Will you marry me??

***

Ek bandha thaa,

Ek bandhi thi,

Ye he unki love story,

And for us, it is the most beautiful piece of history.

***

We met 285 days ago. Our first impression were the polar opposite of what it’s now. After all, “Meh” and “Nerd” aren’t the more pleasing of first thoughts about your life partner. Over six months, our perceptions changed as we slowly fell in love, as fast as we could. And now, in another 30 odd hours, we are going to exchange two pieces of precious metal to officially indicate that we are each other’s for as long as possible. However, it has been months since we decided to be each other’s for forever and more.

The journey of us reaching this point will have to wait though. Today, there is a more pressing story to pursue. I’ve an important question that I have to ask her. I’ve already asked her this question before, and I know the answer to it. And, if you have read the heading for this post, you’ll know what the question is. If the question and the answer are already known, the real question is then with regards to the purpose of asking it again.

The original purpose was that I had made a promise to her that I would write about her the day before our engagement. But as the days caught up with me, I found myself at a loss of words. But slowly, there came into view another purpose for this prose. The purpose of this prose now is to remind her why I asked her that question the first time.

Shall we begin then my dear??

***

1. Total disclosure.

If there was a foundation to build our life on, it couldn’t have gotten better than this. Our deal to enforce total disclosure was not the best of ideas back then. It had its rough moments. To compensate for that, it also had its not so rough moments. But what it gave us was the freedom of speech – the freedom to tell what we love/hate about each other. And it’s what paved the way for us to find out that we love as much as possible about the other, and we hate as less as possible about the other.

2. Can’t say no to each other.

The idea of not being able to say NO to the other works marvels when you are with the right person. If not for the right person, it may leave you feeling vulnerable and exploited. But the idea of saying yes to everything you say, keeping full faith and trust in you, is not something I dread, but actually something I enjoy. And I love the fact that you trust me as much, to say yes all the time.

3. You support me supporting Arsenal.

I always feared about how my future other half would feel about my unhealthy obsession with the football club, Arsenal FC. Just the past fortnight tells the whole story. Two Saturdays ago, you saw me go into grumpy mood after the Man United game that we lost 2-1. Over the past two days, you see me merry as we won three games on the trot. I’m highly susceptible to the fortunes of a team playing 8500km away. To understand and handle this fluctuation, on top of the myriad other factors which affect ones mood, is difficult.

And so, I am as happy as I can be, in knowing that you support me supporting Arsenal.

4. Similarities

Just the past week, you knocked your left knee against something, making it swell up. To mirror that, my body decided to skip more than a couple of steps on the stairs. Now, I’ve a swelling on my left ankle. I know you hate me saying this but, "See, we are sooooooooo similar."

Jokes and painful knocks aside, I think we are way too similar than you would like to admit. For starters, we both had to give up an activity that we love because of an ankle ligament injury we had while performing it. You lost your left ankle to dancing, I lost my right ankle to football.

We both decided to try to make it in core engineering and hence, passed up opportunities in other sectors which would have suited us better. We ended up regretting our decisions and chose a different course.

What I mean to say by all this is that we could understand each other’s viewpoints, and more importantly pains, because of these similarities. And that brought us closer.

5. Accepting me

I always feel like I have different personalities to match different situations. One to fit in with my friends, one to fit in with family, one for work, one for strangers, one for acquaintances. When I felt someone/some group needed me to be something else, I make a new personality to match that. For you though, I didn't have to make a new personality. I tried on a lot of different personalities before deciding that being myself was the best option with you. Because you accept me for what I’m.

***

And for these reasons, and lots more, I love you. But most of the time, I love you for no particular reason at all.

I still haven’t decided whether I should go formal and ask

"Ms.Sreerenjini Menon, will you be interested in accepting a proposal of marriage from me??"

Or, whether I should try the other way.

"Ammu, will you be mine forever??"

I am going to put them both away and just ask

"Will you marry me??"

I know we both can’t wait to start our lives together.

***

I think I have just justified my nerd credentials with this writeup. I don’t care. I am lucky enough to find someone who loves me as much I love her. I have refrained from terming us as soulmates during the discourse, but I would be hugely surprised if this isn’t as close as it gets to being soulmates.

And so, let me take your leave. There’s a lady waiting for me, with a ring. I never intend to disappoint her.  Hopefully, we will have a few snapshots of the function when we meet next week. Until then, bye.

Handover forms

The following story is entirely fictional, a work of my imagination and is in no way related to any similar events unfolding at any place right now.

***

It's not often that Venu decides to humor us with anything personal, so we were all ears when he started off on this one the other day. Over our weekly catch up session at the cafe, he was talking about his latest boss.

As bosses go, this was quite the queer one. He was well abled to lead a team and he did it quite sincerely and successfully. We did know that Venu had some problem with him, but what exactly was the reason for it was unknown until he started this rant that day.

"Since my last promotion, my only area of concern at the office was to handle the inventory. All the equipments and tools required by the various departments are stored at my warehouse. And these departments give request for these things to me and I allot it to them."

"The problem came when two departments needed the same thing. If I had already allotted it to one, the other department would hold me responsible for any delay in work. We stated pre-booking, but it increased the workload on my staff."

"I asked my higher officials to make this whole system online so that all departments can view who is using what, and pre-book equipments, and so plan their work."

"But like with all government institutions, nothing happened. Being a little adventurous, I ventured to make the system myself. And bit by bit, over five years, I made the system and implemented it successfully."

"It's easier for a person to cough out a complaint than a praise. And so the only accomplishment of the work I had done was the obvious lack of complaints."

"I confess that it was more for my fascination, my satisfaction and my ease of work that I did this. And so the fact that I didn't get much recognition for the work didn't hurt me that much."

"And so when my new boss came in one fine morning, saw this system and blatantly asked me for the code so that he could change it and present it to his seniors as his own work, I felt quite righteous to be irritated by the request."

"Not only was I not recognized for the work, the fact that I was asked to give up my entire effort as if it was their property, made me angry. I refused."

"He is now pestering me daily for the same. And even though I keep saying no in very clear terms, he keeps coming back, without any shame."

"Just think about that. This system is like my child - something I gave life to, I nurtured, brought up - and now this guy comes in asks me to give it all up."

"I won't give it up. It's unethical, against moral, indecent and preposterous."

After a brief pause, he asked us.

"And you all agree with me too, right??"

We all nodded in the affirmative, and I guess that's all he wanted from us. A token of support.

