In between flights...

On my way from Pune back to Bangalore, as I waited for my turn to be frisked at the security check, I saw before me a bearded gentleman who was politely giving way and chatting to someone who did not know where the queue was. I could not help overhearing him say he was American, but ‘is desh mera desh hai’. I suppressed an urge to correct him ‘Yeh desh’. It is not often that a foreigner strikes up conversation with a local in Hindi, especially when two Indians themselves greet in English.

So off he went before me, and as we waited for our planes in the lounge, I happened to be within earshot of him. He was obviously catching up on some business and I could not help admiring how confidently he spoke. I continued to listen as discreetly as I could. The crux of the conversation was that he was called upon to share pearls of his wisdom at some event, but he was looking for some kind of remuneration. He was very matter-of-fact in advising the lady on the other side of the phone that his time cost money, and if he were to prepare for and spend some time with them, then they would have to arrange for an honorarium.

Now, the mental picture I get for this kind of situation is a pot-bellied gentleman, scratching his head and saying ‘kuch kharcha pani mil jata toh …’. For some reason, when he spoke the way he did, it did not sound very awkward. Blame it on whatever you want to, but there I was, wondering what this person did that enabled him to speak the way he did and get away with it. Shortly, he was speaking to someone else who made the mistake of asking him his email ID. This gentleman chastised him for asking an email ID on a phone call, but eventually gave it in terms of his first name, last name and then his company name. I was totally hooked and made a mental note to look him up, having heard his name when he introduced himself on the phone call. He was David Wittenberg.

Well, you never know who you run into. On a separate note, here’s (who I think was) Syed Kirmani napping in the Jet Lounge at Mumbai.

Nano: The New Auto?

The Nano has hit the roads. And as you can see, it is very close to the Auto. :)

The similarity does not stop at size alone. The costs are comparable; in fact the Nano might even be cheaper to own than an auto-rickshaw. The cheapest Nano costs around Rs. 1,30,000 on road and the auto is not very distant from that figure. So, it might in fact be a better option that a prospective auto wala buys a Nano and runs the Nano as an auto.

On the one hand, you have more comfort; one can sit beside the driver rather than squeezing in "cattle-class" at the back. You have more safety, as there are no open sides or soft tops. More value, as you are protected from rain and paan (and may even have AC if the driver is enterprising enough). Roads where two/three-wheelers are prohibited are no longer a constraint.

On the other hand, they may not be as easy to flag down. Typical auto-navigation (read sudden U-turns) may not be possible because of the larger turning radius, which may be a good thing after all. Carriage of goods/luggage can also be a problem, as autos have a reputation of being able to carry a lot of things which cannot/may not be accommodated into a 'car'.

I do not know about CNG/LPG, but I do not see a significant difference in the fuel efficiency in the two when using normal fuel. The auto is known to give anywhere near 30 kmpl of petrol, while the Nano is said to return around 25 kmpl. A little math is required, perhaps, to work out a pricing model, where the Nano can be a little pricier than the auto, but still cheaper than a regular taxi. In fact, I think if LPG is considered, or for that matter, even diesel, the Nano can still be profitably used with the existing auto tariffs.

If it clicks, we may well see the Nano inherit the traditional black and yellow, hitherto worn proudly by the Auto and the Premier Padmini.

Here I go again

Its been a long time coming, but here I am. Marriage didn't kill the blogger in me, after all! And it feels good to be back!

More later, but soon.

That Queer Shake

12:10 - I am sleeplessly lazing, stretched out across the width of the bed, my back against the wall, cushioned by a rumpled duvet and a pillow, and my feet on a wheeled chair. I'm aimlessly browsing stuff, here and there, listening to Gaalipata songs on Kannada Audio, and randomly scrapping friends on Orkut.

12:20 - Too many tabs opened on a window, I guess, and Explorer has had enough. Without warning, it comes up with an error saying 'Explorer has encountered a serious problem and will close'. And poof, it closes all the sites at once. Though the loss is nothing so important or interesting to be furious at, I find myself cursing the laptop. There is a saying in Kannada which roughly translates to "going and sitting on an ant-hill, when there's nothing better to do". If only it had occurred to me, when I was showing off at Frankfurt airport having connected to public wi-fi without an anti-virus, my laptop would probably not have been in this state. To cut another story short, I had to take it to a HP authorised dealer to have it back in working condition without loss of any data.

