Mish mash post, Grooks, Jobs.

Hmm long time isnt it? This is gonna be one cocktail-post.

At the work front, things have at last fallen back to the usual routine. Although, things have known to change rapidly and drastically every time I think this very thought. To moot, our manager now uses our team as an example in meetings and urges other teams to match our levels of 'commitment'. Quite a thing huh?

I've never been a poetry guy. I mean, I am not into poetry in english in a big way, although poetry in hindi has been a favourite. Well, who can forget Saroj Smriti by Nirala, Madhushala by Bachan Srmost ( Well if you haven't heard of Harivansh Ray Bachhan , thumbs down to you mate! :( ) , Satpuda Ke Ghane Jungle etc? Those were the days of Swati and Parag. Hmmm....good old days!

But recently, thanks to a friend of mine at office, I've been exposed to some real good English poetry. One of my personal favourites, among these are the works of Piet (which are referred to as grooks. Grook, wikipedia tells me stands for "GRin & sUK" ,"laugh & sigh" in Danish). Here's one for you to enjoy.

An ethical grook

I see
and I hear
and I speak no evil;
I carry
no malice
within my breast;
yet quite without
wishing
a man to the Devil
one may be
permitted
to hope for the best.

Liked it? Ok, here's another,

A psychological tip

Whenever you're called on to make up your mind,
and you're hampered by not having any,
the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find,
is simply by spinning a penny.
No - not so that chance shall decide the affair
while you're passively standing there moping;
but the moment the penny is up in the air,
you suddenly know what you're hoping.


Real good ,eh? Thanks due to my friend!
If you want to read more, google Piet Hein.
(Its speaks a lot about the strength of a brand name, when it is used a verb doesn't it? Hail Google! )

One thing long work hours have brought in, is late night telly watching. After a long day at office, it feels good to round off the day with an episode of Sienfeld followed by one of Friends ( and of course, the now routine scoldings about working late by the folks at home).

The last book I read was iCon. A well researched ( I hope!) book about the life and times of Apple Inc's CEO Steve Jobs. It was a pretty good read. A lot harsh things have been said about Jobs, his (mis)management style, aggressive attitude and misdemeanor. But all said and done , at 22 (my age) Jobs had already found Apple (Jobs went on to found nEXT and Pixar too!). And here I am fixing bugs in a stupid tool! Well, the urge to 'make a dent in the Universe', as Jobs would put it, has grown stronger ( and with it the desperation of dealing with the work I am doing at off right now).

Aur ab aap bataiye, aap kaise ho?

And when they reached the Black Gate, Strider said,"Brothers of Blogger! Of Blogspot! My brothers! I see in your eyes the same strain that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the wrethcedness of work ceases; when we forsake our servitude and break all bonds of stupid God-forsaken work... but it is not this day! An hour of joy and uninhibited laughter, when the Age of the Manager comes crashing down! But it is not this day! A day when one can send off one's brother (the only one at that) on a three month trip,without getting a call asking one to return to office as soon as possible! A day that doesnt seem like monday. But it is not this day! This day I work!".

And then he unsheathed his id and walked into his office.

The end of Voldemort!

Heeya! I've read the deathly hallows!!

Now before you jump the gun, let me clarify.

The version I read has not been penned by Rowling but by one of her fans Melinda Leo.
For all its mushiness , it was still a good read! You can find the book here.
Have a great time.

I am still waiting for the official version though!

what's wrong abt 300; south park

300 was a good movie. In terms of production and other frills few movies I've watched come close to it. And given the fact that I'd wanted to see the phalanx in action for a long time, Abhi's description not withstanding, 300 was a good dekko.

But what's wrong with it?

Here's what!

300 depicts Spartans as flag bearers in the first ever war for freedom. To quote Leonidas, "This is the dawn of a new age. An age of freedom!!" (or something like that)
But what pulls the (Persian) rug under the collective feet of the Spartans is the hypocrisy of it all. Spartan society depended heavily on slaves. How do you think Spartan free men were able to train so hard and for so long? Infact Spartans had a special force to supress slave uprisings down. Now you see the irony of it , when Leonidas talks of freedom.

Now chuck that.

I discovered South Park, this crazy show about four 4th grade kids thanks to Su a friend at off.

