Life's a crazy mess!

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

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

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

A whole five months have passed since I joined my company its been one hell of a ride. A good one at it :) After a month long training we were made to put our learnings to practice. This involved skills on kite flying, dancing, and screaming the hell out of our brains with the Rock Concerts followed by strenous physical torture on the basketball field, and the TT tables of the campus. The fun was short lived though. They had then realized that although our skills in the above were great, we were far from their desired requirements on the IT front. And poof...another training. And now another....which will be followed by another and another and another.....basically its just gonna go on till they are certain we have brains. Sigh....a never ending scenario in my case. Its what one would call an infinite loop.

Start -> Does Shanim have the required intelligence? -> * If yes, Place in project ; * If no, Place in training -> Add another training to list -> Repeat query, if no re-iterate, else case yes.

Basically I've never been able to reach the "case yes" criteria as of yet. Hence, I'm enjoying the training :) But hey I ain't complaining, I'm joining my time in the company, its an absolutely lovely place to be in, not just for the chicks, but for the work culture and every bit of the company. Uhm.....guess I haven't mentioned the company's name yet have I? Its none other than the third best IT firm in India, the Rainbow flowered Wipro Techonolgies :) The place to be in!

Last night I'd met up with one of schoolmates at Indranagar. Sundays do change the whole traffic scene in Bangalore. The roads are more or less empty, and I love riding around in my ever-loving CBZ then. A quick trip on the Inner Ring road and through CMH, I finally got to where we had decided to meet. "Cake Walk" was our destination but to our luck, it was full. We decided then to move onto the Cafe Coffee Day at CMH - Full again, 12th Main...full....100ft Rd....Full...finally after a long ride into Jeevan Bhima Nagar CCD we found a space to sit! Phew! And this is with Coffee Days ever few metres in Bangalore. I wonder what it would have been without them. hmmmm....yeah I guess the Barissta at Leela would overflow then. Oh well back to what I was getting at. We had this conversation that kicked off with the traffic at Bangalore and moved onto VAT and Power distribution in India (which according to a mag which he'd read is poor in india with approximately 50% loss in distribution alone!).

What got most of my attention was his conversation on the traffic scenario. Its true, Bangalore does have its share of good roads, why it has good roads all over and not just in select regions but the catch? All roads lead to Rome they say, in Bangalore, its more like "All Roads lead to a galli". Wide roads that have over 3 lanes suddenly disappear into tiny half laned roads with the same volume of buses, cars and ricks plying. Its more like a funnel trying to stuff in as many cars as possible to their destinations (A good example beng the Inner Ring Road as you head towards Koramangala). What more, we have a junction or a traffic signal every few metres, on an avg 500m apart. Yep, these are the reasons for our gridlocks.

"What about Hosur Road?" would be your question. Yep that was mine too :) Local traffic and the devious plan on BMTC to place all bus stops immediately after a junction! We spend over 10 minutes waiting for all the bikes, ricks and tempos to cross over in a junction...say in Singasandra and just as we assume the road has been cleared for movement, a BMTC/Tamil bound bus decides to stop and take in passengers, taking in not just the hard shoulder but the left lane to prevent anyone from moving ahead.

For the first time, I seem to see a solution in the right direction by our govt. They're off to build an elevated highway. But what I can't seem to understand is that why couldn't they think of this ages earlier? Did they really have to wait this long?? Bangalore, 5 yrs ago was probably the best place to be in...lovely roads, great weather, beautiful green promenades, shady trees, sparkling lakes and the works! Now, when you think of Bangalore, you think of cars, bikes, cars, bikes and more cars, and dust all around. A prayer goes out to all those who decide to take the Hosur Road to work (Electronic City ie.) for we may not know which Hosur bound/Wipro/Infy bus or truck would run over him. Quite a contrast won't you all agree?

The world hasn't really ended and there's always a second chance, lets just all pray that things do get better and the present HDK govt. keep their word on bringin back the Bangalore that we all once knew to be the "Green City of India"

A very merry Christmas to all of you out there! I love this day....quite a few reasons, one of it being gifts...sadly Santa seems to be forgetting me almost every year, but its always fun seeing kids' eyes glowing when they see themselves surrounded by gifts.

And there is something else special about this day. Its the only day when overweight guys (I plan on joining this group pretty soon) are really looked upon :) After all...Mr. Claus is hell overweight! And all of seem to be spoiling his diet by treating him with milk and cookies on X'mas eve......hmmm...think about it, with a population of over 1.5 billion, lets say around 40% of the same celebrate Xmas.....of which a generous 40% (most of us are lazy to bake those cookies in the first place, the rest would've finished it before our moms could leave some for our fat delivery boy :) ...ok ok sorry Santa...now i know why he's been forgetting me)....now with those numbers, its a lot of cookies...the guy must be gaining atleast 300kgs every Xmas eve! Poor him...uhm...wait I should be feeling sorry for his reindeers!

