Things on my desk

We have shifted from our original location to a newer and uninhabited island of a place. Anyways, wanted to write down what is on my desk at the moment.

1. A photograph of a girl jumping on a beach from Chromasia – with Floyd’s “Learning to Fly” on it
2. Clocks – Coldplay
3. Calvin & Hobbes
4. Snap of STAR-PLUS at Indijoes (a lovely restaurant on Airport Road) in Bangalore just before the Rehman concert (which is another amazing story)
5. Something there is that doesn’t love a wall – Akanksha
6. Hugh Macleod
7. If – Rudyard Kipling
8. Daffodils – William Wordsworth
9. Mending Wall – Robert Frost
10. Sabka Katega – bodhiTree

Other than these I have a laminated copy of a Charles Swindoll saying and some work related stuff.

Advertisement

Sleep Over It

Okay. This is one wierd post. Even I don’t know why I am writing this crap.

Don’t you sometimes think that the concept of night is way over rated??

I studied in a school which was affiliated to the ICSE Board of Education. Under its syllabus was a story (don’t remember the name though) about a man stuck in a storm and a beggar woman, who gives him the support needed to spend the night, stuck in a room on a railway station, when everything else gives way. It was during the course of our discussion on this story that our teacher, (one of my all time faves!!) Ms. Gulati, told us how night gives us the time and peace to recuperate from all that we have gone through the day. Similar sentiments were echoed by Mr. Thapa (again a gem of a teacher), and there I was, a believer in the necessity of the night in our lives.  

But now when I stop to think, I feel that the theory is flawed some where. During the day, you can keep your thoughts off stuff, not think about things you don’t want to. You seem to, at least temporarily, forget certain things which would otherwise be hard to dismiss. You think you are in control. But then one night, one dream, and everything comes crashing back. You again have to face the situations you did not want to face. You have to answer questions you always tried to evade. And why, because you have no control over how the subconcious brain functions while you are asleep.

I wish I had control over things I dream about. That would have made life so much more easier. Night, definitely, is highly over-rated, much like our Indian cricket team.

Happy Children’s Day

To all those still kido at their hearts, Happy Children’s Day.

The only good thing about Chacha Nehru is that we used to get a holiday and lots of those little red candies on his birthday 🙂

Sachin, Scorsese and Sunday

Cricketing greats choose Lara over Sachin as the greatest of our era. While agree that Lara is definitely the more stylish of the two, I rate Sachin much higher for just one reason. Lara (or any other great) never had to carry the hopes of a billion people alone. There was time people used to say “Lets go home and cry. We cannot win from here on.” (actually happened in Sarjah, when Sachin mauled the Aussies) when Tendulkar was dismissed.So say all you can and rate all you can, Sachin remains there alone, head and shoulders above all greats (probably just a tad bit below the Don though.) Here is something that explains it all, from JaiArjun Singh,

But Tendulkar is a batsman in a sport that thrives on them. Even his worst critics, even those who denounce him in the final analysis as being a false god, will – if only years after his retirement – find it somewhere in their embittered hearts to acknowledge that there was a time, however brief, when he brightened their gloomiest hours like no one else could.

I might probably watch The Departed (#62 on IMDB Top 250) today. It has been rated as the greatest Scorsese movie after the Goodfellas (#22 on IMDB Top 250). Review after I am done with it. Even if it is half as good, it would be worth the money I spend on it.

Last but not the least. Ending it with a quote for the day from the movie Good Will Hunting.

Lambeau: Sometimes I wish I had never met you. Because then I could go to sleep at night not knowing there was someone like you out there.

November – What a month!!

I just started thinking in the evening and arrived at the conclusion that November is a damn important month of the year for me. And I am trying to list down the reasons.

