On my own... Making things alright...

After so long, I thought I might as well try living life my own way than trying to please others who want me to live theirs..
And here I am! I've made some changes in my routine and I've also set some goals. (You might also want to check my updated bucket list.)

Old habits die easier than we think and new ones form. So much has changed, life has changed here. No longer do I wake up to the nightmares at 4, I rather wake up to the morning radio and the milkman's calls.

I don't feel cold and nor do I yearn for friends like before, I don't miss them, but I don't feel like meeting any of them at all. I think I'll find a way out, I might even grow accustomed to a place where people rush to places as if they were rushing for life, with no human touch at all people here just go about their business. I've been put to cold tests for long enough; I don't find it hard here, though it looks as if I were in a world where love has turned around, .

Life is like wind, resist and you'll be knocked over, blend into it and you'll smoothly glide onto the other side. The challenge is to cope with it, not just cope with it but thrive and survive, and I will.

It's true that the person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing. And I'm glad I gathered the courage to stand up against all those who wanted to hold me back.

All I know about the future is that it'll change, it'll be different. What I fear is that it'll be the same, and I don't wanna go back to the same dawning and live it all over.

So I'm going to celebrate the changes and be happy as life greets me with it.

Because, Everything's Gonna Be Alright in the end and if it's not alright, then trust me, it's not yet the end.

HNY :)

I remember when blogging was my absolute favorite thing to do, then life got in the way and it got a little messy. So I'm here once again to let you know that I'm still alive and I still have every intention of continuing to blog about my little, insane, messy life.

Ah! Yes! Happy New Year! Late but heart felt wishes to you all...

Taming the untamed...

Mention any cult or group, and we will find practises and norms laid down for women that would turn us contemporary women into outraged devils hungry for justice. There are many writings and ancient rules that further the dis-allowance of women to do things that were permissible to men.

Why even make such rules?

This is just one example where men have tried to dominate over women, this misogyny has played its part too, in India, where women are worshipped as goddesses and have also been tried as slaves and sold as brides with dowry...  The designations men have for women: sluts and whores and what not in 7104 other languages where women take birth to give birth, work and entertain men.

Now, if she sleeps with you, she is a slut and if she doesn't you simply call her a whore and move on. Either way, females are humiliated, frowned upon and abused.

However hard we try, the barbaric attitude of men towards females seems to be unabated and unfazed no matter what rules and laws are made, men can't be policed!

They are the untamable wild creatures of nature who were created to be so. Period.

According to our forefathers (there has never ever been any importance given to foremothers, mind you!), women are meant to be tamed, bound, intimidated, enslaved and protected by the owner from other men as if they were objects like cattle and stock which could be stolen or fought over for ownership. We hear guys fighting over for girls, bets being placed on our bodies and abuses made out of our body parts hurled at each other in anger and as jokes to humiliate us too. This not about feminism or equality, it is about women being treated as individuals and humans with rights to their own body and life. We don't owe you anything men, even our birth was given by a woman.

We are supposed to stay behind the veil and if we ever decide to come out of it then what happens to us next is only our responsibility, as it was the girl's who was raped in the bus and thrown on the road, as it was the woman's who was molested on new year's eve, as it was the little girl's who was born to a family with men. And this is normal, this is how it has always been since ages and we aren't expected to oppose it. Being normal is not necessarily a virtue, sometimes it rather denotes lack of courage. It's not the future that we are afraid of, it's repeating the past that makes us anxious, hence 'what if' always remain unanswered!

Have you ever heard of a topless man being groped in the midst of 50 women? Never! But when its a woman walking completely clad and covered (or not) she becomes an object of entertainment and molestation because she is a woman. Forget about 50 men, lets just take a woman amidst 3-4 men from her own family, would they leave her untouched? Okay, let's take a woman and her own husband, does he even wait for her acceptance before he enforces himself on her? Every 4th woman has a history of being assaulted by her own family members.

Do men even understand the meaning of consent?

Why can't men keep their body and thoughts to themselves?

To men: "Is it because you can't or you just won't?"

Men can't, we have seen them helpless, but we can!

