Whoosh!

An absolutely fantastic day Karting @ Race Pace!

She's here!

Her name is Anandya Anushree Sampath & she's my niece, the first one too!

My school in Pune

Found a picture of my school in Pune. So many memories. :(

Party time

A party 'twas.

<--- In his honor.

The Deathly Hallows

July 2000. A pile of new books in the school library. I picked up a fat one from the pile with an interesting title - The Goblet of Fire. It left me gasping for breath & words when I finished it a few days later.

July 2007. Whoa. 7 years hence, and I feel exactly the same way I did then.

It's been 10 years since she wrote the first book, and she did not let me down. A BIG thanks to you Jo!

Extremely fast paced, packed, dark, desperate, heroic, old-fashioned, it was everything I asked for & more from the last book. Like many of us around the world I grew up with Harry Potter, & even though I feel exactly how I did 7 years back, after reading the last book, it's amusing to see that the things that touched me, that affected me, moved me, that I completely identified with while reading this book are so different from the ones back then.

The doubting hero, loyalties being tested, fears faced, the battle of battles, secrets revealed, grief, love & hope. It had it all. And it was absolutely DELICIOUS.

It was an old tale, an old plot, the characters-old archetypes. But I guess it's the kind of story I would always want to hear, again & again. And she told it well.

A few lines that "pricked"

"Severus?
Snape's lips twisted in a smile when she said his name"

"Seeing them together that way made him feel lonely"

God bless you Jo.

The Opportunist

They say 'Anybody can achieve anything'. I don't really believe in that. I believe that everybody can achieve something. Something that means more to them than anybody else, & that 'something' always gives you a shot at it.

But there is a caveat that must be made. Winners walk through the door of opportunity when it swings open. But what is the secret to getting through the door?

Being outside the door when it swings open.

I've read that Frank Sinatra got his big break while working as a waiter. One day, as he was waiting tables, he spotted one of the biggest names in the music industry. And what did Sinatra do? He cleared off a table next to the gentleman and got up on it and sang! He knew he was done at the restaurant for doing so, but how many times would he get this chance? Needless to say, the rest is history.

We never know when we are gonna get that break, the shot at that one thing that will define us. I don't even know what I'm looking for! But for all of those who become successful, there is one key similarity: They were ready. And for every one of those who were ready, there were thousands more who weren’t.

Am I ready?

Do I have enough ammo so that when my shot comes I can perform?

Am I working hard to position myself in the best possible ways near that door now?

It will happen someday. It opens for everyone. It may only open once or it may open many times. It is different for everyone and life just isn’t fair that way. But everybody gets a shot. Will I be ready?

Enough of this, I hear hinges creaking ;)

The King's here!

My pal

It is cold today.
Thoughts
meaningless to anyone but myself.
I am alone.

Loneliness, not a burden nor a sorrow,
but a time of solace, of deepness
never to be shared, never to be understood.
True happiness is here, unmisted.
Unmisted by smiles or laughter,
unmisted by the joys of company.

To find true happiness,
to know if one is truly happy,
he must be happy alone.

I hope I can be.

iGraffiti!

ShiftSpace

Have your way with any webpage
ShiftSpace is an opensource browser plugin being developed by NYU’s Interactive Telecommunication Program and is pretty close to internet graffiti. The plugin allows their users to annotate and remix a website saving it as a communally editable alternate version revealed in your browser by pressing Shift + Space. ShiftSpace allows users to leave notes, highlight text, change images, and edit the page source. It kind of reminds me of the web page analysis plugin Firebug, which allows you to carry out live edits of any web page. For web surfers with the plugin, modified pages are marked with a small ShiftSpace icon (§) in the bottom left side of the screen.

Modified pages are called “shifts”, and if made public, are shared on the ShiftSpace website. Users can subscribe to the shifts of users they like via RSS. The ShiftSpace team also plans to implement “trails”, which are hyperlinked collections of related shifts.

Pretty cool, what!

How does it feel?

Euthanasia. Who can ever decide what's right, and more importantly, what's not.

