The Quirk Tag

Thanks lively for the tag. The tag is to list down the quirky behavior that I tend to show every once in a while.

The Rules:- Link to the person that tagged you.- Post the rules on your blog.- Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.- Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.- Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

1. I tend to be so 'in my own world' when I am in my building society I rarely look up at faces. Of the three neighbours in my floor, I know only two of them. I won't recognise the others even if they walk by. I guess this should change. Otherwise, I would not know even if George Bush moved in next door!

2. I don't think the pug they show for the hutch (now vodafone) ad is really as cute as it is made out to be.

3. I don't like coffee or tea. The cold coffee I have about twice or thrice a year gives me such a high I can't sleep.

4. I don't really hate Himesh Reshamiyya. I really envy him for being able to rule the airwaves more than anyone was able to (But where is he now??).

5. This is in the back of my mind almost everyday (http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/here-it-is-the-future-of-the-world-in-23-pages-400923.html). Population uncontrolled, tiger dissappearing... they say one of the tipping points of the climate change could be the dissappearance of the monsoon. Maybe this would wake us up.

6. I like to observe interesting little quirks in people (I am sure I have mine too!) especially regarding their walking style. Some examples:

Today I saw this guy walking along the roadside and he had this amusing and stylish swagger as if he is walking to some live music. There was none, neither was he wearing headphones. But you could see that the music playing in his head :).

I knew this girl in school who always cat-walked. You would always see her sashaying away even if she were in a hurry!

I knew a guy in college who always had his mouth open. Even while riding his moped!! My brother always wondered if the lives of many flies and mosquitoes would have a sticky ending as he rode by!! I bet the world was a constant source of wonder and amazement, rendering his mouth continuously open!

One of my rules was to NOT make this a personal blog. But then, when tags come by and they are usually all about YOU (or me in this case) and I felt I was a little too harsh not posting on the tag that pixie had given me long ago. And when this tag came by, I thought, 'Oh well, I have nothing much to write these days, anyway. Let's do that tag'... :)

Relationships lately have been giving me a lot of food for thought. A post has been brewing in my mind for some time now on relationships but still needs lots of processing... coming soon :)

By the way, I tag none.

What's up?

Yes, I have been meeting a lot of interesting people. Here is little chunnu-munnu trying to find out what the camera lens smells like. Ok, I don't know the real name of this little guy. But wouldn't chunnu-munnu make a great name? And do make sure you put your suggestions in the comments ;).

Come Away With Me

More than a year ago when I searched for it at PlanetM they were out of stock. Yesterday, while browsing through the music folders copied from my bro's computer, I found this song!

Listening to this song is like lying in the cool grass on a summer evening while the you hear the gentle sound of leaves rustling in the breeze...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBKcKQHZXks

Come Away With Me
-Norah Jones

Come away with me in the night

Come away with me

And I will write you a song

Come away with me on a bus

Come away where they can't tempt us

With their lies

I want to walk with you

On a cloudy day

In fields where the yellow grass grows knee-high

So won't you try to come

Come away with me and we'll kiss

On a mountaintop

Come away with me

And I'll never stop loving you

And I want to wake up with the rain

Falling on a tin roof

While I'm safe there in your arms

So all I ask is for you

To come away with me in the night

Come away with me

Finding Yaman

One interesting thing I did this month was work on a cover of the Sitarist Vidur Mahajan's Indian Classical album Maitra Yaman. The raaga was Yaman and we were to capture it's essense visually.

It felt great working alongside an artiste who has given so many years of his life for an artform with evergrowing love for it. The best part was I was not intimidated by him but inspired by him.

Vidur is also an entreprenuer and industrialist. His passion is the Sitar. Sitting under the starry winter sky, surrounded by the hills, I sat with him at his little farm house-like place, listening to his story of how he first fell in love with the Sitar. It's a journey he started more than 2o years ago. His passion for playing the Sitar has only grown over the years...

I waited more than three weeks to write this, hoping that I would write more objectively. Without going ga-ga! But it seems I fail miserably at it. I shall just post the snap now :)

Lies People Tell But Do Not Admit

Chances are you have heard these somewhere, somehow, or maybe even said them. Chances are we all know what they mean, actually...

1) "I will call you back"

They usually never call back. Either there is a genuine reason or they might just forget. They WILL call back only if they need something from you! If this person does manage to call back more than 50% of the time, chances are he/she could be one of your lifetime friends ...or just a perpetual parasite.


2) "I will die without you"

This is one of the stupidest lines!! Usually the person telling this believes that this is true. This usually happens in extremely immature relationships with messy endings. I know people who said it and are still alive, recovering from the 'relationship'... And boys, if you are saying this, there is no better way to reinforce that you are emotionally weak. I actually know a sadistic girl who ditched her guy and then later called him asking him why he's still alive!!


