LemonSquash

Finally a company

2010-06-19T09:21:00.001-07:00

Dedicated to my mother

India is really great

2010-06-19T09:19:00.001-07:00

Be happy with what you have

2010-03-23T11:26:00.000-07:00

What more can I say, when pictures speaks in million pixels and I have just a few words to put!!!!

Jai Shree Lakshmi

2010-03-21T05:29:00.000-07:00

One tribute to my favorite god

Well, over the years I have never let my feelings about god out in the open and people around me question me whether I believe in god or not

Yes there is a certain some one whom I believe strongly
and she is Lakshmi

the daughter of Bhrigu ( that is why she is also called Bhargavi ) and Khyati.

Alakshmi is her elder sister (chandra being her brother).
Both the sisters like me and that explains some and most of the things in my life. Through this post, after writing about 480 posts, I pay my tribute to her

Only if Laila could talk

2010-03-21T05:24:00.000-07:00

Laila and Majnu ,
well, only if this guys could talk

whether theirs would have been a successful marriage is never debated,
with so little time that they did have, even courtship might had been an herculean task,
let alone give Laila the chance to whine

:"Why":
:"Where":
:"What":

But this picture could have got them both furious for sometime, not at the fact that they died, but they were killed years later day in day out.

Fetish for the west

2010-03-21T05:20:00.000-07:00

WE have come a long way since the old 1950s and 1970s and so has the world,
we are now looking inwards, going deeep

or is it,

Diya Mirza a bollywood actress comes from a German father and Bengali mother,
Lisa Ray , Bengali father, Canadian mother
John Abraham , Iranian blood,

And Akshaya dancing with Hollywood babes is not new anymore, neither is Salman doing the same with some British actress, Aishwarya with Matin Henderson.

And the list is continuing, in the serials that we watch from Riddhima in Dill Mill Gaye to talent hunt shows, everywhere we have this fetish sort of a thing

Remember the homely girl, Sanjana from Merey Yaar Ki Shaadi

Tulip Joshi,
Gujju Dad and Armenian mother,

I was waiting for a bold pic like this from her and finally got hold of one,

Emanuelle Chrique is one other lady whom I would pay to see her bare and dare it all.
Audrey Tatou has done it ( thank you Audrey )

There is a certain someone

2010-03-21T05:17:00.000-07:00

There is a certain someone, who did write some posts on me, this humble me

thanks to her !!!

Well, this me, which never gets mentioned anywhere, which never gets to be in the limelight was the main protagonist in her two blogs,

And I liked it, this picture is a compliment to her. I took here for a bike ride, and then after some days I got hold of this certain picture .

And a frightened pillion rider could be treat to watch for the spectators :)

Can you imagine

2010-03-21T05:15:00.000-07:00

Sachin was turned away from fast bowlers camp, well, we all know that we still need a world class fast bowler ( I mean Zak is there, but most of his credit is mainly due to the dominating batting side that we have made in the last few yeras, that the bowlers have little to do with their ball at times )

Well,
here here is ,standing tall, Can you imagine, Sachin the taller of the others,
well, he is the tallest by all standards, but here he is in person, as god made him

good post

2010-03-20T01:58:00.001-07:00

Ideagutter

This sounds like a good name. Anyways, since I don’t have much time now to write some posts, I will still paste some good links as and when I come across

http://comic.ideagutter.com/search?updated-max=2010-02-26T19%3A21%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=1

Check this one out, here the Sachin who plays one days is betting against the Sachin that plays in tests

Both are phenomenal , but the One day thing is really great, with 29 centuries being the second number, Ricky Ponting enjoys his position as the second most prolific century maker rather well.

What is the most beautiful thing in the world

2010-03-18T23:41:00.001-07:00

The more you have free time, the more you spend thinking about stuff that you never thought existed

For me, right now I am reading some of the old stories in Bengali. One I got from the Agartala Book Fair, Golpo Guccha by Rabindranath,

All these stories, once atleast, found, read, heard , seen , either through movies, theatre, school life, magazines, books but still hold a lot

Of questions in my mind about the sharp genius of the man who did not go to school himself,

In one of his stories,”Konkal” , I wonder, at how strong the author was in dealing with the emotions of a ghost narration of the life left behind,

The bones rattle but the sound inside still is that of a young woman who lived a life of her own. For us it is difficult to imagine that about 100 years back

there were people who dared to think that life exists not for society but it is the other way around,

There will be people , in bone and blood ,just like us, there will be mortals who though look like us, somehow are not able to think the right or wrong,

constant nagging, whining, back stabbing, pulling each others legs for mere fun, and at the price of hurting a plant which will never grow into the tree

that was destined to

Rabindrnath Tagores writing has been, carefully, dissected, researched upon and taken to the heart by many of the Bengali aristocracy and slum dwellers over the years, I am a mere spectator to the wonder of a brain that was like clock work, producing footprints in time that will glow in the sublime surrounding of what we can look back as the renaissance of Bengal

How could one man, with so little education ? produce such gems, year after year , throughout his life. Did he eat the same rice that we all eat, what sits inside that brain that we all wonder.

I had written about Sachin a few days back , no such comparison is possible ,but yes, the genius in humans is what keeps this rest of the world, other rest the of the billions alive,

we run the wheels of the world, go to office, come back , sleep , wake up eat breakfast ( skip it like me ) and then run back to work. But behind the scenes there are geniuses at work, who will create the next wonder, who will create the next beauty, these are the brains, that can create what is good to the eyes, ears and the brain

these are the people who are making what is life to us, a gift , a thing of joy

the most beautiful thing in the world is nothing but the genius inside the brain of all these immortal human beings

I will keep writing about Rabindranath Tagore in the coming days, this new found interest ofmine is good for me, and will take me further in my understanding of what I thought was the Bengals upliftment. What was it about the times then that makes me think that the rest of the world was just robots and here in Bengal, there walked a few human beings who produced battery for these robots,

Blogging in March

2010-03-11T23:09:00.001-08:00

Today is March 12

2010

The year 2010, started some time back( a few hours may be ) .In the meantime, I went to so many places all around India. All in all , it was a good start. I could visit Agartala, ( an added bonus of travelling )

I think , that mole thinngy does work out. This year I saw two new moles on my feet. So I must be travelling left, right and center.

Today the IPL3 starts. Hope some good blogs will come out. All the players are no fit and fine. No back ache, shoulder ache, groin injury , all are hale and hearty. All are focused and strong. I will be blogging about it in and out.

It has been 22 months since I started blogging this one. I have quite a big archive now and am proud about it. I was reading one of the good blogs that I had written a long time back.

http://concentratedlemonjuice.blogspot.com/2008/07/travails-of-indian-software-engineer.html

I could not stop laughing after reading it. Right now I am in a meeting, where I am on mute.

Sachin the God

2010-02-28T11:00:00.001-08:00

I really was missing a collection like this

Read it , here if you want to know how the world reacts to Sachin

The ones especially from Sharjah and Yassir Hamid a Pakistani reporter

http://vsvishwanand.blogspot.com/2010/02/sachin-name-speaks.html

By the way , the author is a great friend of mine and a Sachin fan

Guess which movie?

2010-02-26T10:57:00.000-08:00

Kabhi muskarakar ,

Kabhi dabey paaoo aakar

Dukh mujhey choo le

Naa kar mujhsey gham merey

Dillagi yeh Dillagi

Badi sooni sooni hai

Zindagi yeh Zindagi….

One last thought for the day Feb 24 2010

2010-02-24T11:29:00.001-08:00

It is the end of the day for me

I wanted to write about the way smartly Mamta Bannerjee presented the rail budget today

She says “Whoever is shouting, I will cut the project in his constituency?”

She was a able teacher in side a village school and the ruckus around , and the rubes from all side were enough to unnerve any other political figure, the very fact that she can fight it out like that standing there in the Parliament is the very sign of the days of administration to come,.

She does not leave the session, she does not walk out, she does not throw the pen down, she does not visit the train wreckage any more and threaten incessantly to resign, She is now a changed Mamata

But her budget and whatever honest form it had ( no heavy words, no extra ornamental statements, a budget as it should be )

The only problem that the nation will have to hear from two severely accented Bengalis giving the rail budget and the national budget J

Anyways, the rail budgets fundas were derailed by another express, the Sachin Express,

Sachin is not for cricket,

Cricket is for Sachin!!!

If there is a god on earth

2010-02-24T11:20:00.001-08:00

If there is god on earth . He is sitting in a Gwalior hotel now

He is Sachin, he is the greatest of them all ,

Today I saw a Sachin , that knows that he can now play like it is the year 1995, there is a Azharudding, Sidhu , and Jadeja

No, I think , he knows that India is now undoubtedly well on to its way to the no 1 spot in World cricket in all forms of the game. Wait till, the next T20 encounter.

Just think of the bowling teams plight, Rahul Dravid, Laxman and Tendulkar can nowadays be rested for a match or two, they play their own games and don’t have to bother much, the youngsters are all well set

Today when I ask my cousin who studies in class X , and is sitting for the exams, he says to me that there are parents who make their kids skip the exams, if there is a game sessions , or if the coach asks so … I ask him how difficult is it to make it to the Bengal team itself, With franchises and IPL and ICL , there is a ongoing cut throat competition for even the middle order of most of the state teams. Today just to make it to the 2^nd division is a difficult and uphill task, and let alone play good, and play at the top levels consistently,

And that is exactly the reason , that we have a kitty full of newcomers who are all able, in the form of Suresh Raina, who once was said to be the next god of the left hand players off side, there is Dinesh Mongia, who though now lost is a very strong middle order batsman, we have Rohit Sharma who can do all the departments of cricket as good as any other great player.

Gambhir is an established , world no 1 ( not now may be ) , then there is a Robin Uthappa, and the funny part is Dinesh Karthik comes back as a batsman and not a wicketkeeper. And the prince of cricket . Virat Kohli , all of the above players have single handedly rescued India on more than once occasion. Irfan Pathan needs space to head in , whereas Yusuf is in sublime form. All of them above can enter the circuits and just perform as if the environment has not changed, they find the international level to be just very close notch to the first class in India today.

They all are best in the domestic circuits, and they are soon to be the next legends, but with a team which looks like the Real Madrid of cricket, Sachin knows that other than the new comers, there are the bullies of world cricket, If Pakistan boasts of a certain Shahid Afridi , and England still dreams that Kevin Pietersen will some day come back to his first shown form, What I can definitely say is there lies in the Indian team three such bullies, three Shahid Afridis with far better track record and control of the game and the shots, which makes Shahid Afridis, Centurions centuries look smaller in the context

We have a Sehwag , the impeccable form that he is in , and the way he feels that defensive game for him is the riskiest game, and the way he made a 290 knock in a single day of test cricket.

We have a Yuvraj, six sixers apart, he is a class of his own. I am sure that on one favorable day , when Yusuf and Yuvraj as partners to each other for 15 overs at a stretch , the opposition will have to look like kids in the training camp.

We have a Dhoni , who is consistently, playing not out innings and if he continues to do this for another year or so , I am sure that he will end up with more than a 100 half centuries behind him and the highest possible one day average. Today he played a different innings, that kind of innings that we had seen in his earlier days. He played that cushion to the Sachins 200 and as usual such a great land mark came fitfully in the 50 over itself which started with a Dhoni sixer

We in India, have a phenomenal batting order. Sachin can play his own game today , never was he more relaxed then he is now. Ponting almost caught him up on the centuries tally in the test arena with 39 centuries and Sachin 43, but then there were 4 consecutive centuries and Sachin is all well set for 50 international test centuries,

But the way he batted today , I don’t think, Gambhir should come top of the order. Gambhir should come to consolidate in case of a quick first wicket. Today Sachin from the word go just resounded his pledge, that the century that he missed in the first one dayer in Jaipur, due to a very unfortunate runout ( running is a department where is a master in his own zone , I am sure that we will soon see a 300 run partnership , between him and Dhoni with the minimum number of boundaries, , and it could be in any form of the game )

The batsmen of the Indian team are in such sublime form that the first test defeat in Nagpur where the Indian team went all out twice in score below three hundred is like having the probability as that of the chance of getting 20 tails consecutively . That was a rare , lapse, I am sure, since you have to read in to the teams colors, as it is now. It is a team where any great would want to play ,

And all this is an answer to that question “Cant a country of a billion people produce 11 gems who could dominate world cricket today “

Today , schools and parents and teachers are changing. Taare Zameen Par and Three Idiots are becoming block busters,

The not so important Physical Education dept in many schools in India, nowadays is a full fledged department with a head of the dept and many staff with multiple coaches,

Yes we may not yet be bringing the golds in Olympics, since in strength we are naturally not gifted like the Caucasian and the Nordic breed and in a country where we are cramping for space and food, we have some how never got it in terms of physical stamina and that is why you will find very occasional wrestlers or soccer players or sprinters who make it to the top circuits. Yes , we know that we are not yet there but in Cricket, when once we were asked “Cant a nation of 1 billion people produce 11 gems ?” we have finally answered the call,

We have those 11 gems, we have a team to beat which , you will need a team to make atleast 350 runs in every innings,

Eden Gardens

2010-02-24T00:06:00.000-08:00

well,
amongst all the things that I never thought I will be able to do , one was getting a chance to watch Tendulkar on the field while he played for 20 years and I witnessed it all .

I started my cricket watching days with his first test 100. He becoming what we called a master blaster in that new zealand series where Stephen Fleming had his debut

Sachin was at that point of time still searching for his first 100. And now all I know is , he is sitting on more than 90 international 100s.

Adding two pics from the 6th Gate Tier 2 stand

Egg shells for plants

2010-02-24T00:03:00.000-08:00

Egg plants come from here, if you may ask me

Hooters, where art thee

2010-02-24T00:01:00.000-08:00

will gleeful eyes, when I mentioned that a hooter is standing out side, all in my group went to see.

All men, ( I mean all boys basically )

Anyways, this was all the hooter they could get

Random Pics here and there

2010-02-23T22:56:00.000-08:00

Balle balle,
well, could you find an appropriate place for this one. Yes, there are , but on the top of a competitive journal .

One random flight I took

2010-02-23T22:48:00.000-08:00

After I got my job, I was touring all across the country , young at heart, with money in pocket and a will to spend,
I did cover a lot of the sectors.

Some times there are some sights that strike a chord , some where, but due to the lack of a camera in hand, I was never able to catch much,

I remember, the family that was sorting all its porblems in the Delhi airport,
I remember the Jammu couple, who were calling their neighbors to still come to the airport, buy the tickets and board the flight, and all this, when were just starting, ( I mean that the plane would started taxing within a few minutes or so

I remember the Himalayas, the peaks, on a sunny day in a flight to Delhi again.

I can still remember the beautiful Gujju Bong, who sat next to me and then we talked the whole journey.

One of the most beautiful woman that I have come across
Anyways, here are two familiar sights, that Indians, ( new age Indians ) always see, and take it for granted,

Well, I choose to live for the moment!!

Elfs do get some service in this mans world

2010-02-23T22:44:00.000-08:00

This was one random pic in Darshini in Begumpet, last month,
Early morning had gone for the driving license test, on the way stopped in this place to eat some Dosa,

It is like any other Dosa or Idli spot in South India, self service, but the 'S' was missing ,

and I dont think Legolas would mind it either

Dream Girl

2010-02-10T02:23:00.001-08:00

I did not know what I really wanted until I saw this picture

here is some one, whom no one will accept at a first shot, it is like the little own Princess Diaries. Anne Hathway, turning into a fairy, similarly, here we have some one with the potential to win a contest hands down anyday.

All you need is some careful tampering, tinkering here and there, and there you go

Odd pigeon out

2010-01-21T02:10:00.000-08:00

Chaai , Chaai

2010-01-21T01:55:00.000-08:00

Some days ago, I went to Kharagpur, and had written a whole blog on it. I was amazed at the 2:00 AM tea vendors, in full steam, earning their 1 rs from one cup of tea. Trying to find at least 5 customer per train. For them the run , the marathon is on all the 24 hours, since all night trains run all the hours.

Last three days I have been going to Purbachal , ( right behind the stadium if you are coming from Karunamoyee, or if you were to take the road that takes a left at the Hyatt Regency ( if you are coming from Ultadanga) , on the By Pass. Purbachal is where the apartment culture of Salt Lake starts. It is one of the famous ones other than the central government staff quarters and Laboni.
Well, if you are coming from the EM BY Pass you will at first see some make shift slums ,strategically placed so that the foreigners with their Nikon and Canon SLRs dont have to hunt far for a picture of the abject poverty of Indians . The walk out of the Hyatt, check for cars on the left and right and then cross the road, click pics to take way back home as a souvenir of what they saw in India.

One of my friends in US had asked me , ( she was a pen pal, in times before mobile and Email ) "Do I go to school on an elephant?"

I really really did not want to break her heart. I also heard from a friend in Los Angeles that her father always taught her that if she were to grow up and understand how lucky she is and that she should stop whining, she should visit Asia, or atleast India. I believe China now poised to become the second largest economy officially this year, the west rather set their vision of these countries correctly.

Still , coming back to the point, if you were to take the road that divides the FD and FB blocks, ( the big road with by lanes on both sides and buildings making the road look like a valley amongst the giant walls of human settlement)

This road is wide, and does not see much traffic. The cold there was unforgiving and the bite early morning around 6 , still claws inside me.

