The Tao of the Comet

Was walking off M.G.Road (not M.G.Road exactly :D ) in Pune and saw this synagogue ..The ohel david synagogue… it seems it is Asia’s largest synagogue (outside Israel), … Also i read that daler Mahendi did his ‘Ho Gayi Tu Balle Balle’ Video near this synagogue … Hmmm Interesting :)

Also found some hostels exclusively meant for zorastrians .. saw some parsee houses .. old antique buildings .. Interesting sights all this .. they talk a lot about the character of the city :) ..

Whichever place i go to i always love those random walks staring at buildings (old and new) .. come back and read about their history :) … I read N number of books on hyderabad to date and i am still game to read more ;). Is there anyone like Narendra Luther or William Darlymple or Lokeshwar for Pune too ?? .. (Ppl who wrote some good books on Hyderabad or Hyderabadi culture in general) .. If anyone knows please feel free to drop a comment …

Also saw this international barbell club … dumb as it might sound .. i didnt know the meaning of barbell until i went back home and checked wordweb ;)

All this was in search of a sony ericsson service center … Was surprising to see that those guys still use windows 98 !! (Found in a PC In the reception) .. Long time since i saw Windows98 :) . If my memory doesnt fail me yet again .. then Windows98 was the first OS that i saw/used …

Fooled ! :

For the last 7-8 months whicever book shop i went to i used to find this book .. “The secret” .. it looked like the da vinci code genre of books … added to this a sr.manager here recommended that book .. as in .. read “the secret” it is a fantastic book … i bought that book expecting some racy thriller … (pirated :D .. one of those few pirated books i buy .. post-job i am anti-piracy as far as books are concerned :) ) Sadly enuf .. it turned to be yet another personality developement book :( … as a rule i hate personality developement books .. as i always see them as packaged common sense :) … and this book was no different .. Good packaging though ;) ..
For once i was totally totally fooled :)

Sonia bashing on orkut :
Was surprised to see that some fellas were caught for sonia gandhi bashing on orkut … some hyderabadi from pune ( btw hyderabadi from pune is a interesting term :D) i guess .. for once i was afraid too .. i did write one post referring to sonia gandhi .. not as derogotary as the guy who got caught .. but you never know .. thankfully that post is sleeping in my blog .. away from public viewing ;).

Dasavataram :
Was good… better than most films i see these days .. amazing in parts :) .. Waiting eagerly for marmayogi now :)

Sarkar raj :
Was good too .. i generally like most RGV movies … Eg : I liked Nishabd … Okie .. don’t look at me like thatttttttt :D . I didnt see RGV’s Aag .. so no idea how bad it was … Otherwise this one is a good comeback movie by RGV

21 :
Saw this one yday .. which makes it three films in three days .. :) .. I liked this one too … not a pathbreaking astounding film ;) .. but general okie-okie timepass film :).

Wanted to write a lot more .. will stop here ..

PS : Pune Mirror … sux .. totally totally x-( …. Referring to yesterday’s coverpage with lots of horrid pictures x-( .
PS1 : Oh and yes .. Sania mirza lost .. Sharapova lost .. @Wimbledon’08 .. Two days of national mourning for the former and two days of international mourning for the latter declared !!

The title of this post is a brave valiant effort to get some sort of a rhyme :D …

Shifted apartment this weekend .. we were paying an outrageous 16k for a scantily furnished 3BHK apartment .. the owner was asking for 18,500 for the coming financial year ;) .. so shifted to a smaller 15k per month 3BHK …

The prev. apartment had its own charm … as seen below :)

This is the Mt.Everest that i see enroute to office :)

The view from apartment complex

Ah hmm .. I miss them all .. here comes the view from New apartment ;) .. Pune rox :D

Okie .. and here’s the nickname pic (a pic for everything and anything is the motto for this post :D) .. the new nickname .. is KCL .. to know the expansion .. please click on the pic below :)

And now to end this post with a crib .. Pune is soo soo soo costly :D .. the melon in the pic below was some 40/- or something :( … in a general roadside shop .. for once i felt .. supermarkets are cheaper :D

Okie … Now for some gyaan .. Why curly hair sux :D

Curly hair sux becoz it protrudes out like ‘that’ .. and no matter what you do .. like a dog’s tail .. nothing can be done about it .. except haircut :)… for a dog .. it is a tailcut ;) .. anyone has any idea about which grows faster ?? .. dog’s tail or human hair :D

PS : The only real utility of a Camera phone is that you can click such random pics :D .

