Jayabala! Beautiful name. The picture in her Orkut profile was much better than any of the girls studied with me in my engineering batch. She had a nice smile, and a Barbie girl figure. But why me? Why is this beauty contest girl sending me a friend’s request in Orkut? The question mark in my mind faded away as soon as I checked out Common Friends. There were three of my folks from my engineering classes. OK, must be one of the faces I missed in the college.
Hey, that could not be, I am pretty sure I could not have missed such a face even in the Mumbai CST crowd. Well, one of those who kept low during studies and got bored with an early marriage, trying to get back in touch with those she wanted to hang around with, when she was in college. I could not spend a couple of beats from my born-friendly heart in the direction of saving her universe. Jayabala got in to my friends list on Mar ##, 2009.
Nothing much happened between our Orkut avatars for a month, other than my “Hi, how are you” once or twice a week, wishing to get in close to her and may be get her phone number, all of which were promptly ignored apart from her wishing for my long living self to be in earth for another century on my birthday, which ended up in just an exhausted “Thanks dear” from me. (Long gasps-somehow I gathered that people who can write long sentences and still manage to not get any red underlines in word are considered to be pretty talented in various activities such as mountain climbing and horse riding.) She reciprocated asking if I knew where one of my classmates (Our Batch mate?) was, which made me jealous. I reluctantly gave his whereabouts hoping that he has moved from that place before BC 230 and that place do not have Phone connection, railway station, adequate food supply or even Orkut/Gmail services. Believe me; we do have Orkutters even in those areas where they have not sold Nirma washing powder yet. Well, when I went in her profile to wish her “Happy Birthday” on Aug ##, 2009; I noticed most of my Engineering classmates were in her friend’s list. Surprisingly, one of my friend from my Pre-Degree class was also in her profile, I wondered how they knew each other.
It was in Oct 2009 that I remembered her id, because it was my pre degree friend’s Birthday, who was added in her profile. He was still as popular a person in the world as what I was during my pre degree years and must have been happy with the huge and noticeable Orkut friends-count of 27. I scanned through his friends and noticed that Jayabala was not there in his list anymore. Another interesting update was that there was a new Kishuak in our ‘Mutual Friend’s’ List. I wondered where I have seen him before. But you know how it feels like to indulge in forensics when you are watching Friends -the serial, I left it there.
I checked Kishuak’s Orkut id next week and was quite impressed. He had 438 friends compared with my 146. We had 87 mutual friends and most of his friends were good looking girls. There wasn’t any community he was not interested in and his testimonials ran down 5 pages. Interestingly, his scrap book was almost empty. Rather, it looked like a regularly cleaned up one. Most of them were “Hi”-s and “Thanks”-s for his Birthday wishes. Many of my friends have sent him their “Thanks”-s and “Love”-s and stuff, but no one seemed to have left a close personal note. One of the scraps captured my attention, of course, the tag picture was cute. It said “Please pick the phone or scrap me back…. I am really scared…”. It was from a very pretty girl and naturally interested, I went in to her profile. She had most of her pages hidden, but it was easy to figure out that she worked in UAE working as a nurse there and was from a village in Kerala.
Interested, I went back to Ikshuak’s profile and checked a few of his scrap book pages for any other scrap from her. Nothing!. I came back to check the scrap I noticed again. It was gone. Kishuak must have done it in the past couple of minutes. He was not online. Either he logged in and out in these 3 minutes or was hiding himself….What the heck? Who is he? What did he do to that girl?
I called my roommate, who has been with me ever since engineering, also added in Ikshuak’s friends list. I asked him if he knew Ikshuak. He did not. Bloody idiot has even written a testimonial to Ikshauk (with a Best Friend Ever!! Made with dolls…) and did not have a clue where this chap popped up from. I asked him if he had a friend by name Jayabala. He had. And now she was out of his friends list too…voila!!.
I called up a couple of other friends who were in Ikshouk’s and my Mutual Friends list. None knew him. All of them were close friends of jayabala their respective diverse backgrounds and none had any clue who she really was. All of them have Ikshouk in their friend’s list now and they did not know how he got in there. Again Voila!!.
This Engineering college friend of ours who just underwent a sex-transformation operation, entirely in Orkut, arrested my whole interested for the rest of the day, last week of Oct 2009. The scrap I saw in his (now she is a he for the rest of the movie) scrapbook disturbed me to the core. I somehow felt that I helped this rascal in gaining a false engineering degree which he definitely did not put to use to help earthquake victims of Haiti. I did not know what to do and how to track him down. Well, I tried…
Social engineering is the easiest one to pass in the era of social-network society. It took me 15 minutes to create a new ID, with a girl’s name and get a few of my engineering friends added as her friends. She-Me was looking for hanging around with techie brainy engineering folks around the globe. It took another 27 hours for me to get in to Ikshouk’s friends list and exchange a couple of ‘hi-how are you-who are you’-s. Me-She gave away my personal mail id with some reluctance and his photos poured in from his engineering times, all from railway stations and coffee shops. He wrote in detail about his (our!!) college hostel, how nice the canteen food was (I have had it buddy!!) the professors and so on. He even knew a couple of real names of our professors. She-Me struggled to explain to him what I did in my nursing days and stuff. Well, he was more interested in getting my phone number anyway. It is to be mentioned that Ikshouk was very careful about deleting my scraps in his scrapbook as well as mine in his. He told me a story about this habit of his which would have been rather ‘cute’ to a girl.
