Mitochondria

My Best Friend and I

2006-12-29T06:20:00.000-08:00

Listening to Johny Watson's "Gangster of Love", Anna and I cruised the highway on a perfect cloudless day in a silky silver mitsubishi-lancer.The teasing wind in our faces kept our sun-kissed skin cool as we laughed at the good old days that were now only memories which we held onto so tightly with golden silk threads. Right from making our first crank call together in 10th standard to spending blissfull evenings in crowded coffee shops , we had been together for 12 long years.

We drove through the wilderness, feeling nostalgic and awakening slumbering memories
of fun and happiness that coloured our experiences of gentler times.Gentler, for those were the days which were spent in the innocence of a carefree attitude and a simple trust that we would be together forever.

We turned off the highway and into a tree-lined street searching for a restaurant tucked in the middle of the lovely picture-perfect countryside.We parked under a tree where the temperature dropped a few pleasant degrees and walked through a boisterous flower garden that led to the river.

We sat with our backs to the entire world.We looked at the river racing over the pebbles and the shadow of the trees dancing on the rippling water. The bright sun peirced its way through the canopy formed by the lush green trees and added a sparkle to the bright yellow flowers on the river bed. In the midst of this irenic retreat, we celebrated my friends new teaching position at a prestigious university.

Over a bottle of white wine, a salad of wild and garden greens, raspberry vinaigrette and pine nuts,we made most of the precious hours that remained before my friend and my soul mate would catch a flight that was going to take her approximately 10,000 miles away from me.

The summer breeze rustled through the trees as we fixed our eyes on the sand circles i was forming with a small twig.Oblivious of the irenic surroundings we were both lost in a maze of thoughts that both of us had avoided for the past few days. Thoughts that loomed in front of us the million unimagined possibilities of the future we could not see.The threads were going to snap and things were never going to be the same again. We were about to step out of the magical home we had made for ourselves into the mad world. We were about to part ways and walk on separate roads knowing very well that we would never be able to fill in the void in each others lives.

Done with the wine and the 30 minutes of quiet contemplation, we drove back to my home. As i got out of the car, i swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to stop the little tears that trickled down my cheeks. I shut the car door and tried to smile as i stared at Anna long and hard, hoping against hope that our paths would cross and we could re-live our innocent days all over again.

2006-12-25T09:44:00.000-08:00

I always look for signs...signs that will tell me the answers to future questions ...those questions for which i cannot wait untill the future happens and answers itself.
I look for the tiniest of signs like for instance there is this demo that happened today and will be graded tomorrow...and as usual i cannot wait till tomorrow...so i start looking for signs...if i open the book in my hand and the page on the right side has an even page number, then the grades will be good else bad. If i look at my cell phone this instant and the the time shows and even digit number then my wish will come true. If i see at least 3 people wearing plain red t-shirts , then my guess about the person in yesterday's party is right and so it goes on untill i cant stop this sign searching activity and i go on and on untill my head starts spinning like a top.

Why do i wanna know about the future ? why cant i wait n watch ?

I dont know

2006-07-23T09:06:00.000-07:00

I am confused ....confused about anything and everything. I dont even know if i am hungry and need to have dinner . Even as my mom yells that dinner is ready, i cant decide if im just bored hungry or actually hungry.
I dont know if I want to break rules and do things that I think are right or if I should just listen to the people who have experienced life more than me and just follow what they say.
I dont know if i should tell certain people that I dont exactly believe in what they r trying to do for me or if i should just let them do whatever they wanna do cuz it keeps them happy.
I dont know if i should follow my heart and go and get what i want even if it means the whole world is against me or if i should just accept whats thrown into my arms and learn to be happy.
The thoughts in my head are so many, intermingled like a thousand wires twisted in all possible directions to make innumerable knots.When i try to untie some of these knots , i make new knots and the existing thoughts are so happy that new knots have formed.The thoughts sneer at me as i try to organize them, they laugh back as i struggle to figure out if i am happy or sad. At one moment they make me feel like i am the luckiest person on earth and the very next moment they snatch away the last curve of my smile and make me feel like a complete loser.I wonder how it would be to have a thoughtless mind, something like a fresh clean pure white empty bowl to begin with which i can fill with only nice things.As i wonder, i dont realize that ive just added one more thought to the already existing hive.My head feels so heavy with so many thoughts that i wish i could tilt my head and push some of them over the edge so they spill over and break like pieces of glass on the shiny floor beneath and then i would step on them with hard shoes and crush them further untill they became a fine powdered substance which i could then throw far far far away so the thoughts get carried with the harsh winds to some unknown land and can never ever find their way back into my head......I dont know if i should write more or stop right here....
....well....

