empty nest syndrome...

Another one has flown off...

Nikhil also left for delhi-US today evening. Past two weeks have been excruciating in the number of see-offs I've had to give.
My parents returned home to delhi after an extended stay in Bangalore.
Sardar returned to delhi..permanently.
We've been staying together for the past 10 odd months, and even though proximity breeds a minute amount of contempt (the words are from the saying- this is nowhere as serious as this sounds...contempt..sheesh man who makes up these sayings, I mean, what?? )i'll miss his company terribly. It was great fun to relive the 3rd year days when I used to hang on to the pillion seat of his bike while he showed me how crazily fast a bike could be driven...{he tried to redo those days but three factors were against him...the bike's a lot older now (the original 'burgaaandy' has lost its pre-adolescent verve..bangalore roads are nowhere near Delhi, specifically roads inside DCE (wait thats a terrible comparison..sheesh..there are NO roads in bangalore..just a series of potholes and ill-conceived speed breakers)...and most important- the bike used to pull a combined weight of maybe 130 kgs in the days of yore- now it must've been pulling 160-170...aww ok maybe 180, whats a few kilos amongst friends, and the bike is an old friend now}

Aasheesh, he came, roamed around with chicks from his previous office, drank a bit, met his mama...and swoosh, he was gone again...

Reddy is stuck with staying in the hotel...AND he doesn't have a cell phone yet. He's totally incommunicado and is extremely difficult to coordinate any activity with him...am trying to reach his hotel early tomorrow..lets see if i manage to reach.

rest, i'm halfway through the prelude to Foundation...I read the entire foundation series when I was bitten by the sci-fi bug in 9th-10th. Good to re-read them...

Also Tushar came over yesterday- conversation progressed on the same lines as always...yawn..but a drunk tushar's antics are fun to watch..great fun :)

A travelogue...

Met Popli online, where he shamelessly marketed his blog to me...:)...waise you should read it, he's been going on some amazing rides on his cruiser bike- and he's written some really good accounts of his trips...http://sumeetp.blogspot.com

Reminded me of a travelogue I'd written earlier, about a trip to Rishikesh and Auli, 19th - 23rd Feb 2005.Here it is...

"
hey kids...frm 19th to 23rd i'd gone on a trip with sum ppl here in
IIFT....this is a lowdown abt the trip...

19th
a little inflatable tube struggles with the elements...

11 of us, totally bored with absolutely nothing to do , decided that
it was time to have some last gasp fun before we're sucked into the
whirlpool of jobs, life etc etc.
so at 430 in the morning we pushed off in a couple of qualises towards
some adventurous fun...first stop Rishikesh.
Rafting is an absolutely fantabulous experience !!!....those valleys
and mountains are beautiful and the weather was so brilliant...a
drizzle of rain , dark dusky atmosphere...a quick flowing
river...foaming rapids and ominous rocks protruding from the vibrant
water surface...

after an hour of playing around on the riverside ..stuffing sand down
everyones clothes and splashing around in chillingly cold water
(remember Manali??)...we finally wore our lifejackets and
helmets...picked up our paddles....and heaved to!!!

the rest of the experience i cannot describe..if i could put those
brilliant adrenaline pumping moments into words....i'd be an
author..or better still a poet...all i can say is that evryone needs
to experience it...its a brilliant feeling..water crashing all around
u..sheets of water hitting u as u try to struggle against the demonic
force of water and propel ur life saving raft forward over rapids
named colourfully like "double trouble", roller coaster"..etc etc...

the first time i hit the rapids..it just took my breath away...we were
swirling around trying to push the boat forward as we were lashed
again and again by water...we twisted and turned...jumped up..and
plunged down...absolutely awesome...

this was a 12 kilometer stretch and quite frankly..i recommend rafting
to everyone...

after this tiring yet exhilerating experience...we cooled down and
continued onwards on our journey ...we drove some more and stopped for
the night at a town called srinagar...in Garwhal...nice place

20th..
the day was mostly spent in travelling...and towards the evening we
finally reached our ultimate destination..Auli..a ski resort high up
in the garwhal region...beautiful place...absolutely wonderful
view...there are snow covered peaks all around...and a promise of a
beautiful skiing trip the next day..
height 9600 ft

