Sometime back, three friends, Vipul, Aditya and of course myself came together and decided to start something of an NGO that deals with helping out the animals and natural endowments of our beautiful city of Mumbai and beyond. Since we all shared a common love for nature and animals it was a no brainer that we definitely wanted to do something about it.

Reactive critics and inactive onlookers are the very reason why most of us Mumbaikars have never even been to the Borivali National Park and the Byculla zoo is turning into a mid-city Marine drive with more and more couples being seen making out behind a tree. Come on people! Look around! There are so many wonderful animals that you can learn of...or is there? Most of these animals are undernourished and are but a shadow of their awesome wild counterparts. The lion's literally a pussy and the hyena's forgotten to laugh. Quite a lot of them are caged in smaller areas than is required for them to comfortably move about. Some visitors harass the poor caged animals simply to see them react.
At one such instance, I overheard two twenty-something year olds saying to each other, "Arre dude, bandar kuch kar hi nahi raha hai. Ek patthar phek na. Dekhte hain kya hota hai."
Translated, "Hey dude, the monkeys aren't doing anything. Try throwing a stone in. Lets see what happens."

Is that really the state of our society? These two weren't even the street-urchin-turned-wannabe kind either. Two well-to-do educated adults talking that way, is that even rational on their part? Are they actually THAT bored in life that they'll hurt a trapped underfed creature just to see it move? I mean what the F@¤$!
Few weeks back, a juvenile hippo died at the same zoo because proper and timely veterinarian treatment was not administered. The only thing that I saw was a small article somewhere and it's mention on the radio, which seems to be the only medium that's proactive today.

Someone needs to stand up, rather, all of us need to stand up and take notice of everyone we live with and share our space with, and that includes animals, wait, ESPECIALLY ANIMALS. With our NGO Species Foundation, we aim to do exactly the same. We shall be working towards social awareness with regards to the fauna around us as well as some of the majestic creatures that we have access to experience only if we take notice. Our main audience will be college students since they're the most responsive to such things and are more proactive.

Species has yet to be registered, but of course, for it to work I'll need all the support I can get. There's gonna be loads of activities we'll be conducting as part of our awareness program that'll include weekend hikes or overnight trips to wildlife reserves. Anyone who wishes to join us is definitely welcome.

So guys, please help me out by spreading the word, if possible, joining in the effort and doing your little bit to save the wild.

Cheers.
-S-

I dream a dream of a land of twilight,
Of magic and of wonder.
A land where fairies light the skies,
And the dwarves dwell down under.
It's the land where pixies dance and sing
Their pale skin aglow,
Laughter, music and merry giggles,
on and on they go.

Come dance to the music oh little one!
In a soft lilt they call,
I look at them, longing to join
In the most magical game of all.
Round and round the trees they dance,
Their little feet ablur.
And as the rhythm starts to pick up,
The forest seems to stir.
The leaves go swish and the branches creak,
Magic is in the air.
The wind starts blowing faster and faster,
Whistling in my ear.
And now the little magical beings are moving so fast,
They can barely be seen,
All I can see now is a circle of light
with a brilliant blue sheen.
Through this ring of magic and spells,
As gently as can be,
An orb of light appeared amongst them,
Now there were two, no! Three!
And I looked on in surprise and wonder,
The orbs began to change.
Hands, feet, little pointed ears, oh my!
Now this was very strange!
Suddenly my eyes went wide
As i realized what I see,
Is but the most magical of all magics in this world,
'twas the birth of a pixie!
And when you place your ear to a tree's heart,
And your arms around it's trunk,
You too can hear the pixies chant,
All together as one.

The spirit of the forest,
she gives us shelter and food ,
And the moonlit skies, so vast and wide,
Give us strength and fortitude.
We welcome one, we welcome all,
To our ritual of enchantment and light,
to celebrate the coming of one of our own,
Behold, this auspicious night.
For once in every one hundred years
A precious child is born,
It is a joyous occassion for all of us,
Yet some look forlorn.
Because in magic we are born,
And to magic we must go.
As one old pixie goes into the light,
From that light a child must grow.