The talk turned to more mundane things, and we all decided to call it a day soon after. Ravi was dropping me off. He was more pensive than usual and my curiosity got the better of me, as I asked him what was on his mind.

"You know that I had gone to meet her parents last week right. Well, I didn't tell you the whole story. There was one thing, which I felt was a negative, till Venu shared his story today."

"That entire day her father was acting weird around me. He was around everyone else, but was not ready to accept my presence in his home. He wasn't making eye contact, he wasn't asking me anything, we hardly shared anything more than the customary greetings."

"But at the same time, to be in line with the traditions, when her grandfather asked him whether he accepted me as her husband, he publicly, and quite whole heartedly, have me his word of acceptance."

"The paradoxical nature of his behavior was confusing me till today. But like our Venu and his system, he has spent more than two decades bringing up his daughter. To say that she is the eye of his life would be an understatement."

"And here I was. Someone who wanted to take her away from him. But she loves me for the right reasons, and he knows that. So he finds himself in position where he doesn't know what to do."

"And what ails me most is what I'll do to prove to him that I'm worthy of his daughter."

I'm not an eloquent speaker or a deep thinker. But a thought occurred to me suddenly and shared it with him. They say God helps those who wants to be helped. And he chose to help Ravi by putting these words into my mouth.

"You can win over her father the same way Venu's boss can win over Venu - by proving that you can take care of the child with as much care as the parent."

Landing in Your dreams (5 things - Week 73)

***

This is the second part of an earlier post, "Leap of Faith". For continuity, it is recommended that you read this post after going through the previous episode in this series.

***

I hope you understand the concept of alternate universe. If not, allow me to demonstrate the concept with a simple situation, which you would have come across in your life.

Imagine that you are driving to meet a friend of yours. You know the address, but not the way to reach there. If you arrive at an unknown junction, with no soul in sight to ask for directions, you will make a choice on which road to take to continue your journey. After you make a choice, you follow that road and reach your destination. And that's your universe.

But if you had chosen another path to take you forward, then it is entirely plausible that you would have encountered a completely different journey. A journey which shares nothing in common with your current universe, but for the starting point. And that journey is supposedly been undertaken in an alternate universe.

So, in an alternate universe, I'm writing this blog post from Gurgaon. I'm quite happy with the progression I've made in the organization, having completed four years at the office. One more year and I'll be getting a gold coin to commemorate my services to the company. My marriage would have been fixed, with the ceremony to be held within this year. I would be double checking the tickets I booked for coming home for Onam next month, just to make sure that I didn't get anything wrong in it.

In that alternate universe, I didn't take the Leap of Faith.

But I'm in this universe with you. You join me as I write this from my home in Thiruvananthapuram. I'm looking forward to receiving the offer letter that would indicate the completion of the first phase of the leap. The thoughts of marriage are as far as they ever were. And I'm with my family more often than not these days. Everything that I expected, and more, have been obtained from the leap - the decision I took to change my field of career completely, after investing successfully for three years in the previous one.

***

Right now, it feels like I had been given an objective question to answer by someone - let it be God or Devil, Fate or Destiny.

"Choose to live out any one of the following dream of yours.

1. The family - being as close to them as possible so that I can support them as they have supported me.

2. The job - being in a job which utilizes the best skillset of mine (programming).

3. The city - being able to settle down here in Thiruvananthapuram.

4. The bonus - the bonus can be discussed only in abstract terms right now due to its volatile nature. Don't worry, I'll let you know about it soon enough.

5. All of the above"

Well, I didn't need to think twice before opting for option No.5. And so here I am, starting to live my dream of working in a good job in my own city, being close to my family, and with the bonus in my grasp nonetheless. I took the Leap of Faith and I've Landed in my Dreams.

***

And do you know what the best part is?? By making that decision to follow my dream, and by the chastising experiences over the past ten months, I feel more mature and accomplished, content and happy, confident and ready to face all oncoming challenges head on. I could try and forge sentences to inspire you to follow your dreams, but I feel that my own personal experience would suffice.

But just in case you are interested in hearing inspiring quotes on the same, we'll be having five of them as the "5 things" for this week. Let's start, shall we??

***

1. Steve Goodier

“Leaving what feels secure behind and following the beckoning of our hearts doesn't always end as we expect or hope. We may even fail. But here's the payoff: it can also be amazing and wonderful and immensely satisfying.” 

2. Isabel Lopez

“If you can’t believe in miracles, then believe in yourself. When you want something bad enough, let that drive push you to make it happen. Sometimes you’ll run into brick walls that are put there to test you. Find a way around them and stay focused on your dream. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” 

3. Moffat Machingura

“Follow your dreams. I am not saying it’s going to be easy, but I am saying it’s going to be worth it."

4. Billy Joel

“You can get what you want or you can just get old.” 

5.  Paulo Coelho in Adultery has summed it up pretty nicely in the following words.

"Going after a dream has a price. But however costly it may be, it is never as high as the price paid by people who didn't live."

***

The iconic representation and the source of the term "Leap of faith" came from the following picture.

I wish I was a bit more skilled in digital art work. If that was the case, I would have turned up with a better depiction of landing in your dreams that this.

It's obvious that I gained a few pounds during that jump, right?? Can't ask for a better depiction than that, I guess.

***

Like I mentioned before, I understand truly well that landing here is just the beginning. To continue living this dream, I would have to put in tremendous amount of effort, maybe more than what I already did to get so far. But now I know that dreams do come true. Now, I know that if I strive hard for it, it'll come to me one day or another. It might be a cliche to quote this from "The Alchemist" now, but it is true in it's entirety.

"And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."

***

So, that's all for this week then.
Have a great weekend!!
'til next week.

Right next to her

It must be the effect of watching all those movies, that the first thing I do when I go on a journey alone is to check who my neighbour is - my neighbour as in the person with whom I'm to spent the next few hours with. And everytime, I would wish that the said person would be of the female variety, of an appropriate age, so that I can work my "flirting" skills on her.

In the past three years, the only place I had to go to was home, and since it is quite far away, I had to use the air transport to get there. And in flights, you are placed in a row of 6, split in the middle by an aisle- like you would find in any normal bus. But alas, I had the worst luck in flights, when it came to having a neighbour of my preference. Let me give you an instance depicting my luck in one such journey.

