My India trip

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

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

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

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

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

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

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".