A post of a post

Countless drafts on my mobile, a few hundred scribbles on the laptop and tens of movies. Finally, I think, a post that would see light,i.e. night light. Weekends have always been happening for the last few months. A trip for a marriage, a late night movie with myself, walking the streets of Trivandrum at 1:30 in the night. A few furious hours of "creative" coding, finishing off the 4th season of Dexter, trying and trying again to turn over a new leaf, and the list goes on and on and on... Oh ya, forgot a wee bit thing, donated blood after a almost a year. FYI, I'm A- and available for donation, as for now out of action till 7/09/13.

Coming back to the catalyst for the post, I watched ABCD today. No, it is not the Hindi one. This one's pure mallu even thought the title may mislead. It's American Born Confused Desi, with Dulqur back in action. Last time it was Ustad Hotel. If you would pardon the liberty that I would take with interpreting the message, hold on, why should I ask your pardon. My blog, my post, my damn words, who gives a f&^% on what you might think after reading this.

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READING
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I would say the movie is a sarcastic view on how the media, the government and the general public on today's Kerala. It's sugar-coated through a confused NRI's eyes but the visual is there for everyone to see, if you bloody damn give a moment's f%%$ about it. Naah, using f&*^ doesn't make me sound cool. It's just a way of saying this is MINE. At least, on the outer side. Technically, I allow Google rights over this digital copy of my words once it is posted to blogger.com. Oh, one more thing, every bloody thing that you think is coming for free is never free. There is always a catch, something that may not be obvious now but will clear out as time progresses. Coming back to the movie, it's an entertainer albeit a bit long if you think 2:45 is long. Another thing, Dulqur is a rising star with the right set of thoughts in his head. He's chosen carefully, tries something new, an American accent in this one. But then, there is this thing about him, being always super-cool with low waists and hair styles. Not that he doesn't pull it off nicely. Just saying, it's getting repetitive. Oh gosh, 2 movies with a similar wardrobe and I'm saying it's repetitive. Holy Shit, when did I start caring about what someone wears or not wears. ;)

Anyways, seems like I'm getting back to being the old me. Cocky, Abusive, Foolish, Creative, Bullshitter. Welcome back Jo, it's been long since we missed you. A round of applause for the young dashing, bullshitting, piece of Piscean crap who is still as cocky as the one who entered QBurst in an August of 2009.

This is Jo signing off,
Adios

Into Feb again

It seems like as times goes by, the interval between my posts keeps on increasing. Anyways, it feels good to be writing again. Life has moved on quite a brisk pace. I don't even remember the last time I blogged, need to check it online for now. Leaving that aside, Life is again stuck in a mechanical circle of work-home-work. It had been quite some time since I did something other than the usual eat-sleep-code routine. Thankfully, there was Vishwaroopam. Went with Sundar, Binu, Ash, Nyzam bhai and Nithin, our asst. director. Special thanks to Nits, since he was the one who got us all tickets inspite on the rush at the cinema complex. Well speaking of the complex, our minister, Ganesh Kumar, seems to have done quite a good job at rebuilding the old Kairali-Sree theatres into Kairali, Sree and Nila. The seating is good and the feel is also nice, albeit the cost of tickets is a bit on the higher end. But 80 bucks for watching a movie in a comfortable seat is worth it. Anyways, back to the movie. It's quite good on the technical side, the story keeps you engrossed, except for may be a few moments during the Afghanistan scenes, which seemed like dragging on a bit. Other than that, it seems quite worthy of the money. No comments on the controversy. Simply said, I would like to quote my self on this. "This is a case of religious constipation". How this quote is to be deciphered is upto you.

Other than that, we had a small GDG(Google Developer Group) meeting, the launch of the Trivandrum chapter in Jan. Yours sincerly had to present a topic before the audience and as usual, came up with a lot of bullshitting and some info. For those who know, you could rewind back to the moments when I bullshitted my way out during my seminar on "Blackberry". Anyways, got a cool GDG T-shirt, had a good lunch and learnt a few things about GDG, App Engine, App Scripts and so on. Well that was back in the start of Jan. By the end of Jan, it was again "Romans" the movie with Sundar. Oh, yes. There was the HacknightV2.0, which Adheesh and me contested to have some Pizzas and spend time in office AC. Thankfully, learnt something about Twitter bootstrap and Jinja templates.

Back to Feb, it's been monotonous till now, save Vishwaroopam. Hoping for a few exciting weeks at least in this month.