Not all men are alike, but the ones who don't indulge in such violence are the ones who make up the audience that whistles and coaxes the rest to commit such horrible tussles and escapades (for men). They have all sorts of reasons for their actions like being drunk, the woman was standing/sitting too close to him, the woman was scarcely clad, because he was a man with needs or may be because she was just a woman and SHE EXISTED!

Men hate women so much that they go berserk to the point of causing life-threatening injury if women "invade" their spaces never mind their constant whining and mocking women's need for safe spaces from men.

There have been incidences where a woman is beat up at home or in public, and no one dares to interfere because they feel that she is being beaten up by someone who owns her.

Now, let me restate the misogynistic definition of an ownership of a woman: "A woman can only be owned by her father, brother, husband, boyfriend, or the male head of the group or society she belongs to. She has no right to any of her dreams, soul, life and body and remains to be in the same state until death. Throughout her life, the ownership may vary, but the order is never feminine, neither can she set herself free nor can she buy her way out of it. If she tries to escape any of her boundaries (which includes all human feelings and aspirations), she will be burnt alive, shamed and shunned upon, looked upon as an outlandish morality, paraded naked or even raped and let to die."

In order to uproot this misogyny, we need to stand up against a plethora of violence which begins right from the moment we are born... It's time we tame the untamed!
[Image Source : pixabay]

This post was published here too!

Those Damn Princes!

As young girls we often dream of candy lands with endless chocolate flowing in rivers. We grow up and we begin to imagine our beloved princes on white horses riding over and carrying us back with them.
We grow up a bit more and as the years pass, we realize what the real world is made of, that there ain't gonna be any princes on white horses riding for us. There is going to be just men, normal men - patriarchal men, narcissists men, in a world of men, for men.
Our dreams as young girls never break, they only transform into a crueler version. And yes, they all are fulfilled, well, most of them.
I am not talking of my young dreams here, just sharing my version of the transformed dream.
I'm now stand in the same world which I was born in, facing ridicule, insult, blames and emotional cruelty. Prepared only for love and harmony and peace, I struggle each day to feel some warmth and oneness from the one I love but I get none.
"My prince did ride to me on a white horse, only that he didn't have a heart!"
I then felt sorry for myself, damn those princes, but since I've realized there are no princes anymore, also, Mustangs and albinos from Arabia are expensive, I am supposed to ride into the rugged terrain on my own with my alsatian and love myself so intensely that it teaches others how to love.

Goodbye Dread!

I watched our world's separate!
I looked through to the other side of the window,
as thick smoke curtained the gap between us,
as I departed,
.
.
.
and as the train left!

It was then I realised,
it's not just time,
not just people,
.
.
.
but my own emotions as well that had joined hands to boycott me from that woeful world and brace my own dreams.

The same old world where I used to live and hoard my sorrow of loneliness and crave the bliss of togetherness had now made me a stranger to myself!

Goodbye dark old world, I wish I had never let myself in...

(Like a lot of my posts, this one too was written a lot later than the time stamp shows, I scheduled it to an earlier date just because I  wanted them to be sequenced appropriately.)

Vs Him

Those of you who follow my blog, you must have read the debate on "The Good Guys Vs The Bad Guys", recall point number one.
This is for you girls, men can be very bad, girls can be bad too, but if you are soft at heart then you will end up really hurt- not all of us can be cruel.
If he says he is bad, believe him. Stay away, and if you can't, then be prepared for the worst- this way at least you will know where you are headed to.
I can't say I've dealt with a lot of men, but I've seen the devil in them. They can be ultra cold towards you, taunt you, abuse you mentally. They can beat you, threaten you, abuse you physically. They can take away everything that you own, your love, life and soul and leave you like a withering leaf off a tree.
I am scared of them, the people who can hurt me, but I'm prepared. Its better to know what's gonna kill you than ending up into it blindfolded.

A Strange Me!

Before, life was simple, it was seen as it was, it was shown as it was.
I left that world far away behind me, and it has been a lot of time since then.
It's all too complicated for me now. It's all fake. Me, the people around, the things happening, everything!
All the people I now know are too fast for me to cope up with their speed.

