Feeling old ..

And in the blink of an eye .. another year passed ..

Beyond the edge.

I recently bungy-jumped from a tower 233m high.

Now, how crazy or how brave or how stupid or how outrageous was it to try something like that, is largely frame dependent, but theres this thing I've been feeling ever since I decided to go up that tower.
It took me a lot of courage to actually go up there, stand on the edge of the platform, look down, and jump, not knowing how I'd feel. But, somehow, thinking of all the good people I've known, and all the good times I've had, gave me just enough strength.

I'd probably do more of such things in the future. And I know, you'd all still be there for me.

:-)

--------------

He-man.

(_ _ _ _ -)

The other day as usual going through the cartoons page in the newspaper, I noticed something on the bottom corner of the page at which I couldn't help but laugh. There was this photo of Catherine Zeta Jones, with a caption saying Catherine Zeta Jones (1969-).
Well, that was just the first time, I've seen some more instances of such references since (regarding other alive celebrities), and if its a norm, I must say its certainly a disturbing one.

It gives an impression almost as if, they're waiting to fill up that entry !!.

Books

In lieu of a getting a substantial free time with no great plans (and possibility thereof in absence of company) recently, I managed to set aside some time for reading.

I read a book called "11 minutes". Call me shallow or whatever, but only thing I remember about this book is that it is excruciatingly boring. I finished it only for one reason. To punish myself, for starting it.

I read "Its not about the bike"; the autobiography of Lance Armstrong. Have nothing but respect, for the man. I have been feeling this utter need to buy my own bike for some time since then. Sometimes during the night I sit on my doorsteps having tea or just staring in oblivion, when this red light flickering on one of the mountains invariably catches my attention. I appears to beckon me [:)]. Anyways, it is often as easy to distract me, as to distract me to something else. Hence, lately, I've been thinking less about it.

Currently, I am reading the 'Hitchhiker's guide to galaxy' series by Douglas Adams. I've completed the first two parts, out of the four. I like the sense of humor used in the novel. At the same time, it gives me a feeling of strange indifference, about things happening on earth. With all we know, its such a huge place. But for a hitchhiker, its just another station. And in the scheme of universe, just a dot* ! (Plus, while earlier I had never given a thought to it, I feel now that its pretty plausible that life may exist on other planets.**). Apart from that, my status message, for quite sometime now, has been 'DON'T PANIC' written in large friendly letters. Weirdly enough, I've tried to remove it a few times; and each time I have done that, the universe adapted itself in such a way that it actually seemed to fit more than anything else.


---------------

* Well don't blame me, thats what the book does to you.
** And this too.

Infinity

An interesting observation. Perhaps things that are 'infinite' don't give a perceptible feel of infinity. Things that are very huge but finite do. Of course, infinity is a well researched topic and with all due respect, getting into confrontation with the mathematicians over it would be the last thing I want to do. But I am just comparing here two feelings: the one of watching the sky; and the one of watching an ocean. Sky/space being supposedly 'infinite', one seems to take its infinity forgranted, and simply credits it less for being infinite. An ocean, on the other hand, being finite, but so huge, tanatalizes us with the curiosity about its actual size. The very knowledge that it is finite and hence fathomable, but the desperate inability to actually fathom it, leads us to believe, that well, this thing is literally infinite !

---------

[:)]

Cake

Well, all of us have heard the quote "To eat your cake and have it too". And whilst I have an idea what it is supposed to mean, there seems to be a pit fall in logic. I think whoever phrased it seems to have assumed that having the cake is as important as eating it; which is not really always the case. If you don't eat it, don't you think having it is useless in the first place [:)] . Secondly, with its limited life, you can't hold it long either; whether you eat it or not. So you might not have the cake even if you don't eat it. And if you ate the cake, it seems irrelevant whether you had it or not [;)]. Hence, since eating the cake seems to carry more weight, the two actions should not be dealt in unison.

And while I was writing this trash, I made a quick check on what Wikipedia has to say about the phrase. Some exerpts from it:

The phrase's earliest recording is from 1546 as "wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?" (John Heywood's 'A dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in Effect of All the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue') alluding to the impossibility of eating your cake and still having it afterwards; the modern version (where the clauses are reversed) is a corruption which was first signalled in 1812.

