My Johari Window

This is fun. People do rate me plz!!!!!!!!!

Arena (known to self and others) adaptable, observant	Blind Spot (known only to others) caring, cheerful, clever, confident, energetic, friendly, helpful, intelligent, kind, knowledgeable, loving, mature, modest, sentimental, trustworthy, witty
Façade (known only to self) accepting, introverted, patient, shy	Unknown (known to nobody) able, bold, brave, calm, complex, dependable, dignified, extroverted, giving, happy, idealistic, independent, ingenious, logical, nervous, organised, powerful, proud, quiet, reflective, relaxed, religious, responsive, searching, self-assertive, self-conscious, sensible, silly, spontaneous, sympathetic, tense, warm, wise

Dominant Traits

80% of people think that Sandipan Mitra is friendly
80% of people think that Sandipan Mitra is intelligent
60% of people think that Sandipan Mitra is trustworthy

All Percentages

able (0%) accepting (0%) adaptable (40%) bold (0%) brave (0%) calm (0%) caring (40%) cheerful (20%) clever (20%) complex (0%) confident (20%) dependable (0%) dignified (0%) energetic (20%) extroverted (0%) friendly (80%) giving (0%) happy (0%) helpful (40%) idealistic (0%) independent (0%) ingenious (0%) intelligent (80%) introverted (0%) kind (20%) knowledgeable (20%) logical (0%) loving (20%) mature (20%) modest (20%) nervous (0%) observant (40%) organised (0%) patient (0%) powerful (0%) proud (0%) quiet (0%) reflective (0%) relaxed (0%) religious (0%) responsive (0%) searching (0%) self-assertive (0%) self-conscious (0%) sensible (0%) sentimental (20%) shy (0%) silly (0%) spontaneous (0%) sympathetic (0%) tense (0%) trustworthy (60%) warm (0%) wise (0%) witty (20%)

Created by the Interactive Johari Window on 30.8.2006, using data from 5 respondents.
You can make your own Johari Window, or view Sandipan Mitra's full data.

Thank you CH Apt122

Its exactly a year today since we are living together at 122 Cherry Hollow, College Station, TX . On 2005 same day I committed for living with 3 other people for atleast 1 year! Now this was different form other lifestyles I had earlier! In hostels, its just the room that you share, mainly to sleep and rarely to study! This one needs more commitments! U cook for yourself as well as for others! You share the same bathroom, kitchen etc. Its pretty difficult. I got the taste of it in BBSR and they were excellent roomies. I would even go on to say the best ever, but that was a short period of time of 6 months and I knew I would be leaving that place. But at cherry Hollow 122, I was for 2 years!
My roommates are:
1) Nikhil Nemade : His fav words : Moron and R u OK
2)Mahesh Sonawane: His fav words change with time, beginning it was "Amazing" and now it is "faar white aahe"(God knows what that means, but certainly not its white far away)
3)Shridhar Yamijala: No dialogues by him in particular but we do associate him with the words "aeeeeeeee bayiiiiiiiiiiii"
4)And me: My words : I don't remember , but i do like to greet the above three as "Yen magaa"

Anyway so here are some salient things that happened to we 4 as a group along the year.

* The Ganapati Chaturthi celebrations. Fresh from home, we were brewing with all the hinduism and Indianness and 3 being marathi, the puja with agarbatti and shira was something i will never forget.
* Nikhil's decision to leave us. At the very beginning Nikhil decided to leave US because he didn't like what they teach here which afterwards changed to living with other people! We 3 wondered what's wrong with us, why is he leaving us, but in the end, he stuck with us.
* The visits by the panchayat! We had made family friends. As if we were a family. The friends were the panchayat, rather only 4 of them living in Casa 604 who came regularly and as a group and we had "chaha taakoing" sessions.
* Reeta hurricane: We got all prepared for the hurricane which never came. But finishing all the emergency drinks and gazing at the fast moving cloud till 5 am in the morning is what we did on Reeta day.
* The dumb Charades sessions: One fine day we started playing dumb charades and it still remains the most popular and easily accepted games amongst all of us.
* Nikhil breaking his hand and being unable to cook for 6 whole weeks. It was fun and especially the colourful plaster on his hand and his Tom Cruise lookalike doctor.
* Thankgiving end: Shridhar coming at 8:58 from California and met a prof for interview at 9 who gave him an RA.
* The birthday celebrations: It started with mine, and what a pleasant surprise it was! The biggest cake I had ever cut and then the dipping into the icecold swimming pool. The trend followed with Shridhar, Mahesh and a comparably much warmer pool for Nikhil.
* The aggie nights: A post has been written on this by Mahesh and i won't wish to elaborate more.
* USAMOVIEEXPRESS : The five dollar rental movie parlor! We have even seen 4 movies on a single day. And we still do atleast 3 movies a week.
* Nikhil's laptop and his permanent place in the corner of the drawing room.
* Shridhar's camera, which everyone of us has used more than he did.

