ReDmpTiON spEaKs ...

2011-12-15T01:17:00.000-08:00

Time to activate this blog again :)

Ss shayar se shayari mat likhwa
log kehte hai ki jahan bhulwa dega
shayari ki nokhi hai yeh
bina phool ke khushboo aur
bina paani ke aansoon baha deta hai
gareebo ki madat toh har koi karta hai
yeh shayar ameero se katrata hai
darta hai shayad ki pyaar mohabbat ki baaton se
kabhi usse bhi koi mil jaaye toh
zindagi badal jaayegi, garrebi hat jaayegi
ameero ki duniya main
shayad shayari bhool jaayegi

2010-05-12T22:32:00.000-07:00

The Last Thought

The night is dark,
The stars alight,
With the moonless smile,
A polar here,
Maybe a flying plane.
The child below,
With a gleeful smile,
An innocent stare,
One without a care.

A sudden noise,
A ruffling scare,
A look to the door,
The kitten's here.
A sigh, a smile,
Two hands one face,
A cradle shaped,
And chin propped up.

An attempt to count,
One hastily given up,
Once , no twice,
Ohh leave who cares.
The stories of warriors,
Of dead grandma's and aunts,
All in the stars.

I thought, I thought,
I saw, i stared,
Was it me,
Or the star did wink.
The god's are cheerful,
Or was it granny,
A wink, no, A sign,
Of things well done,

She was happy,
Someone was,
Granny or aunt,
Mine or yours,
Its all the same.

I wonder how,
A human being,
Does a star become?
With pointy cones,
And bright white eyes.

I rub my eyes,
It's winked again,
Ohh wait its moving,
Approaching fast.
Across the crowd,
Shoving and pushing.

The earth is round,
The star is not.
If it falls,
Will it hurt?
Granny can you hear me,
Is it you? If yes
Have a journey safe.

A falling star,
Does a wish merit .
I think i wish,
The wish can't share.
I lie down straight,
My head in stars.

So many of them,
At this lonely time,
I still don't feel alone.
The eyelids flicker,
Someone's helping them shut,
Mom is it you?
My last thought aloud,
Before the eyes wide shut.

2010-03-14T11:51:00.000-07:00

Wanton Soup for the Sad Girl

The blue cup and saucers,
Lie waiting for the tea,
The green paint brush,
Is dripping wet.
The glass lies broken,
The kettle merrily boiling,
The stove is on ,
Or is it?
The lighter can’t be found,
The dolls are stacked together,
Almost like a family,
A happy family?
Who can tell?
There’s a book in front,
It says chicken soup for the soul,
In good shape, maybe unread.
The family is tight,
The table is set,
A family portrait half-finished,
The water is on,
The bathroom door locked,
The tub with a duck is filling fast,
The boat lays waiting by the sink.
A girl sits alone ,
Down by the corner,
Sniffing, weeping, sad.
The tears roll down,
They don’t taste sweet,
A swish of hand,
The moistened cheeks,
The doll on the ground,
The severed head.
The needle, the thread ,
Couldn’t put poor Barbie,
Back together again,
The mother knocks,
A jerk sight towards the door,
A shake of head,
“Not now, it’s ok”,
- “I’m sure it is,
Dinner’s ready, dad’s waiting”
A whispered sigh,
A shrug to share,
The doll left alone,
The child moves on.
The family waits,
And another too.
The mom, the dad,
The daughter sits.
A big bowl of hidden secrets,
The cover slowly removed
And a hint of smile.
A bowlful of joy,
Taken one spoon a time,
Cooled by the warm breath,
Of a sorrowed soul.
The favourite remedy,
Of smart mothers,
An oriental speciality,
One passed down ages.
One soup to rule them,
One soup to soothe them,
One soup to bring them all,
And in the happiness bind them.
Chicken soup it is not,
Though the little girl,
Inside every man’s soul,
Craves for it, day in day out,
It’s the wanton soup,
That works the best.
And that is why,
Every kid in the Middle Earth
Knows this saying by heart,
A Bowl of Wanton soup a day,
Keeps all the Sadness away..!!

2010-03-12T03:56:00.000-08:00

Musings of an empty glass

A full existence I had,
Of whiskey and wine
A relishing experience
Of fresh juice with dine

I offered my whole
And the contents within
To creatures of all kinds
Humans and children, fat and thin

The clinks of ice,
Upon my body
The sensuality, the feeling,
Makes an orgasm look shoddy

The drop of condensed water,
Rolling down my spine
Ooh such an arousal
Never had I so fine

The woman's touch,
Around my base
And her lips on me,
I rest my case

The night was young
The revellers too
The mood was hot
The women too

A sip here,
A bite there,
A refill here,
Drunk without a care

One peg and two,
Maybe three maybe four
The night is young,
One more you pour.

I love my life,
And I boast to the pans,
"I too live amongst humans,
The base heating sans.
I am filled with elixir,
And taken for a dance.
I’m not thrown by housewives,
Heck, courted by all
If you want to move up in life,
Just give me a call."

The boast was tall,
Expectations were high,
But as says the kettle lore,
With high pressure comes a sigh.

As the night progressed,
And revellers grew faint
Lesser and lesser I was filled
Finger stains did me taint

The ranting went on,
I was left alone,
On some ravaged sofa cushion
And for company, a half eaten cone

The night wore on,
The bottles fell,
The people too,
As far as i could tell.
The silence was deathly,
The music too,
They called it metal rock,
I, 'stomping in the loo'

My bones were tired,
Aged, the strength they lacked
A little more pressure
And they would've cracked
Broken, crushed even,
A million pieces of pain
Humpty dumpty and the wall,
All over again

I can worry about the night,
Or look forward to the next
Of the maids gentle hands
Caressing me inside out
The soapy water, on my back,
The finger down my spine,
A gentle rub and a whiff of breath

Back to the platform,
With friends and foes
Stories shared, scratches bared,
Proudly recounting conquests and woes
A grinning dream upside down
Numbers exchanged, can just wait
The next pick up,
Shall we call it a date?

2010-03-07T12:53:00.000-08:00

Autobiography of a Woozy Dog

Sit, roll, up, catch.
Stand, sleep, play dead, sulk.
Nice dog, cute dog,
Lets play, bad dog,
Shooo!!

My life in 5 lines,
I care not for more,
For the people i care about,
I am a dog, no more.
A replacement of sorts,
Of playmates or lay mates,
I do not complain,
I can wake up late,
I can eat without disturbance,
No options no choices,
My fav food, got without any penance

Something a little something,
Is added alongwith
It slurs my tongue,
Sandwich becomes sanbidth.
They call it whiskey,
I heard it makes 'em frisky,
I'm only woozy , or doozy
Pardon my rudeness, miscuzie

The bitch next door,
I think she likes me too,
But as all bitches are,
She's hardly throws me a shoe.
Hard to please, tempting
Snooty, but exclusive.
She has high tastes, diamonds?
Her best friends i believe.

Flirtatious, and cute,
She even has dimples to match,
Her winks and grins and moans and groans
All signs, not very difficult to catch
I don't chat, i don't fone,
A howl at night, a couple to spare
A howl back, a coquettish smile,
A woof, a bark, the world may care

One sip of heaven, and i fly,
A droopy mouth, a stupid grin,
I look at my master and think,
Hey he looks just like me,
The resemblance's uncanny,
And he's also a fink.
For all the stories about dogs and men,
The armour has a chink

My master look like me,
While he's drunk to the core,
My madame's a bitch,
Or so he says, and more.
She barks, he howls,
She howls, he moans,
Basically similar to the point of bore

He claims to be intelligent,
Madame says he's horse brained,
We are more intelligent than horses
I hope, or we'r stained.
He claims to be athletic,
When i can run faster,
More beautiful he says,
Heck i can be the newscaster!

I think i'm a little woozy,
From the binge last night
But sane enough
To feel a little light.
The thoughts are screaming
The purple haze is near
Man and dog,similar?
The mind starts to jeer

The tension needs to relieve
Someone needs to believe
In an parallel idealist world,
Someone does believe
A book deal here, a singed film,
A hawaiian tan
And who knows i might have been writing this,
As the "the autobiography of a woozy man"

Hic..

2010-03-05T12:30:00.000-08:00

Last Rites

The colourful umbrellas,
and the dull raincoats.
The beeping of mobiles,
and the crowd whizzing past,
Of unending loud silences,
and continuing silent screams.

Of sleepless nights,
and countless mosquito bites,
The pitters and patters,
and the dreams that do shatter,
Of the rains that keep coming,
and the hopes that keep going.

Of the tall monroe posters,
and of the ferrari's too.
Of childhood romances,
and college one's too.
The whistling on the stairs,
the jeers, the taunts and more.

Of missed catches,
and games that make lore.
Of the luck of an ass,
and the work of a cat.
One a dilligent servant,
with fate as the master.

The kahani main twist,
and the countless lost moments.
Of siestas at 3 a.m.
and long busy afternoons.
Of the short walk home,
and the long walk back.
Of the kismet connections,
and missed calls from you.
The wish for backspaces in life
and for the elusive enter too.

For the hung decisions,
and the contemplating hours
Of the high volumed outbursts,
and low pitched moans.
Of the unholy groans,
and of the grinding bones.
Of the whole day shoppings,
and the unspent millions.

Of lust, greed and envy,
Evenings of no joy and all pain.
Of wet dreams,
and barbed wires.
Of invalid passwords,
and flattened tyres.
Of the semi colon;
after every sentence,
and the long pauses in-between.
Of the unsaid epics,
and unexchanged vows.

Of the hit before the K.O.,
and the slow rerun called life,
Of the countless emotions,
ones mixed with alcohol,
The first tears that showed,
and the last said goodbye ...

2010-03-05T12:17:00.000-08:00

A Testimonial

A stranded soul, does solace seek,
A friend to hold, a friendly peek.
The curtains drawn, of shyness tight,
Of cautiousness, does impulse fight.
A friendly smiile, is all it takes,
To recognize, among the fakes.

Of swords drawn, of letters torn,
Of sparkling eyes, the girl forlorn.
Wandering alone, in the blinding night,
Of roxy's howl, and mosquitoes bite,
Of mails and chats, of phone calls at night.
Of misunderstandings, and petty name callings,
Of drunken tears, of solace of dears,
Don't worry no more, for the end is near.

Of two years spent, of memories bound,
Of friends and foes, acquaintances found.
Of treats and fights, and outsiders too.
Of proposals, of rejections and dejections too.
A parting thought, on thyself trust the don't,
the won't just say just do.
Here's a toast, to our friendship,
the yesterday, today and forever too

Dedicated to the two years of my life well spent ..!!

2009-04-21T21:19:00.000-07:00

Hey,

I just came across this wonderful concept called IHL.. it is supposedly a spoof on IPL and they've done a pretty good job on it.

Here are some virals I found on youbtube. For the latest one you would have to go to the website obviously. For now .. Enjoy..!

2008-12-08T09:32:00.000-08:00

The Lazy Bum's Guide to Pfaffing

First of all... its pfaffing not faffing as the oxford dictionary and the likes of it like to refer it as. Those who do not practise it have no right to undermine the sentiments of those who do. We as MICANS believe we have GOD's authority to dictate what goes and what doesn't in pfaffing. With that in order I think we can move ahead to the actual execution of above said. I have already written a post on pfaffing which I feel is quite an indepth take on the subject and definately adequate for all new"pfaffers", you can click here for it or here for someone else's take on it. Please note I have used only MICAN references for obvious reasons.

If you are reading this, you are either done reading the above mentioned posts, or taken the smart choice of staying with this post. Moving ahead, this is a lazy bum's guide to pfaffing written by another lazy bum. It is safe to say at this point of time that the lazy bum writing this post is also very bored and has nothing better to do in life at this point of time (has plenty to do .. simply choses not to do it ... read between the lines .. (corollary 1) ).

There have been a lot of models on Pfaffing.. Actually the evolution of Pfaffing as a concept is perhaps as old as Marketing itself. The difference is basically in the alphabets used for denotation of the various models e.g. Marketing has the famous 4 c's and 7 p's while Pfaffing has the infamous B3 and the 3p's.

The B3 of Pfaffing are as follows:

Bullshit Baffles Brains

As much as i would like to take credit for the same, it was proposed by an intellectual who goes by the name Mayz.

An analysis of the same reveals the following.

Pfaff can be defined as any bullshit that baffles the brain (Now you know why it is a Lazy Bum's guide to Pfaffing. Theres no way a Lazy Bum would go through an indepth analysis (or write one for that matter which is my case) to find the valuable insights which he could use) . Or to make it even simpler, Pfaff is any crap you blurt out to create a situation where the person in front of you is so confused that he thinks you are genius to say what you did.

The 3 p's of Pfaff will be covered in relatively more detail. The 3 p's of Pfaff are as follows

1. Polysyllabic profundity

2. Parapsychic hogwash par excellence

3. Particularly digressing and obnubilating

Before we go on to explaining the 3 p's we should understand the 3 rules of Pfaffing

1. The one in front of you is a total idiot and is fortunate enough to have you pfaff to him, think of it as an example of your open hearted generosity.

2. Use of long, difficult to pronunce words with an accent to match is a must to give an aura of learnedness

3. The core crux of Pfaffing is based on the concept of its being totally irrelevant to the topic in question. The more irrelevant it is (interspersed with the right jargons ofcourse), the more confused the listener and the better the Pfaff.

Now to the 3 P's

1. The more syllables a word has, the more difficult it is for an Indian to pronounce it. The more difficult it is to pronounce, the better the weightage given to it. So if suppose you use a word like rodomontade as a compliment to someone you don't like. Chances are that in 99.99% of the time, the concerned person would walk away feeling elated. More crucial is that it follows the Universal Law 2 of Pfaffing and thus is relevant even today. A thing to note here is that the MICA 10th batch school of thought says that Pfaff is possible even without the use of the 1st P and has been proved in various test situations. So this P though relevant is not universal

2. There is a limit to which a normal person can digest information, leave alone process it. Anything beyond that is termed in medical jargons as parapsychic. If the information in question is bullshit served on a silver platter, the capacity drops to alarmingly low levels. Thus almost all kinds of Pfaff's can be covered under this and this remains the most used P by the novices.

3. There is nothing as confusing as irrelevance. As all pfaffers know, the basic truth of life is confuse and conquer. A confused man in the bush is worth two dumb men in front of you. These words of wisdom have traversed generations of wise men, faced endless storms and still lived to show their beacon of relevance even today. If an irrelevant topic is planted strategically in the midst of an engrossing conversation it results in a state of disorientation for the listener. This eventually leads to a chemical reaction succeeded by blowing up of gas bubbles in the brain, blocking the busy intersection between the left and right lobes, creating a extremely common condition called confusion. In this state the listener or victim, as some of us like to refer to them as, is the most vulnerable. This vulnerability gives an opportunity for the pfaffer to unleash his latent potential and break into uncharted territories he never knew he could conquer. This P comes with a rating of APG (Advanced Pfaffer guidance required) and can be used by only the most seasoned of pfaffers.

Here I must use this opportunity to introduce to you the GOD of pfaffers, whose books on pfaff are bestsellers everywhere and continues to use the 3rd P with perfection yet to be attained by us mere mortals. He is none other than Philip Kotler. Most of you readers would be taken in by his stately image and oh so "realistic" examples. But there are a whole kingdom of pfaffers who will back me when I say Kotler is GOD. In reality Kotler is a victim of fate which led him to become what he is. Initially, in his childhood he was just like any of us, a kid with the ambition of scaling the hieghts of pfaffdom. His mother an orthodox christian wanted him to be brought up in the ways of the prudish gentlemen. The stately double breasted suit wearing politician or at the very least a manager in a bank. His father though realised his potential and encouraged him in secrecy. Caught in the throes of a classic dilemma and his unwantingness to choose between the things he liked most, he devoted his time to work on a self triggered micro schizophrenia. In it he would be conscious of his two identities, would work on both simultaneously while being able to control the appearance of both at will. This was no mean feat, as scientists and doctors alike are still trying to find the exact sequencing of various ingested chemicals to bring about such a condition. What is important though is that it remains unknown to even the closest of people around him and is only known to the mican belt of the pfaffer community. Though we had access to such a valuable information the iron clad ethics of our community binds us from ever taking advantage of it. His book on "Marketing" remains the best work on pfaff till date and can be bought here.

I hope that this guide to pfaffing has helped some of you noob readers to grasp the essence of pfaffing and the responsibility which the title of a pfaffer brings with it. For any questions leave behind a comment and I'll get back to you.

2008-12-08T06:09:00.000-08:00

6 Best Brain Diseases to have..

Though as a rule I avoid discussing diseases but I found this fantastic post a part of which is posted below. After reading through it, I think some of you might even want to have 1-2 of these.. Don't believe it ..? read through it before deciding..

1. Photographic Memory

We have all heard of people with so called "photographic memories". Usually we use it when referring to someone who has an above average ability to recall information about the past or about their surroundings. True photographic memory of the kind exhibited by Stephen Wiltshire is truly a rare but amazing gift. Mr. Wiltshire is an autistic savant and those that know him call him "the living camera". When he was 11 years old he drew a perfect representation of the aerial view of London after a single helicopter ride, down to the correct number of windows on the major buildings of the city. This is perhaps one of the coolest feats of the human brain I have ever seen. Below is a video of Stephen Wiltshire showcasing his abilities.

2. Tertiary Neurosyphilis

Tertiary neurosyphilis, is the most interesting form of syphilis from a cultural point of view. Just before the onset of paralysis, the sufferer is beset with delusions of grandeur, a sense of understanding everything, a sense that he is on the verge of some monumental discovery which will forever change the course of history, as well as a sense that some divine electricity is coursing through his veins.

Since in this preliminary stage of tertiary syphilis, powers of expression are not impaired, a syphilitic who is also an artist may well produce a work of art that reflects this state of mind or, rather, this state of brain. Bob Summers felt that “King of Tetch” was just this kind of work. Wilhelm Reich felt that he had unlocked the secrets of the universe with the discovery of orgone energy, something that could now be accumulated in his orgone boxes, which would make power stations unnecessary.

Hayden feels that Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was composed under these circumstances, after syphilis had destroyed Beethoven’s hearing and was in the process of destroying his brain as well. “Seid umschlungen Millionen!” The grandiosity of Schiller’s poem is matched by the grandiosity of Beethoven’s musical score, which, at least in terms of the Ode to Joy chorus, is based on a moronic melody (melody was never Beethoven’s strong suit anyway), as the film Dearly Beloved makes clear. The brain of the syphilitic approaching general paralysis of the insane is like the light bulb that grows brighter just before it burns out completely. The syphilitic experiences, in Hayden’s words,

"episodes of creative euphoria, electrified, joyous energy when grandiosity led to a new vision. The heightened perception, dazzling insights, and almost mystical knowledge experienced during this time were expressed while precision of form of expression was still possible. At the end of the 19th century, it was believed that, in rare instances, syphilis could produce genius."

- excerpts from Deborah Hayden, Pox: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis (New York: Basic Books, 2003), 379 pp., Reviewed by E.Michael Jones, Ph.D.

3. Synesthesia

Synesthesia can occur between nearly any two senses or perceptual modes. While nearly every possible combination of experiences is logically possible, several types are more common than others.

Grapheme → color synesthesia

How someone with synesthesia might perceive (not "see") certain letters and numbers.
*Some synesthetes who actually see colors on the page could look at the picture on the left and actually see it as it is shown on the right, so at a glance they could see which are the 2s and which are the 5s.

In one of the most common forms of synesthesia, grapheme → color synesthesia, individual letters of the alphabet and numbers (collectively referred to as graphemes), are "shaded" or "tinged" with a color. While no two synesthetes will report the same colors for all letters and numbers, studies of large numbers of synesthetes find that there are some commonalities across letters (e.g., A is likely to be red) . -wikipedia

Music → color synesthesia

In music → color synesthesia, individuals experience colors in response to tones or other aspects of musical stimuli (e.g., timbre or key). Like grapheme → color synesthesia, there is rarely agreement amongst synesthetes that a given tone will be a certain color, but individuals are internally consistent. Tested months later, synesthetes will report the same experiences as they had previously reported.

Color changes in response to pitch may involve more than just the hue of the color. Lightness (the amount of black in a color; red with black may appear brown), saturation (the intensity of the color; candy red is highly saturated, while pink is almost unsaturated), and hue may all be affected to varying degrees. Additionally, music → color synesthetes, unlike grapheme → color synesthetes, often report that the colors move, or stream into and out of their field of view.

