Life's a crazy mess!

After a lot of thought....yes the process still does exist although it has been a bit of a rare phenomenon of late...I've been thinking of moving my blog from blogger to WP.

Another hot and wet winter in Malaysia and I'm still here....it's been a whole year and a half since I got here and well....I apparently haven't stopped cribbing. So let me begin with some questions that have been puzzling me since I got here:

1. What's the deal with 90kmph and 110kmph speed limits? Is it just to confuse all humans who have their speedometers with readings that are in multiples of 20?
2. 90kmph speed limit ends here......1km later, 60kmph speed limit begins here....what about the grey zone? Are we legally allowed to confuse the cop who catches us speeding at 160 in that stretch?
3. Where are all the cows in the country?
4. Correction to question 3, where is all the fresh milk in this country?
5. Why is a steamboat called a steamboat when it is not steamed food but boiled food?
6. Why Touch N Go?
7. Why don't Touch N Go cards work?
7.5. Why don't Touch N Go cards work on the Smart Tag lane with an expensive 110RM Smart Tag?
8. Why do people refer to Ringgit as Dollars?
9. Why do women coming the wrong way of a One Way road sneer at a person driving the right way?
10. Is it okay to look into your bag while driving into a wall?
11. Can malay food be made without oil?
12. Am I African?
13. Am I Tamil?
14. Am I Arab?
15. Am I Malay?
16. Why are all the big holes on Malaysian roads always on the fast lane?
17. Why lah?
18. Why meh?
19. How do you define lah?
20. What are the funny devices with numbers inside a cab used for?
21. Why do you have a Police Booth in Bukit Bintang when you can't lodge complaints there?
22. Are all Indians Tamil Hindus who don't eat beef?
23. Why is the English language murdered in Malaysia?
24. Why does KTM have a tiny door for entry and exit?
25. Where are the trains on the KTM line? Do they go missing just before the KL Sentral station and appear just after?
26. Why does the LRT slow down at a station and speed off just as it sees you standing there?
27. Is parking on the main road legal between 12pm and 2pm on a Friday?
28. Why are all signboards immediately after an exit?
29. Why do all signboards say KLCC although it goes halfway around the city before it actually gets you there?
30. Why do people use Shell and Petronas fuel pumps as landmarks?


More questions to come...

PS: Facebook and Twitter has made me lazy

30,000ft above sea level, I finally get some time to pen down my next blog entry. As promised, I was supposed to give you details of what has been happening around me and what has made me more or less a jumper :)

It all started a year back. I got my salary on the first week of August and I noticed how horribly low it was, which was then followed by a horrible session with my bosses in my previous company which involved pretty much everything that should not be said or heard in an appraisal discussion. A week later, I got a call from a company in Malaysia and six months of debating with myself later, I moved out of my previous company...alright...no surprises to most of you, out of Wipro Technologies...and I'm now officially a Technical Consultant for an aggressive startup company....well no longer a startup since it was bought over by a Telecom giant....

I left the Delhi and my job in the end of April, with a couple of tough goodbyes said I had moved on back to Abu Dhabi to be home with mom...and ofcourse spend time with a few of my best pals out there....I was even able to celebrate two of their b'days as well :)....an amazing week in Abu Dhabi (where I often heard "Why the hell did you come when you're here for just 5 days?!?!?") was followed by a trip to the hot and sweaty summer of Mumbai....now this I have to elaborate...

I had a pal, a very goooood pal of mine...who is now in Mumbai....his name...A....yep...my schoolmates (who would've guessed whom I'm talking about) would be laughing already or probably know the rest of this para by now...nevertheless...I'm gonna go ahead yapping about it...two days before I left Abu Dhabi for Mumbai to spend some time with him and two other great pals of mine in Mumbai, I had called A reminded him that I would arrive in the morning....the great buddy that he always has been, he promised to pick me up at the airport in the morning when I landed there......the words "Early Morning" needs to be stressed on here...and this is where I had completely forgotten my buddy....A always kept off from the early bird and the worms that the bugger picked up and had often had broken down a few alarm clocks (which is a similar characteristics of another best pal of mine, V...but we'll leave that for later)...I arrived in the morning at Mumbai sometime at 5am and was out of the airport by 6am. During the one hour that I spent waiting for my luggage and evading customs (something about them gives me the creeps...guess it's the extra bright white shirts and trousers they sport) I was attempting to get through A's cellphone...which although ringing....never got me through to him...yes...Airtel Failed me...The whole connecting people far and wide is all a hoax I say! A few white lies were then spelled out to prevent my parents from high pressure attacks and I finally managed to get through my buddy's phone...only to find him half asleep and shocked to know it was already 7:00am....2 hrs beyond his wake up alarm. A couple of "friendly" curses were exchanged and we finally settled on a plan. I was to get to his place by a cab as it would work out better than waiting for another hour or so for him to get to the airport.

Mumbai has a clever way of telling you that you're huge and ought to reduce weight pronto!....it's called it's black taxis....after a struggle with the door and the windows and everything else in the rear seat of the black Fiat taxi I was finally seated (barely) and my cabbie put the cab on gear and we vrrooomed (literally) to Khar....to my pal's place. 20 mins of Google Maps and confused by-standers later I was in front of my friend's place. I asked him to get down so that we could head out for b'fast once we put the bags in.....and well...I was in for another surprise...the dude wasn't home and was hoping his bro was home to open the door when I got there...sigh....and let's not forget...he stays on the 3rd floor in a building that doesn't have a lift....so yep....25kilos of baggage, a handbag of 5 kilos...and the 90+ kilos of my weight was being dragged up the three floors to his flat. Fifteen minutes of ringing the bell and a few phone calls later I was finally in the flat.....my buddy arrived an hour later....and well...it was fun getting back at him :D ..it's always fun being around the dude...it has been over 2 yrs since we last met in Bangalore and we had loooads to catch up on.....in particular...the music in his PC!

A couple of hours later I was in an auto..headed to Juhu...my first ever visit to the ever famous beach that we often see in movies...u know...the one with the chats and stuff....a ten minute wait resulted in me being completely drenched and dehydrated....my pal was late...and sigh....with my luck going all perfect....it was hot...and when I mean hot, I just don't mean hot...I mean humid, hot, sweltering, melt chocolates in your pocket type hot! Thankfully Mumbai does believe in air-cons and I was in a chilled Cafe Moka sipping toblerone shake in seconds....

The mumbai trip was amazing...I've always loved that city...barring the fact that I can never survive there...since I have a fear of going anywhere near a local train station and that I still can't figure how the meters on their autos work or that fact that I still can't understand how people pay 27k for a single bedroom house...but nevertheless...the city is amazing! and has given me some of the most wonderful friends in my life :) I could go on and on about the place and the fun times I had there but for now, I shall move on...else I'd never reach my final destination :) to brief it up...I was out in two malls...had over 6 snacks/meals in the one day that I was there....lost two games of bowling...watched a movie...damaged an escalator....saw ranvijay (the MTV Roadies guy)...or rather almost got him to fall off the escalator that I assume I damaged...spent a night walking around the streets of mumbai with a sandwich big enough to feed 4 people and a coke good enough for half (the sandwich ended up in the bin and the coke boiled over)...and spent 3hrs plus in Mumbai autos (staring at the meter and trying to figure out wat the numbers really stood for and trying to make conversation in broken Hindi with a Dilli touch to it...you know...with the whole "Dikath"s and the "Koi Nai"s)

Next stop, God's own country...a week spent with my most favorite person in this planet....my DAD :) It started off with a friend's wedding and then followed by a trip to all my relatives in the span of 3 days....shockingly I managed a visit to a backwater resort and the beach as well. The trip was unfortunately dead short...and I had to head to Bangalore to kick start my new job....

A quick break here....will continue in the next post which I shall pen down in Chennai airport as I wait for my flight to KL....till then....cyaz!

