From the “thy”s and the “thou”s, English has come a long way to what it is now, or should I say what it was a couple of years back. All I see now are these….

“u vl hav nyc tym”
“me hav no probs”
“tis nt wrong”

“Social” sites and even blogs, these days, are teeming with this phenomenally shorthanded style of writing. Having been a person who strongly desisted this negative evolution of English language, even in its primitive stages when the changes were limited to just “u” and “v”, I have seen a dramatic deterioration in the words and spellings and even grammar over the past two years, perhaps due to the growing popularity of the Internet in its new form known as a Social Network. Although I never really had a chance to actually sit with a genius of this modern day English scripture and understand what exactly caused this change or how exactly this would help, my assumption is that it may take them less time to type “u vl hav nyc tym” than “you will have a nice time”. And funny enough, it took me less time to type the latter than the former!

Perhaps an overdose of social networking over the past few weeks must have been what triggered this post. Now twitter would have been one of those places I would have definitely seen this “short hand” being deployed at its best, with its 140 character restriction on each tweet. But quite ironically, that is a place I see it the least. Facebook is the biggest defaulter and the virus has started to spread to mails too, sometimes even professional emails at office.

I hope 100-200 years down the line, some student of literature picks up this blog entry as a reference for the transitionary study from “thee” to “you” to “u”

Disclaimer: The intent was kick start this place again, after having defaulted for rather long, filling this space with just random pictures from the past. So forgive me if there was a flavor of sarcasm in here.

The beauty of summer is the fact that there is a winter that precedes it!

I have been “uniquely” blessed with a taste for sweets and desserts. Some people, rather sarcastically term it as a craving, although I tend to turn my deaf ear to such “allegations”. I must admit, chocolates are my weakness and I hog on brownies. But I do spare sometime to try out sweet dishes from the rest of the world. In fact when in a restaurant, I call my entrée as my dessert and vice versa. And that was perhaps how I ended up trying a baklava.

My first encounter with “one of this kind” was in Manhattan, when a friend of mine suddenly decided that I needed a “turkish delight” (not the candy version) and took me to a restaurant downtown. A croissant-like exterior, stuffed with “halva” and nuts, soaked in sugar syrup, was how I was described this amazing dish, on my way to the place. And do I need to mention that I decided to save up the “real” entrée for another day? . Served in a triangular dimension, warmed aptly to melt in your mouth, I must say, this dessert certainly did manage to enter the top ten on my list of the best.

The second encounter came today, at my relatives’, while preparing for the grand dinner at their place. As casual as casual can be, they asked me if I had ever eaten a baklava. Having been one of my favorites, I promptly replied, “Yes I have. Isn’t that a Turkish speciality?” A thundering silence followed, and I realized my mistake!

It has been a “holy war” since the 18th century, on the origins of this pastry. The Greeks call it theirs, after the “gastris” of the ancient era. And the Turks lay their claim owing to its Ottoman origins and an Arabic flavor to its name. Some of the neutralists or the liberals call it a middle-eastern dessert, encompassing all different regions which could potentially lay their “rights” on this mouth-watering confectionary.

Be it Greek, or Turkish or Arabic, I must say I just cannot stop eating them, once I see it in front of me. Top it with a strong dose of caffeine, and it makes for a perfect evening snack.

I did have a taste of clafoutis (its apple version, often known as flognarde), a French dessert, the same day, but let me save that write-up for another day.

Disclaimer: This post does not intent to hurt the religious/”regionistic” sentiments of any specific group of people. Everything written here is strictly the author’s point-of-view. The author does not wish to see a public outcry like the one that is often caused when “Mumbai” is termed as “Bombay”

Update: Here is a quick snapshot of what I savored yesterday.

I have had a mixed “season” since I wrote here the last time – a truly adventurous road trip to Orlando and Miami (or the Gods own country, with its sky high coconut trees , and even a city called Malabar ), cruising through every possible weather conditions, from just a storm to a snow storm, from bright sunshine to dark pouring rains, from fleeting winds to what all and what not. The week long trip, where we covered 3000 miles, was indeed refreshing after a two month long struggle in school.

Back in school at the end of March, it has been the same routine, shuttling between class and work, still trying to find a balance between the two, I must admit. However I do have a mini plasma light and a confession to keep me company.

Offbeat: I just started a blog called Idle tech thoughts . I’ve been thinking about it for quite sometime now, ever since I started studying again, which means it has been two years since I started thinking about it. The plan was huge and I guess this is just an effort to start off and build on it as I go on.