12.25 - I shut my laptop down and place it on the chair (the one with the wheels). I visit the bathroom, remove my lenses and come back with my glasses on. With a cursory glance, I take in the general quadrangle of the room. Wash Clothes. Iron Trousers. Make space on the table for the laptop. Unpack completely. (I came back ONLY three weeks ago you see :P). Towel for tomorrow? Check. Ironed shirt? Check. Set alarm on the phone? Check. Removed from silent mode? Check.

12.35 - I switch off the light and jump into the bed. My eyes adjust to a pale orange light streaming in from the sodium vapour lamp outside. I take off my specs and place them above the laptop on the chair (the one with wheels). I look through the skylight into the darkness. It's an odd test I take sometimes - looking into the darkness with my heavily myopic eyes to see how much dark-distance I perceive. Sometimes it gets really interesting. Especially when you look at a luminous object, and then at something else, you see a superimposition of the luminous object over the real object in your line of vision. It is almost as if you can touch the vision with your hand, only it disappears when you outstretch your hand. It may lack an explanation, or may be it is too trivial to deserve one, but sometimes I do it for kicks. In Mysore, I could climb up the stairs and go to my room in pitch-dark "power cut" darkness, and return with Chelpark Black ink for my pen. Blindfolded. You tell me how.

12.40 - I close my eyes and try to sleep. I'm thinking about a dream which I had last week, and remembered to write about. What the dream was, I don't know now. But what I know is that I had remembered the dream then and wanted to get up and make notes lest I forgot about it. Why I didn't get up, nobody knows.

12.55 - I am shaking. It is not the usual shudder which I involuntarily have when there is a sudden cramp or a bad dream. Few seconds later, I realise it's not only me. The dim reflection of the white of the cupboard behind my bed is shaking too. The chair (the one with the wheels) is moving farther and farther away. A few seconds later, everything is still.
Puzzled, I go downstairs to talk to my flat mates who are usually awake till late. Unusually today, they are asleep, and do not respond when called. I walk back to my room and look around. I remember I shook unnaturally. I stretch my legs to feel any tell-tale pain which may have given a cramp. None. I look around, but there are no clues.

Only the chair (the one with wheels), having rolled to the center of the room, stands witness to my first second experience of an earthquake.

News:
Yesterday just before 0100 GMT, an earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter Scale, hit the UK. With its epicentre in Lincolnshire, it was the biggest earthquake in the UK in 25 years.

Asides:
1. I now know how people must have felt in Latur. What I experienced for 10 seconds was muffled by 100 miles of solid rock.
2. That Queer Shake is an anagram of The Earth Quakes.

Flashback in the New Year

As New Year says 'Hello', I am glumly reminded of the fact that it has been an year since I have been out of the country. Standing at the London Eye, watching the fireworks last year, I was not very sure that the year ahead would be without breaks at all. I had a faint hope I could go home sometime in between. Alas, it was not to be. But this New Year brings cheer with it, because, by Makara Sankranti, I will be back home for vacation.

The year that passed was a year of new acquisitions. Late as it was, but I did get my hands on the XDA Orbit. Quite common now, but at the same time last year, it was quite a sensation, and a fine sense of ownership would wash over me each time anyone asked to see it. This continued for a period of about six months, from when it started to become common. There was a similar kind of joy with the bluetooth stereo headsets, the high capacity hard-disks and the electronic gadgetry, though the joy this time was shortlived owing to their plummeting prices.

The year that passed was a year at the movies. I have never seen as many movies in one calendar year ever. If there is anything such as a good bargain, then it is the Cineworld Unlimited card. For 11 pounds per month (now 12), getting any number of movies, any number of times, any time of the day and at any theater in the UK is a superlative deal. Especially if the normal cost of a movie ticket is 7 pounds (now 8) for an adult. From watching Nehle Pe Dehla almost alone to seeing people watch Sivaji standing, I have done it all. I have been able to watch much-hyped big banner movies WEEKS before my friends saw it in India. I have seen them a lot cheaper too, if you think about it. If you wanted to watch Chak De India, Aaja Nachle and Om Shanti Om on the first day (as I did), you would probably pay more than what a non-member would pay here (approx. Rs.2000). The card is the first thing I recommend to any colleague who comes from India. So much so, that now, we are a sizeable number and at one point of time, we used to calculate the monthly cost-per-film and try to reduce the ratio the next month by watching more movies. Yeah, we are like this only.