PS: I never got to writing the next blog in Chennai...the Laptop's battery died on me. Will pen one down soon

Yes Yes! The truth is finally out....I've become lazy...and we aren't talking lazy of the kind who doesn't like getting up in the morning, but the kind who "gets up, walks to the couch with four packs of potato chips and 2 large bottles of pepsi and turns on the TV and stays put till late afternoon when the tummy grumbles for attention" lazy! It's been ages since I blogged, and I know it more than all of you do....'coz well.....hehe...the goldfish that I am, I f'got the password again ;)

So wat's been keeping yours truly busy you ask? Aaaah...it eees wonderful how life has changed from a boring routine wake up and get to work to a wake up and head to the airport, fly a thousand miles, head to the hotel and walk to work routine ;) Confused....don't worry...Shanim's here to solve your troubles and get you away from the terrors of a shrink. I quit my first company...yipeeeeee...ok not so yipeee but yipee nevertheless....felt the job was not challenging anymore and decided on making my first change in careers (not counting the brief stint with Tyco in Abu Dhabi where I kinda screwed up their design for the Central Prison....kick the access control and you're home free...Prison Break would surely be a bore if it were shot in the Central Prison I designed :D). I'm now a consultant traveling the world....or atleast one side of it.

And now...after 8 flights in two months, I'm headed back to the place that started it all...Delhi....

How? What? Which? Where? Will the internet at KLIA get faster? All these questions and much more in my next post....till then....Selamat tinggal

As all my blog posts start off with "It's been a long time..." I shall refrain from repeating myself as the statement is now implied :)

I was browsing the net in search of some information on Ramadhan and when it would start (apparently I'm lazy to go to a masjid and find out from there) and I stumble upon this new article on Khaleej Times. This made me think....how fun would it be to have a job just looking at the moon? They have a committee that works once a month, stare at the sky and search for a moon. Their conversations at work would probably be....

Guy A: Hey is that the moon there?
Guy B: No stupid, that's just the lights off the Burj Dubai
Guy A: Oh yeah...how had i missed that??
Guy C: Hey there there the moon!!!
Guy B: hmmm...let me have a look at it...ok this calls for a conference, get Moon Sighting Committee in Dubai on the line

135kms away

Dubai: Aloo alooo....yes yes...we are the moon sighting committee in Dubai...how may we help you?
Guy B: We think we saw the moon did you?
Dubai: Aaah...come to think of it, we were supposed to do that tonight right? Just a min...
(a couple of screaming and shouting later)
....yes yes...we too see it.
Guy A: Alright so we have seen the moon. Call the press, and we'll see ya next month.

Ka-Ching! Salary in the bank....

Now that's what I call a good job. Alright now if that was a weird job, let's move onto another scenario...this I am narrating out of a real life experience I had and although I'm known to stretch the truth a little, the following is as-is!

It was a bright Sunday morning....possibly 'coz it was 12pm...but nevertheless it was bright and it was well....uhm...(ok ok let's just take it as 11:59am)...morning! I had finally decided to have a haircut after 2 months. Those of you who don't know me, this is normal my hair doesn't grow much...and to those who do...."I DO have hair!!!". A friend of mine had suggested a certain hairdresser in South Delhi and said they did a wonderful job and wasn't too expensive (by this he meant it didn't cross 500Rs). I was in a mood to spoil myself so I thought I'd give it a shot.

An hour long auto ride and I was in Vasant Vihar. A quick bite at McDonald's and there I was at the store, wondering if I should go ahead and give them a challenge of a lifetime....ie. to cut my hair! My decision...as you may have all guessed...was to go in after all.

I walked in and my first query was with their charges. They had different rates for a hair cut and a cut with a wash inclusive, the miser in me decided to choose the former and I was stuffed in one of those fancy chairs in front of a mirror that did anything but show you your reflection. The barber (uhm....I learnt later that he was a 'hairdresser' and took quite a huge offense when I called him a 'barber' out loud...yes yes...and I've learned never to mess around with a man who cuts your hair and is armed with a couple of sharp objects) said my hair was too messy and required a wash...$$$$ was the only thing in my mind then...but I remind you once again...I never mess with a guy armed with sharp objects...

The pesky assistant kicked off his long and irritating conversation just about then. His questions ranged from "Where did you cut your hair before this?", "Are you losing hair?", "Sir, your blackheads are showing", "Are you from Delhi?","How much do they charge for a haircut in Bangalore?","Why are you looking so tired sir? Shall I suggest a facial?".....little was he to know that I was plotting a murder...the victim...as you may have guessed was right in front of me...all I needed was to distract the hairdresser for a few seconds and arm myself with one of his weapons....alas...it was not meant to be :(

I was stuffed back in the chair and was now staring at my face...which looked tired....and voila...enter hairdresser with a utility belt stuffed with scissors of various shapes and sizes and a wicked smile on his face. He observed his canvas for a while...and flinched...this was probably not one of his lucky days...he spent a whole 10 minutes staring at my hair...and occasionally shaking his head wondering why he was selected on this bright day with his toughest challenge. He finally decided to make conversation and asked me "What would you like?" to which I said that anything that looks presentable is fine. There was a momentary smile and then he went back to observing his canvas. And then without any notice, he picked up his scissors and was at work.

I spent the whole time observing how this artist was working on his masterpiece (if you may call it that). A clip here and a clip there, it was amazing seeing him go...after 15 minutes of intense struggle, he was done! The pesky assistant was now back and he began his questions once again as he banged my head into position (this is a certain thing exclusive to Indian barber shops...oops hair stylists :P). The hairdresser was back and he put on a hair styling cream and whacked my hand when I attempted to style it myself. He had a look that would probably get a lion to run for cover and once again I remind you...sharp objects. The final question that the pesky assistant left me with was "Sir, do they tip in Bangalore?"...My answer (quite predictable).."No we don't"...to which his immediate response was "But out here they tip a lot"...I smiled...He insults me about my hair, my face, my poor nose and then bugs me every two seconds with totally meaningless questions and now has the nerve to ask for a tip....yea right! The armed man took over and led me to the cashier. I was forced to pay for the wash as well and I made a quick exit...watching as I left, a tear on the hairdresser's eye ('coz of his miserable failure) and the disappointed face of the pesky assistant.

I get home and finally got to see myself in a mirror....sigh...and once again I'm in a loss of words....and hair!!

It's summer already and Delhi is back on it's infamous heat streaks....a whopping 40 degrees for a while and lingering at 36+ in Celsius all day is anything but pretty...and to top it off, the Air Con at work was turned off....some intelligent soul decided that the Air Con deserved a holiday and thought of giving it one this Saturday. Uhm no...I'm not talking abt the situation at my company, but it's well....at a site where i'm working....the details, I shall refrain from revealing...let's just say an earlier cribbing session has come back to haunt me in the form of a project :( (Hey don't get me wrong, work's awesome!)

Another week ends and this time around instead of writing down my weekly report to my Technical Manager I thought I'd give my blog a shot...sigh and I'm back to having nothing to write. A long week can do things to you....but a long and eventful one at that. A friend flew in halfway around the world to meet me for one ;) Alright so she didn't fly down halfway around the world 'just' to meet me, there were other important things but hehe....let's just use the more appealing reason :D A Dilli Darshan that lasted almost 10hrs, loads of shopping and a goodbye at the airport sums up my thursday....did I forget to mention the amazing food? Sigh....I still drool thinking of the amazing stuff we had all thro' the day! Observe as I stuff in a 50Rs Momo :



Aaaaaah...now that we're done with the drooling...how many of you have got a compliment from a person who has later made you feel extremely uncomfortable with a racist statement? It was just another day at work, a site that is being set up by us Engineers and one of the officials from the client started up a conversation with me, let's just call him Mr K

This conversation has been translated from a combination of English and Hindi to English to assist the linguistically challenged and to avoid embarrassing myself 'coz of my extremely funny version of the National Language

Mr K: Hey Shanim, how's the progress on the site?
Me: Going on great sir. We're moving quite quickly and have managed to make and beat most of our targets. (yes yes I'm trying to make it sound 'professional' ;) )
Mr K: Do you know something, your Hindi is real good for a south indian

Blushes stammers and speaks gibberish and Mr. K regrets having uttered those few sentences mentioned above

Me: No sir, I'm far from perfect. I still make quite a few blunders as I speak. (sigh...modest ain't I?)
Mr K: Oh no, it is quite good. Since you primarily use other languages and use Hindi only to converse with us, I feel it is good. We find it very difficult to speak English, which we use only in rare situations, and you are quite fine with both English and Hindi. Even your accent sounds quite good and not like a southie.
Me: Oh!...Thank you :)

An awkward silence follows....