21st
the day started ominously, with rain pelting down and drowning out all
hopes of skiing..it was a big dampener, cos we all were so pumped abt
the skiing thing...
but as is often seen in the mountains , the weather cleared suddenly
after a couple of hours and we decided that come wht may, we were
going to ski !!
whew the boots u have to wear for proper skiing are HUGE and very
awkward to walk with...infact wearing those shoes and walking to the
ski chair lift was an adventure in itself!

then the open air chair lift picked us up and took us over some of the
most beautiful snow slopes , raw mountain sides and alpine vegetation
i have seen....when it was raining on our resort, it had been snowing
in the upper reaches and a layer of snow had covered all the trees
...and believe me when i say this..it looked like heaven...the trees
were not white..they were a haunting tinge of blue and violet that
i've never seen before...amazing

we set down and wore our skis and got ready for some skiing !!...i'd
done a bit of skiing before in Manali , so this was a lot more
fun...as over here the instructor let us do some actual skiing as
opposed to the "skiing for getting ur picture clicked type of skiing
in Manali"...its a great feeling to slide along the slopes unattended
(ok not very steep ones :) )..its a very liberating feeling...but it
dusnt last long..cos u end up sprawled on the snow very quickly!!

But if u thot the day had been as perfect as possible...think
again...i was trudging back up the slope after another trip down when
i felt something on my face...some thing very soft...i looked up...and
there it was...the one thing i had wanted to see for years...actual
snowfall ...a very light powdering of air brushed white flakes were
softly and gently floating down, riding the imperceptible currents in
the air....that moment is something i'll never ever forget....sigh...

after some time...after the customary snowfight, snowman making
etc..we stepped back to the chair lift that took us all back to the
resort....all in all a day that started as if it'd be the worst
possible day but ended up being the most breathtakingly marvellous day
possible

there was another snowfall later at night with even bigger
snowflakes....the soft motion of the flakes against the dark inky
backdrop of the night....is a totally hauntingly ethereal vision...

22nd and 23rd were basically travelling days in which we saw some more
towns...and also stopped at Haridwar on the way back...

all in all a great experience....but wudve been even better if all of
us had been together

"

sadness in times of expected joy..

My parents had been visiting for sometime...actually my mom was here for a month. Everything was ok, i mean its not like i have too many skeletons to hide or anything, but still their presence put in a bit of restraint on our (roomies n mine) actions, partying, going out etc.

So I thought that I'd be pretty happy when the visit ended and I could resume my earlier (degenerate? ) life again, maybe even a feeling of relief...

nah, nothing like that..they haven't gone for a coupla hours yet and i'm missing them already...:(

Butterfly effect- of a bandh...

Yesterday, Karnataka had a day long bandh to protest a legally appointed tribunal's final verdict on the issue of sharing Cauvery river's water between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu (with minor players like Kerala and Pondicherry (puducherry)). Anyway thats not the gist of this post, thats just for setting the context.

How does the butterfly effect come into this? wait, patience ...

Actually, butterfly effect is not really a great allegory...I was just stunned by how a whole different industry grows when something out of the ordinary happens. See,in a typical bandh in Karnataka(believe me here, i've seen 4 in the last 10 months) streets are empty, violence is known to erupt on innane issues - fortunately not in the area where I put up, public transport (including auto-rickshaws etc.) comes to a grinding halt. But by far the most irritating and frustrating thing about bandhs here is that the TV channels are also shut down. Only Kannada channels are aired during the duration of the bandh. And there is absolutely nothing to do all day.

But, lo and behold, this deep deep trough of boredom leads to a tsunami like spurt in another industry on the day preceding the strike. The illicit dvd/vcd industry. Hordes of people, wishing to avoid vegetating the whole day rueing the fact that they never took a class in Kannada. {If only my parents in Delhi had enrolled me in a Kannada medium school there, I would've been able to make out what that heavily moustachioed, portly man (er..he's playing a first year college student fresh out of school in this superhit movie quip my Kannada speaking friends) is whispering (shrieking??) into that poor bloated painted auntie wearing a startling Kanjivaram saree's ear (er..she's his classmate in college..equally nubile...aarrgghh... forget it, you'll never understand you prejudiced creep. who says all college students need to be young?)} go towards local markets where the latest movies can be had for 50-60 rupees.

