Notes

In the closed meeting rooms of offices, we solemnly discuss_ sprint backlogs_ and technological debts. Why not talk similarly about a hobby that you pursue a little more seriously? With the tune of Misty Mountains playing in the back of my head, I search for words to illustrate the kind of debt that I, a serious movie-watcher, owe to myself! This is majorly about The Lord Of The Rings. I first saw the movie and then read the book but I still felt I had just skimmed the surface of an epic which has enthralled so many. I always wanted to revise the trilogy but only got around to start doing it during my current Diwali visit to Ahmedabad. I don’t intend to finish it, something that is no small task given the humongous variety of characters, events and perspectives that constitute the LOTR. Rather, I intend to watch the movies again, paying more attention to details, and also go through the book as time permits. ...

An avid reader during childhood, I have seen a huge shift in my reading habits since long. The detective novels and random non-fiction books have largely been replaced by posts from Facebook, Twitter, Quora and other random places on the internet. So when I began reading the Walter Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs, a gift from a close friend who said the book might help me make sense of my entrepreneurial thoughts, I wasn’t too excited. However, now that I have read the entire thing, I have begun to appreciate what the world lost when Jobs died a couple of years ago. ...

If you blog, you too might have faced the question of what blogging platform to use to put up your thoughts in front of the world. In this post, I offer my two cents on the topic, especially for those who are either about to start blogging or looking for alternatives on being fed up with their current blog-hosting website. When I wrote my first blog post, I put it up on Blogger. For a long time, I cared little to promote my blog or get more subscribers. When I later felt that I’d rather connect with the outside world through my blog than via Facebook (which I think is for the people who love showing off) or Twitter (where the 140 character-limit was too restraining sometimes), I decided to first improve the aesthetics of my blog. And thus began my urge to jump ship to some other blogging platform! ...

I would like to point out, in the very beginning itself, that this post is not an attempt to demystify the big maze of social networking or to deplore about how much time mankind (literally) wastes on that! Almost everyone has his views about the topic, as you’d expect one to have about what all is wrong with our country, and so much has already been said about it and every angle explored in such detail that another post doing the same makes little sense! Rather, I’d like to recollect my experiences with social networking. ...

It is a good thing to be bitten by the trekking bug, because it sometimes takes you to places which make you wonder if you are still in India! Let me talk about one such experience I had at Triund in Himachal Pradesh. Ever since I returned from Chadar, I found it difficult to get the prospect of yet another trek out of my mind. I longed to go back. But I was a little apprehensive. While the Chadar trek was on a completely flat terrain, I knew other treks wouldn’t be so. I am not an athlete, even by the most lenient standards, and I wasn’t sure if I would be okay while climbing mountains. And so I decided to do the Triund trek because I was told by Gaurav, a fellow trekker at Chadar, that Triund has all the elements to test one’s perseverance for Himalayan trekking. ...

I met him only once, and that too a long time ago. I don’t remember his name anymore and even the details of his tale are now fuzzy in my head. But I distinctly remember how fascinated I was with what he shared. We have all heard stories about how corrupt the government bodies that run our nation are, but it was the first time I heard an insider’s account of what he’d seen. He was down a couple of beers and I have little reason to believe that his story might’ve been fabricated or exaggerated! ...

Moments of self-realization are rare! You might go blank for a few seconds when a social networking website prompts you to write an About Me, but apart from few such occasions, you are generally confident that you know yourself well. And then something comes up that shows you an entirely new facet of your personality. I can tell this because something similar happened with me recently. I decided to purchase a camera after my Chadar trek. I had a Canon Powershot SX30 there and the pictures it captured came out so good that it made the question of what brand to purchase simple. I could either purchase an advanced point and shoot or a DSLR. I realized that I am good at doing my research: from more than a couple of dozen models on Flipkart and Amazon and given my constraints and preferences, I could come up with the best cameras in both categories in just three or four days. ...

Once the trek is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the trek is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the trek, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what the trek is all about. Just a few days ago, I returned from an unforgettable journey. It was a trek on a frozen river near Ladakh, at a time when the temperature dips to -25 (or maybe, -30) degree C! My Picasa album of more than a hundred photos fairly tell my story of the Chadar trek; I’ll be more general in this blog post. ...

It is rather difficult to not fall in love with Rajasthan once you visit it. I happen to visit Rajasthan at least twice a year; and the colors, the culture and traditions, the wide variety of sweets and spicy foods and the environment, in general, never failed to mesmerize me. What has awed me the most, however, have been the deserts. Even as a child, I had formed a pretty beautiful sight of Jaisalmer in my mind. When I finally went there on New Year’s eve of 2010, I wasn’t disappointed. The place was crowded but it had preserved that aura of ancient times which only added to its splendour. The city is small but has a plethora of forts. “What’s new in that? We are talking about Rajasthan, right?”, you might rightly point out! Well, the number of forts per square kilometer area would be, I guess, much more in Jaisalmer as compared to, say, Jaipur or Bikaner! In the center of the city lies the main fort: it is so huge and prominent that it is the general point of reference for everything in the city. Every road leads to this fort: if you got drunk one night and fell on the streets, you can be sure that the road on which you wake up next day would take you to the main fort! ...

If you are visiting my city Delhi for the first time, the one place I would suggest you to visit would be Chandni Chowk. This is because it is the only place where you can feel the true pulse of Delhi. The first time you set foot in Chandni Chowk, you will be terrified by the heavily congested streets. The streets are so busy and overpacked that while maneuvering them, chances are high that you’ll be tightly clutching your money and passport inside your pocket, lest you get pickpocketed! But beneath the pandemonium lies another dimension of this place. ...