Life is funny, indeed !

Something unusual made me return here after almost 3 yrs....that is life !
I was entangled in my day to day chores, when, the phone rings & I pick up to answer one of my old office colleague's call. With a grave tone, he conveys this message that, one of the HR females from that office, expired today morning. I just utter "What ????".

Shweta was her name & I knew her for a mere one year, which was my tenure in that workplace. Very calm, jovial & rationale. In fact, the irony is, being in HR, she was the one who announced my lay off from that place. Very recently, she had moved to another company & when she mailed me for a job offer, I even taunted her for that, but, entirely in a joking sense. There was no reply to that mail & I didn't even bother to ask her what she felt about it.

Today, I hear this news & the ground just swept off my feet. These are the times when you repent the fact, that sometimes, we simply don't think about what we talk & how we behave with people. These are also the moments, when you want to hold your loved ones, tight, not knowing, whether they would cease to exist tomorrow.

A strange & sad event. May her soul rest in peace !

Colours of Independence

Had bought some flowers for our vase 2 days back. Oogled them from various angles & thought that they could be pretty targets for my digital camera. I even thought a caption for them as above.

Reality Bites

Today's start was rather boring with the same routine of getting up, sipping tea, dressing up & coming to office. So, what to do ?

One of my favorite passtime: My brains & Google. I thought abt Remo Fernandes. One of the few celeberities I admire. Though, I haven't heard much of his songs, since, they are kind of a fusion between western & indian classical & that makes it difficult for me to understand & enjoy. I like his light hearted Goan folk numbers & a very peppy number called 'Ocean Queen'. It reminds me my good old childhood days. But, in general, he seems to be one of those types who is not crazy about being in the limelite & doing crap things.

So, I logged on to his website www.remofernandes.com & went to this state of shock looking at his accomplishments & work. Wow ! simply amazing. Out there, is a section named 'Writings' which aroused my interested & immediately my mouse pointer hovered & patted the link. Trust me, but thats where my respect for him shooted to infinite space. Particularly, a writing about IFFI [International Film Festival of India] which encompasses the brute reality we Indians live in. Here's the link http://www.remofernandes.com/iffi-crumbs.htm . I would suggest whoever is reading this to please go through the article. Although old, it still is a stinging reality !

Meraa Pehla Pehla Guitar

Today's my first day of Guitar Lessons. Have enrolled in 'The Institute of Modern Music', which is supposedly a renowned place since medieval times. Pray for me that I come out as a prodigy & enthrall you all to my strings.
The place is kind of a fusion of a recording studio & music school. The founders are known to be quite a name in the music industry, though, looking at the photos, it didn't seem so. It has a narrow entrance & the moment you enter, you are greeted by a not so friendly 'cobra' girl coming straight from the heart of Pune city. Hey! I'm not taking you to a Harry Potter world. For those of you who are unaware, 'cobra' stands for Kokanast Brahman, one of the top castes in Maharashtrians. Infact, 90% of the place is infested with cobras. Someday, I would want to see a smile on that chick & am totally confident that my friend Sohan will do it.
We were kind of day dreaming yesterday about how ppl will crave for us to be the aan, baan & shaan(not the singer) of their parties. About how ppl will scream their lungs out hysterically, 'Robi, Robi !!! We love you !'. About how we'll perform at places like 'Jazz By The Bay' which is exactly opposite to our office & below Sohan's gym. After working out, Sohan rushes in & grabs a guitar, looks at me & says, 'Ok !! So, what are we gonna play ! Sultans of Swing?' , and then we belt out the number & rock the show.
So, guys ! One year of hardship & you are gonna see a new band...wait! have to think of a name!!

Face Off

I had to tell you all this funny incident which took place 3 days ago. Me & one of my pals went to ICICI atms coincidently on the same day at 2 different places.

SCENE 1, ACTOR-myself

The ATM near by my home has 3 useless machines which have an uncanny sense of intelligence or maybe a hidden face recognition software installed which tells them whether to dispense money or not. So, I always enter with a sense of disbelief so as not to be taken aback!

There went my card in machine 1 --> Out came the msg : 'Your transaction was not accepted'. See, I told you! I then moved on to machine 3 so as not to waste my time on 2. "Tweeee", the machine gulped the card as if it was telling me, 'Hey fuck off ... you are not getting your card back'. Entered my pin, money & lo ! out came the msg - 'You have entered the wrong PIN, please reenter'. So, I reentered, not knowing that was the last chance. 'Sorry you have crossed the limit of PIN retries. Your card is blocked.' SHIT!!! now what... days of poverty! With a feeling of destituteness, I walked back.



