Current Craze : SU Doku
Origin : Japan

Yeah this is my current craze.....and believe me its addictive....I picked up one of the puzzles from The Independent for a laugh and started it.....just to find out what the craze is all about....and thats it....I got addicted...so much so that I actually went and bought a full puzzle book and thats what I do every minute that I get free......on the train, at times in teh office (ofcourse stealthily)....while watching soem mad TV program, just before sleeping.....Its fun...very simple....but can get pretty difficult.....

Binhong Zhang (now incase u are wondering who that is...that's the name of my Mandarin teacher).....well....she is going ona vacation to China...and so I will hv to look for a new teacher till she returns which will not be till December.......so there starts my search for a new Mandarin tutor....

Had been to a disc on Friday for Kico's bday party......it was fun.....also met Gene and Deli (Jackie's friends )....it was pretty hilarious.....me had sprawled on the sofa and had 2 black women on either side.......hahhahahaha.....i cd hardly be seen.....:-))))...was planning to spend only 2 hrs there but ended up spending 4 and reached home at 12.....since it was the weekend it was good....

Wanted to watch Viruddh on sat......but once I returned from the market ...just cdnt be bothered to go out again...lazy me...

London has become a bad place for us Asians to live. Having an asian face directly results in people giving u scared and strange looks which is highly irritating, but I guess just like all other changes in life one tends to accept and live with it.

The other day while I was travelling in the tube, it was overcrowded. I got a place to sit and the there were 2 seats next to me which were vacant.Maybe if I wd not have taken the seat people wd hv occupied them, but since I took one of the seats no-one wanted to sit next to me....especially since I was carrying a rucksack.....It was funny when u think of it in hindsight....in eeh middle of a crowded train an asian man sitting all alone on a seat which was meant for 3 people.Anyways, I made use of the empty seats by keeping my rucksack on it which ofcourse got me a number of stares from nearby passengers......

Guess will just get used to it in a couple of days......

Another weekend gone and so starts my wait for the next one.......

On Sunday the weather played truant.....so decided to cancel Mandarin and Yoga and instead watch a movie.....after a lot of thought finally settled down with Alfred Hitchcock's ''Birds''. I remember reading the story a couple of years back and it had scared me and I must say this movie did live up to my expectations. A movie made so long back, but you hardly feel that its such an old film. The trick photography is cool and the birds really give you an ominous feeling with the thought that with all the environmental damage we humans are doing, something like this cd really happen and if nature does turn against mankind.......will there be any hope for mankind inspite of the fact that mankind is considered as one of the most intelligent of species.I like the end particularly as there is no justification given for the bird attack phenomena which leaves one with the thought far after the movie is over.

Another blast......more terror and mayhem......more problems for us innocent Asians who have come to this city to earn an honest living. For the first time today I had guys coming an dtelling me that they were ok to go back offshore.Currently the fear quotient is really high.....and the funny thing is that its the asians who are more worried....and thats not abt being killed by blasts but facing the ostracism from society just because the common white person cannot distinguish between an Indian and a Pakistani.....

Today, I guess the Indian s/w engineer will be more than happy to go back to India.A city like London which has never faced this kind of a situation before, is suddenly sieged with 8 bomb blasts in aperiod of 4 weeks.

Its so amazing woking in a multi-cultural city and company. Was talking over the phone to Divya and was talking in Mallu and there were 4 others talking on the phone at the same time.....one in Nigerian, one in German, one in Russian and the 4th in Italian.......and the funny thing is that it all sounded natural.....:-)))....ofcourse for an outsider this wd be only a cacophony of sounds, since none of teh languages sound remotely familiar...even the phonetics of each langauge are different....Italian sounds so emotional....even the most normal conversation sounds highly dramatic...while German sounds so staid......

Its nice working in a city like London which in my opinion is a cauldron of different cultures.....

Divya feels our baby kicking......its so awful that I am missing on all this....but no use in thinking abt it...makes me all the more depressed.She says baby starts kicking when she is talking to me....so that means baby understands that momma is talking to dada...:-))).....

its such a marvel of nature.....a human being being brought in to the world.....I really want to know what it must feel like to have a life in your stomach...but I guess that privilege is only for a woman to have.....lucky women.....

