Someone asked me why I was so interested in Macro Photography. Well the simple answer wud be coz that allows me to look at things different from the way I see it. Just yesterday we gave a send off to one of my collegues here and this is what I managed to take off his parting gift.


And I have just begun to get into the realm of Macro

I rest my case :)

I still remember that evening... U ver so enthuziastic and full of energy. U had placed your entire trust on me and I had promised to never let go. And yet after a few hours of holding you straight as u sat balancing on your wobbly bicycle, I let go.

U went straight for a wall and crashed into the trees planted close by. My heart hurt much more than your bruised legs and elbows. And when I broke ur trust, it took me 2 hours to convince u that I will never do it again.

Yet, the next day I got u on ur bicycle and let go. I knew I was breaking a promise... I knew I was shattering ur world of trust... And I knew that u wud'nt understand. But I also believed that I had to.

Years have passed and now it takes me much more than 2 hours to earn ur trust back. And it still hurts me more everytime u bleed. What you dont understand is that I still know I am breaking a promise and I still know that I am shattering your world of trust... But I still believe that I have to.

And there is one more thing that I know... Some day, ven u grow old and u begin to teach ur son to ride a bicycle.... Ull understand.

Another of those "embarassing" things that hapened to me on the Niagra Trip... We ver completely famished and deprived of sleep for one whole night (had been driving all night). Here we are completely dazed and searching for a place to eat. We spot this nice bakery at the corner of the road and decide to settle for coffee and a quick bite before we get on the tour-bus that vil show us round the area.

We walk in and after some amount of contemplation we decide we'll take the usual "Plain Bagel with Cream n Cheese".

Me: We'll have 2 bagels with cream n cheese
She: What kind of bagels?
Me: Ill have a plain one...(looking at my friend) what will u have?
Friend: (after some thought) Ill have a plain 1 too
Me: Soooo... make that 2 plain bagels with cream n cheese.
[short pause](I start to read the menu to figure out if I shud have hot chocolate or coffee)
She: Would you like ketchup?
Me: (thinking... "ketchup was never an option before".. but so dazed) Yes
She: Oh! U'd like ketchup with ur bagel?
Me: (Realizing Id made a BIG mistake) yeeeaaaahhh, I think Ill have it
She: (pointing to a man standing behind me) I was not talking to you, u kno bout the ketchup
Me: (Completely sure I had made a fool of maself) Yeah, I think Ill take it (thinking fast bout trying to make a witty statement)... It gives u that Tangy Taste u kno.
She: M sorry?
Me: (not sure if that was sarcastic or coz she did not hear).. It gives the bagel a lil tangy taste?
[long pause]
She: Ill get the bagels to ur seat.
Me: (Thinking... sssshhhhiiiitttt... how cud I b so stupid??)


Well she did bring me the bagels AND the ketchup. And I had the bagel WITH the ketchup. But look at the bright side.... I think I really liked the "Lil tangy taste" it gave the bagel!

Went this weekend to the Niagra Falls. A pretty hectic trip it was. Started Friday at 0100Hrs and reached the place at 0930Hrs. Returned Sunday by 2300Hrs.
Saturday was generally overcast and there was not much Sun to do some scouting for nice photographic locations. To top that I prefered to NOT carry my 70-300 Sigma Macro Lense and did not bother checking on my Camera Battery. So I spent Saturday rationing the photographs I was taking to conserve as much power to get me to the Butterfly Garden.. On reaching there, I throughly missed my Macro Lense. I had a 70-300Canon USM, but for some reason (mayb due to the low battery) it was not following subjects well. Missed a lot of good shots there (But did get a few good ones too).

At night we scouted to the Skylone Tower only to find that the mist churned up by the falls in addition to the already cloudy day accounted for "ZERO" visibility of the falls from the observation deck. That was the second dissappointment. We then moved on the Falls Lookout area and spent some time watching the falls change colors in the night.

Sunday morning was promising and I had my Camera Battery recharged in the night. So got some (not exceptional) shots. I guess I was generally not at my creative best that day.

We started back Sunday afternoon only to find that we had a flat tyre. We waited for around 1 hour n 30 mins for Roadside assistance to arrive.

Overall, a pretty "happening trip". On my first trip to Niagra, I cud not go to the Canadian side. On the second trip, the weather in general was not good. M planning for a third trip soon. :)

Other (Low Res) photographs have been posted at Yahoo Photos. As usual, drop in comments/ask me if u need a Hi Res image of any particular shot.

This morning as I walked into the parking lot I saw the US Postal Service Van driving past into the Visitors Parking Space. Normally the Postal Van just pulls up on the side of the driveway and the postman gets off the van (with hazzard lights on) to put in the letters into the required mail-boxes.

