Mridul's Blogzone

Too hot , yet too forgiving :-)

2010-04-03T04:50:00.003+05:30

The thought of second bike may sound infidel to avid bike lover who already has a great bike. But then, I mean no offence to the one I used to ride. Its just that, I want to move on to something more exciting. I am glad it isnt as complicated as a marriage. The bike, is definitely very very personal topic for me. So you may ask, why this thought now?

In 2008 Yam came up with a new bike, in fact 2. The FZ and the r15. By looks, I ve to admit, I was floored by the FZ to begin with. The tag of a lac for a bike then seemed too far fetched for me , besides the looks of the R15 , read( R One Five) puhleezz, atleast the rear tyre of it did not impress me at all. As time passed and I learnt more about the bike, I wondered why Yam would wanna have a bike with that price tag at all? It wasnt until my last few months , that I am convinced its priced very fairly indeed.

Here are few tech pointers-

1.17 PS of refined(very refined if i may say) power.

2.Twin discs , which gives it the best braking I ve ever experienced. Be adviced not to tail babe with your normal disc + drum combo for both yours and my safety:-P.On a lighter not,she just allows liberty of time to out the gorgeous looking faces around ;-). Just too forgiving :-).

3.Rock steady grips on the road which results in amazing handling, which of course even my current bike is good at. :-). But combined with the weight this ones a dream.

4.Electronic fuel injection does away with choke starts, which is kind of religious with my current bike, every morning as a practise.

5.Mono chross suspension, something that lacks in my current bike. I hate HH for doing that to my bike while its parent had it.

6. It is the only bike in the current set of so called premium segment bikes, barring the sbk's , that has liquid cooling.

Now for some aesthetic pointers-

1. Absolutely gorgeous console, i just fell in love with it the first time i saw it fire up the ignition.. XoXo..

2. Agressive seating posture, a break away from our traditional bikes. For me, its a more closer to the bike posture. On a romantic note, you may say that its like leaning on to your GF as if you were to kiss her :-P.

3.Its not a very heavy machine afterall. All it weights is 120kg dry or 131 with fuel. Thats atleast 10 kilo's less than my current bike.:-O.

Few skeptical points-

1. The R15 simply doesnt like going through bumper to bumper traffic. If you can handle her well enough, you can manage not to heat her up, but more chances that you feel the radiator fan rotating in such cases and feel the temperature rise along your rightinner thigh.

2. Touring without proper troubleshooting knowledge on this bike can be disasterous since its hard to find a mech to be doing any repair on any remote places not that the bike ll break down all of a sudden.

To top it all, it comes from Yam stable,who have manufactured legendary bikes like the rd350,rx100,rx135,rxg which are still craved for.If not the emission norms, which I think is also very important, Yam would ve been ruling the roost in performance biking in india.Yam has no one but itself to be blamed by trying to produce the aam aadmi bikes,which is more like trying to act like a cow , when they are actually a raging bull. After a forgettable decade or so, they are back, and how!

The mileage of the R15, I ve known it to be 35 or above under normal riding conditions. Now match this with 30+ that a 223 cc bike gives with as much power as the r15.The top speed, it can clock in excess of 140 with more to come.I ve touched 130 already with the few stretches of empty roads that are rare on the ORR. The power/weight ratio is a killer :-).

By the time you guys are reading this, I ve already crossed the 3k km mark. Done with 2 free service. Got her the IND number plates and a NB headlamp was a DIY job by yours truely, with help from an fellow BNer :-).

Own your ride

2009-07-20T12:39:00.006+05:30

Another adventure on the Saturdays. Off late, Saturdays are becoming one of the most happening weekend days for me. This saturday I decided to get the hypothecation off from my RC book. Yippee!! I finished paying up the loan and my babe is all mine now. So to reiterate and confirm the ownership, I decided to get the hypothecation removed. To begin with, I was all apprehensive about the process of how to get it done. I read up few forums and blogs which did help me get a fair idea. But then you never know how the system gives you surprises.

I managed to get my butt off early on Saturday morning while the climate was inviting enough to keep you in bed for hours longer, thanks to the drizzle. After doing the bare minimal morning activities, which excludes bathing and having breakfast :-D, I rushed myself to the Indira Nagar RTO.I was all happy to see the place all deserted. It was around 9. After doing some search for which counter to be going to for my purpose, I finally landed into a queue. Man, tat was quick, from a deserted place to a queue. Time 9:30. I was amused to learn that these babu's work from 10-12 on Saturdays. :-S. Man, that's some hours of work they getting paid for. After patiently waiting for the doors to open by 10, I entered the counter. I was all happy since I was the first person in the queue. I asked the person sitting at one counter about whom to contact regarding my purpose, he pointed me to the desk right beside him.On seeing it unoccupied, I unassumingly asked him if the person would be coming in today. At this, the guy just got pissed and asked me to repeat the question .Seeing red, I smiled and asked the questoin again.Aat this he said, he ll be coming. He also added tat I should not be asking such questions. Man some attitude he had. Anyways, I had all the time in the world , but I was more worried about the babu's, since they had only 2 hours to work. Seeing the desk still unoccupied after half an hour, and the queue just becoming serpentine, this guy finally pointed at a occupied desk where I could head for getting my work done. It seems the guy besides this person was actually not coming in. I thought to myself, I asked him the right question and I got a verbal shot back. Not heeding too much thought into it, I headed towards the counter although I was no longer the first person in the queue. After waiting patient for my turn, I realized I had not paid the fee at the cash counter which was open all the while.

