SG OwnBlog

This is what humankind has been striving for a long time. To live a life happily. This pursuit of happiness has led to many comics, books, poems, movies, debates etc in our lives and in the past. You must have read self help books, watched talk shows and done yoga. Here I will give you something new. Something that is out of the ordinary and yet it works pretty well for me. What have I got? I got Bonku. Who is Bonku? An imaginary figure who does everything wrong, in the most hilarious ways imaginable. Also you can pin all the blame on him easily. If there's a cyclone point the finger at Bonku. Someone hates you for no apparent reason? The reason is Bonku. Do not know a particular answer to a question? It's Bonku's fault. This is a completely meaningless picture and has no relevance to the topic at hand. Any attempt to find it will lead to failure and a complete waste of time. Thanks. :D For your convenience you can give a size and shape to Bonku. Over time he

Cher Jolie Fille, This is perhaps one medium you can read without anyone else snooping on you or catching you off guard. So here it goes. First thing's first - this story is completely and entirely real, so this might be a little long. Please take your time to read. It took me longer to write. When I was in college, I got pretty much thrown out of hostel in a week for a number of reasons. But that is not important. I stayed for the rest of the 4 years (almost) in a hired room near our college. I was very fortunate  to have a great guy to be my room-mate. He did become one of my best friends one of the few guy friends, I can safely say - Love him, without being gay. :D Just as you expect, I was pretty much like this then as well. I had flings - which I used to call nothing. I used to say - "Oh, this girl I am having something with? It's nothing". I appreciated beauty then as I do now. Of course I did not pursue all the pretty girls I saw. The girls I liked but n

Going to work on weekends is the worst thing that can happen to you. In a week that is. And that happened to me. What did I accomplish? Not much actually, except the satisfaction of having wasted two perfectly good days of my life for no good reason. My Arduino kit, my pencil sketches and karaoke stints remained undone. Thank God for Monday, at least I will have a reason to be miserable. So here I am on a perfectly good Sunday, in office doing some dry runs that will NOT make any difference to this world. After many days of relative joy, I again feel the absence of it. It’s not the work that makes me so, I just can’t figure out the reason. Now don’t get me wrong – I am not feeling very low or something. Not at all, there are certain dark desires – true. But they are better left in the dark. No, I actually don’t feel anything at all, the comforting feeling of void is all over me again. I feel humbled by it – I am not scared, not anxious and not perturbed. Just silenced… That empt

Yes, I ordered this Freeduino kit from ebay and it's with me now. In one word it's just - Great. This weekend (actually yesterday) I connected it to my system and started the Blink program and other basic tests with it. The installation is so simple and hassle free that it can just simply blow your mind. Ok that might be an exaggeration. But anyway, if you are interested into electronics skulduggery you may want to give this a try as well. Yes, along with that I got a kit - like a mini breadboard, jumper cables, resistors capacitors, one LCD display, a couple of motors, some battery mounts, a few sensors and so on. So I have enough to get started with some of the cool stuff I have always wanted to do. I will need to get a few more things just to be safe and get on with it. On the other hand, my best friend is at her worst. That's actually not true because she is not any worse than she was a month back. But anyway, I feel helpless because I know I can do nothing about

Life is a little strange now. At office the load is much lesser than it usually was just about a month back. It's true I miss both my daughters (they are not real, but that you can guess), but other friends and avocation keep me busy. Today was the birthday of one of Lali's friends. She's pretty, nothing gorgeous and glamorous, but eye catching. The kinda person I am, well, never mind. So I had every intention of going and 'wishing her'. Yes, I had to put that in quotes, because I just don't go to only wish a girl on my own. Things go from one thing to the next, and sometimes too quickly for me to keep track of. Perhaps Lali understood this and simply said that if I go and talk to her, she won't talk to me! She's sweet and the last thing I want was her to throw tantrums when my days are going quite okay. This picture has absolutely no relevance to this post, in case you are wondering. :D The other birthday was special not really to me, but I d

