Bagaland

Once upon a time, in a big town called Bom Baim, lived two women who heard of an enchanted kingdom called Bagaland. While they toiled away in their masters' castles in Bom Baim, they longed for a visit to this land of freedom and beer. After much patience and perseverance, their masters gave them a week off to explore this new, shiny place. And that week changed their lives forever! It made them aware of the powers they possessed; powers that only came to them when they were in Bagaland! Oh how wonderful it would be if their powers would work in Bom Baim too!

A year passed by and they never forgot Bagaland, their time spent there etched in their memory. We should go again! And  this time, we'll take our friends so they can discover their powers too! And that's how Babita, Dimple, Jennifer and Sameera took a bus from Bom Baim to Bagaland in the pleasant month of December 2010.

AND SO IT BEGINS...

They idea of going in a sleeper bus was Dimpi's. All apprehensions were cast away, though, once they got in. It was clean, smelled good and the beds were big enough for a comfortable night of sleep. "If only we were sharing our beds with someone special instead of each of us!!" they all screamed! "Shhh" said someone at the back of the bus. "Shhh shhhh shhhh shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" they shushed back.

"I want to pee real bad!" said Jenny suddenly, "I mean, I peed before I left, but I wanna pee again!"
"I wonder if the bus will stop anywhere. Maybe we should ask the bus guy." said Bobby.
"I'm not gonna ask the bus guy! You ask him!"
"Oh, you two! I'll ask the bus guy!" said the ever outspoken Dimpi. She tapped the bus guy. "Will you make a stop at a restroom?"
"No. Next stop is Vashi. There's no restroom at the stop though." he quipped back.
"Well, then stop at some restroom in between. She wants to pee!" Dimpi pointed at Jenny.
Jenny's face turned red as she exclaimed "Why are you pointing at me like that?!?!"
And they all burst out laughing! Bus guy included!
A lot of talking about men later, it was time to sleep. Bobby humped Dimpi in the romantic bus space with curtains to save their modesty. Jenny cried on the phone. Classic case of candy ya gum.

At 11 am the next day, they were at Mapusaland. A lot of bargaining with taxi guys ensued. When they finally got a taxi, they first went hunting for some beer. It was amazing how difficult it was for them to find beer. Like no water in an oasis! After two attempts, they finally managed to get themselves Kingfisher and Budweiser. Bobby's thirst for Kings would have to wait. The girls who went to get beers disappeared for 15 minutes and came back with hats. Much to the irritation of the cab driver who kept waiting for them to arrive! "I will charge you extra" he threatened. Being the women they were, not much heed was paid.
And that's when they had their first blonde moment.
"Who's the chief minister of Goa?" asked Dimpi.
"The same as Maharashtra's chief minister, no?" said Sam as we all looked at her for a few seconds and burst out laughing!
"Why would you say that, Sammy!?!" asked Jenny.
"I don't know! Because Maharashtra and Goa is the same region for Vodafone!"
And this line would be held against Sammy for the rest of her life!
A half an hour cab ride later, they reached the magical land of booze, parties, sand and sea.

They were staying at the fascinating Hotel Angelina. Rooms were not blocked for them on the same floor and in order to stay right next to each other, the hotel gave them cheaper rooms. 900 bucks a night for a double room. No TV and no AC. But none were needed. The rooms were perfect! ID proofs later, they went to their rooms to freshen up.

It was a Saturday and they had decided to go to the Saturday Night Bazaar. With no vehicle, they enquired and were told that it was a 10-15 minute walking distance and so they decided to walk. Ten minutes down the line and it seeming farther away, another inquiry told them that it was at least half an hour more if they went walking. Cabs were asking for 200 bucks and autos for 100. That's when they decided to check if the enchanted land still brought our their powers. In no time, they got an auto for 50 bucks, the driver specially asking them not to tell anyone that he gave them that rate!

And who might they meet at the Bazaar? Vicky Ladha, with his wife and cousins. It was weird coz while Bobby, Jenny, Dimpi and Sammy were dressed as skimpily as possible, there stood Vicky and his wife, not just fully clad but with extra jackets on.
Ooh, Vicky's wife won't think too highly of us, eh? were their echoing sentiments. Well, they were in Bagaland, and this was their birth right! Those guys should take some of their clothes off!

After a whole lot of shopping in the Bazaar, they sat down with some food and beer, and watched some performances. Bobby couldn't take her eyes off the African acrobats as they flexed their naturally muscular bodies. At the end of the performance, they asked for the audience to participate in a fire stunt and Sammy always being the most enthusiastic one, obliged. Needless to say, she chickened out and just ducked through the fire instead of bending her body backwards. However, for the sheer spirit of wanting to participate, the other girls gave her a huge round of applause while eating some yummy jacket potatoes with cheese!

After the bazaar, it was time to party. An auto ride back, they quickly hit the bars after keeping all their money at home. No money would be spent on drinks. And the power bearing had begun in full swing.

While all days passed in beach bumming and all nights passed with a lot of alcohol, some memories remained etched on their minds.

1. Sammy's friend with a tooth stud
2. Bobby and Dimpi making out at Cape Town Cafe
3. People telling Bobby to agree to raise kids with Dimpi (!!!)
4. All four women having cell phone issues
5. Jenny going "What! What?! Whaaatttt?????"
6. Sammy going "That's so tacky!"
7. Dimpi going "On what basis?!?!?!"
8. Remembering the Maharashtra and Goa joke and applying it to India and Sri Lanka
9. Making friends in the loo!
10. Bobby losing everyone with no phone in her hand
11. Bobby finding Jenny (who had Bobby's phone) at the bar doing Tequila shots with random people and confiscating her phone back!
12. Sunrise at the beach after realizing that the day is about to break...beer still in hand
13. Meeting irritating men and then being rescued by a random car
14. Meeting more irritating men on the beach while getting henna tattoos done
15. Coke
16. Free shots!
17. Jenny's blood on the bed! What? How?
18. Water sports
19. Bobby and Dimpi sharing a kiss while para-sailing!
20. Dimpi introspecting
21. Ab ba ba!
22. Every night is a free drinks night for ladies at Titos!
23. Jenny asking on the third day "So which beach is this?"
24. Using the balcony to get to the other room
25. Iranian men painting the ladies' portraits and caricatures
26. Meeting a Justin Beiber/ (one of the ) Jonas Brothers lookalike
27. Meeting his beautiful and funny girlfriend
28. Bobby and Dimpi meet the woman who made the jacket potatoes in a bar. And take her number!
29. Jenny and Bobby meeting a man who knew all the places the girls had been to the night before!

On the last day, Jenny had to leave at 5 am while the rest at 3 pm. At 4:45 am, Jenny said her goodbyes, left the bar, went to her room, packed as quick as she could and left just in time! Later that day, Sammy, Bobby and Dimpi left for the airport. While Bobby had a 5 pm flight, the other two said theirs was at 6, but would come along with Bobby. When they reached the airport at 3:30, they inquired at the check-in counter if they could take an earlier flight, only to be told that their flight was at 5 and not 6, and was the next flight out! And it wasn't that the timing had changed, they just assumed it was at 6 even when the ticket in their hands said 5! Blonde moments galore!

And with that, they were back to Bom Baim. Back to their masters, toiling away again. Hoping to visit the enchanted land once again, hopefully in another year!

Girls in Bagaland!

