Now playing .. "Life" ..

Missing Delhi !!

2010-01-13T09:11:00.000-08:00

Woh tikki ki khushboo woh gobar ki chappar…
ek Rail ka dibba aur meri phislee ek chappal …
ek doodh ki thaili aur padosi ka paper …
Red light ke peeche chipa ek inspector…
Ghoos mein deye hue dassi aur chiller
Road pe baithe naai aur tailor …
Raah dekhu aur sochun mere dost reh reh kar
mere chappal par phir ho mere desh ka kheechad …

Adios to Days at AIM !

2008-11-23T00:10:00.000-08:00

I wrote the following email to my batchmates as a signoff from the MBA. As i get back to normal life i feel this deserves to be bookmarked for being a significant event in mylife.

- X -

My time at AIM would definitely join in my memories as the best time I have had studying… though the "studying" part a lot of you would disagree that I did any. I wish you all the very best, please do keep in touch ( I don't mind your spamming my mailbox as long as you don't subscribe to stupid portals using my email address). Hope you all have a wonderful life ahead, Good luck to all those in search of jobs, if you become a entrepreneur.. may you always make more than your cost of equity & if you work for someone I hope you are always on the right side of the performance & pay curves. If you can emulate the AIM Prof, you can be hired for running concentration camps to torture Prisoners of war and to interrogate spies.

Thanks to everyone for making my stay at AIM special, my can group for studying instead of me & other can groups for making my can group look better. Thanks to all those who wrote the first set of MRRs, all MBA batches have been inspired by your vision till date. Thanks also to those who had fat signatures, because of you I never had to sign against my name… your signature covered for both of our presence in the attendance sheet. Thanks also to the AC operators who promoted the sharing and caring amongst students by allowing the common cold to become really common in the dorm. A special thanks to the host country for their hospitality, if you happen to meet the owner of Rustans / Ministop / KFC / McDonalds please convey my deepest regard to them, life would have been something else without them.

You may send/receive spam to/from prashantbatra.mail@gmail.com, block it while you still have time. India number - 91 – 99xxxxx93 , I am using my mom's mobile so please do forward stupid jokes at this number. Someone please create a database (again for this) or educate me to use and existing one please.

Finally, I must admit I am not missing any of you individually but do miss all of you as a collective bunch… I guess what I am indicating is that don't come running to me when you see this email but do write off and on.

Cheers,
Catbert

And what a day it was :)

2008-05-25T10:30:00.000-07:00

As I start office on a Sunday in Dubai 2 days after my birthday. About 180 odd emails wishing me a happy birthday and awaiting my response. I thought of ways by which I could answer everyone in detail and that brings me to blogger. Thanks everyone, I am very happy & feel heavily blessedJ, yes thanks to the gifts, I feel rich again :).

Presenting to you... The birthday FAQs...
I give you answers to questions you have asked me, will ask me or never wanted to ask me on my birthday.

Q1) Happy Birthday dear, what plans for the day eh!
Thanks so much for your wishes. I & Somya (my sweet, beautiful, lovely & adorable wife) planned to spend the day out of the house. So here's what we did.
-Cake cutting in candle light @ 00.00hrs.
-Movie & Lunch with a famous movie star and a good friend (Mr Mathews – I think he played Neo in Matrix ;) or was it Mr Anderson?).
-The star to the Christmas tree was the Dinner which was at romantic cruise on the Dubai Creek.
It truly was a Wow. (Pictures available on demand @ pay per viewJ)

Q2) Hmmm… So…. How old am I now…?
You ask this every year, seriously how did you pass your math tests? I was born in 1980, so that makes me 18 right! No, I am not sending you my passport copy for validation and if you think I am lying, keep guessing ;).

Q3) And what else, whats up these days?
I am in Wipro Dubai finishing my summers, the last 8 months and next 6 months will be spent in Manila doing my MBA @ AIM (http://www.wsgsb.aim.edu.ph/). I decided to take a 16 month vacation in Manila and the only place I was getting would allow me to stay if I pretend to be a serious person who spent some time each day in air conditioned classrooms. The MBA ends in Dec this year (hopefully) and I will be one more entrant to the club of overqualified, underpaid yuppies.

Q4) What gifts did I receive?
I am assuming you are looking for benchmark data here to see what you should send. Cash is readily accepted. You can also send gold biscuits if you are too materialistic. If you are my banker, thanks I will forget the loans.

