An Old Saying

An old Gujarati saying:

kaman thi choodelo baand,
moh thi nikdelo shabd,
veetelo samay,
ek var gaya toh pachi pacha nathi aavta.

The second line can be generalized to not just spoken words but also actions that are committed. This line can be interpreted in two ways: you should be careful of your actions & choose your words carefully; the other interpretation would be to forgive your loved ones for what they said/did to you, they might not always mean what they said (esp. if they are angry at that time). Accept their apology and move on.

The Dark Side of the Moon

I see the dark side of the moon,
Growing some days, devouring the bright side
Shrinking other days, defeated by the light
Waxing and waning, like the devil inside me.

I see the dark side of the moon,
Within it I see my dark side too.

We do it once, we do it right! :)

The planning started on March 26 2006, and finally it was a memorable trip on Memorial Day weekend (May 26, 2006 – May 28, 2006) at Adirondacks :).

Lists for things to be bought for the trip kept pouring in. Kaushal taking the lead went ahead with organizing most of the trip, hats off! He made reservations for the camping site at Nicks Lake in the Old Forge region. Also, the rafting trip was planned & booked for Moose River by Kaushal & Shantanu. Tents purchased by Golu & Chintu (after too much research by Chintu ;)). Grill & barbeque enthusiasm showed by Kavin. Purvin & Chintu landed up doing loads of shopping of all the essentials, be it light, food, protection, etc. Kanan & I prepared thepla & other food necessary. Purvin & myself also researched on the trekking & hiking trails with no success :-P. Here we were all set for the trip, the car trunks loaded & all pumped up for an exciting & adventure-filled weekend ahead … Yoohooo…!

May 26, 2006 (Friday):

We (Buffalo gang) loaded the last bit onto the trunk and off for a great start at 4:30pm. We started with loud music in the car & all crazy acts. With Kanu aunty in the car, not a minute can go without music :-P Nautanki in the car! On the other side, Golu was struggling his way out of the DC traffic. Finally made it to Shantanu’s place and they drove to Kavin’s place where Chintu & Kavin were waiting all ready to start.

With continuous runs of 80-85 mph we made the 5+ hour journey in about 4 hours to the Old Forge town. Mother Nature started showing its hues :). Couldn’t help but appreciate the beauty every time. In this jhol, we lost our way… had to call the camping people to figure it out. Finally made it to the destination, just in time. B-29/B-31 was where we headed to; it was 10:00pm by now. It was only now that the other gang had made their move out, they would take 4-5 more hours.

Super-excited us, started unpacking. Unboxed the tent, and here we were building our tents. Reading the manual, finding our way out, sticking in the right rods, tying the right rope, and we were all set… tambu gaadh diya finally ;) The traditional Lantern hung on a tree branch by its side. All our energy wasted, we hogged on to the theplas & athanu ;) We decided to take a bit of sleep before the other gang came in. So some craziness in the tent for a while, before we slept away to glory. Boss, tambu mein dhoom-dhaam ;) They arrived earlier than expected, neat driving must say. Disturbed our sleep for some gap-shap. Shantanu ke haathon ka bana sheera in the middle of the night tasted great. Then Purvin uttered the golden words “Atyaare sui jao laa, nahitar kaal no aakho daado bagadshe” ;) O’boy… we picked up on him the entire trip bcoz of this statement! We distributed in the 2 tents for some golden sleep before the long day which was in store for us.


May 27, 2006 (Saturday):

Woke up by 9 o’clock… I know it’s late, but thought we’ll take it easy ;) Headed towards the showers to freshen up & get ready. Pilan mein thoda change tha… we decided to experiment with the grill & campfire before we headed to trek/hike. The campfire wouldn’t light enough, the charcoal wouldn’t get red-hot :(. With few futile attempts, we decided to move-on. The hunger satiated by sandwiches & chips.

