DJ comes back!

Much more disastrous than India getting ousted from the Cricket World Cup 2007 without even getting to see a glimpse of the Super 8 was the fact that DJ returned to Bangalore from London after two whole months. For the lesser informed in life DJ is the psuedo name of one of my flatmates who was a batchmate at IMT during my MBA days. Alas during the whole of two years of the MBA drill I only remember talkin to him in numbers that could be happily counted in one finger. And mind it these talks were not heart to heart talks but more of talks that lasted as long as Robin Uthappa innings in the World Cup. DJ as he had been named for his innane ability of DJing and making us listen to songs that seemed to be played by Satan himself in college parties. By a sudden twist of fate, it so happened that we landed up jobs in the same city in companies that consolidated their balance sheet into one. And hence it was presumed that he was a brethren. After all we all were called infoscions collectively making him my brethren of sorts. Once I was transferred to Bangalore, the really frustrating job of finding an accomodation haunted me. At the same point of time DJ was also in a house hunting exercise and by another sudden turn of fate we became flatmates along with a third unsuspecting guy called Yadav. And thus started the eighth wonder of the world...me and DJ sharing flats. It was quite a news for our batchmates at IMT and last June my number saw quite a many inquisitve calls asking me if I had turned insane after I joined my job to share a flat with DJ. I guess he also got similar number of phone calls asking him about his insanity status considering that I was his flatmate. And thus the misadventures continued.

Living with DJ has its own unpredictabilities associated with it. So one has to be prepared to be woken up at the obscene hour of 3 o clock at night with his Creative speakers blaring out unfathomable music, or for that matter watching him sleep for 18 hours in a row once he gets high. Getting high is something that has kind of mutated his genes to such a drastic extent that if you convinced him that drinking saline water can numb his senses and get him high, he would be off to the nearest sea shore to drink down gallons of it. And thus anything that can make his sense numb for a while are on the top of his all time favourite list. Once high, it is best to feign that you are on the verge of dying so that he does not get motivated enough to start off long drawn conversations with you. If incidentally you show some interest at the onset you are in for some real doomsday. The deep rooted philosophy keeps flowing on and on with every second line being some kind of a narcissist comment about his own good self. At the 20th minute of such kind of a conversation you would feel bored, at the 40th minute you would feel depressed and by the 60th minute you would be happy contemplating committing suicide or better a homicide to get away from the torture.

So Mr. DJ (I always thought it meant Disastrous Jerk rather than Disk Jockey) after giving me immense bliss by deciding to shift bases to London came back to India this weekend. And immediately the decibel meter of the house could be seen overflowing and reaching disastrous levels. I drifted off to sleep sad over the fact that the 2 months of honeymoon period had drastically come to an end. I woke up on Sunday morning to find the great flatmate of mine had drifted off to sleep with the speakers blasting off to the music of a band called "Infected Mushrooms"and he had kept every possible light on in his room which included a tube, a bulb, a night lamp and even the bulb of the attached bathroom. No doubt we get electricity bills that run into thousands of rupees just because of this kind of insanities. This was nothing considering the fact that he has left the gyser and the microwave running in a number of ocassions often for hours thankfully not burning down the house. The next day it was the taps of his bathroom that he left open for the water to leak and god knows how many gallons of water he choked the drains with considering that parts of Bangalore have serious water problems. I have no idea how his ears dont seem to respond at the sound of flowing water. So life is moving fine with me having to hear to Infected Mushrooms and praying to god that the house does not blow up thanks to one of his insanities.

The 2Ws of this weekend: Washing & Water

I dread weekends for a phobia that has still now not been documented by the etymologists of the modern day world but I guess the phobia that I am talking about is as wide spread across the world as Sardarjis in a jokes book. The phobia can be termed as Washophobia that can be defined as an irritational persistent fear of doing the laundry every weekend. I would be happy enough to do the mopping and cleaning and the utensil washing but washing clothes is the last torture that I can ever subject myself to. The laundry problem has haunted me since I left the confines of the sweet little heavan called home and landed up in a hostel of a B-school some 1500kms away from home. At IMT the dhobi became my best friend to get me out of the torture of washing clothes, a person who had almost single handedly taken up the entire responsibility of washing away the dirty linen of an enitre ecosystem of B-school hostel dwellers. No doubt his face features well in any kind of documentary the Alumni committee of IMT makes for the Alumni Meets to make us feel nostalgic about those two years at Ghaziabad. But even the dhobi of IMT had his own reservations when it came to washing up more UP, CLOSE to the body & PERSONAL stuffs (read undies and ganjees) and I had to really motivate myself to clean these items of daily usage often running into crisis with improper demand estimation for these stuffs. Though my cleaning phobia failed to vanish it was much of a solace for me to see that people shared the same phobia as me and paid a heavy price for it. To cite an example Mr. Manish Bindra previously menitioned 2 blog entries down was one such person who had almost forgotten the fact, I guess intentionally that he had once upon a time soaked his three shirts and two pants in soap water to wash them in the near future. Alas the near future came almost 14 days later when he finally realised that they had rotten away in their own glory emitting as stinky and disgusting a smell as a goat's pen.

