Gone are those days

This is for my friends in SG Gang. This is not poetic but emotional, spontaneous and chaotic.

Gone are the days when we used to talk for hours sitting together.
Now we don’t have time for that and meet only if there is an occasion.

Gone are the days when we played board games, badminton, bowling, snooker, volleyball etc.
Now we hardly have time to spend with each other during weekends.

Gone are the days when we used to download movies and wait for others to join to watch them together.
Now we see that everyone watch them separately in their own laptops or theatres.

Gone are the days when we partied hard at Khalsa.
Now we see it as a cliché.

Gone are the days when we accompanied friends to airport to eat at Anand Bhavan.
Now we see the same thing irrelevant and stupid.

Gone are the days when we knew everything about every one.
Now we have become alien to each other in some aspects.

Gone are the days where it used to be fun for all the stupid things done and said.
Now we are trying to think sense out of everything.

Gone are the days where we used to say "YES" to everything.
Now we start with a "NO".

Weird/Amazing Experiences/Things that I did in life

Name at least 10 weird/amazing experiences/things about your life.
I came across this in some blog hopping.

Now once I started this, I couldn’t really stop as I got many endless experiences to write here. But I thought I will only mention the ones which can be shared with everyone . Some are good, some are funny and some are sad.

As it is at least 10, I did not limit it to 10.

1. Singing in a school singing competition. My brother had to face the embarrassment (we both were from the same school) as I literally read the wordings of the song rather than singing.

2. When I was a kid (may be 5 or 6-year-old), I was almost drowned in a river. I almost took my brother who came to help me. At the same time god has sent a saviour who was washing his clothes there.

3. After being a grown up kid, I almost killed Kishore by choking his throat. I cried for more than half an hour after that.

4. I am the one who bought the first drink for many of my cousins & friends (mainly the female ).

5. Once I drank Pepsi with full of chilli flakes as part of a challenge. I would never do that again in my life.

6. I climbed Mount Kinabalu and had explored both the Timpohon and Mersilau trails. I would climb again if Swetha would join me.

7. I had many close encounters with “death”. I was never worried about any of those accidents, but cannot forgive myself for one such accident in which Vijay got badly injured.

8. Did the world’s highest bungee jump at Macau and I would do it again and again

9. Took money from dad’s pocket when I was a kid and got a nice bashing for that.

10. I had twice touched 160 km an hour speed in a car and once touched 130 km an hour on bike. It was an exhilarating experience and hope to cross those speeds.

11. Had hiccups for almost 2 full days and had a real bad time. Mind you hiccups just seem so simple, but they are not.

12. I wasted 1 year 8 months in my life without having a proper vision to my life. People don’t believe but I feel bad about it even today.

13. Due to my sleep I missed my destinations many a times since my childhood and it’s still going on now.

14. I have done a marathon of movies and saw 20 movies over a weekend. This is something which I am trying to beat almost every month

15. Did couple of half marathons without any practice and now planning for full marathon this December.

16. Climbed Singapore’s tallest building using steps. It was definitely painful, but the view at the end was relaxing.

17. I was drunk so much in a party and even today I do not remember what I did that night. I have to believe all the weird stories that my friends tell me.

18. Went to airport to drop off a friend and flew to India without any planning for a weekend.

19. Slept in almost all the important exams. I wish I used that time in reviewing my answers .

20. I shouted out answers in an examination hall .

21. Travelled alone to Ho Chi Minh City and actually enjoyed the trip. I am missing that experience these days.

22. Travelled South India for 4 days without a break and sleeping only in the SUV.

23. Did a weird journey to Singarayakonda overnight without knowing the route and address.

There are lot more weird, exciting and amazing things that I want to do. Hope this list grows leaps and bounds and very quick

Have a happy day to you all!

Success Path

PLAN while others are playing.

STUDY while others are sleeping.

DECIDE while others are delaying.

PREPARE while others are daydreaming.

BEGIN while others are procrastinating.

WORK while others are wishing.

SAVE while others are wasting.

LISTEN while others are talking.

SMILE while others are frowning.

COMMEND while others are criticizing.

PERSIST while others are quitting.

