Wifey Dearest has come up with a challenge that I cannot abstain for one full week. She knows that I love doing that so much that she has all hopes that I would lose the challenge within a couple of days.
As far as I am concerned, its really too tough to abstain for one full week. I mean a day or two is ok, but one full week? Thats asking a bit too much. But then since wifey did put up that challenge so softly and nicely, I was sort of compelled into taking it up!
So, folks from 29th May to 4th June 2008, I am going to practise abstainment. I know its probably the toughest thing for me to do in a long time, but since its decided, I'm going ahead with it.
Yes, I'm not going to sit in front of the computer for one full week !!!
PS: The only concession is that I can check my mail on my mobile (that too not in her presence). No blogging or orkutting whatsoever.
She's turned over a new leaf.. and now she looks positively sexy and stunning. And for the first time, I have noticed her flaunting her really hot figure.. just look at those globes n cleavage.. it'll put Keshi to shame ;)
Every now and again, I get into an SMS mode when I go about a spree sending messages to loads of people. That also means I have a decent collection of interesting forwarded funny messages. A small collection is featured here..
--- Ravan: Bhiksha de do.. Lady: Ye lo. Ravan: rekha paar karo. (Lady crosses the rekha) Ravan: Hahaha, main bhikshuk nahin, Ravan hoon. Lady: Hehe, main Sita nahin, Rakhi Sawant hoon!!! -
Santa Singh and Banta Singh were caught raping a young girl. There were lined up for the identification parade. As soon as the girl victim arrived, both started shouting.. "Yehi thi, yehi thi.." :) -
Haath mein taaqat hai to Taj Mahal ko hila kar dikha.. warna aa baith, ek peg whiskey maar aur Taj Mahal ko hilta dekh! -
Moin Khan gets married. Next morning media asks his wife how he was in the night. She says.. "He stood behind the bed and kept yelling.. aur tez dalo Waim bhai" !! -
Galileo used to study under a small lamp Graham Bell studied under candle light Shakespeare studied under street light
Mujhe samajh nahin aata, kya ye din mein jhak maarte they? -
A group of young elephants chatting by the roadside spot a gorgeous young female elephant go by. A rouge elephant shouts.. "kya maal hai... 3600-2400-3600" !!! -
A beautiful dress is of no use unless it inspires someone to take it off ! -
Cry of a nun whose blood test reports got exchanged with a pregnant womans'.. Good Lord.. dont do miracles.. the Priest's finger could not have done this !! -
Six young girls dive into a swimming pool. Suddenly all the water disappears. Why? . . . . Kyuonki Whisper poora geelapan sokh leta hai! -
Damaadji pehli baar sasural pahuncha. Gaon walon se poocha.. yahaah enjoy karne koi cheez hai kya? Gaon wale bole.. Nahin babuji. Ek thi, woh bhi aap le gaye ! -
Want to enlarge ur sex organs? No Chemicals No Drugs No side-effects No Baba Ramdevs yoga therapy 100% guaranteed results.. . . . . .. Use Magnifying Glass !!! -
He: Jaaneman, is dil mein chale aao. She: Sandal nikaloon kya? He: Pagli.. ye mandir thodi na hai.. aise hi aajao !! -
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Gallery has updates from my personal photo gallery.
Please do visit and do let me know what you think of it...
Got this extremely amazing tag from Ranga.. the idea being to put up abstract slides depicting oneself without revealing one's photo, name or any direct indicator.
So here is my attempt at showing what I am...
The central scene in the slide depicts the fact that I am still at the low rung of my career and have some distance to go to move to the top... which I intend to do at the earliest.
The left side depicts what one sees of me.... someone extremely fond of good food (of course, I live to eat and not the other way around!).. love wildlife and the environment, mad about trains. The last pic on the left shows two of my other obsessions.. travelling and computers. The computers term would encompass all activities I undertake relating to it like blogging, chatting, webdesigning, etc.