She rolled me in front of the computer, hooked me up to the IV, and our eyes met. The question was there, in her eyes. I needed to hear it, even if it was illegal for her to ask.

She turned away. The question went unspoken.

So did the answer.

She left, and I was alone with the machine that would determine if today was my day to die.

No, that's harsh. I had, after all, been fighting three years for this. Three long years of hospitals, chemotherapy, nausea, lost weight, drugs, familial pity... Nothing helped, and the pain kept coming. I was tired of it all.

Yes! Tired! So the nurse couldn't ask a feeble little question. The computer would make up for it. It had questions. Questions that mattered!

I punched in the answers.

Now, one more button. Press that, and the computer churns away. If it finds my suffering fits the Law, it starts the IV dripping. Quick. Painless. I'd be dead. I'd be free.

Still, that question. I just figured someone would ask. If not the doctor, then the nurse. If not the nurse, then the computer. If not the computer, then... someone.

I held my finger over the button.

Death seemed so cold.

"Are you sure?" That's all I wanted to hear. I wouldn't lie. I'd reply honestly.

No, I wasn't sure.

But the pain! I couldn't stand it any longer!

Could I?

I held my finger over the button.

Death seemed so cold. Life so warm...

Aah

Dono or prem palta hai
priya, patang to jalta hi hai
deepak bhi jalta hai

Safar

Yaad hai
tum aur main
lambi, ghumaavdar sadak par
bina kuch bole
bematlab, beparvah
meelon chala karte the
khambon ko gina karte the
aur jab main chalte chalte thak jaata
tum kehti
bas us agle khambe tak aur

aaj main akela hi us sadak par nikal aaya hoon
aaj bhi us agle khambe tak pahunchna chahta hoon
sochta hoon
tumhe jaldi chalne ki aadat thi
shayad tum vahan pahunchkar
mera intezaar kar rahi ho

IKEA these are comfortable!

Something else

I recently came across this new feature in Google Earth called the Sunrise Layer. A very simple feature, it eventually boils down to a collection of video clips hosted by Discovery Channel. These video clips capture the sights and sounds (and boy what sights and sounds!) of sunrise at various exotic places around the Earth. The places include the most mystical ones like the Mayan pyramids, Angkor temples and the Stonehenge.

I watched some of these clips and well, it was something else! Just watching these places in a video and listening to the pure sounds of nature fills you with a sense of peace which is very difficult to describe. To illustrate, there was one scene with a monk meditating in front of a lighted candle, and I got goosebumps all over my body when I saw this! Pretty cool stuff.

Disruptive innovation

Innovation doesn't always mean coming up with a way to do something in the fastest, cheapest and most efficient manner possible. I believe that it's just about exceeding expectations. Ideas that click, that make money, that people love are invariably the ones which just did 1 simple thing when they were conceived, exceeded expectations. Of a lot of people ;)

But what happens when an innovation exceeds expectations by way too much? What happens if it grows and improves too fast? What if it overshoots the needs of it's users? Simple, they dump it for something that is "good enough". Period.

I've found this works for people too!

Kabhi yun bhi to ho

Dariya ka saahil ho, poore chaand ki raat ho
aur tum aao
kabhi yoon bhi to ho

Pariyon ki mehfil ho, koi tumhari baat ho
aur tum aao
kabhi yoon bhi to ho

Sooni har mehfil ho, koi na mere saath ho
aur tum aao
kabhi yoon bhi to ho

Ye baadal aise toot ke barse, mere dil ki tarah, milne ko tumhara dil bhi tarse
tum niklo ghar se, kabhi yoon bhi to ho

Tanhaai ho, dil do
boonde hon barsaat ho aur tum aao.

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Mera khuda

Woh kaath ke purze uda raha tha
hawavon ka roop dikha raha tha

kuch aur bhi ho gaya numaayan
main apna likha mita raha tha

usi ka eemaan badal gaya hai
kabhi jo mera khuda raha tha

wo ek din ek ajnabi ko
meri kahani suna raha tha

wo umr kam kar raha tha meri
main saal apne badha raha tha

She's a teaser!

Love keeps the cold out better than a cloak.

A truism! :)