"What Do You Mean?? "

Before you start wondering what this post is all about, let me clarify, I am making an attempt to find out what does my name mean.. All these years, I beleived that my name had to do something with "Ashwamedham", (A Horse..) Like every one else I too have used my name with pride many times.. Corrected people when they spell it wrong (Man I hate when ppl do that...), but I myself never bothered to dig deeper beyond the "Ashwamedham" concept i had in mind.. What a shame.. I dont exaclty know what my name means.... :(

It all happened recently, when I had to travel to Taiwan for a Business Visit. There I happened to meet our client Mr. Ashin Nuhi... During our introductory session, he so beautifully expalined the meaning behind his "COMPLICATED" name, which means bright sunshine in Taiwanese.. (Read-- Chinese).. During our casual chat he somehow , in his broken English, managed to ask me.. So Mr Ashwin, WHAT DO YOU MEAN?? I was jus startled... Then i realised he wanted to know What my name means... Now this I had never thought... Never in my dreams did I think I will be explaining the meaning to Ashwamedham to a Chinese guy..To make matters worse, I myself was not aware as to explain it in greater detail. Thats when it struck to me that i should come up with a more GENERIC meaning of my name, coz i have never bothered to probe beyond what I already knew..

A bit of googling on my name turned out to be really intersting... It threw up a loot of results... I suggest all of you guys who would want to kill some time should definitely do this activity...
he he... Especially in Office.... what say??
Well this is what the worldwide web thought about me.. (or rather, my name)

Ashwin ,also known as Aswayuja, is the seventh month of the Hindu calendar and the sixth month of the Bengali calendars, and also sixth month in the India's national civil calendar, where it is the second month in Shôrot, (Sharad in Hindi) or Autumn

Ashwin also means light in the Hindi language, and Ashvini is the first star that appears in the evening sky, in Hindu constellation it is the head of Aries, or the first of the 27 Nakshatras.

Ashwin also stands for the Divine twins, the "Ashwins" , considered to be the Hindu Gods of vision, in Hindu mythology.

I was surprised by the kind of relations or meanings that my name had.. The next immediate thing I was trying out is to suit the perfect meaning to my name, which matches my personality.. he he.... So i decided to stick with " Ashvini is the first star that appears in the evening sky, in Hindu constellation it is the head of Aries, or the first of the 27 Nakshatras." So now I mean a Star, nad not jus a Horse... A good discovery..

So the next time some chinese guy asks me WHAT DO YOU MEAN? I can proudly Say that I am a Star.... ha ha..

Oh.. Suddenly I have run out of thoughts.... So hmmm.. I guess thats all 4 now.... This is Ashvini the Star.. signing off !!! ;)

Night Trek @ Skandagiri

Hey Ashwin, I want the analysis reports ready by saturday.. have u run through the application, we need to finish our sanity test and raise alarms with regards unresolved issues. Please ensure tht its done b4 u leave !!!!

" Bloodyhell... u hav to give all the stuff on friday evening itself is it..Ohcrap... Gotta wrk on saturday too..."??"What will I tell Manja... Man I dont wannna miss this trip.. God plzz plzz plzz do something......

"Hey Ravi, The application has crashed. The tech support is not available over the weekend.. We have no option but to push the deadline to Tuesday !!!! (Tht was the engineering team Head,and Ravi is my reporting Boss... )

Oh is it !! thts baad.... I had actually cancelled my plans for the weekend Ravi..... (can u beleive this is whatcame outta my mouth, wen i was actually dying to reach B'lore at any cost......) The next thing i remember is rushing to close my shop for the day... and scooting home to catch the first Volvo to B'lore...

Wat happened earlier in the day .....

Hello.. Hey Manjunath.. (Manja...) Kya hall hai yaar?? Ashwin.. sun... we are off to Skandagiri on Saturday for NightTrekking.... I dont wanna hear anything else, jus that u are joining...

Night Trekking.. Cool yaar.. kaun kaun aa raha hai?? watz the plan??

Our regular gang dude.. Mohit, U, me, Anuj, Abhay, etc etc.. We wil be driving down to the Hills by around 11.30 in the nite from B'lore.... Reach there by around 2 Am.. Start the trek, reach the spot aby around 4.30.. catch the sunrise, and head back to the base. This way we can start off and reach B'lore by sunday mrng 10 am latest...

Wow Manja.. awesome plan.. I am game.. Count me in.. I am booking my tckts to B'lore tonite itslef... c u tomorrow mrng dude... catch u there..chal dude.. c u there..

