Last Day at Madhapur

Last Day at Madhapur. So many memories of the past one year are flashing by - late night walks just for the heck of it, dining at MRCB, hangouts with Nikmo or Murali at KVKD, binge weekends mixed with philosophical discussions overseen by special guests Niks, Raja Vardhan, late night movie/marathons with Nikmo. The first half of the year has been even more memorable where every week whisked by filled with so many activities - a compulsory movie followed by running around malls eating at new places trying different outlets, every morning breakfast meetings like the hit squad from 'Thank You For Smoking', partial gymming. I will miss all of these.

Though my dad feels I have been spending exorbitant amount staying at 3rd floor, I feel I have had one of the best times of my life with best people around. I loved keeping the music on everyday before I finish my bath, cooking late and most importantly it was big enough to hold at least 7 people when it matters especially during binging. Given a chance I would like to come back again and stay at this place.

The last few months though with everyone having parted ways to explore their avenues, the fun and fizzle hasn't been the same. I never thought I would be going to watch movies at theaters all alone but it happened.

Before it gets too senty, let me just say the bottomline is - Life is not same with friends around. Though there are comforts, if there are no people to share or hangout life is a like camping in a deserted island. That's how its been for the last few months.

Let's see how it turns out say 6 or 8 months from now.

Au Revoir - Madhapur

86 and Counting!

It's official now - I am full blown 86 Kilo weight dumb headed, fat and obstinate pig. Having checked my weight at the Office gym showing the needle dangerously oscillating between 85 and 87, I felt very depressed to say the least.

It all started in the evening going to have tea with Anup walking beside and casually telling me "kya dude, bahut fat ban rahe ho". Now, had it been say a month back I would have just replied back with a "Chal na yaar..". This wasn't so. It's been only a week since I heard the same comment from none less than Kishor, the guy whom I interact with at least three times a day. I had just laughed it off and made up silly excuse like "Naa..its because of the shirt man". Just to reassure myself I had secretly confided it to Joe and sought a second but firm opinion. He shook his head, smiled a little and said "No dude. Frankly I don't see much change. You are just like before. In fact I don't think you are fat at all, you are just perfect".

Okay, the last sentence I made up. But the point is he totally convinced me and rested my fears of not validating my weight on measuring scale. I also left it at that, until now. Anup told the exact same thing today and Deja Vu. It stuck on me and in full ferociousness I made up my mind to find the truth. It was the most painful thing ever to witness. I am both glad, sad and mad about myself for succumbing to such a gallantly stupid act of seeing the weight.

Oh God! What have I done. Is this what they called 'End Of the Days'? Is the sky really falling on my head? Is 2012 a reality? Am I destined to die Obese? So many thoughts are clinging on my mind. Having been with two roomies who adored daru and dum like their second skin, who gave a rat's ass about their being fat, the determination to limit food or contain health was yanked out of my feet leading to acts of obsessive eating disorder. This is without doubt one of the worst days of my life. Period.

Compounding the problem is my pea sized brain thoughts like "As I am going to Paris, As I am not going to get anything to eat, As I am not going to eat Biryani, Chicken Noodles, Rice, Sambar, As I am not going to have burgers as and when I wish" etc. I have binged non-stop the last week and a half starting from Rajhmundry Biryani, Chicken Curries with full plate rice, Vada, Masala Dosa glistening with Oil, Curd with Sugar - all these and much more are happily settled at both sides of my bulged tummy.

A small confession -

I knew I was 86 much before this day when I had checked my weight at Nikhil's place on December the 10th - Sindu's Wedding day! That's like 17 days ago. Thanks to the morons Hari and Nikhil, who both agreed and reassured me with false statements yet again after checking their individual weights that the machine indeed was showing 2Kg's more. I was actually content being 84, you see.

I vow now to stop eating rice, oily foods and anything that got to do with fat inducing crap. And to Nikhil - "Dude, I definitely am going to keep track of number of days starting this vrath/fast". Watch out!