A new low for Tata Indicom

Tata Indicom broadband customer service hit a new low today when they told us that they couldn’t lodge a complaint! We were given two reasons for this:

1.       There is already an open complaint

2.       The system shows no problem in connection so a no-connection complaint cannot be raised!!!

I cannot believe that so much bullshit can be given out. While the old complaint was raised on 8^th October, another complaint was raised again on the 13^th October. At that time, there was no issue in raising a new complaint. I am tired and seriously don’t know what course of action to take now. I want to take this up with somebody but I don’t know who. On top of that, the customer care executive kept us on hold for a total of half an hour. When asked to speak with a supervisor, we were kept on hold and told lines were busy! My dad finally told the idiot to walk up to the supervisor and get him on the phone. The supervisor was equally irritating and told us the same thing that the customer service executive was telling us.

His solution to the problem was to change the open complaint, which was unacceptable because the older complaint was for www.kotak.com not opening (a constantly recurring problem that Tata Indicom has decided not to resolve). After almost an hour on the phone, we were told that it would just not be possible to lodge a fresh complaint. The best part comes now – I called back, spoke with someone else and got the complaint raised!

Every time I get off a call with Tata Indicom, I end up being frustrated and in a foul mood. Do I just write to the Tatas? Or should I switch ISPs? One day, I’m gonna record a conversation and upload it for everybody’s listening pleasure. And why does the internet conk off every 3^rd weekend? And why does kotak.com not open repeatedly?

I have written against these morons earlier too, but some organizations never learn.
http://daysofalps.blogspot.com/2010/06/what-to-do-with-tata-indicom.html
http://daysofalps.blogspot.com/2010/04/my-daddy-beats-your-daddys-ass.html

I hate you, Tata Indicom. Eat dirt.

Solitude

When was the last time you wished for solitude? Before a few days back, I can't think when. Most of last year, I have been wishing to overcome single-hood. I have looked around, dated a bit, been disappointed in the worst ways possible. cried in my weakest moments, punched in my strongest...! It's pretty much been a roller-coaster of emotions for me.

Pan camera to the last few days. Note my daily schedule:
06:00 - Wake up
08:00 - Breakfast
08:15 - Move ass out of hotel and walk to work
08:30 - At desk, laptop open, work begins
17:30 (on an average, not counting the day I left at 20:00) - Walk back to hotel
17:45 - In room, changing clothes
18:00 - In hotel restaurant reading a book
19:30 - Dinner
20:30 - TV or movie on laptop
22:30 - Sleep

My interactions with people are limited to people at work, the hotel receptionists, the restaurant stewards and stewardesses and the occasional old man asking me if I'm wearing Coco Chanel! Oh and of course, the countless people I smile and say hello to, everywhere I go - hotel, streets, office, bus, wherever. On the weekend, I went to Brussels and walked the streets with nothing but a map, some cigarettes, my passport and cash. I saw couples in love, kids having fun and old people generally chilling. I ate waffles bought from the street and heard live music in almost every alley in the heart of the city.

And I'd have thought that all this should make someone want to have company even more. But it didn't. Quite the contrary in fact. I love spending entire evenings doing nothing but reading my books and drinking the occasional beer alongside. It's such a welcome change from the long working hours that lead to a need for bouts of drinking (stress can really make you want to unwind with a drink) that leads to lesser sleep that leads to crappy mornings that leads to not wanting to work the long hours of the week. I feel better, I'm finishing my books in record speed and I don't go to bed thinking what my future is going to be like. Simply because my present is so relaxing! No tension, no concern, no stress. I sometimes find myself looking for more work to do (unlike how I hated waking up in the mornings to get to work back home) and I cannot say enough on how I love the hotel room all to myself! Nobody to ask what I'm doing, why I'm not eating, what are my plans for the day, whether I'll be home for dinner, who's on the phone or who I'm meeting in the evening. I don't want to make my parents seem like monsters, because they're not. They're the most understanding people on the planet (well in some ways at least), but some irrelevant nuances get very annoying when you have to deal with them everyday. And I'm sure somewhere deep down, they feel the same way about me as well. I am SO difficult at times, I wonder how they keep their cool.

Coming back to the point, I find that the constant push for me to excel in a field that I don't care much about breaks me back home. Not that I'm doing anything different here, but that push isn't there. I'm not expected to work a long week in lieu for a life to myself. I sometimes wonder if I did the right thing by taking back my old job. I wasn't making enough money writing, but should I have tried harder? I'd sure have loved 10 hrs of writing a day rather than 10 hrs of rationalizing application landscapes!!!

I picked up a book from the hotel bar yesterday and reading it made me feel like getting back to writing. All I need is inspiration, and working where I am today, gives me none. Back home, all I want to do at the end of the day is to talk about anything but work, or better still, not talk at all. And I don't get to do that. Most days I come home to a phone call from work, asking for more work to be done. And that's because that's just how it works in Mumbai if your employer has given you a laptop. Time to yourself....what is that?

That is solitude.

And I'm loving every bit of it.

Do you know what is expected of you?

Ok this has been pending for far too long. Many months back, I took a survey with a lot of anonymously willing participants about what they expect from dating and relationships. Questions involved items that put people off in the short as well as long term and how they reacted to cheating.

And....(drum roll)........here are the results!!!
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Q: What do u think a man/woman should not tell/ask/do on the first 3 dates?

50% of men surveyed did not want their salary or wealth to be discussed while they've just started dating a woman.
58% of men did not want women to talk about anybody's exes on the first 3 dates.

For the women, results were varied, with a mix of no naughty language, no talking about exes, no showing off, not being rude, etc. Surprisingly, only one woman did not want to talk about her age and another surprising 43% did not want to talk about their salary / wealth either!

(Btw...hence proved, men are predictable and women are complicated!)
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So when asked what people had learned from their past dating experiences, the men were obviously all around the place!

Q: What have u learnt from ur past dates....what should u avoid saying to the girl/guy?


Interesting answers from the men were:

• Do not give advice
• Do not say I love you
• Do not ask for marriage (!!!!)
• Do not compare her with others
• Do not give her professional criticism
• Avoid tactless jokes
• Do not talk to her about something she is not interested in

My favourite response, though, has to be one that was given to me by 2 guys - DO NOT get her drunk!!! Haha. I see that some people have had problems with drunk dates quite a bit!

Women on the other hand, knew exactly what men did not want to hear in the first three dates. Almost everybody knew that talking about salary and exes was a big no-no!
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Q: What do u think your man/woman should not do ever in the relationship?

42% men did not want their women to compare them with other men, while other popular answers were no hurting ego, no lying and no demeaning friends and family.

For women, the expectations of what a long term partner should not do were exactly the opposite. All participants but one did not want their partner to physically or verbally abuse them. So no belittling, hitting or being rude. Simple! Everything else can be dealt with.
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Q: Is cheating once ok? Provided he/she is truly apologetic later?

This was really interesting. 92% of all men said that their partner cheating was absolutely not okay. This, compared to only 57% of women saying the same thing. After a lot of prodding, 25% men said they would forgive their woman if she was truly apologetic (and other best case scenarios). Which meant a change of mind for 17% men. For women, the number didn't change much.


ANALYSIS!!

Honestly, I don't know how men and women live with each other with such a difference in expectations. While women have a multitude of no-nos while they are choosing a man, once they have committed to a relationship, there's not much that will break it for them. However, for men it's the other way round. While they have very low expectations from a woman they are dating, they want a lot from the woman they are looking at from a long term perspective.

Of course, this study is limited by scope. All survey participants were urban men and women between 25 to 28 years of age, earning approximately between 5 to 15 lakhs a year.

Why we need new bags

So why is it that when I look around, people my age are either married or complicated? Or, well, going to be married. There has to be some correlation with age and not wanting to make things work! The older you get, the more rigid you become, the more expectations you have, the lesser you wanna compromise and the more ready you are to look at other options.


