unaware of that movie), they tried again. The same reaction from the guy.

Giving up the hopes on it, they quickly inquired for the nearest theater playing the desired movie in the next show. They marched ahead quickly and realized that the next show is at 9:30PM. without a second thought, they booked the tickets. hey.. wait.. they are not crazy. But they are passionate to watch the movie that day at any cost. They thought about the implications of their action in the mean time.. and decided to pull in somebody else for safety. They forcefully dragged one guy to be their bodyguard, who has already seen the movie by then. Afterall he is obliged to go. (what else can he do when two girls call him helplessly ;) ). They spent the rest of the day cursing all their futile attempts for something which happened to be not worth so much.

hmmmmm

2008-07-25T01:49:00.000-07:00

Am back.. back after a looooong lethargic gap..hmm.. 1st of all apologies for not being an active blogger of late. I know itz really disappointing for the active visitors to check out the same page without any updates..! But alas.. what to do? i get the flood of ideas when i am really too busy to open the page and start keying them in.. and trust me, i just wont be able to write anything when i have loads of time :) which again is a oneoff case.. and this is one such case.. i now have some time.. and i want to blog.. but apparently.. dont know what to blog on?? :P

ok.. lemme talk about the title of this blog.. "hmmm".. this is the most used word or dont know what.. these days..! Some say it is a way of telling "ok".. while some others say itz a good way of evading the topic or the person..and an yet different set of ppl say that it acts as a filler when u fall short of words. well, whatever it is, if i try to reflect in which context i use the same, i find all the above appropriate depending on the situation. I would have used it atleast once supporting each of the opinions above..! For instance this blog in itself is an example for the last opinion.

I will make sure that i am regular to this blogging world atleast henceforth... atleast with the help of other fillers when i dont really get topics to blog on at my free time.. :P

AUTOtitude

2008-02-15T06:34:00.000-08:00

Here is what dictionary had to say about attitude

Attitude:
"A complex mental state involving beliefs and feelings and values and dispositions to act in certain ways"

Well.. I would now like to define something called AUTOtitude which my fellow bangaloreans would definitely have experienced with at one point or the other.

AUTOtitude:
Auto driver + attitude = AUTOtitude
"A highly typical attitude of the auto drivers in bangalore"

There will be a huge line of autos waiting for the passengers(God knws if at all they are waiting for sm1 or juz letting time pass by tht way). Here are the replies wch a person calling any of those autos would face..

P1: destination xxx(wch actually is juz 3 KMs away)
Driver1(looking around): 100 rupees (with a wicked smile)
Driver2(gazing at P1): One dirty look and then asks the passenger to get lost in sign language!(is he really dumb?)
Driver3(Listening to FM on his mobile): How dare u disturb me when i am listening to one of my fav songs?

Bugged at this behaviour, the passenger now stops a running auto which is not hired. The driver just slows down and upon hearing the destination races fwd in the direction of the place on the last gear leaving the passenger startled..! He is all prepared to leave his auto without any passengers to any distance..but he doesn't want to drop this poor P1. what grudge does he have on this poor passenger? as though he is gonna drop him for free..!! shucks..! these auto ppl in b'lore are really kings..!

On top of all this rude behaviour to the passengers, they want the govt to officially rise the auto prices per KM. It was raised frm 6/- to 7/- per KM recently under the condition that they don't refuse any of the passenger..! But unfortunately, the auto drivers don't seem to pay any attention to the conditional clause.

The first Offsite with the team…

2008-01-10T22:19:00.000-08:00

Date: 7/12/2007
Venue: Savandurga

A single glance at the magnanimous foggy mountains, the beautiful flowers on the plateaus tossing and waving their heads (in our jocund company), the warm welcome by the spacious sky showering its happiness in the form of droplets of rain...no wonder made us all awestruck by the pride the nature takes at the sight of people with a eye to admire it… ;) :P

We set ahead for rock climbing with the guide leading us. Vivek with an unusual enthu raced ahead on the mountain covered by mist only to come down tumbling back at a pace much greater than the one he took while climbing. This fine example of mountaineering promptly made the rest of the bunch to run in the direction of the cave which we continued to explore with great zeal and enthusiasm ofcourse with vivek not leading us this time ;).

Poor Sandeep Nayak mistook the small streams in the cave to be his own private swimming pool dipping in and out at an alarming frequency and even in that moment of danger steadfastly holding onto his sweet heart’s bag.
The gp led by Aparna(BINGO),Abhishek, Srini,Siva and ofcourse me boldly marched with oodles and oodles of energy exploring every rock and crevice in the cave.

The post lunch session had us rappelling which added its own flavour of humour to the trip. Rajesh made us all dumbstruck with the typical bollywood hero’s dialogue before falling off the cliff – “Lavanya… I love you” echoed amidst the mountains. Sandeep, bold and confident at the beginning turned out to be a quivering mass of jelly playing hide and seek with the instructor at the precipice and finally giving a million dollar smile upon safely reaching the terra firma. At another category of the spectrum, we had Abhishek and Dibyendu who bravely walked down the cliff facing the valley beneath. At an even more different category, we had Appu and Sangeetha who chose to stay away from rappelling altogether.

Equally memorable was the journey back home with the never tiring group with enthu personified!!

Thanks to Rajeev for opting out of the conventional resorts and enabling us rock the show. Thanks to one and all who have composed our most awaited offsite with boundless memories to cherish (till we are stuffed with a few more in the one to come in Jan ;)).

Where am I???

2007-11-21T05:00:00.000-08:00

Am I in an amusement part?? In a resort?? At a beach?? Hey wait..i am completely in my senses. Itz the recent happenings around me that is making me pose these questions. Lemme pen down an instance..

Note (Disclaimer): All names used here are fictitious though the characters are real. Any reference to real name, if any is purely unintentional.

There is one very interesting “PAIR” (Oops..shud I call it a pair??!) huhh… Application under process…File under supervision…This is how people generally take a break and wait for the result..But this typical Mr.X and Miss.Y break this very trend. The case is not yet EXPLICITLY filed. Every stone on the balcony floor, every brick in the secluded zone, every person @ pizza hut knows it all..!! Miss Y charges her mobile fully at around 8:00PM. By 2:00AM itz completely out of charge. One day of this routine gets distracted that’s it. A mini telugu movie rolls before the acquaintances. Poor me.. I really do not enjoy such real time psenti movies. “Implicit things can at times be dangerous. I want explicit confirmation” says Miss.Y. Why do people get scared to express things they really feel to the person who has every right to know that??

I strongly believe that “If u really want something, the whole universe conspires for you to achieve it” - courtesy, “The Alchemist”. Consciously one should never do something the consequences of which he/she would not be ready to face. Today’s world is filled with people who have an unknown fear to put their feelings out..even to their beloved…!! Does love really have bounds??? If u really say you love xyz, wont u be yourself before that xyz? I strongly feel that there is no ‘U’ and ‘Me’ once u love someone..itz only ‘We’ thereafter. So, here I end this case study of modern “luv”(??!) obstructed by ego(?? Or what so ever feeling which I really couldn’t decode till date) with a hope that the destiny shows them the right path…!

