This is what usually happens when I go gift shopping 😉

– Suramya
I personally don’t like using PDF files. They are bulky and need extra software for me to view them. Plus they are a pain to export into html (which I like). But they are a necessary evil especially if you are dealing with the corporate world/goverment where most of the forms etc are in PDF format maybe because they allow the creator to choose the layout/content and make it hard for others to modify without spending a lot of money. Atleast that used to be the case, now there are most than 50 alternatives to Adobe Acrobat that you can try out and use for free. The following site has a listing of all the tools with a brief description of each: 50+ open source/free alternatives to Adobe Acrobat.
I regularly use Open Office to create PDF’s that look good. I have also tried using the PDF creator but didn’t keep it as Open Office took care of all my PDF creation needs.
Check out the list. You might find the some tool that will save you a lot of money.
– Suramya
This week I attended Gaurang’s wedding. The actual wedding was on the 8th but I was there from the 4th onwards (with a brief trip back on the 5th). I got there early in the morning on the 6th and then spent most of the day helping with the wedding preparations. Actually most of it was just receiving people and dropping them at the various messes. Also spent some time preparing the schedule and welcome package with Aunty and Uncle.
In the night Gaurang’s Cousins and friends had arrived so we spent a lot of time eating/drinking and talking. It was a lot of fun. I got a lot of good blackmail photos. We were regularly going to bed at ~4:30 – 5:00am. Thats why the mornings were usually a blur. 😉
On 7th it was the Sangeet which we had to attend in Gurguan. We were supposed to reach there at 6:30 pm but due to the late arrival of people and random delays we only managed to get there at 7:45 pm. We had hired two buses to get there as there were ~50 of us going. Once we got there all the tika’s an the puja’s etc happened. Kunal and his mausi made Gaurang eat one laddu each (the entire thing at once). After that his mom hid the Laddu packet otherwise everyone would have fed him one each.
Kangan looked nice. I took a lot of photos and videos (~1.1 GB) and this time for a surprise I have posted them online also. 🙂 Well, the video’s are not yet up as I still have to figure out how I want to handle it, but the pics are up.
After all the jazz was over everyone headed out to the dance floor which Kangan and Gaurang opened. We then danced till 11 pm after which Kangan and Gaurang had the last dance to a very slow song.
Got back to Delhi at 1 am, helped Gaurang a bit with packing and then crashed. At 4 am Viraj, Shantanu and the rest arrived so they woke the both of us up. So talked for a while before crashing at 5 am.
On the wedding day we made sure we were on time and got there at 5:30 pm as promised. It helped that we were staying a 5 min walk from the auditorium. The whole thing lasted till 11:00 – 11:30 pm and by 12 everyone was out. There was a bit of a mixup with the rooms as the road to the Infantry hostel was completely blocked off so five people couldn’t get to their rooms. They had to be adjusted in other rooms. So me and Gurunathan uncle spent some time to dropping people off in their rooms. After everyone was safely in their rooms me and Natasha left (I had promised to drop her off) and I made it home about 2 am.
Over all it was a great wedding. I enjoyed a lot. I could have filled a couple of pages with the stuff I did at the wedding but I am too lazy to type it all out. So you will have to be satisfied with this.
Well this is all for now. Will post more later.
– Suramya
Yesterday was Ankush’s wedding. Me and Gaurang drove to Subroto Park in the afternoon because I was planning to spend the night there with his parents after the wedding. We got there late in the afternoon and we did a bit of preparations for Gaurang’s wedding before we had to leave. Uncle had invitations to a Photography exhibition made by students of Light and Life Academy (I hope I am remembering the name correctly) as he was an ex-faculty/staff from the Academy. It was held in the Max Muller Bhavan in Delhi and the German Ambassador was the guest of honor. The photos these people took were amazing. I can only hope that my photos will someday come out as good. I did learn a few tricks I want to try sometime.
After that we headed to Ankush & Megha’s wedding. It was in the Air Force Auditorium in Subroto Park. It was a nice affair and the arrangements were great. A lot of our classmates made it to the wedding so I got to meet a lot of old friends. We were there till almost 12:30 am after which we headed back and crashed. Then Gaurang’s cousin Siddharth arrived at 1:30 am and we decided to continue the party. We were up till almost 4 am. It was great fun. Got some great blackmail photos. 😉
Well this is all for now. Need to get some sleep ’cause I will be back tomorrow to Subroto park for Gaurang’s wedding. (Actually make that today…)
– Suramya
It was my Birthday on the 3rd and I celebrated it with friends. Gaurang was staying over with me since the 1st so we both started the day (12 am) by watching Stargate Atlantis. Got a lot of calls from friends/relatives so didn’t get a lot of sleep. (Actually I didn’t get a lot of continuous sleep. ’cause I did end up sleeping till ~3 pm). We both then had lunch at 4 pm and we headed out to Gurgoan. We had decided to celebrate it over there because most of my friends are located there, and those who weren’t were attending Ankush’s engagement which was also on the same day.
We had decided to get dinner at Ruby Tuesday’s so we both got there ~6:30 pm and met up with Kangan who had been waiting for us to show up. Then Tarini and Kunal joined us. The dinner was a lot of fun. We were the loudest table in the place and we had a ball. The food was good and the company was better.

