Back Then

On an otherwise boring weekend, setting up mail client for my gmail account on my Mac gave me something to think about. For some time I was irritated that the client is downloading mails from the time the account is born, which was in 2006. Those are the days when gmail was introduced and brought ‘.’ Into the legal mail id characters. I was too excited to see this and hence created an ID with as many of them as possible making m.s.a.sandeep my gmail account.

While the client is downloading the mails of its account’s sunup, I’ve been transported to the 2006 days, digesting with difficulty the fact that its been 3 years since my psenti sem (In BITS Pilani, we call the final semester as psenti sem). Those were days when a forward mail from friend with ‘Sardar Ji jokes’ makes me laugh full out. Not only would I forward that mail to all my wingees, but also go to each one of them to make sure that they get the joke. They surely used to laugh, if not at the joke, at my desperate attempt to make them laugh.

Those were days when the world (rather my world) was a lot younger. The gift that he would buy to his friend for their friendship anniversary was the top concern for one of my friends, not the financial concerns and the family responsibilities that he is now deep into. Meeting professor for project after an era of idle life used to be trouble of the time, not the present project deadlines and the job security, for the other. Those were also the days when a gate-call from or to girls’ hostel used to be an achievement, .01 raise is CGPA used to be a celebration. The biggest disappointment was when India looses the world cup (2003 world cup), not when share market collapses. In short, life was quite simple and lively (or livelier, if that word is not a myth).

And then there was this vast invisible world. When I repeated a course, or shed blood to see my friend as our assoc secretary, there was no reason. I used to like this picture a lot, for some reason that I am unaware of. For me this is the picture of a train that is traveling on high skies whose tracks are invisible. May be this is the picture that is close to my feelings when I was following my instincts, and not the morass. The ‘invisible rails’ in the picture is my invisible world, which I used to believe in.



Now I know too much to believe in all those. The invisible world is now a stroke of luck, or a coincidence. Now I know that I’ve to be concerned about my investment returns, but not calling home when promised. I know that forward mails are funny, not fun… and a lot more.

For sure, “Ignorance Is Bliss”

A Tribute

Love at first sight was a myth, until it happened to me. These were my initial days in Bangalore, one of the Sundays… was roaming around marathalli with friends. Nothing under the sky has changed. The same traffic jammed roads of Bangalore, the buildings of the shops’ anxiously gazing to encroach any available land before them, the ruthless auto drivers ready to run over anyone on the way (whom I hated the most for their ridiculous fares and the harshness in driving and otherwise). But they all seemed interestingly pleasant.
Definitely … love is in the air...

As there is nothing else to do we went into one of those numerous shops in there. A cool breeze greeted me into the shop. Was not sure if it is the breeze of the AC or the presence of her that made me twirl my head, but I couldn’t take my looks off her for a minute. That minute seemed longer than an era and shorter than an eye blink. Her perfect looks, her smile like a flash… I am not a PhD in BS (Beauty Sciences not Bu** S**t), but I knew that she is the epitome of beauty. I instantly knew that her company would make my life colorful.

Frns said “go for her”… parents said a BIG NO… The fight was big with all the electronic media as the battleground. Email, chat, phone, fax, sms… no means was left untouched in frns and family giving me suggestions in favor or disapproval of my decision. The battle ended when I said “enough” and walked to the shop where I saw her first and… bought her for 25K to make her “My Nokia N73”.

Yeah I am talking about my mobile… the first gadget that I bought for myself after I started earning, that was in my company for the last 2 years. The 3 MP camera made sure that all those happy moments with friends are captured and stored safely, my source of entertainment with a high-quality music player, not to forget the GPRS and the great experience brought by the web browser. The best moment that’s captured… I think was Amir Khan’s visit to our office campus for shooting Gajani.

Given the careless guy I am, there is no wonder that I lost my mobile. But it hurts to part something that has been the very part of my life all these years. Something that’s been with me in my good and bad times, happy and unhappy moments bringing me all those tidings from across the world that I am part of.



