I wrote my first post on Blogger on 11th September 2007. I wouldn’t certainly have remembered that if it wasn’t for Google where I still am active with the same account I held three years ago too. And I wouldn’t probably remember it either had the date been anything other than 9/11.

Anyway, now that I know, like always, I’ll see some numbers, and even you will if you’re not too bored and not decide to leave the post.

My first blog was My Big Big World on Blogger, where I wrote exactly 100 posts, both big and small. My first post written on September 11th was about a college ‘reality’ show called Besuregama which was arranged by some of my friends at a very small level, so small that only the 9-10 of us present there enjoyed it. Sadly, I have lost most of the footage of the show, though it was completely captured.

Anyway, after blogging there till July ’08, I shifted to a new blog called ‘Zehreelay‘ and I tell you, the name was more inspired by my reputation in college for my PJs rather than the Rock On song. Again I had some one plus year’s posts (some 75+ posts) there until I started my blog Happysing.

But before that, there was more in between. With Zehreelay, I blogged on musicalised and musicalized about music only with more than 160 posts on the latter. The latter also boasts of some 14k visits till date.

Today, I’m blogging on HappySing, that is this blog, which has some 320 published posts, and BollyMeaning, which I have started some two months ago, which has some 150 posts and gets some 2k+ visits everyday at present.

I just wish I keep writing. Wish me all the best.

O come on, I hardly can write!

For one, if I could write, I would have written a book by now. For sure.

Yes, I have an uncle who used to make caricatures. At the same time he was a poet too. And then, he started writing. Writing as in, he started writing books for children. First it was mostly stories, with illustrations all around, of course. And then, he got all those suggestions, and ideas, and he started writing non-fiction for children. Oops! Haven’t you heard of that? Well, non-fiction for children here are books that tell children what a bank is, what a post office is, or how a computer works. As I ‘write’ this, I can think of those books as children’s Wikipedia. Easy, Simple, Illustrated, and short. I mean, if you start telling someone how a bank works and what are their benefits to people and government, all those basics, how long would it take? A few pages. He wrote them, and they sold like anything. OK. Not like anything, but when I get to see the books by a Meerut author in Bangalore’s book festivals, he must be selling something.

So, the question is, what has this got to do with my writing? Well, the point I was trying to make is that my uncle writes so many books, my father has been published (my father writes small poems and sometimes stories too, you can also count most of the speeches I gave on Independence days and republic days and Gandhi Jayantis and even my debates during school) and as long as my mother had time to spare, she went on to give talks on AIR. To be very straightforward, I have been given numerous offers to write almost any type of book and I will be published, but…

I can’t write.

I sometimes blog (Should I count those reviews too as blogging? I don’t think so!) and somehow get a few hundred followers everyday for my so called blog where most of the visitors reach only because of my reviews, of albums, songs, and some movies. Even out of the remaining ‘blog’ posts, more than half are half-reports of what-happened-with-me-in-the-city. Rest half (or less than half) are, maybe, some writing.

OK. I guess, to some extent, I can write. But can I, really?

Well, generally I happen to keep a lot of junk with me for such times. Times when I am alone and hungry. But today it so happens that I am out of my stock of junk and as I had an early dinner and have not slept as yet (it’s 2:46 am right now), I am hungry.

The worst part about being hungry at this time (does time really matter?) is that even though I have things to cook, I won’t cook a thing. Something that happens only if you are alone. In case you got a roommate, or someone you can share your food with, or, even more interestingly, do not want to share your food with, you would probably have more chances of cooking than in case you are all by yourself.

Sitting alone, even Maggi doesn’t feel that great. Wait, I guess it does. Actually, anything you eat is fine when you’re alone. It’s cooking that is the difficult part. At least for the lazy bums like me.

What about u, btw?

PS: I’m still hungry and this post is hardly going to do anything to my hunger (won’t even add to it cuz it’s a short one writteen in no time). Wonder if I will have anything other than the Real Juice after the boring Amul Chocolate I had. O yes, Amul Chocolate without fruits n nuts n all IS boring. I agree.

Update: After writing this post, I cooked some tasty rice (with Butter) in the microwave (for the first time) and had with sauce.

Mika Singhing the adopted version of Lawaris’s Apni to jaise taise in the background. Discussions about the song just over.

