Domain

So heres whats been happening all the time I have been away :

My Site

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Cheers,
Vikram

Answer.

Yeah so the eternal question.. Why are we here ? And why this planet ? Why not on some other, Mars for example. But then why mars ..?

Anyways, so why are we here ? What should we be doing to make this life meaningful ? Helping others ? In doing what ? In living better..? Better than what ? Animals have a clear purpose. Their only goal is to survive and reproduce. Its like they have a clear mission. Eat to live, mate and protect your young ones. Pass on your genes. Day after day, day after day, they keep on doing this. Surroundings may change, years may change but the general idea behind an animals existence is the same. Survive and reproduce.

Ok so now comes the why. Why survive ? What for ? and for whom ? 10 years down the line a tiger dies, mostly tragically, a far cry from the formidable and majestic creature it was once. So why did it fight on ? Why did it strive to survive, just to die one day in sorrow ? Whats the point ? I mean sure, its not that long term. A tiger would be after short term gains. Its hungry, it hunts, eats and hence survives another day. Days add up to become years and years add up to become a lifetime. The reproduction too is a short term exercise I guess. The tiger feels the urge, it strives to find a mate, copulates and has progeny. It protects them. This is unaccounted for. Why protect them ? Why not focus on the goals like before. Food and sex. Nature has hardwired a parent-child bond into all of us to make sure life carries on, on this blue planet. But then who is this nature ? And why does it want to make sure that life carries on here ? And why not on other planets of the solar system. Where is the nature there ?

Coming to humans, we don't just eat and mate. We do a lot more, like fight wars for instance. But it all boils down to just these two at the end. We want to survive and we want people with our DNA to be the ones living happily in this cruel world.

Does this ever end ? Or does this cycle go on and on without meaning. Just as is. And not what for ? Why ? Logic says, things happen for a cause. What is this cause. How can we make this life meaningful ? The easy answer to this question is by remaining happy. Happiness. What does that mean ? Difficult question. Lets suppose, for now, happiness means x. And the reason we are all here is to be happy. Or more clearly to try to be happy. Is it like a 70-80 year old getaway from somewhere, where people are sent so that they can try to be happy. Some find happiness in material gains, some in spiritual. Some become happy by making others happy. We call them philanthropists and heap praise on them. But at the end, everyone is just tring to be happy. Some try to excel to make their parents proud and happy which in turn makes them happy.

So then, turns out, things are not so unclear after all. The purpose of this life is to be happy. But then we haven't defined happiness. We still have that x. What is happiness ?

PaintBall Ahoy !

Rewind around a month back. Suneeth sees some publicity in a local daily about a paintball arena opening in Noida. Almost instantaneously, we decided, this month's team outing is definitely going to be different !

And different it was ! Whats with shooting and so, so much fun ? Real life Counter Strike 2.o. Adernaline rushing, strategies improvising, everything on the fly ! It didn't get any more real time than this !

Here are the quick steps :

1.Changing into overalls.



2.Teaming up.

3. Fighting it out

4. And Victory.

God it was fun !!

Suneeth has written about it here

Cheers !

Barney is in Love !!

So whats with the times ? Whats with everybody falling in love right now ? Two of my closest friends .. and now Barney !! Yes, Barney from HIMYM.

I mean, Come On !

The old adage was, when in trouble, in sickness, in times of despair, you introspect, look inwards, take a deep breath and ask yourself THE question.

What would Barney do ?

And now suddenly Barney is, all in love and everything !

Whats happening to our world !!

Choice

Funny thought. About this choice thingy. Its also been documented here by Suneeth.

So imagine, when the "Big old guy Up there" was creating the world and He had classified the beings, initially, in two broad categories flora and fauna. He asks them a question, "ok fellas, so you guys are going down there, I am sure you have all your instructions and the manuals ready. Now theres just one last thing. One of you gets to stay at one place, be able to make their own food, have all the water and other goodies delivered right up to them and the other has to move around and forage for everything. So flora you have been the better of the two, which role do you want ?".

And plants are like, "What !! we get to choose first ? Yay !! Who wants to run around for everything, the former is obviously so much better. Hey God, we take the first one.."

You all know how it has turned out in the end !! A member of the "fauna" group is able to write all this sitting on a desk made out of the dead body of a member of the flora.. Ah hindsight !!

Laughter.

Looks like this is going to be a consecutive post on laughter !