If u dont make it... Man.. u ll nt c the light ofanother day.. gt it??ha haha.... sure dude... i ll b there.. trust me..

Guess God Did answer my prayers........

And finally I was off... On my way to b'lore.... In the bus i was damn excited.. First of all I was excited abt the fact tht we guys were off on our bikes to Skandagiri.. and from wat I cameto know the roads were jus tooo good !!(We had to take the B'lore international airport highway, which covered a major part of the distance.). The next thing was that we were planning to trek the Hills late in the night.. The eerie feeling itself was a major push factor 4 me.. :)

As planned, all of us gathered at the RMZ Infinity Food court at 11 PM..Had a quick bite at Mac D's and We were off.... By around 12 AM ....All of us had come a loooong way from our initial biking days, esp Manja.. He had graduated from a puny lil 150 CC unicorn to an Ultra macho 500 CC Bullet Machismo... And there was nothing to excite me further.. It was fun riding the two wheelers in a gang.. I had already coined a name for ourselves.. The Night Riders.. he he.. Alryt alryt..this blog is not again going to be on How fast the bikes went, how exciting it was and so on.. Lemme stick on to the night trek itself.. hehe... Bikes anf fast lanes always force me to sway away from the topic... its always a huge effort 4 me to stick to the topic.. Not this time...

Vrrrrooooooooooom.. and we reached Skandagiri.... Easiest way to cutshort the details.. hah !!

It was almost 1.45 Am in the morning wen we reached the base camp. I was surprised to see a lot of bikers and Adventure sport enthusiasts gather up at tht place... and here I wast hinking we were the only ones hu were freaky enough to come out for Night trekking...Silly me..... We were all geared up withTorches, Backpacks, Snacks, Water and all the other stuff needed for our trek..

Guys.. lets follow a common path. We shall not hire a guide?? wat say??This was a unanimous decision though there were minor disagreements .. but finally all of us were game for it... The thought of venturing into the unknown without knowing where the rocky paths would lead us, was in itself exciting. We knew tht even if we get lost in the way, all we had to do was, some how or the other reach the top... :)And we were Off... A half lit muddy trasck lead towards the hills.. Wef ollowed the track..Gradually the street lamps went missing... the small huts and a few vehicles around also vanished, and now it was just us !!!

The Silhouette of the hill we were about to scale under the moonlight was an amazing view... Its majestic hieght and the trecherous path made me doubt my capabilities to scale it !!! But i dint dare say it out coz I didnt wanna be the laughing stock among my friends..... But it was later tht i realised tht everyone felt the same way.. Each one of us at some point in time doubted our own individual ability to scale thehills..

Jus around 20 min into the darkness, the inevitable happned.. We were lost!!! There was no way Up or forward. We looked around and we could see a few torch lights flashing a looong way up, bang opposite to us.. We were on our way to a forest rather than climbing the hill... But somehow we managed ourselves to get back on track..

It was a wonderful Nostalgic feeling for the three of Us.. Mohit, Manja andMe !!! The three of us were immediately taken bak to our college days where we had challeged the Beautiful Chamundi Hills to conquer the Watch Tower.. :)It was like reliving the experience all over again for the three of us,only for the slight difference that we had trekked chamundi with at the mercy of a bright and shiny sun, and here we were trekking in the dead of the night to be the first ones to capture the initial rays of the Sun !! But then as we proceeded the tuff and slippery paths made us realise it is much more than wat we had scaled a few years back...I feelt as if the Skandagiri Hills dint want us to reach the summit and was talking to me in my mind,.. try this rock u freak.. i bet u cant .. U are goingto give up.. This is Skandagiri.. it aint gonna be a cake walk ...remember that.. :) i was lik... alryt... itspersonal now !!!! and put in all my vigour and energy, only to find myself flat on the bushes jus 10 min later..ha ha.

After a continuos climb of almost 45 min, we decided to take a break..Or lemme me put it this way.. We were FORCED to take a break. Big huuge boulders became comfortable double cot beds for us.. All the dudes were flat on theirbacks.. The toughest part is to restart the trekk after the smal break....No body was ready to start off again..Personally it took a loot of effort for me to motivate myself to resume uphill... The way uphill goteven more tougher, with the forests becoming a lot more denser and tracksmore and more slippery....