Tarini had made a set of cushion covers for me for my birthday and they looked great. Gaurang got me some great chocolates which I haven’t tried yet. (They are on the to do list 😉 )

We then cut the cake after talking for a long time, and then we had to call it a day because it was a weekday and everyone had to goto work the next day. Plus it was a long drive back for me and Gaurang.
It was a fun birthday and I had a blast.
– Suramya
Its wedding season in India right now and its getting pretty tiring. In the past week I have attended two weddings and skipped out on two more. Next week I have to attend two weddings, one on the 4th (Ankush) and the second on the 8th (Gaurang). Ankush’s engagement/sangeet is on the 3rd and I will be attending that. It should be a lot of fun as I will get to meet old friends. Plus its a chance to enjoy with friends. I will also attend the wedding but during it Ankush will be pretty busy so the engagement will be a lot more fun as we can hang out with him also during it.
On 8th its Gaurang and Kangan’s wedding with the Sangeet on the 7th. I will be there for most of the day on both days helping out and meeting friends. So out of the 7 days in the next week I will be at some function or another for 4 days (maybe 5 days). Then a little break for a couple of weeks then the next batch starts.
The worse part of the season is the inevitable question that everyone asks “So when are you getting married?” I usually get that question about 5-10 times a night at one of these events. Especially at friends weddings where everyone assumes that just because ‘abc’ wanted to get married I should do the same.
Ahh well… well this is all for now. I am going to go catch up on all the sleep that I will be missing next week. So will post more later.
– Suramya
This Monday I lived through my third earth quake. This one was a relatively minor one (4.3 on the Richter scale) with its epicentre located near Delhi in Bahadurgarh. I was awake at that time as I was in the middle of a marathon coding session (which lasted ~13.5 hours) when I thought I hear some vibrations. So I took off my headset and listened. It sounded like a jet was flying by at high speed causing the windows to shake. (Having lived near a runway I have had some experience with it) but then I remembered that there was no airfield near this house so I guessed that it was an earthquake.
It didn’t look like it was a serious one so I didn’t try hiding under my table ;). Then I got back to work and forgot about it till dad asked me about it the next day. This was the third one that I have personally experienced. The first one was when I was in the 5th or 6th and it was a major one. Don’t really remember a lot about it as I slept through it.
The second one was in Jan of 2000 when I had gone to Uttarkashi for a mountaineering course. We were up in the mountains and I was dead tired after being made to walk for ~15 kms so I was sleeping when I felt the ground shake beneath me and I thought that someone was trying to wake me by shaking me. The others in the tent woke up and then tried to wake me up so that we could go outside. My response was “Wake me if something is about to fall on the tent..” 🙂 Atleast thats what the rest of the guys told me the next day. I did get to see an avalanche the next morning when the aftershocks hit.
In all I would rather avoid being in another earthquake. I am allergic to falling rocks.
Well this is all for now. Will post more later.
– Suramya
Last Friday we visited Padmini Buaji and had lunch at her place. I wanted to write about it earlier but had caught a cold (thanks a lot Surabhi!) so didn’t feel like writing up a post. Anyways we left home at about 12:30 pm with me, Vinit and Surabhi in the Esteem and Mom and dad in the 800. We took two cars because Vinit and Surabhi had a meeting at 4:30 and we didn’t want to be tied up with them. The drive to their place wasn’t that bad, Vinit was driving so I relaxed. 🙂
Once we got there, Ganesh Phufaji came home from work after a little while and we all talked a lot. Buaji had cooked for Idli’s for us and they tasted awesome. We talked about a lot of things. This was my first visit to their house. Its located in a really nice area and the house itself is pretty nice.
Here’s a group photo that I took at their place:

At about 4 pm Vinit and Surabhi pushed off for their meeting and we stayed on till about 5:30pm. The drive back was bad. We got caught in a traffic jam. It took us over 3 hours to get home (Its usually takes about an hour). Got home and then had to work, but by morning I had a severe Sinus attack (thanks to the smoke) along with a bad cold. The next couple of days were not fun.
Well this is all for now. Will post more later.
– Suramya
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