changing values!!

I wanted a SIM. Got it for 99. Which is 100-1.
I got this 1 year validity thing. Got it for 95. 100-5.
I paid this guy 200 bucks.
Here i was Trying to continiously remind myself to get the change back as he verified my particulars. But as expected i forgot.
I had walked 10 min away when it struck me like lightening.
Now the dilemma.
Was the walk worth the 5 bucks. (considering that pple completely ignore a Re.)
2 steps forward n then 2 steps back. I decide. 'This is Hard Earned' money.
I reach the place and in an embarassing tone ask him for the 5 bucks.
I think i heard somebody giggle. But i kept steady.
"Do you have Rs. 5 change? " he asked, "I have 10 bucks"
I checked and finding none i refused.
Then there was a market wide search for a 5 rs. coin. Again finding none he came back and handed me the 10 rs. note. You keep it.
If only a bottle of an 'invisible' potion cost 10.

Elephants can remember!!

This comes after a series of incomplete posts. They were all concrete ideas and expressions but needed a slight brushing up before they could pass as proper blog posts. I shall copy paste them at the end of this one just to remind myself of what was flowing through the busy (read confused) mind of me.

Hey...i feel awkward when i talk abt all this stuff ...but talking abt things like the blood donation camp, my fms lab test nd project meeting with prof (AND yes the weather outside!!!) are all in my comfort zone.
one of my text msges today.

Lets take each part of this meassage separately.
The 'stuff' refers to something that i still feel weird talking abt, so shall leave it at that.
The blood donation gave me the satisfaction that comes with helping someone in need. I know it sounds cliched. But it is true. And then the fact that most of the blood that i was going to doante would be recovered within the next 24-36 hours felt really comforting. The process/act was glorified with people asking me whether i was ready to give 4-5ml of my precious 350ml for genome studies. It was a question, they thought, i wouldnt be capable enough to answer after my blood donation exercise. I signed at a few other places and proudly said i was O+ve without hepatitis, AIDS, Typhoid, Rabies and 100 million other things. And yes i was not underweight like everybody else on this planet. The syringe and the cloth wrapped around my arm slowly started sucking the blood out of my system. I felt it quite prominently, probably coz my fist was clenched too tightly. Or because the Tamilian donating blood right next to me was chanting hyms and last minute prayers with his eyes tightly closed. But as i relaxed and dreamt abt the stars on the ceiling the pressure eased up a little. And things settled down.
The illusion was disrupted when the guy next to me suddenly started shaking and sweating. And i thought to myself 'we are surely in for something exciting'. The guy was given immediate attention which included putting his legs on a chair while he was lying down so as to direct the blood supply to his head. The source was found to be completely psychological. Its all in the head. And there we were finally with 350 ml or close to 0.5 kgs of my maroon blood. And a frooti, a few biscuits and me insisting on taking a look at my own blood and figuring out how dirty it was. Anyways, convinced with the importance of blood donation, i tried influencing my friends and some of the answers that i got were
"What if the syringe doesn't come out?" which means i am a selfish little *******.
"I dont have sufficient blood in me. What will i donate?"which means i made a D in biology.
"I dont feel like. No specific reasons. I just dont want to." which can be easily interpreted as i shall piss in my pants if i go there.
"My blood is too dirty." Come on even monkeys can come up with better excuses.
But i can proudly say that i managed to convince one of them. His blood donation is a completely different story altogether. And i shall save it for another time.
Next part of the message talks abt the fms lab test. It got postponed to 21st or 23rd. And yes "I m enjoying the course Flexible Manufacturing Systems. But please dont draw conclusions. I dont know whether i want go in for an MBA or an MS. Its too early da. Its better to take your time rather than ending up at the wrong place."
Then we went to meet the prof who wasn't there in his chamber so we just slipped in a note for him. And the weather in pilani is pretty decent. Unexpected though.
Signing off. I want to end it with "Elepahants can remeber".
All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not whither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

Gandalf

reflect




OBJECTS IN THE MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR!!

sAvE tREEs, save THE EARTH!!

