adieu

December 23, 2005.

it’s the hardest thing to do. much as i can the emotional self, or feel there's nothing of that sort in me, its times like these that make the heart leap and crash out of its cage. tears don't well up that easily (should i be proud of that?) but the body shivers.


there was a time i used hate chennai. but how can you hate the place that gives you the best of friends? the ones that make you wish you always were in their midst? c called for a dinner at her place. she said it was gonna be a quiet little affair. me agreed instantly. who would not want to drive down ecr for a good evening out? :) pp was the driver. hmm small party i tell myself and am about to leave. pp says he gotta take a detour and so devil drops in. i should’ve noticed that there was more to it :) but the very adventure of getting there kind of helped in no doubt creep up. thanks to the expert directions provided by c's significant half, s.

imagine my surprise when i reach there to find the dear little ryze menagerie i hang around with! i forget whether it was a "surprise" or a "boo" that they let out, was too stunned to find them there. m and s2 pop out of nowhere. yeah, learnt how wide my jaw can drop :) was later enlightened to the fact that a bigger group was called in. unfortunately couldn't make it there. shoot! these things make one rather emotional you know. not something i usually expect to cross my path. and my hands were not trembling 'cos of age or 'cos it was a nikon s4 :) you ought to have checked my pulse then. would've shot the sphygmo through the roof!

its tough to get out of that elated mood! am born with two left feet, but would love to blame the surprise you guys sprung on me for not having danced that evening :D

thanks c, s(c), devil, m, s(witch - the christmas cake was tops!), s & pp (and of course the others who would've turned up there otherwise). it was the best farewell i could've ever expected!

'a friend is the one who reaches for your hand and touches your heart' – mail signature of a wise friend of mine.

so true! so true!

so much for the emotional outburst! can't even blog about it! but i guess its the only way i am capable of expressing it. :

unsubscribe

ever unsubscribed from those zillions of promotional campaigns these banks throw at you? i for one, make it a point to do that with every institute i'm associated with (no matter how remotely). all of them gloat about the technology-savviness of their systems. but it still intrigues me.

every one of them gives you that all important 'unsubscribe' link. eagerly you follow it. in most cases you would be lucky if the page loads at first attempt. (take a hint bloke! they want to fill your inbox with the loads of stuff you can buy with the money you don't have). furiously you key in your mail id and press the all so gorgeous looking 'unsubscribe' button. poof! stage two of junk mail-list retention – the page might not load.

it might go through if there's a guardian angel watching whom you've bribed like crazy. then you see the message 'you shall be unsubscribed from our promotional mailing list in two working days. sorry to see you go… blah blah blah… but you shall still continue to receive… blah blah blah… ' what!? i still get stuff from them after all this!? oh ok. its just the statements. phew! you almost had me there! (icici bank – my favourite crib bank wants 3 days to do that) just imagine your plight were you to do this on a friday. (or thursday in the case of icici :p) they get 3 whole days (4 for icici) to clobber you with as much junk as possible! there! take that! and that! how dare you refuse the shit we throw at you! did someone ask for weekends?

now, it was so easy for these guys to put you on that list (in all probability you are on it once you open an account – system driven they say.) what makes it so bloody difficult to automate getting out of it!? it surely wouldn't take the server that long to remove one measly mail id from a list! ah! now i see it. the marketing guy wants to know who the defiant renegade is. you shall not be purged of your sins without hearing from the marketing guy.

finally, unsubscribe done. 2 working days (3 for icici) done. but you might still hear about the latest pre-approved personal loan they designed 'just for you'. why? i guess their system just forgot to get you out of the list. amnesia you know. happens. here's where you step in to fire a feedback/complaint to them.

:)

seen those java and asp errors when you submit feedback? all that lingo Apache Servlet, SQLerror, ConnectionString, yada yada... gives one a feeling of dabbling in rocket science.

NDTV again....

this has the classic NDTV signature all over it! looks like they get trained to come out with er… ‘NDTVisms’!? :)

reporter covers a train accident (did not note where). she goes something like ‘lineman has been taken up for questioning on account of negligence. lie detector tests from forensic department conclude that he’s lying. results of the test are not made public’.

huh!? is a lie detector supposed to tell you something beyond that!?