Welcome 2011

In the middle of Eu Tong Sen street, dancing around the midnight traffic, snaking through the drunken crowd, glimpsing some spectacular fireworks on tiptoes, wishing I were with the ones I love , I said Hello to 2011. Incredible changes in the past decade, more mind boggling ones to arrive in this one, I am sure. Here's hoping all things good and nice come our way, heath and happiness stuck at the side, Adventure and Excitement add some spice and Peace and contentment reign at the end of the day. Cheers!

Being 21

The big 20's have arrived to stay and the first thought that pops into my head is that finally, i have been given the official green card to enter into any recreational establishments that had so far been barred to me. Not that I may still be allowed in without solid ID proof judging by looks..but happy news is I got the proof atleast!! Well, now that this longtime major pain has been removed from my life, I find that the privilegde also comes in with another array of nagging responsibilities. and a bit of anxiety as its official that if I screw up from now on, not even parental interference can give me a helpline..

Above all, its quite disconcerting actually. inspite of all the build up given for the magic 21, I hardly feel any change. mentally or physically. SO, in the absence of any such supposed powers I am to gain, I have been kicked out of college and expected to launch myself into a projectile of a career that had better land me in the moon soon, make loads of cash, manage it without getting bankrupt, gain a cool designation title to go along with it, travel the world, gain " experience" ..all within the next decade.Most importantly, I must somehow make myself mature to not only handle but welcome more nagging responsibilites in future.

I wonder why the hell people enjoy being 21 now?!

of dreams and reality.

Waiting is one of the most difficult tasks in this world. especially when the event you wait for is a certainity. whether it is a few minutes of waiting in the Q at McDonalds or a few weeks for a call letter to arrive..All the carefully constructed plans and ideas for the much awaited and longed for relaxation falls into pieces and gets blown away in the air within a day or two , giving way to impatience and restlessness of the wait. The end result - watching useless crap on tv, over eating, staring at the ceiling watchign lizards mate or simply circling around the room all day.basically you end up wasting all the precious time way in getting bored, agitated and bored again in an infinite loop.

A chance break from the above cycle gave me an opportunity to watch the movie Inception tonight and compelled me to resume blogging here.My friends had seen it twice already on subsequent days (due to the failure of being able to watch back to back shows) and hence made me believe the reviews to some extent.Still, that hadnt prepared me for the sheer magnificence of the experience of watching it.I am not going to go into a review of the film or begin to praise each and every aspect of it here. that would merely be an annoying echo of an orchestra already doing that job currently.So, i am instead going to write about some other vague random thoughts the film has incepted into my head.or Maybe i just want to break the slumber and continue my blog..

The basic concept of what is real and what is illusion has already been covered in a number of movies before. I loved the Matrix series ( atleast the first two of it ) and got clued into this concept. But this particular film has gone a little further and the idea of dream sharing among a no. of participants like a video conference and the course of events being marked by the participants is rather fascinating.This is like saying all our births or incarnations into this world are like dreams that our subconcious or soul is taking every day. In each of these dreams of our souls, some incidents or personalities become too attached to it and remain as permanent memories which may recur in subsequent dreams or births.We may wake up on our death and may be half awake while sleeping.As in a dream, we never know how a dream began or a particular stage is set in our dream and similarly, never trace why we are born in a particular place in a particular setting but merely carry on from there onwards.Maybe there could be a dream architect who designs the setting for every soul ( God?) or its the equations of karma, how we react to in previous dreams? or merely randomness that decides it.All this could be complete bullshit also and where we are now is just plain reality, there are no dreams at all..merely chemicals and electicity over working in our brains when we sleep...

Another interesting parallel I could draw in the film is that the time sequence in the dreams differs from relality, that our brains process data faster and time seems to slow down. In ancient Hindu legends,there is this concept of time difference between the astral worlds and human world. Ofcourse, this is just in the bed time stories that my mom used to tell me and I am not sure of its authnticity in the religious texts, though I think the Gita says some stuff like the life we lead is all an illusion etc. etc.still, if we assume that our souls revolve outside this illusion , then every lifetime on earth may still amount to the dream time for the subconcious( soul).

Our ancestors might have spent their lifetime thinking on all this stuff but as of today ,we are immersed under all the science and technology being created that it sounds so totally exotic and fascinating when people are suddenly reminded of such basic questions of what is true and false through this medium of virtual reality.

travel blabs 3- the thai magic

The post after the long block - you know that dark phase when you lose the interest to write, give a damn abt communicating to anyone for unselfish reasons, generally angry at nothing and everything..well, what better way to start afresh than one to gloat about one of my rare amazing experience. Prior Warning: THis is going to be a pretty long post, maybe a little irritating too.

