Run your own race

I was cycling and noticed a person in front of me, about 1/4 of Km. I could tell he was cycling a little slower than me and decided to try to catch him. I had about a km to go on the road before turning off. 

So I started cycling faster and faster and every block, I was gaining on him just a little bit. After just a few minutes I was only about 100 yards behind him, so I really picked up the pace and pushed myself. You would have thought I was cycling in the last leg of London Olympic triathlon.
Finally, I caught up with him and passed him by. On the inside I felt so good. “I beat him” of course, but he didn’t even know we were racing.

After I passed him, I realized that I had been so focused on competing against him that I had missed my turn, had gone nearly six blocks past it and had to turn around and go all back.
Isn’t that what happens in life when we focus on competing with co-workers, neighbors, friends, family, trying to outdo them or trying to prove that we are more successful or more important? We spend our time and energy running after them and we miss out on our own paths to our destinies.

The problem with unhealthy competition is that it’s a never ending cycle. There will always be somebody ahead of you, someone with better job, nicer car, more money in the bank, more education, a prettier wife, a more handsome husband, better behaved children, etc.

Take what Life has given you. Stay focused and live a healthy life. There’s no competition in destiny. Run your own race and wish others well !!

Simple comments

Once an old man spread rumours that his neighbour was a thief. As a result, the young man was arrested. Days later the young man was proven innocent. After being released he sued the old man for wrongly accusing him.

In the court the old man told the Judge: “They were just comments, didn’t harm anyone.” The judge told the old man: “Write all the things you said about him on a piece of paper. Cut them up and on the way home, throw the pieces of paper out. Tomorrow, come back to hear the sentence.”

Next day, the judge told the old man: “Before receiving the sentence, you will have to go out and gather all the pieces of paper that you threw out yesterday.”

The old man said: “I can’t do that! The wind spread them and I won’t know where to find them.”

The judge then replied: “The same way, simple comments may destroy the honor of a man to such an extent that one is not able to fix it. If you can’t speak well of someone, rather don’t say anything.”

Let’s all be masters of our mouths, so that we won’t be slaves of our words.

The Black Dot

A small town chamber of commerce invited a speaker to address its annual dinner. The community’s economy was bad, people were discouraged, and they wanted this motivational speaker to give them a boost.

During her presentation, the speaker took a large piece of white paper and made a small black dot at the center with a marking pen. Then she held the paper up before the group and asked them what they saw.

One person quickly replied, “I see a black dot.”

“Okay, what else do you see?”

Others joined in agreement: “A black dot.”

“Don’t you see anything besides the dot?” – she asked.

A resounding “No” came from the audience.

“What about the sheet of paper?” – asked the speaker. “I am sure you have all seen it”, she said, “But you have chosen to overlook it.”

“In life, we also tend to overlook and take for granted many wonderful things that we have or happen around us and focus our attention and energy on small, dot-like failures and disappointments. 

The so called ‘problems’ that we have are usually like the black dot on the paper. They are small and insignificant if we can widen our horizon and look at the whole picture.”

Are you one of the person who focuses your attention and energy on dot-like problems?

Acceptance

Once a king came to the garden and saw fading and dying trees, bushes, and flowers.

An oak said that he dies because it can’t be as high as a pine.

The king found the pine tree falling down because couldn’t give grapes like a grapevine.

And the grapevine was dying because she couldn’t blossom like a rose.

Soon he found a single plant, pleasing heart, bloomy and fresh. After questioning, he received the following answer:

“I think it’s a natural event, because when you planted me, you wanted to get a joy. If you would like to grow an oak, grapes or rose, you would put them. So I think that I can’t be anything else than what I am. And I try to develop my best qualities.”

Look at yourself. You can only be yourself. It is impossible for you to become someone else. You can joy and blossom or you can fade if you do not accept yourself.

Today is the Best Day

We sat on the swing enjoying the warm summer air, truly without a care in the world. Cody, my 6-year-old nephew laughed, as he swung higher than me. His laugh made me smile.

Afterwards, we went for a walk, looking at the gardens.

As we were walking, Cody looked up at me and said, "Today is the best day!" I smiled at him and replied, "Yes, it is a great day."

I then started thinking about what had we done that day?

We didn't really do anything special; there was nothing that we did that cost any money. It was a simple day - one where we talked, went for walks, and swung on the swing.

So often, we wait for our "best days" without realizing that "today is our best day". Or we say, "when I get this", or, "if only this", or, "when I have more money, I will", and we forget to live every day, enjoying today.