Here's a small two minute clip from South Park.
I must warn you South Park is not for the faint hearted or the prim and propah among you. (So Di you better skip this)



Did ya like it?
What? Oh! You won't be hanging around here any longer?!
:-/

Refuse the offer,Mr Murthy

I do not want Mr Murthy to be the President of our nation. No, it has got nothing to do with the brouhaha about the national anthem incident. I believe that anthems, symbols and flags are for just that- symbols - and the dignity of even a single man holds more value than all the symbols of the world put together!

My reason is that the office of the President has no power to bring about change. All Mr Kalam has done (leaving aside the exemplary example he himself is) in the last four(or is it five ?) years has been to set roadmaps, set visions and talk about what we , the youth of this nation should do - in short preach. To be fair that is the most one can do as President anyways. ( I must confess that I am unaware of any positive change that Mr Kalam has brought about, do correct me if I am wrong!).

Wouldnt it be futile to waste four years of such a personality as Mr Murthy? Mr Murthy has much to offer. Let us ask more of him; let us not allow him to be a powerless rubberstamp.

Yenjoy madi

I want to whine about the fact that I've not been able to watch 300 although I was the first among my friends to learn that such and such a movie exists, and have, on last count attempted to watch it on 5 different occasions. So here goes,

WHINE!

Now that thats done, here's something much happier. Six of us are leaving for Oooty tomorrow night and hopefully we'll have a whale of a time out there!!

Adios amigos and amigas!

Cia at the other end of this long weekend. Have fun! :-)

P.S: Whine jhine jaye bhad me!! Watched it today!! :D

Two thoughts and a sight to behold

Imagine India, the person(not Mr India for God's sake!) living in a small shack somewhere in the country. Everyday India is rudely woken up by the shrill ring of his/her (India may not be Mother India after all) telephone and when he (ok! lets assume he means he/she from now on) picks up, someone says "Jaago India Jaago" in that jingly tone. India slams the phone down but he can't go back to sleep now. He looks outside his window and sees a whole crowd camped out there. This lousy bunch has the idiotic habit of chanting "Indiiiia India" although sometimes India has heard them chant "Sachiiiin Sachin" too. India has no clue who Sachin is and is immensly irritated by the crowd's chanting his (India's ) name. All through the day, some or the other chap knocks at India's door and when India opens it, the other guy shouts "Come on INDIIIA DIKHADO". India slams the door on his face. He turns on the TV and lo someone's singin "East or West India is the best" (remember the song from Judwa? ). This brings a smile on India's face. India takes a walk every evening through the streets of the town nearby and occasionally he hears someone say "India ka kuch nahi hone wala. Yaha ka system hi kharab hai". India doesnt know the guy who said this butdoesnt care, having listened to this kind of crap all his life. But what bugs him is the crowd outside his shack. Last I heard India was planning a vacation with Ms Bahama. Enjoy madi India!

****
On the way to office yesterday I read this

"Delhi Chalo"

"Haq maango"

"Musalmano ke liye alag quota maango"

on a poster.

This set me thinking about reservation in the education sector and how it sucks. Then I had an idea. What if we could have an engg and a medical college (and a mgmt school) for every two or three districts that cater only to students with reservation? We could get the best teaching talent and provide the best infrastructure possible in these colleges. We may leave the politicians to fight over how much % of quota each sub group should get in these colleges. All the other colleges will admit students only on the basis of merit.

But will such a solution be acceptable to the lobby that's 'For' reservation? One reservation the lobby may have with this solution is that having a seperate college for reserved candidates will be a neo-discrimation against them, but wouldnt the best teaching talent and the best infrastructure make up for that?

What do you think?

****

On the way to office I stopped at this signal today. The signal after the left at Nandidurga road to be precise. At this signal I noticed a group of eagles scooping down to pick up some piece of meat that lay strewn on the road. There were vehicles plying on this road!! The eagles would time their dive perfectly (Avoiding the traffic of course!) .I managed to witness two or three succesfully executed scoops! It was an amazing sight.

Aisa bhi hota hai? Part 3 Or I dont need a shrink! Period.

What makes us dream the dreams we dream? Is it the thoughts we take to bed? Or is it something else? I just cant understand why I had this dream the night before last. I'll not use the past tense but will try to take you through the dream as if you were there.

