Infinite thoughts

It got me really excited when I came across the introductory video of the new application from Google - Wave . It seemed to be feature rich from a truly collaborative tool perspective. The video itself was very nicely done with proper examples and how to use this new wave. And then it was a long wait of few months before Google started distributing invites for private beta. I was eagerly waiting to get the invite as I had promptly registered and opted for beta invite when I had known about it. Finally I could manage to get an invite (although secondary) from one of my friends around 1.5 months back. As it happens with every new toy, there was a lot of enthusiasm to try out this new tool. Meghana could also manage to get one invite for herself. And then for few days we used this tool as a "chat" application. It was really cool to see what the other person is typing in real time - his/her edits/deletes etc. The interesting part was I could add comment to any of the earlier pos

I had been hearing about this " city " for quite sometime - all good and bad both. Decided to pay a visit many-a-times, but never really got to it. Finally it was yesterday when we (Meghana and I) decided to take the trip. While having lunch at McD, she suddenly got a kick to go a looong drive and so we decided to head towards MuLashi with no specific plans to visit Lavasa . But when we saw the first sign board stating Lavasa at 42 Kms in Chandani Chowk, we thought why not go to Lavasa. The road to Lavasa is nicely maintained except for few speedbreakers towards the villages near Lavasa. This was not surprising given the big clout that the city is blessed with. The good part was that there was not much traffic, so I could drive with my pace (obviously slow :)) without getting pestered with honking. The Ghat was okay to drive with some sharp U pin curves. En route to Lavasa, we happened to cross a Dam, couldn't figure out what it's name is (Varasagaon?). The place was

As I have mentioned in my earlier blogs, I have quit playing Evony, TV has been reduced to a couple of hours on weekend, and this is giving me some more time at hand off late. So what am I doing with this time? Evening times are entirely for Mrunmay. As soon as I land up home, Mrunmay wants to take his book and makes me read through. Now, don't get it wrong, he doesn't understand fully whatever I read but he wants to keep on turning the pages randomly and look at pictures. If the book is for poems, he'll want me to sing (say?) the poem from the page he lands on. Then he also wants me to sing "naach re moraa" (marathi song) by reading English Nursary Rhymes book and every page that is featuring a "star" I have to sing "Twinkle Twinkle". So outcome, I have memorized quite a few Rhymes which I didn't know until few days back. Joy - countless :) "baba, pushtak wachoo yaat" (Baba, let's read the book) is the tag line I hear at leas

Yesterday, I happened to bump into the latest reality show on NDTV Imagine - "Raaz Peechale Janam Ka" (The secret of last life). Apparently some female is having some psychic powers with which she can help you see your last life. I didn't get to watch the entire episode, but whatever I saw kept me wondering with many questions. The episode that I saw had Sekhar Suman as the person who was getting to know about his last life. Apparently, in his last birth, he was a scottish person with some Army background and he has lost his family in some some kind of fire, including his "then" kid. It was surprising to know that Sekhar's son (this birth) was afraid of Diwali crackers... With the recent fad of reality shows mashrooming on every channel (including MTV and V TV, which once were dedicated to only music), I keep on wondering where this is heading. "Rakhi ka swayamwar", "Perfect Bride", "Pati, Patni aur Woh", "Big Boss" an

As expected, the movie turned out to be boring. Nothing much was happening in the movie. I spent time in figuring out some of the lose ends which could get resolved only after I talked to Meghana as she had read the book. The movie has added twist of existence of werewolves, which happened to be around Bella in the form of Human Beings. Her best friedn Jacob himself is a werewolf and the sequence in which this was revealed was the only piece I could remember after the movie. Jacob is trying to be protective of Bella and wants to keep her away from Vampires (Collins family), but ultimately loses to Edward as Bella decides to chose love against the best friend. All in all, I didn't feel that story has advanced worth 2 hours.

Simple rules for avoiding Traffic Jam: If the road ahead is blocked, do not cross the middle line of the road and try to move ahead in the queue. If you do, you'd only add to the traffic jam. Everyone in the queue is equally eager to reach the destination and not just you. When you reach a circle aka chowk, and if the road ahead is blocked, then wait well before the chowk/circle to clear the road. This will at least keep the cross traffic moving and will not create a circular congestion. And yes, if you see the traffic jam ahead, do not hesitate to take a diversion to some other road. It would only help in not adding to the traffic jam, even though you may end up taking a little longer route.

