Advay's World !!!

which movie character you want to be ...

2010-12-28T06:07:00.001-08:00

Well I am a movie freak and most of the time I put myself in those characters..

Following are my top 5 all time favorite characters...

1) Michael Corleone - The Godfather [Actor : Al Pacino]
2) Jay - Sholay [Actor : Amotabh Bacchan]
3) Chuck Noland - Cast Away [Actor : Tom Hanks]
4) Juno - Juno [Actress : Allen Page] - though its a girl character, i just love the character
5) Baadshah - Baadshah [Actor : SRK]

What are your favorite characters ?

the new year's eve

2010-12-28T05:36:00.000-08:00

I had been thinking of planning my first new year with my wife ...
But when I looked back, what I did on previous new year's it turned out to be all memorable ones.
And the best one was the one when me and few other friend's visited our college beach. It was hell of a night and still can't forget it ....
Let me jot all this down..

31st Dec 2009 - Though officially it was my first New Year's eve after the marriage, I celebrated it as a bachelor as my wife had gone to my native place. I called few colleagues from SAP and we drank the whole time. We were drinking all the time and discussing all sorts of non-sense. The best part was we were watching Animal Planet and after boozing commenting on all animals. :)

31st Dec 2008 - This day was special. It was new year's eve + my Bachelor's party. We all had gathered in one my friends house. My friend had to go for a trekking and he handed over the house to us. As usual we all drank a lot and had loads of fun. At the stroke of 12 we went out on the terrace and shouted on top of our voices. The next day when my friend arrived, he got an earful from all the residents. :)

31st Dec 2007 - This new year was again special. We all friends gathered at our flat. Drinks, Music, Full Volume, Mafia. We shouted on top of our voices and had great fun.

31st Dec 2006 - This is the my best new year so far. We all roommates and few other friends decided to go to our College beach(Surathkal). Each one of us were nostalgic about our college trip. On the new years eve we all went to Beach. We had campfire, drinks, all sorts of chicken, food etc. We were on the beach enjoying the new year and around 2am few policemen arrived. They asked us to leave and we protested. Some of us got scared and left the place. Only me and balli (Shrirang), decided that we will stay the whole night on beach, we were so drunk that none of other friends were able to convince us. Finally we both stayed on the beach talking all old days. We both slept on the beach. The funny part was when I got up at around 530 in the morning there was a dog sleeping next to me. :) I cant forget this day in my life. We had so much fun.

31st Dec 2005 - I had gone to Kodaikanal with some of friends. It was one of the most boring places to celebrate new year. Still we found some place where some kind of party going on and were thrown away from it too.

From 2001 till 2004 we celebrated new year in college hostel. It was entirely different. We used to come out of the hostel and dance. Some students used to throw water from the terrace. We used to go Girls hostel until the guard used to call up the warden. It was all fun.
Just keeping my fingers crossed for this new year's eve with my wife.... hope its a memorable one too ...

football fever ...

2010-07-17T08:36:00.001-07:00

well ... I should have written this blog before fifa world-cup or may be during the world cup, but alas, I am writing 'my dedication' after the world cup is over. I don't need to mention how passionate I am about this sport and hence I did not miss a single match of the WC2010. I had correctly predicted Spain's winning WC2010 but my prediction was Spain would play Brazil in final. Netherlands was in Brazil's place instead. Though I predicted Spain Brazil final, I had also predicted top 3 teams of WC2010 and they were Spain, Argentina and Netherlands in that order. Argentina was out in pre-quarters, thanks to great German play. I felt Argentina selected a squad depending upon Messi. Maradona selected all players which were supposed to play alongwith Messi but somehow that Barcelona magic didn't work in WC finals. Ghana had a bad luck with Uruguay. German as usual made it till Semis in spite of having such a young team. Spain played their usual Game and liked them even when they lost against Swiss. The best quality about this Spain squad is their ability to keep the ball and sustain pressure. When opposition is on top of them to get the ball, they keep their cool and play short passes and frustrate their opposition to core. They came, they played and they won.
For me players to watch were :-
Sneidjer (Netherlands)
Sanchez (Chile)
Messi (Argentina)
Muller (Germany)
Forlon (Uruguay)
Ramos (Spain)

After going through the WC, I feel club football plays an important role in preparation of world cup. Also each player must be committed to the role and responsibility given to him. England and France failed because of only this reason, somehow players were not fit in the roles they were given.
Anyways WC is over and I wish I can go to Brazil to see atleast 1 match. :)

Please please sponsor me :)

the karma ...

2010-07-17T07:46:00.000-07:00

I consider myself an atheist who believes in Karma. For me, Karma means, your current actions will have certain effect later in your life and your current actions are because of certain actions in the past. I would love to keep my life simple, everyone would like to, but then its not that. Every point in time/situation we behave or react in some way which have a effect on us in future. I never believed about it earlier, but certain things do happen and make you believe in Karma.
Like human beings, created so many appliances/machines to make our life easier at the cost of environment or other factors and finally human is suffering. Human created air-plane but a plane crash takes live of hundreds of people. Human created money and brother is killing another brother for money. People are fighting all over the world for power and money. I remember the first few minutes from 'Gods Must Be Crazy' (Part 1). A remote tribe in Africa lives in complete harmony where people never had fight with each other. Once the tribe find an empty coke bottle lying around (the bottle was thrown from a helicopter). The tribe think that its a gift from God and they keep the bottle. They don't know what's the use of bottle, so each one of them tries various stuff. Everybody in the tribe becomes curious about the bottle and wants to keep the bottle with them. So they start fighting over the bottle. So this example shows how a small thing can chaos among we humans.
Believing in Karma is really important for us. We must know that what we do today is a consequence of something good or bad we have done in past and what we are doing today must have good or bad effect on our future. I don't know how would you measure Karma in daily life but definitely there would be moments to indicate you about the cause and effect. I guess the day one understand Karma, he/she will try to avoid problems for themselves and try to become a better person in life. I guess thats a fair ask - to become a better person in life :).

... back again ....

2009-11-19T08:37:00.000-08:00

After being away from blogging for more than half a year I have decided to bring back myself on the track.
As this is a comeback blog I will update on what I did last 6 months or so.
Well, I did not loose my movies interest and have seen all the recent movies. Kaminey, Wake up Sid, Jail were the few which I would recommend to you all. Bollywood movies haven't been that great lately. Rest all the movies were not so of 'my type'. I always used to follow Masand's review on IBN live but then later I found that he is sometimes biased. On the other hand I never go by Time Of India review as half of their rating goes to the star-cast. Any movie involving top actor or actress will fetch minimum of 3 stars. So I sometime follow Masand but never trust TOI.
I have been to Wyanad (Kerala) during October 1st week. But rain god didn't allow us to roam much. So we stayed in the Tree House playing Poker all the time. I will always consider this trip as Poker trip as thats the most memorable point of the whole trip.
I hope I got head start today and will most actively update this space.
c ya.

General Elections - 2009

2009-05-17T08:10:00.001-07:00

The result of general election in 2009 was surprising for me. I didn't expect UPA to do damn well. The best and funny part of the whole election was, the predictions by all the news channels.
Everyone was expecting a hung assembly and when such result comes up, its really remarkable. Congress has done really well and lets congratulate their effort. The election results were being predicted with respect various attributes. The one which I read and followed was the "Television ad" by both UPA and NDA. There is an article on IMRB which talks about which ad is most liked by the people of india. The answer was UPA ad was better liked in most parts of India except Karnataka. The general election results were also on the similar lines, Karnataka is the only state which had best result for NDA.
Going further, there will be loads of drama about forming the government and which all parties will support Congress. There are signs of young leaders joining the cabinet which is a good news. The best part of the result is a stable government and lets hope Manmohan Singh can pull India out of the recession as promised.
There are lots of expectations from this government on all fronts and the foremost is security and economical situation. I believe a stable government is required to tackle such issue. People of India seems to be Happy about the election results.
I hope UPA government makes India proud.

coming back to life

2009-04-07T07:37:00.000-07:00

I am back after a long time. Well not really long but long enough to write my next blog.Well last few months were the best times in my life. I got married to the girl whom I loved. It was a great feeling and I enjoyed every bit of the marriage ceremony. But the marriage days are really hectic. You don't need to do anything but still you get tired. So many ceremonies and so many people around. Best part is for every small thing 10 people will say 10 different thing but in the end everything works out. It was really fun. We all danced for all 3 days and in the end everyone was tired. Marriage is one special thing so enjoy it a lot.
After marriage we went to Maldives and it was really great place to be. The ocean is so beautiful that we were staring at it for hours. For the first time in my life i have done snorkeling and it was amazing fun. We saw loads and loads of fishes in water and it was simply awesome. It was surely one of the best trips ever.
Now I am in Bangalore and enjoying the married life.
Will keep on updating the blog now. :)

Clueless ...

