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June 29, 2006

Long time ..No post !!!

Hmm...

Quite a time since I've blogged...havent realized that until someone asked me if I was busy coz he didnt find any new posts on my blog. And to my surprise the last post has been almost 10 days back. That did make me feel like a criminal.

So what's that kept me so engrossed that I havent been able to keep track of time. Well to start off with...its NOTHING. Yeah literally nothing..

Freedom can at times be very dangerous for ppl like me..yeah ..i'm referring to my project out here. I've been complete freedom as far as my project goes. I thought its a great way to start my project, but off late I've realized that the people out here are too busy to bother me and hence the freedom. Anyway finally decided to torment them for information even if they end up abusing or hiring a hitman to deal with me. Cant help it man...I've got my MBA at stake and hence cant be complacent...if things dont move then you'll have to move things..

Just started to do some work since yesterday. But before that I was so vella (this in some language means being idle or jobless) that I managed to check more than 500 orkut profiles in 3 days...read over more than 30 blogs..Liked some, laughed at some and ...its better i stop here. Thats not it... I can tell you ...which waiter in the cafeteria wouldnt mind if you ask for an extra serving, which day of the week is "Bhel Chat" served..which Vending machine in the building serves which beverage and the list goes on. And to top that I've become an expert in troubleshooting the vending machine, the photocopier and the printer...(still working on that fax machine :( .)

Also tried my luck at going around the city..Someone had suggested me to go to F.C.Road and M.G.Road over here..supposed to be a 'chics' paradise. First went to F.C Road ...it was really a chics paradise...you've a quite a number of hangouts on that road to freak out and specially if you ever happen to visit this place, dont forget to have 'Panipuri' or 'Chole tikki' @ Manmeet (opp to FC). It was amazing...probably the best chat I ever had in my life.

After wandering there for a while decided to leave for M.G.Road. This one was even more amazing than F.C.Road, and since I couldnt think of a better word than paradise (excuse my poor vocabulary), I decided to give the priveleged status to M.G.Road. This is a walk-in road where no vehicles are allowed. The road is as wide as a national highway and at times there are so many females walking around, that you are bound to get a feeling as if a huge confluence of female protest is marching towards you like a juggernaut.

Well all this did come at a price though. Yeah ..almost forgot to tell you ... I was caught driving on a bridge on which two wheelers werent allowed ( Can you beat that...a bridge on which two-wheelers are not allowed ..Never heard of it ?? Welcome to Pune !!!) and had to shell out 200 bucks for that. The policeman had actually demanded 800 bucks but when i told him that I was a student...studying in IIT, his eyes widened..and agreed to settle for 300 bucks. And later said that 200 bucks would do. Hmm...the perks of having the reputed IIT brand :P. (Or might have realised that he's actually paying for my education. Didnt get that ?? Well if you're a honest taxpayer then in all probability you're kinda funding my education as IIT education is subsidised by the Govt. of India :P)

And then my bike got towed away for parking in an 'invisible-no-parking' area of a lane so narrow that even a car cant fit. Had to shell out another 200 bucks for that. And this happened once again the very next day, taking the entire total to 600 bucks.

So much for the pleasure...was it worth it ?? Lemme not get into it..

Disclaimer (Just in case..you never know): All the above views expressed above are purely mine and can be fictional or unreal if threatened to be sued. These views can be in no way be used to interpret my employer and whatever..

June 19, 2006

Aaati Kya Khandala ???


Sticking to our schedule of weekend excursions, this weekend we had planned to shoot off to Lonavala and Khandala. Before coming to pune, many have talked volumes about this place, specially the Express Highway that connects Mumbai and Pune and I had to agree that they were being modest.

On a day when weather is on your side, the entire trip could be lot more worth than the effort you'd put. The entire sight of the highway right from pune to lonavala makes you doubt if you're really in India. Yeah, specially in India where the word 'express' is abused so much that it has lost its actual meaning, the express-highway was true to its name and you can see cars zooming by at a breathtaking speeds of more than 120kmph.(the pic above was shot at that speed)

After reaching Lonavala, we realized that there werent enough spots to watch. That left us quite disappointed, specially when we had no intentions returning back before late in the night.

Anyway tried to make the most of what we had and we spent quite some time at the Bhushi dam, where we trekked all the way up to the waterfall point and in the process, I did manage to escape a serious downfall with minor bruises on the palm, an injured ankle and an aching rib. Photography can be dangerous and had learnt it the hard way :(.

Then we shot off to another hilltop point where we could get a clear view of the nearby places through a telescope. This was where a tattoo artist convinced me that I'd look hip with a tattoo and I thought it was worth a shot specially when it wasnt a permanent one ;). So finally ended up with this one. Seems to be quite mystic but i guess the only time that is seen when i take my bath as I go to office with full sleeves and there's no way anyone can watch it. Anyway ...atleast I could fulfill one of my very desires.

Then off we went to Khandala, which was pretty close to Lonavala. There is this spot, popularly called as "Shooting spot" and the sight was astounding. Suddenly I felt some strange connection with the nature and many thoughts mocking our daily lives filled my mind which almost took over me. During all this, I had to sedulously avoid the desire to wander near the cliff, coz all it needed was one step to reach heaven ( yeah..I'm pretty much sure about that destination ;) ).

We spent some time sitting and playing "Who can throw the farthest" till rain forced us to get back into the car.

Strictly in confidence, with every jaunt, life seems to be more than worth living and a sense of gratitude arises for the almighty, for his wonderful creation and for having given me an opportunity to explore it.

This is one hobby, I would want to keep it for my lifetime.

Amen !!!

