Contemplation 2012 : #3 experiment [GROW]

WEverb12 : experiment [GROW]

Soon I finished reading the prompt, the one thing that came striking to my head was the long ride that I had gone in the last month to attend a friend's wedding at Gulbarga (North of Karnataka), 210 kms off Hyderabad.

It was a ride of about 420 kms overall which I did for the first time, though I rode around 120 of that as a pillion. I never did that long a distance before, it was a wonderful experience. And to tell you, my beast did really well. I almost thought of chucking him before this ride and this ride has reinforced the trust I had in him!

will you do it again?
Certainly, would love to ride down the NH7 (now NH44) once.

PS: A long ride does teach a lot of things - to stay focussed, to take a little risk, to be patient, to gauge and better one's skills.

Contemplation 2012 : #2 watch[LIVE]

At the time when I was looking forward to write or reflect upon the year that is soon going to unfold fully, I found WEverb12 that gives a series of prompts.

And I am breaking the rules right away! ;) I will skip the first prompt - Composing a Haiku, as I am not comfortable writing poetry or anything that is remotely close to it.

Prompt# 2 - watch [LIVE]

It should be 'The Dark Knight Rises'. Though I rarely watch the Super Hero stuff, this movie certainly awakened a lot of interest and enthusiasm and I loved every bit of it.

Tom Hardy as Bane, who looks gigantically huge and brutal was the one who stole the show for me.

Eega should be the second movie that I would recommend. I don't recollect any other good movie that made an impact on me of any degree other than these two movies.

Found the site from a fellow blogger - Archieunplugged

Of Weddings!

At the beginning of this year, I made a resolution that I would publish at least a post every month.

Well, I missed it in July and October, and was thinking that I might be giving a miss this month as well.  But hang on, I have got something to share and for the first time on my blog, it is about weddings!

I had attended a friend's wedding, a North Karnataka style of wedding the last week.

The one aspect about the event that attracted to me the most was its mere simplicity.

I did not see women carrying KGs of gold on them, they were wearing minimal gold, and they weren't decked up in jazzy silk sarees.

Coming to the wedding venue, it wasn't lighted up with colorful electric lamps, but the stage where the couple were seated  was lightly decorated with some fresh flowers in the background.

Though I was at awe at the simplicity of the wedding, other people who had attended had a completely different opinion  and they felt that the wedding arrangements were "bharjari" (bharjari in Kannada meaning lot of pomp).

And if I had to talk about the bride, for the first time ever I had seen a bride who was so less conscious about her make-up, as she allowed her mother and other women
to apply turmeric and kumkum at will, which was a part of the wedding rituals.

And about the food, it was served about right and not less and not more where in one could finish up all the items without letting something go waste.

Coming from a Telugu family, and having witnessed a lot of Telugu weddings, I could say that there happens a lot of wasteful spending during the weddings. A wedding is treated as a platform to showcase one's social status, and it is believed that the more pompous and 'rich' the wedding is done the more respect they garner.

Instead of spending so much on a day's event, it would be wise to cut down the expenses and one could channelize the same for "good".

Image Courtesy : Google Images

When I raved about Hyderabad!

The sight of the calm Buddha amidst the Hussain Sagar lake , the taste of the Biryani, the Tollywood movies, the summer flares, the occasional thunder-storms, the agitations, the Charminar, the local dialect  - Welcome to the city of pearls, where history meets high-technology!

The affair with this beautiful city kicked off some two years ago, and it has been great going since then. I never quite believed in 'Love at first sight', be it with people or places, and it took me around a year to profess my love towards this historic city.

It was after watching the movie Ala Modalaindi, arguably the best entertainer of 2011, followed by the bike ride late in the night, that particular moment, I felt that longing towards this city, the Pyara Shahr!

This post is a long pending one, and I thought it has to come over at least now as the city is getting decked up for the Bio-Diversity meet.

