Jaane kyon ji bhara sa rehta hai...

I use to have this nightmare as a kid, which I never remembered once I woke up. All I remember is that it felt like getting crushed under a weight of thousand mountains. For some reason these days I see this nightmare even when I am awake. I know right now you are thinking, what the heck has happened to me, why I am talking like this. But trust me just read this if you want to and then forget it. Dont ever talk to me about this, dont try to help me.

I want to jump in a pool and sit at its bottom and not hear anything thats going on around me. I dont want to feel the world around me. I want to stay in a moment, a single moment in time. A jiffy. That way the world around me will stop and I will have enough time to figure this one out. Because as of now I am clueless as to why, what, how and when this feeling got grip of me. There are a lot of other things that I should be doing right about this minute, but I am not. I should be writing my apps, I should be sleeping so that I am fresh in office tomorrow, I should be meditating to find out whats bugging me, but I am not. Am I procastinating figuring this one out? or Am I just too scared? or maybe even dumb to figure it out?

Or is it that I already know the answer but I just dont want to believe it......yet. Is this a problem of plenty or is it a lack of any? I am not sure yet. But the only way to get rid of this is to face it and fight it. I know I will come out victorious at the other end of this tunnel, but I dont know how long will I take to get through it.

I'll see you when I get there.

Sirf dil mein jagah honi chahiye.....

I guess this post was a long time coming. In fact I should have posted it before I started blogging.

Today while I was riding back home after returning my sunglasses for service I passed by an old friends home and I guess this is what triggered me to write this post. Lets call him KP for the sake of this post.

I made friends with him when we met up at our first job. I still remember the first two months of our training, that was a blast. As in school and college, we all were still back benchers. Dozing off after the first 15mins of the session, to wake up only in the last 15mins. But we all still managed to pass out of the training, ofcourse without the "flying colours".

It was in the month of September that KP invited us to his home for Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations. We all were excited to catch up with each other once again, as we had been working out of two different offices and hardly got a chance to hang-out after our initial training programme. So I made sure that I had the address jotted down and on the day of Ganesh Chaturthi I headed to his home on my bike. When I reached there I was a bit baffled, because I didnt see any building at that address, it was a small building which was somewhat like a chaul. I for some reason had expected a building similar to mine.

I stood there for a couple of minutes trying to get thru to KP on my cell phone. He asked me to wait and that he was going to come down to get me. After some five minutes KP came out of the small gulli and then we both walked up to his home. It was a couple of small rooms, each probably the size of my kitchen, about 60sq.ft. each. In those small room KP lived with his parents and if I am not wrong his cousins. As I was the first one to reach to his place, I had the opportunity to talk to his family at length. I still remember his father talking to me, he happened to mention that they earlier lived in a much bigger home and since he needed money to finance the weddings of his three sisters they had to move into this smaller home. Moreover, his business was not flourishing as before so the financial situation was a bit tight too.

In about an hours time everyone else was there too. So then we did the pooja with full enthusiasm, although I didnt remember any prayers completely, I did manage to shout out loud in the chorus. Later we fiested on batata poha, sweets and some cold drinks. We all were so happy to be there, catching up on the gossip. Each had their own funny office experiences to share. On my way out while I was saying my good bye's to KP and his family, my heart was overwhelmed with emotions. That day I realized the "King sized" heart KP had and how easily his simple smile summed it all up.

I am still in touch with KP, only through a social networking site though. I hope someday we meet up again. Cheers bro!

Bakwaas band kar!

Usually I am up until 2:00AM on a Friday night because we are out partying. However, this Friday it was something else that was keeping me awake. Nope, it wasn't me dreaming about some gal and neither was it some scary movie I had watched. It was acute toothache!!

I guess it was God's way of saying, "dude tu bahut bolta hai, now its time you kept quite for a while".

I have never had any teeth problem in my life so far, but I guess har cheez ka first time hota hai. My lower-right wisdom tooth wouldn't let me sleep; coming to think of it I guess thats why I do constant bakwaas. My wisdom tooth and I dont seem to like each other. lol....

It was already 10:00AM Saturday morning and although I was very tired and sleepy, the toothache wouldnt let me. Finally, after taking a painkiller, which apparently takes almost an hour or so to show its effects, I got some sleep.