All of us were walking in a line, with each one of us closely following the one in front of us as the visibility was very poorwith only 4 torches guiding the way for a pack of 10... The best part was no one wanted to be the last one to walk. Guess the hollywood movies are to blame here, where they show the last guyalways being the first one to vanish or to fall into trouble. It was fun to watch the guys racing against each other so tht they are not the last ones inthe pack" :)

And finally .. a gruelling 150 minutes, several " man i cant do it anymore" - Breaks, and multiple Fotography stops later, we finally managed to reach the top!! It was an overwhelming feeling.. We had finally done it.. The first thing I did was, take off my back pack, spot a perfect place to lay at rest my over exhausted body. I was lucky enuf to find out a wonderful place.. It was almost at the edge of the cliff, with chill winds carassing all over. There was a beautiful start studded night sky waiting to be appreciated by us.. It was a fantastic experience... I was in a bedroom higher than the lesser mortals, with Natures' air conditioner bringing the temperatures way down, forcing me to forget it was the last week of March,plus a fantasctic view right above me..I couldnt have asked for more... Oh well except for a Blanket or atleast a Jacket. (It was getting unbearabily cold and all I had was a Roundneck Tee and a Nike tracks to fight the chill winds... )

I was in for a pleasant surprise whrn I saw an Old man, must be in his late sixties, in a blanket inside a small makeshift tent, ready to offer us Tea, Bread omlette and guess what, Maggi!!!! I was shocked when I realised that our Dude 65 (A name i coined for our old man), trekks up the hill every friday, saturday and sunday nights jus to offer these refreshments to people like us !!! Things people do for aliving... Though I enjoyed evey bit of theBread Omlette and the tea, there was a part in me which felt sorry for the Old man !!!......

Ashwin .. Get Up man !!!! The sun is about to rise.. dont u wanna see it.... get up.. get up.. Abe uth be !!!!!

God. Where am I... How come I feel so cold in Chennai... 2 min later. I was back to my senses..Oh yeah.. I am at the top of Skandagiri... I ran with all the excitement to the spot from where we could see the perfect sunrise. The wait was eternal.... And finally we couldspot the Golden Globe slowly rising up.. It was beeeaautiful.. Giri and Anuj had set the mood right by Playing --"Sunrise from the Horizons" on their mobiles. After the sight I thought..Man this was worth the effort !!!

That was it.. Our lil adventure trip ended here... We jus took a break for some time, and decided to head our wayback home...This trip had given me wonderful memories that I will defenitely treasure forthe rest of my life...

I know it has been a really loong post.. hope you are still awake by the time you have reached here.... :)

Me signing Off !!!

This is Me...

U guyz must be wondering, what the hell is wrong with this guy. On one post I talk about Global Warming, the need to protect the earth and so on , and immediately the next one is about the most extravagent sport which burns money like anything....

But what to do, I am helpless.. I am a confused soul !! :) But i love it this way.. This is the way it is...

F1 2009 !! The Game Begins...Again...

The Formula 1 2009 season has begun with a bang on the 28th of March. Every year I anxiously wait for March for the F1 season to begin. As Usual, it had to be the Australian GP (Melbourne)which kick started the 2009 season. At times, I always wonder, Y does Australia always get the chance to kick off the season... But whatever, the excitement levels were at an All time high with the change in rules, the exit of Honda, Hamilton being the Champion, Richard Branson entering into the sport and so on....

Speed, fast cars, glamour and of course babes :), are things which used to excite me right from the time GOD decided to put some senses into me.....F1 was all I needed.. It had it all.What ever I needed culminated at one point in F1... I want to express my gratitude to Mr. Bernie Ecclestone for bringing to life the most exciting sports ever.

Have you ever dreamt, what it would feel like to sit at the Cockpit of an F1 car where more than a 1000 horses are revving at the rear of the car, dying to go wild at the slightest tap of ur feet. Can you imagine the Adrenaline rush at the time when the engine propels both you and your car from a standstill to a 100 MPH in just under 3 secs.This is something which i always wanted to feel, but know for sure, I may never be able to experience it. But hey,no one can stop me from dreaming or even better, sit behind the wheel of my Dad's car and think there is a supercharged engine under the hood !!!

But believe me, the view from the driver's cockpit is absolutely exhilarating. Being at the start Grid along with 19 other cars, all of em waiting to tear the tarmac apart, the moment the Light turns green! Every time and in every race, this manages to give me goosebumps, imagine what the driver would be going through! The head rush would be awesome. It always ends up as a battle filed at the first race corner,as this is what decides who is gonna lead the pack.

