Today, I seem to be in a total blogging mood, so I thought – why not take a break from words & play with visuals? So, coming your way are some of the pics I have taken with my cell-phone camera over the past 2 years. It’s a trusty old Nokia 3660 and it has really served me quite well which is the reason I don’t feel like replacing it even though shinier, more feature-laden equipment is available nowadays.OK, so here we go…

7) The hills of Lonavala again. Notice the solitary waterfall that seems to be emerging from the union of the hills and the clouds.Oh, how much I wish I had more professional equipment on hand. This place is a veritable treasure trove…

That should be it for now. Expect much more in the near future. Once I manage to get a digicam for myself, I intend to run amok with it… 😉

I came across this thingie while randomly blog-surfing and felt it would be an interesting thing to do.I hope you enjoy reading it. I sure enjoyed filling it up…

1. Were you named after anyone?
Nopes, I am an absolute original.

2. Do you wish on stars?
Never had the chance to do so.

3. When did you last cry?
I don’t remember when, but I know why.

4. Do you like your handwriting?
Of course, I have worked really hard towards it & it shows.

5. What is your favourite meat?
Anything that can be classified under “Seafood”

6. What is your most embarrassing CD on your shelf?
Would I really mention it here if it was embarrassing?
😉

7. If you were another person, would YOU be friends with you?
Of course, no doubt about that!!!

8. Are you a daredevil?
Does sleeping in the lectures sitting on the first beanch amount to daredevilry?

9. How do you release anger?

10. Where is your second home?
NCST. We also have a second flat,but since we don’t stay there, it’s just a house as yet, not a home.

11. Do you trust others easily?
Previously, I was a very trusting person. But nowadays, I balance my trusting nature with a healthy dose of caution.

12. What was your favourite toy(s) as a child?
A cricket bat and a collection of magnets of all shapes and sizes. I had enough magnets with me to start a scrapyard.

13. What class in school/college do you think is totally useless?
All of them 😉
On a more serious note though, I believe that there’s a whole lot to be learnt from even the worst lecture (or lecturer, for that matter)

14. Do you use sarcasm a lot?
Only when I am sure the audience understands it. Otherwise, I resort to straightspeak.

15. Have you ever been in a mosh pit?
No.

16. What do you look for in a girl?
Just three things – Honesty, sincerity of purpose and a basic common sense.

17. Would you bungee jump?
Sure.

18. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
I think I do.

19. What’s your favourite ice cream?
Coffee-Walnut & Chocolate share the #1 spot.

20. What are your favourite colours?
White, Black, & Sky Blue.

21. What are your least favourite things?
Mice (the biological kind), medicines & tele-marketers.

22. How many people do you have a crush on right now?
Now you are putting ideas into my head….

23. Who do you miss most right now?
My friend Sagar, who’s in HK working on a project.

24. What are you listening to right now?
“Tu Bin Bataaye” from Rang De Basanti – this song is pure chocolate on silk….

25. If you were a crayon, what colour would you be?
Sky Blue or White

26. What is the weather like right now?
Hot & humid.

27. Last person you talked to on the phone?
One of my friends…

28. The “first” thing you notice about the opposite sex?
It would have to be two – Eyes & Smile.

29. Do you like the person who sent you this?
I got it for myself. So, the answer would be a “YES”.

30. How are you today?
Slightly exhausted, but nevertheless, in a hapy mood.

31. Favourite non alcoholic drink?
Cold Coffee, Chocolate Milkshake & Plain Milk.

32. Favourite alcoholic drink?
I stay miles away from alcohol.

33. Natural hair colour?
Black.

34. Eye colour?
Brown.

35. Wear contacts?
Sometimes.

36. Siblings?
Unfortunately, none.

37. Favourite month?
April (birthday month after all 🙂 )

38. Favourite food?
Seafood.

39. Favourite day of the year?
19th April (Refer answer to Q:37 above)

40. Have you ever been too shy to ask someone out?
I have always been a very shy person when it comes to asking somebody out. Lets hope that whenever I feel like asking anybody out the next time round, the cat does not get my tongue.

41. Scary movies or happy endings?
Scary movies with happy endings (everybody gets killed – long live the ghost)

42. Summer or winter?
Winter (nothing beats it)

43. Holi or Diwali?
Diwali, always

44. Do you like your name?
Yes, very much. I like both the sound and the meaning associated with it.And please don’t go saying “Hawa ka jhonka” one more time….

45. What book/magazine are you reading?
“Interpreting your dreams”

46. What’s on your mouse pad?
A mouse….

47. What did you watch on TV last night?
I watch too little of TV. Mostly, its just the news.

48. Favourite Smell?
It’s the fragrance of flowers we call as Parijaatak, I don’t know the English/Latin name for it,though.

