My Chemistry with PHYSICS !!!!

Many of my friends have the slightest idea on what I am talking about.

YEAR : 2002
LOCATION : TERRACE OF MY HOUSE
SITUATION : Physics board exam is to start in 3 hours

When you turn back (your life), you have been doing hell a lot of preparation for this judgment day for exactly a year till now. This is the first of the 3 major papers that I had to fight against. Chemistry and Mathematics were to follow. But the one that is to commence in a very few hours is the one that is to decide my fate, as I have had this special affinity for the subject. It then took quite a lot of years for me to realize this affinity. May be it was due to the Theory of Relativity that it followed me wherever I went, and created a special scar on my face.

Over the year, I would have given at least a zillion tests and there is nothing new about it. On a brief statistical note, I have shown excellent and highly inconsistent variation. I have touched all cadres right from 'Very Poor' to 'Very Good' but the total highlight is the fact that I was consistently poor in Physics. Every time I enter the house, or when my relatives see me, the first question that they ask me is, 'How much in Physics?'. Sounds funny right now but not during those days.

Can't they inquire about my marks in English or cannot they ask me how many runs I scored in my cricket match? Or about any movie that i watched?

Indian parents and teachers are like this. What to do?

Imagine, if you have scored 5 consecutive ducks (zeros) against Bangladesh, and now you are entering the Eden Gardens stadium in a match against Australia, your team score is 20 for 4 wickets, chasing an easy target of 320. All the BCCI selectors are sitting in the VIP boxes, watching you play now. They have surely made up their mind to decide your presence based on today's performance. My situation is the same right now, sitting in the terrace with the book in my hand. My mind was going through some thoughts like,

If I don't perform extremely well, my dreams of becoming an engineer is definitely going to be only a dream. Then there is no point in attending the remaining exams as well.

Suddenly my mom came to the terrace to enquire what I was doing and wanted to make sure if my preparation went on well. I replied saying,

Not sure if I have prepared well. Can I tell you something? I don't think I will return home if the exam doesn't turn out to be good. There is a bridge on the way. May be you can search for me there (underneath), If you think I hadn't returned home or something.

And mom started consoling me. Blah Blah.....

With all mixed emotions, I geared up for the examination in my gear-less bicycle. The feeling was very strange and different. The traffic, heat, pressure, you get a feeling that the whole world is monitoring you. Soon did I reached the examination center (had to go to a different school) and parked my bike. This is the best part. The time you enter the place, there are these million other kids sharing the same emotions. At least this feeling keeps you better.

After all the bird watching and gazing, it was time for serious business. Board Exam. No joke. Having crossed the stage now, it might look sweet, but I can bet that every person can remember those mighty heart beats. This is the time when your peers get to validate you if you have covered all the topics that they think are important. Trust me, this can boost as well as pull down your confidence level. All depends on fate. The negative aspect of this discussion happened to me. These folks were talking about a few topics under Nuclear Physics that they thought are mighty important. I am pretty sure I have cracked these at least a bunch of times before but suddenly a negative thought started creeping into my head. My mind told me that I don't remember them properly, and, I might probably lose the hang of it, if these topics were to come.

Another ghost came inside and started killing me specifying that I MIGHT not become an engineer if these topics under Nuclear Physics end up hitting me. Heights of tension and panic came under way. (Make use of some fancy Operation Theater BGMs when you are visualizing this). The feeling was like you were into some drugs or something. My head was rolling.

LOCATION : EXAM HALL
SITUATION : Question paper has just been issued

Straight away scanned through the section where disaster probably could happen. And it did happen. All those topics discussed outside had their place in the paper. Holy dashhh. Now what can i possibly do? Start thinking about other career options? Or should I start planning for my long summer vacations? Act as if I fainted?

I would have easily wasted some 5 minutes thinking of all these crap. Finally, I started thing sensibly and began with the answers, even though the confidence level, energy and speed were absolutely slow.

At the end of 3 hours, I came out of the exam hall in a super pissed mood, having realized the fact that I omitted 24 marks out of 150. ( and 50 marks were for internals) So, even if the person with the least evaluation skills happened to take a look into my paper and if he provided full marks to everything that I had attended, I would get a total score of 176 ONLY, out of 200.

I cursed fate more than myself. That is all you could possibly do. I spoke to nobody outside, started thinking positively and promised myself that I would get cent percent in the next two papers. Came outside and notice that my cycle wasn't there. I repeat. "MY BICYCLE WAS MISSING !!!!!!"

Just when your heart beat started getting back to neutral, there is a sudden shift to the fifth gear. Horrible. This is surely not your day when it happens this way. Back home, there are a million relatives of yours spread wide across the globe, waiting to know how you did the paper. And you are going to give them a bigger surprise. Fantastic ain't?

I would have searched for the bike for nearly one hour then, with a mild possibility that some of my friends might have played some kind of a prank or something. But that wasn't the case here. Sooner, I realized that I have spent an hour after the exam, without returning home, and you have bloody given all possible dialogues asking them to search for you under the ditches and bridges. What would they possibly be thinking now?

After a hard fight for a few more minutes, I gave up and decided to get back home, instead of strengthening the panic. It was very evident that someone has stolen my bicycle. All I did then was to lodge a complaint at the school administration, and then got back home in a very deeply dejected manner. I was almost into tears as I neared home. The first thing the folks in my house asked as soon as I entered the house was about the exam. I responded to them saying that I lost the bicycle. The beautiful reaction that they gave to this, is what amazed me and I can never forget that. They actually did not react to that at all. They repeated their question about how I did my exam. My answers then followed. I got consoled very well and they asked me to perform well in the next exams, rather than worrying about what happened.

