Top 10 Reasons guys get into trouble

1. Something you said.
2. Something you didn’t say.
3. Something you looked like you were going to say.
4. Something you were thinking.
5. Something you appeared to be thinking.
6. Something you did.
7. Something you didn’t do.
8. Something you heard about another guy doing, and you didn’t say, “How wrong and bad of that guy!” quickly enough.
9. Something you should know, but for the life of you can’t figure out.
10. Something you can figure out, and something just reminded her of it, even though it was a long time ago and her sister doesn’t even live around here anymore.

P.S.: Can't take credit for it. Came across it on the net. Thought I did share a few laughs... :D

Date avec le Destin - Chapter 1

So, I made it to Atlanta... hmmm... yesterday night in typical Rohit style - a reasonable adventure garnished with just the wrong amount of chaos. The transit took a total of 1.75hrs + 16.5hrs+ 9hrs + 8hrs + 9.5hrs ≈ 45 hours!!!. My airport pick-up arrived an hour after I exited the airport, and, when I reached the place I was supposed to stay at, the guys were out for the night (:o), leavin me stranded outside an apartment complex - half way across the world in the crime capital of the country with 60 odd kgs (≈130 lbs) of baggage at 11:00 in the night... woohoo - what did I tell u -> typical Rohit ishtyle ... *sigh*

Anyway, all that apart - why has the procrastinator picked up his pen. It seems our protagonist is in one of those moods where he feels he has to pen down - a landmark chapter in his life. Entry to the UNITED STATES??? - Nooo...touchdown in Paris (one of our protagonist's dream destination for years in a row now).

First thoughts when I could see anything (but clouds) whilst landing in Paris? Why are we landing in the middle of a farm??? At 10,000 feet above sea level all I could see were farms, and to top it all, it seemed we were landing bang in the middle of one!!! So... contrary to expectations there was no 'Eiffel Tower' on the left, no Louvre on the right and definitly no belly dancers welcoming our receipt to their country -- *sigh* . Worse yet, the 'fashion capital' de la monde was filled with women wearing anything from jute bags to the plastic covers we dump back in India. So thats what fashion means... Looks like the FTV is not a comedy channel after all - people actually do wear stuff like that - and to top it all - pay ten times the money we pay for normal clothes on it!!!

OK... I probably am exaggerating a bit, but, you see the average male can't comprehend why fashion should comprise of anything less provocative than, let's say - swimwear. Mathematically speaking,
       fashion = supposed to be appealing -> (1)
       bikini = definitely appealing -> (2)
Using (1) and (2), we have
fashion = definitely bikini

I did try looking around the airport for people wearing table lamps and the sort.. but *sigh*... but, looks like the big guy up there wasn't in a mood to entertain me that much after all :((. Maybe next time a la Paris. In the meanwhile, I leave you with a song that was popular in our ALL BOYS school a long while bk when we were kids. (Tread with caution ... ;))
Wikipedia - Place called France

--- No title yet ---

"I wonder how I 'll dust my laptop", I thought out loud, looking a the new Acer Aspire 4937G I had purchased on my Malaysia trip. My innocent team mate looked at me bewildered, b4 he retorted, "Dust your laptop??? Throw some sand on it or something". He keeps coming up with these innocent comments that leaves the entire team cracked up for a few days. Its not everyday your teammate says 'Shoot me' when you ask him for assistance. It took me ten seconds to figure out that he had accidentally mixed up, 'Tell me' and 'Shoot'.

Coming back to the intent of this post, I had created this blog with the vision of recording some incidents in my life. I have been able to do as much justice to the cause as the USofA to the Iraq cause. But being true to my character of the man that never gives up, I have decided to put up yetAnotherPost - this time to record my first international trip funded by my very own pocket. *sigh* *wipes tear from eye*. This time Singapore and Malaysia. I recited my triumph to a pen pal that I got in touch with after 3 odd years.
Protagonist (me) : "Morning pal. What you doing up so early. Didnt you hear bout the early worm that got devoured by the bird?"
Pen pal : ":)... Well... have heard a lot of stories my friend... I plan to make one of my own".
Protagonist: chatter chatter bla bla
Pen pal: bla bla bla chatter chatter bla
Pen pal: "So, I heard you visited Singapore and Malay recently. That must 'av been fun"
Protagonist: loads of gloating... blows all nearby trumpets. So what have you been doing all this while?
Pen pal: "Well, lets just say, life's been good. Had the luck of visiting 'a few' places myself"
Protagonist: "Really... Tell me about it"
Pen pal:"Oh ... we have loads to catch up on... what else is happening?"
Protagonist: much persuasion
Pen pal: "Well, if you want me to list down... Hmmm...
Phuket..."
Protagonist: "Oh.. Thailand... Thats near Singapore..." feels a little smaller
Pen pal: "Kuala Lampur"
"Singapore"
Protagonist shrinks further
"Macau"
"Hong Kong"
"London"
Protagonist crawls into shell
"Milan"
"Geneva"
"Monte Carlo"
.
.
Protagonist finishes drinking tea
.
"Barcelona"
"Lisbon"
"
"I too have had the luck of visiting a few places in the last few years coz of my job she related". Needless to say, my elation was short lived as she started listing down the list of locations she had frequented during the last 'couple of years'.

The date is now 26/11/2009. I must have had that conversation somewhere around June 2009, and, started typing this post - post my Singapore/Malaysia trip just post April 2009. The Malaysia visa expiring only around March 2009, talks are on for yet another Malaysia visit, coz, we really din get to see it the first time around.. lol.. Guess, I really have done justice to the title of this blog.

In any case, I think I 'll just sum up this post with some random event from the recent past, so that the publishing of the same doesn't go beyond April 2009 (hmmm... that might actually be some kinda world record... a post a whole year in construction). Geez... 'Ambivalence' the only word i remember from my GRE preparation last to last year!!!

Ok... so what has happened recently...hmmm... I joined twitter... http://www.twitter.com/fraudmalloo. I moved to my 6th team in McAfee in the last 3 years (mostly under the same manager.. *sigh* :p)... I am being tortured on a regular basis in the gym by me instructor... Does anyone know if that David Goliath thing had actually happened??? I 'm thinking of taking him on one of these days... :p Did I mention that my cousin got married, my Dad came down for a month from Bahrain, my best friend leaving for the US, my close bud resigning to start his own company and (...) Hmmm, I really have been away from this site for long haven't I...!!!

Oh yeah... And for the people who have been wondering who the mushroom is, you guys won't have to wait long.. Mystery to be unveiled soon... ;) Till then, its adieu folks. Love you all. Really. :)

The day I ate biscuits...

I keep this one as the title, coz, 'The day I ate biscuits', i promised myself that I would be writing a post soon. That is, if I managed to get thru the day. What happened you ask... well, that's yetAnotherStory. There's really not much "Adult" stuff (As it turns out, my sis has taken up reading the blog - so, I'm watching my words n all here :D). The news came as a shock to me. If i recall correctly, her exact words were 'Hey Rohitya, came across your blog. You were right, they are not very sisterly, but, they were very funny. I am reading it out to Mummy right now', she said as I began preparing my will and letter of resignation. Surely, there wouldn be much left of me, once mum read this blog.

The new readers are probably wondering, what kind of a casanova i must be. Fear not friends, for my romantic life has as many successes as Ajit Agarkar centuries, as Anupam Kher hair or president Bush testosterone. How google managed to interpret its contents and display 'relevant' ads of Gay dating sites to this day i not know.. What possibly might google gain from its attempts to 'purge' any shreds of my practically non-existent 'love life', by sabotaging it with ads from gay sites i do not know. I say practically non-existent coz only recently I made out with this really special beautiful girl... That counts for something right? Even if I were dreaming about it.

Its been more than a month since I wrote para one up there, so I am expecting this post to be published somewhere around July 2020. I would advise all ardent fans NOT to hold their breath on that, coz, improbable as it may sound, I HAVE been known to procrastinate... Shocker isnt it... I know... :D.

Well, to bring you guys update to date on whats been happening round about these parts, with the coming onslaught of exams havent really had much of a change to do something adventurous... Thats my latest excuse for sitting back home and sleeping. From what I can recall, apart from the really crazy in the moment naughty stuff I 've been doing(psst... shhhhhhhh... sis reads this blog remember), there's been the intra company cricket tournament I took part in last weekend(read as GOD knows how many months ago now) - the results of which will not be put up here, as they could tarnish my ego for a long time to come. Also, I dread my future kids* stumbling onto this post. (*the one's I adopt after every female on this planet rejects me)

Just got off the phone with Mum. Its at that exact moment that Mum called that certain colleagues decided to invite me for the new Bond movie, "Quantum of Solace", to which, being the classic comedian that I am, had to retort - Condom - No thanx. Already have one. Now to the ordinary(read as reasonably protective) mum, this might not be a problem. But, if you take into account the one hour lecture on AIDS I got (keep in mind - Mum to 23 year old son) the last time I went home, when she discovered that i was on phone with a girl, you get an idea of what I am talking about. Needless to say, this phone conversation with Mum didn last very long.

I really dont have much else to add over here. Just thought I did dust off the cobwebs that would probably have accumulated over here. From here its back to an an empty house for the weekend, because, I abandoned a weekend get away plan with the roomies - 'to study' for the exam coming next week. But, given that there is an 'entire' week to prepare for it, its probably gonna be sit bk n relax with some corny movies.

P.S. : The last line was written more than 4 months ago.. My duty today... Click the 'Publish' button... :)

Can I speak to Mrs. Ramani ArunKumar...

