the clean slate

my c has very recently been formatted and i have lost my favorites in the process. but it is kind of good.



the statement above says a lot about my current status.

travel 2009 - 1, oman, muscat

internetting at excruciatingly crawling speed for 130 INR / hour from muscat, back from first meeting then lunch. this time i am liking it a little better in here.

much important meeting listed on monday. i hope i will take [professional] positives out of here.

multiple threads entwined

though top two are remotely interconnected but this post would have multiple threads...

~~~

the magic of adaptability is such that you get as comfortable in your current habitat as you were in your last pretty soon.

the biggest flip of living with folks is that your probably can't make out on the couch as often as you would like with your girl. you probably will need to restraint her from hollering when in ecstasy and you would need to stop from making your point while in an argument with her, just because you don't want your family to be ruffled. the easy way out for us kids which is more imposed than chosen in our part of the world is to move out under the wrap of work and then we don't want to come back

~~~

i don't really love travel for work that comes with anxiety. and the impending travel is exactly that. still waiting for the visa. although this means that i won't be waiting for the connecting flight in dubai for 2+4 hours as i would rather take a direct flight than worry about accumulating flying miles.

living in middle east would be a little hard for me, and lack of winters in delhi this season have reinforced that assumption a lot. i guess i should be happy that my visits to any of these counties don't ever exceed a week.

~~~

i have been searching for some good pictures to put up on my right side bar, of a curvy body. i have been talking about my love for the plump. for those who are are getting gross ideas, please go check this out. somehow i am not able to find the other posts that i have written on this topic. and if anyone can suggest me any good wallpapers to put on my sidebar, it would be great. thanks in advance.

dr. kumar vishwas at moksha '04

he might be sexist and he might give a faint impression of being decadent at his take on a few topics but his lines are intelligent, his voice charming and his comments witty. his names is dr. kumar vishwas. and one of the best performances that i have heard of him made me his instant fan [of at least his that poem/performance].

delivered at the fest of '04 at nsit, delhi, he enamored many by his this gig. listen to it without prejudice, please.



om would love it, i am sure. kyu bhai?

grease that navel

winters sometimes can be excruciating too. of some other minor irritations that they bring, chapped lips is one of the foremost for those people with dry skin like mine. i have always been unhappy with the utter distaste that the cracks on the lips bring.

but this time a very ingenious solution helped me out of this problem which has plagued and ruined pleasures of youth whenever it could :D

the solution is to grease the navel. now, it might sound a little corny but it is purely a baba ramdevish - easy and effective [with no side-effects ;) too] one.

for details don't forget to write to me like you always do ;) :D

the climate here, and there

the winters are finally and thankfully here. the numbing fingers, the bone chilling breeze that shakes you up when you run into the balcony after bath to hang your towel on the cord in just your undies :D. the blinding fog that disappears but paints the whole world gray. somehow my trip to narkanda induced the weather, it seems to me.


although it should be cold where should be but it seems that some authorities are trying to do utmost to tweak the climate in some other part of the world where it is beautifully hot. i mean this is a total disaster. what are they thinking? do the girl not have right to stand shoulder to shoulder with men? even in a developed nation? what are they trying to make of the country - another saudi? a move totally against what feminism and women liberation stands for :D authorities in sydney are planning to ban girls from going topless on the beaches.

if heaven is anywhere, then it is here on earth and you experience it in bits and pieces.

on a chilly saturday morning, sitting on a cane ottoman and eating smoking aalo ke paranthe being made by mom fresh, along with semi frozen powdery chunks of desi ghee, and sipping on the strong milk coffee which you yourself prepared while glancing into the interesting account of his ascent of everest by edmund hillary in 'high adventure', you experience another bit.

