Mumbai nagariaaaa.....

shola hain…
ya hain bijuriyaaa…
dil ki bajariyaa…
mumbai nagariyaaaa ! ! !

well Bombay, aka Mumbai is indeed a city of paradoxes. I’ll relate my experience in Mumbai city, where I had recently gone to get my visa stamped or in the hope of getting my visa stamped…(to put in the exact words).

The fact that I started out this mail with a peppy song itself could give u an idea of the end result – Yes…I got my visa stamped or else I wud’ve started out with a song like “Yeh Mumbai sheher hadson ka sheher hain…yahan zindagi hadson ka safar hain…” and so on. Neways comin back to my story…

It all started out with a mail from the HR gods requesting me to fill a couple of online forms and this process went on for sometime and finally I had disclosed all my info to the HR and it got published somewhere in our Sparsh. This happened like 3-4 months back and then recently I was told to fill a series of other forms and finally go to aamchi Mumbai to get ‘stamped’. As any normal organic tea drinking homosapien wud do, I asked my predecessors what was supposed to happen at the consulate. The responses that I got were very encouraging, if I were a comp-sci grad that is. But being a memner of the Royal Mech family, I was told that I wud have to work my way thru the consular officer’s tricky questions. Hmmm…interesting…so I turned to my fellow mechanical engg(or non comp-sci) grads for their experiences. At this point I find it worthy of mention that this act of knowledge gathering did improve my PR !!! Again the response I got was pretty encouraging.
A majority of them told me that it wud be a cake walk-thanx to the brand Infosys. The questions wud be pretty HR-ical as in where u from n how long in the US and stuff like that.

So there me was in Mumbai city, having that frame of mind. I reached Mumbai the previous nite and me n a buddy of mine went to this nice place that the educated people call a resto-bar … or was it a retro-bar. Neways…we’ll name it as just ‘the bar’. The point is that the ambience was neat. The crowd was young n hep n attractive and the best part was almost all were football fanatics and the Chelsea vs Arsenal match was just about to start on the huge screen in the bar. Could u ask for a better environment to spent a nice evening ? The match starts off and needless to say there were fireworks from both sides both on screen and off screen. We had a nice time there and since I had my appointment only at 12:30, we went on to just roam around the place. The next morning, I was all dressed up for the big date with the consulate. Did a check on all docs and finally reached the consulate.

The scene at the consulate is interesting. This was my first visit to a consulate of any country for that matter…and I was just recollecting the comments made be others during their visits. I cud a long Q filled with aspirants. The aspirations cud be seen on their faces as it was so obvious…the first step to a successful n flourishing life…few of them for visiting visas, some working visa(I fall in this category) and majority for the student visa. The air was filled with too much of hope yaar…

I set foot into the temple, there was no bell or else I wud’ve rung that 3 times. The initial security frisking is done…felt ticklish J and then it was time for fingerprinting and that went off fine too. For the record, I found out that I have beautiful fingerprints J I was given a token number and me was waiting for my turn. Meanwhile, I cud c the rest of the junta goin thru all the procedures. Some were jumping up in joy and some were all tears. There were even a couple who scorned and shouted and had to be taken off the consulate premises. Another interesting observation was that the majority of the population there were of the Patel species. Not that I understand gujju but along with the token numbers, the names were also called in most cases and I can say for sure that almost 95% of the names had a suffix ‘Patel’. It was also interesting to note the fingerprinting lady instructing some people to give the print of a specific finger of a specific hand --- in HINDI. That sure was fun with their angrezi accent J

Finally after around 104 minutes of waiting, my token was called and I went in line…needless to say. Behind 4 patels. I was the fifth n last n the only non-patel in the group J. The person on the other side of the counter was a smart lookin guy and he seemed to have a funny bone as I cud c all before me laughing some time thru the discussion with him. I also found it strange that all 4 before me got their visas rejected…that got my heart pounding a little but hey…I have the Infy brand all over me and I felt as if I was having the brahmastra. So there I was in front of my …err…consular guy.. giving me an evil smile as I entered. We wished each other and exchanged pleasantries . As per the ideal script that I had in mind he wud c the infy tag on my neck, and cheerfully blurt…”oh another infoscion…haven’t seen one of u guys in some time…hehe…there are so many of u guys and I must say u guys are doing a wonderful job for the United States of America. We are proud of your services. Im issuing you a visa Mr. Raj.” And that shud be the end of it. But NO.

