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!