At this, I hurried to the cash counter, paid the fee, got it verified from another counter before heading back to counter where I had to submit my documents. Wow, so much of running around for the sake of process. In the end , I got an acknowledgment from them and walked out pretty happy spending about 2 hours of a Saturday, considering the fact, I didn't have to give a single extra penny which all these govt office's are notorious for. It isn't tat bad after all, I think all you need is a bit of time and patience.

Few pointer:

1. Get all the necessary docs for the process listed below.

a) NOC letter from your bank requesting the RTO to remove the hypothecation from the RC book. Make sure you don't expire the period mentioned in this letter.Otherwise, you'll 've to shell some money to get another one from the bank.
b) Copy of your Insurance certificate.
c) Copy of you PUC certificate.
d) Original RC book

2. First things, first. Pay up your challan fee first at the cash counter to avoid running around as I did. I paid Rs. 100/- at indiranagar RTO.

3. Handy to carry a stapler to staple up your stuff. Though these babu's were kind enough to give their board pins for the purpose.

4. Try not to ask irrelevant question from the officials there, chances are it might leave a sour taste in your mouth, even though you meant no harm with those queries.:-P

5. Try to reach as early as possible to avoid the rush that is likely to be on a day like Saturdays.Though you wont 've to sweat as much as the people who are coming in for DL/LL test.

I have seen many forums quoting higher fee's for this process. I ll confirm this fee once I collect the RC book the coming weekend. Hope this info saves some poor souls of all the confusions like I found myself in. Happy owning your rides. :). Cheers.

Update[27/July/2009]: Yippie!! Got my RC book with the cancellation, and the fee is indeed Rs.100 , I confirm. :-)

Compilation of Errors Succeeded

2009-07-05T00:32:00.004+05:30

This was just another cloudy Saturday morning. My friend Sami had asked me to join in for a gallivanting session. Agenda was simple, from her place to a boutique,then buy some Saree's for her mom while I help her choose some shirt material for her dad. Then disperse. And so it happened as planned. It wasn't even half a day, and all this was done. Thinking about the boring other half of the day, I just rode back my home where I saw my room mates rush out to have lunch and come back before they vanished again, leaving my thoughts as blank as they've not been in recent past.What with rides and visits home, it was quite packed weekends I had for quite a while. Meanwhile I got messages from Sami, blaming me for not picking both the shirt pieces. Apparently the one I chose was liked by her dad.

Hours past, till about 7, when I get a frantic call from Sami asking me if I could book train tickets for her parents to Kerala for the evening train. On hearing her tone, I was kinda worried. I immediately stopped all the activities I was trying to accomplish over the internet and got stuck on irctc. My mind was in a state of emergency and could only think of getting tickets for the next day. Logged on to the ever (un)reliable irctc site. Saw last 2 tickets for next day at 615hrs. Booked it right away while Sami was still listening to all the blabber I was telling her about the tickets and train details which only included the train number. Happy to have accomplished the task, the next was to get the tickets printed. So I went to the cafe , got the tickets printed and sent the confirmation message to Sami. Till about 9, things seem perfectly alright when I get a call again from Sami. This time enquiring about the time of the train. Amused at her query, I went in to check the time. Wait, didn't I mention 615hrs. Its in the morning and I was thinking its in the evening. Shocked at my carelessness,I started cursing myself. I guess Murphy's law was trying to make its perfect day on me. To make amends to my mistake, I decided to go and check for ticket availability, this time for a train that's in the evening. With my eye's wide open for the departure time, I was glad to find more than sufficient tickets available for the next day. I call up Sami to inform this, got a confirmation from her end to book those tickets if available. I did that promptly and I was happy again. But only momentarily. Sami, requested me to cancel the other two tickets.That's when I realized that its a tatkal. Perfect, I said to myself. Trying not to think of the blunder already made, I decided to go hand over both the tickets to her. All the while, cursing and talking to myself I rode all the way to her place only to realize that I hadn't taken the evening train tickets printout which her parents planned to take finally!!!

It has to be the best comedy of errors that has happened to me in my very long memory. I looked up to Gods, as if to ask, is there something more in store? By this, the time was already around 1100 oops 2300hrs. Knowing we wont find any internet cafe's nearby to take the other ticket printed, I decided to just come back home before being shot by someone.

Of hairpins and curves of the queen

2009-05-05T16:45:00.014+05:30

It was a long weekend. Our plans at office got suspended because of a dropout and lack of enthu I would say. So I had nothing on plate fro 3 days other than preparing for my moms inspection visit along with my sis to my refugee camp ;-). The idea of spending 3 days without nothing was kinda really not what I had thought I d end up doing after working my ass off for so many continuous Saturdays :-(.I called up 2 of the fellow bikers Ive been to trips with.To my disappointment I found one was engaged with his friend and the other actually had started on one bike trip some 10 days back. To my astonishment, he was already in Cal with his bike. No,Its not Calicut,but Kolkotta as it now known. 6 days of ride,and he wasn't done till then. He had plans to go to Shillong and then back to Calcutta, not on bike though. After which he had plans to go to our very own Dilli on his bike. He must be in between that trip while I am typing this stuff out. Shocked about my learning's, I was almost committing myself to do nothing all three days. After spending most of the Friday, sleeping and doing nothing, my neighbors came in and told me that they plan to go to Mysore the next day. That did not excite me at all.So to spice up things a bit we discussed many other places around ,but all with least of common interest. While I was interested to go to Yercaud,my roomie wasn't. So this discussion and madness lasted about half an hour and at 10:30 in the night we decided that we all go to Ooty.Man, it was some discussion! :-). Anyways, things did brighten up for me with a thought of this drive. All the other members went to sleep as it would be an early morning for all of us.Without even realizing this, I kept on searching for articles and blogs for directions and travel tips on the net. By the time I was done with all that, it was already 2 in the night :-).