... said the voice on the other end of a mobile phone, in the hands of our protagonist/author, for what seemed like the one millionth time. It had all begun early last June or so... (psst... clue... break time folks... go get your popcorn and pepsi... story coming up)

Introduction:(Some month - some day - last year I think - man that's one crappy mmry)
Our author, after one whole month of mobilelessness, finally recieves a new SIM card from his best friend. Thrilled, he plugs it in into his Nokia 3SomethingSomethingSomething (Jesus Christ - who the hell zapped me with the MIB - miserable excuse for an artists depiction of memory zapper thingee).

Procrastinating Protagonist(Pro P) : Sigh... finally... a SIM... which girl do I call first!! which girl do i call first. (He knew this one was a toughie - life's problems just kept getting more and more complex by the day. yetAnotherToughDecision - he meditated for a minute, AND as he so did, the words came to him, as if from beyond. He recognized the wisdom in the voice, a pattern he was now only too familiar with - "Just flip the damn coin bean(sigh!!! one of his many corny nick names)", it said. Yea... he did been watchin too many corny movie's lately).

Heads it was... And just as he was dialing his mum's number(sis would have to wait), the phone began to ring. For what was the first time in a series of calls, that would someday drive him mad enough to listen to 'Himesh Reshammiya' songs to get a break, the voice said, "Can I speak to Mrs. Ramani ArunKumar?"

Pro P: "Sorry... Wrong number"

Many days and several missed calls later, whence, he had recieved more well wishes(messages) from random numbers, CitiBank, ICICI and God knows what banks on the occassion of his assumed birthday, his assumed anniversary and even the birthday of his daughter [:o - when did I do that???] M/s Niveditha ArunKumar than he had in his entire life, he learnt that this was no ordinary woman. Apparently this lady(or so the incoming messages suggested), owed CITI bank a lakh odd rupees. The banks (go figure who the genius manager is), i can only presume were pressurizing her into paying this due back by wishing the !@#$ outta her every other chance they got. (I can picture the manager singing 'Lage Raho Munnabhai' and preaching Gandhigiri as a vocation whenever time permitted him to do the same.) Sigh!!! When will this torture end???

Well, the aim of this post perhaps is to request all my readers, all one of them including me, to persuade Mrs. Ramani ArunKumar to update her records so that I could spend more time chatting with my girlfriends(all 0 of them) rather than responding to threatening messages from what sounds like descendents of the lineage of the 40 thieves that Ali Baba had dwindled.

P.S.: Kindly find enclosed my sincere apologies for stealing the last twenty minutes or so of your life. I would like to make ammends for the same, but, given my current salary means that I would only be able to pay you back after the 10 installments i owe my Dhobi. Take care you all.. Love ya.

THY HAVETH BEEN TAGGED

Ooooooooooooo.... yippeeeeeeeeeeeee (yep people still use such sayings)... I have been tagged. This tag has apparently flown in directly all the way from Holland to Delhi and now to 'namma Bengaluru'. I will try to be honest (read as - scribble jargon that 'll sound impressive to my manager just incase he ever comes to this blog and/or a random cute rich smart christian girl who 'll read this post and instantly fall in love with me ~ yes, I live in a fairy tale world) - Appraisal time just around the corner :D

1. LAST MOVIE YOU SAW IN A THEATER: Eeks!!! not a gr8 one to start off with. I would have to go with 'RACE'. The movie was filled with so many corny lines, twists and corny lyrics that 80% of the x-tian people who watched it decieded to go on a confession spree (you know where people like you and me scare the local priest ~ with our scary lives and thoughts ~ Kurbana kolugaa) for having ripped out a huge 3 hour chunk from their lives.
P.S.: I enjoyed the movie. T'was entertaining.

2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING?: I am supposed to be reading - The World Is Flat. I did like to be reading - The Alchemist(read it once before more than 4 years back - recently learned that it was philosophical in nature - gotta get back to the book to find out in which corner they had hidden the philosophy then). What I am reading - Nothing. (wow - guess its time to scratch 'reading' frm the list of hobbies in my orkut list)

3. FAVORITE BOARD GAME?: I want to say Chess, Backgammon and Chinese Checkers
Chess because they say it makes people sound smart.
Backgammon a game i played so long back that i hardly remember the spelling, much less the rules to the same.
Chinese Checkers - ah!!! what the heck!!! I can play as much checkers as I can backgammon. Atleast i can spell this one right.

4. FAVORITE MAGAZINE?: I probably shouldnt be saying Playboy, but, perhaps if i had got myself a copy, it would be topping the list. Right now, I ll go with RD. (The Life's Like That section eerily reminds you that people's humor sense is dropping at such an alarming rate, that pretty soon people 'll might just come down to this blog to get a few laughs - Heaven Forbid!!!)

5. FAVORITE SMELLS?: Mom's cooking. Kerosene and whatever it is that the lady in cubicle CW 907 is wearing.

6. FAVORITE SOUND?: Ping!!! On yahoo chat or google messenger.

7. WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD?: Unable to help someone you care for out of a misery. When all you can do is pray.

8. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE?: Mmmmm... Last night was fun. Perhaps, next time we can do it somewhere other than in my dreams. I do love bungee jumping. (What!!! What!!! What were you perverted minds thinking anyway? Come on ppl this is a PG 13 blog)

9. FAVORITE FAST FOOD PLACE? Dont go to too many fast food joints. But, I'll go with Barista. Tis where Tanu treats me all the time. And as is the favourite line of every Mallu - free food is good food. :D

10. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME? If its a girl - Vineetha. If its a guy - Arun maybe. Two people I have a huge amount of respect for. I mean HUGE.

11. FINISH THIS STATEMENT. "IF I HAD A LOT OF MONEY I’D...? Not tell anyone about it.

12. DO YOU DRIVE FAST? Ha ha ha... In the last week I have been adviced on the nature of my driving only 4 times. When its a car, I am forced to look out(by Mummy dearest) for that KSRTC bus which is bound to jump off from the other side of the divider to - for reasons beyond me - make a head on collision with my car. When its a bike... I ll leave my roomies to complete that one for me. In short (not expecting my showcase to be filled with 'Safe Driver of the Year' awards anytime soon.

13. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?: My roomie sure does sound like one, when he's on a roll. We have reasons to believe that his snoring might have been the reason for our neighbours heart stroke last week. Her son, claims that she was suddenly awakened by the sound of wild elephants in the back yard.

14. STORMS-COOL OR SCARY?: Cool. Whats the doubt?

15. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?: With my current salary - perhaps a Hot Wheels look alike - by the year 2040.

16. FAVORITE DRINK? Anything but Kim's chaapi. (Tis a cross b/w Chaaya(tea) and Kappi(coffee). First served on an experimental basis by my cousin, who was perhaps not in the mood to entertain the guests who had decieded to show up the day before her University exams.

17. FINISH THIS STATEMENT, "IF I HAD THE TIME I WOULD..." : Ooh... I answered that one yesterday. Hmmm.. If time were paused, go perhaps to a sunny beach and spend it with a close friend(read as any supermodel from Victoria's secret catalogue willing to sit close to me)

18. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS ON BROCCOLI? Only Dad cooks that one. Now here's a man who can make bread sticks taste amazing.

19. IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY COLOR, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR CHOICE? hmmm... Hadnt thought of that one before... Come to think of it, it is actually possible to make myself look scarier than i already am. WOW. Didnt think that was possible.

20. NAME ALL THE DIFFERENT CITIES/TOWNS YOU HAVE LIVED IN. Calcutta, Darjeeling, Aurangabad, Mysore, Chickmaglur, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah... I could go on and on and on. (In short, the inhabitants find the inevitable need to evict me, if possible, from the very country they live in)

21. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? Kamasutra sport (ooh what fun :p) I guess, IPL currently.

22. ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU.: Wow... That'a a toughie :p Well, she's an amazing person with a great sense of humor and a way of thinking I am very much impressed with.

23. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED? I am a bachelor sleeping on a mattress... I dont know!!!

24. WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE BORN AS YOURSELF AGAIN? : Sure... As long as the fine print in the contract says, big broad shoulders and 6 pack abs come as freebies along with that wish.

25. MORNING PERSON, OR NIGHT OWL? : Night owl!!!

26. OVER EASY, OR SUNNY SIDE UP? : Scrambled eggs...!!! You dont have to look disheartened that its not pretty :)

27. FAVORITE PLACE TO RELAX? : Me bed.

28. FAVORITE PIE? Like I said... Anything with a dash of Dad's magic touch in it.

29. FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR? Hot Choclate Fudge.

30. OF ALL THE PEOPLE YOU TAGGED THIS TO, WHO'S MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND FIRST? Oops... I have to tag people now!!! hmm... Mr. Wetspark perhaps.

Okies... wrt the tag... I tag... wetspark, Anu252, Sharat and a certain cocunut~masala (aka nariyal chutney). Hope you folks are as jobless as I am... :D

Ahangaarathinte Divasam!!!

The above title translated in English (for the benefit of my foreign readers) means... 'day of arrogance'... I believe i have done sufficient justice to the demonstration of 'arrogance' with the 'foreign readerz' bit already... Hence, in the interest of heeding to advice from caring friends (read as, fear of being abused for over bragging - yetAgain) i ll try and refrain from the same as much as possible.

