2009

Wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year 2009 !

MUMBAI LOCAL & the helpful commuters

A funny incident that took place in MUMBAI

Only local train passengers in Mumbai will know how helpful commuters try to be......
Last week, a hapless victim fell prey to the over enthusiastic Bombay's local train commuters.

Our hero, a man from Pune, wanted to go to Matunga, but as luck and trains would have it, boarded a fast train not halting at his destination. He panicked on realising his mistake but by then the local had started moving. On seeing his plight, a sympathetic co-passenger decided to come to his rescue.

It seemed that he had been commuting by that particular train (6:03pm Kasara Fast) for the past 6 years and had noticed that the train always slowed down just before Matunga station and crawled at a snail's pace while passing through it. He told the man to jump out of the running train as it slowed down and that with a little bit of fleet-footedness, he would make it safely on terra firma. However, knowing the man's inexperience, he added some words of caution:

"Keep running the moment you jump or you'll fall. Just keep running." He stressed the word "running" lest the man not know the laws of motion. The train did slow down just before Matunga station and at the prompting of his mentor, our hero jumped out of the train and started running as if all hell had broken loose.

What he didn't realise, of course, was that he was running parallel to the train instead of running away from it. Meanwhile, the train slowed down further, so that the man was running faster than the train. In the process, he reached the door of the next compartment and the footboard commuters there pulled him in thinking he was trying to board the train! To his agony, the train picked up speed and sped past Matunga and his new co-passengers started to congratulate him on how lucky he had been, until he told them that they had actually undone what he had done with great difficulty.

Those standing at the door of his "ex-compartment" had witnessed the whole drama and just couldn't stop laughing at the poor man's situation, while he grinned sheepishly!! !

red chilly vs alien

Probably I am watching a lot of Alien flicks, but a second ago this thought just crawled into my mind (I was coding some JavaScript) - while fighting an alien creature with creepy & cruel eyes why don't our protagonist try to blind the alien by throwing some red chilly powder in those hollows. Anyways, they don't know to overpower the ET, so may be this trick can also get a chance on theaters. Any script-writers reading ... ?

Movie Catalogs

I have turned out to be a movie freak during the past couple of months. With my DVDs piling up, I needed some cataloging software that can help me keep a record of all my precious DVDs while at the same time can compile the necessary movie information from the internet. I usually rely on IMDB for movie ratings and I actually enjoy user comments there, so downloading all this data would be a big plus with any movie catalog I needed.

So I turned up to Google, and the very first link showed this freeware (of course, I also don’t want to pay for it!) - antp.be > Software > Ant Movie Catalog. I must say, Google did come out with the best result at the top. Though visually the interface is not very appealing (though this is taken care of by … – well read on) but all the relevant information about the movie is captured.


Another nice thing is that its a no-nonsense tool when downloading movie information from the net. It can get information from a huge number of web movie databases and the best part is that it offered me source code of scripts it uses to get information from imdb, amazon and other sites. As I am a coder by profession I found it a very useful feature it allows me to practically do whatever customizations are possible in the information I need.

The program has usual import/export features, a unique statistics menu that shows bar charts (whew!) for a lot of stats viz number of movies, movies by countries, genre, language etc. Ant also has a Group by feature though with a lot many by fields (practically all it knows).

Now, about visual – priyatana.org provides Ant Viewer that is a pretty nice user interface to display ant movies catalog (*.amc) files. I find the display it provides the best when compared to other free/paid tools; check out its screenshot for yourself. You will simply love the softness and the simplicity.

Next Blog

Can that next blog button on the navigation bar wade me through blogs in my choosen language only. Its pretty annoying that so many of those 'next blogs' would be in a language that you cannot make out anything of it.

Sahara Knight

Briteny Spears

Why Don't Aliens Show Up in Public ?

Ever wondered, why Aliens never give a visit in public places ? I am a sci-fi enthusiasts so would definitely like to have an encounter with the outer space. But trouble is that Mumbai is so over-crowded and there are rare (if any) sightings of aliens in public. But again, why do these creatures are so reluctant to turn up in public ? They are extra-terrestrials, and are supposed to be extra-intelligent, extra-strong and a lot many 'extras' in them ! and so are they (extra) afraid of the human assembly ?
By the way who isn't afraid of the mass gatherings ? we humans do. a gathering of more than 3 persons after 10' in the night arouses suspicion and apprehensions. I remember how few years back, me and my cousins kept late hours outside our houses in the cool of the night breeze, chatting incessantly, when a police patrolling party would turn up and started questioning and finally would disperse us to recede to the house. Even peaceful discussions seemed to be 'men in conspiracy'. Such are the troubled times we are living in. Reason why aliens want to keep themselves alienated from us.