Comedian George Carlin once critiqued this idiom by saying, "When people say, 'Oh you just want to have your cake and eat it too.' What good is a cake you can't eat? What should I eat, someone else's cake instead?".

Paul Brians, Professor of English at Washington State University, points out that the original and only sensible version of this saying is “You can’t eat your cake and have it too,” meaning that if you eat your cake you won’t have it any more. People get confused because we use the expression “have some cake” to mean “eat some cake,” and they therefore misunderstand what “have” means in this expression.^[1] Alternatively, people understand that "have" and "eat" represent a sequence of actions, so one can indeed "have" one's cake and then "eat" it. Consequently, the literal meaning of the reversed idiom doesn't match the metaphorical meaning.

To sum up, I should go home now.

---------

[:)]

Shopping tip.

A handy shopping tip: Do not shop in a food store when you're hungry. Before you know it, you'll end up buying the entire store. (Someone from inside would keep crying out aloud: I need that.. that too.. oh common, what would I do with just two .. five pack is cheaper......).

Eat something, and then shop. And whenever you come across something that you shouldn't buy, you'll blissfully say .. "No thanks, I am full "..

Always works.

[:)]

Long time !

Well... so as it turns out ... circumstantial evidences point to the fact that this seems to be another one of those blogs .. started with a lot of enthusiasm ... and dying out exponentially..

Not really. There have been some worldy issues, that have kept me from writing all these days, which is a bad excuse, but anyways, I was never good at making them up.

Though at this juncture, I can not help but laugh, at the fact that the current situation reminds me of one of Joey's hilarious dialogues in Friends :

"... You know, when I moved to my new house, I felt it would be great, that I would be able to spend time with my thoughts. But you know .. as it turns out .. I don't have as many thoughts as you think! .. "


[:)]

Hemant

H-E-M-A-N-T.

My flatmate, a Couple of weeks after I moved in :
-Hey Hemant ... Here is a mail for you.
-Let me see. Oh no, its for Ahmed, the other guy. My name is spelt H-E-M-A-N-T.
-Oh, sorry, I couldn't make out from the spelling. I thought both the names are same ??
-(Yeah right !)

At bus ticket counter, while leaving for Sydney :
-Can I have two concession tickets for Sydney in the 8 am bus please.
-Yep, whats your last name?
- Singh; S-I-N-G-H.
-And first name ?
-Its H-E-M-A-N-T.
-Ok, here you go, two tickets.
-Ohh, its written HemanD on the ticket instead of Hemant.
-Ohh, I am sorry. But its ok, they won't give you any problems. They'll just see the last name.
-(Ok, watever.)

At Australian Institute of Sports, while registering for swimming classes :
-Which class do you want to enroll for ?
-Adult beginners.
-Ok, whats your name ?
-Hemant Kumar Singh.
-Okk, Let me just print out your ID card, I'll be back in a moment.
(A couple of minutes later)
-Here's your ID, whenever you come for the class, just swipe it here and proceed.
-Thank you. Ohh.. It should be Hemant instead of Hement. Thats H-E-M-A-N-T.
-Ohh, I m so sorry.I'll be back with new one.
-(Yeah, run along please.)

A few days back, while registering for an internet account :
-What name should I put the account on?
-Hemant Singh. That would be H-E-M-A-N-T S-I-N-G-H.
-Ok, what should I put the username as ?
-Put it as hemant, same as my first name.
-Fine.
-When would it be activated?
-Should not take long.
The next day on phone, talking to technical support:
-Hi, its Hemant here, I had registered with your company yesterday but I am not able to connect to the internet yet. Can you please let me know if the account has been activated yet?
-Ok, tell me your username please.
-That would be hemant. H-E-M-A-N-T.
-Cann't find it on records, sir.
-Ohh, But I had registered yesterday. Can you please check again ? Its H-E-M-A-N-T.
-H-E-M-A-N-D ?
-No, H-E-M-A-N-T, T for Tom.
-Ok, Cann't find it still, sir. Can I put you through to the admin to check with the account.
-Yes, thank you.
(Admin)
-Hi, this is Hemant, I registered with you yesterday, wanted to know if my account has been activated yet.
-Let me check. Yes, it has been activated yesterday itself.
-Oh, But the technical support people say they cannt find the name in their data base.
-Ohhk, let me check.
(A minute later).
-Ohh, I am so sorry, your username has been spelt as h-a-m-a-n-t in our records.
-Duh. (You crazy b**** !!)

