Guitar Made Simple

Often I find difficulty remembering guitar notes on the fret board. Yesterday, I decided to prepare a chart to make it easier for me to play it. Hope it would be useful to others also.

Take a print, paste it, and start jamming. What are you waiting for?

Lets JAM!!!

The Great Ocean Road

Imagine what day light saving time could do to the fragile human planning. Unaware and unconcerned of man-made rules to control daylight I planned an early morning but a day long trip in Melbourne. I didn't know about the daylight time saving change, therefore I set my alarm for 6:15 am, thinking one hour would be enough for grooming. Lazily I tried hard to open my beer soaked heavy eyelids, rebelling against their will to continue sleeping. Last night’s beer session at the river Yarra was the culprit and had enslaved me. In the early morning hallucinating phase I suddenly realized to check my eagerly awaited important mail. I opened my laptop and my eyes were immediately drawn to Windows Date and Time. I felt butterflies in my stomach and my eyes rolled hysterically in astonishment. My computer clock was showing me 7:20 am but my mobile, landline, wrist watch, etc. showed 6:20 am. Suddenly, I the words by elderly lady at Melbourne tourist center echoed in my ears as she had told me about time change but I didn't understand and care about it. I realized my blunder. Yes, I had lost one hour and it was actually 7:20 am. The first thought that flashed to my mind was to return back to sleep and forget about my Great Ocean Road Trip. My bus was leaving at 7:45 am and I had just 25 minutes left to catch it. My $122 expenditure for the ticket motivated me to not to run it through the drain and give it a try. Moreover, I knew that this was the only weekend for me to go out. Had I stayed back, I would loose this weekend also. Therefore, I gathered all my courage to go for my quick dry clean. There was no time for shower, I changed my clothes, dumped stuff in my bag and left the hotel room for my great trip.

I coursed my way through the maze of unknown Melbourne downtown’s streets and lanes. Panting heavily, I barely managed to reach in time after sacrificing my shower and morning coffee. Obviously, it wasn't a great feeling to go on a long day trip with remnants of last night's food lying in your stomach but I learnt to live with it as the day progressed.

It was a double-decker bus and I was ushered to the upper deck by a beautiful young blonde dressed in her neat uniform. The bus had blue velvety seats with abstract images of starfish and sea-shells. The big glass windows in the bus rendered a terrific 180 degree panoramic view of the whole journey. In retrospect, I don’t regret shelling extra dollars for these extra big windows.

It was a long trip that lasted for more than twelve hours. The major attraction started with Melbourne's longest bridge – Gateway to the West – and continued until we reached a scenic place with immense ocean in view. The immensity combined with serenity had captivated the senses to forget the world around me. I was overwhelmed with this creation of nature that left me awe-struck. The driver broke my day-dream when he started serving us cakes, cookies, jam, and morning tea. The bus was fitted with a PA system for a guided tour by the driver. The driver was a handsome man in his forties, neatly dressed in formal blue pants and well creased white shirt. His goatee extended till his chin and created a natural anchor on his face, otherwise he was clean shaved. He was very amiable and cooperative through the trip. Apart from driving the bus he also guided us in real time, with his heavy Australian accented husky voice. He presented facts and history in a very exciting and interesting way with vivid descriptions and intricate details.

At 12:00 pm the bus stopped again at for lunch. Before this, we had already seen the grand entrance of Great Ocean Road. The road apparently was built by workers in 19^th century using hands and shovels. At the lunch venue, I stepped inside an old, aged, coffee shop. It seemed that the old lady, may be the owner, also grew up with her restaurant. The lines on her face were the reflection of the old furniture, dull walls, and aging floor of the restaurant. The wall at the entrance was made up of glass and the view through that opened in the vast ocean in the front. There was an old water filter kept on the wooden slab made in the front glass wall at the entrance. The water was continuously dripping through its old worn out tap. To prevent the wooden floor to get wet with unwanted water leakage, a glass was kept on a folded wet towel suggesting that the leakage is permanent and trivial for the owner. The whole ambience added unquestionable authenticity to the place. I was hungry and looked for something familiar in southern hemisphere exotic food menu. I ordered for bacon-tomatoes-scrambled egg with toast. Yes, they were serving breakfast all day long, and I didn't want to eat lunch. While waiting for the breakfast I could not resist the temptation for cappuccino and ordered one. The cappuccino surprisingly was served by a young lady with a wide and genuine smile of hospitability. The bus started again to take us back on the Great Ocean Road.

The seat in front of me was occupied by newly married Indian couple. May be they were not newly married but they were surely in deep love. They were more than a normal couple as I could see the profound love for each other in their eyes. I did not want to see their showers of cheek kisses, cheek hugs on each other as they talked right in each other's eyes. The girl was sitting diagonally to me; therefore I could see her shyness, cheek hugs, shoulder naps, and continuous giggling. That moment I missed someone so much that it is inexplicable in words. I need to create another dictionary to capture that immense and deep feeling of emotions and love. Not only this, since the couple was right in front of me, doing cute acts of love, I missed her more and more.

The bus traveled through a stretch of tall eucalyptus trees – naked but habitation of cute koalas. Cuddled against the branches and sitting innocently, they were too beautiful to be missed. The bus was rendered white with flashes of camera and clicks of cameras continued until no koalas were in sight.

Later, our bus moved to the coastal area with ocean on one side hugging beautiful hills on the other. Blades of lush green grass made the hills look even more beautiful and unreal. With blue on my left and green on my right, I felt myself as a painter drawing a dark gray line of the road to separate them as I cruised along. The beaches were amazingly clean but deserted, and abandoned. May be, I felt that because of the scarce population of Australia. Some beaches had sea weeds resting in the clean, shining sand and some had rocks protruding out of water and sand. The topography of the land was mesmerizing and engrossing and mind boggling.

The bus finally reached 12-Apostles where we had an option of Helicopter ride. I really wanted to do that, to see the sea and land from 1000 feet in the helicopter. I went for 15 minutes flight to 12-Apostles and London Bridge. It cost me $120 in a four-seater copter with the same couple from my bus, the pilot and I. Three of us got seated into the helicopter by the ground staff. I took the front seat, while the couple settled on the rear-seat. Head phones with microphone attached were provided to communicate with the pilot and fellow passengers. The helicopter left the lush green ground and as it gained the height I could feel butterflies in my tummy. Unlike airplane, helicopter was very unstable, shaky, and felt dangerous. However, the ride was breathtakingly awesome and left me amazed for days to come. The flight from the helipad to London Bridge through 12-Apostles went over the land with sea to my left, but while coming back, the copter was over the sea and the land was on my left. It was scary to ride the copter over the sea, especially when I am not a swimmer and hardly know the basic of swimming. Fortunately, god helped us and nothing happened as we landed safely on the ground to return back to Melbourne.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/72683485@N00/sets/72157602928065914/

Love an Engineer?

Engineers are logical creatures who believe in coherence and order. Therefore they remain uninvolved and detached from heart and emotions which demand sensitivity and tenderness. Not that engineer suffers from a congenital disease which retards the growth of heart - rendering it numb for love - but the enforcement of brutal technical education definitely leaves no space for love.

Exceptions are part of our lives and one day something strange happened, I heard my heart beating. I thought I was unwell and ran to the doctor but he found me perfectly healthy.

Worried, I started retrospection. It took in only a fraction of second to make me realize that lately I had been interacting a lot with my good old friend. My friend - fortunately or unfortunately - an engineer like me without any place in heart for non-existent and alien feeling called love. How could she possibly make my heart beat when it was lying dormant and vegetating for years?

She was different to me – truly friendly, crazily impulsive, motherly caring, intensely enthusiastic, heartily concerned, innocently mad, and lovingly shy – all for me. It was a genuine friendly affection, bighearted and bountiful – but I made my heart believe more than that. The heart which remained so dry and juiceless that the tender walls chapped and cracked in the hope of rains of love, tasted the first shower of attraction. Yes, the engineer was in love with an engineer. How could not I fall for such a beautiful and intelligent girl?

