🙂 why this smile…welll this is my first post from my home machine.. yippieeeeeeeeeeeeeee
i bought a new computer… something that i have been thinking of for over an year now… and my favorite brand (don’t ask me why) AMD is in my house…

i have a AMD 2400 XP machine with a 80 GB HDD and 512 MB of ram with a 333 mhz FSB… this babe is working like a rocket right now… compare it to the last one that i had… hehehe… 530 mhz celeron processor with a 64mb ram chip… now thats what you call a jump… world record of sorts… is it?

I am happy 🙂

Ma circle is getting better….
which circle… friends’ circle… why is it getting betta’… well here is why…

2001 : I knew ppl who were struggling hard to get a job, who were still not sure of how life is going to treat them and they were annoyed, frustrated with the kinda market we had… a pack of strugglers.. ppl who did not want to give up and had the guts and sprit to move ahead and fight the present for a better future… even i was struggling to get a place somewhere in the industry… IT did not like me.. BPO did.. and i joined it..

2003 : had made a lot of new friends in the last two years… and had seen them grow along from agents to L2 techs and team leaders.. and the ones who were with me in my masters… got jobs.. some good.. some ok sorts.. but still carried on… i was also moving ahead…. though not vertically but was maturing as a professional…

2005: another two years of hard work and play together… moved from being an Technical support associate in Wipro spectramind to a Team leader in Hughes to a Process Architect with IBM. my friends… the new and the old… moved up and ahead too…

Waquar, Ashish Saxena, Rupak , Sunil, Ashutosh, everyone is doing well.. they are from my PG batch of 2001
Waquar with HFCL.. and married too 🙂
Ashish Saxena.. finally where he wanted to be… in the core Telco work with Wipro banglore…
Sunil and Rupak with Agilent technologies…
Ashu with Motorola… he recently bought a flat for himself in Pune… good news !!!

I still remember the days when Me, Waquar, Ashish and Ashu were trying to get some companies to do a campus interviews in 2001.. what a tough time that was..

am missing out on some names here coz i am not sure where they are doing what… i guess sheetal and priyanka are in b’lore as well…
Ashraf is in Europe, Gaurav is in UK too…
and Pradeep Duggal… he joined the Indian Army in the third sem of our PG… and we have not been in regular contact since…

Jassi, Dipayan, Maya, Mansi, Aditya, Ashish, Batra.. all of them from my spectra group…
Jassi now a Group Lead in Spectra,
Dipayan a team lead in Daksh,
Maya and Mansi doing well their respective research firms,
Batra still with Wipro Banglore… he joined it after we worked together for about an year in spectra…
Adi with Microland as an assistant manager…
Ashish with his own business in digital printing.. and happily married to his long time gurlfriend Deepti, infact he still prefers calling her his girlfriend then wife…

some names that i still remember and have no clue about what they are doing..
Amit, Nash or Navneet ( i guess he is with Oracle these days), Gagan ( i used to call her Gabbar :), Dipankar, Bruce aka Vikram, Joshua, and lots of them more…

Coming to Hughes now.. a place where I think i learnt the most out of all the places i have been…
bad boss good boss bad management good management appraisal hikes work culture magicians escalations emulator green belt six sigma love hate growth

there is so much that happened there

mine was the first batch to take voice in Hughes.. and i was the ONE who took the first ever voice call which came to Hughes BPO.. actually technically it should have been Aditya Anand.. but that idiot dropped the first call.. hehehe.. so its me now 🙂 and for some reason.. Jadoo ( our intranet site in Hughes had Manish Jain’s name and foto for his historical moment) aaaaaaargh.. anyway… first batch for voice.. lotsa things to do.. all of us from the BPO background.. and also knew the opportunity that was there… me and narang were fortunate enough to realise it with Nishant who was a Team lead then… and started working on the idea… helped us a lot and it was not long before we guys were recognised and were handling teams on our own.. Team Leaders to say !!! hughes is another story to write actually.. some other time may be.. that is not the intent of this post actually…

so from ppl who were taking calls for 8 hours a day and more at times…we moved to being team leaders, assistant managers, and managers and program managers…

