-: Dreamer's Den! :-

A year back, 4th December 2006 is the day when the excitement began and yesterday, 4th December 2007 marked the anniversary of meeting my wife for the very first time! :-) And yesterday to mark this "love-at-first-sight-day" (wow! a new term coined! :-)), I took my wife to Amoeba Bowling Alley where we had a fun time (she was trying her hands in bowling for the very first time and hmmm...she scored pretty good!) and then I gave her a surprise by taking her to Ebony Restaurant - 13th Floor, Barton Center, MG Road, Bangalore. I had never been to this place even though I had heard of this nice hotel from many sources. I hadn't expected that it will be so nice and romantic! This hotel, as the name says, is on the 13th Floor of the Barton Center in the busy MG Road and the USP of this place is that 13th Floor is the terrace area of this building and hence you will enjoy your meals with the cool breeze and part of Bangalore to see! If you are not Ok with the chilling temperat...

Six years back on November 5th 2001, I along with many of my friends started our professional career by joining a Chinese telecom major software firm in Bangalore. It was one small room, the so-called 'training room' where 24 of us assembled on day-one of our work life to start a new journey. And today is the 6th year for all of us, 6 years in this IT industry, 6 years experience in resume! Lot of nice memories to cherish and to cheer. Hope this journey continues for long time to come!!

First of all, after a long time I am blogging again and I love this! :-) Yesterday, went for the movie 'Jab We Met' in the newly opened Fun Cinemas hall in Sigma Mall, Bengaluru . Went in with the expectation that the movie will be good, worth watching and entertaining (Many reviews of this movie were very positive!) and the results were exactly as per my thoughts and expectations!! The movie was good, Shahid looks pretty professional and Kareena , as usual, the bubbly-girl and especially this movie, highlights her bubbli - ness :-)) Overall, no part of the movie was boring and it has been shot very nicely, all in India though ( Bhatinda , Simla , Manali and Mumbai ). Yesterday was one more kind-of special day...it was half-an-year or 6-months Jab We (me and my wife) Met and got married!! :O) The scenes of Manali in the movie drove us back to our romantic honeymoon that we celebrated in Manali . (I remembered my driver in Manali saying that Shahid - Kareena are he...

In past one week, I have seen two reports, in different newspaper (one in Bangalore Mirror and another in Deccan Herald ), where these reports speak about 2 different persons who donated their valuable eyes upon their death! Also, their great donation has inspired lot of their friends and families to pledge their eyes for donation upon death! Hats off to those two great persons for being an example to the people. Let their soul rest in peace and their eyes give vision to 2 + 2 = 4 corneally blind people! This brings lot of cheers to me, a great supporter of this noble cause for which I have started a project a year back called 'Gift Your Sight' @ www.giftyoursight.info I wish and hope more and more people who have read the report in the news paper, come forward to pledge/donate their valuable eyes. Remember, though we will not leave in this world forever, let our eyes be, after our death, giving light to two corneally blind friends!

Finally, the wait got over for the much hyped, much talked and much awaited movie of the year - a festival for most of the Tamil filmdom fans, the release of the movie " Sivaji - The Boss " took place on June 15th 2007. Only reason this movie got so much hype from all parts of the world is coz of our Anna, our Thalaivar, our Bengalooru Boy, our Superstar - Rajnikanth (aka Sivaji Rao Gaekwad), being in the lead role, after 2 years of break ( Chandramukhi was the previous film, released in 2005) Film-wise, nobody can speak anything about the direction, photography, choreography and above all acting by Rajni and co-stars. Rajni looks damn damn damn good (even though in real life he may look like *yuck*) and his usual styles rocks!!! Kudos to that person who did the makeup of Rajni!! Shreya...ah! that beautiful lass deserves a mention here...she is one of the few beauties of cinema who carries all kinds of clothes and makeup so comfortably...be it a traditional saree or weste...

One of the main reason why people *still* love bengalooru (Obviously, I love namma ooru always!) - the city has switched itself from 35 degrees hot mode to around 25 degrees cold mode! Yeah, from past 2 days, the weather across the city is very cloudy, threatening to rain heavily at any point of time but sadly no rains at all...even the hottest city Chennai is getting drenched by heavy rains!! Whatever it is, the weather is very pleasant, bit lousy though (wish I was in home, sipping a cup of hot tea with Lays/Kurkure or mom's super handmade pakodo giving the company!) :-) Especially the morning drive thru the cubbon park is the most enjoyable stretch I can say coz U will be passing thru lush green on both the sides and adding to this, is the super cloudy chilling wind blow - Cant expect anything more from this concrete filled IT city! :0) All in all, enjoy maaDi!!! :-))

Almost 2 months back, I had submitted a small travelogue of mine to a place called Tungareshwar (near mumbai) to Rediff people. After much wait and followup, I gave up on the hopes that I will see my article on rediff. But today, I was taken by surprise when I opened the rediff window. My article has been published under the title ' Walking through the Western Ghats ' !! :-) Do read on the article and let me know how it is. Hope you like it and appreciate it! ;-)

After a month of super celebrations, back to somewhat different normal life now!! ;)) Check this one of the dozens of snaps and memories I have got from my beautiful trip to Manali!