We should be more like children; they truly live in the moment! They don't need expensive things to make them happy; they don't use the phrase, "if only", or, "when I get this", or, "when I have more money". They don't dwell in the past, nor do they worry about the future.

We often hear the expression that we should living in the moment. How do we do that, well watch children as they are the perfect example of living in the moment.

There is a saying, "Carpe Diem" which means, "Seize the Day".

And saying that is full of wisdom, "What I do today is important as I am exchanging a day of my life for it.!"

As we get older, we need to remember these sayings and enjoy each and every day.

Keep your child like attitude of "living each moment to its fullest"!

Ghajini

Disclaimer - This is not a movie review

Its 12:30 midnight and I just finished watching Ghajini. To be very frank, I did not liked the movie a bit. Its dumb, its meaningless and reminds me of movies of past full of blood, revenge, cold-blooded murders, senseless fight sequences and above all lacking any aim. I would have still found the movie ok had they not shown the senseless cold-blooded murders in the middle and end of movie. Sorry Mr. Director, I did not go well with me.

From last few years, I have seen Bollywood movies maturing from these senseless themes and switching to more meaningful and sometimes lighter stuff. That’s what I prefer and I would like that trend to continue. Aamir Khan though acted well in the movie but I would prefer him more in Taare Zameen Par kind of movies rather than this honest but stupid & dumb remake of its original. Asin looked pretty adorable portraying too ideal a character. Hoping that trend of these stupid masala movies does not return back in Bollywood on account of the success the movie is getting. But again, that success has nothing to do with movie. It can only be attributed to Aamir Khan's on screen presence and some pure advertising and marketing gimmicks.

~Mayank

PS – Feels good to be blogging after long time though. Good way to vent out, whatever it is. :)

Trip to Wayanad

Went for a trip to Wayanad in March with office team. It was great fun for two days inspite of heat even at the hill station. :) Somehow kept on postponing about updating the blog with photos link but finally managing to do it today. As someone says, "Pictures speak more than words". So let me be quiet and allow the pictures to take centre stage.

Here they goes - Wayand Trip Pics

~Mayank

Hand Dryers or Hair Dryers

There is one great electrical appliance in all our rest rooms – “Hand Dryers” exclusively provided by Facilities department to dry our wet hands. Well I hardly used it in my whole Infy stay till date. And I always used to think that it can be used to dry hands only.

But today I got a nice surprise. One of my colleagues uses it to dry her wet hair. ;-) LOL…
Seriously, there is no dearth of innovative thinkers in Infy. Who says Infy is not in safe hands. ;-)

Even the manufacturer of those hand driers would not have thought that it can be put to such an innovative use.

Any more such innovative uses are welcome in comments section. :)

Current Mood – Amused

Current Music – Ek Khoj par nikala hoon main (Kailash Kher)

~Mayank

A Casual Shot

Clicked this photograph few days back while enjoying a Saturday evening at beach. This elderly couple was strolling on the beach and I just took a casual shot with the camera. While doing post-processing of the picture, I found a lot of meaning in the snap. Here is my interpretation of it.

The photograph represents a life span starting from left side of photograph till present day represented by right side of the photograph. The couple is reaching towards the right end and what lies ahead before them is the unknown future and that is where the photograph ends. It looks as if they have been together for a very long time which is beautifully depicted by the footprints they left on the wet sand of life.

In short, I found a lot of life’s poetry in the snap.

Current Mood – Contemplative

Current Music – Aaya tere dar pe deewana (Veer-Zaara)

~Mayank

PS - Finally going to hometown after 15 months. :)

Kite Fest

After a long time, I spent a really exhausting weekend afternoon, thanks to International Kite Festival 2008 held at Panambur beach at Mangalore on 19th and 20th Jan. Though I didn’t had any plans to go out for it due to the smearing sun but that was just inertia. Once I reached the beach the colourful kites mesmerized me to the core. And I spent 3 hours shooting them with the camera in my hand – Nikon D40X Digital SLR. The camera literally rocks. Digital SLRs are far too ahead in providing you better control to your pictures thanks to the manual controls they have.

Ok, keeping it short and crisp, here is the link of the kite shooting spree:-

Kite Fest Pics

~Mayank

Collective Story Writing

First of all, a very Happy New Year to everybody. Let’s start the year with a pinch of humorous crap. Here it goes.

