Sorry to shamelessly steal the slogan of an SUV, but this is the first thing that popped up in my mind as I sat down to write this post. What I’ve got here is a little image that should serve as an inspiration to all geeks and non-geeks alike. I don’t know if anything similar has been posted anywhere else, but here goes:
Now that you’ve seen it, go on and do it. Reclaim your pathetic life before you lose it.
Five months in Chennai just flew by, albeit at the pace of a kiwi with one wing strapped behind its back. The final few days in Chennai were quite eventful, with me and my team having to toil in order to meet the deadline for a project. Add to that, the excitement of moving to a new place and it felt like 24 hours in a day were not enough.
The new place in question is Pune, which will now be the hub of my blogging activities. I’ve not been able to explore the place so far, but the signs are good and maybe I’ll start liking this city. Of course, the one thing that I’ve learned in my first few days is that the transport system in Pune… err… sucks. Compared to Chennai which had connectivity to almost every nearby suburb by means of local trains, over here you have to rely on the 6-seater rickshaws and the ST buses. And you need to wait for them for a long time. Depending on your luck, it could be a while before you manage to get a ride. Of course, the situation might be different in the city. I don’t want to check it for myself, though.
It’s been raining/drizzling (delete according to time of day) ever since I’ve arrived here, which is in start contrast to the sweltering heat of Chennai. My office, being located on the outskirts of the city, has a scenic view of the mountains. I just hope I don’t end up spending hours looking through the window rather than staring at my monitor. More on that when I get my workstation.
That’s it, then. I’ll be spending the weekend getting my house in order and learning about the route to my office. And once that’s done, work awaits me on Monday. Cheers, and have a great weekend, fellas! 
What does a bored man do when he finally gets some time for himself? He blogs.
Well in my case, I tend to save myself the trouble of writing something and instead, when I have some free time I fiddle with the blog’s theme. Call it stupid if you like, but that’s the way it goes for me. A lazy Saturday made even lazier by the doctor’s pills was spent in searching for a new look for my blog. At least it will remove the cobwebs, if not shoo away the spiders from my site. The 8 legged creatures will be back soon as I’ll inevitably go back to my busy life.
Speaking of life, there’s been a sort of revolution. Gone are the days when I moseyed over to the office after waking up just in time. Now I need to wake up at least 2 hours before I’m expected at my workplace, thanks to my new abode. Yes, I’ve finally moved closer to the city and closer to civilization. And although I have joined the horde of commuters who travel… actually, they just stuff themselves into the local train and hope that merciful Lord will somehow push them out of the tin when they reach their destination. It’s a small price to pay for the convenience that you get by staying closer to the city. For one, you won’t die of hunger. Ever. There’s always some or the other eatery that’s open for a Sunday dinner.
Ah, dinner. That reminds me of the beans that I cooked (burnt would be a better word) today. Yup, yours truly is now trying his hand at cooking food. Don’t laugh or I’ll shove a spoonful into your mouth. Safe to say, I won’t be assisting Sanjeev Kapoor on his show any time in the near future. But at least I can survive for a few days even if all restaurants go on an indefinite strike.
Okay, I think that should be enough for today. After a month, I’ve finally managed to clear the cobwebs from my site and make a blog post. That should set me up for about 2 weeks of busy-ness (is that a word?). And lest I forget, I also need to write an article for The Final 3rd. Don’t want that site to become a carbon copy of mine, crying out for attention while weeping in a corner.
Is this little mini-series turning out to be some sort of weekly soap? I hope not, because then I’ll have to down shutters and move to the mountains to regain my sanity!
I hoped that I wouldn’t crib about the weather again and my prayers seem to have been answered by The Almighty. The city of Chennai (or in my case, the outskirts of Chennai) have been receiving rain showers daily since the past 3 days. I would be lying if I said that I was expecting rains here at this time of the year. One of my friends actually expressed his amazement at this natural phenomenon thus – “Bloody hell! It rains in these parts too?”. We made it a point never to curse the rain Gods ever again.