~~~

fate sometimes has an interesting way to drive you from getting what you desire to what you deserve.

narkanda, on NH 22

realizing a fun-trip is not half as fun or easy as when om is around.

but after a lot of deliberation, cajoling and planning we {a total of 4 guys} embarked on the trip to narkanda. i decided on it for two major reasons: 1) its height {2700 meters} - with a simple trek to a height of 3400 meters 2) it position on a national highway {less time consuming}

a street called narkanda

upon reaching there a relief that came with a disappointment was that there were a plenty of rooms available as there was no snowfall {a delay}. according to what the manager + valet + house-keeper + guide at the hotel told us, we missed scenes that would be very similar to what om is experiencing at his current base in milwaukee.

snow, but a little afar

anyways, the couple of days that we were there went by with us all huddled inside our rooms inside the quilts for our dear lives. the temperature didn't seem to go over 4-5 degrees centigrade even when the sun shone as bright as it does in delhi. nights were either below freezing or around freezing. our drive plus trek took as around frozen sluggish ponds and half-frozen half-tricking streams to a peak called hatu at the altitude of 3 kilometers above delhi.

official declaration of our achievement ;)

the last day saw us coming down to shimla. i wasn't really keen but more than half of the members vetoed my intent. and with the lure of hotties i too didn't fight tooth and nail :D but shimla was disappointing. the mall was full house and even the lots of very beautiful girls [who incidentally were all petite, fair with ruddy cheeks, straight hair, wearing converse canvas shoes, with ultra low skin fit jeans, and one or the other brand of sports jacket - they all looked so similar that i couldn't even recall one face that stuck to my mind] there couldn't seem to make up for what the overcrowding was doing to the place.

this view was available in shimla too, but i clicked this a kilometer above

~~~

i clicked very less number of pictures, none at all of shimla.

another attack on mumbai [india] today

it has been around 2 months since bombs rocked delhi. and today mumbai. and there were talks of having a federal agency then? whatever happened to it?

and the politicians are giving same dumb template replies to the questions in the media. would there anything be done about it? would there be any proactive steps? would it take half a dozen politicians to be dead before they do anything or would just brave officers and innocent citizens continue to be murdered?

please guys, ask for votes, but stop these bloody terrorists.

i am growing averse to music

i have got another item added to my blog [the little widget which shuffles and plays 7 songs] and i have to dedicate it to four people:-

bubbly - i ripped the idea from her blog. more than the widget, one of the songs inspired me. thanks bubbles.

johny - there is an unpronounced cold war between me and him these days [the reasons are all his misdoings]. anyways, he suggested me to have that crappy shoutbox and now i don't want this 3rd coloumn to look hauntingly empty.

miss thinker - i somehow feel that she is a very cheerful, chirpy girl. very much like the songs i like. hence she now resides on my blog in a way :D

om - he is the one who has always made me hang on, to the idea of blogging.

india - where is it headed?

india set a record of being first to make a successful maiden landing on the moon, first to take as many as 14 scientific tools on its single flight.

although space didn't make soviet union unbreakable but it made it garner a huge respect from the world.

wasim akram lambasted hayden on calling india a third world country. although i don't mind hayden for calling such names because the list is originally theirs so it doesn't matter who they put into it. his act is as inconsequential as the list itself. although what was most funny was akram's calling australia a "village" in comparison to india. especially after today's feat of chandrayaan when it sent first pictures of the moon back home :D

although akram demands a little more space but that will come later. i am just concerned about what kind of image are politicians trying to make out of the country with hindu activists getting apprehended by the police. it is discounting all the positive work done by technologists and scientists.

i am seriously starting to believe that this is more than just about religion. will have to get hold of the book "terror incorporated: tracing the dollars behind the terror networks":-

decay

i have always maintained and often repeated that timing in visiting historical monuments here in india is the most important factor in the rating that your visit gets.

this saturday saw me getting out of delhi, a long awaited break. although the program was for rishikesh, it was later changed to fatehpur sikri. om wanted to click which he anyways wasn't really able to ;)

got started later than 3 in the morning, late by over an hour. but reached when it was still cooler. started with om getting pissed off by the change in how things work around there and then roaming around the fort complex without a guide.

while om, aro and jo were most interested in exercising their photography skills, i wanted to have some group photographs when while getting bored i realised a story there. looking at the uneven growth of wild shrub in the place where once there would have been much revered tulsi plant of maharani jodha bai herself, i lamented the decay.

the place of tulsi:-



that was the point when i pointed my camera at the walls, the crevices, the cornices, the architecture, the doors and everything. the first thought was how beautiful it all would have been in its glory:-

this is one of those exquisitely done parapets which amazes me:-



i am sure they would have looked beautiful in their times, they seem eroded now. what makes me curious is that although the age of the parapet above and this one below would be much similar, why is there such a marked difference in their erosion pattern:-



another beautiful art in stone:-



this is the most beautiful piece i discovered that day. absolutely breathtakingly stunning:-



before soon, my cheerful disposition which was basking in the thoughts of being part of regal settings was defiled by a cruel pungent stink and brought me face to face with the cycle of time which i had always maintained takes its toll. the smell was due to the excreta of rodents which might be infesting the place at night.

rodents:-



lots of them:-



later, more than the excreta, i was saddened by the corruption that was a result of illiteracy and insensitivity among some rodents of our own species. they were more damaging than the rodents of the rodent species.

i wonder what would have happened to the guy who scribbled this, if he would have been caught doing this inside jodha bai's palace in those times:-



some respite was provided by the efforts that were being put up apparently by asi. but it was not really heartening to see that most of the work was being done in bad taste. but there was an effort nonetheless and it solicits appreciation.

the low quality patch-work, probably because this spot does not warrant as much importance:-



another spot of patch work:-



i was so elated by the cleaning-up efforts put up outside the complex and inside it that i suspected that they were repairing things and making them look as good as the original product.

now:-



then:-



the beautiful suspect:-


