Sale! Sale! Sale!!

Robert Frost once remarked "The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office." How very true! It just stops. The brain, I mean. I understand that you need to nourish and nurture your brain and it can become a wonderful slave. Well, MY brain is hopeless. I nourish it with 4 cups of coffee and 2 cups of tea daily, but still it won't function. Not the way it is supposed to at least. Forget becoming a slave, I can swear, it is becoming more of a liability with each passing day! Wish there was a way I could get rid of it. Any takers?!? :-)

I can list down all the features which might just want you to have my brain. If not you, your friend maybe. Or maybe you can gift it to your enemy and I can promise, he will loose all capacity to conspire against you.

1. It has not been used much

Yes. I have kept it safe from any kind of wear and tear. Even after seeing 25 winters and 24 summers, my brain has all the capabilities it had when I was born. Nothing has changed much and it looks brand new. It has all the innocence of a child, ahem, and is innocuous. It just cannot think of anything that would make you want to do anything wrong. Infact, you would never ever Do Anything.

2. Mera dimag comupter se bhi tez chalta hai

I am not a Chacha Chaudhari silly. Like any good salesperson, I am promising more and delivering far less. What I actually mean is Mera dimag mere computer se tez chalta hai. You see, my office computer is full of trash. Of the 40 Gb space I have, about 12 Gb is project related stuff. Even though I never get much opportunity to use it, I can't delete it. The remaining space is loaded with stuff that I have copied from my mobile; at least 5-6 Gb of songs, useless downloads from the internet and what not. The result is that, it has become so slow, that it sure would win the world slow cycling championship. And my peanut sized brain can do 2 + 2 faster than my computer. Ha! My computer would not be able to start the calculator in that time!!

3. It is maintenance free!

I promise, you wont have to spend another penny on newspapers, novels, books, jokes, smses.. It understands nothing. :-) They say, Kala Akshar Bhains Barabar. And you try bringing these things close to my brain and it would start hallucinating buffalos all around. You would automatically stay away from these things and I bet you would be saving a lot of hard earned money!

4. Forget the price!*

Well, it is free of cost if you have been a regular reader of my blog. :-) This is the only way I can show my gratitude! You take it, and I promise never to write again. If you are new, still no worries. You read all the posts, comment on each and every one of it and voila! You can have a claim too.

Disclaimer: The brain will be given as a whole. Because of the small size it won't be possible for me to divide it. :-|

* Conditions apply.

Kamzor Kadi Kaun?

Cricket team : Saurav Ganguly (Is it end of road for Dada?)

Politics : Arjun Singh (He has competition for this post)

Hockey : Team India (What a pity!)

Singing : Himesh Reshamiya (Is there anyone who can challenge this man?)

Coding : Yours truly (I bet you can't beat me!)

Well, this is my personal rating. So all you Saurav Ganguly or Himesh Reshamiya afficianados, please don't make this blog a space to vent your anger. It won't help your cause. The thing is I have been doing a lot of coding these days. You see, I am essentially a Java programmer. I think I knew everything about it. I believed that there are two types of java - mar java and mit java. I know Java is a beverage consisting of an infusion of ground coffee beans. So when you say that you work on Java, you actually work your way in and out of pantry room holding your coffee mug. When they taught me that Java is platform independent, I was more than happy. I thought I would find coffee not only in IBM pantry room, but also at all the platforms in Pune station or Bhopal station(if I ever had to work from home)!!

Last month and a half have been very hectic here. The more I code, the more errors I find in it. I bet I must have introduced a whole family of bug into the small code I have written. So much so that now my team lead wonders whether I am an application programmer or a bug in disguise! My accuracy in missing atleast one test case a day is so high that they are planning to send me as IBM's official entry to Guinness Book of World record in the same category. They find the easiest module and after doing all the supplications and invocations they assign it to me, only to find out later that they made their biggest mistake ever. I was scrolling through the design document the other day. And to my surprise I found that in the Project Risks section, they had listed Anusha Murthy as the first (and only) risk item. There was a single line in the Assumptions section - The project will be completed in the stipulated time frame assuming Anusha will stay away from it.

