Om Shanti Om

Should I write about this movie or not? Am I too late, because the movie was released a bit time ago? Is the hype of this movie over? Anyway whatever be it, I feel like writing about it. You know right! Any Shahrukh movie is hyped, advertised, spoken all over and spread over everywhere. Sometimes I feel Shahrukh Khan as more of a business man than an actor. He is too shrewd, witty and a perfect entertainer. He knows what really has to be done. You just see his interviews, he takes over the anchor, acts like humble and proves that he is the king of bollywood. A great Filmfare anchor, keeps all the right people in their good books, cracks jokes on his competitor in a intelligent way and makes everyone happy. At times he portrays his emotional side with senti senti dialogues. He has struggled and come a long way to reach here. That's why for all this I like him.

I was too much occupied in work and was waiting for this movie to release, as a break from work. So on the day of the release along with friends I went to the movie theatre here to AMC 30. Though we were looking for the night show, I don't know why because it was SRK movie all the Indians seemed to have occupied the theatre. For the first time I saw it was housefull and sold out. My previous experience with Kansas Movie theatre was different. For "Chak De" there were totally 7 people in the big theatre including us. Guess what! for "Hey Baby" the whole theatre was occupied by me and my friend Anup. I was having a feeling this theatre is a adjacent room to my hall in my house. The reel was rolling specially for us. Anyway we booked the ticket for 5:30PM show for Saturday. I was in office till 5:15PM(Yeah! even on Saturday) and then rushed around driving crazily and reached 10-15 mins late(oh! shit how can I be late again). The film had already started. After 2 and half hour the film got over. Thats all! the blog is over.

"Blog abhi khatam nahi huvi hai, blog abhibi baki hai mera dosto". Overall if you just see without really making your logic part of the brain to work, it was a good entertaining movie. I enjoyed watching it and some part of it I like watching it again and again. It looked like the whole movie was done without any tension, everyone were let free to act whatever they want to do. I think, for the first half of the movie they really thought a lot, worked a lot and have put on many things to the show. There are these few of the things which I liked the most in the movie. You know, it is so nice and easy to go back to the history & remain in that time line and tell about what that is going to happen in future. Like SRK telling to Farah Khan tu kya film ka director hai kya, some other guy telling to Om "Sirf jacket pehene se koyi hero nahi banta, kuch shakal bhi hona chahiye aur style bhi rehna chahiye(Even though it is true SRK is a great actor now), Pappu and Om at the Tea shop telling a fresher about name "to Govinda try karu, aaahhh try karo"(today Govinda is a hero, (name matters a lot)), Om telling Shanti "Dosti mein mera ek usool hai, No Saarry no Thank you"(Dialouge in Maine Pyar kiya). The set up of the oldies looked so good, the digital mixing actors in the song "Dhuun ta na na", the music has more of Dhol sound, the old type big collars, tight light colour pants, the colour of the costumes with square chux shirt, big flower sarees, those plastic baskets, the badminton style, old type cars, lightings, hair styles. It was filled with humour also filmi Maa, actions of old styles, different versions of Bhagoo, South Indian actor Omshantinatan Swami "Naa Raamba, Naa illaay, atttii pattii katti heyyh heyyh, Yenna Rascalla Myind Ittthaa". Whenever the scene turns into too sentimental type suddenly the next moment it would get a swift turn to a humour. The second part was ok dokie types, with some masala of filmfare, 31 actors entering in a song, SRK Darde Disco item song and that cool types modern bigada huva baccha.

How can I forget to write about Shanti, which forms the center of focus in the name of the film. Man! She is so beautiful. Deepika Padukone has already created waves among everybody. When she enters to the theatre out of the car, in that pink dress she looks so gorgeous. When the song Dhunn ta na tadun tanan started, my eye's pupil size enlarged(I don't have to explain this funda right!). She looks so cool in the second half of the movie. I feel beauty has an aura around it. This pervades everywhere the feeling of happiness. It is like the aroma of the frangrance that bring about a strange kind of a joy. This feeling lingers through out the film and even in the songs. Om(SRK) falling off with a hand on his heart to her smile is just so true. I would also do the same action for her smile :D.

With all this mirch masala, I feel there is some theme and philosophy in the film. It is about having a dream, chasing a dream and dream does come true. The best part I felt is, whatever dialogues in the first part of the film are repeated in the second part with the dream being realized. Even though you make call it, its after all a film, but after all in life you need to have a dream. I had read in the book "The Alchemist" about how the world conspires when you start chasing your dream leaving behind everything.

