Life Reloaded!!!

Actually these weren't actual resolutions for the year , these were my " personal KRAs ". Usually, I don't make any resolutions at the start of the year, however my boss had asked me and Pradumn to prepare KRAs at personal as well as professional level. I think I was able to fulfill all of the KRAs at work. Even at personal level, I was able to achieve most of the goals I had set for 2012.  One of them was visiting more places during the year. Of course, I wasn't able to go anywhere outside Maharashtra for a trip, but I did manage few official tours to Bangalore, Delhi and Chennai. There were lot of opportunities though, with many of classmates from NITIE getting married. There were many trips in Maharashtra, even though I missed the big Konkan Picnic initially in January (I was in Bangalore). Still we covered all three famous hill stations - Lonavala , Matheran , Mahabaleshwar . In between. there was a visit to Pune as well. Towards the end of the year, we ...

I was returning from my usual night walks after dinner, when I realized that the Sinhal classes at the corner still has the same banners it had in 2003. It says from Sinhal class, Pooja Garg was the HSC topper in 2003 and Yashodhan Kanoriya as ICSE topper in 2001, both my classmates in D. G. Ruparel College . Brought back some old memories :)

I am really bored with the book "The Ascent of Money" (Sorry bro!). I have already ordered the books - " Who let the Dork out " and " The Critical Chain ". I should be able to start with Dork III by tomorrow as it is shipping from Flipkart's Bhivandi warehouse!

Last week I had gone for another trip with my school friends. This time the places was Karde and Dapoli . One thing different this time though, was the traveling. Earlier, we used to travel in a hired vehicle or public transport like Train or Bus. This time it was our very own +Dnyanesh who had brought his Wagon R. The day before the picnic I did a big flip-flop by telling +Viraj and  +Aditya that I was not going to come. But eventually I did give in to Viraj's valid arguments and decided to join them.  We left early in the morning, thinking that we would take around 7-8 hours to reach Karde , although we reached there before 2PM. The house where we were staying was at an awesome location with a sea view from the window. We could hear the waves in the night very clearly in our rooms. The food was also great (both veg for the lunch as well as fish for the dinner). Meantime, we went to Harne port which is famous for its fish market. Well, I had never been to a fish mar...

It has been pathetic 3 weeks for Indian cricket. Till the second day of second week, nobody would have thought India was going to lose the series like that. Problem isn't losing, it is the way we lost the 2 tests. Before the series, the kind of tactics we used, by denying England any spin practice during the practice games, were all waste when think of them now. What was worse is the way our batsmen handled English spinners. How can English spinners take 19 wickets in a test against India in India? Unimaginable to me!!  Hoping for better series against the Aussies!!! But, with India losing the series (again), it will be NO more HT for a week (again) :(

While checking the reviews of "Catch 22" on Goodreads, I found that the term "Catch 22" was first coined by Joseph Heller in this book. Never realized it :( Catch 22 on Wiki

Whooh! Finally completed this book. I bought this book after Shekhar's suggestion in September this year. But when I started reading this book, I simply could not connect to the crazy bunch of officers taking part in the World War II. I had to read chapter by chapter everyday - a chapter a day. I really wasn't able to understand what kind of satire it was. To give you an idea how much slow I was at the start - it took me 2 months to read first 300 pages and 1 week to read next 260. It is only when the squadron loses Clevinger during one of bombings, did I realize that this isn't the usual stuff. Previous to this book, I had read "Vyakti ani Valli" , where there are various funny descriptions of people in life. Even though there is no direct similarities between the two, the sudden change of tone from humor to seriousness is common between them.  There were times when you think everything is going funny and suddenly a tragedy happens. As the story reaches climax...

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VJTI Friends

I ordered following 2 books today -  Catch 22 by Joseph Heller Vyakti Ani Valli by P. L. Deshpande The first one was suggested by Shekhar, and the latter one I have already read once, but would like to have a copy of the same. Recently, I had started reading "Animal Spirits" by George Akerlof & Robert Shiller . It has been written on a very well thought out concept, but I felt it was a bit boring. So I never reached beyond 30 pages, after which I simply returned the book to SEBI library. Before that I completed Steve Jobs's biography - "Stever Jobs" by Walter Isaacson . I will write a separate post to discuss the book.

With Aditya " Deo "rukhkar "Secret Diary" - Thank you for the Gift!!!

I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.

Michael O'Neill: Kimmy says if you love someone you say it, you say it right then, out loud. Otherwise, the moment just...  Julianne Potter: Passes you by.  Michael O'Neill: Passes you by. Yeah.

What an interesting turn of events in the Series!!! First, it was shown the main antagonist, Tobi , is not who he was claiming to be. We all thought he was Madara Uchiha , but instead we found that Kabuto called back Madara Uchiha from the Deads using the Impure Blodd Resurrection Justu . Another interesting thing at that point was that Madara knew who this impostor is. Most of the people including myself thought, Tobi was Madara's brother, Izuna . Then came Naruto 599, where it was finally revealed who Tobi actually is. It was none other than Obito Uchiha . Kakashi's former teammate, who gave Kakashi his left Sharingan eye as a gift for becoming a Jounin. Everyone thought he had died during that battle during the Third Shinobi war. It will be interesting to know how he survived and how he met Madara . As the series is reaches its climax there are going to be lot of explanations.