- From Wikipedia, click here for more info

4. Savantism without major autistic impairments.

Daniel Paul Tammet is a British autistic savant gifted with a facility for mathematics problems, sequence memory, and natural language learning. He was born with congenital childhood epilepsy.

Experiencing numbers as colors or sensations is a well-documented form of synesthesia, but Tammet is unique in how specific and detailed his mental imagery of numbers is. He claims that in his mind each number, up to 10,000, has its own unique shape and feel, and he can "sense" whether a number is prime or composite and "see" results of calculations as landscapes in his mind. He has described his visual image of 289 as particularly ugly, 333 as particularly attractive, and pi as beautiful.

Tammet holds the European record for memorizing and recounting pi to 22,514 digits in just over five hours. This sponsored charity challenge was held in aid of the National Society for Epilepsy (NSE) on “Pi Day,” 14 March 2004 at the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, UK. The NSE was chosen to benefit from this event because of Daniel's experience with epilepsy as a young child. Professor Allan Snyder at the Australian National University said of Tammet: “Savants can't usually tell us how they do what they do. It just comes to them. Daniel can. He describes what he sees in his head. That's why he's exciting. He could be the ‘Rosetta Stone.’”

- From Wikipedia Click Here for more information about Daniel

5. Congenital Insensitivity to Pain (CIPA)

Congenital insensitivity to pain (or congenital analgia) is a rare condition where a child cannot feel (and has never felt) physical pain.Cognition and sensation is otherwise normal, for instance they can still feel discriminative touch (though not always temperature), and there is no detectable physical abnormality.These children often suffer oral cavity damage (such as having bitten off the tip of their tongue) or fractures to bones. Unnoticed infections, and corneal damage due to foreign objects in the eye are also seen.
From Wikipedia Click Here for more information about CIPA

Also Here a little girl with CIPA was featured on the Oprah Show.

6. Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome (PSAS)

Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome results in a spontaneous and persistent genital arousal, with or without orgasm or genital engorgement, unrelated to any feelings of sexual desire. It was first documented by Dr. Sandra Leiblum in 2001, only recently characterized as a distinct syndrome in medical literature. In particular, it is not related to hypersexuality, sometimes known as nymphomania or satyriasis. In addition to being very rare the condition is also frequently unreported by sufferers who may consider it shameful or embarrassing.

Physical arousal caused by this syndrome can be very intense and persist for extended periods, days or weeks at a time. Orgasm can sometimes provide temporary relief, but within hours the symptoms return. The symptoms can be debilitating, preventing concentration on mundane tasks. Some situations, such as riding in an automobile or train, vibrations from mobile phones, and even going to the toilet can aggravate the syndrome unbearably.

- From Wikipedia for more information on PSAS Click Here

Example: Woman has 300+ orgasms per day: http://www.mymultiplesclerosis.co.uk/misc/orgasms.html

2008-12-06T14:07:00.000-08:00

When you manage to squeeze enough toothpaste out for one last brush

Say you wake up Monday morning and realize you forgot to set your alarm clock. Now not only did you miss out on some quality snoozetime, but you’re late for work to boot. You jump out of bed, jump on the toilet, jump in the shower, jump into some clothes, and run to the bathroom to brush your teeth before running out the door.

But then you see it.

That thin, rolled-up toothpaste tube laying completely empty on your counter, the life completely squeezed out of it over the past few weeks. Your jaw drops and your memory flies back…

… you vividly recall making the first soft dent in the tube’s cylindrical purity, back when the paste was flowing like water, just waiting to come out. It seemed like it would never end. Over the next few weeks, there were some great moments, like:

1. The time you forgot to put the lid on and had to squeeze real hard through a tiny pinprick hole in the center of the congealed toothpaste wall the next day.
2. The first time you had to roll it up, coiling the thick, once-mighty toothpaste anaconda into a tightly wound fraction of itself. This was foreshadowing, but still — the paste kept flowing and you thought nothing of it.
3. The time you thought you actually were out of toothpaste, but you managed to unroll it and slide it real hard across the edge of your bathroom counter, completely coaxing all the minty green molecules up to the front door.

You smile slightly at the foggy memories of those better days, before your brain quickly jerks you forward to the present.

Which is right now. When you’re late for work.

You stare into your empty tube of toothpaste, you glance quickly at your watch, and you decide to just for go for it, one last time.

You grab your brush, grit your teeth, and squeeze your thumb and forefinger together as hard as you can, right on the head of the toothpaste tube. You squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze, your thumb pounding, your brow pulsing, your brush pleading…

… until it finally comes: that very last, very weak, very small little dot of toothpaste, just peeking its head out the front door of the tube, just in time for you to swipe at it with your toothbrush, swab it around your mouth, and spit it out.

AWESOME!

source: http://1000awesomethings.com/2008/11/03/904-one-last-brush/

Pictures from: here, here and here

2008-12-06T13:10:00.000-08:00

A thought for a thought

Its not everyday that you actually sit down and think about things. Ya it happens by accident mostly specially when we are in the loo. It is said we get our best ideas in the loo, atleast its true for me. But that's enough about it all, the main point of focus is that I was thinking. And while thinking I thought about what I was really thinking. You may think its about the most hopeless attempts of mine so far in my blog journey and maybe you should give up on my post just about now. But I implore you, stick with me for sometime more and it WILL make sense... somehow. You know theres always this gnawing feeling inside as if theres something missing. I have somehow never made peace with myself. It's always I couldn't get this. I couldn't get that. Its as if I have never been satisfied with the results unless they were in my favour and then too I just accepted it and moved on to another bout of cribbing. In essence my journey in life so far has been just about cribbing. Why do I feel so, is it just another pang of misery which led me to write this post? No it isn't, I am writing this post because I have always observed a little of me in everyone I meet. Maybe it's just my way of saying thanks, or my inability to react to a compliment, or my anger or my ego ... The list is endless and seemingly so is the flow of people into and out of my life. Call me a self centred b*****d for "me" meing all this while, but its true.

A little analysis showed me exactly what I knew all this while. The journey is always the essence of any thing we do. The hunt is always better than the kill, the courtship is always the best part of the romance. We see numerous such example still fail to realise the one thing thats the most important, "NOW".

Our now is always a mix of the past and the future... the real present is usually gone before we realise it and then it becomes a part of the unchangeable past. If only we devoted some time to the future, the past would be ... well the past.. and future would be really something worth celebrating. But then we never know what the future holds so why not cherish the present before it becomes the past.

I have heard people say that though our mind has "unlimited" potential, only a fragment of it is tapped by us "normal" beings while some who exploit it more gain extraordinary powers. I say its bullshit. Though I acknowledge and respect the "extraordinary" men who went and did which we could not, but its not because what they have, but more because what they don't have. The thing which probably they didn't have in their minds is the trash that we keep collecting and storing moment after moment. We select the most useless piece of information out of what is available to us and store it in the most coveted storage place we have, our brain. When it is time to store the more important information useful time is spent in selecting which "useless" information to remove to make space for the new "important and useful" information. A little tidbit to prove my point. Did you know that Thomas Alva Edison used to take out his diary when asked for a address and could not remember any without the diary? Would you call such a great scientist an idiot for not remembering one's address? surely he should have been more capable with an IQ like his? It was more due to his insistence on NOT memorizing them than anything else which led to this. He did not want his mind filled with seemingly useless things like addresses which could be stored in a diary rather than some interesting theory he could use for an invention of his. The potential of our mind is what we make it to be and not the other way around.

I believe in the power of man, that man alone has the power to shape his/her own destiny. Just about everything is in our own hands should we chose to exercise our right and claim the reigns. Too long have we employed the services of the unnamed, faceless strangers to the task of running our lives, its time we took control and gave it a direction we thought right. One in my place often wonders, and I do too, about the direction his/her life is taking and not just about career, even generally. Often after 30-40 years of life one feels like asking oneself what is it that we have really achieved. I don't think I can answer it yet and I hope I can answer it someday. I don't wish to see my epitaph saying "he was a good man and he led an honest life", I do not want to see "he achieved the pinnacle of success..." what I really want to see is "he was content on how his life had shaped, he has no regrets".

I want to die ... NO ... live a content man... A man who has no regrets when he sees his past from the present, a man who dreams about a present like future....

2008-11-07T15:56:00.000-08:00

My book .. still remains unfinished .. but Ive moved forward, Ive had many comments given privately over the prologue and excerpts from the first chapter are provided for want of more comments.

.... I lit a candle. There was no one. I thought I had heard some whispers. It must’ve been the wind playing tricks. I went back inside my “room” if you could call it that. More like a prison if you ask me, a prisoner by choice though so I couldn’t really complain. Its not like I had to do this, no one was forcing me, it had been a self conscious decision for me and its not like I had always been wanting to do this, but ever since I had heard about it, I had been fascinated about it. Its like a new world had been opened for me. The possibilities seemed endless and the road clear. But err... How do I bell the “CAT”..? This question had foxed a whole lot of “intellectuals” I had the good fortune to know. Some had suggested using Newton’s laws, some Einstein’s relativity, some even designed a model which could predict if the method I was going to use would be successful or not. Some “non-intellectuals” helped me in their own way... suggested watching “GUNDA” and do some soul searching. For those unfortunate souls who have not been exposed to the light of “GUNDA” ... its somewhat like 5 Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy combined into 1 motion picture. Its even better than an OSHO discourse in some ways. Its got a solution for everything you might want to know, but sadly enough it left out the one question I did want to ask, the way to bell the CAT. I went online to search up some google gyaan as they liked to call it. Instead found something really absurd. A Guru named Allwin who called himself “Pagalguy” for some weird reason or whim or whatever, had founded a community of his own. Lovingly called PG... it was like the mecca of CAT lovers; the ultimate gathering place for everything to do with it. The great thing about it was that everyone was there to help, but then that’s another story. Its not that I found it through some really good detective skills; i “stumbled” across it, in every manner of speaking. But it was like finding a whole bunch of guides, there were guys who had been there done that, there were guys, who had been there done that and lived to tell and then there were guys like me. I asked a few questions, got loads of answers, visited different rooms in the community and got friendly with a lot of great guys. I was well on the path to belling the “CAT”. It is said, that the “CAT” appears to all those who seek it, you do have to pay a princely sum to keep the appointment though, but if it clicks, you life is made. Armed with all the help, I managed to stumble across and finally faced CAT face to face. It wasn’t really as scary as it looked, just a little confusing, but within the short span of 1.5 hrs given for the appointment, I found myself facing my worst fears, feeling completely hopeless and yet finding enough in me to keep a straight mind. I had come to CAT for a purpose, a purpose of securing my future and I would get it. Or so I thought. CAT doesn’t give results straightaway, maybe its also a part of its tests. For all those who are wondering who the hell CAT is .. Its the gatekeeper to all the various hidden civilizations; only CAT can let you through the gates where the opportunities of our dreams lie. With the increasing number of smaller civilizations popping up among the “otherlowlies” race, it was only right that CAT delegate the work of gatekeeper to MAT,SNAP,XAT and the like, all siblings of the great CAT. You are simply not through by meeting up with CAT, you also have to contact the different civilizations if they are ready to take you based on CAT’s suggestions. I along with the few who had heard the Tales of MICA (not many have), knocked the doors of the mystical civilization. To our surprise.. it answered. Because it is hidden and it is very near to another huge civilization of the IIMites race, many people have missed it and even not heard of it. Even the so called “localites” who belong to neither race have at most heard of it existence and that number is at best a negligible minority. It could be called one of the “Management” World’s best kept secrets. I rushed back to the Puys and Pgals and they directed me to Chuck. I saw chuck and was instantly confused... His Hat read Deepak Gopalkrishnan and so did his ID tag, but everyone called him chuck. I tried calling him by Deepak out of respect... but he did not respond. I called out again ... “Deepak ... Deepak ..!!” still no reply, it looked like he was talking to some imaginary person, discussing something and suddenly he yelped with joy and disappeared. I was not surprised because he was said to have magical powers. I had an acceptance from the civilization of MICA but not idea how to get there. Noone as i mentioned before knew how to get in. I talked with a group of MICANs who called themselves “seniors” who assisted me through the road and eventually helped me get in. But they put a clause, I had to go out and come after 3 months. By which time they would get everything ready for us new batch of arrivals. By this time I had come to understand that Deepak answered only to the name of chuck, a self christened name, weird but true. I tried contacting the other members of our new fraternity and they responded enthusiastically. Seemingly they had come from all parts of the universe and the only way to contact them all was the ethereal medium; “the virtual world”, Internet. There was Jinxie, there was Utsav and the one and only Cooper. Every one of them had a unique identity and staked claim to the popularity vote. But no one quite knew how MICA would be, no one quite knew what adventures awaited us... And thus the story begins, the start of a brand new chapter... The way in..

Readers, please post some suggestions, any sort of help is highly appreciated... Just one last thing, I am never ever going to bad mouth an author, its tough work .. really tough work. I thought that I could definately better some authors out there. But the fact is they have written entire books, and Im still counting pages.. with lots to go and already tired. For that reason, I need something to help me go on.. something anything.. COMMENT!!!

2008-11-04T01:49:00.000-08:00

I was working on a project codenamed "jaadu ki jhappi" and decided to search on what munna bhai had achieved since his movie.. Out of the numerous Things that showed... One video captured my heart .. and seemingly it was voted the best video on youtube some time back with more than a million views..

Do check it out ..

Pass on the joy and usher in the "Free Hug" revolution ..!

2008-10-23T15:42:00.000-07:00

This is just a first Draft of the prologue of the book I was thinking of writing for a long time. A book about one of latest loves... MICA..

Try to enjoy it (else click on the small cross at the top right hand corner of the window)

Statutory warning:

All characters in this book are meant to resemble people dead (hopefully not) or alive on the MICA campus. Any person ignorant about the above is free to contact the author for details. Any person disliking any part of his character should face himself in the mirror and pledge to actually do something about it.

Prologue

This book is largely concerned with a race called MICAn’s, and from its pages, the reader may discover much of their character and a little of their history. Though there isn’t much documented about this particular race, it is said to thrive in an undisclosed location near the forests of Shela. There have been many, who have tried to find this self proclaimed Shangri-la, but it is said that only the ones who really desire it, find their way in. It is said that the doors only open once in a year for the true believers to enter this hamlet, but it’s been written in various other scrolls that due to the insistence of many, the Great King PAT threw open the doors of MICA to some others, whom we will refer to as the ‘shorter ones’, at different times during the year. It’s been written on the gates of MICA with the fire that does not burn... “You can check in anytime you want... but you can never leave”. It is said that the great bard Bryan of the west, composed a song on this about the great summer of 69’ when the Great King PAT came to power and such was inscribed upon the gates.

Many may wish to know more about these people but may not find much documented in books. All that was, was in the form of scrolls found on the bed of the yellow sea. For that reason, a brief history of the race along with their legends ... mica-lore if you may, is presented to the readers.

MICAns are among the 3 races that walk the postgraduatistan. MICAns are joined by IIMites, who form the so called elitist societies and the “oderlowlies”. IIMites and oderlowlies have often joined hands to form B-school and calls MICAns C-school, a derogatory word, not quite unlike the term muggles, used to refer to non-magical people in the world of Harry Potter. But as it is another world, we shall not dwell much on it. But MICAns being MICAns and under the able leadership of King PAT, welcomed the re-christening as an opportunity. MICAns had the freedom to run things their way and were not bound by the guidelines written by the great dictator “AICTE” in the book of law.

MICAns are proud and very young people. Though they have not walked the earth for hundreds of years (supposedly) like the IIMites, they have a pride to match them. They love their music loud and consider partying, a second nature. They do not and did not like deadline machinery and often pushed them so far that they broke away and disappeared, much to the amusement of the people there. They are quick of hearing, sharp witted and have a secret that has a bloodline limit, “Pfaffing”. Only MICAns can possess it in the copious quantities that they have, a normal human would go crazy and perform hara kiri if exposed to such huge quantities of the same. Their great King PAT is believed to have come to power because he had developed over the years such great amounts of it and could control it with such great ease, that he defeated several powerful ex-IIMites, many much elder, who wished to gain control over the newly established kingdom. For that reason he has been accorded a title of “Pfaff King”. They are also said to be nimble and deft in their movements. They possessed from the first, the art of disappearing swiftly and silently, when folks from the neighbouring world of “Globalized Industry” came to distribute “gyaan”. MICAns were never one to accept charity, they worked hard to achieve what they got (which was not much) and/but they were proud of it. This skill they have perfected to such an extreme that outsiders deem it as magic. But MICAns were never “magical” people, and the above is solely due to the professional skill that heredity and practice, and a close bonding with each other, and which has been rendered inimitable by bigger and clumsier races like the IIMites.

We will be talking of only the MICAns of shellington village, at the edge of the forest of shela. The other MICAns who have settled in a not so near “gardens of law”, shall be referred to as e-MICAns in the book, and thus the reader should not confuse one with the other.

We shall now continue to the adventures of the author, who will be referred to as R (for the time being, untill I get a good name), his discovery of MICA and his stay there..

CHAPTER 1 - The Hunt

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Please do comment on parts which you liked (or did not.. right now preferably did not) so that I can work on it while working on the second draft. Also the rest of the story will not neccessarily follow on similar lines as the prologue and thus should not be judged on that. The story so far (The prologue) derives a lot of its inputs from J.R.R.Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" and that fact should not be held against it for the simple reason of the difference in storyline and of the book being more on the lines of a parody.

2008-10-14T15:27:00.000-07:00

Drama

I once saw a pretty girl,
pretty I say, coz I thought it so.
I saw and saw, until it was a stare,
the stare became a gaze,
the gaze, a longing,
the longing, an urge,
the urge, a need,
the need, an obsession,
the obsession, the death of me..
I came, I saw, I sat, I gazed
Of coffees and movies and gardens and benches.
The thirst in the eyes,
a lingering pain.
There was a desire,
a need for more
Love it wasn’t,
Lust it couldn’t be.
An angel, naaah...!
From heaven she could not be.
Oh to touch her, the tingling feel,
Sparks flying hither and dither.
The changing texture
a touch, and from skin to blush
a hurt, the touch withdrawn.
The moon, the light, the flowing hair,
the choreography of desire
An ethereal envelope of emotions,
Submerged, wrecked, a drowning man
Me, in the waters of extreme passions.
A voyeuristic touch, me, a peeping tom
I see her living her life
The unwavering gaze, following her
Step... matching with step..
But as i move closer,
It leads to a blur
Reminded of Heisenberg’s uncertainty.
The unacknowledged, me,
Striving for attention
A look, a glance, a wink, a sign
Something, anything,
just to satisfy them doubters.
Finally it all changes,
Horizons reach their limit,
the central character ... disappears
the autofocus of my eyes, searching.
The nothingness unhinges me
Lives go by, people rush ahead,
Like moving images on a static frame
I wait, I wait, they come, and they go
Then Blackness...and the screen reads..
“The END”

2008-09-18T12:15:00.000-07:00

I am a MCP. period.

The Male chauvinism syndrome is a very interesting case should one be willing to study it. Being one I will be shedding some light on the same as an expert.

MCP was an honorary title bestowed upon us by the feminists of 1960's and we have proudly being carrying it around, flaunting it even ever since. So who or what are we?

We are supposedly people (men ofcourse) who believe that men are superior to women. But would'nt that be Male chauvinists? Yeah, but since it has been established since a long time (by women) that all men are pigs (except some exceptions, who are either hot or cute or someone who are neither but someone they are in love with) , I think the term MCP holds. So what do we do? Well nothing actually, we boss aorund women (supposedly) demeaning womenfolk worldwide, reducing their self esteem (ego) to bits etc etc.

Do we do the above? No I don't think so. We MCP's have our code, our honour and we do not believe in the demeaning of someone we have learnt to respect as our equals. Haven't we always referred to you as our better half? Haven't we accorded the status of the "fairer sex" to you. Haven't we bestowed our undivided attention and all our energies and passion into wooing the likes of you? And still you accuse us of demeaning you? A job is a job is a job. Whether one does it sitting in a cabin/office or does it at home is irrelevant. Whether one earns money or the appreciation of people around him/her is also irrelevant. Both have their places in the Maslows heirarchy of needs and mind you both fulfil them. If you are wondering about the inequality that one sees around us in terms of husbands housekeeping and working wives then lets ask you a question. How adaptable is the world to change? It took the blacks, more than two hundered years to send one of their own to run for the presidency of the United States of America. It took just 5 to replace pagers with mobile phones. Technology changes, people don't. Every change takes time to be accepted, to sink in basically. We as humans do not like change. Not if it forces us to change our beliefs, our traditions.. Women across civilization for centuries have belonged in the houses. The field was for the men and the house for the women. Both were efficient in what they did. The sands of time did change the outlook of women and raised the flag of feminism but men took some time to change, we are humans afterall. The MCP's you labeled way back in 1960's have long died or are probably on their way there. Like all of you reading this, we are also gen next. We like all of you are quite different from the generations before us. We believe in the equality of men and women .. all of it. But hey how can you then justify reservations for women. If you are all as good as you say you are, fight us on equal grounds. Women before you have done it you know. The Indira Nooyi's of the world had the courage to come up fight equally and prove themselves and that is why we respect her. Can someone explain to us how reservations lead to women empowerment, when reservations itself is a medium of saying that the recipient is "lesser".

