It had to be, you and me.

It had to be, you and(for) me...

Looking at you, I felt it strong,
Meeting you confirmed it all,
Never before, I felt so sure,
that being with you
was all that I want to do

and my heart racing pacefully
It has to be, you and(for) me...

the day we met, you looked so nice,
I couldn't help but dumbly stare at you
When you started to leave,
my heart skipped a beat,
and the way you turned and smiled at me,
I felt blessed by the all mighty,

and my heart racing pacefully
It has to be, you and me...


and today I know you'd agree
It had to be, you and me...

Exam Day Stories Part I

In life, there are some events one can't forget. Like for instance, once it happened that I had an exam one morning. It was 5:45 am in the morning when I woke up. I sluggishly got up from my bed, and went to get ready for the day, thinking that I still had one hour to revise(study) for the exam as the exam was to start at 8:30 am. I was in the toilet when the doorbell rang. My mother answered it. I heard Bhim and Sanchit greet my mother. I also heard that the bus would be leaving in next 10 min.
I was SHOCKED !! How can this be? What was I missing here?
And then it suddenly struck me. The timings of the examinations had changed(from 8:30 am to 7:45 am) and the announcement was made during the previous exam time. I hastened the process and left the toilet quickly. I changed into my uniform, quickly drank the glass of milk, grabbed my bag and left. It was still dark outside We walked towards the bus stand. I looked at the sky, colored in vivid shades of dark blue. I felt the coolness and freshness in the air. The street lights were still lighted. It looked like night time. I took out my notebook and started reading under the light of the lamp of the bus, as soon as I entered the bus.
Many of the students already seated in the bus asked, "What happened?", "Why so late?" etc. and the reason was explained.
I still wonder what would have happened, had Bhim and Sanchit not come to my house that morning...

At some other occasion, it happened so that I woke up late. It was my mistake, though. I had set my alarm for 5:30 am and kept the alarm clock beside me. Now, this has two disadvantages. The first one being that the person sleeping can easily shut the alarm when it starts ringing and sleep again. This one is still fine, because at least the alarm has done it's job. The second being that the person, in his sleep, because of some movement of his hands, might shut the alarm before it gets a chance to ring. This is worse than the previous case and this is what happened to me.
I slept, thinking that I'd wake up and revise (study) but I woke up at 7:00 am. I had to get ready quickly, and caught the bus at 7:30 am.

In this another story, no one woke up on time at my home. Generally my mother wakes up at 5:30 or 6 am every morning. But that day, she didn't. She woke up at 7:15 am. Bus leaves at 7:30 am. She quickly woke me up. I quickly got ready but I was late. My school at that time, Campion School was 14 kms away. The school started at 8:30 am and bus always took us at 7:30 am. from the bus stop. Luckily, one of my neighbors was my school mate, my senior and used to drive to school on his scooter. He used to leave at 8 am. My mother requested him to take me with him. He agreed. I didn't go to his house to request him because he had a big alsatian dog and alsatians are dangerous. We did reach on time, but he drove real fast and I constantly had the fear of brakes failing! :(

My Nokia Charger!

I am sitting at my study table facing my laptop, when someone knocks at my door. I open my door.
"Do you have Nokia charger?" asked the person standing on the other side of the door.
"Yeah. Sure" I said and removed the charger from the plug point and offered it to him. He took it.
"This is my room", he said and indicated to the room adjacent to mine.
This reminded me of my days in GHEB when many of my neighbours there asked me for the 'nokia charger'. Somani, Bhanukiran, Kapil often came for the charger... I don't try to boast about helping others by lending them my nokia charger but just observing things! Observing how people forget to look after minute things in life. We either loose things or their services, i.e., they get damaged.
Similar thing happened to me during summer vacations this year. During the second half of the June, all of a sudden one day the blue light at the corner of the laptop wouldn't glow, showing that my charger won't charge anymore... it was something sudden, and before that day, I had not imagined my life without laptop battery, i.e., without laptop with out of charge batteries!!
We take things for granted. Rather we should at least take care while using/handling those things. My laptop charger got burnt because of my own carelessness. I didn't care to bother about the sparking of it's plug.
As Dr Marathe rightly says, "Respect low technology"!