I rejected my offer for lunch. Went inside my room and was into tears, thinking about the whole drama. It was fate's worst foul play. Thinking about that again and again was all the more irritating. Suddenly I got a call from friend on the land line and when I attended that, my friend told me that he happened to know that there is some film shooting happening in a road that is a few meters away and also told that actor Madhavan (Maddy) was there in it.

My eyes got super wide. Tears got dried up all of a sudden. It was a mind blowing info at that situation. Maddy was our favorite actor during that time. I don't know what happened after that. I was at the shooting spot the very next minute, with the physics question paper on my hand. I and my friend happily observed his acting (also Meera Jasmine, the female lead). After a few minutes, I got an autograph from Maddy on the backside of my physics question paper. He smiled at me and said 'All the best'. Woahhh. What a moment!! I have still preserved that autograph safely. :-)

It was truly a day of mixed events. Having attended 176 marks out of 200, I got 174 and quite an achievement it was.

My fear for physics followed me wherever i went. Even in my engineering degree, I happened to clear my first semester physics paper in the third attempt only. What was more trivial was the fact that I attempted the paper along with my younger brother during the third and final attempt. My whole department of teachers and students knew about this and used to make fun of me. During any lecture in any time of my four year course, if the world 'physics' was ever read out, the whole bunch of 60 people used to turn at me and have a good laugh. In fact, a few of my friends claimed that I should be given a dual degree of B Tech in Information Technology and a PhD in Physics. How ironic?

If the blogging capital becomes a WI-FI City !!!!!

From trusted sources, we got to know two things:

• Chennai was rated once as the blogging capital of India
• The whole city of Chennai is to become Wi-Fi enabled

This is not going to be city-centric talk, but just a small and easy post where we are going to deal with some common scenarios that are bound to happen, if the statements mentioned above are TRUE and REAL.

P.S: Please be as illogical as possible. Our bloggers aren't gonna walk on the heated up roads with laptops in their hands. May be possibilities of mobile blogging, or from coffee pubs, or normal pubs or sitting inside cars.

SCENARIO 1 Location : Mount Road
Our blogger is furious as he is stuck in traffic because a VVIP's great grandmom is dead. She was just 97.3 (i know it sounds like a radio station channel number) when she passed away yesterday. He transforms his anger in words into the blog. He thinks if he could get down from his car, beat the traffic by walking all the way and killing the VVIP himself. Man. Innovative, ain't?

Good to have our vision checked regularly :-D

Let our minds be given some solution to make it GREEN.

SCENARIO 2 Location : Marina Beach :-)
Mr/Ms. Blogger claims himself/herself to be Abhinav Bindra's sibling. Courtesy, the picture below.

He/She might get to become all poetic when witnesses something like this. Why not? As long as someone is there to encourage your writing. And only then, many Shakespheres and Vairamuthus probably could evolve.

This is the part where your blog can turn out to become your own private diary shared to the public world. Trust me. Its a beautiful fact.

And if you want to dig further into this, the souls of many creative people would have cherished happiness from beautiful gifts that the Goddess of Nature have given us.

Okay okay. Alright. Am gonna control my emotions now !!!!! :-)

SCENARIO 3 Location : Shopping in T Nagar :-D
Ha ha. This is surely not gonna be a cake walk. Perhaps, you will see temper being converted to targeted humor in scenarios like these.

If Wi-Fi is gonna enter into the streets like what we are going to imagine, then trust me, its all set to create a revolution. People might even end up on discussions like,

• Why one should buy under garments in this shop? (Am sure participation from other cities are expected here. Pride factor I'll tell you :-D)
• Do you think the lime juice that we get here is better than the lemonades from Pizza Huts?
• Is this the Wall Street for middle classes and masses?
• Should Dhoni be a brand ambassador for the 5 Rupee ice cream/kulfi shop?
• Should oxygen masks be provided to shoppers entering inside these streets? (I am definitely an active participant of this discussion.)
  

OTHER DISCUSSIONS AND SCENES:

• Should the state government initiate a Mobile Chai Services covering all toll plazas on the Rajiv Gandhi IT Expressways? (Ofcourse the services are to be outsourced to, you know who :-D)
  
• Like Wimbledon, a bunch of boys and girls are going to sit on the platforms of Chepauk Railway Station watching the live stream of Chennai Super Kings Vs Mumbai Indians IPL match, as the tickets got sold out. They think this is their way of showing their frustration. There is this jobless guy in this bunch who says 'What an idea sir ji?' .
  
• Documentation and written transcription of street fights and cat fights might be available, they are just a Search Button away from Google.
• Television news channels and journals are to sign contracts with the top mobile bloggers of the city.
  
• Public Transport systems and State Auto Rickshaw Unions to invest on implementing laptop charging units in their vehicles, to draw more commuters. :D

Never judge a movie by its title!

This applies to English movies also.

A lot of movies I've known/seen which had these catchy titles ended up being mind blowing entertainers. Some of them are

• Phone booth
  
• 300
• Gone in 60 Seconds
• Vacancy
• Identity
• A Wednesday (Hindi)
  

If you see, most of them were stylish in their own way, having a lot of relevance to the title.

I happened to watch this movie titled '15 Minutes' recently.