49. Have you ever regretted breaking up with someone?
I was, am and (unfortunately, looks as if, will be) single.

50. Most tiresome thing you’ve ever experienced/done?
Filling up this questionnaire 😉
Seriously speaking, attending lectures for 7-8 hours a day in engineering college takes the cake.

Whew!! That’s it. I won’t tag anybody but if you feel like, go ahead and make a half-century of your own.

Well, this post comes solely on a farmaaish from Aru. When I was chatting with her today morning, she put forth the idea & I instantly agreed to it. Why not? After all, this was the best birthday I have had in YEARS.So, why not preserve the memories for posterity by putting them into words? So here goes….
It all began from the computer lab at NCST.Thanks to Orkut, almost all the 45-50 hostelites (the only species of NCSTians found in the lab or badminton court at 3 in the night, or is it the 3 in the morning?) knew that yours truly was going to start writing the 27th chapter of book of his life. I had started receiving hints from 15th April itself that I was in for a major round of TMPs (Transfer of Momentum to Posterior, also commonly (and less interestingly) known as Birthday Bumps) Around 11 , the lab resembled a deserted cemetery, with only a few souls wandering here and there. I was almost relieved that I would be saved from those deadly TMPs.
But around 11:40, the lab started filling up more rapidly than a 5:44 Borivali fast local at Churchgate. At the stroke of midnight, I was taken outside the lab to the badminton court and what followed thereafter was mayhem. I was tossed up and down, TMPs were delivered, all to the background music of “Happy Budday to You…”. After being airborne for 4-5 minutes (it seemed like eternity,though), a round of handshakes,embraces and jokes followed. After that, I returned to my flat where my roomies (Vinod & Nirav) and a hostelite friend (Mithun) had arranged for a nice cake for me. Actually, they had planned it to be a surprise but I knew what they were upto as I had known that Nirav & Mithun had gone to the marketplace and also, when I was entering the building, I noticed the candle-light flickering in my flat.But I really enjoyed it. In the meanwhile, from 12 to 12:45, Aru & I played the “Pehchaan Kaun” game 😉
After polishing off the cake and chatting with them, I caught a flight to dreamland at about 2 AM.
Next day ie: 19th was “Chocolate Distribution Day”. I disributed chocolates to my classmates. It reminded me of my school days where I never got to distribute chocolates as my birthday happened during the summer vacations and students used to make me distribute chocolates during the first week of school to compensate. On my way home that day, I dropped in to the new office of the company I used to work for previously to meet some ex-colleagues. Then I came home, where my mom did aukshan (she does not believe in cake-cutting), followed by lip-smackingly good food. To finish off a good day, did some project-related work and went off to sleep.
This, in a nutshell, was what transpired in those 24 hours. In fact, a lot more happened, but thats not for public consumption.So, this should be it…

Actually, this was supposed to be about a short review of “Rang De Basanti” and a look at the need/justification/possibilty for another revolution in today’s social context.But even after keeping the same on the backburner for quite some time, I don’t feel I have come up with something that does justice to the gravity and complexity of the issue.So, I have decided to let it simmer for some more time and for now, concentrate on something that I find more immediate & personal.
As my birthday is approaching, I find myself getting into an introspective and reflective kind of a mind-state, wherein I tend to analyse more than observe, to infer more than record.As is usual practice, every year around my birthday, I look back at the year gone by, take stock of how my lifescape changed over the past 365 days, what went right, what didn’t and so on. Though every time this is strictly for my own consumption, this time, I feel compelled to do it in full public view. What prompts me to do so, I don’t know. Maybe it has got something to do with my newfound spring of extroversion. Well, so here it goes…
For sake of clarity of thought and to avoid overlapping, I will be following the pattern they follow in those “Yearly Future Forecasts” in the newspapers and will be dividing it into a few broad catogories. Though I find that style of division a bit corny, I will stick to the same as it is most appropriate over here…

1) Career :
This was an area where the most radical of changes took place, or rather were effected by me. I switched tribes from those who build the real world to those who build the virtual one. It was perhaps the most difficult and in hindsight, the best decision I ever made. It was not at all an easy one to make though. After all, it can never be easy to have an established career with potential for growth and then chuck it away because that’s not what you want to be doing for the rest of your life; and that too, at a stage in your life, when you are expected to be settling down into a smooth rhythm. Charting a new course at this point takes a whole lot of self-belief,courage and last but certainly not the least, excellent negotiation skills. At least I needed a bunch of them in order to convince my parents that whatever I had decided for myself, was in everybody’s best interests. That if I was unhappy in my current career, now was the time to make a positive change rather than simply repenting 5-10 years down the line, when any change would be well nigh impossible. Also, at this jucture, it was not just about me, it was about them,too. With my father’s retirement about a year away (this was 10 months back), financial aspects had to be kept in mind,too. Fortunately, after initial hesitation, they whole-heartedly supported me and continue to do so. Also, the fact that after 2 years of working, I had enough moolah on me to pay my course fees without burdening them too much also helped. At this stage, I am really happy with the decision I took and regardless of how things turn out in the future I will always feel proud of myself for having the courage to take life in my own hands rather than simply going along with the flow.