Q5) Wondering If I remember your birthday?
I have put a part of my brain on the internet and connected it to a website. Trust me I would love to be part of your special day, Please click on this and fill your birth date this is a personal reminder and its perfectly safe to put it here (if you haven’t done it yet). http://www.birthdayalarm.com/dob/5373697a2568310b363

If you forgot to wish me, dude I am hoping you will send me a bigger gift to compensate ;). It was a great day and we celebrated life yet again. To me each day is special(taken from a flop movie), be it Sunday or Tuesday (Monday could debated on). I am happy to have friends that surround me on my special day. Btw I remember your birthday and am the first one to wish you. Here are my wishes for the yr 2008-09 in advance.

Cheers!!
Catbert

About a year ago....

2008-05-12T21:16:00.000-07:00

Well I decided to cut the crap and to get going on wasting a few more bytes over the internet. If you are from the office i work please at stop reading this, the boss monitors the reports regularly!!

After about 8 months of sleeping on a sponge bed and looking outside Dorm room 401 I have finally landed myself outside the AIM campus. The first phase of my MBA is over and I am now doing an internship in Dubai.

Life in Dubai has been full of surprises. Its been a 2 weeks and i haven't seen any camels. The day i got down i got into a cab and people were talking to me in hindi. Well there must be a lot of indians here I thought, and yes it turns out yet again we are a majority of the population.
People back home need to start taking family planning seriously man.

I am not complaining too hard on this one though, makes my life easier. I never feel like a foreigner in any place i go to. I can get my Roti and Daal absolutely anytime I want to eat. Plus the cabbie speaks me mother tongue. I get to play cricket almost whenever i want so ya on second thoughts, guys back home keep up the good work and forget what i said earlier.

If you are planning to stay here, better invest in a tread mill, the only place where you can get a free home delivery for a can of coke. I must admit the place can spoil you and the water you drink adds pounds around your waist.

Dubai remains till date Bollywoods favorite Don hideout and its tall buildings the perfect den for plans to take over the world. For now i have to settle with planning my internship and the only don in sight is my boss!

There is so much more to talk about this place but work is worship and u dont pay me to write yet! take care and keep those comments coming.

I AM BACK!

2006-01-22T08:12:00.000-08:00

I havent been writting for sometime... even though I promised satun i will regularly...

your prayers expired today...

I am BAKC... back i.e. :)

Cheers!

Festive Wishes....

2005-10-31T01:43:00.000-08:00

Here's wishing all of you and your families happiness, wealth and prosperity in all the years that follow.

May all of you win if you play cards,
may you not get a hang over if you get drunk,
may you have a happy, clean and pollution free dipawali.

Njoy!

Wedding Bells

2005-07-07T06:48:00.000-07:00

** All my comments are intended to make this blog a little humorous. I respect marriage as an institution. Most of whats coming up is made up, so please don’t relate it to me. Cause if you do, I am in deep trouble and if you are not strong enough so are you. **

Weddings are full of fun, laughter and happy memories. However they carry with them a decent amount of running around depending on who you are at the wedding. The run is of various types. I'll classify this for you. Its from my recent experiences at the activities at joining 2 souls as 1.

In broad categories your role assuming you are a male as a participant of a wedding ceremony or arrangement are listed below.

You as an Organizer–
Let us assume the case when your beloved brother falls in love. Now unless you yourself had a crush on the lady he chose, which by the way is another chapter, you take the role of an organizer. Your basic responsibilities are arranging for relatives to talk, you also become the next pin down the drain and you end up getting talked about more than the groom. To top it you feel embarrassed when you are introduced to a girl and left alone and all you think you have to tell her somehow is that you are engaged :).

I have a religious mom who is known for the demonstration she led across Church Street against alcohol advertisements. I also happen to have a set of drunkards who supposedly are my best pals so I also end up starting a “bar in the car” business.

As a Guest–
One of your friends @ college decides to get married. Your role as the popular guy in college becomes to arrange for everyone to agree to give a combined gift. The run around starts in conducting a poll on what to gift to gift:). After endless debates and researches on the possible gifts, we finally have suggestions “lets just hand them cash, let them decide what they want”. And then when no one turns up you have to do the explaining… pretending that everyone was dying to come but there was a earthquake all around the car they sat in and that the earth took them fifty feet under, that’s why they couldn’t reach or call ;).

