Last weekend something amazing happened. No, not that you perverts. I did not get laid.. I'm still playing solitaire.. on my laptop(wonderful euphemism no?). I'm talking about this blog's page-hits on a day. It went down all the way to zero. Not even Google sent some searches on kamasutra this way. Guess its as close to a clean slate as a blog can get. So born again!

I care about you readers out there. I really do! So I'm going to give you made up reasons for the absence: I either had a writer's block or in bad need of a muse. Beaches, clubs and some lap-dances later.. found out it wasn't the muse. It was the regular good old block. The only way to get over this is to write about a favorite topic... what other choice do thou have than to rant about Women!

I know the argument is very Sigmund Freud, but if only boys mature faster than girls, we might have better chance and this ridicule will actually sound fair. It is an already established fact that why we don’t get any.. is not our fault. Combine this with the serious lack of requirements specification from the client side we men are on an uphill struggle to impress women from birth. Let me take you....

My mom always used to say "work hard, study well, get good rank and success will follow automatically". Didn't success also meant girls. So all I had to do was get first rank and the ladies will stalk me. In high school I could do a mean derivation of E=mc² in under 3 minutes, list the properties of benzene under chloroform, draw the female reproductive system with eyes shut.. but alas no girl followed me back home for "show & tell". Maybe because I went to an all-boys school run by celibate Christian missionary brothers. Only now I understand that the advice and choice of school was my mom's way of keeping me single until she can run a matrimonial ad. Women load the dice every step of the way.

"Chicks dig guys who is into art", said one of my friend not too after it dawned that my parents advice is ill-suited and I turned to him for advice. I took him seriously enough to improved my drawing & sketching skills. Only that, by "art" he meant something else. One weekend on Pubertyville a group of friends rented the special "art" video and watched it on mute... you would have mistaken the room for a wax exhibit. After that gentle baptism that every man goes through no guy can ever look at a woman without thinking about sex. On the other hand, the girls have their own sex education teacher(their moms), monthly reminders and paranoid-stricken over-protective brothers and dads who knows what goes on in boys minds. Thats cheating and totally unfair.

Its a no-brainer that most women like poetry. So I began a regime of reading books, a lot of books so I can think and rhyme like a poet. I blame the Y-chromosome because I can quote Hannibal Lecter better than Jane Austen. Albeit, I gained this holy wisdom. No man could ever grasp poetry and men only used it as a ploy to get into womens pant. Let me tell you women a secret.. a typical man does not count his worth on the number of tears shed or the number of people attended his funeral, but on how many women thought "he was so good in bed" in his funeral. You can hear Keats, Byron and Shakespeare turning in their grave right now. Thank you guys for trying to tell us that the playing field ain't level.

What women want and what kind of conversation interests them I asked my male friends. In Tamilnadu, where is come from, this art is called the art of "kadalai", definition is not unlike the Seinfeld episode on "Nothing"... the ability to talk or be with a woman for looong period of time without actually talking about anything in general or anything in particular or anything at all. I got nothing. A friend puts it this way, "a mildly sexual yet only flirting, intelligent topic, but still personal, yet non-invasive". I still can't think of anything. I know.. celibacy as a life-style is an option I'm considering. Don't be smart ass and say all men got to do is listen. We need a standard issue women-talk-decoder-ring to understand a comma or a pause.

Now I understand though my friends albeit were trying to help were just as naive as I was and were only good at pretending that they knew it all.

After reaching for advice and questioning self about the answers to life I turned to the next best thing. Femina and Cosmopolitan. Maybe womens magazine have an idea of what women want. Page after page I see/read they like 6 pack abs and muscles like Hrithik. So off to the gym I go. Did I tell you I belong to the species called software engineers. We are the newest hit species in the evolution of man. We are well-designed to stare at screens, use our brain, sit on our ass and move only our fingers. Homositonass Fingerus is our biological name. We can try but a 6-pack ab is as futile as trying to escape Darwinism. Women just skip a few meals and they are in shape.