After pushing the emails to some confirmable limit; She-Me agreed to exchange phone numbers. One condition though. I (She) need to meet Ikshouk in person and have a coffee together. If I like the evening, I will be ready for the phone number exchange. Ikshouk was confident about the whole game and readily agreed. We were supposed to meet in coming Saturday at a CCD nearby. I arranged a few of my engineering friends to meet this guy there and one of my girl-friends to help us. One of these friends informed his uncle in police about all this, just in case. We were not exactly sure what we are up to, but we were pretty sure that we will force him to log in to his Orkut and confess to all the girls in his friends list about his false identity, change his Orkut profile for ever or something like that. We guessed that it will be easy to figure out with a guy when we see him in person.
Disaster came on Friday, proving that all engineers cannot pass social engineering.. One of the very few of my circle who helped me to get a girl’s identity was not properly updated about the story so far. He scrapped I-She something like this. “Hey dude! Did you find him?”
Well, he never came on Saturday. Next day his profile was gone. Clean. One engineer left the Orkut-Earth so quietly that there is now no way anyone can ever reach him. I tried to talk to a couple of girls from his friends’ list that I have noticed but they did not cooperate. Where is he now? We all knew what he was up to. We could not accept the fact that he so easily escaped our trap we built in a month. It was more horrifying to believe that it will not take more than a couple of days for him to create another id in another name and get in to another educated circle. More girls will be cheated. He will dissolve in to thin air again, only to procure another identity in another week.
So is this Blog, my friends – if you have passed mechanics in your third semester at least in the 20th attempt, you will understand how severe this issue can be. Let me declare this, we do have a problem here. We could cause pain and suffering to gullible girls out there by simply being UNAWARE. Please don’t be. Social networking sites are good, but not in the absolute sense. They have their dark side too. You are acting as a Fake Passport maker when you click on that add as a friend request. When you do that, please make sure that you know what you are doing. Please watch those people in your Orkut profile about who you do not know much. If possible, don’t let them get in to their circle at all.
One of my friends shared some of the saddest things possible in these lines to me a month back, for the first time. I was shocked to see four of them in my profile itself. We declared war against FAKEs then. When we come across anyone who uses any kind of false identity we watch him/her. We notify others. We are not doing anything much, but who knows? If we don’t do even that, someone somewhere might suffer because of a single mouse click that I /You make. We have a few others also, who have understood the seriousness of the matter and do their bit like us.
Please note; whatever can happen in Orkut can happen in Facebook or any other social networking sites.
Please join us folks, just consider the case and believe me this IS happening. When you get a friend’s request try to see what the person is up to. If you doubt foul-play, remove him from your address book and notify others. Big deal!
All the characters in the above story are fictitious. For those who might have offended with the names I have used, those are three of my roommates, Jayakumar, Balachandra and Kaushik. All nice and neat folks. Any Jayabala or Ikshouk out there, please bear with me. Lot of thanks to all of you and Limnesh in particular, who opened my eyes in this direction.
BEWARE!!! and take care folks! With love, Praharsh.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
A tribute to Orkut FAKEs...
Saturday, November 17, 2007
I got my ticket !!
Well, in US, speeding is worth more than 50 bucks as what we have in India. It's usually 200$ may be they will cancel your license and you will never be able to drive again. I love driving fast and am - in general - fast. If I love something, I do it, the rules in the books are for the average man and I am not exactly in that category in terms of speed behind the wheel. Never have I got caught for speeding till last week, when we had our Mount Rushmore trip. The story is short, so I will have to enengthen it.
Actors.
I, Abhishek, Mushir, Vinay and last but the most (In terms of weight), Kanchan. I am the hero of the story, Abhishek being the only other qualified driver and the story being of speeing, due to lack of qualification is rejected to be antihero, he is just a supporting actor. Mushir, with his '5 cm - across' physic, helped all of us to travel in the smallest car possible for 5 people to travel in a managable comfort, damped by the combined effect of the tummy Vinay has gardened over the months in US and Kanchan, at her full demand of three dimentions and Oxygen for four. Vinay is the spirit of the team and cheers up himself when everyone else is in extreme lethargy and when he does, takes a few dancing steps which he do not plan to patent as no on can ever imitate them, and everyone else gets knocked up again. His body language, clubbed with his long never-cut nails is extremely dangerous to the audience and is one of the scariest things in the world for the hero, second only to the taste of offsprings of hero's own cullinery skills.
