happy halloween

Happy halloween everyone! Yeah! Its kushal's birthday again! If you don't know what halloween is, lemme explain. Many years ago, on 31st october, a demon child named tonu a.k.a. kushal was born. And the people were so terrified of him, that to this day, people dress up in scary costumes to in remembrance of that unholy day. That's halloween in a nutshell.

So, I got myself a nice costume last night. Its a mask that bleeds and just a black robe like the one from the villain of scream or scary movie. I was first thinking I'd go dressed as some indian god, nick suggested ganesh. He said he even had a elephant trunk and ears...but not here today; Back at his home in london. So that was scrapped. I figured I'd like to go as avatar ang. The last airbender. But his costume would be little complex. Plus, this one was a really nice deal. Now I'm planning to wear that and go trick or treating tonight. I hope I get lots and lots of candy! Then I won't have to buy groceries for another week!

Actually, I did buy groceries last night, and I had a proper breakfast after a really long time! cereal and milk. Yum. And for lunch, I had chicken curry and rice that sandeep's uncle made. it was amazing! even while I was outside decorating the front of the house for halloween, I could smell it and I was getting hungrier by the second! Well, now that I'm satisfied, I feel like taking a nap before I go trick or treating!

Yay! for external hard drive

I finally talked to dad, and told him about the refund and that I was buying an external hard drive for backup purposes. He didn't really object to it... much. So now I want to post a kind of review/my experiences with the hard drive post.

I first decided to mount the harddrive on its stand and use it vertically. I slid in the stand, and tightened it using the hex key that was provided with it. First thing I notice as it starts running is that there is a loud resonating hum. I grab the hard drive with my hands, and it minimizes. I figure I didn't tighten the hex screw tight enough. So I stop it, and turn it upside down, tighten it, and start it up again! Not very noisy at all! My cd drive makes more noise than that!

But then comes the backing up. I decide to try and use the backing up utility provided in the package to completely copy my home folder. some 54 gigs of information! And as I let it run, I now notice the clicking noise that the hard drive head makes as its fetching and writing data. Damn! this thing is REALLY annoyingly loud! So I decide to make a youtube video about it. But the youtube video doesn't gather much views maybe because of bad tagging...

But nevermind that, next thing on my mind was to try and run it horizontally and see if the clicking noise of the drive head minimizes. I stick the rubber pegs that came with the hard drive onto the side of the enclosure. and lay it on the table. I start it up, and even when I'm not really doing anything with the data on the hard drive, the clicking noise is distractingly audible. So I guess I'll just put it back on its stand and DEAL WITH IT!

Sushi anyone?

Tonight, I had another weird dream! I am gonna be leaving for my workshop soon so I'll just tell ya guys the dream real quick.

I was in a japanese...no, I want to saay 'oriental' restaurant, eating some really weird things. But not weird as in gross or disgusting. I liked everything I was eating. Just that I don't know what they were. No, not sushi. The whole dining table was full of other delicasies. So, I like the food so much, that I want to compliment the chef...or something like that.

Then this really beautiful girl comes and stands next to me, turns out she's the chef! I am mesmerised! I kinda tell her to make something even more 'special' for me now. And suddenly, its like the camera pans around my dining table, and I find out that the cooking station is right behind me. Like it is usually in many japanese restaurants.

They're called open kitchen restaurants. you can see the chef making what you ordered. I've never been to one for real, only seen them on tv. I suppose they are really expensive..? I'm getting kinda sidetracked here. okay, getting back to the dream!

And then, the thing starts transforming from a very professional restaurant kitchen to a home kitchen! What!!!! Now she's in my house cooking for me? Could this really happen? I wonder what it means. (I know what the dream means, I'm not an idiot. I found a girl at a restaurant, she's a chef, I got together with her! Yeah! 'married her'; if you want.) But is this a sign saying that I should look out for a girl who can really cook? or does this just mean I should go to a japanese restaurant tonight? what do you think?