Apprehensively and immaturely, I orchestrated my intense feelings of childish affection to my engineer after six years. As expected from an engineer, she respectfully rejected my deep reverence for her and declared me insane. She informed me about some non-engineer guy that she thought would be perfect as her soul mate. Non-Engineer guy for an engineer girl - wise decision it was to choose someone with the live and beating heart instead of a dead and numb heart. But by that time, she had already made me a sensitive and romantic poet lost in her world and the engineer in me had died long back. I had no choice but to fight back. I weaved a dazzling colorful and delicately soft fabric of my emotions, hope, and dreams and let her wrap it around herself to feel it. She could not resist the temptation of falling in love for it and finally surrendered her heart to me.

The naïve poet in me, hypnotized by her timeless beauty started painting her picture with words in adoration. She looked enchanting when I saw her in Red Indian suit which had picked up colors of the first fully blossomed rose of early winter with the golden highlights of the morning soon. She looked amazingly beautiful in her dress. She possessed magical beauty with the ability to charm and enchant the people around with her captivating personality. Her elegant and refined gestures and mannerisms implied magic, mystery, and intrigue. Her soft spoken ethereal melodies created ageless enchanting music of life where my heart sang on her tunes. And, when she beautifully wore her winsome smile on her sharply curved ruby-red lips and allured my heart, I found myself lost in her dream world.

I guess the poet was in love with the engineer. Love which was pious, sacred, and holy. Love which was timeless and heavenly. Love which was crazy and maddening. Love which was life-giving and life-taking at the same time.

And one fine day my destiny changed forever, when my engineer finally asked me out of the blue, “Love an Engineer?”

And I said, “Yes”.

Someone who is as beautiful as the shine of serenity in the eyes of god, good-hearted as a heavenly soul, wears the world’s best smile, and looks terrific in all dresses. Yes, I love my engineer with my life.

Start Thinking

Here is a question for you. Guess the object in the picture and figure out the problem.

Assured treat for the best answer.

Now start thinking.

Insanity

Insanity

My Fav Artists

Am I still dreaming?

After a very long time my heart has again started pumping fresh and tender dreams of beautiful life. Dreams - bright and colorful – that are dazzling my eyes to differentiate between the reality and fiction. Dreams - mad and frantic – that are tangling the sane thoughts to the extent of defying the logic. Dreams – young and vulnerable – that are ridiculing my intellect and mocking my reasoning. Dreams – sacred and holy – that are comforting my soul and soothing my senses.

From morning till evening, the sweet and the short time that I spent that day with the angel has still been tickling and thrilling my body. True, angels do come at night but, perhaps, I was blessed by the Ultimate to be able to found her in the beautiful summer morning. I was curious and excited like a nursery kid desperate to see the angel for the first time. I had heard a lot about them but I always thought that they did not exist until I met her. The moment my eyes met hers my body got stoned. For a second my heart stopped pumping blood, brain became numb, thoughts got frozen, and eye balls rolled down. I was completely hypnotized and transfixed by her mesmerizing and magnetic beauty. I was seeing a beautiful full moon on earth on a scorching summer day with the fierce and fiery sun in the sky. The comforting cool silver light of the full moon had overwhelmed the irritating hot rays of the sun and caused it to shy away. Confused and apprehensive about the uncertainty of the next moment and strangeness of the angel I took my first step towards her.

From close distance I could notice her moon white lustrous sheen of silver skin. And as she spoke, the words dropped off her mouth as musical notes and danced together to form a magical song that made my heart dance. As the angel smiled I could see the swirls and whirlpools on her cheeks that were sucking my heart and body without letting me loose or escape. I shook myself, came out from my stoned state to find my date. I could see the real world now, real people, and cars passing by and honking. I know I was not dreaming, but to my surprise the angel was still there. Am I dating an angel? I pinched my skin so hard that the eyes become watery but the angel was still there. I indeed was with an angel. Dream or reality? – Still figuring it out.

We sat together and the angel painted the picture of paradise in front of me. She started with canvass. She made a fine canvass by weaving the threads of hopes. She collected her hopes with mine in a bowl made of our hearts. If the thread of my hope was thin she would add her hope to make it perfect. She weaved a perfect canvass. The canvass was hanging in air between her and me, right in front of our faces, and was tied with our tacit promises that were still lingering in the air. She then plucked her and mine emotions and created a brush out of them. She asked for my dreams and used color of my dreams to color the picture. Red, green, blue, yellow, etc. all colors were there. I had given her all my dreams with none left to me. To add interest she added dabs of her exuberance and bubbliness here and there. And I kept seeing the angel working like a perfect magician without breathing. I was afraid that even the slightest puff of my breath could disturb the air, and the tacit promises might fall down, ultimately leading to the fall of paradise. I kept seeing and dreaming about the paradise with her sitting in the restaurant. The music was loud but with her magic wand she froze everybody and controlled it. I was not bothered about anything around as my eyes were immersed and indulged in the beauty of paradise.

And she spoke finally to tell me, that the paradise is not for human beings but for angels. I should not desire and long for it. She pulled away the tacit promises and the paradise fell down and disintegrated. She was in hurry to go to the real paradise else the door would close. She returned my colorful dreams and my stranded emotions that belonged to me. But, in hurry she took away the canvas to make me realize later that my threads of hopes were gone with hers. The angel still has my threads of hope with her.

I dream, I feel them, but without hopes. Do dreams have significance without hopes? Do they really exist without it? Dear Angel, when we meet again or whenever you come to earth again from paradise, please, return my hopes.

The angel disappeared and I was back again in the real world. The world that works on fake principles those are twisted and tweaked every other second. Shocked and lost, I pinched myself again to found me on bed. Was it a dream?

I checked my clothes and found a lean thread of hope on my collar. I easily recognized that it belonged to her. A gush of gentle evening breeze swayed the thread in front of my eyes and as it dangled past my eyes I read her hope, she indeed wanted me to join paradise with her but unlike earth rules in paradise are inflexible and stringent. Human beings are not allowed. And all drenched in profuse perspiration, I pinched myself again. Am I still dreaming?

Bhay - The Fear

Dreams and reality are different. It is very easy to dream but difficult to implement. I always wanted to make films. By films, I mean story about real people. I love documentaries and aspire to have a few in my name one day.

After a lot of hustle and bustle of life I decided to go ahead with my first movie. I never wanted to do fiction but my friend Ritesh insisted to start with that. Osian talent campus hunt was another reason to choose 1 minute movie over others.

There was no scope for endless arguments as Ritesh and I unanimously selected a feasible story with least of the budget and time requirements.

Bhay – The Fear - did not turn out the way we wanted but I am satisfied with the way we completed it in just three days over two weekends. Arranging resources and managing everyone with different commitments was indeed a difficult task at hand. However, I could use my resources and contacts, and above all my rapport with various people around me. Everything went smooth and on time. We chose Sunday Apr 28, 2007 for shooting and May 05-06, 2007 for editing.

As expected, editing revealed our various flaws such as loose script, low quality direction and camera work, issues with the sound, and the final editing itself. However, the encouraging part was that we could deliver the product, even of an inferior scale. But there is no concept of a perfect product as there is always a room for improvement.

How many people actually step forward and realize their thoughts in reality. I am happy that I could do that even on a smaller scale. I am much more confident and better prepared for my next movie.

I did not get an opportunity to thank people in my film in such a small time frame but here on my blog I would certainly mention everybody’s name.

Thank you Ritesh for partnering with me. I am sure that we will make better and better movies with time. I would like to thank Pantji and Ravinder who spent their weekends away from their family with us working on the editing table. Special thanks to Ravinder for not only editing the movie but also teaching me and being a patient listener for my stupid editing related questions. Also, thankful to Dr. Ajit Kumar for being so helping, supportive, and confident about my endeavor.