Me: Daddu, u heard that Beera Beera?

Daddu: Which movie?

Me: Don’t worry about that. Start typing. (Daddu in the meantime had opened a youtube window)

Daddu: Arre, Raavan. Sahi hai. Kab aaya?

Me: Abhi kal hi aaya shayad.

Trailer is going on. Baldz suddenly starts moving a bit. I can feel the danger.

Baldz: Ye Aishwarya thi na? Ye bi hai?

Daddu: (busy with trailer) Haan.

Baldz: Abhishek Raavan bana hai isme?

Daddu: Haanji. Abhishek hai, aishwarya rai bhi hai, aur Vikram hai. Abhishek Raavan hai. Aur Vikram wo bana hai aapka… Raam. Tamil version mein ulta hai. Usme Vikram Raavan bana hai aur Abhishek Raam.

Me: Hain?

Daddu: (continuing) Saath mein Farhan Akhtar bhi hai. Picture ka naam hai Raavan calling Raam. Raavan Raam ko phone kar ke bolta hai, kyon be, tujhe kya lagta hai tu apni biwi ko chhuda ke le jayega!

Baldz: Saale….

Me is smiling.

Well, that is anyway not the topic I want to talk about. The topic is that while Rahman was receiving Grammy awards, I was doing something that told me a lot more about Indian music. As I was reading Ganesh Anantharaman’s book Bollywood Melodies where he has written about Hindi film Industry’s music and the people who made it.

In the past 3-4 days, I finished the first section of the book which writes quite at length about music composers, the ones who composed for many movies from 1931 to present. The book divides the composers into four generations. The first generation, called ‘The Pioneers’ comprises of Pankaj Mullick, Khemchand Prakash, Anil Biswas and Naushad, of whom I knew about just one, Naushad. And while I had heard the songs of Khemchand Prakash, I did not know who had composed them. Maybe you have heard his compositions too. I am talking of the person who composed Aayega aanewala for Mahal.

The second generation, that is called ‘The Masters’, has C Ramchandra (bholi soorat dil ke khote, mere piya gaye Rangoon, Eena meena deeka), Shankar Jaikishan, SD Burman, Madan Mohan, OP Nayyar (Naya Daur, Howrah Bridge, Kashmir ki Kali), Salil Choudhary (Anand), Roshan (Hritik’s grandpa, composer of Barsaat ki Raat, dil jo na keh saka, laaga chunri mein daag), Ravi (chalo ek baar phir se ajnabi ban jaayen hum dono, aaage bhi jaane na tu), Jaidev (allah tero naam, kabhi khud pe kabhi haalaat pe), Vasant Desai (ae malik tere bande hum) in it.

The third generation comprises of Kayanji Anandji, RD Burman, Laxmikant Pyarelal, Khayyam and Ravindra Jain. While the fourth generation is the one starting in ’80s, Bappi, Rajesh Roshan, Rahman, Anand-Milind, Nadeem-Shravan, Anu Malik and Jatin-Lalit. The book dedicates half a page to the twenty first century composers too.

Frankly, what I got from the book can not be explained here, but surely I got to know about a number of songs I had only heard about or worse, had not even heard about. Now I am searching for those songs from wherever possible and trying to listen to them. Today was the day of Baiju Bawra and interestingly, I was listening to the same song while giving project interviews that I was asked about in my placement interview. O duniya ke rakhwale.

PS: The book also counts Rahman as ‘The Last Titan of the Twentieth Century’.

1. I’ll take a bath everyday.
2. I’ll reach office in time daily and take only half an hour break.
3. I’ll not tweet before brushing my teeth in the morning.
4. I’ll read all books I’ve collected and haven’t read yet. (estimate: at least 25)
5. I’ll add six kilos to my weight. Yeah, u read it right, I need six kilos n not six packs.
6. I’ll not blog the mistakes of other movie critics. It’s bad.
7. I’ll not say PJs anywhere other than Twitter.
8. I’ll not laugh at girls watching Balika Badhu. Or Vadhu, whatever it is. (Guys found watching can’t be not spared anyway; they, if any existing, deserve that)
9. I’ll sleep before 4 am and get up before 11 am everyday.
10. I’ll follow resolutions I take, if any.

