Yes, I am in Love......

Can you fall in love twice in the course of one day? Well, it happened to me last week.

Twice, knocks came on my door last Thursday. Two gorgeous beauties, each in a different way. One a sleek model, a great traveling companion… well, actually a must-have kind of companion. Heavily into music (and movies too (). The other one, more serious like, great in almost all conditions. So, now the position is, I can’t think whom I love more.

So, without further ado, here are my two new muses… Great, aren’t they?




A fifth generation iPod, sleek black model, with my name carved on the back. 30 GB storage for music, photos and movies.

And a Sony Vaio S560. A very lightweight model, a true traveling companion. Comes with 100 GB hard disk, and DVD writer. What more does a person want??? I had borrowed a friend’s old laptop till now (Anuj, thanks a lot man… May your married life be a paradise for just one good deed, for others, the wishes are in line) But, having your own laptop, and a Sony one at that, is a different feeling.

Let me tell you one thing here, sitting in a coffee house, working on your laptop sipping a good coffee, is there anything more in life to crave? (That is a rhetorical question, I know the answer. I am not so ignorant you know!)

Anyways, I am going to San Jose tomorrow. Will have a lot of things to write about in next 15 days, what with visits to DisneyLand and Universal Studios being planned.

So, till then, it’s me, and my beauties…



P.S. Looks like this is my second post where I mention love. Am I getting too romantic?? (Battle Stations… Battle Stations…)

Back after a long time...

My first fortune cookie told me: “Nature, time and patience are the three great physicians”. This came at a time when nature is turning cold, time is flying, and patience… err, what is this thingy?

Well, I have been thinking of updating this page for quite a while now. But then, a lot many factors conspired together to keep me away from putting my thoughts on paper (paper, notepad, word… same difference). So much was going on, and I had so less time to think of anything else. The college was going on in full swing. I had to write a lot of tests. Overall, last 3-4 weeks were one of the most physically and mentally draining weeks in my life.

But now, I am back… “Restored” in the words of one of my friends! And, I present to you, some strips which kept me sane for last some weeks,


1. PhD Comics: "Piled Higher and Deeper", the ongoing chronicle of life (or the lack thereof) in grad school.
I came across this site by chance when searching for a friend’s blog. And believe me, grad students were never depicted better. For all current grad students, read and procrastinate… for all future grads, read on to see what you are getting into!



2. Sinfest: (Wikipedia says,) often makes fun of popular culture, society, religion or human nature. Though sometimes uses “profanity and broaches controversial topics such as religion and sexuality frequently and with few restrictions”. But believe me, the God vs. Devil word-fights are beyond cool.
Contains my latest crush, Monique...

And last but not the least,


3. Garfield: Everyone loves this “fat, lazy, cynical but endearing” cat (claims of Nermal notwithstanding). I don’t think I need to add anything more, except “Big, fat, hairy deal”.

So read on and enjoy…

On more personal front, this also seems a time when I am getting raw deal from quite a few of my acquaintances. Yesterday was another day when I got shot online. Can you believe somebody actually accused me of saying that she is the last girl boys will go out with? No time to go in details, but this was the worst blow to my gentleman’s spirit after this little girl standing below. As Slick would say, the cheek of the chick...

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Damsel and Distress

My friends can testify (when in one of their rare truthful moods) that I am not a person who (in PuLa's words) pokes my (non-)dirty nose आपलं ज्यात त्यात ('in affairs not concerning myself', for non-marathi people). So I am still trying to find the cause of this severe epistaxis one of my acquaintances gave me today morning.

Well rested, I woke up early morning to start for the college. As I had more time that usual in the morning (by virtue of there being late quiz, not me waking up early), I decided to check if anybody is there online with whom I can chat. And I was lucky, I found my dear sis, and one of my acquaintances whom I haven’t met for a long time.

So I pinged the lady in question, while simultaneously having a pleasent chat my sister. Here’s the conversation that took place.