Mr K: So Shanim, what does your name mean?
Me (thinking): Sigh...hate this question!
Me: It doesn't really have a meaning. My dad had made it up and I find that a good enough reason to love it.
Mr K: That's real nice. So what is your full name?
Me: It's Shanim Sainul, sir.
Mr K: Oh, so you're christian are you?
Me (thinking): sigh....this would be the 2324112nd person assuming I'm X'ian...how do I tell the guy I'm agnostic?....uhm...let's leave it as Muslim
Me: No no sir, I'm Muslim

A silence follows, he looks uneasy and suddenly gets defensive

Mr K: Oh, I'm sorry, I shouldn't be asking you this. Hope you don't mind.
Me (thinking): WTF???
Me: No sir, why should it be a problem :) It's okay.

We move in different directions and he resumes his silent chantings from the Bhagvath Gita as I continue to watch my Malaysian friend talk to the sub-contractors in a language that baffles me, it's a mixture of english and a dramatic performance worthy of an award. (Uhm...yeah I do help out eventually....I mean I have to stop laughing to do so, right?)

A normal conversation isn't it? or is it? Aren't we all just plain racists? We walk around talking about people from south india as madrasis or southies and when we're down south in Bangalore, we abuse the 'northies' who have absolutely no care for the city and it's beauty. We call people Mallus, Gultes, Pandis, Chinkies, Surds....the list just goes on. True we never realize it. We probably have the worst case of racist behavior and it continues to be a part of us being Indian. I've often heard people talk about their caste and how it is not acceptable to marry someone from a different caste, or of how another person was of a lower caste and their 'kind' used to deliver milk in villages. Now why did all this spark a thought in my otherwise vacuum head?

It's 10:30pm. I walk home after a tiring day at work and a tough search for some snacks for the long night (fine....I choose to make the nights long by sleeping at 2am) and on my way to the gate I overheard a very weird conversation. A man, quite tall and bulky was talking to a cycle rickshaw guy. The only thing I heard (which was quite loud mind you) was "Tum Hindu ho ke Musalmaan??" (Translated as "Are you Hindu or Muslim??"). I was distracted by a friend of mine at this point and didn't see what happened next but.......does this question really matter???? I often get jealous of the Chinese....most of them are free-thinkers and are not limited in their sights and perspective to just religion or castes for that matter. A Chinese friend of mine was fascinated when we talked about religion. She had never heard of Buddhism and Islam before and she looked at us like a 5-yr old at a candy store.

We remain in our closed boxes, shying away from interacting with people from 'other' backgrounds. After all, they are different and they can be threatening to us. Why the $!#@# are we still living in a archaic society??? Isn't it time we moved on and changed our perspective?

A religion is merely our guide to be good to the world, it's there to give us peace of mind and more often than not, we're born into it (atleast in India). Is this a reason to fight on or profile?? BEATS ME!!

The other day I was reading through my blog entries from the past and I noticed something quite odd....I'm getting serious lately :( Working in a professional organization is taking its toll on my humour and my brain!!!! Its like they're sucking away my passion to strive for perfection in sarcasm...the horrors of it all! Alright back from being a melodramatic maniac...now lets get to some serious thoughts (i mean....non-serious...uhm..whatever)

It's funny how we often think from a different dimension on things. Brings out the best in us and we do come up with the weirdest similies to life. hehe as an example, the spider who asked me for a rental contract in my house after biting me for breaking down his home (he called it "Webzy") or maybe my imagination of dating my bike....and where did all this start off...it was 1987, I was getting ready for bed and I just couldn't sleep...I started buggin mom and dad asking them what I should do and they asked me to pray and close my eyes....hmmm..tried...didn't help...and well TV was never an option then 'coz we had just two channels there (Abu Dhabi TV 1 and Channel 2) both dieing off at an early 8PM. I was in a dilemma and poof I heard a crack....uhm..no wait that was my brain churning out ideas....This was the day my Dream Cable Network began. It had 4 channels (yep quite a low number) which had action, romance, humour and ofcourse horror. I never lasted long in the horror channel but well the others were quite awesome.

Are you guys confused? Well I'll explain then...I started imagining that my dreamland had 4 channels and I could switch to any one of them every night. I began telling myself weird stories in my dreams which included a war against people from the planet "Karathonza" to a walk on the nearest burial grounds....was awesome....never had a prob sleeping from then on 'coz I would get tired making the story and would get bored after 15 mins of narration...yeah I pretty much bore myself well...

Have we lost all this now? Rather have I grown up and forgotten how fun it was to be a kid and to imagine.....uhm...guess my roomies wouldn't agree....

That reminds me of a discussion we had the other day. There was this newspaper article that talked about the mosquito menace near Silk Board flyover and how the BMP stuffed it with fishes that ate mosquitoes to get rid of it. I'm sure many of you can't relate to this, so let me explain. Silk Board has this awesome drain running from Madivala towards HSR Layout...what's so peculiar about this you ask? Well nothing much, its just that BMP ran out of funds before they could finish the project and hence the drain is open! All the crap coming in from Maruthi Nagar, Madivala, Madivala Market, BTM, Jayanagar and probably the rest of South Bangalore ends up on this drain. It does give you a high walking through there though....a high that makes you wanna kill yourself! Ironically, there are three offices of the 2nd largest IT firm in India right in front of this drain....guess they use it to their benefit....picture this...a client comes to visit the campus, he has an initial round of talks and it fails as the company is expecting waaaaaaaay too high in revenues...the client refuses....a response follows "You wanna give us the contract or would u prefer swimming there?" "Kaching!!! Contract signed" ;)

Alright now back to our topic in question...Bobs (aka Time Management), on hearing this found it crazy and said it would probably be like killing those fishes straight out. The water that runs through is no longer transparent...why it isn't even translucent and it would be impossible for a fish to survive. I justified saying it is possible, and that the fish has probably learnt its way through the waters else they were already blind and it wouldn't be anything new. Bobs said that's a crazy thought. hehe...me being me felt I couldn't just stop there....so I said...no man BMP must've given each one of them flashlights to look around...a light laugh later bobs replied yeah and they probably gave them sticks and knives to whack any mosquitoes they saw....tom added that they probably added in some Piranhas to improve efficiency...and this went on to a point where we even felt they would have monkey caps on to prevent getting a cold from the night job and would probably get free food and a cab back home......then suddenly a door opened wide....AG (a guy who sleeps all the way till 9AM eventhough his work starts off at 8:30AM) starting walking like a zombie out of the room and headed straight to a knife sitting on the kitchen desk....picked it up....and bingo...I was the target! :) hehe...

I've got another pal, Ams, whom I get into real active conversations with.....on what you ask? well its just a chain of PJs....a chain that resulted in another pal of ours, Rush, to start whacking her head on the table and almost get into tears....its funny...we were going on for over 15 mins and only then did we notice what she was doing!

So where does all this come to? Imagination ROCKS!!!! And I'm gonna go on with it....;)

It was just another day in office and well for a change I have work lately. All thanks to a training I had in the UK. And well things are supposedly gonna get worse....frankly, I'm happy....I've had my share of free time all through my life in the company and its about time I really picked up on work.

It was Friday and our Manager, the cool guy in the block, was asking us what our plans were for the weekend...i had a bloody geeky answer..."CAT" jeez...he had this weirdo look on my face which said "Don't you have a life?" hmmm...do I? I guess I do, the doc said I was pretty fine when I went for my checkup the other day. Anyways, the next question he asked us were if we had gfs and if dates were in line during the weekend....the three of us in the team had a negative in the first part of the question. He was shocked and even joked that he'd probably put in an objective for the next quarter..."Get a Girlfriend".....and well as usual...it got me thinking....sigh I wonder if there's anything in this world that doesn't get me thinking! :)

What exactly is the deal of getting a girlfriend? Spend a few months enjoying the sparks and eventually realise you weren't meant for each other. Put yourself in a lot of pressure, and emotional turmoils and finally call it an end. Wouldn't like to generalise though, I'm sure there are quite a few of you who read this who would say otherwise. But how often does it last for more than a couple of years? It starts off with a mushy relationship with loads of attention and understanding at first. A few months down the line it changes to jealousy and possesiveness and finally it just ends up in huge arguments that make absolutely no sense to the observers from outside. And at the end, each one for himself (herself).

Friends often say I have a very stringent criteria for my partner and that's the reason I've never really hooked up. hmmm...this could be true. I'd prefer a gal who doesn't bother going all mushy mushy and constantly want physical show of attention. I mean come on, picture this, you're all tired from work, your manager has asked you to stay at the office on weekends, you lost money as change in the bus (refer previous blogs) and your cellphone cuts off as you start talking to your dad and mom three thousand miles away. And that's when the inevitable call comes in and she goes "Hi janoo...how much do you love me?"....WTF??? Right so that doesn't happen too often...but hell it does!