Saturday was rough. Truth be told, Friday was kinda rough on me. Got no sleep, got to hit the bed at around 6 in the morning. Woke up around 8:15 when Lali called me up. I was so tired I could not even curse! But I had to keep my word. I was supposed to get her to her exam day, and I did. Just after I went to sleep again and woke up around 10, just before we were supposed to meet at my place. From there we got to the exam center. Halted in between for some much needed breakfast - the ones that reminded me of the little food I had last night. Still was not sure why I had such little appetite. A couple of lassis and two parathas proved too much for both of us, and I started feeling dizzy. The feeling stayed for a couple of hours. The college was okay, I guess, conveniently located in the middle of a jungle, away from human habitation except for the students with little expectations. Dropping my friend of, I took a couple buses back home. On the way back I went around a shoppin

I will actually skip the shameless self promotion. In any case it is best to get to the topic asap. I will tell you how to save money. I will walk you down the entire process and make sure there are enough examples along the route. If you need any clarifications, the comment section is all yours :D   Save money by tricking yourself! The Sarthak's Solution To Save Money Before I begin there are a few variables we will use. It's best you keep a piece of paper and a pencil ready. yes, a pen will do. We will work on a weekly basis - starting from Monday to Sunday. On each day we will naturally have some urge to buy something. Now here's the trick. Instead of buying them, we will just note it down. You can fool yourself to think that you are just keeping a note for convenience. But what not to mention in the note, or rather what qualifies? Write only big purchases, things that cost a substantial amount. let me give you some examples. i. A Coke, pizza, magazines -

For quite some time I have been writing a book, or I should say trying to write one. But then starting something and completing it are entirely different things. Even then, after my recent trip to Chennai, I am beginning my writing again. This time I have also been strangely inspired by a few image sites that are totally unrelated to my writing. The first thing that needs mentioning is that I have gone to the office in Bangalore, the place I like much. The reason is quite well known. Beautiful Ladies. Come to think of it, the first day after three weeks in Chennai was uneventful except that my system was down and a few other let downs. It was good in a way as I was able to go ahead with little to no work. Can't complain.  Ever since watching Hannibal I wanted to own a pair of these wine glasses. Unfortunately when I myself went to this shop to check them out I was flabbergasted. Two wine glasses would have set me back by about Rs.1900. I dumped my plans altogether. No other

This leave was hard to come by. For a few hours I thought I won't be able to come. Planned leaves getting cancelled - such a thing can occur to me. Twice in two years! And I am not surprised. Finally, with a lot of luck, some speaking and persuading, I got them and rushed home - quite literally. The day was cloudy and so was my mood. Ran roughshod over both Lali and Shwetha for the occasion. Lali understood, Shwetha, not so much. Before the day was out, I was lucky to get a G made by the MBA ( Most Beautiful Anomaly )

There are times when you feel nothing is really moving forward. The monotony of the day to day conundrums of life takes its toll and you end up with a feeling of nothingness - having done nothing, feeling nothing - kinda numb. I hate this feeling. Of late, I have been feeling lost. There are a number of plans in the horizon but I feel that I lack the enthusiasm to carry them out or even pursue them. My work at office has become pretty boring. The studies and all - I have pretty much lost interest. Painting, drawing, playing games - everything seems mundane and ordinary. I can feel that I need to wind up and retreat. Take time off to do basically nothing. That might just help. Over the last couple of weeks a number of things happened though. I drew a girl. Another very sweet friend came over from Mumbai to Bangalore with a permanent transfer. One of my best friends is on a nervous breakdown-a-marathon. My dad sold his old and my favorite motor cycle like a ninja, sold his old Maruti

I have never been a TV guy. Okay, when I was a kid, I loved the Cartoon Network. When I grew a little older, I used to tune into the Movie channels. But since I got a good internet connection, I never really cared for the idiot box. All that changed quite recently. The American Sitcoms/TV series had scored terrific ratings in IMDB. Those ratings did not escape me. But the very term TV series turned me off. I was however attracted to this series called Hannibal. I had watched all the movies on that topic.The extremely addictive show quickly got me hooked and I watched the entire first season in less than a month. Next I tried the very popular - "The Walking Dead". The realism, the decay, the utter helplessness, lack of Hollywood heroism made a fan out of me and so far there is not a single episode I have not seen till date. However entertaining these two shows were, I found 'Two and Half Men' and the 'Big Bang Theory' the best. After a hard day's

