Ten Things About Me

that you probably don't want to know, but are going to know if you read on further. :-)

1) It's very easy to make me cry

2) I like geeky people in general, but I hate it when people call themselves geeks and are proud of it. (Puhleez, geeks are at the lowest rung of the social ladder in many worlds)

3) I love wearing rings but I don't and I hate guys wearing rings

4) I obsess a lot about my hair

5) I alternate between a forthcoming extrovert and a painfully shy introvert

6) Whenever I pose for a photo, I smile so that all my 32 show and tilt my head to the right

7) I smile too much in general, sometimes people on the road have come up and asked me if we know each other

8) I hate aloo if it is the main dish but I like it when it is a part of something

9) I still don't know how RSS and feeds and all that work and I bookmark my favorite blogs

10) I like my left hand more than my right

:-)

Naina - The Movie

I entered the theatre with some amount of misgiving as we had seats on the first row and also since people told me it was a remake of a Thamizh movie that flopped miserably at the box office. And I was pleasantly surprised at the end of it all.

The movie begins in London when young Naina loses her eyes(and her parents) in an accident and in that exact instant a child is born to a tribal woman in Bhuj. Naina grows up into a young woman who undergoes a cornea transplant and her eyesight is more than restored and she begins having strange visions. She meets up with a psychiatrist to discuss this condition and together they undertake a journey to India to unravel the mystery.

The movie introduces chills and thrills in the right places albeit without the usual garish background score. The cinematography is pucca be it the streets of London or hamlets in rural Gujarat and portrays the supernatural without the usual hoopla. And surprisingly it has a solid storyline with logic and reason woven in, for a movie that deals with the occult. The twist just before the interval truly surprises and the ending is very mature and complete. And the best part is the complete absence of songs - Bollywood is growing up!

Urmila Matondkar is brilliant as usual as Naina. Her frightened yet eager expressions when first opens her eyes to the wide world, the fear and desperation in the final scenes are near perfect. Malavika as Kemi the tribal girl remains etched in our memory though her screen time is short. Anuj Sawhney as the psychiatrist Sameer is one of the pleasant surprises - he pleases the eye and the intellect with the right amount of dignity, credibility and honesty. Certainly going to watch out for him.

Blood and gore has been used extensively in the movie and sometimes moves us to a point of disgust though the story doesn't require it at all. Kamini Khanna as Naina's grandmother is too garrulous and loud to be pleasant. London has no relevance to the plot except to perhaps satisfy the whims of "phoren" locales.

Verdict: Good

P.S. My roomie K wishes to make it clear that though she accompanied me to the movie, the views expressed here are entirely my own and she doesn't recommend this movie to anyone! :-)

What do you do when

People around you talk continously in Telugu and then turn to you and ask why you are so silent

The guy sitting behind you is staring at your screen while you mail and doesn't know that you know he is staring

Someone wearing an atrocious attire is asking for an opinion and you don't want to lie or burn bridges

You talk loudly about someone only to turn back and find him looking at you

Someone you are trying to avoid keeps coming on to you and socializing

You receive forwards from strangers at work

Your normally considerate PL loads with work at 7:00 p.m on a Friday and wants it to be done immediatly.

*Yes, I promise to make an attempt to stop cribbing all the time and blog about nice things in life too *

Eating Alone

Today we did something high funda at work - failing over the primary server to the secondary server on purpose and checking if all the jobs, scripts blah blah run fine. And this had to be done during lunch to affect minimal users. So by the time I reached our cafeteria, everyone from my dysfunctional lunch group had left leaving me to lunch alone. :-( I looked around and though I found a few people I knew and who would engage in decent conversation, they were sitting with people I didn't know or people I knew and knew they wouldn't talk! Feeling very pathetic and wallowing in self pity I sat a table all alone, finished my meal in record time and ran to the refuge of my cubicle.

Now don't get me wrong here, I not a namby pamby girl who can't get anything done alone. Heck, I've survived three and a half years in Pilani, half a year in Bangalore and almost a year in Hyd all alone. I am pretty brave and independent kinds. But I can never ever go to a restaurant alone and dine alone!