Plot.
We chose a few places in South Dekota to spend our weekend in. Kanchan did most of the planning and two third of the places we visited were closed before we reached there. Exertion of her precious office time, which, given any other conditions, she would utilize to leverage the free phone facility provided by the company to disturb her boyfriend Abhishek, served us little purpose, but for a few printouts which never took us anywhere. Of course, we came to know about a few places and as history has proven in the case of any of the other four gentlemen, none would have ever moved a finger to do even half of what she did.
Pulling the job
The drive was long. 9 hours from our dwell. Two drivers, Abhishek and the hero. Abhishek was rolling the wheels first, Kanchan acting as the navigator. Navigator is a special post, front seet, along with the driver. Responsibilities are giving precious directions to the driver, passing on chips, coca cola, thoughtless instructions etc. from the back seat to the driver and watch the traffic and finally the most important of all - watch out for the police. Kanchan did the job well, eating all the chips we had and drinking all the cola we had and ignoring all the comments from the less previlaged backseat. After some long hours of drive, in the pursuit, making all in the backseat fall asleep ( intermittently waking up and wondering if we are in the reverse gear)it was quite dark and we were all tired. We had food, bad old McDowell's of course, and then hero, took over the wheels. (Greate background music and chorus sings a sad song).
I am fast by nature. Sometimes to some extreme stupid levels. Here in US, if you go beyond speed limit you will get a ticket, there will be some fine - usully some 250 $ and if your crime is severe like ignoring a red signal, they might even cancel your license. going beyong 100 is a big offence and i dont offend people. The speed limit in freeways usually is 60 to 70 and I usually keep the box rolling at something less than 100 and greater than 70. Mostly 97 - 98, to be more precise. Mushir was given the honour of taking the navigator post and was happy to escape from the back seat.( Now Kanchan ha occupied half of the backseat and Vinay's tummy ate the other half. Abhishek, poor buddy is struggling to claim at least his share of oxygen back there. )
The drive was tiring. it was night, the continuous row of vehicles on the other side was draining off my eyes and i started repenting calling Abhishek names about driving too slow. I kept the dial hit by 95 plus and Mushir was very vigilant and did his job well. We kept changing the lines every now and then, passing over other slow moving losers. Police did not show up too often and we have already learned how to read signs from the traffic about their presense. Usually all the vehicles goes some 5-10 % above the speed limit on the boards, which is considered acceptible. But if a single police car is in the vicinity all the traffic comes down to the atcual book value, in such a short time, with such a precision as to beat the most advanced scientific measurement techniques. This change can be felt for some time even after the police car leaves or takes a turn and joins the other side of the traffic. Everyone knows how this works, and everone uses these tips. The police folks must be doing this themselfs when they are outside their uniforms. But once inside it, they are all idiots.
Then we drove through another national park in the evening , a dense forest and we saw many wild animals. (many here means a few deers and rabbits). We saw many huts on the way. Muhsir and Vinay, having seen some stupid movie (from their references to it, I guess it was a horror movie or a comedy - name was 30 days of night or the same lengh of time of light or something else) were continuously searching for draculla, satan, and other demons in those huts. Strengtened by holy knowledge, that these species uaually have only blood for meals and confident of the scarsity of blood in his body, Mushir was very much keen on meeting one and may be having a good evening time filler live show, of that thing feasting on one of the rest of the folk's neck. Vinay was pretty sure that no draculla will survive for seconds after even smelling his blood and was also dreaming in the similar lines. I was keen on blood donation and wanted to befriend one of these - I have heard that the female vampires believes in free sex world - just for timepass. Well nothing happend. Next day's major attraction was Jewel cave world's longest cave. Second longest one now, as its not explored even to 10% of it's real size but some jobless Germans last year came and looking at the way these caves breaths in and out decided that there is 9 times as much still remaining, unexplored in it. Another spot, Crazy Horse, was really crazy in Vinay's anouncement. One family is moving sand from a hill to make it look like one native indian warchiefs. They have moved millions of tons of rock till now and have successfully carved the face of this person which looks similar to his drowing in a local store below, as both are not anything anyone will call beautiful. He was a hero of the locals and died fighting aginst the whites and passed away in warfield, stabbed from behind. The Indians decided that it is a wonderful idea to create a monument for him, like nothign else anywhere else and someone came with this idea of changing an entire hill to look like this chap sitting on a horse. The 5 presidents in the Mound Rushmore together will be of lesser size than this folk's ear. May be it will be more famous in future when it's more out from the rocks, that is not going to happen in at least a few lifetimes anyway. Last sopt, Badlands, was really bad, offering nothing other than weired sand structures, may be a hiker's paradise but none of us were in mood for hiking that day. Still the facts about it that we listened to in movie there, in the receiving office was nice and attractive. It was about how life grows in the dry lands, and how does the animals and palnts save themselves from the sun etc..