Cleaner

Sunday. So i decided to clean my life today. It started of with a refreshing yet physically taxing game of tennis. I learnt to serve the ROger Federer way ( so i like to believe! ). Hit a few extravagant shots patented by Nadal and in the end returned to my room quite satisfied with my progress. I, then, had breakfast (yes that included hot 'milk') after ages. It was about this time that i decided to put my room (read my life) in order.
I got a broom. Got hold of a dirty cloth. And a bucket full of water. First i used the jhadoo to get the non-microscopic stuff out of my room. That included the banana peels and all other fruit wrappers, random pieces of paper, uniform mixture of my 'precious' and 'endangered' (no prizes for guessing why) hair and ignored dirt. It seemed easy in the beginning but the task turned out to be quite tough. The particles kept coming back to the room plus they were settling on me and my bed. So i made a strategy. I held the broom as far as i could from my body and collected the dust in one corner of the room. I then drove it out, from there, togethor. That way more dirt went out of the room. Yippee!! I have the Roadies Passion and Spirit in life to make the simplest things in life complicated. I can now go international. (thats the Roadies effect.)
Once done, i picked up the cloth and used it to mop the floor. Spiders, mosquitos, tiddas, and various other silver and black species living in different corners of the floor cried foul as i invaded their private space. They were probably trying to remind me of Darwin's theory of co-existence as i crushed them violently. In fact, they had been watching things that weren't meant for them. So they had to pay.
Anyways, i then shifted my focus to my wardrobe which was in a complete mess. As i packed my winter wear a strange creature fell on my hand. It was silver. It was slimy. Like a fish but only tinier and with feet. I looked up trying to locate the source but that only reminded me of that village where it rained fish one day!! No mercy was shown on the sole creature so that next time, the others think about the consequences before they fall on me from the top.
Yes, staying with clothes. I was scheduled to do laundry today. There was extensive washing of undergarments to be done today to suffice the rest of the week. I washed close to 20 items by transferring them from one bucket of soapy water to another bucket of relatively soap-less water. I jumped onto the clothes in the bucket and then tried to reproduce the reciprocatory motion of a washing machine (suggested by Pant). I am not sure about the clothes but my feet sure seemed clean at the end of the exercise.
Now with the surroundings clean (read my room) and the stage set (read clothes washed) it was the turn to clean my body. I shaved, tried a style which looked quite funny and eventually stuck to the more conventional clean shave. Took a bath with loads of water and made serious plans for the coming few days.
And now, here i am, after having a dinner so 'sweet' that i refuse to abuse it. There was Jaggery stuck to rice with some strong cohesive and then there was brown black colored jaggery juice and payasam/kheer soaked in sugar. Plus there was rice with rasam, rice with sambhar, rice with dal, rice with curd and rice with some other random sabzis. Anyways i enjoyed the experience.
And i dont know why but i want to end this post with something so random that i refuse to even try explaining.
The ball is in no one's court. Or is it?
It cant get more random than this.

Butter fudge vs Chocolate chip

IYAD-WYAD-YAG-WYAG
If You Always Do-What You've Always Done-You'll Always Get-What You've Always Got.
So if your life is ever going to improve, you'll have to take chances.
-Anonymous

vs.

IYAD-WYAD-YAG-WYAG
If You Always Drive-the Way You've Always Driven-You'll Always Get-Where You've Always wanted to Go.
-Anonymous

'One' name but two completely different decision making strategies. The second one's actually been invented by me. It made sense, so i decided to retain it. Anyways next time i want to chose between the conventional butter-fudge(bf) or the new chocolate chip(cc), i'll remember to interpret this crap as i want to. Or i could do a SWOT analysis, which is the strength, weakness, opportunity & threat analysis of the product.
What if real life, day to day decisions were to be made on the basis of fundas mentioned in 'Management' Eighth Edition? Life would have been so simple, we could have simply lived out our entire lifetimes on paper. Or on the contrary, life would be heavily difficult dealing with the repercussions of decisions that look perfect on paper but turn out to be wrong practically. Thats why POM is just a course that needs to be forgotten after 2nd year 2nd sem.
Either way decisions are neither right 'white' nor are they wrong 'black'.
P.S. As you would have already guessed, I had my Principles Of Management(POM) Test today.
P.S. I would choose Butter fudge. The second IYAD-WYAD-YAG-WYAG works for me !!(Atleast for now)
P.S. This post is dedicated to Swati who is always had the knack to make great decisions.

Delhi

As i read through Rachit's 'picturesque' memories of Arunachal Pradesh, my own childhood memories in dirty delhi slowly started 'polluting' my head. I have lived in delhi since i was born. Family 'recreational' trips to other places were rare and limited to hill stations. They were more of an 'escape', 'air breather', 'relief' etc for me than the 'recreation'. I remember staying awake the entire nght, in anticipation of the journey. And then cursing myself for thoroughly enjoying the part where we wave goodbye to our house. Such was my desire to leave delhi. There are times when i really wish that dad hadn't left the army and i had been born n brought up in some place as open and beautiful as AP. My memories of the long distant childhood are sparse and foggy. The pollution levels have finally clogged my brain.

**************************************************************

As i walk down, sorry drive down through the various traffic sgnals and traffic jams in my head, to an age when i was 4, i recall a roadside chai walla on the other side of my nursery school wall. The aroma of fresh chai mingling with the characteristic smell of kerosene from the choolah, togethor blending with the smell of a wet wall, gave me a sense of excitement and adventure, a strange connection to nature. I stood there wondering what lies far far beyond the wall. And since then the wall, the chai & the choolah stand for an emotion in my life. Thats what i like to call 'standardisation'.

