Same old same old

How to get a bite of the Big Apple

2011-04-21T21:25:00.000-04:00

I think I just took the cheapest (this is the primary concern for me, so this comes before biggest), biggest (that my time could permit) bite of the Big Apple. If anybody begs to differ, I don't care. I had had my fullest.
Well, the cheapest and biggest, both were mostly due to Bank of America putting me up in a hotel right next to the Times Square. 'How did Bank of America came in this context?' you ask? Then let me start from the start.
I have got a summer internship with Bank of America as a Technology Analyst Intern (you didn't know that???!!! Well, congratulations to me). They had an internship session (called Technology Analyst Internship Program) at New York. And thanks to them (and some perseverance on my end) I got tickets to New York; reaching there at 3 pm on the 19th and leaving at 3 pm on the 20th. So I had 2 exact days (minus the session) to eat the apple.
On the first day (ie on 19th) just after reaching the hotel and freshening up, went for Empire State Building (both 86th and 102nd floor observatory; don't ask me why both, I had been persuaded). Walked all along the 5th Avenue to reach there, so covered that also. While returning got a brief visit (about 15-20 minutes) of the New York Public Library. At night went to the Times Square (I won't describe anything about it here, you have to be there to experience it) and walked south and went to the Fashion District (the largest store in the world, Macy's is there), Madison Square Garden, New York Post Office, Port Authority Bus Terminus (look out, this list may be updated, as right now I do not quite remember what else I had visited). Called it a night early at 12.30 pm (again don't ask me why).
On the 20th, went to the Grand Central Station in the morning and had breakfast. Took the New York Public Library tour at 11 am and attended the session from 1-5 pm. After that, took the 6th Avenue, and went straight towards the Central Park (Again, the Central Park at sunset, you have to be there to experience it; I am just writing my itinerary here). During return, went over to the Lincoln Plaza, Rockefellar Plaza, Radio City Music Hall (all from outside) and took some rest after so much of walking (yes, all of these by walking, you don't know how cheap I am). At night went and had a stroll around the Theater District (saw all the Broadway theaters).
On 21st, got out of hotel at 7.30 in the morning. Had to squeeze in whatever time I had left. Took the subway (my first and only expense in travel) to the South Ferry and took the Staten Island Ferry and back (this covered the New York harbour, skyline, Ellis island and the Statue of Liberty). As I returned back to Manhattan, I realized that I was in the downtown area (a subway map of the city that I had got was a lifesaver), so lets go through his area now. Went to see the charging bull, Wall St., New York Stock Exchange, WTC site, WTC memorial. And right now I had almost ran out of time. Returned to hotel, packed up and left for La Guardia.
So, this was my bite of the Big Apple and now back to the final exams (I have missed a final due to this trip, keeping my fingers crossed about it).

Once upon a time...

2011-03-06T22:59:00.000-05:00

It was a long time back when I was a regular blogger. But this US life has made this a thing of the past. This and that, here and there: has led me away from blogging. There has been many incidents, moments, achievements, failures in this 6 months stay in the US. But I could not find any time to jot them down. Let's see what's the future of my blog in the coming months. I have another site online : www.cise.ufl.edu/~droy (free hosting via my University), it is more or less updated there.
Footnote: Got summer internship at 'Bank of America'.

A New Chapter

2010-10-26T19:23:00.000-04:00

Literally, figuratively and any other '-ly' speaking, this has been the starting of a new chapter in my life. I have left behind many memories (both happy and sad) and started afresh on a new journey.
Yep, I have, for the first time in my life, set my foot on a foreign soil. And this is not on Bangladesh or Nepal, I have flown half way across the world to the land of the 50 states. I have left the easy going life as an Adobe developer and taken up the life of a grad student (I think this life needs no adjective to describe it). I am still not sure why I have done this!!!
Well, all said and done, I have began a brand new chapter of my life. Will post updates, if my grad life lets me. (Meanwhile head on to www.cise.ufl.edu/~droy and please comment).

Dalhousie Journey Journal, Part - Trois

2010-05-25T09:22:00.001-04:00

The whole of yesterday was spent at Khajjiar. We left for Khajjiar from Dalhousie at 10 o'clock and were there within an hour. Khajjiar is termed as the Switzerland of HImachal Pradesh. Well I have never been to Switzerland, so I don't know how much this comparison is true, but it is surely a wonderful place. The whole town is based upon a naturally formed meadow between a grove of devdars, a small water body (I could not come up with a better word for it) in the middle of the meadow. WE had reservations in the HPTDC lodge.
Today we started early in the morning, at about 8 o'clock (Yes, this is early for me), for our trip to Dharamshala, McLeodgunj and back to Chakki Bank. After a 5 hour drive to McLeodgunj, we visited the Daal Lake (without water), Naddi (a supposed viewpoint of the Dhauladhar range) and the Dalai Lama Temple (a Buddhist Monastery and the residence of Dalai Lama). No 'Triune' this time. Then back to Chakki Bank after a 3 hour ride and now waiting for our Jammu Rajdhani to New Delhi.

- I am what I am

Dalhousie Journey Journal, Part - Deux

2010-05-23T13:32:00.003-04:00

Today we went for an early morning trip to Chamba (due to my Google Code Jam session in the afternoon; which had resulted due my earlier failure in Leg B). The car came about 7 o'clock in the morning and we left at about 7.45am. The total distance from Dalhousie to Chamba is 56km (as per our route). On our way there was a Rock Garden (worth a visit), Chamera dam view point (just a view point, but damn the view!!!), Ravi river bed (with a big board restricting all activities concerning water).
At Chamba there was the Lakshmi-Nath Mandir and a museum of which we did not visit the museum. The chaugan is a big playing field. Again in the evening, we went for shopping at the Mall where my mom almost bought an entire shop.
I have gone to visit Kashmir in February, it is for another post. My Google Code Jam experience also demands another post. And a post concerning my newly acquired iPod Touch is in the making for almost a month now. Hope to complete all of the above soon (-er or later :P).

- I am what I am

Dalhousie Journey Journal, Part - Un

2010-05-22T11:52:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, we (my parents and me) started for our 4 day trip encompassing Dalhousie-Khajiar-Chamba-Dharamshala. They arrived at Noida on Thursday via Rajdhani and we started for Chakki Bank from New Delhi on Friday night (Jhelum Express).
I had Code Jam Round 1 Leg A at 6.30 am in the morning. Yep, I got up at 6.15 am in my side upper birth and setup my laptop with Reliance Netconnect. And alas!!! There were no miracles. As the train reached Chakki Bank at 7.15 am I had not completed a single problem.
So preparing for the next bout with Code Jam (Round 1 Leg B), got off at Chakki Bank and hired a taxi to Dalhousie (obtained from a taxi stand and from official looking people, so hoping that the 1350 bucks we dished out was a fair one). Reached Dalhousie at 11am, with an advance booking (back in February from an HPTDC in Kolkata) at Mani Mahesh.
In the afternoon, we left for the local sight-seeing near Dalhousie (Panch Pulla, Sat Dhara, Subhash Baoli; cost Rs 250; not bad). And we booked car for our next 3 says trip (23rd: Chamba and surrounding sights, 24th: Drop to Khajiar, 25th: Dharamshala and surrounding sights, drop to Pathankot; cost Rs 5250). Then on our way back, had a wonderful evening at the Mall.
Sigining of for today, as Leg B is starting in 10 minutes.

- I am what I am

Some backlog movies

2010-03-05T04:37:00.001-05:00

It was after a long time that I went to watch a movie on 20th February (mainly because the only choice of movie in the lee period was MNIK). So once it started, it came in a rush.
Up in the Air (on 20th February): A dramedy (drama + comedy) or comma (comedy + drama :P), a must watch. The acting of the two leading ladies were superb (not even mentioning that of George Clooney, it should be implied). The story was well told and the ending was perfect. 8.5/10 ('nuf said)
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (on 21st February): A 'Harry Potter-esque' movie from the director of the first Harry Potter movie. I haven't read the book, but I liked the movie. A good watch. The acting and CG were both good. The negative can be summed up by the comment of one of my friends : "Why were people training for war?" 7.5/10
Karthik Calling Karthik (on 3rd March): The concept of the movie is good. Deepika was looking her usual gorgeous self. Farhan was good in some scenes, but mostly bad. The movie could have been much better at the hands of a good director and without the last 5 minutes. 7/10 (giving 7 only because of the concept).
I missed out on the 27th weekend, as I had gone to Kashmir. That trip is for a later post.

- I am what I am

Tiger and Me

2010-02-24T04:46:00.001-05:00

An Ode to Tigers (by Hobbes) :

The zebra's stripes are lacking hues,
So they don't compare to you-know-whose.
Orange, black and white is what to wear!
It's haute couture for those who dare!
It's camouflage, and stylish, too!
Yes, tigers look the best, it's true!

The relationship between me and viewing a wild tiger has not been like oil and water. In fact, there had been no relationship as yet (not counting the one time at Sunderbans, I was very young then; and not even discussing about Bannerghata, it is not a forest but a glorified zoo).
I had gone to Jim Corbett National Park once (not counting the office trip; it was not a safari, more of a weekend retreat for the aged (if any managers are reading this, please don't fire me)) in hope of catching a glimpse of this endangered animal (doing my part in the cause, don't know what blogging about such things will eventually do apart from publicity of Aircel). But to no luck. Heard him/her growling at about a distance of 50m. But that was it, no sighting.
So, we started for Bandhavgarh on the Valentine's day weekend, hoping to improve my score of 3-0 (3 safaris, 0 sighting). We took a train (journey of around 8 hours) to Katni in MP. A hotel allotted cab was waiting for us there (info for travelers: cab charge was around 1.5k for one way) and we reached 'Bagh Vihar' in Tala village. The hotel accommodation was cheap and cozy (enough for us 4 bachelors, the key word being 'cheap'). While freshening up for our afternoon safari (info for travelers: each safari cost us 1500 bucks), a solitary female arrived and asked to join our safari. We being the perfect gentlemen immediately agreed ;) (also our cost for safari was coming down).
As with my earlier safaris, we saw almost all types of wildlife (including avian) found there, except the tiger. The evening was spent visiting the 'Bandhavgarh Festival' and playing 'Mendicoota' (a card game taught to us by her). YES, NOTHING ELSE HAPPENED.
The following morning safari was at 6.30. She accompanied us in this also. My score was becoming more miserable (now it was 4-0). The other safari-ans of the previous day had told that they came across a tiger and it was on the road with them for about 1 km (talk about adding salt to injury). This day too, we roamed about in our allotted route with futility. Dejected, we started our return back to the gate. En route, we saw a caravan of about 5-6 gypsies beside a grassland. We also joined the gathering, and lo and behold, there was a tiger lazing in the shades of some trees. All graphers in our group took out their machines and started shooting. After sometime, the tiger stood up went a few steps to his left and started eating a deer he had killed before. This was a sight to see. I cannot explain it. So here is a pic :).