Meanwhile, I had another misadventure with a Hindi+English-illiterate shopkeeper. I wanted a 500ml bottle of Sprite and if that wasn’t available I was willing to settle for a baby bottle of LMN. My attempts at guiding the grocer to the goods using a combination of hand gestures plus broken English bore no fruit. Finally I had to use the linked-list concept of ‘next->next->element found’ to get what I wanted. I left with a cold drink and a hot head.
Another curious incident that occurred last week was when me and my friends went out to dinner. In order to avoid any conflicts, we go Dutch as a rule. I was bored of the usual stuff, so I ordered a Paneer dish. At times like these, it’s easy to make assumptions about the price and I dismissed it as a non-issue since I considered myself to be a regular at this particular restaurant, fully acquainted with the pricing structure. Dinner was served and midway through the dining I realized that my order was beyond the capacity of my tummy. There was no way I could finish it. None of my friends were willing to lend a spoon/fork/handful since they had already filled up their tanks. Leaving the plate half-full (optimism, you see) was the only option. As I walked up to pay the bill, I was shocked to find that my ‘for-a-change’ dinner cost double of what I usually spend on a meal. I turned back and saw my (still) half-full plate being carried away by the waiter, the contents laughing and sticking out their collective tongues at me.
“Hey! Bring it back! I’m not done yet!!”, I almost shouted.
So that was the week that was. Next week has already begun and that means more trips to the coffee machine and if the weather stays pleasant, maybe I’ll get to visit the real Chennai too! 
The past week just flew by and before I could make sense of it all, it’s Saturday already. Learning from my past mistakes, I spent the afternoon in the confines of my office, shielded from the 3PM heat. I had never imagined that writing PL/SQL code could be so relaxing.
I spent the week pondering about my second tutorial regarding Firefox. I’ll probably work on it tomorrow, since I’ve got nothing lined up for Sunday. The first one is here, if you’re wondering.
Okay, since this was a pretty uneventful week I’ve got nothing more to crib about. I’ll keep myself busy on Sunday by working on that little tutorial and cursing the heat again.
Here’s hoping my next post won’t be full of whinging and whining. 
You all love weekends, don’t you? I used to love them too, once upon a time. Here in Chennai, I wish weekends would be wiped off the calendar for good, to be replaced by 2 more working days.
“Why?”, you ask. So lemme tell you, I live in a God-forsaken place where I’d be lucky to find a restaurant open on Sundays. Saturdays are comparatively better, since most food joints in this area are open. Now this may or may not apply to Chennai ‘city’, so don’t get too wound up. However, the heat is still terrible. Apparently the Sun doesn’t do us any favours on weekends. The heat just makes me wish I could run away to the office and spend the day in the air-conditioned rooms.
So yes, we don’t have an air-conditioner in my room. In any other place, this wouldn’t be a big deal. But when I mentioned this to a friend of mine who was brought up in Chennai, she was shocked. Not having an AC in this city is equivalent to a death-wish, it seems. Still, I shall brave the weather and try to survive the 2×4=8 days of a month or two, somehow. After all, I’ll probably be posted at some place other than Chennai after training is over, right?
Right?
Right??
I’m in Chennai. And it’s raining. Yes, real drops of watery goodness sent from the clouds above. Never mind that this is happening because of the cyclone ‘Laila’ which would have hit the coastal regions of south India by the time you read this.
At the risk of schadenfreude, I must say that at least it’s better than getting cooked in the scorching May heat. The 5 minute walk from my house to the office seems like a marathon thanks to the ‘default’ Chennai weather. But like most things in life, the bad inevitably followed the good. My bed was the first one to suffer, getting drenched in rainwater leaking from a wall socket while I slept. The poor mattress is currently being kept under the intensive care of a table fan. And the mattress didn’t go for a dip alone. It took 2 of my bedsheets along, colouring them violet in the process. The worst part? I had changed the sheets right before I went to sleep that night.
For now, the weather is quite pleasant and I know it won’t last long. But anything’s better than having to suffer at the hands of the dreaded Chennai weather.
Hey there! Long time, huh?
