Second hand Tinder is good for you!

So I saw Tinder for the first time ever last week. Yes, that means I'm too old. :(

This is why I need to meet my single girl friends more often! I'm unable to test new technology otherwise!

Anyway, it was 11 pm and we were furiously swiping left and right on a friend's profile. I was told all about their experiences on Tinder so that I could get up-to-speed. Call it second-hand Tindering, if you like. Now here was the background given to me:

"Guys have become so spoilt for choice that they won't even meet anyone who's more than 5 km away!"
"They don't want to date anymore. It's quite to-the-point."
"This guy said no to drinks even! 'Why don't you just come over?' he asked me."

Hmm. Faith in men destroyed. So glad I got married before Tinder arrived.

Swipe left. Left. Right. Right. Left. Left. Right.

It's a match!!

There we were, all four of us, celebrating the matches with clinks of our whiskey glasses and football styled ovations.

Then the conversations started. Protests by my friend, who's account we were using, were ignored wholeheartedly. Here's a glimpse into the kind of madness we were creating with our messages.

"Come to Seven Bungalows now!!"
"You're so hot! Let's meet."
"Have I met you somewhere? You look sooooo familiar."
"Let's meet now!"
"My place? Take a rick and say Seven Bungalows."

Why were we doing this? Partly as an experiment, partly for fun. You may not believe me when I say this...not one guy agreed to meet us (or as they thought, my friend). Responses ranged from "It's quite late at night" to "Why don't we have a conversation?" to "Don't you want to get to know me better first?"

1 am and 6 pegs of whiskey (at least) down. And that's when my faith in men was restored.

(Yeah maybe some of them thought we were Mumbai Police. So what?)

Professionalism in Indian NGOs

What is professionalism?

Merriam-Webster defines professionalism as "the skill, good judgment, and polite behavior that is expected from a person who is trained to do a job well".

Do you show professionalism in your workplace? You probably do. Unless.........
YOU WORK AT AN NGO!!!

NGOs are all about passion. Of course, you need to have a lot of passion in order to work in unhealthy environments with little or no pay. So the people who work at NGOs are usually very passionate about what they're doing. The downside to being very passionate is that a lot of the times, logic is given a miss. People do what they do because they feel like doing it, not because they need to.

This translates into:

• Useless conversations
• Pointless conferences on getting people even more passionate
• Always talking about feelings
• Building too many support structures (e.g. the NGO I work with has so many resource pages that I don't know where to even look. I always end up Googling stuff and finding my resources externally coz it's just simpler).
• Merging of personal and professional lives.

And it's the last one that bugs me the most. Now I have to give a disclaimer here. A lot of people like to mix the two, but not me. I wonder - how is it that young professionals in regular corporates learn to cope with work absolutely perfectly, but working in an NGO requires constant counselling?

The problem lies in the lack of professionalism. Quite a few people can't take the pressure that comes with an NGO job. And because the only reason they came in for was passion, they leave the moment they run out of it. Or they end up slacking. Passion could evaporate for various reasons:

• Unhealthy environments
• Too many stressful days
• Failure at achieving goals
• Financial pressure

And because of this whole feel-y business, people like me are sucked into a lot of events that do not give me any takeaways. What's worse, when I decide not to attend such useless events, I realize that I become the one who is unprofessional.

Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?

Don't do it!

Old post in draft mode found!
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No, no, no!

There are some things that you just cannot say or do to the people you are dating. Or in a relationship with. All of us have some time or the other made the mistake of saying some of these things that end up scarring the other person so much that they just stop looking at you the way they used to. The first few times, we are novices and probably don't know any better. But why doesn't wisdom catch up with us? I've done it and all of my friends have done it. And in most cases screwed up what we had. The difference in the other cases was probably that the other party was more forgiving than the average Joe (or Jane). What are we doing wrong, you ask? Here's a brief compilation.

Tips for the gents:

1. So you've had a fight. Don't, fuckin don't, ever, ever, call her a bitch or a whore! She may not end it right there, but its a start of a downward spiral of lack of respect that will only take therapy to go upward!
2. "Look at you! You're getting a paunch!". This sentence is even worse when the man himself has a paunch but thinks you're the one who should be losing weight anyway. Wouldn't it be better if you said, "I think we should join a gym." It's good for both of you anyway.
3. This usually applies to the ladies, but I don't think even men should be asking women how much they make. I have been asked this question multiple times and I feel like this information is too personal for me to tell just anybody. Even a lot of my friends don't know how much I make, so why should I be telling you?
4. Please have an opinion. Well, not necessarily on everything, but on important things in your life or in the world. Be aware. A woman instinctively wants to mate with the alpha male. "I don't know" said enough number of times is sure to make a woman lose interest.

Tips for the ladies:

1. "That guy has the best sense of humor ever!". Sure we all want to be honest in our relationships. But lets face it, in most studies performed on what women like in men, sense of humor was in the top 5. Men are aware of this and WILL take it as competition. This definitely does not mean that he's gonna let you go for this, but it's really bad for his ego. And unless you have a good plan for why you wanna make him feel jealous, I say stay away from this one.
2. Don't ever tell the man he's not rich! If you feel that way, please leave him and tell him that was the reason. But if you want to be with the man, that's just stepping on his toes with a stiletto!
3. On the first few dates (unless this is an arranged marriage), please don't ask the man how much he makes. Even if he makes a lot, it tends to feel like you're only doing this for his money and are not capable enough of making your own.

Disclaimer: This list is by no means a reflection of everybody's opinion. But I think it's a fair representation of a particular demographic - that of the 25-30 yr old, upper middle class family, with a higher than average income for their age, who has dated or had a relationship at least once in life!

This backpacker went to Tadoba using public transport. What happened next will shock you!

Thank you Scoopwhoop for inspiring me to write this title. My Facebook wall is inundated with posts with similar names. My head can't get enough, it seems.

