Naa autograph

Independence Day

2011-08-15T08:24:00.000-07:00

India is celebrating it's 64th Independence Day. Good. Congratulations. But to whom should my wishes be addressed to? Surely, I can't address all the Indians. It's not that I can't, it's because I shouldn't. While browsing casually, I came upon this wonderful pictorial which depicted how different India is for each of its citizens.

Before we plan to celebrate this so-called auspicious day, give it a moment to think about what have we achieved as citizens in this largest democratic country of the world.

Even after these many years, no female can dare to walk alone on the streets of our capital(even during day time!).
An old man fighting for a change in the constitution cannot fast for more than three days at a particular place. Ridiculous!!! What's more funny is that he's given permission to take only 5000 supporters into his protest.
People from a part of a state(mine, sadly) want the other people from other part of the same state to move their asses out of their place. Confusing, right? This is what is called Telangana issue. Imagine, they even started a movement called "Quit Telangana" on the same day this year, when our freedom fighters started "Quit India" movement.
While Hockey is considered as our national game, no one knows who's the captain of the team. I wonder if at least 10% of the people know how many players are there in a hockey team.
Aha, how can I miss this? Indian Cricket Team lost their recent test series to England and subsequently the Numero Uno ranking. We lost the No. 1 rank and the media is making a frenzy as if we lost our Independence yet again!!! Come on guys, it's just matter of a few months.
Now, this one I read somewhere. You can buy and finish off a liquor bottle in broad daylight, but you have to think twice before buying a Valentine's Day greeting card. You don't know which Sena might be waiting for you round the corner.
US has faced some issues with its economy and the whole world went into turmoil. Because of this, the Indian Rupee went weak!!!! Took a good while for me to analyze and understand this. Are we economically independent?

It is of no surprise that thinking of Independence Day, even though I'm proud of my country and I love my country, all that I remember is those sweet laddoos they used to distribute on this day in my school.

Why did I?

2011-07-19T11:45:00.000-07:00

Why did I miss watching "Delhi Belly" in theater?
Why did I hate my career these days?
Why did I stop playing games on my Play Station?
Why did I never think of investing in Gold earlier?
Why did I resort to calling my dearest friends very rarely?
Why did I skip eating breakfast all these days?
Why did I try earlier for my driving license?

And Finally,
Why did I leave this wonderful place called "Bloggerville" for the past few months?

Some questions are better left unanswered than coming up with lame answers.

THOR - just what the audience needed

2011-05-05T09:50:00.000-07:00

When I nervously waited for the end credits of the movie "Iron Man 2" to finish, I don't even have a clue of what they are going to show on the screen(as a spoiler for the future MARVEL movies). Even after they showed a desert and a hammer and some plain-clothed policemen(!), I didn't understand what's all this about.

Then I googled "hammer" and "marvel" and found that the hammer is in fact the power source or something of that sort of Thor, the God of Thunder. To hell with it, was my instant reaction as I never heard of him.

But what unfolded on the big 3D screen in front of me last week, blew a few things out of my brain. This guy(character) Thor earned himself a place next to Spiderman, Ironman and Superman in my all-time favorite list of superheroes.

Thor is a simple movie, enough for a movie buff like me to be amused. Thor and Loki are the sons of the Odin, the king of Asgard(a far-away Galaxy, for me it felt like heaven after watching on screen). Odin defeats the Frost Giants long long back and brings with him the power source of the Frost Giants, the Casket of Ancient Winters. Now, both the sons grow up and Thor is supposed to be crowned the king of Asgard when the Frost Giants sneak into the palace for the power source. An enraged Thor wants to finish off the Frost Giant race and travels to Jotunheim(the world of Frost Giants) along with a few friends, against his father's instructions.

Odin gets to know about this and brings the bunch of Asgardian warriors back to their world and banishes Thor to earth after stripping off his Godly powers. Thor's hammer, Mjolnir(courtesy Wikipedia), is also sent to Earth, but protected with a spell that allows only a worthy person to wield it.

Thor is crash-lands in Mexico where he is hit by the vehicle of a scientist, Jane Foster, who is studying the mysterious lightning patterns in the sky. The story moves on how Thor gets mingled with the earthly humans, while back in Asgard, Odin falls ill and a tale of double-cross takes place.

The rest of the story is about how Thor finds love, responsibilities and brings back peace to the world.

The plot is well supported by all the actors. Chris Hemsworth(this is the first movie I saw of this hunk), was awesome. The way he showed various emotions was worth lot of applause - be it when he says "Can I come back home?" to Loki when the latter visits him in jail or how he flashes the mischievous grin while trying to retrieve his hammer from S.H.E.I.L.D. Tom Hiddleston as Loki was absolutely fantastic. Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins lived up-to the expectations.

To be frank, it is the way Asgard is shown that draws immediate attention of an casual movie-goer. After AVATAR, I loved this alternate world. The visual effects were awesome and will enough to make the audience believe in the existence of such world.

There might be minor drawbacks here and there, like it would have been much nicer if Thor gets to show off a few of his elite skills on Earth(before Jane), but the movie, as a whole is an enjoyable one and is a decent family flick. My rating for this latest flick from Marvel stable will be 3.75 out of 5.

Same old title, I'm back

2011-04-19T08:40:00.001-07:00

It's been more than a month since I dropped by. Main reason - blogging's blocked in office. Other Reasons - Been busy, Watching World Cup cricket, blah blah.

Just popped in yesterday to see what other Blogger pals are doing and found that most of the places are same like mine - seldom updated. Felt bad and thought of coming back with full fledged blog posts(as usual).

Anyways, since my last post, a lot of things happened. Let us give a small look at a few of them.

India won the cricket world cup! Was shouting with joy when Dhoni hit the winning sixer. That day was my first wedding anniversary too. It would have been more good if Sachin too made a few runs.
Anna Hazaare went on fasting for the approval of Jan Lokpal bill and he succeeded in it(almost, as of now). What was more joyful was the way how the common people of India showed their support for this cause. Long live, democracy.
Sachin Tendulkar scored a century in the 20-20 format! That too with the agility of a person half his age. Till date, in this season of IPL, he was not out on all the occasions that he played.
Bahrain was declared to be under military rule for an indefinite period as of now. Felt bad to see the peaceful little island engulfed in riots. Let's hope that everything will be back to normal soon. I know many expats who sent their families back and who are planning to shift somewhere else soon.
Wifey saw an English movie for the first time in a theater. She was excited and I'm happy.
At last the big thing(at least for me). My bestest friend, who was struggling to get his parents' approval for his love affair for quite a few years, decided to call it a day and married his sweetheart in a filmi fashion. Didn't meet the couple yet, but looking forward to it.

Well, will b back very very soon. Till then, adeos n take care.

A thriller

2011-02-28T01:03:00.000-08:00

Well well well, if you are a cricket buff and if you missed last night's World Cup match between India and England, you missed something really spectacular. So far, most of the matches in the tourney are one-sided (almost every match was predictable) and people were losing interest in the complete event itself. Even I was satisfied with seeing the live scores on the Internet rather than watching the match on TV. I read somewhere that ICC gave a press release saying something like "this tourney is an acid test for the One Day International (ODI) cricket". And then, yesterday happened. This match provided the necessary kick to the tournament and to ODI format.

For those of you who missed the match, let me tell you what exactly happened. India scored a mammoth total of 338 thanks to the masterful century by the Little Master, Sachin Tendulkar, himself. The innings of the master was masterful because of the way he paced his innings. When Sehwag was around, he just played on without much authority. Once Sehwag was out and Gambhir was settled, the master unleashed a fierce attack on the English bowlers. Greame Swann, considered as the best among the current spinners on the world, was hit for two successive sixers.

Indians would've scored more if it was not for the mad tumble of 5 wickets in the last couple of overs. However, 338 on Indian tracks is considered to be a tough score to chase and thanks to the recent form of English batsmen in ODI, everyone thought that this will be a cakewalk for the Indian bowlers. But the English captain had some other thoughts.

Strauss and Pietersen started things off very well in a classy way, fetching easy runs off the harmless Indian bowling. It needed a special bit of fielding from Munaf Patel to break this partnership. Then one more wicket fell and things looked OK for a few minutes. Then the pair of Strauss and Bell played calmly and the tide shifted slowly but gradually towards the English side. Strauss deserved an huge applause for his first century in World Cup and his career best score of 158.

With just a few runs to score that too with 8 wickets in hand, the English win seemed inevitable. Then Zaheer struck with two wickets in two balls to change the course of events and now the scales pointed towards India. Even though few more wickets fell and the bowling and fielding departments of India increased their momentum, the lower-order batsmen of England held their nerve and hit a few lusty blows in the end. After two sixes in the penultimate over and one more in the last over, the English team were left to score with 5 runs in 3 balls. A bye came in the first ball and couple in the second.

The match got tied after the batsmen had to settle for a single off the final ball.

After all, it was ODI cricket which won the last night's encounter. An epic match to bring the focus back on ODIs. I hope we get to see many more thrillers like this in the tourney.

Nirvana

2011-02-01T03:16:00.000-08:00

Another set of wonderful moments passed by, as I finished my short trip to India last month and returned to Bahrain. As this was my first trip after marriage, most of my time was spent by visiting the relatives with my wifey. Counted the number of times I boarded a train, and the result came as 6 times in 20 days. Interesting. But hey, please don't ask about the number of buses I've boarded!!!

Coming back to reality, this vacation was sort of an eye-opener for me. Let's say I attained NIRVANA during this trip. Felt like I was missing out something in life by staying in Bahrain. I desperately felt the need for a change of a job, or even career. I just looked at the past few years of my career and found that I seem a bit back dated in this competent world. Even though I've enough workload to keep myself busy and the pay packet is OK, I feel that I'm doing the same routine work and there's nothing new to learn and develop myself. Seems like I've to clean the dust off my MBA dreams and seriously consider this option.

Taking such a decision might be a gamble now, as I am married recently and have to look after someone who looks after me. But I am sure that this gamble might be worth it.

Well, other than this, life is all OK. During my 3 week trip to India, I had the privilege of spending max time with my new-born niece who's now almost 2 months old. She's such a darling that I couldn't give her to anyone else from my arms.

As promised earlier, I look forward for posting lots and lots of quality posts this year and revive my blog. Last month, I couldn't do much as I was too busy in India. With the Cricket World Cup just a couple of weeks ahead, expect some decent cricketing posts too.

Et cetera

2010-12-20T08:59:00.000-08:00

The year is coming to an end and it has been a very busy year indeed. First of all, I got married and started experiencing new roles and responsibilities.

Also, my sister gave birth to a cute little girl very recently and made me an uncle, officially. Earlier, I used to bribe a few kids to stop them from calling me "uncle". But now, I can't do that anymore. So one more new role. I'm desperately longing to see my niece ASAP.

Office has been more n more tiring with a lot of stress these days. People are squeezing me like a lemon there. But no matter whatever they do, they surely can't get more juice out of me than what I've in me.

One big surprise for most of my oldest friends out here is that I stopped drinking(not permanently, at least). After WD came to live with me, I never even thought of having that glass of nectar... ;)

Life has been going smooth as of now. WD is visiting India this week and this will be the first time in six months that I'll stay without her.

I'll be back to my usual posting about politics, sports and movies from my next post. BTW, talking about sports, GOD has just scored a 50th century in Test Cricket. And soon after that the other GODS cried with joy and it rained. What a coincidence!!!!

A disaster filled week

2010-11-24T23:36:00.001-08:00

Hi friends, I am back here after a real loooonggg time and everytime I'm here I promise to come back soon, which rarely happens. But this time, I'm here to stay.

Life took a lot of turns and twists these days, but all for good. But this week has been disaster till now. To summarize, these are the so called disasters.

My Internet connection has been disconnected due to non-payment of the dues... :( But got it back after a day.
My mobile connection validity has expired and I didn't realize it for one whole day as the incoming calls kept on coming(grace period). I realized this when I tried to call a friend to accompany to the Internet office.
I went to the Traffic directorate to pick up a test date and the lady there, saw my driving details book and asked me about an application which I forgot at office. She said that it's not possible to give a test date "without looking at it".
Again, I went to the same office in the evening and this time, a dude was sitting there. He checked my Learner's License(LL) and informed that it expires in 3 and a half months and they have no test dates for 4 months.
So, I rushed to another office and got my LL renewed for an year. This time, I got the test date but its after 4 months and 4 days.

Waiting for driving test for more than 4 months is a stupid thing to do even for a stupid person like me, but this should happen for somebody who was lazy enough to ignore this for the past 4 years. But imagine failing in the test(which is quite common here) and waiting for another 4 months to get the next test. May GOD help me.

Well, this is how my week is passing. But there's some sunshine as the weekend is approaching fast and I don't have much committments. I hope to spend some quality time with WD. See you all next week.

PS: As the Internet policy in my office allows me to access blogs only for 10 minutes at a time, all that I've typed from the point 3 above got lost and I had to retype the entire post. Well, can't really blame anybody for this, except my stars.

Is the END near?

2010-09-22T10:38:00.000-07:00

Well, don't back-off thinking that I'm late in seeing the catastrophic disaster movie "2012". This post is just about the recent climatic disasters and some stupid ramblings.

First in line is the cloudburst and its subsequent landslides and flash floods in Leh, India. In August 2010, a little less than 200 persons were killed in Leh because of the aforesaid climatic conditions. You might ask "What's so special about this?". Well, according to Wikipedia, The average annual rainfall in Leh is only 90 mm (three and a half inches). So, obviously, the cloudburst is quite surprising. And to add to my confusion, there's this article on the internet.

Second is what happened in Guatemala in June. There were volcanic eruptions, a powerful tropical storm, floods and landslides, and a frightening sinkhole. I think it's better if you watch it than me describing about what hell the people went through there. This is the link

The rest of the disasters are as below:

Floods in Pakistan

Russian Wildfires

Floods in Europe

Landslide in Pakistan earlier this year

Most of the above events are of surprising occurrence. Well, looking at all these, I can say one thing. We, humans, have messed with the environment in a big way. Looks like the end is pretty near. All we can do is to try to prolong it by contributing towards the greenery.

A historic decision

2010-09-01T05:20:00.000-07:00

Today, I was happy. Not for any personal reason but for the announcement of Mr President, Barack Obama of the United States of America. The announcement deals with the decommissioning of the combat troops of US of A in Iraq.

In Mr President's words, "Tonight, I'd like to talk to you about the end of our combat mission in Iraq, the ongoing security challenges we face, and the need to rebuild our nation here at home.". This is exactly what I was thinking for the past few years. For a country plagued by recession and unemployment and a huge social uproar against the war, is it really necessary to wage a war against someone?

After watching a huge list of movies that deal with the war and its aftermath like the critically acclaimed "Hurt Locker", "Home of the Brave", "Dear John" etc, I felt bad for the soldiers of USA than the people of Iraq. How long can one wage a battle for something which they are not sure of? To add to that, I saw these images in one of my favorite website which deals with current world issues.

I read somewhere that some 50,000 American troops will stay in Iraq for support and counter-terrorism training, and the last forces are not due to leave until the end of 2011 at the latest. But still, it's a huge sigh of relief for the families of all those brave soldiers.

Long live humanity. And for those of you, who want to read the complete transcript of the speech of the POTUS, the link is here.

Can't think of a title

2010-07-15T07:23:00.001-07:00

I know that I'm writing this post almost a good 3 months after my last post. Well, all I can say is I was a bit busy.

Life's good. So far at least. Everything that has been bothering me for quite a few days got resolved. A small brief about some important things out of them:

WD's here, at last. The great Passport officials at Visakhapatnam kept her passport pending as she has a twin sister. They thought that "how can there be two passports with same DOB n same address?". Well, they should have seen the names instead. Anyways, they kept the passport application pending for six weeks before WD went there and all this while, the status is shown in the web as "Police Report yet to be received"!!!

A server upgrade that was on the cards for more than 6 months has been completed. And that too, during WD's absence. Thank God, she would have killed me if I was in office for more than 10 hours a day and that too for 29 days in a month!!!

Life's not the same from now on and I hope it's not hard enough for me and WD.

I'm back

2010-05-16T10:29:00.000-07:00

Here I am, after having a confusing transformation from a bachelor to husband. I used the word 'confusing ' willingly, because I'm still not aware of my roles and responsibilities, even though I was married a good 50 days back. My mind refuses to come to reality and act completely as an adult. As WD is having some issues with her passport, she's still back home in India and I returned to my workplace 3 weeks back. I expect her to be here by this month end. Meanwhile, I'm passing time mostly on my PS2 and a new project lined up for the next two months.

Oops, looks like I didn't mention what WD stands for. It's Wifey Dear. Thank you God, for giving me a spouse like WD. She's good, understanding, caring, blah blah blah. The only problem with her is she expects me to be an adult at all times. But she is manageable, at least for now.

Wish me all the best in this new job that pays me well with loads of love and affection. I'll be a regular in Bloggerville from now on. I know that it's a short post compared to the huge change in my life, but I've lost someone so dear quite recently and cannot write much now. I'll write about it in my next post.

Wedding Invitation

2010-03-17T23:32:00.000-07:00

Hi folks, I am no longer a lone traveler in the journey of life. A life-long companion is going to accompany me in this journey. As some of you know, her name is Sravanthi and our marriage is scheduled to take place in 15 days time, on 2nd April, 2010.

I, along with Sravanthi, request your gracious presence at our marriage in Penugonda, West Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh, India. The invitation is as below:
For those of you who are planning to come to the wedding, the maps showing the way from a couple of nearest towns to the venue are as below:
Routes: The town of Penugonda is about 35kms from Tadepalligudem station, 15 kms from Tanaku station, 15 kms from Palakollu station, 30 kms from Nidadavole station and 50 kms from Rajahmundry station.

There are government-run buses from Tanuku, Bhimavaram, Tadepalligudem and Rajahmundry to reach Penugonda. There are trains from Chennai (Chennai-Howrah Mail, Circar Express) Vijayawada (Ratnachal Express), Hyderabad (Gowthami Express, East Coast Express, Godavari Express, Konark Express, Visakha Express) Bangalore (Prasanthi Express) and Tirupati (Tirumala Express, Howrah Express) that pass through Tadepalligudem or Tanuku that are nearby stations to Penugonda. After getting down at either of these places, you can take a bus or taxi.

The nearest airport is located in Rajamundry, but I strongly advice you to travel by train/bus as the scenic beauty of all those lush green fields(on the way) come second to none.

The venue for the marriage reception is The Daspalla Hotel, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. You can easily reach the coastal city of Visakhapatnam from anywhere as it is well connected with many other places of India. There are a number of flights, trains and buses from the other cities of South India. Please google them for the exact information.

For those of you who cannot be present at either our marriage or our reception, I humbly request you to shower us with your choicest blessings for both of us to lead a very happy married life. My contact number in India will be +91-9704159560. This number will be active from 26th March, 2010.

At this moment, I wish to thank my parents in helping me choose Sravanthi as my life partner. All those great friends of mine who were with me through all the ups and downs of my life, here comes another friend whom you would love to have in our group.

A biggg U turn in life

2010-03-09T21:33:00.000-08:00

I was enjoying the benefits of being single for almost all my life except for a few greenish patches scattered here and there. And suddenly, everything went haywire during my last vacation to India in November 2009. My parents are quite busy for the past few months in searching a girl for me. And on November 28th 2009, I saw Sravanthi as part of girl-looking process. This meet was arranged in so much haste that I don't even have a proper formal dress to wear. Somehow, it all went fine and we liked each other.

She is the first girl I saw in the marriage proposal stuff. As my parents liked her and her family, to be frank, I said yes to this proposal. It was like "what the hell stuff" for me. I was sure that I can live with anybody. But the next day, after I got up, I was confused. I don't know whether the entire thing that happened on the previous night was true or just a dream. It all went so fast for me to realize the reality.

But, once we started our conversations over phone and a couple of quick dates(these too are hasty) later, we realized that we are the perfect matches for each other(OK, at least I felt so). She also has almost the same interests as me, same view of life as me etc. Sadly, my stay in India was only for a few days and I have to come back before we can meet much more frequently.

Our marriage was fixed to take place on April 2nd 2010(early hours of April 3rd). Yep, I have only 3 weeks of bachelorhood left for me, and this too I'm busy with office and furnishing my flat kind-of-stuff. I had a bad sprain on my left shoulder, thanks to those cricket matches where I've been faring much better these days. Frankly speaking, I don't even have time for bachelor parties. But I have to hold a couple of those soon enough.

Back to reality, I don't want to hide anything from Sravanthi and I'm answering all her queries about my personal life. She hadn't asked about the most personal stuff till a couple of nights back.

She asked whether I had any affairs earlier and I had to bluff this one time and I partially answered that all those crushes are it-happened-kind-of-stuff and I was single for a really long long time.

She asked whether I drink and I told her that I'm a social drinker but not a drunkard. Well, some of you may have some doubts on this and I can assure you that this is what is happening for more than a year.

I think she took the affair thing casual as it's common to have crushes now and then. But looks like she felt bad for the drinks stuff. I have to assure her that I'll quit alcohol if it really bothers her. But still, this kept bugging her and I feel as if I did the wrong thing by telling the truth. I had to take a word from her not to tell anything of this to my parents or her parents.

Now folks, did I do a right thing by telling all the truth about me? I know that we are meant to share our whole life together and there shouldn't be any secrets between us, but should there be some secrets that make our married life more prosperous? Like, life would be better if those are not revealed?