You can actually see how these sellers become the most sought after people on such days. It becomes a sellers market with people vying to have atleast 3-4 movies to get through the boredom of the entire day.
I guess bandhs are not all bad, huh? anything that helps feed a poor family cannot be all bad? right..eh?

pearls of wisdom...

Someone in office said these two things when we were out on a break, he with a cigg, I with a chewing gum :)

My goal is:

1. not to contemplate whether I want to go to work on Monday morning
2. I want to be in a place where I don't need to care what my boss thinks of me

hmmm...simple, but worth a thought. A different way to think of success


PS: I agree with point 1

and he asked x, and I replied y...ya, you see I rock!

This is something's thats been getting my goat for a few days now..humpff.

There are a few blogs that I really enjoy reading, I love them for their style of writing, the intrinsic humour and the sharp commentaries. However, all the authors (Are bloggers authors??) have some sort of masters degree ..in business admin. Thus, they have gone through (as I did) the admission process comprising of gds and interviews.

As I finish off the fresh entries in their blogs, I am attracted towards their archives...unfortunately the sharp, funny, interesting bloggers have one thread in common. They want the whole friggin world to know about every aspect of their gd, interviews experiences...aaarrgghh...no, I do not want to know what you religiously have for breakfast before gds; no, I do not want to know what your lucky charms and rituals are; no, I do not want to know how you got that perfect 'body language' in the gd; oh for God's sake I do NOT want to know how the answer you gave saw the interviewers smile angelic smiles and look at you in awe as if you had enlightened them and made their pithy little miserable lives worth living once more...aarrgghh

What's the opposite of morning blues...

I got up early today...weird. After four days of promising myself that i'd get up early the next day, get the office bus for a change- and then drooling in bed till 9, I finally got up, got the bus and got myself a nice cheese omelette at the canteen. Am sated. At peace with the world. No team meeting either today.
However, a coupla things have come up...you see the earlier you reach ur desk, the earlier things start piling up, especially if you've just mentioned that you're at peace.
There's a bunch of VCs visiting, and somehow I have to be in the team meeting them( Originally, a very high profile delegation was to meet these guys, but as it's come to me, i'm guessing its not all that important). This came in this morning, AFTER I left home- so I guess i'll be meeting these guys in my jeans!
Am hoping for a nice treat this evening, but am a bit sceptical about it actually happening. I really want to play pool today, but this city has no pool parlours in our side of town. Or maybe we're just under-developed.

Will pick up dad from the airport tomorrow. I hope parents visit could be made more interesting, but factors have swirled into place, such that I have no control- and worse I wouldn't even be in town for half the time dad's here.

Anyway, can't do anything about things I can't control...

See, half an hour in office and my upbeat mood is already spiralling down...

"promise me you'll try to be cheerful today..."

has it ever happened to you...?

has it ever happened to you...that you have three books to read, and you get so confused between them that you're not able to start any...for a week!

has it ever happened to you....that your hands grow cold and your brain goes numb when you see an unexpected message? :)

the last gasp of freedom..drink in the joy..while it lasts

As the days roll on towards the impending departure of my roomie of 11 months (and a great friend of almost 7 years), P, i'm getting engulfed , bit-by-bit, in gloom. Also a bit of guilt. He's about to go in another 15 days and the last month has been so full of constraints, as my family is visiting, that we really haven't been able to make his last gasp of pure freedom even a bit exciting and worth remembering as he lolls around in his home after the 23rd.

But finally, some action has been initiated last night, something that should make the last week memorable for him and for everyone. My family leaves on the 17th - (pub-binge scheduled later in the day :) ). Reddy flies in either on 17th or 18th...and the BIG ONE : booked tickets for Gupta!! Begged, argued and cajoled him into arriving at a good itinerary (the way the guy makes excuses- like he's bluddy ambani or something). He'll be here frm 19th evening to 24th morning. Four of us dceites in one house, over 4 days, we'll bring back the hostel days all over again :)
Only thing missing is Bihari, but then I guess we need to get used to that...

Anyway, a blast of light to look forward to...

ORACLE: next to next week will be totally awesome!

Finally..started blogging myself!

Reading and following a number of blogs over the last few months has made me want to open a window into my life as well. Hope I can sustain it :)