MMORPG called Life

Almost completed converting the first page design into html. Just got a little lazy towards the end and ended up watching a couple of movies. I miss watching movies :(. I love watching movies. I gotto watch more movies. Sheesh! That's like 4 movies in 4 sentences. I should just shut up about it now!

Alright, so getting down to what I planned to write about tonight. This is a pretty complex topic or should I say this is probably the most important topic. I am sure everyone at different points of life ponder about this and ask themselves a set of very basic questions.

1. Why am I here?
2. What is my purpose?
3. What happens to all this when I die?
4. What is the point of this existence? Of me? Of this world? Of this universe?

Very basic questions which I think everyone deserves an answer to. I mean, you come into this world with no choice of your own, you get hardly anytime to live (relative to the amount of things to learn, experience and see), you think you would be allowed to live your life on your terms, but then circumstances and people around you make it impossible and then one day you die. That's it. Some die content, some hopeless, some forcefully and some just die.

It troubles me a lot at times when I can't figure out the bigger picture. The higher purpose. Why do I exist? Is working as a software developer my purpose? Is being a sort of bearable son the reason for my living? Or is it just an excuse to experience the various emotions (but that too is debatable, as I am not sure every human emotion has been defined by our languages), but I do believe that emotions are the only thing that each of us, rich, poor, able or disabled can experience. There maybe someone thinking what about the mentally challenged people? Well I believe that they feel things, experience emotions that we able and "blessed" will never understand.

I am sure these questions must have bothered people who came up with the idea of an after-life or rebirth, the idea of a soul. It atleast gives hope that there is more to the existence than the worldly chores. I would like to believe in them too but I have a problem with that. Its a simple problem. If I have already lived life before then why am I consciously not aware of all that I have experienced and learnt before? Why am I not equipped to use the knowledge gained before in my previous lives to guide me in being a better person? Why aren't my choices in previous life helping me make more mature decisions? And I have no interest in hearing the opinion that they are guiding me subconsciously. Because it does not make sense to me. Seems like pretty much a waste of time and resources. I wish people knew this, the higher purpose. Because I think a lot of us waste our lives just trying to make a living or rather just to survive. I wish religions helped people learn the reason of existence. So much time, life, resources are being wasted on war, suppression and negative things. I try to encompass a lot in the word "negative". Just for the simple reason that something tells me that the negative comes to haunt you at one point or the other. It happens to me.

Based upon some of the things that I have read and experienced, I sometimes wonder if life is more like a MMORPG. Just google if you don't understand what it is. Something tells me that the "I" or the consciousness comes in to the ____ (I don't know what, universe? galaxy? or the singular point of energy?) just like a new player signs onto one of the games. You have your energy (life) and your objective is to cross the different levels to reach the end of the game. (There is no winner because everyone reaches the end) You start playing and you are given basic powers and tools. You cross levels, kill enemies, collect rewards, challenge other players. Now you soon realize that things are getting more difficult. Its not possible to cross levels. The obstacles are too difficult. So you think that maybe you should pair up with other players. You start looking for other players. See if they want to clear objectives as that of yours. And then you end up finding someone. You go and clear your objective and suddenly feel successful. During these collaborations, you realize that there are many who just clear their obstacles and then just move on, not checking to see whether you have completed yours. And then there are those who stay back to help you out. They go their own ways but come back to check on you and you do the same. These are the friends, friends you can count on no matter how far they are or how long you may not have been in touch, but you know that when required they will be there to help you clear the obstacle so that you can cross the level. And out of these, you find one with whom you enjoy clearing the obstacles. You may end up clearing your level before the other person or vice versa but you know that both of you will wait for the other to come to the next level.

I feel these are the soulmates. You live your life together, cross obstacles but not always do both partners complete the level together. One dies and passes on to the nest level while the other remains, lamenting on the loss but wanting to clear the level faster so that they can be reunited in the next level. But its not so easy finding your soul mate in the next level (unlike in the MMORPG where you have a friend list :) ). But when you do meet you recognize them. Their could be problems when you don't because you meet someone very similar to your soulmate but not quite him. Worse is the trouble when you meet more than one and are confused as to who is the real soulmate.

And the best part is, dying in the MMORPG does not mean you crossed a level. You respawn at the nearest birth point and need to start all over again. And without your soulmate, you may have to respawn a lot many more times than required to cross a level. With each level, you get more experience and a new obstacle. You die trying to clear the obstacle and you cannot go ahead unless you have completed it. Probably something similar to in life. Unless you have learnt a particular lesson in life, you keep coming back and experiencing the same thing over and over till you learn from the mistake and make amends.

You connect with a number of people during your adventures and you join groups, making friends and teaming up with other players and you try to stay close so that you don't die and look out for each other. You may have special powers that the other doesn't and you balance each other. Pretty much similar to what happens in real life.

But the biggest pickle is what happens when you cross the final level? Do you move on to another game? What was the point of it all? Who was the creator? Now ask yourself these questions with respect to your life. Brings you back to the beginning, doesn't it? :)

Zank Dhok Palri Phodong

The North-East region of India is a melting pot of different cultures and races, Kalimpong being no different from the other places. A confluence of culture and multi-ethnic people makes it an extremely interesting place to live and grow up in. Though the general spoken language in Kalimpong is Nepali, the native groups mainly consist of ethnic Nepali, Gorkhas, Lepchas and Bhutias. Though Hinduism is the main religion followed, Buddhism and Christianity follow with sparse Islam followers.

During my days in Kalimpong, I had numerous opportunities to visit the various monasteries in and around the region. As a kid, I used to be very scared of entering monasteries, mainly due to the dark and scary interiors and the ambiance created by monks chanting with rhythmic beats of drums and horns in the background. But with each and every visit, the fear subsided and in its place developed an interest in the Buddhist art and culture. The Gothic interiors which earlier scared me started intriguing me, the holy chants brought a sense of peace and tranquility. I could spend hours sitting quietly listening to them at the Zank Dhok Palri Phodang monastery situated at Durpin Dara.

Topics such as religion and spirituality can be endlessly debated. I have visited endless temples and places of worship and the marked difference between a hindu temple and other places of worship is the feeling of spirituality. Go to a church or a monastery and spend some time there. You can actually get enough peace and quiet to reflect on yourself. Visit a temple and you would mostly be worrying about your shoes and wondering whether you would find them when you went back. The bigger the temple the lesser you feel close to God. Millions of people pushing, shoving and shouting, trying to get closer to God to cleanse their souls. The final result is that at the end of it all you want to do is just get out of there. I guess its more to do with the viral population growth rather than the level of spirituality of the temples.

One of my favourite activities during my visits to Durpin Dara was to go around the monastery rotating the prayer wheels, trying to spin them as fast as I could, putting in extra effort to move the big wheels near the doors.

Now whenever I visit Kalimpong, I try to visit Durpin at least once. Brings back a lot of memories, my trips there with my mom, and how we used to come here every time we had guests coming over to stay with us. It was here in the Durpin ground, that Prem "Daju" first let me drive a jeep. I think I was in class 2 :) This was the place where I first saw a Helipad and was absolutely at awe when I saw a helicopter come and land. I have visited lots of monasteries in my life but whenever I hear about one, the Durpin monastery is the one that flashes before my eyes. Roots I guess, just roots.