My Dreams Part III, Haunted OBH and Interaction Season

I saw this dream on 21st July 2005. This was during those days when I was a freshman in IIIT, Hyderabad. Interaction with seniors were fine, but sometimes terrifying.

"I was having my dinner peacefully in NBH mess with my new friends and batchmates. We talk about various worldly issues.
I find myself in Kapil's room in GHEB, with other batchmates talking about their experiences at OBH and how they were caught and taken to OBH and that the period of interaction with seniors had started. Some were too terrified to speak, others were telling us about the OBH.
A few people who went to OBH last night said that it was like a Haunted Hostel.
I saw the hostel from near the NBH, later that night and felt the same. It was covered with darkness and shadows of trees all around. It did look like a haunted and spooky place, except for the lightening part.
Next thing I saw I was trying to run away from OBH, but was trapped in the maze. There were walls covered with cobwebs all over and had broken window panes. Though I didn't see any of the seniors converting into ghosts, nor did I see any ghosts, I did see myself trapped inside some haunting spooky maze. I constantly had a feeling that someone was following me!
I remember being rescued by some senior wearing an overcoat and a hat (Pramod sir). Perhaps he was a mentor. He took me through some secret pathways and finally brought me outside OBH. We came out in front of NBH. He gave me his contact no. and also told me some secret mode of transportations, which I must use while traveling to and from OBH during night times, since some seniors turned into ghosts (though I didn't see anyone!)
I told about this to my batchmates and they are amazed and some still don't believe the idea of ghosts. Next day, I saw that mentor in NBH mess and we exchanged smiles. Gradually I discover that many seniors wearing overcoats and hats are there to rescue juniors when help is required. I witnessed a whole team of theirs."

Swimming and Nostalgia!

Since last week I've been going for swimming at the Gachibowli stadium adjacent to my college.
It feels great being in the water! Though I'm not much good at it and get tired very easily after swimming about 30-40 metres, I still like being in water and playing in it.
I like floating in water i.e., stopping my breath and leaving myself to it while experiencing buoyancy lifting me and keeping me on the surface.
I like moving my hands and legs in a dog-style.
I like going down straight(head up and legs down), while leaving my breath from my nostrils(which gives me the required force to overpower the buoyancy force coming from below), touching the bottom of the pool with my legs, giving myself an upward push from the bottom surface and moving up with a good amount of force through water.
I've been trying to cover greater distances with freestyle, but somehow I get exhausted after completing 30 metres or so. Breast stroke helps me cover larger distances(only 150 metres continuously swam till now).
One does get tired after swimming( I leave the pool after swimming for half an hour). After tiredness comes thirst and then hunger(sounds funny?).
Today, I was suddenly reminded of last year, when I used to go swimming in summers with my sister and after returning from the pool, my mother used to make two glasses of mango-shake(it used to be awesome!!) for me.
Finally I had to satisfy myself by drinking Cold Coffee at canteen.

Heroes! The reason I started watching it!

I was sitting in the canteen of my college, waiting for chicken noodles to arrive. Someone nudged me from behind. I turned back and saw Prateek walking by my side and coming face to face with me.

"So what are you doing now a days? Watching movies?" he asked.

"Not really!" Actually we were having summer vacations in college.

"Have you watched 'Heroes'?" he asked as he slightly bend towards me.

"No. Why?" I replied, confused as to why would he ask me such a thing. Though I had seen people watching 'Heroes' and praising it a lot, but I never felt like watching it. I thought that 'Heroes' would be a bunch of brave but good guys saving the world from bad guys and would involve some fighting. As I thought of image of 'Heroes' in my mind, Prateek replied, "It's awesome! Do watch it."

" What's it like?"

"It's like some ordinary people having super powers and they save the world. It's something like, "X-Men". But personally, I found it better than X-Men. And you do watch it. I'm sure you'll like it. It's a kind of stuff you'd like to watch."

