Monday, December 22, 2008

B to the A to the B to the A - BABA (travels)

I write this post as I recover from my the extreme trauma that I was put thru during my travel to Pune ... it was kullu's wedding , my roommate for an yer.. my neighbour for another 3 years ... I had to go.. this would be my closest encounter with this phenomenon called wedding...there was no second thots about that ... other ppl from my college MY Group were coming too - karam, datar, sunia, suhas (shemdia), arshad .... almost my full group - the weekend in Barneys words was gonna be "LEGEND- wait for it wait for it -- DARYYY ..." - no way i hell was i gonna miss this trip to Pune..
and well tats wat the trip to Pune turned out to be .. :) ... and i mean literally the road trip from Indore to Pune in this god forsaken fckedup bloody jhatka gadi (bullock cart) in the costume of a bus owned by this SOB called BABA was like travelling thru hell to get to wat was heaven ...
it all started badly.. as after work on thursay I was plannin to leave Indore by a decent Volvo at 8.30 (and as usual I had successfully procrastinated my travel booking to the last fw hours for which i thank god) - and this volvo got cancelled... after having searched quiet sometime to find an alternate bus to travel and after having almost given up all hope of finding one tat nite, we (me and my team here in Indore) went to one last travel agent (who is another fckin SOB)who lied to me that there is one last bus to DIRECT to pune at 9.00 in the nite... and well my sad journey to Pune started off all wrong rite from the time the bus left the place half an hour late ...
i guess the ppl who made the bus either forgot to put shock absorbers (or leaf springs as I know now) in the bus or that SOB who owned these buses in all probability sold them off for a few extra bucks ... the whole bus wud jump a few meters above the ground every time it went over a pebble a few millimeters thick ... i was given a sleeper - forget sleeping there it was impossible even to sit straight man ...
and my story just gets better... the agent at indore had assured me that the bus wud reach Pune at 10.00 Am the next day morning.. forget pune the Bus got only upto Shirdi (I had no intention of getting there i swear) at 9.00 AM (still another 200 kms from Pune) and to top it off the driver tells me tats where his journey ends and so does mine- so sirji please find another bus to get to Pune - tata byebye go screw urself sirji ....
I had a good mind to find a bat and traash the whole goddam bus down and yell at the top my voice.. but the holy city of Shirdi and all the positive energy around helped me restrain myself.. and ya i managed to find another bus to Pune with in the next 15 min (in btw i also managed to get back 130 bucks from the travel agency :P) ... and then the next sequence of lies started - the bus guys said pune in 4-4.5 hrs ... 9.30 +4.5 i thot to myself max 2.00 in the afternoon ... 3.30 was when i got off at Pune ... i had spend a solid 3 hrs sitting beside the lovely and charming driver and another 2.5 hrs at the bus door listenin to the painfully irritating helper kid .. so i had successfully spent 17 hrs travellin in a bus
but then only thot that kept running thru my head thru this whole sojourn were the thots of the weekend wit ppl I would get to meet after 5 years, of how ppl would look after 5 yrs, of wat had happened in their lives in these 5 yrs - memories of my 4 years at matunga kept rushing back.
I ll always crib and cry and ya if given a chance burn down BABA travels for having duped me ... but I wud also give him a small little thank you for having forced upon me all these thots thru the unwantedly long journey ....

and finally - thnk u guys for havign turned up in numbers and for all of u who missed this reunion - better not miss it next time .... and ya Rahul Best of Luck mate and congrats ..

Monday, December 15, 2008

A Lawyer for a Terrorist ?

People were murdered in cold blood. Bombay was taken hostage for 3 days .... more than 250 ppl died ... 2 NSG commandos , 16 policemen and 4 top cops were sacrificed in the process.....
10 terrorists taken down in exchange and one caught red Handed in the act... over the last couple of days this boy from pakistan who struck terror here has been singing like a bird and has confessed to everything that went into planning and executing this terror attack... and after all this wat happens..?

There is a debate on whether this mass murderer be given a lawyer and then let law take its course..? Wat level of stupididty is this .. ? We are not talking about a guy who becasue of personal vengeance went on to kill another human or a murder that has happened as a part of a gang war... these people attacked something much bigger than an individual or group of people.. they attacked our country. they killed innocent civilians in cold blood. they attacked and almost succeeded in killing the very spirit of our country ...

and there are ppl - ppl of the calibre and stature of Ram Jethmalani who are on TV arguing that Law of the Land is above all and should take its course... Does he mean that these terrorists and the guy who murders another person for money are the same? It is very nice to show to the world that we are a law-abiding peaceful nation on one hand. But then does that help us in any way? The people who attacked our parliament, our very symbol of democracy, were taken to court charged wit capital punishment..and now he still lives on with the order having being stayed... is this wat we want ??
Well as an individual I have the right to question why my hard earned money is being spent on maintaining these scums..?arent there better ways to spend the tax am paying..? to start with y doesnt the government get rid of these ppl and use my money to pay the defence and Police departments better?