Chrome Gets a App store!

Woah...I come to office, logon to Reader and what do I see? Google Chrome store is up and running. Yeah! This is just so freaking awesome. This might be just a teaser to the real thing that Google have been up to since this February's announcement of Chrome OS.

My first impressions -

• Not many apps
• Can't browse through apps on first page of the sections like 'Featured', 'Popular' without using 'All'. Again this probably is due to not many apps being there
• No Categories under the Themes! That's ridiculous and absolutely unacceptable. I mean, at least they should be bear minimum - Most downloaded, Top Rated, Editor's pick etc should be there under each one.

That's about it for now. What I fail to understand is why is it that Google never seem to reach the level of sophistication and the richness of look and feel that Apple does. Be it the Android marketplace or this one, it feels as if this is akin to comparison of Linux vs Windows (or again Apple :)). With such great capabilities of utilising Adobe Flash/Flex Google should be going great but instead what we see are sub-standard apps and not much variety as Apple does.

Android, the so-called greatest competitor to Apple, sadly hasn't caught on any great feelings as I have for apple. Neither do I see any major websites poublishing the best apps for Android week on week or Day to Day. Every major company I look either in books, mags, or newspaper proudly claim to be part of Apple. Only few are on Android.

I really hope days from now this scenario would change and let this competetion benefit all rather than one community.

Again coming back to Chrome apps, New York Times has just blown me away with their app..Here is the look and feel of it - Just mind blowing!

How many of these have you Read?

I have come across this snippet from browsing some of my favorite blogs and couldn't resist making a post of it. BBC apparently has believes most people have read at least 6 out of these 100 books. Let me see how I score up -

Taking a cue from other sites, here is what I think can be done if you are going to post it and move it along -

Instructions:

1. Look at the list and bold the ones you love.
2. Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
3. Star (*) those you plan on reading

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen *

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte*

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell*

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens*

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare - read some, but not others...

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma - Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell *

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy.

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding*

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth.*

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez*

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck*

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie*

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt.

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom*

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

That makes my count as 17. Great, I passed the test. Now, let's see the ones I want to read -

• Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen *
• Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell*
• Great Expectations - Charles Dickens*
• Animal Farm - George Orwell *
• Lord of the Flies - William Golding*
• A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth.*
• Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez*
• Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck*
• Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie*
• The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom*

Total books planning to read - 10.

To be honest, there are good number of books among the list for which I have seen the film versions but I guess it doesn't count. Going back to the list again, though there are so many I have missed out, there are some I definitely would not want to read for sheer abstractness of the contents in the novel. Here it goes -

• Anna Karanina - Leo Tolstoy
• Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell (I couldn't sit through the movie and I am not sure how long I will stand with the book)
• War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy ( Have read it 3 times, haven't gone past 10 pages)
• Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Have read it 5 times. Maximum pages reached -35 pages. Have also been challenged by Adi that he would give anything if I can complete the book. I certainly bow down to his word.)
• Then there are Children's books like - Narnia, Winnie the Pooh, Alice in Wonderland,Charlie and the Chocolate Factory etc. (These books are past my age and I know I won't enjoy them. As simple as that.)

Writing this post has rekindled the spirit in me to pick up the reading habit again. It's such a great feeling just thinking about it.

Let me know your score folks either here or in FB. :)

Reminiscing the movies and the task ahead

This month seems to be one hellava month for movies this year. Here goes the list ( in order of my preference of watching them, high to low) -

• Aakrosh
• Rakta Charitra
• Khaleja
• Jhoota hi Sahi
• Alla Ke Bandein (for Naseerudhin Shah)
• Anjaana Anjaani
• Robot

Unfortunately I get to see Robot tomorrow, the least preferred one. That's quite a sizable list of movies to cover. Then there is matter of backlog that I need to cover - Aisha, Udaan, Peepli Live, Phiraaq. That's not all. I have this constant nagging in back of my mind to cover all the unseen movies of my movie database. I am pretty much sure every movie collector must be going through this. You see , it quite happens we download movies based on all the good talk, reviews, critical acclaim etc etc. and then we rest it. It's as if the task of downloading is seen as watching the movie itself. It wasn't always like this.