Camping part two

This place reserved for my camping post.

Numero uno. First day of camping

I have finally caught up with the world, had my rest, and have enough time to type up a new blog entry! I had news to catch up with, emails to read, discussions to reply to and funny videos to watch. Well, the last part wasn't entirely necessary, but made my time more enjoyable. ;)

My arms and legs are acing really bad. I guess three days was just the right time for us to be there. And as soon as the next day rolled around, my body started showing signs of fatigue. I haven't been moving much past couple of hours. Its almost as if I have had a little paralysis. But it is all worth it. That's how much fun it was. The first day we were there, we just put up our tents, the tarp, and made a fire. We had hamburgers for dinner, and we sat around the fire talking. we were nicely joking and laughing when this guy came and told us to keep it down. What a bummer! Even the park ranger came and talked to us, gave us the bullshit bout there being an older clintele around the park these days and we would be first given a warning and then kicked out if they complained about the noise levels again. Although that didn't stop us from having fun, we could have done without those restrictions and would have totally loved to freak out.

Chris ali the student union president, told us about one of his own camping story when the person on the other side kept complaining about them even though they weren't doing anything wrong. And in the end, as you'd expect, chris and his friends were asked to leave. And just before leaving, he went up to this gy who kept complaining and said

"you didn't want us here in the first place did you?"

"If you didn't do anything wrong already, you were gonna do something sooner or later!"

"I'm sure you've done some crazy shit when you were younger, and that's why you expect us to be like that. But you know what? we're better than that. We're more responsible than you ever were."

And that story was really inspiring. I'm not sure its true, but I believe it could happen.

We were talking what this could have been about, (the complaining) and guessed it was probably because of the language and words we used in our jokes. The husband was probably laughing his ass off, And the wife was the one who's like "that's inappropriate!" smacks him in the head and says "do something about it." LOL. gotta love nothing fights. hehe.

In case you didn't get it, its a reference to one of the jokes dane cook makes in his cd retaliation which we listened to on our way to the pinery. We had a dvd player in the rental van, so we were like "we'll watch a movie!" but since no one had a dvd, we just listened to dane cook. He's a silly bastard! Oh I gotta download more of his stuff.

The what-who-where?

Big Announcement: I'm going camping tomorrow! And won't be back till wednesday. So I figure this is the right time for an update.

Yesterday, I left for the workshop in a hurry. Vironica bought me a coffee from tim hortons and a muffin(yum) And then I got on the train. And after sitting there calmly sipping my hot coffee for a few minutes, my heart starts pounding really hard. RELAX! I'm not having a heart attack. It was the horror of realising that I didn't bring my wallet with me today! I was constantly thinking what I'm gonna do to get to St. Claire west. I remembered that just before leaving, I had put some change that was lying on the table, in my pocket. But that was just a dollar and 6 cents. If I had cellphone service, I could have called up someone from the workshop to ask if they could come get me. But I had surrendered my cellphone a long time ago.

So when I got to the subway station, I was ready. I was prepared. I had been mentally practicing a dialogue that I would say to the people and then they would either help me out or I'd just go ask the next person. But once I was down there, it was like I had come to some other dimension. Everyone seemed just so far away. So unapproachable. It was like everyone is going in super fast forward and I'm in slow motion. But I got over my hesitation. I saw a guy fumbling with a lot of coins. I went over and told him I lost my wallet and I needed to get to st claire west. He gave me about 15 cents and just walked away. I stood there, looking around..."what now?!" I saw a kid about 15 I'd say. I asked him if he could help me out with the rest of the money. I now needed 1.55 He had wrappers/packs of coins in his jacket pocket. He said this was going to take some time. He opened 'em up and gave me the rest of the money. YAY! I thanked him over and over again. Even when we got down in the station. He was going to eglington west. (Yeah,he said his name is michael.) We travelled in the same compartment, and I just said 'have a nice day' right before I departed at st claire west.