Would I Still get my Big Ben ?

2006-04-26T02:36:00.000-07:00

It was an extremely boring day and i was debugging some extremely boring problems.We had just got back from an extremely boring lunch and i got back an extremely boring bottle of mango-banana smoothie. Although the sticker on the bottle said it was a mango-banana smoothie with a nice picture of a juicy mango and a delicious looking banana, the ingredients writen in small letters said it contained half a mango, quarter banana and 3 full oranges.Yeah thats right - England is strange in more than one ways but not as strange as my friends in Southampton :-)

I somehow managed to pull through the boring day and when it was time to leave , I put in thesmoothie bottle in my bag and ran along. Next morning i was in office quite early. Pratap came in later on and as soon as he came in, he climbed up desks to reach for the humax TV thats kept on one of the higher stands. Yeah he loves dis-integrating that TV just to find out how many tuners in contains although he finally looks it up on google :-). He came to me with some problem but then he did not really ask me about the problem. He instead asked me if i was drunk cuz he cud smell alcohol.Well helloooooooooooo.......i did look sleepy with red eyes and i was talking crap but that did not mean i was drunk.....Could he not see the halo around my head ?? Blind as ever i thought ?? Yeah a human usually has 2 eyes and one mouth so we can see more and talk less but if u meet pratap for just 5 mins and he did not even ask u if u were drunk , u wud still surely think he has 2 mouths and no eyes at all and maybe a malfunctioning nose. By the way...for the records, its pratap who has to run to the bar every evening after work for a smoke and a big mug of beer .After all this about pratap...how can i forget deepak....yeah deepak is usually too busy debugging something to notice anything else other than his monitor, the tv next to him and the blue box with wind river writen on it.

Ok ...so i told pratap that he must be drunk himself. The day went on as usual untill after lunch when i wanted something from my bag. I opened it a bit and got the shock of my life....u wont believe what i saw......my air tickets, passport and wallet were all floating in a yellow ocean of stench. Yes u guessed it right......the smoothie bottle was actually a devil in disguise, the yellow liquid devil had forced open the cap and was drowning my hopes of getting back to india that weekend unless ofcourse the british customs did not mind letting me out of the country with a completely soaked passport and matching yellow air tickets. I rushed to the rest room and used up all the tissues i could find to clean up my bag and passport....hahaha god save the lady who comes in to the restroom and realizes that there are no more tissues only after finishing her job....well....like i care.....i had to clean up the mess if i ever wanted to return to my home country....it was pretty much a "do or die in one of the prisons of great britain" kinda situation.

I managed to clean up everything and went back to my place. I spread out the imporatant docs on my table and left them to dry only to spill a glass of water on them after half hour....why god why.....why was all this happening to me.....i was not even thirsty but i had to drink water and then my butter fingers had to slip and the glass had to come tumbling down on my passport again. Hmmm....so i took another half hour to clean up this mess.....but thats not the funny part. We left at around 8 clk for dinner ...pratap, deepak and myself. While in the taxi deepak and me were planning to get back to office after dinner to finish up some pending work and all along pratap was saying that its not a good idea. He dint say why even thought we asked him. We reached deepaks favourite popaddum express and only after pratap had his usual dose of beer did he say that he thought it was not safe for us to travel late in the night by taxi cuz he smelt alcohol and he was sure that the driver was drunk. Sooooo much for the innocent taxi driver who had a clumsy girl sitting in the back seat with a blue bag that still smelt of spoilt mango-banana-orange smoothie. Yuuukkkk. Oh yeah....now i am 100% sure, pratap has a malfunctioning brain along with a malfunctioning nose :-) cuz u need the brain to co-ordinate with the nose, eyes and ears to relate the stench in office with the visuals of my passport and tickets spread out on the table along with my loud cribbing to the same stench in the taxi later that evening :-) I wanted to tell him then n there but i thought a blog post would be much better :-)Pratap are you gonna kill me for this post ? Would u still get the miniature Big Ben i asked for ?