I remember the initial times, when speeds were of the range 30Kbps, I used to wait anxiously for the movie to complete and immediately watch it. With greater speeds the onus is more on making effective utilisation of the money spent and doing justice. Anyways, now with Mote gone and Sindu out of circulation, the movie watching interest isn't the same anymore.

At such times I really miss him and the gang quite a bit. Sundays and Saturday's have definitely dried up. I now see movies mostly by myself and each has been a disastrous one - Gaayam 2, Dabaang, Subhapradam. Almost all my time is taken up by selecting some random movie from HD and watching it thereby severely affecting my book reading habit, blogging, pursuing other interests like watching plays etc. Putting my heart out in post like this does help me time to time to realize that change should be within and that no one is responsible for how we go ahead from now on.

I need to pull my socks up and plan my weekends from now on before I go completely crazy. First and foremost change is to get out of my wrecking home. Anyways I have 5 more days to find out how it goes.

Coming back to movies, hopefully the ones I await, especially Rakta Charitra and Aakrosh would live upto my expectations. Its been quite a while since I have seen real hardcore action movies in Hindi/Telugu.

A Random Recurring Thought put into practise

3'0 clock in the night. That should be enough to learn about my desperation to blog. Nikmo starts blogging, Pavi fires on blogging and then I come across Zohra's blog along with present-not-present Nikhil's blog. That's the limit, do I need any other bigger kick than that?.As I keep subscribing to bloggers and rearranging my Google Reader Settings, I am just forgetting the basic objective - bringing back my true self. Why the hell can't I just blog?

First I wanted to blog on the unbridgeable age gap between parents and the GenY (or is it Z now?). I had such a tough time going through so many multitudes of emotions in trying to convince both the parties my bro and my parents what is cool and what is uncool! Every time it inevitably landed with heated arguments spoiling the whole day. The whole marriage shopping experience is an exercise I wish to forget but am glad I faced it. It just upped my biological senses to handle unreasonable arguments.

Then the whole marriage saga- never ending adventurous bus journey before the marriage , the euphoric family dances (reminiscent of Arvi's Sangeet Marriage), my dazzling Sherwani, the sumptuous dinner. THE marriage can just take up at least 2 full posts.

What was next to be followed was a post on my promotion to SSE (Senior Software Engineer). Its been a highly rewarding 9 months journey into Accenture so far with equal shares of ups and downs. The entire culture, the atmosphere, the people around are so different and the feeling get to back to Bangalore among known people again, does linger time to time. I think that's how life is.

After all these, a post about why for the life of me am I getting addicted to watching movies day in and day out? Laptop has just become sort of a T.V. with my hard disk as the remote! Do the movies have power to suck your mind out of books, blogs, and recreational activities? Jeez..

So, here I am surmising all the posts that should really have been POSTS. The only non stop activity that goes round the clock in my blog though, which in no way am happy about, is a deluge of Spam comments flooding my mail box for two posts namely -

• Bad Timing for Snap Taking
• Unforgettable, Utterly Unbelievable

Folks, could you please help me how can I control the spam and disable only for these two posts of mine? I would remain eternally greatful. I strongly believe its because of the title themselves. So, apart from the absolute genious replies like 'change the titles', do let me know what to do? :)

Practise what you Preach..

Of late I really started enjoying kosmic column of Economic Times. The 5 minutes of reading it puts me into a state of nirvana and I can feel the abundant positive energy flowing within. The column is mainly about 'you' and what 'you' can accomplish. In various ways it stresses the point that one should be in control of themselves, be it emotionally, physically or metaphysicaly. Then there is the fact that one should stop cribbing and start acting. The list goes on.

