Posts filed under 'General'
It’s monsoon time again and what can be more frightening for mumbai city than that. 400 mm in just a day and the rumour is that there’s no respite from it for the next 24 hours too. It’s my prediction that there are atleast 2-3 days in the month of July when rains have total command over this city and it brings it to a complete standstill and it has come true almost all the time.
You might be wondering why I am writing this piece at 3:55 am on this damp wednesday morning. The answer is quite simple. I am in the office right now waiting for the right time to go home and drop dead on my bed. I am stranded because the rains once again successful in bringing the train services to a complete fullstop and as a result so many of colleagues are also spending the night here, away from their family. The signs were looking ominous since evening. People, who’d left the office early, fearing disruption of rail services, got stuck in the traffic for as long as 6 hours. Then the network in the office went bust and we couldn’t work at all so the best thing for us to do was watch a movie in the conference room :-) That was one time I felt the room was being used for all the right purposes and its occupants were not bored to death :-)
Continue Reading July 27th, 2005
The God who painted nature in its varied hues and moods is the greatest. He must’ve worked painfully hard to produce such flawless beauty which entices the human mind, even though he may not be physically present there. He then blesses us with rains & cleanses his creation to its original form and welcomes us to enjoy it. To my mind, this is definitely the season to be one amongst nature.
Every monsoon a group of nature lovers, make it a point to go into forests and see the environment for themselves. That they happen to be members of SurfUnion is a pleasant coincidence. In 2004, we explored the jungles of Yeeor near Thane with some difficulty. This time it was the turn of the beautiful forest of Karnala Bird Sanctuary and the Karnala Fort situated in the middle of the forest. The participants for this trek were RanTen, Myself, Aadesh (Kreativ), Elroy (Enygma), Hemant & Varun (Riddlerr). Amit Thakker was involved in helping us with the vehicle and food arrangements. He also provided an able nature walker Kaivalya Varma, who’s an accomplished climber, ,snake lover and an environmentalist himself. To prepare the group both mentally an physically, informative mails were sent to the participants by RanTen which outlined the rations that they needed to bring along with them. The trekkers also had to brace themselves for the heavy monsoons so dry clothes had to be carried along. All I can say here is that life is a pleasant adventure itself but it becomes even more jovial when you are in the company of the people who admire you.
Continue Reading July 25th, 2005
This happened a few weeks ago but it’s worth a mention. And it’s not the review of Nehru’s timeless classic ‘The Discovery of India’. I happen to be an inactive member of
GFXArtist. My purpose of joining the community was to network with other fellow designers and see what work they do. Their
Chat Room is very well-known amongst the members and is a place where I frequently like to hang out.
On one such occasion I got introduced to a member, 17 years (?) old Jane from Norway. She’s an artist herself. I was taken by surprise one day when she asked me “how do they pronounce my name”. Citing a cultural ‘grand canyon’ that existed between us, I got what she was saying and I quickly typed ‘Boo-Shun’, just they way they do in dictionaries everywhere. And then it struck me!! After some research into the language, I discovered that there’s no letter such as ‘Bha’ in english!! Infact there’s no letter that starts with ‘Bh’ except for ‘Bhutan’ which is pronounced as ‘Boo-tan’ by the westerners :-)
In the end, this turned out to be just too much ‘gyaan’ for her and Jane has now decided to call me just ‘Bo’ :D. In retrospect, I felt that Hindi/Sanskrit and the other Indian languages are far rich in phonetics which are missing in the rest of the global languages. Perhaps I have to yet come across a language that is richer than the one my countrymen speak :-)
July 22nd, 2005
The fact that I have not been able to post anything in my blog is because my internet connection has gone haywire at my house.
Hathway says it’s a problem with my modem & they would send an engineer soon. This was on Sunday night, when I lodged my complaint. On monday I rang them up 5 times in a span of 4 hours in the evening to enquire about the status of my complaint, but to no result. Their server is down sometime or their software has crashed on the other.
I have never expected any prompt service from Hathway. Their plans are good but their support / service lags behind the rest. Infact, I have come to the conclusion (call it cynicism if you want) that in India people are interested in only selling the product to you. The rest is all your headache.
Anyways, I have been promised that the engineer will come today in the evening and I am pretty sure that he’s not going to come :-) Until then I am powerless.
July 20th, 2005
It’s swelteringly hot and HUMID in Mumbai and the rain is sort of teasing us here. It falls for sometime then its sunny the other. I am sick of this hide-n-seek game that the weather gods have been playing with me @#$% It gets so stuffy in the train sometimes that you can’t help but watch the other person drip on your Arrow or Louis Phillipe :-)
The average Indian likes to SIT wherever he goes. My friend Randhir has a very good theory about this which predates to our ancestors. India faced famines for centuries and thus her people needed to conserve energy in whatever way they could and hence the sitting posture carried forward from generations after generations. Hmm…interesting. But if you ever travel by the local trains, it is painful to stand for one hour and looking around, you find people nicely dozing off, sometimes salivating as they dream.
Hence..(back to the original topic)….I hope it rains so I forget whatever happens around me. Amen! :-)
July 12th, 2005