The lease holder of my apartment, on a visit yesterday to pick some of her stuff :
-Hey Hemant, there is a parcel for you kept in the kitchen.
-Let me see... Ohh no... thats AHMED, the guy who used to live here few months back..
-Ohh, sorry, couldn't make out from the spelling.
-(Fair enough. Not surprised at all.)


................

For god's sake..!!!!

My name is not even French !!!!

@*%#*^%@#*Australians%&%@#*&@%@$@&%#&

A funny night

For those who're not sure of the title of the last post, I guess I owe an explanation. I wrote the epilogue first because I think that was the most beautiful part. And I wanted to capture it before it slipped away. Also, since we generally tend to read top to bottom(unless we are more obsessed with chronological consistency), this post after being published would anyways precede the epilogue, which sounds about right.

So lets move on to what happened really. Well, for as far as I could remember, I've been mostly sleeping pretty late in the night, without much of a reason. Often, I sleep only when crisis limit based on next day's activities/plans is crossed. For reaching office next day theoretically around 9 am , it could be anything between 2 am to 6 am. What saves me though, is fact that the timings are not really strict and as long as you've not committed any sins, nobody really asks when you come or go. To those who ask me why I don't sleep well at night, I casually answer 'so that I could see more of this world and miss out on less.' Well, many a times, that is, in fact true, but at others, the reasons are not really as involved; or, as I mentioned earlier in the paragraph, they're no reasons at all.

But with all good and honest intentions, I tried to sleep early last night. So that I can have a good start to Monday after a good night's sleep as they say. Early would mean sometime around 10:45 pm.

At 1:00 am, I found my eyes were open. I was still not sure though if I were awake. In due time, I realized that I had been dreaming. About... wait for it ..... lions !!! Lions barging into human territory and taking away kids creating horror all around. But then the camera zooms in and whoaaa!! they're not human kids, they were little cubs. The lions were just kiddin [;)].

Neways, I had a good laugh for myself and moved on with my sincere efforts of sleeping well. But alas, the insomnia had got me yet again. As I lay there, awake, suddenly something struck me. Where is that blue t-shirt of mine which was so expensive and which I liked so much? And I realized I cann't remember seeing or wearing it for a long long time !.. In a matter of seconds, I was ransacking through my cupboards. There aren't many, but sometimes, you wish there were more so that you could just have more places to search. Well, my suspicions were true. The t-shirt was no longer there ! I searched wherever it could be; but didn't find it. Earlier in the day, I had been so happy because I had bought a t-shirt for a mere 5$. Turned out it wasn't that cheap now! Disappointed, I folded all the clothes and put them back again from wherever they were taken off. [Inside track: How dumb can you get ?? What sort of a guy loses a t-shirt?? That too when you're not traveling. AND not sleeping around with women either!! Travel.... ohh I went to Gold Coast. May be I lost it there. Well, I went there about .. two and half months ago. Ok, forget it. I am not losing sleep over a stupid t-shirt. ] . Didn't mean I was going back to sleep though.

I went to the kitchen and made a cup of tea. Now, cann't just sit there drinking tea and do nothing. Some of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. won't hurt. One episode finished. Well, what the heck, just two more to go for this season. Bring 'em on !. Towards the end of the third episode, planning to get some sleep finally, some lines started ringing in my head. Well, yeah, those were a couple of starters, some discontinuous bits and pieces from the poem that I wrote in the previous post. It took me somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes to fill up the missing links. They just, came to me. Don't know, why, sleepless and with no prior intentions, I was still able to get those reasonably in place.

I finally slept at 4:05 am.

In the morning, I got a feeling that I had been drunk all night. But I wasn't !!. It felt ... well .. funny !


....................

PS: That poem has nothing to do with the t-shirt. Or the lions.

(Epilogue: A funny night) .. "Till we meet again .."

I am far, so far,
at this dead and lonesome place.

Its been long, so long,
I've troubles remembering your face.