End of the road , if you were to turn right you will hit Purbachal cluster 1 and 2 and between the cluster 2 and 3 , near to the Martin Burn gate to the Salt Lake stadium you will see this chaai stall

Early morning, draped in shawl, the woman there was cutting the onion and green chillies for some Aloo sabji , The dough was not yet done.
The old man in the picture, asked us, what we want, gave the 2 teas and went back to his seat .
Laid back , complete laid back.

A blog dedicated to my favorite Anatomical miracle

2010-01-19T01:20:00.000-08:00

A
Adam’s own – Ace – Alcove – Axe wound – Men’s Aphrodisiac – Anemone of love

B
Blossom full of nectar – Blossom – Bunny – Burning Bush – Baby basket – Baby carriage – Baby hole – Baby maker – Belly entrance – Bearded lady – Beauty spot – Beaver – Bit of jam – Big bud – Black hole – Bower of bliss – Bucket Of Brains – Butterfly – Bucket Of Eels – Bush – Bushy park – Bird – Bird’s nest

C
Cum craver – Cock squeezer – Candy – Cake – Cape of Good Hope – Cave of Harmony – Cave Of Wonders – Cavern – Camel Toe – Center of attraction – Central furrow – Certificate of birth – Chimney – Chocha – Cleft of flesh – Clitty – Cock Alley – Cock Hall – Cock holder – Cock sock – Cock Lane – Cockshy – Coochie – Cookie – Corner – Covered way – Crack of heaven – Crave cave – Cream jug – Crotch – Cunny – Cunt – Cupid’s Alley – Clump

D
Door of life – Down there – Dick driver – Danger zone – Dick sleeve – Daisy – Deli Meat – Divine scar – Door of life – Downstairs – Downtown – Dripping delta

E
Eve’s custom house – Eye that weeps most when best pleased

F
Fanny – Fortress Of Solitude – Female crucible – Flesh Canoe – Fie-for-shame – Fish – Flapdoodle – Fleshy part – Flower -Flower heart – Flower of chivalry – Fool trap – Fountain of life – Fountain of love – Front door – Front Bottom – Front garden – Front office – Front piece – Front window – Fruit cup – Fruitful vine – Fuck hole – Fur pie – Fuzzy wuzzy

G
Goodies – Garden of Eden – Gasp and grunt – Gate of life – Gates of Heaven – Gateway – Generating place – Gentlemen’s pleasure garden – Glory hole – Go down to the finish line – Gold mine – Golden donut – Golden doorway – Golden valley – Grand Canyon

H
Head catcher – Hamper of goodies – Hole of holes – Holiest of Holies – Hide-A-Way – Hotness – Hair pie – Hairy oracle – Hairy ring – Hairy heaven – Happy Valley – Harbor of Hope – Heart of the peony – Heavenly part – Hey nonny nonny and a hot cha-cha – Hole of content – Holy of Holies – Home sweet home – Honey pot – Hot Pocket – House of security – Hee haw – Hooha

I
Inner heart – Inner stream – Inner terrace – Ivory gate

J
Jaws of Hell – Jewel of the Empire – Jeweled enclosure – Jiggumbob – Joy hole – Joy trail – Juice Box

K
Kitty – Keyhole – Keystone of love – Kitchen – Knick-knack

L
Ladder – Lady Flower – Lady Star – Little girl – Little Front Butt – Lapland – Leather – Little sister – Locker – Lotus – Lotus flower – Lotus of her wisdom – Love box – Love canal – Love chamber – Love jungle – Love Lane – Love’s channel – Love’s harbor – Love’s paradise – Love’s pavilion – Lower lips – Lowlands – Lunch Box

M
Mantrap – Main Street – Minge – Manhole – Multi-Purpose Hall – Middle eye – Milk jug – Mine of pleasure – Miraculous cairn – Miss Laycock – Modesty – Money box – Mons pubis – Mother of all saints – Mother of all souls – Mound – Mouse trap – Mrs. Winkles – Mouth that can not bite – Muff – Mysterious cavern – Mysterious valley

N
Nature’s oven – Nice slice – Name it not – No-No Zone – Nature’s tufted treasure – Netherlands – Nick-in-the-notch – Notorious V.A.G. – Notch

P
Panty Hamster – Pandora’s box – Paradise – Peculiar river – Pee-hole – Pink – Pink Parts – Pink Sink – Pipe – Pipe cleaner – Pit hole – Playground – Plaything – Pleasure boat – Pleasure center – Pleasure center of heaven – Pleasure field of heaven – Pleasure garden – Pleasure house – Pleasure palace – Penalty box – Pole hole – Portal of Venus – Precious gateway – Pretty – Prick scourer – Prick-pocket – Penis parking – Privy hole – Purse – Puss – Pussy

Q
Queen of holes – Quimmy – Quin

R
Road – Road to heaven – Rooster – Rose – Rosebud – Rest and be thankful

S
Soft spot – Strawberry – Shame cave – Snatch – Seat of pleasure – Seat of wisdom – Secret cavern – Sensitive cave – Sensitive cavern – Sexual cavern – Shady spring – Shake bag – She – Shell – Skin coat – Scut – Silk funnel – Slice of life – Slit – Snatch box – Solution of continuity – South Pole – Spender – Split Peach – Spermsucker – Spice of life – Sportsman’s hole – Strings of the lyre – Suck and swallow – Slip And Slide – Sugar basin – Sugar donut – Sweet scented hole – Lady’s Secret – Sacred “V”

T
Touchpad – Temple of Venus – The great divide – The VIP Lounge – The channel – The hot oven – The never out trap – The saddle – The treasury – Thicket – Tongue depressor – Tootsie wootsie – Toolbox – Toyshop – Treasure house – Twat – The Sperm Bank – The Death of Adam

U
Under the hill – Undertaker – Upright grin – Upright wink

V
Va-jay-jay – V-jay – Vag – Vidgie – Valley of Decision – Venus mound – Venus’s honeypot – Vertical smile – Vicious circle – Virgin knot

W
Warmer – Who Who – Womens weapon – Water box – Wet Pie – Wayside fountain – Wazoo – Whispy Mound – Womanhood -Workshop

Y
Yoni – You know what – Yum-yum

269 minutes lost in a single day of testmatch

2010-01-18T03:08:00.001-08:00

Today in Chittagong, the 269 minutes of a test match day was lost in the fog.

We don’t need floodlights in the modern cricket grounds, we will be needing fog lights, pouring deep in the field, and the orange ball might be around the corner

But still, the find of the day , was this blog , I really liked it, hope you do too

http://www.cricinfo.com/page2/content/story/444066.html

This guy is an IT consultant and good that he gets time to write in his daytime. Anyways, the ICC is planning for day night test matches (some revolutionary idea they say , I am sure one of the guys , eating popcorn, came across this idea, and all of a sudden this is now in the pipeline )

Anyways, the IT industry is down and people are sad, and gloomy about the prospects about the future.

I blog, this mister Karthik too does the same. We have nothing else to do , either.

not good signs at all, for the beginning for 2010

City Center 2

2010-01-17T10:31:00.000-08:00

If you are new to Kolkata, you will be surprised to know that there are two city centers in the city, which are remotely any where near to the center of the city, but yes there exists but two of them

One of them is famous, the one in Salt Lake, as it was on the primary , or the premier ones in the city, with the institutionalization of the concept of malls, where you shop, eat and then watch a movie . This as a new new high, and with the coming years, now we have at least 5 INOXes within the city,
there are two City Centers, two Fame malls, and Forums and South City and Mani Square ( where money does not square but gets lost, vanished, vamboozled, simply disappears )

Now there are 3D screens, there are lush seats, comfortable sofa sets, there are 35 rupee halls and 10 rupee halls too. Khanna though closed now, was till the recent years selling tickets in single digits.

The same goes for many other non mall cinema halls, like our very own Jaya here in Laketown.

The City Center one is in Salt Lake, and the majority of the cinema goers are the well to do crowd or the first timers or the very poor but temporarily cash heavy software engineers. The tickets here come for plus 150 , and the rest of the malls in kolkata do sell them for 90-110 rupees range.

And 100 is something, people would like to shell out for a movie once in a while. We dont go to the movies any more to skip the heat , or to get rid of the staring eyes, or to cough at, sneeze at, talk on the fone.

We go to the movies, noawadays with etiquette, we stand up to the national anthem when Kabhi Khushie Kabhi Gam plays. We switch off our mobiles or at least stare at people who dont.

But we still try to do them within the limits of the city. Not at the end of civilization, in the nest of Gaffar Molla, but I did so....
I took a turn from the end of the Sector 5 road. I took the right. I crossed a fly over. I reach this point where most the completed buildings of the new town exist. Most of the flats here have been taken by NRIs and the rest by some of the bosses here of the software companies in Sector 5. These apartments right before the Home town ( that which will not open in the near future ) , is the last strand of civilization in the New town. Then started the torture,

not a soul on the road, not a stopping car, and the chill,
I went all the way till the first circle, on the right I could see darkness, and on the left, I could see darkness again.

So we went all the way to the Chinaar Park , I stood there for some 5 minutes, and cold biting me wherever it could I took the left from there, expecting the airport in that direction, I mean generally speaking.

All in all, it took 10 minutes of driving in the dark , desolate place , and some marauding sedans, going at top speed that i finally reached what you call City Center 2.

Yes, it is near by if you get in from the VIP , near the Haldirams, but on this other side, I think it is that feeling that you will never see another human soul again.

There is a new shop there, called the Max, The colors of the T Shirts, the tops, all were unique and it looks like it is their only shop in Kolkata
The prices were inexplicably cheap and the range was good, So this was one good find.

There was this college band that was trying its luck playing some of its own numbers, and also Mohiner Ghoraguli ,
there were some other performances, like the road side, tricksters, and the fire games.

There was a troup , there acting a serious play on the Nandigram

A bunch of Bihari guys behind, me , did not take it seriously though, but it was sad, Bihar and Jharkhand facing equal difficulties,

may be that the ones who understood this issues, did not come this god forsaken new town city center to see a play .

All in all, I liked the end of the journey , since the Baguiati area was warmer and I was feeling nice about the fact that I will not have to trace my way back to Sector 5 the other way round .

The cold today in Kolkata which stands at 12 degree they say, has almost dehumanized this street outside, which usually hosts a lot of people

On a day when Jyoti Basu died, I expected some kind of activity like party office people saying a word or two on a mike

This was one of the most silent of exits of a political giant, that I have ever seen

My mother and sister are watching some Apsara awards,an award which is nothing but an attempt to make another award popular, the Filmfares are in the shape of a lady and by naming this award an Apsara, they are simply increasing the importance of women in the industry which has now come down to a naught, given the fact that they will have to search hard for a new Madhuri Dixit or a Sridevi , ( forget the legends, like Waheeda Rehman, or Hema Malini ) to do a movie like Sita aur Gita, or Chaalbaaz.

Some attempt huh
By the way , I took some pics of the New Town City Center, have uploaded them

The art of dodging creditors

2010-01-17T01:17:00.001-08:00

After running around the world of network marketing, personal friendships, from seeing small business run to seeing friends losing it all.

I have a good amount of money from my job and that helps in this worldly experiments,

After all the fighting, and living this world , this so called sansar, all that I have learnt is, “it is all about dodging the creditors”

Credit cards, -- people who dodge the next door neighbors for years, for them it is like cakewalk, they take a credit card , work in a respectable MNC though, but they too vanish, in a world of no professional responsibility , and no moral , ethical dependency towards fulfilling your commitments, it is easy in todays world

Bank Loans – loans if you take in thousands, you will be sharked down,, if you take in crores, you can not pay it and stay alive , in the fish pond for years, and may be in the long run, become a respectable client , or die a peaceful life. You take 1000 crore from the bank, pay the manager 2 crores, and he wont bother, take it political, use that 1000 crores to fight in the court and you are bound to win

From friends – well, if he is in the same office, change your office, if he is another town, change your mobile number, that is very easy, stop contacts, dodge , dodge and dodge, people are crooked to start with and other people know it, and I am a pessimist, when the money goes, I only think of it as gone. I never calculate it as my own any more, it is rather of an income to me to get it back after years

And market – well, muscle power if you have, there is nothing like it, you are rich, you are famous, and no one will touch you, and thus there exists a device of the market called credit, all bar in front of you

we sometimes look at a ant hole and think how this poor insects stay in those crowded places, how rats infest their holes, now imagine, when you look at the current market , the current great Indian buzzars,

they are full this insect holes, where the competition is not only cut throat, it literally, dries your blood out, embalms your body and sells it to your family

Rather audacious

2010-01-17T01:07:00.001-08:00

Sehwag, had bluntly answered the press conference, that “Phew, Bangladesh , not to worry, a simple test match, a ordinary side”

To that, a Bangladeshi journalist had answered : “Tell me ,what are we weak at, bowling, batting, fielding?”

Sehwag replied : “ Does not matter!”

I was expecting a blistering start from the Indian team, but with 6 wickets down with Dravid and Laxman falling like they never existed, and the responsibility on the shoulders of one such pillar who usually stands alone and has never given the Indian team a good foundation, I have little expectations from the little master

I just wish , that as Saurav had made the Sri Lankan commentator Abenayeke look like a fool , by coming down the pitch and hitting a great six of the bowling of Jayasuriya,today , Tendulkar will wake up to his real need and take this team to some sort of respectable score

This is the team, for which Daniel Vettori had commented after an one day series that we need 400 + runs in all matches to beat the current Indian team,

and that team falling down so quickly, ( I am not saying that it hurts more since it is Bangladesh ,. today , when Bangladesh gets invited to Australia for test series ) it hurts to see this state of affairs

End of the era

2010-01-17T01:01:00.001-08:00

In West Bengal today , there has been a change, a visible dateline, a turn in the road ahead, a dent in the political aspirations, a clear point in the chronological events of the state, when you can say, that yes, 2010, an year of change,

Change, yes you can see, hoardings of the newspaper, Bartaman, that says, “I don’t want to move anymore, no more stances, change is inevitable , and this sad story comes from a figure that undoubtedly resemble the old politician of this state “

Well, he is no more, Biman Basu, a rather, strongwilled man , came to tears, saying these words. I know, that political camaraderie exists, and it is not Amar Singhs resignation that opens up the internal conflict, it is Jyoti Basu demise that shows that CPIM is made of a core team, with a will and a propaganda.

It is sad, that such a close team , such a bunch of talented individuals, and I am not talking about a mere state topper , in the finance minister. I am talking about a group of political scholars,

That change is inevitable and idealistic politics will not work out , is known by the educated few, but vote bank is a reality, some do it, by offering color televisions and by inviting foreign investments, and some do it, removing financial inequalities. In the process, even iron gets rust, and that same rust is now in this team.

IN laymans words, this was a great team, of strong individuals, and I have written it in this blog once before that, during the Nuclear treaty fiasco in the Indian parliament, the only political party who was following, its agenda, its own commitments was CPI (M )

I am no political enthusiast, but I do know the difference between people with talent and people without. And politics is a game of different hue all together, and in this country where mass demographics make it one huge challenge to make anything work, politics takes in a different angle all together

Jyoti Basu died today, at 95 , we could not have expected more from him, but this is that point of time, when CPIM leaders can look back and say, that without their leader, in spirit, their lies a void , and vacuum that will earmark their finish as a political party .

For me a common man, there is no difference, I know, but when I feel as a citizen I know that there comes a change, not in favour of Trinamool, but a dissent against CPIM.

It is not love for Trinamool, it is a hatred for CPIM.

New Channels

2010-01-15T00:08:00.001-08:00

Well, if you are in Bengal by any chance at this point of time, you will not be willing to open the news channels now,

Yesterday I overheard the local guys here , ( mostly the guys who sit on the rock walls , and sing the red songs of the CPIM, and wait for the monthly cadre salary ) . All these guys, had their own agenda, they had set up their own medical board right here below the porch. They were discussing the Urine levels of Jyoti Basu, the haemoglobin counts, the Lipid test results

They were talking about the difference between haemo dialysis and normal dialysis, the effects of the chill factor in the climate and the results of it, How we lost Moti Nandi to the weather and may be also will loose this old nonagenarian politician.

And later on , before sleeping when I switched on the television for about a minute, I could see the bottom line in one of the newspapers “Situation is critical, urine ….”

I am not pointing towards something that is gross, or anything like that, Mr Priya Ranjan Das Munshi is on a life support system right after the Durga Pujo , ( ie about 3 months now ) all on a bill of 3-4 lakhs per day ,or more that I don’t know.

But this time with Jyoti Basu it is different, since he is not in a coma, he is alive and kicking, but the doctors are not able to put out a sure shot result either.

Not dragging this matter any further like the left front is used to , I would like to point out the other nonsensical reporting I saw in one of the news channels

it is “this millenniums longest solar eclipse”

Why not, it is the 10^th year in the millennium and you are seeing the longest , which is correct

Well, one of the hindi news channels, the real producer of Sansani khez , khabarei , vaardaat, dehshat, hawash, khoon, bhoutik, aloukik, stuff,

The sun goes light with time and in another 20 it will be at its weakest point , the channel plays “Suraj huaa madhyam ….”

