I seem to have made me some free time by tweaking my daily schedule which explains all these random posts. Was going through one of the rediff reviews on some movie I planned on watching this weekend and came across the following comment (the movie stars scarlett johansson)

	WARNING ! STOLEN BIOLOGICAL MATERIAL ! Human Cloning Prohibition by #$%&@#* on Feb 13, 2009 01:31 PM Scarlett Johansson "actress"actually is a clone from original person,who has nothing with acting career.Clone was created illegally using stolen biomaterial.Original Scarlett Galabekian last name is nice, CHRISTIAN young lady

Hehehehhe! There is no dearth of weirdos out there! Atleast makes me feel very sane :)

Mentioned this post to my buddies today and none of them found it funny.

FAIL



I know I have a very warped sense of humour but I just could not get why they didn't ROFL :P ...Maybe its not them , its me :D

Its only been 5.5 months since I moved to Mumbai. At the time it seemed like a huge change. I was a mix of sadness, for leaving Bangalore, home and friends, and excitement for the freedom and the responsibility of living by myself. I was full of plans :). I was checking back to a couple of older posts and I found that I was yet to do most of them and my things-to-do-in-mumbai list had in fact grown longer.

I met Okra in Aug'08 and spent the better part of 2 months obsessing about whether I could spend my life with someone who I thought was the exact opposite of me (he is too quiet, does not believe in organized religion etc.). It just happened during the vacation in US when all the little pieces in the jigsaw puzzle fell into place and I could see the big picture about why I was drawn to him.

I am about to embark on this new phase of my life and it is going to be a monumental change (moving to a country where I don't know anybody but my husband, joblessness :P, having to depend on another person etc.). But suddenly I am not scared anymore (yeah..yeah..no more bouts of hysterical self-doubt). Suddenly I can't wait for this part of my life to begin :). But some things never change, I am full of plans as ever :) (@Bhindi: Right down to planning the menu for the wedding party in Perth in May :P).

Note from Paro: Bless you two..I know you'll be happy
Note from @nil: You ditched me for one ***** Bendekaai! :)
Note from Chacha: He is  too sweet for his own good! You are damn lucky S-jee...Keep him in good humour :P

A beautiful Sloka at my grand-uncle's vaikunta samaradhane (Memorial service) - Birth is incidental and death is certain but our life, our destiny is in our control and can be whatever we make it to be!. We can chose to go along with whatever has been predestined or challenge our destiny .

The city still manages to take my breath away with its frenetic pace. Its been almost three weeks since I got here kicking and screaming and determined to hate it.  Though Week 1 made for some fun times through a flurry of late night movie shows, parties, shopping binges, food binges etc., the rains and the lousy housing scenario had me whining, bitching n moaning and missing Bangalore like crazy..week 1 also had me on the phone with SP/SN constantly cribbing all the time..week 2 was a little better with me turning 28 (tadaaaaaaa..drum rolls) and hitting a wine bistro n HRC the same evening n another visit to HRC a coupla days later :) dinners with old friends, making new friends and a resolution to the housing dilemma..I finally found a house I can call my own (along with Shivangi n another roomie who will soon join us)..Week 3 hasnt been too exciting - finally have my own desk at work and finally have some work to do :)

Random things in last three weeks that made me happy - a cool lunch buddy who turned out to be K-alumnus' hubby; Girl talk about mascara, chocolates, shoes n checking out mango sales with a fellow Leo at work :D ; Chai with Chacha :); Long walk by the worli sea-face; Belgian chocolates n Marley - thanks a gazillion Suraj; Dark (K)night ; Day-out with Megh n Sheebey in Powai n cooking drunken vegetables with some old house wine :D; Shopping expedition n bossing the sales guy around n at the end of it being told that I was a good customer :); Hitting every single sale in Bandra n still blowing an obscene amount on some ordinary looking jeans (but they fit so well :P); Red-box with Sheebey, Megh n Mayank and how we prevented the men from getting an eyeful!!! ( vast expanse of..ahem!); Playing with a toy train (chooo chooo!) - @nil rocks!; Talking to A&P..Discovering the heavenly taste of tender coconut ice cream at naturals; HRC trips :); Motu's party n cooking the famous egg curry n meeting the likes of j-rin, mr n mrs battu, mr n mrs sam, motugupta n some cutie whose name I cant remember :)); talking to SP/SN


Some things to look forward to over the coming weeks

• Breakfast with Karra, a deeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaar buddy
  
