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Cheers!

September 11, 2010 by Ash

12 am Cheers!
02 am Cheeeers!
04 am Cheeeeeeeers!
05 am One last time Cheeeeeer….
And we all went to sleep.

Rewind to the 90’s when a few fine young men who had never met before in their life came together in a college in India. There were no loyalties, no acquaintances yet they started to learn about each other and shared some of the finest experiences of their lives. One of those was an evening on a weekend – a table full of a variety of liquors – variety was a must because they didn’t know which one they are going to like and develop a taste for, for the rest of their life. That was a bonding moment! That night everybody won – Haywards 5000, ACP, Vodka and Gin! For the next four years, those men did not leave anything behind on the table – literally and figuratively. Now fast forward to 2010 when some of them came together again – this time they were not alone. There were wives, kids and old spirits. And the mix was awesome – a couple with twins, new mom and dad, a new couple and a not so new couple. 

Day 1: Re-union started at 12:00am with Cheers! Lots of catching up to do until 5:30am when they decided they may need some sleep for day 2. Best part, even the wives kept up with them and shared a few moments of their own.

Day 2: No surprises – it started late as expected but with lot of enthusiasm – around the kids! These men who were no longer young realized how their lives had taken a turn. It was now centered around the kids and even the ones who did not have any got involved in it. It was fun. That determined the venues for the day. However, the evening was the highlight of the day when an extensive BBQ plan was kicked off. First time on a charcoal grill was not easy for them – after 4 hours of extensive coal burning, the chicken barely made it!

Day 3: The Final Day. This one started early in the beautiful valley of the Smokies. Gatlinburg – a small beautiful town with thousands of tourists and local shopping set in the foothills. A cable car going up the hill was the best feature of the town. Following a hibachi dinner, they realized this night ought to be one like in the college in a new setting – hot tub, foosball, music and lots of pool. Their eight ball was in the right place that night.

Morning brought the departure – they all left in different directions just like they did several years ago – but to meet again!

@ saxenaas

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Safar

August 6, 2010 by Ash

Meri mushkilon ko janoge to khud ko aaine ke samne khada paoge,
Aaj ka ghamasaan yuddh aane waale kal ka andhera sa lagta hai,
Kareeb se dekhoge shann-shann ko to sochoge yeh main hi to hoon,
In sab khayalon se khud ko door nahin paoge.

Lambe raaste hain tai kiye ke manzar tak ab pahuncha hoon,
Har muquaam pe jaamo ka tha sarsara phir bhi pyaas bujhti nahin,
Apni manzelein dekho kuchh gaur se,
Mere chale raaston main kahin apne raaste bhi paoge.

Thahar jao is waqt, ke hum sab hain yahin kahin,
Aaine ke is paar ya us paar, chal rahin hain ek si zindigiyan,
Vahin saansein hai, vahi muddedatein, jitni door talak dekh paoge,
Is lambe safar mein yeh tum ho ya main ho, sab mein khud ko hi paoge!

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iPhone vs. Droid or Apple vs. Google?

July 26, 2010 by Ash

My fellow iPhone users

I had quite an exciting weekend as I got an Android phone (Samsung Captivate). I was pretty excited about how Android OS is more customizable and robust. In the last 2-3 weeks I had looked at Droid X (Verizon), Droid Incredible (Verizon) and most recently Samsung Captivate (AT&T). There is no doubt that Verizon network is much better than AT&T but both state of the art Android phones that Verizon launched are non-global (reviews on internet will not tell you that!)

Let me begin with the Android – what’s the big deal about it? It is cool! Really cool in what you can do with widgets, home screens, 2-3 different types of keyboards, multi-tasking, free GPS with voice based navigation and all other tools that Google provides. I enjoyed playing with the phone and did not realize its been several hours already (my wife cannot see this review!). So I got past the basics and moved on to more sophisticated things – email, outlook synchronization, address books, music and apps. This is where things started to get tricky – no easy way to sync Outlook because of which my contacts did not get copied over easily. Email integration is pretty good but by default all your google addresses show up in contacts and takes quite a while to figure out how to remove them. Apps – there are plenty, however separate apps to do different things. It’s not like iTunes which does most of what iPhone requires you to do. So if you were to synchronize your phone on a weekly basis, you would need a cheat sheet of number of things to do or steps to follow. As a techie I would love to do that but as a user I don’t have time.

Now someone might say that this is expected with Android. But here is what Apple has done – Apple has oversimplified things keeping their end user in mind. Things like cut-copy-paste – if you were to do it in Android, you would say – what was Google thinking? Things like customized ring tones, changing settings, switching between apps and many more. This actually comes from the remarkable difference between the two companies – Apple traditionally has been creative and innovative while Google is a group of mathematical geniuses!

If I would have spent more time with Android, I would have loved it for sure, but the point to test was that can someone get Andriod savvy as
quickly as an iPhone? Can an average Joe enjoy a smartphone while the business community is using the high end functionalities? And for someone like me can I save time and yet carry my office and personal things in one equipment wherever I go around the globe?

I am ordering the iPhone4.

@saxenaas

PS: To all Android users – It is a great phone and I am sure you love it but it will take a lot of time for Google to create the magic Apple did.

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