Personal – Page 7

Aug 21: Taming of the shrew

“What are you saying? You dont know about Taming of the Shrew? And you tell me that you read? You should be ashamed of yourself!” said she, when I told her that I did not know who the Shrew was. Little did she realized that I was not interested in any Shrew or its taming or mating or watever. I was merely interested in striking a conversation with her, hoping to get her to agree to come out with me for a drive, dinner, coffee or movie. In that order. Drive is my thing. I am at my best, when I am driving. If I could, I would have became a driver.

“I dont! There is so much literature out there and its tough to read all of that, especially if you started reading at 25.” I replied. “So why dont you tell me about it?” I threw in a bait.

“There’s nothing to tell you dude. Its a simple enough story, told well. If I were you, I would have read it before I spoke to me.” She snapped back. And although this was on sms, I could feel the irritation in her tone. I am good at this. Putting a tonality and emotion on a mere text message.

“And why is that?” I was trying my luck by asking a useless and a prodding question, to a woman who was anyways pissed off with me! I told myself if I got a reply, I would be a notch closer to that drive. I was mentally preparing a step ahead and thinking of possible places to take her. She lived in Noida and that meant just a handful of places where you could go.

“You are persistent. Arent you?”, she finally replied after an eternity. I checked the time and it was mere eight minutes since I had asked her. For someone like her and I, sms was as synchronous and immediate as a face to face conversation is. I had lost all hopes and was about to send another text when I got the reply.

“And you always dodge questions. Dont you?” Now I knew I was in the game. I tried pushing my luck further and sent a neg her way.

“Lol. What did I dodge? To invite this acquisition?” she replied. I had to be quick on my feet. And I have had enough of BS. This time, something snapped in my head and told me to be straightforward.

“The one about the shrew to start with. And then there were more that you dodged.” It does help when you can type fast on a phone. It must have taken me all of 4 nanoseconds to read her reply, process it in my head, type that answer and hit send. Love the way technology is making lives simpler (and hate the way its making relationships more effervescent).

“Ah that one. You should read taming … because I tend to believe that I am the modern day avatar of the shrew. And it would be mightily tough for a man to even tolerate me.” Wow! I could not believe that she was opening up. Was she throwing a bait at me? I decided to make her wait. Why did I do that? I dont know. It just looked natural to me.

“You’ve given up already? Have you?”, she asked. I was asleep when I got that text. I have a very light sleep and any messages, calls wake me up. Not that I dint plan to reply to her message, I just dozed off. And now that she was inviting me, I had to do something about it.

“Lol no. I just started reading the Taming … and to be honest its a really boring piece of text. I wonder how could he write so heavy language. Please yaar, summary batao. It would help speed up things ;)”. I said. I was told that you need to make conversation and always end a line with a question mark. Human instincts, they come in play more often that we realize. You end something with a question and more often than not, people would respond. And it is surprising that even simple obvious things stated as questions tend to get things done faster than any other mode of motivation.

“Dude, its a very long story!” Pat came the reply. Of course she had to reply. I had asked her a question. I had no clue how to read this one. At least she did not say no. However, I knew that its either now or never.

“Since you say that its a long story, lets go for a drive. You will have all the time in the world to narrate the story and give me all the gyaan about shrews.”, I suggested. This was natural progression at play. I made the drive sound like an obvious thing to do. And I primed it so that the going-on-the-dive bit sounded like HER idea, rather than mine.

And then I dozed off again. And before I could get into the NREM-REM cycle, I heard my phone beep.

Inspired by a series of SMS conversations that I had once upon a time with a woman I thought I was going to live the rest of my life with. As you may have guessed, she is happily married with someone else and I have lost all contact with her. I have tried reading the Taming … numerous times since then and every time I loose the plot in just the first few lines. Truth be told, I still miss her. If not the lifepartner, she would have made an excellent friend. Someone I could count on.

And yes, I did go for that drive. And many more after that.

Started writing this on 21st Aug. Finished on 28th August. Part of Project 0811. Other posts are here.

Aug 21: Red Bull and The Wings

Red Bull is apparently supposed to give you wings. What the wings actually do to you is open to interpretation. But to me Red Bull gives me that kick that coffee, tea or other such things induce onto other humans. It makes me sharp and allows me to concentrate on things.

