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Often, memories taste like chocolates!

“All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt!”
:Lucy Van Pelt in Peanuts by Charles M Schulz

Really, immediately I start salivating at the thought of that dark brown material called chocolate. I love that moment when that creamy, yummy square melts in my mouth and I always play that trick to relax myself. Anything brown is sexy and dark brown is sexier. To be true, this seemingly inconsequential and off-track obsession brings back memories of an unfinished story of my past life.

Anyway, Aparna N. Singh has joined today at our Puri branch as management trainee and, as per her joining letter; this is the first location of her training. She will continue here till 30th Oct 2008 at our branch and then will shift to Bhubaneswar SBU office.

Bollywood’s latest holy buzz!

I have just been reading this news which is about Lord Siddhivinayak and Indian master blaster Sachin Tendulkar.  It sounds interesting, doesn’t it? I know, I know ... but, the main interesting part of the news is that Tendulkar will make his Bollywood debut with a cameo role in a film about the miracles of the elephant-headed Hindu God Ganesh. And, no doubt, he will not be charging for the role. He is a devotee of God Ganesh and, as Subhash Mayekar, chairman of the Siddhivinayak Temple trust said, “He never gives up an opportunity to show his devotion.” Adding to all these, a voice-over by Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan will make this film a holy buzz in Bollywood industry.

Lord Siddhivinayak gets a mobile worth 3 lakh

After a bit of googling about some offbeat news on Indian Culture, I found this story on Lord Siddhivinayak and no doubt, it’s an interesting story. A Mumbai-based devotee of Lord Siddhivinayak has donated a diamond-studded Motorola mobile phone worth Rs 3.33 lakh as part of his offering to the Lord.

Then, I became hungrier for God, spirituality, spiritual practices, truth and transformation. Our religion and subsequently, I’m convinced, all religions talk of a God who is described as the Lord of the universe, who is its creator (as Brahma), sustainer (as Vishnu), and destroyer (as Maheswar) and, as Swami Lokeswarananda describes in ‘Practical Spirituality’, “in whom reposes the authority behind every phenomenon, human or otherwise, that takes place in the world.” And, with this strong belief in my heart, I ask myself, is there anything we can offer to Him which is outside the realm of His own creation? Can you see the humor in it? We’re just returning Him, His own things.

Blogging about my bullet...

“Sometimes it hurt more then we can bear. If we could live without passion maybe we’d know some kind of peace. But, we would be hollow. Empty rooms shuttered and dank. Without passion we’d be truly dead.”
:David Boreanaz

Bullet is my passion; but, it hurts sometimes. Yes, last night, I got a serious blow, few scars and a stitch on my left leg. To the former memories of my accidents was added yet another horrible memory. Thanks god, not a single vehicle passed, at that time. And, everybody enquired about its (AAC - 4487) condition. It’s, again, into the garage. Nevertheless, search me; it is becoming an indomitable passion in my life.

Is there any right or wrong in life?

Often, it’s incomprehensible! To decide what is right and what is wrong in our life, only you can join the debate. What is right isn’t always right and what is wrong isn’t always wrong. By saying, ‘always’, I mean in all circumstances, to all people and in all times. There is no such specific and universal rule or formula exit that can help us determine what is right and what is wrong in our or for our life.

So, it makes me confused, sometimes. I’ve to treat someone with ego-satisfying reverence and at the same time, in a same circumstance, I’ve to talk loudly to someone else.

Forgive and forget!

“I took the good times; I’ll take the bad times.”
:Billy Joel, US singer/song writer

Forgive and forget. Though all religions preach it and advice against bearing any grudge against the person who is dishonest to you or somebody who hurts you mentally, physically or financially, is it possible for us to ‘forgive and forget’ in all circumstances and situations? No! Not at least, in case of business and profession.

Not surprisingly, here I want to blog about this recent case of Abhinav Shaw, s/o: Jay Prakash Shaw of Park Tower, Unit-6, Bhubaneswar. Obviously, this case is out of its (forgive and forget) realm. Forgiveness, in this case, is not affordable and will treat as a euphemism for our ineffectiveness. And, what he did? First, he became a defaulter. Then, he became dishonest. Then, again, he became a fraud. So, we’ll retaliate. We’ll expose his misdeeds. And, we decided, ok, let him earn some additional opprobrium in the public eye. Let him listen to the clamor of our denouncing voices.

Incredible India’s new brand ambassador!

Oh yeah, this news is related to our locality. The Tourism ministry of India is likely to establish a sand art park in Puri. It is entirely possible that it’ll happen and the Orissa government will provide the required five acres of land for this project. And, you know? This project is the dream project (as he described it as his life’s dream, a dream to realize) of Sudarshan Pattnaik, the noted sand sculptor and two-time winner of the National Tourism Award. Also, he has been invited by the Tourism ministry to act as the brand ambassador for its signature campaign, Incredible India.

