Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Eagerly welcoming the new year!

Oh! Finally!   Good bye 2013!   Welcome 2014!!

     Didn't think i had say something like that but having had a shitty year overall it is now a pleasure to say this :) Damn last year (2012) was too good in comparison!!

     In all these years every time the 31st of December  comes, i try to recap everything in this year and see what i wanted more of and what i wanted less of what happened that year or what i had that year which is of course followed by some kind of resolutions that i would be sure to fail. Especially the ones that i am serious about on the new years eve. Let me see, the last year the one resolution that i thought i should strongly follow is waking up early  ( i mean like 7 30) which obviously didn't fare with my habits at all. So this year i decided i wouldn't make any resolutions but just live that day in whatever way i wanted! oh wait! This seems like a resolution i can actually follow. 

     The first half of this year passed by too quickly in work and the second half too slowly in that i fell sick. Now that i think about it in a way it actually balances huh? But still i would have preferred a rather normal speed life and some memorable legendary moments that i would actually remember later on! 

     So coming to more and less account, lets see...i want more fun and less sadness, more accomplishments and less expectations, more exploring beautiful scenaries and less risks in it (last week when i went to a bridge nearby while sunrise i saw a bucket load of mosquitoes ready to attack and ran from the scene literally. I have become a little more health conscious huh!), more yummy recipes to taste and less money to spend on them (....surely a man can hope), and definitely more blogging and reading and be more magnificent (if i can manage) and less dreaming about it (....isn't this already becoming impossible? ), feel alive in more moments and less disappointments of all kinds, more careful investing money ( if i can manage to think with this grey matter of mine) and hopefully less mistakes while doing so, be more helpful to others and me if possible and less of a pain in the ass which i am sometimes, more elegance (one can never have enough of that) and less embarrassment, be more calm in the mind and less killing others (in the mind! :P) and finally more naturally eager in new things to learn!

So please O please 2014 be legendary for me!!

I wish you all a very happy new year and may your year be legendary too! :)


Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Bing's sake!

I am quite puzzled while thinking about the Write tribe's Festival of words Day-4 prompt 'music' and as usual my mind became blank. So I shut my computer down, closed my eyes and tried to think about the song that i would appreciate myself for sharing with my readers. A few songs competed but this one came on top! You see...i almost came to tears while reading the song. Yeah! you read it right. I read the song before listening to it and it moved me like anything. To grasp the song you should definitely know the context, so i will try to explain that as briefly as possible.

The protagonist is a member of Rumbar pirates who are known for their music and singing songs. The protagonist especially even fights with music. Don't question the realities here as it is the #1 work of pure fiction and fantasy all over the world! They are on a mission to conquer the worlds toughest ocean called grand line where great treasures and legends are said to be present. On their way to entering the ocean they meet a school of whales of which a baby whale named Laboon gets attracted to the songs and their non-stop singing and follows them. Since the journey in the Grand line will be quite dangerous for such a small whale they decide to depart with it ( They consider him part of their group because he understands human language and intelligent enough to grasp meaning of actions that humans do ) with a promise to return after successfully travelling all the way around Grand line.

During their adventure they encounter enemy pirates who wipes all the Rumbar pirates out. So everyone is going to die except the protagonist because our protagonist Brook ate a cursed devil fruit which lets him have a second life in exchange for not being able to swim. In the last few minutes of their consciousness they sing this song and record it in hope that Laboon gets to listen to them for one last time! Laboon is still waiting for them even after 50 years and Brook didn't forget their promise. ( Don't be shocked by the skeleton...that is our brook with his second life ).



If you read manga of course you would have known about OnePiece. But if not you can read it from here. The series is still ongoing! You will be glad i recommended it!

Credits to Fruit-fragrance from deviant art


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

                  I am taking part in The Write Tribe Festival of Words 8th – 14th December 2013. The above post is written for Write tribe's Festival of words Day-4 prompt Music .

Write Tribe

The calling!







I roamed in the unknowst roads,
hoping to discover that i have no clue of!










But each time the road diverged,
tempting is the road not taken!






Before i could decide i felt the pull,
of a amiable but powerful stream!