Here are some of the To-Do's, when you visit here-

# A lunch at Paradise, featuring Biryani, followed by a falooda.

# Watch a Telugu flick of a popular star in one of the local theatres, preferably at the theatres around the RTC cross roads. The packed theatre, the frenzy of the fans, the whistles would certainly account for a movie watching experience that's beyond the obvious. People from Chennai or other places of Tamilnadu can give this a miss.

# An evening ride on the Necklace road, and a stop at the Lumbini gardens to catch the LASER show, would certainly leave an indelible mark about this beautiful city. And I tell you, it is not Just-Another-Show, so don't miss it.

# Want to taste the spice of Rayalaseema? Then you must have the jonna roti with the Gutti vankaya kura (Eggplant/Brinjal curry), served with ghee at Rayalaseema Ruchulu . You would need to stop by Creamstone to neutralise the spice.

# Get close to the heritage, history and the Hyderabadi dialect by visiting Charminar and Golconda. Once you are done taking the pictures, go do some shopping. Men - If you fall short of some gifting ideas to surprise the women in your life, there you are, buy some pearl jewellery from the shops lined across the streets of Charminar. You will definitely find the jewellery adorable and wallet-friendly! Visit Mangatrai if you need some branded stuff of the same.

# Also, sip on the Irani chai with some Osmania biscuits. I will buy you a lunch at Chutneys if you manage to eat five of the Osmania biscuits!

# RFC. Though it's a long time being here in Hyderabad, I couldn't visit the film city yet. But those of my friends who visited say that it is worth a visit. Of course, being the world's largest film studio, it shouldn't disappoint anyone. And yeah, some of my friends were lucky to catch Vidya Balan shooting for the oo la la number.

# One final stop - Don't miss the Borugulu masala (puffed rice), at the road-side eatery near the Malaysian Township circle. Give me a ring if you aren't able to locate it!  I bet, you will feel like visiting it a second time.

I will come back and update more on this space, as and when I explore something new and interesting about this city.

PS: I have seen many people writing 'Hitech City' for HITEC city. Check here for more.
Image Courtesy: Google Images

...And they lived happily ever after - Part 1

I suck at writing fiction. A first of its kind on my blog. Bear with me! Bouquets on the blog, brickbats on the mail please ;)

Time : 7 PM something
Day : Just another day

He checked his watch, and thought that he should be leaving office in a while, and opens the mail inbox if there were any mails that needed his responses before he leaves the office for the day. There comes a call, and the name "Niki" flashes on his mobile, his eyes lit up in surprise.

He picks up the call with alacrity and she says "Hey, shall we meet up for dinner?" even before he says yes, she says "OK. 8PM, the Rajasthani hotel, next to our office. Come soon, I would be there at the hotel."

"OK, I will start in a while" he replies.

He still couldn't believe that it was she who had called him up and asked to meet her for the dinner, as it was the other way around for the last one year, as he was the one who used to call her up every damn evening and ask her if she could meet him for the dinner, even though he knew that the answer would never be pleasing for him to hear.

He thought his perseverance has paid off that day and he was off to the hotel in a jiffy.

They both meet and as they settle down at an empty table, she pulls out a chocolate from her bag and gives him. Another surprise!

And she says, "Every time you used to get one for me, and today I felt like getting one for you!" He was again put in a state of disbelief.

He was totally elated. He asks, "What has happened to you? You are giving me a surprise after surprise. What's the matter?" .

"Let us order the dinner first, I will tell you! And yeah, it's my treat today!" She replied. He nodded in accordance, though quite unconvincingly.

Soon the dinner arrived. Some hundred thoughts were running in his head. She was busy finishing the paratha, he was busy biting his nails.

"You didn't tell me yet", he asked again, in a tone that was a little demanding now.

"I have got my transfer to Bangalore. I will be leaving in two weeks time."  She said bluntly.

He was shocked, not with the news of her transfer, but for the fact that he has only two weeks time to patch up a broken relationship.

(Yes, they were in a relationship some two years ago. Some situations/misunderstandings/circumstances made them quit. In fact, he never wanted to let go, but she desperately wanted to get out of it.)

