Round and Profound

The red and black stone-eater

2008-03-23T17:02:00.000+05:30

Ever wondered why my blog is named thus? I repeat, have any of the three readers of my blog womdered about the name? One, of course, of the three is me and i know, so I shant wonder.

Some old silly joke that I shall not reveal for fear that my blog readership may go down by 2.
:(
Such is life!

Random mumbles

2007-12-25T12:37:00.000+05:30

Its the end of a really really long weekend for me. Come tommorow and I am back to the standard office going schedule.Had some grandoise plans ofdoing some work this weekend.. As suspected it went phut! :(
Started off friday lazily enough. Read a wodehouse the whole day, made a pathethic attempt at cleaning my room. Felt i had had enough at some early stage and continued to read for the rest of the day till aferward i slept the contented sleep of one who has managed to get through the entire day without once being usefull. :)
The rest of my weekend has been more eventful i must admit. Especially in terms of grub :). I have had the foodiest weekend ever. I must make it a point to inform the needy millions about the best food places around once. I must. Point noted. I intend to continue the trend by baking a cake presently. My kid cousin has gotten all excited and bought a christmas tree for her place and i must the good big cousin and honour the occasion with a cake. Which i shall :)

The day before, I was watching the news and watching the Gujrat elections closely. Well well well, after all that hue and cry about bookies, Hindutva and murder the man holds his seat comfortably. There seems to be a drastic difference in the way Gujrat looks at the man and how the media views him. I find it hard to believe that the majority of Gujrati voters are misled Hindu fanatics, so I am guessing there is something right with the way the man runs the state. A lot of statistics seem to point that way too. I guess an unbiased media is becoming a distant dream:(
This post probabaly wins the place for the most random collection of thoughts in my blog thus far.
Well as i said before, what the heck its my blog :)

Silly

2007-12-01T14:26:00.000+05:30

In keeping with my tradition of habitually picking some silly thing out of blogthings, I pick this one :

Your Russian Name Is...

Lanassa Yelizaveta Sokolov

What's" Your Russian Name?

Now I have a problem! This does not sound like a Russian name at all! I mean all Russian names generally have a patronymic, don't they? In all the Russian books i have read, they do and I promise. :(

Another mindless update

2007-11-26T21:43:00.000+05:30

I write this after a long time away from here. I dont mean for this to be another mindless update, no. Which is why i named it thus. I have been having pretty nice last couple of weeks. Had promised myself I would try and polish me cooking skills. Success. :) . Made some (extremely sticky and chocolatey) chocolate . Not bad for starters, what say? :) More importantly though i do seem to repeat this, I think some part of my reading skills have returnd. Started on a long overdue One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich. Needless to say, it is quite brilliant. Funnily enough, the last book in the genre as such i read was also be Solzentzyn.. Cancer wards, it was.

Update

2007-10-23T21:32:00.000+05:30

Opening this after centuries. Mainly owing to a dead internet connection owing to my service provider using an auto transformer for his hub rather than a normal one inspite of all the rains. This is going to be a fairly mindless post, just here to mark me attendance. To say that all nice and well in my world and I am in the best of health and spirits and so on and so forth. I am pretty much in the best of H.& S. if you really want to know. I have been having a pretty good time of late. Have been able to read a lot after a really really long while. Finised three wodehouses and feeling rather happy. Had been away from good books for way too long. Somehow been in too much of a stupor of late to do any decent reading. Must start 'One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich' soon. But its too good a book to read at 2 hours a day especialy with the kind of shape my mind is in by he time I get back from work. But will get to it soon. :) . Also managed to read some of Tolstoy's short stories of late. Needless to say was again struck bythe awe the man inspires. :) Will finish the collection soon. 'The Forged coupon' was particularly impressive.
Thats about all i say. And this i suppose does the job of marking my attendance.
So long! Till I find something worth talking about :)

Favourite Poetry -2

2007-10-05T22:06:00.000+05:30

Had started off publishing poems i read and liked the most in my blog. High time for another one. Maybe because I dont really have much to say for myself:). This time it is Invictus by William Ernest Henley. The last part of this poem is proabaly more in)famous now, thanks to the last words of a crazed murderer. Its a shame really! Such a brilliant poem and associatedwith such madness now :(

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance	5
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,	10
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:	15
I am the captain of my soul.

Identity...