At 5:00PM as the effects of the medication started to wear out I lay awake in my bed once again. The only options I had were to pop another pill or consult a Dentist. So I figured tomorrow being a Sunday, I would be in trouble if the pain didnt subside eventually, so took a shower and headed to the Dentist's clinic. The funny thing was that her clinic is open only in the morning. So then I looked up another dentist at 7 bunglows.

After hearing my story, doing a thorough analysis of my teeth, and complementing me on my cavity-free teeth the dentist gave me two options. First, to grind my wisdom tooth in size so that they dont cause cheek-bites, which had caused the infection and pain, in my case. Second, a long-term and permanent solution, to extract the upper wisdom tooth as it was growing in the wrong direction. Now, I did what any sane person would have done, picked the first option. However, after the treatment, where the dentist was grinding my teeth in size, I realized that a sane person would not have picked option one either and instead would have rushed out of the dentists office.

After all the teeth grinding, which felt as if someone was shaping a piece of marble in my mouth, the doctor prescribed some painkillers and antibiotics for three days. As I write this post I wear a "poker face" as I cant talk or smile.

The next time I have a teeth problem I guess I will think twice before visiting the dentist.

a pie of pizza, a bottle of wine....a slice of HEAVEN I call mine

I like to think of myself as a person who lives in the present or atleast someone who does not waste his present for his past or future. But sometimes what you are and what you want to be, does not really coincide.

I remember those weekends when on my drive back home I use to stop by the local wine shop, Morrisville Wines, to pick up a bottle of chardonay, merlot or shiraz. Leave the bottle in the freezer so that it gets cold, freshen up and then pour a glass of wine while I popped a rental DVD into the player. Sit back and watch the movie, usually something wacky or emotional, sip on the wine and order a pie of pizza. Now I could not have had the pizza all by myself, or maybe I could, but I knew that Pratik (my roommate) is going to drop in any moment and join me in the party.

In fact I had been wanting to sip a glass (read bottle) of wine, enjoy a pizza by the side, sit back and watch a movie for over a week now. The only thing is that now I dont have my own home and what was more irritating is that now I didn't have a roommate like Pratik. But I guess we all have to learn to deal with it. So today while my mom and dad were away at my cousins, I took the liberty to get a bottle of wine and order a pizza.

I dont mean to be a bitch, but the experience wasn't the same. For starters, the wine shopping experience is not even close to being the same. I use to browse almost two aisles of wine bottles before settling for the one bottle I picked and here I had to pick one standing on the out side of the closed shop. Then came the movie, although it wasn't the same, it wasn't bad. As Jitu had lent me a couple of movies in the afternoon I had a pretty good collection to select from. However, browsing a catalog on a DVD vending machine has its own charm (and disapppointments aswell). Finally the pizza, which I guess is one of the most important ingredient of the whole experience, was not even in the same league. Somehow the pizza's in Mumbai (or India) are customized to please the indian palate, not that I dont like them, but chicken tikka pizza does not taste half as good as an italian thin crust chicken pizza baked in a brick oven does with wine.

Someday I will be able to experience the magic again. Just not yet.

I was meant to be

i wish i were drunk
i wish i were dead
i wish i were everything i ever cared

i know i was scared
i know i never dared
i know i could have been everything i ever cared

now i am me
now i can see
now i shall only be what i was meant to be

On any given Sunday

This post was a long time coming.

I had wished that my last sunday in US is a memorable one. And as I am gods favourite kid, he granted my wish. Not exactly what I had in mind, but then thats the funny thing about wishes. There is never a perfect (flawless) wish.

It was a normal sunday morning, except for the fact that I had to deliver my car to the ahole (for reasons you will know later, real name Kawsar) who had bought it. We started from home me, Ashish, Ananth and Vipul. Ananth was my ride back home. The drive was going to be a long one some 80 miles one way. So with Ashish in the passenger seat I started with all enthusiasm. We stopped by the local Dunkin for donuts and coffee and in the mean while I gave my car a final wash in the drive thru. On our way out of the lot we clicked some snaps, after all this was my first car. Memories remain.

