I Wonder

That’s right. I often wonder who really architectured the whole concept of seven wonders of the world. Since childhood, we have been told there are seven wonders in the world and that these represent some of the most intriguing and amazing man made/nature evolved phenomenon which have enthralled the human race since ages. But as I started understanding it better, the whole concept of seven wonders of the world is in itself flawed to a great extent. If you dig into it further, you really start wondering as to who officially authorized the initial list of seven wonders of the world which includes places like Stonehenge, Great wall of Chine etc. Then comes the list of seven naturally existing wonders which includes places like Mount Everest, Grand canyon etc. Again there was no consensus as to what really qualifies to be called a wonder and somebody(read media giants like CNN/BBC etc) just came up with a consolidated list and published them on their media channels. The last straw came when I heard about a supposedly worldwide initiative wherein an organization invited popular votes from the world audience and asked them to vote for their favourite wonders of the world as percieved by them. Well it seems our very own Taj Mahal could make it to the final 7 but I was not too impressed with the overall exercise as it lacked credibility and transparency.

 Alright enough of that ‘what is right/what is wrong’ sermons. My point here was I have been fascinated with this whole seven wonders of the world thing and always used to wonder if I would ever get to witness atleast one of them. Well, the good news is or rather I can claim that I have witnessed a few of the so called wonders of the world and somehow tempted to draw a comparison between them just so to prove that apples can be compared with oranges!! So far I got to see the Grand Canyon, the Niagara falls and our very own the Taj. Let me write a few lines on each one of them and then we get to the comparison mode –

1)   Grand Canyon – Just one word folks – Truly Majestic(well, that’s 2 words I know). This happened when I was on my first US trip though I wasn’t really that excited to witness the wonder. I mean I had read about it a lot but being a part of high school text book syllabi, it kind of kills the excitement I guess. It’s like whatever you read during high school years was pure bookish and never meant to exist in reality. Well then there I was right at the edge of the wonder itself literally speaking. One look at the wonder and you are like ‘what the hell!!’, ‘what really happened here’ and you never get a chance to put your jaw back in its normal position. The first look at the Canyon sends shivers down your spine and makes you wonder how could such a thing ever happened on planet ‘Earth’. The gorge never ends when you look down and never ceases to amuse you when you look up. The scientific explanation is that the Colorado river was responsible for cutting the earth that deep as if somebody had just cut a full size cake. The bottom most point of the Grand Canyon is around 1.8 km deep, you might as well think of catching a cab to reach that deep! It’s almost 6 years that I witnessed the wonder and I still can recall the visuals so vividly. I still doubt if something of that scale can be done by a simple stream of flowing river.

2)   Niagara Falls – This was during my second trip to the US with wify accompanying me. The high point of this trip was that I drove all the way to the Niagara falls which is a good 6 hours drive one way. And we had to be back the same day which makes it 12 hours of drive in a 24 hours day! But as I discovered later, it was worth the efforts. Absolutely mesmerizing and extremely gigantic is how I would describe this wonder. The sheer amount of water flowing through the fall makes you wonder why we still have water shortage in our home ! The fall it seems gets frozen during the winter season when the temperature reaches sub zero levels. I wish I could witness that as well. The Niagara fall ride called ‘Maid of the Mist’ was an experience itself wherein you are taken right at the bottom of the fall in the middle of wild streams making you feel as if the boat you are riding on is about to overturn. 

 3)  Taj Mahal – ‘Sublime’ and ‘Pure’ are the epithets I could think of while witnessing the monument the first time. Absolute beauty, you just go breathless at its first sight. The legend has it that the emperor Shahjahan was besotted by his 17 year old cousin Mumtaj Mahal and just couldn’t take his eyes off of her. He married her eventually and had 14 kids in as many years it seems (please don’t analyze this information in any greater details as it has led me to a lot of unhealthy questions which I am unable to find in spite of being an ‘adult’!!). So when the queen was gone in his life, the emperor thought to immortalize her memories in what we now know as the ‘Taj Mahal’. The saying ‘Love is in the air’ actually gets personified when you visit the wonder and invariably makes you hold the hands of your beloved as you get completely captivated and mesmerized by the moment’s tenderness.