I would like to extend my thanks to my friend Sriram for his honest critique, support, and encouragement. Mukesh Srivastava, Praveen Shukla, Sarvesh Chinagi, and Nitika Sood for their continuous support. Thanks for listening my stupid stories and giving your valuable inputs and suggestions.

Last but not the least, greatly thankful to my parents and my sisters who could instill me with positive thoughts, never dying energy, and confidence to realize the dream into reality. Thank you Mummy and Papa for the fantastic upbringing.

Please go through the movie. Criticize and make me better.

Date with the Dentist

Being a Doctor is a noble profession as we consider them God avatars. Therefore, the relationship between a doctor and patient should be seen as professional and sacred. But what would one do if the doctor is a young and beautiful lady with a honey voice. After all we are humans, and on top of it, I am still single and not committed. I always try to restrain my feeling in such cases but sometimes the heart overpowers logic and objectivity. I am a writer and enjoy writing experiences. I could not stop myself writing about it.

On the advice of one of my beloved friend about the best hospitals in Delhi I decided to go to Fortis for my dental treatment. No doubt as I had heard, the hospital was spotlessly clean. But it was not the cleanliness that attracted me but the handpicked selection of staff which drew my attention.

The interesting journey started from the reception desk. Three beautiful and charming ladies in perfect shape, draped in bright red saris fixed my appointment with the doctor. I proceeded to the hallway after the appointment and saw a long row of doors lined up to my right. The room numbers were powered with dim blue light and were placed repeatedly till the end of the hallway. I stopped at the toilet to figure out the hygiene they maintained and I would say that it was definitely impressive. Finally I found the dentist room. I went inside to found a female doctor of around thirty years of age with a stern face. She asked me the purpose of visit and finally asked me to lie on the dental chair. She examined my teeth and finally asked another doctor to take the job.

This visit of mine to the dentist was almost after the gap of 8-9 years. Fortunately I never had any toothache or decay. However after this long gap, when I visited the dentist I figured out that how different this profession was from others. This profession required physical intimacy between the dentist and the patient as the dentist work close to the patient’s face and body for long hours. Normal doctors examine their patients for a minute closely and step back or if they are close to the body you are probably on anesthesia or feeling severe pain.

When I was waiting on the chair for the new doctor, the new doctor came as a surprise and bliss. A very beautiful girl in her late 20s, flaunting her short hair arrived and asked for my problem. She appeared calm and concerned unlike the other doctors. Girls in short hair have always been my weakness.

She started the procedure and the need of the profession brought her face close to mine. She was looking like an angel to me. An angel helping me out by solving my problems and this is what angels do. Her face effused milky aura and my pores of skin could feel the angelic warmth of her body. I had no other option but to either look at her face or close my eyes. I elected for the former one. While she was busy doing the treatment I surrendered my eyes to the captivating and comforting aura of her face and forgot all my pain and agony. My ear heard her engaging patterns of breath creating soothing symphonies that made my heart dance eternally.

I was completely drowned in her mystical mesmerizing eyes, blinded by the lucid luminescence of her scented skin, and completely lost in the carbon blackness of her curly black hair which was falling on her face time and again. I was totally indulged in her beauty with no pain, no sounds, and no feelings. Her beauty had defied the gravity and my body was levitating in the infinite vastness of the universe beyond the dentist’s chair, beyond the doctor’s room, beyond the hospital, and beyond everything perceptible.

At times I would see her lips moving and murmuring gracefully and her eyes making cushy contact with mine trying to communicate with me in my hypnotic stage. I would then force myself to come out of the trance of her beauty to listen to the still lingering odiferous words of hers. And I would find her face just six inches away from mine, looking directly into my eyes and waiting patiently for my replies.

Finally the treatment was over but the splendid memories stayed alive and engrossing. Never visit a beautiful dentist.

Blog 2.0

Of late, people have started using technical terms in their personal lives. The impact of such an exercise could be irreversible and fatal to the language. But like everything else there are two schools of thoughts. One school wholeheartedly welcomes new words to the existing vocabulary of the language. The other type despises and prevents any new words to enter the language. I am not here to advocate either of them but to provide an insight about the consequences that could occur if the penetration is not stopped.

One such word is Web 2.0. It was first coined by Tim O'Reilly and has become so successful that everyone has started using it. Services 2.0, SaaS 2.0, RSS 2.0, HTML 2.0, ASP.NET 2.0, etc. The list is endless but the pattern is easily identifiable with 2.0 as the repetitive unit.

Diffusion of these words in our everyday language would make a lot of difference. 2.0 would make it simple for us to give explanations to others. Whatever you cannot explain is 2.0.

Executive 2.0 and Worker 2.0 for office 2.0 doing Work 2.0. Appraisals 2.0, Resignation 2.0

Mother 2.0 and Father 2.0 living with Kid 2.0. Mother in law 2.0, Father in law 2.0

Imagine Ram naming his new born baby as Ram 2.0 and Sheetal as Sheetal 2.0.

Imagine a guy saying, “I Love 2.0 you” instead of simple I love you.

Imagine writing Gita 2.0 and Ramayana 2.0

Begging 2.0, Teaching 2.0, Corruption 2.0, Media 2.0, etc.

Opportunities are many but we need to think creatively to use the term carefully and intelligently. Otherwise we would end up contaminating the language and there is no comeback after that.

Eight easy steps to become a successful designer

Designers are a different breed and many of us aspire to be one of them. I would like to take the opportunity to explain you the different steps to be a successful designer. You would not take much time to identify this breed. They can be easily found in malls, coffee-shops, pubs and discs. Some of the identifiable traits and characteristics are their hair, earrings, tattoos, clothes, big-ego, and criticizing nature. Let’s pick each one by one.

High on Hair
If you are a male you are surely going to have long hair. Length can vary according to the quality of hair. It might vary from shoulder to hip’s length. From pony tail to a full grown long braided hair - long enough to advertise for the largest shampoo manufacturer if you would be a girl. Not all males are blessed with long hair but no worries; you can boast weird and eerie design of moustaches and beards. Having said that, I must assert the fact that it does require high level of creativity to devise interesting patterns and styles in hair grooming.

On the other hand if you are a female you need to go in opposite direction. You start decreasing the length of hair from hips to almost nothing. I have seen my female designer friends in short hair, very short hair, very very short hair, scalp kissing hair length, and bald.

These days you have to have strands of red, green, and blue to highlight the design. Match color with your dress and lipstick.

Breathe through Skin
Try choking a designer to death. You cannot because they can literally breathe through their skin. Skin piercing saves their lives in case of such an emergency.

Male designers have increasingly started picking earrings to be in vogue. They started from one ear, then both ears, later more than two earrings for the ears. I have seen people with seven piercing in just one ear. Some have gone beyond ears, and have reached till eyebrows, chins, etc. Let’s not discuss piercing beyond the face in this forum. You decide how much pain you can bear and plan accordingly.
Female designers are least interested in ear piercing. They don’t like anything in their ears. If they get something pierced it is most likely be their noses, lips, eyebrows, etc. If you wear anything in your ears please throw it right away before the attractive male in the next cubicle glance at you.

Paint your Body
No designer can live without tattoo. It can present virtually anywhere on the body but what’s the fun if the world is not seeing it. Most of the junta therefore go for shoulders and back where they can reveal their designs to the world. This tattoo design disclosure has been very progressive as the length of the clothes is diminishing day by day. This has left me confused and bewildered as to whether to concentrate on the design or somewhere else. Please decide the design and placement of tattoo on your comfort level of revealing your protected zones.