Getting to the point, I never imagined that getting to Tadoba - Andhari Tiger Reserve, such a popular tourism destination, was so much hassle. It's not that the ride was bumpy - it wasn't. What alarmed me was that nobody really knew how to get to Tadoba if you didn't have a car waiting for you at Nagpur. So here's some chronological help for those of you who like to rough it out.

1. Book accommodation at FDCM: Little known place, right next to MTDC, also government owned. You can book rooms at Maharashtra's Eco Tourism website, the site that is usually used for booking safaris. Most people know that if you don't book your safari one month in advance, all park safaris get sold out. What most people don't know is that FDCM has a 3 jeep quota for all guests staying with them. So even if you don't book in advance, you still get to travel in the core areas of the park.
2. Reach Nagpur on a Tuesday: Nobody, bloody hell, tells you this. Go to point 6 to know why.
3. Go to the bus stand: When you reach Nagpur by train or air, head for the nearest ST (state transport) bus stand. There is a bus stand right next to the station. From the airport, the closest station is Chattrapati Shivaji Chowk that is about 1.5 kms away. The only two ways to get there are walking or by an auto-rickshaw that will cost you Rs. 150. Take your pick.
4. Take a bus: AC buses are hard to find. Take a regular ST bus to Chandrapur for Rs. 157. At the ST stand, you'll find private buses picking up passengers too, and for the same cost. My suggestion is to take the ST bus because they tend to be airier.
5. Sleep for 3 hours: A car takes you 2 hours, but a bus will take you 3. Get off at the last Chandrapur stop.
6. Take the 1:30 pm Chandrapur bus to Tadoba: There's only one ST bus from Chandrapur to Tadoba daily. Just one. And if you take this bus, you reach Tadoba at 3 pm....if your bus leaves on time...which it won't. Which means that you'll miss the evening safari. Which is fine if you reach on a Tuesday, because there is no safari in the core park area on Tuesdays. I didn't know this so I couldn't go on the bus. It costs about Rs. 50, I think.
7. If it's not a Tuesday, you can also take an auto-rickshaw: You've already booked your train / plane tickets? No problem. Get off at Chandrapur and don't look for a cab. Catch an auto for Rs. 500 to Tadoba. It's 10 times more expensive than the bus, but it will get you there for cheaper than a 2000-buck cab. Most auto-walas don't know that they are allowed till Moharli, but they are.
8. Save the auto-wala's number: So he can come back to pick you up on your way back.
9. Try to take the bus back: The bus from Moharli to Chandrapur leaves at 9:30 am everyday (if it leaves on time). If you oversleep, go to point 8.

Now get your best camera ready and go see some tigers!

A pregnant Maya walks towards the water to cool herself down

Are you single? Make it large!

I now view relationships unfold from the outside rather than the inside. That's the difference between being married and being single.

Looking at my blog posts from a few years back just takes me back to a different life. What masala! I would love to read sex-in-the-city-ish posts like that today. Does anybody write stuff like that in the mainstream media? I'm discounting Shobhaa De's pretentious column on Mumbai Mirror which I doubt any non-socialite would relate to. Did you read Why Sarojben matters more than Jashodaben where De talks about the middle class from this lens of "Oh this is what others go through"? Most of De's content relies on second hand experiences of middle class people seen by the lady living the good life. We need some real middle class women talking about life in the city. Newspapers and magazines, are you listening? *Grin*

But look what's happened to me now! All the masala I know of is happening in other people's lives. Crushes, heartbreaks, fights, reluctance, being unsure, drama, breaking up, making up, making out - I am only a listener. And it has majorly dented the amount of content I'm able to generate. Lol.

But since I'm in reflection mode, I've been trying to put it all in perspective here. Based on (aforementioned) second hand experiences, what is life like when you're single and 30 - man or woman? Dude, its loads and loads of fun!

Lifestyle
At 30, you've crossed the stage where you were making just about adequate money and are usually into the big bucks. Since you don't have a spouse and/ or children, you have a huge savings surplus that you spend on the good life. Booze, parties, great food, more booze, holidays, movies, more booze, friends, dates, more booze. And then some more booze.

Dating
From time to time, you meet someone who you are desperately trying to fit into your specific requirements for a partner. More often than not, no matter how hard you try and no matter how much you try to convince yourself, there's that nagging feeling that this just cannot be the one. At 30, you can find faults with everybody. EVERYBODY. But that means that you meet new people all the time. You're constantly evaluating - your mind's working full time! And gaining mind blowing experience that you just can't get anywhere else.

Work
Even though you work more, you actually work less. Coz when you're single, work stops at the workplace. Then you're back home and it's just your life. No planning for lunches and dinners, no buying stuff based on multiple family member requirements and (this is the biggest one of all) just one family to cater to. When you're married, your family doubles instantly and now you need to speak to all parties on the phone, remember double the number of birthdays and anniversaries, buy gifts for double the occasions. Work is less when you're single. Enjoy it!

Bedroom
People with your own bedrooms will totally get this. Are you used to sleeping in a bed all by yourself? With a room full of your stuff? Kept in the places that you want them to be kept in? Cherish that! It's the place you can go to at the end of the day and think, laugh, cry, whatever. It's your space. YOUR space! God, would married people kill for that!

Friends
You don't have to go for that chick flick (or that movie with subtitles). You can spend as much time as you want with your friends doing the things that you like. Sleepovers, late night drives, last minute plans, pub-hopping - all with your safe bunch of people by your side. Whenever you want, without checking with your spouse's time table or (like in my case) with your cook if she has already prepared your dinner or not!

Single and 30. Forget the peer pressure. You're living the life you couldn't live when you were in your early 20s and won't be able to live when you're 40. Make it large!

My first year as a teacher

I didn't realize it was this hard being a teacher. Especially if you care how your students perform. Tear-your-hair-out, don't-have-time-for-friends-or-family, stay-up-late-at-night, forget-weekends hard.

