Posts from — August 2002

Robbery in the Oxford of the East and other Corny Tales

Greetings to y’all! … I hope you had a wonderful weekend and are having a great Monday! ;-)

I had an absolutely action-packed weekend. It was much more than I had bargained for… *LOL*

As I had said in my previos blog, I was supposed to spend the weekend at Pune. So, I left early morning on Saturday with mom, dad and sis. The drive to Pune was amazing and we did the distance in just over two hours (thanks in large part to the absolutely wonderful Mumbai-Pune expressway. I just can’t stress enough, the joy of driving on that highway). The entire route was flanked on both sides by a verdant heaven. Rains have spun a little bit of magic along the route. There are waterfalls, streams and brooks bubbling merrily along the way, the trees are dense with bright green leaves and the ground is covered in a thick carpet of grass and wildflowers. Absolutely enchanting! … makes you wanna stop and enjoy a few moments in the company of nature at its very best!

Once we reached Pune, however, we were in for somewhat of a rude shock!

We found that our house was broken into and some stuff stolen!! Now, that was one hell of a nasty surprise! And what a list of things the thieves stole! … some rice, some cooking oil, some spices (rather, all the spices that they could find in the house), some sugar, some tea-powder, a pillow (they left behind one from the set of two!), a pillow-case (just the case, they left the pillow behind), dishwashing liquid, toilet cleaning liquid and some other weird stuff like this.

Looking at this list of items that were stolen I did not know if I should laugh at the stupidity of the thief or to curse him for the sheer nuisance he made of himself.

Well, you see, the work on the building is still going on and so the painting contractor’s workers had been busy painting the outer walls of the building. Our apartment is on the sixth floor and so they had to use harnesses to lower someone to paint outside our flat. So, it seems one of the painters got in through the window and decamped with all this loot. *LOL*

This incident apart, the weekend went along pretty well. One of the best parts about it was the dinner on Saturday evening. We went to this place called ‘Corn Club’ and hogged on more dishes made from corn than you can imagine! … sweet corn soup, corn patties, mexican cheese corn pizza (I dunno what was it that made it Mexican… but neverthless!), baby corn fingers, corn bhel and a couple of other exotic corny treats! ;-)

Sunday was pretty relaxed. The weather in Pune is awesome and I really enjoyed the day doing nothing but sitting in the balcony and feeling the nice, chilly breeze that came from the mountains, not far off!

It was really hard to leave from Pune and come back to Mumbai and face the prospect of another week starting almost immediately. But the prospect of driving on the expressway was also quite good! And did I drive fast!! … Covered the distance from Pune to Panvel (thats just outside Mumbai) in just 90 minutes!! Its an altogether different matter that the freakin’ traffic meant that the rest of the distance took another 90 minutes! *LOL*

’nuff said about the weekend!

Well, today, I got to eat a lot of sweets!… Couple of my colleagues returned from vacations and got back with them some really delicious sweets. I couldn’t help but dig into those delicacies (absolutely disregarding the effect it’ll have on my bottomline!!). As it is, I’ve had some nice times going on diets! *LOL*

And ohh, today, the Indian cricket team completed a comprehensive win over the English sideby beating them by a huge margin of an innings and 46 runs!!! (wooo hooo!! … way to go fellas!!). So, I’m quite happy about it!

Well, well, well… another Monday is drawing to a close and I can only hope it gets over quickly. I hate Mondays!!

Thats it for now…

cheers!

Not more than a few words…

Ok, so after a couple of days of really huge blogs, I’m gonna say just a few words today! (mainly bcos I don’t have much to say!!)

Indians played some great cricket yesterday on the first day and managed to lose just two wickets. Though the score wasn’t too great at the end of the day, we still have Rahul Dravid (batting well past the hundred run mark)and Sachin Tendulkar at the crease and that is just great! I hope they continue the good work on the second day.

Well, in the morning today, I came across a news report on Rediff which broke the news that a key witness to the Godhra train carnage in Gujarat had testified. His testimony was a sensational one which gave a blow-by-blow account of what transpired at the Godhra railway station that led to the burning of coach S6 of the Sabarmati Express. It was this gruesome incident that sparked off the communal riots in Gujarat that killed hundreds of people and rendered thousands homeless, earlier this year. You can read the news of this chilling testimony by clicking here.