• Shopping for my new place (note to myself - its not called nesting instinct..hehehe)
• Bangalore trip :)
• Housewarming party :)
• Signed up for the Mumbai Half Marathon and will start training once I move to my new apartment
• Dance Lessons - Salsa intermediate

I am all set to move to Mumbai in accordance with orders from HQ and spending the last few days in the Bangalore office and my colleagues who have come to mean so much to me :) a bunch of wise-crackers, smart-asses and geniuses :). Like SP says "there is no two ways about" the fact that I will miss this place like crazy. Just eavesdropping on some of the work related discussions provided some good gyaan. What I loved the most was the phenomenal camaraderie and rapport that the team enjoys which makes for a fantastic work environment. There have been moments of sheer insanity which have had me ROFLing and for that I am extremely thankful for that as it helped average out the rough patch I had at work.

Just day before yesterday, three of the RM room folks decided to *give in* to pressure for throwing a promotion party at BBQ Nation :D. As is the case with most of the team outings, ours was the loudest dinner party :D with the trio (SP, SN n I) singing along with the live band (mostly backstreet boys n boy zone tracks..hehheehehe). There weren't a lot of people who were pleased with me singing along.Yesterday, we were assessing the damages of the outing and pashupathinath howls - "Who had sex on the beach?" which flummoxes most of us till we figure that he was referring to cocktail ordered by one of the ladies. SN's response - "Don't tell me that they paid for THAT too" ..which kept giggling for the rest of the day!

To all my buddies in Bangalore office - Arrivederci (SP/SN - It means "Till we meet again" :), SP - learn Italian :D )

I was just healing from the loss of my i-pod and about 20 GB of top-notch music(May mosquitoes attack you en-masse and crows peck on your eye-balls and worms eat away your limbs, Oh One-who-stole-my-30GB-Video-Ipod-gifted-by-my-sis-in-the-summer-of-2006), when another calamity befell me.


The warning signs were all there. He was taking aeons to welcome me. Was no longer able to hear clearly the Wrrrrrrrrr-ing noise he'd make when I turned him on. A blog entry posted by Sheeby a while ago should have set the alarm bells off.

And finally three days ago I was greeted by the blue screen of death. Miguel was no more. He took with him my 12 GB of music (mainly Jazz/Blues copied from PP, Hip-hop downloaded from Misc sources @ K, Etc.), about 5 GB of E-books (@Sheebey - Brace yourself - All of the GH novels, Gasp!), 5 GB of Pics and Videos of all my near and dear ones, 1 GB of placement prep material. I had so much faith in Miguel and the care I took of him that I had no back-up of all the info.

The thinkpad guys are giving me a replacement (Hail! The three year warranty :) .... which will come to a close in July :( )and I am trying to get the data retrieved, but I know Miguel will never be the same as before. Its the end of an era.

The worst part is that instead of words of sympathy , all everybody seems to say is "I told you so" :(.

"Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe, Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast, Is that portentous phrase, " I told you so" - Lord Byron

 PS: Methinks I detect two faint scratches on the bezel of my HTC Touch Phone. Is there no end to the emotional trauma a person must endure!

All "ROFL", "I told you so" comments will be mercilessly eliminated. Only condolences accepted

Had another of those of shitty, emotionally-draining days at work and all I wanted to do was vegetate in front of the good ole telly and channel-surf ( on such days, even remotes are strenous and one wishes for some kind of channel-switch which can read your mind).

After raiding the fridge and downing some absolutely greasy, sweet and unhealthy food, I cozied down in front of the telly. None of the tired sitcoms for me. I thought something intellectual would do and switched between Discovery, History, CNBC and had enough of it in about 15 mts. I came across NDTV good times and there was some cookery show where you had this well-fed woman who promised to impart some gyaan on some delicious sounding dessert recipes. That had me hooked. The recipes that followed were.

• Recipe 1 - Take a chocolate mousse, inject it with vodka so that the vodke does not mess up the plate. Spoon some melted orange marmalade and decorate the plate n Voila! there is your some-weird-ass-french-name dessert
• Recipe 2 - Take a apple pie, flambe it with rum. Serve with whipped cream in swishes and swirls on your plate.

Bah! so much for mysteries of Haute Cuisine. I can better this any day. Suma's Grande Cuisine  -  One platter of sherry infused chicken kebabs coming up.