So, technically, I've outlived my past, and the the present is too fast for me to catch up to meet these fake futuristic demands.

All in all, I'm lost-
It happens sometimes that I can't accept the reality and so I tend to live in delusions... in a photo framed world where I force myself to live in those skeptical boundaries which I can't escape.
And this is happening to me.

It's not just words. I can't let anybody into me.
I talk only because I can't ignore.

Whenever I talk to people from my past, it freaks me out. It makes me realize what I have become, a stranger to my own self.
I have unknowingly changed myself, completely, and now I want to get back where I was before.

Am I still the girl who loved herself more than anything in the world?
Am I still my own fashionista?
Do I still have my conscience alive and strong?
Can I still fight my fights alone?

I doubt if the answers for the above are affirmative, and that's really bad.

I hate my surroundings, feel like getting a new place for myself, going somewhere nobody knows me, and starting all over again with my life, only this time being very very careful.

What I now do is, make friends with machines, speak with the web. I feel nothing, I have not a bit of heart in what I do. I splatter my thoughts over write ups like this and feel relieved. I'm messed up and so are my posts. My thoughts are vague, beyond understanding sometimes. You may not know what I think, but I know what I think, the way I think and I know it's complicated, too heavy.

All I want is that simplicity in my life, I wanna be simple in thoughts, simple in style and again, simple in writing so that- why I write and what I write is lucid and facile.

Hope my next post is much more sententious and meaningful!

The Bad Guys Vs The Good GuysVsMe

We sometimes just don't know who to trust, always confused not knowing if it's the bad guy pretending to be the good guy or the good guy pretending to be the bad guy...
Ofcourse, there will be times when you feel like nobody could love you more or care better, but believe me, such people don't exist, it's only you who can love you the most!

To help you out of such dilemma(s) here are some tips I'd love to share:

1- This guy tells you he is bad, but to you- he stands the most caring person of all.
     HE IS NOT! He is just as dangerous to you as he is to the rest of the world. If he states otherwise then he is just LYING. Leave him before you become one of his victims to threats and abuses.

2- Your so called crush/boyfriend proposes to you within a single date/a week, and asks for your hand in marriage before his friends, family or cousins.
     He is a complete NO-NO. You are interesting to him, and probably his new favorite show piece. He is scared to lose you and wants to secure you before you get to know the reality. He does it publicly and so fast that you are left with no time to think nor space to adjust to what is happening- he is forcing you to say a "yes". Leave him.

3- You become his princess for the first 3 weeks/weekends, and with the onset of the fourth, he just begins to ignore you.
Then my girl, he is already BORED and he is actually looking out for space and privacy and wants to break up now! Leave him, it isn't too late.




4- He sticks to you 24/7 on the phone or at home and feels bad when you go out with your girlfriends or brings up a new fight when you are about to have some fun.

He is SPYING on you, wants to CAGE you, and is very JEALOUS of your life. Leave him before he makes you his pet parrot! You definitely don't want to live like that.








5- He constantly reminds you of your past and your mistakes, taunts you, and argues over the same topic over and over again.
He just CAN'T LET GO, despite his own mistakes. Leave him, otherwise he will make you cry over why you even existed.

6- This dreamboy of yours keeps flaunting himself and his lifestyle etc etc and tells you how bad you live.
He is FAKE just trying to make an impression of what he is not.








7- He says he loves you, but still keeps hitting you with "see what you've done", "you don't even know this", "oh god, you have such bad circles" etc etc...
He is a tough NARCISSIST, trying to make you feel low all the time and portraying his greatness over plain canvasses. You are just his new favorite for his favorite hobby. He loves himself the most and CAN'T LOVE anybody else. Leave him, you don't want to be depressed for the rest of the time thinking how bad and lowly and stupid you're.

8- He breaks up with you, then wants you to call him and be with him, and this happens almost every second day.
My darling, you were NEVER IMPORTANT to him, you're just a piece of ass that he is playing around with till the right one takes him back. Stop entertaining him and don't give in no matter how badly he wants you back. You'll be surprised at how fast he finds his new "hot babe" without wasting any time..







