“Out”ing

It was cold Friday morning that was eventually suppose to get brighter with our team going for an outing at the “paintball arena” situated on the Bannerghatta road. I had the breakfast at the office cafe (Manjus!) for the first time in “how-many-ever” years. Well, that fact deserves a special mention because that “made” my day. Within a few minutes, I knew my stomach was upset and in some time I started feeling my head was overweight.

At around 12:45pm, we finally started from office. 2 cars and 7 people began their journey. It must have been about 25-30kms from our office. The cars crawled through most part of the journey as if we were part of the Republic Day convoy and occasionally there were a few short hustles. By 2pm, we arrived at the resort where the lunch was arranged. 4 other team members joined us there. Obviously given the situation I was in, I just had a few spoons of rice. We moved to check out the amenities the resort had to offer us. There was a sports room with table tennis, carom and chess boards. We spent some time there and by 3:45pm we headed to the paintball arena.

It took us about 10 minutes to reach the paintball arena. It is just a barren land situated in the far outskirts of the city, put into use for the game called paintball. The per head cost of the game was about Rs. 750/-. You get to play 3 games and they give you 10 bullets per game. We split ourselves into 2 teams, one with 6 people and another with 5. The games got over pretty soon.  It was good fun. But I believe the fun would have been manifold had it been like a computer assault games (like Mohaa), consisting of a little more complicated terrain. It would have been great had the teams not able to sight their enemies easily, had it been easy to see what’s going on in the enemy’s camp, had there been more people in each of the teams. Nevertheless, as I said, it was good fun.

After the paintball, we came back to the resort, spent some more time at the sports room. A few others in the team chose to relax in the swimming pool. We had some coffee and by about 6-6:30pm we started on our way back to office. By about 8pm we reached office, the journey was really frustrating since the roads were jam packed in the so called peak hours.

My head was spinning by the time I returned home. I could not enjoy much, but yes paintball is something one should try out. As I hit the bed, I was glad that I got a chance to play such a game!

What a start!

While most people in the rest of the world were partying hard, eagerly welcoming the new year of ’09, I was locked up in my room, all lights turned off and deeply sunken in the movie  “Gran Torino”. This movie is rated #192 in IMDB and now I know why! Clint Eastwood is at his sublime best, playing an angry old man. I can probably describe his performance with an endless list of adjectives, but I’m pretty sure I’d still have not done justice to his character. I’d love to see this performance fetch him the Oscar. The movie is well paced, quite funny at times, emotional at some other times, filled with bold dialogs, all in all,  it just has the right mix of all the necessary ingradients. I want to re-emphasize that Clint Eastwood’s performance is so conspicous that it leaves the the rest of the characters almost dwindled. I just got “high” watching that movie! 30 minutes into the new year, I was done with the movie, and boy what an ending!  I was enthralled after watching this movie, and I guess I couldn’t have watched it at any better time. I entered the new year watching this movie and I’m more than happy with the way I celebrated the new year!

It did not stop there! I watched “Slumdog millionaire” this evening. This one is rated #68 in IMDB. The movie is beautifully crafted. It is a romantic movie, but it is so unlike the rest of the romantic movies. It is about a kid from the slums of bombay falling in love with a girl and becoming a millionaire enroute finding his lost love!! I really liked the way, the questions asked in the television show (kaun banega crorepati) were linked to the life of that growing kid. The performance by individual actors is very natural and fitting, although many of them were debutants. The movie is already making a buzz at many award ceremonies! No great plots in the story line, yet touches on so many aspects of life: it is about not giving up hope, about following one’s heart, about true love, to quote a few. It is a feel good movie and I found it refreshingly different and  marvellously inspirational !!

I think I’ve just got the right kind of a start for the new year! One would ask, how much difference does a movie make to real life? After all a movie is a movie. Well,  from my experience, I can only say that it depends on how much you can relate to it and how much you are willing to take away from it!

Yesterdays

It is hard to believe that just 3 days are left in this year. I look back and exclaim “what a life?”. Sometimes, I feel there’s just not enough time to do what you really want to do. But my inner self thoroughly disagrees with that belief. It always believes that you’d never run out of time to do what you really want to do. You’d make time if you really wanted to do something that you’re passionate about.

Memories of yesterdays flash by, and I feel it has just been another somber year! No doubt, it has been an eventful year. There have been happier times, but there have been far too many events that have left me feel like a helpless boat caught in a gushing stream of water!!

It has been almost 8 weeks since I incurred a ligament tear in my ankle. Although software engineer by profession, I’m a sports freak and such an injury has left me unfit to play outdoors. Missing sports is a suffocating experience, and I probably can’t describe it in words.

As the year ends, most people are in a holiday mood. But I happen to be a loser who’s busy and stuck up with some work. It is unfortunate and makes me recollect a story that I once came across. Here it is verbatim:

“An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing. A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, “Can I also sit like you and do nothing?”
The eagle answered: “Sure , why not.”
So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested. All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.
Moral of the story:    To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.

…and I realize, oh yes, I’m still a rabbit!! I’m left wanting to be an eagle, but that seems more of a hope than an expectation.

There were a few other strong winds that left this tree bereft of its leaves(and probably the root too!) All in all, I should say, I’m going down on a low note. Nevertheless, there’s still hope and there’s still a will to fight hard. So as the new year knocks on the door, I’m getting ready for the journey saying to myself “Only the journey is defined, not the destiny!!”

Bravo bravo!

Once upon a time, long back in history the 2 ninjas: the setup ninja(now called the bus ninja!) and the store ninja, won free gold class tickets for rescuing the world by killing hundreds of notorious bugs!! That was long time back, and those tickets were valid only till 31st of December ’08. So the ninjas planned to watch a good movie along with 2 other ninjas! Enter pifs ninja and perf ninja!!! The ninjas spent years researching and finalizing the movie they’d watch. Ninjas fear nothing and this attitude was very much reflected in the final decision they took! They risked their life and decided to watch “Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi”.

18/12/2008, at about 9:30pm, the ninjas entered the theatre that could easily house 200 people, but there was just no else in the theatre!!! Inspired by this act of the ninjas,  a few others did manage to gather courage and enter the theatre. Finally the movie started off, and the head count was about 20, including the ninjas. The starting screen in itself pretty much summarized what was in store. The movie started off with a screen clearly showing the emergency exits! Ninjas did enjoy the movie thanks to Suri! There was comparison of “reel Suri” with “real Suri”, every time Suri flashed on the screen. The movie was just a collection of cliched scenes and there was hardly anything new. And much to the ninjas’ chagrin, the AC in the theatre was turned off and also the leg space was very bad. Most of the scenes in the movie were in the corridor of uncertainity, one wouldn’t know whether to laugh or cry! We trusted our instincts most of the times and in case we were in doubt, we chose to laugh.

I, the bus nijna, just felt that the movie was anachronic. I couldn’t decide on whether we moved back in time or the movie moved forward in time.  I couldn’t believe it was all happening to me. Perhaps it was the gracious presence of the Bangalore beauty, Anushka Sharma that saved all our lives!

All the ninjas finally walked out of the theatre, all in one piece!!!  And there was just one thought in our minds: We’ve perhaps passed the toughest test our lives had to offer. But nevertheless, that experience has instilled an incredible sense of self confidence in us and now we truly believe that “Impossible is nothing”!!

Hello world!

Hello World!!

Here’s my second attempt at blogging! I’ve failed so miserably in my first try that I’ve even forgotten my user name and password. So here I am, should I say with a revived and resurrected spirit, promising my soul of making another honest attempt.