Strings Of Life

Finally back after a long break. It was so much fun. Drove car for more than 1500 kms, visited college, had good time with friends. And all those nostalgic feelings.
It is strange that:
“When I was driving the car, I yelled at people walking down the street.
When I was walking on the street, I yelled at people driving the cars.”

Fast driving is so much fun, isn’t it?. It’s adrenaline rush, and the feeling of weightlessness? -it’s awesome. Driving at a high speed I wrongly overtook one car. By the time I realized my mistake, the car was left far behind. All that adrenaline rush feeling was over and I brought my car to a normal speed.

After a few minutes, the same car sped past me and stopped right in front of my car. My gut feeling said that the things are going wrong. I was all alone and the road was empty too. Fear struck my heart and my stomach had that feeling -the one you get before an interview or a viva. A man double my size stepped out of the car and asked me to step out too. Things definitely were going wrong, mustering courage I stepped out.
I could sense anger in that man’s eyes. But when I went near he asked politely(Maybe by my getup I appear an innocent person. Thanks to the Sarkari Naukari, now I hate formals no more): “Sir, your fast driving could have killed me”. I apologized, and since that day my speedometer hasn’t read more than 45km/h. After all, more than myself I don’t want to risk somebody else's life.

Image curtsy: loritingey

Thank You Aditi for the award. I'm honored.
And also Thank You for the interesting TAG.
Statutory Warning: This article is unnecessarily long and contains lots of personal uninteresting stuff, read at your own risk.

1. What is your current obsession?
My Chevrolet Spark, Nikon D40 & Apple MacBook.


2. What are you wearing today?
Blue Jeans & Light brown T-Shirt.


3. What's for Dinner?
No idea.


5. What are you listening to right now?
Fiqrana from the movie Blue, music by A.R.Rehman. Amazing song.


6. What do you think about the person who tagged you?
There are rare people who follow their heart, those who chase their passions. Aditi is one of them. With such a great attitude, she's definitely going places.

7. If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?
Sundernagar, as the name suggests is a beautiful place in Himachal, I always dreamed of building a house there someday. Now my dream house is already under construction and I'm too excited about it.

8. What are your must-have pieces for summer?
Nothing!, Because if summers make my complexion dark, winters are gonna make it white. So whether it's summer or winter, I enjoy both. :P

9. If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go?
Sainik School Balachadi, where I've spent the most beautiful years of my childhood.

10. Which language do you want to learn?
Sanskrit

11. What's your favorite quote?
"Be the change that you wish to see in the world." - Mahatma Gandhi

12. Who do you want to meet right now?
My younger brother.

13. What's your favorite colour?
Navy Blue.


14. What is your favorite piece of clothing in your closet?
Formal black pant & a sky blue shirt.


15. What is your dream job?
Own a bookstore so that I get to read a lot of stuff for Free.


16. What's your favorite magazine?
Reader's Digest.


17. If you had $100 now, what would you spend it on?
Tripod & a 55-200mm lens for my Nikon D40. With the leftover I'll buy books.


18. What do you consider as fashion faux pas?
I think fashion itself is a faux pas.

19. Who according to you is the most over-rated style icon?
S.R.K, I don't understand why people adore him so much.


20. What kind of haircut do you prefer?
Formal


21. What are you going to do after this?
Continue with "The White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga

22. What are your favorite movies?
Hindi:
Yeh Mera India, Anand, Ab tak chappan, Swadesh, Hungama, Hera Pheri.
English:
American Beauty, Crash, Adventureland, Braveheart, A beautiful mind, Toy Story 1 & 2, Shrek Series, Lion King, Finding Nemo.
Korean:
My Sassy Girl, Classic.


23. What are three cosmetic/ makeup/perfume products that you can't live without?
Water, Water, Water. Rest all is marketing gimmick.

24. What inspires you?
Honesty & Simplicity.


25. Give us three styling tips that always work for you:
Bath everyday, Avoid onions in the lunch, Smile as much as you can, coz it improves your health & also the frequent movement of lips keeps your teeth clean & shining :D.