2008-09-22T09:18:00.000-07:00

Today evening i was driving back home. It was 6:30 PM. I stopped at a major signal. Heard a loud sound and for a moment i thought some bomb went off. Such thought would have ran through each ones mind who was present there. But that was the sound of a cracker which busted in air. Its scary now a days. The recent blasts all over India made life difficult. You never know the whether you will be able to reach home in one piece.
I hope the government comes up with some strict law against these acts.
To be frank I am scared to go out during evening. I take all the precaution when I am at a public place. I check the surrounding where am standing. I look at every person's activity, whether someone is leaving any bag or any luggage behind him or not. Life has become so difficult.

God's Trilogy - Part II

2008-09-09T06:56:00.000-07:00

Part II is coming after a long time. But let me complete this trilogy.
People get shocked when I tell them I am an atheist. They really get surprised and ask me "why don't I believe in God?". I always give short and sweet answer "I never felt like believing in God". The next obvious question is, "so whom you believe in?". And when i reply, "i believe in myself". The next person starts thinking. But again goes back to the same old story of some super power who controls this universe and all that.
I believe in Karma, whatever you do will return you something. If you do something good for others and with a selfless heart then you will always get good results. If you don't then you will get the bad result. So I always think of doing good for me and for others as well. But people have customized Karma based on Religion. Every Religion has its customized definition of the same thing. When we say God is one then why so many Religion? Why so many beliefs?

hard times ...

2008-05-30T22:07:00.000-07:00

I grew up in an environment where nothing bad happened to me or i never went through any pain in last 24 years. But suddenly last 6 months weren't so. I had been in the the toughest times of my life till now. I don't want to crib on anything as I am the most positive person around. It took me sometime to adjust to the reality and face the present situation.
Its really difficult, mentally, when you are alone and you feel no one understands you. Its the hardest time. I felt like breaking down so many times but. The mind works in a strange way, the same things goes on and on in your mind all the time. One need to be strong enough to control the mind.
For me, i couldn't control my mind, but it became better with time. As the time went by i gained a lot of confidence in myself and now even though the situation is same, I am standing up to it.
I lost some valuable time in all this. I lost so many opportunities in my professional life. My career took a back-stage for last 6 months. I do regret loosing those moments but this hard time teaches you a lot. A lot that books don't teach you. One has to be flexible at times and i guess i am the perfect example. :)

Life is all about reacting to situations. I wish I will do better in future.

No one knows the future, but you can control it. Believe yourself and have confidence in you.

IPL - crazzy kiya re ...

2008-05-30T21:28:00.000-07:00

For me, IPL, is one of the biggest event happened in India after 1947.
Indian Premier League undoubtedly is at the top of TRP ratings in India.
The best part is IPL is not limited to Cricket though the event is designed for Cricket. Having highest TRP tell you that its pure Entertainment package. People gather in front of TV sets to watch the match religiously. Everyone in the family is involved and its a good sign as far as family bonding is concerned. The other option for watching the match is to go to the live action. But nothing better than TV set.
People are watching, talking and analyzing cricket everyday. I go to office and over lunch we discuss IPL. And i believe most of us do the same.
Money was always there in Cricket but IPL made it easy for all. Right from players, franchises, tv channels, media, commentary team, groundsmen, cheer-leaders to state cricket associations, everyone is making money. Its good that players are making lot of money. I guess few years down the line Cricket stars will earn a lot. And why not? When football has so much money then why not Cricket. Zidane's transfer to Real Madrid was 46 million $. There are talks about Messy being going to Chelsea for 80 million $ and how can you forget Beckham going to LA Galaxy for 128 million $. I guess one day even cricket players will touch that mark.
There is lot more to come like betting, club owners owning a cricket stadium, golden bat award, golden ball award, Champions league - where top 4 teams from every country will play.
Only bad thing about IPL is its only for 2 months or so. What will people do after that? Will they watch test and one day cricket with the same respect as they used to watch earlier. Will the regular cricket rivalry stop and new regime will be established? Do ICC see a threat?
I know all these questions are difficult to answer at the moment but the fun beings !

I am not a big fan of Cricket but IPL is certainly big bang in Cricket. At least let me respect Cricket for the People, for the entertainment, for the money its bringing and for the true talent its showcasing.

Book Review - The 3 Mistakes of My Life

2008-05-25T22:09:00.000-07:00

3 mistakes is Chetan Bhagat's next book.
The way book is written, I feel Chetan is trying to be the next Bollywood writer.
The story starts with 3 middle class young friends settled in Gujrat. Being middle class, they all have dreams which every other young Indian have. Everyone wants to earn money and live happily. Chetan has penned everyday life of a general Indian man, which is very close to the reality except for few incidents.
Chetan targeted the big things Politics, Religion and Cricket. Those are the major topics of discussion in India. And very smartly he kept discussion on Cricket very limited, which i appreciate a lot. Because people ion general love to talk about cricket, love to read cricket only in newspaper but do not like to read cricket in Novel. And Chetan has done this job smartly.
Politics was another area which is shown exactly how it is without exaggerating it too much. He tried to strike the balance of his political stands. He showed Ish and Gopal were little interested in Politics while Omi was involved too much because of his family background.
Religion is also nicely crafted in the book. It depicts the exact picture of People's ideology regarding Religion. I liked the way he showed people turning from agnostic to believing in presence of God was amazing.
Also he connected the real life incidents like Bhuj Earthquake and Godhra incident was also remarkable.
Love was another aspect which I think he should have done better.
Overall the book is good, from Indian readers point of view, its really great.
I guess Internationally the book is average as the story is monotonous and easily predictable.

Overall I would rate this book 6.5 on the scale of 1 to 10 where 10 being the highest.

All about Love !

2008-05-22T09:44:00.000-07:00

A small story :

A student asks a teacher, "What is love?"
The teacher said, "in order to answer your question, go to the wheat
field and choose the biggest wheat and come back.
But the rule is: you can go through them only once and cannot turn back
to pick."
The student went to the field, go through first row, he saw one big wheat,
but he wonders....may be there is a bigger one later.
Then he saw another bigger one... but may be there is an even bigger
one waiting for him.
Later, when he finished more than half of the wheat field, he starts to
realise that the wheat is not as big as the previous one he saw, he
knew he has missed the biggest one, and he regretted.
So, he ended up went back to the teacher with empty hand. The teacher
told him, "...this is love... you keep looking for better ones, but
when later you realise, you have already missed the person.

Now, I wonder, how does this fiction applicable to us in real life?
At least whatever little experience i have i can tell that, you make a move when you feel that you found a right person.
For girls, the goal is simple, they want a guy who can take care of them properly and give them a lot of attention. He should be caring, loving, adorable and should earn well.
Guys, on the other hand, have fewer but tricky requirements. They want good looking, smart, with highest understanding quotient, caring, loving and obey his orders kind of girl.

Hence finding love is not so simple. Most difficult is finding the right person, who gives as much love to you, as you give it him/her.