SCENE 2, ACTOR-my pal

Driving back home, my pal was searching for an IDBI atm. He came across one, stopped by, and the moment he was entering, the security guard came out & said, 'bannd padlaye sir'. He then came across a second one few blocks away, but passed by, looking at the crowd outside it. After hovering around, he came by an UTI atm. As soon as he fed the card, it puked out saying that the entered PIN is wrong. He didn't bother to try a second time knowing the calibre of an UTI atm. Finally, out of sheet frustation, he got by an ICICI atm & after repeating the rituals twice blocked the card.


The next day in office, after exchanging our experiences, we came to a conclusion about how pathetic can ATMs be & how feeble IT security can be. So, our next destination was the nearby IDBI atm, where we filled the reqd forms to reset the pins. There was this cute gal attending to us, whom we had already letched mercilessly. She said that the cards will start working after 4 hrs.

I, as an Indian, decided to check one day later, to be on the safer side. But to my utter dismay, I again got the same msg. GODDAMNIT!!! I then called my pal, told him abt this issue & asked him to check his. Meanwhile, I went to one of the main IDBI branches, where Lord Krishna gave me this idea of checking in the adjoining ATM one last time. I took out the card, looked at it in the same way as it was at me, and inserted it. And what do I see ! The screen read 'SOHAN SUNIL RAO' which, incidently, is my pal's name. All this while, we were carrying the other's card & trying to act smart. And the funny part is, we actually blocked each other's cards the very first time we visited the ICICI atms.

So, how did this happen? We then recalled the day we both had gone to this computer hardware store to buy stuff & ended keeping each other's cards. So, we were actually carrying the other's card for the past 1 week. Hey, Mr. John Woo ! If you are reading this, please do make a movie. Our cards don't cost much :))

A walk in the clouds

It was another fine morning I woke up with. Was gazing at the sky from my verandah, when, the clouds caught my attention. At the speed of light, I grabbed my camera & took a couple of shots of one of the marvels of nature. Aren't they beautiful? I mean, they could be faces of the millions of Gods we know on this planet.

Just imagine all the Gods watching us. The pic to the left shows a couple of Gods in the morning...doing a routine checkup ... One is saying to the other: 'Hmm...all well...those girls in the balcony are cool .. ain't they? Wish I cud be a human .. wud have dated one of them. Ahhh..look at that drunkard ... bad hangover ! Hey, that Salunkhe Vihar stretch has been repaired...man! It was a pain in the ass for people....There goes the milkman...'

This right one shows a kid cloud with his dad..

Kid: 'Pop ! why are those few old men runnin !'

Dad: 'Son, they are exercising. That's what humans do to stay fit. And they also run when we pee ! '

Jokes apart, these suspended water bodies are one of the many beautiful gifts Mother Nature has given us. Sadly, we don't care for such gifts & are eventually moving towards destruction. C'mon people...lets wake up...lets make this world atleast reasonable to live !

This is what I call 'Chemistry'

Time: 9.20 a.m.

Place: On Ganeshkhind road, a little before my office area which is opp E-Square.

Summary: The picture, as such, looks very weird to a layman. But, watch closely, and you'll see an intricate relation between the 'Sony' & the 'Haig' hoardings.

To be more precise, the Sony hoarding is boasting off its latest digicam which has an 'an-tye-blur' technology. Sorry for the American accent, but this is very natural if you make short trips very frequently. On the other hand, the Haig hoarding is none other than our friendly neighborhood daaru. So, what's the relation ?? Simple....

You drink Haig first before going to a party or dance club. And, then, you take pictures of your nearby blondes or damsels with the latest Sony camera. Most important, you get a crystal clear picture inspite of the Houdini like balancing acts you might do after 6 - 7 pegs down... Sony should be taking care of this. Well, thats what the ad says.

I don't know whether this was intentional or coincidence, but, its sure is very thoughtful of whoever placed those ads.

" I think the Indian Ad Industry is at its summit of exuberance & excellence & this is a good example to portray to the world what ads are for... !!! "

Sounded weird !... ain't it? But, this is what Mahesh Bhatt would say if interviewed, with, him scratching in all the nooks or corners of his body.

p.s : - My Nikon doesn't have an an-tye-blur technology. So, if the above pic looks blurred, please don't report to Sony.