I am Salman Khan.Or you could say my spirit is in Salman's body. Tabu is my wife and we have a kid. The kind of kid who is adorably sweet and naughty but has a uncanny ability to escape harm,like the Baby's Day Out kid. I knew the dream was all about how our kid lands in trouble, Tabu and I go hysterical and then everything falls in place, a happy ending.
We live on the topmost floor of an apartment, but there's some construction going on in the roof. Some small room or something. The person who is building the room or whatever is Ajay Devgan. He is a bad-good extremist. You know there are two kinds of extremists in movies (and in my wierd dreams). One of them is the bad-bad extremist. He is evil all the way and his part in the movie is usually inversally proportional to how evil he his. He is usually played by some side actor. The good-bad extremist is however played by some prominent actor and has a major part to play. There's usually a scene where he loses his family, his property or something to a bomb blast or a riot and then the screen fades and in the next screen we see him moving with feline grace (donning sunglasses) walking away from a building (preferably an evil govt building) and as he walks away there's an explosion. Now that's the kind of extremist Ajay Devgan is. Good but misunderstood.Ajay is a good friend of ours. Infact we are the only friends he has in all of the city.
Inexplicably Tabu and I start singing a family song. Tabu, the kid and I start singing the song and eventually we go to the roof and Ajay joins in. In between our happy song, Ajay sings some sad lines remembering his lost young brother (Arbaaz Khan. He fades in and fades out) . The song stops as quickly as it started and then we (Tabu and I) walk down the stairs into the apartment forgetting all about the baby.
We see the baby is on some make-shift roof and as we are watching the baby falls through the thatch roof. We see the baby falling but don't quite see it hit the floor or anything.
Next thing we see is a frantic search for the baby.Tabu, Ajay , a police inspector (don't ask me why he didnt apprehend Ajay), my twin brother (yes I have a twin brother) and I look for the baby everywhere but are unable to find it. All of us ,except Tabu gather infront of our apartment, tense and tired.The inspector looks at the floor and notices the remains of an egg. Tabu runs out of the apartment and screams "Mera baccha!! Ab tak hatch nahi hua tha!!!". (Don't ask me why in the whole world she's so mad!!). Everybody starts picking up the remains of the egg (the remains of the egg, I remember, are not liquidy but solid and crumbly).
Everything fades into darkness and the next thing we see is Tabu and Paris Hilton (or Anna Kournikova. not sure) sitting in a jeep. I am my twin brother now (you got that? I am not Tabu's husband now, I am Paris/Anna's boyfriend!! ;-) ). I walk upto them and tell them that Tabu's husband has already left (to where ? don't ask me! ) and we'll need to leave shortly. And then Paris/Anna kisses me!! Its a nice enjoyable kiss. After the kiss she explains that the kid's safe and the egg crumbles were not of the kid (I know it doesnt make any sense but hang on!). We ride into the sunset or something (this wasnt very clear :-P).

And then that's it. That's when I woke up. As I woke up from the dream all that hogwash about the extemist and the baby, and the baby turns into the egg funda did not seem to matter. What seemed to matter was the kiss! :D

Not the usual crap

A hectic week! No time for the usual music-blog hopping-occasional orkutting (is that a word or did I just invent it?) - stumbling routine and I would not have it any other way!! :-) Hopefully the next few weeks will be as busy as the last week was. And yeah, we've been promised some developement at last; something to look forward to!

Now amidst all of the work, I read "The God of Small Things" (TGOST) thanks to the long commute I take to work.

TGOST is easily one of the best books I've read. What makes it special is the way it speaks so much by saying so little.

The book is about Ammu and her twin children Estha and Rahel. One of the most moving stories I've heard. It speaks of the immense, selfless love a mother has. Of the indescribably beautiful love kids have for their mother. Of the inexplicable twain that binds twins. Of the hypocrisy of human behaviour. The small things that matter so much (but are not given the attention that's due to them) and the supposedly big things that shouldn't matter. Of how inspite of how badly you want to press that reset button ,go back and undo something, you just can't do that!! At the end of the book you feel just that! You want to go and stop Ammu, or stop Estha and Rahel from walking down the paths they are. But you just can't.

Its a beautifully woven story that touches base on so many things. Read it if you can.

Good things come in threes

Another V day has come and gone ;a big thenga and :-P to all of you people out there who say "change is inevitable,change is the only constant, blah blah blah". The one thing that refuses to change is my singular single status. Not that I am complaining but still.

I don't know why but I would like to thank all the wonderful friends I have, from school, from coll, from office, from blogistan, from anywhere for being friends with me and bearing with all the little quirks of mine, the many OHNO* moments and all the stupid jokes! Thanks a lot guys!

Life Lover had tagged me a long time ago and here's the post at last!

