Well on a whim (and you have heard that phrase bef…

Well on a whim (and you have heard that phrase before)I went to Pune. Now Pune is a city I like. i love. Zycus was fun but I workec there continuously, even on weekends. Notice I said continuously not hard. I dont work hard.
Anyway the bus started of from dadar at 8.15 and I had a non entity with me. He lives in my building. It was a nice ride with a emotional nothingness movie called Mohabbatein playing with my pet hate SRK playing the lead.
Anyway at around 12.30 am (actually midnight) I reached Pune university and started walking on a rain beaten track. It was nice, cool and unpolluted with not a soul in site. I got a lift to Good Luck Chouk and found no PCO to call my friend up. I was helped by a bunch of Omani students who thought Sameer my friend was a muslim name. They were intrigued by my arabic and also compulsively helpful people. So somene lend
me a mobile and someone gave me a ride. i reached Sameer’s house at 1. Normally he would always pick me from the junction and we would ride free into the external forests of Pune and talk about life. But he had had an accident and not informed any of his bombay mates. I have been to the Gupte resident at least thrice before. Always arriving late nights and leaving next day. Now the Gupte’s are a warm family and have
always enjoyed my stays here. What’s more… I and Sameer caught up on nothings for three hours. He was choosing his options into Malaysia and Italy having
made a mindboggling invention. But I can’t say more than that.
Now. Happiness is meaningful conversations with likeminded intelligence. i woke up at twelve and was treated to a multigrained roti that is traditionally maharashtrian. By the way haka is an Indian word too like a lot of Maori words. Haka is what men on foot did when hunting for tigers in the last century. Make a din and a pandemonium to scare the tigers.
Met Rio and walked and talked 7 kilometers on a cloudy day. I like Pune. Lets see how long I stay. Rhymes

Thus ended my stint at Zycas

It was fun. I met great people while at Zycus. Some taught me a few things even. The work was fun just like the tea breaks with the salty biscuits. Learned a few tricks. Was helped by the SW dept. Great fun.

Art Form

Networking Dagdi Chawl

When PCs can’t LAN can. When LAN can’t WAN can. When WAN can’t, Internet can. Based on this premise, it was decided by the mawsies that Internet is the sabse bada khiladi and Dagdichawl.com was set up.

Women’s Liberation is a void constructor, which means nothing like most computer terminology.

All computers work on an operating system. The Operating System is the Shantibai of the computer. It does phatka, zaadu, pocha etc. inside the computer.

Times were changing and computers entered Dagdi Chawl and thus the women wore khadi jeans to give their Liberation the necessary momentum, though the bras remained un-burnt. The cablewallah Raju attached the cable Internet and everyone was happy and free from that sada-hua MTNL. Laddoos and pedas were given after agarbatti-ing the computers. Now their oldest feminine hobby “gossip” was going absolutely high-tech and just nuances away from being world famous. Orthodox gossip was losing its charm anyway. And tea and biscuits were becoming costly – ho bai! Sister-sites hit the momentum immediately.

Jhol-jhaal.com was Mrs. Khan’s idea she wanted to know which goods were smuggled via Dubai, what is the matka rate and how could you fix the Indo-Pak matches. She also gave free email addresses to local bhais/bookies just to be in their good books.

Shanpatti.com was Sakutai’s idea to keep abreast with who had given whom rag. Any midnight calls, any siti bajaoing etc. was kept note off.

Game-bajana.com was set up by Darshanaben to insure that if the ragpatti took serious proportions and if there were gang fights, she would be able to sell her goti sodas (which rival gangs could throw at each other). Banners of these were put on her site.

Kai-mhantos.com was Mrs. Iyer’s portal though the name was her kamwallibai’s suggestion. She was naturally more important than Mr. Iyer. Indian women can do without husbands but not maidservants. Kai-mhantos.com was a free portal where anybody could post news, such as:

1. Whether Mr. Sinha was having an affair with Mrs D (name withheld)?

2. How Mrs. Ramni’s habit of eating wafers in bed gave Mr. Ramni a rash on their honeymoon?

3. What was Ganpatrao’s bank balance? He was the local eligible bachelor, before he ran off with John, the parish priest.

Teri-maa-ki-aankh.com was the local fish pond where you could tease each other and discuss their personal habits in public like

1. How Mishraji never threw water in the toilet and passed gas publicly?

2. How Miss Firdaus cleaned her nose in public by putting fingers into it?

3. How Ramu the dhobi was called ghachkaran because of his scratching habits?

4. How Sunita failed in the 12th as a hat-trick because she was infatuated by Shah Rukh, Akshay and Hrithik respectively? Now she was after Dravid.

