Lighter Veins

A funny experience, in a serious place. Somebody from our company badly needed blood, so a lot of people from our company came forward to donate, including me. So on that day we were around 6 people, 3 man and 3 ladies. We filled up the form and handed over to the person at counter. He gave us the packets one by one and asked to get inside. Inside I was waiting for my turn, as the other 2 girls were already in the room.
But they came out rather too early. Neha, gave a smile and went out. I thought there must be some problem. Well my turn came, and when I went inside the other girl came back and the doc said he will try again. Till that point I didn't know what was the matter. The doc, put the strap around her arm and waited. After 2 mins, he said no its not visible enough, what do you say should I try? The girl said, if you are not sure how can I take a chance.
To which the other doc said, nothing will happen "khoon nikla to thik hai, nahi to chhod denge." Did you get it?
Actually, the girls' veins appeared too faint and thin to them that the doc were confused where to put the needle. Guess they were new. It was interesting, their conversation.
Doc 2: Kisiko bulate hain, duty par koun hai?
Doc 1: Aaj to woh hai, ****(forgot her name).
Doc 2: Wohi jo blue sari main hai na?
Doc 1: Use to aata hi nahi, usne to bhej dia go bolke...
pehli wali ka to itna patla tha, kuchh nahi dikha... maine mana kar dia use kahin kuchh lag gaya to problem hai..

Doc 2: Thik hai aap week days pe kabhi aa jaiye..
Then came my turn, and I thought what will happen to me, my veins may be dark but they be hidden under my thick fat. But anyways they strapped my arm, and after few minutes...
Doc 2: Iska dekh to...
Doc 1: Ch... (brushed something on my arm) Iska to karna hi padega..
Me: (Thank GOD; nahi to fir se week days main aana padta... Aur bahar log kya soch te nahi to)

Finally we 3 men and 1 of the ladies donated our blood, and left. Dont know about Neha and the other girl, whether they went on any week days or not.. in any case, its hard for software professional to have light veins on working days :)

In a lighter shade..

Scanned pictures dont look like the original, the last sketch seemed to be dark.
This one is light.

Ideally should have a shade with the average darkness.

Sketches!

One of my imitations of GOD's creations......

The lady in this sketch is our Own, Sush Darling....

i.e. if you know her :)

When she died.

This is about a girl, whom I never liked. Whom almost all the boys in the engineering batch seemed to hate the most. The girl who was most troubled, and in a way the most harassed in my batch. A girl as they say who showed a lot of attitude. A girl who was the most talked about even after the graduation. But she was also the first one among us to leave this world. She was Sheetal.
It's quite amazing, the death of a girl, whom you never wanted or expected to see in life again, can affect you so much. It did. For days, I kept thinking about her and hoping it was just a rumor. It was true that no one liked her. But in way she was the centre of all the college fun, the teases, the stories. Even the after-college gossips. It felt as if a part of life was gone. Nobody expected it, may be nobody wanted that too.
She died, far away in Europe, during the last Christmas. Making the story more sad. She's gone, and with her all the college fun, the stories and the gossips those were famous among us. Nobody would ever talk about them. As I said its like losing a part of life.
Her mess mates are now getting married one by one. And so are other people living their life normally. But within their heart she would still be there. And whenever any of us remembers the days we had, the fun we could gather, they will remember her and no wonder miss her. I miss her too. Sheetal wherever you are, may GOD bless you.

Just a thought

Why is... Big smaller than Small, and Small bigger than big?
I think, Even Biggest is smaller than Smallest, And Smallest is bigger than biggest. :-)
Hey are you thinking of beating me up.....

Alvida

Bandhe rakhna tumhe bas main nahi hamare
Jana hai to jao par .....
Hum alvida nahin kahenge

Humko bha jayegi yeh tanhaai kuchh dino main
Yaad bhi na karen tumhe par...
Hum alvida nahin kahenge

Khadi ho aaj dil ki dehleez pe
Mudke dekhogi to ek baar zaroor par....
Hum alvida nahin kahenge

Palke bichchae the tumhare aane ke liye
Unhi pe tumko jaata dekhenge par...
Hum alvida nahin kahenge

Teri surat ko kabhi khuda samjhte the..
Na dekhenge woh surat fir kabhi par...
Hum alvida nahin kahenge

