tension=10N

2012-01-12T21:55:00.000-08:00

A day in Chennai.

I went on a day trip to Madduland for Mano's shaadi. Amit and me took the first flight to Chennai because a) it was the cheapest flight and, b) Amit wanted to eat lunch at Andhra mess.

Our first pit-stop was Murugan Idli where we gorged on some fine south Indian idli and wada.

The next was a nice walk on the Besant Beach.

After checking in into the great resort Mano had booked for us at Green Meadows,

we headed out to Andhra Mess.

Afternoon was fun and games with Mano's family and Pat is one of the best hosts I have ever seen.

The wedding was a fun affair with Mano saying some really cool things and J being J.

Met a lot of old friends like Maddy who still doesnt know how to wear a suit.

After a super hectic day we caught the early morn flight back.

2011-10-13T06:32:00.001-07:00

Alumni vs Present Team

Alumni vs Present team matches started in 2005, the year I was basketball secretary. Farooq, Coach Edwin, Coach Appaji and the Alumni office were instrumental in putting it all together. I have played in 4 of them 1 as the team and 3 as the alumni. This year I was lucky to have moved back just in time for the match.

Krishna wearing bright Blue shoes, he insists that attention should be paid to the Avanti T shirt that he is wearing and not the ugly shoes.

Diamond turned up like a typical sheth, inclusive a nice round belly and love handles.

Anchit still has killer form, but as injury prone as ever.

Capt George was as usual the fittest member of the team, and Ashwin was playing as many sports as he could. Vinay and Avinash still haven’t lost their game, it is really nice to see how the oldies just get back into the game. Dev still travels and so does Ravi. Oli turned up with a funny accent, he looked thinner than he was at IIT.

I was messing around with the camera trying to get some shots while the game was in play. It has lead to a deep routed respect for sports photographers. I still haven’t managed to get one decent shot of the game in play. Looks like it a long road ahead.

2011-09-25T11:23:00.003-07:00

Ride to Daytona

Get your motor runnin'
Head out on the highway
Lookin' for adventure
And whatever comes our way
Yeah Darlin' go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space.

From when I was 15 years old and KK taught me to ride his old 4s Champion, I have been riding bikes ever since. Having ridden most bikes that I had dreamed of, the one bike on my radar I never got to ride was the Harley. It is every kids dream to ride a harley into the sunset. After getting my bike license in the US, the first thing I did is was to go rent a Harley.

Unlike cars, to ride a bike in the US you need to pass a 2 day course conducted by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation and then get an endorsement on the us driving license. Renting is a good alternative to buying a Harley, as maintenance is taken care of and Harleys rent at about USD 150 a day.

Saturday morning I was at the Harley Davidson showroom in St Augustine by 9 in the morn. Since it was my first time I settled for a 1200 cc Sportster.

My initial plan was to take it for a short drive on the highway and then take the bike around the city. But once I got on the highway, before I knew it I was in Daytona.

Went to a few bike cafes, took a few pics of the bike, rode the bike on the beach, waved at every biker who passed me and drove back to Jacksonville along the A1A. The A1A from Daytona to Jax has some very beautiful stretches where you get to ride with the ocean on one side. Stopped for lunch at an Irish pub in St Augustine, the burger there was exceptional.

After getting back to Jax took the bike for a spin in the city, before driving it back the next day to the rental and got my car back.

What I have learnt from my ride was that, though the US roads are awesome for riding a bike, car drivers really dont care for the bikes making them accident prone. Next time I rent a bike I need to get something heavier as when a car passes you at 80 even the heavy sportster shakes like a leaf in the wind.

2011-09-13T06:58:00.000-07:00

Mumbai Photo Blog

After a brief sojourn abroad, the prodigal son has returned to Mumbai. People, places that were ever so familiar are now memories waiting to gush out. Started clicking a few pics to dispel boredom.

Kids eager to pose for my lens.

An Autowallah wondering,

A train passing by

Had lunch with J at Britania, an old parsi restaurant that is only open for lunch 6 days of the week .

The inside looks like this

But with food looking like this it doesnt really matter what the outside looks like.

The idea was to look for some cheap furniture in Chor Bazaar to furnish the new house.

J and me ended up wearing Superman T-shirts, what a coincidence!!

A taxi at the CST station.

Metals provides safety and security, while we are at it lets get metal airbags too.

PD whom I met for dinner at Jugheads. The place hasnt changed one bit since college. Even the menu is exactly how it was then. For old times sake we had the same order, chicken with red sauce, chiken strognoff and the sizzling brownie.

2011-04-14T19:15:00.001-07:00

2010-09-19T20:06:00.000-07:00

Naya Ghar, Nayii Gadii, Nayii BV

Waah Ajit babu,

2010-08-27T11:39:00.000-07:00

Mumbai to Bangalore Bike Trip

After six years in Mumbai, getting transfered out is an ordeal. Not wanting my Bult to be carted in a train, I decided to drive it down.

The distance from Mumbai to bangalore is 980 km and most blogs say it is a 15 hour non-stop drive by car(I know of people who did it in 11 hours and boast that they were driving slow..Akshay you know whom I am talking about). Since we were driving by bike we assumed an addon of 3 hours. Since the road is part of the Golden Quadrilateral Project I assumed it was decent. PD was the only guy insane enough to come along, for it was a 18 hr ride on a bike.

We started driving at 4am from my place in Powai, and it was a chilly morning with light rain. The road to Lonavala is pretty good as it is the old Mumbai -Pune Highway, the only tricky part is the ghat section about 15 km from Lonavala. We reached Lonavala by about 6 am and switched riders. The road from Lonavala to Pune is very good and we reached Pune bypass by 6.50am. Pune bypass to Satara is one of the best roads I have ever seen in India. It is 4 laned all the way and there are proper road signs. We reached Satara by 8 am and not wanting to stop we pushed on to Kolhapur intending to stop there for breakfast. The road was equally good all the way to Kolhapur, and we reached there by 10.30 and stopped for breakfast at this authentic Maharashtrian cusine place, The food is good and we recommend that you stop too. We started for Belguam at 11am and with the superb roads and we averaging over 70 got us there by 1 pm . There is a ghat section on the way to Belgaum, but it is a oneway; so you can try all the NFS stunts you want to.

After Belgaum, we knew that the roads were bad but little did we expect what we had to ride through. There were numerous diversions killing our speed and there was hardly any road left with all the construction work. Especially the area before Davangiri and near Chitradurg. The roads not only killed our average but also kllled our backs. We reached Chitradurg after nightfall and now I was the only driver as PD was not used to driving the Bult in the dark.

The road from Chitradurg to 15 km from Tumkur is simply super and it is one of those awesome 4 lane roads, and we were back to averaging 70-80 km every hour. We reached Tumkur by 11 pm and there was this bad patch that totally demotivated us, by now both of us wernt in a shape to either drive or to be the pillion. We reached Bangalore by about 12pm and it took us a good one hour to get to Akhil's place at Kormangla (thanks to everyone in Banglore saying 'Strraitu' for every possible direction)

The whole trip was for about 22 Hours and we are proud to say we did it non-stop.

2010-08-23T01:10:00.000-07:00

Paragliding

(This post is nearly a year late)

My flatmate Manas had been persuading me to go paragliding with him for the past two years. Either I was scared or was lazy or a mix of both, that I have been avoiding his offer. Finally just before the monsoons I was convinced. Not the person to die alone, I dragged Sandesh and Akhil with me. H and K from work wanted to come along too. So off we went one fine evening, Manas on the expressway and me on the NH4; to the paragliding school in Kamshet. It was a 3 day course where on the first day were to do ground handling and on the second bunny hops and the third actually fly.

We reached there in good time given that had we lost our way. My Bult had to be revved to wake up sleeping villagers for directions. We reached the guest house and to our pleasant surprise we found bunk beds. Next morning we were off to Ashram for our lessons on ground handling. Before that there was a small lecture on how the glider works and what each part of the glider was meant to do. At Ashram we unrolled our gliders and tried for the first time to take small runs without the glider toppling over. I found this task superhuman as gliders are designed according to a flyers weight, and mine was a 90 kilo one and I was being dragged from one end to another by the monstrosity over my head. I switched to a training glider that was lighter. After getting a hang of running we went back to Nirvana for a yummy lunch and a short nap.

Come evening the whole area turned festive, the guest house was lit up and there was a faint aroma of tandoori chicken wafting in the air. I forgot to mention, the guesthouse is located next to a lake and the backyard opens into it. So in the evening you can go relax by the lake and watch the sun go down and then stroll up the roof for the tandori chicken. The best part was the Carlos, Amit and S had come over in the evening and joined us for dinner.

Next day it was Shellar ( the place is named after the old guy that serves you tea) and we unrolled our actual gliders and tried handling them . Paragliding, like most adventure sport is done in a step by step manner. If you can handle the chute then you take the hops. If your hops are perfect then you take the flight. If your flight is perfect then you move on to more adventurous flying. There is no way you can skip a step. By the end of the day all of us had decent ground handling skills and could keep them up for a decent bit of time(the lighter ones were doing a lot better than Akhil and me who would still periodically get dragged by our heavier chutes). The only problem was that there were cross winds and we couldn’t do our bunny hops. That meant that we wouldn’t be able to take free flight the next day.

We spent the next day hoping that the winds would be fine and we would atleast get to hop. The day was spent in watching paragliding films and packing our stuff as we would be leaving for Mumbai from Shellar itself. We settled our accounts and drove down to Shellar.

We had to wait a bit till the winds were down before we started our hops. Here the heavier ones have an advantage as the heavier gliders are not as unstable as the lighter ones. Seven bunny hops and I could make the glider do exactly what I wanted, unlike Sandesh who thought hops means he had to hop all the way or Akhil who for some crazy reason after every perfect hop would get himself dragged. The Instructor Sanjay thought I was ok so off I went for my first solo.

There is nothing like jumping off a cliff hoping the canopy above is open and going to hold. The feeling is very similar to rappelling down a cliff when you walk off the edge. So off I went on my first flight, I think it lasted for about 2 mins but to me it felt like eternity. I understood why man always wanted to fly like a bird. The ability to move in all 3 dimensions is such a kick. Thanks to gravity I finally came down and then had to gather my chute and go all the way up.

By now Akhil and Sandesh had got their go ahead, so up we went the three of us. My second flight went as good as the first, but since it was my second I had more time to explore and experience. Akhil had a decent flight but Sandesh as usual forgot that he had to land and kept on flying straight. He just forgot that there was a landing zone and he had to land there. The sad part was that K and S couldn’t fly as the winds were too strong and they were too light to have a stable flight. So I started back to Mumbai and made it in good time to meet N and P for dinner with the rest of the gang.

2010-03-20T16:03:00.000-07:00

Story of the Sleepy Boy a.k.a Handi

There was a boy full of dreams who went to IIT to become a Chemical Engineer.

Whistles !! Introducing our sleepy star Akhil.

He attended lectures regularly

Prof Rathore in the EE202 Class. Bloody Torture.

But what is he doing ..???
Sleepy boy in his usual pose in the morning lecture

8.30 Lecture: Sleeping

09.30 Lecture: Deep Sleep

11.30 Lecture: Completely Asleep (a slight snore signifying alpha sleep pattern)

6 6 6.. My head can turn too....

Danger any more tilt shall cause the sleeper to roll over and fall.

Another Lecture, Another Prof This is prolly the only time Sleepy boy is up.. Attendance time.

This time the virus spreads

2 down.. more to go..

It is a epidemic !! Somebody wake me.

3 down .. all to go..

It is just not in class ..

It is everywhere.

Lecture theater is the best place to nap in the afternoon. A few of the most memorable naps were taken here.

I decided to do something about it and get treated.

I am now awake
Sleepy boy got soo used to sleeping in class that he had to replicate class environment to actually fall asleep.

Damn the medication screwed up ........ZZZZZZzzzzzzz.......

Most evenings were spent in this pose. Therefore the pillow

EndSems: I decided to study.. damn.

Usual environment during the endsem period.

Copycat.

Dangerous Copycat. (Scene before the equipment over heated and caught fire and I got to use the fire extinguisher)
Paturi sleeping in the Chemical Engineering Lab.

2010-01-31T15:54:00.001-08:00

****'s Story

I wrote this as a testimonial for **** a long time ago. After a lot of searching I came across it.

Name protected for confidentiality reasons.

***********************************************************************

**** speaks out(written by Ajit)

Welcome to the funny and indepth analysis of me.

I always thought different or maybe the whole world is different and i am right . I dont know why if a thing was strange it always happened to me.

Common now how many people have you met that have a hit and run with a train. Does it matter that how the train left its tracks and came onto the road.

Did u ever meet a guy who for a 250 rupee prize spent 1000 bucks as investment.

and after winning the prize spend 1000 more on treating people for winning the prize.

I had always wanted to explore space and for that I made a rocket with Diwali crackers.

and does it matter that we burnt all the crackers and used all the radio equipment for playing tag.

