At home - Getting Carried Away

This ones wat I wud put in a dairy rather than a blog. But since i dont maintain a dairy i ll put it here.
I have been at home for an extraordinarily long time this time around. Five full days. What did i do? - Orkutting, Gtalking and catching up with old friends, while at the the bug count(work) has kept increasing...a four-week high i guess... arun if u read this u can correct me. Though I vowed never to check office mails, I couldnt resisit looking at the bug count.

So back home , I have been uncharacteristically social, met friends, went to college, TALKED to teachers. These friends are ones who live in the same city as I, somehow it never struck me( or them) that we shud have met there. However, we got to meet now.I have promised myself I will never do the mistake of losing touch with friends. But sometimes you feel like you are not wanted ........digressing, I ll stop.

I was wanting to visit college for a long time, but going alone wud have been a waste of time, I wasnt exactly what you call "popular". Infact , the only reason I am remembered at all is because of a skirmish with my HOD in the last semester. And when i did meet him, he left me in no doubt , he remembered, too vividly for my liking. But the emotion was different, I could see pride on his face, proud of my retaliation, happy that i had stood up to him when my integrity was being questioned. We were lucky to have found 5 of our teachers in one room, they were asking bout a lot of ppl- dead, alive,happily married, broken-hearted,everyone. An emotional conversation which I cant put into words, even if I were beeter with words.

I never thought these things would happen one day- you know what, we had tea together, and I (we) was stupid enough not to carry any money,(I had 20 rupees and my debit card) they bought us tea and coffee and bajji. One lesson I learnt, have some clothes back home too. I usually come home, spend the weekend in banian and pyjama and go back in the same costume (u know which one) . This time I had to make do with a red shirt and almost grey pant to go with my brother's old over-sized shoes, it was not a pretty sight I assure you. we had decided to meet near the XEROX shop.....tats how we call it. I was already uncomfortable in my dress, and my friends' reactions on seeing me only worsened my state. At no stage in my life was I a good dresser, but this was over the top. With determination, we proceeded into the E-block (EE,EC,CSE,IT depts are housed here).
The college itself has changed or rather is being changed a lot. The bridge across the avinashi road has been built at last. Not yet operational though. The A-Hall/cafetaria building is being redesigned. Ours was never a big campus, and now tat the population has grown , I see that all structures are going UP. A lot of things have changed but even more things are the same. The capsule lift , the voice in the lift, the computer centre, our classroom near the lawn (A-block).
With the classroom comes other memories,which I have fought hard to forget, relationships and their complexities, what it feels like to be ditched, moments wen u feel inferior,the great times and the sad times...favouritism, intelligence.... lectures...the place where she used to sit........those secret LOOKS during lectures....simply overwhelming!!!
If this is how it is after one year, I think I will have a major emotional problem IF I come back later in life. Some things I have resolved to do after this trip: re-establish those connections which have rusted over time, give ego a back seat and be the first one to say hi., give something back to the institution which gave me my life...... Lets see wat can be done.

Those days....SIGH.....

Like most children of my generation, I simpy lived cricket, and believed I would one day bring the world cup to India with a last-ball six of Allan Donald. Then the harsher realities of life caught up with me, I had to do what I had to do, sit down and study. MAY be i shud have pursued my dream, but like Sidhu says "MAY BE was never a good honey BEE".

But thankfully, I could postpone serious cramming/learning till my higher secondary exams. I was average by all means, but remained at the top of my class, because ......well, no one was particularly interested in studying. The headmaster dint help either, his ultimate goal was a cent per cent(all -pass) result, whatever marks you got over 35 was a bonus. All this left ample time for cricket. WE followed and played cricket like there was no tomorrow. Life was split in two, school and cricket.Life was simple - it was about hitting sixes. Dint matter if you got out, won or lost.

Those days are long gone now(actually it is just a little over half a decade) . Life is complicated, I already feel wise ;) ,old and slow.Life is more about staying at the crease and keeping the score ticking(How boring). Technique is valued more than raw talent, I see that on screen too, Lord Sachin is no longer the master blaster I used to love, people have forgotten afridi, even dhoni has mellowed down, even my code has gotten complex and structured ;).

Everything has become so complex that I am not able to think straight, or write what I think.
I started out to write a blog on Kumble's century , a great gentleman and an epitome of commitment. And naturally thought I shud set the background - how I grew up with cricket, and got just a little carried away ;). For great blogs on kumble's century, please ask me or just google.

