Thank You

This post can be considered as the follow up of for the post titled, 'Things I Want' and is dedicated to some special people in my life. First of all let me say that I was very overwhelmed to see my friends and family wishing well and being there for me on this special day. The effort you all put up to make this day special  was simply amazing. Everyone had a role to play in it and everyone despite having their own problems to counter with, left everything aside and decided to be with me.


There is a reason I linked this post to the earlier one and that is because of the amount of gifts showered upon me. It was literally a double. Let me clear, I seriously did not write the post to plant ideas in your mind. But, I feel I made it easier for you, because even without the post there would have been gifts.But I liked it all, from Mouth organs to headsets to customized clocks to caps and even the piggy banks. I loved it all. More than that I loved the time that I spent with you all at Juhu playing Dumb Charades ( I could only find this spelling from Google). Thanks a lot for everything and being there for me. Such moments obviously gets us thinking that after all we are important to handful of people and realize how lucky we are.


Now that I have got some of the things from the list, I guess its time to cut them off. :)

COLD

Greetings with smiles

Some laughter

Could not have been any better

A sudden prick

Took its time to transform into pain

Reached the wet spine

Blood! Blood!

Amused to see it

Pain made it obvious in the form of tears

Turned around

Only to find something unlikely

He stabbed

Before he could come to terms

Another jab

Fell to his knees

On the red bloody floor 

Smack! 

Opened his eyes only to 

See one of the hands getting severed

He could not understand, why

With a smile he said

“Don’t explain”

As I said I would always be there 

For a friend like you

Things I Want

Whenever I think about the things I have wanted, it occurs to me that, it is categorized. There are things I have always wanted which acts as a constant and things I want according to the circumstances. 


I will start with things I want according to the circumstance. I want a new set of headphones, because as I write this I realize that only one ear of my headphone is working. I want my office AC to actually do what it is supposed to do so that we can switch off the noisy damn standing fan. I want a new phone with a good battery life and one which is ideal, i.e. cheap and has all the features. I want a THOUGHT-to-TEXT converter so that I could not waste time writing and this would have been up on the blog a lot earlier. I want to do something interesting like shoot something. I mean a movie or a sequence. I want to watch Metropolis which was recommended to me yesterday. I want to scream out loud. I want money, money and more money, so that I can lead a normal satisfactory life in times of inflation.  I want someone close to my heart. Since the things I am mentioning are the things I want under circumstances, I can also mention what I will need at some point in life. I may need a cool walking stick, external hard drives, pen drives, wife, children, etc. Last but not the least I WANT PEACE, not that my life is less peaceful but I like to be in peace continuously! But again, when I think of these things can come in the list below too. 


Things I have always wanted. I want a jersey, I want a mouth organ. I want a drum set. I want a bike and car. I want a Lion, a Tiger and an Elephant as pets. I want a big home, I want a small home, I want to buy a grand gift for everyone I love and I want money, money and more money for this. I want to backpack across the world. Last but not the least I Want PEACE, at least within myself!


I stopped here because, now I really want to pee and get to work.

Intimidating

While I was younger, I always misread ‘intimidation’ as ‘intimation’ and I thought it had something to do with being intimate. But when I got to know the actual meaning, I began to wonder the instances when I get intimidated.

The central character from the series 'Tales of Mere Existence'
by Lev Yilmaz  

I am intimidated at sight of an attractive woman, or if she drives an attractive car. Much more if, she rides a bike, if she dresses well, or she talks well, or the slightest thought that she is better than me.

That’s not all that I get intimated by. I get intimidated by my intelligent friend who can talk on every damn thing below the sun, or my not so intelligent friend who can act wise, or my metal-head friend who has a band, or my colleague who I think is better than me, or my colleague who is good for nothing, or my boss whom I work for, or my friends who are fit, or my friends who are unfit.

I am intimated by the person who has a good fashion sense, who wears a pair of good shoes, who is talented, who sketches, who cooks, who plays, who writes, who makes clay models, who has good drinking capacity, who does not drink, who can run fast, who can swim on the back, who can float on water, and so on. Even the word intimidation intimidates me such that I find it difficult to pronounce many a times.