We all have a story-teller in all of us. We just need to allow him to come out and take shape. Here was such an attempt with humorous repercussions. A perfect example of “Too many cooks spoil the broth”. Few days back, we friends played a game on chat writing a story collectively, just to pass time. He he, sometimes (only sometimes?) we software engineers are free too. Each time we passed on the turn to one another, the story took an interesting and humorous turn. The story writing team consists of Me, Shrrine, Ananth, Nisha, Shwetha, Gowri and Binil. So let’s move on to the stories:-

Story 1 – The IT girl

Mayank - There was an IT girl. One day she bought a 70s top and slept wearing it. Next day when she woke up......

Shrrine - All her hair was gone and she turned bald.
[I am still trying to figure out what is the relation of 70s top and her getting bald]

Ananth - She thought it was a day dream as she usually sleeps a lot during day.

Nisha - Because of that she came late to office and her PM fired her

Shwetha - One of her team mates was very silent that day... not speaking to anyone at all.

Binil – (Confused)…. animal stories r good :)

And the story ends here unexpectedly without any conclusions.

Story 2 – The Jungle Rabbit

Mayank - Once upon a time, in a thick jungle, there used to live a small rabbit with his family.
[Another of those Panchatantra type stories :) ]

Shrrine - but he was not like other rabbits, his momma told him

Ananth - So he set out to jungle to find out why he is unique.
[Wasn’t he in jungle already?]

Nisha - before long he came to understand that the decision was wrong, because suddenlyyyyyyyyyyy................

Shwetha - he was racing with a tortoise and his mom had told him the story about "The tortoise and hare race… " in which tortoise had won

Gowri - He stopped in between to see some one out there in the bush and fell in to a well. When he came out of the well he was all new guy well built and there was a sudden transition he wondered what was happened to him.
[People reading too much of Harry Potter these days]

Binil - then only he realized that tortoise has overtook him

Mayank - now it was race of tortoise vs. man.... so he started catching up with tortoise. Suddenly another well came and this time tortoise fell into it. Surprising the tortoise came out of well as a beautiful girl
[Trying to give romantic turn to the story]

Binil - they both married and lived happily ever after...
[Ruined……… This guy is always bent upon finishing the stories with happy ending. Too much of bollywood effect. It was not his turn also but sighhhh the story ends here….]

Story 3 – The Software Engineer

Shrrine - The clock struck 10...and I impatiently watched the screen waiting for the program to execute correctly. No one seemed around for miles and the clock's ticks seemed magnified.
[Hmm.. interesting starting…]

Ananth - Suddenly I could hear cries from a distant place.

Nisha - it was getting louder n louder, so I left my place to find out the origin.....

Binil - there lies a mobile phone...it was its ring tone...

Mayank - the ring tone was real bad, never heard of before. I checked the number on the phone and it said "Your Inner Devil". With shaking hands, I picked up the phone...

Shrrine - it wasn’t a human voice, almost a growl...he said " I’ve been waiting to make this call. We need to talk my friend. Do u remember what happened to suneel last summer?"
[Reminds me of movie – “I know what you did last summer” ;-) ]

Ananth - The very mention of the name Suneel frightened me. I could still remember the day when..

Nisha - it is afresh in my mind, I didn’t want to think of what happenend, but everything is coming back with such force .................
[No body ready to write the incident, looks like too much of work for poor processors]

Mayank - With nothing coming to mind, I ended the call. Switched the phone off, removed the battery and flushed it down the drain.....
[Why should I fabricate the incident too, let me end the call only ;-) ]

Shrrine - as I left the restroom, I felt a figure slid past the door, and I went into the nearby room to check...and there bent over was a girl..checkin my PC's wiring...

Binil - she was from ccd.. i had made an ahd request to change my mouse..she came with a new white mouse...
[Why white mouse.. anything special about that]

Mayank - I thanked her with a smiling face. She did not gave any smile, infact she was expressionless. I grabbed my PC again. But suddenly a thought screeched through my senses - how come CCD is working today at 11:55 pm in night

Nisha - I went running after her but she was not there anywhere

Binil - "IS THE CODE READY" ..i jumped out of sleep after hearing my pm'm scream........everything was a dream....i checked my mouse...it was still black
[This guy is trying to ruin the suspense built-up and discarding it all as a dream, but I am not going to give up so easily]

Mayank - It was not dream. I was wrong. Infact I had returned from onsite yesterday only and there was 12 hours time lag. I was still living in the US time zone. I was seeing US time, I was hearing voices of people who were there with me in US but I was not able to see and feel anyone here in Indian office. IF that is the case, how come I saw that CCD girl.... who is she??
[ Sci-fi stuff entering into story – something like Multiple time-zone disorder]

Nisha - I went in search of the CCD gal, will i be able to see her again???? i went to CCD and described her,but they told me there is no such person like that. I am really perplexed, suddenly I saw her in the ground floor and I started climbing down the stairs and started following her .....