Three things that scare me:
1. Barking dogs springing up from nowhere.
2. Of being the last one to go among my loved ones.
3. Myself.
Three people who make me laugh:
1. The office crowd.
2. My friend K.
3. Chanlder Bing.
Three things I love:
1. Books.
2. Honesty
3. Spending time with friends.
Three things I hate:
1. The awful noise that's made when people bite anything crunchy.
2. Hypocrisy.
3. Hatred?
Three things I don’t understand:
1. Ladki junta. Self explainatory. ;-)
2. The defintion of girly-sweet. Sometimes I say something random that elicits a "So sweet" and sometimes when I say something really heartfelt all I can garner is "Jaa" or "GTH". hmmmm....
3. Why Abhishek chose Aishwarya or vice versa.
Three things on my desk:
1. This beautiful art piece that N made. Its amazing; maybe I'll post a photu here sometime.
2. My bag
3. The calendar that my company gave us all.
Three things I’m doing right now:
1. Listening to nasha hi nasha hai by Sukhwinder Singh
2. Trying to read a dry work related document
3. Trying not to fall asleep
Three things I want to do before I die:
1. Master the guitar (Are yar bahut dino se practice nahi ki... ab tak ek song nahi bajta mujhse :( )
2. Learn dancing.
3. Fly.
Three things I can do:
1. Make up songs for any situation.
2. Code. (Lekin karne ko nahi mil raha off me :( )
3. Crack absolutely wierd jokes.
Three things you should listen to:
1. The songs of Aandhi, Abhiman and Anand. I had a casette with exactly this combo. Kho gaya! :(
2. Pink Floyd.
3. Advice from ur loved ones.
Three things you should never listen to:
1. People who constantly say "you can't do that"
2. 92.7 FM
3. 93.5 SFM.
Three things I’d like to learn:
1. Salsa
2. Mountaneering
3. Flying ( a plane or parasailing anything)
Three favourite foods:
1. Chapathi/roti wid aloo muter
2. Theeka pani poori
3. Mirchi ki bajji
Three beverages I drink regularly:
1. Coffee
2. Tea
3. Water
Three TV shows/Books I watched/read as a kid:
1. Shreeman Shreemati
One of the best comedy shows I've watched. DD2 was amazing back then, with shows like All the best, Tu tu main main, Superhit muqabla etc etc....
2. Tehquikat
I remember one particular episode where the detective is called in to investigate paranormal activity in a house. I couldn't watch the end. Not that I was afraid or something. (Afraid aur me? HAHA ;-) ).I just fell asleep :-P. I used to doze off at 8 30 - 9 when I was a kid! :-P
3. Hardy Boys. Frank and Joe Hardy were the 'boys' if I am not wrong. Nancy Drew was a big no-no for us tough guys.

I tag Assaulted Peanut, Morpheus , Isha and Zoltan

* An OHNO moment is the moment right after you realise you've done something stupid or said something you didn't mean or mean to.Publish

Life's grey at the moment

This post was written yesterday at around 11 in the night or so.

I have been Mr Grumpy today at office. Although I didnt let it show I was believe me.
Am I pissed at life?? I have this one question that I must find an answer for. I cannot share this question with anybody. Its pretty confusing. Add to that the fact that I have not been assigned any work. I am a person who's happiest when busy. If I am busy I'll not find time to ruminate and questions like the one I am facing will not come to the fore. But I am not busy now. This idleness is taking its toll. Add to that the fact that I have not been sleeping well for the past few days and you have Mr Grumpy fresh out of the oven.

Have I told you I am an angry young man? Not one of those who are perpetually angry, but those who explode once in a while and God save you if you are close by. I have mastered the art of controlling this rage so if you ask my friends about this they'll probably laugh at you. But ask my dad who calls me Durvasa muni from time to time. The most recent outburst was about an hour ago. There was a bit of shouting and I lost it for a minute. The amazing part is the duration of such outbursts is inversly proportional to the intensity. I was my normal self moments later. I hate it when I lose it.

*Shuts the comp down and fades into darkness*

Me, a movie person?

Its nice to be back in the blogging circuit!

Do you know what happens when you pour hot coffee into a porcelain cup throw it out and then put some ice cubes into the cup?? It cracks up due to the extreme change in temperature!! I've had two weeks that were chockablock with esoteric technical training and two weeks in which I was more or less free. See the similarity?

If you have read this blog diligently you will remember that a friend of my bro had gifted him a slew of Salman Khan movies. Did I hear you gasp?
But as if in atonement the very same friend gifted my brother with a host of other infinitely more sensible movies!!
So the last three weekends were spent watching all of these movies!