The feeling of the thought of getting a baby in to the world is indescribable.....the joys of parenthood is unbelievable......the thought of the tiny thing gets a smile to my face.....

All of a sudden Priti sent a mail......it was nice to get a mail from her...brought back old memories of CIT (Priti was my project manager in CIT) and I guess those days when we were one gang of Myself, Priti, Kanchan, Pallu, Rachna, Vimal and Ashwin were real fun. Infact I guess those days were the most funfilled days in KPIT (then CIT). Now ofcourse everyone has split and gone their own ways....so we just hv memories left.

why is it that we always look back on the old days and feel that they were always better than our present days.....(when in reality in those days there was no end to our cribbing). I guess cribbing is apart and parcel of life....:-))

Its become so difficult for me to make a polite conversation just for the sake of making a conversation. I just cannot seem to be bothered to do it. I guess this must be my latent antisocial nature trying to break through the polite demeanour that I generally reserve for acquaintances.

Initially I used to atleast try to be friendly with people whom I dont't instantly like. But now I feel pretences take up too much energy, so I choose the simpler route....Just ignore the person....Yeah I guess at times its rude, but then making polite conversations is worse.

I do not like judging people without knowing them, but more and more I am going by first impressions. If the person doesn't give positive vibes.....well....thats the last time I socialise with him/her.Yeah...postivity has become so important for me....I guess it began after spending 6 months working in a predominantly negative environment. Now its become so easy to ''feel'' the postive energy flowing from a person the first time I meet him/her and I guess I am 90% correct in my judgement.

So I guess that how its gonna be.....no wasting time and energy on people who ain't worth the effort.

Looks like its been proven that the people behind the attacks on London were British born pakistanis. Well....how surprising is that news.

Its so pathetic, that a small minority among the asian community can bring such a stigma to the entire South East Asian community. All of us Asians are frowned upon and looked at suspiciously after these attacks. While getting in to the tube, people give you strange stares ...which is obvious, cos' they cannot distinguish between an Indian or a Pakistani. It is highly irritating, cos' its like combining all Chinese, Japanese and Koreans in to one community.

The other day an asian guy got in to the tube and while it was in motion, he put his hand in to his rucksack and you should hv seen the looks of terror in the eyes of the passengers. Another movement from the poor guy and someone wd hv pulled the emergency alert.

Its actually funny when you view it in a different way......one single guy had the entire carriage staring at him and the terror that he cd ignite in his fellow passengers is actually funny in a sadistic manner.

London back to normal.....must be a blow to the terrorists who targetted London. I am sure they expected to do more damage. But, I guess life just has to move on. Our existence has become so machinised that we cannot stop living just because we are fearful.

Nuthing much happened over the weekend. Saturday was meant for lazing and thats exactly what I did. Sunday had my Chinese class with Helen. I am sure Helen was surprised that I had done so much of reading over the last few weeks. She tells me yesterday that I do hv a natural gift for picking up languages and that I am picking things up real fast. So that gives me motivation to do all the more.

After that went to the Iyengar institute for my yoga session. Boy, it was good. 90 mins of yoga surely drained me......but at the same time was brilliant. So now you know where you can locate me every Sunday. Due to this schedule, Sunday just passes off, but then its fun to be busy doing interesting things.

London is returning back to normal. I am always surprised at the tenacity of human beings in situations like this.Inspite of the horrible blasts yesterday, people still started using the undergrounds and the buses as soon as they became operational.

This kind of an unexpected tragedy makes me think again about the frailty of human lives. You are alive one day.....board the bus to go to work.....and boom....a bomb blast and u are dead.

How many of us forget to live our lives when we have it and postphone ''living'' for another day. Everyday we have excuses of work, stress etc. to avoid enjoying the simple pleasures of life. These tragedies make my resolve stronger to savour each moment like there will not be another moment.Ofcourse its a tall order, but atleast am trying to do everything that I hv always wanted to do. Never know whether tomorrow will ever come.