Me Aro Sanjit Arun Sudip Sunil Shaji Hati Jai moved from being agents to Team Leads
Narang moved from being an agent to a Team lead to an Asst. Manager to a Program Manager now…
Nishant amit now are managers from a move from Team Leaders to Asst. Team Leaders…
Vikas Naveen asst managers from being agents to Team Leads and to the current post…
Somu from a Team Lead to an Asst Manager to Business Development for HSS or FSS…

i think i have missed out on a few names here too.. but then what the heck.. remembering so many ppl and so many names 14 months after leaving the company is a good deal 🙂 so ppl whoz names are not here.. do not mind… just lemme know you are missing…

and my friends from my locality.. from the net also deserve a mention here…
Pawan aka tiger… IIM Indore.. eh…
Neha the scientist Issar 🙂 in Paris trying to figure out why don’t mosquitos have malaria…
Gaurav Japan Srivastava.. the Japani fotographer.. who still remains the same fella for me even though we were not talking for over 4 years… my teacher in fotography too..
And the person who is the reason why I wrote this post.. Bharti… how did that happen.. well i do not know… she is now an Architect from the School of Planning and Architecture.. and was very very tensed before her jury.. and i was kinda concerned too.. but as expected she is thru… done with her jury.. and a happy architect now 🙂 with a lot of time with herself.. we discussed something in detail about dreams which i might post sometime later….

was talking to her yesterday.. and thought of all the ppl i know who are success stories in themselves… ppl who have fought the present and crossed the hurdles that came in their way… and are where they are today…

I am proud of all of my friends whether you see their name here or not….

Good going everyone… Keep walking…

my latest hobby… browsing thru Economic times website and look for something interesting to read online…. this interesting is something that might be talking about some companies… their plans to grow and diversify… whats new coming to india… what the latest happening in some industry…

and here is what i stumbled upon… not really applicable for me as of now… but whenever the need comes i just might go back to this link and take a few tips…. till then… if you were wondering on how to….. go ahead…. Express your love, filmi style!!!

I have been googling around the last few days… not doing anything worthwhile.. just wasting away time… *i think i need to get more serious about a couple of things in life if i have to move ahead… and if i do not realise this.. i just might be too late !!!!* anyway… we will discuss that later… me and me and me… there is so much other then me happening here….

read thru Auburn’s blog to help myself decide on having Water or Coke to take care of my thirst…

And Alka’s blog to read about the pains a girl goes through… though i think there is much much more to that in a relationship.. this post of hers only talks about the sad part…

Was happy and suprised to see my name on the Indibloggers list.. i have no clue how my URL reached there… and it was good to find out some ppl actually came to my blog from there too… am I on the world map here 😉

Tushar managed to eat a packet of Taka-Tak and liked it too.. and has given some valuable inputs to help Haldiram’s do a better job with this snack….

Though an old post.. and very interesting… Tipsy Topsy’s rowing exp in Nainital…. though me and ma friends did not really like that place on our two day trip to bhimtal and around.. and are not going back there at any cost.. but i kinda know a lot of ppl who like going to Nainital…. well their call.. who am i to decide for them….

RaVi hAnDa has some good tips for guys here…. Worth reading !!!! and specially for those who are the target in Alka’s blog….

Kayla mixed emotions reminded me of the times when I was about to complete my schooling, my grad and my post grad… what great times were those…

and why was I googling.. well i want to go the valley of flowers this july.. and i have no clue on how to make the itenary… need to figure out a lot of things.. and guess would need to buy some camping gear and a bagpack too… lets see how it works for me….

wish me luck everyone…

oh.. and … yippieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
the weekend is coming 🙂

have been thinking about this for a few days now… communications, conversations, relations, expectations everything mixed up… was wondering why and how people who were friends once tend to move away from each other…

is it that our lives take different turns with time… or our priorities differ… or as Raina says “out of sight.. out of mind”… not really sure…

i am wondering why ppl who once used to be an integral part of my social circle are now nowhere to be seen.. except in some old photographs or some occasional phone calls which are good enough to remind me of the great times we had…

