Well, not long, but the longest air journey of my life. Though I have travelled in train for 48 hours in one go, air travel had never been so long.

This time the total journey for me was almost 36 hours or probably more. I was at Bangalore airport at 11 PM for a flight scheduled at 4 AM. Emirates provided a good choice of entertainment and I did avail it to the fullest during Dubai-Sao Paulo leg of the journey. The flight duration was more than 15 hours and a tire body fell deep into sleep the moment it was airborne. The problem of middle seats is that you never feel comfortable; you cannot spread your legs and are always conscious that any movement of yours would disturb both your neighbors. You also feel guilty if you have to make a visit to the rest room as it would mean an unwarranted exercise for the person on aisle seat.

A journey as long as 15 hours is quite difficult to be completed while sitting in one seat and squirming there only uncomfortably. So all I did during that time was to watch movies, eat whatever they had in offing for a vegetarian and to go off to sleep as soon as possible.

With some palatable food in offer, I hooked on to the movies available and surprised myself with my stamina of watching movies non-stop. ‘Luck by chance’ was the first to go followed by ‘Lamhe’ and ‘Aloo Chat’. Enough of Hindi movies – now let me watch some English one and I switched to ‘Duplicity’ and ‘The Proposal’ – the movies of two of the actresses I like.  Now don’t ask me anything about any movie, not even the stories – I got all messed up and cannot differentiate between any of those, except that I made a note of buying the audio CD of Lamhe the moment I am back in India.

Finally the journey came to a halt after the flight landed in Sao Paulo. Rushing to pick our baggage and then to the TAM airlines counter for checking in again, we started experiencing chaos. I always thought that the counters of Deccan airlines in India are a house of chaos but this one seemed to be a castle of chaos.

For a flight at 9:50 Pm, we were still in queue for security check at 9:30 when all of a sudden security check stopped for whatever reason and no one seemed to be bothered about the situation. The officials had something else to discuss probably or may be shifts were to change or maybe there was some emergency – all these guesses we made did not seem to be falling in place as no one was moving from his/her seat, the calm and casual look of officers defied any presumption of emergency, they jabbering and joking attitude ruled out any serious discussion and then finally for no apparent reason, they decided to work.

We had to fly domestic but were made to go to the emigration counter – God knows why! The linguistic barrier ensured that we cannot ask any question and just follow whatever we could understand. And lo! it was 9 45 by the time our security check was over and we were running to the embarking point lest we are left behind and forced to spend the night in Sao Paulo. But the moment we got into the plane – surprise! we were among the first one to enter. Cool, now the time to relax and watch some other movie – don’t know what as I fell asleep the moment movie started. Woke up after 45 minutes and found that the flight was all set to take off, if everyone is in. Finally it started crawling towards the runway and we could be in Rio in another one hour – but hold….. For some reason beyond our comprehension, we were informed that the flight would not take off and would be taxied back to the bay. The flights were to be changed, by which I could only guess of some technical snag in the flight.

Another flight and another period of wait and another round of sleep. Woke up after some time expecting to be on my way but the bird was yet to move from its nest. Go back to sleep buddy! Finally it took off and I was once again sleeping mid-air and then woke up by landing jerk.

Running out of patience, out of energy and out of any hope, walked into Rio airport and walked towards the conveyer belt. Picked up the luggage and realized that I was only 4.5 hours late. Thanks God finally I had reached at least. But..but..but..why to hurry. There is a cab to be caught and getting a pre-paid cab ticket does not guarantee availability of a cab. Another round of wait before the cab is made available.

Finally I was left with energy enough to drag myself to my hotel room and take bath before hitting the bed.  Thanks God the journey got over.

My journey to the country of Amazon strated quite early in the morning, before sun could cross the horizon and spread his beams on the sky of my country. Half in sleep, I seated myself on the seat of plane and could not decide whether to sleep or to watch in-flight entertaiment. The flight till Dubai was short in comparison to what was in offing post the desert nation.  A good breakfast and some boring programs helped me take the forty winks.

But when the plane landed and taxied towards its bay, I was up with half closed eyes and was just able to drag myself towards the gate of the plane where the ladders and subsequently a bus was waiting to take us to the terminal.

Saying thanks to the hostesses and throwing a half smile towards them, the moment I reached the gate, I found myself at the threshold of a good surprise. The sun has just risen and the skyline was still golden. the melliflous rays hit the face and took away all the sleep and tiredness and filled my face with a smile. I was standing there mesmerised by the mother nature. I dont know when my hands slipped into my pocket and the phone came in my palms. The next moment, I was taking photos of the rising sun, one of the most beautiful views I had seen in recent past.