Therez another instance which is gonna fill this space soon..waiting for the copyrights from the unknown characters to u and knwn characters to me..!

The world as I see in this regard has a crowd of mixed behaviour. There one side where ppl are not able to express their feelings, for reasons (I HOPE) are better known to them (ATLEAST).. Another group where in they have loads and loads of feelings that this life will ever not be sufficient for them to express all of them…ahh..wait..thrz yet another side.. It is for you to explore that unknown side..!!

Party is was..!

2007-11-02T01:03:00.000-07:00

A mail reaches the inbox of maitri inviting all of us to the grad party. 2 days after that inbox flooded with various plans as to what is to be performed..skit, mime..or smthing else? hw good it is to think out of the box and perform something different from the previous years.. The party is on monday, the 29th of october 2007. The final meeting regarding the show was scheduled on the friday as a kind of luncheon. Apparently it has to be postponed to evening which was again postponed to 1:00AM on saturday. Finally we meet in the office at 11:30AM trying to pool in the resources that we have and futile attempts of gathering a few more..

x: Hey.. how are you doin?
y: doin good..wat are u upto?
x: well..y dont u join us ova here in office for the skit practise and video shooting?
y: ahh..i wud luv to join..bt sorry da..cant make it..i have a very imp wrk..

as the y varies from y1 to y58, this "very imp work" takes various forms like watching a movie, going out with a friend, sleeping, watching some stuff on the tv, shopping... the list goes on till the x gets frustrated and realizes that the phone will explode if it hears to the next y's explanation.

Finally.. we started off with the video shooting at 12:30 and left office at 4:00PM. Bindhiya, Swedha and Dimbu are off to Dimbuz house to perform some editing operations on the video in movie maker.. Apparently the movie maker on her comp is a very old version and it failed to support the changes that we wanted. So, Bindhiya hurries home that day saying that the wrk is not done. It was raining heavily in bangalore. We somehw managed a laptop from one of our colleagues with the rain accompanying us and taking great care of us. A proper research over the night helped us realize that itz an older version too..!! frustrated, we called it a day and crashed. The next day started with a nice MI2 music from my call as Shoorjo rang us up to find the status. He chked the version only to confirm that itz not possible with it. Chaatey then called up Tanmay and we start off to his house. The power went off immediately after chaatey keyed in "www.gmail.com" and hitted enter. leg effect..!! :(

Our gp slowly joins us and we finally practised the mime, downloaded the required songs etc for the video effects and reached home @ 9:00PM. We started off with editing at 9:30PM only to realize that we have finished it at 7:00AM the following day with only a small tea break in bet'n. My 1st ever night out..!! i juz cudn't believe it was a night out..! We presented it @ 7:00PM and it all went well. There was a dance floor at the end of it wherein every1 showcased their talents in dancing.

'Trip' aka 'outbound training'

2007-09-15T08:16:00.000-07:00

Started off at 5:45AM with tons of enthu, all set to rock the trip, as we call it and out bound training as they name it..! Two cabs to set off the 68 young souls enabling us to start off our professional career with an adventurous trip. Itz an usual anthyakshari in the cab on the way. Reached the place at 11:00AM. A lil time to freshen up, discuss on the general norms to be agreed upon during the stay and then we moved on to lunch. After the lunch we had a team game, "Broken Squares" wherein groups of 5 were made.

We then moved on to outdoor team games of 17 each. We were taken to a tree with branch in 'V' shape and asked to pass a bottle filled with water without a lid from one side of the 'V' to the other side without spilling water. We had a long rope as our inventry. Therez a guy Vijay in our team. He got in some fundas of physics and proposed that we shud drop the rope from a higher elevation beyond the 'V' and tie the bottle carefully to one end of the hanging thread and slowly drop it on the other side. A few others got the idea of human pyramid. We were kinda relluctant to go with the pyramid 'coz we were looking at a polished way of completing the task. Finally we had to go ahead with the pyramid to finish off the task. There was a lot of leaning that we had after the task from our manager Rakesh and Dilip regarding various aspects relating the game with the real time project.

We then moved on to the next game, spider web. There were two huge trees and a rope was tied to it like a shuttle net. We had intermediary webs embedded in tht net with 17 holes through which we are supposed to reach the other side of the net. The hole used once, cannot be reused. And the person shifted to the other side cannot come over this side and help others reach the other side. After lotsa planning and strategy making, all of them were transported to the other end except one. Apurva with his feats amazed all of us, he being the last one to cross thru the net.

The day ended with a treck in the forest containing elephants, leeches, crocodiles and few other wild life. We had a map with a few landmarks. It was completely dark and we were allowed only a limited number of torches. We were supposed to get lost in the forest and come back to the resort with the help of the given map. We were divided into 2 gps, each group entering the forest from one side and come out thru the other side. There were some people accostomed with the forest who accompanied us. Apparently they were supposed to be our guests. Irritatingly all of a sudden amidst the center of the forest, the map is found missing. huhhh...did i say missing??? well...it was supposed to be "stolen" by our so called guests..!! :D And we no longer trusted the guests after somehow making out that they have played a key role in that stolen drama. Some of them have recollected the map. We somehow managed to successfully take a looooong path and finally arrived at a diversion on the road. Therez a dilemma whether to take a right or a left at the diversion. Some of us are very confident that we need to take a left and we juz moved on only to realize that the rest of the group was nt behind us ;). Ananth, Vijay, Kalyani and myself met the other team wch has set off in the other direction to start with. We then walked back to meet the others in our team and then after a looooong negotiation and discussion concluded that we gotta take the right. Finally we are out of that jungle in another 5 mins..!!! tht ends the day...where we finally hit the beds at 2:00Am

The next day starts at 7:30AM with the breakfast and we go in a truck for arnd 4KMS to reach a place for trecking and rappling. Appu did a great scary feat. She was standing at the back of the truck and due to an amazing speedbreaker ova thr on the road was almost about to fall backwards onto the so called road. The 1st ever time I went for rappling..awesome it was...trust me..! I was somehw nt scared..! trusted the experience of the expertise and the confidence of my company in letting us to go for it in the 1st place. Moreover as long as the rope is rigidly tied and is in my hands, i thot thrz not much adventure involved in it. I hope I got a chance to do it again :P There was a girl Keerthana whoz extremely scared of heights. Shez tooo scared that she never got into the balcony of her own house ;) leave alone rappling..!! Finally after the guy explained her all the physics involved in the exercise and hw safe it is, she finally did it with the cheers from the entire group.

