Monday, December 19, 2005

May the Force be with you!

I have always found a great affinity for Star Wars. The concept of Star Wars is just amazing. I am sure there are many out there who feel that Star Wars is crap. But I tend to disagree. Its all about fantasy and imagination. Its all that people with limited amount of imagination cannot completely comprehend the meaning of Star Wars. And hence, tend to call it a crap.

Having said all that, let me come to the point. Last weekend I had been to Forum. Forum is one of the best malls in Bangalore (Its where people with no idea of shopping flock together just to, u know, 'pass time'). Anyways, personally I dont find Forum much appealing expect the fact that it has "Landmark", my favourite store. So, when my collegue invited me to Forum, I agreed. Afterall, it had been real long since I visited Landmark.

Once I was in Landmark, I noticed a great collection of books waiting to be explored. The first thing that caught my eye was Calvin and Hobbes complete set. The set was so heavy that I had a tought time lifting it to find the price. And the sight of the price made the set go crashing from my hand. However, I managed to grab it before it hit the ground. The price tag read a hefty 6.3k. "Way out of reach" I thought.

It took quite an effort to tear my eyes away from it. But then, I noticed a book by Chetan Bhagat, 'One Night @ the Call Center'. Having read 'Five point someone', I was looking forward for Bhagat's next book. It was instantly added to my shopping cart. Then, with no great book around, I just wandered in the store.

Suddenly, I saw it. A shelf full of Star Wars' books. I could have kicked myself. How the hell did I miss the shelf before. There were so many books that I was confused(confused is an understatement, but a better word did not strike me). After rummaging through the shelf, I did not know which book to start with. Finally, I settled on "Star Wars: Episode I - Phatom Menace".

Now I am looking forward to start on the Star Wars book. Right now I am half way through a book called 'Eragon'. So I plan to start on the book after that. And hope by that time, the Force guides me to find the right sequence of books.

Till then.... May the Force be with you!

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Nothing Official about it

Another weekend down. Nothing done. Awesome !!!!

Sometimes things down work the way you want them to be. Sometime back I had made a resolution. "Every weekend I would do something and blog about it". Now it looks like I need to rethink on that resolution. Maybe, I overdid it.

Another couple of weeks with no action, then the resolution is going to change for sure. Man, isnt it difficult to stick to your words? And now, looking the way things are going, am sure this weekend also will have no action.

Now looking at the resolution, I have two options in front of me.
(1) Change the resolution - maybe something like "Every alternate weekends I will do something" or "I will blog every week even if I am out of action". The first alternative looks pleasing enough. But am more biased towards the second alternative. Atleast that keeps me in touch with my blogs.
(2) Make it a point to do something every weekend - This, I think, is not feasible.

So, I hope to follow alternative 'b' of my first option. Lets see how things go. But to tell frankly, am out of ideas on the topics to blog on. Earlier it was something like a travelogue. But now it will be something different. Lets see what the future has in store for my blog. Maybe I can come up with some good topics.

Till then... May the force be with me !!!!

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Back to Square-One

This was something I was planning from a long time. It was from here that everything had started. And I had to go there.

I had planned this trip since a long time. And I had booked the tickets a month back. But knowing the state of other trips, I was still sceptical. Those days many things were happening in office and looking at the trend I had given up all hopes of landing in Chennai. But, as they say, "There is light at the end of every tunnel". Everything seemed to fall in place a few days before the trip. And by friday, I was free to start.

My train to Chennai was scheduled at 11:45 PM. I reached station at 10:30 PM and spent the next hour and a half listening to Radio City and taking a stroll down the entire stretch of the platform. The train started 15 minutes late and reached Chennai at 7:40 AM.

As I stepped down from the train, I remembered the day I had first landed in Chennai with my friends. It seemed just like yesterday that we had landed there and had so much fun. Anyway, let me not get into that. I took a bus to my friend's place and by the time I reached his place it was around 8:45 AM.