This blog is a tribute to my dear one, which is no longer with me. For me she was a part of my life… But for someone who stole it, its a second hand- 2 years used and worn out mobile, without any accessories. I wonder how much he expects to make out of selling such stuff leaving the real owner in a total mess (trust me… apart from all these psenti feeling, loosing all the contacts, number, messages, snaps leaves you in a real mess)

Good that men are not Canibals by default :P

Population of Singapore Same Weight as Amount of Turkey Consumed for Thanksgiving

According to the National Turkey Foundation, approximately 690 million pounds of turkey were consumed in the United States during Thanksgiving 2007. This equals the weight of 4.48 million individuals of average weight (154 pounds); the population of Singapore as estimated by the last census in 2005.

just a fun fact.. no inferences.. 

Happy Thanks Giving 

$S for Domain Name

Refer to the ‘Wattha Hell Series: The introduction’

Last week has been a bit busy for me with no time to read my RSS feeds. A list of 999 feeds showed up (The maximum that my Google reader would show).
Was quickly glancing through the reader, making the max use of “Mark all as read” button on the top of the page. But this one caught my attention. Not sure if it the “what recession?” phrase in the title or the $1 Million - which is a lot of money (or the picture in the post :P) that pulled my attention, but ‘wattha-hell’ was the immediate reaction after reading it.

The news is:
“Privately-owned PriveCo, which specializes in retailing embarrassing products online, has paid $1 million for the acquisition of the domain name vibrators.com”

May be I am jealous, that some one could make a Million $s just by selling a domain name, but there are lot many reasons that makes me feel that this one deserves a ‘w-h’. A dedicated site to sell these products, ships 1500+ packages a week. And they claim that they are ahead of the competition (which means that there is competition too). And they could spare 1 million just to buy a domain name. Never thought that in this interesting world, domain name can also be an investment.

Because

It’s already 11 AM and I am still in the parking lot of my apartment.
These days, I am consistent in one thing- “Going late to office”.

And another thing along with this has come into my routine, in-fact 2 things- rushing on the roads cursing any living/non living thing that comes in my way. And the other thing is- thinking of a reason to fire out, if any some one is even remotely interested my coming late to office. This part of Sandy’s life is called Creativity.

And the interesting thing is: I started getting a lot of reasons from the time I started looking for one. Though no one cares to ask me about them here in office, I don’t want to let go my creativity to ruins, so posting them (I believe that helping those who are in need of reasons is also a form of social service):

The best one is today’s

The street near our house that I come by is blocked by localities for their Diwali celebrations. And even yesterday, the road is semi blocked by procession for the festival. The interesting thing is- they don’t give a chance to the ppl like me to bawl for blocking the traffic, because they do it first on us. They treat the traffic like the shame on Bangalore’s face… the one that is killing their happiness, peace and freedom. (I dunno what freedom is for them, may be build their own drawing room on the public roads). But today there is no stopping, they managed to put a tent on the road and block both sides of it with heavy stones. Not that I have to travel 10 extra kms because of this, but this is a good enuf reason. What say?

Here is the next best for Bangloreans

When I go to office from marathalli to indiranagar, I see some roads wet because of rain and some really dry. I never felt Bangalore that big, but these different weather reports from different places makes me think otherwise. Nevertheless this is one of the best arrows in my quiver – “It was raining when I started”. But I plan to do this only when the roads in/near my house or office are wet.

And here is the most common one:

Traffic jam near any of the signals, and the best is near 3 or more signals. And you should add ‘I hate Bangalore traffic’ and when you are saying this, you should sound really nasty.... buddy.

And if you come by bike/2 wheeler

say something like 'India is going to dogs; no one can save the country. It is totally corrupt.' You need not mean any of these (and I personally feel that people who abuse the country this freely do not really mean all that they say) but this is just to create a solid base for the reason that you are about to fire. The Traffic police caught me. I had to pay 100 bucks even though I have all the papers, and when some one says “why did you pay?” as a natural reaction to your red lines (I meant all that concern for India), you can say- “I did not want to come late to office, fighting with him. So decided to shed the money ”. Now you see- you can as well gather some goodwill if your manager overhears the conversation. And this works out best if it is the end of a month, you will see some one or the other who really went through this, and they can add some more meat to your reason.

