Life this year

Since I have been very lazy lately, I thought I will write a long post about life this year in general and about life in the last few months and stuff like that

You know :)

This has been an amazingly fast and happening year. I started with a new job and I am ending it in another company ... I started it in one house, shifted to another one and then I am ending it in a third (and if i can say .. a great) house. I drove around for 3000 kms in my car ... had a great time with my parents and played the loving son for a couple of weeks. I met lots of interesting people through orkut and then I kissed orkut goodbye after I am sure making what looks like lifelong friendships. I did not really travel very much this year ... however made quite a few roadtrips.

On another note, I found someone very special in my life and I think this year will be the most special year in my life for this very reason ... at the same time I know that life can be very unpredictable and one never knows whats lying ahead of them. I tried to start a company and even though things did not work out in the end, it was a great experience. I met tons of interesting people during that time and I really got to know what entrepreneurship is all. Its not a concept, its a state of mind, its a way of life. I still have a stack of visiting cards (with a bangalorebuyz email id; thats the company we were trying to start) with me and everytime I look back at them, there is a feeling of giving something a good try rather than a feeling of something not working out.

This year has taught me a lot of things in life. I think most important of them is that you hear about being strong and it looks like a good thing to do, but then when the time comes to be strong, it is actually tough to be strong .. its tough to stick to your values but if you do, in the end you will feel good. Now I don't want to sound very pedantic here :). But then I have reasons to feel good ... I know I have acted like a jerk sometimes, but then I have tried my best to balance if off

Well thats my year ... if really not all of it ... a lot of it ... atleast the spirit of it ...

Here is wishing you all a great new year ahead .. full of love, life, energy, music, movies, dance and everything and anything that can put a smile on your face

Enjoy the two long weekends!

Sweet November !

I am not sure if this is a really famous movie but I cannot think of a more apt title for this post. This has been an amazing month. Lots of highs and some serious lows. But when I look back at it, it seems to be all so worth it. I am not sure where things will go from here, but I am quite bullish on the future :)

I have been hit by a thunderbolt !!!

Relationships

This is something I wrote a couple of days back and now that I have internet at home I am putting it here

Stages in a Relationship

From what has been my limited exposure to the world of love and relationships, this is what I have arrived have. I may (will) be biased and some of the stuff may (will) sound negative

The starting phase:
This is the most rosy phase. Things seem great and the one is quite bullish on the future. The small signs and the big laughs all point towards a great future. Hot cups of coffees and cool icecreams taste their best in this phase. You start contributing to the growth of the telecom sector by making long long distance and longer short distance calls. Money seems to have no value in the great realtion that the two of you seem to be sharing. You start looking at each others' childhood pictiures in payjamas running after butterflies. Building memories for life. Life was never better !

The reality phase:
This phase is marked by small conflict on "tastes" and "values". Things start seeming less rosy but never the less optimistic. After all romeo and juliet had misunderstandings. You will live through them, you tell yourself. You start wondering how someone cannot like that legendery singer or that great dish. And whats the deal with drinking afterall ?

"Its not you, its me" phase:
I must admit that this part is certainly biased as I am sure lot of people never have to listen to this line (multiple times) in their life. I am even more certain that such people don't read my blog. They have better things to take care of. For those who have to live with this line, what can I say. This little line sums it all up (whatever it was) and leaves you wondering. Best thing to do is to startover and the easiest is to curse the other person. Atleast you are free to chose whichever gives you more peace (read: none).

However I am sure (and I want to believe this) that life does not end with a few such incidents. You move on and its for the best. No matter how hard you try to stay away from it, you will go through the stages again and at one point, there will be no "Its not you, its me" phase. I will post what stage will that be later ;-)

Disclaimer: I am drunk right now and may sound like a MCP. May be I am one .... who cares :)

Wired Again

Finally have internet again in the new house. Its a zeenext connection and its been good so far. There were some installtion issues but the guy at the other end of the phone was able to help (and that really means something considering the average IQ of people in call centres ... no offence meant .. should i say technical IQ ?)