I moved to Chennai a couple of weeks ago and since then my life has become more hectic, faster and busier than ever. Priorities have changed and a lot of things have had to be reorganized. That leaves little time for posting here. Still, I’ll have something to say every now and then.
My experiences in this new city and a lot more will soon follow.
There’s not a lot happening around me these days. Still, learning is a thing that never stops. Here are three things I’ve learned over the past month or so:
Oh, and I know there haven’t been any updates lately but hey, I can’t cook up stories and post them over here. That would be so downright Sun-like. 
If anything interesting happens in the next few days, I’ll ensure that it makes it to this blog. Unless of course, I manage to blow myself up in the process.
Have a great weekend, folks!
Have you ever wondered how much you’ve changed over the years? Ever realized how much your tastes, likes, dislikes and preferences have matured (or in some cases, become more childish) since the time you were in your early teens?
While aspects such as your choice of apparel, cuisine etc can be attributed to the maturity you gain over the years, I don’t think any such explanation exists for a person’s musical taste. Or at least, there is none that I know of.
Since the time I first gained exposure to music, I’ve listened to numerous artistes. Some of them became instant favourites while the others faded away from my memory instantly. Today, I find that my choice in music has evolved (or devolved, depending on your point of view) to such an extent that I can hardly imagine myself listening to artistes that used to be my idols only a few years ago.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I used to be a huge fan of boy-bands such as Boyzone, Backstreet Boys, Blue and Westlife, back when they were all the rage. That was largely due to the airtime provided to these bands by the music channels on TV. Owning a cassette (yup, CDs were way too expensive then) of these bands used to be a sort of status symbol and ensured that you were always in demand. Those were the days…
Then, I moved on to Linkin Park, whose mania lasted for a little over 3 years. After that, came the lostprophets, Green Day, Franz Ferdinand et al. The next phase in my musical journey saw A Static Lullaby, As I Lay Dying and Finch take over my headphones. And right now, I’m mostly listening to Daughtry and Fightstar.
So what makes me reminisce over these things now?
The reason is, the Backstreet Boys are gonna be performing live in Bangalore on the 21st of this month. This could be my only opportunity to see my one-time favourite band in person, on stage. So now I’m mulling over whether to attend the gig or not, considering that I’ll probably have to go alone since most of us have spunked our cash on our weekend trip to Coorg. The tickets are not exactly dirt-cheap at Rs.1000 apiece, but that is a fair price to pay to see your boyhood favourites, right?
I’ll see if I can entice someone to part with his dough, and if I can’t get someone to take along, I’ll probably go solo (or not go at all, depending on what my mind tells me then).
So if you’re in Bangalore/Delhi and have fond memories of the band, do go and watch them live. It’ll surely be ‘larger then life’.
I created my Twitter account ages ago but I never felt any need to use it, with most of my time being spent in front of the computer at home. While on the road, I didn’t have an Internet connection on my cellphone, rendering the entire concept of Twitter useless for me. But a couple of days ago I finally activated my mobile Internet package and to tell you the truth, I’m finally starting to warm up to this whole Twitter thing. Okay, so maybe I’m a few centuries too late but hey, I’m finally here, aren’t I?
So now you can catch me on Twitter by clicking the shiny little button the right side of this page. And if you find anything interesting, insightful, informative or amusing, do start following me!
Also check out my profile on Last.fm, Orkut and Flickr. My Flickr account has not been updated in quite a while, but it’s worth a dekko, methinks. I’ll try to add some more stuff pretty soon. Till then, don’t forget to follow me on Twitter. I swear, it will be updated a LOT more frequently than this blog.
After finally getting myself a good Internet connection, the last thing I wanted was that thing dying on me. That, dear reader, is the reason for my absence from this place for the whole week. I just got the damn thing working today and now I no longer feel like I’m missing a limb.
Okay, so here’s a brief recap of all the things that happened and didn’t happen during the past couple of weeks. First off, I got myself a new cellphone – the Nokia N79 that I’d been dreaming about ever since I read its review on GXSaurav’s blog. It’s a sleek petrol black model and I am in complete awe of its beauty, intelligence and all the things that a pretty girl should have. Okay, so that was a little weird, but what else did you expect from a techie?