3) "Lets just be friends"

This means even the friendship you had is over. Dumbo!! Did you not realise that she's not even interested in you? (We are assuming here that it is guys who get this phrase from girls, usually) Even if u carry on with 'just friendship' it will invariably fizzle out, so chuck it and keep walking. It requires exceptional maturity for any relationship to survive this stage. This is always dangerous territory for anyone. If you made your intentions clear from the beginning then this wouldn't have happened. And how is that? Well, I am not going to tell you, it's fun learning through trial and error! All the best!!


4) "Lets do freiinseep"

Yes, the most infamous Orkut line. It's been mentioned many times in many blogs but it just keeps coming back! At first it appears similar to number 3 but is very different. This is usually the most intellingent line that a desperate desi male is usually capable of writing in his vain attempts to mesmerise anything that looks remotely feminine on Orkut. Uncouth in approach and absolutely clueless about human psychology, these males, ignoring umpteen other males writing the same lines in all the previous scraps, foolishly hope that suddenly someone will be swept off their feet on reading these three magic words and maybe immediately agree to meet up with them at the nearest coffee shop or God knows where. Sad.


5) "I have no time"

It only means the person who said it is not interested enough to 'make time' for whatever you are talking about. So go talk to someone else. Chances are you will find the same person at a movie theater near you having a whale of a time. Remember, even one of the world's richest man Steven Speilberg returns home at about 6pm for dinner with his family everyday unless he is in some other part of the world (OK i don't think I have proof of this as he said it in a talk show). It's all about priority and this is a nice way for people to tell you that you are not one.

Pixie contributed the following gems (Thank you pixie, how could I have overlooked these?!!) :


6) "You are our best resource and we don’t want to lose you"

You will find that after you leave that company, your manager and the project survive very well without you! If a meteorite from outerspace ground you into pure carbon this very minute, it is only your family/loved ones/friends who will miss you. Your famliy and parents might mean a lot to you, but that doesn't mean someone can get away with no. 7!


7) "My parents won’t approve"

That’s the cheesiest of them all. It just means the guy/gal isn’t interested in you enough to decide that it's worth making a commitment. But of course he/she does want to flirt around with you… or in other words USE you and then discard you as soon as the real princess/prince charming arrives! So, Mr/Ms Standby Lover, wake up from your dreamy slumber and get out of the tunnel because the light at the end IS the oncoming train!!

Mysore Lounging

Yaaaawn.... it's been a good Diwali holiday so far. I will truly hate monday the 12th! Mysore was... is cool and blue as usual. Managed to get this new lens for my camera and am loving it! Took a lot of lousy shots for a change while fooling around with the new lens...

In Pune, you will never see the sun setting into someone's backyard!! ;)

clothes line...

Ok, this is NOT a lousy shot :) this happens to be dad's new car...

Mysore has plenty of coconut trees everywhere...

Wonder what's up with blogger, the image uploading is getting very messy. I had to upload these images so many times to see them...

It's time to make lunch (yeah, am helping mom) , have lunch and then a nap.... YAWN!

Back to Mulshi 2007

...the field was bordered with yellow flowers...

It had been a long time since I went anywhere and I was beginning to feel pretty suffocated with the restless routine. So I, my friend V, and his little Swift, headed to the hills. And only to discover yet another mesmerising avatar of the Sahyadris. The just-after-the-monsoon Sahyadris. The grass had just mellowed from the psychedelic, ecstatic green it had in the monsoons to what it is now. The blue Mulshi Lake and the blue skies looked out of the world. I am so glad Mulshi is not a popular tourist destination. I am so glad it is still untouched.

The waterfall is now more of a babbling brook. The green grass around it was a beautiful reminder of what was. Flowers blooming everywhere, as if an obsessive compulsive gardener had run amock, planting them all over the place!! :) My friend V was coming here for the first time.

We climbed the rock faces that used to be the water fall and headed up a stream which was one of its sources. The brook wound it's way by a rice field guarded only by yellow and orange flowers. Even though it was this beautiful, the sun, as it rose higher in the sky beat down upon us, reminding us that this place would soon be ruled by one color: golden yellow...
I know I will be back here, among the fields of gold... just like last year

Flowers were everywhere...


My friend posing... I haven't asked his permission, so no faces...

You can see the Mulshi dam as a straight line...

I had shot this place just last year...

Rice fields on the way...

Hmm...

My friend's Swift negotiated the curves effortlessly... he simple loved this snap and it is now his wallpaper :)

Steve Jobs' Gyan

It's amazing how I end up finding these when I need them the most. Here are some things that Steve Jobs said that I really need to remember...

