I have no idea whats happening with the ppl of ‘days’ and very frankly I no longer care. Last week I was in Punjab. I loved Punjabi food.. sorry, love. Amritsar and Ludhiana, hence, always offered a great chance for me to satiate my hunger for good Punjabi food. I did not disappoint myself. Chole bhature, parathe, kulche, lassi, more bhautres, chicken butter masala, alu ki tikki, more lassi - I had ‘em all. And all this was just the start to a wonderful three days in Punjab. For once, I saw this surd cop in his bike and when he crossed me saw his number plate – “Notorious Gill PB 02 xxxx” (cant risk giving away the reg number of the notorious gill .. u kno).
The highlights, however, of my stay were two :
1) Golden temple: I normally love to be around sardars. They have a great sense of humor, which is sometimes, sometimes, sometimes highly accentuated by their awesome sense of stupidity as well. They are so stupid at times that I am sure that they do it deliberately. To them, the lesser mortals would probably never know that! And of course, I always associate sardars with the innumerous santa-banta jokes and the bachpan ka ‘barah baj gaya’ thing. Always a myth.. I knew it, cos this Sehgal dude always took exams in school and was hell smarter than me. He never wrote smthing like ‘bole tara ra ra’ in the answer sheet ryt at 12 o clock or smthing.
So .. I was at this temple/gurudwara and its really a beautiful place. There are volunteers at the temple who give u water and u can just sit/sleep around the pool, chill.. u know just relax. Nobody gives a shit abt u and although its pretty crowed, its peaceful enough. I, after walkin arnd temple for an hr or so, went inside to chk out what actually happens inside the golden building. They sing and pray, like in all religions and there was something very nice and calm abt the entire thing. i had just one problem though. I was the only non sardar dude inside the temple and I was suddenly feelin claustrophobic around so many turban headed ppl. I went upto the first floor and checked the time. it was 11:57 and I chuckled to myself imagining what would happen if the myth wasn’t actually a myth. I saw them , seated and singing happily like a nice closely knit Punjabi family, and went up to the second floor. All of a sudden .. and I mean ALL OF A SUDDEN… all of them just stood up and the singing stopped!! I also stopped exactly where I was and realized that suddenly there was a protocol…. U stand where u are and don’t move! It was 12!!! Then the lead singer from the ground floor started praying and everybody listened. After about every 3 min we all did a “wahe guru” twice and continued to stand and listen for the next 15 min or so. When it got over, all of them sat down again and I got my non Punjabi ass out of there… happy that the myth had almost come true, but hadn’t!
2) Wagah border: for the first time in my life, I wished I had a bomb!
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
…. Days 5 – TOW Third arrives
Unprecedented and hilarious turn of events. Still looking forward to Whirltour, but days doesn’t end here. Not NOW, for sure!
04/05: 1900 hrs. I am at the mall with first, second and flapso. Flapso is my classmate and we meet up in the evenings and do time pass like we are doing now. Second tells me, “Yaar who to bore ho jayega. Tu bhi nahin rahega aur fir landlord bhi prakat ho jayega naya natak lekar”. Well, we are going to have another room mate who is going to replace me once I leave for the 30 day Whirltour. This guy is also my classmate and if there was one dumbwaiter’s pitch for him, it would be, ‘one crazy SOB’! He is the kind of guy who comes up with a tagline, “mere kok mein tumhara bachha hai” for a 30 second skit on the product Coke. First and second know him only as a fun loving time pass guy, both blissfully ignorant of what lies ahead of them. They seem concerned for him because they genuinely feel that he may get bored and eventually frustrated in this PG and out of genuine courtesy they don’t want that to happen. I don’t know why they never thought like that for me though! As we are savoring the delicacies at Haldiram’s, I get a call from third. He tells me, “I am here. Come down”. First and second are pleased that third has come. Flapso looks at me and gives me the “so, this is it!” look.
04/05: 19:40hrs. Third shakes hand with first. They have met earlier in college. Second comes from behind and pats third hard on his back and says, “Welcome to Gurgaon”. Third looks at him and gives him the, ‘u never hit me hard on my back again’ look and says, “yea?”.
04/05: 2200hrs. We have all had our dinner, dropped Flapso at her place and are on our way back home. Third knows about chik1 and chik2 because that is all first and second spoke about over dinner. I am sure he is not curious, but out of sarcasm he asks, “so is this chik1 hot?” I see a disgusted look on first’s face and second replies, “yea man, absolutely!” First, in his nostalgia, is about to play his backstreet boys songs when he looks at third through the rear view and decides against it. I, in the meanwhile, am loving all this. Third asks, “and what about chik2?” No one replies. Third looks around and senses something that only his weird ass mind can and gives an evil smile.
