Nagin

Got thoroughly bored and was browsing through YouTube when I came across this.



Just couldn't stop thinking about Neetika, Motee and Mistha. Miss you folks a lot...

Don ko pakadna...

Don ka record todne ka koshish to 10 test-playing mulko ke batsman kar rahe hain, magar ek baat samajh lo.... Don ke jitna mahaan banna mushkil hi nahi, namumkin hai !!

Happy 100th Birthday, Sir Donald Bradman.

Of Pain and Suffering

While browsing through a bookstore yesterday, I came across a book called "What I talk about when I talk about running" by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. Since I have always loved running long distances myself, I instantly started browsing through it. One very interesting thought was presented in the prologue of the book itself.

The author had spoken to several marathon runners and had asked them the same question: what do they think about while they are running? Obviously, one thought which would cross an individual's mind when undertaking a strenuous task such as running a marathon is the constant pain that never leaves one's side after having run a few kilometres.

The marathon runner's answer made for interesting food for thought, in the perspective of marathon running in general and for life in particular.

The runner replied: Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.

What a profound idea. If I keep telling myself about the constant pain, I'm only adding to the suffering. The pain is gonna be there anyway. However, if I tell myself that every step that I take takes me closer to my final destination, in that case I choose NOT to opt for the suffering and accept the pain that in any case was part of the deal.

78mm Adventures

A couple of days ago, I spotted this guy wearing a Kshitij 2007 (IIT Kharagpur fest) t-shirt. What instantly caught my attention was the tag line: “Nothing else exists except atoms and empty space. Everything else is opinion.”

And it is our opinions which decide how we choose to look at things. More often than not, our environment conditions us into believing certain things and we start looking and thinking along a pre-defined path.

There are some, however, who are different.

I have been fortunate to have met people who have a refreshingly different opinion about matters. To most of us, job security is a worry and perhaps only the most desperate of circumstances would encourage us to forego this blanket of security. Yet, there are some who know that they were meant to do something different and every thing else in life is just a compromise. Some people choose to take the highway to their dreams.

Jeet, Jagrit and Rathore are three such friends from my MBA days at Nirma. Having decided that a different world and a different destiny were calling out to them, they’ve now hung up their corporate suits only to put on their t-shirts and ragged jeans which allow them to be their own self. And in this self, they found that they were adventurers first, hot-shots later.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m proud to introduce to you 78mm Adventures.

Follow your heart, click the link.

Double Bash

Happy Independence Day to all Indians everywhere !! Jai Hind !!

And dear blog.... belated 3rd Happy Birthday (11th August). :))

Now that's a car !!

On a day when Lewis Hamilton must sit back and blame his car tyres for not allowing him to challenge Massa for the leadership position at the Hungarian Grand Prix, I went photograph hunting for the McLaren Mercedes F1 car that was on display at the South City Mall.

Mama I'm comin' home !!

All right. Here I am, back home in Calcutta.

The last week of stay in Bangalore involved hectic activity. Things needed to be packed (this usually leaves me looking around the room helplessly), people needed to be informed that I was leaving, office work had to be delegated and most importantly, I had to meet all the friends in the city.

For the first time in my adult life, the packing wasn’t as big a nightmare as it usually is for me. I had enough suitcases to pack my stuff into, although Motee made her presence felt at the last minute and did a much better job than I could’ve ever done myself.

I had three different send-offs and each of them was very special.

The first was when I met up with Charul, Bipasha ‘Ben’, Jeet and Motee at Qwiky’s. The second one was much later in the week with the group that I’ve now started referring to as the ‘78 mm gang’… (B-I-G post on this gang coming up next). Of course, this gathering couldn’t have happened anywhere else but at ‘The Jukebox’.

The third one was an ‘office’ gathering since it involved a few of the office guys and their respective better halves. It was great to go out for dinner with them and to realise that even in a short span of time, I’d grown very fond of these folks.

By the end of the week, all the packing and unpacking had really caught up with me. Had it not been for Mistha who very sweetly decided to host me at her place for yet another night at her place, I would’ve been only more harassed. Oh what a fun night it was. Motee came over and we spent the night watching TV, eating pizzas, playing antakshari during the power failure and having some awesome coffee. (The ‘antakshari’ was my idea and trust me, I had absolutely no idea that Mistha and Motee would immediately agree to the plan. Played antakshari after AGES and it was good fun.)

The next morning was even more fun. Bulla came to receive me at the airport and we both were very excited about how my parents would react. I was giving them a surprise and they had no clue that I had packed up my bags and was headed home.

When I did finally stand before him, Dad was just v-e-r-y surprised to see me. I think for a couple of moments he just couldn’t come to terms with the fact that I’d actually managed to pack all my belongings and come over from Bangalore to Calcutta without informing him and taking any sort of help from him. As for Mom…well, Moms are just awesome, aren’t they? Mom just kept smiling and hugging me. There was just too much joy to be expressed by words, I guess.

I have met up with almost all my friends since I’ve come back and it feels so great to catch up with Bulla, Lambu, Raj, Budhau, Konal and Horse.

Oh yes, that reminds me.

The dude that Horse is, he SMSes me last Friday at 1:30 in the morning to ask me if I’m awake. When I replied that I indeed was and when he didn’t reply for about 5 minutes, I very seriously thought that the dude was in trouble. Just when I was about to call him back, he calls and asks me if I had office the next day (Saturday). I said that I did. “Cool,” he says, “I don’t know what you do tomorrow; you take a half-day, call in sick and don’t go at all…I don’t care. Just make sure you’re at my place at three tomorrow.” And before I can go “Dude, wtf?”, he makes me drop my jaws by adding casually, “I’m getting engaged.”

Imagine my surprise!! I sat bolt upright in bed. Obviously, I was very excited for him. We chatted for about twenty minutes and then decided that this called for a celebration. True to our nature, we walked out of our respective houses at 2 in the morning and headed for…where else? Our favourite haunt, The Atrium !! Over a couple of beers, he told me how just earlier in the evening the girl and her family had come down from Nagpur and when both of them gave their assent, the families decided to have a small ceremony the very next day.

Well, my movie watching spree has definitely come to a halt, but I did manage to catch ‘The Dark Knight’ with Horse and Bulla. We went to the South City Mall and barely managed to get three seats in the second row from the front. This on a Monday night at ten o’ clock!! Wow !! Calcutta seems to be really catching up on the movie scene.

I haven’t managed to get a broadband connection for myself yet. I promise posts will get more regular once that happens. Let’s hope I can get a connection by the end of next week.