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

Elmo Update

To all of you out there who are wondering what the coolest dude in town is upto, here is the much awaited update: He just had his bath! Yes, Elmo was feeling a litle dusty and he wanted a bath. So here he is, post bath, just out with a towel (OK, it's a kerchief but that's adequate for him isn't it?) and enjoying the morning breeze! Or does it look like a lungi?

Roadies

Been attending a short film making workshop and this was the homework after the first class... we were asked to make a single-shot, aproximately 1 minute movie. Stumbling with a shaky camera and with very patient, helpful friends, shot this one... and had a lot of fun! :)

Till Recycling Does them Apart

Before Sunrise

Jesse: I have an admittedly insane idea. If I don't ask you this... It's gonna haunt me the rest of my life.

Celine: What?

Jesse: I wanna keep talking to you. I don't know what your situation is, but... but I feel like we have some kind of.... uuuh... connection, right?

Celine: Yeah, me too...

Jesse: Well, great! So here's the deal, you should get off the train with me in Vienna and come check out the town.

Celine: What?! *smiling*

Jesse: Come on! It'll be fun!

Celine: What would we do?

Jesse: I don't know... um.. all I know is that I have an Austrian airlines flight to catch tomorrow morning at 9.30, and I don't really have the money for a hotel, so I was just gonna walk around and it would be a lot more fun if you came with me... and if I turn out to be some kind of psycho, you know, you just get onto the next train!

Celine: :) *thinking**hesitating*

Jesse: Alright, alright! Think about it like this... Ummmm... jump ahead, 10-20 years, OK? And you're married... only, your marriage doesn't have that same energy that it used to have, you know... you start to blame your husband...

Celine: *now looking with interest*

Jesse: You start to think about all those guys you have met in your life and what might have happened if you picked up one of them... right? Now, I'm one of those guys! It's me!

"...I'm one of those guys! It's me!"

Now think of this as time travel... from then to now... to find out what you are missing out... see what this really could be... it's a gigantic favor to both you and your future husband to find out that you are not missing out on anything... I'm just as big a loser as he is, totally unmotivated, totall boring and... you made the right choice and you are really happy...

Celine: *laughs, avoiding eye contact, thinking*..... Let me get my bag!

And so they venture into the streets of Vienna... talking... their chemistry is instantaneous and never feels out of place... This is a movie that is hard not to fall in love with. I still watch it whenever possible... having lost count of the number of times I did so...

Before Sunset is it's sequel. It's a beautiful continuation of this amazing story.... with intelligent conversations that you would never get bored of... A very unique and intelligent movie, a must for hardcore romantics and movie buffs!

Before and After

You have to be there to see the transformation of the Sahyadris...

The Prelude to a Siesta

It was a hot summer afternoon. After a heavy lunch consisting of mountains of rice, along with delicious curries, pickles, and curd, the serotonin was too much to handle. Sleep was inevitable. The cool ceramic tiled floor and a colorful straw mat suddenly looked very inviting. The ceiling fan above sent soothing gusts making the curtain across the balcony entrance wave gracefully, creating intermittent brightness and semi-darkness... this was same the day I took this snap

Watch Crazy

You buy two watches on impulse just because you feel your current watch is kinda OK but looks out of fashion, and then you get a third one gifted to you. Shaantam paapam! Sinful accumulation of worldly possessions! Nice. Now for an extra arm...

Cold Fire

Post Lunch

Page 3 Elmo

Well, Elmo has many reasons to be happy these days including appearing in the media posing with some pretty actress for the Daytime Emmy Awards according to the Yahoo! News. And the other day he was in an elevated state of fluff (does he have a mind? ;-) )

Fiery Finale

There are one or two days in the entire year when the sunset is the kind you might see a few times in a lifetime. Thought I was through with boring sunset picture-postcard snaps until this day, when the sky seemed to be set on fire.

This was the view in our hall...

BEWARE (boring) TECHNICALITIES!: By the time I could set the tripod the sunset was just a dull red glow in the horizon, not much color that the human eye sould see. But giving the camera a 30 second exposure soaked up all the red hues there were in the sky and gave me this unexpectedly (unnaturally?) red sky. And this one is a HDR too... the room interior was too dark to be visible in which the sky details are clear...

Sky Scapes

This is the time of the year when the Pune sky comes up with some of its best cloud displays. The sky turns into an ever changing canvas of endless hues!

Sunday evening gave this. What I thought would look pretty average ended up quite decent!

Saturday afternoon: the black cloud looming large on the right is the thunderstorm....

Mysore almost always manages to come up with something spectacular. This time I got to see this rarely seen display. This phenomenon happens at the top portion of Cumulonimbus clouds.

I am unable to find that site which had information on this kind of phenomena...