Tuesday, April 17, 2007

WTF: all roads blocked!!!

I don't know who's responsible for this sh*t, but from what I know it's all 3 the RTO, PMC and contractor who's building that God-damned flyover on Ganeshkhind Road (aka University Road).

Those a$$h__les have completely messed up things. I don't know the exact blockages (it was declared sometime back in papers), but all major routes to and from univ area are blocked! Just blocked!!! Rest which are open are mostly made one-way! And the reason this is so bad is that it has caused major PITA to the regular commuters. They have blocked so many roads that reamining of the each and every damned of roads, traffic is jam-packed, even at 1701hrs in the evening!!! When I left office at 1901 hrs I had to drive through maddening traffic for 2+ hrs to cover the distance of 15 kms from my office to home-sweet-home :-(

Don't these a$$h__les have slightest idea what they have done? Don't they have something called as statistics of number of vehicles that will be diverted and does the dirverted routes have the bandwidth to accomodate them? The flyover construction has been a real PITA to all the people traversing that path on a daily basis, for a duration which is close to 3 years now!!! The SOBs are claiming they want to finish it off before monsoon starts! Balls! That, in my personal view, utter nonsense. This ain't Bombay that they will raise the flyover in span of 4-5 months!

If the nonsense continues, I think only option I have is to request my manager to allow me to work from home for at least 2 days a week (don't ask me what will I do if he refues, haven't thought of that yet :-( )

3 hrs of daily to and fro driving in Pune's !@$ked up maniacal crazy traffic is next to impossible. Pune is growing from worse to impossibly !@#$ing WORSE day by day! And I owe a nice little post on that too... been cooking up in my cranium since long! I guess it's due now.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Nostalgia & Deep Sea review

3 days back I met Taklu (aka Tarun), one of my favourite seniors at hostel, college, room and even past company. And his younger bro, Parry. I still vividly remember the day when I was tensed, for the upcoming viva, and was struggling with quicksort. That was in SE, if I'm to rely on my memory. When I failed to grasp the whole essence of the algo, Taklu explained it to me and I've never forgotten Quicksort ever since!

It had been a long time I met him. We are only handful of the people from our hostel to be still in Pune. Most of them have either moved to US or to their respective home towns. As you can imagine, the BIGGEST joy of seeing him was getting nostalgic!!! We were talking on and on and on and on and on about good old hostel days. Our goof-ups...
bitter & sweet trysts with rector and hostel trustees...
the days when we were in-charge of the mess...
drive to the end of the city to get cheapest of mangoes (but best in quality) for the mess...
that 1-hr daily journey to PICT from Deccan in PMT...
those grueling days of the preparation leaves...
waiting endlessly in queue to call home from single STD booth near our hostel...
tea at nearby tapri...
our favourite food joint... cafe joint... snack joint... and what not!!!

It was REAL fun! It was like going through the highlights of the whole of our hostel days in just 3 hrs span!!! And Taklu then went on explaining me how he met some of our roomies while he was in US. And how he is happy with his current assignment at the job! What he's learning there! How he handles his team! Talking to him was just so reassuring. Effusing confidence, as always. But one thing where he disappoints me is... he's still single :-( But I believe the work is underway & wish him good luck in his endeavour.

BTW, Taklu also suggested that all of us ex-Trivedians who are still in Pune (or can manage a day's trip here) get together and hang out doing all that we did in those good old days: take tea at Trupti, snack at Umeed, lunch at Niranjan, take a post-lunch walk around the hostel and then disperse after a cuppa coffee at Radhika!!!

Besides that other major highlight of the week was that I managed to see IMAX-Deep Sea. I'm just short of words to describe the quality of direction that has been done. And the sound quality, even in the deepest and darkest parts of the oceans. Infested with all kinds of deadly and dangerous creatures. Just impeccable. While seeing it, it just teleports you deep below the ocean surface. Through the magic of IMAX, you will swim with some of the planets most unique, dangerous and colorful creatures, and understand this inspiring underworld. Directed by none other than Howard Hall, it's a MUST see for documentary fanatics.

Since there were no tournament matches this weekend, I enjoyed my regular Sunday game to the fullest, as always!