I wanna buy a camera. Its current price is Dhs. 1099. I dont have the money to buy it now.

So I go to the shopkeeper and tell him that I would like to buy this camera, but I dont have the money now. He then suggest I buy a call option. For this option, I have to pay him Dhs. 10 and he sets the expiration date as June 30th 2007. The option is that I can buy this camera for Dhs.900 after 6 months.

Lets see what happens. What do you think abt this deal?

The merry family gatherings –
The old, the very young;
The strangely lovely way they
Harmonize in carols sung.
For Christmas is tradition time
Traditions that recall
The precious memories down the years,
The sameness of them all.

-Helen Lowrie Marshall

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

There was a time... (and let me emphasise on the WAS again )...when I was Thin - Lean and Lanky. That was another time ,another world almost... when gorging pizzas, burgers, coke and the like, was done without the slightest sense of guilt - almost smug in the realization that I would never put on weight. Metabolism was something I took for granted.

Woe! Alas!..and all those other words which indicate shock/sorrow...that is no longer the case. Fact - I've put on X* number of Kilos in the past X*/2 months - and this having stayed on a plateau of 12X*+3 kgs for the past X* years.


The unthinkable must now be done ...exercise (ouch!) and eat a "balanced diet" (yuck!)...The good news is, I've yet to begin the former ( though sadly its inevitable ), the ugly news is...I have begun adding more fibre into what I ingest. I hit upon the superdiet forumla on one of those Kingfisher Airline superchannels...and the superformula is as follows. Take a plate...mentally draw a diameter across the plate. On one half, stuff it up with salad. Divide the other half into 2 quadrants - one filled with card, the other with protien.

I've just started on this diet (only for lunch mind you) and hopefully with the right kind of cardio workout..things should...er..work out.


So the next time, you see a lean, mean machine walking down the road...that's not me...I'm the fat log jogging on the other side of the road.

*number has been alphabetized to protect the innocent

Here I am..supposedly a "comeback" , as some UK residents claim...

Anyways...well, as with any "comeback", there has to be some jing-bang, and hence the flashy template ( as UK residents would know, this not at all my style...but other ready made ones were prosaic...and make one of my own, u ask?...I cant even write in my own mothertongue, let alone HTML)

The "comeback" is in place and the jing-bang is in order. Sadly though, I dont have content. No fodder to chew on...yup, Life's been fairly, if not very, uninspiring off late (if you discount the leftover pizza in the fridge).

Been helping Dad in renovating the flat. That's been keeping me busy doing something I'm particularly bad at...home improvements. And I've learnt a lot! For eg: I now know that a door is not single slab of wood cut out from a tree. It is actually planks of wood stuck, hammered, filed, etc together. Honestly, how many of you guys knew this??

I also now know, asking the carpenter silly questions like, which tree did he cut out that door from...will prompt a smirk on his face, which reads " What a moron!".


In other news, my Christmas vacation - a full 16 days - is around the corner. It will be the longest vacation (16 days) I've ever taken since joining NITIE. Looking forward to a Merry Christmas and hopefully, if all goes well, a Happy New Year!


So until inspiration strikes me next ...I take your leave. Have a nice day!

Wiped the mist of my glasses ;)

Life's a blur...
....

Well its official! I'm now employed with Proctor & Gamble. Of course, been working for/with P&G sometime now. But as on 1st July, I've formally moved into the rolls of the company. What that basically means is that my paycheck now comes from P&G.

Been busy over the last few weeks (who isnt these days), helping Gillette transition through the merger. I've had a tough time (who doesnt these days), but its been well worth the effort...learnt a lot..and I'm still learning.

In the midst of all these, Germany got only a 3rd place (saddening to say the least). But worst of all, Italy won! :(

Tommorrow is my last day at the Gillette office. Its a been a fab 18 months in this cubicle. Its also means a possible goodbye to Gurgaon ( relief!). Need to do something more with my free time than roam malls. Hopefully Mumbai will help in this department.