The washing woes were accentuated when I landed up in Bangalore as I studied the economics of the washing scene in and around the place I stay. Unbeilivably the price for washing any piece of attire was almost double the amount our dear old dhobi at IMT charged. The first few experience of laundry proved to be disastrous. The shirts as well as trousers though well washed and well ironed seemed to be losing one button every time it went to the washerman's torturous hands. The buttons always seemed to be smittered into pieces and what remained were small pieces suspended from the strings used to fasten it to the piece of clothing. Considering the fact that the torture was becoming a bit too much for every piece of decent clothing I ever owned I decided to pass on the noble responsibility of washing my clothes to the bai who did not understand even a single word that I spoke. Thanks to her I became good in using all kinds of sign languages to make my thoughts be known. A person whose attendance record was much worser than the attendance record of MPs from Chhapra at the Parliament of India, she takes pleasure in bunking work almost half the month. But at least she did turn up on the weekends and she never did complain when I would put the heap of clothes which almost looked like a mini K2. But alas this weekend she decided to land me in a whole bucket of filthy tomato soup by again bunking on Saturday and Sunday. Monday being a holiday for a lesser known festival called Ugadi in Karnataka (imagine not giving even one single day off in Durga Puja even when so many Bengalis work in our office) I started praying that she shows up to wish me a Happy Ugadi and wash my clothes. I knew that if she ditched me that day I would surely have to endure the nightmare of washing a bucket full of clothes. And finally she did show up and I was as thrilled as Mr Ganguly and with great difficulty restrained myself from doing the jersey dance.

Weekend was also about catching up with Akshara and seeing her splurging money on girly stuffs. Books, clothes, electronics as well as pieces of make up which just looked the same color as a Cafe Coffee Day's Cool blue granita, she was buying it all. And finally it was also about getting a last minute ticket for the Oscar nominated Indian entry called Water which considering that it was Ugadi is as improbable a feat as seeing a capless Himesh or imagining Hitler without his toothbrush bristle moostache. So there was Akshara and me making a dash to get the last few seats left and by a stroke of luck we were able to get relatively decent seats and we did not have to twist and turn and fracture our necks by sitting in the front few rows. Water was about the evils society had created in the name of spirituality. And yah society has come a long way since the 1939 portrayed there with women competing in every field and often surpassing them to acheive rare distinctions. It was also about John Abraham looking cute in dhotis and kurtas and acheiving some much needed points on the acting index. It finally did not look that superficial. And finally it was about the Laddu, synonymous with fulfilling every dream and desire of heart before u die because kise pata Kal ho na Ho....

Me, myself, Kolkata & Irene

And before I am publicly hanged for not acknowledging contributions to my blog from the selected few people who visit and read my blog and digest the insanities I write without even having second thoughts about suffering from literary indigestion (last heard this group consisted of as few people as hair on Anupam Kher's ever shining head), here is a sincere thank you to Akshara for providing me with the photo of Manish and me in the post Livin la Vida Loca. Considering the fact that me and Manish were sworn enemies at IMT and were in a habit of showing our immense love for each other by painting each other's doors with obscenities and locking each other up, the civilized photo is very hard to beleive.

Coming back to more mundane things happening in life, I have sworn not to take such long breaks from work and go back home because the work load that welcomes you back to office looks like a mini Mount Everst that has to be climbed in a record time without the necessary supply of oxygen. So for the last two days I have been tackling issue after issue at my workplace till late at night to get things back on track. Sadly, the Kolkata chromosomes have again been buried under the more dominant Bangalore chromosomes for the moment, but 10 days in the "City of Joy" was worth every bit of it. The crusade started with the cab driver honking his horn 20 minutes earlier than the scheduled time he had been asked to come at to drop me off at the airport somewhere in between the hours of 0430 and 0500 on the 1st of march. For a change Air Deccan's flight took off at the right time for Kolkata though it is a seperate story that their reservation systems software had failed and they were being forced to issue hand written boarding passes, and secondly they never seemed to have any cabin baggage tags of their own and were distributing Jet's and Kingfisher's baggage tags for the CISF to stamp its approval of not carrying a bomb on. I slept through the journey fretting about the fact that I had again been unlucky enough not to have a beauty queen sitting on the seat beside me, though it also gave me the opportunity to stretch myself onto the seat beside me which had remained empty and not crib about leg space. Kolkata was in its full glory welcoming me with the ever so predictable depression caused by some low pressure over Bay of Bengal which saw me and Kolkata both getting dranged but spirits still lighted up. But later on even the weather decided to become cheerful and leave me nothing to complaint about.