9- If he tells you, that you both share a special bond and that you're v dear to him, and that it has to remain a secret, a secret that only you two can enjoy, then BOO! He is the wrong guy. He might just be telling the same thing to 10 other girls around you. He is a playboy looking for some fun, that's it.

If you're guy holds green to anyone of the above, then it's time you knew if it's the bad guy or the good one!!
Hope this helps.

Good Luck.

Dear Santa,

I'm not sure if the man upstairs is listening anymore, maybe he never was. So, I'm relying on you, big man, to make some holiday wishes come true for me and the people I care about.
It's not too much to ask for, I don't want to win the lottery or bring harm to anyone. I'm not asking for anything frivolous or silly. I know I've asked for a lot of things, a lot of help in my life, but believe me, I'd trade anything, everything that I have just to see some miracles happen.
And, again, I stress, for me and for the people I care about most dearly. We all need some damn magic.

So, in the words of Morrissey,

Good times for a change, see, the luck I've had can make a good man turn bad. So please, let me get what I want this time. Haven't had a dream in a long time. See, the life I've had can make a good man bad. So, for once in my life, let me get what I want. Lord knows, it'd be the first time.

Merry Christmas!!

A free Indian, A free street, A free India!

Last week, I was just walking in a lane off the main road.

I had plenty of time to look around and observe people and places in that locality. I got a huge rush of stares at me as I walked the first few yards. From head to toe, I could feel dozens of eyes following me till I didn't get out of sight.

The public waiting room! It wasn't long before I realized that..

People simply stood outside their offices, sipping tea and entertaining themselves looking at the pedestrians, as if they had all the leisure in the world.

Some simply sat on the platforms along the lane and watched while others took the pain of shifting from a horizontal to a vertical position to look at me.

I noticed that some of the walls along the street had paintings of various Gods and Goddesses, in different sizes. At first, I couldn't understand why would anybody paint them onto walls like that on the road?
Then with a very bad stink, I got the answer, that was to prevent peeing on the walls!

Welcome to the world of public pee'rs! So desperate to water the streets..

A few steps ahead and I saw a man rushing to the nearest empty wall, he was probably challenging his bladder! Some were so proud of peeing right against the 3 inch space between the paintings that he looked all around while he released himself, the show-off guy!

There were people peeping out of their windows to while away some time, there were the home walkers who were to lazy to get down the road to talk a walk.

The peep walkers and talkers were all around!

This wasn't the end of it, as I walked down the lane, some kid hurriedly dashed into me and dropped his ice cream cone, this lil brat started crying so loud that I had to go and get him a new treat first before I could wipe the pink sugars off my clothes!

This was the SSS- Social Service Street!


India is a sovereign, democratic, socialist, republic and a secular state!
Hence, we find all kinds of people doing all kinds of strange things they could ever imagine, at anytime, any place, and with no bounds!

Lucky Escapes!

How do you define luckiness?!
By how easily your wishes come true?
By how many times you find your long lost wallet?
By what comes as a return of long forgotten goodwill?
By how many times you escape from the wicked witch in your dreams?

To me, its none of the above!
In my case, its just an escape from a series of mishaps...

Here they go...
Last week, I luckily escape burning from a hot hot pressure cooker as it held it carelessly with my bare hands.
The very next day, I luckily escape an accident on the road, did hurt my knee though, mad mad car and crazy crazy driver!
The third day, I luckily escape hemorrhage by hitting my head onto a nail in the wall, I instead scrape of a bit of my tattoo with my own toe!
The fourth morning was a slip-o-flip in the bathroom, luckily escaping multiple fractures!
After that, the next evening, I'm rushed to the hospital for a stupid bleed, and then I'm miraculously cured just like that!

So, that is me, careless, yet getting lucky at odd times, accident prone yet saving lives - saving my own life luckily!! (Touch wood to escape bad omens)! 

Haha

Art-i-facts!!!

