blues and blacks and whites and greys...

On board a San Francisco bound flight. It’s an official trip so to say but for me it’s off for a week from the usual office grind. Was having a long long talk with my sweetie after check in and before boarding. She is majorly blue these days and I really don blame her for it. Neither can I blame myself, well at least partially. It’s more situational rather than consequential I guess. I gave her all sorts of pieces of my mind, which I seem to have in abundance. That’s purely my perception though. But I guess whatever I say would ultimately mean zilch because it’s her life and she knows best. But I know she looks up to me with those dreamy eyes of her for support and all she can see is a dumb pic of mine or even worse the cell phone in her hand. And it’s been like that for more than a year now. I may have the magic wand in my hand in the sense that I can just make all her blues vanish in a puff of dust, but then life’s not a fairytale.

Holiday!

It’s a Thursday and I am sitting at home in the peak office hours. Reason, I am not well you know. This weird NY weather has caught up with me. One fine day it would be chilling winter winds the other bright and sunny and on cusp of breaking a sweat. The ailment per se that I have caught is called “garam – sard” in poetic Hindi. Literally translated “hot - cold”. Sounds fluke, but don’t blame me for the naming conventions. The standards have already been patented by the likes of Munshi Premchand and Mahashweta Devi. Okay that’s all crap! Bottom-line, I am cozily perched up on my sofa typing away on word and my guitar lying right next to me. Bliss!

Holidays are luxury commodities for IT professionals like me. Because although we might just be breaking office chairs while searching weird terms on google during our usual so called busy work day. It’s the number of hours of this chair breaking work that the client pays us for. And so our managers insist that in the spirit of the company we should spend the maximum of our lives in the office, in sickness or health, till death do us part types. I won’t go into the dynamics of how our companies make money and why the client pays us for this high-end work, because that’s way beyond my comprehension.

Back on track, what’s the POA for today? For the ignorant POA stands for Plan of Action. First and foremost lots of rest, lest I forget I am on a sick leave. Then there’s this guitar tutorial that I have bought, couple of chapters to be covered in that. Write a blog.Well I am already writing one so that’s taken care of. Cook a nice lunch, afternoon tea, a nap may be. Basically chill.

And that’s an FYI. Go figure that out for yourselves.

Slam Dunkin

Was sitting in a Dunkin Donuts this evening, sipping on a tall rather very tall plastic cup of Iced Latte, which seemed to be missing sugar in it and there were these flyers of back to school hanging around over the head here and there from the ceiling. FYI…it’s the beginning of the school season here in the US after the long summer breaks. Back to the flyers, they read quiet a lot of stuff including welcome backs and animated books of math and the works thrown in for the spice. One thought led to another and soon I was thinking when I last studied those subjects and for the matter of fact any subject. I was trying hard to remember myself studying anything…any darn thing; I just couldn’t picture myself at all. Has it really been that long? As in it’s hardly a couple of years, okay, 3 to be precise. But then it’s not entirely a time thing you see. I really haven’t studied much in my life. In school I used to be on my bicycle perennially, partially because my best buddies used to live miles away from my place and secondly because I just loved it. School was a breeze, with the assemblies and the long sunny corridors, where I used to run around chasing or being chased, the chemistry labs, the falling pens in the bio labs to sneak under the tables and just like that I was in college. Away from home for the first time, alone per se, though I never got to be alone actually. There were freaking 200 other guys like me in the hostel. And another 200 in the other hostel next to ours and at least 100 girls, who used to put up in some hostels a little too far for our liking. Bull…I wasn’t writing about girls.
It’s about the studying part, and its funny I remember one of the tougher of the subjects of all Control Systems. Khiljee saab, the purveyor of the now famous phrase maut ka kua, was the prof .I just saw myself solving those positive and negative feed back loop problems from all those books written by authors with weird names and always russian sounding. Used to love solving them and it was a matter of prestige as to who would get to the farthest problem number on the back of every chapter. It’s really amazing how fast and how far once thoughts can go in a matter of split seconds. I hadn’t even finished my latte yet, and I was already at least 4 years back in time and many thousands miles away in a not so clean hostel room. Although as a foot note, the latte was really humongous.

drizzling rains!