That guy asked me for my I-129(that’s the form where u have all ur info in a 4 page doc) and then started to type some crap in his monitor. “So Mr.Raj, u have applied for an H1 B visa huh!” comes the first statement. I go “ Yes Kevin(he wanted me to call him Kevin !!!) that is correct”. Now Kevin starts reading the first page of the form line by line. I cud c his eyeballs move from one end to the other and back like a typewriter…”So what is it that you do at Infosys mr.Raj” comes the next Q. I felt like replying “Kevin. I am a part of a very large family of well educated and highly skilled software engineers who do almost everything within and outside their capacity and capability so that all Americans including you have a wonderful life but at 1/30th of the price” but instead I gave him a professional answer on what Infosys does. “Hmmm…interesting…” comes another quip from Kevin. “So why do you need this visa Mr. Raj?” says Kevin and I wished I cud say “So that I have the pleasure of shoving it up your sad ass…u fat cunt” but I go for a much more polite option of telling him that I am to be the osc for a project with Daimler Chrysler and gave him some functions of an osc. “Wow…Daimler Chrysler huh!! awesome” came a quick reply. And I am like “duh” but with a smile on my face. “What technologies do u specialize in Mr. Raj?” and I was like listing a few of my multiple talents n skills. Just before I grab my breath “So whats so special about this J2EE Mr. Raj that you are working on the same platform for Chrysler too?” and I was like “teri ma ki $#%%@#%@#$%@#” but then again, I gave him a couple of technical advantages of j2ee. Well call it occupational hazards but u get to know some advantages of the technology u work on over a period of almost 2 years J So I was still safe. By this time our Kevin was nearing the end of page 2. As he was about to turn to page 3 comes a set of HR-ical questions and that was fine. Page 3 was more of HR and in page 4, there comes a Q – “Mr Raj, what will be the backend for your application?” damn…I replied DB2. “DB2 huh…IBM DB2..hmmm”. I felt like that was it…a couple of Q’s on DB2 and I would be easily cornered but thank God for small mercies…he knew shit abt that. That was the end of DB2. page 4 was finally over and then he turned to the screen in from of him. “Are u married Mr.Raj?”. “I am not married…still single n ready to mingle” came my quick reply(although I left the …still single n ready to mingle part J ). “Wow...why aren’t you married? As far as I know, 25 is indeed an age for Indians to be happily married. Hmmm…nice…” says Kevin. I wished if he could just stretch his lower lip over his head and swallow himself. Who the hell does this fart breath think he is to decide by what age I should marry…again the humanitarian in me gave him the benefit of being an absolute foreigner to our traditions n customs. I still had the ‘trade mark’ charming smile on my face al this while. “Do you have any family in the US Mr.Raj?” came the next Q. “I have my elder brother in the United States” came my answer. “Is he a citizen or is he on an H1 as well?” and I go “He is not a citizen and he is on an H1 visa”. “How long is he there in the US Mr.Raj?” and I go “He has been in the US since 2002”. “Oh ok. Thank you Mr.Raj”.

At this point of time, he drops some crap down and excuses himself to get that, cracks a joke to his colleague on his way up and then suddenly tells me, “u sure seem to be interested in Automotives Mr.Raj. A mechanical engineer and now building software for automobiles…that’s real nice. So Mr.Raj…have u been to any other country before?” I go “Nope”. “It should be real cold in Michigan at this time of the year and u better be prepared to tackle that cold. It can be real dreadful Mr.Raj”. This gave me a hint that I mite be after all…goin to the US. Finally he concluded informing me that “Mr. Raj, I am issuing you a visa. Have a nice time in the US”.I politely thanked him and bid adieu.



Gotta go for a get together now and so im stopping. All u people have a gr8 time.


Celebrate life !

A Week

Peace to all.

Usually its supposed to be one of the better days in the week but this Friday sucked big time. Reason: I just cant remember exactly but im sure it sucked !
Workwise, I was almost jobless…almost..but then it was not to be. This was the weekend day by day

Monday: there were no blues at all…not on this Monday especially since I was just back after writing my CATR exams which indeed made me surprisingly happy. Who knows … u guys mite sent ur resumes to me some day :p. jokes apart…I was pretty excited coz of an event that was supposed to happen the next day. It was a part of the 25th year celebrations. I’ll tell u more on that on Tuesday J. Comin back to Monday, it started well with a wonderful plate of idli sambaar and vada(donno what u call a vada in hindi…#@#$). At office I was welcomed by some work in microsoft technologies like excel n powerpoint. At around 1700hrs that day I left my desk. We had practice for the function tomorrow. Practice sessions have been real fun. It’s a nice group…like most groups there are assholes, sweethearts,cute faces and then chill buddies too. The practice went upto 0300hrs Tuesday morning.

Tuesday: it started of by us practising. Slowly the tension was growing into the group and people started takin out their frustrations. It was fun in a way…fun as in when we see something that we did expect and it was happening in a very smooth manner. As the time went by, there were some people getting real bossy and some totally getting angry n aggressive on those bossy ones. It seemed that few of us wanted to be in the front row of the dance but they were not getting ample oppurtunities. Some even threatened to backout form the dance…some did and so it was a tense beginning to the final day. I guess I forgot to mention the size of the group. It was about 20 finally. It started out with around 32J and so one can imagine the banter and the gossip mongering and the back scratching that would have and did happen :p as ususal I got to meet a set of people and needless to say I could stretch my list of unique homosapiens a little more J.