I don't know why this is so. I have gone shopping alone umpteen number of times and never felt odd. Come to think of it, it makes more sense to drag someone along while shopping to prevent impulsive purchases that lose its charm as soon as you go home. A meal is for an hour but clothes are forvever! :-) And I do other stuff (that I can't think of right now) also alone. But eating is a big no-no! Once I almost entered a restaurant alone, and then I perceived the imagined snickers, glances of pity, shouts of "loser loser" reverbrating all around and ran right back!

Ann Landers (no I don't know who she is) said "It is far better to alone than to wish to be alone". So with this knowledge in mind and a book in hand for company I am going into march into someplace nice and dine alone and then blog all about it! :-)

Storytime: Untitled as of Now - Part II

*If you are new, read Part I first, just in case.*

The day was grey and dull and seemed to be geared up for a storm. Srishti hardly noticed it though. With a crinkled nose she tried to find out where that tricky variable was initialised. Like a mountain looming over the sleepy village, Venkat waited patiently. "I have some work, you leave da", she attempted a futile battle. The chivalrous giant never let her stay late in office and never let her go alone. And she always acquiesced after mild protests. She had always been the spoilt brat at home, fussed over and coddled. Her first few months in the city had been choatic to state the least and she had wandered like a wet puppy that had strayed from its home. Until she met Venkat that is. Venkat treated her like the princess that she felt she was. He knew when to take her out, when to put his foot down, when to pander to her whims and things like that.

It was love at first sight for Venkat. He was that kind actually, he had never been the ladies man and when he found his woman, he intended to stick to her. It this were Old England, he would be of a sturdy peasant stock and funnily enough he looked that way too - tall, well built with a ruggedly handsome face. Dependabilty was his middle name and that was one the reasons he was well liked all around.

And he loved Srishti with all his being. He wasn't the kind of guy who made lists like "I like the way her hair falls about her face. I adore that tiny mole above her lips. I love it when she tilts her head to the right while talking. Her tiny smile, her flowing dupatta ...". He didn't watch romantic movies, he never took her handkerchief when she wasn't looking to sigh at later and he couldn't rhyme to save his life. He was chivalrous though, he pulled out chairs, carried bags, held umbrellas, never allowed her to pay - almost romantic but not quite.

He pondered a lot before proposing. He knew she was his, but he didn't know the protocol one followed while declaring that. But he didn't like to go on as though nothing had happened when something indeed was happening deep inside. So like all good men do, he bought a bunch a roses, gathered himself and gave words to his feelings under a shady tree. And to be honest, he never expected what happened to happen; they were meant to be. It hit him hard, more because he couldn't understand it.

Mixed Bag

We had this small birthday party at work and looking around I realised that I hate a lot of people!For example, I hate R for talking and laughing too loudly and for her general brash behaviour and I hate A for his taste in clothes and I can go on and on and on. Something is wrong somewhere...

And going in line with my hate theme, I am going to repeat my smileys rant with added emphasis. Every site I go to seems to have this Smiley Central ad and there is this one smiley with red rashes scratching itself furiously and this really takes me to the lowest point of disgust! Yech, why would anyone ever want to use that in a mail?

On a happier note, my much missed roomie is coming back tomorrow. Yaayy! And I have started my plans for elaborate weekend revelry. :-) Also L has made a job in Pune, congrats girl. :-) And oh it is S' birthday tomorrow and in case you are reading this, "Hap hap happy birthday!" :-)

I am reading English, August now. (If you haven't clicked that link, do it now.) It's been made into a motion picture and so the cover has a picture of Rahul Bose(I am not going to link to him in imdb, do it yourself!). And now I have lost a little of the pleasure of reading the book 'coz in my mind Agastya is Bose! I have this thing actually, I don't like to see movies made out of books and if I happen see the movie first I never can read the book!

Moi hasn't got a single call since morning! :-( But lot of emails to make up! :-)

Ok ending with a snippet from Carry On Jeeves - "Yes, sir,'' said Jeeves in a low, cold voice, as if he had been bitten in the leg by a personal friend.

:-)

Muted

A question was thrown at me
My answer was lost in silence

Friends poured forth pleasantaries
I smiled weakly in return

My boss asked for an estimate
And I emailed my answer

I ate the lunch which was served
Without making any demands

Inquiries, questions and condolences
I replied in tenorless single syllables

The world is a hard place to live in
When you have lost your throat to soreness!