Trip To London

2006-03-14T08:01:00.000-08:00

We were all ready at 6:30 AM sharp. By ' we ', I mean Deepak aka Kido, Pratap aka ' the insane talkative man '...(well this name is cuz he refuses to give out some of his other nick names...but i will soon find out) and myself ( since this is my post, i am not gonna give myself a nick name ).

Deepak began his day as usual by dropping something at the breakfast table. His day has to begin that way...some kind of a lucky charm i suppose...on normal work days he has to drop either a knief or a fork but on holidays he has to drop cereal. So in accordance to rules, he dropped his choco chip cereal on the table. Good. Things were normal :).

Before i go ahead, I need to mention that deepak has been training very seriously under the tutorship of pratap for mastering the fine art of cracking the silliest jokes one can think of.

We reached London water-loo station and here's what happens...
Pratap : " excuse me maam, how do v get to London Central "...to a lady sitting opposite us.
Lady : "ummm U have to take the underground, its 2 stations further".
Pratap : " Oh okay...how do v get to the London Eye ? "
lady pointing outside the train window " Well...here it is, u just need to walk ".
Pratap : " Ohhh do i look dumb or what ? "
Anu and Deepak : "Yes ".

So we flew the London Eye. The view of London city was very very beautiful. Here's a snap of it.We could also see the Big Ben from right on top but we wanted a closer look....so we got a london map, went to a code cofe shop, opened the map, decided what other places to visit, went back to the railway station, studied some more maps on the wall, decided which train to take, which platform, which line , waited for about 10 mins for the train to arrive, boarded it, was quite crowded, so we stood for 5 mins and then reached the Big Ben station, came out and.......voila.....there it is right opposite the London Eye ....we only had to cross the road....but no...we decided to make use of the underground railway system :)))))

By now we came to the conclusion that all other places of attraction were "walkable" distances away and so walked all the way to WestMinister Abbey, Buckingham Palace ( we did not realize that an old building on our left was actually buckingham palace untill we read the board that said it was..yeah thats how "not palace - like " buckingham palace actually is.We then went to Horse Guards parade, Downing Street, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, Tower Of London, Baker Street and hmmm....thats about it. ....Oh wait...for some strange reason, Pratap wanted to go to Trafalgar Square...he insisted on this all along and after a while we saw this tall monument
sort of thing and Pratap goes....."hey thats trafalgar square...lets take some pictures". So all three of us waited our turn to pose in front of the monument and religiously took 3 nice snaps ....only to realize later while looking at a postcard in some shop,that the great monument was at " Our Trafalgar Square" and not the " Actual Trafalgar Square of London".

All along the way, Deepak killed us with his PJ's....
Pratap: do any of u have a london guide?
Deepak : No but i have an electronic program guide. ( for my non-philips audience, electronic program guide is what we are working on currently )

We are at a coffee vending machine....
Pratap : Hmm where do i get sugar from
Deepak : Sugar Cane.

We are at a cofe shop...Costa Cofe...
Pratap: This cofe sucks.
Anu: I know...I want my Mom's cofe
Deepak : Then what will ur mom have ? ...This is an old one but deepak doesnt care.

We are at some old fort..
Anu : where are we ?
Deepak : here.

At one point, we wished we could kill him in self defense...thats allowed u know.

Well...all in all ...it was a nice goof-up filled trip to London.

The Flying Sauce-Errrrrrrr

2006-03-07T08:07:00.000-08:00

Its amazing how your own senses ditch you when you need them the most.
When i say need them most i mean in very very difficult situations for eg when u r trying to open a sauce sachet.

Ok so I am in Southamton with my English Collegues - yes everyone knows how " table mannered " the english are.We all go for lunch and i fill up my plate with macroni and vegetables.
I pick up some sauce sachets on my way. WHy? Why did i have to pick up the killer sachets ?? I taste my macroni while laughing at some joke my English collegues were telling me without really understaning what was so funny. The macroni tasted soooo very very bland.This is the wretched moment when i realized that i needed some sauce to spice up my boring macroni. So i opened my first sauce sachet, poured it on one side and yeah the macroni tasted slightly better.After a while i realized that i needed to open another sauce sachet and this is also precisely the same moment when my senses decided that i dint need them for the next 5 mins.

Listen up friends, Lesson Number 1: when u open a sauce sachet next time, i am warning u, ensure that ur senses are with u and apply ur full concentration only on opening the sachet.