Meyer Biye Deben Na

2010-01-14T03:55:00.000-08:00

and maamaar saathey bhaagney free

Signs

2010-01-14T03:38:00.000-08:00

This was a sign . Proof that Aliens do exists and there are Roswells in our country too. Read the one at the bottom

If you are not able to read what is there,

Keep an watch on suspicious persons , people speaking in alien language with alien features
I know what they mean

The last train from Kharagpur

2010-01-14T03:24:00.000-08:00

That is the train ,that comes all the way from Puri, starts 7 o clock in the morning and reached KGP at 11 in the night. This is one train that for some reason stops at santragachi , which I later realized why

the Puri Passeneger is one of the slowest trains in the country , and since it touches all stops in the KGP Howrah routes, including, NagaerPakrail, Abaada, Haur, the ones that trains dont even slow down while passing. But this one train stops everywhere

there was one security guy in the coach that I was in, which I later fathomed was the sardar of the goons on the train route. He is the official boss and informer of people carrying stuff on this route. I was carrying a rather costly Omnia Set and was peeved at the idea of getting into a typical scene there,

Well, the train was late and it stopped at halts, at signals and every where possible, the journey of 114 kms from KGP to Howrah took 5 hours,

The only grace from this fall of travel in India trains was the fact that opposite to me there was this family, all hawkers in this route, which I later realized, the mother a Tiranga Gutkha fan, the father a mobile seller with n mobiles on him. He sold tomatoes in the day time,
These guys knew the whole route like the palm of their hands, they knew which part of the platform the train was in, they knew the tea vendors by the first name, they knew which train was passing by , almostby the sound of it

KGP was a chilling, it was almost 7 degrees when I started, and with the train going fast at times, and without proper windows , which shut half way, got stuck some where, lucky or unlucky me , to get a window side seat, I took like the chaddar that was supposed to be used if I laid down, I wore the chaddar , closed myself in, and observed this family,
Wondering this wonder of the railways,
This family , just lived in the trains, they knew the cops, they knew the TTs , they know where to do what, which platform to get down

From the sound of parcels and cartons getting offloaded at the stations from the vendor wagons, they could tell, what was getting loaded,
they told me the cauliflowers, ( fresh as they can be ) getting offloaded in Sankrail, fish which is fresh to the point the the most miser of the Bengali middle class would pay a fortune for was getting offloaded in the Panskura and the Mecheda station

I was surprised at their intrinsic and almost instinctive control of the running train

at one point of time, they were talking " lets get down here, go to the toilet, buy some fish and take the next local"
it is like walking naked in your own bedroom ,for them

Anyways, I did capture a nice picture from the running train inside the platform of the KGP staion

I am an amateur foto grapher, and this is a proof of it for sure

And the one about the Hatis

2010-01-14T03:11:00.000-08:00

Well, he is famous
His name is Patiram Hati,
I always thought that the pot bellied, Headooo
or the head master of the hostel in which Nantey and Fantey and KeltuDa studied, had been a metaphorical name with black humor to it

Mr Patiram Hati , having acted as Hanuman, as Ravan , in many a jatra, I thought was one in a million.

But here in Kharagpur I could see that Dr B B Hati , does exist and he runs his clinic pretty well from the local feed back

Well, the name is behind my friends back , I saw this much later while looking closely at the picture

Well, there are two more pics though,
the one with parcle <--- which i think the author means as parcel.
and the one with nusing home <-- which is nursing home.
Though not much of a thing to make fun of , but yes, all across the country I do come across millions of such mistakes
the one in Bihar that said "Child Bear" <--- chilled beer
still is the winner. I am still trying to find the second best,
though this 25th Decemeber , I saw this Meena Bazar Sherwani shops, which sell, traditional Hizaabs or Sherwanis for the Muslim population of Hyderabad, was pretty happy selling Santa Clause suits.
That was a real good bargain , like Russell Peters said, a Chinese guys selling a Louis Vuitton to a Indian guy ( that is the sale that i want to see )

Well, some ads dont pull you anywhere

2010-01-14T03:10:00.001-08:00

This was the ad for sweater, well, in the world of skinny models, I welcome this change

Kharagpur trip

2010-01-14T03:02:00.000-08:00

Well, after a long time I am writing some posts.
I thought why not write about the IIT KGP trip. And it was what i had expected, a memorable one.
Better it would have been had it been through a BTech experience, and the guys who come out of it, I have seen the passion in them to prove themselves. I have met some of them in my career, and the KGP guys do have a lot to talk about the college , the campus and their mess. ( the one thing they all unanimously miss are girls, which is a a sad fact )

But still, the campus is what i would ideally say a place to learn, to gather more knowledge, the place to have fun too. There are so many dhabas inside, there are schools, there are untrekked places, and obviously n number of academic buildings, the Hizli Jail, where the fighters like Khudiram Bose of the Midnapur district were kept.

The roads in the campus, canopied by all familiar trees, tell a story of a well cared for campus, with the Malis or the gardeners coming to work on e daily basis and not a yearly once , whimsical visit.

Since most government paid, gardeners in the country seldom go to work for which they have a salary coming.

Once picture that always wanted to put up , is here

I always wanted to walk through these roads, to office and come back at the end of the day through these.

Bhubaneshwar

2010-01-14T02:48:00.000-08:00

Well, I went to Bhubaneshwar after a long time.
The station is much small compared to the other stations of the state capitals. I was rather surprised that Cuttack station smelled so bad, since i had better memories of Cuttack , but for Bhubaneswar the things were of the different hue.
Bhubaneswar , has changed itself in to a town with huge potential , as my Mama says, they have been fighting some of the worst draughts, inspite of having a corridor where mining makes the state a rich in ore , and thus cash rich state. Orissa has been a predominant name in the UN summits, with hunger related suicides and deaths, ( a picture of the countries worst report card or a breakdown of any system ) .
Kalahandi , as we know, came as a surprise to the educated world of the result of human greed, the land there is rich, but the people there are so poor they would trade anything for a piece of onion ( which will soon be the condition of the Indian urban markets, where the western dollars are not coming easy and the super taxes sapping everything to run the ventlators for Priya Ranjan Das Munshi or Jyoti Basu )

With the commodities markets, and bunch of Dallals in the Dalal Street dictating the hoarders across the country, it is a sad state of things, that we have to write about it in a blog and it will be read by a few more educated students of this nation.

The top brass is more worried about a misspelled word here or there, or a Shashi Tharoor comment. They are worried about " Shhh, we are not supposed to talking it aloud , that Rahul Gandhi is going to be the next PM "
it is like one of those open secrets

the rural bengal doesnot name the snakes or the ghosts in the night, "they are known as "Tenara" "
Tenara aaschen
Tenara choley gechen

Anyways, What I saw in Bhubaneswar was a eye opener , the out side of the station was neat , and it did not make my mind dizzy , with rampant taxi, auto etc etc drivers, who make your life hell elsewhere.
The circle outside the station was neat, and all the way till Patia which is about 15 km away from the station I did not see a single pothole, all 6 laned highways, we talk about after watching a hollywood movie
There was once a time, when train loaded with Oriya people came to Bengal to study , to be cooks in peoples home, people form Andhra came to learn about Dairy Farming technology, about the fisheries in Kolkata

Today Mamata Bannerjee has to put out a train every month from Bengal to oriss , from Bengal to the other states. ( just like Bihar obviously) . Since, people need to go out the state to earn.
I am putting this early morning picture of the road outside Patia ,where people feel safe for the morning walk, there is a less polltion , the shops are away from the main roads with gaps to keep your car and bike, nice planning I should say

the cushioned seats in the platform number 1 in Bhubaneswar does a lot too

Plastics striclty no no

2010-01-14T02:41:00.000-08:00

Ok, the drive against Plastic , right after the Copenhagen makes sense . Though global warming was an issue, but India and the west is still fighting the cold weather as of now.
But this poster opposite to the Jaya Cinema Hall takes the cake for the spelling ,
For those of you who dont understand Bengali or cannot read it,

the poster says
"Plaestic instead of plastic " , not a great mistake to ponder upon, but for language enthusiast, who know that the standard of Bengali is going down in the state as the good sons of Bengal are now in Bengal-uru, or Hyderebad .

Just a little bit of pride

2010-01-14T02:34:00.000-08:00

I went to Strand Road the other day , the end of MG Road, I saw this old building that belonged to the Raja of Darbhanga , ( a part of Bihar ) . This has been a shop that has been in the family for 95 years now. Started in the times of the World Ward I, it satnds still today , as a sign of a great saree shop of the Burra Bazar

This shop and the hotel Royal have been there in the Burra Bazar for a century now.

BBC at time

2010-01-14T02:15:00.001-08:00

I have been a frequent visitor to the BBC site in the last few months. There are many catchy captions but this one belts it

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2010/01/obamas_bigger_rod_for_banks.html

Also , there are there banks with security holes , so no wonder

I wonder, what the people will think, when they read one of the best captions for 1990’s when Bill was asked, “Why do you think, the average American will go down on their knees after all this?”

Well, someone did go down on her knees to start with

New ads

2009-11-30T00:38:00.000-08:00

I am at my Marredpally home,

Today morning, I got a chance to be at the System here in Hyderabad , from 10 PM. That being a part of the business weekly meeting, we try to be religious about it,

Missed the morning Badminton game,

Will write about it all together some other day , how I went on to buy one of the costly rackets, the shuttles, the track suits for the same

Anyways, I am now sitting at home, watching TV , Roadies 7 comes with some good ads, one being from my very favorite Bani, though I have written about her long time back in one of the blogs, I believe 200 blogs ago

“Na Rakhi naa Rakhi ki maa, asli reality,”

it also has street banners like

“Bacchi ki shaadi nah , asli reality”

guys who believe in reality will not be in Roadies to start with, the only person who is really making something out of it really is Raghu, Though even he is out of this concept, only to drive bigger things ,. He is not a part shareholder of MTV, that is a big jump quite at an early age.

Anyways, I am sure he was a difficult guy to get along with for most of his friends

Coming to the new Indian ads, as usual the Fevicol ad ranks at the top along with many others,

I like the sweet face of the girl while she is jumping out the balcony in the Act II popcorn ad,

One of the new ads for Max mobiles, will show a foreigner in some remote village of India, where he tries to take photograph of utmost poverty , and the rural India, and how it looks like,

one damsel sitting on the porch in return takes the photograph of this guys taking a foto on her Max mobile,

a very very tasteful ad if you were to ask me. I am amazed that what happens to this creativity on the big screen, why do our movies suck big time,

25millipn dollars they spent on the film called blue, out of which many millions went to eh stars and that is why they did not have much to do with the rest of the crew

Akshay Kumar and his big fat pay cheque pulled the movie into the deep blue I believe

So much creativity in the bottom most guys,

There is a serial called lapataganj that I watch now almost every day, it definitely reminds of the Agartala that I left in my childhood, so many characters to watch see and learn

I sincerely hope that in our Social networking lives we have some thing similar to provide to the next generation of ours

2012

2009-11-25T03:05:00.000-08:00

Finally this Sunday, amongst riot that you can see outside mulitplexes to get a seat for 2012. I was able to manage a very good seat in a here to ,unknown theatre in Hyderabad, near the railway station , call the Prashanthi ,

I was astonished at how coolly we managed to get the tickets,

I watched it in an amazingly good balcony location for a 25 rs ticket

All till the interval ,when I realized why should not have come here. At interval, even before it, the lights were dimmed, right when Paris was going down, and Rome was almost at the verge of collapse,

the movie in its magnanimity makes, countries like India go down in one sentence ‘hey there, I think India just collapsed ‘

Anwyays, at the point of the interval, which I thought the theatre print of the movie should have a banner across it, but it did not, just the lights started dimming , and within 30 seconds of lost footage, the interval started

All the children from across the aisles, went out , pushing, cheek by jowl, all the ladies, trying to hold on to their tramps, the kids in the arms, all crying, unanimously, and the guys in their flip flops, and decorated jeans, went out, all together,

they like it that way, and by they I mean all those who came to the theatre to enjoy the movie other than me,

they all had to had a cold drink, one of the guys in front of me who was complaining about cold , or something, complained about the chill , I don’t know why he did ask for a cold drink in the first place, some of the kids had to take some pop corn, some had to shout at the top of their voice,

many had their phones on during the whole first half, but the sound system in side the theatre won everytime they raised their voice.

I think they are not used to losing, and they do try and taking beyond the 180 dB range, they never think of the discomfort of the others nearby, later I realized, they actually like to show off, this is there way of proclaiming, “see I now have important people calling me, I do have some work to do , I am not a good for nothing guy, I am use ful, see, look at me, and this mobile, it has a ear phone too, and if you need I will take you foto graph “

blah blah,

Anyways, another couple had to bring two of their kids to the movie, one more victim of nuclear family, in the olden days, you could keep you child to anyone int eh family and take some time off, and in return when you get old, other young couple get to keep their children with you when they go to watch 2012

I once had seen a Gujarati family bringing their bunch of kids to watch the movie Sin . in which Shiney Ahuja was naked most of the time.

Obviously, the children cried, they could have got a mental shock, if you ask me, anyways, my friend, a daring girl walked up to them and shouted at the family “

What the hell, don’t you ask anyone about a movie that you are taking your children to, the gate keeper should have atleast caught them < I don’t know whther you could bribe your sons first porn movie as a birthday gift or not ?

The family just knew one thing, weekends, are to spend the money that I have earned the whole week, I like the on intellectual culture, at least hey get a chance to enjoy whatever money has to offer, but then to bring you r children to movies like Zinda, Kalbhi alvida naa kehna or Sin for example

Do they need a title like “ I press your boobs and you suck it down there “ before they decide that it might be in the range of movies that keep good impressions in the minds of the children to start with,

Anyways , today morning a thought struck me, that , lets say , there really is a 2012 happening, what I will do is take a printout of all my blogs, make a book out of,

“the blogs of Rahiakil” and some how place it in the ship that will be made in China to save as ,

In future, I will be known as a great writer of the before flood. But before that I will have to find and destroy the database or the server that will be having all the worlds good old literature, like Faust, Dante, Goether, Shakespeare, Milton , Chaucer, Wordsworth , one by one, I will have to delete them and place my book

And there will be only author in the coming years, and that will be me

Test match # 2 , Nov 2009

2009-11-25T02:49:00.001-08:00

Well, when you see, Yuvraj being more gentle than he is usually, when you have sweeper in the first over of a test match, when you see, a gully in case of Rahul Dravid, batting in the other way around, you should know that things are not what it seems

Indian team was paying flamboyantly till today morning, when all of a sudden it got out at 642,

I don’t know , whether some Intel based experiment is working out such wonders on the pitch in Kanpur this time, but some how the way Harbhajan and more of a surprise Dhone could not read the Mendis at all, I am afraid this was a wrong choice to pick up three fast bowlers for this match that will be a Spinners cake walk game

Anyway,

I like Dravid in a sense, if you see his foot movement you will see a new difference, instead of stretching it across the stumps, he nowadays, stretches it forward, which is typical of Yuvaraj. This is a welcome change though late in the career and 10 K plus runs later,

But some where deep down I know that if Dravid is allowed to continue , we might see some blazing new score book changes, and records tumbling in the coming days,

Border you are down, Lara here he comes.

The test is now interesting, in the sense that I am waiting for Sehwag to take the bowl and Yuvaraj if possible

One year since the Taj attaks in Mumbai

2009-11-25T02:44:00.001-08:00

Though the Oberoi was under siege too , we have Taj as the vivid picture in our minds,

After that, the spot has now become even more of a viewpoint, with many families keeping it as a must see spot, and a must have a photograph spot,

there will be a frame hanging in many houses all around the country in the years to come, also for NRI families to take atleast one family snap near the Taj. Wall across the world will have it as a souvenir

But one thing that I do remember about the Taj case was that, there were some terrorists holed up in the Taj last year, the situation was similar to the Kargil war, they had one single point in their hold, no one with their sane mind would wage war against India at this time, these are rampant acts of terrorism, small treacherous activity only to keep their flag flying, some where deep down in the dungeons of illiteracy and propagandized world.

The one thing that I take from the feelings that I have about the killings last years as far as I remember was, people were all waiting, all the news channels, without a singe ad , no one wanting to ,miss out on the drama, there were virtually a emptiness in the news channels, all directed towards, the drams unfolding on the Taj corridors, but does any one specifically remember, what we as a nation was wanting,

The terrorists had made us murderers in return too, we were all waiting for the NSG to take command, kill the terrorists inside and take control of the situation.

I am not sure about any other way of working out the problem , but we as a nation , 100 crore people odd, or some what more, all waiting to see some lives go , some people ( terrorist people cal them ) die

the terrorists had indeed made us murderers in return,

from children of 10 years of age to any person in sane logical mind was trying to get those hold up terrorists killed,

After all, we were watching a live version of a death match.

I never , expected such a thing to happen, but there it was, when the last terrorist fell from the window, I remembered some scenes of mindless fanfare going all around the middle east and Tailban infected places, streets of Afghanistan when the 9/11 happened.

All in all, it has left a bad taste in my mind

IDeas that bother

2009-11-15T03:42:00.001-08:00

Idea did change my life

Nowadays I am not that prompt to see an SMS

I mean I don’t lookup the inbox everytime the mobile beeps the SMS tone

I know that more than half the time it is a Idea promotional message

I missed one of the important ones my brother, not bothering to look up the sms, as soon as it came since I had given up the hope of getting a normal sms anymore

Idea did change my life

Anyways, found some thing online

In order to stop IDEA promotional SMS/Calls, you need to register for 'DO NOT DISTURB', i.e. DND
Send a SMS ' START DND' to 1909 and get rid of prmotional calls/SMSs forever ...

or Google 'how to register for 'Do not Disturb'

May be this will help some one out there

Badvertisement

2009-11-15T03:37:00.001-08:00

people run out of money, or paint , and there goes a good advertisement.

