2008: An year in review

As another year comes to an end, I thought of going back through the year that was, something which i had done a couple of years back.

The year began with the world in not such a deep trouble it is in as now and thus everyone concentrating on finance job out of campus (seniors) or in studying a fin subject (our batch). The year began on a good note for me in that I got into the studC here @ joka. Also there was my best friend's wedding which i had to miss just because i had a midterm starting the very next day.

When the bulk of the world was busy celebrating the magic of love in February, we the less blessed few were busy going through bulky books of Operations Research, Production and Ops Management and financial management, trying to make sense out of it.

Come March and after the seniors placement, it was time for me to go back home to recharge my batteries. Recharge or whatever, spending time back at home for a month was gr8. Bad thing was that my grades went for a toss in the term, which is hurting my prospects even now.

Then off to the city of dreams, Mumbai for a 2 month internship with J&J. All I could say is two of the best months of this year. Staying near Chowpatty, facing the beach, office a 15 minute walk from there, walks in the night on the famous marine drive ... amazing. Loner that i am, whenever i used to feel bored i just used to go on to the beach and stand watching the sea. Work place was fun. With 18 other interns, the whole day used to just pass off in a breeze. Celebrated my Birthday along with the fellow interns by cutting a pizza, and fulfilled my ambition to watch a game of cricket in the stadium, when i went to see the IPL match between KKR and MI.

Back to campus in June and back to the mundane existence. Only difference being that after the 4th term all we did had was lots to read ( a day before the exam that is), lots of movies and soaps to see, lots of treats. Started trying my hand @ TT and snooker, though i suck a lot in that.

My dreams of learning a musical instrument, guitar in particular, has remained a dream for one more year. And i am still in the same position if not moved back a dozen steps in the elusive dream.

Looking back, all i could say was this was another normal boring year, inclining more towards the bad than to the good. Resolutions for 2009, though i don't believe in those, are being drawn up. May be in the next post

Void life()

Long time since i updated my blog. Well here i am back to updating it at 3 am in the night. Looks like my brain works a lot better in the night or i am becoming an insomniac that i cannot sleep in the night and that is when all these thoughts come in my head.

So coming to the topic of thoughts in the head, I was thinking on the lines of the void written by Gomzi here. And that was when i realized that even i was suffering from the same problem. And it is just that i have no one close enough who can understand what it is. Well, my parents are a different generation in themselves and i wouldn't expect them to understand it and of the rest of the people in my generation that i know of, half of them wouldn't know that I exist, rest don't care. OK, I am not telling that i don't have friends. But i am talking of those stuffs which u wouldn't want to talk to all the friends, but to someone who you treat as close. And the only difference from Gomzie will be in the fact that I had a couple of friends like that, with whom i could just sit and talk and would get the therapeutic treatment. It is just that they are married now and I do not want to burden my problems on them.

And yes, i do have a certain someone with whom i believe that i might be able to open my soul out. But again it depends on whether the recipient is ready or not :(

Why???

As I had said in some previous post of mine, I have a subject called Management of Self in Organization. As a part of the curriculum we are supposed to write an autobiography. So, I was actually thinking about my life till now (yeah as many ppl here say, I am too old to be here coz I am 26) and the stuffs which had happened. I was actually amazed to see that it was more like a cycle of events in my life just keeps happening again and again. This got me thinking about it. This led to me raising a few questions about these stuffs.

1. Why is it that I usually am hesitant in opening my mouth??

2. Why is it that even when I know I am right I don’t want to get into an argument?

3. Why is it that I am always thinking of not hurting others, even if it hurts me?

4. Why is it that even after taking all the precautions not to hurt others there are people who think that I hurt them?

5. Why is it that I suddenly run out of ideas for conversation when actually all I want is to spend some time talking to someone?

6. Why is it that I am not good in at least something?

7. Why is it that I end up on the losing side in most of the situations in my life?

8. Why is it that every night I think of new and amazing ways of popping up the all important question, think and find faults in it and finally convince myself that it is never gonna happen, only to start of all afresh the next day and repeat the same?

9. Why is it that I so much wanna help someone when I know it is all of no use and will be washed down the drain?

PS: Why is it that all these stuffs strike to me and make me write something usually at 4:30 am when I haven’t slept the entire day and have a class at 8:30 am?