Me: hi....
X: sorry I will talk to you later
Me: ok.... ping me when you are free
X: ho mi akashi online bolat ahe (I am chatting akashi)

Till this point, we both were pretty polite and all was going fine. I mean, anybody can understand that if a person is busy, he will not chat with you. No problems in that. But her comment was surprising. I mean how can anybody talk आकाशी(that’s ‘sky blue’ in marathi)? Now, I can understand people talking गुलाबी (romantic). Many of my friends do it all the time… but आकाशी???

So I shrewdly guessed that this was a typo on her side, and she wanted to say that she was talking XXXX शी. But then, my puzzled mind tried to fill in the blanks, and came up blank. There was a list of possibilities, akash, akka, asha etc etc… (I did not try after this)

So, I tried to clear my confusion


Me: konashi???
X: any problem to u?

I should have known that here I was on the edge of where no man has gone before. But my enterprising early morning (sleepy) self tried to limit the damage…

Me: problem ani mala??? no
X: mag kashala ase vicharales?tuzi ani mazi titakishi olakh pan nahi (Then why did you ask? You don’t even know me that well)


Talk about being touchy... At this point of time, I was totally lost. I had heard of curiosity being a feline-killer, but this was not even a case which can be filed under that heading. The words which came into my head at that time were not exactly the ones which can be said in front of a lady, so I retired from the conversation, nursing my bloody nose.

Somebody please tell me, where I went wrong? And yes, any cures for epistaxis are welcome.

All I can say is, I should have guessed the way my day was going to be by this.


P.S. Orkut has also joined in to wreck my day. On my home page, it tells me “You have 1 fans.” On clicking on the link, the table shows “none”. I live in air-conditioned apartment, but then I would like to know the name of the person who think I am worthy of this honor. Hilfe!!!!!!
(If anybody reading this is that person, or knows that person, Sorry I could not thank you properly... but thank you very much for that gesture!)

The Journey Chronicles (Part II)

Part two of the journey was London - New York - Raleigh-Durham (And, don't judge by my posts, there was only 1.5 hrs time between the flights). So again I got into the window seat of a "jumbo-jet" for a cross-atlantic hop to New York. The two adjoining seats were occupied by two french boys. नशीब ***** तो ***** (तबियतदार तज्ञांनी फुल्या भरून घ्याव्यात), so I was sure my whole time was going in watching the in-flight movies.

Now whoever said that in-flight movies are boring are probably in the age where Wright flier was still news. I got Hitch and Valiant, both of them excellent movies. What with the movies, and sleep in between them the flight was very short for me.

But who can imagine that while you are going from London to New York (i.e. heading west), you have sun shining straight at your window, so that you are forced to close the window? Believe me, I kept the window closed for almost the whole time, except when we reached american coast (flying south from Canada, if you can imagine that :o) My voisin requested me to keep the window open, while landing, which was anyway my plan.

So finally, we were flying over the american land, and of course sea. (Believe me, I counted at least 10-15 baseball and football-american version-grounds in 15 minutes). When the plane (finally) reahced New York, we all rushed to the immigration control. (Where was the Statue of Liberty??????) There was a looong (रामाच्या शेंडीपासून सीतेच्या शेपट्यापर्यंत) line for that, luckily containing passengers from only one plane. Finally the procedure was over, I had stamp on my visa, and I was legally allowed to enter American territory as an alien (MIB, here I come...)

Going to collect my bags to transfer them to the domestic flight, I got the good news that one of my bags was not seen from London. I think this is my contract with all airlines that they try to reduce the load I am carrying by sending my baggage later. Next time I am going to carry only cabin baggage and hope that they don't keep that with them too. Anyways, there was no customs check (so that all the chutnis, papads, laddus etc got safely out, except those which were in missing bag), and I gave my bag to the staff at the domestic terminal, and started towards the gate for my flight. I had almost 2 hours before the next flight.