I had always wondered if they had different driving rules for such vehicles coz the van is normally parked in a lane which boldly says "No Parking - Fire Lane". I felt quite nice that finally the Postman got some sense kicked into his head and he was actually using the "Visitors Parking" slots specifically provided for vehicles like these which dont belong to the Residents!

And as I was walking to my car, the Postman got out with a bunch of letters in his hand. "You cannot park there" a woman's voice shouted. Both me and the postman looked up to figure out its source. It was a woman standing on the third floor of the apartment and as we located her, she repeated, "You cannot park there sir".

Post man: "I gotta put these mails into their boxes"
Lady: Yes, but you cannot park there. That slot is for Visitors
Postman: But it will only take 5 mins
Lady: Are you new?
Postman: Yes, I am new to this area.
Lady: The old postman used to park along the driveway in the fire-lane. You should do the same.
Postman: Am I allowed to park in the Fire-Lane?
Lady: I dunno.. The old postman used to. But I know you cannot park in the visitors parking slot.
Postman: Oh, Okay. As you say lady. (and he walked back into the van and parked the van in the fire-lane)

And here I was sitting in the car wondering - what's the freaking point?

Admist breaking dreams I could feel her nudge me... "Wake up" she called... Unwilling to open my eyes to the bright morning light I had thoughts racing thru my head trying to figure out wot day it was. "Its a Sunday" I goarned pushing aside whatever was getting in the way of me assuming a comfortable position again to get back to my lazy sleep. "Its 11 in the morning" she urged intensifying the nudging.

"What is it with you?" I shouted frustrated and almost immediately changing my voice to a half sobbing continued "Let me sleep some more na .. pleaseeee"

My eyes were still closed but I had come to enuf consciousness to sense her sitting on the bed besides me. And as I re-positioned myself with a pillow over my face to dark out the bright light I felt a mysterious silence. I did not sense the she had left and nor was she nudging me anymore. She just sat there... doing nothing. And as curiosity grew to know wot she was upto, I raised the pillow and half opened my snoozy eyes to catch a glimse of what she was doing.

She sat there staring at me with the weirdest smile. And after 2 seconds of looking at her and not finding any change in expression I consciously asked "What?"

"You kno" she smirked, "this is the time you are the most adorable". Now I was in no mood for a romantic compliment early in the morning especially ven I was keen to catch up with some more sleep. "Good" I snubbed scratching through my itchy morning hair. Turning away from her I pulled up the comforter and was ready to snooze again.

"No Really", she pushed. Now that was a sign I knew which meant that I was supposed to ask her... "Why". So I half heartedly asked.. "Why?" and was almost ready to ignore any words that followed.

"Coz your very lovable?" she said. "huh?", I dazed turning half back until I cud see her thru the corner of my eyes. "What?" I asked.

"Coz your realy cute!!" she stressed.

I was already irritated with the realization that I was not getting any more sleep and now I had her talking in riddles early in the morning. Hessitantly I asked, "Is everything alright?"

"Yes... perfectly" she naughtly replied. Now I was completely confused about the sense she was making. At first I get three compliments and then she says everything was fine! So I turned around to look at her with all the concentration I cud gather. I pushed aside the sheets and got myself sitting next to her. "What?" I asked again with a questioning look of confusion.

"Nothing", she sprung up from the bed. "Now that I have ur attention and u r awake.... GET UP" she quipped as she walked out of the room.

I remember the aggravation and frustration I had been thru six months back when I finally received the dreaded "deliverable" from my team. I was scared to push a button on screen for fear of crashing the whole system down! And I believed then that there was no quality into the effort that was put into getting the whole system together.

It really shows in almost anything... One can immediately know the difference between sloppy work and quality work, be it as artistic as a painting or as mundane as even swabbing house floors! Bloches of dust lying around inspite of swabbing for a whole complete hour is surely not a sign good work.

But this time its different. This time, its a job thats really well done!! M Impressed.

I can just about take 4 steps towards you and then stop... I can

• Initiate conversation and get to know you as a person, aquaintance, and a friend


• Widen our scope of interaction from mere talking to spending time doing things that "we" enjoy


• Do those small-lil things which I wud never ever find myself doing for most other people who tread on this earth


• Show patience and wait until you acknowledge my gestures

If I did less, then I wud not have tried enuf... and if I did more, you'd think Im desperate. And when I am just about finished taking my 4 steps... I guess Ill wait in hope that you take ur 1st.

There is an unsaid rule that most people generally tend to accept... If the deadline is set to 1400Hrs, u might as well assume that you have until 1800 Hrs! And one of the times this is most noticeable is when holding meetings. You send out invites to people and intimate the time of meeting to be 1000Hrs and inevitably the meeting does not start until 1030Hrs... Reason: People dont assemble by the given time. And this is most often joked about saying "We follow IST - Indian Stretchable Time".