So there I was on an overdrive meeting up long lost and new friends over cups of coffee and granita at either of Barista and CCD shelling out money that I am sure is going to show up in the revenue-expense statements of these companies as an abberation for the first 15 days of March. It also saw me watching 4 movies in a matter of 10 days. The Bangalore way of living has somehow made me accustomed to the fact that any movie of any length on any day at any hall would make your pocket lighter by a minimum of Rs.150. It felt really odd shelling out only Rs.40 in the decent non-multiplex kind of cinema halls of Kolkata. And there was mom who was in every mood to triple my calorie intake on the pretext that I would not get good Bengali food once I land up in Paris in April. Taking cue from her other relatives also got into the overdrive thinking it to be their moral responsiblity to stuff my stomach with Ilish Mach, Kosha Mangsho, Polao and Roshogolla. Needless to say that my stomach was in every mood to revolt against the onslaught of food items the same way as the BSF reacts when it sees Bangladeshi's crossing the border. A lot of Pudin Haras and Diegenes saw me not falling prey to the hands of the stomach devil and survive.

And finally Kolkata was also about meeting Irene, a pretty woman who seemed to be in every mood to file a chargesheet against me in the Dum Dum police station when I forgot to wish her "Happy Women's Day". In reports coming straight from the horse's mouth meeting me was one of the craziest things she had done in a long long time because of the fact that we had been acquainted through the orkut platform. So I guess I must also be thankful to Larry Page and Sergey Brin and all the Silicon Valley VCs who invested in orkut and had faith about its potential of reaching out to people. And she wore earrings that looked much like the Olympic rings and were big enough for a mouse to leap through them but jokes apart it was a fun time that we had that evening discussing how the Eco Times gets its form (a magazine the sight of which at one point of time irritated me before the MBA days), about books and the significance of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nation in her life and coffee in general.

I guess my Kolkata chromosomes had mutated way too much and that is what had my mom and sister talking about bundling me back to Bangalore again considering the insanities I was showing. But I finally was able to get the computer fixed after repeated reminders from mom which finally had turned into threats. It was tough considering that the guy who was supposed to give a rebirth to the dead as a dodo PC seemed more busy than the PM of the country. And finally the 10 days of ecstacy drifted to an end with me feeling a bit low about getting back to Bangalore and start off the drill again, but guess what?? I got lucky this time through. Finally lady luck smiled on me as for the first time in my life I had a cute thing sitting down right beside me on the Air Deccan flight back to Bangalore. And as usual the Bangalore autowalas gave a warm welcome by ripping me off a lot of money for the journey back to the rented place which I call home.

Kolkata Chromosomes calling!!

No, I am not an Akshay Khanna fighting the Pakistani regiments in the border town of Jaisalmer leaving behind a sweetheart in a field of yellow sarso and a visually impaired mom in some unknown village of Punjab, and hence my mom and sweetheart are never heard singing emotional songs of the Ghar kab Aaoge kind. The song is really touchy and it is hard to beleive that copycat Malik could have actually composed this song but hey miracles do happen once in a while, jaise kabhi kabhi Kaif bhi century bana leta hai. So even if I am not an Akshay Khanna whose mother in the form of Rakhi sheds tears that could fill up reservoirs and permanently solve the water crisis that India faces every summer, still once in a while I do get these jitters that drive me towards home. So after 5 months of being in Namma Bengaluru and fighting with a lot of autowallas, spending a night in a lockup, going on innumerable shopping excursions with lot many girls, washing clothes, cooking maggi in a microwave and haggling with the disastrous DJ I am off to Amar Kolkata. Back to the city of trams, humid weather, Maidan, Book Fair, Jhal Muri, Sandesh, Victoria Memorial, Park Street, my darling and home. And I am excited to indulge myself into such utter delicacies like Mach Bhaja, Alu Sheddo Bhat, Dal Bara, Posto Bata etc. that are so easy to prepare anywhere in the world but has a seperate taste associated with itself when Mom makes it for you. So even if it is a Deccan Airways that is flying me to Kolkata at the unearthly hour of 5:30 in the morning when I am usually in my REM sleep mode I do not mind. So here is wishing Namma Bengaluru and my readers the pleasure of not seeing my obnoxious posts for the next 11 days. So in a typical John Denver style "I am leaving on a jet plane, and I do know when I will be back again (everyone at office has raised quite a few eyebrows on hearing the number of days leave I am taking)".