Blasts in London......what a timing...just when all Londoners (shdn't say all....but a lot) are celebrating winning the Olympic bid, this happens.

Its at timeslike this that u realise that whatever the security, when a thing like this happens, its all chaos and thats exactly how it is here today. All bus and train services suspended....I fail to understand how the guys will be going back home today. Heard that some offices are making arrangements for ppl to stayback in the office tonight. Hopefully things get better soon.

It does seem very well coordinated but asof now no-one has come forward taking responsibility for the blasts.Can only be some losers who think of killing innocent people to prove a point ...not that they ever prove anything.

Am reading a book Extraordinary Minds.....pretty interesting. Talks abt the profiles of extraordinary people like Virginia Woolf, Gandhi, Mozart and a few more. It classifies these people as Masters (Mozart since he mastered his domain which was music), Makers (Freud who created the domain of Psychoanalysis), Introspectors(Woolf who tried to delve deeper in to her mind and subconscious ) and Influencers (Gandhi who influenced people with his ideologies).

Have just started it.....so will write more later.

London has won the Olympic bid. Well it was a nail biting finale.....yesterday all the tv channels were only talking about the bid results and how close a race it is between Paris and London. Considering the fact that London was not a favourite last year this is highly commendable and also considering the fact that this was Paris' 3rd time bid.

During such competetion one can actually see the intensity of the rivalry between the Brits and the French.Some ppl just wanted London to win to spite the French which was so funny.Ofcourse they do have a historic rivalry, but it gets swept under the surface normally and comes out with full vigour during such competetions.

Whatever the case, London has an opportunity to host a great show and they shd make full use of this opportunity. Thousands of jobs will be created which shd be good for the economy.

House leak repaired...yahoooooooooooooooo....was sucha relief to go back to a dry kitchen....:-)))) I was thrilled......

House is leaking in the kitchen...and its a blooody pain......hv to wipe out the water every morning and evening and I am irritated....have been calling up the agent but nothings happened other than false promises......so am just praying that it gets sorted out today atleast....believe me its bad staying in a damp house.....and if this guy doesnt sort this out am planning to change houses.....

Finally the women's semifinal.....Sharapova vs Venus and Lindsay vs Amelie......well.....now whom do i cheer for....looks like the final is going to be between Sharapova and Lindsay.....however much I do not want Sharapova to win this time, she is adamn good player....and has all chances of winning...but then in tennis you can never say...maybe Venus will have a great day and will play well......lets wait and watch.....

Some snaps.......when we visited Uppi at Bournemouth
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/cracksui_2/album?.dir=5d5a&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos

Wow.....Lindsay and Venus have reached the semifinals......this is cool....this will be a semifinal to watch......lets see how they pair the players....hope it is Sharapova against Venus and Lindsay against Amelie......thats will be fun......

Mauresmo has entered the semi finals.......I reallly wanted Kim Clijsters to win this Wimbledon...but now she is out.....so I cannot decide between, Mauresmo, Venus or Lindsay......
Have a feeling that Sharapova will win....but somehow my liking for her has reduced....and now I dont want her to win......but she has been playing well.....but then in tennis u never know...anything cd happen....

Well finally I have decided...I want Mauresmo to win....as she has never won a Grand Slam.....and she really deserves to win....she has been consistent all these years.....and plays great tennis.....