We drove about 40 miles on the NJ Turnpike (I-95N) and for some reason I needed to take a second look at the directions I had jotted down from google maps. And there it was revelation number one, I had forgotten the maps back home. But thats wasnt it, we could have managed without the map as Ananth had GPS in his car. But along with the maps I had also left the paperwork, car title, at home. Now losing my temper (at my stupidity) and patience, we decided to go back. We informed Ananth about the same and asked him to stay put until we returned.

After almost an hour and a half we returned to the same exact location and picked up the remaining 40 miles. In the mean while Mr.Ahole had called up on my cell some 2-3 times, wondering as to why we were taking so much time. So I had to do all the explaining and convince him that I will be there in next hour or so.

Now with extra 80 miles added to the trip my gas calculations went wrong and we had to stop for refueling. As a precautionary step I decided to throw in a bottle of gunk cleaner along with the gas. This is where I had revelation number two. As I pulled out of the gas station the check engine light came on. Now for those who dont know, a check engine light is something that shows up on your dashboard indicating that there was something wrong with the car/engine. It could be any reason from a partially closed fuel cap to a misfiring ingnition. But the thing about this light is no one would buy a car with this thing on. So for a minute I thought I was doomed.

After checking the fuel cap which was indeed open, I checked under the hood. Trust me I dont know anything about car engines, but then it just felt like the most logical thing and I did it anyways. That's when I remembered that Mr.Ahole and his friends were cheking under the hood and they had pulled out one of the connectors of the spark plug. It was only later that a mechanic told me that they had broken it. And I thought those Bangladeshi's knew what they were doing. Thanks alot Mr.Ahole.

So now I had only one thing to do, try and sell the car with the check engine light on. Since the car was running fine I decided to go all the way and take a chance. Thats when revelation number three came into lime light. Mr.Ahole's entire family was in the car business, buying and selling cars. From what it seemed they were into the business of ripping of innocent people like me of their money or cars or both. Mr.Ahole's elder brother lets call him Mr.B-hole (read Big Ahole) drove us to his brother-in-laws garage, who was going to check the car and confirm it was a good buy before I got the remaining payment. Now that pissed me off, I thought the deal was already on, why else would I drive 80miles to sell my car? But I guess that was revelation number four:Me being naieve and stupid, not necessarily in that order.

After almost an hour of questioning from all the B'desis who dressed and talked like wannabe african-americans, I had enough. However, one good thing did happen, the mechanic fixed the check-engine light. And confirmed that Mr.Ahole's friend who played around under the car's hood knew nothing about cars or spark plugs. After all the hassels Mr.Ahole wasnt willing to buy the car for something that was wrong because of him and his friends. I lost it there and then and called off the deal. But thats when revelation 5 came in, I was too hasty and decided to return him the toked he had left with me. Now why would I do that, I didnt need to. I shouldnt have, but I guess I was scared getting beaten up by pseudo african-american-bangladesi's in a Bghetto (a bangladesi ghetto) or maybe I was too righteous. Whatever the reason I made a mistake.

Mr.B-hole however was a little considerate and apologized for the inconvenience his brother had caused me, yeah like it mattered. He also offered me $100 for the fuel that they had costed me. I could have brought fuel worth the amount and put it to good use, to burn them with it!! But then again I was on their turf, and more importantly I am not a violent man.

So on my way back I was really agitated, for one I had only 1 more week to sell my car and no buyers, because I had already turned all of them down , after my deal with Mr.Ahole was set on Friday night. Funny isn't it, but wasn't funny at all back then.

On our way back, we decided to take route-1 back home instead of the interstate. It took us longer than it would have if we would have stuck with the interstate. But I did say it was one hell of a Sunday, now didn't I. So on the final stretch on Rt-1 I had floored the gas pedal, and when I did let go of it, the car wouldnt slow down. This was revelation number 6. I did kick it a couple of times but no luck. I took me a couple of seconds to digest the fact that my gas pedal was stuck. So here I was on Rt-1 at 65mph with my gas pedal stuck and nowhere to go but right as the light straight ahead was RED. I jumped the brakes which did slow the car down to 30mph but not any further. And as soon as I eased the brakes the car would once again race to 65mph. So I turned right on the light and pulled over into the first spot of open land visible. It might sound simple but it was anything but simple. Now I know the intensity of the movie scene where an actor driving down the hill suddenly realizes that his brakes don't work.