MIND YOUR "OWN" LANGUAGE

I was reading through a blog on a popular news channels website, a review of sivaji by an ARYAN, the article was full of digs at the DRAVIDIAN accent. And not surprisingly, the post had close to 200 comments (Note: The comments are moderated) , most of them very "uncomplimentary".

I am not sure what the author's intentions were when he typed in those "saar"s and "kanstant"s . The DRAVIDIAN readers however, took it as an insult on their kind and came up with well written abuses in fine English. I found the reaction rather funny because this is not new, every other hindi movie has a caricature of a south indian, with an exaggerated accent and for that matter, tamil movies are not far behind either. How many times have we seen the Malayalee being ridiculed, or even the mami with her accent. What is LOLA kutty based on?
Educated people stop with comments on the blog, others take it up from where they leave.

So much for the north-south divide, are the dravidians united? Hell , no. The tamil-kannada war is at its peak, with activists trying to prevent movies being screened (how silly). All this makes me look at INDIA as the US of I, rather than as one country. It is still hard to believe that we have made it together for 60 years now. You want to kick-start a riot in INDIA, not very dificult, look at the options u have:religion,caste,language,race,rivers,...my GOD. I am not sure how logical it was to make one country out of all those differences. But I have no complaints, my short life has already spanned three states whose people dont like each other. I was born in one state , educated in one, making a living in another. I have no one language as my own, I speak one which i dont know to write, I can write one which I cant speak , and use a foriegn language when I have to do both :). I use one at work,another at home, and yet another with friends.

A conservative estimate states that atlease 3/4 of INDIAs population is atleast bilingual, yet we are intolerant. Why cant we take it easy? Somebody found our accent funny, when we speak a foreign language. So.

Another weekend, nothing much to do, what do i do.. read blogs or write one on my own.
I am up to date with almost all the blogs I usually read (added about 5 more bloggers to the list).
Now since I am done with all the blogs, and have nothing else to do, am writing one.
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I thought I should list out all the blogs I read and what I like in each one of them.
But I will save it for another post :). For this one, read some more crap.

I live in a city tats great for socialising,particularly for people with my background. Thousands of people in the same age-group,of both gender, with the same backgrounds, and the same(not even similar) JOB!!!!...

To make matters more interesting, the roads are filled with these girls with great bodies (and outfits which leave nothin to the imagination and I donot USUALLY ogle) . I sometimes feel all the good-looking girls in the country congregate here. Good for the eyes..what say?.
All these COLORFUL observations were made as a pillion rider on my way to/from office.
I love the traffic signals on the road to the FORUM , those are my favourite hunting grounds.

Following is a list of things which make me an unsocial:

I have this job with the 40-hour week. Somehow I manage to work (or just be at the office) for atleast 60-65 hrs. Not sure If I am doing more than I should be, but I am sure my managers has no doubts - "lots of scope for improvement" he says :(.

Weekends are for sleeping and reading blogs . Infact there have been weekends when I just go to the blogger homepage and visit blogs as and when they are updated (been that jobless).

Since no time is left,I have a sad social life(even the gurkhas/shopkeepers in our locality donot recognise me). Its been 1 year since i went out, other than to the restaurants.
Thanks to my roommate who works for the same company, I have never even had to walk my way to the bus stop. So it is not entirely my fault :).

These are the sad state of things.
By the way I completed 1 year with my present employer....well the only employer till date......... on July 3rd.

At/On this momentous occassion I would like to thank all bloggers who have made my weekends woth living. A big thanks to all of you.

Just to enlighten you on how I kill time... I took 2 hrs .... "thinking/writing" this post......:) and before that 3hrs reading new posts form real bloggers.

FRIENDS

You know what I "worked form home" today(supposedly). It was booooring. It somehow doesnt feel like going to the office. Did I get some work done? well that I wouldnt comment upon.

I thought I would never write a post again. Reading and commenting is more fun.
However , here I am , pushing myself to write, just for the heck of it.

I wrote five posts, a fictional experience, a real-life experience, a love letter, a love story and a movie review......... and DELETED all the drafts.

Disclaimer:
I apologise for the incoherence in what you are about to read.

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Now that I have said My hello to the world, what next?
Let me talk about some serious structures. I think friends would be interesting.

I tried hard to define friendship , this is what google came up with "Caring for but never trying to own ".

When I think back , at the different kinds of friendships I had, I have this sour-sweet feeling. Dont know why? Feeling particularly lonely these days. Let me look back at those ppl I have found and lost and am searching for.