Here I am after a long hiatus (well not too long ...just a couple of weeks).
Now let me think what has happened over the last few days......the first thing that springs to my mind is Wimbledon.......Paggy had been to my place for Wimbledon....he arrived around 11....and had me worried abt the number of hrs of sleep that we 'd get before we take the train to Wimbledon and as expected we got @2 hrs of sleep. Reached Wimbledon at 5:30 am....and started our walk to join the queue....and bow it was some queue.....while we were walking, saw a familiar figure looking all lost and dishevelled and it was Uppi.....bot of us recognised each other at the same time and she told me to rush down and join the queue as the line was only getting longer......finally we got into the grounds at 10 and very smartly both me and paggy asked the guy at the counter whether we cd get Centre Court tickets......he gives us a disgusted look and tells us that if u wanted Centre Court u shd hv joined the queue at 4 the previous afternoon.....well.....i really wanted Centre Court, but not so much that I wd queue for 20 hrs.....So we had to settle for ground tickets.....
the first match we saw was the doubles of Leander and Zimonjic(pronounce Zimonic....gawd knows why the ''j'').....all of us were cheering and Leander was enjoyin the attention.....of his desis....:-)).....In between we felt that they wd lose but ultimately they won.....and it was agood start to the day.....
Then we went on to see another doubles match .....the pairing was weird.....Svetlana Kuznetsova and Amelie Mauresmo against 2 unknowns.......boy o boy......these women are so athletic.....its not a wonder that they are ranked as No5 and No3.Sania will reallly need to work hard on herself physically if she wants to reach this league.......Well at the start of the match I told parag that I expect a 6-0 , 6-0 result and funnily the result was not very different......I think it was 6-1, 6-2.....ofcours ethese were points which the duo just granted to the opponents to make the match a bit less embarassing to them. Anyways....that was a one sided match....but watching thes eplayers play.....was apleasure....
Finally the match that we wante dto watch......another doubles...Sania and S Aspelin playing against 2 ppl whom I hvnt heard of.When the game started there were not many Indians around.....but as soon as word got around abt Sania Mirza......ppl started flocking the court and before long it was jam packed.The matchw as good....and Sania does play pretty well......justa little bit of improvement and she will give the rest of the players a run for teir money.....The support that she had from the spectators was amazing.....there were chants of ''Bharat mata ki Jai'' which was so funny that she herself cd npot stop laughing......during one of the rest periods...her partner was asking her to explain to him what the ppl were chanting.......and he too was all smiles......Even the umpire was smiling looking at the support.....Anywyas to make a long story short....they won the match ...which was good.....after all the support that we gave her....:-)))
We got back home at around 10....and boy were we knackered.....just made soem curd rice and crashed......
I visited Wimbledon last yr too......but its always a great experience ....there is so much excitement in the air......and its an absolute great feeling when someone whom you want to win actually wins.....now I can understand the craze of football fans here....
In all a great day.....and I wd surely want to do it again next yr...if I am still around here in London....

Just missed Divya being here.......she wanted so much to be here.....but unfortunately....if wishes were horses...... well....TT...no probs if we are here next yr.....will take u there......:-))

Have got a few snaps......will post them later....

Some snaps of my trip to Budapest
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/cracksui_2/album?.dir=/32fc&.src=ph&.tok=ph2tYKDBmGrGbAqi

Have started Mandarin a few weeks back.Will be starting classes in July.Its fun to learn a new language especially a language which has absolutely no connection to English. I find the script beautiful. It is complex, but then thats the beauty of it.Am currently doing it from the Pimsleur CDs that Jeremy gave me. It is pretty comprehensive.
Also am starting attending Iyengar yoga from this week. I have been doing yoga for sme time now, but hv never taken professional help. So thought abt attending a few classes so that I know for sure that I am doing it correctly.It starts on Sunday.....so now my weekends are gonna be pretty busy....

m so looking fwd to the weekend......Now I can understand why ppl abroad say that they live for the weekend.
Its not that I am doing anything extra special....just that I need these 2 days to recuperate from the pits of boredom that I get into from Monday to Friday and its really not funny.....I know its awful and the only rs why I am sticking around here is for the money....Half the ppl whom I hv to deal with suck...they dont know what to do....and still they feel that they are doing the right thing...Professional ethics...well less said the better..ppl here dont know what professional means....forget abt ethics...The Brits really dont know that word....they are as slimy as slimy can be....but if u can work in Britain....I think u can work abt anywhere...nothing can be as bad as working in Britain....
Its not that there is nthing good in my work here.....there are ppl whom I can work with well....ppl like Jackie, Jeremy etc ....and funnily they aint British...Jackie is Carribean, Jeremy is Australian....and both of them share my views abt the Brits....
Just today I was telling one of the guys here that one doesnt need an Engg or an MBA degree to work here....all u need is an MA in Politics......rather a PHD in Politics.....

