Life is a Freeway !!!

The legs are hurting, back is troubling and there is drowsiness in eyes (maybe a result of too much vodka + beer in last few days: D)

But the trip to Khajuraho & Orchha was fun and refreshing, Beautiful places especially Orchha. Wait for detailed account of the trip and photos. Till then, you can enjoy the panoramic view of sunset at Orchha across Betwa river.

I had enough time to think about certain issues and take some decisions while I was on trip.

I have been thinking about this for a while now, what is your say on it…………

Does our perception about a person’s creative work changes after knowing that person?

What might be “ok and nice” before we know him/her changes to “good and excellent” after knowing him/her …………………………….

Till then, let the life be on a freeway !!!

Do You ?

Do you like the songs because of the usual reasons (music, melody, lyrics, poetry etc)

or

Do you like the songs because of the mood you are in ? Once you are out of that particular phase, those songs dont hold the same interest any more.

Traces !!!

Are we all unconsciously biased toward people who have studied in good institutions?

Irrespective of where people reach (professionally), how much money they earn etc etc…..the education (not only academic) that is imparted at a school or college imbibes certain qualities or way of thinking in a person. In spite of how much a person tries, there always will be traces of that upbringing somewhere in him/her and it shows at some of the darkest time of any person’s life, when they are at the vulnerable stage and sometime in daily mundane instances too.

You can’t get away with it or Can you?

Few of you might say thats i am trying to generalize but lets face the fact that there are numerous instances of people coming from a certain place have some particular attribute common in them. Ofcourse exceptions are always there :)

PS: This is not a post written to evaluate a person, so don’t think along those lines. Neither is it written because someone has said something to me. Just something I have been observing for a while now and I wanted to know your inputs on it.

Cure ???

Cure for a Headache : A Can of Super Strong Warm Beer and a plate of Omllete made in Butter :)

I am thinking about the bottle of White and Red wine from Napa Valley which are there at home now :)

Lyrics from a beautiful track ...........

If I could start again
a million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

Johnny Cash "Hurt"

Breaking the Shackles

Ok, let me admit one thing. There is a part of Chennai, I am missing right now. Before anyone of you raise your eyebrows, let me also state that I am missing my library out there. One of the few things, which I really appreciated in Chennai, was well stocked libraries in most of the colonies. Delhites, as we know have never been known for their love of books, therefore if you want to read, you need to buy the books at costly prices directly from stores. This has directly affected my reading habits after coming back to Delhi. I have not done any justice to my first love (Reading) after coming back here. Out there, I used to finish one new book per week but here, I think I have read only 5-6 of them after coming back. No more neglect of this precious habit of mine. As of now:-

Currently Reading: Maximum City by Suketu Mehta. A wonderful book about Bombay.

Next Read: The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai. This year Booker prize winner. I hope it doesnt turn out to be another "God of Small things"

Another thing that I have totally left behind is watching movies every weekend. Next 3 Movie on the list that i am surely gonna see :-

1) The Departed

2) Casino Royale

3) Dhoom-II

Current Mood:-

Feeling sleepy. Slept at 4 and got up at 7 for office:( though feeling liberated!!!

Winds of Change

I am sure people (those in Delhi) can sense the change in weather for past two days. There is a chill in the air, skies are overcast and you can feel that winters are just round the corner. Finally after 2 years, I would be in Delhi in winters and only I know, how much i enjoy it. I just love the feeling of fierce cold wind hitting the face, having a good book while you are wrapped up in the quilt or just soaking the winter sun out there in the open. Delhi is just beautiful at the time of winters. To enjoy the cold, you just need to detach yourself from your apprehensions/ fear/ anxiety, whatever you want to term it. Just be there and try to soak in the cold winds and I am sure, you can enjoy the feeling.

On Wednesday, we had ODM-VII (Orkut Delhi Meet). It was great to meet all the old friends and some new faces out there. Richa aka CM has written an excellent post on it at official blog. Me or Prashant will add more to it by weekend. Just caught up with loads of work related to Diwali at home. Its my favorite festival and probably the only one i look forward to every year. Happy Diwali to everyone and their dear ones :)

Let me end this post it with few words from one of my fav tracks..........