I am a MCP. Period. Albeit a Gen-Next one. I think the age of men has long been over but the age of women is yet to begin. This transitory phase that we are in is the age where the shuffling happens. " Glass ceilings" will be broken, misconceptions will be shattered and when the world is ready the throne shall be bequeathed to its rightful owners. But there is still time for that. There will be an age of women .. but it is not now.

So all you FCO's or Feminist Cribbing Owls ... wait a little longer your time is on its way.

2008-09-07T10:38:00.000-07:00

I have always believed that everyone can write because the only thing needed to write is the ability to bare your soul. Only if you feel something can you write about it.

I have often prodded friends of mine to take the initiative and write something, and my hard work bore fruits when a friend of mine wrote something.. I found it so... I really don't have words to describe it .. But I felt it was my blog's priviledge to have the post on it..

Heres the first post of a budding writer..

7^th September, 2008

I was alone travelling in the train. A million thoughts were running through my mind as usual. I was looking at people frowning, smiling, talking and sleeping. Headphones were on too. And suddenly I thought I should go home n write this or maybe I wished I had a pen n paper with me, I would start writing then n there. I’ve always felt I wanna write but somehow never did. I was too lazy or I dunno I cud always give a lotta reasons fer not doin something. But this today I just thought no m gonna do this. It’s not like I had anything special on my mind. But just.

Went to town, met my friends, and heard a lot of taunts. Don’t really know if they affected me. Everyone had so much happening in their life and I had no idea about it and I felt so lost n left out and I wonder who’s at fault or is it anyones fault at all. And suddenly this question “Where is my life heading? What do I really want?”

And I don’t really know if I have an answer to that. Well, if I see my life right now, it seems just perfect. I work, I study, I sleep in time, and I do my share of tp, party on weekends, movies. I am doing everything. But still this emptiness, still the urge to do something. And I want to know what that something is and I don’t know how. I have a plan ahead of me, how much I stick with it, only God knows. I feel sure I want to do this but again how, where, who is gonna guide me. I need someone to take me through it. But something inside of me tells me that no one can do this for me. No amount of pursuing and pushing is gonna help. Its only my efforts that’s gonna get me through in life. I need the stability, the security, I want to make it big in life and I know its not gonna come so easy but the realization is yet to set in and I’m waiting, desperately waiting.

And the need for a partner gets stronger n stronger with every passing day. I have a million people around me. So called friend’s, good friend’s and best friends. Just about everyone seems to have a place in my life irrespective of the consideration other people have of me. And I still feel alone, so so alone. And things go wrong everytime. I wait for the time when things will fall in place and I find the right guy but I don’t know how to manage till then. I have no clue how to get through this phase. But I’m not giving up hope. That’s one thing I’ve learnt in recent times. I’ve always been optimistic since really long but now m learning to not give up. I wanna hold on but the problem is I don’t have anything or anyone to hold on to. Maybe I’m trying to grab things and m left with nothing in hand. My aunt always tells me her life and mine is the same. I watch her n just smile n think to myself that no this is not gonna be my fate, m gonna carve out a way better life for myself and all u will do is watch me happy n smiling and not sulking the way you are. Somehow I feel I have the positivity in me but something’s amiss that’s holding me back in life and I just hope I find that missing factor in my life and m gonna be good to go from there and I will always keep smiling no matter what. J That reminds me, I was just looking through photos of the typhoon in Philippines and this woman; she was smiling for th photograph standing on a mattress in the middle of so much water n a completely broken house. Her entire effort, her home was gone, and yet she could smile through it. Its amazing how she’s still got her hopes and she ain’t giving up and I think it cant get any better. Keep your hopes, work hard and life is just so beautiful. It feels so good when you’ve worked hard for something and the sense of achievement and what follows is just so good. Hmm… and now I’m outta words. :P

Please don't be cringy when it comes to comments.. this post means a lot to the person concerned.. A push will go a long way .. From my side, the post is as good as any of mine if not better, if only I could be so true, so open while writing... :standsupandclaps:

2008-09-05T01:21:00.000-07:00

The C Phobia...

Disclaimer: This article is not meant for hard core commitment fanatics nor for the big brawned males who think it might be an insult to their masculinity or for that matter anyone who can cause me any kind of hurt should this not appeal to their (limited) mental capabilities.

I start this article by saying that whoever associated the term “commitment phobia” with guys ( I am assuming it was guy because in the good old days there were only a limited number of women studying beyond high school... and who did go beyond that to do their phd would refrain from writing such a statement to avoid getting their grants cut off by the male dominated grant boards) was the biggest loser. It has led to one of the biggest stereotyping exercise this world has ever known; the stereotyping of men with commitment phobia. If Men have this so called “phenomenon” of commitment phobia... then what do you call the women who perpetually change their minds about men at the last stage of the commitment.. saying “ ... but all men are jerks”. But I understand that this article is not meant to be a revelation about the girls having commitment problems too; they are blissfully enjoying their ignorance and it is only fair to let them.

Onto the problem affecting men in particular and mankind as a whole...A recent study has revealed that all men were not made that way.. That is, GOD didn’t intend to make men commitment phobic, it is an anomaly of the gene structure that leads to such a condition and as it is an anomaly... Not all people have the problem.. But we will delve into the “not all” problem later. The study by Karolinska Institute shows that a gene variant can lead to the above mentioned phenomenon. But then as with all conditions/phenomenon known to man, this too has various reasons associated with it. It is not just the gene variant that causes it (obviously, you wouldn’t be satisfied with such a simple answer would you.. everything has to have a complex solution or atleast a complicated reason behind it, doesn’t it ??)

In the article that follows I will be revealing what goes inside a guy’s brain, why he behaves like he does, why he is what he is...

Disclaimer: This study has “NOT” involved live subjects for experiment purposes so the various acts against cruelty towards animals cannot be applied here.
Caution: This article is supposed to represent all guys alive or dead in totality. Anyone in disagreement with the same should go and have their gender rechecked.

Why are we... What we are..?
It is an interesting question because it deals with what we could have become if we wern’t and what we should be in the event a change is possible. The possible reason of our being what we are is because the other half of the society being what it is; the other half of the society being the “fairer” sex. Why should they be called the fairer sex? Do we assume that every guy is atleast a shade darker than the least fair girl alive? Do we presume ourselves to be devoid or if not devoid have a depleted supply of the fairness genome?
BBC news says that women have more cells in the brain and are actually smarter considering the smaller size of brain that they have. So do we now leave all the “smart” work to the women and take on the daily chores?
Women, since time immemorial, have tried to create a mysterious aura around them. To make men feel helpless when it comes to deducing what their actions, subtle hints, or for that matter their sentences (or in some cases just words) mean! I mean, there must’ve been atleast a zillion articles written on how men find it utterly impossible to understand women. Women seem to revel in the fact that most men squirm in their seats trying to deduce what must be the thoughts going on in the women sitting next to him, should I go for the kiss or not, should I ask her out or not, should I agree with her when she says that the food was good or say her cooking is better etc.. Every subtle eyelash movement is crucial, every flitting glance, every nose twitch or cough. A moments attention loss can cost the poor guy atleast a month of despair.. not that he always succeeds even with the best detective skills. Might be one reason why Sherlock Holmes was always shown without a girl companion or even a love interest. Girls were one mystery that perhaps even he couldn’t solve.
What is common to all of the above examples? They are all examples of society trying to demean men; trying to create a sort of superiority complex for the females. Why should guys be forced to answer in front of a society which is continuously plotting against them, to a question that is set to question his personal beliefs? But I will answer it for the benefit of the few somebody’s who wish to sit and listen and perhaps even analyse what it is that is plaguing the world to cause it to have such a screwed up relationship lifetime. Why is it that the most committed of people end up running away as soon as their commitment gets a name?

Let us try to think of it from a male perspective, why does the average rahul get relationship jitters, when his girlfriend ask him to get married... or if it is too advanced; when his “close” friend wants to go to the next level.

There is a very simple answer to the above, freedom. Yes this one word is one of the prime reasons why men get the jelly legs. Just think of a world where guys are bound by imaginary chains, have blinders placed on the sides of their faces, have a radar on their head to warn of approaching females with an automatic lock down on brain activity for the time when the female is within the prescribed danger threshold radius, a self injective sedative capsule attached to his neck to administer as soon as the heartbeats grow stronger on smelling the pheromones given out by the opposite sex. Maybe even a password enabled lock down, you know where, to ensure that even if all the above force fields are violated, there would be a last line of defence to protect “their” males from provocative advances from the morally loose members of their sex. This is what the general perception of commitment is; c considering that the girl becomes overpossesive after the relationship gets a name, that every girl that the poor guy talks with, is a potential boyfriend snatcher. Every female acquaintance, more so the good looking ones become off limits even for friendly chats. The high level of insecurity which most girls bring to the table along with the commitment status becomes unnerving for the strongest of hearts. Add on it the pester power that girls in general seem to have. Pester power refers to the ability of a person to manipulate the other person in question by repeated pestering i.e. banter regarding a particular topic, which ultimately the other person has to give in to what can only be described as “peace of mind”. Previously the term was associated with children, off late with women (either married or girlfriends... in other words committed)

Lets jump to another prime reason, which will be explained soon. Think about a situation where you get school without the clause of giving exams to goto the next class. Does it beat the concept of schooling? You still goto the school to learn, you still “study” the same subjects. What changes is the formality of passing the exam. Does failing a subject in any way prove that the student is incapable of studying? It just shows that the student does not have the natural aptitude or the interest for the concerned subject and as we are not given the option of choosing our subjects, the compulsion of exams and the subsequent passing in them should not be necessary criteria of judgement. Relate this example to the concept of relationships. Is it not possible to have relationships without the tag of a commitment attached to it? Is it not possible to do away with formalities that will only end up in tying ourselves in unnecessary obligations? Does not being called a girlfriend in anyway reduce the quality of time spent with the concerned person? Does looking at other people of the opposite sex on the way home in anyway affect your affections for the committed someone waiting for you there? Does every person need to be subjected to the morally demeaning act of being flaunted as an art piece to whomsoever who has the time to listen as one’s committed other? I sure as hell wouldn’t. And for all the above reason we guys run away from the word commitment. You seek attention; we will give you all that we can. You ask for affection, we will unload our entire heart on a plate and gift it to you. You wish to be the only female we interact with... I say dream on... Cmon people, we are guys; we were made to be this way. We revel in voyeuristic pleasures. We like to gawk like wolves with our jaw hanging and tongue drooling at the sight of a gorgeous female (Its true.. don’t deny it ..) but then don’t you girls do the same? But if we point it out to you, we are being over possessive and unnecessarily jealous, while the females are just keeping us in check. Why are the rules so different and terminologies made to suit females? How is it a fair game in which we are supposed to follow each rule to the book? I say first make the rules fairer for both, then we will take a step forward.

Lastly we come to the most inconsequential but perhaps the most underrated reason on the male phobia for commitments. It is the fear of not living upto the hype. Women usually complain that men when trying to woo her were much more loving, much more enthusiastic etc than after being committed. It should be made clear here that for humans since the beginning, the chase has been more important than the kill. The chase sequence is always the most interesting part of a thriller. In a hunt, the chase part is always the most exciting part, the tiger/deer after it has been hunted down and clicked a photo with, is either left to rot, or taken home to serve as a wall adornment, subjected to a mere glance at the most at a later date. Similarly a female and now many males are sadly regarded as conquests. Making a girlfriend is more of a hunt session, complete with the chase sequence (wooing period) and when the poor creature is trapped, enmeshed in the unreal ropes of false hopes, the hunter goes for the kill and claims the prize as his own, after which the prize is left to its own, or just given formality glances and pleasing noises to keep it at bay. It is sad but true and both sexes are affected by it, so no one gender can be blamed for the phenomenon. Though it is practised by a very small number of the concerned gender it is noticed by a lot larger number. This leads to a lingering doubt at the back of one’s head which stops him/her from walking the last mile.

Life is not about commitments and relationships being given a name, it’s about actually living them. The realities are much different than we imagine and it is for that very reason that it’s best that a concept like live in relationships replace the quick divorce and multiple relationships era that our generation is known for. We can and we will overcome, but for it to happen the society as we know it today will have to undergo many fundamental changes. Major upheavals which may shake the foundation of many a concept that we are used to taking for granted. The world will yet see a time when one will have to open the pages of this blog from a cached version of this site on a google server to read about the concept of commitment phobia as it existed in 2008.It will take time and sacrifices but it will happen, it has to happen.

2008-09-01T10:26:00.000-07:00

The person that I almost was..

Have you ever woken up wishing that you were someone else ..?? someone well... different..!! Have you ever felt bored of how life was dragging along .. how you were doing the same things that you didn't wanna do .. again ... and again ... How every breath you took, every move you made was one step away from the life you secretly wished for. You have everything .. and still nothing. Have you ever felt that way ..??

Have you ever felt that there was someone somewhere that understood you .. someone who wasn't your soulmate .. someone not destined to meet you .. but someone you would have to find.. you were alone in a crowd .. (cliche eh .. ) that your existence needed to be defined through that someone else you were seeking. That ....in the most unromantical way .. a part of you was still missing..

That life was beyond love .. beyond the vagaries each moment presented you with .. beyond all the decisions that were thrown at you .. beyond the choices that you stumbled across .. That darkness was at the end of the tunnel and the light way back.. and all you had was a torch with the battery running out.

I have felt some of the above ... and the rest Ive felt through the others Ive known .. but I know its there.. the feeling lurks in the shadows and f****s you when you least expect it .. brings you crashing down like a ton of bricks .. and you never know what hit you ... But its now how you fall .. gracefully or otherwise .. its how you get up to the stares of the unknown eyes.. whether its embarassment.. despair.. vengeance.. a smirk.. or plain mirth..

It is a random musing on my part .. but have you ever noticed that you have the same symptoms when you are in hate .. as when you are in love.. In hate..??? yeah the same hate you feel when you are really pissed off at someone and not the gf bf pissed off ... which everyone knows is plain bullshit !!!
you can't sleep at nights thinking what you would do to that person... you dnt feel hungry because the anger mechanism brings its share of indigestion.. and you can't stop thinking about that person ...!!!
Well so much for "lurrrve" symptoms ..!! seems the love gurus better scamper off back to their drawing boards and design a more fool proff mechanism to identify love..!!

For those who have read the batman comic series will realise how much of batman each person has in his/herself.. He is the only superhero without the superpowers... a man fallible.. a man victimized by the same age that plagues us all.. A hero .. a lover .. a human...
I stand in front of the mirror everyday and think how we live everyday to become the man everyone around us wants us to be.. the perfect father, the perfect son, the perfect brother, the perfect student, the perfect friend, the perfect enemy, the perfect lover, the perfect human and then they complain how we are losing our individuality.. what the f**k are we supposed to do ? Our life is one big self induced ,confused identity crisis .. and you know what we all are responsible for it.. atleast batman knew what he wanted to become and had the guts to tell everyone else to just f**k off.. He played every role to perfection while remaining true to his own identity.. and that's why he is batman .. and we are us .. we remain stuck in the rat race trying to outdo each other to the finish line not knowing that regardless the result we would be spending our entire lives running one race after the other on the same track until age catches up and we give up..

I wish to break these imaginary shackles that keep us bound to this never ending race track.. I wish to shout at the top of my voice when I want to .. I wish to be a jerk and love myself for it ... I wish to slip, fall and get up laughing .. I wish to stop caring about all those insignificant things which won't do me one bit good in the long run... I wish to wish for something worthwhile .. I wish to stop running .. I am tired.. I wish to stop and think .. think about where I am really heading .. about where I should be heading.. A directionless life is all I have .. though I might seem confident and full of gyaan .. I am helpless.. I have no inkling who I want to be, where I wanna go ... or for that matter who I am.. An engineer? a manager?? a great friend?? a pathetic lover?? an obedient child?? or a protective brother ..?? I feel definitions such as these are irrelevant for it needs the existence of these roles to be relevant and none of them represent me as I am..

From where I am standing .. I see the mirror showing me that I still have a long way to go .. still a long way to the person I almost am .. the person I almost was..!!

2008-07-07T06:18:00.000-07:00

Heartbreak

Once upon a time, not so long ago,
There was a girl, a queen if you may.
Fair in skin, a spark in her eyes,
smart in her walk, yet dumb in her talk,
Boys but a game, shopping her domain.
Phone her favorite toy, be it with girl or guy.
Her antics funny, her personality sunny,
the tinkle in her voice, her cheerful demeanour,
encourages one to go hug her now.
The empty feeling, deep within,
the hearty aches and sudden mood swings,
Is this Love...?, I ask you mae.
She hears it all, she listens well,
then laughs a smile, oh shatter, oh pour.
She talks of love, as a child might do,
no pasts, no future, only presents do.
Oh come to me, she tells him too,
and the other and other, she tells them all.
The lover boy, he talks the walk,
promises palaces on clouds thus formed.
With a wave of her hand, a queeny dismissal.
She choses another, one of his own,
he cries foul, she laughs again.
A joke then, a joke forever,
a broken heart, a jilted mind.
Alone he goes, the horizon far,
A vow taken, for a return naught.
Anger in his mind, tears in his heart
A heart wrenched open, an eye dried wide.
left to the hounds to feats upon.
Forsaken by friends, hunted by foes,
As misery be, the fate of an escapee.
Alone he birthed, alone he shall die,
a freedom of naught, a love well earned.

2008-04-09T08:07:00.000-07:00

When is the last time you did something for the first time..

Some of you might have heard this for the first time .. some of you might have been hearing it all their life, but one thing is for sure, you would be reading this post for the first time... for sure!!

When is the last time you did something for the first time .. seriously, I am asking you. Think about it. Our schedule, as free or hectic it might be, has become more of a "rut"ine . We lazy bums go on and on doing the same things hoping for destiny to give us that push needed to make us do something new, embark on a new "rut" if you may. Why we do that is beyond me, but that's exactly what we will try and unravel as we go along. Too philosophical for your taste ... have you reached the end ..? no .. read the entire thing then decide!!

How often is it that we crib about things being boring, our life having come to a standstill or maybe about nothing "new" happening. How many times have we really gone out of the way to make something "new" happen. How many times have we really tried doing things differently just to get atleast a feel of some sort of a change? Lets take an example.

Its a saturday night. Supposing theres no clubbing or outing with friends planned, you decide to go out with your family. Where do you go ..? to the same restaurant you have been visiting since you were born. what do you order? the same dishes you have been ordering since you got the sense to differentiate between dishes. The same vegetables, the same indian breads you always order. Why so? even in mix vegetables there is an option of it being jaipuri or kadhai etc. Theres always the red, the brown and the white gravy to chose from. India is a land of diversity surely there are many other varieties of dishes to chose from. Ok ok you say you had chinese last to last week, the week before you had south Indian and this week North Indian. Now answer me. When you ordered, did you try anything new in the menu or did you order the same cheese pasta, hakka noodles and vegetable clear soup that you always order.

Now, now don't be angry at me, its the problem with all of us. We are simply too lazy or too scared to try anything that's out of the ordinary. Lets take another example. If there were to be a poster that there is going to be ballet classes in your neighborhood, I am willing to bet many of us would have gone to see what and how the classes were. Inquired, stayed there for maybe 15 mins to half and hour and then left never to return again. Why is that? we are unwilling to try out something new not for the fear of wasting our precious time .. no we already waste a huge quantity of it daily without remorse, we do it for the fear of what the society will think of us if they find us doing it. I am willing to bet that if all your friends were convinced on joining it, you would have no qualms for the same. But the fear of your friends taunting you, or your parents/relatives commenting on how you are wasting your time learning a girlish dance (for guys only) or for the girls.. how you should be either learning household chores or building your career or if you want a hobby, to go for an "indian" dance form or songs.