About the event: it was the beginning of the 25th year celebrations in pune. And there is a cultural group called Abhivyakti here whose members are the above mentioned group. Now we were practising for this event for the last 3 months…I know that’s surprising…the thing was that the actual ocassion for the dance was not the 25th year celebration. It was to be much much before but it kept getting postponed. Neways it was finally looped in for the 25th year celebs.

Needless to say the event was a real nice one. Not much issues in the execution. Everyone were basking in its glory for a couple of days after that too…u know the usual stuff…u get recognised in the foodcourt or on ur way to the bank or some crap like that. Make su feel special. So that was a good experience.

At this point I shud say that the only reason I actually became a part of that group and stuck till the end was because of one cute face in that group. Raher let me put it this way. There was one face that pulle dme initially to the group and then that face became real close and then we were around 4-5 people in the group who gelled real well. So there…

Wednesday: Pass. It was bad .dont want to remember. Work was really buggin me and I was too tired. Saw Don at office for sometime. Actually till the Kaike paan banaraswala song got over.
Thursday: screw it. There was one silver lining that day. There was a live show by Shaan at infy as a part of the 25th year celbs. It was awesome man. I reiterate the fact that this guy has some talent in him. Like he sang continous for about 3-4 hrs without even havin a soda in between man.atleast I dint c him having one. And the songs were fabulous. At the end I got to shake hands with shaan…big deal J The above mentioned group went out together for Thursday. I indulged in some totally harmless healthy organic flirting …that’s how the day ended !

Friday: I was happy it was a the beginning of the end of the week. Also it was an onsite holiday ..thnx to thanksgiving. So there was supposed to be no work at all. But hell was I wrong. At this point I have to mention that my current PM is a lady(no offence ladies but this one is indeed a unique one!!) who tries very hard. Its not a bad trait nut then again it doesn’t make sense following the white book of rules everytime a situation arises. There is always ‘another way out’. Since it was thanksgiving at onsite, we cud not call up neone there and so our lady started using her head. Again no offence ladies but using a ladies imagination to create a few bottlenecks that could pop up in her imaginative crisis situations was a little too much for me and the rest of the team. Rest of the team here refers to just another guy. We are just 3 of us nowJ It sure was a small but definitely unhappy family. Unfortunaltely for me it is this lady to whom I have submitted my appraisal forms and so I was kinda bound by it as the results have not yet come. Going by this ladies imaginative capabilities I dint want to imagine where I would end up in case I messed with her in the last hour.

Here this lady was making scenario after scenario just when she suddenly had an appointment with the doctor. God bless medicine. Donno how this scenario popped up but the whole team was thankful for it J so she left early and so we were instructed to do som KM(knowledge management) activities. It sure was fun from there.

Saturday: dint have much plans but then again got an invite to go for this party - annual day @ Kanbay. Well..even though small in numbers when compared to infy, Kanbay sure has its good resources…if u know what I mean. I was all excited but then again as soon as I was about to indulge in some KM activities at the party(it was an open air location…), the rain gods interfered. But heck…the people there were already either too much into the party or toom drunk to realise this. They were still dancing away the nite on the floor in the rain. But that dint last long too. The rains got really violent. It would be unfair if I don’t mention that fact that the rains did result in some interesting sights for sore eyes.

It was just around 2100hrs and it was a Saturday nite and so it was too early to call it a nite. Now me n a friend of mine (whose invite I had for the party) thought of hangin out at some club here in pune. So needless to say we left that place n landed up at Le Meridian. It has a club called Scream(its not the heppest of clubs but then at times it did turn ot be one!) that nite there was a belly dancer in the house. Never seen one live n so we thought we’ll make merry there. The belly dance was cute and bloody flexible. We just dance the nite away.

Sunday: No idea when Sunday started. Was not in my senses.woke up late in the afternoon. Called up some cute faces and buddies. That was it.

Festival of Lights !

Happy diwali n Eid mubarak to u !