I recently saw a good one behind an auto, this was about Tata Yellow pages, it had a melting ice cream below which it had the caption “Act quickly”

that is the kind of advertisement, one can associate to immediately. Everyone has had a melting ice cream more than once and knows the importance of eating it quickly.

I liked it personally,

I hate the recent fairness cream ads, there is something that you cannot change, I know of a friend who bought the Garnier fairness cream only because the fairness meter or a strip with 14 shades of skin tones was printed. One was supposed to measure how the cream works by comparing before and after fairness meter reports.

Well, that is something that teaches me something about the human psyche, my friend who is a very fair girl judging by Indian skin tone standards, she is upset that she is not 1 on that meter, and is at 2, I don’t know how she came to that conclusion after all. I believe that had this been given to a person who is dark and goes below that 14 th marker, I mean that he is not even the lowest point that meter, he would not be worried to make it one shade lighter, He would be more practical, he would have either taken it as it should be, he would have rather given up the tension altogether,

Anyways, one funny thing I saw in the morning, was, one Auto driver who had run out of paint or ideas, had written it right across his autos back “

Raju Gandhi International Airport “

He fucking, messed up the name of a ex PM , who had died for the nation. Well it seems people don’t take that shit seriously at all. It is ok, as long as some one figures out that there is only one Internation Airport in Hdyerabad and it is Rajiv Gandhi IA. So any one reading it would figure it out, we really have no opportunity to put up a Raju Gandhi airport soon, because for that the Gandhi family would have to make a new baby and name it Raju , ( pyar se of course )

And then make him famous, or for quicker turnaround time, make him the PM asap. I believe that may be a distant possibility and by that time, autos will be altogether banned in this nation.

Still, this is much better than what I had seen months back in some town in Bihar , a wine shop which proclaimed more than happily “ Child Bear”

All I could figure out was, it means chilled beer, and as long it serves it chilled, no one would bother them about the bear .

Somewhere in Hdyerabad, I think opposite to the Madisson hotel in Begumpet, there is a wall that says “Do not pass”

and then goes blank, I was afraid, what does the poster guy mean, was he out of paint, wall, or what he had to go to answer natures call and never got his act together to come back and finish his masterpiece,

Actually the irony is that the wall is close to a school, some corporate offices. Well, what the author meant was “ Do not pass urine here “, the urine her goes in the second line, which had been washed away for reason.

Near the HAL airport ( old airport ) in Bangalore, there is a fruit juice center, that has a menu that goes “ Pome granite juice “

Actually better than “Promo grenade juice “ in the Adyar Ananda Bhavan in Bangalore.

Minx shake ( milk shake ) , Benana juice, crap apple shake “

I believe I have seen many such signs and symbols all around the country , a local Dan Brown . But I did not keep a reference note anywhere , which I should have kept. That way I would not have missed any of these masterpieces.

One of the posters outside Reliance World ( Mayfair ) says, that “your vehicles here will have to parked at owners risk”

ya, yaa, my bike is a stolen one but I was prudent enough to makes its owner sign a contract before I stole it , that if ever I will park this bike I will do it, with his responsibility and more so when I am doing it outside Mayfair.

And I forgot to write about Hyderabad winter

2009-11-15T03:19:00.001-08:00

Today at 6PM I will showing a business plan to a friends Japanese language class mate. That will take about 2 hours,.

After which I go to Ajays, place to cook some food. I realized that no matter what I do , my onions always go half waste, the amount of rice I choose always, is wrong,

Only if I have another person to share the food, that does it perfectly fine. Ajay is a good cook, a bachelor in the mid thirties, some how, inarguably is a good cook. I am can bet on it.

My driving classes are done. we only need to finish the reverse gear classes which I will do by the end of the month , the weekend of 29 th November. Since on the 5 th I have the driving test. I need to pass it, for if I have to buy the car by mid January ,for which I am saving everything that I have.

May be I will break the SBI NAV , whatever I get but still I need the car. A Hyundai i10

Research starts now , am talking with a large number of people about it. Actually, most of my cousin brothers are advising about buying a new car , but I am not willing to shell out more than 3 lakhs now on buying a car. Since I am not in the mood for luxury but it is now a necessity I should get the closest possible deal and buy that car

Anyways,

Hyderabad now, especially these months, one cannot be anywhere else in the planet but in Hdyerabad, there is a chill in the air , especially post the 9 pm mark. Trafiic has already spoiled the environment , and somehow it is not as cold as it used to be, but that makes it a very comfortable winter.

Hyderabad . winter starts

2009-11-15T03:13:00.001-08:00

it is mid November

It is sprinting right in front of me.

I always knew that time and tide waits for none, but tide at least you can predict, time, the predictability that after a period of time you will be able to guess what time is it , is now beyond human control

I specifically remember a childhood game,

we were class 1 or class 2. We invented a large number of games, without any prior experience,

just intuition. Spending time in the bus, like jumble words, with no absolute hint at all, and pen and paper,

Someone would just say ailartsua and you have to find out , what is the original word

For a class 1 or class 2 student I am amazed at how good we were. We did math puzzles , square roots, etc.

Some of the games were in the school ground , and specifically out doors, you start from two corners of the ground and walk back ( facing the other way ).

The aim was to meet at the center, the best pair was the winner. Anyways, those were just small games. We had some games, like run the stop watch and stop it exactly at 1:00.

that was like within 30 minutes one would have played across the group of 6 people,. ( 6 x 5 ) only 5 times. I used to win it most of the time. We also played this game of counting number of seconds without seeing a real watch, you had to say how many seconds had passed or you had to say that it was one minute up.

That was a real time counter game and some of us were real good at it. Also , we played about judging the correct time of the day ,

I was good at it

Well, now in 2009. I have lost it, I am insane. Today I woke up at 5 in the morning, as a part of my lifestyle change project ( I talk in numbers baby , I work for an American MNC ) . I went with my brother to the airport. I cam back around 9 and napped for a while as I was feeling that the sleep was not complete . Unbelievably, I woke up in 2 hours, but by the time I left bed after spending some pensive time in a Sunday morning bed, I saw the clock move to 2:35

I decided to get lunch. Thought about magi noodles, There was none at home. Went to buy one, now that I have finished, it, it is already 4:42

Where on earth can I explain the last 2 hours. Was I abducted or my time was abducted ….

Early Morning 14 November 2009

2009-11-13T17:28:00.001-08:00

Today is what they called chilrens day , today morning, it would have been different had I been in school

but no I am not,

I am way past that, but, I made atleast a lifestyle change today.

I woke up at 6 in the morning and have been doing something or the other till then

yesterday evening the guys in office planned for a volley ball match. I realized that with the space bar gone in my laptop

I am not going to do much with this laptop today , without getting irritated .

So I am starting for the volleyball match now.

Will come back, take my bike to a service center , headlights gone, mileage, boy,

My brother comes back at 11 am,

and then I will have some idea where I will spend the rest of the day .

Will upload pics for the day today in the evening.

Spate of affairs

2009-11-13T03:19:00.000-08:00

Recently one of my replies in rediffmail

Spate of affairs

The net and media currently dominates a mans way of thinking. recently I got an opportunity to meet some people in a train journey those who have some how been non initiated with the net and television too. They belonged to a senior group of devotees in some religious group. all educated, strong intellectuals ( at least acc. to me )
I found their opinions completely non biased and without doubt one of the best assessment of the country as we know it.

We in India consider the rediffmail statistics as a good benchmark, the world leaders invite India in almost all the meeting, we have billionaires in the top lists.
But there is a one inherent problem, and that is common mans perception. Why does the common man still feel that it is difficult to buy houses in India, start a business in India, none of the jobs makes your life secure. and even if it does, it is in the dynamic private industries, where nothing is static. In the public services where the salaries have seen changes, the rates of potatoes and rice have seen double changes.

We no longer worship the merit. In the 1960s when Jawaharlal Nehru , was running the machinery in terms of new deals, and was going to become a part of the new world order the rise of the east. ( does it a ring a bell ) . there were newer opportunities since all the government offices were new and jobs were offered. An entire generation of Indians started thinking that changes are right around the corner. Those men are now 60 plus

those men have come and gone, they thought that things will change ( something that all of us find genetic ) Rceently one of my cousins went to visit Europe for a business visit. When he came back , he gave me the following explanation for the rise of the west. He feels , that the weather, the pollution free environment, the hassle free life, makes a man not bother about smallest of the details, but think big, the mind opens, up. Mind you,it was 3000 years or more , back . When westerners...

Re: Spate of affairs
by rahiakil on Nov 13, 2009 04:41 PM
those men have come and gone, they thought that things will change ( something that all of us find genetic )

Rceently one of my cousins went to visit Europe for a business visit. When he came back , he gave me the following explanation for the rise of the west. He feels , that the weather, the pollution free environment, the hassle free life, makes a man not bother about smallest of the details, but think big, the mind opens, up.

Mind you,it was 3000 years or more , back . When westerners came to India and saw, favorable climate, water of the ganges could heal diseases, the change of weathers very necessary of the bodies complete growth, natural monsoon systems and a vast area of land with minimal population.

Moral lessons of respecting ones old, caring for the others, hospitality , joint families, were all encouraged and followed religiously. Given all these, one always thought of this nation highly. But things have changed. Mind you , we are in the same bubble as our older geneartions. we still benchmark the west as a better standard of living and strive towards it. some of us, try to find fault in the west system of personal life , but I am sure, no one challenges their development in the material world.
Obviously, all cannot be blamed to the politcians, they are just we normal people in near future.

All I am hinting is though we consider ourselves the next most happening country , we forget, that the world , the earth is running out of resources.....

One funny thread in Rediffmail

2009-11-12T05:07:00.000-08:00

WHERE IS AMERICA ?
by Bhola Kumar on Nov 07, 2009 03:15 PM | Hide replies

HAHAAAA HAHAHAA HAHA and where are so called advanced countries like Canada, UK, France, Japan, Singapore.

seems India is number one in the world now in everything and west is the third - fourth world hahaa

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Re: WHERE IS AMERICA ?
by Pradeep Tondwalkar on Nov 07, 2009 04:12 PM
Its seems you are from Bihar or UP , U do not know the topic and keep comenting.

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Re: Re: WHERE IS AMERICA ?
by vivek on Nov 07, 2009 04:45 PM
HE IS FROM THE FAMILY OF BHOLNATH JAFRANI

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Re: WHERE IS AMERICA ?
by SEKKU SEKKU on Nov 07, 2009 03:25 PM
Its clear you dont seem to understand what is being talked about here. Its money flowing from the advanced countries to India by Indians who have migrated abroad. US, UK and other countries dont top this list because they dont go abroad to earn money and remit it back to their homes.

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Re: WHERE IS AMERICA ?
by Nitesh Oswal on Nov 07, 2009 03:21 PM
might u had put the concept of \"Remittances\" then uttering Hahahha...

It\'s the transfer of money to the country from it\'s non residents settled outside (obviously in developed countries)

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Re: WHERE IS AMERICA ?
by jolly on Nov 07, 2009 03:25 PM
we need more idiots like bhola kumar... who just clicks the next button on and on.. without having no clue what it is about.. country which has maximum remittances or loose motion.. makes no difference to him cuz he cant read!!!
this article specifically says that it is about money flowing from developed countries to developing countries.. considering that india and china have the most non-residents and then followed by mexico.. this was bound to happen.. very few canadians or british or french or japanese or singaporeans (quoting from his list) actually migrate.. they do.. but very few!!

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Re: WHERE IS AMERICA ?
by surya das on Nov 07, 2009 03:26 PM
Dear Bhola, u are really bhola. What do u mean by remittance? People who are working out side of their country sending money to their home to support their family, relatives, and other related purposes. Do u think US, England, Germany, Japan, France, South Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, HK, Aus, Canada and many developed economy are working in other countries and sending their money? So, that is the main reason why these names are not here. Actually we are working for them with a low labour cost but due to weak currency value of INR when we convert to Rupee, it turns out to be huge amount, and more over, we Indian are working all over the world and sending money to India. Hope, this cralifies you.

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Re: Re: WHERE IS AMERICA ?
by vivek on Nov 08, 2009 02:44 PM
PAPPU CAN DANCE

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Re: Re: WHERE IS AMERICA ?
by srikanta sahu on Nov 07, 2009 04:30 PM
this is not about weak INR but about getting lots of foreign currencies.offcourse which in this article mentioned in USD.

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Re: Re: Re: WHERE IS AMERICA ?
by surya das on Nov 07, 2009 07:28 PM
If this not weak INR then wht is that? 1 year before it was 1 USD = INR 39, now it is trading at INR 47.50. Nearly 21% weaker against USD, do u know what is the 21% difference in currency trading? It is not weak against USD, but also EURO, AUD, SGD, YEN every major currencies. Not like in 1972 when, 1 USD = INR 17, And, the big difference is all major currencies are getting stronger against USD, that gives India have an edge cause people are sending money using various currencies, which have bigger value against USD.

12 th November

2009-11-12T03:44:00.001-08:00

Spent half the morning reading about some bogus rediffmail article about CK Prahlad

asking for India to make 500 more cities, To build more planned cities and not slums ( concrete slums ) all over again.

The comments in Rediff go on to show the amount of frustration the common public has, there are many censored comments

the moderators are not spared either.One can find some very funny conversations too, from NRI vs frustrated Indian employees,

from private vs public sector workers

from IIT ians vs non IITians

From MBA holders vs normal managers

retired public servants vs current day stressed out workaholics,

you can find threads for South Indians vs North Indians

Biharis vs the rest of the universe

everything,

communists vs capitalists

I don’t have a clippings of many of them, but one Hindu article I really think one should read,

http://www.hinduonnet.com/2004/07/11/stories/2004071100201400.htm

Everyday thousands of rural families migrate to the cities in search of better standards of living and what are causes behind them

written by a

Retired IAS officer of the Tamil Nadu cadre

A man of the yesteryears, who has seen it all, the formative years of the Indian economy and India as we know today

Random

2009-11-10T01:56:00.001-08:00

I was watching, some old movie yesterday,and was surfing through,when I stopped at a very familiar picture,

A Punjabi driver, a chasing situation etc, etc,

If that is the truth, we have Punjabi drivers all around the world,Ban had once commented, that why not have some in the F1 circuit too,

the biggest connection was that F1 Driver Schumachers, fitness expert was one Punjabi, the Mallyas are south Indian and they don’t drive

those cars in the circuits,

Ban always, brings out those points, that one will miss out, normally,

Anyways, Ban has finally, come up with some good ideas, he was asking his brother to start selling LCD monitors ( dumb computer monitors ) with External TV tuner

cards that come for about 1 K , so all you need to sell a 22 inch LCD tv is a 9 K lcd monitor (May be Acer will sell you one for even less ) And pull in one more k for the tv tuner

card. There you go , you can sell a lcd TV in itself for half the price, install it and make your own business,

Who stopped you from assembling it. Anyways, his latest one being pushing me for the IAS. After months of thinking, I think it is a point in my life, when I still have the next three years, till I turn 30.

Well, Ban is great, and let his expectations from me come true

India go for the last match

2009-11-10T01:50:00.000-08:00

To start with,

I am getting no time at all

Right after coming back to Hyderabad, there was a flurry of things pending in my plate. I tried my best to keep my mind away from some solitude here, may be I require it after all.

I stayed in my house, locked it like a secure container, to house my feelings for two whole days, lived like Howard Hughes in The Aviator or should I say in his real life. The genius inside him had an excessive obsession for cleanliness, hygiene, he could not bear anything out of the normal.

I was but stung by a mood quite opposite to that,

first and foremost, after a gap of three months when you enter a room like mine in the ground floor of a building, without a regular cleaner, all you get is a bachelors den that even the strongest of them would think at least thrice before stepping in.

I was sitting inside, thinking about the due course of the next few weeks to come. I am not sure, what makes a man motivated for larger goals, even after giving his 100% the returns don’t come. Still, unfazed by the uncertainty of the coming times, I slept , I slept throughout the weekend,

The only problem in between was, that my sister called me up to see the scores on the 6^th match morning.

Well, that was a sight, that reminds of the misery and pain of those school days, we loved cricket, I was born in the year 1983, the year india won the world cup, and may be, it will remain empty handed, thoughout, one man army, one match wonders, one series in decades,

fancying a win in the foreign grounds, I remembered the good old school days, taking a leave ,, skipping school, not even to meet my sweet heart of yesteryears, we were more often than not, pushed in a misery, pushed into that gory hole of hopeless ness,

but we survived, and again in the next match , we came back to life, we started with the same enthusiasm.

Gradually, amongst my friends, I saw that the cricket pitch had settled down, many of my friends were taken to watching F1, NBA, or something else,

they were merely getting an a inherent aversion , that grew over a period of time , slowly subsiding the fever , and later on it became second skin to not watch any of Indias matches

and even if possible, only the last 5 overs of Indias batting, Slowly came the IPL and now I don’t have any regional,zonal or country level patriotism left in me. All I know is that there is s good cricket with some evening popcorn.Just enjoy it,

May be that explains why I returned back to cricket or returned back to watching some of it. But then till March 2009, India was running at a success rate past 70 % in the One dayers, a fact that was shown to me, and I quickly regained some enthusiasm, watched some of the matches, till things started getting back to the 90s again.