The post lunch started with a game wherein we were divided into 3 gps. There was a pond kinda thing ova thr. The task was to transfer a patient from one end of the pond to the other end and then walk over 20 feet on the sand to the virtual hospital over there. We were given inventory to make a stretcher. After a long debate on the construction of the stretcher, we proceeded on to the execution. Ultimately with lots of yells from the patients on our constructed stretcher in the air on the shoulders of the team members with their lives in threat :P and a lot of others getting drowned in that so called pond filled with duck shit.. ;) we reached the virtual hospital and ended with hip hip hurrah..! :D Kappa(Deepthi Brahmanapally as she wanted me to mention) lost in the game dint even realise the basic thing of leaving the footwear before racing through the water body. Deeply involved in the task, this hiiighly task oriented and kind hearted female left her footwear as a play element to the water beings ova thr..!! After the dinner, there was a camp fire. Lotsa enthu put up by ppl with songs, dances and wat not..!

The last day of the trip began with a postmortem on the learning from the previous days. We then had another game called "earn as much as you can". The last game was a ball game. There was a pole at the center. There is a ring to which 10 wiresare tied along the circumference. the ring is inserted into the pole. A tennis ball is placed on the pole. We had to hold the wires and balance the ball on the ring in the air and take it to a destination wch was 50 feet away from the starting point and balance the ball on the other pole kept at the destination using the wires itself. That finished the task and all of us hurried for the lunch.

That ended the trip..wait wait..is it all the end of fun?? nope..here starts another masthi round. The journey back to the guest house was utli fun. There were 2 cabs...girls in one cab and guys in another. Our managers got into our cab giving us one last chance to rag thm :P ;) With a small tea break on the way at a hotel, enthued cat walks by our managers..and a new name given to me for my tons of enthu.."rowdi" hehee..the trip finally came to an end...!!! the trip that i am gonna cherish thruout..!!!!! thnx to ANZ..!! we rock..!!!

PS: No time to edit..wrote this in a flow..plz bear with the mistakes..if any.!!

Coincidence Vs Customary

2007-08-24T04:14:00.000-07:00

An event that might have been arranged although it was really accidental..is wat coincidence refers to..! What do u call something wch repeats itz course of action as a convention?

I have been observing something for many years now...i.e, the sky makes it a point to shower a few drops on few occasions.."varalakshmi vratham" and "vinayaka chavithi" being on the list. Now..is this just a coincidence?? just a coincidence tht happens every year without fail??? or has it got sm other meaning? Should I consider this as the shower of blessings after a morningz pooja session by lakhs of ppl? or is it customary for rain to pay this visit??

Today being one of those days, though it was very dry ova here for over a week now, the coincidence or custom has played its role..fulfilling the duty most effectively. And I stay here as usual wondering wat this phenomenon is..!

drift..!

2007-08-13T12:08:00.000-07:00

The telugu calendar is divided into months tht generally dont coincide with the onez of english calendar. "Aashadam" is a month of sales. We can see all the possible promotional offers and BOGO's, vast markdown notices on almost every shop in Hyd..! This is the month whr ppl undertake a shopping spree..! Especially girls take the maximum advantage of this situation..and I was no exception to this trend.

A 2.5 month break before I report at my company wouldn't have flown so easily had it not been for this spree..!! I only realized what a promising timepass shopping can be and the pleasure in reading novels. Thanks to this break for it made me realize what a best company books can give..! Now i really agree..books are your best friends.

Now with the chng of month to "Sravanam", we have marriages spree..!! and thr are lotsa festivals cming along lead by Varalakshmi vratham..! All the offers seem to vanish now with the advent of this telugu month. This is the time where gold vendors make the maximum of sales. A busy month..elders busy in distributing invites to near and dear..kids busy in celebrating the occasion with their best pals and creating the festive atmosphere with their naughty deeds and playful acts...many family get-togetherz..!! A month of happiness and enthu everywhere..! [:)]

Leg Effect..!

2007-07-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

For the 1st time ever, my parents let me travel 45 minutes alone over the route of wch i had only a very vivid idea. I gotta meet my frnd, book the tickets to start off our professional life and thn shop a lil..! with this schedule in mind, i set off to the bus stop memorizing the two bus numbers my mom has told me. On the way, i meet one of my juniors who wants to knw abt the preparation for campus interviews wch hez gonna face only after an yr..! OMG y are ppl soooo over planned??? I bugged my seniors juz 2.5 months before facing the companies..and tht itself was considered too early by thm..! Is the increasing competition along with years, compelling one to start off the race far ahead to keep up the pace? Good that i was nt born a yr late(in tht case I wud have had a tough time competing with these OVER planned ppl)..! ;)

After reaching the bus stop, without a momentz delay, i have seen one of the two numbers i have memorized, on the bus tht had stopped rite before me. Without a second thought, i got into the bus. Everything seemed perfect till we got struck up in the traffic jam and our bus and a car slightly underwent a collision with negligible transfer. Afterall..i was in tht bus travelling for so long without being accompanied by any1 for the 1st time ever...hw can things go in a smooth way?? my "leg effect"..! The car fellow was adamant in making an issue out of this collision. And this bus driver wanted to take this to the kind notice of balanagar police stn. Damn..Y dont ppl sort out things in a decent way?? After creating a havoc and sufficient irritation to the passengers inside the bus as well the traffic jam caused by their fight rite in the middle of the road, the bus fiiinally moved with the car following it.

Thts not the end..The bus which was supposed to race to the sec'bad station and enable lotsa passengers to catch their respective trains, directly halted at the police station instead. The bus was empty within seconds. Some of the passengers transformed their anger into tears in the fear of missing their trains. I have absolutely no idea as to whr i was landed. Being born and brought up in this city of pearls, i have no idea of this complete Hyderabad. Ofcourse i cant blame myself for tht..the city is too big ;) :P

Finally followed the conductor and some other passengers to the nearest bus stop to atleast catch an auto. And again...due to this leg effect of mine..it started drizzling. Thank God the bus stop is nt too far away. I got into a bus and apparently the rain stopped at the same instant. hehe :D Finally reached the station after 1.5 hours..and met my frnd who has been waiting for me for quite sometime. Thanks to the technology today..and whoever invented the cell phone..!!!

Is it a rain???

2007-07-14T09:50:00.000-07:00

After a complete shopping session for 6 looong hours...and finally coming out of the last shop carrying the stuff shopped all through, i witnessed a heavy crowd of people running here and there. In a minutez time, i had to wonder if i was travelling in a bus back home on the road..or was it a ship thtz sailing on the river..! OMG..such a heavy rain it was..!! was it even called a rain or a high level test to the quality of roads laid?? It was already 9:00PM and we all know how wonderful the functioning of the street lights in India is..! and on top of tht there is a heavy flow on the so called roads. y did i even get down from the bus?? who knows where thrz a deep pit hidden under the flowing water?? ofcourse..i really love getting drenched in the rain. But surely not under all the circumstances mentioned above.. And on top of this..am supposed to prevent my 6 hrs of labor frm getting wet.

