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Friday, December 30, 2005

Good Bye 2005, N Welcome 2006!!!!

Herez wishing you a very happy n prosperous new year!!!!
Have a Gr8 year ahead with ‘2006 more smiles’ J n ‘2005 less tears’ L



Saturday, December 24, 2005

Saluting the 'Spirit of Friendship'

I cannot stop starting this post, with these lines from the song by KK:

"Yaaron dosti badi hi haseen hai,
Yeh na ho to kya phir
Bolo yeh zindgi hai..."

Truly, the lines above convey the emotions and thoughts, which I know, everyone of us would be sharing in common.


These speak about one of the most beautiful N powerful relationship that God created -
'Friendship', without which what would our lives have been - well to me, without Friendship N
such dear friends, there wouldn't have been a bigger VOID than my Life.

We’ve collected many 'flowery petals' - our friends - right from our school days, to our college years, to the corporate life, n would be collecting many more of such beautiful petals in the future too - who were and are very dear to us. I take this opportunity to remember all my best friends out there, and express my feelings as to how much they mean to me!!

Turning the papers of this book called 'mY LiFE' back......into nostalgia.....Remember those school days...when all of us would've made our first friends for life.

  • As kids - Those running around the pillars of the school during the lunch time, those sharing and gifting of the favourite pen/pecil/eraser to each other, those selfless feelings of experiencing pain when our friend got hurt, those sharing of fairy tale stories with each other.
  • As Teens - Those days of sports and fun, those moments of cheering each other in races and competitions during the annual sports meet events, those days of playing cricket on roof tops(terrace) of our homes, those days of night studies preparing for exams, those days of celebrating bithdays - going to friends' homes, playing games, enjoying cakes & special sweets made, and the partying @ home, those days of playing badminton/volleyball/basketball in the playground after school hours, and those days of walking back home in groups after school got over (What a journey it would be with fun on the run).

Then came the first phase of separation , which brought with it an excruciating pain - it was the time we'd to part ways (only physically - as we do are in touch with our best buddies even today...hai na??) with most of our friends; life bringing up different paths to tread along for everyone, on our way to our Future......some on course to become Engineers, some Doctors, some taking up Arts N sciences....

Then came the unforgettable years of college......which brought with them many more of those beautiful petals for us to collect....

  • Those days of getting up early in the morning by 5AM to get ready for college bus, those days of group studies n seminars, those days of 'sharing' the might of boring endless lectures, those days of semester exams when we read a complete unit [n sometimes a whole book :)] by means of peer lecture in the college bus journey, those days of representing college in
    inter-collegiate events...be it Sports(cricket, badminton, volleyball etc), or be it culturals(dance, drama, music, quiz, dumb-chrades), or be it curriculars(paper presentations etc), those days of preparing for CAT, GMAT sitting in the last benches, avoiding the boring lectures....the team effort was evident and strongly radiated in all our activities and efforts :)

Then the second phase of separation arrrived.....A strong breeze again scatters many of the petals in our hands in various directions.....and we move on, along the paths scripted for us...taking those sweet n fun filled memories along with us, which we would cherish through out our lives.....however, we are lucky to have the company of some of the petals with us as we step in to a new dawn...a new phase of our lives - our professional careers.



This phase starts off on a high, as we are now self-dependent (Hum apne pairon pe jo khade hotey hain..)....once again ready to gather a set of new petals - petals which've been breezed along from various parts of the country, after sharing a similar journey as ours...and now with us sharing, -

  • These days of living an independent life - away from home, @ our work location, these days of projects..tasks..deadlines, these days of working day-in and day-out for 15+ hours during development phase of the project, these days of gulping down more tea and coffee than water, these days of talking more on ISD calls, than on local or STD calls - reason being project
    realted calls to Onsite coordinators, these days of having fun @ work enjoying a day out for the cultural fest of our unit in the organization....

But the phase of separation does agonize us here too....Its the time of our project delivery (a project for which we've dedicated our heart, mind n soul for about 9~10 months) after which is the time for the team to split and make a foray in to new assignments...and now all those new vibrant petals (buddies) which you'd have gathered for your life are also separating from you..some might continue to work with the same organization and some may not, and the physical separation of working for different assignments from different work locations, thus instills the feeling of longing in us....

So itz the time now to say Bbye 2 many of my these dear friends, working with whom for such a long time was a gr8 pleasure n fun!!

I would only say (Bas yahi kehna chahunga).....

"Chalte Chalte mere ye geet yaad rakhna,
Kabhi alwidaa naa kehna, kabhi alwidaa naa kehna..."

To all you people out there who have collected these petals and who are the petals for the friends around you......

"Yaaron dosti badi hi haseen hai
Yeh na ho to kya phir
Bolo yeh zindgi hai
Koi to ho raajdaar
Be garaz tera ho yaar
Koi to ho raajdaar...."

MS signing off.......Saluting the 'Spirit of Friendship'....

