bangalore mudde update

its a puzzle...
there has been an update to the status of the pack who made the pact....
answer these questions and you have the answer...
actually, answer any one and you have the answer...
oops...you already have the answer!!

1. The tragic and true story of a family dealing with AIDS is re-told in this heart-wrenching made-for-cable drama. Amy Madigan and Dennis Boutsikaris star as Roxy and Vinnie Ventola, a successful television screenwriting couple.

2. In some versions the seventeenth and eighteenth lines read Two little Soldier boys playing with a gun; / One shot the other and _____________

3. Organized into several chapters of two-column text and complemented by attractive full-page charcoal drawings, the book is similar in style and format to the author's recent volumes on hibernation and symbiosis. Facklam is adept at raising questions and providing clear, smoothly paced, interesting narrative. Her well-crafted blend of information and ideas makes for pleasant read-aloud material--a rare feat for nonfiction. Which book?

....finally!!!

xkcd

Megha and I first met at a party at her friend's. We hit it off with a bang, right away, opened up to each other, shared secrets, and talked about everything. Around us, the party waxed, but we hid from sleep together, talking through the deepest hours of the night. The dawn found us curled up on a couch, asleep but still together.

That experience, connecting with a stranger and falling recklessly in love is one of life's greatest joys...And now that you're married, you'll never experience it again. It's the price you pay for everlasting love. It's a small one, but I hope it stings a little. Anyway, I wish you and Megha best. ...Hey, man, you ASKED me to do a toast!

bangalore mudde

in remembrance of the pact...
sep 2004...



church street, bangalore

me, mush, guldu.....because:

One Bro makes a solo attack, A second Bro provides a crutch, A third Bro rounds out the pack, But a fourth Bro is one too much

droolevoltion

[a drool is a wet curve that sets almost everything straight...er..maybe not - harish]

As a polished, suave individual, how many times have you been stuck at the keyboard while trying to convey that expression over to your attractive, hot and chic friend/coworker/girlfriend/random chick from orkut/facebook/myspace??

the expression of utmost dignity and the epitome of compliments...the drool!!



If the medium is AIM window, Walls, Scrapbooks or SMS...you're stumped! Coz none of the emoticons have anything for this expression of utmost flattery!

Fear not, Anymore, My friend...I have in front of you the ultimate solution: THE DROOL SMILEY

:)) ~ ~ ~

Notice the calculated smile of faint disinterest and the slight curve of the lips along with strategically placed droplets of the saliva on the chin...Enough to make any hot drool-worthy woman go wobbly kneed!!

Use at it will and give credit where its due!!

Happy drooling!!

Credits: Dee deserves partial credit for it as this was a bolt of innovation that came through while on chat with her.

iphonofilia

[I wanna take you home, I wont do you no harm, no...You've got to be all mine, all mine...Ooh, foxy lady - Jimi Hendrix]

Yeah...She's MINE!!!!

ephiphany

"Cause all this time
I've just been too blind to understand
What should matter to me
My friend,
This life we live is not what we have
It's what we believe in "

-It's Not My Time, by 3 Doors Down

revamp

the last post and the revamp and upload of the new theme took the last vestiges of my energy...
just to say that the blog was up for a new look....

hope you liked it as much as i enjoyed making it..

cheers,

harish

road, rubber and rock n roll

long stretch of 4 lane expressway...
burning rubber at 125 per hour...
group of people who you would give your life for...
drag race in the middle of the highway...
old monk, 100 pipers and talking till the wee hours...
pure bliss....

That was our trip to Yelagiri

doppelganger

there’s a nifty tool called msn polygamy which lets you run 2 instances of messenger on your computer. you can login with 2 different ids at the same time. i usually login with both my official and personal ids. what i have done is; i have added one id in the other’s list.

sometimes, i open a messenger window and chat to myself, from one id to another. the chat heats up so much that i have pretty intense conversations.

it freaks out the people around me…

sometimes, i don’t even remember typing some of the replies and feels like i am chatting with someone else…

that’s freaks me out…

do you have any weird stuff like this that you do? the comments section is open...

an unfinished life

[new year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions - mark twain]

at last i am blogging. well, i feel like the guy who’s back in his wife’s arm after a long time. love is there but there a wall of aloofness that blocks intimacy. maybe its because there was a long hiatus between this and my last one. there has been a lot happening in my personal and professional life but i don’t want to bore anyone (least of all myself) i have been very unjustified towards my blog for the past few months and plan to make up for it this year.

i am starting the year by renaming my blog. good bye “the lone wolf” and welcome to “an unfinished life” well, if that’s not a spanking new start then maybe the resolution to blog more is? as my resolutions go, this is the most aesthetic one and lets see how successful i am in keeping it.

