Zakir+Shivkumar

Feeling like a celebrity.. My birthday celebrations have already started! After the launch of Friends' Society 10 years back, my birthday has been dissolved in the FS celebration. This year, when I am away from Pune, it seems, the birthday is back on track!

With a couple of friends joining me yesterday night for "Save Earth" hour, they surprised me by gifting three bottles of "Grey Goose." (One of the best I've had...) The whole day was celebration, started wiht lunch with Ahmed (the Iraqi journalist), and then visit to his studios, and then the dark evening with friends! Today, I woke up pretty late, and had my personal "official birthday" plans! A gift I gifted myself, a ticket to Zakir Hussain and Shivkumar Sharma concert at Duke!


Exhilarating... Breathtaking... Elemental... Pure... Erotic...

All the adjectives will short fall of describing the concert experience. Have you ever forgotten breathing, and then suddenly realized that you need to breath? have your eyes been so concentrated on what you are seeing that you literally have lost vision beyond the focal point? Have your ears been in resonation with what they are listening, so much so that there's no other voice heard? Have the every cell in your body vibrated such that you can feel those vibrations in your blood stream?

I experienced all of this today.. Much more.. Tabla has always attracted me, rather, as a child, I had tried my hands on it too.. Needless to say, it was a big failure, but my ears loved the rythm. Since then I had adream, a dream to see Zakir Hussain live. While in Pune, he had visited the city once, but the expensive passes were out of reach, and the the massive crowds scared me off. Here, in an auditorium of a 1000 people, sitting in seat K-104, I was living one of my childhood dreams!

Birthday ho, toh aisa... Let's see, what next 3 days have to bring.. [gifts, chocolates, any and everything is welcome.. ;)]

Mohabbat..

मोहब्बत इक जज्बा है, नग्मा जिसका अनजान
कुदरत की इस गुफ़्तगू ने हमें किया नादान |
- शून्यांकीत

(Some Sher's find me incapable of translation.. A Sher usually has three meanings, the apparent one, the subtle one, and the spiritual one.. Not all can be encompassed in an English translation.)

If anyone of you can translate this one, I would love to read the same!

Khanna & Iyer

Absolute nonsense, idiotically synchronous, and pragmatically irrelevant...

That's my movie review.. ;) If you have nothing else to do, and are in no great mood, either to laugh or to get serious, I would strongly recommend this movie..
(I can afford to do that, cos none of you will be able to reach my neck while I am in US..)

mouse in trap..

This forward was a laughter roller-coaster... Thanks to R...

Call for technical support:

Caller: Hi, our printer is not working.
Customer Service: What is wrong with it?
Caller: Mouse is jammed.
Customer Service: Mouse? And how it is related to the printer?
Caller: Mmmm... Moment please, I will send a picture.

FFF: Free Food Fiasco

Me and my friends back home used to tease, "जे जे फुकट, ते ते पौष्टिक," implying, free food is always nourishing... Unless you land being caught with your hands in the jar.. ;)

On our forth-nightly shopping trip, we saw a pamphlet in the "Little India" store: Inauguration of Green Leaf restaurant. Free meals the whole day. Day: March "XX" 2009.

Three students, saving every penny possible, the pamphlet itself got our mouths watering. There was an immediate consensus, Saturday, we are headed for this new place. Saturday morning, my roomie wakes up at 11:00, gets ready within half an hour, and we are set to leave. No one has eaten anything, cos it is going to be a feast.. FREE FEAST.. The third friend drives down, picks us up and we are on our way.

At the end of the road, according to the address, we land at our destination. All of us staring at each other... We have actually reached the Little India store. While wondering where the place might be, we look around and see the small board of Green Leaf. It is the same old Indian restaurant we have been deciding to visit since long, but apparently the name has changed and it seems it is the re-inauguration today. The three muskeeters start marching towards the small door, ready to attack all the food inside. Wasn't it waiting for us? Surely, it was, the leaflet said, free food! We enter the place, nicely decorated.. A buffet laid ahead.. ATTACK.. Our plates are full, and we on table.. First bite, and yummm.. It is delicious.. The waiter gets idlis.. I have seen idlis literally after ages.. It is time to gobble up as much as we can... We eat, eat till our stomach is overloaded.. While eating, there's a slight distraction.. A giy is standing at the reception counter and taking out something of his wallet. We don't care to pay attention..

Hush.. Finally done wiht the meal, we are ready to leave! And, comes the moment students are usually afraid of.. The head waiter comes to the table, with a broad smile on the face, 'Sir, how was the food?" We, "Great, delicious, we'll surely be back!" The waiter gives a broad grin, showing all his yellow teeth, and then in his hoarse voice comes the next statement, "Thonks.. If you come yesterday, we give free meal. Today, our day two.." Three of us stare at each other... Just day before we had finished with our budgets, and realized, all of us had over shot our limits.
We go to the counter, and next terror awaits us there.. The bill is: ONLY $ 36.88 + 20% tip..