As usual, the content of this post is motivated by no more/less than a fiercely pricking conscience which requires me to post something here, every once in a while in order to... in order to... alright... for no meaningful reason. And given, that i am yetAgain fresh out of topicz... i ll try and summarize the past few weekz of my *ahem* *ahem* humble life

And the nominations for the most happening events are:

1) Appraisal meeting with manager finally over. Fer the under-enlightened, an appraisal meeting is one where an employee of a company, takes a tiny peanut (read as work he has done over the year) puts it on a pedastal and then shines the spot light on it... It goes something like... "I dont know if you heard the latest rumors, but, McAfee is indeed firmly well balanced on my two broad shoulderz" ... "Single handedly spearheaded a critical project, which without me wouldnt have released at the time it did" (alternatively read as - Gave them those crappy documents you dumped on me last year... and told them to read it to figure out what to do... oh yea...!!! And also, had zillionz of coffee breaks with them... else the project mite just have released in time instead of 15 days behind schedule)

2) Finally, finally, finally ... went on that bike trip that i have been looking forward to fer weekz... 'Yes it was exhilarating... yes, it was thrilling.. yes, the view was magnificent ... and yes it was an amazing feeling...' are a short list of things our trip planner has threatened us to put up on our respective posts or orkut profiles, if we wanna live to see another day. (Check out pics here)

3) Ooooh.... and she finally said, "Baby just kiss me... kiss me... hold me... hold me"... after almost 2 torturous hours of watching the film 'race'.... I am not sure, what exactly inspired the corny lyrics of that song, but without a doubt it was more inspiring than the plot of the movie, which had so many twists and turns that one wonders if the author had ever heard of a concept called as 'Central Theme'

4) Got tickets to the IPL. First day, first show. April 18th. Expected guests include SRK, Vijay Mallaya, Preity Zinta, Juhi Chawla, Arjun Rampal... bla bla bla... so on and so forth... Wow... talk about star cast. One cant help but have the eerie sense that Mr. Murphy (of the famous Murphy's law) is gonna jump in there somewhere. One can definitely expect it to rain helter skelter. But then again, with all 8 teams bringing in all their cheerleaders to the match, perhaps a rain might not be the worst thing that could happen.

5) As i look down i see my eternal foe who I had promised to myself i would be rid of before the onset of May. Yup, every hot/cold blooded Mallu man knows this foe. It is none other than his very own set of - One Pack Abs (Recent versions come in different architectures - I have a roommate who sports a 3 tier architecture that bears resemblance to ancient Mugal architecture). Now the problem with being a software engineer is that the maximum effort one is ready to put in, is limited to a 'Double Click'. Recent dreams include, a pop-up while browsing the internet with a Dialogue Box that reads -



Whilst you are sure that you have clicked on that OK button atleast a 100 times
you wake up only to find your age old foe still down there - the evil grin on his face!!! And you know in that moment that this is a friendship that is gonna last a long time - pass the tests of time and tide. Girlfriends, annoying teammates and snoring room-mates 'll come and go... But you and me buddy... 'Yeh janam janam ka rishta lagta hai' ... [;)]

Happy singles awareness day

6:14 PM - Sunday, February 24, 2008

Well... Its Sunday evening 6:14 P.M., and I can literally hear most people blurt out... WTF are you doing in the office at ... at ... at? GOD!!! I most certainly would love to say, well, I got a truck load of work that I have to do, but then, nothing did be farther from the truth... The truth, well, being the isolated adrenalin pumped - warm blooded young guy, b/w a bunch of roomies whose ideas of a gr8 weekend vary between installing a new flavour/version of Linux to checking out the latest Design Patterns in Object Oriented Program - not exactly lot of fun.

I would have to admit that picking up the phone and randomly choosing just one friend to see if they did like to hang out - wasnt exactly gonna win me the 'Best Weekend Planner' of the year award nor gonna produce significantly exhilirating weekend, but then, in an age where they can sell in hundreds of thousands an excercise machine that simulates jogging, while lying down... well, does anyone have a record in history of Lazier generation? (I guess completing that sentence is not even necessary)



Without doubt, in an ideal world, this very instant i did be at the peak of a mountain/hill enjoying the view after a day long trek of the mist and forests below? Heck, if it be an ideal world, i did be at the top of this mountain in a tent with two girls i had randomly chosen from, (by throwing a die), from a gang of twenty models who had co-incidentally(dont you love it when things just work out) come up there to take a break. Unfortunately, being in the real world, just narrowly removed from Utopia, meant that i have to settle for slumping in a rotating chair, cup of coffee in hand wondering how i could possibly squeeze a little more life out of this slow painful weekend.

At this time, I have to admit that my rationale, for being here is as weak as choosing the lesser of the two evils.. either this or having roommate X, shove his laptop in my face, sporting a thousand watt smile, for finally having installed some flavour of bling-blong-bla-bla that has a more robust bling-blong-bla-bla than the other bling-blong-bla-bla whose bling-blong-bla-bla just lacks in bling-blong-bla-bla, bling-blong-bla-bla and bling-blong-bla-bla. Without doubt putting up such a sentence in a blog, whose the majority of friends of the author are members of the IT industry mite sound slightly risky, but, it should be noted that the author has been inspired by a fellow friend, who chose to pillion ride with the author from a choice of 4 other bikes, simply because he 'mocked', 'What is life w/o a few risks?'
It goes without saying that the author then decieded to give his pillion rider(whose till that moment in time the definition of risk was to travel at 50 plus km/h on an empty road) a piece of his mind. It also, should go without saying that the author is unable to wipe the smirk off his face, recalling the shrill sounds that came from his pillion rider, seconds after he pushed the electric start on the bike. (*evil laugh follows*)

Well, in a complete change of topics, the author would like to wish his fellow readers (all one of them including himself) a very belated Happy Singles Awareness Day - also, more popularly referred to as 'Happy Valentines Day'. He he... !!! Guess all the singles out there know what I mean... !!! Its been fun reading your blogs!! Goodnight world... Take care

February 12th, 2008 - 8:55 a.m.

A bike slides into the office basement. Its an Apache 160 RTR, showing shades of its once splendorous metallic black surface admidst its now spotted skin. The gaze of two guards drift continuously b/w the juggernaut of a bike and each other's eye, while only wasting fractions of milli(if not nano) seconds blinking their eyes off. Shocking sights they say, can be fatal to those now sporting shades of white hair. Then again, there are the exceptionally shocking scenes that can prove fatal to a mere mortal enacting any time period in this play called life.
The rider watches as one of these guards tries to pinch himself awake and the other stares with disbelief at his watch. Rohit George Mathews, they say, has NEVER..... never been sighted at this premises in these wee hours of the morning.

Confessions of a Born Procrastinator
31 posts, last published on 04-Dec-2007

Not as suttle as they look ... these ones... :)

Disclaimer: Stolen from PreethIII's album on orkut... Not my work of art.

Here it comes...

The word you are looking for is shocking, confounding, stupefying, astonishing or even eye-popping... "Two posts in the same month... On the Procrastinator's site... Ya... somebody must have hacked his ID... Or lets hope so.. The hacker must definitely be smarter, cuter and have a better sense of blogging than the previous author, who has by now won unanimity amongst fellow bretheren bloggers, in being accepted as bench mark for ground zero skill level in all of the 3 above"

Sorry to dissapoint you folks... Looks like yours truly might be torturing you for a bit while longer... Atleast as long as the world continues spinning or till such day that the Indian football team qualifies for the World Cup. I am sure by now, many people have rushed to the core of the Earth to see what they can do to save fellow Earthlings. See folks... not that bad... atleast we agree on which of the above two is more feasible.

The immediate question pondering the mind of 'HE/She who must be being tortured right now' is what brings our hero back to the blogging arena or even better, what pre-posessed demon driven soul inspired this chap into the blogging arena. Bhetto bhetto(sit down folks)... today i will tell you the tale of a kingdom not far far away... For the sake of female readers (yes there is a prince with a face his mother could love)... For the male readers... "Brothers, i dont know u but, if u send this link to 10 friends, i promise, out of every ten phone numbers that i get, i will donate one to the nearest boys hostel. If u have heart plz fwd this, dont neglect. its true. god bless u forever."

Long long ago, when Abhishek Bachan was still a virgin and Matthew Hayden never used to wet his pants screaming "Sreesanth, Sreesanth" at night, our hero was still wondering, " Saale, ye bande blogs kyun post karte rehte hain (y are this nuts bent upon describing their daily naughty naughty habits on the internet)" while happily coding away on his PC* (translated as scrapping away on orkut - to anyone who is not my manager/team-lead/mentor/serious fellow team mate desperately looking for promotion), a fellow classmate pinged him... The conversation went something like this:

Anphy:"Hey, Ro... What you upto?"

Procrastinator:"Nothing much. Truly bored. What you upto?"

Anphy:"Kuch nahin. My favorite blogger has not posted for a while, so, life's dull"

Procrastinator ponders upon this thought, "favourite" and "blogger" in the same sentence... Isnt it scientifically established that it is statistically less probable than "President bush" and "intelligent conversation" coming in the same sentence.

Anphy:"Which blogs do you read?"

Procrastinator:"Read-a??? blogs-a?? (in that typical mallu accent).. What are you saying? I am doing much more interesting stuff like counting the number of yellow dots when I close my eyes"

Anphy:"hmmm..O ye of little faith..read this.. 'http://someLinkHere.com'"

Our procrastinator(brave as he is known to little to be), still pumped up after watching Troy, deciedes to charter into un-explored territories.

Half hour later

Procrastinator:"Wow... twenty marriage proposals as the comments of one post... wow... I have read that girls are nuts... but this nutty... seriously?"

Anphy:"You men... you will never understand women... their intricacies, their subtle complexities.. Its beyond you"

Procrastinator, ponders, "women?? intricacies...?? Isnt that what we spent a whole one hour, last nite on FTV pondering??? Neways... plan acha hain..." (brilliant idea is about to be shaped into reality). Armed with his weapons of mass destruction - paper, pencil, ruler and *ahem* - not that you idiot, this blog is PG 13 (suitable for all audiences)- i meant eraser, he chalks out the most devislishly brilliant idea. Plan ->Che din - ladki in (Project CDLI)<-
Step 1: Think of crap
Step 2: Write first iteration of crap
Step 3: Use thesaurus on every 'WOC - word of crap' in first iteration
Step 4: Add moral of the story - preferrably copied from google.com, copy paste "poem/romantic quote" from any site.
Step 5: Add pictures of N95, Ford Fiesta, Yamaha - R6 and label them "My new Mobile", "My Car" and "My bike" respectively.
Step 6: Click "Save Now"... wait for effects.

