A beautiful rememberence.

A beautiful poem that I read somewhere. It was for some departed dear one...

" I have forgotten what your voice sounds like because I hear it no more,
The ringing of your keys when you walked, the tread of your soft footsteps.
I can see your smile but can’t remember your laugh
It has been so long that I don’t know what it feels like to have you around
But I still miss you,
I miss the comfort of your presence in my life,
Something I am not sure I remember, but I believe in
I have survived without u, I have grown, I have lived
Endured the pain, felt weakened by it, embraced it also.
Only to become ME, who is still a part of YOU, the you that I can never forget.
I miss you and love you always!!! "

Service Centres----Are they of any use???

My husbands Laptop (Compaq) stopped functioning about 3 weeks back. The immediate option he tried was going to a local computer engineer. It obviously dint work cos it was supposedly a hardware failure....

Second he took it to the HP SERVICE CENTRE - at Saki Naka. The only one in the whole of Mumbai. There they asked him to take a backup of his files and told him that it was a software failure and not a hardware one. We took the backup and went there on 16th Aug (Sat). Yes They are working on sat too.. We went there and were disappointed cos, the security personnel said its closed. it was 7 pm at tht time. we were surprised because the working hours were as follows:
Monday - Friday - 9.30 am-8 pm & Sat - 9.30 am - 8 pm (dunno Why they wrote it seperately when the timings were same though). Neverthless they said since it was raksha bandhan they closed at 6 pm. (wonder why did they even keep it open till 6 then?). We gave them a benefit of doubt and returned back.

Next we (me and hubby) went on monday, 18th Aug, riding super fast on bike fighting against the maddenning traffic on the roads in the evening of a working day, the first day of week.(People in Mumbai, travelling during tht time will agree n understand wat I wanna say). We somehow managed to leave our respective offices by 6.30 pm & reach saki naka by 7.50 pm. Relieved that we reached on time. Still 10 mins till the centre closes. On entering, we get another shock whn the security tells us, they are closed for the day. Then On arguing, one person, (Name: Amit) wearing an I-Card , comes and tells us that they are closed. I Retaliate saying how is that possible?? when the working hours are till 8 pm. He argues saying who said its till 8. he tells me, madam please go and see its 6 pm.... I lost my temper, and said in a blasting tone, WHAT CRAP?? Shouted at him and said, YOU go out and see what the timings are... He did so being unsure. And came in shouting at his colleagues... saying who changed the time... I called him and said, I came and changed Your office timings, U wierdo. (I Actually Did That).
He kept on mumbling, saying, Who must have changed the timings?? Y dint they tell us?? Y doesnt the management inform us.... I felt like he was a jerk ended up in a wrong place. imagine someone....working in a HP SERVICE CENTRE (Professional Place) & not knowing his working hours???

Next, we were guided to another person (Name: Prateek), who on realising we were right, spoke very politely to us. (rather me). He then argued in sometime saying, the service centre cant format the laptop, cos they dont have the cd's (recovery disk). I asked him wat are service centres there for?? He replied, only for hardware failure, This was a software failure, which service centre cant do anything. Ridiculous!!!! We would have to call the service centre Helpline on phone and then order for a recovery disk, and then format it ourself.... (Wonder What kind of service subscription are we paying for ??) We asked him to dial the number in front of us. He replied saying, if you come before 6, only then i can dial their number, because they work till 6... I was like...arent Service Centre helpline supposed to be working 24 *7 ?? he dint seem to have the reply to it... he stood quiet.


On persuasion and my anger, he gave us the number and told us that he will format the laptop for us, considering as a special case. My temper was at the boiling point and i said, You arent obliging us in any case. Take your charges, which in any case you will... no need of giving us a connotation of special Case.

PLEASE NOTE...

1. An employee of a Profesisonal company like HP SERVICE CENTRE, doesnt know his office working hours.

2. HP Customer Service Helpline doesnt work beyond, 6 pm, forget the mandatory 24*7 rule.

3. They Charge even if the laptop is in the warranty period, and upon that they act and behave as if they are obliging us by doing that. (Despite of charging extra for the service warranty)

Now, Tell me, Are Service Centres of any use??

Reality Stranger!!!

A few years after I was born, my Dad met a stranger who was new to our town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around from then on. As I grew up, I never questioned his place in my family. In my young mind, he had a special niche. My parents were complementary instructors: Mom taught me good from evil, and Dad taught me to obey. But the stranger...he was our storyteller. He would keep us spellbound for hours on end with adventures, mysteries and comedies.