But dahling, we'll meet,
we'll meet someday for sure.

And say things,
that we've never said before.

It may not matter at all,
May not even be worth a try.
It may hurt a bit,
Could even make us cry.

But atleast we would know,
We'd know what happened... and why.


.........

And may be tomorrow,
You'll be happy
And I'll be happy too ..

But still, I'd be glad
That somwehere back in time,
I met you.

.........

Evolution

- ..And the rest is a history ..

- ..And the rest, as they say, is a history..

- ..And the rest, "as they say", is a history ..


"Philosophy of one century is the common sense of the next"
-Henry Ward Beeche


...............

Scrreeeam for me Sydneyyy !!

Thats what he kept shouting ... And boy.. did we scream !!

A few highlights ..

*The show: to which words won't do justice !

*The crowd: Acer arena's seating capacity:21,000 - Full. Floor- Another 15,000(or more !). Always nice to see people. (Accustomed to India; currently living in a country where sight of a human life is relatively rare).

*A hot mommy sitting a couple of rows in front of me telling her two li'l kids how to rock !

*Having attended most of the rock shows so far from very near to the performing stage, I couldn't help but notice that energy level (of people) does vary inversly proportional to the distance(I = P/(4*pi*r^2 ), remember ?). I did infact, try to trade my silver seating ticket for the floor, but didn't work out. Nevertheless, I think I did well.

*Four beats of drum .... opening riff, Fear of the dark ... and the every one sings along ... Ho-o -o-o o-o-oo Ho-o-o-oo .. a very familiar scene ... only this time, one voice among them was mine. Felt kinda nice.

* The song being played after the show ended and the arena was being vacated. Happened to be Always look on the bright side of life. A few people dancing in the aisles. Good stuff.

Hallowed be thy name !

.................

Hello Sydney !

I recall two places where I have heard this phrase.

First of all, I heard it while watching the video of a concert by The corrs, who were performing in Sydney. I don't remember the date/year of the concert, but I do recall the instance when after playing their first song, Andrea Corr, the lead singer, called out aloud Hello Sydney !! (followed by you all look so great and stuff .. ), . The crowd's reaction was of course, a huge cheer.

Second instance when I heard it was in the movie One fine day (nice movie, actually). In the second half, Elaine Lieberman comes out with the same phrase during a press conference scene, whereas Australia was absolutely nowhere in picture.

Interestingly, the connotation of the phrase at the latter instance seemed to have a weird connection to the connotation of former one. Though I couldn't figure out how and why; and couldn't see a reason as to why they should be related either.

Anyways, I happened to google search for it today to find some clues. And apparently the phrase seems to be extremely popular for some reason. There were a zillion blogs with the same as their title. Also, apparently there is/was a TV series running by that name, but in some other language !

Well, now its not that I am bothered about the stuff I just mentioned. Its just that Iron Maiden is performing in Sydney this weekend. And I am going to attend it. So I guess now its my turn to say ....

Hello Sydney !!.


.....................

Pointers

Sometimes I feel that music has a less often quoted aspect, to which we all are probably familiar, consciously or sub-consciously. I think it acts as a memory aid !. And when I say that, I don't really mean the songs that we use to make as mnemonics to gulp difficult jargons to pass exams. I feel that many of the songs that are very close to my heart often define a certain phase of life for me. Whenever I come across those songs, casually or intentionally, it instantly takes me back in life and reminds me of some wonderful memories associated with it. The songs may not and need not really be about that particular 'phase', but they still remind me of it because of the association. Whether they were being played in background or in a rock show, or just in my thoughts, they become integral part of the scene, like we see in movies. To put it in the language of C++(which I don't know much about), the songs act as pointers to a certain block of data in the memory !.

Whenever I listen to the song Dance with me tonight, it reminds me of the lonely (but interestingly charming) time I spent in Delhi before coming here. I was stuck there for a week due to an exam that I missed and had to reschedule, for reasons I wont get into here. It was a bit of a messed up time, but somehow this beautiful song kept playing in my mind, and proved to be amazingly soothing. Interestingly, throughout that time, I had no real means of listening to music (no ipods/mp3 player or anything), and hence I didn't hear the song even once during the whole period. As i said, there was no real bearing of the song's meaning to that period, but it still reminds me of it.