Thy name be Rigid
He has to be intelligent
He has to be agnostic or atheist
He has to be non-vegetarian
Preferably not in the same field of work
Preferably large shoulders

He has to be somebody who makes me feel “This is the one!”
He has to be somebody my parents will like
He has to be experimental in bed
He has to make tons of money
Preferably cute boyish looks

He has to be someone I liked the instant I saw him
He has to be someone every other girl wants to have
Preferably plays the guitar


Me, compromise?
Use your laptop. This is mine!
I want to go for that chick flick whether you like it or not! And you will bloody well come!
If you’re not feeling well, I’ll go out with someone else
Cheating is okay if you’re not giving me any candy
We do it when I want, where I want

Opt-in, opt-out
Learnt this way back in 2004 for a subject called customer relationship management. To opt-in is to explicitly select an option among many options. To opt-out is to explicitly unselect an option among many pre-selected options. When I was 18, I was in the opting in stage. Now, I keep opting out.

Something good may come out of this (it better!). With higher standards than what I had at 18, when I find the right person, it’ll be better than who I would’ve chosen at 18. And yeah, looking back I see how progressive my choices were over the years! The downside is that I don’t know how long it will take. And I don’t like it when there’s no plan. Well, there is no plan. There is hope, but no plan. And being the non-religious types, I’m quite impatient with hope.

Me and my unmarried girl friends are all of 26 now. Everyone is complicated relationship-wise. A guy friend says we just like to make it complicated when it actually isn’t. It’s either on or not on. This guy friend is married. Easy for him to say. At 26, there’s pressure – parental, peer, u name it! And the peer pressure sucks the most. People start getting married and doing their own couple things. You end up looking for a group with more single people. We recently got an old friend back after everyone in his current group was married and he became single. He needed to hang out with single people like us. He told me he thinks it’s the right time to get married because otherwise everyone will get married and he’ll regret not looking for a partner when the time was right! You see the pressure!

No, I don’t want to get married. I’m not ready for it yet. But I miss some things that come with a relationship. Some things that dating doesn’t do for me. It’s a feeling of comfort. Of special moments. Of things that only remind you of that significant other. Of wanting to bring back something special from a trip for that special somebody. Of sharing a stupid thought you had, without the other person judging your intelligence because they know you long enough to know it was just an aberration. Of simply sleeping with your head on somebody’s shoulder at night. And that somebody can’t just be anybody. When u think of that shoulder, most of you will picture a face on it.

And that, fellow people, is known as baggage.

What to do with Tata Indicom?

Since the time we got Tata Indicom at home, we've realized how absolutely horrendous their service is. My dad once sent them a real bad stinker and even that hasn't helped our woes. On their customer care helpline, I can't stand talking to people who are technically weaker than me. What's the use of having a customer care when they don't know more than you do? Doesn't that just dissolve the purpose of caring for me?

So for the last few months we've been having problems with connecting to a few web sites. The first victim was www.kotak.com which wouldn't open upon repeated attempts. At first, we thought the site was down, but after two days, we called Kotak customer care to find that their site was up and running and they hadn't received any customer complaints for the two days that we were facing problems. That's when we decided to try using my Reliance Netconnect to open the site. Voila! It opened immediately. We then did a ping and a tracert on kotak.com to see that the packets stop moving after reaching some VSNL Delhi router. We'd complained and many emails later, the problem was resolved.

For the last three days, the same problem has been happening with www.irctc.co.in.

So we did what was natural. We complained to customer care via email. Some stupid lady from Hyderabad calls me up the next day to ask me, "Mam, has your problem been resolved?"
"Do you know what the problem was?" I ask.
"Yes mam, your net was not working."

Aaaarrrrrrgggghhhhh!!!!! Even after writing the long email with ping and tracert results, the only thing that has gone into Tata Indicom customer care's head is that my 'net was not working'!!!! Naive? Or plain stupid? So I just told her that that was not the problem.

Ping results

Pinging www.irctc.co.in [202.93.154.28] with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 202.93.154.28:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

Tracert results

Tracing route to www.irctc.co.in [202.93.154.28]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     1 ms     1 ms    <1 ms  59.165.11.193.man-static.vsnl.net.in [59.165.11.
193]
  2     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  172.31.148.73
  3     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  172.31.67.2
  4     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  172.31.67.21
  5     2 ms     *        3 ms  172.31.8.125
  6    24 ms    24 ms    24 ms  59.163.59.37.static.vsnl.net.in [59.163.59.37]
  7    22 ms    22 ms    22 ms  59.163.55.141.static.vsnl.net.in [59.163.55.141]

  8    23 ms    22 ms    23 ms  59.163.55.141.static.vsnl.net.in [59.163.55.141]

  9    50 ms    28 ms    25 ms  172.31.61.202
 10    26 ms    25 ms    26 ms  172.31.61.202
 11    26 ms    26 ms    25 ms  121.241.106.121.static-delhi.vsnl.net.in [121.24
1.106.121]
 12     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 13     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 14     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 15     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 16     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 17     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 18     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 19     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 20

"That's not the problem. There are sites that do not open on the Tata Indicom network that open up while using other networks." I said. "Do you get it?"
"Okay, so the network is not working." she tested my patience.
"No! Did you get the email? Do you understand what it says? I will repeat. irctc.co.in does not open on Tata Indicom. It opens when I use Reliance Netconnect. This is a constant problem with your service. Everytime we have a problem with one website or the other!" I was almost screaming.
"Okay mam. I will send an engineer to..."
"What will an engineer do at my house? The problem is not at my place. The problem is at your server's end!"
"Yes mam. Actually, I am at Hyderabad, so I will send an engineer to the Mumbai server to take care of the problem."
I have to admit I was stumped. I have heard lame replies before but this took the cake. I didn't bother taking the conversation further.
"When will you resolve this?" I asked. "It's been three days that we're living with this problem."
"Within 24 hours."
"Okay. Don't close this ticket. It is not resolved. Bye."

By now, my dad is friends with the local Tata Indicom engineer. So he calls the fellow 15 minutes later.
"Did you get a call to come to our house?" my dad asks him.
"Yes. Your net is not working, right?" he answers.

So after all that explaining to her that one site was not opening, we've a whole round circle and back to 'net is not working'.
I can't take it anymore! I cannot deal with idiots who cannot solve my problem! What am I supposed to do? Who do I complain to? When will Tata start training their executives technically? Customer care on the phone does not even understand tracert results (this was another call at another time)! I will not rest until I bad mouth Tata Indicom. And hopefully until they do something about it.

Weather and moods

Most psychology studies are done in developed countries where summer is considered a good thing (blech) and winters are depressing. Pan camera to Mumbai where summers will get you assuredly pissed and the onset of rains just makes you go woo hoo! Well, it's time we did some research. I really need to know what the effect of weather has on your body and mind. And why!

Some quotes:

Humidity, temperature, and hours of sunshine had the greatest effect on mood. High levels of humidity lowered scores on concentration while increasing reports of sleepiness.

How true! How true!

Another study by Sanders and Brizzolara (1982) on 30 college students also found similar findings — that high humidity was a predictor for lack of vigor, elation, and affection.

The proof tightens.

People who get to spend time outdoors in temperatures near 72 degrees F (22 degrees C) tend to be happier and also have better memory than  those who spend time outdoors in less optimal conditions, or those who consistently stay indoors in nice weather.

Yeah ok I can deal with 22 degrees.

Researchers have surmised that there is a definite connection between hot temperatures and aggression.