well, there i go!! i have fallen into the age old fallacy of the new year. isn’t the new year just hype? new year's eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights. i wonder why? what’s the point when what happens every new year is the same? yesterday, we all smoke our last cigarettes, took our last drink and swore our last oath. today, we are a pious and exemplary community. thirty days from now, we shall have cast our resolutions to the winds and gone back to our vices and embrace them with a fresh vigor.

also, why should the resolutions begin on the first? i do think new year's resolutions can't technically be expected to begin on new year's day, don't you? since, because it's an extension of new year's eve, smokers are already on a smoking roll and cannot be expected to stop abruptly on the stroke of midnight with so much nicotine in the system. also dieting on new year's day isn't a good idea as you can't eat rationally but really need to be free to consume whatever is necessary, moment by moment, in order to ease your hangover. i think it would be much more sensible if resolutions began generally on january the second.

anyway, i think my brain is satiated by all the ramblings that i did now. these were inside my brain like cobwebs and were cluttering up valuable brainspace. mush needed. now without further ado, let me go on…living…and unfinished life…

the return of the cup

[never forget where you’ve come here from, never pretend that it’s all real, someday soon this will be someone else’s dream – from “never forget" take that ]


there are some objects which, even though are lost, come back to haunt us as memories. little did i know when i wrote the final chapter of the cup that the story was far from over.

one day, i was coursing through the drudgery of reports, analyses, feedbacks and monitors, which i call work. mush was online and i was chatting with him intermittently. i got a ping from him. “dude, nishant was asking for my blog address”, he said.” wants to read my poems” nishant was our operations manager in windows xp. he was the guy responsible for making the project what it was and someone who was there from the day of its inception. above all, he was someone who we all looked up to. even though mush had left the company months ago he still chats with him regularly. i said that was cool and thought nothing of it.

later i saw him standing near andy’s cube. he, dee and andy where talking. i went over there and we were just chatting when he said that he read my blog. he then went on to give me insights about the previous post and was generally pulling my leg, which he does often, about me being the tree etc… in between the conversation he asked,” where is the cup?” “oops” i thought to myself, “will that thing never leave me?” out loud i said, “its still there. where motu took it” “hmm ok, i am taking it” that was his style, that made us name him tiger. i took the cup and gave it to him and he took it home. kind of was relieved. at least it’s away from me now.

prudence stops me from saying that this is the end. nishant was saying something about the cup looking the right size for sandy to punch him. maybe that would make another interesting chapter in the story. till the next one……..

zen and the life of 23 years

[ There was a star danced, and under that was I born -William Shakespeare ]

THE calendar says October 14. Two more days and I would have completed 23 years on this planet. Whew…hmmm… (Tongue tied)

I think this is the time to look back or am I too young to reminisce, don’t know! Its been a good life. Not that it couldn’t have been better but then it could have been a lot worse too. That’s the problem with being a Libran; you think both sides of anything. I bet that if a Libran were asked to jump into a pool of lava he would be considering the merits and demerits of a back-flip and kick-drop. Had a lot of losses and a lot of gains and still more losses and even bigger gains. Kinda like a mixed up bag, but then, I suppose everyone’s life is the same. Remembered something I read somewhere – “You are unique, just like everyone else”

...................Today the calendar says November 11th. Almost a month later I am completing this...............

I can’t believe how much my life has changed in this one month. Not changed, but it has been a quite an eventful month.

The birthday I had, made so special by my special friends, Musheer; who was there with me all the time, Div; who was away but felt close, Pavi; my official secretary of the day, Bidisha; who came all the way from Pune, Nirupesh; The tech net, Dot; who gave me the most cherished gift, Krits; who couldn’t stay for long, Vinnae, Vidya, Naveen, Sweet Karma…………

I am so late in updating the blog. Well, what to do? Did not have much time to sit, contemplate and type coz I was running around. What was I running around for? Hmm…tricky.. Well why don’t I leave that for other posts?? Coz, journeying a 1000 miles in search of a friend's true love, trying to quit the job and failing, Your best friend and partner leaving the company, speaking out things that were hidden in the depths of my heart, finding something that was not quite what you wanted or what you expected…..all these are things that take a lot of time, space and leisurely disposition. Wait……

..and then there were none

[ Hitherto shalt thou go and no further - Job 40 : 5 ]

I guess this is the final chapter to the story of the cup. In case you missed it you can read about it here. I am sorry if the blog reminded some juvenile delinquent of their inane school days. Hmm…wonder when those people will understand that the matter that constitutes us is what makes everything in the world and its their conformist attitude that prevents them from seeing the soul in everything.

Anyway, as I was saying before this mundane affair caught my attention, at last I said goodbye to the cup that was a permanent fixture on my desk. Motu was the lucky (?) guy. When I returned from my weekend, I found that it was resting on his desk instead of the corner of my document tray. Bad riddance to good rubbish?