Oops Wrong wedding–
This happens when you visit a wedding of a distant relative you have never seen in your life. After you have had dinner and you hand over the gift you realize that your relative is getting married in the adjacent hall… and this is just some innocent throat getting slit.
I am sure all of us have been guest to such weddings at some point in life and some of us stayed back at the wedding to continue our glare at the “Chick in red” in hope of her phone number :) and others just for the better food.

Your own wedding –
ha ha!! God save you. You are engaging yourself in a run around for life… Trust me it’s not worth it… Btw I am getting married soon. You’ll get your invitation soon. Make sure u make it to the correct hall. Cash is welcome as a gift as long as it's in plenty ;)

Again there may be many more... and that why we have a comments section...

Rana and Kiran congrats on your wedding... It was a fabulous to see you two getting married. Jyothi and Karthik … congrats to you two too... though your D-Day is this weekend... wishes from me and the internet in advance.

Hope life brings joys to you and all.

May all the couples who got married or will get married live happily. I also forward my condolence to the neighbors who will now on witness the banging of vessels lot more often esp at odd hours.

Cheers to the institution of marriage @ life!

Monday Blues...

2005-06-27T05:00:00.001-07:00

Philosophy @ life goes as deep as u want to dig.. and somewhere u realise u r too deep to be able to throw the mud out ..
See where you are in the hole and work on the staircase too ..

Cock-A-Doodleeee-dooooooo

2005-06-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

Chickens... .. .. . . . Lots of them are being gulped down my throat these days.

I turned into a vegetarian 9 yrs ago and then very recently, a to be married sad bad friend of mine "Karthik" turned me into a killer or what we commonly refer to as a non-vegetarian. I had been planning to start off exposing my hunger for the tender flesh for a long time though I still can't escape the guilt of killing the innocent animal.

The escape here is that I find solace in providing an end to the otherwise unfortunate life that the chicken/fish/goat/pig/snake/ crab/lobster or sometimes the pigeon would have otherwise lived. The poor things are turn into delicacies so that their souls are freed and they may try again in their interview with god to come back as a human and eat the chicken that dated his last life chick girlfriend. ;)

Cheers to being savage, barbaric, inhumane, cruel, merciless, malicious, impious, immoral and callous. I am just summarizing the comments I might get from some of the good hearted vegetarian friends I just betrayed.

One life to go.
Njoy !

Dinner Eh ?

2005-05-18T21:10:00.000-07:00

I had dinner with a few of my friends yesterday .. The following is the modified version of the mail I put them sharing what my life saw last night...

Well as far as i am concerned i had a nice time..
Starters to the night made me gulp a meat ball by mistake( intentional one maybe ;) ) and so after nine years i am a non vegetarian again ;) God save the animals .. whatever kinds they come who cares >:) .
Found out dear Reuters (nick for Amit) has started having beer(not everyone in Bangalore drinks it) .. So Vijay has finally managed to spoil 2 people .. i am sure the meat balls aren't far away Amit..
Karthik meanwhile was chilling out murmuring something at one corner as he wasn’t well... not that it stopped me from cracking all sorts of jokes @ him or otherwise ;)
The later part of the night was spent in trying to learn how to drive a Enfield Bullet 500cc or whatever cc it was.. Interestingly the brake is on the left side and the gears on the right.. Someone got seriously drunk while doing the designs i guess.. After spending about fifteen minutes on trying to figure out how to get it going and of course stopping every 5 minutes as i managed to stop the engine exactly at the middle of the road.. we reached at karthik's hut..
The adventure continues here as i gulped a few bacteria and dead ants down my throat from a old coke (age unknown) stacked under his bed.
We spent some good time chatting with dear karthik.. the dinner never happened ... i actually had to reach home cook maggi new Aata noodles with vegetables and all new taste .. ya ya! that one.. spent some more time with my TV .. Sent a few goodnights to the ladies waiting to hear that so that they sleep in bliss.. and that’s it.. I decided to switch off my cell and land up in bed..

A rather interesting dinner though I never ate anything apart from the freaking meat ball.
Hope to repeat another of such times... This time we can squeeze some sentimental stuff on karthik for a treat ;)

Cheers to life! And cheers to being friends...

4 Guys and a Mountain

2005-04-29T00:49:00.000-07:00

This happened a few weeks ago i hope its not imp to mention the date...

