Monday, June 28, 2010

Sorry

This is something I have never said to my granddad, whose tenth death anniversary falls today. During his last years, we both were not on cordial terms. The terminal illness he suffered, moved me enough to talk to him and enquire about his health, otherwise, it was mostly hi, bye, ok.

Now that I think of it, I feel foolish. I used to call it his arrogancy, my young blood, but no, it was totally foolish on my part. Till now I was only trying to find ways of making me feel good by blaming it on all such things.

Since childhood  he was the one who had taken care of me and my two siblings. He was the driving force behind us for our upbringing. His knowledge was legendary in our relatives, but so was his temper. Maybe the same genes came into me, as I grew up. And that temper led to a lot of arguments. Young age is so foolish. Sigh!!!

But sometimes I wonder, was he really that hot tempered. One incidence is still bothering me. One of our cars was in a garage for a long time, since its body was to be changed totally. We got it after quite a few months. The day we got the car, he asked me to go with the mechanic to buy some parts for the car, and me...i took out the car on the road, and dashed it against another. But surprising he didnt say a word. So he had a temper in the right place? Now that I think of it. Maybe yes.

Today the similar things which I used to argue with him, are staring at my face, and I realise, it was his experience which was talking, which I like a fool was not able to understand then.

Unfortunately, till his death, I didnt tell him sorry, and now I guess its too late.........

Why am I writing this, I dont know....felt like saying sorry today......

Thursday, June 24, 2010

School bags….

Daily Morning I see my son struggle with putting up his school bag on his back. Seriously the weight is killing. He has around 8 subjects in day. All his text books are long book size. So are his notebooks. During our time, at least the books used small in size, and we could easily divide the books into two lots, side by side in the bag. Not anymore. The size of the books allows books to be kept in one single row, which bulges the bags out like a pregnant woman’s baby hump. Exactly what is being gained by this I dont understand. Kids of such small ages have to pick up more than 10 kgs daily on their backs. Serious thought should be given by the schools about this. They are playing with the developing spines of kids or developing brains of kids?

Monday, June 14, 2010

Automation killed the typewriter

Today in the office, my attention fell on our typewriter. Sturdy old thing. Facet. Today my sisters and my own typing speeds are good , because our grandfather had insisted that we learn typing the old fashioned way. I still remember typing asdfg;lkjh on a single paper continuously. Then it struck me that last month during its service , the service person told me that he is not renewing his Annual maintenance contract. The reason being that he was finding it difficult to earn his bread and butter since more and more offices were discontinuing with typewriters. I spoke to him at length then. He said he has been offered a job as a office boy in one of the offices where he used to go to service the typewriters.

Now today I am wondering who will service my typewriter. Will have to search for some one. But automation has slowly killed many such things. Take for example the Pager. But unlike typewriters which have been in existence since long, Pagers had a very short life. There was a time, when every individual carried one, nicely attached to the belt. But in a short time, mobiles replaced the pagers.

There are many such examples, the gramophone replaced by the Tape Recorder, which in turn was replaced by Compact Disc, which in turn was replaced by MP3 players. The radio was lucky, it got a second lease of life because of FM channels, but still one doesn't see the big mono speaker radio players anymore. Moreover, one hardly sees a radio player at all, since mostly mobiles are used to access the FM channels.

Things have changed a lot in the recent times….my typewriter though old is still going good…though I only have to search for a good person to service it regularly…Long Live my Typewriter……

Friends, Numbers and social networking….

Its becoming a number game on most social networking sites. People keep on adding ‘friends’ to their profile. Facebook which has limited the maximum number of friends to 5000, is facing a petition from its followers.

Frankly, how many friends can one have? Close friends are usually limited to les than 5. Other than that ones memory can at any particular point of time not remember more than 100 odd people,unless it is being written down. Others you can put down as acquaintances. So what does one achieve by having thousands of friends . You attend any party or function and you will come across a new person and the first thing you get to hear after speaking for more than 5 mins is that I am on XYZ social networking site, I will be sending you an invite tomorrow!!!!! Or an acquaintance asking you to add a person s/he has added thru another acquaintance. It is practically impossible to know so many people personally or up close. So what is being achieved? Frankly this is not a simple add and forget thing. Social responsibilities should be followed in virtual world also.

My memory cannot absorb so many friends nor the idea of adding unknown people……

Monday, June 7, 2010

Its a c-razy world

Hey, there was a crazy idea in my head, which I have put into existence.Check out

http://c-razyworld.blogspot.com/

An amazing reunion

Met my college friends after a gap of 14 years. 14!!!!. Actually I thought it might be 5-6 years, but they corrected me. And then I realized that time has flown faster than I have thought about it. We have spend 5 amazing years together in college. And then…each person went on his own way. But I loved meeting them all after so many years. The spirits were flowing in literal terms…with us being busy in our talks…and forgetting to shut off the beer tap…the glasses were overflowing in literal terms while being refilled.:)

The memories of college, the names we had kept for each other, were enough for the meet to last from 7 pm to 1 am, when we finally bid goodbye to each other. Now looking forward to the next meet….hope it not long way off………

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Farmville on facebook and the false profiler

What does one do, when s/he is addicted to the game farmville on Facebook, wants to add more friends to go ahead fast in the levels but still keep away unknown people from self. Simple create a false account, put a nice picture and add everybody left and right. This is what was told to me by a friend. He is saying that way you do not allow unknown people to access your true data, you can have more than 500 people on you friends list, most of who are already playing farmville, either in their true profile or maybe again a false profile and enjoying the game without worrying.

Wow . I am learning a lot nowadays:))))

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

What a weekend

It all started on Thursday evening, when I had my tooth extracted. Hopelessly under sedation our doorbell started ringing ferociously in the night at 11.30. This made me also get out of the bed to see who it was. My sister had planned to surprise us by landing in Bombay a day before our fathers 60th birthday on Friday. We had planned for the party on Saturday.

On saturday, my family members received one more surprise in the party in form of live gazals……and so did the attendees. Nobody except myself and my brother in law knew about this plan. One of my cousins had gone to the extent of informing people that they were sure to get bored in the evening. But then the live gazals…set the mood and the party was rocking.

Sunday again was a bit of rest for us….but for me personally Monday was fun with my sister. She wanted to see the sea link. Morning we moved out at 7.30, and after seeing the sea link we came to our office. After setting up the work for the day we moved out again, now it was time to pay our childhood areas a visit. It started off with stopping at Ashok wada pav at prabhadevi, then a visit to our old building, reliving the memories. Called up a few friends from there, and though it was not possible to meet them, it was fun remembering the good ole days. We even went to the extent of clicking photographs of a crematorium behind our old house. For me and my sister it was full on fun. From there we went to a temple in Shivaji Park maidan, and then back home, since she had to catch a flight back home. In between this we stood at many places which hold a lot of memories for us. My extended weekend has ended today, here in the office, with me feeling totally out of place and wondering from where to begin work from:)))