Its been around 3 months since I peeped into the Venice of the East, Thailand. A brilliant place to quench your curiosities about the Eastern culture. and why was it even more special? A total fun freak out trip with a few close friends, considerable cash, absolutely no RULES. We embarked on this crazy idea after getting thoroughly bored of my internship in the corporate world, and on that impulse the weekend trip to the most affordable place turned out to be Bangkok. Hotels can be best booked previously online.
Super cool rooms are available at unbelievably low rates at Asiarooms.com. A bit of internet surfing and some decent maps are sufficient fr the first timers to get around the city.

I , accompanied by my 3 good friends had only 3 days to explore the place and make the most of our holiday. We planned a 2 day stay in Bangkok and spend 1 day at Patthaya.Our first surpise at the land of White elephants was the airpost itself. Big and beautiful - the Suvarnabhumi airport was a surprising treat with statues of Ravana and Stone Models of Hindu epic scenes such as the one with churning of the ocean welcoming the awed tourisits.


Thailand was originally a hindu country as from 13th century. since the period of the Autthaya kings, the Thai monarchy has adopted the name "Rama" for each consecutive monarch of the land.Though presently, the major population of Thailand are buddhists , its still very interesting to note the presence of a great many subtle indications of a rich Hindu past hidden among its artistic milieu. The structures at the Round tanas,seemingly artistic at the first glance are infact symbols from hindu epics including Yali, garuda etc..The structure of the wats stewrn across the city is so very similar to cone shaped hindu gopuras, incuding the pragaras surrounding them..One might account it for buddhism closely bordering on Hindu principles.


Yet the presence of a small deity of Garuda with Vishnu on top of the Wat Phra Kaew entrance or the beautiful paintings of Ramayana inscribed inside the walls surrounding the buddist structures is interesting to guess on a previous hindu ancestory to the temple itself.The tiny garuda symbol on the thai currency is another little surprise thrown at the enthusiasts.

So, our first day was spent visiting the numerous Wats(buddhist teples) decorating the city and seriosuly, its astonishing to note the intricate artistic works at some of these places. The temple of dawn is another treat when seen at dusk, whith the light playing magic on the majestic structure on the banks of Chao Phraya river.



Bigger than the pleasures offered by bangkok was our adventure- the thrill we had, planning out our dynamic itenary, bargaining with the tuk-tuk drivers, getting lost looking for a decent indian restaurant in the dirty streets of bangkok.It was really awesome. Landing with a backpack in a completely new country, exploring its culture, its people, its very essence on one's own - its addicting.THough we made a mess of the itenary, even managed to get lost and separated on the ferry terminal, cheated by auto drivers occasionally, it was super fun to group together and take over the situation smartly. on the second day, we deflected to Patthaya, often reffered to as the Sin city of the east.Located at a 2 hr drive from Bangkok, it offeres a great beach and numerous adventure sports apart from cheap booze.There is a must see place here- the sanctuary of truth- a spectacular museum of eastern values depicting a kaleidoscope of ideas- hindu beliefs,Buddist principles, chinese traditions. The whole eastern concept of live, love ,family, goodness in this world. The wooden structures of chief Hindu Gods that rule this artificial fort are mind blowing. It came as a shock to my system when I saw the view of magnificent Brahma,reigning this palace of righteousness.Come here with cash, they grab money at all oppotunities else be a convincing liar .My ingenious friend tried out their bike and besides successfully crashing it and breaking the fendor, was charged a crazy sum for compensation..Only a couragious lie of poverty and convincing act kept us from a visit to the local police.

The other attractions include tiger zoo, and ofcourse the beach. Everyone must try the parasailing here, its AWESOME and cheap. I had the awesomest experience of my mortal life , para sailing for the first time here. Its GOD.

THe rest of the trip should be spent in shopping- the chief attraction of thailand.This is a shoppers' world. Cheap. (if you have currency in dollars or pounds).
The floating market, that we unfortunately missed can be seen only in the mornings with special booking to be made with a travel agency, the weekend market - throwing amazing cheap stuff , the more posh malls of Pratunum ..the whole city caters to shopping for all class of people. Well, as all good stuff come to an end, so did our exciting trip and we came back with great memories to last for a lifetime and to propel you for the next visit to this thrilling city.

Bug Issues

People say that its good to be focussed. completely focussed on the work that all other things are blind to us. Ever heard the story of Arjuna and his archery lesson with a parrot's eye as his mark , where he ends up as his teacher's pet coz of his "focus"?.. It may be an awesome bed time story but practically, its plain stupid. Let me tell a REAL story where the side effects of work creates utter havoc.

