Rest in peace RAMBO...

  
I still can't believe that you are no longer between us Rambo... Although you are not around physically, your presence will be felt - your memories will be cherished.

I will remember you as my pet, my roomie, my pal... But most of all, I will remember you by the remarkable qualities that you possessed...

BE COLORFUL...
Although the world you lived in was plain, transparent and even boring from a certain perspective - you were a delightful difference within it... Your contrast defined your personality... Your colors made the world around you look more beautiful!

BE RESPONSIVE...
You always... always responded to other people's gestures. Your habit of acknowledging made you fun... You stood out in your species just because you knew how to respond!

MARK YOUR SPACE...
Though being friendly was your quality - you never compromised your vicinity. You marked your space, your home - and made sure you protected it from any outside intrusion.

KEEP FIGHTING...
You are the bravest fish I 've ever seen my friend... You fought with every other fish to protect your vicinity... You fought, and fought bravely... Although I am a non-violent kind of a guy, I salute your aggressiveness and fearless approach when it came to protecting what's yours.

Rambo, I cant even try to create a list of your characteristics... Things that I loved about you...
But yes, I loved you my friend... And always will...
If there is anything like afterlife, I wish you get the best of it...


Lastly, I would like to say - it does not matter whether or not I have any more pets in life... But You, Rambo, will ALWAYS be "MY FIRST"...


May your scaly-soul swim peacefully in the Aqua-Heaven...
Amen!

26 years!!!


26 years and counting…
The odyssey moves ahead!
Loved and lost and learned –
Followed at times – But mostly led…

Cash or kind don’t matter
What I really earned is FRIENDS…
Those selfless relationships –
The beginnings without ends!

Two things that I am lucky to have
Are LOVE and KNOWLEDGE
Without anyone of these
My life would’ve gone over the edge…

Knowledge kept me curious
And love kept me contained…
One kept me controlled
The other made me untamed!

Yet on both venues
I ve got to turn the corner…
Need some more wild faith
Some more random order!

No resolutions this year
No promises that can’t be kept…
Just one thought to apply -
One idea to accept…

To gain wisdom through knowledge
To flourish love with respect…
To accumulate and precipitate -
To absorb and to reflect!

To follow sheer instinct
Yet to discipline my actions…
To enjoy the chaos all around
While focusing on real passions!

26 years and counting…
The odyssey moves ahead!
The rope of life is getting stronger
Coz better yielded is every thread!


Threads of love and knowledge
That bind this life together…
Love you my friends and gurus –
The sunlight in this heather!

And a few special ones
Who really brighten my days…
Can’t find words to thank you enough –
No flattery – no praise!

26 years and counting…
The odyssey moves ahead!
The only achievement is the love and knowledge I’ve earned –
And the little of both that I’ve spread!

Self Exile...


One has his own powers – own limitations -
Spirit or man, dwarf or elf…
One can challenge and beat any other being,
But how does one defeat oneself?

If the purpose of life is a life of purpose –
And pursue that purpose you do…
What will you do if life teaches you –
That purpose was never really true!

The beliefs that made you the man you are,
Those ideas you found so wise…
All that great thinking and planning you did –
Lead you to your own demise!

You did such things that others were hurt,
And your list of regrets grew…
All else will forgive and forget some day,
But will YOU forgive YOU?

You have been a champ for the world around –
Friends and family love it all!
People love it when you talk with all your charm…
And your ego has a ball!

But your heart knows how these inspiring words –
Have burnt others’ souls…
You realize too late you are a disease – a poison –
That kills all that it controls…

 You have fallen and rose – and not once or twice,
And proved your point every time –
Heart feels pure success – Mind measures it right,
But the conscience is in utter grime…

Are you really useful? When you show those dreams?
That you fail to fulfill at the end?
No matter how good your intensions – or how great the dreams -
Do your loved ones comprehend?

What’s the point of being so positive all along…
When the end result is futile?
If you know that all you can do is hurt –
Best thing to do is self exile.