Mayank - I tripped over the stairs and started falling down. That girl has reached the end of stairs. She heard my cries and just then I reached the end of stairs too. With blood trickling from my head, she held me in her hands and I saw in her eyes and suddenly I felt dizzy and got unconscious
[Ahh… romantic twist…]

Shrrine - and fainted!!

Nisha - that gal was very strong; she lifted me up and ran to the hospital
[ P.T. Usha effect.. ahan !!! ]

Binil - she ran and ran and ran (ran ++) and they lived happily ever after (or may be rannily ever after!)
[This guy is again bent upon ending the story with the “happily ever after” effect]

Mayank - actually girl was a software program with a bug and she got into infinite loop
[We software engineers never change]

@=======THE END======@

Current Mood - Hopeful

Current Music - Bhool Bhulaiya...

~Mayank

The Endless Mirage

I got the inspiration of writing on this topic from one of my friends while chatting with him. This is not only story of mine, but I guess, of almost everyone in todays fast pace world. Let me start with childhood.

A normal child having dream of coming first in class. Sometimes his dream was fulfilled, sometimes not. But he used to keep on sticking to dream and kept on chasing it. Slowly the childhood ended and he started dreaming of becoming an engineer and get into a good engineering college. He worked hard for it and finally the day came when he fulfilled his that dream also. One more dream achieved but another began. Life in college was fun but he wanted to enter into IT world. God again listened to him and one day he got job into a very good IT company. Life seems to be complete for him that day. One more dream achieved but another began to take shape. Then one day he joined that IT company with a good starting salary. It was too good for him at that time. He was happy and contended with it. He kept on working hard and with passing time, he wanted more and more of everything – salary, work, time, freedom and what not. One more dream achieved but more began to take shape.

He is achieving all of them slowly and steadily but each time he thinks he has reached the end of mirage, he found again a new one posing another challenge. That is what is keeping him going, keeping him alive. His endless ambitions, newer posing challenges everyday is keeping life worth living. That is the endless mirage of everyone behind which we are all running.

It’s good to follow it, but in the race of getting it, we should not forget what we have today because whatever we have today is something which we wanted long back. So make sure to enjoy it, to value it. It’s good to have goals but in the rat-race of achieving them we should not forget to enjoy the present. The mirage will never end; you will always keep moving towards your destination till the last second of your life but make sure you enjoy the journey too.

Because in the end, what you treasure should not only be the destination but the journey too.

Ok, lots of mirage still to be captured. Hence ending here. :)

~Mayank

The Spidey Bug

It’s exact mid of a working week. A usual boring and highly sleepy Wednesday afternoon after lunch (Thank God, lunch was not bad as I did not try the canteen food). 2.5 days finished, 2.5 more days to go, sigh!!!

Ok, its time for the pantry coffee which we sometime go because we have nothing interesting to do, except sitting in front of the stupid box. Just when I was planning to lock my PC and take out my Infosys Black colour coffee mug (Why the hell they do not get some new designs, I am bored with this black colour cup), suddenly I spotted something exciting in one of the cubicles. Don’t get excited, it was not some new girl in the nearby cubicle ;-), it was a poor spider lazily resting on the keyboard of one of my cubicle mates unaware that where it has got into. Since I did not know whether it was Mr. or Miss Spider, so let’s call it “Spidey”.

First an aura of surprise from everyone. How come a spider comes in the working area? Bugs are allowed only to enter in our code but not in the working area and cubicles and that too over keyboard. Anways, we all found an opportunity to make our boring afternoon slightly interesting and exciting (See we poor Software engineers have nothing much exciting in life to do hence we are trying to extract excitement from a poor spider). I hope Maneka Gandhi will not come running in protest for Animal rights just in case she comes across this blog. ;-)

Let me introduce all the characters of the adventure:-

Ananth – The Bug discoverer (Of-course, he was the first to discover as the spidey has chosen his keyboard to take afternoon nap).

Shwetha – The official camerawoman, I mean cameraperson (English is a phunny language you see) who took 3 highly captivating screen-shots..uhm.. photos of the bug. Only she can do that, as she boasts of the most advanced camera phone in our team. ;-)

Nisha – Assistant camerawoman, I mean assistant cameraperson (English is again a phunny language). She anyways has nothing to do. So she chose to help Shwetha in her photography stint by advising some interesting angles for the shots.

Shrrine – For providing extra sound effects with her screaming. (See, her screams were valid as she has got the nearest next cubicle to the spidey cubicle in action right now).