Its funny how an upbeat song can lift your spirits on a dreary day. I hv made it a point to listen to dance numbers on my way to office. By the time I reach office I am in a pepped up mood. Even if the songs are trash the music lifts my moods. Today was listening to songs from Kaal (Kaal Dhamaal), Bunty aur Bubly and the Yeh Fizaaen song from Main Hoon na.....Cdnt help my feet from tapping throughout the journey.....

Budapest part 2....tomorrow.....

Yesterday, watched this program on television which was the story of this highly ambitious woman who cd not spare any time from her busy schedule to indulge in life's pleasures since it was always ''we can do it later...when we hv earned enough money and have enough time''. Suddenly when she feels that she has earned enough money and that she has achieved her dream, she is diagnised with cancer and she is told that she just has 20% chance of living.That's when she tells her husband '' Why do we always postphone all the stuff that we want to do. We always feel that we will have enough time in the future to do all the suff that we enjoy and suddenly one day we realise that life has passed us by and we dont have time anymore''.Its such a profound statement from which, I guess, all of us should learn. We just allow life to pass us and forget to enjoy the small pleasures thinking that some big pleasure is waiting for us somewhere.....but is there anything like ''Future''.....its so abstract and we forget abt the present moments and live for that ....isn't it sad.....I know its not a revelation, but hearing it reallly made me think abt everything that I have always wante dto do, but hv postphoned due to time pressures, laziness, etc etc. But now, I have decided, I will do everything that I want to do......thinking that I may come under a bus tomorrow.

Had been to Budapest last weekend. Had been for 3 days with Jeremy.
Part 1
Its a nice city, though still has a communistic feel since it was liberated only in 1989 from the Soviet rule. So, you see a lot of Russsian influence on architecture, food, clothes etc. The city is divided in to 2 parts Buda and Pest separated by the river Danube.The Danube is the longest river in Europe after the Volga and Has 9 cities on its banks.The whole city has grown along the banks and all the monuments are visible standing on the banks of the river.
The two parts of the City are connected by a number of bridges.There is an island in between the river called I guess Margaret Island....dont ask me why....but its a beautiful green island. Has a musical fountain which dances along Beethoven's tunes, a state of art sports complex a beautiful park which has trees 100s of years old.The highlight in Pest was the Parliament bldg which is an ultimate example of baroque and gothic architecture. You will never realsie that its a parliamnet house....it looks like agothic cathedral.....the work is so intricately done.The views of the Parliament house from the various bridges is a picture which u can see in a number of postcards.
Pest is very commercialised and built on the plains. The buildings are all huge and imposing with dark lanes in between which give the city a very ominous feel.Due to years of negligence during the soviet rule,most of the buildings are covered with soot and are in need of repairs.Being in Pest you dont feel like as if you are in a developed European country, it does give you the feel of being in a 3rd world nation.Buda on the other hand is a stark contrast. Its built on the hills and is extremely picturesque and beautiful.Ofcourse the rich and famous stay on the Buda side of the city.

Here I am again....after a long break. Well, it wasn't anything specific, but I just cdn't be bothered to write. I know its lazy of me.....but then again when you are just wrting for yourself and not for anyone else, you can afford to be lazy ..right.....

There has been so much happening in my life.....that I cannot even remember half of the stuff...so will just try to capture everything that has been etched in my memory since teh last few months.....

Firstly....I am gonna be a Dad......now me cant still believe that....but yeah its true and I cant describe the feelings.....its too deep to be put into words....the very thought of creating a new life is such a marvel of nature...if this is what I am feeling now, I don't know what will happen when I actually see my kiddo.......am so excited.....
Divs is back home.....well it was a tough decision whether she shd stay here or go back....but then the pros of delivering a baby at home were too many.....so reluctantly Divs went back...and here I am a bachelor again.....