" Itni shidhatt se meine tumhe paane ki kooshis ki hai, Ke har zarre ne tumhse mila ne ki shazhis ki hai"

"Kehte hai, Agar kisi cheez ko dil se chaho, to puri kayanat usse tumhse milaneki kooshis mein lag jati hai. Aap sabne meri chahat se mila diya Thaanks I feel like I am the King of the Wooorrllldddd..."

Storm, Snow, Ice, Bore

Weather weather weather. I wonder whether weather is so important. Actually for the people like us who live just near to the Tropic of Cancer(Geography pada hai na 5th or 7th I don't know) we always have such a good weather. We just don't realize that we have a good weather untill and unless we are out of our place and see some crazy weather at the extreme north and extreme south fo the globe. Kansas being in the mid of no-where on US maps has very volatile weather, more volatile than a girls' mind(Now why girls' mind are volatile or all are not like that, I don't know; don't ask me all that. Just feel that their mind are volatile).

You know what! when any two US people meet the one think they start the conversation with is about weather. Hey! How you doing? How is the weather at your end. People tend to speak hours together about weather. Then when they see weird faces like ours they ask how about the weather in India, How is the weather in Bangalore. Then we start calculating in our mind 27 degree celsius which means F = 9/5C + 32. Are the F and C at right places? Is it 9/5 or 5/9. I think it should be plus 32 because Fahrenheit is a bigger number(wah logic), ah! 9/5 * 27 ah! too complex formula man!. Shit! I have to appear for CAT, can't I calculate such a small thing in mind. Hey! People are still waiting and watching your face expecting a answer about the temperature and weather. Oh! Forget about the formula, just guess a number we keep doing a lot of guess work at many places. Yeah! Our weather doesn't vary too much, just the people vary a lot. Somewhere from 70 degree F to 90 F. Anyway they are not going to come to India and check the weather. They say we have 60 F now, which is kind of very good. Again for my understanding how much is it in Celcius. Is it C = 5/9(F-32)? Who cares. I just feel bored to speak about weather.

Over here there is a weather channel or should I say like that every channel speaks about weather. People in office here have live Doppler Radar graphs on their screens. They have live temperature update. Any plans to any tour they first check the forcast. In fact they check the forcast everyday before coming to office. Hell! man.

Actually past a week here the weather is totally changing. I didn't check the website or watched any tv news about weather. In fact there was a snowfall here on the day just before the Thanksgiving Day. And then actually there was good amount of snowfall on last Thursday. Was it Thursday or Friday, I don't remember. Anyway so everyone in office told that there is going to be a huge snowfall today. Oh! is it? how do you know, forcast, weather update mail. Just a day before everything was green and sunny. When I got out of my office, man! Kansas looked totally different. Everything changed in a day. Even though there was no sunlight, it looked so bright everywhere. Everything was covered with snow. It was like a white bedsheet is thrown all over. Even my car with more than 3 inch of snow. Feel like this setup should be untouched to protect its beauty. Then when cars and start rolling on the roads the snows gets dirty with mud and sand and becomes the ugly grey. So last weekend it was all cold and snow, I couldn't go anywhere. I spent the whole saturday just in home. It was just good to watch from window, but was very boring to stay home. Even it happens there when it is raining heavily, you just can't go anywhere and have to stick in home. It gets really boring sometimes if you are alone.

Soon after this snow face was over, one more strange event in weather. Ice Storm! This doesn't mean that huge cones of ice are going to hit the ground with the blow of the wind. It is actually that it starts raining and temperature starts dipping down and down to the freezing point. Then the water on the trees, roads, boards, builings, cars, obviously everthing starts freezing to form ice. Water over ice freezes again and just forms the accumulation of ice. I have some pictures of it. It looks so amazing. Man! I kind of saw all kinds of weather being here. Morning when I was driving to work I was feeling like driving in the Montreal circuit, Canada. I haven't driven there, but this was a circuit in game Need for Speed.


Finally what! Nothing.
Moral of the story is Snow, Ice, Storms are just good to see, but boring weather to live.

Back!