I had seen ‘Kumar ketkar’ live when he came to ISB for some conclave (I forgot the name :D) … From the manner (and content) in which he spoke i knew right away that this man was special .. Like mithun chakraborthy’s character in Guru ;) ..

Yday i heard what happened to him .. Today i read why (Could have read it yday had i known marathi :D) .. I am amazed … Journalism of courage indeed :)

All the problems have been solved . So , Lets build the statue : Kumar ketkar

PS : Strange … I seem to care about affairs in maharashtra :D … Slowly and steadily i guess i will join the marathi manoos :D

PS1 : This might help .. For asking why a shivaji statue , Loksatta editor’s home attacked.

Such a dumb title ! … that should also give a hint about the utter lack of creativity of this Post-Man (Blogger :D ) …

I have lost it totally i think .. lost that urge to blog … lost that urge to rant .. to crib .. to do BC .. to spam … to think .. to philosophise (i think i am using this word for the first time in my life :D ) … to criticise (rant crib are all different flavours of the same thing :) ) …

Have lost lot of such things :( … Industry has sapped a lot of me from me :( ..

May be i should blog .. blogging is good .. where was that link that Prof.PJN sent sometime back .. that was a good article on blogging …. If someone has that paste as a comment …

Partly to blame is Mozilla Firefox ( version 2.something.something) .. it crashes so so so often .. that atleast 5 posts i wrote in between got lost .. On a linux machine FC6 .. :( …

I end this post here … purposeless junk post .. i know .. good posts will surely come in the future .. this post was just to check .. hmm .. lets say .. the new wordpress interface .. wordpress has changed a lot .. the very fact i am noticing all this NOW .. shows how dull life has been all these months :) …

I end with this awesome quote … infact two ..

“this is our world , although the people who drew this map decided to put their own land on top or ours . there is no top or bottom you see”…

Found this in an african fiction book by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie .. “Half of a yellow sun” …

Also while reading Michael Atherton’s autobiography , there is a chapter titled ‘Cold and Timid souls’ in which he mentions this quote by theodore roosevelt

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat”

PS : I still read blogs … if i stop that too .. i know whom to blame .. software industry :D … it drains off all the energy that i have on weekdays .. weekends just go waste in trying to recuperate all that you lost on weekdays :) … but the problem .. i need my daily wages .. so i continue to work … falling deeper and deeper into mediocrity … compromising on all the ideals on all the dreams .. on everything :) …

PS1 : How philosophical was the above PS .. especially the last 2-3 lines .. Rate on a scale of 10 :D

PS2 : Oh and yes .. I am alive …

Lohegaon Airport

Found this pic in pune airport .. and i was puzzled for sometime .. i didn’t know what the fellow meant :D. If you can decipher it please write a comment :p ( in computer science style this is RFC 2008 :D ) . I think to understand what he exactly means you need to use the prepaid postpaid facility .. anyways you can always guess ;)

Bus

I did a 19 hr long journey from pune to blore .. general time it takes on a bus is 15 hrs-ish .. but thanks to a schizophrenic in my bus it took so long .. i was reminded of meethi in a aparna sen film . i still think that that family shud have hired a private vehicle from pune instead of embarassing all the 30 passengers in the sleeper bus . (yes the only good part abt the bus journey was that the bus had a/c and i had a berth to sleep :) ) . imagine .. dozing off at 10:30 PM and then waking up with a start at 11:30 PM with shouts like .. “dei naan unne vidamatam da ” ( translation : i am not going to leave you .. correct my tamil if i am wrong) and wailings like “appa enne adikaadey” ( translated: father dont beat me) .. one on hand is the compassion element that builds some sympathy for the poor woman .. ofcourse not to forget the aparna sen hangover.. movies do help sometimes :) .. on the other hand there is this .. why shud i spoil my sleep .. i cant do this to me in a 16hr long journey .. In the end i guess the former won :) .. which means i am still Human :D ….

Barber
Actually thought of posting a halley@salon wallah pic here .. a couple of days back .. on saturday … a barber did something strange to my face :D . But then i thought posting that pic will be like an entry to “make fun of me” contest . hence i desist from posting that pic .. however as a reference i post a pic of the salon :D .