~~~

after long, i have done a post with pictures. i always like pictures, you may click them to view them enlarged.

a new change to the blog

coming to office on a saturday could be excruciating, even when you have been given a compensatory off, in advance. thus to offset the pain i decided to work on my blogger template instead.

before i had introduced the shout box, at it is popularly known, on the blog, i wanted it to not interfere with my labels link list on the left side bar. thus i thought of having another side bar. but as i ain't as comfortable at css as i would prefer to be, i was left with a condition where the side bar with the shout box [i call it "instant say!"] has its background container overlapping with that of the posts' bar.

i have tried fiddling with it [the float property], a bit, but am ending up messing the template. thus decided that i should leave it at this till someone who knows this stuff could recommend me with a solution. i need to introduce a space between the two coloumns, like the one marked by the red bordered ellipse as shown in the picture below. thus, if you know of a solution and can suggest me then please email me at - bbuurrff @ gmail . com



thanks a lot.

happy diwali to you

wish you all beautiful girls a

very happy diwali






what! do i hear the dudes sneering out there, chill guys, wishes to you too :D

f1 is different! now!

this was written 4 weekends back:-

~~

f1 is going to be different forever for a single most important reason from this weekend onwards.

it is going to be a night race. in singapore.

under floodlights. as if turning your car 80 miles per hour under the sun isn't crazy enough. and to add some more craziness to this, is the fact that there is 50% chance of it raining on the race day according to the forecasts.

i hope to not miss the race.

but one very positive development could be foreseen from this race for us lesser mortals/drivers. the biggest concern of the organisers / engineers is the glare of floodlights reflecting against the water, if it rains.

i hope they invent some solution in the form of anti-glare coating for windscreens or something because we could harbour hope with scientists but never hope that dumb headed drivers driving in high beam [even when it is raining] on our roads would ever learn.

buying furniture in noida

it is a dissatisfying experience, if not an unhappy one, looking to buy a coffee table in noida within sane budget.

it seems that the designers think that there are only two types of buyers

1. with money
2. with no idea what decency is

if i am someone who wants to buy a piece of elegant furniture, with a simple design that is not soliciting mucus all over it the moment you have a look at it, for a price that is within 25% to 50% [as profit] of its cost price here in noida then you are insane.

if any of you can suggest some good furniture shop in noida for a middle class buyer like me [budget - 5k, for a coffee table] then please do give me its address

the links for lables are working now

at this unearthly hour when those oldies who sanity has still not deserted sleep and teenagers are still awake, i am oscillating between the two polar milestones of age and trying to keep sleep at bay.




if the above statement doesn't make sense, don't bother. it isn't making any to me either. anyways, the point is that due to some paranormal reason, the anchor tag wasn't working for my blog template earlier. which is working now.