2) Human Connections :
I prefer the above terminology as opposed to done-to-death words like “Relationships”, “Friendships”,”Love”, “Romance” and so on. This was another area where the lifescape underwent sweeping changes. And I must say that whatever happened in this area surprised (and sometimes even shocked) me no end when it actually occured, but looking back now, I don’t feel the slightest hint of surprise. In the year gone by, thanks to a career switch and also due to going back to college once again, I made a whole new set of friends. This was also the year when I had to lay the tombstone on what I had thought of as a beautiful friendship. I only hope that it proves to be that seed which dies itself, only to give rise to a thousand blossoms.Also, I managed to connect to a wide variety of individuals, people whom I have never met before, whose only connection to me is perhaps just a stream of electrons flowing back and forth; but with whom I connected in a manner I never thought was possible before. “Strangers are merely friends waiting to happen” was just a sentimental cliche according to me before, now I have sort of come to believe in it.

3) Inner Self :

The year gone by was a watershed one in terms of personal transformation. Thanks to all that I underwent and endured, I really feel that I have emerged as a much stronger individual than before, someone more in control of his own destiny (if such a thing exists). In fact, I have been observing myself change over the years and with every passing year, I seem to be getting more and more focussed, though I will be the first one to agree that I have a long way to go,still. I will not blow my own trumpet over here but just to sum it up, Sameer as on 19/04/2006 is definitely a much more grown-up individual than Sameer on 19/04/2005, though essentially he still continues to be a sentimental fool, deep down.

This is about all I have for now. I will add to this if I feel like, otherwise this should be it…

This particular piece is based on one of my dreams which happened some time back. Though I had decided to make into a story, I felt it was best written as it had occured to me.So, here it is – absolutely unedited and like most of my dreams, very difficult to make sense of. Please forgive me if you don’t see any sense in this – all I have done is to reproduce consciously what was shown by my subconscious.

The pitter-patter of the raindrops on the coffeeshop window provided an engaging companionship to the random visuals that floated through her consciousness as she sat there, looking at her soon-to-be-ex husband, sitting at a hand’s distance from her.As time passed, she grew increasingly conscious of his gaze, exploring her body and going on to reach the depths of her wary soul. Though she tried not to make too much out of it, she was increasingly getting frustrated that somebody whom she was about to clinically detach from her life, her being in a matter of few hours, could exercise so much raw power over her.The very thought of feeling exposed like a naked animal out in the chilly rain made her uncomfortable. Though she tried her best to deny it, the fact remained that irrespective of the actual reasons for their imminent divorce, she still unwittingly laid much of the blame on her own doorstep.

Trying hard (and failing) to defend herself against the negative thought patterns that seemed deeply lodged in her mind like a bullet in a soldier’s thigh, she let her mind fly back to the supposedly happy days when out of his magnetic attraction and womanising ways, she knew only about the former. Those were the days when they made love like cellists in an orchestra – in sync, lilting and almost always ending in a grand crescendo. But then the symphony went awry when she discovered that she was just one of his many ‘voyages’ – as he liked to call them, journeys of discovery to a new land every time. What especially seared her soul was that he did not seem to have the slightest regret and claimed that each of his ‘voyages’ was equally dear to him, though she always held a special place and need not worry herself. This seemingly unashamed justification of his was what prompted her to file for seperation. Despite his claims of her having a special place in his life, he seemed to be least bothered when presented with the divorce papers. That’s when she was convinced that she had made the right decision. But deep down, in a queer way, she held herself largely responsible for not being able to prevent him from doing what he eventually did.

Putting down the by now cold coffee, she looked at him with a quizzing expression. “Lets go home…our home”, he said. Though unwilling to enter those unfortunate premises once again, she found herself getting up and moving out, towards the car. Though her mind cried out loud, her body refused to listen, still under his magnetic spell, after all that had happened.As she stepped inside the house and heard him close the door behind him, she had a foreboding of what was going to happen. But even then, she was caught unawares when he laid his hands around her and pulled her to him, planting his lips on the nape of her neck, as he always liked to start off with. In one graceful motion, his hands were now navigating her body with the smoothness of a confident sailor, though at times, she could still feel the tremors of guilt running through his body. His movements were akin to a cellist who had just broke an instrument and was extra-cautious while playing a new one, the caution fuelled on further by the guilt.