Yours truly like most guys my age with tamil parents from the 1980's is a product of love marriage. And I'm also a first-born. Damn those love-theme movies of 80's: from Alaigal Oyevadhillai till date the movies kept raising the bar higher & higher. Sergei Bubka would have given up. Most will consider it a disgrace to the family blood and tamil community, so rich in love, to even think of arranged marriage. Imagine the pressure on us from the moment of conception till we go through puberty with like-minded-immature-friends and knowing the playing field is not level and we don't stand a chance and accepting the stereotype of "boringly good boy in glasses, educated nerd from the land of opportunity" and walking up to you trying to start a conversation... no wonder we choke.

Labels: Indulgent me

8 owls

The long distance international flights are always grueling. 8 hours from Delhi to Paris and then the connection to Los Angeles which took another 12 hours. Ask any other professional other than a Software engineer and he'll buckle.. but for us young-energetic-IT-powered-engineers sitting in that tiny "Economy" seats sandwiched between strangers, snorers and wailing kids... is exactly like sitting in our small cubicles listening to colleagues and managers. We just open our little laptops, pop the headphones in and get transported to another dimension even though we are wedged like a stone on a truck tire. Hours of sitting idle,leaving a warm ass-print on the chair, swinging with girls on chat rooms and watching p0rn on our wi-fi laptop is the one thing that comes naturally to us and it has to pays off somewhere.

Lets start at the beginning. Pune to Delhi. I saw the most beautiful airhostess on that flight. Trust me, she might well become the next Aishwarya Rai. Hail Air Sahara! I swore on my laptop to never fly AirDeccan or the other cheap airlines when she smiled and said 'Some candies, Sir?'. BTW - we software engineers swear on our laptops like some people swear on their virginity. They are both the same to us. Full of unused features, clean and well protected inside a leather chastity.

Friends and bloggers alike, always talk about the interesting people they meet on long flights. Something like that never happens to me even though I've an eye, an ear, a mouth and other vital anatomical orifices open for meeting interesting people. I think its another curse on me that I've carried from my previous life. Besides the "never-get-a-window-seat" and "no-girl-will-ever-sit-next-to-me" curses. Even if the plane was loaded with models and supermodels, Im quite sure they will part way -like Red Sea did for Moses- just to let me pass through to a seat between Big Mamma and Yukosona.

The next leg from Paris to LA was as uneventful as the previous one, only longer. I couldn't see the Eiffel tower because I naturally didn't get a window seat but managed to glimpse the "HOLLYWOOD" sign when the plane landed at LAX. Career options, me thinks. Oh come on, I can at least write scripts for them XXX movies!

I was dizzy through many meetings on the first day at work because of the jet lag and I'm up all dawn today. So decided to write this. Oh, did I tell you about my new year resolution? Write more short stories, post more pictures and stop complaining about the lack of women in life. I think I hit the spot with this post!

Labels: Indulgent me

10 owls

My phone has been ringing off the hook, comment box is flooding, and scrapbook is exploding, after the last post. Ladies, ladies... one at a time please. So in the interest of network congestions and blogger.com sanity I pledge not to indulge in these kinds of experiments in the future. Ok sisters?
Lets get back on track... blowing away common misconceptions about creativity using expletively inappropriate analogies. (this way yields more google hits than ever)
Today's mis-concept: Creativity is being original all the time.
Yes, it is not. Repeat after me.. Creativity is being wrong most of the times. And a lot of copying as well. Well, when you eventually get caught it is labeled as plagiarism, but until then at least it is considered original.
Lets face it, it is been proven already that there is no originality in the whole world. That is to say, whatever you are thinking right now at this moment has already been thought off by some other person in the past. Only when your work copies so many different sources at the same time that the one keeping count gets confused and lost, it passes the test for plagiarism.
For example, since dogs are one of the first animals to be domesticated by humans, "doggie position" is the only original position in the kamasutra. Rests are skewed/tilted/capsized versions of the same. (Of all the crazy animal-get-intelligence-takes-over-world theories I fear the dogs-taking-over-the-world most. Imagine the copyright infringement lawsuits and the settlements.)
Come on, 64 different positions for one act? We should know better. Least of all when it comes from a sage who lived in a forest in ancient India. He propably lived alone and suffered serious dysfunction for all I know. The dogs are going to have a field day when they can eventually think.