Dress to Kill
If you wear what everybody wears than certainly you are going to be kicked out of the community. You have to customize your clothes yourself. You should learn selecting the right fabric after watching the in vogue designs on FTV by European designers. Then you go to a boutique and ask the tailor to sew your design. If you are not good at designing clothes you can ask your fashion design friends to help you out. You can repay their debt when they go for interior design or to buy new furniture. The next step is to wear the design and explain your friends the whole story - from pattern of the clothes to selection of design. Also learn to insult your other friends who buy labeled clothes. The art of insulting is must to learn as it requires high degree of precision. An insult by a designer should be glib, smooth and sophisticated yet sarcastic and piercing.

Only Me, Myself, and I
You are the best person ever born on this planet. Nobody before you and nobody after you would be of the stature which you are at now. You are always right and everybody else is wrong. Your dress selection, furniture selection, mobile selection, etc are the best choices that anyone could make. People don’t dare to give you advice on these topics. Whatever you design is the best and it cannot be perfected anymore. There is no phrase like “taking suggestive inputs” in your dictionary. You always believe in giving them.

Be a good Critique
You are not a designer if you don’t have this quality. Please leave the design fraternity if you are down to earth kind of person. You must learn how to mock people on their behavior, dressing, interiors, selection of furniture, etc. You must start criticizing everything around you. If you go out to eat, the moment you enter in a restaurant, start criticizing the selection of furniture, then move on to curtains and drapery, then move on to cutlery selection, and you continue on and on and on. You exercise the same thing at your friends and relative’s houses.

Indulge in Life
Live life to the fullest is the mantra. Don’t care about tomorrow. There is no concept of saving money for the future. Live in present. Start lot of socializing. Start visiting local pubs and bars. Start trying new things if bars can’t quench your thirst and if you are looking for “high”. If you still think that grass is what cows eat than it is high time to increase your design vocabulary.

Break Norms
Start with short relationships. The more you had girlfriends and boyfriends in the past the better designer you are. If you are in a living-in relationship that is super cool. Being a gay or a lesbian increases your change manifolds for being selected as celebrity of the month or for a cover page interview in one of the leading fashion magazines. Suddenly you start getting name and fame.


I know that it is easier said than done but only persistently hard working person tastes the success. Go ahead and be a designer. Happy designing…

Collage

Thanks Note: I was not writing my blog for sometime. Thousand and one lame excuses I can give but I was not writing for one reason or the other. My dear friend Khushi who is one of the biggest admirers of my blog and a great girl advised me to continue. She is one of my few friends who delight and nourish my soul after every interaction. Thanks Khushi for your support and encouragement for my writings.

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The ring tone

My brother in law is finally enlightened after initial 3-4 years of mushy-mushy talks with my sister. It seems that the initial emotional phase is over and finally like all men he also has found the ultimate truth about woman. And the truth is that all women are scary after marriage and create spine-chilling ambience for the poor husband.

I found out about his enlightenment only when my sister informed me about his new ring personalized ring tone that he had set for my sister’s calls. The ring tone is none other than the title music of our own super-hit ZEE HORROR SHOW which had successfully sown seeds of deadly fear in all of us. Now every time his mobile rings he is well aware and prepared about the caller. In fact the awareness has expanded to my brother in law’s office as well. People sitting around him in office express grave tacit sympathy and offer prayers for his well being. They are well aware what would happen if they opened their mouths. Well, every house has the same story.

Lucky I am still happily unmarried.

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The deal is closed

Since childhood I had been fostering a dream to own a Bullet. Every time I planned to buy it I was confronted by my parent’s parental wrath. Why bullet? Why not some cheap bike? Then buy a car….blah blah blah….
There questions were genuine. No sane person would buy an expensive, low-average two wheeler, which on top of all intrinsic faults is noisy also.

Car comes with a canopy to protect your body from air, water, and sun. To add more value to the car’s protection, let’s add local goons also. More protection and more security. The enclosed space in the car also offers privacy. More intimate talks, more fun, and more adventure. True the fuel consumption is equal to the bullet but the car has a better resale value unlike the big bulky bullet.

May be I was born insane that I could not digest these straightforward sane and logical explanations and finally signed the cheque for Bullet Electra 5S on 2nd March 2007.

I love independence and the bullet signifies it. I will let my soul float free which is being tied up with all trivia existing around us and our lives.

The soul which is free to fly in the sky beyond the horizon. Free to feel the warmth of the golden sunlight in the Himalayas. Free to smell the sweet lingering fragrance of the spring flowers in the Kashmir valley. Free to touch the crystal clear water of the river Brahmaputra. Free to wander endlessly in the mesmerizing backwaters of Kerala. Free to loose its way in the mystifying lush green beauty of Konkan. Free to hear the roars of the sand storms in the Thar till the end of the time...... And above all the soul which is so pure and virtuous that it touches the people's hearts.

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The Cab Experience

Going in an office cab is an experience in itself as it offers an opportunity to interact with the people who neither are friends nor co-workers. They are our office folks and we know them only because they are our cab mates. Everybody in the cab has its own whims and fancies.

Note: Names have been changed to keep the identity secret.

Vikas likes only Hindi music. He loathes Himesh Reshammaiyya, Punjabi, and English songs equally. He is like a spoilt brat who changes the channels by instinct and rarely by content if you had given them the remote of your TV. If he sits next to the driver than the average continuous time that every FM channel gets is less than three minutes. In between you will witness the moments of quick shuffle mode where the buttons are brutally pressed continuously as the index finger dances on different buttons relentlessly. He has gone beyond veteran perfection and has developed the sixth sense to predict the songs to be played in next 5 minutes by different stations. The other cab members silently bear the brunt of FM frenzy every day as if they did not have any taste for music. But at times it is better to adapt to a taste even if it’s bitter.

Kamakshi and I sat on the middle seat of Tavera one day. Vikas was sitting with the driver so only Kamakshi and I were left to sit in the middle. I kept my bag on the back seat behind me. Kamakshi entered with a small paper bag and purse and kept it in between her and me even when I was the most decent guy in the cab. It is quite normal for the girls to be overly obsessed for their belongings but it reached to an unbearable limit when she slid her hand through the handles of both the bags and folded her hands as if I was just about to snatch them from her. To add an injury to the indirect insult she instinctively pulled her purse and kept it on the other side of her lap. She ensured that my hands would never reach to her purse and it was in the safest ever position. I gaped and giggled silently for her. I still don’t know whether it was a deliberate act or was it sheer women instinct that was working in the rear seat of Tavera. Whatever it was, it was definitely bad for me.

There are so many experiences to pen down but I will stop myself here to go through more.

Nonsense of Google Adsense

We all are aware of Google advertisements which are claimed to be context specific and content sensitive. This prompts the users to click on advertisements and thereby generating revenues for the site and Google.

Yesterday I wrote a letter (email of course) full of love to my girlfriend using gmail and got stunned after seeing the advertisements on the page.

Why Mommy is a democrat
The book George Bush doesn’t want your kids to read!
Gosh! This is a love letter before marriage. Where do the kids come from? I do not have any, need to ask her seriously this time if she has another affair and having kids. Google might be right. And also, who writes love letter to his wife? Do I look like a fool who would write a letter to my child’s Mom. And Mommy is neither a democrat nor republic we live in India fool. Did not you realize that?

Relationships
Predict the exact name of who you should have a relationship with
I already have the time of life with the girl I am writing to. Why would I repeat the same mistake again by predicting somebody else’s name? No more relationships as I had enough of it. If I were to predict something I would like to predict about good things.

Surrogacy Agency
Become a surrogate mother. Very generous compensation.
Mother f****r!! Why do not you ask your girlfriend to do this and give your compensation to her? God, is there any thing else to show me? No where in the article did I write about our kids (obviously would be) but still Google could predict my girlfriend would like to do this a hobby. Context Aware Advertisements, Huh!!!

The Money Savvy Pig
The piggy bank for the 21st century
This sounds bit logical but Yuk what a disgusting name for a bank. Yes, my bank is for the 16th century. You are the one. You are the one I was looking for just get your name right Mr. Pig. Is it a bank or some cheap commerce of thugs to loot our earnings?