2007-09-15T17:18:00.000+05:30

I wonder what really constitutes my identity. Or anybodies. Not just identity but also personality, character and ethos. The combination of all these is probably what identifies each one of us. Mostly people say its your environment. But, is it really? Is that what makes us who we are. Would two people bought up in exactly the same environment, or example , two siblings react the same way to everything. Not quite, I think. The differences come across in all of personality, character, ethos and the things you identify yourself most with. Then, the siblings in question probably reacted to the environment they were brought up in differently or took in different things from the environment they were raised in. Is there something innate in us, something born with us that constitutes this difference. Then, extrapolation can a good hearted person be born with a good heart? Is this is true, can one really blame an evil person for being evil. I cant entirely believe innate goodness or evil and neither can i believe that what you are is some complex function of just your environment. The truth i believe lies in the differences in our reception to our environment

I wonder if what we are is determined by a mixture of the two. It probably is determined by how you react to your environment, What you choose to take in from it, how you perceive what it has to offer you and what you make of it. But if how you react to your environment depends on who you are, what originally shapes who you are? Because surely, there appears that there is a certain something,I couldn't call it personality or character, that is born with you. Who could have put that in, I wonder? That certain something makes you take a totally different set of characteristics from your environment compared to somebody who was brought up just like you. Having said that, there is a certain similarity in people brought up in similar backgrounds. But this is a generalisation. I have heard this said most often as an argument for arranged marriages - that a similar environment would greatly increase the probability of two people being able to relate to each other. It may be true, but probability is by virtue of its own character a rather dicey subject. It happens sometimes maybe rarely that you get along rather brilliantly with a person who is brought up in a drastically different manner. But I am digressing. What I started off what is what makes us what we are. I appears to me that there is something that we are born with, some innate character. And what we become is what we gather from our environment with what we already have. But what constitutes our environment? It appears that our environment has in it two parts, one the environment we are born into and the other, the environment we choose for ourselves. The most tangible example of we environment choose for ourselves is probably our friends. Which brings me to another question - how do we really choose our friends? And why is it that some people stay with you for ever and some people just fade away in your memory. And granted that all your friends or people who constitute your environment influence what you are, why is it that some influences are temporary and some last forever. And it may not have any bearing with how close you are to the people in question or how much time you spend with them. I have had friends who I have spent hours with and yet when we move onto different places, we realize that there isn't anything common between us at all. The only thing that ever was common was the environment we were together in. And there are still others, who i never really spent time with but who I know will be much longer term friends and who have influenced what I am a lot more. How do we draw these lines in our mind? What is the single most important factor that helps us identify with some people but not with others? The most important things, the way I see it, if you must identify with someone would probably be a common ethos, a common set of values. Not the broader values that we do share with a great number of people we interact with, but the subtle ones that come through in simpler day to day interactions but that we hold quite dear to us. Again, and forgive me for going back, but I wonder again where we derive these values from? They are probably again from the way or minds have adapted to our environment. So where does this end? Or rather where does this all start?
Also, is there some point in your life when your character or personality is formed and is not prone to changes due to your environment. Also are your principles also completely unchangeable after that? Is it possible for a person to not change(to any degree) in a changing environment. Why are different people differently susceptible to changing due to a change in environment and why are the same people at different times also differently susceptible to the same. Also why are there somethings about us that we know will never change no matter what? What are the most immutable parts of us. They are generally ,in my opinion , things that a person new to you wouldn't immediately notice but rather the subtle traits in your personality, things you probably did not really know about yourself. Why do we hold on so strongly to these? Also how staunch and how flexible one's environment should one be. Is there a should? Does it make sense to refuse to change irrespective of your environment.
Looks like this post has only about questions and not answers. Will surely post again if I have more answers. Also don't be surprised if I update this post change it or even turn it on its head. I am not proof-reading it. Don't think it will make much sense now to me either.

Suggestions please!!

2007-08-25T18:32:00.000+05:30

In case you are reading this for want of something better to do, you should probabaly go and read Gerald Durrell's 'My family and other animals' .. awesome book :)!!
In case you are thinking that I am proabaly writing this for want of something better to do, you are absoluely right. And suggestions are welcome if not breathlessly awaited..

Self realization

2007-08-25T18:21:00.000+05:30

Havent updated this space for a long while.. heck. havent looked at this space for a long while. ..
I thought I had lot to say.. turns out I am not such a profound human being after all. A belief in my profoundity along with the physical prosperity that my company's free food policy bestowed on me led me to consider 'round and profound' as a possible name for this blog... Turns out the profound part may not fit in at all..

aaaaaaaaaaahh!!

which planet must one rule?