6 months later
Anphy: "Hey, hows your CDLI working out?"
Procrastinator: "No good... after two hours intense chatting yesterday, forwarded blog link to gal, to get her to smile"
pause
Anphy: "and... "
Procrastinator: "not the effect percieved... it was supposed to have her rolling on the ground laughing... desgined as comedy you know"
Anphy: "and... whats the worst that could happen"
Procrastinator: " uhmmm... 10 minutes into the blog, she ended up crying, said she wanted to get back with her 'Ex' and that she was ready to forgive him?... Havent heard from her since"

10 minutes of laughter and sounds of things falling on the ground later...

Anphy: "Ha ha... do you have the link?"

Procrastinator: "http://yetanotherachievement.blogspot.com/2007/05/love-and-nothing-like-it.html"

Go figure...

Meow Meow...

Thats what I had decieded I would name this post. Mind numbing is not what would aptly describe as the rationale behind it. There comes a time in everyone's life where he would willingly throw of his thinking cap. For the author of this post, it comes at a time that he did be easily willing to shell out of couple of 100 bucks for any mode/form of engagement whose simplicity in nature and subtle yet profound levels of deception would help him in his guile(and arguably - not vile intent).

80% of Bangalore's population would have guessed by now that I am sitting in a training room, with limited Internet access trying hard to hold my head up - yet sporting a convincing enough look to both my manager (sitting a couple of seats away from me) and the resident tutor that I am indeed doing justice to the lakhs of rupees the company is throwing away to "train" us. 70% of this 80% would also have guessed by now that I am using "unfair" means to prevent these tormentors from refraining me from my birth right -
GMail, orkut and blogger.

Its been 5 minutes since I typed my last line and that can be attributed to Mr. Trainer here, walking up and down, and stopping for what one might say is easily a disturbingly long period of time at my desk more often than one would comfortably
categorize as "occassional". I might add that this does really not come as surprising given that I am unable to wipe of my face a smile, coming from the combined effect of reading my friends blog and the sounds of "click-click-clicks" and "shit-s@#$%-s@#$-f!@#-arghhhh"'s coming from the neighbouring computers. Poor chaps... Apparently Minsweeper is the only form of revolt they could resort to.

As I continue to browse across various websites I come across, IBN-LIVE.com (Supposedly, India's highest rated online news channel). Today's headlines read: "Pack of laughing hyenas commit suicide after succumbing to depression: World wide campaign to study causes for mass suicide attempts from sections of both human as well as animal society. Eye-witness report: Many of these unfortunate souls who
have either gone into depression or have attempted suicide were last seen browsing the following site: http://yetanotherachievement.blogspot.com

My heart felt condolonces for all to the families of all this unfortunate group who apparently braved to venture through more than two paragraphs on the above link. The United Nations has declared this as the biggest emergency to hit the World since the retirement of bombshell actress Carmen Electra. President Musharraf and his sincere followers were so grieved by the incident that they decieded to declare a year long 'Period of Emergency' in the country. It is yet to be determined which of the two incidents grieved them more, but as a matter of certainity they have succumbed to the combined pressure of the two incidents. Let us observe a two minute silence for these poor crushed souls.

Ting ting ting ting.. the bell rings... I see less than 5 minutes for the end of today's class and am hence decieding to wrap this up.. Show over folks... Take care... Oh and yeah!!! If anyone hasnt guessed why this post has been titled "Meow meow", its for the simple reason that I am still recovering from the horror that last weeks CAT(Common Admission Test) was.. I would love to tell you more about it, but, then that would require a whole new post ... Wouldnt it Miss. Shaila Srivasthava?? ;)

Out of ideas!!!

If resolutions were gals, I would have had an irrefutable image as 'the PLAYBOY' of modern times. Since the dawn of time I have been flirting with 'rEsOlutionS'. My best night out on recent times would have been this New Year's Eve. A mammoth 5 resolutions. That (I did like to imagine) is more than Hugh Heffner could hope for on a single night. Unfortunately, while short-term flings/relationships are widely myhted to be every guys euphoria, somehow this doesnt exactly fit the picture.

So, in an attempt to be more consistent, i have taken, yetAnotherResolution - to counter this anti-resolutionist flirt within me. Yes, for all those who saw the irony, this would indeed mean long term committed relationship's with each of my resolutions, but, ah well - it was time for a change anyway.

Summed up, this is exactly why I am updating this blog, at this very instant of time, though I am as short of clues as the skirts dawned by Nisha Kothari, on what I am going to be penning down here. Out of the back of my head, all I can think of is:

a) Yes!! Yes!! Yes!!! Finally, 1000 kms on my bike means I finally get to take it above the - oh so slow n torturous - 50 km/hr. (The manual said something about proper mating of engine parts require me to keep speed below 50 km/hr for the first 1000kms). And the natural thought process was, well, since I havent had much luck in the mating department for GOD knows how long, atleast let my bike enjoy the pleasure.

b) Its been over a week since I wrote point number (a). So doesnt look like I ll be making any drastic life moulding changes anytime soon

c) Ah yes!!! There has been the break-up. Not the best of phases in one's lives to be in. But I guess, in modern times tis has become pretty much standard protocol.

Its funny what effects different situations in life can have on different ppl. Some people go into depression. Takin crazy decisions like ... dats it... no more gals/guys in my life. Wont ever get married.
Some, well, its routine for some. Ah!!! Dat jus means getting to sample yetAnotherGuy/gal. Bringin bk the initial euphoria of a romance just blossoming.
For me, well, like every other human being out there I like imagining that I am unique. That kind of explains to me why I am continously jumping from crest-to-trough-to-crest of some erratic sine wave, where sittin atop the crest has a loud speaker blurt into me ears.. "Yes, it was inevitable... Don tell me u din kno as u started of" and sitting down in the trough goes somethin like... "21st century man... When will things stop queing up into this inevitability wala lane??"

Break ups do teach you a lot of things I must admit. (I am not an expert in this field, so feel free to correct me if one feels these are not generalizations)

a) It reveals to you a side of you, you never knew existed. Window-2/4 of the JoHari window I believe. As you analyse the thoughts in your head, you hear a lot of "WHAT". Dat doesnt sound like the me I know.
b) You learn that gals are much better at advice than guys. Rarely, I think one will find responses such as :
- you know, a friend of a friend knows a call-girl
- get another gal, nowadays u can easily get laid
- hmmmmm... Dat reminds me...who do you think will win the coming Indo-Pak test series.
can be clubbed into remotely the same category as endearing/ empathizin/ useful. Yes, feel free to use the above comments in any court of law to de-justify the usage, "He meant well and that's wat counts".
c) Does breaking up due to circumstances mean that one cannot stay good friends? Especially if one know's that they have spent some pretty good times together.

I cud go with a (d), an (e), definitely an (f) and probably put in a (g) or (h), but the thought of the sound of "thuds" on the table from people concurrently falling asleep in different corners of the world raising yetAnotherTsunami, is somewhat concerning. After all... why break apart some lovely couples i know who are having a great time togehter. After all Que-Serai-Serai.

P.S.: Yes, I have been very very vague. You were not meant to understand wat was just written... :)

Postman - no more!!!

Posting on this page has taken the longest of times. Those who know me well, would say, well... this was very much expected... After all, he does have to hold on to the name of "Born Procrastinator"... I wish these people were right in saying that I am being nothing but plain lazy, however, recent times have been nothing but short of organized - hectic - turmoil.

Over the course of the last month, I have learned a lot of lessons, that most people would perhaps not prefer to learn the HARD way... I have met strange people, whose character sketches, probably the most trained minds in Holly/Tolly/Bolly ~ wood may not have conceived so far and seen sides of acquaintances, that seemed far distant from what one might have imagined of them.... Then again, the world is never short of surprises is it... Just as you think you have settled into the lane where everything just cruises by, life is ready to slap you with yetAnotherSurprise just across the bend.

I have to admit, some of these lessons would come as fairly obvious to the large majority of the un-insane that I keep in touch with.... For example, that the best way to learn the local language is to get into a restaurant, eat for a thousand bucks and tip 1 Rupee, or if you are a F.R.I.E.N.D.S. fanatic, then the episode you choose to introduce your folks at home to the world of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. not be the one where Chandler says, "You know when you are at home with a girl and you are doing it, sometimes , images flash by in your mind... like the photocopy girl or even your mum... and you cant stop what you are doing and you just have to keep going and its like you are doing your own mum..."... Needless to say, mum took off the next instant, leaving her "little boy" feeling as weird as the extremeties to which the word can be stretched. Its ironic that probably the only two people who were involved in the enactment of the above scene are the two who will for all instances in time, till Judgement Day, fail to detect any trace of humor in what happened there.

However, there are lessons that do not come as fairly obvious to the normal human mind. Like, just coz you have had clear skies for the last 2 months doesnt mean that you can leave your bike in the company parking on a 3 day trip to your native place. Always be prepared for the worst. Simply put, you take the variables:
a) Clear skies for last 3 months
b) Lots of security at your office
c) Basement parking away from heat of sun and possible winds
Use the function WCS*(variable1, variable2,....) on these.
WCS => Worst Case Scenario
Using these three you get WCS(a, b, c) = 3 x (Heavy Rains the day after you leave) + 2 x (Extensive flooding in the basement) + (Repairs worth atleast 4000) + (Bike that now looks like a cross somwhere between an Nigerian Zebra and a Jamaican spotted cheetah)

Now this bike is special to me for reasons 1,2,3,4...99,100....1001. Perhaps, reason number 1 being the strongest that its the first major purchase of my life from apun ka pocket, from only my second job. I thoroughly enjoy my second job, which is ironic considering that I enjoyed job number 1 a lot as well. The income was not regular, but, job satisfaction was tremendous.