We got up at 0330 and started packing our stuff. We started off from our place at 0445 in the morning. First stop was to get some cash out of ATM. After which we headed our ways out of Bangalore. Got our babes some much needed refueling at Shell petrol pump on Mysore road. After this, we drove our ways out and the next stop was at Mandya.

I deliberated and prolonged the first stop so that we could cover as much distance before the morning madness. It was around 0630 when we hit our first pit stop at Mandya. Refreshed ourselves to a good cup of tea before we hit the road again. As the sun rose and was getting brighter , we reached Mysore at around 0730. This was a comparatively a longer stop as the 2 bikes were out of sync distance wise and required some distance reconciliation :-P. Thanks to our cell phones, we got back on track and started our journey out of Mysore.

After this our next stop was at Gundalpet at around 0900.We had our breakfast here and at around 0930 we started our journey again.I realized it was perfectly timed as the next 12 kms were full of potholes and most stress full in the whole journey. We labored through those 12 kms and reached Bandipur shortly after that. As we entered the national park, I was all excited with the idea of watching few wild animals in their own backyard :-). We drove very slowly averaging around 40-50kmph through the national park and all we could see was a group of langur's. That was kind of disappointing. As the national park territory came to a end, so did the Karnataka border and we were soon entering the Mudumalai tiger reserve area. We were stopped at the check post to ask if we were carrying some liquor in our bags, as if we d have told yes even if we had. :-P. But we were honest in saying no. ;-). A few kilometers ahead we decided to stop over for a cup of tea again. Here we saw two sign boards, one said Ooty 66kms and the other said 36 kms both in different directions. This got us confused. After some local consulting we decided that we take the shorter route. :-). I had read about the shorter route in blogs and stuff. So I knew something existed, but this stop was very crucial to figure out the exact point of deviation. It was around 1100 at that time. After the tea and slight refreshment we decided to go started over again. As we exited out of Mudumalai tiger reserve,we were thrown open to some place where the roads were narrow.You got to be careful while you are riding here as we figured out.The local vehicles hardly give you any space to ride on, and even push you off the road if need be.So to be safe, just avoid any muscle catching stunts on this road, and give way to them. After sometime things did improve and roads got easier to breath on as we raced ourselves ahead. Within no time we were climbing hairpins. Hairpin bend 36/36 it read and we knew already that this will be one hell of a climb. At about the half way stage, we stopped and decided to take few snaps alongside the board that read hair pin bend 18/36 to give our babes a breather. The last 3 km stretch is the steepest and my bike had tough time climbing. The stretch looked pretty flat to the eye, but it was deceivingly steep in its gradient upwards. At around 1200 we had conquered all the bends and entered the queen of hills. We drove through the pine forest into the city of Ooty. To our discomfort we found that it is the peak season and finding a room was a tough task. After some loitering around for an hour or so in which we saw the boat house thrice, we finally got a place to cool our asses off. After this a quick lunch and a relatively short nap, we kick started our roaming around Ooty. First we hit the boat house. One end , and presumably the more popular end was chaotic. Full of people with hardly any space to breathe. We had seen the quieter version on the other end, so we decided head to that place instead and did our boating there. There after we headed towards the botanical garden. One has to say, the traffic that we encountered in the city was as worse that I've ever seen in my life. Long serpentine queue of four wheelers. Unlike Bangalore though , these were really patient bit of people waiting in the queue for things to clear off. Maybe its the holiday mood that lets people take this stress in light vein.

Thank god we had two wheelers which were let to zip by without any fuss.We reached botanical garden and saw sea of people just thronging in. We decided to get ourselves a cuppa masala tea and chilli bhajji :-P b4 we dared to enter the severely crowded garden. Its the flower show time there and it was quite a spectacle to watch the few glimpses that we managed to see. After some relatively quick snaps, we decided to wrap this up and head towards the valley view point on the outskirts of the city. I was really tired and fatigued for lack of sleep by now. So I couldn't enjoy this bit of the trip as much :-(. Day 2 saw us venture out of Ooty into the beautiful city of Coonor.

The drive was breathtaking with lots of seductive curves and lovely weather to give you company.We visited dolphin's nose,lamb rock viewpoints during this stretch after which we decided to wrap our stuffs and head back home for lack of time :-(. We started our journey back at around 1400 from Ooty. On our way back, my roomie wanted to take few snaps in the pine forest and I wanted to take a snap right under the board which read hair pin bend 1/36 \m/.
During our decent we just turned off our engines and rolled down on our bikes. Reminded me of the child hood days when i used to play with vehicle tyres and the way I enjoyed watching it roll it down the slope. :-).We also happened to see a herd of deers while treading our way back through the national park.

Apart from a last mile glitch which saw my gear lever bend and few heated words exchanged, this trip was thoroughly enjoyable. We reached back home by 2300 and were all ready hit the bed ASAP. I realized I still hadn't done my cleaning bit before my mom came for the inspection the next day. So the night stretched on till 0200 for me before I could hit the bed, thanking my stars for giving me more memories to cherish. :-)

Quest for the quintessential life!

2008-09-18T10:07:00.002+05:30

The poems dont rhyme anymore.
The lyrics dont facsinate anymore.
Is it sadness, or my numbness,why dont I seem to savour em anymore?