Let's face it. I don't like kids. But I like people and these kids are growing up to be the future of this country, this world. And I have expectations from the future. I want to see responsible adults who make a difference to our currently falling apart nation. I think I have certain strengths that I want younger kids to learn and emulate so they can use them when they grow up. Teaching is one way to do this and so, on December 2012, I saw myself creating my first lesson plan as part of Teach For India's Assessment Center (AC). The AC is the last of TFI's recruitment stages where we have to do a 5 minute sample lesson and a 1.5 hr interview, along with some standardized tests on Maths and English. I still remember a lesson given by a girl on grammar. She was teaching nouns with the help of an amazingly creative sketch of a town called Noun Town. I remember being aghast when she did not make it to the interview round.

So it was a huge high when I learned that I had gotten through. Especially since only around 7 - 11% of all applicants are recruited.

The Good

1. Institute

By far the most impressive phase I experienced in TFI. This is what my schedule looked like:

- Wake up at 5 am

- Brush, shower, etc. (in a hostel so there is waiting time involved coz of limited washrooms)

- Breakfast at 6 am

- Buses leave the FLAME campus at 6:10 am sharp (they'd leave without us if we didn't make it on time!)

- Reach summer school at 7 am

- Pre-school activities to wake us and pump us up!

- School from 7:30 am to 12:30 pm

- Back in the bus at 12:40 pm

- Reach FLAME at 1:30 pm

- Lunch

- Training sessions start at 2:30 pm (some people actually found time to shower again in this time...I never could figure out how)

- Training continues till 8:30 pm

- Complete pre-work for the next day at school - including taking photocopies, making charts, etc. This took forever - some people used to go to sleep at 1:30 am almost daily!

- Wake up at 5 am.

Our students at summer school in Pune

As you can see, the doggies enjoyed our training sessions too!

It was the tightest schedule I've ever been on. And to do this 6 weeks in a row, except for Sundays was very strenuous. But it got us all serious about the task at hand - that of bridging the gap of educational inequity in India.

2. Learning to be patient

Since I have always been a good student all my life (even if I didn't study at all, I'd still pass with at least 50%), I had a hard time dealing with lower order kids. Things that just made sense to me as a kid doesn't seem to pass through the heads of many young children. Dealing with them was and is very tough. Oh and the grammar just kills me! When you hear your teachers speak in English all the time, how do you not pick it up? But well, it takes time, constant correction and then you see just an iota of change. What can you do? These kids have no other English influences in their lives. Nor do they have educated parents to help them with anything they do in school. While there are many occasions where I've lost my mind, I'm far more patient than I used to be.

Grammar lessons, anyone?

3. Time Management

With Spacebar and TFI going side by side, I have had no rest. But somehow, everything has been manageable. I don't think my school team has any complaints (guys, if you do, now's the chance to tell me!). Teaching, trainings, school admin work, client deadlines, employee feedback - I think I've managed to do it all. And I'm now confident that I'm gonna be rocking at Spacebar once TFI is over. If I was able to do so much without giving my 100% to Spacebar, I know I will be able to achieve so much more when I'm able to give more time to my venture.

4. Friends

The school team has been mostly cohesive and helpful and I know we're gonna be friends for long after TFI is over. Maria, my co-teacher, Mallika, the leader of the pack, and Khyati, the only truly enthusiastic TFI types (she really improves the enthusiasm average in the school team)! And even though she's not part of the school team, the awesome Pallavi has always been there - right from institute as my thoughtful roomie (who convinced me to fold my blanket by talking about its surface area) till the end of the year (with 30 gifts for my 30th birthday). Awwwwww. 

Happiness!

5. Last but nowhere close to the least, the kids

When you see a growth in learning levels, skills and maturity in the kids you teach, it leaves you fulfilled. They pick up so much from you, and there's so much you can learn from them too. For instance, remembering things. It amazes me to see how they remember who in class didn't do their Maths homework yesterday. How they achieve this while forgetting the answers to their textbook questions is really weird!

Happy Birthday in school

And they can really make you feel special. Cards, letters, gifts. It makes you realize how much you mean to them and how they think that you make a difference to their lives.

The Bad

1. School management

The school is utterly mismanaged. And when you've worked at a professional organization all your life, it gets you super mad! Tomorrow is a holiday, day after is a puja, timings have been changed, exams will start at 1 o clock, no 11 o clock, no 8 o clock! Everything is last minute.

2. Accountability at TFI

Because TFI asks us all to be "leaders", we all have to deal with our problems ourselves and there is little or no help at an organizational level. This also means that we have to deal with the unprofessional school management at an individual level, which can become extremely trying. We also had a fellow leave mid-year and TFI did absolutely nothing about it to make our lives easier. The fellow who left got far more support than the fellows who stayed on - which is so unfair. Nobody was accountable for this and eventually, we had to bear the brunt of it for the rest of the year by managing more classrooms that we could efficiently handle.

3. Lack of time

Even though I have been able to manage my time, it has only been because I've had to prioritize stuff. That means that I have had to cut down on socializing. My friends and family have been complaining, but I know they'll wait another year for me :)

All in all...

It's been a good year. One full of learning and experiences. Of learning a lot about how schools work and how they extort. It's something I would want to do something about someday. Not as a teacher, but an education entrepreneur. For now, there's one more year of studying to do.

How much can you consume?

It's amazing the kind of greed that has been proliferating so blatantly in the name of consumerism. From being frowned upon, it has become the norm. Do you remember the time when you got new clothes only on your birthdays, Diwali (Durga Puja too in my case) and weddings? That make a total of 4 times a year. Four fucking times. If you're under 20, you can't even imagine how little that is!

But we didn't find it little then. It was enough. And it made the clothes we wore that much more special. It made the watch we wore (when we got one only because we needed it for secondary exams) that much more special. That toy your father bought from another city that much more special. We loved it.