Believe in life!

“Believe in love. Believe in magic. Believe in Santa Claus. Believe in others. Believe in yourself. Believe in your dreams. If you don’t, who will?”
:Jon Bon Jovi

The weather here was monsoonal, throughout the day. And, few hours before, we loosed our battery backups due to prolonged power cut. Nevertheless, good news keeps coming in and in regular intervals. If you ever doubted, even for a second, that belief is nothing to do with the result, you’re wrong! Then I’ll show you our June End NPA Monitoring Report.

Flowers and thorns of life!

“I plucked your flower, O world!
I pressed it to my heart and the thorn pricked.
When the day waned and it darkened, I found that the flower had faded, but the pain remained.”
:Rabindranath Tagore

A little while back, I got an email from one of my colleague and that email begins with this quotation of poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore.

Life and its errors!

Odd things happen in our life and often, in large proportionate. And, every so often, we experience them with our identity. We’ve been, sometimes in our life and to our utter amusement, mistaken for someone we’re not in actual sense. How we feel, when people change our name and location in their mind and treat us as a different person or if these things happen with us, mistakenly in other way around? How often, a good guy being mistaken as a bad guy by people or by the authorities only to turned out wrong or vice versa?!

I’m including few such interesting, amusing and hilarious coincident here in this post:

• The Comedy of Errors
• A Case of Mistaken Identity
• Inquiry over ‘Wrong’ Armed Arrest
• A Case of Mistaken Identity, REDUX
• Mistaken Identity or Hilarious Coincidence
• Case of Mistaken Identity in Elmore County
• Dundalk Shooting ‘May be Case of Mistaken Identity’

A post on Indian culture

While searching for a blogpost on Indian Culture in Google Blog Search, I stumbled upon this post which is full of anguish and disbeliefs of the blogger towards his (regretfully, knowing it is also mine) culture, religion and social systems. And, during the self-analysis, he didn’t even hesitate to put some abominate words and phrases in that post. Initially, I was passing that post as a ‘conflict-of-interest’ and then, I read it from head-to-toe. It was a pain anyway.

Fuelled by a ubiquitous media, we overextended ourselves on other traditions and different ways of life. These practices, in result, unwittingly dilute our tastes and interests as we can’t relate them somewhere in our own culture and traditions.

Life without a driving license

Life without a driving license is becoming more and more miserable in my city, Bhubaneswar. Nevertheless, some of my friends, colleagues and FOs are still driving their vehicles without their license. And, some are still continuing with their L-stickers. So, after, surprising myself with this interesting news, I made up my mind to send this link to them for a little humoristic awareness.

MCD made it easy for car owners

At least, The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) is going technologically innovative! So, locating parking space in the Capital city of India is now just an SMS away. This helpful idea by MCD is something one can use to find out details of available parking space in busy areas of the city.

And, the icing-on-the-cake part is that the car owners will get free car washing if they opt for the yearly mode of paying parking charges. Plus, of course, the registered members can avail the benefits of other services such as paying electricity bill, ordering for LPG gas, etc. at the parking lot. Certainly, a good initiative to abolish the ‘Nothing doing’ image, isn’t it?

The desire to be perfect in life

Certainly the aim is not to spend life as it flows. We’ve to go deep into things we’re doing in our daily life or in our professional life. Sometimes, we may become cynical about our perfection but no matter what results our efforts yield; at least, we’ll never again have to ‘feel totally sick to our stomach’ or guilty or depressed of not trying things in a few other ways. Surprising myself with this Bollywood news and this, I suppose, is how Irrfan Khan, as an actor, manages himself in his business or profession. He is going to learn the art of haircutting from a roadside barber to make his character in Priyadarshan's ‘Billo Barber’ look real, where he plays the title role.

Hunger for love and appreciation

“There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.”
:Mother Teresa

And, for that reason, my school friend Soumitra Kar dropped a SMS on Sandeep’s mobile: “I enquired with my boss n learnt that I can’t reach ur wedding, but I assure u that I’ll see u in Delhi this year. Plz forgive me.”

Is love enough to weather the storm?

Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness.
:Thomas Hardy

This blog post was a hoot to me, especially the headline, with a question mark(?).  After much thinking, I answered to myself (though I didn’t let out a peep to that headline, then), yes! Today is 30th, but we’re not closing today. I’m still at my office at Puri.

