2007

It takes one comment, one line to see a person in a totally different light.
It takes one incident to realize that u judged a community too early
Sometimes u realize that u r a different person then the one u thought u were.

I missed my customary New Yr Post. As always, better late than never.

Arrival of 2006 was celebrated with a few friends on the banks of Ganga in Rishikesh.2006 was supposed to be the year of transition from college life to professional life.
I had experienced the uncertainities, the problems, the home sickness etc that come with change earlier. And assuming that I was more 'mature' and hence more equipped to deal with these things meant I wasnt too worried. As Chandler would have said "Could I be any more wrong".

But I have to admit, 2006 hasnt been all that good to me. Last semester in college was gr8 but there were some fights & issues that I could and I should have avoided.

And after 7 semesters of cursing Roorkee and wanting to get out asap, I picked out the worse possible time i.e. the 8th sem to realize that I will miss Roorkee.

The first 6 mnths at Bangalore havent been the best. I mean 3 accidents in 6 mnths. CMH hospital shld have offered me Frequent Patient plan.

To add to all of these, loss of HrishiDa (My fav Hindi movie director of all time), Zizou (The Soccer God), Michael Schumacher (Any introductions needed ?) made it the yr when I have to find new idols. Still looking, but these boots r not easy to fill. And I dont even need to speak abt how RM has been performing.

I have had worse yrs but I have also had better ones. Now every cloud is supposed to have a silver lining. Maybe I just didnt c it this yr or I'll realize it in retrospection sometime l8r. For the time being, 2007 offers a new beginning, a new hope. After all, that's the reason why we celebrate New Yr.

And also New Yr means Resolutions. I guess I'll continue my last yr's resolutions only. So same resolutions for the second consecutive year. Now to c those resolutions, I'll have to check my post for 2006 resolutions, which is not a good omen. But lets hope.

Wishing everyone a Happy New Yr 2007

Anatomy of a (former)Chat Addict

Chat Addict - That's the nick name some ppl gave me. I have to admit that they were right to some extent. Some ppl say I still am but I know I have cut down a lot.
Reasons: Work pressure, Realization that I m wasting their time as well and bringing down the productivity of India as a whole or that my lead caught on the fact. Take ur pick

For chat addicts, the gchat feature was a boon. Yahoo doesnt come with an integrated chat & mail client feature and the chat msgs sent by someone just pop up out of the blue on the screen. As Murphy's Law goes, the msgs would pop up at the worst moment like when the lead is at ur desk and someone pings u "Cant believe that a lazy ass like u could be working". Agreed it could be a lot worse like "Heard ur lead is a jerk" but this one was bad enough.

Sometimes, u end up having totally arbit chats with friends. Like in a chat, the two of us started to come up with Hindi names for superheroes.

Superman = MahaMard
Spiderman = MakdiMard
Spiderman 2 = MakdiMard Dwitiya
Batman = BallaManav
Birdman = Chidimard
X-Men = Kaunmard

Another unusual thing was that because of my name, some random guy would pick up my id from somewhere, think of me as a girl and start eflirting. Well, if the guy is that foolish, I deserve to have some fun at his expense. Those 1 hr chats r the most fun ever. I still laugh when I go thru those chats in my chat history.

Having cut down on chats, I took the liberty to sit back and observe the status msgs displayed by various friends in the chat list.

The most common ones were lyrics from famous songs with Pink Floyd being the most popular. Comfortably Numb, Comfortably Dumb, We Dont Need No Education (status msg of student with exams arnd the corner) and a few more.

One friend went for shayaari status msg:
- Dil jit le wo jigar hum bhi rakhte hai..katl kar de wo nazar hum bhi rakhte hai..Wada kiya hai kisi ko hamesha muskurane ka, varna aankhon mein samandar hum bhi rakhte hai..

- Rabba mein itna bura nahin hota, agar tu bewafa nahin hota

Another popular category was that of ppl sharing their life experiences or just picking up quotes on life by someone

- Realize things before its too late. Have lots of friends before you are alone. Accept things rather than deny them. Love people before you lose them. Life comes just once. Love it while you live it.

- Friendship is not about how you forget but how you forgive. Not how you listen but how you understand. Not how you see but how you feel. Not how you let go but how you hold on.

