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2010

Why is 31st so special? One big party? Lotsa booze? Togetherness? Or something else I actually give a shit about?

Every year, 31st December gives me a reason to evaluate myself. A self appraisal or sorts.

Some highs in 2010:

January: I quit my job (for another one of course)

Feb: Moved to Goa

March: Rented an apartment

April: Started filling that apartment with random pieces of furniture

May: Celebrated the day my wife came into this world

June: My car turned a year old

July: Realised that I hate partys

August: Realised that I have a life outside of office

September: Realised that fancy phones, fancy cars and a lavish lifestyle doesn't matter to me anymore

October: Picked up my first DSLR

November: Got introduced to BBQ dinners

December: Learnt something new about my wife. While most people look forward to gourmet dinners, holidays, shopping, camping or even partying, she looks forward to 'Cleaning the house'

2010. One of the best years of my life so far!

Oh My God

You know you're working too much when you wake up in the middle of the night, nudge your wife, point at her blanket and say "Can I get a copy of that please?"

What's worse?

What's worse than taking a 7 am flight to Bombay on Thursday morning?

Taking a 5.20 am flight back to Goa on Friday morning. Groaaannnn.

Jealousy

What happens when you pick up Igloo and pet her?

Jealous Aglee sticks out her tongue at you.

I'm not a cat person..

Yeah right....

Sigh

What I actually want...

What I'll settle for...

Drunk G

I had taken a picture of drunk G in Delhi many months ago.

This week, a TVC featuring a bald guy driving an Indica Vista Drivetech4 was released.

I swear. They look exactly the same.

A perfect end to the week

6 days of hard work, late nights and interrupted sleep followed by a Sunday with a heavy breakfast, a movie, 3 plates of cheese corn nuggets, chicken curry for dinner and the wife for company. A perfect end.

Creative license

Creative output is so subjective.

At a review... 3 people peering at a desktop screen...

Person 1: What do you think?

Person 2: I think it's fine. Looks pretty good actually!

Person 1: (Looking at me). What do you think?

Me: I think it's damn crappy man... GROANNNNN

Goa

Beaches and sunsets are probably the most boring landscapes to shoot. Well atleast if do it often enough. But yet when you see a sunset at a beach, you cant but help pull out your camera.

Taglines

Week 1 - Generated 50 taglines for a client

Week 2 - Shortlisted 16

Week 3 - Presented them to the client

Week 4 (Outcome of the meeting) - Let's not use a tagline anymore.

www.vivekchugh.com

A year and a half ago I decided I'd get a website. I booked domain space. Made a few design attempts myself. Created a logo and shortlisted pictures.

It finally happened today. Version 0.000001 is live.

A big thanks to...(and i really mean this)

Sindhu for developing it and finally getting it online. An absolute doll for getting it done. She wont even let me credit her on my website... Yes, there are such people. Nutty but nice.

Romi for booking domain space and scouting for plugins when I was being a brat by ordering him around.

AK for the profile pic.. he's good by the way. Check out his website. Oh right. He doesn't have one. But when he does, I'll post the link here.

Reva for pushing me when I was too lazy to get off my ass and get this moving.

Need a wide angle

Last week AK came over with his wide angle. I stole it for a while. New found love... I need one.. soon.. A D700 + a 20mm fixed wide angle.

This shot—courtesy AK and his 10 mm.

New found respect

Until most recently I didn't realise the importance of having a significant amount of stash in my bank account. When it was gone I realised how badly I needed it.

I have new found respect for the homeless. They don't even know where their next meal is coming from.

Entertainment

Last year I watched numerous IPL matches from the box. In South Africa where I was freezing my a** off with a large mug of beer in one hand and a blackberry in the other. This year I'll be sitting in front of my mac, logged on to YouTube with a pint of beer in one hand and a bottle opener in the other. Nostalgia beh beh!

Goan eccentricities

2 pm in the afernoon. You walk towards a restaurant for lunch. The door is shut. A hand written signboard is seen on it. "Closed for Lunch"

11 am in another restaurant. Customer to waiter - "Bhai, ek mast wala chai la". Waiter contemplates for 5 mins, gives an apologetic look to the customer and says "Bhai bana na padega".

Beer

If you think you can have another beer, you probably can! My philosophy. I'm five beers down. I think I can have another one. I think I'll go for it!

I just moved to Goa! A shift most people would consider, weird and rash. Why they asked. I said I wanted a change. I wanted to move away from the hustle and bustle. I wanted to live by the beach. I wanted to give my wife a life she always wanted.