Current Music: Radio City :)

Slideshare: Sharing presentations

A few dahlias on my building's roof

bunch_dahlia
Originally uploaded by Prateek Dayal.

Took my camera to the roof in the evening yesterday and tried a few sunset shots with MG road buildings in the view and then tried my hands at a few dahlia plants on the roof. Here is one result. My flickr page has some more pictures

Downtown

Mahuya's status message was Girl Interrupted. This was one movie that I casually picked up never expecting that it would leave such an impression. I really want to read the book when I get time next. However for now I want to hear the song downtown from it. I cannot however find it anywhere up for download or sale :(

DOWNTOWN
Tony Hatch
- as recorded in 1964 by Petula Clark

When you're alone and life is making you lonely
You can always go - downtown
When you've got worries, all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help, I know - downtown
Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city
Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?

The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares
So go downtown, things'll be great when you're
Downtown - no finer place, for sure
Downtown - everything's waiting for you

Don't hang around and let your problems surround you
There are movie shows - downtown
Maybe you know some little places to go to
Where they never close - downtown
Just listen to the rhythm of a gentle bossa nova
You'll be dancing with him too before the night is over
Happy again

The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares
So go downtown, where all the lights are bright
Downtown - waiting for you tonight
Downtown - you're gonna be all right now

------ instrumental break ------

And you may find somebody kind to help and understand you
Someone who is just like you and needs a gentle hand to
Guide them along

So maybe I'll see you there
We can forget all our troubles, forget all our cares
So go downtown, things'll be great when you're
Downtown - don't wait a minute more
Downtown - everything's waiting for you

Downtown, downtown, downtown, downtown ...

?1964 Welbeck Music Ltd., London, England. Sole selling agent MCA Music
Publishing, a division of MCA, Inc, NY, NY. International copyright secured.

One Year

On July 7th, I finished my first year in bangalore.

After a peg of whisky, if I look back at it, it has been a strange one year. Lot of good things happened, lot of not so good things (i really do not like saying bad things ... coz as I have found out over last few years, things can get really worse) and lot of things which I don't know if they were good or not. I can always call them as experiences which helped me grow as a person but I am sure I would have grown up alright even without them. I worked for and left one company and lived in and left one house. One of my roomie got married and the other I have lost touch with. The first five months were not too great professionaly, although I still cannot understand why. They were kinda good personally though. I made some good friends and I am still in touch with some of them.

The last seven months or so have been good professionally and not bad personally. I made fewer friends and started living alone. Living alone certainly has been a growing experience (no pun intended). It was kind of hard initially considering that I had just switched my job at that time and touch with someone I depended a lot upon. It took me sometime before getting used to the fact that I will have to have dinner alone. Coming from a place like IIT where hostel life rocks in its own way, it can be quite some time before you come to terms with living alone. Atleast that was how it turned out for me. On the positive side, I picked up on my reading and became less(er) dependent on people.

I did buy a lot of household stuff over the last one year and a common joke amongst my friends is that I am preparing for marriage. Well I am not. Not as such of course :) I bought a digital camera arnd january and that has turned out to be one of the best decisions of last one year. I just love clicking away with it and capturing beautiful objects. Atleast I make an effort and sometimes it does turn out allright. I went through a lot of mood swings in last one year. From the lows to highs, I keep seeing it all every now and then. Something that I love from the last one year will be

*. Radio city (night 9-12)
*. The weather in bangalore
*. Some good friends I made
*. The bottles of Royal challenge that I finished.
*. The confidence of being able to finish some work before a deadline
*. Some trips to places around bangalore
*. The lobby meetup in chennai
*. Posting pictures on flickr
*. Lunch @ Indijoe

Lot of things that I do not like so much, but there is no point listing them here ... Most of them are not really bad as such but may be they are just not what I expect them to be.