- Perhaps the easiest way to lose something is to want it too badly

- Everything looks amazing when viewed from a distance, its the closeness to any place, situation, person or event that reveals its true ugliness, hopelessness, despondency or hypocrisy

- if only the doors of perceptions were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is...infinite

- It is better to fail in originality than succeed in imitation

Some words on deadlines

- Deadlines r like horizons. Look beautiful from a distance but trying to meet them is impossible

- Deadlines r like monsters who look like innocent children from a distance

But my personal favourite category would be cheeky, humorous status msgs

- I slept & dreamt that life was beauty. I woke up & found that life was duty

- Coming to office on Mondays is bad. Coming to office on Mondays with lots of work is worse.

- Intelligence chases me but I m faster.

- Booze is the answer. I forgot the question

- A man got 2 wishes from GOD. He asked for the Best wine and Best Woman. The next instant, he got the Best Wine and Mother Teresa next to him. Moral of the story : Be Specific

- Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names

My Second Fav status msg till now: If electricity comes from electrons.... does morality come from morons?

And the best one so far: FREE TUTORIALS on "How to SCREW an easy exam paper ?" ... Services open ... 24*7*365 ...

The usual stuff:
Watched Casino Royale on Sun. Surprisingly, Daniel Craig looked good as Bond. The story is a prequel i.e. James Bond doesnt have 007 status at the beginning of the movie. Apart from half an hr of stretched love story of Bond (which is the norm this yr for superhero stories - Remember Superman Returns), the movie was good.

Wanted to see Dhoom 2 this weekend. But all tkts for the weekend were booked on Mon. A week without a movie.

Went bonkers in Blossoms- a book store in Bangalore. Wanted to buy 10 books but decided on 6. Convinced my friend to buy 3 of them. But with loads of work, no reading for now.

RM win in La Liga but draw in CL. RM is having an average season at home. Hope it gets better with time. Real Madrid take on Valencia on Sun, cant wait.

Officially Engineer now.

Warning: This post might not be the usual post like the one on Murphy's Law or the previous post on Dentists. Instead, it might oscillate between philosophical to senti stuff.

Convocation- The culmination of a dream. Maybe the first real dream I had - To become a Computer Science Engineer from an IIT. Seems just like yesterday that I was at bansal's trying to remember the colour of fumes in chromyl chloride test and today, I am trying to get my code to work by any possible way.

But between that yesterday and this today, are the four years at IIT Roorkee. The highlights of those 4 yrs would be - the terror of ragging in the 1st semester, the false allegation of being the ragger in the 3rd semester, winning the bplan contest in 4th, Starting Chaos 2005 in 6th semester, the pressures of getting a job in 7th semester and establishing an Entrepreneurship Cell in the 8th semester.
These highlights were punctuated by seemingly never ending tests, quizzes & practicals. As I have quoted before "Experiences can be bitter but memories are always sweet"

After receiving the degree and coming back to Bangalore, I didnt feel the same elation that should come with the completion of the dream. Maybe this was one of those destinations where the journey was more exhilarating than the destination itself. In any case, I have to start looking for new objectives, new dreams. For too long, being a graduate was the only thing on the horizon. Convocation was the symbol to get over it and start moving ahead.

Alrite, enuff of the senti, philosophical stuff. Back to the usual updates.

Real Madrid beat Barca convincingly and I gloated to every Barca fan on chats, mails & SMS. 2 matches l8r Real Madrid lost at home to Celta Vigo and my inbox got full bcoz all Barca fans I had gloated to had the opportunity to get back at me.
|Sigh| Some people just cant use the opportunity to being the better ones by not gloating.

Schumi retired after this year's F1. Lost to Alonso but drove an amazing final race. Showed everyone who is the king. The media is divided with debates abt him trying to win at all costs, him being the flawed genius blah blah. Alrite just one question- Give an honest answer to whether you would have done the same thing or not, if u were in his situation. Schumi was not a superman although he certainly drove like one. Without him, F1 will never be the same.

Have been downloading lots of stuff lately. Podcasts, Movies, Movie OSTs, TV Serials and Documentaries. Just dont miss "The Departed" at any costs. Ranks right at the top with Scorsese's best. Dhoom 2 releasing this weekend. Some idiot already mailed me the suspense. Now I am in a moral dilemma whether to tell it to u ppl and spoil ur movie too or not.

