4th August last year I lost a very nice friend of mine Tweety. I could see something coming but never thought of it to be so bad. I tried making things better but I never got a last chance. I wanted to go and meet her on friendship day with the greeting card I made my self for her, but just a day before then that she decided to end our friendship.

May be things would have been very different if I would have been able to tell her, all that matter is a good friend like you and for any reason I don’t want to loose her. I remember my childhood when I always used to argue with my parents about destiny and fortune, but with time I have learned that there are things which you have to just let go and do nothing about it while just looking at them passing by hoping things to get better.

I truly feel the sense of happiness and joy when ever I try to recall the moments of immense and true friendship spent with her. I do remember sitting by the stairs in balcony when electricity would go away, talking, sharing our experiences, moments of joy and sorrow. After all that is what friendship is all about. May be it was foolish of me to want more out of our friendship, I guess that was because I never had such a nice friend ever before.

I really don’t know if it was hard just for me or if it was even more harder for her to go across all this because I don’t know color of "The grass on other side". Now all I have out of our lost friendship is memories and at times they make me feel happy but sad as well. Life is about moving on and I have learned this lesson in last one whole year. The more I tried to keep our friendship a part of my life even when it dint exist hoping that it is just lost somewhere and I may find it again one day, things kept on getting even more harder for me. The only reason for all this was that I couldn’t agree on a picture being shown to me by others and somewhere I always believed that the reality is lot different from that.

I sent her an e-card last year and even celebrated her birthday with my office colleagues. Doing all this made me feel an existence of our no more existing relationship. When I went to the place where she belongs to I visited places where we spent time together and I took pictures of them. Yes I know it was a good way of making myself happy but for how long, so from now on I am going to be stopping all this, this is not just because of that I am tired of being acting like may be things will get better some day but the way things have been coming up, I really think that continuing further like this may lead to hurting my own emotions and wasting my feelings. There are better deserving people, not that she is not one of them but now I don’t know if she wants it anymore and I really wish to move on in life. I don’t expect it but I will never believe that our friendship was so weak to get shattered so easily unless I hear it from her what went wrong?

In the end a very very Happy Birthday to Tweety who was really a very good friend of mine and may God bless her.

When I first saw the advertisement at the station I thought of taking a snap of it for my blog but I dint as I was in hurry, after reading the article in paper I decided to do it but then it was late the poster was being removed from Patel Nagar station and I could not find it at any other station as I kept looking from it while going back home. Anyways on searching the Internet I could find few other people also talking about the posters on metro stations of this campaign.

I find it really interesting that now ASCI (Advertising Standards Councils of India) has given this advertisement a clean chit as they dint found it to be obscene.

While reading review on mouthsut of this advertisement I came across a reader’s comment saying that I was clueless when my niece - 9 year old - asked me ’’what is she doing?’’. Similar would have been my situation if I would have been at his place. I personally find it a very cheap concept of promoting an undergarment and it is really not going to target educated audience just by adding a line in English at end of the advertisement saying ‘Crafted for Fantasies’.

May be issue is actually not with the advertisement but with the way campaign is being designed like it should have been designed in a way campaigns for condoms like Kamasutra etc is being designed. For example I usually don’t see advertisements of condoms coming up in day time at least on any of the family channels or news channels. But I really don’t think that the people manging this campaign would be interested in this idea as they are already planning to air this advertisement on Doordarshan and already working on a sequel as well.

Few months ago Manik suggested me to read about Scrum to see how we can implement it in our organization and prepare a presentation for everyone. I started reading book by Ken Schwaber called ‘Agile Project Management with Scrum’ based on which I developed an understanding for Scrum.

Basically Scrum is a simple approach towards managing complex projects that focuses on early returns with iterative process model and provides high level of flexibility but with few rules that must be followed. Read more

I am not sure about how much my presentation helped others but I was sure about one thing, that a clear understanding about Scrum and confidence on it can only be gained by practicing it. To be very honest even after reading the book I was not feeling confident enough while presenting Scrum because convincing others to something I have myself never experienced was really something new to me.

Just by chance one day I came to know about scrum society called ‘Scrum Alliance‘ they were providing training on Scrum and that too by well known certified Scrum trainers. Sounds interesting, I told Manik about it and he was also very keen on getting me trained in Scrum. Unfortunately the next Scrum training session was quite far.

We started to implement Scrum with basic activities like daily standup meetings. I was not playing much of role in implementing Scrum but I was finding it really interesting to see others so excited.