so if you faced any broken links there at some point of time and are still interested, please click them again. they are working now after a little bug fix. you may call me names, too, if the earlier attempts caused you mild discomfort.

my first post with these new labels

this was written last weekend

~~

mom has given me a list of half a dozen tasks, which i was avoiding, as usual, under the garb of it being 2nd october and markets / resources being closed. after the scrumptious breakfast of dahi, achar, muli paranthas i was lying when mom browsed the channels to stop at one of these theological channels. i decided not to revolt as i was at peace and content. i guess these two features are important if you aren't in pain and still not averse to listen about God.

on this channel, there was this person who was reciting stories from shrimadbhagwat gita. he had hypnotic voice, charming dialect and a sweet disposition. and listening to him was accentuating the peace.

it seems from the stories that if pandavas wouldn't have had Krishna at their side, they wouldn't have stood a day against the army of kauravas, even when they had arjun and bhim among them.

also, along with little stories there is as much philosophy entwined in between couplets of shrimad bhagwad gita. and someone with as much story-telling attributes as this gentleman, i was talking about above, could make them sound as inviting and interesting as they really are.

conversations around tea

this is an old post which i wrote earlier, but didn't post it and now it is irrelevant as om has already arrived but haven't took me to the tea shop

bhai log om aa raha hai parso; sec 37, tea shop pe chai pine jayenge. kafi din ho gaye. aunti ke shabdo mein meri tapasya puri ho jayegi. uski shaadi ho jayegi to fir wo akela mere sath chai pine nahi jayega...

~~
below is the story:-
~~

overheard at the tea shop:-

college boys

boy: new girl... look at her flippin' awesome boobs man
friend: where else dude


college boys in formals [probably freshers or newcomers to the working world]

boy: they bloody call themselves the number one company in the world, and have more benches than work desks, hell! i am shit bored being on the bench yaar, and on the top of it not a single cute face...
friend/colleague: i know...


executives in suits in their early 30's

guy: this ice tea is crap dude. this new girl that the stupid HR shifted to my project, that too without my consent; i ask her to think of a design which could leverage our old project learning, and she winks at me: boss, you take care of the designs and i would take care of the leverage part. such fucking audacity man, but i guess with that body she can get away with anything. you know what man, my mom got me married so early... hell!
friend: [day dreaming]


middle aged men
man: if the quality of ice tea keeps going down like this, i guess, i will be better off sipping jonny at some pub
friend: but somehow the quality of females here is inversely proportional to the taste of the tea


retired folks

elderly folk: how much commotion these kids make these days...
elderly friend: don't bother me a bit. these girls sound to me like birds chirping collectively

boring update of apparently no consequence

google has launched their new web browser - chrome. i haven't used it but it seem fast on a machine that have different configuration from my machine. anyways i upgraded my firefox to 3. the first thing i didn't like was the processing power/time it took while typing addresses - which is obvious looking at the bottleneck they have introduced there. anyways i hope i like it. they have introduced new features in bookmarking zone [and i have installed an extension to further enhance it]. hope they are of help to me.

the long forgotten update

it has been ages since i updated my blog with updates. with what's happening around me and how did it affect me if it did.

there are some movies that never lose their charm. i guess that's why they are called classics. somehow the movies that i love never seem to figure in the list of classics. two are them that i can always think of are:-

- the river wild [you need to have some idea of how river rafting feels, or at least seen a river with rapids with your eyes]
- father of the bride [a movie full of sugar & sweet]

do watch them if you haven't

i try not to watch tv except when it is sports [although my aversion towards cricket is growing with every match]. but these days i am hooked on to some singers on a reality show. the show's name is junoon. the channel is ndtv imagine. there are 3 teams one of which sings sufi songs, another indian folk and the third bollywood fare. the two teams who sing sufi & folk do not sing movie songs. and they are amazing singers. and the even better part is that they sing songs which are so close to the land. beautiful words and simple music. tragedy is that singers from these teams get eliminated because no one seems to understand how different they are from the dhinchak material public are used to. you have to listen to them to understand how different, how classy and superior they are to other music reality shows.