Saturday 12 July 2008
The long walk home...
It was back in April, when i was told that we might need to return back to India, when i was trying to see if i get some new options to continue... However it turned out that things would continue over here and we were said to stay back for a couple of months. It was in June when finally the date came that July would be the time to get back home. People had started taking options and leaving early with some guys leaving around June 14th and 25th. I had started taking stuff to get back home and my gift wrapping was kinda complete for my friends and was looking forward to get back home, when my date was pushed forward to July 11th. Now i had a plan to go through Europe, before getting back to India and started making plans. Things were up and running on the last day 11th of July when i had started making my plans and i was told the date has to be pushed for a week again. To add more fuel, it was extended by an additional week. Our team had thinned, friends had left and these days the office looked very thin. I realized i would be alone for the final week without anyone from my team. As i reckon how it would be, i realize that my walk home would be a long one... The long walk home huh?!
Sunday 15 June 2008
Languages....
Two decades back when some one spoke a different language, i used to wonder "what the hell they are talking about?". Obviously i did not know english to even know what 'what the hell meant'. When my mom used to come as my saviour and translate the words for me 'Putta, it means ....' for whatever it meant.
Growing up, i started learning Kannada and Sanskrit. I was shocked when DD1 started and aired programmes in Hindi. Just when i had thought that Kannada & Sanskrit are the only 2 languages in the world this new language comes up and i can't even make head and tails out of it and to add fuel to fire, the cartoons which looked inviting used to speak in this weird alien language.
Luckily i was in a school which used to teach Hindi from class 4. Now learning a new language is not a small thing and i used to misspell, mis interpret most of the words. Sometimes i used to get lost in translation, but somehow used to manage pass the subject.
It ended up that i decided i was about to master all the languages in the world, when we had a new neighbour move in. Now, they had a very cute daughter and i became all set to help them setup their new house. I persuaded my mom to go over and welcome them to the neighbourhood. The first word they uttered shattered my world, now where on earth was Tamil till now; i had never known of its existence.
No matter, i decided i would learn the language and used to pester my mom to teach tamil. However it was no good, as it was getting tough to learn the language. 'Vanakkam', 'Vaango', there were too many words for me to remember. But i was very much determined to befriend that girl and from my mom came to know that she studies in an english school. This was too much, how many languages the girl knows Tamil, English, Kannada and i was thinking i know all the languages in the world.
Moving on from what i had left during those days i have managed to learn a couple of languages more like telugu, marathi, malayalam (though i am absolutely hopeless, efforts are on). I know how to converse in these languages, but i fall flat when it comes to writing or reading them.
As i move on from place to place with my current job, i keep finding out new things, new languages, new grammar of already known ones, languages which have become extinct, languages which have borne new ones. The more i read, the more i find. Sometimes i wonder at the cute girl who had moved into my neighbourhood and fuelled a great passion in my life.
When i meet a friend who is carrying his 1 year old son, i try to talk with his child and say "Arre beta kaise ho?? Kya naam hain tera" and i wonder if the child is thinking what i was thinking nearly 25 years back....
Growing up, i started learning Kannada and Sanskrit. I was shocked when DD1 started and aired programmes in Hindi. Just when i had thought that Kannada & Sanskrit are the only 2 languages in the world this new language comes up and i can't even make head and tails out of it and to add fuel to fire, the cartoons which looked inviting used to speak in this weird alien language.
Luckily i was in a school which used to teach Hindi from class 4. Now learning a new language is not a small thing and i used to misspell, mis interpret most of the words. Sometimes i used to get lost in translation, but somehow used to manage pass the subject.
It ended up that i decided i was about to master all the languages in the world, when we had a new neighbour move in. Now, they had a very cute daughter and i became all set to help them setup their new house. I persuaded my mom to go over and welcome them to the neighbourhood. The first word they uttered shattered my world, now where on earth was Tamil till now; i had never known of its existence.
No matter, i decided i would learn the language and used to pester my mom to teach tamil. However it was no good, as it was getting tough to learn the language. 'Vanakkam', 'Vaango', there were too many words for me to remember. But i was very much determined to befriend that girl and from my mom came to know that she studies in an english school. This was too much, how many languages the girl knows Tamil, English, Kannada and i was thinking i know all the languages in the world.