I had been given the middle seat in row 10. As I approached what would be that row, I viewed in disbelief the two women (of European descent!!!) sitting on both sides of that seat. I was so convinced of my bad luck, that I went ahead and sat in the row behind them, thinking that there is no way they were sitting in row 10. After five minutes, the real occupant of the middle seat in row 11 came and evicted me from that seat. And as you can expect, I went and sat in the middle seat of row 10, in between two gorgeous ladies. I couldn't believe my luck.

And by the time, I started believing in my luck, we had landed.

You see, in the 25 odd flights that I've taken  in a period of 3 years, I never ever had the company of a lady. That's the reason why I had so much trouble in believing my good luck

The only other instance of such a situation was when I was on my way back here to Delhi two weeks before. I was waiting in line to check in at the airport, when my ken fell on this beautiful entity. Without speaking a word, heck without even sharing a glance, I knew she had it. She wouldn't make many heads turn, but she had this character that I love in a woman. And at that moment, there was only one wish in my heart.

"God!! Please let her sit right next to me."

And an hour after I started making that wish, you would find me entering the aircraft, making my way to the window seat in row 12. But this time, my eyes were not scanning for the seat numbers, but for her. And I saw her seated at the middle seat, right about at the place where row 12 should be. I couldn't believe my luck, and thanked GOD for doing this for me.

I reached row 12, I kept my bag in the overhead cabin, went past my neighbour in the middle seat, and placed myself in the window seat - with a big frown on my face.

She was in row 11. And by the time the flight took off, she moved to the window seat in that row - right in front of me.

I guess, I should have been more explicit in my prayer. The one above and the lady luck had used the loophole in my earlier prayer to place me right next to her, without actually giving any chance of making contact. I should have wished, "God!! Please let her sit right next to me, in the same row."

Considering that, in that prayer, he could place us in the same row at the seats either side of the aisle, I should have been more specific.

"GOD!! Please let me sit in Seat 12A and she in 12B in the flight no. 6E-316."

I'm pretty sure that, with my luck, there could be a loophole in that statement too.

The last I saw of her was she walking away with the trolley bag, into the night in this capital city. I don't know her name, I don't remember her face; but more importantly, and most probably, she doesn't even know that I exist.

5 things for this week (Part 33)

So, someone among you gave me a 'wtf' rating for the last post. Considering that it was regarding the Indian Space program and its unseen effects on the world, I was expecting only the 'interesting' ratings, like I got for the post no.31.

But I can't blame you. I knew perfectly well that I was only copy pasting the actual letter written by Mr.Ernst. I knew that the most effort that I had to make was splitting that letter into five points. To make up for my laziness in the previous week, I'm coming up with a personal post for this week. You can't say that this has been plagiarized, because no one has yet taken the effort to etch these memories in written words.

I've this friend of mine. He's a pretty decent guy, with a good job, a great life, a wonderful girlfriend and a decent control over the English language. But he has this knack of getting his 'English' all wrong once he is under the influence of alcohol. The following five goof ups are part of some his real life incidents, which mostly happened while he was under the influence of alcohol.

Let's give this friend of mine a bogus name for our convenience. We shall call him, Peter. If it weren't for the drinks Peter had, our gang would have been left short of these wonderful memories. So, here's to his good health.

And I do hope he doesn't do that thing he said he would do if I posted these things here.

So, with that prayer, shall we begin??

Did you know...

1. ...that Peter asked someone why that person was being sad?

Once, during a weekend gettogether, Peter saw this other friend of ours, sitting all alone, in a corner, looking sad. Being the compassionate being that he is, Peter inquired why the friend was being so sad. But his choice of words to express the same were poor.

"Why are you being a SADIST?"

Enough to say, that was enough to lift the spirits of the friend who was being sad.

*There has also been reports, or rather rumors that Peter called Michael Schumacher a RACIST. We all know what he meant though, right?

2. ...that Peter claims that a bookmark is useless thing?

Again, at another weekend gettogether, Peter stumbled upon a book that a friend of his was reading. He saw that there was some colorful thing in between the pages. Peter asked his friend what it was called. The friend informed him that it was called a bookmark. Peter was seeing a bookmark for the first time. Peter then looked at the book, then at the bookmark, then at the book again, and commented to his friend,

"This thing is useless. This BOOKMARK has left no mark in the book."

3. ...that Peter loves "orthodox" drinks?

The weekend gettogethers that I've been talking about are the hub of all kinds of discussion on a variety of topics - from the philosophically significant to the absolutely preposterous. Once we were talking about the religion of Christianity - the teachings, the different sects, etc etc.

Peter was telling us about his experiences on being an orthodox christian. At this time, another friend of ours showed up, with a bottle of whiskey. The pegs were drawn for each interested individual. Someone was mixing the same with water/soft drink. As soon as he got to Peter's glass, Peter picked his glass up and said,

"NO!! No water for me. Just ice. I love ORTHODOX drinks."

*he meant "on the rocks", which means the alcohol is served undiluted, with ice cubes in it.

4. ...that Peter would like to have a mobile with ups?

During another weekend gettogether, Peter was asked if he would pick up a car from Delhi, and drive it down to Gurgaon the next day. Peter was asking for someone to co-pilot with him, but no one was available for the same. Being the maze that the roads in Delhi are, Peter was afraid of getting lost while driving back alone. So, he made a simple enough request to perform the task,

"I'll drive back alone from Delhi to Gurgaon. But someone should give me a mobile phone with UPS so that I can know my way back. My phone doesn't have that feature."

5. ...that the metro entry gate didn't read his wallet?

For a change, let me tell you something which happened when he was sober. This happened at a metro station.

As you would likely see if you were to observe closely, most people walk up to the metro entry gate, and swipe his/her wallet over it, and the gate would open by itself. We were a group of five. Four of us did the above trick, and got to the other side, but were surprised to see that Peter hadn't joined us.

Peter was getting irritated by the machine which wouldn't let him enter, no matter how many times he tried to swipe his wallet on it.

What Peter didn't know was that we all had our metro travel cards in our wallet, and it was those cards, which opened the gates for us.

Peter was thinking that the machine worked by reading the ATM card, and deducting money from it directly. Being a newbie in a ultramodern metro city, Peter was oblivious of the way things worked over here.

***

I know I've been withholding on my mid weekly posts for over two months now - mostly because of the state of my health. I know that this "5 things" series is going bland. I try to bring you something new every week, but it is a bit hard to do so at a consistently high standard. But I will post it every week, even if I know what I'm writing is crap, cos the basic target of this series is to make me write regularly.

Being back to better health, I've a 2 part series lined up for you. Hopefully, you'll have read them by this time next week.

So, till then, good bye.
Have a great weekend!!