Elec stuff always fascinated me. I made a security device and someone hired me to put a system and I designed a battery powered laser trip light system

sounds hi fi isnt it .the only snag was that it had to be recharged every 1 hr and it stopped working after every three attempts.

also that I am very sensitive to currents and even the most minor currents give me massive shocks

also that when it comes to asthma I use the inhaler as if it is the latest dope and I get high every time I do it.

and when it comes to love I am the master. Females just flock to me like bees to honey or in iit lingo guys to pondy.

I am so good that I can give casanaova a run for his money big time.

Whenever I travel by train it always happens that only females travel with me and whenever I go out it always happens that the most good looking girl comes and asks me for something.

I am so romantic that I gave a girl imitation pink roses and proposed to her by playing 'My heart will go on' from the titanic.the only irony is that the girl being simple minded didnt understand the depth , passion and practical nature of my love turned me down.

But soon I found a soulmate in a junior who was fascinated in the big senior I was.

My flirting makes cupid run out of arrows I am so good that when I was flirting one girl refused to give her number and actually threatened to get me bashed up.

My geography is excellent it is so good that in finding the shortest distance the crow always asks me the way .thts why instead of going the 10.5 km from school in a direct bus I would catch an auto and then catch a bus and travel something like 13 km and twice the money

and with computers I was the one who is instrumental in half the softwares coming into existence and also that I always felt that JFK invented basic from his grave .

and on matters of taste I am the one you were always looking for I go to the shop and ask for the most expensive item that was available and thats all you get the best choice.

after years of long and tedious research in asthma I found out that when you hit a asthma patient with a ball on his back he goes into coma.

there is also a corollory to this theorem that people with asthama cant bend and this causes a peculiar fielding style which makes me dive at the ball when the ball has stopped rolling and push it for a four.

ordinary mortals unable to understand the magnonimity and importance of my research just call me with crud name s like faartu and so on but does it matter that what ppl think of me. i am what i am .

in terms of leadership I am always the leader of the pack and I always take command and lead the lesser mortals. When I called out with my nickname 'The Chief" they were wondering who the chief was.

in school I was like a monkey in the trees and I actually spent two math periods stuck on a tree because some fools doubting my skills tied me up on the tree and then they had to get me down as I had a hemorrhage in my leg.

To punish the fools I hit the guy who got me down as I was not strong enough to hit the people who tied me on the tree.

Did you ever know the proof of zero has no value was invented by me

Once I was offered 102 million dollars by Sony to design their website and after a while they said it was 1 or 2 million and 0 is the short for 0R.

and actually when I went they said they were going to pay in afghans so I refused.

the red baron once took me on a training flight and i caught a speeding bullet as i was going along with the same speed. Who cares if I caught it with my hanky.

I am an animal rights activist and thats why all animals like me they like me so much that they chase me anywhere I go. Once actually a dog ran into my bike and I was hospitalised.

lady luck has a sweet spot for me that whatever I study in the bus that never comes in the exams.

I was such a kid that my maths maam had crush on me and made me do all the work in the maths class.

I am very confidant on my driving skills that I can challenge Schumacher to a race in hyd with my alto and also beat him.

2010-01-24T10:56:00.000-08:00

Shooting Range

Handgun : Glock 9mm

2009-08-12T21:13:00.000-07:00

Best Song Ever

Lets play a game of Guess Who??

Please appreciate the extraordinary talent, and listen till the end. Totally worth it!!

2008-12-02T06:23:00.000-08:00

My Grand Roadtrip

Manas and I started early morning Friday at 4.30 which is a very commendable task, given our lazy habits. It was fun driving in the cold, warming up the bike and adjusting the baggage to the most comfortable position. The drive lasted for about 3 hours, the early morning cold on the Western Ghats nearly froze us. We stopped for breakfast at Pune (180 km) our first pit stop. We met M who I picked up from her apartment and was kind enough to skip yoga to have breaker with us. Some hot breakfast and coffee later we restarted our drive. The road between Mumbai to Solapur, NH 9 is brilliant; it’s just a long straight road you can see stretching out flat and straight. Here we passed a convoy of about 40 Army trunks belonging to the Bison brigade. We pulled parallel to the lead car and asked where they were heading to. This was not taken kindly as a fellow travelers interest in destination and road conditions but as an inquisitive poke in matters that did not concern us. We drove on and stopping for lunch at a Rajasthani Dhaba about 30 km from Solapur (340 km). Here we ordered some dal and bajra roti and dozed of to sleep on the really comfortable charpoys. We woke up to see the army trucks we passed thundering past us, we wrapped up lunch and started on. Soon we exited Maharshtra and entered Karnataka where the road was equally good. By now we were hitting 100-110 kmh on the highways and stopped at a Kamath for snacks, the food/service sucked major. After wasting half an hour there we realized that we still had a lot of night driving left, and trust me a bike is not the best thing to go about driving on highways with big and mean trucks. I felt really sad when I found the part of NH9 in AP was the worst, and for a few kilometers there was no existing road. The road became decent for a stretch and as we approached Hyderabad (700 km) it went back to its useless self. I dropped Manas off at home and went over to Amit’s house for dinner.

A nice long weekend and I was set to leave on Monday to Madanapalli (1200) with Avi to meet my parents and also visit Horsley Hills which is a hill station of some repute. The first mechanical problem, a stuck petrol tank lid hit us at Avi’s place and this delayed our trip by a few hours this pushed back our schedule. The NH7 was simply superb, even now there is a lot of work going on the road and it will be simply awesome when the construction work is complete. We truly opened up the bike and most times we were cruising over 100km. I am sure 2 guys dressed up like astronauts and thundering along must have been a spectacle to watch as everyone on the road were turning their heads when we whipped past. Thanks to some wrong directions we erroraneously estimated the distances and were still stuck in the middle of nowhere with the sun went down. From then on it was driving on blind into the night with a few sudden breaks at railway crossings with no tracks. (Dad later told me that the tracks were removed for upgrading to broad gauge). It was hell driving in the hills in the night, the cold just bit into us, chilling the inner most soul. We reached home by about 10 in the night where mom and dad gave us the best reception possible, hot water for a shower and some warm clothes and some really yummy biryani. Diwali was lazing about and gorging on the entire food mom cooked.

Wednesday early morning we took off to Bangalore (1400) to see some horses Avi owns. Blondie who was there in Bangalore came along too, who would let by a chance to see horses. We got to pat the Derby winner Arabian Night as it was in the same stable as my friend’s horses.
After late lunch with Chakkanna and his flatmate we took of to Chikballapur (1450).

There we spent the night at Avi’s cousin’s place. We started late morning to Mangalore (1800) and took the shortcut through the countryside which was not a good idea as though the road was very scenic the potholes and cattle cut into our speed. Our luck with good roads ran out some time after we passed Hassan we had entered the Western Ghats and the sun had set.

The road suddenly vanished and we were left with a dirt track that wound in and out of the ghats. Avi nearly skidded of the road and I had to take over as he could barely see with his tinted visor. It was a ride through hell that never seemed to get over. I am just dreading how bad this road would be in the monsoons. We stopped over for the night at some inn near Mangalore where we had the worst ‘Mangalore Style Fish Curry’ ever(it tastes a lot better in Mumbai). Next day we started to Goa on the NH17. The road is definitely the most scenic with it being sandwiched between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats and all you need to do is take a left and you will end up on some beautiful desolate beach. We passed the famous city of Udipi where we looked around for Udipi restaurants and to our extreme surprise we actually didn’t manage to find. We stopped at the famous Malpe beach and took some snaps.
This part of Karnataka is as beautiful as Goa or the gods own country. The only problem is the connectivity and the lack of development. We then made the biggest mistake ever, instead of taking the right at Honnavar we took the earlier left that got us to travel for about 80 km in the hills on non-existent roads. Our backs and arms sore, we reached Jog Falls with no enthusiasm to go down the 4 hr climb up and down we took some pics and started back on the road to Honnavar where we stopped for the night.

The next day morn we set out to Goa and got there by about 12 in the afternoon, a proper breakfast at one of the shacks on the Palolem beach we were all set for a small nap after which we went kayaking in the sea.

After racking our backs for an hour, we still could not figure out how to ride the wave. We looked at some surfer for some guidance finding none we packed the plan and got to Sunset Shack to see the sun go down, but we were too late and the sun was already down. We had met some Brit girls who pointed us to the Smugglers Inn which is a hell of a place, we watched football and this totally reminded me of the pub in London where Avi and me watched England vs. Israel.

We made some more friends (Dave, Matt and D) there who pointed us some more places to hang out when the Inn closed. We went to the famous Café Del Mar on the beach and found the place dead, we jumped ship and took off to Sun and Moon to meet our new friends. After some interesting conversations later we called it a night and headed back to our shack. Next day we had an idyllic ride through Goa heading north to the Baga/Calangute. We went straight to the place I always crash when we go to Goa. NV Guesthouse and were lucky enough to get a room there. Till then Avi never had a true shackside dinner. We took a quick nap and headed out to Baga and to my total surprise ran into PD, Ankur and the other mecchies who were there partying. We headed straight to Zanzibar and ordered my fav. Fillet of King Fish cooked with masala. Avi fell in love with the food and the ambiance. Following tradition we went to Titos and gorged on the desserts. All our senses sated we had the best sleep ever. Next day morning we woke up and went looking for someone to fix an oil seal on the bullet and luckily we found Manoj who fixed it up for good. Avi here broke the journey and caught the flight to Hyd and I plodded on back to Mumbai. It was about 12.30 when I left the shop in Calangute and headed north on NH17. I rode hard and fast only stopping for fuel and water. The circuitous route and the ghats killed the average. At sunset I met a few riders who were riding to Mumbai I hailed them and asked whether I could join the pack. To my surprise I was flatly refused. Super angry I just rode on into the night. It was about 8 and hungry and tired I needed a break, spotting a few excellent bullets in the parking before a Kamat. I drove in hoping to find some more riders heading to Mumbai, here I met a few interesting Israelis (Avi, Daniel, S) and an Aussie(Jameson). They were a set of lost travelers trying to get to Goa and had got hopelessly lost and were still planning to plod on into the night. I gave them directions and tips on road conditions to help them on. By now it was totally dark and in the night everyone on the road bullies each other. The huge mack trucks bully the small ones and they in turn bully the cars and everything on the road that moves bully the poor bikers. You tend to realize that no one dims their lights when you pass. It’s ok to be in a car and get flashed but in a bike with no idea how the road getting flashed is super dangerous. You need to memorize the road well in advance that if you get flashed then you have a chance to survive. This is the one stretch of my drive I am not really proud of, I broke all my commandments. I was driving tired and sleepy in the night when the roads were bad and I was driving at speeds that were way faster than I had ever driven before. I managed to cover the next 175 km in about 150 min.

This was the end to my grand road trip, tiring but totally worth it.

2008-10-03T01:52:00.000-07:00

Chick or Chicken...

Few weeks ago I was there at the Mohammed Ali road looking at some yum places to eat with a few friends. I found some very curious sights that I asked Zishaan to click. Since he is a pro photographer the pics came out kinda too well .. Thought of some great tag lines too

Future

Mom is that you.... ???

Cannibalism

I am hungry, I am a cannibal...

2008-09-09T02:37:00.001-07:00

Fine Vintage.. Aged 24 years

A pic we took when we were 6 and 4. I think we were about 2-3ft tall then.

A pic we took last year .. 23 and 25 years old 6'2" and 6'3"

My cousin is doing his Phd in Finland. He is a grad from NIT Rourkela and loves biking and drives around a Guizzi Moto 1100 sport in the freezing cold. While I drive the Bullet 350 that he modified.

2008-09-02T07:20:00.000-07:00

Karvi it up...

Saturday morning went to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park with some people from work. We drove down to the park by 8 in the morn and then with some people from the forest department went into the core zone to some ruins that overlook the lakes.

We had an entomologist with us so we got a lot of info on all the insects and other fauna in the area.

We were also lucky enough to see the blooming of the Karvi flower that blooms once in 8 years.
This beautiful violet flower coverts the lush green hillside into a sea of violet and green.

Sat night was Amit’s last weekend in Mumbai so we headed out the place we love most.. Soul Fry!! Polished off plates of prawns and fish sang some songs on the Karoke and danced a few dances with V and S. V taught us all Amit's exotic penguin dance. Generally had a nice time, as we always do when Manas, Amit and I go out.

Sunday went to Independence Rock, a festival I used to attend when I was in college. I was totally disappointed with the fact that it has become totally commercial with Airtel ads in between. Soon I am sure the bands will be playing pop songs. There was some dude doing a semi garba with a girl there.. killer ehh..
After that went to Fingers Crossed with a A, S, Nihar, Utsav and Vishal. Had a nice time there and on the way out bumped into Varun.

2008-08-25T05:42:00.000-07:00

Marriages and Jazz..

