(NON)BELIEVER

Its been a long time since lord krishna has died; a long time since prophet mohammad has died; a long time since gautam buddha has died; long time since jesus christ has died. People remember them and follow their ideologies.
As a child I was told by my parents that we should be scared of god and hence must not do anything which is morally wrong. Two-three days later my dad tells me that we must not worry; we must do our work and leave the rest to god. He is our friend and he will help us. But later, when I grew up, my parents told me that I need to be street smart. This is kalyug and GOD HELPS THOSE WHO HELP THEMSELVES.
I am confused about this whole shit. I don't say that there is no god. I say, SHOW ME YOUR GOD AND I WILL BELIEVE
questions about god will be a puzzle in a different dimension.
who is god?
what is the definition of right?
Should I be scared of him or be cool with him?
Where is he?

If anybody knows the answers then please do tell me?
sms@ 00919271222369

A mountain to climb

India has been set a target of 499 to win the first test match in this Border-Gavaskar series. Will INDIA win or will it just go 'down under' (pun intended)

When India was 120-3 in the first innings I thought we were in control. It was just a bad day for us. But full credit to the aussie pace attack who gave nothing to the Indians.

After a tiring day Ponting gave his bowlers 8 overs to snap up a few wickets but 'the wall' was patient. In my view wining this test match is a far-fetched possibility. Now it depends which part of the phrase is read by the Indian team; 'far-fetched' or 'possibility'.

I am an optimist and I still think that Ponting has committed a mistake my declaring a bit early. If I were in his place I would have declared at 600 because 600 becomes too far-fetched and it could have been a killer blow to the confidence of the Indian bowlers. That confidence is important in a long series like this.

Considering that the pitch is opening up. Its slow and the odd ball is keep low, we cant be over optimistic too. Australia needs only ten balls to keep low. And India need a lot of Boundaries and more importantly the singles, doubles and even triples on a huge ground like the MCG.
Lets see what happens tomorrow

CLICK

I woke up and I was in a glassy world. I found myself trapped in a glassy film around me. I could not see anything but distorted images of my own face. One sound was echoing inside that bubble. It was pricking my mind. The pain was unbearable for me. That voice kept coming back. It was choking me. The words "WHAT DO I WANT TO BE?" were drilling through my mind. CLICK!! The bubble bursts and you are in broad daylight. I woke up to realize that it was just a bad dream.
This happens to a lot of youngsters. You dream that you are falling or you are trapped and there is no one in this entire universe who can save you. Leave alone saving, you cant even see anybody else in your dream.

I too have such nightmares. But the fact remains, WHAT THE HELL DO I FINALLY WANT TO BECOME? I myself have not arrived at an answer for this question. I don't know what I finally want to become in life. As soon as I watch a detective movie or a spy thriller or a bond movie, I want to be a secret service agent. When I watch an army movie or an action flick I want to become an army man, one who lays down his life for the nation. When I read about big business deals or about successful businessmen, I want to be a big-shot investor, an entrepreneur or something like that. After watching a few 'extreme engineering' episodes I dream of becoming a great scientist/engineer. Whenever I decide on doing a thing something else lures me. I still have not found the perfect thing for me. I hope to find it soon.

I guess, Life's like that. But on close examination of these options we can find a common thread that connects all these different types of careers or life paths. And that common thread is HAPPINESS. Finally we want to be happy. Even if I don't crack CAT this year or I fail in a subject or two ( believe me, failing in engg exams is very difficult) or I sit idle for the next six months; the most important thing is to be HAPPY.
Anything in this life will be useless if I am not happy with it. Although neither have I seen the happiest moment nor have I found out the thing that gives me the most amount of happiness. But for the sake of it I have realized that the most essential part of living is being HAPPY. Hence it is my "New Year Resolution is to be HAPPY".
One might experience it anywhere anytime. I experienced this click moment when I was travelling in a bus. Gautam Buddha experienced it under a tree (his level of enlightenment was obviously higher ;-) )but there will be a sudden feeling of weightlessness and bliss once u do that.
Anyways MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Eight men, a watchman and a chicken in GOA

As soon as the exams were over we set out for our dream journey.. A small vacation in goa with college friends was a dream that i had been cherishing for long.. finally it was gonna turn true..

the train journey was full of fun.. i must say that the restrooms in the southindian station are really clean.!! with stop overs at Erode and Mangalore we finally reached MARGAO.