Sunrise at Dubai

The Romance with the nature was broekn with some harse sound. A Security guy did not like my photographic adventure and asked me to stop immediately. In a foriegn land, that too an Arabic Country, I dare not disobey the cops and had to contain myself with just one snap.

I decided to become student once more and pursue a course in Hindi literature. I opted for a more convenient IGNOU course of Masters in Hindi (MHD).

After a wait of 4 months since I submitted the form, I got a letter that my course material has arrived and I can collect it from the centre.

I thought of making a study group and went ahead to ask for email ids of the students in same course. Knowing quite well that the number of students would be in single digit, I did not see any issue in creating a study group. But what I experienced was way beyond my imagination.

In a proper bureaucratic set-up, I was asked to get permission from the regional director to fetch the email ids of students in that course. The office of the Regional director was on first floor and was guarded by his secretary. I was informed by the lady that ’sir’ was out for lunch and I can meet asstt director instead. One of the Astt directors found my idea interesting and asked me to go ahead. Alas! His intercom was not working and he could not call up the clerk so I was asked to ask the clerk to call him up.

But as usual, clerks found themselves above AD and could follow instruction only if it comes through the pens of the supreme Regional director.  He did not delay in informing me that the director is back from lunch and I can go and meet him. 

Once again I was face to face with the lady secretary. This time she had other argument – ‘Sir’ got into a meeting immediately after his lunch and the smile on her face went beyond control as if by stopping me from meeting the director was the best job she has done in the day.  Probably she is being paid to make the life difficult for anyone who tries to meet the director or she wanted some other deal to be stuck for the meeting to take place – I do not know.

Back to the clerk and in spite of telling him that I have approval of the AD, it yielded nothing for me.

I just picked up my material and walked out, fumbling and trying to give him a piece of my mind – but he was his usual self – finally he achieved what he wanted – a bureaucratic set up where clerks reign.

Last couple of days my Internet explorer (v8) stopped working properly. Any site would return in  “Internet explorer cannot open the site”.

Diagnostics could return nothing. Among the reasons listed on the page for such behavior was the possibility of my computer not connected to the internet. However on checking the connection, it used to say that the computer is connected to the internet.

I even tried downloading google chrome but initially it did not get downloaded and then I had to opt for different version of chrome to be downloaded.  Even then chrome was unable to connect to the internet singing the same tune as IE.

The strange thing was I was able to open any site using firefox or could connect through gtalk/yahoo/skype. All attempts to rectify the issue resulted in frustration.

Finally i checked for recent MS updates and found one update installed on my PC two days ago for IE8. The update was numbered KB974455. I unistalled the update and restared my PC and lo! the IE was back to normal.

To remove update in Vista:

Go to  “Start >> Control Panel >> under the heading Security, click on Check for updates >> on the left panel, click on ‘View update history’>> on the top click on Ínstalled updates >> find out update numbered kb 974455 and double click on it.

वर्ष बीतते क्षण ना लगता, पर

इस बीते बरस में मानों

हर क्षण में वर्ष बीता है

जिसके सानिध्य को तरसे मन, बस

उसके चित्र में चित्त अब रीता है

कोमल कुसुम-किसलय-सा था

पिछली बार जब मिले थे हम

आलिंगन में दबाव ना ज्यादा हो

सोच यही रुकते थे दम

भिज्ञ बस क्रंदन-ध्वनि से

स्मित रेखाओं से थी पहचान

आज साल का हुआ जाता है

पिता की वो नन्हीं सी जान

नन्हें कदम ठुमुक जाते पथ को

नन्हीं आँखें तकती हर शाम

नन्हीं बाँहें फैली-सी होंगी

नन्हीं जीभ लेती पिता का नाम

मचलते हैं हाध, मान पुत्र,

करने तेरा बस एक स्पर्श

याद तुझे कर जानें कैसे,

क्या पता बीता ये बर्ष

तेरी मुस्कान कई बार मुझे

स्वप्न से जगा-सी जाती हैं

तेरी मीठी यादें अक्सर

आँखें नम कर जाती हैं

Recently I went to buy some toys. In past I had never really given a damn about the manufacturer of the toy. The only things I used to look at were the utility and the price tag.

However recent activity of Chinese intrusion and their brazen acts in Kashmir brought the matter of ‘Made in China’ in top of my mind. So I casually asked the sales man if the toys were Chinese made – half expecting negative reply.