Me – For Enjoying and surprisingly taking the initiative to plug out the keyboard from computer and taking spidey along with it outside the cubicle. I am still wondering, how I managed that as I am always very much afraid of these freaking creatures.

Binil – For providing extra support by opening the window, helping me out to throw the spider out and then closing the window. Meanwhile he bravely fought with spider while closing the window not allowing spidey to enter again. He escaped uninjured and victorious. Three cheers for him!!!

Here are some photographs of the extra-ordinary event:-





Fortunately or unfortunately, the bug discoverer (Ananth) was not at his seat (its post lunch time yaar) when spidey landed on his keyboard. Otherwise we could have another Spider-man cum software engineer in the making. ;-) But then we need to provide him onsite opportunity very soon as Spiderman can only survive between high-rises of Manhattan. In Mangalore, coconut trees for the support will not be a very good option. :-)

If you have read this uptil here, thanks for reading this crap. As one of my friends say, I am very bad at writing craps. I am still trying to figure out what this statement means and whether I should take it in a positive or negative way. :-)

~Mayank

Class of 2003

From quite some time, my blogging habit has been reduced to minimum because of so many reasons known and unknown to me. Today, I got a mail from one of my friends who shared our class photograph with me and asked for names of some of the faces whom he was not able to remember. Luckily I was able to name each of those faces and the excel (in which we were filling the name) was completed. Oops “Excel” again, Looks like, software engineers do everything in excel these days ;-). God save all of us.

Ok so here comes the nostalgic photograph whose hard copy (I mean printed copy) is lying somewhere in my albums which I have hardly seen more than a dozen times in last 4 years, thanks to my laziness. But had I seen it more often, the photograph would have lost its importance and the nostalgic flavour it has got now.

IIT Roorkee Electrical - Class of 2003

And here comes the name of each and every person in the photograph (as far as we 2 guys were able to figure out)

Bottom Row (Left to Right) - Vinay Pant, Dr. G.K. Singh, Dr. Rajendra Prasad,Dr. J. D. Sharma, Dr. A.K. Pant, Ankit Srivastava (Baba), Dr. H. O. Gupta, Dr. H. K. Verma, Dr. M.K. Vasantha, Dr. S.P. Gupta, Dr. S.P. Srivastava, Dr. Pramod Agrawal, Dr. Bharat Gupta,Dr. R.P. Maheshwari.

First Row (Left to Right) - Anshu Sarje, Divyanjali Satyarthi, Mayank Gupta (That’s Me),Vimal Kumar, Sanchit Jain, Vishal Chaudhary, Shishir Singh, Ankur Garg (Prof), Jawed Akhtar, Ajay Gupta, Gyanendra Kumar (Chotu) ,Sourashish Roy (Soura), Kumar Vishal (KV), Abhinav Nag (Nagu), Satish Singh, Sumit Chachra, Hansraj.

Second Row (Left to Right) - Ashutosh singh, Dheeraj Verma, Himanshu Sahni, Arun Kumar Singh (AKS), Vikram Kumar, Saurabh Srivastava (T), Vikas Kumar, Rupak Das Gupta, Binod Kumar Singh, Amit Pal, Rochak Bhattarai, Gyan Singh, Dipak, Bappaditya Mandal, Ankur Goenka, Bodhaditya Bhattacharya, Aakrosh Ratan, Devashi Tandon (Tandoo).

Third Row (Left to Right) - Ankur Prakash, Jitendra Kumar, Mithilesh Gohivar, Mahendra Kumar, Sachin Nikhare, Pranav Singh, Pushkal Jain (Pushky), Tapan Kumar Roy, Chandra Shekhar, Abhishek Kumar, Diwakar ,Gasigwa Landfried, Arvind, Pramod Mishra, Shailendra Verma,Tathagat Deb Goswami ,Rajat Ahuja.

Last Row (Left to Right) - Jean Bosco, Gaurav Gupta, Ashirwad Sahu, Amit Kumar, Satish Chandra Gupta, Sampreet Singh, Manoj Kumar Chaudhary.

Ok so a long list. It may be boring for you if you are not in the list but for everyone else, I hope this will be more of a nostalgic quiz trying to figure out the name of each and every face. Certainly it took me some time to figure out the name of some of the faces but in the end it was a very satisfying experience – Thanks to my good memory :-)

The photograph took me back to memory lane. 4 years we spent together – studying, playing, fighting, teasing and what not. And after 4 years, the destiny scattered them in every nook and corner of this planet.