Fast forward to today. We buy crap, what, every week? Every month? And they hold far less value to us today than the 4 sets of clothes we got when we were kids. The Story of Stuff project puts so many things in perspective, on how this is such a cleverly orchestrated strategy that has literally created the rat race. It did not just happen this way. It was designed to. Believe it!

In 2011, my then-boyfriend-now-husband bought an LED TV which duly conked off in 2013. It is now an accepted fact that electronic devices have a shelf life - 10,000 hours, 40,000 hours, 60,000 hours. Have you ever thought to wonder why? Why did my first TV last for 16 years? Is it just the technology? Or it is how we have learned to control technology so methodically - to create consumerism? The latter. Planned obsolescence. Around 50 million tonnes of electronic waste is produces every year! More than 75% is not even recyclable.

But we won't stop it. Even though it's so simple. Even though we don't need a new touch phone. Because it's amazing the kind of greed that has been proliferating so blatantly in the name of consumerism.

PS - there's a brilliant initiative that has been undertaken to let us use technology without being responsible for this planned extinction of the planet. Phonebloks is an amazing idea that will let you have a phone that will always give you the best in technology and reduce electronic waste at the same time! It's solutions like these that give you hope because at least someone's paying attention!

Can slum kids get a decent education? They can, if we help.

Rs. 12 - 15,000 per year includes my students' monthly fees, term fees, computer lab fees, exam fees, textbooks, notebooks and workbooks. Imagine what that is for slum children whose parents work as daily labourers, house help, dhobis, etc.

In the first 2 weeks of school, I saw children unable to buy books for class because their "father had not got his salary yet". In my estimation, these parents spend around 10-30% of their income on their kids' education. That's a huge number!

The good part is that they are willing to give their children an education. However, reading our (absolutely dry and sometimes even factually incorrect) SSC textbooks is not enough education for these students. The difference between us and them is exposure to different objects, places, stories, languages, cultures. I want to be able to expose my classroom to the world that they don't see around them (e.g. they hadn't even heard of Bandra Kurla Complex).

And I need your help. I have begun compiling a list of what I want my students to have access to. I would love to have your inputs on these, and more importantly, I would love it if you could donate for this cause as well. This is one of my first calls for help and there will be more of these calls as I increase exposure by starting field trips as well.

You can donate by going to http://teachforindia.org/donate/give-instantly.

Please ensure that for the question "Would you like to designate this for a particular region or fellow?", you select "Specific Fellow" and write Alpana Mandal below that because otherwise the donation goes to TFI as an organization and does not hit my classroom at all.

Here's my preliminary list:

1. 5 pocket dictionaries (1 per group in class) - Rs. 100 x 5 = Rs. 500
2. 35 (students) x 4 (subjects) x 2 (terms) = 280 200-page notebooks - Rs. 20 x 280 =Rs. 5600
3. 35 ball point pens - Rs. 350
4. 35 pencil boxes - Rs. 130 x 35 = Rs. 4550
5. *35 compass sets (for geometry) - Rs. 150 x 35 = Rs. 5250* - TAKEN!! Chosen byAnurag Khanna
6. 35 crayon sets - Rs. 30 x 35 = Rs. 1050
7. 10 school bags (for students who achieve academic and/ or behavioral targets) - Rs. 600 x 10 = Rs. 6000
8. *Books - http://www.flipkart.com/wishlist/alpanamandal-7653 - Rs. 2573* - TAKEN!! Chosen by Anurag Khanna :)
9. Any sports trainer/ coach near Kandivali (we have a public playground close to school) - Priceless

Total - Rs. 25,873.

Your inputs, both in terms of ideas as well as moolah, are most welcome! If you want to donate for a specific item in a list, let me know and I will check it off the list after you've shown interest in the item.

Thank you. It means a lot.

When you want to bite more than you can chew

Spacebar was created only a month before my Institute in Pune for a one month residential training for Teach For India commences. And it all happened so quickly. I started taking interviews in mid-March and by April 1st, I had an employee on board - one who truly loves to write and isn't doing this just for kicks. With TFI Pune Institute just around the corner, I spend many evenings wondering how I'm gonna do all of this successfully.

I have planned to give TFI my first priority and take Spacebar up the ladder slowly and steadily. This means that I will only focus on bagging the jobs and supervising deliverables, while the employee (hopefully employees, in due course of time) does the chunk of the work. I will, therefore, pick up jobs according to his areas of expertise. Which is why this month was crucial for me. I wanted to train him and understand his strong as well as weak points. School vacations are when I plan to dig into Spacebar in a full fledged manner for the next 2 years.

When the real TFI begins in June, I'm told I'll have 6 hours of school and then another few hours of after-school activity as well. That, coupled with Spacebar might make me tear my hair off! Most importantly, I want to do justice to the kids who I will be responsible for and if push comes to shove, Spacebar will have to pause. That I am very clear of.

But a struggle this will be. And somehow, even though there is some concern, mostly I'm excited. Because I have never tried to push the envelope so far in life before. I want to know if I can do it. Whether I succeed or not, either ways I'll learn.

And so for the first time in life, I'll bite more than I assume I can chew!

Not so content-ious

Every time you turn around, you see text somewhere. It starts the moment you wake up to your alarm saying "7:00 am" (or 11:00 am, who am I to judge? :-P). Your home is text-filled with the most obvious - books, magazines, newspaper - to the less obvious like body products, food packets, remote controls, electronic items....I can go on and on! Text is all around us.

But very few seem to wonder who comes up with the ideas for all this blah blah. Let me pick up a bottle of Nivea Express Hydration Body Lotion that's lying next to me (the papers say Mumbai is at 10-20% humidity levels, okay. I need my moisturizer!). "The ultra light formula of the New NIVEA Express Hydration Body Lotion, with Sea Minerals works deep within the skin, repairing....." - who the hell wrote this???