Time is the only thing that answers all these questions. Meanwhile, let me enjoy what's left in my bachelor life and you too enjoy your life. You'll receive a formal invitation soon for my marriage at this very same place.

The moment

2010-02-24T07:11:00.000-08:00

I was away from Bloggerville for quite sometime, as this place is never the same as it was a few months back. Most of my Blogger friends have left the place and it was as if I was almost alone here. But what happened today made me jump back to this place. After all, this is my place, a place where I jump in joy and cry in pain and people join me whatever the reason is.

It was today, the 24th of February 2010, that History was rewritten. In fact, it can better be termed as "History is written" on this very day. This was the moment that the entire mankind has been waiting for, for the past 39 years and in simpler terms, for 2961 ODIs.

To cut short, it was today when the Demigod of Indian cricket made the first Double Century in One Day Internationals(ODIs). The milestone which slipped away from many greats couldn't escape from the Little Master. He conquered the last record which he wasn't able to lay his hands upon. And this came at a time when he was on top of his form. He made 5 International Centuries in the past 50 days. A milestone which scares anyone who tries to get it.

As I'm jotting this down, South Africa is losing quick wickets, but I'm not bothered about the win. In fact, it's not just me who's feeling the same but there are billions around the world who just can't even speak, out of joy. It'll be only like an icing on the cake, if India wins.

Sorry folks, I'm so happy that I can't even write anything here. But I promise to return back soon and share a lot more.

Poor Vaishnavi

2010-02-02T02:20:00.001-08:00

It was said that demons used to exist in the past when none of us were born, not us, not our fathers, not even our great-grandfathers. It was also documented that GOD used to take some or the other form to keep things in control and save humankind from these demons. But day-after-day this is proven wrong, again and again. Yesterday, I was sure that the demons are still alive.

Most of you might have heard about the kidnap of a cute little kid, Vaishnavi about 3 or 4 days back. Reports say that this girl, aged 10 years, was traveling in a car with her brother and a driver, when some masked miscreants attacked their vehicle. The driver who tried to tackle them was brutally stabbed and the girl's brother managed to run away. Then the kidnappers took the girl in the same car and deserted the car somewhere far. Everybody, including me, was hoping that the girl will be left alone once they kidnappers get their ransom or some shitty demands. But no demands are made and yesterday, the unthinkable happened. The girl was found dead, in fact her charred body was found.

Sad news is that her father got heart attack twice after hearing the news of his daughter's death yesterday evening and he died today morning.

Reports say that the persons behind this kidnapping are the brothers of the first wife of the kid's father. It was said that they paid 5 million INR to the kidnappers for this brutal deal. Now tell me, are the demons dead? Or they started living in human form? Or is it us who are making ourselves demons for silly issues?

GOD bless the girl's soul. Btw, with all these incidents, I am planning to take up the daring topic of "why should Indian judiciary system change" for my B2 speech in Toastmasters.

2009 or 2010 - we'll never change

2010-01-08T22:59:00.000-08:00

Folks, I hope you all had a great New Year Eve. My celebrations were at tKs where I was the only single guy and the rest of the gathering were families. But still, it was fun.

Till 10 PM last night, I wanted to write this post about my icebreaker speech yesterday in Toastmasters club. But after 10 PM, my ideas changed and what I saw on NDTV, shocked me.

Those guys were airing some footage of a rural background where somebody was wounded. I got some interest and started watching it and as I came to know of the whole story, I broke into tears. The story goes on like this:

A sub-inspector(SI) was going to his police station on a two wheeler and suddenly, he was attacked by some miscreants with some crude bombs and sickles. Their plan is to hack him to death, but suddenly they saw that a convoy was approaching them and left the man wounded. The convoy belongs to a couple of ministers of the Tamilnadu state(one was Minister of Health, I suppose) and even a District Collector was with them at that time.

The police who were with the convoy try to chase down the attackers, but they managed to slip away by hurling bombs at the police. The real pathetic story starts from here. This SI who was wounded was literally crying and pleading for help and nobody even went near him. According to the news channel, the District Collector got down from his car after 8 minutes and called for an ambulance. The honorable ministers got down from their vehicles after 20 minutes and did nothing. An ambulance reached the place after some time and on its way to the nearest hospital, the SI succumbed to the injuries. He was crying and pleading the passerby's to help him for about 30 minutes.

The saddest part is that, after basic investigation, the police has stated that this is a case of mistaken identity and as the SI was wearing a helmet, the attackers mistook him for another cop whom they wanted to kill.

After seeing all this, I was wondering why the news channel crew was filming the whole incident without helping the dying man. But promptly, there was a scrolling showing that this video was shot by a freelancer. Let's hope so!

What is the need for us to celebrate a change in calendar, when there's no change in the mindsets of the people? May God bless the dead man's family with its choicest blessings and may people inculcate that helping nature in themselves.

Wicked Whisper: I think that all the people who are present there are as responsible for the man's death as are the attackers. Should we prosecute all of them?

You can click here and here for a couple of videos showing the incident, but beware, they are not for the faint-hearted.
Video courtesy: Times of India.

Happy New Year 2010

2009-12-31T03:15:00.000-08:00

Dear friends, this has been a wonderful year, both in and out of Bloggerville. Life will never be the same in 2010. Yes, life is not going to be the same. I got engaged to Sravanthi and the marriage is scheduled to take place in April, 2010. I'll share more on this in the coming posts. For now, I am writing this post just to wish you all a very happy new year.

Let's hope for the below in the new year:

All(if not, a few) of our wishes come true.
There will no be any more disasters natural calamities like floods, tsunamis, hurricanes etc.
The terrorists change themselves and let others live peacefully.
India will stay on top of the world(in cricket, though).
We look at some more technically brilliant movies like "Avatar" and feel-good movies like "3 Idiots".
May Telangana issue be solved in Andhra Pradesh.
Last but not the least, let us all pray that my salary increases at least 25%.

Simply speaking, I hope All iz well in 2009 and All will be well in 2010.

My return to Bloggerville on a wonderful day

2009-12-24T23:54:00.000-08:00

Folks, first of all, I regret being away from such a wonderful place, Bloggerville. The reasons for my long absence(more than two months) from here are:

There was a fund-raiser organized by TKS in the third week of November. Thank God, all iz well.
I was on vacation to India for about a month, right after the above said fund raiser. Here too, all iz well.

I've been waiting for some proper time to return back to Bloggerville and there it was yesterday. Actually, I started this post yesterday but couldn't finish it off then. Anyways, yesterday has been an awesome day for me for the below reasons:

It was sister's b'day yesterday. All iz well.
India won the tournament against Sri Lanka yesterday. All iz well.
It was raining out here in Bahrain yesterday. Loved the climate. All iz well.
I was awarded a certificate of appreciation and a Gold coin by my company here for assisting in the successful completion of a major project. All iz well indeed.
The day ended fittingly well, when I went for the late night show of the highly anticipated "3 Idiots". Believe me, the movie was simply awesome. Just like most of the sites reviewed the movie, all iz very, very, very, very well indeed.

With this, I end this post and promise you that I'll be back soon with a lot of news as there are many things happening around me right now and I need to tell you all those.

A couple of feel-good movies

2009-10-31T02:29:00.000-07:00

Folks, sorry for being away for quite a few days. I was a bit busy with work both in & out of office(TKS). My vacation is due in about 4 weeks for now and still I have some departmental objectives to be finished before year end. The only time pass that's keeping me in senses is a few movies here n there.

Recently, I saw a couple of movies which are worth mentioning. One is "Wake Up Sid"(WUS). I was not interested to watch this one until my adamant friend, Deepak, wanted to watch it. I went into the theater with half mind expecting the worst. The movie opened well with an interesting scene of how our protagonist, Sid, is preparing for his boards. From then on, there was no looking back. As soon as the movie finished, I was thinking of watching it again.

WUS is a perfect example of how to keep things simple and achieve the desired result. The director did a good job in that aspect. The sentimental scenes are handled well, the comic timing was perfect, the emotions are up to the mark. There are some scenes which I liked well:

1. The scene in which Ranbir makes fun of Konkana by pouring water on her and then he asks her in an innocent way, whether she felt bad.
2. The confused look on Konkana's face when Ranbir asks her out for a walk on their first meeting.
3. The scene where they both sit at the beach and Ranbir explains to Konkana about how the ocean looks at the times of monsoon(felt like I was standing in rain after this scene).

The above are only a few scenes out of a whole set. If I write all those that I liked and why I liked them, this post will be as big as a novel. As a whole WUS is a wonderful feel-good movie which reminds us of our college life(if you are not one of those nerdy types). Ranbir is now the new addition to my list of actors to watch out for.

The other movie I liked is the "The Proposal". I picked this one from the DVD store just because I can't find anything interesting there. In fact, I kept even this one pending for a few days before watching it. But when I saw it, I was really impressed. It's been quite a few days since I watched a decent romantic comedy and this one perfectly filled the bill.

The story is simple. An immigrant, yet sort-of-nuts boss, perfectly portrayed by Sandra Bullock, has been issued notice that she'll be deported after her work-visa is not renewed. She immediately puts up an act that she's going to marry her sub-ordinate, a wonderful Ryan Reynolds, and hence can stay in the US of A. Both of mutually agree to help each other provided that he'll marry her(and then divorce her), while she promotes him to a higher position in office. But before that she had to spend a week at his parents house. Everything seems to go well inline with the plan, until they both really start falling in love with each other.

Both these movies are worth a watch over the weekend and gives you a break from the usual pot-boiler masala movies. Happy weekend, folks.

Happiness

2009-10-11T23:14:00.000-07:00

I was under a lot of stress yesterday(in fact, throughout the week). The various reasons are:
1. Am suffering form a very bad headache from the past 50 hours or so.
2. We had an unexpected server crash yesterday and nobody has a clue of why it happened.
3. One guy called me over for a snack last evening and I ended up paying for that.
4. Last evening was my fifth straight evening at the TKS office.

Well, I was in a pretty bad shape because of all the above crap n a lot more. But, while walking back to my flat from TKS, there was this lovely little breeze that changed all my moods. It was normally a walk of just above 10 minutes from my house to TKS, but last night my heart wanted to enjoy the walk and it took me more than 25 minutes to cover the distance. Suddenly I felt like a child and did some weird things which included:
1. I was trying to balance myself on the edge of the pavement while walking. This went on for quite a distance.
2. I saw a hump on the road which resembled a landmine in the PlayStation game "Black". I couldn't take my eyes off it and in front of a heavy traffic, I lifted my hands and positioned myself like the protagonist in the game(a soldier) and tried to shoot that hump. Everybody waiting at that signal was shell shocked. I literally looked at them and laughed n went away.

All this made my heart lighter and I was in a cheerful mood for the rest of the night. But today, struggles have started yet again.

Random Ramblings

2009-09-26T01:05:00.001-07:00

Folks, had a lot to post but very less free time to do so. So am putting up a brief notes of what's going on these days.

1. Today's the much-awaited India-Pakistan cricket match. Our cricket brothers of the neighboring country are giving too many statements to the press and our guys are calm n composed as usual. So let's see who wins the battle, which's going to kick-off in a few more hours. All the best, Team India.

2. The great slogger whom International cricket has ever produced, Mr Shahid Afridi was telling to the press the other day that the GOD(read as Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar) was no longer a threat. Brother Afridi, do you know that he's back into his prowess(mind it, he was never out of it) and made his way back into the ICC top-10 even after missing from the International ODI cricket for quite some time? Did you read in the newspapers a few days back about what happened to the Lankans in the tri-series finals?

3. Well, looks like my parents are feeling bad that they are not able to find a bride for me, even though they are trying hard to do so. Will write a post about that in the next few days.

4. About a month back, the PR manager of Coca-Cola Bahrain, Mrs Leila Rajkumar was kind enough to induct us(me n my friend Deepak) into their elite group, Thirst Quenchers. You all know how hot it gets in summer in this part of the world. So Coke will provide us with water and some soft-drinks. We(the Thirst Quenchers) are supposed to carry these around the island and give them free-of-cost to the laborers toiling out in the hot sun.
It was a very good example of what-a-little-help-can-do. I still remember the thank-filled eyes of those hard-working guys when we told them that we are there to give them free water n drinks. Some locals were curious enough to know why we are distributing them free-of-cost. Long live the human spirit. Find below the certificate that Coca-Cola has given me for doing whatever little I can. It was so kind of them.

We are OUT

2009-09-09T05:20:00.000-07:00

Well, it's not a great news to share, but the verdict is out. We are out of the cricket tournament with a loss in the last night's match. The saddest part is - we lost the match by 3 runs. In the tournament, we had 12 groups with 5 teams each. Each team in the group has to play one match with each other and the top 2 teams in a group will go to the next round. Before yesterday's last match, we played 3 and won 2. Our opponent last night were the hosts. So ultimately, they had the home advantage.

One good thing for me from yesterday's match was - my batting. I was surprised with the way I hit some shots. Wait wait, don't think that I'm a good batsman. I'm a below-average cricketer and for a person like me, every single run is like a boundary. And if you play well, when others fail, it boosts our confidence. Right?

Well, looking forward to continue the same form in the coming Friday's match. This one doesn't belong to any tournament, but something that we play among friends. Professionally, though.

Note: I'll post some pictures of yesterday's match as soon my friend hand them over to me.

Cricket n SRK

2009-08-20T02:46:00.000-07:00

Being from India, we love cricket and worship cricketers. And sometimes, we like to play too. So, we are participating in a 7-a-side soft-ball tournament here in Bahrain. A total of 60 teams are participating in the tourney and we played our first match last night. We lost it successfully, but at least we did give a tough fight to the opponents(my favs for the title). Batting first, they made a not-so-tough 52 runs in their allotted 6 overs while our side managed a convincing 45 runs in the same number of overs. Well, the nest match is on 28th of this month and wish us all the best.

And now, let's go to a strange issue that raging in some hearts in India. One Mr Shah Rukh Khan(in short SRK) was frisked at an airport in the US of A. Ok, the airport authorities did detain him for a couple of hours and checked his credentials blah blah. The only problem is this SRK guy is a super-star or a Badshah of Bollywood(naah, I'm an Aamir Khan fan). Fans started protesting this act and started burning effigies of the govt of US of A. TV channels started flashing the news of this footage in "exclusive bulletins". Bollywood bigwigs are interviewed, politicians were asked questions and people are made idiots.

But what's the big deal in the airport authorities doing so? Clearly, not everyone knows what Bollywood is or who SRK is. He's just one of those guys traveling through their airport. Is there any point in this whole incident for the entire nation to stand up(or rather sit n watch those stupid news channels broadcasting this)? Aren't there more issues that are bothering the nation?

Just in the past one month, more than 22 farmers committed suicide in the state of Andhra Pradesh courtesy poor rainfall and increasing debts. I saw in a regional news channel yesterday that a farmer set fire to his crop after a very less output(I don't exactly know the term). No one cares about issues like this. All we care is when a celebrity is detained in an airport or a famous cricketer scores a duck or when a politician is making useless comments etc. God save India.

My Idol is back for me to worship

2009-08-05T23:19:00.000-07:00

Well folks, first of all, belated Friendship Day wishes to you all. I know that I'm late, as usual, but as long as something comes from your heart, you are never late.

This post is for the return of my idol, known as Micheal Schumacher. Me(in fact none in the world) didn't even think of this dramatic return, even in our wildest dreams. If it was not for Felipe Massa's unfortunate accident at the qualifying session of the Hungary Grand Prix, I would not be writing this post.

This man, Micheal Schumacher(fondly called as Schumi) is not just a human for me. Something beyond that. I don't exactly remember how I came to know about this guy or his hunting ground(F1 races), but since 2001 or so, I've been following up with his races. My heart used to jump with joy when I read about his wins in the newspaper(that time, I was doing my engineering in a rural area). I used to plan my trips to home accordingly, so as to watch the F1 race on Sundays.

Ah, all this is making me feel nostalgic of those beautiful days. None of my friends used to watch F1(as you know, cricket rules an average Indian's brain), and I used to try hard to get into the love of watching this sport. Some used to argue with me that F1 is the most stupidest sport ever, as the same guy(Schumi) wins every race in the same car(Ferrari). That was his impact on the sport. I can vaguely remember that the F1 bosses even changed the rules of the game in 2004, to make it more interesting for viewers(naah, just to end Schumi's supremacy, if I'm not wrong).

It was my dream then to witness at least one F1 race with Schumi in it, but he retired at the end of the 2006 season. I saw my first F1 race in 2008, sadly and his absense is obvious. It's not the same as before. I started confining myself to newspapers and website reports about F1 races, rather than sitting in a couch and watching it tensely on TV. But everything is going to change, if all goes well on August 23.

PS: God, please help me in getting out of the office in time to watch all the races that Schumi is participating.

Love Aaj Kal - Loss of sleep kal night

2009-07-29T21:26:00.000-07:00

First of all, I apologize for not being here for the past few weeks. Life seems to be f@#&ed up big time, like never before. But now, I wanted to enjoy life as much as I can and hence I assure you that you are going to read a lot of crap here from now on.

Last night, we had late dinner as one of friend is going to India on vacation and we had to do some shopping. On the way to the restaurent, we saw that there's a premier show of the much awaited "Love Aaj Kal" at midnight(here in Middle East, Bollywood movies release one day before, but this is much before the Indian release as I'm talking abt Wednesday night and the movie is going to release on Friday in India). Anyways, me and the friend who's going for vacation thought of giving it a try, even though I have to get up as early as 5 30AM to get to the office today.

And there it is, a premier show with only 25% of the theatre filled. We can sit wherever we want, put legs on whatever front seat you want - what else do we want? Coming to the movie, it's a matured love story, so matured that the hero first makes love to a girl and then loves her(at least, he thinks he's loving her... yawwwnnnn).

The story is simple: The movie starts when a boy(errr.... man) meets a girl at a party and wins her with a not-so-convincing manner. They end up living together for some days(n weeks and months) and then they decide that they are going to break up. The boy(errr again, the man) is a happy-go-lucky guy(who tries to be super cool) who suggests that they throw a party to celebrate their break-up. Everybody is surprised(except me n the other audience) and there goes a lavish party. The next morning, the owner of the hotel tries to question this man(I got it right this time) about his relationship with the girl(arey yaar, they celebrated their break-up in your restaurent and you are questioning their relationship now) and gives him some tips. He narrates his love story to the hero. The rest of the story is supposed to be a comparision between the Aaj ka love story and Kal ka love story(beleive me, I can't compare even a single instance of both those stories).

The plus points of the movie are:
* Both the lead actors played their roles very well(even though I felt occasionally that Deepika has only two emotions in the movie: Amusement and Sadness).
* The songs of the movie are superb. One of the best in recent times.
* The photography was excellent. The locations(supposed to be UK) were too good.
* The comedy was good in bits n pieces.
* The biggest plus point for me is the duration of the movie, a good 130 or 135 minutes, which is apt.

However, there are a lot of minus points too:
* The narration was too fast paced in the starting few minutes and after that, it lags drastically.
* The movie reminds you of a lot of other movies(which is not good for a movie).
* Felt that the Kal ka love story was more interesting than the Aaj ka love story.
* Also, I strongly felt that there's no need for the Kal ka love story at all. The movie would have been the same without it too.
* The climax gets too predictable.

I rate this movie 3 out of 5 and I would prefer to see this movie when I'm free and really don't have any other movie to watch.

Before coming to a conclusion about this movie, please note that the above expressed views are entirely my own and you may actually like the movie. Different persons have different mindsets and one more important thing is that I saw the movie at 12 midnight.

Some sort of celebrations

2009-07-04T01:43:00.000-07:00

Everybody says that it's the big day for me. But not many friends have called to wish me. So, the celebrations have been dull.

Yes folks, it's the 4th of July. Another year passed by in my life and I've turned one more year older and it's just 73 years more to complete the century for me(the only big ambition in my life these days). As one of my blogger friend wrote in her blog, it's not important how old you become, but what matters is how wiser you've become. I hope I did some justice to those words.

Well, I've cut a cake arranged my friends, last night. It was yummy. And right after a couple of hours, Indian cricket team won a tense match against West Indies. What a start for the day!!!! But the rest of the day(till now), has not been so good. All my close friends here have work these days. So I was all alone from morning: chatting, reading news etc.

A few close friends called till now, but none of my best friends called me. Seems that they forgot the occasion. So just like every year, I'll wait till the night and remind them on my own. Till then, let me indulge myself in the fantasy world of gaming.

And hey, wish me all the best on the occasion. All you Blogger friends gave a new dimension for my life and altered my thinking capabilities. Thanks a lot for that. Life is not the same since I entered the Bloggerville.

This is the cake I've cut last night.

The strip on the cake reads: Happy birthday fun Sathi.
The reason: I try to be funny always.... :(

A very late post

2009-07-01T23:00:00.000-07:00

Dear friends, as you read this, I know that you'll feel that this news is outdated. But what can 'poor me' do? Even though the news is old, the hard-work and dedication behind that is ever-green.

I am talking about Pakisthan's vistory in the T20 World Cup 2009. Everybody thought that India and South Africa are strong contenders for the title(I thought no one can stop SA) and no one ever thought Pakisthan will be the ultimate winner. Coming back from back-to-back losses in the practice games, to win the title is not an easy task. On the other hand, our Indians never looked like champion stuff, even in the matches in the league stage.

However, Pakisthan cricket team knew that they should win the title to regain the charisma they lost in the International Cricket. And that was how they won it. In a country ravaged by numerous terror strikes and boycott by other cricketing nations, the only thing that keeps the spirit alive is cricket.