Kid Allowance Contract
Parenting Help – Allowances system for children ages 6-18
This is too much of pressure now to have kids. I should ask my girlfriend to think about it seriously now. It is not only us but it is Google also who wants it. And Google also has a plan for allowancing till they are eighteen. I am amazed by the foresightedness and insight they have shown for my kids and my family. Thank you Google.

Chocolate Nursing Mother
Mother and child in fine chocolate. Goddesses sculptures in chocolate.
Now who needs it in India? I don’t have any child to gift him his sculpture in chocolate and feel elated about being the best father in the world. Even if I get it done for my girlfriend who is still not a mother (as far as I know her) and take that sculpture to India what is the guarantee that it wont melt and not got licked by a street dog? No this wont work for me.

Fire Your Boss
Own a dry cleaning bus. Name brand! Turnkey low $. No experience need – we train
I am fortunate that my boss does not read my blogs otherwise I would no longer be working as he would have fired me after reading this. This is the height of stupid advertisements one could bear. This is bizarre, this is inhuman, this is insane, and this is crazy. I don’t want to become a driver and don’t want to leave my white collar job. Is it clear to folks at Google?

And if that was not enough Google had more links for me to dig in:

Child Parents>>
Overweight Children>>
Marriage>>
Parenting Children>>

I never knew that writing an email to a girl friend invokes such a complicated program in Google’s server that it goes beyond the realm of context and starts pushing the boundaries where the future crushes the common sense and makes logical things look funny and stupid. And at Google they still say: “AdWords ads that are relevant to site content pages.”
Somebody please tell them.

Pancakes with Sauce – Yuk!!!

My housemate Benai, one day during a causal chat revealed a surreal secret. She told me about Krishna my other housemate having a habit of eating pancakes with sauce. She was appalled by the awful act and wanted to validate from me whether it was a common practice in India? How someone could generalize somebody’s specific behavior and presume it as a nation wide phenomenon without any logical justifications and background. I found it bizarre and could not digest the story. “Why would someone do that?” was my reaction.

I closed my eyes and start contemplating the whole scenario. Bingo!!! Finally I got it right when a look through hole was formed in my gray matter because of the continuous stabbing of this off-the-wall thought. Yes it was not pan-cakes that he was eating with sauce but an Indian snack called Dosa.

I breathed a heavy sigh of relief after saving the nation and smiled to myself. Cultural differences huh!!!

US Trip Part – III (The Hospital Ordeal in US)

Never in my life had I felt so pampered and important. Even my parents, friends, and girlfriend did not ever pay that much attention to me that I got on that fatal day of Nov 02, 2006. And the place where it happened was even more bizarre and would sound ridiculous if it was at Mount Auburn Hospital, Emergency Department, Boston.

I was not feeling well when I arrived from India. Fever, cold, and cough had grappled me and were not leaving me for long, despite of persistent medication which I took off the shelve. My condition was deteriorating day after day and I realized that it was high time to visit a doctor. No big deal. I have done it many a times in India when I visited doctors with the same symptoms - they listen to my story, and ultimately give me a dose of antibiotics - and got treated. That was my Indian experience of getting cured for the cold.

Welcome to US. I did not have a “primary doctor” and my condition was severe (just cold and fever) to take an appointment and visit a doctor the next day. I wanted the treatment to happen on the same day. I told my colleague and he helped me by taking me to the hospital in his car. Since there was no primary doctor for me and I did not have an appointment either, I had to enter the hospital through the emergency department.

My lifetime experience had started. At the counter I was asked my name, age, and the reason for the visit and the receptionist asked me to sit and wait on the sofas lying in the lobby. I thought I would soon see a doctor. Two minutes later a cute nurse of Japanese origin arrived and took me in a room. She introduced herself as my nurse and asked me whether I was on any medication, did or do drugs, had an allergy, etc. She examined my pulse, heart-beat, breath pattern, etc. using stethoscope and also noted the temperature with the thermometer. She asked me the type of medicines I was taking for the cold and finally asked me to proceed to the next adjacent room.

I entered into a small room with a computer and files all around. What kind of doctor is this? Entered another girl who started asking questions about my demographics. She asked about my address, origin, religion, insurance cover, etc. I don’t know how your religion or ethnicity affects your medication. She asked my phone number and since I did not remember mine I took out my new Sony 990i. “Oh, you have a nice mobile. Does it have a camera?” she said. Phew!!! Here I am dying with my condition and she is looking at my mobile! She printed a bar code on a wearable tag and put the tag on my wrist. Later I realized that the room was in fact like my office's HR office and she was working perhaps as a hospital HR. Thirty minutes are already over, however, the funny thing is that the doctor is still not in the picture.

I was again asked to sit in the lobby. A lady in her 40s entered and asked me to come inside. I walked in a small room with computers, probes, sensors, and machines. Looked more like a star-trek set than the hospital room. I felt happy that finally the doctor has called me for the check-up. But the ambience of the room was too much overwhelming and scary. I was in my thoughts contemplating about the room when the doctor asked me to remove my clothes. What??? Naked, in front of a lady doctor? I felt shivers in my body for the thought of being naked in front of an unknown woman, that too not for sex but cure. Soon she ended my worries by allowing me to leave the underwear and pointed me to the apron on the bed and asked to put it on. She knew I felt uncomfortable with all this, so she mitigated my fears by leaving me alone in the room. The apron or the robe was difficult to wear and I was feeling sick from the core of my heart after wearing that. It reminded me of the dresses in lunatic asylums in Hollywood movies. It also reminded me of intricate and difficult medical surgeries that I had seen on Discovery channel. My body went cold and wan as the thought of operations and surgeries passed by my thought window. The doctor came back and asked me to lie down on bed. Then she used her stethoscope and probes to check my pulse rate, heartbeat, and oxygen level in my blood. Gosh! never in my life I thought cold was such a dreadful disease. She asked me the same set of questions about my symptoms and disease which had already been asked many a times. From the drawer on the right she pulled out a file and handed me few papers to sign on. Yes, it was a consent form which would allow the hospital to walk free if I died during the procedure. Now I was almost terrified. Were they going to do a heart surgery for cold? May be US had a permanent solution for the cold by cutting off one of the valves in your heart. Who knows how would they save the earth this time? I was helpless and had no choice but to sign it and agree and abide to all the rules and regulations pertaining to the document. I signed it and passed to her.

“I will send you the doctor very soon?” She said.

The words lingered in my ears and resonated loud enough to shake my body. The doctor was still not in the picture. She left me alone in that research lab and I waited for the doctor to come. In the gallery I heard two nurses bitching about their boyfriends- one suggesting the other to not to go for divorce but to wait for some more time. God! Who cares for the patients? Boyfriends are more important anyways. I waited impatiently for the doctor but I was visited by a man and a woman who did not look like doctors at all. They told me that I would be X – Rayed and took me on the stretcher to the X-Ray room. I felt so embarrassed lying on the stretcher when the people sitting in the lobby gave me their weird looks as I passed the lobby next to the X – Ray room. The nurses only helped me to make me more embarrassed by asking if I could stand on my feet for the X – Ray. "What the hell?", I thought. I had cold not cancer. I told them that I had enough strength to stand on my feet. The female nurse came and asked me to open my chest and before I realized she had put two tiny sticky metallic discs (as small as the heads of smallest pins) on my tits. They shot the rays twice for my X – Rays. I did not know what the function of those metallic discs was but I felt the cold on my tits when she put it for the first time. I again lay on the stretcher and was sent back to my room.

After five minutes came the real doctor. PINA PATEL was my doctor in the hospital. "Indian doctors here also?", I thought. She must not be more than thirty - dusky but good looking, confident and professional. To my agony she again asked the same set of questions to enquire about the disease but her first question was very weird though.

Why are you here today Mr. Verma? She asked.

