Addicted...

Addiction continues...

2006-04-06T09:36:00.000+05:30

... but at a new place.
Catch me on my *nEW bLOG*
http://amitken.wordpress.com

Unreasonable...

2005-10-06T10:42:00.000+05:30

He was an integral part of her,
she never thought of them being two separate entities,
and she knew that even he felt the same.

...

He once accused her.
He said that she doesn't let him be himself,
that she thought that his life belonged to her,
and that he did not have a right to live his life without her.

It was true, but in a different way.

Different because she always felt that she is not herself without him,
because she had surrendered her life to him,
and because she believed that she had no reason to live without him.

...

She decided to let him be,
She allowed to let him go.

He thought of setting her free,
He forced himself away.

...

She knew that he'll be back.
He knew that she'll wait.

....

Void moments kept happening
nothing really happened in them
apart from their efforts to hold themselves back

....

She hoped him to be back.
He hoped her to give up waiting.

Let's Get Dirty

2005-10-01T21:55:00.000+05:30

Yes! Get Dirty.

Beware!!! Your underwear is being Googled.

2005-09-18T17:07:00.000+05:30

Google undoubtedly is a big part of online life of any netizen. And its influence on our virtual as well as real life is increasing day by day. Google Earth is a mind boggling application, which is keeping me hooked these days. You can see every street, nook and corner around the world and the quality of satellite pictures is quiet good. It didn't take me too long to find out my own house on Google earth. Wanna have a look? Here it is...

btw.. while looking at this application, I couldn't stop wondering that what level of information Intelligence Agencies of world superpowers must be having. If these public pictures on Google Earth, have the capacity to leave you shocked, imagine what level of detailed information is available to some selected coutries about the entire world. May be some spy satellite even has information on which brand and color of underwear is drying in my balcony today.. Ha!

-----------------------------------------------------

Another application Google came up with few days back is its much awaited Blog Search Engine. Now enter your subject of choice on the search tool, and you can know the openions of bloggers all over the world.

Though, Google is not the first when it comes to blog search. Some other Blog Search engines are Technorati, BlogDigger, Daypop, Feedster and Bloogz.

Chikadappo

2005-09-05T17:21:00.000+05:30

I am in a strange mood since past few days, what i've named as Chikadappo mood. If you put feelings of i-am-bored, i-feel-aloof, donno-wat-donno-why-feeling, wanna-hv-fun-but-how, i-wanna-dance, but i-wanna-be-alone, perhaps-sick-of-my-job all together in a mixer, what you get is Chikadappo. Now I do get these feelings individually once in a while, but these past few days all of them have come all together making the life so boring....

So this post is going to be about unrelated random things, which go well with my current strange mood - equally unrelated and random....

> 31st Aug was a Blog Day! Really??!! Now just like me if you too were totally unaware of this, it's not your fault. The fact is that this year saw the very first Blog Day being celebrated. and If you are wondering why 31st August? then the answer lies in the fact that figure 3108 looks like the word Blog. There are several things that you are supposed to do as a blogger on a blog day, but since i've already missed the bus, i think i can skip them this time. A belated Happy Blog Day guys.... :o) and no i don't want to get into those 'do we really need a blog day?' type of *wise* discussions... I am not in a mood to argue..

> Indian Cricket is fastly loosing its charm, thanks to the performance (or the lack of it) of Men in Blue. This season I am not at all following India's cricket tours, and it's Ashes, which has made me bite my nails.

> Iqbal is a wonderful movie. By looking at his bowling action in movie, Shreyas Talpade, looks like a good bowler in real life as well. Hats off to Kukunoor Dude, it is the first bollywood movie on cricket which has done justice to its subject. (though, Lagaan also did a good job in showcasing cricket).

> PVR Saket, is the worst place in Delhi to watch movies. In an attempt to squeeze as many people in theatres, they've sacrificed on leg space, and your knees always rub against the seat in front of you. To make the matters worse, they were showing Iqbal in Audi 2, which by any standards does not qualify to be called an Audi or cinema Hall. At the very best you can call it a Big Room, and I was seated in the front most row of this big room while my stretched feet almost touched the screen. You can imagine, I could see the cricket ball as big as a football... and the worst part about the entire experience is that even if you are seated in the front row, hardly (so) few feet away from the screen, you end up paying the same 150 bucks that the person in last row pays... PVR Saket sucks!

> I am a new F1 fan since yesterday. I saw an entire F1 Grand Prix, for the first time in my life on starsports and oh boy! how much I loved it. Though it was Montoya who won the race, I was most impressed with Kimi Raikkonen, who finished fourth even after all the trouble with his engine and tyre. The guy was so aggressive. So all you F1 fans, here I am, and Raikkonen is my guy.
afa our desi chap Narain is concerned, it seems he likes to spend more time in the pit rather than on tracks.

> My younger sister has come to stay with me in Delhi, and its most definitely a good thing for her (career wise) and me (personally). However since she is all new to Delhi, and does not have her own friend circle as of now, I also have to see that she does not get bored here. Her coming to Delhi has forced me to be more disciplined (ha!) and responsible (hahaha!!!) in life.
Now though we go quiet well with each other, we are surely not best-friends kind. I have that *elder-brother* image in her mind, specially because in all the time when she grew up from a being a kid into a mature(?) girl, and which was perhaps the best time to be all pally with her, I was away from her, first studying and then working.. only visiting home during vacations. So there was hardly any time to be that much friendly with each other.
I so much want to move from that typical 'big bro-lil sis' relationship between us to the friendly-siblings types. Where we both can share it all between us, just like two good friends do. Lets see if I can be her Dada Cool...

> A blog meet happened in Delhi, and thanks to my Chikadappo mood and some other stuff at hand, I could not make to it. Next time.. may be...

Blog, Lola. Blog.

2005-08-30T17:11:00.000+05:30

Okay .. so after a long time, today I have something to blog about. Yeah I have to confess, these days i don't have that urge to blog which i used to have almost everyday. I don't know, why is it so? may be these days my life is lot less happening that there is hardly anything to write home about. Then I do not want my blog to be discussing all the serious issues mankind or my city or my country is facing. Also these days I don't feel like writing about the way i spent my weekend (that is something i used to do a lot earlier). I wonder if my love affair with blogging is slowly headed towards a silent death?? I don't feel that much addicted towards blogging, though blogging has helped me a great deal, and specially it has helped me make a lot of new friends, both in the virtual world as well as in real world. I've met a lot of cool people thru DBM, and made some nice friends.