As I kept on checking the Scrum Alliance website regularly for updates I noticed that there was an upcoming Scrum training session in Delhi. As I told about this to Manik, he agreed on sending me there.

The training took place at InterContinental Delhi and it was for two days. I really enjoyed the training by Pete Deemer who also co-leads Yahoo!’s large-scale corporate adoption of Scrum. The training was not just talking and talking but it also included exercise to give us better understanding of Scrum. Discussions with other people attending training and Pete were really amazing.

After the training I developed confidence in Scrum and was clear about what Scrum actually is.

I am really thankful to Vinsol for giving me this opportunity and making me a CSM (Certified Scrum Master).

I found the concept really interesting and even posted a comment to appreciate her creativity.

After a while I found that there is a group on Flickr called 365 days. I was really amazed to see so many people posting their portraits in that group. As photography is my passion how can I stay behind in this.

From today onwards I will also be posting one self portrait every day.

As very well said a photo is worth thousand words I am sure this will really express my personality, my nature, my daily experiences and moods in a fantastic manner.

I plan to post these photos on my blog, my picasa and flickr galleries.

Keep checking for updates

The first part explains about my point of view towards smoking and smokers before I started smoking.

No one in my family had ever smoked at least since I am seeing them around. It was quite obvious to develop a taboo image about smoking habits based on the family environment. When I was a kid my father used to tell me that when he was a kid and when he asked his dad for a beedi (tobacco rolled in a tobacco leaf, a kind of cigarette) how his dad beat him for that.

With the time I started to learn more about bad effects of smoking and developed even more clear picture about smoking in my mind. More over than just this, smoking seemed to me like a “slow suicide”, committing a suicide is considered as crime in law but this slow suicide is not. Well precisely slow killing is supposed to be a crime but then smoking is an exception.

I guess now it must would have got a bit clear, how much I used to hate smoking.

When I was in 10th standard one of my friend tried making me smoke and told me, one should try everything in his life, at least once. It made quite a sense to me but I was scared of pain in throat I might feel for the first time after smoking. So he told me to just take the smoke in my mouth and release it. I did that, well there was nothing great about it as I wasn’t taking any smoke inside. He asked me to try taking it inside but I refused. Later may be after several weeks I took one cigarette once again but dint take any smoke inside again, so I couldn’t find any fun in doing that so never tried it again. Even being the fact how much I hated smoking the only and the only reason for trying smoking were his words that one should try everything at least once in life.

That was then but now I know that there is no point trying something just for the sake, that others are doing it too.

As far as smokers are concerned, if I was traveling in a three wheeler (a major mode of public commute in Delhi) and if the driver would start smoking then I would ask him throw it away or else I would get down. And not just that I would at least ask the driver a few things like if he is married, if he has any kids and finally tell him to quit smoking. I did used to get very strange response from them but it really dint matter to me anyways.

While in social circle I never used to mind turning my face on other side, taking a step away and sometimes even go away if a person with me would start smoking. I think the reason for this was the mental block I developed within myself about passive smoking and may be the disliking for smoking was getting turned into disliking for smokers as well.

I still remember the evening when I was traveling in a bus and passing by my first company I ever worked with, I saw a very old friend of mine standing in front of the office and in some time I noticed her holding a cigarette burning in her hand and then in a few seconds smoking from it. At first I was shocked and then in next few minutes I changed my point of view for her from a sweet, decent, friendly girl to a BLANK PAGE, I dint know what should I think about it, I never ever thought I would see her like that. We were childhood friends and I had the same impression of the same old friend I had years ago as after we moved to a new house we never met each other again.

The questions that came into my mind was, can anyone get changed so much over a period of time and under any circumstances.

One day I was with a friend of mine sitting at Basant Lok Complex (One of the most high class hang out places in Delhi) out side “Passion My Cup of Tea”, sipping our tea and just opposite to it there is a disco called RPM. There were several girls coming out of the disc and several of them going inside. Most of the girls we could see there were smoking. I asked my friend that what do these girls get out of smoking, then she replied, most of them are not even smoking, if you see carefully then they don’t inhale any smoke and just throw it away as soon as they take it in there mouth.

After that I noticed those girls and I was surprised to see what she said was absolutely correct. Now it was quite clear that its not just the addiction of smoking but addiction for looking cool and addiction for looking part of high class that is adding to the numbers or smoking addicts every day. In fact I guess that the most biggest reason for teenagers getting addicted to smoking is that they find other teenagers who smoke very COOL and tries to become like them!!

Note: I wanted to add few pictures but I am not adding them due to the fact that this page may be accessed by non smokers and in any way I don’t want to promote smoking.