P.S. 1: For me reasons are just reasons, they can’t alter some thing that happened, but just something to make you/others happy, so don’t think too much about right/wrong good/bad true/false when you are giving one. Just give something that works.
P.S. 2: I don’t want to over load this post for the sake of retaining interest, shall post other reasons based on the response to this one
P.S. 3: You can add your own reasons as comments; we can work together on productizing your reason ☺

The Bundle

How many times is a ‘bundle of 100 sticks’ stronger than each of them?

Well the answer is not 100. Where does the additional strength come from? Does it come from the thread that makes the sticks a bundle? In-fact not, and further more, the thread by itself is useless without the sticks. It is the unity that makes the difference. Things like these look obvious in case for stuff like sticks, but not so very obvious in real life.

How many times did you really appreciate someone? And how many times of this appreciation is for a deed instead of an achievement? And again the answer is not any number. At least, I don’t mind accepting that I do not do it very often. Not that I am doing a crime or that I am unethical, but just that my sense of reality is like this:

• To do a real difference to the world around me, I have to be successful
• To be successful, I should concentrate on self-improvement
• Self-improvement for me is to constantly compare myself with others, if not dominating them.

This is something that I’ve adapted from the society that I’ve grownup in. And this I think is the case with many of us, just that the intensity varies from one to another. Symptoms of which I see in our group’s chats where the discussions on new ideas seem to die faster, whereas the conversations on tripping live the longest. I remember that when I missed 1st rank in my 3rd grade, I envied the ones who got 1st and 2nd and when I was 1st in the next exam, the ones who got 2nd and 3rd now envy me ☺. Though this struggle appears just in this case, the same attitude appears detrimental when you are up-to something in life. The reason is simple: a bundle is always stronger and that strength is what drives you to what you are up-to.

So I started thinking what does it take to make us a bundle. May be 2 things:

1) Willingness of the individual sticks to form a bundle
2) The thread that makes the individuals a bundle

So first of all the willingness is important. This post is my confession to our group that I will give up my sense of reality and stop believing that “energy can never be created, and that I have to prove others weak to make myself strong(er)” and start believing that "creation is possible".
Standing in this place I started thinking of the twine that makes the bundle. This should be the possibility that each of us sees for us as a group, the possibility of leadership, joy, happiness and achievement.

It is just one day that I’ve taken up this new belief system, and I can see that creation is possible. Candy started writing his blog, our group have been together for dinner after almost 10 months playing air hockey.

Not bad huh? After all, the journey is what makes it worthwhile than the destination itself.

Cultural Shock

Refer to the ‘Wattha Hell Series: The introduction'

I seriously wanted my next post in this series non-political, but looks like the theme 'wattha-hell' and politics have cohesion beyond my imagination.

Flirting at its heights - head of a nation while representing his nation……. desperate in his attempts to amaze a woman (who also is representing her nation)…… in public…… in a ‘supposed to be a diplomatic’ meet….... when the whole world is sympathizing him on his wife’s death (former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto). Yeah I am talking about what happened when Pakistan president Zardari met Sarah Palin, US Republican vice-presidential nominee.

''Now I know why the whole of America is crazy about you.'' says Mr Zardari who proves himself crazier than all of them. This one is the masterpiece - when the reporter asked them to shake hands for a pose our Zardari turned it really on to Palin “If he is insisting, I might hug you” lol ☺ Complete link here.

Can any thing be humorous than this? Of-course there is. Only politics can beat politics. The honored president got a fatwa. Now wait, while getting a blame for whatever he has done is fine, this one has a little twist. The crime according to the fatwa is trails to turn on a non-islam woman wearing skirts.
May be Mr Zardari in all his goodwill, wanted to have a good relationship with America(an).