So here I am, back in my hometown of Al-Bahrain. The last 2 weeks in India were terrible with the heat being the worst I have ever experienced in quite a while. The temperature hovered anywhere between 109.4 to 116.6 degree Fahrenheit. Dorm rooms seemed like sauna rooms and the only place of comfort were the shower-rooms. Eight to Ten hour power cuts only made living all the more difficult. But I managed to live through it all and I'm here finally!

I hope to post more frequently now. I have lots planned for my stay here so hope to pen all my thoughts and experiences soon.

The various types...

I have come across various people in my lifetime....err..I am sinfully young!!

But those people whom I have come across in my span of life; are true gems!! Few are such glitterati types that your eye hurts; and few are such dull heads that you mistake the gem for a chalk stone. I am one among them too; so no need to panic... It is absolutely normal. I am normal!!! Am I not??

OK, lets get to the meat; its delicious!!

The Omni Potent Ones

The ever powerful ones; everything under my control types. "Uh!! No worries!! This is just a child's play you see. I'll take care. That man is just my buddy. We shall talk it out". You smile for the first time in that day when it has been a drudgery; believing this soul. Aaaah, did you smile too fast? You only realize its all words and no cake; when you see this same person sweating and shivering in front of his so called buddy!!!

These people get a high by exalting themselves and thus satisfy their ego!!!

The Ever Knowing types

Who has not come across such species? The blowing trumpet types; "Oh I know this. Its so easy. You don't know?" Oh my!! Oh my!! Did you just highlight yourself by pulling me down?? Get back and say "Oh no; how sad. Not everyone is as lucky as you to be getting knowledge like manna falling from heaven straight into your brain!!" You defer all theories of radiation, don't you!!!

And look straight into their eyes.

The Prying Eagles

Oh no!! I just ended up insulting poor eagles by personifying them. Who wants to get related to humans, huh?? After all, they are those cunning and selfish creatures.
These group of people are always interested in what others are doing. Did I hear my eyes are open, my ears could hear so how could I avoid?? These are the dangerous lots; they build a wrong impression and propagate ideas about you that when you hear them, you would feel like hanging upside down.

The Been There, Done That types

"I have been there!! I witnessed it" Mind you, literally. These sort of people seem to be there at the right place, watch the right event and meet the right people. Whats there yet that they haven't laid their hands on?? There's nothing as such, if there is; its an insult. They could yap off and go on and on and on...But I really admire them; for their talent to weave stories.

The soothsayers

These are people who always nag you with "See, I told you so. I knew this would happen. You didn't listen to me". They tend to be omnipercipience; have a perception of everything. How to deal with these people??? They are such a pest with those waste warnings all the time. Simple. Adopt their method and whenever you get a chance; just give back "I told you so!!"

The Cribbers

Nope!! This is still about people and not about horses which practices cribbing. These set of people are ever complaining; never enthusiastic; always sad. Now how many of you are wondering if its you!! :-P These people encourage negative vibes and are a deviation. Best is to avoid them; else you would find cribbing about the cribber to everyone and then you are THE cribber; cribbers' cribber; Grand father of cribber....Err I stop before you guys crib!!

The Hic!! Hic!! types

Err, naughty minds. Its not about liquor. Those people who are always on high spirits. Too much is too bad after all. A heavy thud on your back and before you realise that something like a pain was inflicted; you have "Hey man!! Wasssuppppp!!!" Just give them a weary smile and then you have "Oh man!! Cheer up; don't worry!!" Excuse me Mr, when did I ever say I was worried? And how dare you ask me to cheer up after giving me a hard knock? Get out of my sight!!!

The Always Brooding types

These are the most boring people one could come across. Always perplexed; as if trying to solve a mighty issue that could save the world. Those who feel they are facing the worse problems in the whole world and no one cares. The ones who would seriously scratche their heads when the others are celebrating the weekend with a beer bash. They tend to behave as if they are the only ones struggling with huge responsibilities while others are partying. Give them this piece of advice - "Atlas is actually waiting beside you so that he can take back the burden of the world that you seem to have on your shoulders. Care to give his property back?"

The Calm Tornadoes

Geeeez....Calm and tornadoes? Yeah you read it right. These set of people are calm but devastating. They are vicious; yet put up a all good, sorry and 'I for Peace' face. But their intentions and plan always results in tornadoes.

I am so very fond of people that I could categorise for eons if left. Before parting; one final incident. You folks decide what category must this person fall into.