Not Just Jazz By The Bay is a cozy restaurant on the marine drive just off the Ambassador Hotel. Just the ideal place for the weekend, with good music, decent food and an amazing crowd. Amit was back home for the weekend and he wanted to eat someplace nice and so did A and F(pronounced V) so off we went down South on Sat night. We reached the place by about 11.00 pm but the friendly maitre got us a place near the stage. The music was good, the live band was playing songs that I had heard before and not songs that I had to research on the net to hear.
A good mix of rock ‘n’ roll and other popular numbers that got us dancing. Poor F was praying to god that she had her safety boots on with Amit stamping away.
I also got to witness an amazing moment when some guy actually got on to the stage and asked his girl if she would marry him. Luckily for him she said yes, for it would be really embarrassing if she thought otherwise.
We finished with the standard round of ice creams at bachelors and drove back.
Sunday thanks to the rain gods who took a coffee break got to play tennis with Malik. Man my stamina sucks, need to join the gym soon..:P

2008-08-18T22:27:00.000-07:00

Talakona Waterfall

Talakona waterfall (150 ft) is a natural fall with a free fall of about 90 ft and then a gentle fall over rocks rest of the way. It is a perennial fall and fed by rain on the 7 hills.

My journey started Friday night when I caught the late night flight to B'lore after work at 3. Air India is simply awesome, they have domestic flights from the international terminus and with both the terminus having the same name, how the hell am I to know where to go.

Bangalore airport is simply superb, I caught the bus to Magestic interstate bus terminal and was on my way to Madanapalli(the place where my dad works now). Went to his beautiful British era office that was built in 1906, took some pictures on Audi's cam and drove home. Some yum food and nap later, much to my ado my cousin from Bangalore turned up, I had to endure the bone jarring ride in the bus and he peacefully drove down.

Madanapalli has beautiful weather, in the evening we drove down to Horsley Hills which is about 30 km from there, most of the views were almost closed by the time we got there, we saw this tree that is more than 200 years old, had some masala tea and came back.

Next morning A turned up for some project, met her at her hotel and then got going. The roads in AP are way better than roads elsewhere in the country. We went to some temples mom wanted to visit and then finally reached the place I so wanted to be. The forest guest house near the falls, the place is totally one with nature, we were staying in a log hut and there was a rope bridge through the canopies. Had some yup chicken for dinner and soon the rain started, it was pouring down knocking out the power and also the electric fence. The scene from Jurassic park was replaying in my head till I fell asleep.

Woke up next morning to find a friendly snake wanting to bite me, unluckily it ended up dead.I took a few pics with my foot as a scale to measure the length.

The waterfall is huge, the water falling down with the stream swaying in the wind literally clears your head of everything. Your own personal shower 90ft high, what else could I ask for. After that we had a quick breakfast and started back.

2008-08-11T05:01:00.000-07:00

Road to Daman

Sat Night 9.30:
Idea!!! Why not go to Daman in the morning.

Sat Night 9.36:
Lambu wanna drive down to Daman tomorrow morning at 4.30?? OK

Sun Morn 4.30:
All geared up step out. Its dark and raining, ensuring almost zero visibility. It might not be safe to drive in such conditions and that too on a bike. Lets Go.

Sun Morn 4.45:
First fuel stop and tire check. We were soaked to the bone already.

Sun Morn 5.20:
Second fuel stop. Splattered with mud all over, hoping the rain would wash out some of it.

Sun Morn 6.00:
Daylight. I can actually see the road. Hmm time for some pictures. Why don’t I open the Bult a bit, lets see what its made of.. 80--> 90--> 100..wooooohooooooo… I can hit the curves at 80.. Bult is a 1000 km old. :)

Sun Morn 9.00:
Daman.. 4.5 hours and we are finally there. Lets run to the beach. Huh the beach has black sand.. YUKKK.. this isn’t like Goa.. I am hungry lets get some breaker. It started pouring again tropical storm style. Lets take some cool pics in the rain. Hot breakfast served in a jiffy, the view was superb so was the atmo.

Sun Morn 9.45:
Lets head back. Fuel stop no 3.

Sun Morn 10.30:
Time to open the bult again. Speedometer 80--> 90--> 100 -->110 . The fastest ever on Bult.

Sun Afti 12.00:
70 km to Mumbai. Ooops where is the road. The rains ate the road away. Driving on a bad road when soaked from the past 8 hours can be a really painful experience on the posterior.

Sun Afti 2.45:
Back home. Lets order some stuffed crust pizza from Dominos.

2008-08-06T03:40:00.000-07:00

Esselworld/WaterKingdom

This weekend thanks to the obstinate soul called T who woke me up on Sat morn at about 8.00 am much to my irritation we ended up going to an amusement park. Mind you just not another amusement park, India’s biggest and first amusement park. Everyone who was to go on this trip back to childhood ditched citing all the juvenile reasons possible. So we ended up calling Lambu and off we went all the way to Marwah docks and take the ferry over.
Since we bought tickets for both the places we went to Esselworld first and did evey ride that was open and was 4.6ft and above. Thanks to some bad samosa pav after a few rides we started feeling queasy and trying to act macho in front of T we actually had to sit through all the rides acting all brave. Finally I gave up and Lambu ended up puking. Surprising was that T was happily enjoying all the rides
Having got more than we could chew we jumped into WK and after a small reset me and Lambu were in our element. Wk was way superior to Ess. The monsoon showers just added to the effect. We did all the rides twice and were able to save some face before T who like most women was super hesitant to do the rides. But hats off to her she managed to do all the rides.
It was about 5.30 by the time we got out of the place. We were super hungry as none of us had lunch, so we grabbed some roasted corn cobs on the way and got back home.

Sunday was mostly spend tinkering on my bike. Finally I got to ride it again. I had to clean the plugs and then recharged the battery and then reset the shocks and then even messed about with the engine settings.
My quest for the elusive SP still proved futile, I will make another attempt at locating it in Powai Plaza before giving up.

2008-07-29T03:52:00.000-07:00

Rappelling at Kondana waterfall

Kondana waterfall is in Karjat Dist about 80 km from Mumbai. It is a natural waterfall (80 ft ) and at the bottom of the waterfall there are caves carved out by Buddhist monks. Most of it has been destroyed by earthquakes, water and very recently vandals who have no concern for history engraved in stone. We started off at 6:30 meeting the rest of the trek group and caught a bus to the Kondivile village. After getting off at the village it is an hour of trek up that gets you to the base of the waterfall. The waterfall is a beautiful site with water gushing down and smashing on the rocks creating a terrific spray.

A team had set up ropes and were doing safety checks on the equipment. After gearing up, we trekked up the treacherous climb that took us to the top of the fall. The most exciting part of rappelling is the time when you let go of the rock surface and are freely suspended. The adrenaline rush when you look down and then just push off the cliff edge is amazing.

After getting down I realized that my bag with my mobile and wallet was stolen. It was a harrowing experience calling up all the banks and canceling all the cards and then reapplying for all of them. Even more harrowing is applying for the driving license and membership cards. The loss compounded with the lost mobile and all the contacts is of no help either.

Finally it was time for zorbing but with all the time wasted in looking for my bag we just zorbed down a small slope. Two more activities ticked off my todo list :)

2008-07-21T03:36:00.000-07:00

In Retrospect TRAVEL

A bumpy afternoon ride in an auto is an ideal time to think and review life. It has been a year since I started working and never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that there would be so much travel in my life. Either I am making too much money or the price of flight tickets have come down considerably.

Domestic

Hyderabad--- 6
Delhi --- 2
Bangalore--- 1
Goa --- 1

International

US --2
UK --1
Sng --1

I spent about 150 hours on airplanes in the last year and about 40 hours waiting at airports. All this time spent in cramped seats that are just too small for me in the economy class(junior employees don’t get to travel business/first). Airline seats are not designed for people who are 6ft tall and weigh about 90 kilos. Somehow I never manage to get the comfortable emergency exit seats or the ones in the first row.
Experience tells me never to drink on airlines though they serve excellent free booze but the dehydration and jet lag that follow can be killer when you need to get to work the next day and still manage to look bright and shiny. Co-passengers in planes can vary from interesting to downright boring, I have met old African housewives( I dint understand a work she said) , a professor researching heart diseases, Pakistani businessmen, oilmen and students.

I am most probably flying again very soon, a small prayer hoping they will upgrade me to business.

All my bags are packed I'm ready to go

I'm standin' here outside your door

I hate to wake you up to say goodbye

But the dawn is breakin' it's early morn

The taxi's waitin' he's blowin' his horn

……………………………………………………………..
……………………………………………………..
………………………………
…….
So kiss me and smile for me

Tell me that you'll wait for me

Hold me like you'll never let me go

Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane

Don't know when I'll be back again

Oh babe, I hate to go

Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane

Don't know when I'll be back again

Oh babe, I hate to go -John Denver

2008-07-17T03:02:00.000-07:00

River Rafting in Kundalika River at Kolad

After a lot of planning and co-ordinating we finally got the trip on the way. River Kundalika forms a class 4 rapids at Kolad. This happens at specific times when the Munshi dam upriver opens flood gates releasing a large amount of water which gushes through the narrows at Kolad. We started off at about 5.00 in the morning stopping for a quick breakfast at McD and then got lost twice on the way. No network on the mobiles didn’t help. We reached the rafting point by 9.30 and then quickly put on safety equipment and kicked off.

The river is beautiful in the monsoons with its turbid waters rushing past the hills churning up white froth at the rapids. After a quick set of instructions we decided Kalra and me would be the forward rafters powering the raft on. Rafting is like an orchestra where all the rafters perform in symphony, even one rafter out of place would jar the music. Unfortunately that had to be me, I was either too fast or too powerful, somehow I could never get in sync with the others. The friendly Garwali guide pointed out that the rapids have funny names and the one we were on was called Johnny Walker. The scenery was superb and it was raining/drizzling/raining all through out the rapids adding to the magic. After the rapids all of us jumped out and swam/floated along the swift moving waters. Some lazy floating and water fights later we finally got back on the raft and paddled back to the base camp. There was some garam masala Chai waiting for us which we gladly had and got back on the road for the long drive back to Mumbai.

2008-07-07T04:55:00.000-07:00

PETH(1550 ft)

Even after waking up everyone involved inevitably every trek I go gets delayed. This Sunday made plans to trek up the Nakhind range in the Sahayadris(chain of hills in western India). We drove down to Karjat in Manas’s Maruti Swift and Kalra’s Gypsy King. On the way after grabbing some breakfast at McD we reached Karjat to realize that none of us knew where the trek started. After a couple of wrong directions we ended up at the base of Peth. So we thought what the hell and started climbing up.

The trek itself is very scenic offering some spectacular views. As with most of the monsoon treks it is not a stroll in the park, the trek is physically grueling and the terrain becomes extremely slippery and the sleep slopes offer no protection. It took up about 2.5 hours to get to the base of the ancient fort built by Shivaji. The monsoon winds there were terrific, Literally blew us off. After getting recharged and doing some more dangerous climbing we ended up at the top of the fort. Much to our surprise, we found the winds at the bottom much stronger than on the top. The descent was fairly easy and we got down in good time.

On the way back Kalra’s 4WD broke down and we had to go looking for mechanics and tow trucks in the remote area. Finally after some looking we found a guy who repaired the truck and we were back by about 10pm.

2008-06-27T05:08:00.000-07:00

The First Phantom Ever

2008-06-24T01:14:00.000-07:00

Quote

"People have expectations, its up to you not to live up to them." - Ajit Narra

Spoken in a conversation with his loyal disciple Sunith, a discourse about life as we know it.

2008-06-16T04:53:00.000-07:00

Singapura

There are a few places that you would like to call home. Usually they vary from the place you are born to the place you have spent a considerable amount of time. It is more about the people around you that makes a place home. Other than this there are places of natural beauty/history that leave you wondering how it would be to settle down and live there. One place which comes under none of these categories yet has fascinated me to no end is Singapore.

I just fell in love with the city the short while I was there. For 22 long years I haven’t ventured out of the homeland other than the school trip to Nepal (its videsh...but i didnt even get a stamp on my passport). After joining a global bank with offices spread all over the world, travel was inevitable, exciting in the start with the lure of going to different places and experiencing different cultures. but after a few trips soon the excitement wears off into that of a weary business traveler who rather be at home than all the exotic foreign locales he is in. But the small island city enamored me in it charms and left me wanting for more.

Somehow every aspect of this city was just tailored to fit my liking. I have heard a lot about Singapore, stuff like it is too materialistic and there is nothing much to do in Singapore and the night life is sad... but why would I crib if the party there goes on till 7 in the morn and you can cycle and skate all about the island .. Play basketball /football/footsol in the night... there are a million restaurents about with all the possible cusines that exist and food is just yumm and comes neatly packaged. There is a superb rail/taxi service that will transport you home at any point of time whatever condition you are in. Every aspect is as good as the next.

If there is some point in life where I need to choose a place to stay then of all the places I have been I think Singapore will come the second... Hyderabad will always remain the first place I ever want to be in.