Content writers :)

Content is everywhere. It's on everything I mentioned above AND in bulk usage on the Internet. Every company needs content for their website, company literature, product literature, white papers, blogs. Businesses need content for their sales pitches. Individuals need content for the blogs, books and e-books that they write. Schools need content for their students' curriculum, textbooks and activity books. Colleges need examination content. Have I put my point across adequately?

So the big question is - who writes this content? And the simple answer is - inexpensive labour that breeds in our beloved country. In the information age that we live in, content is king and we are the perfect subjects! All around the world, individuals and companies and looking for content writers. To write stories and poems and emails and speeches and travelogues and website matter and product synopses and service descriptions. And...here we are, a country that speaks more than decent English and writes it even better!

This is the place, I tell you, this is the place! Do you love to write? Let's make content together, baby!

Go hawk yourself

Do you really hate hawkers that much? Of course you do! You buy stuff from malls, you bastards! You're not the average middle class woman who gets off work, buys bhaaji from the station, gets on to the train, cuts and cleans her bhaaji in the 2nd class compartment, gets off at her stop and makes it home just in time to cook for her family. Oh how Dhoble has screwed her schedule!

No I get it...the sidewalks are made for pedestrians and the roads for vehicles. I will overlook the fact that hawker or no hawker, the pathetic quality of sidewalks will still force people to walk on the road, restaurants and shops will continue to encroach on the sidewalks and bikers will continue to get up on the sidewalk to cut through traffic. Keeping that aside, it would be ideal to have the main streets free from hawkers! But when my aunt asked my mom to buy bhaaji because there were no hawkers in her area, I couldn't stop sniggering. And so I wanted to ask "If we hate them so much, why did we begin to have hawkers in the first place?".

The history of hawking began as a mobile business. Hawkers walked around and sold their wares from house to house, shouting the products/ services they had to offer. And it wasn't so long back either, because I myself remember the bhangarwala, the pani puri wala, the knife/ scissor sharpening guy, the bhaajiwala, machhiwala and so many more calling out so people could get out of their apartments and use their services. But then we started getting a stiff upper lip about these things and societies decided that no hawker should be allowed inside the building complex. And so many years back, they had to slowly move from being mobile to being on the streets.

And when we started seeing them sitting outside our houses, outside our streets, we squealed again, the finger pointers that we are. No matter that our 18 year olds have cars that they need not have, we blamed the traffic on the hawkers. Based on a recent Mumbai Mirror article, it's not surprising to read that people don't mind hawkers as long as they are not in front of their houses. Typical. Why is it that we will buy from them because it's easier than to drive to the market, yet hate their living guts? What makes us want to avail of products and services but shun the human beings behind them?

So now what? Obviously hawking, like everything else on the planet, has its advantages and disadvantages to us consumers (assuming that's the demographic of the reader) and we need to find a solution that partially manages everybody's needs. So how about this - let the hawkers be in the by-lanes and side streets of every residential area and get them off the main roads where they will attract traffic. Move them to the skywalks outside the stations that have them - maybe this will encourage people to use the skywalks! When constructing new townships/ residential areas (maybe even commercial areas), plan for hawker zones. Celebrate them like New York celebrates their hot dog stands! Let Mumbai have a character of its own. In a city where the municipal administration and police force doesn't really work for our benefit, at least give these low resource entrepreneurs a fighting chance to survive, because they know that they don't have the funds to clear the red tape to start their own legitimate business.

Finally, I must ask - Where do you buy your bhaaji from?

She-devil

She screamed from the top of the skyscraper to the bustling crowd around her. "Come to me!", she said, "Come to me and discover bliss!! Live with me a life that you have not lived before!". And we looked at her in awe. She was beautiful, she was sexy, she was offering us an exotic life, one that would make us feel strong, independent and socially accepted amongst our peers. As I looked around me, I saw the hundreds of people who wanted her. What was so special about her that made lakhs of people pass her by everyday? Everyday, to hear her screaming in delight. And as I sat in the cab, I saw how people drove oh-so-slowly as they saw her. Sometimes, cars would wait for over an hour to get their fill of her. People in cabs and rickshaws gasped in her after-breath. Honking, delirious in her presence, trying to overtake the next motorist who wanted to get to her first. I saw some managing to sneak under the concrete maze and I thought to myself, "Will they be able to meet her today? Touch her?". But the rest of us inched on, looking, wondering, hoping that she tease us no more with the unattainable.

Unattainable. Of course she was unattainable. She was way out of our league. Pretty, but high maintenance. She would suck out our cash, our ambitions, our health. And fill our waking, non-productive hours with stress and regrets. We yearn for things that do us no good, don't we?

And I was one of those stupid 'yearners'. I had to meet her. I had to know her secret. What did she possess that made us all pass by her everyday, looking through every window in every building, asking ourselves if we could live here, so close to her? Staring at her imperfect, yet gleaming body. With so much to offer and so much to take away.

Sunday was the chosen day. The day men obliged their wives instead of their bosses. Today she would be free from the chaos.

"Who are you?" I asked.
"Just another aspiration in this city", she chuckled.
"How do you do it? Get all these people to flock around you everyday!"
"That's my secret, honey!"
"How can I get rid of you from my thoughts? I want to be free from your will! I don't ever want to see you again. You are ruining my peace of mind. Every time I'm near you, I get stuck in my tracks. I want to live a normal life! Without your thoughts! I want to be married and have kids and keep my job, but you won't let me do it. Your presence harasses me every day!"
And she laughed violently. Like a laugh I had never heard before. "Oh but that IS normal!" she said. I was sure now. The people she had lured were zombies now, living the life that she chose for them. I had to get away from her. I never wanted to cross her path again. She was a monster!
"Say your name!" I screamed. "I will tell all of your evil!"
But the laughing continued, louder this time. "Try all you want. They will never cease to cross my paths! Scream as loud as you can, stupid you! And tell them all...my name is Goregaon!"