Well there are many more and I would ask the roomies to comment about them. There were moments of disappointments, and extreme anger on one another but we still cruised along. Off late especially since I came back from cincinnati, i have seen that bonding getting stronger and even though Nikhil is in Dallas but we have never missed him.
Recent past we have been seeing roommates falling apart after a year and then I wonder what it is that holds us together. But now I realize how we have changed in the past year. As for me, I understand more marathi than ever before and I guess I have learnt to be tougher in my life!
A visisble but surprisingly cute change was that of food. Nikhil from Jalgaon, Shridhar from AP and Mahesh from Nashik have all a high tolerance for spices. But now they have changed, I guess for me, Thanks folks. I had the shock of my life when Nikhil told that he found that he found the Chitale's Bhakhar wadi too spicy. Well its tme for me to divulge the secret to you 3 guys today! Never on my cooking turns since the last 10 months have u had less than 2 tbsp of sugar in every food that I cooked.

Anyway I am out of good finishing lines now, so lets just say Happy Anniversary.

Bips in Sush out

No no, I have not changed to a "lafoot" kind of guy. But past few events prompt me do change my taste. It also has got nothing to do with being bengali. I still hate riya/raima as bad as ever.
I had a post about why I like sushmita but things have changed. She is still bold but she is looking cheap nowadays. It started with chingaari. There was nothing good about the movie. A movie can't be bold and good just because a top notch heroine plays a prostitute. The story was so pathetic and B grade types. And then this miss started acting pricy when the hero commented on the smooch.
Then came ditching Randeep Hoodda, she talks so highly of motherhood and womanism but if she doesn't have any respect for men, what's the use. She is is using them like dolls.
Next one was even worse. She wanted to act laxmibai but the director chose aishwarya though people voted for the short plumpy and more laxmibailike Rani. Instead of taking it well, she starts dating another boyfriend and convinces him to make a movie with her. And the funda about highlighting the motherhood of laxmibai is new to me. I guess none of us ever cared for laxmibai the mother. Let's see, if she does anything good, I may change my views.

Let's come over to bipasha now. Always being tagged by sleazy names (bengali bombshell) she has never shied from the comments. Neither she went around with too bold comments like Mallika Sherawat. Slowly but steadily she is proving that she is not just an item number. The 5 minute role in apaharan goes a long way in proving that. And nobody can deny she looks absolutely stunning and apt in Omkara as billo chamanbahaar.
But here is why I like her now.
1) Only an extremely powerful woman can keep John Abraham as a boyfriend for this long.
2) Her hairstyle, as in the pic above was something I always looked for in girls around.