2008-06-11T03:13:00.000-07:00

Futility

Deadlines, exams, schedules, plans ... everything is as futile as the next. However hard I try I never seem to be happy with what I do. Why do I always regret the fact a couple of days later that I could have done better, put in a lot more effort. The problem is that the harder I try the more I am bound to relax with the intention that the weight of the exam will drive me into a last minute reading frenzy and spark up my latent brain into activity. But when the "last minute" actually happens there is just not enough time, adjustements and haircuts happen, chapters get dropped, shortcuts are found. My prof used to say ..'You gobble up the information and then vomit it out on the paper'. The question arises on what I learnt, understood and pondered on for greater good.
Nothing.. The information stored is etherial, fluid and volatile. A day after I go looking for it and I am as lost as a day before. Why ??? Why did I do what I just did, am I beating the system or am I beating myslef. Is just beating the system good enough or do I need to actually get some education.
The short attention span is killing me I just cant concentrate on anything for long without my mind straying to to stuff on my comp and every other externality ..
This blog taking me two days to write explains the mind set I am in right now.

2008-05-15T01:54:00.001-07:00

Hyderabad Trip

Saturday

Time: 8:00
Location: Hyderabad Airport

Time: 9:00
Location: Chutneys
Food: Guntur Idli, Masala Rava Dosa, Babai Idli, Cofee
People: Avi, Nittu, Anand

Time: 11:00
Location: Anand's Place
Food: Pulao and Chicken Curry
People: Avi, Nittu, Anand

Time: 13:00
Location: Avi's Place
Food: Tomato Cut and Biryani
People: Avi, Nittu, Anand

Time: 15:00
Location: Hyderabad Central
Food: Bulls Eye Muffin
People: Akhil

Time 19:00
Location: Home
Food: Chicken curry, Rice
People: Family

Sunday

Time: 7:00
Location: Tennis Court-Film Nagar Club
People: Avi ,Nittu

Time: 9:00
Location: Home
Food: Dosa,Chicken
People: Family

Time: 13:00
Location: Home
Food: Chicken Biryani and Curry
People: Family

Time: 14:00
Location: Parugu-Odeon Theater
Food: Popcorn
People: Avi, Nittu, A

Time: 16:00
Location: CCD- Next to City Central
Food: Truffle Sundae
People: Avi, Nittu, A,Akhil

Time: 20:00
Location: Home
Food: Chicken Pickle Rice and curry , Mangoes
People: Family

Monday

Time: 8:00
Location: Home
Food: Idli, Dosa
People: Family

Time: 11:00
Location: Devi Theater
Food: Popcorn
People: Avi, A

Time: 13:30
Location: Paradise
Food: Chicken, Mutton Biryani
People: Avi, A

Time: 14:00
Location: CCD-Next to City Central
Food: Choco Vloc
People: Avi, A, N, Some dude

Time: 15:00
Location: Barista(Madhapur)
Food: Water
People: Avi, Anand, S, A

Time 18:00
Location: Anand's
Food: Pulao, Cheese cake and a lot of Choc Museli
People: Avi, Anand

Tuesday

Time 5:30
Location: Hyderabad Airport

2008-04-16T02:40:00.000-07:00

Punjus/Gultis and NRIs

There is some mysterious aura that surrounds an NRI, this automatically puts him at a position much superior to others. This aura surrounds all NRIs but is particularly strong around people from the USA. To all the normal people who don’t recognize this aura there are a few pointers that will help you out.
-The accent, be it 15 days to 15 years everyone will have the accent(telugu/hindi/Punju..even these end up getting the accent)
-The mineral water.. somehow the 20 years of resistance just vanishes in 2 months
-The old Navy and A&F tees.(be careful this is only applicable when the above conditions are met)
-The constant cribbing about the heat, pollution and the dust in India even if the NRI stays in Mexico
-……………………………….
………………..

The funny part is the automatic superiority that is associated to them .. Not that the people there are inferior or something for a lot of people are doing quite well. But people back home treat some dumbass filling gas/running a motel/data entry/it consultant at the same level as some guy who is actually doing something of value there. The worst part is that they treat the dumb ass way better than someone doing really well in India. The Indian marriage market is a strong indicator for this treatment .. For eg.
Boy is in US *****
Boy in US and fills Gas *****
Boy in I Bank in US *****
Boy in US and a software Consultant **********
Boy in India Nil
Boy in India works for Satyam ***
Boy works for Satyam has been to US for project *******
Boy in I bank in India Nil(Nahiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii)

Funny incident that happened recently at a cousins marriage. People involved are me
Mrs T(A Punjabi Lady), Cuz(Cousin from the US who is actually a stud but for Mrs T it doesn’t matter for he is from the US)
Scene: Mrs T , Cuz and me were having a conversation about where her daughter wants to go for MBA, and she has 2 years of experience(supposedly in banking.. methinks she worked in some bank) Mrs T thinks both me and Cuz are from the US (me putting on fake accent learnt recently)

Mrs T : Where are you working beta?
Cuz: Chicago
Me: Bombay
Mrs T: Your company sent you to India to work.
Me: No, I am based in Bombay
Mrs T : Which part of the US is your family from ?
Me: I am from Hyd but work in Mumbai.
……………………………………………..(Silence followed by totally ignoring poor me and talking just to Cuz)

Disclaimer: There are two kinds of people.. People already in the US, People who are waiting to get their visa to the US and giving people in the US gaalis.. I belong to the second kind … :P
I think I should cut down on the disclaimers too Ibankish for me.

2008-04-14T08:27:00.000-07:00

Updates:

Been some time since I blogged. Kept myself quite busy with a lot of stuff. I just realized that the belly is a lot easier to burn when in college. Those 10-20 crunches in the morning see to go nowhere in fighting the bulge. My trousers are getting tighter and tighter, if this keeps on then I need to buy a whole set of new clothes. I really admire people who eat a lot and still maintain the perfect figure. I also realized that I have been traveling a lot too. The week I came back I was in goa and the week after I was at Amby valley. Amby valley was awesome, the weather the place and the food everything was great. It would be a great place to go there for a week or so and explore all the facilities that they have. The 2 days we spent there were hardly enough to totally explore the place. Took my new bike out for a ride, the journey was superb took off early morning the weather was great, but the ride back I literally got burnt to a crisp, the sunburn was so severe that all my skin just fell off. The party at Amby valley was true DB overdrive, money just lavished on us. Tried my hand at juggling flaming brands(note to self: Never ever try it again). Finally booked my tickets to Singapore will be there from the 6^th to the 10^th of June. Just hoping for a miracle that I will pass the stupid exam.

2008-04-04T04:21:00.000-07:00

Daaru..

I was just listing out what we had in our bar and I was seriously impressed.

Whiskey

......Scotch

............Black Label

............ Laphroaig

......Whiskey

............ Jack Daniels

............ Jack Daniels Silver

Wine

...... Cabaret Shiraz

......Port no 7

Beer

...... Kingfisher

...... Guinness

Cognac

...... Remy Martin Vsop

Gin

...... Bombay Gin

Rum

...... Old Monk

...... Bacardi White Rum

Vodka

...... Smirnoff

Brandy

...... Golconda

Liqueor

...... Disannaro

Feni

I might have missed out a few .. but I guess it is ok .. . :p

Disclaimer: Alcohol can be an addiction. Please drink with moderation and exert self control.
Incase you feel you have a problem consult your doctor for advise. It can be cured. Please dont drink and drive.

2008-03-27T04:29:00.000-07:00

Goa

Our long planned road trip finally materialized last weekend. The weekend itself co-operated by getting longer by adding on Good Friday and to the guys working for London- Easter Monday.

The four of us Manas, Maddy, Blondie and Me planned to take off Thurs night at about 2 and do most of the travel when the weather is still cool. But thanks to Maddy bum who was playing 250 and wasn’t traceable till morn we started at about 5am.

The journey was awesome, a couple of DCH stunts and surprisingly not taking any detours we hit Anjuna at about 4 in the afternoon. We got totally ripped off at the shack paying a bomb for the kingfish and the pomfret. Here Maddy did the second of his many Harry Houdini stunts and for sake of this blog ignore them from now on.

The sunset at Anjuna beach was beautiful and we took off for NV beach resort at Calangute. Maddy exhausted crashed as soon as we got the room while the rest of us hit the shacks at Baga. Kings, Feni and Fish accompanied with Blondies anecdotes made the day. The night ended with the shacks closing at 12(ref: Scarlet Murder) and we went to Titos and had about 6 desserts among the 3 of us.

Morning Maddy and me were swimming/floating/goofing around on the beach while the oldies were lazing about at a shack by the beach. We took off in the afternoon for Palolem with a quick stop in Panaji for some pizza. All this while the place was lashed with rain making it even more beautiful with the vegetation shimmering in fresh green. We went on this amazing ride through the countryside with Maddy navigating and Manas driving we ended up 35 km off our original destination. Thanks to a helpful bike guy we ended up hitting the beach just before sunset. Palolem is definitely one of the best beaches I have laid my eyes on .. Nestled between a bay and hills the white sandy beach just blows you away. There is a shack at the edge facing the western coast that gives you a beautiful view of sunset at sea. Sipping beer at the Sundowner is an experience onto itself. The fact that it is only accessible in low tide when the water is low enough to wade through makes it even more special. We had to get back to the beach as the tide started rising and the place was booked to the full so we couldn’t get acco. We ended up at Banyan Tree and had a couple of beers and all of us wanted to drive back next morning to enjoy the beautiful drive so manas and maddy crashed in one of the shacks and me and blondie slept in the car. We also ended up getting Temp Tatoos and funky shirts. The next morning we drove back through the back roads of goa. Briefly stopping at bits goa for breakfast where manas met his cousin. We headed back to Calangute for a quick shower and then off to Shapora fort for some DCH level snaps and Manas got some Goan merchandise and we set off back home. The drive was superb with all of us driving like F1 racers when the other three were the pit crew throwing in suggestions.

We ended up back safe and sound in Mumbai at midnight totally exhausted after a killer 10 hr drive.

2008-03-18T03:05:00.000-07:00

Southie/Northie

I had this very funny conversation with a lady from Texas who works as a nurse in an Indian Doctors office.

I told her that I was from Hyderabad, she asked me whether I was from South India or North India. Dazed that she identified

India

as two parts told her was from the South. I asked her if she found any difference in the people from south and the north. To this she replied that people from North have simple easy to pronounce last names and everyone has the same last name. Whereas people from the south have long unpronounceable names and to top it off everyone in family doesn’t have the same last name ….

2008-03-10T14:36:00.001-07:00

Foodoholic Anonymous

I was a real finicky eater when I was young, sometime down the line the superb Chicken curry, cutlets, fried rice at school and the cravings of an adolescent body for nutrition became powerful catalysts to convert me to a foodie. I fell in love with spicy biryani. Fried fish and tender fried chicken mom makes are the joys of my heart.

I have no preference, made no restrictions, put no limits to food and yet here I am enamored by it.

The ancient saying “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach” applies 100% in my case. Any woman who can eat well(+ look decently fit.. sorry obese lady this is food we are talking about not aphrodisiacs) just jack hammers her way into my heart.

Omnivorus sapiens is a sub category of Homo sapiens that gobbles down everything in its way that is tasty. It is spread on contact with the radioactive chicken or mutated shrimp.

There is nothing local about good food, I have no preference to a particular cusine, any food well made wrt to that cuisine is good enough for me. This mind set broadens the variety of food you eat. Nothing is off limits, just let go and soak in the good food.

I somehow never understand counting calories. First off the body doesn’t run on 100% efficiency so how can just eating 200 cal carbs and 20 gm protein be enough. Instead I rather eat as much as I want and then go for a jog and burn the extra calories off. I weigh in about 89 kilos but I think its ok as long as I can play baski. + added advantage thanks to my grandfather’s genes that I don’t look fat. So I can hide in a couple of more kilos than others.

Note to Self: Never get the gym test in public, The machine shouting latently obese can be very damaging to morale.

Other than a few small setbacks foodoholicism is a very nice addiction scoring a lot more points that alcoholism, chain smoking or drugs. So I have decided to be a foodoholic for life until I get so fat that they have to cut my door down to take me to the hospital and cut a part of my intestines to save my life. Until then I think I am safe..

@dhruv: I can still thrash you at baski, always ready for the one-on-one.

2008-03-02T13:40:00.000-08:00

Emirates.

Everyone raves about Dubai Duty Free.. I made some calculations and really didnt find it that cheap, it was ok and in some counts more expensive than the originals. I still cant figure out why people make such a big deal out of it. That reminds me I need to buy glares, think will take Nin shopping .. She has such awesome taste.
Emirates as an airlines is superb the flight from Dubai to Houston was the best I ever got in. With touch screen personal entertainement system, great food and great service they simply bowled me over. The selection of movies they had was also complete(1000 movies), even with my super fast fwding I could not got through all the collection they had.
Will write something more on the flight from Mum to Dxb.

The weather here is superb. Roaming about in a baski jersey, shorts and chappal. Poor Sujay and Prady must be freezing their asses off in NY. Seems there is a blizzard there. Had bbq in the morn for breakfast from a roadside wendor and then had McD for lunch. I see the tyre bulging already...need to do something or people will be asking me which month soon .. :P
So tempted to go the Chinese place for dinner..General Tso chiken is so tempting.. No I shall not .. I will drink water and have a salad.