And we started for the trek. Drove to the Cascade Lake trail (4.6 mile round trip) With great zeal… the trail went on with fun being the greatest ingredient. The walk through the tall green trees, some times bare trees, also through the sward, the swarm, marshy patches. Purvin had his shoe caught up in the marshy lands, hero-giri joh karne gaya tha bhidu ;) A beautiful sight of the waterfall refreshed us. A wash under the falls was rejuvenating… but the bugs had made life difficult. Logon ne unn bugs ko kitni gaaliyan di thi :-P Climbed on tree branches, Bandar-giri toh humare khoon mein hai ;) Chalte-chalte we eventually caught a sight of the lake. It was indeed blissful, my wait for the sight of a water-body ended. Took pictures in abundance, each one of us trying our hand at photography. Then got to see a group of people on horse back. Rested at a mini-falls; wetted our feet in the chill-cold waters & did kidas :-P Not to miss out, Purvin dropped his cellphone in the water - talent hai boss! ;) The trail ultimately came to an end. Pretty worn out by now…

Drove to the Bald Mt. Trail (one mile hike). This was really exciting, and we were cursing ourselves for doing that stupid previous trail. Many steep sections offering excellent view of Fulton Chain of Lakes. This was indeed scenic… started experimenting with B/W & Sepia modes on the camera. Eventually reached the mountain top and straight away climbed a tower there. The top view was mind-blowing; out of this world… jannat! By now the athlete & the smart one, Golu had cracked us up completely. And ya… not to forget, his Aniket and Thumbs Up ;) Maarna mat mujhe…! Kavin had lost his stamina by now, fukadi saale aisa hi hoga; he took a quick nap. Now tired, we decided to head back to our camping site. 4 of us zoomed down the slopes, with Golu falling once when his ABS system failed :-P. The other 4 lost their way, so we had to wait ½ hr at the base fighting the bugs. And we were outta here…

Ab toh logone thaan lee thee, Campfire aur Grill ko toh chalu karke hi rahenge. While Kanan & myself closed our eyes for a while, the guys did a gr8 job ;) (Don’t get ur mind to think wild). They just lit the campfire & as per instructions given by the gas-station guy got the charcoal to the red-hot stage ;) Kaushal used his expertise from Samiyala to get the woods burning to fire. Ab garmi badh gayi thee :-P Bando ne sahi kaam kiya, grilled veggies & burgers were ready for us. Shantanu & Purvin, the hot pair showed their culinary skills & served hot grilled food to all of us. Now was when we really felt the tire… we gave each other massages (Don’t worry, not foot massages ;)) We crashed in the tents, some snoring, some shivering in the cold.


May 28, 2006 (Sunday):

Morning was too early on Sunday. 6:30am the alarm rang & we struggled to get out of the tent into the cold. Now it was time to pack up & get to our rafting site on time. Ab tamboo ukhaadne ki baari thi. Tents out in no time, but fight thi iss samaan ko ab car ke trunk mein fit karne ki. Convinced the other car to take both the tents with them ;) Cleaned up the litter & left the camping site. We had to say bye-bye to the grill. Also, FSA ki yaad dila di meine Kavin & Shantanu ko. They had to dig into the dumpster to actually get my shoes out, which were by mistake dumped into the trash :-P U guys rock… Thanx :-)

Now came the super-exciting part, white-water rafting. Oh did I mention… before we left on Friday the rafting guys called us up & told us that they won’t be conducting the trip. To our good luck they arranged for a level 4 rapid in the Hudson River (17 mile stretch) for us :-). Jo hota hai ache ke liye hota hai. We grabbed coffee & finished the theplas for breakfast. Now we had to cover a distance of about 60 miles within 45 mins. The drivers did a great job of driving through the curved roads. Some great maneuvering of the wheel & we made it just in time. They rushed us through wearing our rafting gear; we were all set to hit the waters in our wet-suits!

