A trip to remember!

The last week had been an amazing break from the monotonous rigors of my techie life. I'd been to Coorg( karnataka) with my school friends for over 4 days . The climate, the ambiance and the company made me feel a lot better and happier after a long long time. The adventure sports like river crossing,mountain climbing,kaykayaing and treking kicked out the lazy bum in me!! Gosh it was fun time. Just when i thought all my mobility was shunted to the small little cubicle at office, this trip with ma best pals gave me breather !! The trip was even more special coz one of ma friend is going away to the Uncle Sam's land and this would be the last trip with us for a long time ! so here are some memoirs of the trip.. some glances of the landscape of coorg, the enormous wild life santuary and the tea estates of coorg. Hope u guys enjoy the pics!

The wild life santuary at "Nagarhole". To reach coorg, you've got to pass throught the 20 odd Kms wild life santuary!.. amazing i tell u!

The wild elephants roamin!.. They look clam in the pic, but i tell u they were pretty wild!!

thats how close we could get to it!!

The dark woods and empty road!!

The deers!!

The golden temple of Buddha!

The statue of buddha - all of GOLD!

Early morning view of coorg
The way to water fall and mountain climbing!
Dark and dangerous!
The "IRUPU" waterfall ( summer time - a lil less, the locals say in monsoon, its a devil!)
River crossing activity.. Looks easy wen u go down,the real fun is when u come back the same way!
The Bonfire and mad dance!!!
hehe!! RDB style :P (ikkis topon ki salaami!!)
And this is how your feet look after a day's ordeal!!

The breathtakin view of the (tata) tea estates!

Right under the water fall!
Extreme Right thats me!!! mountain climbing!!
Kaykaying almost falling over!!! :P
The Team!
And finally tired, happy and napping!!! The return back!!

It was one of the most memorable time i've ever had .. there were loads of them left ( 4 GB in total!!!) jus selected a few to give a glimpse of the entire journey! hope you guys liked the pics too

cheers!
rammy

An attempt to write in hindi!

Hi all, its been quite a while since i've got away from the blogosphere.. but was held up at work!..
I always wanted to attempt something in our "rashtra bhasha".. here is a small attempt. Do read on and let me know if you like it or not.

Disclaimer! I wrote this when my ass was being kicked at office and was completely out of inspiration. It will sound melancholic but bear with me! ... So here You Go!

लम्हा लम्हा ज़िंदगी के,
गुज़रते है यादों मे,
उन सुलझे हुए दीनो में,
वो छोटे से पॅलो में|

वो पहली बारिश की बूंदे,
वो सावन केइ झूले,
दूर चले आए हम अपने सपनों का लिए,
उन खुशियों के तले,
लम्हा लम्हा ज़िंदगी के,
गुज़रते है यादों मे|

छोटे से थे वो दिल,
छोटी थी वो खुशियाँ,
हौसला जावा, उमंग हर घड़ी,
फुरवई में थी महेक,
लम्हा लम्हा ज़िंदगी के,
गुज़रते है यादों मे|

थे नादान वो पल,
थे बेदाग वो दिल,
इनमें अब है बस तन्हाई,
लम्हा लम्हा ज़िंदगी के,
गुज़रते है यादों मे|

ज़िंदगी में ना जाने कहाँ चले आए,
ज़िंदगी को जीतने,ज़िंदगी को हीछोड़ आए,

लम्हा लम्हा ज़िंदगी के,
गुज़रते है यादों मे,
उन सुलझे हुए दीनो में,
वो छोटे से पॅलो में|

Thanx for staying till the end ( if u have come till here!) .. Plz lemme know ur comments/views !

cheers!
rammy

Zindagi Part II

A "normal" day at office left me gasping for breath yesterday, and i logged on to my favourite pass time when i came back home. You-tubing! yea this is one thing that keeps me going sometimes. I randomly search and play videos of great sports persons, orators, singers and others. So like always, while glancing through some videos, i stumbled upon this beautiful piece! Take a look and i'm sure u'll be transported back in time...atleast I WAS! back then when i saw the movie , the scene did not really get to me maybe coz i was still honeymooning in college, or maybe i was too lively to understand the melancholy associated with it. But now 3 years hence, i coherse with every bit of it thats spoken!! I know i'm sounding like a nut whoz lived off his entire life or a big time pessimist, but hey arent we allowed to FEEL sometimes too??? Or is it that the "PACE" of life today has repudiated our right to be sensitive and respond to the conscience? How long has it been since we have learnt to take a look at our selfs and FIND ourselves ? I cant but agree to every line that aamir utters in the video. havent we all experienced the same conflicts within us at some point in time?