Four of us - 2 bikes - we started off to Nandi hills early morning at 11 am. The sound of the roaring engines was blasting people off the road to the feeble gentle corners. I was of course driving like I was racing towards chequered flag.

Okay back to the ride, I realized midway that I require driving glasses, I didn’t choose Arnolds way of beating up a hulk and getting it off, I rather selected the more gentle option of buying it from a roadside shop for 50 bucks, Indian rupees mind u! My American readers may equate it to a little more than a dollar.

So sailing through the wind I reached my first pit stop near an ice cream shop. Any guesses on the price of the Ice candy?? dont even try .. The price.. 1Rs. Please search for a dollar equivalent. It’s as good as free ;).
I was fasting that day, I had decided either I cook or I fast so I was fasting as I am a very bad cook and I am sure will take time to learn cooking right! Am sure every married man would empathize with me here he would have taken time to learn right. And no I am not married yet.

Anyways we reached Nandihills around 1 stayed there for about two hours! This is the place where a king used to come to spend his summers.. Now I am not explaining who he was! There is a lot about him on google.. Go find out! And by summers I didn’t mean summer placement for his MBA.. it means to chill out with his queens ;) I am not sure how many he had. Seemed like a nice guy so I am hoping he had just one!!

We spent about 2 -3 hrs lazing around and eating and lazing around and more eating! Hey I am on a fast... Yeah right ;). So finally when all the food was over I initiated the head back home... Was hungry as was fasting that day ;).

All along the way my friends lectured me on how fat I can become if I continue to fast like this often... Well its been 25 yrs... And I gained only 75kgs.. 140 pounds I think ;)... so not that fat for a man who is 5'10''.

The sun had its few last flashes in the air as we headed towards the city... the camera was clicking all the way... couldn't upload the snaps yet... ladies you will have to wait…
Touched back at base at 6, and continued on the search for more fast food ;).

The day ended at 1.00am after a good numbers of rounds of playing cards when my friends had enough of loosing for the day... we lay our back to our beds! ..
Nice day! Good fast ;)
Cheers!

As it came that day ...

2005-04-08T01:29:00.000-07:00

I had written this on Dec 22nd 2003 ... some of u might have seen this.. one of my only few non funny philosophical entries to my diary ..

Dec 22nd 2003
Mohit (my cousin) had come to Bangalore and we were attending the “world youth peace summit”. We are waiting for the programe to commence and the people to start on with their peaceful words. I was sitting at the vishalakshi mandapat the Art of living international Ashram as I wrote this down.

I must warn you, what u r about to read may completely change what u used to think of me :D .. u have been warned.. enjoy!

**
All my life I have been wondering what life is all about, and today as well, as I sit in this hall with around a thousand five hundred people around me, I am searching for a motive, feeling that the motive is not known. Not to me not to anyone of them. And I am unaware of it yet.
All my life I have searched for some answers. I feel that when I came here to the show called “life”, I was assigned a role, still very much wanting to find it.
Still in search for it I wander and continue to wonder.

I smile, I greet and meet, I feel loads of joy, happiness around me, but sometimes I wonder why am I here, why is everyone here, its like going into space and looking back at the whole earth. There are people … 6 million of them, living their lives. All going through something at the same instance, living their lives in a different way yet all combined to one unit of life.
What is the whole earth doing?
I am alive today and might die in about 50yrs, whatever I do, maybe I build another Taj Mahal even then will it make something happen to bring me out of this vicious circle? People will come, million lives will change and still they just live make changes and die.
I don’t know how to describe it or how to put it. It’s a thought that amazes and amuses.

One question is what I have and One satisfying answer is all I seek. Someday I will know and till then I will wait, smile. I smile back at people smiling at me also at people shouting at me as I realize whatever way we react its just a “thought”. It’s the result of me reacting to that thought. A thought “someone said something to you’, or “did something”. More importantly knowing that mind is controlled by thoughts. Its so complex this life, millions of thoughts interacting and that makes the earth live, that makes all the news on this planet.
There are blank spaces in my sentences, I seek to fill them. Till I fill these blanks I will continue to search and maybe in turn put this “search” this “thought” in every living thinking brain I know. I have a thought, let me know if u come across what I seek.

**

My brother is now a married man.