She looked at him and started laughing, and said, "Well, that was a joke. How did you think a transfer request gets processed that easily and quickly! And anyways, why do you need to put such a sad face even if I leave this city. Some or the other day, I would be going to Bangalore. I would like to stay near to my home-town".

To be continued...

Image Courtesy : Google Images

First Love gave me Pain! First Bike gave me Back-Pain! ;)

Let me talk about the latter statement of the title, instead of the boring love-pain stuff. I have completed a two-year long affair with the golden beast. Well, the first year was pretty awesome, as you could expect in any other relationship. I had welcomed him with a post on my blog, rather it was him who triggered me to start this blog. And hence I feel, my blog and my bike share quite a special relationship among themselves.

Though I was all praise about him and had some wonderful time for the last two years, there started wear and tear, hold on, not for him but for me.

The Apache is certainly a superb bike when it comes to its looks, pick-up, power and more importantly the engine sound for which I had fallen for! But when it comes to the ergonomics it's quite a miserable machine for the rider. And a ride to the Charminar on a traffic-filled Saturday evening means, your Sunday is spent with your back-rested comfortably on the bed.

At first I thought it was my quite a lean frame that was causing this, but I did a little survey of the people who are using the Apache for about two years now, and everyone responded that they are facing some back issues lately, irrespective of how huge or how tall or how strong they are. Thus, confirming that there was an issue with the bike's seating comfort level.

As I had observed, one has to lean a few degrees when you are riding an Apache, as compared to other bikes, where in you could manage to keep your back straight.

The primary reason for this is, the rider's seat gets dug inside a bit and the distance from the seat to the handle-bar is significantly longer compared to other bikes in the league (Pulsar/Unicorn/FZ).

My Mom has been constantly whining to chuck my bike and buy a new bike that would fit in my frame and most importantly a different color this time.

But that's quite a big ask owing to the fact that, it is my first bike and I share an emotional bond with him. My friend Viggy suggested me to take him to a mechanic who would try and bring the handle-bar a little further and raise the seat such that there wouldn't be much of leaning and would help me have a comfortable ride.

I wish the problem would be resolved with that. However, am showing some signs of infidelity towards him these days, as I am fascinated with the retro, the new Vespa (lime color, a shade of yellow again). Lets see whether I would still hang on to the beast or fall for this new chick! ;)

B E A U T I F U L. Isn't she?

Signing off the post with a weird thought that struck me recently.

How weird it would be when a CSK Supporter wearing a yellow jersey, who is sitting on a yellow apache and posing for a photograph in the midst of a farm full of Sunflowers!!?? :D

PS: The color yellow somehow makes me crazy, first CSK, then my bike and now this new one!

Image Courtesy: http://www.vespaindia.com

I am Back!!

Let the drums roll and the fireworks burst, as Cartic is back, with the "Liebster Blog" award!! And this time around, it's not a witty post or a ten-pointer post, but it's a question-answer post for a change. As one of the budding bloggers, Ashitha, had woke me up from a long slumber with the Liebster award (indeed the first one for me), I am back here again writing a post after two months.

Rules

The Liebster Award is for bloggers with less than 200 followers. Award winners share 11 facts about themselves, answer the 11 questions asked by the blogger who tagged them, come up with 11 of their own questions and tag 11 more bloggers with the award.

Thank you Ashitha for the award and most importantly for helping me overcome the writer's block I was facing lately.

I will skip the 11 Facts section as I have already mentioned many a facts about me in an exclusive page on my blog. Hence, it would be redundant to put again some facts here.

Here goes the 11 questions from Ashitha and my responses -

Yet to grow up or Grown up?
Growing up is an ever evolving process. I am still growing up. Meeting new people, gaining new experiences, facing situations, all these would help me keep growing.

Well, that seemed like an answer I would have given in an HR interview. But that's what it is.

Forbidden fruit- is tasty or bitter?
I would say bitter.

Fantasies or Real?
I am a person more into fantasies than reality, indeed, fantasies attributed with sheer weirdness.

Most prized possession?
When it comes to something materialistic, it is the golden beast, my bike!