We did not have anything planned for the day. So after some discussion, we decided to catch up with some movie if tickets were available. And also decided that we would visit Spencers after that and catch up with some friends in the evening.

Lunch was at our usual hangout, Shakes and Creams. It felt great to be back to the place. I remembered the days when I used to come there atleast thrice a week. After having pizzas, we started for Satyam. Sadly, all the tickets were sold out at Satyam. So we decided to go to Spencers. We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping at Spencers. In the evening, met some old buddies in Pizza Hut.

And there iss nothing like a night on the beach. And Besantnagar beach it was. Mahesh had got his guitar. 3 friends + a nearly empty beach + a guitar = Dil Maange More. So, Mahesh had to play some tunes on his "Dark Angel". It was midnight by the time we started back.

Sunday morning I got up late. I was told that I had to meet some TCSers for lunch. And nothing like Wangs for another reunion. After a great lunch, I met my old roomates and we decided to relive the old days. So, the destination was Game Drome.

We reached Game Drome with the intention of playing Diablo II. But because of some problems, we had to settle for A3 and Ragnarok. It was great to play RPGs after so many days. And before I realised, it was evening and time for me to start back.

But, I could not say farewell to Chennai without having a Mango juice at our usual juice parlour. After having a Mango Juice and also a chocolate ice-cream at Shakes and Creams, I started back with a heavy heart.

It was one of the weekends I will not forget for quite some time. And I must admit, I am feeling nostalgic.

Waiting?

Its been more than a couple of weeks since I last blogged. These two weeks have been quite eventful in many ways. I had a great weekend in Chennai and I hope to write a blog on this pretty soon. Also, things in office are happening pretty fast. So, blogging had to take a back seat. But "I'll be back" (Arnold style) is what I have to tell.

Monday, November 14, 2005

Nandi Hills 2

The trip to Nanhi Hills was decided out of nowhere. We had given it a thought on friday evening in office. But I had assumed that this would not materialise like other trips. But on saturday evening, after a series of phone calls, it was decided that we would be going to Nandi Hills on sunday.

On sunday morning, 5 of us started from Bangalore at 9 AM to Nandi Hills. We had the old crowd of Shivanasamudra trip and two new people. The meeting point was BEML gate. We met there at 9:20 AM. From there, we started towards Nandi Hills by taking the old madras road and outer ring road to reach Hebbal fly-over in about 45 minutes.

Just after the fly-over we gave our first stop. This time to buy fruits. But the fruits were out of reach because of the cost factor. Forgettting the fruits, we started again. The traffic was pretty thick till Yelahanka. After that, the traffic started thinning out. And the ride started getting comfortable.

The second stop was just after ITC and this time for breakfast. After suppressing the rumbles in the stomach, we started again. And this time, we decided not to stop until we reached the road to Nandi Hills.

Once we had reached the Nandi Hills road, we had our next stop. After a small photo session, we started towards Nandi Hills. We stopped at several places on the way to shoot snaps and videos.

By the time we reached Nandi Hills, it was lunch time and all of us were hungry. After a fine walk in the gardens, we reached the top and found a restaurant. The quality of food did not matter. We were all hungry and anything at that time would have been bliss. However, the restaurant turned out to be pretty ok.

After having our fill, we went to the Yoganandishwara temple atop. The temple is very old and constructed entirely with stones. I had not visited the temple the last time I had been to Nandi Hills. So this was a different experience.

After the visit to the temple, we went searching for famous "Tippu Drop". We did have to walk quite a distance to reach there. But the experience was great. A steep drop of about 2000ft. The prisoners sentenced to death by Tippu were thrown, or rather pushed, from this place.

By the time we were done with all this, it was 3 PM. We decided to start back in order to avoid the traffic in Bangalore. Also, we all wanted something to drink. So, we started back and stopped at the bottom of Nandi Hills. After some water and tea, we started back towards Bangalore. We stopped at the NH-7 junction and again rebuckled ourselves. And this time, it was non-stop drive till Hebbal fly-over. We reached Bangalore at around 5 PM. Tired, but happy.