I love rain...I love to look at the beautiful trees with droplets of water on the tip of their leaves just after rain...I love to see the smile on the face of the poor farmer when he sees the blessings from the rain god..I love to dance on the terrace with lotsa ppl arnd amidst the a raw drizzling rain(rain discoz are awesome)..But it is indeed so damn painful to travel on these traffic filled roads when itz raining. Certainly the improper layout of the infrastructure in transportation is overweighing all the joy tht comes with the rain :( When will the days change? When will India be a DEVELOPED nation?? Is planning so difficult??? Atleast after witnessing so mch this year..is thr any guarantee tht the situation would be any better the next year?? wasn't it the same case with last yr? hw diff is it this yr??

Indian ITEM to french item

2007-07-13T11:24:00.000-07:00

wonder y this adjacent pic is so damn itemistic?? 'coz shez an item...shez the ITEM of out wing...
“hEy hEy hEy my farewell today..plzzzz gimme my writeup points..plzzzzzzzzz...EmE... plzzzE...points ivvavE. I don’t want it to be clean chittt..assalu vesukovadam kooda rakapothe ela??? plzzz tiDitE tiTTanDi..meee ishTam “

This is how she pleaded us to incorporate her writeup as a decent ‘rape’..! hope this matches ur expectation levels…

Long long ago so long ago…….
eme eppudo school lo unnappude oke okkasari dini 1st rank evaroo kottesarani…vadi juttu pattukoni marii piki adigindhi endhuku 1st rank tecchukunnavu ani…papam aa abbayi bittiri ayipoyadu. Tanthe burela buttalo paddattu….mana AJ garu English subject lo revaluation valla 20 markulu perigi ikkada adugu pettaru…

Aruna in 1st year: only the cribbing... sleeping under blanket nd crying..and always sick
Tha chedda kothi vana mantha cherinchindhi annatto, One day before maths compre....mana item oka entu snap session pettindhi, danitho dini roomie exam dobbindhi idhi matram pandaga chesukundhi…..

Exams mundhu manaki comp leni times lo, nite normal mind unna bitsian evarayina exam portion oo notes oo leka room numbers oo adugutharu kani mana AJ matram koosey gadidha vacchi mese gadidhani chada kottindhi annattu andharini batteries unnaya…cassettes unnaya …head phones unnaya ani adigi finally walkman undha ani adigi chavagottedhi…

“Ni sem ela avuthundhi “ ani adigina papaniki valla id pop ki rendu pages mail kottindhi..kani mana fundoo rasina matter ento ardham kaka winiges ni pilichi chadivinchukunna…dini pop vallaki T party ivvalsi vacchindhi …aa mail tho vallaki vacchina tala vapu ki…

ITEM in second year...
Okasari dani bitsian name gurinchi danike doubt vacchi valla juniors ni emani adigindhi ante…ITEM ante male item ana leka female item ani refer chesthunnara nannu ani …so appati nunchi vallu Danni “aaa item “ ani pilusthunnaruu papam….

AJ ki comp ante entha pranam ante…. Evarayina chikatiga unna room loki velthuu ee light oo ee fan oo on chestharu kani eme matram comp 1st on chesi tarvathe emayina chesthundhii… ee valla kani comp prema programming koo….inka deniko anukunte porapatu…its exclusively for songs and chatting with some one spl…vallu entha spl ante total nite outs kuda petetdhi valla kosam chat tho…

Dini music picchi ki taggatte dini grand pop music clubber thakur…whom she calls sonu nigam of bits…inkemundhi yahoo lo 24*7 chatting ee ….inthaga abhimaninche dani grand pop tho sudden ga matladatam apesindhi ….vishayam entante oka sari mail lo “I Love you” ani msg vacchindhi…. Kani aa messages pampindhi nenu kadhu ma frnd ani kalla vella padi cheppina vinipinchukoledhu mana AJ…

AJ in 3rd year: her favourite number is juck srry Zuck…not coz it’s the Indian contribution to maths but due to its close relation with her dear frnd’s bitsian name..

Bet kosam emayina chesthundhi……she once treated all the guys in dhaba because she lost on a bet!! Aa bet ento thelusaaa??? To drink a full glass of liquidddd that is a mixture of 23%sugarcane juice, 42% shikanji, 17% lassi and the remaining 18% watermelon juice and 2 tea spoons of chocolate powder without wasting a drop and she was dumb enuf to accept the bet and gracefully treated them…
Stats:
Drunk=one glass
Wasted=3 drops
Treat Venue1=Chirawa dhaba
Bill=1980
Treat Venue2=C’not nobles (ice creams)
Bill=420
Number of ppl attending the treat(excluding AJ)=7 Guyz!

3rd year mana ammayi gari chatting picchi mudhiri pakana padindhi…as a result of that orkutting ki nite out pettedhi…ala ani chala mandhitho chatting aa ante kadhu…scraps anni okalla nunche vacchevi …okkallake vellevi…

Konevadu unte India ni ayina 5 paise ki ammesthundhi……she fooled one of her B3 frnds by creating a hypothetical sister whoz xerox cpy of her….that poor gal doesn’t know till now abt tht falsity…existence of one AJ itself is such a big disaster …how can god repeat the same mistake…

Cuming to her acads…
first year....perfect notes
second year...per zerox of notes
third year.... perfect bewars wid no text buks...goes to roonghta houuse few hours before test...
fourth year..... totally ignorant of courses ..forgets about the tests..also make up letters

once in a lab session she had to open the problem bank from her prof’s webpage…as she didn’t know the prof’s name she opened a wrong page..and eventually got screwed badly by her TA.

Nite antha nidrapokunda okee saari morning 6:00 ki gym kellina rojulu unnayi,,,eee busy(nidra) schedule lo kooda evarithono shuttle aadataaaniki matram bats pattukoni evening velledi.. ayina aa personality ki kooda roju exercise avasarama :P ….inka konni eco classes ki kooda valla influence valle velledani bhogathta,,,

She attends all farewells and batch snaps for a very specific reason..to take snaps with her never ending crush list( she makes crushes spontaneously in farewells too,,,so guys be ready,,whoz gonna get lucky this day)…

Dini revenge enta bayamkarnga vuntundhi ante….oka sari wing notice board lo adi rasina “enduke ila Gundalopala…” pata lyrics pekesinandhuku…..papam rachana cheta ee massssss dhi “ labo labo labari gajulu…ade killi killi” song from Gudumba shankar rayinchindhi….lyrics Writer tarvata ade anukunta ee killi killi song rasindhi…..dinni barinche kante…wing lo 100 pasuvulu penchatam chaaaala easy !!!

diniki tindi pettekante bakasurudiki pettadam easy…chudataniki gattiga galosthe padipoyettu unna…dini tindi capacity entha ante.. okesari full chilly chicken curry, oka chicken biryani…rendu chicken spring roll…rendu earth quakes…oka double scoop icecream…swaha chesindhi…

allllllll things..done only in the lassssssssssst possible moment....in the 11.99999 th hour. Even if you say out of full rage “ aruna get lost” she simply replies…”get found” .She cant be irritated by any one on anything…coz irritating ppl is her birth right . Indians andhari brains spoon tho fork tho thinnadhi saripoka...france junthz ni attack cheyyadaniki vellindhi..! papam..i pity thm..!
....worssssssssssht singer......parama metta parama maaaaaaaassssssssssssssss kani tries to appear kukka poshh...Jokes apart, she is verrry helpful....kiddish....funny....bloddy talented , dedicated ART and D ite…u can count on her for everything, very concerned and caring ,hyper enthued and lively…cheers up everyone

Presenting to you ITEM aka, aru aka ,AJ aka PJ queen aka arunajyothi vajje bearing id no.2003b3a7577…….