By announcing a separate state for Telangana, under the threat from TRS leader's hunger strike has set a very wrong precedent. Probably in order to earn some quick good book entries, Congress Govt has taken this unilateral decision and now everyone in the nation is going to pay for this in some or the other way. There would be many more demands from other states, e.g. Maharastra, Gujrat, for separate states to fulfil wishes from some highly ambitious but not so effective politicians. Note that I am neither in favor of the split nor against it, I am just worried about the aftereffects of this hasty decision. UPA government is already under fire and seems to have gone on back foot "Gandhi told agitated non-Telangana MPs that all views would be taken into account during talks. " Wasn't this supposed to happen before taking the decision? And this is coming from the current superpower in the nation. We had a similar split earlier - creation of Jharkhand, Chattisgarh etc. H

Finding it hard to continue the thing that you like? e.g. regularly reading newspaper? Reading your Google feeds? Watching a particular program on some channel? Visiting/calling friends regularly? I hope I am not the only one who is struggling to get into some kind of routine to make these things happen. E.g. I used to read newspaper everyday morning when I was in my old house. Since the time I have shifted to new place, this has gone for a toss. Reason - the newspaper is not delivered even until I am ready to leave for office. I am getting a bit regular on my google reader feeds (thanks to evony-free days :)) (yet another attempt). Since the priorities have changed (Mrunmay taking most of my time at home), there is no time for watching TV these days. Listening to songs has become a rare case. Visiting relatives - oh, I don't even remember when I visited some of my not-so-distant relatives. And friends - talking to them has become rarer than a blue moon. I wonder how many of you st

After all the hype that was created around " Twilight ", it was obvious to watch it sooner or later and we managed to watch it last weekend. The story revolves around the basic theme of a young girl falling in love with a boy, who happens to be a vampire, yes, vampire. Most of the initial part has come out very cutely, the way Bella (the cute, beautiful girl) attracts to Edward (the vampire), how Edward gets involved with Bella, the pain that Edward goes through everytime he suppresses his urge to suck blood out of Bella, the realization that Bella has when she joins the dots, her visit to Edward's family - all these things have come out very beautifully. Disappointedly, then comes a villain (what would that love story be, if there's no villain) and from this point onwards, it became just another hindi movie - Villain kidnapping the dearones, Hero making all attempts to save his sweetheart and all. This was the point when I lost my interest in the movie. If it would

Last few weeks I was hooked on to the online game "evony" - a war/strategy game. Since the game is "online" it was always on and I continuously need to take care of the army that I had built in 2 of my cities there. Plus, you are always under pressure of being attacked when you are not online. Not that it affected my daily work, it definitely had started eating up valuable time. I was spending almost 2 hours everyday on this game and suddenly I realized that I have got addicted to this game. With this realization, it was obvious to decide to quit playing this game. And so I did. Since last Saturday, I haven't logged on to this game. This in turn have led to many more realizations :) I wasn't able to read any books (finished of "2 States" just after quitting evony), I wasn't reading much from my google reader subscription nor was I reading newspaper. Now that I don't have any binding towards the game (really? :P) I have taken up few serious

A story that many from young generation would connect to is the story of " 2 States ", a recent book from Chetan Bhagat . Krish, a Punjabi boy and Ms Ananya Swaminathan, Tamilian Brahman, get involved with each other during their stay at IIMA. Since both of them love their respective families, they wanted an approval from them for their marriage. After initial failure to get both the families know each other on the convocation day, both of them realize how bad and challenging it is going to be. Krish and Ananya decide to take up the challenge and then unfolds a hilarious but mostly true to life drama that happens in Chennai (Ananya's home town) then in Delhi (Krish's home town) and some trips between D and C. I was hooked to this book throughout and didn't want to keep it down until it was finished. The lead characters, Krish and Ananya have been portrayed very well and same is the case with supporting characters, Ananya's family and Krish's mother. The on