we're all dogs

What Breed of Dog Are You?

My Result: Golden Retriever

No bones about it, you're a popular, fun-loving Golden Retriever. Adored by all and too cool for school, you're extroverted and enthusiastic. Your magnetic personality makes you the life of any bash. Since you're a true people-dog, you genuinely love all kinds of social gatherings. Going to parties, dinners, and other shindigs is the best way to add faces to your constantly growing circle of friends. But besides being on the social A-list, you're a confident, well-rounded pup who's definitely something to bark about. Pretty accomplished at anything you set your mind to, your sunny nature and winning ways make you one of everyone's favorite dogs. Woof!

Take this test >

I'm your favourite dog! Throw me a frickin bone here!

looking back

I was reading an Asterix yesterday, and was thinking that somehow the impact isn't the same anymore... I remember laughing out loud, ROTFLing, the works. I remembered the other comics, how they would have a larger-than-life, story playing visually in my head even as I curled up under the wooden stairs of the Hobby Corner at Janpath, browsing away, complete with backstories, sound effects, even smells and vibrations. The same used to happen with the books, the music, the movies.

But it's not the quality that's gone down. It's not my brain that's degrading, my sense of imagination and humour fading.

It's nostalgia.

The books I read today will be remembered as having the same impact, five years later.

Do you realize how rich every experience you have today is? Ask your future self. He'll remember.

Appreciate today! It's more fun than you thought it was.

failing

I'm a perfectionist. It's what I am. It's not something I chose to be or want to be... I just am.
How can you live life sunk in a sloth of mediocrity? It's warm, it's comfortable, it doesn't demand anything out of you, it's easy to achieve and easy to maintain, it makes you normal and one with the vast majority of humanity. But at the end of it, you're still a pig wallowing in the warmth of decomposing feces in a gutter. You can't become more than what you are if you don't try. You can't be something greater. You can't look in a mirror. You can't look back, in the end of it all, with pride.
Losing is not okay. If it were, it would be a habit, after a while. And then it's all over.
That's why it really hurt, today. I tried. I really tried. But I... I couldn't do it. Somewhere, something was missing. And when someone so important tells you that it's okay- it doesn't matter- it's a load of crap, because it does matter. It matters more than anything else in the world, and to know that you are the protagonist of a compromise, that someone settled for second best and ended up with you, that's a shitty feeling. There is no second best, there is no silver medal. It's a binary function, 1-0, on-off, you either make the grade or you don't. And I didn't. Something this important - maybe the most important thing ever in my life - and someone watching, sighed, and said, oh, well. I expected too much out of him.
I want to be that too much. I will be. I will make the grade. But tell me what the fucking grade is!
And that's the biggest failure. Something so important, and I don't even know.

So tired. It's been such a long time.

it's been a while...

...but I'm back.
Didn't feel like blogging for some time, but I can feel that phase is over. Maybe I just need to get out of the regular routine more.
I feel like I'm just bubbling over with ideas today, especially about stuff that I want to talk about - one of which will result in a new blog, coming up soon.
Anyway, time for a li'l drinkie.

Happy Budday Ashish!

So, another year gone.
Some things I wanted to do, done... others, still on hold. No regrets. It's been eventful. And fun.
But just to keep it in perspective - a decade ago, I was eighteen, and walking into college.

Wikipedia:
It is thought that the large-scale celebration of birthdays in Europe began with the cult of Mithras, which originated in Persia but was spread by soldiers throughout the Roman Empire.

The Happy Birthday Song melody is thought to be the most frequently sung melody in the world. Similar songs exist in other languages such as "Lang zal hij/zij leven" (and several others) in Dutch, "Zum Geburtstag Viel Glück" in German, "Cumpleaños feliz" in Spanish, "Sto lat" in Polish, "Lá Bhreithlá Shona Duit" in Irish, "Joyeux Anniversaire" in French, and "Tanti Auguri a te" in Italian.

It is also common for the "birthday boy" or "birthday girl" to cut the initial piece of the cake as a newlywed couple might with a wedding cake. If the knife touches the bottom or when withdrawn from the cake comes out dirty the Birthday boy or girl may have to kiss either the nearest boy or girl (Opposite sex).