Days are cliched, nights bring an uneasy calm.
I feel like an object,lying in a dead still stream.
Am I enacting my life?
Seems too real for an act.
I m stuck in a crowd.
A crowd full of people with mask.
A mask which hides just what they are.

Am I a victim or am I the culprit here?

People faking emotions.
I seek warmth in this coldness.
People fooling people.
I seek innocence of a child.
Are we living a life out of adjustments,or is life forcing adjustments out of us?
Are we not living a free world? Whats stopping us from being ourselves?
Are we just too vulnerable being ourselves?
We all are chained,bound with the burden of being a social animal.
I live in hope,
Hope finding life and not social puppets.
And someday I hope to redeem the quintessential life.

Smells like a ROCK spirit!!

2008-09-04T09:59:00.002+05:30

Well today was ganesh chaturthi. Nothing special to celebrate but yes the day off certainly calls for celebrations. We decided to attend a rock concert. Well Almost. Day before evening we were having a chat before heading home. I wanted to watch ROCK ON.Joshy suddenly comes up with the comment, 'I m watching it .''With who?' I shot back.The whole gang glaring at him at this. He points out to few other members of our team. So the plan was on and joshy is now dragged into our plan of things. Who is booking the tickets? Well there were souls who wanted to check their scheme of things for the off day and let us know later. So checking ticket was postponed to the next day.

Come next day, first things first. Check mail and voila!! No new mails. After the tea break, we decide upon who all are going to be in. Nish,Sami,Joshy,Me all confirmed. Rashmi had her plans for the day already set so she backed off. After lot of permutation and combinations on conference chats, we come up with 6 number of tickets. The last two were kind of tentative till the day prior to the show. We checked out PVR and it as usual dissapointed us with no tickets. I did a quick search over the internet for fun cinemas. Had heard from my friends tat its a nice place to go and hang out but not as grand as Forum. We finally had the tickets over there so just booked them.

The tentative tickets had many stake holder. Neeraj had backed out after learning tat his wife had made some arrangements for the festival. So we go fishing for people at this. Me and Joshy on the conference asked for some single females to be fitted in by other gang members. :-D.Later nish pointed tat the requirement should have good looking too in it.;-). Finally Neeraj is back, and this time deliberates that he is gonna make it. Wonder if it was the insane gang,atleast thats how he introduced us to his wife :-P, or the movie that motivated him. ;-). He went on record to say that even if his better half doesnt turn up, he is gonna make it.:-P. So we were left with only 1 tentative ticket but we rested our case after this.

Day ends, now no body knows where this place is and how to reach. So we use wikimapia to get a relative understanding of location. Plans are set, Nish takes his car since its raining cats and dogs during evening nowadays. Joshy reaches Nish's place by 3. Move to pick Sami by 3:45 and then finally me before we set out on our discovery of this new location.Today Neeraj confirms the other tentative ticket. After some really confusing instructions from me and Sami, we finally reach the place. We decided to run around and fetch the tickets from the counter first. After this we had close to 2 hours to loiter around. Most of these 2 hours were spent hogging, window shopping , photo sessions and rating people of opposite gender, err well in sami's case it would be the same gender. BTW she wanted to join this whole operation so we let her in too for our safety ;-).

About the movie ,I feel its worth watching. Farhan Akhtar knows to act and sing too. Wow. :-). Music is definitely the kind you would listen to in all the live rock concerts contemporarily.If this has been really worked by Shankar Ehsaan Loy, then its truely commendable. I liked the kind of geniunity the film potrays in that aspect. Both the crowd and the on stage experience is quite nicely shot. When you are out of the movie hall, you have this feeling that you have been to a rock concert. The crecendo is definitely attained on the last stage performance. Arjun Rampal singing(well obviously lip syncing) his song at the end is by far the best in the whole movie although I did like the performance where Farhan akhtar involves the crowd into singing along. That rocked too!!. The movie wont be a bore to even people who dont listen or follow the rock bands. Its got a nicely knit story of 4 friends and how things change when ego clashes happen and how easy it is to actually patch things which seems difficult. Everythings is handled in a very contemporary way and very tidily. Nothing clumsy bout this movie. Over all you go ahead and ROCK ON!!\m/. Thats my message to you.
After the movie we have our own rock on session on our way back singing aloud some of the songs. Finally Happy Ganesh Chaturthi to all :-). HAppy blogging !

The birthday Act :-)

2008-09-01T17:16:00.006+05:30

I had another bday just pass by. This one was special. For the first time in my life, i had a group to work around me and surprise me with all the events. I had my cube all decorated with baloons,birthday wishes, presents and more presents. They put a lot of effort to make things work out. First, it was the gift, a photo frame, which was taken from a trip, which now i realise which was for taking that snap alone. Second it was the gift coupon which was bought right under my nose, and without any hinting tat it was for me. Third, the cake, which again got close to being caught but I really did not realize it until the day.This was the closest I could guess coz this was really close to my birthday. However I could only relate to all the events on the D-Day. Man!! that was some planning which had gone for my birthday. Maybe I was naive not to have learnt it and somehow it worked well for them as well as me.Talk about pleasant surprises. Yeah who doesnt like them?? This was just perfect. All in all the gang ,so i wish to term,has gelled so well, that i feel privileged to be a part of it. So thats the preview, lemme try to dig into the details.