Diya, for instance, was my co-tripper on my recent visit to Teerthan valley. And you know, we hardly knew each other prior to that visit. We had met only once at a Bloggers meet and perhaps exchanged a few occasional sms's between us. Later, towards the end of our trip, both of us candidly accepted that in the beginning of the trip we both understandably had our doubts about the way this trip was going to go, given the fact that we hardly knew each other. But as it turned out, lack of knowing each other, added to the thrill of the trip and it turned out to be an awesome awesome trip, plus I found a big-hearted and very humble friend in Diya.
So you see, i really want my love affair with blogging to continue, but i don't know how to bring back that passion in this dying affair....

anyway, coming back to what gave me a reason to blog today...

Few days back a fellow blogger from Chennai, Sophia, left a comment on my blog, that she'll be in Delhi and would like to meet me.A couple of e-mails later we decided that Sophia would call me on staurday once she lands in Delhi, and then we'll fix up some time/place to meet. However entire weekend passed without any call from her, and it was only yesterday afternoon when she called up, and we decided about meeting today.

Now Sophia's favorite movie seems to be 'Kabhi Haan, Kabhi Na', as that is what kept happening on a number of calls between that we had between us this morning.... after oscillating between yes and no a number of times we finally were able to agree on a place to meet. After struggling thru the Delhi traffic at it's peak hour for about 1.5 hrs, I was finally able to meet her over a cup of coffee for around 30 minutes. In that short time Sophia came out to be a very warm person, a talkative girl, with lot of enthu and a person who cares and loves her friends a lot. Most of the time she spoke about her very good and protective friend, Ashvin. And you bet it, I now know so many things about Ashvin without even meeting him once, that if there was a Mastermind quiz on him, after Sophia, I'd be the most likely candidate to win it :D

Given my work constraints and thanks to 'Kabhi Haan, Kabhi Na', I could spend only 30 minutes with Sophia. But it surely was a time well spent... It was great to meet you, Sophia. Take care! keep Rocking!! Keep Blogging!!!

I forgive my Father

2005-08-18T16:31:00.000+05:30

A new ad airing on TV these days is of Bajaj Avenger motorbike, which starts like "I forgive my father" and then goes on to claim "I feel like God".. of course all of this while riding the Avenger. Now "I forgive my father" is the very first statement this ad makes, and it instantly catches your attention. Now in a typical Indian family environment this is a very bold statement, and the ad-men have caught it superbly, associating it with the boldness of their product.

How many of us would have actually made a statement like this? I am sure very very very few... and afa I am concerned I can never say something like that to my dad.

Forgiveness is a great trait, I agree, but with our parents we tend to be less forgiving, atleast through our words. On the other hand, I am sure our parents, even if they realize that they've done something wrong with us, would never expect us to tell them specifically that we've forgiven them. All this is just conveyed automatically, without saying a word, without hitting on their pride.

Haha... Also i wonders how many fathers will buy this motorbike to their young (and dependent) lads, with the risk that their son might actually have courage to forgive them... :o)

Bliss!

2005-08-10T16:24:00.000+05:30

In the last week of June, I was off to a wonderful place called Teerthan Valley in Himachal Pradesh. I had actually thought of writing a full length post describing my trip (which was a chance that I took, and today I am glad for having taken that chance). But now that it has been so long since the trip happened, and I am too lazy to find words to describe that indescribable experience, I'd rather just post some pictures for you all to see.

.... and yes! before you see the pictures of the trip, I must thank my fellow tripper Diya, for without her this trip would not have been possible.

nJoy!

Teerthan Valley - The View

2005-08-10T16:23:00.001+05:30

The Friendly Neighbourhood Waterfall

2005-08-10T16:23:00.000+05:30

Some day, I was not so naked....

2005-08-10T16:20:00.000+05:30

This picture was taken during my spiritual visit to Vaishno Devi, which happened right after the Teerthan Valley trip. As you can see the picture is blurred and hazy, but i still like it.... btw, just in case you are wondering about the creature in the picture.. it's me.

and then...

2005-08-05T15:06:00.000+05:30

I donno how
i donno when
but you'll be with me
very soon, and then...

the clouds will drip,
rivers will flow
at the end of sky
you see that rainbow?

the sun will rise
our fortunes shine
and you know what?
you will be mine.

red, green n blue
the colors will be bright
better days are due
it's gonna be alright

the 'downs' are done
now 'ups' will be here
together we shall
give life a cheer

have faith in us
our time is close
on top of thorns
there is a rose

impossibles happen
unthinkables do
if it needs a miracle
that'd happen too

i donno how
i donno when
our paths will merge
forever, and then...

Oh! Yeah.

My Student Life - IV

2005-08-01T16:16:00.000+05:30

Magar yeh to koi na jaane, ki meri manzil hai kahan...

By the time my graduation was over I had finally started taking my career very seriously, I knew I had to do something exceptionally well to lead my life the way I wanted. How I wished my dad to be a stinking-ly rich person, so that I can just be a spoilt rotten brat enjoying life with all the money that he made, or how i wished to have some distant relative who owned a diamond business somewhere in South Africa, and who named all his property to me in his will. :p

But both of these wishes were not even remotely close to reality... so I had no other choice but to make my own life the hard way. So I decided to do a masters in Computer Science, and took admission in Institute of Management, Research and Technology situated in lovely city of Nasik. Two years spent in Nasik, where I had to start from the scratch as far as my friend count was concerned, are till date the most memorable days of my student life. I enjoyed every bit of it... the fresh air of Nasik, the surrounding hills, drizzling rains, new new friends, hungama at college, the fights and loads of fun.

Going to Nasik, brought a lot of changes in my life. The first and most important one was the sense of freedom. Being away from home brought some home sickness initially but the joy of being on my own was tremendous, suddenly I was not answerable for my day to day activities to anybody but myself, I was not required to be back home in the evening within what is known as 'shareefon ke ghar aane ka samay'. How cool was that?!

In about 6 months of my being there, I met some like minded people, and we soon formed a group of 6 guys, and I really dont know how, but soon we were known as 'The Famous Six' in our institute. What made us famous was perhaps the attitude that we always wore on our sleeves. We dared, challenged and triumphed every thing that came our way.. be it studies, sports, cultural activities, intimidating others and what not.

Every moment spent in and around institute was lived king-size. There were very few moments in those two years when I felt down and out of place. I think there was something in that air of Nasik, which made every moment special celebration of life. The good thing about Nasik is that its a small sleepy town and very pretty. I mean on any given day if you pickup your motor bike, and start riding in any direction out of Nasik, within few minutes you'll be surrounded by beauty of Nature. I don't exactly remember how many times, we suddenly thought of going for an outing and soon found ourselves riding towards one of the nearby places like Trimbak, Someshwar, Vani, Pandavlene, Javhar or Kasara Ghat. Specially in the rainy season, the entire place becomes such a bliss.. it's green everywhere around, there are several waterfalls which just prop up during this season, and the feeling of drizzling rain against your face is simply awesome.

