I have moved....

I always wanted to blog on wordpress but was dodging the efforts and pain to do so!

But finally today.. with lot of time and patience, I moved!

Please do not miss to add your comments/suggestions and even brickbats to
http://vineetasdiary.wordpress.com/about/

The new blog address is http://vineetasdiary.wordpress.com/

And hey do not forget to change your blogroll with the new address :) Read more...

The much needed break :)

Yes! Finally!!

I am going to Ahmedabad for a week. And those who know the place, will know why I am soo happy :D :D

Leaving you all with some famous guju farsan(snacks) items... I bet you just cant eat once :P



Unnn.. No you are not allowed to drool here :)

May be later once I am back with more masaledar stories!!!
Read more...

U and I in this beautiful world.....

I am banned from petting dogs. You know why?? Because Darshit believes that if I get a dog inside our house, I will hardly get time for anything else and dog will replace Darshit !!! Wait! Hold onto your thoughts! It simply means that the pup will become my world with hardly any space left for anyone :P

Now what can I say here? Darshit is so very correct! Even I refrain from petting a pup. But what if a pup comes to me? Oh god!! I will jump and embrace it.. yes.. there is no second thought about it! And this is what happened one day.

The way to my house is via HAL Museum road. A convoluted broad road with no speed breakers. Needless to say, I was going on high speed on that road. For a second, my car could have skidded on the turn. A very small pup that might have just learned walking was crossing this road at its most convoluted turn. I lost my breath for that second. I could have rammed it. Oh please! The pup was saved and I was back on my way. But wait! How can I leave such a small cute little pup all alone? What if somebody else runs over it? NO.. God No!! Immediately I was taking U turn.

The moment I reached the spot, I found a two wheeler screeching to halt just few inches away from the pup. The pup was just too small to be noticed from distance. The two wheeler rider took the pup and placed it on the so called pavement. I got relaxed. Huh! The pup was safe. I again took U turn to start my way back. But the pup was just soooo very cute and innocent. It had already started crossing that road all over again. I just couldn't resist. I just wanted to cuddle it in my arms. I had to stop. I parked my car on the side of the road and took the pup and left him again on the side between the stones. And this time, the pup managed to jump over the stone walls to follow me. My heart melted. I had decided.

But I did not want to give shock to Darshit. I called to ask his permission and said "There is a very sweet, cute little pup all alone on this highway road with no one to take care, I am getting it home! Thank you soooo very much for agreeing!" Yuhuuuu... the pup was sleeping on my purse on the next seat of my car! I drove car with one hand as my other hand was on the pup :)

But I forgot about one thing. There are many stray dogs in my lane who kind of know me :P I mean there is nothing wrong in being friend with stray dogs. I never invite them inside my house. A strict NO! Darshit never allows :( But then even dogs are like us. They never like to see uninvited guest in their area. And my little pup was going to become that uninvited guest. The pup had just entered inside the gate of my house and all the dogs started intimidating this little one. I knew I made a wrong decision to get this little one here. These stray dogs will kill this pup. I gave some milk to the pup and with heavy heart decided to take it back!

Darshit accompanied me. By now, he has got used to all this! And this time, the pup slept in my arms :) We got back to the place with no one to be seen except racing cars! I saw one HAL building in the vicinity. We went there. I requested the security guard of the building to take this little pup inside. He roughly denied!! "Shameless fellow" I murmured. I left the pup near the building and started walking back. When I saw, another security guard taking the pup inside the building. I ran to him and narrated the story. He said "No problem, Thank you!" And took the pup along with him. I felt so relieved and happy to see the pup safe.

I cried on my way back :(
Read more...

Young@Heart - The First step!

I discussed in my last post about Young@Heart club. It was an absolute fun to organize our first meetup! The meetup really consisted of young, younger and the youngest with Mr. Prakash who is touching 60 years being the youngest :)

The discussion lasted for almost 2.5 hours and was really informative. Mr. Jayant who is an outsourced CFO brought out some really interesting point about how to make it a self sustainable group.

Few snapshots of the meetup...