I felt like breathing again,
after catching the whiff of soul!














An all too familiar calling,
of a musty antique book shop!










Picture credits : Sunshine28 , oolostentity , Aconitum-Napellus , gitoku  and creativemikey from Deviantart 

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


I wrote the above post for Write tribe's Festival of words Day-3 prompt "Books" .

Write Tribe


Sunday, December 8, 2013

And....Capsicum it is!


Write Tribe

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

I have been in Chennai for an year now but still i am angry at myself for not knowing it better. I can point everything i know in a single para! Don't believe me? Let's see..

There's this nice burger joint in Chennai central though not world famous but still satisfactory and a 'ok' sandwich point nearby and Hotel Saravana Bhavan where there is supposed to be the best sambar in Chennai only i didn't notice it previously but the last few months i couldn't climb the stairs so still sulking for not tasting it. There is also a Thalaipakkatti joint but its is in no way comparable to the quality when i had it in Venkatnarayana rd, Tnagar. Then there is Barbecue nation on the other side of the Tnagar bridge where my friends forgot to mention me about a party since i was working hardcore till 10pm daily. Ever since i am trying to find a good excuse to go there sometime but haven't found any. Near it on the main road there is Murugan Idly hotel in front of which there is a mix-fruit drink stall, the best i have had in years. The best sambar i have had till now would be in Annapurna mess somewhere near Tnagar bus terminal and then there is hotel Buhari for a decent egg biryani on a Sunday afternoon near Audi showroom in west cit nagar. Then there is this best shawarma joint in south west boag road better than the one i had in Pheonix mall in Velacherry. In Thoraipakkam, there is Satpura - one stop parotta mall. And that's pretty much sums it!! You agree right? I infact don't know much! 

At first i thought i should write about what i liked about the above mentioned dishes but after trying a little i found i couldn't possibly do justice to all of them and it will definitely be a long post and half of my readers..that's.. you would lose interest before reading it right? So i decided i should consider just one but am no where near picking one of these. In the end i decided to start thinking about what dish i like the most not just in Chennai and then it hit me. Ofcourse, why didn't i think about it earlier? You see, about two or three years ago i fell in love with Capsicum! When i was visiting a relative of mine in Bangalore i picked it up in the market and from then on its a rollercoaster. I wondered at how i liked all of the varieties that were made with it. How could one vegetable be so awesome? Its the special ingredient of a sandwich (well! Home made one's anyway), Its tastes so good when stuffed and burnt or chopped or fried or cooked and i wouldn't know what else!

Capsicum heaven!

Thank you Corinne Rodrigues for making me realize this through your prompt! Now that i realised, i googled it and found its used most in a lot of awesome Mid-eastern dishes as you can see in the pic above. If you want i have piled up some of these recipe's here and i intend to taste each and every one of them. A quest for a life time! :D

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

Picture Credits : Wikipedia, Tarladalal.com, taste.com.au , hark

The above post was written for write tribe's Festival of words - Day 2 prompt Food-food.  

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Scrambling memory!


I have been blogging to Write tribe prompts recently. Though not as soon as the prompt comes up but before the deadlines anyway. And then this Festival of words came up and since i currently have no work i decided i should follow the week long daily prompts and come up with something creative. But, every time i come up with an idea, i would soon feel that is not so good and we are back to the start. This post took as long as one and half week to come up with. So i dearly hope everyone likes it and at the same time i am baffled about how i am going to come up with anything at all for the rest of the prompts. Here goes nothing! The prompt is "Recalling memories" for Festival of words - Day1!

Write Tribe

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

It was 11 pm.

The grenade goes off right behind the target and kills him instantly. But Muzammil couldn't get proper cover in time and the blast hit him hard throwing him away. The blast envelopes the room, smoke coming out of everywhere. In the scary dark night, the blast lit like an Olympic torch as if signifying the beginning of an act to decide the fate of billions of people . He hit the wall and is knocked out. If he is not dead by the sheer force of the blast, he is going to die of inhaling that smoke. And the worse part is that he is unconscious to even fight it. His country needs him, now more than ever, but there he lay unconscious.