This is Jo signing off for now,


Adios

Things that made me.

As the title says, this post is an introspection into what makes me be so me, so different, so cranked up, so wild and unpredictable. Well here it goes.

My seemingly wild ways. along with my devil-may-care attitude stems from the fact that I had Sumit, a.k.a Appu as one of my best friends. The guy's one hell of a thick-skinned, ultra-cool guy who's a real cool dude to hang out with. He's got the wildest dressing sense, in fact, you could almost see him in shorts with a leather jacket in a freezing Kolkata winter. Yet, he wouldn't give a shit as what you think about his attire. He used to grow long hair before "Tere Naam" was released. had studs in his ear while he was still in school, i think in 7th or 8th. The guy could literally wear a flaming yellow shirt coupled with a dark short, have his hair colored all brown and yet chat around with people as if it were his 2nd skin. Not that I could ever do this on my own, but yes I have come close to emulating him, but on dance stages for those who have seen me. ;)

Next in line is my writing bug. This is something that is a gift from Mrs. Manjula Banerjee, Manjula Ma'am as we all called her, way back in my 5th or 6th. There was this chapter called "The Tiger and the Porcupine" and we were supposed to write down the answers for the questions at the end of the chapter. Speaking of "Porcupine", I still remember how my hair used to stand like porcupine quills after my monthly haircut, shining from the oil that Mom used to pour on my head before the bath. Anyways, we had to prepare answers for the questions by the time the lesson was to be over, i.e go over the lesson the night before, write down the answers in a separate rough book and then recite them in class once the lesson was over. So I had this answer written down for all the questions in the chapter, actually plagiarized them from the guide book. But the thing was that I wrote them down in my English. 3 out 7 answers chosen were mine, not a mean achievement given the fact that around half the class prepared answers. That's when it finally struck that I could also write, maybe plagiarized stuff but yes write them in my own words. Thus was born the writer that you see...

My reading habit stems from the fact that my Mom used to be manager at one of the book publishing agencies in Kolkata. She used to bring all kinds of novels, books, magazines from office for me to read and oh boy, wasn't it a jolly time for me. To see Mom bring in books ranging from pure philosophy to political satires was a joy in itself. I have been exposed to reading Adult stories long before I read "The Tempest". Now don't say that Shakespeare's play wasn't adult in its content or that "Macbeth" or "Merchant of Venice" or even "Romeo and Juliet" were adult in content. The preface to each of the plays had a breif description regarding the symbolism in the words. People should actually read the Prologue and Preface of any book. It gives insight to what the book might be about or the idea that the author to pen it down. Anyways, Thanks to Mom and Dad, I could read all that I want even during the exams provided I finished up my lessons before that. "Reader's Digest" was a ever present member in our household, I think there may be copies of old editions lying inside the bottom shelf of the showcase at home. Another thing that I would like to share, I got "Lady Chatterly's Lover" as a prize for scoring high marks in Maths in my 10th. For those who haven't heard of this book, please google it up(NSFW).

My love of lines of code come from Mrs. J Dasgupta's classes. She was a absolute beauty, 'sigh', miss her classes, hearing her voices and those class definitions of C++. I wouldn't say she was the best teacher for C++, but yes it was her class and those problems that she used make us do that had me hooked to writing code. Different types of problems, simple to solve and yet fun to figure out the way to solve it. Oh yes, it was fun trying print patterns using for loops, even variations from the original problem. That problem could be solved within 15 mins but the variations to the actual patterns was what had me spend evenings in the company of the for loop. Then B.Tech let my code dreams catch flight while it slowly killed the writer in me. Speaking of which, the fact that I could not pursue MassCom was one of the primary reasons I didn't give much of a serious thought to B.Tech.

The aloofness to pursuing perfection comes from the fact that I walked in company of giants all my academic life. Compared to them, I am but an insignificant speck. Thanks to them, I have gained so much both experience and mental strength. I know that I can be happy coming second, let others use my ideas. That is because the ones that really matter, would have already thought of a thousand other ways. It lets me concentrate on finding joy within lines of code and prose rather than in exaltation of my achievements.

Next in case study of Jo comes the craze for web and Python. This is one thing I would be ever grateful to Jazz. He was the one who thought it would be great to do our final project in Python instead of Java or C++. Thanks to him, I fell in love with Python. Javascript and HTML were thrust upon me for the IT lab in 6th semester. Well, Javascript and I go further than just lab, I am used to writing prototype scripts or designs in JS, rather than any other language, not that I am proficient in it.