It all started last year with a list of "Things-Before-Thirty". The start-off being 'Bungee Jumping', completed unsuccessfully, the next that was up was 'Getting Tattooed'!
So last month I miraculously built up the nerve to drop by the tattoo studio to see if the artist I wanted happened to be there available for a walk-in.
I had him paper my design, bring in all my desired curves and details till he was finally ready to etch the master piece onto my ankle!
My heart just about exploded out of my chest - I thought I'd pass out before we even started! Having general anxiety to begin with made me want to run the heck out of there, but knowing how bad I wanted this tattoo, and also that it happens to be on my list of Things-Before-Thirty, I just sucked it up and went for it. I am so glad I did, because I love it!

It took three and a half hours to finish and let me just say that I am so thankful to have been lying on my stomach so I could hide my cringing face in the table! I would have been so embarrassed if people saw my face because there were 2 other guys in there waiting up all calmly and facing in my direction. How can anyone not cringe?! lol! The outline wasn't as bad as the filling and shading. At parts, the outline didn't even really hurt but felt more like a burning, except on the bone where I could feel the needle drilling hard till my knee. But towards the end of the coloring, I was literally clutching onto my head and squeezing my fists to keep from crying out.

I was done, and was excited to show up at home with this new avatar! I awaited that surprise look and that wow, which was eventually heard as i entered and pulled up my jeans to show-off my awesomely beautiful and sexy tattoo!!! And yes, I did get that "OOOOOOh My God"!!!!

Away a month, feels like years!!

I know I haven't been blogging for a lil while now, hope you all are still there holding on just like I have, Argghhhh, things happen that put us off for a while, or at least they did put me off.
Anyways, once done and over, its gone...
.....so I'm back in action, the same old fun Zen!!! (Like my system, I can't stay on stand-by for long, haha)
.....back with loads of fun experiences and incidences to share, things that I never imagined I'd do!!! ;)
Love Ya'll!!! Muaahhh!!

The Magic Of Harlem Shake!

Nobody was home this weekend, and I was as usually getting bugged and mad at having nothing to do but being home alone for almost a month!

"Home Alone" usually means "Do what you can", "You're the boss" and "Party Time" until mom comes home, but the case was kinda strange here. I had to cook, take care of the house, keep it neat, send my sis goodies and lunch, everyday, and then study, watch tv, blog, enjoy, dance, and take advantage of being alone, all at once! And also mind my twisted ankle!

Tragic! Ain't it?

Yeah I know, poor me!!

But never mind.

This weekend, as my "Khali Dimag; Shaitan ka Ghar" was doing nothing, and pondering over the buzz of Harlem Shake, I soon found myself jigging at it!

And to add to the wonder, with the jig, my poor ankle that had been wailing since 2 days was back to its angle!! I was back to my dance-zenny-dance mode!!

The Harlem Shake did work wonders!! Lol

Here's a video that definitely demonstrates how mad you can get with the Harlem Shake...Funny it is!

The Lil Brat!!

My Sis: "Why didn't you tell me mom was coming today?"
Me: "Why? I wanted to surprise you, so I told you she was going to arrive tomo."
My Sis: "Oh God, your surprise almost got me killed, had you told me, I'd have
            made arrangements and planned for her return, now I'm done for!"
Me: "Okay, I get the planning and arrangement part, but why'd you be killed?
       Mommy's back, you should be happy!"
My Sis: "No, you don't understand." (Sobs)
Me: "Try me, what's the matter?"
My Sis: "Don't you get it? All my clothes, all my dirty shirts and pants have been
            rolled up and are resting on my book shelf, and my books are spread on
            the floor. So now if mom kills me for being so messy, and if I end up
            dead, you'll be responsible for it!"
Me: (HaHa) "She told you to put them in the basket after use, didn't she? I just
      finished doing the laundry, why did you hide all your clothes? I'd have washed
      them all by now."
My Sis: "I didn't hide them, I just forgot to put them in the basket."