...and another one fades away...

I've lost quite a few friends to external factors in the past year.. I lost one to his girlfriend, I lost one to marriage, I lost another to a government job, etc etc.. Right now, one is going to follow his dreams and the another one is off to Germany for higher studies..

If I were a musician, the rate at which I'm losing friends might have compelled me to write a song about friendship..

If I were the harisa of five years ago, he would have made a video with a sad song and group photos..

But this is the harisa of now.. And he can only write about it..

If you have watched enough movie award nights, and had paid attention to more than just the length of that actress's dress, you must be familiar with the concept of the "Special jury award". That award is given to that movie which was better than the rest, but not good enough to be the best.. A runner up, if you would like to call it so..

I try to be a friend like that.. You can't be the best friend of anyone you meet, but you can be a better friend to anyone.. It is to that end that I always strive for.. But that is not to say that I am irreplaceable to them or they are irreplaceable to me...

In these days of degenerating decencies, aided ably by the drive of egoistic individuals to excel at all costs, the fibers of friendships in the corporate world are made out of needs rather than goodwill. And the relationship stays non-sour as long as the needs of the two entities match.

I know I run the risk of looking like a douche bag for my rather objective way of analyzing the act of friendship. But please refrain from taking that view on my opinion. What I intent to put across to you is that the beginning of most friendship are based on needs. The need to find a roof over your head, the need to go out for a movie, the need to play a game of FIFA on your laptop, the need to cook something delicious, the need to have a good time, etc etc.

Such needs bring together strangers, and their combined experience determine if they remain so, or become friends. Every friend I've made have been made like this. And I'm pretty sure that if you are willing to look at it from a different perspective, you'll find that you've done the same too.

But when such a friend moves away, you will definitely wallow in sorrow for a time, and then realize that you can always make a new friend. That is one ugly truth in life. You are replacing the time you spent with your old friend with your new one. So, when I said that no one is irreplaceable, I meant that you will be replacing the time spent with the old friend, with the time spent with the new friend.

So what about the old friend? He/she was an integral part of you for a certain period of time, and you are always thankful to them for the changes they bought about in you. They might have left your immediate neighborhood, but you'll always try to keep in touch. And you would always be willing to welcome back.

In the end, the purport of this whole post is that, I'm saying my goodbyes and best wishes to a few more friends who'll be leaving my company for pastures anew. And, like any one of you, I'm on the lookout for a new friend, to whom I can be a better friend.

Ormayundo?

Somebody asked me to write a story.. So here it is..

To avoid the reader imagining a personality or a character as I define it, I'll not be going into a detailed description of the protagonist, his friends and his adversaries. This has not been done to protect the identities of those actually involved.

***

***

Free hours were not that hard to come by in the four years he spent at college. The assigned professor might not turn up; the students might have decided to bunk class en masse; the lab might have been suspended; the class might been cancelled to let the students prepare for some festival happening at the college; someone(anyone) might have called a strike; etc etc. If not for any of those, you could quite easily have decided not to attend the class, and instead spend your time loitering around the campus.

But in the first year of college, it was never advisable for a fresher to wander around the campus. The officially-free-of-ragging-campus had indeed had some ragging left in it. So in their first academic year at the college, he and his classmates would spend the free hours inside the classroom, passing the time by holding games like anthakshari or dumb charades.

The story I've to tell you happens on one such free hour, when the whole class was playing dumb charades, and he was miming the name of a movie across to his team. The movie was a Malayalam one, "Pedakozhi koovuna Nootandu" - which would mean something like "The century where the hen crows at dawn".

After successfully communicating to his team that the phrase is a movie, a Malayalam movie, a Malayalam movie with three words, he proceeded to split the first word into two, and tried to mimic the second part of it. If you have played the game, you would understand that this is pretty much a standard procedure.

So the word he was trying to get across now was "kozhi", which means Chicken/Rooster. Now, I don't know about you, but in our time, the pet name of "kozhi" (rooster) in a batch was reserved for the guy who tried the most to flirt with the opposite sex. And, up till that moment, this batch of no-gooders hadn't decided whom to call that. Yet.

If you thought that our friend got the name "kozhi" just because he enacted one, then you are wrong. His rather weak acting skills made it tough for most of his teammates to deduce what was being depicted. She was the first one to recognize the fowl he was being. And she cried, "Kozhi!! Kozhi!!", and then in a few seconds rolled off the whole movie name.

As he was celebrating with his teammates, the captain of the opposite team made the remark that "She called you a 'kozhi'."

In a few seconds, this one-liner spread throughout the class (and later throughout the campus), and the name has stuck with him ever since. He never flirted any more than any other guy you would meet in that campus. But being the wrongful owner of one of the worst tags in college, his life was never the same.

But that is not the worst part either. One of his classmates at that time, another girl, got a higher option in Medicine and left their group. She came back after a year or two to attend some fest, and the class was saying their hello to her. In between, he propped up and asked her, "Ormayundo?" ("Do you remember me?").

You have to sympathize with her. She was only in our company for a month or two, and she couldn't recollect all our names. So, when she said, "Oh pinnae.. Kozhi allae." (Of course. You are "kozhi".), he could do no more than feel sorry for her.

But that was not the case with his classmates. The one-liner came out again.

"She called you a 'kozhi'."

The purpose of THIS

I came across this image on the internet in the recent past.

If you can't see the image, here is what's written in it.

"Time changes everything.
That's what people say. It's not true.
Doing things changes things. Not doing things leaves them exactly as they were."

I came across all this and more at a site called "quora". There, they have civilized discussions on all topics under the sun, from "what's your opinion about a guy who worked as a professional footballer for over 20 years without ever having to step onto the pitch" to "Do female astronauts were bras in space?". Like I said, they discuss all kinds of topics there. ;)

Anyways, I found the picture that I've shown you in a discussion happening in that site. The topic being discussed was "At age 25, would you pursue a good paying corporate job that makes you unhappy or a hobby that makes you happy, but has no guarantee to pay the bills?"

Well, just picture me reading that question. A 24 year old guy, in a good paying corporate job, who is partly unhappy because he finds himself not anywhere near where he wanted to be by now. And sad to say, I don't think I'm that good enough at any of my hobbies to earn a penny from it. After all, knowledge in most matter relating to the football club called Arsenal; or knowing how to use the computer in an optimal manner; or writing something every week is not going to make me any money.