I just watched "How to lose a guy in 10 days". I loved it. I miss Reva. Random? Well what do expect from a guy thats 5 beers down?

RIP

Hindustani music doesn't appeal to a large audience. At least not where I come from. I've been raised by a family of businessmen. Naturally I didn't have an inclination towards any form of music. Or any form of art for that matter. 

Let's face it. I didn't understand it. I still don't. But having married Pandit Dinkar Kaikini's grand daughter, I automatically got exposed to music and art a great deal more. I recently heard a video on youtube of Pandit Dinkar singing. You know how sometimes you hear a voice and forget about everything else around you? Your mind blanks out and it seems for that moment you have no worries. You truly start appreciating the beauty of it. You feel a weird connection. And you're at peace. 

Pandit Dinkar Kaikini passed away last week. Even though I hardly knew him, I miss him already. He was a great singer but more importantly a kind man. 

I only pray that Ammama, Rajesh, Aditi, Yogi, Reva and Niyu have the strength to deal with what I'd call the biggest loss for them so far.

RIP

The Cable Guy

Where I work, the IT department is a one man show. What's really great about him is the level of comfort he has with machines. Everyone else's machines. 

I'm there sitting and working on my laptop when suddenly my attention is diverted to my right. I turn back to find the IT guy typing some text on MY laptop. THATS MY LAPTOP. You'd kind of expect him to excuse himself and come up with half a reason for meddling with my laptop right? Anyway this kind of eccentric behavior isn't new to me so I carry on conversing with my colleague.  2 minutes later he disappears with an unsaved document on my desktop. I hit "ALT f4".

Ten minutes of peace. He then reappears with another laptop, pulls out my power cable and connects it to the laptop he just brought. He then places the damn thing on MY TABLE. MY TABLE. Then he disappears again, without a word, into the darkness of his home, the server room. 

Such is life

What do you do when you buy a 30,000 phone? You feel nice for a bit. Then you go ahead and drop it on the concrete. 

Such is life

Having moved from a PC to a Mac about a year ago, I have a tendency to brag a little. I tell people that its far far superior than the PC. In fact I tell people that it's been so great for me that I waste no more time reinstalling software, reinstalling operating systems, partitioning hard drives, losing data, rectifying system crashes, hitting ctrl+alt+delete... blah blah. You get the drift. It's true. I haven't wasted any time doing any of that with my mac in the last one year. 

But today I was humbled when my mac hung for the 20th time. No comments please. 

 

Nikon vs Canon

Right now, we're only talking about SLRs. Not 'point and shoots'. That's another discussion I don't really care for.

Let me start this note with one simple fact. It's not the camera that makes great pictures. It's the photographer. A good photographer can take better pictures with a point and shoot than an idiot with the best SLR money can buy. But if you did want to buy a camera, which one would you finally shell out money for?

I've asked this question to a lot of people myself. Some swear by Nikon. Others use 'Nikon' as a swear word. You fuckin' "Nikon". 

The fact is this. They're both more or less equally good. It's like this. You're not going to create a tantrum at a restaurant if the waiter gives you a Pepsi when you ordered a Coke. It just doesn't matter. But then again a camera is a high involvement purchase. I don't care if you say you're stinking rich but you'd still want to contemplate a little before deciding which side of the fence you want to sit on. Oh and it's a tall fence to climb once you do take a call. 

You see, if it's an SLR and if you don't have money to throw away you would probably just make this decision ONCE. Why? Because once you buy a camera body, you automatically start adding lenses to your kit. So lets assume that after a couple of years, you still love shooting. You've probably added one prime lens for portraiture, one wide angle for landscapes and one tele just because it feels great to hold something that long. And now you suddenly decide you want to switch to a Nikon or the other way around. You're screwed. Why? Simply because when you switch over, you not only have to sell your camera body but you also have to get rid of every Nikkor (Nikon) or Canon lens you bought. Now that brings me to something else that is very interesting. I once heard that you could make Nikkor lenses work on a Canon by adding an adaptor. You'd have to spend close to 400$ on the adapter though. But you just cant make Canon lenses work on a Nikon body.  

Even if the adaptor thingy was possible, I wouldn't use an adaptor to bring in compatibility. Why? I don't really know. It just seems like a compromise. Doesn't it? 

So that still leaves the age old question. Nikon or Canon? I think it really depends on you. I would never touch a Canon for the following reasons:

- I hate getting into "My Canon is bigger than your Canon" debates. 

- I already have a good number of Nikkor lenses which will not work on a Canon. 

