And I'm back...

As the title says, I'm back but I am not sure how long. So where have I been? And what I been up to? Well a lot has happened in the last one year.. I quit supervibe, but performed with a couple other bands.. I got married and couple of weeks ago we celebrated our 6 months together. I got myself a new phone. I gained and lost weight.. Gained again and lost again.. So yeah a lot of undeniable things..

And now I'm back.. But I don't know for how long.. I guess that's for all of us to see.. ;)

Google Nexus 7 Tablet

Just caught my eyes on this new baby that was launched at the Google I/O on June 27th 2012. The Google Nexus 7 Tablet. A poor man's super tablet. It weighs just 34gms much lighter than the iPad or Kindle and way cheaper compared to the iPad at $199 for the 8Gb version. It has a Quadcore processor "meaning everything is faster – pages load quickly, gameplay is smooth and responsive, and running multiple apps is a breeze". It doesn't have all the features what an iPad would have, but it does have all the features that you would require to do all your work. In short, it might feed your need but not your greed. The Nexus 7 is scheduled to launch mid July in the United States. It might take a while before it hits the Indian shores. So keep your fingers crossed and hope for a good review for this piece of amazing gadget.

Here are some quick facts about the product:

Introductory price 

199 USD (8 GB),
249 USD (16 GB)

Operating system    
Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)

Battery Life:     
9 hours of HD video playback
10 hours of web browsing or
10 hours of e-reading and
up to 300 hours of stand-by time

CPU:    
1.3 GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 (T30L) quad-core ARM Cortex-A9

Storage capacity:     
8 or 16 GB flash memory

Memory:    
1 GB RAM

Display:    
7 inches (180 mm) IPS LCD, 1280x800 px (216 PPI),

Graphics:     
416 MHz Nvidia GeForce ULP

Sound:    
Speaker, Microphone, 3.5mm stereo jack for headset / headphone / microphone

Input:    
Multi-touch Touch screen, Gyroscope, Magnetometer, Accelerometer, GPS

Camera:    
1.2 MP (front-facing)

Connectivity:    
Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n), NFC,

Bluetooth:
4.0, microUSB

Weight:    
340 grams (12 ounces)

Is it dove? No its love!!

My friend Amy called me the other day. She is in love like crazy. She is in love with some douche bag but she hates it if I call him by that name. So she was telling me how when she was at work, one of our friends told her how she looks so beautiful now and if she was in love? Amy couldn't control but blush to pink.. hahaha... But then I began to ponder upon that thought. What really happens when you fall in love? Why do we look so much younger, more beautiful, more charming, more presentable? Why does everything around us become so beautiful? What is so magical about love? I would love to hear it from you.. Feel free to comment me with your answer.. Until then stay loved!! :)

A birthday & Two Funerals

Today is my brother Christie's bday. He turned 25 and we had planned quite a lot of things for him. But then we got the news that one of my good friend, Benjie's grandmother passed away. I texted my condolences to Benjie and proceeded with the day when at about 4pm I got another call with a sad demise of one of our church member. Since we are part of the worship team it is mandatory for us to attend every funeral and conduct worship there. It wasn't quite a birthday we were expecting for my brother. But then something happened...

When a friend of mine called to wish him. She asked him so what are your plans for the day? And my brother without thinking answered, "Well I am going to lead worship at a funeral service." Normally I would feel awful to hear that. Well anyone would have. But that day when he said that I didn't feel it awful. I thought it was the awesome thing to do on a birthday. Something nobody would have ever done or perhaps thought of doing. What better way to have your birthday than by leading a funeral into worship. People who have come with a lost hope or none at all. People who are in grief of losing their loved one. I consider its an honor and privilege to lead them to worship and encourage them. To give them a hope in the Lord that not long and they will meet again. I am really glad he chose to lead at the funeral or God would have used somebody else to bless the broken ones. :)

What is life really worth?

Yesterday I got an opportunity to visit SEAL ashram. SEAL is an NGO dedicated to the mission of rescuing destitute and helpless people from the streets and railway stations of Mumbai. As it was Labor Day, some of the youth from our church decided to labor at the ashram and take this opportunity to share our love with the people there. The overall experience was quite overwhelming, heartbreaking, disturbing and liberating at the same time. If anyone of you think your life is worthless and not worth living, I suggest you make a trip to SEAL. You will learn to value your life more than ever.