Its that time again....vacation's over and back to work. The hols were, to say the least, fast! Unlike most of my earlier trips, I didnt roam around too much ( perhaps due to the paucity of time). Nevertheless, I did visit a few malls, including the Ibn Battuta and the Emirates Mall, only cos' they had something more to offer beyond the average "4000 sqft. of shopping". I also made the mandatory visit to the Karama shopping complex, and bought a few tees....given the great deals one gets there. What I did mostly was however, spend time at home, basking in the warm glow of parental pampering, chocolate shakes and air conditioning ( real hot here now!).

Dubai is still caught in the construction warp. Besides a host of mind-boggling skuscrapers,gigantic malls, mile-long hypermarkets, luxurious hotels and villas that are slowly springing up across this once desert state, they are also now constructing a a grand metro rail that will change the way people commute ( and also reduce the ever-burgeoning traffic). A good part of urban dubai is being dug up as I write this, in preparation for this grand project.


All in all, a good break from Gurgaon and even work to some extent ( yes, i did check mails and attend a couple of calls...couldnt resist!).

You know ur in Delhi if...

...you are driving around in a white-coloured Qualis, and people are running behind you.

It had been a while since I wanted to take a break, forget work and completely CHILL! And that's precisely what I did last weekend at Chennai.

My plan was hit Mumbai on Thursday and move to Chennai on Friday for the factory meeting and then chill bigtime over the weekend in Chennai. As luck would have it, I sprained my back just 3 hours before my flight to Mumbai. In fact, I couldnt move initially and I almost saw all my plans go down the drain. A frantic call to my in-house doctor (Mom), and I realised that this aint all that serious. I decided against staying back, and armed with a dose of painkillers, I flew to Mumbai.

Fortunately, things improved the following day ( Moov really works! ) and by the end of Thursday, I could actually walk comfortably. Of course, I took no chances and got as much as rest as I could.

The following day, flew to Chennai. The place was HOT! (literally). The factory visit went fine. By evening, I was on the taxi to Anna's place and I finally reached his place around 7pm. As luck would have it, Annna had a leg injury earlier in the morning, and he'd declared that mobility might be an issue for him as well.

The injuries didnt really upset our plans thought. Saturday morning,we woke up late to some great breakfast! :) ( Anna's mom's dosas are amazing!!). Headed off to the clinic on Anna's Eliminator to check Anna's leg. 40 minutes and 1 X-ray later, the doctor recommended complete bed rest for Anna. We left for Spencer Mall the very next minute :)

Had lunch with Joseph at the mall, and left for Joseph's place in the afternoon. Post that we went back to the mall to collect Anna's bike and then decided to head to Besant Nagar beach where we would rendezvous with the rest of the motley crew - Samoj, Meril & Surabhi.

The trip ( or should I say journey) to the Beach was fun! Anna got lost and we kept going around Chennai in circles, thanks to which I actually got to see quite a bit of the capital. We finally reached the beach and moved right into Barista for some cold shakes. Once the rest of the crew joined us ( the girls were pretty late...fairly predictable anyways) , we left for dinner at a nearby mallu joint.

Dinner was mostly fish ,parrotas and rice. And I dont think i'll forget the look on Surabhi's face when she saw the Puttu(rice cake) and Kadala(Channa) curry she'd ordered for!! During dinner, we generally caught on gossip, PJs and of course the standard pulling of legs we normally do. Post-dinner, we headed to our respective places. Before I hit the sack though, I wanted to complete one milestone on NFS. I didnt complete it and went to sleep anyways.


Next day, woke up early and headed off to Besant Nagar Church. BN church was actually a large compound with several buildings. I being new to the place, was heading to the chapel ( I didnt realise this was the chapel and the mass was in the main church elsewhere) and would have stayed there wondering where the mass was, had I not bumped into Meril.

Once the mass got over ( Meril,the choir was great!! And were u near the mike cos I could hear only ur voice! :p ) , Meril and I went to her place, where she was staying with Surabhi and another roomie. Anna joined us there, and we had some North Indian breakfast. It was quite good, considering it was made by MBAs ( just kidding!:) ). Post the breakfast, we headed off to Anna's place for more breakfast. The rest of the day, we stayed at home so that Anna could get his recommended bedrest.