A birthday is considered a special day for the person, and so the person will often get special treatment from friends and family. In addition to parties, people often get gifts on their birthday.

Author's note - I shall therefore shamelessly solicit gifts from my vast, noble, kind, and generous readers. Click here for the wishlist.
Back to you, Narcissism.

Libra is an astrological sign, which is associated with the constellation Libra, in the Southern Hemisphere near Scorpius and Virgo. The only symbol of the zodiac that is inanimate (it is not represented by an animal or person).

In mythology Libra is often associated with the Greek Goddess of Justice, Themis,^[1] the Greek mythological figure of Atalanta (meaning balanced), and Astraea (daughter of Themis), who ascended to heaven and became the constellation of Virgo, and carried the scales of justice, the nearby constellation of Libra.

Libra is also associated with the Greco-Roman goddess Aphrodite/Venus and sometimes also the goddesses Eris/Discordia & Hermione/Concordia, Hera/Juno, Ishtar, Freyja, and Frigg and the god Xolotl.
In astrology Libra is ruled by the planet Venus. The Indian equivalent of Libra is Tula, the Chinese equivalent is the Dog.
Many modern astrologers regard it as the most desirable of zodiacal types because it represents the zenith of the year, the high point of the seasons.

Individuals born under this sign are thought by practitioners of astrology to have a pleasant, clever, articulate, charming, charismatic, beautiful, outgoing, fair, artistic, social, refined, diplomatic, even-tempered and self-sufficient character. The Libra person is said to be co-operative, sees both sides, open-minded, just, urbane, partnership oriented, avoids conflict, balanced, graceful, debative, idealistic, and equalitarian.

Ooh. Don't stop.
==============================
Googlisms.

The big day.
26th september is the european day of languages
26th september is johnny appleseed's day
26th september is not to be missed
26th september is tool day

Let's see what the world says about me instead.

ashish is gassing the forum
ashish is a computer scientist with the nasa ames research center in mountain view
ashish is a dashing opener for clcc
ashish is a genius
ashish is a dean's scholar
ashish is trying to rub aluminium to make it shining
ashish is excellent chess player and received best chess player award on all india university level
ashish is highly respected by patients and their families for his concerned bedside manner as well as the personal interest he takes in them
ashish is an intelligent and bright student of the school who has brought honour to the institution
ashish is getting fitter
ashish is currently a director of skyblaze ventures
ashish is an electrical engineer from iit
ashish is founder/director of exchangenext
ashish is the founder of bigtree entertainment pvt
ashish is not satisfied with being your regular villain
ashish is only one step short of the master black belt
ashish is well known as one of the original founders of junglee
ashish is late
ashish is the troublemaker of the house
ashish is also a part of who i am
ashish is a man of his word
ashish is the chief strategic officer for tavant
ashish is home and gets down to play the latest game that he?s got
ashish is a founding member of idiscoveri
ashish is obviously chuffed at the turn of events
ashish is a graduate of harvard business school and is currently the managing partner of think investments
ashish is a regular guy
ashish is perfectly okay
ashish is an associate at lehman brothers
ashish is a director of engineering at amazon
ashish is on his trail again
ashish is fascinated by emerging technologies and enjoys working at tblr where he can employ his previous experience and realize new abilities
ashish is really bright
ashish is the chairman of the board of bridium and collectionsx
ashish is responsible for strategic alliances and client interaction as it&t
ashish is relief kitchen supervisor
ashish is married and is expecting his first child soon
ashish is married to misha grewal
ashish is from india
ashish is correct
ashish is a phd student in strategy in the management science and engineering dept
ashish is a master therapist as well as a spiritual master and guides the author through the territory of his personal issues
ashish is the country head
ashish is neither a mathcad user nor does he intend to become one
ashish is accused of having murdered his brother
ashish is vociferous about this
ashish is the chairman of the board for bridium

Hehehe.

