Happy 30th to me!!

Last year i started looking for a Casio G-Shock and ended up in Bangkok! So this year, i got myself a Casio Edifice WR 100m !! :)

10k tales!

I had plans to tell you 5k, 6k, 7k tales, lekin mazaak mazaak main 10k ho gaye!!!

Had to happen.....

Turkish Airlines rocks!!! My flight from Izmir to Istanbul is today. Istanbul to Mumbai is tommorow. Its seems they are connected and I'll get my checkin baggage in mumbai now! Theyd did say 'Have a nice flight tommorow!'

its a bloody strategy to make sure i buy the 'I love Istanbul' tshirts!

This had to happen, this tour and study had been completed very smoothly.

I take some solace in the fact that i am not the only one with whom stuff like this happens! There was a Chinese dude too, he will get his luggage in Shanghai....

Weighty problems....

I may have mentioned in last post that i felt a lot lethargic in prev company and how that bit isnt connected to weight gain. As it turns out, it may have been connected, cos i am still 10-12 kgs more than what i should be and i was a lot more heavier then than now. All the occasional walks, better eating routine, trips to Delhi and Amritsar in the summers and moving away from a staple diet of tea, butter biscuits, vada pav, sandwiches and lunch has helped.


My company has got some Healthcare company to make a health plan for all senior pesonnel, customised. (they actually believe we are going to follow that thing). Anyway, so a part of that, i had to undergo a medical test. All manners of liquids, X-ray, ECG, Stress test and all that. After all the tests and analyisis of charts and leaving me half dead with the stress tests and all that, the rocket scientist doctor observed


"you are overweight"


"i know that, i am fat, not blind"
(was that rude? i was pissed. Hungry since morning, skip work, walking about in the sun, all that chest shaving, leads sticking and walking on the treadmill and he concluded what i can by walking up 2 flights of stairs!)


Anyway, so he tells me, i tired quicky (buddhe bhi itni jaldi nahi thakte) but i recovered quick enough. Now, but may not be able to do so in a few years. Basically he means i am a few years away from a heart attack (unless i follow the health plan or my liver gives way first :P )


I am sure mom will have her own plan. After all, moms knows best! Even better than that company! What do they know of healthcare, who only healthcare know?!


I also have a plan. Earn so much money, that no one gives a fuck about my weight. Like that Ram Kapoor in that TV series.


Lets see. Another brilliant plan!!! I think i should again register for the 2013 mumbai marathon and train for it. Good idea,no? :P


On the brighter side, my teeth are nice and fine now. 2 years of pain, 2 months of treatment, 10k expense. I dont think any problem of mine is solved without high expenditure, weather i like it or not.


As you can see, nothing can be done about insomnia.

I am sorry, sweetie....

Note to self : Priyadarshini Circle is a criss cross bottleneck, more so when trailers are around. If not careful, your car will have ugly scrathes to show :(

Der aaye, drust aaye…….

Some things in life are always there, somewhere around, but for some reason you don't take notice. But when you do, its good fun, however late!

Calvin & Hobbes

I don't what i finally connected with here….. have known about Calvin and Hobbes for ages (have been read out some of the strips!) – maybe its the interaction with the imaginary friend (like 1 i had when i was 6) or the imagination of the kid making up an alternate story as something else is happening in the real world - especially when being fed or bathed or in school, or just the one line conclusions (eg. Reality continues to ruin my life). Something just clicked.

This one below is my fav of the ones i have read. I have a book if anyone wants to borrow.

Pink Floyd

It took a 40 sec video clip with the initial part of  “Coming back to life” playing in the background to make me aware of the group. (till then i thought Pink Floyd was 1 person like Bon Jovi). Glad i heard it. And to an insomniac, god gift. There is silence and then there is the sound leading to a state of mind called by many as psychedelic. Favs – Comfortably Numb, On the Turning away, Any colour you like, the great gig in the sky, coming back to life, Learning to fly….