The pics on the right side depict the inner me. Still looking for that small little glimmer of hope which would take me up the ladder to a much better position in life. And the fact that I'm a naive kiddo, an eternal dreamer who incidently loves to sleep at any opportune moment.
And of course, there is a timeline for me to achieve all my targets and dreams, and that is why the calendar becomes the ideal backdrop for the slide.
Let me pass on this tag to:
Chakoli Pri Keshi Pramod Cinderella Sindhu Curious
Lets see what u folks come up with!
PS: The best way to make a pic is download a few that fit you from the net or ur collection, put them in a powerpoint slide and save the slide as an image.
If you think the trains are limited to the 'dark blue- light blue- dark blue' of ordinary passenger/express trains; the orange-cream-orange of Rajdhanis and the cream-blue of Shatabdis, then you are way off the mark....
Passenger trains today seem to sport these colors (liveries) more often than not. But there are way too many other train liveries that exist. A lowdown of these:
The most common livery is the 'dark blue- light blue- dark blue' technically called the 'VIBGYOR' livery. Now, it surely does not have 7 blends, but called so as it was developed by a company called by that name. Ironic isnt it that a drab combination has such a colorful name.
The Rajdhani Express sports a rather beautiful livery of the orange-cream-orange type and this is seen in the old coaches of Rajdhani expresses. Those of you who live in Mumbai or Kolkata might recall that till a couple years ago, this was the type of color u saw on the Raj. All South bound Rajdhanis (Hyd/Bang/Chennai/T'puram/Bilaspur/BBSR) still have these coaches.
The Shatabdi expresses dont run in all places, so not that common today, but those who have travelled would know better. The cream-violet combo is indeed a beautiful one.
The Mumbai (BCT & AK) and the Kolkata (HWH & SDAH) Rajdhanis as well as the Bhopal, Lucknow and Amristar Swarna Shatabdis sport the new, imported LHB coaches which are slightly longer than the conventional ones and have metallic type body color and a snazzy livery.
Variants of the same:
Also in existance is another class of trains called the 'Jan-Shatabdi' which has a very very cool white n blue livery. Interestingly, this coach n livery was concieved and developed in a months time only.
Laloo's latest baby: The Garib Rath. The Garib rath has a beautiful Green-Gold-Green livery.
Apart from these, one comes across a very unique livery pattern seen only on Central Railway and especially on trains that run on the Pune-Mumbai sector. The Pragati, Intercities, etc sport this unique and beautiful livery.
A couple of other special trains like the Deccan Odyssey and the Palace on wheels have a very different and unique livery.
You can also spot Military coaches with this livery:
This year, IR started to commercialize the names of trains. The Summer Holiday specials running between Bangalore/Hubli and Nagercoil were branded the 'Kurkure Express' and had advertisements pasted on them. On the initial runs, each reserved passenger got a free pack of Kurkure namkeen. The latest is the Bangalore Rajdhani which has been Airtelised.
If you are the older types, you might have seen that till a couple of years ago, there were maroon colored coaches also existing on IR. But now these seem to have disappeared, except on some of the Metre gauge routes. Now, in the early 90s, IR started converting the coaches with Vacuum Brakes to more effective Air Brakes. The VB coaches sported the maroon color, while the AB stock got the Vibgyor blue. By 1998, manufacture of all VB stock was replaced by AB. And by 2005, all VB stock ceased to exist on Broad gauge and has been replaced by AB stock. Hence, the maroon has gone missing and the blue seems omnipresent.
Now comes the main point. Why the trains have lost the individuality they once had? A lot of trains had unique color and just by looking at the color one could say which train it was. Why has that been lost?
The Answer: India' population has been exploding like anything. The money power too. Work gets decentralized. Families spread across the country. Travel becomes important. And whats the best way to travel? Of course the train.