Screaming after watching Scream 4...

Saturday - 3:30 in the morning... Just watched Scream 4... A few questions that I really wanna ask - don know to whom, so posting on d blog for you people to ponder:

Here is the list...
Top 10 Questions 4 Scream 4:

#10.
I ve read so many Indian news incidents where people amazingly only go to the ICU after being stabbed for like a couple of dozen times and come ou
t all healed just fine in a month! Are Americans so fragile that they ALWAYS die 1 single blow OR in like 4 stabs max for some tough guys??? (Does not apply to the lead character)



#9.
Why in the name of holy mother cow doesnt any house in America have grills on the windows???? (Keep is Secured Silly...)



#8.
Isnt it super inconvenient for the Scream Psycho to climb windows, do summer-shorts, run faster than anyone but the lead character, walk on roof tops and all the cool ninja-type stuff in his black ghaghra???
(or even carry d knife for that matter - imagine lifting the ghaghra to pull out the knife from your pocket everytime you gotta kill someone - ufffffff tht's not gonna help you be fast!)
Just look at the length of this thing....


#7.
Why do ALLL the other characters - who wear normal clothes like jeans and running shoes, etc. keep on falling on flat earth when they are being chased???
(whereas the ghaghra-guy SELDOM EVER loses balance!)
Or is it the heels Sydney????


#6.
Did Wes Carven or Dimension Films do a tie-up with Apple/Steve Jobs for this sequel??? (watch it - u wld figure this out!)



#5.
Why do the REAL HOT CHICKS always die in movies??? (Not just for Scream - this is universal) Has Darwin talked about Survival of the Average Looking? - If not, someone get this patented....
Compare for yourselves....

VS


#4.
Why cant I EVERRRRRRRRRRRR guess the real psycho in any of the movies??? (This is THE BIGGEST complement that I can ever give to Wes Carven)


#3.
How can this be a blockbuster quadrology???



#2.
Why in the name of Quentin Tarantino do I and other people like me watch these crap movies if we know how crapy they really are???


#1.
Since I am out of questions - here is the last one: DOES THIS MEAN WE SHOULD NOW EXPECT SCARY MOVIE 8??? (The trailer for 7 is out already...)

Cheers!!!

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Aatif is NOT STIFF (...yet!)

Keeping the promise in my last blog, here I am - back with some of my matchless and mediocre thoughts! Before you think that this is some gossip related post related to some celebrity, let me clarify – This is not about Aatif or any singer or any celebrity for that matter – This is about a concern way beyond that! So read on… And decide for yourself…


Today I feel like writting about the very first line that I heard from my wife at 4 in the morning! I don't go to gym that early - the reason behind me being up at that hour is that this, being the holy month of Ramzaan (Ramadan) - my wife has to do her Sehri (have the first meal for the day) before a stipulated time! And then, she fasts for at least 14 hours at a stretch every single day, and this would go on for the whole month!!! God bless her strength and courage, coz honestly and shamelessly admitting - I would literally go insane if I do that even for 5 days at a stretch!


Anyway, so I stepped out before she even woke up today morning to get some stuff, and after I was back home, like a true gentleman I greeted her with a sweet "good-morning" kind of a sugar coated soothing phrase. To which, she responded appropriately, again like a true gentle-caring-lady. And then, her first line - the beginning of our daily conversation - was an exclamatory remark: "YOU KNOW WHAT??? AATIF ASLAM IS DEAD!!!"


I don't like to boast about myself, but I would like to coin here that after all that I have done, seen and been through in life, there are hardly any news that genuinely surprise me. I have become "placid" (love that word) to an annoying extent. So obviously, I was not like "Whaaaaaaaaaaaat!" after hearing this, but I responded with a curious looking "What? How?" to this note! (Although, I admit I would yell a biiiiiiiig "WHAAAAAAAAAT" if someone tells me that Droid 2 would NEVER get launched in India!)