Livin La Vida Loca

Manish and Me

For a perenially hungry person like me, no other object has a strong lustful appeal on all my senses and emotions as food does. Actually not many objects have been entrusted on my capable hands since childhood because of the great trust my parents had on my handling skills. So the sheer pleasure and bliss of banging the family car into the ubiquitous cycle rickshaws on the streets of North Kolkata never came my way. I had to manage the same feat with the driving school car that I had finally been allowed to drive after quite a few disastrous performances with the cluth, brake, accelerator and gear combination. Well the huge hit on the back of the cycle rickshaw almost had the whole of the rickshaw puller community prying for my blood but still it was quite a blissful feat considering that I was at that point of time quite impressed with Ricky Martin's "Livin la vida loca" number. Much to my parents displeasure of spending a whooping amount for the driving lessons I never did manage to get my driving license made in the "City of Joy" as the RTO authorities did not want me to turn it to the "City of Disasters". Barring the fact that presently I do have a driving licence issued by the Gujarat government, nothing really has changed. I still am not entrusted with anything that resembles a four wheeler by any one, neither a three wheeler. And from the time I landed up in Bangalore, I have been at the mercy of autowalas who have been held prime accused for my ever bleeding pocket.

After all life has been the same as Ricky Martin's "Livin la vida loca" song in the last 10 months after Mr. Ratan Tata handed me a piece of paper that proclaimed the fact that I had finally been able to complete the degree called MBA, that was supposed to take me places without even indulging in anything as sacred as studying. And plus I had a job at hand at one of the largest software services company of India. Though I had not the slightest clue what I would be doing in a technology company considering the fact that my knowledge of technology was at the same level as Mayawati's knowledge of nuclear physics, but still who cared as long as I was being paid well for it. The first two months at Hyderabad, after joining the job was the so called honeymoon period with nothing more to worry than the ridiculous food that the food courts of the office served at night time and a test in which 95% of the batch flunked. The so called luxury of staying in a company managed guest house that had a TV, iron, electronic safe, tea maker, AC rooms and 24 hours running hot water soon came to an end with the imminent transfer after the two months of training.

That is when Bangalore happened. For a person who never did manage to have a bank balance that read anything more than 500 rupees at any given point of time had to manage with giving 40 thousand rupees as the 10 month advance. For a person who shrugged at the slightest mention of washing clothes in the MBA days and was always on the lookout for handing out his undies to the famous dhobi of IMT for cleaning (against the dhobi's washing policies) today washes bucket full of clothes on weekends. For a person who never had talked for more than a few miliseconds to a very interesting character called DJ (known for his obnoxious eating, sleeping, drinking and all kinds of ing behaviour) in the MBA days made him his flatmate and also got to know a lot of interesting things about this soul in this process. For a person who wanted to be a financial analyst during his MBA days has not even seen a balance sheet or P/L A/c in the last 10 months, leave apart any dreams of analysing it. And this happened to be the prime point of discussion when there was a mini IMT reunion at M.G Road last weekend thanks to my beloved next door neighbour at hostel called Bindra coming down from Chennai. The love hate relationship that we had developed in the 2 years of our stay at IMT had seen me writing out poems on his room's door that ridiculed his age (he was 27 and I was 21), fist fighting, locking up rooms and throwing away the keys, stealing pillows, pouring cold water on each other's sleeping face and a lot of shouting. Incidentally both of us had landed up in IT companies, me in Infosys and he in Satyam. And sitting at 20 feet high on Church Street we bunch of Bangalored souls and Chennaied souls pored our heart out about issues that ranged from the batch topper's marriage with the batch's 3rd topper called very rightly as the intellectual couple, the rishta of a guy from the Placement Committee with a girl from the Alumni Committee considering that both these committees looked like the USA and USSR of the 1980s always on the verge of a full fledged world war. The topics also constituted about people who had been almost on the verge of joining their fourth job in the 10 months since the convocation day, about failed relationships about all the fun that had literally come into non-existence after last April, about how we had stopped protesting and seemed to care the least if someone called us techies instead of managers. The pack having representation from all major IT companies like Wipro, Satyam, i2 and Infosys finally were able to solve a puzzle of why the IT tag on the forehead of an MBA was more difficult to wipe out than the "Mera Baap Chor hai" thappa on the forearms of Vijay in Deewar. The fact that spending a few years in the confines of cubicles for 9-10 hours without any kind of physical exertion and no work on the weekends makes MBA's in the IT sector less and less willing to hit the markets and haggle with the DSAs and distributor. Braving the rain and heat loses priority and the AC office appeals more to the senses and finally numbs it and one sticks on to IT with the same kind of passion as a leech on ones supple skin.