Among the many hilarious, daring, crazy, funny, stupid and enjoyable moments that i spent their, I can never forget this one act we indulged in, which is still one of the most daring, most serious yet extremely joyful and funny experience of my life. Want to know what this act was? then read on...

It was during our preparation leave before the final examinations, and just like every other student on earth, we too had plans to enjoy our preparatory vacations, when one of our Famous Six group told us the problems he and his girlfriend were facing at home, and the only option left with them was to get married secretively. We spent night planning and discussing all possible fallouts of them getting married. Since our Hero was still studying and without any financial stability it would have been a blunder to get married, specially when it was not ruled out that after their marriage they both might be thrown out of their families. But looking at the seriousness of the situation we decided to get our dear friend married. In an extremely secretively carried out mission, we planned everything, right from getting the girl out of her Pune house for two days, to arranging for a priest who'd perform the rituals and a lawyer to get the marriage registered.

On the night before D-day the girl was brought to Nasik, all the way from Pune. She told her parents she was going to Nasik for some project she was working on as a part of her studies. To bring some color to this secret wedding and to ensure that some rituals were followed, we bought a pack of MDH haldi powder, and played Holi with it. That was our way of performing haldi ceremony :o) Next morning with the first ray of light we were in a cab, driving towards temple town of Trimbakeshwara. We had prior appointment with a priest who performed the wedding ceremony. We all were puzzled when the priest asked 'who'll do the kanyadaan?', a few seconds later I sensed that everyone was looking at me and smiling. An answer to priest's question was found... It was fun to perform Kanyadaan of a girl just 1 year younger than me. I am sure, not many people get an opportunity to act as brides father in that age.. hahaha..

Our gift to the newly wed couple was a well decorated room in a hotel, for them to spend their first night. The next morning the couple separated to lead their individual lives as if nothing had happened, the girl was back in Pune and the guy was, well, with us trying to study for exams which were very near. Apart form six of us, and the priest, and the marriage registrar not a single soul on earth knew about this wedding.

Six month later, when our groom had passed the final exam and secured a decent job, the news was broken to their respective families. After some initial hiccups, fortunately the family members agreed, and today the lovely couple is leading a wonderful life.

With the end of my Masters education, I was all set to say bye to being a student and jump in big bad corporate world. Though very soon did I realize that you never stop being a student, never....

I wanted to show the world what I was capable of, and of course I wanted to earn money... My money. "The world is waiting for you" I told myself.

Blogging.. Blogging...

2005-07-22T11:15:00.000+05:30

Hiiiiii,

Since I am excessively busy these days at work (believe me!), and its hard to find time to blog regularly, I have been unable to update this place as often I'd like to. From the comment that I have
received on my previous few posts, I can happily believe there are at least *few people* who actually wait for me to post.. Thank You guys.. it really feels great to know that you exist :o)

Now, to revive my blogging instincts this saturday I am gonna attend the Delhi Blogger's Meet (DBM). The last DBM that I attended was a great experience, so I am kind of looking forward to meet some of the old blogger mates, whom I am in touch with, and some new bloggers. It should be exciting. IF you are a blogger and in Delhi this saturday... make it a point to Be There. It should be fun..

Here are the details...

Event : Delhi Blogger's Monsoon Meet (DBMM) or DBM-VII
Date : Saturday, 23rd July 2005
Time : 6.00 pm onwards
Venue : Cafe Coffee Day @ C.P.

(psst: the concluding part of 'My Student Life' series will be out soon, so keep looking for this space)

My Student Life - Part 3

2005-07-06T19:07:00.000+05:30

Purani Jeans aur Guitar...

Did I mention in my last article about my school, that apart from being boys-only school, it was also a science-only school. We did not have any art/commerce subjects taught in our school. So in std XII we had to choose between PCM (physics, chemistry, maths) and CBZ (chemistry, biology, zoology)... out of which I had very conveniently chosen PCM simply because I hated biology for it's a very theoretical and less logical subject as compared to physics or maths, and it required a lot of rattafication, of which I was not very fond.

This was a time when I was completely lost and had nothing planned in my head about my career, so I just started following others. Since almost all of my friends were preparing for IIT-JEE, I too followed them and started preparing for engineering. But as I can tell you today in those two years of preparing for engineering, I just wasted my time and did not take care of my studies, and as a result I failed to secure admission to IIT or any other good engineering college. Those years were too depressing, but I don't have anyone else but me to blame for it. Though I also feel that this failure served as a much needed wake-up call for me, and I started collecting pieces of strength from ground.

While preparing for engineering, as a backup I had joined B.Sc. at V.S.S.D. College, primarily because this college was not too strict about the attendance which also suited my engineering entrance exam preparation plan. After I gave-up trying for engineering, I continued with B.Sc. and started attending VSSD college, and very soon I had tens of reasons why I did not want to attend classes at my college regularly. The atmosphere of my college was heavily political. I mean, the guys their.... all they had to discuss was about the student politics, and forthcoming student body elections. Knowing the level of student politics we had in Kanpur University, was enough reason for me to stay away from college. So I started accompanying my friends who were in other colleges like Christchurch and PPN college. These visits to other colleges were purely for fun, and of course for the pretty girls in those colleges.

This was the time that along with B.Sc. I parallelly took admission to NIIT, a computer education institute. I thought it was wise to have some computer knowledge as it would perhaps help me in whatever I do with my career in future. Joining NIIT was a welcome change from my past three dark years academically. I started enjoying studying computer science, and Foxbase became the first software package I learnt programming in and started to communicate with my computer. Though I was supposed to be in NIIT just for 2 hours everyday, 3 days a week, very soon, I started spending a large amount of day there. Everyday I could be found in the computer lab or the so called study room at institute, and the reason was my love for programming..... hell no, I liked programming alright, but the real reason was every two hours the batch would change and so would the pretty girls in each batch. Very soon I knew all pretty girls in almost every batch.

In my own batch there were 3 girls worth mentioning.... two glamourous and one very simple. Among the glamourous, the first was sweet looking Shruti, and the sexy Ruby. The third simple girl was Anu, I'll talk about her a little later. I became friends with the Shruti & Ruby soon, however I never really could think of them as real good friends ever, and I am sure that this feeling was mutual. However I was surprised to know that some other guys thought that I had something going on with Ruby, and a few of them kind of threatened me to stay away from her.