I have further gone on to like some of Nirvana, Hendrix and Clapton songs as well.

Harry Potter and friends (and enemies!)

The movies, not the books. Yet. The books had bored me in the first few pages itself. And so for years i thought of them as childish. Then one day saw the first movie and well, they are still childish, but good.

The movies, i am told , are very watered down compared to the books, plus story has been modified as well it seems.And in the end, Voldemort dies very tamely. Our Mogambo had a more dignified death! But you got to give credit to the authors imagination, spun a very good yarn, very well connected with everything being linked to something else, all characters finely etched.

Liked the Prisoner of Azkaban best – time turner would have been a helpful app to have!!

Copy pasting draft posts.....

(All these are draft posts that i have collected over the last 3 - 4 weeks. Some started and stalled, some stalled at the heading stage and some stalled at the thought stage. I hate keeping drafts. So clearing those out)

A 5 year relation,or rather, this 5 year relation is gonna be very special for me. I think i can go ahead and have any number of sweethearts in my life, but time spent in this one, the comfort level, the joy, the fun, the milestones, the breaks, the 'others', the the kms clocked, all special, very special. Dear Tata Indigo LS (a.k.a Pappu!), its been a great 5 years!

The Indian team is in trouble in Aus and in Eng. No shame in losing, but being arrogant about its sucks. You will be back soon, i am sure.

I would be very surprised if the muslims in UP vote for Congress. Its the same bloody con act again and again. And they fall for it everytime. So, either they are too dumb or their votes are sold for some cash or other short term incentives. There doesnt seem to be any long term benefits for these guys.

Porngate - stupid people to be caught. It seems 40 other ppl were watching the same clips. But i would love to see how the moral high ground people would have reacted had the ministers been watching, say, a cricket match or TV soap. Because the issue isnt them watching porn, its them not paying attention to proceedings. And the manner in which our media went ballistic (the main stream media are anti BJP, pro Congress anyway,need an excuse), you would think thats a worse crime than murdering nurses or multi crore scams.

Rahul Gandhi for PM? Bullshit. There are many guesses about his intellingence, but i am sure he is smart enough (and well advised ) not to go down that path. Momma has shown the right way - head the NAC, let someone else be PM. You take credit, they take blame. And i'll reiterate - Priyanka Gandhi is going to be leading it for a long long time.... She is the real power....

Was a bit surprised to know other day that a newly married friend's wife has access to his FB account and cellphone. Was about to take that as a norm for married people, but second opinion from Silky stopped me. I think i have another pre-condition....., 'Thou shall not touch....'

Man, went shopping for kids stuff with Silky. Fatherhood's expensive in more ways than one! 7-10k for cradles! Baby seats for cars, 6-7k! Baby clothes, pregnant women clothes,this pump, that pump, what not! Phew! ( Silky is right, the rest of us will gain from his experience. The rate at which he is moving, he will have ample experience!)

5k tales is now 6k tales already.

(Thats all. Look like mini posts.)

i think with age, my attention spans are getting shorter.

I liked this description....

(A conversation between me and a colleague)

"me tujhya baddal kahi tari aikla,khara aahe?"
"kai te?"
"ki tu parat maheri chaallaas"
"ho"

No more saving for a rainy day.....

The biggest fuckup with insomnia is that around 2 in the night, you feel hungry.

Now you are sufficiently lazy to not get up and go get a biscuit or 2. Even if you do go, its so bloody quite in the night(which i love, no doubt) that any sound is amplified and wakes up dad who will claim to have slept just a minute back. So first you have to explain why you are stil awake (as is the norm, all 17 year old gals or anyone deemed to be one by parents are expected to explain all actions to parents. This way they its ensured ki bacche bigad te nahi)

And also the small matter of encountering a lizard (something i hate to look at) who may or may not be around (why take the chance?).

So, with this in view, me and sis (a fellow insomniac) decided its prudent to keep a packet of biscuits in our room. Only for 'emergency situations'.