For those hu do not enjoy or follow F1, this sport may be just about a few identical looking cars running around in circles. My mum always used to curse me for filing up the living room with loud roaring of engines, and a never ending commentary, add to this sudden spikes of excitement in my voice,which was shrill enough to make the next door neighbour's dog runaway.. :) I have tried over a hundred times to make her understand the sport, but alas..all my attempts failed miserably... For her it still remains a colossal waste of money, coz its just cars which run around in circles.
But for those who love the Sport, there is nothing exciting than a RACE weekend !! as the practice, Qualifiers and the RACE happens on a Friday / Saturday and a Sunday.. What more can I ask for.
My fascination with F1 began when I was in class 10th. I never knew anything particular about the sport, apart from the fact that there was a Micheal Schumacher and there is a blazing Red Ferrari. I too was never able to understand the sport much, but since I was fascinated by the sport, it just used to keep me glued to the TV screen. Here I also have to admit, I also used to feel nice in flaunting the fact that I follow F1 (which for me sounded very classy), rather than be the " I am craaazy abt Cricket" kinda guy. :)

As my interest grew in this sport I started understanding the Nuances behind it. I had begun to realise that its not just a matter of high speed. There is a loot of strategy that goes behind each team. What Tyres to use during Qualifying round, Number of times to head for the Pit Stop, Volume of fuel to be filled into the tanks, the gear shifting ratios, the aerodynamix of the car etc etc.. the list goes on. I began to enjoy the game a loot better after I could understand the nuances much better. And believe me its fun top predict which car will head into the pit lane, How many seconds of fuel will go into the Mclaren, which team is planning to change the tyres and so on.. The involvement of race strategy used to make me feel that this sport is unique..It involved looads of thinking and strategising rather than jus lapping the circuit.

There are different types of Motor Sports, like the World Rally championship, The A1 GP, Motocross etc, but nothing has excited me as much as F1. Probably its the panache and the style plus the involvement of Automobile majors like Ferrari, McLarens, Mercedes, BMW etc made me a die hard fan of F1.

My ultimate dream now is to watch an F1 race live in Monaco, coz thts the second track in the world where the race actually takes place on the streets. No separate tracks are built for it..... will be an experience of a life time.

How much i hope, tht instead of me sitting and writing this blog about F1, Wat if i were a Louis Hamilton, or a Micheal Schumacher, or a Fernando Alonso, and there was some other chap working in a software company wastes his time and writes a blog about me... he he.. But alas.. reality bites !!! :) I know for sure, I might have completely bored all you people hu are least interested in the sport, but hey this is one thing tht i really love.. So expect more on this, later !!

Till then, Drive wild, Drive crazy (4 the females), Drive safe on the roads !!! Let the God of speed lead the way !!! Cheers...

Earth Hour !!

Indeed a sincere effort by the wonderful people hu hav decided to come upwith something so unique, yet so trivial to express a joint concern against global warming !!!Vote for Earth! by turning your lights OFF or Vote for Global Warming by turning your lights ON ont he 28th ofMarch 2009 from 8.30 PM to 9.30 PM irrepective of which part of the world you belong to !

Initially when I got this forward, I didnt take it so seriously at all.. Me not being the typical, oh protect our Earth for our children, our future kinda guy, I thought, who will remember to do such a thing or even who will bother to do such a trivial thing. The Myopic view point had hit me real hard. The only thing pulling me down was a silly thought that how does it matter If i am the only person who is bothered to turn off the lights and sit...How wud it help the global cause of worry.

I never ever realised that, if everybody starts thinkng like me, finally no one would end up doing it... Just a thought... Why do human beings always have the tendency of thinking about what others are doing?? The HERD MENTALITY (hey.. I know very little of HR. so I flaunt the jargons where ever Ican... plz dont mind.ha ha.... ). If you want to do something for some one, bloody well go ahead and do it !! Dont think of others...

I have to admit, I was really surprised by the way the 'Earth Hour' thing had gained popularity. I mean, i hadnt seen any of the ADs, in the so called youth Channels like the MTVs,Channel Vs etc.. or even the latest news providers like NDTV, CNN IBN etc hu didnt care 4 anything other than the IPL venue being shifted out of India which shattered the hosts Shahrukh and Priety Zinta.. Oh comon !!!I think inspite of not getting complete support from the media for the right cause, the Internet (though being partof the same media)played a wonderful part in in giving the "Earth Hour" a shot in the arm. I was in for a warm surprise when I received a mail from my 8 year old neighbour, saying I am doing my bit by participating in the Earth Hour, Are u?? I was just wondering, If an 8 year kid knows her responsibility very well and is ready to contribute towards a global cause, what should be stopping us?