Now the job profile of postman may not seem to match the criteria mentioned above. But what if it were a postman, who had to only deliver mails composed by one of the most special people in his life. Now what if we removed from it the mundanity of only delivering mails, and made it dynamic, say ~ get few groceries, run minor basic errands pertaining to common household and ofcourse have the prestige of being pharmaceutical representative. How could this be even more special? Well, how about if you add to it salary and its associated perks. A special lunch/dinner every now and then. Blessings to guide you and dispel any fear of an oncoming exam/ challenge in your life. Ahh yes!!! And my personal favourite, the story that would ensue once you completed any of the above mentioned tasks. Stories from the not so recent past. Some of a war long forgotten, many of a love that movies nowadays seem lack lustre in front of.

When on June 3rd, 2006 I had to resign from the post to take up the next job, I wondered what would happen to this post. Even at age 86 my grandma, or 'Mithi' as we all lovingly called her was one of the most active people I knew. Two tractors and a crane supported by 30 fully grown elephants couldnt stop her from entering the kitchen and making special food for her grandchildren. The last thing i expected on September 12th, 2007 - was the big man upstairs terminating her license to employ and that too w/o a word of warning. I guess its the last thing anyone in the neighbourhood expected.

They say 'Everything happens for the Best'. There are situations in life where the most optimistic of souls would question that statement. What amount of 'the Best' would it take to compensate for the tears of a hundred people. The greater good seems blurry at these instances. It would take these optimists, perhaps weeks before they could see the bigger picture. Perhaps 'the BIG MAN' was one chef short and decieded to call for himself the best that there was on 'Planet Earth'. Some say, that the most important ingredient in any dish is a touch of 'Love'. I guess its no mystery then that Mithi could cook the best dishes on Earth.

P.S.: This post is dedicated to my Grandma. One of the closest people in my life, and one with whom every moment I cherished. Thanks for everything Mithi. May your blessings be with all of us, till we join you in the BIG KITCHEN upstairs.

Lots of love,
POSTMAN.

Apun gay nahin he!!!!

K... about a week or so back i was tagged by this friend Anphy... The tag asks this of me, "Write eight random facts about ur life and pass it on to 8 people"... Well... Part one seems like a good chance to advertise myself to the female community out der... Now if only i cud loan out a bit of narcissism from here i think i could do some justice to the 'art of lying very well'... Honesty, might not be the best policy here... So, ladies, if you all get very impressed by some random ranting here, well, take a token and please stand in queue... Its rite next to the line titled -"Down with the Procrastinator!!! Snipe the nut" which consists of

a) Girls who know me well

b) Girls who read my previous post (Yes... wat u heard is true... I did recieve threat notes)


The second part... what yaar... work in McAfee and spam people... ye mujhse nahin hoga... Doesnt seem rite to a person with moral fabric like mine (yes... u guessed it rite... the lying has begun)... K... enuf beating 'bout the Bush (lets leave that to Mr. Osama and the spirit of Sadam Hussain shall v)... Lemme start boring random souls here.

First and the most important thing to clear... I am not GAY... I dont know what google has against or for what reason i hav been dragged(by GOOGLE) into this massive conspiracy to defame me, but, trust me when I say this... The GAYchaat* ad often put up rite next to my blog is not my idea... Its not the first time google has tried to defame me in such a manner... Check this out. Abe yaar... Abhi, 6ft 5in man, with rippling muscles is someone you wont mistake me for even if you suffer from severe incremenosoma ( a disease i just made up in which someone like me looks like the above description) - ppl who know me would have guessed that its a very serious disease, and, Richard Gere - as soon as he hears about it will be down to kiss Shilpa Shetty all over again spread Incremenosoma awareness


Secondly, and I am absolutely sure this wont come as a surprise to you... I am exceptionally talented in the art of procrastinating.. Its what i do... Procrastinate - delegate - laze around all day while pretending to be very very busy and get my work done by others... Infact, I am so amazed of this piece of talent of mine, that i am considering taking up an MBA degree... I mite just pass out in one year, given that I am naturally gifted at all the skills a manager should possess... :)
DISCLAIMER: The above said for all practical purposes does not apply to my manager... Especially if he reads it...


Thirdly, I am very easily inspired... Anything and everything inspires me... Even the movie Shivaji...( well... for sure...if any Rajni fan reads this I am gonna end up with a broken spine tomorrow)... But, once inspired the heat drops exponentially... Dont ask me what-when-why-how...?? Manufacturing defect i think... just like the Motorola mobiles... Charges up in 20 minutes.. Discharges in 5... wow... wat a technology... I mean...companies of the repute of Motorola cant have these kind of manufacturing defects can they (:p)


Wow... I know its just the next paragraph here, but, its taken me 3 more weeks to get here..Believe it or not... I have actually been busy... Piled up under tons of work.. Mayb even quintals.. Man... My average time in the office has not been less than 11 hours for the last month... (P.S.: This sentence you are allowed to show my manager... Infact, its largely been put for his benefit... Please someone point it out to him)
Neways... where was I? Oh yeah...
Number four ... Number four would be... hmmm... I am blank... completely blank... Yeah sure, I would love to say i am daring, dashing and extremely charming... But, I hear there are laws against lying to that extent in many countries... That I cant afford... Any country that has laws weird enough as that is bound to have a female dumb enough to go into wedlock with me.

Five, Six, Seven and Eight... I am gonna keep this short just incase there are any of you somehow, by some miracle of nature still left awake... Atleast once you ALL shouldnt fall asleep during this period of weekly/monthly torture you subject yourself to. So here's the express train:

Am a big fan of travelling/trekking. Have to go out somewhere atleast once a month.

New passion... Biking.. Only coz I spend a huge amount of money on buying one, scraped one Window, which for some reason the girls find 'koooool' and have mistaken me to be extremely daring performing stunts on the same 24 7... GOD forbid any of these meet the vegetable vendor I almost ran over.

The two things that matter most to me in the world are friendship and family... Ofcourse, this select friendship is restricted to only those who strongly believe in "Never borrow, always lend if you want to keep a friend" and family cause, one of the only two ladies who have ever called me handsome (true to the saying, "A face only a mum could love") is my mum. The other, well, I dont want to divulge much information right now, but, I want to request you all to pray for her Eye Surgery scheduled later this month.

Oh... finally... I am here.. Number eight... Hmmmm... I strongly dislike the word "Whatever"... Infact I hate it... Don ask me y?? Guess its one of those crazy things every individual must have, how much ever they did like to consider themselves normal (Yes, that includes you as well)... Like a close friend once said to me... "You are unique, just like everyone else"

Oh and... wrt passing on the tag, i choose Princess Banter and Anuradha. Definitely two of the better bloggers i know and I cant wait to read their posts on this.

My Dad DOESNT understand vacations!!!!

"Here I am,
This is me,
There's nowhere else on earth i did rather be.."

Incase you are all thinking that, yet again I have been hit in the head repeatedly, with an unassorted collection of Bryan Adams CD's, for stocking away a lot more than what one might call a fair share of free-coffee, well, you are partially right... I have been filling up my stomach, and now, even certain areas of the liver and pancreas as a NON- VIOLENT mark of protest against the so called "Limited Stock of Free Soft Drinks" (We the protesters even have our very own community now)... But that was about a week ago... This week... I am at home, happily hoggin away at tons and tons of free scrumptious food.

P.S. : If you guessed that I am a mallu from the repeated use of the word Free... No prizes bro... We are a universally stingy brethren. Oh!!! And if you guessed that this blog is going to be about home and all the characters present there, give yourself three brownie points. Collect twenty and you could just win a date. I am not appending 'with me' to that sentence, coz it could and probably would scare off a lot (all two of them) of the readers.

So here it is... A small glimpse into this little abode i call as 'Veedu'

Character Sketch One: Bajh
Real Name: Babu Mathews Profession: Fathering and Fatherism's
Head of the house. Idealist, perfectionist, charming, hard working, perserverant, dynamism and intelligence is a short list of genes that were not passed down from his genes set to me. The list while lengthy enough I should warn you is by no means complete. He has just come down from Bahrain for vacation and as expected is already busy shaping up the place. While, to the naked eye the room might be spic and span, his eyes well... they could pick up a dust particle from a mile. Of the one month that he is here, he gets to gyaan (pass down his knowledge) me only fer one week... Lucky me... 22 years and you did think all the gyaan-ing has been done. Not quite is what i wud say.
We do spend our bits of time together... You kno manly types... The father son thing... For example, yesterday, we had a father son outing, which, brings me to


Character Sketch Two: Bavish
Real Name: Revon Mathews Profession: Being a sibling of variant . type cast-Very sweet to Very . very very very dangerous
Unless you guys/gals suffer frm very very (plz add 3 more very's) short term memory loss, you will remember about the father-son periodic manly outing that i mentioned some time bk... Well, these outings in the context of Home Ministry are classified as Errands... Like, yesterday, when we both drove all the way to the city to get Lakhme 651. Now, all the while during this manly outing, i could wonder only one thing.... 651??? As in, 3 digit number??? Are there like a 1000 varieties of colours girls use to impress guys??? I took a hand count then...13... thats all i cud name... I took a quick survey... the list was topped at 18 by a nearby cousin... dats it... dats all v males can do...??? 18... so y pay that extra hundred for something that, hard as we may try, cant physically distinguish??
Oh and here's what tops it... Ven i finally got to the lipstick, the shopkeeper told me, that it was a colorless variety... Hmmm... 1000 different varities of colorless lipstick??? Just when we thought, women couldnt get any more complicated.