This explains why the most peaceful and liberal countries are Scandinavian!

The perfect temperature, according to the University of Michigan, is 72 degrees. Any temperature higher or lower than 72 degrees is likely to affect your mood.

Is this why people in Bombay are likely to be pissed off all the time?

I found no studies specifically for India or people living close to the tropics, so I guess we wont know what our weather really does to us (unless we believe a new survey that says weather has little or no effect on us at all!). But this is what I get from it.

There seems to be a perfect temperature at which we work most productively. This temperature may be different from person to person, but is statistically around 22 degrees centigrade. At this temperature (and at normal humidity of say 50%), we are awake and aware, ready to take on the world.

The hotter it gets, the more aggressive you get. And I can totally relate to this! The last two weeks of summer were awful for me, with the highest levels of irritability. I was constantly having mood swings and I couldn't figure why, though somewhere I did suspect the weather to be the culprit.

The more humid it gets, you start losing concentration and feeling sleepy. Your appetite goes up. Basically, you feel like doing everything that reads "lazy"! All you want to do is stay in bed. I think the whole romantic notion comes from the linkages your mind makes: lazy - bed - sex. Your brain suddenly releases oxytocin and BAM! You're feeling romantic! (Note: This is only my theory and I couldn't find any research to support it!)

The rains have just started and all I feel like doing is going out and getting wet in the rain! The whole of last week, while I waited for summer to get over, I lost appetite and felt horrible. I'm back to wanting to hog now! Food mission, I'm back in action!

These X Files

Story: Swaminathan Kannan and Alpana Mandal
Script: Alpana Mandal and Swaminathan Kannan
Name of blog post inspired by Rajesh Bhadra

SCENE 1

It was Sivaraman's last working day at Arnold Jameson Consulting Pvt. Ltd. It was dark outside and the hour hand pointed at 8 on the clock on the empty office wall. He had finished all his formalities, given back the company laptop and cleared his desk of all belongings. As he stood up and looked around, he saw Priya at her desk. "Wow I'm gonna miss seeing her every day", he thought. And he would. She was stunning to look at. Clients and colleagues alike would be mesmerised by her words when she spoke. It wasn't what she said, but the way she said it. It was her eyes, her nose, her luscious lips. It was the way her hair bounced when she opened it after she was back in office and finished with all client meetings for the day. It was the way she walked. It was everything about her that spelt attractive.

And she was his boss.

He walked towards her, feeling naked. After ages, he had no bag to carry back home, no files, no paper. Emptiness. None of his close colleagues were in the city on his last day at AJC. He wasn't feeling so good. He needed reassurance, confidence, clarity about his future. And a woman. The biggest thing missing in his life now was a relationship.

"Hi Priya. So this is it. My last day," he said.
She turned, smiled and got up from her chair. "So, where's your farewell party today?"
"Nowhere. Nobody's in town. All this money to spend and nobody to spend it on!" He looked down as he noticed her shirt slightly stretched on the second button.
"No way! Your last day and no celebrations?!"
"Well we could go out for a couple of drinks if you're not doing anything," he half-expectantly said.
"Hmm," she looked at her laptop and then looked back at him, "Yeah sure, why not. I could do with some free booze!"

SCENE 2 - will make you go "yeah right"

Meanwhile, Tharki, who was photocopying the Kingfisher calendar at the other end of the office, heard the magic words that induced a chemical reaction in his body - "free booze". His face started to twitch, his hands automatically moved in a blur and in a few seconds where Tharki stood, now stood a new man. He wore a blue lycra body suit with a red cape and red overpants (if you know what I mean!). Tharkiman.

In a flash, he was across the office to where Sivaraman and Priya stood. "Dude!!" he screamed with excitement to Sivaraman, "Isn't it your last day at AJC? Do I smell a farewell? And to think I would have almost missed it!" Sivaraman wasn't very pleased with this turn of events. This weirdo with a "T" written over his chest and red underpants worn over his body-hugging, beer belly showing suit was ruining what would have been an opportunity to get with Priya.
"Of course. Come along. The more the merrier," he faked.

SCENE 3 - hold your breaths!

All the popular night spots were packed and the three of them had to go to Laxmi Palace. There were women dancing in skimpy saris and lehengas. The drinks menu was cheap and after a few drinks, all lost track of time. In a couple of hours, Tharki was on the dance floor with his cape wrapped around him suggestively and Sivaraman holding a bundle of 100 rupee notes in his left hand and flicking them on to Tharki with his right index finger.

And all this time, Priya kept looking at the two of them.
All this money to spend and nobody to spend it on.
And he was spending it on Tharki. Her blood boiled. She had two options. She could sleep with Tharki and be the benefactor of all this money. Or she could kill him. Or...

She walked up to Tharki, put her hand in his and said, "I know a place where you can get free beer."
"Free? Where, where??"
"Follow me."
She took the drunk Tharki to the ladies room and pushed him against the wall.
"Where's the beer?" he mumbled incoherently.
"Oops! Well there's a mug," she picked up the plastic mug lying around, "But I can't find the tap. Though...I think you might have one."
Tharki was getting the drift of this. This was gonna be his lucky day!
"Well yeah, I have a tap, but I don't have a full barrel, darling."
"I can take care of that..." her voice went farther as she got on her knees.

Five minutes later, Priya walked out of the washroom straightening her shirt and putting her hair in place. She went back to Sivaraman who was sitting at the bar, looking lost.
"Hey there!" she ran her hand down his arm.
He looked up at her, "Where have you been??"
"Just outside, on the phone."

Just then, a loud shriek was heard from the ladies room. Sivaraman rushed to see what had happened. A woman was standing with her back facing the door, her hands over her cheeks. As Sivaraman moved ahead, he saw the naked body of a man on the floor. His face was disfigured, but he still had the red cape tied around his neck. Tharki!

Sivaraman looked at the woman. Rujuta...what is she doing here? This didn't make any sense!
"Rujuta. Stand back!" he screamed.
Priya was standing behind, gaping at Tharki's body. Then she looked at Sivaraman and ran out. He ran after her, across the road and farther. She kept running. After they crossed two blocks, she stopped, panting. As he caught up with her, she said "I need to get out of here. I can't handle this." They were in front of Not Just Jazz By The Bay now.
"I need to have a drink," she gasped for air
"I think I'm already drunk," said Sivaraman.

Meanwhile, Rujuta held Tharki's hand, thinking of all the good times they had. He had always been a good friend. And he was dead now. But she didn't know that Tharki was no ordinary man. As a child, he was infected by a Martian worm that made him Tharkiman every time he heard of free booze or free women. And as she held his hand, the parasitic worm made way out of the dead body into its new living host. Rujuta felt something piercing through her wrist, but paid no attention. She was far too aggrieved.

After the cops came, she had to move away from the body. She looked around and realized that neither Sivaraman nor Priya were around. The bastards! They’re out partying even after everything that has happened!

SCENE 4

At Not Just Jazz By the Bay, Sivaraman swirled his scotch on the rocks while Priya sipped on her martini. Shaken and stirred. The DJ was playing retro bollywood music – sarkailo khatiya was on. He looked at her picking up the toothpick with the olive and touching it to her lips. She gently wrapped her lips around it and kept it there for a few seconds. Then with a quick motion, she sucked it in, all the time looking straight into Sivaraman’s eyes. With the olive gone, she slowly moved the toothpick in and out of her mouth, her lips pouting. Sivaraman knew that if he had to make a move, it was now. They were both sufficiently drunk and the Tharkiman situation had left Priya feeling vulnerable and in need of a man’s support.
“I know better things that you can put in your mouth,” he drawled, inebriated.
She smiled. Bingo!
“And with two olives,” he didn’t know where to stop the dirty talk.