Others include my blog, books(I consider books as non-materialistic, as what we derive from those is not physical in nature), and loved ones.
 
Person who most influenced the way you are?
Paulo Coelho. Reading around ten books of him should certainly influence anyone. What say??

First thing that attracts you to others?
I think others gotta say this.

Ever been ditched by a girl? 
An unanswered question for me too[Shrugging my shoulders].

If you are writing a book about yourself, what would you like the last lines to be?
"It doesn't end here. All the hell broke loose just now. Wait for the second part!!" :)

Premeditated or Spontaneous?
Premeditated.

If you had only six months left to live, what would you do with the time?
Go around the world. Eat. Drink.

Rate your blog out of 5
This is left to the readers. For me it is always a 5. He he!


11 Random Questions for 11 other bloggers [This must be an easy part for me] -  
I thought I would keep the questions simple. Here goes the questions -

1. What is your blog to you?

2. The most funny incident that had happened in your college days.

3. The last call you made, the last night, before 11PM.

4. Your favorite quote.

5. Who comes to your mind first when you think of 'The Dark Knight Rises', Bane/Batman/Selina Kyle(Anne Hathaway)?

6. Road Fighter/Super Mario/Adventure Islander/Mappy/Lode runner?

7. The book you are currently reading (Or the one last read)

8. What is your cousin's neighbor's daughter's son's pet-name? If you don't know, please call up your cousin, let him/her take the trouble and get the name for you! ;) 

9. First follower of your blog?

10. Believer of Love at first sight?

11. What was the facebook status update done by you that recevied the most number of likes?

I have nominated 11 other deserving bloggers and have informed them on their respective blogs.

The Title!

Well, there goes yet another competition, and me not winning yet again! It is quite hard to digest a no-podium show when you had put your 100% and shown your at most enthusiasm.

It's been quite a long time that I have won some competition (competition here would refer to any contest that would test my creativity and skill, say, forming a collage, painting a face, making a mad ad or a skit). And winning a quiz has been an 'out'standing dream since college! ( I suck when the questions are about the cartoon characters! Who would know the color of Tintin's hair or Uncle Scrooge's bank balance!! That's a question my non-existent eight-year old son would have loved to answer, if he had a chance to watch those old cartoon series, if they were still aired on the TV! )

When I had introspected and checked about what could have possibly gone wrong, I got to know some mistakes I did. I had always put in more-than-required amount of creativity, which would have won me a competition on any given day, if the competition was a debate or an essay-writing contest. But projecting the same creativity/concept on a collage or a face, demanded my presentation skills to the fore and not my communication skills.

The other reason or a flaw is, the way it is judged, or in short, the role of the judges. At times when I get overly out-of-the-box, it would become hard for me to make the judges educated about the concept, owing to the abstractness associated with it.

And with the judges who would always be in a hurry, as they would have some 25-30 teams to be judged, they wouldn't pose many questions to get the concept cleared fully. Then, one would say, why don't you keep that simple? but then, it would be like, your theme is no different than the other participants' themes.

I would want the judges to be patient enough to spend a few minutes with each team, know what the theme is, pose questions if they couldn't comprehend by themselves, and JUDGE it correctly, and not just preside over as a guest.

Another aspect, rather the primary reason behind all the long list of failures is - showing a casual attitude! I lack the intensity until am on the floor. And there is zero ground work done most of the times. And once the contest starts, the intensity would shoot up and make me feel that I could have better prepared before the event had kick-started. Well, that should sum up this lessons learnt document! than a blog post and hoping for a better show in the near future!

PS : It is more a page from my diary than a post on my blog, apologies for making you read a little boring post! Welcome June!

PPS: Shouldn't the PS be the first line of this post!!?

Image Courtesy : Google Images

CSK! The Source of Envy!

