Rangeen Parinde, featuring Johnny Ibrahim, Boxer Bhai and Brothers - episode I

I still remember the day i walked out of LnT, just walked out.  Left office around lunch, caught a bus, went to CCD, spent the entire day reading one of the most amazing books ever written, decided there's more to life than this and never went back. But that story is for an another time.

I guess we all were fed up and wanted a break, so were thinking of a road trip, to reconnect i guess, and a lot of things were happening in everyone's lives, a lot of things needed to be discussed. Lots of places came in contention, then a week before my leaving lnt, roochay mails us about this wonderful place called Tarkarli, in Malvan district, about 540 odd kilometres from Mumbai. The pics looked enticing, wiki and blogs assured us we would not be disappointed. Bags were packed, tickets were booked.

The base was decided as Pune. I left Mysore, early morning on 1st April, with my full boriya bistar, since i planned never to return, had had a real tough time packing. Finally had managed to stuff everything in 4 bags, with about 20-25 books apart from cat material (some of which i had to leave behind), the clothes were stuffed in whatever space that could be found between the books.

With 4 bags, (two on one shoulder, one on the other and one bag suffering the ignominy of being dragged around, i think i actually slowed the traffic down... people nudging each other and pointing at me, must've been my new shoes), caught a bus for Bangalore. That is something i loved there, 24 hour bus service, Volvo, for Mysore-Bangalore, amazingly comfortable, just push back the seat and fall asleep (I have actually been woken up by a conductor once, on one of my weekend sojourns, he said something along the lines of  "Aap yahin soyenge ya ghar jaayenge?").

Roochay was late, as usual, and i had to wait for him at Majestic, as the bus stand of Bangalore is known. It is unbelievably huge, a person can easily get lost here, but a good mix of signs and people will usually set you in the right place for the right bus. The intercity bus stand,the part where the buses come from other cities, for some reason, always seemed to me like a graveyard for buses. Not that the buses are old or dilapidated, on the other hand they are among the best in the country, but maybe that image of hundreds of buses at night, lying indiscriminately, gave a feeling of being among prisoners at some concentration camp... (That image was probably captured some late Sunday night, in a dazed state, after the usual heady weekends). 

Well Roochay finally turned up, and it turned out that the bus for Pune was waiting for us only. So we were off for Pune at around 1 in afternoon. It was an 17 odd hour journey and to compensate for that we were treated to amazing movies like the Shawshank Redemption, Blood Diamond and Pursuit of Happyness in the bus. Okay okay... they were Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge, 3 idiots and, erm, Chance Pe Dance.

Around evening, Mihir and Arpit left from Surat, Nakul from Baroda. Constant locations updates were being relayed by the troops. As is natural for guys our age, naturally we wanted to drive to Tarkarli by ourselves, without a hired driver, we wanted a road trip, but for some reasons we couldnt get our own cars. But as they say - where there's a Will, there's a Way - and so we met these two brothers, named Will and Way... but then this is not a story about them, maybe some other time... so out came the laptop, reliance netconnect+ and google to the rescue!! Turned out there are only 4 companies in india which provide self driven cars, guess it has not caught on much here, and they were all fully booked! Well, there were a couple of Rolls Royces left... Ahem... But we looked at some other car rentals in Pune and Roochay, as only Roochay can, convinced one car rental fellow to rent out a car to us without a driver. He wanted an outrageous amount as deposit but ultimately Roochay convinced him to settle on a passport as collateral.
But as it turned out we did not have our passports with us, and Nakul, Mihir and Arpit had already left... well we thought we'll figure that out after we reach Pune.

"Books are like people, when you meet a few amazing ones, the rest of them dont seem worth it... "

They do it with meows...

"Woke up and went to the kitchen, and found two pairs of eyes staring at me. A menacing growl alerted me to a third presence. I turned around and looked in her eye. She had a sinister look about her, but i couldn't be sure. Hmm..."

"The kittens are very cute and the cat is also trying to endear herself by resorting to acts like meowing sweetly and sitting near me, occasionally brushing, nudging herself closer to me. But i am wary, trying not to fall to her charms, but its proving difficult day by day... "


"I find myself buying milk... not for myself but for her highness and her minions."

"Her looks have become more and more menacing... She has that lordly swagger when she roams in the house."

"Initially i thought we would be adopting them, but i think its the other way round now. She has that smug look about her, about a job well done. Her meows have become more and more patronizing. Her ploys have succeeded it seems... Resistance seems to be futile... Dont know how much longer i can hold out..."

Few days later...
He cradled the kittens in his arms, removed the baby bottle with warm milk and put them to sleep in a specially modified box.
The takeover was complete.

A thought...

Don’t we need an oprah type show in India…? You can copy all other kinds of sensationalist (s)hit shows but the one show that can really matter you don’t take ‘inspiration’ from… Instead of having all celebrity chat shows cant we have normal people coming up and sharing their inspirational stories..? On primetime. Wouldn't it make a difference to the lives of millions of Indians to hear about inspiring stories of people like them? How 'ordinary' people overcame their addictions, fought against abuse, for their rights... Wouldnt the story of a normal person overcoming cancer, or of a person who doesnt have much to live but is doing what he can to make the world a better place, a woman having courage to speak out against abuse and atrocities... wouldn't this empower people? Wouldn't you want to know why exactly do young people end up joining rogue outfits like the MNS? Get a young recruit on national tv and ask him why... If you get celebrities on your show then instead of asking them their current relationship status ask them about their struggle to get there... jeena isi ka naam hai was pretty good there i think... but we'll probably get another rendition of big boss or is jungle se mujhe bachao...