My New Phone
Then we had a freshers party on the very same day for the latest bunch of recruits. That went well, even yours truly managing to jive a bit. Sunday was nothing special, what with all of us catching up on the several hours of sleep lost during the week. Then came Monday, and I agree with Garfield. It’s the worst day of the week. I just about managed to scrape through it, half-awake. On Tuesday, my Internet connection started acting up and wouldn’t let me log in. The same had occurred with a couple of friends who had bought theirs from that retailer. The next day I went to the retailer and told him about the problem. He asked me to fill up another CAF form and assured that the connection would be re-activated soon. But as expected, his assurance turned out to be holow. 3 days passed by without any action being taken. I’d made up my mind to get this thing sorted out myself, since complaining to the customer care didn’t help matters either.
My Internetz
On Thursday, I got a minor shock. I was out having a cup of tea during lunchtime when a friend called me up to tell me that the speaker from our classroom was missing and the IT guy was calling the Class Rep, which happens to be me. I frantically rushed back since the stupid thing costs Rs.6500, which would have to be borne by the scapegoat. Err, I mean the Class Rep. Thankfully, someone had casually picked up the speaker and kept it in the conference hall. My wallet could breathe easy once more and we enjoyed ‘Chak De India’ after a few initial hiccups.
My Class (With Lights On)
Then came Friday. Usually the Class Rep gets bullied around by the faculty, has to be responsible for every mistake that the class makes and has to do all sorts of stupid things. But call it my luck, that I’d not been subjected to any of that. That was until Friday. It was lunchtime and I had dozed off in the class, as had most of the others. The next lecture was free since the faculty was busy in a workshop. The lights were off, a few cellphones were playing music and the ambience was highly conducive to sound sleep. Then all of a sudden I heard a call to hide the cellphone and the moment I opened my eyes, there was the director standing at the door, turning on the lights. Needless to say, his first question was – “Who is the CR?”. That was the call for me to get ready for a kicking. But thankfully, I just got to hear a few choice words and nothing much happened. My attempts to save my skin and my class, did earn me a few comments of “Well tried!” from my mates, though.
These don't NEED a caption!!
Oh look! It’s Saturday already! Today I was on my own. That was because I’d been watching a movie late into the night and woke up at 11:39 AM, when the rest of my mates had already gone to the academy to play cricket. “No problem, I’ll just get the Internet connection sorted out today”, I thought. So after a quick bath, I caught a bus to the nearest Reliance Web World. The customer service rep over there was a pretty helpful chap named Santosh. It took 2-3 hours, but he managed to get my connection up and running. I was delighted! After that I just needed to get myself a blanket and a new pair of shoes. Did that, and hopped on the bus back to base. On the way I met a few of my mates returning after the match(es). They had won 1 and lost the other. No need to worry, though. Those were just practice matches. The real thing starts next weekend. My class (F) has been drawn in the group containing sections J and H. I’ll keep y’all updated on the results.
And I hope this time we fare better in football. Last time around, we cruised to the championship in cricket and even beat the other 2 trimesters. But in football, we were knocked out in the first round. We had put out a make-shift team and I had an absolute shocker that day. 
And to make things better, Chelsea have just beaten Wolves 4-0 with a depleted squad. We’re now 8 points clear of Arsenal who got turned over by Sunderland. ManU are playing against Everton as I write this. Let’s hope they lose as well.
Joe and Flo Celebrate!
Oh well, I guess that’s about it. If I had to rate it, I’d give this week an 8 on 10. Bring on next week, I say! But first, cheers to Sunday!!!
Let’s be honest. We all make it through five working days just because we anticipate a relaxing and fun-filled Saturday at the end of those five days. I actually start the countdown on Monday – “Just 5 more days to go, so hang in there!”. And it actually works! At the end of each day, I proudly say to myself that I’ve survived another long and boring 10 hours. This pride turns into unbridled joy at the end of Friday, for obvious reasons. That’s when I start planning for Saturday, one of the 2 days in a week when I actually don’t curse the whole world when I wake up.