There is a dialogue in the movie Swadesh, that liked very much, it goes something like this “Don’t show us dreams Babuji, this was not meant for us”

All I am pointing here is not hopelessness coming out of inherent weakness, but there lies some other signs that one has to catch, during the world cup this time India, lost the first match , but had a more than fair chance of winning the next two to make it to the semis, but there was a wash out in the match against the Aussies, and then there was a almost match winner from Pakistan that Aussies won,

India could have come back , and that did not work out.

Well, this time, I am not unhappy with the team, I think we batted well ,sometimes fielded well too, and bowling was not like the 90s when Venkatesh Prasad ( who still asks Ishant to slow down,gaping hole in his mouth , should shut down , as a measure of national security , you will know what I am talking about if you follow the newspapers, )

we were doing pretty much fine in the series. IN the 5 th match,though we lost it, none of the batsman , till the last one, did not give up, all of them had a partnership starting, all of them put up a fight,

All I am hinting, is in your own grounds, especially Indians are tigers, and we were like tigers, but coming close to s victory , coming close to it, we somehow lost it, that is just the summary of the whole thing,

we as a nation, are always there, we have the best, we have the best talent, we have the best weather, so much fertile land, and human fertility, boy there is a census that more than proves . All I can say is, that, somewhere is there a genuine, factor, that keeps up behind, is there some thing that was not made to be so ,

I have no complains against the team, may be Tendulkar should step down, may be, Sehwag should be given an incentive for staying back, may be Ishant should be isolated from Venkatesh Prasad. but with these weaknesses, too, we are a good team, and 4-2 is not a number that I will gulp down.

All I can say is, that, if it were not meant for you, it will simply not happen, you may push a mountains, squeeze water out of its rocks, drown in a bottle full of water, but if a simple thing like a wrong Umpires decision is supposed to be against, you simply cannot reverse it, You cannot change the course of time, you cannot change the luck with which you were born.

May be some call it destiny , but I think we need to put it in more words, we need to see beyond, hope, beyond, something will happen.

Most of my friends, think, see, we have so many geniouses, we have so many good Indian Students, Arrey change in India is right around the corners, I seriously doubt it, the forefathers thought for entire generations and they are now dead, taking with them hopes of good times, they just came hopeless, died hopeless.

Start of November

2009-11-03T22:38:00.000-08:00

There was a chill in the air, somewhere around Oct 20, now it is Nov 4, and it is time for me to leave Kolkata and go.

I am not very sad about it, but somewhere I know that I will be missing these days,

with more time to spend on the roads and waste energy , I will seldom have time to finish my office work, with more time

to have to search for food, for other things, I will really be wasting a lot of time in the traffic, fixing the bike, to pay the bills,

to wait and watch at traffic signals,

all these problems were not there and I was complacent that it will go on like this from here in Kolkat.

In any case, tomorrow morning , early around 6 am I leave. I will try to be back in March/April time frame. Will be here for just a plain

visit,

if the management changes, I will try to come even more often, it all depends…

As of now, I am keeping this blog post as a diary , remembering the phrase, “life is not a bed of roses”

A Sunday in November

2009-11-01T05:54:00.001-08:00

the very first Sunday in November,

Started with Lord of the Rings, the return of the King, and then Rogue Assasin, and the Resident Evil,

It was a long day, between naps, small workouts, and watching television,

I cannot imagine, that I could have been in a train today , but the tickets did not get confirmed and it stayed in waiting list when the chart was prepared , late yesterday night.

Today when I was trying to book the ticket, there were 3 –tier AC tickets available for the Falaknuma on the 3^rd, but the problem were, first the laptop got shut down due to battery , then there was a network issue, and finally the card was not accepted,

I seldom make mistakes while using the card online, after three attempts, when you know that there are obstacles and things are not happening, you should back off, take a cool nap, and try later,

and that is exactly what I will do , I am going to book the train for Wednesday morning, trying the tatkal tomorrow, early morning.

Right now I am still a bit groggy, whether it is due to lack of sleep or due to an overdose of it, is beyond my perception

After many nights

2009-10-30T12:54:00.000-07:00

today is one of those nights, when I sitting without much work, have pushed away , dodged some, and dribble through most of the work,

Finished something early in the day , Took a bus ride to Ruby Hospital, Came to Gariahat, Tried some by lanes of Ekdalia, Someone told, me that take the left from the Sarkar house,

Why is it called the Sarkar house, well, PC Sarkar ,the famous magician, stays there,

A beloved mayajaal presenter of all times.

Merlin award winner ,for a number of times, known dear to many kings and heads of states, the house stands almost,entowering that alley,

I forgot to make a note of it,

well, from Gariahat, I always thought that Gol Park was far off, today I took a walk, and soon, saw, Bawarchim Banccharam, out there, and I realized that they always close by and I was the one confused about it,

There is some thing called the Das Cabin , right next to the Gariahat more, I was expecting, some thing like the Purbani of the 80s, my mother always shopped in Gariahat and took us for a plate of Afghani out there,

Sicne this is the penultimate day in Kolkata today, I wanted to feel the city, and here is something new that I can write about, this Das corner, I sat there for some time, asked for tea. I waited for some one who comes here regularly to come and order, Slowly, one guy entered rushing, he order for three moghlais, and went away, just the kind of guy I was expecting , these are the people who come here regularly and know what to order,

I partook a part of the moghlai and realized how come in this age of modernization, a structure like Das Cabin ( like the Dutta Cabin outside Howrah station ) does not get run down by a Mainland China,

here for 20 Rs you still get bliss,

Out there in Hyderabad and Bangalore, the cities are just starting to sprawl, people don’t have a choice, they charge you 50 % more on everything, thus if you can stay in Kolkata for 30K a month, make that 45 K straight off, plus your rent, that you pay extra

Well, there were n number of buses and autos, all shouting, 8b 8b,

I found one 1 A, a bus direct from the garage, going to the shed, was plying without passengers, Asked whether it will go to Jadavpur. It was a dark one, and they did not want passengers, as it might be a problem with the route buses, thus without fare and without stops, and with free seats everywhere, I came all the way till 8B,

The famed college gates, through which , hundreds of silicon valley stars, management gurus, have walked , and even the shark that bites, me almost every day , once studied,

Once more, almost like a nostalgic memory of the last 20 years, of my life, time and again, these gates, remind, of the Chemical Engineer seat that I left in Jadavpur.

Whatever happens, happens for the best , is my policy, may be this distance from the institution is something that keeps me attracted to it,

Kolkata, is a city of joy, immense excitement, people here are different, have the creativity to make life look like something with purpose, the intellect to feel more at home , and understanding the city , is a task impossible for me, more so in a bunch of words, and that too from my vocabulary is wrong endeavor .

Well, day after tomorrow, I have the train to Hyderabad, the tatkal three tier AC, only way to get a ticket, in todays, world, in a country with population that shows every where,

amount of three tier ac compartments per train is a fallacy,

Truth is we don’t have a AC seat when we want it, and even money cannot buy it, for flights, money can buy you something, but with trains and people like us, it is an affair, that simply does not work out

Oct 30 2009

2009-10-30T02:39:00.001-07:00

Last three hours, inhuman tiring conditions, unwelcome surroundings, and shark infested mails

there were mobile calls, mails, and smss, all threatening, menancingly close to metaphor the looming danger of a hanging sword,

supported by a flimsy thread

that’s office life,

A good friend of mine is now new to office, today is the casuals day for her, I hope, things will be good to her, and not as tiring, painstakingly difficult as mine

Still, these are the days I want to spend learning,.

There are times when I dwell, whether going to school back will help, may be as a vacation, actually, everything will look like a vacation past this. Will sail through

Anyways, school will not be an good option , bcoz you will learning and you will have to pay up for it, that too to the ailing American, where the Statue of Liberty is having a cough,

cold and minor flu,

I am sure it is high time to stop studying and learning as much as possible in the real world, still as time flies, I am not able to concentrate on the present,

Quick quote of the day

2009-10-29T05:35:00.000-07:00

some of the tag line in gtalk, and other places like orkut are worth capturing back

“One cannot expect rewards and recognition even though he deserves it, that is life”

Another fellow friend of my mine had put in his ideal match “ A nymphomaniac”

Ban jeeooh

2009-10-29T04:35:00.000-07:00

Today is a day which I can happily commemorate to Ban,

He has got hold of some channel or some internet site, where he can watch Indian news channels,

He knows about the shit that goes inside, and the mega , truck load of crap that comes out,

he understands, what is the purpose of news, but he cannot find any in the news that comes,

Funny, he recalls , the passengers of the abducted Rajdhani express, where stranded for 5 hours and the journalists in Delhi station, stranded them for hours,

people even say , that prasaashan is not taking jimmebaari , but, naxals did, well, same goes for the abducted policeman, Atindranath Dutta, he was taken for ransom

for 48 hours, with good food, and no harassment, but CBI seems to have butchered him with questions later J

Still, the funny thing that comes with this , “Breaking news” , everything is breaking everything else,

I remember , having read it somewhere that, NASA was so running out of good results, that the public money expenditure getting involved in the NASA is now questioned by many average American, Ban tells me , that , they will put it up in the news, even as much as a scientist out there farts from gas.

Rocket science at basics, though

Anyways, Ban plans to start his own venture, a news channel , a magazine at least, where reporters will start with “ There were too many reporters in the crowd and I could not manage to get one question directly to the CM, all I overheard was this and that”

His team will be qualified but honest and his channel will repeatedly say “Sorry we don’t have footage, sorry to show to stolen images, our reporters are not out there, but we are not trying push more public there, either, so please, lets stay here and show you the best of what the other news channels are producing “

Ban goes on

2009-10-29T02:49:00.000-07:00

today morning, I saw a ping from Ban

obvisouly in Korea, they wake up before us, but somehow Ban keeps me company till late in the night,

he was watching the match till late into their dinner and then slept for some hours and then pinged me

He was talking about his office and colleagues, out there,

Some one from Britain, over enthusiastic about proper usage of English, reprimanded him in terms no more soothing than

what our school sisters, did. He does not like the use of basically,

and most Indians will start all their convs, with

“Basically, the jist ( summary ) of the matter ….

“ Basically, my car was not starting

“Basically, you can look into the problem this way…

it seems, this guys, one Mr , Leopold, or something like that, was horrified, when some one took his hint, and started using

Fundamentally …

Fundamentally, my car was stuck …

Now that became, pretty common around the office and there was one fine morning when one of the senior guys , started using it

in even shorter form, “ funtally “

that’s when the lid blew off, and there were certain changes made to the system

It seems, Ban took my usage of “thingy” so dear, that now he forgets to use the word thing , even in his status

So his status message usually reads

“I worked on the AMD thingy ….”

Ban again

2009-10-28T12:34:00.001-07:00

Ban started a typical Ban conv again

I was chatting with him a few minutes ago,

Gtalk allows you go invisible, well Ban put his status as invisible,and then he was asking me , that all of a sudden all his friends were pinging him

when he was invisible,

well the geniouses are crazy people, and all creative, intellectual, talented people know that.

Ban is neither of the above, Being from the Chatto, Bhatto, Mukho clan ( as I have already told you ) , he is fairly simple,

knid at heart, but talks a lot, another sign of a good man. But the problem is stay with him while he is chatting sometimes takes

patience,and any tough wife will fail to teach him anything, that is my expectation and prediction

Ban, read about the current political fiasco of Bengal,the Gorkhaland thingy is not yet over, Roshan Giri and Bimal Gurung are gathering forces out there, while, the south of Bengal is courting hardships, beyond control, there is absolutely no trace of democratic rule in the so called Jangal Mahal,

Here , Ban, finds so many realities, that had he been in the country, would have raised his voice against, I don’t know why the hell he is stuck in Korea, and that too

in some border lying area near to their unfriendly North Korea.

Ban, read about the story of Atindranath Dutta, and was laughing, when an OC of a Thana , can be asking for more security, there is absolute no law and order

there is no jurisdiction, no execution and god forbid, but I doubt that the constitution is a word that is unheard of there,

Crucial victory for India

2009-10-28T12:08:00.001-07:00

Another match ,

some where round the corner, you will find some one ecstatic,

no fireworks.

I remember the chilly mornings , the twilight times and the late evening when I returned from tuitions, long back ,

Agartala, though I will not return back there, in a long time, but those days, of chill in the air, my first love affair,

then going for tuitions, questions of success and failure did not bother me then, since I was doing well in a small town

called Agartala

Simple people still walk those grounds, simplicity everywhere, and I don’t know, it is a feeling reflected else where, but

two days back on my way back from Howrah, I took lift in a friends, taxi, All the way till City Center,

He is from Agartala, he was telling about his friend who has completed his studies somewhere in England and now all the

days and years lost, he does not want to lose any more days outside our favorite town

My father who is starting his business there in Agartala, even now believes that if there is a heaven on earth, it is there

where you have your best memories,

If you are not making better memories else where, atleast , stay close to the porosh pathor,

The Alchemist is a story that by far is the most romantic story I have ever written, romance of life, the nasha,

the addiction , that takes you away from home,

you are seeking that what you have already got, you are seeking what was meant for you

I am reading another story nowadays, in parallel, Namesake , and I now firmly believe that if there is a plan out there,

it is always to take you home

I know of some friends, who have for ever been on the move, they had a shifting job, transfers here and there,

but transfer to where, to places where there were quarters, similar , like minded people, culture was common

same kind of holidays, and vacations,

But now I am tired , when I see this new brew of work and job and culture, it is spoiling all that I have got as heritage

it is something that I cannot live with, for long, Yes these are those back breaking years, these 20 – 30 , so I am giving it knowingly,

but this is not a sustainable model

And I will have to seek a place in society that suits, me , where I have time for a little freedom, a little freedom to express the lot

that is inside me

Today , was an average day, I worked on some good old issues, fixed some bugs , and nothing much to remember by

the back pain is revisiting me, don’t know, what can be done about it!!!

Finally the net works

2009-10-27T12:01:00.001-07:00

I remember a long time back , we used to read these amongst the jokes

“Microsoft works”

I also remember, taking a foto of the Windows hang notification in NewYork Subway, I think it was the one where you change to take the park .

Now finally my net works and I feel ecstatic to start work

the whole day , my body gave up, I did not , I could not and I hoped not , to work

prayers were answered, there was no net, but that means no other activity too, Read some more of Pagla Dashu, Dashrathi from Sukumar Samagra and then went to sleep with the earphone plugged to my ears, so that if there is a official call on the softphone, I can pick it up

I am planning to take a Bluetooth solely to be on the phone anywhere in the house,

Now I will get back to work,

go to sleep my fellow disciplined buddies, for me the night is young, and I am the old man that will ravish it.

Oct 27 2009

2009-10-27T11:41:00.001-07:00

the day is towards the end, I have spent most of it, trying to get some decent speed from the net connection

Tata Photon thingy, was working pretty well for me for the last two months, but this is now a pain that I had to lose a whole working day.

Today it was a dramatic, day, The chief minister of Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, made a verbal gaffe a few days back when he said that the two cops who were abducted by the Maoists about 90 days back, were dead, this was not officially confirmed, Unoffical sources ( which means some agitated media personnel ,who want to be in the good books of the producers) found out that Chhatradhar Mahato had commented from his cell in jail that no they had not been abducted, and that they don’t know what happened to them

In todays west Bengal, where deadbodies show up in ponds, and road side ditches almost every day tracing a dead body is becoming a humongous task, scenes that remind you for some time, that you might be as well in a Taliban infected place

Mamata Bannerjee in an attempt to voice all her protest, found a seat outside Chidu s official mansion in Delhi, with the relatives and wives of the two cops who got abducted . They were taken all the way to Delhi by Partha Chatterjee yesterday. Well, she was voicing her protest against the chief ministers gaffe, that how come he forgets something that leads to two lives in the state, two working personnel of the indina police force, ( she forgets that, in India, we are all dispensable), one goes, there are ten more to swap a place in,

same goes for accidents, daoits, terrorist attacks, and now Maoists,

they don’t care, there are victims lying everywhere, first of all knowingly or unknowingly , we are all victims of the current state of politics, of the current muscle men, win it all mentality, we all are victims, praying to stop ourselves from being bigger victims,

at around 3:19 , live in her conference, she gets the news that somewhere in Banstala a station more from Jhargram for up train, Rajdhani , Delhi – Bhubaneswar, the Maoists, had attacked the Rajdhani , and abducted the driver

CNN IBN got a nice chance to put one more twitter on its red top, “Maoists vs Marxists”, situation gets worsened, some media personnel get some footage from a,b,c,d sources,

there were pics of the driver shot, in his belly, the driver of the jeep carrying more people in,

there were confusing reports as to how the whole thing happened, whether they took over the signals, or there was some barricade, the driver later confirmed that about 400 pro maoist people came down on the tracks, they stopped the train, damaged the front engines and later on , demanded for Chhatradhar Mahato s release,

actually, all they were sending to the center and the thinktanks, was the signal that they are amongst us, and it is not possible to work a solution unless there is a genuine interest shown in the development of the Santal areas,

The PCAP , the committee to fight police atrocities, does not seem to be having enough strength to pull out such a big attack, it now looks like that the fire that has started will take a lot of time

we should not forget, that these people were one of the first freedom fighters, against the Neel kar sahebs, with bows and arrows they had fought the british, so the agitation could be dangerous.

All I know is that I could have en route to Hdyerabad on a train today and had something like this happened to me, I could have used this tata photon conenctino and blogged all that I saw , live from there….

