Now that I have the satisfaction of having atleast tried Spaces, it's time to move on. I felt handcuffed by its incompatibility with Firefox, image-unfriendly templates and many other things people already told me but I still wanted to check them out myself :-D

 

I'm back to Blogspot !

"The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini came highly recommended to me. I must confess I'm disappointed. I liked the first half of the book, which paints the picture of a family in pre-Taliban Kabul.I especially the loved the portrayal of child-like innocence and naivete' in the characterisation of Hassan. After a while, though, the story got too predictable, too cliche'd. Ok - so it is set in Afghanistan which is a change from the usual, but how many times have we read about betrayal, bullies, redemption ? Forever? The story IS touching, but it's just been told before. Period. My suspicion that this would end up being another Hollywood movie proved right. It is currently in pre-production, possibly out in 2007.

Some excerpts from Kurt Cobain's 'Journals' that I just read -

 

Opening page:

"Don't read my diary when I'm gone.

OK, I'm going to work now. When you wake up this morning, please read my diary. Look through my things and figure me out."

 

From the entry 'Reversion relapse':

"Such high expectations, so much support, everyone wants it more than me.Almost feel like I'm doing it for them.Infinity does not exist.Mathematics are based on Base 10. Numerical variations are the synthesis of retrogression, such being: reactive, cause and effect, cummunicational, social interplay with situations amongst people, music, spots, war and regional determination of botanical /herbacious possibilities. Hi, I don't have dyslexia. An infrared light will simulate the sun in terms of winter....

...I feel there is a universal sense amongst our generation that everything has been said and done. True. But who cares. It could still be fun to pretend..."

 

From another note-

"..Once I saw Jesus on a Tortilla shell.."

 

"My lyrics are a big pile of contradictions. They are split down the middle between very sincere opinions and feelings that I have and sarcastic and hopefully - humorous rebuttles towards cliche' - bohemian ideals that have been exhausted for years. I mean it seems like there are only two options forsongwriters - either they're sad,tragic visionaries like Morrisey and Michael Stripe or Robert Smith ot there's the goofy, nutty white boy, hey, let's party and forget everything people like Van Halen or all that other heavy metal crap."

 

"Censorship is VERY American.

I have met many minds able to store and translate a pregnantly large amount of information, yet they haven't an ounce of talent for wisom or the appreciation of passion. The conspiracy towards success in America is immediacy. To expose in great repetition to the minds of small attention spans. Fast, speedy, now, with even more nacho cheese flavour! Here today, gone tomorrow because yesterday's following was nothing more than a *tool* in every individual's need for self importance, entertainment and social rituals. Art that has long lasting vaue cannot be appreciated by majorities..."

 

"Nihilism is a fine building block to construct a foundation of ideals but don't let the termites come in."

 

Must say this is one interesting book! Other than the notes, there are loads of skectches, original manuscripts of songs, cartoons(often featuring his parents, I think), concepts/art work for album covers, numerous lists like 'Things the band should do', lists of Cobain's pet hates - which are pretty funny, drawings of guitars, a seahorse!, Elvis Cooper, and some bizarre notes, like the pictorial represention of how he wanted 'In Utero' recorded in the studio - the setting, amp settings, et al. Btw, 'In Utero' was originally intended to be called ' I hate myself and I want to die'.

 

Really refreshing change from the other mundane books I've been reading.

 

 

 

Birds flying back to their cozy little nests, orange and golden sunsets, lush green lawns with delicately standing trees..which remind me of elegant dancers striking a pose, small winding roads with huge, imposing, age old trees...Welcome to the Queen City, Charlotte. Those views are some of the reasons I've come to love a drive around the locality where we live. It's been a beautiful summer here...and fall is slowly changing the city's myriad hues. I can't wait to go on a "fall drive" around the Smoky mountains! Just getting drenched in the midst of a yellow and orange drizzle of leaves, trying in vain to capture the joy of it all on a camera :-)....isn't it strange that every year we have a spring, summer, fall and winter...and yet the beauty is always fresh and new every year! Like a new masterpiece on a fresh canvas.

 

All this takes me back to Bangalore of the yester years...long walks along the parks on "Nanda road", sometimes with friends, sometimes with my grandpa (with his Nehru cap :) on our way to a relative's place on a bright sunday morning, sometimes the after-dinner walks with my mom (when Bangalore used to be a safe place at night)...and ofcourse the solitary walks. Keeping track of whether the gulmohars and copper pods were late blossoming that summer, or whether there were fewer lavender trees in the park in the winter. Enjoying the fragrance of "road malli" as we used to call it - that was the monsoon special bloom. Ofcourse, when we were at a certain 'silly' age, preserving some flower petals and leaves( yes, leaves!!) in between the leaves of a book used to be a passion. I even remember keeping them in my music book..they would all fall out when I opened the book, but I would stubbornly put them all back after the class. Such stupidity HAS to be chronicled somewhere!! Then, the religious yearly/ half-yearly trips to the Lalbagh flower show with the whole family - I'm sure the promise of icecreams and the hot n spicy 'butta' whetted my enthusiasm more than the pretty flowers. Hmm...I could go on and on, but that's not the purpose of this post.