Walking down the street
Distant memories
Are buried in the past forever
I follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change
Winds of Change @ Scorpions

Musings of a Stupid Mind

I got my Gmail id back. Google people mailed me today in the morning after conducting their investigation (that’s what mail said) and told me how to set up a new password. Thankfully, the id was not used to send any mails and no one deleted existing mails and pictures from Picasaweb. (That means all Leh pics are still on the site). Now the orkut community part needs to be sorted out. Lets see, whether Google investigations can result into something or not. I was just going through some of the messages on orkut and came to know that a lot of communities have been hacked by the same person named “Farzana” using the phishing site. I will write a detailed mail to Google tonight and wait for their response. Let’s hope for best.

There is a new channel (FM) on the air 104.00. They were having the technical test transmission till yesterday afternoon and I heard them first time day before yesterday evening. Within those 24 hrs, they probably played some of the best music on FM. So much so that, I was doing my work in office yesterday with headphones on all the time :) Hits from 60’s to 90’s. Of course not all song were good, they played some usual pop stuff too but I can live with that. But the moment techtest was over, they started 1 English and 1 Hindi number pattern and the quality of English songs went down. Nothing against Hindi songs (I love them) but we need at least one dedicated English channel though business wise (my mba education) this doesn’t make any sense because of high licensing fees in FM sector (some stupid Govt. rules) and lack of advt. (niche category of channel). That was the reason why Go FM in Bombay changed from English channel to a Hindi FM channel. Still 104.00 is better than 95.00 which is getting worse day by day. They have same set of songs and they keep on playing it again and again. Moreover, I think they just don’t know that English music has lots of category apart from Pop and Hip-Hop. Pathetic music!!! That leaves us with only AIR Rainbow 102.6. They play probably the best music between 8-10 in the morning though the RJ's are not at all good except the one on Tue 9-10 show (thanx to a friend for introducing it to me)

Btw, after going through Richa’s post, I think we do have premonition of bad things, that are going to happen. At least, I don’t feel something is right and get a queasy kind of feeling which something is going to be messy in next few hrs. Spooky…..naah…..experience and some unconscious thoughts in the mind. Probably yes, would write about the “Thin slicing” (judging something in few seconds) in next post. The “Blink – Malcolm Gladwell” effect.

Till then probably you can think over “How you are going to react, when a day which just started like a usual day turns into a good day in 2 mins, then turns in a excellent day in next 5 mins and then into probably a pathetic day in next 10 mins” How is a person supposed to react when faced with such a kind of situation? Had one yesterday, maybe musings of a stupid mind!!!!!!

Life is beautiful indeed :)

MW to MP3

I BELIEVE my car would be the only car being driven on Delhi roads in which MW (Medium Wave frequency channels from AIR) was being played for last one month or so. After giving me company for almost 6 years on uncountable number of times, my car music system finally decided to stop playing along with my rules. First the FM was gone and then the cassette (yeah, it was bought in 2000) player started to play music on its will. Finally this weekend, I decided that enough is enough and dumped my age old trusted partner in the car for a new Sony MP3/WMA music system. The pitfall: 5k gone straight into it, but finally good music on the drive because I can burn the CD’s of my liking. Already a dear friend has told me to take as many songs possible from her collection of mp3’s and I can always burn a copy of Prashie’s CD’s.

Coming to mp3’s , I do remember fondly about the music collection I had before I left for Chennai (Computer crashed and lost it totally when I was there). One of the stats that I can never forget was Getright (Download manager) showing, Downloaded data : 4.5 GB in 6 months and it saved 15GB of re-download. Nothing to be surprised of in 2006 but this figure is of 1999-2000 when we used to access the net using dial-up connection. My love for technology can be guessed from the fact that I bought (or rather made my dad bought) the first MP3 system that was launched by Phillips way back in 1999 (1200 Watts and it still rocks) and I had to explain the dealer, how mp3 works and his reaction as opposed to my belief was, it never gonna work :D

Well, Sunday was spent in writing few CDs and spending some time in Palika, which resulted in 6 mp3 CDs (Sting hits over the years, One Jazz CD, One of Indo fusion and finally a collection of Kenny Rogers, Johny Cash and few more music greats, Other two of old hindi songs of 70’s – 80’s). Rest of it was spent at Zen (good Chinese stuff with few shots of Vodka and Bacardi) with my graduation friends and yeah few shots at India Gate using a friends Nikon at sunset. Lets see how they come out.