I read this on 9gag today - The Greatest Inspiration is the Deadline ...

I am just going through few of my past blog posts about NITIE. I can't beleive we performed skits to these topics - Andheri Raat mein, Diya tere Hath Mein  Hath Hata Waha Se Do Boond Zindagi ki Ek Rupye Mein do Ki Lo Phati Chhatri Hua Dhamaka Dheeru Bhai Ka sapana, Sab ke Hath Mein Apana Karo Lekin Dhyan Se Doodh Piyo Mast Jiyo Karo Jyada Ka irada Jahan Teri Yeh Nazar Hai, Waha sab ki Nazar hai Maal Asli Hai Ek Tupakati Bund aapki zindagi badal sakti hai Aadmi Hun Admi Se Pyar Karata Hoon Paro…. Main aa Raha Hoon Tu hut, Main Lagoon Ganda hai par dhanda hai yeh Din Mein Dangal, Raat Mein Mangal Ek ke Sath do do, ek hame bhi de do Original Link - http://sidh299.blogspot.in/2009/06/life-nitie-day-9.html

Why does every other scam have to be postfixed with a "gate". I understand after the Watergate Scandal made this postfixing famous. Now, it seems so lame! I wonder how sales of Coalgate Palmolive Ltd. migth be affected with the latest Coal scam being termed as "Coalgate" scandal.

I would be running in the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marahon 2013. I will be taking part in the Half Marathon (21km) and will be hoping that I better my preivous performance. I had taken 4 hours and 20 min to complete the race (which is pathetic by any standards) in 2009. This time my aim is to complete the race in 3 hours. Is any of you running in the Half Marathon next year?

I saw 3 movies over the last 5 days. First I watched " Four Weddings and a Funeral " & " The Bucket List " over the weekend. Yesterday, I saw " My Best Friend's Wedding " which I had already seen in parts on TV many times. Any movie suggestions for the next weekend? I might watch Marathi remake of "No Entry".

One of the best things about using Gmail is the Keyboard shortcuts it provides. So when I shifted base from Gmail to Outlook, it became a little boring to keep using mouse for navigating through the mails. However, today when I was hovering mouse pointer over the compose button, I found that it had a hover tip of "Ctrl + N". After searching on web, I found that the outlook has its own set of keyboard shortcuts. But the best part is that it has settings which allow one to use same set of shortcuts as used in Gmail/Yahoo Mail. I just swicthed my shortcuts to Gmail mode and I am back to being a "Power" email user :)

Matheran 2012 - Alexander Point The recent most Matheran trip was planned by Viraj and Anand and all the credit goes to them. As Aditya and Anand had some work in the morning, they were going to join us in the evening. Like earlier trips, this also started with a confusion. When we boarded the train at CST, we told our friend who was going to join us at Dadar that we were in the compartment after the last First class compartment. But we were partially wrong. The compartment was having 2 sections, one First class and another Second class. We were in the second class part of it. Due to this, our friend got into the next compartment and then had rush into our compartment at Kurla. Fortunately, everything went well afterwards, as we reached the Matheran gate by 9.15AM. From there on we had to walk till Matheran market which took us almost an hour. We had taken a different route in earlier trips, but due to rain and the mud we had to walk parallel to the tracks, till we reached the mar...

Matheran 2010 - Taking some rest on route to Neral Before I begin with the events of the latest Matheran trip, I will first talk about how Matheran has been a memorable location for me. First thing I remember is the journey returning from Matheran to Neral. I don't know how and why we decided to walk all the way from Matheran market to Neral station. It started all well, with singing "Break up Ke Bad" song. But as the time went by, we realized how stupid we had been. Of course, the stupidest among us were Aditya and myself, who actually walked till we reached the bottom of the hill where Neral starts. Our dear friends - Susmit and Viraj, got a rickshaw in between and met us when we were resting at the bottom. Second trip was full of confusion. Day before the trip, I informed Viraj that I was not well, so I would join them in the afternoon and they could go ahead in the morning. As Viraj was having office, he decided that he would join me in the afternoon, leaving...

I just realized that because of office notes, I have got into a habit of using "justified" formatting even while blogging. Earlier, I never used those settings, in fact I never noticed that they exist. Anyway, coming back to the last 6 months, we had multiple night outs, with one of them at my home for the first time ever. We, meaning my school friends and myself, went for 3 trips since the Lonavala trip in January. First, we went to Pune and stayed at Jeetu's house in the Camp area. It was nice to stroll around in the night in that area and discuss about various things with Jeetu.  In July, we planned a trip to Mahabaleshwar where we had earlier gone in 2009. There was an amazing weather with intermittent rains and a lot of fog. As we had seen most of the "Points" during our last visit, we decided to visit Pratapgad this time. As it was an off season period, the direct bus to Pratapgad was not available. We had to board another bus and get down at a pl...