I picked up my second sachet while listening to some boring remark my indian collegue was making on how spicy indian food can be. i was thinking of why he could not eat without talking so much. If only i had not worried too much about him and concentrated on what i was trying to do. Sigh!I dint realize that i was actually struggling to open the second sachet the reason being my fingers were slightly oily and before i could say Crisp Crunchy Cabbages, the sachet opened up and the sauce went flying straight ahead over and above my plate on to the white table cloth and even further onto the clean bule shirt of my english collegue sitting right opposite me.

Lesson number 2: Open up as many sauce sachets u think u wud need before u begin eating ur lunch to avoid trying to open the sachet with greasy fingers sometime later.

The worst part is yet to come. The poor engligh collegue did not even realize that a few zillion molecules of bright red ketchup had just about landed on his nice shirt cuz he was busy looking somewhere else . The tip of another guy's full arm shirt dipped itself mysteriously into the red pool on the table while I looked at everything happening around me with butterflies in my stomach. Nobody saw the flying sauce ......can u believe it ?

Ohhhh god....what do i do now? Do i tell the poor guys their fate ? Or do i let them discover the tragedy themselves ? What do i do ...oh please god tell me what to do??
And before i could make up my mind...." oooops how did this ketchup get here ? ".....said one of them....i froze....now what ?
They all looked around and i was the only one with ketchup sachets on my tray....and i also had some ketchup on my fingers and the most important piece of evidence was that i was still holding the sachet in my hand with the dumbest possible look on my face.....caught red-handed eh ?? yeah.

" hey look at the other guy, he is eating his food with his hand " i wanted to say to divert their attention....but....

" Oh Oh its alright, happens , lemme wash this off"...they left to the wash room.
I broke into the silliest possible grin.

Lesson Number 3: eat ur food without ketchup if u cannot follow the previous 2 lessons.

Sa-ft-ware Engineer's Journey Thru HELL

2006-02-23T22:28:00.000-08:00

"yel kelsa madthiya ? "
" Infosys Uncle."
"Ohhh.....very good very good....sa-ft-ware hangadre...no problem, life channagi njoy mad bahudu "
" office yelli ide ?"
" Electronic City nalli uncle ".
" Ohhh very good....nice place i say ".

True...very true :) but my dear uncle, do u know that everyday a little bit of my life is being drained out ?
I wake up in the morning and my heart sinks when i realize that i have 2 whole hours of traffic b4 me. I am still coughing because all the carbon monoxide from yesterday's journey is still stuck in my lungs. No point ....I have no choice....so i get ready and reach the bus - stop to see the biiiiiiiig bus approaching......the passenger hungry bus...i can almost visualize the 2 horns of the bus devil smirking as it picks up weary "Saft-ware Engineers ".

" Adenu dodda samasye ? Actually nevella lucky kanro.....nidde maada bahudu".
Yeah right....with the pot-hole free roads, the dust free environment if u open ur window and the oxygen full environment if u keep it closed and with Lisa Sarah John giving diet tips in a Mallu accent along with Vasanthi on Radio Shitty ( yeah i stole this nice name for radio city from my friends blog) .....its all so very conducive for a nice nap huh.
Ok...i can somehow over come all this but u know humans can never sleep with a straight head. As i drift deeper into my nap, the neck refuses to hold my head straight and before i know it, there is a mini leaning tower of Pisa in the bus, the worst part being the head leans not on the window side but on the pretty girl sitting next to me.Hmmm.....u know whats next..... " Excuse me , Can you please sit straight :-)) ". Well....as if that was not embarassing enough, i even have to get out my hankey to wipe the drool that secretly escaped when my mouth opened without my permission during that short yet blissful 5 minutes of so-called-sleep.

With all this, when am in the doldrums, my friend whose office is within the city calls me up....." Hi dude, I was stuck in such a horrible traffic jam today.It took me 40 minutes to reach office man....Bangalore sucks. So wassup with you"
You jackass, it takes you just 40 minutes on a bad day? It takes me 90 minutes on a good day.

Hmmm....so i try not to crib about my plight, I tell myself good things " there are so many people without a job, at least I have one even if it means travelling so much everyday "....just when i begin to feel slightly better, we reach SILK BOARD JUNCTION and all the optimism in me gets crushed like an elephant stamping a poor lil ant...."THUD"........the sight is far from just depressing, infact depressing is like giving a compliment to the situation......its like u first bring big trucks, buses, lorries and tempos and fill up the road, then u bring in the cars and auto-rickshaws and any space that u now find, u fill them up with scooters, bikes, mopeds...hey dont forget cyclists, vendors, and pedestrians such that u cannot see even an inch of the road, u should begin to wonder if ur actually on the road or in mid-air.... and to this, you have to add the scorching sun and the
irritating sound of horns......Sigh....I close my eyes and wish for just one thing
" A Flying Carpet!".