I told about it to gerard and he asked "did you get the guy's address?" I said "no, I didn't" He said that he'd have gotten down his address and mailed him back the money. Oh I would have loved to do that. And it would have been really great. But what if after taking his address down, I never got around to sending him money? I'm not saying I'm not gonna want to send him money just what if I loose his address or the postal department refuses to deliver coins... or just the letter gets misplaced or lost. He would be really disappointed then and be like "he lied. He was never going to send me the money I should have known it!" So I just think I did the appropriate thing. Let me know if you think otherwise.

Then today, I found out its dussera, so I talked to a couple people, wished them happy dussera. And wishing to you guys too. *_* Suju was online, I talked to her for a really long time. What was really interesting was that she brought up a little sms I had sent her way back in october last year.

'boo'

Yes that's all I sent her. You're going 'what?!!' AHEM! let me explain. There's a really funny story behind it that suju told me, as I had forgotten. And just to show how much I really appreciate that, and how much I enjoyed nostalgiating over it, I'm gonna make the whole blog post about our text messages and the memories from the days in India. I had already done a couple blog posts about smses in the past. So what will make this one more interesting is if I don't look into any of those or my cellphone message history, and just try and recall bits and pieces of sentiness and funniness.

Well, first this one that suju reminded me about. We(me and sumit) were in college, and sujata, the lzy bum, was staying at home. And we really wanted her to come. (Our days were incomplete without bugging sujata to death) So we started texting her, asking her to come to college. But when she refused, we tried the most common persuasive technique in the old book: threatening to carry out a life threatening, (FATAL) act of violence on oneself and not expecting to survive. But she wasn't the kind who'd relent. (think suicide bomber from al quaeida) So she said "alright, go ahead!" And then we smsed her back, alright, see you in heaven. And she, not taking us even a little seriously, said "theek hai. wahan mil ke bhoot bhoot khelenge.(oki.we'll get together and play 'ghost')"

And finally, I sent her 'boo!'

Moving on.... I had this habit of sometimes forwarding the message to many people at a time. Sometimes it was intentional, like talking about a prank I was gonna play on someone and sending it to the 'subject' him/her-self. Just as an experiment to see if they still play along or call my bluff immediately. But this one time, I sent a message about sahil to pranav's phone.
The back story:
Sahil had just gotten a cheap sms plan and was spamming messages to everyone. Including myself. Now when I recieve this friendship full, friendly, loving, etc. etc. sms from sahil after Ages, I think he's upto something. So My habit was reporting everything that's going on to my friends. Like keep a constant conversation going. So I sent pranav the following

"Sahil just sent me a unusually friendly sms. Something's up. He wants something from me."

And the next thing I know, I get a text from sahil again that read "If you don't want to recieve my smses, then tell me! why are you 'gossiping' to pranav about it?"

I just went huh what? Did I just accidentally also forward this to sahil? Oh how dumb could I be!!! Later when I talked to pranav, he said that sahil had his cellphone. And he read pranav's smses. Damn! Oh well...

By now, I'm dying to go through the REALLY REALLY old smses that I had sent and recieved. But I'm finding a way to control myself. Plus, I don't even have the really really old text messages. Like the ones I sent and recieved during the first month of college. Oh hey! I just remembered another one!

This was at the beginning of the class decoration contest. I had pranav's number by now, and we were communicating frequently enough. And in class, when we met the other girls and talked to them for the first time, he took down everyone's numbers to keep in touch with regarding the class decoration progress. Then that day, back home, me and pranav were talking about the ideas that everyone had put forward and which ones we could go ahead with. I think it was one of shruti's ideas that I wanted to talk about, but I didn't remember her name. I was (and perhaps still am) really terrible at remembering people's names I've just met. So I text pranav.

"the girl...whatever her name is... was talking about...."

