Delhi-It's different

Delhi is different. That’s the best word to describe Delhi- Different!

The roads are wider (not wide- because I am comparing it to Bangalore); there are better connections; the weather is just fine-sunny but not piercing hot, slowly inching towards winter. In this kind of weather, you are bound to have chapped lips. The girls are good looking (hey! that’s just kidding. They are very good looking!).

There is traffic on roads even past midnight though you have to be careful of rash and drunken driving.
Pollution is still a big menace affecting Delhi despite CNG being used by taxis and buses. You can feel it in your eyes after being on Delhi roads for half an hour or so.

Even in a small city like Faridabad, the roads are being widened and Haryana CM has vowed to make it a better city. Property rates have suddenly shot up and are touching the sky already.

And most of all, everybody speaks Hindi.

I came across one Government official at post office yesterday. He was downright rude.

I went to a Photostat shop to get a paper xeroxed. The aged man there didn’t want to speak. Without any expression on his face, his eyes rolled up to the fan to indicate that there was no electricity.

I went to a mobile phone shop to buy a connection and the salesperson there was talking at the top of his voice explaining all the tariff plans.

This time, I want to have a ride in Delhi metro. Let’s see.

All the sentences above indicate mixed feelings. You may infer optimism or pessimism- up to you.

Raining on and on

Mayhem in Bangalore: Rains playing havoc. Office buses taking 4-5 hours to commute the usual distance which can be covered only in 1 hour; pictures of two-wheelers, cars, taxis submerged in water being flashed in news dailies; fire department rescuing people on boats; Bangalore city traffic police flashing sms on mobile requesting people to avoid certain roads; some people locking their homes to move in with their friends. CM declaring losses faced by Karnataka; organizations ending the day early on to avoid any mishap; it’s raining; it’s raining on and on...

There was a little girl

There are many poems that we come across but some don’t leave us untouched. There was a little girl is one of them. Read through the poem and you will agree with me that it is not difficult to find one such girl around us.

This poem is succinct by its words but comprehensible, self-explanatory and satisfactory by its meaning.



There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very good indeed,
But when she was bad she was horrid.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


All I can say is that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a short worthwhile poem.

Modesty Blaise

Saturday morning started with watching a movie from Modesty Blaise series on television-My name is Modesty.

Directed by Scott Spiegel, the movie presents British Actress, Alexandra Staden as Modesty- a character created by Peter O'Donnell in 1962 for his comic strip by the same name. There was no character of Willie Garvin in this movie.

Though I haven’t watched any of earlier Modesty series, this one entertained me. I was getting up only in breaks and didn’t feel the need to change the channel while watching the movie (in wake of so many trash movies, such have become the criteria to announce any movie good)

The movie shows the flashback story of early life of Modesty, a roulette-wheel operator in Morocco, before she takes over Louche’s organization.

Alexandra has very skillfully played the part of Modesty. The confidence in her blue eyes and the sophistication of her movements, even while the villain (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau of Black Hawk Down) is throwing her on the floor, fits the role of the character. The only drawback I could feel was that she looks very thin.

Nikolaj Waldau also played the character of Miklos well though it is hard to fathom why he would want to know her past every time he wins on the roulette!

News has it that Quentin Tarantino has been interested in directing Modesty Blaise for a long time. No updates…

Uma Thurman could have also played this role. It would be interesting to see how she would have fit into this character.

I am not going to write any spoiler warning as I will not tell you the story. No point- I am not good at it anyway.

Rainy days

It’s pouring like hell in Bangalore this year. You are destined to get drenched in Bangalore irrespective of the vehicle you possess and believe me, you will always be caught off guard.
For some days, it will be scorching hot till four in the evening suddenly to give way to clouds followed by heavy raining. Then, on the weekend, it will unexpectedly rain in the morning or at noon when you are on your way for a lunch outside.

Or, when in the evening, it has rained heavily, stopped completely thereafter and you being fed up of sitting at home decide to go out for a walk, you will be welcomed by a sudden shower with no shelter near-by.

Strange are the ways of weather!

Mission Udaan

I had to get up at odd 4:30 hours in the morning; reach Air force training command centre in Hebal by sharp 6. I was one of the lucky contestants who got to participate in Mission Udaan contest which will enable 5 contestants to fly a Fighter Jet (read Sukhoi-30).
There were 300 participants and out of them 210 were asked to leave straight away after the first round, I being one of them…

The first round consisted of a race in which the contestants had to do the following:
A contestant would monkey run for 25 meters- both legs on ground and at least one palm touching the ground always; wouldn’t stop there at the finish of these 25 meters; would run backwards to the point he/she started; wouldn’t stop there after finishing these 25 meters; would run 50 meters on one leg and at the end of 50 meters, turn 180 degrees and run normally.