I get there is so much to write about this year, but I think this should be enough to remind me of this year; which is the real purpose of this blog .... and yes this has been one year where i think i blogged every month without a break ...

Mobile Phone

In the last couple of years, we have seen mobile phone's penetration increase more than anything. Since incoming calls were made free and the call rates dropped and schemes such as friends and (would you be my ?) family came out, people have started spending more and more time and money on phone. No matter what the news; good, bad, happy or sad, there is always someone to call. I think my phone knows the most about me after myself. Only if it were a little more intelligent (which it may be in near future .. who knows), it could actually provide me with help on several decisions and I would take its advice seriously because I know that it understands me so well and knows so much about my life.
Will there ever be a day, when I will be able to pick up my phone and talk to "it" ?

something on YouTube

i am only now discovering this great place called youtube.com

here is something i found



Baby kittens' first steps :)

shot at kovalam beach, chennai 

junta@mocha cafe in chennai 

june !

First post of this month .. considering the frequency at which I write here, its been a long time. This month has been good so far and certainly quite a busy one. Had some good results at work which helped boost the low confidence levels :)

Went to chennai last weekend (will post pics using hello later) and had the best time since graduation. I must say that nothing in the last one year has even been close. The whole "gang" meeting up after more than a year. Something had not changed and some things did. All of a sudden it was like the not so old days ... having fun in everything done and said. There is no way to describe that time. Best thing about being with old friends is that you can be yourself. They know you very well and can understand whatever you throw at them.

We had a great time at chennai's Gandhi beach and kovalam beach. Took some great shots at kovalam. Had great meals in chennai including one at GRT Radisson's "The Great Kabab Factory" ........ thanks to moka, chugga and ashu (from ghy not blore) for the treat

I am back in bangalore but I can still hear those voices, the laughs and the jokes .... Saw the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy movie. Found it ok .. but loved some characters like Marwin who has been depicted too well in the movie ... Trillian has a more important role than the book and looks too pretty :)

Looking forward to a brand new week ahead ... lets see ..

btw .. check out www.flickr.com/photos/prateekdayal for some more pictures !

This week

Last few weeks have been kind of busy. At work and at home too. Our company got some coverage in hindu buisness line's magazine. There was supposed to be a picture too but somehow that got replaced by a random pic :(

But here it is



There has been a lot of debate about reservations on email and in real life and I have seen that the issue is quite close to a lot of people's heart. What I do not understand is what as an individual I can do. I know PAN IIT is thinking of writing to the prime minister on behalf of the IIT Alumni. You can write to PMO directly if you want by going to this link

Write to PMO

Please be nice :)

Some corporates are also supporting the youth who are protesting. You can find them here

Youth For Equality

I have been doing a lot of kernel hacking (If I am allowed to call what I do that) and am enjoying it quite a bit.

Have a great weekend !

Pepper Fry

I tried this today

Recipe

It turned out ok again. At least that is what I think it was after two pegs of whisky :)

The mustard seeds added a sort of sweetish flavour to the whole dish (can't describe it better), which was quite new to me. But I surely enjoyed it a lot with rice.

So long then !

Whats cooking

I decided to try something new today. I generally cook dinner and lately after getting a gas connection, the cooking possibilities have been expanded. Generally what I will be cooking is decided by what ingredients I have in my fridge. Today I had potatoes and curd at my disposal so I thought of making something out of it. I got a recipe from here

Link to the recipe

I modified it a bit to suit my resources again and used ginger-garlic paste instead of the 'real thing'. Also I preboiled the potatoes a bit in microwave before going to step 4. The stuff turned out quite fine. Just that I should have added a little more curd I feel.



Tomorrow is Mutton Pepper Fry :)

Movies' Blog

ok .. so again with nothing better to write about, I have started a blog on movies. Watching movies is something that I do quite regularly and I thought that it will be a good theme to write regularly on ... atleast i will have something to write about every once in a while that may be of interest (a weak assumption) to others

Dee on Movies

A movie reviews blog with a nonsense name (I frankly speaking could not come up with anything better and did not want to name it Me and movies or Me Myself and Movies or something equally stupid (but not worse than the current name)).