Another Monday. Monday is the worst day especially if u r back from a holiday. The cartoon below captures perfectly what I plan to do every Monday but dont. Something stops me. Maybe my goodness or the knowledge that I will be able to use it only once (Cant have a virus on my PC every Monday. Not even the IT guys r that foolish). Saving it for when I need it the most.

Dentists

The unfortunate accident I had resulted in me requiring Root Canal Surgery and quite a few visits to a dentist. Now this wasnt the first time I was visiting a dentist but somehow Dentists scare me more than say Heart Specialists. The reason is simple:

Doctors use tools like scalpel which inspite of being dangerous looks elegant. However, dentists use tools which resemble more like tools from a carpenter's workshop.
When doctors operate upon a patient, the patient is in a sedated state. He cannot hear or see what's going.
In the case of a dentist, well firstly the injection in gums hurts like hell. After that u c the tools of terror like miniature saws, drills at work. One can close his eyes but can do nothing about the sounds of these tools at work which resemble a constuction site. The difference is that you know that the construction site is your mouth this time.

All said and done. The dentist was a very experienced one and didnt give up inspite of all my tantrums (although the bill told my the reason behind this). Glad to put it all behind me.

Planned a Goa trip on the 3-day weekend. Tried to take everyone I know but ppl didnt confirm till the last moment. Last moment, everyone else refused and we 3 who started the project were the only ones left. As we were waiting for others to confirm, all buses & trains got booked. So the trip is in jeopardy now. Seems like first mover disadvantage to me.It is so tough to ask ppl to relax and have a good time.

On the other hand, saw lots of movies. Pyaar ke side effects is a wonderful movie. Watch to know what guys have to suffer. Miami Vice, Bas Ek Pal can be left unless you have lots of time to waste.

Soccer season gets off to a gr8 start. RM joint leaders with Barca in La Liga. The defence looks solid with only one goal so far. But not celebrating yet. Knowing RM, they can go from extraordinary to ordinary in mins and the season has only begun. But now I dont have to take all those barbs from my other soccer fans. This is a new feeling after the past 2 seasons. Lets c how long it will last.

Goodbye Andre!

Tennis is different from most other games in respect that its an individual sport. In soccer, players might retire but the club is always there. Hence, whenever a tennis player retires, a void is created which takes some time to fill.

Last night, there were three of us watching Agassi v/s Becker in US Open. Agassi was 2 set down and was playing what would be the last match of his career. The whole stadium, in fact I think every Tennis follower was willing Agassi to win but it was not to be. No more Andre Agassi in action from now on.

First of all, I'll confess that I was never a die-hard Andre Agassi fan. Firstly, it was Pete Sampras
and now its Federer who rules in that respect.

But somehow its hard not to like Andre Agassi. The perennial underdog, firstly against Pete Sampras and then against Federer. The guy who has done it all & won everything in Tennis. A career spanning more than 20 yrs.

Sampras v/s Agassi was the rivalry of the last decade. It was fitting that they played against each other in the 2002 US Open finals after which Pete retired. Just two quotes that capture Agassi like none other

Pete Sampras:
"He's made me a better player. He's brought moments to my career that are like Borg and McEnroe. Those guys needed each other. I've needed Andre over the course of my career. He's pushed me. You know, he's forced me to add things to my game. He's the only guy that was able to do that. He's the best I've played."

Unknown:
"Agassi has known it all, the victories, the decline, the renaissance and victory again. His path through tennis is symbolic of life."

Just a thought from Sid. With the kind of genes that the children of Agassi & Steffi have, who will have a chance in front of them ?

Zidane gone. Agassi gone. There r rumors that next yr even Schumi might retire. Have to look for so many new idols.

Just an ending note. Saw "Lagey raho Munnabhai". Its an exception to the Law of Sequels. Even better than Munnabhai MBBS. We were laughing so loudly that the lady next to us requested us to tone it down so she could hear the dialogues. Munna and Circuit surely make it to Bollywood Hall of Fame. Cant think of any character other than Anand that I loved so much. Hope the series continues forever.