I was leading the race but on the third step, instead of running 50 meters on one leg, I ran 25 meters, turned 180 degrees and started running only to realize that I was the only one doing so. Then, it dawned on me that I had to run on one leg for 50 meters and not just 25 meters but I think it was too late by then though I completed the race and came fourth- Mentally not alert: Didn’t follow the instructions properly. Moreover, if I was not leading the race, I would have seen someone covering 50 meters and I would have got through…Sometimes you pay for being fast…

It also happened so because despite contestants asking the parameters for selection, the air force people only kept on answering that there were many. All in all, the first round was very easy.

It was continuously raining incessantly since 5:30 in the morning today.

Anyway, I was better off being in Air force area than sitting at home watching the idiot box or leafing through a novel, I am trying hard to finish.
There were shops of Barber, Flour mill, Sanjha Chulha, Canteen etc with a touch of modernity. It was a good day after all since I came to know that I have to be more alert mentally…

~Adios

Big B turns 63 today

11th October:

Today is Big B’s birthday. He turns 63 today and still entertains and enthralls his audience with his movies and never-say-die attitude. He has called off all celebrations in wake of the recent earthquake in Asia, which killed thousands of people.

It was a feast to watch Sudesh Bhosle imitating Amitabh Bachchan’s voice for as long as possible on Channel 7 in the morning.

Hats off to you Mr. Bachchan!

Of lost passwords retrieved but of no use anymore

My fingers (through my subconscious) started typing my old lost password whenever i came back to my machine since they were used to typing it to unlock my machine for an year now....Though the old password is of no use anymore.

Let it R.I.P.

NAT GEO MISSION UDAAN CONTEST

You’re already flying high. Congratulations!
You’ve been selected for the on-ground selection for Mission Udaan.
Now you are a step closer to that dream that millions dream of - flying in a Fighter Jet. 5 people will be
selected for the final round, and out of them, only one will be fortunate enough to ride in this magnificent machine.

Make sure you’re there for the selection.
First come first serve basis – Limited Entry only - Gates close at 7 am
- Please carry one photo ID with you
- Make sure you are wearing sports rig for the selection
If you are a Hero Honda owner please carry a copy of your RC and incase you are a Hero Honda Passport holder carry along a photocopy of your passport. Bangalore
Date - 13th October '05.
Venue -Training Command Headquarters, Air Force, Hebal.
Time - 6 am - 7am

Of earthquake and forgotten password

This weekend was rather strange and unfortunate.

30,000 people were killed in Pakistan, POK being the epicenter of the quake. It also killed 750 people in our own Jammu & Kashmir. 75 to 80 percent of Uri has been washed out of map.

The magnitude of this earthquake was 7.4 on the Richter Scale.

Many Army men were also killed on both the sides. In India, the earthquake touched as far as Delhi and Faridabad.

The most unfortunate thing to happen afterwards was that some militants yesterday night stormed a village in Jammu & Kashmir’s earthquake shattered Rajouri district killing atleast 10 people. They must be inhuman.

---

On my end too, the weekend was strange. I came to office on Saturday and went to gym. Later, I went back to my seat and logged on to my machine.

As soon as I logged on to my machine after entering the correct password, I realized that I didn’t remember my password anymore. How did I log in then? May be, my fingers remembered their positions while tapping the password on the keyboard. I checked one or two websites and then locked. I tried to log in again but of no avail.

Was it a result of gym?

I had used this very password for an year and I used to lock my machine at least ten times a day. Strange thing- our memory.

I think, I was not consciously entering my password. The password was stored somewhere in my subconscious and after forgetting the password from my conscious memory, I tried to retrieve it from my subconscious but failed in the attempt.

I got my password reset on Monday. I went for a cup of tea later thereafter and as soon as I came back to my seat, my fingers tapped my forgotten correct password. Believe me i still don’t know my lost password. I know I tapped it correct after the tea because I didn’t stop anywhere and I didn’t think. In fact, I had forgotten that I had forgotten my password.
---

I spent 3-4 hours of Sunday morning solving various sudoku puzzles and noon by watching ‘Out of Reach’ on Star movies.

Moon and Cigarette

There was this bearded, thin, tall guy in our college who was our Computer Lab In-charge and knew much more about computers than us, studying computer science.

One of his hobbies was to read poetry in urdu and hindi languages. Coupled with all these qualities, he was a jovial person.

In one of our tutorials, our lecturer was absent and to kill time, our guy recited a sher(a couplet), which I will never forget.

Cigarette jalte jalte bhuj gayi,
bata ai chaand. Kya tune kabhi scooter dekha hai...