Today, after 2.5 years of using my dear Cell, the Nokia 6260 - clampshell shaped 'brick' :-), I discovered a super good feature (pretty common requirement though) that can save me good amount of money on every call! :-) As the saying goes, 'Need is the mother of all inventions', in my case I had the need to see the 'real-time' call duration ie. when the call is in progress, I wanted to see how much time has elapsed. This was and is required coz countless times, indeed, countless times it has happened that I end a call at the every beginning of next minute (1 call rate is calculated for every 60 seconds), means I end a call at 01 second or 02 seconds or 10seconds or 15seconds. After every call, I curse myself was having wasted some money for just this much time where I could have spoken a bit more till 55 or 58 or 59 seconds!! I dont know how much my money has gone to Bharti's kitty just because of this and I hate to the core! :-(( So, I searched on the net...

Every other day you see them, in front of your home, in the road - the carriers of dust and waste generated from homes. Earlier their used to be big 'dust'/'waste' bins at every corner of road where we used to go and dump the waste. Then, every 2 or 3 days once, the then Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) open, shoddy, ugly looking van would come and clear them, though in a super hap-hazard way! Even after the van went, one could say that today their was the BMP van here and one could track the route taken by that open-van, as waste used to fall on every inch on the road!! :-) Now, gone those days and the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) mooted program of collecting the waste from 'your doorstep' is in progress, all over the city! Good in one way but bad in many ways!! :-( First the good news; good because you dont need to go and find a waste bin to dump the waste;instead the collecting vans/carts come in front of your home and you can dump the waste ...

Daily, while commuting to work, I pass through the super, world-famous building called ' Vidhana Soudha ', home of the Karnataka government/legislature. Its a very beautiful sight to see this tall, huge, amazing structure - conceptualized and built by the then loyal Chief Minister Mr. Kengal Hanumanthiah. Kudos to that great man and the persons behind this who have built this building; one of the busiest tourist spots of Bengalooru! In front of this great building, there is a plush lawn and good amount of space where lot of public functions take place. These functions come under the purview of 'Samaja Kalyana Ilakhe ' ( Public Works Department ). When there is a function, one can see lots and lots of banners put across in and around this place, for a day or two before and after the function. What I have observed is there is lots of cost associated with doing this; right from printing the banners, pasting it in all places, arranging the stage with huge mega-banner dis...

3 more weeks from today before I get relieved from this sweet pain of waiting, without my better half besides me, forever :-)) But this sweet pain is once in a lifetime opportunity and am kind of loving and kind of hating also!! :-)

Exactly one month from today and I would have entered a new phase in my life with my dear girl !! :-) Waiting for that D-Day :-))

There is good news and bad news also. Good news first, in this case :-) Bangalore is the fastest growing city in India, providing home to lot of High Networth Individuals (HNIs) This is indeed good news unless and until these HNIs give back something to namma bengalooru, which is not happening and indeed this is the bad news! :-( I feel the gap between the rich and the poor is alarmingly increasing, even exponentially! Rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer and we, the middle class keep on swinging between these...Know why? bcoz we are the real, honest tax payers of this country, real players who give back something to this country in the hope that something good will happen and hence even if our income raises, we pay more tax and hence we are in the 'middle', always! Not always is the case with our so-called, HNIs, NRIs and blah blah...my point is if our bengalooru is so rich with these people, then why dont they offer something back to improve the image of th...

The day, 29th of March , is a day for me that I cannot forget in my lifetime! 4 Years back - 29th March 2003 , I was involved in an accident Click on the title to read that deadly evening tragedy > where God took away my close friend, in front of my eyes, on my laps! God gave me 2nd innings in my life, to remember this day forever! So, from today morning, rather from yesterday night itself, I am just remembering the chain of events that happened on that deadly sad Saturday :-(( Not that I don't remember this always, this day brings me lots and lots of memories, don't know if this is good or bad :-( Only thing I pray god always is this kind of thing SHOULD NOT happen to anybody, to any mother, to any family, to any lover and to any friend also... Let god give peace to the soul of my dearest friend Vinod babu and his family members! Miss you babu, miss you this entire life! :-(

An article in Economic Times about the cricket mania! Click on the title of this post > Yesterday, in my previous post , I wrote at the end of having performance related stuff for our blue boyz for more resposibility towards the game and more consistency and..and...here it is, Management agencies are speaking my mind!! :-))

Cricket - The one word that gets huge huge attention in any part of India; Dream, Craze, Madness of millions of people in India and some abroad! But everything got shattered on Friday evening when the 'Blue Boyz ' - Team India lost to Sri Lanka team to exit out of the World Cup :-(( Who knows, May be they felt bored of traveling alone to India later and hence wanted company of Pakistan team (as they were already out of World Cup on Sunday!) to travel with them!! :-))))) In fact , long ago and so so long ago, I WAS an ardent fan of our local cricket and International too. But as Cricket, especially our India team started playing this Gentleman's game more for Commercial purpose than for sporty purpose, my interest in this superb game came down heavily. Even in my friends Circle and in my office (my colleagues), I am the only person who does not follow much of this game! I have always been telling that our blue boyz just want to make money, more from the Commercial A...