Decision Point..!

2007-06-14T03:01:00.000-07:00

Decision...required at every point in life. Gone are those wonderful carefree days... where parents carry out an organized analysis.. consider various parameters decide on a good school, then college for plus 2... Cute are those days without any decision making risk..without any tensions.. Past is always beautiful..! :P As you grow up..thrz smthing wch proportionally grows up.. yes..itz abt responsibilities tht am talking abt..! Now itz time to hold myself completely responsible for my decisions.. Am gonna graduate in a day nw.. and here i come across the lifez peak turning point...the major question that seeks for high attention..."What next??"

A series of questions sprouting one after the other...at a rapid reproduction rate. The moment u get a solution for one, it gives rise to a bunch of otherz. If u decide on which of the most craved options like MS, MBA, Civilz, job to go with, which itself is not that small a task..u have another set rooting up after that. 4 years it took to temporarily decide the wave which is gonna direct the flow of my boat. "job" it is..! and the Almighty has been so kind to me..I have asked him for 1 and he gave me 3.. How lucky i am..Infy, Wipro, ANZ-IT. Another decision junction with 3 points as i define. Somehow i ruled out wipro converging the points to 2. And now Oracle enters the list as a tentative point somehow taking back the count to 3...!

As far as i am concerned, He decides and i follow. Well..the very evident thing is infy is a mass recruiter and i am sure that i dont want to be one amg thousands. I dont want to go away with the wind. I believe that "u can really feel the excitement of sailing only when u have waves against u " I dunno wat u call it..may be u call it ego or pride or watever..but i call it the ATTITUDE. ANZ has been one among my dream companies since i have seen many of my seniors placed with it. Considering pay as one of the last priorities and taking into account various other major parameters lets see where He is gonna direct me to..!

As the days roll on..

2007-06-11T10:26:00.000-07:00

I have 4 more days to go before i put a fullstop...or atleast a comma as of now to my student life. Thanks to BITS for incorporating one full semester under internship programme. 7 semesters oncampus as a naughty student with vast space for multifaceted activities enabling allround development and 1 semester offcampus as a student budding into a professional. This fetches the graduate degree.

Itz 11:12PM and I lay on my bed pondering over various thoughts.. As i see few people online on my list..i get back to the day1 when i stepped into oracle as an intern. It was a total new place and a diff atm covered by a totally new corporate mask. Thank God..! Bangalore is filled with BITSians ;-) A wave of relief crept over me as i was introduced to the team i am to work with for one semester of project work, to see 2 BITSians in the team of 8.

It was a period of translation from a student pursuing civil engineering to a professional all set to take on corporate world with a wish of being a magnificent programmer. It was the span where there was a ferocious battle of "Bits sickness" vs "Home sickness". A brief orientation of the work was sufficient to feel all my dreams being shattered mercilessly. Thanks to my fate, for my project...if not beyond by expectations..was atleast not quite below my expectations..! It has taught me a lot of things which now make me confident enough to take over the challenges at workplace and the spirit of golden career ahead.

The countdown for the last day of my internship started 2 months ago. Each day the count gets decremented, the smiles on my face began crossing the bounds. But things have changed as the days rolled on. Here is an effusion of feelings that lack words to express. Uttering a three letter word "BYE" is not all that easy as i had thought. I now realize that i was wrong once upon a time when i thought i would never miss anything or anyone more than the things and the onez that have accompanied me for 7 semesters. Itz not the time that matters; itz the intimacy.

Well, Itz all a part of life. One phase of it ends only to give rise to another budding new pool. So, lots more in store..!Just enjoy..you cannot afford to miss this... for each phase comes only once to leave gratifying retentions for the onez to come.!!

A walk up the hill

2007-06-11T08:14:00.000-07:00

A walk up the hill..not juz 1 or 2...itz 7 hills..haha..the famous tirumala..! For the 1st time in my 21 years, i went walking from tirupathi to tirumala. It was such a memorable walk i have ever had till date. Five of us started with great devotion, commitment, enthusiasm..and what not..!

After getting onto step no.100, one of the member in the group made a comment- "We have 3400 steps more to go"..! That comment killed half of the enthusiasm of the group. Finally with 4 lemon sodaz, 2 buttermilkz, pineapple, mango...ufff...and a pleeeeeeeenty of snaps..we reached the step no. 3500.. only to realize that none of the ppl who had accompanied us at the start(wch included ppl of almost all the age groups) were thr at the end...the reason being quite simple..none of them could compete with our speed ;-) of reaching the destination in just 5 hours :P hehe..ofcourse we had our own reasons to defend our wonderful pace..and we were so happy for successfully having finished the task..! ;-)

Our defending reasons include...
1) We started at 3:15 PM after a heavy lunch with 1 Hour sleep the previous night.
2) Lost in enjoying the priceless nature... especially after the drizzle and the wonderful rainbow that showed up as a result.
3) Too busy in capturing our sweet memories into snaps to note the time that we have been spending..!
4) Thrz a proverb in telugu - "Parigethi paalu thagadam kante nilchuni neellu thagadam better". We almost followed it for for the fact that we have replaced water with butter milk and lemon soda..! ;-)

oohh..no...i dont want rotten tomatoes and eggs nw..lemme put an end to my so called reasons..!

Well..as a matter of fact..we had an amaZZzing trip and we nourish each minute of it in the best possible way. Thanks to Harika, Gouth, Rajju and Mani for making all this possible...!

Rasam to RamMi

2007-06-08T02:58:00.000-07:00

Shez one of my dearest seniors i have ever had at BITS...

It started off with a relluctant ok when the proposal of her marriage trials was brought in her house. The moment she waved the flag, thr was one alliance and inspite of all her confidence and courage that she generally portrays she got extremely scared

A few conversations with him ova phone...transfer of a few(few??? shud i call thm few?? "My hero wants a new pic every day" is all what she told me when i asked her abt the crazy flood of pics shez been taking) pics the signal changed from red to orange. "I wondered if any guy could ever live upto my enthu levelz..bt nw am scared if I can go upto 'his' enthu levelz..Damn..hez 10 times ahead of me in his thrillz and enthu levels" - This is what she had to comment on the change of signal from red to orange. "Am greatly tensed. He likes me so much. I am too young to take such a serious decision in life" - This is her comment after reading his blog abt her(only both of thm cud make out that it was abt this cute gal 'coz he was careful nt to mention her name) The fact is that he was equally tensed about what this girl wud say after meeting him personally. Quite natural eh? "Itz more of trust than love" says this girl when she requested for slight modifications in this blog for which i had to agree on the condition that shez gonna gimme more clues to add some more masala to this wch is soon gonna come up as next blog..!