3-Wheeled Monsters

2006-02-22T04:05:00.000-08:00

The Indian sub continent has been home to the 3-wheeled mosnters called auto-rickshaws for quite some time now. These monsters are manned by a special species of humans who have to under-go rigorous qualification examinations ...yeah just when u thought CAT was difficult.
To begin with , you need to know slang , yes any kind of slang , at least 100 bad words and should have watched Rajnikanth's "Basha" at least 10 times so as to learn his style only and nothig else absolutely.
An added advantage is if you are a descendent of either Chengiz Khan or James Bond along with being brain dead. A cross-breed of both is even better because it means you were born to be an auto driver even if u did not intend to and can conviniently skip trainings related to the Chengiz Khan and Bond Rules of Auto-Driving.

The funda is that you need the mental attitude of Chengiz Khan to drive on Bangalore roads while at the same time swearing at anyone who comes in your way and you need the skill of James Bond to twist and turn your 3-Wheeled monster in a zig zag - jigsaw puzzle kind of manner to reach your destination....well...simply because you are not allowed to drive straight.....cmon dont sigh...these are the rules ...be a sport....its not really difficult. Another important aspect is that you have to try your best to occupy the middle of the road leaving very little space both on your left and your right so as to not allow any other vehicle except ofcourse fellow-autos to pass ahead of you. No amount of honking should deter your resolve to own the centre of the road. Fellow drivers have now given up on honking and swearing cuz the auto-community is invincible , believe me, they really are ..especially after the government passed a bill in some legislative assembly that if you are an auto-driver , you automatically become the owner of the road on which you drive.
The auto-drivers who succeed in the above endeavour are given a special kind of horn - the one that sounds like a monster baby crying out loud as an appreciation token which they can then use to scare vehicles who are ahead of them.

The next rule is that you are not supposed to use any kind of signals ,automatic or manual while taking turns. For instance, first of all , you assess in your mind which turn u wanna take. If its a right turn, then u ensure that u travel on the left side and when its time to take the right turn, you just use your james bond instinct , close your eyes and turn the handle to the right. Beware...no signals absolutely. You are promoted to a higher level if you do the above when the signal is Amber and about to turn Red, where-in u incur the wrath of the vehicles who have already started approaching from the opposite direction.

While keeping in mind all driving related rules, the next important thing to remember is : " Take your passenger where you want to go and not where the passenger wants to go " and if at all the destination of the passenger does not match with yours, then you need to give the "most dis-interested" look combined with the " dont waste my time you morron " look if its a man or a woman in a boring sari or salwar , and the " this is my silliest smile ,baby " look if its a young college girl in jeans.

Certain hospitals in the city that do not get enough patients for their back-bone and head related departments went on strike for almost a month and the outcome was a secret pact signed between the Government, the Auto Community and these hospitals.So according to this pact, auto drivers dont slow down when they come across humps on the road, in fact they accelerate so as to ensure that the passenger either breaks his back or hits his head against the roof of the auto in the process and ends up going to one of these hospitals for treatment.

The above is one among the minimum 10 methods that every auto driver must learn to con his passengers, the most famous technique being buying faulty meters.Others in the list include distracting passengers when they get in there-by taking away their attention from the fact that you did not re-set your faulty meter , acting like u dont know the route to the destination in order to test whether the passenger knows the route, when actually u know at least 3 longer routes to the very same destination and becoming self-proclaimed owners of goods left behind.Well, if your passenger happens to be a Non Indian , then God Bless.

Although rules known to the general public say that a passenger is to be charged one and half of the faulty meters between 10 PM and 6 AM, you must and should intepret the rule as " Charge your passenger one and half any time you want and especially when it rains, or in a crisis situation where you know the passenger is as helpless as a tied -up goat about to be butchered ".

Last but not the least, njoy your drive by playing "Huttidhare Kannad Nadnal Huttabeku " as loud as possible all along the way.

Hmmm........well what more can i say except that all members of the auto-community have been performing exceptionally well and have been following rules to the dot without even the slightest deviation whatsoever.......Sigh !!!!!!.