I forgot to mention about our hotel room. It was big enough to play hide and seek. We had TV, Fridge, locker, heater, coffee maker.. well everything, and the rent was only 40$ per day. With it came complimentary breakfast for all which alone would have been 50 otherwise. Even the lady at the counter was nice and cute.
Two days and we were on our way back. It was a nice trip as for a conclusion. Abhishek drove for sometime in his 'tending to maximum' mathematical derivative speeds almost getting a negative value for the second derivative - in short - was keeping up with the speed limit of 60. Every old men and women that drove on that road with us went ahead of us, many pumping their heads outside to make sure that people in our car were alive as the car, measureing the comparitive speeds was almost dead for them. even the wild looking oaks that feasted on the rich grass, sometimes gave us thoughts that we have seen the same one before and may be it just happend to go for a jogging or something and overtook us in the effort. Then, as per the public demand for fast life was approved by abhishek, I again took over the fifth wheel after food.
Well, for at least 3 hours I kept it rolling in 99-98, gaining a remarkable 1 mile over my usual upper and lower limits. Mushir Ahmed was the self appointed navigator with full public support. He did the best job ever, employing all his senses for one sole purpose which he at that time considered as the sole purpose of his life - to watch out for cops. He saw them before anyone else, he heard their sirons before anyone else and he was continuously trying to smell them in the air, chocking in the process due to insuficient respiration. The read was mostly long and straight, bending at lengths sometimes, and driving at 100 was fun. We had music, chips and
thoughtless jokes during this time.
In three hours we have covered more than half of the 550 mile stretch. Abhishek took over as I was tired and Mushir needed to rest. The boring stroll continued till we reached the corn palace. And it was there that I got my long deserved ticket - for speeding.
It was not fun. The corn palace is a two store building with all the walls, doors and everything make of corn. It was nice from outside that that is all that we ever learned about it - It was closed. We could not go in. a few more photos and we went back to the car, again the responsible me took the wheel in hand and Mushir volenteered to look out for cops. Vinay, bored so far in the backseat came forward for a seat exchange and was promoted to the navigator's seat.
He started his career like a 10 year experienced and started giving expert comments without delay. I have to mention, he has a greate sense of direction and has always been a reference point for reaching a place. First of his suggestion was to roam around in corn city downdown (It was not even a town) and take a rather winding road to get our way back. I half-mindedly agreed -mostly because i wanted to get back to the 70m/h freeway asap. We went for it anyway and it happend just a few blocks down. The road declined in a close to tan Pi by 2 angle and the speed limit was 30. The car, , even though we have travelled so far so fast, just like an indian newly married girl walks into the bathroom with the vegitable bag, taking it for the kitchen,being new and still not used to my rough stampings on the gas pedal that i usually discusses with my 10 year honda, catalysed by the decline went a little above 35. Well, cops pops up from anywhere in us, perticularly you have vinay as your navigator. I have been stopped and questioned three times already when he was my navigator. This time what made teh plot more funny was that the police did not hide or anything they were just waiting there for us and then say us and they caught us. That was a complete disaster in Vinay's career as a navigator even though he never accepted it. I say flashing lights behind me and pulled over , one officer walked over and asked for my license, i told him that it is in my pocket and asked if i can get it, e gave me permission and i fetched it and he took it and went back to his car and took another 5 minutes to turn up and asked me a few more questions and and and ... well, simply gave me a ticket for violating a huge stuff in amarican law.
i was happy that i did not see any thing like murder in the ticket. 35 Miles!! imagine i have went below 40 miles when it was a pressing reason like a read sign or the cops in a 30 mile road. I was so disappointed, maily because i felt berated and even considered telling the officer that i had already crossed 100 m/h 17.68 times in the last 184.87 minutes and asking him to give me a ticket for that. I would have proud to show someone my ticket then. but look at this ?!! 35 miles per hour and law says i am too young for that? For a moment I thought no one will ever marry for at least 3 lifes from now..
That was embarassing. But still , I got it at last. My ticket!
Actors.
I, Abhishek, Mushir, Vinay and last but the most (In terms of weight), Kanchan. I am the hero of the story, Abhishek being the only other qualified driver and the story being of speeing, due to lack of qualification is rejected to be antihero, he is just a supporting actor. Mushir, with his '5 cm - across' physic, helped all of us to travel in the smallest car possible for 5 people to travel in a managable comfort, damped by the combined effect of the tummy Vinay has gardened over the months in US and Kanchan, at her full demand of three dimentions and Oxygen for four. Vinay is the spirit of the team and cheers up himself when everyone else is in extreme lethargy and when he does, takes a few dancing steps which he do not plan to patent as no on can ever imitate them, and everyone else gets knocked up again. His body language, clubbed with his long never-cut nails is extremely dangerous to the audience and is one of the scariest things in the world for the hero, second only to the taste of offsprings of hero's own cullinery skills.
Plot.