• November 3rd – Birthday of the person I love the most in this world, my brother. Incidentally, also the birthday of a good buddy Anoop Sankar.
• November 4th – For a very personal reason.
• November 6th – Shailesh Bhai ka B’Day .
• November 7th – I complete my one year at my present job.
• November 17th – Birthday of two of my closest friends, Jeete and TK.
• November 24th – Birthday of another on of my closest friends, Misra.
• November 25th – Wedding anniversary of a cousin, Manoj. Now the wedding of another good friend, Joy.
• November 26th – Birthday of a cousin, Nisha.

Also, November is the part of “November Rain” – my favourite song 🙂

Six word story

From caterina.net:

Ernest Hemingway was once prodded to compose a complete story in six words. His answer, personally felt to be his best prose ever, was “For sale: baby shoes, never used.” Some people say it was to settle a bar bet. Others say it was a personal challenge directed at other famous authors.

Wired magazine did a take of its own here.

My tries:

He turned, and walked. She stood.

And they stared at the sun.

Weekend Well Spent

So what is a perfect weekend like?? Lemme see.

Saturday – Meet a close friend. Chat, listent to good music, have good food, drink a bit and enjoy. We did aal except the drink bit. We did drink but what we had was the question. A good Goan port wine. This is the good bit. It was followed by the experience of Kaju Feny. Goyal advisory : Don’t have it.

Slept for most part of the day. Discovered that our cook could also make good puris and had a brilliant lunch. Aloo ki subji and puri!! Heavenly!! Next organised stuff on my 120GB HDD (which is a no mean feat!!). My HDD has bad sectors now and needs to be repaired (it is in warranty period) and so I had ot empty it and burn DVDs for the rest of the stuff. Also ripped the Abida Parveen CDs I had bought last week. Awesome music. Specially Tere Liye Nachaya, Ali Maula, and Dum Mast Qalandar (which is always a good experience.)

Sunday – Got the 3rd free servicing done on the bike. It is now 6 months old and I have done 4600 kms on it, which is quite a feat considering my office is only 1 km from my place. Got a haircut. I look presentable now. Also read a lot of Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – R. Pirsig. Awesome book. OHT sometimes but enjoyable and profound none the less.

So here it is. A near perfect weekend. Would have been complete with a nice movie. I wish I had company.

Been there, done that!!

This weekend was about as good as it gets. I mean one of the better ones in this place. Sanghi had come over on Friday  evening. Dinner outside and then that crappy movie called Zinda. It is supposed to be another brilliant one from our very own Tarantino (the amount of blood and gore being the comparision), Sanjay Gupta but failed to make any impression on me other than the scene with the actress tied up 😉 Agle subah we woke up to head to NII where we had planned on spending the weekend with TK and Bharathi. Ride for Bansal and Sanghi must have been good in that Innova but was awesome for me. I did some 20 kms in 26 mins. Not that the speed was anything to boast about but the feeling of driving for such a distance in Delhi was good. I had always heard that it is difficult to ride a 2 wheeler in Delhi but I did not face much problems.

We got there by lunch and headed off immediately to the New Shanthi Sagar Restaurant, which brought back all those memories from Bangalore. Topped it off with great kulfi-falooda at Evergreen. And now we were sleepy. So we headed back to NII and next two hours were devoted to some talk and lots of sleeping. Woke up in the evening to take a first look at the top of NII. This place took my breath away and is high on the list of places where booze must feel so different. Headed to JNU campus for a walk then and that place called PSR Rock. Brilliant place!! Watching an aircraft fly by was never better.

It was time to bid Sanghi goodbye. We headed to the New Delhi Railway Station. Again drove and this time it was even better through those brilliantly peaceful areas of Lutyens Delhi. Very nice. Paked our bikes at Nirulas at CP and took the Metro (I fall more in love with it everytime I ride it) to the Station. Reached the station, bid Sanghi goodbye and then headed back to CP (now Rajiv Chowk btw) to Nirulas Chinese Room. Had Won-Ton soup there and Veg Chopsuey (Yum!!). I am now a die hard fan of the food there and swear to go there at every possible oppurtunity.