Here we were, finally listening to instructions from our raft guide (dunno if there’s a special noun you relate to them). Colleen, I guess that was her name & not even sure if I spelt it right. Guys, correct me if I’m wrong. Especially Kavin & Golu who were busy hitting on her, bahut try maara boss! Last row on the raft bhi occupy kiya, sorry daal nahi gali :-P Left back, right forward, dig it in and the best of all ‘Paddle check’ were the commands made known to us. Battling against the rapids, taking turns in securing the first row on the raft, the swims in the still sections, the lemonade & wraps served during the lunch break, the rapids again, Purvin’s fall in one of the rapids – style hai! The sensational beauty around was truly enchanting… The last 2-3 miles were still waters, the last 45 mins relaxing, playing the 20 question game. I became famous for my question, did the freedom-fighter become famous before or after the freedom struggle ;) :-P Kaushal would invariably pull my leg “Sabse bada stud kaun – Saloni”. We had a great time pulling Golu’s leg… Thumbs up, taste the thunder! Finally we reached the shore & helped her pull up our raft onto the truck.

The rafting company sponsored dinner tasted even more amazing ;) And once we had refilled our stomachs, we decided to spend sometime together before we departed. Maps in hand, now we were hunting for a place to relax on the grass, get a view of the lake and chit-chat for a while. The drive on 30 S was picturesque indeed! The scenic beauty never failed to impress me, attract me (a sight of a water body – my weakness, u see). We found parking on the banks of Mason lake. It was too beautiful all around. Have no words in praise of the blissful sight.

We munched some left over food & there came the time to depart :(. We finally took the last picture & bid farewell to each other, dispersed. Adieus amigos!

This wasn’t enough that our drive back was even more marvelous. The vivid skyline, the orange formed a silhouette… astounding.

Wohoa… still cant get over all the niceties of the weekend. Cant stop telling stories about it to friends around. Hence venting it all out here :-P

WE DO IT ONCE, WE DO IT RIGHT… What say public?

p.s. Oye boss, feel free to add if I've missed out on something. Apun se koi galti hua toh maaf kar dena.

Live Passion With: Youth For Equality

Live Passion With: Youth For Equality

Buffalo Sabres vs. Boston Bruins

Last Sunday I went to watch an Ice Hockey game at the HSBC Arena in downtown Buffalo with my office co-workers. The game was between Buffalo Sabres and Boston Bruins. Personally, I am no big fan of hockey or for that matter any other sport. But since I got the ticket worth 77 dollars for free, din't want to miss the opportunity ;). For a change, most of the people at my work place follow ice hockey over football - may be because the Buffalo Bills suck and Sabres are one of the best teams in the league.

Anyways, so back to the game. When I got the ticket, all I knew about the game was it's called 'Ice Hockey' and nothing more than that ;) and even today I hardly know anything more than that. However, I found hockey very easy to follow over football. I tried a lot but still can't follow football, but hockey isn't that bad for me. Also, in hockey the players do fight a lot with the opposite team. I saw at least 4 such instances of fighting. Surprisingly, the referres stand there and allow them to fight instead of stopping, and that's really the exciting thing about this game.

So, being a no great fan of hockey or Sabres, my prime goal was to experience how does it feel like being in the Arena and watching the game live for free..:). And believe me it really feels good. The stadium was something - for me it was a first such experience, so I found it very amazing and overwhelming. The stadium was almost packed with 18690 people, that's really a big number for a city like Buffalo. I had no idea that Buffalo has such a huge number of hockey fans. But it does. The best part of the arena was its sound system with thousands of wattage. And when the speakers are at full volume, nobody in the stadium can sit without cheering and shouting and making as much noise as they could. Truly, those speakers really made me cheer 'Let's Go Buffalo' again and again. And you could really feel adrenalin rushing in your veins.

There were hundreds of such exciting events happening to keep the crowd charged on an ongoing basis. To add to this, the Sabres being a better team over Bruins and Sabres playing at home - the crowd was really going mad with every goal they made. And you can only feel sorry for the Bruins. Poor guys...!

Btw, the Sabres won squarely with 6 goals, while the Bruins could only make 2.

Happy Holi

If I had been in India this time around, I would be completely immersed in Rang and enjoying my favorite Festival with a pinch of Bhang ...aur hote dost hamare sang.. aur lagate hum unke Ang par Rang...
Happy Holi to all...Enjoy the festival of Colors.....
-Kavin.