Hmm…Have I told you about the document tray I cant seem to get rid of? Whoa! I can see the look of horror on your face. Ok, I am not putting that story up here.

why doesn't anyone want the cup?

[ that’s the trouble with you sad-city types: a place has to be miserable and dull as ditchwater before you believe it’s real - salman rushdie (as blabbermouth, in haroun and the sea of stories) ]


i see it sitting at the corner of my desk, on an empty document tray. The white china mug that I got from Whizz when I developed the pics I took while on the 5 day drive (Now that’s another story, isn’t it?) I don’t know why it’s bothering me. Is it that my mind cannot accept the pointless existence of the empty cup?

i remember Josh grabbing it from me the moment I took it out. I had bought the picture books in my backpack and while taking them out, I inadvertently took the cup out and he pounced on it, “Hey, I want this!” I could not think of doing anything with it so I let him have it. He used to use it as a penholder in his desk, diligently locking it up with its contents inside, in his locker. Then the day he was packing all his stuff he said, “Hey, can’t think of doing anything with it. You can have it back” Then I realized that probably he had just borrowed it, to give it back later. I said “Fine, I’ll take it probably use it as a penholder”. However, I never took it. There it would have ended and I would have never seen this porcelain thing but for Sai.

one fine day, about a week after Josh left, Sai came down from his new “dwelling”, which was now at the edge of the floor (he was banished there due to his non-interactivity with the team). He had the cup in his hands and said, “Duuude” Sai has a funny way of saying that word, elongating the “u” to a squeaky level, “Josh, asked me to give you this” .I said nothing and just took it. He was saying something about the resolved ratio but my mind was somewhere else, looking at a white shiny round cylinder. The Cup.

that is how it came to its current residing place. I usually do not trust anyone with my pens, having lost quite a few of good (and expensive) ones to friends and hence didn’t have any to keep in the mug. Many people expressed interest in it. Poo (That is Poornima, one of the Managers) once came and said, “That’s Nice, Where did you get it from?” I offered the cup to her and she said “Sure”. However, it transpired that the cup was to remain there; maybe she forgot about it. Even Girish said he wanted a penholder and I promptly offered it to him. As always, the offer was accepted and forgotten.

its still there, standing forlorn. Unbelievably, right now Arvind (Argan, one of the new STs) came over and asked me about it. I just said, “That’s a gift”. Yes, I guess that is what it is. What else do you call something that comes back to you however hard you try to shrug it off? Maybe, it is not empty. Not after passing through so many hands and minds.

(Hmm….Notes to self: 1. Try to use time productively rather than writing irrelevant crap!
2. Get rid of the cup! )

advantages of being single

[ i really want to love somebody. I do. I just don't know if it's possible forever and ever - jim carrey ]

well, before staring this let me give a disclaimer, this is no justification for the life I lead, this is no rant against the oh-so-happy couples (never seen one of those) and neither are these words of resentment. I am writing this, as always, to tell what I feel. Because I always don’t get time to talk to myself in any form and writing the views I have, however radical or obtuse they maybe relaxes me like I had a long chat with the me.

the debatable point is that once the relationship is over the gut-wrenching pain that follows is unimaginable. When someone leaves you, apart from missing them, apart from the fact that the whole little world you've created together collapses, and that everything you see or do reminds you of them, the worst is the thought that they tried you out and, in the end, the whole sum of parts adds up to you got stamped REJECT by the one you love. How can you not be left with the personal confidence of a passed-over Indian Railway sandwich?

that was debatable because you never disregard something because of the suffering at the end of it. Do we hate life because of the scepter of death that we know is looming at the end of it? Well, I believe it’s not just the suffering at the end. Its also the suffering that is present each and every moment in love. The jealousies, the partings, the responsibilities, the oh-so-silly commitments, oh-so-even-more-silly arguments. With due apologies to all the poets and philosophers, I have never seen love that has set us free or kept us alive. For me, love is something that transcends all emotions, which exceeds explanations and understanding the other person completely.

being single is easier I guess. With friends like the ones I have its fun too. Everyday I wake up, not thinking about what nuances of my partners whim and fancy I am going to hate today or what constricting obligation my girlfriend is going to slap on me. Instead, I am filled with a sense of freedom, freedom to think about myself, freedom to feel what I want to feel without feeling guilty, freedom walk and get wet in the rain, freedom of not looking at the watch all the time so that I don’t miss a second, freedom of not being enslaved to the mobile phone checking it every second for that elusive missed call or message and above all freedom to be myself with each soul I meet.

i think that’s one of the most obnoxious factors about a relationship. The way people pretend and shadow dance. Come on; is it so arduous to be yourself? Isn’t that why you fell in love, in first place. If not stop this shadow boxing. The mental agony and stress of pretending is going to get you after sometime and destroy any semblance of a relationship. Being a lone wolf, I count myself blessed because I can be myself. No pretending (like someone I know of) that you love cats because your girlfriend has 3 of them and when she is not around kick them hard just for the pleasure of it or fervently swearing that you hate beauty pageants because they commercialize feminity and be glued to FTV midnight everyday. By the way, both these guys are happily cat-kicking FTV-watching single and their ex’s have found other wimps.