Just then, as if his fate called upon him, three men with big beards and rifles in their hands burst open the door and are searching for survivors. They quickly carried him downstairs where 2 other men stood guarding and together they disappeared into the secret tunnels. After an hour, he slightly regained consciousness. His whole body is aching, especially the back of his head. He tried to reach it but couldn't. His hands are tied behind him. He thought of standing up but nothing happened. He can't feel his legs at all. He tried to open his eyes but everything is blurry. His mind is totally blank besides the pain. He couldn't think anything at all. His memories seem to have vanished!

Soon people noticed his frantic breathing and surrounded him asking something loudly. He couldn't understand anything at all. But he can hear some noise with blank gaps. His memory is blocked totally. The blast must have affected his hearing and memory or damaged it entirely.  He fell unconscious again.

While he is unconscious he remembered a part of a conversation

..........Now i know for sure that you are an Indian undercover agent  (..in Urdu..)

After that he woke up panting and looked around. As he saw their faces he remembered they are a group of Al qaeda terrorists. And then it came to him that he is a part of that group and he yelled at them.."Why did you tie me up? Omar is an Indian undercover agent and i blasted him to hell because of that". The group muttered among themselves for a long time. They weren't expecting this at all. They were actually planning border shootouts at India so that the peace between the countries gets disrupted which will in-turn result in an emergency meeting for president. The terrorist group planned to blast the whole building to kill every member on the meeting. Then Osama bin laden would take over the country and wage nuclear war on all its enemies. They have already moved their troops to border patrol wiping out the real border patrol at few places already and Omar lead the attacks on some of them. If what Muzammil tells is true, then they might have to execute the plan before schedule!

"What do we do with him?", one of them said.
"Knock him out while we confirm this and inform our brothers. Jihad!"
They knocked him out and one of them went to check Omar's belongings for anything suspicious. Upon receiving the information, the other members decided all possible outcomes. If the government by any chance knows about this, they will definitely wait for the attack to capture all of them and all their effort would be for nothing. But they have planned everything and can't let it go to waste. Even if it means sacrificing some of them, their leader must be alive to take their ideals forward. And so they decided to move their leader Osama to the secret base. In the mean time they found something suspicious in Omar's belongings and decided to trust Muzammil.

They gave muzammil some treatment while he is still knocked out. He is now in bed. He remembered the same conversation but this time it is more clear.

Omar: Now i know for sure that you are an Indian undercover agent
Muzammil: So what? you of all people can't do anything about it. you thought i didn't know?
Omar: I already gave the location of the secret base and they have scheduled an attack at 1 am and all i have to do now is to make an emergency and your dead body will suffice for it
Muzammil: you can't do that! I have duties to my country too
Omar: But my objectives always comes first to me!

...with that omar tried to take his pistol with silencer out but muzammil reacted instantaneously reacted and carefully hit the back of Omar's knee so that he would loose balance. And in that time that omar tried to regain balance, muzammil pulled the granade pin and dropped it and began to run towards the door when the blast hit him!

The memory totally shook him. So both him and Omar are undercover agents working for their own countries! He woke up with a jolt and looked around. A familiar face greeted him and said everything is alright and that they are executing the border attack in an hour. He is overwhelmed by the consequences of what he said previously with out recollecting everything but didn't show it in his face. He faked to rest and began thinking a way to stop the attack. Then he remembered how Omar said they planned an attack on the secret base. He is determined to use the America's attack to delay the ongoing attack on India.

"But how??.....yes! i will do that!"

It is 12:30 am.

Muzammil got up, took his arms and said "I will see if everything is alright!" and went to their base where he found Farookh, the Intel and communication head checking all the details of the attack. He silently locked the door shut and came behind him. He put the silencer on and killed Farookh from behind. He then took control of his comm and issued new orders to the terrorist border troops which says that the Pakistan military troops are forwarding on their west and plan to sneak attack on them because of a leaked Intel. He then ordered the other terrorist border troop to assist the first troop in the attack.