Feeling a sense of fulfillment, we returned.
We didn't have an afternoon safari, instead we went to visit Bandhavgarh fort. This time, she was not with us. The evening went by uneventful (YES, AGAIN) copying pics from her camera, as she was leaving early the next day. So on Valentine's day, it was just us 4 guys in a gypsy doing our morning safari. This time also, after a few close calls and the haramigiri (sorry, found no word in English (viva la Bengali)) of a forest ranger we returned empty handed (maybe due to lack of lady luck ;)).
Thus my score ultimately became 6-1 (the keyword being '1') :D

- I am what I am

Duronto and me

2010-02-08T11:16:00.001-05:00

On the third week of January, I had to travel to my hometown to attend the wedding of brother of one of my closest friends. I still wonder why I booked railway tickets for that journey.
My train was at 8 pm. So I went to office carrying all the luggage that was to be taken. During the afternoon, an idea stuck: "Let's check online for the train status". Ans as luck would have it, it was late by 13 hours and the revised departure time was 0630 on Saturday (God! I have to wake up early the next day). I booked a cab to pick me from my home at 5 o'clock for the station and returned home as usual after having dinner at office. I also went to bed early (at about 12.30 am) due to the early waking up the next day.
The alarm went off at 4.45 am and within 15 minutes I was ready for the cab to arrive. But the time went on. I called the cab service at 5.10 am, the guy at the other end assured me that the cab has already left their office for my home. Another 10 min went by, I called again (readers may think I was a bit overboard, but the cab office is 10 min walk from my home). I left home at 5.30 am to go on my own.
The visibility outside was about 2 meters. I was dreading that if now I took an auto, it would take me the better of a day to reach the station. After a few minutes, I received a call: "Where are you? The cab is waiting in front of your house." Luckily I was near to the cab office when the call came. I told them to call the cab to their office and I will take it from there.
As I reached the office, I saw the guy discussing heatedly with someone over phone: "What do you mean that your tank is empty?". There goes my catching of Duronto. But again, luckily, another driver was present there with his car (this one always took me to the airport). He told the guy, to leave the driver and he will take me to the station. There I was, 5.40 am on the clock, 2 meters of visibility, still in Noida, with the train departing at 6.30 am.
But the driver was a skilled one. Even in that thick fog, he drove efficiently, without taking any risks and got me to the station by 6.15 am. Any novice would have surely lost direction or would be on top of a divider due to the fog. I thanked him whole heartedly and went into the station.
Now where was the train platformed? The whole station was full of people as for the last week or so, no train has left on its scheduled time. There were many people there who were there for more than 48 hours. I watched the electronic schedule board for a while. But no Duronto. Dreading that the train has already left, I approached an information counter among the bustle of people queued in front. The receptionist told that, Duronto had not reached there yet, and it would leave for Kolkata at 3.30 pm. WT*?
The news was confirmed by an announcement over public system and I started my way back home. The metro had already started, so no problem there. Reached home at 8 am after spending about 300 bucks (cab fare) for no reason at all. And immediately went to sleep :D.
Woke up at 10.30 am, again dressed up and went to office. For lunch, of course. Again started for station at about 1.30 pm, this time via metro. After losing my work access card in the metro, I reached the station at about 2.30 pm. The train started on time and I was at last homeward.
The train was half full, most of the tickets canceled because of the 19 hour delay. We started with a scheduled arrival to Howrah at 7.30 am on Sunday morning. To me it was perfect. I had a top bunk in the 2 tier AC coach. Both the lowers were empty. So covering both the lower bunks, I set up my command center. The guy on the opposite top bunk also helped by going to sleep at 5 pm :P. My time was spent blissfully reading story book, watching movie on laptop and what not, the coach attendants providing refreshments at regular intervals. So although the train reached 12 hours later its scheduled time, at 7.30 pm ;), did not bother me much.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2009-12-31T13:49:00.000-05:00

Wishing all my readers and non-readers (although they won't come to know my wish) a very happy and prosperous 2010.

-Resolutions are for fat people

The X-Day 2009

2009-12-27T14:42:00.003-05:00

Keeping the blog short.
Went to Park Street on Christmas night. All lighted up. The rush was greater than that during the pujas [:O]. The Kolkatans just need an excuse to celebrate. Needed about half an hour to cover a half kilometer sidewalk!!!
Met with two school-mates there. Enjoyed the evening to the fullest (disclaimer: it was alcohol-free).
Going for '3 Idiots' tomorrow with family.
Also, will be doing some changes in the blog layout. People still here, bearing my posts, please bear this also.

All about books

2009-12-24T15:34:00.001-05:00

Right now, I am waiting for my flight to my hometown for a (forced) vacation (in reality office shutdown) and surfing the web on free Wi-fi a-la Airtel. Couldn't surf my usual sites on such a posh environment, so thought to clear some backlogs for my blogs.
To start of, I think I have read two Eoin Colfer books since the last time I've blogged about books. And I do not think I am sure about this as I am sure of my poor memory and my voracious tendency of reading.
Airman : A gripping story from beginning to the end. This is very well written and very well plotted. I gave this a miss at first, as I was completing the Artemis Fowl series then. But as a one-shot novel, this holds its ground even with the Artemis series. So Colfer fans out there, don't miss this and also to the young readers (and the not-so-young ones) give Colfer a try. a good 8/10.
And Another Thing... : I had been hearing of Hitchhikers' series from the start of my college days, and ultimately read it after joining my job. Immediately I became the fan of the series. I was a bit disappointed to see the protagonists die at the end of fifth book, and with the original author no more alive, I was a bit sad that that was the end of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Trillian. Last year it was revealed that there was a sixth book in the making. I was immediately jumping up and down in my mind, and then when I read that it was given to Eoin Colfer, I think I shot through the roof with joy. But with great excitement comes great trepidation. How would Colfer handle this classic series? Would he fall on his bottom or take this newer heights? Well, in his first stab at adult fiction, he didn't disappoint me. Though tried mostly to be faithful to the writing style of Douglas Adams, his own persona was clear in it. This may or may not be liked by many people, but it worked for me and with the open-ended ending of the book, I am also looking forward to further sequels of the series (Alas! I think Artemis will have wield some of his fairy magic to bring bring out another book of him). I would give it a good 8/10. (I also missed the Encyclopaedia Galactica in the 'Guide'.)
Just remembered, I also read Matthew Reilly's latest book in the Jack West Jr. series: The Five Greatest Warriors. A very well written novel. Reading these novels, have again raised my interest in ancient history (hmm... note to self: history timeline). This is a very good ending to the trilogy. I would recommend action/adventure readers, Dan Brown fans to give this trilogy a try, you won't be disappointed.
OK, so spanning two days and two cities, ultimately this blog post is completed. A very merry Christmas to all the readers (the few who cares to visit this sparsely updated rantings) and I hope I am going to squeeze in a few more posts before 2010.

Stay/Play Safe

A Whole New (Blue) World...

2009-12-22T11:56:00.000-05:00

Just saw the brand new cinematic sensation 'Avatar' at office expense. I watched the 3-D movie in a 2-D movie hall. After wearing two specks for 3 hours, I had a massive headache. But it was worth it.

This movie presents a whole new cinematic experience. Cameron has put the proverbial old wine in a bottle which is not of this world even. The story was clear from the trailers. 'A of B infiltrates C, but A falls in love with D of C and at last saves C from A'. But what the trailers couldn't capture or portray was the visual treat one is up for.
James Cameron has literally built a whole world from scratch. The flora and fauna are astounding. The details in which they were portrayed were amazing. The concept of Eywa was incredible. So to cut this short (mostly because I am unable to find any more positive adjectives) this is a must watch in 3-D movie halls. Piraters don't wait for the DVD/BD rip of this. This experience can only truly be comprehended in a theater hall (I myself am planning to try this again in 3-D imax).
To conclude, I would give this a solid 9/10 just for the cinematic experience of a lifetime.

The Double J Trip

2009-10-30T10:12:00.001-04:00

This Diwali, we had an extended weekend, thanks to a Friday holiday. So a trip down the memory lane was planned, literally. We were going to visit the 'Sonar Kella' (fort made of gold) in Jaishalmer, made famous by Satyajit Ray's mystery-thriller of the same name.
We started off for Jodhpur via train on Thursday afternoon and reached Jodhpur at Friday dawn. The whole day was spent visiting the sights viz. Mandore Bag, Mehrangarh Fort, City Palace. One of our auto ride was a pure antique. It had stopped many a times during the trip, and during our final return it died altogether [:P]. To give a quantitative value, they charged us 300 bucks per auto. We had booked our train tickets for Jaishalmer for early next day. But it was canceled, and another ticket for that night was bought. Again, this night was spent in train. Meanwhile, I had a sort of food poisoning [:D].
We reached Jaishalmer early next day, and had booking at 'Golden Palace' (with swimming pool) [:P]. We were given two rooms for rest, and had a desert safari later that day (FYI we were a total of six in the group). Earlier we had booked a basic desert safari comprising of a drive to a point, then 2 hours camel ride, then night out at tent in Sam sand dune with function by locals. But this was scrapped, we booked the Mughal Desert Safari. We left the hotel and drove to some sight-seeing points near Jaishalmer (of little worth). Then we were left at the border of the desert, and had our 'Garib Lunch' (literal translation: poorman's lunch), consisting thick breads and mixed vegetables. Then started our 4 hours camel ride. After that, it was very difficult of us to walk upright. Our night was spent in a makeshift tent in the pitch black darkness (it was new moon). There was a show by the locals and we ended our day by playing '29' in the light of a lantern.
We woke up early next day, watched the sunrise, had a meager breakfast and started our return, again on camels. Again after about 3 hours ride, we were picked up by a car and went on some further sight-seeing. In my personal opinion (which no one can stop me from writing, as this is my blog; of course Google can block it), I didn't feel it was worth the hardship. I'd have favoured a nice comfortable night out at Sam sand dune, whose pictures were not quite bad themselves. The whole endeavour, from the dawn the previous day, to our leaving the hotel that afternoon, set us back 3.5 k bucks each. We took the train back and reached Delhi the next day at noon. Also before leaving, we had a brief trip to the famous 'Sonar Kella'.

Yesterday, I also attended my first North Indian marriage. It was of the sister of one of my colleagues. I was dumbstruck by the amount of snacks available there. Each and every kind of snacks and desserts were there for the taking, and different kinds of soft drinks. There was also a dance floor and a kiddy play-area. The 'baraat' came atabout 10.30 pm and we left at 10:45 [:D].

The reader may be thinking, why are there two posts on two consecutive days. This is because, I wanted to clear my backlogs before the big (for me at least) M-Day this Sunday. I am going to run the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon.