Yeah, so I was surfing through the channels on T.V and some version of Ramayana was on air. With fully grown Rawan and his mates all seated in the 'durbar' pondering over the large alien army at their shores. A unique thing struck me, however bleak the situation, uncertainity of impending war but the 'Raskhas' always managed to laugh heartily at the end of any meeting.

They go like.."blah blah blah, blah blah" Muhahahahahahahaha...
"More Blahs " then hahahahahahaha...

You get the point.

Ands its not like those small, "look, I am so polite" , kinda laughs. They are not forced, in fact, totally spontatenous. Hahahahahahahahha.. You Know, the kind which come straight from the stomach.. like Hahahahahahahahaha..

And they do it all the time. The "righteous people" on the other hand always somehow manage to keep grim and serious. Sometimes supporting a smile in acknowledgement of a good suggestion but, Hahahahahahahahaha, never.
You can't even imagine a 'Sura' doing this large belly laugh. Come to think of it, you can't even imagine one with a large belly ! Its only for the 'Asuras', with large round stomachs, like good 'khaate peete ghar ke log' and laughing thier hearts out.

Or is the roboust health to do with the fact that they are always laughing and we know since the time we couldn't even tie our shoe laces that "Laughter is the best medicene".

Sure all these 'bad guys' get annihilated at the end. But God have they laughed all their lives ? You bet !

Love, Laughter

"A day without laughter, a day without love is a day without life"

Praise for my lappy

Here

- Thanks Mayank for pointing this out.. :-)

Timing.

It's so late it's almost early.

Building a team.

When building a team, don't look for compatibility and sameness but for complementary skills and diversity.

- Subroto Bagchi. High Performance Entrepreneur.

Lappy !

So its finally arrived !!

A bright spot in an otherwise dull July. Come to think of it, first 5 days of july have never been so dull, like ever ! July being my birth month and all that.

What has the world come to ! Introducing irritably yours !

Forget that.

So the laptop's come ! Shining new XPS - 1530 ! Red ! My 3rd big investment, after the sony erricson - June 2006. Pulsar - November 2007, its now Dell XPS - July 2008. Kindofa self - birthday gift. A little early though ! hee hee :-)

This thing is neat ! I mean, sure most things could have been done on a much cheaper variant but am on my splurging streak right now. So, there you go.

Also bought the cool samsonite 'bag-pack'. I love the single quotes much more than those pesky old double idiots. Clutter is much less.

Yeah. So another "bIg" event is me buying GMAT official guide. But its been lying there, quietly on the table. Not saying anything, just staring. How rude !

Whatever.

Tooo sleepy now !

Good night.

Winners never quit.

Winners never quit. And quitters never win.

The Cosine wave continues. :-)

Cheers !

Blogging contest !

Here it is : http://www.limeexchange.com/contest/details/2

Sadly, I can't participate due to those pesky terms and conditions, would love to see my other blogging buddies win a cool 1000$ !

Cheers,
Vikram

Events

A lot has happened lately. And I have been having one of those things people like to call "Writer's block", as in, I haven't been able to write anything. Had atleast 3 posts in my head before I shifted to Noida from Bangalore (yes yes, I am just getting to why this happened). And any further thoughts I had, had to wait for me to write these posts first. Because I like to write stuff in chronological order. (I also have to write testimonials of a lot of people on orkut).

Anyways those 3 can wait, I am getting on with this new one just to fend off the powerful demon, the block thing.

Yeah, so like I said, I shifted base. From Bangalore to Noida. New job. And God knows I loved Bangalore. A lot of people don't like it, but I liked that city a lot. It had that vibe about it which gave me a perpetual high. I was staying with some of my closest friends of college and had found a lot of new awesome friends in a very short time. Also I was doing a lot of stuff there, like french class (more friends :-) ), salsa class for a while, and Gym. I miss all those. But to be honest I am quite positive about Noida as well. Heres why :

New places excite me, as in, one can start over and apply the lessons one learnt at the previous place. I learn a lot of lessons, at least I like to think that I do. Anyways getting back to Noida. So a lot of college friends here as well, but we don't stay together, yet. From June/July onwards we will. So that'll be remedied. Staying in a house full of college friends (full as in 5 of us) is always a lot of fun. Noida is hot. The weather. Its pretty harsh. Bangalore scores easily here. However the traffic congestion is much lesser here and one can ride the bike much more happily (if it is evening and the Sun God has decided to be merciful). However the blanket of dust causes its own problems. God why doesn't it rain here (like in Bangalore :p) ?

Anyways. Forgetting that. Good thing about leaving places is that you get a lot of gifts. I got two books as part of these gifts. "The kite runner" and The curious incident of the dog in the night time.