It took at least an hour for them to realize the trap and by then their leader was dead and chaos spread everywhere. He used the chaos to sneak into the Indian embassy and relayed the info to alert the military. America attacked the secret base and killed Osama at the decided time. He succeeded in saving his country just in time! 

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

Every day a lot of soldiers put their life on the line to protect millions of innocent and unaware people of such dangers. I wrote this post in honour of those heroes whose stories we know of and whose stories we might never come to know!

Please note that this is a total work of fiction and the names used here are but some names i know and not racial. So, did you like how memory or lack of it lead to evading a major war in my dream world? Please let me know through your comments!

Friday, December 6, 2013

Treasure in the Old mansion

The treasure -  A wednesday prompt


I knew bringing professor Agasa to that parent's meeting was a bad idea. As soon as he heard of the Detective Boys club he had wicked ideas running over in his mind and now i am stuck with these three. A treasure hunt in an old mansion? Seriously? He probably came here last night to set up a fake treasure. I bet the treasure is a bunch of candies. "We are almost there. That one building over there is what i am talking about! The owner was a farmer and a friend of mind. They say that before he died he hid the greater part of his treasure somewhere in that mansion because he didn't want his criminal son claiming it by inheritance and surely he died when his son is still in prison. After he got released, the son stayed here only for a week and left the city to do farming in their family land. so as the owner's old friend i became the guardian of his house. I am sure you boys will find that treasure!" said professor Agasa. Everyone is exited except me ofcourse.

As soon as we entered the mansion, there it is...so obvious...Its 10 30 in the morning but the main clocks showing 6 30 and that too the minutes and hours hands coincide. Let me see what is right under the clock. Its a puzzle ( quickly putting the puzzle pieces together ). It shows the direction of left but there is only stairs there. Lets see what the upstairs is like. (runs upstairs and checks all rooms and stops at a room). Looks like this is the only room whose entrance coincides with the arrow direction. ( Enters room and takes a look. Everything looks dirty except the study table and on it a toy aeroplane ). The aeroplane when looked from top view is an arrow mark so that must mean there is something under the bed (Hidden under the bed is a treasure box. He dragged and opened it). Stuffed toys huh? 

He put the treasure box back and started to come out of the bedroom but something didn't feel right. He looked the room once again. Only this time he found something written on the ceiling. The words were stuffed and formed a rectangle. He checked the racks to look for a mirror. There are none except the one hangin in the room right across the bed. He began to come to a place so that he will be able to see whats written in the mirror. Upon adjusting he found himself lying on the bed, head to the pillow. Its perfectly visible when you sleep on the bed. I see may be that is why the son left the mansion. He couldn't stay here after having to read that everyday.

The writing read,

Forgive you, I might,
When you can prove your might,
show me that i am right,
that i can entrust you with my scythe.

So that is why the son is farming now to prove his own worth to his father. I called professor Agasa and others to show them what i found. "Oh! That treasure is not true after all", he said slighly dejected. So he was expecting to find the real treasure after all. But i still think there is treasure here. While telling his son to be a farmer may be the father's true intention but i dont think he would've said "when you can prove your might". It almost like he is asking his son if he can grom some plants to prove he can.

Wait!Thats it!!! He wants his son to grow some plants where he hid the treasure. And seeing how he is rewarded with the treasure the son would take it as a sign to be a farmer for the rest of his life! yesss....I should do some digging in the backyard! Surely after some digging here and there, there it is, the treasure box, the remaining riches of the father, the treasure!!



------------------------------------------------------------------

The above post was written for write tribe's wednesday prompt - Treasure . I took inspiration from a manga that i read - Detective Conan . He is a highschool detective who gets stuck with kindergarden children (he becomes one) . Do read if you have time and please comment if you like the post! 

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

The problem with business listing

When i got a job in Chennai, i was totally freaked out. I didn't know tamil for starters and i wasn't sure if the food will be ok. Unlike experienced people joining, we freshers do not have comfort period to look for apartment's and hostels. Lucky them, they get about 7 to 10 days of corporate guest house facilities. But i had to report and go on foot searching for hostels and pg accommodation. But ofcourse since a ton of us fresher's get dropped at a time, information was passed quickly and it became a little easy to find them. But soon i was asked to go to another branch! What am i to do? I checked company portal for accommodation listing but couldn't find any. So i tried business listings like justdial. It saved my day..true...but i couldn't find what i was hoping for. After looking for a day or two i thought to myself ...is there really no place where i can expect good cleanliness, moderate furniture, comfortable bed and spacious almarahs ( not even rooms )? And i adjusted with the best option available. 