We were literally kicked out of 20 feet high after the waiters realised that we had no such plans of leaving after making us pay a whooping 4000 rupees for the damages on food and drinks. And "Livin La Vida Loca" it was again while coming back from M.G Road when the auto driver was doing a mini Schumacher on the streets of Bangalore which incidentally are narrower than the Monte Carlo race track. And before I sign off with this post I am still reminded of an incident where the Livin la vida loca concept was stretched a bit too far in this very land of Bangalore for a harmless soul like me that led to one night in a police station.....Guess I would post it some other day....till then keep guessing.

P.S. After what seemed like an eternity, I finally have a credit card...actually two considering that ICICI sent me an add on card. Pretty efficient supply chain I must say considering that the dispatch information of the same was sent almost a month ago.

Of a visit to God's own Country

I have been absconding from the blogging scene for more than a week now and I feel really guilty of neglecting this alter ego of mine. Well to start off with it wasnt supposed to be like this but considering the crazy things that have been going on at my workplace which ensured that I work till 8:30 p.m on a friday evening, my blog may just forgive me for the cold shoulder that I have given to it for almost a week. Somewhere on thursday last week the realization crept in that monday being a bandh for the sake of the Cauvery water issue, we had what could be termed as a really long weekend at our disposal. It was anybody's guess that staying three days at home without office would have bored me more than any kind of boredoom that our class 10 history teacher subjected us to during our school days. On a lighter note the history teacher was called "ONIDA" considering that he looked just like the Onida devil without the two tiny devil horns jutting out of his head. And all of a sudden a colleague of mine who ironically once happened to be a teacher of mine during the MBA entrance preperations suggested god's own country as the ultimate destintion to make the weekend seem more meaningful. So Mr.Chintan Parikh often referred to as Chintu and a true spirited Gujarati at heart whose bargaining skills ensured that shopkeepers downed their shutters planned the logistics of the entire tour safely leaving out the option of seeing the Venice of East's backwaters and only leaving mountains and jungles in our itinerary. The entire trip to Kerela was marked with clashing motives including a clash about this itinerary that lacked the backwaters as a destination, which could be well explained in terms of astrology when you consider that two fire signs were out on a trip with two water signs. It is anybody's guess that how well we would have gelled throughout our trip.