This post is tagged based on the tags for entire series, so few tags may not be relevant for this post.

I developed this habit when I dint had any camera of my own and always wanted to treasure the happy moments spend with my friends and those who I loved. So I thought that I sud start collecting bills when ever I will spend some time with my friends, well bills are something that you can get even at places where you cannot take a camera along, like in movie halls.

May it be movies, having dinner, travelling, gifts or anything, it was a habit now. I always enjoyed it. Initially I started with a small diary in which I used to keep these bills but over a period of time I had to move them to a bigger place.

It even has my first wallet that I ever had.

So now I am really glad to have this treasure of mine that might not cost anything to others but is priceless for me.

All my memories with those who are still with me and for those who had to part their ways all I want to say is I will always remember them.

Anger or frustration are result of access availability of energy within us. When we are not utilizing our energy efficiently it has to come out in one form or another. Anger tends to be the most easiest way of releasing energy hence we usually get rid of excess energy through anger.

As it is really hard to fully utilize our energy all the times, hence most of the times we end up getting angry or frustrated about things around. Another way of controlling the energy level within us is to reduce the level of energy.

To bring down energy level in me or in a way to punish myself for choosing a way that is destructive for me myself and for others around I had decided to fast and stay hungry every time I will get angry or get frustrated. It might not be a correct way to handle this but something needs to be done in order to control to avoid any problems in future.

And I believe that by doing this, it will remind me of staying hungry and thirsty every time I will get angry or frustrated about anything.

While I am writing this post I have already been hungry and thirsty for more than 18 hours and it may continue up to 24 hours. My definition of fasting is not that you don’t eat any food but eat all the fruits and drink lot of health drinks. When I am fasting then I am really fasting, nothing to eat, nothing to drink.

I hope that soon I will be able to come up with some other ways to handle other most biggest enemies of mine and of the human kind.

I have seen the entire first season of it and I am really finding it good. This TV series talks in depth about teenage life the question one can have and how things move around in a child’s life. Feelings and situations are presented very beautifully. I really wonder if I would have seen this program when I was a child, things would have really been different for me.

The question I am grown up with and the ones that still haunts me are actually faced by Kevin the main character of the program. I am really amazed to see the overview perspective of a child’s life. Now I heartily regret why didn’t see this program when I was a kid.

In my childhood I used to see many things around, say for an instance like so many breakups between my class mates and I used to think that don’t these guys have any true feelings for any one. But now I know what all things one has to go through.

Its not just about my childhood but the problems I used to face which were being left unsolved have got carried forward. Quite sure I am that this program is gonna make hell lot of things clear to me like why did they happen at all at the first place and what I could have done to avoid them. Obviously now when I will have a clearer picture of my past, I shall be able to construct a more better road for my future.

Thanks to my colleague without whom I would have never know about this fabulous TV program. Thanks a lot to her…

I hope to get a response soon…

I developed this interest when I was 13 years young and used to study in school. I found a book one day in school library called “Unicorns in love”, out of curiosity I issued that book and took it home. After one or two weeks I had to return the book to library. I thought that I would get it issued again but somebody got took it. I tried to look for the book but couldn’t find it. Finally I left the school and I could never complete my first book I started to read with my own interest.

Recently it struck my mind again and I started looking for that book on Internet but my hard luck it could be seen no where.

Today I went to amazon.com and tried searching for the book and hurray its there. I felt really glad but now the problem is to buy a book from amazon.com you need pay online and may have to wait for as long as 14 days to a month.

Lets see I will try finding it around in Delhi itself otherwise I will order it from amazon.com itself.

Oh my GOD I was just about to add the image of book cover and I noticed that it says, Sweet Valley High - Now a hit TV series…. So now one more thing gets added over to my wish list and that is this TV series

With a limited point of view the responsibilities are restricted to a radius but the question that arises is when we will be able to come out of this limited point of view and start feeling our self responsible to the extent of horizon.

Its easy to earn money, yes it is, its easy to live a happily, yes it is, its easy to live for your self and its not hard to live for others or is it. This small feeling, this thought, this approach is missing from most of our lives.

Why are we scared of losing something that is already getting lost by every second and why are we trying to preserve something that we are not sure for how long we can hold it.

There is a great saying that, live the life as it is the last moment to live. When we hear this the first thing that would come to our minds would be something that can give us joy, enjoyment, happiness. By the way who defined joy, who defined enjoyment, the answer is quite blunt we don’t know who.