They say that Law is blind- and hence equal to all. but then there are somthings which are bigger than the Law and I hope ppl realise and recognize this and set and example that somethings are above the law and will be dealt wit accordingly - a man like Kasab doesnt deserve to be taken to court ....

Friday, November 28, 2008

Bombay meri jaan

well its been a while since i ve written.. i keep promising myself tat i shud blog more regularly .. but alas.. as most promises i make to myself even this one goes down the drain .. :(

but i had to write today .. i just had to ... i was goddamn frustrated, irritated, sick .. so sick that if the terrorists were to appear in front of me i wud probably cut them apart slowly and clinically in public .. with the turn of events in mumbai .. in my home away from home .. in the city i love so much that even after having passed out of coll 5 years ago i make it a point to go the city atleast twice a year just to live a mumbaikars life ...
mumbai or bombay as i prefer callin the city has time and again been subjected to terrorist attacks .. and every time its jumped back and stood tall ... well but this time i think its different.. it feels different.. i have a sick feelin in my gut that this attack will not be as simple or easy for the bombay junta to wake up and go back to normalcy as they ve always done in the past...
the stock markets were a morale booster... the scenes outside Naariman house wit the ppl shouting slogans after the place was cleansed upped my spirits that the city WILL jump back.....
the news reader on one of the channels very apltly said "the ppl of mumbai will stand tall like they always done" with the Trident Oberoi standing in the backdrop .... i just sincerely Hope.

this whole thing in Bombay is scary.. it is scary not just becasue of the nature of attack.. its scary also becasue of the repurcussion an act like this can have... terrorist now look like the guy/girl next door or the ppl u see in a mall or the ones u hang out with in a pub .. these are an educated lot- classy, sophisticated, and urbane and very good at what they are doing (unfortunately) .. and you know wat all this is goin to do... every time u walk into a good hotel everyone else is immediately under the scanner... evertime u want to go out for a late nite movie u ll think a dozen times before u do so ... every time a group of youngsters dressed in a certain way behave in a certain way they wud be looked at suspiciously ....
i remember spending my nites at the gateway of india... by that i literallly mean sitting there the whole nite ... it was wunderful time ... the 11.00 PM Regal show.. the walk along the Colaba causeway to the sea ... sitting by the sea in front of Taj having Rs 2.00 chai ... doing "bakarchodi" till about 2.00 AM... goin into the 24 hr coffee shop at Taj (lookin totally out of place simply becasue of the way we all were dressed - i think the hawai slippers were the giveaway) - sipping away at a cup of coffee (it was 80 bucks i think) for over 2 hrs ... taking the first train back to hostel...

well i was reliving all these moments on my way back from indore to blore.. wen i realised how much this city meant to me.. and how badly these pl have defaced this beautiful city ...

i sincerely hope that by the time i go back next to bombay the city wud have sprung back wit full vigor to be the bombay that i ve known ... watever happens for me it ll always be "Bombay meri Jaan" ...

Monday, August 4, 2008

The Bench Press - pressing "on the bench" issues .. :P

well its just my third post and this account is almost and year and half old .. tat like 1/6th of dogs life man ...

the last time i wrote i was doin lukkagiri as a summer intern at Bombay... now as I write i am Full time employee- work as a Supply Chain and Logistics consultant wit a german firm, based out of blore (which i m slowly starting to believe is the best city in the universe), am one project old annnnnd most importantly am a Lukkha again - sitting on the bench waiting for my next project..

and u know wat.. wen i passed out of college in 2003 a lot of my friends from blore joined companies like infy and TCS etc ... and they wud frequently use this term "on the bench" .. and me being a poor guy from non-IT field working wit a more traditional production unit always imagined that there d be a bench on which these guys waiting for project had to go and sit on everyday - and some manager some day wud notice all these guys "on the bench" and wud give them some work and hence take them into the office ....

well after about 2.5 years of this thought stayin in my mind i went to IIMA where met a whole lot of ppl from infy. tcs etc - guys who had spent a lot of time "on the bench" and who never got to go into the office, hence took this road from "THE BENCH" to the IIMs ... :-)

and now I also know that "on the bench" doesnt necessarily mean u are not inside the office - u are like any other normal employee who is "off the bench" ... but u are a little better off than them ..:P

the "off-benchers" work hard every day for their bread and butter, the "on-benchers" write dumb-blogs, beat computers at scrabble, bug busy "off-benchers" and do random shit and still are fed wit the same bread and butter .no i am not complaining, just repenting the fact that soon, very soon i shall be "on a project" and hence an "off-bencher" ...