The truth is there were places like that but there was no direct networking to such places. Unfortunately word of mouth can't reach everywhere...atleast not in time! Another problem is what i faced today. When i went accommodation hunting with a friend, we reached a place where we were asked to wait 10 minutes to meet the manager. During that time we met some people already staying there and chatted a little. They said about available facilities which are impressive like geyser, free WiFi, sofa, tv and all only the twist is they also told that they had been robbed of valuable things and are planning to leave that place too. Had we waited for the manager we would have surely taken that accommodation but the consequences might have been bad. The main source of income of business listing is the paid reviews and ratings. We once tried to put a bad review only to find it goes on a loop of moderation and never gets published. I guess they were paid to do so! Since these free listings give heavy competition to paid business listing they would be easily closed down right? Wish there was a middle ground between all these where ultimately the common consumer wont be disappointed!

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Confusing stance!

           Finally, i found a way to put the Google's friend connect back! You see previously ( before an year) i have not explored other blogs that much. You could say i wasn't ready, because i didn't take blogging to heart or else i would have known the importance. So a few months back when i started blogging again, i revisited all the gadgets that i had to remove some if unnecessary. I didn't want the page to be overloaded with them. That's when i was introduced to the Google plus commenting system and the new Google follower's gadget by Google of course. It made sense to me. Everyone i knew or who read my blog would have a gmail for sure and since Google took the pain to bring G+ profiles mandatory you could say i was kind of expecting everyone to use these gadgets more than the old Google friend connect. Because you see with friend connect i would be able to follow other blogs like a feed reader but with G+ follower's they would directly get a notification about the new post. Since Google inserted this notifications into all its product's, i assumed it would be easy this way. So i removed Google friend connect and put up G+ commenting system.

         But boy have i been wrong! As soon as i started reading other blogs more frequently i noticed everyone didn't think like i did. Or may be they did but got cold-feet at the first sign of trouble and left it that way. You see its a problem with people during transition. Google didn't want to integrate existing commenting but created new one because its light and have a lot of strong points and also they want people to embrace it leaving the old system to ground so others wouldn't have a choice but to follow. But when they actually tried it, since both the systems are not connected, the reply to comment alerts on old system stopped working. They didn't want to miss important notification even during the small time of transition.
 
          Well i put them because change is always inevitable and in the long run it will always be good to adapt. But since i am blogging regularly for the past few weeks i am getting cold feet because there is no rise in visitors and people who are visiting aren't leaving commenting. So how am i to know if its working or not?  So proud me started thinking of reasons ( read excuses) for why this is happening. So i figured Google friend connect might be a reason as so many people are used it and didn't find it on my blog. But imagine my surprise when i couldn't see the old Google friend connect anymore! Then i thought they are totally removing it and left it as it is but the day never came. So i googled to find a way ( silly me...didn't even think of googling it before) . so you see i got the Google friend connect back! (**drum roll**). But there is still another problem. The blogger commenting system! Should i go back on that too? But i liked it...it instantly shares to my profile and anyone who receive my notification will get it. Since i have more G+ friends that have me in their circles than my blog readers, it is somewhat important. So i checked if i can put both of them since someone mentioned a way to put both of them. But i already have facebook commenting enabled, so that makes two already. Adding another would totally be a over effort really. So i am in a fix!

.....If only everyone changed to G+ comments along with me...


Monday, December 2, 2013

My grand weekend!

