Musings..

Sometimes I have wondered..
--> Why everybody looks beautiful when they smile?

--> Why everytime you question the existence of God ,He proves his existence making
impossible things possible?

--> Do bed-time stories and lullabies really put one to sleep?

--> Why does the phone take such a long time to ring when you are eagerly waiting for it to ring?

--> And when it finally does ring, why does it happen that most of the time its a wrong
number?

--> Why do we have tears in our eyes after a good laugh?

--> Why does my bus come late when I am early and come early when I am late?

--> Why is it that even though you doodle your signature perfectly on every piece of paper you find near you when you are on the phone,but when it comes to signing 5 pages of a document,all your signatures end up looking entirely different?

--> Why is it that there is nothing interesting on the TV once the battle for the remote is over and you have won it?

To be contd.. (if there are not too many protests from my blog readers!!!)

Sweet Nothings

Yesterday I chanced upon this mail about people and blood groups.It began very well giving an impressive statistics ( I believe 99% of all statistics are fake - pun intended ;-) ) saying O+ blood group people eat up almost 40% of the pie.Then came a table informing who can receive/donate blood from/to whom. Quite informative I thought. As I scrolled down, I was completely stupefied by what I read!

What I believed looked right out of a good encyclopedia really turned me down when I read those words in bold..."Now,read what your blood group says about you.." and then those familiar rows which would be type casting each one of us to one of them.

All of us receive such "type-casting" mails in dozens everyday...right from "What does your colour say about you.." to " What does your sleep posture say about you"...why stop at that..."what does how you dot your 'i's and cross your 't's say about you.."..."What does your Sun sign (and for that matter,moon sign,normal sign-I mean signature!sign,sine,cos,tan blah blah) say about you" .....Humphhh...So many things say so many things about you - and all entirely different :-D ,right??

What is strange is that even though you know its a total crappy stuff,you(includes me too!) eagerly scroll down to your "respective" row (got from either a simple look-up process or from tedious mathematical formulae involving everything form your date of birth to when the tyrannosaurus rex got extinct! )..and nod your head vigorously on reading each good thing that it mentions about you saying "Oh yeah,how true!!" and say "naah...thats the only mistake they made in assessing me" when it comes to your bad qualities!

Anyways,we got to admit its lot of fun! :-) And I would rather stop this musing with this happy note! Cheers..! Good Day..

PS : Now,in case you are curious and still hoping somebody would forward the blood-group mail to you, hold on - I can copy-paste that for you :-)

TYPE O You want to be a leader, and when you see something you want, you keep striving until you achieve your goal. You are a trend-setter, loyal, passionate, and self-confident. Your weaknesses include vanity and jealously and a tendency to be too competitive.

TYPE A You like harmony, peace and organization. You work well with others, and are sensitive, patient and affectionate. Among your weaknesses are stubbornness and an inability to relax.

TYPE B You're a rugged individualist, who's straightforward and likes to do things your own way. Creative and flexible, you adapt easily to any situation. But your insistence on being independent can sometimes go too far and become a weakne ss.

TYPE AB Cool and controlled, you're generally well liked and always put people at ease. You're a natural entertainer who's tactful and fair. But you're standoffish, blunt, and have difficulty making decisions.

A-Z Bangalore - Enjoy Maadi..

A for Appukuttan Nair
B for BMTC
C for Compilation errors
D for Deadlines!!!
E for E-mails
F for (The) Forum

G for Green City Clean City
H for yeah,no points for guessing the right answer,its Hosur road
I for Information Technology
J for J2EE???
K for "Kannada Gothilla" :-)
L for Lalbagh Flower Show
M for Mallus...you will find them everywhere here!
N for Network Busy
O for Oh My God,it crashed again!

P for Paying Guests
Q for Queue Please
R for Radio Cityyyyyy....91 FM
S for Sukh Sagar,Shanthi Sagar and the sea of other Sagars..
T for Traffic ,traffic,,,,
U for Uh-oh..well.....you see..
V for Virus Alert!
W for Windows is shutting down..Saving your personal settings..
X for Well,this is left for the Blog readers... :-D
Y for Yipee!Today is Friday!
Z for Zoom-in (+) Zoom Out (-)

Have a nice day!