This Saturday though, was different. The apartment where all of us live, wore a deserted look since most of the people had left for nearby tourist spots on Friday night itself. I didn’t accompany my friends to Tirupati since I’d already been there once. I also didn’t have any intentions of sight-seeing in Bangalore, since there was hardly anyone to accompany me. So I thought I’d deal with some of my responsibilities as the unfortunate Class Rep ( more on that in a few days), namely getting a file photo-copied for the entire class. And for that, I needed to travel to the Academy from the apartments. Our bus leaves at 9 AM on Saturdays and as I had feared, I woke up at 10:30. I took along another friend of mine, Subhash, who needed to get some things done. And as if waiting for a bus wasn’t bad enough, it started raining. Luckily for us, we didn’t have to stand in the rain for too long. The photo-copying got over pretty quickly, Subhash got his chores done and since we had nothing else to do over there, it was back to the apartments for us.
By the time we reached our dwelling, it was time for lunch. Now lunchtime is a time when we actually get to see scores of people, some of whom we might have never seen before in the Academy. But today saw a record turnout of just 30-35 unfortunate souls who were left behind. On top of that, there was no electricity since morning. So our usual TV and lunch routine had to abandoned. Instead, we had Subhash playing his cellphone on full blast, churning out some of his all-time favourite songs.
After a rather sumptuous meal, again we had nothing to do. The weather was very gloomy thanks to the constant drizzle. There was still no power and none of our laptops had enough juice to last the length of a movie. The best we could do now was to go to our rooms to sleep and wake up only when it was tea-time. I had already exhausted my sleep quota for the day so it was almost impossible for me to take a nap again. So for 2 hours straight I lay on my bed, listening to the radio. Tea-time couldn’t come soon enough, I thought.
In the evening, the numbers fell even more – only 20 or so were left by now. Thankfully, we were able to watch a bit of TV and then a few of us went for a stroll in the street. Soon it was time for dinner and TV. After another walk in the street, I sat glued to the TV, watching Hellboy-II. Actually this was the most interesting and exciting thing I did all day. The movie got over at around 11:10 and I rushed back to my flat.
And as I turned on my laptop to check my mails, I felt a sudden urge to document probably the most boring Saturday I’ve ever spent since I’ve been in Bangalore. The result is this post and a prayer – a prayer so that may I never have to write such a post ever again.
Well nothing, actually. Between sessions of PES2009 and Urban Terror, I browse forums and websites, post comments on fansites and… err… that’s about it.
That literally sums up what’s been going on since the past few weeks. It could have been so much different. But alas, right now I’m stuck on an incomplete job – my first freelance project. Why stuck? Because dear reader, the lovable chap who handed me the project is taking ages to provide me with the data needed to complete it. All that’s left is to fill in the data to complete the website, get a domain and upload the pages. God knows when this one will end.
Another project is in the pipeline, and I’m not gonna repeat the same mistake again, so I’ve asked my friend (who arranged for this deal) to collect the data first and foremost. That should go much smoother than my first effort.
Oh well, patience is key right now. So please be patient until I decide to post again.
It didn’t last long. I thought it would.
But sadly, I’ve decided to discard the theme that I customized for myself and revert to a run-of-the-mill WordPress theme. Gone is the big header that screamed ‘Abhi’ and gone are the plans that I had for creating something more than ‘just a blog’. The gallery which had a measly 3 photos is no longer there. The homepage or index has been sent packing. All that’s left is this blog. Mind you, it wasn’t a hasty decision to scrap the entire structure. There were quite a few things that I kept in mind while doing so.
First of all, it was getting too difficult to maintain a consistent look throughout the entire site. Make one change and I had to repeat it 3 times over.
Then, the colour scheme didn’t look too good after a while. I had worked hard to put it all together and in the beginning I was awestruck by it. But slowly I realized that the structure of the site and the look were just not good enough.
It was too plain. It was static. There was hardly any content. In short, it was too boring.
And then I suddenly realized that I don’t actually need all that stuff which I had planned on making.