Now coming to the comparison part – Though all the 3 wonders are sheer magic to your eyes in their own ways, I personally found Grand Canyon having much more profound effect on my psyche than the other 2. Probably it has to do with ‘Fear’ factor that is synonymous with the Canyon and it seems human psychology registers and reacts more strongly to fear factor than beauty factor which is more prominent with the other 2 wonders viz. the Niagara and the Taj. But again, this is purely speaking from human psychology angle. From every other perspective, all the 3 are equals or incomparable and have their own aura so to speak. I would like to conclude saying that even though beauty does lie in the eyes of the beholder, the official/unofficial wonders of the world provide a new meaning to the definition of term ‘beauty’ and have to be witnessed in person to believe that wonders do happen.

A Decade Of Labour

That's right - it was exactly a decade ago on 10th Sep 1998 that I started my career in a company called Tata Consultancy Services. I was to report first day in the training center of the company in a city called Trivendrum which is almost the southernmost tip of India. Seems the extreme location of the training center was chosen more by design as they didn't want anyone to escape easily once trapped !! So there I was - in a completely new place with no known faces around. I had only reached there just a day before after a grueling 36 hours train journey from Nagpur. The place is known as God's own country but to me it seemed to be nothing more than a prosaic countryside with its people looking stuporous who needed to be shaken out of their slumber to put it that way. Well I agree that my perception may have been influenced by the fist day anxiousness and jitters but the place failed to impress me anyways as I discovered later. But back to my story - I was spent and consumed by the time I landed in my hotel from the railway station. It was around 6 in the evening and I had no idea about what to do next and more so about 'things' to come. The game had just started. In an hours time when I was settled in the hotel room, it was dinner time and I was told that the hotel would not serve us any food which basically meant going out in the town(sorry I dont' find Trivendrum be called  a city) and arrange for your own morsels. With a dead set of legs, I headed out to the market area in search of food with an acquaintance who was in the same boat as that of mine. Soon we discovered Trivendrum is not even a town-it's a Village!! No offense meant here to anyone from that part of the country but you would relate with that when you read the next few lines. First thing we observed about that place(lets not call it either town,city or village but lets just use the neutral 'place') was that the market shuts down by around 8 pm(that's like sun rise for me now!!) and nobody understands any language you speak. So with lot of difficulty, we found a dimly lit restaurant which was still open and more importantly serving people!! We went inside and sat on a table which also had a couple of chairs to park the posterior(so thoughtful of them I must say). Next thing I was looking for was a menu card and when I tried to explain that to the waiter(well, lets just say the serving person to protect the dignity of the term 'waiter'), he pointed me to a blackboard in the corner of the room which had a few words scribbled on it which I could not read for obvious reasons. Yes that was indeed the menu card of the restaurant and one was supposed to order food from those listed 8 to 10 godly items. I then saw a man sitting next table eating something similar to dal-rice. I thought atleast something looks familiar and ordered the serving person to get the same dish for myself. In about exactly 3 minutes(pretty good service time!), the serving person came with a big thaali with lot of dal/sambaar served along with something which looked like rice. I prayed to god(that was the first time I realized the importance of praying Him before having your food) and started having my food. With my first morsel just about touching my tongue, I realized that the journey of my career was not going to be a smooth one at all. It seems the rice which was offered on my plate was a variety of rice called 'Boiled rice' and it was way too tough on appetite to be even termed a food item. Kerala is the largest producer of rice in India and I had no doubt that quantity and quality cant go hand in hand. Anyways, I somehow gobbled up whatever amount of food I could from that menu item and headed back to the hotel once again noticing the deserted streets on way back though it was only about 9 pm. Next day was an all important first day of my career and I just wanted to catch some sleep before embarking on the wonderful journey.