But that was not to be and I was left wondering how almost whole of the shop was full of Chinese toys. I made it clear to the sales person that I am not interested in any ‘Made in China’ brand and only if it is made in India or any other country for that matter, am I going to spend my money on. Finally he could find some funskool toys which were made in Chennai and some other smaller brand toys made in Mumbai.

All the toys occupying good shelf space and eye-catching position were manufactured on the wrong side of Himalayas.

For quite some time now, US market has been trying to reject Chinese toys on account of lead content in the toys and harmful effect it would have on the kids. Are our children lesser mortals that we do not care for them? Why can’t we, keeping the two factors- geo-political situation and health hazard – say a big No to Chinese maal?

First of all, I do not think Indian leaders have so much of political will, second Indian businessman would not let go their profits and most of all Indian mass would certainly wish to save some of its hard earned money  by closing their eyes on ‘Made in ..’ issue.

But just think about it. Can’t we really boycott chinese items and have ou own say?

Presently i am writing a paper, the abstract of which has been seected at an international conference.

The paper talks primarily about the use of technology as a platform in order to collaborate with the customers for brand building. This includes using open source technologies as well as other plaforms like blogs, twitters, you tube, networking sites etc and the emerging cloud computing to use platform, infrastructure and software as services.

I would appreciate of you can take some time off your schedule and fill up the survey form to provide your view points.

Thanks a lot!

Once a year we, belonging to Oracle, celebrate our effort and contribution to the needy world in form of Global Volunteers’ day. As a part of the same, we participate in certain events meant to help those who deserve in a way we could. This includes programs meant for environment, special and underprivileged children, elders ones and other such important segments of the society. One is free to choose the program he/she wishes to enroll into and then a lead for the program volunteers, who is responsible for ensuring that all arrangements including schedules are made.

This year I participated in the program involving a children’s home called ‘Nele Akash Kirana’. It is a small children home run by an NGO for uplift ment of those children who have no other place to call their homes. The care includes everything that the children need starting from shelter above their heads to education to brighten their minds.

On saturday, the 19th of September, 11 of us congregated at one of our office buildings on Bannerghatta road near Shoppers Stop, changed into our GVD T-shirts (Red in colour with community printed on it, reminding us of the end objectives of our mission), we started our journey in a couple of cars and motor bike. Most of us were meeting each other for the first time as we were from different office locations and from different divisions of Oracle. But it hardly took us a couple of minutes of introduction to get to the feeling of having known each other for years.

Though there was slight set back that the timings which we had decided, could not be synchronized well with the children as some of them were out for some other activities. But nonetheless, a group of seven children were waiting for us with 27 more to join us in half an hour, once their other activities get over. Waiting for the children travelling back to join us was not a concern as we had enough time at our hands but we needed to keep the children in front of us involved in some activities so that their vigor does not gets subsided.

“Passing the ball” got the ball rolling. Children were very enthusiastic and quite confident in performing in front of the strange faces of ours. Eager to show off their talents, they kept on looking at me (i was playing the music to decide who gets the chance to perform) with yearning eyes and hesitant in letting the ball go off their hands. From ’Ganesh stuti’ to rhymes (Johnny Johnny) to dance, it was sheer pleasure for them to be   apart of the performance and to give to their best.

One of the girls (Lavanya) was sitting in a corner as she had met an accident some time back and had her leg in cast. Her inability to move around freely and enjoy as the others in the group made her feel sad and her wish to be there – where the action is – was quite evident. One of us picked her up in his arms and brought her to the active group and arrangements were made for her to participate in the enjoyment without getting hurt. Without wasting a moment, she was into action, brightening the room with spreading smile. singing and dancing was followed by ’building blocks’ and a scaled down version of bowling. Then started the game of ‘blindfold chasing’. What surprises us was when we used to play such games, we used to ensure our best not to be caught by the chaser giving him a tough time. Here the scene was totally in contrast. Everyone wanted to be the one to be blindfolded and hence making herself available to the chasers to grab. The desire reached to an extent that one of the girls got herself  blindfolded with an additional piece of cloth and jumped in between the game, resulting in two blind folded persons finally grabbing each others.