I was doing a back of the envlope calculation to see how long by flight was . . I reached the aiport about 1.30 for a 4 am flight that is about 2.5 hrs in the airport then the emirates flight to Dubai was about the same time that makes is 5 hours till then. Strangely I lost Prady in Sujay at the airport, hopefully will bump into Prady on the way back if none of our flights get delayed. Back to the calc.. The next connection EK211 was 3 hours later making it 8 hours, and it takes about 17 hours direct to Houston making it 25 hours. Then the immigration and cab ride back,2 hrs. Wrapping it at a total of 27 hours.

Day light savings starts tomo, need to get to work by 6am to accomodate that.

2008-02-26T01:28:00.000-08:00

Be Negative.

Time to be positive with all the B -ve out of the system.
I always wanted to donate blood, hoping that it would in some small way tilt the balance against all the evil sins I committed. But since I was 18 whenever I tried they always rejected my offer with the same old story about how rare my blood group is they wont accept it unless someone desperately needs it. So at 23 I have donated blood for the first time.

Note to Self- Kill myself incase I get a job that requires travelling by local train.

I never imagined I would be traveling hanging out of a local train and that too when I am travelling in first class. I think there is some unspoken rule about all the people in local trains that no one showers. The smell of sweat is there everywhere and the worst part is that even after you get off the train the smell sticks on to you like chewing gum in your hair.
It took me about 1.5 hrs to get to Matunga the same time to get back. That is about 3 hrs of my precious time wasted.

2008-02-25T00:33:00.000-08:00

Leopold and Credit cards.

Note to Self- Never pay by card when you are too drunk or too engrossed. You might end up going on a 70 km road trip to get it back.

Leopold Cafe(est 1871) is one of the sexiest places to hang out with friends in the South.
The ambiance is super and so is the food. The one place in Mumbai where you get affordable continental food and decent beer.

Why are IIT guys so obvious..(Me included)

Act 1 Scene 1
Leopold Cafe where there are a group of guys sitting next to our table and having a jolly time.

Arc: These guys are so typically IIT.
A: !!!!!!!!
Arc: They are IIT and I am sure..(Arc is one of my few friends that doesnt carry the famous 3 letter tag)
A: Now way!! I know most people by face and I have never seen these folks ever.
A: Just because they are rowdy and are shouting how can you accuse them of being from IIT.
A: This is a totally biased view! Nonsense..

Act 1 Scene 2
Leopold Cafe 15 min later after A has overheard that the group next to them was from IIT D

A; I might be wrong these guys are from IIT but not from Bombay...(Sheepish grin)
Arc: I told you so ...(triumph)
A: How did you know ?????
Arc: There is not one girl in sight, they are shouting and creating a scene, they keep saying IIT every 15 secs, and they are so wannabe...
A:...................................................(Loss of words)

This left me with the line of thought, Are we that noticable !.. Its nice to get identified but still in this manner is not something I want. But Manas cleared all the doubts I had in my head,, These guys are from D not from B or M and D ppl are gavaar neways.. .:D

2008-02-20T01:54:00.000-08:00

On Being Right:

I just read an article S forwarded about how Stanford students are a lot more docile than they were years ago.
This reminded me of the famous "protests" during my stay in college.
The first time was when the bikes were banned- my selfish seniors actually were united enough to protest against the stupid rule of banning bikes, air pollution my foot.. A few bikes in no way change the quality of air.. even after all that they just managed to get an exemption for their own batch.
The consequent batches were made to sign a declaration saying they will not protest. Incase they didnt sign it they wouldnt be given admission. Which kid after fighting for 2-3 years to get in reject the admission on moral grounds. Is there no one of character who will stand up and say Screw your college I want my freedom to protest.

After that it was a walk in the park for the management, even the smallest squeak and they would threaten by waving the all powerful declaration over our heads. It was not like people were hell bent in achieving their ideals, most never cared a shit if they could graduate without a hassle.

When MI was banned and when Lan usage was controlled, other than a few spirited souls like me who atleast protested the others just accepted. I still remember Ronaldo and me trying our best to reason out with people and convince them and having long talks why the 'system' was screwed. Now people have accepted the lan ban and just download movies in advance.

Most people just see short term gains and dont ever see the bigger picture. Just by removing net will not drive the student to study. Unless there is a major revamp in the educational structure and also the course material, I really doubt we will be an institution producing the sharpest and brightest minds in the country.

I come back to the original question how much must one be driven to hit back?
What does it take for a man to say this is bull shit and I will not comply.....

2008-02-19T04:10:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was awesome ..
manas actaully asked me to document it just incase I never get as productive..

1100 Wake up
1130 Got new panes for bathroom window that blew up in the geyser explosion
1200 Wash hand towels
1300 Eat lunch
1400 Sleep+ Read Talib+ Movies+wiki
1600 Basketball
1800 Repair Comp
1830 Shower+ call up mom
2000 Bike ride+ met A + got my brand new BMW z8 (slightly smaller than I hoped..:P)
2100 Dinner@Subway
2200 Movies +Chatting+Calls
0100 Intellectual conversation with Mr Manas Ratna Casturi.

This is some rnd analysis I did..

Loo Time

Time Frame Event
t=0 Build up of Pressure
t=1 Lazily stand up
t=2 Walk to the wash room
t=3.5 Dropping Pressure+Flushing
t=4 Wash hands
t=6 Walk back to the desk(Say Hi to everyone on the way, this no longer being a high pressure situation)
t=rest of day Play minesweeper

where t is measured in Minutes.

2008-02-15T00:23:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pictures of my new bike .. Yes it is a 350 cc monster..
Modified by my cousin Girish.
Some of the stats I picked off the net
Specifics:

Model : Bullet 350
Manufacturer: Royal Enfield
Make : 1996
Discplacement :346 cc
Power :19 bhp
Torque : 3.26 kg
Transmission : 4 speed gear box
Ignition : CB point
Weight :360 pounds
Max speed : 70 mph

Note: The data is in americanised format.. With us Indians having family, cousins, second- cousins in the US we must be totally getting used to convert the units into Indian ones .. Therefore i guess the data wont cause much of a problem.

Forgot to mention me back to Uncle Sam land..

2008-02-07T07:51:00.000-08:00

RESPECT....

Something that is acquired over a lifetime, and last even longer. Or as Ali G puts it Respekt.!!
Only a few deserve it as Sri Koteshwar Rao who is no longer with us now. I still remember him smoking cigarette after cigarette solving math problems laughing away at the doctor who warned him that his second heart attack might be fatal(he survived 3 more). He is the best math teacher I ever knew for he was humble enough to apologize to a 15 year old when he was wrong. For he did not believe in just solving the problem or muggin a solution(vomiting the ink as he fondly called it) but creating a work of art. Simplicity, conciseness and grace were what he looked at. He talked at length about Cauchy, Euler,Ramanujam their great works, their lives..

He lives on in the hearts of all of us who were lucky enough to be initiated to math by him.

gurubra.rhmaa gururvishhNuH gururdevo maheshvaraH .
guruH saakshaatparabrahma tasmai shrii guravenamaH ..

2008-01-30T06:10:00.000-08:00

Matrimonial Column:

Bride Wanted:

For Well Educated/Tall/Dark/Handsome/23yr/Good family/Earning 6 figure Salary/Mumbai Settled with Family from Andhra.The girl should be Tall/Well Educated/Pretty /Beautiful /Traditional /Good family/God Fearing. Please contact ajit@9819326775 incase you match the criterion. Others can take a hike..
........
........
........
Disclaimer
This document does not constitute an offer, or an invitation to offer, or a recommendation to enter into any transaction. We have sent you this document in our capacity as a potential counterparty acting at arm’s length. We are not acting as your financial adviser or in a fiduciary capacity in respect of this proposed transaction or any other transaction with you unless otherwise expressly agreed by us in writing. Before entering into any transaction you should take steps to ensure that you understand the transaction and have made an independent assessment of the appropriateness of the transaction in the light of your own objectives and circumstances, including the possible risks and benefits of entering into such transaction. You should also consider seeking advice from your own advisers in making this assessment.

Disclaimer2
You must be nuts to even think of accepting the offer .. incase you still want someone to marry then please visit .. bharatmatrimony.com..

2008-01-28T23:46:00.000-08:00

My New Language...

Finance ... yesterday me and Manas realised that we have a new cryptic way to talk,

Excerpt:
A: Had a chat with the client for prospective hedges.
M: What was the story and client response
A: The response was negative as the client has an existing hedge
M: Is the hedge perfect or a chance of further leveraged hedging.
A: Client is unresponsive.. Might require more client relationship building.Chances are it might be a high delta and needs additional hedging
M: So then we are back to square one . We should go ahead with more client adoptions.
...........
............
...........

2008-01-24T08:02:00.000-08:00

Relationship Columns-

“If your girl on the 3^rd date wears a skirt and has perfume sprayed on her knees, means you are going to get lucky” Wow how could someone think of such an obscure idea. This is so whacky that I cant even put it in my all encompassing Gaddam theory. Reminds me of the movie ‘Ladies Taylor’ where some sadhu tells the hero Rajendra Prasad that his true love has a mole on her inner thigh. In the eighties this was a very big thing that someone actually shot a whole movie on the poor hero’s adventures.

Options for the Hero:

advertise in Shaadi.com
use powerscrap and scrap everyone on the planet and hope some brazilian chick replies to the scrap
keep watching desi porn 24x7
hang out at the pool
go to an pub/party where acc to my previous blog dressing is minimal

Hold ON……..I don’t care about some stupid mole .. back to the original blog .. no more digressing..

Yeah how the hell will a poor guy like me know whether the girl is wearing perfume on her knees. Ok assume my nose has super powers like Superman and I make out the said perfume among the various other perfumes she is wearing(soap/deo/perfume/cream..etc etc). How the hell would I know that tonight is the night, rather than the simple fact that she sprayed some perfume on her knees. It would be a lot simpler if she had a card that said what she means. That comes back to the ever so hopeful thing…Why cant girls be more simpler. Leaving that aside why the hell do people write such stupid columns, and who are the morons who actually believe that shit. “10 Questions to know whether your husband is cheating on you”.. “Are you a closet geek..??”..

I just figured leaving something incomplete is fun.

The End

2008-01-02T02:33:00.000-08:00

No Saree… I am really Sorry…

The other day me and a couple of friends were off to Touch(supposedly the heppest place to hang out in Hyd). Other than brief visits I actually have never been to this joint. There were 4 girls and 5 guys, one of the best ratios I have ever seen given to the fact that none of us know any women that are willing to party.

I got the rudest shock of my life when the bouncer(twice my size) pointed out that one of my friends wouldn’t be allowed in because was wearing a saree.. what a load of crap.

Saree has been accepted as traditional Indian formal wear all over the world and then in our very own country we shut our doors to women dressed in the 9yd wonder. I fail to see them miss the beauty of the saree. For it covers all and yet showing off all the curves. Incase those dumb people still cant get it then they should see a couple of hindi movie actresses, Madhuri, Sridevi, Susmita Sen do it to perfection, Almost every movie has a scene where the heroine gets drenched in the rain and then seducing the hero.

I never understand people who just ape everything from the west and fail to see the logic behind anything. Rather than judging on how well dressed the woman is they are kicking out people based on their dress type, that is even worse than the goras who atleast didn’t discriminate their own kind.

Seriously angry we went over to Liquids which didn’t have any more stupid rules like this and ended up having a pretty decent time.

2007-12-04T01:35:00.000-08:00

2 romantic things:

Romantic thing 1:
You are in a lift and the lift suddenly stops. You hit the alarm and after some time you hear people outside discussing the best way to get you out without killing you. Present day lifts are extremely safe they have anti free fall devices that arrest your fall incase of an emergency but still standing in a cubicle 5 floors up and enclosed in a 4X4 cubicle isnt a nice feeling. Luckily not being claustrophobic helps a lot. This is when it hit me that i was in the most romantic situation ever(incase anyone saw the movie Pokiri they would understand what I am talking about). The girl is terrified and she needs some comforting who better that the chivalrous male next to her(a.k.a ME). Adversity breeds the best bonding. The Stokholm syndrome being the best example to this. Alas the lady luck always frowns at me when in comes to matters of the other sex. How awesome would it have been if there were a couple of airhostess(the ones on the 12th floor) in the lift. Am I asking for too much, all i wanted was a couple of airhostess in the lift ..:P

Romantic thing 2:
Empty theater- Numerous movies have captured this effect where the hero books up the whole theater so that he and his lady love can spend some quality time together. The other day we went to the 11pm show of Beowulf the animated movie laced with adult humor. Thanks to the vulgar jokes and animation there was no one else in the theater other than me and lambu. Whyyyyyyyyyy... such an awesome chance wasted.......

i think there is something called mega bad luck with women and i seem to have a lot of it..