The aircraft for next flight was an embraer which is going to be used by our belived Prime Minister and President. Good choice, Mr. Prime Minister... Anyways, I reached Durham safe and sound (minus one bag, and after getting younger, or maybe older, by some 10 hours). My friend was waiting for me, and we started for his home. The highways reminded me of the Germany. the only difference was that in germany, the taxi needed heater, here we needed cooler in the car. I wasn't feeling any jet-lag and we were conversing very happily, meeting after 2 years.

I got to his room, and told him to continue with his plans for the evening (playing volleyball) while I take bath and watch some TV. I still wasn't feeling tired or jet-lagged. So I took into bath, and sat down to watch TV. In 5 minutes, I was sleeping like a log...

The Journey Chronicles (Part I)

They say, getting there is half the fun. Well, in my case, I can say that it was fun, dunno about the half part.

The journey started at Mumbai airport. All of us were expecting that I can come back after checking in the airport, and meet them in the visitors' lounge. But then, it turns out that the visitors' lounge is closed for security purposes till 17th Aug, and I am leaving on 16th Aug... So the good byes were unexpectedly pretty brief, and I marched off inside.

By now airline travel is not novel experience to me, so completing the formalities is easy. But then, it turns out that BA is fighting their caterers... and we are left with free coupons to the airport restaurants. And I can tell you, whatever they say about the airline food, airport food (at least what we got there) is worse. And it also proves that even though "Army marches on its stomach", airlines do not need their belly full to fly. Maybe it is harder to fly after you stuff your stomach, don't know!

It is said in marathi that we meet Pandit in travels. (But) I met three guys like me, who are going to US of A for education. So there were four people sitting around that table, all four from different places in India, going to four different places in USA. Everybody was dying to call the people we left outside, and so the talk was pretty much limited to banalities, we even discussed Mumbai's weather. (But on the other hand, Mumbai's weather was a national topic of discussion then).

Marching off from eatery, I called up my parents, and we talked on phone even though we were within a kilometer range. कितने दूर, कितने पास... huh??? So the instructions/best lucks were all uttered on phone, and then I decided to wait for my flight to be called.

The line for security check was so small as to be invisible from distance, and the person behind me was wondering out loud if the flight is almost empty or what. The kind of questions he was asking me led me to believe that this is his first flight from India, and his accent was most definitely "फिरंगी". After going through all the checks and all, we talked some more, and turns out, he is going to Canada. I say, OK, a Canadian business class dweller... and then imagine my shock when he turns out to be an NRI straight out of Pune. I hope my accent and my Marathi is not like his after my years in USA.

Nothing much to tell about the flight, it was almost all completed in sleep. The window seats don't help in the night flight (and definitely not in afternoon ones). After waking up, the French coast was below us, and the British Isles were there on the horizon... It was really great to see the much heard of (and much read of in my case) English channel. After all, channels are to be seen, not to be read about ;)

Then it was fairly short distance (by 747 standards) to Heathrow. It really is HUGE airport. Getting for one gate to another is a looong walk, and with a bag in tow, it gets really boring. And when you have to eat something in the airport before catching next flight with just one hour for you, god help you!

Anyways, I somehow caught my flight, did not get lost in that जंजाळ, and was on the move for second leg of my journey.

One interesting thing though, however hard I looked down, I could not see a single cricket ground in the land where cricket originated...

The Separation

We celebrated our second anniversary this week. But now, its time for us to move on, and we will be separating next week. After all, we can’t carry on with the relationship when I am no longer here with her, right?

Two years of a great relationship! What memories I will carry with me! To say it was love at first site will be an understatement! I was in love with her even before we actually met. And the first meeting proved me right. We were made for each other. I was getting over my first crush.

But that didn’t mean the relationship was all a ride in the park. We had our ups and downs. There were days when neither of us could do anything wrong, and then there were days when even one word started a fight. But still, we carried on regardless. We knew neither of us was perfect, but we tried!

Two years have passed now. Almost three, if I start from the day we first met. Every day was a new experience. Every day taught me something new. Every day brought me new experiences. (We even have a foreign location song in this film.)

But somewhere, something was missing. My heart was now crying out for something different. My first crush was beckoning me. It was time to follow my heart. And so, we decided to separate.