Why is that every step we take have to dictated by what the inconsequential "others" have to say. We all would agree that majority of the time the comments others make are based on wrong facts and/or are of no substance. Still we trust others to dictate what should be done by us.

This is what leads to the fear of venturing into the unknown, alone. the fear of being noticed. Its ironic that everyone of us does hold a secret desire to be separated from the crowd. Of being famous, of being noticed. Everyone craves for attention.. some revel in it, but most of us when thrown into the limelight, shirk away from it.

Ever since Ive heard this line, Ive tried doing something new. Not that I always succeed, I'm but a human. I falter time and again and am pulled back into the racetrack again. Back to running the same laps again and again. But time and again I muster up enough strength to fight against my mind, to convince it to do something new, small, but new. I might take a new route to office, or try a new restaurant, sometimes I go and try out the weirdest sounding dish in a totally new restaurant. I have tried my hand at going into chat rooms, talking to totally random people and then leaving, just like that. I have tried changing my hairstyle and just about every small thing you can think about. Those experiments have made me a laughing stock at times, given me sleepless stomach ache filled nights and has helped me end up paying almost double the fare and ending up with lighter pockets. But you know what, they were all worth it. I got an experience which I can share with someone, a new dish which I can tell you "not" to try. A route "not" to take and a hairstyle to suggest for your enemy. On a serious note, they helped me really live my life, if only for those few minutes, by my life I mean a life thats spontaneous as it was intended to be, a life not influenced by anyone and where I am totally in control. We cannot control destiny but the path to that final outcome is always our choice. The road less travelled is always the more beautiful one, tougher, but beautiful.

For all the perfect people out there, a suggestion, try to goof up sometimes and try laughing at yourself. You will feel more human firstly .. and secondly you will end up doing something which your every instinct wants to do but your mind, influenced by the "others", has been forbidding you to do. Trying doing the above or some of the things I had tried doing, maybe you will realise a greater truth, maybe learn a new lesson, maybe have a forgetful experience or maybe one to remember or maybe none of the above. But one thing you will surely take from it is a memory you will want to share.

Try it.. and if possible share your experiences or maybe your views on how this is the most stupidest thing you've heard .. or how this has really worked.

2008-03-20T07:11:00.000-07:00

What if..??

The question which has no answer is one that starts with a "what if ..". Why you ask ..? well simply because there is no end to the subsequent what if's that can be thrown at you once you start answering. Don't believe me ..? well can't blame ya .. the first time I realised this fact, I was certain this model or theory as I like to call it.. could not be sustained... but it has...

Let's try a fictional conversation..

Dad: ... and the prince and princess lived happily ever after..
Son: I didn't like the story.. tell me another...!!
Dad: Why didn't you like it ? I've grown up listening to this story...
Son: It feels wrong somehow, there are a lot many unanswered questions...
Dad: like..?
Son: The part where the prince kills the rakshasha seems wrong.. (observe) what if the rakshasha had special powers that made him invincible.
Dad: well.. for that he had to do tapasya and ask for a boon from the Gods and he had not.
Son: what if he had done tapasya and you didn't know about it..?
Dad: It is possible, but the prince would have known about it from his gupt suchaks and would have done a tapasya himself to ask for a boon for a power to kill rakshashas like him.
Son: what if he had done tapasya and the God's had told him that it would be unfair to the rakshasha who had come before him for the invincibility boon and that being a God he could not be unfair to anyone.
Dad: The prince could say that the God was being unfair to him and maybe went to a higher God to ask for the boon.
Son: what if the higher God was also on the rakshashas side because he had taken a boon from the higher God not to allow the prince to take such a boon.
Dad: He would have gone to the head God Indra and asked for justice
Son: what if the lower God convinced the Head God not to give the boon because then he would have to be unfair to the rakshasha and put the prince in jail
Dad: that is presposterous ...!! why would they do that . Lord Brahma would never allow that.
Son: what if they mixed sleeping potion in Lord Brahma's afternoon tea and while he would be sleeping put the prince in jail.
Dad: I give up.. what do you finally want ..??
Son: I think the story should have a different ending. what if the prince was locked up in the heaven jail. The God's order the princess to either goto jail or become a daasi. The rakshasha , who was secretly in love with the princess, on hearing her plight becomes enraged and attacks heaven. He kills all the evil God's, rescues the prince and the princess and brings them to earth.
Dad: and the prince and princess lives happily ever after ..??
Son: No .. I was thinking .. what if.. the princess owes rakshasha one and finds that in the events that had happened, the rakshasha was her knight in shining armour, the one she was waiting for, and she leaves the prince and goes with the rakshasha..
Dad: so the rakshasha and the princess live happily ever after ..??
Son: No .. what if the prince now says that the princess was originally his and she should marry him and challenges the rakshasha to a fight till death with the winner taking the princess. The princess and the rakshasha agrees .. Their fight goes on for 40 days and 40 nights in storms, winter cold, the summer heat and the torrential rain and finally the prince manages to kill the rakshasha...
Dad: so now finally the prince and princess live happily ever after ..?? ( the frustration beyon dhis control, his hair standing up and his eyes narrowed on the son)
Son: Yes ... but what if ...

( Dad jumps out of the window ...)

p.s. "what if's.." are not good for health (of others) , if you have to consume them due to unavoidable circumstances (like these) please consume in mild doses or if possible take a minimum break of 4 hrs between two doses. Too high a dose can be fatal. Keep away from children, hazardous for adults in the hands of children below 8 years. Class H(I/J.. whatever) drug. Manufactured by: Hell Pharmaceuticals. side effects low doses: baldness (from pulling out hair), wrinkles (on your forehead due to immense tension and frustration), choking ( on your food.. do not consume it while having food) side effects high doses : only end result ...

I started of with an intention to write something else and wrote something else and now that Ive written something else, I am not going to write again or delete this something else for something else. So please forgive me for writing this something else instead of something else that I was trying to write initially.

2008-03-16T17:55:00.000-07:00

How to be the perfect partner..

I found these videos while stumbling on the net.. I think some you might find it interesting and even worth a few laughs

How To Be The Perfect Girlfriend

How To Be The Perfect Boyfriend

2008-03-16T15:33:00.000-07:00

What are you greedy for ..?

My result LOVE

Seemingly I can't get enough when it comes to Love..

This is what they had to say about me ..

You've got butterflies in your stomach, you can't stop smiling, and you could swear that you're the luckiest person in the world. Sound familiar? It could only be one thing — love! And no matter how much you've got, it probably feels like you will never get enough, right? From smoldering crushes to even cuddlier dates, you're the kind of person who loves to want and feel wanted.

Money can't buy love, but that doesn't stop you from working to get it. Caring and affectionate, you know there's no such thing as too much. And while you might be a little sappy or sentimental now and again, there's no way anyone's going to fault you for having your heart in the right place. After all, you know what they say — the best way to get love is to give it. So go out there and get what you want!

2008-03-11T06:32:00.000-07:00

Which Book are you ..?

The creators of this quiz say that there are 64 different outcomes. Go check it out and let me know your results.

You're A Prayer for Owen Meany!
by John Irving

Despite humble and perhaps literally small beginnings, you inspire faith in almost everyone you know. You are an agent of higher powers, and you manifest this fact in mysterious and loud ways. A sense of destiny pervades your every waking moment, and you prepare with great detail for destiny fulfilled. When you speak, IT SOUNDS LIKE THIS!

Take the Book Quiz

2008-03-07T07:23:00.000-08:00

In search of Nirvana..

A bit of philosophy anyone??

This is when you and I were say 10 years old.. there were always some questions in your mind which you thought about, which your mind couldn't simplify enough to get a satisfactory answer. You tried and tried to figure out the one logic which would set it all into place, but it simply didn't exist.You went upto your best friend and casually asked him the question, as if it were the most simple question in the world and you just happened to forget the answer but unfortunately he too was completely foxed by the simpleness of the question and you were disappointed in the dumb friends you had made, who couldn't answer such a simple question.But that is life and you always look for a better person to lead you to nirvana. So, hesitantly you go to your teacher and ask him/her the question, who incidentally you thought was the most intelligent being on the planet,but alas, you were devastated by the fact that he couldn't give an answer to a question which you initially thought was pretty dumb to ask him. Still, in search of a guru to lead you on in life, you go upto your dad, he is innocently sipping away at his tea with a newspaper or a remote in his hand, in short he is completely unaware of the question you had in mind for him, you wanted the surprise to be total, you knew he sidestepped most of your questions with the skill of a pro and like a veteran always managed to leave you speechless and escape, until you realised that you had been fooled. You had always respected him for that though, but today was important, he had to answer. So, when he was the least aware, you sprung the question... The startled expression on his face, the look of a deer trapped,was priceless, but you knew he was very calm and composed on the inside and quick on his feet; you were prepared. But before you had a chance to block all the exits, he managed to escape from under you, while you there speechless again.There was only one more person you could goto.Mind you, it was no easy task having the great person answer your questions. The only questions answered were the questions that were considered fit to be answered. The enlightened one had powers beyond comprehension, guardian of many life's most intimate secrets and the solver of the many "unforgivables" that you might have faced. She was .."Mother". So you muster up all your courage and approach her, she is working, you stand your ground waiting for her to finish. She asks you whats bothering you, you shake your head and wait for her to finish. After she's done with the stressful work only she can manage, you go upto her, put your head on her lap and ask her if she would answer the one question that has been haunting you, which noone around you has been able to answer. Your part done, you wait with baited breath, how she would respond. Your eyes judging her every expression for a hint what she was thinking. Atlast she declared, that she would answer it. Your joy knew no bounds and you got up in an upright position, to face her as someone worthy. You clear your throat, as if you are going to start a speech, but right then you choke. You think what if the question is deemed unfit and you are not allowed to ask another question ever...!! But this question is as important as ever, you console yourself, a risk is required for every great deed, your mind is placated, your heart is not and it beats furiously within. You finally ask the question ...

"why do we have a pair of everything, two eyes, two lips, two hands, two legs, two ears, but only 1 nose...?"

Life is not as complicated as we make it to be, some of the lifes most complicated questions are the ones asked simply. The innocent mind unaware of the complexities conjures up images and questions which our multi dimensionally enabled "adult" mind is unable to comprehend or answer. Somehow I feel that the age old saying "Ignorance is bliss" holds true even in the highly competitive I-know-more-than-you world of today, the age of ignorance is the age of innocence and one where we experience true bliss and enlightenment in the true sense of the word. Like sometimes saying nothing at all is equivalent to saying the whole world, similarly knowing nothing is sometimes equal to knowing everything.

What is philosophy I ask of you?? Its just a few arrongant good for nothings getting together and saying that their pfaff is beyond your intelligence. If you just look beyond the words, pfaff is all you will get.

Live easy.. live truly...!!
Enjoy

2008-03-01T01:02:00.000-08:00

"The Ladies Privilege"

According to a western legend, Leap years, "common" as they might be, have certain traditions and legends associated with them. This is because leap years are seen as unusual events that disturb the otherwise orderly progression of days/months/years, and thus certain beliefs have been attached to them. (One constant in the realm of folklore and superstition is that out-of-the-ordinary events are deemed to have out-of-the-ordinary consequences or properties.) Leap years, according to folk tradition, were the only times when women could propose marriage to men, with this Leap year belief often termed "The Ladies' Privilege". Yet even within this hypothesis there was disagreement as to how far it went — a great many of those who encountered this custom did not see it as applicable throughout the length of a leap year, but only to the extra day itself; that is, only to February 29.

The origins of "The Ladies' Privilege" are not definitively known, but one posited beginning set in Ireland had St. Bridget complaining to St. Patrick about women not being able to ask the men they fancied to marry them. According to the folktale, he offered the opportunity at a seven-year interval, and she bargained him down to four. (If this tale is true, it's no wonder St. Patrick took to putting the run on snakes, because he sure wasn't doing well against women.)

Though everyone loves a good folktale, the beginning of this custom more likely has to do with February 29 being perceived as a day that does not properly belong on the calendar and thus as a period when the ordinary rules of conduct do not apply.

In earlier days of Western society, relations between the sexes were far more formal and scripted, with each gender being expected to adhere to its assigned roles. When it came to proposing marriage, men did the asking and women did the accepting or declining — the other way around would have been unthinkable. Thus a leap year reversal of this ordinary state of things would be seen as "normal" so to speak.

Unlike in earlier times, there is now no societal prohibition against women being the ones to ask on bended knee. Custom, however, still continues to favor men doing the proposing, but its happening the other way around is no longer seen as shocking or as a challenge to the right
way of things. Its just remains to be seen how we evolve as a society and whether we Men will be able to retain the right to propose to girls or be relegated to proposing on just the 29th February. Life usually comes a full circle and evolves in cycles .. I hope in this particular situation it proves to be an exception..

There are somethings money can't buy .. for everything else..

2008-02-29T07:42:00.000-08:00

And you say marriages are made in Heaven...!

pic courtesy Gunjan Choudhary

2008-02-24T11:59:00.000-08:00

TAGGED

This would rate as the first tag that I have been coaxed into accepting ..( sorry to the others who have unsuccessfully attempted to do so in the past).It helps I have my personal reasons too, If i may add as an afternote..

Among the MULTIPLE thoughts that are zooming through my mind hoping to access the control cluster that would command me to put them into words and then instruct the dendrons in my nerve endings to relay the information to my fingers who would subsequently type them out to onto the laptop and appear finally on the blog. First let me describe to you the tag.

"write 10 things u hate about the opposite sex"

In other words.. "10 things I hate about Girls"

I would probably be crucified.. With special note to the circumstances surrounding me lately, I think this could be the worst topic I could have been tagged to write about.But still I will try to do as much justice as I can, to this topic.

So ... Here goes nothing..
Ok first I'll try listing them in points format then maybe try explaining them.

1. Make-up
2. Driving
3. Passion for cleanliness and order
4. Constant demand for attention
5. Commitment to "Committment"
6. Not understanding that guys need their own space
7. "Girlishness" and all "girly things"
8. Blah blah .. shut up will ya ..!!
9. Their ability to get away with everything .. alright alright I lose; just please don't start weeping again
10. Free entry at the best disc in town

I'll first start with a brief Introduction of the target group and what I feel about them.

Girls born in the Femina era.. ones who like to go out and do something for themselves. Ones who preach about feminism and the wrong that the patriarchal society of the world has done against them and how they wish to rebel against the seemingly idiotical ideology that has been propagated since time eternity about an attempt by the male species to suppress women to the point of their becoming cowed housewives.
Hmm... Interesting theory ...I have just one word for you ...Bullshit .. !!!!
The very women fighting for equality are busy petitioning for reservations. They call it woman "empowerment", I call it a feeble attempt at salvaging lost pride. They know that despite their trying their level best to compete on fair grounds they have been unable to match the pace of their male counterparts (The some who have risen to great hieghts.. my unwavering respect to them, they spoke more with their actions than some others amongst them and I applaud them for that).

And as you may all know by now that the above was pfaff ...!!

Now for the detailed description of the 10 points listed above.

1. Every human is special and should learn to respect himself and others for what they are.. or so I was taught in my morals science classes in school. But everytime I see a girl walking down the road.. seldom without makeup I do feel my learnings in school have been naught. Why can't girls accept that they are who they are. Why do they have to go about prancing in the confines of the makeup cocoons hoping a prince charming mistakes her fer someone else and comes galloping on a porsche to save her. Why can't she just be natural and wait for whoever her real prince charming is going to be. Maybe he might not come exactly galloping .. more trudging along on a maruti esteem but what the heck, he will definately make it up with his love.

2. If I get elected to be the next prime minister, the first thing I'll do is cancel all the driving licences of the girls of today. There was a time when motorbikes use to whiz past you on the road and the first words were "you rowdy boys"... times have changed, seemingly the next time you have a near accident experience while driving or walking on the road, chances are that you'll spell out the slang connotation of a female dog. Frankly speaking I have nothing against them personally, on second thoughts I do. With half a dozen near accident experiences and 2 dents later I thought I was being singled out , seemingly most guys I talked with thought so too. Seems its a pretty common phenomenon.

3.Have you ever heard the phrase "boys will be boys" .. chances are you have, and if you are a guy chances are you will have been reprimanded for being a boy by a girl you know. I can understand a degree of cleanliness. But you seriously overdo it. Label the jars, the dirty clothes in one corner the not so dirty in another. The shelf has a section for books, a section are magazines and another for newsletters. The front half of the drawer can have the toiletries while the back half can have the used cloth and toothpicks and the likes. Excuse me, get a life..! We are guys.. we love diorder and chaos in our life and is best reflected in how we keep our rooms. we have a better chance of locaitng things in our mess than your ordered and disciplined beautification. It would be highly appreciated if the next time you meet or visit our rooms, you do not comment of the state of disarray and how feng shui's book says that a messy drawer leads to disruption of energy flow and hence a stagnation in our thought process.

4.How do I look tonight? Am I getting a little fat? Does this outfit do my hips justice? Is this shoe colour matching with my hairpin . For God's sakes, you know our answers are only going to cause heartbreaks and even if they by a miraculous act of God don't, then also our words are not going to shake your beliefs on the same. So why waste your time and our energy on something thats futile. But aah.. it is not futile is it. You did succeed in drawing our attention to yourself be it even for the most brifest of moments. And if the outfit succeeds in keeping our eyes on you for a moment longer, then you know you've won the first round. But We ask you, why the drive for attention. Heck you already have our "undivided" attention. We can't dare to look at another girl without you giving us a sharp look or a nasty bit of sarcasm which noone would have thought you capable of. Please please understand...you do not really have to try so hard to catch our attention. Just holler..!!

5.The sentence every guy in a "relationship" dreads is "where is this relationship going?" and the obvious answer which the girl expects is every guys worst nightmare "commitment". Commitment is the single most dreaded word for a guy in the entire english language, you know why? It take away his freedom to be "one of the guys" and that is the single most important setback which he dreads. You move on from being one of the guys to being a "honey" , a "coochiecoo" or maybe perhaps even "cheekoo or papita" . Darling to a certain extent has romantic connotations to it and so may be accepted, but obviously only in privacy. But we are deviating. If you are so intelligent, we do you not understand that there is no way a guy can smoothly venture onto the rough seas of commitment. The news has to be broken slowly and gently and perhaps given time to sink in and adminstered with a high dose of whatever pleases him.

6.I don't think I need to quite elaborate on it at all... EOM

7.There is a boyishness, there is a girlishness and there is manliness. All guys want to be manly, some girls like a bit of boyishness in guys. But take the words I am saying as gospel .. "Guys are not interested in anything thats remotely girly..!!" Girl talk is significantly different from how guys talk and have discussions. Girls have "different needs" to discuss than guys and it is not even the least interesting to hear why champa broke up with raja or why you think parineeta is a b***h because she happened to buy the same outfit as you and wore it before you did. I say it for the last time, If you do not understand politics or the basics of soccer, fine its not such a big deal, but please don't try to make up for lost conversations by talking about stuff like that. We appreciate your "emotions" and "feelings" and hey..." its not as if we don't have any" Its just that we chose a different style and channel to communicate and the baseline is girly talk can make even the most rugged of men squirm in his seat.

8. Why do girls have to chatter so much. I mean gossiping is ok, but how much. I mean how can you make up so much about such few people and still talk for such a long time ? Yapp yapp yapp...! If only there was a remote .. It would be lapped up by guys all over the planet. The most successful invention ever!! We are not discounting the time when you do have something worthwhile to say. Yeah you do .. but thats so rare that we think it best not to even count it in our calculations. We do appreciate your venting out feelings (and we do know you have huge repositories of them) but thats only sometimes. the rest of the time, it is quite easy to call your bluff, but we generally play along because we do not wish to hurt your feelings. Now that its in the open.. will you please keep our feelings in mind too ..??

9. In the filmfare awards, I think the most worthless of all awards in the best actress award. Did I say worthless, sorry I should say useless. This is because there is no such thing as a "best" actress. Given a stage and a role to enact any girl can give each other a run for their money. Its as if they are endowed with the instinctive sense of acting right from birth and with us guys it seems that their skills exponentially increase. In case of any sign of a trouble brewing, the instinctive reaction is to let out a few emotionally tintillating phrases which we call "sentis", if they don't seem to work (if the guy is a veteran) then they let loose a barrage of tears. Its as if a dam was opened, after a long time and a good monsoon. buckets after buckets keep emptying until we say the magic lines, "I am sorry" .. exactly .. " you know rahul, you had really hurt me, how could you even think of accusing me of this, you know naa how much I love you and want the best for you, and still you make me cry..." flashback.. she had thrown away the marlyn monroe poster I had got for my 16th birthday, and had instead put a jigsaw puzzle type collage of us together on the wall .. theres more ... that was for sorry .. if the response would have been "what can I do to make it up to you.." bingo..!! tears dry up, face lights up and boom comes the answer.. " you know Its not the gift but your heartfelt apology that has convinced me .. (yeah right.. out with it fast ..) but ..(theres always the but) I really want the ___ , ravinder got it for parminder and she keeps showing it to everyone, don't you love me enought to get me one.. blah blah blah .. ok ok ..happy now ..??

