PJ#2

Q.What did the captain of the cricket team of man-eaters ask about the new member in the team?
Ans. CAN-HE-BOWL !

Trip to Khandadhar

This is an account of our trip to Khandadhar. Have put in based on whatever I could recollect


Friday 6:10 pm :Rushed back home to pack my bag for the trip and be ready to board the bus at 9:30pm from Acharya Vihar

Friday 9:00 pm :Dinner completed. Had packed my bags and was ready to go.

Friday 9:30 pm :Change of plans. Went to Jayadev Vihar instead of Acharya Vihar to board the bus.

Friday 9:45 pm :Few more friends reach. Still waiting for the bus.

Friday 9:56 pm :The bus arrived. It had a lively name DILDAR.

Friday 10:15pm : Near Vanivihar: The final set of people board and Gopal does the honor of rollcall.
The bus proceeds towards the destination.

Friday 10:30pm : Everyone had settled down on their seats. We get the seats right behind the rear tyres.
Strategically an important point as the bumps/potholes will ensure that we don't sleep and we ensure that ;) others don't sleep.

Unfortunately for some of us (and I guess fortunately for others) the bus has a Video Player and the welcome
note started with the "SCREENING" of the movie "Welcome". The team demanded for "Andaz Apna Apna"
and so began "Andaz Apna Apna". 15 mins into it and we started getting bored. I mean, here we are a bunch of
young guys on a weekend trip and folks are like watching a movie!!Unacceptable!! It was beginning to become
like a normal trip from say Bhubaneswar to some place with people either sleeping or watching that movie. The bus
came to its first halt. A "Welcome" halt for some of us. No i did not mean that ;) .

Friday Around 11:15pm (Was beginning to lose track of time) : We had tea. Clicked some good group pics with Shrawan's Nikon.

Some had sutta, some had Pepsi. At this time around we asked a few members if they would want to spend the rest of the night sleeping or doing something memorable. The answer was the obvious..we will have Hungama ...big time..pure fun. So Be IT.

By now I had completely lost track of time.

The bus started and a group of us started shouting slogans of "Movie Band Karo" to which the rest willingly/'un'-willingly agreed..he he he

And the fun started. So whats the best way to involve lot of folks in a trip???...Yes of course Antakshari..we started with a theme based antakshari.

The bus had a sort of metallic vertical bar in the center , hence we had "Bar Ke Is Paar" vs "Bar Ke Us Paar" Antaksari.
Had the themes ranging from colours, stars, eyes, heart...etc. Our cacophony ensured that the rest of the team stayed awake or had a hard time sleeping ;) (Honestly ; We still believe that all of us were singing better than Sonu Nigams/Shreya Ghoshals..atleast we enjoyed).

We discovered some amazing talents. Swapnil (we now call him ipod- affectionately :) , knew the complete lyrics to each and every song. Truly a Ripley's piece.
Then we got down to sing any song ...yeah any dhamaakedaar, chatakdaar kind of songs.
Came up with our own lyrics..(yes....we are creative) ..which now I cannot recall..(should have penned it down).

Some songs dedicated to our team members like our own version of "Aslam Bhai" for Kartik ,
or "Nayak nahin KhalNayak hai Tu" for Gopal (not sure if his team members really meant it...just kidding)

Alok was at his very best in singing out "Meri Baat Sun Ke Tum Hasana Nahin" and was supported equally...word to word by Swapnil. Amazing ...Kodak..no no..YouTube Moments!!

And the song we enjoyed singing (read:shouting out loud) most (or maybe I should say I enjoyed most) was " Pyar hamien Kis Mod Pe Le Aaya"..Why So ? Cuz of the following lines "Battiyaan Bhujha do warna neend nahin aayegi" and "Shor Na machao warna Bhabhi Jaag Jaayengi"..perfect for the mood. ( We meant it ..Honestly ;)

Moments to remember forever!! We were fully charged!!

We were completely oblivious to the road conditions. It was one bump that caused one of the window shield to crash that made us realize that the road was indeed terrible. And we looked at our watches...it was....believe it or not....3 am in the morning/night (whatever suits you). 3 hours almost!! Our vocal chords were strained.But the spirits were still high. The bus came to its second stop.
We had tea again.Got back into the bus. Again continued antakshari for another 30 mins or so and then started dropping off to sleep.

Saturday 5:30 am : It was around 5:30am that I woke up. The rest were still in their dreamland. Ravish was up taking snaps .. We could see the lovely navy blue sky (as you would have seen in Tintin comics) with light pink merging in one of the corners (corner?..world is flat dear). The pink was soon turning bright orange and we had a glimpse of the sun rising in the far east and playing hide and seek through the thin forest. Ravi clicked the moments.

In about an hours time we reached the hotel named Happy Home (Does it sound like Hotel Descent?).. It was okay...I would rather say it was a surprise to see the facilities as we were in a very remote area. Say what...India is developing fast!

We got ready for going to the main spot which was around 1.5hr journey from Happy Home.
Had some tea and fruits and started at around 9:45am Saturday. With another 60-90 minutes to kill on the yet another stretch of bumpy road...we started playing Dumb C. It was fun. Loved the way Anita (or was it Priyanka) and Swapnil enacted "Pan's Labyrinth" and "Ankush" respectively. Akshaya, Soma, Devopam,Subhankar everyone enjoyed the game.