Three months back I had written something on this blog and then on I have not scribbled much over here. I don't know what is the exact reason or there are many of them. But somehow writing something is fun! I really enjoy the feeling of some kind of accomplishment after finishing an article each time. Anyway these are not the articles that are going to be printed neither in "The Times of India" nor in "The New York Times". Well! I don't even want it to be printed there, why in the hell there, for that matter why in the hell here.

Somehow I don't know why these kinds of thoughts are popping off from my mind. Who is going to read all these, what is the use after reading all these, who is going to care me anyway, who is going to look at me, what is the use of this life, why should we live! oh ooh! hold on! where is this going. I don't want to end up either into some philosophy or psychology. I don't know why generally people don't like to enter into these fields, but inherently everybody deal or stay on these fields.

I have read few of the blogs where people write so openly and frankly on what is happening in their life and then some are like that opinions of the happenings or way of life. I don't know in what way I write. After all how much have I written till now. But so many topics came in and out of my mind. There are so many things after all. Actually there are a zillion things and everything is important. Kya bakh raha hoon....

Ah! I got the reason on why I am saying all this. Actually I am lost. I don't know what to do. I never thought I would get lost in this way. I need to find myself back. I keep saying myself, I am back, am I, really? Okay! I was finding the meaning out of everything. Meanings for the questions. Who is going to care me anyway. What difference will my life make to this world.

Well! I want to end this blog with some positive note. It is just for me to feel better from the feeling of hopelessness. So this is a short story in two lines. A woman was walking on the sands of beach barefoot on a sunny day in the evening across the shore. I love the beaches. They are so good. The whole atmosphere at the beach is so enchanting. That cool breeze on the face, the roar of the waves, the crimson blue sky after sunset, happy faces playing in the salty water, the feeling of cool sand to the feet, the touch of the water when it flows in, then the trickling feeling or submerging feeling when the water flows back to sea, aah! everything is so awesome. I wish Kansas had a beach here. Actually sometimes I feel like going out from the room to somewhere and then I stop myself with this question where should I go... If there was a beach here, then I would have gone there and sat alone. By the way coming back to my story of two lines, there was a strong wind the previous day, so due to the strong waves a lot of star fish were thrown to the sea shore. So this woman was picking up each of these star fishes and was throwing them back to the sea. After all fishes live in water you see. If you had seen around there were thousands or millions of star fishes on the shore. At the other end a man was observing on what this woman was doing. He was surprised a bit and out of curiosity he came to that woman and asked. What are you doing? The woman replied I am just giving lift to these star fishes back to their home. The man asks, there are so many of them millions of them what difference will you make anyway.

The woman picks up a star fish from the sea shore, holds it and shows that to the man and throws it back to the sea and says "I made a difference to this star fish"....

Window

Ah! Not the Microsoft Windows, the actual window. Since the Microsoft OS, whenever someone utters the word windows the first thing that comes to our mind is the OS. That is the kind of influence of technology. Anyway I mean the real window.

In our office in Bangalore we get a number of opportunities to distract ourselves from the work since the day starts. Breakfast in the morning at 9, Tea/Coffee at 11, Meeting at 12, lunch at 1, Tea/Coffee at 4, Snacks at 6, Telecon at 8, dinner at 9. So I am always all the time with my friends, colleagues, people. In US it is kind of different, people are around but they are busy with themselves. So nature and loneliness have become my new friends and this is really abundant in US. In Bangalore whenever I used to feel bored I used to go and bug someone or the other and take them to terrace and have some coffee, juice or anything. Here at one corner of the office, which is deserted with empty cubicles, there a wide glass wall or say a big window all over. So whenever I am bugged, frustrated, bored, sad or happy I come and stand at this place.

I am looking out at this window since start of the February, the day I have arrived here. Out of this window there is nothing great but it is still great to stand and view from here. As I look down there is one big strip of lawn and pine trees and trees with leaves like in Mohabbatein film, then the private road from the parking lot. At the left and at the right there is this huge parking area. In the middle there is a small pond. Then far end again grass and road for walk and end of our campus. After that there is a huge farm, and lot of forest like trees. I can the see the K-7 highway and the vehicles at distance. Then there seems to be end of the horizon after that greenery and start of the territory of sky. The picture at this side is not exactly how it looks, but I would like to put some picture along with words so that why this is at this side.