So this is how it all looks now. Barebones but better than before, methinks. Maybe now I can concentrate more on writing rather than fiddling with the HTML and CSS.
Over the past few years the media has been singing praises of our Railway Minister and the dramatic turnaround he has brought about in the fortunes of this sector. The balance-sheet looks better every year for the Railways and the profits are at an all-time high. So you’d be forgiven for assuming that there has been a remarkable change in the standard of the trains and the facilities as well.
That was what I expected when I boarded the Pushpak Express from Nashik on the 20th of February. And although there was not too much to complain about, one thing caught my eye -
There's a roach in my coach!
Click the image to get a clearer view of what I’m talking about.
Apparently, even after rigorous efforts to keep the compartment clean and hygienic, this creature escaped the clutches of the cleaning staff.
And this, in an AC 2 Tier coach. Go figure.
All I can say is – some things never change.
Like the title says, welcome to the new home of ‘A Little Lunacy!’. I finally got myself a paid hosting plan and a domain to boot. As you can see, the theme has that personal touch to it and it’s still under construction. I hope by the time I’m done with it, the blog will be better than ever before.
I’m a little busy these days in building another site for me and my two partners-in-crime. That means this theme will take a little more time to be completed. I’ll start posting regularly as soon as I complete my pending tasks. Until then, sayonara and stay safe!
You can’t see it coming. It just hits you when you least expect it to. It dominates everything that your mind comes up with, promptly labeling each idea as junk. It brings sleepless nights where you keep thinking of something to write about. But nothing ever seems to meet the seemingly high standards you’ve set for yourself.
Yes, it’s that niggling little thing that has cost many writers their sanity and a fistful of hair.The dreaded beast known as ‘Writer’s Block’.
As if me being a lazy sloth wasn’t enough, this annoying little thing keeps popping up every now and then, resulting in the awfully small number of posts I have on this blog. Since the past few days, I’ve had a few ideas, but none of them seemed to be up to scratch. So I finally decided that coming up with a post that seems to be totally absurd, useless and a waste of server space and bandwidth, is the way to overcome this situation.
Yes, it is a wacky idea and makes me look like a complete crackpot (the blog’s name is a dead giveaway). But heck, if it works I’ll be back in business in no time!
Whoa! I’m feeling better already! Now where’s that pencil?
Many of you might have experienced the phenomenon that I’m about to mention. Case in point – a song or part of a song plays continuously inside your head and you have no control over it. I’m no stranger to this and as a matter of fact, I enjoy having a mental iPod albeit without any control mechanism. Since yesterday, there’s one line from a song that is on ‘Play->Rewind->Repeat’ inside my head. And no, it has no relation to my predicament. The teasing tune is ‘A Song For A Broken Heart’ by A Static Lullaby which goes like this:
Take this for what it’s worth,
This song, my smile,
Now take this for what it’s worth,
This song, my smile,
Smile!I write to you from hell my song,
Leaving my foot against the gas
And the wall that must have said your name
(I write to you from hell tonight)
Weaken me, for nothing you can say could could stop this now
Would a noose replace his lips?
(Would a noose replace?!)Can a song replace a broken heart?
Now can a song replace a broken love?On the beach, I remind myself
That holding hands is so powerless.
Tonight, I don’t even have the stars
To hold onto
(To Hold onto!)Paint!
Paint this red
Paint this red
Yeah, paint this red
Paint!
I’ll paint this red
I’ll paint this red
Paint this redHer picture will remain unbroken,
She cries tonight, I fall in love
(I fall in love)
Wipe each tear away with sand paper,
Tonight I’m not alone
And I just wanna get your f***ing voice out of my headFall within the break?
Won’t you fall within the break?
Won’t you fall?
Why won’t you fall?
On the break?On the beach, I remind myself
That holding hands is so powerless
Tonight, I don’t even have the stars
To hold onto
(To hold onto)Can a song replace broken love?
Now can a song replace broken heart?
No
No
No
No
Okay, so the lyrics don’t make too much sense. And neither do the looping lines:
On the beach, I remind myself
That holding hands is so powerless.