So, finally I have resigned from my company, and going back to continue my studies in my favorite subject. Only one week to go, and it will not be “My Company” anymore, it will be referred as “My ex-“.

What I will miss in the company?

- The 4 months training with a great batch and even greater batch mates (hey, I miss it even now)



- My project and the night-outs (ok, I never stayed beyond 11.30, but still...)

- The project parties @ Planet X and the dinner after that in “Olive Gardens”

- My place, my computer and the “Pillar of PLM” in front of me (on my right hand side in photo ;))



- And last but not the least, my colleagues, who regularly come up with statements like this, and provided the targets for my “Puneri” sarcasm.

So with a sad heart, I am presenting the third (and last) edition of Tongue of Slips:

• "We will watch ‘Star of Wars’!!"
(In the climax of this film, Tom Cruise fights with Darth Vedar. May ‘The (F-)Fourteen’ be with you!)

• "We will start going home on Java!"
(Ok, I will start writing the code. Please fill in the blanks according to personal choice.
public class MotorCycle{…}
)

• "Panther को हिंदी में बघीरा कहेते हैं!" (Panther is called Bagheera in Hindi)
(Hindi Maha Pandit... Used Jungle Book as textbook)

• "We ordinary people have different nameplate template than PM (Project Managers)"
(public class The_Ordinary_Man extends The_Common_Man implements The_Software_Engineer)


Guys, keep up the good work, and Best Luck!!!

Roger, Tower, Fleiger is rolling...

If you have noticed, when you (ever!) shut down your windows PC, it goes through the following steps: Logging off, Closing Network Connections, Saving your settings and finally shutdown…

Speaking for myself, last week was my logoff period, I completed my remaining tasks. This week I am closing my network connections, will be completing some documents. Saving the settings comes next week, that’s when I will be “transferring all knowledge” (nice words, huh?) to my successor (cannot think of any other appropriate word)… And then comes the shutdown part. And finally, on 22nd July 2005, I will celebrate my Independence Day… by sending the “Last day @ ..” mail.

The story starts on a saturday in April. Bored at home, I came to office just for doing some timepass, and my mailbox had one new mail. I opened it with my heartbeat sounding like a hard rock night, and saw that it was a “Ja” instead of a “Nein”. (Let me tell you one thing at this point, getting a positive response from a university feels almost the same as getting a yes from your girlfriend. And till I get some experience of the latter, the comparison stands!)

Cut to 13th June 2005, and I was heading to American Embassy office in Pune. Submitted the form, and was presented with the question, “15th or 20th?” Amidst the worry that I may not complete my preps before that, I selected for 15th…

15th June finds me standing in sweltering heat of Mumbai, waiting for 11.15. 11:15 sees me still standing outside, contemplating a (not so) happy thought that I am gonna wait for 2 hours more. Like they say, when in India, follow IST.

I go inside the embassy @ 1:30, and then comes wait for another 1 hour. This time, thankfully while sitting on chairs under AC. The first thing you notice there is the notice boards displaying the news flashes in various newspapers… about how many people were caught for doing something illegal to get Visa. Nice way to welcome people, eh?

After waiting for some time under these conditions, my number is called. I wait in line in front of a window. The ever-present doubt about understanding the strange (to us) pronunciations and accent gets heightened by the nasal infection the embassy officer seems to be suffering from. The fellow in front of me in line gets the full brunt of his ire, and all my threat-receiver's dials start pinging at highest frequency. Trying to display a confident front, I stand in front of him. Then start the questions, for which everybody I know has tried to train me. 1 minute and 4 questions later, come the words, “I am granting you the visa. Best Luck!” and I don’t believe my ears. I am out of the embassy in next 2 minutes, still trying to understand that I have successfully passed one more hurdle for my Masters degree.

So, to cut the long story short, all the dials checked as normal, targets locked… and I just got cleared by Tower for taxiway 1.

Quick Quotes Quill

The Quick Quotes Quill continues its work... (With nightouts)...