Well before I could realize, its 10 years into my career and, believe it or not, I still go to work daily !! Jokes apart, its been an experience in itself and if I were to talk about it, I can go on and on relating those ups and downs of the decade long journey so to speak. And let me also confess that all these years have not been that easy as well though given a chance, I probably would have chosen the same path every time. Its funny but so true that any painful experience is accompanied with lot of pride and a feeling of achievement whereas anything which is pleasurable/fun giving always gives rise to guilt feelings. On this 'Pride' scale, my decade long career would top the list and I guess these 10 years would always be remembered as life defining epoch of my life. Though they say learning is a continuous phenomenon, the first decade of my career would be seen steepest on my learning graph depicting signs of more failures and less of success thus maturing up to the realities of life. But as they say, journey is important and not the destination. On this note, I am ready for the next innings(or decade) of my career with the same elan and enthusiasm as I had on my first day in TCS in Trivendrum as a trainee engineer.

Cheers to Life!! 

Mera Bharat Mahan

‘I am proud of my country’. Well, I agree that this line has become a cliché and has been so widely abused that it has lost its true meaning in contemporary time. So if you utter this line to anyone, you draw a blank face with a degree of cynicism starting to crease in and you get a feeling that you have said the stupidest thing in the world. And I do not blame that person even by a cent since the state of affairs in our country is such that anyone with an iota of brain would find it difficult to find one good thing to be proud about. You name it and we are almost the leader in that area – Corruption (we are ranked 74^th which is even below the nascent democracy Bhutan in the latest corruption perception index as released by Transparency International), Poverty and illiteracy (the less said the better), Unemployment (7.2% in 2007 which is almost double that of China’s 4% for the same year), Terrorism (India tops the country with maximum number of casualties killed in terrorism related violence beating even the likes of Iraq and Afghanistan) and so on. So what really made me or rather spurred me to open the post with that cliché? Read on to uncover the billion dollar question!

I have brought this up in many of my discussions with my peers/close friends and have found it to be one BIG positive about the country I take pride in calling mine and that to put in one word is – Democracy. In my opinion, this is one thing which we as countryman have taken so much for granted that it goes unnoticed completely. Let me relate a real life scenario which will support my conviction – It so happened that the head of the country is out on an international trip and the government he heads suddenly looses majority in the parliament due to the pullout of a few alliance parties. This situation is akin to emergency/coup kind of emergency where in the head of a state is ousted by anti-party elements. A situation of this kind would have involved nation’s military/army interference to keep the situation in control. But look at what happened in this country – the PM continued his trip uninterrupted with absolutely peaceful law and order situation in the country (actually it’s so stable inherently that no one even thought of it as a law and order issue, the Sensex climbing by 500 points on the same day just to give an idea as to how healthy the system works). The political maneuverings have started in the background but strictly within the democratic boundaries as set by the constitution so to speak. This kind of situation is unthinkable in any other political setup but democracy. In other words, the system is so unshakeable that even when a government loses the right to govern, there is absolutely no anarchy, no lawlessness, no threat of instability. Hats off to this seemingly ‘Business as Usual’ system called Democracy.

Let me relate here an interesting anecdote which I still remember so distinctly. A few years back, I had the opportunity of interacting with my company’s top management and one of them was from the US and had come down to India for some strategic team meeting. In one such conversation with him about a specific key project, I was trying to explain him the challenges faced in managing people/employees when we were trying to introduce a new technology enterprise wise. He interrupted me saying we need not worry about employee’s sentiments (resistance) and just go ahead with implementing the new technology without bothering about them. I tried to convince him again but to no avail. I then took a different route which worked like a magic. I told him, in fact let me quote the exact terms which I threw upon him – ‘Hey Mike, here is the problem (in typical American accent). India is a BIG democracy and people out here are so used to the system that nothing can move until they will it. So we got to take our employees in confidence before implementing the new system’. And believe me, he got the message instantly though he was very subtle in his consent and kept referring back to that term ‘Democracy’ in a sarcastic way in his subsequent conversations (that’s their way of looking at the rest of the world).