2007-07-04T21:45:00.000+05:30

Indeed one wonders.. When I came acros this link, I figured I could'nt do without such wisdom..

You Should Rule Saturn

Saturn is a mysterious planet that can rarely be seen with the naked eye.

You are perfect to rule Saturn because like its rings, you don't always follow the rules of nature.
And like Saturn, to really be able to understand you, someone delve beyond your appearance.

You are not an easy person to befriend. However, once you enter a friendship, you'll be a friend for life.
You think slowly but deeply. You only gain great understanding after a situation has past.

What Planet Should You Rule?

Favourite poetry-1

2007-06-24T10:39:00.000+05:30

I am a book worm. I generally survive on novels, mostly prose. Of late i was just going thro a few of my favourie poems. I have got this strange idea to just once in a while publish my favourite-est poems in my blog. These are all poems I have read and have inspired/touched me the most.
This time i shall put Rudyard kipling's If. One of the most inspiring poems I have ever read really. This is what mental strength truly is..

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

Uselessness rating

2007-06-23T17:22:00.000+05:30

I have spent my day today in an absolutely usless manner .. That was generally the norm for me but of late I had become more useful . I was awfully bored today..Seemed to have lost my precious ability to do absolutely nothing.. :(
Will recover..will recover

Russian books

2007-06-19T22:02:00.000+05:30

There was one stage in my life not very long ago when there was'nt a single day ever when I was'nt in the middle of a book. Not a magazine, no crappy bestsellers but a good book. I read all the best books of my life then. I havent read a very good book in a while now .. I sorely regret it. The last really awesome book i read was cancer wards. To those of you who hav'nt read it, go pick up a copy and read it. Provided you like depressing literature... I have a great love for Russian authors some how. In spite of the obvious handicap that you are not reading the book in the language it was written,the books are remarkably powerful. It is a sweepin statement, I know. But I have read 5 Russian authors and I worship 4 of them and like the 5th as well. My favourite of them all has to be Feodor Dosteovsky. I hav read three of hs books and a few other short stories.

When asked my favourite Dosteovsky, I generaly give a random choice between The Idiot and Crime and Punishment. Right now i feel strongly inclined towards The Idiot. There is really nobody else who can paint charecter quite as well as dostoevsky. Prince Myshkin in The Idiot is right up there in the list of literary charecters that I feel in love with. It is amazing how he is portrayed really. I do strongly believe that if any other writer had tried to portray a chrecter like that, it would seem pious in a fairy-tale sort off a way. But in-spite of the almost fairy-tale like goodness that Myshkin possess, you still find him very human because Dosteovsky lies bare every thread in Myshkin's mental process. And suddenly goodness seems like such a simple thing. You almost begin to think like prince Myshkin for a while. Another Dostoevsky charecter where there is the same amazing goodness is Alyosha in The brothers Karamazov but in spite of the similarity, there is a world of sublty depicted differences in the wo of them.. While Alyosha is innocent but a little worldly Myshkin's goodness is rather different. Alyosha's goodness comes only from his heart. Alyosha does not see any evil in anyone else. His is the goodness of a child, whereas Myshkin is perceptive enough to guess what runs in another persons mind, but however selfish or rotten it is, he does not percive anything as evil. He views the world around him with unbelivable compassion. The Idiot is one of the most powerful books I have ever read. The ending though not unexpected still shocks you.
Crime and punshment was the first Dosteovsky I read. It introduced me to a new world of litreture where the charecter is explained so well, you almost know him as well as yourself. Te horror of Raskolikov's crime becomes secondary to the horrors in Raskolvikov's mind. This is one book you just cannot read rationally.
The one thing that struck me in The brothers Karamazov was Ivan' account of Christ's resurruction. Even though the charcters of Alyosha and Andrei were given much more time in the book, it was Ivan who was my favourite charector-the one that struck me as the most powerful. Ivan's faith in his religon ma seem strang to some but his contempt for faith that springs from a miracle, his contempt for organisation in religon and the clarity with which he expresses it is astounding. Another thing that stuck me in the book was the concept of Elders in a church. The concept seems so similar to our own concept of sages that one is astounded. I never though this existed outside of India.
Leo Tolstoy differs from dosteovsky in that while Dosteovsky writes from his heart and expresses his and his charecters every feeling, the one thing that shines through every line, even every word in a Tolstoy book is the power of the man's intellect. The description of Prince Andrei Bolkonski's death in War and Peace is astounding. His gradual detachment from life, when he feels he has already half gone to the other side, when he looks upon his life, his passions, his love almost like he is watching it in a theather, though it seems inexplicable seems all so natural when you read it. The perception that Tolstoy has is incredible.
I have read 1.5 of Solzenetzyn's books. I could'nt read One day in the life of Ivan Denisovitch