Place in the photo: Woodstock Cafe Joint in Indiranagar.
My take on the place: A perfect place for meetups. The food is very tasty and the ambience is also good.



And finally after lot of brainstorming, we all agreed upon to organize a light fun activity for our older kids (senior citizens is a banned word in our group):D

The next big task is to figure out that light fun activity. Do pour in your ideas for any such activity! That's all for now... Stay tuned for the next update :)

More details about the meetup group can be found @ http://www.meetup.com/YoungHearts/
Read more...

Young Hearts!! Help Needed!

Volunteers Needed!!

I came to Bangalore 6 years back to settle in a job. And since then, I never realized how time flew in a whiff! I always had my hands full of work, fun activities, blogging, outings, movies, celebrations of anything and everything!!

May be I never realized how time flew but my support system (my parents) did feel it. They also had their hands full of things but not of their own! A thing which always bothered me! I had all sorts of medium to entertain myself - facebook, orkut, blog, swimming, work, music, movies, bunch of friends, meet ups, unlimited options for new things in life and the young age! And they settled with my happiness.

Something is going really really wrong here. I felt it so deeply. I had already started thinking of some option. The "Second Innings" idea of the movie "Munna Bhai MBBS" stuck my head and I started planning in similar lines.

We have crèche for small kids and I felt I just needed one for older kids :) Why cannot I have a place where all such people can come together, meet, play, share and may be learn many new things together. I just needed to bring them together, make them meet other like minded people and help them grow younger!

And to some extent, I guess I found one. But I need your help here!! It is meetup group opened in Bangalore. Since many of our elders hardly use internet, the onus is on us to help them join it. And I am sure; we would love to see them growing young!

Check out -
http://www.meetup.com/YoungHearts/

You can as well help by volunteering for this initiative! It hardly takes 5 minutes to become a member and plans to bring all young hearts together and make them enjoy moment to the fullest along with other learning.

Also you can vote for this post on Indivine @ http://www.indiblogger.in/indipost.php?post=8037

Please spread this word to all your friends/elders. Hope to meet you all young hearts soon :)

Read more...

Professionals or Humans?

I never knew that these two terms are mutually exclusive. But few people proved it!!

Lately, I happened to notice few incidents which made me averse to such professionals! To maintain anonymity of the persons addressed in this post, I will not mention their names.

"My friend had to take off from work because his mother was hospitalized. The treatment took more time and so did his absence in office.

Nevertheless, he somehow managed to come to office to finish the piled up tasks. And this is when his boss came up to him and faked "How is your mother?" With least interest to know about his mother, he continued "How much work is pending?". Now this was just to make him feel worse. But the worse was still not asked. And so he continued "Do you have brothers/sisters?, can they try to take off and look after your mother so that you can come to office?"!!!!!!!!

What?! Yes! I was agape to witness this incident. With no words to sympathize with my friend, I continued doing work. May be, I was just being professional like his boss."

Before I could ignore and let go, I came across this incident.

"A friend of mine had a baby boy last week. But unfortunately the baby developed some respiratory infection and had to be admitted to ICU immediately after birth. He took off from office to take care of his wife and the baby. The illness went on for almost a week during which he even tried to come to office to finish his pending tasks.

But yesterday, I came to know that doctors could not save his baby. I had no courage to face or tell him anything. However this news was communicated to his supervisor. To which he sadly asked "Do we have alternate resource?" And I did not have any words to tell!! May be, this time I could not be a professional."

I can never afford to lose my humanity to become a professional. Will you?
Read more...

Avatar - Hyped or not?

"Have you heard of the upcoming movie Avatar?!"
"I am eagerly awaiting this movie!"
"Yipee.. I am going for the premier show."

Yeah I know my friends were kind of all gaga about this movie much before it was released.

"Blue bodied humanoids with a tail and hoping, flying and romancing in a complete unreal world!!!!" Yes! And these were my thoughts. I always wondered how can a not so appealing animated creature on this huge screen appeal me!!

And no wonder, I was among the lots who went when the ticket charges were reasonable enough to spend on any 3D movie! Reason - I wanted to see why it took only 10 years to make an animated movie :P ??