My tryst with Red Bull started at MDI when they agreed to sponsor our fest, Imperium and sent a cool Red Bull car, a couple of VERY cute women with tiny skirts and bags full of icy cold Red Bull. And since I was part of the organizing committee, I got all the access to the vehicle that I wanted. It tasted like cough syrup. And the fact that I loved the taste of a cough syrup dint help. I was hooked! I loved everything about the product. The taste. The feel of holding a cool silver and blue can in your hand when everyone else around you was struggling with PET bottles, the long swag you took and relished the taste when you rolled the liquid in your mouth, the little marketing they did and everything else around it.

In the following years, throughout my struggle with Coke addition (thankfully I stopped drinking coke this year), I continued to flip to Red Bull and kept returning to coke. Now that I dont drink coke, I rely on Red Bull more and more. To the extent that one drink, refuses to give me any kicks. Its like water to me. So what do I do now? I drink two! Together. In fact, because of the nature of my work, I, at times have to work long hours, I need something more than mere food. Also, I have very light sleep, get knighmares (yesterday I saw a kid flying over me and trying to snatch my blanket. I did wake up but I wasn’t screaming or sweating. More on this later) and hardly sleep about 4 hours a day, my muscles need rest. I think Red Bull does that. Gives me that extra that I need to keep going.

And before the mother/father in you, the reader, Mr. Sob, kicks in, ya ya, I know. Red Bull is probably more harmful that Coke and I need to save money as well but till the time I find another alternative for my drinking needs, I shall keep calm and carry on. Hello @sgMS. Remember Keep Calm?

This is day 21 in a series of 31 daily blogposts. Other posts are here. I have missed updates for days 19 and 20. I shall post few more today but that does not mean that I compensated for the loss. Again, more on this later!

Aug 17: The chase of idleness

Last few days have been really tiring. The only time I got to catch on sleep was in flights and in transit. Every other moment, I was working. Not that what I do is rocket science but it’s a lot of coordination. Coordination, as they say, is the mother of all jobs. Its tougher than taking initiative. And is far more complicated than solving the Fermant’s last theorem. You could even fit that damned light bulb. And is made all the more difficult by a boss who travels more than you do, by colleagues that are nincompoops and by clients that are more concerned about making a fast buck and saving their jobs rather than working. I just hope that no one from work is reading this.

When I was just passing out of my MBA, all I could pray for was a job that kept me busy. And dude, am I busy? I should’ve heeded to that advice about watching out for what you pray for. Some prayers actually do come true. In my case, they come true more often than not. Like I wanted to travel and I now shuttle between cities more often than the airline pilots do. The sad part is that my company flies me economy and I don’t get any brownie points. I do get those boarding passes though, the ones I like to collect.

Coming back to the chase of idleness, since I am neck deep in work, there is hardly any time to engage myself in those idyllic pursuits. Reading, writing, talking, conversations, ideas and other such things. And the regular readers of this blog, with the combined readership of exactly one (including me), would know how much I love all these things. And I miss those days when I had time for myself. In an ideal world, I would be working at a place where I would be paid for writing and reading. But then, its an ideal world thingy. For a change, today, after a couple of meetings, I got an evening. I had planned to meet few friends and talk about some work (not the work work but the play work). But then I thought, let me spend this time on myself. Chill out at some place and write something!

In the long run, I would have to figure out a permanent solution. As they say, a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do, I am trying to create opportunities to intervene on the lack of mental orgasm. So for example, this project, where I am writing a post everyday. I plan to run this next month as well (despite me being AWOL from work and family for a week). And start a couple of more projects. Shall post the details as and when get closer to the end of this month. But for the time being, I am loving the idleness and I loved the pasta and the pastry that I just had at this cafe in Bangalore.

This is day 16 in a series of 31 daily blogposts. Other posts are here.

Note to self: When I write, I start with the title and then I goto the contents. Ideally, shouldn’t it be the other way around?

Aug 16: The 500 word conundrum

Hello dear regular readers of my blog (aka me!),

How are you guys today? Its been long since I write to you. I have been busy writing over the last few days and for one reason or the other, I could not address you guys directly. I sincerely hope that you are doing well. I always think about you when I am praying.