completely owing to the fact that I left that school and I was'nt allowed to borrow from the library. I had read the book in all my breaks. Most Russian authors have an extravagance with words. Solzenetzyn does not. He writes in a very few words and each pack punch. And htis has been retained even through the transalation. His books ar unpretentious. They are not written for the aesthethically sensitive. The raw truth in Cancer wards hits you right in the face and sucks the wind out of you. here is an innocence in Ivan Denisovitch that wrenches your heart, while the hard learnt skeptisim of Kostoglotov moves you.
I read Doctor Zhivago in my 10th and i thought it was a good book, that was about it. I reread it in my engineering and was stuck by its perception. The sympathy that Pasternak has with his charecters and everyone in his book strikes you at first. The whole array of experiences Yuri Zhivago goes through in the book, the variety of them is what really strikes you in the book. While most of Tolstoy's or dostoevsky's charectrs are strong and do not meander through life, Yuri Zhivago is not a strong man. But he is a kind man, a man who was not made to be able to face the times he lived in.
I reead Trugnev's fathers and sons in my 12th as well. I liked the book but did not really love it. His take that it requires a little bitterness to go through selfless sacrifice s a little too skeptical for me.
Phew.. This is one loong post..
There may be a few more (longer) literatureposts from me.. look out

Cross roads..

2007-06-16T20:43:00.000+05:30

I hate crossing roads.. I dont mean it in a mild way. It is not like I would prefer not to cross a road, it is more like I live in mortal dread of the prospect. Does not help that my office is in Koramangala and i have to execute this feat on one of the busiest roads in Bangalore to get home :(.. Every single day...
There are a few styles of crossing the road I have observed :

The royalty: The bravest lot really. They just walk across the road with their noses turned up in the air, very often while holding long and detailed conversations on their mobiles. 'Lets watch you try and hit me ', they seem to say to all those numerous menacing looking automobiles... They never move with undue(or due) haste..simply saunter across the road calmly.... I envy them really...
The Dashers: Any nano-second the road is vaguely not teeming with vehicles, they dash across. Their strategy is much the same as your friendly neighbourhood alley cat. Actually, never met a friendly cat. But nonetheless. I have encountered several of this kind in the course of daily hike across hosur road. There I would be on the divider, thinking 'Hey, I shall cross with this chap standing right here so i dont have to wait forever' and ping they disappear and resurface on the other side leaving me flabbergasted.
The Multiple stoppers: The strategy here is move while you can...and to where you can. These chaps just stand where they have place. If I were using that strategy I'd be scared that incoming cars will take with them some part of my anatomy... They proabaly win the second place for bravery..
The wide-eyed-wonders: Here comes my slot. I am one of the purest examples of this species. We stand wide eyed watching as the people belonging to the above mentioned species find their way to the other side until

The road miraculously becomes empty.
Some kind motorist/bus driver (usually the later) stops by and indicates that we may pass.
A friendly traffic police man feels sorry for us and guides us through
A really really huge bunch of people come together to cross the road and we somehow squeeze in between them.

Finally having been a wide eyed wonder and having spent so much of my time coming up with efficient road crossing strategies for wide eyed wonders, here are my tips to creatures like me:

Never cross the road if you are close enough to the incoming vehicle to see the drivers face. Never mind the dashers and the rest of them. We are just not made like them.We might as well stand on one side of the road for the rest of our lives...And that never happens really :)
Never trust a female who seems to be slowing down to let you pass. I know thats biased. And dont call me a chauvanist.. I am female too. It is just that usually when a chap slows down it is generally because he wants to let you pass. But with a female she has quite often not really decided yet. So you generally see the slowng down-when she thinks 'I am gonna let her pass' and then suddenly the accelration when she thinks-'maybe I should just run over her'..
Stand around a traffic cop if you find one. They will eventually get sick of seeing you there and help you get across..
Stand close to largish groups if available..

