The Stranger
Posted by Jignesh Parmar in Valentine's Day on February 11th, 2011
She was getting engaged,
And all i could do was stand by and applaud along with all,
I didn’t dare to open my mouth for fear of saying something stupid,
something like “I love you”.
I remembered the other day when she had come to me with red eyes.
Her “best friend” was going away. It has never matterd to me that her best
friend was a guy. I thought I was above such things. But her tears awoke
the sin of jealously in my heart. Fighting it, I had consoled her and given
her chocolates to eat. She proceeded to rest her head in the crook of my arm.
And promptly fell asleep I chuckled at her baby-like innoncence.
But now, I applauded, I felt something stabbing at my heart.
She was getting married,
I saw her come down the stairs decked out in her bridal finery. Never
has I seen her looking this pretty. I saw her taking the seven rounds
around the socred fire with the man I had come to hate, holding his
hand. I saw her exchanging garlands with him.
She was a total stranger to me.
I was standing near the car when they both came over to me. I wondered
what they wanted. I wondered how to say farewell to the departed.
Nevertheless, as my Daughter and son-in-law touched my feet, I blessed
them. She was openly crying, I told her not to worry. That I’ll always be here.
She responded by hugging me.
And I could not stop the tears any more.
Say “NO” to bribery!!!
Posted by kurund.jalmi in Did you know?, Life's like this on November 29th, 2010
This was a very interesting incident that happened during my recent travel from Goa to Mumbai. Alcohol is bit cheaper in Goa, so my friend requested to me get a bottle of “Feni” for him. If you have a permit you can legally bring in 2 bottles of alcohol in Mumbai ( this was told to me by a shopkeeper ). Our train was on time and arrived at 5.00 am at Thane station. Sometimes at the station there are railways officers to check bags for alcohol or any other non-importable goods.
I was stopped by two officers asking me if I was carrying any alcohol. So I promptly showed them the bottle along with the permit. In spite of this officer told me to wait on the side and they continued to check other passenger bags. Unfortunately for them they didn’t find anyone else carrying any alcohol. Finally it was me and those 2 officers left on the platform. One of the officers told me that it is illegal to bring any alcohol in Mumbai and I will have to pay a fine of Rs. 3000, followed by a court case. I will also have to appoint a lawyer and fight my case. They also tried to threaten me with jail sentence of 6 months. To by bad luck on the permit instead of travel to “Mumbai” it was written “Daman”. One of the officers read that and became more furious and started to threaten me with bullshit like your engineering degree will be confiscated, they will send a report to my employer and I will be fired from my job etc. By this time I knew that this officers wanted bribe from me. Indirectly they were asking a bribe of Rs. 3000.
I knew I had made a mistake of taking the wrong permit, so I was willing to pay the fine and refused to pay any bribe in a polite manner. In the meantime, one of the officers was checking my mobile phone. He asked me to remove memory card from my phone which he then inserted in his mobile and ( I think ) copied a few songs to his mobile. I wonder if this was a part of his duty 
I was then taken to another platform for further action. I quietly followed them. While we were walking, one of the officer was still convincing me to pay the bribe and advising me not to follow legal procedures. But I insisted on paying the fine if they could provide me correct receipt. Finally in about 30 min, I think they realized that I was not going to cave in and they told me to go. Before I left one of the officers said politely “Give us some money according to your convenience” to which I replied “no, thank you” and I walked away. I don’t know if it was a lucky day for me or unlucky day for those officers
To be frank I was a bit scared in the beginning, but then I made up my mind that I won’t give any bribe and was ready to face any consequences. I did my bit to decrease amount of corruption in our country, so say “NO” to bribery!!!
Originally Posted At: http://kurund.com/blog/2010/11/29/say-no-to-bribery/
WA Champions Cup 2010
Posted by kurund.jalmi in Did you know?, Life's like this on August 30th, 2010
WA Champions Cup is a football tournament held in my company, Web Access. Just imagine bunch of computer junkies in colorful jerseys running after a football, sounds interesting? Believe me, it’s great fun. It’s a day to show your footwork, may be curve in a banana kick and of course have a wonderful time with your colleagues.
We were divided into 4 teams: Konquerors, WA Invaders, Thunderbird, The Broncos..
Everyone had to play against each other and the top 2 teams would make it to the final. So after all the matches, the final was between my team “Thunderbird” and “WA Invaders”. Lack of fitness and no pior match practice made everyone very tired. I had cramps in both legs and could barely move but I had to push myself for the finals.
Unfortunately our team was no match to WA Invaders, they played really well and we lost 
Inspite of that I am very happy with my team’s performance. They showed a great deal of dedication and determination to reach final. At the end of the day, it was sprit of the game that was true winner.
Originally Posted On: http://kurund.com/blog/2010/08/28/wa-campions-cup-2010/
Photos Courtesy: Laxman Mankala