don’t get me wrong, people. In the end, I am like all other guys. I obviously don’t plan to remain single for the rest of my life. I want someone too, but not so desperately that I’d settle with the next entry in who’s-who of Human Crap. I’ll wait for the right one, one with whom I can be unadulterated-untainted-dirty minded-crazy guy I am. I know it takes a lot of time to get someone like that, if they exist, in the first place. Till then I’ll enjoy with the wrong ones, my friends, dog and Smirnoff. Because in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

The Night of November 7th, 1997

[ life may change, but it may fly not; Hope may vanish, but can die not; Truth be veiled, but still it burneth; Love repulsed, - but it returneth- percy bysshe shelley ]

growing up is never easy. You hold on to things that were. You wonder what's to come. But that night, I think we knew it was time to let go of what had been, and look ahead to what would be. Other days. New days. Days to come. The thing is, we didn't have to hate each other for getting older. We just had to forgive ourselves... for growing up. The fault was within us. Maybe we grew up faster since we found each other, found that elusive thing called love. Or did I think the fault was within us because that’s what the people around us made us believe? We were kids, but we were not fools.

we knew it was not puppy love, not a whim of adolescence, nor was it in anyway momentary. I would have been derided (as I was at that time) if I had voiced these thoughts then. When I look back now, the feelings, the discernment I felt then have remained unchanged. This is the first time I am putting these things to words or even voicing out to people. I know it’s confusing to the reader but that’s the way I feel, even now. How can something that has remained unchanged for 7 years labeled as flippant? Oh, how I wish I had talked to this “me”, who understands what happened then so clearly, at that time. How I wish I had someone who had the perception that went beyond the small-town Puritanism to explain it to me. Then that night would not have haunted me for all these years.

that night, when it all ended. When we decided that we will never think of each other, never meet, never talk…Just because the people around us where obscure in understanding. I don’t know if its just me who feels the same way. Has she forgotten all about the time when we were together? Sharing everything, where words where not necessary to convey thoughts. Maybe she has, then again, maybe she hasn’t.

drunken musings

[ beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy - benjamin franklin ]

my apologies if my blog starts to look like an alcoholic’s diary. Well, that’s all there is left to do in this city now. Who would have imagined that the crazy movie makers here would come up with an even crazier embargo on all non-kannada movies!! What next people? Convert Casa Piccolos and Jukeboxes into “Casa Sagars” or “Juke Darshans” and serve idlis and ragi muddes? Gimme a break! Anyway, I’m positive about this. Oppression of masses with crazy ideas didn’t start today or yesterday, it has been happening for ages and they were soon shown the door. Fingers crossed!

now where was I? Yeah, drunken binges!! Thursday was good. I would say half of Brigade Rd and Residency is missing because I drank it! My apologies to people who I called and talked to, after that. Its just that alcohol takes me to a level where I have more than the usual amount of love and friendship to share with people and I want to share it before I’m sober. Also, in case you are wondering if those were the words of a drunkard, hold it! I meant every word of it!!

ok, I sense some disapproval here. “Control your drinking” “Its bad for you” Yeah, yeah, let me tell you two things; First, I don’t drink too much. Period. Second, do you know that Alcohol actually makes you smarter? Don’t believe me? Read on….

well you see, it's like this... A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This is natural selection and is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of alcohol eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That's why you always feel smarter after a few drinks.

supreme sacrifice of drinking vodka

[ I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day - Frank Sinatra]

SOMETIMES when I reflect back on all the vodka I drink I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about workers in the distillary in Russia and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this vodka, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, "It is better that I drink vodka and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver."

work is a four letter word

i don't know if this is what you call work! Sitting at your workstation and staring at the monitor for hours! Why has the spirit gone out of me? Why don't I feel like working? Why do I feel de-motivated? and Why am I having these thoughts?

maybe complaining is not my forte. Never has been.I am one of those perpetual optimists. One of those guys who, if they fall accidentally in a well ask for a soap!

maybe its all these problems I am facing right now thats causing me to write this. Not just mine, but my friends' too. My problem is purely infrastructural (Ooops, big word huh? Josh would hate me for it) I need to move out of my current house and don't feel like it. My friends' problems? I wish they were simpler.

hey, look at the silver lining......
going home this week, after a long time.......Well, its gotta be fun, except for the fact that the pressure mounts from my family. The expectations they have set on me are not a part of my current life. Yes, I want to pursue an MBA, in Advertising. But right now, there are things that i need to set in place...What things? Well, theres always another log..ill leave it for now....