...

beauty lies in the eye of the bee holder... am off to catch some bees... maybe my eye will become beautiful...

random stuff

Someone asked me to come up with a ‘beautiful’ get well soon message for a girl… I said, "wish you a speedy recovery... is it a boy or a girl... what...? you weren't pregnant? oh..."

“how do I know whats a watch and whats a clock?”

"Try wearing it... if you have trouble reading your own handwriting then hang it on the wall... "

effect of job frustration on cat aspirants...

kirty: why does an odd degree polynomial have odd numbered real roots??

me: because the answer to life, the universe and everything is 42!

kirty: (persisting stiill.. :D) alright..next one...why does every equation of an odd degree has to have a real root atleast?

me: because water is wet.... there are metaphysical and mathematical implications of this.. one of them being that the equation of an odd degree has to have at least one real root..

kirty (getting into it now...): i admire u now...next one...why all continuous functions are not always differentiable

me: coz of the butterfly effect... even a small value in the initial conditions can lead to abrupt and large cumulative changes in the differentiability of a function...

kirty: i am stoned now!

me: why... did medusa look at you??

kirty: well in that case i would have done a perseus

me: well played!

kirty: can ya find the mid point of a line segment without using a scale...only allowed instrument is a compass and a pencil(if it qualifies as an instrument)

me: yes...! :P

Best opening lines to a girl...

pandey: "would you like to armwrestle with me?"

kirty (one amazing guy... we have 'resonance'... once we went crazy over 'rings' ha ha... remember kirty??): "what colour are your eyes?"

me: "eeeeeeeek! there is a big hairy thing on your head!!!" "oh.. that IS your hair..."

kirty: "oh maaa god...ya remind me of my 1st girl friend...my count is zero as yet"

navdeep (our sardar ) : "I think u need a shave"

kirty: "well pandey is my friend!!"

pandey: "I am the pandey u have heard about"

me: "have you heard about pandey?? well i haven't!"

sample of the craziness

background: the forum had gone quiet for an hour or so... which is so unusual an occurrence that you have a better chance of seeing raj/bal thackeray giving zardari a hug...

gaurav anand (aka pandey which he hates being called that but obviously we still call him that): where is navdeep and malviya????????
kahan ho sab ke sab..................

ameya (our saviour in mumbai... what would we have done without him and his car :) ) :

Laambi Judaaaiiii
.....saaat dino kaaa.....pyaaar ho rabba....badi

pandey: dil hoom hoom kare khabraye
dil hoom hoom kare darr jaye

me (abhi... my intro would fill pages n pages... dwarfing the lord of the rings series so i guess i'll leave that for now):
vaise that manisha koirala nana patekar wali khamoshi was coming on tv a
couple of days back...

(dont ask why i said this... the reasoning involves the basics of string theory and quantum tunneling)

pandey: after such a log gap all you can come up with is this!!!!!!
genius :P
(see...? my genius gets recognized so quickly..!)

me:
well... yeah... :D

meetu (what to say about this gal... she has a great talent for writing poems... and i always tell her that she has a creative bent of mind... and i just have a bent mind):
the best way to forget all ur worries is to wear tight shoes :P

me: but what about the new worry about our feet then?

meetu: i feel like pulling my hair..or perhaps urs..

me: haven't had a haircut in... i think.. one and a half month or so.. so yea.. you can pull mine too..

meetu: abhi..dont provoke me..i might ask vidya to do the task for me..

me: i know you wont... ;) you are way too kind... generous... benevolent...

meetu: n sensible too..to sense ur ways of saving urself :P

me: hehe.. yeah.. and intuitive...

meetu: ya..sixth sense is the only developed sense i have other than nonsense..
does this line make any sense???

me: yeah... many times there is sense in our nonsense... but some times we lack the sense to sense it... :)

pandey: its tough to sense so much of nonsense when i am in my sense so sensefully i am turning into nonsense...
(probably the best of the lot...!)

end of an era?

One thing that really broke my heart over the past few days was the apparent demise of the forum. People getting caught... both literally(by those pesky IT services) and figuratively (caught in work). This was the only thing that kept me going... an outlet for my frustration... a refusal to grow up... is it a coincidence that this demise has coincided with my increasing frustration and restlessness to quit? maybe... maybe not... but definitely a contributing factor. I used to tell my friends so proudly that i breached the 550 mail barrier in my inbox today... some days it even touched 600. Those quizzes... pulling each others legs... those discussions on weird topics... that sarcasm... witty comments... basically going crazy and having fun in the process... i dont think any one else any where else was a part of something like this... something special that we shared... the only thing that motivated me to come to the company in the morning... met some really amazing people... ppl with amazing talent...