I could see the signal on her end turning greener and greener day by day and now it is in a state which is green color personified. The moment i went through his blog on her, i told her that shez soon gonna be RamMi(Ramya Midhun) . She was surprised at my minutez prediction. But it was clearly evident. True love definitely wins :) I am right. The declaration is formally done..! Am waiting to see her as a bride.

Complexity Vs Simplicity

2007-06-05T03:18:00.001-07:00

The pleasant music from my Nokia cell diverted me from reading a book and, to my surprise, it was my junior calling up from Hyderabad. After the greeting, the conversation turned towards her college admissions.. The more I heard from her about her options, the more perplexed I became. Before even she could finish her list, I had to ask her for a break!

Once I was through with the call, I was not able to resume reading the book.Events, that took place 4 yrs ago, came flooding through my memory. How easy it had been! CIVIL at BITS , CIVIL/CHEMICAL at JNTU, ECE in GRIET and EEE in Vignan jyothi. Decision making cannot be any easier.

It was just a matter of a day, with quite a few arguments and discussions to convince the reluctant parents (and, ofcourse, the influential relatives) ... First semester fees DD in favour of BITS Pilani had been sent the next day and all other Colleges' admission letters found their place in one corner of my shelf.

That was all it had been.. So, why is there such confusion in her case? Or, is that wat is normal and that I wasn't very keen on a wide pool of options! Whatever, am confident that I have taken one of the best decisions in life and am sure i cannot be any happier than this :)

Skit

2007-06-05T00:20:00.000-07:00

Amitabh’s entrée: mere angne mein….ha ha ha!!!!

Amitabh: Hello Gentlemen. Aaj ki shaam, let me welcome you all to Kaun Banega Sita Ka Pati
Amitabh: OK! So in this so called Sita Ka Swayamvar, we will just have two small rounds.

1) Qualifying round: In this round i will ask only one question which will decide the finalist.

2) Final round

So lets start without wasting time with the qualifying round. So the qualifying question is guess sita ka pati kaun

8 ppl have answered the same thing…sita ka pati mai hoon..hahah..ram says sita ka pathi kaun..mujhe nahi patha..and ravan says,.sita ka pathi mai nahi hoon..they are selected to the final round..Arre..this is sitaz swayamvar..whr did the pati come frm?

Shakti Kapoor: How many fingers do you have in your hands.
Ravan: (ha ha ha ha!) Oye, 5 yaar
Ram: 4 fingers…
Shakti Kapoor: Sahi jawab! Ek tho thumb hai...Ram ka jawab hai sahi...Ravan ka bana diya dahi...Ram ne hai final jeeta...Toh ussi ko milegi Lolitta…I mean Sita.

NARRATION (During this narration the scene on the stage is changed !!!! )Hey..did I tell u smthing?? All characters in this play are purely fictitious. Any resemblence to any character..dead or alive..is just coincidental

AYODHYA: Dasrath & Kaikai Spoof

Dashrath ( the funky guy ) is busy decking up in front of the mirror, humming a song ( Aye Meri Zoher Zabi …. )Kaikai is busy chatting with some friend on the phone. (Need some exaggerated expressions during this conversation)

Dashrath: Darling, It’s been quite sometime now that I am thinking of retiring.
(Kaikai just continues talking on the phone, Dasrath looks up to her .. and keeps talking). In the wake of my retirement I have decided that Ram should take over my position as the chief of Ayodhya Private Ltd.
(Kaikai .. totally startled and shocked, bangs the phone down .. and charges at Dasrath)

Kaikei: Seems like the old age is showing up on you, now its time that you honor two wishes that you granted me, when I saved your life in the battle
(Dashrath has a puzzled look on his face at what Kaikai is up to)
Dashrath: Uhhh ???!!!! I don’t understand the confusion; the wishes are for you to make, go ahead if you think this is the time you want them to be honored. I shall uphold my promises.
Kaikei: Send Ram to goplus for a Management Development Program, so that he can become a better leader.
Dasarath: But who will head Ayodhya pvt ltd during the period of his training?
Kaikei: Make my son Bharat the CEO in his place.
Dasarath: What!!! I cannot do that, the stake holders would go crazy, our stock price would plummet. I can never allow that.
Kaikei (shouts): And what shall the stock holders think when they come to know the ex CEO broke his promises?
Dasarath (with a sad heart): Alright, I shall ask Ram to go on the Management Development Programme…

NARRATION (During this narration the scene on the stage is changed !!!! )Do you really think they are Dashrath and Kaikai from Ramayana !!! ….. ohh !!!! did I say Ramanyana ?!! …. Huh ! see even I get carried away with the names and references. But anyway we know that its all a work of fiction and these resemblances are purely conincidental you see ;-) … he he !!Ha ha ha …. Hey .. common .. lets catch up with our guys ar GO+

GO+ Scene

In the forest Laxman is totally distressed at being sent with Ram to GO+, far from palatial comforts.

Laxman: Lagta hai .. Babuji ka dimag budhape mein satiya gaya hai !!! (Kaikai’s Back Voice : Laxman … how dare you called your father Babuji .. ) Sorry ma !!! I meant Daddy …… (Laxman perspiring…) Huhh !! I am day dreaming in this forest, ohh god … help me out… Dammmn I am alone here and Ram is having fun L

Right at that moment SOORPANKA enters the scene

Soorpanaka: Hey good looking !!! Whats cooking ??!!! (need good expressions here !!!!)
Laxman: Whistlesssss …. Wowww !!! didn’t know about this happening here man !! GO+ doesn’t seem that dull…
Soorpanaka: Hello Handsome !!! got 5 min ?!!
Laxman: Ohh !! I’ve got plenty of time.
Soorpanaka: Didn’t know you were that Jobless eh ??!! I am the sister of the mighty Ravan, the chief of RAP LABS.
Laxman (impressed): Wowwww!!!! I am no small duck either … I am a powerful stakeholder in “Ayodhya pvt ltd” huh !!!
Soorpanaka: Powerful ???!!! ohh common. You call dwelling in a forest as being powerful.. go and fool someone else.
Laxman (frenzied): Careful lady, gusse mein tum bahut haseen lag rahi ho
Soorpanaka: Arre ja ja !!! kisko impress kar rahe ho?
Laxman: talwaar chalaney mein bhi hamara koi thod nahi hai… Dekhogi?
Laxman starts playing around with his sword tying to demonstrate his prowess at sword, and also trying to impress SOORPANKA. In the process due to some uncontrolled action, the sword falls on SOORPANKA and takes her nose off !!!!!
SOORPANKA (shouts): aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa !!! my nose..!
Laxman (totally terrified, about to cry !! ): Oh my god !! I didn’t mean to do that .. at all .. I am so sorry.
(But soorpanka is not ready to hear anything and warns him of the consequences)
Soorpanaka (weeping): Now I’ll surely make you pay a big price for this … watch yourself .. I’ll be back …
Laxman is totally disturbed.. thinking of consequences and crying.