And since I went with my family, initially I concentrated more on my niece who was holding a huge box of popcorn. And Avatar started with the initial introduction to their different world. AND I was completely awed by the size of machines, robots, and the first view of those ugly looking creatures! I gave the popcorn box back to my niece!!!

Jake, the protagonist, and a paraplegic former marine caught my attention from start till the end. Unable to walk with his legs in real life, Jake goes mad to feel in his Avatar body. He runs till he feels the life in his leg and scratches the ground with his toe to feel the happiness which I can not describe here in words. And from here on I was completely into the movie. The impeccable human moves of Avatars, a dream like beautiful world called Pandora, illuminating night with colors so natural, horrifying but so real looking creatures and the fresh feel of the greenest world. You see a dream with your eyes wide open!

Free spirited Avatars, flying like birds, falling free from heights and so harmlessly co-existing with nature leave you mesmerized. The feel so real that I really wanted to know how was it achieved in those 10 years?

In December 2006, Cameron explained that the delay in producing the film since the 1990s had been to wait until the technology necessary to create his project was advanced enough. I felt worth the wait. In Avatar, he twisted movie-making technology, in at least four new ways.

1) Performance/ Motion Capture: 72 to 96 different cameras were rigged up around the set. The floor was marked with a grid, marking the areas covered by each camera. The actors wore special black leotards, with white reflective spots stuck all over. The cameras tracked the movement of those dots, not of the actors.

And later these dots were given life and this required more than a Petabyte of memory which is 10 raised to the power six GB!!



2) Expression Cameras: It is difficult to feel and relate to any animated creature because they do not emote the same way as we do. And to overcome this challenge, Cameron pioneered a specially designed camera built into a 6-inch boom that allowed the facial expressions of the actors to be captured and digitally recorded for the animators to use later.

It captured every slightest facial expression. The dilation of pupil, the quiver of lips, the tension in the muscles below skin! No wonder, the avatars looked so very real.



3)3D Cameras: In Avatar, real humans are set in digitally developed unreal world. To make it appear all real, Camera specialists Vince Pace and Patrick Maxwell made Cameron a light, twenty five kilo 3D camera and just like our eyes, it's got two separate inbuilt lenses, which move and change focus on objects independently. And these cameras combine the images they capture and overlap with the 3D world to make it all appear together and real.

4) Virtual Camera: A simple looking LCD screen with game like controls on it. It displays the virtual world with the supercomputers create and you point on the actors and it shows the actors in the virtual world in their avatars. A complete real time conversion of real actors into avatars!!

Avatar has really pushed the 3D technology to new dimensions. It is difficult to understand the nitty-gritty of its making but atleast after knowing few of the details, I can say with surety Avatar is worth the hype :)
Read more...

My Best Of 2009!!

Before Year-End work in office makes me forget writing, I started off writing this feel good blog! Yes, this blog made me think of all my best days/times in 2009 where I jumped off laughing/enjoying the most. :D

Though generally "Best" is only one, but I am bad at choosing only one winner in each category :)

So here it goes, and the it has to start with Movies (courtesy Darshit - he even made me a movie buff!!!).

My Best Movies of 2009

I must have watched maximum number of movies this year. And this is why I had many nominations in this category ;-) But my best movies are:

1) Chhoti Si Baat (1975)

Yes I watched this movie in 2009. I had watched it earlier but I guess was too young to understand the subtleties of this movie!

And I can say it is one of those movies which is directed much ahead of its age! A classy, subtle humor is very difficult to find in any cinema but this movie is full of such moments! You enjoy every bit of it. A movie you can watch any number of times and still laugh on the same scenes!

And I was really surprised to see this movie listed on imdb!

2) Pretty Woman (1990)

I was little confused here. Confused with "50 First Dates" and "Pretty Woman" movies. I liked them both. I liked them so so much. But I guess I fell for Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman" movie. A character which any girl can relate with. A movie which is so sweet in each of its scene and dialogues. A pretty pretty movie :)

My Best Book of 2009

1) Two states of my marriage

I had option to choose between Shantaram and this book but since I wrote in the begining that these are things which I enjoyed the most and I enjoyed reading Chetan Bhagat's book more than Shantaram.