What Happens on a Boring Day...Mission Makeover.

Let me tell you something I discovered very recently.The height of stupidity of your actions on a particular day is directly proportional to the degree of boredom on that day.And I haven't yet found out the relation between the degree/extent of disasters caused due to this stupidity and the number of times you have thought Murphy's Laws are to be used only with jokes!
It had been a nice lazy holiday.Having woken up very late in the morning,I was getting those "How do I spend the rest of the day" blues by ten. Watching Tv was not a bad option.But true to my ways,I started getting restless. Glancing at the mirror on my way back to my room lit a bulb in my head... Back in the room,my only other roomie who had a holiday too was busy on the phone.
I took a skeptic look at myself in the mirror."Mirror,mirror on the wall,who is the prettiest of all??"..that was a dramatic-Me! But no reply.The hair of the person in the mirror looked like a dull mass of hornet's nest,eyes too lifeless..the material looked mirror-cracking .Having examined the sordid image,I rummaged through my chest of draw.. took my hair brush (I will say it a thousand times-a good brush,good one,very good one,very very good one!!!) and "sorted out" the chaos.
By then another curious roomie had joined in what I had secretly named Mission Makeover. She got so excited by the thought of dressing me up that she got her entire make-up kit ready within seconds! What followed was a half an hour smearing-blending-more-smearing-and more blending of more than the 256-True Colour palette on my face.
A quick look at the mirror confirmed that things were going ultra-fine. And then it happened...thanks to Murphy,if anything can go wrong,it will. Having completed the "raid" in my draw,I quickly shifted to my friend's draw.A hair roller...yes..the perfect find. I carefully took out a handful of hair close to my forehead and gently rolled it on the hair roller...once..twice...thrice...and again...and...ouch...oops....oh no...godddddddd....damn it....I couldn't undo the rolls...the roller was stuck to my hair! "Nooooooo......." I screamed dramatically..and my friends came rushing towards me. After a fifteen minute merciless chortle,three "hair-experts" pounced on the roller,trying franctically to pull out the hair from it.And I was yelping like a wounded puppy cos yeah,it hurt me sooooooo much! :-((
Parachute hair oil, water,Sunsilk shampoo,Himalaya Protein Conditioner....everything failed to help us. The futility of the attempt was being realised as the clock ticked by...Matters were moving from bad to worse.One hour since the occurence of "the bright idea", I was surrounded by a grand audience echoing my yelps whenever my friend tugged at my hair. I realised that there was no way I could untangle my hair from the roller.Armed with a pair of scissors,my exhausted friend took one last look at the tangle and I heard the sweet sound-"swish-swash-swish-swash"....the scissors were working quickly.
That was the fitting finale of Mission Makeover.A fringe of hair falling on my face...so adamant that it wouldn't get pinned up into my pony tail.

Moral - Rolling brushes gather all the hair.So please be cautious.

Veendum Oru Vishu...

Innu Kerala New Year Vishu pramaanichu Malayalathil "blog"aan theerumaanichu..Ende ippraavishathe vishu bangalore_il thanne aayi..aadyaayittaanu vishu diwasam veettil ninnum maari nilkkunnathu.

Innale raathri kidakkunnathinu munbu athyaavisham nalla saadhanangal okke pillow_de side_il othukki vechittaanu kidannathu...raavile kannu thurakkumbol ormayode kaanane ennu praarthichittu kidannu.