As the moments passed, though, the tremors abated and he was back to his old self – the man that she loved and hated the most at the same time, who played with her body and soul with the smug expertise of someone who knew, and was obviously proud of what he was doing. Deep within, she knew that she had to resist him or else she would be his slave for life. She tried to retrieve herself from his embrace but her body seemed to have turned deader than a mannequin, refusing to entertain any instructions from her mind.

” Love you, dear…”, he said in that same deep, abrupt voice of his and that seemed to break something inside her in a manner she had never known before. Images of him on his ‘voyages’, of naked bodies with molten faces mocking her, him on a bed, slowly morphing from a human form into a ghost crowded her inner vision. Thrusting herself away from him with a strength she never knew she had, she walked away, shaking with rage, leaving her impotent, submissive past in her wake.

Nearly a month back, I had talked about the black template getting a bit monotonous and letting the sun shine on my blog.But it seems that fate had something else in store.So, in keeping with my mood nowadays (and perhaps, for many more days to come), the bloggie will sport a moody,contemplative and introspective blue look instead.Secondly, I have done away with the idea of a centralised comment repository like fizbox so that I can know which comments correspond to which post.Lastly, and most important, I have also removed the visitor’s counter from the blog as I felt that I was better off concentrating on the quality of feedback that I was getting rather than being obsessed with how many people visited my home in blogosphere.

Also, I have decided that from now on, I will be more regularly posting over here and will spend some more time blogging instead of cribbing about how I don’t find any time to do so.

On that note, I will call it a day for now.Keep dropping in….

So, what explains my return to active blogging after more than a month’s interval?
All credit goes to Zarine who has tagged me with the “Pet Peeves” tag. Thanks to all the wonderful specimens of humanity floating around us, I feel confident of doing justice to the tag.Though I can’t say I will reach the magic figure of 20 as I find it a bit difficult to get peeved(thanks to patience bordering on the infinite), I will try my best. So, here goes…

As with Zarine’s post, X = people/persons/individuals

1) When my dad insists on switching off the fan, shutting the window (we have a common bedroom at my place) ,wrapping himself in a bedsheet and start snoring within minutes of hitting the bed, and all this on an April night, leaving me to brave the elements.
2) X who gleefully crack nasty jokes on somebody else but can’t tolerate even relatively plain ones when they are at the receiving end.Sense of humour, anybody?
3) X who feel that they are God’s gift to hapless humanity when in reality they are just a massive waste of genetic protoplasm.
4) X who, on an average, occupy 2.5 times the volume of an average homo sapiens & proceed to park their posteriors on the 4th seat, in a 6:45 Borivali fast, effectively putting paid to all your hopes of emerging from the train without any of your muscles being subjected to a free stretch-pull-press session.
5) X who pigheadedly advertise their own view of any subject as being the last word on the same without knowing even as much about the subject as Mallika Sherawat knows about method acting.
6) When I go to a restaurant/coffee shop and the attendant decides to focus his energies (among other things) on the PYT at the table next to me; ignoring me in the bargain. And no, the presence of the PYT is NOT a compensation.
7) X who feel that chattering away on their cells at top decibel is their birthright, especially during the rare poignant moments in a movie/play.
8) X who have willingly accepted themselves as Cupid’s incarnation on Planet Earth and are forever trying to either hook you up with somebody or pressurising you into tying the matrimonial knot. 27 and not married as yet?I have just the right kind of girl in sight for you.Trust me, you two are made for each other!!!
9) X who keep their rooms untidy, don’t turn up on time for a meeting or are, in general, unsystematic in their approach towards life.

10) X who, when you call then up, chat for long hours, promise to call you back sometime soon, and then never seem to find time to do so.

I am sure there are many more candidates for inclusion in this list, but at the moment these are all I can think of.I might come back with an appendix to the list soon, but for now, an urgent assignment needs more of my attention.Sorry Z, I had to keep it short!!!Bye for now & catch ya all later…

Well, nothing’s permanent except change, they say and the latest to fall prey to (or prove the glorious certainty of, depending on your viewpoint) is the template for this blog. Black, while being very soothing and aptly moody, was getting a bit monotonous. So, yours truly decided to let the sun shine and opted for a bright, cheery look. The only bits to be added are the Fizbox comment link and favourites in the right-hand-side bar, which will be done pretty soon.

Lets hope a change of template will mean more frequent and better quality posts 😉