Some Saturdays at work are a stupendous waste of time..Especially if you are amongst the ones who feel duty-bound to be in the office at the official in-time and you are going against the herd who show up half hour later and take another half hour to settle down. As the clock ticks away you keep wondering about how soon its gonna tick to the out-time..its on days like these that you have fantastic conversations with colleagues which go as follows

AKP: Main Cedia kharidneki soch raha hoon
Me  : Kyon aapke apartments mein seediyan nahin hain kya...followed by a very self-congratulatory squeal of laughter(have a throat infection ..so the guffaw is a squeal now)
PA  : I can so totally better tht PJ. I would have said - Cedia rehne do, aap i-pod khareed lo...PA follows that with his own brand of snickering

PA & I exchange high-fives on the good job done whilst everyone around groans in sheer misery

I always have high expectations out of my friends and when they let me down the pain is almost like someone has stuck a knife in me and twisted it..but that hadnt stopped me from trusting people and forgiving the ones who have wronged me..I used to be such a sucker for apologies that I would just turn to mush and all would be forgiven thereby setting me up for some future emotional trauma!

I just made a decision today that if there was one change that I would have to do it would be to change this about me to save me from getting hurt. It will be a transtion from "forgive and forget" to just plain old "forget" so that I dont end up brooding over every1s wrongdoings! I will not seek apologies and will heal on my own :)

Was speaking to one of my dear friends in Mumbai who told me about the byrds rendition of Mr. Tambourine Man..The following verse just blew my mind..It encapsulates a lot of what I am going through :)

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

Since when did "God-fearing" become a virtue! Isnt God the nice person we make him/her to be!.  Since God loves all (all ye sinners :) listen up!) and abhors wrong-doing and forgives all those who are truly repentant - why do you have to fear God? Lemme guess you are so scared of pissing God off that you are unwilling to look beyond black and white of things and reluctant to acknowledge the shades of grey (all you judgemental SOBs). If you are God-fearing does that also mean to say that you have never cheated in a quiz etc.

If you have gotten into a mess then its upto you to own up and face the consequences. No amount of whining or fearing God is going to help you out! so all you folks out there who are stupid enough to think that God-fearing is a great thing to put on your matrimonial profiles..think again!!!!

My first fone was a Nokia 2100 which I picked up in May 2003 - nine months after joining L&T. My boss insisted that I go for a corporate connection as it was absolutely impossible to work without it. My arguments that I had done well without it for nine months fell on deaf ears :). This was the cheapest phone available at that time.  This phone served me well for 4 years.

When my classmates at IIMK were flashing their snazzy multimedia phones in the second year, I traded in my trusty 2100 for a hand-me-down Nokia 3530. The phone was a huuge improvement over my 2100. It had a funky color display and also lay claim to MMS feature :O

After 5 years of owning Nokia phones and having dropped the phonesat an average rate of 10 times per month and expressing disbelief after the phones continued functioning despite the horrfying nature of the freefall - I was a die-hard Nokia fan and was pretty much committed to the relationship. I swore that I would never think about another brand.

A few weeks ago after the not-so-subtle indications from my boss that it was about time I changed my phone to a PDA or some-such, Pappa gifted me some dough for a new phone and I earnestly began my hunt. I was checking out all the websites for the latest phones and quizzing my friends and colleagues about their devices, advantages and drawbacks and their suggestions when I finally fell in love. I bought the new HTC Touch. betrayed Nokia.

After a series of days peppered with rain and enveloped with grey skies, after days of nasty colds and racking coughs -today dawned nicely bright and sunny..blue skies managed to stay around for the better part of the day..Was back to being myself :)..On days like these I walk with a spring in my step and an idiotic grin on my face

This book was an impulse purchase. I have always shied away from Historical Accounts as I feared that they would be incredibly dry and this mammoth book of 1126 pages was to be my Everest. It was accumulating dust in a remote corner of my book-shelf when luckily for this desolate book, I met with an accident and had to keep myself occupied for three weeks (ok! I spent about a week glued to the TV).

This is currently topping the charts in my list of favorite-est books. Every story is set in a particular period of London and the book just pulls you with its description of the society in that period and you feel like you are an inert part of it. Each of the stories speak about the triumphs and tribulations of the Duckets, Doggets, Barnikels, Bulls, Silversleeves etc and how strongly they are interlinked. Each of the families recur throughout the book and manage to find themselves in the thick of the socio-political and religious activities of that period. Each story ending with an unexpected twist that leaves you in anticipation of what is to come next. Very un-putdownable.