Labels: Indulgent me

10 owls

Creativity is what distinguishes human from animal, somebody once told me. I say blah! It is a very common misconception.
Creativity is not what distinguishes human from animal.
It is the fact that we have "sex for pleasure" that distinguishes humans from animals. (All thee Animal Planet nerds who are going "Dolphins do that too"... all I can say is, do they wear protection? Bite me!) So distinguish yourself from the animals...creativity follows!
Yes, have sex and creativity follows. You might think I'm way off track here, but have you ever wondered why the best ideas are born either in the bathroom or the bedroom? Have you? Well I have, and no points for guessing what is used common in both the rooms (deviants aside).
For example, why do you think I'm so bad at being creative?

On a completely different subject, I read this somewhere...
"The strength of a blogger, at any given time, is measured by the number of women who want to sleep with him. The magic is in the 'want' -- not the act."
So go crazy in the comment box ladies. Limited time offer. Who knows, you might increase your creativity in the process!

Labels: Indulgent me

5 owls

Tax season is here, so during a coffee break we were talking about how it would be better for the politicians if instead of paying tax and then it taking a long route to finally end up in their pockets, we should take the intiative and go to the nearest MLA or MP's home and drop the money directly into their trousers.
"Bad roads!", someone said.
"Power cuts!", added another.
"Stupid drainage systems!", came in next.
".....", it was my turn to say something. I racked my brains, to show my collegues that me also is a responsible citizen, who can blame the government. Seconds passed into what seemed like minutes before i blurred out...
"lack of sex!"
I crumpled under the pressure, thank you very much! My collegues laughed as if it was a good joke but mostly because they are good friends who didnt want to embarass me.

Damn this Feb 14 thingy. I succumb to it everytime.

In true VD spirit, me broke me spectacles y'day. Now all the pretty ladies at a distance are reduced to just a blur :( Need a VD miracle to get me smiling tomorrow.

Happy Valentines day folks!

Labels: Indulgent me

16 owls

1. When one does not have enough balance to call everyone in Tamilnadu, one shall make one call to one's sister and just tell her that one has got a girlfriend. Rest assured, the whole TN will call one within the next 20 minutes.
2. When some Irani girls move-in to the apartment opposite to one's home, one shall buy binoculars prompto. (for one's pervert roommates, that is)
3. The weighing machines at Pune railway station adds 5Kg. One shall not panic!
4. Emma Watson(Hermione) is a teenager and it is ok for one to have a bruning desire when she walks down the stairs.
5. Thou shalt not watch Momento thy backwards.
6. Physiotherapy is a painful process. Even more painful, if one has to fake one's tolerance level and act more manly because one's physiotherapist happen to be a charming lady.
7. One has to like Marvin's words, "I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed." when one was as depressed as me was, after reading it.
8. Does one know why mosquitoes come near one's ears and make that annoying buzzing sound while one is asleep? Actually, because they are near one's ears that one is able to hear the mosquitoes buzzing. They make that buzzing sound all the time.
9. When Micha Barton is delivering the chinese food one ordered, in skimpy clothes, one should realise that one is dreaming.

Labels: Indulgent me

0 owls

1. If one gets attracted to a girl, then one should ignore her. Until she notices that one is ignoring her.
2. Or until one gets her wedding invitation :(
3. A turtle neck t-shirt would make a good useful gift for a newly wed couple. Why? To avoid embarrassing question about seems-like-lesions on the neck ;)
4. Soduko might be the most hyped game you have never heard of. Close to Solitare & Minesweeper.
5. Long hair does not go with a bald boss at work.
6. One is only as good as one's last blog post.
7. Watching a movie at 2PM in the night when one has an early meeting in the morning, just because the movie has Elisha Cuthbert in it, is very justified.
8. One won't be far from home when one realises that the world is flat.
9. When one fails to woo any girl, and had woken to the unescapable truth that one's will be a nice little arranged love story, one bribes one's mom by buying her sarees.
10. Centre fresh and Center shock are different bubble gums.

Labels: Indulgent me

0 owls

Before i forget - This is still not S m i t h a posting.

Ganguly's been dropped, i read in today's Times. I can imagine a very old Ganguly in a basement holding a yellowish crumpled copy of today's paper and another paper reading that his grandson Nagrav Ganguly has been selected for the Indian cricket team.
Times has always been a source of misery for me. One fine morning, i opened the papers with a hot cup of coffee in my hands and it read "An average Indian loses his/her virginity at the age of 20"... i almost spilled the coffee all over myself.. can it get any depressing than that? But the comic strips and the cleavages keeps me paying the paper bill.