LOL you catch my drift?

And the sms didn't end there. Pranav had to bring that up in class in front of shruti! Oh man that was embarassing. But really really funny now that I look back on it. aaaahhhh good days. good days.

Where art thou mine enthusiasm

Yeah, its been a while. I was spending my days in peace and happiness over the last 8 days. Enjoying and frolicking away since my previous post, but eventually, I broke down. I came running back to my abode and I admit I need help.

Last night, even though I had finally paid off the debt, gave the 700 dollars to vironica, and given 210 dollars to oliver to get me an external hard drive, I was mulling over something. But I don't know what. I don't believe there was something to mull over! I had been living with the guilt of loosing her bike for so long, and now I had made it up to her. She was going to go buy the new bike sometime soon. And if the weather permits, maybe I could take it out for a ride too. Plus, real soon, I was going to get the firewire 800 harddrive I had been lusting over for so long! Oliver is going to buy it in new yourk and bring it back here during the reading week.

Also, Leopard is going to come out on 26th and I will start using time machine and everything. I will first backup all my data on one partition on the external drive, then format my laptop, and install leopard on a clean slate! then keep my itunes library on the external drive and keep the laptop hard drive free for my applications. Its gonna be really sweet indeed! But even thinking about all that is not cheering me up. I'm just so LOST. I finished my stupid chicken nuggets dinner but was still lingering around flipping channels. Decided I've had enough, walked to the phone.

Looked at the time in my watch, and dialed pranav's number. I figured he'd either be sleeping or getting ready to go to college. The phone rang for quite some time, I realized he must be on his bike, heading to college. And indeed he was. I said I'd call him back some other time. I wasn't disappointed. Infact, just listening to his voice made me smile. I was feeling better for a while now. But I still wanted to talk to someone. I went upstairs and went online, but no one else was there. I waited for some time, then went to bed.

The morning was just as rushed as usual. 8 am class. I was late again! We did get our drawings from the class back, FINALLY! But we didn't get the self portrait assignments back! Oh How I wish I just got it back already! Another disappointment. Nothing I'd really like to say about the digital media lab class either! I was really hungry but I didn't bring my wallet today. So I just had to hold my hunger till I was back home.

I walked home and had a banana and some other snack. Vironica was to leave for philip's place in a while. She asked if I wanted to come. I guess she figured I needed some fresh air or a change of environment. But I said I'll pass. This is just not my day is it? And I've been sitting here since. Just pushing myself to finish this entry, let it all out. But I don't think its helping. I guess I'll just take a nap now.

Oliver's birthday

Oh, lets talk about last night first! Everything went according to plan, and even things that weren't planned went superbly. Met up with Oliver in front of second cup, Taruna showed up with the cake and wrapped present! We decided to cut the cake now, and hold off on the present till later. It wasn't a cheesecake like I was expecting, but it was delicious nevertheless. Got our hands all dirty gobbling up the cake! I tried taking picture with taruna's cellphone, but the light was very insufficient for the small sensor. Its times like these that I wish I had a digital SLR. See? I let my mind run free, and my paragraph meanders through the thoughts in my head. Very unlike the method we were told to follow for 'essays' in our english class.

The dinner was totally amazing! I'd never been to bombay bhel before. They had chats and pani puri on the menu, but we decided we'd have that at my place later. We decided to order chana masala, butter chicken and bhatura. The chicken was sooo tender, and the chana masala was not too hot, not very mild, but just right! It was fun watching oliver eat, he was like a little kid. He still hadn't worked out how to use his fingers to eat. LOL. We had long conversation as I, the slowest eater, tried to finish my food, waaay after everybody else was done. Then we decided to give oliver his present. I think he liked it. He was flipping through it very pensively, taking his own time. Taruna on the other hand was kinda bored I think.. hehe. I even saw that book on the desk in the pit where he was working today, so I think he's really referring to it.