You never know when life's gonna throw something new at you, and to be honest, it should remain that way, else what's left of life except a mundane routine followed by millions of individuals for survival. But well, even to follow that mundane routine, or even an exciting one for that matter, you need to know what you're getting into in the first place. And that is where, my friends, I am stuck. At this stage, I'm standing at a fork in the journey of life, a three pronged fork, and each seems to outweigh the other. Well, at least two of them do. Let me explain... I have just finished my graduation, and am currently working as a graphic designer. But, I don't think I really want to continue in this line, coz quite frankly, it'll lead to nowhere. At a certain stage, I'll stagnate. So here I am, presenting myself with two other options, both of which have pros and cons, and both of which are trying their utter best to outweigh the other.

First, MBA! The quintessential commerce/engineering graduate's ticket to instant jobs...well, at least till the last financial year. With recession breathing down our necks, it's more than necessary to take a raincheck as to what the market conditions are, and for the new MBA, passing out takes on a whole new meaning. But here I am, considering this line too. Why? Because it is tried, tested, abused, and still manages to hold it's own in the ruthless corporate world. Even with autorickshaw drivers holding MBAs, it guarantees you a half-decent job with good security and adequate financial compensation. But that's where the appeal ends for me. Where's the drive to work? Where's the passion to put in that extra 20%? In so many of the marketing and HR executives I've met, rarely have I seen that spark in someone, that killer instinct to give it your all. I'm more of a free-flow, innovate, ideate-kinda guy. And even though I've had minimal experience in marketing and HR, none can actually tell me what it's all about. And that's what I'm afraid of. So I'm not really sure whether I'll like this line or not. Lucky if I do, but at this stage am I willing to take that risk and go ahead full throttle with MBA entrances at the end of the year?

Second - Advertising Now, here's a line I admire and aspire to get into. Lots of work, lots of creative thought process going into each project, each work that gets through. Working as a graphic designer over the course of a year, I've also got the opportunity to get my hands dirty in the field of advertising as well, and I liked it. Here comes the But again...BUT the fact remains that it's a little unstable as far as what I see. There's only so far that you can go with this. I still have my doubts regarding that, and the amount of compensation involved in this line of work. I'm not at all worried about job satisfaction coz there's bound to be plenty of it. It's the stability that matters.

These two are the ones that I need to choose between since there's gonna be a hell lotta preparations to go through for either. Loads of research into both fields, lots of people to talk to to understand the implications, the pros and cons of both. Lets see what turns up.

At long last, after such a HUGE journey of writing bullshit and commenting pointlessly on random people's blogs have my extremely useless talents been recognized! MWAaahahahhaaaaaaaaaa! (well, that was supposed to be an evil laugh...hmm...)

Well, back to point, Mads from the joint blog Shit-for-tat had started a contest for the best rapist of the English language. With long running veterans and expert rapists being some of the frequent visitors to this blog, I thought I would be blown out of the competition. But what d'you know, it turned out that new blood still can make some impression after all. Struggling through, using all possible high-tech means to rape the stereotypical usage of the language that is English, yours truly emerged at the top, jointly holding the highest laurel for utter abuse of a language with The Pink Orchid.

Here's the full exerpt for your reading displeasure:

Haw haw...lots of jocks here!
I've had a good share of lang-fuckups too..mostly in school.

"Children, open the window, let the climate come in!"
"Open the window, let the air-force come in."
(two different profs hehe...from their perception of the atmosphere it's safe to say they didn't pay attention in school)

"Stand in a straight circle."

Oh here's a good one:
Prof: "I have two daughters, both are girls. And the other one in Gujju."
Me: "Sir, the other one who?"
Prof: "My wife."