Basanti Ko Rang Diya Finally...

So finally the day came last night, yes last night. Eventually we watched 'Rang De Basanti' in theatre. It's really been a long wait though. I had never waited so eagerly to watch any movie until RDB came. All of us here in Buffalo were very badly desperate to watch the movie in the opening weekend. Btw, we here mostly means - Kanan, Purvin, Saloni, Kavin and myself and some others as well.

We tried million things, rhetorically if not literally, to our bad luck it wasn't being screened anywhere within the 60-100 miles radius of Buffalo, and we really cursed Buffalo a lot for that. Everyone then wanted to be in NYC or Jersey or Cali. At that point of time we were even ready to drive upto 200 miles or more, just to watch the movie. So restless were we that, we even tried to get tickets in Cleveland, which is 200 miles away, but somehow it didn't work out. In that regard on the Saturday of the opening week, at some theatre in Cleveland we did call like 10 times, nothing worked. Btw, we could never figure out what was there in the voice mail of that theatre. His speech was so jumbled up ;).
Anyways, so first week went just like that.. And then we were listening from everyone from all across America, it's very very good movie and this and that. Sab log hame jalaa rahe the. And slowly but steadily ab hum logo kaa bhi tempo and enthu jaa rahaa tha. Day by day the novelty of the movie was becoming and open secret. Then reviews in news and other sources. Personally, I refrained from reading any news about RDB ;), I was even making sure that we don't even discuss anything about the story :). We din't watch it on streaming websites, even though it was there. Somehow it was all over me/us and we wanted to see in hall only.

After all the failures, we just gave up and surrendered to our luck, and accepted just to wait until it comes in Buffalo. And finally, it came last night. So once again, this week we were so charged up to watch it FINALLY in theatre in BUFFALO. And if like it wasn't still done, when we reached at the theatre there was a huge crowd waiting to get into the hall. Saw something like that for the first time in America, and we waited almost for 20+ minutes in line to get in. Due to this, most of the groups were scattered all across the theatre due to non-availability of adjacent seats.

But we really enjoyed last night. It was well worth the wait. Needless to say, the movie is well made and no doubt it's very dramatic just like any Hindi movie but with a strong message leading to thought provocation. And I'm in no mood to write the review here ;).