Moreover, I don't think I want to make money from them. It's all well and good, if you can work in a field you love, but for people like me, who have a mediocre skill set, it's always safe to make sure that the hobby is just that, a hobby. Something you do to derive pleasure from. Something which strokes your ego. But there was a time when I felt that it was tedious to make an effort to do your hobby.

That was the time when I asked myself this question over and over again - "How do I make myself happy?" That is a question that has plagued the minds of the best. I saw my friends trying for higher studies; trying for high paying jobs; trying to get into government service; trying to follow their dream; trying to go and study abroad; etc etc. I evaluated each option and said "NO" to each. The fact that I had to "try" for them put me off from doing them.

Don't get me wrong. It is not that I'm lazy or anything. I look at where I am now, and I feel that if I step in any other direction to better my career, it'll be asking more of me in return. I won't say that the job that I've and the work that I do are perfect, but, to be honest, it suits me fine.

There is no never-ending, undue pressure on me; the work is always doable; I get my weekends off; I'm valued for the work I do. These are the things I want from my work. Of course, I would love to get paid thrice the money for doing a quarter of this work, but you can't have it all, can you?

It is in this scenario that I accepted my friend's advice to work on my writing skills as a means of improving my look on my life. And what better way to better your writing skills than to write regularly. Jerry Seinfeld is a popular comedian in the Western world, and this is what he had to say about how he continually achieved creative success.

"Seinfeld explained his method for success: each January, he hangs a large year-at-a-glance calendar on his wall and, for every day he wrote new material, he had the exquisite pleasure that can only come from drawing a big red "X" over that day.  Drawing those Xs got to be pretty fun and rewarding, so he kept doing it. Eventually, he began to create a chain of red Xs.

The idea was to never break that chain.

Not only does this approach program the body and mind to sit down and write daily – it also motivates you to continue that beautiful string of big, red Xs. If you don't write one day, you don't get to draw the X."

I came across this after I started the "5 things" series, but I'll gladly accept that this is in fact something I keep in my mind as I continue the series. I know that I might expose myself to ridicule just because I write for the sake of writing, but I feel it is necessary to write something every week. It makes me happy in the sense that I feel like I've met the target that I set for myself.

Speaking of ridicules, "She has a blog, and to tell the truth, it is ten times better than yours."

Let us forget for a moment that this comment is coming from a person actively stalking the said 'she', who is a new joinee at my office; and just concentrate on the last part of that sentence. 'it is ten times better than you.' But just after a short while.

Have you heard about the Infinite Monkey Theorem??

"A monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare."

I'm someone who believes very much in the possibility of that happening. So for a person, who believes in the prospect of a monkey outwitting him to full-on literature glory, I'm at peace with the fact that the world contains people better than me.

For a language as widely used as English, there are only 26 letters for you to work with. And with just those handful of letters, it opens up the possibility of a great love story; an emotional prose; a poem describing the beauty of nature; a phrase encapsulating the universal truth; a sentence about the current socio-economic situation; a word on the lifetime achievement of a legend, etc etc.

No where is it written that you can find a gem of a sentence, but at the tip of a genius's pen. What the internet has done is to provide "monkeys" like us a platform to showcase what we have typed. It has opened up our work to an unequal amount of praise and ridicule. It has provided us a way to know how good we are in the eyes of the world.

But if ever someone says to you that your work could improve, never be disheartened. Just realize that you might have to type some more on that typewriter, before you find your own literary gem.

Aise Na Mujhe Tum Dekho......

Kishore Kumar.

This multifaceted personality needs no introduction. Well, I hope he doesn't.

In case you don't know exactly who he is, Google and Wikipedia can help you in knowing his illustrious career. But here, in this post, I’ll be telling you who he is to me.

I must have been introduced to his voice very early in my life. My father had cassettes and cassettes of his songs, and he used to buy more whenever he got a chance. And since he is used to having songs playing in the background (like son, like father :P), we had the original KK's sound reverberating through our house all the time.

And what a voice it was!! He has sung songs that reflect all your moods and situations, no matter whether you are

• feeling happy (om shanti om)
• feeling sad (ye kya hua)
• feeling dejected (mera jeevan kora kaagaz)
• feeling weird (Ina meena deeka)
• feeling overzealously happy (bachna he haseeno)
• going to meet a girl (aaj unse pehli mulaqaat hogi)
• just met an unknown girl (ek ajnabe haseena se)
• thinking of an unknown girl (aata jaate khoob surat)
• thinking of the neighbour's daughter (mere samne waale khirki)
• thinking of your dream girl (dream girl & mere sapno ki rani)
• feeling lost (musaafir hun yaaron)
• nostalgic about friends (yeh dosti)
• feeling romantic (pal pal dil ke pass)
• trying to make your wife happy (raat kali ek khawab me aayi)

I know that watching all these songs are going to eat into your data usage for the month, but I can assure you, you won't regret it. I'm yet to meet a person who says that he/she doesn't like the songs of Kishore da ("da" as in brother in the Bengali language).

Well, I started off trying to tell you what his voice meant to me, and in accordance with my usual behaviour here, I've gone on and talked about something else altogether. Let me get back to the topic.

I'm the sort of guy, who never sticks to a certain genre in music. One morning I'm hearing devotional songs, the next day it'll be romantic, and the day after it'll some classic rock/jazz song. I consider myself as a nomad in the world of music - never sticking to one place, always roaming around in search of something better. But for me, when the dearth of fresh music starts to stifle my senses, the songs of Kishore da comfort me. For me, his songs are the innumerable oases I come across in my journey.

You may have already met this song I am going to introduce you to. But this is the latest of the oases that I've come across, which spawned this post. And to tell you the truth, this song is on repeat on my system. Just hear it out for yourself to find out how good it is.

I'm the kind of person who, once he finds it interesting, will keep on playing the same song over and over again. I look for the various instruments, the lyrics, the voice, the effects in the song. I then play the song till the thing which excited me in the first place becomes monotonous. It is in these dire situations that I find Kishore da's songs comforting.

But the time when I really enjoy to hearing his songs are the moments just before I sleep. I like to keep a playlist of his soft songs on repeat in my mobile, and just drift off into the dreamland. And his songs always lull me to sleep. Maybe that's cos I had them as my lullabies when I was born. Thank you  acha* for that.

*acha is father in Malayalam.

Thank GOD for Amnesia!!!

Of the four seasons that GOD has destined for us to enjoy, I absolutely, most definitely and with full conviction hate the season of summer.

I hate it so much that if summer where a person, I would be inclined to put into practice my long term plan of shooting it - point blank, twice and at the heart - and then cutting off its head, just to make sure that it is dead.

