Rice and Fall

Done with my 45th exam in engineering....oh sorry 1 KT ....so that makes it 46.....3 more left!!!!! holy shit......i have learnt 49 subjects in 4 yrs of engineering..............but still a master of none...really sounds weird.........but thats the fact about indian (or precisely mumbai) engineering system.....
So the IPL season is on and the king of good times is really having his bad days(must have had his last laugh yesterday!!)......Banglore RC has been giving slepless night to Vijay mallaya...So came the sacking of the team CEO Charu sharma. Charu must have got a brief letter of termination saying "Dear charu, ur sacked!! i made a mistake of hiring u......i thought u were a woman......i wish u were mandira bedi"

Y leave the captain.....mallaya must hav summoned him "you betrayed my trust.....i know they call u a wall!!now dont make me humpty dumpty who sat on the wall. If u gys cant play i've a better option." He reached out for a kingfisher 2008 calender and pointed to the bevy of beauties on it. Dravids jaws dropped "these models?, u must be joking! they dont have statistics to play 20-20.."Mallaya said "Have u seen Deepthi gujral? she can float on water!And therez preeti desai..Can u imagine wat will happen if she comes out to bat?..most bowlwers will loose their rhythm and bowl enough wides and no ballz to giv u a mammoth score of extras!And i bet my entire brewery on any fielder who will be able to take his eyes of these babes and take a catch and stop the boundary...!"

Wen dravid reluctantly agreed to mallaya's new strategy,the king took the captain for a drink.Spotted at the pub was bare chested sharukh khan,entertaining his team ,and saurav showering money on him.Dravid pointed to mallaya and said "i bet u cant be a boss like him!!" Mallaya immediately took of his shirt and flaunted a 6 pack of king fisher super strong lager strapped to his waist."I CAN DO BETTER!!!"

Salaam Mumbai

They say....therz no place ,which remains fit to return to-unchanged,unflinching,static...What we left is left behind..what we return to is always something more or less wat we have left behind......

As in my last few months in mumbai(hopefully not..) ,i realise this is not the place i wish to leave....Instead of writing a full farewell piece it could hav been easier to provide a short bibiliography about mumbai.....if u hav already read shantaram &maximum city u'll know wat i wanted to tell about mumbai but couldnt.....mumbai is a collection of thousand epiphanies enmeshed in one...set out to discover a new eatery today and u'll find the best one right next to your building which u have never seen before...

Mumbai has the worst cabbies anywhere with the best drivers.The buses are best maintained,with least number of travellers and the trains that make mumbai run are made in kolkatta!!!(need not write more on local trains as i have already dedicated a whole post in my previous blogs...)..Parties serving smoked salmon and single malts will also have in its menu an item song by rakhi !!!Apartment kissing the skies are as ugly as Jurassic reptiles ,menacingly lording over crawling newborn slums...

My most pleasant experience in mubai was this.......i had ordered a band for my spects from the cities famous spects shop...weeks later someone called to say that the band id ready......and what i all got is a band tht i hadnt ordered at all......disappointed i walked back home...there it was!!!!i found the band i wanted in the roadside shop casually lying between other funky bands ........and tht too for half its original price.........

Mumbai is at its best when some one tries to play pranks with it.......like the rain gods on 26th july ..........never expected a cup of tea and a packet of "parle biscuits " in the flooded bus at 1 am !!!Thts how the mumbaikaars are......tackle ny situation with immense control and ease .....

they say its the spirit that keeps them going.....Its just that u hav no choice but to keep going fair or foul.....hope u have a gr8 days ahead mumbai.........take care :D

Seeking pongal

belated happy new year ppl......i know...wishing this in the festive season of pongaldosent sound gud.....but spare me....the credit goes to my xams for my delay.....i was on a dating spree for 2 months wit my so called engineering books......and all thanks to mumbai university.....they plan our xam timetable as if they are plannin a holiday for us!!!

