Just another day... No its a SURPRISE!!!

Yesterday was the day i was introduced into this world 26 yrs back.. I am the kind who does not fuss too much bout my bday.. unlike a few others i know who go like.. oh its my bday..so i have to something to make it special.. for me its always been just another day.. yes i do become a call center that day recieving calls from friends n family.. which i def inetly enjoy.. n i generally wrap it up by going for dinner with friends.. but this year it was different.. last year too it was zara hatke types.. i was in singapore then n so was my girl.. n she took me on a international holiday.. to a beach resort in malaysia on the south china sea.. it was an amazinly getaway.. n wht a way to have your bday celebrated.. yes my poor friends din like it much coz my fone was unreachable.. so none could call to wish me ;)

As for this year.. got a coupla calls at midnite.. another couple early in the morning..after which i was pretty much on the fone recieving..jumping n reteriving calls.. had a friend over late in the afternoon for a chat.. after which at about 5 PM i was out meeting my girl so tht we go pick shades for me (we had narrowed down that this would by my gift this yr).. she had been going on for a while that how she was sorry coz she cudnt take me on another getaway like last year.. i reassured her that i dint expect to be whisked away to an exotic destination on every bday of mine.. n the plan this time was that both of us go for a quite dinner.. as for the shades we checked out a few places but dint find good one so after grabbing a quit bite a Mac we decided to head back home.. so that i cud change n go for dinner.. all through our shoppin experience she was busy msging.. i did ask which one of her fans was she msging franatically.. for which i got a reply.. “its something at work”.. din probe too much into it n let it go.. by this time it was already a coupla hours.. so we decided to head back home.. on the way i get a call from one of my friends.. who after wishing me asks.. So how was the surprise party.. i say “dude.. there was no party i was aware of.. n now even if it were to happen now i wouldnt be too surprised about it” he went off on a different tangent this time.. so after the call i asked my girl.. hon are we having a surprise party?? She replied “yeah rite.. v’ll have tht too” i gave it a thought.. shes been at work all day.. n after that we have been out shopping.. so where on earth ws the time for the surprise party.. so i rubbished my friend’s suggestions thinking he got confused somewhere.. by the time we could wade through the horrendous bangalore traffic and reach home it was almost 8 and i was quite drained and pissed about the mess that my city has become. Parked my bike..n i see my rommie bike parked too but the lights at home are not on.. so i ask her.. “darling whats happening??” Why is there no light at home.. she repiled “how should i know.. mabbe you should call him and find out” my brain was too numb to pursue it any further thanks to the bludy traffic.. so i dint think much if it n i headed to the door....

I put the key in but find that the door’s not locked and i just had to push it open.. i see a drak room and a bunch of people shouting SURPRISE rushed to me.. i had no clue who was in there because it was dark.. and finally went the light came on.. i see a bunch of my friends jumping up.. the place decorated and decked up..and my rommie with the camera to capture my reactions.. all this was too much information at once for my brains to process.. i walked in in disbelief..infact quite shocked at the whole thing.. still unable to decipher how all this had happened.. because she dint know half the people there and i was contemplating sometime back that yes i should introduce her to all my friends.. but here they were.. all ganged up to celebrate my bday.. the cake..booze and the food followed.. and offcourse more guests dropping in. And evey entry being a surprise because i had no idea who all were invited.. in the last 26 yrs there have been a few occasions when i have cut the cake.. but a surprise party and that too so meticiously planned.. noways.. this was the first time.. n i must say i was COMPLETELY surprised.. (even after my friend spilling it out by mistake). I must say it was truely great..that someone actually cares for you so much and organises such a thing and have friends who are so amazing to play along.. wow.. to think of it.. its all slowly sinking now.. and for the record.. It wasnt just another day.. It WAS a SURPRISE!!!

Story so far..

Its been more than a month since my last post.. the reason succinctly explained in the last post. So i've decided to fill you up with the "important events" that took place in this time.. don't worry i'll KISS (Keep It Short Simple) IT.. and yes its not chronological ..

We had two Hungarian guests staying over with us for a coupla days through couchsurfing. (if you want to more then here ).. they are going to be on the road.. air.. water for another 9 months and doing a world tour.. they started fom london and namma bengaluru was their first stop.. took them around this place.. told them a bit about our history.. got them addicted to masala dosas.. they loved it.. but what they really thanked me for was to teach them how to eat with their hands.. yeah i know you have been doing it since adam.. but for the whites see it as a skill.. its like what eating with a chopstick means to us.. so i thought them the "art" of eating with hands.. "Get all your fingers together and then push the food in" is what i told them.. but they still wondered how my plate was all neatly polished off but theirs was not .. so they took a pic of that too.. A finished plate :) . The guy did not know english and only the girl did.. so whatever we talked. the girl took time out and explained the same to him in hungarian.. i said WHATEVER we talked for two days was translated into hungarian.. and that was quite amusing. They wanted to watch a typical indian movie so took to watch "Hello" .. yes i know that was a bad pick but the other option was karzzzz so.... No points for guessed that the movie sucked.. we were evidently quite embarrassed and our guests thought the movie wasn't very "intelligent".