Finally........

This weekend was "Finally..." for many things.

I finally got the snaps of Mission Udaan. I must admit that I was a bit disappointed for the fact that the snap of Jaguar had not come. But the rest of the snaps had come real great.

Also, the long lost Nandi Hills trip finally materialised. So, I must say I had an eventful weekend.

Monday, November 07, 2005

Mission Udaan

I am blogging again after a break of couple of weeks. After celebrating Diwali at home, and returning back early to wrap up some pending work in office, I am finally bit free now. So coming back to Mission Udaan.

Mission Udaan was an unexpected trip. After planning to visit Nandi Hills again with my collegues, I was all set to zoom on my bike on Sunday. But then, on saturday, a friend on mine called up and said that he had obtained passes for Mission Udaan.

So, what is Mission Udaan? Mission Udaan is an air show organised by Nat Geo in collaboration with Indian Air Force. You can watch the same on Nat Geo from November 20th, every sunday at 10 P.M. (Well, they were shouting this out atleast once every 5 minutes).

An air show? WOW !!! You dont get to watch air shows everyday. So, I called up my collegues to tell them the situation. And it was decided that Nandi Hills had to wait.

Sunday 8 A.M. Three bikes. Six people. Destination: Yelahanka Air Force Station. The road towards Yelahanka was good. And because it was sunday morning, the traffic was thin. So, all the three bikes were zooming at top speeds. We reached there at 9:20 A.M. And we had a situation at hand. We had only 5 passes and there were six people. Finally, after talking with one of the people from Nat Geo we managed to obtain the pass and we were in.

And it was a divine experience for aeronautical fanatics like me and my room-mate. There were quite a number of war-planes on display. Jaguar, Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH), the MI-8 transport helicopter, DORNIER a light transport plane and another heavy transport plane were on the display.

At 10 A.M, our long wait finally came to an end. The air show began with a formation flight by the transport aircrafts. The formation called "Small-Boy" included two Dorniers and a heavy transport plane (I cant remember the name). It was a simple pass-by flight with no aerobatics. But you cant expect aerobatics from transport aircraft.

Next came the IJT or the Intermediate Jet Trainer. And this was mind-blowing. The IJT flew past us even before we realised. It was zooming at tremendous speeds. And the aerobatics it performed was also jaw-dropping. It finally landed and came to halt right in front of us. And it was a beauty.

And as if we had not had enough, next came the LCA a.ka. Tejas. And this time, it was... well, i dont have any words to describe it. If IJT was fast, LCA was super-fast. Zooming at great speeds and performing mind blowing aerobatic feats in the air, it left us wanting for more. Even this aircraft landed in front of us and came to halt next to the IJT.

This was not the end. Next came Sarang. The aerobatic team consisting of four ALHs. This team performed great fly-bys and showed awesome formations rivalling manouvers rivalling that of an aircraft. This team performed for a long time and I had to stop myself from finishing the film roll of my camera.

And then came the cherry of the ice-cream. The main attraction. The Surya-Kirans. Nine aircrafts flying like one entity. The aircrafts took off in a formation. Three aircrafts at a time. Each group representing one color of the Indian flag. The aircraft in each group fired gas resembling the Indian tri-color, Orange, White and Green. The Surya-Kirans displayed awesome manouverability. Various formations like Diamond, Tango, Sukhoi, etc were displayed. Aerobatics like peel-offs, fly-bys etc were also displayed. All the planes were flying as if they were one single entity. All of them flying in one spatial plane. AWESOME !!!! But, some things are too good to last long. The Surya-Kirans finally landed when we were hoping to see more action.

Then came the grand-finale. The paragliding team. The paratroupers jumped from MI-8 from the height of 7000 ft. After a free fall for 10 seconds, the parachutes finally opened. We could see small mushrooms flying in the air. Then, when they were closing on the ground, they started performing aerobatics. Some were circling horizontally in the air. They landed one by one, and the landing was like a piece of cake. Smooth and slick.