So, she told me that one of her friends, whom she considered a "probable-reliable" source of information had sent her a text breaking the sad news! I don't usually accept and digest this sort of information without verifying it. Hence, I googled it and found various more "reliable-reliable" sources claiming that Aatif Aslam was very much alive! You probably won't believe, but since morning, at least 5 of my buddies have forwarded similar text messages to me confirming the sad demise of Aatif Aslam!

Hence, the idea behind me sharing this incident with you is - why do we always accept variety of information just because it has the right amount of spice in it??? I can give you countless examples of myths as this one, which have been so widespread just coz the rumour pressed the right buttons in people's minds. The biggest example is the "Do Not Use Your Cellphone" sign at any petrol pump - Yes... This is sheer bullshit and you can verify the same with reliable sources like mythbusters
(Click here to to check if you'ld like to!).


Other examples like why are all the clocks/watches set at 10:10 AM in their display ads? Many people believe its because the first atom bomb was dropped at that time (I used to believe this for quite a long time!). Many think because some legendary person like Mahatma Gandhi, JF Kennedy, etc. was shot/died at that time. But all that is a sad lie! The truth is that its just because if the watch hands are at 10:10, a.) the manufacturer's logo is displayed properly and b.) this way, the hands resemble a smile!
Check this link to verify: The watch fact!



So, my only point is that we land up gathering and distributing incorrect and irrelevant information many times and this exclusively holds good in sensitive cases like world politics, celebrity gossip and the most critical topic - Religion!


Being your well-wisher, and a strong supporter of UNBIASED-LOGICAL-FAIR information in its true sense, I would like to request all of you to check your facts before you start spreading them! This way my friend – the world would be a less complex place!!! If you still wanna cross check that Aatif is really really not stiff, Click Here!!!


One more fact you might wanna know, is that when you hold a Sea Shell on your ear, it’s the sound of your blood surging through the veins what you hear – and not the sound of the ocean! You can very well hear the same sound even if you are sitting in your drawing room in Bhopal or Texas or Cambridge!

Many other facts like these are quite surprising, but all true nonetheless! So, keep doing a reality check and spread the knowledge worth spreading!!! If you would like to share any such surprising fact, you are most welcome to post a comment in here - for all you know, I might have to write an entire blog on it! Hope to hear some
"whaaaaaaaaaat!" kindda stuff from you guys!


God bless!!!

Dissection de la Inception!


Note: ***The following blog may imply that I have purchased and viewed pirated vids! Please don’t file a complaint:)! Hope the CBI doesn’t come looking for me after I publish this...But you know what? I will happily surrender with a smile on my face once they have arrested AAAALLLL the video rental shop owners in India and the owners of a thousand different websites providing free torrents for EveryThing imaginable!

And after all, me - being a "seeker" of information would definitely grab anything and everything available which is of my interest!***

So, first of all, my sincere apologies to my dear readers {I know there are just 34 members on my blog - but it feels awesome to write this line!;)} for not posting anything for the last soooooooo many days!

Loadz of things have happened in these last few days which are worth writing about. But the one thing that I really cant wait to share is this latest flick that I watched last night on a dvd for the second time - After watching it first on big screen about 20 days back!

Yes, my dear friends - I am certainly talking about the “5 starer” - fully loaded - sci-fi - future 10 academy awards winner (I assume at least 10) – movie of the Year "INCEPTION"!!!

There are 2 reasons behind writing an exclusive post about Inception:
A. I had to watch this movie for the second time to fully understand it!
B. I have N-E-V-E-R seen a movie for the second time for the sole purpose of fully understanding it since 7th August 1986 (My inception)!!!!

Now, I have discussed a little bit about the plot of this flick with some of my most intelligent friends (Ok, go ahead - have your grin and give yourself a pat on the back if I discussed it with ‘YOU’) - and not to my surprise, even they dint fully understand the details. Hence, post my second session, I thought I would better share my personal understanding, since my understanding is usually ‘understandable’ by masses!