We reached the spot at around 11 and the view of the waterfall from far was awesome. The summer and humidity was at its best. The setup for the cooks was done and they got started with arranging for breakfast and lunch immediately.
The stream was a few steps away..the bed was rocky..the water....cool..literally.

Few of us went off to capture the flora, fauna,,insecta (not sure if that is what it is called) , reptilia..etc etc etc...
There was also a bridge across the stream (lets call it Kwai....)

Shrawan, Swapnil, Myself and few of us , loaded with camera, started venturing upstream. Rest stayed back..enjoying the stream. We went to as far we could go..climbing the big rocks, jumping across few. Debobanita,Plaban, Dibya were wading across the stream. We were busy capturing the moments. The thanda thanda stream kept us going inspite of the hot day. Finally we reached the point from where we could go no further up.

Cameback to the khaane ka spot. Had Rasna and Upma with Sambhar. The cooks were good at their job. God we were hungry and gobbled it up fast. What next..a group of us decided to trek to the base of the waterfall. And off we went with bottles of Kinley/Bisleri/Dazzle.
Came to know that Subhanand had stepped on glass-shards and suffered a deep cut. Poor guy..Had to stay back in the guest house.

The group did some catwalk on the bridge on the stream Kwai, swaying hips with bottles on head.(We have it recorded...Hips dont lie). Some of us were pretty good at it. Not me :))

One group was returning and they warned us about the steep climbs and steep edged. This was getting adventourous. Sweta and Sivaranjani were the only two females who took up the challenge. As we went ahead it really really got tiring. The climb was indeed steep at some places.I was exhausted. We soon emptied all the bottles of water and we still had a long way to go. The searing sun was right on top of us. Should we return...No way..we had to reach the base...the waterfall was too tempting..we took a break now and then to catch some breath and started off again. The nearer we go to the base, the steeper the climb got. It would have been too risky for Sweta and Sivaranjani hence we
advised them not to go further. The view of the waterfall was breathtaking.

I was completely exhausted though there were only few more rocks to climb to reach the spot. Gathering all my strength I finally managed to reach the spot. It was a treat to watch the waterfalling and forming a pool. Few were already having a shower of their life. First thing we did was passed on the empty bottles to those who were directly under the fall to fill it up. Never tasted anything sweeter. Or was it because we were dehydrated..whatever. We passed on the water to the rest of us. Relaxed and had some kodak moments.
The view from the top was beautiful with the dense forest spread across and the stream dissecting it.

It was time to return and we had to be careful for the slope. There was a small ..well what do you call it..cascade/rapid..and we agained cooled off there.

We reached the food base at the right time the rest were just getting served.The menu included Paneer, Chicken, Kheer, Salad, Gobhi, Pulao. It was delicious.

For safety reasons we had been asked to leave the place by 5pm. Since it was already touching 5pm we packed stuff fast. Went to a guesthouse and changed to fresh clothes.Sprayed a hell lot of deo to get rid of the stinking aroma of sweat.
Had another group photo session.

Our return journey started at around 5:30pm. We were so much exhausted that we immediately went off to sleep and it was around 7:30pm that we woke up.

I have no idea about the 2 hours. I was still feeling dehydrated and the bus came to a stop near few vendor shops.
We bought atleast a dozen of Aquafina. Had some softdrinks to quench our thirst.

We were kind of recharged. The fun wasn't over. Like Shahrukh Khan in OSO you could say "Abhi Picture Baaki Hai Mere Dost"

As soon as the bus hit the road, we started Housie. Our first task was selling the tickets at Rs.10 per ticket. Soon enough we collected quite some money. Gambling sure is tempting. Sweta was incharge of conduting the show. Our condition was that who ever wins would have to shake a leg.
The best part was when 5 folks won a prize that was worth Rs.20 and hence each got a mere Rs.4. "Char Rupaaye Ka Naach" had us in splits.Priyanka and Ushree won the housie. I missed it by one number..damn my luck. It was enjoyable.

We again started the antakshari this time it was accompanied with dance too. Shrawan and Swapnil had us all practicing the
"Indian Commode Style" Dance to the tune of "Say Shava Shava" first and then to the tune of every song. We had some innovative "Roti Belo-Roti Seko" dance as well.
Had some great fun with few folks showing their Nach-baliya talents.

It was around 10pm that we stopped near a road-side dhaba for dinner.

Some of us sat on the "Charpoy" (wooden cot) and waited for the food under the dark clear sky, with the heavy vechiles
whizzing past on the highway.

It was our luck that the waiter served us Paneer Bhujia (somebody else's order) along with hot butter nans.
It was OUT OF THIS WORLD and had us ordering for more. We ate like we had been starving for years. Awesome food!!
Its making my mouth water even now as I am writing this. We spent around 1.5 hrs at the dhaba.

The driver finally asked us to make a move. We had had alot of fun. At around 3:30am Sunday night I got off at the stop at Acharya Vihar to move back to home.