10.Last but not the least. In this era of the widening gap between the haves and the have nots.. those who "have" the entry (with a lady partner by his side and plenty of cash in his pockets) to the best disc in town .. and people like me, almost all the time cash strapped and just managing to save up for a special date and then seeing it all disappear in the hands of the big burly guy at the disc entry, the "have nots". It is very irritating to see unescorted single girls passing a smile to the burly ugly gatekeeper who checks with the guest list and miraculously always finds their names on the list and lets them pass, while we are left on the outside contemplating how to magically double up our allownaces to make it enough for us to make that one visit from time to time ..

And btw .. to a certain someone in answer to a certain something written in their post... All guys do not "check out girls from top to bottom" in the coffee shop they happen to be in . They arn't that vella, they do have other things to do .. !!

Btw .. to all the girls who were disappointed .. maybe they expected worse .. sorry had to tone down a bit .. !!

To all the girls who felt I was biased and mean and rude .. well as I said above .. I could have been worse..!!!

Neways .. Lifes not a one way highway .. there's always a stream of cars coming from the other side. If you didn't get the metaphor it means that there is a good side to girls too..!! (shocking but true ..)

Girls can be very endearing and caring WHEN they wish to be .. (when being a very important word in this sentence)
They do provide a different and unique viewpoint to many discussions, a ladies point of view is highly regarded in some domains.
They do have an extraordinary intutive power to them, its as if they can sense danger.. again .. frightening .. but true..!
They are highly creative.
Last but not the least, I do believe that they do complete us guys in a way. They can not be more different than us in their ways yet somehow our existence without them would have no relevance .. (I know I know .. can't help it ..!! The poet in me rises once in a while and shows his ugly hood in the form of the ruiningly intense positivity and romanticism )

Just a reminder.. I had been tagged by Veens .. !! so you know who made me write such a post .. just in case you plan on giving a supari or something ..!!

2008-02-22T14:31:00.000-08:00

I managed to stumble upon this cool article.. thought it would be worthwhile to share it..

Color Pencils Reviewed

Today I acquired a set of color pencil devices. You can get them in certain specialized shops. Note the device color range greatly varies by manufacturer; mine wasn’t even in the 6 bit range, producing only up to 24 colors when displayed. Invitations are not required for usage of color pencils though the service is paid only, with unfortunately no trial period.

Usage

Preparing the color pencil device for usage is relatively straightforward. As shown in the photo, you will have to open the lid of the metal box using your right or left hand. This installation however was completely undocumented, which may leave non power users confused. What’s more, reading the sparse documentation on the backside of the metal box after you set up the pencils for usage requires you to turn around the box – which will make the color pencils fall out of their box onto the floor or table.

How do you use the device? To select a color, you need to compare the color preview printed outside the edges of the specific pencil. The color is also printed on the tip of each pencil, a nice addition. You will then press the pencil onto the display paper, which you will be able to locate inside your printer.

Tip: During testing, directly selecting a pencil was buggy; as a workaround, apply pressure to the pencil tip first.

If you don’t have a printer, you may need to acquire paper. Look for the word “paper” outside the packaging. There is no manufacturer lock-in, so you can buy paper from different companies.
Caution: if you apply too much pressure onto the paper, your device may break.

What can these pencil devices be used for? The manual does not mention most use cases, but as usual, you will find more information online. The following use cases are supported:

Drawing of vector graphics (arrows, boxes, circles)
Using various fonts in different sizes
Reproduction of your environment in certain limited contexts

You will notice several obvious features missing from the list. For instance, color pencil devices do not come with a clip arts library of any sorts. On the upside, the color pens do have a full support for advanced international character sets; this allowed me to enter Chinese characters as well. It is rare for devices today – including your average keyboard – to handle these characters with such ease.

The different fonts however, like Arial or Times New Roman, came out rather quirky, as the photo illustrates. Vector graphic quality was leaving a lot to be desired as well; lines were often not straight, aligned, or perfectly round as known from other utilities.

Which brings us to the third core feature of this tool: reproduction of the environment. When I asked the merchant in the shop about the missing clip arts library, he replied “What?” in disbelief. Only after a long discussion it became clear that the kind of clip arts or photographs you can include fully depend on your mastering of the device. This could take “years,” as the clerk told me. If I had to point out a single most crucial usability issue with color pencils, it would be this.

Comparing the output from different devices. To the left is the original Garfield. In the middle, the disappointingly crude output of the color pencils. To the right side is something a Google search brought up in seconds; while in lower resolution, the colors and expression are a much closer fit.

Issue: shrinking device size

The base size of color pens is slightly larger than a cordless mouse. However, after some usage of the device, it automatically shrinks in size; color pens are now much shorter than the mouse, as the following comparison shows:

While the color pens do not require an internal battery or USB connection as the cordless mouse does, this shrinking in size greatly shortens the life-time of the device. It also introduces a dependency to a “pencil sharpener” device, sold separately, which needs to be applied to the color pencil device tip around once a day.

Advanced features

However, there are admittedly some neat features coming with color pencil devices which are not found in many of today’s tools:

Mix and mash: as shown in above photo, you can combine several colors by holding multiple pens.
Sharing: You can give any of the several color pencils to your friends, with no further licensing requirements. When I asked the seller to confirm this, he said “Huh, yeah?!” – I take that as yes.
Paper display transport: You can fold any paper into little paper balls and throw them across the room to send someone else your custom message. While receiving the message is instantly for the other party, your friends need to be in close vicinity (think wifi).

Disappointingly, the football theme of the so-called pencil sharpener cannot be customized.

The Pencil Grip is a third-party add-on. Interesting: it can be used both with the left as well as the right hand, as the backside of the package explains. Note while the Pencil Grip is blue, it works with pencils of any color (e.g. a blue grip with a green pencil results in green; this is true for both left and right hand usage).

An undocumented use: if you cut up the device you can create a colored rectangle shape.

All in all, usability shortcomings aside, color pencils are quite flexible in their handling. The output process is fun once you got the hang of it. I would not recommend you give up your mouse, keyboard or iPod just yet, but you might want to give this tool a test ride one of these days.

Color Pencils Reviewed by Philipp Lenssen (http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-02-11-n78.html)

2008-02-21T07:23:00.001-08:00

Games Games Games...

Behind every successful(or ruined) Engineer and MBA is a highly addictive online flash game ..

I've listed below 5 of the most addictive flash games I've encountered.

I'm sure some, if not most of you might have atleast played one of them. If not what are you waiting for ..!!! click.. play and enjoy ..!!!

Listing in no particular order

n - simply n

Desktop tower defense

Yetisports

Bejeweled

Chingam

2008-02-11T23:25:00.000-08:00

The world listeneth when I speaketh ..

The never ending rows of bobbing heads popping a look towards their leader, in the hope of the briefest of recognition, of the tiniest twinkle of the eye or the the most subtle of looks in their direction, which may give their existence some meaning. Something that would propell them above their ranks, something that would make their grovelling in the dirt as lowly creatures, a more task oriented job towards a certain goal, rather than a meaningful rut of nonsensical monotony. To lend a bit of colour to the dull banks of the colourless regime. To be aware of existence, where "to be" was in fact the most obvious notion and an accepted fact, of life as a concept.

What you've just read is in simple terms what we like to refer to in extremely technical bullshit as "pfaff" . Yes you've heard me right, pfaff. Now now don't confuse it with the biological equivalent of a chaff, or something to do with crap. Pfaff in its own entirety is highly capable of transcending barriers of words, languages and cultures. Infact it is so overtly wholly encompassing that it could be said to be a superset of language as a whole. Because regardless of what language you speak right or understand, pfaff is ubiquitous in its presence.
What is pfaff is perhaps the best question to be asked at this point of time and is a question which I'll try to answer to the best of my abilities given my respect for the chosen profession.

Pfaff is an instinctive reaction to a series of longitudinal words across various verticals and which has the capacity to bend words as well as mindspace to its will resulting in a nearly incomprehensible but surprisingly seemingly sensible crap... This is the most technical definition I could muster given my newness to this esteemed profession of pfaffing and my obvious lack of experience in the field. In layman's term pfaff is .. well pfaff. There is no dictionary meaning that could be used to satisfy each one of you readers minds as to what pfaff really is.

In India specifically, go to any MBA college in the country and the first word you will encounter is pfaff. The beauty of the concept is that once you come to know what pfaff is, you can relate virtually any thing and everything to pfaff and to top it all, justify it with more pfaff. Pfaff becomes your bane, your weapon of mass destruction and your saviour in all walks of life. Regardless of what we've learnt so far in our two year MBA course, I would rate pfaff as one of the most significant learnings that I will take away and which I am sure will help me in my search for eternal glory.

You know there were times when I could not think of words to fill up my sentences, there were times when I was dumbstruck by a sudden turn of events or the appearance of a divine being, or sometimes simply caught unawares. In all of the above situations where the name of the game is to think on your feet, to invent something out of necessity and resources as usual are sparse, the only thing which can save you is pfaff. You can, with practise ofcourse, pfaff your way out of any situation however difficult or mind numbing it is. Pfaff as I mentioned, though inborn (only a minority of you are capable of being world class pfaffers), can be imbibed and learnt to a certain extent, but has to be continuously practised to achieve a certain degree of mastery and more so for the "not-so-gifted" ones.

I think it is a long enough post to get you up and thinking of ways in which pfaff has helped you in some way or the other in different walks of your life. Do send in your experiences with pfaff in the comments section. And if you are new, confused and distressed, kindly drop by, I will trymy best to prescribe you a pfaff routine which best suits your mental infrastructure, which would perhaps lend you a certain solace in your life.

Pfaff rocks ... and so do I ..

Keep pfaffing for a healthy and a better quality of Life.

p.s. All the above was infact a demonstration of how a seemingly inconsequential 5 letter word can be pfaffed about to cover an entire post. Three cheers for pfaff and pfaffers...!!

2008-02-07T11:25:00.000-08:00

I was born Intelligent .. "shcool" education ruined me ..!!

ANY QUESTIONS ??

2008-02-06T12:55:00.000-08:00

What if Life could be lived again .. differently..!

How different can you imagine it to be ? some changes here and there, a decision gone bad .. change.. married the wrong girl .. change .. took the wrong career decision... change.. and so on ..
But what if the changes you make .. on reflection seem to be worse than the original decisions. Because Life is a zero sum problem, if you win someone else has to lose and to be stable it will try its best to nullify the change you sought to make. Now .. supposing theres an element of truth to the above, don't you think that any change you make.. you will never be sure of its outcome, because the moment a change is made, there are changes made elsewhere and the scenario we thought about would never come.
But that's all me..

So Mr. critic, you ask me , what do you have in mind ...? Do you at all have a way life could be lived again if not the way we want to ?

Well, I have thought about it .. and thought about it again .. and decided ... I would like to live my life backwards..

Backwards ..? well by backwards I mean really backwards .. Say we were to start our life from Death. By starting out with death, we would get it out of the way, no more fear of dying with every passing day. Todays scene shows a trend towards shoving our beloved oldies out of the home to an old age home. But I'll take the case of a typical Indian family where the aged is the one most respected. But a thing to note here is that beyond a age a person is mostly ignored, left to himself and has probably no company except his grandchildren. from death we would leap directly to this phase.. imagine starting off your life with your grandkids as admirers and with every passing day feeling healthier and healthier. With every passing year getting more and more respect in the house and begining to have a say in everything. The best part is that you either have a lot of money already in your bank, or you have your pension. Then you reach your prime, where you are the most respected person in the house, everything is done according to your wishes and bored at home you are ready to join a company. On the first day of your job, everyone in the job gives you a standing ovation, has a party in your name and are given a gold watch (say). You work for say 40 years and with every passing year the responsibilities on your shoulders decreasing steadily. At the end of your 40 years of hard work, its finally time to enjoy your retirement. You cna drink alcohol, party all night and at your age even flirt with the young hotties at the bar or the college canteen. Now its finally time to join school. you go through school, reach primary school you become a kid, you play whole days , you have no responsibilities. You become a baby, and then.......... you spend the last 9 months floating peacefully in luxury, in spa-like conditions; central heating, room service on tap, larger quarters every day, and then,finally, you finish off as an orgasm.
Beat that...!!

Can you think of a better life to relive .. than this .. I sure cannot ..!!

2008-02-04T23:27:00.000-08:00

GENOCIDE

With the V day nearing, I thought this post would be very apt for some people, specially girls, as you will find later.

All men are pigs...

Before you start pointing fingers and accusing me of betraying my kind.. this is a standard comment made by girls all over the world, NOT me ..! But now its been so overused a comment that guys take it for granted that they would be referred to as one. But that is not the point we will be discussing. Not so long back, they were two kinds of guys. The guys who were pigs and the "nice guys". Well not much has been written about the nice guys except that everyone knows that they finish last and that would be the end of it. But off late their disappearance rate which has eclipsed that of even the most endangered of animals, has raised concerns over a world without them. As much as we would like to argue, they form an integral component of the deciding balance in the world. They help bring stability to the extreme and chaotic world. Why, you ask, well read on ...

See, for most of you reading this, you might have just witnessed or perhaps completely missed the era of the nice guys. They were everywhere and in huge numbers. But as time went on, and they kept on losing out to the "cool" guys. they thought it was high time they change. Suppose you were a girl in the nice guys era. Remember how a shy, platonic guy would tag along everywhere you went. Opened doors, give gifts, remember anniversaries, be there as a shoulder to cry upon after a fight with your boyfriend, ready to listen how men were all pigs, inspite his being one.
Remember how you would talk with your girlfriends what a moron he was. Sweet but dumb. How, maybe he was doing this because he had a crush on you. how he tagged along everywhere like a puppy dog, trying to do things to attract attention. You would all joke around and have a laugh at his expense. Maybe your girlfriends would tease you with him and you being you would have vehemently protested against any kind of feelings for him. Saying he was not your type. Heck even convincing yourself that it was so.
As time passed, you would engage in a serious relationship, leaving no time and space for him.He would then understand and phase himself out of your life.

Years later after many a broken relationship you might ask the question, "what happened to the nice guys?"
I say, "you did"

You ignored the nice guy. You used him for emotional intimacy without reciprocating, in kind, with physical intimacy. You laughed at his consideration and resented his devotion. You valued the aloof boyfriend more than the attentive “just-a-” friend. Eventually, he took the hint and moved on with his life. He probably came to realize, one day, that women aren’t really attracted to guys who hold doors open; or make dinners just because; or buy you a gift that you mentioned, in passing, that you really wanted five months ago; or listen when you’re upset; or hold you when you cry. He came to realize that, if he wanted a woman like you, he’d have to act more like the boyfriend that you had. He probably cleaned up his look, started making some money, and generally acted like more of an asshole than he ever wanted to be.

Suppose you were a guy, say a "cool" guy. You used to see that shy, dumb guy presumably harmless, hanging around your girl. You would talk to your girl and ask her why she let the guy hang around her, and she would reply that he was too sweet to let go and did stuff you wouldn't. To vent out your frustration you would chide him, bully him and try to disgrace him every time you saw him, make fun of the clothes he wore, the way he walked and so on. But he would just smile back and you would feel even more angry and frustrated because there was nothing you could do. Ultimately you convinced your girlfriend to choose between the two of you, and he had to go. Some time later your girl left you for a "cooler" guy and you felt let down and cheated.

You asked yourself whatever happened to the nice guys?
I say "you did"

You tormented him, you disgraced him yet he always greeted you with a smile. He sought to tell you that the word cool was in effect relative. It was because of normal, "nice" guys like him that you were "cool" and different.

So now if you cry now and ask your self how to redeem the situation, well theres quite no way except making a time machine and going back in time. Its high time to understand that its a couple of years too late. You didn't want him back then and he sure as hell doesn't want you back now!!

Authored by an undercover "nice guy"

2008-01-07T06:02:00.001-08:00

The heat down under has reached a point where its effects have started to be felt on the upper surface too.
What has happened in Australia is not just about any cricket game, or the talks of the "right spirit" that a team should bring with it. It transcends all the small talk and the finer details which the media is bordering about. It is straight forward racism and the obvious bias towards the "whites". It is not shocking .. no. It has always been present in every walk of life for centuries and it should be no issue of surprise if it crops up again in a game of cricket. If 12 wrong decisions are a sign of incompetency.. which everyone around us is trying to label it as. Lets check facts. It is a shame on the ICC panel of elite umpires because steve bucknor is an integral part of them. Imagine an elite panel umpire giving wrong decisions. Lets look at the third umpire who after being consulted gave a wrong decision. why just the umpires.. Its another issue that steve bucknor has been more than generous in his gifts of wrong decisions to India and with the holiday season just ending, he just put in a bit extra. I know I know every channel that media provides is crammed to the brim with call for action against the umpires.But it will all soon pass...
Lets now move towards the decision given against harbhajan singh. Apparently he called symonds a "monkey" .. Interesting considering scientists choose to refer to us humans as evolved primates;primates whom we lovingly call monkeys. If "monkey" is a racial slur.. I think oxford dictionary should consider including a note in its dictionary mentioning it and adults reprimanding children and calling them "monkeys" should be fined. But then thats another issue. Australia have been the pioneers in sledging .. i suppose that's what they call it. They have been using it .. and quite effectively it seems cause they have gone unnoticed by the powers that be till now. Anyhow the irony is that .. that very team choses to accuse India of racial discrimination. strange ... very strange .. and surprising too..!! In the match yuvraj singh was called up for waiting on the crease.. mind you just taking some extra time to show his displeasure on the decision given .. and he is complained about by the umpire.. and ricky pointing .. our dear ricky pointing shows his bat to the umpire .. takes about the same time .. while leaving says something to the umpire .. and bangs his bat on the hoarding .. and still goes scott free..!! Now dats style .. I just wonder if it was the style that helped him, his reputation or his colour ?? just wondering.
But all this you know.. and I won't waste much time on it .. to more pressing matters :

Heres a little trivia .. how much does the Indian sub continent contribute to the total ICC revenues? chalo Indian subcontinent chhoro .. how much does India contribute in percentage terms to the total ICC revenues?
well..??
The answer is a mind boggling 73% Now if we consider the Indian subcontinet with the cricket crazy bangladesh, sri lanka and pakistan the number could as well reach more than 80-85%. So if suppose we were to consider a possibility of Indian subcontinent leaving the ICC and forming a rival body. Guess what .. ICC is doomed. Despite this, we are treated like this.. inspite of our contribution we are subjected to biases and are mostly at the receiving end of decisions. Why because we chose to forgive and forget?? because we hail from a culture that is more tolerant? because we do not respond .. or more specifically do not "chose" to respond in kind to the lowly gestures the more"cultured" whites chose to exhibit. But I say enough is enough. we have taken a lot of beating, its time we hit back. Its time we respond in kind. Its finally payback time..!
apologies and reversed decisions shouldnt be the point of contention. If they do, then the whole fight is lost then and there, because it shows our willingness to compromise and hence our weakness.
Why can't we as a nation for once stand for what it feels is unjustice done to her and her people. Why should we be the good guys and in order to "maintain good relations" go out of the way to appease others. Why can't we just say " look, enough is enough, we have has enough of your sledging, enough of your racism .. why don't you take it all and shove it up your ass, cause this once, we are not going to take it sitting down. " why does our BCCI head have to be such a loser and look to "maintain relations" rather than preserve self esteem and respect?

I would like to make an ending note here.I am not against "whites" or "blacks" or any such colour that exists. because its not the skin tone that decides the personality, its the mindset, the mentality that dictates it. I am not a racist and I despise every human who choses to be one. If the amount of pigment secreted dictates how a person is going to be treated and be accepted by the society. I have nothing to say except ..."GOD save the world".

2007-12-22T06:31:00.000-08:00

CUP AND COOKIES

Cool cup in which you can put 2-3 of your favourite cookies, so you don’t need extra plates for them. It’s made for both right-handed and left-handed people.

BANANA GUARD - Protect Your Banana!

