Interesting random qoute

"The people people have for friends
Your common sense appall
But the people people marry
Are the queerest folk of all."

- Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Universal male fantasy

All guys think (read "like to think") - "duniya ki har ek ladki meri diwani hai!"
LOL :D

The 'Con'quest....

Questions,
they trouble me not;

Conquest, of the answers
Absence, of the answerer
Restlesness, of unanswered quests
These things, disturb me a lot.

I miss home...

I’m feeling very lonely. It’s been a week of terrible loneliness as everyone that I hang out with has been busy/away. And the worst part is if I tell my friends I am feeling lonely, a statement which I had stated once about wanting to be left alone, gets thrown right into my face. And then I’m left wondering that if I’m feeling lonely whom do I turn to? I want to go home…I used to think that friends are everything, but now I think that though friends are very very important, but its your family in the end who will stand by you(and also probably wont taunt you about things you said in the past even if you contradict them) no matter what…I guess I better get used to this stupid thing.

I miss home…

Water - The movie

I saw “Water” recently, and that movie really touched my heart. It does not have many dialogues, no exaggerated emotions, no violence, hardly any glossy showy clothing. But yet, it was one of the most effective movies that I saw since a long time. After watching this movie, I felt that to reach out, you don’t need violence, or gaudy, flashy emotional scenes, but what you need is the truth…..simple plain truth, told in simplest of ways. Another significant thing that hit home, was something that Gandhiji has said – “Mujhe lagta tha ki Ishwar hi satya hai, par mein yeh jaan gaya hu ki satya hi Ishwar hai” (“I always believed that Almighty is the Truth, but I have realized now that in fact Truth is Almighty”). And this movie made this statement suddenly so much meaningful for me, and I couldn’t understand why I was so blind to the greatness of it before.

Do watch it if you get a chance...!

Calvin ;)

Do I have to say anything??!!! :D

Let Me Go...

One more kiss could be the best thing
But one more lie could be the worst
And all these thoughts are never resting
And you're not something I deserve

In my head there's only you now
This world falls on me
In this world there's real and make believe
And this seems real to me

You love me but you don't know who I am
I'm torn between this life I lead and where I stand
And you love me but you don't know who I am
So let me go
Let me go

I dream ahead to what I hope for
And I turn my back on loving you
How can this love be a good thing
When I know what I'm goin' through

In my head there's only you now
This world falls on me
In this world there's real and make believe
And this seems real to me

You love me but you don't know who I am
I'm torn between this life I lead and where I stand
You love me but you don't know who I am
So let me go
Just let me go
Let me go

And no matter how hard I try
I can't escape these things inside I know
I know
When all the pieces fall apart
You will be the only one who knows
Who knows

You love me but you don't know who I am
I'm torn between this life I lead and where I stand
And you love me but you don't know who I am
So let me go
Just let me go

And you love me but you don't
You love me but you don't
You love me but you don't know who I am
And you love me but you don't
You love me but you don't
You love me but you don't know me

~ Let me go by 3 Doors Down

The Professional Life....My take!

Sometimes… okay not sometimes, almost always life turns out to be rather a disappointment when you expected otherwise and vice-versa. I never had big expectations from professional life, but it still managed to disappoint me and sadden me. Yes, you earn money. Yes you are independent. Yes, you can do what you want i.e. if you mange to find time. Sitting here in my office cubicle, I wonder where my life is going. I had always dreamt of becoming somebody important, had always wanted to do new innovative things, which I couldn’t before because I did not want to burden my parents unnecessarily. And here I am, after almost 5 months of professional life, I don’t see much that I have done except for reading many books (though that I used to do before also) and write a lot of blogs.