IR had to introduce a very large number of trains in the past two or three decades. However, the production of coaches is still short of the requirement. Added to this, the space to keep the coaches and mantain them in stations becomes limited because of ever escalating real estate prices. So what does IR do? It starts rotating coaches between trains. For example, a train that comes from Tirupati to Secunderabad as Narayandri express in the early morning, gets cleaned and goes to Howrah as the Falaknuma express in the afternoon. The Falaknuma express that arrives in late morning goes as Narayandri in the evening. Thus saving on the time to clean, space to rest, etc.
Mismatched livery: (The strange coach is of the Mysore-Nizamuddin Swarna Jayanti exp)
Now one can also see coaches with multiple destination boards on them. Take this one for example.
That actually reads: Narsapur-Guntur-Macherla-Nadikude-Macherla-Guntur- Tenali-Repalle-Tenali-Donakonda-Guntur-Vijaywada- Guntur-Macherla-Bhimavaram-Gudivada-Narsapur
How would it be if it had a unique livery and it was doing duty on multiple routes. One would not have appreciated it much. Hence the uni-color principle.
" Equality before law: The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth. "
Thus says the Article 14 in THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA 1949.
Last night, NDTV 24x7 showed an exit poll after the First phase of polling for the Assembly elections in Karnataka. Half of the discussion was dominated by the view that the BJP has eaten into the Vokkaliga pie that JD-S had traditionally claimed. The fact that the second and third phases of polling were to be held in the Lingayat strongholds where conventionally the JD-S was poor and the community supported BJP was not left untapped.
They even went to the extent of quizzing the BJP's Chief Ministerial candidate Mr. Yediyurappa about the inroads made into the Vokkaliga vote bank. Even on his insistence that in todays world its good governance and stability that matters over caste, the elite panel of Prannoy Roy, latest PadmaShri Barkha Dutt, Dorab Sopariwala and Srinivasan Jain continued their tirade of questions on caste based voting.
So, who's spreading the caste divide? The politicians or the news makers? If we chastise the babus for that, the same should be done to the newsmakers. Whats ur view?
Yes, have tried to pen down a novel, but gave up half way through the first page. I have a major problem when it comes to writing fiction. Just cannot get the juices flowing, characters build up.. cannot really make it happen when it comes to fibbing words.
There has only been one attempt on my old blog when it came to fiction, but you really cannot call it fiction.. it was a build a story tag!!
Title copied from my Mobile service provider's advert.
Yesterday, an acqaintence at work approached me with a request. His uncle and aunt were to travel from Hyderabad to Mumbai and all the trains were packed to capacity. And he did not want the discomfort of a bus and could not really afford a flight. Apparently this chap was talking over his phone when a friend overheard his conversation and they came to me, asking me if I had any tricks in my bag.
I knew that just one day in advance in the peak summer rush, one would not get a confirmed ticket even in the Tatkal quota. Even then, we both headed straight to the reservation counter to check out. The counter clerk asked us to forget the thought of getting a confirmed ticket! There are four direct trains from Hyderabad/Secunderabad to Mumbai and all were packed.
It was then that my brain started working, as a railfan's should. I asked him if changing trains was acceptable. On getting an affirmative, I checked out the status for the weekly Secunderabad-Manmad express and got a Tatkal ticket booked. From Manmad to Mumbai, booked them on the recently introduced Aurangabad-Mumbai Jan Shatabdi express. Now, interestingly the counter clerk had never heard of this train and even I could not recollect the train number. So, a call to another fellow railfan later, got him a confirmed seat on the Jan Shatabdi. The train from Sec'bad reaches Aurangabad at 4.40AM & Manmad at 7.30AM, while the Jan Shatabdi follows it and departs from Manmad at 7.55AM. I was profusely thanked by the acquaintence for getting this ticket booked.
But the best part was when the counter clerk thanked me for the info and the next thing I knew was that a few minutes later, he was booking a similar ticket for another traveller to Mumbai !
A wide smile and a wave later, I was on my way !
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