On the gas burner

Perhaps this was one of those rare situations in the semester when an average lover like me didn't take the opportunity of the whopping night calling scheme that the telephone operators provided. This was also one of those rare situations when she didn't complain. She understood the pressure on me,perhaps she didn't wanted to commit to a guy who scores poor pointers in the semesters. So for the first time in history of the semester,I went to sleep at 10 pm on Monday night.

Monday evening saw some different movements in the room,the books were sorted out,notes were compiled and all other study materials that we could gather were gathered. Saket and I took the pain of making our lazy asses to work,sensing the seriousness we needed to put forward. Adil (the third ally to us in this war) was called upon to chalk out a plan on how things were to be tackled.

The series of next few morning witnessed an emptiness in the bathroom,and the mother nature smiled silently for the water resources we committed to conserve. The only resource we looked forward to were the books,those books which still smelled fresh,the smell reminded us of the semester beginning when we approached the book store to buy the books.

Adil arrived next morning with two bags-one full of clothes and books and other full of snacks. We couldn't fight with empty stomachs,he knew. The syllabus list was referred and carefully some portions were omitted from the study list. We weren't aiming for ten pointers so we could heartlessly perform these omissions. The room now lacked something that the other days of semester witnessed. There was no chess played,no cards played and no gossips made. Our asses were put on gas burner and we had to word hard to save them.

The morning sessions lasted from 6 am to 1 pm,then lunch,then the afternoon session from 2 pm to 8 pm,then dinner and then the night session from 10pm to 4am. The holy activity of sleeping was performed between 4am to 6 am. We three would combine two beds and the three of us would begin studying with reading the chapter twice,silently. Then scribbling down the derivations twice or thrice and then attacking the questions asked in previous years. We tick marked every question that could be asked.

By Sunday, we were done with all the subjects,however a serious mistake happened: We forgot to look ahead to mathematics and we had just two days in hand to cover the subject. We kept calm and attacked the subject with the best plan possible. The professor had bombarded a series of questions throughout the year, the initial ones easy and the later ones tough. Solving them increased our mathematical ability and we had done mathematics quite averagely throughout the semester.

We revised all the questions that he had made us to solve. We scribbled down the solution in the shortest manner possible. It took the entire Sunday to revise his questions. On Monday,we worked hard and revised all the questions asked in previous years. We had a sound sleep on Monday night from 11 pm to 5 am. We revised till 7 am and then relaxed our mind by listening to some peaceful music. With relaxed mind,we approached the exam and it went off well.

Over the series of next 10 days,we took the other 5 exams and we fared off well. Least concerned with result,we spent the vacation in a relaxed way,with a lot of fun and football. Adil scored 8.7 points while Amit and I scored 8.3 and 8.43 respectively. The topper,Tanya (also nicknamed bulldozer by the classmates) scored 9.1. Parents were happy and those dedicated night outs saved us from the apocalypse.  

Top Quotes- Part 3

"My religion is kindness." 
Dalai Lama


"The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart." 
Buddha.


"The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious."
John Scully


"There are things known and things unknown and in between are the doors." 
Jim Morrison


"Be a friend to yourself, and others will be so too." 
Thomas Fuller


"All glory comes from daring to begin." 
William Shakespeare


"Life is like a coin. You can spend it any way you wish, but you only spend it once" 
Lillian Dickson


"Your focus determines your reality." 
George Lucas


"Don't count the days, make the days count." 
Muhammad Ali 


"Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths." 

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Feedburner: Create,Publish,Deliver

Feedburner is a publishing tool for bloggers. It can be used to create a feed for the blog and then post the feed to the social networks you use to promote your blog.

Simply log in with your Google account and type the URL of the blog or the RSS link of the blog. It gives you a choice between RSS or atom feed. Select the one you want and then proceed. It will ask you for a feed name and feed address. Fill the desired feed name and URL. For example, my feed URL is http://feeds.feedburner.com/LetItRemainNameless .Under the publicize tab,select socialize and add the twitter account where you want to deliver your content. Select the frequency of posting and additional text etc. You can also monetize by displaying ads between the RSS feed items in the feed page.