Friendly Advice : Don't judge a book by its cover. Take some time and then judge the person.

Comments Welcome.

Expectations !

2008-05-06T11:57:00.000-07:00

Expectations are everywhere !
Right from the day you are conceived till the day you die, people around you expect so many things from you. As human nature goes, however hard it tries, but the Expectations never stop. I can't tell you the reason but its a human nature.
Interestingly expectations are based on relationships. Expectations generally arises in close relationships. Are expectations good or bad for any relationship ?
I feel expectations are good as long as they are valid and bad if they are blown out of proportion.
The simple idea about Expectation is when you are close to someone, you tend to Expect so many things from that person. The point here is other person should understand and respect it for the same. But lets say if you expect something and you dont get the desired result, you feel uneasy. This might lead to misunderstandings. But with better understanding, expectations can lead to more stronger relationship than it was before.
The other extreme of expectations are more dangerous in which you can't control expectations. Every now and then, for every small matter, one generally tend to expect something from other. This situation is more pathetic than first case.
The ideal solution is talking it out and openly discussing the issue. Also, if you feel you were wrong in expecting something, just accpet your fault and move on. If you take it on ego, things might not work out so well.
I always think that there is only one life given to us and hence make most use of your time. No one has seen tomorrow.
Always live happily and let others live happily.

The change in ME....

2008-05-05T10:12:00.000-07:00

How often have you observed the change in you or closely seen u changing?
I am not saying physically but mentally or thoughtwise.
Everyone notices that they have become matured as they come out of teen. This is a normal process and everyone feels it. Maybe most of us feel it but still it takes time to change.
But there are certain incidents in everyone's life which are worth mentioning.
I have couple of them to share with. Joining my undergraduate college was the first change which i feel changed me a lot. I was entirely a different person when i entered that place and came out as another person. I was an introvert before before and when i joined this college i became more open and talkative. I was never so before, but maybe independence and freedom made me feel better. I learnt a lot of things being in that place and with so many people. Especially hostel life in itself is a big teacher and teaches you so many things.
The next big change i felt was falling in love. It is great. I never thought love can be such a strong emotion. But when you are in love, you feel you are the luckiest person alive. You feel you have the world with you and you feel amazing. I could only have this feeling coz of her and i thank her for that.
In few of my last posts i have mentioned about having a girl and finally i made it.
More on my love life will follow soon.
Things which i learnt from those 2 incidents are, patience, courage, confidence, self belief, trusting someone etc .

I guess you also have a lot to share.... :)

God's trilogy - Part-I

2007-09-15T22:24:00.000-07:00

This might be most controversial blog till now. But let me go ahead with it. Its all personal feelings so please forgive me :).
There are so many factors that contributes to your belief in God. The very first being childhood. A child is told by his parents and elders that, there is a supernatural power called as God, that saves human beings from everything , he is the king of goodness, peace and simplicity. Every child tend to believe or follow what our parents and elders are following as a tradition since thousands of year. No child questions the existence of god and he continues to grow old with belief in God. And the same child imposes the same thing to his children and so on. So its a blind belief that's propagating through years and years.
Second most important reason is the social environment. Its like group of people celebrating certain festival and naturally you want to be a part of it. For becoming part of social society belief in God is necessary else people will question you. That's a weird thought but in India everything is possible.
I think more than believing in God people should try and believe in themselves. There have been instances where people pray to God before writing any exam. I don't understand the point, its you who has to write the exam and not God, then why unnecessarily go and pray God that "please help me. My exam should go well". I had a colleague in office who used to pray God before starting his work for the day and again a prayer before leaving. That was most bullshit thing i ever saw someone doing. God wont come and code for you.
I am not asking you to believe in God but don't drag God into some small things like this. It makes you more stupid.
This is Part-I of the God's trilogy. I will resume Part-II soon.

Taking Risks and Career

2007-08-17T21:57:00.000-07:00

Everyone around me wants to be a better human being and wants plenty of success in life. I believe both the terms are relative. The relativity of being successful is directly proportional to the amount of risk a person takes. There are so many examples in history which tells you how a child born in a small village, in a poor family became successful in life. The best example i could give here is of Abraham Lincoln,who he is my ideal. I have so many ideals and hero's but there is so much to learn from Lincoln's life. While working on a boat which used to carry goods to other parts of the country, he came to know of slavery. He decided to fight against it and one day became president of United States. Sometimes I think Why can't I become the president of India? But as rightly said, success doesn't come easily. We need to take risks to achieve the thing that we always wanted to do. We need to work hard and and work in right direction. But how will one know that he/she is working in right direction? Maybe it comes with intuition or from retrospecting yourself. I am not a philosopher of some sort but that's the only way. Everyone will tell you what to do but they wouldn't tell you how to do it. You have to take risk, introspect yourself and execute your plan.
Last few days i have been thinking too much about my future and came to conclusion that life is one complex maze and its difficult to find an answer about future. I sometimes think why don't i start a grocery shop or something, than doing this job? A change is always welcome in life. But doing better in current job is more challenging. We need to take more risks to earn a happy life ahead.

Independece day

2007-08-14T23:03:00.000-07:00

In most of the newspapers, today's headline is"India turned 60". I was shocked to read the headline itself. Though i respect India's freedom from the British rule, but still we Indians haven't learnt the lesson,which we should have learnt. I don't want to go back to history and find out what caused India to fall for East India company and then let them rule by Britishers for more than 150 years. We talk about our culture, our heritage which is few thousands years old and still we say India turned 60 ?
Now some jokes time. One of my friends asked me yesterday about what i am going to do for ID. I was really surprised by the sudden question. Frankly i wanted to tell her that I would watch RDB and then get drunk and kill few politicians. I guess that's not a bad way of celebrating ID than going to some flag hosting and listen to the same old stories about all those freedom fighters. Don't get me wrong but I have full respect for freedom fighters. I am sure if i would have born 100 years back, I would have been a front running freedom fighter. But not certainly the Gandhi's way, I would have joined BhagatSingh and co. Maybe you and your children would have been reading my name in history books.
I don't want to repeat the same old story about corruption, politicians and blah blah....
I just want everyone to be selfless and be at the their very best in their profession, with full honesty and loyalty. If each individual try to inch towards a better human being, our country might do wonders. I salute to all the people who sacrificed their life for our country. Please don't let them down. Let us wish to make our country proud by making ourselves better.

"bund bund milne se banta ek dariyan hai,
bund bund sagar hai, warna yeh sagar kya hai,
samzo is paheli ko, bund ho akeli toh, ek bund jaise kuch bhi nahi,
hum auron ko chhodde toh, muh sabse hi modde toh,
tanha rahna jaye dekho hum kahi,
kyon na bane milke hum dhara..... "

Love you INDIA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Trust or Love....

2007-08-10T10:25:00.000-07:00

What is more difficult, trusting someone or loving someone ?
What is more easier, trusting someone or loving someone ?
I am sure you will be having a different opinion than me. I believe more in trust than in love. I feel trust is difficult to establish and maintain, than love is. And hence trust is more valuable than love. Love involves so much other parameters like physical attraction, infactuation, loneliness and ones need to have someone close to share ones feelings. While trust stands on entirely different platform. Trust doesnt need all the above parameters, trust can't be established in one day or two. Trust is bonding between two people who understand each other. Trust is believing in someone else more than yoursef. It takes years to trust someone and to earn someone's trust. Maybe love can be seen as a subset of trust. If you trust someone, implicitely means you love that person. All of us trust our parents and its implicit that we love them as well.
Trust is something which makes you feel safe while love makes you feel insecure. Trust is harder to earn while love isn't. Trust is way of living while love is way of enjoying life.
Maybe you don't agree with my thoughts at all. :)

Light and Shadow

2007-08-06T09:06:00.001-07:00

I got a SMS yesterday which read something like this:
"Career is light and Love is like a shadow, if you try to catch the shadow you will miss the light.
If you ignore the shadow and walk towards the light, the shadow will follow you. So follow the light."
I don't know how true is the above statement. At the first glance i didn't pay much attention to this. But when I re-read the SMS, i felt this statement fits me 100% or maybe more.
I never gave so much serious thought about love or finding anyone for myself as i always concentrated on my career. And when someone asked me about my feelings towards her, i made the biggest mistake by giving a negative answer.
And when i think back about the old days, i feel i lost something very important. I dont know what difference it would have made, excpet for soaring cell phone bills, trips to outstation atleats once a month and keeping my orkut status as commited. Though at some stage you feel like you really require someone to share your feelings but then to be frank, no one can help you when you are in real trouble. Its your inner will and strength that makes you feel better and overcome the difficulties. Girlfriend is still a alien word for me. Hopefully things will change with time. :)

I wish my shadow is still follwing me. :)

future prediction ??

