18 till I die....ahhh.....cough......cough!!!!

When do you know that you are old??
The answer is "You will never know!!!"

Then
----

It was one of those jobless days in my previous organization. I was woken up by a buzz in my IM window from "KS".
OK, a little history about my association with KS.
He was one of my best buddies in office. We used to discuss everything under the sun over countless cups pf coffee/horlicks/boost etc...
For us "everything under the sun" meant gossip, gossip and more of it. Things like, who is having an affair with whom, whose manager is the meanest so on and so forth.

It so happened that later some point he got so bored with doing nothing that he thought of quitting the company.
He joined another company who paid him in buckets, for what??

Obviously, for “doing nothing"!!!

Now back to the call:

Me: dude what's up?

KS: going good man,

Me: So how is your new office?

KS: It is good, but there is no collection man!!

For the uninformed: 'Collection' means concentration of (good looking) girls!!

Me: So sad man.. We just had a new batch of freshers joining today yippee…:-D

KS: :-(

Me: So, who are all you friends man?

KS: what to say man, all are old people, whenever we meet all they want to talk is about their kids and family man. I get really bored!!!

Me: LOL....get a life dude!!!!

Today
----

A popular restaurant near office, we are celebrating one of my colleague’s kid's birthday.

Friend 1 (To Friend 2): So, how is your kid doing?

Friend 2: He is doing fine, only problem is he is having trouble "burping" after having milk.

Me: Oh... is it what does you have to do in that case?

Friend 2: For my kid we used to do..........
............................................
............................................

The discussion went on for sometime. Meanwhile I noticed one guy sitting next to me looking really bored.
To break the ice I asked him, so how old is you kid??
Sudden came the answer; "I don’t have a kid, I am a bachelor"!!!

I don’t know why, he reminded me of SK!!

a day in office

- Morning Come to office
- yaaawwwn.....
- See mail from my Manager about a release to be made on tuesday.
- confused
- Panic, feeling miserable
- curse my Manager
- Feeling thirsty, drink some water
- Not enough, drink some more water.
- Trying to relax, thinking what to do.
- Checking out the code and trying to build
- Looking at modules others have done.
- Copy..paste
- again Copy..paste
- again Copy..paste( repeat 10 times).
- Try building, nothing works
- Make some changes, build, it crashes..wow there's improvement.
- Debug, found that the variable names clashed..damn I should have known!!
- Search...Replace
- again Search...Replace
- again Search...Replace( repeat 10 times)
- Build, run, Not working!!
- Run again, voilà...it works!!
- Really, It is working!!
- Have lunch
- Fool around
- Have tea
- Try beautifying the code
- Search...Replace
- again Search...Replace
- again Search...Replace( repeat 30 times)
- It still works!!
- Sing a song, send a mail to Manager!!!
- GO Home!!
_ dude..I' a genius!! :-D

Ngage!!

Never thought something like this would happen so soon.

Never thought I could be like the way I am today.

Life is never gonna be the same anymore.

Gone are the days when every beautiful girl on the street was girlfriend prospect.

'Walk in the park' meant 'checkout the chicks'.

The days when seeing a couple hobnobbing brought a smirk on my lips.

The days when I ran to pick a call on mobile only to find out that the call was from some credit card vendors.

The days when my mobile phone was just a music player and my mobile bills were never eye popping.

The days when I can drink as much as I want and nobody cared.

When perfect dinner invariably had beer associated with it.

My bulging waistline was worse than an empty bank account.

When everything I say had only one meaning.

When Valentine's day was just another day.

Yes, I am going to get engaged on February 11, 2007!!!

No more iPods for the North Koreans

The Bush administration is trying to punish North Korea for its missile testing .

The way in which Mr. Bush is trying to do it is funny. US is going to ban export of certain items to North Korea by the US as well as its political allies.

The list of items which will be banned from being exported to North Korea and it allies include artwork, cognac, cigarettes, expensive cars, Rolex watches, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, personal watercraft, musical instruments, sports equipment, Segway scooters, and personal electronics, such as iPods and plasma televisions.