Oct 27 2009 2:07 AM

2009-10-27T01:43:00.001-07:00

Jagadhatri Pujo , 2009

I cannot believe it, that I have a job and I am able to witness, Durga, Lakshmi ,Kali and Jagadhatri Pujo, all in one go

Though, the job at hand is to finish office work, pending and upcoming. I am more relaxed than I should be,

Our very own Adyanath Saha Palli, has a S& IB office, now shining more than ever, celebrating its own Jagadhatri Pujo ,

Although one does not need to go Chandan Nagore nowadays to see it for your own and people are already tired of doing it again and again

some have the patience and the enthusiasm to actually visit the pandals of Chandan Nagar.

Star Ananda, Tara News, 24 ghanta,

n number of channels do bring home all the fun .

I am starting work for the day, our colony , or rather this galli is decorated for the past one month, it is already the next nabami , past the Durga Pujo, I have overstayed

by a month and a half . I will be starting home this weekend , going back to Hdyerabad and hopefully next week by this time run short of time to blog,

will be engrossed in work, pressure and life

Chasing a bug

2009-10-26T13:16:00.001-07:00

Chasing a bug, with sleepy eyes

does not figure out, after many tries

Some where in this alley I think a cat is crying,

the watchman whistling, the poor old discarded man dying,

Late in the night, in despair, in front of this latop I stare

in the emptiness , the silence, the end of the Kolkata affair

A limping career , and a upcoming life,

obviously, there will be EMIs, a car, a flat and a wife

Fruitful, may be , my tonights night out,

an every day regulation and nothing to clout

All the work, the buggy eyes,

no matter what I do , how many tries

Oct 26 th 11:30 in the night

2009-10-26T11:12:00.001-07:00

Another day over,

yet another day

today was a tiring one , I was typing here in this desk 24 hours back and I was tired then and the same feeling still persists

Slept all evening today. Actually had to skip work and go to the Howrah today at around 2 in the afternoon

If the train is at 4 pm, we usually leave home at around 1PM and if your luck is good, you will end up in Howrah in 20 minutes, which I was not willing since, I would have to buy the platform tickets twice

and since they have a single line for all local reservations, general tickets and platform, I had to stand in a queue watching Mamata Bannerjees posters all around, till I could reach the window

and as you know , or might have seen or experienced, as soon as you are near a counter and are going to deliver your request across the counter,the phone rings,

today was not an exception, an important call at that,

The coach was S13, which I was sure that will be on that end of the Howrah, where you can start smelling Hind Motors,

but luck was with us and it was right after the two AC coaches

The tickets were booked online and as usual ,since you are blindly booking, you will invariably get a seat near to the bathrooms, and that too the bathrooms in the Indian trains

I remember having taken a bath in one of them when I was young, the trains to north india, were clean ( imagine ) in those days, and today you can only have a stomach churning when you feel like going in one,

But the only good thing is that all people in the first bay (1-8) were through online booking and a decent crowd was in .

After seeing off the train a good distance , we went to the Food Plaza there, we usually sat around the big clock in the old building of Howrah years back , but now adays, this food plaza is a rocking destination for giving meeting points,

we took to anar juices and one of this things from the monginis there call chicken internet.

I usually board a taxi that goes under the bridge, right on the outermost lane outside Howrah, today , we walked all the up to the bridge and took one taxi ,

The strand road still stands out to be a welcome distraction to my thought process, I see a lot of Marwaris, and Biharis, and think about Haldirams, the Mittals, the Birla, all of them started from these roads of Burra Bazar, especially the lota kambal story for the first generation Mittals, the Mittals who got their daughter married in a style that European gentry could sign of as fairy tales,

all started here in these Strand road,

Well, we crossed it, the Ganesh talkies, took the Vivekananda Road, crossed Kankurgachi, cross By pass, made a short cut from Laboni and then enter City Center,

Near to the laketown foot bridge, the salt lake side,a coffee place has opened up,

so you may get to hear some music, an occasional guitar session and at times, some local bands , just practicing out there,

It is a small hangout , with chairs and tables well into the road, but the usual Salt Lake aura stays with you,

I finally came back home, one the way , fetching some boiler eggs,and Anchor classic, my mothers must have thing in the house,

Slept for a while and now back to work, 11:42 in the night, hopefully will be able to pinpoint the bug in the code, soon,

this bug has been pretty annoying and I don’t feel like working on it

Oct 26 morning 2009

2009-10-25T21:44:00.001-07:00

starting work back after a long weekend .

I seems to have started this new work culture around,that is the crux of a normal employees life, but I was not accustomed to it,

weekends , no work, weekdays, fulltu work ,

this was a policy that I did not follow for a long time, but now I think I am consolidating,

The process of becoming a software engineer is a new philosophy all together, we guys work hard, may be as every one says, that is mounting

day by day , and the industry doing bad, I may be up for the bad times, but all I can say is that, since bigger things such as the industry , world economy,

international business, nothing being in my hands,

all I can do is contribute to my own growth, contribute to my own strengths, only by being a normal me,

The odd hours at work and the odd times that I put does do me greater harm in the long run and I run out of steam soon

This philosophy , some get it quite early in life and some late

I can visualize some of my seniors, who still work like a they are worshipping a boxed idol , and some work like without direction, and some are very methodical ,

all of them succeed, since all put their hard work and the industry is churning out , virtual wonders year after year

but essentially we are losing a number of good years in the process,

we all plan to retire by 45, why ? bcoz we know that we will be wasted by the time we hit 60 and it is better to retire by 45 and enjoy the last 15 years of our lives,

I don’t know, whether it applies to all, but most , for I can say , and see that in my close circles,

October 26 2009

2009-10-25T12:11:00.001-07:00

Today too, we had a long tour round the city ,

we bagan with some things to do, some stuff pending, in Dumdum Park, the VIP entrance is not ok and the old bumpy road has been replaced with concrete slabs for the bus stand there and the autos too take it as a shelter sometimes. There was a bamboo gate hoisted for some political agenda I cannot remember now.

But overall the time when I came to Dumdum park for the first time in February 2008 and now, there is a lot to tell in terms of difference that the common eye can see.

I stood outside the Kali Mandir there, and waited for my friends to finish work, she is a bit of a hopeless religious human , and hopelessly romantic too, someone to expect that god will make up for the fights she does, anyways, I was least bothered to think anything else but about the tranquility around the Kali Mandir, there is a huge school to the south of it and a pond ( one of the three main ones in Dumdum park ) , the locality though a little under noticed, but has the potential to be the next big thing in the north of Kolkata

I could find many houses, built in the same taste like people in some parts of Salt Lake do, some cottage shaped and some typical row house equivalents,

The flat and apartment culture had entered long time back but the Kestopur khaal being nearby, one can spot all kinds of people around, I could feel the Chhat puja in the air,

Though even in our Adyanath Palli, I could see that some of the Biharis had put the loud speakers to the full on some Bhojpuri song, right next to the Shitala Sweets shop here.

My friend had some more religious pious, extra pious stuff to do in Tegharia and as you know that the city is to well connected and every possible route to a place is possible from another, we came to Tegharia . There were shops line outside the Lok nath Baba Temple, and we stopped for sometea. I was thinking whether this small road in the front can take me all the way to Naraynpur, one of the heartlands of Rajarhat,

I asked some one, and he said yes. There was a line outside the main garbha griha in the typical Mandir sense, I had been there earlier, but today I could get a glimpse of the way it functions, it was founded by some one call Haridas and Radharani way back and it has continued well in to the 21^st century with modern facilities like A/c , Sound systems, token ordering, and everything in a manner atypical of the temples in India.

Next we went to the Haldirams in Kaikhali , opposite to the BP Podder institute of management, had two paper dosas, one raj kachori and puchka with dahi ,

all the items were up to the mark and I think Kolkata wins your heart when it comes to the shopkeepers attitude to do business the way it should be done . May be the truth is that people here have been stuck here for a long time, they know the shopkeepers, there are always, people who will come to resuce you if a shopkeeper cheats you,

there will voices, there will protests, the smallest , micro revolution and things will happen.

Our nukkad in Adyanath Saha Palii, though an unknown one will have to two guards in the night, who sometimes fight amongst themselves, sometimes joke,

once I found one of them crying on the shoulder of the other.

There is a S& IB office here, they are a security office and provide security systems all around the city in MNCs, in banks, the head office being here

After Haldirams, we went to Big Bazaar, ( there are actually four of them adjacent to each other, Vishal, Mega mart, bazaar Kolkata and Bazar Kolkata, ) we need to get a big poltyhin bag actually and that was a intention , and we bought once again, another top, or was it a churidar,

I don’t even remember,

but one thing for sure, I now know what ever it takes I will never be able to decide what to buy for a girl,

they are out right choosy and something that you don’t know, or cannot observe, catches her fancy and you are a mere mortal for not noticing it.

Anyways, we then came all the way to Laketown mela, had dinner in my place, went to City Center SaltLake, *( you can call it City Center 1 ) , then finally could not find a cab home

came all the way to Ultadanga, jumped the crossing , and came to the side where you get autos to Jaya, but none of them were even inching forward,

I took 215/A to Laketown VIP and then came all the way walking to home, the lake town mela was closing down, the last shopkeepers were shutting off, all the lights were off

Only one shop, next to the mini Jaya, where you can get an egg roll till 11:30 on normal days ,was still open

This was my day today , good that I got hold of a 2010 diary and did not buy it,

there in Big Bazar the cheap ones are coming for 89 rs, but the paper is not worth it, the ones with proper binding and had made papers were 300 rs and more , still the feelling of a new year has already sunk in me

Mid November my brother from Agartala ( cousin ) will be there in Hyderabad for a business trip, he will be there on the 8^th,. I will have to reach Hyderabad before that

And also I have plans for Bangalore next month, which I don’t know whether I would want to , I would rather spend some time in Hyderabad finally.

and moreso , tomorrow my day starts with work work and work, the sharks will be in full form tomorrow morning, and I will be trying to fend as many as possible, the biggest shark is now running wild, and I will have to manage it,

don’t know how but I am writing a blog at 12:41 in the night, when either should be asleep trying to get up early tomorrow to meet the sharks, or I can work now, but blogging a strict no no

Shark bites

2009-10-20T03:52:00.001-07:00

this November, strict warnings to make me Digambar ( maaney nanga ) ,

has been announced, so I might be joining the blogger union whole heartedly, and fully occupied.

Good, that those days will come.

I will go for a morning walk, and then for swimming in the evening

Will go to Bangladesh, start with my research work sometime in November end,

Go to Agartala, help my dad in his business,

study hard , just like I did 10 years back for my 12^th

I just cannot remember a more enchanting time than these. Kaash, mai aaj fired hota, and could have spent some time doing good work.

Actually , who have been working like me since their BTechs have two ways of looking at it, some frown at the loss of opportunity that

they could not study , and the others look at the world around like this

I am already 5 years in to work and have some savings to make me go through 6 months of no work

in that 6 month, I will struggle back to a job and once I have seen more than one company, I can reap the benefits of experience,

Having seen multiple corporate this will really help me,

Anyways, now adays, a job looks like a bad proposition and a Europe tour is what I feel like ..

Seriously if I were ever to see the mail to get fired, or I get the pink slip , in my bachelor days, I will consider it as a golden opportunity to study , read and learn more and more

Malini

2009-10-19T09:55:00.000-07:00

I got hold of a Malini edition today

I was sitting in City Center today evening, when man, looked like he is in mid thirties, He introduced himself as a Avra Bannerjee, selling this magazine , promoting the magazine from Shantiniketan.

He told me about his life, how difficult it is for an artist , a poet

I don’t have the words now to write exactly what I was feeling

I took some Agarbatis, some peanuts and an edition of Malini

I need to read it, I know that Bengali literature is supposed to be full of the realities of life and the toughness, harshness of truth

His father has some medical condition, I don’t remember what, all I could figure was this 35 rupee magazine, would fetch him about 100 rupee at max , 3000 rupees extra other than some salary that he would receiving being in the magazine team, which I know is not that great

struggle for an artist is lifelong and I take a pledge today that I will not be greedy anymore, I will not compare myself,

His last words were “Look sir, now you are in a family gathering , will not disturb you, you are now in with your mem sahib, let me know disturb you, bye for the day”

The real intellect goes selling books, trying his luck,

His number is 98741 99136

If you need to get hold of this magazine, please get in touch

help a fellow community of writers,

Thanks a lot

Oct 19 Bhai phonta ,

2009-10-19T03:15:00.001-07:00

slept early morning, after some pending work from yesterday ,

sharks are now in hibernation.

Today it is a day off in Bangalore for Diwali, I have been working since afternoon,

One of the sharks sent some off beat messages, some beating around the bushes, and some spoil sport activites,

but rest apart, pretty cool till now

had a fight with my damager in the making,

got the bhai phonta done in the mean time, phew, lets call it a day and sleep off the rest,

3:39 in the afternoon, we had the conch, the ululations, and the phonta rituals done , earlier,

watched the Kolkata news channels,

last year for the Bhai Phonta, we had the Nano shaped mile sweets called sandesh,

this year , we have Duronot Sandesh,

We had Kali Pujo lighting with the theme, Mamata Bananerjee flagging off the Duranto

WE had some small problems here and there, about the number of people who got caught or were arrested for lighting the sound crackers, it seems this time about 1100 people were arrested for the acts of decibalism. Some claim that the CM was trying to get some sleep when the sound all around, pushed him out of his house in Palm Green in Park Circus,

I can imagine the ruckus in South Kolkata, where the more affluent people stay, and the ones who have the audacity to keep the police at bay , by locking their collapsible below and heading straight to the terrace to light up all their crackers

Some did it all night

Our own Adyanath Palli, one of those so heavily unknown places in the planet, also lit up , it had the grand idea of pushing the bombs below a tin , and explosions that targeted pulling down many nearby houses, including my dilapidated structure here, were near and far , now and then ,

it was a thing you can call, that the sky was full of light, cheek and jowl …

Ban the great

2009-10-18T16:49:00.001-07:00

today after a long time, I got some time to chat with Ban,

one of the greatest contributions from the Bengali “Mukho, Chatto, Bandhyo , Bhatto “ clans ,

his mastery about subjects of life, are so far out of place with real life, and abjectly impossible that some how even with this greatest speeches, I find the comfort of the other extreme.

He is a man with great dedication towards depcreciation, he likes the depreciating dollar and the same about the depreciating rupee. I told you , cant figure this chap out,

some do say , “its easy ,. he is plain and simply complicated”

well, I tell you it is not easy as that, it is just that ….. whatever

he is a man with extremes at all ends, and knows where these ends and also knows that as humans, we will not be able to fathom those heights.

His chat, the greatest of all mental spectacles, what can I say, and having spent an hour about ideas that he has, and the ideas he will get, and just the thought that he is around the corner in this things, and that the Nobel prize will be renamed after him

Just the thought

I have already written blogs about him, names Ban Supremacy, Ban Identity Ulitmatum, Legacy etc, etc

Ban Betrayal is upcoming,

I will betray his secrets some time soon

Kali Puja 2009

2009-10-18T15:57:00.001-07:00

This was a great Kali Pujo for me,

I was pretty active on the blog, while the Durga Pujos, as because I was not able to move an inch, this was a better experience.

When you start comparing yourself to what others have done, you can never be happy, that is taken for granted,

But when you start comparing your own experiences with your past ones and comparatively they are better, atleast context wise you are satisfied,

I had to go the new city center in Kolkata the one called City Center in New town, seriously both the city center are no where near to the city , least of all center of the city, WE have been trying to search flats near the center in places like Bara Bazar , or Manicktala , or Shyambazaar, as because to get the taste of real Kolkata one has to be there in those places, for I have a staunch belief that, no matter what happens to the outskirts, the center of the city though neglected today , will remain hotspots, and places of commercial interest throughout.

I am sure that Rajar hat will come up , but then I want to see or rather stay in a place where I can enjoy and not leave it to my next generation to enjoy,

though a little on the selfish side, to think that way , but then , I have just seen too many lives, not learn the fact that, don’t delay life to come in, or at one point, you will be running for it.

We went to Karunamoyee at first to get the bus to New town, got one those new ones, which go all the way till New town and from there you can get AS1 or AS4 till the next T junction. From there you got to take a bus to Chinar Bazar. I was surprised there, there were very few taxis plying, a remote chance to get a bus and no autos,

more over there were no people in that go forsaken place. I usually am not averse from adventures, but my girlfriend with me, especially when is such an eye catcher, every SUMO or a Maruti van ( which she calls a villains car ) looked menacingly dangerous.

All fears apart, we came to the city center two.There was magic show going on the outside, though it looked smaller to start comparison, but we could see many new openings here and there,

More so we went to the Afraa creperie, met some wonderful people there, read some of the best indoor posters in a long time

I will place one of the notices later on in a blog,

we came out, bought some cheap jewellery ( the artificial ones ) , saw the Ujjwala apartments, took a look inside, though the watchmen told that almost all the 1500 apartments were sold, we only saw some 2 or three windows open,

must be one of those NRIs who are here for the Pujos,

anyways, I came back home around 9 , lit some firecrackers, went out for the Barast Pujo at around 10:30 ,

well to add to it, we had to eat some where, found that Bhojohori Ranna after the airport gate 2 , it was so full that they predicted about two hours in the minimum if we had to stand,

we chose the sher e Punjab , in little distance apart.