Anyways, nothing much happened for the rest of the day… I visited Mae’s website and quite liked it. Her website is so interactive… I mean, nearly all the pages have feedback facility. Plus, I liked her views on various subjects she has chosen to comment on.

Ummm… what else!!?… ahhh I just can’t think of anything to write about!!. Do I detect the onset of another bout of writer’s block?!!… I hope not!… *LOL*

And ohh!… I’ll be travelling to Pune early tomorrow morning. Most probably, I would be spending the weekend at our new house in Pune. I am crazy about driving on the Mumbai-Pune expressway (after all, where else can you get a road so beautiful in India). So, I’m looking forward to the drive to and back from Pune. But I won’t be able to access the Net while in Pune… so no blogging during the weekend!

Ha ha!! … this didn’t turn out to be the mini-blog that I thought it would be!!

Ok… so good bye folks! … have a great weekend!!

Cheers!

Controversies, festivals and the mean streak running through me…

The Indian cricket team starts the third cricket test match against England at Headingly today. In fact, the match has just started off … i.e. at 10:00 AM GMT (thats exactly 1530 hrs IST). England are boosted by the return of two of their better bowlers, Caddick and Tudor (though Gough hasn’t recovered from injury). Indians, on the other hand have been having problems with their seamers and had to drop Ashish Nehra (very talented but careless bowler). I am surprised that SS Das wasn’t included in the side especially after he hit a double century in the practice game last week.Strange!… Anyways, I wouldn’t blame the team. They’ve had a nightmarish time in the last few days.

Its all bcos of this controversy involving the International Cricket Council (ICC) and their sponsorship deals. It seems the ICC signed a contract with their sponsors for some major cricket tournaments like the Champions Trophy (in September ‘02) and the World Cup (next year). Well, the contract had a clause which said that none of the players from any teams will not be able to endorse any brands other than those of the tournament sponsors. Now, this isn’t an evil clause per se. But, you see, a lot of cricketers have personal contracts for endorsing various brands. So, the clause in the ICC contract clashes with the personal contracts of the players. Even this isn’t much of a problem on its own. But the real point is that ICC signed this contract in 2000 and the players have been made aware of this clause only less than a month before the Champions Trophy starts. Thats why the players revolted and said that they will not sign the contract which will enable them to be available for selection for the team that plays the Champions Trophy tournament early next month. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on its part is desperately trying to find some middle ground in this dispute and ensure that all the star players appear in the Champions Trophy matches.

The point is… with all these off-the-field activities, its difficult to expect the players to be able to focus on the job they know best, i.e. play cricket. Well, anyways, lets see what happens as this Test match unfolds!

I think I have bored you enough with all this cricket talk. But, I can’t help it… I just love the game!… *LOL*

By the way, today’s Raksha Bandhan as I mentioned in my blog yesterday. So, early morning… we had this little ceremony at home in the morning. Ashwini tied this really cute Rakhi on my wrist and I gave her sweets and a little present. Then, we had lots of those sweets… lots!!. Anyways, this rakhi is great!… its got a very tiny peacock feather (I suspect its not a real feather… so all you PETA oriented people can relax!). The point is… its so good that I kept my sleeves rolled up the whole day just to show off the Rakhi… LOL

And then, today morning, I played a prank on Richa. It was all done in good humour. And I bet she had a great time calling me a big meanie… ha ha ha!! … but I couldn’t help it… I’m an idiot!! (well, not a complete idiot yet, there’re still some parts missing!) :-))

By the way, I just came across a great anti-smoking sign (I got it by email from one of my friends)… It says…

“Thank you for Not Smoking — Cigarette smoking is the residue of your pleasure. It contaminates the air, pollutes my hair and clothes, not to mention my lungs. This takes place without my consent. I have a pleasure, too. I like a beer now and then. The residue of my pleasure is urine. Would you be annoyed if I stood on a chair and pissed on your head and your clothes without your consent?”

Good one, isn’t it?!!

well, that brings to an end another one of my huge blogs… I think I’m getting too verbose!! … What do you ppl think?! … Just let me know through the comments. Thank God, enetation.co.uk has started working now (it gave me lot of grief in the last few days). Ok, so… thats it for now, I guess… unless I sneak off like yesterday and do some karting/bowling or stuff like that… *LOL*.

cheers!