Apart from that, probably i went through one of the worst thing that can happen to anyone using net. Somebody hacked my Gmail account through phishing. I agree, i was also not careful enough. Anyways, i hardly care about my gmail account, What i am really sad about that some used the same password to login on my orkut account and transferred the moderatorship of "New Delhi" and "Delhi Eating Out Community" to his name. Neeraj sir has entrusted me with "New Delhi" community and "Eating Out" was my baby. I used to spend around 15-20 mins daily to manage that one and i thought that it was quite a success when it was mentioned on FM (AIR rainbow) for its expertise. Time to move on, guess i had to learn it too hard way :)

Continuing with previous post “Anticipation”, the feeling is still same but it has gone in negative sphere now. I guess, its time to leave that feeling and venture back into my own comfortable world. It was good till it lasted, now it has no more place in my life :)

Anticipation

Do we need to look into each and every single detail, when we are anticipating something , even though that anticipation is just a thought that has been lingering in your mind and there is no practical reason behind it.

Human mind can always play so many games with the emotions of anyone that sometimes the tussle is too much for a normal person resulting into their other areas of life. Is it that tough to master your mind and heart that we sometimes are not able to control anyone or both of them...........

Anyway, coming back to point, i think the focus on small details are just to bolster our thought process, our imagination (which might be wrong) and negate any kind of pragmatic thoughts (which ofcourse are right most of the times).

Tough phase it is...............still life is beautiful :)

A New Beginning

I think i can give one more try to be regular with my post on this blog. Lets see how I fare this time :)

A lot has happened between previous post and this one. Let me try to put whatever i think should be here :-

• Left Wipro and joined a startup IT company in Delhi. Kind of strategic yet calculated risk. But thats me, i have always taken some big risks in personal as well as professional life. One of the mantras that i have always believed in is "The biggest risk in the life is not to take risk at all"
• Its feels great to be back to saddi Delhi, among your family members and friends. Nothing can beat this feeling.
• Finally out of Chennai, two year of it made me a crib-baby, which i never was. No more cribbing in life. Nothing against Chennai but I can never settle there.
• I have been travelling to many places after coming back to Delhi : Lansedowne, Bhakra Nangla Dam, Kota, Boondi, Ajmer and LEH which was just awesome. Finally i can accompany Prashie in all the trips after getting J of him all the time :)
• Sis-Jiju are here, kids have grown up and me being in Delhi was able to spend all the time with them. (http://photos.yahoo.com/dkmc705 Gungun Vyom-2006 Album for pics)
• Finally over with something which was just lingering around for a long time and something to look forward to everyday though it could be figment of my imagination :) but i am happy and already looking forward to how it goes.
• Met some really great people courtsey Orkut, connected more frequently with all old ones and found again some lost souls in the process.
• Photography is going on well, made a new Photoblog and i am learning something new everyday.

Some not so good things in past one year :-

• Not as independent life as in Chennai. Well I can accept that as a part of living in Delhi.
• Wipro was great experience, specially the bosses out there were simply great unlike most of the middle management in wipro.
• Manchester Utd. had the worst yr in Champions league, finished second in English premie league :( . hope it wont happen this year.
• Some good friends got married (mostly college crowd, nothing to be sad about but then you get to meet them less often now), some left to other cities and countries (Sayantani) for jobs or higher studies.
• Haven't been to Bombay for almost 1.5 yrs now :(
• Not at all regular with Movies, regular means watching more than 170 odd movies in theatre in 100 weeks at Chennai.