My Grandad has two sons and they have a son each and now even they were blessed with a son each.. If u were confused.. We had a family function in mysore to commemorate my grandparents and their great grandsons.. It was definitely a sight to watch. my old aging and weak grandparents holding their great grandsons,who had arrived into this world just a few months back and were so full of energy.. I have always pondered how small children and old people are so smiliar. Here one generation so young that they dint know what was happening and the other was so old that even followed suit.. and when you see all four of them posing together for a photograph i just couldn't help but smile.. smile at life...

After the function a bunch of us cousins decided to go for dinner.. I was given the onus of picking the place and since i had heard so much about The Royal Orchid Brindavan Garden i promptly picked the same.. The name says it all.. well i'm talking about the amount of travelling needed to get to the place.. and it wasn't amongst the nicest roads that we find in a city like mysore.. and people in the car were an inch from lynching me for making them suffer the same.. once you got there you still had to walk half kilometre to get to the hotel and i would say it was worth the effort.. you sit down in the "Elephant Bar" to have a drink.. and you can see the entire lit up Bridavan Garden and in the background is the Krishna Raja Sagar Dam.. the view is truely splendid and the cost of your drink makes you even happier. It is a heritage property that is 85 years old.. and if you are ever in mysore its not to be missed..

This Diwali i was back home.. just wanted to spend some good time there.. coincidence that a few of my college friends were in town too.. so we decided to meet up for lunch.. we were four of us and expect for one of them the last i had met the rest was more than 4 years back.. One of them who would hardly talk to anyone was now married to a girl he had fallen in love with.. and this news was a shocker to me but when saw him at lunch rattling off things in the menu to the waiter that i guess he had already by hearted.. he ordered for a juice and when the waiter got the same.. he snubbed him saying "dint i ask you get the juice with the starter".. I just stared in disbelief.. the same old guy who four years back was shy to even open his mouth was now throwing his weight around at will.. yes things change.. people change.. but when its all pretencions i guess it kinda looses its grace.. and exactly what i found here..

These days i have been inflicting episode after episodes of Desperate Housewives on myself.. don't ask me the reason.. because neither do i know .. This sitcom is about four women Lynette, Bree, Susan and Gabriel who are housewives and desperate(by desperate here i don't mean for sex) in their own ways but each very distinct.. I'm not the too much of the television person.. infact i hate to watch TV but the reason i bring up this sitcom is.. the four women are like the four directions in a X-Y plane.. and any woman you know will fall in one of the four quadrants.. a mixtures of the women mentioned above.. If you dont believe me.. watch it for yourselves.. Its kinda addictive ;)

Looong Time... Tata Indicomm

well.. its been a long time since blogged. No no.. its not laziness that has creeped in.. nor have i gone into oblivion that i have no news to share.. infact i got tonnes of it.. thanks to our Internet service provider.. Tata bludy indicomm that our connection was zapped.. to cut a long story short.. this indicomm is a disgrace to the Tatas.. they have the WORST service ever.. its a bunch of morons who sit at its customer care.. who have no idea whats happening and neither can they think straight.. they put on hold of almost an hour.. and the only reply you get is.. "Sir, your request is placed on high priority" after which nobody even gives a rat's arse to it.. Its easier to get your work done in a govt organization than this crappy service provider..

Anyways.. we have decided to drag these blokes to the consumer court.. i don't believe in washing my dirty lenin in public.. but word of advice.. DO NOT ever go in for a TATA Indicomm internet connection.. even if they pay you for it.. this is not just my experience but of a few others too.. So as of now.. Airtel Zindabad

Promotion!!!

yep thts rite.. i got promoted. now u must be wondering that this bloke doesn't even have a job so where does he get he bottom pushed up to ?? valid Q.. but you know I'm employed on the weekends and i impart knowledge.. so all this while i used to teach in this arbit "moslim" (thts how the yankees call them) college and now i get to teach in one of the most popular all females colleges in town.. well you must be saying now.. huh what kinda a promotion is that.. well u should come to check out the crowd and they you know ;) well.. on a serious note.. i just handle the new batch of GMAT students in this chic college.. n like they say.. these are the simple pleasures of life ;)