Kaushal

Uncle Bob and Aunty Valentine

Hey guys, I know I have been too lazy in recent months and have hardly posted anything on this blog and I really dont have any excuse for this act..actually I think this blog has died down and people surely should be more active in putting up any crap on the blog......I hope people will start writing more on this blog....
Ok I am sure by now everyone would be wondering what exactly does the title suggest here and what is it that Kavin is trying to convey here...or is this one of his usual farts which everyone will have to put up with...So let me tell u this upfront...this post is dedicated to Uncle Bob and Aunty Valentine...Ok pls let every 1 know who Uncle Bob is and how is aunty Valentine related to u or Uncle Bob? Ok..it goes like this...Uncle Bob is just one of the words which some of my friends and me have been using to describe our state of being on weekends or more appropriately how would we like to pass our weekends...Just picturize Uncle Bob having a 6 pack of Beer sitting in his arm chair the whole day and watching TV(movies, Football., or any other show), smoking cigarettes and doing nothing but just lazing around the whole day ..so Uncle Bob is just a lame description ...This is exactly how my weekend was (without the beer though)...Friday night at KJPs and Purvins house...we cooked some Pulav and Sabji..and decided to watch a movie in the night..but somehow only me and Kaushal ended up watching Waisa Bhi Hota Hai Part 2 because the others had to leave and get up early the next day to go for Skiing.....The movie was funny and also was very light...so I crashed at 4 am and I managed to get up by 10.30 am the next day and by then Kaushal, Purvin and Saloni had left for Skiing...So I decided to freshen up and head to the library...I managed to reach the library to do some work,but just then again as uncle Bob had decided not to let me study,I decided to watch a movie named Brokeback Mountain ..good movie with a story which is handled with care...so one more movie for the weekend...Again that night just like Uncle Bob would have done we happened to watch one more hindi movie...Mangal Pandey(Chirag Bhai ..K'nans cousin was the star of this movie) appreciated much more than Aamir Khan...The movie was horrible and so just headed home and crashed...Sunday morning woke up at 11.30 am and me and Purvin decided to cook Poha...I think it turned out to be pretty nice and so after eating Poha ..me Purvin and Kushal were wondering what to do and were just trying to kill time..I was lying on the Lazy Boy and was about to doze off...just then Purvin suggested that we shud watch one more movie...so once again me and Purvin this time ended up watching a movie named Morning raga..was a decent movie..and then finally the weekend came to an end and I just managed to live like Uncle Bob for the weekend...lazed a lot over the weekend...One of the laziest days I have spend at Buffalo , but believe me it was nice....
So now its time to talk abt aunty Valentine...I am sure u guys wud have surely guessed by now wht I am referring to...Ya its true...Valentine Day has arrived...Gosh so much pressure it gets along with it every year for guys who are single like me who try and please aunty Valentine..I call it the mid-Febrauary crisis....oops I am sure it puts pressure even on ppl who are in a relationship...for a matter of fact I think it puts additional pressure on guys/girls who are in a relatioship...They have to start finding that special card,gifts,poems and many other things just to show their love on this day...I think there is a lot of planning that needs to be done... and I wud really appreciate any person who could manage to pull it off well...But for me I dont think that this day is of any particular significance...ya ya I know u will say that Kavin does not have a GF and so is whining about it...But seriously I dont think that one day can justify that your love for ur gf/bf is really special and u dont do anything about it for the remaining year...I think it has to be all year round.. Just see this pic and just see how much this guy has done to prove his love for his special girl..I wud not wish him Happy Valentine...I wud rather wish him a Hairy Valentine day....I wonder whether he wud have given all his hair to his Gf as a gift... not a bad idea though..
Anyways since I had a good time being with Uncle Bob over the weekend, I wud love Aunty Valentine to come on Tuesday and get me a special gift(Ipod-30GB) to show her love to me.I will love if she could make me good dinner and clean all the plates after tht.She could get me a DVD of my fav movie and we cud watch it together .She could spend the night together and in the morning make me some Coffee and then just leave...It would be such a great V day ..aunty Valentine cud help me live like Uncle Bob even on a Tueday...That would be the best thing ever to happen to me..I dont think I am asking for too much from my Valentine and in return she will get my love for the whole day ...its a good deal once in a lifetime and so all the girls out there shud take their chances and get a hold of me before it is too late...
Anyways guys,I hope everyone had a great weekend and I sincerely hope everyone has a Happy Valentine....
Cheers,
Kavin.

Around the corner I have a friend....

This one really seems true, eventhough we are too young... :)

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*Around the corner I have a friend,*
*In this great city that has no end,*
*Yet the days go by and weeks rush on,*
*And before I know it, a year is gone.*
*And I never see my old friends face,*
*For life is a swift and terrible race,*
*He knows I like him just as well,*
*As in the days when I rang his bell.*
*And he rang mine but we were younger then,*
*And now we are busy, tired men.*
*Tired of playing a foolish game,*
*Tired of trying to make a name.*
*"Tomorrow" I say! "I will call on Jim*
*Just to show that I'm thinking of him."*
*But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes,*
*And distance between us grows and grows.*
*Around the corner, yet miles away,*
*"Here's a telegram sir," "Jim died today."*

*And that's what we get and deserve in the end.*
*Around the corner, a vanished friend.*
*Remember to always say what you mean.*
*If you love someone, tell them.*
*Don't be afraid to express yourself.*
*Reach out and tell someone what they mean to you.*
*Because when you decide that it is the right time*
*it might be too late.*
*Seize the day.*
*Never have regrets.*
*And most importantly, stay close to your friends*
*and family, for they have helped make you the person that you are today.*