See you on the other side

Candolim Goa



See you on the other side. I'll be raising a glass (maybe several) of port to all you beautiful people. Happy Holidays & Peace.

Laugh a thon

Last evening was a roller coaster laugh riot at TGIF featuring the inimitable combo of Neil & Pramod. Playing cricket at different levels in India but in the same team for 10 years sure does leave you with a lot of memories.
2 hours at TGIF were nowhere near enough to cover one year, leave alone 10. But it was a start. Excerpts from the evening (this may all seem totally inane for most as you may not be familiar with either Neil or Pramod but here goes)

ND – Neil, PV – Pramod,

ND: “ That F**kin chut Udit…Ranji huh? Ranji? Pathetic. Remember PV that match we played against Arts & Science? We hammered that idiot for a 100 runs just between the 2 of us & Amit”
PV – “ Oh shit ya! I remember after the game which we won by 8 wickets or something…ND told me that guy was playing for the state team. I was shocked and went upto him and said “You??? You’re playing for state??? Hahaha”

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ND sees a guy walking into the restaurant with a pretty girl. He turns to me and says
ND: “I had a fight with that bastard…f**ker thinks he’s a big stud. I’m going to go and have a word with him….actually I’ll wait till PV gets back!!”

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ND notices a cute girl sitting a few tables away with a bunch of people. Suddenly he turns to us
ND: “ That pansy sitting next to that chick…the f**ker used to carry my bags in school! And now look at him…sitting there acting big. What will he do if I go up to the chick and ask her for a drink?”
PV – “ ha ha! They won’t do shit! They are a bunch of pansys”

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ND : “That Kapil Dev is a stud. He plays really well. And Dean Jones shit if that guy played in India he could easily turn pro. But a lot of the others were like girls…they were all queuing up behind me watching how far I would hit the ball.
…a lot of the guys hit the ball longer than I do but *tapping his head* I’m smarter so I win”
ND : “ Man I tried to teach Anneka (girlfriend) golf the other time…it was fun. I drove the putter 3 feet into the green trying to teach her…almost got thrown off the course!”
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PV: "Remember that Mohit..Mohit Goyal? We are playing the university match in some shit town once...and by some miracle we entered the knockout stage! Of course we used to get paid Rs. 20 a day for those matches and we had no money left...the cheapest meal used to cost Rs. 10. and this Mohit f**ker was broke. So he asked us 'Will you give me Rs. 20 if I walk naked from the team hotel to the restaurant?' I took him on and the chut actually walked f-in' naked at 12 in the afternoon for about 500 metres on the road and went in and sat at the restaurant!! And with the Rs.20 I owed him, I bought him lunch! :-)"
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I haven’t laughed this much in a 2 hour period in a long, long time..possibly the last time I did was when I met ND & PV together last! : Good times…good times…I’ll make sure I get a photograph of the legends next time round. :-)

tell me who you are

Sorry but from today, no more anonymous comments on my real estate. Either get a blogger ID or don't comment.
I'll survive.

you've got mail

Do you work in a large company? Or a young company? Or a small company?

If you're answer was yes to any of the questions, then I am sure you are familiar with the concept of "office forwards" - i.e - random, often uninteresting, mostly useless bits of internet junk floating around that inevitably finds their way into your mail boxes from people you hardly know (& who you would hardly want to know)

The last week or two has seen a sudden upsurge in these irrascible mails. Oftentimes, you want to send that urgent email that you were supposed to send 3 weeks back, but just when you hit the "send" button on your outlook or lotus notes, there's a sign that tells you an email of substantial size is being downloaded. It could be 2 or 20 minutes depending on the size of the junk that has been shot at you. Finally after having tapped your fingers to oblivion, you open the mail to find its a "fwd" most often with weird ape photographs, embarassing things to do to your office colleagues (which you never will do), or "management" jokes aimed at your boss (obviously Scott Adams hasnt been discovered by these neanderthals) or a bunch of Asian kids in pain...I mean c'mon people! Get a grip!

After having thought about it some more, I think these mails are a part of the "annoyance" strategy employed by co - workers. You know..we have various annoying co workers such as "hammer head bob" or "topper - that's nothing!" or sour puss etc (all dilbert characters) so these guys represent the "junk co-workers' inboxes people"...I have finally uncovered you people! Scott Adams may not have found out about you guys but I guess that's because he left cubicledom much before the internet became the info/junk highway it sometimes is today.

Thank God for Gmail's spam filter.

Signs

July 2004 - wearing the sign
PS - Those aren't palm trees on the tee "-)

Low Cost?!

Bangalore - London - Bangalore = $550
London - Faro - London = $140
Faro - Lisbon - Faro (train) = $25

*sigh....*

Tas!

Finally! Meet Tas after a gap of a year & a half! :-) This is at 13th Floor

The Wombat Speaks

Reproduced courtesy of & with permission from the Wombat:


"The highlight of the concert for me was this - haven't seen anything like this
before, and was quite crazy!