But just then, Rujuta stormed into the pub. She couldn’t understand how her feet took her there...it almost seemed like somebody was making her act in a certain way. And she wasn’t far from the truth. The worm was taking over her body. It had nestled itself in her wrist just below the thumb. She could see a thin, long swelling there, but she had no clue what it was.

She walked up to the couple who were getting very touchy feely by now.
“What the fuck do you guys think you are doing??” she screamed.
Sivaraman couldn’t believe his bad luck. Every time he would get close to any action, something or somebody would ruin it.
“I’m just trying to make Priya feel better. She’s been really tense since the incident at Laxmi Palace.”
“If you really want to feel better, Priya, then let’s go to Tharki’s apartment and tell his parents about what happened. Nobody has informed them!”
Reluctant and totally drunk by now, Sivaraman and Priya got up and followed Rujuta, who still wondered if her actions and words were being controlled by herself or someone else.

SCENE 5
They stood in front of the apartment door at Matunga. As Sivaraman knocked on it, the door opened with a creak. The whole place was dark and smelled of moistness. Priya switched on the lights. It was an abandoned house. There was minimal furniture – those which were left because they were too old and rickety. There was one table in the hall and an old bed in another room. But of course, Tharki’s parents had moved to Chembur!

In the corner, was a rack with wine bottles. Rujuta picked one up and saw a price sticker from SAQ, Montreal. Tharki had billed all this wine to an old client of AJC!

Just then, Rujuta’s phone rang. It was her husband, waking up from his sleep at 3 am and not finding her in bed.
“Rujuta, are you okay? It’s 3 am and you’re not at home!”
“I’m fine. Sivaraman, Priya and I are at Tharki’s apartment.”
“At this time? Are you mad? Come home, now!”
“You don’t understand...”
“You’re damn right I don’t understand! I want you to come home now!”

She didn’t want to argue in front of the others and so she stepped out of the building on to the street below. While she continued her animated discussion with her husband, she didn’t notice the speeding BEST bus that was coming her way.

Honk! Thud! Whoosh!

And Rujuta lay in a pool of blood.

SCENE 6

Oblivious to what had happened outside, Sivaraman and Priya were gulping down all the wine. She held his hand and said, “Let’s go inside”. He could not control his excitement. He was brimming with eagerness to experience what he hadn’t experienced for a long time now. The last woman he was with was 2 years back. She had left him for Tharki. That bastard! He deserved what came to him today.

In the bedroom, Priya caught Sivaraman by the collar and threw him on the bed. She took off her shirt and showed the perfectly formed bosom held tight within a red lacy bra. But Sivaraman was disoriented with the throw. Shouldn’t have drunk so much, he thought. She jumped on to him and rubbed vigorously. Suddenly, he wasn’t really enjoying this. He wanted to be the man, but she was doing all the work. She was being too aggressive. Plus, he was drunk and wanted to go slow. His head was spinning. He screamed.
“No! No! Stop! Get off me!”
And then he passed out.

The next morning, he woke up with a severe headache. Rubbing his forehead, he looked to his side and saw Priya sleeping soundly. He quickly woke up, put on his clothes and ran out of the wretched apartment. He had no recollection of what had happened the last night. All he knew was that he didn’t want to see Priya ever again.

SCENE 7

But sometimes, things can go awry. Unknown to the both of them, Tharki had a webcam set up in his bedroom which led to a live streaming channel on youtube. Tharki was not called Tharki for no reason. He wanted to capture every woman he banged and showcase it to the world. The webcam was motion sensitive and every time it detected movement in the room, it switched on, detected the light intensity in the room, selected the right mode and started recording.

However, Tharki was having a dry patch of late and all live streaming consisted of him jacking off, much to the delight of Naresh. He was a manager with AJC who worked closely with Tharki. He was married, but always had an inexplicable attraction for Tharki. He had subscribed to Tharki’s youtube channel and found himself deeply aroused when he saw videos of Tharki jacking off. But today, he saw something different. He saw Sivaraman and Priya!


SCENE 8

A few years later, Sivaraman, Swami and I sat at Global Fusion to catch up over some sushi.
“You know,” Sivaraman said, “Long time back, there was this one crazy night that I had. I was so drunk, that all I remember is that when I woke up, I was in somebody else’s bed!”
“And whose bed was that?” Swami asked.
“Some chick. She was a senior of mine.”
“What was her name?!?!” I shrieked.
“Let bygones be bygones. It doesn’t matter. She’s history to me. I’m gonna get more sushi.” And he left the table. Swami and I looked at each other and smiled. Of course we knew who she was. We knew the whole story. We knew details that even Sivaraman didn’t know.

Who killed Tharki?
What happened to Rujuta?
Where did the worm go?
What really happened between Sivaraman and Priya that night?
What did Naresh do with the video?

We knew. We clinked our beer bottles.
“Cheers, Swami.”
“Cheers, bitch.”

An apple a day

I usually don't make an opinion on things unless I have enough information on the subject. Somehow, I can't seem to do the same for Apple. Every time Steve Jobs makes a presentation on how "incredible" their new product is, I think "Here we go again!". All he creates is hype! Just see this video as an example.



I had a conversation on the iPad that my friend bought, where I said the same thing, and he replied very aptly, saying "It's like a big banner movie plays full shows for 3 days. If the movie is not really good, the movie ticket sales are bound to go down. But after the first thousands of sales of an Apple product, nobody comes back saying that the product is bad. The hype only ensures the first sales, but the quality of the product carries it through many more such sales."

Fair enough. It's a very sound argument. Couple that with the fact that I know close to zilch on Apple products. I was once gifted an iPod years back which I never used and so eventually gave to this same friend of mine. I kept the ear phones though, coz they were extremely comfortable! The reason I never used it was simple - I don't need it! Which is what I think for the iPad as well. The Mac and the iPhone I think are worth using (based on my limited knowledge on the subject), but Apple manages to price them crazy which just angers me more.

My friend, on the other hand, loves their products and maybe he convinces me someday. Last blog post I read of his, he was defending the lack of multi-tasking on the iPhone. But till that day comes, I have issues.

Mac: What's the point of making it so expensive?
iPod: I have a phone that plays mp3s. I'm not carrying two things in my pockets.
iPhone: I wouldn't have minded having one of these, but when there are other phones with similar features at a lesser price, why would I buy this?
iPad: I have a laptop that does what an iPad does. And more (I have a weird need to have spreadsheets with complex functionality).

All in all, I have this very irrational bias against them. I find Apple like Shah Rukh Khan. The sheer hype around it bugs me! Maybe someday I'll be able to overcome this. Maybe I gather enough information to truly and rationally detest Apple products. Or maybe someday I just learn to live with the fact that there are some things I cannot be rational about!

Violence in justice

I have to say...I don't get it. I'm sorry, but I just don't. How can people be punished for violence with violence? How does that make any sense? What objective does it fulfill? What's my context, you ask? The Ajmal Kasab trial and people's reactions to it. Thankfully, we have a court of law which overrules the general public's opinion on things. And that court of law is working perfectly undeterred, given the media and public voices of unreason.

I've been hearing talks about executions and public executions. While I have a mixed bag of opinions on the former in this case, I am very clear about having pure disgust at the thought of the latter.