The DP Days (2009)

2009-10-28T10:15:00.000-04:00

Our office had a shutdown from Saturday (26th Sep, Oshtomi) to Sunday (4th Oct). I had booked my train tickets for Friday (25th Sep, Shoptomi) evening, reaching Kolkata on Saturday late morning. Giving me roughly two and a half days for Durga Puja. But as the days progressed, I became restless and started to realize my mistake. As a result, I took 3 extra days' leave and started for Kolkata on Tuesday (22nd Sep, Choturthi) evening via flight [:p].
So, you can imagine how crazy I am for Kolkata Durga Puja. It was not so even a few years back. But after leaving Kolkata, it has grown on me. Their is a Bengali proverb: 'Dant thakte lokera danter mormo bojhe na' (Rough English translation: People do not realize the value of their teeth while they are still there).
So, there I was at Kolkata on Tuesday night, with the core of the Puja still two days (or you can say one and a half days) away. I had not made any plans with my friends for the Puja Pandal Hopping, as a result the whole of the next day was spent calling up friends in Kolkata bearing little fruit. One of my omni-present college mate came to my rescue, and it was decided our rendezvous will be Shoshti evening near our college.
SHOSHTHI (24th Sep)
Started off early, to negate the Puja traffic. While in the Metro, the feel of Puja began. The lashshomoyee lasses in their brand new garbs, the immovable crowd in the Metro coupe: all adding to the Puja atmosphere. While on my way, a call came from my old school friends. And that's how our group increased from a strength of 2 to 7 [:D]. That day, we covered the whole of South Kolkata and ended with dinner at Hatari. Also during our sojourn, it was decided that we will cover South-West Kolkata, the next day at dawn (Another proof of my Puja crazyness, I was prepared to wake up early).
SHOPTOMI (25th Sep)
As usual, we did not started at 4 o'clock in the morning as planned, rather at they picked me up at 5 o'clock. This trip was an unique one for me. This was the first time I was going Pandal hopping at that hour. In spite of the time of the day, there was moderate crowd at every famous Pandal we visited. This is the stamina of Kolkata-ns during the Pujas. The whole area was covered in two hours (which if we went in the afternoon would have taken a good 6 hours and at night about 10 hours). The rest of the day, I slept [:D].
OSHTOMI (26th Sep)
Now it was time for North Kolkata. I have going on this trip, with the same set of friends for the last 5 years. This day there were even more old school friends in the group. So, as the reader would already have assumed, this was great as well. Trudging through the entire North Calcutta, including parts of Eastern as well, cracking jokes, bantering each other: oh the fond memories!
NOBOMI N DOSHOMI (27th and 28th Sep)
I rested at home. The ordeal of the last 3 days was showing its result. After all, I am not as young as I once was.
Also, I hadn't mentioned about the urban bird-watching during these days. I hope that's implied [;)].

A Long Long Time...

2009-09-23T14:18:00.000-04:00

Back after a very long time, and my life in this period was least bit uneventful. As the esteemed readers (the very few, if any, I get) already know of my prowess of memory (maybe not, which is to say my memory is very poor indeed), the events which I am going to depict will follow little to no chronology.

I lost my mobile phone, again. Not my N95-8 GB, God knows what would have happened if I lost that, this was the 3120 that I had got for losing my earlier 3120. This has served me well for three and a half years, and it looks like I have the loser's luck for it. Well, to cut a long story short, it dropped from my pants' pocket when I was boarding a cycle-rickshaw (damn my cargo pants and its large pockets). I went to the Airtel office the next day to get a duplicate sim only to be informed that since it was a Kolkata number, I have to apply at Kolkata. Immediately a call to my father, "Ja kore hok amar duplicate sim jogar koro (Get hold of my duplicate sim, by any means necessary)". So after some careful crafting by my father, he had it under his possession by the evening. I was also going to Kolkata for the 5 day forced vacation (at first I was a great fan of, but not so now; why you say? I'll tell that later) so it was just peachy for me. I got a 2700 Classic as a birthday gift from my mom (O, did I tell you that I synced the forced leave with that of my birthday? Clumsy me...).
So on to my birthday. On the eve, phoning this guy and that, I could only manage 6 guys to gather for the day. Also, in the morning, while calling to confirm, one guy declined and another one sent an SMS that he had got his class schedules jumbled up, so he'll not be attending. Just my luck. So there only left my three ever reliable school friends and one of my college-mate. While enjoying the scrumplicious starters of 'Flame N Grill' at South City Mall, one of the morning friends, he said that he had again jumbled up his schedules and he was now waiting at the Mall entrance. I immediately called him up, and the 6 of us had wonderful lunch. The starters just kept on coming (as we had taken the buffet, it was very unlucky for the restaurant owner :P). We just sat there for about 2 hours and gorged on whatever they had to offer. So much so, that they provided us with our bills even when 2 of us were finishing up. And thus went my birthday party [:D].
I returned to my daily grind at the office, when one fine Sunday morning (just woke up at 11 o'clock) I got a phone from my mom. Bleary-eyed I received the call and was instantly brought to the reality. My father was to be hospitalized. I was getting the news from my mom that he was suffering from fever for the last few days. But then it had become acute. I floated a mail to my office that I would not be coming for the next 2 days and booked a flight for that evening to Kolkata. I made another trip to there on the following weekend also, and now I am sitting upright on my home bed, writing this blog. In the last three weeks I have traveled 5 times from Delhi to Kolkata or vice versa. Indigo should really be giving me some frequent fliers' points.
My father is okay now and I am looking forward for the D-days starting from tomorrow (the unthinkable crowd, the unmatched lightings and pandals, the world-famous idols, the living idols in all their glorious tailleurs: just thinking about it gives me goosebumps).
Books: I have finally finished 'Map of Bones' by James Rollins. To tell you the truth, his writing didn't suite me (yes, I also have my own tailor-made writers :P). But since I had spent 300 bucks on that book, I was determined to finish it, though it took me about 2 months. There was much m-state metal mumbo jumbos, the seven wonders, Alexander, alchemists, Popes etc, all wrapped up in a race to the ultimate treasure (some lost historic relics or knowledge). It will get a blande 6.5 out of 10 from me. I will give this author one more try with another of book 'The Last Oracle' (in reality, I have bought this book also and do not want to see my hard earned money go to waste).

- Because I am

Again those banal things...

2009-07-26T08:51:00.001-04:00

Well, just finished reading a blog post of one of my colleagues and it was good. I can never write emotional or philosophical things (no other word than 'things' came to mind), so I appreciate them very much. My blogging prowess is limited to only mundane and common place matters. Although I may to strive towards a more sonorous writing, I fear I will never be able to achieve this.

So anyone out there still bearing with this blog, here is another of my typical posts. This will be about the movies I saw over the last few weeks and they are not few in numbers.

The Hindi one first: New York. When I first saw its trailer, I thought that 'This movie should be interesting, none of the three leads can act'. But I was proven wrong, though Neil had the same expressions for all of his emotions, the rest two were good. Though the story had many discrepancies, I'll overlook it, being a hindi movie, and will give it a good 7/10.

Well this post has been in the making for about a month, so I'll just skim over the English ones.
Wolverine: 7/10, Good movie, Emotional touch, Very few mutants shown
17 Again: 8/10, A very good comedy, Actors were great
Hangover: 9/10, A must watch for everyone
Harry potter 6: 7/10, A well-made movie, I especially liked the part where Harry got veritaserum and was acting like a drunk

I have seen many more, but can't seem to remember them right now.
Signing out (Will experiment with other phrases until I get it right)

The future is here...

2009-06-23T10:37:00.000-04:00

About the title: See the last line of my last post [:P]

Alright, now to recount my experiences. I had two trips during this period, both with totally different attributes: one near, one not-so-near; one memorable, another forgettable.
One Sunday, I had to go to Kashmere Gate to book our (me and my parent's) tckets in Jammu-Katra volvo. So, at the beginning of my excursion we (me, my roommate and a city-mate cum college senior) met at Karim's (@ Delhi-6). The food there is beyond any description. You have to taste it to understand it. All within budget (or we would literally have to wash the utensils there, cause we didn't find any ATMs before going there and they do not accept cards). Then onto Kashmere Gate ISBT. Then I had one my first experiences of my life. I boarded the Delhi Metro. We went from Kashmere Gate to Connaught Place. There we spent another few hours at Oxford Bookstore which ended with a play presented by children.
Then I had my most forgettable trip. I am so frustrated with this trip that I am only going to present this prosaically. We took bus from Kashmere Gate ISBT (in a VOLVO BUS)(if anybody's interested why I wrote volvo bus in capitals, leave a comment) to Katra. There we had to book the Yatra slip from an office right there at the bus stand. We booked a room in a hotel (Hotle Sahil) and started at 8 o'clock and after reaching Adhkwari (7 km uphill walk), we took ponies at my mom's insistence. From Adhkwari the path has bifurcated: old path and new path. Old path is a 6 km walk with more than half as steep uphill path, while new path is a 5km more or less flat road. Electric autos also ferry passengers in the day along the new path. The ponies took us to Sanjhichhat via the old path from where we had to again go by foot. As the rest of the path was quite flat, Mom had no problem. Reaching there, at about 3 o'clock in the morning, we found a big housing complex type structure. Prasad was bought there from a counter and Mom and Dad went inside to see the deity/cave. Also a word of caution, keep your yatra slip with you at all times, do not loose it and you have to check that at a counter in Bhavan so that you can gate your group number for darshan. And yes, you read it right, and I also wrote it right, I did not go for darshan, only my parents did. If I start to narrate my full experiences leading to that moment, it would take four or five of these web pages. So let it be. They entered the complex at about 4.30 am and came out at about 7am. This time we took ponies right from Bhavan, but I dislodged before reaching Adhkwari and continued on foot. We left the checkpoint at Ban-Ganga at about 10 o'clock. We returned Delhi by Shalimar Express.

Movies: As told earlier, I have seen 'Angels and Demons' and also 'Star Trek'. I would give AnD a so-so 6.5. It was only a sight-seeing trip of the Vatican. Also the movie made me uncertain if I had read the book properly at the end. While 'Star Trek' was great. We have breath-taking visual effect as well as the steady character development of the protagonists. Although the movie could have been a little bigger. This is evident in the very little screen-space offered to Eric Bana. I am in no way a trekkie, but I will certainly look forward to other installments in this series. I'll give it a well deserved 8.5.

And now to end this blog with a bang (at least to me): A preview review of Nokia N97.
I had applied online for the hands-on preview of N97 online, and to my surprise they contacted me and fixed a date for hands-on demo at my home. To start of, I was not impressed by this model. I had expected much from Nokia. So much so, that I had fixed my mind to buy this model. But not now.

I had about 1 hour between me and this beauty. Lookwise it is great, with full 3.5" touch screen and the QWERTY keyboard, it is still slimmer than my existing N95-8GB. The 5 MP camera with dual flash is great and the camera options very intuitive. Also I saw that this had an inbuilt photo editor. The widescreen (16:9) video recording in SWEEEET. And with 32 gigs of inbuilt memory (expandable another 16 GB via multimedia card) you'll never run out of space. And also there's the camera cover, which I dearly miss in my N95.

Now for the other end of the spectrum (YES, I only found these features an improvement over my N95). It does NOT have soft or multi (I don't quite know about the multi, there were no application to try it) touch. The touch is a bit clunky. It is not smooth. They provide a stylus with which you will have to do most of your work. They are mainly touting this phone for its widgets and customizable desktop. But to guys like us (who have to dish out ginormous wads of cash to our service provider for internet access) this is not of any value.
The speakers are bad, they are even worse than N95. I played the same song side-by-side in both the phones and N95 sounded much sweeter with distortions and breaks in N97.

So after my 1 hour rendezvous with this not-so-marvel of a gadget, I decided to postpone my buying until Nokia comes out with a better model. My advice would be not to buy this one. If you want touch and Nokia, go for 5800 which is much cheaper (This ones priced at an astronomical 36k INR).

(Just to remind myself, the next post will have Wolverine and 17 Again)

Still here...

2009-06-09T09:41:00.000-04:00

This post is coming after a long hiatus. In this period there have been many events (which may be a cause), some of them I'm going to describe. So, I think this is going to be a long one.
First of all, some of my IPL predictions came true (like RCB and CSK going to the semis) and the other did not quite go as expected. This time my logics were all over the place, while the previous time almost all my predictions came true. Also, I liked the fakeiplplayer blog, but the last post really made me mad (so no direct link from my blog). He is a good writer but he didn't stick to his words and ended the season with a crappy silhoutted voice over. As I am throwing all caution to the winds, I will predict that England will win the current T20 WC. (Also, as per statistics, KKR should win the next IPL :P)
Trip: I also had gone to a one week trip to Kolkata (thanks to a 5 day mandatory leave at my workplace). The vacation was thoroughly enjoyed with friends and a solo movie viewing (Fast and furious). I'll come to the movies later.
My parents are coming next weekend and we have plan to visit Vaishnodevi then.