I share my birthday with...
1774 John Chapman [Johnny Appleseed], frontier nurseryman
1820 Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar father of Bengali prose (Exile of Sita)
1888 T.S. Eliot St Louis poet/dramatist/critic (Waste Land-Nobel 1948)
1897 Pope Paul VI 262nd Roman Catholic pope (1963-78)
1947 Lynn Anderson ND, country singer (I Never Promised you a Rose Garden)
1947 Richard Roth US, 400m swim medley (Olympic-gold-1964)
1948 Olivia Newton-John Cambridge England, singer (I Honestly Love You, Physical)
1948 Vladimir Remek 1st Czechoslovakian space traveler (in Soyuz 28)
1985 Shamu was born this day in Orlando, Florida. She was the first killer whale to be born in captivity and survive. Her place of birth was Sea World.

I don't have any reason to believe - or disbelieve in reincarnation; but it's interesting to see Daniel Boone frontiersman, dies in Missouri at 85 in 1820.

1687 Parthenon destroyed in war between Turks & Venetians
1824 Kapiolani defies Pele (Hawaiian volcano goddess) & lives
1950 Because of forest fire in Br Columbia, blue moon appears in England
1954 Typhoon strikes Kakodate Bay Japan, killing over 1,600
1955 NY Stock Exchange worst price decline since 1929
1991 A group of scientists, four men and four women began a two-year stay inside Biosphere 2, a sealed structure in Oracle, AZ. They had planned to have no contact with the outside world; to grow their own food and live peacefully together as future pioneers in a harsh and alien world. Unfortunately, the outside world had to intervene a few times; to get rid of an ant invasion, to pump in oxygen, to tend to a health emergencies, to bring in forgotten necessities like makeup. The scientific team managed to last out the term, but they were half-crazy and half-starved when U.S. marshals led them out two years later.

Music that topped the charts on this day -
Smoke on the Water - Red Foley
Jambalaya (On the Bayou) - Hank Williams
Hey Jude - The Beatles
Hush - Deep Purple
Drive - The Cars

Wikipedia delivers a nasty aside when I'm not looking -
Wednesday's child is full of woe.

That's it for now. Happy Birthday, whenever it is!

what not to do when alone on saturday night

The below activities are perfectly fine when taken separately but together make for a... memorable experience, and not in a good way.
1. Stock up on beer.
It's 8:45 and I decide to pick up some suds to generally relax and pass a pleasant sat evening
2. Don't check roomie's whereabouts.
Fucker has been missing and no clue when back... house deathly quiet... might as well start on my own
3. Download a massive collection of movies
I have 237 movies at the last count, some seen, some unseen but heard of, and it's playing on my conscience.
4. Get drunk
It's 11 PM and I'm fairly high. and bored. Maybe I should start watching some of my movies?
5. Of all the movies to pick, do not, repeat, do NOT select The Shining.
It's midnight, and the house - and the neighbourhood - is deathly quiet. My head slightly blurry. Jack Nicholson slowly going insane in a deserted hotel in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, while his son has this deplorable habit of roaming the hotel alone. Very quick cutscenes of chopped-up bodies. An extraordinarily creepy pair of ghost twin girls. What is it about twins? From The Shining to Ghost Ship, they've successfully creeped me out each time. Even in porn they creep me out.
1 AM, and I'm distinctly twitchy. Keep seeing half-glimpsed flashes of movement out of the corner of my eye but when I look, there's nothing there.
6. Get a 5.1 speaker system.
The music is awesomely creepy, right enough, but at this time of the night and in this state of sobriety, I do NOT need to hear faint ghostly whispers coming from precisely behind my head from the rear speakers.
Now officially too freaked out to continue. Everything's slightly out of whack. The shoes look too long. Beer cans too yellow. Open cupboard too hungry. Speakers too w-watchful. Boxes too full of something I don't remember putting in. Curtains moving in a... wind?
Wasn't that chair in the corner five minutes ago?
It's too quiet. Maybe I should put on some music and

OHSWEETMOTHEROFGOD

It's ok. It's ok. It was just the water coming in the open tap... but the last thing I need to hear at this stage is the sound of something uncannily like a throat being cleared noisily and violently at the end of a dark passage INSIDE the house.