This diwali was actually something I was looking forward to for some time since I was sure that I wud be in pune itself. I really cant rate it as the best diwali nor can I say it was sad. Reason being I have never celebrated diwali in its righteous manner. For me diwali was all about crackers(phatakas !) n lamps(diyas). This was all we did whenever diwali was ‘celebrated’ in college and being a true blooded malayalee, we don’t get that much of an oppurtunity to celebrate it as per the rituals n stuff. All we were bothered about during school days was how we could disturb our iritating neighbour or how we could impress the beautifully aged school going daughter of that iritating neighbour. We’ve even done stupid things and hurt ourselves pretty bad in the attempt.
Comin back to the not so distant past as in last weekend, I felt kinda strange…firstly, there was this sudden disappearing act done by most of my buddies as they all left for their home/native. I was a part of a very rare communit who just stood back to catch all the action without realising that all the people who were in charge of creating the action were actually doin it someplace else other than pune…damn..so there I was …I wudnt say ‘alone’ here as I had my ever so supportive roomie with me…eventhough he too knew shit about the authentic diwalil stuff, we decided to go ahead with the half baked knowledge we had.

We were bursting crackers on Friday nite n needless to say we hurt ourselves pretty bad…actually really bad. Don’t wanna tell more abt it as it sounds really stupid. So lets stop it rite here.

Actually we kinda went overboard with it. The first day(Saturday I guess!) our cute neighbour was seen drawing some stuff on the floor. There goes roomie with some white powder to draw our diwali picture. No idea wat he had in mind. The outcome was just that our ‘bhai’/maid had some more work to be done at the doorstep. That was pretty encouraging. But to cheer us up, we had these visits made by our neighbours(people who even complained abt us initially !) who came across n gave us sweets n delicacies whose names ,unfortunately, I cant reproduce L But I can say for sure that did make us happy. It was later that we came to know that Saturday was a day when some specific pooja was being done at every household. Since we dint know that, we were aur usual self and just blasted the day with really loud music. As an dwhen the sweets came in we just paused the music n as soon as they left it was back on. Felt bad for that but hey…u cant fault us as we were ignorant abt the whole pooja thingy. At the end of the day we again burnt a few crackers but this time it was only the ones that said ‘for kids-n-dummies-who-burn-their-hands’. Was fun…

Sunday came. It was a beautiful morning or so they said…we got up at around 12:00 to the sound of patakas. Had lunch and were thinking about wat our poa was for the day. For the uninitiated, poa=plan of action J We unanimously decided that there was nothing constructive to do n so we decided to see Don. That was a one time watch movie. Nice ! after that we left for the city to c how it was decorated and the resluts were pleasing to the eye. Other than the ocassional attack on the bmw by some underaged citizens who did not know how to handle crackers, it was fun. I felt like Don driving his ferrarri beign chased by cops with grenade launchers J after returning from the city, we dint have nething else to do w.r.t diwali…so we boozed…big time.

Monday came…it was a holiday for me but not for roomie. This time I was all ‘alone’. It sucked big time. I started getting sad man…seriously, I had nothing to do. All the buddies I knew either had left for work or their home town. Damn…I was getting Monday morning blues eventhough I was not at work ! it was one of the most screwed up Mondays in my life. Actually I thought of dialling u guys, and I did but I just cut the line. I had no idea wat hit me…

That nite once roomie came, I told him about my tryst with Monday-morning-blues. He consoled me n told me he had some plans. This was the plan: we would go to the nearby theater and watch whichever movie it had. He was of the idea that it would take us back to our college days where we just did things out of the blue. Me too felt some excitement. So all planned to watch some crap movie in marathi, we left for that theater. To our utter surprise, it was jaan-e-man. We thanked our lucky stars n went in. before I proceed, just want to mention a one liner I came across long time back – Life, at times, is just like the black mans left ball – neither fair nor right !
That was a shitty movie man…came out in the first 30 minutes. No comments abt the movie. We just surrendered the remainder of the day to booze…again !


I was really happy to go to work on Tuesday. Thankfully the blues were just restricted to the Monday…thank god for small mercies !!!!!

Bangalored !!!

Bangalored !!!

I sure was when I went back to the garden city last weekend. No matter how much traffic n dust this place has to its name, it still is a fav destination for me and I can think of more than one reason J Like this was the place that bore me during the now_so_cherished job hunting days. It sure is fun to remember those days with so much fondness. Well I have to admit that it wasn’t all that glossy then but it did leave me with a few important lessons I cudn’t have learned elsewhere. But still I’m in luv with this city. It dint have this traffic xplosion as it does have then. But then again the long wait at the traffic signals gives me time to catch up with buddies on the phone…well I don’t talk on the phone while driving but these looong traffic stops give us ample time to make some conversation. Also chances are that u mite meet someone special or a long lost buddy in one of these traffic signals for like 999 seconds :p. and then there are those evergreen hotspots/hangouts which we used to haunt before… I got to do all that this time. Even though I was in Bangalore for 2 days, I made most of it.