I like Chetan Bhagat's style of writing. He makes serious events humorous. And the fact that I could relate more to this book is because of two different states of my marriage too :D Whatever said and done, this book is really hilarious and depicts real life events in the most humorous way possible. I enjoyed every leaf, every scene of this book!

My Best Place of 2009

Now this one was tough considering the fact that this was the year of travels. And so I can not choose one place here. So, the best Places are:

1) Kumarakkom, Kerala

2) Pyramids of Giza, Egypt

Riding on camel in the Sahara Desert with Pyarmids of Giza in the backdrop was the best experience of all.

My Best Song of 2009

It has to be "Tu Jaane Na" by Atif Aslam. Take a glimpse here..



My Best Day of 2009

This has to be my birthday surprise party! I was really really surprised and flattered :D

I felt this was the best way to end the year by remembering good memories of 2009.
Looking forward to even more enjoyable moments in 2010. Bye bye 2009!
Read more...

Israel Trip in snapshots!

I know it is difficult but I will try to write as less as possible here :))

I went to Israel with no expectations but returned with heart full of excitement, stories and wonderful memories! See Israel in my words and pics..

Israel is a developed country in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. But you need to use magnifying glass to see it on map :))

As described, it is located on Mediterranean Sea. And we stayed in Tel Aviv, the heart of Israel and ofcourse the most beautiful city as well.

We stayed next to beach.. nothing special as the entire city is located next to beach! The view was just awesome. Have a look.

View from the hotel balcony. I have zoomed little bit.

This beach was not even 2 minutes walk away from the hotel.

Sun is always surreal, isn't it?


Nobody can afford to miss Jerusalem city on the trip to Israel. The MOST DISPUTED place ON EARTH. Have a look.

Jerusalem as viewed from Mount of Olives


The city has a history that goes back to the 4th BC, making it one of the oldest cities in the world.Jerusalem is the holiest city in Judaism and the spiritual center of the Jewish people. And contains a number of significant ancient Christian sites, and is considered the third-holiest city in Islam.

Archeological Remains of Southern Wall.

Pictures telling the story of Jesus.

Place where Jesus was buried.

You will find four religions' quarters - the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim at the same place!! That's Jerusalem. I was truly thrilled to see this place.

Our next destination was Dead Sea.

Dead Sea is the lowest point on the Earth dry surface!! Oh I was so excited to see Dead Sea. They say it is sooo saline that no living being can survive in there. And that is the reason, it's called Dead Sea!

Even after knowing all these things, I wanted to swim!!! What a foolish decision! You can never swim there.. a minute single drop of water can make you run and cry :) And it happened with me. The water is very rich with minerals and salt. So you have to be really careful when you go in.

I had tough time initially but then later started floating. And that was an amazing experience to float in Sea :)

After roaming in Israel, we finally decided to check Eilat. Eilat is the Goa of Israel.

Eilat is Israel's southernmost city, a busy port as well as a popular resort, located at the northern tip of the Red Sea, on the Gulf of Eilat. I was awestruck to see this city. Eilat is desert + Red Sea :)

We tried few water sports in Red Sea. And I will never forget my Parasail and Scuba Dive experience.

Scuba Diving was the best experience!!

After Israel, we started our journey to Eygpt. A complete different country with perfectly contrasting lifestyle and culture as compared to Israel. Meet you with the Egypt story in the next post :)
Read more...

Tit for Tat!

I enjoyed the Israel trip to the hilt. But some incidents left impressions on my mind! And one of it was during our return flight to India.

I was dozing!!! I bet.. You leave me anywhere and I will sleep off! So Darshit was bored as I was not able to give him the much needed company. But then flight journeys are meant for sleeping, atleast I feel so. Dreaming of chat-pati pani puri, all types of chaats, Darshit was counting hours. And I was feeling the dim lights, soft blanket wrapped around me, light Indian classical music and a full stomach.. zzzzzzzzz! So obvious!