An American instructor training on a technical product. Group of students out of which one's accent changed the moment he noticed that the instructor was an American. Funny part was this guy's accent got back to normal during breaks; once inside the class, his accent transformed. One such conversation -

American - "One of our customers is Lamborghini"
Guy with an accent - "Lamborghini!!? Whats that?"
American - "They manufacture tractors and cars, Italian"
Guy with an accent - "Uh oh!!! I have never heard about it. I just know HMT and Mahindra & Mahindra"

:-S The whole class was in splits.

Which category to put this unique sample into?

Anyways, enough of bashing people folks. As I said; I can segregate and go on and on. Oh by the way don't forget to count the number of "Me too" as you read :-P

Google... a part of us literally

For most of us, Google is a big part of our daily lives, and I am no exception.

Even a simple thought on just about ”anything”, makes me automatically go to Google, type out my thoughts and voila! I get a million search results.

I am almost guaranteed answers to my questions, whatever they maybe. No wonder “Google” is now a verb and synonymous with search as is Xerox with photocopying.

From Britney’s shaved pate or Mallika Sherawat's hideous outfit at Cannes to valuable educational information, you can find it all in Google.

I can almost say, Google is like an emotional connection : whether its anger, joy, quest for something, thinking of someone, need to get a recipe. No matter what the question on hand, Google is like your unseen ‘Best Friend’ who has the answer to everything!

So how deep is the influence of Google?

Personally, a few months ago, the extent of Google influence hit me when my mother said ”Just go look for it on Google. You’ll find it” ! She firmly believes in the power of Google, thanks to Google reconnecting her with a long lost school friend of 33 years.

How?

On mentioning a friend who stayed in the vicinity, my brother helped my mother search for her — on Google. They punch a few details : surname, potential city of residence and hit search.

The Google magic worked. My mother had successfully googled her friend, who now happened to be in USA. The long lost friends now talk often.

Google is almost a modern day panacea…, a virtual entity that we all are so attached to; rather obsessed with, in a good way!

I’m sure most of you reading this are nodding in agreement with this.

Correct.. right?

Ever wonder what life would be without Google?

Any takers??

Tagged...!!!

It’s been ANOTHER rush of few months since I scribbled here last, and after having decided that the general public has had enough of a break, I begin again.

But first, we've got business to take care of - I've been tagged - a fairly neurotic process in which energetic bloggers bung in cute little punctuations from their life, and end by inflicting a link on some other unsuspecting blogger, who in turn has got some punctuating of his own to do.

I am...............I wish I was.. really...the day I can say I am...that's the day I'll stop being.

I read……….. the writing on the wall way too often for my liking. Life seems to be a series of bloody ultimatums and unpleasant displays of cause-and-effect

I could … drink seven pints of beer at one go if I thought anyone cared.

I talk… wayyyy too much for anyone’s good.

I think… that all my perceptions of my self are exaggerated by the order of a zegallion times.

I peak ….. when I am beaten.

I swear… I’ll be suave some day.

I wonder… constantly about what I’ll be decades from now.

I will …… be someone I like someday.

I hate… an act that’s predictable.

I have … friends.

I haven’t …… done right by all of them.

I hope ……… I’ll set that right someday.

I laugh……… incessantly

I wear…… faces…facades…some which I like some which I don’t … all of which I can
avoid but don’t.

I play… not enough sport and too many games.

okay...that's enough....

I am… just another guy brought up in Bahrain and studying in India, trying to make it big and break the shackles of a small-town middle-class mindset.

I believe… that each day should be lived to its fullest and there’s no point in looking back on a day where you could not do that… Carpe Diem, baby!

I read… anything that catches my fancy, though I seem to be outgrowing fiction with every passing book.

I dance… only when I am forced to. And obviously I suck at it.

I sing… when I am happy or alone.

I cry… not that often, but usually for reasons not to be disclosed here.

I love… my bike. There’s nothing quite as refreshing as the breeze in my hair, whatever little is left of it ;). Also love to sleep… can do that anywhere, anytime!

I would give my arm… for hmmmm… nothing! Nothing can be worth more than what I can achieve by working for it. If I can’t motivate myself to work for something, it ain’t worth having.

I wish… I had wings and my legs never get tired. Then I would be able to walk or fly over every imaginable piece of land and water on this planet. There’s so much to discover… still!

I want… to die a contented being, full of joy brought by a life fulfilled.

I should… post to my blog more regularly. And definitely take a shot at one professional sport, at least.

I cannot… stand the sight of an open wound.