If I wanted to know anything about politics, history or science, he always knew the answers about the past, understood the present and even seemed able to predict the future! He took my family to the first cricket match. He made me laugh, and he made me cry. The stranger never stopped talking, but Dad didn't seem to mind.

Sometimes, Mom would get up quietly while the rest of us were shushing each other to listen to what he had to say, and she would go to the kitchen for peace and quiet. (I wonder now if she ever prayed for the stranger to leave.)

Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but the stranger never felt obligated to honour them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our home... Not from us, our friends or any visitors. Our long-time visitor, however, got away with four-letter words that burned my ears and made my dad squirm and my mother blush. My Dad didn't permit the liberal use of alcohol. But the stranger encouraged us to try it on a regular basis. He made cigarettes look cool, cigars manly and pipes distinguished. He talked freely (much too freely!) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing. I now know that my early concepts about relationships were influenced strongly by the stranger. Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom rebuked... And NEVER asked to leave.

More than fifty years have passed since the stranger moved in with our family. He has blended right in and is not nearly as fascinating as he was at first. Still, if you could walk into my parents' den today, you would still find him sitting over in his corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures.

His name?......
We just called him 'TV'

(Note: This should be required reading for every household!)

He has a son now....We call him 'Computer.'

Memorandum of Understanding for a marriage!!!

1. Groom will be responsible for sharing 50 % of cooking, cleaning & dusting on all Saturdays and Sundays and National Holidays except when on tour.

2. Groom will strictly adhere to a wake up time between 6 AM to 6 PM on holidays and will make sincere efforts to wake up in the morning.

3. Groom will observe silence and not disturb bride while watching F.R.I.E.N.D. S or anything else on TV. This rule is absolutely non-negotiable.

4. Groom acknowledges and accepts the inclination of bride to be occasionally moody and exibit unexpected behaviour.

5. Groom's decision on the following matters will be final and binding. Future of Indian Cricket, Finance, daily wake up times and diet.

6. Bride will observe 'do not disturb' policy during any cricket matches, involving India. This is applicable to grooms also.

7. Bride will swear to promote and tolerate the cricket career of groom at any such time it surfaces or materialises.

8. Bride acknowledges and accepts the inclination of the groom to be occasionally moody and exhibit unexpected behaviour.

9. Bride's decision and judgement on the following matters will be final and binding: Photography, Entertainment, Fitness, Internet Usage, Shopping, Travel, Music, Television, and Foreign Relations.

Stock Brockers!!!!!

1) Stock Market below 13000 points, Sign of Caution

2) India stock market below 14000 Points, What to do now?

3) Why India stock market is down?

4) What caused Black Monday for Indian stock Market?

5) Indian stock market lost 20 Lakh crore in seven days

The stock market has been concerning itself lately with realities, in contrast with hopes and expectations which ruled dealings from the first week of February until the middle of July.The stock market movements over the past few weeks can be best described as unpredictable. It goes a few impressive points up, only to slide back after a few days.

I found this very apt mail, which states the Condition & Life of a Stock Broker in future.

In the Year 5008, yes not 2008 but 5008, a little girl asked her father - "Dad who were stock brokers?" Dad replied, "Some 3000 years ago these were human like creatures, they were so many and suddenly some kind of environmental change happened, their fossils are found with some numbers with graphs, marking 21000 and then 9000. Scientist interpret differently ,some says it may be temperature changes , some says it may be density of the gas they use to inhale for living dropped below 9000 from 21000. Nobody has a clear view on why they slowly became extinct."

Life's Like that!!!!

Well time for humor again folks.
2 Live funny incidents that happened!!!
Incident 1:

This was when my friend was touring Haridwar recently. She was traveling with her family. And in the night when they were ordering for dinner, this funny incident happened.

She placed an order and then in the end she ordered “5 Buttermilk”. The waiter who was taking down the order, asked her to repeat herself, an she repeated “5 Buttermilk”. Can you even guess what the waiter must have replied?

Well he replied saying : “Kya madam, yahan aise kaise de sakte hai aapko, 5 butter alag se and 5 milk alag se de sakte hai, mix kaise denge”.

Now those who dint get the Hindi dialogue: translation: “Madam how can we give like that here, we can give 5 Packets of Butter and 5 Glasses of Milk separately. How can we mix n give?”