After dinner, we came to my house, pani puri was out of the question as everyone was really stuffed! We sat up in my room, I showed them pictures of my friends, the caricatures I'd done, my books, AND my glow-in-the-dark bedsheet! hehe. Oliver was getting really sleepy, and I knew I should let them go or else he might doze off on the wheel and... Oh well. They left in time, and I went to bed pretty soon too. A full tummy really makes you very sleepy because your digestive system is taking in more blood now and the supply of oxygen to ur brain is reduced. Wow! what a perfectly boring scientific end to a delicious food related entry. haha!

what is "cooking"?

Last night, I tried making the kind of fried rice that my mom made for me. I even had a picture of it somewhere in my archives, I'll see if I can dig it up. I could remember the key ingredients turmeric powder and onions because, one : I called them onion rice, and two: because they were yellow. LOL. She also put in curry leaves,coriander, green chillies, sometimes sugar to counteract the hot flavor,(I really liked the sugar in it). So I figured that since I had most of the ingredients, (I didn't have curry leaves and coriander.) I might try and make it. The best part? No one was home to witness the potential horrible screw up.

So, I started out with oil in a pan and I realized I also need mustard seeds to put in the oil. My mom put that in with the cumin till they sizzled...as far as I can remember.... would be great if I could talk to her right now, but it was probably too early in the morning there. Then the onions, the spices, rice...everything went in, and the smell was making me salivate. I got a spoon and tasted it. Well, I was too scared of overdoing the spices so I put in too little. I added more salt for taste, we used a lot of salt in our home. I hadn't even put in green chillies because I figured I didn't want to make it too spicy. "I'm gonna put in red chilli powder anyways!", I thought. But like I said... my estimates with the spices weren't right. So I wanted to make it again. I'd do better next time.

So tonight, I figured I'd give it a go. There was still some rice left over from 'I dunno when' in the fridge. I chopped up half an onion, a reasonably big one too; one green chilli pepper, and brought out my spices. I heated up the oil, put in the cumin, let it start sizzling, put in the onions and green chilies, spices (bigger quantity this time!) and then the rice. The turmeric, onions and green chillies were really giving off a powerful aroma. I knew this is already going to be better than last time. I tasted it, and it was a little too hot for me, so I put in sugar to make it a little milder. But this was a fine sugar... I liked it when I could feel sugar granules in my mouth. Anyways, I ate it with some sambar sandeep offered me. Really good dinner!


yep! Found the image! This is the real deal. the one my mom made. not my stupid 'improvised' one.

Now for the main topic. While I was cleaning dishes, I was pondering over what sandeep had asked me while I was making my dinner.

"you were cooking in India or you learned over here in canada?" (Trust me, I' still making him sound better. He needs a LOT of practice with his spoken english. LOL)

"hmm...I've seen people cook all my life..."

"Even I've seen my mom cook before but I can't do it."

I wanted to say 'so you've never really observed someone when they're cooking you've just stared blank.' but I was trying to me more polite so I said,
"Well, I'm a very visual learner. I grasp things that I see very fast."

"I guess that's why you're in animation..."

Although I do agree about the animation part, I was thinking 'what really classifies as cooking? I could have said 'yes I've cooked in India before' if only I knew which of these the general public accepts as 'cooking'. Does cutting a vegetable for a food preparation count as 'cooking'? If someone only put the ingredients in a pot or vessel, is that cooking? How about lighting the stove, putting your pan on the flame? Or maybe stirring the soup or something. Making a dough or a batter?

What I think is that ALL of these come under cooking. And I've done these things in my house ever since I was little! I would cut Okra when mom's preparing my favourite dish, I would even (try to) chop onions even though it was the most dreaded task ever! I'd boiled potatoes, peeled them, mashed them...I've helped make dough for cake, wait, how's batter and dough different? I looked up batter in OS X dictionary and it doesn't mention batter as a noun. WTF? Ok, getting back on track, I've kneaded 'aata' and even tried making chapatis. I've even put all the ingredients into the 'kadhai'/wok myself and stirred it and everything. So basically, I've BEEN COOKING all my life....Just in parts.... with long breaks in between... hehe.