Character Sketch Three: Hamish
Real Name: Elizabeth Mathews Profession:House wife part timing as mum
Now, mum here, well, more than anything else, she is known for Arachnophobia (fear of spiders)... How am i so well acquainted with that term?? Well, you wouldnt forget it either, if you witnessed mums sense ofsenseless reflex to these creatures... For one, I am sure dad wouldnt forget todays experience, when we went out for a drive to one of the busiest cities of Kerala (Ernakulam). Quite drive. Dad took over the wheels after a while, while I moved towards my second favorite activity - sleeping. Screeeeecccch!!!
Now, at first, I was not sure whether what transpired in the next few minutes was a dream or a bad dream*. I watched as my mum continued in probably a near successful attempt at bursting her lungs, while at the same time, jumping up and down, in only what i can guess was a random experiment to measure the spring constant of the seat.
*(It sure din seem real)

In the following scene, I gaze in horror as mum pops open the door at a traffic signal and tries in vain to beat atleast Michael Johnson's record of 100m in 10.12 seconds. I had barely recovered from this, when I see my dad being pulled out of the car by the traffic policeman for "attempting to harm a lady". I would just have gone back to sleep then if another cop didnt continue banging on my window. I noticed a spider on the roof, and, luckily enuf( being more than familiar with this kind of fiasco) guess wat had transpired in the last couple of minutes. I explained the same to the cop, while dad, trying to hide a cocktail of emotions, gently nodded along. It took a further 10 minutes to locate mum. But I am guessing that, it is short duration compared to the period of time DAD's gonna remember this incident.

Well, those are the characters that live closest to me at home. I would love to detail about the characters (i.e., three families of cousins which live next to me - each one with their unique trademarks- and each equally, if not more interesting) but, There are miles to go before I sleep and not to mention a DAD to coax b4 I sleep. I am not sure whether this mite b the best of incidents for him so far. I am sure he's got lot more interesting tales. Let me c, if i can get him to elicit a few more ;).

Of Cat and Mice and a percentage of a billion random thoughts in my head

Ever had a brief point in your life where you wished you could be invisible. Maybe run away so that no one could see you. Hide. Hide from responsibilites, ghosts of past mistakes, and, while at it avoid a few meteors that are being hurled at you by an imaginary being. Yup!!! Deny it as much as you want, but, deep down, we all know that we have been there... Something that we cannot avoid, or rather should not miss... These moments define us... And how one handles such situations defines the integrity of his/her charachter.

Ah well... A lot of big words to describe the cat and mouse games that have been going around in the office fer the last couple of weeks.

DISCLAIMER:This is gonna be one long post. So all you insomaniacs out there, come down here and lets see how much of a help Dr Ro can be. The rest of you, well, read at your own risk.

The story starts almost a couple of weeks ago when the company hires a bunch of software consultants. It was a scary day that one. Long story short, innocent little fresher was asked to interview a bunch of candidates, each 4+ years exp. minimum. And when we say innocent little fresher, we mean the kind you see on the NIIT ads, where any doofus who can spell C-O-M-P-U-T-E-R properly (without hiccupping more than two times b/w consecutive alphabets)* gets kidnapped from the doorstep of his college, is put in a chair and assigned a fancy name like 'Assistant Principal Stress Analyst cum Rejeuvanation Engineer' (which basically means, bring coffee to the boss when he looks drowsy) and is promised a rewarding career with an incentive of taking away a moderately bigger box of peanuts than the neighbourhood sabji-waali, at the end of each month for his contribution to the pockets of google and Orkut Bayyukotten. Hmmmmm!!! Could that sentence be entered in the Guiness Book of World Records for longest sentence ever? You let me know.

Each of these "engineers" can probably remember the day, when their respective companies came to their campus, enticed them with photos of FTV models in their PPT's, saying, "At HiBeeHem, we try to encourage the recruitment of more female engineers, which we believe is necessary for the progress of this country". Man. Those pseudo-messiah's. It would be another 2 months b4 any of these engineers learnt that these companies had lesser females than, Shahid Kapoor - facial hair. And the rare good ones that he would spot, would already have been tagged - Sati Saavitri Pati Vrata Bhaarathiya Naari, which essentially means, "Someone's already bagged this prize bro - go knock at some other door"

Back to story: 5 software consultants, get hired to do a job that a single LKG student, with half the IQ of a retarded mouse could do in 5 days. The team is assigned 45 days and our hero is assigned the task of guiding them in this epic mission. Easy he thought. He he. Looks like the mistress of fate, would not be letting him go that easy. 3 days into work and he soon realizes why these people get paid so much. Simply put, they were excellent naggers who had the uncanny nack of sittin rite under your nose 24 7, till YOU got their job done for them. Apt Managerial candidates these. They even knew how to make something as trivial as a spelling mismatch sound as big as an Earth quake in Timbucktoo that could bring about Tsunami's all over India.

5 minutes of time at his desk is something that would be a hard fought luxury. Rest of the day would have to be spent feeding cerelac to the boss, these consultants referred to as "THE TEAM LEAD" (To achieve the IQ level of a dead DODO was perhaps a distant reality for this chap). U gu gu gu ga... Wat did you say? You dont know the spelling of 'variable' and want me to come to your desk and fix it... Ok duddu baby... I ll jus be there... Dont cry

A cat and mouse game he would have to play. A spot did he find at the far end of the company where he could put his comp and do a remote session to his computer to work. Life would now be an adventure. New routes would he have to adopt to escape the CDB's (Cerelac Duddu Babies). A coffee break would mean sending spies ahead to monitor the premises.

Agent NOT NOT Shaven: Report your status. Is the coast clear for Mamma Mia?
Spy Chai(That means you Pichai): All seems clear. No sign of the CDB's.
Mamma Mia a.k.a. Cerelac Feeder: Are we a go spy-chai?
Spy Chai: We are a go Miss...uh sorry...Mr Mia.

The team quietly baby steps to the pantry. Long jumps across passages would minimize the probability of being spotted. And finally.

Mama Mia: Here we are boyz... The pantry... Job well done.

Spoken too soon... Here come the CDB's... Execute Plan B:Freeze.. Agent NOT NOT Shaven, Spy Chai and Soukara form a barrier round the Mama.
Mama Mia: You know the plan boys... Light rays... Block all light rays trying to reach the contours of my body. You carry this out well, and, we represent india in the Synchronized Swimming competition next year.30 seconds of suspense later, our valiant heroes are a happy bunch. A close call that was to say the least.

The next week was spent in developing more escape strategies. Better and more efficient algorithms. Maps were drawn out. Shortest routes to the nearest loo from any random point 'x' in the company as a function of distance, time and hazards encountered en route were calculated in the unlikely event that there was a fundamental flaw(S1 P1 bug) in perhaps the most robust algorithm that had been penned down by a bunch of lazy engineers.

In the last one year in the company I had never spent lesser time at the pantry or more in the loo. Toilet paper rolls had turned out to be our heroes best friend in these testing times. He would crib endlessly to them.

In the coming days, our hero wud become one with this tribe - TATA (The Available Toilet Accessories). He would share their pains, whether they be torturous songs by fellow McAloreans with the singing capacity of a feverish Himesh Reshammiya or encounters of the fourth kind with amnesiatic McAlorens who had not been taught the purpose of THE FLUSH.

Its been two weeks now since that uneventful day (the day of the hiring).The toilet GODs were not merciful ones he had learnt. They didnt answer prayers. Probably not so soon. Our hero still evades the CDB as Laloo Prasad Yadav his tooth brush.

This journey would not be an easy one, nor would it be a short one. Will our hero get through this alive? Will he be able to visit his parents who have come down to India for their once in a year trip? Or will the toilet GODS continue to heave their wrath on this poor engineer?

I am pretty much sure that right now you think I am escaped journalist from CNN-IBN. "Hi, I am Rajdeep Sardesai and the question we are asking tonight is : Should Sachin Tendulkar be endorsing VIP Frenchie or EURO underwears? To know what India thinks, log onto to www.ibnlive.com As of now 10% are in support of VIP and 8 in support of EURO. The rest have polled for our new category... "i dont give a %$&^$% beep beep beep @#%!@#$%"."

Thank you and do tune into www.yetanotherachievement.blogspot.com for more updates on this story. Join us as we track the story of our hero RGM all week only on, C-Annan-RGM. Gnite and tc yo all :). (Atleast the two of you who do read my posts)

Of Murphy and his WiCkEd wIcKeD lawZ!!!

"If there's more than one possible outcome of a job or task, and one of those outcomes will result in disaster or an undesirable consequence, then somebody will do it that way." It is most often cited as "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong" (or, alternately, "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time," or, "Anything that can go wrong, will," or even, "If anything can go wrong, it will, and usually at the most inopportune moment")

Pre Requisite:Murphy's LAW

Saturday evening 8:45 pm: He had been working continously for the past 10 hours for now, without any breaks save his not-so-brief twenty minute ordeal with the contents of the Noodle Packet. Whoever gave the caption, "Maggi two minute noodles", thought he, had conveniently forgotten to mention the HAZARDS OF MAKING NOODLES or atleast the DO NOT's. He was confident about one thing though. His next noodle session would be a grand success. In whatever way it was possible to screw up the art: "noodle-making" he had already done that evening. Next time he wouldnt forget to add the water before putting it into the microwave atleast. Not unless he wanted to he wanted to hear the sweet chants of the fire alarm and the rhythmic grace with which foreign guards uttered obscenties ...once again!!!

Yup... The signs were already there... This was going to be ONEofTHOSEdayz.

Nothing had been going right that day. He repeatedly exchanged quick glances between the circuit diagram and the bread board. Why wasnt it working? He wished he had just chosen to be a software engineer. If all else failed, there wud always be the Ctrl-C Ctrl-V.

There existed a solitary pleasant thought in his mind then. She was expecting a call from him that evening. Their first since the 3 months they had started chatting. He had precisely calculated the time differences. It should be exactly 7:33 in her watch right now. 8:50(on her watch) was the time they had agreed upon. Precautions had been taken from both sides. He was only too aware of the ordeal of "Rendezvous with beastly DAD of the beauty".