Well that about covers what I have to say about this topic rather close to my heart. If there are any wide eyed wonders with questions, do feel free to ask me...

New leaf...

2007-06-14T21:46:00.000+05:30

As is pretty much indicated by the title of my blog, i am not one of those lucid clear people who know where they are heading and have an aim and stuff..Not one of those dashers, I am. As the inimitable Wodehouse put it, I am one of those dormice content with my share of lettuce. Lettuce and a lot of other stuff but metaphorically, just lettuce.
What I am coming to say is, I am one of those creatures who seem to have miraculously survived the Indian education system without once puttng myself through too much sweat. Not that I did miraculously well but i generally feel I ended up getting more than my dedication merited.
Now as i look forward to my final strech of education, I suddenly fel an urge to try and live up to the best i possiby can. I suddenly want to work towards somethng(which is a totally new feeling to me)..
Lets see how it all turns out!
Oh and good luck to me!!

Fruit...

2007-06-03T21:37:00.000+05:30

I was just reading my lot of posts this far. And i suddenly realize i sound like a fruit. Just so you know, I am not...

Wedding season..

2007-06-03T21:15:00.000+05:30

It seems to be wedding season all around me. Lots of people I know are gerring married soon or were rcently married and most importantly one of my best-est friends is getting married. The first of my really really close friends my age to be married ,she is. It is quite a shock. To start with I used to find it quite amazing when i heard anyone close to my age getting married but now i am used to that in a distant sort of a way. But now that its someone I am so close to, I find it quite hard to believe. I can't imagine stepping into another world suddenly... a world absolutely different from my own. There is'nt really any other change so drastic..

Here I am, in my cocoon of absolute security. I feel like a kid really. I still have the option of throwing my hands up and turning to my parents when some situation really perplexes me. It is'nt like I am a wide eyed kid who needs to cling on all the time.. but I am proabaly not so completely grown up either. I am a fairly terrible judge of charecter. That has'nt bothered me too much until now thanks to the fact that i am fairly detached about most people. But at some point I need to read a person right and cannot aford to be detached. :(

Such is life..

Worsht...

2007-05-26T20:38:00.000+05:30

Here is my ode to the worst movies i have ever seen..

I would like to thank Air India for a large part of this collection. Had it not been for their persistent effort to captivate their already captive audience, I would have missed a chunk of these gems..

Khushi:Screeching Kareena Kapoor and poor me with head phones plugged into my ear getting a rude jolt every time her screeching touched new pitches .. I don know what it is with mvies and querelous females. They just seem to love those breathe-and i-will -bite-your-head-off types. Dont remember who the hero was ..but I dont think i'd mind terribly if his head was bitten off ..provided she did it quietly..which she dint :((.. and Air India did not even give me an oppurtionity to run away freom the theathre...captivated audience...
Mehindi: Another Air India gem. Also features the priceless dialogue "Tum aise gandi nali ke sewer ho, jisse chemical dalkar bhi saf naahin kiya ja saktha".. NeedI say more?
Lajja: Starts off with this rather super-man saree that flies all the way to some place in India to New york. Nice way to start off.. This was not an Air India gem may I add. This was thanks to this friend who absolutly had to watch this movie ,and dragged me and and another unsuspecting friend off to watch it. I actually paid good money to watch this crap :'(..and in that in my poor student days.. Basically consists of all evil scheming male of the species and saintly angelic female of the species. Dint follow much ..most of the time was spent buying food and eating it in the theathre cafeteria(to avoid the trauma of continuing to watch). We were guffawing so much in the climax that my friend who was actually watching tearfully(yes, she was touched by the movie) told us to get our asses out of the hall.
Pokiri:Loud.. Gave me a head ache...terrible terrible :(
Mars attacks: Awesome star cast...awful movie..I dont really have words to desribe it.. Just terrible..
Deewanapan:The perfect bird brain movie. Dont really remember what it had..... Another feather in Air India's cap.

Monster

2007-05-22T21:14:00.000+05:30

Your Monster Profile

Grim Gaze
You Feast On: Power Bars
You Lurk Around In: Corn Fields
You Especially Like to Torment: Cops

What's" Your Monster Name?

Have absolutely nothing inspiring to do so did some research on what sort of monster i may be

My primary Schools...