The past few days

Well, I don't want to write a diary entry here but I am not getting anything else to write. I can write about the oncoming Rakhi but again it will be a blog on rinki about whom I have already told so much.
Let's start with the day I came back form the wonderful trip of cincinnati. Things looked real good the moment the plane landed in Houston. A voice mail frm Dr. B meant some serious work ahead and I was really bored with the no work scenario. Coming home I see a definite change in my roomies. The feeling of being 1 year together has seeped in all of them and it has now sunk in me! This is the longest time ever that I have been with same set of roomies.
A guest had come down (we host new poeple coming form India for fall untill they get apartments.) He too a cool and easy going fellow, it was always laughter that filled the house since the last few days, not the usual gloom of shridhar talking about how he selected the worng course and Mahesh busy with his work.
Things began from thursday evening when we decided that we will go to houston over the weekend. and then suddenly I decided to give the written test for driving. It was fun , studying for it a bit and the feeling of telling pople i am studying took more time than the actual time of study. I guess it has been 3 long months since I had been busy with studies.
On friday we went for the test but boom! They needed the SSN which I didn't have. So got back again. Next time me n patil alone went for the test. I won't say that the test was easy/difficult, I would say it was good. I believe that even if I do excellent in some paper, it may be a good/hard exam unlike many poeple who say "paper easy tha" when they answer everything. I rather like to think I did a good job than examiners making my job easy. (My way of looking into things.) I also liked the no. of best of lucks I got for such a exam. Nikhils asking about the result immediately after the exam also boosted my feelings.
Then came the trip. The maps ready, first time i thought like I will do some style. and I had put gel on my hair, a jhatack patack red T and topping everything was a sunglass. Thus I sat in the navigator seat for the drive. Its not new to me, but here are a few things that I understood about navigating.
1) However good or bad navigator you are, understanding with the present driver is important.
2) Its always if one person does the job and not the entire car, though occasional comments are helpful.
3) Leave decisions with driver. don't push him/her to do something.

We reached houston maharajah restaurant by 7 pm and after a looong time had mutton biryani. It was too good! I cherished each and every piece of it. Later came the Kheer, it was just like my mother cooks. Ummmmmmmmmmhhhhhhhh, too good! What followed was seeing omkara and coming back.

Saturday we all had the omkara fever the entire day with nothing but 'namak' and 'beedi' songs and even danced on it.
Sunday the highlight was me playing frisbee for 45 minutes or so and then sweating heavily! I don't remember when was the last time i had sweat. The day and the series of events ended with cihcken curry, jeera rice and Gchat sessions.

Another wierd but insightful dream

I say another because i have written about one of my breams earlier too!

This dream goes this way:
Place: Ambajhari Nagpur Defence estate but now in the backdrop of a hill and somewhere in the Indo-Pak Border area. Consists of 2 buildings facing each other (for those who know, 1/66/ and 1/108 of the defence estate)
Characters: Again it includes all, till date. Not necessarily the people of Nagpur.
Context: Indo-Pak war has started. US is on Indian side though they are using any force against anybody. Just providing moral help. There is a rule of the war: It won't continue after sundown (The mahabharat effect)

All the people are carried back to the place as mentioned above as sun has gone down. 3 truck loads of common people under heavy guard. These consist people aged 1-35 only. These people are the last remaining people living in this hilly area and government had resources only fit for these people! So it made a rule that anybody above 35 is too old to survive.
I along with my friends were in the truck. I am back to India after a brief stint in US for MS.
We head for a nice natural spring by the river. Shubhajit (My schoolmate and now an army officer ably guiding us.) I feel so shameless as to being so many of us all fit and youth, we can't do anything to save the country or fight. Like some special and bound people we are treated as VIPs.
So now beside the spring, I am sitting with my friend Sumit,Anshu, Manisha and a few others (don't remember) that suddenly from behind our back giggling sound comes and we see a group of young girls and army men just married coming down the hill. All have decided to marry because their life is at risk in the war. So they are fulfilling their commitment towards their girlfriends! Surprisingly all pairs had wed in Christian style and had that flower bouquet in their hands! Their helpless action made me really sad!

Then suddenly my mobile rang. It was a call form maa. She was asking how am I doing. She was not at all worried about her own safety. Then she give the phone to dad who asked me about what are they going to do with us and all and gave me some courage instead!

This had then become a regular feature. Daily we are ushered to a safe place blindfolded just as the enemy troupes came down from the hill and started bombarding. Surprisingly there was no death in my entire dream though the fear haunted everybody.

One day suddenly Bush comes and offers his help. He says he will take us safely to his own country. Hope dawns on all of us! But then he says he can't take everybody and preference will be given to those who have studied in US with scholarships! I was the one and so was another friend parag (he is in UFL now). But then i was feeling so ashamed. All my friends/family were left here to die and i was all safe and doing nothing for the country being too valuable a resource to be risked! This was a big joke being played on me.
Such were my thoughts when this tremendous tension of being the "privileged" one woke me up from my sleep!