The other day. i was on my bike getting back home.. and i see these two girls .. guessing they go to the nearby corporation school.. coz i could see them in their tattered clothes.. walking barefoot.. with their bags on their heads but with a glowing smile on their face..and as soon as they saw me.. they put out their thumb forward and shouted ..Drop.. Drop.. i was about to take the turn as my place was just another 50 odd meters from there.. and i signalled the same to them.. tht i'm taking a turn here and i'm not going ahead so i cant drop you girls.. they dint seem to get the point and i could see them frown because i dint stop.. and once i took the turn i just turned back to look at the girls.. now i could see the realization dawn upon them.. that i dint stop because i was taking a turn.. their faces lit up with the that realization and one of them shouted back.. SORRY.. i got home smiling.. impressed by the her use of English and amazed by her courteous behavior.. she could teach lotsa people a thing or two about the same..

Traffic.. the word that disgusts every banglorean (or should i say bengalurean) the other day.. i just got out in the evening wanting to fill fuel for my bike.. the bunk is less than a kilometer from my place.. i hit the road.. it was completely jammed.. got to the next road.. same story.. saw no point in wading through all this mess to fill fuel.. so decided to take a U turn and get back home.. and yes.. jam again.. it took to more than half hour to get back.. and i wouldn't have traveled more than 500 meters.. they say.. the whole world drives on the left or on to the right of the road.. but in namma bengaluru we on what is left on the road.. so bludy true huh..

looks like everybody these days is busy jumping off planes.. yeah i meant the sky diving thing.. the craze has caught on big time.. i cant wait to follow suit..

Life without Insurance..

These days I'm lil more careful when i hit the road.. make sure i don't ride like a maniac.. not that i used to ride one before.. but u know how the traffic is and when u trying to rush to work or say meet a friend.. when u got to get there asap that when the traffic is the worst and all your maneuvering skills help.. which means you have close encounters every other day.. and that's precisely what I'm trying to avoid these days.. coz i got no medical insurance now.. guess that's the only worth while thing you get when your employed.. was just wondering the other day. how many of us Indians have medical insurance? with 52% of our population below the poverty line.. i dun think the number is any high.. so coming back to where i started.. that if i crash now.. not only will i inflict the pain but also foot the medical bill which is gonna make it even more painful.. it may sound stupid.. but its true.. when u know that you are covered.. medically i mean.. its at the back of ur mind that you have a safety net say something goes wrong.. and the moment you dont have one.. you are slightly more cautious.. its like facing shohib akthar with your gaurds on and without.. aint it ;)
Now that i spend a considerable amount of time at home.. I'm surprised at the number of sales persons who come banging at your door.. the other day.. this lady knocks on my door and tries to sell a electric shave to me.. i kindly refuse.. she said may be i could gift this to one of my friends.. told her i got none whom i would need one.. she said what about one to your girlfriend sir?? i said WHAT??? gift a electric shave to a girl.. who gifts a razor to a girl.. i lost it.. saw no point explaining the same to her.. closed the door.. sat back to think.. imagine if you had a gift a girl a electric shave.. how hairy would she be.. well i do not want to imagine and more importantly what a ridiculous suggestion.. this was easily the worst sales pitch somebody made to me.. electric shave for a girl.. wonder if she actually managed to sell any.

Was at the Bengaluru international airport the other day to drop my bhai who was off to Dubai after his month long vacation here.. the first time i was going to the BIA.. the connectivity is quite okay.. i'm sure those bugger will fix the roads in sometime.. but whats so disappointing is the terminal. such a large area.. decent connectivity and look at the size of the terminal.. looks like a match box.. no wonder BIA is already running full capacity.. wonder what were they thinking when they planned it.. and if you ask me.. they should have made the terminal in two levels.. one level for arrival and the other for departure.. someone coming to drop off somebody has got no business in the arrival section and vice versa... that would have reduced the traffic at the drop of point by half. anyways its a great relief from that old fish market called HAL airport.

Night Out..