I got to meet my very special n close group of buddies whom I have stuck with ever since school/ college. We all have our lives to go on with but then it was indeed a very satisfying fact to acknowledge that we all took time off from our busy life for that weekend. We all got together n had the usual gossip/leg pulling…man it was fun. Then ofcourse there was a loooot of booze n dance n some fighting. We made sure we went to a few places where we used to meet up to ‘chill out’ earlier. It did bring us back to those days. Then we also watched a movie together in one of those economy mode theatres … hehe..it was one decent movie …

Another highlite was I got to meet Lakshmi(i had this huge crush on her when I met her at mysore and got to know more about her at samavesh ) at Bangalore…she’s the same old chatterbox…just that the chatterbox got a whole lot more beautiful :p damn…did I just think aloud…. :p

I also wanted to be in mysore before I returned. That place is also cool man. It hasn’t changed much as Bangalore but then again …guess its just me haan!! Went to the infy campus there too…maaan…that’s one piece of modern architectural marvel…met a few buddies there too…made most of the famous ECC. Met old buddies from loyal world :p took a few snaps here n there. I was fortunate to see a part of the 5000 strong trainees…man…its awesome…just like a college yaar…another thing was I cud get a glimpse of the very talked about mysore dussera. It is one grand spectacle to watch guys…too much of a royal ambience. It was very well organized too.


Well that was my weekend in a nutshell..it sure was fun. At the end I sure did have a bagful of very cheerful memories…


Haffun all . wishin u all a happy n safe diwali…

p.s. the official travel partners in my trip down under was Kingfisher Airlines. They rock man…I would like to use this opputunity to express my deepest and most sincere gratitude to Ranju, Heythaa, Preety, Kiran, Leena and Anu for their wonderful on-flight courtesy. Off the record…Heythaa is the hottest !

Happy New Years...thats wat they say..hmmppphhhh!!

I had decided to abhor all worldly and materials sources of joy n pleasure….but then again …..screw the world… The new year has welcomed me in a totally shitty way. Its mainly gotta do with work yaar…sucks…the next line will sum it all up for u guys…I DON’T COME AND LEAVE OFFICE ON THE SAME DAY !!!!!! but I do leave and come to office the same day. L LMan…this new proj is suckin my life da…but then again I guess a guy has to do wat a guy has to do…I do eat drink sleep (not in that order) but then again the time of day I do all these is totally mistimed…by the way some interesting things happened so far…like a streak of joy in my sulky-loaded-with-work-life.Went for a couple of neat dates ;) again the timings were rather bizarre…early morning 3:00 am. Hehe…but still had fun. Slept in my BMW itself ;)Then was my journey back home to Thrissur to attend a school buddies wedding. Boy was that a trip…here goes…The friend in question is Manikandan. he was my school mate all thru 4th grade to +2. and he is another member of the royal mechs n he is in infy too and that too recently he moved to pune with me…neways we(our grp of 5 school mates) had decided that we wud meet up for this dudes wedding in Bangalore. The girl is from Bangalore and so the wedding was at Bangalore and the reception in Thrissur. All this was happening on the long weekend of 26th jan. also all our companies had declared the weekend long and we worked for a couple of Saturdays foreseeing this opportunity.Me n 2 other buddies from pune booked tickes in a Volvo to Bangalore. I had already booked return tickets via flight form Bangalore to Mumbai for the Saturday. We (another grp of buddies in Mumbai) had plans of partying that nite in Mumbai and I return in all my senses the Sunday after that.Well the Tuesday comes (26th is the Thursday the same week !!! ) and client comes with a change request…screw him…(forgive the xpletives…I mite be using them more often as we go … J ) PM says we all have to work the weekend so as to meet the ‘challenging’ work. Initially all said screw him. Then all gave up and I was like the only villain in the grp. After all I dint have to apply for leaves even. This was kinda my first really raw handshake with the technology too…Now the my evil twin convinced me to stay back for Thursday n Friday. I called up this guy n my buddies..they anweshikkafied dad, mom , grandmom and a few other relatives in a very ‘diplomatic’ manner and that improved my hindi n mallu vocabulary JNeways I made up my mind to go to the wedding reception on Sunday in Thrissur. So cancelled the Volvo tickets…immediately checked out the flight schedules to kerala and then dialed buddies in Mumbai. Got tickets for mum-kochi( n kochi –mumbai . the timings again were really weird but suited my ‘challenging’ work. Screw all.The flight to kochi was at midnite(Saturday 0035 hrs) Air India. So I kinda finished myh work by Friday evening and just left for Mumbai putting all tensions n ‘challenges’ back in pune. Reached Mumbai at around 10:00. still over 2 hrs…so me n a buddy went for window shopping/boozing/city sight seeing/boozing/boozing etc…again boozing…and finally reached the airport at around 11:45. still an hour to go. We were at the international airport and so spend some time there birdwatchin. Finally with the ticket I reached the nice looking air India counter to get my boarding passat around 12:00The next statement that nice looking lady told me just made me feel as if the flight just ran over me. “Sorry Sir, U cannot board this flight !!!! fuck her…screw her…wat the hell…I took over all the ‘challenges’ n cleared all the speedbreakers so that I cud reach kochi…keeping my cool(as always) I politely asked that nice lady wat the reason was like a small baby boy holdin his dick n askin his mom wat it was….She replied the gates for my flight closed at 11:40 (an hour b4 the departure) reason being this is air India and that its an international flight from DXB to kochi via Mumbai. I completely missed that point so did my buddy. Screw us.So still composed, I asked that lady wat alternatives I had. I was starting to open my bookof sorrow trying to make her get a feel of the situation. No way. That lady only looked nice. BITCH !!!!she directed me to another lady – the flight officer for that shift.Another not so nice lookin lady and she too was not so nice. Neways I went to her n told her the point directly…on her face…”mam, im on my way to my grandad’s funeral ceremony to be held in kochi at 4:00 in the morning that day. I had an interview in pune which I cudnt miss and that was y I was there at that time.” That lady(who turned out to be an evil bitch later) took a cell n dialed some number…talked some shit in marathi and finally told me that the gates of the flight have closed. And that if anybody cud open the gates it wud be the duty manager at the airport.Immediately I thanked that bitch n left to meet the airport duty manager. This time I landed up in a cube , well maintained with the window overlooking the runway. I cud c my air India flight standin down there. The guy was fat n short. Needless to say a DOG just made for the bitches I met before….i told him the whole thing again…he first gave me some chips…kerala banana chips…imagine…asshole of the finest kind…and then just said “sorry boss- nothing can be done.” I tried to xplaing the seriousness of the situation. He then took a writing pad with some sheets of paper on it. It had some numbers on it…these were as they turned out to be, the later flights that were supposed to land n take off after my air india leaves the track.his point was if he delayed one flight he wud ve to delay all the flights in the list...yeah right...i had to be an einstein to know that...but then again i tried to push my point. then finally he asked me if i thought these were BEST buses(BEST in mumbai ~ KSRTC in kerala). i bad mouthed him real bad just that the decibel levels were <20Hz. I just left tha cube gracefully and in a very composed manner.called the friend back n then immediately left to the domestic airport and got another ticket for jet air to kochi that leaves at 3:00. so again i left with my friend...we still had a couple of hours...boozed,city sight seeing and boozing again. but i made it a point to reach the airport at 2:00 :)boarded the flight. the jet hostess' were a sight for sore eyes...i swear....neat chicks. reached kerala and lived happily ever after...had no issues on the return flight though...just that the whole 36 hr fiasco left me with a set of super memories...im celebrating life.....the week after that i was in mumbai again for the bryan adams concert. he rocks man... a genuine crowd puller....no superfluous stage antics...just the old formula - good old songs. we had classy tickets and so we could actually =make out which of those guys was bryan adams. it felt good. After the concert we went clubbin at this place called polyesthers in south mumbai. another sexy place...the crowd rocks.and now its 12:05 am friday. i have just proved my above statement true.i came to office yesterday and im leaving today :) life is great...