Rolling with laughter, carrying our overloaded bodies and a bit lighter bank account for me (cos it was my turn to pay), we three walk out to the car...

(image from internet..)

Mohabbat

मोहब्बत इक जज्बा है, नग्मा जिसका अनजान
कुदरत की इस गुफ़्तगू ने हमें किया नादान |
- शून्यांकीत

(Some Sher's find me incapable of translation.. A Sher usually has three meanings, the apparent one, the subtle one, and the spiritual one.. Not all can be encompassed in an English translation.)

If anyone of you can translate this one, I would love to read the same!

Jindagi

जिन्दगी के इस सफ़र में, कोई अपना हुआ कोई बेगाना
हमने तोह प्यार बरसाया, किसीने सिखाया जीना, किसीने मरना |
- शून्यांकीत

On the journey of life, a few [people] became mine (my friends), a few [became] unknown
I chose to shower love, [for which] some taught [me] how to live, some [the way] to death.

dariyaaein..

दरिया ए मोहब्बत में हमनें जो छलांग लगायी
आपको भी तोह कुछ बूँदों ने सरमाया होगा |
- शून्यांकीत

When I plunged in the ocean of love,
a few drops (of love, from the splash) might have embraced you too!

दुनिया ऐ कलाम

करिश्मा ए कुदरत का अफसाना प्यार है
मोहब्बत ए इश्क पर तो दुनिया कलाम है |
- शून्यांकीत

What do you think it means??

Tropical Rainforest...

Rainforest + Coast + Peninsula + Gulf + ... ... ... = Costa Rica

If I have to look for any words that can describe my trip, the most appropriate would be; Pura Vida
(Spanish, literally for 'pure life'..)

Give me a while, and you'll get to read.. "Dee Dee's adventures in the Tico Land..!" ;-)

Costa Rica

I am off.. Flying on the wings of my dreams.. Traveling back in time.. To meet an old friend of mine.. Excitement in the air..

Annika and Rachel in San Francisco, 2004.. Rachel is whom I am visiting..!!

Bye.. I'll catch you all once I am back..

@ Me..

I just got a dedication from a friend.. Not sure why she does not wish to be named.. But found the words to be interesting..

"

heyyy.

sum people r stupid

sum people r idiot

sum people r complicated

sum people r funny

sum people r simple

sum people r bad

sum people r good

but u r a good mixture of everything....

cheers!!!!!"

Thanks buddy! :)

Rain rain..

This is amazing.. It's been drizzling, raining since last 3 days! Just like Pune..!!

Starting day before, I was to leave for School, after spending a day and a half at home. I walk out of the complex, and feel the droplets on my skin! The sky is haze blue, mixed with orange on horizon.. Cool breeze.. The grass turning green.. A few of the trees ready for spring, already changing colors.. It is beautiful. I am in no mood to climb the bus, but have no choice. Need to reach school..

Day II: Saturday.. Morning is a bit dry. Slowly the rain starts, proceeding from drizzle to proper rain. I am too tempted to resist.. And I decide to walk out. To soak my self, get drenched in that rain.. Ironically, I have to wear a sweat shirt too, cos it is not only rainy, but it is chilly! Leaving my precious cell home, holding a carry bag (cos I need to check post), I walk out! It's been long since I have experienced this bliss.. My room-mate is confused.. What kind of a person is this guy (me)? Has he lost his brain to walk out on a chilly evening in rains? Probably yes.. But, it is worth it!

Day III: Sunday.. Raining since morning.. I am supposed to leave for volunteering at a Community dinner! My duty is with a bunch of other friends, to direct the traffic to appropriate parking lots. Temperature outside: 1 degree Celsius. Expected to dip to -4 degrees. 3 to 6 inches of snow anticipated. Sure, if I still choose to go, I need to be fully prepared. A sweater over a Tee, topped by a jacket, gloves and a woolen cap, borrowing my roommates umbrella, I am out, walking towards the middle school, where the dinner is organized. Headphones plugged in ears, swaying to the music, feel the drizzle, I am absorbed in the bounty of mother nature. Reaching school, I am given an orange jacket, the ones which traffic people wear, and I am assigned right at the main entrance. I know, it will be tough to manage the umbrella, and then speak with people and guide vehicles, so I choose to leave back the umbrella, and it is at that moment, I have chosen my day's destiny! Next 3 hours, I am standing in a increasing flow of rain and reducing range of temperature. Initially it is ok.. Slowly, as time passes, I start freezing. If one wanted to see human fazes of reaction to reducing temperatures, it was perfect day. From properly moving limbs, to a point where I was moving like a Robot, I felt it through!

And, now, when I am back home.. In warmth of my bed.. I still wish I was out, getting drenched.. Freezing.. Enjoying!