Now, you might be thinking what in the whole wide world has summer done to me, to make a normally forgiving, non-violent person as myself, to execute it  in such a gruesome manner? (even though, only in my dreams).

It’s not the unbearable heat when you are outdoors, or the oven style baking when you are indoors. It’s not the hot winds burning your skins, or the mini-sandstorms that come with it. It’s not even because I have had to wake up in the middle of the night, from a pool of my own sweat, so that I can pour some naturally boiled water down my parched throat. No, it’s not any of these that make me hate summer. 

It’s the goodbyes that I’ve had to say during summers for the past few years.

I know that this might sound as logical as driving your car with the handbrake on. The adieu’s that I’ve had to say had come because of various other reasons, things that I could never control. And it’s entirely plausible that these partings could have happened at any other point in time, in some other season perhaps. But as fate would have it, they happened, and they happened, one after the other, over four consecutive summers.

You see, I was supposed to hate summer. It’s my destiny.

In the summer of 2010, I had to say goodbye to everything I believed was constant. Please don't fault me for thinking so. Since I was a child, I always liked to believe that my home, my family, my parents, my brother, my friends, my city would all be my own forever, and I’ll be able to be with them forever too. Even though, I knew that I would have to shift 3000km to the north when I accepted the job at GS, getting on to that train on the morning of 26^th June, 2010 was like a rude awakening from a pleasant dream.

In a span of 3 days, my life had all changed. For the first time in 21 years, I was to spend more than a week away from home. I wouldn’t have my father near to listen to, I wouldn’t have my mother near to talk to; I wouldn’t have my brother near to fight with. All of my friends were placed elsewhere. It was me and this brand new, unforgiving city. Thank you, summer of 2010. :-/

And that’s when I made two new friends in Anupam and Alok. The trio of us was newly employed at the same company, had no intent to save money, and had lots of free time. That was seemingly the secret ingredients you needed to make my stay here better.

What followed were lots of late night outings in the city, trips to Delhi, and just hanging out at our favorite mall, the MGF Metropolitian (which we affectionately called  “tharavadu*”) . Even though people always say to me that booze is a must for any hangout, this spell of friendship affirmed my opinion that it ain’t so.

And then came the summer of 2011. After a bout of diseases, and appalled by the overall uncleanness of the city and its people, Anupam decided to leave to his dream destination of Singapore. He got admission to the National University of Singapore, and bid goodbye to us at the end of May 2011.

His absence was offset by the arrival of seven malayali juniors (you can call us mallus, but we prefer to call ourselves malayli). And that was supplemented by a few more malayali seniors, in an apparent move by our company to make me happier. And then came a different spell of life - one which involved less money, but more time. We were a huge group, we didn’t go out much, but we sat at home and had a great time. I don’t know how to describe it, but it felt like I was in college again.

If my life was a drama, and if that drama had a script, then at that point of time, it would read – “Enter Stage Left. Summer of 2012”.

I don't know how many goodbyes I had to say over 2012. As one person went for a new job in a new city, another changed to a different company in the same sity. Then there was the one which went off for higher studies. And it all culminated with my bother of a brother also leaving our home at Trivandrum, moving to Mangalore to pursue his B.Tech degree at the NIT there. All in all, this summer sucked too.

Noticing a trend that the people I held close were being moved away from me by an unseen hand, I unconsciously decided to concentrate more on passions than people. Playing football, following developments in football and playing FIFA became my mainstay during this next spell. I was sure that the summer wouldn't be able to pull one on me anymore.

But it happened again. By the time the summer of 2013 rolled in, the only other guy with the same passion as me in playing FIFA has moved away, and so has the other guy who shared with me the urge to play football every weekend.

Now, this would seem like a victory to the summer over me. But in true Mortal Kombat style, it decided to give me a Knock Out Blow just to make sure. This summer has taken from me the one constant I've had here in the past three years. I've always said that he was the older brother I never wanted, but still, if you want me to make it look like the Batman dialogue - "He is not the brother you want; he is the brother you need."

When I come back from my vacation on May 27th, I'll have a new Gurgaon to encounter. I'll have to make new friends, renew some old friendships and find ways to make myself drag me over the line in this race of life. It is because of these changes that I've to make on myself that I hate the summer.

After I've forced myself to change, I'll have to confront the reminders of good old times. Whenever I walk into MGF and hear that Black Eyed Peas song on the loop; whenever I see the infamous Lee Cooper Tshirt; whenever I feel like doing something stupid; whenever I feel like saying FUAH to someone; when I try to teach someone else the language of LLUMA; whenever I try yo make someone notice the chick near us by telling what o'clock she is to him; I'm gonna be reminded.

But let me tell you now itself. This stage of my life will pass. Because it has happened before. Because it will happen again. If we draw an analogy, when a loved dies, the tears shed for them a year later will less than 1% of what was shed in the immediate aftermath. It is basic human behaviour. It is something which helps us to move along in life. We continue with our life, although slightly skewed from before. And it is because of the gift of obliterating memories. In layman terms, that would meant the act of forgetting.

And it's not that we forget the person or the memories. We tend to remember them less. It doesn't make them any less of an influence on your life past. But it makes sure that they are not a negative influence on your future life.

So, anna*, as the time to bid goodbye dawns near, let me thank you for being there for me. And I hope I can have pleasure of having chawal, dal and roti at your wedding as soon as possible.. :P

But till then, I'll be here, carrying on with my life, thanking GOD for gifting man the power of selective amnesia.

* tharavadu – ancestral home
* anna - brother

What's in your wallet...

I dropped my wallet today as I was trying to put it away after coming home from work. It's not that out of the ordinary from me, as I tend to drop anything that is droppable. But after dropping it, I spent the next hour going through the contents of it, reminiscing about the story of how it got there.

You can say a lot about a man from the things he carries in his wallet. Well here are the list of things you would find in mine, from the bizarre to the quaint.

1. 1 photo of Saibaba of Shirdi. It has been the custom at my home to keep a photo of Baba in any new bag/wallet. You'll find one in the suitcase I travel with, and also in my laptop bag.
2. Some notes. sometimes notes of 100; maybe 500; but you can always be sure of finding the 10s and 20s.
3. 2 Debit Cards and 1 credit card. This has to be the minimum requirement these days I think. If you want a quote on the maximum, my neighbour at office has at least 3 debit cards and 8 credit cards. It would be hard to beat that number.
4. My other cards, including visiting cards, metro card, privilege cards, insurance cards, driving license, etc.
5. Some 6-8 passport size photos.
6. One small Indian Flag, which a lady duped me into buying for 100 rupees saying the money was for orphans.
7. A parking ticket from "Sreekumar" theatre, from when I saw a movie there the last time I was at Trivandrum.
8. A feather from a duckling I had as a pet in 2006. I know that it is weird, but I carry it around with me like a good luck charm.
9. A Re.1 coin, minted in 1997, which was given to me by my grandfather.