I should be stopping this post for now, since it is already late and I need to go to office tomorrow, oopsi today.
This is Jo signing off,
Adios

Weekends - Nth time

The weekend is almost over and the month of July has begun. Friday is the usual fare, go to office late, get out early for a first day, first show movie else work late till it's time to close the shutters. :D This weekend, it was time for a movie. Saw Ustad Hotel and must say it was worth watching it after buying the tickets in black. bought 55 ticket for 75 and still felt good at the end of it. Nothing moves me like food, love and acts of kindness and this movie has it all. Was actually hoping to catch it again tonite, but alas, seems like I was to write down this post instead of watching the film. Anyways, I had never expected Dulqur, or is it Dulqar, never mind, to be this restrained. This is his 2nd film, I haven't yet seen Second Show, will download hopefully or get it from somewhere. Anyways, he's got talent and the guy's got the looks too. I am hoping to get a beard like his sometime soon. But not until the end of August hopefully as, for the last and final time, I am growing my hair for a ponytail and this time, taunts can go to hell.. :P
Back to the post, ya the movie is a must watch for all. That was Friday evening. Mukesh dropped me at GPO after the movie and then the walk back home. For those who still are unware, I had a house shifting from Kani to Statue. Currently, got a place as a PG. The food is simply awesome and the room is quite nice. Hopefully should upload photos once I am able to clean it up. :P Anyways, came back, had a dinner and went to sleep after a small session on the Messenger. I was hoping to roll that night on MW, but was too tired and sleepy to drive properly. Why risk a 2nd place with Sharmaji when I could catch up some other day. Speaking of Sharmaji, installed a new software called GameRanger, let's you play online multiplayer games for the cracked ones too. Seems okay till now as the sessions were fine when I initially tested it with Sharmaji. So, it's back to MW after quite a long time and my fingers are still rusty at the controls. Need to practise A LOT before I can take on the new, improved version of Sharmaji. :P Anyhow, zooming back to Saturday, got up late as usual, 10:30 I think. I was woken up by persistant knocks on my door, as the breakfast was ready. Even then, caught a few more minutes of sleep before I had breakfast. Got ready to for travelling to Mom's place. Ammachi's been keeping a bit sick over these days. Hopefully, it isn't that serious. Seems like I may have to go to church for lighting a few candles for her sake. Anyways, given the lazy me and the general apathy towards religious duty, that isn't gonna happen any time soon. So by the time I was ready to leave, it was already 1:30 I think. 1:30, for someone who had breakfast by 11:30.. Pretty damn slow these days. Luck has its own way, for Mukesh was around, he was on his way to a friend's office. The guy's a gem and he dropped me till Ayurveda college after warning that it would be impossible to got towards PMG as there was some trouble near Statue. Anyways, crossed over and walked till Thampanoor bus stand. God knows how long it has been since I last caught a bus from there for going home. Thankfully, no more waiting at PMG for catching the bus. Ouch, that hurts.. Those blaady memories.. Ya, another thing, I am hoping to let go the past strings and let the future surprise me. No more bringing up the past. I have made peace with it and that should be the last of it.
Anyways, journey home was a bliss. Got a seat soon enough and even had quite a good time reading thru Narnia stories. One thing about bus travel is that, no matter if I sit or stand, I feel damn sleepy when I get into one. No matter how much I may have slept before that moment. Speaking of which, just had a yawn. Time to go to sleep, but first let's finish this up and watch a few videos from FB. ;) Speaking of travel, it felt really good to be on the bus again, felt younger, without care and the wind in the hair. Have to plan some trips to places. This is gotta be the adrenaline shots that I have been craving for some time now. To cut the long story short, felt real good to travel and had to spend some time sleeping on the front steps of the house too. Ammachi was out for a Kudumbaprathana and I wasn't keen on going to my uncle's place. So used the bag as a pillow and slept there for an hour so. Made me remember my childhood, when mom used to sit there and I kept my head on her lap. Alas, if I ask her to sit like that now, she's gonna pinch off some skin so that the idea doesn't strke me again. :P So, waited, rather slept there till Ammachi came back. After she came, there was vada in her hand. Just like my sweet "Muthuki thalla", to bring back something for me to eat. Had the vada while she prepared lunch for me at 6:30 in the evening. :D. Had lunch, a bit of chit chat after which I fell asleep reading thru Narnia on my mob. Woke up at 9:30 for dinner, that too because ammachi had started to pinch me after calling my name for some time. Had dinner and then a quick sleep. In between, one of the Idiots msged asking me the full-form of KFC, something from one of my FB posts. Come Sunday, got up late again, didn't go to church and washed my clothes instead. In between watched Charlie's Angels, The Golden Compass, Bad Boys, The Core and one more from the morning till I left for Trivandrum. Reached Trivandrum by 8, caught rain in between the journey and then back to home. Made my way to Sundar's place. It was his perunal toaday, birthday according to Malayalam calendar, for those who don't know. Had some payasam and then made a dash for Kripa. Couldn't get two tickets as the queue was too long. Somehow Sundar managed a ticket while I had to walk back alone. Anyways, all's well that ends well. Got time to write this, now that's worth a movie. :D Atleast, something for you people to read.. ;)
This is Jo signing off,
Adios