Gone are those days

I have found this picture while blog hopping. This picture brought a smile on my face. I felt nostalgic thinking about all those past days where we were children and innocent. I would not write much here but leave it here and give you a chance of going into those good olden days. I bet everyone would smile once you see the pic.

Wait for 3 years for 30 years of Golden Era

Drama, Tragedy, Sentiment, Action, Drama, Action, Drama, Bang

Yes that’s the way AP political situation is changing every now and then for the past 2 years. It all started off with YSR becoming the CM and continuing successfully for the second time. There was huge drama in the political situation by exposing, how currupt YSR or Chandrababu or their allies is, by each other. Then came the confused Chiranjeevi who is still not sure where he belongs to after 2 years in politics. We know KCR who is always there to talk some nonsense about which he has no idea.

Now what made me write this post is because of the new slogan of Jagan. After his fathers death there was lot of action drama and sentiment which took place because of his Odarpu Yatra. We all know what happened after that. CM has also resigned just to make sure that Jagan will slow down. Then came the bang, the stormy exit of Jaganmohan Reddy. As expected he seems to be preparing for a prolonged political innings in the state. In his maiden speech after a week of his resigning from the Congress and Lok Sabha membership on November 29, Jagan opened up to media and public about his plans.

His new slogan is “Wait for three more years, you (people) will have 30 years of `swarna yugam’ (golden era)”. “I will launch a new political party in 45 days, which would protect Telugu pride and self-esteem”. “The Congress is in power only because of my late father. But the party high command engineered a split in our family by luring my uncle with a ministerial berth”

In middle of gathering of his party workers in his hometown, he announced that he would launch his new party in 45 days. He would start his fight right from the Kadapa by-polls and would go on to win the assembly elections in 2014.

Jagan publicly said that he has no interest in destabilizing the current congress government. But the buzz around the political circles is that he has already started the destabilization of the current government from inside. The analysts who have no work and sit in the news channels feel that Jagan is unlikely to keep his promise and would hit back hard. Its no secret that He’s hungry for power and would do anything to grab it. He already has 25 MLAs who are willing to support him and the number would definitely increase once he launches his party and promises the portfolios under his ministry. He would definitely go for the kill when it is the right time.

Many are now feeling that Jagan has made some bold statements even before starting the party. He said that his party would rule for 30 years and he went on to say that the Congress would be wiped out in the next three years. I am not sure what his strategy would be to wipe out a party like Congress which is currently ruling the state. We all know that he has been attacking Sonia Gandhi’s Leadership in many ways and I don’t know why he cannot see that it could hit him hard as they are from the most experienced and current ruling party.

In between all this chaos, I hope the normal people would not suffer. We have seen many disasters because of the political rivalries. People have suffered in many ways right from Bandh, Dharna to Street fights between the different party workers. It also causes a lot of collateral damage. I hope these politicians realize all that and fight for power peacefully by working on their strengths rather than trying to show each others mistakes.

I can only say one thing now: God bless our AP.

2 more days to go

Yes, 2 more day to go for my 3rd trip to India in this year. This would be my longest holiday ever in my professional life. I will be out of Singapore and away from work for 18 days. I was away from work for 16 days twice but 18 days never.

I am very happy as I will be with my parents and cousins and friends back in India. I am going for my cousins Vikram and Hemanth’s marriages. I wanted to attend all the functions and enjoy all the happy moments with the family.

As the situation here in my job is not looking bright, I might get a chance to think over it and take a decision by end of the year. Hope things will fall in place and everything will go well until the end of year.

Happy Diwali and Happy Hari Raya and belated Halloween

India 87th on corruption list

There was hell of a things that went wrong during the common wealth games. At the India has pulled of one of the best CW games that the world has seen. Even though there is so much of good work being discussed about the CWG, at the same time the corruption and the mismanagement of the accounts has left a scar on India.

From the last weeks results about the transparency around the world has shown that India has dropped 3 places to 87 when compared to 84 last year. Will we be ever improving it towards the least corrupted nation is the question that would have been bothering many Indians.

Now there is something which I like about Singapore. It is third best country in the corrupted countries list. Hope India would reach a better ranking next year.