Well, first up, this is not a review about the film but all about the titles of the movie and our blog post. The perfect relationship that they think they share.

The movie began with a scene in New York (NY) airport where the camera glances at a huge queue of men and women piled up for immigration check. Frankly, my immediate thought was something like

'Okay! So this is how it is supposed to be like. A stunning 15 minute drama at the immigration area in the airport itself? Oh Man! What a better plot this title could probably get?'

The immigration officers get to check the passports and documents of two men with eastern European English accent who seemed to be completely weird. They ask them a few questions about themselves and end up getting stupid answers but they approve them later and send them inside NY.

Now, my thinking has to change.

Alright. The airport scene is over. May be something else is in store for me to enjoy.

The movie goes on and on and on. A lot of killing and investigation and romance and a few hundred scenes depicting the intentions of a media company which is aiming hard to make it big in NY by premiering a few top stories (more specifically, crime oriented). I kind of totally agree that all of these blends very well with the storyline. Claps. But the only thing that constantly pricked on my mind was,

"Where is this '15 minutes'? Would that ever come? Man. I need to catch up with a good sleep because its 11PM already."

A lot of people might be knowing about this Kamal Movie titled 'Vettayadu Vilayadu (Tag line: Yet another story in a police officer's life)' which had this amazing plot for a Crime Scene Investigation where the story starts with a few disturbing and clueless blackmail and murder scenes which paves way for officer Raghavan to take up the case. He goes on with the investigation where he gets to hear about another brutal murder case in New York which was much relevant to the one that happened in India. The story then moves ahead in NY where our officer's investigation and thinking are depicted in a very stylish way, with curiosity building up in the minds of the audience. While you notice that the pace is completely set up, the hero ends up finding this Indian girl on the next room at Renaissance Hotel. He is off to a completely stylish and instinctive mood as he claims that his instinct told him about a (an about to happen) suicide in the very next room, in the hotel.

"Pause: I am still not complaining friends!! Okay. Pressing the Play button again"

He, then through his mighty instinct, rescues her. Beautiful girl.

Damn. This is where fuel is added on to fire, all burnings happening inside our stomach. Courtesy: Jealousy. I am still not complaining. Just asking all movie directors if they could end up placing a girl with really thick soda bottle glasses, bugs bunny teeth, and a heart-unthrobbing, shapeless body.

I just realized am giving too many pauses and going off track. Back to our story. He rescues her. She is rescued by him. They end up getting to know each other at a Cafe a day after. Bright sunlight. Busy NY. She asks him if Raghavan was a software engineer. He replies saying that he is in hardware (meaning a cop).

I swear I loved this dialogue by the hero. I mean, you cannot answer in a better fashion for that question. It had humor, intelligence, smartness and to top it all, an answer. It was a lovable one. BUT BUT fellas, not in a movie with a plot like this!!!! You know what you came here for. You know that there are a bunch of audiences waiting to know what would happen to the investigation. Who is the killer? And more importantly, why are they doing all these? Blah Blah.

Later on, the movie again gains awesome pace because the coffee is over. But, it has to be dragging at a few places mid way, as a coffee cannot withstand hunger for long. You need to dine at the best locations on NY. A song shot at places like Times Square, Brooklyn Bridge, Madison Square Garden (I know only these places and that too only because of movies). All necessary elements only, but for a romantic movie.

I would definitely suggest movie lovers to watch this movie for sure (with subtitles for people who cannot interpret tamil, but again a great advantage of this movie is the fact that it has close to 70% of English dialogues in it. Stylish again) So, I think we are getting the point now. If you have a catchy title or a plot, obey that.

Back to '15 minutes', this movie moves in a similar manner. A point where the Officer and a fireman (they are the heroes of this movie) end up chasing these psycho killers on the streets of NY, they run away because the director feels that the movie should definitely harm the title.

Alright. They ran away. Won't you be calling the intelligence to add more grip to the pace? No. The officer claims to teach his subordinate some lessons on investigation. He tells the fireman that both them need to go home and take rest, instead of showing your tiredness. Our hero now starts practicing 'I love you. You are adorable' in french, in his washroom, in front of the mirror as he is planning to propose her the very same night. (What crap!!! Am crying. I have to sleep. Please finish this off)

And then the movie still goes on for one more hour, way too irrelevant to its title. I later realized that the title could have been kept something like,

• A hundred and fifty minutes
• 2 Killers, 2 Catchers and their 2 respective girlfriends
• Title is only - 15 Minutes
• A film by ' ' (director's name)

I and my brother were bored to death. The punchline and message that i extracted from this experience was,

Never watch a movie with expectations from its title, or when you want to have a peaceful sleep.

Pirates of Silicon Valley - movie

It was quite an amazing experience to watch a movie of this genre.

It would be hard to believe that a 9th grader told me about this movie when we had nothing to talk about, at a wedding function. I wondered if he could ever relate anything to that movie, considering his age. Thanks to that kid anyways.

This movie narrates on how two of greatest minds on earth grew up, and end up creating what we are using today, to communicate to each other. I am talking about COMPUTERS.

Controversies apart, I found this to be a great movie to watch, technically. Also on second priority, what excited me the most is when I got to learn the history of the advancement of computers and the secrets that were involved upon.

Terms like 'Mac', 'Windows', 'Xerox', etc have definitely become a part of our life, one should be excited to know the way these inventions came up, to conquer our lives and make it much better. Nobody in the early 80's would have ever imagined an advancement of this intensity.