The year that passed was a year of luck. How else would you define having seen from a distance of ten feet, the two most bankable stars of Bollywood - Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan. It has been my fortune to be roomies with an FTII alumnus, who has immense hunger for films and their making. He is a member of the British Film Institute and the National Theatre. It directly results in getting passes/tickets to premieres (Chak De India premiere at London), award functions (IIFA at Yorkshire) and film festivals (London Film Festival).

The year that passed was a year of appreciating good food. When you get up early on a weekend (#1 on my 'Will-not-do' list) and travel 75 miles (#2 on my 'Will-not-do' list), just to get some breakfast, you know you miss India very very much. Over the year, I have travelled to London innumerable times, just to eat Idli/Dosa. Nothing else. I have noticed that the curry you make at home is better than the bland stuff which comes when you order from an "Indian" restaurant. I have learnt that my room-mates cook so well, that if I can rake up some money, I can persuade them to shift from IT to catering. I look back with extreme satisfaction that some of the best food I have eaten over the last 12 months was cooked by my own roomies. Back home, my grandmother, my mother and my three aunts all make coffee the same way, yet there is a distinctive taste of each coffee, and I could make out who made which coffee. Now, I have forgotten how filter coffee tastes. Here coffee is either a black hot espresso or a sugarless, milky latte. Being away makes you realise the value of things taken for granted.

The year that passed was a year of travelling. Brussels, Bruges, Ghent in Belgium. Rotterdam, Amsterdam and the famous Keukenhof in the Netherlands. Cardiff, Barry Islands, Swansea and the beaches of Port Eynon in Wales. Glasgow, Fort William, Fort Augustus, Isle of Skye and the Loch Ness in scenic Scotland. And in England - London, the temples at Birmingham and Neasden, Sheffield, Ipswich, the cathedral of Norwich, the beaches at Great Yarmouth and the Isle of Wight, the Roman Baths at Bath and Bristol. It's an utter pity, a shame in fact that I haven't found time to write about them yet. Each of them was an experience in itself and deserves mention.

The year that passed was a year of fun. Of driving on the motorways at 100 miles per hour - as fast as a Shoaib Akhtar delivery. Of experiencing the first snowfall. Of pelting each other with snowballs and making snowmen in the parking lots. Of seeing black ice on the roads. Of taking steam baths in the gym. Of converting a flatland in the park into a cricket patch (not a pitch). Of seeing only five hours of daylight. And then sixteen hours. Of waking up to dull grey mornings and watching out of the window, with a cup of hot tea in one hand and a phone back home in the other. And of the joy of having taken a seven-year young relationship towards its logical milestone.

2008 promises to be fun. Here I come!

Merry Christmas

Hmm... a long and an eventful break. Since the last post I have -

• enjoyed Diwali,
• been busy with work,
• seen the weather change till it almost snowed, but didn't,
• been down with a bout of cold, sore throat and general feverishness,
• been driving all over South Wales.

There's a lot to update, so keep watching. :D

Guess who's back?

Back again - after a long hiatus. Though this wasn't as long as some of the other breaks I have taken, it is long in the sense that a lot has happened in between, and I'm left like "Hello, is it less than a month since my last post?". The weather has changed for the better, atleast it's sunny for most of this week - so the mood is upbeat. And an upbeat mood makes for a makeover, and hence this change.

Don't be too judgemental about the colours though - I had a look at Sony VAIO C Series and the grey and orange gave it a cool look, and I was hooked. I'm not entirely satisfied with the appearance yet, but hey, give it some time - may be it will sink in.

How long did you say I was away, again? Come to think of it, I don't remember having shaved since my last post. So there's a three-week old stubble (or is it more?) dimming some of the radiance. And while I was away, I watched Shrek - The Third (4/5, Donkey's got some cute kids), Die Hard 4.0 (3.5/5, some overly unbelievable action, but extraordinary gadgetry), Jhoom Barabar Jhoom (1/5, it's better than Nehlle pe Dehlla), Apne (2.5/5, longish, predictable and Paaji looks weary) and ... let me think ...