The setup is very same all the while. There is no change in the position of anything anywhere. Even people here are so standardized that they park their vehicles at the same place since years. Even though nothing moves from its position, this whole setup never looks the same every time I visit here. In February it was totally covered with snow and no leaves at all. All the trees were bald and beautiful. Then in mid of march snow melted away and dry grass everywhere. In May June everything turned green and looked so fresh. It looks so different when it rains, quite different on a sunny day. A different look in the morning and totally different in the evening. The same place looks different in so many ways and what is the reason for this. Well! the same place is influenced by a lot of other factors like sunlight, clouds, wind, weather condition, and time.

Now something flashed in my mind. This is very much analogous to us. I as a person am very much the same, I have the same face, same brain, same heart, same body, since years. Of course there would be mostly some improvement I suppose, in terms of our personality and behaviour and some depreciation in terms of age. But still we don't remain the same person w.r.t something or someone else. We are all the time influenced by so many other factors and these parameters makes us behave differently in varied situations and circumstances. The place where we stay, the friends we have, the atmosphere around us, the people around us, the culture, the time period, and so many other things even the non-living things very much make us in many ways. This is so much hidden that we will ourselves will not be knowing what are we now and what we were like before and what we will be further.

With all this still everyone has an identity and are unique. Everyone have a specific place on this earth. It is like my above analogy, the static ground with a floating sky. So is a personality....

Toothpaste in US

"Toothpaste in US", yeh kya topic hai... Yo! I have some stuff to tell about this...

Everyday everyone when they get up the first thing they do is brush their teeth. This is the integral part of activities in a day.

On Monday I went to Walmart to buy a toothpaste and a toothbrush (very important items, especially whenever you are going outstation this is the first item to forget). So then in this huge Walmart the first thing is to find at which corner such commodities are available. After walking half a mile I found this big huge rack where these enormous set of toothpastes were placed.
I was dumbstruck and my eyes were circling round and round(Well this is not the first time I am looking at the toothpaste, but..).

Man! There are so many brands of toothpastes. Colgate, Pepsodent, Crest, Aim, Aquafresh, Close-up, Complete, Gleem, Oral-B, Signal, Sensodyne, Mentadent, Fluoride, Euthymol etc. Kya Fluoride, Euthymol direct chemical names derived from periodic table or what, how do they advertise these. The complexity doesn't just stop at the brands. Now each of these brands have so many sub brands or versions that you will literally go mad. For example Just in Colgate there are these versions: Colgate Total, Colgate MaxFresh, Colgate Whitening, Colgate Advanced Fresh, Colgate Advanced Clean, Colgate Lumimous, Colgate Simply White, Colgate 2in1, Colgate Sensitive, Colgate Fresh Confidence, Colgate Sparkling White, Colgate Oxygen Bubbles, Colgate Tartar Control(don't know what hell this means), Colgate Cavity Protection, Colgate Children Toothpaste ... ah ah hmmm What the heck which one to choose. Like this, other brands also have versions Crest, Aquafresh in jazzy glazy covers. You will go mad looking at all this.

Now it does even stop here. There are different flavors in toothpastes. Regular mint, spearmint, peppermint, then anise, apricot, bubblegum (looks like for children), also cinnamon, fennel, neem, ginger, vanilla, lemon, orange, pine. Yeh kya khane ka cheez hai. There are varieties in the form of gel and in the form of paste. So I stood there whether to sort it by brands, or sort it by flavors or sort it by price. One more option simply close your eyes whichever your hand touches take it. Options, options options..... Why do you want to make life complex man! See in India I would simply choose Pepsodent regular. This is not the first time I am buying in toothpaste in Walmart. Actually my previous experiments till now have been sad. In the first month I chose Aquafresh some flavor it was ok types. After looking at an Ad in TV I chose Crest Pro-health. This was costly and worst. The slushy, glutinous like a tar of road and never could stand on the brush. Now I have taken some Colgate Total clean mint. I am not happy with this also. It doesn't give out any foam at all when you brush, well! I am not expecting foam like a shaving cream but something at least. I don't know there are so many brands more when will I get the one with which I can be comfortable with.

There are these thing again. FDA approved toothpaste. American Dental Associated recommended toothpaste. Dentist recommended toothpaste. I wonder how would dentist really maintain these 32 teeth. Will they never have any tooth problem. Do they have more wisdom teeth. Still after using all these dentist recommended products people don't stop showing to them.