Eye En Dee You

2006-02-21T07:18:00.000-08:00

Ok...to begin with only a few can understand the title of this blog...so this is meant only for them :-).

Hmmm...How do i introduce the character of this blog to my audience...well I think I'll introduce her as the owner of an 8-roomed house each room having audio/video wiring ( central wiring in place but equipment not yet installed in all 8 rooms) AND...whose punch line would read "I Should Have...".....hold on u guys...u will understand this as u read along.

An absolute kiss ass (courtesy - her secret non-admirer) and boot licker (courtesy - me), she is the personification of the phrase " Outside Rama, Inside Ravana "....well i was looking for a more sophisticated phrase but this one fit her so well :-).

Her every sentence during every conversation will begin with .." Oh I should have"...as in while we are all discussing dresses, she has to chip in with.."Oh Ju, I should have got u a few tops from Indi"....or like when we are discussing dinner..." Oh I should have got the Red Wine Bottle ...".....Look here Missy...we all know u r "All Fart and No Shit".

She barges into the nearest relatives' home ( most of the time it happens to be her secret non-admirer) for every vacation...along with her son (he is the greatest singer of all times) and daughter ( who is in 10th standard but looks old enuf to get married...and oh yeah i have to mention that her hair falls down on both sides of her face like the Niagra Falls - sorry Niagra for the bad comparison, so u can see only the centre of the face namely half of the left eye ,the nose area -which is quite big,half of the right eye and the lips with the left and right edges cut off).

Hmmm....can write more but i just realized that what kinda loser will wanna write more about this character...hey not me....so to sum it all up.... With her cheap red jacket, her starched hair, her plastic smile, her "IShould Have" sentences and her irritatingly bitchy conversations, Eye En Dee You seems like she has come straight out of a comic book....no wait....straight out of Kyun Ki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi.

Traffic Signals

2006-02-20T22:30:00.000-08:00

Was on my way back home the other day on my clean, black, favourite Kinetic Honda Dx :). Was approaching the signal near Windor Manor Bridge when the signal turned Amber. Like an ideal and rare citizen following rules , I stretched out my right hand to show the slow-down signal and then the stop signal while also looking at a not-so-rare sight of another citizen in a maruti-800 racing past as the signal turned red. I turned off the engine (yes i am consious of reducing air-pollution too apart from following traffic rules).

Just then another middle-aged man, who had stopped right next to me said....
" Madam you could have gone no ...because of you , I also stopped "

WHAT THE ....who was this uncle and what was he telling me ? I realized in a few seconds that he meant that i too could have raced past the signal like the guy in the maruti-800 did.

" Uncle...dont u know...Amber means slow down and stop "

" Yes Yes, I completely agree with you, but that 800-vala went no "

" So ? "

" You could have also gone......because of you I also stopped....actually my daughter's tuition is over ....I am in hurriedly situation u see ".

WHAT THE....
" Rules are meant to be followed Uncle , your daughter can wait for 60 seconds more, the world is not going to end before that "

" Yes Yes, you are 100 % correct madam, if we all follow rules , then there will be no accidents "

Yeah Right ....
He finally made some remote sense of what is was speaking...so i thought i should leave it at that.

Hmmmm

2006-02-14T20:02:00.000-08:00

A Brand new day....the first day of the rest of my Life....I can achieve more than I think I can.

The Road Not Taken

2006-01-08T06:35:00.000-08:00

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost

One Moment In Time

2005-12-28T15:58:00.000-08:00

I want
One moment in time
When I'm more than I thought I could be
When all my dreams are a heartbeat away
And the answers are all up to me
Give me one moment in time
When I'm racing with destiny
Then in that one moment in time
I will feel, I will feel eternity

Rat Trap

2005-12-24T10:25:00.000-08:00

Dad was exercising in the basement when he saw the rat pop its head out from underneath the couch....was a tiny black rat....and before dad could react he ran back underneath....Well dad decided to ignore it and finish his exercising....he took a bath and came upstairs and after his coffee announced that he saw a rat in the basement....

Just then i came down to the living room and mom said that we immediately needed to evacuate the basement which was otherwise filled with all our clothes cuz apparently rats loved biting into clothes and making tiny lil holes in them.....yeah we had to clear the basement to save our clothes....and mind u mom said it was an emergency situation and no time could be wasted.

