Boulevard of Broken Dreams…

***My latest addiction… Can’t stop listening to this one!***

 

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don’t know where it goes
But it’s only me, I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
When the city sleeps
And I’m the only one and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone
I walk alone
I walk a…

My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
’til then I walk alone

Ah-ah, ah-ah, ah-ah, aaah-ah,
Ah-ah, ah-ah, ah-ah

I’m walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the border line
Of the edge and where I walk alone

Read between the lines
What’s fucked up when everything’s alright
Check my vital signs
To know I’m still alive and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone
I walk alone
I walk a…

My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
’til then I walk alone

Ah-ah, ah-ah, ah-ah, aaah-ah
Ah-ah, ah-ah

I walk alone
I walk a…

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
When the city sleeps
And I’m the only one and I walk a…

My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
’til then I walk alone…

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I heard this song from ‘Bodyguard’ recently, and instantly fell in love with it! Its tune sounds very fresh to the ears and you feel like listening to the lyrics again and again!

New Day, New Life… Part 2 – EPISODE MANIA!

EPISODE 2010

“Hippppieeees, HIPPIES!”

“PIRATES, PIRATES, PIRATES!”

“Hum Hain WHITE WHITE WHITE!”

“MAFIA, MAFIA, MAFIA!”

…these were the phrases we heard all day for almost a week in the canteen, prior to 13th July. The seniors were wearing shades of Blue, Red, White, and Black, and chanting slogans feverishly! They seemed to be on a mission, out there to prove a point. Come July 13th, and we all became a part of this extravaganza…EPISODE MANIA had taken over, and we brought back magic from the Realms of Time…

EPISODE is an annual intra-collegiate fest held at TAPMI, to serve the purpose of senior-junior bonding, and to inculcate the quality of teamwork among the new batch. This year, we were divided into 4 different teams, namely:
• Hippies (Team Blue)
• Pirates (Team Red)
• 4-D (Team White)
• Mafia (Team Black)

One day before Episode kicked off, the seniors from the respective teams put up their inaugural skits, which was liked by all. This was immediately followed by allocating each of us into one of the 4 teams. I had a liking for the colour Red, so was very happy when I came to know that I was a part of the Pirate team!

The new PIRATES!

The first day of Episode had some of the literary events like Wordsworth (Poetry Recitation) and Kurukshetra (Debate competition). But the major event for the day was the Poster making competition, which involved all the junior members of each team, with the seniors pitching in regularly. This was the event that helped all of us really break the ice, as we got to talk to a lot of people and the spirit of working as a collective unit came to the fore!

The PIRATES making the poster

The following days saw a lot of events, some of them being the Fashion Show, Street-Play, Dance, Ad-Zap, Blogging Competition, Creative Writing, Exchange and HR Fora (2 personality-based events). All teams began pushing themselves up the points table, but team PIRATES somehow seemed to be lagging behind. There were only two big events with big points left on the last two days- Dream Theme and Valedictory, and one good day could seal it for any of the 4 teams…

During the Fashion Show dress rehearsals

It was then that the lead PIRATES decided to take a Risk… They put a LOTTERY on the Dream Theme, which was a singing competition where the entire song has to be composed by the group members, and the song should be sung by the entire group. Putting a lottery meant that if we won the event, we would get double the points awarded for it, and losing would mean we forfeit half of all the points that we have gained so far… so we decided to go for it, and put in all our passion and Enthusiasm behind our very own TAPMI Theme song…

And voila! We WON the LOTTERY! The first team in the history of TAPMI to have won a lottery! And what’s more, we jumped from 4th place straight to 2nd place!

Pirates’ Lottery-Winning Theme Song!

But things turned around during the Valedictory function. Team 4-D also put a lottery on the ultimate show-down, and thanks to some brilliant performances, deservedly won it, thus becoming the Champions of Episode 2010 🙂 ….

Whoever was the winner of the Fest, it was the spirit of TAPMI that shone at the end of the day. Looking forward to being a part of EPISODE MANIA all over again! 🙂

Senie Pirates!

Junie Pirates!

Samundar Ke Hain Raja Hum, Bajaa Denge Sabka Baaja Hum!

Will you cross the skies for me?

I recently got to watch the Tamil movie Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa on my comp (without sub-titles! 😀 ). Directed by Gautam Menon, this movie is about a Hindu guy and a Christian girl falling in love with each other, and the confusion and difficulties they face in their lives from there on.