Samayam 6:15...ende mobile goes beep beeep beeep beeeeeeeep...Reflex action pole mobile_il nokki.."Alarm off!!" "Snooze" ennokke paranju light minnunnu...Aiyyyooooo....vishu kani!!! Vegam kannadachu bed_il position cheythu kannu thurannu,to see the mirror...ende thottu purake oru nalla window aayathukondu sooryaprakashathil frame itta enne njan mirror_il kandu...(kandu ennu parayaam..aake frame maathrame kandollu!!) pinne pillow_de thaazhennu oru photo album eduthu..last page edukkunnathinu pakaram ormayillaathe 1st page eduthu...NSS College of Engineering ennu ezhuthiya valya building..ooops...thetti poyi..last page eduthu..hmmm...thank god..mom,dad and pj..:-D

Angane kure mistakes okke kazhinju vishu kani kandu.. Pinne chaadi odi pidanju marinju oru kuliyum b-fast_um kazhichu veendum chaadi odi bus stop_il ethi,just-miss aakenda bus_inde purake odi chaadi keri phew-huff-puff okke kazhinju settle aayi..office ethi..back to work...anganeyum oru vishu!

Fwd : Important,Must Read...!!

Reminds you of all the junk mails(not spam,mind ya!) you receive everyday from your closest of the closest friends,right? The ones you lovingly kill hitting the delete button ,sending them right away to their graves - ironically called the recycle bin ( do they actually get recycled? Like a life after death perhaps!!! )

Why do we go "grr.." seeing a forwarded mail ,at the same time hesitate once(no..twice?? or thrice..??) before hitting the delete button??? Why do we loathe at the sight of a forwarded message from a friend,but still make it a point to read it ,knowing very well that it might be the dirtiest PJ???

There have been different types of forwarded messages..the most favourite among them being the surd jokes and wildest one liner PJ's which begin like."Why did blah-blah do something blah-blah?"..and then it asks you to scroll down and down and down and down into the bottom of the earth with inspiring messages like "think..think" and "socho...zara socho yaar" strewn in between,trying their best to bring out the "genius" in you..but alas..after 26 frantic rotation of your scroll key on your mouse,you are left with a cardiac arrest!How come (and more importantly WHO IN THE HELL..) they come up with such absurd PJs!!!

And then there are the classic notorious "Send it to 10 people or you are doomed" versions of forwarded messages.Uggghhh....From Gayathri mantra,Chinese Totem to Love Magic (which claims that if you send it to 3 people,your bf will call you now,5 people- your bf will take you out for dinner,10 people-hold your breath,he might even propose!!! ) which secretly knows how to guess out to how many people you have mailed and perform the "appropriate magic" within oh-my-god-next-2-hours!!!!

Another class is a senti-stuff message...drive carefully,don't drink while driving..or you will face the fate of Martin (and the gory pictures of some person who has supposedly met with an accident).Spoils your day! But out of all this junk,there are few messages that really brighten up your day! When you very badly want a break and go through all those new forwarded messages that have landed
in your mailbox,you do hope and wait for that damn good joke which will send you rolling on the floor with laughter and prompt you to hit the "Forward" button-- and hence the chain continues :-)cheers!!!

E for Emraan "Kissme" :-* !!!

Yesterday,one my friends commented that I write a lot of stuffs classified as
"unintelligible" by "lesser mortals" like him.So today,I am trying to safe-land on a zone which would hopefully be more intelligible-- the title must have been of some use to make a not-so-wild-guess as to what I might write about ;-)
The birth of this star occured when Bollywood was slowing its pace..movies were being churned out every second like in a factory..one after the other and painfully steroetyped. Hero meeting heroine,falling in love,dancing around trees,heroine's dad watching,heroine locked in room,dishoom dishoom at hero's end,bleeding nose,sad version of the happy tree song,dad's hearts melt,hero and heroine unite and happy ending! A packet of pop corn,one cone of ice cream and a happy ending at your end too! Damn it! Even the routine was getting stereotyped!
And then came Hashmi-with "Murder".He hit off so well among the Indian audience after his "never-before performance" in the movie that the Indians screamed "encore!!" and soon enough "Zeher","Aashiq banaya aapne" ,"Aksar" and others followed.Sure enough,he turned the path of Indian Cinema from the usual run-of-the-mill stories,but creating a new genre ,at the cost of raising many eye brows!
For,here was a man who had better options to use his lips than utilize it for
mundane tasks like speaking and eating! And he did what he best could in all the movies now lovingly called "hashmi-styled movies" :-D (if you know what I meant!) Who would have imagined that a man with so tiny lips would actually manage to create a saga titled "The Art of Kissing"!!
A typical Hashmi movie would go thus(refer to the previous sequence for appreciating the depth of difference brought in)- Hero (one of the less popular actors in Bollywood) is ALREADY married to heroine ( whoa!! that should have meant "The End",but its just "the Beginning" here !!) Enter Hashmi - oops,he is heroines ex-flame. Heroine tries to keep him away,but his magnetism is too over powering (song sequence follows) ,kissing,kissing and more kissing....still kissing...still more kissing..(phew,hashmi is still not tired!!!)...husband(our hero) doubts "meri biwi par shak he"..scope for a new character role -- The Investigator( Best Award for role as Investigator-to be included in Cine Awards soon)-jo biwi aur ex-flame ke photo kheenchtha he. Heroine is shocked on seeing the photos. A murder of hashmi occurs. "pulis" aa jaate he..biwi takes the blame on herself,hubby also does the same-- "kya??" ..bechara "pulis" is confused! Then after some mess and a fuss and a song sequence,somehow the movie ends (fortunately). Pop corn over,ice cream over,happy ending(??) ,I don't know..:-)