Suddenly, a disgruntled man disturbed my sound sleep! His pitch was going higher and higher till it became clearly audible. It caught attention of all the passengers and the crew members including me! I asked Darshit about the matter. He was beaming with anger when he recounted me the incident.

The flight was not completely full. All the passengers were sleeping in their own seats except one Israeli man. This guy had luckily got all the 4 seats free next to him! I had noticed him the moment flight started moving. And envied him too. Obviously 4 seats to sleep for 12 hours! Wow!

Now this person was sleeping on all the 3 seats with both his legs stretched. 4th seat was still empty. Little later an old Indian uncle went and sat on the 4th one. This is when the Israeli guy erupted! He asked the old uncle to leave immediately as uncle's presence was disturbing his sleep. The uncle responded that his seat was in the back side and that he was not able to recline his seat. He continued to sit on the 4th seat! The Israeli guy started calling names! And you know what names - B*****d, F****** Indians and many more. The old uncle didn't utter a word. Since the disgruntled man was still not satisfied, he called the hostess and asked her to ask the old uncle to vacate. The hostess denied doing so as the 4th seat was a vacant seat and anyone had the full right to sit there.

The disgruntled man was not yet satisfied by the drama! He went to the head of the crew members and started squabbling! He warned the airline guys that he will sue them! But still none of them supported him! The old uncle also didn't budge. Obviously he was not wrong. I completely supported him.

Almost for 8-9 hours, this guy kept on cribbing. I could not resist, I also started cribbing about him to Darshit in a very audible manner ;-) hehe! And few times, he even turned towards us. But who fears.. He was very rude to the old uncle without any reason!!

We both didn't realize when time passed! Pilot announced the descending of the flight. I and Darshit were still not able to control our angers. We wanted to belt that guy left right. I started thinking in those lines too. We had our luggage in the overhead bin and the disgruntled man was sitting very close to that bin. I thought while getting down, we should deliberately hit that guy!! Yes!! We should do that! But then I controlled myself and didn't tell my plan to Darshit.

Plane landed. We all got up to get our bags out. 'Bang'!!! Hahahahaha.. it hit that disgruntled man! Oh my god!! Darshit did it!!!!! I laughed instead of feeling sorry! I was the happiest! And I was very proud of Darshit.

We didn't speak of the incident. I do not know if Darshit did it deliberately and I never asked him. I just felt relieved! We can't be always at the receiving side, you see!!! Read more...

Thank God its India!

Huh!!! Yeah I am back after a long, long hiatus. Blame it on my trip to Israel, my house shift, Diwali @ new house with entire family, Darshit's Birthday or Airtel Connection :)) Everything added it's bit to my laziness to write in such agile surroundings!

Believe it or not, after experiencing all the above events, the words that come out of my mouth are 'Thank God its India'.

One day I and Darshit decided to move out of our existing house to a new one! Don't ask us the reason. We both were really excited. And we both were really exhausted. We had just returned from our Israel trip. But then we had to move out of that house before Diwali.

This is when I happen to mention about my house shift program to one of my friend who doesnt stay in India. And... it just added to my exhaustion! She described what an uphill, tiring and frustrating task it was for people staying there! You have to pack, load, unload and arrange things on your own. And it didn't stop there because you do not get such cheap labour anywhere else. So cleaning the old and the new house is your job!

I got jittery! Diwali was just 4 days away and all our family members were joining us for Diwali celebrations!! I was speechless at the very thought of shifting!!

We had only 2 days left to shift when Darshit got a Movers & Packers number who agreed to move the entire house starting from packing, loading, unloading and arranging in minimal amount. Yeah they arranged our house! It was quite a smooth shift as cleaning the new, old house and arranging all small, big items didn't cost us much time and energy. Our family joined us in the new house for Diwali and they were so happy to see such an easy shift to a new place! And within 2 days, we found maid, cook and grocery/vegetables door delivery service! No wonder I was in India. The shift was followed by Diwali and then Darshit's Birthday! And we could manage to celebrate both with a bang! At the end of it, I could only say - Thank god I am in India :) Read more...