It is very sad what Bush administration is doing to the people of North Korea, who according to international organization are suffering from poverty.

Now people will struggle more because they will not be able to play an iPod, wear a Rolex watch or a Harley-Davidson.

I still wonder what the logic behind this decision is.

May be by denying them these goods, it will make the poor people of North Korea revolt against their regime?

Or may be is it that the Regime's leaders fed up with a life without iPod, Rolex, Plasma TV will stop its entire missile program and even the nuclear program?

Somebody please explain this to me!!!

Burqa

This Post is about some religiously sensitive matters. I do not mean to offend any religion or person.

Going back to my native state is something I always loved even though I consider an average "Mallu" a hypocrite, pessimistic and downright lazy.

But, this time my travel to Kerala gave me an idea about how liberal we are.

Nowadays all international news channels are filled with news about a Muslim Lady in the UK being expelled for wearing a Burqa and the controversy raked in by the comments made by Tony Blair and Jack Straw.

Personally I am against Burqa as I feel it hampers somebody's freedom of expression. Also I think that it is downright sexist.

If a woman have to cover her face, then why not a man?

It was also amazing to see that kind of problems in a supposed to be "developed" country like the UK. Some news suggested that the number of ladies wearing Burqa has in fact increased. I am not sure how comfortable these ladies will be wearing it in a non all-Muslim country where most wear what they like.

OK, now back to the point. I was in Kozhikodu, a district in my native state of Kerala.

To give a brief introduction about my state, it is a multicultural state shared between Hindus, Muslims and Christians. The district I have been to was a Muslim dominated state.

I was expecting a very traditional place where men will be wearing traditional Muslim dress and women will be wearing Burqa. But, to my surprise I could not find so many men wearing the traditional dress.

For that matter most of the people on the road were young guys wearing jeans and short shirt in their Bike zipping past the traffic. Even older people are wearing normal clothes that anybody else in Kerala would wear.

The most amazing thing was that I could not see a single woman wearing a Burqa. Also they were actively going out with their husband and family. I heard that during the Id holidays everyone in Kozhikode will be in the beach with their family.

In a world where Radical Islam is making its presence felt, it is good to see that there are people following Islam with Sanity.

Lazy Traveler: Pondicherry Part 1

It was a Friday night at around 11:30 and I was frantically working

with my(not exactly!!)

laptop at my house after an SOS call from my Boss about some problem

in our code.

Suddenly my mobile phone started ringing. It was a call from my friend

Amol.

He started off with his typical "what's up. dude" greeting. His call at this time of the day was good enough for me to find out that he is up to something.

First thing he asked me was what was I doing now. I replied with a big story about the work and how my weekend was going to get spoilt ( as if I do all kind of adventure sports

during weekend!!).

"Why don't we go pub hopping?" he asked. "At this time of the day?" was my reply rather question. I was sure that he was up to something else.

After a round of questioning and set of "sweet" words from me he told me to be prepared with a pair of dress and be ready to travels somewhere during the weekend and PS (Sreejith) and Rao( Prasanth a.k.a Beedi) was with him. All my cribs about my work and how loaded I was fell into deaf ears.

Hesitantly, but happy about doing something different during the weekend I packed my stuffs and waited.

They came to my house at about 12.45 to my house. The vehicle of choice was PS's Tata Safari about which I know more that he knows.

But, luckily he knows what the steering wheel is used for and where the break is

I guess that is good enough to get a driving license.

Everything was set off we go!!

err.....one problem none is sure about the way to Pondicherry.

Only thing we know was we had to take to Hosur road route.

Radio city FM was playing nice songs on the car stereo for a change (hmm..in the middle of the night when everyone is asleep).

I thought the only thing they knew was blah..blah..blah.

We crossed the Bangalore city limits and was cruising nicely, suddenly like an after thought P.S asked “are we on the right track?". He did not get any answer as none was sure about it.