Joy Ride

After the Art gallery, we still had a lot of time, quite a lot. We took rest on a nearby bench and then decided to walk to the Bus stand. As we reached the bus stand, SK struck upon an idea of taking a "Joy ride" on a tanga. The tangewala was asking for 50/- for a trip around the palace. We settled at 40/- for a supposedly 15mins trip. As we got in I remembered the scene from Anand and SK remebered Basanti & Dhanno.
The tangewala was finding it difficult to manage the horse. He started beating the animal as expected. After some lashes it started with a good speed. But not for long, it slowed again, and again some lashes followed. Only that this time it was a little more fierce. Of course SK and me were quite unhappy with the effect. But we continued to sit in the tanga, cursing our weight. The horse was in no mood for giving a joy ride, sometimes it seemed to drag us to the middle of the road as if to get us run over by the buses. It was getting scary.
The tangewala was chatting with his friend, about how he is trying to manage the horse. According to him, he tries a lot to make it understand but all the horse needs is lashes, and only then would it understand his words. As if that was true, in between he jumped off the tanga and began beating the horse fiercely. After that the horse seemed to be under control. But it left a bad effect on us. Still we didn't mind sitting in the tanga, as our 40/- was at stake. We wondered whether Maneka Gandhi had ever visited this place.
Finally we completed the round trip, gave the tangewala 40/- (dont know how much of that would go to the horse's tummy). But we knew that all the money we gave resulted in some lashes on the horse and some income for the tangewala. It didn't serve any other purpose.
Next time I would definitely think 100 times before going for such Joy-rides, whether it gives joy to anybody, don't think so.

Obsession of painters

Well this is may be controversial. But this is what I observed. The artists (I would restrict to those whose paintings I saw in the Mysore museums) , Indian mainly, seemed to be obsessed highly towards the woman's breasts. You see it in all most all the paintings. Okay its part of the woman body but you don't need to show them exclusively. Quietly annoyingly those things peep out in a lot of paintings even though it doesn't suit the context.
For example, in a painting of a woman having a bath, this kind of description seems valid. But why on earth would the same visualization be there, in a painting which depicts Bhisma's promise. Shantanu's would be wife in the picture was daughter of a fisherman, and hence may be dressed scantily but why is she flaunting her organs? Another painting, which may be a bit touchy, depicts a mother feeding her child. While some sort of display was evident here, if you take a look at the picture here [The sucking child], the out and out display seemed awkward to me. I don't think this is the way a mother feeds her child. And this continues, in a large number of paintings.
I couldn't avoid it, it's right there prominent and staring at you. So much so that I doubted myself am I a pervert? Phew! Apart from this part I liked the paintings very much. Some of the paintings I liked was the "Glow of Hope", "Moonlight" and "Romancing Couple" by Ravi Varma. The last one is not in the museum and be viewed here.

Finally some good paintings.

After a disappointing visit to Mysore palace we came back to the marriage hall, spent some time with Bhenki, most importantly had some food. Then SK insisted on having a cig, although he promised not to have anymore after the first one in the morning. So after he cleared his chimney with the smoke, it was time we bid farewell to Venki. It was a great weekend, I hope if I had reached there a day before we would have enjoyed a little more and have had a bachelor's party too.
We settled for a visit to the Jagan Mohan's palace. When we reached we found it was only an art museum. Again 2 tickets of 20/- each. We wanted to keep our bags at the reception, the lady there asked whether we had any valuables or money. SK replied in his usual style, "We have some clothes, and I don't think you will take those. So we don't have any problems." The lady gave a smile. And we entered. At last we found some good things to see. And they were maintained in a better way.
The museum was full with paintings by Ravi Varma, Gogendranath Tagore, and some other painters. They also had paintings from Tibet and some by foreign painters. All were good. As I had told earlier, the attention to details were fantastic. There was a painting of the darbaar. I think one can identify each and every person on that painting if he knew them. Its almost like a photo. Here the paintings had some details below them. Paintings by Ravi Varma focused on mythology.
There is a particular painting by S. L. Haldekar named "Glow of Hope". It's the best in the gallery and hence given a special room. The photo can seen here http://www.kamat.com/database/pictures/2562.htm . Although the original one has some other effect altogether. It felt warm and a stare of 10 seconds generates a kind of fear too. Little haunted I felt.
The paintings of the Sri Jayachamarajendra Art Gallery can be viewed here http://www.kamat.com .