2007-05-21T21:35:00.000+05:30

I was just thinking of all the people i have met this far. All the people who i once saw every single day in the course of the 10 different schools i attended .. Yeah i attended 10 schools-strange i know... I have met the greatest assortment of people. I have studied in 3 different countries. All in Indian schools.. but somehow I have always observed certain patterns in each one of my schools. My schools hae ranged from KendriyaVidyalayas- where I have met some of my closest friends , maybe because they were also used to the same nomadic existence- to a rather snobbish school once when I was a kid, to a school where most people had been together from the very begining and seemed to find me quite an alien.

My earliest recollecions of shool was as a pigtailed 4 year old in a school in Muscat. My sole achievment was knowing to spell my name when i started off. I was particulrly terrible at any of the games they played primarily because i was'nt particulrly keen to move and was'nt terribly interested in the toffees i got for winning. Which was because my best friend generally won and would share her winnings with me :).

The next school i went to was slightly snobbish school in Bangalore. I was'nt terribly hapy but was too young to be perturbed. I happily trotted off to school everyday and it was only much later that i remember with some degree of shock how snobish other 7 year olds could be. I have two very strong recollections of this place. One was of this poetry reciting competition we had. My mom had trained me in one poem about the Spring(the season of course). And this poem had all manner of strange noises in it. I still remember the noise part of the poem rather well and along with that the whole hearted laughter that it provoked in my audience.. :'(... I had gone with hopes of being a solemn profound poetry reciter..
There is another rather strong memory i have from this school. The time I went to this school was the time that Bangalore was burning thanks to the kaveri riots. I remember i had gone to school and after a few classes school ws dismissed. The school used to have dedicated buses from the Bangalore transport service to ferry us around. These dint turn up to pick us up. I remember our teachers were in panic, but somehow at that stage to me it seemed like a whole lot of fun. I got to stay in school with the other kids and not sit in class... I dont really remember what happened but i was then ferried off to some teachers house and picked up from there.

The next school i went to was a Kv.. i went to 2 actually... The first one i dont have too many memories of since i was there for a very short while. The only significant thing that happened becuse of this school was i landed up in one class ahead of what i was supposed to be in. Not because of any brilliant acads mind you, but becaause yours truly was stupid enough to write the wrong entrance exam just because i was taller than the rest of the people who had to write the exam for my class.. Just one of those things .. :(

The second KV i went was proabaly where I had the best time in my schooling life.. Not just because of my school but because of the colony i satyed and the friends I made there. Both me and my sister have the fondest recollection of the place. I can actually write a whole post about my time there. I remember particularly the time a bunch of us thought we were the famous fuve and decided to investigate some VCR stolen from the club house... I remember the crazy'clues' we hunted for and the even more bizzare conclusions we drew. Also the Holi we playedthere and the numerous plays in the club house where i played the strangest assortment of charectors and danced in the wieirdest dances. It was here tht i first got the inkling that among the umpteen things i would never have the talent to become the most significant was a dancer. I was terrible. I had(have) no iota of grace..and even less coordination. It took me a while for them to convince me though. Somehow i was convinced I was great at it... Another thing I remeber about this place was paathu classes (music) where the whole lot of us colony kids tortured our teacher with our musical talents. The best part of the colony though were the people I met there who still remain among my favourite people in the whole wide world. :)))

Actally i started of this post as my schools but somehow mid way lost intrrest. Maybe i will continue some ther day,some other post...

I like...

2007-05-12T20:23:00.000+05:30

Walking around sankey tank in the evening. It is proabaly one of my favourite places in the whole world. Especially early in the morning or sometime in the evening when the breeze makes small ripples in the water. It is the most peaceful feeling in the world. And afterwards it feels lovely to just sit down on one of those benches and watch the place. Or jabber . Depending on your company. Or lack of it.
Eating hot Rasam sadam with urulakazhanga karimadhu .. for the uninitiated potato cury ..
Waking up early in the morning.
Having a whole meal of watermelon ...or some other fruit i like.
Eating mirchi bhaji and masala tea when itis raining. Walking home afer that, getting absolutely wet. And then being fussed over. :) .. And then changing into something dry and snuggling into a balnket
Reading a good book when its raining outside... with food always within reach
Endless mindless conversation. The more mindless the better.
Dark chocolate

Itenary...