This blog post is just an attempt to remember all those wonderful people who stayed together for 4 years with a common thread known as IIT Roorkee and also cherish all the happy and sad moments they spent together. Ok…So No more senti-menti now, finishing the post at this juncture hoping to get the comments section filled with buzz from all the members in the photograph. :-)

Lastly I can't stop myself from humming these beautiful lines:-

Oh When I look back now,
Those days seemed to last forever
And if I had the choice
I would always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life...

~Mayank

PS – I have tried my best to avoid typographical errors in name. If there are some mistakes, please let me know, I will be happy to correct it.

Only Thee

That I want thee, only thee --- let my heart repeat without end.

All desires that distract me, day and night, are false and empty to the core.

As the night keeps hidden in its gloom the petition for light,

Even thus in the depth of my unconsciousness rings the cry

---`I want thee, only thee'.

As the storm still seeks its end in peace

When it strikes against peace with all its might,

Even thus my rebellion strikes against thy love

And still its cry is

---`I want thee, only thee'.

Don’t get surprised… this work of master-piece is not written by me, but it has come from the pen of ‘Gurudev’ – Yes, it’s a poem from Rabindra Nath Tagore’s nobel prize winner “Gitanjali”. Few days back, I got this poem as an email forward. Usually I just give a cursory glance to most of the email forwards I get, but this one was different and it caught my attention at the very outset. I read it many times and each time I found a new and deeper meaning in each word and each line (But let the new and deeper meanings be confined to my inner self). The poet has expressed unlimited emotions in very limited words. Well, that’s the beauty of this master-piece. No wonder, Gurudev won the Nobel Prize for “Gitanjali”. This poem has aroused my interest in the book now and I am planning to read it soon. Thanks to my friend for sharing it, I got another topic to blog too. :-)

I am putting this it in my blog, because generally I lose track of various emails I get especially forwards. By placing it here, the poem becomes mine forever and I can read it whenever I want by returning to my blog.

Well, the poem contains many meanings, I tried applying it to various situations and it fitted perfectly everywhere. Gurudev…you are truly a Guru….

Current Mood – Contemplative
Current Music – Tere Bina Zindagi se koi, shikwa to nahin…

~Mayank

Power Cuts

With the onset of summer, this time a new problem (Is it a problem, Not atleast for me) surfaced in Mangalore. I don’t know whether it is a familiar or unfamiliar problem for Mangalore junta but I never faced it in my 2-3 years of stay at Mangalore. It is longer, frequent and regular power cuts. Being from a so called “backward and poorer” state (UP to be precise), I never find these power cuts a problem. Probably because I am so used to long and regular power cuts from my childhood that I always take it as a part and parcel of our daily lives. And in my place if one fine day, power cut does not happen, then we used to wonder what happened? Probably some minister or high-level officer has visited the city :-)

Ok, so returning back to Mangalore. As the power cuts have become more frequent and most of my friends and acquaintances are finding it difficult to live peacefully and comfortably at their houses, I am feeling more at home. Reason – These power cuts are reminding me of the summers in my home-town – unbearable heat, long power cuts, sleepless nights and sweaty days. These days, whenever the electricity goes in evening, I turn-on my candle and make sure to read something in that candle-light. It reminds me of countless nights I have spent studying with the “midnight-candle”. And since the heat at Mangalore is still not too much, I can enjoy the luxury to sleep anytime irrespective of power cut.

Last night, power went off at around 10 pm and immediately I went to sleep. It was slightly hot but I was still enjoying it. The window was open but there was not even a single trace of a breeze. Never mind, I am feeling at home. During the course of sleep, may be a cool midnight breeze started blowing and entered my room through the window. It caressed my hair and made me slightly cooler. I suddenly woke-up saying - “Mummy, you still awake??”. Well, that wind reminded me of my mom who used to spend sleepless nights making me cooler in hot nights by waving her hand-fan. And I used to wake up one time or another in the night asking her if she is still awake. As usual, she always used to caress my hair and say – “You sleep, I am there”. But yesterday, mom was nowhere to be found. There was only that unfamiliar breeze. Sadly, I looked around my dark room, closed the window so that the breeze did not try to enter the room and take place of my mom again and went to sleep. [ Mummy, I miss you so much :-( ].