Now toothbrush also share the same story. I stood at one place there were so many toothbrush of just electrically operated. Kitna automation hai baap US mein. Brush bhi koyi manual nahi karta. Looking at that I thinking; manual normal brush nahi hai kya. Oh! at the other rack. There are brushes with soft, mild, hard bristles. Now after making a big decision of a selecting a brand of toothpaste, I didn't had any patience left to analyse which brush. Picked up something and came out. At the billing counter realized damn! that simple brush costs $4.5 which will last for 2 months in my hand. Every morning my this ceremony of brushing teeth lasts for 10-15 mins till all my teeth start crying and shouting Bas kar baba bas kar clean hogaya mein. My Mom also tells me "Kya daath saaf kar raha hai, ya bartan dho raha hai".

Finally the conclusion is my search for the right kind of toothpaste hasn't ended yet...

Anything Can Happen

Long time back I had read this proverb on the walls of some room, "Life Is A Challenge - Meet It! Life Is A Song - Sing It! Life Is A Dream - Realize It! Life Is A Game - Play It! Life Is Love - Enjoy It!". Somehow to me I liked this particular line "Life is Beautiful", that is what I have kept as my blog heading.

But now my current state of mind utters me this line "Life is Strange". That is really strange!

Yes! Life is strange and anything can happen at any point of time. It is hard to believe this, left apart than to realize it. Of course who will live everyday with a impression that something will happen to me today. We have been living the life which is so much straight forward and which is so much safe under the umbrella of protection all the time. We always feel things are under my control, but there are so many things which are not at all under our control. It almost seems that everything that changes in a day or night happens only in movies but it is not.

Everyday kids go to school, men go to offices, women go offices, people do their business, teens enjoy their time freaking around, everybody are busy in their own world of living, everything is in equilibrium, then suddenly an earthquake occurs, or heavy rain which bring about a flood, a deadly disease, a natural disaster, a bomb explosion, terrorist attack. Everything shatters into pieces, there would be devastation everywhere, every one's life is affected. This is something that happens in mass scale and even though we are in such a technologically advanced world no one has any control over it.

There is another case where world is in harmony but some disheartening events are happening in each ones life. There are numerous permutations & combinations of such incidents that affects an individual deeply . It is so strange that since our birth as our life moves on and we meet so many people, we get connected and disconnected on the way with many of them, some part of their life becomes our part, some influence us, some demotivates us, some form a relationship and some relationship fades off with time. In this network of relationship if something happens to someone it would create a shock-wave and each one is affected depending on the distance that is maintained. When everything is going on fine, as if it is a perfect world, perfect time suddenly there would be a twist on the road of life and the everything turns apart. You start wondering what is happening and some damage would have already been done and changes the whole course.

Why does it happen like this? As if God is maintaining a complex equation with lot of complex parameters and he always makes sure that LHS=RHS. If you are really getting all the happiness of life then just get ready to face the sorrow of life. Why can't there be happiness, brightness, success all the time. I know I know! the same old answer without the existence of darkness how would you understand the importance of brightness. I guess! God deals this with all creatures that he has created. Say! Spring! wow what a season spring is. The very name spring, springs happiness in mind. The flowers bloom, new fresh green leaves to trees, very soothing serene weather as if everything is perfect. But spring season remains for some time, then comes the hot summer and harsh winter. Things change. The bad news is the good things never remain forever and the good news is that bad things never remain forever either.

Ultimately you have to go through all these and it is true that anything can happen at anytime which makes me feel "LIFE IS STRANGE".....................................

Typical Software Engineer

Since a decade "IT" has hyped our life to a great extent. A Software Engineer is treated somewhat different everywhere. If a software engineer goes to a shop to buy something he will end up spending in 100s or 500s, because the shopwala will put nice topi on this so called intelligent software engineer. One more reason for spending so much is that he has money only in denominations of 100s and 500s that is what ATM gives out. Forget about the normal shops, these guys always shop in Food World, FabMall, Big Bazaar, Spencers and always pay by those so many Credit Cards which are Free for Life time .

Everyone tends to speak with you in English and even software engineers talk only in English (Nan magane Kannada Baruttala). Always acting very formal wearing formals with thousands of "Sorry"s "thank you"s. Damn! even vocabulary is built up with Jargon and the following phrases keeps on repeating even for the day-today most common activities; no issues, scope is not there, that is not my requirement, this is not a value add to me, great job, we should incorporate that, end of the day what matters is, basically, bottleneck, milestone, that is generally my process, I am currently in meeting, hectic and busy man! Now how would it be if you talk all these hi-fi words with a Doodwala. This itself will raise a typical guy's collar.

