Always Your Friend

Sometimes it's hard to write the words

That you, my dear, should see.

Or say the things that you need to hear,

Or be as I should be.

You grow so fast and learn so much

It's hard for me each day.

To say or do just what is best,

To help along the way.

Should I be silent or give advice

Should I answer yes or no

Should I have control - set many rules,

Or simply let you go

One thing is certain...I'll make mistakes,

And some will seem hard to mend.

But if nothing else seems clear right now,

Know that you can always count on me as your friend.

26/11 Anniversary

I just realized that not only I’m blogging after real long time, but I am blogging on very important date i.e. 26/11 ...anniversary of Mumbai attacks. Anniversary? Is it something to celebrate that we are calling it anniversary? Last time I blogged was on 15th August and today 26th November. Both the dates are important to our nation. 15th August changed our nation while 26 November changed Mumbai.

As a Mumbaikar this date is really important for me. Last year , i was at home surfing internet when I heard blasts at my place at around 10pm.

Its true when people say you wouldn’t realize the gravity of particular event or incident, unless you've been there to experience it. I dint experience it , because I was watching news live in the safety of my home. I was supposed to go to nariman point on 26 November at night with a friend, but cancelled the plan last minute.

But today, I was at Vt station at the same time 9.15pm ... while coming back from work. Same time at this very same place where I was standing terrorist began firing at people who where waiting at station to catch train back home. What if i was working last year? I would have been there. But today life was usual at station, people waiting for their trains to come so that they could reach their homes. Good that there was nothing to remind them about what happened there last year , expect for few volunteers wearing black t-shirts asking people to donate blood to show solidarity. I just dont get this. And I’m happy, that nothing has changed as far we Mumbaikars are concerned. That’s what they call the "Spirit" of Mumbai.

To hell with our "Spirit". The government took us for granted before 26/11 and even now they are. We don’t want to prove our spirits by letting them strike us again and again. What has changed ? You can see bunkers at the VT station. Jawans with bullet proof jackets. Commandos. Armored vehicles. More CCTV’s. But what i don’t understand is how all this going to help prevent the attacks? All this measure taken will be used when we are attacked. What have they put in place to prevent these terrorists from attacking again? Those jawans, armored vehicles, bunkers, CCTV's are they going to prevent the attacks?? The answer is simply NO!!

I travel to VT daily. They have this metal detectors placed at every door, so as to detect person carrying arms. But its not mandatory to pass through metal detectors. There enough space on both the sides of metal detector for people to pass. And everyone just avoids the metal detectors. And the policemen sitting next to these detectors don’t care a damn if people don’t walk through this detectors. People no longer care to check to check if there is any suspicious luggage kept in their compartment. No cares. Or no one has time to care.

So I am asking what preventive measure do the government has put in place for us? Those commandos with they are high tech machineries will be of use only when we are attacked and more lives are lost.

Seriously nothing has changed. 1 year after the 26/11, Mumbai and its "Spirit" still remains the same, to be taken for granted.

Awaiting Another Tryst With Destiny

Three scores and three years ago, our freedom fighters bought on the Asian continent a nation conceived in liberty, but did we really prove ourselves worthy of it??

As we approach the 62nd year of our so striven for Independence, as we approach the end of the first decade of the 3rd millennium we welcomed with such galore, lets stop and think in retrospect….did we fulfill the “pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity” , the one we had made to our motherland ‘at the stroke of midnight, when the world was asleep and India awoke to life and freedom’.

“The achievement we celebrate today and every year is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?”

Did we grasp the opportunities in the past 62 years that came our way??

This independence was not given to us in charity but is soaked in blood, our forefathers have fought for it. Starting 10th May, 1857, till 15th August, 1947, the 90 years were spent by the people of the Indian subcontinent, fighting the colonial powers for the most basic right of independence. Any celebration is incomplete without remembering our Father of nation, who spearheaded our freedom movement, the numerous soldiers and army men who died so that we could live and breathe in the free India and our brethren on the other side of Indian territory with whom we are fatefully at constant war.

India has made its mark in all the domains of human activity but this is just the beginning. The true sons of the soil have won laurels for it and relegated to it, its true position on the world map, lifted it from the abyss of anonymity and restored it into the limelight.

Alas! the challenges of population, poverty, unemployment, un-equality and communalism are still plaguing our country. Its tragic that 60 years of Democracy could not eradicate them.