Well that’s all. Lately the electricity returned back at around 1:30 am and the TV who returned back to life with the power, woke me up with his screaming voice. It was difficult to sleep again so soon. So I switched to "SouthAfrica–SriLanka" World Cup match and to my luck it turned out to be a thriller. Wow…Sometimes I am lucky too :-)

Current Mood – Lonely
Current Music – I want to Break-free [Queen]

~Mayank

Blood Diamond

If you are even a little bit interested in English movies, then you would have easily recognized from the title of this post, that what this post is all about. Yes, this post is more like a review of the movie – Blood Diamond which I watched last Saturday at Adlabs, Mangalore. Don’t worry; I am not going to leak the story out here. So please keep reading and honour my blog with your gracious presence. :-)

Frankly speaking, when I went for the movie, I did not knew a single bit about the movie – what the movie is all about, who are the lead actors and blah-blah-blah. But as usual, a boring Saturday evening inspires (or rather compels) you to pass time in whatever possible way you can. So last Saturday evening, I went to Adlabs, Mangalore for passing time. Most of the movies screening there were already gulped down by me or they were running full with only front row seats available. So I settled for Blood Diamond with no expectations. Infact the show had already started at 6:45 PM while I bought the ticket and entered the theatre at 7:05 PM (20 minutes late to be precise).

The first 5 minutes went in understanding what is happening in the movie. In those few minutes, I understood that movie is setup somewhere in Africa and is about diamonds and may be its smuggling. What the hell, another of those Hollywood smuggling craps. No…!!! But soon I realized that it is not that kind of movie. The movie is about “Conflict Diamonds”. Now one more term to be learned! Am I watching a movie or documentary? Yes, it was a documentary beautifully shaped into a movie or vice-versa which keeps you glued to your seats for full 2 hours. The movie is setup in the backdrop of civil war which took place in Sierra Leone in 1990s. I was not even aware that a civil war took place in this small African nation in 1990s while we were happily studying in our schools at that time. Thanks to my poor Current Affairs knowledge which I never tried to improve. Ok, so returning back to the movie, it shows the plight of people in this small African nation who are caught up between the warring factions. It also tells about the diamonds are illegally smuggled to the whole world by warring factions and how the people of the country get deprived of their natural resources. The film not only reveals these details but also portrays strong human emotions of a father for his family and a son who had been taken up by rebel armies as a child soldier. Ok, so no more revealing of the story. That is only a trailer. Just go and watch it, if you find the trailer interesting. Atleast I found the movie very meaningful and informative. And after seeing the quest of survival of all those people in the movie, it made me feel that I am much luckier that all those folks as I am born and living in a relatively free and more prosperous country.

Moreover, it was one of those rare occasions when I was able to understand almost 80-90% of a movie’s dialogues (generally this percentage does not go above 40-50%, thanks to my poor grasp of American accent). Has my grasp of American accent improved or the film’s dialogues were in a more comprehensible accent for me? Don’t know!!! Have to catch another English movie somewhere in a theatre or some movie channel to verify this.

I won’t say that you go and watch this movie and it’s a must see because all these are personal viewpoints. Something which I like, you may not like at all.

From my side, Kudos to the whole team of the movie!!! They have done a real good job and have produced a real meaningful movie which not only keeps you glued to your seats for 2 hours but also makes you think at the end of 2 hours.

~Mayank

An Unusual Stranger

It’s a narration of an incident which happened to me long time back. It just came back to my mind today and I thought to pen it down in my blog. Here it goes…

I was sitting on a railway station waiting for my train who as usual was late by a couple of hours. One and half hours had already passed and half-hour still remains and I was getting bored on the station. To pass time, I was sipping my third tea in 1.5 hours, occasionally reading the book in my hand and watching people moving here and there on the platform. Just then I saw a beggar coming near to me from somewhere. As usual, I tried ignoring him because they always ask for money. Its not that I mind giving a rupee or two to them but I just don’t like giving it to a beggar unless he is really old or destitute. Also many people say not to promote beggary by giving money to beggars. So I tried to follow that [in which I miserably fail during each train journey :-) ].

