satya, eby, nitin and i finally went for a picnic!
only, we didnt get to see the place. thats right! the site bangalorebest.com did not mention in its travel section that thippanahalli is a ‘national secret’ and that you need permission from the cauvery board to get into the water reservoir!

result: we were shooed away the moment we entered 10 feet of the guards’ cabin…of course there were many localites ‘dating’ and all, but well, apparently they had the permission too!

anyways, the 35-km drive on magadi road was really good, and we had a great time pretending to be picnickers ;-)

took the ring road back to indiranagar where satya and i shared a hot pizza at dominoes. then we left for nitin’s place and after a quick refresing up, left for bethesda church, eby’s church.

eby’s church has no statue of the cross or jesus christ, no candles are lit, no one carries a mother mary picture or rosary beads. just a few people believing in a direct relationship with jesus christ.

is this why i was in bangalore for all of six months? to get in touch with my “spiritual self” as eby puts it? why is it that i can relate to all these people?

we sang hymns (yes, i sang too, along with the others :-) and read a part of the scripture.
(and there was one part that almost choked me to tears). then there was the round of coffee and biscuits and general hi-glad-to-meet-yous and sad-to-see-you-go introductions…

god! i actually felt i’d miss bangalore again yesterday! and i think i surely will. too bad itspace didnt work out for me.

but methinx i’ll come back. very soon :-) and i’ll buy a house, and a dog, and live happily ever after (yawn, blah blah) there i go again…

that reminds me…gotta rush home now.
deepu, prachi, malini and i are leaving for coorg by the 11:30 pm bus. and i havent packed/eaten/packed for bbay yet!

last night’s party was fun!

rajesh reddy, unimobile founder, was the host - his sister got married two days back. we started late, but then we reached early, by the party standards ;-)

there was great music, a grrreat dance floor and dance (i enjoyed dancing too ;-), and dinner was served after 11pm! the best part of the evening was the tattoo i got painted on my hand :-))

meeting the ppl there was also fun, and i was looking for udhay shankar, whose unimobile id i saw on the silk-list discussion site. but what would i say to him? i hadnt ever entered the discussion ever!! finally i didnt meet him :-(

anyways, i met anupama and we decided to go ahead on the freelancing agreement. now i’ll finally have a small additional source of income :-)

got home at 1:30 am, read a little about synesthesia, and then dozed off.

today satya, eby, nitin, abhishek and me are going to this place called thippagondanahalli (wow!) abt 35 kms from here, and this regional design centre called ja na pa da lo ka (sounds like sa re ga ma pa da!! its 53 kms from here but i wonder if ebs and goonk will agree.

eby just refused to get teddy along. i’m so disappointed. grrrr….

gotta leave now. and get my camera :-))

forgot to fill this in yesterday:

i saw a postman, in the flesh!

got dilbert’s principle and came across this other interesting book from strand. its called the man who could taste shapes, and its about synesthesia, a condition where the person is able to identify with not one but a combination of senses (synes-the-sia ? union of senses) at any given time.

suddenly i felt i could somehow relate to many things written in the book

…like how my description about the way i look at things strikes to most ppl as funny; or each time a person i’m introduced to or meet after a long time appears to me as an animal or bird (gourav looks like an ostrich, gulnar - like a cat, vijay - a croc, jace, ganesh and me - a sparrow or even an eagle, prachi - a woodpecker, sudhir - a camel, and so on.)

…or the time when i told gourav that the stars on a clear night in dalhousie looked like dandruff, and that umesh drives his jalopy just like the way he speaks.

…or the way i react to colours, how they take shapes in my head regardless of whether my eyes are open or shut, thanks to which i can also paint spontaneously

…or how music almost never fails to create colourful patterns in my head. i remember asking sumod and ganesh about varying music frequencies, and if i can generate a pattern first and then wrap the music around it accordingly.