And oh, I bought a bicycle (summer's here, folks!!).

100...

... could not have come at a better time.

This Friday brings an end to an eventful week of living out of backpacks. The long weekend was well-spent in a semi-backpacking holiday in Belgium and the Netherlands, while the rest of the week was (well, let’s say it just was) at Ipswich.

Sitting in the lounge at the Ipswich office, for the first time, I felt that joblessness is frustrating too. Soon after coming back from holiday, I went to Ipswich on a “company assignment”. By hearsay, I knew that Ipswich was a sleepy little town with a lot of local cafés, and it certainly looked so at first sight. But somehow, all the stars and planets connived to deny me the pleasure of enjoying its laid-back laziness. My stay at Ipswich was a comedy of logistical errors.

First up, the guys there did not know I was coming so I did not have a desk to sit at or a computer to work on. Added to it, there was no information of what I would do, and who would oversee it. Hovering around friends’ desks was not a viable option as they were all busy in their own work. So all day long, I just sat in the lounge, fiddled with the stylus and browsed the net on my PDA-phone over a GPRS connection (appearing to be someone doing something important), and finished the issues of Wired and OK! in the lounge.

Upon that, the budget bed-and-breakfast I checked into was very moderate. Well, I can’t blame it for the low rate and the short notice I got it at, but then, it could have been a little cleaner. It was managed by a brown-turning-silver haired old man, probably in his sixties, who obviously was struggling to maintain it by himself. Half the house was painted, while the other half was smudged with strokes, and had paint buckets and brushes on the floor. The room had a creaky floor, and floorboards stacked nearby, so he was evidently doing some repair work.

The room I got was dank and mildly emanated a wild unidentifiable aroma. In the room below, his daughter maintained a solitary existence. She had a cat which roamed all over the place. My room floor had visible hair which the cat had moulted. The room had windows which couldn’t be opened and there was a note asking to keep the curtain closed at all times. The kitchen was lacking utensils and food items, and had a note to keep the door closed when cooking to prevent the tadka from choking them.

However, the man himself was good to talk to – he took me for a “round” in his car and showed me the nearest bus-stop and over a cup of heavenly Portuguese coffee at the local coffee shop, he told me that his son had been to university in America, and was now in the Metropolitan Police in London, and that his house had been let to Indian tenants too. He asked me if I had been to Brazil, an obvious reference to the “Universidad Sao Paulo” on my T-shirt, and said his son had been there as part of a Met Police exercise.

Once I was back in the BnB, I looked at my task-list –
1. Clear mailbox (company has a limit on the mailbox size :( )
2. Transfer money
3. Pay credit card bills
4. Market going up – make some money
5. Leave feedback for ebay sellers
And I was stuck there, stuck without internet!!!! Though I managed most with the GPRS connection, a few things spilled over to today (which was better, because the market scaled a considerable height today). Yesterday afternoon I told them they could request my services when they had the logistics ready, and took the next train back to MK – and had a good night’s sleep.

Weekend drama shall unfold in a few days. :)

Busyness...

... in business has resulted in a hiatus in posting. It isn't only the volume of work you see. A lot of other things are happening, like arranging an intra-company badminton tournament, like discussing NRIness with old friends on IM, like receiving and seeing off colleagues, like arranging a conference call to discuss how to vacate the house in Pune, now that no one is there and such like.

Things, which did not allow me to do what I would want to - like writing about the trip to a small British Isle (Wight), or ordering free prints of the photos I took there, or reviewing Guru, or spell-checking the professor, or mentioning my new PDA phone (or its 2GB micro SD card or the bluetooth stereo headset or the 4GB pen drive), or putting in a word on the pass I have to the local multiplex, which gives me unlimited movies for 11 pounds a month.

And to boot, these guys have loaded up this new thing here, which requires me to login with my Gmail account - that's one less password to remember, but what the heck is Google upto? It is integrating everything left, right and center. It took over Youtube, and integrated it into Orkut. I can see them integrating Blogger too, and before you know it, you will be blogging on Orkut.