So the bottom line is – People rule in our country in every sense. So even though one would find many flaws in the system, the basic structure which supports it is indeed a marvel in itself. Long live Democracy, Long live India.

Jai Hind

Liebhaberei

Apologies for using a non English term as the title of this post. That term in German means 'Hobby' and this post of mine is dedicated to it from every angle to put it that way. Dictionary defines ‘Hobby’ (seems this term was the nickname for a small horse named Robert!! Yes, I am still figuring it out.) as any activity which keeps you interested, engaged and busy for a finite amount of time and provides a healthy diversion from your otherwise routine and ‘Groundhog day’ kind of life. I still remember during my school days that there used to be an essay writing section in English paper and ‘My Favourite Hobby’ used to be a sure shot topic to write about. Usually I used to write stamp collection (philatelist) and coin collection (numismatist) as my favourite hobbies and surprisingly, I used to find that every other pupil in the class too wrote about same hobbies. I wonder if there were any other hobbies to pursue during those days!!

As I grew up, I realized there are many more interesting things which one can pursue to keep oneself occupied with. In fact Hobby in a way can have therapeutic effect on you if pursued with passion and vigor. So here I am jotting down another essay about things I would like to do or I am pursuing to keep me interested, engaged and occupied at least for a while (Geminis have a very short attention span, so any hobby can’t keep me hooked up for more than 600 seconds at a stretch!!). One more thing – I now believe hobbies change with age and time. Things which I used to like say at the age of 10 (be it stamp collection) don’t interest me anymore. Probably, it’s like upgrading your hobbies as you get acquainted more with the world though a few of them can still be traced back to your genes. Let’s see if I can discover a few of them in this post –