Is it so hard to find someone who would understand you and could read your mind like it were their own diaries (true this ain't possible at all times)? One who doesn't have a care in the world and doesn't filter you based on your caste, colour, religion or zodiac sign (reminds me of lage raho munnabhai :) ). One who'd have had a long day at work and yet want to hang out with you to take a long walk, talk and get home with a smile....or maybe spend an evening bowling just to get the spirits up. One who wouldn't hesitate to go out horse riding (yep...i've suddenly got a craving to go horse riding...still trying to figure when and where though), bungee jumping or try something absolutely new in their lives. And yet beyond all this still realise that life's just not about fun and involves responsibilities...to their parents, family and friends. yep....my friends are probably right...I do think too much and hence remain single...

So is cutting all this down for the initial sparks in a relationship worth it?......I wonder

Yes, I'm a victim of the CAT disease too. I've begun my pursuit to the IIMs, the most prestigious B-Schools in India....and well...I'm losing out on the race in a huge way! I start off with a relatively good percentile and as the weeks go by, my results seem to be deteriorating...blame it on the fact that I'm not preparing well while everyone else is! So now, I'm working on Plan B and Plan C. Shall refrain from explaining what those two plans are for the time being, lest I mess up those two as well....which I will!

Its a loong holiday and well I ain't doing much here. On realising that I was leading a miserable life by sitting home doing nothing...alright alright so maybe I was doing something...moving on...yeah so as I was saying, I decided to head to Coimbatore and meet up with my ol' schoolmate Gayatri, who promised me a bunch of books to prepare myself on a tests related to "Plan B". After a loong and bed bug biting journey of six hours, I was finally there. We had a ball of a time and managed to watch KANK (aka Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna...trust me I was repeatedly screaming out "Kabhi tho Alvida kaho"). The movie starts off with a pretty good note. Rani looks hot!!! and well I'm sure all the gals must've felt Abhishek was the "hot" one....I would know...there were four girls around me who kept oogling at him...and how would I know this...hehe...guess whom I was oogling at ;)

Trust Karan Johar to come up with a highly over budgetted fantasy movie in which everyone around lives in castles and works in high rises with the view you'd die for on a concept that well...at times is pretty controversial.

His first being the "love begins with friendship" which resulted in a massive turn of events for most guys and gals who were best friends...it took just 3 hrs and a lot of mushy mushy hindi dialogues and running around trees and playing basketball for them to realise they were in love! (Ref. Kuch Kuch hotha hain for more details). This time around we have a wild extra marital affair to talk about. There were parts of the movie i liked though...the first being Rani, the second being SRK being slapped (HARD!!) and the third, Abhishek's constant faint scenes. Now what's bad abt it? Well for once I thought SRK started doing something he was always good at...being the anti-hero and not the guy who everyone loves (Refer...uhm....ok i guess all his movies have a typical "Rahul" who's loved by everyone and he uses his masterpiece dual expressions in numerous permutations and combinations for a 3 hr movie) but I was disappointed...guess Karan Johar just didn't like the idea of keeping SRK upset so managed to end the movie with a moral that we should encourage extra marital affairs and infact once you divorce your betraying husband/wife, ensure that they meet and have a happy life together.

Oh well it was timepass so no issue :) Work is finally on the horizon with my boss having given me a bunch of stuff to get done by Thursday....kinda makes you feel important for a change..hehe I've got work after 10 months!!! yipeeeee!!!

Signing off for now....as I've just run out of topics to crib about...uhm i mean talk about :) catch u all laterz

Hey guys....hope I haven't dissapointed all of you with a very short post earlier. The orkut one ie. Been too busy trying to have a life and well just realised I didn't have one.

The past few weeks has been a world of changes. For one, I had a lovely birthday!!! For all my readers who don't know when that was, it was on the 5th of July. The day...rather night started off with my mom calling me up at 12 in the night...she sang me the birthday song while my roomies were busy plotting on methods to pick and kick me on the ritual "Birthday Bumps". Mom kept the phone with the last words being...tell your roomies not to hurt her little son....and yes they didn't listen! Bang Bang Bang and well there were many more, I just lost count. Finally they pick me up and wish me a happy birthday.....for the record, this was my first birthday when I got the bumps. Usually its the summer vacs or something like that and the Bumps are delayed till school reopens....uhm...well that kinda makes it worse though.

It was a lovely morning, Bangalore was smiling at me with its cool breezes and fresh (well almost fresh) air. Got calls from all over India, thanks to my friends being spread across geographies :) Ofcourse calls from family too. My orkut scrapbook was overflowing with messages and so was my mailbox. Thanks to my company's portal and orkut, everyone around remembered Shanim was born 23 yrs earlier on the same day.

As usual there wasn't much work and I kinda left off early to meet up with a friend. A real cool pal of mine...and well mind you, she's got a pinch that stings baaaaaaad!!! I ended up with a scar on my arm thanks to her....bet she's enjoying reading this. Got home a notch late after doing a bit of shopping for my sis and mom as I was heading home that weekend. And the surprises just didn't end, my roomies got me a cake from CCD and although it didn't last long and was more on my face than in anyone's stomach, it was absolute fun!

Getting back home for the weekend was all the better. My second sis, Sanee, managed to arrange for a Birthday Cake from the US! I got to cut a birthday cake with my eldest bro in law (his birthday falls a day before mine) with my family watching over and my cutest niece singing the Birthday song along with her mom, my sis, Saina :) This was probably best week home I had in a long time...and probably the best birthday too!

But well...life isn't just about happiness is it? Its been 23 yrs that I've spent in this world, and well I've been thinking....thinking a lot lately. Besides this blog and a bunch of smiles, I've achieved nothing! There's this huge void in me and I can't understand what its for.....and no its not the void that pops up everytime you breath in air....but something a lot more confusing. Everyday I wake up to the world with a joke on life, and well have been looking at my life as one big comedy show. The world and God as spectators, having a ball of a time seeing me make blunders every second. From the days when I forget to fill fuel on my bike and drag it for over 2kms uphill, to the days when I go to my manager and utter something utterly irrelevant, its been just a joke.....yep that's my life....a joke. I don't aim for anything, I don't look at myself doing something good, and I don't bother thinking of something to make this world a better place.

Guess its time something changed. Time I grew up..........time I thought of what I want in life....and time when I decided on ways to chase that dream of mine....


For all those who know me well....stop laughing!!! :) Fine so maybe I just can't grow up so might as well quit trying. I'm sure the day I get married, there would be a case against my parents for child marriage ;) A kid I am...and I guess its never gonna change

After a lousy post...I'm back :) Apologies to all those who'd gone nuts over the last post...to tell you the truth, I have no idea what was going on, guess I was just disturbed...uhm....but then again, I always am....

Pepsi Cola, Pepsi TV and now Pepsi C.....uhm...naaa lets not get into that. That was a topic I had already talked about in Sam's blog. SRK seem to be on a roll now. He had a ball of a time with a number of chicks posing next to his nude body in the bathroom for Lux explaining how his skin's beauty was from it and now he's out as a couch potato in the Pepsi TV ad. Awesome concept I must admit, drink Pepsi and all channels become Pepsi TV...hmmm...do I see a lawsuit coming up? Enough of the guy who has just two emotions pasted on his face which he uses in a number of permutations and combinations to generate "sad, upset, happy, romantic, constipated, nausetic.." and various other emotions to perform award winning movies.......somebody please buy brains for all those jerks who actually judge for movie awards...they really need one and seem to have lost it after the last David Dhawan movie.....speaking of which...where is he???

Gangster, the music of which had blown me away, and the acting of the lead female which has kept me away from the theater for a while now. Alright I do admit, she has her good points...for one she dresses well..except in the hot scene with Emran will-scr*w-anything-that-moves Hashmi....wait...she wasn't really wearing anything then....aaah! The movie started off pretty good and I was hoping it would be a good one for a change...but I was disappointed. I expected more with all the hype going on about it. hmmm...but then again guess I was still all high after "Ice Age 2". The censor board must be pretty happy with all the E.H movies coming in, they really needn't watch it and just stamp in an "A" on the certificate. You can't expect him to go around in the movie without doing something to the lead female which would eventually lead to adultery right? Its against his way of life. He was born with just one mission in life...cause adultery and prove that there is absolutely no use of condoms...speaking of which...couldn't Kangna Raut think of protection? Come on..with the keep away from AIDS and soft drinks messages Pepsi has been giving out...someone's bound to notice!