Many of us think that Pakisthan is supporting terrorism in India, but how many of us know about their internal turmoil. Check this link for some pictures of the children effected by the ongoing military operations in the SWAT valley of Pakisthan. Let's all pray for their well-being.

Also, please find below a truly remarkable picture of a historic event that almost went unnoticed(at least by me). It's the picture of Iraqi security forces celebrating the event of US troops leaving Iraqi cities:

Also, my condolances to all the fans of Micheal Jackson. Even though I'm not a great fan of him, I always knew the importance he's holding in some hearts. I read yesterday on some website that a total of 16 suicides are reported world-wide following Jacko's death. In Australia, they even set up a help-line for fans who went under depression after this. Folks, I know how hard it is for us to digest the death of Jacko, but isn't there a family waiting for you to return back home? Please don't resort to such things.

Pictures Courtesy: Boston

After all, who are we?

2009-06-23T00:03:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks back, there was a fire accident in Bahrain. A gas cylinder blew up in a building where more than 40 people are staying. Most of them are from my state, Andhra Pradesh in India. As soon as they heard the blast, they ran for their lives without taking care of their belongings. They lost their passports, money, mobiles and other valuables in the fire(this proves that we are humans and we care for nothing other than our lives).

All the people in the building are poor and all of them are dialy labourers. Most of them are run-away employees or people who came on visit visas and over stayed here. Almost all of them have large fines pending with the ministries.

As soon as we(TKS) got the news about this accident, our people rushed to the place and brought all of them to TKS premises(as they don't have any other shelter). Food was sponsored by some other NGO for them and our people took the responsibility of delivering the food. We collected clothes, blankets etc on war foot and distributed them to these 40 people immediatly. Thanks to many donors, we were able to fulfill the basic needs of those people(this proves that we are humans and we care about others too). It was heartening to see them scrambling for old clothes so that they have something decent to wear for work.

The first day was OK and then we asked them their details so that we can arrange for duplicates of passports, resident permits etc. But not many are willing to reveal these details as they are staying illegally here. Then we informed them of the possible difficulties they are going to face in the future because of their illegal stay and not a single one was interested to listen to those words. We also informed them that if they can leave Bahrain as soon as possible, we can try to nullify their pending fines, but still the response is the same(this proves that we are humans and we tend to take things lightly). They wanted to live like rats but don't want to go back to India. We don't know what problems they have in their home towns, but still it's better to leave than live such a miserly life here.

At first, they are manageable but after one day, they started demanding(kind of) instead of requesting. I was shocked by the following incident: We were distributing them some T-shirts sponsored by some other NGO and a couple of guys adamantly asked me to change the size as L size "may be" loose for them!!!!! Man, this proves that we are humans and always ye dil maange more.

Anyways, it's been two weeks since this happened and no one was ready to leave Bahrain till now. But the good part is they are back in to their normal lives and got into some other new accommodation. Long live, mankind.

A pictorial post

2009-06-15T01:05:00.000-07:00

The lonely traveller. On my way to Hyderabad from Visakhapatnam.

A dead jelly fish. Felt bad that it had to die a lonely death. Who knows how our death may come?

A view of a rainy morning through a car window.

The third lady from left is a Raman Megasis award winner. OMG, she's so humble, so adorable. Her name is Mrs Shanta Sinha. She is an anti-child labour activist

I know that some of you like this picture.

Villagio shopping mall in Doha, Qatar. Image courtesy Zenoed. The blue sky you see on top is actually a poster which's pasted throught the mall giving it a street llok.

Titbits

2009-06-04T00:14:00.000-07:00

Somebody asked me "Are you really busy?". My answer was "Can you believe that after going home from office yesterday, I removed my shoes n just slept off without even changing my attire. Forget about the dressm I didn't even remove the mobile from my pocket?". Well, this is a fact. I was so stressed at that moment. And thanks to some management changes, my life is going to be f@#$ed up this month end. I want to tell my superiors the story of a donkey which died after it's master put too much load on it.

Anyways, my trip to Qatar was pretty small(just 3 days), but eventful. I visited some shopping malls and I loved the way the Villagio mall was built. It was simple awesome. I'll keep a picture of it in my next post. And almost after an year, I rode a quad bike and that too in real desert. That was one hell of an experience. But, the temperatures were soaring out there. Even though Qatar is just a few kilometers from Bahrain, the climate looked completely different.

Coming to other issues, my life has changed quite a lot:
1. My good old Sony Ericsson K750i moved aside and made way for the Nokia 5800 XPress Music.
2. My long time companion, Casio calculator watch(it was with me for the past 12 years without a complaint) didn't move aside but gave some space to a new Casio Chronograph watch.
3. I was addicted to video games when I was a kid. After all these years, I thought I need a break and bought Play Station 2 last week. OMG, I'm already addicted. Right now, I'm playing Price of Persia(Two Thrones) in it.
4. I am back into enjoying my fav dish of the world, ice creams. Every week, I'm making sure that I have a week's supply of them.

That's all for now. I'll be back pretty soon with a pictorial post. Till then, cheers and Hakuna matata

"Temper"ary

2009-05-21T01:36:00.000-07:00

Folks, days are too hectic for me these days. That was the reason why am not updating any nonsense in my blog. However, one good news is that I'm taking a small break this week and going to Qatar to meet my cousins. I hope this provides me with the necessary energy re-fueling.

Coming to the tile of this post, I hope some of you caught the reason behind it. Yes mates, these days I'm too angry on every little thing. In short, I am seeing myself in short temper most of the days. If I see something I don't like, then am simply shouting at others, be it at work or outside. I don't know the real reason for this sudden change in my behavior but I suspect that my hectic work is making me feel so.

About a couple of weeks back, I was going to TKS with my friends. We saw that our car was blocking another car in the narrow lane. First, we couldn't understand whether the person driving the other car wants to go front or back as there was no signal from that car. So we decided to go back and give the other car way to come out. Me and another friend of mine got down and started crossing the lane on foot while my other friends wait for us in the car.

Suddenly, the two ladies who are in the front car started abusing us(in Arabic) and that too, as if we're going to rape them. On any other day, I would've just laughed in myself and moved away from that place. But, that day, I stopped on my track and yelled at them to shut up and mind their business(but never abused them). I know that it's some mad rage in me that made me talk like that. Prior to this incident, I can't recall even a single incident in which I shouted at females.

This is one of those silly incidents in which I'm losing my cool and the HULK in me comes out. I hope to get rid of this alter-ego of mine and be my usual self soon.

BTW, I am getting a new Internet connection at my flat next week which gives me more access to Bloggerville and hence, I'll be back to my usual Blogger life. Till then, take care and have a wonderful week.

May Day Celebrations

2009-05-04T01:34:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, we got three day holidays(thanks to the Labor Day). I hope you all remember that I'm a member of the Executive Committee of Telugu Kala Samithi(TKS) for the year 2009. We, being representatives of TKS, organize a picnic sort of event, every year on Labor Day to entertain the blue collar workers. As most of you know, this Middle East region is full of blue collar workers from India, particularly South India.

This year was the first one when I was giving my full support for this event. I was entitled with job of transporting all the materials to the venue and making sure that they all reach back properly. The event was organized on a beach front and more than 100 workers are supposed to participate in the event. So we went to that place the previous night itself with all the items needed for the event and put up some tents(to protect people from the hot sun while the event was going on). What we missed that night was some sort of flash lights, whose absence made our work more tough. We, somehow, fixed the make-shift tents and it was around 2 AM, by the time we finished our work and then we retired to sleep. It was nice to sleep at the beach front on mats. That was one wonderful experience.

Next morning(May Day), after waking up, we saw that some tents were loose(it was pitch black the previous night) and started fixing all those. By the time we finished, people started coming and we don't even have time to change to some decent clothes.

Many games were conducted for the workers(which they sincerely enjoyed) and the participants were duly awarded. Breakfast and lunch were served for the attendees. It was a nice feeling to interact with the lower class people and trying to make them forget their miseries for at least a few minutes. The joy we saw in their eyes, while receiving their prizes, was something that made us forget all the hard work put in by us the previous night.

I'll put up some photos from the event soon. Maybe tomorrow. Until then, adios amigos n senorita.

Participants getting ready for the three-legged race

Kabaddi.. kabaddi..

Winners and the Committee

Am back

2009-04-14T23:59:00.000-07:00

Hello folks, am back. In fact, I came back to Bahrain almost three weeks back, but was busy, both in and outside office.

Well, coming to my vacation, it lasted just 16 days in total, but was good enough to leave all those sweet, lingering memories for quite sometime. In fact, am still homesick!!!

The main reason for going on vacation this time, was to attend my best buddy's marriage. Boy, it was too good to be him after quite some time. This guy is a US citizen and we rarely meet, as our trips to have to coincide with each other. But we meet, somehow, at least once a year. This time, I think we spent about 4 quality days together with another good buddy of ours. Of course, this was before his marriage.

We stayed at his native village, which was so remote that no bus comes there and people have to depend on auto-rickshaws to move to some other places. Also, there's a minimum mandatory power-cut for 6 hours a day, irrespective of the season. Still, I felt as if it was the best place to live in, thanks to the plush greenish fields, pure air and some untouched hills. It was simply awesome.

The marriage went on well, except that it started raining just before the marriage(the ceremony was outdoor). Luckily, they had an empty mandap in the indoors.

Other than this, rest of my stay was at house. Who doesn't like sitting idle at home and eat food cooked my mom? I was awesome. My sister and brother-in-law came from my Bangalore during my stay and we had quite a bit of fun. Coming to my marriage, my parents asked me for my requirements(ya ya, I know that "requirements" is not a good word to use, but I'm compelled) in the girl like education etc. In fact, they pressed on me to reveal my intentions when I tried to postpone the matter. So, the official lookout has begun!!! But can I satisfy the girl's requirements? Time has to decide this.

I spent the final day in Hyderabad, meeting friends and relatives. I met one of my close friend there, whom I didn't meet in the past 3 years or so. It's good to spend some time with him and chat just as we used to do so in our engineering days.

Below are a few pics of my stay with my best buddies, Rajesh(the groom) and Hema Srinivas.

A beautiful lake near Rajesh's native place

B&W photos always makes us nostalgic. But this was a recent one

The best of friends

Dancing one the village roads during a public orchestra

Ready to roll at the marriage (did u notice that me n Hema are wearing the same shirts?)

The bride n the groom

End of the trip

On vacation

2009-03-12T00:43:00.000-07:00

Friends, I'll be going to my homeland, India, for a small vacation of two weeks. My bestest friend's marriage is on 20th of March. Got to attend that and file a lot of memories. My number in India is 9701838249. It'll be active from tomorrow till 28th of this month. Feel free to contact me anytime.

I'll be away from Bloggerville during this period, starting tomorrow. Until then, all of you take care and enjoy this cherished life as much as you can.

Photo Post

2009-03-01T04:23:00.000-08:00

Hi folks, hope u r all fine. I don't have much updates except for a visit to a Mexican restaurant and a couple of events at Telugu Kala Samithi(TKS). So I added some pics from them and then gave some nasty comments on those. Enjoy.

Life used to be good with friends(who doesn't like sitting on national highway n taking pics)

Sometimes, had enough friends to fit in a picture

Sometimes, I was alone like the building in the background but standing tall

But always dreaming of that one special girl

Then came my first official speech(vote of thanks) at Telugu Kala Samithi(TKS)

My friends saw me working hard to entertain people with some groovy songs at the Valentine's Day celebrations in TKS(I was wearing a tie for the first time after school)

Then, they tried to make fun of me as much as they can

Soon after, there came a time to 'part'y. Is there anybody who doesn't know what's in the glass?

The guy sitting in the center(Pavan) was leaving Bahrain for good.

A Mexican restaurant, a Mexican hat, a couple of Mexican drinks... But couldn't find a mexican gun.... :(

Then came Sangrea

Drank it with eagerness

Liked it

Had some more of it

Found that it's not enough. So had the whole thing

Main talli... main talli ho gaya

Hum talli... hum talli ho gaye

There were a lot of pics of "being talli" but I decided against them as the Google people will rate my blog as 18+..... ;) So folks, this is all for this post.

Am I busy?????

2009-02-17T23:44:00.000-08:00

I don't really know whether to call myself busy or I'm wasting my valuable free time. Before going into the details, one "good" news to you all. I've been elected as the Executive Committee member for Telugu Kala Samithi(TKS) for the current year. TKS is some sort of a group of Telugu people living here in Bahrain. They conduct various get-together for Telugu speaking people in Bahrain etc. and most importantly, they do a lot of Social Welfare works(mostly pertaining to house maids and labor).

I've been entrusted with the position of the Membership Secretary and set with some goals to be reached by the end of my tenure. I was also included in the team for the Social Welfare. So far, everything sounds good and rosy.

Here starts the thorny part. Every week for two days, each member of the Executive Committee is supposed to stay at TKS premises for various reasons. And we have to meet regularly before any major event/festival. And we have weekly meetings too. This way, each member has to go to the TKS premises at least thrice a week.

So my daily routine is something as follows: Get up at 5 30 AM and reach office by 7 AM. Again reach my flat from office by 4 30 PM or so. Then immediately have to go to gym and work out till 6 30 PM. Then go to TKS by 7 PM and stay there till around 9 30 PM. By the time I finish my dinner and call it a day, the time is at least 11 PM. This routine repeats at least 3 times a week..

And these days, work in office has increased to a great extent and sometimes, I feel like quitting this job. But thanks to the world-wide recession, I am forced to stay back at least until the situation is normal. On top of that, my server stopped responding for no apparent reason this morning. We were able to recover it back just now and still we don't know the cause for this failure.

That's it folks. I may not be able to post for some more days, until I become comfortable with TKS and office issues. But I promise and assure that I'll keep reading all your posts and leave my stupid comments there.

Mangalore Massacre

2009-02-03T23:16:00.001-08:00

I hope most of you read or heard about the Mangalore pub incident. For those who didn’t know about that, let me tell you what was reported in the news about that. A group of people, all members of a religious outfit called Sri Ram Sena, stormed a pub in Mangalore and beat up the persons who were partying inside, irrespective of the gender. And some unknown sources also reported that some of the girls were molested too. The reason for the attack as told by the Shri Ram Sena outfit was, these people (who are partying) were violating the rich Indian Culture.

Now, here is a small piece on interview of Pramod Muthalik, the founder of the Shri Ram Sena.

How can you continue to justify the Mangalore incident?
I will always stand by my statement that the intention behind the Mangalore attack was correct and we did nothing wrong in raising this issue.
What is wrong in opposing the pub, drug and club culture? Someone had to raise this issue. We decided to do so as no one else seemed to be bothered about it. We have a responsibility towards society and we need to safeguard Indian culture. Pub culture is Western and we don't need it.

Who has appointed you a moral policeman?
Nobody needs to appoint me. This is a democracy and we have the right to raise our voice if we think something is wrong.

Why do you resort to violence? You have no right to hit anyone, especially women.
I am saddened by the fact that the incident turned violent. There was never an intention to resort to violence. But the reports of attacking women and molesting them are wrong -- they have been created by the media.

Why do you have a problem with people who want to have some fun in a pub?
As I mentioned earlier, pub culture is not Indian and we do not need to ape the West. Girls are resorting to all sorts of rubbish due to lack of guidance. We will continue to raise our voice and will also take the help of law enforcement agencies to ensure that students do not tread the wrong path.

Your answers indicate that there will be more trouble in Karnataka.
There will be no violence, but we will raise our voice. We will not allow Valentine's Day celebration as it is not part of our culture. We will take the help of the police and college students to ensure that nobody celebrates Valentine's Day.

Now, anybody who saw the clippings of the attacks will strongly disagree the way the attack was carried out. The way the girls were bashed made me rethink whether this is India(where females are highly respected) or some other alien nation. In one clipping, a running girl was beaten hard on her face with such a force that she literally flew down.

In my childhood, I used to hear that in Muslim countries, women are beaten up for indecent acts and men are castrated. Now I work in one of those Muslim countries and I never hear about incidents like this here. This makes me wonder whether our “rich Indian Culture” permits these insane acts.

If you see the revered Mr. Muthalik’s interview, you’ll notice the phrase “This is a democracy and we have the right to raise our voice if we think something is wrong”. Now Sir, we too live in the same democracy and we too have our share of rights. Also, why the hell are you voicing your opinion about girls resorting to taking drugs, boozing, wearing mini-skirts? Are the males OK to do this?

Do the following with perfection before carrying out any more indecent acts like this:
• Ask your followers to stop wearing western dresses like jeans, tees.
• Tell them to stop boozing and smoking.
• Tell them to get up early in the morning and do puja to all the sacred Indian Gods.
• Restrain them from celebrating the New Year Eve, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day etc.
• Tell them not to work in MNC’s (as management expect the employees to respect the client traditions).
• Advice them to stop eating noodles(Chinese), pizzas and burgers(western) etc.

These are only a few of the things you should do before questioning others and please note that there are a lot of other issues and methods to protest in our country. Please let us live the way we want.

Also, it’s sad to see that all the 27 accused got bails instantly and they are roaming freely among us.

All my friends out here, please join me in saying “Get well soon, Mr. Muthalik”.

Click here for the news report.
Video Courtesy --> NDTV
Interview Courtesy --> Rediff

Neighbor woes(not mine, mayb my neighbor's)

2009-01-26T00:33:00.000-08:00

Last week, while removing my shoes after coming from a stroll, I noticed that my neighbors have left their key bunch in the key hole itself. Coming to these neighbors, they are a Mallu family, one guy with a wife, mother and two kids. I never saw his wife or the second kid. I give some chocolates to the elder son(who's around 3 years old), when he's playing in the corridor with his granny. However, there's no more relation between me n them except a casual smile or a "hi".

So, after looking at the key bunch, being a good neighbor, I knocked on their door. After a moment, the wife opened the door with the door latch ON and was looking at me with a scowl on her face. She was looking at me as if I entered some restricted territory. I just told her that they left their key bunch in the keyhole, which she pulled with some mighty force and slammed the door shut without even looking at me. Poor me, was expecting a thank you from them, if not a lunch invitation in the weekend(these are termed as Bachelor Woes). I was ashamed by this lady's behavior and then being free for some time, I started analyzing what might have went wrong.

1. Maybe her husband didn't cook lunch well(too much salt or no salt).
2. Maybe the chocolates I give to her kid are expired or they have worms in them(I hope you remember the Cadbury Dairy Milk case).
3. Maybe her elder son, who started going to nursery, brought home his girlfriend.
4. Maybe my shoes, which I keep in a shelf next to their door, stink a lot.
5. Maybe she felt bad about me knocking the door, when they had their new calling bell installed that very day.
6. Maybe she's a victim of the sound coming from my home theater(most likely).

Well friends, did anyone of you face some embarrassing situation like mine?

Missing family

2009-01-13T00:54:00.000-08:00

Well, this is my first post of 2009. 2008 ended on a high note and there are some wonderful highlights in 2008, as per my last post. It doesn’t matter that we didn’t have fun on the New Year Eve as the celebrations are canceled in the whole Middle East due to the ongoing rampage of Israel on Palestine. It’s also nice to see that some of the wonderful bloggers chose to come back to the Bloggerville just at the brink of the end of 2008.
2009 has been hectic in office (I know that it doesn’t sound to be reasonable to say so, just after a couple of weeks into the new year). Personal life seems to be OK, thanks to the fact that I’m single. But it seems that my parents don’t want me to spend the next New Year Eve single. Marriage proposals are being put in front of me and poor me still isn’t able to decide whether to go ahead or not. Let’s hope for the best.
Last weekend, I saw one great movie, Mumbai Meri Jaan. I don’t know what’s so good about that movie, but I loved every part of it. Something different in this times of mass masala. Did anyone of you see that movie and felt the same?
Been missing family and friends today, as it’s Pongal(Sankranthi) time in India. It used to be so good in my childhood and now, when I’ve everything, I am missing human relations. So this New Year resolution will be a family get-together for the next Pongal. I wish all of you a very happy Sankranthi.

Right now, being busy with work, I may not post much in my blog for some more time but will keep an eye on your blogs. Happy holidays(if you have them).

Adeos 2008

2008-12-31T03:09:00.000-08:00

We’ve been mugging up from childhood the famous proverb that Time and tide wait for none. So it’s proven once again. The year 2008 has come to an end in no time. In some parts of the world, the celebrations might already have begun.

2008 has not been just another year for me. It’s something different because:
• This is the year when I’ve made a lot of good friends on the Bloggerville, some whom I call brothers and sisters.
• This is the year where I’ve learnt a lot of things in professional life, particularly people management. The main lesson among these professional things is: don’t ever let your superiors think that you are at your disposal, anytime.
• This is the year when I met some wonderful people in the real world.
• This is the year when my little sister got married.
• This is the year when I saw happiness in some helpless eyes when they are helped.
• This is the year which helped me realize that there’s nothing called “mine”.

And coming to the “personal” front,
• This is the year in which I’ve learnt some cooking.
• This is the year when I first watched an F1 race.
• This is the year when I first rode a jet-ski.
• This is the year in which I’ve bought some real cool gadgets(Guys are guys na?)

Well, I end this year here. I wish you all an extremely prosperous, recession-controlled, financially-stable, job secure, debt-free, investment-profiting, promotion-assured, hike-replete, war-free, air/water/rail/road-safe, earthquake free, terrorist-free, friends-filled, romance-blooming, healthy, joyous and cheerful New Year 2009.