It’s drizzling outside since morning…and it’s almost night now. One wouldn’t be too lively if that was to happen on a Sunday, getting confined to once home with nothing to do. But albeit this common reaction, I am unusually high spirited. I love the rains when I am not in the path of their fury, and when I have nothing important to do or when I have nowhere to head to. Basically when I am idle and have no compulsion to go out and face it. It’s actually pretty beautiful when it rains. The first rains have their unique charm as that of a first kiss. But the prolonged and repetitive ones have their own unique shade of beauty. It’s like being in love for a long time, when everything is all green and lush in all directions that your eye can see. At least I can relate to this simile.

P.S.: I love this committed status of mine. I might not be with her as of now. But she still raises my spirits.

@&^@*^*&##@^*&@^

Picture a father, two daughters and two sons. Three of them married with kids. The fourth one on the verge of holy matrimony. This new development is the centre of his attention for now. And once done he’ll be relieved of all his responsibilities so to say. The stage is set for him to fade away gracefully into his grand old age.

Come into this world as a squiggly wiggly ball of skin. Kid your way to adolescence and puberty. Enjoy the prime in the wild and whacky youth. Work your ass off for a decent life for your so called family in your maturity and then ultimately wash your hands off all this mess that you have made over the years and start the count down for “THE END”.

Is this what it’s all about?

P.S: No Stimuli this time…this one is spontaneous!!

Sinking in the Indian Ocean!

Another stimuli another post. That’s the trend of my blogs these days.
And this ones not just ‘any’ stimuli, it’s the mother of them all or at least the aunty, to downplay things a little.

Venue: Stamford, Connecticut
Date: 18th August, 06
Time: 8ish in the night.

I enter this dingy looking school complex. No signs of any concert definitely, my 20 bucks have gone down the drain alas! People, going somewhere with purpose. All z not lost after all. Enter this school auditorium and there’s the equipment and the band finally. Indian Ocean. I won’t call myself a hardcore fan at this point, in the sense that I have not heard every single song that they have composed, but I know the famous ones, just enough to appreciate the creativity and come all the way to Connecticut to listen to them. But that is about to change big time.

Start with a sober and serene number, missed the title, and straightaway I am mesmerized. The guitar is amazing and so is the melody. Second one ‘kya maloom’, as Rahul Ram introduces it as the tandaav of a reluctant shiv ji in the midst of the chaotic Kargil War. This one followed by ‘hille le’ and ‘Melancholic ecstasy’. The last one being a pure instrumental and pure gold at it. Reluctantly went for a break, which as Rahul Ram very candidly put as a necessity for the sponsors to make some money and letting them play more. Rushed through the chicken biryani which was surprisingly tasty.
The opener after the break ‘bande’ a haunting number from black Friday followed by ’bhor’ which had one of the best pieces of guitaring I have heard for some time. Time just seemed to fly as we were already down to the last three. ‘Boll weevil’ followed by top 2 songs in that order ‘maa rewa’ and ‘kandisa’ wrapping up the proceedings. The last two were particulary good with amazing improvisations and ingenuity from the band members and couple of jugalbandiis between the base and the drums, the lead and the drums and a unique instrument whose name I don seem to find anywhere and the base was particulary awesome. In all a breathtaking experience so much so that I was standing and clapping all through the second act and ended up, me with mohit and gurudev, to buy the entire collection on sale outside.

I was particularly impressed with the lead guitarist Sushmit Sen, and the bassist and vocalist Rahul Ram, the percussionist Asheem and Amit’s drums. Well what the heck, the entire band. Oozing with talent and still down to earth. I had heard that watching a band live is an altogether different experience and so it is , no doubts about that. Sadly the entire thing was not recorded. I wud have been the first one to buy it.


P.S.: Major kick to my inspiration in mastering the guitar. I already can play Maa Rewa now!!

Book Worm Syndrome

The feeling of boredom just echoes s with any and everyone I talk to. Another weekend has arrived…and will pass by as in consequentially as it had started. The days pass really quickly here. It’s already more than 4 months since I have been in the US and can’t really believe that it’s already that long.

Have been spending my days working a little lately, and reading novels and stuff before that. Read almost 4 of them in the recent times. Oldies, almost all of them, Michael Crichton. I seem to like his writing a lot. It’s something to do with the technicality of the underlying subject I guess. His penmanship is almost at the edge of sci-fi, if not actually it. Like the one I am reading currently, Timeline has Quantum Physics as the basis of its plot and it talks about real technology that exists and is further under research in the form of Quantum Internet and the likes. Then there s this another one, The Terminal Man, which talks about the immediate dangers of mind control. The Rising Sun, a corporate thriller from the same author. Interesting reading, all of them.