where did the distances creep in from… how come “moving on” became leaving the great present behind…i must say in a lot of cases.. i stopped making any efforts to be in touch… there used be so li’il to talk about.. and at times i feel.. just a casual hello call would have done wonders to keep things alive…and in some of the cases.. where i did some sincere efforts to keep in touch the magic “two way communication” did not happen and eventually those relationships came to a halt…

during all these letting go times.. i managed to earn a lot of new friends… and continued with letting the olders ones go !!! and somewhere down the line i feel that life has become more like a automobile assembly line… where things come to get together… they grow together for a while.. and then comes a time.. when the near perfect piece of machine moves on…. leaving the assembly line there… to think of the good and the bad which got into the machines when they were there…

is this note getting too pessimistic.. well that was not the idea.. the idea was really to find out

why ppl go away… why do we let the best of our friends move away knowing that they are invaluable for us…

why do we part saying that i will be a phone call away.. and not that i will call you sometime…

why do we part saying that i am gonna crib if you do not write an email… and not that i will try and write to you…

why do we part saying “bye bye“… and not “see you“… ( this reminds me of Aarti… who never used to say Bai… she always said C U… good goings Aarts… God bless…)

phew… too heavy a note.. but i am feeling kinda light after getting all this junk outta my head…
time to read the lyrics of a song and try to humm whatever i remember of the music….

Thanks Smashmouth….NOW ME IS FEELING BETTER 🙂

Riding my friend’s dream… literally…. last to last weekend i was in Gurgaon… just to catch up with old friends… yes old… the reference is to their age :)Why am i writing about something that happened a fortnight ago right now… well coz the picture proofs of that meeting came yesterday… hang in there you will know what am i talking about !!!

so i meet aro.. at his apartment… yeah.. thats wat they call in in the firangland.. an apartment… where he treated me to a chilled mug of LASSI 🙂 and i had it in a huge BEER MUG… well why.. just to get the feel of having beer 😉 anyway… and after some usual and unusual stupid and not so stupid convos about life, and the extra terrestrial ( that would be him) and shuffling the settings of his deck and the TV, we decided to go to Hughes….

Narang was there in the evening shift.. and it was great to meet him as usual… he listened to the new amp and the tube in my car.. and was happy and satisfied with the output though agreed that it needed some minor tweaking for a better performance…

so the time came.. and i was excited to see what i really was there to see… his new old bike… well new coz he bought it recently.. and old coz its a 1987 model… is he crazy… yes he is.. and the bike is crazier… its a Yamaha RD 350…. hearing it growl when he kick started it was amazing.. and i had no clye what it was capable of until narang asked me to sit at the back seat and hold on to him… i heard that our loved Abhijit Hati freaked out after 5 mintues on that bike and i was advised to be careful….. so i was… and trust me i was holding narang for good… i almost fell when he accelerated the bike… what else do you expect from a raw insane power pack which can go from 0 to 100 kmph in 9 seconds flat….

what followed next was a long short drive… long thanks to the kilometres we covered.. and short thanks to the time it took…. the bike was roared like a lion and get respect automatically on the road… phew what a ride that was….

thinking about the kinda bike enthusiast narang is.. it would not be long that this baby is going to shine and move like a brand new one… enough of words…

time for some fotos now….

and for those who want some tech details.. here is what you might like to read about the bike….
1987 Rajdoot RD350 LT
– 0.5 Bore running Genuine ART pistons.
– Stock Mikuni Carbs with 165 Main Jets.
– Original Jap Points
– Stock Pipes
– Wire Mesh Filter
– Genuine Yamaha Chain Set with 17 teeth Front Sprocket.
– Stock Seat.
– Paint and decals are intact.
– Tops out at 140 ( Speedo ) (* trust me this happens with this bike*)

this would be worth another foto shoot.. in day light and when narang is back in India after his trip from Mexico with the parts and accessories he needs to get this baby burning the road !!!

umm.. the weekend is about to get over… and back to office… how come time moves faster when its a saturday or a sunday… and for some reason.. the clocks.. the watches of the world slow down when its weekdays….