But still the pesky prose haunts me and if past experience is anything to go by, it will continue to do so for another couple of days. That is, if some other song doesn’t take its place by then. Damn.
The following lines are part of a full-blown rant against anything and everything. I can’t be held responsible if it hurts your sensibilities. Also, I can’t be held responsible if you waste 30 seconds of your life on this page. So here goes:
My last post was on the 18th of November. That makes it 12+16=28 days between that one and this post. A lot of water has flown under the bridge between then and now.
Most of the things that could have gone wrong, gladly obeyed Murphy’s law and did go wrong. Some things that could have stayed right, didn’t. The recession is still on, making it harder to earn a living, let alone keep the job that you already have. IT companies have hit the brakes on recruitment of freshers, so I’m still jobless with only an offer letter and a provisional degree to show for 4 years of engineering. BPOs are taking full advantage of the situation and recruiting truckloads of people. After all, even in the current climate, there’s no shortage of poor souls who need assistance in turning on that new vacuum cleaner they just purchased.
The political situation in this country shows no signs of improvement. Some people can so easily fool millions of people, all at the same time. And be revered for that. Nice. I must restrain myself from discussing this any further, as I sense a steady stream of expletives about to be unleashed. In short, I’m fed up of the political system in India. It needs a complete overhaul. But what can I do? Nothing. I should have guessed.
They say – ‘Nothing is permanent except change’. Nothing’s changed here since the past few months. It feels as if I’m running around in circles. Same old, same old. Wake up, survive, go to bed. It’s all come to a point where I seem to have lost interest in a lot of things, not the least this blog. I’ve got unfinished projects, objectives and games that are crying out for my attention. But there’s only so much you can do on your computer until you just want to turn it off. For good. The less said about television, the better.
When I began this rant of mine, my mind was overflowing with things that needed to be written but now it’s empty. Not because I’ve written them all down, but because I can’t seem to remember them now!! I think I’ve become a bit senile.
Damn.
So the rant is over, I guess. But I was wondering, how many others find themselves in the same situation? I’d love to know!
I’ve been on a holiday. Not the one involving the sun, sand and sardines but a holiday of a different kind. And during this time, the blog has been neglected… again.
You see, I’m not a born writer nor do I have a penchant for churning out paragraphs after paragraphs. The blog, as it stands, is as good as dead. Content is the key to online publishing and that is exactly what I can’t seem to come up with these days. Ideas that pop up in my mind are shelved for one reason or another. Some ideas are considered to be not good enough, some seem to be out-dated and some are plain daft.
Maybe I need to steer my mind into a completely different direction, change the entire structure of thinking, add new categories to write on. Let’s see what I can come up with.
It’s been a while. The blog stares at me with a disillusioned look in its eyes.
“You said you’re serious this time. You said you’d take good care of me. What happened to your promises?”
Without saying a word, I click on the ‘New Post’ button, as if overcome by a deep sense of guilt. Words usually don’t come easily, but this time it’s different…
A lot has happened since I last sat down to utter my frivolous thoughts on these pages. So what better way to reignite the flame, than by updating what’s happened in the past few weeks? Here we go, then:
And all is well with the world!
Alright now, I’ve got a few confessions to make:
Phew… That’s a load off my back!
Well, well, well! What a day it’s been. Not only did I post some of my old creations here, I also started and completed another wallpaper! Normally I take a long time to come up with an idea, and even longer to actually start working on it. But today everything fell into its place effortlessly and the result is here for all to see.
© Abhishek Pancholi
The photograph shows Frank Lampard celebrating his goal in the UEFA Champions League final in May 2008. Initially I had planned to write ‘Frank Lampard’ in the image, but forgot all about it during the actual Photoshopping.
So, what do you think? Not bad for a lazy sloth, eh?
Yesterday I dug up an old sketch from my hard drive. Today I present to you, two wallpapers I created nearly a year ago using Photoshop. If you’re a Chelsea fan like me, you’ll love ‘em!
The first one has been made using the pictures from Chelsea’s FA Cup victory over Manchester United in 2007.