Albie Morkel hits 28 off an over, (that includes two edges,and also four genuine cricketing shots). If it was any other player from any other team, they say, 'What a player he is!' And about the edges, well, they are part of the game!', just because the team is CSK, they say 'Did you see those edges? That's just sheer luck! '

And when people talk about luck, I get reminded of a quote, 'Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity!'  There you go, the opportune moment came in the form of an inexperienced bowler in Virat Kohli, and Albie Morkel was well prepared to cash in on the freebies! And if you call that luck, well I agree on the above premise! But how many would say that, that was a sheer tactical mistake of Vettori!!

CSK picks up seven wickets in the last five overs, there comes a comment 'CSK is riding on luck!', and they lose in the last three balls of the game, then comes another comment 'CSK's luck ran out!'

So what do they mean? A bunch of lucky blokes with no cricketing skills or a team headed by a man who is branded lucky, and who have won three titles just by luck!? Then I would say, you just heard a fantasy story!

And there comes a spectator flashing a placard - 'Tendulkar - God of Cricket, Dhoni- God of Luck', I don't want to say anything more about it, as I have already mentioned about it here.

Well, if CSK is so much riding on luck, they would have preferred playing Casino in Vegas and would be earning millions of dollars just by the so called LUCK, than wilting in the heat of Chennai and playing 20-20 cricket.

With the IPL completing four seasons, people have definitely taken sides, be it on the grounds of cities, regions, players or owners. And with the phenomenal record of CSK, they are certainly the source of envy and hence a lot of criticism! But its utterly ridiculous to brush off someone's competence and winning ability in the name of luck and hence this post!

Well, with three titles in the kitty, we could let go off one this time!! Let's wait and watch what's in store this season, till then, whistle podu!

PS: Yes. This post was intentional!

Image Courtesy: Google Images

How to get over a break-up in seven days?

The ten-pointer posts have become quite a trend these days, at least on my blog! Here goes one after writing 'Why am I single??', exactly a year ago! What a co-incidence! :D

And coming to this post, well, I may not guarantee whether one can get over in seven days, but the title will not merely be an attention grabber, I tried to make complete justice to it. Here I go -

1. If you are the one who would like to spend a few days in solitude, then do this, catch a gaming freak among your friends, get the best of the dvds he has and start playing! The likes of FIFA, Age of Empires is what I recommend, as they really make you feel oblivious of the world around you, yes, your Ex too!

If you feel you can't go get a dvd, just open minesweeper, that'll do! But one thing, you have to play with a mind that would compete and not with the mind that would just play!

2. Turn off the mobile! If you feel that it is quite a big ask. Then keep it on. But go trek a place where a mobile network operator is yet to place his tower!

3. If you are the one who likes to read, then your problem's solution is just a book store away! Hop into a landmark or odyssey, get some works of Paulo Coelho. Start with 'The Zahir'. I need not mention the next book, you will know once you finish reading that.

4. Go the youtube way! Search for the most tragic videos on earth. You feel that what you are facing is no big deal. If not, watch more of those till you get that feel! :D

5. When you are looking for some unrequited love or happiness, try replacing that with some materialistic happiness! Yes, it works! Buy a new gadget, something of a camera, a music player. And for women - shop till 1. Your account hits three digits of balance 2. You reach your credit card limit! And about what to shop? I suppose the shop-aholic woman within you would know.

6. If you are the one who feels 'Love happens just once', please erase it from your head. After all, life is too short to love just one. ;)

7. Take up a hobby. Teach kids. That will make you feel a lot better. Try it. Get addicted to something, to the better things though.

They say, French for seduction, German for Engineering, English for Business, well what my point is, learn a language, that should certainly drive your enthusiasm.

8. Eat!! I mean, don't just eat to endure. Explore the best places for food in your city. Women - Don't worry about the weight you gain in the process, you are just adding up the few kilos you lost during the break-up phase!

9. If some old mushy stuff keeps haunting you, do the 'Jab we met' way. That really gives a feeling of a little triumph at least for quite sometime!