Havent we discovered the erosion or atleast gradual decline of the child-like enthusiasm , the ever powering will and the never say die spirit we had? Not that we are dead woods now, but havent we all undergone the so called "METAMORPHOSIS" from uncanny to calculated, from selfless to "prudent" , from being content to being "KOOL!",all of us (or atleast most of us) have dilapidated the innocence and the fun in our lives. Dont take me for a society basher and No. i'm not trying to lambaste any of the people out there for turning that way. All i'm trying to understand the incredible power of the society we live in. Its bemusing to even imagine how a happy-go-lucky college goer transforms into an extreme "Professional". One who strives hard enough to be successful - not just by elevating himself/herself but if needed mersilessly crushing peers and pals. Ah...the inflated price of success!

The once sparkle eyed boy/girl with aims and aspirations so high that even sky had no choice but to let them pass it, have grown into "Gentle"men and Ladies who've happily forgone their self and settled for the somber cubicles as their kingdoms! The generous laughs and effervescent banter have matured into more "Meaningful" conversations and calculated Humor! Hail the "cultured" masses! No, not that i hate being "Rozgaar", but still i wonder how life would have been if barter system still existed!!!!! would we still traded our soul and life for a living??

How has the selfless helping nature and unconditional acceptance "reformed" into transactions of "what-for-me" and "what-for-that" attitude?? so shrewd to make even the best of businessmen jealous! or are we just following the framework laid down by our own fellow beings by the name "Society". (beh ohh..apni akkal ko kya ghaas charne bheja hai!!)

Well therz so much to ramble about and scream out, but then there are some things better left unsaid . We may cry and crib about how life has changed . How we've lost the joy and purity. How the great happiness has faded into oblivion , how we've turned into machines with surprising ease.... In the end we need to realize this is life post-interval..... My friends and fellow beings Welcome to "ZINDAGI PART II"

Tim Lak Lak Te Tim LAK LAK!! l

P.S : For those wondering whether this ramble is a result of insane mind or anything else, let me clarify, well its a result of both experinces by self and others...

more ramblings later!
rammy

A Dog And The Effect Of Insomnia!

Disclaimer: Post scribbled out of sheer frustration and wakcho mind. May be fatal in some cases. Weak and restless are cautioned- The author holds no resposibility for the reader's fury and madness after reading the blog:

Its official- I'm a wretched Head! Yes Yes, Take a Bow , Take a Bow!( though a lot of you might have already deciphered it ages ago- self realization you see is the most satisfying of'em all!). What prompted such a enlightment you may ask!. a DOG- Yes a nimble 4 legged ( or maybe 2 legged and 2 hand-convertible legs! do dogs have hands? Damn!No wonder my biology teacher hated me) tounge swagging creature made me realize this eternal truth. OK now how you may ask?? for this though you need to go throught the following not-so-long-yet-so -long touture! So if you wish to oblige the creepy author, here it goes

Yesterday,Like most of the days i was in the night shift in my office ( this was a swap shift). The time of the night for normal sane humans was either that of sound sleep or a cozy movie time at home. Not for me though, at 12.30 i was scuttling across the broad way of my office complex. The night was still jawan ,thanks to the brightly lit beacon like lights. Still an hour to go before i finally call it a day(rather night!) i was feeling sleepy and extremely lunatic. Try doing a continuous 20 day night shifts and you'll realize what shit it feels like. Unable to bear a bloody headache, i decided a tea break was what i needed. Plugging my nokia N73 music edition into my ear canals, and crooning to the music of "Its My life" , i ventured out into the calm and serene night. outside the office, therez this chaiwala bhayya from assam. He boils some excellent tea which puts sense and spirit back into my withered soul. A few pints (read tea) and some "Osmaina Buiscuts" later, i was much better if not great - headache still rampant though. I sat at the car park just outside the gate. The music playing was "Summer Of 69" . How ironic i thought here i was pathetic state of mind and there our adams was singing ode of happiness and nostalgia!...
Ok enough of digressing, u might be wondering why the dog hasnt come yet! so let me retreat back on track.