So here is the next in series of some serious sayings by our industrious colleagues:

• "Can I switch off the Candle?"
  (Sure, just point out the switch for me)


• "Project program का बाप होता है!"
  (We are going to draw family trees now instead of the class diagrams... Rational Tree instead of Rational Rose)


• "Let's have Bisi 'Balle' Bath!!!"
  (I had heard about bathroom singers, but 'bathroom dancers'???? Balle Balle!!!)


• "Oh s***, my friend is getting married!"
  (That’s height of frustration for you, ladies and gentlemen!)


• "The bulb has started..."
  (/blushes… that was me. But in my defense, I forgot to add the word “glowing” at the end. Still the sentence is illuminating enough)


• "Tanmoy and Jagadish are in different folder"
  (Folder… Floor… Same difference. Maybe I am watching too much Matrix)


• "Air is water with big holes in it"
  (Deep philosophy… G g! G g! G g!)

Any additions???

मौसीज़ी.....

Came across an excellent joke... Thought should share with you... (Keep reading, have half a mind to enhance it...)


Jai: Mausi ladka IT field mein kaam karta hai...
Mausi: Hai raam...
Jai: Aajkal allocated bhi hai...
Mausi: To kya kabhi unallocated (i.e. bench pe) bhi rahta hai????
Jai: Ab C rating waalon ka allocation itni asaani se kahaan hota hai mausi...
Mausi: To kya C rating bhi aati hai uski????
Jai: PL se ladaai karne ke baad B ya uske upar ki rating to nahin na milti hai mausi...
Mausi: To kya ladaaku bhi hai????
Jai: Ab onsite jaane ko na mile to ho jaati hai kabhi-kabhi anban...
Mausi: To kya onsite bhi nahin gayaa aaj tak????
Jai: Ab civil engineers ka Visa itni jaldi kahaan lagta hai mausi...
Mausi: To kya ladka civil engineer hai???? Engineering kaun se college se kiya hai????
Jai: Bas uska pataa lagte hi hum aapko khabar kar denge!!!!!
Jai: To kya main rishta pakka samjhun mausi??
Mausi: Bhale hi hamaari ladki call center waale se shaadi kar le, par Software Engineer se kabhi nahin karegi.......

Hitch in the plans...

Was watching "Hitch" yesterday evening. A great movie, as promised by the reviews sent by my friends. Especially the scenes with The Client are howlarious. Being alone in the house, ROTFL was a very good (and only) way to complement the movie. The kissing scene between The Consultant and The Client almost made me injure myself while laughing uncontrollably. (Note to Self: Movies like this wreck havoc with your pneumatic systems, when you have a bad cough).

The "Pizza dance" reminded me of many of my friends.(Note to Self: ask the friends to watch this scene to avoid the torture to watch their Pizza, Dosa and other dances).

All in all a great movie... Was anticipating a great last half hour, when...

Mother Nature Invades. Lights flicker and finally die down. Rain and Storm visit the lonely bylanes of Mysore. Thus starts a very eventful night.

So I am left with no other option but to wait in the dark, with the distant hope that the Gods of Electricity Board will smile on me...

Now, I live with three other people... Mr. Charlie (name derived from the movie Charlie's Angels, for obvious reasons), Mr. Philosopher (again for obvious reasons), and a workaholic called Mr. Juice (reason not so obvious, will narrate the story behind this nomenclature later). Charlie comes in just before the storms and immediately sticks to his mobile. Philosopher is out with his future bride... and comes in late... bringing with him half the water in KRS dam. Seems he has ridden the bike through the rain when we are afraid (or more truthfully, too lazy) to go to terrace to pick up the clothes.

We are looking for another candle in the wind... sorry, in our house when some weird laugh fills our house. Philosopher's mobile is calling his attention to a message. (Note to Self: Check why people use such ringtones... and that too for messages). Let me tell you, the sound which in broad daylight sounds outright crazy will spook you out when it comes from some hidden corner of the room in a stormy night.