In short they don't know what to do with me. And I am equally clueless whenever I attend any status meetings. They ask me questions like how much percentage code has been completed. Well I have been very bad at Mathematics specially in equations with two unknowns. How the hell I calculate the percentage completed when I am never sure of the total work that needs to be done!

They have decided to play safe now and are now asking me to prepare quality documents. Sigh! They thought that nobody reads these documents anyways so it seemed a calulated risk to them. Well they have allowed me to mess with one last thing before I move on to documentation. They have asked me to prepare a script which would trigger my java program. I asked them whether it should be an action movie script or emotional drama script. They answered that they need a Unix script.

And I better get back to work and prepare that script before they officially decide to confer the Kamzor Kadi title to me. :-)

An irritating one.

It is a strange day. The sun is shining brightly, but it is very gloomy inside the office building. It seems there has been some outage in Hadapsar which has forced the facilities to switch to single tube mode instead of the usual two. I feel very uncomfortable whenever I am in a dimly lit place. I recently had an argument with Varsha, who also happens to be my flat mate, on a similar issue. We live in a single room flat (I prefer to call it "ek kamare ka ghar" instead of the more sophisticated "studio partitioned" flat.) and there are two tubelights to light up that room. Varsha usually comes back before me and switches only one tubelight. Now, when I come back, the first thing I do is go to the other end of the room and switch on the second tubelight. This would have been alright but if you do this before saying a simple "Hi" and after giving a nasty look to your roommate, you deserve to get a good thrashing, don't you?

I used to be a fairly unruffled person. I used to stay calm on a day before my semester exam even when I was fully aware that only a miracle would help me cross the magic no. I usually cleared my subjects decently (thanks to the little miracles), but there were times when I cleared them gracefully (pun intended). I remained my usual calm self when I was being rejected by quite a few companies during placement days. I remain calm when my boss bangs his head on my table trying to make me work, somehow. That reminds me sometimes of a donkey - who remains calm and collected even when it is beaten up and made to carry the load. There is no other specie which remains more calm and sober. I feel a lot like the donkey (even without the load) – calm and collected.

Or so I believed I was. Because off late I have realized that there are many things that make me uncomfortable. I feel very uncomfortable when I twist my leg wearing those goddamn heals. I feel unable to breathe when I find that my top, which I brought from the Shopper’s Stop sale a couple of months back, does not fit anymore. :-( I feel like crying when I have to drive through one of those pot holes ridden office route. I feel irritated when I find one of those chain mails in my inbox asking me to forward the mail to everyone in my mail list so that Amy Bruce, a 3 yr old kid will receive a new life. I feel like going and hitting the person who sends me yet another dumb joke on Sardars. I feel like smashing the TV set when I see movies which show South Indians as funny variant of Homo sapiens. I frequently get those you-are-crazy and have-you-gone-mad looks from my friends when I show my resentment when a young man driving his Karizma (or even Bajaj M80 for that matter) thinks that he is the king of roads and the traffic signals are meant to be damned. You know, even seemingly innocuous comment on how boring Telugu marriages can be from a very good friend makes me furious these days. I think every kind of marriage, leave alone Telugu marriage, is a boring affair. Then why blame one community!! More so, what right does anyone have to pass on a comment like that?

In most of these cases, all I can do is complain and trust me, I do that very well. But there are cases when the mob mentality hurts. It hurts something in me which I call self-respect. It might be my bloated ego as well, I don’t know. But it does hurt and all I can do is get more irritated and more furious. There are things I cannot change but I won’t accept them as a way of life either. Not until I realize the futility of the effort.

I had no intentions of writing this post. But my dimly lit bay made me write this. And just by the way, Varsha and I reached an agreement about the tubelight issue. She makes sure that she switches on both of them before I come back. And I don’t give her that nasty look if she forgets to do so someday. And we have been living happily ever after. :-)

My Comeback to blogspot

After being away for almost 2 months, I feel this blog space deserves a bit more attention. I know this may sound really funny, but the reason for this self imposed Sabbath was that I was busy. But before you start imagining myself coding frantically on my computer for a crazy deadline, let me tell you beforehand - I did not code anything worth even an Afgani. Actually my TL caught me napping one fine afternoon and decided to load me with work which comprised giving effort estimations for some projects which, everybody's sure, would remain in pipeline.