Its quite easy to drink your life as if you are drinking a bottle of beer with every moment we live, may be that is what we call enjoyment, may be that is what gives us happiness. Consider people like Mother Teressa or Mahatma Gandhi, were they from some all different world or from some other planet. Why did they have different meaning for enjoyment, a different meaning of happiness, a different way to celebrate and every moment they lived as if every moment was last moment of their life.

We party and we enjoy, do we ever do it all alone, no I don’t think so. The day we will realise that enjoyment is not in our happiness but in sharing it with others and especially with those who really need it, our would will be a better place to live.

This is something that we not just need to think upon but act upon and the best part is we are not depended on any external things that are not in our control say for an example our governments.

I am not a great person who would have already attained this level in life but really aspire for it and I am trying for it.

Remember friends…

“Trying to be is the first step to be”
-Aditya Raj

Watching this movie raised several questions in my mind like who governs what is right and what is wrong. In the hands of society, customs and culture we have become so caged that we have lost our own sense of right and wrong. Even if I wish to, I cannot listen to what my heart is trying to say me but the worst part is several of us are even not trying to listen.

May it be fashion or may it be our definitions, almost everything is being governed by standards set by somebody else.

Its really surprising that knowingly or unknowingly we keep on following set patterns of thoughts like slave of something that is not known.

A statement from movie that highly touched me was
“GOD is not the truth but the truth is GOD itself“

Sometimes things changes so drastically that you just cannot control anything and what becomes more relevant is to save the things you love and cannot afford to loose.

Cyclone hits in a fraction of second and leave marks behind that no one knows will last for how long. Similar is what happened with me. Unknown from the danger of cyclone approaching I was trying to make things better at my own pace and further make things clear between us, I thought of saying that being together is what matters and nothing else on friendship day, I made a card by my self of 22 inches by 15.5 inches in size and planned to give her but on friendship day itself the cyclone hit as I heard there is nothing more to be heard or said.

Even today I have the card with me but really don’t know what to do with. Things are really no more the way they were I faced a huge damage in my career and mental state. There were times when I had to approach psychologists to seek help but in the end its only you who can make the difference and no body else. Now my way of looking at others has changed, a shrill feeling always travel through my nerves. Without raising question of who was wrong or who was right as that is what doesn’t matter, all I can say is “I am being punished for being what I am“.

Example: When we try to paint with water colors on chart paper we usually face a problem. If we try to use two different colors very close to each other then they mixes and creates a new shade. Like if you try to make a painting of a mountain with sunset then you will have to make a mountain and use green color to show grass and yellow color to make sun. Both colors will mix while painting and creates a new shade orange at the point they will mix with each other.

Problem: In our day to day life we face several problems and try to solve them by following one procedure or another. Here procedures mean a mix of mental and emotional work that results a response against a situation. While handling different problems there is a need to have a different or fresh set of procedures or a mix of thoughts and emotions.

Relation between example, problem and solution: Our emotions can be better understood with the example quoted above. As different emotions are mixed without any relation with each other then they creates different shades under different circumstances. In the example another thing that is clear is that if we use the same brush without cleanup then the real color can not be drawn on the chart, in the same way it is required to have different set of emotions and thought process for every problem that does not have relation with any other problem. Otherwise a non bias reaction or response cannot be given. That will not be fair for the people involved. Hence the solution for the problem will be invalid.

Tweety Tweety little star,
how I wonder what you are,
up above the world so high,
like a Tweety in the sky.

I am quite sure this would have bought a smile on her face

While coming back from office I got down at Uttam Nagar East Metro station and noticed that there were few kids sliding on the slope built for escalator. I quickly went to the nearest security official on duty and requested him to stop those kids as someone could get hurt. In response he said, (”marta bhi toh nahi hai koi, tabhi manenge yeh”) why don’t one of them die only then they will stop. I could make out that this man is not going to help so I went to customer care center and informed them about the same, all he could do was suggest me to contact security officials around. I finally went to another security official and asked him to stop the kids, he said to me that he would do the needful. Keeping his words I left from the station.

While travelling back from Ajmer in train I thought of reading newspaper out of the blues, and I found the article attached with this post. I was shocked and filled with grief for myself. All I could think was if I would have filed a complaint that day then this might not have happened or those responsible for this would get punished.

Indians have a very peculiar quality of forgetting things easily and I am quite sure same would have happened in this case as well. Officials at DMRC have easily stated this as an accident where as they are the ones who were responsible like how can this happen even when they claim to have covered every corner of metro stations with surveillance cameras.

I send email telling about this to all my friends, contacts and even Hindustan times but nothing could be done.