Everyday I come to office to straight faced strangers I see in the elevator and on my work-floor. The only words of “hi” & “gm” (short for good morning) that I exchange is on chat. I talk to people and joke around, but the only people whom I think are not pretending are hardly two or three. Sometimes I get a feeling that all of us are robots sitting in these four wooden walls, not even finding time to go and see the sunset from the balcony or go to a garden perhaps. Robots, who come alive only when they are chatting on Google talk. Robots who seem human only on weekends. I am afraid that I will turn into one of them. There’s a lot of pretense and strangeness in the air. And it suffocates me and makes me think do I really want such a life. Do all these people want such a life. Isn’t there more to life than eating, sleeping & working?

And while I am at it…Just wanted to share something that I found, something that can only be read about :)

ONE-POINT OFFICE DARES

1) Run one lap around the office at top speed.

2) Ignore the first five people who say 'good morning' to you.

3) Phone someone in the office you barely know, leave your name and say,
" Just called to say I can't talk right now. Bye. "

4) To signal the end of a conversation, clamp your hands over your ears
and grimace.

5) Leave your zipper open for one hour. If anyone points it out, say, "
Sorry, I really prefer it this way. "

6) Walk sideways to the photocopier.

7) While riding in an elevator, gasp dramatically every time the doors
open.


THREE-POINT DARES

1) Say to your boss, " I like your style " and shoot him with
double-barreled fingers.

2) Babble incoherently at a fellow employee then ask, " Did you get all
that, I don't want to have to repeat it. "

3) Page yourself over the intercom (do not disguise your voice).

4) Kneel in front of the water cooler and drink directly from the nozzle
(there must be a 'non-player' within sight).

5) Shout random numbers while someone is counting.


FIVE POINT DARES

1) At the end of a meeting, suggest that, for once, it would be nice to
conclude with the singing of the national anthem (5 extra points if you
actually launch into it yourself).

2) Walk into a very busy person's office and while they watch you with
growing irritation, turn the light switch on/off 10 times.

3) For an hour, refer to everyone you speak to as " Bob. "

4) Announce to everyone in a meeting that you " really have to go do a
number two. "

5) After every sentence, say 'Mon' in a really bad Jamaican accent. As
in " The report's on your desk, Mon. " Keep this up for 1 hour.

6) While an office mate is out, move their chair into the elevator.

7) In a meeting or crowded situation, slap your forehead repeatedly and
mutter, " Shut up, all of you just shut up! "

8) At lunchtime, get down on your knees and announce, " As God as my
witness, I'll never go hungry again. "

9) In a colleague's DAY PLANNER, write in the 10 am slot: " See how I
look in tights. " (5 Extra points if it is a male, 5 more if he is your
boss)

10) Carry your keyboard over to your colleague and ask, " You wanna
trade? "

11) Repeat the following conversation 10 times to the same person: " Do
you hear that? " " What? " " Never mind, it's gone now. "

12) Come to work in army fatigues and when asked why, say, " I can't
talk about it. "

13) Posing as a maitre d', call a colleague and tell him he's won a
lunch for four at a local restaurant. Let him go.

14) Speak with an accent (French, German, Porky Pig, etc) during a very
important conference call.
15) Find the vacuum and start vacuuming around your desk.

16) Hang a 2' long piece of toilet roll from the back of your pants and
act genuinely surprised when someone points it out.

17) Present meeting attendees with a cup of coffee and biscuits,
smashing each biscuit with your fist.

18) During the course of a meeting, slowly edge your chair towards the
door.

19) Arrange toy figures on the table to represent each meeting attendee,
move them according to the movements of their real-life counterparts.

Calvin :)

Another one for before the week ends!

Things s/w engineers come up with...

Recently I observed that we the s/w engineers have found a new way of entertaining ourselves, apart from checking mails, chatting & watching miscellaneous funny spoofs in flash :)

Me and my friend came up with quotes of our own (our own does not mean that we keep them on our googletalk status but that we made them up!) -

Falling in love is like free fall; once you start falling not much can be done to break it! - me

Life's a very good lesson, unfortunately by the time you learn it, you can no longer use it. - me

There are more people trying to pull you down than wanting you to go up. So, Effort>=force of gravity! - Deep

Wine, Women and Wealth - The three vices of (un)successful men! - Deep

More of these later...as soon as we again get bored from all the mails, chatting and flash spoofs!!

