Deepanjan Nag's Magnum Opus

Strange but true. My increasingly mundane and routine existence is making it virtually impossible to come up with something interesting to write about. After all, what can be posted about cooking noodles, ironing clothes, reading an oversized novel, taking the same bus to office and poring over the same old web pages? Ajay has lent me a rather interesting occupation that's a great time killer during all those hours of boredom at work. I must say I'm addicted to it! Well, a thought just struck me. Is this the type of life I had envisaged for myself when I was a school-goer? I think not! Being more defiant then than I'm now, I wanted to be an astronomer, an astronaut, a philosopher, a technologist, a hacker and a composer all rolled into one, a la Bertrand Russell! Needless to say, I failed to realize even one. To salvage some ego I had to turn to computer science, the last bastion of my fast-depleting ego. It was a pragmatic decision that has held me in good stead. Lucky me,

Just published the predated post for 4th Feb.

Google has got an absolutely fantastic extension for Firefox...and I'm in love with it. Helped me discover someone's blog connecting to my entry on Mozart! Sweet revelation!

Bought some more utensils as Santosh and I intend to start cooking full-fledged from the 1st of March. A pressure cooker will be bought within a day or two. I was supposed to read some Java. Instead, I wasted time just reading the new novel and watching a movie. I feel real bad.

I hate getting calls from this person. I've listed the multitude of numbers via which the person concerned calls me, under Undesired . Muted the ringtone from these numbers. I feel guilty for being so defiant, but I really have no choice. Chatting with empty cans can be so boring.

That's the title of the book I've been reading at work over the past one week. I also intended to read it after reaching home...but exhaustion always got the better of me. Java works in a symbiotic jungle, and I'm getting lost in the technological maze. As is most evident from my posts over the past week, I'm getting dim-witted with each passing day. I need to apply my mind on thoughts I've romanced for so long. They all seem estranged and distant now. My disruptive and pre-dated series continues. I hope to publish posts on the events of 4 th & 5 th February within two days.

First, I lost the window seat in our office bus. That's when I discovered the joys of sitting in the cabin and getting a pseudo-panoramic view through the windshield. I just loved it! Not having to share my seat with anyone was an additional perk. But it was too good to last for long. So now I'm the inhouse vagabond of the bus, not knowing which place to capture the next time. I hate uncertainties.

I check my Inbox a zillion times. Nothing comes my way, not even spam. I check the news page more often than they would care to update. Even a dentist's life must be more interesting. My blog does its own bit in driving me to boredom. Watching a refrigerator defrost should help break the monotony.

I'll begin reading A Suitable Boy today.

I couldn't have survived on burgers for dinner any longer. And time and again being given a veg puff each time I asked for a burger didn't help matters either. Apparently, the shopkeeper didn't know what a burger was...and wouldn't bother to learn either, I had to gesticulate with my fingers to let him know what I meant after the utterance didn't have the desired effect. Continuing with the Bihari mess would be messy business. Their food is barely edible. So my only choice was to start cooking...and that's exactly what I decided to do! First things first, I bought a gas burner and some cookery. My foray into the culinary world began the easy way, cooking myself some Top Ramen instant noodles for dinner. Fond memories came flooding in. Though I'm not exactly a tyro in cooking, my second coming needed to be carefully crafted and I daren't try experimenting with something too exotic. Cleaning the utensils is hardly entertaining though. I hope to diversify i

My room is habitable! It had become unbearably dirty and was in an absolute mess. Really, it resembled a disaster zone. So I decided to stop procrastinating and do something about my ill-shaped room. It called for an overhaul of sorts and Santosh chipped in some useful help. The luggage that lined my side of the room was moved, old bits of useless paper (bills, receipts, chits, covers...) placed in wastebags and disposed, suitcase and bag removed to the storeroom, important things placed in order, CDR's accounted for and my mattress given a much-needed sunbath. Then came the deplorable job of sweeping the floor...and I did it without so much as a grumble. Then came Santosh's useful contribution while I took a moments' rest by accessing the Net. He wiped the floor clean and put some finishing touches. I was almost swept off my feet when I saw the clinically clean room! We promised ourselves to clean up once every week.