Dialogues like 'We're here to make a dent in the universe', 'We're rewriting the history of human thoughts with what we're doing', 'information is power', are all so powerful that it I found these in resemblance to the tamil movie titled 'Iruvar' featuring Mohan Lal, Prakash Raj and Aishwarya Rai, directed by Mani Ratnam.

Do watch this movie.

A blog to discuss musiq

Perhaps, this is one way of showcasing our sense of time-passing through musiq.

Do visit my new blog site to talk about music.

http://letstalkmusiq.blogspot.com/

P.S: Do not misjudge me for the incorrect usage of 'music' in the site name and the post. This is done intentionally due to non-availability of the non-incorrect word.

Shortest version of 'Shoe'Napped

One day, I lost my shoes in a bus, on my way back home.

A shorter version of 'Shoe'Napped

Many of my friends commented on the story 'Shoe'Napped saying that it was too dragging, lengthy, etc.

Here is the shorter version for them.

On my way back from office, I lost my shoes in the bus in which I traveled back home. Soon as i realized that after getting down from the bus, I made a decision to go in search of the shoes to the bus terminus, without realizing the fact that I had to travel across 2 continents to reach there. And finally, the shoes were not there inside the bus. I got back home late.

Shoe'Napped' - Part 03 (Final)

I think the title would have brought in a great sense of relief. True ain't?
Here we go.

LOCATION : Bus terminus of "B18"
TIME : 11:45PM

The site was truly amazing. You get to realize the service provided by these transport corporations on such occasions only. Otherwise all we know is to curse them when a bus is late, or any situation for that matter.

There was this table with a bunch of supervisors who had these really huge registers which marks all the technical details, relevant only to them. And according to these gentlemen also, I was an unexpected alien who has entered into their office on such an odd time to take their lives off. Politely, I approached a person over there and I told him that I missed my pair of shoes on the latest service of "B18" (God!! How many times do I have to repeat this sick bus route number?). He immediately asked me if I had the ticket, so that he could identify the exact bus in which I have made the mess. I readily answered with a loud 'Yes' and all I did was to take out a bunch of papers (all of them being bus tickets) from my left pocket.

It took a little time for me to actually identify the exact ticket that was required to be shown to them. But, fortunately this guy asked me to quit doing that, as sounded like had almost found out the probable bus and he was questioning his subordinates in a loud tone if that bus had arrived at the terminus, and the answers given were all doubtful for conclusions to be made.

While all these talks we going on, I saw the very same "B18" entering into the terminus. I got super excited. Can still remember the scene. It was like your typical examination results. Do or die. The result of your investments on time, energy and thoughts for the last few hours, is going to be revealed now. So, you would get to know, if you are doing meaningful things or not. The diameter of both my eyes were at its all time high.

I took no time to tell the supervisor that it was this bus in which I had traveled. He then asked me to go ahead and see if it is still inside the bus. I almost ran like a school kid running out of the school building after the last hour's bell. The driver and the conductor were switching the lights off and were about the close the automatic doors of the bus, and I quickly intervened to tell them that I did so and so, in so and so time from so and so place to so and so place, all in this bus. Again, without any surprise (for me), the bus conductor was able to recognize me. Thanks to my dashing looks even during odd times of the day!! He told me that he remembered me and allowed me to get inside the bus and search for my bag of shoes.

I jumped into the bus with not less than 100% confidence in my heart which was beating as fast as the speed in which my brain works (without any sense, at times) . The shoe-bag was NOT there under the seats. It took time for me to believe the truth involved. I kept looking under all the seats, but in vain. If you think in the other way (or in a sensible way), this definitely should not be of a great shock to me. You leave your shoe on a bus which is used by thousands of commuters on a single day, and you are optimistic about getting it back. I had to tell myself that attempts like these would end up successful only once out of a hundred times.

I came out of the bus with my heads down (like a doctor coming out of the operation theater, when his patient is dead) and told the bus conductor that the bag was not there inside and must have been taken by somebody. I still could not digest the fact that I have really missed my shoes, mainly because the toughest part was to end up reaching the terminus, than finding the bus and searching inside it, considering the time of the day you have done all these. I announced the end result to the conductor and the driver and headed back towards the exit gate of the terminus.

But this time, I was not as disgusted as I was when I came to know that the shoes were left missed out in the bus itself. At least, a sense of satisfaction was there because of the effort and the adventure that took place the last few hours.

LOCATION : Bus terminus of "B18"
TIME : 12:00AM

Now, an ever tougher task ahead. How the hell do I reach back home? I had no clue on how far I was, from the nearest landmark that I knew, to guide myself. The road was nearly empty and an auto-rickshaw approached towards me and the driver asked me the place that I wanted to go. I told him that I wanted to go to the broadway terminus, and he demanded me an amount, which I thought was high because of two simple reasons.

• I had no idea about the distance I had to travel to
• I did not want to spend such an amount after having leaned on to the losing side of a battle which started because of a minor defect on my mental reflex

But this time, I told the auto guy that I do not want to give such an amount as I have traveled a long way from nowhere to here and having ended up losing my shoes. He then reduced the amount that he quoted and headed back. And this was the conversation.

Auto Guy : What was the price of the shoes when you purchased this pair of shoes?
Me : 1500 bucks.
Auto Guy : Why did you travel all the way for shoes that costs just 1500? You should have returned back home and should have had a good sleep.
Me : Its ok. Thanks. I would consider the auto fare as sight seeing charges for the northern part of the city (with a lot of embarrassment within inside)

I reached home at around 1AM.