Enough !!!

its that time again

its that time again ..... its 12:30 in the night .... I feel sleepy but I do not want to sleep .... The day has come to an end but i think i have not got from it what i wanted ....

I am trying to keep myslef awake. There is nothing interesting on TV. I am too tired to work at this hour, there is no one online to talk to right now .... but I still want to be awake. I do not want to succumb to sleep right now. All sorts of things coming to my mind ... those IIT days when i would see a sunrise and sleep. The night was never long enough for all the activities. It has been a longtime since I saw sun rise over a sleepy city. That blue after a long black. It has been almost a year i must confess ....

I have only radio city to keep me company ..... i have only myself to keep me company ... i think its good enough

Yeh jo des hai tera from swades playing on radio city ... i wonder how many people are there listening to this song right now .... people i do not know ... people like me who do not want to sleep right now ...

the crashed post abt india gate

why the *@#$ does this recover post button not work ?

I just wrote a small piece about how a lot of us met on holi in noida and the damn browser crashed. So I am not going to repeat all that stuff again. it was useles anyway. Anyway we started out the day (or the night as some may prefer to call it) at Centre stage mall in noida's "famous" sector 18.



From centre stage mall we headed to a daaru shop and got a couple of beers and RC (Royal challenge for the uninitiated). Then we headed to funky's place where we were joined by his brother. After a couple of rounds of whisky, I popped up the idea that we go to India Gate. It was close to 11 and we got some dinner packed from a dhaba (delhi has ltos of them compared to blore) and we reached India Gate around midnight. The great monument was not lit up as such but there was lot of lights on road. Driving in Delhi is a great pleasure especially in the night. Delhi surely lives up to the expectation of a capital city. We had some icecreams (thanks mama) and pranshu and I tried to make a tripod out of some sign boards and took this picture of India Gate.




Now once I am back in blore .. i miss my friends and time spent with them in IIT all the more :(

Hope for all (Geeks)

I found this when i was reading about IRC on the net. Last few days I have been reading a lot about IRC channels for different open source project and so was just looking for some information about what this really is.

I ran into this online wedding transcript.

Net.Wedding :)

Have Fun (and hope) !!

When Harry met Sally

If you have not seen the movie .. watch it rather than reading the stuff below .... you will thank me later I am sure

One of the greatest movies I have ever watched. Just came across the transcript of the movie and so I am putting it here

Transcript of the movie

If you do not know about the movie

Wikipedia on the movie

I miss that time

I remember that in my school I used to have a big crush on a girl. She was in my class and I would talk to her sometimes. I had just got a new phone connection at home and I would dial her number with shaking hands and say something with trembling voice sometimes to her. I really remember how happy that it-means-nothing would make me. Today I really miss that time. I could never tell that girl what I felt for her .... May be I did not feel much .. it was most likely an infatuation ... nevertheless just the sight of that girl or her voice would make my day. High on hopes and dreams ...

I really miss that time now. I have the courage to go and ask a girl out but I do not have that hope ... that foolishness some people may call it. Blame it on the previous relationships or call it maturity or practical viewpoint .... I find myself having very little faith on things such as love and unconditional love especially. I find people making very sensible choices about love and marriages. Thinking about social structure of their family, caste, job and a thousand other factors when breaking old relationships or making new ones. I see that in friends and may be in me too. I am not blaming anyone. This is not an attempt at insinuation. May be that is the way to go about "such" things in life. May be we are not kids any more. May be things are not that simple as I think they are ....

But I really miss that time ........