 

 

Wordsworth said it all.

If you haven't already heard of it, "Bookmooch" is a community for exchanging used books. What ? Why? How? - that's all [ here ]. So, if you want a book but don't really want to buy it and its not in your neighbourhood library, this seems like a good option. But hold it right there - there's always a 'give' before you 'take', so you need to have a few books that you are willing to give away. Works if you bought a book and you ended up chewing on it for a couple of months without really getting anywhere. Hmm!! Personally I prefer to keep my books, with the hope that someday I'll read them all...but it seems to work for a lot of people, if the statistics on the site are to be believed.

...well, these are worth your time! Ladies and gentlemen, the 2006 International Photography Awards !

Check them out.

 

Two identities fighting against each other, and you looking at the contest with a Wimbledon centre court spectator's concentration - this way and that. Imagining yourself being one of them, winning a game, then a set, and then...trading places - well, "atleast I want to see what's on the other side". Back to square one. Game, set.....and back to the spectator box. The "What if"s and "What if not"s. The "want"s and the "abilities"s. And ofcourse, the "What's given to me"s. Time flows.. like the tree speeding away in the rear view while you are driving ahead. Then comes the whole kaleidoscope of possibilities. You turn the mirrors by a degree and it shows you something else. Lies. As if you didn't have enough reality to choose from. Sleepless nights. Sombre moods. Parties. Laughter. Amusement. Watching other people watch matches, playing them..winning some, losing some. Inspiration. Dejection. Boredom. Travel - to 'clear your thoughts'. Long walk on the beach. Back to the "What if"s. And "What have"s. Talk. Nothing helps.

 

Sometimes, when a decision needs to be made, it will hit you like lightning while you are busy not thinking about it.

Game, Set and Match.

Peace.

Piphilology - does that ring a bell ? Nah..i wouldn't think so! Piphilology refers to the creation and use of mnemonic techniques to remember a span of digits of the Mathematical constant 'TT ' ( PI ). I came across this today on Wikipedia and my first thought was  - Why on earth would people even WANT to remember that ? Anyway, that's not the point here. Memorising TT is apparently a hobby and the current record is held by a Japanese guy for 83,431 decimal places! Phew! I can't even remember 8 digits of a phone number, or 8 pairs of song-songwriters, for Godssake!! Wondering if 'Piem' was a spelling mistake ?? Wait till you hear this.. "Piems" are poems that represent TT in a way such that the length of each word (in letters) represents a digit. :-) 

 

Like "How I like piems" would represent 3,1,4,5 ... get the drift? Literary Math, huh? Should try it out sometime...sounds like a lot of fun!

 

Where else but Wikipedia to find out more...

 

Coming back to why people would want to remember stuff like this, maybe just for fun ? I have such a terrible, TERRIBLE memory...all I wish for is just to recognize a song or a singer, without struggling with a "I know this song...but I cant remember which one it is!". It depresses me every time I do that. I'm PATHETIQUE! I really envy people with a good memory..I know they say you can always build it by referencing things you want to remember with things that you already know, but somehow it doesn't work that way all the time, atleast not with me! I'm trying, though!

 

Anyway, go on...go write a Piem today! ( and post it here!:)

 

 

"Six Flags over Georgia"!! Even before we saw this huge sign, I saw people screaming while on the "Batman" ride and I kept staring at it from the parking lot and all my friends were laughing, amused - yes, it was going to be my first time on a roller coaster!!! (I know I am over 25...but if someone saw me that day, they'd have thought I was a toddler(ofcourse if you take out the height n weight factor). Anyway, our first ride was on "Georgia Scorcher" - where you stand - not sit, as you ride. As we blazed through loops, spirals and heights, I had little time to get "adjusted" to anything - every change in pace and direction was just too fast to feel anything but pure thrill !! The scorcher for sure whetted my appetite for "GOLIATH" - the MEGA roller coaster of this park. Soaring over 200 ft., the first drop is a jaw dropping 170 ft. free fall. The fall is slightly 'S' shaped - so when you're falling down, you really can't see the rail going down and you feel you're falling into nothing!! Also, for this one, the strap holding you is at the waist, so your neck is not really held in place by anything...so when you fall this way, you are off your seat by an inch or two - and BOY!! is that scary or what !! It was just tooooo thrilling!! Apart from this, we sat in a carousel...that was so much fun too!! Not scary, but just a lot of fun...kinda went back to merry-go-round days in Lalbagh and Cubbon park :-). The last one we did was the 'Batman' ride - which wasn't very high, but it had some crazy loops and spirals...we'd have enjoyed it a lot had we not waited in the goddamned queue for 2 hours for it! Well, I'm not going to write about the long lines...working where I am, I should be quite used to queues everywhere!! :) More info on Six Flags at Georgia rides here and some pics here.