What a tragic day!!! And what a tragic suspense to this story!!!!

'Shoe'Napped - Part 02

Where were we? Okay. Yeah. Here we go (keeping in mind, our BGMs).

LOCATION : AAAA XYZ
TIME : 10:10PM

I start walking back towards the bus stop which is a very few meters away. But it definitely wasn't a very short walk, because you have made a real blunder. What could turn out to become a bigger blunder is the fact that you make a little bit of a foolish attempt, and you still get back home sometime in the midnight without your bag of shoes. Wouldn't you end up thinking,

"At least you could have had yourself a lot more time to sleep after all the mess that has happened till now"

I cursed myself.

In the mean time, I called up the boss of my house to say that I would get back home a little late, as I had extra work at office. (Who is going to monitor me? But at least I was a little guilty about the fact that I was not truthful)

As I approached the exact point where I got down from the bus, I saw another "B18" approaching me (Gosh! Is this bus a part of my fate? You actually tend to think about your fate only when you are being screwed). I was excited to see that. But something else seemed to have bothered me. What was it?

Zooming my sight into the board which displays the route number and the destination, I got to realize that this bus is not heading towards what I thought would be the usual terminus that the majority of buses would be heading to. 95% of the buses would have its end point as 'the broadway terminus', and I had made a small calculation in my mind thinking that it would take a total of one hour to carry out my stupid and so-called "effort" after that "effortless" and "silly" act. But...but... this mighty "B18" goes to a place which is beyond the broadway terminus.

Cursing myself again. What else could I possibly do? 'Difficult' was becoming 'very tough' at this moment. I got into the bus and was waiting for the bus conductor to give me a ticket. Gathering money from my pocket to prepare myself for this. Before I got a ticket, I got a call from Rakesh and he said,

"Hey. I went back to the bus where I got down and I could not spot your shoes there dude!!!"

I knew the answer myself. I replied to him saying that I had realized the same and am on a leap towards a mighty hunt over the very same pair of shoes. He must have thought if I was a fool of 21st century or something. Never mind all these, when you are capable or doing mistakes, that too when you learn something in life. The bus conductor came towards me and I explained him the fact that I left my pair of shoes on the previous bus, and would want to go to the bus depot to see if it is still under the seat where I sat. He was kind enough to understand my situation and rightly understood, the place where I wanted to go to, and gave me a ticket. This bus was decently crowded.

Again, I could sense that some of my co-passengers gave a weird look at the way I was dressed up. It started disturbing me and I shouted at all of them saying,

"Hey. What are you all looking at? Are we all going to attend a party tonight? Then why the hell are you people discomforting me with such looks?"

Of course, I shouted at all of them from the inside of my mind only. I would not want to get chopped. Had to keep all my expressions and thoughts completely shut, and just be a little positive of the fact that I got the right bus at least.

Time on the watch was ticking faster but I felt that my time was definitely not. I took a wide look at all the other passengers in the bus. They all must be heading back to their homes for a peaceful sleep after a warm day. I knew it for a fact that it was only me in the whole bus, who had done something and is doing something foolish. What to do? Negative thoughts go through our minds when we are under pressure. All that I was waiting for, was this whole event to get over ASAP, no matter if I succeeded or not.

The bus passed across the broadway terminus. And I was just thinking that I would be reaching the terminus of "B18" in a few minutes. It went on and on and on. It would have taken around 30 minutes since I crossed the broadway terminus, and it still didn't look like I was anywhere close to reaching that place. Suddenly, the bus conductor poked me and told,

"This bus would actually take a longer route to reach its terminus. I would advise you to get down in the next stop, and take another bus (he told me a bunch of numbers and none of them were catchy to me at that time) from there. It would help you to reach the place faster"

I had no other option but to readily obey his words of wisdom. At least someone was there to understand the situation and guide me. I also had no clue about the place where I was, at that time.

The bus stopped then. He told me to quickly get down from the bus and catch the other one that was approacing us from behind. All I had time to say was a small 'thanks' to him, but it meant a lot to me. I got down right then from the bus, and then ran to catch the one that he asked me to. Boarded it, and again, all the passengers were puzzled to see a creature like me, at that time of the night. Cannot help it myself. I didn't even have any time to think of what was actually going on, and went to the conductor straight away to ask him for a ticket to the terminus.

Seems that this bus just passes by the terminus where I was supposed to go, and he told me that It doesn't stop there. Now, again, I briefed him about what happened, and told him that the conductor of the previous bus suggested me to get into this one, so that I can reach there faster. Surprizingly, this man was also kind enough, gave me a ticket, asked me to sit down for a few minutes, and told me that he would poke me when I am supposed to get down.

Phew!! Look at what all I had to go through because of one silly mistake and an even sillier decision to undo my silliness.

LOCATION : AAAA XYZ
TIME : 11:00PM

I think conductor gave me a ticket which costed one grade higher than the minimum fare. So, i got myself into a conclusion that this was yet another ride which is gonna eat my time. The conclusion was rightly done. After a lot of yawns, the conductor called me and when I went towards him, he told me to go to the bus driver and request him to stop the bus near the terminus.