Almost when i was leaving back to my pigeon-hole( cubicle) , i saw a this tail wagging creature staring at me. It was giving me a cynical stare. I felt like, given a chance for it to speak right at that moment, it might have said " They say Dog's life is pathetic of all- BUT HOW GOOD IS YOURS!!! how great are u leading you life in that shit hole of yours". Right at that moment Mind you, 22 years of ma existance seemed like crowshit! And there i was insulted by a DOG!!! furious and exasperated, i started blaring out verbal volleys at that thing. And then started the most interesting part The Conversation with a DOG !

Me: WTF do you think you are?A silly little legged creature,a bloody loathed living being??

Doggy: Forget about me, speak for your self. What use are you of except warming your seat every day and sulking back home?

Me: I have a great career( which after almost 2 years is going no where!), i have a life of comforts and leisure, a pay that fills up my pocket( which generally dry up by the first week always!), flanky office spaces and comfort living.. al in all i've got a bloody great LIFE!

Doggy: SO, thats it? u'r gonna get stuck here for the rest of your life? sulking like ever before and working up like insane ?
Me: Who said so, i am making my plans i'm gonna have fun, work hard and party harder . I'm planning to make ma life better and great!

Doggy: yea right! like u always have been "PLANNING" since ages right!

Thats it.. that final remark was the last nail in the coffin. My Big fat ego got punchured and that made me furious( aag babula types !) and breathing fire, i almost kicked the creature( all you PETA follwers, HANG ON!! i havent done any harm to it!) , there was a tap on the shoulder!

A watchman was right behind me and was telling me " Kya Hua sir aap aisa kyo dekh rahe hai us kutte ko? main bahut der se dekh raha hu aap usko gusse se dekh rahe hai!!"

I was shaken by that comment, i looked again in the same direction and saw the dog quite a few good meters away!!

Geezz! i was delirious! i was bloody hallucinating!! .. or was i venting out my dissapointments, or is it an effect of too many night shifts ??i do not know? nonetheless, visibily shaken after a rather cranky break, i returned back to ma pigeon-hole!! realizing that i am wretched in ma head!!
So heres me modifying the great Robert Forst's lines :

The office is sickening,dark and crap,

But I have SLA's and KPI's to keep,

Now that you are cuddling up to sleep,

Dont dare to smile at me You Creep! .

The Dog and the Effect of insomnia!


SO all of you who are cursing/scolding or wondering what did i write about here: the dog, me or my mundane work life, Mind you I am neither aware!! .. So if you want to catch ma head and bang it for coming up with this tourture, please read the disclaimer once more!!! i told u i'm a whako!!!



Thanks for coming this far if you have!

Any scoldings/emphaties/solidarity for mentally challenged author may be kindly directed into the "Comments Box".


may there be peace
rammy

The First Anniversary- Of Sorts!!!

Its 5.00 in the morning... I'm writing up a post with a post with happy title and DAZED pic!! Dont mistake me for severely crazy or sleep deprived maniac!! Today, February the 28th is the first anniversary of that incident that dazed me up. A shocking event....one of the biggest accidents i met with ....Errr..oh no.... or rather THE BIGGEST accident that "WE"( me and my best friend Glenn) had met with!...Wondering why reminiscing the gory incident?? Herez why!! Check out the hour-by-hour of what happened and how!