State of Art

So on 13th of August we went to visit the palace and the museum there. In the auto that crap person settled to listen to Md. Rafi. And I was enjoying the vastness of Mysore city. It was OPEN from all the sides, no congestion apart from some busy areas like bus stops. I wonder why do people have to move out from these places and go to Bangalore, Mumbai etc where we don't even get time to think, leave alone enjoying the nature.
Anyway we reached the palace and went inside, and as usual SK came back to life. We bought the tickets to visit the palace, but instead of going inside he wanted to go into the adjacent field and roam there first. Anyway somebody convinced him there was nothing there and so we went inside the palace. Quite astonishingly I didn't find it as attractive as I did when I was there 4 years back. The guided tour (by ropes) seemed foolish and the palace didn't seem to have the luster. Although the paintings on the wall were as alive as ever. We just wondered how they gave a 3D effect to the pictures. And the use of colors was to the best. As were the details depicted in those pictures. They were fabulous. SK was immersed. Suddenly came back to this world and said that these were painted by Ravi Varma who is the most acclaimed painter from India. Of course he was right.
And then he started blaberring about the state of the paintings and other stuff put there for display. His arguments were valid, by the way the crafts were placed for display, they will not survive for another 100yrs. No way. and most of them are not that old. I think they would 200yrs old at max. That is still not a part of Indian history. In context of Indian heritage its like yesterday. Apart from the paintings hung on the wall and paintings on the roof of the darbaar, there was not much to see.
Then we proceeded to see the museum. That was pathetic. Seriously you wont give 20 bucks to see those. They had some household items thrown here and there. We were supposed to be amazed by toy car used by the Raja. Also the clothes placed there. NO details were present there. Sk was still blabbering. At the end of the museum we saw something interesting, guns and swords. Still no details. What kind of museum was that. Are we supposed to hire a guide by default. Then there were some musical instruments, those were rare and in pathetic condition. Got to see brass Jaltarang. Wait a minute! Brass looks somewhat like gold right? Well those were black.

Well that was the mysore palace which we visited. One additional information, when we go to the museum from the palace, there is a temple on left side. But the guide(looked like) said first we have to go to the museum and then can we enter the temple. Strange! I suppose if we visitedthe temple first it would have brought bad omen. Its always a reason similar to that, isn't it?

Trip to Mysore

Recently visited Mysore and spent 2 days there. I was there to attend Venky's (Venkatanagan V. fondly called Bhenki) marriage with Vidya of course (not with any Kalpana as spread by me and SK.). Anyway have a lot to write on the trip.
This was the first time I have attended a friend's marriage. So was a new experience. Not to forget the experience as a photographer in a marriage, with a lot of professional competition. Bhenki, iski sazaa milegi, barabar milegi. Well I should say the marriage was pretty peaceful in contrast to what we experience in the marriages back in my planet. But they had lots of traditional stuff anyway.
But the actual experience I wanted to write here is not about Vanky's marriage, its the day after when we ( Swaroop and me) went out to visit some places in Mysore.We visited the Mysore palace, the museum and the art gallery in Jagan Mohan palace. And oh yes, also paid a visit to our friends in the Mysore zoo.
Will describe in parts in the coming posts.

Original

Time for an original shayari...
I hardly write any, but anyway here it is...

Ek hi raah par nahi chala tu kabhi,
Har mod par dagar badalte rehte hain..
Manzilein dekhi hain kitni tune..
Har manzil par safar badalte rehte hain..
Chahtein teri shayad wohi hain …
Dil ki khwahishein magar badalti rehti hain…
Aage chalta ja, peeche na dekh…
Zindagi ke safar main humsafar badalte rehte hain

-- This one by me

Copy Paste

I don't know why I created this blog, but as I have already created it let me put in something. But the one dollar question is what? Hmmm.. as an impeccable programmer let me copy something from diary. Here it goes...

"03, Feb 2004
I was supposed to start this diary from the date on right hand top of this page [01, Jan 2004] but due to unavoidable characteristics of mine it starts from the date written on the left side. So should we do a quick recap? What?? I don't think my life has changed much, so that the last month can be called an episode :) Five minutes of thinking and after that I think I should .... ah... What was I thinking? Forget it.
So, to avoid indulging in diversified thoughts of mine, I should now start with my resolutions. If you can go through my previous diary (I lost it :( and I miss it a lot) then it would tell you that my last years resolution was a damn hit. And it was so simple .. 'Whatever happens I would always remain happy.'
I am in no mood to change it. But I should improvise upon it. So this year's resolution would be something like this ..'I would try to make things happen in such a way that I always remain happy.'
-- Understandable, I suppose."

That was written back in 2004, Feb.
Today it's a slight different story. Will write about it.