Blogging to communicate

This blog I had written a few months back , actually a few years (one, to be exact) now. Plan was to put up a nice blog where all three of us roomies can post our mundane conundrums, whims and unneccessary comments. We all three were spending most of our time in office (whiling away time, most of the time …) with the result that we faced each other only on weekends which too diddled away in doing laundry and girl friends. So to open up a communication channel we agreed to meet here. Somehow, like many great ideas which fail to flourish, this too drained away.

26th September, '06

After I ran up the balance in my cell talking to a chat friend for more than half an hour, conjuring up a date with her, I climbed upstairs to my room. All the usual inmates were in. Sid was leaving for a movie, being a movie-maniac he is, there was no one stopping him. He didn’t bothered asking me, knowing very well how I detest going to Diamond. Debu left to meet an old room-mate from Delhi. So I was left with little choice but to relax down and skim through the novels I bought last Saturday. I picked up some random book. Its author was ruminating over his experiences with the whores he had night outs with. Sid left and Debu came back in. Trains were not running because of some technical fault. So he had to cut his appointment. He opened his lap-top, put MLTR on win-amp. The peculiar position his laptop was placed relayed the information that he was browsing through some porn e-magazine. After some time he went to shed the load with the laptop now under my scrutiny. He also left for a movie.

Saturday’s tend to be quiet boring after a busy week at the office and especially when you have no girlfriend to see. Why there is no girl in my life, even I wonder. What do you need to have a hand across your arms? This question keeps puzzling me. Even though every girl I talk with refuses to believe that I don’t have a girlfriend, yet no one agrees to be one.
So here I was left, deserted again, wondering how to spend the night. I am not of “early-to-bed and early-to-rise” types so have to look out for something to while away the time till sleep overcomes my senses. There was laundry to be done (pun unintended, literal meaning) but I think this blog was shaping up somewhere in my mind and so the laptop started recording all these keystrokes.

Postcards

Those were the days when 25 paise postcards were in vogue. Postmans were much awaited and they knew the entire mohalla by face. Vivek, my Lucknow neighbourhood buddy, and me too started exchanging those naked pieces of paper jotting down whatever stuff coming to the mind at the time of writing. The postcard was auspiciously slid down that red postbox right before three in the afternoon. Postman would pleasantly surprise us in a few days if the daak reached the town without any delays. Once we got the letter it was evaded from all peeping eyes …it needed a bit of scrutiny. Ink smears eventually covered the postcard purging gurlz and other malicious gossips off it.

love ...

The night i slept never knowing morning would be so fresh,
I woke up in the same world but the world had changed;
It took me long to know what happened so new,
Then i realised i was in love with u ...

inexplicable theories

My landlord is full of theories. Once he knocked at our door and before our reflexes can stimulate into action, he saved us the trouble and broked into our privacy. He took a cursory glance around our baggages and shelves full of books. And then came the most perplexing order, may be the result of a profound thought, but too deep to be grasped by us mortals. We were asked to keep a maximum of twelve books, rest have to be sent back or thrown out. What branch of science made him arrived at this particular number, we pondered hard but all in vain. Numerology, astrology, psychiatry, a run time exception thrown by his mind, or some weird logic, we never understood. The only reason he gave, was that he doesn’t knows, but we had to shed off the extra books. And he left.But as the ice melts down, the thought too vanished off his head within a few days. However, only we knew how we evaded meeting him all that time. Our patience was tested. We entered the room only after midnight and left before he stirred out of his slumber. Saturdays and Sundays we took refuge at some friends place. And then one good afternoon, we met him accidentally in the lift and were glad to find him out of his whims and into his wits again.

Cupid

this has been written so many times before, but i also wanna say it. when u like someone, u get intoxicated at the mention of her, her one glimpse is ur only desire. courage leaves one, and even the most loquacious find themselves tongue-tied for a confession. jealousy plays on ur senses everytime she smiles at others. anything which turn ur thoughts away from her is distracting. all ur senses sense the same. brain concieves her image, eyes vision her, everything seems like a noise, a heavenly fragrance fills the ambience, and u r lost composing what u r feeling. and what am i doing now ?

Once & Now ...

Saturday morning. after the last night full of television, sleep is playing on my senses. but still, i am in office. Why ? the first post will convince u. I called up sid (the movie maniac) to book ticket for an evening show. and am not surprised with his indifference to the 72 inch screen. feel like marriage is re-incarnation of habits. the person who once queued for tickets at 7:00 in the morning is refusin lately even for movies which he had planned to relish right from when the director had finalized the script. I remember a few months back, sid animatedly waving a list of forthcoming movies. as he himself said on the phone, "I'm gonna part of a drama myself!". I could only agree ...