28th Feb,2008 8:00PM: It was the normal hot,humid and irritating chennai day/night ( well it dosent matter whether its day or night, winter or summer in chennai ... ITS ALWAYS BLOODY HOT!!!). After wrapping up for the day @ apiz , i was just planning to leave for home.. Oh and there, just then i realize i had to pay my mobile bill.(as usual, i postponed it to the last day and it was today-or-outgoing cut kinda scenario!!!) So the plan changed and i called up ma friend, ma bhai GLENN Fernandes saying i'll be late and explained the scene at hand! ( for starters, glenn and me go back a long way since the college days , he's a brother and ma best bud!) He being a shweto popped the idea of goin together. Great i thought: pay the bill , Go to the beach restaurant, Have a great dinner and get back home... Mid week bash!!!. So here we go our heros set out for a nice lil fun evening!!!....

28th Feb,2008 9:00PM: After puffing out some crazy bucks on the auto wala ANNAS and cursing them to the core, we finally paid the bill and got out... kool enough for a walk to the beach i thought!.. So we set out to the beach and subsequent dinner.

28th Feb,2008 10:00PM: We ordered our fav food ( getting theek thaak khana in chennai is a task in it self u c!) and time passofied there....The time went by quick and even before realizing, we were done with the sumptuous meal. Happy and content that the cooking and cleaning chores could be done without @ home for that day ( YES - we cooked!!) we set out to home..

28th Feb,2008 11:00PM: Considering that we lived far off from the city, it took 1 long hour almost to reach our place.Not withstandig the clutter and the moanings of the rickety auto we kept talking and whaling away our time. Every thing seemed fine till then....the script was pretty normal and mudane. We were about a Kilometer away fron our drop and suddenly...

THUD!! DHAD !!! before we realized, the auto leapt in the air and somersaulted. We were gyrating inside the auto like some grains rotating in a mixer-grinder! bodies crashing and heads bumping inside it, the auto came crashing down head first and collapsed taking us with it. The impact rattled the metal chunk, that we got stuck inside the auto and it kept bumping and dragging on the road . Unable to free ourselves , my head kept bumping on the road like a tennis ball. After about dragging for 10 feet or so, the auto; now a mere shattered metal chunk came to a screeching halt!! The momentum threw us out and i came crashed out onto the road. A lorry jus zoomed past me just a second after i jolted out from the road. Thank heavens! If it had come a second before, i'd have been cut into pieces!!!!!!
I got up and checked for glen : He was there sitting on the road brusied legs and hands bleeding like hell.!! looking at him, i could not even asses the damage done to maself as the only thing that stuck me was taking him to the hospital. So here i was doing a resuce act( YES- there were bloody 50 people surrounding us and just WATCHING TAMASHA!) . Limping and crawling with gelnn on one shoulder, i reached the hospital finally!( we took another auto, and the that B*****d was bargaining at that time too!! heck !). We reached the hospital and right then, i collapsed!!

The Next time i regain my senses, i see glenn beside me, hads platered and legs being attended to. I was told that i had internal injuries on the head chest and elbow. I could sense that coz it was paining like hell and there was no sign of a bruise!... A ct-scan of head and an x-ray were suggested--JUST TO MAKE SURE NOTHING IS WRONG!.. i denied saying if anything looked wrong i'd come back the next day! The onli calming effect for me was the decleration from the doc saying glenn had no major injuries except bruises on the hand. I sighed in relief, for atleast he was ok.

Finally with the help of a couple of friends, we returned home: An end to the dreadful day!.


29th Feb,2008 1:00AM (wee hours): Unable to sleep and tired of moaning withn pain, i and glen started talking, reflecting on the incident that had occured . We reflected on our time spent in college and the good, bad and ugly situations we faced together. We called up another friend of ours back in HYD to give him the flash news : spoke to him and then finally when every ounce of energy had saturated, we fell asleep!!

Okay.... agreed that was one helluva incident, but why glorify the gory day ??? Well there were some tremendous lessons learnt on that day !

(1) You are alloted credit balance of some definite days to live and come what may u are destined to live them completly!( It would have taken just that second for the lorry to cut me apart- BUT NO I WAS DESTINED TO LIVE!)

(2) Come what may, whatever happens the life goes on: If u are down pick urself up and start moving. Help URSELF.