In the middle, Billie Joe Armstrong (BJA) said, we're gonna create a band
right here right now. And asked people from the crowd, who can play the
drums, who can play bass and who can play the guitar. It was 3 simple
beats. People started going nuts. There were posters up in seconds saying I
play baas, I play the drums etc. etc. He then picked 3 people - after
making them swear to God that they knew how to play.....and they
did.....then said, get your ass up here. A young guy our age on the drums -
showed him the 3 beats and asked him to keep going. Then got a girl on the
bass - 3 simple chords. Andshe startedplaying along with the drummer
dude.......hesaid this is for all the females in the crowd........so
thechicks went mad. And then, for the lead guitar - they got a 12 yr old
kid. Before bringing him up, BJA asked - how old are you? kid says -
12.........next question - have you ever had sex with a woman before? kid -
doesn't know how to respond. BJA says, We are gonna have sex right here
tonight on stage. (he meant the music). so this kid knew the basics so he
joined in with the other two............and then they did a song, Billie
sang and these 3 played. It was bloody awesome. The drummer dude was very
good and gave the drums n cymbals quite a beating - mood mein tha. He then
asked the 12 yr old kid - what his name was and said, Steve - you get to
keep the guitar!!!!!!! made the drummer dude do a stage dive - so he'd come
running from the stage and jump into the crowd"

The Wombat

So the Wombat calls me from Sydney. For a moment I can't hear much other than a lot of shouting & screaming and my first reaction is the Wombat is in some kind of Aussie bar scuffle over who's going to win the world cup in 2007 (cricket, not that other world cup)...but then the line clears and he is screaming,">"Dude listen to this, its F-ing awesome!" He's got my attention and I listen hard...suddenly amidst all the noise I hear a chant & music pretty clearly: "And its only me and I walk alone...I walk alone I walk alone...my shadow's the only one that walks beside me..."

The Wombat is at the SCG right now...the concert must be at its zenith...good on ya mate! Thanks for the call...you're a real dag :-)

Classic

"Treasure the moments, for the immortal gods have given you the greatest gift of all, and it will be a sweet, sad memory till your dying day. You will never again enjoy that careless rapture. First love is best love, & she is beautiful & you are young, and all the world is yours"

Then as he put the letter in his pocket, he felt a queer little pang of bitterness because reality seemed so different from the ideal.

I always held back reading Somerset Maugham despite several pleas from my grandfather. I should have should have picked up "Of Human Bondage" much earlier in life. Well, at least my kids will read it before I did, and they'll be a lot wiser for the experience, as I am today.

Strings!

*ecstatic*
As part of the Bangalore Habba celebrations,I shall now see these guys over the weekend:


- Strings! - Easily one of my favourite bands. They comprise 2 guys from Pakistan who create an amazing blend of Indi-pop with traditional sounds & lyrics

- Indian Ocean!

- Hariprasad Chaurasia!

- Amaan & Ayaan (sons of Amjad Ali Khan)


Naazita you lucky POS...Carlos Vives...*sigh*...one day...one day...for now Strings!

Yes I wear it because its fashionable

Several times now, people in different cities I have traveled to question me on a white bracelet I wear with the word "ONE" inscribed on it. A few people are genuinely interested. Most ask about it with mischievous disdain & a few have tried to rip it off, burn it with lighters & cut it with a butter knife among other things.

Unable to bear the sarcasm & scorn of the skeptics, the disillusioned, the cynical or the jingoistic, allow me to reveal the complete side of my hypocrisy.

Yes I wear the bracelet because its "cool". Because chicks dig it. Because it gets me loads of sex. Because I see Shane Warne wearing it. (he gets loads of sex too) Because I am dark of skin & a white bracelet is the nearest I will get to being "fair" & more like the white man (who it seems is eternally worshipped in India). Because its a fashion accessory of the cheapest but best kind.

So for all those above reasons, I wear this bracelet.

Now leave me alone...

Chennnnai

Less than 24 hours in Chennai but very eventful...the highlights so far:

- Pleasingly temperate climate

- Nice & comfy welcome at Ron's apartment (except for err...well people should learn to knock..he he right ron?)

- Murugan's Idli Shop! The most incredible, Idli, Vada, Dosa on the planet! I need a picture of that place.

- Zara's - Spanish Tapas bar with psuedo tapas but close enough. Decent Sangria though a little weak..too much juice too little sangria!

- Irony: Thambi (if you're listening somewhere in the cosmos), after 1 year of procrastination, "Sien Sien" & "India Paradise" I finally went to a tapas bar...and of all the places to do it in..Chennai! ha ha ha! :-) Deliciously funny that...

- Crazy motorbike ride along Marina Beach at 12 AM with Ron...correction a Ron in high spirits...Marina Beach is nice, especially at midnight.Couldn't find a telephone booth open to call Rotterdam...which was a bit disappointing

- Got home safely only to be woken up at 6:30 AM because Ron's apartment was flooded! yahaha! Someone had left a tap on in the kitchen which went on to flood the whole place...spent an hour mopping up this morning.

Wonder how the next 24 will pan out...

Go...Aaah!

Bibliophile

I succumbed...what else can I say? Well ok Van sort of egged me on in her usual evil way so....out came the plastic & with one swipe I now have in my bag:

1. "Out of my comfort zone" - an autobiography by Steve Waugh
2. "The Complete Works of Shakespeare"
3. "One Hundred Years of Solitude" - Gabrielle Garcia Marquez
4. "Of Human Bondage" - Somerset Maugham
5. "Mammaries of the Welfare State" - Upamanyu Chatterjee ( this is a sequel to English August)
*sigh*
Set me back a little bit ...I love Strand. I had to drag myself out of there after seeing the Wodehouses stacked next to all of Bill Waterson's books. Right now Steve Waugh is up next.