04/05: 2235hrs. I have just had a bath and have missed an apparently interesting discussion because I hear first telling third about chik1’s visit to Rishikesh and how he should have also gone there. I somehow get the feeling that first shouldn’t be talking too much about chik1 to third. Their discussion has now shifted to how third would reach his office tomorrow and second starts explaining to third his project at work. Third lends a deaf ear and asks me if we could watch the TV. I start looking for the remote as first looks helplessly, realizing that the noiseless nights when he could sleep at peace are going to come to an end, starting in 2 minutes from now. He says, “good night” to which third replies, “yaar, kal main tere saath hi nikloonga. Main bhi to dekhoon yeh chik1 dikhti kaisi hai?”
04/05: 2315hrs. I am still trying to fathom the consequences of what third has just said. I turn on the TV and they are showing sunny’s entry in the movie ‘Mujhse Shaadi Karogi’. Third exclaims loudly in joy, “dude.. this is one of my fav movies.. volume badha”. I say, “why not” as I see first trying to block his ears with the pillow.
04/05: 1900 hrs. I am at the mall with first, second and flapso. Flapso is my classmate and we meet up in the evenings and do time pass like we are doing now. Second tells me, “Yaar who to bore ho jayega. Tu bhi nahin rahega aur fir landlord bhi prakat ho jayega naya natak lekar”. Well, we are going to have another room mate who is going to replace me once I leave for the 30 day Whirltour. This guy is also my classmate and if there was one dumbwaiter’s pitch for him, it would be, ‘one crazy SOB’! He is the kind of guy who comes up with a tagline, “mere kok mein tumhara bachha hai” for a 30 second skit on the product Coke. First and second know him only as a fun loving time pass guy, both blissfully ignorant of what lies ahead of them. They seem concerned for him because they genuinely feel that he may get bored and eventually frustrated in this PG and out of genuine courtesy they don’t want that to happen. I don’t know why they never thought like that for me though! As we are savoring the delicacies at Haldiram’s, I get a call from third. He tells me, “I am here. Come down”. First and second are pleased that third has come. Flapso looks at me and gives me the “so, this is it!” look.
04/05: 19:40hrs. Third shakes hand with first. They have met earlier in college. Second comes from behind and pats third hard on his back and says, “Welcome to Gurgaon”. Third looks at him and gives him the, ‘u never hit me hard on my back again’ look and says, “yea?”.
04/05: 2200hrs. We have all had our dinner, dropped Flapso at her place and are on our way back home. Third knows about chik1 and chik2 because that is all first and second spoke about over dinner. I am sure he is not curious, but out of sarcasm he asks, “so is this chik1 hot?” I see a disgusted look on first’s face and second replies, “yea man, absolutely!” First, in his nostalgia, is about to play his backstreet boys songs when he looks at third through the rear view and decides against it. I, in the meanwhile, am loving all this. Third asks, “and what about chik2?” No one replies. Third looks around and senses something that only his weird ass mind can and gives an evil smile.
04/05: 2235hrs. I have just had a bath and have missed an apparently interesting discussion because I hear first telling third about chik1’s visit to Rishikesh and how he should have also gone there. I somehow get the feeling that first shouldn’t be talking too much about chik1 to third. Their discussion has now shifted to how third would reach his office tomorrow and second starts explaining to third his project at work. Third lends a deaf ear and asks me if we could watch the TV. I start looking for the remote as first looks helplessly, realizing that the noiseless nights when he could sleep at peace are going to come to an end, starting in 2 minutes from now. He says, “good night” to which third replies, “yaar, kal main tere saath hi nikloonga. Main bhi to dekhoon yeh chik1 dikhti kaisi hai?”
04/05: 2315hrs. I am still trying to fathom the consequences of what third has just said. I turn on the TV and they are showing sunny’s entry in the movie ‘Mujhse Shaadi Karogi’. Third exclaims loudly in joy, “dude.. this is one of my fav movies.. volume badha”. I say, “why not” as I see first trying to block his ears with the pillow.
Monday, May 3, 2010
.... Days 4 - The Season Finale.