Moving on from what i had left during those days i have managed to learn a couple of languages more like telugu, marathi, malayalam (though i am absolutely hopeless, efforts are on). I know how to converse in these languages, but i fall flat when it comes to writing or reading them.
As i move on from place to place with my current job, i keep finding out new things, new languages, new grammar of already known ones, languages which have become extinct, languages which have borne new ones. The more i read, the more i find. Sometimes i wonder at the cute girl who had moved into my neighbourhood and fuelled a great passion in my life.
When i meet a friend who is carrying his 1 year old son, i try to talk with his child and say "Arre beta kaise ho?? Kya naam hain tera" and i wonder if the child is thinking what i was thinking nearly 25 years back....
Monday 26 May 2008
Story telling.....
I have been a kind of story teller for some time.. I had never known my ability of cooking up stories or forming up my opinions into words.
The first time i noticed this, was during my social science exams which included history. Now I did not have a good memory for stuff which happened before i was even there and the way out was only story telling. Surprisingly most of my social science teachers initially used to wonder - 'Wow! How does this boy know so much of history that he can write pages and pages of it??!!'
But when they started to read the details they found out that half of what i had written would have never happened in History. Surprisingly the teachers used to give me decent marks even after knowing this and this somehow fuelled more of my story writing streak.
Now this became a habit and I started risking leaking this practice to other subjects. In fact i went ahead and submitted a 85 page booklet completed in my board exam for (don't laugh) Physics! (Luckily the paper had some genuine content and the person who evaluated my paper might have been be a very patient person, that i passed with a very good score). Thats when i decided i should re-direct this useless habit to someplace else, and thus my story writing started....
These days i do not find much time to complete the stories i once started, but then someday i am gonna forget everything and sit for it... Till then chota mota things like blogs will keep satisfying my craving to tell stories....
The first time i noticed this, was during my social science exams which included history. Now I did not have a good memory for stuff which happened before i was even there and the way out was only story telling. Surprisingly most of my social science teachers initially used to wonder - 'Wow! How does this boy know so much of history that he can write pages and pages of it??!!'
But when they started to read the details they found out that half of what i had written would have never happened in History. Surprisingly the teachers used to give me decent marks even after knowing this and this somehow fuelled more of my story writing streak.
Now this became a habit and I started risking leaking this practice to other subjects. In fact i went ahead and submitted a 85 page booklet completed in my board exam for (don't laugh) Physics! (Luckily the paper had some genuine content and the person who evaluated my paper might have been be a very patient person, that i passed with a very good score). Thats when i decided i should re-direct this useless habit to someplace else, and thus my story writing started....
These days i do not find much time to complete the stories i once started, but then someday i am gonna forget everything and sit for it... Till then chota mota things like blogs will keep satisfying my craving to tell stories....
Saturday 10 May 2008
Flying in the sky....
It was a second attempt to get a shot of fame..
It was 2 weeks back when 9 of us had rushed to cambridge and then to march just to know that our turn to jump was at around 4.00 and we had the clouds shower to delay it more and high winds to make sure we did not do it that day. Last week was quite hectic in terms of work and stuff and even though we had decided to jump together we had to split up. So it just ended up that 6 of us decided to leave to March on Saturday so as to have sunday as reserve day...
It was a busy friday, but we managed to book tickets to Cambridge and GK and party got time to ask for a cab from cambridge on Sat morning. There i was on a nice and neat friday night @ Thakur's house having some khichdi rice, Thakur and Bhupat to give some company in listening to Jagjit singh's ghazals as if our lives was gonna end the next day...
It was way too early for my standards to wake up @ 4.15 Am and not sleep in the cab to Victoria / Bus to Stansted. It was almost 6.55 when we left for Cambridge from Stansted after making sure our stomach's were comfortable and ready to bear the brunt of dives... We reached March airfield after some circus and Thakur's communication with the cab driver. Luckily the cab driver got us into the place correctly without much delay. We registered ourselves by 8.30 AM and assumed we would dive by 11.00 AM MAX. But it did happen that many of the guys had come in at 6.30 and there was no way we could dive before 3.00 after noon. Then started a bout of snooker as if playing for the last time in life, tempers flaring and eventually our team (Amol & me) winning the tournament of 4 matches) by 2 against 1 & 1 each...
It was time for our turn, guys started off to the plane as if there was nothing ahead of this in life.. It was a whole 20 mins before our photo session was over and Amol and Thakur went on board and a few mins we could see parachutes floating not knowing which is Thakur / Amol.