Here are some of the movies I've watched and a one line review (Non-spoilery of course) of each of them:

Memento
the "inspiration" for the tamil movie Ghajini (wonder what Ghajini means). Well made but confusing. Good one.
The Incredibles
Very good! Much more than the usual superhero fare you expect. Incredibly funny.
The Shawshank Redemption
One of the best ones I have watched till now. Must watch!!
Final Destination
Final Destination 2
Final Destination 3
Part 1 was great, part 2 was good, but after part 3 impaled torsos, heads stuck in the lift and such supposedly grewsome things induce a protracted I've-seen-it-all yawn. Don't ever watch all three together like I did.
The Exorcism of Emily Rose
Nice one. Somehow I've grown immune to horror flicks. But this one seemed good.
Pulp Fiction
One of the handful of Quentin Tarantino movies. (I knw you knw but this guy was the one who made Reservoir Dogs the "inspiration" for our desi Kaante and Kill Bill)
Seemed mad, totally mad. But when the movie gets over somehow u come to like it.
Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind
Assaulted Peanuts (nice name na?) had written about this some time back. Read it here. I must warn you it has spoilers. The whole idea is about something that enables one to erase a person completely from one's memory and the kinda consequences/confusion it brings in its wake. Must watch.
Batman Begins
Nice one. Liked this quote "And why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up".
A Scanner Darkly
total crap.
Rocky Balboa
Uff this guy just can't go away can he? The underdog story yet again

Eternal.... deseveres a special mention. I was fascinated by the idea of removing a person totally from one's memory. You could remove a person from your person completely and the next time you met, the other person will be a total stranger to you. But I was left wondering whether such a thing is actually worth it. One of the pros is all the pain that a person caused or is causing you could be forgottten in an instant but the con that goes with this is that all the good times will be gone too!! I think its not worth it at all! If all we had were good memories life wouldn't be life would it?

What do you think? If given a chance would you erase somebody entirely from your memory?

And yeah!! Did I tell you?
ANTHONY WON ROADIES!


PS :
This post is dedicated to a person (let's call her Anjali) who does this:
Gang of friends: "Hey put-in-a-movie's-name chale?"
Anjali: *puts on a pained i-wud-have-come-if-i-could expression*
"I am not a movie person! :-( ..... Aaap jao aur enjoy karo! :-) "

Next day:
Sorority:""Hey put-in-the-same-movie's-name ke bare me suna hai? achha hai it seems"
Anjali: *jumping around* "When are we going? When are we going?"

:-/

PPS :
@Assaulted Peanut :
If Anjali kills me after this, take care of this blog man!

Chow Chow Post

Here's what I found in one of the forwards that a friend sent:

**********************************************************************************
Dear Friends,


i promise i will follow my new year resolution with all trust and all pains.........
This is my resolution for the year 2007 ..... (Scroll down and have a look )


is


is


is

My Resolution for this Year 1024 by 768 pixels!!!!!!Whats yours ??

If you can't see the bright side of life, polish the dull side, like me....

**********************************************************************************

Now I have a 100% track record when it comes to resolutions! :-)
Because of the simple reason that I have never had any resolution in the first place!! :-P

K .. bad joke! But here's what I may or may not do this year. But at the end of this year if I find that I had put my best effort into doing these, I'll be more than happy.

1. Eat properly and at the correct time. And dont be the last one to finish lunch!
2. Write good posts . (Ahem ... k this one's a goner! )
3. Exercise everyday. OR Play football as often as possible.

As you can see I dont put much pressure on myself.

The new year has brought a lot of changes in its wake. In the first week of the year I learnt that I have been moved to a new team yet again! In the short five month career I have had till now, this is my third team. It goes something like this:

Join team.
Break ice with new team mates. Go on team outing. :-)
Attend training sessions. Do a lot of study.
Attend a breaking news meeting where I get to know I'll be joining a new team. :-/

Sab study ka satyanash!! I hate these breaking news meetings!!! Hrmp! :-/

The past week has been very hectic. I've been attending five-six hour long sessions everyday. And I can't even pretend that I am listening , because firstly, the work involved is pretty complex and I have to have some basic knowledge just to go about my work in the new team and secondly we have quizzes (apparently the results will be made public :-( ). Hence the break from the tradition that started four years ago in college. To be fair the sessions are interesting, but I am actually paying attention to lectures after a long time. Hence the grumpiness.

K enough of my ranting (and yeah I have a bus to catch too)!

Happy Sankranthi/Pongal to all of you! :-)

Have a great week end!

