From Left to Right: Murtaza "topi" Azad, Hemant "marathi" Bhanarkar , Sachin "chammadu" Lad , Alok "manan" Raoka, and myself i.e. Punit "chaman" Vora

Was thinking of the old days today...and this is one of the best pictures that instantly revives my old days ...me, my friends and telangkhedi lake...which is Nagpur's beach, river, lake and pond...nothing compares to it.....this was clicked around 5 years ago i guess...but it feels like yesterday...ofcourse all of us have changed a lot in the sense that all of us are now working and have a "degree"...Murtaza is now engaged, Hemant is a doctor, Alok is in Infosys, and Sachin and Myself doing our Masters in Computer Science in the US...and don't know where life is going to take us...but I would pay anything to get these days back in my life....

am thankful to GOD for giving me the best of friends and the best of life...

Beauty Peagents and world peace

Just read yesterday that a Pune girl was crowned Miss India 2005. And that reminded me of the biblical relation between beauty peagents and world peace :-) If we take the history of beauty peagents (of all forms and varieties), 90% of the winners must have answered at some point of the contest that they want to do something for world peace. If your answer never had a hint of world peace, you never had a chance of winning, honey.

Thinking of world peace is not bad at all. Good thoughts make a good person. And neither do I say that those girls are bad human beings. But has someone ever done a study to see how many of them actually work for 'peace' even at their country level.

So, please don't say that you are thinking of working for peace and then end up showing your bare backs or doing "item numbers" in a sleazy B grade Bollywood film. That's not world peace. Neither is going to an orphan house once and getting those pictures published in 100 different magazines. And if you can't understand that, then for God's sake take back the words that you were going to work for world peace. It's an insult, to the world and to peace.

I hate it when they publicize these peagents as girls who posses both the 'body' and the 'grey cells.' Yeah, we all watch these beauty peagents to see how intelligent these girls are, don't we?. And scientific research has shown that a female mind starts working much faster and the intelligence shows of much better, if they are wearing a bikini :-)

I don't mind watching a beauty peagent. We men are more than happy. The girls are beautiful and they deserve all the ogling/appreciation (whatever u like to call it). But the girls can easily say that they want to go to Bollywood, when they are asked about their wish. Perfectly acceptable. It's a proffesion where you earn well and get noticed. Who wants anything more?

But girls, I don't want to hear the words "World Peace" from your mouths ever again.

winter is almost over

Its Spring time...but I am not really happy coz it's spring time...I dont even know how Spring is coz this is my first Spring season in the US. The real reason for my happiness is that winter is almost over :-) . This was my first winter in the US. And I had a good taste of it. And in Illinois, the place of my university, the 'lake effect' adds salt to the wounds. Chilly winds originating from the Great Lakes and coming south make the hands numb in seconds. And the gloves don't help either after a certain extent. Standing for two minutes in the open is enough to foster a fierce hatred for winter. The roads become slippery. The heating bill was $100 a month on an average!! And the worst of all is 'static' current which you get when you touch a metal..I hate it. It really creeps you out. You are unaware and then as soon as you touch something metallic or even some other person sometimes...u get that small current..i've even seen a small spark sometimes when i touch the door knob....and it freaks me out. Well, all that is going to be over in two weeks...so it's time to rejoice...

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My exam of 'Oracle' is going to be a take home exam. I wonder what would be the case if we had a take home exam in India as well...any comments??

I don't understand...

I don't understand the world. No matter how hard I've tried, I just don't seem to get it. I visited www.sourceforge.net ( for those of you who dont know, it's the topmost website for open source projects..more than 90,000 listed projects) and I saw a 'banner ad' of Microsoft on the main page. Now wait a minute, was it Microsoft? Yes indeed..it was.

Why the largest 'open source' resources website in the world even had an advertisement of Microsoft, leave alone the fact that it was on the front page, eludes me. All the open source guys have been spewing venom on Microsoft since the day of inception of Windows. Then why do you advertise it? And why Microsoft chose sourceforge to advertise is what further amazes/confuses me. They were advertising Visual Studio.NET. Agreed that sourceforge is visited by geeks and people 'might' use Visual Studio to develop open source projects, but geeks already know what technology to use to develop there software. And do you think they are going to use a registered/purchased Visual Studio.NET?? I doubut so.

And btw, aren't these geeks 'supposedly' Microsoft haters in the first place. Yes, Very much so. Then why in the world put/ allow putting Microsofts advertisement on your favorite website. Well, as I said, I don't understand the world..let's just leave it to Microsft in Redmond and the geeks in their basements and garages and let them figure it out for themselves.

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A good friend gave me a call yesterday. From India. Really didn't expect that call. Feels good if you get such calls more often. And also feels good to know that the communication channel is 'duplex'.. atleast sometimes. It's not always myself whose sending emails and asking people how r they doin?

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'Discovered' another A R RAhman song. I use the word 'discovered' coz I have heard most of his songs from most of his films. Wonder how I missed this one. It is from the film "Meenaxi: A tale of 3 cities"...it's the same film that has the stupendous song "Chinnamma Chilakkamma". One of the best percussions I have ever heard. Ditto with this song titled "Dhuan Dhuan". Sivamani at his best. Need I say more? Don't miss it.

First Post

Finally.....

After 'toggling' quite a bit between a YES and a NO about whether to write a blog, the answer was ultimately in the affirmative. This is going to be the space where I will write about my dissertation on the "Reciprocations of the newly discovered Intergalactic Quasar Radiations on Einstien's Theory of Relativity." Interesting, right?

Waittt.., dont click the back button of your browser..you haven't come to the wrong place...

I know I would never understand what the hell in the world the above topic means..and never will you.. :-) So just chill..i m just like you..

I plan to write about everything I possibly can..

About my blogger ID (yeah I know it sounds cool) , the credit goes to the Bryan Adams song "I'm a Liar" from the Album "On a Day like Today", where he says..

Baby i'm a liar..a victim of desire..
I was over my head..forget what I said..

Neway, gotta get back to work. There are no 'weekends' for a grad student..well OK..I'll correct myself..a grad student who doesnt do his work on the weekdays...

later..