PPS: Why am i posting a set of questions on my 50th post?

Modern technology: Final resort to fight crime ?

Well... One more series of bomb blasts. This time in Agartala. I was just thinking on how this could have been avoided. Well I dunno what the intelligence is doing... nor am i supposed to know, neither do i wanna know. But I was thinking what could be done. Will better information be useful? Can't some data mining or some stuff like that be done to get more information about these people.

Thinking about this, I was going through a last week's edition of Economist where i found this article . Well this goes on to talk about what i was thinking about. Imagine the power which is in the hand of the intelligence if we get the all the data and could correlate as given in the article. Yeah, being in India, we could leave the religion from this. Or we need not concentrate only on a particular community. Remember we are fighting the enemies of the nation and not any particular community.

But will such a thing ever be done in India. If it finds opposition in US of A, won't it find an opposition in our country where the Human Rights Commission is fighting vehemently against hanging a criminal mastermind who was responsible for attacking the very center of our governance? Will it ever care about the safety of the country?

I think one of the major problems in our country is that each of these commissions and agencies and et al have their own agenda and programme. Well just having their own agenda is not at all a problem. Only problem is that they are adamant and stubborn to stick to it in all conditions. Yes Mohd Afzal might be a citizen of India and yes, protecting his rights would have been your right(??), but now that he is proved to have worked against the country, I cannot find any sense in trying to protect him.

I still feel that it is the necessity to have such advanced technologies to fight against the modern threats facing our countries. Remember we are no longer fighting some uneducated individual who just comes over throws a few grenades, fires a few tens of rounds of ammunitions and blows himself. We are fighting some highly educated individuals, who knows how to use technologies and are using technology to fight. To protect our lives and livelihood, i think we should be ready to give up a bit of our privacy.

PS: All opinions are my personal opinions.

Arbit creativity

So as I had mentioned in some earlier post, I have taken a course which has writing of an autobiography as a part of the evaluation parameter. From the past many days I am thinking of how to start the autobiography and was hitting the writers block again and again. Yesterday night, I decided I need to start on it, sat in front of my comp with a new word doc open and stared at it for more than half an hour, but just didn't know where to start from.

Frustrated, I switched off the light and hit the bed, hoping for some creativity to strike me. After rolling around for half an hour, creativity did strike me, though not in the way i intended. All i could write at 4:30 am is this poem. Though it doesn't rhyme and could be called no more than a collection of words, let alone a poem, I would like to call it a poem. Considering that I usually don't write poems or anything that rhyme, I do believe that I am entitled to think so.

So this is what my sleepless brain could conjure in the name of creativity.

As she sat in her royal chair

The princess looked contented

Down in the ground stood many

Her hand it is they contended.

Many were there in the battle ground

All the heirs to some well known crown

But they line up against each other

To win the hand of the princess grown

All were there to win the same thing

It was the princess’ hand

But each had a reason of their own

Known only to their hand

Some wanted the kingdom

To which the princess was the heir

Some loved her beautiful face

Some loved her lovely hair

There I stood on the ground

As a contender in the ring

All the contenders other

Were sons of noble king

As I stood in the corner

Waiting the battle to start

I stole a glance at the princess

The queen of my heart

No one believed in me

I knew it deep in my heart

Not even my sweet princess

The ruler of my heart

I know I don’t have the valour

With which the princes are born

I know I wasn’t even a prince

I was a commoner born

But still I stood in the ground

To fight my battle last

Just to prove my love

I will fight till the last

I know I stand no chance

Before the noble kings

But still I fight this battle

Armed with my love for thee

A beautiful marriage it was

A splendorous ritual

Witness it my body did

Separated from its soul

-Stier

PS: I think i will put this into my autobiography. Though in which section is still a big question mark even to me.

PPS: Please excuse the grammar. Pretty poor in it.

PPPS: Last of the Ps and Ss, I promise... Any suggestions for the title of the poem is welcome

Utter nonsense

Yeah thats what it is ... What is happening around and this post ... and i think this blog too. So, we have a group of militants or terrorists or whoever they are happily going around bombing everywhere in our country and all our honorable (sic) home minister has to say is " A few cowards are trying to test our patience etc etc etc". Watching it on CNN-IBN, i had a de javu. Hadn't this same guy told the same things around a month ago ??? Is it a repeat telecast ??? Well I come back to my room, log on to net (wonder when i log off anyways) and see that it is not just me who felt the same way. And it was not a repeat telecast... Now, how much low can this person go?? And then what does he say ??? "We are just coming back to life after an attack and these ppl do it again". Hello Mr Home Minister are u pleading with them to give you some time???

