Am i growing old?

Well, the other day i was trying to call up my friend for some urgent important task. I dialed the number as i was calling from my landline. The first time the line was engage. I re-dialed after 10 minutes. It was again engage. I tried again after 20 minutes. Again, the same response. :O. I then got highly irritated and started hurling the choicest of expletives at whomsoever/ whatever came to my mind from the telephone exchange to the government to the friend in question.

I later went to my room to cool myself down with a glass of cold water and some music. Just when i was turning on the music player, I realized that i had been dialing my own landline number since long. :O.

God save me :D

Why haven't i posted for the last two months? DUH

Well well well... A realization finally dawned upon my peanut sized stupid brain - I have a blog which i am supposed to post on regularly. However, it too seems to be, like many other things/ people, an object of my complete sense of ignorance which well and truly signifies my current attitude towards life. Why have i been so insensitive and detached? (From my Mom to my blog to my friends) Well, the only answer i can come up with is... I am preparing for CAT (Whoa... CAT - supposed to be a monster of an exam). Well, that indeed cannot be considered as a valid reason my behavior in recent times. It is almost as though i am living in a world of fantasy where nothing else exists except for my preparation for CAT. Oh c'mon, whom am i kidding... CAT... I haven't even been scoring decent enough in the Mocks. What will i do on the actual C-Day? And come to think of it, why am i spoiling my life for one exam. It might have the power to alter the course of my life forever; however does my current behavior justify so? I don't think so...

Anyways feels great to be posting after a long silence. (I just hope not many lambs were slaughtered in the meanwhile ;) ).

What if god was one of us

If God had a name what would it be?
And would you call it to his face?
If you were faced with him in all his glory
what would you ask if you had just one question?

Yeah, Yeah, God is great
Yeah, Yeah, God is good
Yeah Yeah yeah yeah yeah

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home

If God had a face
What would it look like?
And would you want to see
If seeing meant that you would have to believe
In things like heaven and Jesus and the saints
and all the Prophets

Yeah Yeah God is great
Yeah Yeah God is good
Yeah Yeah yeah yeah yeah

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home
Just trying to make his way home
Back up to Heaven all alone
Nobody callin' on the phone
cept for the Pope maybe in Rome

Yeah Yeah God is great
Yeah Yeah God is good
Yeah Yeah yeah yeah

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home
Like a holly Rolling Stone
Back up to Heaven all alone
Just trying to make his way home
Nobody callin' on the phone
'cept for the Pope maybe in Rome

- Joan Osbourne


Need i say more?

My tryst with TT and the lessons it taught me.

About an year back, when i had joined my first job, i developed a keen interest for TT (Ping-pong to some). This was partly because TT tables were available in abundant quantities in the office and I being the work-shirker, loved to while away time playing this game. One of my closest friend also liked playing TT a lot. So, everyday after office, we used to play for about an hour before going home. As we started playing regularly, i realized my 'keen interest' wasn't really translating into performance. I regularly lost to my friend who happened to be a female. Somewhere around this time, i got really frustrated with myself for losing so regularly. A thought entered my mind that I am losing to a girl. The (in)famous male ego was affecting me too. I was horrified. I prided myself to be immune from male chauvinism. But it had roared its ugly head on me too. Consequently, i became petulant and began snapping at her for no obvious fault of hers. Some days later i got involved in my work, and we were unable to continue playing.
A few months went by... My workload reduced and i decided to start playing again. So, i with another project mate of mine began playing. Being rusty, i lost to him comfortably. But this defeat hurt me like hell; even more than the time i played with my friend earlier.

This whole episode taught me a lesson. I was susceptible to losing at anything. It made me cranky and i snarled at everybody and anybody around me. This placed my behavior in the right perspective. I was able to analyze that i am fiercely competitive person who doesn't like losing. A loss made me moody and bitter. It also taught me that i am indeed not a target of male chauvinism.

PS: Did i tell you that my female friend is a college champ at TT :)

Farewell Shruti

Well, this is my reply to your goodbye mail...

I have known you for less than an year. But these few months that i have spent together in the same cubicle have been nothing less than memorable for me. My earliest memory of yours is of a person who walks in a very weird way ;-)...