But when this beggar came near to me, he did not ask for money. Instead he asked for a cup of tea. I was caught in surprise and since he has asked not for money, I can’t decline him a cup of tea and asked the nearby “chai-wallah” to provide the same. The beggar took the cup of tea and whole-heartedly thanked me. I thought that after that he will be gone, so I again returned back to the book in my hand. But he surprised me second time as he sat on the ground near my chair and started sipping the tea. I felt a little uncomfortable and irritated as he was sitting quite close to my chair and was making strange sounds when sipping the tea. Somehow I was not able tell him to go away and sit somewhere else; I don’t know why. After finishing the tea, he just asked me for which train I am waiting for. I told him the name of train and tried concentrating on my book. But he seems to be in chatting mood and asked me where I am going. I tried ignoring him and didn’t answer his question thinking that it will make him go away. Then he said to me – “Long time back, I used to sit on these benches waiting for the train and helping poor beggars, just like you!!!”. This caught my attention and I looked at him. Then I asked him, you were not beggar from ever. After asking this question, I felt a little stupid that what I am asking. He laughed and said to me – “Babuji, no one is a born beggar; sometimes circumstances and sometimes other people make you that”. Now my curiosity started growing and I asked him – “Who made you beggar – circumstances or someone or both”. He declined to answer that question and just replied in return – “It’s a long story, neither will you have time to listen to it nor do I have strength to narrate it.” After that I did not had any strength to ask further questions to him. He just kept sitting besides me, passing comments on people whom he meets regularly on the station. My train arrived after half-an-hour and I picked up my baggage and moved towards the train. Just then that beggar said to me in English – “Happy Journey”. And his accent of English really surprised me. That accent can be gained only if you are decently educated. I said Thanks to him and entered the train. As the train left the station, he waved his hand and I can’t stop myself from doing the same from my window seat.

But that man left me thinking and introspecting – What would have been the conditions, circumstances or whatever, which made him a beggar. We can say that Perhaps he was not strong enough to face the realities of live and gave up. We can give many arguments and reach to conclusion but all those will be just like “firing arrows in the dark” unless we listen to the story of that person. That man left a mystery and curiosity inside me which till today I am not able to solve.

Can you help me out…?

~Mayank

Chupke-Chupke Raat Din

Last night, as usual I was listening to my MP3 player with all lights turned-off and Ghazal maestro “Ghulam Ali” humming the irrestible song – “Chupke-Chupke Raat Din” in my ears. I have listened and enjoyed this ghazal countless times but yesterday somehow I felt some urge to write a few shers myself. I am not a shayar or poet, so I can’t found some base to start. Hence I picked the ghazal itself as the base and wrote some lines on my own. It is more of a 'tuk-bandi' [trying to rhyme words] kind of effort, so it’s not very good. But since it’s my first effort, I can’t stop myself from publishing it.

Unfortunately, this post contains matter which is more relevant to people who understand Hindi and a slight amount of Urdu as well (cannot be called 'Urdu' exactly, its mostly 'Hindi' only). I thought of translating it into “English” as well but I found that it loses its vigour and magic if done so. Hence all non-hindi readers are requested to take help of their other friends who can translate this for them. Else, you can send me special request for translation, I will try to do it. :-)

Before starting with my lines, let’s just revise the first stanza of the ghazal:-

Chupke-Chupke Raat Din, Aansoon bahana yaad hai,
Hum ko ab tak aashiqui ka woh zamana yaad hai.

And here is the disclaimer to all my “Leg pulling friends”- These few lines are written just like that and are not a result of anything real or imaginary which you all are planning to cook :-)

Now here are few lines written my me:-

Ishq ki be-imaniyon ka alam, to tha kuch aur bhi,
Unka sabse hans ke milna, humse nazrein churana yaad hai.

Ja rahe thay, raaste pe, hanste gaate ek din,
Un ko aata dekh-kar, dhadkon ka ruk jana yaad hai.

Din mein unko dekhna, raaton mein unko sochna,
Aanthon pahar unko, khayalon mein basana yaad hai.

Unka humse poochna, ki kyun hai yeh dil udaas,
Muskurakar apne hal-e-dil ko, unse chupana yaad hai.

Jab kiya tha humne unse, apne dil ka haale bayan,
Unki woh naarazgi, aur moonh firana yaad hai.

Woh hanse to hum hansein, woh roye to hum bhi roye,
Un ki khushi aur un ke ghamon ko, apna banana yaad hai.

Please use the comments section generously for the benefit of the author... :-)

~Mayank

Moving to Green...

I have read somewhere :-

The only constant thing in this world is 'Change'. No one has escaped from that, no one ever can.

My blog is also "no-one" and has undergone this change in look and feel. Finally, I was able to find and tweak a new template for my blog. The initial template (shown above) was very dull and boring. So somehow I came out of my procrastination and played with some HTML and CSS to create a new face for my blog. [If you are some lucky person not from software background, ignore these two words – ‘HTML’ and ‘CSS’, they are some software crap which is part and parcel of unlucky software professional like me ;-) ].

Coming to the new template, I found it having better aesthetics and more pleasing to eyes (atleast to me). Light green is one of my favourite colours and hence the reason for the new layout being so greenish in colour.

Do let me know, how do you find the new look and feel of my blog. The comments section is waiting for you…

~Mayank