But the cool thing now is that I am in-charge of the whole process, from start to finish. And I am starting to realize more and more what spices affect the food in what way, and what I missed out on, or what I needed more of. Earlier, even though I could tell it doesn't taste right, I couldn't say what was missing. Like when mom asks is everything allright, I could just say yes or no. And those few times when I said no, I couldn't tell what was missing. "just needs more 'spices'." or "more salt." Now I feel like I've graduated, I've grown up, my taste buds have finally developed. I'm loving it.

Guess who's back?

When I last talked to Pranav, I asked him to go to my blog entry about food, and see what a disaster I had while cooking chicken curry. I just wanted to hear him laugh at my 'bad' luck and the antics. But he again proceeded to tell me that he doesn't read people's blogs. I assume, this is because he feels that blogs are a personal journal, which they're not; in most cases. For instance, the blogs of artists like stephen silver and david colman and Steven E Gordon that I mentioned to him. (Giggle) And yeah, I made it a point to emphasize on blog when I told him about them. Even my blog, is more 'creative humorous writing' than a journal. (Well then I'm SORRRRRRY you don't find my writing funny, Mister "I don't like sarcasm")

Or perhaps he's just had a bad experience. Like the time when I made a really impulsive post about ....well... you might as well go ahead and read it...

Yesterday I had planned to go to a movie - 'The Breakup' (Little did I know this was gonna be my breakup with some of my friends) with suju and pranav.But suju had to bail out at the last moment because of ganpati games in her society.

"No big deal I guess, this is just going to be like the previous times when there was only me and pranav."

We rode our bikes to inox first and found out the next show was at 11 pm!
"A little too late!", we agreed and went to 'E square' for the 9:15 show. We had some mix up on the way there, so i couldn't get done the tasks I was planning to do; Get the broken rear indicator on the bike fixed. (Yeah, if I'd done that, arjun bhaiya wouldn't have gotten the chance to freak out at me about how 'I never take care of the bike!') Anyways, we both met up at E square again, took our tickets and went upstairs to browse through books and cds at crosswords. (That's Indian equivalent of chapters) In there, he told me something that's supposed to be private but as you know, my big mouth and small brain are a recipe for disaster. I said it out as a joke to another friend. (Still holds the record for the biggest mistake I ever made!)
Pranav was obviously offended by this.. I never wished to offend him! That's my biggest blunder in a while. I know I cant undo it like on a computer, (Can I get any geekier?) but I could try to make it up to him. But I didn't have a clue how I'd do that either. I just let Pranav speak; therefore, he did! It was all the same - He still poured his heart out and told me everything like nothing ever happened a few minutes ago. (And he's still the same)

He shared some insights about some of my friends.. (Sahil Sahil SAHIL! I'm not scared of anyone anymore!)I could never have imagined that right now one of the things that he was going to say to me, would change my life for ever. Atleast a little. That one thing he said was that 'not all my friends like being with me'. He told me that our group isn't one group its 3 groups. I was really shocked after listening to all this. Now the thing going on in my head was
"Sure, he told me who from the group doesn't like to be with me and who he doesn't like to be with[much] but he didn't tell me what he felt about me!"

I was thinking, what if he doesn't REALLY like to be with me! (Nuh Uh! Now I know him better and can say that he'd have said it if he didn't like being with me) What if he's doing this for the sake of it. What if during my absence when I'm going to Akola, he totally forgets or ditches me. (It sounds so stupid today! that was just for a few days! Now I'm thinking how did I ever make up my mind to leave for canada and not see him for the next one year almost!) I didn't have the nerve to ask him that myself..let me just wait and see what happens. I couldn't sleep all night thinking how I'm gonna face 'him' now and should i start getting used to not being with pranav already..
This just goes to show how unprepared I was to have that conversation with him. He shouldn't have told me about the others..even if he thought it was for my own good, my tiny little heart couldn't bear being in so much pain..and i still haven't recovered from its effects thats why I'm posting this entry..