Cockroach

Days have been just flying. This week just whizzed past! I actually wanted to write about something that would definitely get me killed by atleast a few girls but its too late and if I don't write it properly my death is inevitable :D

Marriage season is upon us and 2 marriages in the same week is a lot of action for me. I shall explain this later but here's a transcript of the kind of fun we have at work. There are times when guys irritate girls just for plain sadistic pleasure. And when it is a character like me God save the girls :D, specially on days I am super bored. Cause my level of boredom is inversely proportional to my IQ (Irritation Quotient) or my quality of taking the girls' cases.

So I will obviously not name them but let us just call them temporarily 1. Marathi Murgi (sorry i meant marathi mulgi) and 2. Ninja Murgi. Now Marathi Murgi has shifted to Goa where she feels more confident with about 600 kms separating us. We shall not talk about Ninja Murgi tonight. There's a third too. We shall refer to her as "Don't Mind Na". Anyways, thanks to my super skill at irritating their heads off, they have got a new name for me. The amount of time these girls spend finding names for me! They could have solved the world's hunger issue had they spent the same time in something more constructive :P My recent name is Cockroach and I am kinda happy with it, given the fact that I have survived these 3 nuclear holocausts for the past 3 years :D Here's our little conversation one morning:

 me: subah subah

  shaani ban rahi hai kya?

  marathi murgi

Marathi Murgi: dekh ab tak cleaner aayi nahi hogi waha, tab tak chupa reh,udd mat

7 minutes

 me: aayi hai

  bahar ka room kar rahi hai

 chal aa gayi

 Marathi Murgi: shubhayu shubhayu run away, baygon spray will find its prey

15 minutes

 me: shaant reh, urmat murgi

  raat ko banegi teri tandoori

 khayenge hum mil kar saare

  hawa aane de, chal hat jaa re

  wah wah!!!

20 minutes

Marathi Murgi: bakwas :-/ x-(

And that's how my day begins :) Marathi Murgi is definitely gonna kill me and I am sure she will ask ninja murgi to do it for her :D

The Night After

My first night at Chiplun passed by pretty uneventful after the initial hiccup. The next morning my Dad came to the hostel pretty early. I was planning to attend my first class of Engineering. Was pretty excited about it. I had generally inquired about classes and had realized that college had begun quite sometime back and guys who had joined during the earlier rounds had in fact covered quite a lot. Also came to know from them that students had to buy Drafters, Drawing Boards and Tools for Workshop. I was pretty overwhelmed as I had NOTHING with me at that point of time, except for a couple of note-books. Now that I look back, I was pretty ignorant about what all a student needs for Engineering. But anyways I had decided that I would manage everything myself and found out that all I had to do to get the basic necessities was to go around asking seniors if they have anything to sell off/discard. One small problem though, they were seniors waiting for juniors to come in :P

Fortunately, the guys of room number 9 had told me from their ragging experience, the code of conduct. "Koi bhi senior dikhe, seedha hello sir bol dena." Showed me one senior and told, "woh dikha to Jai Maharashtra bolna", pointed to another one and said, "usse duur rehna :P". They also told me a few seniors who would probably be able to help me with the things I required. So I went around collecting stuff, making sure not to make eye contact with anyone in the corridors. 2 reasons - I couldn't distinguish between seniors and juniors cause I knew no one; These guys could see fear in the eyes :P. I later realized that it was easy to spot a junior (Once I became a senior :D)

The next morning I was pretty confident (I think it was sunlight that brought the confidence :D, sort of like in horror movies, where you don't feel scared if its a day scene) Soon after my Dad, in comes Sameer and Nicholas! Abhange (our store in-charge and a kamina) leading the infantry :P. Sameer (henceforth also known as Sam) had come with his uncle while Nicholas (henceforth also known as Nickso) with his Dad. Sameer had an expression of being extremely bored and generally disinterested in all the going on. His uncle though seemed very cheerful. Nicholas looked like he would cry any moment while uncle had a serious, gentle look about him. I am sure Nicholas was the saddest of us all to come to Chiplun. It was decided that we would have breakfast and then go attend class while our Dads would make the general arrangements :)

Anyways lets just go on to the night. :) We were settled in and generally trying to get acquainted with each other. Just for the purpose of anonymity let us call ourselves Alpha, Beta and Gamma :D. There was another code of conduct in the hostel. If a senior walks in, you stand up! Or u r screwed. We were generally sitting and each doing our stuff when a senior walks in. Beta and Gamma got up but Alpha conveniently continued to lie on the bed. The senior found it extremely insulting. He spoke to B & G and threatened A that he was yet to see fireworks. All of us were pretty scared about that statement. We decided that we should just sleep off. I don't know when exactly but suddenly very late in the night, there was some serious noise happening. Alpha was being given lessons on respect. What happened was that Alpha had opened the door after some heavy banging. It was the senior who had come earlier with the scary one (refer above "usse duur rehna") and a couple more. The scary one had a rod and he was threatening that if Alpha didn't respect seniors, then the rod would go up a certain not so nice place. Well I think Alpha remembered that for quite sometime.

Meanwhile Beta and Gamma had realized that something was fishy. Beta had raised his head to see what was happening but under strict orders of the scary one, "Abey tu uth mat! soye reh!", decided to follow orders. By the time Gamma woke up things were almost done and he decided to carry on with the sleep. There's a very high possibility that Alpha didn't sleep much that night.

The next morning we didn't speak much about it, though we do laugh about those days now :) The following night was better... lol pretty hilarious, now that I recall. :)

Abey aye! I am ok!

I know I was supposed to continue about the night after but I have to write this before it goes off of my head. Today was our gym trainer's Haldi (its a ritual about which I know very little, so shall not try and define it and write some crap. Bottom line is its the day when they have a lot of drinks and a lot of non-veg food. Apparently its the more exciting day of the whole marriage). Suman and myself were contemplating whether to go today or tomorrow on the day of the marriage. But the general consensus was, "Arey sir! Shaadi shaam ko 5 o'clock hai aur waise bhi shaadi mein kya karoge? Asli mazaa to aaj hai. Raat ko 3 baje tak daaru party hoga! mast nachenge!" Now that gave us more reasons not to go today :P. But the fact that we would miss out on the shaadi because we would not be able to make it after office made us decide otherwise and we decided to go today.

The whole thing was set up at juhugaon (we thought it was somewhere near Juhu when we heard the name for the first time) in Vashi. Neither of us were familiar with Juhugaon (It is basically sector 11, vashi) and our guide was supposed to be Nilesh (Suman's personal trainer), who is known for his misdirections. The last time he invited us to his home, he gave us directions which led us almost to the neighbouring town. The best part about him is he doesn't ask which way we are heading, where our starting point is, etc. He basically assumes these "minor details" and gives directions which is always invariably wrong. Today was no different. We knew it was near The Marine Center. Suman calls him up and tells him,"We are at the marine center and there is a ground near it. Where do we go?" Immediate answer, "Arey udhar hi hai sir! marine center, ground sab cross karo aur aagey aakey left lena, udhar kisi ko bhi pucho Sapna Lodge kidhar hai. Udhar aapko gaane ka awaaz aayega. Sun ke chale aana." We did the same. Unfortunately we almost reached a dead end. I asked Suman whether he was sure whether Nilesh knew which way we were facing. He wasn't confident but he said that he had already taken Nilesh's case about his sense of direction, so this time he wouldn't be wrong. Well we tried the "kisi ko bhi pucho" option and realized that we had walked in the exact opposite direction.