The entire trip had been truly fun-filled..pure hungama. It has me asking for more.Some other day..someother time.

Ending this note on the lines of the classic MasterCard adv:
Food and Snacks : 1200INR
Lodging: 2000INR
Bus Travel : 5000INR
The fun we had with Friends : PRICELESS!!

Srilanka Barbad-Oz champs

The wizards of Oz have done it yet again...a la Roger Federerisque kind of display....
Hurricane Gilchrist just swept across Srilanka and the match was decided in the first 38 overs itself.
Poor Srilankans just did not know what hit them.

It was a bad day for Srilanka and nothing seemed to be going right for them. You could see the number of times Gilly's miscued shots fell in no mans land.

With Aussies playing , cricket is kind of becoming predictable.

The Awesome Aussies are way ahead the rest of the world. They truly deserve the cup.
Hail Aussies. Hail Ricky Ponting.

Motor Cycle Diaries

One of the movies that I saw last year (yeah last year ) was Motor Cycle Diaries. It was about the young Che Guevara and his adventure across South America on a motor cycle with his best pal. It was about how the journey transformed a care-free Che to choose his path and achieve what he was destined to. Inspiring.
Recommended watch.

Life Before the Computer

An interesting forward that I recieved
An application was for employment
A program was a TV show
A cursor used profanity
A keyboard was a piano!

Compress was something you did to garbage
Not something you did to a file
And if you unzipped anything in public
You'd be in jail for awhile!

Log on was adding wood to a fire
Hard drive was a long trip on the road
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived
And a backup happened to your commode!

Cut - you did with a pocket knife
Paste you did with glue
A web was a spider's home
And a virus was the flu!

I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper
And the memory in my head
I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash
But when it happens they wish they were dead!

Current Reads

Picked up some books from my local library.
One is "Silicon Boys and Their Dreams" by David Kaplan. Interesting read. Its about the people who turned the region to Silicon Valley. About the achievers and the losers. About great moves in IT history.
Has lots on interesting tidbits about Jobs, Gates, Larry Ellison. Am enjoying it
I also liked the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley". I am a bigtime Apple fan.

PJ#1

Have you heard of the web-version of the famous DD serial which had Dadamoni as the sutradhar...Its called HUM-BLOG :)

Quality Quizzing

Had been to XIMB for Xpressions2005 to attend the host of quizzies being conducted there. The quizmaster was none other than the great Avinash Mudaliar (3xUS.com). There was one general quiz, one IT quiz, Finomenon and Brand Equity
Believe me it was one of th best quiz that I have attended in recent times in Bhubaneswar. Two Thumbs Up!!! And all those who had been there, seen that would nod their head in agreement. Boy, what depth of research this guy and his team go into for framing questions. AWESOME!!.
He made sure that none of his questions were repeated cuz he "does not ask the same question in different quizzes and even if he does they all have the same answers"
Avinash came, saw and conquered..the hearts of the quizzing fraternity of the city. He has clearly set the bench-mark.

We did not win any , neither were we close to winning any of the Qz, but the sheer experience of going the quiz was in itself xhilarating. Teams in BBSR have it in them to compete with the best of teams in the country.
What we need is more and more such quizzes in the city. Yeh Dil Maange More!!

Classic Quote #1

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
—President Theodore Roosevelt, Sorbonne, 1910

Soochna

Raakhi is around the corner. No ..am not talking abt any female. This is about the saadiyon se chali aa rahi tradition (or u can call it "tyohaar") most dreaded by all the males in India. Here's one xtremely hilarious email :

SOOCHANA
Agar aap bus,train,plane ya kahin se bhi aa jaa rahe hon aur kisi mahila/larki ke hath mein phool,dhaga,chain ya chamakti hue koi bhi vastu dekhein to turant wahan se bhag jaye.Ye vastu RAKHI ho sakti hai. Apki zara se laaparwahi apko BHAI bana sakti hai.
Bharat Sarkar dwara purush hit me Jaari.

Transaltion:
If you are travelling by bus,train,plane or by any means and you spot any female with a flower, thread,bracelet or any glittering object the immediately run away from that place and seek hiding. That object could also be a RAKHI. A little carelessness on your part can make you her BROTHER.
Issued by Govt. of India for the benefit of the Men

Sarkar

Watched Sarkar last Sunday. The movie is loosely based on Godfather and Bal Thakeray.
Worth watching. Great performances from bada AB, AB's baby-chota Ab and KK.

Ash nazg durbatulûk,ash nagz gimbatul, ash nazg
thrakatulûk agh burzzum-ishi krimpatul!
"One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, And in the darkness bind them"

Have been reading LOTR-FOTR. Bilbo Baggin's verses are great .
Travelling to Mordor tomorrow...will Return and post a few .

Rain

Its 9 O'Clock in the evening. I am still in office. Blogging. Its raining outside.Heavily.
As luck would have it, I am without my mackintosh.So am waiting for the downpour to
stop. Tabtak ...am gonna blog.

Prologue

Had been visiting a lot of weblogs and got inspired to start one.
Have just got rolling . Will be posting few in the coming days.