27. Coffee or tea?
Coffee


28. What do you do when you are feeling low or terribly depressed?
Put on some music and play "Age of Umpire" (In the EASY mode).


29. Which other blogs do you love visiting?
Genuine blogs. Check out my favorite blogs in the blogroll.


30. Favorite Dessert/ Sweet?
Ice-cream.

31. Favorite Season?
Spring


32. If I come to your house now, what would u cook for me?
If it's your first time, I'll take you to the nearest decent hotel. If you are a frequent visitor, well i'll check the refrigerator (for the raw vegetable obviously) :D.

33. What is the right way to avoid people who purposefully hurt you?
I'll give them more opportunities to hurt me, until they get bored with it.

34. What are you afraid of the most?
What if my wife doesn't like cooking?. :D

35. My question: Funniest one-liner you've ever heard?
I want to die peacefully in my sleep, like my grandfather. Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his car.

Rules for those who are tagged: Respond and rework – answer these questions on your blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your own, and add one more question to the list. Then tag as many people as you like.

I would love to pass on the tag and award:
Yogesh, Shas and Solilo.

As a little kid I longed to be a football hero. I wanted to kick the ball like the big guys. At the age of ten, when I was sent to the hostel, I volunteered to join the class football team. We were a bunch of kids just excited about the game. Every evening I would excitedly put on my sneakers and run to the playing ground.

For days I kept chasing the ball without getting a single chance to hit it. Every time the ball was passed on to me, my mind went blank and failed to make any decision. By the time my mind worked out something, some other guy would be handling the ball.
Due to my inability to take quick decisions my team members lost faith in my game. At times they would shout names and make faces at me. Dejection set in, and a feeling of failure captured my heart. And I decided not to play the game ever again. Whenever asked, I termed football as a mere time waste.

Now as a grown up I hardly find any leisure time but I still wish to kick the ball like those big guys someday. Encouragement is a big factor in a child's life, we all know this. But still, how many of us really encourage the kids around?.

I'm the Spider-man. I can fly past heavy buildings with the help of a rope. Whoa, I can climb huge buildings in a fraction of a second. But wait wait, Why have I turned so powerful?. Just because a spider bit me unknowingly?. This can't be true!.

With the vermilion mark on my forehead and a short pony tale, I'm the Desi version of the spider-man. I have a wife too, and two kids. But they are perfectly normal. Maybe they are not lucky enough to be bitten by a spider. Yes, this is the shortcut to success; go to the nearby jungle, get bitten by the deadliest spider and get the celebrity status overnight.
My eyes were close, and my back felt painful, maybe due to the war I just had with the goons. But wait, where is my wife? and the kids are missing too.

I opened my eyes and a spider was dancing on my bed. I stretched my eyes in order to let more light pass through them. And two more little monsters were mocking me from the ceiling. I grabbed my missiles (water bottle, mug, shoes) and bullets (pen, pencils and the other stuff kept on the table) and smacked down those monsters.
Yes!, I won the war, I'm the strongest. 

Oh, I should sleep again now. This time peacefully, with no such wacky dream.

Image Curtsey: Spyndle

In the retrospect I desired to be a famous cartoonist. My dreams got shattered the day my drawing teacher asked us to draw an elephant. I gave it my best shot. After putting much pressure on his right brain my drawing teacher named my sketch as Buffalo. I happily accepted the award of two beatings for the masterpiece. For I thought he named my cute elephant as Buffalo because my sketch was Untitled. It was my friend cum roommate who made me aware of the actual fact. Maybe it happened coz I never saw an real elephant. Or maybe I ignored the fact that an animal could have such a massive pipe like structure in place of the nose?.
Well that was that.
Recently I happened to stumble upon this great site named ToonDoo. It's an online tool for creating cartoons and animation. And here is my experiment (Though the joke is not my original).
Tim Asks:

Aaiye Sahab, Aaiye. Welcome to BookTroniks, we are one of the best book stores in Dilli. Myself Mr.Mishra, you can ask for any kind of book.
That's interesting, I interrupted. Do you have a copy of "One hundred years of solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez?
Arey Sahab, Kya baat kar di aapne? Mere hote hue aapko foreign author ki book padhni pade?
And he immediately handed me a copy of "My Spouse" by Dobha De.
I was scanning through the pages and the chatter box started: Sahab, Dobha Ji kya likhti hain!. You won't get a better book on male-female relationship than this one.
Upon this I asked: But Mishra Ji, I have heard that she had some problem with her first husband and she got divorced?
Arey Sahab, Aap bhi kamaal karte hain? If she is a divorcee, that means she is quite experienced in this field?.
Valid point. But I declined to go for it and asked,
Mishra Ji, can you suggest me a good book?
Mishra Ji to his helper: Arey chotu, go and get a copy of  "Kamasutra" from the top shelf.
Me: Arey nahi nahin Mishra ji, you got me wrong. All I'm asking you is to recommend me a popular book. I mean a book which is much in demand.
Mishra Ji: Arey Sahab, this book is never out of demand and you know we have only three copies left?.
Me: Mishra Ji, try to understand, I'm not yet qualified enough to contribute to the India's population.
Mishra Ji: Kya Sahab? When I was about your age, my third child was in the first standard.

Mishra Ji was about to speak more but a lady entered the book stall and asked for a copy of "The monk who sold his TATA Safari".
She was going through the index page and I interrupted, Excuse me madam, If you like fiction then I think there are much better options than this one. This book is more of a self help kind of stuff.
The lady agreed and asked the shop owner: Mishra Ji, can you suggest me a Good Book?
With the copy of "Kaamasutra" still in hands, Mishra Ji glanced towards me.
And I immediately left the book store.......

» The Godfather by Mario Puzo

Revolving around the New York's mafia gang wars, The Godfather is Mario Puzo's ageless work. The thing I liked about this novel is its capability to grip your mind and stay there forever. "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse" is one of the most quoted statement of this amazing novel. If you are new to reading you can start with this novel but beware, you might get addicted.

» The Catcher in the Rye by J.D.Salinger

The Catcher in the rye is the protagonist Holden Cualfield's narrative of what he goes through when expelled from school. When you pick this novel you feel like reading it at one go because right from the very first page you feel connected with the author's blunt narrative. Though this book has remained bit controversial, I feel it's a literary masterpiece.

Excerpts from the book:

• I was half in love with her by the time we sat down.  That's the thing about girls.  Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are.  Girls.  Jesus Christ.  They can drive you crazy.  They really can.

• I don't even know what I was running for - I guess I just felt like it.

• I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life.  It's awful.  If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera.  It's terrible.

Getting inspiration from Bryan Peterson's "Understanding Exposure", I decided to experiment with the Manual mode of my Nikon D40. After loads of confusion and reading I got to learn few of its features. The above image is one of my first taken in the Manual mode.

It has been a long time since I wrote something here.
I don't feel like writing these days and moreover I don't want to fake it.
I have not only stopped writing but even stopped thinking and that is quite a dangerous thing.

"Dedication to duty is not a sacrifice but a justification to our existence."






















Busy bee- My favorite photograph (till now). Captured this one while on morning walk.

UPDATE:
Hello friends. Due to some reasons I won't be available here till July end or August.
Thanks for your valuable comments. And I'm sorry for not being able to post comments on your blogs.
I'll miss my favorite blogs & bloggers. But i'll update myself when I'm back.
Miss you all.
Take Care! Stay Happy, Stay Good.
-----

I took this TAG from Rajeev's blog. And I tag everyone reading it. :)

Sunil Parashar: A memoir in six words.

"The other good name of LUCK!"

I often get engrossed in the word 'Life'. What is the meaning of life?. Is it happiness? Is it Love?, or is life some sort of gimmick played upon us by some higher power?.

One day pondering over such questions I subconsciously sketched a guitar on the paper at hand and titled it as 'Strings of Life'. Later on this became the title for my first blog.
The idea behind Strings of Life was to create an online souvenir where I can express myself, share my thoughts and discover the meaning of Life.

The new face of Strings of Life:
The two year journey from 2006 to 2008 was like sea waves, full of highs and lows.
Now I've moved Strings of Life from Google owned domain(www.sunilparashar.blogspot.com) to a custom domain SunilParashar.com so as to make a fresh start.
Whereas the theme remains same: Life.