For all those who don't know my little sister, she's a brat! A naughty naughty kid, always shabby, messed up in some trouble or another. She rolls up all her dirty clothes and forgets where she put them all. Her school bag, if emptied, brings out lots of crushed age old paper, pencil scrapes, broken rulers and erasers, books without covers, torn labels etc etc etc. In her almirah, which is neat no more, are rolls of every shirt and scarf, under them is her treasure of treasures!!! Cut outs of different cartoons, her letters to God, drawings, coins, feathers, kiddo key chains, toffee wrappers, tiny toys stuffed in socks and things like that!

She's real chubby, she's the soft toy of my family, we all pull her cheeks, poke her tummy, press her nose, and yet she remains to be as cute as she can be, our affinity to fat seems to be increasing in her presence, and we, esp me; feel hungry when she's around, thank god we weren't born cannibals! Lol!

(If anybody has seen that ad that ClinicPlus had put up last year, the Chulbuli Ad, my sis looks like her!)

We all love her for what she is, and even if a single day she tries to be neat and decent, we begin to miss her mischief, our work for the day lessens and we get so easily finished with our daily chores, and then feel bored!

We're lucky to have had you in our lives! Bullying gives peace sometimes, I'm glad I have you around for that!! (I know you'll come after me for writing this here, but I couldn't help the humor!) HaHa

(Anyways I'm sure mom won't kill you for throwing your clothes around) ;)

Love, Music & Bob Marley!

"You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matter? She's not perfect- you aren't either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break- her heart. So don't hurt her, don't change her, don't analyze and don't expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she's not there." 

(6th Feb 1945) -Bob Marley- (11th May 1981)

Fragrances and Memories

Last two weeks were great, I was on a holiday, and guys, it was awesome!!

But somehow, I'm still neurotic!!

Before heading back home this weekend, I was seeing my relatives and cousins, the whole day there were things like big family brunches and such stuff!!!
Just as I was moving around in the house, a sudden memory, a sudden flash, and I was thinking "Gosh, why did I walk into this room?"

[Those of you who read my posts regularly must have gone through the one on fragrances, for those who haven't, it's Lose It!!!
PS, I have a very good olfactory system, and I sniff and recollect real good! ]

I could feel the pheromones gushing through my veins, just as they did last year! It was that typical hint of cologne ( or whatever) I could feel lingering in the room that had caused all this.
It had been a hundred years since I had sniffed that fragrance, it only feels like that, but yeah!
Where had the time all gone? All of it seemed to be stolen and hidden in bottles of likable odours- perfumes!

It was a nice smell, and when it first hit me, I was living all those memories again, unbidden.
I didn't know what to do then, to sniff it as much as I could and bring it home, or let out all that I had breathed in and get out of that room asap!!

Just then one of my cousins joined me in the room, and I realized the things that had just crossed my mind were far, in some other part of the country!

I knew, the other end of life it was!! And it was supposed to be long lost and forgotten, times change, so do the meaning of fragrances and memories linked to them!!

Brains? I wish there were things that could format human memories back and again, when needed!

Indian Cinema- (Un)Realism In The Air

Time to time, we all need a break from our tight monotonous schedules, and when a nobody invented the concept of plays and dances ages ago, it was heartily welcomed.
Hence, the advent of stages and actors and cinematography!

Indian cinema has it all, but do we really take it as a break or do these tend to inspire us and influence our lives?? Is it good or bad?

Now, coming to the point, India is a nation where the West has failed to influence our tradition to the roots, and, in bits and pieces we still find the natives trying to pull together their original culture and live with it.

Movies like "Gangs of Wasseypur", "Shootout at Lokhandwala" etc did share thoughts that revealed the reality of rivalries between real gangs, and I'd call them shooters of realism!

The others went a lil far off like "Student Of The Year" etc which displayed classrooms and high school which never existed in India, thus leaving behind a sense of disappointment and disapproval in the minds of youngsters that they never had the chance to be a part of such a merry making flirting and dancing learn-group.

The movies of the late 90's added "Karan Arjun", "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" and other not-never-happening stories that have digged deep into the minds and now every love bird out there expects his/her story to be of the kind.

Hilarious movies like "Housefull", The Govinda Collection, "Andaaz Apna Apna", etc do lack common sense but at times they can be a good watch for viewers rarely take inspiration from them and apply it to their real lives negating the chance of danger!!!