Incident 2:
A bunch of 11th standards, newly entered college, were standing at a railway station platform. One girl may have come from outside Bombay simply because she certainly dint understand Marathi language. She was from Gujarat probably, because it was a bunch of gujjus standing there.

The train was about to come and these girls, were asking each other to get in the train, they asked this girl also to get in the train because then there was no slow train after that train for next 10 mins.

She just wudnt get in, saying I want to see the next train after this. Everyone was like why? what is so special about it? And then she was like dint u guys hear the announcement… there is a burning train which will pass in some time, I want to see it.

The announcement actually was, “thodia velane ek jalad gaadi jaanar aahe” which means “In some time a fast local is going to pass by”.

Jalad = Fast. And she took it as Jalan = Burning.

She surenly doesn’t understand a word of Marathi…

Transitions of life!!!!

Life transitions are probably the best things in life that one appreciates the most beyond doubt. These are the times one discovers and rediscovers new things, realize what has to be realized, and act upon things that call for a lot of consideration and maturity.

A lot of people, especially the assuming ones, tell me that I seem like a person who has been through all life's highest points, even the lowest. That they see me as a flawed emotional capsule crammed with all the biases and happy endings waiting to be formed as a single roving soul

It's true I have been through a lot. You, too. I mean, we all have been. Maybe the reason why I differ from anybody else [or so I say] and people can say such things, is because I try to extract as many things-- realizations, comprehensions, possibilities, negativities, etc,-- as possible from all the experiences, and assess them one at a time until I move on.

I enjoy meeting a lot of people. I like talking, sharing, listening to their stories and opinions, etc., because from there I get to see a whole different perception of the real world. The held high and low points of my life bump into theirs, and there I would come to realize that we may all have been going through the same things, but we all vary in the ways we deal and see it. It's like playing a game of chess. You know the moves. But you have your own scheme that is entirely different from your opponent. You are the boss. You control.

Now that I've learned, and am wiser, I'm hoping that this transition, so major, so scary, in my life would be.. though imperfect, the finest stage of my life.

Courtesy: Megs!

What Makes a Great Life Partner???

• Someone who knows what you need before you say it.
• Someone who knows when to laugh and when to cry.
• Someone who truly listens when you have something to say.
• Someone that's there for you during the good and bad times.
• Someone who loves you with all their heart and soul.
• Someone who is interested in reality and not as a fashion display.
• Someone who is caring, honest, open & Responsive
• Someone you can trust them like a sibling, confide in like a friend but most of all, love as the great lover they are.
• Someone who is never critical and ill-tempered in respect to your needs.
• Someone who knows when things have to be compromised in the relationship.
• Someone who understands listening is a key, but using what is heard is even more important.
• Someone who's there for you no matter what.
• Someone who is trustful, a friend and someone who gives a shoulder to cry on.
• Someone with a great sense of humor.
• Someone who has things in common with you.
• Someone who takes time to listen and enjoy you for who you are and tries not to make you something else.
• Someone with a constant open ear, open heart, and open mind to accept and love people for who the really are.
• Someone who will always be there to support your ideas without argument and love you for everything that you are.
• Someone that can get a point across without yelling.
• Someone that remembers all the cute stupid stuff you love.
• Someone that has a personality with qualities you don't have yourself, but admire greatly in them.
• Someone who realizes you're two separate people, and appreciates the differences.
• Someone who can sense a mood problem, and not take it personally.
• Someone who understands the difference between PMS, and a real problem.
• Someone who can make you happy when your sad.
• Someone who tells you the truth even if you don't want to hear it.
• Someone who will not hurt you intentionally.
• Someone who is a sweet, romantic person who cherishes you no matter what.
• Someone that you can laugh with.
• Someone who you can feel comfortable with and that you don't care what kind of weird stuff they see you do because you know they will still love you no matter what.
• Someone who will love you in spite of your little idiosyncrasies.
• Someone that would do anything to show how much they care.
• Someone who is a great pal, a great kisser, and a great lover!
• Someone who allows you to be yourself around them.
• Someone who will respect you.
• Someone who cherishes your hopes and is kind to your dreams.
• Someone who knows you're not perfect, but treats you as though you are.
• Someone who listens with their heart and is your source of inspiration

I Want to Go Back in Time When…..

I Want to Go Back in Time When…..