May be I was bored of going to pubs, discs, clubs, parks, etc. and decided to try hospital this time. What a stupid question one might ask from a patient in the hospital. I forgave her for her silly mistake as she was a gujju. She told me that I was perfectly fine and should continue the same medicine. If I had to hear this after two hours of tests why the hell did I go there? I insisted on antibiotics as my throat was paining. She cold heartedly declined to my request without showing any sympathy. In fact she proposed one more test for the throat and another examination by her colleague.

After fifteen minutes I saw another lady doctor raising the curtains from side and entering my room. She was white and again the same age as Pina. She repeated the Pina’s story with no additional changes and left my room.

Another ten minutes break and then came a lady to take throat swab. I didn’t understand there policy of giving 10-15 breaks in between the visits of these people. Were the breaks intentional to allow the patient to make few last calls to their relatives and pray to god or to plan an escape from the hospital. God knows the truth. She had a long peg with cotton on one end and she inserted it deep in my throat. I almost was on the verge of throwing up on her but her dress was pretty so I restrained myself.

This time the break went for thirty minutes but there was enough space between the curtain joints to allow the light signals from the lobby to enter my eyes. There was a beautiful blonde nurse who knew I was there on the bed but still was on the phone for all the time. It seems as if she worked for the call center rather than the hospital. She would steal glances at me and I did the same to tell her that I was not really happy hearing her voice since last three hours but I was completely ignored and she kept gabbling ceaselessly.

Pina came back again after thirty minutes and finally told me that my throat tests were negative and there was no bacterial growth, which meant that the time had come to leave the hospital. The nurse came in again and asked me to sign me on the discharge papers. I got the shock of my life when I figured out that I was actually admitted in the hospital for four hours. She offered me her good wishes and asked me to meet the receptionist in the lobby. There was no fees, no charges, nothing to do in the lobby and we headed to home. I was elated by the fact that no major surgery was performed on me and I was still in single piece without stitches.

US Trip - Part II (Picking a girl in US)

Praveen Shukla had asked for my help in shifting his stuff when he decided to move from Pond Street house to Windsor apartment. How could I have denied a friend request? The whole experience happened to be so good that I started believing in God from that day. My uncle said once, “If you help others, god helps you.” I never believed it until that fateful day.

We were busy bringing the stuff from Shukla’s house to the ground floor – on the road near the truck – when I spotted a black hair girl sitting next door and smoking cigarettes. She was sitting on a folding chair with her legs resting on the wooden fence and was smoking cigarettes carelessly, casually, and ceaselessly one after the other. She was least bothered by our presence and was lost in her own world of smoke and her cell phone. One hand holding the cigarette with grace while the other working meticulously with the keys on her cell.

She was looking pretty in her curly black hair which was falling down from her shoulders and was touching her waist again and again with every gentle stroke of the evening breeze. Her Mexican-white skin looked flawless in the dusky sun and was glowing with the warmth of her youth. Her body was in shape and near to perfection. She was comfortably dressed in her white t-shirt and tight fitted blue jeans.

I did not like the injustice of god. How could such a beautiful girl sitting all lonely on such a wonderful summer evening in Boston. I decided to approach but I wanted some reason and I did not take time to find one. Cigarettes – Yes!!! The common thread between us. I went inside and picked a can of Heineken beer from the refrigerator and started walking towards her. “Hi, Can I have a cigarette please?” were my first words to her. She obliged me by offering me one. I put it in my mouth and asked for the lighter. I did not go away after lighting it but I kept standing there with her. After two-three puffs and a sip from the can I asked her whether she lived there. She negated and said that it was her aunt’s house. The discourse had started and I kept throwing questions and intelligent answers. She did not take time to realize that I am indeed an educated man. We exchanged our cell numbers and she had taken a promise from me to help her in purchasing a laptop which I happily agreed to.

Shukla was looking at me with a look of contempt and hatred. I had to say her good bye otherwise Shukla would have killed me. Instead of helping him out I was doing flirting – how would he accept it? With a very sad heart I bid her good bye and again went into labor shoes from Romeo’s shoes.

After two three days, I sent her an SMS and I did not get any reply. I waited for three days but of no use. Finally I called her up and left a voice message but again received no reply. I realized that my love story, like all the other love stories met a tragic end. However, the villain in my love story was nobody else but my dear friend Praveen Shukla. Only if he had not given me his censured glance while I was talking to her, only if he had given me few more minutes and not asked me to start work again, life would have been so different. I would have got some more golden moments to spare with my new found angel. I would have made all the promises of love and life, I would have discussed all my luck and destiny, I would have exchanged all the vibes and emotions, I would have felt her silky hair and kissed her cheeks but only if, only if.

Of course, how would you expect a girl to reply back when you spoilt her evening by leaving her all alone with the frightening darkness after the dusk? Certainly, that is not chivalry.

US trip - Part 1

When I was a kid, one day watching a TV, Doordarshan of course, I saw one show which really inspired me and motivated me to study. The show was about a man who comes back to India from West and shares his moments and gifts with his family as he got pampered by the folks around him. One of the kids around him asked him the mantra to go to a foreign land and he said to kid that the kid had to work study hard to go abroad. That day I decided that I would also go abroad one day. I started working towards my goal.

The moment I heard my CEED score for IIT entrance exam, I knew I got the visa to go abroad and that was true also. Everybody from our batch had gone to Europe or US. My moment came a bit late but for a longer duration. After three years of corporate job Aug 12, 2006 I got into the flight to Boston – sponsored by Keane India.

At the airport

First time international flying experience is like first time love because of the uncertainty of the experience – Good or bad. Fortunately I was lucky to have a good experience. While on the airport waiting for my flight, I felt thirsty and the urge made me to get up and grab a bottle of water. I was struggling finding two rupees change when a girl standing behind me helped and shocked me by putting two coins on the counter for me. I did not want to accept the help but could not deny the friendly gesture. She turned out to be a fashion designer - Jennifer Rai. Short, plumb, cute, and with specs on her face, she looked professional in her black dress. Since she was also alone and was waiting for the flight, we had mutually agreed tacitly within ourselves to be companions for the rest of the time. We did not talk much as most of the time she was busy on phone with her friends and family. However, we exchanged email ids and she told me that she was going to Austria on vacations.

In the flight

I had the ticket for window seat and found an old south Indian couple as my fellow passengers. We had 3-4-3 arrangement of seats per row. We never talked but I did not take a long time discovering that they were not happy with me. The moment they saw non-veg food in my hands, they got their first shock. To add to the sensitive situation I demanded scotch, followed by another, and followed by another one. Every time I pushed the bell to call the pretty air hostess for the drink I had to go through his insulting looks filled with ocular abuses such as “Greedy Pig!!!”, “Demon”, etc. I am sure he would never forget that night when his sacredness, religion, and values were tainted by my sinister tasks. He would have taken ablutions and prayed to god for several days to wash off the horrific experience from his old holy soul.

Next flight from Frankfurt

I was dazed and dreaming during the day after the deadening experience in the little cramped space of the flight. No wonder rich prefer business class over economy. The good thing about the second flight was that we had 2-3-2 arrangement of seats per row. There was a nice chick that I was eyeing on as she looked Indian to me. My prayers reached god and he made her sit next to me. Wow! Imagine a beautiful girl as your flight buddy. My body ache and tiredness disappeared in a fraction of second. I was wondering as to how to start the conversation with her. Finally my chemicals in the brain became active and got me the first response, “Which is this language in your book”? “German” she answered. “Oops, I thought you were Indian, you look like one.” I added another question and then another and then another until we knew each other. She was a 32 year old beautiful lady - Farsana, an Afghani settled in Germany. Her grandfather decided to leave Afghanistan after being badly beaten up by the civil war and came to Germany for refuge. Farsana had all the north Indian traits – Very fair skin, Dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, nice height, and nice curvy lines apparent in her tight fitted clothes. German culture was in her blood but she still had the Asian-Indian shyness in her eyes. We had a nice talk and we exchanged email ids also but neither had she written me nor did I. I was tired so could not talk much but whatever we talked it made sense. We discussed Afghanistan, India, and our cultures. We discussed her tensions and conflicts within herself as she didn’t have a country of her own. Her country, her motherland.