All in all quite a eventful it has been and yeah i am looking forward to coming few months. Lets see how it turns up to be.

Cheers and have fun guys.

A New Star Debuts

Long time no post..........somehow i dont think i could become a regular blogger :) ....... tough job for me...............u see what a lazy guy i am ...........now prash has asked me to put up a new post...that means, i have to write something now :)

Lstening "Na tum jano na Hum".....the best way to spend time in office: listen online FM channel.......u can check it out here : Desi Radio : just go to "listen to Radio" section...and select ur player and speed......its the best radio station online and with some lovely songs playing throughout the day.....if u love hindi music, then thats the place to be on internet......also u can request for a song........

Coming on Hindi music, its tough to follow the upcoming songs here in Chennai. All FM channels here play tam music only(even Radio Mirchi). So the only way to check them out is Promos on tv or internet. One of the latest album to hit the market is Rahul Vaidya's Tera Intezar. The first two songs are very good, u like them, the moment u hear it. A touch of Sonu Nigam's voice but now its much more diff from his Indian Idol's days. The other songs in album are also good. I think this is the best album among all the three Indian Idol album released till now. Also i feel, this guy will have a better future than other two even after coming 3 in the show. Check it out....

I am really looking forward to my trip to Delhi (well for that matter, i always look forward to my trip to Delhi). It wud be Diwali and Delhi is just the city to be in at the time of Diwali. I still remember the last time, when i was coming to Delhi on Diwali......Bombay in nite was nothing in front of Delhi at that time from the sky. Bombay is ofcourse the best city, if u look from flight in nite.....but Del arnd diwali beats it easily. Another city which looks really well lit is Hyderabad with hussain sagar lake in the centre of city. Also some of the cloud formation in the sky, when u look from flight are breathtaking. I am also looking forward to Orkut Delhi meet. To meet some old friends out there, as well new people. Hope to be there soon.

The last weekend was very different one for me this time. For once, i didnt see a single movie this weekend in theatre. Saturday was spent in reading "5$ smile" by Shashi Tharoor and later watching "Indiana Jones and the last crusade". I can stil watch the whole series again and again. Then ofcourse Manchester United match on telly. The best part was debut of Giuseppe Rossi. He is the latest from United's famous academy to make mark in premiership. Though it was his first game, the confidence he displayed while taking his goal was similar to a player playing his 100th match. He is 18 yr old Italian American and Under 20 Italy Captain. I have been following his progress for last one yr in Reserves and Under 20 cup and he has weaved his magic match after match. Seems like Man Utd has another star in making. I am sure, if he continues playing like this, he will beat Beckham by miles. He is very good in his craft and gals just love his looks. U can read more abt him here:-

• Man Utd Site
• Wiki

Watch out for him. People have already starting to say that "I was there when he scored his first premiership goal". I am really excited with the fact that We (Man Utd) now have some of the best youngsters in football. With names like Rooney, Ronaldo, Rossi, Pique its not far that the current team will win lots of silverware in coming seasons.

More to follow on the saree shopping experience in Chennai in next entry.....

Something about me !!!

Your Personality Profile

You are dependable, popular, and observant. Deep and thoughtful, you are prone to moodiness. In fact, your emotions tend to influence everything you do. You are unique, creative, and expressive. You don't mind waving your freak flag every once and a while. And lucky for you, most people find your weird ways charming!

The World's Shortest Personality Test

Back to Blogging........

Long time since I wrote anything on my blog. The primary reason for this is of course loads of work at office but I also accept that I have been little lazy to write anything on my page. Though I have a comp at home and if I wanted I could have written from there but somehow I think the best time to write blog is from office. You see, utilizing your time fully ………

A lot happened in between, went to home (Delhi) for about 10 days in mid July, got a salary hike, made some good friends and met few old and few new in Delhi and I am still looking for a good job outside Chennai. Somehow or the other, all the offers I have been getting till now are from Chennai, Bang and Pune. But, I am looking for Delhi or Bombay only……lets see when the fate decides in my favor. I have no reasons to give………maybe just cuz I am big city man J Delhi is of course home and most of my friend circle is there and Bombay is one city I really like a lot. Though both the cities have their own demons to fight with, in past few days.