While this will convince you that I'm still active and Google has not mistakenly trashed my blog in the migration it is undertaking, I'm gonna take some time off and write a lot - most of it will be reviews ( I have been spending too much time on eBay :P ) - but I will also include travelogues and photos and movie-reviews (monthly pass, you see). For Guru, though, I will direct you to this exhaustive review here.

Stay tuned. Attuned.

The race

There was a race at Mohali yesterday.

The spectators were trying to leave the stadium before Aussies finished the game.
The Aussies were trying to finish the game before the spectators left the stadium.

The Indian team lingered on till both left. Ask them who won.

Happy Diwali

So its Diwali, a time for the whole family to come together and rejoice. A time when sons return home to be with their parents, a time when daughters get busy helping their mothers set the sweets aside, a time when kids light up crackers all over the place.

I remember, as kids, we used to heap together all the crackers our numerous aunts and uncles got from their Lions and Rotary Clubs, and from various cheeTi vyavaharas. Two days before, we used to spread all the crackers on a newspaper, and put them in the sun to dry, so that they would burst in a bang, and not just sputter in front of the neighbours.

I don't really know when I began to appreciate Diwali more as a festival of lights than sound, even though over years, Diwali has become just the opposite. I guess we just miss what has left us.

Like Thatha, for example.

I'm in Mysore this Diwali, like every year, but for Thatha's annual ceremony.

I've been very busy for some time now, and there are other updates as soon as I return to Pune, but till then, wish you a happy Diwali...

Braking the break

The break did not do me any good.

Not writing has not helped me one bit - I'm still the same. Pangs of doubt and uncertainty hit me every now and then. I keep thinking of how to make it a win-win for all concerned, but I lose my way midway and think on what might happen if things would not work the way I want them to. I know there is only one outcome. But I just can't bully my way in there. I just don't want to hurt others on my way there.

Not them. Not after all they have done.
Not them. Not for believing in me.
Neither them. For no fault of theirs.

If only I could make others see my viewpoint and set everything right with a flourish of a wand, I would. Alas, I am endowed with no such powers, and I will have to undergo the uncertainty of it all. The dark clouds meandering over me shall pass to yield a brighter light. But the stream cannot stop till such time. The stream has to flow, lest it develop algae, in its stagnation.

I am back.

And its time to take a break...

... because a lot of things are happening on the personal front.

I am going through a very bad patch, it is better that I do not tempt myself to write, for I may end up writing something, which I would regret later. See you folks around.

23 minutes...

...is the time it takes to reach from Bangalore to Mysore, or so it says here.

Or if the link doesn't work, here is the transcript -


To Mysooru at wind speed
[ 9 Aug, 2006 2226hrs IST TIMES NEWS NETWORK ]

BENGALURU: Vayu Express, the bullet train between Bengaluru and Mysooru, has been speeded up. This means that the travel time between these two cities will now be reduced by 5 minutes. This is a major step forward for India's only bullet train.

Introduced last August at a speed of 300 kph, it enabled you to reach the City of Palaces from the state capital in 28 minutes. At a simple ceremony here on Wednesday, Infrastructure Implementation Ministry (IIM) administrator Bharat Kumar commissioned the new Track Maintenance Technology which enables the bullet train to zip along even faster to Mysooru.

Sanjay Rao, a regular commuter between the two cities, is thrilled by this development. "I'll spend less time on the train which means I get more to spend with my family. I hope the state introduces such trains to other cities too." His hopes may soon be realised. Track testing is under way on the Bengaluru-Mangaluru and Bengaluru-Hubbali routes and if all goes as per the IIM plan, the bullet train should be ready to roll from August next. This should dramatically improve the connectivity between the three IT hubs of the state and give a boost to further development of the region. The Hubbali link is of particular significance for travellers to Mumbai because the Maharashtra government is pushing the Railways to finish the Mumbai segment.

However, the occasion was marred by stray protests orchestrated by the opposition party which does not see much benefit in this Rs 1000-crore upgradation project. "What is the big deal in cutting short a journey by 5 minutes?" said opposition leader A Murthy. Most businessmen could easily give him a fitting reply. At least, he got his 5 minutes of fame on Web TV. Despite these carping critics, the bullet train continues to be a huge draw. Thousands of passengers have already travelled by it and there's no looking back on this Japanese technology.