• Decisions were made by going eeny-meeny-miney-mo.
• Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, do over!
• Race issue meant arguing about who ran the fastest.
• Money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in Monopoly.
• Catching the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening.
• It wasn't odd to have two or three best friends.
• Being old, referred to anyone over 20.
• The net on a tennis court was the perfect height to play volleyball and rules didn't matter.
• It was unbelievable that dodgeball wasn't an Olympic event.
• Having a weapon in school, meant being caught with a slingshot.
• Nobody was prettier than Mom.
• Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better.
• It was a big deal to finally be tall enough to ride the big people rides at the amusement park.
• Getting a foot of snow was a dream come true.
• Abilities were discovered because of a double-dog-dare.
• Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute ads for action figures.
• No shopping trip was complete, unless a new toy was brought home.
• Oly-oly-oxen-free made perfect sense.
• Spinning around, getting dizzy and falling down was cause for giggles.
• The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team.
• War was a card game.
• Water balloons were the ultimate weapon.
• Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle.
• Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin.
• Ice cream was considered a basic food group.
• Older siblings were the worst tormentors, but also the fiercest protectors.
• If you can remember most or all of these, then you have LIVED!!!!

Dilbert!!!!!

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Top 5 Signs to know where your relation is standing!

One day, you are madly in love. You're cuddling on the couch, reading love poems and feeding each other sushi. And that's when it happens: Your partner sits you down for the "It's-Not-You, It's-Me" talk. You're confused and left wondering, "How could I have missed the signs?" Breaking up is never easy. Your ego and heart are bound to get bruised. But if you could just see the breakup coming, it might make the whole business easier to stomach

Top five signs you're about to get dumped:

1. Picking fights: No one is saying you have to get along 24/7. Constructive conflict can actually be good for your relationship. But if you find that your partner has become argumentative over petty issues like your clothes or choice of restaurant, that should serve as a warning sign that he/she may be looking for an excuse to bail.

2. Forgetting to call: Used to be that your phone would ring all day long with your sweetie wanting to make plans or calling just to say, "I love you." Now your significant other doesn't even call when he/she is running three hours late. It may seem obvious, but going from speed dial to a blocked number is a sure sign that your relationship may be nearing its expiration date.

3. Changing their stripes: A major change in appearance can be a sign that your partner is looking toward greener pastures. Whether they've chopped off their hair, lost some weight or gone from a normal hair to a Coloured haired babe, major cosmetic changes should be noted. Of course, there's nothing wrong with being a little vain, but if the change is accompanied by any of the other signs listed here, you may need to get ready to go solo.

4. Criticizing: If your sweetie isn't feeling you anymore, don't be surprised if he/she becomes less tolerant of everything, from how you brush your teeth to how you tie your shoes. Constant criticism is a telltale sign that your days as a twosome are numbered.

5. Losing sexual interest: A healthy sex life can make or break a relationship. If you find that your partner is becoming more sexually aloof, you need to get to the root of the issue. While it's natural to have less sex as you settle into a comfortable groove together, waiting weeks or months to have sexual contact is a sign that something is amiss.

Now that you know the warning signs, don't panic. Just because your partner exhibits some of these behaviors, that doesn't necessarily mean the relationship is over. In fact, it's usually a combination of signs and not one isolated incident that foreshadows a breakup. If you're worried that your partner is itching to get out, the most important thing you can do is sit down and discuss your issues in an honest and open manner. If you take these signs as your cue to improve communication, your relationship may just have a fighting chance

What Is TIME???

WHAT EXACTLY IS TIME?

THE answer is, we simply do not know. Time, goes the joke, is Nature's way of stopping everything happening at once. Time defines our lives, it is how we measure our very being. Yet as to what it is, we are as in the dark as the ancients. That is not to say that we do not understand what time does. Physicists such as Albert Einstein have come up with some great insights as to the properties of time. We give it a symbol and plug it into various equations and it works very well. But that, again, does not tell us what time actually is. Is it a 'river', which flows from past to future? If so, a river of what? What causes it to flow, and what sets the rate at which it flows? Would it be possible to swim, as it were, upstream, and travel through time? Could we stop the river flowing altogether? Science fiction writers say all this is possible, as, surprisingly, do most physicists. But before we build a time machine, we will need to get a grip on what this most elusive and slippery thing actually is. Ultimately, all these mysteries will be solved.

(Ref: Mumbai Mirror)

Can I Live for EVER???

CAN I LIVE FOR EVER?