Coincidentally caught hold of a promotional copy of a book called The Anonymous Lawyer. It’s a unique kind of writing. It’s a combination of web logs and mails of a supposedly hi flying lawyer. And it’s full of corporate bull shit and sadistic humor and off course I liked it too.
That’s a lot of reading and more is to follow, because I have a very big stock of material and further time to gobble it up.

PS: Would like to read more of non fiction, but can’t seem to catch hold of anything.

the missing one...

Sitting yet again at an airport terminal...and heading into yet another country....so now the list after including this one will stand at , lets see...Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, US of A and UK...thats 4 and if you count in the aircraft parking at Paris ,then 5,not bad huh?? This time arnd its a spl trip for a very spl person and for an even special(er)(...if that’s a word) reasons.
Past few weeks have been at times eventful, boring, routine...and somewhere in between. Had a nice little trip to the Niagara falls a couple of weeks back in the august company of goyal family and frnds.Clicked innumerable snaps...infact so many of them...that we eventually got bored of seeing the fall....and at one point in time in the night...were even trying to avoid a glimpse of it. But in all its an exhilarating place....Food for thought....why aren't there any such places in India...well infact  there are...and might even be a shade better than this one....but the state of management is so poor that they have degraded into obscurity. Sighs!!! We almost went under the fall here courtesy a trip called the "cave of winds" originally called so b'cause it actually took you behind the falls at one point of time...now it takes u under. In all a refreshing experience...although missed out on my maiden helicopter ride....but Niagara s not so far...Had a unique experience today, when my train stalled due to a power breakdown spannig 3 states including NY and Philli...you don come to expect such things from a place like US where a power cut is nothing short of a hurricane katrina of intensity 3. And i guess thats why they r a shade unprepared for this kinda stuff....and very shabby at that...it took them all of 3 and a half hours to get a diesel engine to pull a stalled electric train. Running out of battery now on my laptop...will add to this later on.....to be continued..

Still some life in the battery...and further more time to kill...what better way then to punch it out on the lappie.Had a meaningful discussion with Rathore the other day regarding the hot issues in India these days....the astronomical fall of the stock market and even further fall in the morality of one Mr. Arjun Singh, a facade of our rotten system of governance. Don want to delve into the netigrities of the actuals, enough has been written and read and yelled about them already. But the both of us were discussing of what we could be doing for these...vented out anger which ultimately gave way to helplessness, utter hopelessness and a sense of infidelity. Has irreparable damage already been done to our great country...or is there still some ray of hope...a light at the end of the tunnel...believers in both sides of the coin...we diverted to what we could do abt it....and we could only come up with the following brilliant idea "where could we get a gun"...RDB sure has given us some ideas to ponder upon. But it’s all to hypothetical I guess. But you can't stop brilliant minds. Cheers Rathore!!!

Eternal Jim Carrey

Just finished watching this really screwed up movie, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, starring Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet and a host of other guys. Now from Jim Carrey one does come to expect whacko stuff…and I like him for that. But this one tops all that has come from him till date. Well although he himself is in no way involved in the actual story writing but the character that he portrays is almost inherently what you expect from him. The film takes its name from the lines of Alexander Pope:

How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot;
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.

This information is courtesy Wikipedia; it also finds a brief mention in the movie itself.

The story’s got something to do with erasing ones bad memories from once brain and getting a chance to start afresh. A very titillating concept to start with, imagine all your bad memories just gone whoosh…and you have a clean slate to work with. But flip over the coin and you lose all the life s lessons that you gained from all those bad experiences and you might end up going through the entire rough patches again.

Who thinks of stuff like this, how do they come up with such concepts?

here I go again...

I have finally got everything working on my lappie or so it seems. It had been troubling me for quiet some days now and a complete transfusion in the form of a XP reinstall did the trick here. There is supposedly another blog in between this and the last one, but as of now its trapped one alleged machine somewhere in the vicinity of the Heathrow airport in London at a place called Hounslow. I hope it breaks out of its trappings soon and gets published here.

