My encounter with a star!!!

The below pictures might give you a bit of a surprise and makes you raise your brows asking "How!!?" :P
Read on to know how and where I met him..

Your friends and team mates would be as much happy as you are on your birthday only for one reason- Treat! Treating someone on his/her special occasion has become a custom now. My team had asked for a combined treat from everyone who had their birthdays last month. And also during the recent appraisal process, people who have been promoted were on the list as well. So all together, there were 11 victims for the day!

After intense research, we decided on Aloft, Sholinganallur. The hotel was really good with its ambiance and atmosphere so pleasing (It had to be! cuz its a 4 star hotel!!). While we were scoffing with our complete concentration on the food, there were commotion and camera flashes all of a sudden. As we were lost in gulping down scrumptious food, we took our eyes off the plate wanting to know who it was. To our surprise, its one of the leading actors in Bollywood Mr. Amir Khan with his family and two bodyguards. As i went forward to take few snaps, his bodyguards stopped me asking me to give him some privacy take pics after he dines.

As people started to throng towards Amir wanting to take a snap with him, the hotel officials moved him to another private spot which was on the other side of where we were dining. Though we were able to see him we couldn't go near him as his bodyguards stood there as barricades. I think some girl from my team spoke with one of the bodyguards and expressed her wish to take a snap with him and she was asked to wait till he dines.

After all it wasn't an excuse he gave to dine peacefully but he did spend some time to take few pics with him though he had to go for a shoot that night. Everyone who came there for dinner got something to put up/brag about on Facebook- "Me with Amir Khan!!" My intention of taking a pic with him was for the same reason as I'm not a big fan of his but like him as an amazing actor.

There would've been a fight between me and the bodyguards if it was A.R.Rahman instead of Amir. I'm pretty sure I would've done anything to have a chat with him, take a pic with him and to get an autograph from him. And that not for showing it off to friends but as a simple wish of a big big fan of his. I wish i get an opportunity like this with superstar Rahman next time. ;-)
 
In the pic: That's me and my team mates with Bollywood star Amir.

Tick tock on the clock!

It seems like just a couple of months since i joined Cognizant but the reality surprises me- Its been almost a year and a half. Time seems to fly in the blink of eye that most of the beautiful things in life have the air of being missed. The run of time is descried at some instances in life like when you skim through a marriage album your work didn't allow you to attend, looking at some of it you exclaim "He's grown up so fast! He was just a kid when I last saw him;" "Oh, She is no more? When did she pass away?;" "What? He is married now?" "Who is she? Wasn't he married to another............. so on.


I've been always curious to know the reason why time runs so fast. I rescheduled my calender and gave priority to "analysis of the run of time" over "day dreaming." To understand it better, I'd broken down the analysis into smaller parts- from hours to years. (Disclosure: I'm not so good at math. If the figures are wrong........ Well...... huh.... don't mind. Just read on!!)


24 hours makes a day in which I work for 9 hours. It takes 4 hours for traverse, to and fro. Which is 9+4=13 beautiful hours is eaten up every single day. The rest 11 hours is further eaten up in 7 hours of sleeping. That give out a residue of just 4 hours everyday and that is been used to gear up to another day of oblivion.

7 days makes a week and the above said routine goes on for another 5 days that leaves 2 days in a week- weekends. (Wow! Just getting my tongue around the word "weekend" gives me all smiles.) Now after going through 4 hours-left-over-fun shitty routine, weekend appears longer. But not long enough to enjoy. Saturdays and Sundays appear just to let me know that I'm still alive. It makes me wanna earnestly beseech God to make weekends have 42 hours each. Life seems like a drag when you were asked to slog even on Saturdays!! Weekends run like a flow of water. So fast, so quick!!

One thing which buck me up when broadening the analysis on months is for that one day which will make any employee super happy- salary day!! This reminds me of a forward mail in which a picture, relating to the tale of the tortoise and rabbit, depicts how "money comes in like tortoise and goes out like rabbit." That's true in a way. We patiently wait for the end of the month, for that one day which makes us feel that we are rich (as the above quote describes, it doesn't take too long for the money to fritter away!!)


As this sequence of the above said is unvaryingly followed throughout the year, and summing it all up:

24 hours - 9hours slogging - 4 hours travelling - 7hours snoozing = 4hours/day. [4 of 24hours]
4hours x 5days/week = 20 hours/week excl. weekends. [20 of 120 hours]
20hours x 4weeks/month = 80hours/month excl. weekends. [80 of 480hours]
80hours x 12months/year = 960hours/year excl. weekends. [960 of 5760hours]
That means I get only 40/240 days time to rejoice in a year?? What would you practically do with that?