Well thats one thing. And then there was this party organized to welcome the steppers into the campus. Thank God, i skipped it and watched a good movie instead. Reports from the party wouldn't make a nice reading anyways...so chuck it.

Regarding the movie, a beatiful wonderful movie called "A Wednesday". Just watch it if u haven't . It is really amazing and having watched it on the same day of the wonderful wonderful statement of our home minister, I somehow feel that is the only way to go. I don't want to give out a lot on the movie over here... but all i could say is that it has come out at the right time.

And regarding myself, well have been in a really bad mood nowadays.. Don't know the reason, (OK I won't tell the reason) but feel really miserable. Yeah this is the 5th term when i should enjoy, but i am actually pissed off with what a few ppl around here consider me to be. Just hope I get a really good chance to prove these #@@$#@$ wrong.

OK coming back from that rant, been in a really bad mood nowadays. And it is not that i have nothing to do. I have a project with the Initiative for Community Actions club of which i am a part and we haven't yet started on it. Then I have this really awesome course called Management of Self in Organizations. One of the evaluative parameter for the course is that we have to write our autobiography. Awesome way to evaluate people. And I was planning that I will start writing from the first day that I get this course.

Next we have a student body called ISG, which takes care of our extranet and the details of the courseweb where we get the course materials and other things which are uploaded by the profs etc. The ISG started a new initiative called as the ISG_Academic Committee and I am a part of it. We are a group of 5 people who handle around 5 subjects each and takes responsibility of updating the students on the stuffs which happened in each class and also any pre-readings or activities which need to be done before the next class or any submissions to be done on the day of the class. This is one activity which we are really excited in and hopefully we could maintain this level of excitement, so that it could continue through to the next batch and so on. Having said all these, I really think that the present ISG head has to choose a capable enough successor, who has the same level of enthu that he has.

And as usual, we have the students council. Yes, we are excited about our roles over here too and we need to give something back to the institution. We need to make a change which can have a lasting impact on the campus and possible help the batches to come. We are working on that right now and we have a really short duration as our term comes to an end by november end or december. We need to really get this thing done.

But yeah, even though i am in all these things, I am yet to get off from my foul mood. Today, it has been a bit better, coz i did go around and spoke to someone who could lighten my mood, even though could speak only for a couple of minutes as this person as usual has to rush out. And yeah, could catch up with a friend in some other insti too... All these talking did lighten my mood... but still.....

PS: Yeah now i really feel this post is an utter nonsense.... and so is this blog.

The 5th term bliss begins ....

Back to the campus after the term break, could call this period nothing but the absolute bliss. 10 classroom sessions spread over the week (the least since first term), nothing to study (shopping week going on) and nothing to do.

Saw Jaane bhi do yaaro, C Kkompany (who is this wierd numerologist whom Ekta Kapoor visits every time she needs to name something), Rock On (Gold class in Fame, spending 350 bucks), finished reading Picadilly Jim and the 3 mistakes of my life. All these with sleeping atleast 7-8 hrs every day and in the past 2 days .... atleast 12 hrs everyday. The ways you can spend productively as long as it has nothing to do with studies :)

Well looking at the courses which i am taking, i could say that Archana, a friend of mine over here, is absolutely true. Some people do have r**e fantasies and looks like i am one of them. I don't think anybody would like to take loaded course in the 5th and 6th term and here i am taking Commercial Banking, having a project, midterm and an endterm - in other words a "pain", Country Risk Analysis, having quiz in all the classes ( u miss a class u miss a quiz), project, case analysis and class exercises, economics - my nemesis, but the only time i can be in the same class as some one else, and Management of Self in Organization - write a review on a movie, novel or some lyrics, end-term and write an autobiography (yes you heard it right ... an autobiography) and its analysis. The last course mentioned though is not sure as it will go into bidding and lottery and knowing my luck all these years, i might not even get it.

