I started reading A journey to the centre of the earth by Jules Verne today, and very quickly came to the realisation that there is not much that has changed in the literary field in the last 100 years, except for the brilliant research being done for each book.

The basic premise for the books still remains the same, but I guess that is also true for human nature and the areas that pique it’s interest, which is probably why the popularity for myseries, science fiction, etc. haven’t died out yet.

Hmmmm.. back to the book for now

Sometimes things just don’t seem to be goind right, and somethings they just don’t fail to go wrong *grin*. I guess what matters is what’s left in the end, because that is truly something no one can take away from you.

I have a lot of plans for the coming few weeks:

• Buy myself a spanking new Maruti Alto and start blogging about the experience (did anyone notice change in the name of the blog?
• Read some new books – have already started with A Passage to India by E. M. Forrester.
• Hang out a bit more at coffee shops.. don’t seem to be making too many new friends
• Take lots of photographs

“And tuesday just might go my way
It cant get worse than yesterday
Thursdays, fridays aint been kind
But somehow I’ll survive….”

Sunset at the beach in Goa.

So I’m back, and this time I’m here to stay. Been a freaking long time since I felt like sharing and caring fiddy-cents about anything in particular. There are way too many things going on to even try working them out in my head, leave alone putting them down on paper.

Here is the lowdown:

I’m double! Now what does that mean, you ask? Well remember the saying, I’m single and ready to mingle? You see, you SEE? You better see! Parents are down to talk it all out, so updates post haste

Maximum City: Bombay lost and found drags at the end! It’s a great book, but I just can’t seem to get through the last 30 pages. And like Navneet said, it has a lot of negative energy and one doesn’t really learn anything from it.

Omkara is bad ass! Good movie, but way too many expletives. It truly takes the cake on that one, and reminds me of days when I used to swear like a sailor, but gave it up for someone

Work-life is looking up: got promoted! Got a fast track up to the next grade, and things look good all the way up to the top. The bosses are waging war over what I should be doing. One wants to promote me for an expatriate stint to the US, another wants to groom me locally to later take over the reigns from someone else. C’est la vie!

Friends are dropping in and out! Some come, and some go, some are missed, and some are missing! Where art thou, my dear friend? Leave comments, send emails, call me.

No time for photography! This is one thing I truly regret. Life moves on so fast that it doesn’t give one the chance to sit down and capture an image. Me and Vijay intend to take a holiday one of these days and spend 2-3 days in some city just taking pictures. One of these days, my dearest camera, one of these days…

Coffee is in, bay-bee! I am back in the coffee grind (literally) *grin*, Taking regular coffee breaks at work, as well as going out once in a while for some good cold as well as hot coffee. Nothing beats the desi grind, with lots of milk and sugar. The US coffees suck, unless you really know how to make a good one (which I never could manage at Starbucks).

Getting ma hands dirty with Ruby! Gotcha! Ruby is an amazing programming language, wherein life is made easy for kids who want to really learn pro(g)ramming and not p[ro(te)]gramming. Things are long along just well between me, Ruby and MySQL.

More soon. I want to finish with Omkara, @#@$%@%!

.. hasde, allah ke bande,
Jo bhi ho, kal phir ayega.

For the uninitiated, a translation:

“God’s own child, smile, oh God’s own child,
Whatever [however things are] it is today, tomorrow will come again.”

Very inspiring.

~~~~

I’m just living it out in the dream of a better time up ahead. Not that times are hard on me right now, but I know things will only get better.

This is where I want to be: (Punjab)

.. since I began working and earning my own living. A synopsis:

- I have struggled to save 2/3rds of my salary, but circumstances have led me to save only shy of half.
- I have started on a journey of creating a truly diverse library for myself, and have proved quite successful. I have gathered over a 100 books ranging from titles as wild and whacky as Screw it, let’s do it (Richard Branson) to The Psychology of the Simpsons (Alan Brown,Chris Logan).
- Read about 12 full books and 6 half books (never got around to finishing them).
- Been through office politics that could kill a whale, but also made for interesting learning grounds
- Put on a craptastic amount of weight.
- Taken a total of 3 and 1/2 photographs (interest seems to have died).
- Lost a phone at work (bloody thieving !@$%#?$!)
- Bought a cycle and successfully cycled to work for 3 months (3 miles each way). Had to stop thanks to the rainy season.
- Crashed my external HDD and lost all my data . Trying to recover it with p@#!#!$ software
- Made a couple of good friends
- Had lots of good coffee. You know how people have and make drinking buddies? I made coffee buddies. I even hugged the barista on new years eve (how romantic, I know).
- Met from friends from yesteryears, the good old IITian times when we were gods and there were non better.

… is what I want to do. Too many things happening at one time:

- Random people trying to hook me up with some female at my cousin sister’s wedding ceremonies.
- Having this feeling that I am at a turning point in my career, and what I do next will either make it or break it (well not really). Not that I know this is that point.
- Paying all my bills in time (jus the on-time part.. not the money part).
- Getting my tax papers in line so as to submit and clear it all up by 31st July.
- Setting up the new laptop I got from work (it’s light as hell, or should I say heaven?).
- Getting enough rest and exercise in.
- Wanting to read enough books.. currently reading Bono in conversation with Michka Assayas.

I’m out this post, but I’ll be back. Hasta la vista, baby.

An interesting epilogue to the story in a movie format, wherein it taught me many things (inspired by characters in the movie, which I mention in brackets):

- Friends can be of two kinds; either be fair weather, or they can bring about fair weather (Storm)

- Everyone has a spirit within, which can be undying, regenerating, animalistic in its instinct for survival, wanting to move in for the kill, and fighting for what they believe in (Wolverine).

- Sometimes what we want is within our grasp, but it’s our choice that defines what me make of it (Rogue).

All in all, a great film. Thanks to Navneet, I’ve begun looking at the flipside of things. What I’ve learnt from him is that everything depends on how we interpret them, and thus is always within our control. Life is simple, not easy (or was it the other way around?) I’m still learning I guess…

So this marks my comeback, both on here as well as in photography. I know this one sucks, but it’s a start:

This is symbolic of how the digital medium is taking over everything, to the extent that it defines who we are. I know that it’s not entirely true, but sometimes it’s all so overwhelming that it sure does seem to be the way things are heading.

Believing in yourself is an endless destination. Believing you have failed is the end of the journey.
                 -Unknown

So I’m up late at night chatting and finishing up some work, and I realize I owe Vilas big time. He brought in his music collection and I got back in touch with many classics, including Scatman.

I remember him being a rage in the 1990s, when I was probably in 5th or 6th grade. I just put his hit single, Scatman, on repeat and just let it rip my sound-set up go wild. I also got onto google to learn a bit about him, and was drawn to the fact that he had a condition, where in he can’t stop stuttering! Yet, he sings this amazing number.

I’m too sleepy to realy do justice to him, so I’ll let you learn for yourself: Remembering Scatman John Larking. Those who need the song may ping me or leave a message on here.