Continuing from where I had left before, was listening to this song on my ipod today, its called “here I go again” by whitesnake. And although I have heard it lot many times before , the lyrics caught my attention just today…may be it was situational , a state of my mind, but they were kinda reflective of my state of mind at that point of time…they go something like this…

I don't know where I'm goin
but I sure know where I've been
hanging on the promises in songs of yesterday.
An' I've made up my mind, I ain't wasting no more time
but here I go again, here I go again.

Tho' I keep searching for an answer
I never seem to find what I'm looking for.
Oh Lord, I pray you give me strength to carry on
'cos I know what it means to walk along the lonely street of dreams.

Here I go again on my own
goin' down the only road I've ever known.
Like a drifter I was born to walk alone.
An' I've made up my mind, I ain't wasting no more time.

Life s really confusing, at times you just fail to find a purpose and it all seems so futile and at others, its so cluttered and so full of purpose that you crave for a breather and some futility. Either way, Its just a struggle at any given point of time!!

Ironed Out!

Its Monday tomorrow, though in some parts of the world it already might be, and infact in some other parts of the world it might already have started ending. But I will stick to my own time zone for now – EST. Now one of the drawbacks, I would say, of being part of the corporate way of life is the need to wear formal attire at once workplace.

I say drawback because I simply hate it. I am more of the casual cool dude genre, and the more Jeans and t-shirts kinda guy. And for the last 2 and a half years, I have been waking up every work day a little late on some a little early on others to get into one of those white/blue/gray collars and creased double pleated trousers. Now these creases that I mentioned just now are a cause of quiet a lot of angst for me lately.  Let’s confess I am horrible at ironing clothes in the first place and to take the misery that extra mile I have to make those formals to look all crisp and creased. What a shame!!!

But this land of opportunity has thrown this challenge at me and I sure will crawl my way through it, god bless the spectators of this art form…and me ultimately.

Whrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....

Life is back in its routine best and the mention of the word back is very critical in the whole context. It has been one hell of a last month. I was almost on the verge of insanity. Exaggeration definitely, now that I look back, but it was a real site at that point of time. And I must say I weathered the storm pretty nicely and am basking in the glory of the lull after it.
Quick recap. Landed back in India on the 16th of March to the horror of my luggage being misplaced during the transit flight. Strolled out almost empty handed to the standing ovation of my dear rathore. But I had saved the best part, my lappie and my digicam. Initial shock withstanding, we were back to our killer best together, me and rathore.
I had landed on Thursday…and the following Saturday morning, there I was at Mumbai Central waiting for Sunit , we had a trio re-union. Headed to lonavala to meet up with Shash…and drank ourselves silly that night. And next morning were on our way to Pune, me finally united with my Thunderbird. Finally watched RDB, and I must say was thoroughly impressed. About that later. Had an amazing highway side dinner on our way back. And now the crazy part. This dude Sunit was to leave back for Delhi by an early morning flight from Mumbai. So we started at 12 in the night from lonavala for Mumbai. Our rears already soar from the pune adventure…and my eyes closing intermittently we finally made it back one piece to Mumbai. Finished some paperwork at office during the next couple of days and was off to Bhopal, to meet my folks. The stay at home was real good, with I showing off all my stuff, thankfully the lost baggage was recovered the very next day much to my pleasure. My parents were supposed to leave for Trivandrum…and so I headed to Indore in my dad’s zen to meet my sisters. Was supposed to be meeting my new born niece for the first time there and she was in my arms almost through out my stay. I wish I could have just kidnapped her and took her with myself. She s one damn cute thing.
But now it was time for my acid test , I was supposed to meet my to be in laws for the first time in my life…and for that I was supposed to travel to Nagpur. But by a pure stroke of fate I was called back from my office, the acid test has to wait.
Within a week of returning back to Mumbai I was packed and off to this place called US of A. to be specific New York.
So this whirlwind stay in India lasted a mere 21 days to be exact. About my landing in Us and the stay then on later…

Transit...

Well call it the luxuries of cutting edge technology, but here I am sitting in bahrain airport, trying to connect to the internet via a Wi-Fi network. My success will be evident from the timing of this post.

Now the story so far, I finally got a green signal from my client for the application I was developing, and so began the preparations for returning to my beloved bharat desh. A week full of anticipitation interspersed with boredom crawled by. I think its a universal phenomenon , that the time just goes into an extra slow motion mode once you are heading towards your certain eagerly awaited events. I have seen it happen to me when my trains just keep stopping before reaching bhopal. And yet again the very same fact was proven without doubt. But being a student of science I know that this isn't the case, and its all in once mind. So be it.