Blank

It's been a long time since I last posted. These past months have just whizzed by and I am still catching up with the changes. Well, topmost on the list, we have finally moved out of Kanimangalam. 4 years of enjoyment, happiness, friendship, love, grief, tension and what not.. Still remember the Paalukachu at Kanimangalam. Those times with the first 7 of Kani, Thomichan, Sakhav, Achar, Thampi, Jasim, Sheik and Sasi. Still remember, Suma and Pretty getting the salted drinks. Those chocolates as gift. Finally the photo session on the balcony. Sigh... Then the Mafia wars addiction, thanks to KK sir's Docomo stick. The exams, and finally end of 5 years of B.Tech life. The first job, QBurst.. The interview with Ansarji, and thrill of getting thru. Telling him that I would like to the next day instead of that day itself, because I had to celebrate the occasion. Don't know what made me say so that day. Pagalpanti.
Then the next 1.5 years as QA in the Clearspring team. The foodings, the outing, the release tensions. Long working hours before the day of release. Testing out on test, uat and prod. Then, shifting of Densil bhai to Kochi, me shifting to Forum support helping out Angel, then Angel moving to Infy while I switch to Python development. Those times in the PrivateFly cabin, then to the Plusnet cabin. The Tea team. In between, Meher and then someone else. Finally the shift to Vazhuthacad and so on till now...
Now, it's almost a week since the shift to Statue. New surroundings, coming in terms with the loss of Kanimangalam. Finding my feet, literally. Lots of plans for future. High expectations from myself. Don't know if this will work out or not. Hoping for the best. So that wraps up a small synopsis of Kani and afterwards.. Now to the present :P
The internal cricket tournament for QBurst was held this weekend. Went there as a reserve and had to get down in the field as the team strength was low. Too lazy to describe the tournament. For those interested in stats, have a look at http://2012.crikees.com. The rest can continue reading this post. Anyways, two days of playing took a toll on my body. A slight pain still remains on the back as a result of my lethargic fielding and batting. No, I don't bowl even though I am listed as a Bowler in the team description. Also, slept for quite a long time on both days as a result of the tiredness. Unlike the usual weekends, where I keep chatting on Y! messenger and keep reading/liking posts on FB. Hopefully, the body should be back to normal within 2~3 days and then the usually running around. The Avengers is back in Trivandrum theatres, this time in Sree Padamnabha, thanks to the requests posted on their FB wall. I think I should be going for it some time soon. Anyways, who knows what the future holds. Thinking of the future, my Bhootni may land in Trivandrum as a part of her job searching and parents' plan to settle down here in Trivandrum. Hopefully, I should be able to run off to Noida or Hyderabad, once this helluva degree is over, before they actually land here. That way, I am still free of settling down here while I also get to roam India. Plans, plans and plans... Everything is there in the mind, a vague mishmash of ideas, thoughts and dreams. Sigh...
Anyways, back to Statue. Living here as a PG, homely food, lavish single room, easy access to city. Even a Bar opposite the front gate, when I have finally left drinking. :P Hey Bhagwan, vichitre hai teri leela.. Sadly, the days are boring and so I usually look forward to Mondays now, OMG I just wrote the impossible.. I used to hate Mondays, even have a Tee questioning why Monday couldn't be returned back. :D Feeling sleepy for now and so stopping this post...
Until next time..
This is Jo signing off,
Adios