Deepanjan Nag's Magnum Opus

Bought a pouch for my phone.

Shifted to a new place. Sittu & Prateek are my roommates. The rooms are very tiny and there's hardly any space. Bought a mattress & pillow.

Now that Sittu has revealed the innards of my Nokia, let me warn all my minions. No one is allowed to touch my phone, let alone use it! Anyone found coming even remotely close runs the risk of gettings his days here on Earth prematurely terminated. BTW, I'm fanatically possessive about a few things in life: my books, CDs & CD player, telescope & my new Nokia.

Less time to m-use, more time to s-nap Thus begins the saga, of my photoblogging crap!

I have a lot 2 write, but little time to spare. I'll probably post the backlogs on the 23rd.

Began the day ominously by puking. The junkies that found their way into my stomach yesterday finally managed to find their way out, only from the wrong end! I checkout @ 9:30am and take an auto to Swami Residency in JP Nagar. The trip costs me Rs140. The new hotel is much better. A fellow named Abin is my rommate. He is from New Delhi.

The only thing classic about this hotel is its name. The streets are narrow and remind me about the of the dingy bylanes of Allahabad. The room is so small, it runs the risk of exploding if I sneeze. The cistern doesn't work, the fan has no regulator, it's noisy and there is no TV. The tap only occasionally spits water. The drainage doesn't work. It still costs me Rs275 per day. I survive on a steady supply of Dosa.

Being an unearthly hour (12:45am), many of the passengers had nowhere to go. Unfortunately for me, none of my new acquaintances were so helpless...& that left me stranded in the waiting room surrounded by strangers. Well, the only way of killing time was to try & admire the Jemima lookalike , who, I saw, was also in the waiting room, accompanied by 2 more girls & 2 elderly people. Trying to sleep proved futile, even though some folks showed remarkable innovation in setting up makeshift mattresses & getting a good night's sleep. Some were even snoring! I wasn't so lucky. Jemima lookalike & company left @ around 7am while I decided to search for a hotel @ 9:30am. No sooner had I left the station than a bunch of auto drivers ganged me & asked for my destination. Being quickly intimidated, I asked if I could be taken to an inexpensive hotel. The folks quickly jumped at the opportunity to exploit a new like me. One of them had the privilege of taking me for

My train reached Howrah 10mins late(3:40am). The departure was delayed by 20 mins(4:10am). Thanks to a train accident only a few moments ago, it took us 7hrs to cover the first 60kms. The accident had happened at some place near Kolaghat & we saw the twisted coach as we went past it. The follow opposite me was Lieutenant Arvind, an NDA product. He was a very affable and suave guy who had a way with breaking the ice with perfect strangers in no time. We soon made friends and started chatting about how the NDA guys (& that includes him) would frequent Fergusson College for some greenery! Thanks to Arvind, I managed to get acquainted with some girls from the NE who were also on their maiden trip to Bangalore. One of them was Tara, a very pretty and bubbly girl accompanying her aunt & cousin to meet someone there & spend a week there before heading home. The other girls managed to make friends with her, & Arvind being the catalyst, we were soon a bunch of lively and noi

Dida had come in the afternoon while choto mama came in the evening. Didi & Diya also came in the evening. I was getting restless as the Net had failed to give me any good news regarding my reservation status for either of my tickets. In desperation, I dialed 139 for the status enquiry. I heaved a sigh of relief as the SL berth was finally confirmed. A few moments later, the 2A birth followed suit. Meanwhile, Bua da had also come for a visit. He offered me some vital advice...advice Dad would have preached had he been there. Diya was her usual lively self and went about with her antics. I had played Tchaikovsky and Chopin on my CD player as it would most certainly not be used for a long while. All sorts of things were being dumped into my bag & suitcase till they could sustain no more. Still, the relentless stuffing continued. Shilu pishi also came for a visit. Last minute activity kept me as busy as a bee till I finally had the luxury of listening to what they had to say

Indian Railways is truly Indian. The Passanger Status page fails to live up to its name. It's now highly unlikely that I'll be able to cancel one of my tickets.

Still no confirmation of my tickets.

Phoned Ritesh (deep cruise). Ritesh & Ritesh leave for New Delhi on the 14th by rail. They fly to Bangalore on the 17th.