I am a person who doesn't make friends very quickly. But with shruti, i hit off so well that i never felt that i am freshly acquainted to her. I could share my fears, my thoughts or little PJs and so many other things with her without any qualms. Our tastes in music, books, and many other things are so similar that there was never any point of contention. We participated in the drama and the mad-ads having so much fun together - working on her practice of playing a donkey (which invariably won us the prize i must reiterate), the script for the play. I have many fond memories with her; of having a gala time at the leather lounge, of practicing for the dumb-charades, of sitting late till ONE AM one night... She lifted my spirits when i was down... Shared my happy times with me... Supported me when i was frustrated... Listened to my stupid talks... She was the first person who pushed me so hard to start blogging... (So its only fair that i write my farewell to her here).
And yes, she's sweet. ( Well, this is now beginning to sound like a testimonial on orkut)

I have only one word for everything: THANKS.

I'll miss you like hell... You are probably one of my closest friends... One whom i could trust and rely upon...

-Deep

PS: I'll miss you threatening to throw me out of the cubicle... :)

Countdown to CAT

For the last few years, (in fact, since the time i joined engineering) doing an MBA has been on my mind, soul and almost my every third thought. My obsession has been such that i have been unable to concentrate and work hard enough in my job. I accept it; i haven't been exactly as sincere and dedicated to my job as i could have been. Nevertheless, its not that i have been performing poorly there. But yes, i haven't really challenged myself to excel at my work. Well, i would fully blame my mindset about doing an MBA for this situation. But i am not complaining.

Anyways, the reason for this post is entirely different. It is to motivate myself to perform better in the CAT so that i can finally hold true my dream of doing an MBA from a premier institute. However, that looks a particularly distinct possibility now that i haven't even completed the basic prep whereas my Mock CATs are beginning from 8th July, i.e. this Sunday. I honestly confess that i have been wasting far too much time on trivial idiosyncrasies. (Won't elaborate on them here though ;-) ).

So here i promise myself that i'll focus towards my ultimate goal of doing an MBA and work really hard. (Work my ass off, if that is indeed an expression).

Cheers...

Happy Bday Abhi

Today is 5th July. Well, you may wonder... So what... This date comes every year. But, it is the date on which my little brother was born. He is probably one of the closest persons t0 me in this world. Well, i was only five when he was born. So, i have a little story about that time related to him. You might as well find it kiddish. But who cares, i was a kid at that time. ;-) Not that i didnt think that i was all grown up.
Anyways, I had close friend Teja (Not Paresh Rawal from Andaz Apna Apna). So, just an year before my brother was born, Teja was blessed with a little sister. Being naughty and notorious that i was, i was always on the lookout for troubling him and his baby sister. And he always tried to stop me from doing that as a dutiful and responsible elder brother. This led me to be depressed (Yes, you can be depressed at 4) at the thought that i do not have a younger sister to play with. Thus, began the thoughts of me too having a younger sibling. And thus began my demands to my mother. Well, as i thought at that time, mom caved in to my demands and promised to bring me a little sister home. Being ignorant of the child birth process, i believed the words my parents said- that they'll be getting a little sister from the hospital. ( I thought they sell children there... Dumb right). Anyways, about a month before my mom's delivery, they confided in me that i will be having a younger brother instead. Initially, my reaction was that of skepticism. After all, i had prepared myself mentally for a sister. And my brain finds it very difficult to adapt to such changes. (Its a slow processor). Anyways, i slowly got used to the idea of a brother. In fact, i even began boasting about this among my friends, especially to Teja. Finally, when the D-day arrived(which is today, rewinded about 17 years back) , i was all ready to receive my younger brother and play with him. My excitement had reached its zenith. Finally, after a wait of about a day, i could lay my hands on him. Holding him for the first time and placing him in my lap gave me tremendous sense of responsibility and care for him. This is the moment when i matured from being the naughty kid in the house to a more mature boy. (Well, the process wasn't exactly immediate - it did take a few years).

Anyways, this post is dedicated to my parents who brought my brother into this world. And especially to my brother with whom i can talk about almost everything and anything, share all my stuff, share my secrets, share dirty jokes, shout at, ..... (Well, the list goes on and on).
All this stuff would not have been probably possible with a sister.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABHINAV

Cheers to your good health and long life.

PS: I still miss having a sister though (Especially at Rakshabandhan).

Randomness in life.

Just the other day while i was waiting for a signal to turn green, observing many people going about their business, a weird thought hit me:

We are all birth relatives by some way or the other. Coz the ancestors to all the human race are the same. We are all siblings as we have common root nodes to our family tree. And now we don't even care about anyone except for our nearest family.