When I listen to the songs Pale or Bitter sweet symphony I remember the time when I went rafting in my final semester of college. We camped in the night on a river beach, which was secluded from literally all kinds of civilizations. It was a full moon night and we could see the mountain range along side the river beautifully moonlit, with uncountable clusters of stars above. The place was filled with echoes of gushing water. It was an environment so loud and so quiet, at the same time. I sat there on the beach alone for a while, trying to think of a nice song (perhaps, to complete the scene unconsciously !). But I was so spell bound by the serenity of the place that I couldn't think of any for a long time. Then these two struck me. And I almost wished that there was a huge divine surround sound system which would play these for me there and then.

I listen to Stairway to heaven and I am reminded of the final trip we wingies had to Sikkim before dispersing for stepping into so called 'life'. I remember us lying on a boulder on the edge of the river and listening to this song on ipod sharing one earphone each.

I listen to No woman no cry and I remember the placement season ! It was 1 am in the night when I had casually dropped off CC canteen to have a cup of coffee. After having been exhausted from the grueling placement procedures and stuff, I was waiting for another interview at around 2 am. A pleasant scene awaited me when I reached the canteen. There was a group of alumni sitting there having a merry time together during their 35th reunion. Two of them were playing songs on acoustic guitar and the other alumni were gathered around, singing along and having fun. They switched to a new song, and as soon as they sang the first words (No woman no cry), everyone burst into laughter. I stood there for a while, my mind absolutely off from everything else in the world, even the upcoming interview (trivia: I cleared that interview and got the job).

I hear Fix you or High hopes, and I remember of sleepless nights during Antaragni, our cultural festival. I hear Sweet child of mine and I remember head banging at rock shows all night in the auditorium.

I can probably go on listing all night and I wont be able to give an exhaustive list. I may not be the unique one to feel so. And the songs might not be unique pointers as well. But probably more prominent ones, atleast for me. It gives me a queer peace of mind. And I feel happy.

Exercise for readers: Try to think if this happens to you too !

................

Razor's edge.

"An accident happens when something that normally doesn't happen, happens."
- An oft repeated quote of 'Bansal sir'.

Where I work, its rare for electricity to break down. So rare, that they actually don't have a backup supply. But, in a perfect world, something ought to go wrong sometime, and yesterday was the time. Something went terribly wrong with the power, and it passed out; but not before displaying huge jolts of fluctuations, and making all the computers beg and plead for their lives.

Rescue was sought and after a couple of hours, the electricity was restored. But as it turned out, the computers of all others in my lab were working, but the mishap had left mine unconscious; giving me good reasons to suspect that the hard disk had crashed. Then I tried to recall when was it the last time that I had backed up my work. And well, I couldn't. Cause I hadn't, for a long long time. [Ohh, what were you doing then?? I was busy working, of course. But u see, making a backup copy is as important; when where you planning to do that? Ohh.. tomorrow !.]. I realized that it had been tomorrow for a few months now. And then I tried to think about how much it would matter, if I lost it. Or, how much time and effort would it take me to recreate the same work. Well, that was pretty much it; I reckon it was extremely unhealthy for me to think any further. Whats more sickening was that I had lost loads of important things in a similar fashion little over 5 months ago. And that I was daft enough to pull off a deja vu of the same.

So, there I was, last night, with days (and nights) of my work on a razor's edge, waiting for the morning to find out. And I had only myself to blame, for repeating the blunder the second time, even after having suffered so badly in the past.

The morning came with the good news. The hard disk had survived. And I could breathe again. Sometimes watching your computer boot up can be so life-giving. Having been given a chance to live, I made three(!) backup copies of my work immediately.

So, what started as a serious threatening, in the end actually turned out to be a gentle reminder from the heavens to put this note up at an inexcusable spot on the working desk:

"Did you back your data up today ?
No?.
Then do it, you moron !!"

.................


Don't wait for the unexpected to happen. Let there be only one day per tomorrow.
..................

"Issued in public interest."

Fingers crossed.

Fingers crossed tonight. Waiting desperately for tomorrow morning. Rigorously cursing myself at the same time.

If it goes right, I lose nothing. If not, I lose a lot. I lose tonight's sleep in either case.