A newbie's guide to soaps

Over many lunches (during the hols) and dinners (everyday :( ) I've been forced to watch soaps (kannada all of them, and thankfully no KSBKBT). Actually one could look away but then the sound bytes get to you and so does the hilarity of it all.

Here are some things I learnt the hard way.

1. Title.
The title is invariably a female's name or something that relates to suhaag,kumkum, family and such. In the first case the lead female does all the crying but in the second anybody and everybody can cry.
In the second case the title and the soap have no correlation.(Actually yeah the title may get used in one or two dialogues in a span of three years or so.) Or you could say the title could be used for any of the zillion soaps around.
2. How to identify the vamp
Sleeveless blouse + more make up than other heavily "made-up" characters + garish background music (+ last minute evil look when the episode is about to end) == your friendly vamp next door.
3.Nobody dies in a soap
Yeah nobody does! Everyone takes one fortnight to die (see pt 4) and some 40 episodes later you realise the character is not dead after all. He/she is lying is in a coma/in a mental asylum/ in some random stranger's place having suffered memory loss.
The real reason a character dies (or rather correctly goes into a dead-for-forty-episodes state) is that he/she found a better soap (ahem a better paying soap I should say) to act in or he/she needs to be comitted (sometimes they go mad too!) or they have a fallout wid the big shot (heard of Kekta?).
4.Soaps warp the time-space continuum
Soaps can make time slow down to a crawl. It takes one hour (two episodes) to answer a door bell, an accident to take place, for the doctor to announce whether its a boy or a girl or whether someone's dead or alive.
Soaps can have the opposite effect as well. In a blink of an eye uncles become grandpas , aunties become grandmas (theu don't look a day older mind you; the only difference is that one streak of white hair and less than usual make up).
5.Everybody is born rich.
The clothes they wear for daily use, abe kisi shaadi mai bhi aise kapde kam dekhne ko milte hai!
6. Reinforcement of emotion.
When the director needs to emphasise on a particular emotion all he does is to show the same character's face from different angels.
UP DHANG.DOWN DHANG.LEFT DHANG .RIGHT DHANG.DIAGONALLY DHANG. DHANG.DHANG.DHANG.
you get the point don't you?
7.It all boils down to Saas-Bahu ki kahani
The current dinner soap started off as a love triangle. Two friends love the same guy.
Eventually (After a hundred episodes full of love-triangle drama) one of them meets with an accident and dies and the other female elopes with the guy and marries him.
The not-dead friend then goes to her sasural and guess who she meets there?
Her dead dost! The dead dost is alive (Aila!) and has married the guy's father (double aila!!) !!
8. Baa is actually Yoda reincarnated!

Her age is 200 I've heard!

9..

Oh crap forget it! A post about soaps! This blog is going to the dogs!

22 not out

Yeay! Its my birthday today!!

Yeay!

Red pill or the blue pill?

What Matrix Persona Are You?

You are Morpheus, from "The Matrix." You have strong faith in yourself and those around you. A true leader, you are relentless in your persuit.
Take this quiz!








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Chrysallis

This post was supposed to be published last monday. But it lurked in the drafts folder all through last week.
When I say last saturday I mean 16th december.

Last saturday I was part of something special. Something that left a lasting smile on my face and hopefully on hundreds of others as well.
Sometime back we , at our company, heard about this group called Chrysallis. Chrysallis organises , as part of the Christmas season , a party for the disadvantaged and has Santa give away gifts to those lovely little people. We could contribute gifts .We could also volunteer to help organise this party. Due to some stupid reasons (read laziness and forgetfulness) we couldn't contribute gifts.
Late on friday eve we, four of us from my company, decided to do our bit despite the fact that we weren't able to attend the meeting where the volunteers were briefed. We were required to be at the venue Mount Carmel at 7 in the morn on saturday. I somehow got my lazy self to the venue at 7 but had no idea what to expect. No idea about what exactly was going to happen and who will be involved.



P and Di had already reached there and were asked to decorate the Chritmas tree and stuff. Di also did lots of face painting and had a rocking time while at it! Read more about it here. I registered myself as a voulnteer and was put unto the group responsible for food. N arrived last and he worked with the food dep (crap! being a techie had its downside, you start using words like departments even in a post like this one) at first and then went on to help the MC.

The venue

All four of us worked our asses off and it was only at around 12 that we realised tht we had had no breakfast! But we kept at our work, such was the spirit among the volunteers.