We somehow reached the destination. On reaching we realized that the groom was missing (not literally but couldn't find him where he was) but the daaru-party was in place. The first question was, "Peete ho na sir?" and the usual reponse when people hear us say that we don't drink. "Kya baat kar rahe ho!!?" Its as if we have committed this horrendous sin which is unimaginable and maybe even unpardonable! And that is usually followed by the usual ritual of trying to convince you to drink (as if they can suddenly break my life long resolution of not drinking giving me some cheap-ass excuse). Finally I sort of shut them off my case by delivering a lame ass dialogue to the famous reason, "Shiva ka shaadi hai sir! aaj to peeyo!" Told them, "Abey shiva ka shaadi hai to kya hua, main khud ke shaadi mein bhi nahi piyunga" I think that generally sent across the message that they are wasting precious time on me.

Suman unfortunately couldn't escape and he ended up taking a beer "cutting". I say "cutting" because the amount of beer was not more than a "cutting-chai". I on the other hand, had a couple of pegs of cola on the rocks :P. Soon they got busy with their stuff and didn't pay attention to our extremely boring habit of not drinking. Nilesh had already issued a disclaimer saying that he is not responsible for anything he does after he drinks. And apparently he is usually the entertainer after a couple of pegs. He starts off saying, "mujhe light dena, light!" And the rest of the guys are, "Abey pee na... kya light, light kar raha hai!?" Well one peg down and his smile seemed a lot bigger. Almost as wide as Julia Roberts' :D! Next thing we know, "One more please! I want one more!"

Down goes the second! Now I haven't seen a 750 ml bottle empty so fast. But I think within 15 minutes, 5-6 guys had downed one bottle. The other guys started taking his case, "Nilesh tujhe chadh gaya hai! Kal subah duty jaana hai, kaise jayega!?" He says, "Abey aye! I am ho-ho-ho-ok! Oye! Where is Royal Stag? Leke Aoo! Sir aap Royal Stag daalo! aaram se! koi tension nahi!" All of us were rolling all over the place laughing. He continues, "Main subah call kar dega! Madam! main kal shiva ke shaadi mein bahut peeya! aaj mujhe hangover hai, i'll not come!", turns to another guy and continues "abey sun, kal shaadi ke baad nerul gymkhaana se naach ke yahan tak ayenge!" (the distance is approximately 10 - 13 kms) We rolled all over the place some more.

Its really fun watching people get drunk, specially friends or peer. And I have noticed that the joy that a guy gets when he knows that he has found a drinking partner is limitless. The smile says it all. Its as if they have found a reason to live again. Also the sense of brotherhood. Normally a guy who would crib that everyone is finishing off his cigarettes would suddenly be offering everyone cigarettes and enjoying the sense of sharing :P "Aur peeyo!" comes from the heart! The final and the most irritating thing is the attempt of trying to make a non-drinker drink. Its like Dracula trying to increase his fraternity.

The First Night

No Chemical Locha tonight. Just not in a mood for any gibberish. As I had told earlier, I have had an awesome time in college. The 3 Stooges had always been together since day one. I'll just introduce the guys tonight, actually I don't know whether they will pool in money to get me killed once I am done but what can I say, these are stories that just needs to be recorded in some form or other. I'll try to keep the names secret while sharing some (umm....) embarrassing stuff but then again they weren't really embarrassing when they happened.

The year 2000 was probably the worst for students in Maharashtra applying for Engineering. There were thousands of students applying, the authorities had no clue as to what they were doing and the Mumbai University (MU) top brass was going cuckoo with their plans to increase seats. I think a lot of students spent the first year hoping that seats would increase and they would leave the god-foresaken college that they had foolishly joined under the pretext of joining a Mumbai University College. But then we were from a category, which was basically hopeless. Its the fabled OMS (Out of Maharashtra State) category. The OMS students basically get all the left-over seats after all the students of Maharashtra got some sort of a seat.

As is the trend, MU always runs late. By the time we joined college it was just a couple of months before the first semester examinations began. I came from Hyderabad, cause Dad was working there and that's where I had completed my class 12. I was the first guy in the room (26) and I had come in with just a suitcase. The first day I had reached there, I was shit scared. The place seemed pathetic. It was near a village called Aloré (ya it has that é). Chiplun city was quite a few kilometres away.

The thing I was really scared of was the ragging part. I have spent my younger years in a PG with lots of kids, so I wasn't really bothered about living alone. But ragging was something that I had no idea about. My Dad thought it would be a good idea that I stayed with him at the hotel on the first night and wait for the other students who were expected to come the next day. The problem with that was I was just pushing the inevitable. I knew I had to face my fears (seniors :P) that day or the next. So in spite of the fact that I had no bed, mattress or pillows, I opted to stay back in the hostel room. I had the stupid idea that I would be able to acquaint myself better alone.  A few guys I had befriended on the first day thought I was crazy (guys from room number 9 I think, I shall introduce them later) to miss out on Shalom (the hotel where Dad had put up) and spend the night alone in that state. I later realized that one of the guys was actually scared of staying alone in the night in a room, hehehehe!

Anyways I wanted to keep things quiet. The seniors were already sniffing around for juniors. They had heard that the last round of admissions had completed and students were coming in. Well I think I had switched of everything by 9 that night and was trying to convince myself not to show any sort of disappointment cause if I did, my Dad would have immediately taken me away. (He was pretty pissed off with the college on the first day itself). Not that I didn't want to run away myself, but it was my decision to join a MU college right from the beginning, though I wanted to join Computer Engg (another story) and not Electronics.

I think it was around 11 or so, there was a loud knock. I knew that my time was up :) And I also knew that resisting would just delay the process and make it more difficult. So opened the door and saw a bunch of guys standing outside. Asked me a few questions, realized that I had just arrived and probably felt pity to see the sorry state I was sleeping in (A bed-sheet on the floor with my bag as a pillow). Told me that they would be back again. My heart was racing the whole time but I was pretty happy with the turn of events on the first night. I had no more disturbances that night. The next night though was a different story all together... :D

Chemical Locha

I didn't realize how the day just zoomed by. Was super busy the whole day but when I think of writing what I did, I really can't think of much. Got a big bug out of ViewZ. Worked more on the PMP and URF. Ya I know, it doesn't make sense, but I am just noting them down, so you can skip this part.

The range of feelings that I felt today was unrealistic, I surprised myself too at times and now I am in a state of void. Its probably Enigma in the background that has led to this situation :) I gave it a lot of thought. But I think repeating the same mistake twice is nothing but foolishness. And I also know that I'll think the complete opposite of what I have decided today and it'll seem logical too. Basically, I think I am screwed for sometime to come. A sense of numbness sets in at times, a feel of losing control, but then what am i really losing? How can it be so difficult to control one's own brain? End of the day scientifically speaking that's all there is. "Chemical Locha" as shown in Munnabhai.

Its funny how nothing seems to clear up. I am contradicting myself every moment. I was so sure of everything just a few days back. And now suddenly, everything is swirling around - like a ball of confused cloud. There is just one thought I am still sure of but ironically that is the singular thought that needs to be destroyed. It is that whose destruction holds the key to the settling down of the rest.