One day, very angrily,
"You talk, I kneel down!!"
(with pleasure)

I remember it as if it were just yesterday..well, which it was coz I read about my prize just yesterday..but enough of that..
Now where was I?...oh yeah, I remember it as if it were yesterday that Orchid and I stood with the trophy in our hands, looking down and out onto the crowd of thousands of admirers chanting our name, chanting, "rapist rapist rapist rapist.." My chest swelled with pride as I heard that word in tandem with my own. And as we raised the trophy above our heads the crowd went wild!

It was the best moment of my life. Thank you Mads and thank you Shit-for-tat ers for making me the joint winner of this coveted award. I shall cherish is forever. Thanks to my family for supporting my hopeless education, thanks to everyone around me who inspired me to have such bad taste in english, and of course, thanks to my own self for having such a fucked up sense of humour.

Signing out.

Live long, love longer.

-S-

Facebook.

You've heard of it, you know of it, you've used it and lets face it, you're addicted.

You wake up in the morning and check your status message that says "is going to bed". "Well, I'm up.." you think and that's exactly what goes up as your new status. At work, you're constantly Finishing Jobs and Fighting other mobs on Mafia Wars. An occasional comment on someone's wall, or a birthday wish is just routine. Back home, online again, checking who's sent you a friend's request, what groups to join, what cause to support although you know you're never going to do anything practical towards it.

I repeat, face it, you're addicted.

And why not? Internet social networking was the latest buzz few years back, and today it's literally booming, with it being the simplest tool to stay connected with the hundreds of people we meet and who would most probably be forgotten by the time the earth turned a full circle. It has allowed us to build strong yet volatile bonds with our acquaintances in a virtual world where everyone's close to everyone else and we have all the time in the world since the whole point of having a "wall" or a scrapbook is for others to leave messages for you to reply at your leisure. This ease of communication and lightened burden of expectations to reply promptly has made Online Social Networking an integral part of our cyber-persona as well as, today, our physical self. We simply cannot resist it.

Why? you may ask. Well, to know that we have to dig deeper into the history and mystery of Internet social networking and for that we shall be taking the help of our friendly internet drug, Facebook.

Quoted from the ever-helpful Wikipedia:

"Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook with fellow computer science major students and his roommates Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes while he was a student at Harvard University. Website membership was initially limited to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It later expanded further to include any university student, then high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over."

It's pretty evident that the popularity of Facebook grew not by online or advertising media but by Word of Mouth Marketing.
"Oh you know, I've joined facebook, and it's so much better than orkut! You should try it too!"
That's exactly how I came to sign up with facebook and back then it didn't disappoint at all. Today, Facebook boasts of more than 175 million users online. And the fact is, this user base can be built up by any random social networking site too. But the user-loyalty that was built by facebook was phenomenal. People shifted from Orkut to Facebook practically overnight and stuck to it. That doesn't, by any means, mean that they stopped using Orkut. Oh no, not at all. Man's need to stay connected surpasses that completely. Even as students, actually, I should say, MAINLY as students, we have friends actually categorized as "Orkut Friends", "Myspace friends", "Facebook friends" et cet ra.

Facebook is a user-based, user-supported site. And it's popularity grew by leaps and bounds during the nascent stages and initial years because of the one thing that appeals completely to me and millions of other similar users that is: simplicity. Yes, simplicity was the core selling point that built up the popularity of Facebook. It was hassle-free registration, clean profile-page, no application clutter, the works. Something that it shares with another uber-friendly and intuitive site group - Google. Google, since it's lauch, boasted of an intuitive clean working system, something it has managed to uphold over the years and for which it earns accolades for each application it launches. For them it was and always has been "Less is good" and that's something facebook grew on as well.

Then Facebook started to really "grow", and they changed the profile displays, added applications, modified layouts and all in all, royally messed up all that they had built their site upon. As this site started gaining popularity, the market started encroaching upon user space. Advertisments galore generates income for Facebook inc. so they were glad to oblige(obviously!) In this epic transaction, we users started losing out.