Saturday, December 17, 2005

A typical WL travel in Indian Railways:

Last week I had been out to attend a cousin's marriage, n though my ongoing travel ticket was
confirmed, the return ticket was under the dreaded Waiting List(WL), and unfortunately did not
get confirmed, even though I'd booked it almost a month ahead of the travel.
Itz been a similar story now for almost about 3 times in the recent past 4 me.....You request the TTE @ the platform before boarding the train with your WL number, about the possibility of getting a
berth!!!@#$??#$ N his typical response is 'Mostly not possible' or 'Very less chance' or 'Sir, there are many people who have a similar case, what can I do?'. And then when we ask if we can board any compartment as of now, he says 'yeah..yeah get into any one now, we'll see later on'.

Then its the horrible tiring part, where in you have to stand with your luggage @ the extremes of a compartment :-), mostly besides the doors of the compartment......thinking if you'd get a berth for the night?? and then there are some other people too who are your 'feeling-a-like' types...a start of a little interaction with one person n then another....n wow you've made some friends for your life (this is the most coolest part of such a journey......n by no chance a couple of those @ min would be from the software industry.....and may be from your own organization.....this typically and frequently happens in the south indian routes).

Time jus seems to fly off as we discuss anything n everything from the 'canvas of possibilities' :-) .....and then our TTE sir makes a grand entry like a Sant guru with hoardes of disciples behind him :-); these are all the people with WL tickets, humming like bees aroung nectar. N then we ask him, if there's any chance for us....n he says 'yeah you can go to S1. You might get a berth there...most of the people would get down @ xyz station which comes @ around 9:30 PM'. We take a deep breath of relief....(not knowing what's in store for us further late in the night....as if these problems till now, were not enough!!).....n ok, so our army of WL'ites moves towards the S1 coach, as if literally gesturing 'ATTACK S1'!!



Yeah people do get down @ the station and the bogie seems to be vacant now, n so we help ourselves n occupy the vacant seats :-), but then a few people do board the train from that sation as well, N we keep praying 'Please, please not on this seat' as we eagerly n desperately try to ward off all evils (all those passengers with confirmed tickets in that bogie), because we hear from fellow WL'ites that this is the major station in the night, after which the train has a halt only in the morning....so if we secure these berths for ourselves, our night would pass off without troubles!! But it would never happen, as long as these certain TTEs (who are a Nuisance sometimes) are present in the railways....

Now we are comfortably seated in our seats, waiting for the TTE to come, so that we can get our tickets confirmed with the berth we've captured [as if we've conquered a fort in our Jung :-)]....n then somebody says, 'well we would better sleep now as it is too late, rather than wait for the TTE.....whenever he comes we'll sort this issue out....n everybody feels its right, n so finally we are comfortably lying down on our berths, n doze off sometime later due to the tiring journey..........

Then suddenly we wake up @ around midnight with loud quarrels coming in from adjacent set of seats.....yeah its a couple of TTEs, but both are in a drunken state, n hence without a stable control over themselves!! I speak to myself, 'How could these guys do this when they are performing their duties??', and certainly don't find any logical answer....and when I go to that place, I find its all like a comedy of errors, and drama going on with these couple of nuisance guys.....One has climbed on to the top berth with his legs hanging down and the other guy on seeing this 'Oye! Take your legs up man....oye my order take your legs up'......and then the other guy after repeated pampering does move his legs up, and this guy down here says 'Haan!! Good boy...good boy', and I still wonder what the hell is going on here??



Then enters a TTE number 3, who seems to be fine and in control, and when we tell him that we've got berths n request him to confirm our tickets, he says 'What sir?? hmmm..what...first of all you are not supposed to travel in this bogie with WL tickets...bcoz this is a bogie with a quota, n only people from xyz station can be accomodated here'. We feel as if beating him up black and blue....afterall there are vacant berths and its his duty to acomodate WL passengers in these berths....but he's behaving as if the whole of Railways was his property!! I initially make him understand, but when he doesn't seem to be perturbed, I unleash a set of fiery dialogues [in a Nana Patekar like style :)] and finally he agrees to give us our berths.... :) but not before the time is now around 1:30 AM in the night.....We finally go back to our berths and in no time fall asleep again.

Come morning, n we've reached our destinations and itz the time to take contacts and bid goodbye to all those set of new friends, some of whom go on to become very good pen-pals of yours in the future.... :-).

Still wonder.....how this keeps happening so frequently in a WL travel in Indian Railways (the world's largest carrier of its kind!!).....N jus console myself saying that this would be the last time!!!.....May be.....May be not.....Letz see.

Friday, December 09, 2005

"Einsteins' last words!" -- Original Version :)


These r Einsteins' actual last words.......unlike the ones mentioned by HeT on his blog :) ......Juz Kidding.....

This was a good one from HeT, who can be discovered & explored further @ http://hetwaghela.blogspot.com/