It was time for me, Bhavin and Rohit to get ready. Before we knew, we were tethered tightly to our instructors and were 7k feet in the air on a plane with the door closed, so that guys don't look down and chicken out. Our camera people were the most active people, taking out videos at 'ain mouke' (hindi) and making sure they had their forty winks before the 15 mins of the plane reaching the height of 12k feet. These moments passed like years, when finally the doors opened and all you could see was a layer of clouds which seemed like a Sea of foam. Then it all started, Rohit was the first to go out, and all i could see was he disappearing in the cloud cover, and i was like 'oh! Man, where am i??'.
Hell nervous i moved to the door and those few seconds felt like a few moments, before which my instructor had tightened the noose and we fell off the plane's door as if we were diving into the sea.
The next 45 seconds was something you can give your life for, making 2 somersaults in a row, i could see the scene alternating between the Sun in a far end of horizon to the plane above us which soon became a spec in the sky, as we dropped an approx 8000 feet in sky within 45 seconds with the camera person flying around with her wings and egging me to smile. I wanted to give a loud shout 'Yahoo!!', but the clouds making sure i could not, with the moisture entering my mouth and keeping it wet. It was a fitting moment when my instructor opened the parachute and i could see my camera lady falling down. It was a scene to see, with gravity and air acting against each other...
The force experience was amazing, the parachute pulling me back by quite a few feet... Now we started doing some rounds with the parachute, trying to do clockwise and anticlockwise turns with the earth's gravity making sure we feel the g-force. The rounds which no roller coaster in the world could give you even for a million pounds....
The scenery i saw was amazing, something which is worth more than a few thousand pounds put together. A very beautiful skyline and cloud cover and then neatly matted fields below which looked like blocks of lego toys.
The parachuter and me had a good conversation with him telling that he was parachuting for the past 20 years, and me telling i am gonna try to become one.... whew he must be enjoying life.... Nevertheless before i knew, i had spiralled in the parachute with a speed double of any roller coaster and had still managed to keep myself looking at everything visible within my horizon and eye sight.
It was seconds before i knew we were about to land and i had to pull my legs up when i realized i could not, and then we (crap) crash landed with the instructor falling over me. Fortunately the speed was far lesser than the g- force and the instructor said ' Better luck next time', as if he had read my mind that i am gonna do this many more times to come. As i waved to Thakur and Amol who had the camera, i saw Bhavin and Rohit come down and give me the thumbs up, than i had realized that i had lived some of the best moments of one's life. Coming out i gave a shake hand and hug to my instructor, who said i very well handled myself for a noob sky diver. By the time i reached the office, i had decided i still had a minimum of 20 drops to do, perhaps some solo. But then it is for another day and another time....
It was 2 weeks back when 9 of us had rushed to cambridge and then to march just to know that our turn to jump was at around 4.00 and we had the clouds shower to delay it more and high winds to make sure we did not do it that day. Last week was quite hectic in terms of work and stuff and even though we had decided to jump together we had to split up. So it just ended up that 6 of us decided to leave to March on Saturday so as to have sunday as reserve day...
It was a busy friday, but we managed to book tickets to Cambridge and GK and party got time to ask for a cab from cambridge on Sat morning. There i was on a nice and neat friday night @ Thakur's house having some khichdi rice, Thakur and Bhupat to give some company in listening to Jagjit singh's ghazals as if our lives was gonna end the next day...
It was way too early for my standards to wake up @ 4.15 Am and not sleep in the cab to Victoria / Bus to Stansted. It was almost 6.55 when we left for Cambridge from Stansted after making sure our stomach's were comfortable and ready to bear the brunt of dives... We reached March airfield after some circus and Thakur's communication with the cab driver. Luckily the cab driver got us into the place correctly without much delay. We registered ourselves by 8.30 AM and assumed we would dive by 11.00 AM MAX. But it did happen that many of the guys had come in at 6.30 and there was no way we could dive before 3.00 after noon. Then started a bout of snooker as if playing for the last time in life, tempers flaring and eventually our team (Amol & me) winning the tournament of 4 matches) by 2 against 1 & 1 each...