Well, emergency presented itself that very night, with mom taking ill in the middle of night with a throbbing headache (which wasn't due to her usual BP problem) and ended when i went and fetched a doctor and necessary medication was given. She finally dozed off and me and sis got the biscuit packet out, we were hungry.

And that explains why i hate to save for a rainy day, it bloody pours immediately!

This is not to say you shouldn't save, but, on the other hand, saving for a good thing is good. That planned good thing may not happen but some other good may. (Like how my London fund funded car and Thailand trip).

But do invest in insurance with guaranteed return plan, you never know when it will rain!

PS : i walked out and got biscuits and now i'll get back to trying to sleep.

My psychedelic mix....

The free online dictionary defines 'psychedelic' as : of, characterized by, or generating hallucinations, distortions of perception, altered states of awareness, and occasionally states resembling psychosis.

You can get more info in this link : http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic

I just define it as nice feeling of peace, coupled with the quiet of the night. With the following playing on my mp3 player :
Pink Floyd (comfortably numb, coming back to life)
Mehndi hasan (mujhe tum nazar se, ranjish hi sahi)
Jagjit Singh (aah, many)
Ghulam Ali (hungama, aawargi)
Talat Aziz (aaina mujhse)
Nirvana (about a girl)
Bon Jovi (always)
Bryan adams (heaven)
Eric clapton (tears in heaven)
Chitra Singh (raa bhi neend bhi, khuda humko)
Abida parveen (main naraya mastana) Indian Ocean (jogia)
Midival Punditz

Quite a mix. Covering over 50 years or music crossing across cultures and geographies. (Arent you glad you live in today's world rather than in 50s, when access to world music was limited to poor souls?)

Anyway, need to sleep. Wait.....Jimi Hendrix is here..... Smoke on the water, fire in sky!!!!

Its been 10 years......

Its 2 a.m, on 12/9/2011 in Mumbai (ok, Navi Mumbai, fine?) In some parts of the world, its still 9/11. Its been exactly 10 years since THAT 9/11 and people across the world are, in one way or the other, talking about it - tributes, felicitation, editorials, analysis, memories, photos, videos and how the world has changed since then.

Well, one thing hasnt changed, I was an insomniac then, I am one now. And then, as a curious 19 year old, i was introduced to the world of internet properly. And also my interest in international polictics, which till that point was limited to history chapters, the few Hollywood movies i may hav seen till that point and Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Before 2000,my only connection with computers or internet was a stray game here and there or a some story stuff people do oon internet. I had heard about Y2K bug, and worms and viruses, floppy disks and emails. It was only in sometime around Sept 2000 that we got a PC at home and i started using it and learning all i can. (The PC guy installed the thing at my place and left and i had no clue how to shut it down! Just put out the power once and windows helped me next time round. Still cant claim to be expert, Sankatmochan Doc Cardozo and Doc Ingle live in the perennial fear of when i would call them for some PC related problem!). Some days later net was activated and our was a tech savvy family!

Well, so I started and was primarily limited to email, learning MS Office and watching movies, listening to songs etc. Ofcourse, there was some 'unmentionables' checked out as well. But thats about it.

Then, 9/11 happenend. Was alone at home when I saw the news on TV, fairly detached with the whole thing. When mom came home, i very casually told her 2 planes have crashed into 2 buildings in New York, could be a terrorist strike. And then went on downstairs for a walk around the colony.

By the time I came back, it was clear what had happened. A co-ordianated terrorist attack.

DD news was still the most credible news agency then and i am not sure if Aaj Tak/NDTV etc. had all details. Morever, in the absence of information and knowledge, i was wondering whats the big deal, we have bomb blasts, they had a hijacked plane hitting them. So naturally, i turned to the Internet for info. I spent the night reading up news, updates and analysis. What happened, whats happening now, reactions, condemnations, suspects, what it means to India, and to Asian politics (funny no one thought of economic aspects then, read the STOI editorial by Mr.Aiyar or Swapan Dasgupta's blog).