I would love to… be back to Nagpur sometime in future and do something for the people, maybe do something TO the people and make them more enterprising.

I will… get rich, or die trying :)

I hope… that someday I will understand myself.

I think… therefore I AM!!! What I am...

Chained to chain mails??

When I say chain mail, I am sure everyone knows what menace I'm talking about, cos it spares no one.

Every bloke with an email ID is sure to have been a victim more than once, and the real sorrow is, unlike spam, chain mails are usually sent by someone the victim knows.

Tragic… Really tragic.

A few trademark mails play on people's emotions, where the subject of the mail is a non-existent little girl or boy with an unspeakable disease. Others play on people's fears, cursing them with bad luck if they don't forward.

The wonderful thing is that people still fall for these phonies. That is the hardest part. I sometimes have the same mail for about 10 times in my inbox, forwarded over and over to the same people, and I feel like screaming…

"Gimme a break!!!" Well, since I got the mail 10 times, and I haven't forwarded it even once, am I going to have bad luck for 10 lifetimes?

What? Microsoft is sharing its fortune. Bill Gates is going to give away a chunk of his shares if we forward the damn mail???

Where are your gray cells fellas?

No, you are not going to get a call from the love of your life if you forward a mail to a dozen people, you got to do it the old fashioned way, I'm afraid.

No one ever lost families or millions of dollars just by failing to forward a mail. If that was the case, Wall Street and the Stock Exchange would go broke. Every broker in the world would be busy monitoring the flow of chain mails and forwards. Just imagine that.

And no, your wish is not going to be granted at 12 midnight if you forward a mail to 50 people.

There would be no God anymore, people would be depending on software guys and techies to draft such mails and send them so wishes could be granted just by the click of a mouse.

Toasts to all.....

Sometimes, when life stares you on your face and you refuse to blink half the battle is won.

Mad I might have been, unmanageably obdurate most of the time, and yet it is that stubbornness which makes a person incompatible that makes him or her fight it out for dear life when everything and everybody else seems far away.

With that perspective, which is not a stand openly bolstering intransigence of all kinds, let be begin! Those who are, have been and had been close to me know I will use my characteristically quaint expression to describe 2010: it has just been that kind of year and there are of course no complaints.

Well, hang on… this post has not built up just yet but something I wanted to write nevertheless.

The year of the ten as I called it is coming to an expected break in a matter of eight days and it is one of those years I will look upon with fondness and nostalgia on the one hand and a bit of reservation and caution on the other.

For never before in the last twenty-two years have I been treated by life to a palate of moods from all seasons. But then what has to be has to be…

Getting into real life seems a whole lifetime away now that I look at it, and for that matter so does the middle of July, or for that matter the end of July and the coming August Days. Before I know it, it must rank routinely or distinguishably as special too as I breeze through different intensities and decibels but without ever appearing to endeavor to do so.

And am sure, it is in the almost unconcerned passage of time that I will find some of the finest lessons during the course of the coming year.

The consequence also is that the passage of time highlights my own changes, some positive, some negative, others neutral.

The lessons have been vast and varied, the modes through which they have been imparted different and even their relevance probably bearing their own differentials. Yet getting deep into each of them and interpreting them to the last detail is some time, I figure, a futile effort, a waste of time and perhaps life itself.

That is probably the greatest of lessons I have taken from the course of the year - to go on when the tide is high, go on when it is low, go on when there is actually nothing exciting or goading, to, simply, go on. After all why would "no matter what life goes on" become a cliché if it did not have even a grain of truth in it?

Some wonderful ties have been severed; some strands strained and on more than one occasion even the people who have been part of them departed forever. (I guess inevitability dictates better than indispensability, the latter at best a passing assumption).

As always in those cases "it is the tomorrows" - the days after the setbacks that have truly tested what I am truly made of.

Now others have come in - some new and some who have chosen to exorcise the indifferent silences of the past to be with me during my life's darkest and most important hours.

But make no mistake about it there are no replacements in life for meetings and partings are not so preordained in a way to fill previous gaps.

The fanatical pragmatic friendships founded during the last four years were Prashant, Naresh, Ron, Swaroop, and Aroop from earth's daylight crust. All superb human beings who had the ability to make each one of us or for that matter all of us laugh together.

It has been their year in mine as much as it has been my own. Yet I look upon my past and those who belonged to it too with greater maturity than I have over the last few months and with more than a tinge of gratitude.

To names that come to mind and those that don't let this be the message: people who enter my life hardly leave it except in physical form, and are hardly ever completely forgotten.

Toasts to all!