It all must sound like a load of gibberish but thats how my thoughts are right now. A load of gibberish. And who is to be blamed for all of it? That's a million dollar question. And yet so simple. The self can create or destroy itself. But who control's the self. Why doesn't the "I" listen to me? How do I merge the "I" with myself? Because its damn difficult to make it walk the path I think it should in order to save itself from it's own destruction.

Shinni

It was a very lazy Sunday. Finally got time to work on the site. Was working all day yesterday on office stuff, so lagged behind on the site implementation. The main page design is almost finalized. Implemented a bit of it in html today. Since I had already decided the whole layout would be made using CSS, things are going a little slow, though I know that it'll be a boon later on. Experience gained while making the company's site is really helping. Also Suman's awesome work on CSS is also making life a lot easier. Though trying to get the same look and feel on Firefox and IE is a pain!

Went for "Satya Narayan" puja in the afternoon to a family friend's house. The usual junta was there, so ended up having a pretty good time. Now the highlight of the bengali satya-narayan puja is this thing called "shinni" (I think that's how it is spelt). Its basically a dish prepared to be offered to the deity. Its got a lot of stuff in it, milk, fruits, flour and god knows what all. But I swear it tastes awesome. I think most Bongs would vouch for it. We were bloody hungry by the time the puja got done, to the extent that we thought of suggesting that the priest be asked to fast-forward the process a bit. Anyways, we didn't do that and "shinni" came to the rescue. :P In other words, "Bhagwan ne hamari sun li!"

Was trying to write yesterday's poem for quite sometime. I had written the first part quite some time ago but was just not getting an ending to it. Yesterday, suddenly the light dawned on me and I realized that there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and also provided me with an apt ending to The Nightingale. :)

There are times in life when you want to prove your beliefs, things and ideas that you believed since you were a child. Innocent, naive beliefs. You spend half your life trying to prove it and then one day you realize that maybe what you believed (where the idea came from in the first place is something worth wondering) was actually an illusion. Isn't your belief based upon your point of view? But then if the belief is wrong, is your point of view wrong too? Wouldn't that lead to the conclusion that all that you have judged, accepted and thought to be true is false? A logical thought process takes a yes for a yes and a no for a no. But what kind of thought process would want to make you believe otherwise? How does one handle a situation when logic and emotions conflict? Does logic always win? I have had many situations in life when I have been faced with this dilemma, I am yet to witness emotion's victory. And I have given it numerous opportunities, did all I could to help it, was partial to it, mistreated logic, to the extent that I almost disqualified logic. But logic came out winning every time. Every single time! Would drawing parallels to good over evil justified? Logic makes me feel less human but emotion has always made a fool out of me. Always.

The Nightingale

You've broken her so bad, you fuckin' fool
She hides behind her smiles and plays it cool

She thinks before she feels, no matter what I say
She's gathered her pieces, and hidden them away

Eyes of brown, myriad shades of life
How deep is this abyss? how deep do i dive?

You all have pushed her down, down so deep
She looks and searches, but me, she can't see

There's absolutely nothing, nothing more to do
Blame myself a bit, blame you a little too

We'll never know what could have been
A world of our own, a life I had seen

I love my life, I'll live it too
But she wouldn't be there, to see it through.

Just another day

Ahhh! The weekend! Can you imagine a life where you look forward to the week and then the weekend? Its blissful :) There is so much work and so much fun that needs to be done that there is hardly any time :) I plan to work some more this weekend though. Which means that might site work might get delayed! Shit! Had totally forgotten about that part. I need to allot sometime to that too or else it will never get done :( Atleast the blogging is happening. That's some achievement :P hahaha!

The rabbit hole runs deeper :) Got some good inputs at the TRC, will need to re-think the strategy based upon what was said. Some of my secret doubts did get reaffirmed today, so a better strategy needs to be worked out. A good idea about merging the UR phase and SR phase (keep them distinct but a fuzzy distinction).

Enough of work. I think my workoholic side just might resurface. Damn!

A thought just passed my mind as to whether I should now start thinking about a Masters Degree. Not a full time course (I would get bored silly) but a part-time thingy. I haven't fixed yet as to exactly what I would like to do. But now that I have a lot of knowledge about how a company runs and how management works, maybe I could start thinking about learning something formally. Would help in the work I am doing.

Anyways, really don't feel like writing anything too heavy today. I think I'll do some good blogging tomorrow instead :)

The 3 Stooges

I had a very good day today :) How should I put it? It was like a complete day. I got a lot of work done (writing documents is a killer activity!) , met up with Sameer for lunch after a long time, (at our favourite KFC. The zinger burgers are to die for) and practiced Salsa (we choreographed our own steps for the first time). There's really nothing that I could crib about today.

I am really excited about the Project Management thing happening at work. It would really feel nice if we can set an example with our project and apply it to all new projects. But that's a long way to go because a lot of things look good on paper but implementation is a bitch. Bhakti is doing an awesome work in customizing the existing ESA (European Space Agency) Project Management standards and guidelines. I have managed to get a preliminary introductory document in place to introduce the stuff to the management. Lets see if the Chairman will be impressed but then again it'll be sometime before it reaches him. I just hope I am not bothered with all the other activities at work (which is obviously not going to happen). I sometimes feel that I seriously need to get my job profile sorted out.

It's always fun talking with Sameer. I remember in college, Sameer, Nicholas and myself used to have these long discussions on various things in life such as ideologies, principles, girls, marriage, philosophy and sometimes studies too :). I miss hanging out with them. And it's sad that life has got us so entangled that in spite of being in the same city, it takes us 5 months of planning to finally meet up. Nicholas has gone down under and God knows when he'll come back. Australia is really not making me feel good at all. At the current situation, I have an extreme negative bias towards that country. Its a very personal issue of mine and I have nothing against the country except a few oblivious blokes. Ok, getting back to my meet with Sameer. We caught up over a zinger meal, gave me good advice as usual. Its amazing how different he is now compared to the first time that I saw him come into room number 26 (I think that was the number) in 2000. Nicholas and his Dad followed. The 3 of us were always together except in second year when we ended up being in different rooms. It was so damn tragic. Fortunately by the end of the 3rd semester we were back to being roomies (total jhol giri ofcourse! we were officially still in different rooms :P) Right from our first year, it was always the 3 of us with our fourth partner changing every year.

We have had such awesome times together. Right from trips to Guhagar to Sikkim, we have gone to a lot of places together and hope that there will be a lot more places to go to. I don't know why we started calling ourselves the 3 stooges, cause I don't ever remember doing anything similar to the actual 3 stooges but ya that's how we like to refer ourselves as. There are so many stories about college and us, that maybe I should just make a label of it and start putting in some of our awesome adventures once in a while :)

P.S. Had an awesome Salsa session today and actually did our own little choreography. I ought to write down the steps so that I don't forget. Also realized that I need a lot more practice cause I am still very stiff and I do not have the smoothness in the movements. Its still jerky :( . But ya atleast I remember the steps better.

Sleep walking

I am not sure where this weather is heading. I know that I shouldn't crib as I spend most of my time near an AC, but whatever little time I spend without it, is crazy! And the humidity is not helping at all. Well it is just fucked up and I have noticed plight germinates creativity in me. I am in a highly creative mode when I am either very happy, very sad or in general in one of my extreme moods. Well today's hot and humid weather led me to rewrite a poem which I think, almost all of us, at sometime or other have recited as a kid. Here's my take on it (Putting it here so that it doesn't get lost in the Facebook database)

Rain, Rain come today, 
Johnny's promised not to play, 
Save us from this heat I pray, 
Rain Rain come today!