Coming back to the movies and the books i read...Rock On was an awesome movie, though in some parts it was boring, but could say it was a well thought out and well directed movie and Farhan Akthar was awesome in the movie. And know what??? I feel he sings well too... Really loved the songs composed by SEL and sung by Farhan Akthar. All I could say was that i did not feel too bad for spending 350 bucks on that ticket and watching the movie in the night show.

C Kkompany.... Thank god i didn't spend a single pie on this piece of shit. Not an iota of comedy though it boasts of Rajpal Yadav and Tusshar Kapoor. But what else can you expect from Ekta Kapoor of the K-Series fame. Though Mithunda tries to evoke some laughter from us, sorry da, couldn't find a single funny instance and apart from that the story did suckkk.

Regarding the 3 mistakes of my life, all i could say is that it is a typical Chetan Bhagat novel. Yes, he has lost his touch of the 5 point some one. That is his best novel any day. One night at a call center was slightly bad than 5 point some one, and this book is a touch down on the one night at a call center story. All I have to say is, it is a good time pass book, if you want to read some bollywood type of story.

I can't but wonder how in all his novel, the main protagonist gets his girl in the end. And it is not that the person tries really hard to impress the girl and all. Its more like khuda breaking open the chath to just drop this all lovy-dovey girl into his lap. And here we are, the normal human beings, where we see soo many guys desperately trying to woo someone and failing in the effort and having nothing else to do but thank khuda for not breaking the chath, as all he gets whenever Khuda does is nothing but heaps of misery piled on him.

Well whatever, but all these sleeping in the past two days has left me insomniac in the night now ... and now it is 6:40 in the morning and i am sitting and typing this post after a night-out doing nothing.

The nightmare called Term 4

Time has rolled on. After the nightmare called the 4th term, there is now the bliss called as the 5th term. Thinking back, 4th term must be the badla (revenge) which the institute takes of all the free-ridings and laziness of the students during the preceding 3 terms. As far as I could see, there was not a single student who enjoyed 4th term.

Yes we had the fresh batch coming in, new facchas and the facchis and all the joys of getting acquainted with them, but along came the cases, projects, write ups et all and the sorrows which they get along with them. With the term shortening, the projects piling, the fuses of temper for some blew out, minor mistakes took major proportions and major mistakes ... abnormal proportions.

Well all was not bad with the 4th term. It was the term when the PPOs or the pappus as it is better known, started rolling in. With PPOs we could see the erstwhile hard workers turn into the free-riders of the term and some turning on their GQ (Geelagiri Quotient) a notch more started flirting all around. Whoever said gossiping is bad never knew the fun involved in it. To cater to all these gossip inclined citizens of Joka land, DDCG came into existence and what a hit it was. The whole campus was tuned into this piece of information which would come on any time during the day ( mostly in the night though) through the lifeline of the campus, IP Messenger.

Though the standard of the gossips declined as the days went on to finally disappear altogether, DDCG did diversify into various other areas like campus radio to provide entertainment to the students. Though off late i could say that DDCG has been wiped out so much that it does not even exist now.

So much for the past. But the term did give us a lot of "pain". I get a week of term break and i spend it trying to complete two project reports. That reminds me ... still have a project report to submit and the person supposed to do one part has free rode on that and has gone off on STEP. Well that is the thing with most of the Pappu-dhaaris anyways.

And oh yeah, Term 4 was unforgettable for one more reason. This was the term when i was blessed with a cute little niece. The sleeping beauty (well she does sleep most of the 24 hrs ala me ) is named Ananya and she is really a cutie-pie.

Secularism or Communalism??

One of those rare posts which rant abt the politics

Well, the story goes like this. Election happens. No party gets the absolute majority. The incumbent party(X) is sort of routed, being third largest party now. Just to keep the single largest party(Y) out of power, in the name of protecting "Secularism" (sic), the incumbent party placed third and the second largest(Z), power hungry party, enter into a power sharing agreement, where X will hold the power for the first half and Z for the second half.

Remember all these is done with the "noble" cause of saving the state and the country from the so called communal party. Now this marriage gets done and somehow goes on for abt an year or so when cracks start developing. The power hungry Z wants stuffs done their way, which was obviously not in the interest of X. This war continues and at the end of 20 months, the party Z "breaks", in the sense, 45 out of its 48 MLAs decide not to support the government. They withdraw support and the govt falls.