We chose a few places in South Dekota to spend our weekend in. Kanchan did most of the planning and two third of the places we visited were closed before we reached there. Exertion of her precious office time, which, given any other conditions, she would utilize to leverage the free phone facility provided by the company to disturb her boyfriend Abhishek, served us little purpose, but for a few printouts which never took us anywhere. Of course, we came to know about a few places and as history has proven in the case of any of the other four gentlemen, none would have ever moved a finger to do even half of what she did.
Pulling the job
The drive was long. 9 hours from our dwell. Two drivers, Abhishek and the hero. Abhishek was rolling the wheels first, Kanchan acting as the navigator. Navigator is a special post, front seet, along with the driver. Responsibilities are giving precious directions to the driver, passing on chips, coca cola, thoughtless instructions etc. from the back seat to the driver and watch the traffic and finally the most important of all - watch out for the police. Kanchan did the job well, eating all the chips we had and drinking all the cola we had and ignoring all the comments from the less previlaged backseat. After some long hours of drive, in the pursuit, making all in the backseat fall asleep ( intermittently waking up and wondering if we are in the reverse gear)it was quite dark and we were all tired. We had food, bad old McDowell's of course, and then hero, took over the wheels. (Greate background music and chorus sings a sad song).
I am fast by nature. Sometimes to some extreme stupid levels. Here in US, if you go beyond speed limit you will get a ticket, there will be some fine - usully some 250 $ and if your crime is severe like ignoring a red signal, they might even cancel your license. going beyong 100 is a big offence and i dont offend people. The speed limit in freeways usually is 60 to 70 and I usually keep the box rolling at something less than 100 and greater than 70. Mostly 97 - 98, to be more precise. Mushir was given the honour of taking the navigator post and was happy to escape from the back seat.( Now Kanchan ha occupied half of the backseat and Vinay's tummy ate the other half. Abhishek, poor buddy is struggling to claim at least his share of oxygen back there. )
The drive was tiring. it was night, the continuous row of vehicles on the other side was draining off my eyes and i started repenting calling Abhishek names about driving too slow. I kept the dial hit by 95 plus and Mushir was very vigilant and did his job well. We kept changing the lines every now and then, passing over other slow moving losers. Police did not show up too often and we have already learned how to read signs from the traffic about their presense. Usually all the vehicles goes some 5-10 % above the speed limit on the boards, which is considered acceptible. But if a single police car is in the vicinity all the traffic comes down to the atcual book value, in such a short time, with such a precision as to beat the most advanced scientific measurement techniques. This change can be felt for some time even after the police car leaves or takes a turn and joins the other side of the traffic. Everyone knows how this works, and everone uses these tips. The police folks must be doing this themselfs when they are outside their uniforms. But once inside it, they are all idiots.
The Play
Then we drove through another national park in the evening , a dense forest and we saw many wild animals. (many here means a few deers and rabbits). We saw many huts on the way. Muhsir and Vinay, having seen some stupid movie (from their references to it, I guess it was a horror movie or a comedy - name was 30 days of night or the same lengh of time of light or something else) were continuously searching for draculla, satan, and other demons in those huts. Strengtened by holy knowledge, that these species uaually have only blood for meals and confident of the scarsity of blood in his body, Mushir was very much keen on meeting one and may be having a good evening time filler live show, of that thing feasting on one of the rest of the folk's neck. Vinay was pretty sure that no draculla will survive for seconds after even smelling his blood and was also dreaming in the similar lines. I was keen on blood donation and wanted to befriend one of these - I have heard that the female vampires believes in free sex world - just for timepass. Well nothing happend. Next day's major attraction was Jewel cave world's longest cave. Second longest one now, as its not explored even to 10% of it's real size but some jobless Germans last year came and looking at the way these caves breaths in and out decided that there is 9 times as much still remaining, unexplored in it. Another spot, Crazy Horse, was really crazy in Vinay's anouncement. One family is moving sand from a hill to make it look like one native indian warchiefs. They have moved millions of tons of rock till now and have successfully carved the face of this person which looks similar to his drowing in a local store below, as both are not anything anyone will call beautiful. He was a hero of the locals and died fighting aginst the whites and passed away in warfield, stabbed from behind. The Indians decided that it is a wonderful idea to create a monument for him, like nothign else anywhere else and someone came with this idea of changing an entire hill to look like this chap sitting on a horse. The 5 presidents in the Mound Rushmore together will be of lesser size than this folk's ear. May be it will be more famous in future when it's more out from the rocks, that is not going to happen in at least a few lifetimes anyway. Last sopt, Badlands, was really bad, offering nothing other than weired sand structures, may be a hiker's paradise but none of us were in mood for hiking that day. Still the facts about it that we listened to in movie there, in the receiving office was nice and attractive. It was about how life grows in the dry lands, and how does the animals and palnts save themselves from the sun etc..
I forgot to mention about our hotel room. It was big enough to play hide and seek. We had TV, Fridge, locker, heater, coffee maker.. well everything, and the rent was only 40$ per day. With it came complimentary breakfast for all which alone would have been 50 otherwise. Even the lady at the counter was nice and cute.