About the whereabouts of my alter ego, i found S m i t h a before the police did (and its a good thing actually), and here goes what happened next...
Me: hey, you know i was getting worried? where were you all this time?
AlterEgo: you know where i was.. dont pretend.. why did you reject the last two stories i came up with?
Me: ok let me explain.. those stories were either too sad or hopelessly depressing.
AE: what about that science fiction?
Me: you know the rules, "No tragedies allowed in pichuva". and you destroyed earth in that story!
Ae: you should know better, the author's mood gets reflected in what gets written
Me: hmmm.. ok, what to hear a non-veg-joke to get your spirits up?
Ae: get out of here, you dumb arse! i dont care about readers..
..and i had to run away from there for dear life. So until something really cheerful happens (for e.g., "i got aid for MS", "boss got laid off", "i got laid") im afraid i can't do anything.

Random thought#1
Until last year, one could tell, "and pigs could fly", "and donkeys could sing", "and a tsunami stuck chennai", "and it rained in trichy" in the same breath. Now all that had gone for a toss. You might argue that nobody ever says "and it rained in trichy".. i agree.. but i like to keep my options open, if you know what i mean.

Random thought#2
Pune's contribution to the world: Wada Pav and load of beautiful college girls!
Pune's contribution to Maths: Definition of infinity - Number of potholes on any stretch >20 meter of road.

Wow! Me just realised that a New year is coming! Two thousand six, no less!! Which reminds me of the 2005's new year party, when we shot cheap tequilas with Lays potota chips. The point on how much we were drunk is very debatable but the fact that We managed to burn the rice we were cooking should give you some idea. The smoke detector started blarring, as people forgot about the fire and diverted their attention on stopping the alarm. Finally i had to step in, recollecting how Pheobe handles a similar situation in Friends, and gave the smoke detector a right and then a left.. kick! It stopped blarring and even now if you go to apartment 6919-D, carlton Arms Drive, Indianapolis you'll notice all but one smoke detector not working.

Did i mention -on serious contemplation i realised- that early next year would be a nice time to shift southwards. Yeah, don't act surprised when i forward my resume and ask for a referral. Damn, i propably shouldn't be saying these things on a public forum like this.. what if my boss googles for my name and lands here? Ok, from here no use of my real name. (Note to self: Remove the picture on the profile... but just in case any hot single girl out there wanted my picture, you could google for images of Brad Pitt, Mel Gibson, Johnny Depp, Vin Diesel and use the "complex virtual JPEG interimposing de-glare anti-noise multi-layer image editing algorithm" to fuse all the images together and presto, you'll have what you wanted)

So, there you go people, a not-so-neat-random-non-associative-700-words post. Im proud of myself... on retrospect, i need S m i t h a back right? Don't worry, im working on it.

Labels: Indulgent me

0 owls

It was dark but i could see her clearly even from that distance. She opened her arms as if to invite me. I went close -within touching distance- and began admiring her luscious body, wanting to feel her smooth skin, my heartbeat rising every second.
"You are very pretty..."
"Can i sit here?", i asked in what i consider an irresistable sexy voice.
She did not answer but the slightest of nods.
"Whats your name?", i asked.
"Ok, i'll call you Demi...", i said.
"Are you a Virgin?", i asked.
Again she refused me an anser and turned her head away from me, blushing.

Oh, btw - I got my bike y'day & i baptized her Demi.

Labels: Indulgent me

0 owls

The contents are getting so narcissistic that me feel nauseaous reading them: i dont know how you people manage. And seeing my incessant talking about women, the Google's content based Ads on the bottom(that nobody ever clicks) thinks this ad will suit the readers..

Attracting Women
Proven Secrets On How To Meet & Get
Any Woman You Want. Find Out How!

Damn! No more musing & self-centric posts. Get ready for some creative ass-kicking. And if S m i t h a fails to come up with something creative, yours truly is planning to write some technical posts! How many of you love obfuscated programs?