Get together - Part II - God's own wine n wineyard ! ! !

so there we were...all 4 of us now in God's own backyard...we were welcomed by a warm family...authentic god-fearing kerala christian family.
i''l come to the interesting part. we woke up to a cup of tea in the morning. there was the head of that family, offering us or rather asking us whether ewe would like to taste some 'kallu'. for the unintiated, kallu is a malayalam term for kerala's own intoxicant...actually a soft n tender one at that but once mentored appropriately, it could turn to a killer....literally :)
so we 4 simple, not exposed to the evil of the world souls agreed to try this out of the world drink. that was it. consumed 6 litres in an hour. the last few being our own creations - we prefer to call is kallardi thats 3 parts of kallu and 4 parts of bacardi ! the end result- an awesome cocktail.

after we came back to our senses, which we did in a couple of hours during which we had our breakfasts and completed our daily chores, we left for the next trip - to kumarakom.
Do a google search for this place and u can c wat im about to tell u on this place. kumarakom alone is just another place in kerala beside the backwaters. but add to it its unparallelled scenic sensuality, its awesome fishing industry, its sumptuous food(read sea food) and ofcourse God's own wine - kallu. all this adds to a place that could equal any pattaya or bali and give it a run for its money. we hired a boat n lots of the above mentioned wine n dined on the exotic sea food they had to offer.

we were xperiencing heaven for a while. it started drizzling as well. the monsoons, the buddies, the kallu, the food...the whole atmosphere was just awesome...in a nutshell ...we had a great time. we returned back to his place and saw england go down to portugal and brazil go down to france. well i wasnt a supporter of any of these teams and so it was kinda ok. but the defeat of argentina still hurts my mind :(

then the next day we left for this place called kothamangalam where we were supposed to meet n greet a friend at his bro's wedding. we did that...again had the luxury of good food n wine and then left back for bangalore. me bid adieu to my buddies at bangalore and flew back to pune where life was to be relived as usual.... the celebrating mode :) :) :)


and just for the record, megha...an airhostess in the flight back to pune was really cute...actually sexy !