By evening, I was off to delhi. Sitting in the flight, I smiled as the 3 days of fun flashed before my eyes...it almost felt like I was living the college days again.

Thanks guys for the making the trip ...AWESOME!!!

Its been hectic these days. Real hectic. Decided to catch my breath yesterday and take out some time for art. Anna asked me to make him a t-shirt design(he actually liked my work...doesnt happen too often). Spend an hour or so to come up with this..



For starters, I wanted to capture the "serious-glam" side of Anna. Fortunately, I managed to stumble across the right snap of his in Orkut. I also didnt have the patience to hand-draw his image. That's when I stumbled on the Color depth reduction feature in Irfan. First, I decreased the contrast of the original Image by about 30% and increased the gamma correction factory by about 2.33 ( I love confusing my readers with useless hi-fi technical stuff..he he). After that I used the Color depth reduction feature to get the almost portrait like look seen above.

Blind Ambitiion ( not be confused with Blonde Ambition), came out of the look in Anna's eyes.

I have avoided the use of colour. It was a not a conscious choice. However, I feel its an effective one.


Once I was done with the above, I caught up on some TV. Came back an hour or so to review the work, when the spoofy side of me took over. I spend another hour with the above work to come up with this magazine cover..





This is perhaps my 3rd or 4th Mag cover ( the others were done in college ) and is by far the sloppiest :)

The cover attempts to capture the life and times of Anna in Gurgaon and his growing frustration with the Mall City. Hope I've captured it all, dude!

Had a nice easter weekend. Church was fun. I got to do the Easter reading. Felt good to read the Bible out to a large gathering. Apart from church, I spent a part of the weekend, honing my paintbrush skills. The above mosaic is a result of that. I also discovered some cool things Irfan can do. I was able to do the 9X9 thanks to the panorama feature of Irfan.

The above art was inspired by a Lee Cooper t-shirt I saw at Lifestyle the other day. The tee had a contemporary-retro feel. So I thought I'd make a contemporary-retro t-shirt design with my face on it :) So picked by a snap of mine and did the basic block in a red hue. Then converted the same to other primary colors using the RGB inter-conversion feature of Irfan. And then used the panorama creation feature to create the mosaic.

Do you want a cool retro-contemporary design with your face on it? Say yes in the comments box, and mention how much you'll pay me to do it. If your price matches my expectations...I'll get in touch :D

I was doin' my usual rounds at OM bookshop along with Anna when I chanced upon a book which had the most mind-blowing collection of graffitti that I'd ever seen! The book was a collection of graffitti from across different geographies and cultures. I dont remember the name of the book, but what I do rememeber is that the book was mind-blowingly expensive. So I didnt buy it (not yet atleast).However, it inspired me to contribute by two bits to graffitti art. And hence the above (on MS-paintbrush :( man, I miss photoshop...)

The canteen food aint all that bad...though it can get monotonous at times :)

The above strip is among a series of strips (titled "A Cup of Merger),I had made on the P&G/Gillette merger, which I subsequently presented at our company integration interface. The strips had the coffee point as the basic theme, where employees usually meet for general news, gossip and of course..coffee. Being a silent, yet keen observer to this merger ( and to various merger-related coffee point conversations), I thought I'd capture various aspects of the integration from a humorous standpoint.

While the above strip has little to do with the merger as such, I still needed to vent my feelings on the canteen food :)

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Alex!

1. Alexolatry is the mindless worship of Alex.
2. Japan provides over thirty percent of the world's Alex supply.
3. New Zealand was the first place to allow Alex to vote!
4. Humans share over 98 percent of their DNA with Alex.
5. Wearing headphones for an hour will increase the amount of Alex in your ear 700 times.
6. It can take Alex several days to move just through one tree.
7. Human beings are the only animals that copulate while facing Alex.
8. Alex is the male seed of a flower blossom which has been gathered and treated by bees!
9. Alex was originally green, and actually contained cocaine!
10. The eye of an ostrich is bigger than Alex.