2007-08-03T22:23:00.000-07:00

Future is such a mysterious but yet an important word for all of us. I always find myself in a maze when i try to think about my future.
Some of the possibilities where i can land in next 20 years:
1) This is the most likely and honest answer, i will be working for a software company provided the software market still remains with india. But i doubt so.
2) Maybe, if i execute my plans successfully, i will be with some major giant company and doing good in all areas.
3) If i listen to what my heart says, I might be teaching in some school. Maybe 25 years down the line, good teachers will have more value that a engineer.
4)Finally, the truth, i dont wanna say but let me put it in front of the whole world. I am really interested in doing social work. Probably i will end up helping the poor people. Thats my dream.

Where you want to see yourself after 20 years?

My Dream Girl

2007-07-30T09:01:00.000-07:00

I hope she (the girl in my dreams) visits this blog some day.
Though computer came with so much of virtual stuff, but my virtual world is entirely different.
The girl, who is constantly nagging me at the moment, is probably the most beautiful girl around.
More close i go more prettier she looks. I didn't measure the distance between us last time sat next to her. But it was really close, probably not in meters but definitely in centimeters.
Her curly hairs reminds me of the noodles i eat on the day when my cook doesn't come to work, but i like those curls. I always loved and admired people with curly hairs and she ain't no exception.
She has the best smile, her one smile makes my day. Though i had been unsuccessful in making her laugh with my witty humor, instead she grinned at me, maybe thinking what a stupid guy ! But whatever, I know, she would love me some day or the other.
You know what I like most about her is the way she dresses up. Sometimes she looks like a pigeon, sometimes tomato, sometimes flag of Italy and i can go on. She has variety in what she wears and what suits her. Probably she might take up fashion designing if she doesn't go up the ladder in her current job.
Finally she has the perfect lips. I don't want to write anything here as i haven't experienced them yet. Even if I write you wouldn't believe I actually kissed her.
The dream girl should better remain dream girl or else i will be beaten till someone make India's map with my face.

Have fun guys. Go and do some better things than reading this bullshit.

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows

2007-07-29T07:51:00.000-07:00

Finally Hallows came and as expected set yet another world record for selling maximum number of copies in a day. Potter mania is all around and even i plunged into the flowing river to wash my hands off the much awaited 7th book.
This blog is mainly about my views about the book so no offense made :) . I was little late to grab the book. Instead of many fans getting it at 6am in morning i got it at 8pm but the same day.
When i finished the book on Monday eve I was kind of satisfied but there wasn't the thing, which i had expected, would have occurred after finishing the book. Everything went as predicted and only thing i felt sorry was for Fred's death.
To be frank, overall, I didn't like the book much. The main reason for that was the description of Voldemort and other death eaters. It was such a one sided battle. Harry gets almost everything correct whereas Voldermort sucks at everything. I felt voldemorts description were really pathetic. After being described the same man in 6th book with such high regards and with such a precision, somehow i felt the same thing lacking in book 7.
Voldemort never felt anything when his horcruxes were destroyed by people. The horcruxes were more of stupid things which can be destroyed with some funky stuff. voldemort never felt the pain when horcruxes suppose to be attached to his soul because his strength depends upon the horcruxes. Malfoy and other death eaters seemed to be dumber than voldemort. It was so unfair for a writer like JKR to come up with something like this.
I maybe little harsh here, but after reading Harry Potter you really feel the closeness with the characters. I liked the ending but it could have been better, it was like some bollywood movie for me, where Hero doesn't even get a single bullet out of 1000 fired at him. And villain keeps on doing same mistake all again.
Hallows was just ok for me. Wish it could have been better.

The Black Hole....

2007-06-14T09:40:00.000-07:00

It was 3am and i got up...
It was dark, pitch dark. I couldn't open my eyes and when I opened I was scared.
For the moment I thought I am in wrong place. I could see few familiar things around but when i wanted to touch them they went hazy. I got scared, really scared. I didn't know what to do, whom to call. I tried calling few names, but they just kept smiling towards me from distance. I went pale, I wanted to scream, I wanted to jump out of it. I don't know whether it was my mind visualizing a dream or an actual dream.
I felt water drops on my cheeks. Later found out that they were my own tear drops.
I didn't know why i was crying, I didn't know why it was so much dark,I couldn't figure out why my friends couldn't took me out of that shit.
I am still trying to find the answer.
It still 3am here....

The Train Journey

2007-05-30T10:05:00.000-07:00

I like travelling a lot and specially by train.
Last time i had a memorable train journey. I was travelling to Nagpur from Bangalore in sleeper coach.
An elderly couple was sitting next to me in my compartment. I was surprsied to be see overly enthu old couple.
First thing in the morning they did was, got 2 cups of tea and criticized it coz they thought it was tea.
The elderly couple were cursing the guy who served tea to them and they warned us not to take anything from that guy.
Next it was turn of a soup vendor. This was too good. as the guy came near our compartment the elderly couple staretd shouting "kyon jaan le rahe ho logo ki,
bathrrom ke pani se soup bana kar pila rahe ho". The guy went cold and coudnt speak any word as everyone was looking at him. He didn't even stop at our compartment
and went to next.Couple told us not to have lunch from train coz they use low quality material to make food and etables.
After lunch another guy came with buttermilk, this time couple thought of having buttermilk as they thought it will cool them in the heat outside.
Graany started telling that it wasnt buttermilk at all, it was like water and these guys are looting people by selling water as buttermilk. Again the complaining continued, saying people
are selling water in the name of buttermilk and the whole railways food is a pathetic.
I dont know what the couple tried to convey but somehow the catering system should be looked into. Especially in the long distance train wherein number
of stops are less poeple doesnt have any other choice but to take food from pantry. Atleats 70% poeple take eatables from pantry. Probably food should be
of better quality and customers should be satisfied with what is being served.
The old couple were irritating coz i hate people who crib a lot but they had a point. I somehow saw a valid point in their cribbing.
Hopefully their shouts will fall on the concern ears.

The Indian Traffic...