Being married to an HDFC customer

HDFC once rejected my corporate credit card application. Ohhhh and how glad am I now about that!! Because my husband (he who shall not be named, on request of course...oh don't ask...doesn't wanna have an online trail) is an HDFC bank and credit card customer and I have seen him suffer.

I started noticing it when he went to the bank quite a few times for this and that whereas I have only visited my bank twice in some 10 years. Then he added me as a payee on his Internet banking account. And it took 24 hours to register my name. Redeeming points to buy his mother something took a whole lot of talking on the phone with customer care. Who, by the way, only operate from 9 am to 8 pm or some shit like that. And every single instance I would be sitting on the couch, watching TV, saying "just change your bank!".

But he didn't. Until yesterday, when our frustration reached its peak. And here is how it all began.

We planned a Goa trip and wanted to use Jet Privilege miles. My husband had a lot of points on his HDFC credit card which he decided to convert to miles to redeem. True to HDFC's bad processes, where they like you to visit their branch all the time, he had to take a print out of the points transfer form, fill it, sign it, and drop it at the bank drop box. I thought he was kidding, until I saw it myself. And I told him again, "just change your bank". Anyway, he marched to the bank branch at Thakur Village and dropped it on 7th of May. It was to take 7-8 working days. I was getting irritated on why he was associated with this bank in the first place. I transfer miles at the click of a button on my Amex card. I can do anything from my ICICI online account. But these HDFC buggers don't even have a website on which I can login from my iPad! Grr.

Fine. 7-8 days. We waited. On 15th May, exactly 7 working days later, he called their customer care for status, only to be told that there was NO status! They had not even received the form! Some shit about the form being first sent to Chennai office where they will enter the information into the system. So 7 working days later, it had not even been entered into the system. A whole lot of shouting ensued, after which the phone was transferred to a "supervisor", Bhavesh Patel. Bhavesh reassured my husband that he would call in 2 days and it would all be done by then...not to worry. We calmed down. One flight from Mumbai to Goa and two return flights were already sold out for redemption at Jet Airways. Hmm.

Two days later, Mr. Bhavesh Patel had still not called so we had to call HDFC again. After spitting out the entire problem to multiple people who kept hanging up on us - and this is another thing unique to HDFC...they keep you on hold and after 3-4 minutes, they just hang up on you - we finally got through to another "superior" called Ms. Menon. She assured us she'd check and call back, because the system showed that it was under process, but she wasn't sure where it was stuck. Needless to say, she never called back. So the next day, we called again. It was now the 18th of May. Customer care happily told us that the points have already been transferred! My husband was heaving a sigh on relief when I asked him to stay on the line and went to the Jet Privilege site. No miles transferred. He asked the customer care executive who then said "it's under process sir, maybe it'll happen by day end." No, no, no, no...we were not gonna buy this bull shit. Where is it in process, we asked. Has the info been passed on to Jet even? Don't know. Again, we were transferred to the "supervisor" who luckily or unluckily happened to be our very own Mr. Bhavesh Patel again! Not only was the man indignant about his false assurance of calling us back, he couldn't even help us with our problem. I told him to give me a solution, or a number/ email address of a higher-up, but he was equipped to do none. Bad processes coupled with bad people. Worst combination ever. We were having this conversation at 6:30 pm and he said he would call the back end team (who are these teams and why is everything so invisible to the customer?) and get back to us in an hour. True to his word this time, he called back at 7:30 to tell us that the back end team had already gone home for the day. When I said nothing doing, we have waited enough, I refuse to wait any further and want a solution NOW, he just kept quiet! I said, "we can both keep quiet, how's that gonna help?". To which he still kept quiet! I said "fine! We'll both keep quiet! Great!". At which point our conversation went into that limbo when you fight with your boyfriend and just look away from each other with nobody saying a word, waiting for the ther person to speak first so they are judged as the weaker party, based on some unwritten rule of relationships!

Sigh. At this time, my hsuband just couldn't take it any more and a barrage of expletives came out of his poor harassed-by-HDFC-forever mouth. At which time, Bhavesh asked him to calm down and when he didn't, our dear Bhavesh hung up. I switched on the TV and said, "just change your bank". And he said, "absolutely". And that's where it ended..

It's the 19th now and the miles have still not been transferred. Redemption of miles is not possible for the flights on our chosen dates coz all redemption seats are sold out. So I had to go online and buy Spicejet tickets.

If you don't have an HDFC bank account or credit card, thank your stars and stay away from them. This is how they treat their platinum customers, so you can just imagine how bad their system is!

Middle finger, HDFC.

The age of the Ninja

It has begun. After growing roots in Pune, the cult has spread to Bombay. Slowly and steadily, they started appearing on our streets and multiplied while we went on with our fruitless lives unaware. Today, you can’t miss them when you look at the roads of Bombay. They stare at you but you can’t tell. They’re watching your every move. Behaving like they know nothing, they see it all, cloaked in their gear of deceit.

Covering their faces and bodies in blankets and blankets of cloth, their eyes eagerly pierce through the city’s poster through sunglasses worn on the only part of their uncovered flesh. Their hands of warfare weave through the city traffic, protected by long gloves. Innocently white, but it’s just a charade.

The Ninjas are here and they are waging war against us! The mere mortals pooh-pooh this seemingly innocuous act of dressing, but soon it will take over this city like locusts eating up an entire field. They convert trusting girls into their priory with promises of epidermal aesthetics. But little do they know that they are being lured into the lifestyle of the Ninjas! With their ultimate goal to take on the whole of India! And when they do that…if they do that…if we let them do that…we shall be forbidden to see each others’ faces forever!

Wake up, those of you who sleep! And fight against the Ninjas!