The disasters started off very early in the trip with us paying almost 200 rupees extra to get a Volvo to Kochi. Incidentally the bus that was supposed to carry us to Kochi had its air condition burned down and we had to spend 140 rupees extra on auto to go and collect the new tickets. Later on did we realise that we had got 2 tickets in the bus that left at 8:30 p.m and 2 tickets in the bus that left at 9 p.m on friday evening. Finally after a lot of requesting and begging we were able to get all our tickets on the same bus. Shama Travels had every mood to spoil our holiday spirit when it started off by playing a Malayali movie on the Volvo with almost 70% of the population of the bus crying foul play as the majority of them did not understand the language. Another round of begging and pleading got the helper of the bus playing "Phir Hera Pheri" the CD of which seemed to be as scratched as the "Phati Eriyan" they show on any Crack cream commercial. After every five seconds of playing it froze for a happy ten seconds. The night was pretty uneventful though the stars on the sky on one side of the bus and a glowing moon on the other side seemed really romantic and I drifted off to sleep only to be woken up by the weight of the huge frame of Chintu Parikh's body that had overflowed into my seat not being able to fit in the seat that had been allocated to him. I pushed him back into his seat only to be woken up early in the morning with nothing worser than Nasal Reshmiya shreiking "Tera tera tera suroor". Normally at any other point of time in the day Nasal Reshmiya is still hearable but being woken up to the tunes of him is very very nauseating. So finally after the repeating and re-repeating of the Himesh CD we reached Kochi only to find ourselves in even more trouble with a cab search. After spending close to one and half hours in the search of a cab we were finally able to convince Jolly Bhai(the driver) and his ambassador to carry us to our destination and back to Kochi at Rs 6.25 per kilometer. Compared to Bangalore standards it was way too costly. So we headed off to Munnar on the roads of Kerela which reminded me and Sumit (both Kolkatans) of Bengal. Me and Sumit could not stop comparing the similarity between Bengal and Kerela that included the lungi, the lal jhanda rule, the papaya trees, the mango trees etc. The road to Munnar was dotted with mini waterfalls that had decided to dry up and pictursque landscape. Jolly Bhai's CD collection just had one hindi CD, the one of Kal Ho Na Ho which he had kept on repeat mode. The monotone made us buy another CD on the way which featured the pop hits of 2005. Slowly the weather got cold as we reached Munnar and finally the newly bought sweatshirt of Adidas did feel comfortable. At Munnar Chintu Baba again resorted to barganing which slowly turned into haggling and a lot of hotel hopping which made me feel as irritated as possible. Finally we checked in into a beautiful hotel which literally had rooms that never knew what the concept of cross ventilation was. The room apparently had no window that looked out into the outside world. The rooms seemed to be an acoustic disaster as they all seemed to echo. So we could very well hear the next door couple pouring out sweet nothings. But we did not have time to waste so we rushed out after pouring a few drops of water on our bodies considering the fact that the water was way too cold and we rushed off to the Malankara reservoir. It was simply breathtaking with the moutains on both sides of the reservoir. After taking in the breath taking sceneries at the reservoir and seeing couples on honeymoon escapades enjoying the delight of boating in the huge reservoir we rushed on to a place called Echo Point. The problem with Echo Point was that there was no echo but a lot of people selling a lot of things. The adventurous Chintu Baba tried out a thing called passion fruit. To give a honest feedback it did not really induce any kind of passion but it was worth a try. The next stop was a small dam that had not been used for years together. The place sported a small joint where we hogged on omlettes like crazy and finally moved towards the place called Top Station situated 1170 metres above sea level. The road to Top Station was a narrow stretch snaking up the mountains and eneveloped in a thick layer of fog that made Jolly Bhai switch on the fog lights. Standing at Top Station seeing Tamil Nadu to our left and Kerela to our right enveloped in a thick coating of fog and the light fading away into darkness was simply fabulous. Incidentally the mobile networks of Tamil Nadu looked to be in full force on Top Station and I was finally able to make some phone calls from the 1170 metres above sea level area as Munnar had a serious shortage of mobile networks. By the time we descended back to Munnar the weather had turned really chilly inducing us to buy a Mansion House brandy on our way back to the hotel. Dinner consisted of a lot of chicken dishes well cooked with rich spices along with rice at a hotel opened by a Dubai returned guy who kept the door to the loo of the hotel under lock and keys. The lavish way in which they had used ginger and cardamom to prepare the dishes finally proved the point as to why Vasco Da Gama had been so fond of this part of the country. After the customary brandy shots we dropped dead on our beds only to be woken up later by the grunt like snores of a guy who did not want his name to be mentioned in this public space.

The next day we got up early in the morning and again heard next door couple deliberating on what all things needed to be packed from the echo effect. The hotel had finally decided to circulate some hot water that made us have a comfortable bath and finally after settling the bills we moved on towards Thekkady. The scenic beauty of the road that went from Munnar to Thekkady was breathtaking. The tea plantations spread across both sides of the road. Entire mountains had been made into tea estates and the road snaked its way through these mountains. We had a flat tyre on the way and while we stopped to get that repaired few kids from the nearby tea gardens came and we started chatting. One was known as Tenzing Beckham and incidentally he had no love for the legendary David Beckham but was much inspired by the batting skills of Mahendra Dhoni as India was bashing up Sri Lanka on the same day. The road to Thekkady was lined with cardamom plantations. Finally close to noon we reached Thekkady which houses the huge Periyar reserve that was known for its tiger population as we had heard. The boat safari on the Periyar lake was supposed to be one of the most adventurous forest safari but when we asked the same to the guard who was checking the tickets the look on his face said it all. The honest feedback provided by him consisted of mono syllables like 40 tigers, huge forest, less chance of sighting etc. On the boat we were accompanied by a group from TCS Trivandrum and it became less of a sighting adventure and more of a picnic with jokes running here and there and song sessions. What we finally did manage to see were a few storks and other water birds, a whole lot of deers, wild boars and a pack of elephants out of sheer luck, crossing the lake. The adventure continued but not having eaten anything since morning barring a few idlis our stomach was desperate for some fuel. We stopped at a town hotel which took a whole lot of time to prepare every dish but the dishes were with such huge portions that nobody ever complained about the delay in bringing the food. We started from there and landed up in Kottayam late at night barely managing to find a lodge and paying an advance when Jolly Bhai had pangs about not staying over there as they did not have a proper parking for his ambassador. And hence we had to negotiate and get back the advance and again make way towards Kumarakom some 30kms away from Kottayam and right in the middle of backwater land. The humidity factor had crept in and the easing and soothing cold weather of Munnar had been replaced by sweat and heat. Jolly Bhai led us to a resort called Tharavadu Heritage Home set up 120 years ago. The sheer elegance of the place was spellbinding. The rooms were laid out as mini cottages having cozy balconies and was a visual delight. Again Chintu Baba came into action with his barganing skills and finally convinced the person incharge to provide us rooms at off-season rates when it was the season rates which should have been applied. A lot of barganing made it possible for us to have an abode in a very luxurious cottage. Sleepy eyed we crashed into the bed and slept like logs till morning came. Me and Sumit had a glorious idea of going photo clicking early in the morning of the backwaters. It was very spell binding to see how the people had made the backwaters a perennial part of their lives with people selling vegetables out of boats or carrying constuction equipments on these long boats. We struck a good deal and hired a boat to take us to Allepy also called as the Venice of East for its breathtaking backwaters. After a quick bath followed by an equally speedy breakfast we set sail for Allepy on a boat that had seats for at least 10 people. We passed through the hustle bustle of Kumarakom to land up in the backwater highways that went all the way to Cochin. On both sides were paddy fields, lush green in appearance and we cruised through the calm waters of the place and finally landed up at a eating joint on the backwaters that served the local liquor called Todi made from coconut water and many varities of fishes. We packed the stuff and had a gala time feasting in the boat eating and drinking till we reached Allepy. On the way the breathtaking house boats that had all the amenities of any five star hotel caught our fancy. Shelling out 5000 bucks for a day on a houseboat was way too much for us poor souls and hence this bit of adventure was left for later years to come.