You would have noticed that over the last few days, I have become really active with posting on my blog. I dont really have a specific reason but I just wanted to restart my habit of writing. All this while chasing a bigger dream of writing a full length novel some day. Would it actually materialize? Only time shall tell (assuming that by the time I get around to publishing it, people would actually be reading books. I am not sure cos of the dwindling time and attention span in the 149 character era). But anyways, I made a promise to myself that I would write at least 500 words everyday for one entire month. I did know that it would be a bit hard but I had no clue that it could drive me crazy. With all the work, meetings, travel, I thought I can take out twenty minutes easily and sit down in quiet and write something. But then I was wrong. I have missed it twice already. Its like taking the Sundays off. When I first thought about it, it seemed as easy as walking on the beach with sun playing hide and seek with clouds. But as I progressed through the month, I realized that its no simple task. It takes a lot of effort to just show up and actually start writing.

The surprising thing is that I really love writing. I know I am nowhere close to publishing quality, yet, but I do love the feeling of writing things. I love the way thoughts come to my head spontaneously. I love the way my brain cooks up connections in my memory and prompts me to type a set of words. Most of them dont really end up making any sense, but the few ones that do, they justify all the effort.

So if I love writing, why is that I missed on those two days? Not that writing feels like a job to me. I really want to write and writing is play for me. I could give a limb if someone paid me enough to write. Enough to be comfortable, ~~drink all the coke~~, travel the world and play some poker. I love writing and writing actually helps. If nothing else, then at least its a nice conversation starter.

And then its not even that I dont know what to write about. I have tons of things that I want to write about. And I have more than 4 projects that I want to start. I have no clue where does all my time goes. May be its commuting across Delhi, twice, each day. Or its the nature of work I do where my time is not mine. It belongs to my office, my managers and my clients. And secret, since I get paid peanuts for it, I feel like a loser after I end most of my days. Writing post work, at least puts some sanity back in my head and I feel as if I have done something productive with my day.

Today, despite the fact that I havent done much work, seems like a day spent well. You know why? Because I am writing this piece. At 0100 hours. Just before I sleep (not really. Have to leave home at 0430 and catch a flight).

Oh, btw, does anyone wants any freelance writers?

This is day 16 in a series of 31 daily blogposts. Other posts are here.

Aug 14: Of hits and misses

I missed it. Again. This was the second time when I missed working on Project 0811 this month. I was so correct about myself. I just need one opportunity and I am out of leash.

Of course I was busy but finding a mere twenty minutes wouldn’t have been difficult. I actually asked a friend what she wanted me to write and she gave me a couple of ideas. I did start a few but I dint finish it.

Need to work equally hard for the remainder of the month to ensure that I do not miss anymore posts. A super hectic week is coming up, with travel to Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai, some important decisions about life and career, lot of introspection and some reading to catchup to.

Aug 12: Any answers Mr. Garg?

There was this time, about two-three years back when I loved to drop the word QLC in any conversation, where I was trying to score BrowniePoints. Ofcourse I totally believed in the idea and I knew that I was suffering from it. I did not see a therapist obviously. Like everyone else, whos suffering from other such delusions, I was in the denial mode. I wondered all the time, how can it happen to me.

With time, things got moving and I got busy with work. So much so that I hardly had time to sleep, leave alone reading or thinking. I forgot about it. It would pop-up once in a while on those off days when I would have time. Or at those odd times when I would think about career and future. And when I would compare myself with my classmates from MDI. The fact that they were making a bomb and I was still to reach peanuts.

Yesterday, I met this friend of mine and we got talking about life and other such things. And I realized that maybe I am not alone. There are more people, apart from I, who suffer from these things. And they lead perfectly happy lives. Came as a revelation to me! But then the most shocking bit happened. During the conversation, I somewhere said that I am almost 30. And then I realized, o crap! Am I not the age that is the precursor of the dreaded middle age, AND the precursor to, the Mid Life Crisis?

And this is when the world came down crashing at my feet. At heart, I am still a 12 year old, who loves to day dream and believes that world is a fair place. Ofcourse my mind tells me to get back to work and accept the fact that Ovarian Lottery is a reality and I am unfortunate to have lost out on it. And, the mind adds, that since I lost on the lottery, I would have to live with whatI have got and work harder to compete with the beneficiaries of the lottery (read rich heiresses, cricketers, film stars, singers, politicians etc).