My first reaction at this was - What is this crap about? Introduced last August? Yeah!!! And why was anybody not talking about it in September when I went home? 28 minutes from Mysore to Bangalore is national, no international news. How come no part of the hungry media, which carries every cough and fart of our cricketers on primetime, carried it? Except TOI of course...

And I googled, but could not find a Infrastructure Implementation Ministry headed by a Bharat Kumar, nor is any opposition leader in the State or Centre named A Murthy. And the three IT hubs of Karnataka are Mysore, Mangalore and Hubli? Whither Bangalore?

The article carries actual commuter-speak, too. The guy is thrilled by this development, the development being a reduction of travel time from 28 to 23 minutes. And he says he gets that much more time to spend with his family. Poor guy. I would like to know the time at which it leaves Bangalore to Mysore and also the fare for the half-an-hour journey.

What I did find out was that there was a proposal in 2004, here and it was shelved, here.

UPDATE : All right, I KNOW now. You don't have to tell me what this particular article was all about. It turns out that there is a Refresh Bangalore project going on, where ToI is requesting readers to contribute their dream for Bangalore. The article above, and the ones Shastri and Adi wrote about, are a reflection of the article author's dream for Bangalore in 2025.

Untimely Resolutions

I love books. I like to buy them and read, rather than borrow, because once I have read the book, I lose the interest to buy it anymore. At another point in life, I used to buy books off the footpath, because as much as I hated piracy, I loved books, and my pocket was too small to afford a new one. So, footpaths and second hand shops it was.

Now, I'm earning, so I don't mind spending on books. Sadly, that is also the case with things other than books. The result being running up huge bills on the credit card. Yes, I am one of those people who got financial independence and went on a shopping spree, only to find that living out of your means is suddenly very stifling, however nice your job may be. Having burnt fingers in that way, I cancelled many of my innumerable "lifetime free" cards, with the exception of a MasterCard and a Visa.

And I'm on a strict budget. It has been almost six months since I shopped anything (clothes/watch/shoes/shades/accessories). It has been a few months more that I have bought books/CDs. And no, in all these non-shopped months, I haven't saved money. I have managed to send home a fixed sum every month, a fine improvement on the sparse and undecided amounts I used to send home irregularly. I have managed to identify how much spare cash I am left with at the end of each month.

But of late, my wishlist is growing longer and longer, and my wardrobe looks outdated, and so I have decided that starting next month, I will buy one book, one CD and one piece of apparel every month. This fits nicely in my scheme of things. I also plan to put a little amount into an SIP. Those who have a good idea on markets can suggest an SIP which is doing good. Please drop some names in the comments.

It is with great reluctance I came out of Crossword empty-handed yesterday. And I'm not going there until next month. After days and days of just silent browsing in the store, I get a "Can I help you, sir?" five minutes after I enter.

Talk of conversions

My ISP still blocks blogs, so I post using a mailer. And I read blogs using pkblogs. Now, an interesting observation is in the last post, I put in the address of my other blog as http://undertheshiningstars.blogspot.com (read undertheshiningstars dot blogspot dot com) and when it got posted on the site, you can see, it shows http://www.pkblogs/undertheshiningstars. I'm baffled.

Is it that whenever I open a blog through pkblogs, it actually runs through the whole text and replace *.blogspot.com with pkblogs/* ???

Update: It works only with pkblogs. When tried with another proxy, it comes up as dot blogspot dot com only. :-)

Of partners and hands

They say in Bridge, as in sex, if you don't have a good partner, you better have a good hand. In badminton, however, you better have TWO good hands - A backhand and a forehand.

My partner last week, says he is used to playing badminton "mind-your-own-court" style, and not "net-and-baseline". Fine, I say. Now, whenever my right-handed partner is in the left side of the court, he gets me points with his strong forehand. He stands at the very outer edge of the left court, and rallies all his shots to the center, while I take care of the right side of the court.

Sadly, whenever he is in the right side of the court, he cannot cover the center court, and loses me many points as I try in vain to cover the left court, front, back and center. And then he attempts a few false shots but ends up dropping the shuttle in our court and losing us the game.

After the game, I sit for a break, and the poor guy walks across to me and says sorry for losing me the game. He explains that he has a poor backhand, and so he cannot play "net-and-baseline". I shrug it off, say it's just a game and make some small talk. Later he goes and plays with other guys while I rest for some more time.

