Retrospection

Lake view, originally uploaded by Sarfraaz.

This was sometime in the mid of December last year. Was a very very frustrating time for me. That particular weekend, i just didnt find any peace. Was getting so agitated with each and everything and everyone. It was tough. I guess everyone goes through such phases in life a few times. Earlier, while staying alone, it was very easy for me to seclude myself from all and just retrospect. But now, things were a bit different. I drove away and sat beside a lake, just thinking about all the things in my mind. I have this habit of noting down the things on a piece of paper so that i dont loose the threads running in mu mind. That day, i was surprised to find that I had close to 20 items running in my head !!! Well, definately not all of them going no simulataneously in my mind, but those were the things that i had to get done. A hell lot of backlog of things to say the least :(

Discipline in life, they say, helps to focus your thoughts and channel your energies well. It isnt that tough to learn about discipline. Whats tough is to be disciplined. The main reason for not doing most of the things was may be I had plenty of things on my plate at once. I had to prioritise them and start finishing up one after the other. It was good that i wrote down those things, as it helped me remember things that i lost track of.

While thinking about all these things, a few more general thoughts came to my mind. Its said that work grows to occupy the time alloted to it. This is a very well known fact in all the industries where estimations are done, and finally at the end of the day, people realise that the alloted time was never sufficient to complete that task. Its just the result of work growing to cover up the time you had. I guess, the reason is just not that. The reason, most of the time is complacency, which leads to procrastination. I also believe that one tends to comlpete more work, when his hands are full with a lot of tasks. This in a way complements the earlier thought about work expanding itself in the allotted time. If you have enough tasks on hand, which put you in a crunch situation, you are bound to complete most of the tasks. Ofcourse, the drawback of this could be that the work might not always be effecient, depending on the skill of the person. I guess, thats why they say that its only a busy person who enjoy's his leisure :)

Movies

A List of movies that i have watched in the past couple of months after Ramzan

• The Legend of Zorro

This should rather have been called as "Family of Zorro" :) ... Watching Antonio Bendares and Catherine Zeta Jones with Zorro Junior playing tricks and fights was more fun than entertaining. Bendares was looking older, as if he had lost the touch for the fight scenes. Catherine was at her best in her role, and protrayed it really well. You can watch this movie for her :), or well, for the Zorro Junior. This kid has a few nice scenes maintaining the tradition of the Zorro family fo saving the less fortunate people. Its fun watching this kid, but he unfortunately doesnt have a lot of scenes. It definately was not as good as the Mask of Zorro. Sequeals always seem to be failing badly in Hollywood.

• Dus

Thats exactly how much time you would want to sit watching this movie. Pathetic movie to say the least. The only good part was the "Dus bahane" song in the starting when they show the titles. And probably "deedar de" later on in the movie, for its good music, though the song picturisation is nothing less than some really bad remix songs you get these days. The story line is so easily predictable, and ... oh well .. forget it .. i dont wanna write anything more about this movie.

• Aashiq Banaya Aapne

This movie has some really good songs. But alas, only songs dont make a movie. Tanushree Dutta was good in this movie. The funny part about her was that, whenever she smiles in the movie, it looks like she is holding one roshogulla in each of her cheeks :)

• Main Meri Patni aur Woh

This is by far the best movie in this lot, and definately a good movie that i have watched after a long time, may be the only good movie I watched after Page 3. Rajpal Yadav is just awesome in his role in this movie. He has portrayed his role of a simple living bachelor, earning enough for himself, who is the best at his job [ librarian ] , and then, the role of a prospective bride groom, trying to break the ice with his prospective bride, and then the suspicious husband to perfection. The setting in city of Lucknow, with some very nice Hindi dialogues, and a simple story line, make this film very much watchable, though it kinda looses its hold somewhere in the middle in the second half, and then the much expected climax is made very sentimental, and kinda gels in with the mood of the movie. The gazal in the movie "Guncha" is very good, and ofcourse so is the sound track. The first part of the movie is very nice and funny, with all the marriage proposal fun, and then the added irregularity where the bride is actually taller than her bride groom. Some very well executed scenes to watch here.

Ajay's engagement

December 18th was my best friend Ajay's engagement. It was in Hubli, and i hadnt visited Hubli since the time my parents shifted to Bangalore. So, this was the first time that i had to stay in a lodge in Hubli. It sounded like a good adventure in itself for me. The engagement party was in the morning, and so i planned to reach Hubli a day before on 17th in the evening. Reached Hubli at about 10 in the night, and booked a room in the very famous "Modern Lodge" there. It was a single bed room, and instantly reminded me of my final year at college hostel. Just that there were no friends to be along with here.