When chacha Nehru spoke of the our memorable tryst with destiny , he dreamt of an India

“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into
the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening
thought and action-”

And today I earnestly pray that
Into this heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake

Jai Hind!

Weekend !! Metro Subway a.k.a Metro Tunnel

I have decided that I'll be blogging only on weekends. I tried hard during the week to take out some time to blog, but I couldnt. So I'll update only on weekends or whenever I get time. And neway, nothing great happens during the week for me to blog. Even now I am blogging because mom dad are watching their saas bahu serials on TV due to which I am unable to play on PS2. No!! I dint buy a PS2. I just borrowed it from Nishad as he is working during weekends.PS2 details later.

Well, I left early from office on 5th (Raksha Bandhan).I reached VT station at 7pm. Like always the road adjacent to Azad Maidan was packed with security vehicles due to some protest going on in the ground as usual. Yeah security vehicles sounds better than police vans/jeeps. So I was standing at the bus stop to take bus for home. Bus stop was so crowded that even 2 empty buses wouldn't have been enough. So I was waiting at the bus stop for more than 15 mins , but there was no sign of bus. I finally decided that I'll walk home. Its much better to walk than travelling in those over crowded bus. Standing on the footboard and hanging for your life is much more exhausting than walking. I am not exaggerating, but thats how crowded the buses are during rush hours. And as I left the bus stop, 3 buses came. Damn. Murphy's Law. But then I was enjoying the walk.

I reached Metro Junction, and saw this entrance to Metro Subway. Then I realized that since its launch in Feb 2008, I haven't been there even once. Its just 15mins walk from my place, but still I never used it. So I got down the stairs and I must tell you its HUGE!! It looks like a World War 2 underground facility. Huge as in its long, even though VT subway is much more wider. Initially I thought I might get out at the wrong exit, because there are 9 entrances and its so long you cant see the exits. But there were signboards and maps on Subway walls. And I loved its interiors. The walls were covered with chrome yellow tiles and there were no paan stains on them. Yeah, even after 1 and half years. The ceilings are lighted by chandelier like back lights. They have used indirect ligting in there. BMC can turn it into an underground museum , they got enough wall space. Its not a subway , its a tunnel!!! I would call it Metro Tunnel. If you still haven't visited it , please do.

Since I had said I'll be keeping my blog post short, I'll keep PS2 preview for tommorrow.

PS: Muffi, my Top gear's this month's issue is here :D

Lazy Sunday

Now I know , why wasnt I blogging regularly in the past.The thing is I keep telling myself that I'll write the blog in the night and then i get so lazy that I eventually skip it. Same happened today. Came home at 11pm and then was feeling too lazy to write it.

Nothing special today, just that it was sunday which means i get to sleep more. Dad lets me sleep till 10am. But even after getting up late in the morning , I dint get enough sleep. I was the only one to be blamed for not getting enough sleep, because i slept at 3am in the night (or morning). What was I doing ? Was watching my fav X Files series. Yesterday I watched the season 2 finale. Mulder is trapped in the Box car with remains of dozens of aliens in New Mexico desert and army personel bomb the box car with Mulder in it. So what happened to Mulder? Obviously he cant be dead as he is the main hero and there are total 5 seasons of X Files. Normally , I would have played the next episode to find out the suspense. But this time I couldnt download season 3 in Advance. Its getting downloaded side by side as I type this blog. Still 50% to go AND with the torrent size of 8gb , it will take another 3 days to get downloaded. My internet connection provides me with a transfer rate of 25kbps. So basically no xfiles for next 3 days, which also means I might be sleeping early.

Today was friendship day because today is 1st Sunday of august. Actually I don't get this "days" funda. Be it fathers day. mothers day . friendship day , etc, etc. My point is why appreciate your friends just on this day ? Why not rest of the year ? I just received mail from Mufaddal and found out we both share same views. I guess not many must be knowing the real story behind frienship. Here it is. In 1935 USA government killed a man on 1st Saturday of August and next day i.e 1st Sunday of august, his best friend committed suicide in his memory. So US government declared 1st Sunday of august as friendship day . So its 72nd friendship day. Got it !!