I didn't give a link to The kite runner 'coz it is pretty famous and most people would already know about it. I have found that creative works (movies, books, short stories et al) influence me a lot, at least temporarily, no mostly temporarily. I often go back to the old rigmarole pretty soon. But in the short term they do. Like, I don't know if you have noticed but my writing style in this post has changed a little. Its been inspired by the second book. The most distinct thing about the book is indeed its unique writing and the way the story is told, in first person, by an autistic 15 year old boy. Its quite an interesting read.

The kite runner is pretty amazing as well. More so, 'coz it is the author's first novel.



It inspires a lot of feelings in you and is also informative about Afghan lifestyle before, during and after the Soviet invasion and then the Taliban. Its one of those books people like to call "must reads". Coming to think of that, I haven't read a lot of these must reads yet. Like Shantaram, Atlas shrugged, The Fountainhead et al.



This one is good for its unique and interesting writing style, like I said. I would definitely recommend this book.

Ok, so looks like I am back in my writing blogs groove. Very well. On that positive note, I'll conclude this post.

Cheers!

Venkat.

RIMC classified us. Into sections. Chandragupta was the funniest, or so I thought in my first few days at school. Lone Ghoshal, only one first termer in that section! Hell ! I thought. That guy wud go crazy. Certainly. And then the rest started trickling in, each special in his own way. One of them was Venkat.

Funniest surname I had heard uptil then. Venkat kee ass pe rumal. Or so he was christened.
By Bhawani I guess.Black and round. With a funny smile on his face. Good at debates. Soon I saw him running the atheletics A div or something it was called. That ass and atheletics !!
This guy was made of sterner stuff ! And looks were deceptive.

Further down our time, when the infamous class 2 incident happened. I remember Venga as a morale boosting voice in times which were difficult for all of us, as a class.

Then he formed Pirates !

From there on, Venga was this cool, rebel kinda guy. Who did things passionately. He wasnt particularly tall, a little plump as well, but see him play basketball and you knew what venga was about. In the later years, I have a distinct memory of him walking around with Ghosh saying things like "yum yum".. and other silly rhyming jokes.

I remember walking around Chandragupta dorms and coming across Venkat's table. He had scribbled there : "Great men are not born great, but they become great because they toil hard when others sleep ".

The kitroom incident and then the relegations left a void in each of our hearts. With Venga going in another class and 5 A being hectic, I guess my contact with one of the best guys of
our class became infrequent. It was all downhill from there.

I am sorry for not keeping in touch. If only we could have talked more ..I thought we had all our lives to do that. "Whats the hurry". From how things have turned out..I guess, thats a misplaced notion.

Cheers to Venkat.

Helen Keller

Was reading this post. Had to post this stuff here, just had to.


"The two greatest characters in the 19th century are Napoleon and Helen Keller. Napoleon tried to conquer the world by physical force and failed. Helen tried to conquer the world by power of mind — and succeeded!" ~ Mark Twain

Helen Keller Says..

Pessimism

If I regarded my life from the point of view of the pessimist, I should be undone. I should seek in vain for the light that does not visit my eyes and the music that does not ring in my ears. I should beg night and day and never be satisfied. I should sit apart in awful solitude, a prey to fear and despair. But since I consider it a duty to myself and to others to be happy, I escape a misery worse than any physical deprivation.

Optimism

"Most people measure their happiness in terms of physical pleasure and material possession. Could they win some visible goal which they have set on the horizon, how happy they could be! Lacking this gift or that circumstance, they would be miserable. If happiness is to be so measured, I who cannot hear or see have every reason to sit in a corner with folded hands and weep. If I am happy in spite of my deprivations, if my happiness is so deep that it is a faith, so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy of life, —if, in short, I am an optimist, my testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing."

The Simplest Way to be Happy

"A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships."

K

How much I hate k. I mean comeon ! One writes such a big sentence with all smileys and everything and all that comes back is a k. I mean what on the sweet mother earth is that ! k period. Just k. Had it been an ok things wud be different. I mean, thats actually a conversation, I say something to you and you say, "ok. Cool. No harm done. But k. I mean, was typing that poor old wretched o so hard on ur freaking fingers that your rusted old brain decided to skip it. Why on earth would one say k, just k in response to anything someone else has to say.

From where do such people come anyway ! Typing k. That too as an acknowledgment. May their wasted souls burn in hell! K ?

Twenty years from now

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did . So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore! Dream! Discover! Live it Up..!