Once in a year at the crack of dawn ,the lanes in hyderabad(thts where i was 4 yrs back) provide a setting for a very special south indian festival(tamil festival to be precise).Braving sleep and winter chill ,scores of people step out in bare feet carrying earthen pots and bundles of juicy sugarcanes..The pot filled brim with pongal(rice and dal) are placed on a flame in front of hindu diety ..As the pots overflow and invocation to be almighthy merge with joyous ulutations of people...

sankranti or pongal .....thts wat this festival is called...which falls on tuesday with gutso..i was one who stayed in largely tamil populated area in hyderabad...and now in mumbai where ppl really have no idea what pongal is all about....i just started missing all the festive environment... ....waking up at crack of dawn in this harvest festival ,seeing dozen of "tamil mami's " in the kitchen,seeing the "mama's" tryin to get there pattu veesti's on , teenager girls to show off their new pavadai thavani and a great time for me to appreciate all the ‘beauty’ on the earth .,and waking up all my cousins and frens for a session of kite flying ......these are the fond memories i still carry along with me......And now i wake up in this harvest season to see ppl on their usual run and my neighbour askin wazzup today???

This harvest festival marks fulness ,plenty and prosperity ......if the pot dosent overflow....then this isnt pongal......wishing u all a very happy pongal....

Our Christmas!!!

ah haa........got my blogs safely from the clutches of blogger.com.......guess wat .....ma blog was kidnapped by the "blogger" .......reported as spam.......verified for 3 days and now proven that i am innocent :)

nyways gettin back to christmas....The festival that belongs to all of us.......Centuries may have gone ,and times may have changed but the christmas spirit thrives....There may be no snow in mumbai for santas sleigh or chimneys for him to slip down ,but ppl of all religions still hang up their stockings and they get filled.....

There has been a christmassy feel everywhere...

Christmas does not belong to christians anymore...from being a religious festival ,it has become one celebrated with gutso ,by everyone ,every religion..Of course, the festivities are less about religion fervour and more about havin a goodtime...

Red is the color of the season....nd if u wanna know why, visit any mall or the traffic signals.....therez no mall where u dont find a 'santa' or a traffic signal where the christmas caps are not sold.......Even the mannequins in leading stores have donned the red outfit......

So why has christmas become universal while other festival has not taken off the same way???? ppl are invited to comment on this.......but way i feel about this is firstly ,what everyone celebrates is christmas in its most commercial form rather than in religious sense.......like many of us(including non-christians) like gettin a cake with lip smacking toppings on it.....secondly ,christmas helps everyone connect to the global community....most of all christmas gives the feeling of being more inclusive than many other festivals.....

its a nice feeling that this kind of secular idea is taking root everywhere...may be something is right with this world after all......Merry christmas!!!!

Alibag

Back from peace.....and now got to carry on with my usual stuff........doin this for gys who were wondering/demanding what i was up to this weekend........and for those ppl who wanted to explore this peaceful place ,especially made by god to celebrate weekends.......

Alibag ....thats the place i am talking in fact writing about.......Not a huge tourist spot....but a place worth a watch ..........Its a small seaside town located about 100 km from mumbai.......and getting there hardy takes an hour and a half.....such a peaceful place that even ur mobile network corporates with you.......

Didnt really face any problem getting there.......this is wat i hav done with my camera!!!

Gateway of India:Thats where the ferry originates every hour



The ferry that carried me safely to other side of the sea

See whom i hav encountered!!......Thts the Indian Emperor....ship to England

Mandwa port:thts where the ferry terminates......45 mins from Mumbai and about 13 km from Alibag....a bus shall bring u to Alibag

Accommodation isn't a problem if ur goin on a weekday........but u need to be lucky like me to get one on weekends......If ur really looking for a break ,prefer a cottage instead of a lodge or a resort.......there r plenty of cottages available with reasonable rates...

kihim beach:never seen a beach with very few ppl..

alibag fort:(kolaba fort):now this is something unique......have u seen a fort surrounded by water on 4 sides..........this is it........this fort can be visited only during the low tide........i.e from 12:30 pm to 5 pm .u can walk up to the fort or the horses (tongas ) are available which takes a lot of beatings to take u to the other end.....

The fort during the low tide

a view from inside the fort





birla mandir.....pic not available as we wern't allowed to click pics in the temple......its bout 20 km from alibag ......u got to go through hell before reaching this heaven........the roads r sick without street lights...... but this temple is different from other birla mandirs ..a greener and the majestic one i have ever seen....



karigiri: place where hand mand sculptures are made....

it is not THE END.........leekin pics abhi baaki nahi hai mere dost........thts all i could do in a day!!!!!!

you=ur middle name!!!!