Ya! I know its sorta sad but that's how frustrated I was :P and it looks way better as a status... hahahaha!

Sleep is another thing that I feel pretty sad about. I love to sleep. I just love it and it hurts me so to see myself not sleeping. More so, if you work out. During my initial gym days, I had read up a lot on how much rest is required and all that can be read about getting a lean, mean body. Apparently one needs 7-8 hours of continuous sleep for proper muscle growth. I sleep less than 6 hours a day (not counting the time when I am found splattered on my desk at work, usually after lunch) I can't complain right now cause I haven't been regular but on days I work out, I feel like dying when I have to get up in the morning the next day.

I discovered a huge trove of documents on Standards and Processes. It was like tripping into a gold mine! But I also realized that this business is like Alice in Wonderland's rabbit hole. You don't know how deep it goes until you jump in. I am still falling and I don't see any light at the end of the hole. :)

There are times in life when you don't know where you are headed but you keep going because you have this gut feeling that it'll lead you to a good place. There is absolutely no surety whatsoever but you just get a good feeling. Would you call yourself naive? The path isn't that great either. You get cut, you fall, you get disheartened, you get depressed, the pain gets unbearable and yet you keep walking. The only thing pulling you through are these instant flashes of what you perceive is at the end (a pot of gold). To make things worse, there is a rope dangling just above your head. All you got to do is pull it and you are out of all the misery, but you'll never know whether there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. What do you do at such times? How long are you willing to walk? All this misery that you go through, would you call them self-inflicted? And what would you tell yourself if you reached the end and found nothing but a poison ivy? Can you be strong enough to handle it? Or will you just wither away hopelessly never again to walk such a path, never again to trust your gut feeling, never again to hope. Is that how you mature?

Processing the processes

The best thing about working in a start-up is that there are no processes and the worst thing about working in a start-up is that there are no processes. Crazy huh? But that's how it is :( The usual mentality in a start-up is, "Get the customer and just complete the bloody work! And make sure he comes back again!" Doesn't matter if you have to bend over backwards till you get a slip-disk.

I started my career in a big organization, a telecom giant, where everything had a process. It was extremely frustrating at times when the processes hindered quick completion of pending work. We often joked that we would soon receive a process on how to take a loo break, how to pee, etc. But that's how all these big places work and I can totally understand why it is so. With so many people of different mentalities working in a place, processes keep order and peace. At the end of the day work gets done albeit slow.

On the other hand, in a start-up, no such troubles exist. You get a project, everybody jumps in and gets it done. But, in an extremely haphazard manner. Its more like how nature works. Chaotic and yet in tandem with each other. But then nature has probably got an ISO Level process worked out which we are approximately a million years away from. Right now we are just monkeys swinging around in the wild hoping that none of us would slip and fall and break our head.

Ours is in a state where processes have become a requirement to streamline work, increase coordination and smoothen basic functioning. Internal projects continue to run perennially without dead-lines, external projects are taken without a fixed scope due to improper evaluation of the requirement. And even if the requirement is analyzed properly, scope keeps changing due to lose ends in our agreement with the customers. Customer Delight turns into Employee Suicide.

I am not sure whether processes are a solution to all this because I have been in places that either had them or didn't. Never witnessed the change brought in due to setting of processes. A lot of our guys (specially the management) at work realize that processes are inevitable and they need to be introduced and a few are extremely enthusiastic about the same. If my new project works out, then my colleague and I have planned to put in a basic outline of a possible process implementation, partially because it could be a good case to experiment on and partially because it needs a lot of documentation to be done which is possible only if done systematically.

Lets see if that works out :)

Verbal Diarrhoea

Ever heard of the concept of "Verbal Diarrhoea" (henceforth referred to as VD)? Well I am sure you have and if you haven't then read on, cause you just might be suffering from it. The concept is very simple and is astoundingly similar to its namesake disease. The funny part though is how similar and yet different it is from the medical condition. The similarity is that in both the cases, there's shit all over the place but that is where the difference start. Because once you are done, in the medical condition you feel relieved no matter how short the duration, but in case of VD, buddy you are so screwed!

Now I do not consider myself a Phd in this particular topic but I have gained experience far beyond an average person thanks to my extensive experimentation with the subject. They say that accepting the fact that one is in a denial phase is half the war won. Well I would like to step up and say, "Yes! I am suffering from VD!" Chandler Bing makes it amusing and to a certain extent cute, but in real life its not such a pretty scene. Though I have noticed, that when relating an incident of VD, the audience is usually in splits. (By the way, in case you don't now who Chandler Bing is, google it!)

My friends know what I am taking about. I have given it a lot of thought and I believe there is a solution. Count to 10 before uttering each sentence, sort of like Atal Bihari Bajpayee, our erstwhile Prime Minister. Your listeners would be so bloody bored that they wouldn't give shit about the shit you are throwing. Or better yet just don't speak. Though the best option is to find someone who can stand your VD and stop you when you are at the verge of an attack.

You'll notice that once you have started understanding the symptoms, you can actually curb this problem. For instance, let's say by some miracle you have managed to crack a joke and actually got people laughing. Now if you are not good at a sequel, do not attempt following up on the joke. And if you had an abysmal effect with the first joke itself, do not attempt a comeback (this is a precautionary measure to all my fellow patients)! Its a sure shot way to leap into the endless pit of VD. Worse is the situation when you realize that you have just raped the joke, no one is laughing and just to save your face, you are still talking, trying to revive it, trying desperately to squeeze a little squeak from one of your listeners. But, within a couple of minutes you have gone into a spiral loop and every word you utter is making the condition fatal. That is a point of no return. May your soul rest in peace.

Now I contemplated citing a couple of my personal favourite cases of VD, but I think I shall give it a pass tonight. Each of them was an embarrassment beyond comprehension and some day I shall relate a few. But for now, I have understood the problem and things have improved a lot. I now try to keep my stupid mouth shut.

Inspired?

Have you ever felt so inspired that you thought you could achieve anything? That no obstacle was big enough, no distance far enough and no task impossible? It was as if a super-being had taken over you. A feeling of higher consciousness. You could see a pattern to everything that was happening around you. And you felt as if you had the power to manipulate circumstances, create situations and convince strangers to walk your path, just so that you reached your goal.

You work with such focus and passion that the thought of failure never crosses your mind. You can't see the end but you know that the dark road ahead will light up just in time for you to walk past without the minutest hitch. Your positive attitude helps you take things in stride. Your confidence is at its peak and yet safely below the level of over-confidence.

What if this source of inspiration is so strong, so cosmic that it engulfs your life? It inspires you to live. Makes you want to be a better person. Pumps in so much faith in you that you want to prove yourself. Inspires you to appreciate what you have and open your eyes to what you need. Helps you differentiate between what you want and what you need because there are times when you want what you don't need and you can never have enough of that.

And such inspirations come unannounced. You cannot brainwash yourself to be inspired. It could be an idea you got during one of your early morning dreams, or the thought of insignificance while looking up at the sky on a moonless night. It could be a near death experience or a child birth. It could strike you one winter morning while you sip coffee staring into nothingness. It could be your inner conscience, a beautiful poem or a piece of music. Or it could simply be... a person.

Sita hindi bhasha bol sakta hai!