Work experience can do a lot to a person … It can make him/her pseudo-busy… i.e., he thinks he is busy but he actually is not . One of the consequences of this phenomenon is appallingly low posts on a once upon a time okie-ish blog (in terms of hits in terms of posts i.e., :) )

Here are some snippets .. this post is in accordance with the tradition of arbitness of this blog and the legacy of lengthy posts ..

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After a loongg deep waittt for south indian dinner in pune .. read as .. curry + dal+ sambhar + pickle+RICE+curd :D … we finally found a place near our home named reddy’s recipes . (No comments on the name entertained :p ) . it is soo balakrishna-ish that you will feel like shouting satti reddyyyyyyy the minute you go to the restaurant ..

There is this one fella who was speaking telugu … listening to telugu in a pune hotel is like music for our ears :D .. so we ask him where he is from .. he says nellore blah blah .. then there is one more a year or two younger than this guy .. and we ask him where he is from .. this fellow gives us a shock saying … no telugu please .. kannada hindi or marathi :D . With the little marathi i know i cannot even talk to a kindergarten marathi kid .. so we ask him something in hindi ;)) ..

After that there is the server who hums .. jinta ta jita jita jinta ta .. and shouts for another server .. “reyyy narsimha naidu ila raaa ” ..
We feel as if we are in apna homeland .. and feel like singing .. naa janmabhoomi (echo : bhoomi bhooomi bhoomi ) … so all in all we have a happy meal … all this shows how frustrated we were for that kind of a meal that we used to have for ages .. before we landed in pune ;) …

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PS1 : marathi can be very dangerous :D .. i misspelt / mispronounced a word .. and lo ! it changed from U certificate to A++++ :D .

PS2: hyderabadi biryani both veg and nonveg varieties can taste extremely strange in pune .. this is my conclusion after 8 months of stay :) …

PS3: saw a lot of movies .. the best of the lot was definitely .. balakrishna’s okka magadu .. he is shock proof .. he jumps from a 15-16 floor building and doesnt have a single bruise .. he is a computer virus .. he is a samurai warrior . he is a freedom fighter even gandhi nehru bose know him .. it is one helluva film ;)) .. (Did i mention this in the last post ?? .. may it needs more attention than that :D ) .

PS4: also had the privilege to watch this genteelman called sam anderson act in a tamil film titled … yarukko yaaro ..read a review somewhere that ended with “chances are that you might never get to see something like this again in your life !!! ” .. i can’t agree more … here are some youtube dance videos from that film .. see it to believe it :D .

PS5 : Reading .. thousand splendid suns (actually i had written sons .. then corrected it after realising the typo .. now thinking even the former can be a good title say for a film like ‘300′ or something :D ) .. ideal movie script .. has got lots of punch dialogues and emotional scenes .. if this releases in telugu cinema it will be a sure shot hit .

PS6: Saw jodha akbar too .. i am reminded of tippu sultan .. chandrakanta .. the great maratha etc .. (yeah doordarshan rox :D )

PS7: Then hmm .. i redefined the height of impulsive shopping by buying a mobile first and then looking at its speciifcations .. brought a sony ericson mobile for 10k ;)) .. not that it is costly or it is too cheap or it is good or bad .. i am jus amazed at the manner in which i bought the fone .. was roaming around in a mall .. then suddenly something happens .. you go there look at all mobiles .. randomly pick one and take it .. little knowing abt its features :D . This is the single important reason why the retail sector .. the mall culture is thriving :D .

Longggg back Ravishankar of the XLRI kind told me .. Once you start earning you will do Impulsive shopping .. I now say .. How true how true :) .

PS8 : Work never seems to end .. IIIT was better .. atleast you never felt guilty for not working :D … here the minute i think of my pay-slip .. i feel guilty .. i cant rob the company fellas by taking money for free .. i will do SOME work ! :D .

PS9: In another month .. life is going to change :p … i expect a couple of things to happen .. if none of them happens then the very fact that they didnt happen will spring a change :D .. So it is a win-win situation.

PS10 : Was in hyderabad for 4 long days last week .. saw this film titled “Gamyam” . pretty good for a telugu film . I somehow thought this dialogue defined the fun element in the film … Character A : Nenu pulibiddani ra (I am the son of a tiger :D ) Character B : Mii amma adaviki vellinda leka puli mii intiki vachinda ( Did your mother go to the forest or did the tiger come to your house) . If you like this kind of humour go for the film . Yes it has got loads of philosophy .