I am taking a longer route to mumbai so to say, which is quiet an understatement looking at the time I am gonna spend in travelling from Dammam to Mumbai which if travelled in a straight line is hardly 2.5 hrs of flying time. I will be taking a whopping 12-13 hrs to do the same. The itinery is something like this ... Dammam to Bahrain via bus , Bahrain to Doha via flight(thankfully) and finally Doha to mumbai via flight(obviously). I am taking this torture in a real good spirit for the prime reason that i am returning back...and sub reason because i'll get to see bahrain. Atleast I can claim that I saw bahrain.And whatever little i saw of it is impressive. Its painted in Grand Prix fever for now...Bahrain being a recent addition on the F1 circuit. And its a shocking contrast to its next door neighbor Saudi Arabia. The first thing that I noticed on the roads were the vehicles being driven by the fairer sex. and the visual was a real treat. You can imagine me as a guy being in the desert for 8 mnths and coming to this haven of a place with all the worldly delites.

So of I go to do you know what....

cheers...

Looking back

Just finished watching “Top Gun” for the umpteenth time and it still gives me the kick. Not that I have any regrets but there definitely are some things I miss doing in my life.

To start with , I always wanted to learn martial arts, I even joined some amateurish classes while I was in my 5th std at school, but somehow couldn’t pursue it long enough cause my instructor ran away. And I was left adoring the other kids going ga ga with their katas . I dedicated myself to the god of kung-fu Bruce Lee just as homage, by making sure I watched every single one of his movies and not just once but many times over.

Getting over with that, I developed this urge to join the defense services, the IAF in particular. I even remember myself playing that stupid ghost game to ask if I would get through. I just grew up with this ambition, so much so that I had even decided against sitting for my pre engineering test. My parents somehow convinced me to sit for it and even take some coaching classes just as a back up plan in case I didn’t make it. Something went wrong somewhere and I ended up doing what I am doing now. But the very best of my friends are in the Indian Navy and they owe their careers to me, because it was me who pushed them into it. And when ever I feel the need for speed so to say, I head for their dens.

I sometimes just wonder how different it would have been.

Well leaving these behind me, I actually have done or am in the process of doing a few things I always wanted to. Owning and riding an Enfield to unknown places, learning to play the guitar, owning a racing cycle in my teens, and the likes.

Stuff will keep adding to this list…

Happy Birthday!!!

Another day gone, infact a whole of 365 days have gone since my last birth day. Trust me on this, because I have seen all 23 prior ones, and this day today has by far been the most forgettable one of them all. Infact this would be the only birth day I would like to forget. For now I am living it.

As always there is a disastrous built up to the whole scene. If all had gone well I would have been sitting in Mumbai as of now, and for that not just sitting but partying big time. I still digested the hick up of my cancelled trip back home and of being away from all my family and friends and decided to go through the motions just like any other day. But however hard I tried, the umpteen wishes from various mediums of communication just wouldn’t let me forget it. So it was that I entered my birthday IST talking to my sweetheart and my best pals, Still talking to my sweetheart when Saudi clocks truck midnight January 18th and woke up to a special phone call when the Big Ben struck midnight in UK. Now this is not what would make this day forgettable…but it’s the carnage that is to follow that will.

Attended a further few phone calls while still in my sleep, till the one from my dad which literally threw me off the bed. A credit card personnel had called up at my home looking for my whereabouts for payment of some outstanding on my credit card. It’s rightly said that you reap what you sow…and what perfect time to reap my past mistakes. So, I spent the early hours of my birth day fire fighting. What a start and I already had a bad head ache. Reached office just to discover that it was gonna be a long long day…and not a easy one by any chance. It was almost like a chain reaction of sorts…I don wanna go into the details of it, but I still have the mental burden from my office when I write this. If it would have been any other day, I wouldn’t be making such a fuss about it…but on your birthday you wanna feel happy and relaxed and special. And I was miles away from this state of bliss.