I just did something absolutely wicked! he he he!!

We’re currently lightly loaded as far as work goes… so few of us here in the office decided to sneak out and enjoy a go-karting session. So, we did just that! … We ran off to this go-karting circuit at Hiranandani in Powai and did a few laps of the circuit there. Enjoyed it tremendously!! It was a great relief from the monotony of work. Added to it was the fact that I managed the best timings yet again!… *grinning widely*

And then… there was this movie being shot near the karting circuit. They were shooting a fight sequence with lots of overturned and trashed cars and stuff like that. Anil Kapoor was the hero… and he was sitting under an umbrella wearing a yellow jersey which had seen better days. A makeup-man was putting touches of fake blood on his clothes and face. Suddenly, Anil Kapoor got up and simply walked around the set checking out the lighting and stuff. There was a roar from the crowd gathered to see the shooting… they all started cheering him, u see! … LOL. Well, just bcos of this shooting, we had to take a detour to reach the circuit. So, when we took the detour and passed this movie set from the rear side, we could see lots of dummies lying strewn on the road. It must be a pretty violent scene that they were shooting… with dummies flying out of crashing cars and all! … ha ha ha … that’s Bollywood for you!!

Okay… so thats it for now! :-)… cheers!

Musical delights and a short trip down the memory lane…

I wanted to do some blogging yesterday, but there was some international carrier failure on our ISP’s links and so Net access was on and off (OFF for most part!), so no I just couldn’t blog. Finally, frustrated, i gave up trying to connect and so passed Tuesday without any blog from me! … There! … I got that off my chest!! ;-)

By the way, I’m currently listening to this CD… Party At The Palace. It is the live recording of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee concerts at the Buckingham Palace on 3rd June 2002. It has some absolutely fab tracks (well actually, all the tracks are top class). I just finished hearing Shirley Bassey belt out Goldfinger. Wow! this lady has an amazing voice even now. Ohh… currently I am hearing Tom Jones mischievously crooning You can leave your hat on. just grrrrreat!!

Today, its been exactly 4 years since I started working. Four years?!!… I just can’t imagine how time fled. I still remember my first day at work like it was just a couple of weeks back. Fresh out of college, sluggish after a long vacation, eager to do well, and without any friends or acquaintences in the company, I joined a batch of trainees just like me. I also remember the lectures/talks that the company’s top honchos came down to give to us. After delivering an induction speech, the CEO paused to take questions. There was a few moments of silence in which all of us looked at each other not knowing what to ask or say… (after all he was the damn CEO of the company… and well, we were just a bunch of geeky greenhorns). So, finally after an uneasy period of silence, a frail, timid sort of a fellow raised his hand, stood up and asked the CEO, “Excuse me sir, but could you please direct me to the men’s room?” … We just about burst out laughing!! … well what else could we do!

… well right now its Joe Crocker singing With a little help from my friends … ummm… great song!

Ok, so today morning I sent emails to all my batchmates congratulating them all on completing 4 years. I’m in touch with few of them. The others have drifted away due to work pressures and other such compulsions. And, I’ve got a great deluge of replies from all of them. I feel just great hearing from them after a long long time!

But apart from hearing from friends, I don’t really have any emotional feelings about having completed 4 years. In fact I feel Comfortably Numb, to quote Pink Floyd. ;-)

Anyways, tomorrow is Raksha Bandhan, a hindu festival which occurs on the first Full Moon day in the Hindu month of Shravana. If you want some historical significance of this festival, you can get it by clicking here. Ok, so I should remember to take some sweets while going home today, bcos tomorrow morning Ashwini will tie the Rakhi on my wrist and I’ll have to give her sweets in return … (actually, I’ll give more than just sweets… but sweets are important. I can’t afford to forget buying them today!). :-)

… arrite!! … last song on the CD now… Hey Jude by Paul McCartney. The crowd at the Buckingham palace, I can hear on the CD, just went wild during the song!! :-)

Okay! … so thats it for now, folks! … I’ll be back tomorrow with something more to blog about. Hope I didn’t bore you! :-)

Cheers!