The D-Day, my birthday. My sis was the first person to message me the previous evening. It was customary to have tat but it did get a smile on my face. Midnight rings, and my phone too. This time again my sis. But I m already asleep. WTH? I m getting older, 27, why fuss about the bday anyways. Morning dawns, my mom rings me up at 6:20. First question, what are you doing? Confused me, I tell her you just woke me up :-P. Then comes the wish. Smile is back on my face. My family totally got the points for being the first to wish me. Then it was a message from my ex which I least bothered to reply to. But I was surprised at not having anything from my friends or colleagues. This got me thinking. I get all set to head for the office on my bike. Everything is fine until I get my first surprise of the day. KR puram bridge just let me through without any fuss. :-). That actually was nice feeling for a change. But all that smile and surprise vanished as I reached Hennur signal. Time 9:20ish. I think I would be in office by 9:45 or so. Thanks to the rain on the previous night and some other god foresaken reasons, it took me more than an hour to reach office. This ,mind you wont be a distance more than 4kms. Even on a bike, the traffic was crawling. I did not want to think of souls stuck on their 4 wheelers at all. Usually I laugh at them when there is such a traffic, but I was at the recieving end too, so I couldnt help but feel frustrated. In the mean while I get 3 calls. 2 to wish me birthday. And one from Nishanth asking me about a design doc. :-S. I was like, people are already working and here I am crawling. Maybe its an effect of over listening to crawling by LP that lead to this situation, I humoured to myself to bring on some relief to my agonizing and frustrating experience thus far in the traffic. As I entered the office premises, I thanked god. But wait, why is water everywhere around? Where are the roads? I realize I have to take a turn and go round about to park the bike. I look skywards as if to ask god, What Nextt???. The rains had made roads into mini pools of water. The confusion and frustration just continued.

Finally the lift lobby. The day was so perfect that the building authorities decided not to operate them coz they feared people might get electrocuted and fumed. I was fuming already without getting electrocuted. I Walk all the way up to the floor. After doing some really hard work I finally got to my floor and as i neared my cube, I could see it was not the familiar cube I m used to. As i went around I could see a thread pulled across my cube with all the movie cutouts from paper.The cutouts looked familiar.Wait a min! Isnt this that I saw at Samitha's desk few days back?. I couldnt help but smile. So I gently removed the thread from one end and before I could even relax, I could see Samitha gesturing at me very angrily!! I was thinking to myself, did i do something wrong? I went over to clarify and I got the point. I am not supposed to remove that thread with movie cutouts hung on it for the whole day. Then one by one people in my team come and wish me. The gang comes up to my desk, joined in by some more people thanks to the wonderfully decoratedcube. I am made to sit in my cube and then the birthday song. :-) as a chorus orchestrated by Neeraj. I havent had this since my school days. That was a rousing start to the day after a clumsy and forgettable journey to the office. After this,the customary coffee/tea break, or kaapi/chaya breaks as some of us term it in office. As usual we all head to the cafeteria and happily sit for coffee. The gang suddenly quizzed me about the gift. I was so tired, I just wanted to have a coffee. But they made me go back to my cube and get the gift. As I m back I see a black forrest cake on the table. Flashback,I rememberd how Rashmi reacted when I told her few days back tat I like choclate cake while looking at the cake counter in the cafeteria. She had quizzed back about black forrest then. So now I know. After cutting the cake I am made to open the gift cover. Its a foto frame with my foto taken by Nishanth taken on a trip to Nandi hills some 3 weeks prior. The gang tells me that it was a trip only to get my pics so that one could be framed and gifted. Man, so much for a birthday gift. As I open the gift, I get another gift coupon. Now I remember asking Joshy about these first. Coz he is the first person who told me about existence of such a thing at land mark. This was a part of post Nandi trip evening shopping which i was a part of.
All these event happened right infront of me, and still I just could relate to them only on the D-Day. Perhaps I was least expecting such amount of planning just for a birthday. This truely made me feel special. And I have no doubts in terming this as my grandest birthday celebrations ever.Emotions ran high and dry through the day but in the end it was truely a memorable day for me.Thanks a lot to the GANG.

Race My Spirit v/s Living Extreme

2007-10-03T19:53:00.000+05:30

Quite some time since my last post. Lots of bad things happened in the interim. The worst being shifting to an isolated new(well it happens to be the old)office. The worst part is, this all seems to be voluntary according to the people in the high ranks in office. Grrr.. May god save people who speak the truth. Also my roomie lost all his photos that were his priced possession, his memories that he cherished and wanted to hold on to for ever. The more you rely on the machines, the more you are playing with your fate. Why, even I recently had to face something with my hard drive getting booted down and refuses to be recognized. If it were to be entities, these data storing devices, they sure would fall in the category of zero trust entities.

Something good also happened in sports be it football, hockey and then finally cricket. More over we have entered our diamond jubilee year of our independence.Cheers to all and lets hope we see our Nation getting better and better with every passing day. It also reminds me of the first year at my college,because that was the year co-memorating the 60th year of the College. Its close to a decade now since that happened. Time sure does fly by.

Well this post is going to speak of my research on which bike to buy. I was torn apart between two machines. One claimed to race my spirits and the other claimed of living extreme. Well I m sure the guys wont have difficulty in making this one out. I shall list parameters in the order of priority what I could find.

V/s

1.Price

Both priced at almost the same level but living extremes weighs at least 1k more on your pocket. Well its insignificant since 1k is well worth the money to spend on a bike you want to go for, rather than compromising on it. Unicorn 65+ accessories work out close to 66 v/s Extreme 66+ accessories which are not very significant to me as of now.