Guess the output of this one-liner C program:

char*s="char*s=%c%s%c;main(){printf(s,34,s,34);}";main(){printf(s,34,s,34);}

Hint: Ok, no more self-centric stuff.

And hey, did you notice the new Hermione in the background?
Ok, don't stare!

Labels: Indulgent me

0 owls

..is a tragedy
..is a detective story
..is not your cup of tea

Well, it is not a multiple choice question. All are true. Here is the sad proof :(

Author writes his first ever love story. Comes out to be 35 pages of pure ecstatic love. He re-reads it and tells himself, "Erich Segal would appreciate the drama and Jane Austen would have been proud of the dialogues" and decides to get it to office to get it in digital format. On that fateful morning, in the parking lot, he asks his roommate to hold on to the notebook. He asks for it once they were in office. Roommate gives a blank stare and remembers the parking lot. The author made sure his roommate appreciate the gravity of the situation. Author's roommate still walks with a limp.
And the notebook is yet to be found. What peeves me even more is that someday when i buy wada in a roadside hotel, one of the paper of my love story might end up as my napkin. The possibility, that a hindi director might get hold of the story and make a crappy movie out of it cant be ignored also. I'll keep you latest on this front, as it develops.
Author logically concludes that the elements are against my love story being read by the world. So, it not your cup of tea.
Hence proved.

But some other things in life are looking up :D
I wouldn't have believed this even myself, that why my mom sent me a scaned copy of the letter she received from my company. Go on.. read.. but i forbid you to laugh though!



Well, me is a Star alright! They even sent a bouquet of roses along with it. Mom sounded so happy that me decided to break the news of my engagement. I present to you my Bike-To-Be..



Must be in my hands in 2/3 weeks. 180cc/16bhp/0-60Kmph in 4.5 sec.. and all that jazz. Me hope i don't hug another truck with this.

I finally got the project change i've been asking for more than 6 months now. Wish me luck, im going for the stars... again!

Labels: Indulgent me

0 owls

One saturday night, twenty four years earlier, in the simplest of clinics, on a dusty village road of Tamilnadu, i was born. Dad kept reminding me that it was unusally bleakly for a august night and that it was a new moon day. He would also jokingly add that people born on a new moon day have inherent thieving abilities...err, I became a software engineer, didn't I?
Mom sent me a jeans & a T-shirt. Brother sent me some tamil music CDs. Sister sent me a card. And people from all over the world kept calling all through the night.. only they didn't call *ME* :(
Sorry people, for the absence.. the number 24 grew big on me. Been trying my hand at a love story, and i can proudly confirm that it is not easy. So have no fear, i'll be back with something creative.
BTW - Do people kiss because they are in love or to find out if they are in love? Just wondering..

Labels: Indulgent me

0 owls

Sorry for the absence & all that jazz..me indeed let work get to me. But justified i say, considering they paid me full even when i was away!
I'm planning to change the blog's Matrix theme to a Harry Potter theme. All in favor, raise your hand. Err.. I actually can't see you raise your hand, so you can put your hands down and leave your comments below. Kathak, no im not hankering for comments.. :P :P i will take silence as acceptance.
And since the pressure from all the Pune girls, for me to get a mobile, was becoming unbearable, i got one... a Nokia 3230. (Thanks to Rams for the suggestion!) Apparently all the girls just have to say good night to me before going to sleep. One night asusual i picked the phone up and said "Good night darling"... the voice repiled back, "..darling?? Who r u trying to woo? Its ur sister, u dumbo!". So, no, number available only on request. (attach a profile picture please). Im now armed with a 1.3 Megapixel digicam: resurrecting VVV.
My hand is coming along fine. The physiotherapist being a young lady. But the wrist hurts really bad... even more painful than it had been immediately after the accident. Aaarrrgggggghhhhh! Thankfully, there are painkillers and sleeping pills. And your prayers as well. Thank you guys :*
An idea for a nice little story is floating in my head. Just a squeeze of time off work and i'll post it. Ok?

Labels: Indulgent me

0 owls

...does this thing to me. Makes me feel very sad and very hopeful at the same time. And since im one laptop and one digicam less, i would be musing for a while before returning to VVV or stories.