But before moving on to further details let me give u a small introduction to the Gang of Goa.
1)Arya Ketan aka churi, chacha churi- the mastermind behind the goa trip.. spotting him is very easy just search for a man with the shower cap.
2)Akshay chandrasekhar aka Vaazz, pappu- he is one tambi boy who has a liking for "lehman rice"
3)Yatish Mishra aka tang, mamaji- he is the kans mama of the kalyug
4)Krishnendu Bhattacharjee aka nandu, gendushree, mota nandu, Kristofaar- He is responsible for the changing centre of mass of goa.
5)Onkar Inamdar aka Chom, chicken- he is our family's pet.. people like to keep dogs cats and parrots as pets but he our family cannot live without this faithful chicken (read as cannot live without raping this loudmouth chicken). A small caveat- this chicken can shit in any place on the earth.
6)Guru Chu*^/@ aka mehul Kumar- he is our watchman. he wakes us up early in the moring and gets his fair share for doing that.
7)Vibhu Kapoor aka dadaji- He can never keep his mouth shut and always barks about his young times.
8)Kosstub aka dost- he is always behind his friend('s ass). He is one man who at the beginning of the trip was very sympathetic towards chicken and guru but by the end of the trip he was leading the ass-ass-ination.
9)Deepak V aka bong- he is dadaji's life saver after dadaji was found upside down in deep sea.. (i wonder what dadaji was trying to do..
10)Shreyas Nair aka nair- no intro needed..right?

Some of the most interesting points of the goa trip-

#when some of us were jumping in the sea water and others were playing football, guru, the self proclaimed king of goalkeepers, was spotted saying this- BEY DEKHTE HAIN WOH BAAT AB RAHI KI NAHI... lol
#Another comic instance was on the last day of our trip we all were supposed to go for a trek in the nearby area. Everyone slept late and no one was physically capable to walk outta the bed.. Guru, our loyal watchman, was trying to wake us up but genduji was in no mood.. he condition was - AGAR GURU SABSE APNE CHUCHE DABWAYEGA TO MEIN UTHOONGA
#While parasailing everyone had a lotta fun except the parasailer.. why?? because his engine almost burned out during nandu's turn.. in the first jerk everyone was supposed to go up but nandu was flying horizontally not vertically..
#during the banana ride which was the best of all the rides, our dear dadaji fell upside down into the water. then we just heard shouts of BACHAO BACHAO.. KOI MUJHE BACHAO.. MAIN DOOB RAHA HOON
#In the same banana ride when i fell off the boat i was confident that i would float but my dear mama thought that i was the boat and he kept pushing me down. luckily he realized that something was wrong else you would not be reading this blog
#on the kolva beach chom was buried in the sand and we all stood on him. ab jab chom frust karega to hum woh pic dekhkar khush ho jayenge. haha chutiya chicken


(p.s- i cannot remember many incidents but will be posting em asap)

Ahmedabad Jinx

My ahmedabad jinx continues..
When ankit was here we went to some place by car and arya had to pay a fine for breaking the signal.. he was very sad.. he said "life mein pehli baar fine de raha hoon".. sobs.. then i said "this was not the first and will not be the last time you are gonna pay a fine.

But again yesterday when he was dropping me off the traffic police caugth him.. Is baar 100 ka fatka fir se.. though 2nd time galti nahi thi par he was very frustrated.. then i said "aaj second time fine de raha hai nahi??"

Moral- "jamta nahi hai rang jab milte hain teen yaar mein, gadi aur ahmedabad". This was the fifth time out of the 8 times that i have travelled, that i am invovled in a traffic panga.. :(

The Ticket

Today I found out why e-booking is a real boon to the youngsters and the fast-track livers like many of us. (No offense intended to people who enjoy standing in long queues and experiencing the mix bag of “paseene ki badboo”)

I was sitting in my office during the lunch break and suddenly I was reminded that I was about to leave Ahmedabad and I had not booked my tickets. So I decided to check out the availability of the tickets. I also remember that the last time I tried e-booking it did not work as my debit card was not listed on the railway website. But now I had a credit card. So why stand in the long queues. Moreover I have noticed that stink is an integral part of the ticket booking process. Either you have to bear the stink by standing behind a tall guy’s armpits or over a short guy’s oily hair. Anyways I thought why not utilize this opportunity and try e-booking. I worked really well. Apart from the ticket I just had to pay an extra charge of Rs.10. Economical too. Then I thought why not book the ticket for my itinerary from Chennai to Trichy on the tenth of July.

All of a sudden now I was a big fan of the e-booking system. I also started cursing the normal ticket booking system. But then again I thought why not give it a last chance. May be there will be something more joyful about normal ticket purchase. Off I went, to the Gandhigram railway station which was near my office. As soon as I arrived at the station I thought may be I had made a wrong decision earlier.

It was a battlefield. Even after reaching the station people were running towards counter window; some were even without an application form. I am a typical Piscean, undecisive in small matters. So I spent about half a minute thinking which counter to join. The last time I stood in front of a counter for half an hour only to realize that it was not a reservation counter but only an enquiry counter. The instance before that I had waited for an extra half and hour as it was the sahib log’s lunch time. I was expecting some action to take place in the reservation centre which usually happens. (mostly for cutting lines and jumping forward). I was not disappointed as a SLAB had just walked in.