(3) You never know when u'll get a call, so LIVE HAPPY TILL YOU'r ALIVE!

(4)If you are happy and hale today its coz of evry good deed you might have done some where to some one. Good wishes do save you!

(5) The last and most important * Never go in an auto, When the driver is inebriated!- NEVER NEVER! ( we only found that out when it all happened!)

Awrite 5.59 now!! gotta crash( No..not dat..SLEEP!) .....

take care and god bles!!

P.S : For those of you wondering how many days did it took for me to be alright .Well it took almost 3 weeks to be fine. And yea even today i have a bump and a cut on ma head!!!!!


Peace
rammy

Lost and Found!

I've been rambling quite a lot on the blogosphere about how life's treating me like hell, how its givin me nothin to smile about and be happy.In shot- I was feeling LOST. Lemme tell you the feeling was quite mutual ; Life too has been telling me the same. It was telling me- gimme a chance, show faith and i'll show you how you can be happy. Alas! i couldnt figure out how ....! But thank heavens i knew it today :)

Small story- hope u find it nice :) .It so happened on this friday afternoon, i recieved a mail in the office about a cricket tournament to be held on the weekend. Inspite of being a cricket maniac , i never gave it a thought giving myself a reasons that were pretty silly.
1) Its been over 3 years since i even touched the cricket ball and bat! ( wot am i gonna play!)
2) The venue is too far ( read GOLKONDA FORT!)
3) I'm already tired and dont wanna waste my weekend travelling.

Citing these nonexistant reasons, i comforted myself and carried on with my business. The mind though was thinking about the match! A frnd of mine- my team mate, rushed to me telling me about the same mail. I gave him a sly smile and told " Na bhai- the venue is too far.. i cant come so early"- lame..! It was here that it all started. This very gud bhai of mine Mr Shanmukh persuaded me to enroll myself and come to the match. After much deliberation and dilemma, i gave in my name reluctantly though. A team meeting followed for the selection and i was chosen as the captain- wow i thought!! pretty excited i went back with a grin on my till-now-frowny-face ( after all, i was playing something i always loved and am absolutely mad about!)

Getting up at 5.00 AM on a saturday morning is not my style, Yet i did it yesterday..reason the game started at 8.00 and i had to travel long. All throught the travel i kept going back to my school days when playing cricket was a lifeline. By the time i reached the venue, i had pretty much a clear vision of what-to-do. Since we were short of a few players, we got some from other projects. Finally - a team of 11 and ready to go!

First the qualifiers- and we beat the opponents thrashing them down!!! AWESOME i thought!! ( going into it, we were pretty much underdogs, no practise no grt players. OUR win was the last thing ppl thought!).. This raised our excitement and enthu by leaps and bounds. Personally, i was elated; not for the result, but for the effort- the pleasure of doing some thing i love MY PASSION . They say when you give 100%, you sleep well that night, and yes i did sleep well and happy ( even with bruised hands and crackled body!) . Then today we went into the semis and put up an exemplary performance. The entire bunch gave it all(a frnd got hit too :( ). Thanks to some irreasonable umpiring and stupid sportsman ship of the opponents ( i know its a cliche- but it happend) the result was not in our favour. Dosent matter we said to ourselves, We enjoyed the process of being in the team, fighting it out and at the end of it all feeling 100% happy of ourselves!
A great weekend in all ways :)
So what lost and found you may ask- Well, what i lost till yesterday was my happiness, my jolly spirit , my positivity and my PASSION. today though i've all of them back and some few very good and genuine new friends :). I've found out i can be what i was before. I found out its only me who can make my self better and happy. I've found that it was not just any other cricket match . It made me realise that you can be happy if decide to be, you can be content if you believe in yourself. Most of all It was a saviour of my damping spirit!

I've found MYSELF back! added with new found enthusiam and a revived vigour!

Lessons learnt : Follow ur heart and purse you passions. You are bound to be happy and content if you wish to be. !

Looking foward for a grt week ahead and some serious fun.
LIFE ROCKS!!

Bad brusies and swollen body- gotta take rest now....bye for now!!

cheers and peace!
rammy