As I was spending most of my time in computer institute I became friends with many people, and a guy named Ashish came up with an idea of starting a club for computer science students like us. Some of us like minded people came together and gave shape to this idea. We named our club Cyber Club. Soon we started signing people studying in various batches in NIIT as members, giving presentations and telling them about our small idea which would turn into something big one day. Thanks to cyber club I became friends with so many guys and oh-So-many girls, that I almost forgot about the 7 year drought I had suffered in school days. The various events that we organized like Quizzes, competitions, dance parties, fete etc. helped me see, interact and "try" to understand girls. Cyber club also gave me some long lasting friends like Vipul, Swati, Nitin and Anu. Yes, Anu the same simple girl in my batch I talked about earlier. Anu, though in same batch as mine, became my friend only after I met Swati, both of them being very close friends. Now Swati is some one whom I can keep writing about. She happens to be my first Girlfriend, and my friend for ever. In fact she is such a sweetheart that calling her just a girlfriend or best friend would be an understatement. Now our group in NIIT... Vipul, Swati, Anu & me did all the craziest things possible, played pranks on people and had a wonderfully wonderful time together. That was a great time.

I remember how this one guy, Siddhant (name changed to protect his identity), was interested in Anu, and his round face became as long as a horse every time Anu called him Siddhant Bhiya... hahaha.. One fine day me and Vipul caught hold of this chap and after a little effort he confessed to us that he had a liking for Anu, and he was so very disappointed with Anu calling him bhaiya. Our dirty minds worked overtime, and we promised him that we'll make Anu not call him bhaiya anymore, but for that he'll have to throw a party and I took upon the responsibility of making sure Anu was there at his party. Within hours the guy was all set to give us a party at the Little Chef restaurant. Me and Vipul conveyed our plan to Anu and Swati, and they were as sporting as always. We all had a great time at this guys expense, and at the end of it he got what we promised him when Anu publicly and very sweetly declared "what bhaiya? Siddhant is a nice friend". With this one statement the poor chap was more than delighted and so were we. I know it was very mean of us to do that to an unsuspecting Siddhant, but all this seemed fun.

There was also this another cute girl whom both me and Vipul noticed and both of us were kind of, you know, eyeing her. She was Anchal. Our combined and strategic efforts to woo her finally paid, and she very soon became friends with us, though both of us had no clue if she had any kind of feelings for any one of us. After a little confusion she made her choice clear and it was Vipul. Now this revelation was indeed a KLPD*, but Vipul was a great friend, and I gave Qurbani smilingly (*now if you dont already know what KLPD is, believe me, you don't wanna know it too).

The B.Sc. was coming to an end along with my course at NIIT, and with all the fun I was having with my lovely friends, I knew it was time to move on to serious things in life.. like..... a career.

Next: Concluding part .. My post graduation

My Student Life - Part 2

2005-06-01T22:16:00.000+05:30

Jhooth hai sab.. Tareekh Hamesha Apne ko Dohrati Hai..
Jhooth hai sab...

As soon as I passed out from Saraswati Shishu Mandir, my primary school, I was no more a shishu (kid), and I had to face the reality of this bad ugly world, where you are always in a race, you always need to compete with everyone just to prove your existence to the world. And so I was appearing in my first competitive exam for admission to one of the best high-school in Kanpur (or in fact entire state of U.P.). There were students like me from all over the state who aspired to be a part of this school. I do not quiet remember how hard i studied for it, but I remember that it was my first summer vacation when I was not allowed to play all day. Only a couple of hours in evening I was allowed to go out and play gully cricket. Also I believe my mom had to work even harder to make me study, and take this exam seriously.

And after these days of not playing all day long, the God had mercy on me, and I cleared the entrance exam, and took admission in Std VI at Pt. Deendayal Vidyalaya. Deendayal was considered the best school, for it had maximum no of students making it too the merit list for Std 10 & 10+2 UP board exams. As soon as I cleared this exam, I became the hero of our mohalla. All the Auntie's of the locality where I lived in told their kids, "see Amit cleared Deendayal, now start studying like that", while my mom looked on with pride in her eyes. From that day onwards I got the reputation of being the most studious baccha of our locality, something which I was not.. I mean i sincerely hated studying right from the beginning. But who doesn't like all the attention and admiration, so I also posed like being a studious guy in front of other kids in my locality. And as a matter of fact, it may sound a little self-praising, but I definitely was much better than all those guys in studies anyway.

On my day one in my new school, I was simply overwhelmed by the sheer size of the semicircular building. The huge circular lawn in the front, a huge play ground on the back, bigger class rooms, 700 students in all, a magnanimous Vishal Kaksha, where all 700 students assembled for Prarthana in the morning (morning prayer), for Bhojan Bela (Lunch Break) in the noon and then for 'Vande Mataram' signalling end of the day. There was a big big change from my previous school days though, here we no longer had to call our girl-calssmates as 'behens'. And this did not make me any happier coz this new school was an All Boys School :-( ... (now tell me what's better, having all girls around as sisters, or not having girls around at all?) At that time though I didn't really know if that was a good thing or not, it did not really make any difference to me.

In the next 7 years that I spent their I went through a roller coaster ride, affecting all aspects of my life. Study wise I was never a extremely brilliant student (though people in our locality still thought so, out of the reputation my school had), I always managed to get decent enough marks and I was more or less content with it. But other than study, Deendayal Vidyalaya gave me the power to think, to debate with myself, to build on the morals and values which I had got from my parents. Whatever I am today, as a person, I attribute a big big share of it to my schooling in Deendayal.

And needless to say I had great n grand fun in these 7 years, gradually moving from being a new comer to becoming a senior, gradually from being a extremely shy student who spoke very less with very few friends to becoming a guy who communicated extensively within his gang of friends, and reasonably with others. We played cricket using the broken leg of chair as a bat, We stole rubber chappals from school hostel (yes, didn't I tell you, our school had a hostel too, for students from other parts of state) and wore them on our hands using them as an alternative to Table Tennis Bat. We also played football with a plastic ball, mostly kicking legs of opponent team players rather than the tiny plastic ball. We also played the conventional games like eye-spy, janjeera, vish-amrit, kabaddi, kho-kho etc etc.

During my last two years at school, our entire batch had become very mischievous, as we had started enjoying our senior position in school. We had a group of about 10-12 friends, popularly known as 'Gang'. Our gang consisted right from the most brilliant student of our class, to the average/moderate types like me, to the dumb-asses of our class. What we had in common, was the last row of benches and a mischievous mind. Almost everyday we stole some front bencher's lunch boxes even when the class was going on, finished its contents and placed it back into the bag of the owner, without him having a clue about it. Sometimes our chemistry teacher caught us having food even as he was teaching, and then shunned us out of the classroom. We played Kabaddi inside classroom (yes.. believe it) when some teacher did not turn up. We bunked school to play Cricket matches with outside teams. Some of these matches had some very little money involved, and so often a Lbw or Run-Out decision would turn into a brawl. During my entire 7 years of schooling, during annual sports week of school, I ran out of school twice (only) to watch a bollywood movie. And you are free to laugh when you read the names of movies I watched... First, 'Tadipaar' starring Mithun (aaarrghh!!!!!) and Second, 'Raja Babu' starring Govinda :)) And know what? some gaddaar (who is still unknown to me) puked about it to our class teacher.