2005-02-28T08:50:00.000-08:00

3rd Feb 2005
A somewhat normal day for the rest of the world was special for my entire family.
My elder brother was getting married today. There hadn't been an event for all of us as grand as this one.

If you happen to be facing a Indian Punjabi Wedding in your neighborhood you better get ear buds and lots of them cause you would find days at a stretch people playing songs, drums and music. There are relatives you haven't met in ages hugging you, the little and cute brothers of mine had ordered a fresh stock of cream, for everyone meeting them had interest to pull their chubby cheeks.. " Look how cute you have become ".. I am sure if the little ones had a chance they would pull the cheeks back making the elders know its not that cute when they do it. Also what’s with the funny noises they make in front of a baby. I always wondered why we make the funny faces to babies. They laugh all right but i think at us thinking, " hey that’s the most ridiculous looking thing I have seen since Donald duck! " and he is referring to you Mr. funny face.

The wedding was slightly different at our setup. We were mellowed down to restrict ourselves to lesser decibels of sound. A few unfriendly neighbors had complained about their discomfort on our over enthusiasm on the event. My brother is Six feet tall and after all of us were done pulling his leg around he would have gained a few inches for sure.

I was filling up my memory bag with fresh memories of his wedding though I couldn't help as a few of my old memories popped out of the amazing times we had shared as brothers. The times where we fought till we cried, pillow fights till we got slapped on either side by mom, studying together with comic books inside the english text book. Days when we went school together racing in our bicycles. Wish I could relive those days again when rain meant paper boats and every morning meant yet another race to the school.
I today live in a seperate city and I still wake up at times thinking I would find him right there sleeping on the bed opposite the window.

Growing up with you was fun dude. I would cherish the memories all my life.
Take care of yourself!!

Memories we make as we move along, good or bad I am filling my bag and so is everyone else.

Cheers to Life.

Happy Valentines!!

2005-02-16T07:30:00.000-08:00

The sweetest things of all happened to me about three years ago. 22nd August 2001.. a girl dressed in red came into a training room aka my love cave :) at Spectramind the company I joined. I saw her, closed my eyes and fell in love.

Have no regrets of the decision in fact feel am luckiest soul on mother earth..

God Bless Mr Raman Roy.. he might have given the world the BPO boom .. to me he gave me meaning at life and also made me meet the mom of our would be children ;)

Take a flower in your hand .. and kiss the girl on the bus stand ..
Dont be afraid to fall in love.. it wont hurt you .. may ask for some adjustments .. u need to get used to saying .. the two beautiful words "Yes Dear".

On a more serious and sentimental note i believe very passionately that.. Love takes care of you by holding you in its palms and has the power so large that it can make you rise to the stars!

Thanks chinks ! love u sweetie !

Love all!
God bless !!

* this is blog is dedicated to her.. in case you are my friend or relative saying hey .. i thought u loved us too!! i do dear .. i love you all a lot.. Life is incomplete without you ... but that doesnt mean i would kiss you on valentino would I ;) ...

;) = a wink
:D = a laugh
( a few of my friends asked me what these signs were .. just clarifying :D )

Up.. Up.. and Awaaaaaayyyyyy!!

2005-02-07T17:00:00.000-08:00

I had fascinated air travel ever since I was born. The sight of a plane lifting up in the air made me wish and wait eagerly for the day when I set my foot off the ground.

Thanks to the software industry and partially to air deccan for its poor man fares I recently got my chance. I had a nice chat with a member of the airport security while waiting for my plane to arrive. Thanks to him i now know on what not to do while at the airport. He pointed out don’t try to be funny with the security staff cause we don’t carry our sense of humor to duty! Scary but true.

The flight- well it was ok .. Very little legroom for the tall legs i carry, disgusting food, however a very good deal as compared to the 36hrs journey, air travel at speeds of 900kms/h took me home in 2.5hrs in about the same money! Happy for myself.

Everything said and done it was a nice flight, though was late by around 2.5 hrs, which was due to bad weather at my beloved hometown. It was freezing when I did land. and I was prepared all wrapped up in my jacket! There weren't people waiting with garlands though surely had my beloveds waiting with their hugs!

By the way this travel was to attend my brothers marriage…
Line clear for me now! And all systems are now on standby!

cheers !!

2yrs away from home !!

2005-01-27T02:32:00.000-08:00

Night outs , Beer @ home and FTV ;) .. he he heh!!
2 yrs at bangalore havent been that bad eh!!