Another reason for being away from blogspot was that all brave hearted souls who used to visit this space (Rohan, Rt, Dev Babu, Vandit a.k.a Kobra etc) have gone busy - the gentlemen with their B-schools and the lady with her hubby (ie Rohan) , trying to make him a good boy (for more details on this activity pls see Rohan's blogspot link in the navigation bar). With Varsha busy with her sister's marriage, I was quite sure there would be no one who would want to waste time here.

Well, a lot many things happened in these two months. I went to Harsha di's (Varsha's sis) marriage. It was awesome! Attending two marriages back to back in two consecutive months was reason good enough for my mom to sky rocket her BP. She is playing the role of "jawaan ladki ki ma" to perfection! But sometimes I really wonder why does she go berserk everytime I delay my "settling down" plans. Is it really the genuine concern of a "jawaan ladki ki ma" or does she want to get rid of me asap!?!? I am more inclined to think of the latter because my dad has not shown any signs of stooping as he should have being "jawaan ladki ke pita". My younger brother, on the other hand, is seriously convinced that I have always shown signs of retarded mental growth and by his calculations, I would take another couple of years atleast, to reach the mental age of an avg 21 yr old female. So "jawaan ladki ka bhai" is hardly bothered just like the "jawaan ladki" herself is!!

Coming back to the central theme of this post, which is what I did in the intervening months of the last two posts, I must say that I had one helluva roller coaster ride. Pune roads offer many chances of enjoying this ride lest you missed it in your tiny tot days. I also went to Sinhagarh (this time in the correct trek route) with my brother and after seeing the scenic beauty I forgave Pune for its bad roads. Western Ghats is trekkers paradise in monsoons. I would try to upload some of those stunning moments soon.

And in the meantime, I purchased a smart Nokia 6270. It is an amazing s**y silver beauty with a 2 mega pixel camera, mp3 player with dual speakers with features like bluetooth, infrared etc. I got a 512 MB memory card with it. And I store all kinds of crazy photos and videos in it. I have a foto which shows my finger nails and I can swear by the image quality. It could pick the tiny dust peck in the finger tip of my small finger. I also got a USB port with it so my computer is also flooded with crap. I have some good games in it, I can connect to internet and yes, even make a phonecall!!

So these were a few things that kept me away from blogspot. But I am back!! You see, my work has been drastically reduced in last few days. So I have started spending some time thinking how to bog down all you brave hearted souls. Keep visiting. :-)

IBM's Big Day

6/6/06 was one of the biggest day in IBM India's history. The annual IBM Global Briefings meet (a meeting with Wall Street and other top analysts) was held for the first time outside US of A / Europe. All the hotshots of the Big Blue and other major investors were in Blore for this 2 day mega fanfare and which would turnout to be the biggest employee event ever in Asia.

The event was broadcast simultaneously in all IBM India locations and webcast to about 340,000 IBMers world wide. It goes without saying that this event had great business significance for India (Sam Palmisano announced to invest $6 bln in the next 3 years), I would pen down those small things which no newspaper or T.V channel would cover. :-)

How my day began

I had gone to Sinhagarh fort on Sunday. It was built by Shivaji. What a beautiful fort it is but I wonder why on earth did Shivaji choose the highest mountain in that area! We had trekked 10kms on foot because we had taken a wrong route. So Monday was marked with blues all over. All the muscles, even those I never knew existed, were paining badly. The IBM event was to start at 9 am Tuesday and I was in no mood to get up so early. I had almost decided to forget the event but my kachrawala and maid servant had some other plans. The kacharawala comes at 6 am and maid at 7. Everyday the same old story! Tuesday was no different.

I am never on time on a normal day when I am supposed to reach at 10:30 am, so, obviously, I was late for 9 am deadline as well. The Ganesh Kala Kreeda bhawan, where the satellite broadcast was scheduled is a good 12 kms away. I covered the distance in 15 min. I must have set a record of some sorts - risking maximum lives while driving or something to that effect.

Who all were there.

Big Blue's top boss Chairman and CEO - Mr. Samuel J Palmisano, MD, IBM India - Mr Shankar Annaswamy apart from other members of IBM senior management. The Chief Guest was Honourable President of India - Shri A.P.J Abdul Kalam. Other dignitaries were CM and Governor of Karnataka, Mr Sunil Bharati Mittal to name a few.