All said and done, I can see some positives too. A lot of people still wished me and that’s a real good feeling in itself. There also were some lessons learned. And the best part of this birthday, I have someone very special to share the rest of my life with.
At the end of it all, I would really like to quote myself”
” Its been a real cool life...with all its twists and turns...and I have enjoyed every moment of it till date.I don know how many more such days I am destined to see...but I sure hope that as many are there...I am always able to feel the very same way as today....Alive...and Rocking!!!!Cheers...to me!!!”

Experience Saudi..

Woke up this morning, it being a weekend for me today, didn’t get up in my usual way…was just lazing in the bed for quiet a while. I have taken to a bit of exercising lately…it has finally dawned upon me that I need to do at least a little bit of physical exercise to keep me going…and just as a foot note…I have to get rid of my pouch…beer belly so to say, without the beer. Anyhow, went about my morning chores followed by the push ups and I don know what exercises.

Then stepped out of my room for a cup of tea, and to my surprise it was all foggy outside…at 9 AM in the morning in Saudi Arabia. Now how strange is that? One imagines Saudi Arabia as a hot sizzling barren desert land with Sheikhs ruling the wilderness in their own barbaric ways. At least that’s what my picture of Saudi Arabia was until I landed here. I was right and wrong in that. It still is a desert land but with an infrastructure comparable or even a shade better than that of a US of A or a UK. But the ways here can definitely be termed barbaric. It’s a very orthodox Muslim country. And this too is an understatement. The locals are very arrogant and it gets a shade uncomfortable at times. There is basically nothing much to do apart from shopping off course, with the flurry of humongous malls and shopping arcades mushrooming up every nook and corner . There are no movie halls, no tourist attractions in the real sense so to say. I have even heard that one cannot even click snaps at public places. So it’s pretty much of an indoor kind of a place. Gloomy place for even a guy like me who s not much of a party animal.

But there are positives too, very few though, one of them being the monetary part. The employer provide for your food and shelter. A compulsory saving because you run out of options to spend. So in a way its good, but ultimately this is not some place you would want to stay for too long and no wonder I am dying to return back to India.

Its has been quiet a learning experience professionally and personally , but there still are a couple of months to go before I return. And I might be up for many a new experiences till then.

Escape...

Someone special has become a year old….and alas we are not together to celebrate. My thunderbird completed a year today in my possession. On this very day an year back I drove it out of its mothers womb so to say, the Royal Enfield show room in Bandra…and all the way till my office in Borivali. And that very first ride I knew that I was a proud owner of a very very special and priced possession, My Bird.

Since that 10th  day of December last year…I have shared many a great memories with it, and will hopefully continue to do so for many a winters. The whole process of buying my bird was a rollercoaster ride in itself. After quiet a lot of serious thought, rethought and no thought, I finally decided upon a silver Royal Enfield ,escape as they put it. Obviously I didn’t have the money to buy it on my own…and neither of the well known financial institutions were in any mood to loan me that big a credit. So I was back to the world’s best and simplest bank…my mom. And after some simple cajoling, she agreed to loan me almost the entire amount at 0%, and infinite term of return…

The test drive itself was mind blowing…and I could hardly wait to own of those might beasts myself. But the wait was gonna be a little long than I had hoped for. In the midst of all this excitement…another dream of mine was calling me…I had got a call for an AFSB interview…for the ignorant; it’s the Air Force Selection Board interview. And lo and behold I found myself on a Delhi bound Rajdhani at a couple of hours notice. Spent one of the best set of 5 days in Dehradun. Although my dream wasn’t to be fulfilled, I had made some very beautiful memories for life..and a bunch of not so beautiful but amazing friends. Within a couple of returning back from Dehradun , I had in my hands the keys of  my very own Silver Bird.

And the world was my play ground so to say….and from that day on it has become my escape….

Stuff of dreams..

Lately one of the prime things that excite me in life is to think and plan about a bike ride. Now the obvious question here is that how the hell am a planning a bike trip when I myself am sitting in this foreign land while my beloved Bird is literally across a sea, back home in India. But then it’s a plan….and people plan for years in advance, am merely planning a couple of months prior, and look how excited I am about the whole thing already.

Okay so let’s get to the actual thing now. I came across this article on rediff a couple of days back. It actually was one of those informative slideshows about this place called Pushkar back home in India. It’s a small town so to say some 15 kms from Ajmer, Rajasthan. It’s famous for this annual festival that is held there. Its actually in full swing as of now….and it’s all colorful and beautiful. Now where does this thing fit into the aforementioned bike trip scenario that I have been so ardently talking about?? Simple, Pushkar happens to be the supposed destination of my fantasy trip.