After some chatting, we decide to sleep early (by our standards). I try to get some good photographs of the storm (an attack of photographeris amateurasis), and waste 15 minutes. Then I get bored and decide to have some fun with my friend. We start creating a ghost story to match the Nature's mood.

The story goes like:

Me: "It was a dark, stormy night. The only sound was raindrops on the window panes. Lightning was flashing on a lonely building."
My Friend: "Mr. X was alone in his apartment on the topmost floor of the building, supposedly haunted! And suddenly, the lights went off."
Me: "He started searching in the night for the candle."

At this point, I think all this is too good to keep on SMS, and decide to write it down. But I cannot write in the light of my mobile, and so decide to get a candle and paper to write the story down. So I go in a vain search of candle in across our house.

My friend: "Suddenly he heard something moving in the apartment. (Some daravana music in background)".

At this point of time, I hear some sounds in the house. Turns out Philosopher is not sound asleep as yet, and wants a glass of water. The phrase "Life imitating Art" sounds alarm bells in my head, and we wisely decide to postpone completing the story to some other time. (Will post the complete story in a proper form when the happy time comes. Wait for next storm, which will be today or tomorrow, if I am not mistaken about the weather). So finally, I go to sleep.

The perfect ending to the eventful night is provided by Juice. He comes home today morning, and tells us, "I came home yesterday night. Lights were off. Door was bolted from inside. So I went back to office and slept there." As if we live in Stone Age, with all mobiles switched off during night.

The Adventure of TT Tournament

The adventures of Sherdil continue... (To the universal dismay)

Now I haven't held tt racket in hand for last 10 years before last week. So the last rank player (our hero... Sherdil) beats me comprehensively 3 times in a row.

And then we decided to have a TT (table tennis for uninitiated) tourney just for fun.

First round match is Sherdil vs me. He is bragging that he will beat me even in sleep etc etc etc... Then I have some work on match day, and he questions my courage to face him... the usual stuff...

And I complete my work, turn up for the match (surprise...) and beat him in 2 straight sets....

Now he is telling everyone what a good player I am!!!

I say, boond sey gayi....

(Mis)Adventures of Sherdil - The Start

Medical Science says that the brain rearranges the memories of particularly traumatic and painful moments so that we don't remember them later. It must be true, coz I don't remember when I first met Sherdil* - the angry young man of our office.

But I still remember many of his mis-adventures. Sigh....

Like the day when we had a session on "Assertiveness Skills"... We were discussing who was assertive, who was agressive etc, and somebody made a mistake of calling Sherdil agressive. His reaction was "Hey come on... ek proof dikhao jab mein aggressive tha... kuch bhi bol dete ho" Pretty passive huh???

And then he goes to attend the session himself, and now he is preaching us how it is good to be aggressive...















* Names changed to keep the innocent people (Me in this case) safe from any retaliation...

KKKKKKKyoon????

Just back from a great weekend watching 4 movies in 3 days!!! (Hey, that's above avarage by .3333333 for my normal weekend)...

But then, when I looked at the names (Kya kool hai hum, Kaal and Kingdom of Heaven)... hell am I being bitten by Ekta Kapoor bug or is it a simple case of coincidence?? (But if I remember my Sherlock correctly, there is nothing called coincidence)...

Or is it simply that Hollywood has joined Bollywood in imitating The Great Indian Soap Operas?????

Sound Bytes....

Being as techie is stressful job, they say! (To quote a great author, I need to find who this legendary "They" is and why that person insists on saying so many things.) And so, the modern day techie does not lose any chance to add an "Easter Egg" in his life once in a while...

While some people find fun @ meetings, some of us play with the words...

Here is a compilation of some of the greatest (un)quotable quotes by some great entertainers:

• "I was in the project even before The Creation started"
  (Ladies and gentlemen, presenting The Answer [and probably The Cause ;)]to your "Oh God!"s...)


• "I am The Company."
  (The corporate version of "Aham Bramhasmi")


• “I want a freshly laid schema.”
  (Please contact your nearest hatcheries)


• “I spend what I earn and I earn what I spend”
  (The Economics Guru… Next Indian Noble Prize winner coming through.)