Ok, I really tried to just let it be the way it is... But I couldn't control it anymore, and I went ahead and annotated it with my usual comments and knick knacks, I hope they didn't bother you much.

Now, after the blog was written and everything was off my mind, Suju ended up reading it. I had sent an email to sujata about something, and as with all my emails, my blog links in my signature got the better of her curiosity. And for heavens-knows-what reason, she said I should remove it because Pranav might be offended. Well, as of today, I wouldn't remove any post for whatever reason, but back then, I REALLY cared, and maybe cared TOO MUCH about what my best friend pranav thought of it.(Well now I know he won't read it unless I tell him to, so I'm safe...LOL) So I asked him to go read it and tell me if its ok. And he went to a cafe, printed it out, read it at his house, and immediately called me to tell me to take it down.

I guess I could only thing of one thing about/in the post that could have made him 'want to hit me' (And he is a HARD hitter! I would never want to get on his bad side!) was that I thought and kinda projected out that he'd 'betray' me, or leave me, which couldn't be further from the truth. He's a really cool friend. And I look up to him, and want to be like him. (By the way, oliver, the reason why your post made me feel like writing this was because I wanted you to think about whether you are comfortable with 'someone' reading about 'some things' you've said on your blog. LOL look at me being all sneaky and secretive and everything... hehe...)

But maybe pranav was just going "I knew I shouldn't have said those things to that dumb rat!" or "You could have told me to stop!" I don't know. But I am not sure what the 'point' of this post is... Maybe while oliver's post (which I am not going to link unless I know from him that he's comfortable publicizing his blog.) is about his motivation, his goal, his path and a crazy dream; mine is about how my feelings get the best of me. And they always will... like when you said "don't worry if I don't respond at my computer sometimes it usually means I'm not there"; I said yeah, I know, but a part of me still wilts and dies; However, I'm not as quick to respond with a melodramatic blog post about it anymore. ;)

Time well wasted

(I know mickey is gonna have a smug smile on his face when he reads this post.) Boy it was an eventful day! I was up at 7 in the morning, waiting for pranav to come online. I was also hoping for someone from my house to come online. Because I was desperate to find the pictures of me and pranav in front of inox in pune. Last night, I talked to pranav, and he said he couldn't find those on his computer. We talked about when those pictures were taken and did I actually have time to transfer them from the camera to the computer. Pranav mentioned that last movie was on 5th january, the day when I left for Mumbai. I started laughing when I heard that. It just sounds totally insane for someone to go to a movie the day he's supposed to fly away, for the first time, to another country for a really long time. But pranav was persistent.

"You're laughing, but you did that."

"Yeah, I know! And it sounds so crazy!"

"Well, you were!"

"yeah... I was stupid.... but no, even today, I would do anything for one chance to see you; to go watch one movie with you."


And when he finally showed up online, at about 9:30 am, the internet cafe he was at, kept having power fluctuations which led to him getting disconnected over and over again! But first thing he said when he saw me, probably because I wasn't wearing a shirt, was that it seems you have started working a lot, you look skinnier

"Kuch jyaada kaam kar raha hai lagta hai, Patla ho gaya"

"Nahi yaar" "No dude"

"Sookh gaya hai yaar!" "You've shriveled up!"

"I didn't have breakfast, that's all I guess. Neeche jaake kuch banana bahut jaan pe aa raha hai." ... "Tu bata teri haalat kaisi hai? Pretty sure not better than mine!" "I'm feeling too lazy to go downstairs and actually cook something.... tell me, how's your health?"

