and i thought....

That life is a series of never ending options in front of you. The way you turn out to be, the kind of life you live depends on the option you take at every step. You never realise it but, at every minute you select an option, every decision you take has an alternate option. Even delaying an action by a minute is an option you opt for. And the one you select might change the course of your life or just prepone what you should be experiencing later.

Found Him!!

Oh my God, oh my God!! after all i found him. :D

And how ?? one of the random mails with different combinations of his name and surname which i sent, worked. pranoykapoor@gmail.com worked !!! yahoooooo

just got this reply from him

hi there Aalekh

yes its me!!! I dont check gmail tht often!! U can mail me on pranoy_k@rediffmail.com.
Whats up with u?? I am working for Asian Paints in Bhubaneshwar, Orissa!! Just finished my MBA this year and joined!
Whats up withu~ My no is 9937416274!
Call me it wld be great to talk to you!!!
Cheers
Pranoy
On 11/12/05, Aalekh Kapoor <aalekh.kapoor@gmail.com> wrote:
Pranoy is that you ?
Aalekh here
-------------
Aalekh Kapoor
http://aalekh.nomadlife.org/

office hours now, leaving in 10 mins. Cant wait to call him :D :D

Will I Find him ?

Part 1: Circa 1997 - 1999

There were once two great friends. Aalekh and Pranoy Kapoor. They were the only two Kapoors in their class. The former was ok in academics while the latter was a ranker. Their friendship grew over the years but fate had it in store and unfortunately Pronoy had to shift to a petite town called Bhilai after the 9th standard. His dad got transferred.

They were not in touch for a year after that. Finally Aalekh sent him a card, a post card. An email would have been confused with a female in those days. That was in the 11th .He was too lazy and also incompetent at that time to write a letter. So, the card had a picture of a train on it and it read

Dear Pranoy

You were always on the Right track, but never on the Write track

Love Aalekh

The reply he got from Pronoy was a 3 page one with a snap attached. It said that he had lost his (Aalekh’s) address and was now staying in a hostel so couldn’t get in touch with him. It also read that Pranoy had taken Commerce, which was quite startling as he was the nerdy kinds. The letter mentioned keep in touch and reply soon in the end!! But the dickhead that Aalekh was, he never replied.

Part 2 – Present day

8 years down the line, I have still not heard from him. But I always harbored the hope that someday in my life, I would meet him again. So, began the search for Pronoy Kapoor 6 months ago. I didn’t know where to search, whom to ask, what to do. Everyone I knew didn’t have the faintest idea of where he was, the only option left was to search for his name on the net but unfortunately that also never yielded any results……… Until now!!

I remembered that he studied in DPS Bhilai after leaving Ahmedabad, so I searched and found the DPS Alumni website for all the DPS’s around India. And there it was. Found his name in the 2000 XII C Commerce Batch and apparently all this while I had been searching for the wrong name. It is Pranoy and not Pronoy.

So began the re-search and this time I was luckier. Searching for the right name took me to a photo diary which he had uploaded in May 2005, but again neither his email address nor his contact details were mentioned there. Annoying!! I know what he looks like now, but still can’t get in touch with him. Even my comments on his snaps can’t reach him, as he has not switched it on.

But the folks from the help desk at Fotopic are surprisingly very helpful. Since they cannot give me his email they offered to mail him on my behalf ( and give him my contact details. This happened yesterday. Still eagerly waiting for their confirmation mail and hoping for the best. I hope this works out. Where the fuck are you Pranoy!!!

Random things I have done in my desperate search for him.

• Asked my very old tuition sir to give me the number of a guy who he used to teach, as this guy was Pranoy’s friend at that time.

Failed – The guy’s numbers were not working

• Searched for “Best orthodontist in Ahmedabad” as this guy once told me that his dad is the “best orthodontist in Ahmedabad”

Failed – All the results claimed to be the best orthodontist’s in Ahmedabad

• Devoured the Limca book of records. Pranoys grandmother at that time had the record of the longest letter written in India.