Easy he thought. 15 minutes to wrap up work. Walk home. Buy dinner. (No more fiascos tonite). Eat. Relax. Call at 10. Past reputation had earned him the epithet "the miser". Not tonite. Money didnt matter tonite.

One hour and fifteen minutes later: (10:05 pm local time)
Arrrrghhhhh!!! The generator had been screaming in his ear for the past fifteen minutes. To make things worse, there was this really irritating flashing of light coming from the distant corner of the living room for the past 5 minutes. He moved to the source. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! Oh no !!! Oh no!!! How could he have been so stupid to keep the mobile in silent mode? What point was a reminder set on the alarm if it didnt have the squeaking capacity of a mouse subjected to two torturous hours of Himesh Reshammiya songs.

Its a good thing there was a phone booth just below his house. He looked into his purse.Oh Oh. Re 10. Maybe he could just say "Hello... Srini-vas here" and cut the phone. Hmmmm!!! Dont think she would be too happy abt that!!! Ah... There was always the ever dependable Shaar... Gr8 roomie this guy... Never short of cash. Only a couple of days ago had he seen Shaar hangin 500 Rs notes to dry.

He should have paid heed to the signs... This was gonna be Murphy's Day.. Shaar had chosen the wrong day to go out shopping. Atleast the wrong time... He looked to his other roomies... The smiles on their faces indicated that he would have better luck trying to squeeze wisdom out of George Bush's speeches.

ICICI bank!!! There was an ICICI atm nearby. If he leapt at lightnin pace, he could get the money just b4 'princess' put him in yetAnotherTardyNut category. Run did he to the atm. Murphy's Law: Corollary 3C: The length of the queue (esp at testing times) is inversely proportional to the amount of time one has to spare. Corollary 3C : Sub Section A: If the time left is a real number less than or equal to zero, ther would be a plus 5-member in the queue. In addition probability of there being a female shopper (the ones that would take out the money, just get out of the ATM and run back in to grab an extra 300 more) would double.

It would be 10 more minutes before he learned that, for reasons beyond paranormal, his HSBC card would not work on this ICICI atm today (the first in the last 38 times he had been to the ATM). Either that or he had picked the perfect day to forget his 6 digit pin number*.

No seconds thoughts... Our hero now made a dash to the nearest HSBC bank... Strange no queue!!!!! Surely, Murphy was trying to outsmart him... somehow. He quicky withdrew the money from the ATM.

"Where is the phone booth?", asked he to the security guard. "I think there should be one right next to Nexus building. Just go left", replied the guard in perfect English. Murphy was definitely trying to set him up here. He would show Murphy who the smarter one of the two was. There would be no indecision. Took two steps did he to the left and then run to the right. He he!!! He would only allow Murphy a teasing sniff of victory before he outwitted him.

There was a reason Murphy had a law named after him. He could not so easily be outwitted. Our hero would have to return to the phone booth right beneath his house, where the Q#%$#$ generator was trying busy trying to prove that he had the noisiest growl of them all.

Apparently, choice was something he was not going to have in plenty today. Valiantly he stepped into "ThePhoneBooth". 00-93-555-55215544. The number would remain engrained in his mind for a long time. No more hassles here.

Hmmmph!!! Was it worth it??? Would a voice somewhere in the distant corner of the world be nearly as sweet as the extreme his imagination would let him percieve?? And to what end?? What fruitful gain could there possibly be from this "conversation"... the little which he could hear, that was not drowned in the monotonous noise of the generator.

"Hey U", said a voice on the other end of the phone. There are few... very few instances in life where one gets to find out that even Imagination had its limits. The voice on the other end. Memories of the days hardships vanished in an instant. He could not have prayed and gotten anything more beautiful.

All of the best things in life are worth fighting for. Only a few of them, would you look back and say. "Hmmmmm.... I wonder if I did enuf to deserve this reward". This could easily top that list. The story has perhaps only begun.

Presenting to you...

So I walked in today morning expecting nothing out of the ordinary. I have lost count on the number of times fate has cheated me on this. Guess today was to be no exception.

As part of the daily routine, i walk around the corner of the building. I do this to skip the lift and move to the staircases. If you dont know me and I have successfully managed to convince you that I am health freak with 32 inch biceps, please stop reading here and send in your email id and phone number to rohitgm_007@yahoo.co.in (only gals and successful directors)... The rest of you, well, ya... you guessed it rite... the stair case directly opens up to the portion of the office between the HR section and Tech Support section... A place i like to call

Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. In the book, "Shangri-La" is a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise but particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia—a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world. The word also evokes the imagery of exoticism of the Orient. The story of Shangri-La is based on the concept of Shambhala, a mystical city in Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

Shangrila-a la-McAfee ... for obvious reasons

I seem to have a new found respect for McAfee's hiring policy now. I have to meet the head of the Tech Support incharge... Apparently his and my tastes match a lot.

Coming back to our story... after this daily ritual i move on to my desk... I see many familiar faces around... Not the prettiest I might add... There is something about coding that brings out in one the worst contortions of the human face...(Yup... I am talkin about the look on ur face about 49.3 microseconds b4 u punch the keyboard, screaming obscenities at his presumed ancestors...)

As I sit at my desk, reading (read as pretending to read) the documentation that I have been handed about 3 months ago, oblivious to the inevitable at hand, I feel a hand on my back... I knew this clasp all too well... The first of which (3 months ago) were followed by the words, "Checking your email eh!!! Good good... Just wanted to remind you about the deadline this weekend... If you dont finish it, well, there could be problems"... I liked this guy... How he managed to keep a straight face thru that without the slightest modulation in tone, I dont know? Guess that is what it takes to become a manager... I looked for a hint of a smile at the furthest corner of his lips... Time and experience had taught me that this was futile... So I went ahead with the obligatory... "Yes Sir... ok sir... almost ready sir..."

Flashback over***
I turn around to see him smiling... That couldnt be good... I was familiar with the smile as well... It was the cover up for impending disaster... Like "Rohit, there is a huge-mega important project headed your way" (read as ... the management has chosen you to be the next guinea pig for our random experiments)

Manager:" A few software consultants are coming from Aztec Soft today. I want you to help me interview them"
Me:jaw drops to the ground... cleans ear... pinches himself to get himself bk to reality... then says... "Pardon me sir"
Manager:"Well... nothing to worry about... You are an expert in JSP and Spring Framework now.. Just tell them about how we use JBuilder as well"
Me:"who ... what ... who... Jay Bildu??... uh!!! Sir... kya bolti tu??"
Manager:gets the point (smart man)... "Hmmm... k... you come anyway... You dont have to say anything during the meeting... I will get Muthu as well (my mentor)"
Me:"Wow... that sounds gr8"

Now ordinarily I love interviewing people... but, tis never been for their technical skills... I knew as much about technicality as Yahoo mail about avoiding spam.... (read in layman terms as ... oh man!!! u suck)... granted i had joined one of the top 10 Engineerin institutes in india on merit... but people shud (esp since the success of 5 point someone) shud hav guessed by now how much of a fluke it was

Manager:"Oh yeah!!! And Rohit... please sit at your desk for sometime today... I will need you soon"

Lets jus say that I had been absconding a lot frm my seat fer the last week... Reading loads of documentation, as you would have noted... not in the top of my hobby list

An hour later... Manager calls me into room packed with two baldies and 3 professional looking chums... The central baldi introes himself... "Hi... bla bla bla... I am 10 years experienced" (gulp) "...bla bla bla... He is 8 years bla bla bla... This is juniormost fellow... only 4.5 years experience... bla bla bla"

Intro ends...

Manager:"Rohit... These chaps will be helping with the integration of 6.0 version of the product. Rohit here has almost completed work on 7.0 (yup... the miracle of Ctrl C,Ctrl V)... so... guide them with the same"

Manager:"Muthu give them a brief intro of the architecture of the system"
Phew!!!! Lucky escape...

Manager and 10 yr baldie go to next room... Muthu speaks about old version of product...

Muthu:"Rohit... will now give an overview of the architecture of the new version and y we have chosen the underlying technologies to implement the same"

Alarm bells ring... church bells sound... sounds of firing in Karachi... phatta phatta phatta phat... Where was a major earthquake when you needed one

Me:"Ya... sure"

Me:" Ahem Ahem... throat not very well today... so ... i will make this short... cough cough..."

Me:"As Muthu has already told you... bla bla bla... and he also told you bla bla bla... and i definitely u wud remember him tellin u bla bla bla... Its all true... Wat he said at first.. true..."

10 very very very very long minutes of twistin and turning and churnin out complex words (of English dictionary) and confusing everyone in the room later...

Me:"I can imagine that I have confused you a lot... (he he)... I really want to give you an indepth view of the architecture(ya rite... as much as i wanted flea infested warts all over my body), but, I dont want to confuse and scare you all on the first day itself... So.. anytime u are free.. come down to my...errr...ahem... Muthu's desk..."

"... Any doubts??"

Junior-most:"You mentioned about Spring framework... any reason u are preffering that over Struts...???"

Me:"ya... they look prettier and sound better"

room laughs... manager comes in... "trust you hav had a good session..."

Nick of time.. I luv u ... i luv u.. i luv u...
Me:"Sir... frnds are waitin outside for lunch"
Manager:"Sure... go ahead... bye and thanx"

I had learnt something very important on this day folkz...

[b]When in doubt, act dumb... When ignorant... BULLSHIT[/b]... gnite u all

Soapless in Virajpet

Prequel:
Venue: (Long empty road joining office and home)
Charachters: Rohit(me me me me me) and Arjun.
Me: "Dont know what it is man? I feel like totally bottled up. Constrained. Just feel like I want to explode"
Arjun: "You need to go have some sex man"
Me:Hmmmm... Y not?
About half of a fraction of a milli second later, my brain comes up with a list of Top 30 Reasons as to "Y not". This was followed, by a train of hilarious laughter (like the ones you see in a sit-com). I guess this was a sign that maybe i should think of something more feasible. That's how we came up with the plan of trekking up and down a 23 km track, on this steep mountainous terrain which had forests swarmed with leaches and a slippery track this time of the year. Yup, this sounded much easier.