Are you fed up with bringing bananas to work or school only to find them bruised and squashed? Banana Guard allows you to safely transport and storage individual bananas letting you enjoy perfect bananas anytime, anywhere.

LOCK-CUP

Lock Cup - Anti-Theft Coffee Cup. Are you tired of others stealing your coffee cup? Well now there’s a solution. The Lock - Cup has a hole which prevents most people from using it. Only the owner of the cup can use his/hers shaped key to close the hole.

PENGUIN TEA TIMER

Making tea, though easy to do, is also time consuming. Once you pour the hot water into the cup, you must patiently hover over it and wait. Well, the Penguin Tea Timer happily does the waiting for you. Place your tea cup under the beak and set it to the desired time. As you turn the timer dial, the beak lowers the tea into the hot water. When the time is up, a bell sounds and the penguin automatically lifts his beak, removing the tea bag from the water.

TRANSPARENT TOASTER

You love toast, but always burn it? Then, this invention is for you. This transparent toaster allows you to see the bread while it is toasting so you just have to take it out when the colour is right. This idea is based on a transparent heating glass technology.

BUTTER CUTTER

One Click Butter Cutter controls your portion as an important part of staying healthy. This ingenious butter cutter delivers one standard portion with each click of the handle.

GIANT REMOTE

Never lose your remote again! With giant buttons, this extra-large remote is easy to use and impossible to lose. It’s a 6-in-1 remote so you can use it to control your TV, VCR, DVD player, satellite, cable and auxiliary A/V device. It even features glow-in-the-dark buttons, so you can easily find the remote in the dark. Think it’s a great idea? I do! And Amazon does too - get the Jumbo Remote Control now!

DAYCLOCK

What day is today? You don’t know? Then you need a DayClock. It’s uniquely designed to keep track of weekly events like your golf day, card night, movie night, and so much more. It’s ideal for vacations and cruises when it’s easy to lose track of the day.

Best of all, it’s available on Amazon! Check out the DayClock.

CRIME SCENE TOWEL

Chalk outline crime scene beach towel - be the coolest person on the beach! Also available on Amazon, check out the Crime Scene Towel.

LASER SCISSORS

With Laser Scissors, cutting a straight line has never been easier. Just aim the pin-point laser and follow the line. The scissor blades are stainless steel and cut very clean with a micro serrated edge. Get a pair of Laser Scissors from Amazon!

TOILET SEAT LIFTER

‘Who left the Toilet Seat up?’ The PeaceMaker will end the battle of the toilet seat. Merely step on the pedal to activate the lifting mechanism. When finished, remove your foot from the pedal and the seat gently comes to a rest where it started. Available on Amazon: Toilet Seat Lifter.

ILLUMINATING CAR SLIPPERS

Do you get up at night to drink water, go to the toilet…and bump into everything and anything possible? Do you wish you could see in the dark? Or at least protect your feet from the inevitable bumps? These plush car slippers have remarkably bright LED lights that are triggered by your footsteps and light up the floor 30 feet in front of you; the ultra-soft plush style is extra comfortable and cozy warm.

‘THE THING’ - INFANT PILLOW

The Zaky is an ergonomic infant pillow designed by a mom to mimic the size, weight, touch, and feel of her hand and forearm to help her baby with comfort, support, protection, and development. The Zaky can help calm your baby and help your baby sleep better through the night.

TRAVELER’S PHRASE BOOK T-SHIRT

If you are traveling a lot and don’t always know the language of the country you are visiting, then this T-shirt is for you. It has a phrase book printed on it so just point a finger at the pictogram you need and then point it twice at the question mark, which means, ‘Where is it?’ and in no time you have found what you were looking for… or not.

MODERN LADDER

Really cool modern ladder.

LATEST DESIGN WAITER/WAITRESS TRAYS

Anatomic tray, for waiters. No more dropping trays. I just don’t know if it is comfortable.

WHEEL-MOVING BENCH

Whether you want to sit on the sun or in the shade, near the river or under the tree… now you have your movable bench, to sit wherever you like.

2007-12-20T00:25:00.000-08:00

WHY?

This one question has been haunting me all my life. And it is no surprise its come back to haunt me again. Curiosity killed the cat, but this question keeps on tearing me apart piece by piece. Why would you say that, why would you do that, why would I do that ..? these are all traditional questions .. what matters now is a step forward. Why can't I do that, Why he/she not me, why x not y ..? In the future the questions could get even worse. why would you question the very existence of the intravascular spirit that the human race is built upon, why would you characterize the essence of the entire sequence into one stereotypical consequence ...? you get the picture...!

The thing why I am writing this post in the first place is that I am practically frustrated of life. Why ..? I don't know you tell me ..! every thing I do, whenever I do, whatever I do.. I'm confronted by this question why .. a logical rationale would say that it acts like a security check that limits any foolish endeavours on my part .. but I say its bullshit. There is no need for a checkdam for your thoughts .. there should be a normal unrestricted flow of ideas and that is it. The human spirit detests being tied down in any way or form, be it physically or mentally. The soul.. is the prime epitome of freedom.

Why am I frustrated is due to various reasons .. Everything I do is to be "substantiated" by a valid reason.. am I supposed to reason out my existence ? An impulsive action has no reason .. end of story .. its the context thats important not the reason or driver? Is it not better we keep the rationales for the assignments and boardroom meetings, need we apply it everywhere in our life? I can't say Ive seen everything .. I can't say Ive lived enough.. but what I can say that Ive seen enough of my peers plagued by the same problem that I face to believe that I'm not alone. Mind you that is the only solace I get. You thought its over.. wait .. theres more..

A simple action like an expression of love has to go through so many various stages of self reassurement that by the time the person is ready .. the other person has got committed. A sorry can end wars .. but the checks that we've put in delimits our ability to say sorry even though we feel so. there this whole issue of "self esteem and image preservation". crap I say .. ! Its all bullshit ..!!

There is nothing worse that losing out on a moment.. and all these checks do just the same. The reason behind the checks .. One word .. why ? Why should you marry this girl .. why should you watch this movie.. why should you work in this company .. why should you take this girl out .. the heck I should know .. I wanna do it so I am doing it ..!! The moment I start thinking about the reasons .. The hugely critical mind we have been gifted by "GOD" would pull out several flaws making it virtually impossible to enjoy it .. even if we somehow convince ourselves to do it .

Every tele series has one dialogue tahts immensely popular with the scriptwriters.. why would you even think of doing .....
Arre ... Tell me one thing .. I am a free human .. I want to do something ... my conscience is not stopping me .. who are you to ask me ...!!!

I know I know .. I have been raving back and forth about absolute rubbish ... but then thats what blogs are for ... right ..?

The next time you ask the question why .. or even get asked the question why .. remember this article and just do it .. !! ( you can always say f**k off .. If you like .. just for added pleasure..)

2007-11-21T11:48:00.001-08:00

Heylo my dear beloved readers... welcome back ..!!

I know .. I know .. I had promised several things .. several different things to several different people as the topic for my next post. But politics of life are such that some decisions have to be taken by you.. some hard decisions which may change how you live your life...

I will be dedicating this post to all my friends who are and have been in Love...!

Why the change of stance you ask ..? well to start with there never was a stance.. what I had was merely an opinion and a word of caution which I deemed fit to put on my blog as a statutory warning to all concerned. Love as I've always maintained is the best state to be in at any point of your life.

So lets start with what oxford dictionary defines love to be "deep affection or fondness" which is very vague. So I tried msn encarta. The definition it gave me goes something like this ,"transitive and intransitive verb feel tender affection for somebody" and very interestingly,"transitive verb have sex with somebody". I really don't know what transitive and intransitive verbs mean (The last time I had a wren and martin in my hand was in 5th standard) and it sure doesn't feel right to discuss it here. The definition's meanwhile are interesting ... the second definition .. [;)] .

Still, dictionaries have never been able to bring out the real meaning of any word in a particular context, so we will keep it aside for the moment. I'll recount a beautiful verse I read somewhere.

I have been astonished
that men could die martyrs for their religion -
I have shudder'd at it.
I shudder no more.
I could be martyr'd for my religion
Love is my religion
And I could die for that.
I could die for you.

-John Keats

Its said poets know Love the best and lovers do in a sense become poets and you know it is true in a weird nonsensical way. The love verses, the love letters, the proposal carefully worded... all are examples of lovers becoming poets. On a lighter note .. on re-reading those verses though.. the very verses appear silly .. nonsensical and often you would end up asking the question .. how the hell did I write/fall for such a dumb line..!

Love in different contexts assume different levels , which means that it would assume different meanings which incidentally have been put into place by us to differentiate them.

"I like you but I don't love you" ,
"My love for you was merely a high school crush",
"I love you as a friend etc etc .."

The point I'm trying to make here is, its futile to be talking about Love in general .. its too wide a topic .. I'll be talking more about the love that you tend to "fall" into ..

I had often seen in my "younger days" that people around me used to have crushes on their teachers.. ( I had one on my 6th grade teacher miss allencherry.. those were the days ..), their classmates in school and colleges and maybe perhaps their seniors. Neighborhood playmates and family friends are also some of the potential lovers, its interesting to see how each relationship takes off differently in different context's. For a junior approaching a senior is somewhat awkward, meanwhile it would be relatively easier for family friends and neighborhood playmates. But in their case they would be faced with the problem of "I've never thought of you that way" syndrome or being the butt of the neighborhood gossip. For friends there always the problem of losing a long friendship over the awkwardness that would follow the rejection. So in every case there are advantages, disadvantages and pros and cons and the strategy chosen by the guy/gal to get their feelings to the other person are different.

I really don't know where this discussion is leading so I'll shut it. I have a reputation for writing long posts so I guess it won't be much of a problem.

What my friends have taught me (when I say taught I mean through their experiences) is that love happens. you don't do it, neither can it be forced upon. Sometimes its mutual but most of the time its one of the partners who gather courage and convey the feelings at the right moment in the right way and get the right result.
A thing to note which I have found common everywhere is infighting... he he .. By infighting I mean the small fights that are true for every couple, over petty issues like "why didn't you call me yesterday" to big ones like "I think there's something going on between you and __ ". But interestingly enough this infighting is the most treasured part of their relationship. Its said that a couple that doesn't fight will not last. The "ruthna" and the "manana" is one of the best experiences and the memories that a couple carry with them. Its as if they enjoy them. Theres always the "make-up" dinner afterwards or the "good" part .. ::mg:: neways the point I am trying to make is, its almost as if that they look for fights .. small fights to get away from the idealism that their love bring for them. To break away from the monotony of bliss (I do realise I'll be questioned on the credibility of marking the state as one of bliss.. for many it may not be so... I accept dat [;)] ) It gives them a reason to celebrate afterwards. An opportunity to add some colour to their otherwise black and white life of phone calls and holding hands (I won't add more keeping in mind the sensitivities of some of my readers.)

I can say lines like "love is like the rainbow that colours up my life.. or perhaps .. love is the fuel that keeps me going etc etc . But the fact is that love is something like the air we breathe .. its special .. every bit of it is special but you don't get to savour every bit of it. The bits you savour are the ones which you crave for. Similarly with love, you don't realise its importance until you crave for it.. until you are bereft of it. Love is traditionally an integral part of life which we take for granted .. like all integral parts of life.

Its only when you fall into it that you realize its depth .. [ ;)]

"Love will keep us alive ..."

Keep Loving...

p.s. I also don't know where this article has gone .. so incase you seem a little bit confused .. don't be .. you are among friends here .. [;)]

2007-11-08T12:27:00.000-08:00

"Love me for a reason .. Let the reason be Love..!"

"I'm in love!
Hey!
It sure feels like love.
It's got to, got to be love.
It must be love.
'Cause it sure feels like love.
It must be love.
It sure feels like love.
Yeah! Must be love.
I know it's love.
It's modern love."

Sammy Hagar in his Hit single "Feels like Love" ... Ever thought why a song with such confusing lyrics could ever be a hit .. because it displays the very confusion one feels when falling in love.

I have been told about a certain phenomenon called "Love at first sight" .. ( I do hear it has been modified to "Love at first sight/chat") . I'm also told that it has been there since time eternity.. The witches have long been stopped being burnt, voodoo is almost on a revival journey and even pagan gods are in fashion again .. but sad to say, this idiom hasn't quite lost its effect on people..!

When I look around myself today, I find unprecedented levels of confusion and chaos. I find people at a loss for words when confronted by someone they know. Greetings are mere formalities and wishing somebody makes no sense unless you are in their "inner circle". washroom gossip has given way to coffee lounge chats and love letters to sms proposals. Divorces and break-ups are as common as football matches in a season.

In this time of confusion and chaos, if the concept of "Love at first sight" holds .... I'll still give you the benefit of doubt , but would you folks be good enough to clear some of mine?

Firstly, Love itself is such a complex emotion how is it possible to decipher it, understand it and give it a meaning in such a short span of time as one glance?

Secondly, the word "LOVE" that we use with such disregard, does it hold true for most context's that we use it i? To take it further, over the years we have identified infatuation, lust,crush and many such words to define what would be a lower form of "LOVE", a psuedo-love so to speak.But while we invent new words to define our mental states, the emotions remain the same.So do you still think that the "LOVE" you feel at the first sight/glance is Love actually ..?

Thirdly, Taking from Sammy Hagar's song, sometimes it does feel like love, but we are confused. Sometime the society we live in, our friends all contribute towards emotions that are really not there. Sometimes you "have to" feel sad, or "should be" feeling happy or more importantly "are in" Love ..!
So the sleepless nights due to acidity, the stomach upset because of which you were not feeling hungry and the daydreams because of the sleepless nights would lead you to Love rather than a medicine shop.
So essentially speaking .. are you really sure that you are really in Love ..??

I could .. and would go on and on were it not for the drooping eyes and clouding thoughts ... What I would like to end on, though, is a positive note. There is Love out there .. there are lovers still, but not all who claim are worth their due in Love..

Think about it ..

2007-11-02T12:28:00.000-07:00

I have often been asked about the girl of my dreams and I'm very sure that it is true for most of you reading it and I always find myself short of words. It's not that I don't have that picture of a lady of my dreams in there, but somehow I always feel that theres always that detail which I have left out.
So finally I have decided to come out into the open and tell the world what sort of a girl is my "type", what follows is strictly un-confidential you are required to maintain no discretion in whom you tell about this article. who knows the next girl you might be mentioning this seemingly "insane / crazy" article to , might be the "one".

So where do I start from ..
Firstly she occupies a significant area of my mindspace , so by PAT's (PAT for you ignorant people out there, is our cllg director Proff. Atul Tandon, affectionately called PAT by the students and faculty alike) definition, is equivalent to a brand. So all the properties associated with a brand are applicable.

Her worth ,though, unlike all other brands is infinite

Let's start with her personality .. what is she really like ?

She's young (naturally.. but after Dil Chahta hain, its important I include it) , vivacious , smart ( intelligent and smart are both different ..) , knows how to carry herself , sweet , caring , I somehow feel kind and generous go hand in hand so I will mention them in the same breath, has a sense of a work-home balance and last but not the least has an inner driving force and a calm confidence which I see lacking in most girls today( I see a lot of raised eyebrows, but its true.. look at yourselves)

That was her personality .. what does she look like ?

I would put a photograph, a sketch .. anything if it were possible to capture that one essence of beauty but it is not. The woman of my dreams, quite like yours, cannot be captured anywhere other than my mind. Even words will not do justice but I will try my best and keep it open for editing if I feel later that I might have missed something.Even a trivial thing to you might be the one thing she is incomplete without.

Have you seen water cascading down a natural staircase in some waterfalls. ever notice the gracefulness, flair and charm ? well the cascading water may well define her hair. the colour of her hair is black, indeed blacker than the night itself.

The face is a whole vertical of art in itself. Every feature chiseled in with such delicacy that it would put Michelangelo and his best works to shame.

The eyes, what do I say of them, they are a world in themselves. A pool of endless depth beckoning the looker to just dive in. They might have containing an ocean of grief or an entire rainbow with all its vibrancy, the rare captured twinkling could be mistaken for a twinkling star on a cloudy night. The colour you ask.. I would say .. a heavenly blue unlike any shade of blue ever seen, the perfect blend of cool and vibrant.

The lips.. One look and you would want to kiss them. It is not a question of how luscious they are, or if they are the perfect size, its hows they complement the face, how they pull you towards them, how hard it is to resist them ....

The neck .. for the people who don't know and might be smirking on how dumb it is to put the neck with the biggies of the beauty features like lips and eyes.. is one of the premier erogenous zones of the female body. It is also one of the most beautiful part of the body should you look at it from an artist or in my case an admirer's point of view. When I talk of the neck I talk especially about the nape of the neck. You can talk as much you like about the beautiful sunsets and sunrises, of the beauty of the endless ocean or the grandiose mountains, but nothing can be more entrancing for me than the view of her nape with her hair pushed to one side of her neck.

I won't mention her body for obvious reasons.. But it would be slim and svelte to be certain. Do I hear that slim is out of fashion these days ??? my answer .. I don't give a damn ..!!

You know for a body to be perfect there has to be a particular ratio of hip size to the upper body and yeah as you might have guessed , its just perfect..!!

Her legs would probably put zeenataman to shame (yes she was known for her beautiful legs) . those beautifully moulded pair of legs seemingly for which the famous dialogue
“ Aap ke paon dekhe, bahut haseen hai. Inhe zameen par mat utariyega. Maile ho jayenge" from pakeejah , was written .

That's her folks, the girl of my dreams, my soul mate who somewhere someplace is waiting for fate to bring us together.

So Incase you are a believer .. someone who believes in the bigger scheme of things , in fate and most importantly in Love ... please pass the message around and help bring two soulmates together ..

2007-09-05T12:02:00.000-07:00

The Best few things about Mozilla Firefox

Extensions:

Scrapbook : bookmarking (it lets you save the entire page) and notetaking
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/427

Foxytunes : Links an external player with the controls in firefox
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/219

Videodownloader : video downloads in google videos youtube and the likes
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2390

Scribefire : easy posting on the blog with a full blog editor
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1730

stumbleupon : visit random sites approved by users on topics chosen by you
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/138

pdf download : option to view a PDF file inside the browser or download it
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/636

Flashgot : link an external download manager/app with the firefox download
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/220

Addblock plus : blocks popup ads
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865

IEtab : view sites made for ie, correctly
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419

Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer : synchronise bookmarks between two different computer having firefox
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2410

firefox companion for kodak easy share gallery : upload and share photos easily
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4441

Dictionary : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:3

search engines : you have the option of adding more search engines to enhance your search experience. (wikipedia is recommended)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:4

2007-09-05T08:02:00.000-07:00

A little bit of technology

The big browser fight IE7 , FIREFOX and OPERA

IE7
Strengths :
It still has the highest number of sites that are IE compatible and may not be compatible with firefox and opera, thus giving a bad experience with the site .
It comes bundled with windows and is free.
It now has tabbed browsing, bridging the wide gap between tabbed and untabbed browsing.
Some Microsoft technologies like Silverlight are IE and firefox compatible.
Clean look.

Drawbacks:
It has a lot of ground to cover even in tabbed browsing features offered in comparison to firefox and opera.
Has no plugin features nor a scope of an active user base who can create new customised addons for it as with firefox (extensions) and opera (widgets) .
Its not a "new" software someone would download to test , its the "default" browser that microsoft so the value associated with is generally thought to be low.

Opera
Strengths:
Is the granddaddy of Tabbed browsing. Was one of the first to implement tabbed browsing way back in 2000.
Has a group of very active and dedicated loyalists who swear by the browser.
Has a neat and clean interface
Is now free as compared to around 2 years back till when it was a paid or ad supported browser.
Has inbuilt fraud protection.
Has the option of loading a webpage without images.
Has a notes feature to save text documents in an integrated notepad in the browser.
Integrated torrent download facility.
Now allows user to build extensions (not previously supported), but has a variety of "widgets" to choose from.
Has a Trash can option for retrieving closed tabs.
Session saver and ad-block feature.
Speed Dial feature to choose from an user defined choice of homepages to open a new page in (very helpful).
Hot keys and mouse gestures are very helpful for people who like working fast.

Drawbacks:
Firefox has been supporting extensions for quite a while and has a larger collection.
Has compatibility issues with some sites.
Does not support some of the latest microsoft technologies available like silverlight.
Generally Firefox user miss their favorite extensions while using opera.

