Of early mornings...

It has been a looooong time since I posted...And what an occasion to start posting again today...On a morning after spending a sleepless night. Could not sleep a wink. Don't know the reason. And for a sleepaholic like me, this is very frustrating experience. Just imagine, lying in the bed with a lovely retreating monsoon atmosphere outside perfectly conducive for sleeping, and unable to sleep at all. Not the first time it has happened though. It had happened once in my second year of engineering, when after lying awake went off early in the morning to have breakfast at Wadeshwar's and in the process giving my poor Dad a rude shock to see me up so early...

So, what did I do? Played random games on Facebook, did an OR assignment, shot off a mail to my I-ART members, went for a jog in the rains, had 2 cups of steaming tea in the mess, had breakfast at 0730 hrs(!),came back, read 3 newspapers, found answers to 8/10 questions and I am not yet sleepy....

As I have realized time and again, early mornings are really nice. Spent half an hour in the mess just gazing into the clouds and enjoying the cool breeze. I should make it a habit to wake up early in the morning every day, I have been deciding this since time immemorial, but have failed to implement it...let’s give it a shot again...

Back in Gurgaon

I am back in the city which i am gonna remember for the rest of my life. We have got an Assessment Centre planned over the next couple of days at HCCBPL (the place where i did my Summers). All us summer interns are expected to be here tonite. if nuthin else,it is gonna serve as a nice get-together for all of us. :)

Jokes apart,with the current scenario,all of us are really looking forward to it as it offers us a chance to perform well and set out minds at rest by getting a job offer. lets see how it turns out...

Null..

Want to write something. got lotsa things in my mind what with summers over and college starting...bt just dont feel like writing anything..dont know why..have to shrug off this feeling...

'Extra' Innings...

Date : 13th May 09
Place:Durban,South Africa
Occasion : On field interview after an IPL match between Delhi Daredevils and Deccan Chargers
Stars: Mandira Bedi & Pradip Sangwan

DD have just beaten DC in a thrilling match. Pradeep Sangwan turned the match around with three wickets.

Now,the match is over and so is the presentation. A SET MAX guy,sitting in the studio in India suddenly jumps in his chair and shouts,"Mandira,let us have something exciting!!!!". And a couple of more jumps.

Now,I was a bit startled by his jumps and also was a bit curious about the 'exciting' stuff which madame Mandira would present...What followed was an interview with Pradeep Sangwan of DD..A few sample questions:

MB:Pradap,sorry,Pradeep Sangwan!!!!! 3 wickets!! wo bhi top order ke!! How do you feel???
PS:(doesnt know where to look...) It feels good!! And we won the match also. So its simply great..

A couple of more questions in English follow and then MB suddenly switches to Hindi!!

MB:Ab Veeru bhi vapas a gaye hai team me. Aapko kaise lag raha hai??

Now,i could digest the first question,but this question caught me completely offguard. I mean,the poor guy is being asked about his feelings about his captain's return on international television. I doubt whther even Ricky Ponting,with all his Aussie arrogance would have answered such a question in the negative..

PS:Bahut accha lag raha. Hum sab bahut khush hai. Aur hum match bhi jeet gaye. To aur bhi khushi hai.

MB:Sangwan!!! Aapki age kya hai?
(Me:?????)
PS:(?????) 18 saal
(Me:Wondering what next)
MB:Sirf 18 saal!!!! Aur aap international level pe khel rahe hai!!!! Aapko kaisa lag raha hai???
(Me:Stopped listening)

So,I don't know what poor PS said..

I still dared to watch the show. But I really could not take it when the expert panelists-Mr.L.Sivaramakrishnan and Mr.Arun Lal-started their not-so-expert comments on the game...

Mr.Sunil Gavaskar,Mr.Tony Greig (with all his hyperboles),Mr.Geoffrey Boycott (with his mother),MR.Michael Holding (with his West Indian 't's) where art thou???? I pine to hear your dulcet tones... Pls come back!!!

Purpose????

Sometimes,you start wondering what is it that you are born to do. There are occasions when you just don't know why are there on planet earth. You just drag through the day. Dont feel like doing anything.

I look around at the people and wonder what are they all doing. Everyone going through their paces. Wake up,brush,bathe,climb into the bus/local/auto,reach office,do the same work,have packed,cold lunch,finish the day,take the same mode of transport back,reach home,have tea,spend some time with 'family',have dinner and go off to sleep,only to restart the same cycle next day. Same routine day after day. I mean,why do we do all this? Just like a machine. Is it money,is it fame,is it peace of mind?? What??