Will You Cross The Skies For Me? 🙂

The story is very slow, with very few characters apart from Simbu and Trisha, but the cinematography and locales, and awesome music by A R Rahman, more than make up for it. Simbu looks very decent for a change, and Trisha looks prettier than ever! 🙂 …

There are a few songs from the movie which are my personal favourites :

Omana Penne : Sung by Benny Dayal and Kalyani Menon, this song reflects the feelings of a new love emerging in one’s heart. It is fresh and lively, thanks to Benny Dayal (of ‘Pappu can’t Dance Saala’ fame)

Kannukkul Kannai : Sung by Naresh Iyer, this song revolves around the wait that a guy goes through when he has proposed to his lady-love. Very hip-hop type, and great dancing by Simbu!

Mannipaaya : Sung by the legendary A. R. Rahman and Shreya Ghoshal, this is one of the most melodious songs of recent times. Soft and soothing, Shreya Ghoshal continues to charm with her magical voice 🙂

Anbil Avan : A very rocking number sung by Devan Ekhambaram and Chinmayi. The tune makes you feel like you are inside a church, attending a marriage 🙂

There are other songs as well, like Aaromale, Hosanna and the title track itself, which enhance the otherwise dull storyline. My suggestion is that you should watch this movie atleast once, for the brilliant music, fantastic cinematography, and for the ever-so-gorgeous Trisha! 🙂

MIND Games!

Karthik, the proverbial loser, would have passed his life unnoticed but for the phone call which changed his life one early morn. The caller, also calling himself Karthik, teaches our hero how to get the top job, the hot chick, the happening life, until our hero angers him…Is it downhill after that?

Well, I got to watch Karthik calling Karthik recently, and was very intrigued by the various facets of the mind that were shown in the movie. Based on a little research, I’m listing out the important states of the mind, and how they can influence the way we think.

Conscious State : Our conscious mind resides in the cerebral cortex, and is the area used for logical thinking. When we are in the conscious state, our mind tends to take logical decisions, and differentiates between what is possible and what is practically impossible. This conscious state is also known as the Beta state, and we spend most of our waking hours in this state. Our brain radiates certain waves (13 cycles per second or higher) when we are thinking, reasoning or engaging in problem solving.

To give an example, let us consider a student who is preparing for a challenging exam like CAT. It is his conscious mind that tells him that he has been an average student all his life, and that it is practically impossible for him to bell the CAT!

Sub-Conscious State : Our subconscious mind is located in the primitive parts of our brain, i.e., the medulla oblongata and the limbic system. The sub-conscious state is also known as the Alpha state, and our brain now radiates waves ranging between 8 and 13 cycles per second. Our subconscious cannot distinguish between thoughts that are created by external events (reality) or imaginary events. If we can begin to imagine that we are filled with a lot of confidence, our sub-conscious will accept that as true. At the same time, if we imagine a lot of negativity, our sub-conscious ming will accept that as the truth as well.

Therefore, if we take the example of the student again, he has the power to imagine that he has enough aptitude to bell the CAT, and to pursue his dreams. With repeated self-instructions in the alpha state, the student begins to believe sub-consciously that he has the confidence to reach his goals, and will automatically start taking steps towards it.

THAT is the power of the sub-conscious mind!

Unconscious State : The unconscious mind is the source of night dreams and automatic and random thoughts, i,e., those thoughts that appear without any apparent cause. It is the store-house of all the memories that have been forgotten, but may still be accessible to consciousness at some later time. The Theta state (between 4 to 8 cycles per second), the dream state, and the Delta state (below four cycles per second), characterize the unconscious mind. When we are just going to sleep but not yet asleep, or just awakening but not yet completely awake, we are usually in the theta state, and when we are in deep sleep, we are in the delta state.

One example of the operation of the unconscious mind is the when the same student does not get the right approach to solve a particular problem, and suddenly, a bulb glows somewhere that provides a solution. A similar phenomenon happens when we try hard to remember something, but when we stop thinking about it, the data that we were looking for is retrieved in a flash!

The power of the human mind is unthinkable. It is up to us to train it in such a way that we can achieve all our goals and lead a good life, or to fill our lives with a lot of negativity.

References:
Personal Development

States of the mind

Wikipedia

New Story, New Beginning!