Note: Those wishes are lifted from some mail. Don't think too big about my creative brain. It's too small.

Ghajini Rocked

2008-12-24T22:16:00.000-08:00

The wait is over. The most awaited movie of the year(at least for me), Ghajini, is released. Being a die-hard fan of Aamir Khan and also to the original flick(?) in Tamil, I was eager to see the movie ASAP and I was lucky enough to watch the premier show last night.

The verdict is out. The movie rocked. I already saw both the Tamil and Telugu versions on the big screen and was a bit doubtful about the Hindi flick. Surya was absolutely awesome in the South Indian version and even though, Aamir developed the required physique and all, there was a small doubt somewhere in me. But all my doubts are cleared.

I won't write anything about the plot, except that the makers struck to the original storyline, almost. Performance-wise, Aamir Khan outperformed himself and did complete justice to the role. Asin did a marvelous job, even though she did just what she did in the original flick. Jian Khan is OK in a small role. The villain, Pradeep Rawat, was good(but not as good as the Tamil flick).

Coming to the technical aspects, the narration of the movie was awesome and free-flowing. The way the flashback unfolds was very neatly done(something novel). The director, A R Murugadoss, did a splendid job. The camera work was very well done by Ravi K Chandran.

But you should give a bow to the maestro, A R Rahman, for his music. As you all know, the songs were a big hit with the people. The background score was awesome. Something which cannot be expressed in my words.

Overall, the movie has a big BLOCKBUSTER written all over it. My rating will be 4 out 5.

Atrocities on females

2008-12-22T03:52:00.000-08:00

I don’t know how many of you know what Mahatma Gandhi has told about Independence. His words were something like – India will get its true independence only when a woman(or girl) can walk alone freely at midnight on the roads.. Does anyone agree with this? I, myself, strongly agree with it. Independence is not just for individuals but it’s the same for the whole nation(humankind).

Now, let’s talk a little about LOVE. I know that it’s tough to talk just a little about it, but let’s try to do so. LOVE is between two hearts and it can’t just be confined to one heart. It’s not meaningful to say either that one should do anything to gain success in life or that one should do anything nasty to cover up his/her failure in love. I am bringing up these issues to show the increasing crime rate in my home state(or the whole world) just showing failure in love as the main motive.

About a week or ten days back, an incident happened in the town of Warangal in Andhra Pradesh, India. Two final year engineering students(Swapnika and Praneetha) are attacked by some people who threw acid on them. Both the girls are seriously injured. Swapnika’s condition is still said to be critical. Police somehow caught the three assailants out of whom one Mr Srinivas was harassing Swapnika on the lines love for quite sometime. It’s another irrelevant story that these three guys were shot dead in an “encounter” by the police.

In another horrific incident, again in Andhra Pradesh, one guy attacked a married lady after she rejected a request of intimate relation by him. He cut her hands and neck.

And just yesterday, a budding actress was said to be murdered by her husband(her parents disagree that their daughter was married). The guy, after killing her, died by consuming poison. The motive was found in a letter that the girl started ignoring him after she started getting more chances in the film industry.

And one good friend of mine was a bit dull while we were chatting some days back. When I asked her for the reason, she said that she was in love this colleague of her for the past one year and when the matter was put in front of their parents, his parents didn’t agree for the marriage. And now, the guy was telling her that their relation can’t continue as his parents didn’t like her.

Com’on guys, why do we play with lives? I know it’s not just the guys who play the tricks always. I heard about some girls too. But, the majority of these issues are blamed(!) on guys. Let’s be an example to the other guys out there.

I don’t exactly know what I want to say with this post. But I hope you got the whole idea behind it.

A real longggggg weekend

2008-12-11T04:02:00.000-08:00

Hi folks, my sincere apologies for being away for the past 10 days or so. We got a real looonggggg weekend of 6 days here - a couple of days for the weekend and 4 days for the Eid-Al-Adha(also called Bakrid back home in India). I thought of making this weekend an Internet-free one and never checked even my office mail, except when I went to office for a couple of hours during these 6 days.

Well, a lot of things happened during this weekend, including a Bachelor party and some unwanted shopping and lot of sleeping. I played cricket a couple of times and my weakness for fuller straight balls showed up yet again. I was bowled both the times and the last occasion, I sprained my shoulder while fielding. Now, it almost healed.

Coming to the bachelor party, guys from the Telugu community here wanted to host a bachelor party for quite some time. Don’t assume that all those guys were bachelors. Out of the total 16 people who attended the party, only 3 of us were bachelors and a couple of forced bachelors were also present. The party was held at my flat as it was the only bachelor flat around which can hold so many people. We hired a cook for the cooking and I had to clean the flat all by myself because most of my friends had office the day before the party. Believe me, I never thought that my flat had so many items(I saw some crockery which I never saw before)!!!! Anyways, I was too tired after all the cleaning as it’s been a long while since we cleaned the whole flat. I cleaned a whole 4 kilos of prawns while helping the cook(I never even touched a raw prawn before).

The day of the party has finally arrived. The age groups of the guests varied from 25 to 62. The eldest guy had a son who’s older than me. The menu was long but all the items were prepared at home itself. The menu included chicken 65, mutton sukka, pepper prawns, chicken curry, fried fish, onion pakodas, fried rice and carrot curry. The beverage list included Chivas Regal, Fosters and Grants. A total of three and half bottles of whisky made its way down the throats of attendees along with a couple of crates of beer. Another interesting aspect in the party was the rummy game which I played with a huge group after a real long time. I lost money in almost all the games except the last game in which I made some profit too(the stakes were higher in this one). The party finally finished at 4 45 AM the next day(it was the time when I bid adieu to the last of the guests).

So far, everything looked fine. But, our troubles started the next day when we had to do the cleaning of utensils, glasses and the whole flat all over again. The cook, who promised to visit us the next day, was nowhere to be seen and again all my friends had to go to office. It took us(me) almost two days to clean the whole mess one-by-one(we made plans to finish everything off in phases). Now, we are almost back to normal(hey, where’s my tiny aquarium which used to be right next to my laptop?).

Next big thing during these holidays was my unwanted shopping. My stupid shopping list included a 256 GB external hard disk, a 10.1 mega pixel CASIO digital camera, an electronic shaver(all are on discounted prices) etc. The main reason why this shopping is called unwanted is because I don’t really need any of these items and the second reason is this shopping was done when I was really running low on cash.

And yesterday, it was the Indian night at the Nation’s Art Festival here in Bahrain. I was very much depressed with that program because out of some 15 events during the night, only 5 or 6 really depicted the true Indian culture. Only Andhra Pradesh and Assam did their part well in depicting their culture. All other events are Bollywood based dances. But believe me, it was too hard to hold a handycam steady for long with the cold wind blowing hard at you.

Well folks, this is what happened during my absence from the Bloggerville. Will be around from now on.

Mumbai seize

2008-11-30T04:07:00.000-08:00

Everyone of you might have known about the siege of Taj and Oberoi hotels in Mumbai. You might have read about this issue in many of the blogs out here. It’s sad to hear that more than 200 innocent people and policemen died in this ghastly incident. The way in which the commandos and the army tried to take over the seized hotels and the Nariman Point, without much harm to the hostages, was really worth a salute. And it’s because of the unspoken heroics of the Taj Hotel staff that most of the guests are able to escape the hotel much before the bloodshed began. I read somewhere about the way a hotel employee came in the line of fire so that the hotel guests can escape unharmed.

I don’t want to write anything about the terrorists or their strategy or the failure of the government. All I want is to appeal to the terrorists is – “Brothers, we are also normal people like your family members and friends. We too deserve the right to live just like your people. What harm did we or our government do to you or to your people? Who told you that your people can live happily ever after, if you take the lives of innocent people?”.

Whoever might be responsible for this, every second person is blaming the government and Intelligence for this fateful incident. Particularly, it’s sad to see that every opposition leader is blaming the government for this incident.
Friends, it’s not time to blame others. It’s time for us to stay united and stand by the authorities to sort out the issue. Let’s not make the issue a political one. I appreciate the way in which NDTV brought us the live updates of the issue, particularly, for not airing any political remarks. In one of the snippet of their news, when Murassoli Maran, a prominent Congress Leader, while giving out some statement to the public about the issue, started to bring some political flavour to the issue, the channel simply cut off the transmission of that interview.

We are Indians and we are proud of it. Let us stand united and do all that we can do to bring peace to our country. For the first time in my life, I was angry with myself for not taking up the dream career of my childhood – to join the Indian army.

Btw, does anyone know anything about the great leader of Mumbai - Mr Raj Thackeray. I am sure that he still believes that he would have handled the hostage situation better than anyone else with his elite MNNS commandos.

Random ramblings

2008-11-25T01:12:00.000-08:00

There's nothing important to write in this post and also, I'm very busy in office these days, thanks to the rapidly shrinking free space on my server. So, this post will contain some random ramblings rather than some specific point.

1. Stopped eating ice creams. Frankly speaking(or writing), I can write a biggg post on this issue as ice creams are something dearer to me and they mean much more to me than an edible item.

2. Saw Dostana last week. I loved that movie(even though, I started feeling some weird sensation when my friends touch me). It was one of the best comedy movies of recent times. The chemistry between AB n JA was awesome. Btw, Priyanka Chopra was at her sexiest best.

3. Went to an ice cream shop next to my house, about a week back. Thought of eating one but later withdrew the idea because of sudden rush of calorie-consciousness. Looked around and found some hot samosas. Took half a dozen of them to my flat and as soon as I took a bite, I felt that there's something wrong. Instead of the normal curry inside the samosa, they kept cheese. This is what the people call "cheese samosa". And for this stupid thing, I gave up my fav ice cream...... :(

4. Daily, a couple of friends visit my flat(as they are paying guests at some family's house) and leave as soon as we finish dinner. The day before, they left normally and I got up at 5 AM feeling thirsty. To my horror, I saw that I didn't close the door the previous night after my frnds left. But thank God, nothing happened. My wallet, laptop, handycam, watches..... everything were in tact.

5. Is anyone following Indian Idol 4? Sonali Bendre's looking gorgeous in it.

6. There was this arabic guy in my gym, whom we consider as a decent arab. But last week, when one "big fat Indian gal"(I picked this from Kungfu Panda where our hero was called Big, Fat Panda) talked to him in the health club, he started showing his attitude. Too bad!!!!!

Well, I end my list here(so that no one blames me for the head-ache they got after reading this). Have a nice day.

Why I USED to love James Bond

2008-11-18T02:28:00.000-08:00

Being a guy who loves fantasies, action and adventure, I love the world of movies a lot. My favorite filmi characters range from a wide variety of roles donned by some real good actors/actresses. I sing along with them, play along with them, cry along with them and laugh along with them.

Being an adventure lover, I always had this soft corner for super-heroes and action heroes. My all time fav super-heroes are Spiderman and Superman(it’s another bitter truth that I love to see them in cartoons that movies). My list of fav action heroes are James Bond and Ethan Hunt(Mission Impossible series).

Coming to James Bond, I always had this fascination about that character and many times, I dreamt of being a real life Bond(blushing). I loved his style, his girls, his ways of flirting with girls(obviously he can flirt only with girls, I don’t like my fav to be a gay), his nerves of steel, his coolness, his dress sense, his gadgets – in fact, I adore the character of James Bond. As far as I can remember, the first Bond movie I’ve seen in theater was Tomorrow Never Dies. I’ve seen almost all the others (older ones) on TV/DVD later. Post “Tomorrow Never Dies”, all the new Bond movies are strictly first-day-first-show-in-theater.

But off late, the character of Bond, in his movies, is losing its originality. We noticed this change from his penultimate movie, Casino Royale, which is more like a love story than a spy thriller. In that film, Bond cries, pledges and do all that we don’t want him to do. And this change is apparent in the latest movie, Quantum of Solace. too. Believe me; I was terribly disappointed with this movie. Somehow, I felt that the previous movie was better than this one. Here are a few reasons why I don’t like this movie (as a Bond movie):

1. I don’t like the idea of Bond carrying out his revenge instead of his duty.
2. This movie doesn’t have any of his cheesy one liners like the famous introduction dialog “Bond, James Bond” and his “vodka martini, shaken but not stirred”.
3. No Aston Martin fitted with loads of weapons n state-of-the-art gadgets.
4. The climax doesn’t fit at all.
5. Many stunt sequences look as if they are lifted from earlier Bond movies.
6. Bond looked tired(even though his character required that look in this movie).
7. The latest Bond actor, Daniel Craig, is a strictly OK guy who can don the roles of the super-spy convincingly but definitely not with ease. He doesn’t have that manly look of Pierce Brosnan or Sean Connery.

These are only some of the flaws found by me(others may like them, but I don’t). Bond is made human in this movie and its predecessor. But do we really want to see a Bond who cries? After all, we want to be a Bond but we definitely don’t want Bond to be one among us!!!

Alvida season

2008-11-10T22:48:00.000-08:00

Hello folks, it seems to be retirement time for everyone. Be it in the Bloggerville or the real world. First of all, it was my dear blogger brother, Samby, who chose to be silent without any prior notice. And then it was one of my favorite blogger, Sneha, who decided to call it a day here. Believe me, I'll miss her posts terribly. But, I strongly believe that they chose to say alvida after giving it a lot of thought. All the best Sneha n Samby. And Keshi frightened me with those bubye hints, but thank God, nothing happened like that.

Well, coming to the other retirements in the real world, the news of Jumbo's retirement came as a blow to us(we were in office at that time). We never expected that out-of-the-blue from him. He was a great player, who helped India win many matches single-handedly. OK, I won't write much about him as you might have read about him recently in many blogs.

Coming to the central theme of this post, it's about the man who changed the whole Indian scenario of Modern Cricket. Ya, you guessed it right. It's Savrav Ganguly, the most successful Indian Test captain of all time. It was him, who made cricket look like war(I hope all you heard those cries of victory at the famous NatWest trophy finale), it was him who brought the team under one shade after the infamous match fixing allegations, it was him who showed the world how a captain must think(I strongly believe that he brought Yuvraj, Bhajji, Dhoni n co into limelight).

Ok, now you think that am a die-hard fan of Dada(as fondly called fans). No, you are mistaken. There were days when we used to fight in college about who's great: Sachin or Saurav. I always took Sachin's side. In fact, at some point of my life, I used to hate Dada. But slowly, I started enjoying his batting. I understood his emotions, liked this tactics, savored those moments when he used to take room on the leg side n slashed the ball to the off side - I enjoyed everything. I remember those days when I used wait for spinners to take the ball and Dada take on the spinners.

Now you may ask, why am I bothered about his retirement if I'm not a great fan of his? The truth is, I come from times when children used to grow watching Sachin, Saurav, Dravid and Jumbo win matches for India. The Indian Cricket team doesn't make any sense to me if none of them are present in the team. Now, already, two of the above four people announced their retirement. And Dravid is running through a very bad phase and we may hear his retirement news soon. And Sachin, the run machine fights on.

ALL THE BEST, DADA. YOU MADE WATCHING CRICKET A PLEASURE.

You can check this link for the career highs n lows of Dada and this link for the overall statistics of Ganguly's career.

Btw, did I mention that I cried when I read about Pete Sampras' retirement?

Ramblings

2008-11-03T03:00:00.000-08:00

My blogger account had been screwing me from yesterday. I was not able to access my blog but I was able to read and comment on all other blogs. It was saying something like "403 forbidden - your query resembles a virus threat.... blah blah". At last, it allowed me in now and I don't want to leave this opportunity to blabber something here. Put on your seat belts n get ready for a bumpy ride.

1. Last Thursday, I went for a indoor football tournament with a severe headache - just because my roomie's playing in it. It was so boring that I stated playing games on my mobile and everyone was looking at me in a weird way.

2. After a long long time, we went for a real longggg shopping to the newly opened City Centre. It was on last Friday. We were walking that day for a little more than 7 hours without having a seat!!!! I bought a couple of three fourths n a track pant in Lee Cooper(they were offering a flat 50% discount).

3. The climate began to change in this desert country. It's getting cold these days. The same Friday night, I had a couple of pegs of Glenlevit(it was an awesome single malt whiskey); went out for a little walk around midnight; had an ice cream; sat at the entrance of my apartment thinking about my past, present n future; helped a kid retrieve her balloon(that family's just returning back from shopping, I guess) and the way she said "Thank You, uncle" was sooo chweet. Overall, that night was pretty eventful.

4. Saw "Heroes" and loved the movie. It's a commercial patriotic movie with a novel theme but the movie seemed to drag a little bit. Had they shortened the movie by about 30 minutes, it would have been accepted by all classes of audience. For the first time, I loved Sohail Khan's performance. But the real bad thing is, I had to watch this movie outside India.

5. Ferrari's Felipe Massa lost the Formula1 championship by a whisker. The prerequisites for him to win the coveted crown are he should come first and McLaren's Lewis Hamilton should not come in a place better than 6th. Massa did his best and he came first and for a few seconds, everyone thought that he won the championship and there were celebrations in the Ferrari dugout. After almost 38 seconds(after Massa crossed the finish line), Hamilton dramatically overtook Toyota's Timo Glock for the fifth place and won the crown by a mere one point. Bad luck, Ferrari. Let's give it our best shot in the next season.

So friends, these are my random ramblings from the past few days. Will b back with something meaningful in the next couple of days(Blogger.com allows me to login).

Blood donation

2008-10-27T23:57:00.000-07:00

After coming to Bahrain, I got smitten by a few qualities, one of which being the "Blood Donation" bug. So far, in my two year stay in Bahrain, I've donated it 5 times. I know that it's not a big deal, but considering the fact that I've never donated blood during my stay in India, this is some achievement for me. A picture of mine, donating blood at a blood camp arranged in my office, came in an Arabic newspaper too.

However, the real reason behind this post is not to brag about me donating blood. I noticed that many healthy people around me(some close friends too) just brushed off the very thought of donating blood citing different reasons. Some said they are weak(one of them looks like a goon), some said they are under medication(I know well that the only medicine they take is alcohol) and some just because they are scared. I tried to encourage them(not bullying) and educate them, even though it's up to them to decide, in vain.

What else is a better medium these days than a blog to educate people? So I gathered some valuable information on net which might help you in knowing the importance and myths of blood donation.

Some interesting facts about blood and blood donation:

1. There is no substitute for human blood.
2. Much of today's medical care depends on a steady supply of blood from healthy donors.
3. Every two seconds someone needs blood.
4. Anyone who is in good health, is at least 17 years old, and weighs at least 110 pounds may donate blood every 56 days.
5. Only a maximum of 470ml of blood is taken at one session, which is just less than a pint.
6. Giving blood will not decrease your strength.
7. You cannot get AIDS or any other blood disease by donating blood.
8. After donating blood, you replace your red blood cells within three to four weeks. However, takes four to six weeks to restore the iron lost after donating.

The need for donating blood might be well understood by the fact that Statistics indicate that everybody will need blood(from a donor) in some way or the other. The approximate amount of blood needed in various incidents is as per below:

1. One cancer patient can use up to 8 units of blood each week.
2. One leukemia patient can use up to 2 units each day while waiting for a bone marrow transplant
3. One sickle cell anemia patient can use up to 4 units each treatment.
4. One organ transplant can take up to 40 units of blood (a liver transplant can use up to 100 units!).
5. One heart bypass surgery can use up to 5 units of blood.
6. One bleeding ulcer can use up to 30 units of blood.
7. One hip replacement can use up to 5 units of blood.
8. One brain surgery can use up to 10 units of blood.
9. One auto accident or gunshot/stab wound victim can use up to 50 units of blood.

I get a happy n content smile on my face when I remember about my last blood donation. The reason behind that happiness is just because of the simple fact that I helped in saving someone's life. I'll be more happy if this post helps you to understand the need for donating blood.

The great EID weekend

2008-10-20T06:54:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking of posting this one for the past two weeks, but due to lack of time n interest, I kept on postponing it. But, I realized later that the sooner this is posted, the better for me(so that I can't carry on all these details in my tiny brain). Well, let's start.

Many of you might have enjoyed the Ramadan holiday early this month. Being in a Muslim country, we got 5 days holidays during that time(3 days for the festival and 2 days for the weekend). It's rare to get holidays like this in this part of the world and hence, we decided to enjoy them to the core. We started to draft plans and finally, came up with none solid enough to satisfy our enthusiasm. All we can think of, at that moment, was a small island called Al Dar, which me n my batch left unexplored. So, here's a brief description about all the nasty things we did in those 5 days.

Day 1: As planned, we went to the Al Dar Island, with a small group of friends(usual batch). It was not a great place to hang out, but we had enough fun there(we believe in lighting up the roads we travel). As soon as we got down, we ran into the water and with a jerk, found out that everyone in the batch got their feet cut by the sharp rocks and by the time, we realized the pain, it was too late. We then played cricket(the West Indian one - in the sand), where I was the top scorer. The good thing is my team won and the bad thing is I sprained my shoulder while hitting a six. Then we played volley ball in the water(awesome) and had some drought beer(which was awesome too) and had a tasty buffet. We, then, got back into our usual photo sessions by giving some weird poses(i'll keep only li'l weird poses here). Because of all this, by the time we reached our respective houses, everyone was so tired that we canceled all the plans for the evening and called it a day.
We read in news papers after 4 days that the boat which was taking tourists to the Al Dar Island capsized and luckily a patrol boat rescued all the people.