Firefox
Strengths:
The king of tabbed browsing.
A wide array of extensions, plugins and the likes for a better personalised browsing experience.
Is compatible with most IE only compatible sites and most microsoft technologies in view of its significant share of the browser pie.
Spell checker with the integrated dictionary.
Live bookmarking feature.
Has the common features of opera like session saver ( introduced recently), password manager and the option of retrieving recently closed tabs.
Allows its increasingly growing user base to customise and make its own addons, and for the free riders, a huge collection of regularly updated addons to choose from.

Drawbacks:
Is a memory consuming application. For the non geeky people, There is a thing called a RAM, which is the total amount of memory available for the different applications to use. Firefox takes a lot of it for itself and leaves little for the other applications to use, thus it may result in slower computers.
None other ( That I know of )

For the Non-geeky people out there, I would recommend going for either opera or IE because it comes with a lot of inbuilt options and features which would have to be installed as extensions in firefox.

For the geeks , well I would suggest going for either firefox or opera because both now support extensions. For computers with larger RAM, i would personally recommend firefox because it somehow (I feel) offers more freedom in designing extensions than opera. But Opera on a whole provides a better and faster browsing experience than its counterparts if you leave alone the extensions in firefox or widgets in opera.

So cheerios .. Have a great browsing experience

----------------
Now playing: Colin Hay - Overkill

2007-09-01T05:03:00.000-07:00

Why Internet doesn’t necessarily make me dumb?

When we talk of Internet, we have to talk of the various issues which are viewed negatively with relation to it. For example, Internet is said to be phasing out books, they are said to be curbing the analytical and creative ability of a person etc .Another important point that has comes up repeatedly is that people are simply “awash” with facts and they simply don’t know what to do with it. It is leading to what is being called a problem solving deficit disorder. How these don’t necessarily make us dumb and how in fact Internet does help us be smarter is what will be discussed.

Most people are unequivocal in their support of books, but view the Internet with suspicion. They are blinded by over five centuries of domination by the paper/print paradigm. But books, like the Internet, are not all good or all bad. For example:

Books made oral memory less important. The basic skills have changed from listening and speaking to reading and writing.
Books increased the pace of change and this in turn made contemplation less important. This meant that anti-contemplation skills such as skimming, speed reading, etc. became essential.
Books caused illiteracy. Prior to the printing press, it was not important for most people to be able to read or write.

Every new technology changes what it means to be human and to be educated. These changes inevitably disadvantage certain kinds of people who previously were advantaged and advantage other kinds of people who were previously disadvantaged. Printed books became so ubiquitous because they were cheaper and better than the previous technologies

Similarly, the Internet is fast becoming the most powerful educational environment that has ever existed but it also has the following drawbacks :

The Internet makes reading and writing less important. Just as speeches were replaced by books, in turn books will be replaced by websites.
The Internet increases the pace of change and this in turn makes ownership of ideas less important. Internet disseminates information almost instantaneously.
The Internet causes illiteracy. Prior to the Internet, it was not important for most people to be able to use computers and navigate through information space.

The strength of the Internet is that, as an institution, it exhibits characteristics of policy formation that appeal to one's sense of liberty. What makes the Internet a "good thing" is its anarchical characteristics of policy formation, such as decentralization, consensus, and openness that real world social structures have striven for.

The fact remains that the characteristics making us intelligent – the ability to reason and to learn remains the same and will probably fundamentally never change with technology. Intelligence, practically, is our capacity to adapt and thrive in our own environment. In our environment of a faster more efficient world, to be intelligent is to adapt ourselves to the latest technology, in our case the Internet.

Undeniably, the best feature of Internet is it’s democratization of information. It's providing instant access to information and, in a sense, improving the practical application of intelligence for everyone has resulted in a change in the way people operate.

Like all technological changes, Internet is being met with opposition, what is important to note here is that the points of opposition have remained same since the introduction of the printing press or perhaps even at the onset of the concept of writing as opposed to oral learning. Thus we see that Internet is not as bad as it sounds, in fact it does help in faster transfer of information, dilution of boundaries, decentralization of information and lets us be more efficient as a person.

----------------
Now playing: Metallica - Nothing Else Matters

2007-08-22T12:51:00.000-07:00

The awakening

She dreamt the dream again that night

She was standing all alone against a tree, shielding herself from the chilling wind. She was staring intently at a hillock, some distance away. The tree was at the edge of the battlefield and bodies lay strewn all over the ground. She found herself walking over to the base of the hill, where her lover lay. He was a true man of honour and had died one. The battlefield would carry stories of the valiant battles fought, thus making him immortal. But it mattered no more. She knew she should be crying, but she felt no grief or remorse for the loss .All she felt was a dull throbbing deep within. She saw the flawless skin of her lover’s face lying bruised and stained with blood, some his, some of the people he killed. He lay alongside a multitude of corpses as if to give a final proof of his bravery. On top of it all, he had a smile on his face, which seemed almost cruel to her. It seemed as if he knew that she would come , and had kept on that smile as a farewell gift for her .She caressed his cheeks , and stroked his blood stained hair and suddenly broke down .A wave of grief engulfed her , a tide of remorse swept over her and she wept . She wept as if there was no tomorrow, as if the darkness would never give way to light. Somewhere far away, a wolf howled as if to empathise with her. She couldn’t bear it anymore and she let out a scream that reverberated in the heavens and fell. It seemed for that one moment, heaven, earth and hell had become one. That one moment seemed to go on forever and then it rained...

She came to her senses , in a new world , a fresher brighter world .The rain had ,so to speak , removed the miseries from the face of the earth . The ominous clouds above had disappeared and the darkness had finally given way to light. The sun was peeping up from behind the hill; the sunlight awakening the tiny buds .The battlefield from the night had given way to a garden of fresh blossoms. She felt happy. She felt ready to take on the world again, she felt ready to move on .But just as she tried to walk away, she heard something ringing far away .with every second it grew louder and louder and suddenly she connected. She woke up disconnected and disoriented and shut the alarm. She pulled up the curtains .A pinkish glow could be seen spreading over the sky, form her window. Beyond the garden and over and beyond the hill, the sun could be seen on its journey upwards. She gazed at the sight for what seemed like an eternity. She felt alive..

"Death comes at Night,

At Dawn cometh Life."

2007-08-03T03:01:00.001-07:00

LIFE AS WE KNOW IT

Life is a roller coaster ride, It is God’s gift to humankind blah blah blah . Everyone has heard a lot of it and I am not going to repeat it for you. What I seek to put forward here is not a concept of life, but a brief intro to what it is all about. Some get a high on life, some seek different other mediums to get high. Some like to be in control, some revel in losing it .Some enjoy living, some live to enjoy. So it’s virtually impossible to generalise anything.

Think of life as a box of crayons. They all pointy are lined up in order, bright and perfect. But ultimately they will all gradually give way to being ground down, rounded, indistinguishable stumps missing their wrappers and smudged with other colours. Think of the crayons as the human race and then interpret it. Sometimes life just seems unbearably tragic. The pressure to conform along with the pressure to stand out is to forces from opposite directions pushing us deeper within ourselves. You are not a part of anything until you conform to the society in general, and you are a virtual nobody if you don’t stand out, you will just remain another face in the crowd. The catch 22 situation in which we find ourselves daily just creates another web of complexities for us to get out of. Think of it this way, is there any law to say that we have to match our socks with our clothes or for that matter wear matching socks. There isn’t, but still we do it, for there is an unsaid rule saying, the society does it, so must you. Why should there be so much pressure on us to give in to what the society demands, why can’t we live life as we want to!!

I think it is fair to say that half the human population is disappointed to be there, but is resigned to existence. It’s a tall claim, but if you look at the world around you, you will realise that it’s not that hard to believe after all .We don’t value art, we don’t value beauty; all we value is a world of ruthless efficiency. There’s no pleasure in creating things, and no pleasure in having them. Half the world’s treasures are stored in vaults of private collectors. I say we are denying our own humanity, our lives getting drearier than richer. Today the importance of attaching numbers to everything we do has made our life too mundane , the take of the experts on this phenomenon , “ if your numbers go up , it means you’re having more fun “. Is that what you want your life to be? Don’t you feel like shouting out aloud “what on earth am I doing here on this beautiful day? This is the only life I’ve got!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA”, but if you do that society will tell you to chill.. Take a few deep breaths and cool off with a glass of water. Coming to think of it, why shouldn’t they, you are not the only special guy around, there are millions going through the same grind and coming out of it unperturbed. But then again what they don’t realise is that you are a special guy after all , not because you screamed , but because you chose to give words to what you felt , which none of the others had done .

Feel proud of you actions , and learn to speak your mind , because I’m sure at the end of it all , you would like to look upon your life as one lived according to your terms , not others. One of enjoyment not compromises. A life well spent, not one which had a feeling of emptiness associated with it. I’m sure one would want to die in bliss , one in which he/she would have at least the achievement of living the life exactly the way he/she wanted to live it , doing the things he/she wanted to do , at the time when they wanted to do . I’m not saying you should give in to your every impulse , but then If you are intelligent enough to understand what I’ve written , I would say you are intelligent enough to decide what’s worth the time and what’s not .

2007-06-29T11:08:00.000-07:00

WHY LOVE IS A FARCE ...

This one post is bound to be more read than any of my previous posts ... maybe coz its more controversial than the others , maybe it'll turn out to be more thought provoking than you thought , or what i intended it to be .. for more simply read on

An immediate counter to it would be ... love includes everything .. is love is a farce , then what of mother's love ? does that also count as a farce ? No , here I would just say that every theory has exceptions , this is just one of the many that would crop up in your minds eventually . Going with my theory , that no theory is complete , i go on with my explanation .

Why is love , the purest , most untainted emotion , one which even God's had to take human form to practice , a farce ? I do challenge here the emotion , but the variation of the emotion that is being practiced today . Its never the magic that is questioned , but the magician. What if everything is just an illusion , just like the magic we talk about ? What if every feeling is an illusion created by the mind. Think about it , for how long do you actually experience the feeling of anger , annoyance or sadness ... and how long do you stretch it just to put on a show ...? It is not our fault that we do this . The societal pressure on all of us is immense , a great book of rights and wrongs has been installed in our brains which tell us , that we cannot do such and such thing , for example not getting over being angry in a moment , thus we have to "pretend" to stay in the state . To be happy after a disaster has happened is wrong , so the person has to be seen grieving or mourning . The real reason behind it might be something that we want , everyone likes to be taken acre of , sympathized with , afterall . You laugh at jokes you don't find remotely funny , or don't understand , because thats what the rest of them are doing . "Acceptance" has become the buzz word of the general public today . Anything out of the ordinary may make a celebrity or an outcast of you , the risk of being an outcast being too high to accept .

The motive behind my including the above examples is not to change track , or beat around the bush .The real reason is to show how the emotions which we think to be our private possessions are being dictated by various factors beyond our control . They are all directly or indirectly controlled by the very society that we constitute , and that love is not an exception .

What has resulted due to the over indulgence of society in the matter of love , is that it has mutated into a sort of a compromise between two people , rather than the selfless , untainted version that we associate the word "Love " with . How many times have you come across people compromising so much that they eventually lose their own identity and assumes an identity that the loved one wants him to adopt . But a point to ponder over here is that if that person indeed loves him , then why ask him for a changeover which results in a completely different person from the one that she/he loved. The idea itself is preposterous . But sad to say , this is what we see around us , something we try to shove to the very furthest corner of our mind , labeling it as insignificant . It is not insignificant and it does affect us in some way or the other .

But the question still remains , in spite of all this , why is Love a farce ..?
Lets take a situation . Suppose someone , for that matter I .. say that "I Love you" , You can react in 3 different kind of ways .
1. say yes
2. say no
3. say that you need time to think

For the first 2 answers there is no beating around the bush , and they should be really easy to say , but numbers say a different story , we find most of the people resorting to the 3rd option for an escape route , to what they perceive as a very complex question .The Love that should be , doesnt need deliberation or "thick slicing" . We go over various permutations and combinations , make long term plans , count short term benefits and a whole lot of stuff taht should be thought about , before making that decision . All this would have been fine "If" it was such a hard decision to make , maybe even compelx . But Love is supposed to be the simplest thing that exists . It happens .. thats it , end of story . It goes beyond any boundary created by man , any differences that a human brain can think of . So effectively thick slicing shouldnt even be on the menu . You just know that the person is the one . You fall into love , you don't walk into it , or run or for that matter skid into it . So why does that question take so long to answer , and why is it so filled with compromises that we see today ?

I am "NOT" against Love .. There is Love present in the world , and will remain there for all eternity . Romeos and Juliets will be reborn to take further their love epic . Its just that omnipresent Love has been overshadowed by the farce that Love has become .

I rest my case .

2007-06-11T07:18:00.000-07:00

Whats BMS all about

While talking about MICA,
We say BMS lecture is a big pain
the monotonous droning voice,
drives us insane.
The "probability" of sleeping,
is closer to one ,
b'coz , in this lecture,
theres nothin' called fun.
The "Matrix" that we are trapped in ,
is a big scam.
To induce us to sleep ,
and den say "don't sleep in class".
The "Function" of the teacher,
is to teach us maths,
but his voice is to sleep ,
what cheese is to rats .
The "Maxima" is his jokes,
the "Minima", the assignment sheets,
when sleeping is all we do,
doesn't , quizzes, the whole point beat ?
The rows and rows of sleepyheads,
are the idols of out batch,
The "Regression" towards a unified mean
why 40 winks can't one catch ?

2007-06-06T08:41:00.000-07:00

2 weeks into my orientation .. I think I owe this to all my Friends and fellow MICAN's ...

MICA RAWKS ...

I start this poem ,
with a view in mind,
to tell you about
how MICA I find.
I came in late,
was one of the few.
The classes and the people,
both of them new.
The open hostels,
the WiFi zones.
The 24*7 Chota,
The free local phones.
The dog called "Roxy"
with a brown skin tone.
The A/C , the lime water,
the ice-cream cone.
The all night chats,
the movie shifts,
The assignment I've been given ,
covers all this.
The Talent ,its obvious,
is plentiful here,
some athletes, some professionals,
but all hold Music dear.
A rapper inhouse,
his impromptu songs,
two guitarists , a pianist
the righted wrongs.
The delayed Lappy's
the indianized mess,
The radio booming,
a game of chess.
The game of football,
the game of pong,
the short courted Baddy,
the basketball court long .
The movies at FR,
the subway Footlongs,
The holidays short,
the journey very long.
That was the culture,
of the MICA we know,
theres still a lot left to see,
a lot left to show.
The seniors are yet to come,
The ragging yet to be done.
We've been assured time and again,
Its sure to be a lot of fun .
As we get "Oriented",
the MICA way,
We hope that the change,
in the end does pay ..!!

2007-05-06T07:35:00.000-07:00

FAREWELL

Goodbyes ... what do i say about them ..

Goodbye is the most difficult word for me to say , not because its a tongue twister ( u don't think its diffult to say .. talk with a russian or a african , he'll tell ya how hard it is ...) .. but because of the thoughts dat associate with it the moment you say it . Think about it .. you are standing at your gate , wishing someone goodbye , you immediately think about the time you spent with them . With some uve spent a few minutes , with some , a few days , and some rare ones , years .... With the time spent with that person , the goodbyes become more tougher .. in fact reach different stratas of tough . You start reminiscing of the countless moments that have been etched in your memories for ever ... some good some bad .. but memories which you probably will pick out one after another one a lonely evening.

Everyone has those goodbyes ... First it's with the school friends , some of whom you probably won't meet for the rest of your life , but talk about ,with the ones you are in touch with .For the some lucky ones the school friends go on to become college friends .. For some like me .. its a fresh start all over again .. Ive had the good fortune though , to have some very close friends who've found it important to keep in touch but still every goodbye is still as tough .

Then comes graduation day , the people uve studied with for 3-4 years are going to go away their separate ways . There are two kinds of goodbyes here too . For the ones in day colleges , who don't even know half their class its not dat big a deal , except for their own group mates whom im certain theyr bound to meet sometime soon again .Now for the medical and engineering students who are mostly hostelites . That means they are stuck so to speak with their batchmates day in day out for 4-5 years , the duration of their course . All the good times and bad times are spent with those guys and gals . The bonds are definately stronger there because the crowd there is from all parts of the country and chances are that after graduating you won't be meeting them for a long time , maybe for ever .

That i guess is the cause of a tradition common to almost all schools and colleges . The tradition called farewell . I had talked about only the batchmates in the preceding paragraphs , for a special reason . Think about your juniors , who follow your every move , trying to grasp that one clue howto get through what you've already been through . The juniors , some for whom you are more of an elder brother than just another senior , for some of whom a teacher , for others , friends . Its not only your batchmates whose lives you affect in those 4-5 years , but also your juniors , who look up for inspiration from your every word and movement and to whom you can pass on that precious tips who've accumulated through your own troubles or mayb , the ones which were passed onto you through your own seniors .

Farewell , as the word suggests is a goodbye reframed . Basically a gimmick designed by softies who coudn't say goodbye to their loved ones .. again i mention here loved ones coz they are loved .. whose memories will be cherished long after you've passed out , whose stories you will recount to your children perhaps .. perhaps even your grandchildren , for how many fairytales can you conjure up afterall .
Coming back to the point . More than a tradition which people have to follow , its more a way of thanking the seniors , for all theyve done and been . This would have looked better if I had written this somehtime last time , when i was also a junior , But yeah definitely do understand . This is my way of saying thank you . ..

Ive been lucky enough to have a set of extremely helpful and caring juniors , more than i can say for myself .. But the way they've treated us these 3 years together , the respect they've accorded , the friends that some of them have become is really astonishing ..

The farewell they gave us was one out of this world . If theres one list i would be asked to make of the best memories of my entire stay in my college , the farewell would definitely be somewhere at the top .

Lets tell you about my farewell

A pool side party , a memento for every individual , special mentions and tidbits about some of us , their coming upto us and saying that we meant a lot to them really says something .To top it , we had our own in house DJ's playing away one hit after another . Was a long time since i had really gone wild . Was special in more than one ways .. I was thrown in the pool .. so were many others .. others simply jumped in .. ! what better way to cool off than a dip in the pool at 11 at night ..! This was probably the last time we were all gonna dance together , last party at this place , last happy memory together probably .... and nobody wantedit to go out with a whimper .. very soon everyone was on their feet dancing , or if they couldn't just moving their body the best they could ... but they were up and dancing on the beats of "hil hil ke nacho nacho .."
All in all a fantastic night I won't forget for a long long time .. !!

Thank you to all the juniors ... who made this particular goodbye so very easy on me .. thank you for everything ...

2007-03-31T03:30:00.000-07:00

History of cricket in INDIA

A long time ago, there was a man … but he is not important.

A little time after that, the British came to India on the pretext of selling goods .After being allowed to stay and trade , they made a hole in the very plate they ate in .I know it must’ve been hard for them to eat without spoons in India hence the whole hole strategy . but again that’s not the point . They came , they saw and they conquered . Under the rule of the Britishers , the general public had nothing much to do , everything was being done by the British. They controlled the Industries, the government and the mass media . Some smart guy spread the idea that as they were sitting idle as it is , why not do something like overthrowing the government . Everyone was initially shocked , but having no better idea of their own , they joined in too. Soon the whole of India was gripped with the freedom struggle syndrome .

Now the British, as we all know, are cowards but smart cowards . They thought, the people want something to do, what better than a game that goes on for 5 days at a stretch and makes the player so tired and fatigued that they go straight to bed after finishing a day’s play , hence leaving them no time to think about anything else .But they didn’t want anyone to know about the games real purpose . So , they secretly ordered 22 cricket kits from England , some hats for the umpires , uniforms , stumps , bats made from the finest English willow and the best Yorkshire balls .

One fine day , when the cowherds were leaving for their daily time pass in the woods , they saw that a portion of the woods had been cleared , into a sort of oval shape and in the middle was brown patch with weird looking wooden protrusions .They were scared and ran back to their village to tell everyone about the strange sight . They thought that it was sign from the God’s of the imminent disaster . The village elder convened a meeting and ordered a group of 10 strongest men in the village to go have a look .

The villagers selected were sent off with “Tilaks “, “Aarti’s” and “Maala’s” . They approached the place cautiously. When they came to the clearing, they saw something very strange .

Their English masters were dressed in white, the clothes of mourning, two of them with weird looking things on their head which covered it entirely , a very different kind of “topi” than the ones they had seen before . Then they saw the weapon… It was a big block of wood with a handle to wield it . The non-topi master threw a “gola” at the topi waala master and the topi waala master used his weapon to save himself . The gola flew up in the air and was caught by another non topi waala master . Suddenly they they started shouting some chants and a big “hat” waala master pointed to the skies, as if drawing their attention to the God’s . The topi waala master then left the clearing shaking his head.