The restaurant though full, we managed in side the AC room after about 10 mintues,

the only problem being the common sight, “ no longer do the decent looking public come to the best places to eat, I don’t know where do they go , or are we so goddamn down market”

there were constant fight, verbal abuse, children sipping whiskey with their parents , teenages shouting in Bihari foul mouth , I was totally upset,

Long time back , once I took my mother and sister to ITC Sonar Bangla, the thousand rupee evening buffet, All I saw was a NRI couple, and the rest some new comers to money,

Yes, they have reached a good point, and have come to the good restaurants to self assure about their stature, but alas, the people who serve them had better sense of dignity then them,

just because you have the money, does not give you the right walk over someone else as a non entity, that is one thing, these new comers will not understand

But after all, at 1:00 am we started for the trip, went to Rajarhat,

I really did not know so much about the place, from Kaikhali , opposite to Haldirams, we entered towards the Netaji Sangha, that won this years Star Ananda, best Block Buster for he Kalipujo, our decision to avoid the Barasat pujo as because, it was only attraction and people will be all flocking there , so to avoid the crowd, our decision was correct

In any case, I am happy overall, with our journey today , we saw about 10 in Rajarhat area, some small and some big, then we saw the ones in Amherst street, the one in Fata Kestos area, and then bout 5 in Dumdum area

that was it, the final one being somewhere in Bapuji Nagar in Nager Bazar, finally at home, with the last pent up pieces to work for my shark , I took some loan to write this small writeup , just a gentle reminder about this day ,

will forget this some time in life, but if ever I read these lines back will make me remember the Kaii Pujo of Kolkata 2009.

I did miss the part where I saw some pujos of the south Kolkata, the tubri competitions in the 8b Bus stand. Will write about them some time later

Kalmadi

2009-10-17T14:20:00.001-07:00

Suresh Kalmadi , once claimed, that the SAI , IOC, etc etc, are spending crores and crores of rupees on developing sports in India,

Well, today after the commonwealth games committees report about the pace of work and tension about the slow developments, in Delhi , for the CWG 2010, though a common house hold names in the NCR, there are doubts hanging from all ends about the basic infrastructure, forget about the money going in, the amount of expertise getting pulled in , given the fact that Delhi Metro is facing more and more problems,

Stooping low, bowing to every small incident is not going to work anymore, we have now gone to the phase of hopelessness,

and patriotism out of hopeless ness,

There is a new wave of “no no no , lets talk good about the things, “ , we are not supposed to look at the faults as badly, we should learn from them, we should only see the growth happening,

Good that my friend a staunch believer in 2012,prediction , that the world is going to end, told ,

Look , we in India, keep dreaming that tomorrow all of a sudden things will change, we will have a Obama too, a one man speechometer record holder, to make the change,

well, we have now started to feel that we are all of a sudden green, fresh and within our life time we will see India topple the world charts

Topple, I am not evening thinking about toppling, I am just worried that pictures of the current Afghanistan and Pakistan though increases my belief that I am lucky to be in india, parts of this country and many people live in conditions worse than that of the countries I mentioned,

My friend ( his name is Ban , has been a topic of many of my blogs, a man with lot of ideas ) , he thinks that 2012, we all go down, and all we Indians , will never see that sun rising, the sun that with it warmth and rays of hope will take us forward, will take us to the top. I think being educated and open to the world is painful experience for anyone in our country,

the more you are educated, the more you realize that human life has a sub subsistence level existence here, and we are still fighting jus to maintain,

a lot of whining has been done already in the past, but somehow the media is of the new outlook that, we will blindly try to infuse wrong hopes in the countries stability and this and that,

I curse the Engineer in Andhra, who alone amassed 250-300 crores of declared worth , I just simply don’t know, what the bigger buggers are doing,

simply curse him for showing the depth of the unimaginable and horrible depths of corruption in India,

2:30 AM Oct 18 2009

2009-10-17T14:10:00.000-07:00

Had a tiring day

started at 9 in the morning, with a call from THE SHARK,

well he is well known in my blog world , he is the manager , the damager, the extra terrestrial with extra sharp eyes, and razor sharp brains, and expects that that world will be full of smart people ,

alas, there lies a point of conflict, ME

we both seem to be causing a time warp, with extra intelligence comes arrogance, but the problem is there is not arrogance in this sharks case, it is now a principle amongst people to say good about the shark and get away with anything, but the razor sharp gills and brains, and balls all in communion, wants only work done and no appreciation.

Like a robot, we expect this machine to stop work, the mechanical Jaws of speilberg has returned, but the man himself cannot appreciate it, and there is the problem.

Well, today was a sharky day , I went to see BLUE, and yes, thanks to it, I came to know that there are attempts to make movies ( whole movies ) and not a song, where you can twitch a ear,or pinch yourself to the truth right after the song,

the whole movie was shot in extra exotic locations, locations, which make you fee “Aye mortal, what are you doing, why do you run out of your home to do work somewhere else, you not even roaming around, the software company profile said, world travel, the life in promised me of a better future”

well those kind of saddening but happening locations, The movie has car chase, romance, treasure hunt, exotic scenes and a mafia dons, new scenes, AR Rehman, and Lara Dutta, the first song is a treat , the pink panties a material come true from the dreams…

Blue is a good entertainer, don’t expect too much if you like movies like Dor, Charas , Godmother, etc

Try it if you like, good Hollywood movies or Hollywood kinds light action , happy go lucky movies,

things , awkward and good , and not that happens in normal life , happens in this movie,

An Indian dude in Bahamas, complaining about the people there, that is something, we should not do, Ahem, some will not like it, and some might, some might take an offense

but I am sure that we have more to learn to “learn from our mistakes” than what we are already doing …

Mornings findings

2009-10-16T22:06:00.001-07:00

Indian Airlines

Toll free number 1800-180-1407

Bus ride

2009-10-16T12:11:00.001-07:00

Well, the last two days have been different for me ,

Oct 17 2009

I was in Jadavpur early morning. Yesterday I took this new bus en route 221 from Laketwon to Golpark, Till CIT I could make out almost everything, then after that, it took a turn towards Sealdah and then towards AJC Bose road and then just touching Lansdown, it took me somewhere in South Kolkata that I have no idea,

At this age I am very uncomfortablebeing in places where I have to ask ten different questions to ten different people , there were some common sight so called “Michils” form ALimuddin that was stopping the traffic, and I had to get down ask people about directions,

already I was 2 hours in the journey from North Kolkata to South,

I had to go to Golpark , but I was no where nearby , a friend waiting on the other side, Well, I got down , somewhere, desperate to find a taxi in today Kolkata , where Taxis are a rare sight,

there were some wretched Biharis,guys sitting on a fence, Typical scene of the 90s, I could visualize in them,

in minutes, they started what I was worrying about , they asked me “ O dada, what do you want ? “

I thought I can tell them politely, and I did it, “yes I want a taxi”

I don’t know, where people have so much time , how come young men get the time and opportunity to spend an entire evening making fun of people. I thought that they would help me, Something that was pretty common in the Kolkata of yesteryears, these guys , I pity on them now. They were trying to stop all these full taxis, initially it looked like a mistake, but soon they started making fun “ oh Taxi , take this guy home”

IN times, where India is making rapid progress I don’t know where we were really heading in terms of the youth, the youth that watches Vaastav and takes it seriously , watched hopeless romantic movies, at the cost of whatever they have

These are tough times for the coming years, all that I can say,.

Today while on the return journey , a bunch of guys, started fighting in side the bus, using offensive language that I usually use in my blogs, All I am worried is, it sounds ok when you are making fun, but there are people who may not like it and in the bus there woman of all ages,

I did not like it, I took the plunge, and shouted at them to stop, all the 4 of them jumped towards me to lynch me , thanks to the other good people in the bus, I was saved,

Later people were scolding the marwaris of Kolkata for pushing the Bengalis out of Bengal, and the Biharis for spoiling the name,

and place where they believe all the great thinkers were born , they now shamefully admitted that yes there is a group that is spoiling the fun of the city, I think a cosmopolitan city where once can live at will, but this was simply pushing yourself , or rather shoving into some one elses territory ,

I don’t know, I worry for the day , when thosegood people will not be there. today I can say I was saved, these other fellow passengers did later confess that these were Bihari Muslims, and they were pretty much generalizing the suffering of the conductors, when this guys don’t pay, the conductors cant do anything, the guys will the stop the bus tomorrow, find a reason and excuse and put the bus to fire.

I am worried

Bangali raa sab jaaney

2009-10-16T11:36:00.001-07:00

All Bengalis Are Computer Literate!!!!!!!!!!!!

Early morning Oct 16 2009

2009-10-16T00:43:00.001-07:00

Well, this is a good time to work,

1:00 PM and I woke up just few minutes ago.

Woke up with a msg, we gotta find tickets for Puri, my friends want to travel.

Am still in Jadavpur, I slept at about 5 in the morning, but the result would had been same had I slept at 12 in the night, I would still have finished only that much amount of work that I am capable of,

this late night shifts are just bogging me down. In between I was sleeping at 12 in the night almost every day , now I seem to be losing it,

I know that is not good and though the youngsters of India all do that, it actually effects your brain,

Typically, all men of great thinking abilities , or rather the thinkers of India all,followed this as a pillar principle of their lives,

they invariably used the sun a reference point, when the sun sank it was high time for sleep and wake up with sunrise,

Obviously they could have survived in Norway doing it, 6 months of sleep ( which may be I can hold a bet that I will be that unique man to do ) but then keeping awake for next 6 months, that’s where, not only your thinking capacity will go bust …

Anyways, will write something more later

I call it a day

2009-10-15T12:54:00.001-07:00

that is the status of a friend in gtalk , A friend who I met after some time, actually in rapid succession after a prolonged gap

Now I am Jadavpur, working again, started work again after a gap of 6 hours,aaahhh ,. how sad, how boring, nope, there are somethings to write about that I need to .

For example, This Dhanteras that was never a Bengali thing, today I was standing in Golpark searching for an auto right opp to the RK Mission you will see this auto line for 8B ( 8B is the bustand for 8B bus and is popular as an alias to the Jadavpur, the university that has seen greats all over the century walk its hallowed campus.

Well, I went and asked one person in the line,is this line for Jadavpur autos, one girl, ( she was wearing, flil flop, a straight cut jeans, looked at me at an angle that I cannot put as acute or straight, gave me a snub, and looked the other way, another lady with a kid in a jeans jacket, she started staring at me in some delusion, another man standing there, the tallest in the lot, gave me snarls, and finally one middle aged man, pulled by his wife all the way from the RCB match today ,( CLT20) , looked like he needs to tell me whats going on here.

He gave me a look of selfpity and I was already sympathizing with him, when he told me “Dada , aita sona kenaar line”

Oh now I get it, it is dhanteras and the Anjali jewelers outlet is seelign gold like hot cakes, No wonder they say that India is a rich country, where Bengalis, that too Bengalis, the poorer of the lot in current India, stand in a line out side Anjali Jewellers and buy gold like Marwaris do, ‘

Kudos to indianization, it is not globalization , it is Indianization, that is why early morning of Eid, there was news that Trinamool Netri , wen to topsia, went to Rizwanur, haqs house and met all the people there, she did kind of inaugurate the whole , in her one discreet way,

anyways, more on that late, with the shark, ( nope not from the film BLUE , but the manager that exists to attack my existence, will bite , will pounce and if given the audience will, tear me into pieces, )

Let me go to back to work, Ahem

For many people

2009-10-15T03:02:00.001-07:00

they don’t see the world as I do, they grow up in a city , study there, make their roots, then uproot it and consider it pretty normal to go in search of work somewhere else, and then make the same jail around them

we in software are even more worse, we don’t even have a compound to identify, we are always busy with work, never able to attend the closest ones marriages, sometimes going to the extent missing ones own marriage,

we don’t have time on a weekday to go somewhere , get some chores done, and you know what we fight, when we do take some time off,

we fight the fear of losing a job for a mere evening, bcoz, when times come for firing off someone, more often than not, I find the ones, who were a bit careless, reckless,

we don’t have time for love, we are not give any accommodation, we come from another town or city ,since our cities were too small for our dreams, I know it is a choice that we make, but I was too young to understand that then, I did not have a guide to tell me then

Today I know that if I were ever to leave my home, my people, it will be to see the world, but what I am doing is something else, I come to Hdyerabad, push myself against the rising prices, I fight my urges, save money only to make a second home here, after a lot of hardships, lot of toil, spoiling my youth and health and then I realize that I have the second jail again ,and I am not seeing the world either,

why is it, that we the poor, but educated in India, have to see the world in all its reality too soon

Sometimes I feel very mean and materialistic that I am not seeing full fruits of my labor in terms of money may be, and sometimes I feel sad that for me every month to get some money on the 1^st has become a must, it is not like I don’t want to leave the comfort zone. It is that,they are not the necessities for which I was studying and now earning, and they are at the top of the priority list. I am mean when I compare with others , but I am in my basic skin when I just demand a more noncorrupt place, I demand some time for myself,

I have the thinking process which is not different from many in my position and I think I deserve more, what is wrong in that, and why is it that just he place you take your birth should decide your destiny for ever. Coming from the eastern parts of India, we are not the luckiest in terms of facilities and guidance, we all are mostly self made and fighting our own fights every day ,

I don’t know, what is right or wrong any more. what is happening with me is it correct, I will not ask anything to anyone

Well scandals

2009-10-14T15:43:00.001-07:00

My last post was supposed to be a meaning ful one with hints that I started about, but could not finish it,

Yes our current PM did contest the elections this time from Assam and I think they have started to give some attention some rats ass attention to assam

finally

Two months back I was in Guwahati and three years back I was in Guwahati , there is a lot of difference now and then, you cannot recognize the city anymore

and the way it is growing, if Kolkata is not taking the challenge up, it will too late later on

I am astonished at the way many of the office in Kolkata work, yes some are the poppy eating babus, ( I mean aloo posto guys ) , who will sleep personified, dullness magnified,

and sluggishness deitified,

yes there are Bengalis like them and on the other hand you have us, we work like anything, but the problem is we do it from an MNC , an American corporation , Barrack Obama and Osama matter to us both ways, we are walking both their swords,

we are the ones that will get hurt everytime they fight,

anyways, we are the hard working Bengalis, but our toils and sweat are going to some other land, to some other person and not to a Bengali, finally. My landlord, he takes some, my maid, to cook, to washerman , to newspaper guy to everyone I know. I don’t see any Bengali in any one of them

Had this government been proactive I would have been happily working here, all my life . Anyways, I have learned and seen more cities now. My heath has gone the wrong way in the process, but no regrets. Well,. all I can say is that though there are some poshto babus here in Kolkata I am surprised at the efficiency of many of the things that happen here. The Ultadanga bridge, the east west metro, all of them are happening at rapid pace, the electricity office, the Kolkata police and the speed at which they solve the problems here, I am simply astonished.

Who says you need the best working environment, you need a/c , good cars etc etc,these people here are institutions of efficiency themselves, according to reports from various institutes, the power infrastructure of this state is the best, corruption is still in lakhs, here . Yes it is there but one thing I can pride in is the fact that the west Bengal brass of CPIM politicians though completely principled and stern , are atleast educated, no one in their top echelons, will leave their idealogy for money

We see many defectors, but they are all the poison and the toxic assets of CPM , the ones who are defecting, never believed in communism. neither did they read a single line of Marx.

One publisher in Germany told that Das Kapital is selling like hotcakes since last September, Since Lehmann brothers crashed

This October is running fast, it is getting out of hands, today is Oct 15 , I will wake up , when half the day is over. and then there will typical problems to solve the rest of the day,

and it will go in a jiffy, all I can say is if time heals recession, then let time have wings,

but wait a second, you said recession, we read about billions of dollars in waster black money out there, we find , politicians one the wrong side of something, which made them got caught , and we have scandals worth 100s of crores, How can that be acceptable,

Yesterday the commonwealth games monitoring body was equally surprised at the pace of things

the basic infrastructure is not ready , forget about getting wireless infrastructure, electricity , world class camera and equipments facilities,

well I just hope we don’t make a debacle again, I just hope, if this is the pace in Rajdhani Delhi , I just pray for the rest, when other countries, have risen and fallen , we are still trying to make an attempt

people talk about shining this and shining that, I know of merit getting least rewarded. How does one perceive a man with money now. No one respects him in India anymore,

and that is one thing that a man with money learns quickly and that makes him even more scpetical about the world, he expects the same royalty air, that he once saw other rich people having in our country but he does not get any,

I am increasingly worried that his difference amongst the rich and poor, rising food prices, and day in and day out, the exposure of scams where one person can pocket 200 -300 crores, ( that too declared amount) God only knows the reality .

I am worried that soon the educated and the frustrated will come out on the roads, no more just enough to keep you happy will work, once the people with pens rise up, take the sword, it will be a new era

“ The hand that carried the pen once will be mightier while using the sword “

Something I want

2009-10-14T15:24:00.001-07:00

Two months back I was in Guwahati,

well guys, you know that our PM had contested the elections from a congress stronghold in Assam and he had to pay some visit to this north east, which was always overlooked by all. Well for the PM he says that this Sarkar, this 5 years that they have they will make up for the lack of care on the northeast,

There is a fine print here, corruption that was rampant in the other states will now creep into the societies of our north east

I hail from the land of Tripura. I have grown up in Agartala, I did not make much out of my life, but I still feel that whatever I am today it was all due to what I learned in that small town of Agartala, where people still know people across the town, and your child will rarely get lost.