Now, the so called "Secular" Party Z decides to get into an alliance with the so called "communal" party Y and being power hungry they decide to have their share of power of 20 months first. This continues for another 20 months and when the time comes to pass on the power to party Y, which actually was the one who was given the people's mandate to be in power in the the first case (well it was the single largest party), Z decides to break the alliance. And so comes the election.

The election happens. Obviously the people are frustrated with the politics of party Z and votes against it. Party Y almost gets the majority. Party Z gets routed winning only about a 10% of the seats. They still have the audacity to go to Party X and suggest an alliance, which Party X rightly disagrees to.

Finally Party Z does an introspection on why they lost. And what do they find? Do they find that the actual reason was the way they behaved when in power or their apparent hunger for power??

Well knowing party Z's characteristics as I have described the answer is an obvious NO. The reasons they come up with .... Have a look

• Migration of former minister J belonging to caste A and former minister L belonging to caste B.
• senior leader M upset with the party leadership (doesn't tell why)
• migration of workers in some place D sent wrong signals.
• Delay in candidates selection and giving opportunity to new faces (Think giving opportunity to new faces got them those seats)
• Communication gap between ministers and workers while in power.
• Failure to reward workers Internal reservation has not helped the party.
• OBCs like P,Q,R,S and other community people did not support the party
• Failure in handling media.
• Y and X spent huge money.

Knowing that the state i am talking of is my home state, i think it is easy for every one to guess which parties i am talking about.

Now my only questions are

1. What do mean by Secular? Does a party which support a minority religion just to get their votes and not work for them any secular than the group which supports another religion?
2. How can a party be secular when on introspection the reasons given out by the party for its routing in the election has reasons like a caste didn't support me, or a religion didn't support me?
   
3. Isn't caste based politics equivalent to communalism?
4. If so, how correct is to go on branding a particular party as a communal force?

Anybody has any answers?

First Day in Mumbai

Well, finally back on, after a 3 month break. Well it was not a self imposed break or anything like that. It was just that I was in my summer internship and with no net connection, wasn't able to post anything .

So now that i am back here lemme see what all have i done in the past 3 months. Well went to mumbai, the first time i travelled alone sans any family member to an unknown location. Landed in Mumbai and went to the hostel in which the accommodation was allocated for us from the placement office. Turned out that the hostel warden won't be sitting in his office on sundays. So there i was, in an unknown city with no place to go for the night. Luckily for me, there was one more person from my college who was in the same situation. So we both went around looking for accommodation in the nearby "Guest Houses". Finally we were able to find accommodation in a sub-standard "Aaram" Guest House. Having spent 700 on the room, we went and found that the room's door opened right into the kitchen and the so called Luxury guest house had nothing but a double bed, another single bed, a TV in which the cable connection looked as if it was stolen from a cable running nearby, and a bathroom with a broken commode.

Having somehow managed in this room for a single day, none of us could actually think of spending one more day in that room. So the next day we took half day permission from the office (on the first day) and thought of going searching for room. We came to know that as of now, there was only accommodation available for 2 ppl in the hostel mentioned above. And that the warden comes in at 7pm and is allotted on a first come first serve basis. So I decided that I will go and sit in the waiting room of the hostel from 4:30 and went over there whereas the rest of the ppl, we were almost 5-6 in number now, decided against it. When i went over there, there was already one guy from our college in the queue. Well to cut the long story short, we all ran up 3 floors from the ground floor to the warden office in the 3rd floor and I managed to reach 2nd and got the accommodation into Mackichan hall 4/11,12 which turned out to be my home for the next 2 months. I was sharing the room with 3 other ppl and i would tell this was the most memorable 2 months of my life till now.... not because of the room, but coz of the time i spent outside of it.

Hopefully i will write more about the stay in Mumbai ... Till then ... Ciao

Continued arbit musings

Continuing the musing which was going on in my mind for the past few days it suddenly struck to me...why do we hold on to people even after we know they are not happy with us? Why do we hold on even after we know that they don't want to be with us?

Are we holding on to them for reasons of our own insecurities?? Or are we desperate for the relationship to work out?? I have been guilty of these many times (Whaddya know... I might even be doing the same now)

Control freaks

Warning: Highly philosophical stuffs follows

With lots of time and nothing to do, have started musing about the way of life. Well something to stop my mind from being a devil's workshop. Well till now it has just turned out to be questions questions and more questions with no answers coming out of it.