The Beginning

Dia Mirza! The gorgeous beauty was emceeing the show. Personally, I never liked her much in movies. She looks like a plastic doll at times. But here she was looking very very graceful and cute (a colleagues' remark :-) ) in a red saree. But what amazed me most was the elan with which she conducted herself and the show. She remembered all the facts and figures correct and spoke with conviction. She had clearly done her homework well. Great job Dia!

Men of Honour

Innovation has become a buzz word within IBM. A handpicked leaders from India Inc were honoured by Mr. President for innovation in their respective fields. Mr Sunil Bharati Mittal was one of them. Then Mr Raghuraman from IBM was also honoured for filing as many as 15 patents in US of A, 2 of which have been granted! Then the team, which had worked so hard to help the Tsunami victims in Andaman and Nicobar islands and Tamil Nadu, was also awarded.

The Funny Man. 

Politics can be a seriously funny business at times. It was Honourable CM of Karnataka to don the funny man's role this time. He had decided to grace the occasion wearing an ordinary white cotton shirt and chappals when the occasion demanded a little more formal attire. Maybe he is a man of simple living and high thinking, which I should respect (but am unable to). Maybe he too is not used to getting up so early. If that is the case, I don't really blame him. I can understand.

But one would expect him to know, atleast, what he is saying - sorry, reading. We could all guess very easily that Mr. Kumaraswamy did not shine with grades in recitation exams in his primary school days. Maybe one rehersal would have been a really good idea. He mispronounced Sam's surname as Palmino (Darn, it was Sam's mistake! Could'nt he find a better surname for his trip to India!). Excused him for this, it might have been a malaprop. But then came the mother(and father) of all malaprops. IBM has been the highest patent filer for the 13th consecutive year. Mr CM acknowledged this by saying "IBM has numerous parents, errr patents filed..". And we in Pune were ROTFL. Man how did the Blore crowd control themselves. Finally when the laughter subsided, we heard him saying something about Infosys. Did he get the wrong speech? Was there a mess up? We dont know. But it was'nt possible to control the laughter any further. And the last we heard him say was "Jai Hind, Jai Karnataka!"

This was followed by a well read speech by Mr Governor. Nothing worth mentioning about his rendezvous with the mike.

The "Rocket" Man.

I don't have words to describe what pleasure it is to hear Mr. President. He talked about IBM, Watson Sr, Vikram Sarabhai, technology, future computing, creativity, leadership etc.etc. He is a big dreamer and achiever! It shows in his presentations and examples. He surely has learned the most essential lessons of life well - being humble is one of them. You dont feel like you are hearing a President speaking. He is a teacher and will always be that - whatever his portfolio be. And he is no short of humor as well. Like in the beginning he said that he will try his best to give a decent speech even if we all were more eager to hear Dia Mirza. Or how he took "three" last questions one after the other in the Q&A section. :-)

Wish there were some people like him in active politics as well.

Other speakers.

Mr Sunil Mittal spoke about the successful model of Airtel and his vision of Airtel to be the No 1 brand in India by 2010. Quite an achievable task considering the persona of Mr Mittal.

Then it was Mr. Palmisano's turn. Most of his talk centered on how well IBM India has been doing and how important India is for IBM's growth. Heard him for the first time after which it was time to sign off from Blore.

The traditional gaana and khana

All such events are supposed to be complimented by naach gana and khana is the unwritten rule in IBM. This time we had Kailash Kher performing live in Pune. It was the magic of his voice which made IBMers dance at 11 am. He sang all the hit nos- albela, teri diwani, mangal, toota toota ek parinda to name a few.

This was followed by a grand buffet. I hate luncheons so would not go on describing what all was there. I had daal bhaat after which I rushed back to office. Have about 5 tickets to work on, upload code to CM Synergy etc. Dont get confused. It hardly makes sense to me too.

Clearly one of the finest day in my 1.5 yrs with IBM. Hope to see some more such events soon.

How I spent my last weekend?

This post should have come 4 days back. But sometimes it so happens that my company gives me some work to do. Rather, it is lucky enough to find some work about which they are sure it would not affect their profit margins. This was one such rare week when I was really really busy. So much so that I had to miss my morning coffee for some meeting where we discussed how much effort would be spent for a support only project which has been on hold for 5 months and about whose future nobody is sure.