There's a huge commotion about quotas these days in India. Some hilarious ones being, what if we had only OBC and SC/ST doctors treating politicians and blah blah....We are splitting our country and loads of other things...yep guys I'm very much against the quota system but seriously take a look around, we've been splitting up with every second of the day. Be it quotas in education, the income divide or even the never ending arguments between religion. One of our arguments led to us breaking up with our brothers and uhm...no i can't call them sisters...and ur bhabis ;) from pakistan! Its kinda shocking how the media there potrays our country to be blood hungry of all muslims and everyone in our country wants another country of their own. Hilarious statements keep coming around forums all over the internet about the same. I really can't understand what's with the hatred.

Getting back to quotas, ppl all around who don't seem to understand what the comotion is all about, well its something that's been in everyone's heads for a while now. I for one, am part of an OBC community and although I'd be the last person to be complaining, I'm not happy with the system where true competition is not being welcomed. We don't need you to keep aside a seat for us and the various other communities in India but what we need is a more sound education system and scholarships for those who perform well. This can be implemented with a higher regard to those who have greater challenges in their lives, which maybe physical, or monetary. The only reason why the whole caste system still seems to linger within the minds of everyone in our country is probably 'coz of the reservations that the earlier govts had introduced...something that needs to be wiped out at the earliest! Bring in more quotas and we're just gonna get all the more angry.

Well I'm signing off for now and shall be back with more later. For now, its Tata bye bye see you from me :)

I'd been on a short trip to my hometown this weekend and it was real good. Both dad and mom had come down for a vacation and being there felt great. But alas...good things never seem to last long and I had to return on a Sunday evening by the low-cost airline we call Air Deccan. Not really low-cost since I had to shed some Rs.2.9k on the flight tickets thanks to me being extremely late in booking. I realise now that procrastination doesn't really help.

Dad and mom dropped me off at the airport and my journey began. A quick walk through check-in and the security got me into the passenger waiting lounge...well obviously I don't like attracting too much attention while I travel, picked up my copy of the Alchemist, which a pal of mine recommended and forced me to try it out....(hehe rather advertised it well...Sheetal, you seriously ought to go in for marketing, coding ain't ur area of expertise..marketing surely is!)...alright so back to wat i was doing...took the book and pretended to read as I observed two real cute females who were flying along with me :) yep...I just can't concentrate on a thing...The reading never really worked there in the lounge...but hey it was an effort...

They finally asked us to board the aircraft. I don't think many of you have flown in Air Deccan, if you have...try skipping a few lines. We fly in ATRs from Trivandrum to Bangalore....all small sectors have tiny planes while the big ones like the flights between Mumbai and Bangalore have Airbuses. This is a aircraft's equivalent of a rickshaw. Ofcourse its not that bad, it does carry around 40+ passengers and is sufficiently spacious. It does have a low roof so I end up head banging quite a bit....and yes my bag never seems to fit in the overhead cabins.....speaking of which, that bag never fits in any airlines overhead cabins....someone remind me to get a new bag!

The plane being small doesn't have seats reserved as per your boarding pass...you just sit in any seat you like...more like the ol' cinemas in india where you run in the moment they open the doors and jump to your fav seat and book all seats around u for ur friends claiming that there are ppl sitting there (and argue like so "Can't you see...there are people there...to which the person sighs and moves on thinking as he does on how he missed seeing a human being on a seat!). Yep pretty much the same scenario with additional headbanging. So I finally pick a seat...thankfully a window seat...sadly on the wrong side of the aircraft...it faced the west and the sun was setting...the bugger didn't let me open my eyes till we decided to land....yeah i know we have the shutter there but hey...I wanted to observe nature's beauty...which again didn't make much sense since it was cloudy all the way.....now why didn't i put the shutters down....hmmmmm.....I really need to get my head checked!

After a long procedure of settling down and a take off later, I finally opened up the book, and this time started reading. Yep the girls were still there but they were beyond my vision owing to the poor design of aircraft seats...how I wish they were designed like trains :(

The book is about a boy who ventures out to the unknown to live his dream...a dream that told him of treasures on the other side of the world (well almost)...and how he worked his way there through all his troubles...walked away from the person whom he'd fallen in love with just to live that destiny and not spend his life regretting he hadn't tried. The book really moved me. And well it got me thinking. I can't seem to figure out what I dream of....what I aspire...my life has no definition. I live in the present, plan too much in the future and now I've realised, I've lost all creativity and along with it....my dreams. The boy...an educated shepherd leaves his family and prospective career to travel along with his sheep. His dream tells him his treasure awaits him much farther away and he persues his quest...leaving his sheep and his country to a strange unknown land where ppl speak an unkown tongue...crossing dangerous deserts and living through numerous miseries to live his dream......

"I may have left my family and my.....fine i don't have sheep, but well I've left my family and come into a strange land to persue a dream...which....i don't think belongs to me. I don't know what I dream of....I really don't know what I want..." Crrrrrk..."Ladies and Gentlemen, we are now approaching Bangalore Airport and will be landing in a short while...." That broke my thought and as I looked out I saw the beautiful city which I now call my own...I landed and I saw her...she smiled and there was a spark in the air (fine it was lightning but hey gimme a break...i need to add some pizzaz into the story)...we were moving onto the bus that took us to the terminal and a minor miscalculation in the trajectory of my bag's path as i put it down resulted in me almost hitting her.... A "Sorry" and a smile later she looked into my eyes....and returned the smile...stealing looks in between a crowd of ppl where there was barely a volume of space for a hungry mosquito to jump in on his buffet dinner...something seemed to be happening. We finally alighted at the terminal. I slipped...yep as usual...and managed to control my fall as she giggled at the sight. A slow walk into a smoked terminal (nope it wasn't on fire and there wasn't a guy trying to make the whole scenario more romantic by placing a fog machine but our dearest BMP had a wild idea of blowing in pesticide smoke all over the terminal....you could see numerous moqsuitoes running around trying to find the word exit written somewhere...i believe some where trying to help the others by flashing fireflies who appeared in the midst to assist in the easy evacuation...it was a depressing sight.....I was blinded and with all the might in my navigational skills found the baggage delivery area and the story goes on...). She stood a few feet away from me and chatted with her pal as I waited for my luggage...a few looks were exchanged...my bag appeared and the fog subsided...I moved off with a final smile and was off in a rickshaw to my apartment....

......and once again my quest to determine my dream was lost somewhere high up in the air never to return.....for a while atleast.

Did you guys hear the latest? The ppl in fat chairs who call themselves politicians have finally decided to heed to the tears of the 6.5million people in Bangalore and are doing something about it....uhm...well i guess they took it a bit too literally when we asked for a change in Bangalore. They've decided to rename the city to Bengaluru....hmmm....sigh if only they had the brains of an ant to think straight! And what more? We've got a bunch of crazy journalists who have suddenly voiced their concern regarding the same, and that the government is making a mistake by doing so (to which i partially agree...not until i read the rest of the sentence) as this may lead to a confusion with the state 'Bengal' (trust me guys, i couldn't stop laughing reading that...I'm sure a bunch of my senior managers would have been staring at me when i did). Talk about the world going nuts! We've got a city who has barely 10m of tar remaining on all its roads (which theoretically comes to over 300-500kms in length) and yet all they can think of is a change in name to bring back the sentiments in Kannadigas...Man I'm glad Kannadigas ain't as insane as the bunch who rule the state....watch out kerala...you've got competition!

Now that you get an idea of how much i detest crazy politicians who seem to crap a lot about doing stuff let me get into another thought. Have any of you bought gifts for girls? Maaaan seriously complicated...its an absolute injustice giving us sooo much of choice....gals have it simple, all you need to do is get something that uses a battery or an AC adapter and we are absolutely happy, on the other hand with gals you've got a billion and one choices and you are bound to go wrong watever u get! (and this from a guy who has three sisters!!!) If only we could get into those heads for just a tiny second to figure out wat they would like and not frown thinking how cheap/boring/unimaginative/....and anything else that matches the criteria of loser about us.

Haven't really talked much about my company to you guys have I? Well its a fun place, you get good food for cheap, and Wipro has done a great job in improving the environment (no not just in terms of gals, but the campus is kewl). We've been having fun from the day we've joined, no pressure, no1 to boss us around, our managers are all smiles when they talk to us (and yes...quite often I've wondered if they are plotting against us while we think they are happy about us) and well........yep we're jobless! Atleast for a while...we are in what we call 'Free Pool'....