Well surprisingly nobody except me was worried bout rat bites that cause plague....i wonder why.The first time i was introduced to the word plague was when this disease was incurable and was the cause of an epidemic in pune.....i dont know if its curable today...must look up some medicle books sometime....but all i was worried about was Plague...cmon folks....we are supposed to be worried about plague...thats what ur supposed to do when there's a rat in the house...worry about plague....have i made myself clear over here??

So...to get on with the story....after the evacuation we obviously had to discuss in length as to how the rat could have possibly got in the basement....and in the process Dad ended up naming the rat as Jerry....so apparently Mr Jerry lost his way and came into the basement of 4649, County Creek. My Bil(Brother In Law) had to mention that he hadnt seen any insect, forget the rat, in his 15 (or i dont remember the number) of years he's lived in the US of A. After a lot of discussions, everyone just got to doing what they were doing prior to Dad's rat announcement....things came back to normal....dad went back to his comp, bil went back to singing ( he sings all day....never gets tired),mom went back to feeding the baby, my niece went back to watching the wiggles ( she watches all shows of the wiggles including the repeats everyday). My sis n me went out to the grocery store ( we go almost everyday cuz we dont make a list before goin to the grocers and forget at least one item each time we go).

Hmmm...things seemed normal when we got back from the grocers and parked the car in the clumsy shed....we walked in, my sister n me and guess what was awaiting us....yeah damn right u r....news about Mr Jerry...apparently my Bil had the rare opportunity ( out of context but my Bil pronounces the "Tu" in opportunity as "Tew" instead of "chew" which i find quite funny...most people dont but i do ) of witnesing the rare event of Mr Jerry hurrying cross the living room and under the orange couch.Hey...but wait a minute, this time things went a lil ahead of just discussing the event...so Dad and Bil had actually gotten mouse traps and filled them up with some cheese and had laid them near the couch and were hoping against hope that Mr Jerry would walk into one of those attractive traps.

Well...good job i would say.....so my sis and me stood there with frowning faces for a minute or two and then we decided that its time to get on with stuff...this time the stuff happened to be gorging upon the chinese noodles and fried rice which we had packed from the famous BangKok restaurant ( for the records my Bil doesnt like the food from here but we decided to pack dinner from this place anywayz cuz my sis says there is more variety here but i think she has difficulty in parking her big chrysler caravan at the other restaurants which would be more crowded owing to tastier food options). So just when my sis laid dinner plates on the table, Mr Jerry popped his head out again so my sister cud take one good look at him....and when she jumped and screamed in fright Mr Jerry ran back under the couch....

Ok now for the interesting part.....we all laughed at the way my sister yelled....but no one thought of turning the couch upside down right away and trapping Mr Jerry....maybe Dad and Bil were confident that Jerry would fall for the cheese and walk into the rat trap himself...well what can i say about men and their thoughts...they are always right...well so they think :)....Hmmm...i wouldnt blame them entirely for this decision considering that there was mouth watering chinese food on the table and 5 hungry stomachs....whats Mr Jerry in such a situation...nothing....yeah...nothing.

After dinner we all sat with r legs on top of the couch...careful not to leave even the end of our skirts lirking on the floor so that Jerry doesnt feel like running under any of them...especially cuz mom said these little rodents love biting into clothes...We watched a movie and went to bed....

Its only the next morning when we saw the rat traps empty thaat all of us realized that we had a serious situation....the rat was in the house somewhere and not in the trap where it was supposed to be....Sis was the first to hit the panic button...wish i had taken a snap of the look on her face...hahahaha....was like i have a dinosaur under my couch....so we all decided that we needed to get rid of Jerry ASAP....so while the men of the house ( the same men who had suggested rat traps with cheese) stood with broom sticks, the ladies ( i would say wonder women) upturned couches, moved tables, emptied closets and did everything else possible to find Jerry not to mention my lil niece mentioning every now n then that she saw jerry and making all 5 adults jump.

Well what can i say....after one whole hour of turning the house upside down...we couldnt find Jerry....We could have found him when we knew he was under the orange couch but we decided to let Jerry find a better hiding place so that real men and real wonder women can play a real game of hide n seek.Oh yeah i forgot to mention that the men of the house went to Home Depot and got bigger rat traps ( the ones that snap ) and laid them in the basement...yeah thats where we think Jerry is hiding.

Starbucks Coffee

2005-12-23T17:51:00.000-08:00

Its the little things in life that bring u immense joy.....and take u to this elevated blissful state where your profoundly happy with life and when u tend to like everything around u.....