Books: I have read two books in this period, both by Eoin Colfer. The first was 'Half-Moon Investigations'. I would give it a good 8 out of 10. It is a great read for the kids. And other is also by the same author, 'The Supernaturalists', which was just as bad, deserving a 3.5 out of 10 from me. I think it was the first novel published by Eoin Colfer. You can tell that from the writing.

Movies: I will only rate 'Watchmen' (6 out of 10) and 'Fast and Furious' (8.5 out of 10) here. The only thing good about 'Watchmen' is Malin Ackerman, who is a treat to watch. The movie failed miserable conveying the gritty environment in the cold war era and portrayal of my favourite character 'Rorschach'. 'Fast and furious' was also completely different in this respect. It was full of fast paced action sequences and my favourite racing sequences. The race between the protagonists in the middle was, how do you say it... awesome.
And one hindi movie, '99' (4 out of 10). It had no story in it, it was just a boquet of PJ-s.

I think I will stop it here, because already 3 days have gone in its making, the latest news like Karim's, 'Angels and Demon' and 'Star Trek' will come in a post possibly not in a far future.

The I - Season discontd...

2009-04-29T09:27:00.000-04:00

Both KKR and RCB are at the bottom of the table. So, no comments. :(
So before signing off another prediction: CSK in the finals.

The I - Season contd...

2009-04-18T14:40:00.001-04:00

Well most of my prediction came true, even the unbelievable one: Bangalore defeated Rajasthan. About tomorrow's matches, I don't have a clue. All the teams are at equal level (for now) according to the logic I follow.
Now I would even be bold enough to say that, I see KKR, MI and RCB in the semis with RCB in the finals. Let's see how far my fundas work :p

The I - Season

2009-04-18T07:23:00.001-04:00

After much drama, at last, the second season of IPL has started. And yes, Ganguly has been knocked off from co-captaincy even. I'm writing this blog for some quick predictions.
Watch out for high profile franchises' team. Vijay Mallya will not be happy if his team shows dismal performance even in this season. So, I see the Royal Challengers win over Royals today in the second match. And for the first match, until now it looks like, Sachin will be playing a good knock but the Indians will lose.
Also, this time Deccan Chargers are going to flop again and I don't see Rajasthan Royals in the finals.

Some backlogs and some new logs

2009-04-14T07:59:00.000-04:00

Well, something I forgot to mention in my last blog. I celebrated Earth Hour on 28th March. How you ask? At 8.15 pm we left our home, putting off all the lights, in search of raw chicken (we were supposed to have an in-house dinner that night). Right after we left the house, a strong gale started and before we had gone a few steps, light rain also started. But we braved the downpour and marched on to our destination. But before we had crossed our block, the downpour started heavily. We took shelter in a departmental store for about half an hour, browsing through their repositories. Also, while we were at the departmental store, there was a power cut. At last the rain subsided, but not fully. We decide that since we have come this far, we can go the remaining distance, albeit on a cycle-rickshaw [:p]. But, as luck would have it, none of the rickshaw pullers complied with us in the bad weather. We had to traverse the remaining distance on bus no. 11 through the dark alleyways.
After another 15 minutes' walk we reached our destination, only to find out that it was closed. It closed a few moments back, or it didn't open at all, this eluded us. The power was still out. It looked that the electricity board was also in favour of Earth Hour. So, we bought some chicken kebabs from there and started our long walk back home. When we reached home, the power was not back even then also, we were soaked to our bones and had to eat the home delivery for dinner.

I also had a whirlwind trip to my hometown to attend a family function. Those two days were more than exhausting.

Last week I went on a trip to Amritsar. Originally it was planned that the Corbett team would go, but just a few days before one of the other guys backed out (he supposedly had to transfer his village mates from Dubai flight to Kolkata flight: don't ask me, I also didn't get the setup). So it was me and one other senior. We took the trains 'Swarna Shatabdi' and 'Shan e Punjab' for going and returning. Well, I could not but be UN-gay in such an UN-jocund company (read Daffodils by William Wordswoth). That's all I have to say for my trip-mate.
We visited the Wagha border on the first afternoon and Golden Temple in the night.

We visited the Jalianwala Bagh on the next morning and again The Golden Temple.

We had a bargain for the hotel price and got a deal of 1K for 1 night, but to those who are less luxurious and more adventurous, you can crash at the Golden Temple, all you need are two blankets. You will also get 'bhog', so meals are also free. We found this out only after reaching there.

I have finished reading 'Scarecrow' and would give it a solid 8.5 out of 10. It is a solid action packed thriller with never a dull moment. Here we have a new protagonist alongside Schofield, 'Aloyisus Knight', the bounty hunter 'black knight'. His character was a darker protrayal of Schofield, a what-if character if Schofield didn't have such great luck in his missions and came out only with his life and the whole world against him. It was great. Its a good read and for spoilers, the love interest of Schofield, Libby Gant dies near the middle of the book.
So right now, I don't have any new books to read. (Memo to myself: visit the book showrooms this weekend for new resources)
And as a result of my consecutive weekendular outings, I didn't get a chance to watch 'Fast and Furious', but I've heard it's great. And also, seems like that season has come again when I get regular scolding from my managers. In fact, just while writing this entry, I had a round of the scoldings. :(

Something more...

2009-04-01T06:29:00.000-04:00

Again posting after a very long time. Well a few things have happened during this time, but nothing exceptional.
My 1 TB WD hard disk crashed and burned. I lost about 550 GB of data. WD only replaced it with a new one, but farewell to my precious.
On a weekend, went to see an English and a Hindi movie on the two days. The English one was 'Underworld: Rise of the Lycans'. I would give it a 4 out of 10. To tell the truth, I had high hopes for this prequel, following the smartly made earlier movies of the series. But I was very much dissapointed. It was plain and simple oppressed (lycans) versus the oppressors (vampires), just in a new vessel. And the vessel wasn't even polished.
Then it was '13B'. Watching this movie, I was pleasantly terrified. The movie also had many comic moments, not letting it slip into a rally of silences and screams. I would give it an 8 out of 10.
Also, I have finished 'Contest' and it was a good read. It was full of action right from the word go. The plot is mainly about a gladiator-like battle between 6 sentient species in New York Library, one of them had broken the rule of the contest by bringing outside help and how the human and his daughter survives the contest and the Government people waiting outside in the end. This begets a score of 7 out of 10 from me.
And also, I have just started 'Scarecrow'.
Well that's about it. And I am returning to my home city this weekend, I had to pay too much plane fare due to my idioclevery (idiotic clevery).

Last Saturday...

2009-03-05T12:01:00.000-05:00

Well this blog is mainly about last Saturday as nothing much happened in my life after that and due to my infinite lazyness I was unable to pen this down before.

On Friday I came to know that I was needed for the internal cricket match deciding the 3rd-4th place in the tournament. Well, as only 4 of our teams frontline 11 players were available and most of the others were unwilling to play, I was chosen as the last person [:p] (It had happened to me once before, when, since being an extended weekend due to a holiday, most of the players were unwilling to play that weekend, and so I was drafted for a friendly).
So I had to wake up very early on Saturday and go to the office, wherefrom we went to the stadium a good 15 km away (supposedly, it once held a Women's World Cup match). Our captain had told me to wear all whites, which was inpossible for me, so he handed me a white t-shirt there. We had batting first. In the previous match, which my first ever outing wearing full cricket gears (Yes, I have never once had a net practice session), I had scored a 2 ball duck [:D]. In my defence, I'd say that the ball skidded through me because of uneven bounce (To believe or not to believe, that is your option). So this time I didn't dare to ruin the match for my team (See I'm a good team player [:p]), though our openers put a century partenership and there was no chance of me going out to bat. We had amassed 174 from our stipulated 20 overs.
In the bowling segment, I was placed at fine leg, within the 30 yard circle (to be within this circle is an honour in itself, at least to me). And most surprisingly, I didn't mis-fielded a ball (owing mostly to the fact that in the whole innings no ball had come to that area!!!). The match ended in a cliffhangar and we won by 9 runs.

After returning to office I went to see 'The Pink Panther 2' ALONE. I couldn't convince anyone in the office and my room-mate told me that he couldn't follow the dialogues while watching at the theatres. So ultimately it was a one man show. Again to start of, I'll give it a solid 7 out of 10. The ensemble of cast was great. All of them well established actors who proved that they can go head to head in comedy with Steve Martin. Story was good and the sequences great. Though the direction needed a bit of work. I found that once we had the repetition of same dialogue by Alfred Molina. And Ash had more role to play than anybody had imagined. Spoilers ahead: Ash was the mastermind behind it all.

Also I finished 'Temple' by Matthew Reilly. I would rate it at 4 out of 10. There were many discrepancies and grey spots in the story. e.g., If the Nazis had the full book, why didn't they figure out that the idol was not in the temple? (Anyone who has read this book would understand). There were also many redundancies. Although, I was impressed by character protrayal of the main protagonist William Race. I had read the series of the author's other two main characters viz. Shane Schofield and Jack West Jr, so I had started with some trepidation asto how good this character would come up. But it completely fulfilled my expectation and then some.

So now I am on to 'Contest', Matthew Reilly's first novel. Let's see how this turns out.

P.S.: I have started a Flex blog: flexelf.blogspot.com

'Yeh Delhi hai mere yaar' (This is Delhi my friend)

2009-02-22T10:42:00.002-05:00

Well, FYI, the title comes from the popular title song of the recently released hindi movie 'Delhi-6'. This post will mainly be based on its review.

Last Saturday, our office organized a family event consisting of a movie of our choice (Delhi-6 or Billu), followed by lunch at our cafeteria. We had to vote for the movie and Delhi-6 was decide by 94% of the employee (I couldn't figure out how Billu even got the 4%). And the show timing was fixed at 10.45 in the morning.

Now for the movie, I am going to give it a 6.5 out of 10 (and behold, *spoilers* ahead). The actors were true to there roles and Sonam Kapoor looked extremely beautiful. The first half of the movie was very slow and the story of the movie moved at snail's pace. The songs were badly situated and only the title song was of any essence. The second half had much more gusto. Ending with the anti-climax.

The movie is about an NRI, who comes to Delhi with his grandmother so that she could visit it one last time before she dies. And he eventually falls in love with the nuances of Delhi. And ultimately gets himself misjudged and shot in a communal riot. As with ROM's previous film (RDB), I had hoped that the film would end with the death of the protagonist. But here came the anti-climax. After a brief chat with his grandfather in limbo (his real-life dad) he comes back to life.

The movie was thorough;y enjoyable, whenever a sad or tragic moment started to rear its head, a light hearted situation arrived. As with the director's earlier film, there also was a recurring theme running at the background, this time it was the 'Ram-leela'. Another important character of the movie is the 'kala bandar' (black monkey). See this movie to find out the importance of this character, who was never seen in the movie.

After the movie we went to the office and found an array of delicacies served to pamper our taste-bud. But those remained till our sights only. The dishes were not as scrumptious as they looked.

Also, still reading 'Temple' and will post its review when done. Also as an update, I have started a new blog on Flex and post the url as soon as I get over my lazyness and post something of notice there. Signing out...