We left town at about 6am and reached the SEAL ashram, situated in Vangani Village (a little ahead of Panvel) by 8am. We collected about 25 bags of used but clean clothes and toys and 50 Kgs of wheat flour, 30 Kgs of rice, 30 Litres of Oil, 30 Kgs of Onions 30 Kgs of Onions among other necessary items. We started our day by cleaning up the inmate's room and bathing them. It took us about 2 hours to complete the assigned task. we were done by 10am and settled down to have breakfast. After the breakfast we met with the kids. We played a few games with them and watched them entertain us with their dancing. Later we gave them all gifts and presents.. We bought them stuff that they can use when their school reopens. It was nice to see them all smile and happy & excited to get their presents all wrapped up in glittering papers.

Though I had a great time with all the kids, there was this one particular kid I got very attached to. While I was with all the other kids, there was this one kid who silently held onto my hand. He was unusually quiet for most part of the time. But when he got his present, he came to me and asked me what is this? I told him to unwrap the present to see what it is. But he still requested me to open it up for him. I saw how he had one of his eyeballs popping out of the socket. I asked one of the other guys if this guy could see properly. And the boy said, "Uncle usko Dikhta nahi hain, woh sirf mehsus kartha hain" (He can't see things, he can only feel them). So I unwrapped the present for him and my heart sank when he asked me what it was. It was a drawing pad with colorful alphabets on the reverse side of the pad. I didn't have the heart to tell him what it was. But I had to tell him. I told him its a drawing pad. And he could use it draw whatever was in his heart. Whatever he felt, he could give it life on this pad. The boy smiled at me but I knew how he really felt. So I called my brother and asked him if we had a replacement. It was good we had a little pouch, like a compass box. I gave it to him and told him how he could store whatever he wanted in it. He was quite happy and gave a nice genuine smile this time. The kid just continued standing there, holding onto my hand.

At the moment, I began to wonder how awful would it be to be blind, to live a life in total darkness. I tried to shut one of my eyes to see how would the world look to me if I was blind by one eye. It was very awful and discomforting. I don't know how a 10 year old boy could manage it. But it just made me value my life a lot more. Here are some of the pictures from our trip. These are just some of the better pics, didn't want to put the disturbing ones.

Mumbai - A City of dreams...

Everybody knows how I am crazy about Ireland. But no matter how crazy I am about her, I have realized I can't deny the fact but agree that there is no other city like Mumbai. Why do I feel so?? And how can I be certain?? Well here are some of the reasons why I feel Mumbai is one of the best cities.. and why am I so proud to be a Mumbaikar...

1. Its a city that never sleeps - quite literally. You can take a stroll on the streets of Mumbai at 2am and you won't be alone there will always be a flock of people always.
2. You have shops/restaurants  in Mumbai that are open 24x7
3. You have the first local train at 4am and the last one at 1.30am
4. You have a train service every 2 mins & it carry a total of 2.2 billion passengers every year. Incidentally, the world's population is 6 billion.
5. You have a bus service every 5 mins
6. A city well connected with roads/rails
7. We have the Worli Sea Link
8. One of the safest place for women
9. The Most culturally diverse city - you will find people from every culture, race, ethnic, lifestyle here.
10. You can make it big doing anything here, whether it be window cleaning, shoe polishing, or even just by playing a god man.
11. The city where you have the most richest man living just feet away from the most poorest one.
12.We have the Queen's Necklace (Marine Drive)
13. The City with a 'Never Die' Spirit. We’ve survived repeated terrorist attacks, only to go back to work the very next day
14. Lamington Road - The street where you will find all the hardware & software's ever produced whether released or unreleased.http://s3.hubimg.com/u/5147134_f520.jpg
15. One of the most complex rail and road signalling system.
16. We have a national park right in the middle of the city
17.  It's a city where everything is possible.. especially the impossible.
18. Mumbai is the richest city in India and is the country’s commercial and entertainment capital. It has the highest GDP among any city in South, West or Central Asia and is one of the top ten financial centers in the world.
19. The famed dabbawallas of Mumbai are famous worldwide because of their efficiency, with Forbes giving them the `six-sigma rating, which means that they make about one error in six million transactions.
20. Spread over 535 acres, Dharavi is one of the largest slums in the world and has a population of approximately 1 million. The slum has around 5000 businesses and 15 thousand single room factories. The goods manufactured here are exported throughout the world.