Now,every time the a new post is posted in your blog,Feedburner will post it on your behalf on twitter. You can check the click summary under the analyze tab. Your tweets will be posted 'via google' .

Tweepi: A geekier faster way to bulk add quality followers

Tweepi is a twitter account management application which works fast and smoothly . The application is web based and you don't need to download it. It's a great application to manage your following list and well as followers list,giving you details about whom you follow. You can quickly follow and unfollow twitter users.  

The application comes in free and paid version. But the former version works well for everyone. Tweepi offers the following tools:

Flush: Flush the people who don't follow you back. It lets you have a check whether any of your friends unfollowed you. 

Reciprocate: Reciprocate shows you a list of those people who follow you but you don't follow back. You can select the users and then follow them back.

Cleanup: This application is effective when your timeline gets crowded,unfollow the users based on their activities so that your timeline becomes less crowded.

Follow followers: This loads the followers' list of the user you specify. You can select multiple users and follow them. 

Follow friends: This tool loads the following list of the user you specify. You can then follow the people from the list and follow them.

Copy-Paste: Copy paste the handle names of the users separated by a comma. Tweepi would load their statistics. This can help you to make a comparison between tweeps you know.

List-members: This loads the list members of a public list from the user you specify. You can then add users from the list! 

Premium features: 

• Add selected followers to a list.
• force unfollow (Block users)
• clean up eggs

Link : Tweepi: A geekier faster way to bulk add quality followers

Twitterfeed: Feed your blog to your social networks

Twitterfeed is a basic distributing tool for bloggers. It is a nice application to distribute the content you create,without putting in much efforts! You don't need to post the same link in each and every social network you use to promote your blog. Simply feed your blog's RSS feed to the application and every time a new article is posted,it will automatically post it on your behalf.

It has three steps to create a service

Step 1: Fill up the feed name and the feed URL. Click on the advanced setting below to add suffix,prefix and to control the frequency at which the posts are made. You can also change the URL shortener and filter your feeds using keywords.

Step 2: Add the necessary social networks (Facebook,Linkedin and Twitter) where you want to share the content.

Step 3:  You are all done. Make sure that you have checked the 'feed active' button.

Twitterfeed will now post the content to your social networks and would also give you analytics of the clicks. Do check your click summary from time to time . The best part of Twitterfeed is that it perfectly fetches the RSS feed and posts at the perfect time specified. 

Buffer - A Smarter Way to Share on Social Media

Buffer is another scheduling application that finds itself on the favorite list of many twitter users. I have personally seen some of the awesome tweeps using this application to post their tweets. Just like Tricklr,buffer app lets you schedule tweets in a buffer: set and forget. It's integrated approach lets you share across Twitter,Facebook and Linkedin.

One can sign in with their twitter,Facebook or Linked in account or they can directly log in through their buffer account.

The main interface is again quite simple one. You can type the post in the post box. The lower part or the page contains the posts list. Just like Tricklr,you can re-order,edit,post immediately or delete the post. 

By default,the size of buffer is 10 tweets. You can increase the size by either inviting other friends to buffer or by going to a premium plan. The times to post can be changed in the settings options.

On the whole,buffer is a great application to post tweets at the right times,great application for the bloggers and marketeers to share their content across the social networks.

Link:

Buffer - A Smarter Way to Share on Social Media

Tricklr: Regular tweets,fewer distractions

Tricklr is a great application for those twitter users that want to remain present on their followers' timeline throughout the day. It is basically a scheduling app and lets you schedule tweets so that you don't spam your followers' timeline and even then remain productive on twitter.

The application is quite easy and simple to use. You just need to sign in with twitter and that's it! One doesn't needs to make a separate account for tricklr.

The working interface (above image) is the simplest interface that one can think of. Simply type the tweet in the box and add it to the queue. In the queue,you have the options to move,edit,publish immediately or delete the tweet. The major advantage of the application is that you needn't schedule each and every tweet. The tweets will be posted one after the other in the interval you decide!

By default the time interval between two tweets is 2 hours but you can change the time interval in the settings option. Apart from the time interval,you can also change the time period between which the tweets will be posted.