It was time for our turn, guys started off to the plane as if there was nothing ahead of this in life.. It was a whole 20 mins before our photo session was over and Amol and Thakur went on board and a few mins we could see parachutes floating not knowing which is Thakur / Amol.
It was time for me, Bhavin and Rohit to get ready. Before we knew, we were tethered tightly to our instructors and were 7k feet in the air on a plane with the door closed, so that guys don't look down and chicken out. Our camera people were the most active people, taking out videos at 'ain mouke' (hindi) and making sure they had their forty winks before the 15 mins of the plane reaching the height of 12k feet. These moments passed like years, when finally the doors opened and all you could see was a layer of clouds which seemed like a Sea of foam. Then it all started, Rohit was the first to go out, and all i could see was he disappearing in the cloud cover, and i was like 'oh! Man, where am i??'.
Hell nervous i moved to the door and those few seconds felt like a few moments, before which my instructor had tightened the noose and we fell off the plane's door as if we were diving into the sea.
The next 45 seconds was something you can give your life for, making 2 somersaults in a row, i could see the scene alternating between the Sun in a far end of horizon to the plane above us which soon became a spec in the sky, as we dropped an approx 8000 feet in sky within 45 seconds with the camera person flying around with her wings and egging me to smile. I wanted to give a loud shout 'Yahoo!!', but the clouds making sure i could not, with the moisture entering my mouth and keeping it wet. It was a fitting moment when my instructor opened the parachute and i could see my camera lady falling down. It was a scene to see, with gravity and air acting against each other...
The force experience was amazing, the parachute pulling me back by quite a few feet... Now we started doing some rounds with the parachute, trying to do clockwise and anticlockwise turns with the earth's gravity making sure we feel the g-force. The rounds which no roller coaster in the world could give you even for a million pounds....
The scenery i saw was amazing, something which is worth more than a few thousand pounds put together. A very beautiful skyline and cloud cover and then neatly matted fields below which looked like blocks of lego toys.
The parachuter and me had a good conversation with him telling that he was parachuting for the past 20 years, and me telling i am gonna try to become one.... whew he must be enjoying life.... Nevertheless before i knew, i had spiralled in the parachute with a speed double of any roller coaster and had still managed to keep myself looking at everything visible within my horizon and eye sight.
It was seconds before i knew we were about to land and i had to pull my legs up when i realized i could not, and then we (crap) crash landed with the instructor falling over me. Fortunately the speed was far lesser than the g- force and the instructor said ' Better luck next time', as if he had read my mind that i am gonna do this many more times to come. As i waved to Thakur and Amol who had the camera, i saw Bhavin and Rohit come down and give me the thumbs up, than i had realized that i had lived some of the best moments of one's life. Coming out i gave a shake hand and hug to my instructor, who said i very well handled myself for a noob sky diver. By the time i reached the office, i had decided i still had a minimum of 20 drops to do, perhaps some solo. But then it is for another day and another time....
Monday 4 February 2008
Cold days.....
The first thing that came out of my mouth when i stepped in London was 'Brr!!!'.... Phew whats with the expression eh?! It was quite cold that day and my friend had warned me not to come out of the plane without wearing my coat. I was pretty confident that 'Come on, i can manage'. But little did i know that on the same day, temperature in Heathrow was near to 2 deg C and to add to that wind blowing in would make you feel as if the temp is below zero. Nevertheless it was a welcome change that prompted me to wear my coat whose presence i was refusing to acknowledge. It took some time before i got all my luggages and bid good bye to my plane companion whom i had met in Mumbai. I was all alone in one of the biggest cities in the world and i was wondering as to 'whooo my streak has started'... Nevertheless my streak yet to take off as i still roam aimlessly in the cold streets...
PS: My post finisher will not be something related to the title...
PS: My post finisher will not be something related to the title...
What the 'What the??'
I think you must be wondering on what kind of name is this for a blog or a post for that matter. Perhaps you might be thinking, 'What the?? how come he has kept such a name - 'What the??''... Strange... Well thats what came to my mind when i first opened this site. I had not known of its existence for a long time (pardon my spelling mistakes, if any)... came to know of it when i visited a friends profile and checked out the link... and i was like 'What the??' How come this site had been unnoticed by me... Well, thats how i gave this name- 'What the??' nevertheless now that i am here and have written my first post, i think i can take up my writing streak after a long time.... Till then dont wonder abt the title. The post and the title are absolutely unrelated... What the??
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