- Weird...

Through the eyes of the beholder

Have you ever thought what would happen if you had no eyes? Even the little thought about such a thing sends shivers down my spine. Eyes (vision) are among the most neglected parts of our body. (Well, atleast i don't take great care of them). We take them for granted. Do you ever wonder - what if you were blind? What if you had lost your vision? What if you could not see the beautiful colours of the world, all the breathtaking sceneries, the spectacular forests, the colour of the setting sun, the subtle differences between the colours of your clothes, the visual treat which you would be deprived of?

Some Pearls of my wisdom

First a little background:

Being a S/w engineer, there are times when i am relatively free from all work and then there are times when i don't even have a minute to speak to friends(I sure must be rude to people who dare to disturb me at such a time). Such is the oscillation between boredom and "I cannot handle the work" scenarios that it tends to leave the cerebral part of my body in a hazy state. The following statements are the result of such a condition:

"Solving a mistake may create another even bigger mistake"

"There are more people trying to pull you down than wanting you to go up. So, Effort >= force of gravity!"

"The universe is only as big as your imagination; a problem is only as big as your thinking"

"Wine, women and wealth - the three vices of (un)successful men"

Disclaimer: This are only my weird quotes; which may of may not apply to all. Please don't sue me if they don't. :D

Nostalgia

Just happened to visit this link...

http://www.braindose.com/dd

Made me really nostalgic; especially the jungle book song. (Which was the sole source of cartoon entertainment during the good old DD times).

Cheers

Googling

Google : Its my helpline.

Now, when i had first heard of this word, i was highly curious to know of its history and origin. So, I again turned to Google (yeah, right) for some help. So what i got to know was that it is a mis-spelling of the word googol which refers to the value 10<sup>100.

Now, this in itself is not a very interesting piece of information. :). But what i want to stress on is that the way Google has impacted our lives. (It has impacted mine atleast). So today whenever i have any doubts, i want to know about anything, or want to search for absolutely anything, Google is where i head to. Now, when i do not know anything, then without the embarrassment of asking anyone about it, u can find the answer. So, going with all this background, let me get to the main point here.

Last week, my company blocked some of the sites which they considered malicious and not confirming to certain standards. Among the blocked sites were crowd favorites, orkut and all the web - based emails (Including gmail, et al.). This caused a lot of inconvenience to many people. And the Information Security group were at the receiving end of lots of curses. So, all this led me to think about the day when maybe Google will be blocked. This thought scared me to my wits end. But then i reasoned that every software developer works only on help from Google. Blocking Google itself will in turn absolutely screw up the company's project schedules and deliveries. So, in ratiocination, i decided that this unthinkable may never happen.

But who knows, this is a strange world and worse things have happened.</sup>

The First Ever

Well my first post…

I have always been perplexed by the word “HYPOCRISY”. Most people when asked for one thing which they disliked say that its hypocrisy. So I decided to find the literal meaning to it. Some googling led me to this meaning. So as per my interpretation, it is something which you preach but do not follow it yourself. Now, when I had joined my current job, we had a soft skills session where the instructor asked us to introduce ourselves and state our likes and dislikes. So, as I expected (I ought to have good sixth sense ;-)), most people came up with the clichéd answers for their dislikes. Topping the list was – you guessed it right – “HYPOCRISY”. Now, one observation I made was that it was the representatives of the fairer sex who were very vocal in their dislike for Hypocrisy and hypocrites. (I am not a sexist… But this was just an observation). So, I decided to observe the behavior of these so-called hypocrisy haters unobtrusively. Now, I know this person who made very strong statements showing disapproval of certain people whenever he/she was conversing with me. So, I thought this person may be really dislikes those people. And yeah I forgot to mention, he/she had also mentioned hypocrisy as his/her most disliked characteristic. (Is it really a characteristic…? Now I am sounding like a chemistry lecturer ;-) ). Anyways, so continuing with my analysis –

A month later, I found this person being very friendly with the exact same people he/she had ridiculed. Now, this led me to the conclusion that may be the people who dislike hypocrisy are hypocrites themselves. Hell, this is also a kind of hypocrisy. (Saying you dislike hypocrisy and practicing it yourself).

So, in conclusion, I had like to categorically state that I really dislike hypocrites. Crap, I am turning into a hypocrite myself.