After I successfully pulled my car over into a patch of open land by the Delaware river, the only logical thing to do was to pull the keys. That did stop the car but with some nasty jerks before it came to dead stop. Finally, we had to call a tow truck to load the carcass and haul it to a repair shop.

With such an exciting Sunday there was only one logical thing left to do, relive every moment of it over a six pack of beers. And that we did me, Ananth, Ashish and Vipul. Cheers brothers!!

Gravity Hurts

You know some days are like most other days and then some other days are not like every other day. I think you are as confused as I am. Ok lets try it again. Every once in a while your day is special. But you wouldnt know it until it ends. Its not like you get out of the bed and you know its a going to be a special day today...or maybe you do on some ocassions.

But today was a special day and I didnt realize it until right now. I dont want to start from "I stepped out of my bed and....blah...blah..." so I will leave the unnecessary details....like I had to visit the washroom twice and I didnt take a bath until 3 o'clock in the afternoon and stuff. I know you have your own chores to worry about and if you are normal human being you have one very similar to what I do.

These days as my parents are here with me in US, my evening routine is to take them out to one of the shopping malls nearby or a big store like BestBuy, Target, Walmart etc. So today it was ToysRUs. We wanted to buy some toys for my nephew Rish, who is now almost 1.5yrs. Somehow I love toy stores, maybe because I didnt get a chance to visit any as a kid. We didnt have huge toy stores back in the day, I am not sure if we have any even today. While we were looking around for toys for Rish. I happend to find something for myself.

As a kid I use to love the toys that you had to put together. The ones which ships with all the parts and a crappy sheet of paper that showed how to put them all together. I might be wrong but I guess LEGO pioneered the concept. I remember putting all the G.I.Joe sets together for my nephew Dharmesh. Yeah I know it sounds funny. But I was an uncle at a small age of 7-8yrs. So today when I saw the BIONICLE building toys, I had to get one for myself. And me being me(read stupid) I bought two of them. I felt as if I was reliving my childhood, or rather living the childhood dreams that were left un-fulfilled. I just couldnt wait to get home and get down to putting the pieces together.
It took me a while to put both the figurines together, and once I was done, for some really stupid reason I felt a sense of achievement and excitement. Something similar to finishing a sand castle on the sea shore using your bare hands. It was like the missing piece of jigsaw was finally put into place. Now I wanted more, so I logged online to check out what other sets I could get for myself.

While I was browsing the BIONICLE website I stumbled upon their downloads section and the mp3s they have in there. These are rock songs played by various artists for the promotion of the toys. In fact they also had a set of shorts to promote the entire series and to give a background story of the characters and their quest. I really feel like a kid, a kid from today's generation, which I would say "IS FUN".

One of the sound tracks used in the short clip is "Gravity hurts" give it a listed if you like soft rock, its worth it. And while you listen to the song I will get back to my new toys :)

Linux rocks!

Ok now if you searched some key words like "hate windows" and landed this page, turn around and go back. Because I sure as hell don't hate windows. Infact I love windows XP. It has been the most significant OS after windows 95, coz we all know 98 was bad.

I have been experimenting with linux since the early days, partitioning my HD and installing linux on it. But back in the day installing Linux required skill and patience. Lots of patience. I have messed up my HD more than once, but I aint a kid who dreads fire after getting burnt.

It all started a couple of months back when I heard about Ubuntu. I downloaded a LiveCD of Ubuntu (7.04) and gave it a spin. I was impressed. Linux has come a long way since the early days. You can now use the OS get a complete feel of it without installing it at all. Thats the magic of LiveCD. Now I wanted to install it, but my 40Gb HD didnt have any space on it for another OS.

So last week I upgraded my laptop HD to a new 160Gb Seagate and installed Ubuntu on it along with my WinXP (dual-boot). Installed Beryl on it, for desktop effects, and now my laptop has all the tricks of vista and more...for free.

If you want to know what effects Beryl is capable of, just check out the videos on youtube. Mission accomplished. My first post using Ubuntu!