If you do not feel the need, you will always have a 100 excuses to support you ! But if you actually want to do your bit for a safer tomorrow, without much effort, this is the least you can do !!!Another thing which I myself am trying to do is, Spread the Message.. Please do not wait for others to start off and you decide to follow. Like they say.. Be the change !!!!!

To be very frank, I do not know how much my participation will support the "global cause". I do not know will it be of any help at all. But still I think what is wrong in giving it a try.

Its my sincere request to everybody ..... please appreciate the beauty of darkness atleast for one hour, on the 28th... Let us all make it happen !!!

www.earthhourus.org/ -

Ah ! This is Life....

“I want 2 go back to the time when getting HIGH, meant on a swing, whenDRINKING meant only apple juice, when DAD was the only hero, when TRUE LOVE meant Mom’s hug, when DAD’S SHOULDER was the highest place on earth, when your WORST ENEMIES were your siblings, when the only thing that could HURT you were skinned knees, when the only things BROKEN were your toys, and when GOOD BYES only meant till tomorrow.”

This would have been just another one of those regular SMSes, had I not been going through what I am going through my life at present. This message touched me so deep that, here I am, up at 2.30 AM on Monday morning trying to express my emotions in a balanced way !!!!

In lyf they say, its the experiences that make or break you... I had least expected that my life would take such an unexpected turn. The turn of events were so dramatic that even though I am totally hurt and shattered from with in, when I look back (though i haven’t gone much ahead now,) it helped me realise that life has a lot more to it than what I had in my mind. I know its z pretty late realization for a guy of my age, but hey,its never too late for anything.... [Jus for the record, I am just 25.. :o) ]

Let me start off with an honest confession. I would have never ever written something related to feelings and emotions and values and other related stuff. I was always the guy who used to take things the way it comes... I always used to think, Arrey whats in all this yar? Its all part of parcel of your regular life. But may be I had taken life for granted..Until now that is....

I was always a guy who was content in life. I was happy with the way I was.I never had to struggle hard for anything that I wanted. I was fortunate enough to get everything that I wanted. But what I failed to realize was that, in the midst of all these momentary happiness, I never realized the worth of these things ever........When I look back, I realise how casually I had taken my life.

I was thehappiest guy alive on earth when I got the Bike of my dreams during mygraduation. I was the happiest guy on earth when I got my admission for myMBA. I was the happiest guy on earth when the prettiest lady I have everseen had decided to walk into my life. And I felt I had everything in theworld when I got placed. But as mentioned earlier, I had completely lost myself in this momentary elation.

But there will always come a point in your life when you feel, everything is crashing down on you. Things were all smooth sailing for me, or so I thought. I am happily working in Chennai,frequenting to meet my parents and friends and the usual. Though I too was grateful to god for what I had, I never reciprocated in the same way I was expected to. I failed to meet or rather understand the implicit expectations, that my friends, parents and others had on me. Little did I know that life isn’t always fair.

I had a rude awakening to reality, and that is what has jolted me like crazy. Never in my wildest dreams had I thought that such a thing could happen to me. I suddenly felt as though some one has thrown me off the track. All I could feel was, how on earth could this happen. Things were al so fine. I was expecting, praying that things will fall back into its place. The toughest part was, since I had never faced such difficult times, I had no clue how to handle it. Add to it, the fact of being all alone and Work pressures mounting on your head !! I almost lost it.

Thats when I realized that Life aint always easy. You Think it may be easy, when things move exactly the way you want it to move. But what should be understood is that Life is not always only about you. Its about the people around you as well.

I am thankful to HIM, for whatever I am today. I am thankful to HIM for whatever has happened in my life. I must admit, there has been a paradigm shift in my attitude towards life. I know how important it is to be there for somebody when they really need you. Never ever take any body for granted, even if they are your clooosest of closest pals, thinking that they always understood you well. Never stay away from expressing your love to one and all and so on.....

Please dont take this as some kinda advice, but its just that I have learnt a lot from my own experiences.

All I have to say is that, every little incident that happens in ones life is hinting at something really big and it happens for a reason. Take time out to realize that. Learn to value relations, learn to value what you are and most important, learn to value your life.

I am Bak !!

Well... hello everybody... Finally I m back.. after a loooooong break.. Well.. there have been loads of things happening in my life in the recent past.. Never got time for myself.. I know its not an excuse.. Well i also admit that I was laazy enuf not to keep up with my blogs...
This time I have decided to tread in to the Unknown. I had kinda limited my posts to my biking trips, adventure stuff and the likes. I am planing to try out some thing a loot different..

Lets c how far it goes.. All the best readers... ;)