• “Male alive or female dead?”
  (Asked during 20 Q’s… what knowledge is it supposed to convey?)


• “I know I can, but I can’t.”
  (Come again, what exactly do you know then?)


• “Can you please drop in here for a second, I want to catch you up on something.” (Now you know why we are called cricket crazy nation.)

And finally, my personal favourite…

• “Integer must be a proper string.”
  (A little data typo here… I hear Java Gurus turning in their cubicles)

Any additions welcome...

Banni, Bisi, Beda!!!!!

I came, burnt my mouth, and said "No Way"!!!!! That about sums up my experience with Kannada.

My "Experiments with Kannada" started almost 1.5 years ago when I came to live in the erstwhile capital of Mysore state, Mysore. As all people keep reminding me, it is really a very good city... for tourists that is. And not to forget, pensioners!!!! As I am neither one nor have become the other yet, it gets kinda boring. (For those who know Pune, my hometown, as Pensioners' City, please update your calendars... It's 2005, not 1950's). As the sum of all the places outside office where a young person will be happy hanging around comes up to 2, you can understand how we painted the town red.

And then started the difficulties of communication. With all due respects to "Unity in Diversity" principle, I am strongly of the opinion that we should have one common language across India. I am sure it will reduce a lot of fights.

But on the other side, it will greatly reduce the fun of learning a new language with the comfortable knowledge that you can find a translator just round the corner. And so, I started trying to learn a new language.

No wonder Banglore became the "Silicon valley" of India. I am sure, you won't find any other language in India with such an obsession with H. So I am sure it is pretty natural that they took to H1 visas like a duckling takes to water. To give some examples, here a simple name like Aarti becomes "Aarthi", Chetan (remember the 3D Chhota Chetan?) gets rechristened as Chethan and BSNL is renamed as "Bharath Sanchar Nigam Ltd".

It's OK if you put H after anything, but when you start exchanging the places of alphabets in the word, it becomes quite confusing. I mean, I could have understood what bhath would mean, but what is bath???? I mean, I am going to hotel to eat, not to get a nice shower. Worldwide, "Turkish Bath" means a place where people go to inhale steam and reduce some fat by means of famous massage. But here, "Turkish Bath" will come in line with "Vaangi Bath", "Bisibele Bath" on a hotel's menu card.

And while we are having "bath", what is "Rice Bath"???? In "vaangi bath" you have vaangi + rice. In "curd bath", you have curd + rice. So logically, "rice bath" contains rice + rice (huh???). I mean, doesn't it sound a little redundant to say that your rice contains rice?

And to cap it all, in my mother tongue, "Houda" means the place in the saddle on elephant where the person sits. Going by this definition, the number of "Houdaaa"s by a single person in a single phone calls will cover all the elephants in Bandipur, Kerala and we will end up importing some elephants from Africa to carry them.
So, even as my friend reminds me that Kannada is around 2000 years old, and has won 7 Gyanapith awards, I say "Mera Bharat (not Bharath) Mahan"!!!!











Disclaimer: All names, incidences in this article are true, and bear no resemblance to fiction. Still, this article is to be read as light reading and not as an attack on any language, person or places living or dead, ancient or new, intended or otherwise.

Shrug.......

Reading "Atlas Shrugged". One of the best novels I ever read (and considering the number of novels I have read, it should be one of the best :D)... at least till now..

Will keep updating this with my thoughts... Yet to complete even half... (My reading speed has gone down from Micheal Schumacher to Narain Karthikeyan ;))

Till then.... "Who is John Galt?"

Blogroll

I Read:




Friends:






Blogroll Me!

The Brain....

Was reading "Bracco's Brain" by Carl Sagan yesterday... some cool stuff about the capacity of brain, size of info in universe and all...

He mentions that brain can only contain some 10^15 bits of info... pretty small, huh??? And after that is filled, every new bit of info replaces some old bit... Wonder if the brain uses FIFO or some other algo?