London the city of beautiful hot women and beleive it or not .. it took me a couple of days for me to stop one.. as Nai and Akanksha say "Dude! You havent paid the tax to look at good women".. Can someone tell me where to pay so that I can clear the dues and probably pay the surcharge too .
Delhi the jackpot place for women .. just stand in Sarojini market and there are women of all varoeties floating about bargaining about some bric-brac. Yet after spending two days in Delhi and then going to a marriage and that too the marriage being a Punjabi one still I managed to get back to aamchi Mumbai without even looking at a girl.. forget good looking ones///

This is totally unfair .. I protest against this .. How can someone have all the luck in the world..

Seems the number of memberships to the 'Gymboy' club is going up ,.,, yeehaa....

2007-11-19T02:01:00.000-08:00

Geeks and Nerds

Though I always thought they refer to the same thing, according to Nina there is a ton of a difference between geeks and nerds... As she pointed out when she was proving that I was a total geek.

Acc to her a geek is one who has ‘The geekiness in him’ reminding me of a line from star wars “The geekiness is strong in him.” And a nerd is someone who tries hard to be a geek. Wow lucky she dint say I was a nerd.

All my short adult life I have been fighting to get rid of the label of being a GEEK. I have finally given up. Playing sports, riding bikes, doing adventure sports, girls, etc.. nothing you do will cover up the fact. The more you try to hide it the more it manifests itself. It is an inborn feeling and I repeat THERE IS NO CURE.

I finally decided that the only way to get rid of this double life is come out of the closet and accept your fate and confess..

10 Top reasons why I am a Geek(note even this is in a point wise fashion):

1. The name of the blog “Tension=10n”. This is a default geek name. Who else will name their blog with the force he used in his seminar.

2. I have watched the old Starwars about 15 times and the new ones about 5 times.

3. In my sisters marriage wanted to play lateral thinking games with kids. When all they wanted to do was burst ballons.

4. I went to IIT..the headquarters of the geeks. Geeks never feel left out there, they co-exist with other geeks in peace over there and discuss complex abstract issues life why they don’t have a girl in their life.

5. Google(Sunith if you are reading this its “Your favorite search engine”.. some Yahoo Google rivalry thing.) out everything and lookup everything and anything on the net. From ‘generation of correlated random numbers’ to my name..

6. I read LOTR about 15 times and still plan do read it once more when I have the time and believe me I actually read the book before the movie came out and back then the book actually came out in 2 book set.

7. I watch foreign language films with subtitles.. Not stopping I also watch Foreign language soaps in FFwd.. I also prefer watching movies at home on my comp than go to the theater(exceptions when beautiful women are around). When I watch them I keep going Fwd and Back. People get mad when I keep doing this.

8. I watch a lot or Anime and actually read manga, I watched almost all of the manga on the insti servers and at one point of time was a real active downloader. The arbitest thing I ever saw was on bread making. I still cant figure out why someone wanted to make an anime on bread making.

9. I like my job and love working on new projects and learning more and more stuff about it. I actually am happy on a Monday morning.

10. Aaaand finally coming to the most important factor. I am 23 years old living away from parents, don’t have an iota of any other responsibility and “I dont have a girl”

Incase you have more than 3 qualities in this you my friend are a geek and welcome to the brotherhood. Don’t feel ashamed for ours is a superior life.

Be proud and loud when you say “I AM A GEEK”

2007-11-12T15:39:00.000-08:00

Dreams

Every IITian has the dream(dream it never happens)

Dream :
IITian is traveling in a train, everyone is asleep and the night lights are on. Desolate station and a beautiful girl gets on the train. She doesnt have a reservation and is desp looking for a place to sit. Everyone is asleep and no one wants to move. Then the IITian gallantly steps forward and offers his berth and tells her to take his and he will sit at the door. She overcome by guilt tells him "Why dont we share the berth". After a little persuasion the IITian agrees to this. As the night fades on the version of the story varies from person to person, the most common being the girl becoming his woman to slightly more erotic versions which due to the PG18 nature of this blog we shall not dwell into.

2007-11-06T15:47:00.000-08:00

Customs vary from place to place..

Non-Veg rocks,, sorry to all the veggies reading this but nothing tastes like some good non-veg.
In India thanks to the influence of all the veggies around meat isnt the staple. So to carnivores like me meat is a delicacy that is usually eaten every Sunday at home(Incase your mom is really nice weekly can be easily changed to daily). So most meat eaters in India given a chance never touch ghas phus. On a similar occasion when my admin mailed me asking what my meat preference for the Lufthansa flight was greedy as I am promptly replied back saying :
Meal Preference:NON-VEG

What happened :

Airhostess: Sir you have a requested a special meal.
Me:No I dint.
Airhostess: But that is what this page says(showing me a page saying Meal Pref Non-Veg)
Me:........ I guess I did
Airhostess: Here Sir enjoy your all meat meal.

They actually gave me a meal tht dint have any vegetables in it.. beat that..

Aaaaaaaaaaaandddddd to top it off.. I am actually flying back with the same preferences.. :P

2007-11-01T00:15:00.000-07:00

Bikes

2 wheels, 1 engine and a frame. This is all it takes to make a bike. Just add a few more parts like braking systems, electronics and some additional mechanics and BANG there is your dream bike.

In all the bikes I road there are only few that actually are worth a mention, so for a better comparing lets just consider a few..

CATEGORY 1
CD 100, Splendor, 4s champion, viktor and so on
in this set somehow my heart goes with the 4s champion though people always say viktor is the best .. but the true feel of riding a low powered bike only comes on a 4s champion. I cant say the same about splendor though. I jsut hate the bike. I would actually swap it with a CD 100 netime.

CATEGORY 2
CBZ, Pulsar, Karizma
This is the mini sports bike category .. i drive the CBZ so I am totally partial to this awesome bike ..
The sprint engine is awesome in low-rpm .. the high end torque is conc in the low rpm area( this is what Nittu explained when he was talking about the diff between his baleno and city) the bike is really stable in high speed dropping maneuverability in low speed.
The pulsar on the other hand has a real flat torque curve so it is faster than a CBZ in the 40-80 zone and highly maneuverable at low speeds but kindy cranky at high speed where it isnt as stable as the cbz and the breaks have a tendency of locking at high decelerations.
Though I just drove the Karizma a couple of times, it is not tough to miss on the acc.. When you let this baby out it just rips apart anything on the road..

CATEGORY 3
This is the BULLET area . My cousin Girish tells me that all the bullet java yezdi bikes fall in the tourer category of bikes. These are the bikes that are heavy with huge engine capcities and an awesome throttle sound. Americans just love the Harley but let them try driving it on the Indian roads. Whereas a tourer is ideal for the Indian roads sturdy and a min turning radius.
Among these i love the Yezdi that went out of production about the timeI was born .This lovely bike has a 250cc Engine with 12BHp resounding from its twin rear exhaust. This bike was the sucessor to the java and came out in a lot of models like yezdi, yezdi 250, and finally the yezdi roadking before shutting down. It was a thrill seeing withe roadking ripping along with the black side strip and black thigh protectors . The Bullet comes in various versions. The newer the vrsion be assured the more feminie it becomes.. Most of the new ones have electric start and decent electrics. Though the old Bullet 350 is still the best among the newones machismo is the most decent. Somehow the concept of driving a cruiser like thunderbird in indian traffic is not quite appealing.

So what are you waitng for .. Vroom Vroom Vroom.....

2007-10-30T06:18:00.001-07:00

45 min in Traffic..

This is the time I take to cover the 4 km stretch from my place to work. Roughly calculated the average speed is about 5.33 kmh. That is the average speed a human walks. => I would reach office faster if I walked rather than used the marvels of human ingenuity ‘the motor bike’.

I put up with the travel every day.. mind you I am not a novice driver who takes it slow in traffic. I come from Hyderabad. “ If you can drive in Hyderabad then you can drive anywhere in the world” said Ajit(that’s me). For driving in Hyd is a true test of driving. Brownian motion was first observed by Robert Brown when he was on a holiday in Hyderabad. Traffic there follows no rules no conventions, the autos and the bikers are agitated particles proving the theory that the smaller the particle the more random it is.

Having roots in this tough and demanding school of driving and using all the fluid mechanics that I learnt in 4 yrs of engineering and also a little bit of vector math I try plotting the best possible way to get to work.

After all this BMC always comes up with some new shit. A new bridge coming up and roads promptly blocked and a few cops setting up a naka bandi hoping to catch Dawood probably. Traffic in India usually follows one basic rule –‘If there is space move in’ . One gets to see cars stuck bumper to bumper , door to door with a few autos busses and bike squeezed in to make the jam perfect. No one ever realizes that traffic moves a lot faster if it is widely spaced, for it always takes time to clear a jammed section and then traffic to move. India is one superstitious country, people end up believing every thing. Some actually believe that if they honk and honk the cars before them vanish. So you see people honking away to glory at stationary cars in a jam adding to the cacaophony of other noises in a jam.

Would have written a lot more on driving but thanks to some insider info .. found a short cut that cuts short my driving time to about 15 min..

Cant exactly complain right !!

2007-07-08T21:48:00.001-07:00

Placements an overview….

Pressed shirts, ties, suits and shiny shoes. The only time you see people dressed like that in iit is during placements time. Campus placements at iit are quite famous, the news covers it, relatives know about it ,… everyone has atleast a teeny weeny bit of iit placements.
Outsiders have the idea that everyone in iit gets a 7 figure paychecks. but this is one of those urban myths that keep floating about. only a selected few make it past the number.
The placement procedure starts way early in the start of the final year where a student passing out tht year signs an agreement abiding to the rules of the placement procedure. The whole procedure is managed by a student body that is elected in the 3rd year.

After signing up the agreements the studentis eligible to sit for the PPT(pre-placement talks). Attending the ppt is mandatory to sit for the company. Where all the companies come and feed the people pizza and coke in the vague hope of making their company look good. They ramble on for an hour or about what their company pays and the benefits they give.

After this comes the phase where the IITians make buffoons of themselves by running for the pizza and causing a stampede in the process. But still the companies come for picking up the select few with the feeble hope that they will make a difference in the company.

I will never understand this whole procedure where the company feeds 500 students when they are not even sure that they are going to pick up even one grad. They actually just interview 20 odd people, rather they take theses 20 odd people to some place decent and I am sure the attrition rate will drop even more. This façade goes on till the placement actually starts.

After the ppt phase it is resume time. People spend days in making their resumes. They are made remade and they again made, there are shown to friends family and seniors with the vague hope that an awesome resume somehow get them shortlisted in the dream few. Molehills are made into mountains and the other way round. Most of these amazing stories are cut down by the placement nominee who goes through all theses resumes and then edits them. The wish to sit for a company is expressed by signing the Jaf(job application form). After this IIT sends out the students resumes to the company. Then the company looks at all resumes and comes up with a short list.

For the name to appear on the short list the student should be part of ‘the pecking order’. First on the top are students who hold some office in the institute. Next come the DR’s and then come the sportsmen and finally the rest. Once the short list is made the whole process is open to the select few. All that matters after this is the few hours of interview performance by the candidate.

Preparations are made much before the interview. People start making amazing resumes that bring out their best side. People also work on their resumes so that they become impregnable to questions on their resume. People end up taking a lot of finance courses and they also do interns at financial institutions so that they can sit for i-banks and other consultancies. These people start brushing up their knowledge for the interviews.

An integral part of most of the IIT interviews is case study. These can be easily mastered by solving the cases over and over again.

Come placement time people are running around from place tp place trying to buy rent steal formal clothes, ties pens what not..

The interview procedure usually depends on the type of the company. A consultancy company usually has 3-4 rounds of interviews where 2-3 rounds are cases and one is a personal HR round interview. The short listing in such companies is usually the cream. People with high CPI and a lot of extra-currics activities and mega high positions of responsibility.

Next come the I-banks, data miners, analysis companies. They have 3 rounds where the first is a quant test and the next is a case interview with a lot of math and then comes a one on one with the HR. People that get in are the ones with high analytical ability and the ones that are really cool under pressure. This shortlist in not that CPI based, but rather based on the extra currics and analytical abilty.

Then come the FMCG. These companies have almost the same procedure as the I-banks but they have one more round of group discussions. This list is mostly the all rounders. People that are decent in everyuthing but not good at anything.

Next come the oil companies. These sweep out the sport studs and the people with a lot of other than academic activities. Then come the core and the software companies. They pay dirt and are willing to take anyone who is willing to join their company. After the short list comes out it is mandatory for the student to sit for the interview.

The most amusing part is that people who don’t have a bath for a month transform into clean shaven executives in smartly pressed formals.

The result of the interview come late at night(arnd 12 am). As soon as the results come out the party starts….booze flows and people are happily placed……….

2007-06-01T13:41:00.000-07:00

My last Crossy…

Huff Puff Puff “ Common you can do it, just a little more”. The institute crossy is 7 km long and a truly amazing race. 1^st year weighing 92 kilos it was a Herculean task of even running 3 km of this race. Looking at seniors peacefully running back and forth of the freshie column was a major source of admiration.