Yeah one such small thing that made me extremely happy was having coffee at Starbucks along with my sister and my cute lil niece....

We walked down the streets of Down Town Rochester....stopping every now n then for snaps against shop windows that were decorated very well for the chirstmas season....yeah christmas is when it snows and everything is beautiful but cooooooooold......

We went into Starbucks cafe....was so warm and nice inside.....not crowded at the same time not empty....couples sat in corners siping hot cofe and having private discussions and smiling and laughing quitely ....was a happy atmosphere....that just brought a smile on my face as soon as i stepped in...

My sister picked up my favourite drink....cappucchino with a vanilla topping.....and i picked up the star buck special cake....you have a picture of this mouth watering delicacy right on top....... u know this cake just melted in my mouth....not too sweet and not too bland....but just right.....crispy...yet soft.....wooooow....with the vanilla flavoured coffee.....trust me...was absolute bliss....

Hmm wanna write more....but everyone's waiting to watch a movie together....so i gotta go now....so will leave u with some more pics ....

Suresh

2005-12-05T07:08:00.000-08:00

There is this kid in my class called Suresh. He is extremely naughty. Always upto something or the other. Neither does he listen to the lessons being taught nor does he let the kids sitting around him to learn something. Beats up other children.

Last class, i had as usual taken chocolates for the kids and in order to make him sit and listen, i told him that i wouldnt give him a chocolate if he mis - behaved. All the other kids got their chocolates and towards the end Suresh was visibly upset. I went to him, spoke to him very sweetly, told him that he has to try to be good and gave him his chocolate......and u know what he did......he took the chocolate and threw it out of the window.......

Heinous solidus Abominable

2005-11-25T20:18:00.000-08:00

Well.... How do i begin??
Times of India or TOI as it is popularly known dated 25 th November 2005 has got me thinking profoundly of the homo sapien species. For the first time, I am ashamed of belonging to this class of mammals. Well, what else would i want to be......i dont know.......and it hardly matters....but now this minute, this second.......I dont wanna belong to this genre........

We are called human beings....but we are hardly human........
Kutty's body is being flown to kerala by an Indian Airlines flight IC 744 wrapped in the tri-color....His family is being given a compensation of 10 lakhs by the government and free education for his two children.....yes that will make up for his brutal death.......Sudha murthy takes pity on this poor family and donates 5 lakhs.....yes this will make their lives better........

In some other part of the world, a muslim mother cries over the burnt body of her son who was a victim of a bomb blast.......

In another corner, a wife cries over the body of her dead husband who could have been saved if the doctors at a local hospital cared a little bit more for something called "life".

How are these incidents related ??? They all contributed to making my morning a miserable one.......They all bring out the fact that there is absolutely no value for life in today's world......They scream into my ears that we humans are a disgraceful lot and we alone are responsible for today's state of affairs.

It gets me thinking......how did life come into existence......yes we have innumerable answers for this question from the scientific world........but deep down inside....you must and im sure u will agree that there is something somewhere that has no answer, something that has been a mystery for hundreds of thousands of years and will continue to remain so......it gets you and me thinking that there is some power that has brought life as it is known into existence....making it something so very very very precious.......

But.....we human beings fail to understand this........we have created the evils of the world....we have created borders.....we have created countries......we have differentiated........we have created religions....we have created weapons of mass destruction......we have killed other human beings....we have spat blood ,hatred and tears all over the world.......and u know what......we fail to realize that in the process....we are destroying ourselves........we fail to understand that at the end of the day.......we are all "human beings".......we are all bothers and sisters and mothers and fathers and sons and daughters.......we all live in one big home ...planet earth.......the mountains, the seas , the rivers and valleys are all urs and mine..........we all belong to one religion.....the religion of "humanity".......

I really wish that someday we all understand this simple thought and change the world to make it a better place for you and me......yes......we need to heal the world..........

My Next Stress Buster

2005-11-08T19:48:00.000-08:00

After jazzzzzzz, me gonna learn the key board .......
Ive made up my mind.

One Day At A Time

2005-11-08T05:17:00.000-08:00

Dont worry about ur tomorrow's
Oft missing the joys of today
Troubled about what may happen
Yet tomorrow may not come your way.

Life's pathway is ever uncertain
RIGHT NOW is whats your and mine
The future is safe in God's keeping
We can live but One Day At A Time.