Live to Eat

Just started a new blog, dedicated to the expeditions and adventures of my palate.

Here it is : Live to Eat

So happy reading folks and yeah Dig In..!

Goa Trip Awards

This post is courtsey Suyash (the bugger still doesnt have his own blog) ::

Also a disclaimer at the very outset : The awards have been decided by some established procedure and in no way reflect the opinion of the owner of this blog (where they are being published). Disputes, if any, may be referred directly to Macau (Suyash).
So here goes ::

Lata Mangeskar Award for the best Song of the trip Vikram Sharma for the song Arey Dwarpaloon kanhaiyya se keh do…

• Other Nominees –Suyash Katyayani for various songs during the trip

Vasco da gama Award for the best Pathfinder of the trip Aseees Chaturvedi for helping out the bike rider excellently ( and discovering new territory --Champed)

• Other Nominees –Uncle Jajodia (for the discovery of the guesthouse in soilim and helping everybody reach there)

Word of the trip Neeraj Surana for coining the word “Tungdu”

• Other Nominees –Piyush Kaushal (Beh*&c%#d)

Gladrags Rugged looks Award Ankur Gupta for his famous jockey - boxer pair and stunning Hairstyle.

• Other Nominees –Piyush Kaushal, Vikram Sharma

Kadar khan Award for best dialogue of the trip Suyash Katyayani for coming up with “Machis hai….” which still unites the group together.

• Other Nominees –Abhinav Anand(“Manin Utni hi tez Chalata hoon jitni sambhaal sakoon”)

“Tharki memorial” Hawas ka pujari of the trip award Abhinav Anand for grabbing a girl in the bus

• Other Nominees –Piyush Kaushal (luscious desires throughout the trip)

Cashier of the trip award Satees Perala for shelling out almost 30k in the trip.

• Other Nominees –Suyash Katyayani (managing finances)

Femina Miss India Best swimming costume award Lambu for his cute little blue swimming trunks.

• Other Nominees –Vikram Sharma(smallest Costume),Ankur Gupta (colorful boxers), Abhinav Anand(jockey negligee cum langot)

Fattu of the trip Shorav jain for his legendary line at Sher-e-Punjab “itne pyar se khila rahe hain ki Fat rahi hai yaar”.

• Other Nominees –Neeraj Surana (Chickening out on Bumpy ride)

Michael Schumacher Award for the best Driver of the trip Satya Prakash Biswal for driving the troublesome van.

• Other Nominees –Abhinav Anand (hi- speed Biking) ,Suyash Katyayani (van)

Best KLPD (Khade L&@#^ pe Danda )of the trip AAnCO! (Uncle) ZAZOdiA for losing a gal in Nine bar.

• Other Nominees –Piyush Kaushal( Kyunki iske dil ke armaan aasoon mein beh gaye)

“Seeta aur Geeta” Award Lambu & Aseees (no comments on this)

• Other Nominees –None

Nobel prize in automobile repair Ankur Gupta for dedicating his whole life to machines as a mechanical engineer in IITk and finally using his knowledge and guts to selflessly repair the legendary van.

• Other Nominees –None

Demi Moore Award for best striptease Neeraj Surana for his commendable performance in Nine Bar

• Other Nominees –Abhinav Anand (nude pics)

Indian of the year Vikram Sharma for fighting for the rights of all Indians to dance wherever they are, whoever they are and whether they want to dance or not.

• Other Nominees –MS Dhoni (T20 World cup win).

Helen award for the best Dance of the trip Sateees Perala for dancing a fabulous dance in the baga Beach Shack. Not many of us have seen it but all the eyewitnesses say that it was a magnificent act , a scene worth watching.

• Other Nominees – Ankur Gupta(Beach Shack), Uncle Jajodia (Nine bar).

Red and White bravery Award à Ankur Gupta for savings Vikram’s ass from a fat bouncer and Saving Suri’s life when he was drowning. Two brave deeds indeed.

Other Nominees –Vikram Sharma(Dancing inspite of a risk of confrontation with a Fat bouncer) ,Samir Gupta (saving neeraj's life on banana ride),Satya Prakash Biswal for keeping his nerves calm while driving during a small feud near calangute,Abhinav anand (maroing chance on a chick while she is with her bf + fearlesslee wearing next to nothing on the beach :P + going to a dangerous place like Titos alone + walking back from titos alone)

Life Time Achievement Award à Samiraaaa for being the roomy of a legendary personality.

• Other Nominees – None.