It is raining hard so there is not much crowd to play with. Sometimes, lack of crowd becomes a problem in itself. Like, a court is vacant, and we are three guys resting now, and none pro enough to play singles. I wait for some time before another game ends, and partners switch, and then I play until N says she is hungry and wants to go home despite the rain.

Winning

Winning is so good isn't it?

Last weekend saw me playing badminton after a long time, and with a new partner. I usually tire out after three back-to-back games, there is only so much an amateur can take. It was raining, so there was not much of a rush, courts were relatively free. Usually getting to play three full games is a big thing in itself. But Saturday, I played, in a row and won all three. Heh heh heh.

I had almost cooled down and ready to leave, while my partner called me for another game he was playing with a different set of guys. Needless to say, we won that match too. All this after a cardio workout at the gym, and on one red mug of Nescafe Classic. In retrospect, I think I should have bought a lottery ticket too, that day. Nothing seemed to go wrong at all.

On Sunday, everything was as usual. I lost my team more points than I gained it. Heh heh heh. I played with different partners, and ended up on the losing side. And mind you, after the second loss, I didn't feel like another game. That in itself, was instrumental in losing the third game.

Like I said, winning is so good. It goads you on and on, and you feel so unstoppable. Monday morning saw me with a blister on my right hand. Time to change the grips on the racket, I guess.

Unless I win, in which case of course, the racket is not what matters, talent is.

Currently listening to

Ya Ali...Raham Ali...Ya Ali, Yaar pe kurbaan hai sabhi,
Ya Ali...Madad Ali...Ya Ali, ye meri jaan, ye zindagi,
Ishq pe haan, mita doon, luta doon main apni khudi,
Yaar pe haan, luta doon, mita doon main ye hasti.

Ya Ali...Raham Ali...Ya Ali, Yaar pe kurbaan hai sabhi,
Ya Ali...Madad Ali...Ya Ali, ye meri jaan, ye zindagi...

Mujhe kuch pal de kurbat ke, fakir ham teri chaahat ke.
Rahein bechain dil kab tak? Mile kuch pal to raahat ke.
Chaahat pe, Ishq pe haan, mita doon, luta doon main apni khudi,
Yaar pe haan, luta doon, mita doon main ye hasti.

Ya Ali...Raham Ali...Ya Ali, Yaar pe kurbaan hai sabhi,
Ya Ali...Madad Ali...Ya Ali, ye meri jaan, ye zindagi...

Bina tere na ek pal ho, na bin tere kabhi kal ho.
Ye dil ban jaaye patthar ka, na isme koi hulchul ho.
Sanam pe haan, Ishq pe haan, mita doon, luta doon main apni khudi,
Kasam se haan, luta doon, mita doon main ye hasti.

Ya Ali...Raham Ali...Ya Ali, Yaar pe kurbaan hai sabhi,
Ya Ali...Madad Ali...Ya Ali, ye meri jaan, ye zindagi...

Got wind that this was a direct lift from a song "Ya Ghally" by Arabic band GUITARA. Also, other songs of Gangster, Lamha Lamha and Tu hi meri shab hai, are also seemingly "inspired" by Kal shab dekha and Sacral Nirvana. More dirt and inspired songs here. Beware, for like Shruthi, you might end up finding out that so many of your fave songs were, alas, second-hand stuff.

But personally, it didn't make any difference to me. This is some great music here, and I first heard it as "Ya Ali", and I liked it. If I had heard it as 'Ya Ghally', may be I would have loved it then, and cried foul now.

The debate on liking plagiarised stuff, and not acknowledging the original will go on and on, but all said and done, this song here ROCKETH.

I'm off...

An old friend's engagement.
One long pending visit to a friend's new house.
One visit to the school, with school-friends.
One drive to the college, and one cutting chai in the canteen.
One meal at the dhaba, just like the old times.
Two re-unions.
Dozens of movies on my new notebook.
Hours of wi-fi internet at Cafe Coffee Day, Kalidasa Road.
Scores of photos on Harsha's Nikon.
and
a helluva catching up is all I want to do in Mysore.

Yes, I'm off to Mysore, and will be back in Pune on May 02nd. Will keep posting, though.