Hang on for a minute. Did I just say work harder? w to the o to the r to the k? work? If I could work, I wouldn’t be wasting my time writing something that has a combined readership of exactly 1, including me! I would rather be sitting in my office, thinking about the next presentation I am supposed to write for that very demanding client. Uh! I AM sitting in my office conference room, occupying the most important seat (the one facing the wall, in the corner), seeing my fingers fly on the keyboard, pretending to think on launch ideas of cars and writing this!

I need that kick on the backside that would get that 12 year old, trapped inside my 30 year old body, out of my system and let me face the world. The way a 30 year old is supposed to face it. Which to be honest I have no clue. And unlike when I was facing QLC, this time, when I am daunted by MLC, I shall seek help. From the sole reader of my blog. Any answers Mr. Garg?

This is day 12 in a series of 31 daily blogposts. Other posts are here.

Phlogging!

This is probably my fourth post that I am typing on a phone. This mode, the phone one, gives me some kind of an exhilaration. I know that phone is not making an iota of a difference. The readership remains dismally low. Am nowhere close to bringing the change I want to bring in this world. Am last, not writing any better. And yet am hooked on!

But then, irrespective of things, something draws me towards this. May be I am trying to talk to someone. May be this blog gives me the feeling of authority. Maybe am trying to compensate for lack of action on FB and twitter. I don’t know but I am hooked to blogging all over again.

Its like, am back in the 2004s again! Loving it!

Tags: #phlogging, #blogging, #mobile, #personal

Two down. Two to go.

Time for a small update on the Project 0811. I like the ring of it. Every month, I think I need to think of some interesting things and call it Project . Anyways, we shall cross the line when we reach there.

Coming to the update, its just the third day in the month and I already broke a rule (of the 4 I made for this month). I ate outside today. An iced tea at a CCD and some Chinese food from Yo China.

The second rule, the Rot 13 one, I was supposed to start it on day 1, I havent even started on it.

Not happening Mr. Garg. Time to pull up the socks!

Aug 01: Of Writing, Reasons and Promises

Like I promised myself, that this month, each day, I shall update this blog. Here is the first post.

And guess what! I am stuck on line 1. I thought writing came pretty naturally to me and I could write more than the longest epic of our times but I was wrong. I have been staring at this page for more than twenty minutes now and I have no clue what to write. In fact as I write, I have not even filled up the title of the post, apart from the customary “Aug 01:”. Once I finish writing this, I would get down to the title – which in my humble opinion should not be that difficult to pull off.

So let me talk about why I want to do the 31 day challenge. Quite a few reasons actually. The single biggest reason being that I want to create some discipline in my otherwise haphazard life. There are some things that are under my control and there are some that I cant control. Over the past few months, I have tried to work on things and have seen some good results. Not that I am a changed man but I do believe that taking baby steps does help become that giant that you always wanted to become.

Second, I realized that writing de-stresses me. Even though I am belting crap that no one in the world would care for, I still find pleasure in writing. I love the feeling when my fingers dance by themselves on the keyboard (I have used the finger dance metaphor at-least thirty times in past five years) and they end up producing a piece that is coherent. The piece may be grammatically flawed and factually incorrect but then I dont mind it. After all, no ones reading it. Not even you anymore.

Third, more I write, better I get. Like everyone who can speak English, even I have a budding author hidden somewhere inside me, amongst a hidden cricketer, commentator, guitarist, businessman, film maker, philanthropist, teacher, polymath etc. Writing is something that I can work on and improve. Of course story telling is a gift that you are born with, writing on the other hand, you can work on it. Did I come with the gift, time shall tell. But I will ensure that by the time I hang my ~~boots~~ pen, I would be an accomplished writer.

Fourth, once I start writing, my otherwise dead brain, the vegetable bit of me, starts functioning. I get ideas that I never thought I could come up with. Well, most of the times. Like right now, I dont really have any ideas that can potentially make that dent but most of the times, I do get those ideas. And I park them in another document. Or scribble them on a piece of paper. Its funny how our brain operates. In terms of creating new things, I dont think it can. I think it can only link up things that it had processed earlier and then make new links and then tell us on the surface about the new idea.

Five. There is no five! I mean I am sure there is a five but I cant think of it right now. May be some other day.