A month back, it felt weird when I landed here. In the first few days, this place seemed like an alien to me. I felt like going back. But slowly, everything seemed to get back together again. I started wishing that Time crawled towards January 16th. But He was as ruthless as ever and here I am packing my bags and getting ready to leave.

There were somethings, I wished I could do, and somehow they never happened. But like the wise men from the mountains say, when you leave a place, you should always leave somethings undone. It makes you want to come back again.

India is indeed a land of variety. At one end we have weird arithmetics ruling the meter system in an auto rickshaw while at the other end, its all intuitive calculation of distance that decides the price.

This trip in an auto was followed by a memorable trip, to “mark a remarkable” end to 2007. The journey from Salem to Bangalore that day, on a rickety bus (living up to how Ruskin Bond described it once, in every sense) with a D”u”d player, was truly “religious”, thanks to the movie on Lord Shiva acted by Shivaji Ganeshan!

Time truly flies. It has been 11 days since the new year began. As usual no resolutions for me. After a tiring trip all the way from Pune to Bangalore and to Cochin for a day and back to Bangalore by 31st evening, I spent my first 9 days of 2008 there.

Bangalore brought in a lot of memories. The three years I spent there will always hold a special place in my heart (and perhaps in the autobiography that I plan to write later ). Those were the first three years of my financial freedom. Although I always lived on monthly paychecks, thanks to the impulse buy nature of mine, this was the city which taught me how to live with whatever little you had. It taught me to “stand” on my own feet. And, a return to this city was something I always looked forward to. Add on a whole group of friends and family I had in this city, the visit became even more special. Nostalgia would be a wrong word to use here. I relived every single moment – from living in the apartment with the same group of people to traveling by autos, from coffee places to late night tea stalls and Death by Chocolates, from PVR Cinemas to Crossword bookstores, what all and what not. It almost felt like I needed more time in the city! Words always failed me when I had a whole bunch of emotions running through me. And it happened again this time…

It has been a relaxing one week at home. Barring a long drive to Trivandrum, I may have stepped out of the house for just 2-3 hours in all. Family, books, TV (I realised it is always nice to watch movies on a screen wider than the 12″ I have on my laptop ) and food (I must have gained a kg already!!) were the only priorities for me in the past one week. Most important was watching the Premier League on TV after a year and half. I also managed to convince my mom to cook all those things I missed for almost a year. With the travels starting next week, I really needed this time off to recharge myself.

The book that has been keeping me company is “When Elephants dance” by Tess Uriza Holthe. This is the second book that Im reading, which describes the World War II. Both the books talked about two completely different angles of the war – geographically as well as historically. While Suite Francaise gave a first hand picture of what happened in Paris during the German invasion, this book is a narrative in on what happened in Filipines (Philippines) during the Japanese invasion. I wouldn’t be entirely right when I say this book is a narrative. It is about a group of people living in the cellar of a house, amidst heavy bombings, keeping themselves together by narrating stories to each other. Hence it is a fine mixture of the real world and a world of fantasy, in my view. Im just 100 pages into the book right now and I hope to finish it by this weekend.

Another horribly long hiatus. Events in my life were happening faster than I could pen down. In the end I decided, perhaps it was better to summarize everything into a one-page “report” rather than write about each one of them. The last two months were so filled up that every day seemed like a year.

First things first … I got a job, I bought an iPhone and I came back to India for a month long break . And all these happened over the last one week. Such has been the pace of my life! The past two months went away, trying to make these happen, amidst the usual truck load of work at school.

The grueling rounds of interview, were so tiring that I even managed to miss my flight once, sleeping right in front of the boarding gate . At the end of it all, I didn’t expect it coming, especially after the last round. And I got an offer a day before I boarded my flight to India

The only thing that stood between iPhone and me ever since it was released, was my T-mobile contract. It all ended last week, when we decided to part ways and I got myself an iPhone and an ATT contract . It was an all night affair, trying to get my service up and running, but I guess it was worth the wait. I just cannot keep my hands off it now

I had been planning on this Indian trip ever since my fall semester started, but somehow never managed to book a ticket for myself. Late in November, I realised I HAD to do something about it. Fortunately, I did find a cheap ticket with a “not-so-crooked” itinerary. And here I am trying to set my biological clock right !!

… on this day! He died on November 5th, 1879 which was 128 years ago – 10,000,000 in binary number system