I wondered and pondered during the early years ven I cud do nothing about it and ven I actually started to lead a team, I tried this experiment...

As usual I send out an invite for the status meeting to start at 1000Hrs. On the first day I waited until 1010Hrs to start the meeting. I had less than half the people attending but went ahead regardless.

Next time I started the meeting at 1005Hrs. Any issues raised by people who were not present in the status (especially those who had slipped deadlines) were not accepted... Reason: It was "not" discussed in the status!

2 or 3 rounds of such meetings ensured that people were not only attending the meeting on time but ver sometimes there before time!

I did earn the reputation of being quite infexible and difficult to work with... But hey... If u need a sword hanging over ur neck to get u disciplined, Ill gladly do the honors :)

Another thing that has caught up with the competitive spirit and need for test-preparedness is something people call "Mock-Interviews" now-a-days. Though the name is clear enuf, for the mentally challenged who visit this site, Ill spell it out. It is a way of having someone internal to the company interview a probable candidate and ask them questions which clients would potentially ask. This way, the candidate gets more experience in answering right and helps in escaping possibly tricky situations.

Why am I writing about this? Well, just yesterday I conducted a mock myself and was amused with the artificiality and the awkwardness the whole process carries! I had given a mock to my superior about a year ago for a post of a project manager and I sure felt the same awkwardness that I cud sense the candidate feeling yesterday! It is especially hilarious ven the person taking the interview does not get along very well with the interviewee :)

He: So, are you open to putting in extra hours if required?

Me: Sure! I always do what is required to get the job done (u always MAKE SURE I put in extra hours for no reason!)

He: (gr8. He never does any work and makes me wait late so that I can make sure he does HIS work!) Thats nice. And how many people have you managed in the past?

Me: Around 10 to 15 (with the amount of work u make me do, Im sure I cud handle another 20 if I were at the clients place!)

He: (Yeah... I kno exactly how u manage the "10 to 15" people u r talking about).

I can go on, but I think u ppl get the idea.

I was already late today and in general was in a hurry to get to work. After performing the final check before I left home I fumbled with the keys to get my door locked. As as I paced through the passage to make it out to my parking lot I could see 2 shadows walking about on the other side of the door. One, a lil boy bout 4ft tall and another a man (his dad most probably).

Though their muffled conversation was getting louder, I could not comprehend much until I finally swung open the door to get into the parking lot.

"I looked everywhere" the boy whined stomping his foot. I heard another voice from a little girl perched on a balcony say "I did not mean to mommy. I was dancing with my hands like wings and it hit his hand." to which "Mommy" consoled saying "Im sure u did'nt honey"

"So what are we looking for again?" the man queried the boy. "Its an invinsibility shield", the boy whined again. "Grampa gave it to me last week. Without it the Gouald's will burn me alive!". "How does it look?" the father queried again. "It looks like a bottle cap!" the boy replied.

At this point I was comfortably seated in my car and had started the engine. But the description of the "Invincibility Sheild" was too interesting to allow me to speed away. So I slowly rolled down the windows and switched on the A/C to let the car cool a bit.

"A bottle cap huh?" the man affirmed... "Thats to fool the Goualds in case they catch me. They will never know it is an invincibility shield", the boy explained.

The man scouted about in the area below the balcony while the girl and the mom curiously leaned from the balcony to see if they cud spot the invincibility shield from above. Realizing that the search party is going to take some time I decided to get to office instead. So I slowly pushed my car into gear and started to roll. Involuntarily, I too was making a quick scan of the area to see if I cud spot something. And as I turned out of the parking lot into the driveway I cud still see the man prancing about in the parking lot searching for the invincibility sheild.

"There it is!!" I heard a shreik from the boy. I cud not resist myself from braking and moving reverse into the parking lot again. And as I got into view I saw the boy carefully clearing of the mud stuck on a what looked like a blue bottle cap with a wide grin on his face. "I am invincible again!!" he shouted as they walked into the appartment door.

Boy!! Am I glad the he found his invincibility shield back. It was indeed a matter of saving mankind now was'nt it?

I do not know the void that leaves me empty,
Or maybe I choose to ignore the pain.
But it seems like I lost you somewhere down the road
and I wonder if things could ever be the same.
Restrained feelings and cautious nuances
has been a norm for quite a while now.
And every attempt to query this change
has been avoided by you somehow.

Destiny had smiled the day we crossed our paths.
And I surely felt the surge of emotions; did you?
Anyway, I convinced myself it was a one-sided love story,
and yet my heart believes it untrue.
Words of wisdom were unspoken, but understood
and silent drum rolls proclaimed we could never be.
But it exists! the warmth in the sparkle of your eyes.
I can sense it. Or is it that my heart betrays me?