Click the link to view the slideshow of the snaps I've taken. View slideshow

June 16, 2006

Beautiful Sunset @ IBM.



It was just like any other day. Was done with the work (aha..its not what you think) and was back on my way to home. For the past few days things have become very stereotypical (including my food) . Very casually i throw a glance towards the sky and suddenly I noticed a rare sight. It was sunset time and the entire sky was getting bright orange.


I stood there stupefied at the nature's artistic elegance. But before I could let the sight slip away, grabbed my camera and took some quick snaps. As time passed by, the sky got filled with bright orange fading away to dark grey shades.

I dunno if it is because of Pune's altitudinal location or the absence of multistoreyed buildings around, many a times you can find amazing sights in the sky, as if the nature chose the sky in that part of the city as its canvas. Pushing away these thoughts I briskly walked to get a better view of the setting sun.

But I couldnt and finally managed to get a very picturesque view of the fading shades of orange in the sky.
Hope you guys enjoyed the pics as much as I did in clicking them.

Happy Weekend !!!

June 12, 2006

Yahoo Mail Beta !!!


Yahoooooooooooo !!!

The new Yahoo Mail Beta is truly amazing. The final version is not out and still under testing phase.

There has been a sweeping redesign of the service's look, feel, and function. Many thanks to the Mail team for getting me in the door. Testers have the ability to toggle back and forth between the old and beta versions. Beta Mail will propogate outward through the membership over a period of months.

I've always preferred Yahoo over the lite-weight email version of Gmail. Gmail lacks horribly in terms of looks and personalisatoin. The new Yahoo! Mail is a sleek, finely wrought piece of interface design. The overall look is an Outlook-styled, three-pane window with folders in the left vertical pane, headers top right, and a message preview pane below the headers. So if you've already used Outlook or Lotus notes...you're gonna love this.

The new Yahoo! Mail features a tabbed interface whereby you can line up several messages for later perusal, very much like Firefox's tabbed browsing.

Also, a snazzy drag-and-drop feature lets you move messages among folders; it is startlingly pretty.

The new Yahoo! Mail is obviously a successful beta launch. It hints so strongly at a revolution in Webmail interfacing that one can't help leaping ahead to imagined additions. Yahoo! is already slick in three areas that I'd love to see woven into Mail:

* Popup previewing as in Yahoo! News.
* RSS.
* Tagging.

I have no idea whether such features are on the radar, and I recognize that with the usage footprint of Yahoo! Mail the company cannot be too experimental.This is an exciting start to a new chapter in Webmail.

For all those who've missed out the bandwagon and would love to get an invite to the yahoo beta version, the bad news is that there are no invites available but the good news is that there is still a chance to get on to the waiting list. Click here to get there...

June 06, 2006

Mahabaleshwar Trip !!!

All of the guys who're having our summers in Pune tried to plan up something for the weekend and finally decided on a trip to Mahabaleshwar. It was an exciting trip...

Firstly, because it had been quite some time since I had last trekked and secondly because it also had been quite some time since I got a chance to get wet in the rain. (If you've read my initial posts in the blog, then you must be aware of my fetish for rains)

Getting back to the topic...we started off pretty early as we didn't want to rush through places while returning. The weather was the best I could've asked for, with a continuous drizzle and the strong winds blowing across, there was a delicate spray of water all around. We had hired a vehicle which made my life easy. I could stop at all the weird places to click some pics.Clicking some amazing pics makes my entire experience meaningful, gives me a sense of completeness. And that's precisely is the reason why I usually am behind the cam and hardly in front of it. I don't want to get into the explanation of the various points (Its got about 8-10 hillpoints) coz i can hardly remember them, but yeah i cannot forget the view one can get standing from there.

It concluded with a 4km trek to some point called 'Triveni point' from where one could see the beautiful sunset. But alas, the weather was so cloudy and drizzly..we could hardly locate the sun. And yeah , the pic beside is of my shoes just after the entire trip...this should give you a clear idea of how wearing the entire trip was..

June 02, 2006

Life @ IBM

The last two weeks have passed like two days and I still remember the first day I reported here. Working @ IBM, I've realized how one can easily lose track of time if not conscious about it. Owing to its remote location from the pune city, I along with my friends have been forced to shift somewhere near to this place. Luckily we've got a fully furnished house with a servant-maid which is just a stone's throw distance from IBM.

Typically day over here starts with the breakfast in the food court, followed by a short visit to the vending machine where I strain my brain cells to finalize a drink among cappucino, latte and espresso.

After this, I settle down @ my cubicle and start off with the usual checking of mails/ orkut scraps/ lotus notes inbox. Clearing the inbox and forwarding the junk mails received consumes an obvious amount of time.

From here my work starts off with intermittent breaks, chats, phone calls, scrapping, coffee-breaks. By the time I feel like slogging, my batchmates remind me that its lunch time.

Lunch break is one which i truly enjoy out here. The food served here is more than i could have asked for. Everyday i lose in the fight against my gastronomic urge and end up having a sumptuous lunch. That means the next one hr after lunch would suffer on productivity (as if it was any better during the day).

By 3 in the afternoon, the slumber-like feeling wears off and with a coffee, things start moving at a faster pace. Before i realise, its almost 8 in the night and time to leave. Why till 8? Well dinner is served at 8 over here and there is no other place nearby where i can get such lovely food without burning my pocket. And also we aint got anything to do at our room, so we as well spend that time working.

Thats it .. .after dinner we move to our room where I spend some time watching movies/ FRIENDS on my lappy and then its goodnight.

This is exactly how my schedule had been for the past two weeks and no wonder techies dont realise how time flies in the office.