I sincerely thank all my teachers for giving in their best to make me what I am, and for tolerating me for seven whole years. Though all of them hold a special place in my heart, I would like to make special mention of Mahesh Ji, our very strict Mathematics teacher, today I am glad for all the punishments he gave me. and Anand Ji, our Art & Crafts teacher, for all his affection and the capability of putting up with our stupid demands.

Among the school time friends, I am still constantly in touch with many guys from our gang. Infact few of them are my langotiya yaars (if loosely translated in english it means 'underwear buddy'). If I were to list all of my friends from those days believe me the list would consist some 40-50 guys. So here is a list of some of my very close buddies from school and their nick names are given besides them. And believe me, every one's nick name has a story behind it, I may write another post someday to tell you those extremely funny stories. Ashish (kalloo), Rohit (annu/Bade Thakur), Shailendra (sheelu/Chote Thakur), Amit Gangwar(Gangu), Manish Singh (Taua), Amit Kumar (Katora), Vivek (Chikna), Sharad (soordas), Alok (katta), Amit Rai (rai babu), Divyesh (dibba), Amit Awasthi (pandit), Ambarish (ambu). (you might have noticed there are 4 Amit's in this list, there were 4 more Amit's in our batch who are not mentioned here.. ah it's such a comman name).

Believe me summing those seven days in few paragraphs was a very difficult task to me. Still I do not think I have done justice to those days with this post, but the fear of this post becoming too lengthy and boring n loosing my new friends (you readers) made me cut it short. Every moment of those days brings special memories, and a big smile.

In all those days were wonderful, kind of perfect I'd say...... except the fact that ours being a boys school we had no interaction with girls (poor me), and I was often jealous of my other friends who studied in co-ed schools and always had so many stories about girls in their class, about their love life and about the chocolate they shared with a pretty girl in their class. But frankly none of us gave it a damn about not having girls in our school, firstly because none of us school friends had a girl friend, and secondly we were too busy having fun to sulk about girls not being in our lives. Though it was in these years only, when i knew only as much about the girls, as much i knew about aliens, I did have my first crush and I also indulged in "letter writing" to another girl...... hehehe, yes believe me, those are also some tender, some stupid and some embarrassing moments of my life, about which I'll surely write once I am done with "my student Life" series of posts. I promise.

Wait for my next post to know about my next phase of student life.... the college life, in which I also embarked my journey with the other half of human species, known as Girls.

It's different

2005-05-27T16:36:00.000+05:30

World is a little different today
There is air in my veins
And blood in atmosphere.

World is a little different today
There is water in the sky
And clouds lie in the ocean

World is a little different today
There are stars on the road
And traffic jam in the space

World is a little different today
There is a blog where I live
And my house is empty

World is a little different today
There is only love in my heart
And ......

Yes, It indeed is different today!

- (c) Addicted... by AmitKen

My Student Life - Part 1

2005-05-19T12:13:00.000+05:30

Woh Kagaj ki Kashti .. woh barish ka pani...

Yeah you guessed it right, I am feeling nostalgic about my childhood. Not only childhood, in fact about my entire student life. right from nursery till my post graduation. I thought why not write down about my memories of good old school days. So this one post, and the next few are going to be my about my school/college days.... my yesterday, which built my today, and which will keep building my tomorrow.

I am gonna write about my memories of those times, my friends and non-friends of those times. I will also be very truthful about my life, and reveal even those things about my life which no one really knows till date..... ummm, being so much confessional is hard, Okay.. I'll try my best to be truthful, as I am typing this I don't really know if I'll have courage to press that Publish button, after writing some of those embarrassing truths about my life. It's a little hard thing to do, specially because I do not blog with a screen name like 'Deadly Punch' or 'Spoilt Dude' but with my original name, and also the fact that now a lot of people who know me in real life, also read this blog. In fact after i realized that perhaps some of my office colleagues also read my blog (something which i did not want to happen, i don't know why, i feel lil uncomfortable about it), i hv been thinking of blogging with some screen name, which does not reveal my identity.

Aaah!!!! I can so easily deviate from point. without wasting more time, I'll get back to the days of my primary education.

My Primary School days

My first school was St. John convent, I don't really have many memories left of my one year of schooling there. I only have a faint recollection that it was a 'L' shaped building with a huge ground. After this one year at St John, my parents moved to another house in another locality, and so my school had to be changed too, I am told at that time I was sent to a school for few days, but for some reason I did not like that school at all, and I always kept crying in my 2-3 days of being there. So finaly I was taken out of that school and put in another, which turned out to be my primary school for next 6 years.

Saraswati Shishu Mandir, that's the name of my school which actually laid the foundation on which I am standing today. It was a Hindi medium school, and the class names were also all in pure hindi. Shishu Varg (or nursery), Pratham (First), Dwiteeya (Second), Triteeya (Third), Chaturth (Fourth) and Pancham (Fifth). We called our male teachers as Acharya Ji, and female teachers as Behen Ji. All the Acharyas used to wear dhoti-kurta, and Behen Ji's wore... well what else but sari. We had a typical school dress with Navy blue half pant, White shirt, Black leather shoes and white socks, Girls also used to wear red ribbons to tie there long hair.

The school had a big enough assembly hall, which we called as Vishal Kaksha (vishal means big/huge, kaksha means room), I always found it extremely beautiful. It had a huge portrait of Goddess Saraswati - the goddess of knowledge. This Saraswati portrait was flanked by two man size portraits of Swami Vivekanada and a beautiful portrait of Bharat Mata (mother india). On all the four walls of this assembly hall were pictures of great figures from indian mythology and history, right from Godly figures of Lord Ram, Lord Krishna, Guru Nanak, Guru Gobing Singh to great humans like Shivaji, Maharana Pratap, Mahatma Gandhi, Pt. Nehru, Bhagat Singh, Azad, Veer Savarkar, Lokmanya Tilak, Subhash Chandra Bose, Taigore, Bankim Chandra etc etc.... Almost every well known freedom fighter, every respected historic personality had found place on one of the four walls of our vishal kaksha. There were also two huge painted boards, one having the lyrics of our national anthem - Jana Gana Mana, and another with Vande Mataram inscribed on it. The class rooms on the first floor were built on the periphery of vishal kaksha, and thru a balcony running around the walls of vishal kaksha, we could always have the top view of that beautiful hall.