Possibly, but not yet. Ageing — and particularly ways of stopping the process — is one of those issues that many scientists would rather not talk about because it raises disturbing moral and ethical questions. For a start, on a practical level, we do not know what ageing really is. We take it for granted that our bodies wear out as we grow older, yet this is not really the case. For the first 20 years of our lives, our bodies grow stronger, more efficient, more resistant to disease. It is only later that things start going wrong. Why? According to the evolutionary theory of ageing, our bodies start to fail us because in the ‘wild’ we would expect to die anyway, at the age of 30-50, from cold, starvation, an attack by sabretoothed tigers and so on. There was no point in our having evolved to cope with the diseases of old age, if we were never going to live that long anyway. But that doesn’t really tell us what is going on when we age, what drives the genetic ‘clock’ that makes skin dry, our hair go grey and our bones brittle. Only when we understand what truly drives these processes will we stand a chance of combating them. And then, of course, we will be faced with a huge moral problem: do we really want to live in a world where some people will never grow old? Or in a world where (inevitably) only a lucky elite will be able to afford the treatments to allow this to happen?

(Ref: Mumbai Mirror)

Am I The Same Person???

AM I THE SAME PERSON I WAS A MINUTE AGO?

WHAT a strange question! Yet this goes to the heart of one of the most vexed questions in the whole of science and philosophy - that of identity. On the face of it, the answer is obvious: of course I am. But think again. Ten minutes ago, every cell in your brain was doing something different to what it is doing now. Every few years, your body is mostly replaced. If it is possible to rebuild the burned Cutty Sark, using new timbers, and many other new parts, is it really the same ship that plied the seas 150 years ago? Purists say ‘No’. But if that is the case, then you are certainly not the same person you were when you were a child or a baby. This question shows the way we think about ourselves runs contrary to what is actually happening. And it has practical implications: Should people be held responsible for crimes they committed decades previously? How do we establish someone’s identity? Is it DNA or something more nebulous? For what it is worth, it could be concluded that our identity is largely a fiction. We are the same person through time only in the same way that a river is the same river as it flows down the same course. But of course the water, the ripples and eddies, change every second.

(Ref:Mumbai Mirror)

Some Embarrassing Moments!!!!

Ok..tooo much of serious stuff in last couple of blogs.... now time for some humourous stuff....

Here are some of the Embarrassing situations which i could think of.... imagine yourself in these situations......

1. One day you are going down in the elevator when just another person in there whom you havent met until then, starts talking. He says 'How are you?" and You answer "Fine" surprised at it. He then says "What else are you up to" and you reply "nothing". Finally he turns to you and says "Do You Mind I Am On The Phone"!!. It was then that you realize that he was talking on his Mobile

2. You are at a wedding of a relative of your loved one… and the brides mother is an unusually large, homely, unkempt woman...no matter what she wore or how she did her hair she couldn't help but look horrid. You want to say to her upon shaking hands in the receiving line.... ‘You really look nice’, (as You know she spent some time trying her best and it was worth the effort as she did look reasonably nice). You are all ready in the line and as you take her hand... Instead of saying "You really look nice" You blurted out... "You even look nice".. and that too in front of the Bride and Bridegroom and other guests waiting in the reception line!!!

3. You're walking up to your new boyfriends work and he's watching you approach him, along with some of his work friends and they're all checking you out. You're wearing these brand new sexy black pants which kind of flare with a split down the side, and yes one of your feet catches the other side of your pants, and you go flying, in front of all of them. Getting up from that one takes a lot of composure.

4. You have gone for a matrimonial get-together in some hotel. You find an amazing guy / girl staring at you. You reciprocate by staring! You start building hopes, hopes about going n talking to him/her, planning about future, wat if things work out wid the person n stuff…. Suddenly you see him / her whispering something into some elder person’s ears and soon someone from their end come and talk to someone from your end about fixing up a meeting. You are happy to the fullest, and then when introduction begins, they introduce the person whom you are staring at as their elder son / d’ter / son-in law / or d’ter-in-law… and thn the actual girl candidate / guy candidate comes… and then you realize that the person was staring at you for the candidate and not for self!!!!! [I have been through this :) :P…. trust me….. the marriage meet never happens but the embarrassment remains till you leave the place]

5. You are out with your loved one and his/ her friends. You were sitting in a room and u get an urgent urge to sneeze. (I think we all have this problem occasionally) .. but then when you are about to sneeze you fart as well.. Then you try to play it cool.. by acting like nothing had happend.. You could have swore, the guy / girl you love heard you but did not say anything. Wow. it sounds terrible and you face turns bright red.