Hi there, anybody reading???

2009-02-16T07:04:00.003-05:00

Back after a long hiatus and I am damn sure no one missed me. Just check out my follower list [:P].

After the last post, I had made a quick trip to my home town to attend a wedding. The plane fare was damn cheap at that time, so I cancelled my Rajdhani tickets and took a one and a half hour Indigo flight. And I saw someone at the wedding .

I also had a visit to the Kolkata Bookfair (I hadn't planned this, but I was lucky that it was still on). This time the book-fair was held at a ground away from the city center, and I also noticed that the ground was way smaller (previously it took 2 days to completely see the fair, whereas this time it took us only about 2 hours). FYI, I bought 'Complete Short Stories of H.G.Wells' and Matthew Reilly's 'Temple' there (so that leaves me with one Matthew Reilly book left to buy: Contest).

But after this, I was at my home the whole weekend with food poisoning [:(].

Now again back to Noida. I had missed an office outing to movie and dinner as I was away (double [:(]). And also my room-mate is not keen to go to English movies at the theatres, so no movie updates (I was not able to make myself go to the new Hindi movie releases).

Then the V-day came and gone away. The secrets in my heart remained where they were (or are there any secrets at all? [;)]).

I have finished the sequel to 'Seven Deadly Wonders', 'The Six Sacred Stones' and I would have to say that this was good. But it ended in a cliffhanger which should be solved by the sequel 'The Five Greatest Warriors' in October this year. Looking forward to it. You can look at the details and synopsis of this book by following the link and I would give it 7.5/10 (a new system I'll starting for quantitative rating). Now, I am into 'Temple'.

As a follow up of the previous blog, I have discontinued Travian [:P], as it was taking much of my time. And to any Flex enthusiast who stumble upon my blog, deep linking does not work in localmachine, it would work only after you deploy it at a server. I had wasted an entire day trying to find out why the deep linking code i had written didn't work (I am thinking of starting a new blog on my ever-growing Flex experiences, let's see).

CC2C and Travian (no flashy title came to mind)

2009-01-20T06:34:00.000-05:00

Last week I saw 'Chandni Chowk to China' (CC2C). Well, every people I got review from said that it deserved the one and a half star that it got from TOI. But to me it seemed rather fine. The story had an English movie kind of feel (it is a Warner Bros production after all) and Akshay was good. Deepika looked gorgeous and you get to have a double dose of her, although her acting abilities seemed wanting. All in all a moderate watching experience, not so good and definitely not bad.
I am now hooked on to a MMORTS game: Travian. (Previously I had tried Inselkampf, TribalWars etc. Let's see how long this one lasts)
Contrary to popular beliefs, I also take part in real life game activities. Almost regularly I play volleyball (in our office ground) and it has led me to believe that I may become good in other things after practice (yes, I am good at one or two things) but like dancing I will not ever be able to play good volleyball.
P.S - I also play a little TT and I think I am good at it (though I cannot hold my own against better players).

The TV Episode

2009-01-12T11:14:00.000-05:00

This post is going to be very short and it is mainly an anecdote.

I had reached here last Monday and on that night my Onida Neo-Black 21" CTV went bust. It wouldn.t even start. I searched for my warranty card. It said that I had 1 year warranty (I had bought it on 21st June last year) but it also said that I had to sent a portion of the warranty card within 10 days of purchase of the TV. So I was preparing for he worse. But I gave it one last try.
I thought about calling up the store from where I had bought the TV and ask if they could help me. But their phone rang on. I then called up the Onida service center for their Anual Maintenance subscription and after calling three guys, the last one told that the maintenance charge for my sat was 790 bucks and took my complaint. I braced myself for the monetary set back.
Since I had some work at office, I gave the responsibily to one of my room-mates and left.
After coming back, I found out that they hadfixed the TV for FREE. They had only asked for the bouying receipt for the date of purchase, and since it was within 1 year they had not charged anything (they had to even change a chip).
So, long live ONIDA.

Looking forward

2009-01-06T09:37:00.001-05:00

Wish every one of my readers (I hope that it should be more than one) a great year ahead. Looking forward to an exciting year myself (I read in a horoscope column that I would be head-over-heels in love the 2nd half of this year; keeping my fingers crossed).

I had returned to my hometown this last vacation and from there went to my brother's place. Had a gala there.

Seen the 2 Khan movies.
(Quick review:
RNBDJ: Anoushka was superb considering this was her first film, story was good.
Ghajini: Typical South-Indian movie with gruesome violence and songs sprinkled here and there. The implementation of 'Memento' concept was nill.)

Completed another Matthew Reilly book: The Seven Deadly Wonders. Finished it in train itself. That's it, a good one-time read.

(Will try to update the blog regularly but, as my close ones would know, I am more lazy than you can imagine...)
So au revoir (soon, I guess)

A long long time...

2008-12-12T08:58:00.002-05:00

I have been not able to update my blog due to various reasons, one of them being work. I had been nagging about not getting anything to work on, but someone somewhere must have heard this and I am now under a pile of work (though it could also be that I am very lazy and tend to delay stuff). As a result, I am warning the readers (the few who still dare to read my blog) that this will be long one.
Many things have happened in the past two half months including three trips.I will try to be more informative than narrative about these trips. Also I have just completed the 5 books in Hitchhiker's trilogy.

1st trip (Manali):
Went to manali during the extended weekend of the Diwalis. Boarded a bus from of UP tourism from Delhi at night and reached in the morning. Fare was nine hundred odd bucks for the AC bus. We had booked the hotel through phone and one reaching there were given an offer we cannot refuse. A honeymoon package was offered for three of us guys. It had sight-seeing for 3 days and dinner for three nights and its cost was around 8k. Note here for future Manali visitors, before accepting packaged deals, do check with the car rates near the tuorism office.
The first sight seeing was to Rohtang Pass. We had gone there in the late October and heres an advice: You do not need to hire any clothes from the road side stalls. If you have a good, thick jacket, it would suffice. I, myself had a t-shirt and a full-sleaved sweater on my upper body. And also the impromptu ski-trainers are available there. Also the mules available at the base of the pass are a dud. If you do not have any walking problem, do not take them.Also, at a little lower level, there's option for para-gliding. (We could not do this because of shortage of funds).
The second was to Manikaran and on the way we did a 3 km rafting. It was a great experience and costed us 350 bucks per head. So again check with some local agencies at Manali before. Also there's a large showroom near Manali for shawls and other such stuff which offers a great variety and good discounts.
And the third composed of local sigh-seeing.

2nd trip (Jaipur):
We went on a whirlwind weekend trip to Jaipur. It was the Indian version of a bachelorette party. Four of us guys accompanied a brother-sister duo for a trip before her marriage.
We hired a car, which was with us throughout the trip. On the first day, we visited the Nahargarh and Jaigarh fort, with the latter housing the world's largest cannon (the kings at this place didn't had much thing to do, so built this and it was used only once to measure the range of it). In Jaigarh, a local security guard described us the history of the fort and we gave him a token tip at the end. So don't fall for any guides in these two forts.
The next day we went to the City Palace, Hawamahal and the Amber Fort.

3rd trip (Corbett National Park):
This was also a weekend trip. Train was at night from Old Delhi to Ramnagar. At first we had to apply for an overnight stay at one of the forest rest houses. Luckily we got three dorms at Dhikala, at the heart of the forest. There were also day trips to other parts of the forest and also a canter trip to Dhikala (6hrs safari). We had to book a gypsy for entering the forest and the overnight stay which costed around 2.5k. Dhikala FRH is surrounded by electric fence and its gates close by 5.30 in the evening.
Close encounter with the big feline kind:
Here I delve into two incidents which occured there. This part is not informative, but as this is my blog I am taking this liberty.
On the first day after lunch we went on a 4 hour safari. There is a tiger spotting place near the FRH which is a blind road going upto a small creek with long grassyland on both the sides. So we reached there and saw a hog deer. We were OOH-ing and AAH-ing seeing it, when suddenly we heard a roar. We all were silent. Then again and closer. Then again and still closer. Then for a fourth time and this was about 10 m from our gypsy. But due to the grass we could not see her (why specifically female, I'll tell later). She stopped there. Then about half an hour passed, we were all silent in the car, so as to catch a glimpse of the magnificient beast. But at last our guide said that she must have gone the other way after seeing the car. Dissapointed us moved on with the safari. That evening, a short documentary was shown at the FRS about tiger and we found out that a tigress' mating call is very similar to the roar we heard in the wild :p.
The next day, we went on an elephant ride, early in the morning. Our extra-paka (a Benglish word, only legible to Bengalis) mahut, found a fresh tiger track on the road and started following it. He followed the tracks into dense shrubbery, filled with spider nets. After about half an hour we emerged into a well-trodden road to find another dumbstruck elephant ride. They had just seen a tiger cross that very same road. Which meant that, we had pursued the tiger all through the jungle, only to let that other elephant riders see him.
So as result we had only seen four types of deer (spotted, sambar, barking, hog), monkey, langoor, wild boars, white kingfisher and a brown fish owl.

QoS: Many critics and also many of my fellow workmates have said that they did not like this movie. It was because there were no cool gadgets, no death defying car chases, no supernatural stunts (like surfing on an Arctic wave in DAD) and to top it all, Bond had no suavity. Well to remind other like-minded people that this is Bond's second mission and throughout the whole movie he was hell-bent on taking revenge. But towards the end he realized that revenge is not the answer (the chareacteristics of such a conflict was nicely portaryed by Daniel). So we'll definitely see a more suave Bond as the series progresses and also the return of 'Shaken not stirred'.

Hitchhiker's: The series has ended superbly with all the pieces falling nicely into places but still leaving many endings for the reader's imagination. Let's see how Eoin ends this one.

The day before yesterday we had a fire drill. We had to evacuate the build within 3 minutes and we took only just above 12 minutes to do the stuff [:D] [:D] [:D].

Food for thought: We had all said that the Mumbai Massacre is disgraceful and so and so forth. But what change will this really bring to our society and daily life?

Puja Puja Puja Yay Yay Yay

2008-10-20T10:39:00.001-04:00

I spent an AWESOME Puja at Kolkata this year. There not much Pandal-hopping but mostly 'adda deoa' with school and college friends. There was also a treat at '6th Ballygung Place' which I gave to my family and they had the nicest of bengali food I have eaten at any restaurant. And before returning I gave my TOEFL and without any doubt 'chhoralam'. I am using so much bengali words because I am still in my bengali mode after returning home for after such a ling time.
After coming here I didn't have any time for myself in front of the computer with all the dinner invitations and such, so here this is after a long time.
Planning for a trip to Manali next weekend, let's see.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Whenever we see a girl dejected, we think that it is us boys' fault for her being so. Do the girls think the same about boys?

Something new, Something tasty

2008-09-20T08:18:00.002-04:00

Back after a long time... I am not getting much downtime at work with 3 mainstream product and a side project given by my manager. So here I am after a big break.
We go out for lunch from our office a lot. We are regularly having one or the other occassion. So I have eaten in a lot of restaurants here and thought about including a small reveiw of those.
Last Thursday, we went to 'Desi Vibes'. I have to tell you that the management is awful. We had booked for 16 people and on arrival we saw that they have reserved a place hardly comfortable for 8 people. Then after much waiting they prepared a place just large enough for all of us (although a few of us had to go for a buffet at the table). The food was not good, at all and I am not going to add but-this-and-that-was-great.