2007-05-12T09:24:00.000+05:30

I m wirting again... posting yet again... Which is a measure of how mch ime i am spending in front of this amazing machine...
I have a weekend to look forward to.... All plans being made..... :)

A lot of my friends and ppl I know are getting married... Girlie shopping must be done :(.. Such is life
I must must must go to CTR.... Benne masala dose beckon.. my heart bleeds.. I havent been there in centuries... sinner I am...
My friends want to go bowling............. not a bad idea:)
I want to go to chettys and gullus... same story as CTR... :(
I want to spend an evening at sankey tank ...love the place :))
I must introduce my sister to chocolate junction.. she does not know it .. What with her not being a Bangalorean for a while ..

I notice my itenary includes a lot of food... I am going to write a Bangalore food guide post sometime .. for all those poor unfortunate people who come to Bangalore and think that Shanthi sagar or your friendly neighburhood whatever Sagar serve the best dose.....

cribbing cribbing

2007-05-11T20:54:00.001+05:30

I reurned from office early today. Somehow surprised at the number of hours a day seems o have. Saw daylight on a weekday after a really long time. My house has been painted newly. Dint realize it looked so different in the daylight. I feel at a loss really ..did not realize i spent so much time away....
No that I am an over worked employee. I just cant seem to wake up early, get to office early and finish my work early. I must...
Saving grace: I have started reading on my way... Somethg worthwhile

What am i thinking..

2007-05-10T20:32:00.000+05:30

I started writing on something that has been bothering me a lot of late yesterday... but somehow what i was writing wasnt coherent enough to make any sense and i ended up confusing myself. Somehow I dont seem to have the ability to put across things that affect me the most.
I was just thinking that most of what i talk about has nothing absolutely to do with what i think about. It is rather strange that you can spend your life entirely i conversations that require only the shallowest slice of your mind. Most of my conversations are flabbergastingly mindless. And somehow when I am trying to say something, I cant seem to find the words. Sometimes i wonder how i expressed it to myself in the first place. I must have used words then too in my own mind. But somehow they cant seem to leave the confines of my mind. Or does my mind sometimes communicate in a rather non-verbal fashion. It s proablay not really non-verbal. I seem to have reached the crisis again.. I know what I am tring to convey but somehow I cant get it across. Maybe my mind kind of has a simplified language of its own and it is not really devloped enough to be put across to the world. Maybe all our minds have this sort of language and the language of each of our minds is absolutely unique. Maybe nobody in the world wiill really be able to communicate in my minds language. And maybe when you meet people who seem to understand what you are trying to say before you can actually say it are the people whose minds tend to communicate within themselves or think in the same pattern as yor own...

Clinging on ....

2007-05-09T20:57:00.000+05:30

Bangalore remaned Bengaluru... oh yeah Bombay bacame Mumbai ... Madras, Chennai and so on..
I cant help but wonder why. Why suddenly everbody wants to move to another time... I cant understand why we have lost our identities so much that we need to dig up the past and find something that we somehow feel belongs more to us.. something that we suddenly think is more what we are. Now, dont get me wrong. It isnt like I dont believe/ dont respect any tradition at all. I do. It is this outward clinging and insecurity i cannot understand. The traditions that mean the most to us are generally the ones that are ingrained so deeply in our psyche, in our blood that we dont really need to acknowldge them.
But wait I am sounding rather choatic.. What i dont understand is why people resist change so much. Why do they suddenly feel that we are loosing 1ooo odd years if tradition . It has been aroud for 1000 years .. And the reason itis so rich is the additions and changesand refinements it has undergone for th last 1000 years. It hasnt been an unchanging unit for 1000 years.

People cling on to traditions, lanuages with such tenacity, you would think these remain unchanged for all these yeas and suddenly there is his evil cultural invasion and everbody is losing their heads. But this is hardly the case. The reason we have such diversity is the same changes , the same cultral invaisons. The many different languages we have today are a result of how a few ancient langages developed and grew in different environments. Why then do we suddenly want to stop this metamorphisis now. It is quite natural really.... Why do we have people campigning in Bangalore to save kannada from 'foriegners'. External influences only enrich a language.Similarly a culture. In the language of our mind, in the manner of our thought, all the cultures we see, all the language we hear mix up together and dictate how and what we think.,how we percieve things, how we react to situations. If this is natural why dont we let it happen?

Happy!!