**Note:  This is just an experimental style of writing which I very much adore. The man behind my inspiration is Turkish-American Dir, writer, producer, artist Mr. Lev Yilmaz. Check out his interesting work. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P785j15Tzk

Hyderabad diaries: Into the wild (Yeah, almost)-Part 2

Chapter 2: Out of city limits

After an uncomfortable journey and not so good night of sleep, not to mention the Bad-maash Company and a small goof up between Raman and his pune friends who were coming to meet us, we reached Hyderabad. Finally out of one stagnant, crowded city lives to another ;).

We got down at our stop where my brother (Manoj) was to pick us from. Our hopes of an actual Into the wild experience were dashed as we saw my brother in a Scorpio. After initial greetings and ‘Seeing after a long time’ talks, we began to plan our course for the day. My brother booked an A.C car for our trip, bummer! We had a minimum of 3 places we need to cover Golconda fort, Charminar and the Birla Temple.

The Fortitude

   On reaching the fort, we had an intense discussion about whether to hire a guide. We decided not to, but as soon as we entered the fort we changed our decision. We were amazed by the first thing what we experienced. We were told to stand at a particular place and the guide clapped, we could feel some kind of vibration. Hats off to the architects of those times! Near the entrance there were some people who were clapping so that the tourists who came to see the amazing fort could hear them clap from almost 3-4 kms away, the clap was a warning signal. We saw the home of the great Kohinoor heera.  Even though heat tried to get the better off us, we did not deter. We clicked pictures or rather Kartik clicked pictures of us with all kinds of insane expressions and poses. Our guide was a little irritated as we kept him waiting for our photo sessions. Some other attractions were, DJ Bobby written on the wall and the wall which could hear us whispering. The proverb “DEEWAARON KE BHI KAAN HOTE HAI“, sounded uncanny hear. So, the architecture makes it a must visit places in Hyderabad.

After a historic trip to Golconda fort, it was time to visit the most important place the ‘Chaar Minar’.  On our way we noticed that the Hyderabadi’s have a unique knack of naming their shops, they were hilarious. Some names were so funny that, we were ROFL! :D Example, Co Cane: Name of a sugarcane juice centre.    

CHARMINAR (chaar minar)

    Charminar, a monument located right at the centre of one of the most crowded places in Hyderabad. Now, this place made me think that I was in Mumbai. There were people, animals, yellow rickshaws and hawkers everywhere. It was one big chaotic place or as Kartik calls it ‘systematic chaos of Hyderabad’. The view from the top was great; we could see the whole of congested old Hyderabad and the beautiful view Mecca Masjid. Hunger compelled us to eat samosas, which was not even close to samosa. But then Mr. Raman has this habit of eating north Indian foods, especially when he is south :P. We found out the telgu name for taddi fruit, its ‘Kawla Munjal’. We were so fascinated by the name that we kept on reiterating it till d end of the day.After some photographs at Mecca Masjid, we left for Birla Temple and had a filling thali before we went to the temple.

Birla Mandir

    Another adorable place in Hyderabad with the elegant marble finish it enabled us to have excellent views of the city from the top. It is a very peaceful place, we almost fell asleep. Kartik was at his best and maska-maring the Gods, when I and Raman noticed something hilarious. The Sai Baba’s idol casted French cut instead of the normal beard :D.

Lumbini Park

  There was nothing special about this place except the Laser show, which we decided to skip as we were tired after our escapades for the day. Nice view of Hussain Sagar Lake and Buddha statue right in the middle.

 Heading home, we picked up my brother from his office! We relaxed a bit and set out on a search for Raman’s kutte ka doctor :P , for his anti-rabbi shots. Funny thing, when we showed the prescription for the shots 

at the chemist, poor guy unfamiliar with the name of the drug, read out his name and said, “sorry sir we don’t have Aditya Raman.”