Its pretty simple, we come to work early morning at 8:30 and we are asked to report to the billiards room and play pool till 6 in the evening...:) alright so maybe we don't have a billiards room, its just what companies call 'Bench'. The transition period between training and being in a project....won't be long before I curse myself for having written this post coz of how busy I will get....sigh....being a Software 'Techie' (don't really know wat that means but it sounds kewl when Times of India keeps referring to us like so) can be a pain, but well it pays for my food, fuel, iPod, cellphone, etc. etc :) so can't really complain!

Taking off for now...CIAO

Ever heard of a place that sells you Reebok shoes for under 1000Rs? You do??? hehe address please :)

I really can't understand the concept of charging over 30% of the price for just a lousy logo which is bound to come off in a month's time anyways. Anyone from Nike or Reebok who could enlighten me on this? Ok so I guess all of you are busy trying to figure out what the @#%#$#@ is this bugger getting at? Is there a point...uhm...confession..nope :) Was out shopping yesterday, went out to Marathahalli...and for all those guys who haven't heard of it, its a part of town where you can get almost all branded products for half the price...why?? why you ask me? well these are factory seconds...and no that doesn't mean that the janitor in the textile factory used the clothes to wash the floors or something like that, it just means that there is a defect in the clothes which no1 would notice in the first place...uhm..yep an ant might, 'coz u see the bugger might just trip over the loose thread as he heads to his destination..with only his mission in mind...'bite shanim bite shanim'....ouch! alright I get the point, won't steal your bread crumbs anymore...happy? alright now that the guy has gone to reinforcements I shall continue...

Just realised I hadn't finished my earlier sentence....alright so basically we were there buying clothes and shoes and whatever food I could put in my tiny stomach (it ain't all that tiny actually) and at the end of it we decided to push off to MG Road...nope we had no plans of comparing prices and no we weren't there to tell every1 how brilliant we were to have purchased all those things for under 400Rs each...but well I need some eye exercise you see....Its funny how we always manage to enjoy the beauties of life when we are there....but its sad we wouldn't even bother speaking to a single one (to all those who have been confused till this point about heavenly bodies...nope im not talking about stars...talking about the fair sex :) ) 'coz somewhere deep within you feel they just might end up being a pain in the ass eventually. Come to think of it...most are...and yep half the world is out to get you broke...and the other half is already broke 'coz well...that half are us guys! A friend of mine was just telling me how she makes her guy recharge her cellphone and how she doesn't call him but makes him do so....hmmm...tragic situation i must say...but then again...hehe if I were the guy, I would do the same....maan we die for attention don't we????

Enough of that crap....the worst part of my day was just approaching...we had this long day and we decided to end it by one last hurdle...getting into a BMTC bus from the commissionarate bus stop (yes yes i got the spelling wrong and I have absolutely no plans of walking all the way there to correct myself!)...It was waaay past 9:30 and my last bus, which is the 9pm '141E' was long gone....speaking of which, BMTC has this lovely way of numbering their bus routes....they put numbers and this is followed by letters....and the source and destination of the bus will always (as a law set by a saddist who is laughing away somewhere in his guest house at this very moment) in kannada. The number seem nice and well organised, but there are over 26 routes on a single number...as an example, there is a bus route 201...suffixed by A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z,AA,AB.....etc etc and if you were dumb enough to get into the wrong bus, you wouldn't know until the bus driver suddenly took a turn off some traffic light from where it is absolutely impossible to get off...simply because the buggers in the bus just don't let you move! Mumbai Suburbans seem soooo much better...you ain't travelling blind there!

Alright so as I was saying...we were waiting at the bus stop and I had just realised that I was to take one of the million 201s....sigh I hated that bus! Why you ask me? Well for one, I almost lost my mobile in that bus and well its almost always crowded and most of the trailer type buses that run on that route barely move...I'm sure a snail walking behind these buses would be cursing the driver to move over so that he can overtake us....I had absolutely no choice but take the bus...lest I decided to walk which well...I wasn't in the mood to after walking around the whole of Marathahalli....stepped in and I was just too late to realise that I had forgotten to get some change and was stuck with just 100 buck notes. Yes all of you...not just those from India, but those abroad do know how irritating it can be for a conductor/driver when you give him a huge note and expect change for a ride that costs you a measely 5% of the note...oh well...I was faced with my tormentor now and presented the 100Rs note and spoke my destination as gentle as I could. He gave me a big smile and handed me my ticket after writing 95 on the back of it and just walked onto the next person. Now I was confused...was I just presented with a new currency which was used only by people living in the buses of Bangalore or was that just an autograph?? I bumped into him again and asked him for my change...."Change illa saar" and then there was a lot kannada which just passed by my brain as though they were directed to the person walking on the other side of the road....I rougly figured out that he would give me the change when I got off at my stop.

A little info to all those people reading this from countries in Europe and America...buses are pretty busy in India and when I mean busy, it doesn't just mean we have to stand and we don't get a seat to sit down, I also mean most of the people are either hanging on their arms outside the bus or defying every single law of gravity by actually hovering in air all thanks to the N number of people pushing them from behind. This was exactly how this bus was....I was stuck inside this bus and was just praying I would get home in one piece....sigh...I stood there wondering where all these guys were headed to late in the night at 10pm....guess they were wondering the same about me....my destination arrived and jumped off the bus and started walking as fast as I could away from the bus...trust me I had had enough!

Reached home and decided to lie down and watch a movie and that's when i put my hand in my pocket to find the ticket with the magic number '95'....oh CRAP!!!!! yep....i had lost 95 bucks :( I had spent 100 bucks for a lousy bus ride...the bloody ricks charge just 50 which again is pretty overprized as the ride is generally just 28!

Sigh...guess that's life and for one thing, I've learned my lesson....if a bus has the number 201 on it, I'm not stepping in again!!!

Yep...even i felt the earlier blog was crappy!!!!!! alright so basically it was like this...i was in a bad mood and needed something to cheer me up and well blogging didn't really help....a phone call did cure it though :D

So let me get started...firstly...a big thanks to Sameera for suggesting Chethan Bhagat's books to me....maaaaaan that guy is good!!! That guy actually got Shanim...yes Shanim of all ppl stuck to a book on a Sunday!!! I just couldn't put the book down although i had this huge test the very next day...aaah it was worth it...and luckily i did manage to do the test pretty ok...Speaking of the book...its a must read..ofcourse the making out scene reminded me of some lousy porn posts put up on sites...so don't get disappointed......modify the things there and suit it to your own thoughts...and guys..don't get carried away :)

Speaking of bangalore...I'm loving it!!!! and yes...the pretty heavenly bodies are just part of the reason...the rest of it...uhm...well its tons better than being at home in Trivandrum counting the droplets of sweat dripping off my forehead....alright so maybe that was a little gross...but that's wat usually happens when i stick in front of my pc for over 8 hrs at a stretch without the fan or ac working......

You won't believe this but when i typed or...i was wondering if the syntax was right...yep the IT fever has stuck on...and I've been doing a bit too much of SQL....that reminds me, guys I've been put up in the Oracle division of one of the depts of Wipro.....the name of it won't really matter...trust me...hehe it took us over 3 weeks to figure out wat exactly the dept was :) and I wouldn't want you guys..my poor readers to break their heads on it...no i don't underestimate you guys but...hey come on...its not worth it :) So guys..the next thing you know, you'll hear of a professional DBA named Shanim who has suddenly taken over operations of Oracle and brought the share price of the same to an all time low with over 40,000 databases crashin at a single instance....yep the day is not too far away!

Alright outta there and into another weird thing that happened in my life...yeah i know it should be called normal since its my life but then again...i need to emphasize na? alright...have you ever had a situation when you a call a friend and you get some1 else on the phone asking you wats your problem and why you called? Well yep...I've had this situation once when I was like...uhm...12 and now!!!!!!! For a moment I thought I was finally admist professionals and stuff...but hey the kids are still around...had a fun laugh after that situation :) reminded me of how we used to fight for girls and say things like "you keep off or we shall meet outside"....uhm...wait...that was a dialogue in one of our bare-shirts' movies.....fyi...Salman...oh well...kids :)

Hmmm.....can't think up anything more....food just arrived and i've lost all concentration :) that reminds me...been working out a lot...its more of being stingy...been walking like 10kms a day :) hate paying for a rick...so i prefer walking..yeah true it takes a lot of time and energy...but well i gotta burn the thousands of calories i put in every day don't i? hehe...been eating like I haven't seen food ever in my life...food's cheap in some places and I managed to find out exactly where those joints are...and I've been feeding myself crazy! Shall explain...we were getting free lunches during our training at an external location...on Fridays we get noodles, fried rice, some chinese dish, another fried dish (usually paneer or potato) and then a bunch of other goodies....I usuall have four servings on these days....two for the noodles and another two for the fried rice :) ....not to mention...deserts!! and guys the food is amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alright...me quitting for now...till next time...Peace out!