anyway… first half of saturday spent in taking care of the Aircon in the car… and the result… well… chilling it is…. literally…

second half spent in sleeping and watching two too good movies.. Kangaroo Jack and Dil Chahta hai… add one to the number of times i have seen DCH… even i do not remember it anymore….
sunday morning…. ummmmmmmmmm… who wants to get up… no one.. but i had to…. coz we need to take care of the kitchen machine which has conked off.. and the only place where it can be repaired is Narayana.. yes… for ppl who know where i live… its kinda awkward.. but the brand that we have is Sumeet.. and the only service centre is supposed to be there in Narayana…. well… it was supposed to be there as we later found out… they have closed down their operations in Delhi 🙁 haard luck… neva mind… we can get anything repaired here in india… and to our luck… we managed to find one guy who knew exactly the problem we were having with the machine.. and after some initial diagnosis.. and a quick response on the repair estimate he assured a machine as good as new in about 10 days…. why that long.. welll some parts need to be shipped to Nasik and a new one needs to be arranged from there…

back from there around 1900 hrs… went for a haircut… what a feeling.. back to my usual short hair…. too good in summers i tell you…

and yes… talked to aro.. about my financial state in the month of june.. we had planned to go to ranikhet.. but thats not gotta work out thanks to the kinda money i have spent in the month of may 🙁 but i am happy.. all of these were long term investments and in things that i wanted and finally got.. so no regrets…

and july is to welcomed with a trip to the valley of flowers… lets see how it works… out….

I have reasons to scream loudly today….
no no.. not because i am in pain or something..
but because i am happy…

what happened… yea…nice question…

well here is what happened…

Narang calls up and tells me that there is something that he wants to tell me, before i find that out from anyone else… and i was like what… and he tells me that

• he has been promoted to the position of a PROGRAM MANAGER.. that is a jump of two vertical positions from where he is right now…
• he goes to the US to transit the Flextronics America’s IT helpdesk.. so will spend a good 2 months there in Mexico, which has the Flextronics Headquarters and houses over 25000 employees.

he would be going there with Soumya… another very dear friend who is a part of the BD team in Flextronics….

and that brings me to another good news… Naveen Katlaria is the next Assistant Manager in DIRECWAY now… one of the coolest fellas i have met.. and we have been childhood buddies…
i can cry with joy today… and i can dance with happiness as well…

I have been trying to put up my foto-log for the past few days… after some effort… it has come up.. and looks nice too…
now wat i would be waiting for some critical appreciation…
lets see when where who…
someone would just look at a foto and like the place/object/person captured….
someone would like to think that (s)he could have taken a better foto…
someone would like to tell me how i could have taken the same foto in a better way…

i see a lot of things coming my way….

would i be able to click with all of them… lets find out !!!

Playing beach volley ball just while the rafting was being prepared for a great trip down the ganges….

From left to right… Caroline, Adams, Waquar, ME and Toosh…. All set in our rafting gear with the life jackets, our helmets, and the paddles… the life jackets and the helmets we brand new… what a feel that was…..

After we crossed some rapids there was a lot of distance which was flat and without any rapids… there all of our got out of the raft and were floating in the river…. in this foto.. very near to the raft….

And in this Waquar and me are trying to get Toosh back to the raft…. trust me it was not easy to swim with just one hand being into play….

Just before we were about to reach ram jhoola…. strong sun… tired though excited bodies…

And me… with the helmet off… in front of the raft…. what a trip this turned out to be…. three trips and the first one where i could managed to get the pics….

and by the way these are the pics from my new camera used more or less in an auto mode.. with a fuji proplus 100 roll !!!!

nice eh !!!!

I had an interesting discussion with a friend yesterday…

she would be getting married pretty soon.. and said that she was “conditioning herself to love the person she is going to get married to“.Somehow i felt that is not how things are going to work for me… i do not think i need to make myself love the person i am getting married to… it would happen.. with time ofcourse… there is not need to work hard towards it at all…

what i feel would be the key to any successful relationship would be respect for the other person as a person… if i can respect the other person… i think i will hear what (s)he has to say… also try and understand it… and from there move towards things like compromise, trust, not to forget love, affection and all those…instead of telling a person that i love her i rather tell her that i respect her for what she is.. and what she is not… and let things and feelings take their time to develop….

i have not been able to write all what i had in mind… i guess i am short of words here….

rightmore might write more !!!!