I was an extremely shy and introvert boy then, I remember that once when I was perhaps in standard One (or Pratham) our class room was shifted from ground floor to first floor, for a good number of days I did not even know where the loo was on the first floor, and I was too shy to ask that to any body. I generally used to go all the way to ground floor to use loo, once some teacher who saw me using Ground floor loo, advised me to use the loo on first floor instead of ground floor. Now I took that advice as an order, and being the too shy guy that i was, i still did not ask any one about where the loo was on first floor. So next few days here I was following my teachers advice and controlling the 'calls of nature' with all my might till the school was over. But then came the black day.. when I could not hold it any more, and even as i rushed out of class room towards the ground floor loo, not worrying about what my teacher told me...... it was too late. On that day after the school was over, no body sat next to me in the school bus, every one who looked at me laughed, and some wicked boys even gave me a nick name, okay I am not gonna tell that to you guys. When I reached home I cried, cried and sobbed in my mom's lap, and told her about my teachers order. Next day i knew where the First floor loo was. Sometimes you learn things in life in a hard way. (now a warning: do not dare to comment about this episode, and if you know me do not ever mention this thing to me, the consequences may not be good for you.... yeah I am dead serious).

I do not know why... I mean WHY... the boys in school were termed as 'Bhaiya' and the girls as 'Behen'. And believe me in those days (I think our generation was so dumb as compared to todays kids) a day before Rakhi we used to celebrate rakhi in school, and used to take pride in the no of rakhi's we got tied on our wrist/forehand/arm from our fellow girl classmates proudly making them all our sisters. So dumb of us. When I look at todays kids, they are so much smarter, one of my cousin who is in class 5, already has more girlfriends than I ever had in my entire life time. A nephew of mine who is just in Second standard, needs privacy and takes the phone to another room when he talks to one of his girl classmates. His face turns red when we tease him about his class 2 girlfriend. And me... till the time i was in class 5, i did not make any girlfriends, i only made sisters... huh!!!

My favorite teacher was Arvind Acharya Ji, he was our maths teacher, he was very smart, handsome, and he used to like me too. I was most fearful of our Sanskrit lady teacher, Shakuntala Behen Ji. However later I realized that she was very loving, I once met her after 7-8 years of passing out from Shishu Mandir, and I loved that look in her eyes, I cant really describe that look in totality..... the look which a teacher has seeing his students growing up and doing well in life.

Hmmm.... my friends from those days. Well i remember three good friends from those days.. Dharmendra, Rishi and Umang. I lost touch totally with Dharmendra after we passed out of Shishu Mandir. He was a good friend very funny and well built. I remember him taking my side and saving me whenever we had some fight in school. I being a skinny, tiny boy was mostly at receiving end in these fights, though i always had a policy of 'hit and run', but whenever i was not able to run, there was always Dharmendra for my help.
Rishi, was also a good friend, I got along with him very well. After passing out of Shishu Mandir he took admission in a different school than mine. He in fact visited my place a couple of times after we passed class five. After a year or so we lost touch. Years later during graduation days I heard about him, he had become active in student politics. And knowing the level of student politics we had in our colleges I did not have a good feeling about it. Only a few days later, I saw his picture in a news paper, in which he was lying unconscious on the road, the heading read student leader attempted to suicide over some student welfare issue. Later i heard in college that it was all a drama to evoke sympathy as the student body elections were coming close. I thought he had lost it completely.
Umang, the only friend from those days, who is still in touch. After we took admissions in different schools in standard sixth, for about a year or so we kept in touch through letters, and then next 4 years we were out of touch. Then while in standard 11, he joined my school only, and we were again good friends. Today he runs his family business successfully, is married and is a father of a year old girl child.

Among the girls, I only recollect two of them, One named Vandana and another named Shalini. Vandana was this cute girl i liked, i often tied her long hair with the chair she was seated on. heheh... that seemed fun. The other girl Shalini was the class topper, and that was the reason why i had a liking towards her. Absolutely don't have any idea what these two girls are doing now.

Apart from the fact that I did not make any girl friends, I love those years of my life. I am really thankful to all my teachers, for they played a big role in laying a perfect foundation for my life. The values which they instilled in me are still very close to my heart. I want to go back to the same vishal kaksha right now, stand in front of that huge Saraswati portrait, and say school prayer with all school mates on top of my voice.

coming up... the next 7 years (class 6 to class 12)

Yaaaaaawn....

2005-05-06T16:39:00.000+05:30

Well.. well.... I am writing this post for no apparent reason. Not that all my earlier posts were written with some reason in mind, but this particular post is probably gonna be worst post of my life till now, so if u have any better things to do, just go ahead and do it, do not bother to waste your time here.

Really... I mean anyway Friday is the most difficult day to spend in office, right from the morning you have this weekend mood waiting to jump on your head, and all you want is to spend those 8/9 hours of office asap. Considering my friday productivity-at-work (that's one word), I did very impressive in the first half of the day. I replied to most of the important mails, ran some processes that i was supposed to, fixed some bugs in the programs i was working on, and resolved queries of my colleagues/business partners, and filled my timesheet for the day and last two weeks. Isn't that impressive? you bet that is. So after all this hard work, we (my team) decided to go out for lunch, like we do every friday, 'coz after 4 consecutive days of canteen food, we hate to even look towards the office canteen. So where was I? oh yes, i was going out for lunch with my team, so that's what we all did, and had some great kebabs and lot more. Since we didn't have to pay the bill for today's lunch, as one of the team member who had recently got promoted was treating us, we ate even more.. right from appetizers, to soft drinks (no hard drinks in office hours, we are all professionals you see), to more appetizers, to another mocktail, to main course, to deserts.... till the big BURP.

That was it... the big BURP was signalling the end of good times, nah not that we didn't have enough money and were made to wash the plates at restaurant.. that did not happen, thanks to the credit card industry that I work for. Credit card i believe is the best invention of our times, it has become part of our lifestyles. "Some people earn for a living, but I earn for paying my card bills." Now that was my statement for the day. Coming back to the 'end of good times' that i initially started with, IT was end of good times because after having filled my tummy with such wonderful food all I wanted to do was stretch my legs and arms, fall flat and go to sleep.

Magar yeh ho na saka... Magar yeh ho na saka, aur ab yeh aalam hai ki.... zzzzz....