.............

Double fault.

Speaking more on tennis, I just remembered a punch line that I came up with for the tennis events posters at one of our sports-festivals at IITK.

"You missed playing it ? ..fault !
You missed watching it ?.. double fault !!"

Perhaps I believe in it more now.

[:)]

AO 08

It was 14th of January when we casually dropped off to a friend's house for lunch and switched on the TV. A tennis match was being telecasted on one of the channels. Thats when somebody remembered.. 'Oh , the Australian Open was supposed to start today.' In lieu of the rendezvous with Indian cricket and Indian women's hockey team prior to that, everyone had almost forgotten about it. The match turned out to be a marathon(Jankovic v/s Paszek ), and we watched it till the very end.

What it triggered was two long weeks of amazing tennis. It was first time that I had followed a Grand slam so closely; and it seemed worth the time. I kinda wished there was enough representation from India as well.

Hats off to all Serbian players. For a small country that they are, they are producing sensational quality of tennis players, each of them was an eye-candy to watch. Federer v/s Tipsarovic, for me was by all means, the best match I've ever seen.

As much did I enjoy the tennis, the final stint by Djokovic, was more than perfect end to the tournament, which ended in his much deserved victory. "Its ok. I still love you guys." is a line thats going to go down in history books. At least I wont forget it. And probably so would the millions of fans that he made in that one moment; perhaps even more than what he made by playing or impersonations itself.

I savored it so much that I've finally executed today the long-in-a-pipeline-plan of buying a tennis raquet. I won my first singles-set today. Watch out, Djok !

[:)] .

Whats going through their minds ?

A passing thought on what must be going through these player's minds just before their big games:

Maria Sharapova v/s Justing Henin:
"Lets decide today once and for all who's the better player !"


Maria Sharapova v/s Anna Ivanovic:
"Lets decide today once and for all who's more beautiful !"


....................

Size matters .. !

For most people, 'Size does matter' is not a very happy statement. Probably because it sounds painstakingly true, but most of us would like to believe otherwise. For me, it has worked both ways though. It has given me some tough and humiliating times for obvious reasons. For example, standing next to girls here in australia whose torsos would start somewhere near where mine ends. But barring that, other incidents have atleast given me a good laugh.

This one time for example, a group of us friends were traveling in a train and I was peacefully snoozing in a blanket on the top birth. As our destination approached, the others started packing up. One of them pulled down the blanket, under an impression that there was no one beneath it ! (Followed by announcing the same.)

Then there was this one during the placement season, when someone came up with an idea that I would be ideal for Shlumberger or Shell because they can simply put me down inside one of the wells with a probe and I can look for oil in crevices never accessed before.

Now, here is a recent one. I was on a little trip to Gold Coast, a place with lovely beaches and 'associated entities'. On one of the afternoons, me and one of my friends decided to go for a surfing lesson. Here is a part of the conversation that happened while we were buying tickets (H = Hemant, F = Friend, C = Cashier guy).

F to C : How much for a two hour session ?
C : $55 for adults, $45 for kids.
F to H: You fine with $55 ?
H : Yes. But I brought only 50. Can you pay it on your card ? I'll pay you back later.
F : No problem.
F to C : Dude charge both of us on this card.
C : Okay, $100. Here you go.
H to F(whispering): Shouldn't it be $110 ?
F to H: Abe chup reh na [;-)].
C to H: Problems ? Oh .. whats your age ?
H : 23.
C : Ahh. Sorry !
F to C : Yeah, but now that you've charged, we really don't mind [:D] .
C : Its okay, we'll figure something out. Have a nice time !!.

And then we did have a nice time[:-)].

..................

Happiest days of our lives..

14th January 2008.
I don't really remember how I've spent this day in last 8 years.

All I know, is that preceding that, it used to be the most sacred day of the year for me. It is celebrated throughout India for various different reasons, but for me, it was the grand finale of the season of kites. A day of fierce battles, a day of emotional highs and lows.

Well, kites for my place, to winter season, were what cricket is to Australian summer (Both coincide, by the way [:)] ). I don't think I've done anything more gripping ever, than spending hours and hours of my winter afternoons in sun, fiddling around with kites, fighting off the other ones in the sky. On other days, when the pocket money quota for the thing would exhaust, or mom would get tired of repeated requests, I'd experiment with whatever I have, or make new ones on my own, or do anything I could find even remotely related. Anything to make a piece of paper fly.