First of all, wish you all a VERY Happy New Year! …Hope all your dreams and wishes come true and your lives are filled with more happiness and prosperity than the last year 🙂

After a long sabbatical, I’m back to blogging….its been a pretty hectic half-year for me at Mysore, but now I’m back to Bangalore and have started my work life in full flow 🙂 ….but amidst all the work, there was something I had wanted to do since I was in training… and that was to write a story revolving around a confused guy who goes to this wonderful campus in Mysore for training. And after shrugging long periods of procrastination, I have finally begun working on it; and I have created a new blog totally dedicated to this story 🙂

You can catch my new story HERE. I’ll be uploading the first post soon. Awaiting your reactions and comments, because its you readers who inspire me to write more and more 🙂

Happy Reading!

Final sem memories Part 1 – Class Trip

I have been wanting to return for quite sometime now, but somehow, things kept coming in the way. Firstly, I’m very excited to announce that Arpit has awarded me the “Versatile Blogger” award 🙂 ….its a great honour to get this award for a blog thats only 39 posts young…Thanks a lot Arpit 🙂

In a few days from now, I’ll be done with engineering. There are a lot of memories that I’ll take with me from college, many of them from my final semester. I thought of sharing a few of those memories here, starting with our ‘oh-so-secretive’ class trip to Belur, Kemmanagundi and Udupi 😀 …

It was on the 4th of April that we started off from Polar Bear, on what was our first (and only one so far!) overnight class trip. Everyone gathered by 10 P.M, and we were on our way to our first destination – Belur…and if you thought that a night journey was very dull, you were badly mistaken. There was not a single moment of boredom, what with music and dance, people laughing and enjoying, and waking up those who were trying to sleep for sometime 😆 ….amidst all this fun and frolic, we reached Belur at around 3 in the morning, after a brief halt at Chennarayapatna.

After taking rest for about three hours, we headed towards Kemmanagundi, where we were to trek up to Z point. It took 2 hours to reach the base, after which we trekked for almost 8 kms….on the way, we saw a small park with statues of Ram and Sita, followed by a stream which became a popular photography zone 😛 …(and where I had an awesome fall 😐 ) …we split up into many small groups depending on our speed of walking, and our group went slightly ahead of the others. We were guided till the peak by a smart doggie, which seemed to know every nook and corner of the place. The sight from the top was breath-taking, offering a captivating arial view of the distant Shola grasslands in the undulated Western ghats. It was almost like we had reached the top of the world! 🙂

All of us on the way to Z-point

View from the top

After lunch, we headed to Shanti falls, which was supposed to be very close to the base. Quaint and untouched, Shanti Falls is quite a favourite with travellers to Kemmanagundi. Access to the falls was possible only through jeeps, which looked like they belonged to a museum! After what seemed like ages of travelling on agonizingly bumpy roads, we reached the falls. We had to cross 3 slippery streams to actually get there….but in the end, it was worth it!!! Shanti Falls, gently and beautifully blended with the surroundings, is a small, yet breath-taking fall, with an inimitable power of making one feel relaxed and removed from the bustle of daily city life. I had not expected any falls to have so much water in the middle of summer! And icy cold water too! We played in the water for sometime. A little more time in the water and we would have become ice-cubes! 😀

Shanti Falls

Another bumpy 1-hour drive in the ancient jeeps, and we were back to our bus. It was around 8 PM when we finally started on our way back to Belur. A Kannada movie starring Golden-Star Ganesh was being played in the bus, but I (and everyone else for that matter!) was too tired to do anything but sleep! We reached our hotel at 11.30, and had dinner on the terrace at midnight. Some of us went for a stroll upto the famous Belur temple after that, which was just a few metres away from where we were put up.

The next day began as early as 6 again, and we headed out towards Udupi. The journey through the ghats was refreshing to say the least! An hour’s delay meant that we reached Malpe beach only by 3.30 in the afternoon, going via Manipal and Udupi….from there, we boarded a ferry to St. Mary’s island, which is about 5 kms away from the shore. I was very excited about going to the island because, inspite of this place being so close to my native, I’d never been there before! Once on the island, all of us eagerly plunged into the sea…the warm sea water was a stark difference from the falls we had experienced about 24 hours ago 😀 ….but was as much fun nevertheless!

St. Mary's Island

We still had a little time to explore another coast of the island, before catching the last ferry back to Malpe. We stayed on for some more time at Malpe beach, more so to see the sun go down on a beautiful day…..we took some time to freshen up in a hotel in Udupi, and post dinner, were on our way back to good ol’ Bangalore! 🙂 ….

Truly, this is one trip I’ll remember all my life. Although it lasted for just a little more than 2 days, the memories associated with it are countless ……………… 🙂 ….I’m hoping and praying that we get to go for one more trip after our exams!