I am reading now 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' and have gone through about two and a half books of this 'trilogy of five'. The first book was great, the second one good and the third one has not yet been able to impress me.

Will be going to my home place at the start of the coming month and enjoy a long break there? So keeping my fingers crossed...

3 Books...

2008-08-27T03:41:00.004-04:00

YES... I not only watch movies, I read books too!!!

I read two book by Matthew Reilly: "Icestation" and "Area 7". Both are centralized on the main protagonist Shane 'Scarecrow' Schofield and his marine team.
They are a good one-time read, but no repeat value. They are like Hollywood movie scripts, filled with explicits, violence and graphic description. And I repeat again, 'they are a good one-time read'.

The third one is from one my favourite series: Artemis Fowl and The Time Paradox.
This is an entertaining story throughout, where Artemis is pitted against his former self when he was 'twice as ruthless'. Older Artemis was beaten time and again by his former self who reminded us of the good old BAD Artemis from the first book. Then at the end we come across an old nemesis who started all this time paradox. The story was wrapped up nicely (especially the time paradox) leading to the beginning of a 7th installment (YAY).

Yay to me !!!

2008-08-11T03:59:00.004-04:00

Adobe gave a beer bash on yours truly's birthday. I am not kidding. Ask any other Adobe employee, he will tell the same. It was like our Freshers' Welcome DJ Night, only it was open air, water was falling and there was unlimited beer. I danced at the rain dance despite being feverish, and I think now I have caught a bad cold [:P]. The party was a blast with most of the new joinee-s also present there. So I had a grand night on my birthday.

Yesterday I saw "Singh is Kinng". It is a good movie. But something was amiss. The actors played there parts well, Akki was as usual his charming self and Kat looked ravishing. The songs were unnecessary. They had no place in the film. I liked only "Jee Karda" and the title song.

So, TTFN.

Do you know the meaning of mundane???

2008-08-01T07:00:00.003-04:00

I am living the life of a pure office worker. I reach wake up, get ready for office, reach office at about 10 o'clock, leave for home again about 10 o'clock, go to sleep and the process re-iterates. If anybody else has a more uninteresting life than mine, please inform me; let me bask in the glory that I am not the most pathetic person on earth.

This blog will contain 2 movie reviews:

Wanted: A cinema which had a huge potential. Under good director it could have been a block-buster. The sequences were well shot, but the concepts were badly presented. The story-telling was bogus.

Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na: This is an ideal cinema which portrays the effect of society on our personal lives. A boy and a girl who were bestest of friends had to marry in the end because of peer pressure. Although both had found their respective pairs, due to constant nagging for friends and family they started seeing each other in a different light. This movie has been a huge hit and so from now onwards the friendship between a boy and a girl will be seen from a cupid-al point of view. The cinema was roughly divided into 3 parts: comedy-serious-comedy. Comedy: Boy and girl are good friends, they find their matches; Serious: Family and peer pressure; Comedy: Boy gets girl.

This was my take on two recent films from genres which are poles apart (just think of my condition after watching these two films back to back).

Why... so... serious?

2008-07-19T07:53:00.004-04:00

The last few days have been very hectic for me. Shifting from one place to other, setting up my stuff there, and not to mention the three projects that I am working on at the office(although I bungled a submission and had to redo it :D).
We have taken an Airtel broadband at our place and it is giving some trouble. My plan to download torrents all night is in shambles.
But the main thing is I saw 'Kung Fu Panda' yesterday and 'The Dark Knight' today. 'Kung Fu Panda' is a good movie and a must watch for animation lovers and about the second one I have no comments. You have to see the movie and taste it first hand. The only question that's left is who will play the joker better than Mr. Ledger?

A little more green please...

2008-06-30T01:49:00.003-04:00

No, I am not going to talk about Global Warming and Greenhouse Effect (though it is a serious matter and I recommend everyone to watch 'An Inconvenient Truth'), this is about 'The Incredible Hulk'.
Last Friday, after a grueling day at the office (from playing Cricket and TT), one of my friend and I went for the night show. The Hulk could be a little more greener. Though the anatomy was life-like (unlike the earlier version) but it lacked the tell-tell green colour of Hulk.
The film was fair to good, I would say, but there were some discrepancies. Why did Bruce Banner jump into NYC from the copter? He had no reason to feel guilty. Why was there a change of heart in Gen. Thaddeus Ross at the end of the movie and immediate reversal?
Tim Roth did not match as a villain and Bruce Banner never learned Parkour or martial arts.
Unless the other Marvel superheroes collaborate, this franchise will not sustain long (a hint of which we saw in the last scene) and for those who have missed the last scene of 'Ironman', watch it.

The O-Days and other stuff...

2008-06-25T08:03:00.003-04:00

We had our orientations on the 17th, 18th and 19th June. The sessions were filled with boring but informative lectures ( I learned how to save my taxes, where to run if our office was hit by an earthquake etc.) and games.
The games were clay-modeling, egg-breaker, quiz etc. We were all separated into different groups, and the winning group was given gift vouchers from Pizza Hut. So during the break on the third day, all the coupons were pooled together and we headed for Pizza Hut. During this expedition we forgot that we still had a session left and reached for it 1 hour late (Some of us were even thinking about a mass-bunk: (sigh) the old habits of college are hard to die). We got a good scolding at the session about punctuality (Think what would have happened if we went through our plan, it would have been the first time history that Adobe had fired people en masse :P).
My team did not win any contests, but my luck looked up when I won a random lottery on the last day and got a box of chocolates :D.

I will soon be changing my place, there are some problems that I am facing. So I have started looking for a new house theoretically. This time I am looking for a 1 bedroom apartment so that I can live in it as I want. So to all the readers, if you do have any such information, please contact me.

P.S.: I have bought an Onida 21' colour TV and a 1yr Dish TV subscription :D and I am not at liberty to speak about the stuff I am working on here (SORRY).

Yaaawwwwwnnnnn.....

2008-06-11T01:16:00.003-04:00

The last few days have been very lazy for me. I am just going to the office, goofing around and then returning to my hotel. But my manager have told me that I will be assigned a project within this week. So keeping my fingers crossed.

We have rented a house (1st floor, 3 bedroom), about 3 km from our office and have signed the agreement at last. So searching for a shelter is on hold for now. Some of the clauses that the landlord has put forward is not suiting us, so we will be looking for an alternate accommodation as soon as we settle down.

Yesterday our team went out for lunch, our Computer Scientist had a child (APPLAUSE). We went to 'lemon twist' and I ate to my heart's desire.

So I am now looking forward to whatever project I am going to be assigned....

Noida at last!!!

2008-06-06T06:11:00.003-04:00

The last few days has been spent on setting up my base at Noida, finding house here and finding my place at Adobe.

First things first, my IPL predictions. If Rajasthan Royals had co-operated it would have come true. They beat the Mumbai Indians, ending their chance for a semi-final birth and beat Chennai Super Kings at the finals. So, if it wasn't for the RRs, my predictions would have come true. (Although CSK going to the finals came true)

Came to Noida on !st of June via Kingfisher airlines which was a treat for the eyes [;)]. Adobe arranged a guest house for some of the new joinees to put up for 14 days. The room had AC, TV, fridge [:D]. So, I was and am very happy.

The first day at the office was spent filling up forms, and then I was introduced to my team-members. I have been allotted a large cubicle and a Dell workstation.

The first few days are lazy for me, just reading up some languages and finding out about some softwares to use. No hands on work for me yet. So most of my time is spent surfing the net, chatting and Orkuting.

That's all folks.

Last few days, Indiana Jones, Flu and a fond goodbye to Kolkata

2008-05-31T01:33:00.003-04:00

The last few days had been very incident full for me. I was not able to remain a full day at home starting from the end of my semester. Today I had not planned any appointments for a reason which you will soon come to realize. Well most of the last 2 weeks had been spent after my college project, running to and fro Chingrihata and and 'adda' at South City. I kept aside 2 days to meet my school friends, and both days were not fruitful. And so on...

One more thing, on 25th June we (14 JUCSE guys) went to the Eden Gardens Stadium to watch the KKR vs KXIP match. Those who have seen it can understand our excitement and for those who are ignorant, I cannot quite express the feeling.

The 4th installment of Indiana Jones is superb, though as we were watching at a 2nd grade hall we could not quite grasp the explanations and deductions. In spite of that, we enjoyed it thoroughly.

For the last few days, I am down with flu. How I went and saw the movie yesterday was a miracle. Mom is a bit tensed with my ailment.

And now to the final part. I am going to leave my hometown Kolkata (where I have spent memorable 22 years of my life) and going to Noida (which I hope will also be memorable, but it cannot beat Kolkata) for the beginning of a new chapter of my life. I am going to join the Noida campus of Adobe. So leaving all my old friends behind, and hoping for making new friends I embark on this journey to whole new uncharted territory of my life. So keeping my fingers crossed.

And to end this post, I guess Noida also has internet connections and I will be able to update my blog. So for the few who care to read my blog I will keep this blog updated as often as I can.

2 summer-busters busted

2008-05-19T06:33:00.003-04:00

The 2 films that I watched were 'Speed Racer' and 'The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian' and both of them sucked.

The performances of actors in 'S R' were pathetic, the only ray of sunshine were the CG done marvelously by the Wachowski brothers. The set remained true to the original anime. Although, at the end there was an Ekta Kapoor like twist.

'P C' was too slow. The last 30 min were good. So if the director stretched the last 30min a bit and contracted the first 1.5 hrs, it may have been better off.

IPL, Iron Man and more...

2008-05-07T13:44:00.003-04:00

My IPL predictions:
Final: MI vs CSK
Winner: CSK

The last 2 weeks have been hectic for me, dividing the time between giving my final semester exams and watching movies at the cinema hall.

After 'The Spiderwick Chronicles' it was 'Horton Hears a Who!' at the South City Fame. This was my first experience of this multiplex. The whole hall had 7 people: 2 couples and a triple (us). The characters of Horton (Jim Carrey) and the Mayor of Whoville were memorable (Steve Carell).

Then it was 'Iron Man'. This is a must watch for all comic book fans. Robert Downey Jr. was great in the lead. And the Iron Man was marvelous: Boys and their toys.

There was also a third installment in the form of 'The Forbidden Kingdom' bringing in the 2 martial arts greats (Jackie Chan and Jet Li) together for the first time. I liked the plot and the ending very much and the fight sequences are a treat to watch.

In the upcoming weeks, several summer releases beckon. So I will be kept busy.

Movie Update

2008-04-25T05:18:00.004-04:00

Yesterday (24th April, 2008), we decided that we would go see any movie which is playing at New Empire. So after giving 2 class tests, we were there. It was 'The Spiderwick Chronicles'. It is a movie based on fantastic creatures like Ogre, Troll, Faerie, Pixie which live in the forests of UK. The film was decently made with excellent special effects. Though I have not read the original book, I could figure out that this was a poor adaptation. The original story may have contained more potential. Freddie Highmore as both Jared brothers has done a commendable job and watch out for the hilarious Hogsqueal character present all through the film and turning out to be the main hero in the end (see the movie to figure this out).

And, to end, recently I came across the news that the 6th installment of Artemis Fowl (Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox) will be releasing soon, so waiting anxiously for it.