I Wanna Go to Switzerland

Picture 155
Originally uploaded by sjanani.

and I wanna go NOW! This is what happens when a friend sends picture perfect snaps from Europe and you are stuck in hot hot Hyderabad! :-(

Thanks Sharan for the lovely snaps and for permission to reproduce them! :-)

Calling it a Day

How do you objectify a day? One question I hate answering is "So, how was your day?" (But I am guilty of posing this question many times though - it's is one of the easiest things to say when you can't think of anything else.) How do I answer that question without seeming curt? If I had an exciting job, maybe my reply would have sounded like "Yup me had a good day, managed to isolate yet another stable isotope in the lab today" or "Not so good pal, broke my neck while bungee jumping today". Unfortunately moi is just yet another Indian software engineer. Most of my days are spent looking at and some days writing code. And more often than not, the person who is asking this question is also YAISE and I am always worried that answering this question might lead to the complete dissection of my job profile, my project, the team I am into, the method of source control we use, C++ or Java yada yada yada or worse it could lead into a detailed monologue of his/her job, the kind of project she is into and so on.

So leaving the work part aside, the other parameters that I could use to evaluate my day are my journey to work which takes approximately 15 minutes, my lunch and my travel back home! I can imagine myself answering "Yeah I had a great day, in the morning I got an auto very easily and they actually served gobi for lunch today" and the other person's opinion of me will sink to an all time low.

After a lot of pondering and rejecting many possible possibilities, I have hit upon this one - "Yeah my day was not bad. Survived a man eater in the morning, and then the afternoon was spent disproving the Pythagoras Theorem. My evening was good, I swam across the English Channel - nothing more invigorating than a brisk swim. And now here I am talking to you." Either she will give an awkward laugh and quickly change the topic or hang up - works for me eitherways! :-)

Storytime: Untitled as of Now - Part I

Her phone leapt to life with the cheery tune of Malgudi Days. It was nearing 12 in the night and she wondered who could be calling her so late. "Hello, am I talking to Srishti?", the young, deep and slightly accented male voice enquired. She answered in the affirmative her curiosity increasing by leaps and her excitement with bounds. The silence that greeted her annoyed her. "Hello, are you there? To whom am I talking to?", she tried her best to elicit a response. And her efforts culminated in a click on the other side. The tiny thrill that had built up in the past minute disappered and she went to bed after making a face at the phone.

The day dawned bright and clear and by ten she was hard at work. As the custom for the past year, Venkat came to her desk at eleven and they went to get their coffee. Things had taken an awkward turn a few months back, but soon Venkat was back in her life, like a comfortable old shoe and she had let him be.

She pouted all the way to the cafeteria, waiting for Venkat to ask her. And sure enough he did. "Some guy called me up at 12 midnight and then hung up". "Must have been some jerk with a phone calling up odd numbers, and possibly drunk." "No, he asked for me by name and then hung up. He didn't sound drunk, in fact he sounded quite nice." Vankat bristled inwardly. "So why are you moping now, because he called or beacuse he hung up" he asked brusquely. "I am not a despo, waiting for guys to call me up in the middle of the night", she flared up. "Anyways, that number will be there in your call history, so you can avoid him if he calls again". She smiled at the hint of jealousy in his voice. They finished their coffee in silence and left.

Five minutes after she had got to her seat, Yahoo popped up an email alert. It was a mail from unknowndude2005@yahoo.com. The mail read "Hi Srishti, I am sorry for calling you last night and then hanging up. I know you aren't feeling too kindly towards me right now, but tell me frankly, isn't this interesting? Lets enjoy the mystery while we can, after all what's life without adventure? I am dying to talk to you again - so keep waiting for my surprise call. Love, Admirer. P.S. It's not that I don't have the gall to identify myself, but it is more fun this way, for you and me!" She didn't know what to make of it. Normally she hated this kind of anonymous Romeos, but he was vaguely interesting. She decided not to decide or do anything about it right away, but just let it take its own course. For all she knew, it could be some friend trying to pull a fast one on her. She debated whether to tell this to Venkat, but then decided against it, no point in getting him worked up and paranoid. With a slight hum, she continued to decipher the code.

to be contd ...

Why not?

I keep coming across this 43 things in many blogs. Why 43 and why just things to do? There are so many things that I never want to in my whole life. I am sure I never want to abducted by an alien. I don't ever want eat non-veggie food. I am never going to learn Hebrew, just as I won't be tap dancing. And come to think of it I don't care too much for getting a tattoo and I probably won't learn how to write with my left hand. How come nobody is interested in what I don't wanna do?