Pune becomes this lovely bride in a green outfit every monsoon!
Ok, let not begin that blatantly blunt... for starters, lets travel back in time...(tortoise mosquito coil winding)

Me back in office after a Gods-conspired-against-me-but-well-deserved-vacation at Trichy. (Irony: Got 450 new mails bcos of the long break... didnt get it? check my last post.) The moment i stepped into the auto at Pune, the heavens started pouring cats & dogs. Impeccable timing, i tell you... like a cover drive from a in-form Ganguly. The autowala was a veteran driver: he took me in a ring road or something i never knew existed. At first i was scared to find no buildings/people, i even cleaned my glasses, no use. Maybe the rains washed away everything i thought. Suddenly he took a turn and we were in Pune-University road. I saw the buildings and some girls clinging on to their boyfriends riding a bike. My relief knew no bounds! "They are here...they are here only", i told myself. (I meant.. the buildings, you silly.)

The flight from b'lore to pune was a typical Tamilan story. A "hot girl" took the boarding card after me and me was so excited at the prospects of sitting next to her. After boarding, found out she was in the next row on the opposite window. That ladies and gentleman is a Tamilan story... "He never gets the girl :("
But the hospitality of Indian Airlines needs a mention here. They suck! But there was some VIP in the first class. I could see only his hand(no, it wasnt toying a samurai sword), might have been a politician or a higher official from IA itself because all the air hostess were grining ear to ear and talking to him all through the flight. Even the captain came to visit him and was particularly unhappy when he found out the co-pilot was also stading behind him. Then he ran back to the cockpit screaming something obscure...i could only hear "...there..is..no..auto-pilot..."

Was at Bangalore last weekend. Can safely say, it was the closest to one of those typical college days i spent, after becoming an alumni. Met almost a dozen collegemates and partied, for it was Moosa's birthday on the 3rd. We went to sleep at 6:30 in the morning because our jaws ached from all the talking through the night. Cliche ahead: One lives all the boring days of work & chores a year... for a day like that! Yes, yes, alcohol was involved, and no, no, i dont drink.

Now, im asking myself... If the place one feels most happy is their home, then which is my home? Trichy, Bangalore or Pune!

Labels: Indulgent me

0 owls

This blog has existed an year now! yayy!!
It had come quite a distance...

From self-centric musings,
to a short story & photography blog.
From the "hey machan, i started a blog, do read" mail for friends,
to the "hey! nice blog, blogrolling you" mail from a Pakistani blogger.

The drive is "creating something",
closest i can get to being a father.
The fun is "reading the comments",
closest i can get to a mother in UK.

Didn't want to reveal my identity, `S m i t h a` i called myself
but honesty never left me, `gender` column still read `male`.
Never cared for an audience, and i still don't
the drive is still there, even if my cousin in b'lore don't comment.

I will always write about thoughts/feelings i know/felt.
Thats why you are seeing kids and helmet related stories,
and not about girlfriends or lover or wife. But soon i will...
Fingers crossed, touch wood, and all that Chicago jazz

No intention of sending any "greater message" to the society
through my blog. If you find any, good for you!
If it made you smile for a nano second, thats all i care,
even if you are an uppity from Lynchburg, its not bad for you.

I have this overwhelming urge to thank all my friends, (follow the white rabbit...updated)
But i think i'll pass, i would do it personally, face to face.
But i should thank you all, the readers
and the occassional commenters, from as far as Venus!

Labels: Indulgent me

0 owls

I had huge plans for the 25 hours flight back to India. I opened my laptop to work on my next short story. Damn the technology, anyone within a 100 meter range can see my screen. The lady next to me saw the title "Shot throught the heart" and gave me a very wry look. I closed the laptop and never touched it again. I tell you...
You can't hurry art!

Saw four and a half movies back to back on the flight. Couldn't sleep at all... the indian customs people had been taunting my dreams lately. Thanks to my lucky stars they didn't ask me for bribe. Waited more than two hours for a bus at the Bombay airport to complete the last leg of the journey. I tell you...
You can't hurry India!

Life was restored to normalcy again. Sweated for no reason at all. Chatted with friends and roommates. Called home and got some bashing from mom for not calling her before i left. Came to office in jeans and t-shirt after hitch-hiking my way on the Mumbai-Pune highway(note: not freeway). Saw some indian females (God, i forgot how amazingly hot they could look). And sat in the office with nothing better to do than type this. I tell you...
You can't hurry life!