Cheers!

If it was possible...?

I was wiping my white board, and a thought crossed my mind - What if I could wipe my life like this & start afresh..or atleast wipe out the things which I don't like, things which now as I look back, wish had never happened, things which I feel have given me a lot, but caused even more pain...What if this was possible....?

Calvin :)

Another cute one!!

Poignant words

Pyaar koi bol nahin, pyaar awaaz nahin
ek khamoshi hai, sunti hai, kahaa karti hai...

humne dekhi hai un aankhon ki mehekti khushbu
haath se chhoo ke isay rishton ka ilzaam na do
sirf ehsaas hai yeh rooh se mehsoos karo
pyaar ko pyaar hi rehne do koi naam na do...

Making a difference!

I was supposed to catch an early morning flight back to Pune from Chennai today. I reached the airport exactly one hour before the take-off time i.e. at 4.30...yep I reached 4.30 in morning. As soon as I went inside I stood in this long queue for screening the check-in baggage. It was a sluggishly moving line & mostly because passengers of almost 3-4 airlines had to stand in the same queue to get their baggage screened in that single spot. The next queue was to get a boarding pass and check in the check-in baggage. And it was moving very very slow. On top of it, to increase my frustration, I saw a guy (well actually a well educated man of about 35-40) cut the line of the second counter and directly move in the front with 13 bags to check in & to collect 13 boarding passes! And the worst part was that nobody in that line objected!! I mean COME ONNNN!!!!!! I finally got my boarding pass and sighed in relief, cos I knew the next part was simple and does not generally take much time. I was supposed to go for security and then board my flight.

But again, just when you think things are going well, we all know life has a way of screwing things for us. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. There were two (not one but TWO!!) very long queues for security, encompassing almost half of the HUGE lounge. And as luck would have it, I went and stood into just the one which was progressing slowly. I mean its not like I felt the other queue was moving faster, but it was in fact moving faster! I saw our very own policemen do the job of a monitor of class 3rd here, as they were asking people to form a single straight file and trying to stop people from cutting in and go ahead. I mean, they are supposed to be there for security purposes not to discipline the passengers. It’s high time we learn to stand in queue and respect people who are already standing there patiently. You are not the only one in a hurry man!! After an excruciatingly long & painful process of standing in the queue and watching people try to cut in and trying to not let them do that without getting into a row, finally I cleared the security check. As I had already guessed there would be queue to board the flight too, but it was fast-moving and progressed without much hassle (thankfully!). After I finally arrived to my seat and sat there looking out the airplane window to see other planes gearing up to fly in the dim morning light, I reflected on whatever had happened in the last forty-five minutes. I sadly realized that this was happening everywhere. I mean people in India are always looking to cut through any & every queue (physical OR virtual). Instead of doing their jobs, the police of our country have to invest time to discipline a bunch of well-educated citizens, who are in fact just literate but not really educated as they claim to be. And that’s when I decided I am going to write about this. This is a thing that happens with us almost everyday. Sometimes we are the victim, sometimes even the culprit. Sometimes we protest, sometimes we don't. And this post is my effort to make a change in our attitudes, because I believe in this country and it’s potential. I believe that this is a great nation and we can & are moving ahead and this is my contribution to its improvement. I don't want to just sit and crib about what is wrong. And this is my way of making a difference (apart from dissuading people who try to cut in ;)). I will be happy if reading this makes even one person change, because I will know I have not just sat and cribbed but actually gone and done something to make it right. So anybody who's reading this, please please don't do this. Please respect that other people are waiting too and it’s for our own benefit that we follow the rules and discipline. And just imagine, by your little patience you may be making a great difference in the bigger picture!

Cheers!