The server was kept in Santokh Singh Randhawa’s garage, which brought a glow of pride on Mrs. Randhawa’s face. But that lasted for a very limited time, since Munna (the panwala’s nephew from satara) posted the fishpond saying he feels that Singh Sahab fevicols his beard. Singh Sahab ran after munna with a naked sword after swearing “Teri Pen Di”. Muna immediately took the midnight ST from Dadar and went back to his sugarcane farming in Satara. Mrs. Singh downed the server and went to Ludhiana.

The flowing gossips started stammering and the aunties of Dagdi Chawl collectively after scratching a lot of dandruff, came up with the Sneaker Shoe Network.

Sanjoo, the 12 year old paperboy, was given half a dozen floppies, so that he could transfer data from computer to computer making it locally accessible. They had bought him a good pair of sneakers (not Reebok or Nike, it was roadchhap from Churchgate).

Nobody bothered with Mrs. Randhawa who got fed up of the Ludhiana heat, the excess weight her husband had put on and her mother-in-law’s bickering. She was back, rather sheepishly within a fortnight. And thus Dagdi chawl was a happy place again. The Singhs were given a warm welcome with Koliwada prawns, tangdi kabab and some bottles narangi tadi-madi from Khar danda.

Which brings us to the issue at hand: How long will Dagdi Chawl’s dotcoms last? Well, like all other booming portals in India and the world, it depends on the lasting of the VC’s money, the coming of at least one person on the site and the rise and fall of NASDAQ, of course!

No surprise there

Its official. What I have been barking till I go blue in the face is out. This is precisely why I love Hindustan Times. Like The Times of India, it is not a government handout and not a bargirl dazzler like DNA.

3 of the best compliments ever

Long ago, a friend Umesh said to one of my ex-crushes, who was a typical Scorpio femme fatal and curiously asked him “What do you see in Suneal?” after I had left. I had told her the same day that I was so bad that she was just a school girl compared to the things I had done.
Umesh told her “He makes me think. You can either love him or hate him. There’s nothing in between”

Once as a summer job I worked in a warehouse in NZ. It was a tough experience working with Maoris and Samaons and other islanders. Most of them loved me me because I verbally took on guys thrice my size and abused them in their mother tongues.
I made a Maori friend then Wakena or Waky of the tatoo face fame. His favourite past time was scaring people. We eventually became friends and I made a monkey out of him by imitating him and helped him out when he was down. Before I moved in with Emma I stayed at a BRONX kind of area on the deadlier side of Manurewa. Most Maoris stared at me and I stared back. (Something you should avoid if you like the idea of living). He told me that I reminded him of himself since I was not easily intimidated just like him. Coming from a maori that was a biggie.

The other day when I gave some copy to my designer friend rafi he said I had ink in my blood.

Mixed Feelings at 2 months

Call me sentimental but its a mixed feeling leaving Lycos (not the real name). Mixed as usual. Shared some good moments here and some bad ones. That’s life. You never know. My work is done. I’m happy. the money transaction is perfect. Its all good. Just I feel a bit lost when I leave institutions. My schools, places of jobs. Its always the same.

Film Festivals: Yes I’m arty farty.

There’s a digital film festival as Inorbit in Goregaon. Met whathisname actor from tumBin and Julie and sincerely told him that he’s a good actor. He was humble and confronted my sincerity with a genuine thank you.
Film festivals (I have only been to a couple) are mindblowing stuff. Watching films are better than Nat-Geo or Discovery. Its a sneek window to worlds other than ours. I love this South American and Middle Eastern films. I saw Masoomiyat(Innocence) in Mumbai film festival 4-5 years ago. A movie on a Brazilian flute player who comes to a die in a small Brazilian village. Life is Beautiful, a portuguese movie with deem lighting effects to haunt you, a swedish movie called Cow. that was then but I still remember those movies. They have a haunting effect on me.
Yesterday I saw Booba, a short Lebanese film. It was Amazing. I also saw a documentary called the corporation and a chilian movie on friendship and college life.
I ate 9 samosas so far. That’s too much.
The fonts they use in the movies for title are exotic too. There we go again. the other day I had a big dialogue with harpreet about fonts and how design is so dependant on fonts. But before I go on and on about fonts and films. i must confess I’m arty-farty kinds. I first heard the term through Sunil Fernandes.
Also YES I’m going back to NZ. God knows I miss that place but there’s nothing wrong in being Geographically Right (my term) and doing as Justin suggested: wind up all your work so that I dont’ have to bounce back and forth like a froggy idea. Howz that for a name of my new web page.

The Manuals are Over

the manuals are over for now as I sit down to write a whole new section called clusters and quality assurance on a peaceful sunday morning. Early morning are definitley good for your tummy. I once thought that as long as you caught your sleep it doesn’t matter but getting up early has realy helped me a loooooooooooot.