I am waiting for the girl of my dreams… till then… i live in reality !!!!

Of all the grey that I have, seems that I have more on my head than in my head.

back to delhi…. back to summers.. back to heat… this weekend seemed longer then it really was….

i jumped from a 22 feet high wall into the ganges….
i travelled in the lovely UP roadways and Uttranchal roadways buses for over 12 hours…
i slept most of the time during time mentioned above in just about 20% of the space that i usually need to sleep…
i waited at har ki pauri for the aarti to begin for over 2 hours…
i saw the friday sun setting in delhi…
saturday morning sun-rise in Rishikesh…
saturday morning sun-set in Haridwar…
and i slept the entire day on sunday….
not to forget that I got back my oldie goldie Maruti 800 after the grand work done on it….

too much to do for a weekend… here is how it all started….had planned for a rafting trip…. yes.. i went for one about a month ago… so what… second trip to the ganges was planned for the weekend of Friday the 13th…. left home around 2200 hrs with Waquar and Tushar and in about an hours time.. reached the ISBT only to realise that the next.. and last 2*2 push back deluxe bus to rishikesh was to leave the ISBT at 0000 hrs…. almost every bus was going to rishikesh.. and we three did not bother…. and to our unpleasent surprise that last bus did not turn up 🙁 and we were left with no option but to take a up roadways to rishikesh… fare just about 116 bucks to rishikesh.. comfort… none… we still planned our way towards the last seats of the bus and tried to lay down so that we could just pretend to be asleep when someone comes and we can continue that way till the end of our journey… but fate had something else in mind… that damn bus was full.. and I had to move from almost lying down to sitting on two seats… and continue that way till rishikesh…. trust me it was not the most comfortable way to travel…

we reached haridwar.. in the morning.. around 0530 hours… and it was a wonderful temprature there… saw the ganges when i woke up..and a cool breeze welcomed me as well… and this time i did not get back to sleep… was awake till rishikesh with my camera in front of my face so that i could take some good pics.. lets see what have i managed to capture when the fotos come….
in rishikesh around 0600 hrs.. with no shops open… asked a few rafting agents about the status.. and managed to get some place in a raft… from shiv puri to rishikesh..though i reeeeeally wanted to do that 27 km stretch.. but no space… so 450 bucks.. and shivpuri to rishikesh is what we had to settle for….

went to the river banks after we finalised everything… and stayed there for a good one hour… what a feeling that was.. really cool strong winds…. and the sound of water flowing in its full glory…. why is delhi not on the banks of ganga i was wondering….. and then realised that it would have the same fate as the yamuna… so i dropped the idea of doing something to get it closer to Delhi…

started for shivpuri at 0930 hours… and to give us company were two foreigners and one fella who was an indian but his accent highlighted his amount of conversation with the two UK based friends he had… Adams and Caroline.. and this guy was Charandeep….

this journey from rishikesh to shivpuri was interesting too.. as i was sitting at the back of a Tata 207 ( a small pickup truck) and it was fun standing there and enjoying the breeze hit my face while our driver was negotiating sharp turns on the hills and i working hard to hold on to the bars to save myself from falling 🙂

anyway… we reached the place from where we had to start… used a specially designed pump to inflate the lovely blue coloured raft !!! brand new bright red life jackets.. and smart looking yellow and blue paddles….

we were in the river at 1145 hours finally… first time for waquar and tushar.. and both of them were visibly excited… third time for me.. and i was looking forward to a great experience again… the water level was high.. and the current sharper.. but to my surprise the rapids were easier this time.. coz the raft was just gliding over them.. comparing the exp to the previous ones.. it was not as exciting… but the over experience was not any less then the ones i had before…
i managed to overcome my fear of height and water (combined) and managed to jump from a wall 22 feet high into water this time… i could feel my heart beating just before i jumped… but once i jumped.. i could do that again…. i probably would next season….