Had a great Saturday as usual. Got some serious practice done at class today, actually feel a lot more confident now and its been just 2 weeks that we have started practicing more. I am really happy with the way the sessions are going.

The heat is really turning into a killer! And to go out shopping in this heat is as torturous as third degree treatment in POW camps :P (feels exaggerated right? but that's how much it irritates me).

I was watching "Atithi Kab Jaoge" today and I really connected to a small thing they showed. In the movie, Konkana Sen Sharma was playing the role of a Bengali girl and in it she kept mixing up gender while speaking. Eg. "Woh jaati kyun nahi hai?" referring to Paresh Rawal. It just made me happy seeing that it is actually a phenomenon common enough to be shown in a movie.

I have lived almost all my life outside Calcutta and have spoken Hindi for a very long time. But apparently there is one thing that has had very little improvement in my mastering of the Hindi language. I, like Konkana just cannot get the concept of when to use "ka" and "ki". I refer to a girl saying, "woh kal aayega."  or "Tu sari kyun nahi pehenta". I have started putting in conscious effort to correct this but I think I need someone who can correct me continuously and explain the logic behind the sentence formation. I could also get myself a Hindi Grammer book and attempt on my own. But I fear that the result could be disastrous.

It is actually not completely my fault. Bengali doesn't have this gender differentiation! And genetically I am a Bong :) Thanks to this, my friends and I have had some very amusing time, some very embarrassing and quite a few life threatening situations (cases where I have referred to girls as mentioned above).

I firmly believe that there are numerous Bongs out there, who are tormented and are living in misery because of this "ved-vaaw" between the genders. Come on! Why should there be any difference in how we refer either a man or a woman? Is a woman less than any man? So why shouldn't they be referred in the same way as a man?

:D Absolute pathetic attempt at selling my concept but God  knows my life would be simpler if this minor ammendment could be done in the Hindi language.

Hideaway

I must agree that I have had a pretty good childhood. I had my share of troubles but then again who hasn't? But the bigger picture brings a smile to my face and fills me up with nostalgia. I had everything that a kid could dream off. Parents to trouble (mostly mom), big place to run around, huge garden to dirt my clothes, zillion trees to climb, chickens to chase, dogs to be chased by (bitten, at times), fruits to pluck (steal too :D ), fishes to catch in streams (mistook tadpoles for fish at times), books to read and a heavenly place to grow up in.

The 3 phases of my childhood that I remember extremely clearly are my days in Melli (South Sikkim) - thats where my father used to work, Kaji House (Kalimpong) - where me and my mom lived while my dad came to visit on weekends and Tapoban (Kalimpong) - where I began living as a PG but then became family. Each and every moment of my life back then was an adventure and the best part was that I was a kid to actually enjoy life. I didn't have to worry about the difficulties that my parents had to face to make life work there, but I guess that's why every kid deserves to have a memorable childhood, enjoy being a kid. I guess I was just plain lucky.

As a kid too, I was quite a loner. I enjoyed time in solitude. While living with my parents, I could balance my friend-time and alone-time but when I started living at Tapoban, things were a little different. There were other kids there and one wouldn't be left alone when he wanted to. Though now I look back and see how wonderful a time I had in Tapoban, as a kid back then, I really missed living with my parents. I was in class 4 then. Not too big. And at times I just wanted to be left alone and picture myself with them. But as I said, it wasn't easy being alone in a house filled with kids of various ages. But where there is a will, there is a way. I needed to find a place from where I could keep an eye on what's happening in the house, whether anyone was searching for me and whether I had to make a quick getaway. Kalimpong being a hill station had terraced landscape. We had  our water tank up a couple of terraces to the left of the house, (its a totally different issue that we could never pull water up to it from the "jhora" below :) ).

But I discovered that it was the perfect place to spend some quality time with myself. No one would even dream that there could be someone sitting behind the tank. Had a wonderful view too, sitting above the tank. I could see the whole "Kanchenjunga" range peering behind the house on the left while Kalimpong town to the right.

Took these photos, the last time I visited the place in 2008. It was during the rains, so was mostly cloudy. But there wasn't a single shred of cloud as far as my memories were concerned. Its been ages since I sat there studying, at times angry and at times sad cause I missed home but then its not really too difficult to time travel. All I have to do is close my eyes and I am there, back to the water tank, a kid in class 4, and yet there is difference. I see myself not sad but smiling smugly because I know the future and I know that I must enjoy the moment for I'll be holding on to it for a very long time in the future.

A recovering sniffulus maximus

I stayed home today. Just couldn't get up in the morning. Tonsils were as big as grapes and I realized I was breathing through my mouth. Immediately dropped the idea of going to the office because even if I did manage to drag myself there, I would have felt terrible all day, not worked a bit and would have just extended my agony. Staying home also made me realize how sleep deprived I was. I literally slept all day. Did a little light photoshop thingy in the evening and came up with a stacked photo effect. This is how the final outcome looked :

What say? Not bad eh? I like it :) I am planning to put this in the site header. It should liven up the otherwise bland color scheme I am working towards. I am planning to keep it simple so that it loads fast. But then again I can always rework on the theme of the site because I plan to implement the whole thing using CSS.

A friend of mine is getting married on the 15th of May, ie, the day after tomorrow at Jaipur. Too bad that I won't be able to make it there though. We were roomies in our 4th year at college and had some good times back then. We had actually become good friends right from our first year cause we were in the same section of the hostel. Man! The things we all did back then! I could write epics with the stuff that has happened back in college. The only part about college that I don't like was the God forsaken college. The kind of fun we had is like L-E-G-E-N-D-A-R-Y!

I had never been to Rajasthan in my life, this February being my first opportunity to visit Jaipur as a result of one of my other friend's wedding :) Had an awesome time there. Chandrashekhar and myself roamed all over Jaipur using every possible mode of local transport possible. He also helped me accomplish, probably one of the wildest thing I have ever done in my life :) I want to visit Jaipur again. I had some wonderful moments there and some not so great. I need to go to Rajasthan to overwrite those. I need to make some more good memories there. I don't know if that's gonna happen but I wish it everyday.

Sniffulus Maximus

"My name is Maximus Sniffulus Horrendous, Commander of a sad lot of WBCs, General of a weak resistance, Victim of a common cold, Husband to a throat infection, father to a wet hankerchief and I will have my medicine this week or the next!" - Inspired by Ron Howard's Gladiator

The common cold is extremely common to me. A slight change of weather and I am leaking like a flower pot. And then there are certain places where I am in a state of perennial "sniff sniff". My four years in college at Chiplun went mostly sneezing. And the funny thing was, I stepped into New Bombay (the train/bus crossed Panvel) and my cold magically cured.
 
 My roomies know how many handkerchiefs I have wasted during my days in college. And now the legacy continues. My colleagues are traumatized by my affinity to it and are scared shit that I might spread the joy around :P. It had once reached such a critical situation that I could actually scare them with it :)
 
Anyways, thing is I am really feeling very sick thanks to the stupid cold. And worse is the fact that I cannot miss office this week :(

Padwal/Parwal

We are pretty famous in office for having the weirdest discussions ever. Right from religion, politics to vegetables. This entry is regarding a debate we had about a certain vegetable called Padwal (Potol in Bengali). I like to consider myself a pure non-vegetarian (doesn't mean I am cruel to animals and support people wearing fur. So PETA activists sod off). Now occasionally my Mom has this brilliant idea of feeding me vegetables (apparently for a wholesome diet). There is an extended list of vegetables I don't like but Padwal (or that's what I call it) definitely belongs to the top 3 most hated vegetables.