Overall,the app is just awesome. It is the right app for those who are in a hurry but want to remain effective on twitter. It's simple interface makes it the easiest to operate.

Link: http://tricklrapp.com/

Mummy's Khichdi

I always loved my mummy from the bottom of my heart. It's always a different feeling to call her Maa . But I never cared to show my love. Perhaps I never found it important to show my love towards her. After all,she is always there for me regardless of my attitude towards her. It's perhaps her duty to take care of me.Perhaps she's doing nothing special for me,every mother does this for their children. There are possibly endless reasons like that and no special reason to understand her worth.

I remember the school days when mummy would remain too busy handling the household affairs and on some days she could manage to make just Khichdi for me. Every time she used to make that,It used to be my utter pleasure to to make faces while eating it,since I liked to eat spicy food. It is the duty of every mother to please their children. It is the right of every children to criticize her when she fails to do so.


But times changed. I am living a bachelor's life now,and thank god there are two awesome restaurants at the walking distance from my home. Life is good with all the spicy Biryaani and paneer dishes I can eat now. I have the access to the best food now so there isn't any problem. But perhaps you can eat these food for weeks and months but one day you are bound to reach the saturation point. I was a fine October evening,and by then I was bored of all the food that I had access to. I didn't wanted to eat Biryaani,neither did I wanted to eat Dhosa or Tandoori Chicken. I wanted that old Khichdi that my mummy used to make. But that day,I didn't have my mummy with me! There was no one whom I could order to make that uninteresting Khichdi for me,neither could I criticize anyone for not making food while I was hungry. Life taught me the worth of my mummy in a hard way.

The best of mouth watering dishes available in any restaurant are no match for the food mummy  makes

My eyes were moist. Situations showed me the mirror and I saw how ugly I was from inside! Two days later it was Saturday. I decided to catch the earliest morning train to home and I did. I was back home and the first thing I did was that I hugged mummy tight and say thank you.  My mummy was perplexed on why I said so,but I didn't speak anything more... my voice chocked and I just smiled. Later my mummy asked "Babu toke to jhaal khete bhalo lage na? Aajge kopi diye dalla banayi?" (You like eating spicy food no? Should I prepare cauliflower's dalla for you?) I said "Na ma.. Khichuri kavar mon koreche.. banabe?" (No mummy,I would like to have Khichdi..  will you make it?) 

Going topic less

I wouldn't have been writing this blog post if I hadn't been inspired by Salman Khan's movie Wanted. It's definitely very strange to establish a relationship between a blog post and an action movie,after all the extreme thing to expect is a movie review but perhaps there are too many film critics in this industry and definitely an ambitious person like me dreams to be different from the crowd (Only dreams,some dreams never change into reality).

Let me now reveal the relationship between the two,without further digressing (okay.. I can't digress much as well,today I am topic less). The thing is Salman's dialogue "Ek baar jo maine commitment kar di to mai apne aap ki bhi nahi sunta"  (For the English friends the translation is: Once I commit something,I don't listen to anyone,not even to myself) influenced me a bit . If you had expected some humor to be revealed,then I must say,it was my sheer pleasure to let your hopes down,perhaps this is going to happen a lot more as you you read further down. Okay,the commitment is that before some weeks,I had decided to complete 26 blog posts this year before June ends. For those who have never stressed their minds much while solving mathematical problem,the engineer inside me (yes there are chances that I would get the degree after three years from now) would like to to inform that we are about to cross half of the year,both month-wise and week-wise,a year that would have 10 days less than usual,if we consider what the Maya calender predicts. 


Anyways,without digressing much for the second time,I'd come back to the point (at least to the failed attempt of making one) I wanted this journey to look a bit smooth,with one blog post posted every week in the calender year 2012,amid a busy schedule (which included a lot of sleeping) but perhaps it's easier to commit than to fulfill it (I hope the ones in relationship would agree to me) Anyways,I am a warrior and I fight until the last moment and hence this attitude inspired me to write a post without a topic. There are situations when things change from bad to worse,still one needs to make a fair attempt to fulfill the commitments they made,and writing this particular blog post,I want to set an example as how disciplined one must be to give priorities to their commitments.