Logan Airport Boston – US

I opened the window flap when Boston was fifteen minutes away and I saw the yellow bright sun in the clear azure sky. The sky did not end but merged seamlessly with the blue ocean and created a mirage. I recognized ocean only after seeing big ships and boats in it. Finally I saw the runway extruding from the land into the Atlantic. It was a breath stopping beautiful sight. Boston sky line was visible and the city looked floating in the ocean. For a moment I thought that we were landing in the ocean but when the wheels touched the ground I took a sigh of relief. I wandered and wandered in the automated labyrinths of the Logan airport to figure out the exit terminal and to meet a friend of mine to pick me up from there. Finally I found Amit Taneja waving his hands to me. I was surprised as it was Praveen Shukla who was supposed to come. Amit said that Praveen was on the way and would be reaching any moment. He explained that he had come just to welcome me as anyway I would live with Praveen because of the proximity of his work place from my office. But I was touched to see him there, all the way from New Hampshire - without any motive, without any invitation, and without any selfishness. I had two good friends, from two different states, in two different cars, to welcome me. Ain’t I fortunate? Thanks God for being so kind with me.

You and I

This letter is addressed to the special girl of my dreams whom I have not met yet. Read the letter and see whether you are the one whom I have been waiting for eternally?

Warning: This is a very personal and private letter. Please stop reading if this is not meant for you. Reading without consent and copying any of the parts will fall under plagiarism laws (Act. 123, 1976 Indian Penal Code)

--------------------------------------------------------

Dear Love,

I need somebody like you who love to get butterfly feeling in your tummy at this age as you felt when you were 16. Yes, you are that different.

You are different because you mean a lot to me. You are somebody who is more than my best friend because even with my best friend I feel incomplete, I feel empty, and I feel lonely. I want you to complement me with your wit, your fun, your humor, your sarcasm, and your love. I want you to fill in the empty space in my soul with your love like a perfect soul mate. I want you to justify the reason of my being on the earth by providing your beautiful company. Let you be a mate to fill me with joy, and to give me the most beloved company that I have only thought, cherished, and dreamt of.

A bit of humor and sarcasm zings up a life and I believe that you have it in you. You are like a bottle of wine which tastes good as it grows older and every sip of it takes me to cloud nine. I want you to be funny too to pep up our lives and I will be as funny as your best friend who tried to make you laugh hysterically by doing weird things when you were young.

I love to see you laugh and smile all the time because I love you. It gives me immense gratification and happiness to see you and to think about you wherever I am. Whatever the reason, if I could make you laugh and smile I would feel satisfied and content.

If you love to laugh and charge the people around you then you could fill in my heart with loads of laughter so that there is no space left for sadness. And sometimes we will sit and laugh and laugh together until the laughter gets our eyes wet. Your effervesce and bubbliness make me feel light and top of the world at all the places and all the times, so please be like this for eternity. I do not believe in cheesy romance but I do believe in respecting each others feeling and making others feel the importance that they behold in my life. Be blunt but soft and convey your compliments and complaints and I do the same by appreciating you. True, man is a social animal and deserves attention.

You never want to get old. You are always young, enthusiastic, and optimistic towards your life. You like to go to hikes; you want to spend a month in jungle away from everybody, just with the nature and me. You want to do a world tour and ready to live in different countries during different times in your life. You want to go out with me on a bike and do long tours for days.

You are social and confident to interact with my friends with grace in my presence and absence. You are independent to take care of the needs of the family when I am away. You do not take decisions on your own and so do I, unless it is a trivial decision.

You are sensitive towards people and emotions and respect them. You are intelligent enough to understand and interpret my thoughts related to life, profession, philosophy, etc. and to initiate and participate in such intellectual conversations sometimes. You are cleanliness and hygiene conscious (not a freak) and you are not messy in your manners.

You love nature and appreciate it. The flowers, the sun, the sea, the sand, the dawn, the dusk, and the moonlight.

You have the passion to live life and its every moment. And when I am down in life or traveling through troubled waters I look at you for your support and you are always there with me to hold my hand. Because you are my inspiration, my power, and my purpose. You are the world and you are the stars. You are infinite and you are absolute because you are just you.


Few words about me: I am as open minded as the open blue sky where the boundaries do not exist but still has the horizon to enclose the openness. I have dreams like stars in the sky, impossible to catch but bright and vibrant enough to keep me going and challenging me. I am down to earth also at the same time and do not make fun of people or discriminate between them on the basis of materialistic or other trivial things.

My sense of humor is something which I am indecisive about because I am bad at displaying it to new people but as I spend more and more time with them I tend to become wittier and funnier. I believe that my sense of humor is more personalized and contextual rather than cheap and trivial. I cannot talk bad puns as I consider myself a quite educate guy ;).
Brainy, hmmm I can say I am because the company I work for pays me for that stuff; I am not sure whether they have selected the right guy though.

Loyalty is mutual and if I love somebody by heart, I am hers by soul and body. Every cell and every tissue belongs to her and nobody else can claim it. That is my definition of loyalty. Is it your's too?

I am not a gay...I would like you to look as girly as you could so that you can melt my heart with your charm and magic. I would like you to look beautiful so that my friends envy me that I possess you. And I would ensure that you get the best of the dresses and the best of the perfumes to fill up my senses with your beauty and to make me feel proud of the woman who means a world to me.

I love hiking, nature, challenges, and adventure and know how to enjoy it. I want to do things which are sane but crazy. For e.g. going to antartica for vacations. Going to Leh on a bike, etc. I am not really fond of museums and religious places but if I have your company then the place doesn’t matter because I am lost in your world. I love swimming and I love water but I have never tried sea travel. Not sure whether I would get seasick, unless I go and try it.

Never tried Sushi but have heard a lot about it. I also love food and keep experimenting with new food from every part of the world. I love cooking and serving food on weekends and trying new and exotic recipes. I am an average cook but my friend says that I cook well. Whatever I cook I cook from my heart.

I try to do jog every alternate day to ensure that I could justify the beauty of my partner. I also hate fast food, that was the worst thing to happen on earth. I don’t even drink coke and Pepsi but just fruit juices.

I am liberal in my thoughts. I like watching, meeting, and talking to people and noticing details like kind of earrings, etc as I am a designer and was taught to be a detailing oriented professional. I am a good listener but I am not really into too much of talking. Sometimes I love silences because it can be comforting and give space to retrospect and introspect. But I can talk at lengths provided I am in a good mood. I am very inquisitive and ask many questions while talking. I literally create another person in my mind after getting all the answers and try to understand and predict their behaviors. I think helps me in my job where I have to understand users and clients mental models.

I love to travel with people whom I love, if that happens the journey becomes utopian.

I can come along shopping if you would like to. I am not really into movies and TV but I like to see parallel cinema. I like quality over quantity. I like all kinds of music until it sounds pleasing to my senses despite of its language. I love to read when I get free time. I don’t like fiction because I consider it as a waste of time, unless it is a book like Pride and Prejudice.

I like dark blue and metallic blue colors. I love animals though I feel sad to say that I eat them for food. I love children and they really look cute to me. I would like to have cute daughters one day.

I don’t do drugs unless doctor prescribes it :). I drink scotch and beer sometimes...I smoke occasionally.....but I have never taken drugs in life and nor do I have any intentions. I don’t wear glasses and I am a social drinker. I won’t take offence if I am not your type please don’t be upset if you are not of my type.

I don’t have a car and believe in public transport.