Tips to buy a home printer in India

It is always difficult to buy a computer peripheral once you’ve decided that you need one. The hardest part is knowing where to start. Do you go to a store or do you check online? Well, there’s a method that works for me and I thought I’d share it.

First of all, I must tell you that I am obsessed with excel sheets. Almost every decision I have made in my life has involved an excel sheet somewhere in the process. So you will be privy to one I made for my printer quest, you lucky bastards, you! But the excel sheets are only step 3 of the process. Let’s start step by step.

Step 1
Make a list of essentials you want in your printer, the must-haves that you won’t compromise on. Here were mine: (1) print, copy, scan; (2) duplex printing; (3) color printing; (4) wireless.

Step 2
Go to 3-4 stores. It’s not about the “comfort of a brick-and-mortar shop” for me coz I am equally comfortable buying stuff online. The problem is this – when you look online, you tend to come across a lot of non-Indian sites that show you a lot of awesome printers, but guess what, you can’t buy them in India because either they have not been launched or they have been discontinued here. So to get the first look and feel of a printer, go to a store. I usually will visit a Croma, a Vijay Sales, an e-Zone and a local computer store to see what’s in store. When you go to the store, ask the attendant for your must-haves and let him show you printers that fit your ask. Start narrowing down from now itself, removing the printers that look like shit (and you will find a few that look like shit, trust me). For the rest that you like, note down the make, model numbers and price.

Step 3
Using the model numbers, go to the Indian website of the printer brand and check out their specifications. It’s important to know the services of the printer – does it have a USB port, what are the print speeds, what is the optimum monthly printing usage, etc. This is when you start building the excel sheet. Put down each parameter and see how each printer stacks up against them. You will get the best information from the product sites. Additionally, you will find printers on the site that you didn’t see in any store. You should add these to the comparison only after checking if these are available to buy online in India. Check sites like flipkart.com, shopping.rediff.com, naaptol.com, etc. If they aren’t available to be bought anywhere, you’re wasting your time comparing them.

Step 4
For each printer, find the best price available. Some printers probably have some offer going on in a brick-and-mortar store (Croma and e-Zone usually have some credit card offers going on that might be to your benefit) so the effective price is very good for the customer. I have noticed that usually, though, flipkart has the most competitive prices. Don’t forget to mention where you got the price you’ve noted from. Else, you’ll be wasting time searching through all sites again when you’ve chosen your printer, looking for where you got that price!

Step 5
Summarize online reviews. Amazon.com has the most comprehensive reviews for almost all printers and you get experiences of people around the world. It has a summary rating on 5 that can be noted on your excel sheet.


And then you’re done! You have all the information necessary for you to pick your printer. Make an informed decision and then buy from the place with the lowest price. This is my excel sheet (as on 4th April 2012). You’ll notice that there are only HP printers here coz I made a call to buy HP since the options for home wireless inkjet printers were very few in other brands (both in stores and online in India).

Blogger is back!

Five months down the line.

No blogging, hardly any facebooking, no partying, no time. And I’m only 5 months into marriage!

I’ve reopened this blog after many, many months and it’s only because I was so short of time. First of all, for all of you getting married sometime in the future, here’s a piece of advice – it’s a BAD idea to do it the traditional way with your families getting involved in the planning. You can’t imagine the 500 different interpretations of how a marriage has to performed! And we are toh both Bengalis! Your mom has one opinion on what rituals to perform and how to perform them, your dad has one more opinion, your grandparents have one too, your other relatives have some ideas, your man’s parents have other ideas, and in the middle of all this, the two of you end up fighting, finally realizing that you’re bickering on behalf of other people!

Solution – let your parents handle it. Completely. Don’t ask for anything and you won’t be let down!

Then comes the wedding day and you stay hungry all day. More rituals. You search for your phone. You log on to your FB app. You try to while away ur time while the pandit goes on and on.

The night we got married, we had what is called “bashor ghor” which means all your friends/ cousins stay the night with you and keep you awake, ensuring you don’t “do dirty stuff” that night. See the scene is that you are not supposed to sleep together all by yourselves until the “boubhaat” happens (the boubhaat is the occasion when the girl reaches the guy’s house – Calcutta in my case – and goes through with the reception there). Now ideally, the boubhaat happens one or two days later, but in our case it happened 5 nights later (5 very long nights)!

So at 7 am the next morning, we had only caught 1 hour of sleep (there was partying and loud music till 6!) and the bidai (vidai) began. One more ritual. Sigh. And to go where? To his place (Bombay house) to get “welcomed” by his mother, have lunch and go to the hotel to get ready for the Bombay reception. We finally caught some sleep only after the reception and I don’t know how I went through with the whole thing. No sleep, no sleeping together. What the hell.

In Calcutta, our 6 day trip was full of family lunches, dinners, Calcutta reception, more lunches, more dinners and shit loads of tea all day long. All in all, all the wedding events just drained all the energy out of us.

My point was going to be – before I started this rant – get married in the family court. Seriously.

Finally, the honeymoon was a pleasant break from it all. Egypt and Morocco. For all you leisure travelers, Morocco is one place you really shouldn’t miss. Vegetarians can skip.

And then we came back to 3 days of me moving in – packing, unpacking, making space at his (now our) house, keeping everything in place, selecting stuff to throw (his, not mine of course hehe).

Three days later, I was back at work. And then there was work, traveling (oh how I hate Goregaon from the bottom of my heart), making time for parents, making time for friends and being able to spend some teeny weeny bit of time with the husband!

I know some people handle this better than me, but I just couldn’t juggle all this together. So I started shaving off time from facebook, blogging, partying. And I think I am just about getting the hang of it 5 months later.