Two days and we were on our way back. It was a nice trip as for a conclusion. Abhishek drove for sometime in his 'tending to maximum' mathematical derivative speeds almost getting a negative value for the second derivative - in short - was keeping up with the speed limit of 60. Every old men and women that drove on that road with us went ahead of us, many pumping their heads outside to make sure that people in our car were alive as the car, measureing the comparitive speeds was almost dead for them. even the wild looking oaks that feasted on the rich grass, sometimes gave us thoughts that we have seen the same one before and may be it just happend to go for a jogging or something and overtook us in the effort. Then, as per the public demand for fast life was approved by abhishek, I again took over the fifth wheel after food.
Well, for at least 3 hours I kept it rolling in 99-98, gaining a remarkable 1 mile over my usual upper and lower limits. Mushir Ahmed was the self appointed navigator with full public support. He did the best job ever, employing all his senses for one sole purpose which he at that time considered as the sole purpose of his life - to watch out for cops. He saw them before anyone else, he heard their sirons before anyone else and he was continuously trying to smell them in the air, chocking in the process due to insuficient respiration. The read was mostly long and straight, bending at lengths sometimes, and driving at 100 was fun. We had music, chips and
thoughtless jokes during this time.
In three hours we have covered more than half of the 550 mile stretch. Abhishek took over as I was tired and Mushir needed to rest. The boring stroll continued till we reached the corn palace. And it was there that I got my long deserved ticket - for speeding.
It was not fun. The corn palace is a two store building with all the walls, doors and everything make of corn. It was nice from outside that that is all that we ever learned about it - It was closed. We could not go in. a few more photos and we went back to the car, again the responsible me took the wheel in hand and Mushir volenteered to look out for cops. Vinay, bored so far in the backseat came forward for a seat exchange and was promoted to the navigator's seat.
He started his career like a 10 year experienced and started giving expert comments without delay. I have to mention, he has a greate sense of direction and has always been a reference point for reaching a place. First of his suggestion was to roam around in corn city downdown (It was not even a town) and take a rather winding road to get our way back. I half-mindedly agreed -mostly because i wanted to get back to the 70m/h freeway asap. We went for it anyway and it happend just a few blocks down. The road declined in a close to tan Pi by 2 angle and the speed limit was 30. The car, , even though we have travelled so far so fast, just like an indian newly married girl walks into the bathroom with the vegitable bag, taking it for the kitchen,being new and still not used to my rough stampings on the gas pedal that i usually discusses with my 10 year honda, catalysed by the decline went a little above 35. Well, cops pops up from anywhere in us, perticularly you have vinay as your navigator. I have been stopped and questioned three times already when he was my navigator. This time what made teh plot more funny was that the police did not hide or anything they were just waiting there for us and then say us and they caught us. That was a complete disaster in Vinay's career as a navigator even though he never accepted it. I say flashing lights behind me and pulled over , one officer walked over and asked for my license, i told him that it is in my pocket and asked if i can get it, e gave me permission and i fetched it and he took it and went back to his car and took another 5 minutes to turn up and asked me a few more questions and and and ... well, simply gave me a ticket for violating a huge stuff in amarican law.
i was happy that i did not see any thing like murder in the ticket. 35 Miles!! imagine i have went below 40 miles when it was a pressing reason like a read sign or the cops in a 30 mile road. I was so disappointed, maily because i felt berated and even considered telling the officer that i had already crossed 100 m/h 17.68 times in the last 184.87 minutes and asking him to give me a ticket for that. I would have proud to show someone my ticket then. but look at this ?!! 35 miles per hour and law says i am too young for that? For a moment I thought no one will ever marry for at least 3 lifes from now..
That was embarassing. But still , I got it at last. My ticket!
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Heads Up..!! Doom day is coming..!!
Somehow grey cells got electrified in wrong directions. I am thinking about the end of the world.
How will that be? will it be a nuclear war of an extra terrestrial attack? How about a comet bombardment? Well what is the point? However it comes up, let it come fast, what is the point in waiting? Doom is what I want to see, and I want to see it fast.
Well, assuming that it's due, and is about to happen in another 5 hours, what am I going to do? well its almost 2AM here. what can I do. Declare war aginst all those German prilosophers? Resume the Hitchhiker's guide to Galaxy? Now there will not be any Indian restaurents open where I can get sambhar-idily or any other deadly combimation from the extensive mouth-watering menu from my home town. Surely I dont want to call up my dad and mom and let them know the bad news. But surely I will call them to here their voice for a last time. Same with my sister too. And my friends too. How many of them will I call? lots are they and limited is my hours.
I will surely get confused.. Confusion is like a mega serial. it simply kills my time. I dont have much of it now. So I might choose to stop thinking about it and .. well how about just smashing my BlackBerry on the floor? I always wanted to see the inner part.. may be the monster tv too. I wanted to figure out what makes it so useless, which part is missing which gives it the power to have multiple channels...