This site has completely revamped it's look 4 times with each time getting worse! More and more content is making our lives miserable! Who wants to know every single quiz a friend has taken! Too many feeds make for information OVERLOAD! The latest Facebook layout mod clearly shows that. In a survey conducted by the company itself, just over 5% of the nearly 800,000 respondentssaid they liked the new layout
(don't know what they were thinking when they liked it! Frankly, don't care. We're winning! Woohoo!!)

The simple clean look of facebook which essentally was it's sex appeal, has completely disappeared. So, with feeds and applications and what not cluttering up our space, what we're looking at is just another social network, nothing special. The addiction that drew us to this wonderful social network is slowly waning, and that too without rehab treatment. I'm hoping to goodness they overhaul this layout too, and revert back to something that even remotely resembles the old look.

Are you listening Mark? GET A DESIGNER!!

Here's something I once read in one of my favourite blogs here.
I just HAD to post one of my own ^_^
(and I intend to ACTUALLY do the ones in red before I turn thirty..well few years give or take :P )

Simple Rules:

1. Things I have already done - Blue & Bold !
2. Things that i would love to do - Red & Bold !

Here we go!!

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with dolphins.
03. Climbed a mountain (Loads of hills, but I guess Mt. Abu serves as a mountain too)
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive (It was SMOOOTH!!)
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone.
08. Said “I love you” and meant it.
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea. (Definitely from the shore.)
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game.
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa.
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables.
18. Touched an iceberg.
19. Slept under the stars.
20. Changed a baby’s diaper.(It's definitely not pretty! Well, pretty smelly, yes.)
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment (quite a few times actually )
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger.(Goa, everything's possible when you're a couple o' hundred drinks down :) )
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse.(would be very fascinating!)
34. Ridden a roller coaster.
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and didn’t care who was looking.
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day.
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment.
39. Had two hard drives for your computer.(Three at the moment :D )
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk.
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country.
44. Watched whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Taken a midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs (Once!)
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Played touch football
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud (Absolutely!)
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theatre
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest.
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on a television news program as an “expert”(Aspiring...)
83. Gotten flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music(which song....you don't wanna know :P )
87. Eaten shark
88. Kissed on the first date
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
98. Passed out cold
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over .
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking with the windows open.(Nikhil n me...russel peters tickets!! :P )
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane (is flight simulator applicable....?)
109. Touched a stingray
110. Broken someone’s heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a TV game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a facial part pierced other than your ears
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol (Except the shotgun)
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon (I wanna!!!)
122. Slept for 30 hours in a 48 hour period(Almost I think...I've done a 25)
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. States
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi (Taj was my first taste I think...)
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Touched a cockroach (LOL!)
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad and The Odyssey
135. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read.
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language.
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream(halfway thru...getting there)
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair
147. Been a DJ(Then I realized I suck...)
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone’s life

Why oh why did you have to lie?
That you liked jelly, not fish fry?
I cooked and cooked all day long,
But then you went and brought along King-kong.
Now I won't have any food left to eat,
because the gorilla's vegetarian,
and you eat all the meat.

Oh look, the parrots fly by!
And lions, and tigers and bears, Oh My!
Now where have I heard that line, pray tell me,
because the crocodile's feeling hungry, hungry as can be.
I like the lipstick you've worn Mrs.Chimp,
And here come the lobsters, and the dancing shrimp!

This is turning out to be quite a mob,
with and pigs playing hockey, and the cat being a snob,
and the foxes with their bushy tails, oh they're so sly!
They sneak up on the little mice, and steal all their pie!
Oh no! The goat ate my sock!...or was it simply a rock?
Never mind, for he likes it too;
There he goes again, for round number two!

Ah, my friend, in all this mess, don't think I've forgotten you,
For who will clean the cupboard, and who will make the stew?
Now now, calm down, don't be so hasty,
Your friends ate my food, I'm simply being nasty!

Alright, let's just say goodbye to mother goose,
she's going home and her shoes are very loose.
And the rest, they're going home too,
Now that the party's over, I wanna go to the loo!