Woke up early in the morning, and took some cool snaps of the railway station in the morning mist. Had to wait for a long time to have my shirt ironed there, since it being a sunday, no shops were scheduled to open by 10 !! Luckily, the engagement was postponed to 11, and i had enough time to be there on time. So, i did a quite a bit of site seeing around the railway station, going to all the well known shops there, and taking some nice snaps too. I was lucky enough to get a very cordial auto rickshaw driver, who took me to the venue. He was a very old man, and was kind enough to ask me if he should wait there at the venue till the end of the function, since it wasnt easy to get an autorickshaw from that place back to the station. He even reminded me that i had to reserve my ticket before hand [ which i had already done, and regretted it later on ] so that i can have a hassle free journey.

The king of the day, arrived at 11:30 in his car, and had a grand reception, with flowers showering on him at the entrance. Was a royal welcome i should say :) We were then asked to have our breakfast, and we then came back to the main hall for the main ceremony. I was thinking that this would be a very simple ceremony, and had already booked my return ticket for the 1 pm train, since i couldnt get the ticket for the 6pm train. But, the ceremony turned out to be rather a very long one, with all the pooja, and other things included. I had to leave the function midway, and Ajay was courteous enough to introduce his fiancee to me, before they exchanged the rings. I later on came to know that the function lasted till 4 pm in the evening and that Shilpa, Ajay's fiancee, actually song some 3 songs, and Ajay was completely bowled over.

The return train started at 1:30 pm and I came back to Bangalore, or is it Bengaluru already ? whatever .. i took this pic for posterity. Had a great time taking some cool sunset snaps on the journey back home.

November 2005

This would go down as one the most shocking and most volatile month i ever had in my work experience. People were back from a lovely long Diwali weekend, and we get to hear that Novell had plans of laying off resources :(. It wasnt very clear if Bangalore division would get affected, but when the announcements happened we were all shocked to hear that Novell Bangalore would also be hit this time [ probably the first time this has happened in Novell Bangalore since its inception in 1995 !!! ]

Unfortunately, the team that I was leading had to take the brunt :-(. It was very sad and shocking to say the least. This Praveen's Blog entry, is a good reference to this.

I had already hinted at moving to a new team, and was expecting something to hear on it by December. and then this happened, and i was given the opportunity to move to a new team. I am currently working in a closed source security team. The team is very enthusiastic and I hope to contribute well in this new team.

October 2005

Yeah, again i am late to update my blog !!! So thought of writing down about the missed months.

I was really preparing myself well and eagerly waiting for this month, as we had the holy month of Ramazan in October. Its amazing how well disciplined and regulated life can be. On the forefront, it might look like just not being able to eat for close to 12 hours a day might actually make you weak, but then, just the fear of not going down with hunger keeps you on the run. Not eating just a trivial thing to do compared to the other so much more important things that one has to do in this lovely month. Controlling yourself from not getting angry at anything [ which i think i lost a couple of times in the month :( ... ], and controlling yourself from not doing anything "bad", gives you so much strength.


Bunch of Roses, originally uploaded by Sarfraaz

Apart from the donts, the "do's" are something that keeps a person going in this month. The holiness of this month, and in regularly praying all the 5 times a day, and reciting the holy Quraan, makes you feel so pure and happy. Just the simple act of being truthful cleans you of all bad feelings. The enthusiasm to go for prayers all the 5 times, and in the nights for Taraven prayers was really great this time. It was even more tough, since it was often raining in the evenings and we had to tread through the rains for the night prayers. By the time it was 10:30 in the night, I was getting so dead tired that i just couldnt do anything else. I was getting some really peaceful sleep in the night, and was waking up fresh at 4 in the morning. Ofcourse, there were some occassions when i was not getting up with so much freshness, but it was some really good habit to sleep early and get up early for the morning prayers.

Looking back, it looks so strange that we dont follow these things always. Being truthful seems to be so easy in the month of Ramazan, but so difficult in the rest of the year. Wish we had a few more months when it was compulsary to do things that we do in Ramazan. As a small start, i have started praying as much as I can even after Ramazan now. Praying now is giving me a lot of good time to focus my energy back, and also provides with some real good time to retrospect on myself. Especially, the afternoon prayers here are giving me a good time to get over that feeling of sleep I always tend to have after lunch. By the time I am back to work after the prayers, i am fresh again. The only other thing remaining now is to find some good ways of making some good use of that fresh energy that i have :)