My friends in Zensar are basking in the afterglow of their induction there. The training seems to be good prima facie .

TCS axes 1000 employees. Life is suddenly beautiful!

Have u joined I B uilt M icrosoft...or will you remain a cobbler all your life?

The File Uploadr

Still no confirmation. WL 1 for 2A.

I was @ Arun mesho 's place. Nice to see so many famaliar faces. We had a feast. Mashi can cook really well. Shoma didi & hubby came in the afternoon, along with their daughter (what a darling she is!). Opened an LIC policy. Came back home late night.

Blogger's image upload tool via the web is too crude. The Google people could learn a thing or two about innovative and slick interfacing from Flickr .

Oddpost has got me interested in the next version of Yahoo! Mail. It's nice to see that Yahoo! is striving hard to support Firefox in all its new products. The Yahoo! toolbar for Firefox, however, has not impressed me. It's going thru the testing phase, so maybe I should be more tolerant. But I'll still crib about the sloppy product.

Google has finally launched its toolbar for Firefox. I'm thrilled!

Rolls Royce Pigs will fly before I can own one!

Webshots has got a much-needed facelift.

Junking Blogger for WordPress may not be a good idea. The fancy bells-&-whistles will not interest you for long. Take my word for it.

Did an ego image search via Yahoo! and Google. Yahoo! returns 20 results while Google throws up none!

Still WL 2 for 2nd AC. Will I get a confirmation on the 13th?

All posts are forced to explicitly state the image layout. The default layout is never chosen. I never get the 'You can also choose...' link. Sabu, do u face the same problem?

Visit the official site and try to count the pop-ups it spawns. Even porn sites aren't this voracious! Who would have thought a socialist state would have to borrow such capitalist tools!

Got our transistor radio fixed.

I'll have to visit UTI Bank in the afternoon for mom's demat account. I've had more than my 'share' of troubles with this bank.

Reliance Infocomm has been very prompt in replying to my query. Though they couldn't resist the temptation of blowing their own trumpet in the early part of the reply-mail, they finally managed to curb their enthusiasm and respond to my specific questions. As they say, all's well that ends well!

Yodlee finally supports Gmail. What took its Indian creators so long?

...rendezvous #2 happened. We bid our adieus and went seperate ways. The whole exercise taught me a few lessons: I have managerial skills. Managers are cheap and opportunistic. My self-esteem has taken a beating. I had to skip lunch. Made up for it by having an egg-roll and fish-fry @ Golpark . I then walked all the way from Gariahat to Charu Market via Rash Behari Avenue .

Visited Dida 's place. Spent some nostalgic hours.

Yahoo! Mail will soon have desktop-like features, thanks to the technology it acquired when it purchased Oddpost.

...can't imagine there won't be a bed in my office where I can take a siesta!

Listened to this album for the first time after Dad's demise. Dad just loved listening to Satchmo's music, although I think his pre 60s music is too archaic for the modern ear. Listened to some Beethoven after this, including Symphony #7. Though it's highly regarded, I seldom relished it. Today, however, it managed to spin a magic around me.

Blogger image uploads via the web is once again erring. IE 5.5 refuses to show the toolbar. Mozilla fares a shade better.

Deposited the cheque. Getting an auto to Gariahat was strangely difficult.

We are getting a safety grill for our verandah. A fellow came for the measurements.

Went to Jadavpur Police Station to enquire about the status of my passport. The bugger extracted a register and scrolled through the names. My name was missing and the fellow concerned said that my passport form hadn't even reached the station! I protested and said that someone from the station had phoned at my place over a month ago for address verification, though he never showed up in person. Why didn't you come immediately to enquire then, he asked! I realised my folly. If you think that was the end of my miseries for the day, you are mistaken. I took an auto to Gariahat to deposit a cheque into my account. I didn't know it was the weekly off-day for the bank! At least Sify was open to let me blog my pitiable tale!

NASA'a Deep Impact generates its own flash. Dad would have been all agog.

Courtesy MapsOfIndia

Man, what r the documents required when procuring a prepaid RIM connection? Will a voter's card suffice?

Came back home.

Went to Tulu mashi 's place with mom.

Santosh calls me up. He has finally made up his mind to visit Bangalore after I'm there.