Driver Side Decision

What is one thing which you hate from the bottom of your guts and butts on a Saturday morning?

For me it's sound of alarm clock screaming in my ear, at FIVE O'CLOCK in morning.

Picture this:
@ 0500 hrs, Saturday 26th February 2005.
Me deeply sleeping in my warm bed, dreaming about *her* with a smile on my face.

After God-knows-how-many alarm rings, I somehow move my hand with eyes closed and BANG!!! the alarm clock goes silent, and I am back to sleep. Exactly 20 minutes later, it's the alarm in my mobile telling me to get up, I reach out to it only to switch it off completely and then putting it below my pillow, making sure it does not disturb me any more for any damn reason. Another twenty minutes pass away while I try to sleep again, changing postures, pulling the blanket over my head and then taking it away, and this time it's my cousin Sachin's mobile which starts buzzing.

That's it... I give up and curse the chef of the restaurant where I had dinner the night before. Yes! the chef, he is the one to be cursed. It has to be something in the food that I consumed previous night which made me take such an inhuman decision.

Last Friday night as I and Sachin were dining at this restaurant with another weekend staring in our faces. We were kinda bored with the typical visit-markets-n-malls-eat-out-watch-a-movie weekends.
Add to this bored feeling the enthusiasm of having bought a new car two weeks back and some yummy unda curry, jeera rice and you get a instant plan of driving down to Alwar. To restrict our trip to one day, it was necessary to get up early in the morning. Knowing that this was going to be a herculean task, we ourselves had put three alarms to ensure that we get up in time. (I still cant believe it !!! How can I torture myself so much?!!!).

Anyway we were only one hour late from our planned schedule and that was pretty much acceptable. We started our journey with the first rays of the sun dawning on us (well... lets be little realistic, 'the first rays of sun' mean 'the rays which first dawned on me').

Alwar is a small typical Rajasthan town about 150 Km away from Delhi, with an old fort in ruins, a couple of lovely lakes, a not so well maintained museum and Sariska Tiger Reserve forest. Sariska was not in our plans due to the one day limit we had imposed on our trip.

Alwar was good but it was the drive which amused and fascinated me much. As soon as we were out of Delhi-Gurgaon region the entire route was so scenic and beautiful. The entire route has no big towns or cities, you have to go through villages, which are so close to nature. A two lane state highway running through big farms in the backdrop of Aravali hill ranges make it all look so wonderful. The fragrance of soil, green fields, camel carts, women dressed in bright rajasthani outfits, the men sporting colorful turbans .. it was all so lovely.

One funny thing... If you are in Alwar and you have to ask for directions you should know this. The people in Alwar would not tell you to turn right or turn left, they would instead say 'Turn Driver Side' (for right turn) and 'Turn Conductor Side' (for left turn). :o))

In all it was a great trip, and all the torture that I made myself go through earlier in morning proved to be a "Driver Side decision" (or in pure english a Right Decision).
:o))

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On Sunday, I also visited Mughal Gardens at Rashtrapati Bhavan (Yeah I finally did it!!! look I am so active these days, *impressed with myself*). Its so royal and beautiful. Unfortunately for security reasons they do not allow cell phones or cameras inside, but it was great to see Rashtrapati Bhavan from so close. I wonder what does Mr President Dr. Kalam do in such a huge overwhelming residence all alone? If you need company I can come over and stay there for a while Mr. President :))

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In next one month I plan to go visit Jaipur and Taj Mahal at Agra.

Wanna join??

Could not resist posting this... :D

Gabbar's mom slaps him hard, as soon as he is born.
Doc asks, "Why are you hitting him?"
Mom replies, "He is asking me 'Kitney Aadmi They?' "

phhephephee hehheheheh ...

Achievements this weekend (...or the lack of them)

After lying around for a long long time feeling wasted away, a big heap of my dirty clothes took a holy dip in detergent mixed water, and came out all smiling and shining. Their Laundryfication Ceremony was proudly performed by me on Sunday. I felt the same spiritual high as a priest would when he performs 'Abhishek' on Lord Shiva.