I'm not completely against Indian Cinema, but the fact that movies these days tend to influence more than 60% of the viewers and such influence mustn't be lacking the base of reality, which Bollywood lacks makes me criticize the movie makers, writers, and the viewers as well for promoting such inane creations.

Books that have been the best sellers can be filmed without a question but stories that inspire foolishness and inactivity should be condemned!

Not just the above mentioned movies, but many of the like join the list of a huge unrealistic collection of stories that doesn't just seem good to me to watch for a break or to watch for tips that really work in real life.

[I couldn't recollect many movies that could be added here, but, I'll be updating this post soon after I return, leaving for a holiday, Mumbai calling!! ;) ]

What's Next For Apple?

[I was reading just randomly, and this is what I came across! :) ] Source- Anonymous

I have no inside information or insight, but historically Apple’s product improvements have strongly broadcasted where they’re going in the future. Here are six things I think are inevitable for Apple to do over the next decade, from most to least obvious: maps, iCloud, payments, TVs, search, and cars.

1. Maps
When the iPhone was first released Steve Jobs called Maps on iPhone the best version of Google Maps on the planet, with emphasis on what Apple’s designers had brought to Google’s raw technology (can’t find that link). Four years later, you can’t imagine such a core piece of the mobile experience reliant on their largest competitor. Hopefully this will also give Apple a chance to fill usability gaps in the maps experience today, like that you can’t click from the “where” field in a calendar appointment straight to maps. (Drives me crazy.) Note that the only “Google” branding in maps today is in the bottom left, they know they’re getting replaced and have done an admirable job on the Safari version of maps on iPhone and iPad.
Google Maps + Navigation on Android is my favorite mobile app of the past 3 years (haven’t used Siri yet) — it’s what Garmin should have built $8 billion in revenue and R&D ago. (Remember the Garmin Nüvifone?) Apple was smart to partner in the beginning, but they can, and should, raise the bar.

2. iCloud
The abstraction of documents, photos, videos, their equivalents in “bought” media (iBooks, music, movies, and TV shows from the iTunes store), the deemphasis of the filesystem with every iteration of OS X, and the rough ideas of things like MobileMe’s dock syncing, points to the combination of services that will ultimately disrupt the “magic folder” providers like Dropbox. I love Dropbox, but it’ll be impossible for them to do the deep OS integration needed to match the direction Apple is heading — never thinking about what is where, ever again, just having everything you’ve ever created or used available in the same place on all your devices.

They know this is best for consumers. My friend Rene told me how when his hard drive crashed last year he contacted Apple support and they gave him a link to re-download the past 4 years of music he’d purchased on iTunes. That’s obviously the right thing to do, even if labels have had to be dragged kicking and screaming toward it. By this time tomorrow it’ll just be part of the experience when he signs into iTunes on a new computer. Update: Apple released iTunes 10.5 a day early with this feature.

3. Payments
Your phone becomes your credit card. Apple doesn't replace Visa or Mastercard, but they do replace all of those scammy rewards and branded cards that prey on unsophisticated consumers. Google will probably do this first, but it’ll be like Microsoft Surface, brilliant but two sandwiches short of a picnic.

4. TVs
I recently got one of the new Thunderbolt displays and man, a super-sized version of this would be killer in my living room. (The speakers are surprisingly good.) TVs are just so bad, not so much in the hardware which can be beautiful like Samsung’s C9000 but in the mediocre software, un-features like Auto Motion (which makes beautiful films look like they were shot by a Jersey Shore cameraman with a beer in his other hand), and interfaces that just don’t do anything you would expect. Hello — you can detect when a cable is plugged in, don’t make me switch between 15 sources when only one is connected. My TV takes 5-10 seconds longer to turn on than my iPad. “Smart TVs” look like “smart phones” did in 2005 — completely lacking in imagination or joy.