Ok, need to watch something funny. Fast. What do I have? Open the movies folder.

28 days later
Alien
Communion
Constantine
Dawn of the Dead
Day of the Dead
Dracula
Exorcist
Ghostbusters
Land of the Dead
Manhunter
Monster House
Monsters Inc
Nightmare on Elm Street
Predator
Primal Fear
Resident Evil
Saw III
Se7en
The Blair Witch Project
The Descent
The Fly
The Frighteners
The Machinist
The Sixth Sense
Underworld

I have a truly inspiring collection for times like this, don't I?

Have no clue what to do now. Help.

beginnings

This afternoon, I had a presentation in a fairly faraway part of town, so coming back took a long time. It was one of those evenings where anytime a plan can happen - one that you may want, and just as easily one that you have no choice over.
For some reason, I wasn't listening to music like I usually do. Took an auto, switch autos, auto again, chatting about work, then train for an hour, walk a while, eat a samosa-pao on LP station, then train again, and finally a half-hour walk back home.
Something... happened. Looking around me. Potholes and slush, no lights. Exhaust's blue haze swirling in the headlights of the stalled traffic. Constant rubbing of people squeezing past. In the train, people either fast asleep, or on the phone. Cells that just wouldn't stop ringing. Expressions of... life. Relaxed in sleep. Scrunched up in worry. Scowls. Smiles. Eyes flickering, flickering, flickering. Thinking. Moving in a herd up the overbridge, close press. The same steps. Every day. For five years.
Why do we do this?
We - distract ourselves. Flickering fantasies coming and gone on the screen. Conversations in cyberspace. Escapism. Music turned up loud, painfully loud. An empty road that must be raced through. Package holidays, point to point, on schedule. Today's bestsellers. Blockbusters. Superhits and megastars. Mob frenzy and media hype. Fast food and slow deaths. Cigs, booze, grass, hash, coke, E, meth, tranks, amphetamines, glue, iodex on bread.
We numb ourselves.
We don't want to see. We don't want to know. The harder reality bites, the further we go from it. We don't know what to do. We think there's no escape. We don't know what we want.

But I... think I do.
At least, that's what it feels like. It's not a depression. I''m not feeling trapped. I feel like I'm on the edge of the answer, the feeling you get when the equation suddenly starts obeying the rules, opposing variables start canceling each other out, and the scrawl burst over the page suddenly starts narrowing down, when you know that it's just a matter of time before x =

what?

I don't know. Not yet. But I'm getting there. I feel... excited.
It's going to take time. Months. Maybe the whole year. But I'm onto something.

Life isn't just about to change.
It's already started.

perfect moments

Once in a while, they just come along and hit you when you're least expecting them...
midnight on a dark empty road
no streetlights
60 kmph on a rain-slicked darkness
flashes of headlights
humming engine
sleeping city
light drizzle
warmth in the jacket
cold on skin
a little rain
music

Somebody saw you at the station
You had your suitcase in your hand
You didn't give no information
You walked off with another man
I'm always standing in the shadows, baby
I watched you give yourself away
You take them home into your bedroom
You had another busy day

I tried to look the other way and fake it
You push me to the limits
I can't take it

One down, one to go
Just another bullet in the chamber
Sometimes love's a loaded gun
Red lights, stop and go
Whatcha gonna do when you play with danger
Sometimes love's a loaded gun
And it shoots to kill

Someday they'll put me in a squad card
Someday they'll throw away the key
But 'til that day I'll be a mad dog
Cuz that's what you taught me to be

You looked into the eyes of men above you
I was the one who really tried to love you

One down, one to go
Just another bullet in the chamber
Sometimes love's a loaded gun
Red lights, stop and go
Whatcha gonna do when you play with danger
Sometimes love's a loaded gun
And it shoots to kill

blogger's block

doesn't matter anymore. i don't know why.
nothing seems relevant enough, important enough... or maybe i just don't care.

maybe it was just a phase.

gaining time

I've heard of people losing time for brief periods, looking at their watches and wondering where the last hour or two vanished, no memory of what they were doing.
Ever heard of anyone gaining time?
Happened to me today; looked at my watch, and had the extraordinary feeling that somehow, I've moved back in time. It should have been at least an hour and a half later than it was.
I'm scared. My mind either misinterpreted everything that had happened before that... or created incidents that never really happened.

