Happy-ness

me : but things are so pointless in general...

friend : present is always hungry, frustu n sad 

           future is always unpredictable

           reduce pointlessness by making the past make u smile

And today (dont frame me for stating this) I somehow came across snaps of our rowing cox (our collective crush, I used to love his voice and the way he would secretly smile at our stupid mistakes) during COEP days. Lee, Ri and KT will be so jealous! At least I can hope so. Please, please, god please! To the countless B(oat)C(lub) visits to just get a glimpse of him, and later tease each other mercilessly for missing out on talking to him!

I have not smiled so much in a long time!

aah the past :)

Thank you friend!

~nightflier

P.S. The crush died when the dude got an AIR (all india rank and not the gas surrounding us! duh) 5 in GATE (graduate aptitude test in engineering). He transformed from being a mere mortal to god-level-ness!

Tit for Tat

We humans are strangely social. In being so we also remain private. We build homes. With strong foundations. And we guard them fiercely, like our own private, tiny little space in the expanse of the universe, ignoring the fact that other people are eyeing our little world.

That sadly makes us a lot vulnerable. There are some twisted minds who think, they can terrorise others, out of a sick interest of ruling mankind.

What else can be the reasoning behind Pune blasts ?

Pune has been my second home, a place I love cos I have really grown up there, and I hate the blame games that have started after all this carnage.

First the cowards attack our home and then instead of trying to protect it more or protect other possible targets, we are getting involved in a blame game, which normally has no outcome. Life's just going in circles. This is what the home ministry did after the Mumbai blasts. Agreed you cannot check each and every bag pack in the city. Agreed the city is a host to a lot of outsiders. Agreed it is one of the fastest growing cosmopolitan (the 2nd tier cities). And we still sit anticipating attacks ? Aren't people inside the country itself doing enough to divide it ? Or may be we are getting really good at it, throwing away our vulnerable, weak spots and letting others exploit it. What now ? Army raj ?

This is so hopeless. Terrorism is becoming an organized crime. Or as Pritish Nandy said in his tweet a growing business ? Come on, I am not naive enough to think that there are no insiders involved in this. To attack my house, you need to know its exact weak spots and for that only an insider can help you. How about tracking down these links first ? How about making sure that such dastardly acts or even attempts are met with grave consequences. This has become all the more important now, because of the growing aloofness about such incidents amongst aam junta. We are the largest democracy in the world and not some nation ruled by chimps. Whoever did all this, our intelligence, politicians and system failed us. Lets not forget that either.

We have a long role to play in the coming days. Lets not make our tolerance our Achilles heel. Lets make our shield stronger and give these losers a Tit for Tat.

~nightflier

My name is Khan

My name is khan (from the epiglottis!). 

It is touching, brave, endearing, naive, and simple. On the other hand it also has typical KJo outlandish style of doing things, lots of rona dhona and a bit slack storytelling after intermission.

But it still is a good movie, because,

1. KJo has grown up. I remember after 26/11 he had said in his blog that we need to make peace with ourselves first. The movie portrays the same line of thought. It essentially remains a love story, but with a deeper message. And mind you, it never preaches anything. Never. Its just a point of view at looking at the world. And it remains so. But it touches you along the way.

2. I like Sharukh Khan. No, that's actually an understatement. I loooooooove SRK. He is one actor about whom I am going to tell my kids lots of stories (as my dad still tells me about AB and Rajesh Khanna), though I havent seen a lot of his movies (Guddu, Ram Jane, the ones in which he has done a cameo). But this dude here is awesome! There is this guy who plays Sheldon Cooper in BBT. And if you have seen him you know what it means to be portraying a not-so-normal person. Go Rizwan Khan. Oops ShahRukh Khan :)

3. I know KJo is often criticized for living in larger than life fantasy land and portraying his characters to be some king and queens of lala land. This time one doesnt get the usual colors, hues and feel good things. Not in plenty at least. But we do get a lot of style. May be his production values are really strong and he wants his movies to look really good. I dont mind that. I actually like that. The characters wearing nice clothes and donning trendy hairstyles. After all they live in the bay area ;)

4. KJo's talent really gets portrayed in the scenes shot in Mumbai, where Rizwan has grown up. Zarina Wahab is amazing. You actually feel like this is how you also grew up. Well, everyone of us for that matter. This is where Rizu's mom tells him about the divide between people very simply and the way it gets engraved on his mind and the way he carries it forward.

5. I really dont wish to talk a lot. But guess I have already contradicted myself. Anywho, the movie loses its grip after intermission. Rizu pulls off a Forrest Gump. Not bad at all. Not many Indians (here I mean hindi movie lovers) are acquainted with Forrest. But it feels odd not in a preachy way but in an ick-ish way. It in turn also introduces you to typical Amru characters like funny hair Joel and Mama Jenny. And that phase has the most touching scene of the movie, where a bereaved Rizwan talks about Sam. So in the entire lets be good and spread goodwill spirit, I think I will ignore that.

All in all, one should watch MNIK because Karan Johar has finally grown up, it portrays Indian Cinema in a bigger way (we are more than fall in love and running around trees kind of people way ;)), SRK has given like this god level performance and finally because the movie has a heart. A very sensitive one. It can feel all the pain and hatred. And it wants to do something for peace. For inner peace.

My name is not Khan. And I am a fan :)

~nightflier

A string ...