Blindfold chase

As the other kids walked in, we started painting competition. enterprize of the kids were remarkable. We expected most of them to follow the standard template (a hut, with hill, rising sun, palm tree and flying birds as background. But what was in store was creativity at its best. starting from the mundane ‘cat, rat and me’ stuff, it went to strutured houses and detailed landscapes. in absence of scales, crayon boxes were used to drwa straight lines. Absence of model was filled in by the picture on crayon boxes. The most surprising was a girl using white crayon pencil to paint her drawing on a white sheet. But oblivious of all our gazes, she went on unabated and presented a well composed picture of some animal in multi-coloured skin.

While the judges were having tough time in finding out the best of the lot, we embarked onto the challenge of quiz and antakshari.   Even the small kids can recognize him, seeing half his face.  memory, cognition and mathematical skills were at stake for the quiz while their vocal and singing prowess to be showcased during antakshari.  One thing is evident: Sachin Tendulkar can give a run for his money to anyone in india when it comes to popularity.

At the end, everyone, everyone was joyous, irrespective of being on the winning side of the competion or not.

When we decided to wrap up the event with photography, canines of the house were so eager to participate that we had a tough time keeping them at bay.

With the sips of tea, the care takers and teachers said thanks to us, which should have been other way round. All of us were really impressed by their dedication in bring up the children and making them feel at home, ensuring they get taught and trained for the real world they have to face.

One thing that these kids teach us “How to remain happy and give the best, even when in unfavorable circumstances”.  Thanks for the lesson kids!

भरी दोपहर में होती बारिश देख

याद आ गए वो दिन जब

गिरते वारि-बूँदों की आवाज सुन ही

मचल उठते थे पाँव

दौड कर आना आँगन में

तीब्र हवा और तेज जल-धार बीच

अनसुनी करना वो डाँट जो अनर्थक

माँ की मुस्कान छिपाने का प्रयास करते

बस भींगना, भींगना और भींगते रह जाना

जल के भार से सिक्त

शरीर से चिपके कपडे और

नंगे पाँव के नीचे जल की धार।

मुख खोलकर पीना स्वर्ग का प्रसाद

और थिरकते पाँव से करना प्रमाद।

फिर जब इंद्र दिखला दें झलक

क्षितिज पे सतरंगी अपने धनुष की

सर पौंछते हुए माँ की झुठी

झिडकी सुन, भोली आँखों से पूछना

“एक प्याली चाय मिलेगी ?”

और आज….

आज बस वातायन से उस पार

बूदों को गिरते देखता हूँ

और झूमते पेडों पे नजर डाल,

मुस्का कर एक कविता लिख लेता हूँ।

With the monday off and Sunday to b spent as liesurely as possible, I called up Satya and we met for coffee, which turned out to be a dinner plan and got extended to a movie.

We took whatever movie ticket was available at that time as most of the shows were alreasy on (it was past 9 PM) and Fox was the movie we could get teh ticket of. The expectation from the movie was zilch and we decided that we shall walk off mid-way if the movie turns out to be soporific or the one to wreck the nueral cells.

I feel it is always good to go to the movie with such expectation as then you enjoy the show the more.

The movie started on good note and seemed promising. Though the first couple of scenes were not so plausible, it nonetheless picked up a good line in another 15-20 minutes. The pace was slow but the story was being formed well, keeping one thinking as to what is going to go wrong with the main protagonist. in between soem unwarranted song, dance and romantic sequences were thrown in for whatever purposes the director found it to be. But we were waiting for Sunny paaji. Once he enteres, generally movies take a interesting turn and hence we were counting minutes when he would be on screen and lo he was there just before the interval.

Some confusion was created purposefully as to ‘who the çulprit is’ but it was worth it and somewhere mid-way you feel as if the suspense is no more. But as the movie rolls on, the earlier exposure of the storyline seems fake and you start guessing with lot of confidence as to who the person would be. The story is fast-paced after interval but it loses taste.

The worst part is the end. Though you would have guessed the person, the reason provided was too wacky and I would not take it.

Arjun Rampal did his bit of acting as much as he could. he has a natural limitation when it comes to showing expression but he did well with that. Ms Ghatge tried her best to bring on some emotions on her face but seems she needs much more than two movie experience to pull on some expressions on the screen. sunny paaji was wasted in the role. He hardly got any chance to act. The role was so run-down that you cannot relae to teh actor or Damini and Ghayal. the best was Udita Goswami. She never tried to act and remained naturally inexpressive throughout the movie then be as a owner or a publishing house in romantic scene.

some of the sequences seemed completely out of place and the story sometime looks illogical.

Overall I can say that the movie could have been made much better if concoction of brain, common sense and skills were put in.