I went and stood behind the bus driver and looked at his face through the mirror. I think he was heavy, and sported a pretty big moustache. Boy! This isn't the guy whom you wanna give your request in such a bad situation. Still, I had to do that. Asked him if he could stop next to the terminus and he readily answered that the bus would not stop there. Again, I briefed him on what happened, and he said 'okay'.

Few minutes later, he stopped the bus and pointed at the bus terminus and told me that this was the place where I wanted to go to. I thanked him (as usual) and got down from the bus. This time I was pretty sure that I need not travel any distance further away. I crossed the road and went into the bus depot.

Guys!!! It was truly an amazing site on such a 'not-so-amazing' situation. It was a huge bus terminus. Hundreds of buses parked like matchsticks.

(To be continued......)

'Shoe'Napped - Part 01

My typical day-to-day routine (when this incident happened):

• Wake up early
  
• Jogging
• Get ready for work
  
• Workplace (till 7PM)
  
• Basketball (till 9:30PM)
• Get back home and sleep

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED ON ONE FINE DAY:

After an excellent session of basketball, I and my friend Rakesh headed back towards home and had to take a public transport bus. We both get to accompany each other till half way, and, after that, depart towards our respective localities. Ideally, one of us need to hop into two buses to get back home each day. It was my turn to hop that fine day (which later turned out to become not just fine).

Back to our screenplay. Rakesh and I had an usual light talk, as we traveled together in a bus which was only half occupied by passengers. I keep my formal clothes (that i wear to my workplace) in a bag, and a pair of black, formal shoes (which is rightly to be acclaimed the hero of this story) on a plastic bag. The way I am dressed at this time of the day is a little weird, I should say. Dirt patched T Shirt, sport shorts, and sport shoes. But even after realizing this, I got no regrets. All that you think of, at that time, is to reach home ASAP, take a shower, have dinner, and reach your dream world in the 600th second after you gulp your glass of water, post dinner.

I think it was me who got tickets for the both of us, and the time came when I had to get down on one particular junction to catch another bus. While I was supposed to jump off from the footpath, the Bus Conductor politely asked me

"You are the one who purchased the tickets for the both of you. Have you given the other ticket to your friend?"

I had to reply to him with a smile saying,

"Oh yes. I have given him, his ticket."

Waved a smile back again at Rakesh and happily got down from the bus (I liked the responsible behavior of the bus conductor).

Soon as I hopped out, I saw another attractive looking bus with the route number "B18" (Is this bus the villain of the story?), which must have been occupied by around 10 to 15 passengers, maximum. Got into it with a little bit of an excited expression on my face (I prefer to board a bus on that time of the night where I would not want to give trouble to my co-passengers by standing or sitting next to them, after a rough and tough game of basketball, that too in humid cities like Chennai. I am happy to have avoided using words like sweat, dirt, odour, etc)

Like many screenplay oriented Hollywood movies, I would like to give u with a flash, the time of the incidents, so that we are on the right track. No popcorn or telephone call should distract us, right?

LOCATION : ABCD XYZ
TIME : 9:50PM

Back inside our bus ("B18". Yeah. The camera just zoomed in from an angle in which it showed the route name with a flash and then it took a mighty swing on the sides to show me from the windows. This is where I realize I should get into movies, even though the idea might sound extremely familiar), I just got to sit comfortably (even though it is just a 15-20 minutes journey), and commute after I stepped a few seats towards the front, where the conductor was sitting, to get my ticket. And then, I got a call from a friend of mine, and I picked it up to know that it was a conference call comprising 4 of my friends. As usual, all of us bitched about our work and working routine (even though I completely enjoy the freedom I had) and there was this particular point of time where my friends insisted me to include another friend of mine on the call. I had to put that call on HOLD mode, and dialled a number, when I realized I had to step out of the bus immediately, as I have reached my locality. I UNHOLDED the call and told my friends to hold on for a second, and got down from the bus immediately.

Just imagine this in a filmy style, in slow motion. When I was leaping to take the last step to get down from the bus, something flashed on my mind.

I also had a plastic bag on my hand which had my black formal shoes in it.

By the time this realization happened in ultra slow motion, I was out of the bus. :-( . Heart started beating a little faster (Ofcourse). Had to confirm the fact that I have definitely become a loser right now (acknowledgement, you see), took a few more fractions of a second. While these fractions of the second were happening, something else flashed on my mind.

Did I leave the shoe bag on the other bus in which I came with Rakesh?

The answer is definitely a Yes or a No and both of them had equal weightage, according to my tensed mind, at that time.

Quickly picked up my mobile to tell my friends what happend and I insisted them that I would call them back later. Call disconnected even faster. Now, my mind started to swing again. Had to think really fast. The fact that the answer could be a mighty Yes made me walk towards my home. Even your common sense would suggest you to do that. Why would you wanna follow that bus when you can only walk, and you haven't confirmed that the answer is a No?

While I was walking back a few steps away from the bus stop, I called up Rakesh to find out if he had gotten out of the bus in which we came. Just to check under the seats or somewhere, If I had missed it there itself. I would have been nice if it happened that way. Told him what had happened. He said he had gotten down from the bus and told me that he would go back to the bus to see if I had left it inside there(He gets down on a bus depot. So this is logically possible). Call disconnected, and this was the time I had to scold and abuse myself for what I'd done, until something evident flashed on my mind.

When the bus conductor asked me in person if I had given my friend his ticket, I recognized I had the shoe bag on my hand when I answered him.

This was clearly evident. I was pretty sure that I had not misplaced my shoes on the first bus and my shoes must be happily traveling now on that "B18" bus. And this time, I scolded myself even more. Again in a dilemma.