So there it was. Friday night. 6 monkeys and 6 back packs, filled with all the neccessary material (glucose, biscuits, loads of salt (u kno... a quick drink for the leeches), bread and jam)... As you can see, we had immense confidence in our exemplary cooking skills... Yup, we knew as much about cooking as Maneka Gandhi about the new suspension mechanism in CBZ extreme.
At 10:15 pm, we boarded our buses and had a jolly good sleep till about 4:30 next morning. Not many of you may know this, but sleeping is one of my finer talents. I mean, do you really want to challenge a guy who has(literally) slept through an earthquake, a hoax bomb call in a bus and has even slept standing 8 hrs in the general compartment of a train (during Sabarimala season). Y not just challenge ....

Once our feet were planted firmly on the ground, we(read as me) looked around in search for good omens. Hmmmm!!! Three gorgeous girls looking in my direction. This could only mean one thing. I looked into the background for signs of a UFO or invading aliens. Hmmm... surprising... no aliens. A strong sense of reality and a slightly(read as majorly) weakened sense of optimism in these departments quickly led me to realise that they were searching for the bus conductor to ask for directions. So much for good omens.
Step 2. Search for a lodge. Not the easiest of tasks. Apparently most of Karnataka had heard of our trip plans and had flooded the lodges to get a glimpse of RGC ( You wud definitely have read the 'All Hail Vasco D' Gama' and 'Spirit of Valentine' fiascos... As you can imagine... A must meet person)
Step 3. 5 lodges and loads of cribbing later, we finally come across a patient lodger ready to accomodate us ( read as irate man in torn lungi, mouthing obscenities at dis group who 'Dared disturb his slumber' (apparenly a big fan of Indian National Anthem as well (makes no sense i kno)). He lead us to a couple of rooms, with bathrooms that hadn been washed since World War II. Further analysis, led us to easily conclude that these rooms would in large probability have been used for Genetic experiments on a large variety of insects.As you mite have guessed, it didnt take long for the group to come to a consensus that, the premises be vacated immediately.

A light breakfast and a tea later, we set off (by the 8 : 15 bus) to Kakkabe. (The omens were not exactly in a very encouragin mood today and like you would probably have guessed, the bus did break down). The rest of the group, (as if by synchronized reflex reaction) took to their feet and dumped their bags on me. "Rohit, we will just be back. Look after all the bags". Hmmm.... difficult to believe that this was not a preconceived strategy. With nothing much to do, i started care-freely observing the passengers. It didnt take a 189.3 IQ to guess that most of the passengers were Mallu's. These were the ones standing around the burst tire, and, however improbable it may seem, had a different opinion on what should be the next step in fixing the tire.

Finally, at about 9:30, we begin the trek from Kakkabe. Twenty minutes was all it took to conclude that half this gang was not trekking material. Pit stops were as frequent as Salman Khan's flop movies. I have to say that the people in this area were very friendly. Most of them were only to happy to give us a drink of cold water or pose for a couple of photographs (we intended on saving our water fer the un-inhabited part of the trek). After what seemed like hours up a steep slope, we stopped to catch our breath. Excuses such as "Hmmm... I think we should wait here and enjoy the scenery around for a while" were met with immediate consensus from the rest of the group.

I would have to be lying to say that what we saw around us was anything short of breath taking. The view was awesome. Especially once we had crossed the final points of human civilization. The very sight around was more driving than all the glucose we had packed up for the trek. Even after around some 6 km of trekking we could barely see the peak of the mountain covered in mists. Probably the first really interesting zone was a forest cover. We clicked a few snaps only to discover that we had some uninvited guests in our photos. Two leeches on Devassy's hand and one on his leg. Luckily we were prepared for this (ya... v read a couple of blogs b4 coming here). We poured some salt water on his feet and hands. The leeches almost immediately jumped off. These creatures were as creepy as they were beautiful and added an element of adventure to the trip.

In an attempt to not get too adventurous and being the students of science that we are, decieded to carry on a little experiment. We poured a little salt water on all our legs b4 walking into this forest. We then picked up a leech or two and put it on our legs. Presto.... What once stuck like magnets, could now just not cling on to our feet. The mighty army was indominable. We gallantly marched thru the forest(a sense of accomplishment in our hearts) - Yes yes... u guessed it rite... v r software engineers... and this is abt as much adventure as we get... :)

Once thru the first of the forests we realized that we hadn even completed half our trip. The way ahead was only getting steeper and the destination was nowhere in sight. We paced up ( last bus frm here is supposed to be @ 7:30 pm, and it was already 11:15). Our second(read as two millionth) pit stop was a huge boulder en route. A few blogs we had read b4 embarking on this epic mission, had revealed to us that a small five minute diversion would lead us to a small stream frm where we could fill in some water. There was however 'the catch'. Getting to this source of water, would mean, crossing yetAnotherForestStrip, only marshier, and, with leeches at every other step... ya... i kno.. like some of the rides at WonderLa... (only these rides dont suck blood).

Mayb it was the pumped up adrenalin... (or someone had added drugs to our glucose powder), but, all of us just had to go in and get the water... no one wanted to stay back... (The above sentence is purely fictional and has only been added with the incentive to impress some dumb (preferrably neccessarily good looking) gals...)

Ten minutes later we were on our way again... There was a peak visible every 5 minutes, and, just when we made it to one, we realized that this wasnt anywhere near the final destination and that we still had a long way to go. However, our group was not one to be easily discouraged. (yup... another one of those impress sentences)... We made our minds that we would do this or die (read as lie to everyone that we had indeed climbed to the top). 30 minutes after the boulder, we were still panting and the top was nowhere in sight. If we thought that we had seen the last of the forests (which we indeed had), we were mistaken... Voila... Right in front... Forest number 3... I am not a man of biology, but, with every passing forest, we realized that the percentage/density of blood sucking creatures(no I m not talkin abt ur manager) was only increasing. To top things, ample-sunlight(as we wud shortly realize) was not one of the positive features of this forest.

20 minutes later, we could finally catch a glimpse of the peak. This is it folks. We mite have been exhausted (after 11 km of upward ascen), but, we were pumped.. The energy seemed to build in us, as if out of now where. We paced ourselves up and started competing with nearby snails (they were drugged... they must have been... how else could you explain the ease with which they were winning this race??)

Ahh the top... Wat a beautiful sight... Bare chested(yup... we realized that it is humanly possible to profusely-sweat at a height of 5850ft), we dropped ourselves to the floor. (Not b4 i and Binesh -being the first of our group to make it to the top- took out a Banyan and made flags there).... A small sacrifice to commemorate our valiant* efforts.

At this point, the children is us, (awakened after a really long slumber) started running amock... There was no mummy around to say, "Hey, dont stand at the edge of that cliff"... "One more step and you will plummet to ur deaths"..."U eat that vendakya curry, or, I m going to tell your daddy about it"...So... we did wat comes naturally to us (or to any retarted common senseless creation of GOD)... Play "Who can stand closer to the edge"... A number of photos were taken in (seemingly) death defying positions (only to realise later that the mist was gonna be a big spoil sport wrt how these photos wud turn out). Two hours (and two battery dead cameras later) we began the final descent.

Crossing forests had now become cliche, thanks to Annapurna Salt (official sponsor of the Procrastinator)... The descent was much faster than the ascent... There was only one prayer on the tip of our lips, and, as if the big man was just waiting for us to ask, he showered his blessings upon us... Ah the sweet rain... What more could one possibly ask for?? I guess it goes without telling that the majority of the group didn bother opening their umbrellas... It was awesome... The thirst and the dryness simultaneoulsy quenched... For some, it was more than yetAnotherRainfall... It was the first time their clothes had seen water in a very long time (washing machine on fritz + 6 lazy miserly bachelors = not surprising at all is it??)

It was sheer magic... If we thought that view going upward was heavenly, we were mistaken... The rains had transformed the entire land... A step closer to heaven it felt... If you have a chance, you definitely dont want to miss out on this trek folks.. :)

By 6:30 p.m., we reached the starting point of the trek (23 kms in 8 hrs... Could some one check if that is a new world record.... *ahem*.... you dont have to laugh that loudly... i get it)... Neway... as luck wud have it, we missed the last bus back to Virajpet... Luckily, a group of really friendly men offered to take us to town (24 km away) for as little as 550 Rs... I started looking around for the luxury-buisness class-private jet they would be taking us in?? Hmmmm... strange... no landing strip in sight... only one broken down little jeep... I must have heard him wrong... I cleared my ears and said.... "Five Rs fifty paise... for that jeep..... k... sounds reasonable"... I could be wrong, but, the profanities that followed, led me to believe that he didn share my sense of humor....Its a good thing that i din follow Kannada slangs.

We, being the gentlemen we are, politely* refused.
*This part of the blog has been slightly modified in order to cater to the family audience.

Seconds later, (yup... the big man was indeed very happy with something i had done on the top), a young lady stopped her Bolero in front of us and asked whether we did be needing a lift to the city...?? Now, we may not be the brightest men in all the land, but, stuff like this, (esp free stuff)... we dont let them go by that easy.

(K... so maybe the lady was not so young... and maybe the lady was a huge fat man with a burly moustache driving yetAnotherBrokenDownJeep, but,... I think i would prefer to remember this day otherwise... ;)


Not so cute when they are sucking on your hand

View from the top

Beautiful isnt it

Bring out the glucose

Paddy field en route... Told you it was awesome