Go to any restaurants in the afternoon, it will be filled with these people who will roaming around with their respective company tag (ID) still hanging on their neck. Sodhexo coupon, ticket would serve the meal as well as save the tax. If they are around in a posh restaurant then definitely some 'Team Lunch' or 'Lunch with Customer' would be happening and all the orders would be placed based on the criteria that the dish should sound different and cost the most (chance hai loot le). Then the talk would be I tried that dish in that star hotel, it was awesome, have to tasted this dish over there, then one guy would tell the Team Lead, Hey! next time we will go there.

The cost of living has in one way increased due to the software engineers I guess. If you go to look for a rent for a house, my God! if the owner comes to know that you a software engineer in so and so company his rent rate will increase by 2-3 slabs. No doubt he would be saying my son is working in IBM and my daughter is studying in Berkeley University(Inside you will be feeling damn! my GRE score was not good). Even the smallest house are 2 bedrooms now and even if they are 20 km away from the city they cost more than 8k to 15k per month. The auto-riskhaw people now don't give change of Rs.6 suppose the meter reads 64. Mobile market with hundreds of corporate plans. All baayis have become good cooks in these engineers' house.

When a bunch of software engineers meet the scenario is very interesting. Everyone act as if they are venture capitalist and have invested their own money in their own companies. My company is a MNC, 50 billion dollar company. Each one is judged by mobile model they are carrying and the car they are driving. Typically they will talk my company provides this benefit, my company covers this much, my company has food from this caterer, my company is sending me here. There will be bunch of discussions on the company benefits and policies and few here and there would be cursing their own company saying my company doesn't provide us anything except work! Some guy would start "when I was in US, I saw that... I did this,... I did that...." Then comes the salary discussion, hike discussion, manager discussion bla bla bla.

You should see a software engineer position in a matrimonial market. Uufh! profiles would be so and so company, so and so salary, US returned or Germany returned or Australia returned. What will the guys from other profession do. Most of girls soon after their marriage you will find them in orkut with status saying married, San Jose, United States. The IT has influenced in almost every field of today's life, say it a retail market, say it transportation sector, say it real estate business, say it commercial business, say it entertainment, just no end to it. No doubt it has created a lot of opportunities and has raised our economy to one of the strongest economies in the world.

Whatever be it, a typical software engineer is so much typical in so many sense. Now don't run back on me with a hockey stick to hit me(a typical software engineer will not have one though), the above listings are just my views on the other side of the typical software engineer, because I happen to be one among them........................... ;)

PS: In some of my future post I will try to compose about a typical day in office.

The Joy of "Nothing"

Any point of time there will be so many activities happening at every point of the world. Everyday all the newspapers in the world is filled with one or the other news. Well! We are always concerned with the activities happening around each one of us, because that is what we see and that is what that influences us.

On one fine day, just like today it would have happened like this, my car has broken down in the middle of the way, I am late to office, I have three meetings today, I have slipped my deadline past 2 weeks, I have lost a project which I was supposed to get, my boss is troubling me for not performing well, I have to fill my tax returns form and invest for mutual funds(don't know a damn about it), my personal loan is not yet approved, I have to pay the debts of my housing loan, I had a fight with my girl friend, I have to wash and iron my clothes and get a new pair of shoes, I have to prepare for CAT, I have to go and attend a function of my relative, which is so boring to attend, My mobile is ringing all the time, I don't want to talk with that guy but then I get 3 calls from him, I have finish my dinner soon as I have a call at night to attend............ on and on and on. (In the above sentences "I" is as an example as me, all these are not happening with me today). So many things are clogged in my mind that it is impeding me to live Life and know what Life is all about.

Imagine how would it be to spend a day without a clock or watch or any timing device anywhere in the house or room. Mobiles, landline is all shut off. There is no one to disturb you or talk with you on anything. When you get up on this day nothing comes in your mind, there is absolutely nothing to be done today. Today I am totally free from everything. There are no sad memories or instances that is bothering me today, I have no plans or apprehensions for tomorrow. Suddenly it is appearing to me that the world has come to a standstill for me.

Wow! Now this is the "Joy of Nothing".