Just the same case with allconsuming also. I want to tell the world what I am *not* reading or watching or listening to. I want a list of things that I am not consuming. And why spare del.icio.us too? How about someplace where I can list the links that suck which is in My UnFavorites?

Quizilla seems to be the flavor of the day or rather the flavor of these days. I suppose it's fashionable in the blogosphere(eesh what a word!) to announce which Incredibles characters they are, what their true element is, if they are a geek or a nerd or a freak and yada yada yada. In the same vein, how about some quiz to determine which FRIENDS character I resemble the least or what is the most unlikely thing I am likely to do in a situation?

And yes the unky moods. Please I want a caricature of how I will look when I am not hungry or not puzzled or not agitated.

*Some people see and ask why, but some people dream and ask why not*

*Some people see things that are and ask, why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, why not? Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that..*
-George Carlin

Pleasant Irony

Your PL chides you for working late and asks you to leave for home, while you are updating your blog! :-)

Lesson learnt - Do *not* disclose blog URLs to people@work! :-)

Acceptance

At the risk of sounding like a high school essay, I say "Man is a social being". I don't understand why acceptance is so important to everyone. In an odd way the society or the people around or whatever you call it, have a say in whatever you do. What is scary is that, the judgement always matters - a lot to most and atleast a little for the rest. The clothes we wear, movies we watch, books we read - everything is influenced. Take the recent attacks on Ganguly for instance - it took just a few critics, a few emails in bad taste to totally pan that man in public. Most of his supporters chose to remain invisible and the few vocal ones chose to sympathetic rather than defend.

I am not sermonising here, nor am I making murky proclamations like "You are not free" etc. I am not denying the existence of free will, I am just wondering at this universal thing. Yes it is universal, I know many people who project a "I-don't-ever-care" attitude - deep inside they crave for approval too perhaps from a smaller clique of like-minded people, but that need is there always. The blogging thing is proof enough for that - why write on the whole wide internet for everyone to see if your objective is only writing? You can't take the people out of the individual - Howard Roarke will stay inside the Fountainhead only!

I can't, So I am Not

Its two weeks since I saw a movie and so I can't post a review

I am not too much into sports and so I can't touch upon the Italian Open

I don't have a boyfriend and so I can't chronicle any sweet nothings

My friends are as dull as I am and so no wicked anecdotes

I don't have a swinging single life (I barely have a life!) so no party secrets for y' all

My head is filled with cotton so I can't think of anything clever

My day has been bad so no cheery soliloquy

And so I leave with a promise to be back with something better tomorrow!

You know..

you are working on a weekend if:

1) You keep all webmail windows open always and click refresh every few minutes

2) You open a slew of sites that you don't open on weekdays just so that people don't think too low of you (eg. imbd, sify movies, this, this and so on)

3) You don't put you mobile on vibrate and take calls at your seat itself

4) You take inumerable coffee, tea, coke and general breaks - all alone!

5) You keep humming a tune

6) You compromise your lunch at the nearest Food World cafe, not having enough gall to lunch alone in a restaurant

7) You get the elavator very easily and to yourself so that it doesn't stop at other floors

8) You keep calling your roomie every half an hour and when she entreats you come back, you mumble phrases like "Loads to do" or "I wish I could, but I can't"

9) You call home just so that Amma and Appa fuss over you working too hard

10) You update your blog before six!

Bad, bad server. No donut for you!

I started thinking about what to blog at about 5ish in the evening and opened my "create post" screen at 5:45 pm. The time is now 6:59 p.m and I haven't typed out two whole lines yet! :-( And the reason - orkut! Orkut by far is the worst time sucker, worse than even JoS and random blog hopping.

(For the orkut uninitiated, it is an online social networking portal. And yeah you can mail me for an invite.)

Some of my friends swear by orkut, they login the minute they get into office and are "active orkutters". This kind is easy to spot actually - their friends' list is bigger than 100, have more than 500 scraps and are a member of atleast 40 communities. And whether or not they keep in touch with the hundred odd friends, they are always on the lookout to increasing their friends list and add even the slightest of acquaintances as friends. This has happened to moi many times, people who wouldn't trouble themselves to even smile at me while in BITS suddenly want me join their hallowed list of friends.