The route the crossy takes is very scenic going pat the sameer hill(which is a huge pain running up) and then finally past the Powai lake ending in the gymkhana.

With a position of 49 in the main crossy in my freshie year was a great beginning . over years I dropped to better positions like 36 in 2^nd year and 19^th in my third year. My final year crossy was jinxed with me going home for the first race and then missing the second due to some stupid people in the sports body who forgot to call me for the crossy.

Running the crossy in the monsoons is a great experience. There is always a fine drizzle and gulping down the fresh ozonated air is worth waking up at 6 in the morn.. :P

2007-04-24T09:57:00.001-07:00

My Sonnet

I wanna writ a sonnet
Composed of something inspired
Nuthin very complicated
But definitely of some set .

Not from 1 disturbed
But 1 of a regular packet
U cant they said
U cant they predict.

In dilema Him I questioned
Yes. My Son in ur hands is Lit
A Talent to u Bequeathed
its up to u to use It
Here the walls exploded
unleashing the dormant

AJAX

8-3-2k5

2007-04-24T09:56:00.002-07:00

Teeth

A late Sunday afternoon warped into my mom shouting ,
and warm sunlight filtering down.

A light breeze wafted up ,
from the consumer to the senses ,
with the message .

The city is on a siege,
the walls are breached
and rows of soldiers hammering ,
chipping away causing,
black stench and yellow flood .

Brush they cried !
Be our Saviour they pleaded.
But here i am,
in English class writing Poems..

AJAX

24-1-2k5

2007-04-24T09:56:00.001-07:00

Watch

Whenever I cast a glance at it,
figures stare back jeweled,reminding
somewhere to go, someplace to be
in the past ,present or the future.

It went on ticking when
the present became past
staring straight back with the same old face
changing expressions every second.

At times the ticking tends to infiniti ,
others it flies on Hermes wings.
Wish I could chain it down ,break
its pace and make it run to my command.

Ungrateful wretch , it never listens ,
never ticking back
Not even obeying its own master
it ticks on and on and on.

AJAX

29-3-2k5

2007-03-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

Bombay2Goa

After 3.5 years in iit we(the gult gang-mama{placement nbd},kuppa{???}) took off to goa. The train seemed the chapest option with at 600 per head to and fro. We booked the tickets typical iit style (last min). as expected we were on the waiting list. Thanks to DP and me we jumped into an extra compartment where 3 of the passengers were to get on at Panvel. But few of the ticketless passengers got a novel idea to blockade the door so that no one could enter. This resulted in some stone pelting at the bogie. Finally we got 3 berths to sleep on.

On reaching Goa we got down at Margao and then took a taxi to Caligut where the taxi driver was kind enough to get us into NV beach resort. This place was a steal 100 bucks for 5 guys that too fara room with a tv . we hired bikes at about 300 bucks a bike . I got to ride my dream bike the ‘Bullet’ it was an awesome experience though the milage was screwed up. It was so screwed up that I finally gave up and swapped with a Pulsar. We went to the Baga beach in the evening and had a blast playing rugby and Frisbee. After thoroughly getting soaked up we had Kings(Goan beer) at a shack by the beach. Kings is an amazing beer and the best part is that it just costs about 30 bucks a pint an it tastes a lot better than Kingfisher. After having a shower and scrubbing of the sand we went to the Ingo’s Saturday night bazaar. This was the first time in India I saw foreigners making a bakra of other foreigners. Everything was so overpriced but they went on buying stuff they would get just outside the bazaar for one tenth the price.

Sandesh here enlightened me about the fact that all the firings in Goa aren’t rich most of them are the poor lot that cant afford the other expensive tourist locations. Half of them were a sorry lot. Most of them were smoking or doping and just lying about in shabby clothes. Incase anyone has a white superiority complex one visit to Goa will set it right.

After that we hit a shack on the beach. It was called Zanzibar. The place rocked. I really hit on this firang who was drunk, she was so sloshed that after sometime she got on top of te bar counter and started dancing. She was one hell of a babe, I tried making some small talk but failing miserably I returned back to the room and crashed.

Next day we woke up typical iit style about 10ish. We got ready by afternoon and went to the Chapora fort made famous by the movie DCH. Then on my cousins advise went to the Vagator beach which by far one of the worst beaches I ever saw. It was like Juhu-Chowpatti. Then we went to Anjuna beach, this was a rock beach. There was little sand and so we drank some more kings in one of those shacks and left to Fort Aguada(which in portugese means fort water). It was a major water filling station for ships. After Aguada we headed home for osme party or the other but misfortune struck. Seriously battered we could make it to Calungute beach by dinner time and there we had dinner at a place called asia and then we sat at Lobo’s shack which is next to Souza’s Lobo but at a fraction of the price. We got to listen to all that good music for free.

The next morning after returning the bikes we went ot the shack on the beach behind our resort. It was an amazing beach, there were may firings sunbathing semi-nude on the beach and the sand was just prefect. Strangely quite contrary to my earlier hypothesis I wasn’t aroused at all by seeing them. I guess the sexual aspect comes only when we fight to look at something. Anything free isn’t as good as when you fight for it.

After bargaining with a lot of taxis we finally negotiated with one taxi to drop us till margoa for 600 bucks. There we found out that due to late booking our seats were still RAC. We again got lucky and got some decent seats to sleep in.

Thus ended our Goa trip. It was one of the best trips I ever had. I now totally understand my seniors who have been making this pilgrimage religiously in their stay at IIT. It is definitely an experience onto itself.

2007-02-28T09:42:00.001-08:00

Life on the bench

I sat on the bench for 2 years. By bench I don’t mean the common wooden bench, I am talking about the place in basketball where the non playing team sits. Everyone says the bench is important and people coming off the bench make a difference. But I say ‘What a load of crap’. All that is required to win a match is 5 decent players. Players on the bench play a small role of passing on information and building up the tempo.

There is a unique atmosphere on the bench. The mind set of the people on the bench is so complex that it will take a computer a million years to process the chain of thought. There are a lot of conflicting emotions, everyone on the bench wants to play and most of the people secretly hope that someone who is playing screws up, gets tired or maybe even injured. But its their team playing so the player cant even screw up so much as to cause the whole team to loose i.e they expect the player to perform to his maximum thus contradicting the earlier hope. They keep on criticizing, advising the players and when on the court hope that the same doesn’t happen to them. For a player on the bench the victory isn’t as sweet and the loss isn’t as bitter.

All I can say is to earn the respect you need to shape up your game and play. That is the only way you can gain the respect of your team and everyone else, most important your own self for the feeling is worth everything.

2007-02-03T04:23:00.000-08:00

School Reunion:

7 years. It has been 7 long years since I passed out of school finished junior college and then done my engineering.

The reunion was spread over two days. The first day was sports and lunch and the second a fashion show followed by a dinner.

The first day I ended up at school around 9 and to my dismay the school was almost empty excluding a few people like me who were milling about the Basalthjah stadium waiting to play cricket.

This is the problem of going to a school known for its cricket team. Most of the people that turned up were part of the cricket team and they obviously just wanted to play cricket and nothing else.

Avi had come around 12.30 by then I had already played a footer match full hps style in the front field. We had lunch with Siri and her classmates and also with Saleem and his gang. Cutlets were always prized in school where we used to fight over them. As there was no limit on the amount of cutlets in school greedy bums like me who could not get over the habit of grabbing as many as possible ended up eating 5-6 cutlets. Same was the case with coconut barfi. After that we played a game of baski with the juniors and then I pushed off.

On the second day I was contemplating of going in full formals or semi formals. Moderating my impulse to go in full formals I went in semi formals and much to my dismay I found everyone there dressed in full formals. Nittu was playing the good dog and was at the ounter selling tickets. Me Amit and Sony played the barka for sometime selling tickets too till Avi came. Me Avi and Nittu left while Amit and Sony keeping on the bakra tradition kept on selling tickets.

The fashion show was a huge let down. But some of the chicks were really hot and worth ogling at. After meeting a lot of friends and shaking a lot of hands we finally had dinner. Dinner was superb, the biryani was just too delicious that I had three helpings.

After the huge meal we went for a walk reminiscing old stories and friends. The night was just awesome. Few of us came to the startling conclusion that school was an awesome place to make out. Its dark cold and romantic, what else can u ask for. There are so many places that are so discreet that the chances of getting caught are almost zero, it would be hours before you might even get slightly disturbed. At yet all we did in school was play and run around when we could have done so much. We definitely as kids misunderstood the meaning of life. Finally there were some fireworks after which we left.

After the reunion I realized that I don’t want to go back to school as I wanted to all my junior college years. I think 4 years in iit I have lived a life that doesn’t make me want to go to school. I cant afford to go back to school as I will miss these 4 years if I do so.

2007-01-21T00:15:00.000-08:00

Inter IIT..

The Camp:
This year I hardly attended morning camp. Being in the fourth year definitely has some advantage. You always have excuses like BTP, Presentations and Placements. Post placements I attended most of the camp sessions with a bad hangover. It is amazing that you play a lot better when you are drunk.

The Journey:
61 f***ing hours. Why the hell couldn't we fly like the swimming team. Without Diamond and the baski team it would have been living hell. After 22 years of existence i finally crap in a train. It is practically impossible for a six footer to take a crap in the train toilet. This is an opinion shared by a fellow six footer Hardeep Singh Guru. First the train keeps moving and in the absence of a hand grip doesn't help. Then to top it off the position of the tap is hopeless.

Indian Railways rocks. They upgrade the ticket to an A.C and they dont give an option to stay back they heard you in the A.C coach. This made the whole contingent green. First the baski team is called snooty and then we get the upgrade. Damn we are lucky !
In between thanks to Gj we got some amazing idlis to eat at Rourkela.
In my list of dirty cities kolkata can be given the prime slot. It is way dirtier than Jaipur. The Howrah bride is nuthing special Misty doi(sweet curd) was a sweet temtation i gave into (thanks to Fubu for getting it). It was the only time in my life where i had an assortment of sweets for breakfast.
The train journey from Kolkata to Guawahati was slow and boring. If it wernt for a contingent full of freshies the boreness factor would have hit the roof. Why the hell cant the Indian govt make a pact with Bangladesh. Its a f***ingg pain in the ass to do the loop around the chicken neck.
Guawahati looks like a military camp. Not really sure the place is like that or the recent insurgent threat made into looking like that.
IITG has one of the most beautiful campuses I have ever seen. It would make a sexy IIT other than the factm that it is in the middle fo nowhere. Maybe after a few years all those glitches will soothe out and it may become a decnet IIT.
The hostels are similar to any other hostels across iit's but the canteen in the hostel is awesome. Though the variety in the cooked food is limited, it makes up with the amount of baked food present.
The net in IITG is bound with the same constraints that are going to bind IITB.

Every Inter IIT proceeds in a similar fashion, leagues, semis and finals. After cruising past Guawahati and Roorkee in the leagues we went into the semis where after defeating KGP we played Madras for the finals . It was a humiliating defeat leading to a depressing feelign which was quickly lost due to the fact that we left early next day. One interesting aspect about inter iit is the friendships forged. After meeting and playng the same people for 3 long years the bonding is real easy. I will cherish this for life.

For the guys there are girls from every part of India. The first few days are spent in spotting them and then the rest of inter iit is spent in tracking them down and trying your chance.

The flight back to hyd was kinda fun. We got to see Mt Everest up close. I think the journey would have been much closer if you could fly over Bangladesh. But rules are rules so we went through a lot of turbulence and then finally reached Delhi where Pinni got us some really hot food. After stuffing ourselves with this amazing food we got into the Indigo jet back home. I feel that it is the worst low cost airlines possible, selling food in the airlines.

This people was my inter iit trip.

2006-10-30T21:51:00.000-08:00

Life SUCKS ...Girls EVEN MORE..........

I seriously beleive that amount of complications in the world are constant. Simply put the simpler the guy the more complicated the girl he is going to get.

Everywhere magazine I read is sterotyped, even the crappy articles about well living i read in the papers are too.. All they say is the guy is the bad guy and men are pigs. Maybe it is so abroad or the ultra cosmo world. But in ground reality it is always the female that is screwed up. Most guys I know would not dream on cheating..

Its always the girl. She complicates matters. Be it an ex-flame , issues of commitment, cheating and what not . The reasons are numerous but the result the same the guy getting dumped. How can a simple minded guy ever understand the zillion complications that is the female mind. Maybe getting a shock like Mel Gibson might help.[READERS DISCRITION ADVISED]..screw spellings...

Somehow i feel that girls are gettign spoilt rotten by watching all that mushy mushy stuff they see on TV. How can someone always be there and keep a girl on her toes. Common unlike girls guys have other things to do in life, than call every half hour and say "I love you darling".

Finally adding to the complications girls always end up liking the worst possible choice. They always end up liking the baddies who treat them like shit. Guys who will end up amounting to nothing in life. Why cant they fall in love with a solid simple guy. Someone who will love them forever....NO GIRLS ARE COMPLICATED....

GOD PLEASE MAKE GIRLS SIMPLER....!!!!!