"A" was a great girl , a simply awesome , brilliant person working for a boring semi-con company. She was so efficent that the fates insisted on testing her abilities with purposely throwing out challenges on her way. Though the work was interesting, she ended up having complete losers as her superiors. Perhaps the losers dint know how to make use of her talents; as they habitually lumped a pending bank end project on her hands and simple ignored her thereafter. Yet, She was so engrossed in her work, in battling with her collegues,in travelling to the other end of the city every freaking day in over crowded, people infested MRTs, in foraging edible food from the amphibian canteens, that she hardly had time to do anythign else than crash in her bed after work. So great was the focus and hard work that she dint even feel the ocasional teeth of the insects taking over her bed. After a week of constantly getting bitten by what she thought of as ants, she decided to check out who her bad mates are , one night.For a change, the focus was on the bed.. or on the tiny folds of the bed which were black in color; a black that moved; a black that was the hides of innumerable bed bugs crawling along the matress.
There was an entire colony of freaking bed bugs happily reproducing on her bed. feeling sick, nauseated by the week long abuse, the next 3 nights were spent on the floor. A floor used by an occasional lizard at times. At that moment the realisation stuck. How stupid life is , everything alive is.

After a strong bout of arguments and protests, the office decided to take action and de-infest the bed. An unpaid leave was the price. The pest control guy arrived , armed with buckets of liquid sprays with a smell endangering the olfactory senses, washed the entire room with it.Later, he followed up with a huge fight "You brought in the bed bugs, it must be your clothes" (while eyeing the enormous amount of clothers stewrn around the room) and a hearty lecture on cleanliness and clean habits. Finally, she was left with a brand new bed in a horribly smelling room and thankfully alone. Within 5 minutes however, a motion catches her eye- a motion of a black bug on the brand new matress.

Well, bottomline : LIFE IS A BITCH. Dont believe any stories. Everthing is a F***** up bitch. espeacially bed bugs.

P.S: If you got any wise advice, DONOT comment on my blog. keep it to urself.

Nice exists !

Its shocking to meet nice people in this world. I mean, genuinely nice people who care about others and try to help them in an unconcious way. I am not talking about rich philanthropists setting up homes for children or donating huge amount of money for noble causes. This is about simple people extending small measures of kindness in such a natural, unexpected way that leaves a great impact on the bewildered beneficiary. A few days ago, I was rendered speechless by one such simple deed. At that moment, I truly understood the significance of an unselfish act of kindness. In a world where one makes more contacts than friends, where the competition to succeed is the wedge that drives people apart, where every piece of opportunity is like a prized bone that is fought for by a group of dogs ,where every visible sign of weekness is exploited without a second thought, words such as kindness, helpfulness, gentleness have been replaced by diplomacy ,bartering etc. . . There is always another thread running in the back of peoples’ minds that calculate the cost-benefit ratio of their acts. There is always a reason , a motive when people offer help and the thread immediately estimates all possible forms of return expected for the exchange. This is human nature. Personally, I used to find people running to help others in every possible occasions amusing, a trifle too naïve and inhumanly saintlike. Yet, on that severely hard day, when one of those naïve ,nice people acted on my welfare even when they didn’t have any need to do so, it suddenly dawned on me how necessary they are to keep up some faith in the goodness of man.They make you more conscious to the feelings of the people around you, make you attempt to spread a smile , do a similar gesture for others. Its kind of sad when I cant remember performing any such generous actions in my life so far.I shall begin my attempts though, hopefully I do something substantial to add in my memoirs later.

random philaasaphys

This week's been really, absolutely hectic. I am catching up on sleep in bits and pieces of an hour or two..in bus, trains, at work, com hall..cant say I ever imagined life to be this fast and killing. Just thinking abt the long list of to-dos make me want to quit and run away into a forest and become a tribal. no more deadlines, no more hunting of excuses when u miss them, no more waking up to finish them; its as if m being dragged by this fast animal called life and I can be seriously injured and run over if i miss the pace and slack. With exams round the corner and deadlines at work piling up, I dont know how I can survive the squeeze this time. But when its all over and you actually live through the torture and even manage to do ur best, that moment of triumph is worth it all. Feels like you have overcome a momentous challenge and become more of a man after its done with. after which the cycle startes all over again, in the next difficulty level like the Super Mario game. Maybe this is what makes it so addicting to stick on to :) I cant imagine life to be like anything else after all. And at each level, when you take a moment to contemplate on your journey so far and the path ahead, the person you were and what u are now, all the possibilities in the middle where you cud have been some one else, the change that is so staggering and makes you wonder abt the very pattern of life..at the end of the reverie of which you start cursing urself fr wasting so much time ,day dreaming and reluctantly get back to work with a heavy sigh..its kind of nice..aarrggh, All the pressure is turning me to this sentimental sponge, forgive my mokai if u happen to be unfortunate enough to stumble on this post. but serves you rite to be so vetti.