Remember it was just a stretched lunch break between work hours, so we had to come back to work. Tooo Bad!!! Right now at this very moment if there is one thing which i want the most, it is my desire to sleeeeeeep. My Garfieldness wants to take over, but this bloody sense of work place ethics doesn't allow me to do so. My eyes are half shut, my tummy is full, i have no capacity of thinking about the analysis or the goddamn code that i've to write, I am yawning. It indeed is a bad time. I look at the time on the bottom right corner of my comp screen, then i look the same time in my mobile, then i look at the telephone instrument on my desk, it shows time too.. well the time on this instrument is 2 minutes ahead. Wow!!! i can save 2 minutes of being in office if I go by this time. (Just in case you've noticed I did not mention my wrist watch, and that is because from more than a year now I have stopped wearing one. The old one that i have needs a battery replacement, and I am too lazy to do that, also I have been thinking of buying a new watch, and the Tag Huer one, which i like the most is too damn costly, so you see it's getting delayed) However even if I go by this time, there are still 43 minutes before I can shut down my PC, and say bye-bye to office.

Now if i can't do any other thing being in office, what's the easiest thing that I can i do, without being bothered about anything.. anybody??? No prizes to guess, its BlOgGiNg. And that is why I am writing this post, to kill some time. This is the very reason I warned you all not to read this bored post. Still if you have actually read this post till here, you have very good patience, and you are my true blog-friend. I love you a lot for reading this post. Please say "I still love you and your blog" in the comments, if you have reached here. This way i'll know my friends of all (good/bad) times.

God Bless! Happy Weekend!!

Chauffeur Service and The DBM

2005-05-02T19:44:00.000+05:30

That was one hell of a weekend. A weekend which saw me getting up at 5 o clock in morning (yeah.. that's FIVE, can you believe that... ), welcoming and bye-bye'ing a lot of guests. Bye-bye'ing is a new word I invented just now, i know it sucks, but that is the feeling i want to convey by using this word. Basically for a change i was working as a Cab driver over this weekend, and I got paid heavily in terms of statements like....
- did i disturb your weekend schedule?
- good that you stay close to airport.
- you must be cursing me for spoiling your sleep.
- you drive very well.
- good that you bought a car, visiting Delhi is much easier now.

_________________________________________________

Another thing I did over this weekend was attending my first DelhiBloggersMeet(DBM). Yeah! I met a lot of bloggers from Delhi, and it was a different kind of experience to meet people which are known to you only through blogs and mails. Around 12 bloggers from Delhi and 1 from Jaipur attended this meet, which happened on Saturday. Apart from a few oldies, most of us were meeting for the first time. So I thought of posting my observations about each of the person who was present at DBM. First I thought that I'll write only nice things about everybody, coz in all it was a nice experience. But that is not the only way I think about them, besides how many times can you write 'he was a nice chap'/'she was wonderful' ....

So I decided to write both 'The Politically Correct' and 'Devilish' versions of my thoughts ....

Harneet:
One of the veterans in the group. A humble guy who always takes initiative and pains to organize DBM. He has his subtle style which wont let you realize that he has just pulled your leg. But sir, you seemed to be too comfortable in company of ppl you already knew, and were almost cutoff with other new guys who were also present. either that or it was your subtle way of conveying to us that we are boring or something like that ;-))

Priyanka:
A sweet and sincere girl. She was active, not just on the mail group, but also during the meet, the determination with which she conducted the quiz, making every one compulsorily listen/respond was awesome.
Tubelight Fairy..... errr.... Twilight Fairy, should have been a school masterni instead. She Screamed her lungs out to make sure that her Quiz questions are heard by everyone. I wont be surprised if you have a bad throat. Gargle with a cup of warm water and a spoonful of washing powder in it. :-p

Priya & Deepan:
The fact that I am mentioning them together is not to demean their individual existence, but to highlight the fact that they make such a wonderful couple. Deepan's outstanding sense of humor and Priya's witty comments were something to watch out for. Priya also indulged in some provocative stuff (which helped in breaking the ice) like initiating the great Delhi vs Mumbai debate and calling Pepsi's latest "oye bubbly" ad campaign as sexist.
I swear, moments before someone talked about two of you being a married couple, i was on the verge of asking you "so, are you brother-sister?". Now curse me if you want to, but that's the way I am, always thinking positive :o))

Sasha:
I really liked the fact that Sasha, though for a very short time, made it a point to attend the DBM. I couldn't have any discussion with Sasha, given that we were seated at opposite ends of the table. May be next time we'll get to talk.
Why the hell did you come to DBM? why didn't you let me live with my illusions?? My heart was shattered, when it dawned to me that Sasha is not a gorgeous, dusky bengali babe, but a GUY.... boohoohooo :-(

Akshat and Vivek:
No no... do not get to any hasty/nasty conclusions yet. These two guys are not being mentioned here together because they make a great couple or something like that. These two guys are together because after the DBM, three of us had dinner together, which gave me a chance to know them even better.

Vivek seemed to be a very nice, soft spoken and sensible person. But why do you keep creating those polls for every damn thing in the world?

Calm and Quiet are the words, which would come to your mind when you meet Akshat. He was so calm in the meet that I had almost thought of him as a excessively studious type boring person. But this otherwise quiet guy, was the one who did most of the talking while we dined. I have no regrets to say that my initial reading about him was wrong, and that he is THE DUDE. I call him 'The Dude' coz he has so much of adventurous action going on in his life. Almost every alternate month this guy goes on a trekking expedition, and most of the Himalayan treks have already been beneath his feet. No devilish thoughts about him since I made a mistake in judging him initially.

Ajay:
The 'Married Single' guy. He deserves a big thanks for putting in a lot of efforts in coming up with blog-quiz. I spare him from my Devilish thoughts for he was the one who also took pains to go thru my blog before coming to DBM, and that he included a good question about my blog in the quiz.

Sruthijith:
Nice Chap.
Poor Chap. The guy is on a month long vacation, coz... one, he has an exam to appear in, and two, he is experiencing a period of low productivity. All the best for your exams buddy, and I am sure you will bounce back on productivity front too. To shut people up, you may even want to come along with a proof or two of your productivity when we meet next. :D

Aseem:
He was thoughtful enough for calling me and making me realize that I was wrongly in GK-I, instead of GK-II, looking for fellow Delhi Bloggers. It was nice to meet him. After a while he looked very bored, perhaps he too was taken aback by the truth about Sasha. ;-p

Ravi:
He was the only guy other than me, who too reached GK-I instead of GK-II. Finally when he made it to the DBM, he could correctly guess names of many people he was meeting for the first time.