And now that I am getting comfortable with this, it’s time I blogged, with good things on my mind! Life is great, just the two of us. I don’t miss my parents’ kach-kach on how messy my room is :) And I am never disturbed while I’m sleeping, with questions on what I want to have for lunch. And when I miss my parents, they’re just 4 local stations away to meet! I'm always welcomed at my parents’ place with a glass of whiskey now :) How cool is that, eh? Sometimes I miss the cat, and even though the hubby is not an animal person, I'm slowly gonna get the cat into the house (it’s a long drawn process, but I'm confident that it’ll work) from time to time.

And you know the awesomest thing? We can stay out as long as we want, without having to reply to my father’s SMSes on when I'm coming back! It’s a different thing that I feel sleepy at 11:30 pm these days which means that I'm dropping dead half way thru a dinner and whispering “Let’s go home now” into the husband’s ear hehehe!

So anyway, now that I have written to my heart’s content for the day, the blog is now open again!

Her evening alone

It was almost 9:30 pm and the sun had only just started setting. She thought of having her dinner but she kept looking outside and waiting for it to get dark first. She wasn't used to this, this never ending day that meant work lasted longer and the comfort of night shorter. "Just a day earlier," she thought, "I was in his arms, being kissed, being loved. It has only been over 24 hours and here we are, thousands of miles apart. Hardly getting to even talk to him."

A Sunday without you is what he had exclaimed. She knew exactly what he had meant. She knew exactly how he felt.

She looked outside her window again. The brightness was not disappearing fast enough. She closed her eyes and pictures of him flooded her mind. How his apartment door opened to a half-smiling, half-nodding-in-approval-to-her-presence bearded man. Except for that one time when he had shaved off his beard. How she loved the fact that he looked so different with the swipe of a razor blade! That face. The one he quietly appreciated in the mirror so vainly from time to time. She had wanted to tell him that he was as handsome as handsome can get, but she had checked herself and joked about his mirror gazing instead. She wondered if her averseness to being emotionally candid could ever be changed. Because she realized she was capable of being more emotionally overwhelmed than she ever had been.

And she thought about what they shared. Tears had welled up in her eyes on thinking how life had led her to him. She felt somewhat foolish, but also very confused. She'd seen it in some random Bollywood movies before, and shaken her head in disagreement that it ever happened like that in real life. But life has a funny way of proving you wrong, and prove wrong it did. She was in love with this man after less than 2 months of knowing about his existence. He made her feel so happy inside that sometimes it hurt. How lucky she was to have him. And how unfortunate that she wasn't by his side that very moment. In such a short span of time, he meant the world to her. Her life had more meaning. She had more strength, more comfort, more joy.

She wondered if she was able to provide the same strength, comfort and joy to him too. He deserved someone to promise to be by his side forever and to keep that promise. She would aim do this, and more. She might falter sometimes, but it would not be intentional, and she knew that in her mind, she was honest and would always want the best for him. But would he understand the times that she would falter? Would he trust her enough? She was but a 7 on 10 on his scale of trust.

It was dark outside now. In her mind, she kissed him on his cheek while he slept in a country where she wasn't. He was all that she wanted - the strong, intelligent man who loved and cared for her immensely.

With his thoughts in her mind, she decided to call it a night. "Goodnight, darling. Tomake bhalobashi." she said in her head.

Segregate the congregation

Coz I'm feeling black today. And like a once-upon-a-time-dear-friend once said, "rhyme is crime", I feel like being a gangsta nigga! Am I allowed to say that? Heck yeah! I mean it with all due respect!

Ok but all the crap above is distancing itself from the title now, isn't it?

Have you ever had a feeling of belonging to a certain group of people, to a culture, to a section of society, to a club, to a cult, to a region, to a country? Does it make you feel comfortable? Does it make you have more faith, have more peace? For most people, it does, doesn't it? Being around people who think similarly makes one feel assured...assured that your thoughts are correct or in the right direction at least.

People with very low economic stability tend to group together and celebrate festivals with far more fanfare than those with more wealth. A recent conversation with a very special human being revolved around how poor people resigned themselves to ugly situations in life and instead focused on the happier things. To those of us who are fairly placed financially, we start questioning ourselves, simply because we are physically stable and now need emotional stability. Poor people are spending their time just trying to survive. And at many times, drink, I must add! Anyway, so they group together to rejoice and cherish what they have. They congregate to feel good, to feel comfortable, to feel wanted,  because as individuals they cannot achieve what they can as a group.

But...and there had to be a but, right? But, what about those of us who have enough to survive and more. And still want to cling to a set of beliefs without asking any questions that cause some discomfort?

Bring out your individuality. Segregate the congregation!    

When men go bad

I started writing this in January 2011, and I think I will finally complete and publish it.

"You know it was the worst relationship of your life when even after years of not being together, the man still brings immense grief to you. By his words as well as his actions.

I've been in love a few times, but there are sometimes when you let go of all your mental boundaries and give in to one person more than you have ever given in to anybody. And you give and give, while he takes and takes. This, I realize, is not your love, but your conviction that this man is worth it all. You have convinced yourself that your happiness is in his hands and that's a dangerous place to be in. Because your happiness lies in your hands alone. And you must de-convince yourself that the key to your life lies in another person's hand.

How many people do I know around me who have been trying to move on from their equally unstable lives and while you'd think that being older would make people wiser, how untrue that is! We continue to make the same mistakes over and over again, knowing that nothing good is going to come out of it. Well, it's 2011 now, and for a change, I have a resolution. To really move on. To a more stable life, that is. This isn't about my relationships with men anymore. It's about doing something more meaningful with my life. To steer it in the direction that makes it less fun in the short term, but stronger in the long term. The whole cycle or work, parties, meaningless chatter, unmindful jabs at others...it must stop. Well, maybe not the unmindful jabs bit :)

And so it begins."

It's been 3 months since I wrote this and I don't know how I got the will to do what I set out to do, because my will has always failed me in the past when it comes to staying away from my beloved friends. But somehow, I managed. It has paid, and how! I am far less stressed out and value myself far more. All goes to show, that all you need is some courage to let go. It's never too late!

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!