back after a while

well loooooooooooong since I wrote last, and it has been a real happening time, too many changes, and too many plusses in the last 10 or so months....

on a personal front- new house, new job(and a mind to get out of that too as well), new friends, and finally making up my mind to getting married(still to find the girl though:)- things that were on the plate for long...kind of coming true in a short time.....been one of the better years as far as i could remember....no major hiccups, and i guess i should shut up before "mujhe apni nazar lag jaaye"

I , somehow, have known a lot of people who had a roller-coaster marriage, people who looked like "made for each other" getting undone in no time- and this year added a couple of more very close friends face the music - reasons ranging all the way from extra marital relations to adjustment issues...and everytime i repeat to myself- this does not happen to everyone....some people recouped their lives post a turmoil, others are yet to do that....all i wish is that my friends deserve the best lives (by the virtue of being my friends :)) and their lives should include all those people who matter to them...including their spouses, and I hope I make the correct choice when i come to that , so that I do not go through this rut....AMEN!!!

i know this post is a completely incoherent lost talk,but i guess this is important since I have thought about blogging a lot of times in these days, and have never done that, so in some ways it is the beginning again, and so anything goes. Hopefully the blogging would be a little more regular- given the amount of time I have in my current job

some feelings are universal.....

was just passing through some of the friend's blogs for the lack of nothing better to do, and then on to their friends, and so on....till i reached a blog, and there was this post on footloosedoll that caught my attention... there are certain themes which run across blogs, a lot of people crib about the life they are into, some sing odes to their love lives, a few people write shakespearean level lingo to convey their thoughts(the themes obviously i could not make out due to the greeko-latin english that people use), and then there is the story of broken hearts, like the one in the post above. Some of the lines from the post are simple super-imposable on just about everyone i know including yours truly, savour this "I want to leave behind all that I remember of you." "And while you’re at it, try to take away this stupid hope I have, that in reality, all this is just a scary dream. I promise you, one day, you will stop mattering. I promise myself, one day, very soon, I’ll start living again"

the words may be different, the thoughts are the same.....and this equally applies to people you called ur friends...."My best friend's wedding" was n;t a joke...and i have seen the best people falter....From the quant classes in MBA, i would really like to understand the probability of a breakup in any randomly picked up relationship....is it so close to 100%, or is it just that the people who are happy and successful with their relationships choose not to display it to the world at large, and so noone ever gets to know...

bleed, my heart, bleed silently....for every sob would bring out more broken hearts out of the closets...

Some Good Readings

The last year or so has been different in the way that I started getting into reading blogs and opinions on the web a lot more than earlier, and this has given me a different insight into the information that is generally not available or is distorted in the media. Blogs definitely are a good media to understand the undercurrents of the society that we live in, or the places we want to know about. The discussions that these blogs generate as comments is another indicator of the emotions that the particular issues evokes among people who are on the opposite side of the discussions. A few of the blogs that I have read, and commented on are from different genres, and I would like to share them on my blog so that i could do my bit in order to spread the word. These are from different areas of interests, and they may or may not be the best available writers or blogs on the particular subject, yet i read them more or less regularly, and appreciate the points of view raised in these (i may not agree to them though) The reviews about the blogs are purely my own, and i am not too sure about the IPR issues , if any of these blog owners feel offended because of what i write here, please mail me and i would delete the portions. OK, so here goes, the first set of blogs are about Kashmir. I have had some fascination for kashmir for some time, one since my roommates in school hostel were from Kashmir, muslims from Srinagar and Anantnag districts, and then I had a good friend in college who was a Kashmiri Pandit, and again a good friend at my workplace, another kAshmiri Pandit boy, who finally got married to a kashmiri pandit girl, he met in a refugee camp in Jammu....(now that's a romantic fairy tale)....and so when i started reading non fiction, many of these books were about kashmir....i remember, there were multiple books from MJ Akbar, Bashrat Pir, Karan Singh, Sheikh Abdullah, and numerous others, and i did have heated discussions with people all over the place about them. I have personally been to Kashmir- once to Srinagar for a marriage in the heart of old srinagar, the hotbed of anti india feelings, and next to Amarnath, staying enroute at Srinagar, sonmarg, Pahal gaam, and anantnag, where the idea was to meet as many people as i could than the pilgrimage. ANyways there is this blog from Koshur I read is often, and do comment on them too. I have had discussions and arguments with Koshur and others from the Kashmir side of opinions, and then there are regulars who post the iNdian view. THe discussions range from emotional diatribes, to logical reasoning and outright religious fights, but the fact is it gives an amazing view of things from a Kashmiri viewpoint which is not very evident otherwise. There are other blogs too, but then they range from outright propaganda about atrocities in kashmir(similar in concept to what is blamed a lot on indian media), and the rest about poetics and pain. THere is another blog from Saadat which is not very regular but nonetheless very enriching. More on these blogs in detail later. There are more blogs about Pakistan that I read- one called Fiverupees there is another one called CHUP - changing up pakistan, and then there is this website called Global voices online which acts as a consolidator of blogs from around the world. Well, for all we know, these blogs may not be representative of the actual mindset of people, sinc efor a place like Kashmir or Pakistan , people who blog are going to be the educated elite with access to PC and internet and english knowledge (compared to poor poeple in these places who can nto even have two square meals), yet they are better than the impersonal reporting that news and formal media reports. Again these blogs have an uncanny capability to ould opinions of the people who rely on these blogs for the situation on the ground.And that makes the authority of the blog owners a little important. I know that this post is vastly different from whatever has been posted on this blog(well this is more serious, if you believe me). I would try and write about anything that is top of my mind on a particular day. Mera blog hai bhai :)

It really starts in an unintended way

ok, i had created an account for myself on blogspot by quite a chance and was not even sure if i wud be ever using it to actually pen down my thots..... some of the earlier musings, are also at badintentions.rediffblogs.com - i hope it is the rite address,

Well so here i m, unintentionally locked out of the house, and thus sitting in CCD and finally getting onto the blogspot bandwagon. I have been reading and commenting on a lot of blogs recently, thanks to loads of time that i have....and i think i m kinda getting hooked to understand what these people think and write....looks like i m finally getting a bit tech savvy.....been working on a PC/laptop for over 10 years now...and for the first 5 years i did nothing but checked my official email, and a random check on whats happening in cyberworld for nothing extraordinary....and then WEB happened to me, first i was hooked to orkut, and now its facebook...chatting was never too in, till gtalk pulled me in, and yet i have not ever made a voice call despite having spent obscene amounts on international calls......then came in songs, software and media download, and now blogs......whew...been a long transformations, is nt it??

hopefully i wud be a little more regular in creating and updating this blog, no idea what i would be focussing on though, may be anything and everything.....

Well, one thing that comes to my mind and which would make this blog a li'l useful for visitors beyong reading my random musings is to help them find their way around delhi- the obvious markets and the underbelly...this is a city i have lived in almost my entire life, and i know it well....so much so that friends call me when they are stuck on the roads for alternate routes, food joints, movie halls and just about everything about delhi....so feel free to ask me any information, and i wud try my best to answer it asap...

i m not sure how you add blogs that you read pretty regularly, however i would try and add the ones i follow almost on a daily basis, i like the writing of some of the people, and would really want others to read them too