2007-03-13T06:36:00.000-07:00

I was having a conversation with one of my friend the other day and he asked me to meet near MG Road. I said I will take 45 minutes. He was surprised and asked how far is my home from MG, i told its around 7 kms. He then realized that I calculated the approx time coz of the wild traffic here in Bangalore. So as a good citizen i told him the approx time and reached MG in 40 mins.That was an achievement in itself as on Saturday eve it takes relatively more time that 40 mins to reach MG.
Anyways success doesn't come as it is and hard work is followed by success. And my achievement too had a kind of success. I should say success in terms of reaching my destination well before time (trust me 5 min is a lot of time).
The hard work i did was making my way through the pool of other vehicles. Thats an altogether skill in itself. You have too keep your eye on moving vehicles from the opposite side, from your right and left side to see someone isn't overtaking you and the vehicle ahead of you. You are concentrating on 4 different directions at a given time. Good that we don't have vehicles flying above you, otherwise people would have hired specialist like me to drive them to office.Thats a tough job. Human mind have to be sharp enough to guess all the possible reflexes that he can perform in next few milliseconds. You never know which vehicle is going to take a sudden left or right turn, or there might be a vehicle coming from front and wants to take a U turn.
So that was it, what i call it as a skill driving and which has its own pros and cons. But as far as the traffic goes i believe its the responsibility of both government and the citizens to make it a smooth ride back home. I think most of the city roads were built some 50 years back without considering the expansion. Take Bangalore for example, in last ten years the population increased by huge amount but the roads were the same. People are using more personal vehicles than public transport. First of all the public transport sucks except for metros like Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai.
Even if the road is 4 lane but still we face a huge traffic because of poor traffic management.
Even if the infrastructure in place people like me who want to reach office in half an hour, with their creative mind, try all possible routes. I overtake from left, in case of heavy traffic i go to pavement of road, i drove footpath as well. I might be reach ten minutes earlier but what i don't see is the civic sense. Sometimes people really get uneasy and try something different things to reach destination in minimum possible time. I bet most of the bike accidents happen coz of left overtaking.
The effect is cumulative. We all say traffic is poorly managed and infrastructure sucks and on the other hand we are the ones who break all the traffic rules and make our own. The message is loud and clear "if u don't change then we too wont change". But as all the movies come to an end. Probably there will be a day when i see all the vehicles driving in a lane and following all the traffic rule. Its an individual's initiative and difficult to implement.
I salute all the guys who drive on these Indian roads.

M'lore Day 3

2007-01-07T21:32:00.000-08:00

It was noon when we got up and getting up late was obivious. We got up ready and straightaway went for lunch at Punjabi Dhabba. It wasnt the old Punjabi Dhabba but more specious this time and wasnt there at its old place. Though the place was new but the food was equally pathetic. Rest of the afternoon we spent in college. College was closed coz of vacation and it had deserted look.
We started revisiting different joints, starting from the tennis court and DC(short form for down cops). SAC (student activity center) was in the most pathetic condition. It was still having the old look and we got the feeling as if no one came here since long. The movie screen was torn at places. This was the most adoring places for me but at looking its condition i got real senti. We carried on to basketball court, swimming pool, CCC (central computer center... called as tripC), Auditorium,dispensary, mech block and then ATB.
We went to the classroom in ATB where we spent a whole year in section B. The classroom is the same but the long benches are nowhere, instead replaced by nice chairs and tables for more comfort. The most important for me was to go into college library but unfortunately it was closed. so i had to make myself happy by just clicking a snap outside it. We spent some time on the lawn and then on the red bench. Red bench was a famous bench where only couples used to sit. I walked on the lawn of the main bulding, i got reminded of my old college days when me and sandi used to walk on the lawn just to get a break from studies. The college main building has been painted with light shed of green. I quite liked it coz it seemed like college got submerged with the greenary around it. We all roamed there around the main building and then went to DC for a juice. We came back to hostels and saw a peacock near the final year block. We went inside the final block and with out doubt this is the only hostel block everyone admires.
After finishing our trip we came back to hotel and packed our stuff. We had to go to M'lore to catch the bus to B'lore. Again i was uncontious by having avomin tablet and slept as soon as the bus started. We reached B'lore at 5 am next day.
This was more of an emotional blog rather than usual travelogue but i can't help it. I put here what i thought and saw. Old places really brings back emotions and this was one of the best examples of it.

M'lore - Day 2

2007-01-07T20:41:00.000-08:00

It was 6:30am when i got up. I didnt wake up others as they were in sound sleep so i decided to go to beach alone. S'kal beach is just 10 mins walk from hotel. It was a great feeling as i was visiting beach after a long time, probably after i left chennai. There was a fishermen crew busy in their daily activities. They already spread the fishing net inside the sea and were praying to get as many fishes as possible. I went there and clicked some snaps. Sat there for almost half an hour staring into the infinite sea and thinking about good old college days. I was almost jumping with joy after seeing the light house of our college beach. But localites there have spoilt beach, all waste was on the beach making it dirty. Anyways i paid less attention to the surrounding and was busy in looking at the sea, am not crazy, but i feel like sitting there on the beach staring into sea for long long hours. Just cant express myself how happy i was to come back to the nicest place i ever been to.
I was back to hotel by 8 or so and we all were ready to visit st Mary's island. I have been to this palce probably 4 times before, believe its one of the glorious places to visit. We started at around 10 am from s'kal and reached Malpe beach around 12. Luckily we got a boat waiting for us which takes us to the island. The island is about 3km inside the sea and it takes 20 mins by the boat to reach there. This island is made up of lovely hexagonal rocks and came into existence after a volcanic erruption in the Arabian sea few centuries back. We roamed around the beach and clicked as many snaps as possible. Me and balli tried to swim but had to come back as the water wasnt that great. We spent time gossiping and playing around and it was real fun. Compared to last time, i found water level little bit reduced, dont know reasons. We came back to Malpe after spending nice 2-3 hours on the island. The island is secluded kinds and people are not allowed to stay there overnight.
We came back to college bach by 5:30pm and straight away visited the temple on the beach. I prayed to god and got prasadam, very much unlike me. We all sat down at the rocks behind the mandir and happiness was at it peak. I cant really express myslef to pen down feelings at this place. It was like "i am in heaven". We all sat there, talking to close friends, telling the importance of the moment. I just not able to pen it down, really. We clicked so many snaps of our dear college beach and praised it like anything. I looked at the ads rocks (this name is given by vikram, to the favourite rocks of mine, where i used to sit for hours) and was so glad. All old memories were running through my mind.
We all said good bye to emotions and went out for hunting , to see some spot close by where we all can spend our new years night. We all made arrangement for liquors and other eating stuff and came back to beach at 9:30pm. A bonfire was made and we all sat around it. This was the best new years celebrations i ever had, on a beach, with bonfire, with friends, with old memories, with vodka. We all enjoyed the clock striking 12 and congratulated each other. It was ultimate fun and we were having the best times of our life. Suddenly, out of the blue, few cops came in and ordered us to vacate the place. Me and balli were still on the beach while the others left us. It was heavenly feeling, sitting on the beach in the middle of the night. Though we had made few campfires during our college days but this was simply the best among all. Could have been better if other guys wudn't have left. As the night was progressing the cold breeze was getting more colder. It was night before the full moon's night. And the moon's reflection on the sea water was absolute beauty, stars were tickling at their own pace, everything aorund seemed to be perfect and beautiful. Around 4:30 we ccouldn't bear the cold and came back to hotel.
This was without doubt, the best ever new years celebrations for me.