I,Me,Myself-Unedited

There is this neat pile of books at my home stacked away in a dusty corner , each of them looking not a bit like the other in their appearance,shape and colour...but they all share one similarity.Every book has lots of pages filled up with writings,musings and pictures,little souvenirs tucked in with love in the first half of the book while the other half is almost bland...wondering what these books are? They are my journals through the years - I,Me,Myself- Unedited.

An old saying goes "Paper is more patient than man" and every crazy thought strewn across those pages of a journal is a testimony to this fact.Sometimes I have wondered what I would do with all those journals I have maintained through right from when I was 12 years of age. And I think I am going to read all that junk (!!) after a few years,probably share it with my family too,and enjoy a good laugh (thats the only best thing I can think of now!).Sometimes I get so embarassed about few of my cranky ideas etched in there that I even thinking of burning them all away! But that invisible string tugs at your heart and you put off the idea.

Getting specific about my journals,as I mentioned earlier,the process gets kick started with much fire and fury in the first half of year....with almost all the pages scribbled about anything and everything under the sun...right from the fight I had with my best friend to how I was chased by a dog and ran for my life hoping no one had seen it! Post July,the laziness takes a toll on me and frequency of scribbles reduces drastically and by December,there would have been atleast half a dozen pages of apologies for not writing anything! Come January,its again a new beginning,a fresh dairy,but same old me again :-)

First few years,my journal even had pictures of the daily events..cartoons...what not!Advancing through the years,pictures reduced,daily chore jottings also reduced and I tried evolving by writing about serious stuffs.By the end of the year I realised serious writing was not my cup of tea cos the entire journal was the worst one I had ever written!

And now with blogging,a beautiful new vista of I,Me,Myself-Unedited series has opened before me....with a serious risk factor--the blunders and stupidity is now open for the world to see! But I am definitely enjoying it!! What about you..?

The Importance of Emoting(With Care)

So you think I am going to talk non-stop on the importance of emotions in our life and how we should show our loved ones that we care,trust and love them more than ourselves and that more than what we feel for them,what matters is how we express the same?? Naah...those are all topics written by so many people so many times that it would be like digging them out of their graves...let them rest in peace...:-)

Am talking about emoting on a different plane -- emoting even when you are typing on the key board! Yes dude,this time you guessed it right! Thanks to the ever-green hero who discovered those pretty combinations of punctuation marks,my blog has had a narrow escape from extinction!

Emoticons (Rather Emote-Icons) was probably the first revolutionary step which changed the notion that display of emotions were signs of weakness...now buddy,its trendy to emote!! The more emoticons you use, the cooler you are seen as! Though only a handful of emoticons have managed to find place in people's hearts,most of them do know the existence of weird ones like dogs,cats, rainbow etc!