This conversation made me rather curious about 'Heroes' and I decided to watch it that night itself. But DC++ was not cooperating.... I mean I couldn't download the initial episodes of 'Heroes' from intranet server. I could download the 12th episode and so I started watching it. The starting was good and looked interesting. I realized that this T.V. series was different than other T.V. series usually made. But I couldn't understand anything in 12th episode when I watched it for around 5 minutes. Luckily after 5 minutes, I got 1st episode downloaded and others were finally in line for downloading. I eagerly started watching the first episode.

Before I knew it, it was 4 in the morning and I had seen 5 heroes episodes, of duration of 42 minutes average. I decided to sleep.

When I woke up at 10 in the morning, I again continued watching Heroes. I had all the episodes downloaded during the night. I skipped my lunch and went for dinner but came back in 20 minutes. I watched it till 4 the next morning and completed all 20 episodes.

I watched 21st episode 3 days back. Waiting for 22nd and 23rd episode to be aired!

Heroes is AWESOME!! :)

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", Fan Fantasy.

Recently I have been searching for good e-books on the internet and hence have collected some novels and other interesting e-books by downloading them from rapidshare, fastshare and other such sites. Surprisingly, in an attempt to download 4GB of e-books, I came across a post in ProjectW.org, which said, "All 7 parts of Harry Potter".
I thought that the person might be kidding or something, but when I opened the post, it surely had rapidshare links to all the 7 novels, including, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!!"
I was excited and surprised at the same time. I thought that perhaps I'd be the first person in IIIT-Hyderabad to finish the 7th and the last part of the Harry Potter series. I quickly downloaded and started reading it.
The story started quite nicely and I was too excited to think about anything else. It said that Harry's cousin, Dudley was also a wizard!! After reading 20 pages, I read the replies to the post from where I'd got the link to this 7th part. I got irritated when people were accusing the e-book to be a fake and a fan fantasy and not original work of J.K. Rowling. I didn't believe that at first. To check for it's authenticity, I downloaded all the previous parts from the links given in the same post and read the starting of the 6th part of Harry Potter Series. I felt irritated and stupid, when I found the starting totally different from the starting of the real 6th part. I realized that 7th part was also a fake when I observed the writing style and the flow of events (of the first 20 pages I'd read) in the novel carefully. I too replied to the post by saying that all the e-books of Harry Potter are fake.
Later someone told me that the release date of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" is 7th July 2007, i.e., almost 2 months from now!!

My Dreams Part II

"... I found himself standing near a water cooler, on a deserted railway platform. I looked around and found no one. I was alone."

"... I barely managed to lift the heavy suitcase as I moved along with my parents towards the platform on which the train that we were supposed to board, was to come. As we reached the platform, we saw the train leaving the platform... next thing I knew I was standing with my father who was asking me to catch the train. My mother and sister were in the train. I started running with all my strength, from one edge of the platform towards the train, and on reaching the other edge, I jumped. I was surprised at how high and how far I had come from the platform, while still in mid-air. I saw below me, the train moving and I felt like I was almost flying over it. Suddenly I started falling down towards the train and was about to land on it's last bogie, when the train suddenly moved with infinite acceleration and I fell flat on the ground. I thought that I had broken my nose and teeth, but in fact, nothing happened(I felt as though nothing happened to me). I didn't feel any pain."

I had reasons for the kind of dreams I was getting and I wrote about it in my last post titled "My Dreams Part I". But I am totally clueless as to why do I see myself on railway platforms and in railway trains in my dreams. There have been plenty of such dreams.