1. During my childhood days, I had an innate liking for toy guns. I was simply crazy for them what with dad bringing in a new one each time he used to go out on an office deputation. I had a huge collection of them. One such was really cool (I still have it though it doesn’t function anymore) – it was manufactured by Leo toys company and the model was based on real model of a semi automatic gun used by Russians during that time. To explain its functioning in core jargon, when the trigger is pulled, only the hammer and firing pin move, striking and firing the cartridge. The bolt then recoils far enough rearward to extract and load a new cartridge from the magazine into the firearm's chamber, ready to fire again once the trigger is pulled. More simpler ones like the one I used to get during Diwali time was also a special attraction for me and I used to wait for the entire year to get a new pistol gun during the festival time. Somehow the passion for this firearm faded with time, but I still cherish to possess a real one one day though I know it may not be worth it somehow.
2. This one is not really a hobby as by its definition – this activity doesn’t keep me occupied. On the contrary, it unshackles me up from all the hustle bustle of life (I know I am getting philosophical here). I am talking about a simple activity I find extremely engaging – that of enjoying solitude. Mind you, I said solitude and not being lonely. There is a difference and that difference is like the difference between being childlike versus childish (go figure if you haven’t yet). There is indeed bliss in solitude and if you know how to enjoy it, I would say you would never find yourself lonely even when you are alone (I know I am indulging in terminological inexactitude here but the description of this ‘hobby’ warrants it to some extent). Some may say this is like meditation. But to me, meditation sounds more technical in nature whereas solitude is simply being you, being in your own company and enjoying it for no specific reason. As they say, you tire yourself in pursuit of happiness. So just stop pursuing that eternal goal of being ‘perfectly happy’, take a break from your chore and just relax in nothing. This activity once mastered can then be exercised even while you are doing a passive task like watching the idiot box. Though the best ambience I would prefer to enjoy solitude is a peaceful environment with some soothing music being played in the background (of course on your home theatre). A cool breeze adds to the effect for sure.
3. It’s funny sometime to see that things you never realized could interest you suddenly start appealing you and you take an instant affinity for it. Photography is one such thing which I never took very seriously (probably for the lack of the right instrument I would say). But with the advent of digicams in the market in last decade or so, I find myself completely smitten by it and have started taking it seriously in terms of my understanding and exposure to it. As you explore it and get familiar with finer details, you realize photography is so much more than just pressing the button on your cam. I have started enjoying it thoroughly and intend to pursue it with more vigor and rigor. I started out in this world with my first cam which was analogous in technology and its film role had to be manually advanced after each photograph. The technology has come a long way today what with the advanced digicams offering almost all the possible features which one would like to see in a professional level camera. Though I am too happy and proud with my Canon S3IS which I currently own, I do intend to go the SLR way in near future, the only constraint being of course the state of my finances. But a lack of hifidelity instrument is no excuse for not pursuing this hobby in all its earnest. I have started organizing some of the best pics I have on Flickr but I am not satisfied with that site’s performance. Probably I would shift to some other photo blog site or may be have a domain of my own where I can host them.
4. This one is not really a hobby, it’s more of a fascination (you may call it ‘fascinobby’) which has kept me amused for a good part of my life (and many others I am sure as you would see that now). The fascination I am referring to here is about what we call as the Universe and the mysteries surrounding it which we still haven’t comprehended completely. Actually, we can’t even quantify as to how much we really know about our habitat, the small iota of space we claim to occupy and call ours in the Universe. When we say that the universe is boundary less, what exactly we mean here is something that intrigues me to no end. I mean come-on how big the space can be and if we don’t attach any boundaries to it, then where exactly it would lead us to. In other words, where exactly would the journey end if I were to embark on a space odyssey and continue travelling in one direction for forever (assuming I have the necessary means for this hypothetical travel).The other aspect of the universe that has puzzled me is our understanding of it, our perception of it. Think about it – we perceive everything with 5 sensory organs given to us by the god (see we can’t even seem to describe basic attributes of a human body without mention of the ‘Divine’ and we are trying to decipher universe here in a scientific way… hahaha !). Anyways, what it means is – whatever we perceive around us is basically a summation of 5 distinct sensory signals received via the 5 sensory channels or organs we have with us (of course interpreted and processed further by a beautiful apparatus called brain with which we think we think!!). So the underlying question here is – who has told us there are or rather there could be only 5 sensory perceptions any living specie can have? The god (again !!) may have an inventory of hundreds or even thousands of sensory organs and decided to give us only 5 of them! Imagine if we were not given the sense of smell, we would have till date through eons happily accepted the fact that the world is odourless or probably there wouldn’t have been a word defined as a ‘smell’ or an ‘odour’ at all in our dictionaries. All these to me mean that our perception of the universe is limited to what we perceive through the prism of 5 sensory probes we are blessed with. One less or one more (and mind you, this is our perception of perceiving that we have finite sensory organs if you know what I mean) and we just don’t have any idea what it would be like – probably we may not even exist as living beings (our definition of being alive) as we perceive it now or the universe after all may not be infinite at all (Infinite may be easily comprehensible in that other world)!! Who knows?? In fact, to put it in yet another interesting way – we just don’t know (neither we would ever in all likelihood) what is absolute reality about the universe versus our interpretation of it.
5. A few of the other activities which has kept me hooked up lately and which I would not hesitate classify as ‘hobby’ by its definition are as listed below –
1. Blogging – started my affair with it with Chiku’s arrival. As stated somewhere in one of my entries, wanted to leave a kind of foot trail in terms of my thoughts/opinions for the progeny. Would like to continue with it as long as I can.
2. Hacking – Would like to pursue with it with some more seriousness (probably sometime later in my life) but with no negative intentions.
3. Acquiring new gadgets/gizmos – well, this is only limited by the state of my finances and I would try to coincide/align its pursuit more with Chiku’s growing years so that I keep myself paced up with him in the field of technology marvels.
4. Reading is another activity I would like to dedicate more time as I grey my hairs. Somewhere I read that the amount of information a regular guy would have had in his entire lifetime around the 17^th century is available to us in just one day through various media channels. So in other words, we are given the opportunity of living multiple lives (thousands of them actually) when compared with that old guy from 17^th century (old as of now I mean).
5. Politics is another of my hobby/passion I am extremely attached with. Be it international politics or national drama (politics in our country is nothing less than drama and can give a run for money to the ‘Saas-Bahu’ dramas any day), I find myself glued to the news channels 24x7 given favourable circumstances (marriage has made them hostile you see).
6. Philosophy – I do have a flair for this ‘boring’ subject as perceived so by many and find myself inclined towards it quite often. It’s an extremely elaborate topic and I would just stop here with its mention and keep it for another post at a later point of time.
7. Music, food, sleeping, TV, movies are some other pastime activities I would like to call out here (this phrase is so oft used in my company meetings, I hate it now!) but can’t keep me engaged for more than a few units of time (characteristics of Geminis).