And then the communities. There are about zillion communites about a billion things discussing the trivialest(is it a word?) of aspects. For example, for the sitcom Friends - there are about 8 communities discussing it in general, and then are few fan club communities *each* for all the main characters, and then communities for recurring characters like Janice, and the the regional "Iran Friends", "Friends in Spain" and so on. (Don't even get me started about Joey Fan Club Brazil and the likes!).

So you are asking me why I am a part of this whole thing if I obviously hate it so much - ah you caught me, that was the hypocrite in me who was doing the talking earlier! :-) Orkut is not totally bad actually. Occasional scraps help me keep in touch with the people I am not close enough to mail. And the communities are ok too - I just read a thread about Kamal Hassan's latest venture in his community and that was worth reading. And the occasional profile jumping to find out who is doing what, has provided for hours of lacha and sometimes even a credible means to verify gossip! :-)

(Flame first and praise next - when am I getting a Swiss citizenship? :-) )

My friend's sent me an invite to Gazzag and I am off to join it now! :-)

Honey, Smileys Have Taken Over the Internet!

smiley
Originally uploaded by sjanani.

Yes they really have! I seem to see them wherever I go. Initially they were cute, I remember when I first IMed I was very excited to see my keystrokes get translated automatically to happy yellow faces. And then someone sent me an ecard filled with bouncy faces smiling all over the screen and that made my day.

Now this



stares at me wherever I go and is totally uncute! mwah!

I realise that I stand accused too. I liberally sprinkle :-) and :-( in whatever I write and sometimes with extra braces for added emphasis too. This is how my typical email looks like

Hey ABC! :-) Great to hear from you! :-) So how is blah blah doing? Still ..... for her? ;-) I knew zzzzz zzzzz when yyyy!! :-) Pity about that qwerty asdfgh though! :-((( yada yada yada :-) Gtg now, lotsa work to do! :-(((
Ok take care. :-)

And now that I think about it are they really that bad? How else am I going to get my toothy grin on paper? Agreed I don't want "10000 FREE smileys" doing gyrations that I wouldn't dream of doing in real life, but the occasional emoticon gets my seal of approval! When I read something from someone with smileys in them, I picture them smiling while they type it and hey that's a nice feeling. They can be pretty useful too, you can get away with the most libelous of comments if it's followed by a smiley - that way you get to say what you want to say albeit with the "I was just kidding" tone. :-)

There are emoticons for about everything nowadays, especially with the newest Yahoo messenger. My favourite is this MIB one - no smile, no frown, just a pair of coolers. Another cute one is the praying one. (Nopes, don't know the key strokes of either). Somehow the classy elegance of Yahoo emoticons is missing in other places that support smileys - orkut for instance. Yeah its round, yellow and has a pair of eyes and a mouth, but not the same thing!

Btw, I got this while checking my mail. Quick go and vote now! :-)

Cities and Celebs

Yesterday while stuck in a nasty traffic jam I got to thinking about the various places I've lived in, visited or just heard of. And then I espied Kajol in this huge hoarding for WhirlPool which made me think about celebrities and thats the feed to this post - Which famous personality do cities resemble?

Bombay is Bipasha Basu - racy, seductive with an active night life.

Delhi is perhaps Inzamam ul Haq - huge and powerful, asserting the given leadership.

Hyderabad is just like her own Sania Mirza - not much of a big thing right now, but growing with each day.

Bangalore reminds of SRK - right now the biggest phenomenon in India and here to stay!

Kolkata would be Joel Spolsky - knowledgeable and having a way with words.

Pune is Pulela Gopichand - good stuff with an unpolluted air.

Trivandrum equates to Baichung Bhutia - I know nothing except the name!

And last but not the least, Madras is definitely Rachael Green (aka Jennifer Aniston in her other life) - very hot and close to my heart! :-)

So anything else you have to suggest?

I Don't Like You Any More!

Everyday we touch, and I feel your presence,
But the fondness is somehow absent.

You try to clear things up for me, and widen perspectives,
But I always see through you.

You spend the day with me, every moment of light,
But you never realise that my dreams are fine without you.

Yet you leave a mark on me,
That I try hard to remove.

Negatives seem to increase with time,
And I don't care too much for plusses too.