What happened on 26/7 was terrible. It proved the fact that how much we progress, we need the blessings of someone above us to survive in this world. Never in my dreams, I thought of Bombay facing floods. The gravity of problem was not so visible initially to us people in other cities but gradually the images being shown on TV portrayed the true situation. The irony was that the whole India knew what’s happening in Bombay but the people of Bombay had no idea about what’s happening in other parts. Everyone was just going on in hope that next area would have been in better shape. My Uncle started from IOC office at 4 on 26th and reached Powai – Hiranandani next day at 11. With no way to contact the family and friends out there, people outside Bombay were as helpless as they can be. A lot has been written on what all happened that day but I wish that the people like us should take equal responsibility along with Civic administration for devastation caused by rains in Bombay. If only we treat our colonies and roads as our home by not polluting and fight for our rights with BMC and other administration agencies, the problem wouldn’t have been so severe. We need to forget the “chalta hai” attitude and made our polticians and govt realize the basic infrastructure needs for the society.

Coming back to NCR (Delhi), Gurgaon was in news for all wrong reasons. Though what happened at Honda factory was atrocious but why are we blaming the Police for that? For more on the story do read blog of a friend at

http://nikhilgurjar.blogspot.com/2005/07/uncomfortable-questions-ii-gurgaon.html

My thoughts are exactly same and don’t have much to add on to it.

Even after this, I still consider both the cities to be the best in India to live. Bombay has a spirit which no other city can match and Delhi has the best infrastructure and city planning in country.

Cheers to both Delhi and Bombay……..

Chennai - Turning into another Bangalore

Last night I was reading an article in Hindu about "Chennai is a good city for anyone to settle in" and it gave many reasons for the same. There were few comments from different people too about how good this city is. Another point which is being highly highlighted these days is the number of IT companies, which are moving to Chennai to open up the operations. There is Infy, Wipro, TCS, Patni, Xansa, CTS, HCL and soon the likes of Accenture would be opening up centre out here. In fact after Bangalore, Infy has the biggest centre in Chennai and Accenture would be opening its biggest centre out here. As for other companies they are too having quite a huge numbers of employees here at Chennai Development centre. So if you are in IT, the place to be is Chennai right now.

Ok, enough of that, lets face some truth out here. I have been staying in Chennai for 1 year now. So, how has been my stay like? Well, work kept me busy. Maybe that’s why the year went like a whirlwind. But apart from that, I won’t say it was ok kind of yr....in fact to put it in simple way, it was one bad year. I know people who like Chennai or anyone who has been born and brought up here would hate me after reading next few lines. Let’s start with:

Things I like about Chennai:-
Beach and Sea
Good restaurants
Culturally very strong……….
Good retail chain of shops like foodworld, Subhiksha….etc.
?
? ?
? ? ?
? ? ? ?

Yeah nothing more to write about. I have tried a lot to love something out here but somehow or the other my experiences here never let me do it. This city can really test your patience. I have been to many places all across India but haven’t seen such a water problem anywhere. For drinking you have to use bottled water only and it’s a big business out here...totally in hands of politicians, maybe that’s why this problem is continuing for ages. It’s a big cash cow for the politicians out here and instead of doing something; they are always having arguments within themselves over it. The water from which you take bath is hard and salty resulting into loss of hair and taking all the softness out of it. In a recent report in The Hindu last month, it was reported that Sea water has entered and mixed with the ground water, making it more hard and salty. Talking about weather, better not to say anything. There are three kinds of climate here “Hot-Hotter- Hottest”. There is hardly any entertainment options, just one multiplex ( for Hindi and English) which is poor cousin of Adlabs or PVRs....no places to shop unless you fancy Pallika bazar type Spencer Plaza or 5 story high saree shops of T. Nagar.

I wont be including Food and Language into it because every city and state has its own identity and these two (food and lang.) are integral part of it. Of course for someone who is coming from North India, it’s a big problem but that’s not what I am discussing out here. Though it’s tough, I agree.