When you are between the horns of a dilemma the best thing to do is catch the bull by the horn!!!!! Two idioms in one sentence……. Ah seems like a fresh start has been made made, a new dawn has broken……. This blog gets to see the light of another day………..

I had a very unpleasant feeling that just like my previous disastrous attempt at blogging,.. this too would die in childbirth….. Encountering this blog wouldn’t have been easy if I wouldn’t hav been tagged again …….There were so many ready excuses not to blog: life's getting drab,I hav just done wit part of my exams…lazy to think again, next week and promise I will.


Herez all bout the rules of this game…..

1) list out one feature in you for each letter in ur middle name(if u don’t hav one,just choose a middle name that u would like to have)…….
2) At the end of ur blog you need to choose one person for each letter of ur middle name to tag…
3) Pl leave a comment to the person you have tagged ,telling tht they have been tagged….

Prashant chaitanya Ramakrishnan…….thats me…….nd very few people know that there is chaitanya added to prashant!!!!......lemme clear that chaitanya isnt my middle name………its given the same preference as prashant is!!!
And the condition I am given is to expand my middle name……..i just guessed wat would happen if I for timebeing consider my middle name as chaitanya?????this blog will never end and u’ll find qualities of 10 men in a single me!!!!!!thanks akki ………..for givin me the freedom to choose my middle name…..here it comes….its goin to be ‘ricky’…reason being its small nd many of them know me by this name……..

r-reminisce: yeah…..nd most of u will agree to it…hav always been nostalgic about the gud olden days……its quiet evident from the previous posts of mine……..

i-Invaraible: I’m a hardened soul who has the ability to be one of your closest friends and a pain in the neck both at the same time……never can one judge me what I’m goin to be like on a particular time…….

c-Causal: That was wat I have been through out my life………..a very casual soul……never really taken nything serious…….be it a cricketer or an engineer….may be thts the reason why god has dumped me in mumbai!!!!!!

k-??????????: This I would like u gys to tell me……….any takers????

y-young: cannot get a much better word than this …………I’m just 21 years young......

wow……tht was short and fast……….lolz….
nyways I tag prakash,rajiv and vijay to do it……and nyone intrested can tag themselves on behalf of me!!!

life would be different if......

life would be different if.....couldnt hav been started much better way than this.....i was thinking to write bout this after my previous post , next day a fren requested me to do this....and tht very next day i was reminded by my dear fren akila to do this.......

so i start right away from biting part!!!! i swear.....most of us hav been bitten in the past......learnt a lot from it...be it gud or bad....if we haven't then we are still using nappies!!!!!

like this is wat i hav learnt about love......a subject like none other that has been expressed in so much song,poetry and prose!!!!......we need to see tht there is a higher power and realize tht we cant completely control and run our own lives...if therez nything stupid it is our franatic attempt to hang on to our old ways.......yet if u hadn't been willing and even anxious to find a new way you wouldnt hav come this far to read this post....

life would be different if it ....hmmm.....isn't goin the way it is....lolz.....on a serious note expect the unexpected......life would be different if there wouldnt have been the freedom to suceed or fail.....and tht life would be pleasing if u accept the unexpected , be it a pain or a gain.....my life has been full of unexpected events.....like i never knew wats in store......may be its because i didnt ever sit on a drivers seat..........just followed the way ,other ppl did......therez no point regretting it now..........I ain't well.......but i sure am better..

I remember..........

lifez full of events.......nd thts wat makes one remember somethin.........

like this......a week back while i was mugging up a formula for todays xam.. crash...a part of roof colapsed in my room......nd thts how i remembered the same formula in todays xam.....

way back in grade 4 miss madh---(now she called mrs) made me stand in a dustbin in the corner of the room.."thts where u should be for ur handwriting"...she said...i swear my hand writing is not tht bad...

Thank god i grew up with confidence else..she could have dented my psyche for ever..wonder how many of us who stood in the dustbin walked away amused rather than devastated by the event....