We managed to drag ourselves away from the display area and moved on to the display booths. Me and my friends bought a T-shirt and a couple of posters. By the time we started from there it was 12:15 P.M. We reached back at 1 P.M.

Now I am waiting for the snaps to get developed. I hope to post the snaps soon in my photo albums. So, keep an eye on my photo album too.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Probability

I got a sms this morning saying "A gem quote : Probability of meeting someone increases exponentially when you are in a position where you dont want to meet them". So I started pondering on this quote to analyse whether it was really a "gem".

Hoping that it would be easier to analyse the quote given certain scenario, I started thinking of instances where this quote would hold true.

Instance 1: You have told your parents (read relatives) that you are going to your friend's place to study for the coming exams when actually you are going for a party. You go to the party, have great fun, you get totally sloshed and then when you think nothing can go wrong, your cousin comes there with his friends (or you bump into some relative of yours). OOPS !!!

Instance 2: You are going around with someone from the past few days and none of your friends know about it. One day when you are in a movie, suddenly you see your big-mouthed friend sitting next to you and watching you with that "someone" when that "someone" has held your hand or something. OOPS !!!

Instance 3: You stay back at office telling your boss that you have some work to finish. Pleased with your hard work, your boss leaves for the day smiling at you. Trying to make maximum use of this opportunity, you start to play some game or start browsing some sites which you usually dont visit when you boss is around. But because of your bad luck, your boss who had forgotten something comes back to office and finds you busy in your "own world". Suddenly, something tells you that this moment is too good to be true and you turn back to find your boss standing behind your back. OOPS !!!

Well, let me tell you that I have never been in such close situations and touch wood, I wouldn't want to be in one either. But then, I do know many people who have been in such a, can i say "delicate" situation.

After analysing all these scenarios, I finally concluded that it was definitely a gem quote. If you disagree, I would like to hear more about it. And if you agree, or if you have anything to share, please comment.

Saturday, October 22, 2005

What is Love

So, What is Love? Maybe another million dollar question.

I am not a philosopher to explain Love, nor have I any interest in expressing my personal opinion. What I am refering to here is the song "What is Love".

Let me elaborate. Last weekend I had been to one of my friend's place to set right some problem in his computer. After a frustrating battle for 3 hours, I concluded that nothing could be done to his computer. So I got his HDD to my place, and set the things right. When everything was fine, I started exploring his HDD and found some interesting videos. One of them was this one.

So "What is Love"? This clip features Jim Carrey, and I dont think I need to say anything. This clip is shot for series called "Saturday Night". Its a great video and background score is awesome too. Jim Carrey at his best maybe. The clip is about three guys who go around the city on a saturday night in search of "Love" (dont miss the quotes).

For all those people who have not watched this video can download the same through one of the the following URL:
http://www.cartoonland.de/2005-10-03.php?file=jim_carrey-saturday_night.wmv
http://www.hotmedia.org/2005-10-03/jim_carrey-saturday_night.wmv

And after you have watched the same, please do give your comments.

Monday, October 17, 2005

Of Hits and Misses

"Life is not fair", "Life is not a bed of roses", etc. etc. These are some of the many one-liners that try describe a very abstract word called "Life". Many people have tried to define life and they may have defined it right in their view-point. But then, "Life is not fair".

A very small incident tells us how things turn up in life. Of the things you wanted to work out and about the things you didn't.

You plan to spend a beautiful weekend with your friends partying out, but end up in office with your boss breathing down your neck like an infuriated ox. You are forced to work. But then, mind has no boundaries. It can never be confined inside the boundaries of this world. Your mind will be partying merrily with your friends, while you are physically tied in your cubicle. And the task which would have taken only an hour during normal hours will take not less than a couple of hours to finish. And by the time you are done, your friends would have done with the party and returned back to their "Home-Sweet-Home".