Apart from all this there is one essential thing that actually hooked me to it was, on one of the days, it explained about the persons who, even after finding the time they need, the resourses they crave for, are not willing to act upon simply because they do not want to. This ,it goes on to reason, is simply because those people actually are clueless when they realise suddenly they are not having anything to blame on. Its like one of those monster.com ads where a chef suddenly finds himself in a barber shop - a complete mismatch of reality and the dream.

Today, I can say I am one such unlucky guy who have succumbed to it. The last few weeks or perhaps months, I have had opportunities in plenty to act up on simple basic rule of reading one hour per day. I didn't. I just whiled away time watching movies, surfing net, reading blogs, what not. On the other hand the amount of advices I give and try to impress upon others like me is nothing short of sermon. I am nothing but a pathetic hypocrite and a loser who does not have any right to judge others until and unless I clean my dirty linen myself.

Until then I will not PREACH while I don't PRACTISE...

06-Jul-2010 - The Beginning

I mark this day as the beginning of series of blog posts something akin to diary entry of the new life that's about to begin. A life where all the thoughts are going to be put into action (hopefully).

Goals -
1. Learning Analysis Services
2. Practising on LINQ for C#
3. Gymming in the morning
4. Less Surfing, more working
5. Clean up the damn room
6. No oil, no chicken,no rice

That's good enough. Will update the score in the night... :)

Update - (4), (6)
Score - 2

Tit For Tat...

Talking to Nikhil today after he kept on repeatedly 'item' after every sentence it reminded me yet again of how something you do/say effects you in reverse. Its a very good lesson really. Quite long ago I had a similar experience with Nikmo.

We were coming from Lakdika pul to Madhapur and as sometimes I do very irritating to others, I hit him on the thigh. Just like that. And that's when he hit me back doubly hard just to get the point straight across - its not funny. He was actually in a very bad mood that day, and top of that, we had a argument about this too and was decided i would do no more. Anyways he won't be there for long to repeat it. Strangely that's what my heart thinks and nothing more about me not repeating it.

I guess time has come for another change in me i.e. not to call 'item' to anyone repeatedly that is. Its really really irritating..

Thanks Niks..- I dedicate this post to you..

Not so happy moments-in memory of my lappie..

When you have the power it shows, When you are happy it shows, When you are sad it shows, but what about when you are really really sad, what then? I am not sure but I just don't know how to show.

Today marks the zenith of depths to my abnormal life. In an utterly bizarre manner I found out that my laptop battery has drained out completely and again it has come to a time where I might have to replace the battery altogether. That would mean shelling out of another 5000 bucks. There are so many things running in my mind and first and foremost thing is "Why me?". Was I duped? Was it how the HP batteries are meant to be. Last exactly a year before it goes pfff. I wouldn't mind using the laptop with the power plugged in. It is just that it starts getting heated up so unbearably hot, one can as well use it fry omelets.

Every thing I have touched upon have turned to dust. Not glorious kinda way but literally my choices of things have started hurting me big time. Right from my annual specs (spent 12k in 4 years), a worthless bike, a wonderful lost camera, a non stop pressure cooker laptop to my worthless job. Yes, I just don't get tired saying it - a worthless job. I guess I can proudly I am one of those wierdos working for a company which pays less than the formal company. What kind of incentive is that?

In all these aspects there is always the longing of better one, never satisfied with the one I have. IF only I could have tested and bought Unicorn, If only I didn't lose my camera, If only I could have regained my specs, If only I could have bought any damn laptop like Dell, Lenovo or anything other than HP, if only I could have stuck a little longer at Satyam, IF...IF..

The only two good remaining assets for me are my two precious hard disks and one lovely pristine IPod running its glorious 4th year. Hope they don't meet any bad fate. Fingers crossed.

Actually Just as I read this , i am feeling good. Some damn post for otherwise useless life with no goddamn goal to look at or the zeal to work at it..Depressing really..Time for DORK.