At Allepy we visited the beach, which was one of the cleanest beach I had ever seen in my life. The golden yellow sand glistened under the rays of the sun. Though the beach was a beauty but the waves showed how violent the sea was on those shores. After walking along the beack and getting our jeans wet by the huge waves we rushed back to the boat that had given us clear instructions to come back in an hour. Back on our way to Kumarakom, three of us drifted off to sleep while one sat on the top of the boat as it cruised along the Vembanad Lake lurching and splashing water, sometimes violently till we reached Kumarakom again to find a very furious Jolly Bhai cursing us for coming in late that had ensured that he had missed a golden opportunity of taking some people on a 5 day trip of Kerela on his ambassador. We were driven back to Cochin by a cribbing Jolly Bhai who left us near a restaurant on Cochin's M.G Road. The starving four souls had all the food that the hotel could have offered and set out to the bus stand to catch the Volvo that was supposed to bring us back to the hell of traffic jams, dacoit like autowalas called Bangalore. A very non eventful bus ride to Bangalore followed and we realised that God's own Country was history when the autowala asked for 30 rupees for a distance of less than 2 kms. The pocket had grown lighter by 4500 rupees, it grew 30 rupees lighter withing 2 kms.

Cauvery Tribunal Judgement and the water crisis...

For a guy like me whose life entirely revolves around really important things of everyday existence like the following:
1.Hunting for the mobile early in the morning to switch of the monotonous hum hum of the alarm;
2.Making a frantic attempt to grab a window seat in the most non-chivalrous manner on the right hand side of the company bus so that the early morning sun rays does not wake me up from the morning slumber;
3.Fretting over the regular dosage of curry patta during the breakfast;
4.Ordering some dish that resembles biriyani in every food court of my workplace at lunch;
5.Making every possible excuse to bunk the gym in the evening etc, a small petty issue like the judgement of the Cauvery tribunal did not hold much of a charm for a man on work on a Monday morning. Now, I know u guys who do manage to read the gibberish that I write over here must be thinking that what kind of a pathetic human being this ass is who does not seem to be fazed with such a major decision regarding a dispute that has run for more than 300 years and the court cases of which have stretched for more than 16 long years culminating in a final order that runs into 1000 pages in 5 volumes which when hard bound and hurled at anybody's head could have well killed him/her, inspite of being a resident of Karnataka at present. But once you consider that the guy in question braved a horrible hangover to land up in office only to find his official mailbox being migrated to some other server, his virus definition being unable to protect his PC from new virus threats, transactions he required which he did not have access to at the most auspicious moment and a whole bunch of errors that need resolution waiting for his dizzy brain to act on; you would realise how Cauvery would be the last thing that you would lay your thoughts on. Its ironic how the god of IT and networking collude and conspire against you and make you land up in a deep shit situation on the very first day of the week.