2007-05-06T18:19:00.000+05:30

My sis is back after 2 years away... I am happy :))
Generally one gets so accustomed to the luxury of having a sibling aroung.. alwys being able to find somene to go to the neaby chatwala with... endless mindless conversations..some decent conversations.. some deep convrsations... And generally someon used to ur level of goofiness...
I wasa quite miserable when she went off though i dint expect to be...Now she is back.. I Laike!!!

Pondering

2007-05-05T18:37:00.000+05:30

Not a nice way to start a blog, this. I would have thought at least the initial enthusiasim would have me posting everday. But a rather hectic week at work ensured i really dint wanna look at a computer at home.
It's been a strange week. It started off rather depressing .. There was news on the paper of a bunch of kids who decided to go off to coffee day late one night.. They ended up ramming into an electric pole...and that was it.. 2 died and the others are horifically injured. Its awful isnt it.. one wrong turn and its the end of everything. One young girl paralyzed...has to go through the rest of her life without being able to move. Its awful when ou think how fragile we all really are... and we are wired up to think we can go on like this forever. I know accidents happen everyday and come on paper pretty often too..but somehow this one really shook me up.
Proabaly because driving half way to Mysore to go to a 24 hour coffee shop sounds like something a million people i know would do. I'd proabaly think it fun myself. I've heard of more than a few cases of people dying due to drunk driving during college ... had met one of the people too.. but somehow those did not hit so hard .. becuse i could never understand why somebody would be so stupid. I know that sounds awfully mean but its true. How can a 19 year old put his own(and other peoples) life at risk by driving when he is not in control? Somehow half the people driving around dont seem to understand the amount of responsibilty driving involvs... the amount of damage one wrong turn could make. I sometimes feel half of Bangalore should have their driving lisences confisicated.. it somehow seems to easy to get one. The other day my driving instructor assured me i would get my DL and i can barely move my car in the general i direction i intend for it to go. Which also brings me to my other crib about pedestrians.. i think there should be walking licences and half of the world should be banned from crossing roads..they dart across like they own the place leaving hapless motorists diving for their brakes.

I seem to have written an entire post about road safety.. I had started this off to review my activities for the week. Somehow i thought writing down all I have done for a week would make realize how little i actually end up doing.. and somehow make me do more stuff.. But thats not to be..
Such is life..

P.S.: For all those people who thought my third post would be titled third.. he he ha ha :).. i have (a little) more imagination than that..

second..

2007-04-29T10:33:00.000+05:30

Yeah i could have been more imaginative with the title.. but nothing flashed...
Its a wonerful sunday morning and there is the wonderful feelnd that one day of work and i get yet another holiday .. :)..actually its a blazing hot sunday morning but i am feeling rather upbeat..
I hae scaled new peaks of laziness after starting to work.. My useful activity count for the past umpteen weekends stands at an amazing zero.. Actually even useless activity count isnt terribly high.. Ive mastered the art of doing absolutely nothing.. and cribbing about it... I suppose i need a life ..but i seem to be terribly content cribbing about my lack of one.. :)
I am currently reading 'The inheritance of loss' by kiran desai.... brilliant narration and amazing descriptions... Its beeen a while since i read a really good book.... the last one being Cancer wards.. and i read that almost a year ago.. i lament... lets c if htis one makes it to my list of good books..
I also intend to revive my interest in cooking... i have been called a good cook in the past.. but i a currently clinging to glory of the past.. havent done anything worth mentioning in while..... I intend to try some deserts... But the world around me is on diet...

Which suddenly brings my minds to diets... I cant understand them.... I could use one myself but somehow that something i dont ever think i could do.... I am surrounded by dieting ppl in office.. who give me a detailed calorie count as i chomp wide eyed into my gulab jamoon(free food in office...which is occasionally also good food) .... I finally figured that by the law of conservation of mass there was no way i culd gain more that 20g by eatin a 20g gulab jamoon...and that seems totally worth it to me... dieters not very impressed by my theory though...

I rea what ive written and i am amazed at how incoherrent it is... well what the hell its my blo .. I am the king (Queen actually)..who says i must be coherent..?

Fursht....

2007-04-26T21:31:00.000+05:30

Well, my first post in my first ever blog. Have been planning to write a blog for a while. Some outlet to my dying (never very healthy) litrerary abiities. After spending a while in the ever so (un)popular software industry, i have found myslef putting semi colons to end sentences...and THAT has to stop!!!
So here i am wondering what it was i wanted to tell the world... Introductions..never really my forte.... So i suppose this wold have to sffice as my first post till i find something more profound to say