Everthing is fake

I would like to apologise before starting off this post...as this is another one which falls under my "thinking & depressed" phase....

Anyways...I was just going through my orkut scraps....and suddenly (i dunno y) I thought I'll check some very first scraps of mine. Reading those scraps, I felt how things change over time...how people change! Lately, everyone (except a few) seem to have dropped from this "fake-all-the-time-about-all-the-things" land, where they just show that they are oh-so-concerned when with you, but don't give a damn as soon as your back's turned to them. I mean I may be wrong here....but sometimes it just feels like that. And then it feels so so lonely...as if you can't rely on anybody! I wish I could really see through people.....and know them....and figure them out...so that I can avoid doing and thinking so many things and save myself from so much hurt....

Oh I just wish........

Feeling miserable...

The time when nothing in life seems to go right, not even your own actions, thoughts and words. Now is that time for me. I am feeling betrayed. My closest friend did not trust me enough. Is very happy & excited about something which is just freaking the hell out of me (& he has no clue why?), and in return I have unleashed my reckless tongue on to him!I am worried like crazy about something...didn't even sleep properly last night (and that's a big thing because there are very few things that are capable enough to disturb MY sleep). I am feeling very helpless and just want to run away from here. To top it all, now I'm even feeling guilty about saying such nasty things to him (oh! but he IS so freaking me out) !! I'm sorry :(

Its better if I take my leave from this place, so that it is peaceful for some time!!

Something about Love

An excerpt from the book – Oliver’s Story (sequel of the famous “Love Story” by Erich Segal, both are absolutely beautiful books)

I really like how “love” is perceived in this –

A little background- the hero (Oliver) is recounting. He has lost his wife (college sweetheart) – Jenny, whom he was totally and madly in love with. So much that he couldn’t move on for whole of 2 yrs after her death…and in some ways still misses her. He’s in another relationship right now with Marcie/Marce but somehow he’s not that happy and is trying to analyze why…

What the hell do I know of relationships? All I've ever been is married. And it doesn't seem appropriate to make comparisons with Jenny. I mean, I only know the two of us were very much in love. At the time, of course, I wasn't analytical. I didn't scrutinize my feelings through a psychiatric microscope. And I can't articulate precisely why with Jenny I was so supremely happy.

Yet the funny thing is Jen and I had so much less in common. She was passionately unimpressed by sports. When I watched football she would read a book across the room.

I taught her how to swim.

I never did succeed in teaching her to drive.

But what the hell — is being man and wife some kind of educational experience?

You bet your ass it is.

But not in swimming, driving or in reading maps. Or even — as I recently had tried to recreate the situation — in teaching someone how to light a stove.

It means you learn about yourself from constant dialogue with one another. Establishing new circuits in the satellite transmitting your emotions.

Jenny would have nightmares and would wake me up. In those days, before we knew how sick she was, she'd ask me, genuinely scared, 'If I can't have a baby, Oliver — would you still feel the same?'

Which didn't prompt a knee-jerk reassurance on my part. Instead, it opened up a whole new complex of emotions that I hadn't known were there. Yes, Jen, it would upset my ego not to have a baby born of you, the person that I love.

This didn't alter our relationship. Instead, her honest qualm provoking such an honest question made me realize that I wasn't such a hero. That I wasn't really ready to face childlessness with great maturity and big bravado. I told her I would need some help from her. And then we knew ourselves a whole lot better, thanks to our admissions of self-doubt.

And we were closer.

'Jesus, Oliver, you didn't bullshit.'

'Did the unheroic truth upset you, Jenny?'

'No, I'm glad.'

'How come?'

'Because I know you never bullshit, Oliver.'

Marce and I don't have that kind of conversation yet. I mean, she tells me when she's down and when she's nervous. And that she worries sometimes when she's on the road that I might find a new 'diversion'. Actually, that feeling's mutual. Yet strangely, when we talk we say the proper words, but they trip out too easily upon the tongue.

