Orient to Occident: My Visitors

I hardly put in anything of particular interest, and yet I find so many visitors daily, from so many countries! As of now, the latest 500 entries show visitors from about 50 countries which completely amazes me. What do people do all day? Google search?? Looks like it...



Well this picture clearly shows how many people visited my blog. The nearly opaque dots indicate that there have been many people entering from that particular city. And the transparent dots indicate lesser frequency of visits or just one visit. The stats are only from July 2008. I don't know what the number would have been had I counted ever since I started blogging. I am not very interested to know that anyway, so it's no big deal...

Occasion: Another Birthday

This time it was Raj Kiran's, and we were not gonna let this day go waste like the rest of our birthdays. We decided to skip that Workshop/Seminar/Whatever/?? in college and have some serious fun. We didn't go out for months in spite of having free time, and everybody was clearly desperate to let some hair down. We had plans for a resort with some fun in the pool, some eating, and a long drive out. Though we did go to a resort, the time constraints kept us from taking a dip. An hour's drive and 4 hours of eating burnt down the time 'in no time'. From traditional Tricoloured Kebabs and Murgh Kalmi to Choco-Cognacs and Misty Nights, our 'lunch' covered everything. It was a break we all wanted, though we doubt if it was a well-deserved one as we hardly struggled for anything in the past. A long, decent lunch and some good laughter and photographs closed our first outdoor trip in months and we took in every moment of it. Another long drive brought us back home, and I felt satisfied by the day's events which had some weird music in it too - JLo, Westlife, BSB, Sting, George Michael, etc - exactly the artists that I didn't want to listen to, but in a resto, what else can one play? Yet, it was fine for me 'cause I spent some good time in Natarajan's house later with Fruity Loops and his new experiments in music. It was all fun... except the city roads ofcourse!!

Honestly, I can't Lie

For a teenager, lies would come out as naturally as one would breathe. But when it comes to me, something goes wrong. I stutter and sputter, but the lie just won't come out. All that I can manage is the truth. The last big lie I remember telling was 10 years ago, when my stupid experiment with some plumbing on the terrace went horribly wrong and I broke my hand. Thank god I didn't fall of the terrace. I zipped my lips shut until my mother exclaimed that the hand was broken. At that moment, I burst open and managed to say "I slipped while playing". I don't know if anyone ever bought that lie, but nobody tried to dig in more. After that, any time I attempted to lie, I was caught and went through a pretty bad time. Soon, as time evolved the word Lie was out of my head. I was finding it very difficult to tell a simple lie. The truth would just flow out like water. It should have been a reversed case, but in any case, my case always ends up being an odd one. After joining the engineering college, my lies went down more drastically. A recent one is worth talking about.

I skipped off from college and watched a movie (as everyone always does). Spent some money for all the required stuff including eating and when it was all over, I went back to college to catch the bus back home. Only thing was, I took back the lunch box untouched, as neatly packed as it was in the morning. Once home, my mom asked me why I didn't have my lunch. I could have said a million things there. It was only a small lie about why I didn't eat. Instead, as soon as I opened my mouth, out came this - "I wasn't in college. I mean, I er... didn't want to attend some seminar, so I... went out and watched a movie and I ate some food in the theatre itself." I never planned on saying that. All the time I was devising a way to tell a lie, and when the time came, I blurted out the truth. No pressure, no trouble, yet the truth came out as if I drank Professor Snape's Truth Potion. This wasn't the first time. I always confess when I bunk college or do anything stupid, maybe it's an instinct to stay on the safe side. When we lie, the pieces don't fit. To fit one story, we need another story, and to fit that story, we need yet another one. And with the truth, all the pieces fit like a jigsaw puzzle with a single sentence. No wonder why the proverb "Honesty is the best Policy" so famous. Maybe we need to lie occasionally, like the ones we blabber with the college watchman to get out of college. "I am from another college" "I came for a workshop" "I am the organiser (we remove a brochure of a 2 year old event and wildly sway it around)"... But, in spite of all this, I can make one conclusion about myself, "I just can't lie!!". And that's the truth...

Oh Yeah! Rock On !!

Welcome to the new trend in Bollywood. Rock! First of all, I can't believe I am talking about Bollywood. But maybe I can be forgiven if it's for a good cause. "Oh Lord of Rock N Roll, forgive me for talking about Bollywood music, but I assure you, it's for a good cause."