Day 2: This was a day of mixed emotions for all of us. Here, in Middle East, normally Hindi movies release one day prior to the Indian release. So, Drona was released here and we were excited a lot about the movie(one reason for me being so excited is this movie's directed by Goldie Behl, my dream girl Sonali's husband) and we all ran off to the first show itself. Believe me, I didn't see such a bad movie like Drona in recent times. It was dumbass, right from the word GO. The background score was the only thing which was good.
In the evening, we attended a felicitation function to Mr S P Balasubramanyam(one of my fav singers). He's such a down-to-earth person and the speech he gave that night was one of the best I've heard in my life.

Day 3: This day, we thought of doing something out of box and finally decided to go on a long drive into the desert. We took some parcels of Hyderabadi Biriyani and water with us and took off. As usual, we started with taking photos everywhere and then had our lunch as it was too late in the afternoon by the time we started. Then, the real fun started. We lost our way while coming back and we kept on going rounds n rounds in the desert. Of course, there are roads everywhere, but what's the use of them if there are no signboards(directions, to be precise). Just after an hour or so, we got into the highway, somehow. I was thankful for my roommate who made sure that the fuel tank was full, before starting.

That evening, we went to Bahrain City Center(you might've heard about Dubai city Center). It was opened quite recently and we had a good time bird-watching there.

Day 4: A Telugu couple invited us for lunch today, which we accepted with glee. They took the pain to cook lots n lots of dishes. We all ate so much that I had tough time walking back even to the car and postponed our evening plans. I had a sound sleep and then we went to Adhari Park. But it was so crowded that we can do is to walk through the park and come back making a note of what ride to get on, the next time we come here.

Day 5: I was alone today, as all of my friends had to go to work and so I decided to spend it for myself. Read a few magazines, prepared a few chapters for GMAT and then saw a couple of Black n White Telugu movies. They were fun to watch with all those sword-fights n weird dances of the hero.

So, this was how my loooooongggggg weekend went.

An important update: Please don't watch Max Payne. This was the most boring English movie of the recent times. It turned out to be "Max Pain" just like Ceedy Bhai predicted.

Twenty Questions Tag

2008-10-13T03:34:00.000-07:00

Tagged by Ceedy.

RULE #1 People who have been tagged must write their answers on their blogs and replace any question that they dislike with a new question formulated by themselves.

RULE #2 Tag 6 people to do this quiz and those who are tagged cannot refuse. These people must state who they were tagged by and cannot tag the person whom they were tagged by continue this game by sending it to other people.

Note: 12 is the one I introduced.

1. If your lover betrayed you, what will your reaction be?
Follow Aamir Khan's golden words from the movie, ISHQ. They are something like Ladki, Rail aur Bus ek hi jaisi hai. Ek gaya toh dusra jaroor aayegaa.
Frankly speaking, I never know what I'll do if some situation like this arises, as I never had any similar experience before. And it's too worst to imagine also.

2. If you can have a dream come true, what would it be?
A backpacker's trip around the world.

3. Whose butt would you like to kick?
Everyone, who made my life go this way. And believe me, I'll kick just like this:

4. Why do you blog?
Just to make my virtual life interesting, as my real life sucks sometimes.

5. Will you fall in love with your best friend?
Never ever. Can't imagine that situation. And also, most of the girls in my best n good friends list are married.

6. Which is more blessed: loving someone or being loved by someone?
People say that the latter option is the best. But I was loved by the person who was loved by me. So I never knew the difference.

7. How long do you intend to wait for someone you love?
Long enough, if I had the confidence that the person will return to me.

8. If the person you secretly like is attached, what will you do?
Nothing. Just because, it breaks many hearts n lives if I do anything.

9. If you could root for one social cause, what would it be?
Fight against corruption n poverty. I had some plans for the future about fight against corruption but poverty is something which's yet to be thought.

10. What takes you down the fastest?
A roller coaster, I suppose

11. What resurrects you the fastest?
Anything interesting

12. What’s your strength?
My frankness and sense of humor.

13. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?
Arey yaar, mein apne bade bhaiya ke baare mein kaise batawoon. Woh toh Chintan Maharaj hain.

14. Would you rather be single and rich or married and poor?
Being single and rich is a good idea as long as u get all the love you crave for in marriage.

15. Whats the purpose of such Tags?
Piling up posts in blogs.

16. If you fall in love with two people simultaneously who will you pick?
Gharwali - Baharwali nahin dhekha kyaa?
Anyways, this is some weird situation which'll never happen in my life. After all, if you love someone, you should love him/her in such a way that there's no more love left in you to share with some other person too.

17. Would you give all in a relationship?
Giving up every relation for one relation is not a good idea, right?

18. Would you forgive and forget someone no matter how horrible a thing he has done?
Forgave many people like this. After all, what'll we get by holding a grudge against him/her?

19. Do you prefer being single or in a relationship?
I prefer to be in a relationship, just as Ceedy wrote Grass's always greener on the other side.

20. Tag 6 people.
Phew, toughest question of all. Ok, here goes the list:
Keerthi, KK, Anvita a.k.a Princess Mia, Broca's area, Sree and Swathi.

A feel-good movie and a sad good-bye

2008-10-08T04:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening, I was too lazy to do anything and started doing my favorite time pass - watching TV. As usual, I was flipping through channels(believe me, remote control tops my list of wonderful gadgets). After a couple of rounds through all that exhausting list, I stopped at Star Movies on seeing Russell Crowe's face. He was one of my list of good actors, thanks to Gladiator.

I saw 5 minutes of the movie and slowly started liking it. I didn't switch the channel till the movie finished(which's quite surprising for me) and for the first time in my life, I saw even the whole ending credits of the movie. It was just because, I don't know the name of the movie. And at last, there it was - A GOOD YEAR. You can find the plot and details about it in this site.

The movie is a feel-good one with simple storyline and awesome screenplay. I liked it maybe because it's been quite sometime since I saw something without violence.

A small update: There was this dialog in the movie which I liked but I can't agree with it and even the protagonist(who says it) disagrees with it at the end. It goes something like this - "Money isn't everything. It's the only thing".

Coming to the second part of this post's title, it's about the retirement news of Saurav Ganguly. I somehow felt very bad to hear the news of his abrupt retirement even though he was never in my good books. This issue of the Fab Four's retirement just shows the monopoly of BCCI. Whatever it might be, all the best for the days ahead, Saurav.

F1 - Singapore Grand Prix

2008-10-05T02:21:00.000-07:00

I knew it. And now, most of you also might have noticed it. For those who didn't notice it, let me tell you what it is. It is the truth that I've been so lazy in Bloggerville these days. I promise you that I'll be back to normal soon. Now, soon means very soon. Anyways, let me get back to my crap.

It was around 9 years back, when I was first introduced to the world of F1. I was mesmerized by all those mean machines at the first look itself. Right from that moment, I was an ardent fan of Ferrari, thanks to Michael Schumacher(aka. Schumi). It was my dream to watch a race on the track and this year, it was fulfilled at the Bahrain GP.

I try my best to not to miss a race, if at all I don’t have office during the race. But I never bunked office for F1(except for the Bahrain GP). But last week, I left office early to catch the Singapore GP. It was because of the fact that this race is the first night race in the history of F1. There were lot of expectations from the track.

As usual, being a bit lazy, I missed the first couple of minutes of the race. The track promised a lot, as overtaking was a bit tough on this one. I fell in love with the track, until the safety car intervened. My fav for the title contender, Felipe Massa of the Ferrari team, became a zero from hero within a few seconds. He was leading the race when the safety car intervened and had to join at the end of the pack of the cars. His(and my) hopes further crashed when he got off to a horrendous start at the pits with the fuel pipe still attached to the car, thanks to the green light. He was awarded a 10 second penalty and had to fall back further.

By now, I lost interest in the race but continued to watch for McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen. But Kimi smashed everyone’s hopes by crashing in the final laps. And Fernando Alonso had won the race, despite starting the race from 15th position.

Overall, the race was a good one with a few great moments, like Hamilton overtaking
David Coulthard. But, sincerely, I felt that the safety car rules should be modified after witnessing what happened to the race leader, Felipe Massa. There are still 3 more races left in the season and there’s a 7 point difference between the championship leader, Lewis Hamilton and the second placed Massa which means that Massa has to win at least one race with a big margin. Let’s wish all the best for the red team.

Image Courtesy: The Official site for Formula One

My India trip

2008-09-22T05:17:00.000-07:00

We, the Indians working outside India, look forward for annual vacations more than anything else(at least I’m like that). So far, I’ve been to India 4 times on vacation. But this vacation has been the most happening for me. One major reason might be my sister’s marriage while the other might be because I got to explore rural India more than my previous outings. Some of the highlights of this vacation are:
1. I spent more than 3 whole days of my 3 weeks vacation in trains (my favorite mode of transport).
2. I met a policeman who shares his lunch box with an old beggar daily. He told me that he wants to take that old lady to his house but his wife doesn’t agree for that.
3. Drank tea prepared with fresh milk (the buffalo was milked just before me) at a relative’s house in a village.
4. Plucked some guavas at the same village and ate them without even washing them. I even saw some people making curries from the vegetables which grew in their backyard there.
5. I went to Hampi, in Karnataka, for a day’s visit. I never knew that the historic city is such a beautiful sight. It was really an engineering marvel. I felt that it’s one of those must-see-places in India.
6. I met a mother who feels that kids should not be scolded for some wrong thing which they do. She says that if you scold them for doing so, they’ll be more inclined to do so in future. You might feel what’s special in me writing this. But I was awestruck when she was laughing at her 3 year old kid who was shouting very bad words at everyone.
These might not seem to be of great importance to you, but I found some difference in them. Something that we are not used to. Anyways, I now sign off to be back tomorrow in the Bloggerville to read some more of your blog posts.

Back to Blogger n Bahrain

2008-09-10T04:40:00.000-07:00

It rained in Hyderabad on Monday evening. The sky was cloudy from the morning, alerting people that there's lot of rain to pour down. It started as a slow drizzle which was welcomed by everyone on the road. And then after some 30 minutes, it started raining cats & dogs (well, I've never seen one falling down the sky). It rained heavily for some 90 minutes, making a lot of pools on the roads(Hyderabad became like Mumbai when it rains). Everyone enjoyed the pleasant weather, but the aftermath of that downpour was very bad. There were traffic jams everywhere; shops were closed because of the wind; there were power failures etc. But life became normal slowly after a few hours.

I wrote all this just to say that my vacation was almost same as the above situation. I was aware from the past few months that I was going on vacation in mid August, just like the people were aware of the rain before hand. My vacation started normally, without much happening in the first week, just like it drizzled before the downpour for 30 minutes. My vacation changed its look two days before my sister's marriage and I was extremely busy for 10 days. It was only in the last few days of my vacation that I sat leisurely at home and enjoyed mom's cooking. Just like the aftermath of the rain, my condition is very bad now(after returning from India). I feel solitary, deserted etc.

Well friends, I'm back to Bahrain yesterday morning. Straight to work from airport. Felt sick as I didn't sleep for more than a couple of hours during Sunday and Monday. Had a sound sleep yesterday night after taking a couple of pegs of fine Scotch whiskey(well, it has been an alcohol-free-vacation). There's loads of work awaiting me at the office and my flat badly needs a makeover. So, it'll not be soon that I write more on my blog or check out all your blogs. Please pardon me if I miss some of your posts(I am sure that lots of posts are awaiting me in your blogs). I may start visiting all your blogs from next week.

For Pavi, who kept forward her concern about my mobile number in my blog, "Pavi, that number doesn't work now. It'll wake up the next time I come to India".

Taking a short break

2008-08-18T09:54:00.000-07:00

Will be out of Bloggerville for a few days(err... weeks). Am now in India for my sister's marriage. It's on 24th of this month. So, being the lone brother, I've to carry some works on my shoulders(OK, I've to act so even if I don't do them). For some friends in the Bloggerville whom I'm not able to inform about my absense personally, I am leaving my Indian mobile number(temporary) here. It's +91-9704159560. Feel free to call me anytime, except at midnight. I'll be India for 3 weeks(my company nearly died n died to sanction me this leave). Let's hope that they don't call me back before the completion of this 3 weeks!!!!! Bye bye, folks.

Money sucks

2008-08-13T05:18:00.000-07:00

Sometime back, I wrote this post. These days, I was feeling angry(in fact, very very angry) on the guy who invented money. OK, forget about getting hold of him/her, I know that I can’t even get the name of the guy but am still very angry on him. All these days, I believed in everyone and everything and I was thinking like human relations (friendship, love etc) were above all these money matters. Let me tell you what's wrong with me.

There was this childhood friend(say A) who left his job because of some personal reasons. I know guy from about 15 whole years. He needed some financial help to do some course that helps his career growth and I helped him readily. This was about a year back. He still talks big but never got into any job(I never know the reasons why). This guy called me some weeks back and asked me for ten thousand rupees. I told that I don’t have the money with me as I sent to my parents and he was a bit late. This guy started pleading with me and told me that this was his life and death issue and he needs money urgently to repay some debt. I was stupid enough to fall for those words and told him that I’ll arrange it somehow. This guy told me that he’ll repay this in a couple of weeks. I asked a close friend(say some X) to pay A that money. I told A that even X was in some financial crisis as he bought some flat and he should pay X this money in a couple of weeks as promised.

I completely forgot about this issue after some days. After a few weeks(maybe after more than a month), I wanted to call A to ask him to recharge my Indian mobile number as the validity date was fast approaching. He never answered my call even though I called him some 20 times on the same day. I was a stupid enough to start worrying about his health and safe condition. He was not even replying to my repeated mails. It was then that I remembered this money issue. I mailed him a bit severely about this and he replied about a week later saying that some relative died and he went there, leaving his mobile in Hyderabad. He returned just the other day and saw my missed calls(???) and mails. He said that he’ll return that money to X in a week. It’s about 3 weeks since he promised to do so and now, there’s again no response when I tried to call him yesterday.

I paid X that money yesterday evening, but I was thinking what the hell should I do to this guy, A. I believed him completely and he played with my confidence in him. Is this the way to show your gratitude to someone who was your friend for 15 years? Now, as a result, I started doubting everyone around me. I know it’s not good to do so but my mind is so fucked up with this double crossing that I can’t do anything else.

Flickr Tag

2008-08-05T01:53:00.000-07:00

This is the picture mosaic tag that's been going round the Bloggerville for quite a few days. Seems to the most happening tag, as I can this tag being taken up every third person. So, as a humble follower of other bloggers, I too take it up.

Here are the rules:

1. Type your answer for each of the questions into Flickr search.
2. Using only the 1st page of the results, choose one random image.
3. Copy and paste the URLs of each of the images into Big Huge Lab's Mosaic Maker to create a mosaic of the chosen pictures.

And the questions are:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food right now?
3. Which high school did you attend?
4. Which is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. What is your favorite drink?
7. What is your dream vacation?
8. What is your favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. What is one word that describes you?
12. What is your user name?

The resulting picture for my answers to the above questions is:

Well, the answers might not relate much to the picture. I found some interesting, funny and completely irrelevant pictures in Flickr, which I put up here. The answers are:
1. Satish, as you all know.
2. Ice cream. The picture's funny, right?
3. SSVP Public School, Visakhapatnam.
4. Black. I don't know why I liked this bird pic but I liked it.
5. Sonali Bendre. I just love her.
6. Fresh Lime water. So refreshing.
7. Europe. I don't know the country in this picture but I liked it.
8. Strawberry Mousse. Ate it recently n loved it.
9. A good Samaritan.
10. Friends.
11. Simple.
12. There are no matches for my username, Satish Bolla. So I put up a picture with tag word "none".

Happy Friendship Day

2008-08-03T04:51:00.000-07:00

I read somewhere that LIFE can termed as a journey where the co-passengers are your family members, relatives, friends etc. But the most important of these co-passengers will be friends(for anyone). Also, I saw in some movie that you can't decide who your
parents/relatives are going to be but you can decide who can be your friends/lovers. That's the beauty of friendship.
Just imagine the world without any friends. Well, I can't even try to do so. It's been friends who were there with me throughout every up and down of my life. They were the people who were giving me morale boost when I lost her, when I was in search of a job, in fact every important phase of my life.
It was my neighbors when I small enough to stay away from school, it was classmates when I was in school/college, it was other job seekers whom I met at interviews when am in job search, it was colleagues when I got myself a job, it was Indians when I came all the way to Bahrain - but no matter whoever they are, they gave me their best and they got my best in return. After all, what's in friendship if we don't share things with friends which we are unwilling to share with any others?
If it was these people who were my friends in my real life, it was all of you in my virtual life here at Bloggerville. I wouldn't have lasted here if it was not for you who were patient enough to read all my stupid posts. Thanks for being patient.
I thank GOD for giving me all of you, and you also know that we, Indians, drink PEPSI a lot and so we believe in the motto "YEH DIL MAANGE MORE". So I ask GOD to shower more of his blessings on you all.

HAPPY FRIENDSHIP DAY TO YOU ALL.

These are best of friends whom you'll ever find(everybody has their own captions, right?)

Update: My friendship day finished with a couple of Margaritas and some sea food at a Chinese restaurant. How was yours?

The Dark Knight

2008-07-28T04:43:00.000-07:00

Most of you know that am an ardent lover of movies. I love the world of fantasy as I already know how tough the real world is. Well, enough of crap. I love superhero movies a lot, in particular, Spiderman movies. Next comes Superman. Batman was always my last hero as I saw his movies in my childhood and was unable to understand anything. Batman's movies always revolve around some story which was hard for me at that age to understand.
I saw the headline grabbing movie, The Dark Knight(TDK), last weekend. I think the last time I saw a Batman movie was way back when I'm in School or Junior College(in one of those movies, Alicia Silverstone plays the BatGirl and I saw that movie solely for her). One of my friends saw TDK the day before I saw it and told me that the movie was OK and he was not able to understand some part of the story. So I was in a dilemma whether to watch it or not. But staying away from the theater for a week was a bit tough task for me these days, so I decided to go ahead with the plans(I was ready to watch any crap after I saw The Happening).
Believe me, I felt that TDK was one of the wonderful superhero movie ever made. Batman became an overnight hero in my world of fantasy. It was more like a drama than a superhero movie(I think most of the Batman movies are like that). The viewer is always in the grip of the narration, right from the start to the end.
The storyline is simple. I'll not write much of it as some of you doesn't want it to be leaked before you watch it. The capped crusader, Batman, was fighting the organized crime in the Gotham City and he want to call it a day as soon as the city is free of any sort of crime. He feels that the new District Attorney, Harvey Dent, might be the hero the society needs than someone like him. Harvey Dent grabs the attention of the society, Batman and even Batman's love interest with his dynamic deeds. Meanwhile, a new evil starts rising in the city's underworld. This villain is none other than the classic Joker. Joker wants all the hell to break loose in the Gotham City but he wants to do it his way. He makes the citizens turn against Batman for the cost of their safety. The rest of the story is about the fight between the good and the evil.
Coming to the performances, Christian Bale is back to don the role of Batman once again and he carries it off with ease. But it was Heath Ledger who steals the show as The Joker. Playing Joker wasn't a simple business as Joker is termed as the toughest villain ever faced by Batman. Heath Ledger simply awesome and it was hard to believe that it was Heath Ledger in front of us, but not the Joker. It was sad to hear that such a talented actor committed suicide. Another surprise package is Aaron Eckhart. He also played the role of Harvey Dent/Two-Face with lots of promise. Morgan Freeman was OK with one of his "usual" roles. The girl who played Rachel Dawes also did a good job but it would've been good if that role is donned by someone more pretty.
The narration of the movie was simply superb, as stated earlier. The special effects were OK, if not super. The Batmobile is as robust as ever, however, it was the Batpod that steals the show from the Batmobile. I liked the scene where Batman runs into a wall on his Batpod after pulling by Joker's truck.
I rate this movie 4.5 out of 5. It was worth a watch if you are someone who goes by the plot rather than the special effects. Finally, I sign off with the dialog of the movie which Joker tells to a mob member: "If you are good at something, never do it for free".

A hint of sadness followed by lots of happiness

2008-07-23T05:08:00.000-07:00

Friends, time's flying by fast and still I can't find much time to get back into full action in the Bloggerville. Neither could I post anything on my blog nor can I comment on others blogs(as frequently as I used to). But I'm visiting some blogs whenever I find time and I promise to visit the rest ASAP. Now, here are some ramblings on mine:
1. I feel sad as I've been pretty busy at office, not finding time for my usual routines. Sometimes, I'm not having time to at least take my daily cup of tea in office(I drink it only once a day but now...). But I'm happy because, being this much busy is just increasing my importance in office. And the good part is everybody started noticing this.
2. I feel sad for being away from the Bloggerville. But immediately when I open my blog, I'm happy because of you, who are taking the pains of visiting it and commenting on it. Thanks for remembering me.
3. I feel sad when I look at the piling DVDs(pending ones) at my home. But I felt happy last week, when I picked up from the pile and saw the cartoon movie, Tarzan & Zane. I loved the movie. I liked one particular dialog which Terk(Tarzans' chimp friend) tells to his elephant buddy: "I don't believe in those who wear clothes". You've to see it to feel it.
4. I was sad when it was her b'day, about ten days back. But later for some unknown reasons, I felt that this year, the sadness was less than that of the previous years. Sounds good to me as I never wanted to feel sad for her demise, I just want to hold on to my love.
Ok folks, will be back soon.