Went and saw the tamil movie Chandramuki, yesterday at E-Square. The no-longer-the-friend-i-used-to-know-got-married Murali and his wife joined us. They are a lovely couple. Very cute. Me asked him, "So, how is married life?". He was all smiles and replied, "You need to get married to experience it machi."..... Me thought of varied replies for that, but i tell you...
You can't hurry love!

Labels: Indulgent me

5 owls

Long long ago, so long ago, nobody knows how long ago... i came to the USofA. Actually it was 6 months and 4 days ago, but whatever. It had been an awakening/enlightening/life-altering experience. No, im kidding, i just wanted to test my spellings-skills. The thing is, it is time to say good-bye and get my arse back to India where it belongs. Like i have any regrets doing that!! Will be starting from here on 16 or 17th: pray for my safe return willya?

I came here a lonely man with only my wisdom as my guide. Don't laugh, i really mean it: i did not even fret a tiny bit when i saw PDA(Public display of affection) and i swear i did not notice the pink flower in the low-cut T-shirt that woman was wearing. Well, anyways, i wont be missing anything, to saw the least. There is always E-Square and MG Road of Pune to catch up on ladies fashion anyways.

Ironically enough, after coming to USofA i made some interesting friends with people from Pune, Kathak and Agent R. Even managed to gain myself a twin and a behena! And an American friend as well, Anju. Overall this trip has been an great success, if you dont consider the project i was working on, that is. The project met some terrible times. I think they finally figured it was my code that crashed the application most of the time, or maybe im just paranoid.

As i look back on the past six months i realise something profound. Apart from the filter coffee my mom makes, i also like Starbucks's frappuccino coffee. Not profound enough? Try this... As much as i dont like this place, I want to come back here to study. I missed CAT last year for this project, but only after visiting Purdue i realised what i would be missing if i dont do MS. Thanks to Vinayak.

Well thanks to everyone actually, for being there, or just reading this and giving a moment's thought to this poor young soul that is so eager to be loved and loves to love back. Thats a lot of love i tell you. I'll sign off because i choke off all the bandwidth with my love. And they lived happily ever after.

Labels: Indulgent me

34 owls

No No not for the bombing in Palestine or the Brad & Jenny breakup... but i take full responsibility for the screw up in blogger.com's comments section a couple of days ago. Let me tell u what happened exactly, First i tried to change my profile, just a tiny bit and i wasn't even lying about it this time(!!) and Blogger did not like it. Y'day i saw this nice/cool template i liked very much, and i swear i was just trying it on for size... and what do you know? i hit the [Save] button and this time Blogger.com's comment server blew up(!!). GOD, Why does it always happen to me, huh? So i reverted back to the old template and the world was once again saved, thanks to me, and worst part is I go down yet again as an unsung hero! (i hope someone from the `Men In Black` recruiting team is reading this!)

But.... i am not an computer science engineer for nothing. Im going to go ahead with the template change and then shoot a mail to the support team (well come on... what else you expect me to do?). Frankly, I dont care, whether i blow up the whole Blogger.com web-site, u see, i have my blog backed up :) along with all my collection(you know what). So here it is my new template... i name it `Agent Smith` (kiddo Kathak, :) this one i dedicate to you :P)

First i thought i would pose as the Agent myself... but decided against it as 1) i did not have the suit 2) the world as a whole is not yet ready to see me like that 3) if changing my template caused a failure then i was afraid this might cause the first ever internet black-out & we'll all go back to the stone age & communicate using smoke-signals and 4) a couple of others reasons as well, but you get the picture right?

And one more thing, i have an issue with not-being-liked. Im like Bharathi in this case (for the non-tamil readers, he *is* like one of the greatest Tamil poets... ever). He said... (im sorry Bharathi, but i have to translate you now)

If a single man is without food
we would destroy the world to get him that

I say,
If a single soul did not like this template
i would change it immediately!