PJ

When I was coming back from the office to Dadar today, the cabbie charged me ninteen rupees. I immediately thought of my friend Unny. When Unny returns to his home town, he'll start his own business. And he'll call it Unny's.

What business? Obviously, manufacture of honey. And the enterprise will be blessed with the moniker - Unny's Bees.

But in today's world, simply the product is not good enough. It needs to be marketed with a little... flourish. And Unny will use, as his trademark, Love as the USP of the honey, and his business will come to be known as - Unny's Bees + Ek Kiss.

Then, as the business flourishes, Unny will realize that he needs to diversify and branch out. So he will also open a domestic help referral agency as a division of the main business.

Thus will end the story of how there will be, one day in a town in India, a company called...

Unny's Bees + Ek Kiss, and Bais.

---

Update: Soon after, Unny's parents, who stay with him, encourage him to accept into the family an aged friend of theirs. Unny, the essential entrepreneur, goes a step further and opens for her, an old-age home for ladies that she can manage, called Tai's.
With the money now flowing in like crazy, a professional finance manager is needed. Unny hires his childhood friend, Mr. V. Choubey, who combines his investment-advice firm with Unny's business, a company called Choubey's.
Thanks Praveen for the contribution!

Unny now is the master of Unny's Bees + Ek Kiss and Bais, Tai's, and Choubey's. The name is too big to fit on his visiting card, so he combines the five things into a single group called Paanch Cheez.

His success inspires his neighbor, a Korean gentleman, Mr. James Cha, to go into business himself. Unfortunately, he chooses a field which brings him into direct competition with Unny, when he puts up a board bearing the legend - Cha Bees.

Imagini

Who are you?
What do you want?
What do you like?
Where do you belong?
What do you live for?

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

living discretely

Walking through a bookstore, picking random books. A page here, a line there, an entire chapter elsewhere. Fragmented scenes. Shattered stories. Broken plots. Kaliedoscopic melange.

A jigsaw with a million pieces. Impossible to see what it makes. But a sense of expectation, the fun of finding out.

One day, I feel, it's all going to fit together. Somehow, someway, impossibly... it's all going to fit. It's all going to make sense.

These days. These hours. These minutes.

Sometime, they'll fit together, too.

sudden

cobweb strand, floating in the current
single sliver of sun suspended
heartstopping heartbreak
remembered childhood
dusty summer days
this is here, now
dry hum of ac
receptionist
cold lobby
waiting
years
run
by
..

system crash

Evil carries the seeds of it's own destruction, they say. Well, so does Organization.
If I hadn't wanted a cleaner, neater, faster PC, I wouldn't have tried to format my HD. If I hadn't done that, the wrong disk wouldn't have been wiped. If the wrong disk wouldn't have been wiped, my entire picture collection would still be there. Sorted by place & date. Cleaned, unduplicated. All the right way up.
Don't panic - I had backups. But now I have to sort the whole collection out all over again.
Ultimate Timepass.
Sigh.

Upgrade!

Finally, after much trepidation, I migrated my blog to the new Google templates. Surprisingly easy. I was terrified that all the special widgets I'd built in over time - sitemeters, polls, badges, blogrolls - would somehow just disappear in a puff of logic, but I managed to keep all of them.

Also found an unexpected benefit; catharsis. The act of seeing all the junk you've accumulated, putting all those code chunks into a notepad, and then sorting, organizing, and throwing away the unnecessary stuff - I feel cleansed.
In fact, it's been a good day for cleansing. I jogged, I (semi) cleaned my room, serviced my bike, formatted my HDD, washed my clothes, and sorted out my blog. My psyche feels lighter.
Maybe I should get a haircut as well.