B'day weekend

2008-07-13T03:51:00.000-07:00

Hi folks, hope u r all okie. I was busy for the past few days with work. There were a couple of trainees who came for the project/field work, whom I had to train in my domain. All these clubbed together shortened or negated my visits to the Bloggerville. Today, I took a small break from work and thought saying you a small HI and a big thanks for making my b'day wonderful with all those warm wishes. And please read through the below content only if you are free(it contains nothing but my b'day weekend details).
As most of you know, my b’day was on last week. I was awaiting it with lot of enthusiasm and eagerness (don’t know the reasons why). So, at last, it came as silently as any other day. I started it by cutting a cake brought by my friends at midnight. I felt so happy when I had my first glance at the cake. Please check the pic below to find out why. Then we went to a hyderabadi restaurant and had some biriyani.
The next morning (on my b’day), we all woke up late as all of us slept late. In fact, I didn’t sleep for more than a couple of hours as I was attending calls from all over the world (everyone was thinking that it’ll be morning here as soon as the sun rises at their place and hence, totally fucked up my sleep). Then we went to a temple after a lot of days. I was thinking to go to the temple for more than a month but it was not possible for some or the other reason. Then, we bought parcels from a vegetarian restaurant(this has some reputation in this place but we never visited it). So, we all ate lunch and again slept in the afternoon and got up late in the evening. Then, with some more friends, we all went to Hancock. It was an OK movie. Hilarious one but got wavered in the last 15 or 20 minutes and screwed up the whole movie. Then went to a bar and gulped down a beer each.
The next day was an awesome one. Felt quite lazy in the morning because of the lack of sleep on the previous day. Afternoon had lunch at my colleagues’ place and again slept. In the evening, I took four kids(children of my colleagues) to an awesome movie, Kungfu Panda. Loved every frame of it. I recommend it every one of you. Maybe the company of the kids made me enjoy the movie a lot more.
So, this was how my b’day weekend went.

So sweet, right?

Cake cutting(in a typical tapori style)

My roomie

My Junior

My friend

After having a cake face-pack

The B'day bumps turned out to be like this

The veggie lunch we had on my b'day

Am I childish???

2008-07-03T02:53:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, as you all know, there was grand final of the EURO cup. My roomie asked me whether an acquaintance of him can drop over to our flat to watch the match. I said OK as this person had already been there for a cricket match before. He was an elderly person in his fifties. So, this person came in the night, just before the match. We played cards, had a couple of beers and cheered for Russia. But the Russians, apparently, didn't hear our cheers and lost the match.
Then, we were cleaning our dishes and each guy had to clean his plate. Our elderly visitor went to the kitchen and washed his plate and somehow fumbled with a glass that was not supposed to be there. It was my favorite glass which I've been using for the past one year or so. I don't know why it's my favorite but I love it so much that I never drank any alcohol in it. All I used it for, is to drink juices, that too very rarely. Our guy simply broke the glass and came mumbling to the hall. As soon as I heard the sound of the breaking glass, I suspected the worst and rushed to find by priceless glass shattered to pieces. I was very angry on that person but couldn't do anything as he was my roomie's guest. The same guy didn't flush the toilet the next morning. I got up, as usual, at around 6AM to get ready for office and found that the toilet was stinking. My anger turned to hatred for that person when I coupled this incident and the last night's. Then this thought of me behaving like a child came into my mind, as I'm never like this. I'm soft, most of the times and was surprised by this change of behavior.
Then, just the day before, after reaching home from office, I found that one of my goldfish died without any warning. Ever since I lost my other gold fish about two months back, I was keeping the tank clean, feeding them in time(sometimes, skipping some parties just to be sure that my fish are fed), in fact, doing everything for long life. Now, suddenly, this one died and I started crying like a child who lost his pet. I didn't go to my usual workouts in gym, I didn't call my home as promised. The whole day was dull and gloomy for me. Another incident which made me feel as if I'm too possessive like a child.
Then yesterday, I saw this cartoon movie called "Tarzan 2". I bought this DVD more than a couple of months back but had no time or interest to watch this one. But, I loved every frame of it. Even though, I enjoyed many movies like this, this childishness thought made me wonder whether is this also the act of childishness?
I thought and thought about this and then came to a conclusion that this might be because of the reason that my b'day is just a few hours away. Upon further pulling-of-hair, I was sure that this is the reason. So friends, wish me on the occasion of my successful completion of 26 years of life with all those regular ups and downs. It was my dream to touch the coveted 100 mark and so, all of you please wish me all the best for the next 74 years too.
Btw, they celebrate my b'day in US too, but with a different name of the American Independence Day. But who cares about the name, all that matters for me is whether all those friends in US got holidays on my b'day or not.
Meanwhile, enjoy these cool cartoons about being childish. You don't need to be a child to laugh at these.

One hour

2008-06-29T00:12:00.000-07:00

I had a childhood friend who was my best best friend and partner-in-crime most of the times. This chap is settled in the US of A for quite sometime. We talk often on the cheesiest invention of all-time, the mobile.

Last night, I returned from a farewell party at around 11 30PM and thought of giving him a call to say "hi". We started talking about our schooling days, love affairs, marriage plans, movies, this, that etc. I paused in the middle to see the time and the display of the mobile showed 1:02:37 as the duration of the call. I felt as if we just started talking but.... I've to hang up the call as it was already around 12 45AM and I've to wake up at 05 30AM to be able to reach office in time.

All I can say is "Friendship rocks". We never feel bored to talk with friends.

Lost Paradise

2008-06-23T22:18:00.000-07:00

Had nothing much to write. So decided to pen down my weekend. Here it goes.

I was looking forward for the weekend throughout last week as I was very very stressed up in work. A friend came up with the idea of visiting a water-theme park. Overall, the weekend was fun, except for the movies I've watched.

It started with me coming late from office, catching a small nap before going for a Telugu movie, Bujjigaadu. These days, Telugu movies are so rare here that we started watching whatever comes to theater for the fear of the theater guy stopping bringing movies if the collections are dull. The movie is not bad but at the same time, not good. End of Thursday.

Friday morning, we went to Lost Paradise, a water based theme park. It was long drive from my place(not so long as most of the people in US say) and en route, we missed a terrible accident. I was filming the roads n the surroundings on my handycam(hey, did I tell you that I bought a new handycam, Sony DCRSR65, about a month back?) and my roomie was driving. He wanted me to shoot some place where am not concentrating and all of us in the car were looking in that direction. Suddenly we turned front and there it was - a L turn with a big ditch a few feet away from us. Good that my roomie was alert enough to avoid it, otherwise, everyone would be shouting by now "Satish Bolla, amar rahe".

Anyways, we reached the park just a little late(which always happens) than the pre-decided time. There, there were different types of rides(I don't know the exact word for those, but you can see them in the videos) which we enjoyed a lot. The only problem was to get to the top of those. It's frustrating when you have to climb 3 or 4 floors n then you free fall from there, in a few seconds. Anyways, the pain is worth it. Even though I don't know how to swim, I enjoyed to the fullest. There, you need guts more than swimming skills, which we all had tons n tons of it. Also, there's no need for you to swim except in the wave pool, which I managed with a life-jacket.

There were quite a few phirangis in bikinis which our batch enjoyed to the fullest with our eyes. Overall, the whole trip was fun. It was around 7 PM when we returned home. We had a movie plan then but we dropped it later as some friends complained of body pains.

Saturday was a holiday for me but it was a working day for most of my friends. By the time I woke up, my roomie left for his office. So I woke up and started cleaning the flat(it's been a while since I cleaned it). Then I washed some clothes n went out for breakfast. The rest of the day was spent playing Need For Speed: Most Wanted and watching TV.

Evening, my friends dropped by, as usual, and one guy wanted to go to a mall as his glasses broke the other day. We went to a mall called Dana Mall and as soon as we reached there, another friend wanted to watch The Happening. As the reviews were OK, we went for it(also because the director's Manoj Night Shyamalan and we had a li'l pang of patriotism).

But the movie is one of the worst that I've watched in the recent few months. The movie's good in bits n pieces but the problem with it is, the movies itself is in bits n pieces. However, the photography was excellent, showing us some untouched and unexplored terrains in the US of A. But, I liked the way people die in this movie(God, am I becoming the maniac just like my idol, Jigsaw of the SAW series?)

Anyways, this was how my weekend went. Expect an interesting n stupid love story(??) in my next posts. Adios for now.
(Keep checking this space for videos n photos of our trip to Lost Paradise).

The 30 Question Tag

2008-06-14T03:39:00.000-07:00

You might wonder why I chose a gloomy n rugged image for this post. The reason is simple. This is quite an old tag and I'm lazy enough to ignore this for quite a few months, errrr.. weeks. It's high time to take it now as this tag started its second round around the Bloggerville. So, here it goes...

1) LAST MOVIE U SAW IN A THEATER?
Dashavataram. Saw this flick in Tamil just yesterday. Couldn't understand Tamil but was so interested in this movie and went along with a couple of Tamil friends.

2) WHAT BOOK ARE U READING??
Been quite a few weeks since I read something. Got to get hold of something soon. For now, I'm content with reading magazines.... :(

3) FAVOURITE BOARD GAME?
Scrabble. But I prefer card games than board games... ;)

4) FAVOURITE MAGAZINE?
Reader's Digest and The Outlook

5) FAVOURITE SMELLS?
What can beat the smell of mud when it rains? The smell of a new book comes next.

6)FAVOURITE SOUNDS?
The sound of thunder, the sound of rain drops on the roof and most importantly, the sound of silence.

7) WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD?
When someone holds me responsible for something I didn't do. This feeling is worse than being guilty.

8) WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN U WAKE?
Why does the sun rise so early? And sometimes, I wish today is weekend.

9) FAVOURITE FASTFOOD PLACE?
In Bahrain? No way. But in India, I love the small pani puri stall at ESI, Hyderabad.

10) FUTURE CHILD'S NAME?
Tanmayee, if it's a girl. Tanmai, if it's a guy. But, we have to pay heed to our partner's wish too. So can't say.

11) FINISH THIS STATEMENT---'IF I HAD A LOT OF MONEY I'D'
Well, there are a lot of people in the world without money. A minimal amount will be with me to aid me in my "Motorcycle diaries" kinda lifestyle while the rest goes to the poor. Satish is always content with what he has. I hate the green paper. That's the one drawing hidden lines between people.

12) DO U DRIVE FAST?
I never drove a car. I don't know why, but I prefer bikes. On bike, I'm a ghost rider.

13)DO U SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?
Sometimes, sleep with a pillow next to me. But there are many occasions when I slept with a fully stuffed stomach.

14)STORMS--COOL OR SCARY?
Cool, as long as there's no loss of life.

15)WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?
Car!!!! Still a long way to go. A sports bike first.

16) FAVOURITE DRINK?
Fresh lime juice. Love it.

17)FINISH THIS STATEMENT-IF I HAD THE TIME I WOULD...
Who said I'm busy now???

18)DO YOU EAT THE STEMS ON BROCCOLI?
Yes, what sin did they do for me to leave them?

19)IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY OTHER COLOUR, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR CHOICE?
Arey yaar, I'm suffering from hair loss and you people are asking me what dye I'ld apply to my hair!!! :(((

20)NAME ALL THE DIFFERENT CITIES/TOWNS U HAVE LIVED IN?
Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Manama.

21) FAVOURITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Cricket, Tennis and F1.

22)ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
Many people tagged me with this tag. All these people are nice and warm to me. I love you all.

23)WHATS UNDER YOUR BED?
I'm sleeping in sofa these days, as I'm finding it more comfortable than bed. There's nothing under it other than the carpeted floor.

24)WOULD U LIKE TO BE BORN AS YOURSELF AGAIN??
Would love to. It complete with all the ups n downs. Quite challenging to. And most importantly, people love me for what I am.

25)MORNING PERSON OR NIGHT OWL?
Night owl but due to office timings, trying to be a morning person for the past two years.

26)OVER EASY OR SUNNY SIDE UP?
Hmm, didn't get this one. Can anyone help me out?

27) FAVOURITE PLACE TO RELAX?
Any peaceful area bordered with lots of greenery and some sort of water body nearby.

28)FAVOURITE PIE?
Not a pie freak. So whatever it, won't matter much.

29)FAVOURITE ICECREAM FLAVOUR?
Hmm, interesting question. And most of you know the answer too. Anything will do as long as it's an ice cream. Right from the 50 paise one(in our childhood) to the Baskin n Robbins one.

30)OF ALL THE PEOPLE U HAVE TAGGED, WHO IS THE MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND FIRST?
Not tagging anyone. So no answer to this question.

Buddies, I think most of you already completed this tag. Ok, I agree that I'm lazy. If there's anyone who's lazier than me, you are welcome to take up this tag.

P. S. I love you - a wonderful movie

2008-06-13T07:30:00.000-07:00

I was dying to see this movie for quite a few weeks. and even after I bought the DVD, it's not possible for me to watch it for three weeks. I don't want to watch it in bits n pieces as that ruins the real feel-good feeling of any movie. So I could watch it somehow last week. Believe me, I just loved the movie. Maybe because I didn't watch a romantic movie for quite sometime. I don't want to spill any beans on the movie but all I want is to ask everyone of you to watch this flick.

Meanwhile, read this great piece of dialogs and let me know your valuable comments.

He: I don't mean to throw this at you, but what do women want?

He: I can't figure it out. They want us to ask. They don't want us to ask. They want us to make a move, not make a move. They want us to be on bottom, be on top. Use hair products, don't use hair products. What do you people want?

She: I'll tell you, but you have to promise not to say I told you.

He: I swear.

She: Because it's a sacred secret.

He: Sacred secret?

She: You ready? You sure?

He: Yeah, I think so.

She: Come here.

She(whispers): We have absolutely no idea what we want.

He: I knew it! I knew that! Son of a bitch!

I just copied this from the subtitles because I don't want to spoil the original flavor of the dialogs. Feel free to send in your comments.

An idle man's brain is a devils' workshop

2008-06-08T09:44:00.000-07:00

Yesterday(Saturday), I was feeling so lazy, lonely etc etc. The past two days had been busy shopping n roaming around with friends. I was thinking of some way to spice it up when I remembered the combi-pack of ice creams that I bought in the morning. I thought of making something with those ice creams without much fuss n hard work.
So I took equal portions of the following flavors of ice cream:
1. Vanilla
2. Mango
3. Butter-scotch.
I had a mango and some bananas in the fridge. So I cut those to small pieces. Then, I mixed these fruit pieces with the above flavors of ice cream. At the end, I topped it with some honey and minced pieces of Dairy Milk chocolate.
Wow, that tasted great. Didn't even bother to waste a few minutes for clicking a couple of pictures. I loved it. I don't know whether others may like it or not but being an ice cream lover, I love each n every variation of it.
Long live the ice cream and Satish, by eating it.

Bookie Tag

2008-06-07T08:52:00.000-07:00

It seems to be the season of tags these days. I have been tagged by Sree to take up this tag.

The rules(simple yaar):

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge the person who tagged you.

The nearest book to me at this time was a magazine called "Bahrain this month". But, there was an ad on the page 123. I tried to pick up another book, The Outlook, again a magazine and again there was an ad on the page 123. Shit, this tag was getting tougher. Ok, the third book I picked up was "Professional JAVA Programming". I was praying that the page 123 should contain something(not an empty page). Thank goodness, page 123 has the starting of a new chapter, Introducing JavaServer Pages.
Ok, here it goes.

"JSP provides a variety of ways to talk to Java classes, servlets, applets and the web server. With it, you can split the functionality of your web applications into components with well-defined public interfaces glued together by a simple page. This model allows tasks to be sub-divided - a developer builds custom components and the page designer assembles the application with a few judicious method calls."

The five people I tag are:
Ceedy
Sneha
Anvita
Ashu
Radhika

Innocence - at it's best

2008-06-04T23:32:00.000-07:00

If you've been sticking around my blog for quite sometime, then you know the kid in the picture. He's my dear Kashyap, my manager's son. He's now three yrs old n jus started going to some nursery. And he's one of the main reasons why I'm still in Bahrain, even though I hate this place. Am some what addicted to this guy. If I don't see him at least once in a couple of days or if I don't take him out for his chocolate shopping, I feel a void in my life. This post is about one of those incidents which made me addicted to him. This took place three nights back.
This kid got an invitation from a neighbor for a b'day party. When I went to his house on usual outings, he showed that to me and was excited abt the party as it was in McDonald's, his favorite hangout. Then I asked him(we both call each other "Uncle"), "Uncle, will you take me too?". He said he'll take me too along with him.
After that, I was not able to meet this kid for a couple of days. On the third day, I brought him to my house and we started playing our usual games while watching "Tom n Jerry" on DVD. Suddenly, I started crying(acting).
Kashyap(in his usual childish tone): "Unkal, y r u crying?"
Me: "U told me that u'll take me to McDonald's and u went without taking me".
I applied some water on my eyes(without his knowledge) and covered my eyes with my hands and started crying loud now.
K : "No unkal, don't cry. See Tommy fell down".
I didn't stop my acting
K then kept his little hands on mine, removed my hands and started wiping off my tears(water).
K : "Don't cry, unkal. I'll take u tomorrow. I'll tell to Daddy after going home to take u".
I was spell bound on seeing this act from a three-yr-old kid whom I carried on my shoulder(n still carry) for abt 2 yrs. Surely, this is innocence at its best.
Now, I understood the joy of the parenting. God, I can't wait to get married and have a couple of kids.

Quirky Tag

2008-06-01T09:37:00.000-07:00

This seems to be a new tag going round the Bloggerville for quite a few days. Well, here goes the tag.

These are the rules:
1. Link the person(s) who tagged you ---> Brocasarea.
2. Mention the rules on your blog.
3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.
4. Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them.
5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged.

The not so spectacular quirks about me are:
1. Right from childhood, I hate getting up early in the morning. Even in school n college, I used to study late in the night instead of studying in the morning(as most of you might have did). Here in Bahrain, my office starts at 7 AM and it's been two years since I joined here. Still, I face lots n lots of difficulty to wake up in time.
2. As most of you know, I love ice creams a lot. Lot in the sense, just a lot. To reduce the cholesterol content in my body(about a year back doctor warned me abt this), I gave up almost everything I like, but just couldn't leave the ice cream. Thank God, the cholesterol decreased just by itself. Right now, am writing this post having a little plain vanilla ice cream topped with honey.
3. Love to watch a lot of movies, whatever genre they may be. And I have photographic memory when it comes to movies. Show me a movie, I'll tell you the details about it(if I had seen it).
4. I'm too much of a practical joker. If the guy at the other end had any differences with me, he can count his days. Once off the hook, it's tough to control myself. I hate doing this but can't help.
5. Had this habit of keeping all the bills. Will empty my wallet every couple of weeks but still won't throw them away. Will hide them somewhere.
6. Love to watch cartoons even now. My friends and my roomies look at me in a strange way every time I buy one but can't help. Am, in some way, addicted to them.

The six poor bloggers whom I tag are:
Krishna Kumar, Ashu, Keerthi, Sush, Samby, Vee

Defamation of thy soul

2008-05-28T22:56:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, the Telugu Kala Samithi(TKS) people organized a picnic to the Hawar islands. I already visited that place a couple of months back but that was a like a bachelor getaway(check here for my earlier post). This time, it was a family hangout and around 80 people turned up for the picnic.

What we did there was almost the same as we did in the last outing. the same jet-skis, the same quad bikes and the same cricket. But this time, there was a major twist in the tale....
This time, we took lots n lots of alcohol with us. As the night unfolded with its full glory, we started the spiritualism. I don't remember what happened after that as I'm too drunk n too tired, except some vague images of me dancing with a few others.
The next morning, I had a very bad hangover and somehow it vanished because of the sudden rush of adrenalin as soon as I sat on a Quad bike. I had a great time on the quad bike n jet-skis due to my dadagiri there(everyone else was a novice there).

(I'm riding the jet-ski. You can't see me clearly b'coz of the amount of zoom used while taking this pic)

We returned back to Bahrain that night and directly went to watch the "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull". It was okie.
So far so good. The next day morning, I went to my project manager's house and then he gave me a couple of jitters. First one, he called me while I was drinking and I uttered a couple of obscene words to him about the movie they were playing at the beach on a projector. But he didn't feel much as we are pretty close to each other. The next one, a friend of him who came to the picnic called him and informed him that he saw a different Satish altogether and he never expected me to be like that.
I was shell shocked as I don't remember anything, even my manager's call. I thought that he was being funny but when I checked my call log there was a call from late that night!!!! And I checked out with a few non-drinkers who were on the picnic and gathered bits n pieces of information that I did dance like an item girl(no, not Rakhee Sawant. I hate her). And also, in front of some ladies, I did talk in some vulgar language(not to them but to the drunkards around me). Still, I'm bent on gathering the real thing that happened that night. But believe me, I still can't recollect anything.
So here ends the story of Satish as a faithful, calm and fun-loving guy(not everywhere. Only in Bahrain n that too only with the families who saw me in the above incident). Poor Satish, no more free lunches for him, no more usual hi n bye from the aunties...

Movies, movies n movies

2008-05-24T05:55:00.000-07:00

Being a movie buff, I watch a lots of movies, both on screen and on DVD. Some movies touch us and some movies scare (not literally) us. I've seen enough of the movies of both those categories. But last week, I saw some wonderful movies and want to share those(only the reviews not the DVD) with you all. Those movies are Juno, Vantage Point and Gamyam(Telugu).

