The Wait

She stared, The Open Space.
Loneliness....

When will He arrive?
Impatience....

I hope He arrives. Soon.
Is it wrong of me to hope such of him?
Tears!




The promises made, the dreams shared.




I broke them all, shattered......















Heaven is a lovely place
Is it wrong, I long for him to meet me here?

**************************

This is the series of 55 word stories which have been going around. Personally I felt the concept was challenging. Special mention to this 55 word story by Deepak.

Wont tag anyone, I'll just throw this open to those who have not tried it. Its good exercise.

PS: Iyer, go for it!

Simple Life

We came, we saw, we lived.

You were born, the little you. A moment of happiness (sadness for a select few) for people who know you. A moment which you will not remember. Your first step. Everyone screams with you. Your first word, Your first tooth.... and slowly but steadily you grow up.

Very soon its your first day at school and as the clock ticks you are outta school. Science, Commerce or Arts, thats the question. Very soon you are out of junior college. The first kiss, the first kick on the butt by prospective father-in-law, the first heart-break. Bachelors in Science? Medicine? Commerce? Arts? Couple of years more you are interviewing on campus. You have a job at a "prestigious" company, or at a start-up or you think about MBA. Two years give or take and you are working. Either at McKinsey or at Microsoft or at Manikchand or at your Papa's setup.

Then comes the next step. The unlucky few get married to their sweethearts. The even unluckier get married to the ones picked to be their sweetheart (arranged marriage). Few years (ok, at least nine months) from being hum-tum and the first kid is born. The first step, the first word, the first tooth.... the first pocket-money. This time you see it all from your own eyes. Life becomes a routine 8-5 job, home with the wife and kids. Buy a house, make down-payments. Buy cars, pay bills, a trip to Goa, a bottle of champagne for that promotion, relatives congratulating you on that fat pay-check and 5-bedroom house in Juhu or San Francisco.... life becomes materialistic.

When you prepare to close your eyes, to breathe for that one final time, will you wonder:

What set me aside, made life worth it, made me different from the people who live these routine lives?

Truly, Madly, Deeply.... Pallu!

I have been following this cool site called Vimeo since its days of birth. Cool video upload site started by Jakob Lodwig and Zack Klein at Connected Ventures, LLC. Upload videos from your PC, tagged browsing and recently, upload videos from your cell phones and publish them to your blog. Something I really wanted and its up there. These guys respond well to the feedback. I hope they connect it up with blogmaps next and I can know which user of Vimeo resides in the neighbourhood.

Anyways, marketting this site is not the purpose of this post (altho its definitely worth looking up - only 20 MB upload a week tho). But what provides one entertainment should be given due credit.

So ladies and gentlemen, proudly presenting:

PALLU MALIK


View this clip on Vimeo

So my friends, here is good ol' Pals during our Ocean City trip. I think he was so fed up with Bakshi (great going Bakshi) that he started singing to shut us all up. Truly Madly Deeply.... started off on the CD we had playing and Pals started off his own version. Enjoy! And yes, Pals would appreciate your feedback if he should try for the next Gujju Idol.

Note: You might need quicktime to view this. You can view it directly on my blog by hitting the play button which shows up under Pals photo (you neednt click the link which says - "View this clip on Vimeo". Thats optional.).

Warning: Matchmakers, I could hurt you!

Location: Bally's Locker room (I know, I talk about it often, I swear I dont live there)

I walk in to change into my gym clothes and realize a desi (U)ncle in the same aisle as mine.

U: So gonna work-out eh?
A: Yeah (Thought: Like I would come here to shop).
U: Whats your name?
A: Apoorva
U: Apoorva.... last name?
A: Joshi
U: So you are Gujarati (his face lights up)
A: No, Maharastrian.
U: Oh... how come... (face is sad)
A: Well... Joshis fall under Gujjus and Maharastrians. (Thought in my mind: My mom is maharastrian, my dad is maharastrian, their mom and dad are maharastrians and their mom and dad... I could go on... but invariably thats why I am maharastrian... but if its really important I could become Gujarati)
U: Yeah, I know.... are u born here?
A: No.... (Thought in my mind: And I weigh XXX pounds and my foot size is XX, and the socks I am wearing right now have two holes. Need more info stranger?)