Kings in town.. before your imagination takes wings.. King as we fondly call him was my flatmate in Singapore.. a fine man.. so to commemorate his visit the 5 of us decided to catch up for a drink in one of the odd watering holes in town.. 4 of us were junta ie. techies and one was a stud.. well thts wht he handles.. hes a jockey.. not of those radio jocks who talk crap all day at various frequencies across Bangalore.. but this guy is a actual jock.. he races horses in these derby et all.. our man was in Aus all this while and now on a long holiday in indiyeah.. hes quite a storyteller.. his stories grippin to the core.. so we techies more or less jus listened to him jaws dropped.. the most interesting our lives would get in front of comps to do a vulcan nerve pinch.. ie. the ctrl+alt+del... anyways did get to hear a lot bout horse racing which was quite interesting... imagine this.. if you had a female horse and you wanna get the best stud in the world mate with it.. it cud cost you more than half a million bludy $$$$.. boy thts wht you call a stud.. with tht kinda money i guess one to get to sleep any bombshell for a lifetime ;)

the "nitelife" as we call it here is absolutely on the rocks.. i mean it literally.. i thought 11.30 pm was the deadline to get drunk in one of those gas chambers.. but no.. like wht the gov is doing to ruin our funtime is not enought that the guy in the pub has his own curfew above it .. he says 10.30 last orders.. SOB.. anyways we decide to leave.. and these days like the traffic ain't enough to chew our brains that we hav the rain too to play spoilsport.. the jocks car dint start for some reason.. so the 4 of us had to push it down the wet road and get it started.. see that's how beer helps you loose weight ;) the rest of us picked up more booze on the way back and got to my place to keep the party going.. i must say booze really helps guys recollect a hell lotta women from past.. and thts wht we did.. dint spare a single girl from school.. King was on a roll.. we all laughed like jackarses all nite.. boy neva laughed so much in a while.. the guys down one full bottle all nite.. i dint have any.. i'm on pause mode this days.. but surprisingly i too was on a high all nite .. guess it was the ambiance ;) anyways.. lotsa crazy talk.. like.. did u know theres actually a site called secondshaadi.com .. now tht i know i dun think i'll b too surprised if they go on to create a thrid..fourth and so on... after waking up all my neighbours with the kinda noise we were all making.. we decided go call it a nite at 6 in the morning.. the other 2 guys had work.. no idea how they ever managed to get to work.. this is when quittin your job helps..u can jus go to sleep and not worry bout waking up et all ;) it had been a while since i had done a nite out.. the last one i guess was the day before i was leaving singapore.. again king was there.. coupla other great friends.. booze to last all nite and some great home cooked chicken.. interesting stories and ciggs to keep you company .. wht a nite.. thx to my great buddies who made it so memorable..without a wink all nite i got straight to the airport and into an air-india flight at 7 in the morning.. so u can imagine my plight when i landed.. no prizes for guessing tht it was quite horrid..
seeing how much i enjoy my niteouts... sometimes wish i was born a owl :)

Happy Teachers Day!!

A day that's quite easily missed unless one of those radio jocks or the news presenters throw it on our faces.. then it hits us.. oh yeah.. its teachers day.. "Teachers" a bunch of interesting characters who more or less decide how our experience at school is gonna be.. you find all kinds.. the good.. the bad and the ugly.. but we all remember just a few. just the ones that matter.. the ones that left a huge mark behind.. hats off to such souls.. we need more of them ..

wished just one on my teachers today.. dint have the numbers of a few others to do the same.
but i still remember.. 2 years back.. on the same day i happened to call and wish couple of my teachers.. and seriously you need to follow suit to see the kind of reaction you get.. they are so elated and touched just by the fact that you not only remembered them on this particular day but also cared enough to wish them.. one of them after thanking me profoundly told me this.. "being remember by an old student means much more than an award and it is this that keeps us going". I'm sure he was so right.

the timesofindia has now nosedived to teach india.. nice concept.. but wonder what happened to lead india?? did we already lead india to wherever it had to go ?? damn the attention span of our indian media..

the week was pretty good.. or should i say pretty laid back.. went back home for the entire week.. good food.. lotsa sleep and yeah lotsa relatives at home during the festival.. in short..came back happier and fatter.

got a ayurvedic oil massage when i was back home this time.. not my first time.. you are given a disposable langoti which is as good as your birthday suit.. when this is a part of our tradition wonder whats with the moral brigade's hue and cry about the scantly clad babes on fashion tv or m tv. anyways back to our massage... hell lotsa oil and you have two guy who work on you dividing your body into vertical halves they proceed rhythmically. if one guy is massaging the tip of your index finger of your left palm the other is massaging the exact location of your index finger of your right plam.. whats the icing on the cake is that even the pressure applied by both the guys is exactly the same. if you close your eyes and just feel it you'll think that there just one person doing the massage and not two. quite an experience. but i would rate the traditional thai massage as a much more rejuvenating experience. not because its done by a chick ;) but because after the massage you feel so good about being alive.. its awesome. theres a point when the chick stands on your back and applies pressure on your nerve centers by pressing her toes and the whole while she has got nothing to hold on.. its all an balancing act.. its beautiful.