Juno: I bought this movie more than a month back but never had the enthusiasm or interest to watch it. One day in the last week, I was so f#$%ed up in office that I decided to watch something pleasant other than the usual dishum-dishum, bang-bang stuff. It was then that I was reminded of this movie and believe me, I have to search a lot to find this one from my DVD collection (I maintain my flat neat but coming to the DVD's, you can find them everywhere).
Coming to the movie, it's a simple movie with a minimal storyline. It deals with the story of sixteen year-old Juno Macguff who's quite "independent". She does what she wants, never really caring about what other may think of her. The movie starts with her finding that she's pregnant after a one-night fling with her best friend. She immediately decides to have an abortion but later, decides against it and plans to donate the baby to a well-to-do couple who are looking for children. The story is about the various situations and incidents that Juno experiences till the birth of her baby.
Everything about this movie is kept so simple. The narration is straight-forward without much twists and turns. But, it's the acting of the lead actors that makes this movie more interesting. Believe me, you'll fall in love with the character of Juno(reminds us of Hasini in Bommarillu, a hit telugu movie). The character was portrayed excellently by Ellen Page. In fact, you imagine anyone in her place. The other characters like that Juno's parents, the lady who adopts the baby(Jennifer Garner) were also well played. I can give the movie a 3.75 out of 5.

Vantage Point: This movie is what I've never expected. Of late, I was watching many action movies but had this feeling of why-don't-we-stick-to-the-good-old-action-movies. Many of the recent action flicks are such a bore that I've decided to stick to comedies for sometime. I saw the reviews of this movie and felt like watching it on big screen. But I was on vacation at the time of its release and somehow neglected it. My DVD guy told me that the DVD has come and I took it up but of late, I was not finding time to watch any movie at a stretch. On the weekend, after returning from a meet-my-friends, I started the movie at 11 15 PM and I didn't move from my sofa till the end (except when I went for a leak in the middle of the movie). In fact, it would be good if I wrote that I can't move instead of I didn't move.
This movie is full of twists and turns (but not like the boring ones in Race, Bollywood movie). It's the story of an attempted assassination on the POTUS (now, don't ask me what POTUS is. It's the President Of The United States). An assassination attempt is made and the culprits succeed in getting their victim. But, is that their real victim? If not, what happened to the original victim and did the terrorists realize this? And if it's the real victim, what are the after-effects of the assassination?
One thing that stands out in this movie is the narration of the story. The same story is told through the eyes of five diferent people. The scenes are placed so well that every scene will ignite a certain spark of interest. My rating for this movie is a 4 out of 5.

Gamyam: It’s been quite sometime since we saw some meaningful movie in Telugu. Almost all the movies are filled with masala and violence with a minimal storyline. But this particular movie, Gamyam, is a breather for guys like me. It’s something untouched, very novel and simple script.
The story is simple. One rich-and-spoilt guy falls in love with an orphan who’s a small time social activist too. She finds that this guy has doesn’t have any interest in society and hates the word “poor”. She leaves him for good and sets off to another place. The protagonist then realizes his mistake and then sets out in search of her on a bike. He meets a petty n witty motor-cycle thief who joins him in search for his love. The incidents that the protagonist faces on this journey makes him realize that the real world is beyond the late-night parties and rich, lavish life.
The highlights of the movie are the simplicity of the movie, low hype about the movie, the perfect portrayal of the Gaali Seenu(thief) by Allari Naresh, the screenplay and witty dialogs. There are many light-hearted moments in the movie but at the same time, we experience many emotional scenes too. The debate about naxalism in the climax educates us to some extent too. The rating for this flick is a cool 4 out 5.

So, here ends my much-requested post (by some friends) of reviews. I hope it is OK and I didn’t over-hype any of the above movies.

How long did I miss it?

2008-05-19T22:28:00.000-07:00

I was working for the past 2 hours or so and suddenly, something reminded me of ice cream. I started wondering "When was the last time I had it?". It seemed as if I missed it for ages. Then I started counting by recollecting the last time when I ate one. Can you believe the result? It's been around 69 long hours. Yes, you read it right. It's been almost 3 whole days since I had my last ice cream. Have to grab a nice one on the way home today.

Had a great week

2008-05-17T23:41:00.000-07:00

Friends, the last week has been awesome for me(apart from the 100th post). Loads n loads of shit has been taken off my brain(don't blow off ur brains by trying to guess how shit can be taken from brain) both in work n personal life. A few highlights from the last week:

1. A tough issue in office that has been nagging me for the past three weeks has been solved. I even gave it up for a couple of days thinking that I can never sort it out. But when a third party vendor quoted a high price to solve that issue, I got some inspiration and started to work on it with renewed energy n got it solved.... ;)
2. My leg has healed to a great extent. I was able to walk without limping for the first time in 2 weeks. There are li'l sparks of pain sometimes but I hope that everything will be back to normal in a couple of days.
3. Made friends with some nurses in the hospital. After all, how can I sit idle for around an hour waiting for the 5 minutes of doctors' examination? One nurse even dresses my wound for free without any others noticing it. But wait, I call all of them "sister"....
4. All the movies I've seen in the last week on DVD were awesome. In fact, I saw only three of them. They are Juno, Vantage Point, and Gamyam(Telugu).

Let's hope that this week is as good as the previous one. All you people out there, have a great week ahead.
(Btw, it was me in the picture. Thanks to Bini for taking such a perfect snap)

Can't think of a title for this...

2008-05-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

My homage for the victims of the Jaipur blast. Government sources are telling that there's some militant group from Bangladesh behind these blasts.
If these culprits are called terrorists, what should be this person called.... link

100th post(or is it better to say 100th page in my autograph?)

2008-05-14T11:37:00.001-07:00

Here comes the 100th post of my blog. I never imagined that I'll come this far. It's all because of each and everyone of you that I reached 100 posts, particularly after I thought of stopping this blog long back. I was thinking a lot about what to write in this coveted post. I've decided to post about the reason why I started this virtual life.
I desperately wanted a shoulder to lean on after I came to Bahrain. Here, I've no one whom I know except my manager with whom I talked a couple of times on phone before coming here. I thought that I've run away from the shadows of my past but being alone and without much friends, brought those dreadful memories back. I used to cry a lot thinking about those. I wanted someone to listen to my past and comfort me. Then, I was introduced to this wonderful world of blogs as stated in this post. All my first posts were based on my love. I just wanted this blog to be full of my love which I can read and read and read for the days to come. Then slowly I started blogging on other issues as well. Here goes my story:

Before I met her, I used to have a careless perspective on life and I don't have a certain goal ahead of me. It was at my cousin's marriage that I met her for the first time. As the marriage was held at a hotel with a beach front, I went to the beach and she followed me there. She insisted on chatting with me and I can't see her clearly in the moonlight. So when we came out, I was surprised by her looks. She looked so divine. Then after a while, she asked me whether I can take her for a trip around Vizag(this happened when I was there). I accepted happily.

We met on the pre-decided date and I took her for a tour. Then we went to a movie. During the interval session of the movie, she asked my opinion about love. I just told that it's a great feeling. She replied that she too feels the same and after a minute, told me that she loves me. I was taken back by this. Surely I am not a person who can woo a girl just by chatting for a couple of hours or so. I sensed something fishy and refused her politely and said that she'll find a better person than me.
But she insisted and I thought that she'll realize later on and said that we'll just be friends. Days passed on well. She used to be from some other place and she came to my place during her holidays.

During these visits, I realized that my life is destined to be with her only and I can't leave her. I am in deep love with her.

After some months, we became inseparable. We can't live with out talking to each other for even a couple of days(I told you that she's from some other place). Many calls used to travel between our places and I used to maintain a credit book with the STD shop guy near my house. Once I even stayed with her for two days in her house when her parents went for a marriage far away. Our bond is so strong that we never had an intention of sex in our minds. I can swear that those two days are the BEST in my life.

As fate can change anyone's life, my life also changed. Once she told me that she's going to Pune with her family to meet her relatives and asked me whether I want her to leave or not. If my answer is negative, she told me that she'll tell some story to her parents and stay at her home only. I told that it's OK and asked her to return back soon.

But even after a fortnight or so, there's no message from her. Somehow I traced her relatives number in Pune with a lot of effort. When I called there, I got the shock of my life. I was told that she and her uncle died in an accident and her father is still in hospital nursing broken ribs.
All of a sudden, everything is blank in front of me. The very thought that I lost someone without whom I can't even imagine my life came as a severe blow to me. I wandered like a mad guy for many days. If my friends were not there for me, I wouldn't have lived to write this now. It was them who made me realize that life's not going to end now and they made me a normal person by sparing their valuable time for me. And her parents came to know about our affair through her dairy and her
father met me a couple of times after he recovered.

This incident happened almost 8 years back and I still can't shrug her off my mind. I'm out of the trauma now but still I wish to see her someday and come back into my life.

Well friends, this is my story and the real reason behind my blogging. I hope I didn't bore you much.

Burma n China - what sin did they do?

2008-05-12T22:51:00.000-07:00

Most of you might have heard about the tragic events in Burma and China. If not, please go through the links below for more details.
Cyclone in Burma(Myanmar)
Earthquake in China
When I heard the news about Burma cyclone, I felt bad for the country as it's poll time there and the government is too busy with those issues. There are some controversies too about the aid coming in but I feel it's better not to comment on that issue.
Just when the world is coming out of the shock, an earthquake hit China yesterday and the death toll was estimated to be more than 10000. It's heartening to hear a news snippet about how 900 students were stuck inside a collapsed school.
It's not the news that I wanted to write about. It's about the loss of so many lives. Why should those innocent people die without any mistake of theirs? Is there no way to save at least a few of them? Thousands and thousands of innocent lives.....
There was a small post on the ideal gadget by Sneha a while back. I answered some stupid thing but now, I've got the right answer for that question. I need some gadget that warns people of natural calamities much in advance and also gives them directions to the safest place nearby.
All that we can do at this stage is to try and help those affected people and pray for their well-being and quick recovery.
Please have a look at the other wonderful post on the same issue by Ceedy.
Also, check the success story of Anshuman

Wanted a suitable alliance

2008-05-06T00:42:00.000-07:00

Hello blogger buddies, don't worry. This advertisement is not for me. It's for one of my good friends of the recent times. I would like to arrange a swayamvara for my gold fish which lost its partner about a month back. The profile of my fish is:

Name : Pintoo

Sex : I don't know to check a fish's sex.

Occupation : Bindaas bewarse(nothing to do)

Age : I don't know but I bought it around 2 months back

Attitude : Definitely not a bully. Even though it stays with two other small fish, it never bothered them(at least while I was watching).

Miscellaneous Characteristics :
1)Eats a lot. Never feels shy to rush at food.
2)Shits a lot. Have to change water every couple of days.
3)Watching TV these days. But don't know what type of shows it likes.

You can find a couple of pictures of Pintoo below(He/She is very shy while posing for pictures):

Got worse.....

2008-05-05T03:50:00.000-07:00

Hello frnds, it seems that I've made a mess with my bruise. The bad news are:
1)Today morning, my company doctor announced a li'l bad news. He said that either I've used the wrong medication or I'm allergic to Savlon(which I was using to clean the wound) and hence the bruise got a li'l out of control. He said that I've to see him regularly and asked me to take the day off for today.
2)I've an audit scheduled for today and can't take sick leave. So I decided to stick to office.
3)The auditors finished the audit without touching my domain.
4)The doctor also told me that he'll watch the wound for a couple of days and then if needed, he'll put me under sedation and he has to operate a little on my leg.

And now the good news:
1)My colleagues told me that my company doctor is a nut and don't believe his words. They suggested me to go some hospital and have my leg checked.
2)Thank god, the auditors didn't touch me at all.
3)I may take the day off for tomorrow.
4)The chicken pizza we had last night was good. Planning to get one tonight too.
5)Mumbai Indians won yesterday against the top ranked team in IPL.

Can't bear this any more.....

2008-05-03T01:20:00.000-07:00

After returning from the so-called Family sports n fun day(check the previous post), me n a friend of mine dressed the wound n tied it tight with an elastic bandage so that the cotton stays in place. The next mrng(yesterday), around 4 AM, I was suddenly awake and felt some piercing pain near the bruise. It was because of lack of blood flow due to the elastic bandage. I removed it and started rubbing the bruised are slowly and the pain subdued after a while. But I couldn't sleep after that. I passed time reading some magazine and watching TV. As my frnd was still asleep, I thought of going out for breakfast after he gets up.
But around 10 AM, I got a call from my boss informing me that our mailing server is under heavy SPAM attack and I need to check it out as the managers' Blackberries were beeping every 30 seconds with the SPAM mails. So I've to go to office with my limping leg. I skipped my breakfast n went to office and found that anti-SPAM web interface was not opening. It took me around 4 hours to stop those stupid mails. I even skipped lunch as walking to the canteen in this condition(remember that I can't walk properly) will gobble up 15 minutes of my time. I managed somehow with a pack of Good-day biscuits and a chocolate bar. By the time I finished and called the driver, I was informed that all the cars went out and I've to wait for someone to arrive into the company. At last, the car came at 5 30 PM and dropped me home. Then I asked the driver to drop me at a fast food joint near my flat and had a burger there.
I passed time till 8 PM by playing NFS and then ordered Chicken Biriyani from am nearby Kerala restaurant. But it tasted like hell and I threw it after eating a little.
Even after all these issues n botherings, I felt that the world is beautiful because
1) The beer I had after this tasted great
2) The Maggi I've prepared tasted like nectar(may be I'm too hungry)
3) The movie I saw on DVD(The Bank Job) before sleeping was good as well
4) Last but not least, the SPAM problem was solved at least for the time being.
God's great. I love you, man(and women Gods too)

May day special

2008-05-01T09:58:00.000-07:00

We had a 3 days weekend this time, thanks to May day. So, Telugu Kala Samithi(TKS) arranged a family fun & sports day at a beach called Zallaq. It was a good idea to pass time as three day weekend might be a good money sucker in Bahrain.
So we went there before the scheduled time to help the organizers and as a first sports event, cricket was selected. It was fun but I didn't bat well(even though I hit a first ball four, I was out on the second ball by poking at a wide delivery).
Then there was sack-race, in which you have to run by standing inside a sack. this one reminded me of the school days and now, I came third in this event. Then, there were some events for women. Next came my bone-crusher.
It was the three-legged race where you've to pair up with some other contestant and one leg of ours will be tied up with one leg of our partner. Then we've to run towards the finish line while competing with other participants. I don't know whether I slipped or my partner slipped but I fell to my side with my partner falling on me. I got this nasty bruise which didn't pain at all for sometime but slowly after 10 minutes, it started showing the real pain.
Somehow, after a while, I ignored the pain and we had a good soaking session in ocean(I don't know swimming) as the water wasn't deep at all for about 500 meters. We then had lunch very late and came back to my room a bit early as my roomie was going to India for a three week vacation and I've to say Bon Voyage to him.
Now, I'm alone in my room cursing and nursing my leg and enjoying the spirit of red(blood) on this May day.......

P.S : Picture deleted because of user complaints for being too horrific

A test of Patience

2008-04-30T02:57:00.000-07:00

I know(and you too will know after reading this post) that the above image has not much connection with the post. Still, couldn't resist posting it. Anyways, imagine the below situation:
You are late to the office by 10 minutes. Still, you go directly to some end-user to sort out the problem which he reported the previous day. You solve it and he gets a call from someone and then informs you that a top guy in the company had some problem and insist you to visit him too. You go there(still you didn't even switch-on your desktop) and he's typing some mail and asks you to wait. He didn't offer you a seat and you can't sit before he offers you the seat as he's the big boss. Every two minutes, he looks at you and says "I'm sorry" for which you have smile like Miss World and he gets back into typing his mail.
After 20 long minutes(when your legs start paining and when you get those imaginary itches in your pants and you are forbidden to scratch in front of him), he looks at you, just like Amitabh Bachchan used to look at the contestants in "Kaun Banega Crorepati" when they answered the final question correctly, and says you can go ahead. But what the hell can you do if you don't know what the problem is? So you ask him what's the issue and he tells something completely irrelevant to you. What will you think at that time?
I faced the same situation today morning. By the time I reached my cubicle, I was one whole hour late.

Image Courtesy: Cartoon Stock

Love Link Tag

2008-04-29T22:54:00.000-07:00

Ceedy n Veena tagged me with this tag. But believe me, I couldn't understand a bit of the tag. All you have to do is add ur name to the last of the list and pass on the tag to others.

The love-link tag.The Love-link Tag is another of those Linky Love game where you only have to tag 10 person in one post but still there is no actual limit (you can tag more if you want!).

Once tagged, you have to copy paste the link in this post, and make them grow!Do not delete any of the links and be honest to yourself!copy paste the link in this post, and make them grow!

BennyLiew, RamblingMoo, Mum & Kids In Wonderland, Judelittle, Our mini blogsphere, Rooms in My Heart, http://janiceng.blogspot.com/, ChinNee, Jo-N, LadyJava's Lounge, Strange but True, Mariuca's Perfume Gallery,Meet Uncle J-Uncle J, Farah,aNgRiAniWoRLd,How’s Life Bout,The Three Heroes, Ceedy, Veena, Satish, You ARE NEXT

And now my turn to tag. I tag:
Keerthi, Solitaire, KK, Samby, Sush, Keshi n Srujana

Tashan - my take

2008-04-29T05:34:00.000-07:00

Being a movie buff, I look forward every week for some movies to release. I even have a collection of movies (who cares if some of them are pirated) which reduced from a great collection to a good collection.
For the past few weeks, I was waiting for the release of this movie, Tashan. I was so mesmerized by the promos and some songs which added further to my interest in this movie. It released last Thursday but I couldn’t make it till Saturday. I read the reviews and was a li’l disappointed and thought of giving it a miss. But my Mumbai dost, Naseer, insisted that we go for it. So I had to watch it.
Believe me, it’s not that bad. Jus’ a different type of genre. Till date, we saw mindless comedies in Bollywood. Now, this is one is a mindless action flick with some rib-tickling(in bits n pieces) comedy. This movie boasts of a great cast: Anil Kapoor, Akshay Kumar and the coochie-coochie couple of Bollywood, Saif and Kareena. The story is chooo chimple.
A call center employee, Jimmy(Saif), who also teaches English to beautiful girls, is approached by Pooja(Kareena) to teach English for her boss, Bhaiyyaji(Anil Kapoor). Bhaiyyaji turns out to be a dreaded Don who gets monthly hafta(lots of it) by train and Pooja is entrusted with the job of bringing it to the den(a filmish one, which you might have seen in some age old movies). Jimmy falls for Pooja and Pooja too reciprocates her love to him. One day Pooja reveals to Jimmy that she’s working for Bhaiyyaji only because her father owes him a lot of money and now Bhiayyaji is harrising her to marry him. Jimmy, as usual, plans to rob the monthly hafta and pay it to Bhaiyyaji as Pooja’s debt. But they end up robbing more than what they require and Pooja gives a slip to Jimmy and vanishes.
Jimmy returns to Bhaiyyaji and confesses his crime, as he’s scared of him. Bhaiyyaji recruits Bachchan Pande(Akshay Kumar), who has to search for Pooja with the help of Jimmy. The only major problem is Bachchan is a stray dog while Jimmy is a cultured puppy. Can Bachchan get hold of Priya? Is Jimmy willing to help Bachchan? Is there any secret behind Pooja who manages to fool everyone? A series of twists unravel before good prevails over the bad.
The highlights of the movie are its Hinglish dialogues, Akshay Kumar and Kareena’s bikini. Take them out of the movie and you are left with a complete bull-shit. Coming to the performances, Akshay Kumar is at his best in this movie as a rugged Bachchan. Anil Kapoor does justice to his role as Bachchan but as the movie goes on, we feel bored of his Hinglish dialogues. Saif is totally wasted in the second half and he looks old too. Kareena sizzles with her skimpy clothing and I heard some whistles during her bikini scene.
Songs are OK with some funny moments. Don’t blame me if the action sequences remind you of Rajnikanth….. The direction is pretty poor and I doubt whether the debutante Vijay Krishna Acharya gets a good future ahead of him.
Overall, Tashan is a time-pass, lock-your-brains-at-home movie. My rating for this will be 2.75 out of 5.

Blogger buddies

2008-04-26T01:47:00.001-07:00

As Bahrain is a not-so-happening country, I started my second life as a virtual one. First of all, I was very much dependent and a fan of Orkut, the popular social networking website. I met many long lost friends, some new friends through Orkut. Most importantly, I made some good friends in Bahrain, thanks to Orkut. But slowly things started to move otherwise. People started losing interest in Orkut. It's the same case with me too. It was then that I was attracted to Blogs through some Orkut friends like Keerthi, Usha, Sravan. I started my blog after being inspired by the above people. Believe me, I don't know anything about blog-hopping for many days. I confined to reading only the blogs of my friends for a long long time. It was then that Keerthi asked me whether I was going through other blogs or not for which I replied no. Then she told me that I should visit other blogs and leave my comments there so as to attract others to my blogs. I was not interested much to do this but slowly I started blog-hopping and was introduced to the wonderful world of many other bloggers.
Now, my day would start logging on to my gmail account so that I can the check the comments I've left on other's blogs and the comments they've left on my blog. It's some sort of addiction to me nowadays. I was interested in some blogs, I was in love with some others and I was addicted to some. It was not until last 10 days that I realized my addiction to the Bloggerville.
I was checking out Solitaire's blogs and one post gave me the shock of my life. Sneha(Solitaire) maintains 6 blogs at a time and everyone of them will have a new post every couple of days. I was so amazed by her writing abilities and her punctuality in replying others' comments on her blogs. Her recent post which gave a li'l shock read something like she'll be away from the Bloggerville for a few months as she had to concentrate on her studies. After reading this, I felt as if I'm not going to see some best friend for a few months. I was kinda sad for at least a couple of hours.
Then Samby gave another scare in just a couple of days after Sneha shocked me. Samby's blog is another one which shows how different and independent an individual can be. He also posted that he's going to leave the Bloggerville. While Sneha posted that she'll be leaving for a few months, Samby didn't mention anything about his return.
Both these incidents made me think twice about my dependence on blogs. Now, I wanted to keep myself under isolation from the Bloggerville for a few days and check out what sort of fascination I've on my virtual life. Wish me all the best, blogger buddies.