Well my friendship day started at 12 mid night with a wonderful testimonial from a very special friend of mine and phone's inbox getting flooded with messages. Good that I had cleared my inbox. Next morning I found out that I had received messages from friends who hadn't been in contact with me for yearS. Yeah they just me message on friendship day. But then I thought, atleast they remembered me on this day. So I decided even I'll message my long lost friends on this day , so here I started messaging them. I guess I sent out around 50 messages today. Many replied asking how an i doing , etc. :)

I spent around 1 and half hours reading Akshay's Blog. It was fun to read, as he had written about KC days, SY, TY. I remembered KC, how terribly i am missing KC days. All the fun, masti, keedas we did in college. Wish i had started blogging then , so that I could have written about each and every day I spent with my friends in KC. Because each day was different. New zhols, new keedas. I should have maintained a diary of it. LOL.

After lunch i spent my time , try to upload my web project onto a web hosting site. I had created project on IPMS India , for those don't know about it, International Plastic Modelers Society, its got to do with aircraft models that i built. I wanted to do this for long. Site was ready , but i just wanted to make it live. I thought that my old website , Aircrafts Kits of IAF had started looking old and boring. That because, I had used googlepages to create that website. And problem is you can add your own code to it. You have choose from templates from Google and it was real headache to add new pages. It was excellent tool for people who had no knowledge about HTML , but not for us ( people who know HTML and other website designing tools). So i zeroed down on 110mb.com on which Akshay has hosted his website. So i created account , uploaded my website and within minutes my website was live. But then i found out 110mb doesn't support ASP and MS Access. And the important pages of my website is coded in ASP and the database in MS Access. So again i start searching for free web hosting site which supported MS Access and ASP. So i found webng.com which offered all this features. So i again I had to repeat the same 110mb procedure i.e register and upload. And again my site was live!! But this time, all my asp pages were working fine, and all pictures were being loaded from the Access Database. Yay. So after almost 4 hrs since i started searching for web domains , both my sites were live. You can check them out here. Site1 on webng.com with asp and access support and Site 2 on 110mb without asp support.

I've found out , this long blog posts seems real boring to read, no matter how interesting maybe the topic. Because I myself hate reading long blog posts. So from next time onwards ill try keeping them short and sweet. And i don't think ill be having enough time and energy to write long post during weekdays.

So Happy Friendship Day to All !! Cheers!!

Back to Blogging after 2 years - Friday Night Work n Party

Well, I found my blog after almost a year or so. And i just checked my last blog post was in June 2007!! Yeah 2007... its been almost 2 years. I had almost forgotten the name of my blog and plus google search spider hasn't indexed my blog, so I couldn't even do a Google search to find my blog. Somehow i found my blog and I also found out that ill be requiring my blog for office work too.

Yesterday was Friday, kinda hectic as far as work was concerned. Normally we are pretty chilled out on Fridays , not much of work load. But this wasn't normal Friday, it was month end friday , so had to submit reports. And this was the first time i was going to submit reports, so had to be little more careful. Finally , i submitted reports by 4 pm and after it was fun time. Everyone was done with their reports, so my manager started playing "Naruto" video and then "Mind Your Language" sitcom. So we all almost stopped working after 5pm and were busy watching videos. Wish we could have left early from office, but had to wait for office timings to get over.

We left from office like at 7.30....and we were hoping that we would reach home early....and i had to reach Inox by 9.15 as Nishad had booked tickets for Night in the Museum. Normally we reach VT by 9 max....but yesterday we simply couldn't catch rickshaw or bus. Finally we reached Kanjurmarg station at 8.30..thats almost 30 mins late. We normally reach there by 8. Worst part it takes 40 mins by train to reach VT....so no way i was going to reach inox before 9.15. Yeah show was supposed to start at 9.15, luckily the ticket counter guy told Nishad that movie will start by 9.25!! So i got 10 mins more ... but even those were not going to be enough. I reached Vt 9.15 !! lol

I got out of the VT station and saw taxi's lined up. Im startin this on new paragraph because of the recent debate thats going on over the "New Cabs vs Old Cabs". From old fiat padminis to brand new maruti alto's. Obviously i was going to chose those new alto's. Im in love with them. At times im kinda reluctant to get into these new cabs , because i think these new cab drivers wont come for shorter distances. But its exactly opposite. These new cab drivers never say no. These cabs have excellent interiors, comfortable seating and the two best things they are that they are quiet and they are fast. Plus they have electronic meters so you don't to worry about cabbies cheating you.