Break Free 2012

So I got a call a couple of weeks ago. It was Keerthi Sagathia, one of bollywood's leading playback singers. He needed a bassist to play for a gig in Udaipur. Now really.. who wouldn't want to perform with Keerthi, not to mention when its an all expense paid trip to Udaipur and back. So I agreed to it.

The journey was quite cool, as we had a flight at 5.30am in the morning, which made us all stay up the previous night so that we can get to the airport at 4am. So we got to Ahmadabad by 6.30am and had us picked up from the airport to take us to Udaipur. We reached our Hotel - Hotel Mansi Palace by about 1.00pm. We had our lunch and headed off to the venue for the sound check. It was quite a good setup that was provided. I was contend with my Hartke 350 but the cabinet was little squeaky. It didn't bother me much. We had a good one hour dedicated for our sound check. Soon we got back to our hotel room, got freshen up and left for the gig.

We opened with Keerthi's new song from an Aamir Khan production "Satyamev Jayate". The crowd went berserk as we started the song. We continued with other tracks for an hour and half. We were quite excited but also really exhausted after staying up for nearly 45 hours on a stretch. The next day we had some other interesting people joining us. We had Naveen Kumar, DJ Lloyd, Mehul Gadani who shared the stage with us. It was really fun jamming with DJ Lloyd. Never thought would get a chance to play with him. He totally rocked the stage.

We were to leave the venue at 10.30pm as we had a flight at 5.30am in the morning. But we ended up performing until 11pm. We finished our dinner and left the hotel by about 12.30am. We are thankful to our driver who zoomed in past the other vehicles and got us to the airport by 4.30am. The best part about any gig is the time you spend with the band traveling, chilling out, rehearsing, sound checking, eating.. its that time of bonding that you always cherish from these memories. Here are some of the pics from the gig.. hope you like them.

Back from the grave..

Pic Courtesy: mademoisellefluo

That's pretty much how I look now, except for the long locks.. haha.. It's been so long since I last posted something.. To be more precise, the last post was on Aug 30th 2011 (you do not have to look for the post, its the one below lol). That's like over 7 months.. Man.. that sure feels so long. So what have I been doing all this time?? Why wasn't I blogging for so long?? well the simple answer is I was plain bored.. haha.. There has been a lot going in my life.. a lot of transitions.. I quit my band, i started a new web design company, I liked a few people, lost a few people, made some new friends, drove some of them nuts.. parents chasing after to get me married.. haha.. yeah lot of things happening..

I was just going through my blog yesterday and realized so much fun it was to write a post and then what happened.. how did i become so boring :P. So i have decided not to stay this way.. and start writing some fun stuff that's happening in my life again. So hello everyone.. Jesse Gigman Alex is back!!

Some funny thoughts

Was just on my friend Elliot's wall photos when I saw these really funny pictures. I thought maybe they belong here for you guys to have a good laugh at.. Some of them are so true and show's the sad reality of this post modern generation.

How things really work down here..

blame the spams?

remember this??

read and weep..

bottom-line: nobody cares a damn.. u shouldn't either... lol

the post modern man

the logo itself annoys me so much..

linux is the best.. ♥

Microsoft just acquired Skype... oh no, it's all coming true - Skynet is here!
Please, hurry John Connor and save us. Terminator doomsday is upon us

u sure can get away with this..

Political "stability" in Egypt vs others

perhaps the final sequel

my personal favorite

Disoriented at 3am

This is pretty much what was my state of mind at 3am today morning when I was working on our church magazine. Well you can't call it a magazine, but more like a newsletter.. but since the design looks pretty much like a magazine, I prefer calling it a magazine.. either-ways no compulsion in calling it whatever you feel like.. 

I came back home from work by around 8pm last night, not realizing what was in-store for me. My brother briefed me up with the job and left for his house cell meeting. I started off my work with browsing facebook and looking at what my useless friends are at. I still have no idea why I do that, perhaps it gives me the motivation to do a better job.. lol.. So after spending some really unproductive time on facebook, i began working on the design. By midnight I had not even finished half way, but progressing well with the design, my brother and my dad joined in my expedition. It was quite helpful having them along cos by 3am I was completely disoriented & dazed and completely lost focus of what I was doing. But thanks to Hmingpuia (Albatross) a certain musician from Mizoram who's track "Walk with me" which was on my youtube that inspired me to continue with the design. Nevertheless I manage to successfully finish the design by 3.30am. Was a pretty awesome feeling once it was completed.. I should admit though it is quite annoying and bothersome to work so late and under stress, you feel elevated and at peace with yourself once the final design is approved. 