Miss US crowned Miss World 2010

I was going through my tweets before hitting the bed. I saw this headline in the NDTV Movies – Miss US crowned Miss World 2010. Then the immediate next reaction of mine was .. what about India .. what did the India beauty do?

I read further down in the article and was totally disappointed to know that Miss India World did not even qualify into the top 25. The last decade was awesome for beauty in India. We have won Miss World 4 times, Miss Universe 2 times and Miss Asia Pacific once. In this decade India did not win any of these beauty contests.

Whats happening? Is India loosing its lustre

Miss US crowned Miss World 2010

Read more at: http://movies.ndtv.com/movie_story.aspx?id=ENTEN20100158490&keyword=BOLLYWOOD&section=Movies&subcatg=MOVIESINDIA&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NDTVMovies+%28NDTV+Movies%29&utm_content=Twitter&cp

A Day without Google

Where is this country? What does this word mean? Please translate this for me. When is the next holiday? Where to eat? Where to sleep? Where to buy?

Where? When? What? Which? How? there are so many questions for which we need answers. The solution has always been www.google.com. Google has now become a synonym for search. People now a days do not say search for it, they say Google it. Thats the impact it has on our lives. Google now provides unparalleled Internet search where we can get information about anything and everything. You name an internet service and Google is offering it.

Today I was just thinking about the applications developed by google that I use in my everyday life. Below are some:

Google search
Google Chrome
Google Earth
Google Maps
Google Mail (gmail)
Google Picasa Web Albums
Google Talk (gtalk)
Google Wave
Blogger
Google Toolbar
Google Docs
Google Calendar
Google News
Orkut
Google Reader
iGoogle
Youtube
Adsense
Google Groups
Android

Huh and the list goes on and on and on. So I was imagining a day without google.

I was scared and frightened to even think about it. My day starts with checking mails and messages from friends and family. Everyday I chat with many of my friends through Gtalk. I blog using blogger to share my thoughts with my friends. These are only some examples which I am talking about. Hope there would be one day or some day when I can live my life without google.

How difficult is to follow our dream?

There were so many days when I had this debate and argument with my friends. What are we aspiring for or what is our dream or what are we chasing in today’s competitive world? Most of the time people were confused. They were not sure why they have joined a course or doing a particular job even though they cannot enjoy doing it (Including me).

People have done their Engineering or MBA or Medicine even though they had interest in something else. This was the result of the peer pressure & family pressure. In Indian families people decide what their kids want to become the moment they are born (Same as what Madhavan faces in 3 Idiots). Our parents normally show a cousin of ours who is successful in some field and want us to pursue the same profession or do the same degree.

When compared to good old days when people used to follow their father’s profession blindly,  now a days parents are giving a choice to their children to decide as what to do. But I still feel that parents are scared to think beyond Engineering or Medicine. Not everybody can become a doctor, engineer or CA

In India people should start thinking of making their hobby which they really love as their profession. This is very common in the western worlds where people are ready and can dare to follow their dreams. We should understand that everyone has a different set of hobbies and their intellectual capacity vary depending on each individual. Some people have their left side of brain more polished than their right ones.

Everyone wants to earn money and hence they try choosing a profession which gives them lot of money. This shouldn’t be the way we should think. Money has become so much important for us in life for different reasons on which we do not have control, but at the same time we should be aware that we forget to enjoy the precious moments of  life. I think that is why we always long for US education and working there. 1 in 100 would actually join the course that they love, but most of them just do it because they have to.

So how difficult is to pursue our dream? Life isn’t a fairy tale for every body. We have seen many people in our life who were able to follow their dreams rather than getting stuck with life doing something which they don’t like. We can think of working for few years in a lucrative job, earn enough and they go for what we love to do. As I said, life is not a fairy tale to everyone and If we are not lucky enough, then we can get stuck in the same job which is absolutely a wrong fit for us only to suffer everyday. In those cases we can only compromise. Again not all stories have a happy ending.

The whole definition and goal of education has been changed in past few years. The goal of education is to  make good citizens, but it is now seen as a premise to a good job, huge salary & a comfortable life. As Baba Ranchhoddas has said in 3 Idiots,  “Chase excellence & success will follow you itself”. Hope we understand that life is not just about money but passion. So live your passion & follow you dreams.