2006-10-29T21:40:00.000-08:00

Mera number kab lagega....

Cyrus made this line really popular. People all around me get lucky. They get freebies , trips and what not. How come I have never won anything ever. Even by the laws of probability I am as lucky as the next person. But how come i never got lucky yet..
In iit the term is usually assosiated with girls . You are deemed lucky if a beutiful girl happens to travel with you. Be it a bus train or plane . I have been travelling to mumbai and back since the past 4 years and in all these four years I have never been lucky .
I have heard about preposterous stories from amit where a bevy of girls were there in his compartment and they even did a strip show in the night. To the more realistic ones from Sandesh, Kaushik and Vikas where they met someone in the train and had an amazing talk and sometimes even exchanged numbers. Even S3R got lucky in the most unusual of places a bus ride from Pune to Mumbai. The girl still calls him up. Nittu I guess is the luckiest of the lot, he got to meet a couple of starlets on the plane, later he even took one out on a date.
Why me??????
When ever i travel by bus i usually get a fat guy who ends up sleping on my shoulder.
Incase i travel by train the ratio is even better there is not even one F20 or F19 in the whole bogie.
Incase you assume that i get luckier in a plane. Nahiii i get the male steward,,,

Still never giving up hope i keep travelling the same old path hoping "Kabhi to mera number lagega"

2006-10-17T22:35:00.000-07:00

AJIT THE FIREMAN....
One boring monotonous afternoon lab that just might have been another lab untill the fire broke out. To my delight one of the controls experiment caught fire.
I still dont understand what is so mesmerising about fire that makes people freeze up and watch it burn away rather than doing something about it.
Back to where i was- The water present in the heater dried up due to a compressor malfunction and the system overheated and caught fire. I hit the emergency stop cutting off the power but this did not stop the fire. Then I got to do what every guy would love to do since he was a kid... Ajit the Fireman...
The red fire extinguisher kept in every office ,home and cinema had always been the apple, tempting to be opened and used. Who would not want to break open the glass and then spray away to glory. I just love spraying stuff, spraying deo , shaving foam and hopefully more fire extinguishers.
There i was on a tuesday afternoon spraying away to gloryliquid C02. The only regret in the this whole exersise is that i should have let the fire burn a little more so that we whouldnt have to do the darned experiment ever.....

2006-10-14T13:21:00.000-07:00

Matunga:Mudho Khotto & more...
P.Ramalingam:Coimbatore Butter Stores. The only place I could imagine seeing this board would be some temple street in Tamilnadu. Much to my astonishment I found this tiny shop in Mumbai. Matunga to be more accurate.
Matunga has the highest density of southies in Mumbai. its like how Goregaon is full of as a Maharashtra minister said 'chaiwallas' and 'doodhwallas'. Some of the streets in Matunga are ripped right out of some rural tam or gult village. You will find people happily speaking in vernacular. As if to justify the temple street image most of the streets actually have temples.
Ranga Nayaks Idli Center(Matunga)
->sambar wasted will be charged extra
->all special idlis are served single
->student flash your I-cards for discounts
These are some of the signs that catch your attention as you squeeze into this tiny shop and wait so that you can lay your hands on these delicious idlis.
[Def: idli white, round, boring. this are the commonly associated adjectives with an idli]
Who could imagine that this plain old idli had so many yummy cousins?

Mudho: direct from Karnataka this oblong idli is served in a banana leaf. It looks like a roll. With coconut chutney, oil and curry powder the most amazing idli I have ever eaten.

Not satisfied with the mudho try the next one

khotto :
This cubish idli is also served in some leaf. It is softer than the mudho and melts even faster.
After this I had the plain old idli... then came the masala idli...

After all this bloated like a pig on idlis and sambar I finished this sumptuous idli spread with atypical Karnataka beeda (betel leaf filled with nut powder and coconut)

This was my day out in Matunga...

2006-10-01T09:23:00.000-07:00

WORK SLAVE WORK!! WORK SLAVE DIE!!!!!
Recently I came across an essay in TOEFL. It was about slave maker ants. These ants raid colonies of worker ants and capture them. These workers are put to work in the slave colonies and they are worked to death there. Campus placement just reminds me of that.
Huge corporations send their slave makers into colleges where naive students are captured their imagination and drive killed and then worked to death as small cogs in the huge fabric they have called corporate culture. A couple of years later these disillusions kids become disgruntled employees.
These recruiters have the snakes tongue, tempting and lying at the same time. They make students attend their ppts by throwing in some food (usually pizza and coke). Fueled by the hunger these poor kids sit in the ppt and listen to the tall tales these recruiters spin promising the kids everything under the sun...
Few of the lies these ppl spread...

'There is no job that is not a routine'-ict
'By getting to know the routine better u contribute to the company'-ict
All they mean is our job sucks and it is the most boring thing possible

'U can decide your own career path'-sheel
We decide what u do

'We are not all work ... we have a lot of fun'- GB
Our work is no fun

'Ur starting salary has no meaning about the total money u will earn'-m.stanley
We pay very less...

'We pay the huge amount of 60k usd'-capital 2
Most of the students who see this number haven’t spent any time abroad so as all good Indians do we will convert it into inr and feel happy.
Little do they realize until they get there that they are getting half of what truck drivers make. Because fro them now a 200 $ ipod is still 9000 rupees...

I guess that is the reason they think Indians make good employees... we never think big and take a risk... we are always contentded with our daily bread rather than a span of water for some tiem and then pizza forever..

BEWARE WORKERS THERE ARE SLAVE MAKERS ABOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-09-25T22:47:00.000-07:00

BAT ATTACK...
Though it sounds like a Z-grade movie stuff like this actually happen..
it happened the other day when we have happily mugging for the polymer mid sem..
down sweeps a bat into the room banging straight into my face...
after that the stupid bat wasted an hour of valuble mugging time fluttering about
in the room .,. was soo pissed off that was aboput to killl it and then remembered some
shady hindi movie where the hero kills a snake and then its mate comes and takes revenge..
really not wantingto risk it i left the bat to be ..
and after some pondering i guess it decided that the woodland is better than the jungle that is
kuppa's room and left...
after the whole thing was left wondering if bats can cause rabies..??

a

2006-07-28T23:05:00.000-07:00

Moms and jeans
These are two things that never go together. If jeans had a nemisis that would be moms.
Why cant moms understand that jeans arent to be worn clean and pressed with creases running all along..
The first jeans were called dungarees and were made at the Dungarii fort in Mumbai and they were made with the thick cotton cloth so that sailors wouild not have to wash them and they could be dragged behind ships to wash them. Then in 1950 levis patented the riveting done on jeans so that miners would not tear them apart when they shoved their tools in their pockets.
such were the origins of our humble jeans.
there is nuthing as comforteble as an old pair of jeans. they feel like they were custom made to fit sometimes u cant helkp wondering whether they grew on ur body.
jeans are a man's best attire...they fit in everwhere from a casual day at work to hiking on a trail...
u can wear jeans everywhere.. given their use it is highly improbable they are nice and clean and inpristine condition.. most of the times they are frayed at the edges and patches of fading at right places...
why do moms think that this amazing invention are a pair of rags stictched together.. why do they think it is inaproprite to wear them when you are going out...
my mom actually tore my jeans so that i dont wear them anymore,, littel did my mom know that torn jeans is in vogue now...
finally my mom infuriated with me wearing them in that condition used my jeans to clean the floor.. finally ending the loving relationship i had with my dearest buddy ..m,y jeans...

2006-07-06T09:43:00.001-07:00

Back home…

This is one blog that will be truly appreciated by all the students studying in hostels.

Done with my intership I packed by bags and took off …off all the way home to Hyderabad.. the feeling of going home overcomes the small stuff that come along the camry drop and also the turbulence that was so amazing … I always wonder why turbulence scares people out.. it is the one exciting thing that ever happens in a passenger aircraft..

One also cant help wondering why the airhostesses are so artificial .. it is so right on your face.. the way they smile and the way they talk to u it is such a big farce… there is not even a bit of honesty there.. they make it so professional …phoh[oiafeg

One thing you will fall in love with when u come to hyd in the monsoon is the weather .. tht amazing weather .. there is always a slight drizzle .. and u cant see the sun even at midday the weather is so cold.. not too chilly or not too humid.. the perfect weather to play football..

In school we would pray to god for such weather .. then when such a miracle happens we end up playing footer in the slush… jumping in the puddles trying to spill water on other .. . this hardly matters as everyone is already drenched…

The first week at home is always the best.. everyone at home tries to make u feel at home and they do that extra thing to let the sincere student who has come back after a year of education hang up his books and have a ballast at home .. there is no night curfew and there is always food waiting for u to eat …the best part is that everyone at home think that the hollowed look u have on ur face due to some extra movies watched o n the last day and the night out in the train is due to night outs put for the end sems ..so mom is always on ur back asking u to sleep it off..

There are o chores to do and all the things tht u are supposed to do like folding blankets and tiding up your room are easily excused ..

Then the week that follows is the week where your mom suggests that u start doing some work and then she send u on small errands like get the vegetables and pick up ur grandparents up etc etc….there are also hints of a night curfew…

Then comes the penultimate phase where u are locked up and fed like a 10 year old…this is the worst phase in the holidays and the most avoided.. here is when u are running low on funds and u are under total control..

Ten comes the last phase and u are about to leave ..in this phase u exploit the fact that you are leaving and senti maar that u wont be able to do all the things u want do and there is this world famous line “last week ma u wont be able to see me for another year ..why do u want to send me off with a fight”

2006-06-28T21:44:00.000-07:00

Finito
that mean done.. iam finally done with my pt(practical training) and i am going home ... after a month in 5 * comfort finally heading back home ...home sweet home...
this was one ride that i will never forget in my life from the jubliation of getting the pt to the agony when it was on hold when i flunked the medical to the new friends made ..skills learnt(swimming ,tt and pool).. the food eaten and the weights pumped... schlum is a wonderful experience in my life.. this is one company i would love to work in...in my meagre german i think it says.. ich leibe arbeite ins schlumberger...
the company rocks .. i guess most of the companies that involve field work are that way .. wehn u are sitting all day in the office petty things crop up and they grow to make your life living hell.. but when u are working on a rig and then come back u will be happy that u can sit down in a proper office that you dont even bother about the small things.. the work culture here is also amazing here the boss is more like your friend and mentor rather than an evil tyrant out to whip ur ass..
now going back to the grind sucks .. more college gre and toefl and a btp to do ..
god knows how i will manage all that and still stay afloat..

2006-06-27T01:43:00.000-07:00

Food..
I am a foodoholic that is someone who is mad about food.. this is some languages also means gluttony.. but to me it just means that i love food and i love eating a lot of it ..
i think this is some kind of disease.. the type u get by some bug biting or drinking some weird water... for when i was a kid i hated food.. i hated the fact that you had to put in morsel after morsel and then chomp on it till you can swallow .. i felt that that if i did start a juice shop that made all kinds of juices (rice juice ,dal juice ,curry ,roti and what not) i would be the next big thing after bill .. alas struck down by this disease i cant do something so cruel to all that lovely food...
i love all kinds of food let it be indian chinese or continental .. the cusine is immaterial .. the fact that it is food makes me love it all the more.. .

sometimes i eat so much that i get the feeling that i am the guy responsible for all the small kids dying of starvation in somalia ...

its not that i dont put on weight and i have one of those amazing bodies like my friend vijay who eats a ton but u can still count all his ribs .. i put on weight .. my running speed drops.. tyres start appearing around my belly.. my jeans start riding up.. still after all this i dotn look fat i just look out of shape... i guess it is due to the huge frame the 10 kilos i put on hardly shows...
but this hardly stops me from eating away to glory when i get a chance ...

all this writing has made me hungry ..this is ajit signing off ..

2006-06-23T03:42:00.000-07:00

this is going to my first blog.. the one i am planning to write every weekend all my life to clear my head..

i thought of the weird name owing to the fact that i am so confused right now that i cant even think of a proper one... lets summarize my life till now so that i can start fresh..
i am 21 one years old.. i am definitely male and i like women.. so that makes a 21 m mumbai

oops got side tracked .. haan and i like a lot of sports .. play a few too .. definitely not a gifted athlete but sure manage to take part in a couple of sports by using the h advantage (this is the feeling most of my brothers in the 6 ft community in orkut will agree on ) u can run faster jump higher and snatch things off from the rest... hey i can say that i am looking down on the rest of the human race... when it comes to human race my friend Steve who is an australian pilot with the air india told me that after the tsunami the land prices in thailand crashed and a lot of people made quite a big packet then by investing in the land then .. and these are the same people who i am sure must have contributed the least to the tsunami relief fund...
thanks to some mutant genes i happen to be color blind(better put partially color blind) this means tht due to a few missing cones i cant see a little bit of green that makes me "unfit" not to work in a factory or anything that has oil in it..it doesnt matter that i am super qualified or the right kind of guy for the job .. all it means in no.. i have to do a desk job ..
off for the week-end will write the blog next week ..
adios
a