A feel-good memory

2008-04-22T00:33:00.000-07:00

A couple of days back, I was blog-hopping and came across this post by Veens. This invoked in me, a feel-good memory of a not-so-long-back incident.
I was on vacation in India and I've been waiting for a friend at the RTC complex in Vizag when this incident took place. My friend called me and informed me that he's struck in traffic and it'll take him another 15 minutes to reach there. Having nothing to do apart from waiting for him, I looked around for a reasonably neat bench, found one and started playing games on my mobile.
After a few minutes, someone came and sat next to me. I was feeling uncomfortable as it seemed the person next to me is watching me closely. So I looked at him and found that he immediately shifted his gaze from me. He's an old man around 55-60 years and looked quite decent. He's holding a briefcase with a great caution. Soon, I got back to my game and again I got the same uncomfortable feeling.
I was about to ask him about his problem, when he suddenly started talking in fluent English(I'm writing what I can remember of our conversation. It went partly in English and partly, in Telugu):
Old man: Babu, please don't misunderstand me for a beggar.
Me(shocked): No uncle, I never felt so.
OM: Babu, I hail from a village in Srikakulam. I worked as a teacher and retired a year back. Yesterday, I went to Simhachalam to offer my prayers. I was waiting for a bus to return back to Vizag when someone stole my wallet. Some good person brought me from there to Vizag yesterday evening. Now, I don't have money to go back to my village. I'm feeling shy to ask you money but couldn't help it. Can you spare me Rs 5/-?
(He was hanging his head with shame when he asked me the money)
Me: Uncle, you said that you came here yesterday and what are you doing till today morning?
OM: I was ashamed to beg others for money. I was looking around in the bus-stand from last evening, to find someone whom I know. But I didn't find even a single person whom I know.
(It was then that I noticed that he seemed weak, probably because of lack of food from the previous evening.)
Me: Ok uncle, but how can you reach your village with Rs 5/- when it costs you around Rs 50/- for the bus fare itself?
OM: I have Rs 20/- left in my pocket and I asked some people for Rs 5/- in the morning. Two of them gave me Rs 5/- each. Now, I'll ask some other persons and somehow accumulate the required money.
Me: I'm sorry to ask so many questions but why don't you call your house and ask someone to come over.
(He have a dry smile)
OM: My wife died a couple of years back and my son left us long back for some girl. I've no one in my village except a few relatives and I don't want to embarrass myself before them by asking them the money.
Me: Oh, I'm sorry. How do you feel if I don't give you the money even after so many questions?
OM: I won't feel anything. I'll try my luck elsewhere. After all, what can you do for my bad time?
Me: Ok. How'll you repay me if I give you all your required money?
OM: I'll money-order it to your address after I get my pension. But I can repay you only in the first week of the next month.
Me: No uncle, I don't need the money. I'll give you your full fare but promise me that you'll call me after reaching your house that you reached safely.
OM: Babu, please don't over-burden yourself. I know the value of money. Give me only Rs 5/-. I'll ask some others for the deficit amount.
Me: Don't feel like that. Let me pay you the full fare. And now, can I ask you one final question? Will you come to the canteen with me for a light breakfast.
OM: Thanks for the money. But please excuse me for the breakfast. I don't like to make you spend much for me.
Me: You are like my grandpa. It's not a burden for me if I spend a small amount for you. That'll give me more satisfaction than anything
We both went to a small hotel in the bus-stand and I ordered some breakfast for him and tea for me. The satisfaction in his face when his breakfast arrived was enough for me to forget all my problems for sometime. Just then, my friend called me that he reached our scheduled place and was waiting for me. Then I gave this old man Rs 30/- for which he objected and asked for only Rs 20/-. I said that he may need them as a security and persuaded him to take it. Then I paid the bill and left.
When I met my friend, he started scolding me in a teasing manner that I was angry on him for being late and in the end, it was me who's late. Then I told him the story after hearing which he laughed and said "Satish, welcome to India". I know that these things happen in India but I believed the old man after seeing the innocence in his face and honesty in his ways. I just laughed at my friend and said Rs 50/- is not going to change my life.
The real surprise came late on that evening when I got a call from an unknown number. It was from the same old man. He said he was calling from a pay phone so that I can make sure that he's calling from Srikakulam by looking at the STD code and he reached safely and thanked me for my help. That night, I slept more peacefully than any other night.

Virginity

2008-04-17T05:13:00.000-07:00

Sorry for posting about an untouched-terrain in my blog. I was reading this funny sms/mail for the past few years. It says:
"Virginity isn't dignity. Instead, it's lack of opportunity"
Well, I'm wondering if people agree with this or not?

Beowulf

2008-04-17T01:18:00.000-07:00

Saw this movie a couple of nights back. Thought that this is some of those "He-Man" kinda movie but was terribly mistaken. The graphics were awesome and this one is worth a watch. Anyways, there's a dialog which the king tells to one of his followers:

"The Gods cannot do anything to us which we cannot do to ourselves".

How true?

Why am I sad?

2008-04-10T05:39:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling very depressed today. Can't exactly tell you why. Is it because the skit we rehearsed yesterday got very bad reviews and we have to enact it right tomorrow morning with out any changes? Or is it because today's my sister's engagement and I'm only one in the entire khandaan who's missing it???

And now, a "F1"tastic weekend(Updated - see after the slide)

2008-04-10T05:29:00.000-07:00

Though am not much into any sport, there are 3 of them which are very dear to me. They are Cricket(default fav sport for many Indians), Tennis and F1. One of my dreams was to watch a F1 GP live. As soon as I got this job offer in Bahrain, I was overjoyed because there’s an F1 circuit in Bahrain and from 2005, an Grand Prix(GP) is conducted there. But my dreams to watch the 2007 Bahrain GP were shattered as I was just back from a vacation and I had to be present at the office on that day.
So I made my mind not to miss the 2008 edition at any cost. I was planning for this event right from the month of March and started contacting my friends. Finally it was decided that me and Pavan will go to the race together. We waited for the discounted tickets till the last moment but couldn’t get any. So we bought the tickets from the counter itself a day before the first practice session (3rd April, 2008).
I was too exited to visit the F1 circuit as this was my first time (even though the circuit was very much accessible throughout the year, I kept it pending till the GP). As usual, we reached late enough to miss the first practice session and we compensated it by walking around the various F1 merchandise stalls and a Ferrari Classics exhibition. We made sure that we reach our grandstand before the second practice session in the afternoon. That session was awesome. There were few people in the stands but their response was fantastic whenever a Ferrari passed by our stands. I tried to take some pictures but it was a very tough task to capture images of these mean machines traveling over 300 KMPH. However, I managed to get some not-so-bad pictures. Everyone was elated when Ferraris were announced as the fastest cars of the session. The highlight of the day was when Lewis Hamilton couldn’t control his car at one of the bends and crashed into a heap of tyres(this was after the practice session). After the practice session, we were back to the merchandise but nor for the goods they are selling but for the girls who are selling those goods. I was courageous enough to ask them for some pictures. We returned back around 7PM and were very tired. But inspired by the practice session, I started playing my NFS from 11 PM to 3 AM.
The next day(5th April, 2008), we decided to leave early so as to reach in time for the 3rd practice session, which we did. Again, Ferrari’s emerged as the fastest of the lot. Even though there’s time between this practice session and the qualifying session(in the afternoon), we decided to stick to our seats just for the simple reason to not to miss even a single minute of the qualifying session. We gobbled up whatever we can lay our hands upon at the grandstand(the main food stalls were all at the main entrance) and eagerly waited for the qualifying session to start. Finally, it started and as usual, full of twists and turns. The Ferraris were the leaders in the first two sessions but surprisingly, BMW driver Robert Kubica won the final session and took the pole position. But this was largely because of the unusual slowdown of Felipe Massa in the final turn. The line-up was in this order: Robert Kubica, Felipe Massa, Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Raikkonen, Heikki Kovalainen…. But believe me, everyone is shell-shocked to see this performance by BMW.
On the very important day of April in my life(6th April, 2008), we reached the circuit(BIC for Bahrain International Circuit) way before the race time(2 30 PM). We had a couple of strolls covering the merchandise section, Ferrari Classics exhibition etc. I stood in 3 queues during these strolls but couldn’t get through even a single one. The first one was for the autograph session of the BMW drivers, which they left before I moved 5 paces!!! The second one is for karting, for which I was informed that all the convenient slots were full. The third one was for bungee-jumping, for which I stood in the queue for about 20 minutes but was sure that I’m gonna miss the race if I stood for more time there.
And the last and most important queue was for the food stuff. It was long n tiring but the gori next to me made sure that I stay in the queue until she left!!!! She’s hot… Somehow, we managed to reach our seats just before the race is about to begin. Our seats were just before the final turn. So most of the time, we had to rely on the big screen ahead of us for updates. We were all expecting a Ferrari win but only after a few laps into the race. But to our surprise, Felipe Massa overtook Kubica at the grid itself. Everyone is shell-shocked and gave a loud sigh of relief. Rest was all history. Ferrari clearly dominated the proceedings and never looked out-of-touch. Everyone was worried about Lewis Hamilton but he had a couple of bad moments in one of which he rode into his ex-mate Alanso’s car.
The special mention of the evening should go to Force India’s Giancarlo Fisichella, who some tough time to Lewis Hamilton without allowing him to pass through. Finally, the much needed Ferrari 1-2 was achieved and we were shouting all the way. The other teams didn’t get even half the support which Ferrari got. The whole circuit was painted red with Ferrari flags and tees.
Coming to the other programs at the BIC, there were many other races that coincided with the F1 dates. Those races were GP2 Asia, Speedcar, Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup etc. They are all as equally interesting as F1 but the only issue was we don’t know even a single driver of those races. Then there were many entertainment programs which entertained the people to the max extent possible. Those were free style dancers, break dancers, high divers, jugglers, football tricks etc. You can find some of them in the pictures attached.
Overall, this event was like a dream come true for me. I had great fun at the event. Looking forward for the next edition too…….

There was a music concert by the Hip-hop singer, Akon, after the race. We stood in the queue for about 45 minutes to get entry for that concert and luckily we got the best seats from where we can get a good view of the concert. But it disappointed us to the core. I think that the bass was set to the maximum in the speakers. We came out in the middle of the show itself.
And now, some small suggestions to anyone who's planning to watch a F1 race live.
1. Don't rely too much on your photography skills. We may be great photographers but imagine trying to capture something which's traveling around 300 KMPH. My sincere suggestion is to opt for video than photos. If you stills want to take pictures of those mean machines, use "Burst" mode on the camera.
2. The food at the venue will be costlier than outside. The difference might be more than double the price. Check it out before you go for the race.
3. Be sure to carry ear plugs. We thought "WTF, it won't be of much concern". But the sound is ear shattering.
That's all, folks. Enjoy your race.

Last weekend(not the one which came a couple of days back)

2008-04-07T04:35:00.001-07:00

This stupid thing happened last weekend. Here, in Bahrain, we have weekends on Friday and Saturday as Friday is supposed to be a public holiday in this part of the world just like Sunday in the rest of the world. Most of the time, we don’t work on weekends but last weekend, I decided to work from office on Saturday as I’ve to meet a deadline. I decided to leave at 10 AM and return back by 1 PM or so.
On the previous day, I’ve informed the General Services section (who looks after the transport) to arrange me a car at my house by 10 AM on Saturday. Being a bit cautious, on Saturday, I’ve called up the drivers’ extension at 9 30 AM and informed them I’ll be standing at a hotel near my flat. But the driver asked me to come to the main road and wait at a bus-stop as the traffic will be a bit heavy in my street. I waited till 10 45 AM but still there’s no sign of the driver. Then I called up the drivers’ extension but no one’s answering the phone. After some time, someone answered and was, literally, shouting on me. I asked him to cool down and asked him what the matter was. It turned out that the person who answered my call in the morning was not the guy who came for me and this plan of change of pickup point is not informed to him. Somehow, I convinced the guy to come again for me.
By the time I reached office, it was already 11 45AM. Then I was stopped at the security gate saying that they didn’t receive any intimation about my visit on weekend. I was taken back by this. How can they send a car for me and fail to intimate the security gate? Somehow, I got into the office and it was at 12 30AM when I switched on my PC.
I had to work till 4 PM to finish off the issue and this was the way my last weekend was f@#$ed up.

Lots of pending things in blogger

2008-04-04T15:32:00.000-07:00

Hi all, it's been quite a few days since I wrote something meaningful(did I ever write anything like this???) on my blog. Well, there are quite a few things pending like a dreadful memory, my weekend stint at office(last weekend) and the major one being the ongoing F1 race in Bahrain. I went for the practice session today. It was awesome. Will write more about that in a day or two.
Now, I've one bad news. One of my four fish died today. It was a gold fish. I came late to my flat and was looking at the F1 pics. Suddenly, I remembered that I forgot to feed my fish. I was late by a couple of hours. To my horror, I saw one of the two goldfish floating in water with a huge belly. I suspect the reason for its death to be the dirty water as I didn't change it for more than 48 hours. The other goldfish also had some wound sort-of-thing on its nose. I felt as if the earth was crashing beneath my feet. I killed a beautiful being with my negligence. For the first time, I felt that I did a wrong thing in deciding to maintain an aquarium. Tonight, no food and no sleep because of that. I'm writing this at 2 AM........ The one above, please forgive me.

Once more..........

2008-04-01T02:49:00.000-07:00

Sorry, all ya fellow bloggers who spent a li'l bit of their time for commenting on the look of my new template. But owing to the valuable comments of my fellow bloggers(most of them said that it was girly), I've decided to change the template again and hooked into finalsense once more. But much to my disbelief, almost all the templates which I liked doesn't display the "telugu" font as it is. As some of my blog entries need to be in Telugu(my mother-tongue), I had to revert back to the good old blogger templates. And again, how's this new template?

P.S: I feel as if I've moved from a cool Archie to a gawdy Jughead.

Stupid Whisper : Even my profile pic doesn't show my face. How come everyone know that am not innocent?

How'z my new template?????

2008-03-30T04:51:00.000-07:00

Hi folks, been away from blogs for a couple of days. Today, when I returned, I seriously felt the need for a makeover for my blog template. Searched and searched till I found this cute template(courtesy finalsense). I thought this template will suit my innocent(shit, I hate to use this word) blabbers. Would like to have some feedback about this makeover..... Thanks for dropping by.

ప్రేమలేఖ(లాంటిది)

2008-03-26T23:18:00.000-07:00

చెలీ,
నీవు నను విడిచిన తరువాత దాదాపు ఎనిమిది సంవత్సరాలు గడిచాయి. ఐనా నువ్వు ఇప్పుడిప్పుడే నన్ను పలకరించి వెళ్ళినట్టు ఉంది. నీ జ్ఞాపకాలు ఎంతగా నన్ను హత్తుకుపోయాయంటే నా జగమంతా నువ్వే నిండిపోయావ్. చల్ల గాలి తిమ్మెరలు నన్ను తాకినప్పుడు అవి నీ కురులేమో అని పట్టుకోవడానికి ప్రయత్నిస్తే అవి నా వైపు విచిత్రంగా చూసి తప్పించుకున్నాయి. దూరాన కూసే కోయిల పాట నాకు వినపడగానే అది నీ గుసగుసలేమో అని అర్ధం చేసుకుందామని ఉబలాటపడితే ఆ కోయిల నన్ను వెక్కిరించి ఎటో ఎగిరిపోయింది. ఎక్కడో ఏదో మెరిసినట్టు అనిపిస్తే అది నువ్వేనేమో అని దగ్గరకి పోయి చూస్తే అక్కడ ఉన్న శూన్యం నన్ను చూసి హేళనగా నవ్వింది. ఇన్ని హేళనలు ఎదుర్కున్నా అవి ఎప్పుడు నన్ను బాధించలేదు. ఎందుకంటే వాటి కన్నా బాధించే విషయం మరొకటి ఉంది. అది నువ్వు లేవన్న పచ్చి నిజం. సదా నీ తలపుల్లో మునిగి తేలుతున్నా, ఒక్క సారి నిన్ను చూడాలని ఒక చిన్ని ఆశ. కొన్నేళ్ళ క్రితం నీ ఎడబాటుని మర్చిపోదామని నా దగ్గర ఉన్న నీ ఒకే ఒక ఫొటోని చించేసా. తరువాత తెలిసింది - నిన్ను మర్చిపోవడం, నీపై నాకున్న ప్రేమని చంపెయ్యడం ఆ ఫొటో చించినంత సులభం కాదని. ఏనాటికైనా కనీసం నా కలలోనైనా కనిపిస్తావని ఆశిస్తూ ఇక సెలవు తీసుకుంటా.
ఇట్లు,
ఒక ప్రేమికుడు.

నోట్: మీ స్వర్గంలో ఇంటర్నెట్ ఉంటుందని ఆశిస్తున్నా.

For my readers......

2008-03-26T04:50:00.000-07:00

Have a look at Sonali Bendre on the sets of Mr & Miss TV on Sony channel

Return of my dream girl

2008-03-25T03:07:00.000-07:00

A new program called "Mr & Mrs TV" was launched yesterday on the Sony entertainment channel. It's a game show involving various TV celebrities and the various rounds include dancing, acting, mimicry etc. But what made this program so special to me is the news that my dream girl, Sonali Bendre, is one of the two judges, the other one being the renowned director, Madhur Bandarkar. So as anticipated, I was in front of the idiot box by 9 PM. She's great. She seemed to put on little weight but she was the same beautiful and graceful lady I've seen some years back. Will put up some pics of her soon.....

Added on 26th March
I was telling something in my post about Sonali being a bit chubby. But yesterday, when I saw her again on the same show(it runs 4 days a week), I was scowling at myself "Satish, are you blind?" She was my very own dream girl and as divine(sorry to use this word but divinity can b attributed to beauty as well) as ever.

Race

2008-03-24T03:48:00.000-07:00

It’s been quite a few days since I wrote the review of any movie. Not finding any topic good enough to be posted on my blog, for the time being, I’ve decided to write the review of the recent movie I’ve seen, Race. Race is directed by the famous director duo, Abbas and Mustan. Not many people know that this name indicates two people as the name appears in the titles as Abbas-Mustan. These guys are the best directors of thrillers in Bollywood and gave us the genres like Khiladi and Baazigar.
Enough of all the hype surrounding the directors, let’s get back to our review. It’s the story of two brothers, Ranvir (Saif Ali Khan) and Rajiv (Akshaye Khanna). Ranvir runs the family business and is fond of horse races. He even has a stud farm, aptly named “Stallions”. We were shown that this guy is a talented businessman. On the other hand, Rajiv is an alcoholic, who wakes up in the morning to take a beer instead of a bed coffee. Sophia (Katrina Kaif) is the secretary of Ranvir and secretly loves him. On the other hand, Ranvir is in love with an upcoming model, Sonia (Bipasha Basu) and they both are yet to express their love for each other. Just when things seem to be going on well, Rajiv sees Sonia for the first time and falls in love with her, not knowing about his brother’s love. He promises Ranvir that he’ll give up drinking if he gets to marry Sonia. Ranvir loves his brother more than anything else in the world and decides to give up Sonia for the sake of his brother's future. But Rajiv breaks his promise as soon as he gets married to Sonia and a steamy affair between the old flames, Ranvir and Sonia, starts. Suddenly, a fool proof plan is made and a fool proof murder is committed.
At this juncture, a new character, Inspector RD (Anil Kapoor) and his dumb secretary(Sameera Reddy) comes in to investigate the murder. From this point on, the race starts. Sometimes, the race is between your brains and the writers’ brains (my personal feeling).
Race, as the title suggests, is a racy thriller. You get to see a new twist every few minutes, although most of these twists and turns are predictable. Just as “too many cooks spoil the broth”, I felt that all these twists made the movie a li’l bit boring. The performances are great. Saif does justice to his role and is the show stealer, almost. There’s a popular notion that Abbas-Mustan always bring out the best of Akshaye Khanna, which they did even in this movie. Anil Kapoor does make you laugh quite often, as a fruit-eating police officer and provides the much needed laughs in the thrilling movie. The damsels are good enough and I can bet that the front-benchers might go only for the sake of Bipasha Basu. She’s oozing with sex appeal and portrayed well as a seductress. Katrina Kaif is fragile, as usual and puts up a novel performance in this movie. But I was surprised to see her dance so elegantly in one of the songs as I was under the impression that she’s one of the worst dancers of Bollywood. Sameera Reddy is passable, as her role doesn’t require much acting skills except looking dumb.
The music is great, with some foot tapping numbers. The photography is one of the best in recent times and the action scenes are sure to make you sit on the edge of your seat. I give my rating for this movie as 3.25 out of 5.