The travelers remain basically the same, my bird, myself and YES…Rathore. We have had a preliminary round of mail exchanges between us and he too is basically raring to go with a minor issue raised regarding leaves from office, which I am sure will be taken care of.
The trip, as when it happens, will be the longest ever for us as it would come to some 2200 kms to and fro. The maximum we have done till date is some 800+ kms on our ride to GpPule. I have been wanting to visit Rajasthan for quiet some time now…and what better way to do it than on my Bird and my buddy Rathore to keep company.

So that’s all to it as of now. I am trying to make it thorough this time….I hope am able to plan my plan to perfection.

Cheers…

CosmoLogical reloaded...

This is a new experiment that am up to…I am actually typing this on word as of now…and thanks to Google’s plug-in ,I can publish this stuff directly to blogspot. Obviously I will have to be logged on to internet.  And these are wonders of the so called cutting edge technology.

Now back to the actual stuff, I am reading this compilation these days. It’s called Juggling Act and the author obviously is Jug Suraiya, TOI fame. I had picked it up from Pune crossword before I left for Saudi. And believe me; I had to search extensively to find a copy. Not sure if it’s the popularity of the book or the mock demand that the publishers have created. But I sure hope it’s the prior of the reasons. Because I find it an amazing read. I have only gone through some 20 odd pages as of now…but I am sure to finish it up soon enough. Actually I am deliberately slowing down my reading pace in a hope that I will have it for me till my stay here.

Okay now the article in the aforementioned book that’s the inspiration for this post. It is titled Cosmo Logical and contrary to the title is not about the cosmos, but about the Indian version of the internationally acclaimed women’s magazine Cosmopolitan. The female fraternity in India seems to be an avid fan of the subscription. I keep wondering what‘s so enticing about it and Mr. Suraiya enlightens me with just the same. I am afraid can’t quote the whole article here, but some excerpts which really tickled me…..I quote ….
“Cosmopolitan – or Cosmo as it is popularly known – is dedicated to the proposition that all men are born free – and it’s up to women to change this undesirable state of affairs.” Another one …
“A post-feminist guide to cohabitational consumerism, Cosmo features educative articles on how to get your man, how to hold him (half-nelson, arm-lock, etc.) and how to trade in your old model for a newer , top-of-the-line version with minimum of fuss ” and another one…
“A unique feature of Cosmo is its quizzes which help you rate yourself in the cosmic battle of the sexes”.

Then he goes a step forward and devices a cosmo style quiz of his own with a series of questions, which I think my female friends will be fully aware of. Not that I endorse the writers view but then he does have a point. The whole article is a beautiful satire on the “Liberated Urban Female - LUF” as the writer puts it, psyche of the contemporary fairer sex. I am sure I haven’t made any great friends (as if I have any before) out of the opposite sex by highlighting this article, but I hope the pun is understood in its right spirit.







     

my harley davidson....

Was just listening to this song by AC/DC , called Harley Davidson . It starts with the whorrring sound of a Harley engine...and that sound just tore through my heart and mind...I miss my Bird, yes my ThunderBird. Instantly I was into a time warp back to my days in India when I was rolling on my very own. I could just feel the enormous power of the monster of a machine under my command waiting to be unleashed.
Those long drives to Kaashid and Murud and Lonavala and Mahabaleshwar and GP pule are still fresh as yesterday in my mind.Not that it has been years since I have done them but it almost seems that way. How myself and rathore used to plan about them for weeks in advance , not the actual preparation for the trips but Just the excitement of making one. We invariably ended up with unplanned trips which ultimately used to turn up all gooddy good for us. The excitement of touching 100KPH on the bird ...and then breaking my own record of speed again and again. the
velvet smooth road down from Mahabaleshwar till Pune , the seaside drive from Alibagh till Murud, The curling roads to the fort at Ganpatipule...and the untouched beach that we discovered on the way back from the fort. They all seem like random flashes of an amazing experience.
A little too dramatic I guess, but then out here in this place, imagination is all that i have at my disposable. With nothing much to do apart from breaking my head against my workstation almost intermittently all day, these sparks are my rare moments of excitement.
Yes, I am getting bored here!!