finished rafting by 1430 hours…. and were off to haridwar after having a light lunch at madhuban restaurant…. we were feeling very very sleepy… and had a good power nap… all three of us on our way to haridwar.. it was terribly hot…. and once in haridway we were only looking for a shade near the Har ki Pauri to rest… we managed to find a good place below one of the bridges.. and sat there for a good one hour.. before deciding to check out the local market and have lassi… (which was my idea) somehow i know all the good and inexpensive places to eat.. not only in delhi but outside too :)… anyway.. an hour later… me and tushar were back in water.. for a holi dip at the “har Ki pauri”. the flow of water was too high.. and i could barely manage to stand even though i was holding the safty chain tightly… anyway.. managed to kill some good time there and washed away a lot of my sins… before changing to fresh clothes… looking for a good place to sit and then enjoying the Evening Aarti !!!! What a lovely exp. that was….

starting back to delhi soon after that… and was back home at 0300 hrs early sunday morning…. so much for the second rafting and a religious trip to haridwar and rishikesh !!!!
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sunday evening spent in taking care of my old 800…. it was with the mechanic for about two weeks now.. where it was being restored… new paint… new interiors… an overhauled engine…. suspension and steering overhauled… its moving as good as new now… i decided to put in new tyres as well…. total cost of 5 tyres after the wheel balancing and alignment came to 5600 bucks… and the total expenditure onthe car about 30K INR… i think its worth it… and definitely better then going for a new car…

will post some pictures of the new car too… soon….

so much for now…. will write more… waiting for the fotos to be developed soon.. lets see how soon i can get them printed and scanned !!!!

Another day gone… and it ended giving me something that i was waiting for a very long time… my new EOS 3000v Date camera !!! got this baby bundled with the EF 28-90 lenses for a nice price of 11500 bucks…

for the last few days i was eating Gaurav’s head with all the seemingly stupid questions… though he being a professional fotographer for over 2 years now… was patient enough to listen to me and answer as many questions as he could…. we decided to go to Chandni Chawk to find out what the market was really like on saturday.. and see if i can find something that suits my level and pocket equally nicely….

there was no intention of a purchase… the idea was to do some research only… so there we were in one of the biggest photographers paradise at around 1030 hrs… not many shops had opened by then.. and we could talk to a few shops.. and one of the guys showed me 4 camers… the EOS 66, EOS Rebel K2, the EOS 3000V and the nikon f75. the first two under 10K, EOS 3Kv for 11500 and the F75 for about 14K…. nikon looked better in terms of the body quality… features not much different… canon better in terms of money.. and the one that i bought.. too cewl in terms of the feel good factor… and when i am to move up to digital SLRs in sometime.. it made sense to save money….

so we decide we want to buy that camera… did some price verification at a few more shops… did not realise that we had spent over 1 hour in that shop looking and talked about the various options that we had… anyway… we were hungry and did not want to loose the opportunity of treating our tummies especially when we were in chandni chaowk…. our first stop… “Gali Paranthe Wali”…. ummmm…. paneer parantha… mix parantha, dal besan parantha….. and curd made from cow milk…pet bhar gaya…. and now that we wanted to burn some calories after being filled with guilt and the fat.. we decided to walk to Fatehpuri…. and then have the famour rabri faluda at Giani’s…. umm… lovely stuff there… and we were too full and it was too hot to walk back to lal-quila.. so we took at rickshaw..who effortlessly drove in the middle of the road where rickshaws, cars, two-wheelers, autos, jeeps, and pedestrians beautifully coexistt…… we got down in front of the ICICI bank but the damn ATM was broken.. so i decided to give SBI some money.. 55 to be precise and take some money outta their ATM…. took out the money… bought a relay for the inverter which papa wanted…. and 10 CLF tubes… for 17 bucks each.. they usually cost anything between 25-40 bucks in noida… so money well saved….

our next stop.. the camera shop.. where i made the payment for the baby you see the foto of in this post…. fuji proplus pack of 5 for 220 bucks.. and a nova b/w roll for 37 bucks… and a UV filter for 25 bucks… did not like any of the bags… and so we fitted the camera in the bag that i was carrying and moved on to monestry.. where gaurav wanted to buy a jeans from…bought the jeans… walked around place…. and then back to the buss adda…. or ISBT as ppl know it… took at DTC back to ghar..

reached home happy 🙂 lets see how much i improve with time… there is a lot of things to learn….. life’s beautiful…. does that look equally cewl from the other side of the camera… TIME WILL TELL…..