Really... i cannot take the thought that someone did not like me for what i am... and im willing to change! (Its my obsession and it runs in the family. e.g., Pink and Incurably Yours.) But let me explain who falls into the *single soul* category.. *she must be a hot girl*. So a picture ID/portrait along with the mail for your rfc (request for change) is appreciated! And dont think you can fool me with a female model's jpeg you downloaded from indiatimes.com or some such site... i have seen them all :D (who do u think clicks on `rate this picture` link?)

Note: This is in response to the post by Anupama. And she writes wonderful! No im not kidding (Note: i dont kid in the `Note` section). And she has a sister too, at Vani. And she writes good too! I started reading them and i suddenly felt very home-sick :( :((... so i recommend you to click on the links only if you are within a 24km radius of your home...:) why 24? im just kidding :P

Labels: Indulgent me

50 owls

First time i went to a bar in the US of A there was this heavy built guy sitting near the entrance who demanded my picture ID. Well, i do look a lot younger than i actually am(which is just 23 for the single women out there) and so I was prepared for such eventualities. I pulled out my indian LMV driver's license and showed it to him, with some pride i might add. But i wasnt prepared for what came next... he said "Can i see an other ID, please?". WTF? Why does he need another ID? Where the heck is my passport? Where is it when u need it the most? I searched through my wallet and all i could find as a picture id was a xerox copy of the same drivier's license. Anyways i gave him the xerox (with less pride this time) and awaited the verdict (Busted!). He had the copies, one in each hand, compared them millimeters away, gave them back to me and said "Please go right in".
First day at work i was coming back to my cubicle from the coffee break with a plastic cup full of water. I have to cross the reception from the coffee place to get to my cubicle where the receptionist Paula -an elderly woman- was keeping busy as always. As i crossed the reception area she called out from behind her desk, "u know, we have an icemaker in the coffee place. you can have ice in ur water if u want." She could never see what i carrying in my cup, least of all it having no ice... so i asked "how do u know i dont have ice in this cup?". She answered, "Ice in a plastic cup makes a rattling noise when u walk with it." I checked her last name, surprisingly, it wasnt Holmes.
First time i talked to a stranger in USofA was when i came outside the hotel for a walk. It was very cold outside that time, around (-5)'C.. but i badly needed a walk after all the sloth. So this guy who stays in the room next to me came out for a smoke. He started talking about the weather and i thought i'll give him company. He was quite excited when i told him that i'm indian and i work for an american company here. So he asked me about the company and how long i have been here and all that. Finally he asks me "So you married?".
I said, "No"
He continues, "Kids?"
I say (without missing a beat), "No"
Later i realised how absurd the question would have sounded in Indian surroundings. And how i managed to answer a twister of a question without a twitch! Americanisation?
By the way the title was just a ploy to get you reading. This post has nothing to do with valentines day... or my valentine!

Labels: Indulgent me

9 owls

L1. Don't ask me who that is OR what that means. All i know is that it/he allows you stay in the US of A for an year.
Really sorry for not having anything up for so long. Was immersed in the visa filling thing. The kind of questions they put on the questionnaire. Wierder was the kind of documents i was asked to fetch. Seriously, who care about the Appointment letter. I searched for it in the entire house, even the bathrooms, but couldn't find them. Finally when i lost all hope, the cooking maid emptied the rice container and there it was!! The number of holes in the paper and the color of the papers would put a manuscript from the 2nd Century BC to shame. Bravo rice-bugs and moisture, Bravo!!
But the HR incharge of recuritment is a nice lady. I exchanged my manuscript-from-2nd-century to the original copy from the office files. I owe the lady a treat! And i promised myself that i wouldn't laugh at the HR jokes.... for a month.
As an onsite oppurtunity in my company is as rare as an Indian Olympic gold, i grabbed the chance with both hands. But the PM asked me not to say anything to anyone. I counted and by yesterday all my projectmates had wished me a happy journey. Since the whole world already knows, i thought i might as well tell the whole world.
Niket, my good friend and two others also go. We still havent cleared the Visa interview. And we'll be going to Indianapolis for at least a month or two, starting from the first/second week of next month.
And one more good news for all u folks out there, i wouldn't be giving CAT this november. So one seat more for the taking. If only i could come to India for that weekend and write the exam. oh... wait a minute, i forgot where i kept the exam hallticket. But i know where exactly to start searching for it. The kitchen, rice-bowl....

Labels: Indulgent me

2 owls