   The Doctor was amused to see me and Raman taking our shots (ohh yeah, for me it was tetanus). As I went in after Raman, she asked me about my whereabouts. As soon as she came to know I too was from Mumbai, she had an expression which felt like, “Tum log Mumbai se idhar injection lene aaye hai?? ” :P  

We headed home, had our dinner along with some fluids and then started planning for the trip next day. 

Trivia: This was the end of 2^nd chapter and I still haven’t mentioned about any good looking or smart girls. It is not because, this is a censored write up, but because there are no good looking girls there!!!!!!!! When it comes to this context is one lousy place.

To be continued......

Hyderabad diaries: Into the wild (Yeah, almost)

Warning: For everyone’s inconvenience, I will be publishing this in various parts.

Chapter 1: The Plan

     As the name suggests, it all started after getting inspired by Into the wild and my so called adventure trips to the wild (which by the way is only 1 till now :P). I was done with my exams and I knew I had to go for somewhere to unwind; it was not going to be Kerala this time like every vacation neither Bengaluru for an event as planned a week ago. Everything was in place except to decide upon a place we were heading to.

   We had two options in mind; one is any wildlife sanctuary in Maharashtra where we or rather I could spot some Tigers, and the other was the Land of the Nizams and the Nawabs and (my brother)- Hyderabad. Asking people to join me for the trip was simple, I knew who would be accompanying me for sure or at least try to join the trip. We started calling up every contact in our list, who we thought would remotely help us to plan a trip to Tadoba, Pench or other tiger reserves. Couple of phone calls and sms-es later we gave up the idea of the wildlife trip. Accommodation would have been a real problem apart from the expenses and stipulated time frame of the journey. So we finally decide to go to Hyderabad. One of my friends was a little reluctant about the idea, but thanks to Google he was excited later :D. Before going to bed, I sent out a bulk message to my friends, asking interested one’s to join me. The message was, ‘I am leaving Hyderabad tomorrow; if you are interested join me for the trip.’

     Next morning, it was time to decide which bus and when. Luxury was taboo for us so we thought not Volvo and no AC, but ended up in one of those. Ohhh...Sorry, I forgot to introduce the gang. Me, Aditya (my old travel buddy :P ) aka Raman and Kartik aka Kartik.:P. ‘Hard Sun’ playing behind our heads, we set out from Borivali and Goregaon respectively to embark upon one of our finest and memorable trips.

Hyderabad mein kya hua, yeh jaanke ke liye read kariye agla post!! :D (To know what happened in Hyderabad, read the next post).

Not for you, not for us, but at least for the great man called Sachin Tendulkar

Today, we had to witness yet another century by the man who is considered as ‘God of cricket’ by most fans in India go in vain.  It was Sachin Tendulkar’s 99th century in International cricket and was a treat as usual to watch it.

I do not know, what is exactly wrong with the men in blue, but everything seems to be wrong now. The last eight batsmen failed to put together 50-60 odd runs. I was ashamed to watch it wearing the Indian jersey. Even after providing much needed start from both the opening batsmen, the team managed to mess it up towards the end.    The younger lot of the bunch would get one or two more chances to play the World Cup, but for one man, it is his last chance to win the World Cup. The rest of the team has to take that into consideration while they step out on the field. For, he is the one who made our nation proud every time he made a record and also for the sheer brilliance he is. More than two decades of cricketing and never has Sachin’s dedication for the sport decreased.
Once, Pakistani World cup winning legend Imran Khan said (I had read in an article), Sachin was never backed with a good bowling attack, which sounds absolutely true even now.
  It is high time the #2 ODI team woke up and realised if this is the case, it will be an early exit for us who are apparently the favourites to win World Cup 2011. The bowling so far has been pathetic in the tournament with Piyush chawla, Sreeshant, Ashish Nehra, Harbhajan all failing. Now batting has failed miserably too.  
As an Indian fan, I can only say that we look ahead to see team India win the World Cup and Sachin score more. J

To watch the highlights of Master blaster’s innings or ICC cricket World Cup 2011, logon to http://www.nyootv.com/