And yes, I hate SLABS. (SLABS stands for scrappy/shitty little aunties and behenjis/ bithches). They have an attitude of the nawabs and rajahs of the bygone era. They think the others are just jobless and simply standing in the queue for passing off time. They just walk into the reservation centre and directly head for the counter. Mostly they will be accompanied by small children and their husbands will be waiting outside the centre hoping that their spouses will do the job. I had studied such SLABS. The have a few standard tricks.
1) Public seduction- They will walk in and state that she had been here before there are some minor changes which she has to make and utmost will take only 2 second. They will also catch the hand the hand of the person while talking so that the man’s attention is strayed but only till she says the golden words “bhaiyaji”. Mostly this works and the man standing in the queue starts boasting about his humanity and helping nature to everyone else in the centre.
2) Exhibiting superiority- For women who are not blessed with beauty there is a second method. These women walk into the counter and just give their ticket to the counter attendant. When questioned they don’t answer and give looks as if it is not necessary to answer to such questions. And no one dares to question her further.
3) Abla nari nautanki- Some women come in and ask they man standing second in the queue to book tickets for her. If the man refuses they start crying or just shout out loudly. Both may result in the man being hospitalized for a few weeks. So the poor guy has to do the job.

So anyways in this station a SLAB just walked in and started arguing with the attendant who rightly refused to make her ticket. And after a ten minute long argument, during which the whole line had been stalled, there was a surprise ending. The woman was thrown out. And as per my “theory of SLABs” her husband was standing outside. It was one of the few moments in life when you could actually see “SATYA MEVA JAYATE”. The woman made a comeback then she came again and argued again. But this time, for a different reason. She said she was cheated as the attendant had paid back only 100 bucks but she thought she had to be given 200 bucks. But this time again we discovered that she was wrong. According to her, 500-400=200.
Conclusion- SLABS may be weak at mathematics.

The action was not over we had a fight in one the most unexpected places- the senior citizen queue. Two uncles started a verbatim with a third person who allegedly cut the line. But the third guy who had a real loud voice started shouting back that he had just gone ahead to check out an information board the railway guys had surprisingly kept inside the counter. The best part was that all the three oldies were holding their chests while shouting. For a moment I thought that someone amongst them might surely die today. The last hurdle before achieving victory in this war was that the guy standing just ahead of me was a travel agent. He had some 9 forms and since he knew the attendant they first started chatting for a few minutes before the attendant started making tickets. That guy alone took 15 minutes.

In the end I realized that I could have made the tickets sitting in my air-conditioned office and spending just 238 bucks. Instead I spent 270 bucks in all and I wasted a good 80 minutes. From now on it’s a total no for railway reservation centers.
“LONG LIVE E-TICKETING”

Ahmedabad - a slow Mumbai

Since the past few weeks this thing has been lingering in my mind. I always wanted to find out whether Ahmedabad is really as great as Mumbai. Well frankly speaking 'yes' and 'no' (may be a few more "no's" than yes')
As far as shopping malls, food outlets, lifestyle etc go ahmedabad is as good as Mumbai. But the fast food in Ahmedabad is really slow. I had to wait for 20 minutes even when there was no other customer. The cook will first exercise as if he has to climb Mt.Everest and then he will talk to his friend on the phone, light the gas.. The whole process is so so so slow. But the point is the food taste's as good as it does in any other city. This is where Mumbai scores over others; TIME. I have to face a lot of criticism from friends who say that Mumbaikars like me don't have emotions, they can't socialize etc. But I can't help it. I have never done it. I have always preferred watching a movie or reading a book rather than hanging out. Although I do hangout but thats once in a while.

Another area where Mumbai scores over Ahmedabad is social security. People in Ahmedabad are more concerned about Hindu-Muslim fights. Suppose a fight or a riot breaks out in India, inevitably it will spread to the old city area of Ahmedabad. I still remember the gujrat government keeping thousands of blackcats and RAF jawans when the Hindu's had a "rally for their Gods" and they purposely wanted to go through the sensitive areas. Similarly the Muslims prefer to sacrifice a cow rather than a goat cause it will hurt the Hindu's more..
Kya chaat hai baap?? Shanti se baitho na!! Every shop in Ahmedabad will be filled with hockey stick not because the sport is picking up (lol) but for security reasons..

Ahmedabad also scores over Mumbai in a few aspects like helping people but I think because they enjoy life more and have time at their disposal. Anyways I have concluded that Ahmedabad is a small and slow version of Mumbai.