Capital punishment has been a brutal form of punishment seen all through history. According to me, the idea is to discourage others from performing acts of such nature. The problems here were multiple:

1. Innocent people were at risk of losing their lives if a wrong judgment was given.
2. Many societies eventually found it inhumane, unethical and nonspiritual (I read somewhere a view that said killing the body did not achieve anything as the soul still remains, but well that is also debatable).
3. People in the society do not value the life of others as killing becomes a way of life.

But let's look at why the law is made in society. For peace to prevail. So that people do not harm others. This is where my basic issue lies. Everybody needs a chance to redeem themselves, to become a better person, to live along other people. Isn't that what we as a society want too? Not to kill people, but to better them. If your kids steal from their classmate, you don't wanna put them in jail. You want them to never steal again. Let's just try and put that in a larger, more adult scenario!

You may also want to read about all the pros and cons of capital punishment and the debates all around the world on the same.

Having said all this, Kasab (and every other terrorist) has crossed these mundane crime boundaries and moved into a plane involving mass murder with little or no remorse. I'm saddened to see a man who was being brainwashed by evil people day in and day out since he was a boy. He, along with many other such boys who don't know any better. However, even with that background, what he has committed has been a bigger crime than any of us have ever witnessed. Again, if you look at it from a practical view, there doesn't seem to be anything that will be achieved by giving him the death sentence. The planners and the trainers will continue bring up more Kasabs who will be willing to die for their God (In any case, I think religion is the root of all evil, but that's a different topic of discussion altogether). The only benefit I see is the money being spent on keeping him alive will be saved.

These thoughts are very conflicting and I really don't have an opinion on whether he should be hanged or not. All I know is that the judge is wiser than me and will probably take the best decision for this situation.

But moving on to public execution...how did this even come into people's heads?? Since when is it cool to be this violent in thoughts? What sadistic pleasure can you possibly get?? And every time I hear about the "public's opinion" on this, I'm reminded of the phrase "Don't take the law in your own hands". The statement was aptly made because the public has a very unsettling way of dealing with social and criminal problems. We belong to a society that will beat a taxi driver who has accidentally bumped his car into a swanky owner driven car. A society where homosexuality is still shunned, where honor killings are still rampant, where parents are still against different-caste marriages, where dowry is still prevalent. This is the public whose opinion should be sought? Because this is the public that is suggesting a public execution.

And what will a public execution achieve? Closure? Studies prove otherwise. So not only is it inhumane, violent, extremist, but it is also totally irrelevant and useless. I would really hope people think of this with a mind less evil than that of the perpetrators. We are better than this. Or at least we are capable of being the role models. With aggressive thoughts like these, we are teaching the next generation to be equally violent. Children see, children do. Please let's teach the next generation to be better than us.

And let us not just hope that such terrorist acts do not happen in the future, but also that more youngsters are not taken away into terrorist camps for their lives to be thrown away like this. Just in the name of political and religious agendas of a few nefarious people.

Remember, Gandhi said "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind".

My daddy beats your daddy's ass!

My dad just CCed me on a complaint email he sent to Tata Indicom Broadband (who have been sucking at their job of providing me broadband service by the way), and I couldn't stop grinning from ear to ear when I read it! It just has to be shared - so here goes. And this is a pure copy paste! No editing! (Btw, for more broadband woes, read here.)

I am fed up of the performance (availability) of the network.  Wonder why are we paying Rs. 1700 plus for 24 x  7 high speed connectivity. To top it we face following:

-          Call centre (60607070) is not able to give any information of the problem and solution. All they say  - Server Down, assigned to technical team (whom, when not known).
-          Call centre is not having info as to since when the server is down.
-          More often complaint is closed without connectivity being re3stored. Call centre is unable to re-open the complaint. We are forced to lodge fresh complaint.
-          If the complaint is on Friday evening, no one attends the problem till Monday – wonder how 24x7 connectivity can be assured in this manner.
-          Very rarely someone calls up before closing the complaint. There are no calls to update us on the status.
-          We have no way to approach any one to escalate. The regional head number (92234 61517 , 022-6725 0837) are not answered. The Andheri Technical Unit (022- 6725 0856) is either engaged are not answered

To give a flavor of complaints of last 15 days, look at the History of “No connectivity complaints”:

(This does not include the no-connectivity  when we are not browsing but only affecting the running system  programs)

06 Mar 2320 hrs SR 11831122: Server Down, Took 48 hours to restore.

09 Mar 1100 hrs SR 11842936: Server Down, Complaint closed without connectivity restored.

10 Mar 0020 hrs SR 11848044: Server Down, to continue the complaint.

14 Mar 1545 hrs SR 11873558: Server Down, Complaint closed without connectivity restored

14 Mar 1945 hrs SR 11874212: To continue the complaint, was told that a switch is being replaced.  Complaint closed without connectivity restored.

15 Mar 2210 hrs SR 11880968: To continue the complaint, finally restored after 48 hours.

 18 Mar 0915 hrs SR 11892824: Ping timed out but as per call center all systems are fine.

 19 Mar 0915 hrs SR 11898256: Server Down, Complaint closed without connectivity restored.     

 19 Mar 1845 hrs SR 11902362: To continue complaint, Complaint closed without restoring connectivity.

20 Mar 0845 hrs SR 11903684: To continue complaint, finally  restored after 36 hours.      

24 Mar 1145 hrs SR 11924318: Area server down,

By closing the complaint without restoring connectivity appears to be a cheap ploy to avoid CREDIT which should depend upon purely NO CONNECTIVITY. As a responsible and honest service you should give credit irrespective of complaint having been registered.

WHAT DO YOU THINK THE USER SHOULD DO.

Regards,

Ashish Mandal.

UPDATE 17 Apr 2010 (The mail trail lengthens!!!):

From: Ashish Mandal

Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2010 2:28 PM

To: Customer Service (Retail-India)

Subject: Re complaint number: 11935276

Thanks for response.
Re complaint number: 11935276.
1) We are fully aware of means to check connectivity.When your server / switch / cable is not in place these tests are of no use. Invariably "Ping" is timed out.

2) How do we know what is the log at your end of usage. Can you make it available for the period 05 March - 25 Mar. This is necessary as the complaints are closed at your end without restoring the connectivity and without checking with us.

3) As stated earlier the customer  service people are of not any help as they only have record of complaint and update if any from your back end, which is invariably too late and erroneous (closing the complaint witout connectivity).

Regards.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 7:54 PM, customerservice <customerservice@tatacommunications.com> wrote:

Dear Mr. Mandal,

Thank you for your feedback. This is with reference to your telephonic discussion with Mr. Vamshi  on 30-Mar.

We have registered a complaint regarding the connectivity for your account. The issue raised in the complaint will be addressed within 24hrs. We will send the confirmation mail post the resolution of your complaint.

Your complaint number is: 11956930.

Looking forward for your co-operation and support to serve you better.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Ashish Mandal
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2010 6:39 PM

To: Customer Service (Retail-India)
Cc: Alpana Mandal

Subject: Re: Re Complaint number: 11956930 / 11935276

We have not received any communication on our complaint?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 5:36 PM, customerservice <customerservice@tatacommunications.com> wrote:

 Dear Customer,

We regret for the inconvenience caused to you with regard to the instances stated by you in your mail.

This is with reference to your telephonic discussion with Ms.Nirmala on 16-Apr

 This is to confirm successful resolution of your concerns.As per the conversation we would like to inform that the connection is working fine according to the usage towards your account.If the probelm persists please revert to us.

 Assuring you of the best services always.