(The cigarette smoldered and extinguished, Oh! Moon, have you ever seen a scooter? )

We all had burst into laughter thereafter...

Probably one of my classmates may remember his name and put it in the comment for this article...

Bangalore's Traffic condition

Traffic on muddy, potholed, uneven roads in Bangalore laden with unwanted speed breakers and one-ways will make most of the patient drivers loose their cool.

I have heard even lady drivers swear at the call-centre taxi drivers who would make a wrong sharp cut to get a side or honk incessantly when the traffic is jammed.

To add to the woes of this city, apartments have come up beside all major roads. The road joining Airport and Kundalahalli gate (way to ITPL and Whitefield Industrial Area) has a major roadblock after the marathalli junction in the form of a bridge above a railway line.

There are two apartments already on one side of the bridge and two more big apartments coming up on the other side (Purvankara and Rohan Vasantha). Imagine thousands of families coming to stay in these apartments in an year or so and their hundreds of cars in and around the area.

How will they get on to the bridge is a big question?

Karnataka government has recently announced that this road from Airport to Kundalahalli gate will be converted into a four-lane road in eight straight months after the tender is passed.

It wouldn’t take much time for these eight months to pass by or, would it?

Besides all this hell, there are some senior coalition leaders who are trying to stall Government's plans to make metro rail up and running. Their reasons are trivial.

Delhi is an example where the Government not only overcame traffic problem but also reduced the time to commute. Hundreds of bridges were constructed in two-three years and metro rail was completed ahead of its schedule. Commendable! Pollution, too, is not a problem in Delhi anymore .

Unfortunately, other developing metropolitans don't want to follow Delhi.

There are many other grand plans for improvement in Bangalore's infrastructure but for the time being, the city seems to be reeling under its traffic throes

Mercerized Cotton

While I was ironing my shirt in the morning, I read a tag a little below the back of my collar- Mercerized Cotton; I thought I will look it up on Google.

Here is what i found: Mercerization is a treatment for cotton fabric and thread mostly employed to give cotton a lustrous appearance. The series of processes was devised by John Mercer in the middle of 19th century.

Question - What are the advantages of using mercerized cotton?
Answer- Mercerized cotton has a higher luster, greater strength, holds more dye, and does not shrink as much when washed as unmercerized cotton.

Namashkar

Back in North of India, we still greet our elders with ‘Namaste’.

But, I work in the South (2500 Kilometers away from my home) where predominantly South Indian languages are spoken. I don’t have any elders here and most of the people I speak to are in the same age group. Therefore, I address acquaintances and colleagues with a ‘hi’ or a ‘hello’.

Whenever I pass by him (SK), he greets me with a prompt, ‘Namashkar’. To your surprise, readers, he is a South Indian and he speaks hindi very clearly though this is not my reason for putting this entry here.

When some people fight in the name of regionalism, ask Multinational companies to employ regional people, stone multiplexes and cinemas that screen English or Hindi movies, passing by this person with a very honest ‘Namashkar’ on his lips shows that there is still a hope for this country.

I feel like wishing him in his language next time he greets me with a ‘Namashkar’.

Jenny, who?

Please read it after you have read my blog entry- Jenny kissed me

This is what i found on web. May or may not be true.

The Hunts lived around the corner [from the Carlyle's home in Cheyne Row, Chelsea] and Leigh used to drop in regularly. But he was sick one winter and was absent for so long that when he finally recovered and appeared in the Carlyle's doorway, Jane jumped up and kissed him. And a day or two later, one of the Hunt servants delivered a note [along with the poem]. From Mr Hunt to Mrs Carlyle."

Jenny Kissed Me

Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in.
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in.
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad;
Say that health and wealth have missed me;
Say I'm growing old, but add-
Jenny kissed me!

-James Henry Leigh Hunt

I have always loved this poem. In a novel way, the poet presents his golden memory of Jenny kissing him.

By the lines, ‘Jumping from the chair she sat in,’ the poet probably wants to say that Jenny was so happy to see him that she jumped from her chair she sat comfortably in, to kiss him instead of just sitting there and extending her hand for a simple kiss. The poet is perhaps insinuating the eagerness to kiss from both sides- an early sign of two people falling in love.

The poet is unruffled by the vagaries of life and weariness of his mind or body. He is equally unrepentant of missing health and wealth in life. All that matters to him is that Jenny kissed him. He was worthy of Jenny’s kiss- probably her love. The poet is so much riveted in the golden moment of his past that he is blaming time for snatching that moment of his life from him.

A totally different interpretation could be that though the poet was not in love with Jenny but she was so undeniably beautiful that he always sees that kiss from Jenny as his moment of glory, his achievement.

I will sign off with a quote from G.B. Shaw:

The fickleness of the women I love is only equaled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.

Adios