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The President's House is open for visitors. I wanted to visit there and capture the beauty of 'Mughal Gardens' over this weekend. However my Garfieldness prevailed over and above my all other materialistic and non-materialistic wishes, and I spent most of my time sleeping, watching TV (MTV, Channel [V], ESPN, Star Sports, Discovery, A1, ftv, Discovery Lifestyle & Nat Geo .. ONLY these channels and strictly in the same order of preference) and watching three movie CDs:
1. Scent of a woman
2. Lord of the rings - the fellowship of the ring
3. Lord of the rings - the two towers

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Though the long afternoon nap did cost me the Mughal Garden visit, in the evening I visited the 'Garden of Five Senses'. Luckily they were hosting a Garden festival there, and I saw some awesome flower arrangements, some very innovative Flower 'Rangoli' designs. This was the first time i visited the Garden of five senses. Its a beautiful place, very well maintained and the best part is that its not too crowded. I have immediately enlisted it among my most favorite hangout places of Delhi.

The War Is On...

What governs you? your mind or your heart. For me its generally a balanced portion of both, I generally take the consensual path between the two.

Mind is an analytical entity, it considers the past, and the present and decides what should be done about future. Heart absorbs past, consoles the present, evaluates emotions and shows a path to future, both in a way try and predict the future, and ask you to follow a path to reach that predicted future.
Life is little easier, when both heart and mind predict on somewhat similar lines, and you tend to take decisions easily, stick to them and be content about the outcome.

But what should you do when your mind and heart give you different signals? When mind says one thing and heart says exactly opposite of that, what should you do?

Mind has power of logic, and Heart has the might of emotions, and when they do not go along, emotions tend to defy every logic and the logic questions the mere existence of emotions.

I have experienced that the conflict occurs when mind says something about the matter which is very close to your heart. If I were to advice a friend about a certain situation, its easier to do, coz then the matter is not that close to heart, and in such a situation I can strike a balance between the voices of mind and heart and reach a good decision. But when it comes to me and that too about some thing i strongly feel about, the war is declared inside me.

Swirling swords, shooting arrows, blazing guns, marching troops, running horses..... Ouch !!!

:-)/o

~*~*
What if ....The heart did not have it's voice, what would happen then?
Think about it .. what does your mind say ? oh.. and what about your heart, did it say something as well??

honey means money, Honey!

I went to Cafe Coffee Day with a friend and his girlfriend on a day which in every way was similar to any other day of year, but somehow everyone called that day to be Valentines Day.

Let me confess, I have never celebrated Valentine's Day. In my early teen days I did not even know if any such thing existed (I guess no one in India knew about it). In my college days it suddenly became a 'happening' and 'in' thing thanks to glamorous marketing by gifts n cards industry, and I too wanted to celebrate this day with someone special. But then I never had a designated Girlfriend, and the girls who were interested in going out with me, I was not interested in wasting my time with them just to have someone with me on V-day. I always preferred partying and flirting with many a friends (girls ofcourse) on a V-day instead of hooking up with one girl in particular with whom I don't really wanna be and then carry the burden at least for next few days, till I could find a nice non-offending way to say her good bye.
And by the time I actually fell flat in love, I had already realized that you do not need a V-Day to celebrate your love. I celebrated each and every moment.

Anyways.... so here I was in Cafe Coffee Day, which was all decorated with heart shaped balloons and all... I ordered a Cappuccino.
The Guy On Counter: "Sir, we are not serving our regular menu today, we have created some V-day special combo menu items and you can order any one of them"
Me : "But I am not celebrating V-day."
The Guy On Counter: "But Sir we are, please order something from this new menu."
Not wasting time with this guy, I looked into the new red menu card, and found one item closest to my choice of coffee. It read "Cappuccino with Honey".
...
Later while having that coffee I asked to no one in particular "what exceptional change did this honey bring to my coffee or to my love-thirsty heart or to any damn thing in the world?"
my friend pointed out "it changed the thickness of your wallet." :))

BLACK

The darkness made way to the lights, and I could see the people clapping who had slowly started heading out of the theatre after watching one of the most wonderful movie Indian cinema has ever produced. Yes, I am talking about "Black".

I had gone to the movie with lesser expectations with thoughts that it might be a heavy emotional drama, but still as I did not want to miss out on some great performance from Amitabh Bacchan, i went ahead to watch the movie. But the movie proved me wrong, it was not a heavy stuff movie. It was a perfect example of a tight script executed in extremely wonderful manner. Some superb acting by Amitabh, Rani and the little kid. And most of all kudos to Sanjay Leela Bhansali, the director of the movie, for coming out with this wonderful movie.