IT is place where you need carry money around, you always know somebody on the road. It is a great place to live in , with bad summers and equally chill winters, but when I think upon it now, having lived in mild weather homes of Coimbatore and Hdyerabad, I have now grown an nostalgic craving for the winters of Agartala.

It is in the low lands and is not at an altitude like many people blindly assume about the north east. Agartala is pretty much just another town of the plains, it is still knee deep in culture of east Bengal with prominent influence from Sylhet and Kumilla. It is a small town and not surrounded with natural beauties like tall mountains, or seas or wide rivers, or great lakes

but somehow we had a great winter, we had a chill in the air right from October, Durga Puja used to be a time where you could happily wear a sweater and move about. I remember the cycle ride to the tuitions, those were the days, I have never felt the same excitement any more, not at all worried about the future as I was willing to part with any thing in the future, for the present,. I was somehow living in the present as if it were the only time I had on earth,

Given all those memories, I just cannot find a purpose that tells me clearly that this is the reason why one should leave home and go around searching to place roots somewhere else, and that too in places where money is everything, they don’t say money is the root of all evil, anymore, they have become devil worshippers to the point of disbelief.

I am happy that I have the maturity to understand my internal cravings, many are still studying, or still trying to find the way to better life, all I can say is that, it is where you started searching it, and not far far away from home

we have this internal approach towards life that says that, we got to fight the world and see, my answer is if you are out and not seeing the world much just sticking to one point like a flagstaff outside the united nations. you are simply making another home, from where you will have no where to go

for people like us, who are just another brick in the walls, we were supposed to live in this search , in this loop, in this treadmill, where, nothing works the way you want it

we are not the geniuses for whom the bells will toll, we are mere people who came in this world to give way for the masters and the lucky, we are to applaud them, make them feel special

For us there is a way out, we can seek peace in denouncing everything, but this mind of ours, says there is still some hope, and there is still some blessing, some blind corner, some lucky alchemist stone that we will stumble upon

I am doing the hard work , and good will come our way.

Oct 15 ,morning 3:33 am

2009-10-14T15:09:00.001-07:00

This just beats it, I wanted to change, I wanted to sleep early regularly,

I wanted to be on time almost everyday for the last so many years,

but somehow, this thing that says, well today has not ended and I still got some more minutes to finish this ,off

am I doing the right thing, waking up long hours,. actually makes me dull for the next two days,

once manager once told me that it is a serious productivity issue actually to be having wrong hours to sleep

while he himself was managing night shifts two weeks a month,

Still, I feel that I am the only one guilty in this case, I am the defence and I am the prosecutor, and I am the clerk and the

judge,

I am the person who will hold the Geeta , while I am the darwan who will sermon me in, in this court, I am the sole actor, and there is no

other judgement to be pronounce, we know what it is going to be,

For me going to sleep while I am ultra charged up is something very difficult. I will be doing something or the other, but beyond that going to sleep is not my cuppa of tea, atleast for another couple of hours,

This is not good, I need to mend it,

Earlier I used to be in office and would sleep in the office itself, I had the sleeping bag and was by this time inside it,

at 6:00 in the morning, there would kewl breakfast for the night shift guys, I would partake that, early in the morning, then go home watch tv , watch a movie, wake up by another 8 hours and bath and go to work

that was indiscipline at its worst

anyways, more about me later, I will now pronounce myself not sleepy at all, and work for some more time

Oct 13 , evening 5:10 PM

2009-10-13T04:47:00.001-07:00

it is a warm evening today

The last few days I have been extra alert or have been noticing this time of the day to be pretty cool. Today I don’t know whether this laptop is acting as the room heater is the question

At 4, one of my nieces called up, one the few darling nieces I have, thought taller than me already, she is going to beat Yuktamukhee for sure. She will be entering her 10^th next year,

A girl without any boundaries which many want to think themselves of, but do seldom touch those heights, though childish in talking, or starting the pep talks, she is quick to catch that you are getting bored, quite quickly she put in the wrong footing today , by asking, ok now you do the questioning and let me answer

Shocked, what is this ? I am not used to asking questions, sometimes, when in mood I do talk a lot, but when there is a evil manager lurking around, you better, keep a blind eye for rest of the predators and let the manager enjoy the focus of all your attention

Having written a mahabharat on what a manger should be like, I don’t think I wll ever be able to practice what I preach. For hell hath no fury than a manager whose work is pending,

I can write along, but nuances of the English language are not enough. We need a stronger insinuative language than even ebonics to come to the right statements that will adorn as a proper remarks for these managers

Anyways, may be these days of fun will be long behind, when I will walk away as being a manager myself, but there are examples in my company where managers are stepping down, they are becoming individual performers, or contributors but not a managers, for its seems there are some more wild creatures that prey on these sharks . ..

Well, 5:16, in six minutes I put up another blog, may be tomorrow I will be laughing over this, but while I am at it, I would love to wrote, keep writing…

What all makes a software engineer

2009-10-13T01:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday night I could not sleep much, I was thinking about the following

1. what all things will make you a software engineer

2. but more important than that, what are the things that will take you a notch up

There is a rising conflict between the marketing people and the technical RnD in a company, but the best marketing guy may not be technically the best but trust he could handle some technical jobs himself, his acumen, his hunger does beat the rest, and same goes for the best RnD guy, this guy is a doer to, and though there is no serious book written about this small nuances that senior management check, since everyone has a secret formula, it is always to keep the best technical and best the marketing guy happy. The rest are vegetables, as they speak in a hush hush corporate board room meeting,

I sometimes find my senior bosses equally adept at getting things done from us as a marketing or sales team senior guy could do but there is s catch , the corporate bosses would shower everything on the guy who finally is on the field and can make a product sell, only then does a RnD guy have a chance to get a fat pay check. It all depends on this last link in the chain , but the very vital closure chain,

well, the RnD person has his own fights as well, but being in a technical world, especially software,you are to be fighting with binary only, at max the worst thing could be a bug that can be found out, and your worst constraints are time and nothing else, the smarter engineer would do the same job much quicker than that. We have all the things in our hands, just there to do it, but a sales guy is fighting , nature, fighting , human minds, he does not know, what action of his, what, word or statement of his can make or break a deal , and there is technical knowhow that has to go with it, and thus inspite of all what RnD say , I salute these Sales guys, once you know the trick in selling a thing, the days in poverty for you are numbered. ( Ethically a good sales man should not prove his merit by selling the worst stuff in the market, that just keeps his afloat for a month or so, the good Sales guys thus requires we, the rnd to do his bit too, and make a good product,

After all that discussion , now coming back to the points that I thought of yesterday are the following, step by step an RnD has to be good,

Problem Statement: You are afraid that if you go to a new job, they will fire you soon since you could not learn as soon as possible, well for you though there is one book to read always, “Stay hungry , stay foolish”

Stay foolish, that I follow to the word , to the letters precision to be correct , or how else do you expect me to be blogging , hale and hearty at 1:04 PM in the afternoon on Tuesday , when I should be working .

1. Reading and comprehension skills

well if you have that, that is a an added thing, suppose you are learning about a new debugger, you have the manual that is 190 pages, but you have to choose the important pages, go through them fast enough so that you can start working on the thing asap, since they are just tools for your final result , and you cannot spend time on that. You have read some stuff, some new thing, some new document, some new training and get going with your work, since you cannot put that in your productivity chart and say I was reading this and that

2. Memory

Now that you have read your stuff, you got to have the memory to take you to the next level, obviously you have the net handy with you and n number of books, but is sometime very difficult to be context swapping and going to other material that is not necessary or may be searcing in a loop, where you just seem to be forgetting a small bit but have to go through the whole thing again to find it, I have a good memory but still always keep forgetting stuff that should be handy , for me, though I always know the way to get to the data and that way I do come up early with solutions but I am not happy with the fact that the amount of time I spend in doing those is just simply unacceptable, since while debugging an issue or writing a new piece of code that has to have backward compatibility or something that will need some knowledge of the context, one needs to remember stuff. Memory is something that can be jogged , that can be strengthened, I don’t about the rest , but I strongly feel that some are gifted in terms of memory and some are mere trying to get there,and they do it all their lives, only to succumb. But still this is a must

3. Ability to use the above knowledge

You have understood everything that you have read, you remember the stuff, the small small commands, the tips and tricks, but there is nothing that beats on the job training . Very few people with straight bookish knowledge can excel while on the job, While you are on your desk , you need to be able to use all that you have acquired , learnt and used in the last few years, days, hours or minutes, immediately, have the courage, obviously this is software and you don’t break anything. Today with source code control systems and monitoring done from all levels, backups getting made, all you can actually loose is time, so all you got to do is come out this fear and try , lets spend some time, and make use of what we have learnt, A good software engineer will always come with some kind of alternative, some kind of plan that he got while seeing something else, He might be on a bus and see someone doing something peculiar, put that to his ideas and see that whether it works. This mental mathematics happen one can see the clues that hang around all around

4. Logical analysis beyond just using it

You may be smart enough and having learnt everything, using it carefully and achieving your goals for a long time, but you don’t see any growth anywhere, You don’t see yourself, doing much other that just finishing you stuff. Yes to be a software engineer, it is not a clerical job an having done all the things above you are not supposed to be a paper pusher, you ought to do the things that are show above . If you are still stuck in one of those levels above, please don’t go further reading , you may confuse your way of working now. Read it only if you desire to be amongst the best. Well, doing the 9-5 job ion software is using your brain always, so to be smarter you got use it differently too. I put the clues thing in the earlier point itself,but here it is a must, It is mandatory that you are can handle any problem now in this software, you are now a master. It is like this, there are some people who given 1 whole day will finish their exam papers, but they are only given 2 hours and in that they are not able to make it. But they have it in them to finish it. Now the only thing that can take you forward is your ability to see the things that are inherent and invisible to the eyes, thigns that will increase the performance , things that will make it customer friendly.

5. Vision from the top

it is more like the movie a view from the top, You have the capacity to look at things differently, but that ill keep you as a jewel engineer, Your management will think that there is one guy sitting here, whom I will call upon the tough days, He will be a good member of the team that takes the whole thing forward. You can become like the courageous and brave soldier and on whom the software parts can rely, You can see your component from the top give good estimates, you can feel the errors and bugs at levels that no one else will be able to comprehend, at this level you can remain like this for ever or go ahead, To go ahead you need the next thing in the basket for sure

6. Patience

As we speak this point, and you can come upto this reading this article. I am sure that you are a patient guy. Many would browse through this and say that well, I know this and that. I work with some very smart people and all that I have learnt in the past from them is that no matter how smart you are, no matter how difficult the problem is, you got to be patient with software, Good that new tool development happens mainly upon the frameworks that are already there in the market and not upon some developing platforms. Still GNU tools are getting upgraded, but the basic framework is done and many able engineers can do wonders with all that we have now. And with all these if you are not patient, whether in management or good software you will never be able to see beyond things that I have written. At thing point lies the fundamental difference between a good engineer and a almost there engineer

7. Consistency

You have been doing almost all the things correctly, you are smart, and can get things done quickly , sometimes slowly, you are patient and can see a product the way you are looking through a clear piece of glass. You can feel it, etc etc, but you are not the man to trust on , if month after month, or year after year, Actually it should be problem after problem you have fended well. Always came up with sound explanations, always found the root cause. Remember with software , the oldest and the most legacy thing is just 20 years or so old. Many even newer than that, think about people in the administration, fighting things that are imbibed in the human mind, and for all of us in the software engineering community ,all we have to do is clean that bug. Sometimes the customer is happy using it so much that, he has forgotten that it is a bug. Same like slum dwellers who are satisfied staying there and will never move from there . At this moment you have got a name to defend, you are a responsible guy. The management will rely on you now. You are now forfront guy for the important projects

8. Reliability

The reason I put reliability post consistency , is one you are predictable, once you have proved yourself, it is now known that this person can do it. He knows how to do it, but there is a just a predictability about him, we still don’t know,whether I can give a commitment to some one depending on what this person says. AT this moment you are not at all just writing code, you are at par with any other senior person in another business group, in another world may be, but the criteria is same all around the world, You got to be reliable. Your words should have the backing of all that you have tested, should have the experience behind it. It is like putting those words in to perspective “ put experience to your years and not years to your experience “ and once you have done that, you are now supposed to be enjoying the benefits of it.

9. Management

Some come to management much prior to this. For long enough now it was a common perception atleast in India that once you are 5-6 years experienced all you

need to do is ask and there will position for you, that was because all the companies were in the startup mode and none of them had enough top management to look after the expanding business. There was attrition and lot of vacuum was left here and there, and people could go up, Number of software enegineers was less and one could just ask for what he or she needed. Today you have a surplus of engineers with everyone wanting to become one, we need to be careful about what we do today , you got be specialized, you got to be the best, Today if 10 lakh engineers start their journey do you expect 10 years down the line all of them to be managers, no , some will go totally the other way, they might eventually loose the game to the new comers, stop thinking about the fact that they were not in the race in any batch. Well, this point is not for those, it is for those who will fight and get it to the management, at this point, today, you cannot be just a peoples manager, you have to be a good software engineer with all the points that I mentioned above, only then you will be trusted, only then you can be held responsible, at this point you can be asked to report about people below you and they will look up to you for better management with sound decisions. You will be pressed down and pushed up , for quality , for administration, At this moment you got to be fit enough to have all the above things, energetic enough to finish your work, delegate stuff, not micromanage and get the reports that are vital for the next step. There is a lot to write, but since it is a good software engineer that I am talking about , management from the software engineer requires this next thing more than anything else

10. Ability to handle smart guys

IT is almost like working with 10 PhD scholars, it is like looking after their egos, their ways of thinking, many a times I find people saying that I am tired of the way I have to explain my manager every small thing, I have to explain to him that this is better, and that is not and this is dynamic and that is not. Actually, a good manager how has proved himself day in and ay out will never have this traits of being jealous or will not be lousy enough to stop a good idea from floating up since he is not seeing the greater good . Many ideas go down the drain only because a manager did not approve it on time, It is like a good author s manuscript getting returned everytime he tried to send it to some publisher. I know that it sounds no different but a good software engineer knows that he is in for a challenge. He himself has seen great managers and it is high time that he too becomes lie one, But if you don’t have it, you got to develop it. There are some managers that I have seen who will get on the field and do the job sometimes only to show to you yes that can be done and I am the best engineer first and then a manager, SO at times while handling good guys you got to be the best

11. Seeing the next manager

you have done all the things that are there above, but inspite of all the these you got to go the next level, at this point, start understanding the business as a whole, start seeing the things that are totally visible to the top but invisible to the people in the bottom, for that, get some people who will work as you and sometimes you can rely on the, Get that guy, let him go through the points that you have gone through. Sometimes you might not meet that person and it will be an endless wait, but once you have met that one, it is like religion for you get that guy with you. Show him the way to your seat and once you have enough free time to think ,you will be seeing the next big things automatically,. You are no more a software coder, you are no more handling the good guys yourself, just expecting things to be done. at max you look at some data and analyze some upcoming red points, some milestone. And you now you need to make the next step, choose a junior engineer and make some new enhancements, think about a new technology, file a patent if at all possible ,only then do you become the next guy.

12. Understading business like a business man does

This is pretty self explanatory , and there is nothing smart about the statement itself, but to do that, you got to admit that you need to be a businessman first and then the rest.There are many who rise through other verticals and reach here, but to be real VP or a CEO you got to be the business, All the above things mentioned, all the above things told, finally you have to be the salesman, you got to be the best.

Other than these ,I always think, being fit, staying healthy, sleeping on time , waking up early, eating light food and thinking positively are all the major things that will make you do the above easily. You will just be jogging through your life you will really take a jog once in a while early morning. Trust me, all my senior managers, all the successful people I know, wake up early, eat light food and have endless stamina

Oct 12, 2009 12:10

2009-10-11T23:53:00.001-07:00

With more time to spend here I can find some of those moments in which I can blog,

Increasing number of moods swings and more availability of the internet now gives everyone to show up online,

present their views and these online publishing centers become a center of so much common knowledge that was unprecedented

Long time back , there used to be n stages of filtering, there were articles written in hundreds and a counted few would make to the common media

and media was more responsible, today every lay man with his or her ideas can come online and produce gems

there are bloggers who spend virtually all their time online, in an attempt to write more and more, but this also gives and opportunity for many to hone their writing, some become good at it, some start at least going into a habit, and since all of it is perpetual and you can see a good blog after one or two years of well spent time,

you will feel this online presence which all together is a world of its own,

Well, for me today was a good start to a week that is going to be challenging, we are approaching release and I have to face pressure as usual,

Mamata Bannerjee to visit the trouble Arambag, the place where there were some violent shootouts soon, She will be going there tomorrow and before that we have Chief Minsiter Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to have his meeting with PM Manmohan Singh, today afternoon,

Delhi to answer its preparation for the CWG today. This state is still fighting to go stable whereas I figure out or rather the whole of the city is now preparing for a bad 2010

all this street fights that were memories of the distant past of the change of power from Congress to CPIM will revisit this state coming year

there are urban legends that, once Mamata Bannerjee steers the party to power, there are people in her team who will happily sacrifice her for their own self motives , she is the instrument for rapid change , thought change will happen but the grassroot workers are not different

I have some confidence in the intellectual content of the senior members of the ruling party but not the opposition atleast until now,

It is high time, that Mamata Bannerje takes a stance and pulls in the thinkers and not a bunch to goons to handle the situations