I am interested in - do tell me aboutherhimitthem

In love with "Jhalak Dikhalaja" from the movie Aksar. And no its not Udita Goswami, but the actual song! And again its the remix version I'm freaking out on. Somehow, Himesh has begun this trend of creating a slow version of a certain song ( which is for the movie ) and a remix version of the same (which is for him). And its the remix that ends up becoming the hot track of the OST. Looks like Himesh is playing selfish-selfish. But hey, I'm not complaninin'. Keep bringin' 'em on dude! (Now all I need is a dance floor and a babe...not necessarily in that order of preference!)

There's this other song I discovered on VH1 yest. Its called "L.O.V.E" by Ashlee Simpson ( is she Jessica's sis? ). I simply L.O.V.E the chorus of this song. Kinda innovative, but mostly catchy. Its a bit childish for my liking I admit. But there some of these songs that bring out the backstreet boy in me..and this is one of them :p


and Anna if ur reading this....I hope my camera is in one piece.

hate waking up at 4am.Deccan flight to B'lore. meet up with CT, fats and other juniors. move to sood's place. the guy's rocks as usual! head to brigade road. stop at KFC. meet juniors - proved my theory that if u walk on brigade road, ur bound to bump into some CRECian.back to CT's place. catch flight to cochin. first experience on an ATR. reach cochin. catch up with mom. head to kottayam next day. catch up with bob and betsy.meet a cute girl. attend half of leena's marriage. rush back to airport on the wildest 2 hour ride ever. passenger on ATR being instructed how to operate emergency door. passenger ends up opening the door anyway. reached b'lore. flight delay. most boring flight ever to delhi. reached home.

Whew!

Happy New Year, Amigos!

2 posts ago, I was weighing my options for New year's. I said I'd decide what I'm gonna do on the 30th and that's just what I did. 30th afternoon I decide I'm gonna spend my New year's in Mumbai.

Took the first flight out of Delhi on the 31st and landed in Mumbai at 9.00am. The flight was mostly uneventful, except when we were about to land, the guy next to me asks, " Is there a time difference between Delhi and Mumbai?".


As soon as I parked my luggage at Rohith's place, I knew I had to visit 2 places any die-hard Mumbai fan would wanna be at - Churchgate and Marine Drive. I also knew I had to get to these places through that notorious yet somehow endearing mode of transport - the local train ( of course, given the mumbai traffic, the local train was my only hope getting to these places and back before the day ended). Rohith was of course, more than willing to visit south mumbai and so the 2 of us set off.


Post-lunch, Ron calls and says that tickets to a new year bash are available at the Royal Palms in Goregaon and we are supposed to go buy the tickets from there. And so Rohith and I push off to Goregaon to get the tickets for our group of 5. The irony to the whole thing of course was that I come all the way from Delhi to get tickets for the New year bash for my friends who stay in Mumbai!


The party started off at 9. I wasted no time in getting to the meat. The rest wasted no time in gulping down a few drinks. The DJ was good and all of us were on the dance floor in about an hour. Finally got to see Anjan and Neo dance :)



The entertainment in the form of a belly dancer ( who we all felt was some out of work bar dancer) and the fire-eating guy was somewhat of a disappointment. But otherwise, the 5 of us had a good time. Of course on our way back, Anjan had to crib about the party. But that's Anjan and we love him for it :D


New year's day was relatively chilled out. Caught up with Raj for lunch. In the evening, after brief stop at Ron's place, we hit CCD. Once I started moving back to Rohith's place to get my luggage, I realised that the traffic was getting killer. Somehow, I get paranoid if I cant make it to the airport atleast 1 hour before the flight. And there's nothing like Mumbai traffic to bring that paranoia out of me in full force. I made it just in time for the boarding and wrapped my 2 day trip on reaching Delhi at 11.30pm.


Man...the 2 days felt good!