 

This was in April this year...I was in Pune for about a month, staying with a dear college friend of mine. I had the most awesome time there getting totally pampered,  vrroooming around Pune on a two wheeler, watching a late night show of 'Maalaamaal Weekly', devouring awesome Mangalorian fish curry at Mahesh Lunch home, catching up on old times, reading Shantaram...and having the most delicious cold coffee for just Rs.8 at "Durga". Pune is a charming city ; so very alive in the night and so much to do! You're not bogged down by traffic, unlike Blore. Ofcourse, the creme de la creme of all the happening stuff was to be on my friend's birthday, when we decided to go trekking to a nearby trekking spot, Kamalgadh with a local trekking group. I was pleasantly surprised to see the number ofparticipants in the group who you'd consider past their prime..over 50 or 60yrs. I got to know later that trekking in Pune is a religion, often passed down many generations! Well, coming back to our trek, it was one of the most unforgettable ones I've been on...you'll see why here .

A conversation over lunch a few days back got me thinking...I know everyone approaches work in his/her own way. For some, it's where they unravel and realize their potential, others consider it a means to an end - they just want a 9 - 5 job and have a life away from work; the lucky ones enjoy what they do and it's not really "work" for them ; for some their job defines their life - it's the only thing that matters. Every perspective and approach is uniquely perfect in its own way because it's what the individual has defined as priorites in his life. Fair enough.
What strikes me as interesting is how people talk about their work and their attitude towards it, no matter what their priorities are. When someone tries to impress you by saying "Oh..I do this..and that...and did you know I have another company...and I also do real estate, btw.. " and in the same breath says "I hardly work. I just pretend to work by being active on messenger. You know, when you've made a name, you don't really need to work. No one really cares about what you're doing. When my manager asks me for something, I just tell him I'm busy right now..anyway, I work remote!"....wait, wait...wait! Pray explain to me what that really meant -

 

a) "I'm oh so cool that I don't have to really work to rake in the moolah. You poor thing..you really work, eh?"
b) "I don't have work ethics. I am not dependable".
c) "I've been proven so dumb that no one really gives me anything worthwhile to do anymore"
d) "I don't care what's happening with whoever's paying me. He has other people to work for him".
..."And ofcourse I think it's something to be proud of"

That don't impress me much!

 

Sometimes I don't even know if I should take people at face value when they say such things. Is it just a casual remark thrown in for entertainment that you're not supposed to have heard? If so, why say it at all? Anyway, what's interesting (although, not surprising) is that these are the guys with sprawling mansions and sporty cars. These are also the guys complaining to their bosses about being over-worked. Yeah yeah...life ain't fair...it's the survival of the fittest ...work smart, not hard..all that is fine in print..I have my misgivings about these cliches. The point is - does it mean you have no work ethics? That you ride on the high crest of good luck forever? Do such people shirk other personal responsibilities too in the same way?

 

Questions? Rhetorics? Well..thoughts, for sure.

CARS. The movie from Pixar & Disney that I spent $6 on today and most likely would be ready to spend another $10 anyday! I won't even begin to talk about the amazing animation this movie has. Given that animation is something we've got so pampered with from so many different media companies battling it out for viewership, it's almost taken for granted that when we go to watch an animated movie, it's GOT to be par excellence. Anyway, CARS is about race cars, it's about stardom and the associated brand imaging and marketing, about Radiator Springs, about Route 66, about caring about family and friends, about slowing down to stop and smell the flowers( or - stop and fall in love, as the case may be  :-D), about values...and in the midst of all, lot of humour and having a ball! It races off to a GREAT start...I almost felt I was right there in the racing arena!!...then slows down to a small-town story...and then races back to the finish line, well..almost! Cool and enjoyable tongue-in-cheek dialogues, beautiful imagery and some peppy characters and voice-overs make this a MUST SEE movie. So, off you go..Ladies and Gentlecars...watch the show...and Ka-Chow!!! :-)

On a local Jax website under Classifieds - " Require Female Accomodation  - Hello! I'm looking for a female accomodation. For Further details you can contact me @ ..." . :-))

 

In my Inbox - " Your request reference #R204239 has been cancelled, rejected or completed by the service provider(s)" . Nice! So that I need to go to the details page just to check if the request actually went through fine or not.

 

 

 

I found this link at my friend's blog  here (Thanks Emperor!) which links to a series of touching stories on Mumbai's dreamgirls. Read on to see some amazing journalism from Sonia Faleiro. I've also placed a link to her site on my Blog list.