Well, this particular movie was getting too much attention on Channel V and I decided to check it out after all. Some of the stuff that was played on TV was sounding fine and I went a step further and heard the complete songs from this movie, Rock On!!. It's definitely ground breaking music in terms of the crappy Dance/Hip Hop/Punjabi mixes that we produce day and night. In the typical B'wood case, the song is mostly out of sync with the movie coz we can be pretty sure that the singer is not the actor and that the actor might not even have a taste for the music that's playing behind when he is 'running around trees'. Yet he is forced to act that way in order to create that feel which is not needed anyway. Thankfully, Rock On!! seems to be revolving around the rockstar life and the singer is the 'singer', and there are proper instruments used, few but proper. The tracks truly reflect their life and they are not born out of thin air in a dream-like world. This is pure Rock N Roll straight out of Bollywood, and it's a much-needed change and relief. Most of the songs are from this Genre, and there are a few slow ones too, which actually sound better and complete than the faster, raw ones. I don't know anything about the movie or the storyline which means we'll have to wait for it to release, but the music definitely breaks barriers for me. It's not the best music that I heard, but it's definitely good enough to spend some time with.

So, it's goodbye to Artificial Bollywood Crap (ABC), and welcome to Rock On!! Phew!! I can breathe now!

Our India

It's getting a bit of a habit posting atleast 2-3 days late. Maybe I am strictly following the 'Indian Standard Time' = +5:30Hrs or rather 5.5 Days... Anyway the visibility might be poor due to my over-creative attempts at creating posts. And most of them don't even make proper sense. Coming back to 'Our India', the recent I-Day celebrations opened my eyes to a few things. First thing, the Patriotism. Suddenly, with the use of online communities being excessive, people have found a good way to show their patriotism. The flags on the displays, I-day oriented themes, innumerable offlines and scraps about I-day, and stuff like that. Infact, the recent Gold at China has suddenly made people proud of their country. Patriotism has touched a new height this year and I seriously hope it only rises.

Second thing is, the meaning of Freedom itself. 60 Years ago, Freedom meant freedom from slavery, freedom from foreign rule, freedom to live life as a human. Today Freedom is this, "I can do whatever I want. No one can stop me" "My parents have gone out of town, I am Free!" "India is a free country. We can plant bombs and trees anywhere". Suddenly the word Freedom is almost being misutilized and misunderstood. But I am not the one who could make people realize it's true meaning.

Third thing: India is 6 decades old. Maybe in the longterm sense, it's young. But 6 decades is still old enough. What have we done to the country? Have we individually contributed anything towards the country? Nothing, other than a +1 increase in the Demographics. The country is still considered Young and the world is already growing old. The world is getting heated up and losing it's sheen. At such a moment, a young country like ours can easily make a difference. India is a huge country, and boasts of a population more than the whole of Europe and Australia combined! It's like about 15percent of the world's population and can't it make a difference? Surely it can. But what are we doing? We young people are too attracted to the fast-paced life of the other countries. Things like "Studying Abroad", "Working abroad", "Foreign citizen", "NRI" etc. are a matter of pride in the family where infact it should have been the other way round. Every Indian says this, yet every Indian follows this same trend. "After this, it's MS here, PhD there, and work somewhere else.... " Oh! Aren't we tired of this crap? No we are not! We all still love to study somewhere else! That includes me in it too ..... We simply accept the fact that we aren't good enough and take it for granted. That's the reason, in today's world, we don't learn well, we don't teach well, and we don't even work well.. India is a country taken for granted, India is a country that is assumed to be at a 'developing stage' forever. And all these thoughts come only to an Indian. Like me! It's all my fault. It's all our fault!

Occasion: Birthday

11th August 2008: The day I saw the last of my teenage life. Turning 20 should have been a big blast, but well, it didn't turn out quite that way but it was an enjoyable day nonetheless. A city in which roads turned into rivers is hardly a city where one would like to party. Inspite of this, we did open up some plans for a dinner blast at a local pub, but then, some weird forgetfulness and sleepiness got us all stuck at home. That's different story all together.
Most of this day was spent alone. But I do feel one must spend some time alone. It gives you time to think about all the things that you couldn't spare time for. 365 days of friends isn't really a great way to learn life. Some time alone (conscious time and not while dozing!!) really opens up the brain to do things that we've been ignoring from a long time. Anyway, this is a personal opinion and people might say, "2 Brains are better than one and an idle man's brain is a devil's workshop, etc.. " It's crap but it could be true...
11th August came to a silent end with me wishing my neighbour kid who was also born on the same day, 1995. The Gold Medal that "an" Indian won finally proved some "inferiority complexes" wrong and the pointed out that Cricket isn't the only sport/game in India.
Natarajan sent me a weird B'day gift through e-mail. It isn't an e-card, it isn't a greeting of any sort. It was simply a collection of old photographs of the times we spent more than 2 years ago. That bunch of images made me laugh so much - weirdo hairstyles, lecturers in my home, spy photos of our ex-Principal's home, experiments with guitars, car-driving lessons, making cocktails out of Sprite and many more funny things - that I really found it satisfying. Nothing was done on this day, but it was oddly fulfilling. It's all the feeling that one needs on his birthday.