"I couldn't think twice this time. It was my sister who was inside the A.C. compartment and I had to find her. She was not supposed to be in there. The door of A.C. is about to close in a few minutes(this is what I thought. Though there is a door, one is free to open or close it anytime! :D). I simply entered the A.C. compartment. I started finding her desperately, disturbing some of the (sleeping) passengers in the process. I was feeling cold, but I had to find her. I couldn't leave without her. I was responsible for her. After searching for a few minutes, I realised that she was not there(my sister is supposed to be 10 years old in this dream!). I thought that I might have made a mistake. I quickly walked towards the door I had entered the compartment from. The door was locked and I was trapped in that A.C. bogie. I was really feeling cold now. Along with that, suffocation started setting in. I couldn't breathe. I started breathing heavily from my mouth and shivered vigorously. I collapsed and became unconscious. Next thing I knew, I was standing in front of that same A.C. compartment, and the train had stopped at some station. It was sunny outside, perhaps it was morning time. My sister came to me, and said, 'Mom is calling you, come fast'."

Now, the reasons can be anything. It can be excessive train travels(not much in my case), fear of being left behind, alone, in a journey or maybe fear of meeting with an accident or loosing someone. Or maybe something else.

"I barely managed to lift my suitcase as I reached the platform. I had a confirmed ticket. I checked the railway charts and my name was there. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to carefully check my watch. I was getting desperate and looked at my watch. It again showed 9:30 PM. I was stunned. My watch had stopped. I looked at the clock on the platform and it showed 10:30 PM. I was 20 minutes after the departure time of the train. The train had already left. I couldn't get another ticket that day, and I was cursing myself for such a foolish behaviour. My father was waiting for me on the station, the train I had missed was supposed to take me to. Yes, it was a local train and I had to make a short journey. I had no money to use other means of transportation. I simply walked out of the platform and out of the station. The next thing I saw, I was at my hostel, GHEB. I was surprised, since I was supposed to be in Pimpri, Pune. A few minutes ago, I was standing in Pimpri railway station and now I was standing in a corridor in my hostel in Hyderabad. It was perplexing. I opened my room and kept my luggage in it. I went to the water cooler to have water. I had no money and there was no one in the hostel, no security guard, no newspapers on his table, besides which he sits(sleeps). All the rooms were locked. In the dead silence of the night, I was feeling afraid. In a fraction of seconds, the spookiness was multiplied manifold, when I heard Rahul calling me. I turned myself around and looked towards his room. Yes, he was standing at the door. I did not yell or shout, though my heart was pumping very hard. I felt a sense of relief in a way, but due to my past experiences of watching horror T.V. series like "Aahat" and "Zee Horror Show", I started having second thoughts that Rahul might be a ghost in disguise!
"Hi Senu! Why didn't you go home?" he asked me. He looked and talked like real Rahul!
"I missed the train. I was 20 minutes late. It's past midnight and moreover now I'm in 'Hyderabad'."
"Don't worry Senu, you'll reach home. If I lend you some money now, when'll you return it to me? When'll you come back from home?"
"Exactly after 3 weeks."
I took the money from Rahul. It was 500 Rs. and started walking towards my room, thinking of booking a bus-ticket for the next day. While I was walking, the hostel corridor changed to the railway platform I was earlier on. I had 500 Rs. in my hand but it was still 10:35 PM. I walked to the reservation counter and bought a ticket for the next train going to Pashan, Pune."

Some things are better left unexplained. I thought a lot about why I was getting so many dreams on railways, but had no answers... still finding a satisfactory answer.