So, how would you feel at that time? And if you were planning for this weekend from the past couple of months, then? But what can you do? Well, other than finding words to curse your devilish boss. Nothing. You feel so helpless. You end up swearing "Why me !!??".

And thats a million dollar question, "Why me !!??". And at this time, you feel everyone around you is leading an "ideal" life. Everything seems to be working right for them. No worries, no problems. You are the only target in the world for all the misfortunes and misadventures at that time. God (If you believe in Him) seems to be very unfair to you. You end up screaming "Why me !!??".

You are helpless. Your hands are tied. You want to pin-down this injustice on someone. But you cant find anyone. So what do you do?

I am leaving this topic open for now. Maybe I can conclude on this some day.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Wanderings of Sandy

"Monday night... and I feel so low....count the hours... but they go so slow.... " so goes a song from Enrique Iglesius. And this was exactly what I was on saturday night. I had a full sunday ahead of me and had no idea what to do. With no company and no plans in mind, I forced myself to sleep on saturday night. Sunday morning I got up, hoping for some great idea to pop into my mind. But no such thing happened. Then suddenly..... my eyes fell on my shining bike (please note, it was washed on saturday). And viola, I knew what to do. I went to Food World, bought some packets of food and hit the roads at 11 am. I was going to Nandi Hills.

Nandi Hills is the closest hill station to Bangalore, at a distance of about 60kms. I took the outer-ring road. The roads were empty and i went zooming at around 80 kmph. (Please note, you rarely get to reach these speeds in Bangalore). I reached the Hebbal fly-over in about 20 mins and took the road to Yelahanka. The new international airport at Devanahalli is en-route. And also the Jakkur air-field. So, the roads are broad at most of the places and one can easily cruise at 100 kmph. The route was pretty boring till the turn to Nandi Hills. Once you reach the board that states, Nandi Hills.. 22 kms, the road starts to get a bit rough and more greener. I stopped at several places to take snaps from my ordinary Kodak camera.

Once you reach close to the hills, the roads start to get bit tricky and view of the mountains starts to get amazing. Once you are on the curved roads, the view of the mountains and the valley at each turn looks like straight out of the postcards. I stopped at several places to take shots from my camera. I reached the top at around 1:30 PM. Two wheelers are not allowed inside the fort on the top. So I parked the vehicle, lifted my sack and started walking.

The weather was just marvellous. It was very cool and cloudy. Some time later it started drizzling. I walked about in the rain, enjoying the greenery and the landscape. The place was crowded near the gardens. People had come with their families and were having their lunch. So I escaped from that place and moved over to some more scheduled places. I reached a place from where the hills and the valley could be seen perfectly. I sat down on a rock and enjoying the cool breeze and muching on the food I had got. At around 2:30 PM, I started walking back. I went around the ends of the fort, getting cold stares from couples who thought I was intruding their privacy. At around 2:45 PM, I realised I was lost. I did not know which was the way out and which way I had come. I decided to pursue the path I was walking. At around 3 PM, I was relieved to see the parking lot in sight. I paid the parking guy and started back half-heartedly.

I stopped at many more turns on my way back and enjoyed the landscape. Finally, at around 3:45 PM I reached the same board that said, Nandi Hills... 22 kms. I stopped at this junction, tightened up my sack, wore my helmet which was hanging on the back on my bike during the journey down the hill, and zipped my jacket. I was ready to hit the highway and was in no mood to be stopped by the slow moving trucks this time. My bike which was serviced the previous day was roaring happily as I reached the Hebbal fly-over at 5 PM. I was welcomed in Bangalore by heavy rains. By the time I reached KR Puram I was fully wet although I had my jacket on. From KR Puram onwards, the skies started to clear up. I was back home at 5:30 PM, wet and tired but happy. That was one hell of a ride.

The day had ended, and I was happily listening to Enrique Iglesius.. "Monday night... and i feel so low.. Count the hours... but they go so slow...."

Monday, September 05, 2005

A Beginning?

This is my first blog. Dont know what to write. Maybe I will pen something later