I won't deny the fact that I am bragging about my abilities to fulfill commitments (at least there's no harm in saying so) partially because I have become desperate enough staying singe (yes I may sound way too melodramatic to say these things at a tender age of 19,but that is true :( ) and this would be the best way possible to let the single girls know that I am a sincere guy who knows how to be responsible enough. Although numerically, this particular blog has been been viewed more times by me than a combination of everyone else who accidentally clicked the link,I personally hope some single girls would be reading this post and would approach me after this,this hope remains intact as Google fails to give gender based analysis and there always remains a possibility that at least any girl would come across this post.


Okay,enough of telling the world how much pathetic I am.. I have something better to tell you. The title would have been more interesting if I would have performed some simple subtraction and would have used "Going top-less" . At least it would have attracted more men to the post. They would have faced disappointment later but that doesn't matter as they would face disappointment in any case. Top-less reminds me of the phrase that my friends used to use in childhood "Iska to top-floor khaali hain" (Yes they used to consider me dumb right from childhood,I don't know how I made it to engineering) . It's no doubt that you must be thinking the same about me till now after reading  this much of the post.


On a serious note,it's quite difficult to post an article without a topic. It is much easier to post tweets when you are blank. In fact all my tweets serve as a living example (If you consider tweets as living thing,otherwise non-living) of how things can be posted without dealing in even an iota of significance. Unfortunately I can't write a blog post to wish everyone good morning. Neither can I write a blog post to comment a single 'LOL'. Yes things are so easy to deal in 140 characters :) 


Although I have brought some contrast between my blog posts and tweets,there is a similarity between them: Both suck and no one pays attention to any of them! (Neither do I) :(. This guilt of not getting any attention,neither on twitter nor on blogger bites me hard. Perhaps sometimes I feel like changing my online name to Natasha Mehra or Ayesha Malhotra and start being obnoxious. This will definitely get me attention but I will get nothing else out of it!

It's better to suck at being original rather than being fake and awesome

It took me more than half an hour to think and type so much. Yes thirty minutes of my life has been wasted in writing another post that won't receive any attention. If my room partners come across this particular post of mine,they would be highly pleased over their decision to devote their precious time to sleep rather than pretending to be a blogger. Dear reader (I know no one is reading this but still it's good to pretend and escape the reality) thank you for the attention that you have paid to read this entire piece of crap. This piece of crap was brought to you by my parents (now that I have acknowledged them as sponsors they can't blame that the money they paid on my internet bill went in vain). I hereby end the 22nd blog post for the year.

  

Missing undo button: The story of my first love

Undo button: How desperately we need it,but in reality,life doesn't provides us one.

Human beings are prone to make mistakes. We make mistakes,more mistakes,silly mistakes in exams,serious mistakes in life and some embarrassing ones too. The saga of screwing up goes on.

A flashback to childhood reminds me of  those times when I was first learning to ride a bicycle. I fell down probably a hundred of times,getting a lot of scratches on my knees and elbows before "finally" learning the thing. I was yet to learn operating the computer at that time and the innocent me was not aware of these commands:  The undos and the redos. Therefore,I couldn't have thought of these vague ideas at that time,but remembering those times,I always feel funny how pleasurable the process of learning to ride a bicycle would have been if we were powered with these virtual commands.

Mistakes such as falling down from a bicycle aren't big ones. We can afford making such mistakes and they do no harm whatsoever. However,as we grow up in life,mistakes turn out to take a new definition,a new face,which end up causing embarrassments at time. Perhaps there are lot of such mistakes each one of us has committed,so have I. But in life,some of the embarrassing mistakes turn out to be sweet in the due course of time.


It was early days of September and I was new to Facebook. I was new to chatting and I instantly fell in love with it! On one such day,a sly classmate of mine had provided me a link telling me to check it out. As a newcomer to social networks and possibly unaware of the pranks that could be played out,I followed her instructions like a lost puppy. The link directed me to a "compatibility match test". One had to fill out their name and the name of their crush and it would analyze on how compatible the couple turns out to be. 