 For any further assistance, please feel free to contact our customer service in your city, for details of the contact number please visit www.tataindicombroadband.in  or write to us on customerservice@tatacommunications.com

 Warm Regards,

 Vemalatha,

Customer Service Team,

Tata Indicom Broadband.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Ashish Mandal
To: Customer service

Dear Vemalatha, Customer Service Team, Tata Indicom Broadband.
This refers to your mail of 16 Apr.
Yes I had telecon with your Ms. Nirmala who "declared" that my complaints are closed. We refused to accept the statement as our complaint in the mail of 25 march are not analysed and responded. The complaint was not far any connection problem at that point of time. If you record the telecon, please hear that.  This is yet another instance of arrogantly closing complaints.
We offered to discuss the matter at your HQ in Hyderabad but no one responded to the mail.

If this is what is your customer service, we need to think about our future approach.

Regards,

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Sat, Apr 17, 2010 at 6:23 PM, customerservice <customerservice@tatacommunications.com> wrote:

Dear Mr. Mandal,

We are obliged to have you as a privieged customer.

We would like to thank you for allowing us to be of service to you and the time you have spent to provide us your valuable feedback.

We would like to emphasize on the fact that you are a valuable customer to us and request you to grant us an opportunity to serve you better.  With all the credibility that every Tata product offers we can assure you, our best inputs to keep up with your expectations.

Your satisfaction is our greatest reward. We will strive to keep up with your expectations. We have verified your complaint on your behalf regarding your connectivity concern towards the account  and found that the connection is working fine after the assistance provided by our customer service executives .If the issue still persist kindly do revert to us to enable us to do the needful.And please conform us if you have any other issue.

Thank you for your time and patience.

For any further assistance, please feel free to contact our Customer Service in your city ,for details of the contact number please visit http://www.tataindicombroadband.in or write to us on customerservice@tatacommunications.com. We will be delighted to assist you.

Warm Regards,   

Vemalatha,
Complaint Management Team,
Tata Indicom Broadband.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Ashish Mandal
To: Customer service

 Dear Vemalatha, Customer Service Team, Tata Indicom Broadband.

Yet again a routine response - not relevant to my mail of 25 March. This is how complaints are closed.
Your mail of 17 Apr chose to keep quiet even on the telecon of 16 Apr.

I request this complaint be escalated yo higher level please.

Regards,

Three States

Reminds me of touch-and-go tourists. They visit every place for a few minutes, take a picture and then move on. Thant's kinda how my official tour is going right now. Monday - Bharuch, Tuesday - Indore, Wednesday - Bhopal, Thursday - Agra, Friday - Aligarh. I'm now in Delhi, and have some awesome memories of these places, even though I've spent so little time!

BHARUCH (Gujarat)

I was halfway through to Bharuch from Bombay, stuck at some small time station between Vapi and Surat. For two hours, the train remained there because of a rail roko aandolan happening ahead on the tracks. The reason? More benefits being demanded for daily long distance travelers. The target? Should be the railway authorities, but as expected, they just targeted the common man taking the train. Must be a political party, I'm sure. What do they care?

But I finally reached Bharuch and saw first hand what everybody says about the infrastructure of Gujarat. The roads are undeniably brilliant. Even for a town like Bharuch, the internal roads and connecting highways are nice and smooth. One thing I didn't like about the city on first glance though, was the dust blowing around in the air. And the whole city looks kinda yellow. Even the trees are not green enough - it's like they have a coat of yellow on them.

I also noticed how religion-based bias is so deeply entrenched into the minds of the people (small sample size, so  I may be wrong). Narendra Modi's doing, perhaps? I had some time to kill coz my work was finished and my train to Indore only left at 00:00 hrs. So my client said that I could watch a movie. I said I hadn't watched My Name is Khan and I could probably watch it. He said that he'd seen the movie a day back and it was an "M community movie". I, of course, understood what he meant, but chose not to smile at his grin. He quickly lost the stupid smile and continued, "You know...it's a feel good movie for them. They'll really like it". To which I asked if he thought the movie was good. And he said yes, the movie is good. Unfortunately, he had to preface it with all that Muslim feel good shit.

So I watched the movie for 80 bucks! As the most expensive ticket at Fame Adlabs. Not the prettiest Fame in the country, I must say! All the toilets I went to in Bharuch are awful! Even the toilet I went to at Fame had no working jet, no toilet paper and a flush that didn't work in full force. And yeah, it smelled bad too!

At Bharuch, my 00:00 hrs train eventually arrived at 04:00 hrs. The railways has this brilliant plan of never telling you how late the train will be in totality. First they say 35 mins, then another 45 mins, then 1 hour, then another hour, and so on. And when after the first hour, your hopes are up for the train to finally arrive! Ting tong! May I have your attention please. Train number xxxx from Mumbai to Indore, leaving Bharuch at 00:00 hrs is 55 mins late. We apologize for the inconvenience caused to passengers. No! I don't want you to apologize! If after an hour, the train is still an hour late, it either means that the train hasn't moved from where it was an hour back...or you were lying! And knowing the public sector, it's most probably the latter. And if you'd have just told me it was 4 hours late, I would have taken a nap at the waiting room on the platform at the far end of the station. I didn't even do that because it'd have been a pain carrying around my luggage from platform 3 to platform 1 to get to the waiting room and then do it all over again to come back. And yeah, how can I forget the beautiful station designs in India. Make people use the stairs when they have heavy luggage with them! Why don't they make those slopes for people to wheel their luggage around?!?!?

Ok enough ranting. I finally did catch my train at 4 and went to sleep immediately. Got up only at 11, and saw many missed calls I couldn't even hear coz I was so sleepy!

INDORE (MP)

Indore looks like old Delhi. It seems very city-like, but still has some nuances of a small town. It was one of the few places where I could speak to the client in English. I'm honestly having such a problem talking Information Security in Hindi! I have to rack my brains for every sentence that I have to say!

Anyway, I didn't see much of Indore because I had to leave by 16:30 hrs and I reached only by 12, thanks to the train delay. However, I did learn some things about the city:

1. It is famous for poha and jalebi
2. It has a lot of great farsan, and some fully automated farsan manufacturing plants.

Also, when I was leaving, I saw a lot of police convoys and saffron and green flags with the lotus symbol on them. I was leaving one day before the huge BJP meeting in Indore with the new party president, Nitin Gadkari. Saw him on the news the next day singing "Zindagi...kaisi hai paheli hai...kabhi yeh hasaye...kabhi yeh rulaye..." on the stage during this meet. Guy's not bad at singing. Just couldn't get the tempo right! He doesn't deserve much to be said about politically, so I won't. Except that maybe if he lost some weight, he'd seem little less paisa khau.

BHOPAL (MP)

A 4 hour drive from Indore is Bhopal. The cabbie took me around the town for a while, before I checked into the hotel. I saw the beautiful lake (simple called bada talao) and the awesome houses around it. Also went in the old Bhopal area which looks exactly like Hyderabad. And my love for Hyderabad is well known among my friends and family! Bhopal has one of the biggest mosques in Asia - called the Taj-ul-Masajid - which looks brilliant and is truly huge! There is even a small pond in the mosque. If the mosque has some illumination around it, it would look spectacular! I checked into a hotel, which didn't have a room for me coz the guy who took my reservation on the phone forgot to tell anybody else to keep a room reservation. I did get a room, but not the room type that I wanted. It was 20:30 hrs and I was in no mood to try another hotel.

The next day after work, I took a tour of the Bhopal zoo. It's a really nice place, with animals kept in natural enclosures. No cages. It was a little scary, with the tigers and bears especially, because there's just a moat kinda thing that separates the animal from you. And all you can do is just hope that the zoo was correct in measuring the width of the moat to ensure that the animal can't really jump across it. Even the crocodile enclosure seemed pretty easy for the crocodile to get out of and into the road. Made me feel like they probably don't think it's worth it!