RAVAN’s ENTRY

Ravan: Hey sis…looking gr8 eh?
Soorpanaka: (looking at audience) what??? Blind fella!! (looking at Ravan) whr are ur specs??? Put thm on.! Now look..that foolish Laxman sliced my nose off .
Ravan: Okie okie … chill babe !!!
Soorpanaka:You should take revenge for me.
Ravan: we’ll make thm suffer for this insult.

Narrations: Wowwww!!! there semms to be lot of interesting things happening in this GO+, lets catch up with the other guys out there.

SITA KIDNAPPING

Ram and Sita are chilling out in the woods on his bike. Ram trying to get romantic.
Ram: Its so beautiful out here away from the disturbing sounds of the city.
But Sita is totally uninterested in Ram, she is busy checking out the beauty of the woods with her binoculars. Ram has a very disappointed look.
Sita: arre…aage dekh.. Ohh, Woww !! look at that .. golden dear…. Ram, let me tell you this, If you cant get me that deer .. don’t even think of taking a single step towards me. Now stop the bike … stooppppppppp !!!
Ram: Arre I am trying …. Breaks are bad. Tumhare daddy ne ek motorcycle bhi dhang ki nahin di … huhh ???!!
Sita: Bakwaas band karo..and get me that deer !!
Ram: Okie baba, you walk down to the dwelling, I’ll be back with YOUR DEAR DEER !!!! …. Phewww ( wipes the perspiration off his forehead)
Ram takes off on his bike, to hunt for the deer, on the way he hears the song ( Champi song !!! ) . He finds Hanuman enjoying the song on the iPod and getting his champi done.
Ram: Hye Hanuman !!! How are you doing man … howz life buddy ???!!!
Hanuman: Oye koun hai papppe !!! Oye Ram .. my dear … ki haal chal yaarrrr ?!!!!
Tussi jangal vich ki kar rahe ho yaarrr…
Ram: Oye don’t ask yaar… daddy ka dimag kharab ho gaya tha, pata nahin kyun mujhe yahan bhej diya .. tu suna yaar… ki chal raha hai … teri bhabhi bhi yahin hai jungle mein .. (grins !!!!)
Hanuman: Oye kya bhabhi bhi yahin hai …. Oye sahiiiiiiiiii !!! Oye mujhe Sita bhabhi ke haath ka khana khana hai yaar… plzzzz !!!!!
Ram: Oye zarroorr yaar…. No issues … chal aaja baith jaaa gadi vich .. chalet hain ghar.
Ram drives Hanuman to his hut. Sita reaches the dwelling, and is getting impatient to see the golden dear. She bugs laxman to go on the look out for Ram.
Sita: Hey Lax, can you please tell me why is your brother such a lazy guy. I asked him to get a small thing and he is taking ages. Please go and check his where-abouts, I desperately want to see that golden deer.
Laxman: ok maata Sita, I think I should go and find Ram. But let me ensure your security first ( starts working on his laptop)
After a few moments Laxman is done with his job.
Laxman: I have created a very powerful firewall around this dwelling, which no one on this earth can break, however for your convenience you can keep this access card with you to venture across this firewall. I’ll be back soon with ur deer and Ram.
Sita: Bye … C ya !!!!
After a while Ravan appears near Sita’s shelter, and shouts out.

Kidnap scene

Ravan: bhikshaam dehi….
Sita: Arre…ja ja
Ravan: gimme something
Sita: I cant cross this line. So, I cant give u anything
Ravan: U have to
Sita: but y???
Ravan: Arre.. script mein tho aisa likha hua hai
Sita: Ohh!!!

NARRATOR: Woo hoooo !!! so are you people having fun !!!! Okie .. I know its funny, your giggles tell the story, that you people are having reallll fun …. But are you getting wazz happening here ??! .. ha ha .. don’t try to … just chill ;-) after we all know its all fiction … right ?!!

After Sita goes, Ram, Laxman and Hanuman arrive at Panchvati !!! Everyone is worried wondering where did Sita go !!
Ram: Where is Sita? I cant find her anywhere.
Hanuman: Yaar yeh vaddi dangerous jageh hai .. mujhe to laaagdaa hai .. koi shaana bhabhi ko kidnap karke kat liya hai …
Laxman: Ohhhh dammnnn !! Dude …. I think you are right …. Someone has tampered with the firewall .. it has been breached. Uhhhh …. Brother seems like we’ve a problem at hand.
Hanuman & Ram observe Ravan’s sign, and recognize that Ravan has kidnappend Sita …..
Hanuman: Hey guys … have a look at this …
Ram: This is Ravan’s sign
Hanuman: mujhe to lagda hai .. yeh pattha hi bhabhi nu apne hun le gaya hai …
Ram: Ohhhh !!! Ab kya hoga ….
Hanuman: Oye, chill maddi badshao !!! Abhi lanka ka ticket katao .. aur bhabhi ko wapas lao .. chalo !!!

@ LANKA

Hanuman: Oye bhidu … ye lanka to vadi rapchik jageh hai yaar… ek dum chama cham
Ram: Seriosly man, its fundoo !! Ravan baap bahut maal kamaya hai lagta hai.
Laxman: Arre bhai, take some lays.
Ram: no..
Hanuman: arre..take..itz onion flavour
Ram: Aisa hai kya? Thn I will take one..!
Laxman: Arre bhai, bhabhi ke baare mein soochon yaar..
Hanuman: Oye !! haan…. hum to bhool hi gaye ..
Ram: Hanuman, you go to Ravan and ask him to return Sita to us.