By the time I burned the disc, and hit the bed it was almost 4am in the morning. But that doesn't mean you have attained Nirvana (not the band), you still gotta get up next day to get to work and proceed with your usual life. Well most people would complain bout a lifestyle like that.. but I guess I have always loved what I do and have always done what I loved.. This is life to me, and it never gets boring (not true.. it does sometimes) and this is how I love it (not quite sure bout that). I am gonna be updating the magazine's pdf version here for all of you to see.. just as promised here is the file I designed, hope you guys like it.. (even if you don't it doesn't bother me lol) until then here is the song that inspired me to work at 3am..

Let Yourself Go

It all began just like any other random boring day, with me at work.. checking my mails and running through the notifications on Facebook.. when one of my friend 2Blue posted this video from the movie, 'zindagi na milegi dobara' (won't get this life again) called Dil Dhadakne De (let the heart beat). I don't know why but this song just made my day.. After a long time I have loved a bollywood song and couldn't stop re-playing it like a doz times already.. So I thought why not share it here with you guys too.. Enjoy!! and learn to live the moment.. :)

Into another dimension

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race,
I have kept the faith.

 I always hated funerals. Cos its most saddest occasion you can ever attend. People wailing and crying over their loved one's loss, there is gloom and despair all around in the atmosphere. But I guess not today. I should admit it was the best funeral I have ever attended. More than gloom and despair, there was hope in the air. There was a sense of freedom and comfort in the air. Of course, we mourned the death of our Pastor Christopher but the joy of knowing he being in heaven in glory with Christ was more evident. It was quite a stressful week for all, but the funeral was just the perfect way to end it. For many death is the end.. but I believe, death is just the beginning of what is still to come...

Death is inevitable..

Dreams feel real while we're in them. It's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange..

 So I woke up today, with the intention of skipping work and resting at home as I had a terrible cold. Spend most of my day trying to sleep but finally succeeded at around 1pm, only to be woke up by my brother to say 'Pastor Christopher was no more'. If you remember, I had mentioned him in my previous post. He was battling cancer and lost to it but not to his purpose in life. It was quite a shocking news for all of us. None of us expected it. It felt like it was all a bad dream and everything would be fine once someone woke me up from it. But nobody woke me up yet!

Pastor Christopher passed away about 2.30pm today. Soon enough we got the news all of us friends gathered to his place to comfort his wife and their 2 children. Losing a loved one is never easy, but there was a comfort we all experienced that is difficult to explain. Pastor Ravi Raj who had come to visit Christopher had to leave that evening. Hence I along with a friend drove him to the airport by around 6pm and picked up Christopher's son, Joel who was in Goa at about 8pm. We stayed at their place until it was past 11pm after feeding them dinner and consoling them. But there was something that his wife shared that was very comforting. She said, before he died he knew his time had arrived. And I have seen this quite often that when a believer (someone who believes in the Lord Jesus) dies he always sees the Angels who come to receive them and they exactly know the moment when their time is up. Pastor Christopher too did see the angels come to take him back home and that my friend I realized what is the 'blessed hope we have in Christ'.

Love Actually.. is all around..

Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaking suspicion... love actually is all around. 

The above quote from the movie "Love Actually" is so true. Today, I went to the airport to pick up one of our senior pastors, Ravi Raj who had come to visit our ailing pastor Christopher. I always loved visiting the airport. I love the whole atmosphere in an airport.. with so many people greeting each other. Some bidding goodbye's and some welcoming other back home. Young students returning from overseas, businessmen talking on their phones and chalking out their next move, grandparents visiting their grand kids, young couples excited about their honeymoon and their time they look forward to spend together.... you find all kinds of people. And so true to the above quote, not once do you see an air of hate in the atmosphere. I really think if you ever feel life sucks, or not worth living, take a walk to the nearest airport and that will change your perspective towards it.