Maybe that's because I have exaggerated expectations. I'm impatient. People who have had a happy marriage know exactly what they need. And lack. But it's unfair to make precipitous demands of someone who has never had a . . . friend . . . that she could trust.

Still, I'm hoping someday she will need me more. That she will maybe even wake me up and ask me something like:

'If I can't have a baby, would you feel the same?'

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Beautiful, isn’t it? Simple and Beautiful!!

I wish people wouldn't force their loved ones into being them, but rather appreciate the differences and love each other FOR it.

Cheers!

Calvin :)

I love Calvin & Hobbes.

This is one of the really funny ones.

India V/S India

There are two Indias in this country.

One India is straining at the leash, eager to spring forth and live up to all the adjectives that the world has been showering recently upon us.

The other India is the leash.

One India says, give me a chance and I’ll prove myself. The other India says, prove yourself first and maybe then you’ll have a chance.

One India lives in the optimism of our hearts. The other India lurks in skepticism of our minds.

One India wants. The other India hopes.
One India leads. The other India follows.

But conversions are on the rise. With each passing day more and more people from the other India have been coming over to this side.

And quietly, while the world is not looking, a pulsating, dynamic, new India is emerging.

An India whose faith in success is far greater then its fear of failure.

An India that no longer boycotts foreign-made goods but buys out the companies that make them instead.

History, they say, is a bad motorist. It rarely ever signals its intentions when it is taking a turn.

This is that rarely-ever moment. History is turning a page.

For more than half a century, our nation has sprung, stumbled, run, fallen, rolled over, got up, dusted herself and cantered, sometimes lurched on. But today, as we begin our 60th year as a free nation, the ride has brought us to the edge of time’s great precipice.

And one India – a tiny little voice at the back of the head – is looking down at the bottom of the ravine and hesitating.

The other India is looking up at the sky and saying, it’s time to fly.


This was published on front page of "The Times of India" on 1st January, 2007. Gave me goosebumps when I read it.
Very touching, very inspiring!

Cheers!

To kill a mocking-bird - Harper Lee.

Pulitzer-prize winner for fiction.
Harper Lee’s only work.
Story is told from the point of view of Jean Louise "Scout" Finch (age- 6), the young daughter of Atticus Finch, a lawyer in Maycomb, Alabama, a fictional small town in the Deep South of the United States. She is accompanied by her brother Jem and their mutual friend Dill.

“I never expected any sort of success with Mockingbird. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of the reviewers but, at the same time, I sort of hoped someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. Public encouragement. I hoped for a little, as I said, but I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I'd expected.”

—Harper Lee, quoted in Newquist—1964

Its rare to find a book that you just cant put down, but even rarer that a book touches your heart so deeply by its simplicity and greatness that you almost feel your heart pounding the same way it did every time you saw that someone special in high school. Please excuse the irrelevant reference to high school, as the book has absolutely nothing to do with that. That is something that all of us remember significantly, hence the comparison. The book according to my take is not one story; it’s about many incidents that life consists of! It is so very clear from the book that what we are is because of what we go through. Never did I construe so clearly that children become whatever they do because of how their parents are! To summarize what it is about – it is about a family – father (Atticus Finch), son (Jem, age-10), daughter (Scout, age-6). Atticus is a lawyer; the children are what children are like. Atticus is defending a black, which is almost a crime at that time in the society which consists of racist white community. Scout is the one who is narrating and I think that is the best part of it all. You see everything from her eyes and wonder how an innocent six year old can be so sensible sometimes. And that is all that I’m going to say about the book because you have to read it to feel what I did. It’s the sheer simplicity of the characters which ultimately is so intriguing.

Some excerpts -

"Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit them, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird. Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

“You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.”

“When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness’ sake. But don’t make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles them.”

And lastly a confession – I fell in love with Atticus by the time I finished the book. Other characters are lovable too, but the father…oh boy! A must read for all book-lovers!! Please please read it as early as possible!