By now I thought I should at least get his name out.

A: Your name would be?
U: Uday Mehta.
A: So you are Gujju for sure.
U: He he... yeh.... u have family here, mom, dad?
A: No... (man, whats with people asking about my family?)
U: How about other family?
A: Uh? As in.....?
U: Wife...kids...
A: (Thought in my mind: They become other family? Or are you just weak in English?) Uhhh... no. No one.
U: Have you met Vijay Dane?
A: Uh... ?
U: He comes here often... his daughter is young and in college!
A: ok sir, gotta pee.... very badly.... later! (Sheesh man, "young" and in college. What is this guy?)



I am getting a new tattoo. On my forehead. In red and black.
Something which tells match-makers to stay away! Faaaaaaaaaar away!

Apoorva Caught Napping

Tuesday night and I lay on my bed, reading this fundaa about the message and the medium. And dozed off, to find myself awake at 5:00 AM. Lets VPN and get some work done I thought, till I found myself sleepy by 7. Half an hour wont hurt. Till I realize its 9 AM and I am half asleep in bed. Goddamnit! I have a 10 o'clock meeting. I barely make it on time (actually 5 mins late, but thats on time).

The core of the meeting is the design of this pivotal structure. Well, its so important that our Divisions Director was attending, so there! The lead of that feature is blabbing away while everyone is nodding. Till we come to this deadlock. Should we have "X" in our program, due to which "Y" will have to be implemented at a later stage, or should we have "Y" in our program due to which "X" will have to be implemented later. Now, time taken for creating X and Y are approximately the same. Each bears equal weightage and each will be used almost equal number of times. Lastly, none of them really have any significant impact in terms of design or performance. Now in such a situation, I wouldnt really care what you choose to implement. But suddenly the room is divided into two factions, one keen on having X in the initial design, while the other (you guessed it) desperate for Y. Sometimes these dicussions can get violent, but hilarious. Unfortunately this one went on for a good 45 minutes, while I like a silent spectator tried to keep myself awake.

Sleep dear sleep finally took over, and for a second I dozed off on my seat. How do I know? Because I woke up with a violent jerk in an attempt to stop myself from falling off the chair. And my eyes settled straight on Director Saab, who was looking back at me. Just as thoughts were creeping into my mind as to how I should frame my resignation letter, he started laughing. Not knowing what to do, I started laughing back. And all the arguments stopped, and everyone stared at us, wondering what was so funny.

Dir: Let me ask Apoo what his opinion would be. X or Y? And maybe he would like some coffee before he answers.
Me : I dont really care, because it doesnt really matter. Effort, time and performance is the same. All I would say is, I want an answer from the teams in 2 mins, or we flip a coin.

Director looks at Team Lead

Lead: Ok. Lets flip a coin.
Me : (controls laughter)

Dir: We go with X.
Lead: But if we go with X, then Y will....


Has anyone ever thought of carrying their bed to work?

Whispering Words Of Wisdom....

Click Photo to Enlarge

Photo by Abbs @ NYC

...... Let It Be!

Bird Nadkarni: The Piping

"Bird is Dead". Nostalgia. When someone says Bird is dead, it conjures one image in my mind. Bakshi running on the terrace towards me, with those exact words - "Bird is Dead"

Since Bird refuses to blog about this incident which is etched in the history of Nandanvan, and Abbs is too lazy to do the same, I thought I should do so. It goes back to probably around 1999-2000, perhaps earlier. It was 14th of January. Makar Sankranti, which happens to be my favorite festival, was in full swing. Time was about 5 PM and all of Nandanvan was on the terrace.

Now the structure of Nandanvan then was such that we had two wings (Sections, which I dont know why we called wings). A wing and B wing. Each wing had a water tank on the terrace (which my Mom told me never to climb onto). So like any sane soul would, I was flying kites on the terrace while rest of the gang was sitting on the water tank.