Isn’t it a shame for a traffic inspector to misutilize his power against one of my PE? If it isn’t, then why should I bother to peep to that headline in ‘shine dot yahoo dot com’, once again? Regretfully, knowing that the traffic inspector took 2hours of valuable time of my PE, I made up my mind to mention this incident here. My limitations hemmed me in: I couldn’t go the incident point to speak for my PE. Doubtless, there’re numbers of relevant connections between love and such irrelevant incidents in one’s life. Anyway, as far as my belief is concerned, I strongly believe that love is enough to weather the storm from one’s life.

Actually, how many hours?

Soon after, sending the “NPA Monitoring Report” to our Credit Head (Did I mention?! Today is Sunday!), I answered a question on a blog (that I won’t reveal it here) through its ‘comment’ box.

How many hours you work in a week?

But there’s a breed of man for whom ‘over-time-at-work’ is just a spur in life. They can easily unload all their emotional baggage onto these working-hours. To whom am I indicating, here? Obviously, I am thinking of my boss, our State Head and the Regional Product Head of M&HCV (Prime) vertical. No doubt, he is such a live-wire! Hey, don’t go thinking that I’m saying this with any derision. Though, somehow, I distaste this idea of ‘staying-late-at-work’! Or, maybe, he has a ‘do-what-you-love-to-do’ syndrome. That I, soon, will adopt.

I love chocolate. No doubt, very much!

“I’m not one of those stick-thin girls who survive on just lettuce leaves. I think it’s much more beautiful to have a bit of flesh on you, and much more womanly too.”
:Joss Stone

I love chocolate. And, so I like this quote.

It’s all about ambiguity of time!

“I’m convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it.”
:Chuck Swindoll

I was confused and fully at sea
Plenty of spikes in my mind
I couldn’t take decisions
Your wrath so harsh
And so raucous
You know?
It was a terrible piece of terror
Conscience tangled and tight
Words obviously not yours:

“I can’t tolerate anymore and...”

And, sitting at the edge of the bed, sizzling in your horrible wrath, desperately catching your breath...you writhed and shouted at me, again. But, what happened in the end? It brought tears to your own eyes. I took your hand and pressed it tightly:

“Oh, tell me the truth -
What made you so annoyed? And, why?”

Do you know, dear?
It’s all about ambiguity of time.
Nothing else. And, it’ll change one day.

Celebrity mother...

“Now I can have a child I would like one. I'm even willing to have one without a father. I know that I am ready. I know that with a baby I would change, I'd calm down. With a child you cannot accept compromises. You have to give your full self.”
:Naomi Campbell

SO FAR SO GOUDE! She is desperate to become a mother. Yes, it’s true. The unpredictable thirty-eight year old British supermodel Naomi Campbell is so anxious to enter motherhood she is considering in vitro-fertilization in hopes of becoming pregnant.

Bollywood blogging...

“I feel a blog would be a good way to express my thoughts on cinema. Things that don't routinely get space in the traditional media outlets these days...”
:Karan Johar

So, bollywood-bloggers are finally arrived, one after another. After, Amtiabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh khan, Aamir Khan and Ram Gopal Varma; now, ace filmmaker Karan Johar has also entered into this wide and varied world of bloggers, but says “he is doing it to put his thoughts into writing rather than vocalizing them all the time.” Indeed, his personal presence is not so large in any sense; as he confessed: “the blog isn't to discuss my daily routine or my sexuality...!” 

So, now on, acquiring this new trend by these bollywood boyz will give us way too much information and chatt-patti things, more or less indiscriminately, about bollywood happenings, musings and trivia. Interesting, isn’t it?  So, I decided, why not use this post as an opportunity to blog about them? Possibility number one is that, now, Hinglish will taste the luck; “BAHUT LAMBI KAHANI HAI YEH”. Please, wait for something more interesting!

“When people are too quick to judge others, they are usually hiding from their own insecurities.”
:Tamara Walker

Well, Tamara Walker wants to know if I agree with this or not! Further she clarified: “Don't judge others unless you have walked a mile in their shoes.” In this first one and half month of the joining, I’ve been swamped with a steadily rising number of 'Agree / Disagree' emails in my inbox from iThink. But, this one particularly forced me to engage myself on the iThink platform for a few good minutes. Obviously, I clicked on the ‘Agree’ button.

"How can the body touch the flower which only the spirit may touch..."
:Rabindranath Tagore

“...if it saves one life, it's worth it.”
:Carolyn Magos, a 15-year-old El Camino High School student

On a Monday morning last month in California, local cops and the authority figures of a high school told lie of accident to teach students dangers of drunk driving. Though that was all staged and they ‘did this in earnest’, a lie is a lie is a lie. The El Camino High School students got a major shock. Some classmates wept. Some became hysterical. And, some of them were ‘too stunned to cry’. They were left in the dark until the missing students reappeared hours later.