The villagers were the bravest in the entire region, they feared nothing , some of them had fought with tigers bare handed and killed it . But when it came to God, they were fearful. So they ran back to their village and recounted the entire tale. The village elders decided, it was time to go to the King, or Maharaja, as they liked to call him.

When the villagers told their tale to the Maharaja, He burst out laughing . The villagers were shocked but not surprised .The Maharaja was Gods emissary on earth, he would know things far beyond anyone’s imagination .So they politely asked him the reason for his laughing . He replied that the entire episode they described was of a game called cricket, which he had himself seen and played on one of his trips to England. In fact, he reasoned, it wasn’t unlike the native game of “gilli danda” which almost every child in the village played . The ball would replace the “gilli” , and the bat would replace the “danda” . The rules and timings, the scheduled breaks were all to make the game more organized , and to remind the Indians that the British did everything that the Indians did , and did it better .

The Indians took to the game like ducks to water. Very soon, every child and every adult was seen playing the game in various corners of the village and some even in the woods. Others hid in the bushes behind the clearing, to grasp the basics from the masters themselves. No one was spared from the fever and the passion to learn the game. Finally they had something worthwhile to do. They practiced fervently with just one aim in mind, to defeat the Masters at their own game, literally. They practice and practiced until one fine day they were ready.

They challenged the mighty British to a game of cricket, In the very clearing , they had first witnessed it . Rest they say is history …

The British were defeated .The clearing gave way to the monumental , Eden Gardens which still evokes the same passion as it did way back then . The plaques and sign boards still adorn the walls with the names of those 11 cricketers, who took on the mighty British .

Rumor has it , that the British left India , not at the insistence of Gandhi and his “vraths” and slogans of non-violence , or the aggressiveness of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose , but out of shame . Embarrassed , on losing the game which they had brought to the Indians , of which they had by far a lot more experience , of which they were the masters in the whole world . They left India .

The irony is obvious, the game brought to India by the British , to prolong their stay and make it more entertaining , led to their exit .

The British are long gone, but the game remains . The passion with which we follow it and the present state of Indian cricket , a sad reminder , that a lucky win here and there will get us the applauds and the cheers , but the fact remains , we will always remain the underdogs .

disclaimer : All of the above is a figment of my imagination

2007-03-26T10:00:00.001-07:00

It has been very rightly written by Sir edward tyler , that "culture or civilization , taken in its wide ethnographic sense , is that complex whole , which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law , customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society ." this is a very practical definition of culture as we know it because of two phrases that are woven into it . "wide ethnographic sense" - because culture cannot be defined for an individual it has to take into consideration whole communities, whole countries and races , and "man as a member of society" - because by this phrase we accept that man is a part of and hence , defines society .The importance of these two sentences will be revealed as we try to understand why culture is so essential to humankind .

Long back when man discovered fire , he didn't know it would be used to spread wide spread destruction , when man found the importance of metals he didn't realize its subsequent change into weapons and so on for the various landmarks of discoveries and inventions . What really is a proof of our evolution into civilized creatures are our various cultures. It is because that we realized the importance of culture, tradition and the value of passing down our perceptions is what led to our evolution.

But as cultures developed so did disparity. People adapted differently to different environments and so different cultures were formed native to those communities and races. Then came the borders. The borders were imaginary lines defining ones region of power. Kings extended their borders in order to make other cultures succumb to their superior race and that's what led to the dark ages where mankind descended to the level of common beasts. But finally the dark gave way to light and peace reigned . We learnt the importance of art, of music, of knowledge, of a sense of order in our lives and the need of a governing law . Finally we knew our culture; but as was before, different regions developed their own distinct sense of culture and attempts to prove their superiority reigned again.

Even today some of the effects still linger. Works of art, masterpieces, books, sculptures were destroyed and are still being destroyed. Be it in retaliation to a strong statement by a "Enemy" country or by propagandists. What we don't realize is that the ultimate sufferers are us and the generation to come , who won't be able to enjoy the past .Destruction is not always physical , we for example are witness to history changing in the minds of the generation to come . History books are being tampered with to elevate one race or culture and to degrade another.

If this continues, some time from now democracy and secularism will slowly give way to total anarchy . Fascist leaders will be at helm, and countries will be known not by the brilliant scientists and hard working engineers it has produced by the number of religious fanatics it contains and the number of "fatwas" it issues.

Do we dream of such a world?

Do we want a world described to us in George Orwell's "1984". A world where an unseen force controls our life , where every action is under prying eyes , every breath counted. Where history is modified to reflect the change in the governments stand and while the officials live a life of luxury the common masses are left to rot .

I guess not .

Culture, so far shown to be the evil harbinger, has the potential to be the hero, the savior. When cultures are allowed to merge it leads to the birth of a new culture , a unified culture which extracts the best from both while still retaining its own separate identity .That's the medicine our ailment require . The path to our deliverance...

2007-03-26T07:12:00.000-07:00

Why are rules created if they are meant to be broken in the first place ??

Rules... When you set out to define the word rules, you come across two words, guidelines and strict.. If the rules were simple guidelines there would have been no problem whatsoever because then the imposition of them would have been our discretion. But unfortunately, they are never so.

A rules never remains a guideline when it is strictly enforced, because then it does not leave any room to exercise our discretion. Carrying forward that point, the rules being dumped upon us means we had no say in it. This awakens the dormant rebel that resides within all of us.

Here I would like to talk a bit more about this rebel. Oxford describes a rebel as “person or thing that resists authority or control”. When you define it that way.. You get the words, control and authority. The authority is the person enforcing the rules and control is the ultimate motive of the rules themselves. When a person tries to impinge upon our privacy naturally we try to resist. This resistance is the tool of a rebel. When you stop a kid from playing in the sun, he’ll find ways to do it , when you say that ‘blah blah’ is bad and he/she is not to do it , you are arousing the curiosity of that person which is another instigator of the rebel . In short a restriction or any attempt made to control an individual will always result in an act of rebellion.

There’s a very common phrase used by students and in some cases employees the world over, since time eternity.

“Rules are meant to be broken”

Short and crisp, it heralded the teenage era in America a few decades back by becoming the mantra of teeming youngsters.

But this phase of rebellion is very short lived. You may wonder why, as the rebel still resides within.

The answers lie in us. As much as we would like to live a life of freedom, as much as we would dream of an utopia without rules .A voice within us always forces us to follow them.

The voice is our conscience, and the rules are not the ones created by our fellow beings, but Nature’s own laws which govern our every action.

Have you ever wondered why after and sometimes even while hitting a person in rage or a sudden burst of emotion, a feeling of guilt is born? While committing an act of treachery, or stealing something a person suffers from the same pangs of guilt. He might run away and escapes the long arms of law, but where will be run from the voice inside himself.

That same thing is applicable to the rules made by our elders and peers. The rules are made to restrict our course of action which may lead to us committing an act which we will dislike ourselves for doing later on.

Let’s take an example

A rule says not to bring inflammable items on a flight; another rule says not to smoke in public places. Both these rules have one thing in common it’s a rule meant for public safety, our safety. A person bringing that flammable item on the flight or train risks the life of many others along with his own; similarly the person who is smoking in a public place is risking the lives of various others who could be affected equally with the effects of passive smoking.

Rules are created to act as a marker, a signboard pointing to the right direction .Even if it’s on a deserted road, which no one frequents; it has to be there .Not for the millions that have no need for it, but for that one solitary traveler who is helped by it.

Hope the point’s taken.

2007-03-25T08:43:00.000-07:00

while we'r at the crazy idea of writing a blog .. we might as well put our best foot forward ..

I hate to think that all my current experiences will probably end up being stories with no point somewhere in the future .. so i thought why not start one right here .

Tell me something , how can something seem so plausible at the time of doing it .. and so utterly idiotic in retrospect .

Its actually very funny if you think about it .

remember when we were kids, I thought that grown-ups never needed to worry about anything , they had all the answers and so i trusted my parents to take care of everything . what didn't occur to me at that time was they might not how to ..
I figured that once you grew up , you automatically knew how and what to do in any scenario .

That might partly explain why a kid is always in a hurry to grow up !!!

But the truth is that its more of a cycle an ironic cycle ... every kid wants to be a grown up to be able to take his own decisions .. while every grown up wants his childhood back to stop having to take his own decisions .

Every adult reminisces the childhood days of total innocence .. a state of no-worry .. one of total bliss .

Everyone starts with a phase where you wanted to become a super hero , or maybe just be as great as your dad.

Then comes a bit mature phase , where you want to become one of the fighter pilots for the army or the president or maybe a business tycoon.

Then you close in on the adulthood in those last years of your teenage spree.. the one where ur hormones are racing around like crazy . Every pretty girl is your soulmate , every rejection , the last time.You start realising that you are someone , you existence is not futile . thats when you start challenging authority , the authority of your teachers , your elders and even your parents , because for the first time you realise you can speak .You explore the various freedoms which you never knew existed . what we don't realise is that we already had those freedoms , we didnt need to snatch them , there was nothing to snatch in the first place.

Then we reach adulthood... and dream of being that child again ..

Wise men have said that the kid within us never dies , I find it to be true . Did you ever realise that grownups are the happiest when near kids , ever wonder why they pampered you , why they pulled at your cheeks , why they would go to any length to make you laugh ?

my posts are seeming to thinking types .. next one I promise will be a crazy one ..!!

signing off for now ..

2007-03-13T15:19:00.000-07:00

what do you normally start your day with ..?
whats your first thought when you get up in the morning ....?
which foot do you first put on the ground while getting up ...?
do you even remember the first part of the dream you had last night ....?

how many yes' did you just give to the questions above ?
most people would dismiss it as rubbish .. after all who has time to think about all these insignificant things .. but mind you a brief introspection will reveal how much we are missing out on the smaller joys of life ..

have you tried counting your steps while you walk to the door , or the number of steps to your 3rd floor home?

have you tried getting wet in the first rain of the season instead of scurrying back to the safe confines of your home ?

last question ..
have you , while reading the above blog thought that he/she is really missing out on something.. something dat could well be the difference between joy and monotony.

tomm morning when you get up try noticing which feet you land on .. try counting how many fingers you have on your hand .. i know you'll always have 10 , but try it , if you don't feel special that day post back on this blog and ill apologize for wasting a few moments of your life .. but if you do then please do take some more moments out of your life and post your experience back here .

2007-03-13T14:36:00.000-07:00

Imagine yourself within the below mentioned setting

There's a blizzard blowing outside .. the cold weather with the snow provides an ideal evening for a mug of hot chocolate . As you are just about to settle down into the warm confines of your blanket , with the book you wanted to complete for a long long time , but always left at the end of the fifth page , in your hand , and the mug on your side table ; the doorbell rings. You wonder who could it be at a time like this and a weather like this . Maybe a neighbour come to ask for a cup of sugar perhaps ? You move towards the door , silently cussing the neighbours for disturbing your mood . As you open the door , surprise ; your best friend , the girl you always liked, but never could reveal your feelings to , shows up at your door . She asks in a grieved voice , "may i come inside ?" . You apologize and invite her inside . As she makes herself comfortable , you offer her a mug of hot chocolate . She settles down on the sofa , obviously uneasy , you give her the mug , and settle down yourself on the adjacent chair . "so .. what happened .. I mean you , here , at this time of the night ?? Is everything alright ?" you ask . She says " I just broke up with the guy , i was seeing , seems he only wanted to use me ". then she starts crying .. being the best friend you are , you offer her a word of consolation and pat her , but then she falls on you and starts crying on your chest ; startled , you have no option but to hold her , until she calms down . When she calms down , u give her a glass of water and tell her that she's welcome to spend the night in the house , and that the guest room is entirely at her disposal . She says thanks for being there for her , when she really needed it and moves up to give you a small peck , shocked by her sudden gesture you move your face so that its directly facing her , and she kisses your lips . the kiss lingers for a few seconds...

silence ...

This is the setting .. sounds right out of a romantic flick .. but here you are God ..

what would you do next ..

let's weigh your options

One : She's pretty vulnerable at the moment , just out of a bad relationship , she finds herself short of people she can trust and so has come to you . You can take advantage of this moment , this lingering kiss which is indeed a signal that she is desperate for some show of affection , of love , and tell her your feelings about her . Chances are she'll fall for it and you'll lead a happy life every after .

Two : She's pretty vulnerable at the moment , just out of a bad relationship , she finds herself short of people she can trust and so has come to you . Can you bring yourself to take advantage of her situation for your own selfish gains ? Can you take this accidental brush of lips for a feeling of desperation ? Can you cough up enough courage to go tell her your feelings and what if she doesn't reciprocate , what if she is so shocked that she choses to leave ? where do you think she'll go at this time of the night , you are her best friend remember ; she doesn't have anyone else to turn to .

weigh your options carefully and chose , because life doesn't offer you second chances ...

A film once proclaimed that guys and gals could never become friends ... how true is that ??

There is thing called friendship and there is this thing called love ..

A very thin red line defines its boundary .. which time has practically eroded away ..

Sometimes you cross over , then return back hurriedly knowing it someplace deep within , that you wanted to cross the line , all the while .

what will you do ???

2007-03-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

ME .. ME .. ME... ALL THE WAY

My "about me" reeked of this not so long ago ..

Noone dies a virgin .. life screws us all..

fer me dere are no rules .. no boundaries .. no time limits .. I am an example of poetry in motion ..

I still roam about in the by lanes of life .. searching fer that one dark alley where opportunity resides ; don't worry ill give u call when i find it ...

I don't drink ,I don't smoke .. I don't need these .. I get a high on a simple somthing called life .

Heck just give me my pillow , a good supply of books , my guitar and my comp .. nd ill make my own paradise ..

I say i am in love ..

yeah I'm in love with those icy drops dripping down my window pane on a wet july evening ,

yeah I'm in love with that sweet whiff of southern breeze that blows across my face when i go for that long drive alone ..

A special something fer my love :~

I hate the way you talk to me, and the way you cut your hair. I hate the way you drive my car. I hate it when you stare. I hate your big dumb combat boots, and the way you read my mind. I hate you so much it makes me sick; it even makes me rhyme. I hate it, I hate the way you're always right. I hate it when you lie. I hate it when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry. I hate it that you're not around, and the fact that you didn't call. But mostly I hate the way I don't hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.

think you know me .. think again ..

just rem .. I am what I am .. take it or leave it ...

Work like you don't need the money, love like you've never been hurt and dance like no one is watching.

- Randall G Leighton

2006-05-06T03:38:00.000-07:00

CRISIS TALKS..

Turning over the crispy white pages of an oxford dictionary, we find the definition of unity to be ‘Singleness or constancy of purpose or action’. But as we turn over the faded, brittle, yellow pages of life we find it strikingly different. Being similar being of the same caste creed or religion will get you nowhere in this world of today. The age old links of brotherhood have become unchained. The new picture of life shows each person to be self sufficient. So where does the question of unity come in? The age old phrase of “unity in diversity “stands nullified. This turn of events suddenly finds one wanting for a new definition …

So a new question is put forward by analysts, where to find this unity, in the selfish world of ours. Where money overrides all other relational contracts .where “me “come over “we “in weightage. To answer this question lets go a few steps into the past .A single stride will take us to the Indian freedom movement lets look at the scenario a little before that, to understand it better. India was divided into many little kingdoms, fighting for their supremacy. Hence plundered many a times by afghan, Turkish and chengish tribes before finally falling into the hands of the mughals, though still remaining separated into various kingdoms. a little later , the divide and rule policy of the trading British left us mere puppets in their hands , as the crown shifted from the mughal head to the british . The famous saying “united we stand, divided we fall “was once more remembered in the hitherto golden history of India. A little into the future came Gandhi. he shone like a beacon to the wrecked, battered souls of the Indian masses. Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, kings, paupers, poets the hitherto unknown untouchables and even some sympathetic britishers responded. They came in thousand, in millions.. Like never before, showing the world what unity in diversity really meant, finally showing the door to the britishers. The question is and remains.. Had India shown that kind of unity before could the britishers or for that matter anyone ever dared to step onto Indian soil with the intention of capturing it?
A little more into the future brings 9-11, the d-day for America and the reckoning day for the world over. This was the day when the world wept with the bereaved. A world, a nation, and millions of individuals were transformed instantly and forever by fireballs that wiped out thousands of lives, loves and dreams. We ache for all of them, because they are us. Every one of us was the target. For an indiscriminate attack, it was intensely personal. And we took it personally. From those individual reactions, melded millions of times over, came a unifying sense of fierce national resolve. Already that is evident. We watched, horrified. We cried, raged, struggled to get our heads and hearts around the monstrosity of events. "The definition of the world we had on that day was not the definition we had on the day before .We were turning to each other to sort that weird feeling of insecurity out."
Borders reopened before the day was out, the president returned to Washington by evening. A global crackdown on terrorists was announced with the UN also condemning the act and calling for action.
This was because the destruction of the two world trade centres did not just signify the might of the terrorists, but also the disrespect to the new world order, a challenge to the world to do what it could, to stop it. The question is if the world was unified in its war against terrorism before the black Tuesday, would they have had to bear this sorrow? Would the terrorists in India have the guts to indulge in cross border terrorism, would the Chechnyan rebels have the audacity to humble the mighty Russian government as it did ?
Does the world need a new crisis every time to realize the potential of unity? Does it require a new catastrophe just to make it understand that he/she alone can’t live the world alone, we need the society that we have created so lovingly through the ages. We need other people to recognize ourselves .we need the help of others to survive .These are just some of the very many examples of our day to day life which show that many a pages in history could have been deleted if we had been unified before a crisis struck us where it mattered the most. many a tear stopped , many a son saved .the world has stooped so low as to question the integrity of its own blood , then where stands its chance of believing its color , caste religion or country mates . to stand by one who risks losing all requires trust and courage the two words missing from the dictionary of most of the groveling creatures we call humans. I say I can’t trust a person because I think he doesn’t trust me. This mutual suspicion and distrust has led us into a disarray, a net from which we are unable to get out .when the word me gives way to we .. Then only we can hope to face every difficulty with confidence. But knowing this truth what is the world waiting for …perhaps a tomorrow ..? Perhaps an opportunity ..? or perhaps a new day bringing another crisis or catastrophe to again relive the brief moments of unity ……

2006-04-27T06:07:00.000-07:00

A feeling of remorse is the worst punishment one gave give ones self an act of rejuvination and self motivation is just what the doctor ordered ..

Deep inside my mind,
amidst my grieved thoughts,
within my wierd imagination,
lies my second home.
I go there and reside and cry my heart out,
when the world has disowned me,
I enjoy the bliss of solitude.
I row boats in fiery oceans,
amidst monstrous storms and waves.
I enjoy all that beauty,
the world has ignored.
I creep up terraces and play the spy game,
from my own self, i rescue the pretty dame,
and spend gruesome nights in haunted castles.
The eagles shriek, the mandrakes cry
and the phoenix sheds its tears,
to help me grow off my ashes.
I feel as confident as the mighty Rome,
as i began my long journey back,
from a world far from home

2006-04-27T05:45:00.000-07:00

R3D3mPTiON - the one word dat defines life as v knw it .. deres no Ctrl-Z in life to undo the changes u dnt like so we were given the word redemtion , the art of rewriting the changes . fer those whovve seen shawshank redemtion will the knw wat redemtion truly means .

Lifes all abt reinvention and rediscovery and dats the way i chose to live my life .

Every action is said to have an equal and opposite reaction . i say every action has an equal and oposite redemption .. every action we do is to redeem ourselves .. be it for others .. or sumtimes maybe fer our own selves.

for example every justification on our part is an act of redemption , every feeling of remorse or sadness is an act of redemption , every action taken to right a given wrong is an act of redemption ..

shakespeares own words state that the world is but a stage and we are all but characters assigned specific roles to portray . . ours is one burdened with a debt .. where every moment is spent in the hope of salvation , of freedom from an obligation of any sort , of strings that bind us , of feelings , of emotions . with every breath comes a sense of dread of a life of debt ..

we try to break these shackles of emotions and live in a world of practicality and freedom .. but instead with ever passing day we realise the practicality is to not to accept our burden , our existence in a debt ridden world lying down ..we rebel not with arms but with redemption .. to overthrow the pangs of debt and obligation ..to prove we do not grovel in the lowly sands .. these acts of redemption are not just acts of rebellion , they are words of freedom ..of joy..

Thus spake zohrashtrian ..