South Campus Kathi Roll and a trip down the memory lane

While returning from he office cab today, we took a detour and went to South Campus for Kathi rolls. For as little as 40 buxks, you can have mouth watering chicken egg roll at numerous joints, the prepration is fairly standard, prices are cheap and there is a lot of rush in the evenings. It was here i saw them.
The sikh guy wore a patka and the girl with him had long black hair, which she had left open with just a ruffle holding them together. I dint see her face, just saw them from behind. They stood at Nizams ordering food. That moment took me back to 2003, when i was dating her. Every moment with her used to be special. Every small thing, like hanging out in college after classes got over, going to the market for food, driving her to her folks place. I used to feel alive inside. Those moments came back to me in an instant. I wanted to go and talk to them. But I cant do that, else i am mistaken for a troublemaker. The girl i used to hang out with got married. Well settled in US now. I am here, and have not moved on from her. I dont know if i ever will. Aaj phir unse milne ki tamanna hui, aaj phir ehsaas hua ki life main jab chhote-chhote fun ke mauke ayen, to unhe lapak ke pakad lena chahiye.

Missing Essence of Life

What do we live for?

Do we come to this earth to follow a process, terminate and go back. Like a bun or a bread. Mass produced, packed in local cultures of our originating factories (or countries). There are raw materials which help to produce us. Education, Health, Money etc. Finally we become products and get sold on streets. We have a shelf life, when we are young. When we are working, we are in the warranty period. When we grow old, our market value starts depreciating.
Fuck. I dont want my life to be a product life-cycle. I want to live. Escape.
How do i do that?

Love of Sleep

I love to sleep. I guess thats apparent by my lack of fitness. My professional and personal failures and my stupid looks.  But bottom line is i love to sleep. Nothing can come between us.
I slept through my term exam during my MBA, resulting in a D on my grade sheet. I slept through and missed countless days of work in Pune. Missed client calls when i was in UK.
Fuck dude. I have lost so much due to my sleep.
But i have another life in my sleep. My dreams. Countless pretty women i have made love to. The professional heights i have commanded. The battles i have won. It is a refuge from an ugly world.
Only someone like me appreciates the beauty of an early morning sun rise on the few occasions i do get up early in the morning, its almost like a celebration.
Was wake late last night, waiting for a girl to respond to my chat request. She dint reply. I kept waiting. Damn man why did i? Anyway, thats not going to happen now. Will be more focussed from now on. Its mid day already. Want to make the rest of the day productive. Might hit the gym. Do something.

Or, just sleep.

Its a Pain to See Your Buddies Move On

My office buddy quit. In fact my 4th office buddy quit in last 3 months.
We joined together. We cribbed together.
Things were not meant to be right. We knew we had to move on.
I am waiting. He has moved on.
Give me strength.God please!!

Waiting for Godot

I watched this play sometime back. Stein Auditorium at IHC. Saturday Evening. Full House.
10 minutes into the play, 50% people had left the audi.
At Break, more people left.
I was in a group. A friend suggested, this is overhead transmission, no point staying. I had read the review before landing up there. I said this play is a classic, one of the crucial parts of dramatics curriculum in leading Unis of US and UK. I had to watch it to the end. I am happy to say we were among the 10-15 people who saw the complete play.
Rubbish it was.

My life is beginning to resemble this super flop play. A bad job. Bad health. Even worse personal life. Can i do something about it?
Yes I can.
Like How?
Take a pay cut and move on.
No.
Keep Looking.
Yeah OK.
What about personal life?
Forget it. I never had one. Cant have one either. Difficult to be the single.May be i sd got to Amsterdam to take care of stuff.

Waiting for Everything I never had. Waiting for realising what i have.

Waiting for Godot??!!??  

An evening in Old Delhi

It is 15th August today. 63 years back, India won its freedom. Difficult to fathom how a nation so large was dominated by a little island somewhere north of Europe. Anyways, its also the time when Muslim festival of Ramzan begins. Going to Old Delhi at this time of the year is like celebrating Diwali.
It was a bright Sunday evening. Lakhs of colourful Kites dotted the skies. At Jama Masjid, families sat together on the huge verandah, with food spread out, with little kids impatiently waiting to break their fast even as the elders gossiped and wished each other.
The view from one of the four minarets of Jama Masjid is a sight to behold. You can scan the entire horizon of Old Delhi. Must have been a great vantage point in earlier times, to scan the landscape for enemy troops. Considering the number of attacks on Delhi and the easy conquest by almost anyone who cared to attack it, difficult to understand what failed then.
Anyway, our motivation for the visit was to explore the different food which gets served during Ramzaan. I must say there were a few surprises, but over all it was a disappointment. I do believe now that atleast in Delhi, the muslim community is very poor, and lacks developed culture, considering the fact that they were the ruling powers before British, you would expect better culinary culture than what we have in Old Delhi. The Haldirams and the Great Kabab Factory are anyday better than the road side food stalls. Which is kind of ironic, because even in places like Rajouri Garden and Punjabi Bagh, with substancial Punjabi community, you get better butter chicken than most five stars and better ice creams and faludas than what Baskin Robbins can hope to sell.  I read in some book that most of the educated and elite Muslims went to Pakistan, and who remained in India were from lower stratas of the society and definitely not representative of the best that the culturally evolved descendants of the erstwhile mughals. May be the case is different in Lucknow and Hyderabad, where the community is more developed i hope.
What made me happy today was the fact that i was may be the only sikh in the entire area, nobody said anything to me, or even looked at us as if we did not belong there. We had gone on a food trip and had a reasonably good time. I just hope we had more options in sweets because i dint find any good tradional sweet shop.  