2.Ergonomics

Well here both could be said to be equals, how ever I did not like the foot rest bend over concept while kicking the ignition. But this is taken over from legendary CBZ, but certainly doesnt please me. Who cares when there is a self starter for you one may think. But I love to kick it ;). I would say that HH did its job with a marvelous seating in extreme. One of the most comfortable I would say. Extreme is lighter in weight than the unicorn and very easy on your hands . Also zig zagging is an ease with the extreme. Very good at handling curves.

3. After sale service
Well this is one aspect i kept in mind since i donot want to be left out with no accessible authorized service centers around. In this regards Extreme scores well over Unicorn.

4. Power
No doubts, Extreme is claimed to be the most powerful engine in its segment. 14.4 vs 12.8 horses of Unicorn, you cannot ask for more. Nothing comes close to what this babe can produce.

5.Mileage

Well I have seen mixed reviews on this one. But I presume it will be in high 40's or early 50's. One of my good friend says that he is even got up to 56km pl on extreme. So I am optimist on this one. Though unicorn certainly claims better mileage than the extreme.

6. Aesthetics

Looks, well they do matter. And as an old saying goes, Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. But I certainly feel that HH could have done more justice to Extreme on this aspect. It sure is not a selling point for Extreme I would say.

7.Resale value

Well if you buy a vehicle, you dont decide to sell if just like that. But just in case you do, I feel that this bike will have an amazing resale value as I feel this is a cult bike. Atleast with regards to contemporary bikes that we have now. How ever I have not seen much ads sporting owners selling off their CBZ extreme in the classifieds. Its been close to year since its launch, which means that either the bike is not being sold or the owners are extremely satisfied with their machines they have. I see the latter as the obvious reason in this.That two thumbs up for Extreme.

Both Unicorn and Extreme come with Tuff up rear Tubes. Which means, less number of stops for puncture repairs. How ever both Unicorn and Extreme lack what the the Pulsar has, a digital speedo.That again is insignificant as far as I am concerned.Well I have decided to go live extreme. For simple reason, I loved the ride and other positives I noted in my list above.

These are my personal views. Now time for comments on the same. So dear blog readers, please feel free to post your comments on this. Happy blogging. :)

Hyderabadi Zafrani Pulav@ your service :) Part-2

2007-07-15T20:21:00.000+05:30

My friend RAT thought this heading was appropriate if I had written a review about Cheeni Kum, which I did at the last para of the part 1 of this post. Well the post is a pulav ;), which is delicious dish which is enjoyable, which is what I intended the post to be with the heading other than referring to Cheeni Kum. Besides this is the first time i heard of such a pulav hehe. But I found the name catchy , and so its my title for this final part as well. I will come up with something else in the posts to come ahead. This one of course doesnt have any such reference to Cheeni Kum.

Well for those who thought i missed this one out, here is the second part of the pulav hehe.. Ughh!! please dont think that this is an attempt make a SOAP(well term used for those lengthy serials you see on tv) out of a blog. I am anti SOAP. Such a waste of time,money and human emotions to some extent. What crap!!! Anyways this is not to hurt any SOAP (well there is another meaning to in tech terms called Simple object access protocol) techies sentiments. Its technology concept and its my bread earner hehe.

To begin with, this weekend has also gone before i realize it was a weekend. Thats the specialty of the weekend. Its such a necessity to recharge yourself before you start the grill called work. God bless who ever was the person who came up with the concept of weekend :). Well this weekend started with me writing up most of my previous blog, "Almost your devils advocate", and publishing the same on the next day. For date and time info, please refer the blogs hehe. Gasper was outta town and I actually had planned to go to RAT's place. But then this in born ability called laziness made me to stay out of traveling during the weekend. I actually hate doing that. Especially with this rick's around waiting to slit your throat with their exorbitant prices. I am no miser but I cant just pay more if I don't feel good about something. I am so craving for my bike to materialize soon. Thats another dilemma that I have at the moment. I might come up with a post for that as well sometime soon.

Besides that I did get lotsa sleep, something I love to get during my weekends. Also happened get VCD of one of the best Indian "cop movies" I have ever seen. Its a Tamil movie called kaaka kaaka. I would recommend this film to people who would love the movies that are edited well, have great liking for action and in your face attitude. Watch it with subtitles if you dont understand tamil, worth the watch. And music too is awesome. I can recollect very few cop movies that i liked, but the ones that stand out are definitely 1.Kaaka kaaka 2.Khaakee 3. Vetayaadu Velayadu. The last one I just recently happened to see. Its quite violent to the extent that you might actually get chills down the spine thinking about whats happened in the movie. The last one is more of a psycho thriller and not so outrightly recommended by me. Whereas the rest two are awesome cop movies. I was surprised that Raj Kumar Santoshi could come up with such a crafted work after all the earlier movies prior to Khakee. At least I don't remember any of his movies about cops prior to that. Definitely great work worth appreciating. Some great dialogues very well delivered by the BIG B.Casting is amazing in the movie. Both the movies are benchmarks to any persons wanting to make a good cop movie I feel.They are different and the best in their own ways. Sheer quality work.

Enough of movies. Thats it for now! I am glad my post "Almost your devils advocate" got some comments. Thanks to sandeku,RAT and Aru for that.Finally stay cheerful dear blog readers.. :) ciao.

Almost your devils advocate!!

2007-07-14T08:43:00.001+05:30

After the zafrani pulav, I hope you got enough insight into whats going on with me these days. Well the idea was that I don't want to be posting serious posts always. This time around, I have decided to write something up which is a serious question I ask myself always.