So last week, Nabdu Anna, Mr Doubtfire and myself were eating lunch when NA noticed that I was looking at my food with a face that resembled a man with no hope in life. The reason was obvious, I had Padwal for lunch. And that is how the discussion began. I said what I was eating was Padwal while the other 2 insisted that padwal was a vegetable that was long and no where resembled the thing that lay in my lunch box. To make matters worse they had no name for it. We also confused it with another similar looking vegetable called Tinda. I suggested that they were confusing Padwal with Turai. We decided that we would go to the vegetable market near the office and solve the mystery once and for all. It never happened.

This weekend while shopping with my mom I had the brilliant idea of photographing what I called Padwal and showing it to the guys. And that's what I did today. Well when I showed them what I meant by padwal they would still not believe. To complicate matters, Ninja Hattori came in and introduced the Marathi name for the same. So now not only were we arguing about what it is called , we were also arguing about what it is called in Hindi and Marathi. A quick google search was done to make matters clear. Weirdly what google threw up sided with the guys. I was pretty amazed to see that Padwal was actually this long looking thingy (it struck me in a few seconds that I knew it by the name chichinga). One expressing my opinion there was a second round of explosion telling me that it is probably called chichinga in Bengali (which was partially true).

But then Mr. Doubtfire made a wonderful discovery on wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilingual_list_of_Indian_vegetables,_spices_and_grains
This cleared all our doubts and queries. The mystery unraveled in the following manner. What I was calling PADWAL was actually PARWAL and Padwal is also known as chichinga. So basically in some weird contorted way we were all right all along. Now as a Bong, a few things confuse me when Hindi is concerned (in spite of the fact that I have been speaking hindi almost all my life). As far as pronunciation is concerned, "R" (raw) and "D" (daw) does get a little confusing at times. I will not go into the other confusions I have in Hindi tonight :). That is a very long story!

It is weird how this sad piece of vegetable has got me amused to the extent that I actually dedicated a blog entry to it. Damn! Though my feelings toward it hasn't changed by an iota. I hated it and I shall continue to hate it.

Blyaaaah!!

I am just not getting a start tonight, It's 12:30 in the night and I am listening to U2's Stuck In a Moment You Can't Get Out Of and that's how I feel right now. I think sleep is the best solution at such times :)

I had a good monday. Got a lot of work done. I am getting a feel of the project now which is making me pretty happy about the whole thing. I guess the complete picture will clarify once I meet the customer. But then again, nothing beats the confidence of going completely prepared for a meeting.

Seriously, nothing's coming out. It's absolutely hopeless trying any harder.

And thus ends the weekend

Ok! I have no idea how the day just zoomed by! And it amazes me how I have got nothing done today. I was supposed to write (didn't even decide on a topic), work on the site design (got a little work done here, learnt some new tricks in photoshop), try out some experimental shots (managed to just charge the batteries :P ). Though I did manage to finally learn to play the lead of Wicked Game by Chris Isaak. Felt good :D

Met up with a friend after almost a year. I had last met her at her wedding where I was charged for the crime of being the most under-dressed person. It was once again proved that Apeejayites bump into each other at the weirdest places. We ended up meeting another friend and incidently I had last met her at her wedding. It was good catching up on stuff.

A new week begins tomorrow and I expect some more action. I had a good week :). I had a good beginning to my new project. Finally got my appraisal done (Still not decided as to whether I am satisfied with the results). Our Chairman, Dr. Shilowbhadra Banerjee thinks that I am good at communication and I need to make more use of the skill (I took it as a compliment cause when a person like SB says it, I guess it means something). A google would explain why I think so. I was finally satisfied with the amount of salsa I practiced this week :), joined back gym.

PS: This heat is seriously killing me and inspite of trying a lot I couldn't wish my mom a happy mother's day.

Mother's Day

Couldn't work much on the site today :( Hopefully will get some work done tomorrow. Saturday was brilliant as ever. The day just flew by. I had thought of putting something a little more creative on the weekends but after an extended salsa session, I just too freakin' tired to think much. The practice helped. Remembered a lot more steps than usual :) Plan to start different combinations within a couple week. I was supposed to go and find out about the swimming but that has not happened. Though I did find out about the new Front Street that has opened up at Nerul, sector 6. Its near the Nerul - Palm Beach crossing. They have awesome baked stuff and Italian food (I am not a very big Italian food fan but I am trying to acquire the taste and as a result I am saying they are good based on someone who actually likes it). I confused Fresh Lime with Sweet Lime and ended up having "Mosambi" juice with Apple pie. I know its a pathetic combination but I had no way out.

It's Mother's Day tomorrow. I get very uncomfortable on such days, mostly cause I don't know what to do about it. Like everyone, I do stuff for her all the time, but to make a day out of it makes me feel very pressurized. Celebrating your mother for a day is something I can relate to. I am just a little weird that way. I don't know whether its a guy thing. I haven't really heard any of my male friends celebrate a Father's day or a Mother's day. But my female friends are usually very excited about it and they seem to know exactly what to do. You would think that I would want to learn to celebrate from them but then again it doesn't come natural and I would probably just end up making my Mom uncomfortable. I would rather just be there for her when she wants someone to talk to or chauffeur her around to the weirdest places just cause she can buy things at a discount. :) Makes more sense to my stone age brain :)

Put on your dancing shoes and dance away your blues!

It's almost a year now since I started taking dance lessons. I wanted to learn salsa for a very very long time. I don't know why this particular form of dancing came to my mind but I am sure its mostly because of its fun and sensual nature. After searching a lot for a decent class, I found one close to my house. I was extremely apprehensive about the idea of me dancing. The reason was simple. I sucked at it! (I think I can say that I used to) It had actually come to a point where I had put it in my bucket list and made a resolution to learn it. I was googling away to glory when I chanced upon Conrad's dance class (www.conradcoelho.com). It was at Vashi, it was on a Saturday evening and you didn't require a partner to join the class. What else could I ask for?

I still remember the first day. Scared as shit I was. On reaching I realized that he starts with Ballroom Dancing (Rumba, cha-cha-cha, Rock-n-Roll, Waltz) and then after that had an option of either continuing with Ballroom or move on to Salsa. Though I wanted to start of with Salsa I thought of giving Ballroom a try. Now as I have mentioned before, dancing is not something I am comfortable with. To top that I had to do it with a girl. I didn't realize the graveness of the situation till I actually faced the situation or rather a girl :P I had heard of cold feet but I think I had probably gone cold all over. In fact I don't think I registered any of the girls I danced with. Being conscious was an under statement. It was more like being unconscious as far as I was concerned.

I thought I would be like a laughing stock out there. But fortunately all the guys sucked big time! Within the next couple of classes I felt at home. In fact I had also started looking at my partner while dancing. Though it wasn't before six months that I actually stopped looking at my feet and started looking up. By the end of Level 1, I had got pretty excited about Ballroom, to the extent that I went on to do Level 2.

Its been along time since then and I have now completed 2 levels of Ballroom, 3 levels of Salsa (LA Crossbody) and a Bachata workshop. Currently we are doing Casino Rueda which is basically a Cuban form of group Salsa where people dance in circles.