Madikeri Trip (Coorg District)

just made a trip to madikeri last weekend. I have more pics than I can uplaod. Here is a quick album a friend of mine uploaded on yahoo

Madikeri Trip on yahoo photos

I will upload my pics soon ... have just too many of them (abt 200) and there are all very big in size :(

Ajmer Trip

With some determination we left for Ajmer around 7 O' clock in the morning and were on the expressway very soon. The GVK maintained expressway was quite impressive as I think I mentioned in my earlier post. About 19 kms from ajmer, we took the bikaner bypass to reach pushkar. We could have reached through the city as well but somehow the bypass looked attractive to explore.







The bypass again was quite well maintained and there was a Swami Dayanand Saraswati University on the way. Both sides of the road one could witness a lot of desert vegetation. Every once in a while there used to be a truck coming from the other side on the narrow road and my parents would put pressure on me to slow down and be careful. I would get to hear lines like "dekh ke chalo" :)








Inside Pushkar city, the traffic was a little more challengin and I switched seats with my dad. In pushkar, one can find a lot of foreigners roaming on rented bike. I found a Pink Floyd Hotel and Cafe also somewhere inside the small city. Pushkar is famous for the only Brahmo Temple in India and we paid it a visit. It is also very well know for the beautiful mansarovar. The lake surrounded by white shining building on three sides. I really found the place very beautiful and tried to capture the beauty in my camera. Lots of pigeons flock the place and you can if you want feed them too. After mansarovar, we went to Ajmer Sharif Dargah but as I was not sure abt the rules, I did not take any pictures there. We left back for jaipur after having some great non-veg food near the dargah and reached there around 7:30.

On the left are some other assorted pics clicked in ajmer showing the beautiful rajasthan and its culture.

Vacation

I took a not so well deserved break and went to delhi two weeks back. I was supposed to reach there on 9th march 8:30 AM but thanks to official carrier of common sense I reached on 10th of march 2:30 AM. Picture on the left shows Bangalore airport's departure building. I clicked a few images before putting my camera back for the fear of being spotted as a terrorist planning an attack :)




Good thing about going home this time was the new car my parents had purchased. A shining beam blue zen LXI. Enthu of the new car made us plan a trip to rajasthan. We wanted to sample the expressway (actually we later realized its not a expressway) between delhi and jaipur. We found it to be a pretty good one with only problem being lot of places where you could take U turns. Haldiram in guragaon was a great place to eat before you step onto the highway.





On our way we took a break at a Rajasthan tourism motel. We only had some tea there and bought a couple of chocolates there but we found the people there amazingly well behaved and courteous. The highway pretty peaceful apart from the patches where there was some construction and both side traffic was put on the same lanes :)




In Jaipur we stayed with my dad's cousin and it was a fun stay for sure. Had great food and sampled some good whisky too :). My cousin told me about the 6 lane Jaipur Ajmer expressway and next day we set out to try it and visit ajmer too. The expressway was much better than the delhi jaipur highway and for those who have been to bombay pune expressway, its as good. This blurred image shows the highway at night.

I found ajmer more of a religious city. Will cover ajmer and the rest of the trip in the next post !

Golf Course @ Eagleton

Gaheri Dosti

Stupid Pose

Allgo's entrance

Office

giving fundae to some poor soul :)

Terminator II on Star Movies

Nothing better to do than watch this great movie again on sunday evening :)

The Allgo Mug !

And this is what happens when you had not shaved in ages or spent on a hair cut but spend on a new camera give it to sachin to try out ... and he tries it out on you ....

Corner house again

This pic was taken with a exposure compensation of -2.0 and no flash .. note the color of the slab ... its much clearer than the last picture

Coner House

If you are in blore and you love icecreams you know this place ....
Known for the amazing variety of icecreams and the famous, "Death by chocolate (DBC)"
Well my favourite remains "Creme De La Caramel" .. vanilla icecream with caramel sauce and cashew nuts ...

this pic was taken without exposure compensation ..

IndiJoe

My favourite dining place in bangalore, IndiJoe in carlton towers. Love the buffet lunches here and the sizzlers :)

Bombay Post glow sign

A restaurent in the carlton towers, also well know for indijoe and TGI Friday and corner house.