What am I supposed to do right now? Should I get another bus following this to go to the bus depot and give a good try? Or, think reality and get back home? (abusing myself more)

This time, I took a decision as fast as I took the other decisions.

LOCATION : AAAA XYZ
TIME : 10:10PM

Yeah I have decided. I am going to give it a try. I am going to follow this bus, no matter how late it is. Just an effort. Why not?

Imagine all your reconcilation BGMs (BackGround Music Scores), or your Slumdog Millionaire BGMs. Time to fight back. Pulling up my socks. More than the fact that the possibility factor for getting back those shoes is at its all time low, I liked the fact that I took a decision. I am a person who can even kill myself in situations like these where dilemma plays the role of a super hero.

And here i walk strong (with a little bit of sadness, ofcourse) towards the same bus stop to catch the next bus heading towards the bus depot of our infamous "B18".

(To be continued.....)

Something for our taste buds !

Someone who says 'I don't like black forest cake' is supposed to be considered either a diabetic, or a person who should be placed at the nearby museum.


Just imagine. Typical Indian summer. Huge appetite. You got this placed in front of you. Come on. Attack attack.

Got a golden chance to dine at Le Royel Meridien, and it was just a feast.


Yeah. I would not wanna miss out on anything.

Thanks to the 'bandh'

Of course, i do not have ANY idea about the political and actual reason behind the bandh that was announced against certain evil sources. I certainly respect whatever is bound to be respected.

Special thanks to the bandh that was observed in the city of Chennai last month. I could observe some more cleanliness on the roads, during peak traffic hours.

[1. Near Spic building , Guindy]

[2. Kathipara Grade Seperator , Guindy]

[3. Towards Chennai Trade Centre]

I CERTAINLY APPRECIATE THE CLEANLINESS MAINTAINED !!!!! [ also my 2megapixel camera phone :-) ]

References:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandh
  

VOTE VOTE VOTE !!!

Alright folks. Its election time. Don't just be satisfied with the fact that you get a full day or a half-a-day off from your working/studying routine to rest your back(s).

Voting percentage has always been the major challenge for all democratic nations.

Actual Scenario: You have a class of 10 students. It is told your duty is to vote one person among the 2 or 3 who represents himself/herself to be the leader of the group. Only 4 of them cast their votes and the leader is chosen.

My perception: This is not what we mean by being democratic when we choose our leaders.

A leader is a person, very much from the group, and among the group, who is unanimously chosen by everyone to represent them.

We often complain that our mighty politicians are not doing their job properly, and we always end up throwing all the blame on them. No. I am not denying that completely. But i just think that we need to accomplish our duty first, before we complain.

What we usually witness is the fact that a majority of people, who are stated to be living below the poverty line, get attracted by the campaigns that the political parties conduct, and innocently cast their votes with smiles on their faces. Boy. You should see the beautiful smile that comes to people and how proud they are, when show the nail of the index finger, painted in blue.



Oh come on. I would say that this blind belief is much much better than the lazy educated people who s(h)it at home, watching the results of the same elections on the television channels with bloody attractive newsreaders. (Am not blaming them. They are doing their job).

Just look at the pathetic state of the educated and lazy people who are into a perception that voting never really matters in any form to choose a leader for them.

These jerks are taught about all these basic things when they are in schools. They talk about politics. They praise, they scold (which happens the most), they fight with words, they watch all these people who fight with words, but they won't vote !!!!

Why cannot we have a rule which goes something like,

Your citizenship for this country holds valid only if you vote (unless you stay outside your country). Or may be the fact that your citizenship gets renewed or something, when you vote.

You can vote anywhere in your country.

I certainly doubt if this is available on the books. Our duty as citizens of a nation:

• I have to vote.
  
• I have to make sure that the members of my family and my society also cast their votes.

This is the least contribution that we make towards developing our nation. And, please do not expect results over night. Keep in mind, the population of our country.

The Internet

The internet is easily an example to show us the fact that we are living in such a big world,
and at the same time,
it also makes us realize on how easily we can be a part of it.

Sounds typical, but true, right?

The world is a stage

All the World's a Stage

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

- William Shakespeare

We all have come across this World famous poem. Here are the list of roles played by all the mere men and women after their entry and before their exit:

• An infant
• Whining schoolboy/schoolgirl
• Lover
• Soldier
• Justice
• A lean old man / woman
  
• A very old person, turning into second childishness
  

Let us consider our middle-aged man/woman who has this typical working routine. I am not just talking about the so-called innocent human beings wearing IT/BPO tags rolled around their neck. Doesn't matter if you are a labor worker, or a Government servant, or a marketing executive, ... blah.. blah. You all are included in this mere consideration.

Before the discussion can begin, the bulb inside our head wakes up wide to say "Hey. Don't you think these things are already discussed by William Shakespeare in those seven roles?. Thinking too smart, huh?"

Answer - "This is just another funny and explicit correlation."

Okay. We need to frame a name for this role. Can we have him/her named worker? No. It sounds too partial towards the labor community. Hmmm. No. It doesn't sound that way. Whenever someone asks you "what do you do?", your immediate response to that is "I am ABC and I work for XYZ company". Let us finalize that. Lets welcome The Worker. :-)

But the role that we assigned, will have the qualities of the roles - lover, soldier and the justice.