The importance of emoting on the e-plane can be caught with the following
example.Consider the sentence and their huge difference in meanings those little curly things at the end make...
--> I am going home :-) (wow..am glad!!!)
--> I am going home :-( ( uggh....my bf and I had plans for a nice outing!Its ruined!)
--> I am going home X-( ( i have had enough talking to you..am leaving!)
I know I needn't have mentioned all that so explicitly..but when it comes to using
emoticons,I really want all of you to take some care...for I have been in grave situations when I accidently typed :-X instead of X-( when I was almost yelling at a friend! And his surprise :-o and a "Are you ok? " message helped me realise my folly..and we did have a good laugh after that ..(haha...thks to the emoticons culture,we could solve our difference of opinion amicably!) .. So aint that friendly curly thing cool to use??? Happy Emoting...:-)cheers!!!

"Cat"-a-strophic!

meeeeoooowwww.." My eyebrows shot up--"Now who was this..". With my eyes still fixed on the Lays packet which was now completely empty ,I continued munching the last of the lot,wishing the packet contained what the manufacturers promised-100 g of potato chips..but its always 50 g potato chips and 50 g of nature's fine composition(nitrogen-78%,oxygen-21%,carbon dioxide-0.03% and other gases-0.07%) called air. The amphitheatre was almost empty at around this time except for a few people enjoying their evening snack."Its getting late..I have to hurry up to my desk and finish my work for today before I can leave by the seven 'o clock bus,and then I have to go to the.." "MEEEEEEEOOOOOWWWWWW"..this time louder and commanding..my thoughts slammed on the brakes.
I turned my head to the right and there was this grey kitten looking at me with a forlorn face.It looked like any ordinary kitten at first sight.Small grey body curled up like a fur ball with white stripes on it.Little did I know then how surprised I would be in a few minutes time. "hmmm???"..."meeeeeoooowwww" came the reply. I shifted my body so that we were face to face."Ok sweetie,am listening..whats your problem?" . I knew I looked totally foolish talking to a kitten like that,but the tiny thing really had my attention drawn!
Expecting another hopeless meeoww I continued like an idiot.." I know you have problems too...probably your mama screamed at you for something,or you flunked in an exam,or that you are hungry...but its all part of life dude..you gotta live it.."..tossing my hair ,I looked out into the darkness in a melodramatic fashion that comes naturally to me when I say something highly philosophical!
"Who do you think you are talking to,huh??" This was too much of a response to get for what I expected I would get from the kitten(what would you hope to hear from a CAT other than a meeeow????). "W-w-w-w-w-w-what was that???" As I turned my head to face the object of my attention ,my jaws dropped down! In the place of the little kitten with that oh-so-sad expression was the same kitten with a smile (yeah,a real S-M-I-L-E) on its face,grinning at me!

"Who spoke just now??" ...I looked around at the empty amphitheatre..not a single soul. "Haha,you still don't believe that it was me who spoke,right?"..the smile was irking me now. A talking kitten???Have I started hallucinating too!!!
"Ok,little girl,let me explain...Am Almighty God from Heaven.Everyday when I visit Earth,I make it a point to visit atleast one software professional in this world.And you are the 12,456,567 th person I have talked to.".."There are more software engineers surely...you can find that number in Bangalore itself!And you have talked to only so many?" I mused out aloud."Thats cos I don't talk to them unless they take pains to talk to me...Software professionals have become so engrossed in their own activities that it takes little pranks like this to remind them that there other things in life.."The Kitten replied. "And you think this would help?"..I was feeling smaller and smaller before that tiny thing claiming to be God Himself.
"What would help you mean??Finished off the entire Lays packet by yourself,huh??? And you sit here blah-blahing nonsense to yourself!Why don't we make a move now?Its almost seven!"..I looked up at the voice ..I could make out my friend's figure in the darkness. "Oh yes..am sorry..where were you? Lets go..." I replied,feeling a little shaky.
As I got up to go,I feared looking to my right.But the temptation was overwhelming.I tried looking out through the corner of my eyes...nothing there.where is the..?? I took two steps forward and as though I had forgotten something I turned back and looked at where I had sat. "Whats it?Did you leave anything behind ?" my friend asked. "No...but where is the.." my voice trailed away,as I kept searching in the emptiness for it...in vain.Looking straight ahead but with a defeated face,I strolled silently with my friend.As I walked away slowly,my friend carelessly asked.."Lots of cats here,right?Do you like them??"..Back in the amphitheatre,a small smile appeared on the face of the lone fur ball in the darkness...nobody saw it ....