I am playing paranoid almost everyday now and wanted to cross 10000. that is someting pending too..
well lot of stuff to do. first and best of all, I guess I have to sleep. 5 hours? enough time. good idea. I will think about this later..
How will that be? will it be a nuclear war of an extra terrestrial attack? How about a comet bombardment? Well what is the point? However it comes up, let it come fast, what is the point in waiting? Doom is what I want to see, and I want to see it fast.
Well, assuming that it's due, and is about to happen in another 5 hours, what am I going to do? well its almost 2AM here. what can I do. Declare war aginst all those German prilosophers? Resume the Hitchhiker's guide to Galaxy? Now there will not be any Indian restaurents open where I can get sambhar-idily or any other deadly combimation from the extensive mouth-watering menu from my home town. Surely I dont want to call up my dad and mom and let them know the bad news. But surely I will call them to here their voice for a last time. Same with my sister too. And my friends too. How many of them will I call? lots are they and limited is my hours.
I will surely get confused.. Confusion is like a mega serial. it simply kills my time. I dont have much of it now. So I might choose to stop thinking about it and .. well how about just smashing my BlackBerry on the floor? I always wanted to see the inner part.. may be the monster tv too. I wanted to figure out what makes it so useless, which part is missing which gives it the power to have multiple channels...
I am playing paranoid almost everyday now and wanted to cross 10000. that is someting pending too..
well lot of stuff to do. first and best of all, I guess I have to sleep. 5 hours? enough time. good idea. I will think about this later..
Friday, February 23, 2007
Oldest soda, love
Love is a dog, mad one of course. so goes one of the most confusing defimitions of love given by my roommate. He is now a regular supplier of this kind of definitions, with such an energy to make the most capable mba graduate go nuts about the demand - supply - value relationships. I don't ask for any kind of an explanation, he dumps a hundread per hour out on me. I am fed up.
You want samples? Love is that wheel on which the whole world rotates. Its that which is everythihg.
I will get you more later.
You want samples? Love is that wheel on which the whole world rotates. Its that which is everythihg.
I will get you more later.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Oldest new thing and Latest new thning
What is the oldeset new thing that I can remember? I am tryign to recollect it..Hmm tough job. all the data goes back to the monstor days and almost everyting was new. I remember getting new toys ( not much of plastic, though. We 'invented' most of them - ) new friends, new vehicles on the road ( I still remember seeing the ponthan lorry, a lorry which can push its loading part to a slanted position so unload easily. I wanted to be its driver), new dress ... everything was new...
Now i am old enough to lose the fragrance of freshness in new things. I bought a watch today for my sister, well its new. looks good, she will like it. happy. and I am sending someting to my sister from overseas, well that is also something new, well...
there is a difference. I have lost the freshness of new. New is not new any more. Its all old...
My sister sent me a poem (to make her happy, i will abase the word 'poem' a little bit(I dont understand this. If I found someone close enough doing something good enough to appreciate, the fastest way of execution i can think of is to make fun of him/er(may be i am an idiot(company standards wont allow more than 3 nested levels. My thought process usually breaks down before startng the second one, can bloger handle this(?))))) one in my mother toung. about childhood and all that light and warm water. well it was indeed a good poem but..
what is new in it? I have read many by her already in with similar arguments. childhood was a good itme and we are all screwed up now. this is the generic summary of all her poems. what is new in it?
Well what is there in a new thing? its all the same after some times..
everything and anything in life is negligible that you can simply ignore it. Death is the end which we dont want or can not escape from. Everything else that we lose or gain is just nothing..Whatever we do we end up the same place..
I heard this idea again after a long time, recently. I have heard it before. I have been chasing death for some time.
and I had found that everything in life should be so important that you can readily die for it. Just the other way around....
and the latest old thing is that I am getting over the past now. slowly, but surely. Is it anything new?
Now i am old enough to lose the fragrance of freshness in new things. I bought a watch today for my sister, well its new. looks good, she will like it. happy. and I am sending someting to my sister from overseas, well that is also something new, well...
there is a difference. I have lost the freshness of new. New is not new any more. Its all old...
My sister sent me a poem (to make her happy, i will abase the word 'poem' a little bit(I dont understand this. If I found someone close enough doing something good enough to appreciate, the fastest way of execution i can think of is to make fun of him/er(may be i am an idiot(company standards wont allow more than 3 nested levels. My thought process usually breaks down before startng the second one, can bloger handle this(?))))) one in my mother toung. about childhood and all that light and warm water. well it was indeed a good poem but..
what is new in it? I have read many by her already in with similar arguments. childhood was a good itme and we are all screwed up now. this is the generic summary of all her poems. what is new in it?
Well what is there in a new thing? its all the same after some times..
everything and anything in life is negligible that you can simply ignore it. Death is the end which we dont want or can not escape from. Everything else that we lose or gain is just nothing..Whatever we do we end up the same place..
