I am sorry for not updating my Digital Diary for so long.

I hate to give my work as excuse because I firmly believe if we make an effort to take some time out of work we can surely do anything and everything we think of doing. I promise that I’ll make it a point to post regularly from now on. This is the first time that people have been demanding my next post. It is cheerfully encouraging to see people waiting to read my next post. I will try my best and keep up with your pace.

The awards have been flowing in even though I have not been a regular here. Thanks a lot for all the encouragement and support. These awards are as big as Oscars for me.

Proximity Award (Awarded by Smita):

Thanks will be an understatement. This award comes with a small write up as well. Here it goes;

This award is given to a blog that invests and believes in PROXIMITY – nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.
What more can I say about this award!? Here comes the tough part now.

I pass this award to;

• Preeti
• Chandan
• Archana
• Vivek
• Apar
• Sakhi
• Nidhi and
• IHM

Kreativ Blogger (Awarded by Archana and Vivek):

If there is anything creative in my blog that should be my template :). Thanks a lot for the award. This award will now act as an inspiration for me to write something creative. Blogging is not just about writing. It is about creating something new every time. So this award goes to everyone on my blog roll and to everyone who is making an effort to write a blog.

Now for some Cricketing action;

If you are a cricket fan you would know that the last 10 days have been a golden period for test cricket. If the Indian run chase made me think about writing a post, the South African run chase made me sit up and write. What an awesome run chase it was!? Is it because the well oiled engine called Australia is running out of steam? Or is it the never-say-die attitude of South Africa that helped them pull off such a tremendous win. Only time will tell. But nevertheless it will be match to remember for decades to follow. Same is the case with the Indian run chase. It is one of those matches that will be telecast on TV time and again as a classic match. I am so glad to have witnessed it live. I would like to congratulate and thank the Indian and South African teams for taking test cricket to a new level.

Another accomplishment that any Indian cricket fan would have taken notice of is Rahul Dravid’s century. I was more relieved than Dravid himself. It was disheartening to see him in such a pathetic state. With this innings, he has not just managed to silence the critics; he has made sure he has zipped up their mouths for another season. I just could not understand what was there for him to prove. If there is anything left for anyone to prove in the current Indian Cricket team it has to Harbhajan Singh. Anil Kumble’s shoes are turning out to be to too big for him to fill. Dhoni will not be able to shield him for too long. The so called critics want a scapegoat and I am sure the turbanator is slowly turning(doosra'ing') out to be the right candidate.

That was the cricket update. Moving on to Christmas celebrations;

If I could trade one of the thousands of festivals we have with a festival from a different religion it would be Christmas any day. It has a certain aura around it. Christmas brings with it lots of fond memories. This was one of the festivals we celebrated in school with great enthusiasm. We used to decorate our class rooms, decorate Christmas trees, play lots of games, exchange small gifts, cut cakes and the best part about this whole celebration was the holidays that followed. Now when I am working in an IT organization, all I get is a day off. The office is decorated alright but no one seems to be enthusiastic about the whole thing. This has not left me disappointed though. I have my own plans for Christmas. I will be watching the first-day first-show of Ghajini with my family and will probably be lunching out after that. And since there is a sale going on in every nook and corner of Bangalore I might do some shopping as well. So, What are your plans? How are you planning to celebrate this festive week?

1.  Go offline in Orkut - But this solves only half the problem. You will not be able to remove people that Orkut obliged adding. Moreover, you will not be able to chat with people you really wanted to chat with. You will be offline :( 

2.  Sign in to Orkut -> Go to settings -> Chat Tab -> Uncheck all the check boxes and save changes. This will remove all the people Orkut had added without your permission. 

3. Do not sign-in into orkut :)

1. It is now very easy to find an Orkut friend’s Gmail ID and add him or her to your Google talk List. 

2. Chat and Scrap without having to switch between browser windows.

Before you get into any sort of confusion or conclusion, this is neither a movie review nor a discussion about the size-zero girl Kareena Kapoor. I will be talking about my first ever blogger get together(Not exactly the first meet because the first blogger I ever met was Preeti during her book launch) with Oxy who is probably four or five sizes more than our very own size-zero girl :)

Here are the awards;

I wanted to write a post on the Mumbai Terror Attacks but I was in a complete state of shock and could not express what I felt. Moreover I have nothing left to write because great writers and great bloggers have already written everything about it.

It is now the time of post-mortem of the entire episode when facts and secrets are dug out from the dead bodies of the terrorists. It is also the time when every secret agency claims that it had warned India about the attacks. Every citizen of India has lots of questions in his or her mind but I don't see any person who has the answers to all of them. So it is time to find our own answers. Why do we always wait? I think that is how we are taught in schools. We always ask questions and wait for the teacher to respond. It is that time of our lives when we have to change and act.

I came across a lovely poem (written by famous lyricist Prasoon Joshi) that more or less sums up what I wanted to convey;

Nahin aaney doonga zindagi ko aasani se patri par

Nahin utarney doonga usey keechad main,tedhey medhey raston pe

Nahin sookhney doonga deewaron par laga khoon

Halka Nahin padney doonga uska rang

Is baar Nahin banney doonga usey itna laachaar ki paan ki peek aur khoon ka fark hi khatm ho jaye

Is baar ghawon ko dekhna hai gaur se thoda lambe wakt tak

Kuch faisley aur uskey baad hausley kahin toh shuruat karni hi hogi

Is baar yahi tay kiya hai!

My heartfelt condolences go to all the martyrs who played a big part in digging us out of the hole that we had dug for ourselves (The blasts just made it easy).

I would not like to put the entire blame on the politicians here because they became our leaders only because we voted (or not voted) for them. Please use your power, your vote judiciously and choose a worthy leader instead of moaning later.

I reached a milestone last week. The “five thousand hits” milestone. I wanted to celebrate it in style but this whole episode made me sad and I could no longer celebrate it. But since life has to move on, here I am, proudly displaying the number of hits on the left side of the screen. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my readers from the bottom of my heart for making it possible. With each comment and each post I have improved and I would have been just another unknown blogger (Google finds me now:)) in this big wide blog world without you all. Thanks again!