God's Own Country-You are missed!

Lush paddy fields,circled by a chain of palm trees,a gurgling stream finding its way
through tiny narrow openings,caressing the smooth white pebbles underneath,mountains lining up the horizon kissing the clouds and blue blue clear sky as you look up .....the thought of
Kerala fills my heart with pride and love and that longing drives you so crazy that you are
prompted to go through your calendar.

Running my finger along the rows of the month,my eyes
light up as I see 30th marked in grey in my official calendar.Applying for leave on 31st was the next chore in hand.And then finally tickets to that sleepy town-Palakkad! Its summer back in Kerala and am looking forward to the ripe mangoes and jackfruits waiting
for me!Reminds me of those sultry afternoons during the summer vacation when there was
absolutely no option about going out.I used to make myself as comfortable as possible before
the TV with juicy mangoes in hand....

And come June ,it rains cats and dogs!I studied in a school where summer vacation began a
little late and stretched to mid June.For the other schools in the state,June 1 is Day 1 for
the next year.And the monsoon in Kerala plays the prank every time. It lets out all its fury
right from that day! Its really a sight to watch kids return from school,drenched to their
skins despite their raincoats and umbrellas.Once back home,there is a lot of hard work to be
done...the brand new leather shoes is completely soaked,an entire bucket full of water is
wrung out of the socks and the uniform no longer identifies your school! But as all kids
knew,that was all mama's job...:-) How I miss those days!! Kerala,I miss you! And am coming....! Have a nice day!

Hell-raising Infernos!

The clock showed 10:30.Having finished my dinner early,I opened the door to go to bed.The
lights were still on.I let my eyes wander around the place.The room looked as though it had
been swept by a mild tornado..(there have been times when it looked like The Big Bang
occured in our room!) The person I noticed first was Miss Hutch2Hutch on the bed with her brown teddy in hand..chattering away on the phone in some unintelligible language(fortunately,she always says!).If the language had come into existence some time around when mathematicians were busy with sine waves,this would have been another inspiration for them to put in more effort into the discovery! Her bed always looked "lived-in"..:-D..clothes,bags,more clothes,more bags! I smiled back at her,thinking she had smiled at me...no,she and Mr Hutch2Hutch on the other end were sharing some joke!

Next my eyes rested on Miss India,the one multi faceted personality who believes sleeping 5
hours a day was more than sufficient for her to come up with her best! All true,in her
case,but still people do wonder how her eyes look droopy!A good buy for an IT industry.
Talking about her,she does so many things at a time that looking at her hurrying around,you
gasp for breath,but never she!! Takes MBA part time by burning the midnight lamp,speaks
endlessly(literally) to her boy friend(s) during breaks and is notorious for her exactly-
one-and-half-hour-bath everyday! And when she speaks,its as though she forgets the fact that
she has to breathe!And many times,we have had to remind her...

As my thoughts stray away to the college days I spent with friends here in my room,a voice
brings me back to the present.."Should I go through the Java book tonight?? "Thats our dear
Miss Uncertainity Principle a.k.a Binary Beauty. One good fact about her is that though she
comes with questions like "Should it be done or not?".."Should I wear this or
that..".."Should I move out or not?"..."Should I speak or not..?".."Should I blah-blah (you
can substitute almost anything here) or not?"..she always mentions the choices too - A 1
(yes) or a 0(no),which is why she is called a binary. She manages to find answers for
complicated questions like why a static variable should be used in some places of the code
and why not,but this system pops up a fatal exception when it comes to questions like
"Should I eat the food or not ? " .Another fact about her which I should not miss out is
that she has this amazing capability of retaining all her five senses when she is
sleeping.Which is probably one reason why she managed to clear that doubt on pointers in C
when all of us thought she was fast asleep!