That's about it.

I know that this might be an abrupt end, but that's all for today.

See ya tomorrow.

A random post

It's never too late to do something, that you had stopped doing long before, again.. That nostalgic feeling you get - when you ride a bicycle again; when you visit your ancestral home; when you hear your favourite lullaby; it's all the same..

That's what I'm feeling right now.. I'm writing this blog by typing it out on my mobile - the way I started writing my blogs some 5 years ago..

I had my trusty Nokia 6233 with me then.. I still have the worn out mobile with me, reminding me of the fonder memories of the yore.. Then I used to write such inspired nonsense (these days it's just nonsense) that I wonder how I even thought of writing those stuff..

Anyways, I'm deviating from my original train of thoughts.. What I actually wanted to tell you people is that sometimes it just feels right to do something old..

It gives you these exhilarating moments  which you would learn to value as much as those earlier ones..

I wrote this post over three days.. Starting on wednesday, while I was in a cab coming back from office; then yesterday, ay office, when I smudged and nudged this post into shape; and now, at MGF Metropolitan Mall, after watching "The Croods", when I'm giving the finishing touches.. This mall is refereed to by Alok, Anupam and myself as "Tharavadu", meaning ancestral home.. And it was such to us in our first year here.. The place we came for every holiday, a place where we knew which would make us happy..

As I sit here on this bench, thinking of a way to properly end this blog, I hear on the speakers here a song playing.. "Stereo love". The same song they played here when I first came here.. And for the whole of the first year... Needless to say, I'm getting that feeling again..

P.S. I wrote this on my mobile.. So spell check and grammar is out of the question.. So, please bear with me..
Also, the "5 thing I learned this week" blog is coming up as soon as I get home..

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

Day 3, Time 13.00

Debilitating Depression. That’s what Google says I’m going through right now. Literally, it means being depressed to such an extent that you make yourself weak and vulnerable to further depression, which as you would have guessed, puts me again at the starting point of this vicious cycle.

I’ve read that the third day is the hardest. The day when you realize that you’ve siphoned off the last of your adrenaline juice. Oh my sweet, sweet adrenalin!!! My great warrior!! You’ve fought the battle valiantly for me. But now, I know it is just me against the monster. It taunts me into going back to my old ways, constantly reminding me of the sweet memories I’ve had in the past.

To try not to think about those memories, I tried to read articles about quitting addictions. Here are a few excerpts that caught my eye.

“…Expectations are higher than ever before. Yet the one thing you depended on to cope with stress -- the addictive behavior -- is now off limits. This is why it is so important to have other ways of coping firmly established, ideally before quitting…”

Well, that’s just great. I should have read about things like this before I stopped doing something which was second nature to me. Now, I’m here – all alone, helpless and vulnerable – and I have to try to force me away from my addiction without a specific plan.

“…Ambivalence, the mixed feelings of both wanting to continue with the addictive behavior and wanting to quit, is part of the addictive process…. Often, this is felt in terms of "right" and "wrong," a moral dilemma….”

And this moral dilemma is further compounded by the following argument…

 "I would rather live a shorter life and be happy than quit and be miserable."

Well, that sentence draws a very thin line between right and wrong, and I’m not going to try and push you onto any one side of it. All I say is that you should think for yourself, keeping in mind that it is your life and your decisions, and make a choice.

I’ve read somewhere that all choices in life can be divided into two – the Good and the Pleasant. In this case, the “shorter, happy” life would be Pleasant one, and the “quitting, miserable” life would be the good one. I chose pleasant before. I’m choosing good now.

Upon further reading, I’ve come across the various effects that can arise due to withdrawals from addictions namely - Anhedonia, paranoia, psychosis, anxiety, agitation, suicidal thoughts, and vivid, lucid nightmares etc etc.

Well, I should have expected nightmares since I’m dealing with this monster.

Day 2, Time 19.45

Not much to report from today as it was a holiday at the office, due to the festival of Holi. I would have been halfway on the highway to madness by now, if it weren’t for my juniors. Playing holi, a game of football, a game of cards, 10 hours of sleep and some friendly face-to-face banter helped me keep myself away from the monster. Even though I was enjoying myself, I was constantly reminded of its presence, which was like an unknown shadow following me, waiting for a lapse in my concentration, so that it can make me fall prey to it again.

Luckily for me, I live to see another day in this new path I’ve chosen for myself. I just hope tomorrow will be easy like today.

Day 1, Time 23.15

Office got over slow. I didn’t want it to be so slow, but it was. I still haven’t found that key which controls time yet. Maybe I could have used the years I had in between the minutes I had to pass at the office to find that key. That would be a task worthy of me right now, especially because I don’t know how to pass my time since I quit my addiction.

It wasn’t that tough to rein in my thoughts of going back. I kept hallucinating that there is this huge iron hand holding me by my hair as I try to run back to my dear old friend. That mirage of having an iron fist holding me back did nothing to actually hold me back. The real reason for that was the “new year resolution” syndrome.

You would know how that works. The guilt of going back to do something you decided not to do is really strong on the day after you make that decision. This is normally associated with the way people behave with regards to their New Year resolution - hence the name.

Day 0, Time 20.06

I think I’ve reached the watershed moment in my addiction. Either I quit, or continue living this lie of a life. I don’t know how I’ll be able to live without this, how I’ll plough through these unforgiving times I’ve planned for myself, but I know that I’ll be strong enough to face them. This small effort I’m going to make tonight might be lost into the obscurity as another one of my attempts to quit, or become the single-most influential step I’ve taken till now.

With a prayer to the one watching over me from above to make this not another false-start, I checked the box written “Deactivate” and clicked on the “Save changes” button.  With that, my dear friends, I’ve quit Facebook.

P.S. To make the transition complete, I’ve signed out of chat on Gmail, quit twitter and stopped the internet service on my mobile. From now on, no chats, no pings, no pokes, no whatsapping. If you want to talk to me, meet/call/text me. I’ll do likewise if I want to interact with you. And this blog shall remain the only online portal through which I’ll continue to spew my madness. And you are welcome to not read it, if you find it not to your taste. On the other hand, if you welcome my tirades on life, please feel free to come back another time to check if I’ve something fresh for you to read. Thank you.