Why is that people want to control others life? I have seen this a lot and it is especially the people whom we love that we want to control. Although most of us don't even recognize that we are doing it, it comes out rather involuntarily. It is almost like "Well here is another part of my life that i need to get in order" and never "Yeah... She is an important part of my life but let her do the things her way". Agreed that she is an important part of your life, but from where does it give you the right to control it. In some situations i have seen it being done to that extent that every action might be questioned like "Why were you smiling so much? Stop smiling so much", "Why were you sitting there?? Sit here" ...

A lot many relationships have broken down due to this, but yet it couldn't be controlled as it is involuntary. I am not telling that i haven't done anything of that sort. Rather i am sure that if you draw a list of the culprits, mine will be the top most name in the list. But most of the times i have known right after i have told/done something and have either shut up or apologized, being an idiot i am it is mostly the former.

Another variation of the former is wanting others to do the things in the same way as i do. Be it a normal chore of moving a chair around, finding the sum of the cells in an excel file or be it any other simple task. We want others to do the stuffs in the same way that we do. That is the reason you see your friend moving the chair slightly off the position and then back to the same position it was in earlier after you have pushed it in. Another friend of mine amused and irritated me to the same extent when he said that i am taking the sum of the cells wrong. Well, it was the sum of some 20 rows of numbers in 3 columns and all i was doing was selecting all the 20 rows in one column and then selecting the other 2 columns, so that the entire set of numbers are selected. After 3 attempts, I came to know what was happening here and passed on the mouse to him and asked him to do his way. And what did he do select all the 3 columns in one row and then select the 20 rows. It didn't matter to him that the sum was the same. He wanted it to be done his way.

Well, one explanation i could think of for this phenomenon is that once we get comfortable with some people we start thinking that it is a part of our life. And then we would want that part of the life to be led the same way we had done all the other parts of our life. What we seem to forget is that doing so we might end up losing that part of life altogether.

Well another reason for this may be that indeed the way we are doing is not the correct one and the person might have already tried it out and thus is advising us against it. But in the world of control freaks, how do we identify these noble souls??

PS: All the gender specific instances in the above post doesn't mean that it is only one gender which does it. It just came out that way, coz it was easier to write

Farewell "Indivisibles"

Well back to the update time again.

Well the third term exam has finished and i am half an MBA, or as my childhood buddy tells "The knight in a shining half MBA Armour, ready to take on the big bad corporate world". I have spent my half life period of Joka life.

Talking of Joka, had our senior's placement and what an event it was. Though some of the companies (read international banks) were not as enthusiastic as last year due their tails being cut sub-prime by the impending recession in the US, their losses were to the gain of the consulting majors. And if somebody (that is if anybody is still interested in reading this crap, called the insight into my mind) wants to read the entire report on the placement scene at Joka land, you can find it here or another report here.

And it is with heavy hearts that we bid farewell to the batch of indivisibles (as the 43/13 batch were called). So we the pi batch (as the 44/14 batch is called for obvious reasons) will be the seniors the next year. And i do hope we can be as good as our seniors were. Coming to the batch of the indivisibles, well i would like to thank them for all the help they provided right from welcoming us ignorants to joka land till the end taking us through by giving gyans on specific subjects, profs, mid-terms, end-terms, even what to study in specific subjects and what to leave, CV making (well i would like to thank them for whatever my CV has become. I myself would laugh at the first version of what i tried to pass off as CV), being for us there during our summers process, helping us when needed and supporting us when we were down, through all the parties and the fun. Thank you indivisible for your support and help in making us the half MBAs which we are now. It would have been really tough without you.

So, once done with the placements, it was time to leave jokaland, temporarily for us. So it was off to packing and since we had to empty our rooms before leaving, i had to pack everything which i don't need into cartons to be kept in the common store room. Well, it is a different fact that i ended up packing till the minute i had to board the cab. With all the mess related works pending, i really had to rush through the last day. Just managed to pack and sent the boxes up with the help of some workers and just ran to the cab. Dropping the bags in the cab, i just remembered that i had some more work left in the mess. So asking for 2 mins from the senior with whom i was sharing my cab, i just ran in to the mess, gave the contractor a letter which i had to give, wrote a cheque, got the counterfoil signed and just ran off to catch the plane. Even now i dunno, if i have packed everything or left some stuffs behind in the room.