…or how i have this uncanny ability to remember numbers (although i’m terrible at math), by simply associating it with a pattern.

am i really a synesthete? or is this just a variation of that ‘condition’?

speaking about ‘conditions’, i’ve been running through the silk-list discussions and i wonder how intellectual can their discussions really get. a single statement casually written by someone becomes the most talked-about subject!
be it john galt and the others’ identity crisis, a few books that were borrowed by someone, or even an individual’s decision to maintain an online journal.

now take the people in my office…i was told yesterday by the hr person pratap that not many would understand the high standards i set for myself, or the standards at chip (!!) and that that’s why i cannot adjust to the envt in itspace! what a theory!

so who’s to blame? is this another ‘condition’ i’m told i’m going through, or is this another one of the strange mysteries of life?

it’s been a strange day today.

dint want to go to office when i woke up. and i’ve been thinking a LOT.

thinking, about thinking.
about why the guy from indya.com stopped at the first floor to get a sprite when he could have got it from the cafetaria on the terrace that is closer to his office (the indya office is on the fourth). then i reasoned mebbe he dint want to climb all the way up when he could get a sprite ‘on’ the way up. and then i realised how this one subject (of the indya guy and his sprite) kept me occupied for all the four floors that i climbed!!!

btw, i dont even know the kido, just that he works there.

perhaps its because i’m kind of in a ‘dazed’ state today! or because i blacked out this morning for no apparent reason while hanging my clothes on the terrace. but why am i trying to justify this?

just because i’m writing an e-journal??

phew!! have been running around the entire day! and for no apparent reason :-o

got a call from anupama of the-practise, the pr agency. she wanted to check if i knew any journalist friends/writers who can freelance for them - write, compile articles and information for their (tech) clients.

she did ask me too, and of course i agreed. a little extra money can go a really loooong way ;-)but well, me’s still waiting for her e-mail!

satya, sharmela, eby and me were to go to the alliance francaise today, where they had this world music convention. jazz, fusion and all that stuff. too bad all of us got busy one way or the other and couldnt make it :-(
funny, how we cannot spare a single evening for something that takes place just once a year!

i was introduced to gaurav today (note the ‘a’ in the gaurav), iitian from powai studying web design…

aaaaargh!!!! its nine already!!! god!! gotta buy tickets for the movie too!! we’re watching ‘the story of us’ tonight!! its got bruce willis :-)

what happened to the plain ol’ livejournal!!!

no violin class :-(

and my sis and prachi have gone to jayanagar. they also painted on few of the pots i got from pottery town. man, they just freaked out!!

i’m not even angry that they dint ask me before just using up all my pots and paints just like that! not that i would mind though! but i’m glad they’ve put their free time to constructive use and i guess thats what matters anyway :-)

satya, sharmela and me are heading for coffee day right now.

feeling damn restless and um..am i angry too? what the hell have i been doing here!!!?? perhaps my bp’s been acting up again…cold sweaty and trembling hands, cold forehead and extremely jumpy. DAMN!!

got into the silk-list at last!! my id’s ceres_chanakya@yahoo.com.

spent the entire day getting ‘in’to a section and getting out of another (!!!) thanks to the power-cuts here!!

i did find jace and indrajit and ramu and now methinx i lost them again!!!

god! arachnis is the right term for the company!! jace, where are u on the list?? which grp?? and how do i get in??

finally replied to one demian meyer on the zenforum list. cant wait to read the reply tomorrow!

jacob has just asked me to help with the industry index. the industry index!!!!!

that’s tons of work!! why dint they put me on to this before!! i always do like compiling info like that!!!

jacob’s got abt five ppl working on this index for abt three months now, but none of them were actually trained how to go abt it!! and of course jacob is only as old as me in this organisation, which means there were others before him!!

result: no training = no stylesheet = no style = no consistency = no peace of mind from tomorrow!!!

but actually, methinx i’m fairly enthu abt this new challenge. mebbe i’ll take the stylesheet from verghese and explain to the famous five what they need to do !

gotta rush for violin class right now, and might come back to surf for the industry index again!!! also got to mail pratap (hr person) asap!

yippie!
the rest of sunday was cool…i’m at chapter 41 of the bible (genesis), and it makes a lot more sense to me now.

slept for (gasp!) 4 hours yesterday and went to satya’s house for coffee in the evening. we talked about a lot oof things, and had a nice time. satya thinks i’m like her friend jayashree, who’s in nepal and does not believe in marriage, so she’s not married yet.
WOW!! what luck!

deepu and prachi came back sore from mysore (no its not funny ) at 2 am!!!

am taking them to casa picola (italian restaurant here) and then to fabindia. today’s shopping day!!!