Maverick

I don't know why but I find myself listening to this beautiful ghazal almost everyday.

गुलों में रंग भरे, बाद-ए-नौबहार चले,
चले भी आओ के गुलशन का कारोबार चले !

मकाम फ़ैज़ कोई, राह में जचा ही नही,
जो कुए यार से निकले तो सुए दार चले !

Can anybody explain what this means ?

Mehdi Hasan rocks. It is a pity I started listening to him only since last year.

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How does University circle look from Chaturshrungi hill ?

I consider it a great honour to be tagged by TMWW.

5 Favourite toys:
My cell Nokia 7250i which is armed with a FM radio (on which I listened to Rafi all day long) and a camera phone (which as a law abiding citizen, I don't put to the innovative uses which we have all seen recently).
My (newly acquired) digicam Canon Powershot A510. Frankly, I am amazed by its capabilities (you can attach it to a TV also) and image quality (really excellent).
My Lorus watch with a black dial(brought from USA). Time has extreme significance in my life and so has this watch.
My bike (C115) which is still in excellent shape (touchwood) even after travelling over 16000 kms.
My workstation which happens to slug more for non-work purposes than work.

5 greatest joys:
Reading (anything under the sun be it newspapers, magazines, novels, non-fiction)
Travelling (to faraway places, in India itself)
Trekking (on the weekends)
Photography (of nature minus homo sapiens)
Listening to music (specifically hindi film, ghazals, indian classical, marathi bhavgeete)

5 favorite TV shows:
Neev (Does anybody remember this, sunday mornings, late 90s)
Lifeline (Again late 90s, excellent serial)
Oshin (Story of a japanese girl, circa 92-93)
The Big Fight (with Rajdeep Sardesai, it is a pity that he has left now)
KBC and KBC-Dwitiya (AB simply rocks)

5 things I would never wear in public:
Skin tight T-shirts, Three-fourth pants, Flat foot (read bell bottom) trousers, Sleeveless T-shirts and yes, sleepers.

5 places I would run away to:
Lachung (North Sikkim, beautiful place, been there once)
Leh (Anxious to go there)
Kashmir valley (Somehow, there is no comparison to this)
Diveagar (Konkan, serene unspoilt beach plus cell phone doesn't work here)
Kailash - Mansarovar (Where all the faithful go)

5 Things I'd do with $100 million:
Buy a private island somewhere in the pacific, a private jet and other things to be done are also private :-)

5 Snacks:
Vaishali's (FC Road) Mysore saada dosa, home-made Thalipeeth, Haldiram's Bhujia Sev, Paan of the paanwala near Hotel Ashish Plaza (I am cheating here assuming Paan is a snack) and Chaitanya's Parathas

5 bands I know all the words to:
I don't know what this means.

Yesterday:
Just another day, a tiring day at work, reached home at 9 after having dinner, read the latest issue of "The Week" on how the Sensex is going to touch 16000 or 25000 in 5 years and then went to sleep.

1 year ago:
Not much difference from today except the year.

5 years ago:
It was B.E. final year and I was shuttling between different campus interviews. After not being selected in Infosys, Cognizant and L&T, I finally got through MBT. That nobody from that lot got to join it is a different story.

10 years ago:
I was in 11th standard. It is supposed to be a rest year. But my tuitions for 12th started that year itself. Nothing much to write home about except that it was the first year out of school into college. There was a big lake nearby our college and I think lot of time was spent there hanging around.

And last but not the least, I wanna tag Aldrin, Ashutosh, Nilay, Indrajit and Sudeep.

Duke's nose is a hillock in the Khandala valley which is named so because it looks like the nose of a person with face pointing upwards. It is visible from the Mumbai -Pune rail route and the expressway.

The "Duke" stands for Duke of Wellington Arthur Wellesley (also, General and UK Prime Minister) who had a large pointed nose. It is known locally as Nagphani or Cobra's hood. Some pictures from Duke's nose of the surrounding valley can be found here.

The ride from Aundh to Hinjewadi which was once quite good is now a nightmare. The whole 11 km stretch is filled with potholes and ditches. The problem for drivers is compounded at night due to poor lighting along the road.

The alternative route via Baner is only slightly better. But it exposes you to a 3km stretch of the Katraj-Dehuroad bypass where vehicles ply in speeds excess of 80 kmph, stationary trucks at octroi post suddenly start moving without warning and driving on wrong side is a rule rather than an exception. All in all, it is a recipe for accidents.

What is more suprising that even with such roads, property rates are only going northwards. I guess demand is outstripping everything else.

Finally I have got this blogrolling thingy to work (read: it has started working itself). The way it functions is that it tracks changes to blogs and flags the ones that have changed. You can see it in the "Blogs I Read" sidebar that recently updated blogs will have "New !" tagged to their links.

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And for all you gadget crazy people, here is a gizmo blog.

Try to solve the e4 and endgame puzzle from this week's Mindsport which appeared in the Sunday Times Of India of 11 Sep.

I could crack the e4 one.

Wishing a happy Ganeshotsava to the universe at large !

Hope the good Lord will help everybody tide over their troubles.

After aldrin and themanwhowrote, I have been afflicted with the disease of having multiple blogs. The first symptom is a new photoblog at http://power-shots.blogspot.com. This is supposed to be a photo gallery for my new Canon PowerShot A510.

And it wouldn't be totally out of place to mention that Maria Sharapova endorses Canon's Powershot range of cameras. "Make every shot a power shot" is what she is emphasising.

A fitting review for what has turned out to be an excellent film.

Nagesh Kukunoor weaves a simple story with good performances
and a taut script. And it cost him about 3 crores.

Just to put things in perspective, Mangal Pandey : The Rising is
reported to have cost a staggering Rs. 50 cr. And its woes seem
to continue.