Some issues I had/have:

1) I always found it difficult to be friends with seniors (> 3 yrs). Still dont know why?
I could easily mingle with younger ppl and ppl of my age. I dont have a friend among my seniors at college or school . (Wont help my career :( )

2) I had never had girl friends (at school) , but was always attracted to the studious , inteligent girls, pretty faces were never an attraction to me. Infact had quite a few crushes (usually the top rankers)

3) I look for too much in a relationship and give too little till I receive.


First, there were the malayalee boys at KG school , I dont e ven remember their names. I somehow dont seem to connect with that life (age 2-7) and those friends are lost forever. There was nothing to BOND us together.

Then the move to coimbatore , we moved into a lower middle class locality with 1500 houses, with a lot of children in our age group (in any age group actually) . We chose our friends carefully, we were quite a gang.
This is where I developed some long lasting friendships , I still have contacts with most of these people, the BOND was CRICKET. You wouldnt believe it, we played cricket together for a litle over ten years , almost DAILY.

The friends at school were few and far in between. One gift I had was, I could connect with anyone, and was easily attracted to other ppls interests. So people who had remotely similar interests as me became my friends (no close friends). This was that stage in life when "how you look" doesnt determine how many friends u have. I have a "hi bye " relationship with a few , perhaps I dint do enough to maintain the bond.

Last few years at school flew past , I don remember having spent anytime with friends during this time. It was either school or tuition (that would require another post) or cricket.

Then came college, GOD was it great. The best part of my life from an emotional point of view.
The spirits were high, I made some truly great friends, great in every sense of the word. There were calls, treats, combined study, industrial visits, movies....coffe brown, cafe coffe day...etc....etc... (I wouldnt dream of going to either of these places now). The BOND was stronger this time around (or so I think). What was the bond? - I think GOALLESSNESS.

But as goals and plans started to materialise, the rift started, each one went his own way (me included). Now there are very few calls, almost no treats , not even meetings. Our Jobs dont help it either , whom to blame?

Well I am trying my best through orkut, facebook, Hi5 ....

Friends at the workplace? Posibilities are you will find a different person sitting in the adjacent cube every 3 months. Not enough time to forge a relationship I think......atleast for a guy like me

Thoughts:

To me , friends are to pass time. Dont make it a deeper relationship.

Dont look for a friend in need, waste of time. pessimistic huh ....how many would disagree?
( in my case i m reaping wat i sowed..... )


Just curious , How many of you would say you really have a friend who would do anything for you and be there for you always?

Hello World

Where do I start? What do I say?. I feel like a coy lover , having a lot to say,but not finding the right words. Let me start like a programmer(novice), with "Hello World". ***

It was dark inside. A thunderstorm was raging inside me ... no no beside me... no ALL AROUND me. I was going down a drain, in fits and starts, forward, up, down, I had no sense of direction . I had a rope , I could feel it on me, but oddly, not around me. What was it? - A lifeline, more of an amusement I think , for I was not going very far , considering the long trip TO this place.The channel started rocking violently. But strangely, I felt no need to panic. Infact, I was asleep, undisturbed , almost in a trance. If I had stayed awake - Would I have let it happen to me?

It had been a long journey to the dark chamber. I had started from Terebellum and headed south towards Alpha Centauri. I was by no means a meteor or asteroid and in fact was way too small to be spotted/stopped. Somewhow, I knew the thousand-lighyear-leg was not the most difficult part of the journey . So I glided through, unperturbed. I knew there would be millions of those large rocks, demonstrating their devotion to some unknown GOD at the centre of everything (or were these demons cursed to move in circles till their horned heads burst) , crossing my path. Some unknown force had granted me this invisible cloak which would take me past these heavenly security guards , towards my destination.

There it was , my destination, like a sailor rejoicing the sight of shore, I was ecstatic , there were a thousand chambers open and in waiting. All of them looked similar ( only later would I realise the differences they embodied ). I was however spared the task of choosing , I was pushed into one and SEALED. It was as though someone had decided what chamber I would go into.

When I first came in, I felt so small and this place was more than sufficient. I had been unable to see in the darkness and heard nothing, it was pure bliss , paradoxically , like death. But as time went by things started to change. I started to increase in size, and the chamber grew too. I would hear noises, an elobarate symphony of intestinal music.(oops! did I let it slip?) . Yes , I was in the sacred womb.

In some months I was starting to feel claustrophic and wanted to make a move. I started twisting and turning and kicking. Someone must have felt my presence , for soon I was being pushed out rather unceremoniously. Then I saw light, a lot of it. Too much that I started making noises ( sound waves in the audible range) and was impressed by my ability . Perhaps my way of saying HELLO WORLD.