All the above ones are healthy hobbies I am/would pursue as life goes along. However, there are a few more which can’t be included here and define a slightly darker side of my persona. But then who is living a ‘white’ life anyways?

Chandrayaan

“So you are coming too, right? Done. Lets plan it out with the same precision details as the rocket launch vehicle would be”.

It was around the time when I was like 10 year old. We used to stay in a defense colony kind of environment having a heavy military/army influence as the area basically belonged to GoI’s (that’s Govt. of India for the uninitiated) one of the 36 Ordnance Factories spread across India engaged in arm’s manufacturing and production. The initial forming years of my life have just one memory and that is of this wonderful place called ‘OFC’. I think a separate blog entry on this place is warranted by the mere fact that I spent 18 precious years of my life in the wonderland which is so mysterious in its own way and yet has so much to relate to. But for now, back to the incident I was linking to at the time when I was a decade old. My elder bro was not keeping well around that time with his legs jammed in one position and my mom dad had to stay put late nights looking after him.

One such night, I remember my dad did not let us sleep till late midnight. The reason – there was an announcement on the AIR (that’s All India Radio for the generation born after 80s) that a heavenly/celestial body called Haley’s comet would be passing by our planet and that it would be visible with naked eyes in the dark skies that night. Now with my 10 years old brain, I really could not analyze this data much (remember no TV during that time to help depict such phenomenon with hi definition graphics) though I had a vague idea that someone called Haley would be brightly lit in the sky and everyone would say ‘tata’ to him. Sounds cute, isn’t it?

Cut to 2008 – I do think that the Haley’s comet event was indeed a big factor in shaping my impressionable mind into scientific mould and that I did develop a deep scientific inclination henceforth in my life though my exploration in this mystic world of science remains limited to reading a few good books on the subject like ‘A brief history of time’ and/or subscribing to ‘Astronomy’, ‘Universe’ kind of communities on Orkut. Though it may sound stupid but many a times I do think deeply and seriously on a few open ended questions science has thrown at us - if we still are alone in the Universe, how big is the Universe (think about it - we are a part of solar system which grouped in millions form a galaxy which in turn grouped together in millions are called ‘Clusters’ and which in turn grouped together in millions is called ‘Universe’!!) and many such questions which sometimes closely border on philosophy in terms of who is the Creator of the Universe and should we really treat science and philosophy/religion as two distinct branches of some higher discipline so to speak or should we wait for the ultimate ‘Theory of Everything’ to get materialized for piecing together all the Jigsaw puzzles thereby solving the mystery completely. I don’t think that would be possible in this birth, in fact I would rather not given a choice as they say there is bliss in ignorance and you can find ultimate bliss in ultimate ignorance!

So this time around I thought to myself – how about elevating my scientific curiosity to the next level? Instead of just pondering over such unexplainable ‘Universal’ phenomenon, let’s watch the spectacle in person and witness some of the science events which you only hear about on TV. To cut short the story (too late I know), I have been following the BIG ISRO story that India is planning its first unmanned mission to Moon sometime this year(2008). Now, this is really a BIG ‘space’ leap for the country as only a select few countries till date have succeeded in achieving the feat. When I checked out the details, the rocket launch to the moon was to take place from a place called ‘Sriharikota’ which to me sounded to be a place somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Well, it turns out that the place is very much in the same state I live in (that’s the land of migrants like me Andhra Pradesh) and it’s pretty well connected by rail/road. The district is called Nellore and it’s around 60 km from its capital Nellore city. The launch would take place from Satish Dhawan Space station which is a heavily guarded space station owned and managed by ISRO. I guess my best bet would be to find a place very nearby the space station which can give me a clear arterial view of the rocket launch.