10. The last one. A philosophical note. Treat the phase as a passing shower than as a rampaging river! Oh! Did that sound a little too much! well, can't help it, after all, an ardent fan of Coelho here! ;)

PS: The addition of the 'Why am I single??' link at the beginning was just a shameless endorsement of one of my popular posts of the past! ;)

PPS: Breaking up and getting over is quite common these days. But still, I have seen quite a good number of people around me, who still treats it hard and some feel it as next to impossible! This post is actually targeted at those potential readers! Though the above said points aren't anything new, just because, even eagles need a push!

Image Courtesy : Google Images

Facebook! The End of Conversations!

Facebook is fun to use. However, the usage of it lately has taken several new dimensions, for example, a group of friends meet at a restaurant, the first thing they do is exchange a 'Hi', then a guy, 'IamFBAddictToTheCore' among the group quickly signs on his Facebook account through his mobile and starts typing, 'At the Chocolate Room, with friend1, friend2 and', he stops and asks for the name of the new guy in the group who is the friend of friend2 and searches for him on FB.

He then sends a friend request and gives his mobile to the new friend and asks him to sign in back and accept his request.

Then our friend IamFBAddictToTheCore will login back and posts 'At the Chocolate Room, with friend1, friend2 and friend3! Nyc 2 meet my old buddiezzz aft a lng tym!' (I know FB status update doesn't have any limit of characters. But you know, eating up letters is considered as cool! Even I used to do that when I was new to texting and blogging)

The conversation somehow starts, but our FBAddict is busy replying to the comments he is getting on his status update. What should this be called? Heights of virtual happiness?? Oh yeah! I understand, you are share-ing your happiness right? Freaking Awesome man!


Another one!
"Friend1 is at Hare Krishna Temple, Bangalore with AnotherFriend"  Updated from his Samsung Note, comes an update on my Facebook feed.

OK. That was good to know that these fellows have been to the temple. But was that really needed to update about it right when you are in the queue and jostling with the crowds? I was wondering how he would have managed himself opening his new Samsung Note amidst the push and shove of the crowd, and how he successfully searched for the temple link on FB! An example for heights of FB Addiction!

I am not against his update, but what my point here is, where is the Sanctity? I understand, we are not saints to show some intense levels of reverence to God but we could some how show some micro levels of piety, at least when we are at the temple! Should Zuckerberg and co provide an app which automatically hibernates your facebook account when you are visiting a temple by tracking your mobile GPS? Better not, you would stop visiting the temple if it happens!


Yet another one!
'Congrats babes! And that's called a Cute Couple! You both are really made for each other!', YetToGetMarried commented on JustGotMarried's profile picture (A picture of JustGotMarried and JustGotMarried'sHusband)

Now you would say, 'what's wrong in acknowledging a short note of congratulations? You Psycho blogger!' Well, hold on! I totally agree that you are expressing happiness about your friend's new marital status, but why fake something when the picture really looks something like this -

Even your beloved friend thinks that you are mocking at her! Just a simple note of 'Congratulations' would do right? Anyways, if you really felt that they were a cute people, I am extremely sorry! I am just sick!

PS: I do spend time on Facebook. I do share, rant and at times update some meaningless status messages. But what my point is, follow some usage guidelines. That's it!

Image Courtesy : Google Images

A blogger will know this!

Ten random things about the life of a blogger!

# A movie which was watched solely as a piece of entertainment before, is now a three-hour case-study, where in the blogger within takes some mental notes about the background scores, the direction flaws, the colors and the costumes!

# A photo blogger always gets quicker responses or 'likes' compared to a 'writer' blogger! 

Courtesy - Human Laziness!
  

# When a blogger thinks 'Yes, I need to write about this', 90% of the times he ends up not writing about it! If ever he writes something, its because it just happens!

# A post published on the blog gives a blogger more kick than what a scotch or vodka or a mix of both could give!

# The number of drafts is always 2-3 times more than the number of posts actually published

# A few people who use their laptops for some productive work must necessarily be bloggers!

# Other than FB notifications and messages, the next interest for a blogger would be to look at his blog statistics for the day, and the best part of that is to see some random visitors from countries like Zambia, Mozambique, and yeah Colombia! (And I always thought Colombia is all about drugs,bananas but not blogs!)