People passing Queens road circle and Cunningham road definitely know the pain involved, either commuting in 2/4 wheeler or by walk! Here are few simple steps that can bring super smiles to millions of people!! 1. A nice pedestrian sky-walk / foot-over-bridge in the Queen's Circle signal. This bridge can be in a super pentagonal shape, connecting all the 5 roads part of this signal. This signal witnesses lot of pedestrian movement, especially in the peak office hours! 2. Crossing Cunningham road, just from one side to another is a real pain; need to wait sometimes for 5-10minutes to cross this road, moreover this crossing is not that safe as vehicles can speed up any moment once they see free road ahead! So, multiple skywalks will make justice here! 3. To reach Cunningham road from KR Circle, one needs to wait at 2 signals whose time limit is more just for one particular lane! - The Infantry Road signal, one way each amounts to lot of waiting for people on both sides. A super fl...

You are waiting in a traffic signal in your 2/4 wheeler. The timer in the signal is still showing 15 seconds and coming down. When the timer approaches 10 seconds, you can hear the vehicles engine rearing to zoom ahead. This is fine, but once the signal turns green, you are honked from behind as if you are not moving even though you got green signal! Another common scenario is of traffic jam. Even though everybody are struck in the jam, some brilliant fellow keeps honking as if everybody are just standing on the road just because they love that road and that spot!!! So idiotic people are...:-) Another scene is of which I daily encounter in my office commute route. I commute on a flyover that is a very nice 2-way 2.7kms long flyover connecting Mysore Road to Townhall circle. Here, people zoom across just like they are flying!! (including me :-D) But the bad and the irritating part is continuos honking by some lack-of-nerves people. I too zoom off when the road is clear ahead of me b...

" Time is healer and time moves on...Time don't wait for any one! " - Lines from a song belonging to Colonial Cousins album - 'Krishna nee begane baro' How true right? Time is what we have in this world and every second becomes an history! But not always all times will be good for everyone...Some will be super good, some will be ultra bad, some kind-of-OK and so on :-) As for me, as I have put the heading of this post 'Time is THE Healer', every minute damn thing in this world that you get is based on time! A bit translates to your FATE and LUCK here but for that also to come, TIME should come right! :-)) I have adopted this mantra in my life, not only now, but from when I got to know about this beautiful world, filled with all emotions, joy, sorrow and money, honey!!! For example, one of my long term wish is to travel to US/UK, not even this but to travel round the world and see and enjoy the beauty of this world. But somehow am not getting this oppor...

When I wake up daily and start thinking of the day's agenda, first thing that comes to my mind is commutation to my office, which is around 13 kms from home! Not a big deal but the killer roads and traffic of bengalooru makes me go mad! :-( Much has been talked on the infrastructure, which I do not see any kind of improvement, now or in the future! I wonder where our taxes that we pay so honestly every month goes, where all the CESS goes (The most deserving example is rate of Petrol and Diesel in Karnataka and especially in namma Bengalooru - it is highest in India, thanks to the varities of CESS we have apart from normal ones!) Where all these CESS goes? Dont we deserve proper roads and proper traffic system when we pay so much?? If this was not enough, from next month, there is the great government plan to bring so-called 'Infrastructure Cess' on all 2-wheelers and 4-wheelers!! What the heck and what the crap?? All these makes me so so irritative but who is there to hea...

It was 9 Years back, in April 1998, that we decided to go for a brand new television, after a gap of nearly 10 years!! Suiting our budget came a Philips 21" Color Television that had some super features (at that time, it was super - like Child lock, 70 channels, multiple sound modes, multiple picture modes,etc..!!!) and we all were very exited about this new 'gizmo' in our home! :-) Now, after good old 9 years and after touring Mandya , Mysore and back to Bengalooru , on Friday , our TV itself called it enough before we ourselves could do so, though we had no intention now! :-( We called an engineer who came and opened the heart of it for the very first time and after around 30minutes of testing and analysis, he said its not a minor problem and it will take some days to get to know whatz the problem and then solve it! So, me and my mom decided give it some rest (after 9 years of excellent experience) and then started to look out for a new TV. We were pretty tempted to g...

Dunno what happened but gradually I stopped blogging..Writing is one of my favorite activities but somehow really no idea why this activity came down gradually..I really feel sad on this daily..:(( But I definitely need to come back and will come back..

2 Years ago I gave birth to my baby - THIS BLOG!!! H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y D U D E :))) And today it holds and has captured many moods of me, many opinions of me...:) Wish I look after my baby for many years to come, with lots of my moods getting captured...

Wish You All A Very Happy and Prosperous New Year 2007!! New Year, New Hopes, New Dreams, New Expectations, All New and Hope Everything Will Come True! Luv All - Deeps