Anyways, this post is not how I spend the 8 billable hours in my office not falling asleep. Nor is it about how I spend the remaining 16 hours doing nothing else but sleeping (sometimes in strange places). Actually I spent a very expensive weekend. There is a saying in Hindi Bhagwan jab deta hai to chappar faad kar deta hai. I would want to add to it Aur jab leta hai to thappad maar kar leta hai.. The former rarely happens to me. I am more blessed with the latter. So I am here trying to pen down what actually happened that you had to bear the consequences reading this. Go ahead if you are not bored till now.

Come Friday evening and you would find me singing, whistling and laughing with my colleagues. On a long weekend you might even find me dancing. So even though the last weekend was not a long weekend and the tectonic plates below IBM's foundation were intact, I was having fun. It was a weekend after all. After 5 days of hard work (excuse me for occasional lying) you get a 2 days break. So while I was busy singing some Himesh Reshamiya number, I found my mobile dancing. At first, I was amazed by the magic of my voice. If Tansen could force rains by singing raag Malhar, I could force Nokia 2600 dance to ooooooo huzoor, 13 13 13 surooor. I was brought back to reality by the realisation that it was Deepshikha - my college friend, call. Dipsi and I planned to spend the weekend together at her place. I became happier and stressed with full nasal force on 13 13 13 suroor.

And with that my mobile started ringing again. Before I could think of any weird reason of its behaving this strange way (I hardly receive calls), I saw the number flashing on the screen. It was my landlord's number. Then I remembered that I had not paid the month's rent and it was already 5th. I told him that I was, very busy (ahem) and I assured him that I would pay the rent that day itself. With a very heavy heart I went to the ATM and withdrew 5k (my rent is 4.5k damn!). So the weekend did not start auspiciously. I came back home, watched some stupid movie and slept.

Saturday morning was'nt very eventful except that I took bath. I went to the guitar class and played D chord when my teacher asked me to play E-minor. Then I realised I had to give my fees. So another 500 bucks gone. Now I had to go to the ATM again. It was very hot and I was enjoying chilled nimbu pani when my dad called and asked whether I booked my tickets? I have to go home in June. I got a real good thrashing when I told him that I did not book the tickets because err..I was very busy. Anyways, I went and booked the tickets. The ICICI ATM was out of order as it always is. I had to withdraw from some other ATM and loose extra 50 bucks on that.

It was already 3 pm by the time I got my tickets. I called Dipsi and we decided to meet at E-square - a multiplex mall in Pune. Poor girl was waiting for me and missed her lunch. With that guilt, I decided to treat her and Vineeta with panipuris at a nearby thela. But she was way too hungry. We ordered sandwiches, coke, bhelpuri, coke, chat, coke, manchurian stir fry, coke. Whatever happened to the eating habits of my generation?

After watching the movie (Darna Zaroori Hai), we thought we were still hungry. Who said girls are conscious about their diet?! Then Abhishek Soni joined us and we went to Rajwada - a garden restaurant for dinner. At midnight, when the waiters started removing the chairs and tables we decided to stop eating and go home (we got the remaining items packed actually!). Vineeta, Dipsi and Abhishek convinced me that I am still not out of that guilty conciousness and paying the bill would make me feel better. Well, I don't want to elaborate on what I felt after that.

We decided to go to Vineeta's place. Poor Abhishek was alone and so I gave him my Activa. Vineeta stays with her bhaiya and bhabhi and they live in a very beautiful apartment. They had gone to Mumbai and so we had the time of our lives! We had each other's company along with a TV, DVD player, laptop and a fully loaded fridge. So you can imagine what would happen when 3 ladies are left alone in such circumstances. We finally went to sleep at 2:30 am.

I was dreaming about John Abraham in those early hours when it happened. My mobile rang again. It was, gulp, my landlord again. This time it was his daughter on the line and she told me that I had left the tap open. Now Vineeta's place is about 25 kms from my flat. I frantically called Abhishek. But you can hardly do anything when Murphy's Law is at work! I could not call him and I later came to know that his cell had no balance (he came from Mumbai) and he could not recharge it. I was worried that my home would become a Titanic and the bigger problem is I can’t swim.