The fourth person in the room-the most unassuming,less-hyper active and comparitively more
sane Miss Principles.She abides by her rules,draws the line wherever necessary and manages
to bring some order in the prevailing chaos and we are grateful to her! The most common
answer we get from her for all the types of "why" questions we ask her is " I have some
principles in life and wish to go by them.."..which roughly translates to "Mind your own
business and now,get lost! "

So that makes up my room....and of course,the 5th person is me...the lesser said the
better! Cheers!!

Say Cheese!!

Remember your curiosity and enthusiasm when you saw an elder handling a camera in your childhood? How you used to gape as he adjusted the lens with expertise ,gave a firm support with his palm and the moment of pure bliss was when he clicked and the bright flash of light appears for a split second!

For many, photography has been a passionate hobby.They wouldn't mind spending half their life and money clicking away pictures of nature and animals.Or even birds and butterflies?? I know of a person who hangs around parks and sanctuaries with his blah-blah-blah-specification-Nikon camera-with-even-more-blah-blah-blah-features and takes amazing pictures of dragon flies in every other position! Even the intricately woven details of the wings are seen glistening in the sunlight. And the joy on his face when he shows it to us!

But for me,its being on the other side (or probably,with regard to photography as a hobby,being on the "wrong side") of the camera that has thrilled me! My protocol is that "If there is a flash,there is me!!" :-)

Now,am sure,most of us are no different...When it comes to photography,if you can't shoot cool pics,then be an object for cool pics ;-) Recollecting those college days when we used to try fitting into the frame of almost all the photo taken in the class! And remember those photos where everyone had a "V" over their heads????

One of my careful observation is that most of the time you look the prettiest in photos when you are wearing the shabbiest of your clothes,amidst the dirtiest surrounding...and when you take pains to get dressed up well and expect the photo also to come up well,you are taken in by surprise! There would be no words to describe the shocked expression on your face when you take a look at the result! I still haven't found a way out of this paradox! If somebody has an answer,kindly let me know!

Now,as a final note,few tips on photography(I mean,for the wrong side,of course!)..

1) ALWAYS smile in photos...it makes you look much happier (even if you are not!)..Nobody likes seeing sad faces on photographs!

2) For gods sake,stand still , unless you really want to end up looking like a spooky soul right from the graveyard!

3) And most important of all,pose for a photograph only if you trust the photographer's skill !!!

Secret to Survival : Maadifying our Life !

"Left maadi.."... "Right maadi.."......"Turn maadi...Stop maadi.."... "Why are you bent on speaking in Kannada??Am sure he can understand Hindi" ,I said,trying to control my never-ending giggles. It fell on the most deaf ears of my friend.Ok,thought the rest of us,let her have her way!
And when the auto driver took a neat right turn and parked his vehicle right behind our bus ,my friend beamed at us and said.."See...its as simple as that!! Look how well he got my message!"..
Now,if you wondered what I was talking about--I am talking about the favourite word of the non-kannada people staying in Bangalore-simple,omnipresent and "context free" Maadi.Which roughly translates to "do" in English.
The magic of this word which also happens to be the reason why non-kannada people go gaga about it and it is that it can be paired with almost any English word easily to make sense! For example,wouldn't you understand if I said "Iron maadi"..."Wash maadi"...and "Think maadi" ??
And if you thought it was restricted to only the personal chores,you are gravely mistaken ,dude. How would you react if I said that "maadi" can be paired with all the common words in the drop-down combo boxes available in Windows OS??? Don't believe it?? Try a few...Click on File ...try saying "New maadi" .."Open maadi"..."Save maadi".."Save as maadi"..."Close maadi".."Exit maadi".... :-) ...cool,ain't it??
So lets conclude,the very essence of life today in Bangalore is to "maadify" it to suit our needs! Hey,if todays blog sounds strange,adjust maadi...;-) cheers!

When I grow up....