Take a look around. How happy are you being at where you are? Thats the question one should keep asking oneself all through his life? That makes the fire ignite in you. That makes the person ambitious and that make a person successful. In this world though it is not possible for everyone to be happy. Because what make you happy need not necessarily make someone else happy. The sheer difference in interest makes it an impossible task. So, is there an middle path this? I wonder. If everything were to be perfect, there wouldn't be any competition, there wouldn't be any reasons for dis heartening. Seemingly impossible as it might, an adjustment needs to be accommodated for getting the middle path devised. Its as simple as no two similar poles can be together. The alignment in this case is for individual happiness, and when you try to pacify opposing interests, its going to be a very very difficult job. Be it enmity between nations, be it sectarian conflict, be it racism, be it anything that is wanting to dominance.

In the end, our happiness is at someone else's loss in some way or the other. But can we actually do anything . Let me rephrase that, would we want something like that to happen that we sacrifice our happiness for others.?If it were insignificant to one's life, it would definitely not matter. It all comes down to how humble you are in your life? Humble people dont really care much about what others think about them and they seek happiness in the most insignificant of things in life. Hence being successful and humble becomes that much difficult at the same time. The people who want to be successful are the ones whom I see as people who divide the lot wider. The more persons who aspire to be successful are bound to make decisions that hurt the weaker sections interests. This leads to disparity and conflicts and in turn competetion. Some people thrive on this. Like blood thirsty animals.

So the question remains, what do you want to be? A blood thirsty animal or a monk? Thats a question which will decide how we would mould ourselves in our lives. Perhaps a median between these to ways of life is the ideal answer. But hey its a matter of choice. You make your own ways.

Hyderabadi Zafrani Pulav@ your service :) Part-1

2007-07-11T22:54:00.000+05:30

Been a while since i posted my last blog. My coduguru was upset that i wasnt updating the same. The reason for this delay is sponsored by my internet service provider who had decided to log me off during the nights.Guess too much of download has had its impact on them to stop service from my account,considering we have downloaded close to 30 gigs over the past month and a half hehe. None the less I did actively pursue my fight with them over the phone every single day. Professionalism is an alien term for these guys it seems. Please somebody teach them!! Am I being too utopian, when I demand to be serviced better? But now things are up and running and my complaints have all vanished. :)

Anyways I had some wonderful days go by during one of which I got my confirmation at work. Phew !! What a relief.. Wait ! Did is say relief? It only bonds me stronger to the organization now. Fevicol ka mazboot jod. Tutega nahin. hehe. I mean to say, severing ties becomes that much more difficult now :D. But that certainly is not on my mind now, so that can take a back seat. Otherwise there have been turbulent times in the last few weeks, right from the rumours of the project getting scrapped to what not. But the ship is still sailing along, so I just hope that the worst is over for now. I know similar thing is bound to happen sometime in future as well. Maintaining focus becomes an issue when I over think on this issue. So I have decided not to wear that thinking cap for the time being. I also happened to have my first bit of conversation with the person I wished to, in the blog "About me" . Well if "wishing" can be termed as a conversation, then thats what I meant. But it hasnt moved any bit further than that. I am glad that it happened. I really hoped I could build up on that. But that is not to be :(. I hope I will get some better opportunities to share just more than a "wish" someday soon. :)

I also had some wonderful weekends gone by. Be it watching movie,hanging out with friends or watching Kimi in action this weekend. Now ,dont get any wrong ideas!! Kimi is in context with F1 races and nothing else :D. KD's show rocked \m/ last friday. It was the first time I saw his band, soon to be named Obsidion, perform. But it was definitely exhilarating stuff . Its really awesome what a guitar, drums and a keyboard can generate for you. Some great numbers played. Enjoyed every bit of it. I also happened to watch Cheeni Kum. Cute is the word I would use for this film. Hilarious, touching, and well fabricated movie. Loved Tabu in her role. She was awesome, by far the best of her I have seen since Virasat. The kid , sexy, in this movie has done amazingly well. I dont know her name btw, so I have used the name from the film. Big B has done his job in as graceful way as only he could do. The songs are melodious to say the least. Ilayraja has renedered some wonderful tunes. Batein Hawaein is my favourite song from the movie. Shreya Ghoshal has done what she does best. Continuinig to impress with her melodious voice. I bet she is the contemporary nightingale of the music industry. Its open to debate, but this is my blog so I get to voice my opinion here. Visited ISKCON on one of the weekends. I certainly dont get the divine feeling when I visit that place ever. Dont know why!! Its a modern day temple, with lot of eatouts and other commercial activity going on. What not in the name of GOD!!! This post has become huge , so I am stopping here. I think I will come up with another part of it to cover up what I left in the next post. Hope you enjoyed reading this one. Cheers. :)

Null character exception

2007-06-12T09:48:00.000+05:30

Ever had the feeling? That of losing something, of missing someone. I bet being humans we all would have gone through such things more or less often. That always brings up a sense of de javu in our minds invariably, the feeling of why did it have to happen with you? I remember such a void actually happen to me when i lost a friend of mine during my college days. So how do we need to tackle this? What would you do ? Its hard to digest the fact that the person with whom you went out and had breaks with, cut classes, enjoyed playing games will never be there for all that next time. Thats the closest I have felt to being void, that feeling of being nothing from inside. No matter how much ever practical you are , you cant help blaming or cursing the ultimate power in this world for that. Some people try to isolate themselves from others till they overcome the shock. I certainly feel that is not the way to go about it. The more you talk it out, the more you feel relieved believe me. And you have to see the greater picture in life. That of the life ahead. The more time you spend coming out of that shock, the more damage you are doing to yourself and the people around you. Picture this, a bubbly ,cheerful person turning sober for days and days together forgetting to even smile at the greatest of PJ's. Not pleasant huh?? You as a family or friend of that person in shock would be obviously sad . I know people can be selfish , even friends can in the contemporary world. But they will certainly not be amused at your state. Maybe they will carry your sorrow for sometime, but then they will move on with their lives. You have to be prepared for this. The only way you out of this is to move on with life. One of the best ways to do so, is by pursuing any of your passions which I understand some of them might need more than just your breaks to pursue. Thats just one of my suggestions.