The bugger is back in India after a stint in the US. I had SMSed him last night to give him my number. He called me up in the office today with an assumed tone that sounded so authentically from the Al-Qaeda camps that I hung up after the salutation. He called up again and this time I guessed it was him playing one of his many pranks. After some goading, he confirmed. The fellow is now scouring the Indian techspace for SAP professionals and wanted me to join iGate! I called him up late night to continue with some trivia...& learnt Gurdas had recently visited Bangalore to attend to some business in IISc. Nice to hear from one of my most enduring and endearing friends!

I had submitted my passport on the 8th of Feb to the regional office in Kolkata to correct the error in my spelling. I got it back today, much to my pleasant surprise. Hats off to the guys for being so prompt in the rectification.

Met Sudhir in the cafeteria after a long time. He is into a new project at our facility and has been here for over a week.

Since people are supposed to be optimistic and hopeful today, I spent the bulk of this day chatting with most of my friends via ICQ. My IM has been acting up...apparently it's too busy flirting with AIM. It kept going offline, leaving me in the lurch. I was also instrumental in playing a prank on one of my colleagues. It worked flawlessly! Such great fun!

Getting a white rose from a girl was the closest I ever got to living the spirit of Valentine's Day! Sigh!

No time for lengthy forays into what transpired during my sojourn...I've only got enough time to upload 20 snaps to keep you folks happy. The elucidations & remaining snaps will be published not before the 18th-19th of this month. Sorry, but I'm really hard pressed for time besides being totally enervated. Click here for the photos.

I didn't have a good night's sleep, the anxiety didn't let me. Anyway, my train gradually approached Ranchi and my calculative mind went on a hyperdrive. Clearly all my plans were too abstruse to be of much use & I hadn't lent sufficient thought to the pragmatics of it all. The ground reality was that I was ill-prepared to handle the uncertainties that lied ahead. My biggest vexation was regarding lodging. Should I keep my luggage at my local guardian's place and then scout for shelter at a friend's place or should I head straight for the campus and get lodged in a hostel (as was originally suggested by the institute website)? What if the institute failed to acknowledge my application for the same? What was the contingency plan? Our campus was located in a hinterland, a good 16 kms from the heart of the city. Public modes of conveyance that could help me retreat from the campus to the city were almost non-existent. Clearly, vital amenities of modern-day civi

Yep, that's what I did. What I witnessed at Visakhapatnam Junction pleasantly surprised me. I saw a whole team of railway workers in uniform diligently cleansing the litter between the tracks. What astonished me was that they even boarded the train and cleaned the toilets and footboard thoroughly. Must have spent 20 minutes in the effort. Their hard-at-work attitude impressed me beyond measure. In all these years of travelling via rail, I've never seen such dedication. The rest of the day remained largely eventless. When I got tired of staring at the passing landscape, I read some Java. I calculated the schedule for the next day.

Escaping Bangalore to attend the convocation! I'm so upbeat, it's impossible to dampen my spirit. I wake up early in the morning and work at a hurried pace, charge my cell, iron my clothes, clean my bag, impregnate it with clothes, pay my rent, get a haircut, take a bath, buy some burgers...& am off! Mani, Mantu, Anand and Santosh had already left a few days earlier, making them my envy. I take an auto to the station...the fare being a shade below Rs.60. So far, so good. I'm in Platform #1, 'coz this is where my train to Chennai is scheduled to halt. The station looks dingier than usual. Perhaps it's because of the thick crowd that makes it impossible for me to find a decent footing. My would-be co-passengers are strewn all across and the whole place is deafeningly noisy. The overhead TV manages to grab the attention of some people. What makes the platform doubly crowded is the fact that there are too many people who have come just to see-off their near-&-de

I'm leaving for Ranchi tomorrow for the convocation. After that I'll be in Kolkata for a few days before returning to Bangalore. The schedule will be rather hectic and learning Java during my travels will be adding to the turmoil. It'll be back to business from the 13th of Feb. That's when I'll publish some predated posts for the interim period. Expect some snaps! Bye!

Downloaded the pre-release version of Microsoft's IE 7. It looks super cool and I just love it. It has borrowed at least one feature of the nifty Mozilla Firefox-Tabbed Browsing. The new toolbar is a great novelty and users will need some time getting used to it. I appreciate the way in which it uses space economically. I had to download and install Service Pack 2 for IE 7 to work. Lost count of the number of times I had to restart my computer. But in the end, it was worth the effort! BTW, even Yahoo! News sports a new look!