Lets move the spotlight from the volunteers to the crowd and the goings on.
We had around 3000 people (approx) at the event.
And every one of these was honoured with a crown and the choice of getting their face painted!

Princes and princesses galore :D

(a tip there: if you want to get pieces of cello tape over to somebody and you happen to be a guy your forearm isnt the best choice buddy! )

Now kids have their favourites when it comes to face painting. The boys of course wanted to be men and asked for big moustaches ala Veerappan and big sideburns! Another favourite was the name of thier fav wrestler (DX presumaly) and oh yeah, the initials of their loved one was a rage too ;-)(Did you say men will be men?). Among the girls , it was the heart tht won hearts I guess and ofcourse the flower and other girly things!!

The Men

The lady

And oh yeah did I mention the elderly crowd we had at the event?

These guys rock man!!

The enthu they have for life could easily shame one of us youths!
One of the many tales we had, involved this gentleman who wanted his moustache (white with age and wisdom) painted black! :-)

:D

Now we had to make the kids sit in an orderly manner so that space would be utilised in the best possible way! Easier said than done!!! There's a little vacant space where one or two kids can sit. But little Chintu wants to sit with Little Munna. Little Babli is throwing a tantrum and is adamant as well. Its only when a teacher tells Babli that she can get whatever she wants painted on her face does she agree to sit in the vacant place!! Sab khush!!:-)
I muttered a silent thanks to the millions of primary teachers all over the day who deal with such high drama situations.

And yeah!The patience that the teachers especially of the visually and mentally impaired children showed was amazing. They seemed to know exactly how to care for every kid. And to think of it, they do this day in day out!

Little Babli?

And now that we everybody had settled down the show began!

The MC had the kids attention by teaching some new styles of claps. Sunshine clap involved raising one's hand and shaking your fingers, rocket clap invloved clapping and then moving your hand all over the place with sounds of whoosh etc. She used these at regular intervals, I guess to get the kids attention back.

We distributed the snack packs to everybody present and let the kids enjoy the show munching on a piece of yummy cake and stuff. We had a magic show, a mimic's act, a ventiloquist and oh yeah we had many santas too!

Itne sare santa?

Now we had performances from the kids.
And every school gave a performance. It was really nice.

Radhe Shyam

Summer of 69 - Carol version

It was almost 2 by the time the last school had performed and now it was time for lunch!!
After every kid had been provided lunch and every school had been given gift packs, the stage (read dance floor) was thrown open to anyone and everyone and did we have some amazingly mad dancing on the stage?!!

Having a blast!

Wrapping things up

We might or might not have made a big difference in their lives but if we had helped them have a nice time and forget their insecurities, I'll live with that!
And oh yeah, thanks to everybody there for making this thing so memorable!

Cheers to chrysallis and everybody invlolved!!

Merry christmas and a very happy new year to all of you out there!!
And believe me when I say this, a day like this can do a world of good to you! :)

Roadies anyone?

Hmm so people are gung ho about Big Boss aren't they?
Well lemme talk about the reality show I prefer watching ....THE ROADIES!!
Not for me all the sob stories about lost careers , all the bitching about co stars...

I prefer young people doing some stupidly idiotic things and just laughing at them...
Lemme tell you how Roadies works.

Twelve people started the journey from Kerala. Through out this journey (or say each period of the journey that makes up an episode) the Roadies face some tasks and at the end of these tasks there's a vote out. The person who gets voted gets the boot. And the winner of the tasks usually gets immunity from the vote out. The roadies win handsome cash in some tasks. The roadie that survives till the end gets all the money.Pretty simple huh? Not quite! There's lot of drama (pretty funny sometimes) whenever a vote out is impending. People change like... hmmm like the fortunes of the Indian cricket team (yeah they played really well today did'nt they?)
And throw in some PYTs viz Roopali, Sonam, Bani and you can't ask for more!!

Among the current roadies (at the beginning of today's episode) are :

Bani (this one doesnt care a fig for others , I am betting on her!)
Roopali (very pretty. laughs at the most conniving-ish part of the episode! )
Sonam (My fav. Beautiful)
Swati
Poonam (The way she talks is funny. Like some small kid. Imagine a kid saying "wo poooora bheeg gaya" with movements of the hand etc)
Raj (God! How did this guy get through the auditions??? Speaks crap all the time!!)
Sahil (Looks bewildered by the politics essayed by others)
Anthony (Looks innocent but is not! Lambi race ka ghoda hai)

Its been some thirty minutes since the latest episode of Roadies season 4 got over and it was the most hilarious episode I've watched!!