Get together - Part I - the doctor, the volvo and the cinema's

its been a while since i have blogged and the last weekend gave me just that panacea(dint find another word to fit here...any reference tothis word in any other blogs is purely coincidental !) to throw up a few words here.

well...like the IBM ad says, it was all a result of 'sudden change of plans'. there we were...a few kind hearted drunkards, all from various backgrounds n lineages but sharing the same passion or shud i say passions. the event that triggered off this sudden change of plans was the decision of one of our like-minded-like-passioned friends brotehr deciding to end his joyous life as a bachelor. so we thought this would be an auspicious venue for us to just get together and ignite a few old habits n memories. it had also been a while since we did get together.

the plan was to travel to bangalore where we would have a short 'coffee break' and then travel to a buddies place in kerala and attend the wedding.

me decided to travel to bangalore on a thursday nite, but instead of the usual route via air, i decided to stick to the grpund...took a volvo. the journey was smooth and the volvo too was spacious. it had just 3 seats in a row instead of the usual 4. so me n my buddy who came to drop me off(thnx to that sweetheart !!! ) had a few couple of ml's of pure unadultereated foreign liquor that like itself to be called Romanov and RoyalStag respectively. that kinda set the mood for the bus trip as i was to (unfotunately) travel alone till bangalore. so all charged up(or shud i say discharged...) i boarded the volvo. got the single seat after striking off some intelligent deals with some nice man. as soon as we were about to leave....did i mention that it was raining cats n watever....so as i was tellin u ...as soon as we were leaving, they put on the movies...man...thank God i was in a mood to crash...4 sick movies back to back...i'm sure i wud've thrown up if i did watch them...
the first being 36 china town. the saddest part of this movie was that i had seen it earlier...so me thought of using one of mankinds most useful inventions - the cell phone and wile away some time talking to some friends of mine. but the 36 china town dint allow that and u dont have too many options in a volvo. so 36 china town it was. but me had an iPod which my brother gifted to me after a year of persuasion n threatening .... so put it in high volume to beat the china town n went off to sleep.

after sometime, i was awake, reason being one of my fellow travellers had a tough time sleeping thnx to the rock music from my earphone...imagine...that old (looked old) man had no issues with the movie crap goin on but he had to listen to my rock music...neways i stopped it. and lo...the second movie was goin on...15th Park Street. anotehr helluva movie as per some higher mortals. i had the honour of having watched this movie earlier. dint understand much and so gave it some credit...thinking that it was something that appealed to higher thinking....watever...

i slept on...woke up in the morning...the bus had just stopped for breakfast. the place was a nice one. good south indian food and coffee. Got to chat with a gentleman who was a doctor with the indian airforce and actualy, he looked pretty impresed with wat i have 'achieved' in life in such a tender age...i know..i know...these are not my words...these are his words and i kinda agreed...humbly :)

we parted ways as he was in a different bus to bangalore. the trip continued and so did the 3rd movie...malaamaal weekly lottery. Gawd...crap after crap after crap !!! had to c this as i wasnt sleepy anymore nor did i have anything better to do as the charge in the iPod too drained away.
and then came Gangster...felt like shooting myself. thats all i have to tell about these movies.

reached bangalore after around 18 hrs of unparallelled entertainment...reached our home at koramangala. man that place rocks. but try goin somewhere to the city from there on ground and the city sucks...big time. again it was time to travel and this time i had the company of a few above mentioned like-minded-like-passionate gentlemen...actually 3 of us. that trip was fun. we chatted all the way about wat each other missed out on being at different places. it was very enjoyable and we also indulged in some 'quality gossip' .....

....to be continued...

a walk in the PARK !