Title sounds too mystifying to be said by a 22 yr old..right? Well..today while I was wracking my brains(excuse me,why do we use a plural here???:-o) about what I should be writing in my second blog , I had 2 choices ...either to write about the gory details of the "battle" I had today in the morning in the "arena" (a.k.a The Bathroom) with my opponent (a deadly sized creature with sturdy claws and a menacingly long tentacle,firmly sticking to my bath towel) or...something much less gory..the multitudes of ways I used to complete this sentence "When I grow up,I want to be a.." in the past years..I chose the latter.
As some great PJ master said.."Let me begin from the beginning.."..

My first day in school as a 4 yr old...I remember very little of that day except for this incident.The teacher in blue sari (She was pretty,but I always thought my mom was the prettiest in those days...! ) asked all of us to answer a question.."What do you want to be when you grow up?" Initially none of us got her question.Then she suggested.."like..teacher..doctor...??" Many around me flashed smiles,probably because they got their answer...but I was still have the same puzzled face.My classmates started answering her question..one by one.."teacher..".."doctor.."..."doctor..".."teacher.."...somebody said "pilot" (and I wondered what in the world was that!) ...my turn was fast approaching...and I had still not got the answer...I could feel my hands going cold...what am I to say????

Then the person right ahead of me said "Doctor" and immedietely I sprang to my feet and said "teacher..",for the only reason that my friend had said "doctor" and how can I say the same thing????..I sat down and relaxed for having answered the question.
That was my first way of ending that sentence...when I didn't even know what the question meant!
Soon as I "grew up" inch by inch,I fancied doing all kinds of jobs...After what I thought was careful thought,I decided to stick to the teacher figure for quite some years..until I was about 8 or 9 yrs old.I had narrowed down my dream to a "KV teacher" cos I was a KV student.

Then when I was 10 yrs old,teacher announced one day in class that there was this essay competition in school and the topic was "My Ambition in Life"..hmm..why not participate! Back home,I was pestering dad to come up with an "exotic" profession so that I could win the first prize ;-)..and both of us put our heads together and decided that I should be writing an essay saying I wanted to become an "articket"..i mean..an "architect"..with great difficulty I managed to pronounce the word. Soon a nice essay was prepared by daddy and I memorized every line of it in no time!

Voila!!! The essay won the second prize...(I secretly wondered what "extra-exotic" profession the 1st prize winner had come up with!) ..and that day I decided I would become an architect!!!
Those were merry days....cos even though I changed my mind few times,I still secretly hoped to become an architect when I grew up...

The other jobs that caught my attention were..and the weird reasons why were...
1) News reader...cos I had a crush on almost all the news readers in my teens and dreamt of reading news with them!
2) An anchor for cookery shows in TV because I envied those people on Tv who managed to get along without cooking,but still dug their teeth into all the yummy things the chefs cook!
3) An aerobics teacher because I thought that was the only way somebody who didn't know the ABCs of dancing would dance and the world would still not laugh at them!
4) And finally a software engineer (which today I am)....cos...:-)

And today,as I look back on all the clumsy thoughts I had,I still think of all those dreams-unrealized,with a smile on my face...may be one day I can fufill them....??? And the equally clumsy fact is that I have still not stopped uttering the statement "When I grow up.." even today...!!!! have a nice day!!!

Getting over "To Blog or not to Blog"....

I had been thinking of starting a blog for quite some time and kept pushing the thought off like many others do ...and I was secretly glad that I had a zillion reasons in my basket to do so...

--> What do I write...??? And that too,very frequently....else I might forget my userid and password ..or probably they would even chuck out my blog for being inactive (do they really do that??? ) !!!

--> Then comes the favourite million dollar question everybody keeps asking these days..."Will I get time for this???"

--> Now,since I can't list down all the zillion reasons I have (ok,I admit,I lied abt that "zillion" figure!)...I'll stop with this last one..and probably the best of the lot....I was plain lazy! (I guess,Like everybody??)

But today morning I felt less lazy (amazing!!!) and so finally decided to take the plunge and try my hand at this...and here is my first blog...sprawled majestically for the world to see(??eh??Am not so sure!!!) lets see how this will turn out to be....
Cheers...and have a nice day!