Why do emotions run high on punjabi weddings?

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Student or Victims of History

I wanted to go for a Heritage walk to the Mehrauli Park tomm morning and registered for one through a Facebook interest group. Last month, a group of us showed up at a 1857 monument walk. This walk was conducted by a young student of history, who clearly wasnt passionate about history. It was not a good experience and i made a mental note to check about the person conducting these walks in future. Nothing unpleasant happened in the walk itself. We separated amicably from the group and walked off on our way.

So for tommorrow's walk, i decided to exercise caution and called up the lady conducting the walk in advance. I introduced myself and requested a brief profile which would be helpful in deciding whether i wanted to come for the walk and not. It was like i set up a bomb in her pants or something! Shit, she went fuming over the phone, telling me " Look Mr. engineer, whatever the F........, we are better of without you....., we are sons of god, daughters of OC of CWG, bla bla bla ". Oh my God! I was saved another time's disappointment. I guess i will go to Mehrauli anyway, but not join her walk and do my own thing. Bad Bad Woman!!

What do you do when you have lots of work?

Write a blog post about it. what elese. I have so much to do today i simply dont know where to begin. Specially when i dont want to do it. Damn i will get fired if my boss reads this.

Liberty through office coffee

What would the work place be without the endless mugs of coffee we white-collared slaves down everyday?
Isnt it inhuman to work on a chair staring at a screen for 10 hours a day? That too when you are expected to do some school kid level work!
To travel 60km, 5 hours in a cab, with 4 other people, none of whom you talk to everyday!
I wish i could rid myself of this pain ! Be something and do something about it! Stop ranting and get back to the pdf! Damn!!

Mondays suck

When will i do something worthwhile with my life? Do all professionals stuck in research / consulting jobs feel the same way? When will i feel happy about being in a company? Or when will be able to stand on my own feet and do my own thing! Stand up and claim my right on a fistfull of sand or a mouthfull of sky?

Bad Sunday

Fuck!! Damn Man!! Its one thing to not have a girlfriend all your life, not have any remote contact with the women/girls all your life, but when you are 27 and your parents are trying to get you hitched, getting rejected is another ballgame altogether. Damn yaar I joined this matrimonial website and expressed interest to initiate conversation with 3 girls. All simple, well qualified, decent looking girls, and got declined from all 3, damn!! Its such a ego basher!

I have a facial deformity, i have only half of my right eyebrow, which really looks odd for a surd, given that eyebrows are an important masculine feature on your face. So i know i look kind of weird, i have never been comfortable with my face. I hate to get clicked, in group photos, i am the first one to volunteer, because i know most people would be uncomfortable about having me in the picture. It is difficult to be me. But i am grateful to God for having given me other things in life which many better looking but lesser fortunate people dont have. Like a good supportive family, the world's cutest niece, worlds best brother in law, worlds best sis and terrific parents.

So i am waiting for my right woman to come along. Damn man! Good for me! I am still single!

will be writing now

Fellow dreamers i am in the middle of another non productive weekend, and i decided to do start my blog.

It has been on my mind for some time now. I dream, I think, I discuss pseudo intellectual crap with fellow frustrated B school grads. I also follow some fellow travelers lost in the sea of hopelessness and in quest for islands of hope. I hope this blog becomes my anchor point. A place where i can be me.

I hope i dont end up writing for an audience. Which is what i did when i started my first blog. I thought its a way to impress the fairer sex with my intellect and sense of humor. Well its been sad ten years and the way nature has played out my fate, i now know it doesnt work and hopefully will be able to keep this blog true to myself.

Discovered a new author today, Manreet Someshwar. She went to IIMC and wrote a book based on Sikh militancy. I will buy the book and Ilook forward to reading it. I also wish i could meet this author in person. I have thought about meeting authors and artists a number of times. Whenever i hang out in the chai stall at NSD, there is this unique feeling of being in a place and in a group of people who are genuine, who dont do what they do purely for money, but for something bigger than themselves. They become a part of history others in future will read about. It immortalizes a person. So you Mrs. Manreet are an immortal now and i would like to meet you to get some gyan. Inshallah!