On a closing note, I'll remember 11th August as my Birthday and India will remember 11th August as the day when the Barriers of Inferiority Broke Down and the Prayers of a Billion People were Answered.

Off Track

Something weird is going on around me. There's something that wants me to lose track of time! I cut the straps of 2 watches in 2 days. One of them is a FastTrack that will reach it's last day of Warranty Period tomorrow! The funnier thing is, both the watch straps cut seamlessly and without warning. Both of 'em just fell off suddenly. One second your watch is on, the next, you find it on the floor without realising it. And to add to that, the battery of the wall clock ran out too.

It's funny the way things want to throw me out of gear when I have to keep up with so many more. Yesterday was 08-08-08 and I only realised it when the Olympics in China kicked off with the Opening Ceremony (which was beyond grand). Things came flooding back and I remembered watching a show on Discovery about numbers that 8 is a lucky number for the Chinese as it is believed to bring Prosperity and we find the number everywhere including Number Plates on cars..

Anyway, one can't fall out of track just because his watch can't be worn anymore. We have so many gadgets around with us which do various functions including telling us the time. Things like Cell Phones, iPods, computers, laptops, all of them tell us time. Do we even need a watch then? Almost 95 percent of my class students don't wear watches. The ones who wear, wear them because they are designer watches made of Gold, or fitted with diamond studs. Yet when we see a person wearing a watch, it feels like there is some organised air around him/her. Maybe it's just the magic of a watch that keeps ticking with the help of that tiny Piezoelectric crystal.

Imagine life without time. What if there were no watches, phones, computers, TVs, etc.? Would we fall out? Would it be the end of time? One has to simply revert back to the olden ages and watch the movements of the sun (during day) and stars (at night). Some way or the other, one can find out the time of the day and the time of the year too, with a little observation and calculation. After all, that's how the ancient humans learnt to calculate time...

In the modern day, Time is just Money and nothing else!

It's 5:30PM and I am wasting time!

P.S. Watch out, coz this Watch post has struck a new idea in my brain chip. Keep Watching and observing atleast until i get my Watch back.

On coming home, ...

... I realised many things, the most important being, there's no place better than home.
Warning: What I am about to say is purely my opinion and it might differ with people. So no hard feelings here...

Description 1: It is a tiny village near the port town of Kakinada. Reaching it takes about 30min if one takes an auto or bus. It's beautiful. Lots of trees around, almost pollution-free. Simple roads, simple houses, simple people. I love such places.

Description 2: It's a tiny village near the port town of Kakinada. Reaching it takes about 30min if one manages to find an auto or bus and 3 hours if you can walk. Too many trees and animals around, and no vehicles (no transport) at all. No drain systems, too much stagnant water. Breeding ground for mosquitoes the size of moths. Only one Road, all others are pathways. Pathways are simply red coloured mud and stones. Extremely dusty during summer, and irritatingly slushy during monsoons. Avoid wearing anything below the knee coz you might have just ruined your new set of clothes. Power-cut during most of the day. Rather we could call it, daily few hours Power-supply. No shop within a few KM radius. No vehicles to take you out too. Only way to get to them, WALK. And they don't sell anything other than a few eatables. Nearest hospital, miles away. Most basic facilities missing. Pitch dark at night and you can't make out the difference between a snake and a branch. You can't make out the difference between a step and a ditch either. Coastal area, highly humid with sharp sunlight. Either get wet in the rain or in your own sweat. Simple people. They don't talk much. Only talk is about Religion and its countless rules. We had to fore go sleep because the Auspicious Time for the Ceremony was 1:03am. We had to arrange dinner for many before that, and then breakfast and lunch after that. Was a solid 40 Hours of no sleep or comfort. Oldest person in the house is Strongest and Loudest! The voice can be heard in the neighbourhood. Can't call them neighbours, they live too far away. No connectivity like Telephone, Internet (must be dreaming!!), etc. If people are visiting, they have to get crammed in the house. No hotels anywhere around. All 50 or even 100 people should get into the same house with a big garden and tiny rooms, blah, Blah, Blah...

Suddenly I love my house and my city!!

Outta Town

Leavin Hyderabad for a coupla days, in the very fateful train (Gautami Express) that caught fire just a few days ago and got scores killed. Leaving in another 15min with my fingers crossed...