- I hate the way they fit in my hand. But your hands are different and a Canon would probably be just as nice. Ergonomically speaking i.e. 

- It takes longer for me to change basic settings on a Canon than a Nikon. What were they thinking?

- I hate having to focus first and then compose. I always compose first and then shoot which is possible on my Nikon. It's a personal thing really. Whatever works for you. I personally find the focus a little dicey on a Canon. It's not as intuitive as my Nikon. And this is Canon's biggest flaw. Let me explain this a little better. On the Canon, you need to focus first, hold down the focus lock key, move your viewfinder to compose your subject within the frame and then finally click. If your subject moves a little when you're doing all of that, your subject will be out of focus. You can use the same method shooting with a Nikon, but with the Nikon there's one more thing you can do. You can set your focus by using one of the many focus points on your viewfinder. Half click to focus and then shoot. If your subject moves when you're doing all of that, half click again and shoot. Simpler? Use both and see.

Warning: Please note that the above is just an opinion. I don't get paid by Nikon for writing any of it. As you already might have guessed, Canon doesn't pay me either.

Corporate dynamics

The Dicks: This kind consists of the new joinees. Smart asses, just out of college. The kind that loves dropping not so subtle cheeky one liners. Like lines they used last year to pick up girls in school. But you're smarter than them right? You've been in a business longer than they have. So you give it right back and more often than not, they run out of comebacks. At the end of it all, they end up feeling really foolish. Gradually, cheeky one liners become less frequent when you enter the room. Ha ha... savor the moment. 

The Dick "Heads": Mostly the top management. You know this kind well enough. You've probably seem them function every since you started working. The higher you climb the ladder the closer to get to them. The faster you learn the tricks. Of being a dash dash. This kind loves maintaining an aura around them. They give you every reason to hate your job. They cut your bonuses but still make it seem like the opportunities available here are the best in the industry. They're not. And you know it. 

The Dildos: Every office has this. The female version of the dick but a little more experienced. Experienced in the art of manipulation. It's almost like they have a split personality and they're completely unaware of it. They get what they want by turning on and turning off the charm. Like an on and off switch. They think they have it. They don't. We see right through. Common, we weren't born yesterday. They're pretty, but dumb. End of story.  

Chikmagalur

Chikmagalur. A small town in Karnataka is one place I will never return to. Unless of course I have to. Get this. It's known for coffee plantations but the coffee here sucks. It doesn't smell like coffee. It doesn't taste like coffee... Bah.. you'd think that they'd probably take the effort to roast the beans before serving it to you right? WRONG... They'd roast the beans and pack it off to bigger towns. 

Step into any Barista in Bangalore, and spend 55 bucks for a coffee. You'll love it. You'd be crazy to drive 5 hours to chikmagalur. The place is no great shakes either. You pack a DSLR, a tripod, 3 lenses, a couple of filters, a memory card and a fully charged battery. Only there's absolutely nothing worth shooting. You spend 2 days scouting for a good enough location only to realise once you get there, its completely covered by fog.

Warning: Im not saying that Chikmagalur is a bad place to shoot. It may be a great place to shoot when the weather is good. I was once told by an amateur photographer that a 30 minute drive to Bababudangiri hills will give you great sunset/sunrise shots. I went to Chikmagalur to catch this. But i soon decided that coming back to get this shot is probably not worth the effort.

Finally we leave and half way back to bangalore I decide to pull out my SLR for the first time. I caught a glimpse of a nice sun burst in my rear view mirror. And the picture below goes down in my "Go on a trip and end up shooting nothing" scrapbook.

God bless

The Buddha statue carved out of a single rock, taken at the Hussain Sagar lake in Hyderabad. 

Feeling kinda bleah..

The sky's gloomy. Overcast and depressing. Cant wait for October. 

Bungee jumping and sex

You know how magazines covers have blurbs of text on them? Well, I get tons of magazines in the office and you see all kinds of crazy shit on them.

This month, on the cover of Femina - "Bungee jumping and sex. Yes there's a connect."

What??? How could there be a connect between bungee jumping and sex? Well, I dunno... strange eh? Yeah.. well.. ok... maybe, there's one thing in common. 

When I jumped in 2006, 10 seconds in to the jump, my bungee cord had fully stretched out.  At that moment, it felt like the cord was slipping off my ankle. 

In a totally unrelated incident, one time, it felt like my condom was slipping off my dangle. 

Worst kinda weekend

When you have 3 days off and you know you're not stepping outta town. 

Mine or yours

10 pm. 