When i came here on Nov 7th 2002 i didnt know how long i am gonna be here .. my trip just turned 2 years this Nov :) ...

My mom and I talk roughly about once a week. And every single time she calls she enquires about the well being of the enitre neighbourhood. Relatives of my cook and maid have a new contact for information about thier well being.. yes my mom :) . Funny it may sound though i do surely know she is checking the comfort from all ends for her dear son.. and thats yours truly! Thanks mom.. Love you.

I live with four of my friends, each one of them is a character and i am sure they share the same feelings about my existence with them. Everyday i learnt.. dont take shoes inside vasu's room, never wake up shaggy, if lali says he isn't well.. he has fought with his wouldbe :).. never listen to a sardaar roomate.. lots more.. everyday .. life goes on ..
prashant batra.. bangalore .. @ life!

Days 0 1 2 @ 2005

2005-01-04T21:48:00.000-08:00

Thursday afternoon 30th Dec 2004– 1400 hrs… a small envelope appears at the taskbar on the very right hand corner of my desktop… yep I got a mail. Good old Sameer says… “hey dude, What’s in for the new year?”.
Three days later I looked at that mail and smile. I look back to the three days I spent welcoming 2005.

Day 0 - 1830 hrs Thursday 30th Dec 2004. A bunch of guys are planning to go on a trip to Nagapattinum. A Tsunami had hit the area and hit it real hard. Something that wasn’t expected at the Indian shores…
I decided to go along. Made a few phone calls and at 2200 hrs that day! I was off. I found myself next to Jassi(my Sardaar roomate) trying desperately to adjust and get some sleep on the sleeper bus we boarded.

Day 1 – I wake up around 0700hrs, I find Jassi still trying to adjust in bed :D. I find myself surrounded by a bunch of noble souls who gathered for a common cause. Somehow try and make a difference to the devastated life of the people hit by the giant waves at our country’s Southeastern shore.
We had managed to gather a few things… old clothes, biscuits, medicines and most importantly 35 people. The discussion starts on what’s the plan for the day! After a Looooooooooonggggggggggg discussion we decided that we would stop by at a temple at Tiruvarur and get more details on the affected area. This temple was giving shelter and aid to around 2000 people from various villages. Our activities were set to cleaning up and provide anything they needed from the resources we were carrying. We reached base at around 1300Hrs. A few were sent to locate accommodation for freshening up. A few moved ahead to the collector’s office and the rest started their operation at the temple. It was huge and behind it was a lake. I had to forcibly visit the temple… for the Lara Croft inside Rashmi had just come alive. We found the temple in bad shape, not that the poor people were doing any better to it. A medical camp inside was interacted with to know of the supplies they were short of. A lot of drama was sliding along as we had a lot of over-intelligent under-utilized brains at the scene deciding separate courses for the effort we had initially planned to put together. We decided to approach the nearest village needing aid. Meanwhile a taxi was hired to lead us to the village. Not only did the taxi which was suppose to lead us get left behind, the brave taxi driver in it decided to overtake a police jeep… and thereby he found himself flagged to the local jail.

The evening brought us better luck with the much needed approval letter from the collector for the village visits and a meeting with the local Red Cross and set of doctors.

2200hrs 31st Dec –Most of us settled in the bus. A few including yours truly managed to squeeze in one of the 3 rooms hired to freshen up.

2300Hrs – Last hour of 2004- I started my long walk with my newly found friends from the room to the lake where we were all to meet. Silently we talked and the introduction went on. A cracker cracked in the sky above us at 0000Hrs 2005. The New Year was here.
Day-2: 0530 hrs.. I find myself next to jassi…, he was trying to find some sleep :D. I was at the bus by 0700hrs and we were off to the medical camp at Viluntahmavadi in Nagapattinam dist. It was in a sorry state. Piles of old cloth dumped by the Govt lay unused. One doctor hundreds of people needing assistance… Not enough medicines… and No one to administer the crowd. Some of us immediately took the positions as compounders to the Doc. I joined the cleaning activities. We lured the children and young adults using the biscuits packs to join in, sadly some denied “its not my village”.
A few hrs of cleaning and lunch was served. Good old Bread-jam . God bless MTR who came up with packed food. With the stomach’s call answered, A few of us dressed in surgical gloves and masks played doctor and took a round on feet to nearby village. We let the people know that medical help was available at the camp.