this time we took to the waters...being amphibious does have its advantages.The destination was a place called Vile. I dint know such a place existed…let alone heard about this place, and that too in my own backyard – Pune. We were of us this time. all colleagues from infy. The mode of transport was by ground until we hit the waters. The carriers included a BMW(urs truly !) and a distant relative, an Alto.We started off from this place called sus road. Was happy as germany had won the battle for third place. But then again was sad that argentina had to go out early in the quarters L still hoping that italy would win the world cup, we all went ahead with positive mindsets…The first pic has our group xcept for me n a guy called sunil.
Well I was takin the snap n sunil…no idea wat he was doin. So we got up early in the morning like 4:00am (hope me wont go to hell !!!) and did out stuff(brushed our teeth) by 6:00. as usual we were pretty punctual to reach the meeting point at 6:30. actually there were 4 groups(4 vehicles…the rest two cars werent worth mentioning in the same mail where the BMW was being mentioned…neways for the record it was a Innova and an Indica). We all reached there n we were given a map to the final destination. It was pretty damn complex. There were lotsa dots …each dot was some significant place enroute…and thee toughest part was that all the dots were in a straight line…u call that a map. Shit yaar…we could’ve just had a straight line with pune in one end and Vile at the other. J JNeways we 4(me sunil, himanshu n hrishi) hopped aboard the BMW n set off for this unique n adventurous trip. Well we were all prepared for all obstacles . had all the documents ready. Including a Rs. 500 backup in case cops wanted some out-of-this- earth document. sufficient fuel n air…the BMW serviced recently. The only thing that cud’ve stopped us was a direct hit by some off-course meteorite RZS-230T but we had out seat belts on tooo. So that too would just scratch us !!!the best or one of the best parts of the trip was the trip itself…that’s a statement I have read in several travellogues. But in our case the best or one of the best parts of the trip was the trip itself…mite sound similar but it wasn’t similar at all. The road was really smooth for a major part…like 87%. Also for most part of the journey, the roads were flanked by thick greenery – be it in the form of forests, trees or village lasses dressed in green. It was very beautiful. Another good thing that happened was that we had intermittent rains – very heavy at times during the trip. Also for about 30km’s we couldn’t see wat was in front of us due to thick fog/mist/meteorite dust caused to a meteorite fall just before we reached there. But the effect was just awesome.

Pic(2) shows me destressing in between the fog !!! we drove bravely thru this sexed out weather n reached the destination in 2 hrs. took several snaps in between too. There were a lot of waterfalls too all thru out.Finally we reached the base camp. It was a small hut where the organisers had an office kinda setup. We got ourselves draped in all adventure gear – a swimming trunk and a life jacket ! man was I lookin svell in it ! we were taken to this evil looking river(the calmer face can be seen in pic(3) ). We could hear the roaring rapids from far. But the thought of us rafting thru these rapids took us forward. We were given separate instructions for rafting, rescues, swimming..where to swim n where not to swim n where its useless to even try to swim J we were tought the commands that would be given n stuff like that. For me , since I had the xperience of rafting before from mysore itself…all this was a walk in the park.So there we were …7 of us in a raft…1 being the instructor who was the only person in the raft who knew wat he was doin !!! 7 brave souls started rafting. 7 brave souls ended the rafting as we successfully anchored at the take out point 15km’s away. There were around 10 rapids in between. Some as cute as the rosy cheeks of a baby girl and some as wild as a drunk bull. But we 7 brave souls bravely manuovered thru these. The instructor looked real tired at the end though Jwe trekked for like a aouple of miles afterwards and reached civilization where a sumptuos meal was awaiting us. Lotsa wada-pavs n poha n onion pakodas. They tasted real nice !We started back from vile to pune at around 6:00. on reaching home I was so satisfied with this adventure. Like its not every day that one gets to sail with a group who dint know wat they were doin n live to tell about it J just joking. I was happy n knew wat Fabio Cannavaro would ve felt on lifting the World Cup. To sum it all up, damn…..i had a gr8 time

Reclaim ur life !

Just the other day this safari ad kinda tingled something in me. Just thought I'd share it with u. just that one statement – Reclaim ur life triggered something in me. I swear….
Like me wasn't complaining or anything before that. Just that after seeing that ad, my roomie started a discussion on that one line. Wat it means and how relevant it is in that ad. "Screw the relevance to the ad"..said I. I started discussing the relevance of that line in our lives. I mean just think about it people…how many times have we compromised some event or incident in our daily lives coz of 'work', no matter how small or big that even/incident is. I can at the least speak for myself here. Owing to project related pressures here I have at times stopped goin to play soccer, badminton etc. another simple thing wud be like I plan to call any of u guys and suddenly my boss comes and gives some work and then I put it for laters. Laters just goes form one thing to another and then another and finally I end up tired n sleepy in bed. It starts off with not goin one day and then it sorta becomes a habit. Finally after a significant duration of time of getting used to the new lifestyle, u regret it . damn…screw work.
Over here I am called a rebel, just coz I go to play badminton or go for dance sessions daily. As I said, I was getting into the software geek lifestyle where it was just a screen that was the source of all enjoyment in life. But thankfully this discussion just triggered off something positive in my life and I thought I wud just mention it to u guys. So now I make it a point that I do just chill out daily, atleast for a couple of hours dancing or swimming or playing. It has also done wonders to my public relations :p

Therefore ladies n gentlemen, I hope I have triggered some dormant grey cells in all of u. live life…work will always be there whether u are there or not. Just be sure that we r al making our lives worth the time.

Having said that I also have to mention that a compromise is indeed required when it comes to work life balance. It's a skill that has to be mastered. Can take time but hell… it has to be learnt.