                 I am almost sad the weekend trip is coming to an end. That is if you call a 4 day trip a weekend trip. Add a day and it might as well be a full week trip right? If its from Monday to Friday that is! But who would make a Monday to Friday trip when 4 more days can be easily added anyway? Unless of course its a business trip but we are talking about a weekend trip. Are there any weekend business trips? I have never heard of one but who knows...mans greed knows no bounds right? You could say that's too much to say about someone working on a weekend but we software guys love our weekends too much to make them business-useful! I suggest there should be a law about it :p

           Oh!wait..back to the current trip..that is my trip that is about to end. Its about to end! Whaaaat? Well i liked it soo much so...saying it twice surely wouldn't make it continue....yeah! I guess..sigh! You were saying....?? Oh yeah! The weekend trip was good...i got that already! I might have to kill you if you say it again... I was about to say why when you rudely interrupted (...adjusting throat ) need some help? I can strangle you if you like it? No thanks! I like my blog be blogged by real human being rather than an alter ego or a ghost. Like thats gonna stop me? Aren't you a handful? (....looking intensely murderous...)

             So about the weekend ...(...feigning disinterest...)... Since its an unplanned journey i had to travel in daytime. Since everyone tells that night travel is best, i took them for granted. Maybe its so if its a bus but since its a train i thought otherwise. Because during night journey everyone is in a hurry to sleep that nothing really happens but this day travel lets us actually talk a little to co-passenger's. But that's not really why it felt good. It felt good because i get to read! During my graduation, i was always able to read a book that i started to the end till i could read. Doing anything in between didn't feel right! But these its become so hard to keep my concentration on reading for the duration of the book because i was getting distracted a lot. I am not sure if its because the books got less interesting or the distractions became more important. So you see the journey during which there is no cell phone signal and hence no calling or texting, no movies to watch well watch comfortably anyway, is perfect for reading books. This combined with the kind of books i get to read is what made this trip special. The first was a marvellous fiction called Enders game about which i already wrote in my previous posts. The second was a book called Chasing Air. When i saw the cover and book name, i didn't know what to expect. But it was rated 4.5 on Amazon so i took it on a whim. But since its a new book, the ratings couldn't be trusted you see. Even if the ratings were true that wouldn't mean i had like the same things everyone else likes so....there were no expectation except one i guess. I wanted this book to be good because i didn't want it to let my Goodreads reading challenge!

          About the book, it was an easy read. The first few chapters were too easy even like a pre-teen language almost but of course the content later on is not so pre-teen or teen. There weren't many twists in the story and also some plot emotions were too artificial like the text is screaming.... (**drum roll**) now its this characters turn to be the person chased by demons of its past.... Also the funny thing is the significance of the name. Surely everyone expects things linked to the name should be awesome but it is just a silly dialogue of heroine which hero remembers and makes her chase air by skydiving with her. Well i expected more although i like skydiving and scubadiving. They are pretty high on my To do list goals!

             Besides the books, very rarely i haven't been that disappointed with myself. Not disappointed but just didn't regret anything. I wasn't that active to be called hyper or that inactive to be a bore. Took some initiations well appreciated by my family and i got to enjoy it too! Believe me, they rarely intersect. Did i say how the stars lined up and i got to catch the train just in time, i almost didn't believe my luck! Being lucky is new and feels good! I wish the streak continues :)

.....in so many words ;) 

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Thunder of regret and responsibility

100 Words on Saturday - Write Tribe


What's this pain? I looked around. I was in a hospital, plugged in to a bunch of monitors.I can't lift a finger. It didn't make any sense. I looked furthur. My aunt and my sister were sleeping on the other side of the bedroom. Aunty?Where's mom? Then it came to him, they were dead in an accident few years ago. He became the provider of the family of him and his sister but his sister stayed with his aunt. It wasn't safe in the city. It slowly came back, my accident caused by my rash driving. I looked at my sister...never again! Then I thought I'd do things differently.
------------------------------------------------------
Its a true story. I met his aunt during the time i was in hospital. He came home for some family function in town. Rash driving destroys dreams for you and for others!

Tales of stockmarket!

55 on Friday #WriteTribe


Although you just met me,
I waited here for an eternity.
Although you aren't my favorite,
I am still your humble servant.
Although people praise me and curse me at the sametime,
I will bestow fortune upon the right mind.
Although you have mixed opinions on me,
I can still make you a king.


*Conditions Apply