It was a mania that nurtured throughout the season, starting November. Two months of pure passion. It was like a preparation for big day, when there would be an open test in the sky. It was like a one day series, the learnings from which would ultimately be employed in the world cup.

I would have a sleepless night before the 'big day'. Which would be filled about thoughts of how my performance was going to be. I've been preparing hard, had learnt few good techniques, but my success rate for the season was barely 50 %, probably just slightly better in last few days. Gosh, when would I stop succumbing to pressure. When would I stop screwing up on peak time.

And then, it would happen. I would have a long day. Starting from as early as the morning starts, and ending till the time the eyes could make out anything flying against the dark sky. Having high times, when I'd score a few withing seconds, and low ones, when the air would stop, and everyone would have trouble putting up their kites in the sky. The bad ones, when I would loose many of them consecutively without scoring any. And the best ones, when mom would come over to the roof to serve Aloo paranthas, in the lovely winter sun; because we've been too ignorant of her constant calls for lunch for hours.

The day would end with a retrospection of an intensity unusual for a kid of that age, and a gloomy gaze in the sky for the one last glimpse of the colors which would disappear for, like ever.

I don't know if those were the happiest days of my life. But I could think of very few that surpassed them.

Happy Makar Sankranti !

..................

Match Point

"The man who said "I'd rather be lucky than good" saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control. There are moments in a [tennis]match when the ball hits the top of the net, and for a split second, it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck, it goes forward, and you win. Or maybe it doesn't, and you lose." - Match point

To those who haven't seen the movie Match point, I would suggest to see it. Personally, I really admire how creatively the name of the movie is chosen; and how the story does a great justice to it.

The reason I am talking about this movie is because what happened with me today reminded me of it. Something that makes you wish desperately that man would have discovered the time machine, so you could go back few minutes in time and slightly alter one decision of yours.

As I wrote in my previous post, Indian cricket team is in Caberra right now. Beginning today, they had a practice match with ACT XI team. And we went to see the match. Well, not really to see the match; most of us just went to have a glimpse of the players.

The day's play got over. We came out, ready to leave. 9 people. 2 cars. As I was heading with the group with which I came, someone in other group called out: "Can we switch one person, we wish to stop by at Coles for a little shopping but she (one of 'em) is in a hurry."

And I said ok.

*I should't have said that.*

Few minutes after we left, the other group met the Indian team, who just came out and decided to walk to their hotel instead of taking bus. They met them, talked to them, had snaps with them, and got whole team's autographs, together.

I was happy till I didn't know it. But then I came to know it. And then I was disappointed knowing that I could have had so much more.

Well, sometimes its just not meant to be.

.........

The day I saw them.

I saw them. Today. Finally. The men who make news, for good and bad reasons. The legends, the maestros and the newbies.

Yes, the Indian cricket team is here. As they geared up in the nets today for the rest of the tour, I watched them practice for an hour or so.

Its amusing how in spite of knowing this, we always tend to be curious if the players(or any celebrity for that matter) look the same in real life than as we have always seen them on television. More gawks come when they speak off camera. For some reason, we never tend to believe that they speak just like us. In fact, to some part of our mind, hearing them probably gives pleasure and relief ("Ahh .. this is something he does just like me [;-)]").

I enjoyed two things in particular. One, Dravid playing his sweet strokes, and two, the mere presence of Sachin (he was bowling); just knowing that he is for real, and that I am standing only a few feet from him, made my day. I wonder how many people's such days he would have made by now, just by being alive all these years.

I don't know how much it should count. But I'll remember this day as the day when I saw them so closely. Yes, the same people who used to play on TV, ever since I was a little kid.

Failure and fiasco

I have been spending a lot of time orkutting lately. Partly because I don't have much else to do (with my supervisor out of town), partly because there are actually much better things that can be done but I wont think about them, and partly because I am still in a holiday mode.