So what all would I be writing about in the coming days? I do not want it to be boring. I do not want it all to be too similar to each other. Although I suck at it, I would try my hand at writing different genres. Humor, Fiction, Non-Fiction (I think this piece may qualify for non-fiction), Personal, Rant, Review etc. I would try changing the way I write. I want to write something in third person (most of the things I write are in first person). I want to write something like a letter (I did try my hand at a fictional letter once up on a time. It was that bad that my friend had to drop the damn project!). Actually now that I am writing about writing letters, I realize that I want to write a lot of those. A love letter, a hate mail, a ransom letter amongst other things.

I think thats about it for the day. The wants got too much no?

And, the title. I will call this post, Of Writing, Reasons and Wishlists. Why? Go figure!

This is day 01 in a series of 31 daily blogposts. Other posts are here.

August – 2011

August 01, 2011

Beginning of a new month. And like all new months (and years), something inside me tells me to create a goal list. Goals and I go back very long. I have been making lists since 1947 and I haven’t been able to finish a single list, since 1947! What a coincidence. Anyways, as they say, “koshish karne wale ki kabhi haar nahi hoti“, today while driving to work, I decided that I would make a goal list for this month. Rather than making long plans that never fructify, I will make small, measurable

So here are the goals for August.

Write at least one blog post each day on this blog. I do maintain a few other blogs (all of them as not famous as this one) and though I do update them occasionally, they dont give me as much pleasure as this one does. So the goal is, to update this blog, atleast once each day, for rest of the month.
Stop eating out. I have been maintaining a rather complex excel sheet that keeps track of where my money is going. My top three expenses each month, month on month, have been Misc (this is where all my gadgets, gifts etc go), Petrol and Eating Out. I know I cant stop buying gadgets. I know I have to buy fuel to be able to reach office (my office does not pay for my travel. Boss, are you reading this?). And I can easily cut down on the Eating Out bit. It will save me some money (which I desperately need) and help me reduce weight (again, I desperately need to do that as well). All the coffee shops in and around Delhi would hate me for this but a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.
Travel. Thankfully, my work makes me travel a lot. But then travel is one of those things that a man cant have enough of. If all goes as planned, I am supposed to goto Goa and Mumbai this month. Both trips are for work but I will try and squeeze in some bit of personal travel post the Mumbai trip. So anyways, the resolution is that each month, I have to have to make one trip (of at least two nights) somewhere that is not related to work.
Secret. Jevgr n obbx ol raq bs guvf zbagu. Gbbx vafcvengvba sebz uggc://jjj.anabjevzb.bet/ naq znxr Nhthfg zl Abiry Jevgvat Zbagu. Gb or ubarfg, ba qnl 1, V qbag ernyyl unir n fpevcg be n cyna. Ohg V jvyy jevgr n 50, 000 jbeqf. Naq yvxr Zngg (Phggf, bs gur Tbbtyr snzr), fnlf, qb rirelguvat va fznyy fgrcf naq V jvyy jevgr 1650 jbeqf rirelqnl. Hint: Rot13.

And thats about it. If there is more, I shall add on here. Or maybe push them to September. Right now, let me try and close these 4.

Taare Zameen Pay

One of those days when I left home really early. I was in Mumbai and had to meet someone for a breakfast meeting at 7. Since I no longer stay in Mumbai, Neo lent me his car and I was driving from his place. It was to be a thirty minute ride through a city that is more alive than anything else. It had just rained and the entire city was washed and had that damp look about it. The roads were clean, the air fresh and there were puddles of water all over. Not the mean ones but the cute ones. I could see life all around me. Kids trying to reach their school, vada pao vendors trying to make a living, little boys cleaning autorickshaws, sporadic traffic on the road. It all looked like a movie. And I was shuffling FM channels, the way I do all the time, hoping to catch a song that I like, still hoping for a better song. With so much of shuffling, its actually funny that I even get to hear some music. So anyways, some station was playing Taare Zameen Par from the movie, well, Taare Zameen Par. The movie is easily about 5 4 years old (it released in 2007. checked on IMDB) and the song got really popular back then. Those days I hardly paid any attention to it. So its a surpise that I actually stopped my fidgeting on this song and heard it. And as the song reached its high point, the chorus, I was so overwhelmed with the beautiful picture the song was painting that I got this lump of the size of a football in my neck. Ofcourse boys, I mean supposedly grown ups dont cry, I couldnt shed any tears but I would have, if I dint fear a public outcry and declaration of a national calamity over it. Obviously I am an emotional fool and I get carried away easily. Also, the tradition of wetting eyes runs deep in the family. Its one of those traits that I have acquired from mother side of family. Of course I have all the bad traits ;P.