M'lore - Day 1

2007-01-07T19:42:00.000-08:00

As our new year celebration plan at Goa failed, we quickly realised that we can visit Managalore and Surathkal. I have soft corner for these places coz i had spent a lot of time in here during my college days. The tour was of 3 days which included me,balli,bude,rohan,ruchin and pangty.
We started from b'lore on 29th Dec '06 at night 10pm or so. First time we were travelling in sleeper coach buses so the experience was great (ideally it was great for people who had got the front seats). The road was too bad and bumpy altogther. I had an avomin tablet before sleeping so as to avoid any vommiting in bus. The best thing abt the tablet is u get a good nights sleep. I was almost uncontious once i hit bed and got up just before s'kal (from now on s'kal means Surathkal... i like calling it that way... seems stylish.. :)) ).
We had booked rooms in hotel Maharaja at S'kal and being in s'kal was like we are in our loverly home. After refreshing ourselves we went to Sads (dont get it wrong.. it restaurant Sadanand.. in KREC slang its Sads..) for the holy breakfast. Though the food wasn't much so special but feeling of eating at Sads is entirely different... ask KRECians ... ooopss.. NITKians now... !!! We took a short nap before leaving for Mangalore to spend the entire day.
Hao-ming is one of the most respected and famous Cihenese cuisine restaurant in M'lore. And it was an obivious choice for us to eat there. Mayank and Arun pillali who were in town as the same time joined us at hoa-ming and it was like a small get together. Food was as usual extremely good, we had probably all special items there, cant remember coz they were too many. After having a stomach full lunch we went to Iceberg. Dont get me wrong, its just a ice cream shop. Another famous spot where u get all kinda ice-creams. Probably i should say M'lore is famous for its food, ice-creams and Aishwarya Rai. I had something called Honeymoon which had a slab of pista and vanilla. On top of each slab there was a cone placed. One cone was decorated as a bride and another as a groom. I had to put a lot of efforts to finish it off.
Empire mall was our next target which is located near the Mallya's newly build conventional center. On a saturday afternoon it was almost deserted unlike malls here in b'lore, maybe few shops were yet to come up. We had been to arcade ally and played few games. Adlabs has opened its multiplex in Bharath mall situated next to Saibeen (the old mall where we used to roam during college days). This mall was comparatively better and bigger than the Empire mall. We had a sip of coffee at CCD and went for movie, Museum ke andar phas gaya Sikandar, a Ben Stiller movie, a hindi traslation. It was kinda crap movie but just for experiencing the theatre we had to see something. Theatre was definitely better than B'lore's i-nox. Though i should not compare the 2 cities but its just normal when u travel across cities u tend to compare them.
It was around 8 when the movie got over. We had planned few drinks at liquid laungue but had to give up the idea as we were already late and last bus to s'kal was at 10. We didnt risk going to liquid laungue and instead came back to Sads for dinner and booz. I dont remember how much i drank,probably 3 large vodka. I rarely used to drink when i was in college and i guess it only once i came to have drinks in Sads before this. We were back to Hotel aorund 11 in night and we all slept like mad dogs.
The next day will continue in next blog. :)

Kudremukh Trip

2006-12-11T00:33:00.000-08:00

Kudremukh Trip:

Participants: Advay(myself), Shrirang(Balli), Kapil, Vijay (Jhako),Nilesh (Gattu), Amit (bajaj), Shilpa….
Date : 9th and 10th Dec, Kalasa and Kudremukh.

Thanks to the initiative taken by Amit to arrange such a trip but it was the presence of all of the other members to make it a memorable trip to Kudremukh and kalasa. The story from horse'e mouth goes like this.... Well Kudremukh means Horse's Mouth .. :)

We all started from the garden city on friday night by KSRTC bus. The bus was not so comfortable kinds. The driver was crazy and he drove like a madman. I guess he knew the exact map of the road while driving. Its rare to see right-hand-driving in night but this guy made it so easily. Few of the hairpins and u-turns were dealt with perfection. Me and balli slept like dogs while others were gossiping all the way. Finally when they caught some sleep early morning, we were almost near to the Silent Valley resort.
It was 6:30 am and I was relieved when i got off the bus. The air was chill and filled with mist all over. It was foggy and we were so excited to see all that. Kapil said he got reminded of pilani. We were given a nice big room to get afresh. We took bed tea and got ready for the breakfast which was normal south indian including bread and butter. We were told to go to the nearby place called "Hanging Bridge" by walk. The place was around a km from the resort. The place was a silent beauty. Such a small but wonderful place. The bridge was made to cross the river. It was man made. The bridge was 100m in length and had only 2 parallel metal wires as the support while walking. The pathway of the bridge was so natural. It was like 3 parallel metal wires and few small sticks placed perpendicular to those 3 wires. And at some places there was alomst a foots gap which made it difficult to walk. Also at a given time only 3 or 4 could walk on the bridge. Jhako when crossed started to shake the bridge to scare us. It was real fun on the bridge. After crossing the bridge we went to riverside to spend some time. It was nice, cool and pleasant place. Rather the most romantic place of the whole trip.
We came back to the resort and had our lunch. Lunch was not so good. We had given a jeep and we started towards Kalasa to see some temples and riverside places. The 1st spot was really pathetic. Its called as Kallubhavi, small quantity of water is surrounded by few stones. A small pipe is the only source of water and the water level is always constant. We didnt explore the place much. Everyone ran off from the place as quickly as possible. The next place was Amba Tirtha, it was again the riverside place with high water current. We walked down to the river bank and jumped into the river.... it was a nice place and we all enjoyed a lot. We saw few temples after that and they were build with the same interior... though temples bore me to earth but those places were really quiet and calm. We went to one more picnic spot... again a riverside place with a very nice view of hills all aorund. Just before the sunset we went to Duggappana Katte, a hill top from where whole Kalasa is seen. We all were had a nice chat on top of the mountain. The sun set in no time and we couldnt take many pics.. :(. All the way on our way we played small games in our jeep and they were all fun.
After visiting the places we were back to resort by 7pm. We again had bath with warm water. Just before the dinner we sat around the bon-fire and had vodka. We danced a little bit and then headed for dinner. We all had light dinner and were ready for the most exciting part of the whole trip, "Night trek". We were so enthusiastic about it and we started off with a nice snap. We were provided 2 guides to make our journey easier. The trek was 3km long and we had to climb a steep hill. The night was dark and to add spice to the sitiation i started off with the ghost stories. Jhako and shilpa were scared like hell and everyone else were participating in the discussion. After a kms trek everyone was down to their knees and said they cant go any further. One of the guide told us to continue and asked us to go further. Kapil was so irritated and he kept on shouting all the way to uphill. One of his dialog i am quoting here.. " Saloon, kyon uski baat sun rahe ho, woh tumko jahar pine ko dega to tum log pi loge kya ??" After reaching the peak all of us were almost on the verge of fainting. But once we all reached on top we could feel the triumphant emotion. We all were so relieved, speacially kapil who forgot everything when he got the airtel signal on top the hill. He was so happy that he made few phone calls as well. We all sat there for around looking at the sky. We saw few dying stars we well and i did wish in my heart when i saw the dying star... (can't quote is here... let me see whether its true or not). We all started downhill after taking rest. Unfortunately the torch battery was weak and we were short of light. Still we kept on walking downhill just with the help of moonlight. Finally we reached resort at 1am and we were too tired to do anything. This was one of the memorable treks i ever did. And at the end of the trek everyone said "sala G*** phat gayi". Still hats off to Shilpa who didnt crib much in the whole trek. Me and balli jumped into one of the tents and slept like kumbhakarna. In the night i woke, to wear my sweater and jacket coz it was ice cold outside.
Next day while people were still sleeping me and Amit went for a small walk. We tried to explore some good area nearby but ended up in finding a stable.. :). But the morning walk was nice and i still felt the pain in my leg coz of nights trek. Others woke up till the time we came back and started getting ready for the next adventure. After having our breakfast we started for towards the Kudremukh side. In jeep we all played Concentration - a syncronization game told by Shilpa. We made total fun of it. We all loved it like anything. We reached Hanumangundi waterfalls after an hour. As usual being the most enthusiastic amongst all, me and balli jumped into the ice cold water. We went straight below the waterfall and could feel someone literally smashing our back. We enjoyed a lot in water and took some cool snaps. We spent around an hour in there and then headed backwards. On our way to the next spot we spotted a bison on the way. It was medium size bison whom we didnt disturb much. Took some snaps and he vanished into the bushes. We reached the Lakya Dam where the photography was prohibited, probably just to make sure that people dont take pictures of a dam which doesnt contain any water. Yeah, it was shameful, dam without water. I dont know why they build a dam just for the heck of it. But still we kept our talks, bakar, tripping to make sure we dont get bored at any moment.
We saw another waterfall on the way but we didnt really got down the jeep. No one was so enthu to see this place. We headed for Kudremukh park where we sat down and played Mafia for about an hour and half. It was fun playing the game and we all enjoyed it a lot. Took some snap at this place. But just sitting there and playing refreshed us. We came back to resort at 4pm and we had our lunch. After lunch it was almost 5pm. Me kapil and shilpa decided to go to the bridge again. We had nice walk and we talked for a long time near the river bank. The place was so pleasant and so calm. I am just in love with that place. We spent some time there and came back walking to the resort by 6:30pm.
After having tea we went to our room and started discussing on general issues which were quite interesting. Finally we started packing our stuff and had light dinner. We caught a drop van from the resort to the main bus stop. Got into the bus by 10:30pm and back to bangalore by 6am the next day.