Diya:
When she walked into the venue with all her charm, her expressive eyes were looking for someone. She glanced at the people sitting at the first table, perhaps trying to locate someone, a confused expression took over her face, and she decided to look elsewhere. She took a few steps and looked at the corner table with some hope, she saw half dozen guys sitting there and discussing something. Even as she was trying to get some positive vibes from them, few of those guys noticed her too, and they also noticed that look on her face. More heads turned, she could sense that perhaps those guys were waiting for someone too. 'bbloggers.....' she murmured... multiple heads nodded, and lips curled to make a smiling expression on everyone's face.
Even as she joined them and took a seat on the same table, another expression tried to shadow her smiling face 'all guys.. not a single girl....chichichi'. ... :p

AmitKen:
What do I say about this guy? He is Fabulous, he made 12 new friends, and he loved being with them. Though he is a little mischievous and sometimes does indulge in leg pulling of his friends, but his friends have a good sense of humor and they know he is good at heart.
This guy is superfluous, and deserves a lot of nasty comments. Don't be surprised if he is bashed up by everybody in next DBM.

Howzzat?!?

2005-04-26T20:12:00.000+05:30

The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death. What's that, a bonus?!? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you go live in an old age home. You get kicked out for being too healthy. Go collect your pension, then, when you start work, you get a gold watch on your first day. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You drink alcohol, you party, and you get ready for high-school. You go to primary school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back, spend your last 9 months floating with luxuries like central heating, spa, room service on tap, then you finish off as an orgasm!! Amen.

(.... from yet another forwarded mail.)

London, 23rd April 2004

2005-04-22T15:14:00.000+05:30

Ah! its ONE year now. Happy Happy :o))

I don’t know if I should stay

2005-04-20T22:16:00.000+05:30

In the past one month or so, barring a very few exceptions I have not really been very happy about the contents of my posts. The lack of original and good writing ideas is still there. I thought of giving up blogging for some time, so that I can perhaps get refreshed and then write something more meaningful when i get some good and fresh writing ideas.

I generally (in fact always) blog from office, and this new addiction has resulted in significant decrease in my productivity. These days due to heavy workload, and a heavier state of mind that I am in I am not getting any time to think and write. I cant blog from home since I do not own a computer, and that is a conscious decision, since after sitting in front of a comp for at least 1/3rd of a day everyday I do not really want to spend more time in front of this machine. In fact I have always dismissed the devilish ideas of my present/prev bosses who offered to give me a office laptop. I call my boss's idea as devilish 'coz along with the laptop also comes a production pager and lot of expectations of working at unearthly hours, and I am much happier without these complications in my life.

I think I need a lot of fresh air, a vacation away from regular hustle-bustle of life, and some relaxed atmosphere to rejuvenate myself. Yes!... that should help, but I do not really see that happening soon. Till the time I write something better and original, here is poem that I received in a forwarded mail. If you are working (more so in software industry) you might be able to relate. Read on.....

Poetry by some unknown software engineer:

The name is good, the brand is big
But the work I do is that of a pig
The work or the brand, what is my way?
I don’t know if I should stay.

To work, they have set their own way
Nobody will care to hear what I say
My will be NULL, they wont change their way
I don’t know if I should stay.

The project is in a critical stage
But to do good work, this is the age
This dilemma is killing me day by day
I don’t know if I should stay.

The money is good, the place is great
But the development is at a very small rate
Should I go for the work, or wait for pay
I don’t know if I should stay.

The managers don’t know what they talk
The team doesn’t know where they walk
That's a bad situation, what say?
I don’t know if I should stay.

I can go to any other place
But what if I get the same disgrace
I cant keep switching day by day
I don’t know if I should stay.

"Brave kids do not cry"

2005-04-18T22:13:00.000+05:30

Haven't we heard this statement as a kid? I am sure we all did, and all of us will tell/have told this to our kids. This is even more applicable to men, as women can perhaps get away with crying, as for some reason crying is accepted as a feminine trait. That is why we men have also heard the statement 'don't cry like girls' quiet often when we were kids.

The point I want to raise here is that how big this misconception is about crying being a non-brave thing. As we grow older we are supposed to suppress our emotions whenever we feel like crying and prove our bravery. Just like laughter and anger, crying also comes to all of us naturally, then why do we suppress it?

I am sure almost all of us do have occasions in our lives as grown ups when we feel like crying, but we suppress is because of the fear of being branded weak. Remember those childhood days when we did something terribly wrong, or someone else did something wrong to us, and we could easily leap into mom's embrace and cry our anguish out of the system, only to emerge more calm, more content and more strong.

I believe it takes lot of courage to cry when we are grown up.

I know I have had situations when all I really wanted was to put my head in my mom's lap and cry... just cry. But I didn't do that.... 'coz I am brave. huh..

Tell me what do you do when you face such a situation? Act brave or show courage to cry....

Dead-line

2005-04-14T14:35:00.000+05:30

No matter what state of mind you are in, some incidents just make you laugh.

And so I have been laughing my lungs out from past 15 minutes or so. Way back in February my blog-buddy Animesh, had posted this, giving a link to a website hitman.

Its a real creepy website. After going through its contents I had forwarded the website link to a number of my friends.

Few minutes back after almost two months of the hitman post by Ani and my forwarded mail, a friend/colleague called me up. Here is how the conversation went...

She : Amit, I am gonna ask you something funny and stupid. But still I HAVE to ask you.
Me : (Well.. what's new) Shoot.
She : Remember you had sent a email with a link to a Hitman site few days back.
Me : (pretending that i am too busy to remember such pity things) ummm.. yeah may be i had sent. So ?
She : Actually I just recd a mail from Hitman, informing that I only have 24 hrs more to live.
Me : Yippeee!!! (the devil in me erupts)
She : Pls tell me that the site is a crap, and its a joke.
Me : (with all seriousness) I cant say that. The site looked very professional, it might be true.
She : Oh no! pleeeese... say that its crap. pleeeese..
Me : Okay... Hitman is a crap.
She : Say it genuinely.
Me : yaar.. it sounds so cool.
She : cool?? my foot... What do i do now?
Me : there is hardly anything you can do, all that needs to be done will be done by hitman.
She : I hope its a joke, i don't wanna die.
Me : we'll know by tomorrow.
Me : Can you fwd me that mail?
She : I was so nervous that I deleted it.
Me : As if deleting it would change something .. eh!
She : But why would anyone want to kill me?
Me : Its so exciting to know that you are so important to someone that (s)he gave a supari to get you killed. Its so cool.
She : If i remember correctly they charge $50 K per murder. and one, I don't have any enemies, and two i certainly do not have any rich enemies.
Me : See I am so useless, no body wants to kill me. But you are special, your life has a value, $ 50K. hahahaaa
She : you are laughing !! :-/ even my team mates are making fun, they have already distributed my assets among themselves, one wants my cellphone, another is eyeing my new wrist watch and so on.
Me : And you said you have 24 hrs, that means you'll die in office tomorrow, which could result in office being closed for a few days. So nice of you.
She : You...... !@@##$$
Me : Catch you tomorrow, dead or alive.

Hahahah.. poor girl.. she is real tense, and everyone around is rolling on the floor.