Panorama creation

I took three images of my hall and created this panorama with the picture projects software supplied with the camera. You can see some distortion around the books but otherwise it looks ok

I finally get myself a nice digital camera. After being disappointed by the camera prices at the showrooms in bangalore, I decided to give the hong-kong market a try. After about two hours of searching at different stores, we managed to get a deal with a 256 MB sandisk card for about 12.5k .. throw in another 500 bucks for a nice case and I am ready to click. The camera features nice zoom and resolution and even comes in with rechargeable batteries and charger. Read this review after buying



Actually nikon was not on my list as it was not available in the showrooms. I had researched canon and kodak, but i found this camera with its brilliant 2.5' TFT a much better bargain. I will soon upload some pics I tried out with the camera over the weekend.

5 weeks

Today i complete 5 weeks at my new job. I joined on 2nd of Jan, after being unemployed for two days on 31st of December 2005 and 1st of Jan 2006. When I switched, I had a lot of apprehensions regarding work, culture, life and all the small things that I could possibly think of. I think I was afraid of change in my life as always.

Sitting today, writing this post, I do not even feel that 5 weeks have passed since I started working here. It took me about a week to get used to the culture here. This being a very small place there are very few people to run to when I am stuck up or who tell me what I should do next. Initially it took me some time to get used to the fact that this is the independence I wanted, but once I understood the implications, I could make it work for me. I spent the last one month here practically on chapter 5 of the legendary book by Proakis. If you have gone through it, you know what I am talking about. Reading, understanding, simulating and then realizing that I have still not understood it well enough.

Had the most intereting discussions on communications with my team mate and met some great new people and teachers :)

Picked back on reading and thinking (constructive stuff) :)

There are some not so good things that I wanted to write about somedays back, but now, revisiting them to write them here does not seem to me to be such good idea ....

Memory

Memory is a strange thing. You sometimes remember what is best forgotten and forget what needs to be remembered. While at work several times, I cannot recall something that I read may be a year ago and need right now. I will have to spend a whole day reading some textbook to brush up small concepts. However I do clearly remember more often than not people or events that I do not want to remember. It is also funny to track triggers to memory. I am sitting thinking about something innocent enough and then the thoughts start slipping, going from one event to the other in the past, people to people and sometimes reach memories I do not want to visit back.

I wish I had more control on my memory. I wish I could be like history. Remembering things that go well with today. But may be then I would not be me ....

Life

In the recent past my outlook on life has been changing a lot. One day I find it funny, the other day ironical and what not. I have had a lof of mood swings, had some really terrible days and have seen a lot changing around me. Still, I probably have come to believe more in life than i did before. If I look at the events in the past, it is almost funny that I sometimes feel that this is the worst that can happen to me and yet after some days I am almost over it. Life goes on and you have to let it be that way. You can really not fight it. You think you can but you are just fighting with yourself and you cannot win against yourself. I have finally come to appreciate this aspect of life although I have come to appreciate it the hard way.

Whenever I look at the past, all the events that I thought brought my life to a standstill for days or even months sometimes seem to be so trivial. Does it mean that nothing mattered. I think it did; probably a lot sometimes but then life goes on. Things that you never wanted to change did change and many a times for bad. What i find funny these days is that whenever I am going through a bad time in my life now I feel that after some days I will be over it. I have somehow started feeling that nothing is so big that I cannot do without it. On the downside I do not try many new things because I feel that if I can do without things I thought I can never do without, why do I anyway need anything new. Funny ways the mind works for and against you ....

Another random test

Global Personality Test Results

Stability (40%) moderately low which suggests you are worrying, insecure, emotional, and anxious. Orderliness (56%) moderately high which suggests you are, at times, overly organized, reliable, neat, and hard working at the expense of flexibility, efficiency, spontaneity, and fun. Extraversion (63%) moderately high which suggests you are, at times, overly talkative, outgoing, sociable and interacting at the expense of developing your own individual interests and internally based identity.

Take Free Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Some personality test

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com