Well, ended up paying extra for the luggage as i had packed 28 kgs in the luggage when i was allowed just 20 kgs. Thank god they don't weigh our cabin luggages. If they had, i think i was carrying around 15 kgs in the cabin luggage and another 10 kgs in my laptop bag. Well i know it must have been so much, coz the Kolkata airport was on strike and they had no power in the airport. So i ended up carrying everything of it and climbing up a flight of stairs for security check and then climbing down a flight of stairs to the flight (As the escalators and aero bridge were not working.

So here i am back at home, with lots of extra time after spending my time on hogging on food and sleeping. Some of which i spend in some musings. So hoping to update my blog pretty soon on some of my musings pretty soon.

Till then ciao.

Breaking News

What the crap. Just to what level has journalism dipped in this country.

Nice Guy vs Cool Dude

Well this post was something which i had started around an year back, but just held myself back from completing. Well after reading this post recommended by a friend, i was inspired complete it. But having read the post, i know i couldn't write even as good as that. So just completing the two paras which i had written earlier.

It is the same old debate of the nice guy vs the cool dude. Well being a nice guy all through my life, i have to admit that we do finish last. And it is no fun being the loser.

I actually find it amusing when the girls go on and just make a motherhood statement like "There are no nice guys around". As if you were any nicer to those nice guys when you had an opportunity. All you wanted was some random cool dude who you can call as ur boy friend and show around. Now that you need the nice guy for emotional intimacy, how do you expect to find him, when he would have long withdrawn knowing his fate.


Edit:

Well yes, i do feel like changing from a nice guy to a cool dude. Of course i don't want to finish last all the time. I don't want to be a spectator and just watch while some cool dude come and sweep off my girl just because he can crack some "real cool" wise-crack. I do feel like coming out of this useless "nice-guy-who-is-always-the-best-friend"skin of mine and get into the "oh-he-is-such-a-cool-dude-but-he-has-no-emotions" skin.

Or who knows, i might want to give one more chance, though i am sure i will end up a loser again.

Oh well just got one more funny post on the same issue posted a looooooooooong time back on my blog which u can check here

Arbitness

Done with my exam and with lots of time on hand during the weekend and the beautiful rainy weather which just makes you sit in your cozy room, wrapped in a blanket .... what more do you want.

Yeah me not an outgoing kind of person. I prefer spending my time in silence then going to a noisy disc where you can't even hear your partner (not that i have one) and get your stomach filled on a number of hydrocarbons which i can't even differentiate from one other. So am happily spending my time sleeping away to glory and watching the friends series (yeah have started with season one again). Whenever i am not doing both of these, then iTunes have to be busy on my computer. Oh yeah, one more thing... i don't like rock and heavy metals which just goes on with some incomprehensible lyrics drowned in a mix of jarring tones. No Offence Meant to the people who do like it.

Trying to finish one or two novels which i have started and not finished (though i do know that i won't finish it this weekend too). Trying to get my hands on may be a few poems and for people who don't know (which i think is the max number of people i know), i love reading poetry. Yeah its a pity i can't write poems unless and until i am really sad and the poems which come out then are usually the ones which couldn't be shared (well ... i don't wanna answer all those queries by the inquisitive minds).

And staying on the topic of inquisitive minds, yeah my GTalk status and the about me in orkut do mean something and something abt whats in my mind at that time ... Or do they ??? ;)

Oh yeah, before i forget. Whoever had read my previous post might remember the post "Risk Unmanaged". Well, lemme tell you the risk after turned out to be managed one, though not so well managed. Well if u had even given me the grade lesser than the one i got ( oh yeah and there could only be one other grade apart from F below mine) on that day, i would have accepted it gladl. But now, I have missed the higher grade by half a mark, am thinking whether to put for a revaluation or not. Talk about greedy mind. Well what do you know, I am selfish after all. The one who asked me to be more selfish ... hope you are listening (though i know you wanted me to be more selfish in other things... couldn't help it :P)

New ICC Rules

Past the infamous second test between Australia and India which saw "sportsmanship" and "integrity" being taken to new levels by the Australians, here are a few rule changes which are proposed in front of ICC. These rules are valid only when some team plays against Australia and in all other conditions, these rules are deemed invalid.

Source: A number of email forwards which are doing round.