But what irritates me most is the unprofessional nature of the city. Few instances of that:

It takes around 7 days and 5 people to put up an internet cable connection at your home which is 2 hour job anywhere.

Cable people don’t work after 6, so if everyone at your home is working and your cable stops working on Monday, then better wait till next weekend to get it alright.

These are small things but with instances like these, who would like to settle down here. Traveling in local buses is nightmare and watching movie is one hell of job out here and roads are so small that 70% of roads and flyovers here are one lane only.

So, why companies are shifting here?

1) The decision makers: People are from Tamilnadu, atleast Infy, Wipro are like that.

2) Man power: lots of engineers, there is Engg. College in every nook and corner for city. In fact its tough to get admission in normal grad courses rather than Engg. Quality of manpower : average kind but what works out here is that people don’t leave job easily. So, low attrition rate, that’s the key factor. They are happy with anything. I see people working 15 hours without complaining out here and they just want to code, nothing else. Imagine the quality of work force by this only that one of the PM asking my friend, did u take admission in IIM after passing 12th.

3) Proximity to Bangalore.

What ever companies say that better infrastructure, cheap land and so many work forces is all hogwash. If u will open up your office 20-30 kms out of city, u will surely get land cheap.

Anyway I just want to say that if the infrastructure problems are not taken care of then it will turn into another Bangalore. Already there is so much dense traffic, Chennai is not built up for that. It is almost a unplanned city totally. There is a need to move out from the city and develop something on the lines of Navi Mumbai, Noida and Gurgaon. But the eternal problem is water scarcity…….. What will happen to that ?????

PS: This is blog entry is about Chennai as a city and nothing else. So please dont read in between the lines from it.

Hazaron Khwahishen Aisi

There goes another weekend in Chennai. Lots of sleep, lots to eat and 2 movies in between. If last weekend was a perfect one with visits to a Continental and a Lucknowi (yeah Chennai has few) restaurant, this was just spent in catching up all the sleep of last week and 2 wonderful movies and how can i forget - the weekend spl. Rajma Chawal.

As most of u must have noticed from the topic of this post that one of the movies was Hazaron Khwahishen Aisi. I heard about this movie around 1.5 yrs back and read its review on Indiafm.com. So after hearing a lot for past 1.5yrs, i was finally able to see it on Saturday. Thank god Sathyam people were showing it for atleast one show here in Chennai. Otherwise movies like these rarely get a place in Multiplex ( its not popular cinema and dont forget its Chennai ) The movie title makes u remember the poetic Mirza Ghalib Ghazal by Jagjit Singh and which also forms the starting of the movie by Shubha Mudgal.

"At the stroke of midnight, when the whole world has slept, we wake up into prosperity and freedom. Nehru has made a mistake in his sentence, because at midnight in India, people in New York are wide awake. "

Sounds ironical, but thats how the movie starts. It portrays the lives of 3 individuals at the time of political unrest, student movement, naxalite movement from late 60's to the end of emergency in mid 70's. A interwoven tale of three lives takes you to the time when the whole India was going through turbulent times in terms of social injustice and young people were trying to change India to a better place than it was. A gripping screenplay, excellent performances, vivid Cinematography and captivating dialogues makes it a intresting watch. In term of performances Shiny Ahuja as Power broker takes the cake. Kay Kay is good and Chitragandha Singh is brilliant, she is already being compared to Smita Patil. A must watch for everyone.

The second one was " Robots". I will be frank here, i love animation movies. Robots is a story of young inventor, who goes to the big city to make his dream come true. Nothing great in terms of plot but very well made and it keeps u engaged all the time. Few good Dialogues, few laughs and usual drama which results as a good time pass. Technically movie is brilliant. Again, something not to miss.

Oh yeah, yesterday it was turn of Mother's Day. One of the so many days that we have borrowed from West. Nothing against that but i wonder sometimes, Do we really need a day to celebrate that spcelliay, when everyone trying to come out with "how great their mothers are". Every mother is great, just cuz of the fact that God has only given them the right to bring someone in this world.
Amen !!!