Many of you may think that you understood the movie, or at least the basic concept, but trust me - The devil as always lies in the details! So, if I ask you something like “Who's subconscious was the second dream??? or Who's architecture and who's dream was it really???” or may be “When and Where was the idea actually incepted in Fischer’s (Clillian Murphy – the recently orphaned poor tycoon) mind???” You may have to ‘guess’ rather than give a confident answer!

To remove this guess-work, lets understand the basic deal - One person designs the architecture of the dream (I know you know that – don’t be too happy about it!) - that's Ariadne (Ellen Page) for all the 3 levels of the dream; except the fourth one – the ‘Limbo’, which has no architecture technically. To make things quite simple, the architect only designs the very basic layout of the whole dream. So, this chick designed the city in the first dream, the hotel in the second and the fortress like hospital (YES - that was a hospital in d snow - watch it again before you bet!) in the third one...

Now, there is one more dude who's subconscious is used to populate that layout... This creates the special places in the dream - like the safe in the hotel from where Arthur (Joseph Gordan) pulls out the dream-sharing machine and the detonator charges in the 2nd level or the vault in the hospital where Fischer meets his dad in the 3rd level.

So, its kindda simple - first dream is populated by Dom Cobb (Leonardo), second by Arthur, and the third by Fischer. The catch is, that for the third one, Fischer is not aware that he is populating the dream. He think it is uncle Peter’s subconscious (Peter Browning played by Tom Berenger). The fourth one - the "Limbo" as we know it is only the subconscious of Dom, no architecture there! I know that you probably know most of this!

But what you don’t know is this - Our dear uncle Peter (Don’t jump thinking you know that he was forged by Eames(Tom Hardy) in level 1)… So, I was saying that our dear uncle Peter was forged by Eames only in the first level of the dream! In level 2, he was a projection of Fischer’s subconscious. The REAL “inception” happens in level 1 itself – when uncle Peter simply induces the idea of a second will of Morris Fischer to his son when they have a li’l handcuffed chat!

This simple idea leads Fischer’s subconscious to give himself the information through his own projection of uncle Peter in level 2 of the dream! What I mean is, that the uncle Peter who told Fischer that his dad dint want him to lead the company - was NOT the one forged by Eames, but a projection of Fischer's own subconscious!!! Since by then, he has already started doubting his dad’s intentions about the future of his company… However, again the small catch in level 2 is that he is motivated further to find out some “positive” reason behind his dad’s such decision. Fischer assumes he is going to find this secret buried in uncle Peter’s mind, but actuallyhe goes looking for it in his own spineunknowingly though – coz Dom tells him they are going in his uncle’s dream, but they finally land on Fischer’s!!!

So, the plan works and Fischer finally finds what he WANTED to find! That his dad dint really want him to be him… The idea which he only vaguely perceived so far is backed up by a concrete motive now! Bingo!!!!

The rest of the Limbo thingy and Mall (Marion Cotillard) stuff is quite simple to understand… So I won’t go in a lot of details about all that.

Having said all of this, I think the movie was simply fantastic. I liked it better than Avatar as a matter of fact! (Don mind James, I still admire your creativity and technology…) Just so that you know, James Cameron spent 13 years only in researching on the technology that he used to create Avatar! But Inception takes the cake simply because of its marvelous idea and the way it is presented with minute detailing. I personally like the concept so much coz I have always fantasized that this whole life is a dream and after sometime, I am going to wake up in a different world! So to make the most of this dream, I should try and learn the most out of it!

This all goes parallel to concepts like life after death, re-incarnation, the idea of going to “heaven” after death, death being just a phase, etc etc. One more thing you may like to ponder about is our embryo stage. Imagine, a child starts feeling its surroundings even in the embryo state. For him/her, the womb is the world! Where it is being fed automatically, where it breathes through direct intake of oxygen from blood rather than through air, where it grows and even learns quite a few things!