I dont know what conversations followed, but someone challenged Bird to climb onto the tank using the water supply pipes which ran from the terrace to the tank. Despite not having indulged in any significant volumes of alcohol, unlike any sane person, Bird agreed to do so. So what followed was one of the most amazing spectacles of my life, which would put Demi Moore doing the pole dance in Striptease to shame. I was on the A-Wing side of the terrace. Rest of the gang was on B-wing. From what I could see was Bird, hanging onto a water pipe, struggling to pull his over weight self against gravity while rest of the juntaa looked down from the tank and egged him on. After a while I chose to ignore this view, which most people would call insane but us in Nandanvan would call Normal. I know you people are wondering how could I ever ignore this sight? I had reasons - and good ones, trust me. After a while it looked like Bird was trying to hump the pipe. And I never wanna see Bird hump anyone!

Minutes later, Bakshi runs to me. "Bird is Dead" he says. The first thought in my mind was Bird fell off the terrace. I looked in the direction of B-Wing water tank and found a spectacle which even Nandanvanites would call "Not so Normal". Bird was still hanging mid-way on the pipe, a good 10 feet from the ground. The only difference from the previous visual - The Pipe had burst open. Water was splurging out from it with a good degree of force. Bird was drenched but refused to let go of the pipe.

I looked at that spectacle, wondered if I should help Bird, or continue flying my kite. I chose to do the later, till I realized Mr. Talgeri and Mr. Shetty walk onto the terrace and Bakshi once again shouting - "Bird is Dead"

Now when the uncles come into the picture, its my gut instinct to swing into action. This is when Murphy's law kicked in. The terrace tiling over on B-Wing had been removed. So the water was seeping right into Talgeri's and Shetty's flat. TV gone, carpet gone, sofa gone... everything messed up. And you think Bird would be blamed for it? No! the Uncles look up at the sight of Bird clinging onto the pipe, trying to stop the water from splurging out and say something like, "What happened harshavardhan?" Harshavardhan is Birds elder brothers name. So to date, it was Harshvardhan who broke the pipe. And I am sure he is not even aware of it.

This incident went down in the history of Nandanvan as a significant landmark.... uh.. watermark. After this day no one was allowed to climb pipes. Bird was given a briefing on the laws of gravity and I was put forth as prime example of an ideal boy who did not climb water pipes and flew kites without causing harm to anyone. Lately Ketan Mehta was approached with this idea as the theme for his next movie - "Bird Nadkarni: The Piping". Its the Titanic, Mangal Pandey, Bhoot Banglaa and Maine Pyaar Kiya all put together. Bird is adept at climbing pipes. All he does is climbs pipes, till one day while climbing a pipe he notices a girl (for reasons unknown to me, lets call her VijayaLakshmi) on the opposite terrace and falls in love with her. But VijayaLakshmi's parents refuse to marry her to Bird (do you really want reasons?). So an angry Bird climbs the pipe which leads to VijayaLakshmi's house and breaks it, flooding her house. The girls parents cannot swim, and Bird rescues them and becomes a hero. Before marriage someone mentions about Bird being the one who broke the pipe and VijayaLakshmi feels cheated and refuses to marry. How Bird pipes her back is what follows.... I'll leave that part to Iyer.

Live From Baltimore/DC/NYC

Update: 6th Sept 2005.

Abbs and Pals are finally gone. (Phew! No more Pals). Rocking time and Abbs finally got drunk on couple of Long Island Ice Teas before he got onto the plane. I pray for the airhostess.

DC was mind blowing with Smithsonians - we saw the Air and Space museum and the normal tour of White House + Capitol. Later a trip to GeorgeTown was very very rocking! Kallu + Priya joined us for it.

Abbs, Sharma, myself (yeah, I got rid of that hat) and Pals

I wont go about blogging much about NYC. Abbs has promised to cover most of this trip on his blog (and also how I got chased by dogs). But noteworthy was celebrities coming down to rub shoulders with Abbs.

2nd Sept 2005:

Blogging live from Baltimore. Abbs is finally here.

So is the liquor.


TWO TEQUILA



FOUR TEQUILA



LOST COUNT OF HOW MANY TEQUILA





Pals is here too.... but refuses to get photographed. Also, it aint a nice habit to blog when you are a lil high. So more later. Love, hugs and a pillow!

And of course.... keep watching this post for more updates on Abbs.