So the song played and I was drowning in my emotions. One part of me wanted the song to get over as soon as possible and the other one wanted it to keep playing. Forever. May be for next few minutes that I could tolerate it. But then like most things in life, I dint have a choice with this song either. Like other things, the song ran its length and something came over to replace it. Isnt it funny, that our entire lives, we try to do things that would make us, our names, our work, our legacy permanent and when the day you bid adieu to the world, no one notices. I mean they take a note and they talk about your glorious achievements and illustrious career, for exactly three minutes. Imagine summarizing seventy years of your existence in three minutes. Ok, enough of rant. So the song got over. I was left with that itch. That despite it being such a brilliant song, how could I miss it! The itch that I had to scratch and hear the song once more. Somehow I had to. I dint have it on my laptop or on my music player (BB 9700 :D) or in the car, the only way to hear it was to download it off Internet. But then what about the damned meeting that had been planned for more than 4 months? And these are exactly the situations where God likes to plays his funny games. Makes you want to believe in his existence. Turn into a believer. Get you to goto temples, mosques, churches or whatever sanctuary.

So I wanted the song badly and I had no access to it. I hoped that it would be on some other station. I flipped stations and, yes, you guessed it. It was there! It was fucking there on some other station. It was playing. The way I wanted it. Without me making an effort for it. Without me praying to God.

Taare Zaameen Par is such a brilliant song. You must hear it. For best results, put it on a loop, put on some really nice headphones, turn off lights, set the AC to 24 and close your eyes. If it doesnt touch your soul, give you goosebumps and elevates your spirit, I will do anything you want me to. Anything. And I am not kidding.

Thanks Prasoon Joshi, Shankar Mahadevan and every other unknown name who played a part in making of this song. Thank you so much for giving us Taare Zameen Par.

So Long, Coke!

Dear regular readers of my blog, regular audience of my sob stories, Warren E Buffet, Neo, sgMS (remember those coke walks?), Ronald, friends and family,

Over the past few years (read ever since I can remember), you would have observed (and in some cases, tolerated) my addiction to a certain beverage and its various variants. Better known as Coke, Diet Coke and Coke Zero, this is a cola beverage. Made from water, sugar and some mystery ingredients (that apparently just two people know in the world), coke sells at about 1000 times the cost of its ingredients. Awesome business to in!

Anyways, so coming back to the point, I have finally quit drinking coke. At the height of my addiction I would drink upto 4 litres of coke and innumerable cans of DietCoke a day. Ofcourse it left a funny aftertaste on my teeth and tongue but I think I can live without it. I quit because as I grow old, I am trying to outlive myself and trying to get fitter et al. Am I saying coke is bad for health? I may be. May not be. Lets not get judgmental here.

So, with the benefit of the hindsight, I think I owe a lot to coke. The long list starts obviously with sgMS. I dont remember much now but I think she and I started bonding over coke and walks. Apart from her, coke got me access to so many other places and people that otherwise would have been difficult. Coke also gave me an escape route and a reason that I could use to avoid alcohol. Then coke gave me my sense of style (huh?) – imagine a bald guy holding a whiskey glass topped with ice cubes and coke!. Any armchair freudian analysts here?

However shunning coke creates a huge problem for me. What about all the craving for something liquid the entire day? I drink oodles of water but then there is a limit to tastelessness. While travelling, I get my fix of liquid with VitaminWater but here at home?

And since I dont really booze and I dont like citrus drinks (read fresh lime water, sodas and other assorted variants) my escape route was coke on the rocks. With coke out of the scene, I would be left sipping water and eating onto ice at parties, dinner dates and other social gatherings where you are expected to hold a glass. I need to find a replacement.

For the record and posterity, I stopped drinking coke on 15th of this month. Been 8 days and I am still going strong (despite repeated attempts of DJ Killa at corrupting me with offers to have coke at 3 in the morning). Hopefully the resolve will last for a meaningful period. Wish me luck so that I may pass through this life without another sip of coke.

And oh, one last issue! Now that I am no longer a coke aficionado, what do I do about all those coke fridge magnets, empty bottles, posters, tabs from cans, images that I have collected over the years? Any takers?

P.S.: I have made an attempt to shun coke in past as well (Feb this year). It dint last long. Lets see how long this one lasts.