So there I was braving issues that threatened to make my existence on the project network a thing of past till I heard that the mother of all verdicts about the two part of hydrogen and one part of oxygen was out and that Karnataka was in a very bad mood about losing out to Tamil Nadu. The tribunal had ordered Karnataka to share its scoop of ice cream with Tamil Nadu and naturally like a young kid whose passion lies in licking up every bit of the icecream's existence being told to share was too much of a sacrifice that he could take in his stride. And of course the grapevine of my workplace populary called as the BB (Bulletin Board) began flooding with news trickling in about how there law and order problems were being detected in the city and some frantic mails from the HR department pleading not to spread rumors. And I got calls from friends whom I hadnt talked for months telling me to quit office as soon as possible because they had heard from some friend that riots had broken up in certain parts of the city. So the entire office made a frantic rush to the gates at 3 in the evening to get back home safe and sound. Sadly only 2 buses leave at that auspicious hour for people having to quit work for varied reasons like a sick child needing attention, a parent teacher meeting or an appointment with the dentist. Unluckily the transport department did not have the resources to accomodate a thousand people in 2 buses and the service got scrapped for the day. People who had made desperate attempts to quit office on a monday at 3 in the evening to enjoy a leisurely evening had their plans going awry. And there I was still getting calls from people I did not even remember as to how threatened my life was as I was in Electronics City which happened to be just 20kms away from the Tamil Nadu border. My life was seriously threatened, not by the law and order though but by the amount of work that had accumulated since morning thanks to a not so well done mailbox migration. A rough estimate revealed that I could only think of leaving office as early as 8 in the evening which so as to say is a very unfortunate event for a monday at work.

The situation got really out of control when the HR shot a mail saying that all buses were supposed to leave only in 2 slots at 5p.m and 7p.m and the regular schedule of every hour buses in the evening stood cancelled. The final set of approvals came from the PM when he came and convinced us to leave by 5 so that we could reach safe and sound. I made a frantic attempt to finish off the important work at hand so that I could also vanish from the scene and land up being 32kms away from the TN border as compared to 20kms. Finally bang at 4:45 p.m the office wore a deserted look as cubicles lay empty and we finally made our way to the gate for the security check threatening a project mate called Chandru who happened to be a localite. We told Chandru that if something happened to us his life lay in grave risk the next day. The lines for the security check were breathtaking. Total chaos prevailed at the bus terminal and you could see thousands of heads looking here and there for a bus they could push themselves into. Every one of the bus seemed to be packed with people like sardines. It looked like a mini Kumbh Mela which has seen itself being immortalised in the scripts of so many Hindi movies. The utter chaos at the bus stand did make it seem very much possible to lose your twin brother/sister in a typical Hindi filmish way.

Me and my flatmate were finally able to push and shove and get ourselves into an already overcrowded bus. It was quite a new feeling acting so very unsophisticated in the company bus and pushing and standing on people's feet. Normally the bus journey from office to home is the most boring of things with about 75% of the junta passing on to a deep coma kind of sleep only to wake up near the Silk Board flyover some 11kms from the office and the rest trying to struggle to keep awake by reading some novel or simply cootchie cooing with their respective lovers on the phones. For a human like me who has been used to literally playing gang wars by throwing bottles and bags and even bricks if one was fortunate enough to get it, and hitting up people to get a seat in the school bus for some 14 long years this journey seemed to be a relatively non risky affair. But Monday at work was different from the other days. It was a back to school days experience with bags being thrown here and there, 4 people sitting in seats meant for three and a hell lot of noise and jokes being cracked here and there. The jam packed bus finally left with me being the third person sitting on a two seater barely managing to get my ass to not fall off the seat. Once on the Hosur Road life seemed to be as normal as possible with all shops having their full shutters up and no visible signs of any disutrbances. So it was definitely a false alarm that had made me leave job to be done early on Tuesday morning to save myself the agony of getting abused by the client. The rest of the journey back home was pretty much chaotic with me slapping the bus wall in the typical style in which a Kolkata conductor would stop the blue and yellow painted tin cages that play on the roads of the City of Joy, in a frantic attempt to stop it for people to get down. I got complimented by a girl for the valiant attempt of stopping the bus in the typical Kolkata way. The compliment sounded something like "He just does it the conductor way at Kolkata". Not going into the intricacies of how higly she regarded my skills of being a conductor of a bus, it was a compliment and I basked in the glory of the same.

Finally home came and unlike Hosur Road which was much closer to TN than BTM and still had shops with shutters open, the shops of BTM had merrily downed shutters and had merrily gone off to sleep. Well finally the water issue did land me in trouble not for the riots that never happened but because of the fact that we had completely run out of drinking water at home and the shop that gave supplies had merrily called it a day off. The drinking water crisis at home did make me feel concious about the 270 TMCFT that Karnataka was getting as compared to the 419 TMCFT that Tamil Nadu was getting. Maybe if I was in Chennai I wouldnt have had to face a drinking water crisis as Bangalore offered me one yesterday. Its time to stock up Bangalore junta for the bandh on Thursday. Is the IT city going the Kolkata way now?