Like all good things, even this is coming to an end. I have stayed with two arbit guys for around two and a half weeks and I have realized that as long as you can respect people for what they are you are bound to have a decent time. I swear that these two have been the most boring guys I have ever shared a room with. They possessed no vestige whatsoever of any desire to hangout in the evenings, chill, waste time outside home.. u know.. all that you normally do and define as having fun. But yet, as odd as it may seem, I have enjoyed my stay here so far. They are really nice guys who are unbelievably funny. Its not the sarcastic or peppy humor that we associate with funny people but the kind of humor that is born out of a frustration at what life throws at you. First came with hopes of completing his internship successfully enough to add to his ever growing academic credentials but ended up falling in love with chik1. To his dismay, she just goes with him to work and back but never for once shows any signs of reciprocating his feelings. What happens to that, I will probably not be around to witness. No, I am not dying. I am just going to travel and do some market analysis for the next month. Actually, market analysis is a pseud name for salesmangiri. Second, he came with high hopes of getting a cracking project that would extract the best out of him and he was all ready to work his ass off. He is the type of guy who is ever curious to know everything.. gobble up as much knowledge and experience as he can like there is no tomorrow. These days, he just sits at his desk staring at the company’s website, waiting for that elusive project. These two come home every evening and have some very interesting conversations/incidents that you may end up calling boring. But I found a lot of fun and humor in whatever they discussed. For example, second is a weirdo. He would just wake up in the middle of the night and switch off the ac saying it causes him a splitting headache! First would just wait for him to get back to bed and turn it back on with the remote that he always kept under his pillow. This happened daily!
First’s lamenting about his failure to impress chik1 and his ever growing suspicion that she is committed has been the highlight of my stay here. Every day brought with it some new twist to that little story. Chik1 went to rishikesh this weekend and first spent the entire week deliberating whether or not he should tag along and thought about all the things that are there to do at rishikesh. Finally, he stayed back and slept thru the weekend. Obviously he saw the T20 world cup on TV and had paneer butter masala as well. I think more than the possible revelation that chik1 is committed, he would be more disappointed to know that she doesn’t know to cook paneer butter masala.
Anyway, at the end of the day, if you look at it, its just 5 different people looking out for an opportunity to do something awesome during this stint with the company and probably walk away with a PPO/PPI. Its just amazing to wonder what all transpires on the road to achieve this primary objective. Sometimes, to the extent that you begin to wonder what your primary objective was. For first, maybe it was to woo chik1. For second, it was probably to get a live project in the first place. For chik1&2, it was probably to look better every day trying to impress somebody or the other. For me, I don’t know .. maybe to keep looking out for interesting things and kill time. I wonder how long would I keep killing time.
I don’t see hot1 or hot2 these days either, as regularly as I did initially. Maybe they are also doing some salesmangiri somewhere. Lucky store owners! As long as they don’t call them bhaiyya. Hope is a man’s worst enemy and a woman’s best weapon. The bad news for men is ...women know this rule better than them!
Anyway, for now I leave all this and go in search of information on the inverter bazaar in India and give my bosses some fundae on how they should go about with their strategizing. I have been forced to leave all this and go do something that will involve a lot of traveling. Some places that I am looking forward to visit are Amritsar, Lucknow, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Madurai and Thanjavur. I hope these are as interesting as the story lines I have lived with for the past couple of weeks. For me, days ends here.
Looking forward to the Whirltour!
First’s lamenting about his failure to impress chik1 and his ever growing suspicion that she is committed has been the highlight of my stay here. Every day brought with it some new twist to that little story. Chik1 went to rishikesh this weekend and first spent the entire week deliberating whether or not he should tag along and thought about all the things that are there to do at rishikesh. Finally, he stayed back and slept thru the weekend. Obviously he saw the T20 world cup on TV and had paneer butter masala as well. I think more than the possible revelation that chik1 is committed, he would be more disappointed to know that she doesn’t know to cook paneer butter masala.
Anyway, at the end of the day, if you look at it, its just 5 different people looking out for an opportunity to do something awesome during this stint with the company and probably walk away with a PPO/PPI. Its just amazing to wonder what all transpires on the road to achieve this primary objective. Sometimes, to the extent that you begin to wonder what your primary objective was. For first, maybe it was to woo chik1. For second, it was probably to get a live project in the first place. For chik1&2, it was probably to look better every day trying to impress somebody or the other. For me, I don’t know .. maybe to keep looking out for interesting things and kill time. I wonder how long would I keep killing time.
I don’t see hot1 or hot2 these days either, as regularly as I did initially. Maybe they are also doing some salesmangiri somewhere. Lucky store owners! As long as they don’t call them bhaiyya. Hope is a man’s worst enemy and a woman’s best weapon. The bad news for men is ...women know this rule better than them!
Anyway, for now I leave all this and go in search of information on the inverter bazaar in India and give my bosses some fundae on how they should go about with their strategizing. I have been forced to leave all this and go do something that will involve a lot of traveling. Some places that I am looking forward to visit are Amritsar, Lucknow, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Madurai and Thanjavur. I hope these are as interesting as the story lines I have lived with for the past couple of weeks. For me, days ends here.
Looking forward to the Whirltour!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