I particularly liked the idea of the fortune wheel with each family having its moments of glory and utter despair through generations, how mortal enemies forge long-lasting relationships and unexpected loyalties and betrayals emerge out of the circumstances which are largely due to the political scene at that time. I also liked the way the author takes us through the generations of "foreigners" who made London their home - The Normans, The Vikings, The Jews, The Danes; The evolution of Christianity and the existing political system all a legacy of power-plays between the elite and the royalty.

I wish we learned History like this when we were back in school.

I feel at home at supermarkets. There is something very relaxing and un-stressful about all the stuff neatly stacked up and not a box out of place in all the compartments. I wish life were like that sometimes - no clutter, compartmentalized..

Since the average age at the time of marriage has increased substantially over the past couple of decades maybe the retirement age should be increased by the same percentage so that the "elders" have something useful to do besides extolling the virtues of marriage and bugging us "kids" about how we are fast approaching our prime 8|

For a person who managed to return home intact after nearly twenty days of travelling From Calicut to Cochin to Lakshadweep to Calicut to Mumbai to Delhi to Agra to Delhi to Rishikesh to Mussoorie to Delhi to Calicut to Mysore and finally home (hehehe, that was my cue to showoff) and after having engaged in a variety of hazardous activities like Whitewater rafting and arbitly jumping of a 7m cliff into the ganges, It was ironic that I managed to get my hand in a cast enroute to a relative's place at K'mangala (phew! thts gotta be one of my longest sentences ever. watchout all ye rushdies and seths and nairs out there - have you noticed that these booker-waalahs manage to have one of these long drawn make-no-sense meandering sentences as the opening lines of most of their acclaimed novels).

Please note that this line-feed is to cater to Senti's blog sensibilities. When we last met, he claimed that I am allergic to line feeds,spaces, punctuation  marks and large fonts.

After roundly swearing at all auto-drivers and alluding to their relationships with various members of their family and also to some members of the animal kingdom(Auto-drivers minus auto nagaraj - he is the neighbourhood auto driver who ferries me to and fro our house in this farflung corner of the B'ghatta Road and he talks non-stop. An entry dedicated to Auto Nagaraj coming up soon. snippet of info: Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike owes its existence to peace-seeking folks like my Dad who were determined to get away from the maddening traffic, pollution and noise of the main city , much to the disgust of their progeny) I finally settled down in the mess that is my room and gradually got caught in a mundane routine involving TV, internet and my books. This was after the excitement of meeting with Karra, Senti and Beena  at Barcamp (an entry dedicated to the goings on that day is also coming up soon :) )

I realized that I had been watching too much of TV when I experienced Deja Vu when I was watching a late night rerun of "Hope and Faith". I felt that I had seen that episode years ago and was almost in awe of my supernatural skills when I could predict what was gonna happen next. Told Amma this and she laughed her head off. So much for my credibility  :(.

Another hint that I was watching too much TV was when my conversations with friends would invariably have a line which went "Did you catch that episode of "Scrubs" where JD...." (BTW there was this hilarious joke in the episode the other week where X says : " We went to the Libary" and Y gets mad and says "Not Libary you idiot its library" and X says "Gosh, you have turned red like a strawbrary" ROTFL-material no!!! )  or " that episode of Crumbs where the husband gifts her gloves a size too small and..." (Talking of Crumbs, two jokes that I picked up there - X sez "I finally got you a-lone" Y sez "I dint know you were a mortgage salesman" :D and another one where X sez "I propose a toast to.." Y sez "the toaster coz of which we get toasts" :D)

The final straw was when I was watching an episode of Seinfeld (I never tire of this sitcom and Kramer is my fav - "You are a raging anti-dentite!!! " ) where Jerry is talking about how there never is any parking space and probably car manufacturers should diversify into manufacturing parking spaces as well. I stayed awake till 4AM thinking about the "Back to the Future" movies that I had watched the previous week and how the parking problem could be solved if we could move cars through time and the rammifications of that. I also spent a lot of time googling over the terms couch-potato and Boob-Tube after my folks howled at me for hogging the TV (I don't see what the fuss is all about since our World Cup Aspirations died a premature death! methinks Pappa is still touchy about that)

To cut a long story short - I am off TV for a while now. Busy updating LinkedIn, Orkut, Flickr, Livejournal and Yahoo and reading all the books that I picked up during my shopping binges at Blossoms.