All the villages looked the same. Houses floored, population obliterated. We resumed our operation of cleaning the area, picking up polythene bags, biscuits pack wraps, assembled the clothes that lay everywhere.
As the evening approached we found “Gaada” my architect friend with a lot of children around him. He was taking their snaps. These innocent souls were having fun. A few others and me joined in. We played with them and the whole place was alive with cheers of these kids having fun. We took turns to run while these 100+ kids ran after us to catch us. Gopal started educating them about the importance of the studies and cleanliness.
Maybe just for one day but I am glad we managed to fill their lives with some fun lit moments as we dropped dancing, playing and singing with them. The sun set at their cheers. The locals were overwhelmed and the kids didn’t let go of us!! Sadly we had to leave.
Happy with our day I set back… had my sweet Dosas and crashed into sweet sleep. It was my turn at the floorJ.

Day 3 0600hrs: I found Jassi in the same state, later I realized that’s how Jassi sleeps!!
Kallar village in Velankanni dist was where we were heading today. I started off with medical team, visited a camp. People flocked for aid, children crying and battling trying to avoid the shots. Later a few in my team spent time looking for dead bodies. Amit found one… I don’t think I can describe its state.
We met localities, the ones who knew Tamil explained that there are loudspeakers and alarms and if you hear the siren run away from the shore as far as you can and as fast as your legs can take you. These were the people who used the sand as their toothpaste. Sadly they were now advised to run away from it.
I came across a house where I found good old jassi. It was a sea-facing house. It was full of mud. And the whole floor was covered with wet sand. I spent the afternoon digging inside the house in search of the floor. We managed to recover a gold chain and gold earrings for the poor owner. After a few hours of digging the owner came to us and asked if we could stop. He was tired. He thanked us and rushed to fetch food from the Govt van.

We were to leave that day. Me and jassi walked back only to find our bus missing. It had moved a kilometer back. We had a nice talk while walking discussing whose idea it would have been ;).

At approximately 1700hrs we were on our way back to Bangalore. We found a over surplus of biscuits was still with us. We discussed the issue and stopped on our way near a camp, only to start again with the biscuits still on our bus and unfortunately poor manju left behind. Thankfully he took a lift and caught on with the bus soon J.

Monday morning 0800Hrs… I was back in Bangalore. My New Year had started. I was pleased with what I had made of the three days. Although three days was too little for us to make a huge rescue effort, I am happy we did the best we could. I full heartedly thank the people who made it happen. I had left Bangalore alone with the little effort I would offer and I returned back with a contented heart and bunch of new friends.

I have presented the lighter moments of the trip we had. The upheaval that struck the site I don’t dare try narrate.
May God be kind to Mankind.

Days at my life -College Edition

2004-10-12T17:07:00.000-07:00

A Life is made of choices ....
It all depends on who u had ur beer with and ofcourse on how many pitchers u drank ;)

In 1997 i saw an ad in the paper. It was calling people to join a course. They called it BCA and all i knew was it was a computer something course. Someone told me i would come out of it in a nice high paying job!! ( i wish i get my hands on him !! )

A few weeks later smartly dressed i entered to my first day at college. That was my first step to be a software engineer!! college days were fun.. i was expected the typical sharukh khan masala movie stlye cool dudes .. what i came across at PGDAV( panaalal girdhari lal D.. A.. V...) was somthing different ... tapori bhaie log and bhenji style babes !
first interaction with my buddies .. "Do u know C .. or C++ " ha ha!! i said yeah right! ... after a couple of interactions the guys were talking in bits n bytes and of memory sizes ..
Very soon i realized that's not my gang .... I was still in search of "The One" and so i changed my seat! i finally found a few who were mislead to this course and we shared our misery as we jumped through papers barely passing .... finaly did a set of projects in some virtual companies :D and managed to get through!!
jobs were waiting for some of the lucky ones including me!!

I live today in the city of nerds aka bangalore .. if u randomly pick 5 guys walking on the street 3 would turn out to be in wipro and the other 2 in infosys :D ....
The oldies here say "It waaas a nice city i tell u.. sigh!!! the saaftwear enginair spolied everything"

May be continued ...

My first attempts at a scary story!