Thanks to all my BBs!!

Oops! I missed my 25th post! But I am happy that I remembered it on my 26th blog post :)

I started blogging long back (though was not active previously) but it feels like I started it y'day. Initially I had lot of inhibitions to start this blog! To put it in simple words, I was very lazy (I am sure my friends will be nodding heavily on this)!! But then, I thought a lot.....

And then Darshit and few of my friends persuaded me to write with the precondition that they will read all my blogs!! Lol! Later...



And here I was.. struggling with my diminutive endeavor to keep writing! But initially it used to be like...



But gradually I got some true Blog Buddies who encouraged me to write.. And write what?



And I was on a roll..... writing anything and everything!!



And here came a day when...



Hahaha!

And this was possible because of my Blog Buddies! Kudos to you all :) You all deserve to be awarded for being so nice, patient readers of my blogs! So here goes my award to all my BBs :)


Mohan http://mohanbn.com/blog/
Yogesh http://www.ygoel.com/
Fathy http://goodbadponderings.blogspot.cm/
Pra http://prashansapuranik.blogspot.com/
Nisarg http://nkkinariwala.blogspot.com/
Sumeet http://sumeetshah.blogspot.com/
Vipul http://vipulgrover.blogspot.com/
Smitha http://lifebeginsnourishit.blogspot.com/
Poor Jokes http://www.poorjokes.in/
Brijesh http://chancedencounters.blogspot.com/
Girish http://kewlmechie.blogspot.com/
IP http://republicofdream.blogspot.com/
Sagar http://sagargadre.blogspot.com/
Bhavik http://bhavikchauhan.blogspot.com/
Ashutosh http://ashutosh712.blogspot.com/
Mitr http://flutteringandwandering.blogspot.com/
Nalini http://nali-anny.blogspot.com/
Shruti http://xperiences-in-life.blogspot.com/
Gautam http://lifeaajkal.blogspot.com/
Bhavin http://thoughtsofwizard.blogspot.com/
WorkHard http://bpojobsathome-workhard.blogspot.com/
Ajay http://bvrajr.blogspot.com/
Srinath http://chindi-chitranna.blogspot.com/
Dhimanhttp://dmanji.wordpress.com/

I am really sorry if I have missed any of my blog buddies here! I am passing this award to all blog buddies :)

Happy Blogging! Happy Commenting :P

Read more...

Me, Darshit and TRP :)

'Pati, Patni aur Woh' trailer flashed on our TV in the evening with Rakhi Savant and Elesh also part of it. I grinned when instantly I heard a 'thup' sound. Darshit thumped his head! He was upset. Not because I watch such serials but because of people like me, the serials' TRPs increase! He used to crib on seeing me watch 'Rakhi ka swayamvar' show. But its not that I liked the show or Rakhi (no ways!!), I was just curious. But I guess many people were equally curious because 'Rakhi ka swayamvar' show earned the highest TRP of 3.5 in the history of NDTV Imagine!! And I knew.. I was to be blamed!!

But before I get the blame for the upcoming ' Pati, Patni aur Woh', I thought of finding out how I contributed to this TRP. And guess what.. I was shocked. Read on to find how TRP of a particular serial is calculated. I am sure even you will be surprised.

"Television Rating Points - TRP is the criterion that indicates the popularity of a channel or programme and this data is very useful for the advertisers
Presently, INTAM (Indian Television Audience Measurement) is the only electronic rating agency functioning in India. INTAM uses two methodologies for calculating TRP. First is frequency monitoring, in which 'people meters' are installed in sample homes and these electronic gadgets continuously record data about the channel watched by the family members. 'People meter' is a costly equipment, which is imported from abroad. It reads the frequencies of channels, which are later, decoded into the name of the channels and the agency prepares a national data on the basis of its sample homes readings. But there is a drawback in the technique, as cable operators frequently change the frequencies of the different channels before sending signals to the homes. It may be very misleading to read a channel according to a particular frequency even if the down linking frequency is same all over India.