Last time wen i had visited my school(3 yrs back)...i made a point to visit the same classroom and look hard at tht dustbin standin in same spot even today......xcept for the color of it....nothin has changed....

childhood does tends to magnify -loves fears and dimensionstime dwarfs images and what seems of immense magnitude as a child, seems of no consequence to an adult eye....images crumble and deminish with time....heroes become zeroes...and miss madh who scared me with her cruel looks is today reduced in my mind to someone who needs help.....

but,if bad deminishes in stature ,so is good reduced over time.i thought back to sweet miss subhadra(now a mrs)...my class 7 english teacher who smiled at me but just once ,i adored her and always waited for her lectures .......today i realize she was cruel in her own ways......she almost became my first crush!!!!!!!!

In the process of growing up ,both demons and angels are dealt fairly..both deminish in stature equally....is it because life embitters us as we grow so much so that nothin effects us in quiet the way it did when we were children?

i remember i remember

the fir trees dark and high;

i used to think their slender tops

were closed against the sky;

it was a childish ignorance,

but now this little joy

to know i'm farther off from heaven

thn when i was a boy.........

wherez my email????

Gmail ---------Inbox(0)

Yahoomail!---Inbox(0)

Hotmail ---Inbox(0)

Thats how my mailbox looks.........hav i betrayed my inbox??......it isn't showing ny messages for me .....

Has email reached the end of digital road???when it comes to connecting people ,email,which one revolutionised the way the world kept in touch ,is losing out immediacy of Instant messaging(IM),sms and social networking sites like orkut,facebook etc....These sites hav been a hit as far the younger generation is concerned......just send a sms to ur fren asking him to come online,nd within seconds u'll find his status as online in gtalk ,orkut or yahoo....wat more 2dy one can even transfer files through the messenger......and facebook ,it keeps u updated on ur friends without having to actually converse with them on day to day basis....

My gmail inbox is full of spam.......and my yahoo is full of spam.so i hardy logon to them.....wat all do these days is logon only to hotmail.......and thanks for the project.....i get to see 1-2 mails in my inbox....

Does this spell doom for email,which has been accused of mudering snail email??Not necessary for one ,email is still the first choice for business communication.Yahoo gmail and rest of the gaints r not sleeping their way to extinction ,but r plannin to turn ur inboxes in to social network.......sounds great!!!

Email will not die;instead it will hold true to its ever evolving avataar and morph in to something bigger and better encompassing IM,video chatting,social networking.......who knows wat else.......

FMORT!!!

Start: 00:00
Get set go.......common i should start thinking.....god...its painful....

Gotta start readin for ma xams.... I have been procastinating for the last 15 days...but my favourite movie on T.V.....will do it tomorrow.
..oh my god....tomorrow is 3rd day of indo-pak test.....poora din barbaad

yahoo messenger(0/72) frenz online..... everyone studying.. :(

I need to wish ma fren.......its his birthday... Where is he? Phone unreachable! must be in the train....

Oh Crap! Another SMS! recharge Rs 60 today and get airtel to airtel local calls free!!!nobody sends me any real smses..and btw 1 have only 1 airtel local friend ....

gotta format my system......

whats tht noise..........oh....again my sis.....watching her favourite show.. crap...wen i was of her age .....i had to watch only doordarshan!!!

oh......i need a break...check my watch........it stopped working?????

nopes.......15 sec left......enough of the pain....pity my brain...thts it....!Stop: 05:00

So what is FMORT?

FMORT stands for Five Minutes of Random Thoughts.Read it somewhere in a book... its a simple way to know wat u think in a alloted time...

Steps to follow:

Get an alarm/stop watch, piece of paper, pen

Set the alarm to ring 5 minutes 10 secs
Take deep breath for 10 secs।

Now, set your mind free.Scribble whatever comes to your mind on the paper for 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes, tweak the scribbles into meaningful sentences.Post it to your blog.

The title should be, "My FMORT". Dont expand FMORT in the title as the purpose is to popularize FMORT.

Tag any of ur fellow blogger and ask him/her to do the same...Then ask a fellow blogger to do the same and link to your post.

Now sit back and relax. You would be amazed at the speed with which FMORT spreads.And you will be one link of the long chain on Internet.

I tag hmmm......all the bloggers who read my post......:)