Looking forward to the day I get rid of you,
And move to contact lenses!

:-)

Of Writing and of Pens

I discovered something very startling today, well not so much startling as lamentable, actually its neither pathetic nor apathetic, anyways I just realised that I hardly ever write or read anything that's written nowadays.

Ok don't get me wrong here - I know I read lots and lots of lines of code and their asociated documentation and I write a little bit of code too and even lesser documentation and I also do this blog thing everyday both reading and (lesser amount of) writing, and then there are newspapers, mags, books yada yada yada. But how much of it is written - written as in "handwritten on a paper with a pen"?

This profound thought struck me today morning when I got off the auto and I needed change to pay the auto guy. The nearest shop was a stationery shop and I bought the cheapest thing possible to get change(I figured they won't take too kindly to buying an envelope and then demanding change for 100 bucks). Thats when it happened bammm! - Thats the noise that realization made when it struck me that it was ages since I had bought a pen!

I had always had this fascination for pens since the time I was a kid. As a kid I awaited for the graduation from pencil to pen with great excitement. Unfortunately for me, my school permitted us to use pens only at a significantly higher age than other schools. I remember getting all worried 'coz some of my younger cousins were usings pens at school while I was still the kiddo with pencils. And then the pen shopping - I went with an army of cousins each with their expert opinion on how the nib should be and what kind of ink to buy(yes, it was still the age of fountain pens). Ball point pens were taboo. And then gradually the experimentation with ball point pens and finding out they are snazzier, less messier and a whole lot easier. During my days at college I had this thing for a particular kind of PaperMate pens that were available in very select shops in Chennai and totally unavailable in Pilani. During the holidays I would stock on them to last me for a whole semester. In the middle, I also developed a fancy for gel pens and during my whole second year I used nothing else. Over all these years I held on to my Parker fountain pen though - refusing to buy notebooks from Nutan 'coz they would blot when I used it!

And now pens don't interest me anymore! :-( I dutifully carry a scribble pad and pen to all the meetings I go to, but I don't do anything with my pen except to chew on the end or to occasionally doodle in order to stay awake. And I don't even know where my beloved Parker is.

I miss the age of notebooks, pens and the like. I want to write something on paper regularly. Maybe I should write my blog on paper everyday and "actually" post it to the few people who read it. :-) And I want to read what other people write on paper - letters would be nice, love letters would be nicer still! ;-)

Weekends

Hyderabad treats me well, specially during the weekends! My roomie K and I live for weekends alone, literally starting the countdown from Monday itself. My weekend begins at 11 on Saturday. Coffee in one hand, the Hindu on the other and the remote squeezed in the middle (defying all laws of Physics) I triple task for a while lazily. The movie section of the paper is scanned thoroughly, taking into consideration all kinds of theatres across the whole city and after much delibration, debate and analysis, we ALWAYS mutually come to the conclusion to go to some movie in Prasads(for which we would have booked tickets via the Net on the previous week itself). Then we hurry to take bath, get ready, throw together something for lunch and then set out for the movie. After the movie the obvious destination is Eat Street(an open air Food Court kinda thing overlooking the lake). There we always take a table closest to the lake, enjoying the cool breeze and the wonderful view(it has to be seen to be believed!) - aaah, contentment! We stay there for as much time possible and after a dinner in such wonderful conditions we trudge home unwilligly(well not exactly trudge, we take an auto, but you get the point right!). And Saturday nite there is always some movie like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai that keeps K occupied and I curl with some book that I haven't had time to read earlier.

Sunday dawns bright, clear and lazier than ever. Again coffee, Hindu(the Sunday magazine is an extra treat) and the umpteen countdown shows on various channels, with argument aplenty as to whether xyz movie deserves the first place its been assigned or not. Then there is this "week that was" extra long marathon show of Will & Grace, which I watch religiously, despite them being re-re-reruns and despite having watched them all the previous week. And then Hidden Hills and then "week that was" F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Bath and lunch are squeezed in between and sometimes an afternoon siesta too. Of course after a tiring day we can't be expected to cook dinner and off we go to one of the many restaurants we have "discovered" in the city.