What I do is simple. I open my gmail and orkut accounts in two different tabs, and keep refreshing them every few seconds, in turn. Google sure knows how to play the game with morons, and keeps adding features that would serve them right. So now it also shows new updates, which increases a typical moron's appetite to learn about exciting stuff happening on the planet, like ABC updated his first name, XYZ updated five things I cant live without, and lately, Ms. Cat is now friends with Mr. Rat and Mr. Dog, and so on so forth.

And before I know, hours have passed. No weapons used, but the time has been killed, ruthlessly. Slow, painful death. A murder so clean, that nobody noticed. And the murderer roams free, only to do it again and again, at his own sweet will.

Somebody once said :
There's a difference between a failure...and a fiasco.
A failure is simply the non-presence of success.
Any fool can accomplish failure.
But a fiasco....
A fiasco is a disaster
of mythic proportions.
A fiasco is a folktale told to others..
that makes other people feel more alive...
because it didn't happen to them. (courtsey: Elizabethtown)

Let me alter the definition a wee bit today.

If you are doing watever you are doing with your time,
You might be a failure.
But if you are doing watever I am doing with mine these days,
You are a fiasco.

.................

That unforgettable session

Learning a bit of gliding was one of the better things that happened to me at college. It was painstaking to wake up early in the morning and wait for my turn, but it seemed worth every penny, after spending 15 minutes in air.

One day, just fine as any other, our flight instructor was giving some usual instructions. And in the middle of it he said something so simple and yet so powerful, that i was not able to loose it since. He said,

" ...even though the flight inspector checks the airplane before take off, you should inspect it yourselves for any damage whatsoever and report anything dubious, before stepping in. Afterall, who do you expect to be more responsible for your own life than yourselves. ? "

..........

Letters

I was watching this movie recently, called Letters from Iwo Jima. The last scene particularly struck me, where a bag of letters was excavated from the war site, the island of Iwo Jima. The letters were those written by the Japanese people living on the island, the soldiers, generals, and everyone else commissioned there in hope of saving their holy land from the American onslaught. The letters were those which were written but could not be sent. In the letters, they wrote to their families, friends, and close ones, about how they're living there. They talked about their daily lives and enquired about home. Now, what they wrote in their letters, may not have been something very dignified or newsworthy or of great importance to the rest of the world; most of them wouldn't probably have the grammar right. But 50-60 years from the war, when found in excavations, they certainly are instrumental and perhaps very reliable means to get a true picture of what it would be like, living a life of one of them.

And then a funny thought struck me. Lets assume an unlikely scenario where for some reason ,destruction strikes. In this age of computers, when most of us wont pick up a pen and a paper to write something, rather type it up instead, and lock it up somewhere, protected by passwords; write emails instead of letters, and blogs instead of diaries, is there something that would survive 100 years' time and be found by someone in the future to get an idea about how we lived/thought/felt/in our times ? Excavated hard disks, cds and laptops certainly wont seem to do the job. Internet accounts expire. And the servers, I am never sure how many of them would last and for how long; I assume that theoretically everyone of them is 'crashable'.

There are ways around it, I believe; but I wouldn't venture into that part.

The nomenclature

There used to be a short story by Jhumpa Lahiri which I read few years back, and liked it very much. But ever since, and strangely enough, I couldn't remember the name of the story. I say 'strangely enough' because I usually do remember things that touch my heart. Neways, a lazy bum that I am, I didn't bother to find out either, until recently, when I happened to bring up one of its very touching line during a conversation with a friend. I couldn't quote the exact line though, but something meaning pretty much the same (The listener couldn't make out, but that wasnt a great matter of concern). It kept me bugging for sometime, and as usual I called up google for help. Now, the name of the story turned out to be 'A temporary matter', and thats what, for some reason popped up in my blank head right while selecting a name for the blog. But alas, the url with same name was unavailable. So, I added a word to it, which, unless read into, shouldn't make much of a difference.

I would have really liked to sound sophisticated and say that I named it so because most of the things that I would put up here would consist of fleeting ideas, thoughts, events, fantasies etc. And by the time I raise my head to read white i've penned down, they might make no sense already. Infact, to that end, I might have wanted to go a step higher by saying (and quite honestly), that this whole idea of starting a blog, might just be a temporary matter in itself.

However, as of now, the first reason still stands. Along with a caveat, that there exists a very thin line from it to others.

[:-)]