2004-05-05T01:28:00.000-07:00

The Peril of the Devil

The knock on the huge wooden door at midnight is as eerie as the illusory shapes creeping along the walls. I open the heavy door to find a crouching figure by the pines and was about to wave off the image supposing it to be the gardener on his nightly rambles when I heard a loud noise, must have been like a blast and the power went out. I stood in front of the door. From the dark I heard scream!! There was silence for a minute as a thousand thoughts scrambled my mind of who it was. “RUN!! Go away!! Or else you will die. I will kill you all.” I sounded like the cry of an old man. He disappeared. There was silence when suddenly he was right in front of me. “RUN!! Go away!! I will kill you all”. I screamed and pushed him… he had a torch of fire in his hand. He screamed repeating the same and disappeared into the woods.

We live outside the city. It’s cheaper. Woods surround our house. I had kept a servant, Ram. “He was the tantrik” he told me. “Who is he, why was he here? What was he talking about?” I asked. “Saab, something bad is going to happen here. It happens intermittently every year”. “What rubbish!!” I said. “He knows what he says! He is over a 100 years in age. I have seen him since I was a child. He always looks the same. People in the village say he is over a thousand years old.” Ram’s eyes were popping out. He himself looked pretty old and weak. “The tantrik worships the devil.”

We had run out of candles, we sat in the dark. I couldn’t see Ram, only hear his voice. “Have u seen the devil I asked him”. There was a silence for a few minutes. He was not there. I shouted his name, waited for a reply. He wasn’t there. Silently in the night fear started to creep in me. “Saab, help me!” I heard a voice upstairs and a scream! I was stunned in the silence that followed. I ran to grab a cricket bat. I climbed the stairs with the bat in hand where a shadow appeared “who is it?” Something jumped towards me and I swung the BAT. It hit it and then the window. There was blood on it.

I was trembling with fear. My hair froze with fear and it sunk deep in me. I didn’t move an inch. I stood in the hallway.

Dev entered and shook me up, "What happened here??” he asked. I was too scared to even utter a word. Dev was my friend from the village. Dev was the local from the army. He was carrying a torch. He saw blood on the bat. We searched with the torch light. Blood was all over the floor and on the walls!! I couldn’t have done this. And if I did there is something I hit. It couldn’t have disappeared so soon.

Then I saw something which was horrifying. Ram was held by his neck by a giant dark creature. His eyes were red and shined by the torch light. He was huge. He looked like an animal but was standing tall on his feet. Dev and I ran to rescue Ram. I hit the Bat at the creatures head. He dropped Ram and held me by my neck. I couldn’t breathe. Ram and Dev attacked him again but he was too powerful. He threw me at the wall and jumped out of the window.

Dev jumped back on his feet grabbed the bat in case the creature came back again. “What was it?? Ram, are you ok?” I asked. “It was the devil” Ram replied in pain. “The tantrik must have summoned him and sent him after us”. He was in pain and was badly injured. “Let’s take him down!” We helped Ram to his feet. Dev was still stiff in search of the Devil. “He is gone! But not for long” said Ram. We helped Ram down the stairs and put him on the floor, he was still bleeding. “He will be back soon!” said Ram. “You shouldn’t have pushed the tantrik”.

I found a candle in the kitchen. We lit that and sat in the dark. I got another rod and was ready for the tantrik. Nothing happened for about 2 hours. We nearly fell asleep waiting for his come back when the door knocked again. Armed with my rod and with Dev right beside me we opened the door. No one appeared. “Must have been the wind” I said and was about to close the door when I heard “Help!! Help me”. An old man was sitting on the floor to the left of the door. It was the tantrik. He looked weaker and was bleeding. “It surely was him upstairs” Dev said. “It was him all the time”. I held him and interrogated him. Next morning the scary tantrik of the night turned now to a feeble old man with his hands tied.

Scare people to get food from them and show up in a outfit to spread a scare. A few of the villagers were part of the gang too. “What about the blood upstairs?” Dev asked and “how was he so powerful? It couldn’t have been him!!” Dev wasn’t convinced. He was a tantrik after all, what secrets he held and what powers he had was locked in his mind. He never spoke after that night. I Read in the paper a month later that the tantrik had disappeared mysteriously from the prison. I was hoping my scary episode had ended. I shifted my house back to the city next week. It has been 2 yrs since I came back, but even today at times I get up with sounds ringing in my ears of the angry tantrik in searching for vengeance. Even today I sleep with a Bat next to my bed.

God bless our souls.

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