S.R.S = Software Requirement Specification? 🙂

RCB !!!!

This post is dedicated to the team that was virtually written off right from the beginning of the IPL, upto the semi-finals; the Royal Challengers Bangalore are NOW in the FINALS of the DLF Indian Premier League!!!! 🙂 They’ll face the Deccan Chargers, who had finished last in the first edition of the IPL. Who would have EVER imagined the bottom two of the first IPL, battling against each other in the mega-final of the second edition??! Whoever wins from now, HATS OFF to both the teams! 🙂 ….you have shown the world what you are really capable of doing. My heart still beats passionately for RCB though. 🙂

GO ROYAL CHALLENGERS BANGALORE!!! WE ARE GAME FOR MORE!!!

Mistakes, mistakes, and more mistakes!

Well…..5000 hits and I’m back again! 🙂 🙂 ….life has been pretty good in the new year……a LOT of things have changed, and changed for good! :)….I also managed to catch up with a book called “The 3 mistakes of my Life” by Chetan Bhagat. I have always liked the way Chetan Bhagat writes. The characterization in his novels is very realistic, and the element of humour that he brings in makes for some interesting reading!

This book is about a young boy named Govind Patel, who hails from Ahmedabad. He is shown to be a mathematical genius, who takes maths tuitions to support his mother’s snacks business. Govind is passionate about starting his own business one day, for which he involves his two friends, Omi and Ishaan. Omi is the son of a local priest, and is supposed to be a dull-head. His uncle Bittoo mama belongs to a communal party, and despises Govind for being an antagonist. Ishaan, or Ish as he’s called by everyone, is from a slightly more well-to-do family, and is extremely passionate about cricket. He used to be a champion player in school, and is quite proud of that, but he is not in good terms with his father after having run away from military training. It takes Govind some effort to convince his friends about starting a cricket shop outside Omi’s temple, which is ultimately christened as “Team India Cricket Shop”.

Everything goes well for the Team India Cricket Shop in the beginning…..they begin to make profits very soon, and little kids come to Ish for some free cricket coaching. Ish finds a really talented ‘student’ in Ali, a 12 year old kid who has the extraordinary gift of hitting sixes at will! But things go horribly wrong when nature plays spoilsport, and the 3 budding entrepreneurs now have to face an uphill task of having to rebuild everything. When things start improving, communal riots and hardcore politics make their lives even tougher.

The author manages to bring out the dark realities that exist in Indian society. By referring to real life incidents which took place in Gujarat between 1999 and 2002, he is able to convince the reader that this book is more than just mere fiction. It is a reflection of life during, possibly, India’s worst encounter with communal riots and earthquakes. All characters are life-like, and its quite possible that you will be able to relate to one of them! The love story between Govind and Vidya (who happens to be Ishaan’s younger sister and Govind’s student!) looks a little filmy- but its cute nonetheless 🙂 ….especially the conversation between Govind and Vidya over the phone, when he goes to Australia for Ali’s training.

There are many slack points in the book too. For starters, the whole trip to Australia part is dragged a lot, just to show how much Govind and Vidya miss each other. Also, the climax seems way too dramatic and overboard. The third mistake is also far from convincing. Inspite of all this, “The 3 mistakes…” is one book you would not want to miss! 🙂 ….Chetan Bhagat has once again proved why he is the “biggest-selling English-language novelist in India’s History“! 😎

What Next?

I’m back!!! 8) Well, the new year has been quite eventful so far….a semester exam on the very first day, CAT results, a couple of not-so-good management entrance exams, and Infy Training….My CAT results have put me in a sticky position ( I got 94 percentile btw!) , coz I’m not able to decide whether to continue with my admission process, or give myself more time to sharpen my skills and attempt again next year. Anyway, I’ve applied to a few good B-schools now; will cross the bridge when I come to it 🙂 ….

Infosys training has been good fun so far though…atleast there is something useful to do than to rot at home 😛 …we’ll be having a test on the 19th of next month, and that might decide who joins the company when, or who gets chucked out first! 😀

I got to watch a few movies too…..GHAJINI rocked!!! 🙂 ..Slumdog Millionaire was brilliant……and Dasvidaniya was really meaningful….I loved all 3 of them 🙂

Lastly, Nikkiman’s Philosophical Thought for the day :-
The earth is round and it is rotating. Therefore, even if you stay stationary, you’ll be going around with someone or the other, and at a pretty high speed. So all you singles out there, DON’T feel too bad! 😀 😛 😆