Cartoons and animated movies

As a small kid, I still remember myself getting excited while watching action cartoons like Power Zone in Cartoon Network or Fox Kids on star plus (spiderman, robocop). Events were predictable and end was known, still it used to be fun watching spiderman or batman coming to the rescue of innocent ones and stopping the bad guys. I agree that story and therefore events of each episode were different, but the basic idea remains the same, "good guy(s)(known) fighting the bad guys(changing sometimes but still known) and protecting the innocent(known or unknown, doesn't matter, unless a close one of the good guy(s)!)". I also watched "Looney Toons", "Popeye Show", "Dexter's Laboratory", "Powerpuff girls". Though some of them were mostly predictable, some of them couldn't be (like "Dexter's Laboratory"). While some cartoons like "Spiderman" or "Aladdin" or say, "DragonballZ"(some of my batchmates watch it!) haven't lost their charisma and appeal, cartoons like "He-man"(personally I found it boring after watching it after 8 years!) lose their appeal, simply because of being too predictable and sometimes stupid.
Comparing those times with today, I still love watching cartoons! Recently, in 4th semester, I watched a few episodes of Spiderman which was aired on cartoon network. I have also been watching some cartoon movies like "Lion King"(my first cartoon movie, as far as I remember), "Little Mermaid", "The incredibles", "Sinbad", "the road to El Dorado", "Aladdin" and many more. The fact is that I can still watch the above mentioned movies again! The best part is that the makers of such movies have been very creative in giving their characters good dialogues, interesting events and of course good animation. My latest favourite animated cartoon movie is "TMNT". I have always been a fan of turtles and that will always make me like this cartoon and this idea very much.
It might be that since I am still 18 years old, I am still liking cartoons, but the fact is that, anybody can watch cartoons. Personally what I feel is that cartoons and animated movies are like any other movie or show on T.V.! The things that eventually matter are the story, events, dialogues, and the extent to which the thing you watch interests you. Moreover, the animation due to gradual improvements have become more realistic. Besides, the best part in cartoons is that, anything is possible in them! :-)

My Dreams Part I

"... I sat facing her on the other side of the table, as we had our lunch. I couldn't stop looking at her while eating. As she looked at me, she smiled and I couldn't stop thinking how beautiful she was. After lunch, we went out strolling. The weather was perfect, cloudy and cool. I felt like kissing her. I had my hand on her shoulders as we walked together, and suddenly I stopped and looked at her, this time in her eyes..... and I found myself sitting in exam hall, trying hard to complete my exam. Suddenly I heard the exam bell. I take my exam paper with me to write my exam at home. It was a sunny morning. I saw myself writing exam in my room, in the playground, even among the sages of olden times, while they read all the vedas. I wrote the whole day and it took me whole day to complete the exam. Finally at 9 at night I went and submitted the paper. As I stood in the empty corridor near my classroom, I heard a faint sound. I slowly walked towards the source of noise, cautious of any further noise or disturbance, my heart beating hard against my chest. I saw a fat mouse suddenly come out of a dark corner, with great speed, and I gave a loud shriek!!"

Suddenly I woke up on my bed in my room in GHEB Room No. 48. That last incident in my dream shook me and woke me up! It made my adrenaline rise high! I actually was shaken.... anyways, sleeping for me have always been going on such exciting adventures, if you can call them so. I love each and every part of my experience while I sleep. My sleep time dreams are far more exciting than my real life events... perhaps that's what makes a good balance !! :)
It is said that dreams come to those whose brains are still working while they are resting... and my brain is the most confused and tensed brain of the world. Also, I like imagining weird things! So all my fears, all my incomplete ambitions, wierd imagination... mix up and make a string of interesting events as my night dreams...!!! And I love them!!
For instance, in the dream mentioned at the start of this post, the part where I am writing my exam for the whole day shows my fear of not been able to complete an exam, when attempted ( and it had actually happened sometime in the past!! I left 40 marks Hindi exam in 6th standard and got 56 out of 100! Good score but bad attempt! ). The first part of the dream which has been told, is better left unexplained... and the last one was the proof of my fear of darkness when I was a small child!!