**************************************************************

My school, the (in)famous dps rkp, was around 2 hrs from my place. I recall the everyday 4 hr journey, for a period of 13years, to and from the school. I remember the school parking lot congested with buses on the banks of a dirty naala. The exhaust of the buses combined with the irritating chit-chatter of the school crowd and the added taste of a mother dairy ice lolly gave me a characterstic splitting head-ache. This happened regularly, and hence i made myself believe that i have migraine. We consulted a neurologist and everything was fine.

**************************************************************

I am 'supposed' to like delhi because i have my home there. Because it has a metro and a Lamborgini Gallardo on display. I am supposed to like Delhi because i have been born and brought up there. Because there is a Dominoes, Pizza hut, Barrista and a hundred other joints like that.
But trust me, i hate crowds. And i still dream of an isolated n open place like pilani.
Am i living my dream right now?

The 'eyes' have t

The 'i' on my keyboard has buckled under the 'too' much stress that t was subjected to. As a result of this it has stopped responding to the light tap of my finger. There can be two very simple logical deductions that can be made from the above given fact. The first being that, 'i' have used the letter 'i' most number of times which further doesn't imply anything. And second, u shall fnd a lot of words with their i's missing. Every time u find a word with a correct 'i', just think about the author who has taken the pain to carefully type it there for you. I now take the liberty to say that 'the i's have it'.

This reminds me of a brilliant Ruskin Bond story named 'The eyes have it'. For all those who haven't read it, its a good read. Go grab it. Its a cute story about two visually impaired people, a male and a female, who meet on a train. They try to carry out an interesting conversation about the weather outsde and the appealing greens without revealing their handicaps. They draw on their experiences descrbing the beauty involved in the world. This is a serious comment on 'seeing', by the author, for those who have a good eyesight either don't have the time or the interest to 'see' the things around them. Eventually its a fellow passenger who breaks the news to the man when the young lady gets down on the station, "She had very beautiful eyes, its a pity she couldn't see."


I don't know about seeing. But i sure can hear a lot of stuff. For one, there s a constant and distant sound that reaches my ears when i'm peacefully sitting in my room. Its a like a tolling bell. A gong being hit at constant intervals. No one else can hear it. It seems that my ears have been equipped with something that lets me hear sounds that are outside the audible frequency range. Lucky me!!
Then there is music that simply puts me in a peaceful trance. When i say music, i mean a partcular selectve song. I close my eyes, raise my hands and hum along. Rgamalika 's Sangamam had a smlar effect on me. The sound of the violin, yesterday penetrated to my interiors and started a virus scan. It was brilliant.

To end the post, here's what i said during my Measurement Techniques viva, "Viscosity is the property of a liquid whch is inherent to that liquid" And i got some marks.

P.S. This post is dedicated to my grand-mom and my casio teacher who tried their level best to put some sense of music into my head for 5 years. But my far from melodious voice was never tailormade for musc. And i ended up leaving it.

Lonely day

Such a lonely day
And it's mine
The most loneliest day of my life

Such a lonely day
Should be banned
It's a day that I can't stand

The most loneliest day of my life
The most loneliest day of my life

Such a lonely day
Shouldn't exist
It's a day that I'll never miss
Such a lonely day
And it's mine
The most loneliest day of my life

And if you go, I wanna go with you
And if you die, I wanna die with you

Take your hand and walk away

The most loneliest day of my life
The most loneliest day of my life
The most loneliest day of my life
Life

Such a lonely day
And it's mine
It's a day that I'm glad I survived




It's a day that I'm glad I survived

'Dumb'ies 13.0

Recently, there was a nation-wide hunt for a bunch of smart youngsters. Hero Honda MTV Roadies was back with its new installment Roadies 5.0. It was looking for new bikers. And since it was going international this time, the selection procedure was expected to be tougher and more grilling. Adventurous, intelligent, interesting, confident, talented & physically fit were some of the keywords during the various iterations. After insulting, abusing and using various other demotivating tactics, the executive producer, a guy named Raghu, finally narrowed it down to 13 proud Roadies.
They were all smart chaps. Why wouldn't they be? They all talked about promiscuous and raw sex, Guitars and Booze, Angelina jolie and Leopards, hairstyles and pubs, and various other worldly things in one breath of fluent english. As a matter of fact the show was going international for the first time and each of them had a reputation to live upto. All of them believed in broadening their horizons and looking at things from a global perspective. And thus its quite justified that the following 'insignificant' question received the below mentioned answers

Questions: "Who is the president of India?"
Answers
Smart girl1:APJ
Smart girl2:APJ Kalam
Smart girl3:Sushma
Smart girl4:Manmohan

Why would you like to answer that silly question when you can give a lap dance, indulge in a catfight and/or differentiate between raw and casual sex? Why care. These are times when the f word is a 'satisfactory' answer to almost all questions and a simple finger says more than what is required. Hair-styles, makeups, designer apparel are absolutely necessary ingredients to serve an indian 'dish' to an international audience. And not to forget the icing with the artificial accent. India shining. The world will surely notice.