The trip was overall good and could have been better if were allowed to go to Kudremukh peak, which was closed for tourist due to some construction work on the way. But still we all enjoyed time to fullest. Thanks to timely jokes by kapil and jhako which made our trip more colorful.
To sum up in the end i will say, the night trek was hell of an experience and we literally enjoyed it a lot. Good that we didnt end up with a bison or so. It was a peaceful trip in the end !!!

DVA

2006-11-21T20:53:00.000-08:00

DVA.....
We all had heard and read about DVC... everyone knows what havoc DVC created as a novel and as a movie. Now whats DVA.... ??
Well DVA, its not a novel or a movie, but the new law which has shown the country that we need to come out of old thought and face the reality.
Domestice Violence Act, DVA, has created sensation till now and i feel its a start of changing india.
When i was a kid i used to take lessons in the school about our culture and heritage. And we were told that, we indians are pround of one thing and thats our culture. I agreeed to it for certain period, but when i used to read the newspaper i used to get psyched by seeing the number of crimes against women in india. I wondered how people can beat up their wives, burn them to death just for money, rape them to full fill their lust, throw acid on them for childish reasons. And i bet there are thousands of other incidents which go un-noticed.
DVA is among the various steps to achieve gender equality in india and rightly so at the right place. Women can feel a lot secure with the law at their side. But lets keep our fingers crossed to how many of them actually make use of this benefit for which women were starving since ages.
I read an article today in TOI, which right said that, an woman who gets beaten by the husband, doesnt even think of leaving him for various reasons. Financial condition tops the chart, childs future, social image etc are certain reasons coz of which women dont go to the extend of filing an office law against the husband or the accused.
I heartly welcome this law and hoping that this a revolutionary step towards the modern india.

Bartimaeus

2006-08-17T02:37:00.000-07:00

Bartimaeus !!!

I finished reading Bartimaeus Trilogy. It’s a series of 3 books which has got everything. Its an ideal fantacy series.
The plot mainly involves Nathaniel (John Mandrake) - a magician boy, Bartimaeus - a 4th level djinni and Kitty Jones - a commoner. Without doubt Bartimaeus steals the show with his witty humor and timely cracked jokes.
This is my view about the characters :

1) Bartimaeus - He is a 4th level djinni and the best character in the book (according to me). He is roughly 5,000 year old djinni. He thinks as fast as a super computer and his knowledge about the mgicians and their histroy is marvellous. He fought most of the great wars and did service to some great magicians. Here he is slave to Nathaniel, the magician boy. The conversation between Nathaniel and Bartimaeus is the most humorous one.

2) Nathaniel (John Mandrake) - Nathaniel is the birth name of magician. And every magician keep their birth name secret so as to remain safe from some kind of summoning (I quiet like this funda, wish I could have had a secret name too :)). Nathaniel is known as John Madrake in the magician's community.The story starts with a 11 year old Nathaniel. I don’t know why authors are obsessed with kids so much, the main character is always a kid in his teens, take Harry Potter, take Eragon and now Nathaniel. I found Nat's character a challenging one, as per the book. He is eager to gain more power and wants to be good in everyones eyes. He is thorne for most of the ministers and they try to overcome him and here the story gets interesting.

3) Kitty Jones - I feel this character has played significant role in the book. Though she is a commoner (like muggles in harry potter), she proves that commoners can also perfom magic. She is a strong character and has a high will power. She want to show the true face of magicians to the world. She fights against the magicians, against Mandrake. But still she saves Mandrakes life.

Do read Bartimaeus if u like reading humor, if u like reading nice strong plot.

Though I like Harry Potter better than any other books Bartimaeus has its own charm, and simply the best fantacy books I can say.

I will write Bartimaeus Vs. Harry Potter (comparison between the two novels shortly, I will need ur reviews for that so please read them all).

Advay

Football

2006-05-09T01:26:00.000-07:00

Football.....
Football is my recent craze. Dont feel that its all due to the coming world cup. But my craze to football started almost 8 months back when the english premier league started. I never used to follow football so closely as now. I support ManUnited at premier league. And am glad to find my club standing 2nd at the end of the season. They cud have done better but Chelsea were amazing throughout the season. I like the style of English football, its played with lot of short passes and smart touches rather than Brazilian or Argentine football where long range shots and individual performance counts. Still my most favourite player is Ronaldhino of Brazil, at this moment no one can beat him. He is simply the best footballer currently in the world. My some other favourite players are Wayne Rooney, Christiano Ronaldo, Frank Lampard, Bellamy, Owen and the list goes on.
I guess India also should promote football. They concentrate just too much over the cricket and i strongly believe there are other major sports that are not properly looked after. Football is one among them. Maybe the sports minister should take some responsible measure towards developing a good soccer in india. I dont think its difficult to get atleast 100 players in the population of 100 crores. Hopefully some general awreness should be brought among indian people for promotion if football in india.

KERALA trip

2006-05-01T23:01:00.000-07:00

This is my travelogue to Gods Own Country….KERALA… !!!

I had been to Kerala for 3 days with 6 of my other friends. We started on 28th April (Friday night) and came back on 1st May (Monday night).