© Abhishek Pancholi
The second one shows fans’ favourite, Joe Cole.
© Abhishek Pancholi
That’s it for now! You lot enjoy these and in the meantime I’ll see if I can find some other interesting stuff hidden away in some corner of my hard disk!
I’ve been an automobile afficionado since birth. All forms of 2-wheelers, 4-wheelers and more-wheelers fascinate me. I also used do a bit of sketching and mostly the things I drew were on hot wheels rather than high heels. Sadly, I haven’t bothered to wake up my artistic side in ages. Here’s a little blast from the past, something I made a long time ago. It’s been scanned and resized because the full-size image is just too heavy. Click the thumbnail below to see it in full.
©Abhishek Pancholi, 2007
Okay, now I can’t think of anything else to say about this. Just take a look, admire it or scoff at it. Either way, if you’re reading this, do spend a few seconds to comment on how good/bad you think it is.
Thanks!
Today India celebrates its 61st Independence Day. Out of these 61 years, I’ve witnessed 21 years with my own eyes and I’ve seen how the face of this nation has changed. It continues to evolve, even as I write this.
During this time, I may not have given anything to the nation in return for everything that I got. But still, I hope, just like most of us, that someday I’ll be able to play a small but significant contribution to India’s progress. That is all.
Happy Independence Day.
Jai Hind!
My mobile operator (AirTel) has given me quite a few reasons to frown during the time I’ve been using their services. I’ve grown accustomed to their promotional messages, fluctuating call charges and poor signal reception in my locality. I don’t find it irritating any more to receive their pre-recorded advertisements masquerading as calls. I’ve learnt from experience. I’ve adapted.
FAIL
In fact, now I have 3 contacts named AirTel 1, 2 & 3, each having 5 of their phone numbers so that the next time they call me, I’ll know better than to pick up the phone. I’ve even assigned the AirTel ad music (the one featuring A.R. Rehman) as their ringtone. With such detailed preparations, you’d think I’m well-equipped to handle anything that AirTel throws at me. After all, what more can they possibly do?
I found the answer to my question a couple of days ago.
The day began like any other, I’d just returned from my morning classes and was planning what to do next, when my cellphone rang. I’d got a message. It read along the lines of,
‘You have been subscribed to Hello Tunes… yada-yada-yada’.
It was from 543211, the AirTel Hello Tunes service. Must be some mistake, I thought. I didn’t subscribe to any such thing! Quickly checked my balance which was a princely sum of Rs. 5.41, just in case.
No damage done… yet.
Hello?
After about 15 minutes, I got another message, this time from a 4-digit number saying,
‘Thank you for subscribing to the Hello Tunes service. Your monthly charge of Rs.30 has been deducted from your account balance…….’.
What the….???? A quick reality-check confirmed my fears. My balance stood at Rs.-24.59.
Collateral damage.
Now here I was, my balance in the red, cellphone rendered useless and my fist trembling with anger. I called up their customer care number from my AirTel landline (yes, I know) and after navigating through their maze of menus, finally reached a customer service representative. I somehow controlled my language and my voice as I explained my problem to her. The lady checked up the records but my balance had not been updated there yet. Great. She told me to call up after 20 minutes while the records get sorted out. Gee, thanks.
Patience is not a virtue that I possess, so I called up again after just 10 minutes. This time some bloke was on the other end and I had to do the explaining all over again. Thankfully, their records had been updated so it was plain obvious what i was complaining about. After a few checks, he redirected me to a higher authority where I had to rewind & play once more. I was put on hold for 4-5 minutes and finally assured that my caller tune would be deactivated and my balance would be returned!!
Victory!!!
5 minutes later, I got the confirmation -
‘You have been unsubscribed from the Hello Tunes service…..’.
A few more minutes and my balance was back as well! Muahahahaha!!! Take that, you capitalist leech!
So in a nutshell, I got subscribed to a service that I didn’t even request for, they took away me money and left me in the lurch! And the fact that they didn’t put the blame on me – the customer – speaks volumes about this goof-up.
But what actually went wrong? No answers to this one.