When this thought came to my mind, I really thought it would be nice to have some company while witnessing the shuttle launch. I thought of checking with Chiku but he could not understand a word of this whole deal and kept nodding his head in anticipation of getting Gems (that’s Cadbury’s multicoloured chocolate balls) from papa and hence I had to give up soon enough before he started screaming for the chocolate (Moon can wait for him I suppose!!). But I did manage to catch hold of a few likeminded minds, some from my office and a couple of my close buddies. The opening line of this blog is what transpired when I just got off the phone after speaking to yet another concurring creature. So far so good. The dates have not yet been officially announced by ISRO and if all goes well, I will surely write another blog to describe my near heavenly rendezvous with … well Chandamama !!

Good Things in Life

Really speaking, this post was long pending and I just kept procrastinating it (I hope I have made right usage of that college dictionary word!!) for no reasons. So today I thought enough is enough, as all it takes is opening up a blank MS word document and typing in a few random letters thereby crystallizing your thoughts into writing. Simple, isn’t it? I wish I had the same level of determination all the time as I do at this moment at least when it comes to writing!!

So what this post is all about? In one word, it’s about the good times!! Well, I am not really a marketing agent for Kingfisher (‘Good times’ is their ad line as I could remember). I just thought I should pen down everything and anything I like to do/experience, things which give us a kind of feel good factor so to speak. Initially I thought I would set out a few rules and guidelines around how I would describe them but then I thought going by rules is really not me. So all I am going to do here is randomly list out such ‘Good times’ activities and post them as a blog. A note of caution/disclaimer – not all of the below is necessarily ‘Good’ as what I deem ‘Good’ may be categorized differently by different species.
So let’s get started without wasting any more keystrokes!!

1) The first one to top my list is sleeping through the weekend!! How I want to just not get up on a Saturday morning, then laze around the whole morning only to go back into being of non existence or shall I say a prolonged siesta around afternoon and then again remain snoozy through the evening. The late night movie puts the final stamp on the super slumber Saturday which I wish would duplicate itself through Sunday!! Well, this routine may sound a wishful thinking now but it actually used to be a weekend ritual for me in my pre marital days (this pre marital thing rhymes so much with something else but let’s not get there!!). Post marriage, I declare hereby that I am too happy if I get even the nominal eight hours sleep(mind you, one of the readers of this piece of writing is my better half, so have to be politically correct). As an antithesis to the above mentioned fantasy, I have discovered that a woman sleeping through the weekend is a non sequitur.

2) The scent of a woman – this is a Hollywood movie with a power packed performance by the legendary Al Pacino. But I am really not referring to the literal meaning of the opening phrase here (as otherwise I would be labeled a philanderer which anyways I am!!). So what I really am referring here is the various smells or rather fragrances which we come across routinely in our daily life but don’t care much really. To start with (which may sound a cliché), the smell of the earth as soon as the first rains hit the soil tops my list. Very close to this one comes the aroma of hot or rather garmagaram Pakoras which your mom prepares on a rainy monsoon evening with the cool breeze hitting all over your face followed of course by a hot cup of ilaychi tea. Those were the days!! Another one which comes to my mind instantly is the smell of fresh hot Pizza from your next door neighbor when you are just passing by their door. This smell is more enticing than when you are actually relishing the same Pizza all by yourself. As they say, the grass is always greener on the other side of fence. Continuing the list is the smell of laundry cleaned clothes when you inhale the clean scent of the laundry detergent through the fabric. Another endearing smell is the smell of a baby when you hold them close to you. It’s so peculiar of them and makes you love them even more. If you buy any new book, just open it randomly and immerse your nose through its virgin pages and you will be reminded of your good old childhood days when you used to attend school and used to write with a pencil on those brand new notebooks.