HANUMAN @ LANKA

Hanuman: Ayee !! dude, tussi sita baabbi nu kyu pareshan kar rahe ho yaar. Now common, assi unko lene aaye hain, unhe chhod do.
Ravan: Hey you, chill man. Ram cheated me during Sita swayamvar, then that guy Laxman chopped off my sisters kutti nose L !! and you say I let Sita go just like that. If Ram really wants Sita back, let him fight it out for her.
Hanuman: Oye, assi lad lenge, mar jayenge par sita nu leke jayenge yaar !!!!
Ravan: Common buddy, no marna maarna, if Ram wants Sita he’ll have to play lukka chuppi with me, if he wins, he gets Sita back ….. ha ha ha ha ha !!!!! ha ha ha ha !!!
Hanuman is puzzled

HANUMAN with RAM – LAXMAN:

Hanuman: Oye bhidu log … yeh Ravan to bada wala shana hai, bolta hai Sita ko chudane ke liye lukka chuppi khelna hoga.
Ram : Ab kya hoga?
Laxman: Hanuman ji lagta hai humme hi kuch sochna padega … Mein to kehta hun aap apni poonch se lanka mein puri lanka mein aag laga do.
Hanuman: Oye nahin mundeyaa …yeh mujhse nahin hoga.
Laxman: Par kyun paaji ??!!!!
Hanuman: Oye yaarrr!!!! meri poonch mein bahut dard hai !! J J J
Ram: Koi baat nahin Hanuman..you take care! Mein Ravan ko dekhta hun.
Ram murmurs something in Hanuman’s and Laxman’s ears, both Hanuman and Laxmman start jumping, but Hanuman is still doubtful. But forced into agreement by the other two.
Ram: Yeh dekho mere pass kya hai J
Hanuman: Arre! Yeh sikka toh Jay paaji ka hai!
Laxman: Jay paaji!!
Hanuman: Abey, Sholay wale.
Ram, Laxman, Hanuman: Let’s go and get Sita back.

Final Scene: Ashok Vatika mein Lukka Chuppi

Ram: Ravan, Ravan where are you? We are here to take up your challenge.
Ha ha ha ha (loud roar)
Ravan (entering the stage): Oye! Aa jao, ho jaye lukka chuppi. Tum jeete toh Sita tumhari, nahin toh…..ha ha ha!
Hanuman: Oye let’s toss, for whom to blindfold. So heads you loose and tails we win.
Ravan: ok! Ok….oye! what? Mujhe bevakoof bana raha hai.
Hanuman: Oye nahi, ok…tails you win and heads we win!
Ravan: Haan! Ab theek hai.
Hanuman: he he! Jaye paaji ka sikka…he he..
Toss happens.
Hanuman: Hurray!! We won, its heads (he he!)
Hanuman blindfolds Ravan.

Song…lukka chuppi….
Ram starts looking for Sita.Hanuman and Laxman distract Ravan away from Ram. Ram finds Sita and runs away. Laxman also follows.Hanuman gets caught. Ravan catches hold of Hanuman’s tail!!

Ravan: Oye! I caught Sita, I caught Sita!! Ha ha ha!!
(Hanuman is giggling)
Hanuman opens the blindfold…(expressions….)
Song..golmaal hai bhai sab golmaal hai..
Hanuman runs………Ravan runs after him….

The End

Right now..!

2007-05-09T06:41:00.000-07:00

Hot news...wednesday evening edition..., May 9th 2007
its KS reporting here frm Oracle India Pvt Ltd, whitefield with the updates..

The atm is slightly cold here because of the hiiigh AC...though itz being heated up by the wrkoholic ppl ova here with their brainstorming sessions..!

Sravani rite nw is quite busy composing the script for a skit for the "Rejoice" to be held at oracle on the 31st of may..peeking up the enthu levels of her team :P and coordinating various things.. ;) thus sufficing her thirst to actually involve herself in various extracurricular activities(which she has been missing since the day she has stepped out of campus). well...lemme put an end to the hype session here..!

Lakshmi has been found missing since quite a while. After reading the half composed script, itz discovered that her transposons reached high levels of vim and thus shez found lost trying to expel the tremendous amount of her boosted energy.

Arun and Supriya are amenable for increasing the temperatures of this floor thus trying to nullify the AC effect..! Prathima is found multitasking, showing all her talents...chatting, orkutting, talking, scripting, google ing, SQLing, Remoting..,and wat not..??!

More updates on the skit soon...so, keep watching the most happening place.. http://dulcettones.blogspot.com :P thnQ and bbyeee..! with AS team, Oracle Retail...KS

mired in maid..!

2007-05-09T06:23:00.000-07:00

Our cook cum maid is on leave since 4 days.

Day1:
We have cooked everything well with multiple dishes. Had an awesome dinner

Day2:
We had to remain contended with maagi

Day3:
Hotel food..!

Day4:
This is today..and i am still at office composing this blog nw..!

This is the state of deterioration day by day. We have become so used to the maid that doing things which we used to do ourselves previously has become a big deal..! Is this where the cosmopolitan tech is leading us to?? Is this how the modern technology is making man lazy by providing all kinda comforts??? well..this is just one side of argument. Am not certainly against technology.. I do know what typical kinda role it has played in making our country a developING one..!

Booooring..!! :(

2007-05-07T02:55:00.000-07:00

Am in the office and itz soo damn boring today..! :(

The person who sits adjacent to me is lost in his own wrld with his headphones deep inside his ear..! A bunch of ppl(around 4 of thm) in my team are crazily discussing smthing as if they are asked to resolve some international issue and as if they are going to meet the president in a few seconds and present their findings to him. ;)

The other two ppl in my team are completely involved in their wrk with their heads inserted into the laptops..! :P My PM is back after a vacation and hez in a good mood. hez busy updating the pending wrk over the whole week he went out for vacation..!

I dont have mch work today and I am observing ppl arnd..! Not a single interesting face to analyze and while away time..! I can see some discussions going on here and there. Are they discussing something? or are they ppl like me trying to create some wrk in order to kill their time?? If itz the second case, i dont mind joining thm..! :P But wat if itz not the case? i dont really want to heat up my head now with their hot disc if it really is..!

I suddenly remembered tht i can kill some time blogging..! and here i come up with one more blog..! hehe..!

My first blog

2007-05-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

It is 12:07 a.m. Sunday morning. Somehow I can't get my eyes to shut. My mind is feeling wide awake and the inspiration given by 'Rasam' has given rise to this 1st blog of mine. Hey..dont get carried away..the word in italics doesn't have the same old routine meaning as u might be thinking. Blogging is not just to drain some juice from brain.., but it has its own set of advantages says Ramya Satyam aka 'Rasam' as we all call her at BITS.

I had undergone an undue metamorphosis from a coddled, introvert kid to an extrovert, daring, confident and highly organized, sociable and able ambassador of BITS- Pilani. This enormous change still surprises me even today..! My first day oncampus..wondering why I had landed in that desolate place, the music nights, Creative Activities Club, my most memorable OASIS 2004, Physics-I 1st test(make-up), trips to Mt.Abu, Udaipur n Delhi of course, the longest summer vacation back home, dirty dirty politics, publicity stunts, PS I, my first lecture with 40 students and 5 professor of BITS facing me, my farewell, sky sessions, Radii talks, Pride as Editor of Civil Engineering Association on the day the mag was out, changes got it as mess representative of Meera Bhawan, Psenti night, 30th August 2006(placement with ANZ), time spent njoin every milli second in the final semester, PS II results, my internship @ Oracle India Pvt Ltd., Incised in my memory are those three n half years, I had spent oncampus and 6 months offcampus as an intern.

Today I realize, how much I yearn to get back.......to get back to my dearest pals...to get back to college life and all that fun. So, here i close my 1st blog, sharing my college life at a glance.