The Worker

First of all, he/she has to be a great actor. :-) And let us analyze the reasons as to why our Worker has to to wear this crown. Do not take them on a negative tone. It is just the way we live our life. This is the way the world is written to behave.

• He/She has a split personality syndrome. Just step out of your shoes and look at yourself. You turn into a completely different personality when you enter your workplace. You straight away start pressing the MODE button on you mind which reads Office.
  
• Whenever our boss/superior passes by, the responsibility factor increases to an all time high, or at least, we pretend to be that way by tuning our body language.
  

Just imagine, if our real life is actually a reality show in itself, and we are surrounded by thousands of cameras. Probably, God will be the only viewer of this reality show. So, He can definitely notice the change in our body language, or notice the fact that there would be a different colored light glowing on the MODE button. It is a little funny to imagine ourselves that way. Just peep into God's theater room with your friend and tell him

"Dude. Look at you on TV number 10. Ha ha. You look so funny. How can you change your facial expression like that when your good looking boss passes by? Man. You are really an awesome actor. "

Another scene.

"Hey. Look at that. TV number 15. @$%$. That is the video of your team meeting. Why do you have to look so bloody tensed when your manager questions you on that?. Chill Chill my friend!!".

And, another one.

"Why do you have to give such an angry pose when your superior assigns you some work with deadline and leaves from that place?"

So many emotions, so many expressions, yet, a single person. It is the personality that changes.

Sources & References:

• http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/all-the-world-s-a-stage/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare
  

Love for Roads - Some more samples

Location : The Hills of Wayanad, Kerala

Man. This place is undoubtedly a belonging of Nature God!! Perfect destination for a vacation.


The highlight of traveling on these hills was the journey in the dark where we witnessed a lot of fireflies.

You get to come across one firefly, its nice
We got to see thousands/millions of fireflies which glowed on and off at the same time, and it was breathtaking

It was like some orchestra or something. They all smile at the desired time, based on Nature's instructions.


The best part of this whole thing - One of my acquainted friends happens to be from this very place, and he got us jack fruits, wine, etc from his house. :-)



The best comes at the end. The one below happens to be my favorite pic of the lot.



Sources :

• http://answers.yahoo.com
• http://animals.howstuffworks.com/insects/firefly-info.htm

I used Chopsticks for the first ever time !!

Things to remember:

• Noodles and I always have a rough and tough experience when we come across each other.
  
• I did not prepare the recipe that we are going to discuss now.
  

Mission : To try hogging a plate of noodles with the help of Chopsticks.

Not an easy mission folks. To be very frank, the apparatus looked like pencils to me. It was so heavenly to keep them on the plate to take a picture, rather than facing the worst.


Well, it definitely started off with me picking up a noodle (not noodles) and the word wierd was much felt every now and then. I was like "Dude!!! When am i going to finish this thing off??".


Slowly, after a lot of fumbling, destiny smiled at me instead of laughing. I was able to go beyond 10 degrees of curvature for the first time. :-) (Yeah Yeah. I can hear your applauds. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.)


But somehow there was only one single and simple question that came around my head.

Are chopsticks really advantageous than forks?

Anyways, you might not be in a position to give excuses when you land up in China, Japan, Korea or Indonesia.

Here are the actual tips. Happy meddling with the chopsticks.

1. Place one chopstick in the crook of your thumb and index finger. The chopstick should be at the base of your thumb and your thumb should be about 1/3 the way down from the broad end of the chopstick.

2. Rest the chopstick on your ring finger between ½ way and 2/3 the way down the chopstick. The first chopstick should now be very stable with one end securely between your thumb and index finger and the other end resting on your ring finger.

3. Place the second chopstick in your hand the way you would hold a pen. It should rest slightly on the tip of your thumb and be held into place with support from your middle finger.

4. Use your index and middle fingers to practice moving the tip of the top chopstick up and down. The bottom chopstick should remain relatively still. As you move the top one down the tip should meet up with the tip of the bottom one.

5. Imagine you are pinching something. If the tips aren't meeting up, adjust one chopstick so they do because it will be very difficult to pick anything up if the two chopsticks aren't evenly aligned.

6. Attempt to pick up some food! Start with large chunks of food like chopped up vegetables or meat . Once you get the hang of that you can try the trickier foods like rice and grains.

7. Practice Practice Practice!

Source : Internet

Yeah. Correct. I got fooled !!! :-(

Date : March 31, 2009
Time : 22:00 hrs

This was the conversation between me and my mother.

Me : Hi. How was the day?
Mom : Was good. Guess what? Dad and I are going to Thirupathi for a pilgrimage tomorrow.
Me : Oh really? That is great. Long awaited trip, huh? (And i continued.. blah..blah......
with a lot of excitement)
Mom : Yeah. All Stuff packed. Leaving at 4AM tomorrow morning.
Me : That is excellent.
Mom : Guess what? April Fool !!!!! Ha ha ha ha ha
Me : Oops. This is bad. How humiliating!! I am the one who usually fools around, and look at me this time. :-(
Mom : I am your mother Mr.Rajeev.
Me : Correct. (Still cannot get rid of what actually happened)
Mom : Hmmm. Alright. You believed it. Right? Okay. This one is for you. April Fool again. We are going for the pilgrimage. :-). Now see to that you sleep early and wake us up at 4AM.
Me : #@% @#%@^ (I said that to myself, of course)


Well, this was simple. Yet, really powerful. :-(


FYI : The resolution of the picture that you see above is 420 x 420.