Pasanth suddenly came up with a solution “let’s have something to eat". We can stop at some Dhaba and ask them the way to Pondicherry.

We stopped at a "Dhaba" selling south Indian dosa and chutney. We ordered a dosa each. The lady in the shop had an amazing vessel which magically produced Chutney if she poured some water taken from a big barrel kept nearby. May be she should be the next one to do this after Jesus.

When asked about way, the shop owner said that we have already five Km past the turn which we were supposed to take to Pondicherry. We decided to keep Dhaba visit as a pit stop and a feather in the cap of the lazy traveler rather than loosing our way.

Man lazy traveler rocks!!

The travel after that was uneventful and silent barring the howling noise Prasanth used to make whenever the rock stars performing in his head via his Walkman mobile go wild. There was also no problem of loosing the way then as there was only way to go.. Straight!!

Cont....

Faces

For the last one month I have been traveling Europe.

New culture, new people and new places

I was really enjoying it.

Trying to pen down my European experience, through the faces that I came across.

The good looking Italian manager in the host company:

He took great pain to make sure that we are comfortable. He drove us to the Bus service company's office to help us get the bus pass. Even though he knows nothing about the public transport system, tried to find a map and a guy who could help us.
He never missed an opportunity to invite us for a dinner in special restaurants.

The developer with a large frame and larger heart:

I particularly enjoyed listening to him speak in his typical accent. He always had the typical "it is not my problem" kind of answer to everything.

The beautiful assistant lady who was a treat to watch:

U could literally feel the performer in her whenever she talks. She always used her eyes and hands like a theater artist to explain things. She can come up with a special place to have your dinner just like that. Thanks to the numerous dates she goes for.

The young Indian software consultant:

He always talked in a techie language which I never understood. But was kind enough to help me all the time. Be it helping me to find a way to a new places or lending me some rice when I ran out of it or be it remembering to call for my taxi to the airport.

The face that fascinated the world for such a long time, the face of Mona Lisa:

There is such a charm to this small painting by Da Vinci flanked by big and elaborate paintings of God and Kings. The enigma of that paining and the 'Da Vinci Code' will draw u to it.

The guy outside the Louvre in Paris playing a "hand organ" (I don't know what exactly it is

called):

Somehow he reminded me of the lead singer in the rock band 'Rasmus'. He was playing as if he was in front of a crowd of million, lost in his own world and smiling all the time as if he is in a blissful world. Just make u wonder how much he is enjoying his 'job' unlike many of those tie wearing, suit clad executives.

The driver of the taxi who took us from the ESKON temple to the railway station:

He had been doing this job for the past 20 years without fail. No wonder he was zipping past the rest of the vehicles as a F1 driver overtaking a Maruti 800. He kept on talking about the place, and how it has changed over time making us enjoy every bit of the conversation.

One of the most sober faces I met there:

A beautiful Muslim lady in the walkway. She was feeding her kid with one hand and begging for money with the other. It is hard to ignore the pain in those beautiful eyes and the scar on her cheek. Something that can haunt u for long.

The "faceless" faces of the prostitutes in the red light area of Amsterdam:

Standing in the show windows like a beautiful showpiece, Letting people come to them and bargain or just staying still even when drunken guys were passing comments at them or just covering their faces and yelling at a curious traveler trying to take their picture.

Old lady in the train from Amsterdam:

She kept on staring at me as if I was some terrorist trying to blow up the whole place. It was funny to see her occasionally lifting her head and take a quick peek at me to make sure that I was not getting ready to kidnap her :-)

Police officer in the Frankfurt airport:

He arrogantly showed his police Badge at a visibly tired and hasty traveler (read me) to tell him that he has come to the wrong place. It was little different experience for me as I have never encountered such arrogant officers in any other airports. They always used to talk to you politely even if u are asking a stupid question. May be what they say about Germans are right!!

The corrupt customs officer in the Bangalore airport:

He demanded money from me just because he did not know what a USB hard disk is. Or was he just trying to find out a reason to get some money from me. Shame on him and his colleagues!!