Starting from the New Year - I have got a strange succession of events. Mostly negative, but thankfully nothing extraordinarily disturbing. First thing that happened was a really bad hangover in the morning of 1st. It was cool but woke up at 11AM! So yeah - I almost missed the morning technically. That very night a friend of mine fell and broke the washbasin in our restroom. What's more - I did not know about it till morning. I went ahead and walked in and whoa - a piece got into a toe finger and colored the slippers and the bathroom floor red. Next thing you know I was busy holding my leg up trying to let the blood clot. Got late for office naturally. The next funny stuff happened at my friend's place. He was running a pre-historic version of Ubuntu. I smartly typed in the sudo apt-get update. That was all great, except the fact that the version was absolutely not supported. So a selected few packages that remained the same were updated and the rest of the sources got broke

চেন্নাই তে বসে আমার প্রথম সপ্তাহ চেন্নাই তে কেটে গেলো। এই অফিস তা আমার একদমি পছন্দ হয়নি। আমি এর মধ্যেই বলে রেখেছি যে আমি বেঙ্গালুরুতে ফিরে যাব তিন সপ্তাহ পরে। এর বেশি থাকা আমার পক্ষে সত্তি সম্বভ হবে না।  মাঝে মাঝে আমি অবাক  হয়ে যাই এই দেখে যে মানুষ কত সহজে নিজেকে সইয়ে নিতে পারে।  যখন চেন্নাই তে যাওয়ার কথা জেনেছিলাম মনে হয়েছিল ২ দিন থাকতে পারব না। কিন্তু ঠিক ৭টা দিন কেমন সুন্দর কাটিয়ে ফেললাম।  আচ্ছা বেশ, সুখে আছি ইটা বলা ভুল হয়ে যাবে, তবে কাটিয়ে তো দিচ্ছি।  এভাবে ঈশ্বরের কৃপায় যদি আর তিনটে সপ্তাহ কেটে যায় তবে রক্ষে। তারপর আমি বান্গালোরেতে গিয়ে ভগবানকে ধন্যবাদ জনাব। বেঙ্গালুরুতে আমি যে কত ভালো আছি সেটা আমি চেন্নাইতে এসে বুঝলাম।

Ok. I get it. True, sometimes Life is boring. When you have to do the same things on the same days in same ways, meet the same people in the same places, listen to the same music, watch the same shows, sleep with the same partner(!) Life does sometimes feel low. In such situations you have two broad choices. One is to quit and go back to your comfort zone(whatever may that be) or to get things arranged and start something to spice up life itself. When Life gets boring, you need to remind yourself that it's much more than a word of four letters! - Useless Quote Start Blogging - You can do this. It is simple and a very rewarding experience . Apart from money (not much) it gives you self satisfaction. Blogger , Typepad and Wordpress are some common blogging platforms where you can start for free. Draw stuff - Remember the days when you would draw stupid things on the walls of your home and get spanked by your parents? Do something like that. No, I don't mean to tell yo

I left for Calicut or Kozikhode as it is now called last week. My brother was accompanied by my parents. They were to come to Bangalore first. From here I was to join them in a bus ride to Calicut. Problem was that I did not know where Shanthi Nagar bus stand was. Google Maps came to my rescue. I plotted down the stops in Bangalore for the bus. View From Yeshwanthpura Railway Bus Depot to Kengeri TTMC Bus Depot via Shantinagar Bus Depot and Mysore Road KSRTC Bus Depot in a larger map Shanthi Nagar Bus Depot was our first choice. The other two - Mysore Road and Kengari were failsafe points of boarding - in case we miss the first one. After almost a 9 hour journey we reached Calicut. The city itself is clean and quiet. Funded generously from the remittances from Gulf States, these port cities of Kerala has always had a great time. On route I traveled, I could see the effects as well. I did not see even a single temple in the morning! Not a single temple at all. I saw mosques of

