Its raining....and how!!

Bangalore's been getting a fresh bout of rains from the past week or so. And its not the normal Bangalore showers that last for about an hour and disappear. Its more like the ad for Energiser - Goes on and on and on...! Today's been a bit of respite, though the clouds look murky and threaten to burst open anytime soon.
Got lots of expected 'ugh' reviews for my last mongol pandey joke. Heh heh, am so used to those groans in response to my jokes :-D But I loved it :-)
I go through those phases - there was a phase when I was into PJs.
And then poems (had posted them here. Take a look - My Collection of Poems); well that is a pretty niche area. You really need to tax your thoughts to come up with a poem - even a bad one requires quite a bit of effort. Wonder about Wordsworth and the like. They must have been driven by a strong passion. And yes, a love of nature. I can never forget 'Daffodils'. I think it was it was in 8th Std that we had it in our English textbook. Still haven't forgotten it. 'They flash upon the inward eye, Which is the bliss of solitude'. Beautiful, that poem is.

Next there was a phase for really short stories. Captured my imagination for a while. Need to think to write such stuff as well, the 55-word kinds.
Now I am back to my PJs. I have always been interested in the 'pun'-ny side of words. Just a small play on them words and you have a good laugh in your hands. Here's one more. This was inspired by the Federation Cup ads that are on Zee TV. Noticed one of the hoardings near Forum Mall.

In Italy, they have special road crossings for ladies in lingerie. In fact, they even have a special nomenclature for such crossings. And they are...

Ze-bra crossings.

Ha ha, I know I know. Maybe its not funny at all. Big deal, get out your guns and shoot me. I laughed out loud when I made it up.

Here are some of the pics that I took during my visit to Mangalore last weekend. Nothing great. But, am still learning and still very low on the learning curve. Need to keep taking pics to get to some level. I have pretty good friends in whose steps I can follow - Suprada, Vikas and Sathwick. Who, not long ago, used to think a camera is to capture social occasions and functions. Now its a lot more. And with digital cameras, no requirement of developing the film, one can really make it a passion. (Click on each of the pictures to get a larger image)

Back to my jokes...

Benn some time since I posted...more because I was out of town last weekend during Dussera to Mangalore and my native place. Was raining pretty much there and the whole place looked like a hill station. Felt good to drive around there amongst the hills and wafting mists.
Did take quite a few snaps which I am too bored to upload now. Will upload them soon.
Here a joke I just created few hours ago.

Genghis Khan, after beingn defeated, came to Uttar Pradesh and settled in Benaras and started a small paaan shop. This post-war life of his was chronicled in a famous Hindi movie titled....

Mongol Paaan-De

I know, I know...but I am like this only :-))

Short of the Day...

Well, its raining cats and dogs agian in Bangalore. Strange to have so much rains in October. And its slated to continue for another week at least. Guess lots of Navratri festivities are going to be dampened. So, if any place, Mysore is the place to be during Dasara. Grand grand spectacle it'll be.
Here's another short one:

He loved her. A lot! To the point of obsession. But she never reciprocated. So here they were, all alone, and he scanned the horizon for company. There was no one. He realized the opportunity he had and grabbed her from behind close towards him. She expected this. She wheeled around and let go a fierce kick towards him. He stuttered, then fell headlong. She too couldn't hold her balance and stumbled forth and rolled downwards behind him. He checked himself - a broken collarbone. Damn! She had better luck and only a few scratches.
Down below, their uncle thundered - "I sent you to get water. Jack! What the $&@!# were you doing up there with Jill?"

~prashanth

Team outing...and another short story!

We had our team outing today to Guestline Resorts on Hosur Road. The funniest thing was that we almost spent as much time at the resort as the time travelling to it :-)) Hosur Road past Silk Board junction is a nightmare if you drive/ride! I really pity all those software engineers who drive to E-City and around! (maybe that is how they are able to handle and cope with all the stress on the job ;-)) As I read in a cartoon a few days back, Life's like Hosur Road - no shortcuts!
The outing itself was good fun - to start off, the eternal favorite of all trip bus journeys, Antakshari. Heard some songs which I didn't even know existed :-) Once we reached the resort and refreshed ourselves with a welcome drink grape juice - which suspiciously tasted like wine to me (ona tangent, isn't wine old grape? Is there a connection, I wonder), we immediately started off playing cricket. Wonderful game we had, in the end, it was tie. Great effort by Bharath who took a lost cause (we were 0 runs /3 wickets after 1 over) almost to a win. Yours truly also helped a bit in the resurrection. After cricket, it was the badminton courts that needed to be conquered. Did that, then it was time for lunch. There were about 3 companies who had their outing that day. So it was clear struggle for the lunch and desserts. They should have put up a first-come first-serve board out there :-D After lunch, it was again some badminton, then fooling around in the swimming pool and finally after the customary group snaps, head back home. And as usual, the Hosur Road traffic didn't disappoint in the least. 2 hours for 15KMs. Government, please note. At this rate, making Bangalore Wi-Fi is the best option. People can work from a traffic jam itself!

And yeah, these short stories have really caught my imagination. Here's another try fro me (though I don't promise that this will be less than 55 words. Give an artist some leeway, yaar. No good constricting creativity ;-)).

He was the most brilliant in the class. He knew it. As usual, he sat dreamily under his favorite tree in his uncle's garden. At the same time, few of his jealous classmates were plotting against him. They discussed - "He's such a teacher's pet. And he gets all the girls' attention". Another one said, "Let's take revenge." All agreed to this.
They hid under the huge apple tree and the best marksman amongst them picked up a rotten apple fallen on the ground and aimed at their adversary. The aim was perfect. It hit him right on the center of his head.
Isaac stumbled from his dream with a start. He could feel a sharp pain on his head.
Immediately he wondered - "Why did the apple fall down instead of flying up?".

~prashanth

Tagged!

Well, was just wandering and came to know that pensive Meeta had tagged me. Well, its simple. You got to try and tell a story in 55 words! Well here's my try. Fictional, of course :-)

The tall, young man was despondently thinking at VT. All his efforts had come to naught. He had bought the ticket back to Allahabad. Suddenly he felt one ray of hope surge within. He told himself determinedly - "Amitabh, you are destined to succeed". He tore the ticket and walked back into the milling Bombay crowd.

Let's see what they come up with. By the amount of posts I am putting up today, looks like I don't have much work. Which is definitely not the case. I am an efficient worker, you see (this is just in case my manager comes across this blog ;-))

~prashanth