In this state of mind, the day would start like this. The brain would impulse the eyes to open, when it is tired of the rest and not by the way the sleep is interrupted by the ring of the alarm with a big snooze button. When you get up and look at the window outside a thought will arise in your mind saying what a beautiful day. As you sip the coffee watching at the birds singing, kids playing, trees fluttering their leaves, cool breeze then suddenly realize "whether all these things were there yesterday?" Then just start doing whatever that comes to your mind or do the things which you wanted to do since a very long time. Read a book, go for a long drive, eat a great food, meet and spend all the time with whom you want to, watch a good movie, take a stroll in the evening, ah! there is no end to this list. What a bliss it is to spend a day like this!

I just got a glimpse of this joy of nothing, as I had taken leave for 2 days with no reason. The reason I gave for myself before applying for leave was, Man! I have been working on every working day since 5 months. I am back to office now.

Now it is like this: There is nothing called nothing....................

My First Accident of My Life

On the rainy Saturday(the rain hasn't stopped yet since my last blog) I was in full josh, because it somehow happens to be a long weekend. Long weekend, which extends beyond the weekend with some leaves on week days. The saddest thing this year is that American Independence Day has fallen just in the mid of the week, no where near to any of the edges of the week, on the awesome Wednesday.

I was in full enthu to have some good fun on Saturday. I came to my friends house, with intention of something to be done(but nothing was there in mind). As the rain had created enough of annoyance since morning, the options that too in Kansas being bare minimal, nothing much other than to go to a movie. I wanted to watch some josh bhara action movie. So we decided we will go and watch "Live Free or Die Hard" which recently released on the movie day Friday.

The movie was so good, filled with only action and really made me feel Live free or Die Hard. All along the movie I was thinking Damn! I don't do anything that risky or anything adventurous where in I really have to think about death anytime. What a safe life! It raised my adrenaline to a good level. After the movie we walked one around the Town Centre Plaza with the thoughts of action & josh of the movie in mind.

Then I came to car and started with the "Khalbali" song of RDB and put in reverse gear and pushed the accelerator. Well! even though the movie had made impact but I was just barely above 0 mph. The mistake was, I saw first time in the rear mirror and went back a little bit and then changed my mind to turn the other way around for which I took a bit forward and then back again in reverse in a different direction. As I was pulling back the car this time suddenly I heard a bang sound. I was not surprised anyway, just thought something minor happened. When I looked back there was a Lexus car on the other side(Thank God I hadn't hit this super costly car) but to my surprise in my rear mirror I could see a Jeep SUV right behind orthogonal to my car. Then we both pulled back and I went out to check the amount of damage.

The damage on the Jeep was just superficial, in my sense and Indian sense it was nothing. But my car back bumper was hit a bit hard. I just told that guy, who looked pretty shrewd and crooked (Was he already my enemy?) that nothing happened we can just walk over. He started saying why don't we share the insurance information and then use it for claim. The greatest problem I was facing in my mind was that I didn't knew what is the process or the procedure. Damn! Knowledge is always power, (I like the converse proverb too "Ignorance is Bliss"). So I asked him and then he called the cop. My first encounter with cop as a bakra in the whole situation. I was just ready to face anything, my first experience and I was not wrong, after all an accident happens accidentally. Then cop came and was just cool said if something is above $1000 (my eyes started rotating hearing this) then a report has to be written else we can just share the insurance info. Whatever! we did it and I got rid of it, actually I didn't knew what exactly is the next thing to be and what is the impact overall on me. I asked the same question to cop and his answer was not satisfactory to me.

As this was my first encounter to something like a accident(it no where qualifies as a accident at all as nothing absolutely nothing), but it had kicked a bit on my faith in driving which expands more than 11 years. I tried so much to take it off from my mind. The whole adrenaline got down to zero level like hawa after a flat tire. Went to Taco bell to have something and tried to forget about it. I just was wondering how can some incidents impact so much on mind and mood and things like that.

Like a typical software engineer I am downloaded all that junk data from my mind to this e-paper and deleted that memory from my mind. I think it is deleted now!.....

Deleting 100%......70%.....50%.......30%.....10%.........0%

Rain Rain Come again! / Rain Rain Go away

One of the most beautiful creation of God is Rain I guess! Of course Rainy season takes the prominent period of atleast 3-4 month a year. I just can't count how many rains I have seen till now :)

There are different types of rain at different places or at different times at the same place (now does that make any sense, whatever). In Bangalore the rain is very sweet, because almost everytime it will rain heavily only in the evening. The best part is this 2 hours of rain would not interrupt your schedule much. But it would have caused enough devastation in they city. Blame it not on the rain, but the world class infrastructure we have for this beautiful city. Anyway! in Dharwad the rain is really boring. It won't be heavy but enough to drench you totally in 1o mins and it would go on and on and on for 2-3-4-5-6 days, like a girl; when she starts crying, there is no signal for a stop sign. In the coastal areas it is heavy and gloomy. In Gulbarga or some desert like places the rain is the rarest gift that hardly turns up.