So the time was 9.15 and i had just 10 mins to reach Inox which is almost 4 kms from VT. Since i got in this maruti alto cab, it was going to be a fast ride. Luckily for me all the signals turned green as my cab approached them. Yeah exactly like Die hard and other Hollywood movies. Wish i could have done same while riding my activa, I reached inox in time i.e 9.25. Met nishad at the food court and after 2 security checks , we were in. Unfortunately movie had started, but i guess we just missed starting 2-3 mins.

Inox is a good place to hang out with friends, thanks to its food court. With Subway,Kebab co and many other restaurants there and ample seating space, you can spend hours chatting with a friend (and yeah friends too ;) ). But real shock came was in intermission. Inox's Snack O Bar...Sucks Big Time!! This snack bar isnt in the food court. Its outside the Screen entrance. We ordered chilli cheese toast which tasted like stale bread. It was like chilli sauce spread on single bread slice and it was so terrible we couldnt even take bite. Price 65/- . We also ordered Cheese Sandwich ... even that was terrible. The chutney had this pungent smell. Price 65/- . I agree Inox is for those high class with tickets starting at 250 bucks , so they charge such a exorbitant rates for snacks. But cant they provide quality food. And i was wondering how come no one ever complained ? Mineral Water cost you there 30rs and its isnt illegal because these bottles have this printed of them "MRP Rs.30/- To be distributed through selected channels" WTF!! Im just trying to get contact nos of this inox guys so that i send them this blog link !! Sterling Cineplex's snack bar is simply awesome. Its reasonable and taste is awesome. You get this chicken tikka sandwich for just 35rs and its filling. Forgot to mention Inox's snack bar doesnt serve non veg.

So the best bet is to have something in the food court before or after the movie. We did exactly that. But the only problem is most of the food court restaurants start closing after 11pm. Luckily for us Subway was open and they we could order something over there. Our order was the last order @ 11.15.

After that i headed back home. I desperately wasnted to have ice cream but all the ice cream shops were closed in the food court. Nishad wanted to go to K Rustams , Churchgate , but that was going 30 mins walk. But the only problem was i had to be back home before 12pm. There no time restriction put for me by my folks, but since i had gone for movie directly from home , I had to be back home by 12.

We came outside and saw 4-5 taxis lined up. All were old fiat cabs. And no one was ready to come to grant road side. And this same old cab drivers are complaining of not getting enough fares. Hypocrites!! Finally one cabbie agreed to come and i reached home in time. And about the movie Night at the Museum...yeah it was good. I rate it 3.5/5. And the i liked the actress who played the part of Amelia Earhart in the movie. She was sweet and cute looking ;)


I actually enjoyed blogging and i guess ill be blogging regularly from now on. So keep coming back.

Interior Designers

The term interior designer carries with it a certain mystique that makes the average person think of an ethereal individual with an innate sense of color and texture that allows them to transform any space into something unique and wonderful. Admittedly, you need some talent for coordinating design schemes, but what you need most is the desire to put your love of interior design to use in your own life.

Some states require prescribed course work and exams if you want to become a certified interior designer, including two to five years of post-secondary education and internship. However, there are other states that are far more lax in what they require. Check with your own state to see what requirements you'd need to meet.

However, if you don't want to jump through all the training hoops your state requires, you don't need any special education or experience to open your own interior design business, if that’s one of your life goals. You simply provide an avenue for certified interior designers to meet homeowners and then work together on projects and home improvements.

If you're only working on decorating your own home, you don't need a license of any sort. With research, patience, common sense, and diligent shopping, you can transform any space into something you'll be proud to call home--without breaking the bank in the process.

Bear in mind that many studies have shown that people who aren't burdened by financial worries are happier than folks who are mired in debt. If accomplishing your redecorating task means charging up your credit cards to an uncomfortable level, you may want to rethink your project.

Other research has discovered that the simple act of planning something often gives people the most pleasure--often more than the actual accomplishment of the task itself. So take your time, do lots of research, shop hard for your materials, and stay within your budget, and you'll find that you can accomplish wonderful things when redecorating your home--with or without becoming a certified interior designer--and you'll reap the added joy of having done it yourself.

Enjoy turning your home into a dream home with the designer's touch for less expense.