I swear to God, in certain aspects women are more intelligent than men, dancing being one of them. I know men who feel that dancing is nothing but epileptic attacks (Nabdu Anna) and for a long time I thought so too. Now I feel that I should have done this a long time ago. Its super fun, a good workout and a big stress buster. Though remembering all the dance steps is a tough job. I guess practice is the only solution and that is something I don't do much. That is something I need to work on.

Cliff Richard rightly sang, "Put on your Dancing Shoes, and dance away your Blues..."

PS : I am yet to do a public performance but I think the time is just not right, maybe one day soon :)

Ghost Adventures

I am slowly coming back to my usual routine life... office-home-gym. Almost missed gym thanks to Ghost Adventures on AXN but then pushed myself to go.

If I had to compare between Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures (both shows aired on AXN), I have to say that I prefer Ghost Adventures. This is one show that actually gives me an adrenaline rush watching it. Another show which is pretty scary is Haunting on Discovery (based on true reported cases though it is enacted). Ghost Hunters is a little more scientific and analytical in spite of the fact that they have got interesting footage too. GH tries to debunk hauntings and tries to explain the owners as to what could be the reason for the phenomenon, while GA is a little more dramatized. I do not know about how authentic GA is but GH is done by a recognized paranormal investigation group called TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society). What can I say? I love watching horror films but its been quite sometime now that I have actually felt scared watching a movie. I am not talking about being startled. I mean actually sweating, heart beating faster, feeling anxious type scared.

I find it very difficult to concentrate nowadays. Its not like I am listless, just that my brain's meandering a lot. Can't seem to focus on anything for more than 10 minutes. I think I need to start meditating. Never have been very successful with it but I don't see a choice. Or am I confusing it with impatience? I can manage impatience if I start painting. hmm.... now I have got myself confused. Damn!

Polaroid Photos

Today has been a good day :) Work was good. I managed to get my mouse interaction with openGL canvas working! Yay!! A lot more work needs to go into it but it was exciting. It was really nice catching up with my ophthalmologist friend today. It was equally fun to take nabdu anna's case after that. hehehehehe!!!

Went to the gym after a long hiatus. Felt really good and was pretty happy to see that I had not gained much. Half a kilo is hardly any thing :P That's a figure I can live with.

I have always found Polaroid photos very interesting though I have never used one or had my picture taken in the format ever. I had tried to get it done yesterday but thanks to my great achievement I couldn't :P. Well I managed to get the Polaroid effect done today. I have attached the result for a preview. Not bad eh?I hope no one minds the tag though (not that I give a shit). I plan to make more of these and use on my site. I just might put them up here too just to get some feedback.

The problem with going to the gym is that I just don't get any time to do anything else. By the time I get back home it is 10:30pm and then there's hardly any time to do much :( I think I'll probably use my weekends to write something a little more interesting instead of my mundane day-to-day activities. Aching to write some heavy stuff.

The second thing that kinda bothers me is that I still haven't figured out exactly how much should go on the net. It seriously inhibits one's writing when one is not sure who his readers are and whether they know him personally. I have decided not to use any names (atleast for the time being) on the blog without prior permission. They would be referred to by absolutely random names. It's how in mathematics, we wanna talk about a value and we start by saying, "Let the number be X". Something similar :) The name doesn't matter.

Crashed Photoshop!

It feels good when you crash a software like photoshop. It feels better when you can reproduce the crash. That I haven't tried yet. Here I was, trying out a Polaroid effect on some photos and it crashes. Something tells me it probably ran out of memory but then they usually manage memory pretty well. The down side to it is that all my work went down the drain :( I had not saved the file at any point. Bummer! Gotto do it all over again tomorrow.

There are times in life when you wonder, "Is this thing that I am doing currently, going to be of any use in my life ever?". At such situations, your wildest imagination can't come out with any idea to convince you otherwise. But then again, life is wilder than your wildest imagination right? You never know what it's gonna throw at you. I have realized it through various incidents in my life, that whatever happens, happens for a reason. Whatever I have done will someday, somehow bail me out. There are times when the act is not as important as the lesson which basically accumulates as experience.

And "experience" is a safe word! You can include a lot of stuff within it, at times convincingly, and at others, just as a reassurance. Thing is, the "experience" does help you, the context being irrelevant. :)

PS: Got a pretty interesting idea for the cover page, but will have to wait till the weekend to actually attempt it

Interesting stuff at work :)

I skipped gym again :( I had planned not to but this heat is killing me! Anyways that is not the point of concern right now. The new prospective project at work is really getting me excited. I am actually pretty happy about the prospect of creating a GUI with elements of interactive designing, form filling and low level user validation. It'll also consist of a basic database with some sort of encryption (not decided on it yet though). The best part is I have no idea about the underlying science of the program for which the GUI is going to be made. Which makes it that more interesting cause I get to learn about a new topic! :D Joy!

I haven't been able to think much about the site today, though I think I should include a section on general fundas of life that I have found interesting. Its always nice to hear different view points on the same. Sometimes actually helps in understanding it better. I think the About Me section is going to be the toughest of the lot. I really get confused about the thin line between promoting one's self and losing all modesty and blowing one's own horn.

*Need to read up a bit on web-mining. I have always wanted to get a certain idea implemented but never got down to doing it. Gotto atleast find out if it is possible.

PS : Was watching X-Files:I Want To Believe, and it brought back so many memories of the X-Files series. I was a die hard fan. Was totally in love with Scully and wanted to be just like Mulder :) I should dedicate an entry to X-Files one of these days!

Stumbling at the start line!

I spent most of the day checking out personal sites of various people and also fundas regarding what and how one should be. End result... zit! null! void! I have realized that I have no idea what I should put up on the site. I have been juggling a few ideas but have not been able to focus on any one of them yet. I might just end up putting them all in. But then again I wouldn't want my stray visitors to get confused and never return again. I think it'll be sometime before anything gets up. I don't even want to start talking about the design (truth is there is absolutely nothing to talk about it :P)

Even though I said that I spent most of the day on it, I actually had guests coming over the whole day and as a result I have been shuttling between my computer and entertaining my guests. Which has got me seriously tired and with a new week starting tomorrow, I would like to start it fresh. And as my weekdays are sickeningly packed, leaving me with little time to do anything creative, (I plan to change this now), I seriously hope that I'll be able to blog and at the sametime work on a roadmap to get my site up.

www.shubhayu.com

Ever since I first learnt HTML (it was around 1999) and put up my homepage on Yahoo geocities, I always wanted to have my own site. It just seemed so elite and unachievable then. Well things have changed for the better and after a decade I suddenly had an urge to do it. Call it self indulgence or just ticking off another item from my bucket-list :)

So after a little looking around and contemplating whether I should just stick to the first-name or the complete name, I finally got my own site registered.... www.shubhayu.com.

I have still not made up my mind as to what I would actually put up on it and as a result, have not really sat and designed anything yet. Nothing compares to blogging as far as new content is concerned. So a link to my blog would always be there. It actually gave me the idea to use it as a sand box for my ideas and also track my website development.

So that is what I'll do, update the blog about all my evil plans concerning my website and also try and get back into the habit of writing. I have like 5 blogs lying around on the internet, all meeting their inevitable ends. I have decided to continue this one and give it a lease of new life :P

Lets see where this takes me, rather lets see how far this goes :)