3) A few ‘Good things’ which I can capture in short sentences –
a. A hot bath after a hectic and tiring day
b. Getting a mail from a long forgotten friend.
c. Watching your favourite TV program on a reclining chair with remote in one hand and a can of chilled coke in the other (that’s a luxury after marriage)!!
d. Watching the value of share you had bought last week going up rapidly.
e. Writing a good blog post
f. Attending office on Fridays in anticipation of a relaxing weekend ahead
g. e-Shopping and more so researching for a product on the net you want to buy.
h. Browsing through the net for latest in newly launched softwares/ freewares
i. Reading newspaper early in the morning with a hot cup of tea by your side. As they say, news is that instrument which keeps half the earth’s population amused with other half’s miseries!!
j. Holding your wife or girlfriend’s hand (Please note that both are mutually exclusive and there are no prices guessing which one feels sweeter ;-). This particular ‘good thing’ point was written by me with a gun pointed to my temple by you know who).
k. Cleaning up my camera/laptop (or any hi-end electronic gadget for that matter) on a lazy weekend with no one to bother in between.
l. Learning a new and interesting word and its etymology. Do you know that the word Camera derives from the hindi word ‘Kamra’ which simply means an ordinary living room.
m. Reading quotes/proverbs/one liners which are subtle, witty and are double edged in their meaning.
n. Chilled butter milk or better still Chaach on a hot summer noon.
o. Getting the popup ‘You have a new mail’ on your laptop.
p. Sharing your achievements with your best friends. They are the ones who are witnessed to all the ups and downs of your life and hence would have a better understanding of what it took you to reach this milestone.
q. Watching republic day parade and taking great pride in watching those state of the art weapons which can take on any biggie in the world!!
r. Cracking a puzzle which could not be cracked by many ‘intelligent’ species.
s. Watering plants in a garden. This is something I never did after my childhood days when we used to have a garden of our own no matter if the garden contained only wild flowers and plants.
t. Clicking a great photograph with my digicam.
u. Driving a sun roof car on a freeway on a sunny day. In India, you can get a sun roof car, you can even get a perfect sunny day. But freeway – the word itself hasn’t found a place in local dictionary!!
v. Having an animated discussion with close group of your friends/acquaintances.
w. Watching a science documentary on Nat Geo and realizing how close we the earthlings are to near extinction. The narrator of the documentary is about to reveal how we can escape the apocalypse when all of a sudden I see Tulsi’ face on the screen caught in a very tensed situation making you realize that the ‘near extinction’ problem is a naught/zilch when you are already facing such mammoth issues as saas bahu!! By the way, no prices guessing who changed the channel while saving the mankind from near extinction!!
x. Watching a nail biting Cricket match wherein India is heading for a possible win.
y. Watching interesting TV commercials. Their chief USP is conveying a thousand things in a slot of 30 seconds. This to me is the height of contemporary art. I mean look at the Amul India ads, the legendary pepsi/Coke ads or the classic Nirma ad. They all have left an indelible mark on me, no matter if I ever used their products or not.
z. Googling anything about which you want to enhance your knowledge.
aa. Reading a good interesting book while lying on that cosy sofa.
bb. Watching standup comedy shows especially from the Western television. The dark humour portrayed by them is absolutely the height of imagination while indulging in semantics jugglery.
cc. Having Daal tadka/Dal fry and steam rice in my favourite restaurant.
dd. Nilgiri trees. These trees had been a part of my childhood days defining an epoch period involving initial years of my life and would be difficult to forget for the lifetime.
ee. Getting my first credit card which was from Standard Chartered bank.
ff. Tickling yourself with anything soft such as a piece of fur or a peacock feather.

Many more of these ‘good things’ which could be thought off and I would keep updating this post with them as and when they occur to me.