Hey guys, yep I know...haven't been blogging for a while...uhm...a little too long if you ask me. But hey..wat am I to do...I spend most of my life in a vehicle getting back home now....yep I'm in Bangalore.

After a year long wait, I've finally joined Wipro and well the magic of being there has kinda dried off and life's just getting too busy and I'm getting a feeling that its really going nowhere. Its funny I was so keen on getting here and starting off and now all I do is wait for a weekend to get some sleep. Strange....this from an insomniac!! Alright quitting the boring serious talk and back to my own dearest self.

Lets start off with Bangalore...its a lovely place, beautiful ppl......uhm...let me be a little more specific...beautiful babes!!!!!! then moving on, superb weather...barring the two weeks after I joined when the Rain Gods were working overtime....yep the beautiful floods of Bangalore which shattered one of our offices down at Madivala (for all those of you who have no idea wat that is, its the name of a place...and no its not Mad I watever!!). And then we move onto the most talked about topic in Bangalore....the roads and the traffic.......uhm...let me explain, have you ever parked your car and sat inside it for 2 hours just looking at the boot of the car up front with a bunch of ppl honking at you for no reason watsoever and a rickshaw and a bike fighting it out just to pass through the square inch of a space between your car and the car beside you? Welcome to Hosur Road! Adding to injury...the roads are far from smooth, its more like going through a roller coaster with the cars having square wheels! Anyways I've moved off from Electronic City for a while...been pushed off to MG Road for training and uhm...nope its no better on this side of town either.

Oh crap....gotta cut this post short...shall get back to you guys soon with a lot more crap in a day or two...gotta run....

Its almost 4am and has been one long night. Yep, I’ve been packing and since I leave at 5:30 in the morning to the Railway Station to catch my train to Cochin it doesn’t really make sense sleeping. All those who don’t know me too well, yep I’m a crazy insomniac who doesn’t like the idea of sleeping. I’ve always come home for the weekends from my college in Chengannur during my four years there and there have been days when I hadn’t slept on both Sat night as well as Sun night and I would end up having a nice nap during my labs. Its always fun being caught ‘coz at most times I end up answering all the questions asked by my dearest lecturers when I’m half asleep. Hmmm…have a feeling I ought to sleep more often, might actually come up with some innovation that I can patent and make millions…

Wanted to start this blog entry talking a bit on marriages. I really can’t understand the concept behind putting tons of gold on the bride. I really pity brides on their marriages, they’ve to paste a smile on their faces 24X7 as well as hold all the gold on their neck without stooping. Hmmmmm………guys seriously wats the point in all that? Yes ppl, it does imply that we guys will have to end up giving her a massage on her neck for atleast a month plus to get it back to normal….in case you’re a keralite muslim....increase that tenfold! Our cultures are pretty unique…and I guess I kinda figured out where the world got an idea of putting an ‘L’ board on vehicles with users who’ve just got a new license (alright its not exactly a new license but more of a learner’s license…didn’t want our naughty users to get ideas). You see our nation devised this ages back, its called “virunnu” in here, when the newly weds have to visit every single household in a 3000 mile radius and yep the poor bride will have to carry the ‘L’ board (read ‘tons of jewelry on her neck’)….why? I’ve never understood. Guess it was a scam that was created by our forefathers and the jewel tycoons like Alukkas and Bhima back when we were some molecule of carbon deep within the crust of the earth…..if it were…you guys at Exon and K-Mart…learn something!

Alright I’m kinda happy with my research and I have to say it out again (all those who’ve heard this before..sorry…I’m too excited)…well its something pretty interesting. “More than 90% of all Indian girls have their names ending with a vowel.”  This does include names that end with a ‘Y’…replace that with an ‘I’ or and ‘E’ and it’s the same result…..yaaaaay!!! Three cheers to Shanim and his discoveries :)

There’s another thing I kinda wanna tell you guys about. A friend of mine was telling me about a forward he got. I can’t really remember the exact thing but it was something like this. A guy and a girl were on a bike, the guy was going fast (duh! nothing new!!) and the girl asked him to slow down as she was getting scared (quit nagging for a change). The guy said it was fun and he refused to slow down but after a while he did….and then he suddenly asked her to tell him how much she loved him and then asked her to take his helmet and put it on. The next thing you know the newspapers scream loud and wide that there was a bike accident and the guy dies while the girl survives….

Ok so it does sound pretty sweet and romantic and stuff…but lets give it a second thought. Theoretically, brake failures aren’t dangerous unless you’re going downhill, you’ve run out of road or you’ve no brains. You see, there is something called engine braking wherein you just leave the accelerator, and start lowering the gears as you gradually reduce speed. Yeah it may cause you engine to blow, but hey wat’s more important, your bike’s engine or your life? You decide! Secondly, he asked her to take his helmet off and put it on…now if I were riding a bike with a brake failure, the last thing I would want is a big huge thing taken off my face to take my vision off the road for a few seconds…the way helmets here are designed, lets make that a few minutes! If they did get into an accident, I’m sure it must’ve been ‘coz of that! And lastly, what was he thinking in the first place?!?!?!?? Its his love we’re talking about right? Who would in their sane mind ride a bike recklessly fast when you have your most precious possession behind you? Ok this sounds pretty weird from one of the most reckless bike riders living inside the Corporation of Trivandrum (also known as Thiruvidangore/Travancore/Thiruvananthapuram…and if some ppl have their way with it Ananthapuri)…but well its true, I wouldn’t ever want the person who sits behind me get hurt ‘coz of me, and well if its someone I love, trust me I’d be going as slow as possible :)….you see, knowing ‘that’ person is sitting behind me, I wouldn’t want the ride to end in the first place….so why move fast??

Weird thoughts yes…aaaah weird reminds me, does any1 really know wat the red button with an inverted triangle on your car is for? Apparently none of the drivers in Kerala do. According to them it’s to tell everyone around them that they’re moving forward in a junction and not taking a turn….hmmm…I personally think most of these guys are just warning us how dangerous they can be in a junction and to keep off. For God’s sake it’s a Hazard light!!! Pissed me off the other day when I had taken my darling out to celebrate the lowering of fuel prices here. Got into sooo many thoughts I’d forgotten to pay attention to the road……a long ride later I came to my senses and well I was halfway to Kanyakumari and had already crossed the border into Tamil Nadu!…I really gotta start concentrating! Speaking of which, I made a huge blunder a while back. Had to get tickets for the morning train and since I hate standing in a long line early in the morning, I decided to get it at 9pm….left home and headed to the railway station which is around 13kms from my place, stood in the line and when I had just another person in front of me I realized I had left my wallet in front of my PC!!! sigh, had to come all the way back and go again to get the ticket :( pathetic me!

Anyways, guess this entry is long enough already…stopping for now…will be back in India  second week of October and hopefully shall keep blogging during my vacation.

Cya guys….

Hey guys, thanks for all the feedback :) Alright Alright, I get the picture, will cut down the length of my posts from now on. Hope you guys will continue visiting.

Today I finally went for Friday prayers after a whole 2 weeks....no I wasn't lazy, its just that life wasn't letting me. Two weeks back I was halfway home from Abu Dhabi (ok so maybe Bangalore ain't halfway, but you get the picture) and then last week I was in Administrative hell....also called Kerala Water Authority....the buggers actually charged us close to 5k on water! Alright so we haven't been paying for 10 yrs, but seriously, hasn't God gifted us water and hasn't He given us the right to use water without paying for it!?! Sigh....anyways after a bunch of walking up to different offices strategically placed 10 kms apart from each other in the city, I've finally been instructed by the accounts dept in my ward to pay the bill 4 days later (4 days from today ie.) as he has to update the details of my account. Four days to update a record?? Talk about efficiency....uhm...but wait, I would too, 'coz it would take forever to find a record in the piles of dusty files that lie in these offices.