One of the most common reasons why we take such a long time is also because we are trying to fix our lives. Wondering how? Just take for example, you wake up in the morning, expecting a tea from your mom, then moving into the living room, switching on your TV to watch some program, then doing your daily activities just like an executable program runs. Getting the idea? Yeah the idea of being organized also means idea of being monotonous which is exactly what you expect out of your computer program. The more you are dependent on it, the more you feel miserable and helpless. And one particular element missing means the whole system goes haywire. What one needs to understand is that, we can be unorganized and still do our duties without fail. When I say unorganized , it doesn't mean skipping your duties,delaying your appointments or anything. Being unorganized means trying to prepare ourselves for the uncertainty.These things can happen, and happen only in life not in machines. If we start putting ourselves the way machines work, there is no uncertainty, there is no life,there is no fun.
So go ahead and push yourself ahead if you are stuck on to something because hey!! thats life. I have had my fixes in life but not anymore. I end this post here. Kindly do share your thoughts on this post. :)

Time

2007-06-05T23:34:00.000+05:30

Its something we cant hold back. It wasn't until recently that i understood what this mean. It means you are losing your childhood, It means you are losing your youth, it means you are aging , it means you are running out of time with every passing moment. Its a strange feeling. There are so many things one would wish one could do. If only time could be turned around, we may think. But what you chose is how things shape out. There are so many possibilities in each decision we take in our daily lives. Thats when you start to believe in something called fate. Your instincts make you do things and the only thing you can do is rebut the very step that you took and try to come up with a better option.

I vividly remember a scene from one of my all time favorite movies, The matrix. Neo is asked by Morpheous "do you believe in fate?".. And Neo answers "No". The reason he cites is and I quote "I don't like the idea that I am not in control of my life". This is how an optimist would always think. But is it really the way it is? Well thats a thought to be pondered over. I don't think we could ever think that we would make all the right moves. After all we are all humans and to err is being ourselves, being human.

I have had regrets over certain decisions in life, but I have also made some good decisions in life. With time one gains in better understanding of our very own life. The way we fit into this world , into this system called society which has its own rules and semantics. Till we perfect the art of making the right decisions we are bound to make mistakes. And that art takes time. Some people are perfect that art too soon, some are not so lucky and some take a while to reach that stage. What one should understand though is that it is taking time. It is ticking your clock backwards. And there is nothing you can do about it. There is no reason to panic, there is no reason to be sad. The only thing we can do is make sure we live every moment of our lives. Existing is being zombie, living is for life. Time will keep running out, but you can do more in life. Time never stops for anyone but time can certainly be enjoyed in every happy moment we spend in our lives. So stay cheerful and happy and enjoy the time thats going by. Please do share your comments on the post and stay cheerful always.:)

This is me :)

2007-06-05T01:51:00.000+05:30

People who know me can think of me the way they want to. This post is for those who don't know me with my perspective about me. Well to begin with, I am Mridul. Well my name means soft or tender literally which most of my friends disapprove of as they don't find me suiting that name. Hey! its their view, I am not questioning that. I am here to share what i think. Nobody can question that.

I would like to put myself as a simple, humble and a realistic person.I think thats a fair enough statement I would make about myself. To me family, friends and relatives matter to me the most in that order. I love my family, my source of courage and happiness followed very closely by my friends. I am very choosy in making friends, but I do have lot many friends most of whom I would have known for years and years. I have had privilege of studying in a college full of gems, both at heart and in life so far. I take pride having such friends. I just hope they find me as good as I find them. I have great friends dating back to my primary schooling days and I continue to make new ones as I move on in life. Right now I am in a dilemma.

I wish to be friends with someone , but that someone is eluding me. I have this eagerness to speak to that someone and get close but I am shy to start off. I hope I get enough courage to speak to that someone and make friends soon. This will be most understood by persons who are with me these day. The people whom I interact with the most these days. Well for those who don't know me, I would want that to be a mystery. And the person in question here , I wish knows this soon.

Moving on with my intro I love bit of everything. I love watching movies, listening to music.If I had to choose only 2 out of the rest of the options it would be movies, music always. I am quite passionate about these two things in life. I am more director specific in choosing movies to watch. But I can watch Aamir khan movies without any such inputs. He is very intelligent person when it comes to choosing the roles and he has proved that over the years. The only person who I think is versatile and does justice to his talent. All others are typecasted, cliched so to say. I love listening to songs. There are many favorites Lucky Ali, KK,Palash Sen, Shreya Ghoshal, Sonu Nigam are few of the artists i love listening to and some English Bands like Metallica,Linkin Park,Evanescence to name a few.

I think I have shared enough of what I wanted to. I will keep posting something or the other to keep you guys busy reading my blogs. Do share your comments on this post.

My First Blog

2007-06-03T02:54:00.001+05:30

So here i am. Finally blogging something. Let me hope that i can come up with something that is worth sharing and worth reading. I have to thank my codeguru for initiating his blogs followed by aru who has been insipirational with his blogs at times. Well for those who are wondering what my blog url name means, it is 'c'est la vie' which translates to 'Thats life'.