This Side of Paradise

…I’m literally jumping up and down with joy! why? Yamaha has formally announced the launch of the R1 and the MT-01 in India… two of the best bikes from the yamaha stable are here…!! the MT-01 is a 1670cc v-twin that produces close to 90bhp, but has a gut wrenching torque of 150 Nm at around 3750 rpm. A kinetic comet on steroids if you will…! with a half front fairing, this should be the perfect long distance tourer…!

Stop! This is not an appeal beseeching you to elect the Taj as one of the new seven wonders of the world. The bigger question to me is - do we, as Indians deserve to see the Taj as one of the new seven wonders of the world? Controversial opinion? Let me help with the thought process. Have you ever seen the Taj in the state that it is in, now? The marble used in the construction was milk white - is it now? it’s a dirty brown, courtesy of the many polluting factories in the vicinity of the place. the Yamuna river runs by the Taj - dirty, black and pollutant laden. ‘Wonder of the world’ material? you tell me…!!

I’ve finally got the bike back to a fantastic condition. After the crash, I spent a few weeks running behind spares across various show rooms in the city. The final step was a nice servicing at the castrol bike zone today. Went to pick up the bike at around 5 in the evening today. As expected, the service was top notch. Got out of the place and headed towards NH-7.Once I got there, it was time to stretch its legs a bit. The bike freely revved across the powerband, and at the end, I was doing 105 kph speedo at close to 9000 rpm. the last 2-3 km of the highway ride went off in a blink.

I’ve come to hate the following months at work - not that the others are any better… March - Performance appraisals. It’s a desperate attempt to match your performance to what the organization perceives. May/June - the hike letters come out. As usual, its a disappointment to a select few, while the whole world around you seems smiling all the way to the bank. September - Perf appraisals again. Need I say more.

After a lot of effort, Flavors - the movie is finally online. A very lightly told tale - sorry, tales intertwined with each other so nicely. Overall a very fun movie to watch…!! …all right, all right. I accept - I’m not a good movie critique, but feel free to do your reviews in the comments section :)

my music collection surely has a talent to surprise me at the oddest of the moments…I was mentally preparing to post something very serious (…yes…that post is still on its way) - and that’s when winamp decided to flip me over to Orbital’s “Bigpipe styles”. Did some more reading and found out that it belonged to a series of songs called ‘style’ because it used an instrument called a [stylophone] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stylophone)

…it’s been a terrible day at work so far! My on site manager somehow has a confounded sixth sense of figuring out when my vacations are - and then planning a visit! it has happened before and hell..it’s happening again. The Leh trip is going to happen between 16th May - 25th May and I am not going to be on it. Turns out that her visit dates are May 16th - May 18th and I need to go to Bangalore as well - that’s on May 22nd and 23rd.

… Everything may not appear as what it seems

…of yesterday’s crash was seen in totality today. Bunked office to get some rest, but it was a pretty hectic day overall…! woke up at 9:30 in the morning and had to literally push the bike to the service station. The key hole was jammed and I couldn’t turn on the ignition. Sat there for a couple of hours to get a repair quotation to submit to the insurance folks. The total damage was worth around 6,700… so far.

Today was not supposed to be a normal day after all. I woke up quite early after watching the SL vs NZ match and I was able to make it to work by 10:30. Definitely early by normal standards. That’s when Vamshi dropped the bomb.. there are quite a few interesting developments happening at work. It can have quite an impact on the work we’re doing. We’ll know by the end of the year…!!