Second technique is more reliable and relatively new to India. In picture matching technique people meter continuously records a small portion of the picture that is being watched on that particular television set. Along with this agency also records all the channels' data in the form of small picture portion. Data collected from the sample homes is later on matched with the main data bank to interpret the channel name. And this way national rating is produced"

Obtained info from How to calculate TRP

I was happy as well as shocked. Shocked because the so hyped TRP is trash! It is a vague approximation of a value which can be drastically different from reality and I strongly feel it is. Happy because I was exempted and was free to watch 'Pati, Patni aur Woh' :)

And so from now on I would like to give my TRPs to my fav serials:

1) Sarabhai vs Sarabhai (old one.. not aired currently)
2) Man vs Wild on Nat Geo
3) Young Turks on CNBC
4) Now Showing on CNN IBN
5) Lounge on NDTV Imagine

Just for fun, I asked my friends in office about their fav serials and unanimously received one reply 'Making of kingfisher calendar' on NDTV Imagine!!! Hahaha! I guess I should top that one above my list too :P.

You are welcome to add your fav ones too.
Read more...

@ Traffic Signals

"Oh God, I hope I get through the traffic fast today!!" This thought comes to my mind daily before leaving for office. I am sure that you all would agree that even you do not want to get stuck in traffic.. be it a traffic signal!

But that day, I felt otherwise!!

It was an usual day when I started for office in the morning. Even after lot of praying for smooth traffic, I was stuck in traffic @ the signal for 20 mins!! The traffic was snail paced. And I got really bugged of listening to my music in the car. I switched it off and opened the window to feel little better. Small chirping noises caught my attention. These were small children begging at the signal. Some peeping in the car, some persuading two-wheelers' riders, some just roaming between vehicles and one coming towards me! Oh God.. I can't face this. Yes, I hate signals for this very reason.

But thankfully he stopped few cars ahead of me. He was the smallest of all. I thought of observing the entire scene. I was curious to know how others handle this. And this when I saw a hand come out with a packet of Parle-G biscuits and handed it to that kid!! He was sooo happy. He immediately ran towards the pavement and all his friends joined him. I think they all got their breakfast!

Why was I feeling so happy and relieved? Because the boy didn't come begging to me . Yes I was relieved. But this time I was even happier to see this little kid eating Parle-G biscuits with such a pleasure! The traffic started moving, as I moved little further, I saw an old emaciated begger with complete haggard looks struggling to climb slightly higher pavement to save himself from the moving traffic. I had to stop. I stopped next to him to allow him climb with the help of his stick.

And then I moved on! I wanted to give him money. But I couldn't stop. The signal was green and he was so weak that he could have never been able to run and take the money. I know.. I can never justify this to me!

But I know one thing. I do not want these boys to grow old begging their whole life same as that old guy. Mr. Narayan Murthy has mentioned in his latest book 'A Better India, A Better World' - "Children can not concentrate on their studies if their stomachs are not full and there are many such children in government schools."

You must be thinking what can we do?

I am still thinking. But I want to atleast do my little bit. I have seen how much food we waste in our office canteen!! And I am sure that there must be some food left out everyday. We have one Idea center in our office. I have suggested this idea of supplying this food to any one of the government school. I do not know if this is a feasible option or not. But still...!

People say that we should not promote begging by giving them money. I never gave them anything for these 5 years but I still didn't see their numbers decreasing!!

So... I bought some parle-G biscuits!
Read more...

Some more Color Splash!!

This came as a suggestion from Darshit and quite a few friends that I should create a space for my paintings on the blog. And obviously I really liked the idea :) So here are few of my paintings which are still with me! (I moved to Bangalore after marriage and so do not have all right now).

And a special thanks to Sagar who showed me the Diversity@SAP contest where I could submit one of my paintings (A sketch Imagination painting) and one of my poems. And which later got selected for SAP Travel Exhibit and a prize!

1) A Surreal Dream!

This was my first painting. And it has all the hues :)



2)A kind gesture

A colorful gesture which blends to form a painting and depicts the beauty in brush strokes!



3) A sketchy imagination

It shows an imagination of a lover who dreams of his lost love in a haunted palace!


Read more...