I am a good hearted person and will do everything to see your heart crushing smile. I am as adventurous as a lion who just rules despite of the territory and the shape and size of the prey. I am as patient as Himalayas, and will wait forever to read the reply of my mails, will wait for hours to meet you if we get along, will count all the people whom you kill consciously and unconsciously by your swift, charming moves in a fraction of second. If you have a test paper which I could write to prove that I have all such qualities then I would write it in blood to tell you that I care about you because I love you. And I would certainly get A+ in that.

I wrote whatever I had to say. I like the honesty and always return it back. You won’t regret meeting me at any point of time in your life. I think thoughts are above everything. Sex dies but emotions and thoughts are something that bind people together. Get back to me if you liked my honest opinion.

Things that we would do together: I love going out to have fun but not to a bar where I cannot look into your eyes in the smoky darkness, where I cannot listen your honey dew voice in the loud music, where I cannot feel you in the jungle of drunken human bodies. I would rather go out and watch a sunset with you, holding your hand and just looking at the sun so that I can mock him. “Look sun you are going but I still have somebody to lighten my life through the darkness that you are leaving behind.” We would go out together to plant saplings so that we can go every weekend to watch them grow as the love between us would grow. Yes we can do much better things than just cuddling and hugging each other on a couch....We can go out in a drizzle and just move our head upwards to taste the first rain..... We would write letters in hand and not in e-format like emails to add emotion to them....we will make our meals together rather than going out to dunkin donuts and buying it..... We would go to long drives just to ensure that you are there with me to share the distances.....sometimes we would just sit back and meditate to hear each other's souls.......We would sometimes go out and do social service together and come back with satisfaction and real happiness.

And when you would ask me to hold your hands in the fog worn winter evenings on the lonely road in our backyard, I would then just tease you with a light note........hey I am not 22 anymore :P

The Dusk

I was waiting, to hear from you,
Came your call- honey, as a burst,
Now sipping together, a coffee or two,
Holding thou’ hands, celebrating the dusk.

Thy breaths are the winter rose,
Thy eyes are the holy ocean,
Thy hair is the china silk,
Thy talks are the magic potion.

Thy voice is the fresh honey,
Thy touch is the Midas touch
Thy smile is the spring season,
Thy words are the magic cut.

I’m scribbling and scrabbling hard,
To paint you real in my eyes,
Though colors you’ve taken away,
But my love for you never dies.

All these moments of tenderness,
Blue night and gentle breeze,
I wish if time could stop forever,
I wish if this world could freeze.

With two of us in virtual bliss,
I’d like to open my heart,
To speak out the truth and emotions,
Everything unhidden, playing my part.

But I’m bit afraid and scared,
In my moments of cloud nine,
Could upset and spoil your mood,
Saying love you one more time.

But you are the one, can’t loose you now
Where shall I go, where shall I dear?
You are my destiny and destination.
If not, let me drown myself in tears.

And when you’d go away from me,
When air would stink without musk,
When dreams of hope would shatter,
Dear I’ll cry and mourn for the dusk.

An Autobiography

Suddenly I could feel the gentle-warm touch of another lady’s hand on me. She did a careful inspection from her soft nimble fingers and tried to feel me on her palms and hands. Her skin was soft and effused plentiful brightness of an afternoon sun. She looked into my body, and praised my beauty as mine eyes met her fun filled amber eyes. I shivered and felt the frenzy of excitement of finding a new home. The cheerful mood did not last long and I soon found myself in a profound state of despair. The amber eyed lady decided to not to take me home but a yellow and blue colored neighbor of mine. How could people buy cheap colors and leave maroon behind on the shelve?

I was hanging there, and I fluttered as I felt another strong gust of the freezing winter breeze on my body. Destiny seemed to show its back upon me once more and half of the winter had already gone just with a hope of finding a new home. I kept crying on that fateful chilly winter night and with each tear that parted my distressful eyes I lost one hope until I had none in my heart.

Sunrise brought me a new world of hope when Mrs. Biyani finally decided me to take home. It was a comfort ride in a new Corolla. The Biyani’s home was a small mansion in Indore. It was much better than the place I used to be. I spent my childhood days hanging on a road side small shop. I suffered all the atrocities and hostilities that no child would ever want to go through. Rash weather, air pollution, so many unwanted touches, vandalism, and the list is endless. As soon as I reached home Ms. Biyani (Later I found that her name was Khushboo) embraced me with the warmth that I had always wanted. She carefully felt me on her face and wrapped around her shoulders. I felt rattling quivers all over my body and the quest of finding my master seemed over. I was luckier to find a young girl like her. I named her as “Little Princess”. I spent my initial days in her intricately carved, neatly made, wooden cupboard. I was kept away from the sun, in the ever lingering smell of costly perfumes from Europe, in the cozy temperature of the lavish room. And I would always wait impatiently for my turn to be wrapped around to experience and sense the gentle warmth of her body. I despised the other wrap-arounds if they were chosen instead of me.

Luck always take turns and my happy days did not last long. Soon I heard that I would be going to Mumbai with my little princess. I had heard a lot about the place where the Indian peninsula kissed the Arabian Sea. Soon I found myself in a small house with two rooms. As I was hearing from the corner of the suitcase I could figure out that there were two other female voices – Nitika and Nidhi. The new place made my heart to pound with the obscure excitement mingled with subtle apprehension. I liked the place when I was taken out from the suitcase. Nidhi and Nitika quite liked my looks and I liked theirs. I knew they were in love with me the first time they saw me. Perhaps they were jealous of the princess for possessing me. At times Nidhi or Nitika would give a wishful glance at me in the solitude of the new acquired house of mine. They would come close to me, feel me, hold me, and wrap me around over their bodies in front of the mirror. I felt elated and found my soul on cloud number nine with so much of want and love all around me.

The two bedroom apartment soon got choked with the black smoke of conflicts and tensions amongst the three. The prominent personas of the three working girls clashed, cracked, shattered, and restructured themselves each time whenever they felt interference in their individualism. The new structure of the persona was always more accommodating from its predecessor. It was a kind of social evolution where personalities and individuals abrade each other and remove the acute, sharp, and penetrating traits to make everybody sociable and livable in a social structure. The girls also learned to live peacefully, in harmony, and in symbiosis. They had to…

I was brought to the office as the princess extra sensitive body and the soft tender skin could not bear the ruthless bursts of super cooled jets by the office’s AC system. I was ripped off of my home…sweet home…and had been placed in the alien corporate world. I saw managers, employees, professionals, support staff, and what not. The whole corporate dynamics became visible to me as I spent days…weeks….and months. The office was profusely bright outside but still gloomy inside, the sweet fragrance hanged around all the while but it was deadly suffocating, there were uproar and chaos during the peak hours but deep down it was silent, stoned, and cold as a dead body. I was hanged up on the back of the princess’s chair in that uncongenial chaotic space.

On their way to the canteen or to their friend’s place people would deliberately drop me down from the chair pitilessly when the princess was not around. Either they were jealous of my irresistible impressive looks or they had cultured a strange vengeance against me for no justifiable reason. They would inflict all sorts of tortures and barbarities on my vulnerable body and I suffered all the torments of the misfortunate - cleaning their dirty hands and face, stamping on my feeble body with dirty and filthy soles, treating me like a rag, using me to clean their desks and tables, or computer screens….and what not. The corporate inferno that was filled with infernals rendered me numb of pains, emotions, and fears. Nights were scary and chilly; the loneliness in the lonely hours was killing. I somehow waited for the nights though lonesome I was but still away from the infuriating experiences of the day. My tears dried and my heart metamorphosed to stone as I was left there to live my destined life.

All the while my princess had taken her eyes off me as she had found her world and her friends. She barely used me in the office.

I am still hanging there on the back of her chair with bruises all around, still trying to cruise through my cursed life, still I find a new hope every morning like a drop of dew. But as the day goes by and as I suffer through the devil’s hands once more, the hope fades away the same way as the drop of dew disappears in the rage of unforgiving sun. Anyway what I am just another shawl.

Hope that princess will read this and embrace me with love, once again.