Exam days chatterings

It was the eve of our first end semester exam and Kapil suddenly walked into my room, disturbing the peaceful atmosphere, asking, "Hey Abhishek, did you understand what Prof. has taught in this topic?" Atul ( my roommate), as usual interrupted, "Looks like Kapil is all set to get an A in the course". After this followed a series of 'not so good' words and finally Kapil started with his story of the day (I have named it), "FYI, I've been sleeping in my room since the last two hours, didn't study anything", adds some more 'not so good' words and tries his best to convince Atul that he hardly knows anything and needs to study a lot. Meanwhile I close my ears with my fingers and try hard to concentrate on the book on my lap.
As if the noise and commotion was not enough, I saw Somani's legs entering my room. I raise my head from the book and look at him, while he still smiles as usual. He then speaks, trying harder than Kapil to prove in his own special way that he has not studied much and tries to pursue Atul to teach him. He says, "Teach me Atul, or else I'll fail! (though he never fails! :D)". And then Atul and Ajay start arguing amongst themselves and start taunting and teasing each other, along with using 'not so good' words. Kapil leaves the room immediately (sensible guy).
After five minutes of struggle with the external noise and disturbance, I finally give up and leave my room, and go to Bhanu's room, and ask him some of my doubts. "This is not correct, Abhishek. Every time on the day before the exam, you come to me and ask me this and ask me that." Bhanu who speaks this in frustration due to his lack of preparation, nevertheless tells me some things and asks me to come later. When I returned to my room, I saw Kapil watching a movie on my laptop, with Akshay accompanying him. On the other side of the room, on the other bed, I saw Somani, sitting in a relaxed manner watching Atul play pac-man.
As a result of such disturbances and my last day preparation for exams, I am often the last one to sleep in my wing in my hostel. To buy more time to study, I even reach the exam hall 10 minutes late (as a personal rule!). And then when I face the exam paper ....

After taking the exam, as usual, I walked towards my room, quietly cursing myself. On my way, I try to avoid talking to anyone. Post exam discussions make me nervous and I don't like it. This is the only time I like the fact that Telugu speaking people discuss the exam questions in Telugu, as I can not understand any of it. But as a matter of fact, I do overhear a few conversations now and then. Kapil, in his usual manner starts telling the mistakes he did during the exam (as if anyone is interested in it!), again trying to convince that he is the person who has suffered the most while taking that exam. Atul, though also tells his mistakes but in a more sober manner. Somani goes to an extreme saying his exam performance was disgusting and he won't get an 'A' in that particular course!! Bhanu, looks at me and asks, "How did you write your exam?" and without waiting for a reply or thinking, answers his own question, "I know you always do well in your exam."
Sometimes I wish Bhanu was right. That way I wouldn't have still been a 7 pointer.

Long Distance...

This is the most confidencial thing I'm writing. Please do forget everything you read after you have read it! :D
I donno if I've ever felt or realised what it is to love someone ( romantic love ), but I have liked someone and it has come closer to this feeling sometimes, I suppose.
A few weeks ago, one evening, I called her, and that was the last time I called her. I was fully determined to talk to her and tell her the truth that i'm crazy about her. But something unexpected happened.
I was really sure that she didn't have any boyfriend. The only thing that I was not sure of, was myself. So, I called her and used my story i'd given her to read, as an excuse for the call. So I said,
"Hi, it's Abhishek."
"Hi!" she said in her usual jolly and sweet manner. "Long time!"
"Yeah! Long time. Long time since we last talked. So, what are you doing these days?"
"Well nothing actually. I am at my home and i'm enjoying my two days holiday, with today being the first day."
"Ok. By the way, did you read my story?"
"Was this the reason you called me? No, i've not yet read it. It's been a long time since i've checked my mails on the internet."
"Ok"
"Is it urgent?"
"No, not at all" I interrupted her speech.
After a few seconds of silence,
"Aaahmmm... this might sound silly, but can I ask you a question?"
"Sure!"
"Ok." a brief pause, and then I blurted out, "Do you have a boyfriend?"
A few seconds of silence, then, "Well..." and she was about to say something. Before she said anything, a thought crossed my mind and I expected to hear a "No". Instead the reverse happened.
"yes I do have a boyfriend" she said, and my mind froze. I had mixed feelings, a feeling of freedom, along with a feeling of losing something. I could still hear what she was saying, "but Abhishek, we have rather kept it a secret and not told anyone about it. You know all the rumors and hype talks and all those stuff..."
"I understand." What else I could say?
I talked for a few more minutes and then... I ran out of balance in my mobile!! :D

Though after that I've never called her again, never felt crazy about her again, but still in my mind, I wish I was with her, I wish I was her boyfriend rather than someone else. I still respect her, she is an excellent girl and i'd like to hear her voice again... maybe someday when i'd collect all my patience to go to "Indiranagar" (3 kms from my college, IIIT-H, where I live in a hostel), i'd get my mobile recharged and talk to her once again!