My dad used to say I have a dog's nose. Mind you, he meant it well. Coming home from school or college and just inside the door, I would most likely shout-guess what my mom was upto in the kitchen. A waft of fresh coriander, mint, asafoetida, capsicum, ginger, jeera frying, lemon pickle(my mouth *literally* waters when I smell this), a particular green leafy vegetable( I think it was called 'sabseege soppu' in Kannada), cardamom( I especially loved this because it would mean one of my favourite kheers was cooking :-))....and I would go 'Aaaaaah! Ma! Are you making......??!!" I guess this trend has got carried over to my cooking too. I now firmly believe that half the spice and fun in cooking is in the aroma. I enjoy cooking even the simplest of things( partly owing to the *vast* array of dishes I can claim to make right now ;-) ) like rasam and sambhar when I have all the spices and garnishers I need. I usually end up spending quite a lot of time in the kitchen while I'm cooking just to lift that lid and sniff my work-in-progress and let out a 'Mmmmm....' and a smile spreads across my face when it feels( smells, if you will) right. Like a painter who steps back to see his work of art! :-) Aromas send strong signals to the brain and can significantly change your mood( mine for sure!) as several science articles will tell you. This link will tell you why aromatherapy is big business.

Bon Appetit!

A strange sense of restlessness and incompleteness pervades over me today that I can't quite describe here. (I think I've never used the word 'incompleteness' before..lemme make sure it exists..it does! :D ). Hmm...so I was at office trying to get something done, but all my thoughts were like cottony feathers that descend from a tree swishing here and there until they hit the ground and probably get stamped upon....not very positive, are we today? Anyway, I came back home a little earlier than usual and started working again...helped me a bit, but not quite :-) Why is it that sometimes, you JUST cannot concentrate on anything, for no apparent reason !? I'm sure everyone has their 'can't-get-anything-done!!' days. I think it's kinda useless to try and analyse it - it fades away as suddenly as it appears...like a rainbow(although a rainbow fading AWAY is not a great thing). Think I lost you there, eh ? Well, looks like I'm crushing my own thoughts now :p . Anyway, I'm going to listen to one of my favourite songs...and wait for the rainbow!

 

"When there's lightning - it always bring me down
Cause it's free and I see that it's me
Who's lost and never found
I cry for magic - I feel it dancing in the light
But it was cold - I lost my hold
To the shadows of the night

There's no sign of the morning coming
You've been left on your own
Like a Rainbow in the Dark"

- Dio

 

You know what? I think it's the tropical storm 'Alberto'...yes, that's what it is! How gloomy!

Ugh! How I HATE to work on weekends! We have this *important* process running on our application this weekend and I had to get up at 7:30 on a Saturday! If that's not bad enough, my job is to monitor a few things and these 'things' run for a couple of hours. So all I do is - keep looking at the screen once in a while and try to do something else. It's another thing when you're actually DOING something, but this is irritating!! Anyway, I learnt a few new things today, and I guess I should be happy about that ( trying to smile..here it goes - :). It doens't help that all your roommates and friends are under their cozy comforters dreaming...now why did I have to think about that? < Checking on the 'things' ..they are doing fine.. >. On the brighter side( since there's no one else at this time to comfort me, I take it upon myself to....Aaargh! Just when I was trying to think of the brighter side, I get a message to get to office. Although I knew I would be going, I had hoped that I woudn't have to - I mean, I'll be doing pretty much the same thing there too...and I won't have my blog to vent my feelings..sigh..I can imagine myself sitting in that cube, just one project mate for company...and looking at those screens incessantly. Did I make you shed a tear, yet ? 'No way!' is my guess...Well, who cares for me, anyway ( at this time!) ?

Sigh.

 

Hmmmm...so my friend and I rented this DVD today from the Indian store....started watching it and by the time we finally understood SOMEthing of it, the movie (thankfully!) got over. Homi Adajania's directorial debut has the slick feel, a great cast( Naseeruddin, Saif Ali Khan, Boman Irani), no song but pretty good music with good use of cello to create the 'Film Noir' feel, suspense, the abstract...just about every ingriedient that should cook up a great movie, but somewhere and somehow it miserably fails! Just when you start liking it, you realize that eveyone's speaking English in a movie based in Panchgani and Mumbai. Now how unnatural is that! Saif and Nasseruddin are passable in their delivery, but getting Dimple, Irani and everyone else to do the same is nonsensical! That just took away the authenticity of the characters...it becomes just some abstract array of characters playing their parts in a play and getting on with it with Saif being the intangible cord between them all. Just when the story starts to fall into place, the acting starts to really fall apart and you just want to shut Dimple's mouth through the screen!! Aaaargh. Watch this movie if you want to see Saif in a new role or if you have nothing better to do in the whole wide world!