I took an auto and asked him to rush. God bless him, he took me through a short cut. But still I had to pay him about 100 bucks!. To my relief, the situation was well under control and no Titanic like scene to be seen. I went back to Vineeta's place after all the damage control was done - another 100 bucks.

I am about to loose some more money. Read on. For the lunch we went back to Dipsi's place. Had a tight lunch and were wondering what to do after that. Dipsi had some playing cards and she said she will teach me how we play 3-patti. Initially we were playing with dummy money. I don’t remember whose idea it was we started playing with real coins. And with that my beginner's luck was overpowered with the skills of veterans like Dipsi and Abhishek. I started with 16 bucks and lost more than 50 bucks and I resolved never to get into gambling again in this life.

I thought my financial woes are over for the day. But oh no! In the evening I and Vineeta went to FC Road. I parked my Activa and we went to CCD. After that we bid good bye and I came back looking for my Activa. But I found a fruits ka thela instead. I thought transfiguration was Professor Mc Gonagall's forte and it was a rare possibility of finding her in this part of the globe. Who could transfigure my smart Activa to a hand cart? The thela wala informed me that the traffic police had taken my activa with them because I parked it in no parking. Lost 150 bucks more to get my Activa back.

And then my mother complains that I don't save money. Can somebody tell me how can I if my life moves like this?

Outage in IT..

Time for a new post!

I have loads of time today (not that I had less of it yesterday, the other day or any day for that matter). Reason - there is some major network outage in the client network today and the hardworking souls of my company have been left strangled in the middle with nothing better to do. So here I am with the next post. Now, let me not get into the technicalites of the matter, though I am not sure what technical information I can give, but in simple words internet not working. :-) And since a fast reliable internet connection is the raw material in the IT industry, we have no option left but to enjoy the break!

You have to be in a software firm to fully appreciate the kind of reactions people give in distressing times like these. For one, the entire floor becomes empty baring a few souls who can still be found glued to their seats. Nah, dont mistaken them to be the sincere types. They actually are freshers who have recently joined their projects. The young blood cannot rest and tries to go against the basic commandment of internet - Thou shalt not be able to work if the server is down. They try to show their commitment to their project in difficult times - trying to impress a team lead who is not at his/her cubicle! Sooner or later these young turks realize that they missed having fun and that too officially. Well you learn that with experience!

The Team Lead, depending on the person's gender, gets time to discuss matters of grave importance with his/her peers. If the TL happens to be a male, you will find him smoking with others in the clan in the lobby, cursing his Project Manager or planning his next vacation. On the other hand, the female TL can be found having coffee in the pantry, cursing her Project Manager or planning her next vacation. No gender discriminations in such matters.

Some people get the shock of their lives! Network down is the last thing they expect to happen. These are the souls who have a sword dangling dangerously over their heads in the form of a deadline. Each day (and night) counts. They have been working 74 hrs a week to meet this creepy deadline and all they find is a deadend! My sympathies with them.

Finally, there are those who are beyond such petty things. God bless these carefree souls, life is party for them with or without a network! And they find really good means to kill their free time - blogging for instance..

Wondering how I could post this? Well my $ 97 bn company has a network of it's own :-)!

May, Mitra and Mitraa

Well blogger.com does not allow me to type in Hindi. So pls read the title as "May, Mitra and Mitraa" :-)). See Mitra - friend and Mitraa - beloved.

May is the hottest month in this part of the globe. And it's going to get really hot this year. No I dont work for the Metrological dept and unlike them, my prediction's gonna be correct..And the reason for Mercury rising like the Sensex this year is one of my mitra has found his mitraa. That's not all! His mitraa also happens to be my mitra and they are getting married when the mitra (mitra also happens to be a Sanskrit word for Sun) is going to shine brightest! To cut the long story short, Rohan, my classmate and a close buddy, is tying wedding knots with Aarti, one of my first roommate, this May..

Ok! Enough playing with words. But I like dramatic openings :-). And Rohan Aarti's wedding is a big news afterall..The first one in my gang of brats. Now we all knew of their long courtship - the lanky, handsome dude falling all over Aarti who drew loads of oos and aahs form the guys...The surprise element was the date (and month and year as well!!) and you bet it was a pleasant one..Frankly, I was not expecting it to happen so soon..But Kabirdas probably had couples like Ro Ro and RT in mind when he gave the world the famous "Kaal kare so aaj kar" doha!