One such rain I saw in Kansas, US yesterday. This vast country has so much rich nature of so many beautiful faces that one has to just experience. Sometimes I do feel that the nature here shows up really wild faces also like the Hurricane in the south, Tornadoes in the central area, Snow Blizzard in the northeast, Burning Hot Sun in the West. Yesterday the whole day it was raining and we went for a long drive of about 70 miles in this beautiful evening and in this rain. It is really quite a good feeling to drive at 70 mph on the freeway(highway) with all the vehicles around gushing water all over. This surging mist was so mesmerizing with all the surrounding green trees showing us the way forward. At one place it was as if a thick black cloud sitting over head was laughing at us and cracking jokes around about our fate or state. It was as if a party going on in nature. Nature was getting tight really ;). I had one such drive experience earlier where in I was driving a sexy Porsche boxster sports car at the speed of 150 mph the rain was making it hard to control and I speeded all the way skidding around. Oh! that was Need for Speed 5 game in computer!

This Rain is favorite for poets, so many songs are written around rain, so many movies are pictured in fake rain, so many photos of rain. Rain is the one which brings the fabulous rainbow in the sky, the one which makes all the silent trees smile. It is such a good feeling in rain, the amount of enjoyment we get playing in rain is just awesome, like the way school kids play with the colourful raincoat on, still turning wet all over. The feeling of the first few drops of rain trickling down into your body, the chill feeling, then the wet feeling, then the shivering, and then warmth of the towel rubbed over your head is just priceless. Having a hot masala tea with garma garam kanda bajji with all your friends cracking jokes in the balcony is a great joy. It can turn out to be romantic also like sitting with your wife in a single chaddar ;).

When the rain stops, the world around you won't stop, but it starts. Even though with a feeling as if it was as a great fest or event we had last day, we all get ourselves moving in our own world of work, problems, routine and go on...

Blog - Blogging - Blogger

After a terrific start of my first blog last year in May, I thought based on the comment (which I got after a year), I am inspired to restart it all over again ;) .

Well! Blog: I used to wonder what a weird name it is. I searched in the dictionary and couldn't find this word (old oxford dictionary). Who started this all, whose idea was it, how did it get famous, why do people blog, what is it all about. These questions are still pondering in my mind as my fingers are playing with the keyboard. I am aslo wondering, is it a noun or verb. But now if you see in the modern dictionary it has made itself as a complete word.

Historically, in the past when I was in school studying 10th standard I thought to myself that I should write diary. In fact it took almost 6 months to materialize and I got one very nice king size hard-binded maroon colour diary from my Dad and started with it. Like with any task the difficult part is hmmm... what to start with, what should I write... Then I started and continued it for almost 2 years and went on writing what all came in my mind and the happenings of each day, the good part, the sad part and the feelings and emotions and the situations. uuh! it turned out to be very interesting and then when I used to read it back, it used to surprise me, oh! is it! did I think in that way, was it like that....

Though I loved writing it, it halted for a simple reason that it was read by someone. I had written a big note at the start of my diary saying "Please do not read this". Damn! such note creates lot of curiosity. Anyway I had not written a secret code for a national treasure or something. But guess what! I had developed my own code language, my own script and that initial script I had hid it at some other place. Sounds crazy now! kind of Da Vinci code to break it.. :) . Why was a need for such a thing; man! to hide the secret love stories, and about some wacky stuff. It was fun!

Now back again to such a thing, just visible to World Wide Web. Is it a human instinct to record the life, we have lot of documentation of the past so many civilizations. Is it to show others about what we think and what we feel or is it a show off. Is it a tool for self-retrospection. Is it for the happiness we get in writing something. Or is it for the happiness we get in reading someone's comment on our literature or praise from others, from which we elate ourselves (because we can not elate ourselves by just feeling good about ourselves for no reason) . Oh! what the heck, why should I analyze all this. The weird thing called blogging is the trend and it is fun!

Entering into the world of blog as a insignificant creature....