More importantly, i learnt things about New York, about WTC (30K people worked there, had 2 zip codes, architectural marvel of its time and so on),about Pentagon (is it really 8 storeys underground?), about the shock in the US people, about Osama Bin Laden (was friend, now foe, till that point he would get just about a small space in the middle pages of TOI), about Taliban and so on.

And since that day i have relied on the internet for information so much, its practically a career for me!

Anyway, its 3.AM now, i am supposed to reach office by 9.30......

Never in the wrong.....

"Not take the correct step at the the correct time. Will not accept they made a mistake, will not apologise and instead blame the other party, nit pick anything, gade murde ukhadenge and create a diversion from the main issue. You end up in the wrong, they come out smelling of roses. They do this everytime. The Congress acted in the Ramdev issue in such a womanly manner, dont you agree?" said the fellow traveler, to his friend.

He nodded.

I also nodded, couldnt agree more. Know atleast 2 women like that, no, make that 3.

Same thought, different situations...

Tomorrow morning, me and my dad will wake with the same thought : what am i going to do about my life??

Ok, what all can you think happened between 1st June 1977 and 31st May 2011?

9 cricket world cups
amitabh bacchan - before and after
sunil gavaskar - cricketer, retired and commentator, active
tendulkar's 22 year and going career
cold war
berlin wall fell
kargil war happened
Osama created, Osama irritated, 9/11, Osama killed
babri masjid case, opening of locks, demolition, ensuing conflicts
lokpal bill drafts
womens reservation bill drafts
internet
small world
mobile phones
T20 cricket
Rekha aged (or, did she???)
Fashion
Liberalisation, Globalisation, Privatisation
retail
management
CPI ruled in west bengal
Jayalalitha and Karunanidhi ruled TN in turns
lalu prasad went but the aloo in samosa stayed
NRIs
Inclusive growth
connectivity
small town cricketers
regional parties
page 3
maruti car
IT fueled growth
and such many more things. These are top of the mind.

In the same period, through all the above things, dad worked in the same company, with same focus, same dedication, same sincerity. Felicitations galore, across all the departments he worked in all those years.

I am in the 6th year of my proffesional career and in my 4th company. Lets not talk about focus, dedication, sincerity.

I already wish to retire. Just that i dont know i'll do what after that?

(Well, i can try and sleep during day time)

Well, thankfully.....

The world did not end.... Neither in that Rapture thing, nor in the manner i knew it.
And my phone is safe (just in case anyone actually believed i'll smash it, Smiroff isn't Doc and Doc). Vodafone and Nokia went the extra mile and some to sort the problem for me, though it still took 4 days. I wonder if they are nice to me because I am loyal to them or I am loyal to them because they are nice to me. Most of the world has a register full of complaints against these companies, i have hardly any!! I guess it works both ways with a bit of good luck thrown in. Plus, for Vodafone, i am a revenue center by way of sms - 60% of my phone bill is sms. They will go out of the way to sort out the matter for me!!

Nomophobic, as the all knowing (well, almost) Mahesh tells me is the fear of being out of touch due to loss or misplacing phone. I guess i would also qualify for this, by means of my anxiety was not able to send out sms messages.
When some people did not care to check why i haven't replied to their messages for 24 hours, i felt life wasnt worth living. Koi kisi ka nahi yeh jhoote naate hain, naato ka kya......When 3 people called to ask where are you, no sms for 3 days, life was better. Yuhin kat jayega safar saath chalne se......and then all was well. Expect for the small matter of losing a lot of settings, applications and saved email addresses (in hindsight, thats not a bad thing).

One thing this problem made me do was to speak to people. I cannot reply to queries by sms, i cannot ask anything by sms. For far too long, i have managed to avoid the concept of making small talk around the real agenda of the call. But now i had to do that, and it isnt a bad thing to do. Just a bit counterproductive, thats all.

Searching.....