The movie is about a deaf, dumb and blind girl who is fighting with the darkness. Her teacher (played by Amitabh) gives her a direction and makes her pursue her dreams come what may. Bhansali has made sure that he constantly sticks to the central theme of the movie and does not wander anywhere left or right. Perfect example of conveying more with less. You do not really feel anything for the lack of songs in the movie. In fact you don't even notice that there are no songs, because you are so much involved with the story. The background score, the color scheme used and the cinematography complements to the theme of movie.

Guys, do not miss out on this movie, 'coz very rarely do you get such fabulous movies made.

... (i can't find right title for this story)

Though his fingers were little rusty, the number was still fresh in his mind. Even as he dialed the number, he felt a strange flow of current originating from where his finger tips touched the phone key pad, sending pleasant shivers through his entire body.

Zillions of emotions erupted in his heart. The last time they spoke was about 40 days ago, and the conversation they had was left incomplete. Earlier they never even had a gap of 40 hours between two calls and now it had been 40 days and they had not spoken a word to each other. It was an unspoken decision that they had reached, separately and together.

She wanted him to go away from her, because she was fearful. Fearful of the world, which was up against them being together. The world... her world, which contained people she respected and valued all through her life, and she had always done everything in her life to ensure their happiness. She feared that the same people would refuse to respect and value her existence, her individuality, her decisions, her happiness. She had decided to sacrifice her love to please the world, a world which did not really care.

He was of the thought that together they can overcome any obstacles which stood in their way. He believed that the strength of their love was enough to take on the world. But since he was not like rest of the world, he decided to respect her decision.

He was particularly happy about something today, he had a reason to celebrate and he was so much excited to share it with her. His happiness was incomplete without sharing it with her. His heart was beating faster with every ring of the phone, and then she answered. He could feel the butterflies in his stomach, her soft voice made way to his heart. He wanted to feel his heart melting with the warmth of her voice, but that was not to be. Her voice was cold. They did speak to each other asking those customary formal questions of each other's well being. He could not bear the coldness in their conversation, and decided that it was better to end it. "Where have all the emotions gone?" He wondered, which essentially bring that warmth that he was seeking.

His heart skipped a beat, he felt choking.

...

She could feel that she was smiling, forcing a dimple on her left cheek. Her phone was buzzing, displaying a number that she was so much familiar with. She happily grabbed the phone, and just as she was about to answer the call and pour her heart out all over it, something stopped her. She watched the phone buzzing two more times, and finally answered. She did not speak what her heart wanted her to. She was braving against her own emotions. The artificial coldness she was wearing worked, and the call ended pretty soon.

Tears started rolling down her cheeks, and they felt warm..... suppressed emotions had found a way out.

for the heck of it...

- I bought a new car on Tuesday....

- My mom is in Delhi, with me these days...

- I am not very happy or excited or anything .... Am not feeling anything :(

- Spotted this slogan written somewhere near Pragati Maidan....Cant really understand what it means... :-/
Nari Samaj ka bhushan hai,
Karti door pradooshan hai.

what the heck.. i donno what to write :-
had never thought i'll post such crappy shit on my blog.... but still I am...

I Seek

When I get up
Tomorrow
I wish to
Breath.

Fresh air
Filling up my lungs.
Un-itching tears
Flowing through my eyes.
Soothing music
To my ears.
Joyousness
Sticking to my lips.

All this time
I have felt
Stroke of your fingers
Through my hair
When naughty winds
Played with me.

For long hours
I have had
conversations un-had.

Smiling back to the sky
Seeing the clouds
Making curves
Like your lips
When you smile.

Drenched
From tip to toe
The wet raindrops
Wrap me in embrace
Like you do.

I have not
Missed you
A single bit.

How could I
When its your love
That my heart pumps
Into my body
To keep me alive.

Being comfortable
With discomfort,
Is what I have practiced.
Masked behind
This happy life
Is a wistful heart.

It needs fresh blood
Of your love
To actually feel
What I feel.
Turning an illusion
Into reality.

I am tired
Of being happy.
Joy,
Is what I seek.

Addicted... by AmitKen

..::~~::..

Hmmmm..
I know I have not been posting from some time. I have been busy, I have been doing things, I have been waiting for things to happen....
And now I have a feeling that things have finally started moving in right direction, though I don't wanna jump the guns. Lets wait and watch how things turn out, hope they happen the way I want them to.

I've got a deadline of one of my projects approaching, I am getting back to the project, promise I'll be back to blogging soon. Already my boss is in some strange mood these days. God knows what has happened to him? I am avoiding getting into argument with him, if I get into that it can be little harsh for him. But yes, we certainly need to talk with open mind to get things straight.

Peace!