The night was perfect for 7 of us to have a go at Gods Own Country. We all started off with a bang around 8:30 pm from Bangalore towards Munnar.
We had booked a 4 wheeler with an execellent driver who touched the max speed of 125km/hr on many occasion on a straight road.
Night journey was a bit painful but somehow we managed to get some sleep.
Morning around 6am we all got up, we were still in TamilNadu, some village in Madurai District. At this very morning we could see enough number of people to crowd the roads. I guess people of this part of country have severe hearing impairments as they couldn’t even move out of our speeding vehicle. Our driver had tough time managing them. We came to a place called Theni where we did a grave mistake of coninuing on same road and not going to Munnar which was on our right.
There was difference of opinion among us as few of us were voting for Thekaddy, which was 30km from Theni and others were in favour of Munnar, which was 60km from Theni. Actually Thekkady was also on our hit list but later we ditched it coz of lack of time. We continued on the same road and in mid way we decided that we will leave Thekaddy and continue for Munnar. But it was too late to take a U-turn and hence we continued on the same road. After reaching Thekaady at around 8am, we started for Munnar, now 108km from here with a hilly road and thick jungle around. We couldn’t see any animals except for the usual monkeys.
Thekaddy is in Kerala, the road was beautiful with thick forest. On the way to Munnar we passed between the thick clouds as well. We couldn’t even see who is coming from the front and it was a great experience. We all were so excited at the chill outside. All words would fail for the lovely description of the place. We managed to get out of the clouds soon and now we got caught by another beauty, the never ending greenary of tea bagans. It was one of the best sites, early morning sun rays falling on lush green hills,making it more lovely. We all could feel it, it was heaven, Kerala rocks !!!
Finally we reached Munnar by 12 pm (we were late by 4 hours) and had our lunch at a place called Patel, a perfect gujju food u can have. It was a great lunch and we started off with our site seeing. We had been to few tea gardens and view points. But the road way made our day. One would definitely like to see such a peace and calm atmosphere after coming from polluted city like Bangalore. We finally went to a place called Top Point, a place surrounded by hills on all sides and supposed to be the highest point of Munnar. It was certainly the most eye catching spot. Beauty of this place certainly can not be explained in words !!!
We were back around 7:30 to Munnar city. We booked the houseboat in Kumargam (near Allepy) in Munnar itself and went to have nice sleep.
Next day (Sunday), I was the first one to get up at 6am and got ready for our next venture for Kumargam. As others were yet to get up, I had nice walk in the hills. I was alone walking through the hilly roads of Munnar with the chilled air all around, it was the walk of my life.
We started for Kumaragam, and stopped in between near few scenic spots. Kumaragom came at around 12pm and we boarded our houseboat after half an hour. The weather in this part of country is a bit humid and the temperature was around 36 degrees celcius. It was a bit contrasting to Munnar but it has its own beauty. We wooed as we started our houseboat. Houseboat is a perfect house with all the facilities, name any u will get there. They had proper kitchen, 2 bed rooms,the hall contained TV, dining table, and small siting area.It had a great finishing and certainly eye-catching. The name of our boat was AQUA JUMBO(don’t laugh).It was the only boat which made hell lot of noise.I had seen backwaters several time before but this was the very first time when I was really experiencing it. The backwater is everywhere, like we have roads in city, they have small channels of water where boats can pass. After passing through busy streets(ooopppsss) channels of water, we reached to lake kinda place, where u can see water all over the place, it was like another sea in itself which has taken place inside the land. We were served lunch, I had fish and chicken and the nutritious Kerala rice with north indian fulka's. Lunch was too good, we all ate like dogs, really. We played some songs on DVD player they had, and talked for a long time. The boat finally halted near a place around 5:30pm. We had a nice time swimming in the water. Though there was current in water, we swam for 45 mins. We went out to get some Toddy (A typical Kerala wine made from a fruit called Tady, something like coconut).In between we were served with evening snack which was made of sweet banana, I forgot the name but it was good. I couldn’t eat much as I was already full with heavy lunch.
All the times we used to pull each others leg and did all sort of masti on the boat. It was definitely the most hilarious day on our trip. We all had drinks just before the dinner. I had vodka and the Toddy. I liked Toddy and all the other didn’t even touch it after taking a sip. We bought 1 litre of Toddy and I could manage to drink only 750ml :)…I was a bit high than others, we had good food, I guess there was some chicken and fulkas and Kerala rice. After dinner we again had some funny talks and we went to sleep around 11:30pm. Houseboat really made our day, it was a different experience and with friends around it makes things perfect. It was the night when we slept tight.
Next day again we got up around 7am and the morning wheather on the backwater was just a perfect morning one would imagine. It was a cloudy morning and a nice breeze added the finishing touches to the awesome weather. Certainly one of the best mornings I ever had. We got our breakfast served soon after the boat started. It had idly and idiappam (a noodle kinda thing made with the same base as of idly) and pineapple to make it more attractive breakfast. Like us there were many tourist on other boats. We used to wave hands when someones boat used to pass so did they. We clicked lots of good looking cheeks from other boats with our great zoom camera which came out to be very helpful:)….) (All those things u can do when u are a bachelor and when u are with right friends….). We came to our original place at 9:30 in morning. And we straightaway started for Banaglore. We were told that it would take 14-15 hours from Kumaragom to reach Bangalore but our driver did the hard work to reach Bangalore around 11 hours.

This was certainly one of my best tours ever !!!

And yeah I have decided to go to Allepy or Kumaragam for my Honeymoon… :))

I had to cut down certain hilarious things here coz this is already lengthy and it was specific to us.

Between following were the guys who were in this trip.
1) Advay - Myself
2) Shrirang Ballal (Balli) - My roomie and college mate
3) Sidharth Vishwanathan(we used to call him "mota" but now "James") - My roomie and college mate
4) Umesh Bude (bude) - college mate
5) Hariharan Iyer (hari bond) - college mate
6) Prayush (pratyush) - James's colleague - ultimate jolly guy..
7) … Gattani (gattu) - James's friend from BITS Pilani.

Driver : Sanish - Touched max speed of 125km/hr on certain occasion, really made our journey comfortable.

Regards,
Advay.

Are We Conservative ?

2006-04-26T02:28:00.000-07:00

This blog is about how conservative is the indian culture and is it good or bad ?
Since my office is around 15km from my place i prefer to go in company bus because of
2 reasons... first being heavy traffic and second being its free of cost...
I generally give preference to the front seats, so i sit somewhere in front 4 or 5 rows.
Since last few days i have been sitting near a girl and we havent spoken a single word.
She is like an average girl with specs and rarely fahions as the other girls here do !!!
I happened to be thinking this morning that i have been sitting near this girl since a long time
but never tried to speak with her and vice versa. Whats the reason ??
She takes the window seat and i am next to her, sometimes i try to look outside, I get the impression that she feels i am staring her. She also keep looking outside till i look outside. But no one made any positive effort on how to start a conversation.
I guess most of the indian youth need to develop this skil as it is considered to be one of the PR related activity.
Do u really think its our conservative society to blamed for this ??
i think i should go and talk with her first but then i think what the girl wud say of i suddenly start talking with her...
Wierd kinda blog.... but suggestions are welcome.... !!!

My Life in 11th Std

2006-04-21T02:25:00.000-07:00

This is typical life of a 11th class student in a average or metro city in india.
We had a craze of tutions during our time so going with the wave i too joined all top dude tutors in the city. Tutions timings were like a circus that time... i used to get up early in the morning for a 6:00am class... i had a two wheeler called as Luna (which i find the most stupid vehicle now)... i used to ride it like a moto gp driver... just manage to reach the class... as a studious by nature i loved to sit on front benches but there was a lot of competition so i had to satisfy with the last bench. But there was one more girl who used to always come late used to sit besides me, her name is Mukta Prasad and now heard she is in Harward..... oooopppsss.... hope she remembers me one day...This girl used to laugh on any damn joke cracked by the maths teacher (his name was Patthakine and supposed to excellent maths teahcer who has capability of making students mug the solutions for a given type of problem).
After the maths tutions i used to have secong lap of my moto gp to a Chemistry tution for which again i used to be late. sitting arrangement was so pathetic that one small bench wud contain 6 students... i still dont remember how i managed to take down the notes.... the timings were 7:30 to 9:00am ... i used to come home... have a quick bath and breakfast. I used to literally run for first lecture which started around 9:45am. Whole day i used to attend college seriously like a mama's boy and i hardly bunked my college. After coming from college at 5... I had to again go for a Physics tutions at 5:30pm... come back to home by 7:00 pm... had another tution of electronics at 8:00 pm.... from which i used to come back by 9:30 or sometimes 10pm...
the life was real busy... i guess busier than now.....
will write next blog.... explaing about specific tution class..... cio...
Adv

Child Me

2006-04-20T02:41:00.000-07:00

When i was a kid my parents or elders used to ask me "beta, what u want to be in life"..
i used to tell them i want to be a air pilot.... they used to say why not a doc or an engg.... Actually they didnt know that i saw a movie where a pilot saves his country... after a month down the line i saw another movie where a pilot dies... from the very moment i decided not to become a pilot.. again an elder asked me the same question... this time i didn't say air pilot... i said i dont want to be a air pilot as they die during the crashes... that time i decided to become somthing in life...
i always had fasciantion about IAS... but it never came from heart... i was like going with the waves.. which now i feel is so dangerous... i havent really done what i wanted to... i sometimes blame myself for everything but whenever i think about it i somehow compromise with my present. I dont know what to do... should i start fresh to persue my dream or should i continue with the present. I know its difficult to make a human mind happy but will try my best !!!!

Getting Started

2005-12-07T04:55:00.000-08:00

i dont know till what point i will be able to post blogs here..
but i said to myself that atleast to pass some more time why not try this...
the best time to write a blog is afternoon just after the lunch when u are sleeping and trying to work ... writing a blog will make most use of that period... atleast i wont be pretending to do work while am actually in siesta....
anyways lots of things have inspired me to write something.... i never cared though...
writing is a good habit.... i used to write diaries.... but left it in b/n as i got bored of it...!!!
this blogging is a new ways of writing diaries.... rather than using a pen and paper u can use blogspots memory which comes for free of cost.... and its like u can write all crap that u want.
let me come up with a interesting topic tomorrow..... ciao till then...