I heard this idea again after a long time, recently. I have heard it before. I have been chasing death for some time.
and I had found that everything in life should be so important that you can readily die for it. Just the other way around....
and the latest old thing is that I am getting over the past now. slowly, but surely. Is it anything new?
Thursday, February 15, 2007
When emptyness fills in...
wow..
again i am here, wondering why i came here.
well......
Separations...
Close friends are moving away.
Closer ones are already so far.
But its all for good. They are going to be happy. Me too...
And the life will go on.
Sometimes i wonder how could i get attached so much to anything around me so fast.
Well, and life goes on...
They were not there yesterday.
They wont be there everyday.
Sometimes the roads cross, you never know,
And then we walk together till time won't allow.
Its so sad that the time dies out
Even before you ever make out
that the times that you loved are all long gone
And emptiness fills your soul, all out and in.
I have no doubt that the times will come back
with the promise of unseen pathways to cross
There I will find more faces with smiles
new ones, old faces, many roads to pass.
A few of them smooth, a few of them rough
a few of them full of flowers and light
Ones you are through its all so gone
but of course the memories, they are always mine
Sometimes it hurts when i can not keep up
with the speed of life, when I am left all alone
It hurts much more when the slowness evades
and takes me too slowly to a junction i know
I been through this many times, that i know
i will be through this again, yes I know
but still tears flows down, i just cant keep them in
they wash away most of dust from the past.
Waiting for me are more ever winding roads
they keep crossing, some just passes by,
And at the end of my journey i wish
I'll be alone, without tears, clean of dust.
again i am here, wondering why i came here.
well......
Separations...
Close friends are moving away.
Closer ones are already so far.
But its all for good. They are going to be happy. Me too...
And the life will go on.
Sometimes i wonder how could i get attached so much to anything around me so fast.
Well, and life goes on...
They were not there yesterday.
They wont be there everyday.
Sometimes the roads cross, you never know,
And then we walk together till time won't allow.
Its so sad that the time dies out
Even before you ever make out
that the times that you loved are all long gone
And emptiness fills your soul, all out and in.
I have no doubt that the times will come back
with the promise of unseen pathways to cross
There I will find more faces with smiles
new ones, old faces, many roads to pass.
A few of them smooth, a few of them rough
a few of them full of flowers and light
Ones you are through its all so gone
but of course the memories, they are always mine
Sometimes it hurts when i can not keep up
with the speed of life, when I am left all alone
It hurts much more when the slowness evades
and takes me too slowly to a junction i know
I been through this many times, that i know
i will be through this again, yes I know
but still tears flows down, i just cant keep them in
they wash away most of dust from the past.
Waiting for me are more ever winding roads
they keep crossing, some just passes by,
And at the end of my journey i wish
I'll be alone, without tears, clean of dust.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
ItStartsWithOne..
Well, life is getting too messed up and I keep failing in keeping up with time. Have not tried anything new for a long time. Shall we?
I have lost the other chap with whom I used to talk the most, rather think most. These days are not as good as I hoped them to be..
And I have not been in touch with the one, the closest one, I can not say he keeps showing up these days. May be I was not watching.
And Pesu have probably been hybernating... Idiot. Gotta wake him up.
And here, I am going to take a diversion........ I am going to 'U turn' my state of mind...
Here, it starts...n, n-1,n-2...... 0. That was technically a countdown, stupid; )Pesu will not understand. He is not that techie... Better than that - he do dont take him to be more techie than he really is..)
Well the wheels gaonna roll now. That makes me think of the definition of love I recently suffered. Kinda stuff on which the world (not sure- might have been the universe or the life or something else that the author had no idea about) runs. I am still taking medicine and concentrated hydrochloric acid to digest it..
Well I will try to do more of this 'hard thinking' for sure. I kinda like it. May be I can keep these as my digital diary. I do not want others to see my diary but of course I dont mind anyone reading my notes....
I have lost the other chap with whom I used to talk the most, rather think most. These days are not as good as I hoped them to be..
And I have not been in touch with the one, the closest one, I can not say he keeps showing up these days. May be I was not watching.
And Pesu have probably been hybernating... Idiot. Gotta wake him up.
And here, I am going to take a diversion........ I am going to 'U turn' my state of mind...
Here, it starts...n, n-1,n-2...... 0. That was technically a countdown, stupid; )Pesu will not understand. He is not that techie... Better than that - he do dont take him to be more techie than he really is..)
Well the wheels gaonna roll now. That makes me think of the definition of love I recently suffered. Kinda stuff on which the world (not sure- might have been the universe or the life or something else that the author had no idea about) runs. I am still taking medicine and concentrated hydrochloric acid to digest it..
Well I will try to do more of this 'hard thinking' for sure. I kinda like it. May be I can keep these as my digital diary. I do not want others to see my diary but of course I dont mind anyone reading my notes....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)