Anyways, back to where I'd started, I went for prayers and it felt good. Finally got to talk to God about a few things I needed. Its like a huge shopping list everytime I go for Juma'a. Once the prayer was over, I was out and on my way to my bike, which I had to park on the other side of the newly constructed underpass in the city. This is another architectural wonder in Trivandrum. Why a wonder you ask? Well firstly, it really doesn't serve a purpose (yet). The approach roads are designed such that you will reach the tunnel at an alarming speed of 10kmph! No I didn't miss a digit there, I actually meant ten kilometers per hour! The other day I had decided to actually use this underpass....wanted to go from Palayam to Bakery Junction and well this was the best option (the alternative was to drive...ok ride my bike 4kms round two stadiums and cut in to ..... oh well u get the pt, go a long way round). I moved in a real slow pace and finally got to the tunnel, was impressed at the design (barring the bump at the bottom of the tunnel) and was able to cruise through at 80kmph (yeah guys 80 is pretty fascinating here....and considered reckless, more on that later) and finally when i got out of it I get to see a broken down sign that says "One Way"!!! A huge screech and a stare from the man in white and khaki later I was stopped right at the center of the road. Started moving reeeeally slowly and with a huge smile I asked the cop if it was safe to move further or had I lost another 100bucks as a ticket. He just laughed and said it was ok...shocked me! Supposedly PWD considers all sign boards on the road as art and they refuse to remove the same once its no longer required....wats worse? The real "One ways" don't have signboards, just a cop on the other side of the road with a big fat book of tickets. (I've always been lucky, high speeds and tactical movements behind buses and ricks have always helped)

Speaking of my riding, yes ppl I'm considered unsafe on the roads, and so are the rest of the licensed drivers in Trivandrum. Owing to my speeds, most people refrain from sitting pillion on my bike (barring a few friends who love taking risks....got all of them to sign Life insurance with me as the benefactor ;)). So the next time you are in Trivandrum and you see a Blue CBZ with a person whose face is blinded by a bright white light (no this is not my halo....neither is it an ad for a toothpaste...its just the glare off my forehead) avoid sticking your hand out for a lift, 'coz im sure you would regret it.

So what exactly had I started this blog for again....aaah yesh, the Palayam underpass...Its soo beautifully constructed and the engineers have to be applauded for their innovation. This can surely be considered the most idiotic construction as we actually have to walk almost a km to cross over to the other side of the tunnel thanks to there being no provisions for pedestrians....to the guys at Punj & Lloyd, atleast a ropeway would have been good.....besides that, well I'm in for progress, and I'm sure within a year or two, once the road works are finally complete in our heavily dug up town, its gonna be one smooth ride.

Suggestion to Punj & Lloyd, please allot a lane for protesters from the Secreteriat to the Legislative Assembly. You really don't need to build more roads, just get that done and all traffic problems in the city shall disappear.

Hey guys, thanks for the response. You guys made me think twice(it was hard) and actually start a blog. I'll probably get that ready by the year 2010, so keep watching this space (or rather any other space you find that suits your fancy) :) Alright, I'm kidding, shall get one up real soon and let you guys know about it. Finally something to kill time.


Sameer, bad news, I never write :) you see I'm a pack of lazy bones and although I've been pestered by a zillion* of my College Magazine Editors, I haven't taken the pains yet. Let's see how the blog goes. Btw, to keep you guys occupied, I would seriously recommend Vinod's blog. The guy is from Chennai and placed in Infosys and trust me he is GOOOOOOD!!!! I had a lovely time laughing reading his thoughts on the ever famous Captain. For those of you who haven't seen tamil movies, he's the guy who's got his left leg on the grave (he's still pretty young though, just a measely 84), the right leg on the police jeep, armed with a pistol that can pierce through the toughest of concrete walls. And yeah, you won't find this guy going after gals, 'coz he's trying his best to get all the younger cuties off his back...supposedly he's irresistible! Uhm...if any of you girls actually find him so....pleeeeeeease let me know wat I could do to get that popular ;) And yeah, he has one thing that's a trademark of all police officers in the country. Come on guys, you don't need to work that brain of yours for that...its called a potbelly!


check it out, its http://vinodg.blogspot.com/ If you want that particular artile on the captain, its http://vinodg.blogspot.com/2004/10/unforgettable-captain.html and hey i don't know the guy...got this link through a friend of mine and I'm pretty impressed by his smart use of sarcasm. I really loved the intro on that particular article....its a must read guys!


So we have a huge conversation of stocks. Talk about the world's most formal word for "Gambling". :) Alright alright, we need a lot more brains that just the know-how of how to pull a stick and yell hoooray to get some money out of a Stock Exchange, but when you think about it, isn't all those fancy words just a ploy to get more of your money? For those of you who are pretty much illiterate on this, stocks don't usually reflect on a company's profits or losses or their performance over a fiscal. Those are valuable only to those people who eagerly wait for the dividends that the companies issue once every year. The price of these stocks, like most commodities in the market increase and decrease based on demand and well if I had a trillion dollars in my pocket (wonder how I could stuff that into my pockets in the first place) I could probably get the price of the most lousiest company up by over 20%. Thankfully such things haven't happened out here in India yet, but it did happen out there in the US a few years back and ended up with a bunch of corporate heads being sued bigtime! I see the same thing happening in the most youngest and promising stock markets, Dubai Financial Market, as well. Out there you see a bunch of oil rich guys in white dishdashas (for those of you who think that's a boxing match, think again, its the arabic word for their dress which is a national heritage and can get u behind bars in some prison halfway into a lonely desert if you put it on :) ) have a nice coffee at the coffee shop located inside the market and decide which stock to sc@#w and which no to. So I get back to my initial question, how is this different from gambling?


Today i discovered something on the net. Pretty proud of it actually. I discovered that too much of it can get reaaaaaally boring! I spent three hours this morning staring at the numerous instant messengers that I have installed for someone to come online. Took me a while finally decide on getting out of my home and getting some fresh air. Opened my door only to find a certain spider who was actually shouting at me for having messed up his 3 month old home. The guy had the nerve of settling in without a lease and now he refuses to leave. When i finally kicked him out, he spat on my face and bit me on my leg. Thankfully it has resulted only in a minor swelling which i'm sure would lead to something drastic tomorrow and my left foot might need to be amputated. Anyways, one thing led to another and I was blinded for a whole 15 minutes. Got scared seeing something soooo bright on my face....it seemed soo beautiful yet it hurt my eyes soo much.....took me a while to realise it was the sun shining onto my face. Yipes! I really need to get my head checked! Anyways managed to get outta my house on my bike which has been due for service for the last six months....sigh....poor darling of mine...she was coughing all the way, patted her as much as i could and apologised for not thinking of her for quite sometime. Think she's angry with me....she didn't speak to me halfway through.....


uhm...that reminded me....don't believe in ads! The other day I decided to fill Extra Premium on my bike, filled a whole 100 bucks worth and it looked pretty neat on my fuel dial as well. Took my darling for a spin, went around almost all parts of this beautiful town of trivandrum which is oh so filled with protestors and lazy govt staff who love taking their day off. Come to think of it, they really do exercise a lot. I mean it does take a lot of energy to scream out the same ol' slogans through the roads and walk around 4 kilometres from the Kerala Secreteriat to the Kerala Legislative Assembly. Why didn't I think of that? Hey anyone from Trivandrum interested in blocking traffic for the next week, I think I have a protest up my head.....lets see....yeah "A Protest against protests!" :) how's that? Alright back to my darling and me on our romantic ride around .....uhm...alright lets just picture a beautiful green grassland (can't really make trivandrum seem romantic)...felt my darling screaming for a drink in between, but like the ad when i checked up the fuel dial and the length of the road, it seemed fine guess i could get to the next fuel station without a prob. ...... you guessed it right...my guess was absolutely wrong! Had a ball of a time dragging my bike all the way to the nearest BP station for some Speed (and this time around no way there is absolutely no gain of Speed by putting that thing in her!). So guys don't believe in ads.....or wat Shanim says, 'coz I just made that up :) hehe...alright fine so maybe i forgot to put the fuel position back on main after a long drive in reserve...but hey I need to blame some1!


Alright guys, guess most of you don't want me to write long mails so I shall cut this short....uhm...oops...its already long! aaaaaaaah I really gotta do something about my fingers!


* zillion = 3