AGRA (UP)

I hate Agra. The Taj Mahal is beautiful, yes, but the rest of Agra sucks. Everybody there is trying to take every last penny that you have. They overcharge in hotels, at restaurants, in autorickshaws, in shopping for little things, everywhere! Nobody seems honest and it gets on my nerves. I decided to do as little in Agra as possible thanks to my hatred. But I have blogged about it before here, if you'd like to know more.

ALIGARH (UP)

Aligarh is about 85 kms from Agra, but that is if you take the bad highway. The road that goes through Mathura is the recommended one and is about 130 kms or 2.5 hrs. My work at Aligarh finished at 15:30 hrs and my train was at 20:00 hrs. I had a lot of time and decided to check out Aligarh Muslim University and Aligarh fort. I really thought there'd be a whole lot to see here because there's such an old university located here. Well there isn't, but you can easily spend a good 3 hours in the university. It is really beautiful. Though I think I was there on the right day. Friday is a half day at the university, which means it's less crowded and you can walk around at your pace.

I was being shown around by this girl, Aaliya, from the client's office. After checking out the mosque and some small garden, we went into the library. I haven't seen manual cataloging for a long time (last time was in my college library way back in 2004). Every section of the library was clearly demarcated. And it was one big library! But my favourite part was the Braille section. We kinda stumbled upon it while walking around, and I'd never seen a Braille library before so we entered. There was one old Muslim uncle with a blind boy sitting there. I asked if it was okay if I looked around...that I was from Bombay and was just looking around the university (that line worked all the time - I was allowed everywhere!) So I touched my first book in Braille. It was a weird feeling really. You open a book and it's just white with little perforations. You almost feel blind for a moment. You want to read what's in the book, but you can't. There's nothing you can see in it, but the blind boy sitting across would be able to read and tell you what's written. It's a rush of a different kind.

As we later crossed the Department of General Education, we heard music. Turned out that both me and Aaliya loved music and so we went towards the sound. It was coming from a music classrom which was closed. We asked the office nearby if we could go in and he said it was alright. I opened the door and saw one professor with 5 students. I asked if we could just sit and listen for a while. I sat my first music class in over 15 years (the last one being a mandatory class in school)! It was mindblowing! Everybody sang with their heart - and sang well! Few guys also had the harmonium and were giving a chord, while the professor gave a beat on the music system. I sat a music class in AMU! Outside the music section, also called the Department of Museology (which is a part of the Department of General Studies), there were nice hot guys stumming away on their guitars. AMU has totaly hot guys! Well, not all of them, of course, but a huge percentage! And totally my kinda looking men - a little rough, no chocolate boy looks. Drool drool!

Aaliya had a friend studying in the university, who she called to ask if there was anything else she should show me. He then suggested we see some Gulzar or Gulmarg or something-like-that garden. It really was beautiful. Very well maintained and pruned. The tickets to get in are Rs. 2 per head. When I gave a fiver at the counter for me and Aaliya, the fellow gave me a toffee in return instead of 1 buck, which I passed on to her. As she unwrapped the toffee, a guard at the gate said to her, "The garbage bin is there" and pointed to it. Impressive!

After a while in the garden, I suddenly remembered I also wanted to see the fort. It was 18:00 hrs by now and Aaliya didn't know where the fort was. So she called her friend again and he, along with a friend of his, showed us the way as our car followed his bike. The fort is now maintained as a botanical garden. So it's good from a garden perspective, but horrible as a fort.

On finishing the fort, the boys asked if we were interested in tea and I, for one, was. A cup of tea later, I dropped Aaliya home and went to the station. My train was 15 minutes late and I bumped into Aaliya's friend again. He, the friend who joined us to the fort and another two friends were at the station. Apparantly, they were there to pick up somebody. The good thing was that they helped me with my luggage (which was really heavy) and put it on the overhead luggage compartment which I would never have been able to do by myself!

And with that, I was on my way to Delhi. One night in EY guesthouse and then at my cousin's place at Gurgaon, where I am right now...writing this.

Of how people treat other people

Today while I was travelling by train, this little beggar girl came into the compartment. She must have been all of 4 and had a badly bruised lip. It looked like a very recent wound. After walking around the compartment for a bit, she came close to where I was sitting and tapped an elderly lady on her knee, asking for some money. Now I don’t give beggars anything, but I was shocked to see this lady’s reaction to the girl. She made a totally disgusted face and went “Shee! Shee! Haath mat lagao! Hatt!” (Yuck! Yuck! Don’t touch me! Shoo!). She just didn’t want the girl’s dirty hands on her clothes. By this time, another lady started digging into her purse, to which Lady No. 1 said very loudly and very Oh-I’m-so-learned-ly, “Yeh log ko paise mat do! Sab aise hi rehte hai. Paisa nahi hai toh inko paida hi kyon karte hai?” (Don’t give these guys any money! They are all the same. Why do they give birth to children if they don’t have money?).  Lady No. 2 just kept nodding and pulled out a toffee from her purse and gave it to the kid. Thank god for that woman. In the next 2 minutes that I was on the train, I saw two other people treating the girl with equal disdain.

Which gets me to thinking...what has the poor little 4 yr old done to deserve this kind of treatment? No kid likes begging. She’s probably treated at home the same way and forced to beg. And I noticed how people were simply angry coz she was very dirty and they just didn’t want their clothes to be spoiled. I should probably also mention that this was at 20:30 hrs and people were coming back from office or wherever so I can’t even think that they were worried to wear stained clothes to office. What kind of psychological warfare goes through a little kid’s mind when they’re treated like this? And how horrible are we to treat innocent lives like this (I don’t even like kids and I felt so bad)?

I spoke to a good friend of mine about this and he asked me what I did to make the girl feel better. I didn’t do anything at all, I said. But I wonder, isn’t it acceptable simply not to be horrible? According to my friend, the middle path does not count at all. Your actions as a person count only based on either extreme. Worse, he also said that I was just being emotional and not practical about it. That this was the only way to stop people from bugging you while begging. And that the girl would get conditioned and it wouldn’t affect her psychology anymore than another poor person in the city.

I want to tell my friend that when it comes to dealing with people, it not only matters how you affect them in a good way, but also how you don’t affect them in a bad way. Be nice.

Mission 2010

I saw Julie and Julia a few days back and am totally motivated to have a mission for the year (or at least a few months) and blog about it. In the movie, Julie cooks every recipe from Julia Child's cook book within a year and blogs about every single recipe she makes. This, of course, is based on a true story and the blog is called The Julie/Julia Project which was last updated in 2004.

So back to me. I need to have a mission too. (I'm single and trying to kill time) Cooking cannot be one of them. Eating can be though :D !!! So I was wondering if I could do any of these:

1. Log on to burrp! and try out at least one restaurant every week till I finish all of Andheri (179 in east and 198 in west). Will post reviews as well....of course!
2. Go shoe shopping once a month at a cluster of stores and choose one pair. I'm sure a lot of women would like to get shoe store reviews!
3. Try a new salon every month for a pedicure. The thing is, I'm very lazy when it comes to pedicures, and I have really tough feet. They hate being soft and I end up having hard feet for most months. Plus, I prefer getting pedicures at Lakme Beauty Salon coz they have male pedicurists and they can take care of hard feet better. Anyway, getting back to the mission, would any of you like to get pedicure reviews?

So people! Give me your opinion! Vote on the top right!

Update (26-Mar-10):
The blog is finally up and running @ http://thefoodmission.blogspot.com/