Another glorious weekend come to an end! :-(

And in case you are wondering which movie I saw this weekend - nopes, we spent Saturday "family shopping"(that means shopping for gifts for your family back at home you pervert! ;-)). And did we go to Eat Street - yes we did, but left in less than half an hour due to crowd and other associated and non-associated reasons. And Will & Grace and Friends on Sunday - haha, I am in office right now. "Dinner outside?" you might ask - K is attending a colleague's wedding reception today! :-(

Well, as they say, "You win some, you lose some!"

A hot Cuppa Coffee...

Sometimes I feel that coffee is the elixir of life, especially while@work. Many a time I have pondered over ponderous problems unsuccessfully, only to have realization strike me whilst on my coffee break. I usually take my coffee breaks with G and though sometimes we discuss work related stuff, I never bring my coffee to my desk. We have this tiny balcony in our office, conveniently near the vending machine and the best part is that - it overlooks Hussain Sagar lake(the Hussain Sagar lake shall henceforth be referred to on my blog as just "the lake"). It has quite the picture postcard view - with a long road, and then a train track and then the stretching lake. And when it's raining - what could be better than watching the rain on the lake while sipping a hot cuppa coffee?

South Indians, particularly the Thamizh, are famous for their filter coffee(or as people like to call it - kaapi, though I always feel it should be kaaphi or kaafi). My parents can't get through for even a day without their daily dose. In fact, when my aunt went to US, one of her biggest complaints was that there was no filter coffee available there! Dark, thick, foamy and in the traditional dabara-tumbler combi, it's the first thing you are offered when you visit someone. God save you if you don't drink coffee - Moi has had lots of experiences in this arena. I like my coffee "just so" and in the whole world only Amma know knows how it make it, not even me and so I try to refuse coffee wherever I go. Their first expression is of disbelief and after they are convinced I am not kidding, there's the usual entreaty of having "just half a cup" - as though the only thing I am concerned about is having a full cup of coffee!

I don't care much for its American counterpart espresso too! Cappuchino and the rest of the gang are alright. And I absolutely love cold coffee - cool and ivigorating at the same time. If it has ice cream too, mmmmmmm! :-)

There are a lot of these "coffee pubs" that have sprung up all over and I love this kind of pub-hopping! :-) (Not that I do the other kind of pub hopping, but anyways...) They are a great place for meeting friends - the ambience is good, no noise, cheap(how expensive could coffee get?) and most importantly they don't kick out after you finish! For the same reasons, it is a very ideal place to meet your bf if you are a gal or your girl if you are a guy or for that matter your bf if you are guy and your gf if you are a girl too! ;-) (Yeah I am watching a lot of Will & Grace! :-))

Wokay, its time for me to get high on a cuppa coffee right now and finish this kutti but irritating work so that I don't have to work during the weekend! "To me, everybody"! :-)

Wheee! :-)

The reason I am going "wheee" is 'coz outgoing in my mobile has atlastttt been restored! :-) I was going "noooooooo! :-(" a week back when it was barred (for lack of submitting a document not for the reason that jumps to your mind!). After daily phone calls to Airtel Customer Care, lots of misdirections, some amount of haggling, lots of threatening, many mails to my HR, 3 visits to the Airtel showroom nearby, more haggling and threats face-to-face and a final call to Customer Care, my outgoing was restored! I feel like I have really earned it. Watch out world, I am connected now!!!

The last week was terrible - I had to rely on incoming calls totally for my quota of phone calls. And realization dawned that I made more calls than receiving! The worst part was I wasn't even able to give missed calls to people and trick them into calling me back. I wallowed in self pity the whole time, but now that I am back into the game, I don't care! :-)

A lot of people used this opportunity to make snide remarks at my mobile(yeah right, it was some fault in the mobile that kept me disconnected, duh!) and asked in a even "snidier" tone about when I am trading it in for a snazzier one. Granted, I own a lowly Nokia 3315, but I really like my phone. Been through a lot with it - in Bangalore, Pilani, Chennai and now in Hyderabad. Senti stuff apart, I have no complaints with my phone. Very sturdy and suited for butterfingers me - only recently I managed to get a crack on its pane! And I like the clear display on the panel so that I know by just looking whether the phone is switched on, do I have missed calls etc.

So for all you people out there who armed with "cell sengal" jokes - pbbbtttt!!!

"I've got the power hey yeah heh
I've got the power
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh yeah-eah-eah-eah-eah-eah
I've got the power"

:-)