Everyday we wait for the day to end; everyday we wait for the week to end; every week we wait for the month end, for salary; and every month we wait for the year to end, for a hike/promotion/etc. And then i realised that it was i/me/myself who wanted the time to run fast so that i could rejoice my 40/240 days a year!! I would've mentioned in most of my posts that i will have to balance my work life with my personal life and though it sounds easy, there is a minute barrier which stops me and projects out the barrier like a great wall of China! And its pretty obvious that for someone to write a post like this wouldn't have had the ability to balance his work life with his personal. Well, there is time and I'm gonna start utilising my 40/240 days/year to think of how to get things straight and gonna spend as much time as i can, if possible (is this the barrier??)!! ;-)
 
The quote i just came across while writing this post. Sounded apt to this so putting it up:
 
WE ARE NOT HUMAN BEINGS GOING THROUGH A TEMPORARY SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE.
WE ARE SPIRITUAL BEINGS GOING THROUGH A TEMPORARY HUMAN EXPERIENCE.

She is the best in the world!!!

Today is one of the days to honour the person responsible for your existence. Mother is the reason for what you are and who you are. Not very often do we think of gifting something to our mom until its her birthday (and not very often do we think of writing a post about how wonderful of a person your mom is! :P). Mother's day has been a day to commemorate motherhood and has been an occasion to make her "extra" happy. I bought my mom a party handbag and made her that "extra" happy. (Well, bigger the earnings, bigger the gifts! I wish i get a salary hike!!!) I usually surprise her by keeping the gift in the kitchen (a place where every mother's day starts!!) so that when she wakes up in the morning and goes to kitchen, the joy she gets when she sees gift wrapped up all good with her name on it, and the moment of excitement when she opens it up, its just priceless! Never give your mom a moment to frown but make her smile forever with joy!

Happy mothers day to all!!!

Rebecca Black's Friday- The top of all!!!!

For the past two weeks, the top trending topic on the web has been Rebecca Black and her hit single Friday. The track has gone viral over the net and has become an overnight sensation. Its video has 110 million clicks on YouTube and both Black and Ark Music, its record label, had received $20,000 from YouTube's revenue-sharing program. The song was No.39 last week and its jumped to 19 on iTunes chart. It also entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 72 and rose to 58 the following week. The song is considered as one of the Hot 100 songs. So what's so special about this song? The song has gained universal popularity...... negatively!! Yes, the song is considered as the "Worst song ever" on YouTube and received harsh reviews and responses. The offbeat lyrics in the song makes it sound eccentric and exasperated almost everyone who saw/heard the video/song. Even me. The song is 'loved to hate' by people on the net. Numerous parody videos have been uploaded on YouTube that making a parody video of it has become a trend. After the song gained much popularity, ABC TV went to interview Rebecca Black. After the initial congratulatory wishes, Andrea Channing, the interviewer, started off by asking how she felt about the harsh comments that people have given for her song and also read out few jarring comments right at her face for which Black was a little emotionally shaken, of course. But she was bold enough to respond that she do not care about the harsh comments and that she took things positively. "Friday is the worst song ever that even dead people are complaining" was one of the comments. Black, in the interview, said that the worst comment she came across was "I hope you cut yourself and I hope you get an eating disorder so you’ll look pretty, and I hope you go cut yourself and die…" After stating this, she expressed her wish to sing a duet with Canadian singer Justin Bieber. LOL!

American Idol former judge Simon Cowel, who is familiar for his blunt, sarcastic comments, has recently commented that he likes her as a person who has gotten so much publicity in just one week. He also expressed his wish of wanting to meet her.

Me thinks that for a song to top the chart (or at least sound listenable) all the elements of the song has to be given equal importance- voice, lyrics, music and all other technical aspects. The song fail to impress the audience if even one of the elements just mentioned is not up to the mark. Friday lyrics are so hilarious and she was crowned as the "lyrical genius" in few social networking sites. The excessive use of auto tune work in the song left a question in the listeners mind wheather Black is really a singer. To check how her voice would sound without auto tune, Channing, in her interview, asked Black to sing Friday without the aid of auto tune. She was not bad after all. Rebecca sensed her intention and responded that she is "not the best singer but also not the worst singer."

I hope her next song is a "good" Friday! :P

PS: I've been writing this post for a week now since I haven't found much time to finish it off at once. So this post is a week old and hence few information in the post may vary. :P