But to really imagine the strategic importance of this you need to think beyond a super-sized Thunderbolt display and imagine what replaces iMac, one of Apple’s most beautiful creations. People’s need for a desktop is seriously declining for the first time since pundits started predicted the decline of the PC a decade ago. The post-PC ecosystem is in place now — touch, battery life, mobile-first applications, ubiquity of internet access, flash memory. (In Steve Jobs introduction of the first iPod, two things stand out to me: that terrible font, and the fact one of the main features is 20 minutes of skip protection.) Mobile works and is getting better, and you won’t have what we call a desktop 10 years from now.

Now imagine Apple has a shining 55″ monolith smack dab in the middle of your house. How big of a wifi antenna could they put in there? Could they crush all that lame Cisco teleconference stuff with TV FaceTime? Is there room for a few disk drives that don’t need to worry about skipping plus a SSD to make it fast? If you look at the direction Apple has been heading with Time Capsule locally caching software updates it’s not hard for something similar to work in the other direction, a digital hub that’s your media server for the house, a large-format display, a time capsule, and an Airplay target all in one. Imagine just one power cable coming out of it, and everything else wireless, just like the iMac, and a few killer apps we can’t even imagine yet.

Finally, home theater needs disruption — this is a land of $200 Monster HDMI cables and similar gouging that functions like a state lottery, an intelligence tax. When I walk through Best Buy, which I try to do once every few months, it feels like it’s technology at its worst, the magic of progress used as smoke and mirrors to confuse and dupe consumers rather than make their lives better. The Apple TV is just another form factor for the unified experience Apple wants to create every time you touch an electronic device.

5. Search
There are hints of this in maps, but just like Craigslist is being killed not by a Craigslist-like clone but rather by a thousand highly focused replacements, so too Google will face its existential crisis not from another webpage with a centered white box, but from the interface and context of search changing completely. Many of Google’s searches aren't that valuable, and a huge percentage of the ones that are aren't going to happen at the desktop anymore .The context of your location (which your phone already knows) the “results page” of a fantastic map application and the input of a next-generation search interface, like Siri, completely changes the rules of engagement. Google’s not investing in mobile because they wanted a better phone.

6. Cars
This is the most far-out, but I think most certain. Voice-controlled search through Siri and Apple Maps provide the hands-free framework for a rich interactive experience while driving. Walk down the car stereo aisle in Best Buy and see what $800 gets you, or a $300 GPS from Garmin, vs an iPad or iPhone. The screens feel like a TI-92 calculator. The typography makes my eyes bleed. I find it morally reprehensible how bad these products are because it’s one of the areas of technology where a bad interface is most directly tied to injuries and deaths. Car folks are making their iPhone/iPod integrations better and better, which may be a glass of ice water in hell, but they’ll never make the jump to providing a beautiful marriage of media, search, and navigation that a great in-car experience needs. Right now you can spend 110k on a Tesla Roadster, a car of the future, and for an additional $4,500 (9 iPads!) get this Alpine head unit. (Watch that video and try not to laugh at how bad the interface is.) Retail it only sets you back 1.4 iPads. That’s just sad.

Awesome New Year!

Happy New Year...

I always knew this year would be a fun awesome great start! And so it was...

WoW! I just can't believe I had such a wonderful time..

For those who know it and also those who don't I must say Calangute and Baga is a place to go for every occasion that's worth partying! Be it a seasonal fest or a music launch, whether you wanna hit a band or go tanning in the sun, beaches are the best paces to hang out! And the best part is that you don't have to bother yourself with the way you look or the things you wear, how loud and bad you scream, it's just your world!

My Beach Rule: Wear things you won't even think of putting on in your city, carry the best music system in your circle and make the best of it. Use your car and dump all your things the way you like, Do Not try to settle and pack your bags before it's time to leave. Ha! Eat what you like, drink all the way you want, scream, swim, tan, run away, dance and lose yourself, you obviously won't get a chance to do it every month.

My Other Party Rules: Just Enjoy!!!!!

And, I have NO resolutions this year, coz I'm going to live it up the way I want!! Life is too short to restrain yourself!

One Life it is!!

Hope this year works out just the way I want it, or may be even better than that, God always has better plans... :) Ciao...