Few movies I watched recently - Rowdy Rathore Gangs of Wasseypur I & II Ek Tha Tiger The Dark Knight Rises P. S. I love you Four Weddings & Funeral Next on the list - My Best Friend's Wedding The Bucket List

As its been more than 6 months since I made any significant posts on this blog, let me rewind back and think about all the important things that happened during this period. As, it is hard to remember things in the chronological order, I will try to put down the memories as they come up. First, latest and the biggest is that my brother just landed in US few hours ago. He will be studying Industrial Engineering at University of Washington for next 2 years.  Next in the list is receiving my Post Graduate Diploma in Industrial Management. On 21st August, 2012, we the student of Industrial Management batch for 2009-11 (Batch XVI) received their degrees. A big surprise came on the previous day when during the first rehearsal my name was announced for the Second Best student in my batch. As I was 3rd in the batch during my first year and had a very bad Final year project viva, I was not expecting this award. My mother and brother both were present during the convocation ceremony wh...

The best way to restart the blog would be to follow my previous post of Lonavala 2012 photo with photos from Mahabaleshwar & Matheran trips -  At Mahabaleshwar Bus Station At Neral Railway Station I will follow this up with some great memories at these places :)

I am thinking of restarting blogging....

The cheapest trip of our group (It cost us on an average Rs. 2200 on our previous trip to Lonavala whereas this one cost us Rs. 450)

The idea of night-out at Nikhil’s place turned into a series of confusing phone calls. It all started when Nikhil sent an email to Viraj, Aditya and myself, informing us that his family would be out of Mumbai for few days, so we could have a night out at his house on Friday. Since, Aditya and I were having holiday on Saturday, we immediately agreed (It doesn’t matter for Viraj whether he is having office next day, though it was good to hear that he will have Saturdays off from April ’12). Afterwards, Aditya asked us if we were going to have dinner together with everyone initially agreeing to the idea. On Friday though, I told Nikhil that I will be having dinner at home as Nikhil was going to be in office till 9 (which meant he would be back to CST by 10). Now, here is the list of chats/calls which started at around 8.45PM - Chat - Aditya was chatting with me and asked when where we would be going for dinner. I told him that I was going to have dinner at home, but will join them after...

Just came back from the Drama, "All The Best". The cast included Adinath Kothare, Mayuresh Pem , Vaibhav Tatvavadi and Manava Naik. I had not seen the original, which had Sanjay Narvekar, Bharat Jadhav, Ankush Chaudhari . It is a musical comedy where a deaf, a blind and a mute fall in love with the same girl. It is complete entertainer, with really good acting by Mayuresh and Vaibav . But it seemed that Aditnath wasn't really at his best with the Blind person's role, especially in the first half. The songs were OK, but the last song where both Mayuresh and Vaibhav dance, was choreographed pretty well. All in all, it was worth the money spent.

I was just cleaning my part of the cupboard today. I saw my father's old folder containing some files/receipts. I found his salary slip of 2004. I just saw his date of joining. It was 7th February , 1969 :)

We had gone for a picnic last weekend. It was an all boys trip (as usual). But this time, the difference was that this time around we had a friend who is in a relationship with another of our school friend. After we reached the SBI holiday home, we found that it was amazing and beyond out expectations (especially since we had paid just Rs. 30 as rent). So probably, Susmit must have told his GF about this and she would have asked if she can join us with few other girls from our class. So Susmit asked us the following question. Just before this Viraj and I commented that we would have Lavani when we have Aditya's bachelor party. Nik got confused with the 2 contexts, but the way he asked counter question to Susmit was amazing- सुस्मित: अरे, मुलींना बोलवायचं का? निखिल: काय? सुस्मित: अरे, मुली!! मुलीना बोलवायचं का? पिकनीकला? निखिल:"मुली" हे तू सामान्य नाम म्हणून वापरलं की विशेषनाम म्हणून? A big laughter followed by Anand and I shaking hands with Nik!!!

It has been pretty hectic month or so since 19th December last year. First cousin's wedding to attend, then my first official (and unofficial) tour outside Maharashtra, amazing 31st night with my best friends. I did miss the Vengurla trip because I had to go to Bangalore for official work, which was extended by 2 days and thus eliminating any hopes of reaching Vengurla even for 1 day. Then met a few VJTI friends who are back in India for holidays. It was amazing watching सवाई एकांकिका at Ravindra Natyamandir on 25th night. Of course, one cannot simply forget the cheapest picnic of their lives so easily :) Lonavala 2012 was one of the best trips I had in last couple of years. Today I watched "शाळा", the movie I was waiting for last one year.Hrushi came home for 4 days. And finally, my dear friend Susmit went back to US tonight. All this and more in detail, coming up....

Due to the Gurgaon and Bangalore trips my Google Reader count has breached the 1000 count barrier. Usually I go for the "Sort By Magic" mode which allows me to read 9GAG and other important blogs first. When I tried the Older items first mode, just found that I news articles from 20th Dec, 2011 to read :)