Speaking of giving, since I'm completely broke, I've decided to dedicate this blog to all my friends whom I had planned big gifts for but ended up being broke and couldn't even afford a 'Mentos' for them. This blog is dedicated to all my pals who made me who I am....will be mentioning a few names, but since I have too many complaints coming around about how long my posts are, I wouldn't be able to put all your names...sorry guys

First and foremost, let me start with my dearest gang in school....Akshath, Jameel, Jasim and Livin....the five of us were often call the Backside boys...no we weren't a band and we sucked at singing...but well there was another reason for the name. It all started with our Math sir in the 11th grade..the bugger couldn't speak english for peanuts! We guys prefered sitting at the back, you see its more comfortable sitting there and sleeping rather than smelling his mouth stuffed with 'paan' and suffocating to death! He hence called us Backside...we modified it a bit :)

uhm...small rewind, going back to my 9th and 10th, it was Mudassir, Abizar and Osama...something common here? Yep all four of us are muslims and we lived nearby...I was the only southie in the gang and maaan did I have a tough time learning Hindi (Mumbai-style)....rather learning how to speak the language...I still can't write well...hehe I studied the language for over six years and I still suck at it! The last Hindi exam I wrote, I passed with just 5 marks above the pass mark...and this was after a 11 hour phone conversation with another pal of mine Ajay (the guy was a brainiac!!!!) discussing every single mathra in the bloody classwork book...did it work? naaaaa...:) Muddi is out in Dubai trying to figure out why he is still studying when all of us are working and Abizar is in Pune trying to figure out which chemical would result in the next fuel revolution (he's a Chem Engineer)...as for Osama....if any of you know where this guy is, please do inform me....the last I heard was that he was walking around someplace in Mumbai looking like the local "Bhai"....hmmm...

Mumbai reminds me...Vicky...buddy how can I forget ya??? Vikas is a guy who is still a kid by heart....and he's got a stomach that seems to have no end. Doctors tried to figure things out by telling him he had a stone and operated on it...they're still baffled. The guy can stuff himself with two whole pizzas, 2 burgers and a 1 foot Subway sandwich and still have enough space in his stomach to eat dinner at home.....which usually is a lot of rice and a couple of curries. Yeah now you guys know where I got my eating habits from! The guy is a big fan of Manga cartoons...so if any of you have a bunch of Pokemon or similar cartoon tapes...let me know..

The blog would seriously be incomplete if I don't mention two gals who really left a mark in my life...Aparna and Zahabiya.......yep yep thaliya thaliya...and yes I was teased with both these gals in school....uhm...come to think of it I was teased with all gals in school....sigh...A2Z...now I remember :( alright let me get back to wat I was trying to write out here. Two real sweet gals, seriously! Zahabiya was the short tempered...wait...wat am i saying "was"...she is still the same short tempered idiot who keeps getting bugged about everything around her...esp me :) hehe I'm scared to meet her now actually, might end up getting my leg amputated or something....but I admire the gal a lot for the strength she had and got through some of the worst things in life :) as for Aparna...she's one of the sweetest gals I know...yep I know there are quite a few of her classmates who would beg to differ...but hey...she is!

Speaking of strong ppl...I can't forget Sushmita there....she's actually the strongest gal pal I've made in my life...and probably the most creative of the lot...she's out there planning her new Youth Mag for Chennai...the very best of luck to her!

So I've missed many pals but I better move onto college else I just won't finish this post! College got me a big sister (yep in addition to the three I already have)...her name's Sheetal...the gal has soo much energy in her, I'm sure it would be enough to power the whole of South India!!! She was more or less my mini mentor in college, esp during those lousy Jr-Sr ego clashes...Vicky is busy looting her off her salary at this very moment by hogging away a bunch of free dinners :) Sheetal...don't worry, I'll be there soon :)

My hostelmates....Vijay, Ajith, Aji, Aneesh, Bobby, Jom, Saras, Abhi, Fiyaz, Ameen, Jose, Sujith, Jobin, John, Mathai, Pattar, Sukesh, Thahsin, Shaheen, Tinku, Shamju, Anuraj, Geo, Sony, Costy, Naigil, Sanju and every1 else from the MH....thanks for bringing a smile on my face everyday and the billion kicks on my ass for my birthday!

My roomie for three years, Shameer....the guy has seriously great talent with his guitar...wonder if he'll make a good replacement for Santana.....hmmmmm...naaaa maybe not ;)

My projectmates...Basheer and Manoj...these guys are the best...Basheer for one taught us all to take life as cool as possible and Manoj...the guy can make any situation hilarious.....if he were writing this blog instead of me, I'm sure half you guys would end up having a high BP for the laughter induced!

Anu Jose Pala....the idiot whom I made my little sis...she's the gal who taught me how to talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk....and then realise that my bill has actually sky rocketed!!!

Jayarani...a gal who thinks of everything...let me explain, on our tour to Goa and Bangalore in the 3rd year, she carried everything except the kitchen sink....seriously! anything we needed, she had in one of her bags!

Deepak, Manu, Vivin, Silas, Sajan, Sneha, Bency and all the other juniors in the Training and Placement Cell of my college...it was teamwork in lieing to different companies about how great our college was.....it was only when I was out of college that I realised we weren't really lieing!!!

Alright so maybe she's not from my college, but Susan...a friend who has always managed to bring a smile on my face even at my worst days....yeah she doesn't realise this but everytime I call her to console her about her endless problems ;) (she's surely gonna kill me for this), she goes on laughing at every sentence I speak...yeah some call it madness...but I call it cute...and yeah...she's one of the only ppl who comment on my site every other week....(Sameera you're another one...shall include you in my next post for sure)....speaking of Susan...how can I forget dear ol' Anoop...the nutty idiot who does the craziest of things...as an example...this guy actually travelled from his college to his place in Trv around 4 hrs and then went back halfway and got back home all in a day's time (or was it two?)....watever and the reason was pretty funny...not getting into that, 'coz im sure he's already ready to beat me up!

And last but not the least...Tina...the sweetest gal I've met...she's celebrating her Birthday today, so lets all wish her a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! :)

So that's my Christmas gift for this year...hope all of you enjoyed it....

Merry Christmas once again!!!!!!!

PS: To all those whose names I haven't mentioned....am reeeeally sorry, but this post is getting waaaaay too long...sorreeeeee

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....