(1) Ricky Ponting - (THE TRULY GENUINE CRICKETER OF THE CRICKET ERA AND WHOSE INTEGRITY SHOULD NOT BE DOUBTED) should be considered as the FOURTH UMPIRE. As per the new rules, FOURTH UMPIRE decision is final and will over ride any decisions taken by any other umpires. ON-FIELD umpires can seek the assistance of RICKY PONTING even if he is not on the field. This rule is to be made, so that every team should understand the importance of the FOURTH UMPIRE.

(2) While AUSTRALIAN TEAM is bowling, If the ball flies anywhere close to the AUSTRALIAN FIELDER(WITHIN 5 metre distance), the batsman is to be considered OUT irrelevant of whether the catch was taken cleanly or grassed. Any decision for further clarification should be seeked from the FOURTH UMPIRE. This is made to ensure that the cricket is played with SPORTIVE SPIRIT by all the teams.

(2 (a)) If the ball hits the pad of any player of the opposing team and the ball doesnt fall within 5

meters of any of the Australian player ,then he is to be adjudged LBW.

(3) While BATTING, AUSTRALIAN players will wait for the ON-FIELD UMPIRE decisions only (even if the catch goes to the FIFTH SLIP as the ball might not have touched the bat). Each AUSTRALIAN batsman has to be out FOUR TIMES (minimum) before he can return to the pavilion. In case of THE CRICKETER WITH INTEGRITY, this can be higher.



(4) UMPIRES should consider a huge bonus if an AUSTRALIAN player scores a century. Any wrong decisions can be ignored as they will be paid huge bonus and will receive the backing of the AUSTRALIAN team and board.



(5) All AUSTRALIAN players are eligible to keep commenting about all players on the field and the OPPONENT TEAM should never comment as they will be spoiling the spirit of the AUSTRALIAN team. Any comments made in any other language are to be considered as RACISM only.

(5(a)) If any of the bowler of the opposing team hits more than 30 runs,then he should be banned for racism ( because he has had the guts to punish the Australian bowlers ) and he should be banned for 3 test matches.



(6) MATCH REFREE decisions will be taken purely on the AUSTRALIAN TEAM advices only. Player views from the other teams decisions will not be considered for hearing. MATCH REFREES are to be given huge bonus if this rule is implemented.



(7) NO VISITING TEAM should plan to win in AUSTRALIA. This is to ensure that the sportive spirit of CRICKET is maintained.



(8) THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE: If any bowler gets RICKY PONTING - "THE UNDISPUTED CRICKETER WITH INTEGTIRY IN THE GAME OF CRICKET" more than twice in a series, he will be banned for the REST OF THE SERIES. This is to ensure that the best batsman/Captain will be played to break records and create history in the game of CRICKET.

Happy New Year and all that jazz

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!



Well, i know it is 5 days since the new year has begun. But as this is my first post of the year, i would like to wish all my readers(???), if any (pls to come out in the open and identify urself).

OK, So what is new about this year after all??? Apart from the dates that is (as the status message of one of my acquaintances tell). You open the paper, it is the same old stuff about someone getting killed, someone getting raped, someone committing a suicide and someone getting hurt. You move on in the paper and all you see the same old headlines ... "Left threatens Government of withdrawing support", "Secular forces (sic) unite against the communal BJP" (something which i can't understand.... what is the criteria for being considered secular??), "X lashes out at Y". You move on and you read the same old sports headlines too "India loses to XYZ ....." or an occasional "India thrashes XYZ".

Another thing which i want to write about is the partying. Looking at the incidents happening in the New Year Parties in the past couple of years, is it really necessary to party to bring in the new year. I do have a couple of friends who will feel depressed if they don't party on the new years day. I wonder why?? Apart from providing another "special" occasion to booze and dance and drop down, i can't find any other thing associated with the New Year that makes it depressing if u don't go to some crowded place filled with lechers of all shapes and size and dance to some arbit song. OK lest this make me feel like an old traditional fool (or uncle as some of my friends call me coz they think i am not as hep as them), lemme clarify. I have nothing against going out and partying, but i am just wondering at the absolute necessity of partying to bring in a new year. I for one, believe in bringing in the new year in some peace and solitude, which will anyway be lacking for the rest of the year. May be thats why i am called uncle.

Disclaimer: No Offense Meant (NOM) to anyone