The mind of any embryo is not so developed, but speaking of that – It is only our “perception” that our mind is developed or is it??? So, after some 38 weeks, that life form finally comes out of that environment which was so far its universe! And then it realizes that the world is way way beyond what he had assumed till now! Then it realizes that those 9-10 months were just a mere phase of its development! So, based on all this, my fantasy is that what if this whole life is a phase just like that only??? I know it’s a very absurd idea, but you never know!!!

Talking about dreams, the concept of shared dreaming is also real, and is quite possible (Go on... Google it if you don't trust me...)! The actual difficult task is Lucid Dreaming, where in you are aware that you are dreaming and you consciously navigate in your subconscious! This is also possible, but extremely difficult, coz you see the subconscious paradigm is a very tricky business… Our tiny conscious simply doesnot posses sufficient processing power (RAM) to control such a powerfully creative and dynamic thing! I have once or twice experienced lucid dreaming, but the dream hardly lasts for a fraction of a second once I realize I am dreaming.

Ultimately, as an ending note, I would like to emphasize that don’t underestimate the power of your subconscious. It can make you do things which you have never even imagined! And, the most important – the basic input to our subconscious is after all our conscious, our real world. So try and feed positive, good thoughts to your soul – that is what will connect you to your dreams, your faith, your heaven or even your God!

Signing off, with a promise to post back soon!!!

Please feel free to leave comments if you dint understand any part of this or the whole thing thing seemed crap!!!


God bless you and your dreams!

Make a Difference - GUJJU Style


Hello world,

I would like to share a portion from an email that I received from our HR dept today:

"......we found that there are a number of patients who have to stay in the hospital for the treatment for a very long time... for months, even for a year or more... And most of them are from poor families.

This time we are targeting patients who are admitted for treatment for Dialysis and kidney transplant.
They have to be admitted for 6-8 months and they have to follow a strict diet plan.

As per doctors' suggestion "Ganthiya and Jalebi" is very good for kidney patients due to the use of sodium bi-carbonate in their preparation.

So our social committee has planned for distribution of "Ganthia and Jalebi" on 27 June - Sunday to the Civil hospital kidney patients.

We have a target to distribute......"

Amazing! I never knew Gathiya-Jalebi is good for my Kidney!!! The best thing that Jalebi reminds me about is its mouth-watering golden-warm taste and the "Shuddh Dhara" ad in which li'l Chunnu who runs away from home comes back just to hog his Mom-made Jalebis!!! But that’s not the point.

I just want to share or rather point out that there are so many small little things in life that seem very casual to us, but can make a huge difference in someone's life! A casual snack for me could be a life saving (I know I am exaggerating) medicine for someone (at least it could be an aid to the treatment)!!! It truly is ironic that there are people around us who cant afford these things even when they are highly needed.

Most of us may not have to think twice about a lavish dinner at Barbecue Nation or a casual breakfast at IIM or Vastrapur or Iscon, but there are people who cant even afford a prescribed meal or a drug! It is our moral responsibility to come forward to help them.

But of course, we have our social responsibilities as well towards our families and work which may not allow us to spend time in helping others. These kind of efforts put at an organizational level help in bridging that gap. I cannot go to the civil hospital everyday to offer gathiya-jalebi to the patients there, but at least I can contribute financially if my company is assuring me that she will do it on my behalf. (Yes, 'company' too, is definitely a female - why do you think she is so unpredictable and demanding and yet so much needed???)

Jokes apart, but we all should be proud that there are millions of organizations worldwide who are putting efforts to help those who are in need today. And I really appreciate the idea 'coz even a small contribution from each individual in an organization would result into a huge aid at the end of the day.

So, I request you all to participate actively in these kind of official-charity events and encourage your organization to organize these sort of events on a regular basis. Not just organizations, even Co-Op Societies, clubs and other groups should think on these lines.

Two thumbs up to all the companies and individuals who have been putting efforts towards helping each other by helping the society.

And last but not the least, A heart felt congratulations to all the makers of Gathiya - Jalebi!!!

God Bless!


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