The evening starts as lazy as it can be. You have just finished the routine back-from-office-how-was-your-day talk with your roomie. Well! And then a friend calls up. You manage to have her attention for like an hour. You talk about her life, your life, and issues. And then when you hang up, its already dinner time. But then you are also wisdom-toothing. That means you have the boring oatmeal or mashed banans/potatoes to go back to. Then you think about the days in hostel when you would treat yourself to idli sambhar everyday, in such situations. You think about apparition. And then you think maybe Google should get into these kind of technologies. You sigh. You have been watching a lot of superhero movies. Maybe you need to get real and watch/read some chick-lit. Why ? Cos that's what girls normally watch. And then you ask yourself when did I become so superhero-crazy. You decide you like all this good vs evil stuff. You decide there are good people and there are bad people. And since good was to be an antonym to bad, you decide there has to be a fight. And since you have idolized goodness so much, you make it win. So, that matter sorted. 

Your brain again gets back to food issues. You heat up the morning stuff. It isnt that great, but then you are skimming through this awesome blog that a friend forwarded and you forget about petty issues. By the time you realize you are hooked to it its already 9 PM. Then you remember that your professor sent you a mail regarding a research project. It also gradually dawns on you that this 3 credit course is your way to graduation. You curse yourself for being irresponsible. And then you make a time-table of sorts to take care of the padhai issues. You plan to get up real early in the morning. But then you realize the textbook you want, to get started is down in the storage. Bleh! You smartly decide to get it rolling the next day. You call up a friend and make plans for group studies. See, you are not being that irresponsible after all! You tend to feel good about yourself. You have just started gloating when the huge competition you have in April starts looming in front of you. You are truckloads of responsibility now. The words 'be responsible', 'responsibility' start sounding like a secret weapon to you. A weapon devised by the universe to make you grow up. And you start feeling all insignificant. You have no control. And then just as you are getting yourself drowned into the well of hopelessness, dear roomie reminds you of 'how you were supposed to do your laundry today'. Aah, then you start thinking about the clothes you want to wear for the Chinese New year celebration lunch thingie. You decide its time you got your laundry done! Better wear clean clothes and go out, than stay at home.

You trudge with the laundry bag towards the basement. And you think humans indeed are vain creatures. They can write an entire post about a seemingly stupid string of thoughts. Then you see that cute lil kid in the elevator. And you start thinking. again.....

~nightflier

the ski tale

1. Whoever, who has gone skiing once, tells you that its fun, they are LIE-ing! Yeah! a flat lie, which sounds real on the phone or chat. It isnt fun. It makes you fall and tumble and crawl and sour (with pain).

2. Also whoever invented skiing did not think of people like me for sure. Walking with your feet tied down to the ground is no fun. Again! The boots are so damned heavy that forget walking, even standing seems impossible.

3. Falling down is so easy. Getting up is harder. Doing so on your own is even tougher.Yours truly fell down 7 times and got up on her own each time. Thankfully! Once she also made 2 people behind her on the rope fall, she smiled sweetly at them and decided to focus on herself.

4. Try to keep your focus on not falling. Someone kept on telling it to herself and managed to stay on her feet for a surprisingly longer slope.

5. Also try to take a very heavy breakfast in the morning. Helps in maintaining energy levels. Believe me its one hell of a energy sapping sport. And weird part is you dont realize it.

Believe me, but I was not scared. All had looked so good in theory. Alas..

To all the skiing enthusiasts, I really admire you.

To all the aspirants/first timers, all the best. You will really need it. And in case you do manage to break my record of falls, do let me know. I might just gloat in that momentary glory before empathizing with you!

Now I am back to recovering from the muscle crunching, ego shattering (3 year olds were better than me..hmmmppffff) experience.

Till then, 

cheers,

~nightlfier

I miss..

Laughing uncontrollably till my eyes water and my stomach hurts

Dancing unabashedly on silly songs

Eating Pani Puri

Watching hindi movie in a theatre

That late night call over nothing

Going for long solitary walks

Varan-bhaat-toop

Methichi bhaji ani poli

Watching the full moon through the window

Staring at thin air

Running races

Making greeting cards

Writing letters

Dressing up and decking up

Head/hair massages

Being cranky

Trekking/hiking/cycling

Reading a marathi book

But I am a coder stuck in a cold storm and wind chill in Chicago. I shall code till the end of the world. Sigh..

~nightflier

This is your chance!

At the age of 84 people are normally supposed to go senile, worried about the mahabharat show they are going to miss because of grandson's unexpected hijacking of the remote control and the subsequent discussion they are going to miss out during the morning walk, with other fellow members of the fraternity. But then there is certain someone by the name of Bal Thackrey who is crying foul against people in general because his own family life is in shackles and because his maid wont serve him that delicious pizza from Pizza Hut (apparently a multinational chain run by a North Indian).

Talk about utter cheap-giri. So much that it has caused a pretty laid back person like me to write stuff down!

Ab tak to J&K kisska (India ka, Pakistan ka ya J&K ke logon ka) ye sawaal tha, aur ab ye bemuraad insaan ne naya bakheda khada kar diya hai, Mumbai Kiski ?

As if life was not hard, frustrating and stupid (read everything related to the Kasab case) enough!

Dude, I am telling you (also includes certain someone related to you, by the name of Raj) none of us have much time on this planet (and this existence actually does not make sense), so try to enjoy that extra cheese wala Pizza and marvel at the simple delights and pleasures of life. Stop bugging people. Sachin, Ambanis, APJ, SRK might have a lot of patience. But normal people like me, we no likey this divide and rule stuff. 

What makes Mumbai so easy going is its vicissitude. Its capacity to absorb people, its ability to give everyone a chance (that sadly includes you) .

So count this one and please live and let live.

~nightflier

P.S. I have been taught to be respectful to elder people, I guess I did not cross any line :P