POST-SCRIPT

Day 7, Time 20.06

It’s all NOT going fine, but it could have been worse. It’s been seven days and I still am to go back to my old ways. I’ve started reading again, I’m writing again, I’m calling up my friends again, I’m going out (anywhere), I’m thinking of ways to spend my time productively, which includes dusting off the cobwebs on my director’s hat, which I had left untouched since 2010.

It is for exactly these little things that I committed this virtual social suicide for.

"It's not you, it's me."

The cultural shock a conventional South Indian boy receives, when he makes the journey up north in India is something which has to be experienced to be believed. In my case, it was, for the want of a better word, exhausting. Exhausting in the sense that the journey of past three years has made me change the rules and regulations I had cultivated in myself over the 21 years before that.

I've begun to accept the erstwhile unacceptable.

• the temperature outside can be 4 degrees or 49 degrees. Deal with it.
• drinking alcohol isn't a crime.
• drinking alcohol every weekend isn't a crime.
• drinking alcohol during the week, just cos the weekend is still far away isn't a crime.
• you can have a masala dosa for 20 rupees from the roadside, or walk a 100m and have it for 200 inside the mall.
• waking up before 12pm on weekends is a crime, unless you want to catch the "cheaper by 50 bucks" show of that movie you want to watch.
• traffic signals are meant to be more of a guideline than rule.
• a monkey can come inside your apartment, eat the flour, open the fridge, drink some cold water and leave. (I've video proof for this)
• women drivers are allowed to drive on any side of the road, at any speed as they feel.
• If you are unlucky enough, the Rs.150 Tommy Hilfiger tshirt you brought from Karol Bagh, can become so famous that Pallika bazaar starts mass producing the same design in Lee Cooper.
• it's okay for girls to show skin - legs, knees, cleavages and all.
• it's actually practical to wear skin tight clothes in the summer.
• it's only natural to look at the said skin and/or skin tight bodices.

I've say to that the things I have said above is not unheard of in the south, but from where I come from, from the kind of values my family has tried to cultivate in me, alcohol, breaking of rules and provocative dressing is a big no-no. (Luckily, I haven't been given any guideline on what to do about the last point.) What I'm basically saying is that someone else coming from the south might be at ease with all of these, but I've been schooled in a different me.

Again, the underlying concept that I wanted to convey to you can be presented in the clichéd break up line "It's not you, it's me." 

I think that if instead of the national capital and the millennium city, if I had been designated to a more Indian-ized town/city, then I wouldn't have this much of a shock. But well, the shock has come and gone, and I'm still here.

I would like to believe that I've matured over the past 3 years. The friends, the situations and the public has changed me, hopefully for the better. If you don't believe me, let me give you some instances.

Once in college, one of my friends asked me to lend him my bike so that he can go and buy some "stuff" for the party he was hosting that night. I said "No, nothing of that sort is gonna come near my bike." And in the last 3 years, I've been the chauffeur for many a drunk/high individual.

Before, I would switch off my bike's engine at a red light. Now, when I'm running late for office, I have to think twice about whether to cut the light or not.

Again, in college, I noticed that some guys were passing lewd remarks about a classmate cos of the dress she was wearing. I gave her a mouthful of advice at the first chance I got (no effect from the advice though). In the past 3 years here, I've accepted that lewd remarks and provocative dressing are something that's part of life.

The experiences at workplace has been sobering. Hard work and commitment is not the path to success it seems. May be it is, but there seems to a lot of short-cuts to reach success and I'm not familiar with any.

As you can see, the naive, young, almost-stupid-enough-to-believe-anything boy, who came to Gurgaon on 29th June, 2010 is not the guy currently spamming your brain. He was the innocent and dependable guy you would see in the movies. Now, he is confused about what he is. I think I'm somewhere between the comical sidekick and the dark alter-ego.

I would like to believe that the innocent guy is still in their somewhere, but I'm not so sure anymore....

P.S. I would like dedicate this insane rant of mine to Mr. Mahavir Singh Rawat. He pinged me in the morning at office asking why I hadn't blogged in the past 6 months. The words of encouragement from him is what made me sit here and write this rant out. So now you know whom to beat up.. ;) :P

Sorry Shaktiman

Well, it happened.. I've finally gone mad thinking about what to do with my life..


One year into my job, I was convinced that I liked working better than studying.. So out went the norm option among my mates of going for MTech, MBA or MS.. You can't blame me.. I had such a hard time studying for BTech, that just the thought of taking up a book makes me drowsy. It's true, literally.. I took up my 1st year basic electrical text last week to "brush up" on my basics, and I was asleep within 10 mins..I had the same problem when I was in college, except for the days before exams, when the tension wouldn't let me sleep..


So, with the option of higher studies out of the way, I put in every effort I could into my job, hoping that that is the way my life is going to get better.. (In case you didn't notice till now, my life sucks.)


Well, long story short.. That didn't work out either.. Let's just say that my company and I have different views on what a "deserving reward" for work is..


And that brings us to the elephant in the room, who we have been conveniently ignoring in spite of its repeated stomps.. But I think I'll ignore it again and just move on..

Well, the whole point of all this rambling is that, it's a Sunday on yet another weekend.. I'm still cooped up in my room, lying awkwardly on my bed.. I'm down in the dumps for things I know I shouldn't care about.. And to avoid a repeat of last weeks breakdown, I'm planning on starting a new hobby.. To do the one thing I think most people would agree I do good.. A thing, for which, the expectations of the world and mine are the same.. The fact that I can write/blog averagely good enough.. Maybe even slightly better.. (Okay.. I confess.. I stole that line from somewhere)

So, I've decided to bring back to life my other blog (yeah, I've many), http://thedailylore.blogspot.in/... or as it is not-so-famously known as "bits and pieces of my day".. From now on, whenever I feel like killing myself or something there about, I'm just gonna write something, and put it up there.. I know you would be looking down upon me like dollar on rupee, but the thing is you are all I have.. And you are the only one who takes time to hear me out..

And, oh yeah.. about the title.. That's something which just popped up into my head then.. Not connected in any way to anything I said over here..

By the way, I gotta go.. The elephant seems to be really pissed off.. I need to feed it something to keep it quiet.. So bye for now, and watch out for me on the daily lore..