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Showing posts from June, 2005

Kolkata and the Tram

No matter how horrid Kolkata can be, I'll be missing it. The joy rides on the tram will be conspicuously absent in Bangalore.

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BIT, Mesra has a stunning facade.

Passport Pangs

I reckon my passport won't be ready by the time I leave Kolkata. Even the police verification hasn't taken place, though I had applied 2 months back. The whipping an ass story comes to mind.
Live365 @ Work

Corporate Minions...

...that's what we'll become. Aren't IT firms overglorified pseudo-intellectual sweatshops? Is this a justifiable culmination of so much erudition? I feel disillusioned. Whatever happened to the perfect world I was promised?
Visited our campus once again. Submitted the application for TC and Migration. Conveyance wasn't a problem. Bought a bus ticket for Kolkata. Leaving tonight. It has been raining cats & dogs since morning. Accessing the Net had become virtually impossible because Ashwini's house is located in a hinterland. Listening to Yahoo! Radio after a long hiatus.

Reached Ranchi

Dharam dropped a live bomb by revealing that our provisional certificate and grade card would be meted out only from the 27th. My plans were in total disarray as I had no place to put up. Came across Ashwini in a stroke of luck and went to his place. Saw Parineeta on his machine in the evening. True to the hype, it didn't disappoint me. However, Ashwini's thoroughly jarring and supremely irritating annotations thru the flick made me feel like digging my own grave! BTW, one of my co-passengers in the train was a young Bihari babe with an iPod.

A subtle exposé

The following is an email Gurdas sent us: ---------------------------------------------------------------- Hi!, Below is an email I had started last October but never finished .... maybe now is a better time to do so... Love, Gurdas ----- In the last few years, my belief in the existence of a supreme power has been strengthened through unique personal experiences. It has been said "Some things you need to see to believe. Some others you need to believe to see". God (whatsoever be the definition) definitely falls in the second category. With this email, I attempt at sharing these experiences. I hope they trigger the reader to question his/her beliefs and maybe, out of those who do not already, some will start believing beyond the ordinary. This particular episode happened during my recent trips to Nashik. To reach Nashik from Baroda, I prefer going thru Mumbai. A direct connection was not available and 12 hour travel by bus is not my idea of safe and relaxed travel. So, I deci

Parineeta

I would love to watch this movie. I'm sure it'll live up to the hype that surrounds it. Piya Bole is a very melodic song. Vidya Balan looks more Bengali than the actual ones! Kolkata presents a nostalgic self, something that is a major departure from the dingy city it is today.
It rained last night and some parts of Kolkata are already waterlogged. When Greenhouse effect finally sets in, people of this city will hardly feel the pinch. Their semi-aquatic lifestyle will hold them in good stead!

From the annals of nostalgia

What I remember most about Amar Chitra Katha is not the stories per se , but how Dad would read them for me. There was something inimitable about the way he would narrate that would captivate my imagination. Later, I would read the issues independently, but the magic just wasn't there.

Back 2 BIT

I'm off to BIT...probably on the 21st to collect my provisional and other certificates. These frequent trips would have been rendered redundant had our 'renowned' institute functioned with greater integrity. Some institute of technology this! Santosh has been a great help in keeping us abreast with the developments in our institute. He has put our group to good use. BTW, my suspicions have been vindicated regarding Prashant's half-hearted will to go to Pune. The jackass is still languishing in Jharkhand. Perhaps the Pune expedition has been annulled.
The National Geographic Channel was showing something on SETI. Last time the program was aired, Dad & I had a long discussion about how fantastic human ingenuity was. I missed continuing the discussion this time.

The Chosen One...Yet Again!

Scene 1 Location : A Sify cafe in Ganguli Bagan I logged into my account & switched to the chat mode (pulse of 60mins, Rs.10 per hr, login charge Rs.1). No sooner had I logged into my Hotmail account & checked a few mails than the power went bust. The UPS supported all the PCs...all except mine. So, in effect I surfed for 3mins & paid for 60. Waited for a quarter of an hour for power to return. Nothing happened. Took an auto & left for another Sify outlet. Scene 2 Location : A Sify cafe in Garia I arrived here 10mins after I left the first in a dejected mood. All machines were occupied & I was made to wait for over half-an-hour. When I finally got my chance, I logged into my account, and as usual, switched to the chat mode. The bandwidth was so abysmal, even a dialup connection would seem like broadband when compared with it. ZDnetIndia 's bandwidth checker simply refused to load. History was waiting to repeat itself. I ust have surfed for around 20mins (which

WOW!

It must have been around 8pm. I was feasting on an egg roll near Ramgarh's mini-bus stop when I saw her. She was stunningly fair (not an albino) and had a better-than-average face. However, the most outstanding thing about her was the pair of legs she owned. I could have married her for her legs, Heather Graham could wait! I stalked the lovely lass for awhile like a ruffian, but the pursuit had to be cut short as I had more pressing (but mundane) issues to address.

Shreya Ghoshal

This lady belongs to a rare breed of Indian singers who can really sing like a nightingale.

Yahoo! Groups

Searched Yahoo! Groups for India specific groups. Got lots of them...but almost all were sexually replete. No wonder we are the world's most sexually active civilization (if at all we qualify for a civilization)!

Reminisce

One day, Diya was found kissing Dad's framed photo. Yet another day, she reflected," It would be great if Grandpa were here, wouldn't it?" Children have such sweet ways of emoting. I miss Dad in every breath I take, everything I see, everything I say, everything I hear and everything I do. Life will never be the same again...and it's a pain I'll never get used to.

Hyades

Hyades is another cluster close to Taurus. It's so faint that it was a custom in ancient India for the newlyweds to try to spot it in the night sky, which was supposed to bring good luck! BTW, these are all 5th magnitude stars and almost impossible to spot in the city sky.

Pleiades

One of the most beautiful sights in the sky. Close to Taurus, this group of young but faint stars was a delight to watch. I can't see them without my glasses anymore.

A Spartan Blog

Is it necessary to litter a blog page with all sorts of space-hogging links and images which are totally irrelevant? Unfortunately, some bloggers seem to have fallen for the charms of adding some glitter to their otherwise unadorned pages. They do it under the pretext of giving them a facelift. The cluttered interface looks ghastly. Blogrolls are especially vexing. What's the allure in such fads?
Scientific American now has a desi avatar, thanks to India Today . Scouring a substantial part of a very prominent street in Kolkata for the inaugural issue well established just how scientific Indians are!

AOL takes AIM...& misses the target

AOL's overhyped venture into free web-based email (@aim.com) for the masses is an indication of the desperate times it has fallen upon. The interface is hideous. Who in his right mind would be willing to jettison his mail account for the novel alternative? Oops, I almost forget! Microsoft has promised to augment our Hotmail diskspace quota from the current 2mb to 250mb by the end of August. It's around a year since our American cousins were similarly endowed. Fair enough!

The ice is broken!

Will make some predated posts soon. Sabu, the very fact that you have religiously visited my blog multiple times during my hiatus speaks volumes about how overburdened you are these days!