Postpaid Subscription

I decided to go postpaid, so aceeded to entertain a call from this telemarketing executive who had been nagging me without worrying about his mounting cell phone bills. I was a bit apprehensive about this whole telemarketing buisness but the tariff was quite low and I had been topping up my prepaid card quite frequently. A few documents were bartered, my wallet shelled out 200 bucks and this guy left, leaving behind a SIM which he said will be activated within 48 hours.My SIM was still a stranger to the wireless world even after two days arousing my suspicions, so I decided to find out ? I called up the service providers number but then realised that I don't remember my new mobile number. I asked her to query on two numbers which I guessed were somewhere close to mine but she hastily refused to do anything so irrational. So I came back to my office, rummaged through my cubicle for the reciept and dialed the landline phone of this marketing agency. My heart sank as the call was disconnected after playing a please check the number you have dialed. I remembered the vicious grin on his face when this guy pocketed my 200 bucks; the stories of all sorts of frauds floated my mind. I reached the call centre again and nearly turned pale when the executive said my number was not found as she searched for it. But she said she will put me to the postpaid department. I began preparing myself for the shock but was assured by the department's executive that my number will be activated within another day or two as some verification was still going on the documents I had submitted. And no more pranks this time, my card was activated !

Think of the Devil

One of my colleague was browsing through rediff.com when he came across an article which roused his curiosity. He clicked the link to that very innocuous article: “My boss hates me. What should I do?”. And when one least expects one’s boss to be buzzing around, he was completely stupified and crestfallen to find behind him his manager, who happened to came to him just as the link opened up. His manager left chukling away with this guy frowning at the irony of the situation.

Need a good repellant

monday blues .... when everyone looks chic after a rejuvinated weekend, i wore the most dishevelled appearance every monday. reasons are apparent - whole day till past midnight is whiled away wandering around, and results are even more obvious; a very sound sleep but for the constant disturbance by the whining of mosquitoes playing my eardrums..... my landlord has a very nice theory about how they manage flying to an altitude at the 7th floor? They take the lift with us. … so next time I avoided the lift as I remembered his gospel and to deceit the pointed devils, climbed up the stairs, surreptitiously looking around me for their presence. The whole way I kept brushing my pockets inside-out to be sure to whisk off any infiltrators. I smiled as I moved past one at the second floor. I reached up happily but was exasperated to see someone coming out of the lift, my landlord. As he turned to open the door, I could see them grinning viciously at me as they flew off him and took guard into the room.h

The Evening Loafers

Lucknow…uh…! the city of Nawabs, of age-old monuments and palatial Imambaras dictating splendour, epiccentre of cultural extravaganza, with exquisite chickankari or the fine needle work, biryani and Tunde ke kewabs (though I am a vegetarian) that will water ur tongue, exotic gardens – nimbu park, Hannthi (elephant) park, ambedkar udhyan - a more recent one, surajkund to name a few – to nourish your health, and the nafasat (finesse) and the nazakat (sophistication) of the local dialect(sad though, it is vanishing fast) – verily, why shouldn’t I be besotted !!!

Almost all my school vacations I had spend in Lucknow. The city gave me an intimate and a very loquacious neighborhood friend. We spend our evenings loafing around the nearby famous market, Bhoothnath, known for its Hanuman temple and the pretty gals……….on Tuesdays u can see the temple swarming with worshipers, and the number grow exponentially when exams are nearby or class Xth/XIIth results are to be out with the students coming back to God after having been glued to books for months ; ). The market is always inundated with shoppers; thanks to the whole gamut of shops …clothing, sweets,adjoining vegetable market, music stores, books and all those things that can appeal.

Whenever we were in this market, habitually we used to spend sometime at the Mahesh book center, browsing through pages of new magazines and usually asking for the one which we can’t find at his shop. That was the trick to beguile the book seller into thinking that we actually were looking for this magazine and were really disappointed having not found it with him. Actually we both are book lovers and voracious readers but money-factor was always a formidable hindrance in our quest to buy some; so we had to satiate ourselves by just flipping through the books at his stand….

The Ignoramus

If you have ever found yourself in a queue before the railway reservation window, you know that a typical reservation/cancellation form starts with the Onward Journey details, then a list of passengers and below that you have to fill in the Return Journey details (if required). Sid had to book a return journey ticket for himself from Mumbai to Lucknow. The booking official, a middle-aged fellow, mouth red with betelnut and fingers sluggishly drooping on the keyboard, took his form and after scanning it for a few minutes, raised his eyes, perplexed, and asked him, "You have given the name of the person going to Lucknow, but tell me one thing. Who is making the return journey?". Sid was barely able to stop himself from reaching inside and snatching the form from him.