Hello and welcome at Strings of Life (SunilParashar.com).


My shortest résumé:
Name: Sunil Parashar
Age: Currently on my 23rd 24th revolution around the sun.
Location: Hamirpur Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India.
Education : NIT Hamirpur (B.Tech, Electrical), Sainik School Balachadi, Jamnagar, Gujarat (Higher Secondary)
Occupation: Currently in the final year of Electrical Engineering at NIT Hamirpur. Working as Engineer in a PSU.

In retrospect, I aspired to be an army officer, a multi millionaire, join merchant navy, be an IAS officer, join the corporate world, start my own industrial conglomerate, be a writer, and what not but it took me 19 years to discover that all these realms demand hard work and therefore I ended up being an engineer(maybe).

Literally speaking I'm not a genius/technical person but yes I'm a curious soul and once I make up my mind for something I give my entire self towards it. I believe, if you don't have something then create it. After all life is all about being passionately passionate about ones aspirations & dreams.
These lines by Emily Dickinson best describes me:
"A face devoid of love or grace,
A hateful, hard, successful face,
A face with which a stone Would feel as thoroughly at ease
As were they old acquaintances —First time together thrown."

My hobbies include:
Reading: Imagination has no upper limit & to me books are as important as breathing. View my collection of books over here>> .

Writing: I love collecting diaries and scribbled pages appear better than the blank ones. It took me 20 years to realize that I've no talent for writing but by then I was already popular.(Quote)

Web designing: Internet is the best medium to express oneself & I think it's better to get your hands dirty with some elementary coding than to pay some professional web developer for such a stupid thing.

Photography: Oops! I don't own a camera but I think I've an eye for photography. Soon I'll be equipping myself with a DSLR, but then soon itself is a big word. :D
Thankfully now I own Nikon D40 & my photography skills can be viewed over here.

Cooking: It's fun, creativity & far more a thing than keeping utensils on fire. So what would you like to have for the dinner today? :)


Blogging & me:
I first heard the term blog way back in 2005 & thought to get one for myself. My first blog can still be accessed over here. As the word 'Life' fascinates me more than anything I named my blog as Strings of Life & have still retained its name. The philosophy behind Strings of Life can be read over here>>
Blog is the best platform to express myself & the friends I've made over here are worth a million posts.If you don't own a blog I advice you to immediately start one and I'm sure you'll be surprised by the results.

Thank you for reaching this far, I admire your patience. To stay in touch or to know more about me drop me an email at:


Or else visit the Contact page.

Welcome to the contact page of SunilParashar.com.


To get in touch with me or to know more about me please feel free to drop me a mail at:




Instant chat:

Hello friends.
It’s going to be hectic time ahead.
This week we have Hill’ffair. Hill’ffair is cultural fest of NIT Hamirpur. It’s gala time for NIT Hamirpur’ians starting this Friday {3rd Nov} till Sunday. We’ll have dances, dramatics, songs, D.J, Fashion show {the best part?} and much more.

This time our theme is “Break Free”.
After that I’ve final submission of minor project. My project is to design a circuit to control a stepper motor from P.C using infra red {Sounds hi-tech!!! but it’s simple}.
After that we’ve final practical, tests, and final EXAMS?.
And then the winter break till mid January.
I don’t know when I’ll be back here {Blogger}. But I’ll keep updating myself with your posts.

Suggestion needed:
I’m designing my personal database and I’ve finalized two options for the domain name. 1> www.sunilparmar.in. 2> www.sunilparmar.info.
Please suggest which one sounds better?

So finally this is Sunil signing off. Wish you all a great time!!!.

Hello Friends.
Exams are knocking heavily on my door, so i've to dust off my books & study something. I have five exams in three days-Starting this Wednesday (: . The very next day {i.e. Saturday} we have Diwali so I’ll pay a visit home. I’ll be back on Sunday {22nd}, till then miss you all. Now I’ll have to dig into my books and notes. (:Wish you all a very vibrant & colorful Diwali.
Happy Blogging!!!!