Truth be spoken, I know you quiver.
My scent, my touch, my anxious kiss...
gets you enthused but weak.
And it was you who once said, it sometimes feels like bliss.
If this not be love, then what is?
Why defy the one truth your heart believes?
Why hide in shadows when you have been blessed with the light
that some people spend lifetimes to achieve?

Yet another irony to smile at
Alas! we still cannot be
But no reason to impede our love
Accept the truth, set it free... please

Not until recently have I encountered a very strange attitude ven working with people. The one-sentence description would be "If u think there is a problem, tell me and Ill gladly correct it."

Now, I surely do not want to go about making generalizations and I also do not want to classify things as black or white. But I do find this attitude a lil cold and lacking in morals or ethics. At the least, I believe this to be utterly careless and demonstrative of a persons attitude to be indifferent to the service he provides.

If I walked into Macs and ordered a Double Cheese Burger with Extra Cheese and Mayonaise, Tomatoes, Onions, and no peppers or pickle I trust that the burger I get in hand fulfills my order. But reality seems to be far from that (atleast vit the ppl Im interacting with). I wud get a burger for sure... but Ill have no idea if it is wot I ordered! If u r still vondering bout wot m getting at, here is how it works...

After opening the burger I realise that I do not see enuf cheese. So I walk up to the counter n say, cud I have extra Cheese please? The guy at the counter gladly takes the burger back and returns with an extra slice of cheese melting in between the bread... thats ven I realize I dont see onions either.. so I again tell him with a smile - And some onions too?... he smiles again n carefully seasons the bread with onions. Happy that I finally got wot I want, I walk out of the store and dig my first bite into the burger... and walla.. I get the pungent sour taste of pickle which I so much hate!! Did I not say "no peppers or pickle"?

The funny part is that there is no confrontation here coz venever I point out something missing, the guy gladly rectifies it. But it is highly frustrating for me coz I not only have to order but also have to verify if wot I got is indeed wot I ordered! Then Y the hell r they paying that guy NEways? Shud'nt the guy be attentive enuf 2 get the order straight the first time and try to do it all correctly?

Those guys can definitely get away with doing this once or twice, but they r seriously gambling the one thing that will ensure that I wud go back to them for my next burger... n that is the basic trust that these guys can do wot they r supposed to do. Are they not obligated to do their jobs well Or have they just gotten so freakin confident that they doubt my intelligence?

Just got this information about Mars being the closest to Earth over the period of August. I had heard this news sometime in 2003 and was quite sure this was stale news. But it looks like Mars is here again!

Check out A Breathtaking Close Encounter With Mars

Its been almost a week with massive downpour in Mumbai and I can imagine the city lying crippled under water with garbage piling up in most places, water supply cut off, and many areas with no electricity too. And whilst the locals try hard to get back to their feet, I wonder if this is a sign which we should not let go so easily.

It is true that the city received the highest amount of rainfall in many years, but have we not seen similar sights during the past rains? Every monsoon has brought atleast 1 day in a year which shuts down the whole city and the next day we causally leave it behind and get on with our daily chores.

Now when we sit down to judge what went wrong (which we always do only after something happens) we find ourselves talking of MPs who are absconding and governments that have been irresponsible. But wot in the freaking hell is Govinda going to do even if he tours the affected areas other than phantomime grief and sympathy (which he cud very well act out knowing his background)! And were we not well-informed to know that an "Actor" does not have the experience to run a city? Then why shud we advocate him to be a deceiver ven it is we who put him there in the 1st place!

Mumbai's infrastructure has always been on the edge with the onslaught of unregulated development and exponential growth of slums that has caused the distruction of the mangrove swamps and encroachment into the costal zones in the name of reclaimation. And whislt we proudly state that Mumbai is the commercial capital of India, I wonder just how much money is really put back into Mumbai to aid its development and growth.

And I sure do hope and pray that ven Manmohan Singh talked of transforming Mumbai into a Shanghai in the next 5 years, he meant it to not be just false promise. And I sure hope that the glaring sign which nature has presented to us by pushing Mumbai a little more than it cud handle has been noticed and acknowledged.

Funny at times how I gleefully know
a fable untrue that shows thru ur eyes
And yet I'd trust they stand for truth
and smile to myself in the face of ur lies

An amorous stare and a puckish smile
with giggles n sighs so hard to surmise
And dramatic gestures with emphatic tones
they sound so true, and yet they r lies

Some feel real to the smallest detail
while others, a farce right from the start
Albeit the narration enacted is same
with no signs of deciet, coming straight from the heart

Most of the times I gleefully know
its a fable untrue, it shows thru ur eyes
But dont stop urself my cherished child
while I smile to myself in the face of ur lies