# A blogger sometimes faces this too - A thoughtfully written post about a crush, with the best of the adjectives used, and she comes back and says, 'that was too poetic and too verbose to comprehend, couldn't you keep that simple!!?'

# Your fellow rickshaw traveler during your primary schooling, whom you met on FB recently, is not just an old pal, instead he/she is a potential reader of your blog now!

# And finally, what does a blogger do when he is bored?
Some posts of this sort would get published! 

Insanity Continues..!!

Who would've thought that just a casual look would spur up such an intense craze..
And now my mind longs for an eternal gaze..!!


What should I call those kohl-filled beautiful eyes, the enticers or the enchanters?

With which you cast a spell and leaves me off-balance and takes me to the cleaners!



The place which I hated by all ways..
now feels to be visited always..!!


How do I strike a conversation..?
When I am plagued by a consternation..!!


Will you respond well when I gather courage..?
Or throw a caustic look with all rage..??


When was the last time I was disturbed to this extent, 
And wrote pages without my heart reaching any content!


And I just realized, I wrote my first ever verse..!!
Does this make any sense? or is it really that worse??


Image Courtesy: Google Images

In one word I say, Discordance!

When the blogger within me woke up on a late Saturday night and rambled few random thoughts that were marked by vent, and signed off  with a tinge of tollywood!


Work-life Imbalance!
The last two months have been the busiest of my work-life so far. There were some heart in mouth situations followed by a little phase of contentedness. And the time when my mind was idle, it went in retrospecting 'being 24 - Something'. Thought I would write about it, but backed off thinking that wouldn't be 'Substantial'. Then I realized, like many cricketers who lose form, may be, I too have hit a rough patch, and needs some time to get back to the original form flair. Also, this phase has helped me understand the importance of the line This too shall pass better than ever.

Sucker punch!
I thought I should write about this song, which talks about the 'firsts' of a couple in a relationship. This song meant a lot to me then! and a little now! (Please excuse me for the poor quality of the video. That was the only one available on the net.) And yeah, the human senses are so powerful, aren't they? Just the tune of a song, smell of a perfume/deo would make you travel to the past in a split second time.
Thank God! we are blessed with forgetfulness as well, else life wouldn't be that easy. I wish I write a dedicated post about the power of forgetfulness and olfactory!

Athithi Devobhava!
I was on a short vacation to my home-town the last week, my not-so-cricket-crazy parents didn't opt for 'Star Cricket' in their channel À la carte and hence I had to catch the action on National TV, it was after some years that I tuned into this channel.

One thing that amazed me the most were the advertisements broadcast-ed, those of educating people to maintain cleanliness while cooking and serving food, and Aamir Khan endorsing the 'athithi devobhava' campaign, enlightening us not to spit on roads,  scribble on walls of heritage sites, and other conspicuously trivial matters. That shows that there is still a large population of our country engulfed in stark darkness, where the light of civilization is yet to break through.

But considering some of the oldest civilizations being flourished and evolved in this great country, how did these common and basic human behavioral skills vanish? or were they never here and only we imbibed those from other countries/civilizations or through education?

After all this, they still stay, "India Shining!"

PS: I am perplexed why I kept one of  the sub-titles as 'Sucker Punch'!

Off-topic: My FB status read 'spider man.. spider man..' today, its because of this, its quite sweet, funny, raunchy, and a little stupid! The USP of this song could be accounted to the mellifluous voice of Gopika Poornima.


Image Courtesy : Google Images

Just books! Nothing else!

It was more than a year that I caught up with some good book to read. The last weekend, a read of this post made me restart my reading journey in this new year of 2012. Also joined here, and created an online shelf of the books I read and the books to read this year. And on the Sunday, I went to 'Odyssey', my first visit to this book store, all this while I used to buy the second-hand/pirated books at Jayanagar 4th block.