Dinner - check. Fluffing pillows - check. Pulling out blankets - check. Keeping remotes and mobiles within arms reach - check. Most importantly, keeping a slab of dark chocolate between us - check. Unwrapping it - check. We're both supposed to be on a diet by the way. 

After 3 pieces each. 

She - Thats enough. 

Me - No I want more.

She - You're supposed to be on a diet you know...

Me - Yeah but I've hurt my ankle and I need all the energy I can get. 

She - Ok if you're having, give me also a piece.

Me - What about your diet?

She - Yeah i know, but I don't want you to finish my share ok... It was my slab in the first place. 

Licking fingers - check.

______________________

That was my side of the story. For her side of the story click here.

Retailing it!

You remember the time you were 10? You'd have salesmen knocking on your door through the day. Sometimes even at night. One of the reasons we all had dogs when we were young was probably to shoo them away. 

They'd come along lugging around big bags of just about anything. Toys, utensils, groceries, dairy products, books, pencils, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, furniture, petro cards and a whole lot of other blah blah. The list goes on. But you get the drift. Back in the day, they learnt that the customer was god. 

Lets make his shopping experience completely hassle free. He needs a refrigerator? Lets send a catalogue to his doorstep through our best salesman. Lets also give him free delivery, seeing that he stays in an apartment complex. If he's happy he'll refer us. Lets install it for him. And just to seal the deal, lets throw in 3 cartons of milk... FREE. And if he still doesn't agree, we'll also pack in a one year free service bonus. He wont ever need to step out that door. 

And as always, times change. Door to door salesmen lost their jobs. You can blame the damn dogs for that. Retail stores have replaced door to door selling. If you need something as basic as a pack of cigarettes, you have to get up, go for a walk to the nearest store and pick it up yourself. You might as well take your dog along. Thats probably the only exercise it's gona get. 

Compare selling today. You walk into a Nike store. You see a group of salesmen at the cash counter probably talking about the latest flick, or their respective girl problems. They see you but cant decide if you're worthy enough for their attention. You know you want to buy a pair of running shoes but you're not really sure what kind. You pick up a shoe that you think you like. Someone hobbles over from the cash counter. 

He: May I help you sir?

Me: Yes please. I was looking for a running shoe

He: Sure sir, we have this entire wall of running shoes.

Me: Hmm, holding one up. Can I try this? I'm a size 8.

He: Sure sir. I'll just get your size.

10 minutes later

He: Sorry sir we don't have your size in that.

Me: Do you know if I can pick it up from another Nike store?

He: No sir, I don't think any store has this.

Me: Can you check please?

He: No sir, our phone lines are down.

Me: Can i leave my phone number here? Can you get back to me once your phone lines are up and running?

He: Er.. yes.

Me: Do you have a pen? or a comments book?

He: Our comments book is on the cash desk sir. 

Me: (Walking towards the cash desk) Pen please.

He: Sorry sir, I don't have pen.

Me: !@$#@%#@$%@#

He: #@$@%#% good riddance.

Me: Making up my mind never to walk into that store again.

Salesmen back in the day, would visit your doorstep again and again hoping to make a sale. They would come back with another size, with 5 different colors, a little something extra for the kids in the house and if thats not enough, they will also come back with the same smile they left with the first time. They would bend over backwards to fulfill your every wish. Yet, today, salesmen in retail stores expect you to dress up, leave your house, drive 15 minutes, spend half an hour finding parking, and walk 20 minutes to the store. What's worse is that you still walk out empty handed... and pissed. 

Would you let "god" (AKA the customer) walk out of your house... pissed and disappointed? The only way you can get god to visit again is if you go out of your way to please him. He might even bring his gopiyas next time. But he has to think you're worth it.

How i met Aditi

You know how you feel minutes before you meet a celebrity? Well, you're able to handle it pretty well if you know that it's probably gona be something like...

- Hi :D 

- how you doing? 

- I'm such a big fan 

- These are great mushrooms and...

- Good night. 

But what if you know that its gona be more like...

- Hi :D (giving my best smile)

- How you doing?

- I've heard so much about your music

- These are great mushrooms and...

- I wana marry your daughter. I'm Sindhi by the way. 

Beach bums!

5 things I love about a beach holiday

1) Waves

2) Dunking people

3) Sand

4) Beer 

5) Great sunsets shots

5 things I hate about a beach holiday

1) You stink of fish

2) Sand in your hair

3) Sand in your trunks

4) Your tanned skin starts peeling off the following week

5) Your Camera isn't water proof