So supposing you have your brain filled, the next time you watch "informative stuff" like "predators" on discovery, you are forgetting something about String and Set you learnt earlier... So you need to learn it again, and in the process you are forgetting Swing and AWT... Looks like Govinda movies are the only safe stuff to watch if you love your job, as they dont need you to use your brain...

Think good ol' Sherlock got it correct.. "Brain is not stretacble bag, its more like attic. So you need to make room for the stuff you learn."... (Hell... I forgot the exact quote... result of too much JAVA maybe)...

So all in all, I am off to think of something I can forget to make some room for the J2EE stuff I am supposed to learn...

Out of the Mind... continues...

Talking about out of the mind, is it similar to when we say "the pantry is out of coffee" (nightmare...)???? If that is so, then how do we measure "mind"?

I mean, to say you are out of something... errr, that is to say something is finished, you should be able to measure it somehow, feel it so that you can fill it up again.

So what is the unit of "mind"? Is it "grams of brain" or "number of thoughts" or something like this?

And where do I get mind to fill if I find myself somehow out of the mind I had? Is my mind compatible with other minds, or do we have some kind of mind groups like blood groups?

Out of The Mind!!!!

Hey, why does everybody ask you if you are out of mind????

I mean, come on... by definition, your mind resides in you as a whole.. so obviously you are out of your mind... in fact, this proves that everybody IS out of his/her mind...

So what's the big deal about it????

Detectives

Jasoos Log

A series containing reviews of Indian Detectives. Also cross-posted at Desicritics as "Desi Detectives" series.

• Literature:
  
  
  
  • Byomkesh Bakshi - This is the first name anybody thinks of when you think of “India” and “Detective” in the same sentence.
  
  
  • Feluda - He is probably the most energetic detective I have ever seen, as he is roaming all over India and abroad.
  
  
  
  


• Television (Private Eye):
  
  
  
  • Karamchand - Karamchand is your typical black-goggles and black coat-clad, cool-headed, intelligent, slightly bumbling and eccentric detective.
  
  
  • Sam D'Silva- Vijay Anand's Sam was eccentric enough, and his sidekick played by portly Saurabh Shukla was funny enough.
  
  
  • Jasoos Vijay - Co-produced by BBC, with Om Puri as anchor, this is a fairly recent addition to DD.
  
  
  
  


• Television (Professional Eyes):
  
  
  
  • ASW - OK, I have cheated a bit here. This was not exactly a detective show.
  
  
  • CID - Perhaps the most famous detective show an Indian television today, this is the show which started the series.
  
  
  • CID Special Bureau - A “spin-off” of CID.
  
  
  • Special Squad - Supposed to be a crack team of homicidal investigators and forensic experts, they are pitted against the "perfect criminals".
  
  
  
  


• Kid Detectives:
  
  
  
  • Banesh "Faster" Fene - Apart from Tintin, this kid must be the most travelled of them all.
  
  
  
  


• Crime-fighters in Comics:
  
  
  
  • Bahadur - Hey, I like the guy for being one of the few original comic heroes in India.
  
  
  • Chacha Choudhari - With a “brain faster than computer” and the help of his Jovian friend Sabu and dog Raacket, Chacha Choudhary has fought many criminals in his life.
  
  
  
  


• Lady Detectives:
  
  
  
  • Uma Rao - Written by Sahitya Akademi Award-winner Mahesh Dattani, the three plays show us a housewife turning into a sleuth.
  
  
  
  

Videsi Detectives

• Literature:
  
  
  
  • Marcus Didius Falco - Apparently, the lot of a Personal Informer in the roman times was not so different.
  
  
  • Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast - Almost albino pale skin, with his characteristic handmade Italian black suits give him an aura of impenetrable mystery.
  
  


• Lady Detectives:
  
  
  
  • Agatha Raisin - Unlike most mainline detectives, Agatha has not chosen a career as a detective.
  
  
  
  

- The Great Eagle Has Spoken