Rachit : C.G.Road chalenge?
Auto driver : haan
R : kitna lenge?
A : meter se maalik.
R : acchi baat hain.

We set off.

R : accha bhaisaab, yahan ahmedabad main, aap kisi marathi auto driver ko jaante ho kya? Uske auto ke peeche 'jai shivaji' likha hai, uska naam bhi shivaji hain?? Maninagar main rehta tha.
A : bhai yahan pe das pandrah hazaar auto driver hain. Aise kaise kisi ko jaan sakte hain na?
R : haan vo to hain, main to bas chance le ragha tha.

I know this sounds stupid but this, or a similar conversation, is what i have had with 3 auto drivers on this trip to Ahmedabad. Similarly when i had come to Ahmedabad 2 years back. But still havent got anyone who would know him. Next time.

Shivaji was an auto driver in Ahmedabad i had met in 2007, when i had camped here for over 45 days. It was the 'Jai Shivaji' sticker at the back of his auto that had attracted our attention to him and then our marathi connection made him the designated driver for the rest of our trip. On subsequent trips to the city, i would call him and again he was the designated driver. It was nice talking to him, hearing his plans on how his kids would be educated, how he had got a new ric, some incidents with his in-laws and so on.

Sometime in early 2008, he called me saying his number is changing. I am sure i saved his new number. Sometime in mid 2008 there were bomb blasts in Ahmedabad, 2 of them in the Maninagar area. I tried calling him, but always got the message that this number doesnt exist. He has also never called since then. So i am asking auto drivers. I don't know why its important to search him. But it just is. Lets see.

Perfect advice....

Blame someone else and get on with your life.
- Alan Woods

She is here….

Enough said.

Finally! After atleast 2 years of planning, hoping , arranging, cancelling, deferring, pleading, cajoling, requesting, saving, researching, shortlisting. 

:)

PS: Clint, it’s going to be a biased review that you will get :)

Animation movies.....

Till about last year, I wasnt really one to watch animation movies. Thought them childish. I think the only animation movie I had seen (in a movie hall ) was Krishna,in 2006, and that was also to while away time till the next show of Munnabhai started. For some reason I always think of Avatar as an animation movie. That was my first 3D movie too. Since then I have seen a few 2D/ 3D animation movies - How to train your dragon, Toy Story 3, Megamind, Tangled etc. Not all were seen out of choice, but now its kind off likable experience.
Saw Tangled today. This one was more 3D than any other 3D movie i have seen. As in, I could clearly get the that were supposed to jump onto me!

Someone I know used to say : we are all products of what we are exposed to. This is kind of true.

While there were some kids my age too, the hall was full of kids under 10 and their parents. Going by the questions, interpretations, perceptions thesr kids showed, i can say this generation is smarter than previous ones. Maybe our elders also thought so. But the only difference is the kind of things each generation is exposed to.

Anyways, the joy of animated movies is always in the colour they offer. That is always kind of lost in those 3D glasses. And its all shaky if you remove the glasses.

Has there been an animated movie with 'decent and civil' storyline more suited to adults?

Nidradevi, where art thou....

In 10th or 11th, we had this chapter called Nidradevi Aaradhana ( A prayer to the Goddess of sleep). Cannot remember who wrote it, but vaguely remember it was a funny take on the authors love for deep slumber or a quick nap in the afternoon. Apparently, he could sleep anywhere, anytime. Just close his eyes and he is asleep.
There are people i know who do this. They say when you are under some pressure or trouble : raato ki neend ud gayi! . But that dsnt affect such people. People stay overnight in office planning to work but go to sleep. In buses, flights and trains, the minute the settle, sleep.
They say 6 hours sleep is essential for a person to stay fresh and alert rest of the day. In my case, its 8 hours - for 2 days. So, since i slept well for 6 hours or so last night, its unlikely i'll sleep for more than 2 hours tonite. In buses and flights, I can sleep only if I m dead tired - otherwise my time is spent hitting something or the other with my feet, knees, elbow and head which dsnt get the headrest, In trains, the constant motion and space crunch doesnt really let me sleep peacefully.