Among all those, there was a name of Navneet Bansal aka Bittu Bhaiya too, who is my cousin and works as a manager with Punjab National Bank. When he came, he talked normally and hardly reminded me that I was going to Bangalore for a job, or that I was going alone or that there would be none else but me and I should take care of myself. He simply said, “I think you must have been told everything by everybody already. So I need not say much. All I want to say is when you are working too much, just don’t skip lunches. That was one mistake we used to make.”

Today, just a year and three months into the job, I don’t remember a single thing said by anybody during those days. The only advice that I remember is about not skipping lunches, and it helps the most at the times when I have lot of work and I think of saving some time. In such cases, I simply go and grab a veg cheese sandwich, but I make it a point not to skip a lunch.

I had not given even an hour to CAT preparation in the last three months. I’m talking about just three months because that is the period I am certain about. As a matter of fact, I had not done any preparation in complete year. At least when compared to my first attempt two years ago.

After the reports of server crashes in the past three days, I was expecting one. But what crashed was not the servers. It was a crash at client side.

Let me start from the beginning. It was the day before last for CAT application sale. I got up early and reached my nearby Axis bank, which happens to be some 10kms from  my home, only to know that it was October 1, and the bank would be closed for half-yearly closing. I was also told by the guard that the forms were over and I could get one only at the MG Road branch which was some further 10-12 kms.

Next day, I got up early again and reached the Branch with my friend. As per the previous guidelines it was the last day of Application form sale but the same day I read in the newspaper that the date of sale of forms was extended due to many bank holidays in the past week. Anyway, I got the voucher (the form was online only), came to office, filled the details and selected Vishveshwaraiya Institute of Technology at the Airport Road as the CMRIT center, next to my friends’ house, and quite close to mine too, was available only for first slot of day one and last slot of last day. So I decided to keep the center at Airport road as it was not very far either and I had seen the Vishveshwaraya colleges too.

A few days before exam, I got an email from the Prometric saying there was possibly some error in the online form filling and I could change it by the day before CAT started. Later, near the last day, I got to know that the date was again rescheduled to December 11 because there were people who could have misplaced the vouchers which were necessary to make any changes in the form and so they didn’t want to help people by not keeping things at a short notice. You guessed it right. I was one of the people who had kept the voucher so ‘safely’ that I was unable to find it in a day.

And then, finally, the day was there. I had bought a ball pen for the exam the last night after leaving from office because there was no need of a pencils anymore and my pen had stopped working only the day before. On the night before CAT, I slept at 12.30 instead of my now regular 2-3, and got up at 7.15 in the morning. And though I was expected to reach two hours before the exam as per the admit card, I took lessons from old exams and decided to keep the gap around an hour and fifteen minutes, leaving at 8. The start was OK. I left my home to find no autos and decided to walk the 1200m road to Whitefield bus stand when I found an auto at the middle of the road. I got a bus, found it slow, saw another bus, caught it, found it stopping too much in traffic, caught an auto, found it slow too, but reached the college. It was almost touching nine.

And what I saw was a bit confusing. I couldn’t see a guard and no students. I asked him if that was the Vishveshwaraya College and he said it was but there was no CAT center. I saw around and thought it would be one of the three Vishveshwaraya colleges there, but this Vishweshwaraya Institute of Technology wasn’t there. Finally I got out and started asking people if they knew where the college was, showing them the address whenever I got somebody ready to help. People told it would be somewhere nearby only. Finally I found a DHL frnachise and went in, thinking somebody there would have better idea of nearby addresses.

The guy inside saw the address, asked if that was not the Vishveshwaraya College I had been to, thought for sometime, and finally told me that Airport road the address talked about was the one going to the other Airport, the new one at Devanahalli.

And that was the end of my CAT without a server crash, because reaching a college at the other airport was only possible if I had a flight ready from this airport to that.

Then, searching for a cyber cafe to confirm this, I found myself standing outside the Shiv Mandir and simply walked in. There I decided that it was my fate and while I was thinking of rejecting CAT by playing it cool, it had outrightly rejected me for my delays and my slight negligence.

The only thing I can be satisfied about is that I had not prepared for the exam. Else, the story would be much, much sad.