PS11: Will be in bangalore this weekend .

PS12 : Reading “Everybody loves a good drought” by P.Sainath .. gem of a book !

PS13 : CB Series was very good . I liked what gilchrist said ” If other teams are catching up with australia then it is good for world cricket ” .

PS14 : Watched ratatouille again and again :) .

PS15 : Somehow the very thought of coming to IIITH scares me :D . In my last N visits to hyderabad i have deliberately avoided coming to IIITH .

PS16 : GAG called yesterday ;) .. was about some job openings in symantec . The placement committee thingie still haunts me .. You can run you can hide but you cant escape ( from _ _ _ )

PS17: IV had this status messg .. Hallieum Bellium something .. Before i could ask him to copy that message to me he signed off .. IV if you are reading this copy that status message to me .

PS18: I came to know about the ‘invisible’ mode in gchat just today :( .

PS19: I was happy to know that federer lost and australia lost too :D . Call it sadistic pleasure or supporting the underdogs :D

PS20: On the CB Series triumph .. Eenadu had this headline .. “Abba nee tiyani gabba” .. ( ala the super hit song of the 90s abba nii tiyani debba) . My hatred for the fellow who writes headlines in eenadu grew exponentially after this .

PS21 : I am still not very comfortable with the way things are going in my life .. it is more like storm before the calm for me :D

What is it with these longgg .. unstructured .. random .. lengthy posts .. i always seem to like them :D .

I got this mail yesterday ..

 We have received reports of some law and order disturbance in the Lakshmi road, swargate and Kothrud area. These incidences are localized and limited . Based on the report the chances of spreading are not much.  We do not see any reason to panic but will however request all of you to be vigilante on your way back home.

For once .. i felt like an alien in my own country :) . For those who are wondering what this is all about .. open google.co.in/news and search for some thackarey and you should understand .

There is something with this country .. many religions .. many languages .. many cultures … everyday in some part some group will fight with another .. and in some other part some other group would be embracing another group .

I work in a group that has its presence in ireland .. england .. us etc .. i work for a release in jamaica and bahamas .. my team has maharashtrians .. rajasthanis .. tamils .. gujratis .. I sit back and think “ah! this is true india .. this is globalisation .. unity in diversity .. diversity your name is symantec .. blah blah :) ” . Then suddenly things like this happen and bring me back to the real world :).

Then real world also tells me .. dumbo .. look at your own hometown (homecity for that matter )  .. there are people asking for seperate region there . Those jokers say all kind of things … (now i can be put in custody for labelling them jokers :) .. that is how things work in this country :p ).

C’mon ppl .. EVEN laloo prasad yadav said .. “Localisation in the era of globalisation is totally unacceptable ” ;) .

Again as edward luce quotes in his book .. “Inspite of the Gods , the strange rise of modern india” ….. “In india nothing is as good or as bad as it seems “ . (I lifted it from his book.. he mentions in the book that he lifted it from somewhere else .. where ?? .. i forgot :) ).

PS : Am i back to blogging ? .. I don’t know .. i have lost all the energy that i had when i was in IIITH ..  i have grown old .. so i don’t know if i will continue to post.

PS1 : Watched many many movies of late .. since the last time i blogged basically :) .. ratatouille was definitely the best and will remain close to my heart :)

PS2 : I still continue to listen to malayalam .. kannada .. tamil songs of ilayaraja (paying little heed to the language , lyrics) so that part of me hasn’t changed essentially .  So that credit still goes to IIITH . Those long idle hours spent in isolation .. listening to songs .

PS3 : Is there anyone here who has read .. The burden of democracy by P.B.Mehta ? . If yes please respond back with a review .

PS4 : In sync with the content in this post .. when India was playing australia in perth … there were people waving Telugu Desam Party flags :D .

PS5 : Yes , i am watching a lot of cricket . Cricinfo-ing a lot too . My current favourite is one Ryder from Newzealand :) .

PS6 : Am planning to start ‘Project Upendra’ soon . Write subtitles for all Upendra films in English and then release them to international audience . Anyone game for it ?

PS7: Ganguly said  ” I had a great year last year , my one day record is probably the next best after sachin . It is disappointing but then i have accepted it “. Sigh !

PS8 :  A lot of vacuum in life right now .. have disappointed myself atleast on 2-3 issues in the last 1-2 months .

PS9 : The comet has lost its track and roaming from one galaxy to another .