Sudipta's Life

In the old days, there used to be wars; fought with swords and daggers and hoarse battle-cries and men looking murderously at each other from horseback. These days, the action has shifted to the playground. Wars are still fought, on football and rugby fields amidst rain, snow and mud. The men still look at each other murderously, and the spectators still cry themselves hoarse in support of their team --- welcome to British rugby and soccer. We went to a football match between Hearts and Aberdeen some time ago, and it is an experience worth telling. Both these teams belong to the top Scottish division in soccer, and so the match promised at least a good game. It was scheduled to start at 3:00, and we went there to support Hearts!! (Direct dil se ;) Well, the real reason we were supporting Hearts was that three of our colleagues from Edinburgh (umm, not colleagues, really -- client system admin, client associate manager and project manager) were Hearts supporters. We met at 12:00 noon ...

Thank you, dear reader, for imagining me to be 'saint' in the title of the post. Actually, he is the other saint who was the talk of the world yesterday: Saint Valentine. On popular demand (where one person is the whole of the population who demanded it), this is an account of what I saw happening in the run up to the day and on the day itself. I would have loved to post this one with pictures... but they are unavailable due to various reasons... and so you must see through my eyes as of now. We had gone sightseeing this Saturday and Sunday... to the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Royal Museum, the Edinburgh Dungeon, etc. and it was really then that I realised how much the term 'love is in the air' meant. Right from the supermarket to the footside store, everybody had prepared something special for the Valentine's day. In TESCO, the local equivalent of D'Mart, the entire row selling wines and champagnes (yes, there is an entire aisle with bottles on both sides at...

Ok junta, I know that some of you have been waiting for this new post to come up. Actually blogging is a problem here.. don't get much time to surf, and whatever time I get, I usually end up spending on checking mails, etc. But don't worry -- I will have something good coming up very soon. For now, I think that this post is best said with pictures. So read on... "Edinburgh is", someone had said, "what Rome should have been like". This place is indeed beautiful... with all the old-era buildings and statues and monuments, I get a fairly good idea what that man meant. A couple of weekends back, we had set out for the castle at about 12 noon (now, don't squirm please... even in Scotland you cannot do without a 12 hour sleep on Friday nights). But outside, it was still cold, windy, and as good as a 6:30 a.m. morning at home. Take a look below -- that is how it looks at 12 noon here: At the top of the hill is the castle... and the fountain you see in the foreg...

I am in my apartment right now, typing away on my laptop. While I am here, I thought I'd write about where I live. You might be wondering about whats so interesting about somebody's living quarters? Well, read on... When I arrived here, I was left at the door of the apartment by the driver of the taxi, and he said, "Go on in". I bid him goodbye, and then walked to the door. It was a wood-panelled glass double-door, something where after you open one door, there is another one inside right after which you open to get into the lobby. And it was then that I discovered that the first door was locked --- woops! The only other thing you could see there was a steel board on the wall beside with loads of smooth circular buttons that had numbers marked 11 through 48, and a little wire-mesh on top covering a speaker. Hmm... so this was just like in the movies: you press a button, and you can talk directly to the person in the apartment whose number you pressed. Now the question...

Dear readers, This post is going to be about how my trip was like from Mumbai till Edinburgh. But there is a little problem here: I will not be so frequent in posting replies to your comments or even visitng your blogs. Internet access is a problem here and I am posting this as a copy-paste from something I noted on a Notepad :) Ok, lets start. When I was leaving my room in Mumbai, I had my share of feel-good and feel-bad moments. As someone who has travelled out can confirm, you usually wear the heaviest set of clothing you've got when you travel, so that the baggage weight is reduced. In my case, it was a suit. So there I came out of my room, wearing a suit with a nice shirt, shining shoes, prim and proper shaved face... you get the picture. Now, it was about 9:30-10:00 at night and almost all our neighbours were in the open area just in front of the housing society, having their share of end-of-the-day chit-chat. So here I come out, in a fully suave outfit, with a majestic Arist...

Yups... onsite!! *Claps, dances about, does a jig on the polished floor, tumbles because he cannot control himself, squeals and shouts 'Yay-yay-yayyyy'!!* Yes, dear reader, yours truly is going onsite to Scotland, Edinburgh. Prerona , if you are reading this, please check your hotmail and gmail mailboxes and let me know when you will be back. I am scheduled to fly on the night of the 18th of January (yes, it is that close), British Airways. This assignment is supposed to last till the end of March, and so I hope to taste a very cold UK Winter in the 2-3 months in the time that I am there. While I am all kicked about going there, let me tell you what has been happening here in the past few weeks. After I was asked to submit my passport's and other information, the sudden feeling of "Yess!! I'm going onsite" grabbed me. Initially, 6 people were asked to submit the documents and we were told that any one or two people would be sent. So, all of us here were a bit ...

Ok, people, since you all have commented so much on my last post , I think you deserve to know about the phone call and its details as well, or rather, why I could not speak the following evening (never mind to or with whom ;). Our college is located at a place called ' Ichchhanath ' in Surat, and it derives its name from a temple located just outside the college gate, dedicated to Lord Shiva. One of his various names is 'Ichchhanath', meaning The Lord Of Will. It is a different matter that our college is an IIT (Ichchhanath Institute of Technology ;) ). But we digress... Most people from our college go to this temple at least once a day. Sometimes, when they rise early and go for the morning tea, people visit the temple. Most people go and visit it in the evening, just after the college is over, sometime between incessant 'bakar', badam-mixture and tea. Also, some people visit it just after or before a big journey, maybe a travel home on a vacation, etc. I hope...