These days all you need to become a 'pro' photographer is a good deal of money, a good camera and a lot of spare time. There is hardly any quality to the pictures taken by the multitude of the 'professional photographers'. However the worst thing is that some of these even go fully professional. Naturally they keep their prices low and kick the more established and truly good photographers. So in the end what we get is a lot of low quality pictures. Looking at them you might say to yourself, "Nice" but they don't remain in your mind or they don't make you think later. Sure this kind of showcasing of talent is also good and certainly is better than turning to drugs. But the problem is that many of these budding 'photographers' give up their hobbies after a stint of a couple of months. Their cameras begin rotting in some forgotten shelf and the pictures synced to Dropbox and Flickr. To truly focus on photography once needs to cherish and nour

Tomorrow is June 6th. The world may be well on its way to forget the importance of the day. But I, far away from the historic places, value it. Yes, I mean the battlefield of Normandy or Normandie. On June, 6th , 1944, the Allied forces began their Operation Overlord . English, American and Canadian forces assaulted the German forces of Festung Europa , perched on the imposing but ineffective Atlantik Wall. This is not going to be a war account. I have no veteran stories or other war manuals or diaries to share either. I just write this in memory of the countless number of Allied soldiers killed my MG42 s while they were coming ashore, the disfigured bodies of many Allied men (nay boys) who faced hell from the German artillery batteries and static naval guns. I write about the hundreds of paratroopers who went behind the lines to harass German forces in their rear, the pilots who broke the back of the German transport and logistics network, about the valiant few members of the Fr

I am afraid of a number of things. Of the irrational fears I have, the fear of surgery is paramount. So this Saturday I decided to subject myself to some exposure therapy. What I basically planned was that I will sit down and watch a particularly grisly surgery on youtube and not black out. For many of you it might sound as easy and simple. But not for me. Indeed, I subjected myself to a number of torture-exploitation films just to overcome my fear. Funny thing is, I could watch Hostel I, or Hostel II and even ‘ A Serbian Film ’ without batting an eyelid but when it came to a real hospital environment I freak out. Possibly the idea of ‘this is not real’ kept me from feeling sick. So I went over to Youtube and decided to watch a brain surgery where a group of doctors would remove a brain tumor while the patient is only locally anesthetized. I got myself a piece of paper and a pencil to write down about the impulses I feel. Also having something to do also meant that it w

I am romantic. Okay I am an emotional fool and highly romantic. When I was a kid(not that I ain't now) I did all kinds of extreme things. Like proposing to a girl when I was in the third standard. I of course never did drugs but how about quarrelling with your 'girl'friend's mother? That too in the ninth standard! Well, there are many but many of my teachers even believed (rightly) that I was(and am) incorrigible. I don't know much about Fate. Or destiny for that matter. Of course I know what they mean in the dictionary, but that is just all about it. If you ask me about it and may be speak on them for a couple of hours I would probably fill them with ummm, aahhhs and your yawns. But what do you do when what happened to you long back come back to you the exact same way? How do you react to such a situation? The similar feelings, mixed with the grown maturity and all the complexities of growing up start playing against each other. Its almost like becoming a footba

Crows are black in color. They look pretty alike don't they? Unless of course there is some distinguishing mark in them like, a damaged beak, or a blind eye or something like that. Surprisingly the crow I am talking about looks pretty Indian. The same beak, the same black feathers, similar prejudices, same habits, same way of living. He had just flown across Lahore over the fence by South of Wagah to the wheatfields to the south west of Amritsar. The tresspassing crow was hungry and had started feeding on Indian wheat. I wonder where he will defecate. Was Pakistani crow shit considered bombing when the food is Indian? I didn't know. I pressed my binoculars close to my eyes and wait but my hands are aching. So I took out my tripod, keep the tea plate on top of it and rested my hands on it. Then I again held my binoculars and focused the crow. The crow was dutifully eating the wheat grains as if that was the only thing he was born for this purpose only. This continued for around