And I'm Back...

So today is August 11th 2011. It's been almost 8 months since I last posted something in here. So what have I been doing all this time?? Well I was just too lazy to write another post. Besides i doubt if anyone really missed me or my post.. lol. But today when I just came back to my blog I was like "woah???? I got 12,617 views" that's kinda huge.. haha.. so I thought maybe its time I write something. And so here I am back again on blogger, with nothing to write about and still want to write.

Well.. this sucks.. just before I could write something, my boss calls me.. now I got work to do.. maybe il post something good soon.. as i can't be writing something as depressing as this for a blog that says "Life Rocks Dude... Live it..!!"

Good Start

So the new year has been a pretty good start for me... and for the band.. The band has got 4 gigs so far for the month, one of them we had to refuse and hence 3 so far. So it so happens a few of my friends and I are enjoying dinner at Martin's Chinese Nook, when my brother Chris (who is also our band manager) got a call from Channel [V]. They said they loved our performance at Blue Frog and would love to have us at LaunchPad. Hence we registered for it, not really knowing what it was. On Sunday evening I was out for dinner at Pizza Hut with my friends Mr. & Mrs. Scott when we get a call from Channel [V] saying we have been shortlisted for Launchpad and that we need to perform the next day at B69 at 3pm.

Now that was indeed a shocker for most of us guys, cos we had to literally bunk work and play the gig. Well it happens I was the only one who had to bunk work, my vocalist went to work after the gig and the guitarist before. I had been sick since Sunday evening, so I told my boss I was sick and went for the gig. But it got worse there.. So I bought a bottle of cough syrup and drank it until I find relief for my throat.. I finished the entire bottle but never really found the relief, in fact my throat went dry during the gig and I had to hunt for a bottle of water. We left promptly after our slot was done. One of the reasons being I was drowsy having finished the whole bottle of the syrup. My friends said that I was performing drunk in the influence of Alcohol in the cough syrup. I did not really care for what they had to say, until I crashed after getting home and got a hangover the following day.

Some more cartoons...

I just can't enough of some of these coolest Christian cartoons I find on the net.. so here are some more :D

Image Courtesy: Joyful Toons

il·lu·sion

Image Courtesy : Might Optical Illusions

il·lu·sion

[ih-loo-zhuhn]

–noun

1. something that deceives by producing a false or misleadingimpression of reality.

2. the state or condition of being deceived; misapprehension.

3. an instance of being deceived.

Being an IT Geek it sometimes irritates me when I find people are so ignorant about Technology and how are not easy to a change. A simple example would be, how about 80% of the world's population is still stuck onto windows when there are Open Source Operating Systems like Linux available for free of cost. Linux for most of the times was known as a Geek's Operating Systems, but of recent (since 2004) has developed and launched Desktop versions of it, which are more easy to operate than Windows Operating Systems. But yet many choose to purchase it for a price. So then I began to study the human behavior and this is what I found.

Our human brain likes anything that is appealing to the eyes. It could be colorful, smooth, shining, glittering, flashing... etc.. And that's what exactly Microsoft provided the world with.. here is a screenshot from the last decade - popular Windows XP Operating System.

Windows XP Professional

Image Courtesy: Open Book Project

And here is a Linux Screenshots from the last decade...

Mandrake Linux - Circa 1998

Image Courtesy - Maximum PC

If you look closely you will see that the Windows XP screenshot looks more appealing than the Mandrake Linux screenshot. But not many people understand the importance of an Open Source Program. Microsoft's windows is a closed source program, which means first of all its not free of cost, secondly you have no right to modify the software to suit your requirement. You have to be satisfied with what you have purchased. On the contrary with a Linux OS, you have the right to add/remove/modify anything in the OS to suit your requirement and its free of Cost, Cos the Linux community believes that every person has the right to access Technology, and they should not be charged a price to do so.

Now, as I was thinking bout it, I realized its not different in the spiritual realm. We all know a Christian walk is a walk through the narrow path, while the world provides us with quite a wider path with lot of choices. But it's pretty much the same as the above example of the Operating Systems. Our Christian walk might look quite boring and bland but that's the real free world we are living in. The broader path definitely looks greener but its full of bondages. We don't realize that we are under the bondage as we are blinded by the glitters of the world.

Image Courtesy - Robert Donsker Photograhy