This girl,my crush,was a classmate of mine,pretty descent and pretty as well. I had a crush on her since 9th standard and I always adored her presence in the class. Although she was unaware of this,she used to make my day. I always felt lonely when she was absent in class. I was deeply lost in her love but never had enough guts to contact her. 


Okay,coming back to the point,I saw at the page. "Cool! Why not give it a try?" I said to myself and filled up the details and whack! I pressed the enter button. The next moment,I was redirected to a message "Sorry! You have been fooled,the name of your crush has been messaged to so-and-so@some-xyz-mail.com (The girl's email ID who had sent me the link)". 


I desperately tried to press the undo button,forgetting that life doesn't happens to be on Microsoft Word,you can't press the undo button. "Shit! You have been trapped".


For the next two days,I faced all sorts of embarrassment,with my classmates not leaving any chance to pull my legs. Although that didn't concern me much,the real concern lied in how embarrassing these things would have been for her (my crush). Out of guilt,I never looked at her,trying to avoid eye-contacts whenever we were about to face each other.

How desperately I wanted an undo button from god at that time but god flatly rejected my plea. 

Perhaps god had better plans in mind. 


Two months later,it was the fun fair. Each of the class in our school is allotted two stalls. The responsibilities are then divided among the classmates. Coincidentally,I was given the responsibility to manage the Chole Bhature stall's affairs with her. I smiled at her and she smiled back. After the duty got over,I gathered all my courage and spoke up "Hey,are you hungry?". Amid confusion,she remained silent before finally telling yes.
"Cool! Lets taste how bad the Chole Bhature is" I said.  "Umm.. okay" She smiled. 


We took two plates full of the mouth watering Punjabi Dish before settling down.


Me:  Hey I'm seriously sorry for all the mess I made 


She: What mess?


Me: The one at classroom...


She: It's fine re! I was actually shocked to know that you..


Me: You?


She (smilingly): sort of like me.. I seriously never expected that from you.. 


Me: actually I wasn't sure on how to approach so I decided to keep it to myself.


She: idiot you are! You would let someone go away from your life rather than approaching her..


I remained silent,being totally blank on how to reply. But she wasn't done yet..


She: And so silly.. you can't even dare to ask your crush's phone number.. phattu (timid) you are.


Adrenaline rushed throughout my body and my heart pumped as wildly as possible. All I wondered was at what rate my heart could pump blood before my veins collapsed. She took the responsibility of interrupting my baseless thinking. "What? You don't even have a phone or what?" We exchanged our numbers and we stayed together throughout the proceedings that evening. We wished good night at the parking and left for out respective homes.


For the next four months,we endlessly texted each other during our free time. We'd be busy during the lectures exchanging glances and endlessly staring each other. During the lunch time,we would be busy sharing each others' lunch. My classmates were shocked and they tried to make fun of me,but perhaps I was too lost in her to pay attention to their comments.


Finally the farewell day came. A series of songs were performed right from "Purani jeans" to "pal" leading to a mixed feeling of joy (remembering the entire journey) and sadness (Feeling that the journey had finally come to an end). Everyone had tears in their eyes and the girls melodramatically hugged each other to express their grief. Finally it was click click time. She was dressed in a beautiful black saree that day. She handed over the camera to one of the juniors and hugged me tight for the photograph. After the photograph,she brought her lips close to my ears and whispered something that I had never expected "Idiot! Do you already know or do I need to tell you that I have fallen for you?"


I was completely cold,unable to believe what she just said. Controlling the sudden burst of euphoria,I whispered to her ears "Oh shit! Now I need to suffer you for the entire lifetime,poor me". She softly slapped me one. No one around us was aware of what just happened,I quickly remembered god and I could feel like he's smiling and telling to me "So you still need an undo button?"


Getting screwed up is an usual thing in life. Everyone chalks out a plan for their life,but at different times,life ceases to be the dream we dream it to be. But in the end,things turn out to be magical,being a part of the story that perhaps even the most excellent writers can't write,after all it has been written by the best story-writer in the world: The almighty.