Failed – The record was broken

• Since I dint remember her name, I asked Pierre to search for a lady with the surname “Kapoor” with the record of the longest letter. Fortunately at that time he had a brief stint for a month with the Limca Book of Records.

Failed – Pierre was too lazy and their archives were……err not up-to-date.

• Mailed random people like pranoy@hotmail.com, pranoykapoor@hotmail.com, pranoy.kapoor@yahoo.com and many other combinations of his name and the email service, in the hope that one of them would be him

Failed – Half of them bounced back, others never replied.

• Mailed all the people from his batch on the DPS alumni website asking if they were still in touch with him.

Failed – No one knows of his whereabouts.

• Searched for his dads, moms, brothers name on google.

Failed

• Searched for the shipping company where his dad was working. He might be still working there!!

Failed – They don’t seem to have a website. This is the last option though, ill call up all the companies which show up in the search and ask for his dads name.

• Created accounts and searched all the freaking websites like friendester, hi5, sms, etc….

Failed – It’s just too huge to search!!

And other random stuff which I can’t recall now. Nothing worked out. Hoping that the fotopic idea works out.....

Panadol "One is enough"

Here's and ad for Panadol by Y&R Wunderman, Beijing, an analgesic for temporary relief from pain and headache. Couldn't stop laughing after I saw, so had to post it. Sometimes such creativity really startles me. How the hell do they get such ideas!!! Observe carefully the ad below, see the top right corner.

Handbook for bloggers!

Cuba is one of the least internet connected countries in the world. Atleast China censors websites which contain "offensive" content like pro-Tibet or pro-democracy, but Castro has found a cheaper alternative. Simply keep internet out of reach of everyone. More interesting facts in the book below for all bloggers old and new.

For a more happier nation

India’s recent victory over the Sri Lankans benefited the country in more than one way. First of all of course the fact that India won a series with such a huge margin, a tennis score of 6-1 was a great feat achieved. Adding to that, the number of “youngsters” who displayed their talent and potential in different aspects of the game reassured lakhs maybe millions of hopes that we still have a chance at the world cup which is drawing close.

But the maximum benefit went to the nation. It’s people. The feeling that India has won a series and that to overwhelmingly is quite a self gratifying feeling and keeps you happy throughout the day, even for a lame follower of cricket like me who ended up watching only the latter half of one of the games throughout the series. I wonder what the diehard followers must be going through. Imagine an approximate figure of 5 crore cricket fanatics (not the ones like me) in urban India only going through the same emotion whenever India wins and then think of people like me who get up the next day and read the headlines “India wipes out Lanka 6-1” the common feeling is that we feel nice about ourselves, about our country, more confident about our country which translates to the self.

Overall it’s a happy atmosphere created everywhere around. And it spreads faster then any epidemic ever heard. One person in the family feels good, he makes other’s who don’t watch cricket feel nice too. Let’s call it the “Feel good epidemic”. Though its lifespan may not be so long, I’m guessing probably a week or so after which it fades away to other news taking over. But winning matches and keeping a nation like India happy for a week isn’t a bad bargain…what say? India should win more and more matches for the well being and a happier nation.

Whohooooooo!

www.supermanreturns.com

Returning on June 30th, 2006

Big Boss Man and 123 Kid

Aka. Me and my Boss :) at the office during Diwali Puja.

And here's something i made in photoshop

What an amazing tool !!, God Bless the makers of Photoshop. Why did i not show interest in this earlier. There's a loong way for me to go yet, in learning this, but for sure am adding a sexy skill to my repertoire and a alternate way to explore my creativity. Any experts out there?? pls give me ideas and tips :)

Back to blogging!

Back too blogging once again with a new format and an inclination to blog, lets see how long its lasts this time.

Thanks to Kaajal for helping me with the header, which had motivated me to start learing Photoshop.

And you can see something above which i found on a friends blog.