The task this time was to present a dance in groups of two and the group that is judged the best would go on to win immunity. The dances were the most hilarious ones I have ever watched! It was amazing.

Raj was disgusting (Poonam was his partner. Poor P) . Bani was totally funny (She did dance well, but it was funny alright!! Danced to the tune of Chamma chamma Sahil screwed things up though!) Sonam screwed up though Swati her partner danced pretty well. The best dance was that of Anthony and Roopali. They danced to Garam Masala and it was awesome. Chemistry was there, synchronisation too!

And guess who the judge was??

Raakhi Sawant!!
And it wasnt normal Rakhi Sawant! It was the version that had poore clothes on!

And when all the dances were over and done with, the Roadies were asked to stand on the dias and Vj Ranvijay asked Raakhi Saawant,"Inme sabse kharab dance kiska tha?" and fiercely frank Raakhi points a stabbing finger at Poonam and Raj and says "Inka worst tha!". Talk of in the face dances , she is in the face in everything! Hilarious! Eventually Anthony and Roopali won immunity.

And then at last after a vicious circle of dirty lobbying vote-out time arrived. And this time, to the surprise of the Roadies, they had to vote out two people out!!

At the end of the voting process , Swati, Sonam and Bani had four votes against them and to break this tie there was another vote out.After some nerve-wracking moments (unke liye bhai , mere liye nahi!) Sonam and Swati got voted out!!
Sonam!
Shit man! Roadies without Sonam! Poor Roopali was in tears!

Ok ok zyada hogaya ab mai post end kartha hu.

mai kat letha hu ... aap khayal rakhna!
Good night!

Ps: Oh yeah! Look forward to a post about last saturday and about how slogging hard can be fun and extremely fulfilling too!

Teen quotein

I watched Troy yesterday night. Not till the end what with Dad calling out "Malkolo!! Bellage begyelbeku" ( SLEEP!! You've to get up early!!)
I watched it till the part where Achilles kills Hector.

Now there are three dialogues I like in this movie, of three different characters, Hector , Achilles and Ullysses . Here they are:

[The greek ships are about to land on the Trojan beach and Hector musters a cavalry force to defend the beach. Here's what he tells his men before he leads them to the beach]

All of my life I have lived by a code and the code is simple: honor the gods, love your woman - and defend your country. Troy is mother to us all. Fight for her!

[Here's what Achilles tells his Myrmidons just before they land on the beach]

Myrmidons! My brothers of the sword! I would rather fight beside you than any army of thousands! Let no man forget how menacing we are, we are lions! Do you know what's waiting beyond that beach? Immortality! Take it! It's yours!

[The greeks go on to win the battle and King Agamemnon calls for Achilles. When Achilles goes to Agamenon's tent, other thralls are about to leave. Ullyses whispers this (have put only a part here) into Achilles's ears as he passes by.]

War is young men dying and old men talking.

{Source : http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Troy}

Three men. Three perspectives.
The first quote is all about the duty aspect of war. How soldiers take pride in defending their homeland. The second symbolises the valour aspect of war. The bravery and the honour in war.

Its only Ullyses who putsforth war for what it truly is, dirty and evil. The other two are hogwash.

Chain reaction

How many times have you recieved a mail or an sms that is similar in spirit to this :

"some crap about friendship or some photo of some idol goes here
An officer has received 2 million dollars after sending it. Robert lost more than 2.1 millions for not sending and breaking this chain letter. Please send 20 copies and see what happens in 4 days.This chain letter comes from SIRDI !! "

What rot!! (This mail comes from Sirdi, does it?? crap!!)

I have recieved such mails and such sms so many times and its time to do something about this crappy thing! Why does one forward this kind of crap to others anyway??

I remember back in Jan (or was it Feb?? ) of this year I had recieved an sms one night saying

"If you want good results in the exam fwd this to 20 people. Dont send it back to me! If you dont then you will fail" (sic)

And I KNEW that our seventh semester results were to be out the next day!! The worst part of such smss is that if one of friends in ur contacts gets it,you are sure to get more than once copy of this same crap. (Ignoramii all) The same shit over and over again!!! Man!!!! I deleted that sms only after sending it back to each sender... Was I pissed!!

And by some quirk of fate I got the worst results of my life that sem. No , it wasnt that stupid sms, it was my effort (lack there of ) that seemed to fetch the kind of results I got.

Its time to make the guy/gal that sends such an sms see the stupity of all this!