Rt u break hearts of many! Though I am not aware of ur heart breaking abilities, Rohan :-). Yeah but I remember u broke many promises. Rohan skipped so many brain storming sessions we used to have while making our final year project that we stopped counting him in our batch! Well, that we used to end up eating samosas in canteen or playing taash in Varsha's place in these meetings is a different story altogether (More on that in the coming posts!) ..This true fokat son of Instru wanted to change his branch to TC in his final year. Even we wished it was possible for their convenience (and ours too..). But that did not happen. And we had to tie him to a computer in our lab to finally get some coding done. He actually did a wonderful job in just one day and that was the only part working in our project :-).. Rohan's a stud in his own right..

And his sweetheart is nothing short of an all rounder..She is beautiful, she has brains (as per Rohan that's a rare combination in females, though i beg to differ!), she sings, she dances and is a total mastikhor when it comes to having fun. I would always remember the way Aarti's slapped this guy during Dhadkan practices (dont want to mention his name and risk getting sued in the process)..So Rohan u know that u will have to behave urself!

All in all a very sweet couple...Here's wishing both of u a very happy and wonderful married life..Khoob saare bachche hon aapke aur dher saari shaitaniyan karke pareshan karen tum dono ko (u both deserve this - itna pareshan kiya hai sabko!)..

Waiting eagerly for this May!! When all mitra will meet once again for the marriage of our mitra and his mitraa!!

My experiences with..well..read on!

There cannot be a more beautiful body than the one I am seeing now. There cannot be a more perfect neck either. The body is handsome and fits so perfectly in my hands. The lines and cuts are divine. The tan brown colour of the skin only adds to the beauty.

As I roll my fingers over it, I feel a sensation beyond words and I feel something moving within me. As that blissful sensation reaches my heart, my eyes fill with tears..For my love cannot find any other way to express itself - all other senses are mesmerised..And with the first sounds I realise that something hot is running down my cheeks..I finally have it! After years of yearning and dreaming, I have my guitar in my hands..

I was always fascinated by the sounds of this beautiful instrument (infact, I am in love with all the music instruments I know..). The chords can do wonders and has such soothing effect!!..There used to be a music class near my hostel in my first yr engineering..I remember a couple of instances when I used to hover around that building just to hear the sounds - though they were never very clear..:-) And then I heard my dear friend, Vandit, playing Mandolin..These experiences only added some shudh desi ghee to the desire to own one - some day..

Own one - someday! And it took me almost 5 years to finally have one..And was I delighted! It was like the experience of owning the first bicycle, running the scooter for the first time..Boy! I actually, wanted to dance..:-) But keeping my foot tapping abilities and my general concern for the neighbours in mind, I decided otherwise and settled for a bar of Dairy Milk and some coke for the celebrations..

I found a class and I go there every Saturday..My teacher is a wonderful guitarist..and you know what he did in the first class?? He played Summer of 69..and my reaction? a very simple - Ah!! And I was all geared up for the lesson..I was very confident that I will do wonders..I said to myself - boss u have a reasonably good music sense! This should not be tough..And after some basic understanding of the instrument, I started with the G chord..And then I realised a simple fact - this is not going to be that simple! And in another 10 min time, I was sharing my confidence level with a certain Saurav Ganguly..Yeah I was not feeling any better. I even thought that I was looking very awkward with the guitar..Soon I realised that the strings want to test my endurance..There was a sharp pain in my fingers..The strings won the first battle and got good taste of my blood!! My teacher smiled and said "That should be enough for the day.."

It has been almost 3 months now..I practise a lot and I feel less awkward holding it..The tips have become numb..I guess the battle is almost over..My guitar allows me to experiment with it now..And the sounds have started making some sense..I think in a year's time I will be much better at it..Well, I just hope so..:-)

The new Chaska..

Being in a software firm has one big advantage..A free access to a computer with 1GB RAM and an internet connection whose speed is rivaled by the supersonic jets.So here I am, with a free blog space and hundreds of thoughts, raring to go..

Right now I am just trying to acquaint myself..and will start posting soon..

Till then take care..