They say that one has to take 7 births before being born in the human race. Why does one take so many efforts and pains? To do all this mentioned above? What is the purpose of our existence??? Pray tell me...

Would like to Quote Agent Smith and his clones from Matrix:Revolutions over here..

'But, as you well know, appearances can be deceiving, which brings me back to the reason why we're here. We're not here because we're free. We're here because we're not free. There is no escaping reason; no denying purpose. Because as we both know, without purpose, we would not exist.'

I just wanna know the purpose.. Thats all...

Much ado about nothin

I am sick of Slumdog Millionaire,Freida Pinto and Dev Patel. Actually,the last person is dragged into this only because of one of the world's most beautiful women and i feel sorry for him.

i have seen Slumdog Millionaire(pirated copy) and have liked the movie. But honestly speaking an Oscar is a bit too much. Add to it A.R.Rehman getting an Oscar for a track which is a mediocre one as compared to many of his hits. i don't want to go into detailed analysis about why this happened and how this happened and is anything wrong. I am happy for India and Indian music and cinema(though SM is 'not' an Indian film)

i was tolerating all this hype and hoopla abt the movie and its cast till now. But now it has become simply unbearable. The way the media is going ga-ga over an average actress who has a total screen time of less than 20 odd minutes and less dialogues than the protagonist's brother is too much. The most beautiful woman??? Puh-lease.. there are many women roaming the streets of Gurgaon who are much more beautiful,smart and charming than her and that too sans makeup!! ( i mentioned Gurgaon,'cos that's where i am currently located and the only source of humanity. No offence meant at all!!!)

AS if the media speculation over Freida's love life was not enough,we have her mom commenting on her daughter's status. Freida should be proud of her.

Honestly,i think we have all had enough of this crap. We are not interested in the love life and travails of life of a so called superstar.And we are tired of reading the same old stories again and again every alternate day in the newspapers.


No doubt Freida appears to be talented but she still has a long way to go. Let us give her some time to prove her mettle and then we can really call her a superstar and read about her personal life with gusto. Lets not have another Kumar Gaurav or Sania Mirza created by us...

Hardwar-Hrishikesh:Day 1

With the long weekend at our disposal and the fact that the next weekend, most of us would be busy or out of town, with our project work, we decided to go to Hardwar and Hrishikesh. The planning started with all of us planning to go and ended with 9 of us finally agreeing to go.

The day started on a not-so-auspicious note with Veena conveying her inability to come. I was apprehensive about Anuja too, but she confirmed that she would come.

We started from the Guest house at 7 am one hour behind schedule. Then followed the arduous and tortuous journey of abt 8 hours to reach Hardwar. A small debate whether to stay back or come back in the evening followed and we decided to stay back and finish it off.


Vikram and Karthik decided to have a swim and came attired with all the necessary stuff. They even got down into the water, but, seeing the flow of the water, very wisely decided against it and just took a few dips in the water. The rest of us were content with washing our feet in the water.

We had lunch in a hotel called “Asli Pracheen Chotiwala-Since 51 years”. An explanation is due I guess. Over there, most of the restaurants are named Chotiwala. We started wondering whether the choti means ‘mountain top’ or ‘pigtail’. Don’t know abt the others, but our hotel meant the latter.

We then went for the darshan of Mansa Devi and Chandi Devi. We had to take the respective ropeways to reach the temples. The view from the top was amazing. We had a panoramic view of the small town. We also had a little thrill when the power supply failed and we were hanging in the middle of the valley!!! However, the backup kicked in pretty soon and we were on our way.

At abt 7 o clock, we left the town and started towards Hrishikesh where we were supposed to put up for the night and go white water rafting the next morning. We reached the hotel in abt 1.5 hours. The rooms were not that great but were okiesh. We freshened up and went for dinner.

What followed was a disaster. We went to a place called Rajasthani Hotel which had a tagline of Ghar jaisa khana. It looked decent. However, what was served was something totally out of this world. We had a chocolate milkshake which was white in colour…The veg handi was full of cabbage, the chole were tasting like no other thing on planet earth. Even the cold drinks served were past their expiry date…

The icing on the cake came when we were given a bill of Rs.1200!! With this amount, we could have had decent food in one of the best hotels in any city. I was so frustrated and hungry that I went to a bakery and got some biscuits for us.

We came back to our hotel. Vikram and Karthik slept off immedieatley while the rest of us started a game of cards. We played till about 1 o clock and then I decided to call it a day as we had to wake up early the next day for the rafting.