The G-Blockbuster

2008-04-08T14:01:00.003-04:00

This was my first night-out with college friends (barring the one time I visited Chiradeep's home).
After much debate at the playground under starry skies it was decided that our destination would be Ghatshila. And not according to the plan we did not reserved our train seats.
So, it was at 5 o'clock on 5th April that I was awaken by my mom to start for the station. Still bleary eyed, I got ready for the journey. Arpan arrived not much later and Chiradeep arrived still later. Finding a taxi after a long time we went on to the new platform of Howrah where all of the others were waiting. The train platformed within a few minutes and we all got adjacent seats (mostly due to our overwhelming mass; we were 22). THe whole journey was intersparsed with loud uproars and snacks from vendors.
The hotel (Bibhuti Vihar) was a bit far from the station and the fooding their was pricey. So we decided to head for a dhaba which was a good half an hour walk. The price there too was comparable and the quality dangerous. Then we started off for Subarnarekha. The local people told us that it was about 1km and 15 min journey. So we went on. Everywhere the locals repeated the same direction!!! So after about 2hrs of walk and having digested everything we have eaten we reached the river. After some wonderful hours there we returned. Kaka was involved in an incident there which I cannot share publicly. On our way back by an auto, we found out that the river was only a 15min walk (literally) from our hotel. In the evening the badminton rally started and it continued until 2am. We had our dinner in the hotel itself.
The next day a group went out for Buruduh dam and Dharagiri falls. We started for the dam after our lunch and met with the other groups there. They had already had a gala time at the falls and were getting ready to return for lunch (at 4 o'clock). There one of the most shocking incidents was about to happen in my life concerning Pinaki which I am again unable to share publicly. We returned and again the badminton championship continued. We went to bed early because of the early departure next morning (meanwhile Chiradeep had lost his 1.2k sunglasses).
Next morning all the mobile alarms started off roughly at the same time and all started packing. The reserved auto didn't come so we had to take help of the hotel manager for alternate transports (the service at the hotel was brilliant). As we had already reserved our return tickets, we had to shoo away the passengers who were occupying our seats and reached Howrah on time. So this was the much awaited class outing that everybody was waiting for.

The M-Adventure

2008-03-31T14:59:00.003-04:00

31st March:
Woke at 9am from Chiradeep's call about some obscure chapter in the class test syllabus.
Reached for class test 10 min late. The seating arrangemnet was just fine for me. Copied the entire broad question from Arpan. :)
Then among the hullabaloo of our union election in our class I started gathering fund for our upcoming Ghatshila trip.
There were some altercations about when and where to buy the train tickets, and it is yet to be solved.

Now the adventure began:
We (Arpan, Chiradeep, Haimasree, Pramit and me) started off for Gariahat "Bhojohori Manna". At the base of Gariahat flyover the bus was fined by traffic sergeant and we left the bus. But after going a few steps, much to our surprise, the bus went on its way. We walked to 'BM' and had a wholesome meal there (thanks to Arpan; why he gave us a treat, ask him).
With an overflowing stomach we started for Rashbihari. We had an appointment with Mensa Kolkata at 6 o'clock. After some persuasion all agreed on walking till Rashbihari (which I think is a good 2 km walk). As a result, on the way I had to give them a Maaza treat.
We reached M.G. Road Metro and none of us were keen to give the test for Mensa. We had just had a full meal, a 2 km walk, all of us just wanted to crash on a bed. After some searching we found out the test center and reached there right on the clock.
The test was lasted 25 min for answering 100 questions. So you can full well understand how it went. On our way back the auto left us about a 5 min walking distance from the Metro station.
And to add to it, a Norwester was on the loose. We reached the station with pelting rain and finally boarded the train for our respective destinations.

(For more info about Mensa-Kolkata contact me)

The Gate-IISc fiasco

2008-03-20T13:00:00.003-04:00

Let me start from the beginning:

Friday: I ultimately decided to open up my machine and give it a good blow job (with my vacuum cleaner of course). I unclipped the processor fan and cleaned it thoroughly. The main problem arose when I tried to re-clip the fan. The plastic part for holding the heat sink and fan to the motherboard broke. I tried to fix it by using Fevi-kwik but it didn't work. I estimated the worst case scenario to be a setback of 4.5k (2.5k for motherboard+1k for memory+1k for HDD).

Saturday: The day for Gate result. I handed over the motherboard to my father who said that he would try to find the part from Chandni. We had a class early in the morning (10.20 is pretty early for me). After reaching college I started finding out about others results. We truly are a bejeweled batch. Many of us got good rankings. I did not remember my Regn no, so I also couldn't ask anyone for my result. My father also called that he had found the broken part.
The teacher bunked our class. So all of us went to play cricket. In the afternoon I went for my project work.
Some of my friends have formed an Eastern music band (Garage Acoustics). They had a function that evening. So I went there straight after project. There was an asynchronous dance performance before theirs (I thought that if we had given a start bit at the beginning, a stop bit at the end and fixed up the baud rate it would have been nice :D). I had already once heard them perform, then they had bungled the 1st song and sung well the 2nd song, here it was vice versa. I think with more practice and stage shows they will ultimately lead to a good band.
I returned home late at night and couldn't lay my hands on my disentangled machine.

Sunday: Recompiled my computer and accessed the net for Gate results. Inexplicably I ranked 319. Another headache. There's a hindi saying "Na ghar ka, na ghat ka".

Monday-Tuesday: Asked classmates about the prospect of getting into any respectable institute. Heard that I can get into IISc-MS (Let me clarify about MS- it is a poor man's ME).

Wednesday: Came to know that last date for submission was 24th March. In evening came to know about that last date for getting the form was 19th (that very day). So I neither had demand draft for online application nor any Canara Bank would remain open for yours truly at that time of the day. Mom gave me a sound scolding for not taking anything in my life seriously. I tried to convince her that I was in fact not keen on going for IISc-MS as it would lead to a life of Professorhood.

Thursday: I gave it a last try and found out that the online link was still active. I scurried to our nearest SBI and after 2 hours of waiting got hold of the most coveted demand draft. Filled in the online form (it took me ages) and went to DHL for dispatch. They told me that since there is a 3 day holiday the earliest it would reach Bangalore was right on 24th. I returned home at 2.30 for lunch exhausted from the day's work.

So keeping my fingers crossed for their acceptance of my application.

The I-Expe.... What the heck......

2008-02-28T09:44:00.003-05:00

This post is just for courtesy. Since I posted the earlier one, I feel obliged to post this also.
So here it goes.

Wednesday:
Left at about 12.15, 228 route blocked, so had to take an alternate route. As all the traffic were detoured through that route it was all clogged up. And then to top it all, at majher hat bridge, the sergeant pulled up our car because I was not wearing the seat belts. He gave us a Rs. 100 ticket.

Reached IIM at 1.30. Found some friends their and started chatting (in Bengali). GD started at about 2 o'clock. I did not quite like our Indore panel ( there were 3 panels in all with 2 panelists each and 7-8 students).

As always I kept mum in the GD (it was a case study about Mustafa and his venturing on his own).

So, the first question of my PI was why you did not speak in the GD and my cliched answer 'I have a speech problem'.
I'm only going to highlight the interview.
Full form of NASCOM, difference between radio and transistors, vacuum tubes, a quality in you that will make you a good manager and a hindrance that will not make you a good manager and so on and so forth.
I bungled both at the GD as well as in the PI.

So ciao.

The G-Day

2008-02-13T02:15:00.003-05:00

GATE - Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering

Saturday: Raining on and on from the morning. After lunch I started feeling dizzy. Went to our other house in the afternoon. Reaching there the main symptoms started. My nose was like Ganga and Yamuna - kept flowing on and on. On GATE admit card it was written that you have to reach at least 25 minutes before start of exam and you will not be allowed inside after 10 o'clock. So I decided to start for the test center at 8.30 am, keeping about half an hour to find the place (I had not reconned the place as in the case of CAT).

Sunday: The whole night went pretty bad due to the cold I had caught. I left for the center at 9 o'clock (pretty fast for me) and reached the bus stop at 9.35 am. After asking a few shop-owners I got the general idea as to where the center was. I started walking. On the way I met a friend, she told me that it was a little far and advised me to take the rickshaw. I took the rickshaw and reached there at 9.55 am. As I was searching for my classroom I noticed that the students were already working on the problems. I thought that maybe the invigilators have given the permission to see the question papers 10 minutes early. Then on the question paper I noticed that the test was of 3 hours duration and I knew that it would end at about 12.30 pm. Then a brainwave struck me: The test was from 9.30 am to 12.30 pm. Damn. I had lost 30 minutes right at the beginning of the exam. But at about 11.15 am I found that I have gone through about 80% of the questions, so I laid down my head for a while as it was paining like sh**. I again started at 11.30 am and completed at about 12.15 pm. So the initial 30 minutes loss was not much of a handicap.
After giving the exam I found out that I had to study our syllabus for the whole 4 years, while I had hardly studied for 4 hours. So GATE aspirants study hard, go through all your subject chapters and do reach the exam center before time.

The K-Experience

2008-02-06T07:09:00.001-05:00

To all the MBA aspirants and the people who care to read this post:

Tuesday:
Some of us friends were gossiping near 8B when I got the news that Wednesday is a 'Bangla Bandh'. Speculation started to surface as to what would happen the next day regarding the IIMs. Shiba told that they would postpone the whole date to the earliest date available which came to be 10th Feb, the G-Day. So ultimately it was decided to call IIM-C and get the news. Got back home and after much 'lyadh' called IIM-C at 9 o'clock. The phone rang on. Filled up the interview form that night and went to bed at 1 o'clock.

Wednesday:
Got up at 9 o'clock and called up IIM-C, a caretaker told that the in-charge has not arrived yet. Downloaded a few comics and again called at 9.45. Found out that the interviews were indeed on. So the process of getting ready began. Mom sent back the car from her school, I completed a few interview form sections (I had not completed it yesterday, like why managerial career and accomplishments, I couldn't think of any) and left at 12.15 . Road was empty and reached there at 12.45 (I was ruing a bit not to have brought my drivers license with me, the roads were perfect with little traffic). Went to admission section and found out that the interviews were being held at the NTB (New Teaching Block). The car was parked near there and father left.