"Nahi yaar, aajkal waise bhi maine kaam kam karna shuru kiya hai. Aaram bahut jyaada karta hu." "No bud, I've started working less. I take more rest."

"Well, that can be good AND bad..."
But what was actually going on in my head was that "this is REALLY good!" Because I knew he wasn't they type to slack off, even if he's working fewer hours, he'll finish all the assignments and homework and do his activities. He's not going to be obsessive compulsive about things anymore - the one thing that was driving him into bad health all along.

Then during was one pretty long gap when he was offline, I was thinking of getting breakfast and getting ready to go to college to meet up with oliver. And I would have left the computer and gone about doing my business, had sujata not come online. I was talking to suju about pranav, asked her to sms pranav and find out what the situation was, and she said He's still at the cafe. She was pretty pissed she had to me the mediator between us two, or maybe she was just acting up. But regardless, it was pretty hilarious! I like her being like that. But she had to go, so I wished her adieu and goodnight. And waited for pranav.

Later, when he showed up at 11 am, we got to talk for pretty long without any disruption. I showed him my character designs, and he gave me ANOTHER pointer, and I'm gonna go and try doing it that way. He uploaded his artwork, and I gotta tell you, Its some pretty neat stuff! I was thinking, he should be here instead of me. I would have shown it to you guys, but sharing it on a website/blog is not supported from deviantart because he put it into the scrap category. I tried telling him those were pretty good and that he should put it in his gallery, but he didn't do it. I also told him about my deviantwear order. I told him to enable the magnet and puzzle and stuff options when he is submitting his artwork as print in deviantart. I do that all the time for my works. Prints on paper is something anyone can do at their homes. But magnets and puzzles, mugs and that kinda stuff is something that is pretty difficult.

And, I also talked to oliver. I talked to him last night too... I think... well, chatted, kinda... In the last few days, he's always been busy with something or heading off somewhere. I just can't get a hold of him! I thought today's International Student's association meeting (ISA in short) would be a pretty good opportunity, but he slept in I guess. (I wouldn't be surprised if he said he was still taking his nap!) There were only 8 people at the meeting. But I guess it was good, I got to know everybody's names, (even though I don't necessarily remember them all now) and found out what events they're gonna be doing! Now I can't wait for diwali!

The English class was pretty fun too! Sitting right in front of me, before the class started, this dude and a chick were having a discussion about whether its easier for a guy to ask a girl out or for a girl to ask a guy out. And he turned around to us to ask the question:

"hey guys, listen to this - what do you think its easier 'for a guy to ask a girl out' or 'for a girl to ask a guy out'?"

We all unanimously said "for a guy to ask a girl out!"

Pretty obvious eh? But the girl was obviously unsatisfied with this "No way, No! Nah!"

And I immediately remembered this lecture of a guy called david deAngelo. When mickey was living here, he had made me watch this video. He would literally sit next to me and watch me watch it! And I said out :

"Well, its true. Women are genetically programmed to be more selective than men. Its biologically inscribed into us. Women make one egg a month or something, and men produce millions of sperm each day! Its even seen in the animal kingdom. In Every species its the males that fight for the female!"

And all this while, others were laughing, wow-ing, hooting, cheering. It was a riot! It felt great! The dude was like :
"He merged this with National Geographic!"

"This guy is my hero!"

"you're hilarious!"

Well, maybe some part of it is a little fabricated... but only to show you the impact of what I said. Now if you don't realize how EPIC this was, then I guess I have failed myself; that my writing sucks. But I don't care because finally, the problem was solved, by yours truly. And I was thinking, "well, so I didn't really waste those 3 or four hours of my life after all!" (Yeah mickey, this is where you smile smugly!)

Did I mention my neice minni found the photo we were talking about in the DECEMBER category of picasa on the old home computer in akola? Here it is!
Did I mention we watched? It was Happy Feet...as far as I can remember... Pranav, if you prove me wrong on this one...