After that back to NII and then mostly chatting with Tk and that eccentric friend of his (whose name I don't remember thanks to this great memory of mine). We stayed up till 2 I think talking about everything from Physics to bikes and how the chappie who wanted to "do" Physics ended up "doing" Immunology at NII.

Woke up next morning and returned to Gurgaon as I had to catch up with some work and that is the glorious weekend came to an end. Btw, as an icing on the cake Schumi won the Imola GP 🙂 There is something about San Marino that gets the Ferrari horses prancing. Is it the tifosi gathering or the circuit being their own or just the number of red flags all over, I do not know but they sure help I guess 🙂

Bits and pieces

Lots hasn't been happenning. But contained below are a few pieces I wanted to write about.

1. Casanova sucks – Always thought that being Casanova required something special in the person like charisma and behaviour and a way with the ladies. Seems it doesn't!! Rejoice all geeks!! This yuccky movie suggests that it has to only do with how well is someone physically endowed!! Crappy movie. Avoid at all cost.

2. India lost to Pakistan – One more game left. Let's see if India can bounce back. Also Indian management (if there is one) has decided to give Sehwag and Kaif a break. Sachin has taken a break from WI ODI series and players are complaining of burn outs. And why are we having those matches in Abu Dhabi again?

3. Dr. Rajkumar (kidnapped once by late Verrappan) passed away and his fans burnt down stuff in Bangalore, resulting in a very-long weekend.

4. Also I turned 23 last weekend. Hmm!! I feel old.

5. A piece of shayari I read here.

haalaat ke tiiron se chhalnii hain badan apne
paas aao ke siine ke kuch zakhm to bhar jaayein

simtii huii yeh ghadiyaan, phir se naa bikhar jaayein
is raat mein ji lein hum, is raat mein mar jaayein

ab subhaa naa aa paaye, aao yeh duaa maangein
is raat ke har pal se raatein hi ubhar jaayein

The weekend that was!!

So what did I do this weekend. if I list it out then it becomes pretty simple. A nice, and relaxed weekend. So I will actually list it out.

1. Watched Rashomon. Brilliant. Now I know why Balu kept on talking about this director. Simple plot. Brilliant narration. Awesome acting. And facial expressions that ermoves the language barrier. 5 on 5 to it.

2. Watched Baharain Grand Prix. Heartbroken. Schumi lost. But nice to see him back to where he belongs. Top of the lot. Must say that though Alonso is good, it is Kimi who I predict to take on Schumi this season. And the title will be closely fought for by the three.

3. Watched parts of Aus vs. RSA. Unbelieveable. 434 getting chased. Ponting must be actually wondering what went wrong. To me any ground with such short side boundaries arent good for one dayers. Bowlers were getting clobbered like crazy. Anything the batsmen touched most times reached the boundaries. But great chase none the less.

4. Watched Transamerica. Mixed it up with North Country but a very good movie none the less. Dragged Bansal along. He might still be cursing me 🙂 Traces a week in the life of a transexual, just before he is supposed to become a woman and he spends the week with his son. Great acting and a sensitive subject very well handled. Must watch. 4 on 5 to it.

5. Last but not the least. Attended a CII conference on Biotech. I must say that seeing the people in charge of the business in India, I was thoroughly disappointed and understood why no innovation has taken place in India in this field by the private sector. Their view is so narrow. One of the gentlemen said that Biotech is not IT (a very high poisition holding guy). Surely it isn’t. You people do not aim as high or world class as Premji or NRM or anyone else. They all kept cribbing about the high cost of infrastructure whereas one new discovery in the same field, could finance for them 10 new labs. Come on guys dream big. Only sane voice was that of a female (Ph.D. from NII) from Dabur Research Foundation (Dr Rama Mukherjee, Director). She said it was imperative that we look for more collaboration between the industry and the academia. Very well said since DRF is one such foundation. I talked to her after the conference (over some good lunch) and she did remember the project Dr Das was executing and I was proud member of the team. A def high for me 🙂