Not that I really mind the insomnia. Just love the silence, the peace of the night. All by myself, no noise, no comments, no instructions, no distractions. To look at the space around you. The world outside, the moving traffice, a solitary soul walking about. In a more independent setting, I would have probably set out for a stroll myself. Have done that a couple of times in Nagpur, Ahmedabad. In Mumbai, ofcourse it has been a late nite long drive!

One possible reason why I got into this habit is that I know its difficult for me to wake up once i do sleep. So if anything is to be finished, i'll try and do it before i sleep. People say wake up and do it with a fresh mind but I cant open my eyelids!!
Which is what will happen tommorow also i guess.

Mom suggests I should wake up early and then i'll get in the habit of sleeping on time. At some point I have tried that too. Some people have suggested yoga, meditate and i have tried that too. (infact isnt insomnia like meditation, i have cut myself from everything and m trying to focus? I think driving a bike is like meditating. You have to focus on balance and i generally end up a bit relaxed after a ride.). Even reading all night doesnt help. Another suggestion mom would give when we were kids : chup chaap aakh band karke so jao!(Shut your eyes and sleep!). As if I intended to sleep with eyes open.....

Anyways, i'll try to sleep again and hope to wake up healthy wealthy and wise!

....And here's why we listen.

When I was 13 or 14, I was tall and lanky. Athletic. Actually used to be the fastest runner in my colony and till this date, they call me 'ghoda'. It was only when i was 16 om 17 that i started gaining weight and wasnt any longer athletic.

But when i was 13, India had hardly any fast bowlers. Kapil Dev had just retired,Javagal Srinath was toiling on and there was some support from (supposedly) quicks like V.Prasad, Manoj Prabhakar, V.Kumaran, Tinu Yohhann, Debashish Mohanty and someone called David Johnson i think. But generally we had no fast bowlers.

At that time, there was no concept of IPL or ICL too. The era of paying the cricketers well had just started. Apart from the top players, most were dependent on a job or family for existing. A government provided flat would help if you are a stalwart, and if you are respected one, yoou would be allocated one 'benefit match' where a part of the proceedings from a certain match would be given to you. The advent of Sachin Tendulkar and commercialisation lead to players being paid better. By the 2000s, any player who played a few seasons of the Ranji Trophy would have sufficient for a lifetime, if not squandered. Then came IPL etc and we all know how well these guys are paid. Today, the IPL 4 auctions took place and moderate talents like Ravindra Jadeja, Manoj Tiwari, Aaron Finch got contracts in crores for the next 3 years. Lets not even talk about the big guns.... With my current job profile and education and all that, its unlikely I am earning anything like that anytime soon.

One of my more tiresome uncles arranges a family get together once a year. Uncles, aunts, cousins and so on meet up and fawn over you - kitna bada ho gaya hain....!
In the year when I was 13, when i was tall and active, i went to such an event and then went for a game of cricket with his friends and whacked thier best bowlers for boundaries. One of my uncles got the idea that I should start training to be a fast bowler and develop into an allrounder. He actually wanted me to be a fast bowler, cause in India we produce batsman by the assembly line. He was sure there will be a need for one in the future and i was at the perfect age to gain the talent and I should go ahead make the best of the height and athleticism God has given me. All other uncles agreed. Even dad nodded and mom agreed.

For some reason, i did not listen to them.

If I had, there is a chance I would have been rolling in money today. If not as IPL player, then maybe as coach, commentator, anchor, county, Ranji or some senior league player. Maybe even a reporter like Derek Pringle.Because cricket is no longer just a sport. Its a proffession.
But I did not and see where I am.

There is a chance i would have failed as a cricketer. But lets be optimistic for arguements sake.
The point is when they say you should always listen. They have nothing but thought of your good in their heart. Believe it or not.