Found an IMS batch-mate(ss) their, and a few others waiting for the afternoon session, students came from IIT-KGP, BIT Mesra, IT-BHU. Interviews were held in the 3rd floor, we went up at 1.30. I forgot to wear my tie. Some people there were mugging up the interview questions like 'Tell me about yourself'.
Panels were divided with me in the 1st panel. They called us in at 1.55 and arranged us for the GD. They are very punctual. Our panel consisted of 10 students (only 7 were present) and 2 panelists (1 Bengali, 1 non-Bengali). The panelists waited until 2 o'clock and gave us our GD topic. They told that we had 1 min to read, 2 min to think and 7 min for discussion. The summary of the topic was industrial development in India.
The GD was good, only 1 case of parallel talks. As for me I only entered twice, both with trivial points. The first time I lost it while expanding and second time I spoke for 3-4 lines. As a whole no contribution in GD.
I was 8th in the serial for PI (in effect 5th), the PIs started at about 2.30. By 3.25, 3 person were done, I was glad they were on a 1st track. Then the only girl for our session entered before me. I was bored to death waiting for her outside. While waiting I read and re-read the Calcutta Times (it was present at the waiting area) and did the Sudoku. She came out at 4 o'clock. I guess getting the only girl they had grilled her to their satisfaction. She had also done brilliantly in the GDs (at the end she asked a guy to summarize the proceedings who had not spoken earlier).
I went in aand they asked me to sit down. The non-Bengali guy went out for a moment.
The bengali guy asked me "What are you doing?"
I replied.
B: I noticed that you were starting to tell something in the GDs but failed to do so... (they are good at this because in earlier mock GDs none of the coordinators were able to figure this)
Me: I have a speech problem
B: But if you join us you would have to speak.
Me: I have this problem from very early on, this only occurs st first, but after acquaintance this reduces.
(More on this subject...)
B: How have you done in your 10 and +2?
Me: I have kept around 85%.
B: And in semesters?
Me: Same there.
B: Tell me about yourself, like your hobbies, likes and dislikes....
Me: I am the only child of my parents. My father is a lawyer and my mother is a Maths teacher so I am quite fond of Maths.
B: So you are.... Carry on.
Me: I also like reading sci-fi and detective story books, playing CG and watching TV.
B: So you like Maths. Where does you mom teach?
.......
B: Where should I ask you questions from?
Me: Except permutation and combination, you can ask me from anywhere.
B: Tell me a topic.
Me: Mmmm...... coordinate geometry.
B: Ok draw a hyperbola.
(More on hyperbolas etc.........)
B: Only coordinate geometry?
Me: You can ask me from anywhere.
B: Differential equations?
Me: OK
(More on differential equations..... I got the differential equation of SHM after 3rd try.)
B: Have you done any social works apart from teaching?
Me: Pardon sir.
B: You are a bengali boy, I know you have done tuitions, that is also a sort of social work.
Me: No sir I have not done any social works including tuitions.
B: No debates, drama......
Me: O sir you are talking about cultural extra-currics, I have done a 1 yr course in French. (They have not gone through any of my interview form)
B: This is interesting. Why have you done this course?
Me: First year the pressure of study was less.
B: Why not German, Spanish etc.? Give me the real reason behind you choice.
Me: (Giving an idiotic smile) Sir, I had heard that French is 'The language of love'.
(More on love, France etc............)
B: (To NB) You ask him some questions.
NB: You must have done some programming.
Me: Yes.
(More on debugging, proving a program if it is correct and Euclid's algo....... I failed miserably on Euclid's algo)
NB: Why do you want to choose a managerial career, meaning what motivates you to be a manager?
Me: I have been the CR for last 4 years. I like to take suggestions and take decisions based on them.
(More on CRship, Are your decisions popular, Are you only a titular CR, How were you elected etc........)
NB: Do you read newspaper?
Me: Not much.
NB: Do you watch news?
Me: I keep up to date with the recent headlines.
NB: So there must be some recent issues in which you were interested?
Me: Mmmmm..... The cable snag under the Mediterraneans.
NB: Something with social implications.
Me: Ok, bird flu....
NB: Ok, I can take it as a social issue.....
Me: O, also there is the book-fair fiasco.
NB: Alright, I am not from Calcutta, I do not know much about this, explain it to me.
(More on Calcutta bookfair, lastly what is your view......)
B, NB: Thank you...
Me : Thank you...

This was more or less what I remember right now, will update if can remember.
To readers (if any) give your views on my GD and PI.

N95 8GB..... SWEEEEEEEEEEET!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2008-02-01T09:33:00.001-05:00

Last Saturday I got my hands on a brand new N95 8GB thanks to my mom. It was a sort of a gift for my IIM calls. So I will spend most of this blog reviewing this nifty gadget.

I am still not allowed to take out this on a regular basis because of its whopping 28k price tag, I can take it on a ride with me occasionally.

I am still figuring out the nooks and crannies of this work of art, but my my what a beauty. With its slick piano black finish and a 2.8" diagonal 320x240 px qvga screen the form factor gets a 10 on 10, not to mention its dual slider.

The camera is very good, still pics upto 5mp with many tunings for capturing that special moment (better than my Samsung digicam) and video with near DVD quality capture. So for the amateur photographers and directors a perfect choice and with the large screen they look superb.

The music playback is very good. I was impressed by the loudspeakers (as I was too lazy to unpack the headphones) but then when I added the headphones my view changed. I got a crystal clear audio experience. I had thought about buying an iPod touch with my first salary, but with the 2.8" screen and an 8gb of storage area I am thinking about abandoning the idea. The video playback is crisp with no glitches or hiccups.

The connectivity of the device with computer is completely hassle free (unlike my earlier 3120). You can plug it with the provided usb cable just as your pen drive or using PC Suite after installation.

For the last few days I have only tinkered with apparent features of the gadget, I have not delved deeper into its inner workings. I have only installed a few games and loaded a few music and videos. I have not dared to work it to its limits because of its price. Also I have not yet been able to try out its internet and GPS features as then I have to pay a hefty sum to my mobile service provider (once the WLAN found a Wi-Fi hotspot in ourcollege campus, but I tried in vain to access it).

Though I have found some shortcomings. There is no camera lens cover, I don't know how this will effect the camera in the ling run and I am still finding it difficult to cope up with the new and varied options that I am getting to play with (eg entering an entry to the phone book - I am pretty accustomed with this process with my earlier phone but I have to grope around for a while with this device). Also the big screen is prone to smudges and finger prints. I have searched my whole locality but have not yet found a protective covering for my asset.

But all-in-all an excellent gadget but I do not yet know how it does for its value-for-money.

Now for my daily news, I have just bought my Competition Refresher today which is a rich source about recent affairs (considering my IIM-K call is just a few days away). I have also missed all of the IIM-CSB classes of IMS this week mostly because of my laziness and also an IMS faculty Madhu ma'am.
Still haven't figured out "Why MBA?". I haven't yet got a convincing answer for this. I have to do a brainstorming this weekend about this. What the heck, it doesn't matter much if I do or do not get into an IIM. I am very much satisfied with my campus placement.

A recent trend in our class is now in gaming. Not the computer sort but the physical one. The last semester had seen the emergence of in-class table-tennis and in this semester with many free periods we are seeing the growth of cricket. Today also after waiting in the lab 45min for our teacher we headed for the field. I hired a bat from a local sports shop and we began our match. There was an 8 over match containing only A1 players. I bowled quite well and lasted for 2 deliveries hitting 1 boundary. The next match was also an 8 over match with the A2 players as well. Here I bowled an over conceding 5 runs and batted for 3-4 deliveries. In both the innings I was out in bizzare fashions. 1st innings: ball hit the top of the handle and ballooned up, 2nd innings: ball grazed the inner handle of the bat and was caught behind. From the next day I will open the bat, I need some practice.

No film for the last few weeks due to the hectic schedule provided by IMS and now because of the cable snag in the Mediterraneans no downloading from Rapidshare. I also cannot download via torrent because of the recursive computer problem that I have been reporting. I am going to tear it apart and re-assemble it tomorrow.

I think you have become exhausted reading such a long post (if someone cares to visit my blog that is) because I sure am writing it , so by for now.

Quiet good

2008-01-21T10:58:00.002-05:00

The trip to Nicco Park went quite well. For more pictures you may head to my Picasa web album. As we went in a group we also had some entry discounts (cool). We had a whole day of romping about.

I would get a XP cd tomorrow and format my hard disk. There is something gravely wrong with my computer.

Downloaded NFS - Most Wanted Black Edition, but could not play it because of my computer.

Somethings good, some better

2008-01-17T10:25:00.001-05:00

Got a good score in CAT (99.43%ile) but a bit disappointed not getting the call from IIM-Cal. Okay, no matter, because I am not much into doing MBA. Adobe jindabad.
Going to IMS for GD/PI sessions. Not much help there. Got a kind of a follower there. Its good to feel like a mentor. I am giving him tips and tricks to crack the CAT.

Thought of going to Nicco Park tomorrow. But as luck would have it, tomorrow a company (Ernst & Young) is coming for recruitment. Haimasree is going to sit for the test, so we had to defer it by a day. Now a problem may arise on Saturday: it being a holiday and it being Muharram. So I have to time the plan perfectly so that it could be executed smoothly. So instead of going to Nicco Park tomorrow we heading towards college street to buy some study books (though I have their soft copies, there is nothing like the feel of paper).

My computer is giving me trouble for quite some time. So I may have to format and re-install my windows. Then I will have re-install OpenSuse. Another headache [:(] .

Sigh!!!!!!!!!

2007-11-23T13:40:00.001-05:00

Returning to blogging after along hiatus.
The last few days were not so good for me: will miss the IIM calls by a whisker, mail from hp has not arrived yet, academic wise not going well and love-life is non-existent.
Well, too much of me for this blog,now to general matters.
Bought a new Asus dvd writer (well there I go again, more of me, YAY). Downloaded SoF-Payback, got S-M FoF from a friend, both of which are not running on my rig. There is some major problem with my machine. Will buy a new one with my own money after joining the job.
Also installed OpenSUSE10.2 today after a fight of about 3 hours (PHEW!). Will look into our OS lab assignments this week-end.
No new cinemas soon, so no reviews in the coming blogs. But this one contains one.
OSO : A complete masala movie. The SRK fans will gobble it up. The 6 pack was a downer. DP was gorgeous.

Johnny Gaddar (No really!!!)

2007-09-28T11:38:00.001-04:00

There is only one comment about this film: Don't waste your money on this.

I went to watch this movie due to 'peer-pressure'. I waited for a twist in the film (ala Ek Haseena Thi: This director's previous movie) and I had to wait till the end credits were rolling. According one of those peers the movie is 'flat' and the new comer Neil Mukesh is good for 'eye-candy' but he still has a long way to go.
Dharmendra fanatics will be disappointed as he is only for 1 or 2 scenes.

Manorama

2007-09-27T00:31:00.001-04:00

Few days back I saw Manorama 6 feet under. I have to tell it is a well made film, but I did not like the story that much. Abhay Deol churned out a matured performance at last.

There was much hullabaloo with my predicting India's win with my class-mates. They do not believe in my deductions.

There is no sign of rain stopping today also.

P.S. Yesterday I collected XAT admission forms. I'll have to submit it ASAP.

Continuation

2007-09-25T02:57:00.000-04:00

As I posted earlier, India has indeed won the T20 WC.

More on the other two matches.

Ind-SA:
Expression of Sreesanth after dismissing Boucher.
He was not supposed to dismiss Boucher so early.

Ind-Aus:
Dismissal of Hayden.
He was dismissed at a crucial point of the match playing an uncharacteristic inside out shot, leaving all the three stumps open for the bowler.

India vs Pakistan

2007-09-22T23:55:00.000-04:00

As I had predicted in my personal circle, there is an Indo-Pak final in the Twenty20 WC Final. And I think today also India will win.

Reason for Indo-Pak final:
Rejuvenation of the age old Indo-Pak rivalry

Reason for India winning:
Popularization of T20 in India which is yet to make any headway here.
Stabilizing Dhoni's claim to captaincy.

The last 2 wins of India were more than fair could be deduced from the reactions of Sreesanth from Boucher's bowled out and the way Hayden got out.

I've gotta go I'll update later.

First Blog

2007-09-21T23:10:00.000-04:00

Well.... ultimately opened a blogspot account. This is a big news for me, if you know me you could understand. After getting through all the 'lyads' in life, this truly a commendable achievement (YAY to me). So what to right today........ um........

O I just saw the film 'The Bourne Ultimatum' (1st day 2nd show another YAY). It is a good film. The 2nd half of the movie is the most thrilling and interesting. As always Matt Damon was too good and Julia Stiles looked hot.
All n all a must watch movie to complete the Bourne series.