But it's interesting, isn't it - I don't know how many of you out there are packrats like me, but I have a pathological aversion to throwing out anything. And I mean anything.
Plastic packet? Will be useful for throwing rubbish.
Beer can? Use it as an ashtray.
Paper napkin? Keep it for when you have a runny nose.
Torn T-shirt? Can make a decent duster.
Bit of wire? Computer cable organizer.
I swear, I accumulate so much junk, I'm surprised I can still get into my room. So this - clearing - is all the more dramatic.

But I can't even make a habit of it - to be effective, I guess it needs to be really massive. Event of the season.
Once I'm all done, I'll take a pic. Frame it and hang it - See? I lived like this once too!

At least, until the next cleaning.

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came

Found a nice quiz where you get to find out what character you are. And no, I'm not Roland. Though I'd have liked to be.

On Writing

Why do I blog?

Is it narcissism? Loneliness? A sense of wanting to be heard in a world where, as an individual, I'm increasingly irrelevant, crowded, pushed aside? A desire to belong to something, a clique I look up to?
Answer: None Of The Above.

More than anything, the act of writing - especially blogging - reminds me of nothing else as much as lying in the shade on a summer afternoon, building rock castles among the trees. Constructing Lego leviathans on the carpet in cool hum of the AC. Sketching portraits from magazines, the thrill when someone recognizes the person. Putting together a do-it-yourself circuit for a light-powered alarm in the middle of the night. Organizing the 42-GB MP3 collection, the photos collected over 27 years, the 500+ divx movies.

It's absorption. Self-realization. Excellence.
It's a craft.

I do it because when I do it, there's nothing else. The story starts as a vague, amorphous shape in your head and dreams, and slowly comes out through your fingers, through your mind's eye, where you see it taking shape, life. It's like watching memory in reverse, when a remembrance becomes the experience. Suddenly you can't stop, because stopping will be like slamming on the handbrake when you're crossing 60 in neutral on a downhill slope.
Or, more usually, you suddenly... wake up, with a finished story before you, several minutes - or hours - gone, and your head ringing with the aftermath of an intense trip.

And that's just the art.
As much fun - if not more - is from crafting it into something that's good. There's discipline. fonts to be standardized, justified. Pictures. Code. Widgets. Usability. Labels. Tags. Links. Captions. Infotips. Consistency. Cutting out the loose threads and ends. The spit and the polish.

And it's never a feeling that I'm making this for someone. I'm making it perfect because it has to be perfect.
It cannot be anything less than perfect because if it is, it's not what I thought it to be. It's not what it was meant to be. I can feel it, sometimes, as nearly alive, and every misplaced punctuation, misaligned table, mismatched font, misrepresentative image and mistaken link is a nagging ache, a fishhook in your mind. You can't rest until it's fixed. The story won't let you.

You can feel that it's alive.
Sometimes, there's a sense of... duality. Being outside yourself. Being someone, something else. Especially when you're in the flow; you're not you, but what you're making. And what you're making is not necessarily the same as you; it has it's own desires, wants, concepts of what it wants to be, and it won't let you rest until you make it what it wants to be. At the time, you are nothing more than a tool for it to self-create.

Coming back is a shock.
Going out... is the ultimate rush.

There's a ghost in the loo

It's late night, and the office is nearly empty and deathly quiet except for a faraway clickety-clack of the keyboard and faint Dire Straits. Half the lights have been switched off. There's generally a dark, gloomy feel, and because there's no warm bodies, the air is icy cold.
No warm bodies. Damn. Why did I put that thought in my head?

I'm standing in front of the cold porcelain of the urinal, doing my thing, when a drift of cold air sweeps across the back of my neck.
Silence
The stall next to me, which was empty all this while, suddenly flushes in a shocking explosion of hisses and gurgles.
Nobody was there. Nobody's in the toilet. Nobody's in the frickin' office but me!

O Mighty Adsense Algorithm

I bow before thee.
I prostrate my unworthy humble self at the feet of thy Adsense text ad, for truly, thine is the Power. Thou hath read my mind verily like it were crystal clear text.

And posted a link to Workplace Violence upon my blog.
And one for Jobs.
And one for finding new friends.