I entered level two of the building, and as I moved in further inside, I was only welcomed by some kid stuff - children fiction, stationery and some toys. I approached the store-helper and asked 'where do I find the other books, uh, the adult books?', he gave a half-grin and said 'I didn't understand what you said', I broke into a smile as I realized that I just used a wrong word there, or rather used a word wrongly. Later, my mother-tongue came to my rescue, and he asked me to go a level down for the 'adult' books !

Yeah! There it was! A sea of books, ok, a good number of books to say. I loved that sight. I always loved visiting the book stores, picking the nicest of the books, sitting on the stool and turning few pages. During my college days, whenever I visited Forum, I made sure that I stopped by Landmark, at least for a window shopping or to get to know the best-sellers and to make a mental notes of which books to buy from Jayanagar 4th block at a price 1/4th of the price of the original book. Somehow, I wasn't that guilt about buying a pirated copy that time.

Back to the scene, I had few books in my mind, mainly some biographies, so checked the 'BIOGRAPHY' section for  'Open' , 'Truman',  'The Story of My experiments with truth' but found none.

Then, for a while I thought I should read some philosophy, and checked some Robin Sharma's, but for some reason his books failed to impress me, may be because I am very much influenced by Paulo Coelho's thoughts, and hence the former really failed to make a mark on me.

Then moved on to fiction, I had two books in my mind, 'Midnight's Children' and 'The Fountain Head', while checking for these, a book with the bold letters , 'GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ One hundred years of solitude', caught my attention. I remembered reading about this author the day before and picked up a copy of this book, read the review by Salman Rushdie, who described the book as the greatest in any language of the last fifty years. I thought it would be nice to read a book just like that without doing much research on it like how I buy the 'wildstones' or 'the park avenues' without testing them once. Most of the times the choice would turn to be good and at times a dud! Whatever the outcome be, the surprise factor that comes with it would still be great!

So there I go, bought the book, read a few pages, and updated the 'Currently reading' section in my goodreads account.

PS - I wish facebook would add a plug-in to update our 'Currently reading' status, that would help some lazy readers like me to read more for the heck of utter show-off !!

Here's one more dimension of what I said above, a pic of the book from my new HTC Wildfire S!

Down the memory lane..

Pasanga, a children-centric Tamil movie that I watched recently made me write this post. No, this post is not a review about the movie, instead it is about the school-life memories that are etched for life in my mind.

It was a day during class 7, a notice was read by our class teacher saying that our preparatory/final exams were advanced by a week or so. Listening to that, the class went quiet, and I on a funny note said 'we will go on a strike!'. I thought I wasn't that loud but it fell into the ears of our teacher. The look on her face stated that she did not understand my so called 'humour'. Hell with it! She in turn called me to her desk and rewarded a painful whack on my back! Huh!

I was like Harbhajan Singh that time, a good student, at the same time, one who was always close to controversies, and our teachers used to rope in Sachin Tendulkar, my elder sister, who also was my immediate senior in the school (read it as who was always in the good books of my teachers), to pass on some words of wisdom to me.

The next thing that reminds me of high school was the "rote" method! I was so much into mugging that time that I even used to count the words of an answer (yes, that includes the count of the articles used in that answer!). And for me, a word written in the answer paper which wasn't printed in the text book was a crime. I thought answering a question as what printed in the texts would show that I was ridiculously meticulous. Somehow, my teachers and parents didn't observe that I was on a wrong learning method. May be the good marks I used to get masked the underlying fact.

About the games now. Though I wasn't that lean a boy, I had rather a poor throwing arm, and so I rarely played the 'catch-catch' game, where in a group of people would split into two teams and a member from one team would throw the ball up in the air, and the other team people would catch it in its descent. Ah! buoyed up one day, I too joined the league to play, and the first time I took the ball and tried to put it out of earth's orbit, it went off the flight and fell off the school's compound. Well, loss of the ball meant the end of the day's play. And ten bucks!

Those were some moments!. Thanks for the movie for putting me on the lane of reminiscence.

PS - I promise I will write something substantial the next post! Bouquets and brickbats are welcome!
Here's a pic of the heroes of the movie -

Image Courtesy: Google Images